Genuine Worship Series: Be Filled With the Spirit

Genuine Worship Series: Be Filled With the Spirit

I call your attention to Ephesians chapter 5 this morning. Ephesians chapter 5. For our scripture reading, I'd like to pick up in verse 15 in this context.

In verse number 15, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And, be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's mark our Bibles to this portion of Scripture this morning as we continue in our study of genuine worship to the Lord.

Heavenly Father, thank you for these moments that we have. We've just read these verses of Scripture. Thank you that even though we have heard these words, read these words numerous times over the years Lord we thank you that your word is quick sharper than any two-edged sword it is living not changing but alive and is able it is able to meet every need of our heart piercing even to the to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, the joints and marrow, it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Thank you for the Holy Spirit this morning. Thank you that his ministry is ongoing and it is your desire, yea, your command for us to be filled with the Spirit. Lord, help us to obey, help us to know the blessing that comes through obedience and glorifying you in our walk by being filled with the Spirit. Lord, help us not to live beneath the privileges that we have in Christ. Lord, forgive us for those times where we have lived beneath those privileges, Lord, and help us to gird up the loins of our minds, help us to be sober, help us to hope to the end as we look forward to that blessed hope that is before us.

Bless the service, Lord, in every aspect. May our hearts be drawn heavenward as a result of this time together today. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

I'm reminded of John 4. Hold your finger here as well and turn over to John chapter 4 as we began this study on true worship, genuine worship before the Lord. We were in John chapter 4 and I would like to read just verse 24. John 4 verse 24. Where we are told, God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

As we have indicated thus far, genuine worship, true worship in spirit means inwardly I must bow the knee. Inwardly I must bow before the Lord in my heart, in my spirit. In spirit we truly reverence and submit ourselves to God and His Word, His will. In our spirit we genuinely, truly stand in awe adoration of our Lord. And in truth, we see that we believe in and obey His revealed will. We worship Him according to His dictates, not something we have fashioned in our own imagination, but what has been revealed to us.

Jesus would tell this woman at the well, you worship, you know not what. You don't know what you're worshiping. You've concocted this form of worship, but it's nothing but the fashioning of man's hands that you worship. You're worshiping something that is not even true. It's not even real, and yet you feel good about it, but it doesn't matter how a person feels if it's not true. If the God they're worshipping is not true, then their worship cannot be genuine and true.

We are told in many different ways in the scriptures that a key to our worship is that we must be filled with the Holy Spirit. We must worship, well we're told here in John 4, that God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth but to enable us to properly worship the Lord and we've said that worship is not merely something we do in a corporate fashion we come here together and we do worship but worship extends beyond holding a hymn and reading and hearing the pastor preach and whatever we all the things as we do in a church building, that is worship, as long as it's in truth and in spirit, but it extends well beyond the four walls of this building.

We say we go to church, and I understand what we mean when we say that, I say that. We assemble with God's people. But we are members of the church. We are corporately, yes, the church, it's not the building, it's the people. We are his people. We are the church of the living God. We are not exclusively, no, but we are members of that church. We are members of the entire body of Christ as members of a local church visible local church now we notice that our our tendency is to want to do something right for God that's you know what must I do to be saved right Sarah, what must I do? What must I do? Mankind, and when he concocts a religion, when he comes up with a way to worship because it's already innate in man that he must worship something, right? He wants to worship with the works of his own hands. That's the tendency, right? To worship with my own works. I'm going to do something to achieve or to appease or to to accomplish something in myself but the great thing about the Christian faith is that it's not about our doing it's not about what we have done or what we can do in and of ourselves it is really all about what God has done and what he is doing what he will do that's the difference.

Now, I might say this morning that worship, in Christianity, worship must precede service. Worship, I might say even further, that service flows out of worship. Service is something, yes, we must do, we must serve, but it is out of and it is only accepted by God from a heart of worship. Not from any other motive, but out of a heart that truly bows before the Lord. Anything else is what the scripture refers to as dead works. Dead works. We've been redeemed. We've been saved from our dead works to serve the living God. We have been called out of that life of dead works.

