What Does the Holy Spirit Do (Part 2)

Introduction

I write about 10-12 pages a week in preparation for sundays

loving you well means i cut it off at 12 or we will be here all day

I was maxed out at 12 pages on last weeks answer and feeling accomplished

To answer who is the holy spirit and what do we do with him felt like a huge accomplishment

Trinitarian theology are some deep waters for a not so smart man to swim in

There i was on the mountain top of completing a task and my sweet wife looks over my shoulder at the document and says

“But how do i know I am listening to the spirit and not myself”

Have i mentioned i long for affirmation

So back to the drawing board

And it really needs answered

Especially when we learned last week it is the oxygen of the christian life

So here we are in part 2 of the Holy Spirit

What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit and How Do We Know We Are Listening To Him and Not The Voice In Our Own Heads

What Paul Has Been Building Too

I hope that as we do this we are learning some tools to help us read our bibles better on our own

One thing we saw last week is called biblical theology

We let the bible as a whole in one big story interpert iteself

That protects us from building a whole belief off one verse or cherry picked verses

This week we get to see what it looks like to really dive into a book as a whole to tell us what a passage means

That is called context

We have to work hard to know the context of a verse in the whole message and purpose of a book of the bible

Today we are looking at calls command to us to be filled with the spirit and to walk in the spirit

We are in Ephesians 5:15–21 “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.”

There is a key phrase that Paul has been using up until this point to help us understand how to answer our questions today

he has used it 4 times before he gets to this 5th one

To walk in light of who we are now in Christ not who we used to be

We are commanded to walk in holiness

We are told to Walk in Love

We are told to walk in the light

Now he is putting it all together with this 5th one

5. Walk in Wisdom

How does this help us today answering our quesiton’s

Look at what is the oxygen we have to breathe everyday to Walk (live a lifestyle of) in those things

Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary E. Walk in Wisdom (5:15–6:9)

he instructs them to be wise in their walk or conduct by being filled by the Holy Spirit

Paul knows we cannot walk in any of this in our own strength

Walking wisely, in the light, in love, in obedience in remembering who we are now in Christ CAN ONLY happen by what means?

By Being filled with the Holy Spirit

We will see but the whole thing centers around greek word walk and it means LOOK HOW CAREFULLY YOU ARE WALKING ….

We walk wisely to understand the way to what we long for and what we were made for is being informed by the God who made us

Understanding the Will of God So We Make the Most of the Time

Ephesians 5:15–17 “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”

We won’t get to all of this because it is our question for next week (how can I know God’s will for my life?)

but we get a glimpse here at something we desperately need

First he makes a plea to us

Make the most of your time- don’t waste your life …know god’s will for you

Make it your own

Make it your greatest hobby and pursuit

Don’t waste your life

The point of your life is not to get rich or be healed or even be worldly happy - the purpose of your life is to find god’s purposes for you and make them your own

John Piper says - “Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don’t coast through life without a passion.”

Living against God’s redemptive plan for your life is wasting your life

Think about this

You right now are cast in the greatest redemptive epic drama the cosmos will ever know

The greatest thing you can do is see your everyday as part of that epic and live for it

Make the most of the time…don’t waste your life

What does the holy Spirit have to do with any of that?

It is simple when we look at what God wants from us

Piper again says - “He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”

And the holy spirits role in our hearts is to do exactly that

he makes us more satisfied in Jesus so that it is the expulsive power of a greater affection as we saw last week

A Stronger Love Displaces a Weaker One:

The Holy Spirit wages the war for us so Christ is our strongest love…which leads to the life change that sets us free

As J. I. Packer has written, “The Spirit’s message to us is never, ‘Look at me; listen to me; come to me; get to know me,’ but always, ‘Look at him, and see his glory; listen to him, and hear his word; go to him, and have life; get to know him, and taste his gift of joy and peace.’”

When we look to Christ we don’t waste our life

Jim Elliot said before he was killed on the mission field “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose"

We need to be filled by the spirit

Because as Jesus said - Apart from me you can do nothing

What does it mean to be filled with the spirit

Ephesians 5:18 “And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit:”

We miss alot in the english and have to have some english class fun

There are tenses to verbs if you remember

Past tense present tense and future tense

When we read “be filled by the spirit” it sounds like a one time completed tense kind of thing

But in the greek it is an incomplete kind of word

It means KEEP being filled with the spirit

The contrast with drunkenness is the key here.

What do people go to alcohol for?

For a happy hour.

Interesting isn’t it that its called Happy hour not cost effective hour isn’t it when we just saw the world is telling you a script to be walk in to be happy

The world seems to know what Christians don’t

There is a war for your happiness

We all want to be happy, but there is a problem Paul says: “The days are evil.”

the worlds script to happiness is broken

Where do you turn when the days are evil, when you are frightened or discouraged or depressed or anxious? 

That is the war

Where is your happiness coming from?

Where are you looking

The fundamental meaning of being filled with the Spirit is being filled with joy that comes from God

And here is where defining the terms shows us what it means

You can learn alot about a word by understanding it’s opposites

How many of us think joy means happiness?

When we look at the opposite though we learn what it means

The opposite of joy is fear, despair, lack of peace, and struggle

To be filled with the spirit is that we wage the war to let the gospel dispell our fears and anxiety

Walk in the daily battle to let the promises of the gospel satisfy your heart when you feel anxious or afraid or broken

When you are happy in God, you are a strong and brave witness to his grace

When you are happy in the Gospel you don’t waste your life

Even David knew this in Psalm 4:7–8 “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and new wine abound. I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me live in safety.”

