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[0:00] I would like you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Ephesians chapter 6, no, Ephesians chapter! 5, and we are going to be looking at verse 18, the second part of the verse. Let me read it to you, and then you join me as we pray together. But be filled with the Spirit.

[0:39] Our Father, prayer for us is not a matter of habit or the recitation of something that we have, in most cases, planned in advance.

[1:05] But the absolute expression of our dependence and your sufficiency. We're reminded, for one, of what John the Baptist said, that a man can have nothing except to be given of him. And we recognize that you are the giver of every good and perfect gift.

[1:29] We also recognize that it is your desire and your delight to give good things to your children. And while there are many physical things that we might ask for, the thing that is most important is the sweetness of your word and the work of your Spirit in our midst.

[1:55] We want to be a people that leave here different than we were when we came. And we realize that to have that take place will require that you do something that is beyond our ability.

[2:13] And so, in keeping again with Scripture, we ask that you would open our eyes, that we would behold wonderful truths out of your law, that the Spirit of God that indwells every believer would enable us to hear and inform us so that we might understand and encourage and strengthen us that we might then take that word and apply it for the glory of Christ.

[2:47] And we pray it because of Him. Amen. I want to begin. We're going to look at this passage in just a minute, but I want to begin by having you think practically, realistically, of really how hard it is to live the Christian life.

[3:05] Here's the truth. I see these bumper stickers. By the way, if you ever see a bumper sticker on my car, you will have assumed that somebody else put it there.

[3:19] I see these bumper stickers. Not perfect, just forgiven. And there is an element of theological truth to that, but I wonder if more often than not, they are really a reflection of a carelessness towards what the Scripture teaches about godly living.

[3:40] Let me give you a couple frames to operate in so you can kind of think about this with me a little bit. Remember what Jesus said to His disciples, unless your righteousness, who can fill it out for me, exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom.

[3:59] I mean, that's a pretty hard pill to swallow. Let's try another one so we have it in our mind. I want you to turn in your Bible. Keep your finger, because we're coming back to Ephesians, but I want you to turn in your Bible to Romans 8, verse 1.

[4:16] Romans 8, verse 1. It says, There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

[4:31] For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, and He condemns sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.

[4:50] Now, what's the remainder of the text? Look at it carefully. Who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Do we earn our salvation by our walk?

[5:02] The answer is categorically and undeniably no. But are we as believers to walk in the light as He is in the light, and is our life to be an example and a testament of the power of God at work in us?

[5:24] What's the answer? Let me tell you something. One of the principal witnesses to the power of the gospel, which for one thing promises us an eternity that we cannot see.

[5:38] Would you agree with that? We can't see eternity. One of the things that bears strong testimony to the power of the gospel is the power of the gospel to change people now from what they used to be to what they can be and what they will someday be.

[5:56] Would you agree with that? And God intends for your life to be an evidence of the fact that God who can save can also change you.

[6:08] And I want you to understand that that's a pretty sobering thought. I am supposed to be a walking example of a God who can make people different. That's pretty challenging.

[6:22] And you know, the truth of the matter is, is we get around that challenge by just frankly not thinking about it. By not paying much attention to it. By not really thinking that it's all that realistic in expectation, and yet the Scriptures over and over again talk about the fact that the life of the believer is to be undeniably and radically different than the life of the unbeliever.

[6:48] My wife and I were engaged in conversation earlier this week, and she made reference to one individual. And just listening to the individual talk, she said, you must be a believer.

[7:05] Never met this person before. He said, well, how did you know? Well, there are little giveaways. It wasn't that he was making the sign of the cross.

[7:16] It was just generally a pleasing countenance and a happy spirit and a thankful tone in his life. And as the conversation progressed, it's like, oh, there's something different about you.

[7:32] I do want you to understand that as we think about the passage that we're going to understand this morning, we're going to study this morning, it is a very, very significant passage for understanding how the believer is to live.

[7:47] And I think the thing that we need to understand is that being spirit-filled is essential. For apart from being spirit-filled, we cannot live the way Christ intends.