We must be careful that worship is not merely a means to an end. Well, I've got to worship God in order that I can serve Him. I hope this makes sense how I'm going to say this, but you know, it's really about glorifying God in all that we do, in very motive in the very heart of our daily life before him it must be one of worship to the Lord even if he never how can I say this if he was if I was to become a paraplegic I could never get up and do another thing for the Lord so to speak I could never go out and help someone else or I can and never go out and accomplish maybe building something for the Lord, you know? If I was bedridden for the rest of my life from this moment forward, can I still worship the Lord and glorify Him in my body, in my spirit, which are His? Yes, that is what I'm called to do. I am to worship the Lord, you know?

And in that situation, we could apply what we read in our text this morning. What does it say there? One of the things we see is giving thanks always. I can give thanks always to God as an expression of a heart of worship filled by the Holy Spirit. I can worship the Lord even if I couldn't do a single thing with my hands and with my feet. But God has given me hands and feet. God has given me a mind where I can think. And some people have suffered a stroke, and they may not be able to think through the things that I can think through. I've been given that ability. I have been given the ability to speak with my mouth. I've been given the ability to hear with my ears. I have all of my faculties.

But the most important thing, first of all, I think about Isaiah when we look in Isaiah chapter 6, he was truly bowled before the Lord. Woe is me. When he saw the glory of God, he was deeply humbled in worship before the Lord and only then, ultimately, almost as if, not almost, it really was the spirit in his Isaiah, I'm not even worthy to be used, but Lord, hear my sin me. It's only by your grace that I am anything, because I am a man of unclean lips! There's nothing good in me! Like, was it Charles Wesley that wrote, or was it John Wesley? Anyway, the false and full of sin I am. Thou art full of truth and grace. There's nothing good in me. Every good in Him I see. Unstrength divine relying, He is all in all to me. That's the spirit of worship before the Lord, that I am nothing and can do nothing in my own strength. The arm of flesh we said this morning, we sang this morning, will fail you, you dare not trust your on.

The contrite heart is a sacrifice with which God is well pleased. Well pleased. A broken heart, a contrite spirit before the Lord, he's well pleased with that. We didn't read that we were doing anything. No, he's well pleased with that sacrifice of worship.

The Spirit. We took the time to go through the sins of the Spirit. Every expression, tangible expression of sin and breaking of God's law begins in the Spirit. When we have bitterness and greed or we have envy, we are, we have some sin in our spirit, it becomes then manifested, yes, in a tangible form, but the sin began inside, in the innermost sanctum of our being, and thus and so it is as well with worship. If we are to do what God commands us to do, we filled with the one he commands us to be filled with. We must be filled with the Spirit because we are not going to be able to do what he tells us to do unless we are in our spirit in the posture that he wants us to be in. So the Pharisee drew near, we've seen many times in that illustration with the Publican and the Pharisee, he drew near with his mouth but his heart was far from God, and yet the publican drew near to God in his heart and with his mouth. He drew near to God in that way.

We're told, and if you look over in Romans chapter 8, verse number 9, Romans chapter 8, we are told that if we are in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit. Romans chapter 8 verse number 9. It says it this way, now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ in the latter part of this verse, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. If the Spirit of God dwells in you, then you are a child of God. It's kind of like if you're without chastening then you're not a son, right? If you don't have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and as children then heirs, join heirs with Christ. Well, here we see that we have, as Christians, we are, if we belong to him then we have the Holy Spirit. Someone has, I forgot who said this, but does the Spirit have us? Does the Holy Spirit fill us? Are we allowing him to, you know, we think about the passage here this morning, it says, be not drunk with wine. Well what, if you're drunk with wine, what does that mean? You're under this control of substance, right? You are filled with, and you're drunken by, the the wine that's filling you. It is, it has taken control of your, your faculties, in your mind. And in the same way, in the other side of that, instead of being filled with wine, we are commanded here in this passage instead be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit.

Now there are a things that we can be filled with we can be filled when I say we when we look at this there's there sit when sin fills a person's heart and mind they can be filled with lust they can be filled with fear fearfulness they can be filled with sorrow sorrowful we can be filled with hate hateful full of things, and when a person is controlled or filled with hate, hate drives them to do. Not love, but hatred consumes the thinking. They are then, in that hate, can become so filled with it that they will do things that, can we say in a right mind they would not do. They can go into a rage and and even murder someone in that hatred. We can look in our society today and see that the great desire of the wicked one is to fill, according to the lust of the flesh, right, to fill people with hatred and divide and conquer in our in can't you know people will kill someone over the color of their skin or you know and and and it has to it's constantly being fed it's not that we're not already sinful but it's it's being pumped in let's let's fill them up let's fill them up with hatred let's fill them up with with these different things that the the God of this world is energizing the children of disobedience he's empowering in in sin in the spirit to lash out in words and actions of lawlessness and to do great harm and to kill and to deceive and to destroy.

