Be Filled with the Spirit - part 1

Well, I appreciate that worship. I want to point something out to you. Brother Keith led us in some traditional Christmas carols that we are all familiar with at the beginning of the worship service, our song service. And then later he transitioned to some new, more modern Christmas carols or Christmas music. I think all of those come from a wonderful resource that you need in your life, Sovereign Grace Music. Some of you know those songs. If you don't, you need to get them. I know that that type of music is in my home and a part of my life.

I was listening to some of that music even this morning as I was getting ready, not just physically ready, but spiritually ready to come. So I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to make good Christian music a part of your life. And Brother Keith can help you there, just like he can help you with the good Christmas music that we're singing. And I appreciate that. Well if you would take your Bible and turn back to where we were earlier in our scripture reading, that would be Ephesians chapter 5. I did say that we're going to be primarily in verse 18. Now I'm going to mention quite a few other scriptures. You can write those down.

I think I said something like this Wednesday night. If you need to get those scripture references, they're in my notes here. You can see me after the service and I'll be glad to give those to you. Now I'm going to ask you to turn to Galatians chapter 5 later on in the message. That's just a few pages to the left because I want you to see a certain portion of scripture that I think is very, very important. Now in our message this morning, we're going to be in this last portion of scripture in this section that we've been in for quite some time. We've been here in verses 15 to 21 for several weeks.

And I think we all know that we have three positive commands here. You can call them admonitions. We've studied two of them and of course we see some negative teachings, some negative instruction as well. Now first from chapter 5 starting in verse 1, we learned that we are to be imitators of God. And then second from verse 15, we learned that we are to live as the wise and we spent quite a bit of time in those positive commands. Now this morning we begin this third positive command and we will learn that we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Paul teaches us that we are not to be filled with drunkenness that leads to excessive, sinful living. It can be called dissipation or debauchery, but we are to be filled with the Spirit every day in our lives. And we will see that when we are filled with the Spirit, the results are very, very wonderful. I can't wait to get to that portion of these verses. Now before we get into these verses and how we'll divide these verses, I want to go ahead and clear up some possible misconceptions and confusion that some of you may have about what it means to be filled with the Spirit.

The Scriptures have a lot to say about the Holy Spirit coming into the believer's life and the Holy Spirit's working a believer's life and there can be some confusion here. So I want to iron that out this morning. And then also I want to dispel three gross errors. I want to deal with three abuses of the filling of the Holy Spirit that can make some of us afraid to study these things. A lot of things that I remember from my seminary years, but I do remember one time in a class when one of my professors said something like this, of course you got to remember he's addressing a group of Baptist pastors, ministers.

And he said, "Boys," didn't call us men, he said, "Boys, the Pentecostals and the Charismatics have made us Baptists afraid of the Holy Spirit." Well we cannot allow those who have abused these things to make us afraid of these things. Now first of all I want us to see what being filled with the Spirit is not. It's not the same thing that we see in certain teaching about the Holy Spirit in the Scripture. Being filled with the Holy Spirit like we see here in verse 18 is not the seal of the Holy Spirit. Now we studied this back in chapter 1. You can turn over to just a couple of pages.

I want you to look at these verses, verses 13 to 14 in Ephesians chapter 1. Notice what Paul says. It's been quite a while since we were here. Some of you will remember these verses. Paul says, "In Him you also, when you heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, you believed in Him." And notice, "And you were sealed with a promised Holy Spirit." Who, this is the Holy Spirit, "who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory." Now here we see that after someone has heard the gospel and they have believed in Christ, Paul says they are sealed with a promised Holy Spirit.

This means that when one is converted to Christ and believes, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within the believer. And as a result, the Spirit seals and secures and preserves the believer in Christ Jesus. Simply they are sealed and secure. In verse 14 even tells us that the Spirit is given by God as His pledge of the believer's future eternal inheritance in heaven. So being filled with the Spirit like we are going to see in verse 18 is not the same thing as being sealed with the Spirit. And also being filled with the Spirit like we are going to see in verse 18 is not being baptized into the body of Christ.

We studied this a while back when we took a couple of messages to study baptism. But one verse right here will help us. Some of you will remember this verse. In 1 Corinthians 12, verse 13 Paul says, "For in one Spirit," that's the Holy Spirit, "we were all baptized into one body." And he goes on to say, "Jews are Greek, slaves are free." And he says, "All, all were made to drink of one Spirit." Here we see that all who are converted to Christ, those who believe in Christ savingly, both the Jew and the Gentile, slave or free, that's just Paul's way of saying all.

He says all that are savingly converted to Christ, they are spiritually immersed or baptized into Christ and into one body, that's the church. It is Christ who is the one who baptizes the believer and it is Christ who immerses the believer into this one body and that is the church. So being filled with the Spirit like we see here in verse 18, it's not the same thing as being baptized in the body of Christ. And being filled with the Spirit like we're going to see in verse 18 is not the indwelling Spirit in the believer. We see this in numerous, numerous places in the Scriptures but I will mention just two.

In John chapter 14 verse 16, Jesus told his disciples that he would give the Helper, capital H, Helper, that's the Spirit, and that he would be with them forever. Of course, this Helper is the Holy Spirit which takes up residence in all believers. In fact, Paul says in Romans chapter 8 verse 9 that if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that one does not belong to him, they do not belong to Christ. Simply the one that does not have the Spirit is not even a Christian. So being filled with the Spirit is not the indwelling Holy Spirit that all believers possess.