[7:59] Now, the remainder of the book of Ephesians is going to, for the most part, deal with relationships.

[8:12] We're going to receive instruction from God on how we are to relate to one another with a submissive and generous spirit. We're going to find out how a wife is to follow her husband, how a husband is to love his wife, how children are to obey their parents, and how employees are to relate to those who are their employers.

[8:39] It's fair to say that when we think about what lies in front, and it's going to be primarily focusing on the issue of relationships, we would have to agree that relationships, at the end of the day, are a pretty messy business.

[8:53] Would you agree with me? They are. And the reason for that is because it puts sinners in close proximity with each other, and when they are in close proximity with each other, there is a multiplier there of that proximity, and the two sinful individuals are more.

[9:15] And so I want you to understand this morning that when we recognize that relationships are challenging at best, we need to understand that God intends for us to succeed in those relationships and to honor Christ in doing so, and the only way that we will succeed at accomplishing the things that He calls us to do are to walk and be filled with the Spirit of God.

[9:41] Now, with that in mind, let me take some time to lay out some background information that I think is actually important in our understanding of the matter of being filled with the Spirit.

[9:56] Let me begin, first of all, by talking about what the Bible is not talking about. The Bible uses a variety of terms to refer to the relationship of the Spirit of God to the believer, and we do well to distinguish them and to recognize that each has a purpose that in some aspects is distinct from the others.

[10:19] The common characteristic in all is that the Spirit is the one involved, but we look at different statements such as being baptized in the Spirit, being indwelt with the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit, being filled by the Spirit, grieving the Spirit.

[10:35] There are a number of different things that are said in relationship to those things, and we sometimes kind of just lump them all together and think, well, it's about the Spirit, and so there we are. Let me explain, first of all, that the indwelling and baptism of the Spirit refers to what happens as a part of our salvation.

[10:52] If you are saved here today, if you know Christ, you have the Spirit of God inside you. I didn't say that.

[11:04] Christ did. And I want you to recognize that this is a Bible truth that is not dependent upon the way you feel or even how you're acting.

[11:16] Remember over in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 where the apostle says, listen, he says, you need to get this straight. When you are involved in immorality, you are dragging the Spirit of God into that very relationship.

[11:33] Do you think the Spirit would like to bail when you look at pornography? Yes. But he doesn't. He is in you. He is there. He stays there because from the moment of your salvation, you have the Spirit of God indwelling you.

[11:49] Over in Romans chapter 8, and I want you to look at that passage just for a moment. Romans chapter 8, verse 8. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, but you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

[12:06] How do you distinguish between an unsaved person and a saved person? In this context, it is the matter of the Spirit of God indwelling that believer. Look also, if you would, at verse 11.

[12:17] If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. So in other words, the enabling, the way in which I live the spiritual life, the way I live the Christian life to bring glory to Christ is not just by working on a set of self-improvement rules, but by trusting, excuse me, the indwelling Spirit to work and do His work in me.

[12:48] Go back, if you will, to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 4 and 5, and we read there, it says this, it says, there is one body and one Spirit just as you were called in one hope that belongs in your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

[13:04] So we understand that the infilling and the baptism of the Holy Spirit refer to something that takes place at our salvation. Second, the filling of the Spirit and the walking in the Spirit relate to His empower and His controlling, to His empowering and His controlling, and we'll deal a little bit more with that as we work our way through, but just in general terms, identify the fact that indwelling and baptism are something that happens at our conversion, and the filling and the walking of the Spirit relate more to the matter of His empowering us and His controlling us.

[13:39] I want you to understand, furthermore, that the filling of the Spirit is not a second work of grace. It's not something that takes place after we've reached a certain level of spirituality, after we've prayed to a certain state, after we've come to a certain level of earnestness, that it then kind of happens as a result of our ongoing pursuit.

[14:04] And we see that undeniably in the text that we're looking at right now. Look back, if you would, at Ephesians 5, verse 18, and if we are...