And on the other end of that is the Holy Spirit. God intends for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we might be filled with the fruits of the Spirit and that we might love God with all our heart and love the brethren and in the equal and I don't know if I could say equal but definitely the opposite of what I just described with sin controlling the Spirit and filling the Spirit the works of the flesh we read about in Galatians the fruit of the Spirit will manifest in loving service to God and sacrificial service to God and loving sacrificial service to our neighbor. It will manifest, it will manifest in that in that way but it is all it all originates from this when I read this verse, read this verse this morning a command, present tense be filled with the Spirit. Be filled the Spirit. Oh, we read of being filled with all unrighteousness in this world. We read of those that are filled with all unrighteousness. They're on a collision course with death and destruction and judgment. When we were in the flesh, Romans tells us in chapter 7 verse 5, when we were, for the law didn't make us sinful, it just revealed the sinfulness.

When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. We were on a collision course with death. You ever seen two ships heading for each other? Turn aside, turn aside. You may be trying to notify the other. Turn aside, turn aside. They just keep straight on that collision course. There must be a turn that comes or else if you continue in the way you were going, there's going to be destruction. And so it was with us and death and yet we read here, but now we are delivered from the law that being dead wherein we were held we should serve in newness of spirit. We should serve God in newness of spirit. They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth and not in the oldness of the letter. Not in the oldness of the letter. Well even Jesus would say of the Pharisees in reference to their tithing. Do as they do, do as they say but not as they do. Oh, they talk a good game, they clean the outside of the cup, but in their spirit, inwardly, they are dark and dirty. They are not what they present themselves to be.

And they have no intention of being that. They just are presenting the facade. But now we're to serve the Lord, not in the oneness of the letter, because God's the one that's got to clean the inside of the cup. And only the publican, not the Pharisee, knew that cleansing. The publican knew what it was, that God would be merciful to him and would change him from the inside out. Well, be in the present tense habitually in the imperative mood. We talked about that mood this morning. Brethren, pray for us. Be filled be filled to the brim with the with the Spirit. It speaks of that which is diffusing throughout to pervade, to fully possess ultimately the idea of controlling whatever that is being filled there. I think of that it brings to mind that verse in Proverbs 4 23 where it says keep thy heart with all diligence. Why? For out of it, the heart, are the issues of life. What's in my heart will issue out here, and from these senses it will issue out here, it will issue out, careful little feet where you go, eyes what you see, ears what you hear, hands what you do because what is in the heart will come out it will come out we mentioned this morning Timothy give thyself holy give thyself holy to these things so thy profiting may appear unto all right in on thy closet thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly it's going to come out just as a branch that is connected to a vine is going to bear the fruit because of its connection to that vine, right?

If you have a seed that is an apple seed, it's going to grow an apple tree ultimately. It's going to come forth because of the life is in it. The information, the life is in that seed, it's in that source, and by virtue of connection to the source, or by virtue of that seed being planted in the ground, it's going to grow. It's going to bring forth what is within it. And so it is with the heart. So it is with our hearts. We're told in Romans 6 verse 22, look over there, Romans 6 22, being now made free from sin. You're no longer the slaves of sin. The Lord Jesus Christ has bought you as a doulos, a slave, out of the slave market of sin. You no longer owe any service to sin. Being now made free from sin and become servants to God, you have what? You have your fruit unto holiness and the end, everlasting life. The end of this way everlasting that we are now in, which is Christ. He is the way. He's the truth. He's the life. The end of that life of faith in the righteousness of what Christ has done for us is everlasting life.

It is… and along the way there is this fruit unto holiness. There's this fruit. If we're in Christ all things are become new and so we need to we need to live that out if it is true not by our strength but by the power of the Holy Spirit by the enabling of the Holy Spirit we're told the Holy Spirit himself is the earnest of our inheritance. The earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. We read that Ephesians chapter 1 verse 14 unto the praise of his glory. So having been given the Holy Spirit, having this earnest or as we, it's a pledge, down payment that assures us Christ is going to return for those who believe in him. Even that word is used, I think, in modern times to refer to an engagement ring in the Greek language. We have his promise, and we can rest in the promise that he's coming back for us. But while we're waiting for him to come or call, how are we then to live? Well, we're to live by, not just have the Holy Spirit, but to live by the power of the Holy Spirit that has been given unto us.