When we look to the world to make us safe

When we live the worlds script to be happy we can quench the spirit

Paul said earlier in Ephesians 4:30 “And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption.”

Be filled with the joy of the gospel when the war for your happiness is raging

How Do I know i am listening to the spirit

Lets go back to Ephesians 5:15–18 “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit:”

Lets put it all together to know what walking in the spirit looks like

And it answers our last question - how do i know i am listening to him

Know the Story You are beliving - “Pay careful attention…”

We are people driven by story

I am not big on the arts but a famous painting tells us all we are driven and captivated by story

It is the painting of a young Sir Walter Raleigh called The Boyhood of Raleigh

It is telling what made Raleigh one of the most tenacious explorers the world has ever known

It is of a little boy sitting on the shore as an old sailor points out to the sea in passion as he is telling tales of what is out there

Raleigh’s heart was captured as a boy by tales of adventure

No promise from the queen comapared to the captivation of his heart to drive him all his life

We are people driven by story just like that little boy on the coast

Know the story you are believing

Know the way to the good life that has captivated your heart

Verse 15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk

The word walk means your entire way of life

The days are evil…that is why we have to be wise

The world is telling you how to be happy

And we are prone to follow the script

But…first we are listening to the spirit when we are aware of the scripts we are surrounded by….understand how God is telling you how to have what you long for

be filled with the truth that God’s way to happiness is what will give you what you long for in the face of fear and anxiety and regret and funerals

2. Knowing the Will Of God -

Ephesians 5:17 “So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”

Don’t believe the worlds script

Examine your life and see how you are beleving it and walking in it

What does God want from us

What is God’s better script for our lives

The most foolish thing we can do is believe we aren’t following a script or story to get us to what we long for

The foolish thing we can do is say in our heart there is no God i know best

He is repeating verse 15 just with different words

What he is saying is the opposite of living a foolish life is to live a Godly life

In the greek what he is saying is come to understand one another, like 2 rivers joining together

It means allign your heart with the heart of God

God’s will for you is that you know Him, trust His character, and obey His loving design for your life through obedience to it

This has been the war in all of our hearts since the garden of eden

God gave his word to not eat from the tree because he wanted Adam and Eve to trust Him

And what did satan attack?

Did God really say?

Doesn’t it seem like God is holding out the good life from you

Can you really trust a God that wont let you define the good life and how to get there?

God’s will for your life hasn’t changed

He wants son’s not slaves

Sons and daughters that know his character and trust what he says in how to live in every area of life

Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (b) Positive: Understand the Lord’s Will (5:17b)

when believers understand the will of the Lord, they will be wise, not unwise and foolish by following the will of the flesh

It means don’t live against the grain of how things are supposed to be

It will never lead to the freedom it promises

Happy hour lasts for a little bit but the pain comes back

Follow the script of the God who sent his son to save you that says whatever sorrow you are trying to drown in a bottle doesn’t get the last word

Where does the holy spirit come into all of this?

Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (b) Positive: Understand the Lord’s Will (5:17b)

in both the OT and NT that the ability for people to understand the things of God is a gift of God, how can God’s will be comprehended? Paul answers this in the next verse.

Ephesians 5:18 “And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit:”

3. Being filled by the Spirit is How you know you are listening to Him

How to Do What Can Only Be Done for Us?

We saw last week that the holy spirit makes us feel what we know

Letting The gospel make you whole and happy is better then your best high

“Anything of value that alcohol can bring you, God the Holy Spirit can bring more.”

John Piper again says - We must set before our own soul the banquet of promises that God has made to us and feed our faith to the full

When we feed on the promises of God in the face of a world that isn’t how its supposed to be we are being filled by the spirit

How are we filled with the spirt - the bible is clear…faith

Piper again - The pathway that the Spirit cuts through the jungle of our anxieties into the clearing of joy is the pathway of faith

Acts 11:24 speaking of Stephen as he was killed for his faith “for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.”

If a person is filled with faith, he will be filled with the Spirit

Paul says that our God is the God of Hope

You are filled by the Spirit when you have faith in that as your hope and NOT in anything the world can offer to numb you for a little bit

And here is what is even more

Nobody stays full of the Spirit all the time —

no one is always totally joyful and submissive to God and empowered for service. But this should still be our aim, our goal, our great longing. “As a deer pants for the flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”

None of us have faith all the time

But God…

2 Timothy 2:13 “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”

What a scandalous hope

Grace Alone Through Faith Alone IN Christ alone

That is the Gospel in it all

The Gospel in It All

The Gospel is a greek word that means annoucement

It was the announcement of victory

It was the parade through Rome of the conquered

Sadly for decades the christian gospel has been reduced to guilt alleviation and the gain of a vague heaven when we die

Tim Keller starts his book Center Church with the first chapter titled “The Gospel Isn’t Everything”

In it he is addressing the damage of this reduction and all it misses

It misses elements of the announcment we desperately need for the oxygen of the christian life

The gospel isn’t everything …it also tells us to delay gratification in this life because what is coming is better then you can imagine

One of the roles of the spirit is to give us eschatology on a Thursday

Eschatology is the study of how all of this ends

We need reminded that our fear and sadness and anxiety don’t get the last word

that is what he does

When we are filled with Him through faith we live from the place of already being conquerers in Christ

Ephesians 1:13–14 …..The Spirit plants heaven in our hearts

That is the ultimate hope we have faith in

And when we have faith in that we are filled with the spirit and know we are listening to Him

he alone promises that one day everything sad will come untrue