[14:17] And stop just for a minute because I think this is important. If we are going to allow our opinions to be formed by the Scriptures themselves, then we have to take the vocabulary seriously.

[14:29] And what the Apostle says there in verse 18, it says, but be filled with the Spirit. And the way in which that is put in the text, it says, keep being filled.

[14:44] It's not like, hey, get it poured in and that's it. It's like day by day, moment by moment, keep on working at being filled with the Spirit of God. Third, the filling of the Spirit is not a reference to extra-biblical behaviors or the teachings of our day.

[15:07] I was sick last week. I was reduced to whispering for the sake of intelligible conversation. And given that, I had a low-grade fever and several other things.

[15:20] I decided, you know, I am going to stay at home. It was not a fun thing to do except for the privilege I had of lying in bed and praying and knowing that God was working in our fellowship and that you were being taught the Word of God.

[15:33] You were enjoying the Word of God. You were singing. By the way, I knew the songs that we had picked that we were going to sing. I really wanted to sing them. I had to lie in bed and just pray for you.

[15:44] But I enjoyed that. Then I got out of bed and I thought, well, you know, hey, I know what I'm going to be preaching on next week so I think I'll channel surf. And so what I did was I watched a wide variety of...

[15:59] Let me name them. I watched Serfalo Dollar. I watched Joel Osteen.

[16:09] I watched T.D. Jakes. I watched Joyce Myers. I watched Rod Parsley and threw in a couple others. And I watched them carefully.

[16:20] I watched them listening to see, okay, so what are the things that they are saying? I was surprised. I was surprised at the commonality.

[16:32] What does that mean? Pretty much, they both said the same things. They all said the same things. Now, before I address the next set of points, I want you to know that I sincerely desire my comments to be governed by two things.

[16:47] that what I say is clearly from the Scriptures. And secondly, that what I say is gentle and not sarcastic of those that have been led astray by spiritual charlatans.

[17:06] I have dear friends that I have known over the years that are of slightly different persuasions and I do not want my observations to be anything but winsome and textual.

[17:24] So, let me say this in relationship to the matter of what we're going to talk about now when we say that being filled with the Spirit is not a reference to extra-biblical behaviors or the teachings of our day. We understand that being filled with the Spirit is not evidenced by the charismatic gifts in the book of Acts.

[17:41] Being filled with the Spirit is not evidenced by the charismatic gifts referenced in the book of Acts, such as tongues, prophecies, and healings.

[17:53] I have no doubt and I wholeheartedly affirm that what took place in the book of Acts indeed was the dramatic demonstration of the power of the Spirit of God, but what we see happening today has no bearing or credible relationship to what we see happen back during that time.

[18:11] Let me give you a little comparison. The purpose of a miracle or a demonstration of divine power ultimately is to confirm the message and the messenger.

[18:24] Does that make sense to you? Nod your head if that's just intuitively obvious. Yeah, it makes sense. Here's Moses, stomps out of the wilderness, you know, and by the way, how did God get Moses' attention?

[18:36] Try a little burning bush. Now, was that a little miraculous? It got Moses' attention. It made Moses listen. And God said to Moses, you're going to be my spokesperson.

[18:51] Yeah, well, yeah, they're not going to listen to me. Oh, what do you have in your hand? What was it? A rod. Throw it down. What happened? Snake. And remember, one miracle after another, he finally got back in front of Pharaoh and the Pharaoh's magicians, and he says, God says, let my people go.

[19:12] Yeah. We're going to get rid of our labor force. Can you walk, imagine you walking into upper management and says, hey, turn them loose. Moses?

[19:24] Yeah. Who said? Threw down the rod and it became a snake and what did the magicians do? They were able to fake a couple of these things, remember?

[19:36] But finally, as Moses upped the ante, what did they say? I love this. This is the finger of God. This is something God did.

[19:47] A miracle ultimately points to the miraculous, to God. And so, the things that took place in the book of Acts, undeniably, were miraculous demonstrations of the power of God.