We certainly, I don't want to take this illustration too far because I'm kind of getting extra biblical with this a little bit here now, but just think about an engagement ring. I don't think my wife-to-be treated her engagement ring with contempt or just sort of like, well, I have an engagement ring. I think I'll leave it in my drawer over here, you know, I'll put it to the side. I don't want anybody to see it. I think I'll just, I'll maybe take it out on certain days, you know, but maybe on Sundays I'll put my engagement ring on or something like that. No, I'm going to wear this engagement ring every day. Until the day that I get married to that man, I want people to know I'm going to get married. You know, that was a very important thing. And shouldn't it be the same way with us as Christians? I want people to know I'm a Christian. How are people going to know you're a Christian? Well, I'm going to worship the Lord. How are you going to worship the Lord? I'm going to worship Him in Spirit and in truth. And I'm going to draw upon and rely upon the unfilling power of the Holy Spirit daily to live the Christian life. God, with man it's impossible. Sometimes it seems impossible to do what, to our human minds, what God has told us to do. You know, we read that the Lord will not put on us any more than we can bear. That feels like more than I can bear. You know, it feels like too much.

But He's given to us the Holy Spirit and He's commanded us to be filled with the Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit and to walk in the Spirit so we might not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Because what are we going to do? We're going to live according to the flesh if we are not filled with the Spirit. We will rely on the old ways. F.B. Meyer said, They who were filled in the second chapter of Acts were filled again in the fourth. Happy that man who never leaves his chamber in the morning without definitely seeking and receiving the plenitude of the Spirit. He shall be a proficient scholar in God's school, for the anointing which he has received, like fresh oil shall abide in him and teach him all things. I was reading John Bunyan said, he said, Seamen like sailors cannot create the wind, but they can hoist their sails to welcome it. Neither can we create the breadth of the comes through failure to keep our sails unfurled. To keep our sails unfurled. Every… we must be filled with… this is not something for Super Saints. A special select group of special force Christians. No. This is for every believer be filled with the Spirit. We cannot fulfill God's will in our life unless we are walking in the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, controlled by the Spirit.

So that we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. That's the only way. His thoughts should be my thoughts. His will should be my will. Is there any room in my heart? Is there any place in my heart that I know of that I'm not yielding to God's control? Well, well, unfurl that sail and let the Spirit fill it, so to speak. Even looking back to the Old Testament, we have the promise, don't we, of giving through Ezekiel and Ezekiel chapter 36, let's look over there, Ezekiel chapter 36 and Ezekiel chapter 36 verse 26. What do we read there? Verse number 26. The promise, a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. Well, the implication is that we need the enabling of the Holy Spirit to walk in the Lord's statutes. We need the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Not that stony heart, remember? How do we serve the Lord? We try to serve him and the oldness of the letter. That's the way that the flesh would try to serve God. I want to do something for God. No. We can only do it through His strength.

We can only serve Him in a way that pleases Him as we worship Him in Spirit and in truth by being filled with the Holy Spirit. How can we—we read in our text today. What do we read there in verse 15? Walk circumspectly. How can I walk circumspectly? Well, I must be filled with the Spirit. How can I redeem the time? I'm going to waste the time, aren't I, if I'm not filled with the Spirit. I must be filled with the Spirit. How am I going to have these psalms and hymns and spiritual songs just flowing from my heart? I've Let's not just be something I say with my lips, it's got a rise out of my heart, making melody in your heart to the Lord. I might have, somebody might not have a voice box, but they can make melody in their heart to the Lord. They can worship the Lord in spirit if they lost all of their other senses. And what a blessing God has given us the ability the issues of life where we can we can tangibly express that I mean I'm glad that I have arms that I can put around my wife and hug her and I can hug my children I can you know feel them and hear them and see them this brings joy to my heart to be able to do that, right? As a father, as a husband. But thank God that He's given us that those abilities, the ways to express our love to Him.