[20:06] In the three areas, in the matter of tongues, in the matter of prophecies, in the matter of healings, let me explain that tongues, the ones that were spoken of in Acts chapter 2, were understandable languages.

[20:17] I listened to one particular person last Sunday, babbling, babbling. And I can tell you that he was not speaking in tongues according to the New Testament passage because the text makes it clear that the tongues were a demonstration of divine power, namely in that people understood the dialect miraculously.

[20:45] Interestingly, interestingly, and just a little side note on this, back in the early 1900s, I think it was 1904, 1912, something like that, there was the resurgence of the tongues movement actually came into being.

[20:58] And the proponents of speaking in tongues as an evidence of the power of the Spirit of God proposed initially that these languages were actually foreign dialects in context in context of the passage and over in Acts chapter 2, etc.

[21:15] And as a result, the first missionary sent out by the charismatics did not need language training at all. Do you got that?

[21:26] That is an intelligent conclusion if your supposition is that the gift was the ability to communicate in foreign dialects. Does that make sense?

[21:37] Yesterday, I walked into Speedway. The man there that was working at the counter, his name was Gopal. Now, for some of you, it's like, so?

[21:49] And I walked up to Gopal and I said, Apni Kaminach and I asked him, I said, how are you doing? I said it in Bengali and he looked at me like, I said, Apkassahe.

[22:00] Now, Bengali and Hindi are very close. I mean, big deal to me. But he looked at me and he said, where did you learn this? Oh, I grew up in India. Really?

[22:13] See, I can speak three different dialects because I grew up in a community and it would be a miracle for me to speak Japanese. Do you understand that, Tom? If I started speaking in Japanese, other than Konnichiwa or whatever, you know, I've learned that from Tom and he's probably, thank you, thank you, thank you.

[22:34] I am infinitely better than last week but don't want to put it over where the Kleenex are.

[22:47] So, let me explain being filled with the Spirit is not talking about the miraculous power that we see at Acts.

[23:00] Recognize that the tongues were foreign dialects. Secondly, we recognize that the prophecies that took place were backed up by 100% accuracy. Beloved, this is not small potatoes.

[23:11] I cannot understand why well-informed people who care about the truth allow the chicanery and the deceit to go on where there are all these kind of prophetic utterances that have no connection with Scripture.

[23:31] And by the way, I want you to understand that in the Old Testament when someone said that there was going to be something that happened and it didn't happen, there was a short shelf life for that person.

[23:43] Do you know why? They were stoned. We have about four or five. I'm not proposing and some of you are going to go out and say he said that but I didn't. I'm not proposing that we have stonings but I can guarantee you that it would really clean up a lot of these fake faux prophecies if what we had is God deal with a couple of them.

[24:01] Third, the healings that took place in the New Testament were immediate and complete and without contingencies. They were complete, they were immediate and they were without contingencies.

[24:16] I have been reading through the book of John and one of the things that I was reading this morning is when John healed the man who'd been born blind, he didn't ask the guy if he was a believer.

[24:33] By the way, when he healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, remember? The guy, Jesus says, what are you doing here? This is a free rendition. What are you doing? Well, I'm here to try to get healed.

[24:44] Oh yeah? But I can't get down to the pool. Jesus said, take up your bed and walk. And what happened? Bada, bada, bing. Bada, bada, boom. Up he goes, grabs his bed, starts walking and the Pharisees say, whoa, don't you know?

[25:00] It's the Sabbath. He says, you know, I understand that but the guy who healed me, he said do it. God has the right to tell me what to do.

[25:14] By the way, he's the one who healed me. And when we find the deceit, I tell you, when God heals, it's immediate and it's complete.

[25:26] And what do I mean by no contingencies? Do you know what a contingency is? The large print addeth and the small print taketh away. And as I listened to all of the aforementioned speakers, I noticed one common word.

[25:45] Do you know what it was? Seed faith. Seed faith. Seed faith.

[25:56] Seed faith. Now, by the way, I'll warn you that somewhere in the next month or so, I will do what I have done for, Lord willing, will be 27 years and that is preach on, hey, hey, hey, we're getting there.

[26:11] And you will not hear me talk about seed faith. Sadly, in an attempt to be humble and generous, far too many loving believers have been hesitant to demand that all doctrine be intelligently judged by Scriptures.

[26:33] And this lack of commitment to the sufficiency and the supremacy of Scripture has unleashed a torrent of aberrant doctrines such as the prosperity teaching of our day.

[26:47] And all of that has nothing at all to do with the filling of the Spirit. So, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? Let's begin by recognizing, first of all, that the text gives us an explicit command and what it means is that being Spirit-filled is not something that happens passively.

[27:11] It's not something that's just an arbitrary whim on the part of God. The idea that the Spirit falls on certain individuals who have then been slain by the Spirit, knocked flat, has no biblical merit.

[27:25] In the simplest terms, being filled means choosing to be affected and empowered by the indwelling Spirit of God.

[27:38] And I say this because the text gives us an explicit command that I that you are to choose to be filled.

[27:49] I love what one Bible teacher has to say on this. He says this, it is one thing for you to have the Holy Spirit within you. Does every believer have the Holy Spirit within you? And what's the answer? We just learn absolutely.

[28:01] It's one thing to have the Holy Spirit within you. It's another thing to have the Spirit have you. the way John Bunyan put it.

[28:12] You remember John Bunyan who wrote what? What book? Hey, good job. By the way, should that be a book that you read? That's a good book to read. Here's what John Bunyan said that I really liked.

[28:25] Sailors cannot create the wind but they can raise the sail that pushes the boat. That's nice, isn't it? Sailors cannot create the wind but they can raise the sail that pushes the boat.

[28:48] I want you to understand furthermore that the Holy Spirit is not an abstract force but is the third person of the Trinity and He is in every believer. Yet the believer is called to choose to allow the indwelling Spirit to instruct, to illuminate, to empower, to control.

[29:12] It may be helping our understanding here to go back just for a moment to the comparison Paul started out with there in verse 18, the first part and you remember that's where I actually started several weeks ago when I said don't be drunk with wine for that is debauchery.

[29:28] Paul was making a comparison between choosing to be drunk. Do men have to choose to be drunk? Essentially, yes, the answer is they do because you have to keep on doing it until it has an effect and He says don't make that choice.

[29:46] What you have to choose by comparison is to allow the Spirit of God to be the one who is influencing your life rather than something else. Let me say something else that I want you to understand.

[29:59] This is important. Being filled with the Spirit is God's plan for normal Christian living. I don't think we believe that. Being filled with the Spirit is God's plan for normal Christian living.

[30:20] Question. Can people always tell if you're filled with the Spirit? And what's the answer?

[30:33] By the way, next week I'm going to preach on singing. And I have asked John, we're going to sing our favorites and we are going to blow the roof off of here.

[30:44] We haven't decided yet, have we, John? Okay, but I'm hoping I'm voting for Lion of Judah for one, you know, with horns. We're thinking about that, okay? And then 10,000 reasons, these are others that I'm voting for, I want you to know.

[30:59] I don't always get my way, in fact, there's a rumor that seldom do I get my way. But anyway, these are ones I'm voting for, and here's what I want. I want us to come, next week I want us to come filled with the Spirit ready to blow the roof off.

[31:12] Hmm? Can you always tell if a person is Spirit filled? No. But you can always tell when they're not. Right?

[31:25] Huh? Right? What's not filled look like? For Tim Kenoyer, it's grumpy, it's pouty, it's moody, it's surly, it's sarcastic, it's unwilling.

[31:42] Am I striking any of you that you, yeah, I can recognize that. I could ask my wife to fill out the remainder of the list. Yeah, she knows. She doesn't know all the time when I'm filled with the Spirit, but she does know when I'm not.