I can say I love my family, but I want to show that I love my family. They want to show they love me. And I want show, because of what, as the Holy Spirit fills me, it's going to be like bursting at the seams. I want to do this for his glory. And if I am truly filled with the Spirit and serving the Lord, walking in the Spirit, I'm not going to care whether somebody notices or not. I'm not going to care what somebody else thinks. Or did they make a note of that? And I'm I'm not, if we live like the Pharisees to be seen of men then we have our reward. That's not the purpose that we're worshipping the Lord. We're worshipping the Lord in spirit and in truth. We're to be empowered by the Holy Spirit and that's it. The birds that sing in the forest that nobody ever hears. The stuff that we, the creatures we discover in the bottom of the ocean that I, human, you know, directs eye to eye. We've never seen it with our eyes, but we see it through some machine that's been a submarine vehicle that's been able to go down there and observe it. It's been going on all this time to the glory of God. You know, the heavens declared the glory of God, the firmament showeth forth his hand, even before we had the telescopes to see it all.

But and the difference with us is that willfully, submissively, trustingly, obediently, gladly, we are to worship the Lord out of a heart that says, I humbly, willingly bow before you Lord and I want to do your will. I want to be filled with the Spirit because you have told me and commanded me to be filled with the Spirit. Well, we are to be filled with the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit as we see here. They're both, I guess, two sides of the same coin. It's the same truth to be filled with and controlled by, to be walking according to, walking in the Spirit.

That is the way by which we may be able and that alone by which we may be able to even as we read here in verse 20 give thanks always for all things in verse 20 of our text give thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ if a sailor if semen on a ship realized the sails are not unfurled well there's gonna need to be a change that happens there's gonna need to be a change that happens we've got to correct that matter if we know of sin in our life that's keeping the Lord from the Holy Spirit from filling us and thus glorifying God then we need we need to humbly quickly obediently humble ourselves and say Lord I confess whatever it is in between me and you and I want this lattice I want this wall I want this taken away so that your blessed face may be seen nothing would prevent the lease of your favor I want to keep the way clear here between us Lord because I without faith it's impossible to please you Lord without faith it is impossible the Holy Spirit will enable me in everything to give thanks why because this is the world God in Christ Jesus concerning me he will enable me to do that the only way and I think about it he is Spirit of Truth.

He's the Spirit of Truth. When I was in my old life of sin, what was I doing? I was suppressing truth. We see the world, the world and sinners that continue with their sins and they kick against the pricks and they don't want to submit to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, they hold the truth down in unrighteousness. They suppress the truth. Well, when a person gets saved, what do they do? Well, the scripture says that they might be granted repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. Well, when a person repents, they acknowledge the truth and they cry out to God for mercy. And now that I am a Christian and I am to welcome the Spirit that I might grow and I might be filled with the Spirit that I might grow into what God wants me to be, I must not abide any deception in my life.

I must only follow the truth. When God and His truth spoke to that woman and at the well, when Jesus spoke to that woman, she said, come see a man that told me all that ever I did. He's told the truth to me. He knows the truth about me. And thank God that his word is sharper than any two-edged sword. It reveals the truth about my Christian life. It reveals my needs before him. And if I'm honest, in a good conscience before Him, with a blamelessness before Him, I will quickly say, yes. Not in front of everybody. Not so everybody can see me. Look at me, I'm being spirited. No. In my heart before the Lord, where He and I alone see, I will obey. Yes, Lord. I hear what the Holy Spirit is saying. I hear it and I submit to your will. Only then what is it, what is the child's, the children's song we've learned so long? Trust and obey. There's no other way to be happy in Jesus. The truth in the man is to glorify God, right? The chief end. Worship is the end. Service is an expression of that worship, but worship itself to God and glorifying Him is the end of man. That is the whole point of our existence. For His glory we were and are created. For His pleasure we were and are created.

May God help us to see the absolute importance, necessity of being filled with the Spirit of God. We cannot genuinely, truly worship God in spirit unless we are yielding our lives in the present tense, recognizing the imperativeness of that command to be filled with the Spirit.

Let's pray. Gracious Father, we know that our hearts cannot harbor, we cannot harbor lust and fear and greed or any bitterness. Let all wrath, clamor, evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. All these things that we're told and if the word piercing in identifies any of that in our heart and may we quickly submit and let it be put away it will it will hinder not only blessing in our lives and to your heart but even it will become a stumbling block and a hindrance to others in our walk so help us Lord help us not as we were in the old life to be filled with all unrighteousness but to be filled with the fruits of righteousness with the wonderful promise and joyful expectation of an eternity with you, an inheritance that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us. We pray, Lord, that you'd bless us and help us to worship you truly in spirit and in truth. Even today and as we go into this week, Father, enable us, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.