[32:01] I do want you to understand, coming back again, being filled with the Spirit is God's plan for normal Christian living. I had to think back again to last week, and I remember one televangelist actually dramatizing what it was like to be filled with the Spirit, and he was twitching, and he was demonstrating a variety of behaviors and sounds, and here's what I was trying to do.

[32:26] Honestly, what I was trying to do was reference what was going on on his behavior on TV with everything I know in the scriptures. I wanted to be fair and say, okay, where in the Bible does that kind of behavior seem to fit in?

[32:39] Not there. So, let me clearly declare what the Bible says about being filled with the Spirit.

[32:50] Being filled with the Spirit means being sensitive to his person and his presence. Being sensitive to his person and his presence.

[33:05] Influenced by the fact that you know he's in you and he's there. Turn in your Bible, if you will, to John chapter 16 verse 7. John chapter 16 verse 7, Jesus says this, nevertheless I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you, the person of the Holy Spirit.

[33:37] And Jesus says, listen, I'm leaving and when he said that, I want you to imagine that here are the disciples in the third year of their being around Jesus. And remember over in John chapter 6 when Jesus had finished his absolutely drop-dead sermon and most everybody else had scampered and he looked to his disciples and he said, are you guys going too?

[33:57] And what did Peter say? He said, where are we going to go? Who else has the words of life? They recognized the supremacy and the sweetness of Christ and they said, you're the one.

[34:12] And to that listening group of men, he says, hey, listen, it's a good thing that I leave you because when I leave, you are going to get the helper.

[34:25] He'll be with you. The person. The person. The person. Let me tell you something.

[34:36] I remember reading earlier this week, I think it was David Powelson was talking about counseling ministry. I said, there are often days where he looks at his caseload and responsibilities he has in ministering to the hearts of people and he knows the brokenness and the heartache and the difficulty they're facing and he finds himself going into that situation and as he ponders the weight of the moment, he finds himself not normally thinking, I can't do this.

[35:06] And then he prays and said, God, you have to help me. And he then reminds himself that it's not by might nor by power but by my spirit, saith the Lord.

[35:24] To be filled with the spirit, for one thing, means that we are sensitive to his person and his presence. We show our regard for his presence incidentally by not grieving him with disobedience or quenching him by refusing his control.

[35:48] We show our regard for his presence, you're here, by not grieving him with disobedience or quenching him by refusing his control.

[36:00] I used this illustration earlier when I was teaching Sunday school but it's a good illustration unfortunately. I was watching the football game Saturday and I had a moment where my carnality absolutely topped out the chart.

[36:18] There was a little kickback runback that then kind of devolved into a fracas and you know there were punches being thrown and blah blah blah. And I, of course, I confess that after 27 years I've finally become an actual true to life Buckeye fan.

[36:36] I don't wear the hat and things like that. I don't flag but I am a little bit of a Buckeye fan and so when the fight was over I thought righteousness would probably be served if there were four or five of the Michigan players that were rejected.

[36:52] So I'm waiting patiently for judgment to fall from high, you know. and then I thought of the worst case scenario, you know, maybe a couple of the chumps would be kicked off and here's what happened.

[37:06] It was a two for one deal and I thought this is where my flesh got the best of me. I was sitting there in my living room and I was actually angry.

[37:17] I was very angry. I was even having momentary murderous thoughts. I mean, I was just like, oh, yeah.

[37:32] People's cars are going to be keyed when they come down. I'm sorry. This is wickedness and I'm not proud of it but I'm telling you the truth. And the Spirit of God tapped me on the shoulder and said, Tim, what are you doing?

[37:52] The Spirit of God brought back verses to my mind. You follow that? The wrath of man doesn't work the righteousness of God.

[38:02] Ooh. And then the real kicker was where Jesus, remember where he says, my kingdom is not of this world because if this was my kingdom, my servants would be fighting and I thought, you know what, my anger has nothing to do with eternity.

[38:18] I was there humble. Lord, forgive me for that. We show that we know he's present when we don't grieve him with disobedience and we don't quench him by refusing his counsel.

[38:38] Secondly, being filled with the Spirit means consciously and deliberately being dependent upon his enabling and his power. I need him. Look over at John chapter 15 verse 5.

[38:49] It says, I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, what? You can do nothing. I am not the most profound mechanic.

[39:08] I'll be the first to tell you that. But I have figured out that cars need keys. In fact, apart from the key, the car is just a stationary object.

[39:24] Isn't that right? And one of the things that shows my absolute confidence in that reality is generally when I get out of my car, being the little lame brain that I am, I always check two or three times to see where the keys are.

[39:39] How many of you do that? Okay. There's a reason for that. You see, I have AAA and they think I have them on speed dial and that's not true at all.

[39:54] By the way, we have premier service. There's a reason for that too. That's my wife. I care about her. But here's the deal. I know that keys and cars are pretty important.

[40:11] And when I am filled with the Spirit, I am conscious and aware that apart from Him, I can do nothing. Try to live the Christian life apart from the power of the Spirit of God and it is a recipe for frustration, discouragement, and fruitlessness.

[40:32] By Him and through Him, we have been called to be lights in dark corners. sinners. It's not our nature to be humble or thankful, but it's the work of the Spirit of God to make us that way, isn't it?

[40:52] And so, all you have to do is listen to the broken world around you and realize that you can either choose to live that way or you can consciously choose to let the Spirit of God enable you.

[41:10] Third, being filled with the Spirit means choosing to yield to His scriptural promptings. John chapter 16, verse 13 through 14.

[41:25] John chapter 16, verse 13 through 14. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.

[41:38] He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. The Spirit works to bring back the Word of God to our thinking so that we may know what to do and what to think so that Christ is honored.

[41:57] The Spirit of God is the search engine to help you handle the Word of God that you bury in your heart so that He can call it to mind at every moment when you need His help.

[42:17] Beloved, if I am repetitious in my desire for you to be a people that think the Scriptures, it is because the Spirit will use what's there.

[42:30] And if you don't have it packed away, He's not going to sprinkle it in magically. Being led by the Spirit is choosing to walk in the path of His Word.

[42:50] Look at Galatians chapter 5 verse 16. I love this text. Galatians chapter, by the way, there are a lot of passages I love just in case you're wondering, but Galatians chapter 5, this is one that you probably should memorize.

[43:07] Galatians chapter 5 verse 16 and 17. But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

[43:19] Leave it at that. Galatians chapter 5 verse 16. Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify what? How many of you, in retrospect, find yourself pretty disappointed, pretty discouraged, pretty turned off by the outcome of the desires of the flesh, right?

[43:35] Every one of us say, yeah. So how do you deal with that? Walk by the Spirit. And what does it mean to walk by the Spirit?

[43:46] It means choosing to walk in the path of His Word and allowing what He has to say to make a difference in your life. So only come full circle. I'm going to make the assumption that the vast majority of you people here today know Christ as your personal Savior.

[44:11] The God who has ordained your salvation and works so miraculously to deliver you from the pit intends for you to be a person who consciously and deliberately chooses to remember that He's present and in you.

[44:37] A person who chooses to rely upon His power to do what you cannot do by your own and chooses to yield to His scriptural promptings and chooses to walk in the path of His Word.

[44:54] I am not one for a lot of emotional deciding.

[45:08] But I am one who believes that the purpose of preaching is to put people on the spot of saying what? Yes or no to God. God says walk by the Spirit.

[45:23] And so what you have to ask yourself the question is does that characterize my life? And it wouldn't be a bad thing as you're driving home to turn to your husband and turn to your wife and say hey what do you think about how I'm doing it being Spirit filled?

[45:40] And everybody smiles so we can come to the point here. If you're a little uncomfortable with doing that then probably a wise thing to do would be right now to say alright Lord I hear what you have to say and I take you seriously and I will consciously and deliberately choose you being my helper to desire to do everything necessary to be filled with the Spirit.

[46:17]  Let's close in prayer. Oh Lord.