And then also being filled with the Spirit like we're going to see in verse 18 here, it is not the anointing of the Spirit. Now this passage can be confusing and we may not see why it needs to be mentioned. Some of you will remember this passage because Brother Keith has led you through a study of 1 John, he did that a couple of summers ago. But in 1 John chapter 2 verse 21, John says, "But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you.

But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as he has taught you abide in him." Now here we see another work of the Spirit in the life of the believer. The Holy Spirit is the one that anoints the believer with the anointing of the abiding presence of the Spirit, the one who teaches the believer the things of God. And this anointing speaks of a special gifting of the Spirit. And in this verse we can see this special gifting of the Spirit is giving to all believers and is for the purpose of teaching the believer. So being filled with the Spirit is not the same thing as being anointed of the Spirit.

Now next, I want to point out three gross errors that some make. Two of these things are terrible abuses of what it means to be filled with the Spirit, and we have all been affected by these errors in certain ways, maybe more than you know. But first, being filled with the Spirit is not this dramatic, supercharged, emotional one-time event where one is seemingly hit by a lightning bolt from heaven, and as a result this one who has this experience is somehow elevated to some kind of a next level spiritual experience and holiness than only those who have had the same kind of experience understand.

And then second, kind of on the opposite side of the coin here, being filled with the Spirit is not living the Christian life like this lifeless, super spiritual, stoic statue. This is not living the Christian life void of emotions, void of experience, and everything experiential. This is not living the Christian life void of the influence and the leading and the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Both of these errors are extreme abuses of what it means to be filled with the Spirit, and both are different kinds of the same error. Both are very misleading and false.

And the first type of experience, that leads to living the Christian life through wild experiences, ecstatic emotions, and awful unbiblical beliefs. Well the other is lifeless, and its extreme leads to a Christian life that denies the biblical teaching about the Holy Spirit and needed Christian Holy Spirit experiences emotions that are biblical. And both are very different approaches to the Christian life, but they are exactly the same in that both are trying to live and work out the Christian life in the flesh. The first one lives off supercharged, man-centered experiences, emotions, and false beliefs attributed to the work of the Spirit.

And the second lives off knuckled down self-effort, usually fueled by rules and void of legitimate experience and emotions that are associated with the work of the Spirit in the life. But then there's the third. Being filled with the Spirit is not a Christian life that's like stair steps, where one gets higher and higher and higher. Being filled with the Spirit is not like school or college, where one gets there by degrees. God does not give the Holy Spirit out in stages or by degrees. Psalm 334 says that He gives the Spirit without measure.

Well, at this point in the message you might say, "Chris, if none of those things are what it truly means to be filled with the Spirit and they are not, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit?" Well, I'm glad you asked that question, because when you ask things like that, I can just keep preaching. And you know, that's why I'm here this morning. Now to get at what is taught here in these verses, I want to look at three things. Now right in the middle here, we have this command, "Be filled with the Spirit." You can see that in the second part of verse 18. Now I want us to look at the setting.

This would be the actual setting in which Paul gave this command, this teaching. And then I want to look at the actual command. And then next, I want us to look at the results of obeying this command. Now we're not going to get to the results this morning. We're going to spend some time here with this setting. I'm going to spend the majority of our time with this command. Now this will be easy for you to follow me. Now I did not put any information up on the screens this morning, because we're looking at the setting and the command, and there's a lot of other things that follow.

And I'd rather you follow me with your mind and your heart, and you can get that information from me later if you need it. So number one, I want us to look at the setting. Now I want to read verses verse 18. Now to get the setting we've got to go a little further than you know. Look at verse 18 with me. He says, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." Now last week I said that most of these Ephesian believers came from a pagan past where drunkenness and drunkenness which led to debauchery or excessive spiritual living, that was just a normal way of life. They were Gentiles.

They were not Jews, and they were pagans. So living like that was just normal. But there was more to their drunkenness and this excessive sinfulness. Not only were their lives filled with drunkenness and drunkenness that led to debauchery, much of their drunkenness and debauchery was religious or spiritual in nature. A big part of the worship of their pagan gods actually involved drunkenness and debauchery. It would not be a stretch to say that Paul probably had one particular pagan god in mind here. Scholars and historians tell us this. The ancient Greek god Dionysus. And Dionysus was a big part of their culture.

And actually the Romans had Romanized this Greek god and renamed him. And basically this god was the god of wine or the god of agriculture and fertility and wine making. And in worshipping this god Little G, they had these grand multi-day festivals where they would get terribly drunk and sing and wild dancing all throughout the streets, in the fields, and even in the great vineyards. And a big part of these events would be all kinds of sexual immorality and even orgies. And all this drunkenness and this excessive sinfulness was religious or spiritual in nature.

They truly believed that all of this drunkenness and what we would call gross sexual immorality, all this associated with these festivals and worship, they believed that this brought them near to their god. And in their drunken and immoral euphoria, they believed that they were more right with god than a Christian would believe. So it is up against this religious and pagan background that Paul writes these things. Paul was commanding them to leave their pagan past and to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God because these were true Christians. And he was telling them that to be near to god was the opposite of their pagan past.

To be near to god was to actually be filled with the Holy Spirit of God and to not be filled with drunkenness that led to all sorts of debauchery. So the setting here helps us to see this command. It was not just practical, it was religious in nature. And understanding this helps us more than you know. See folks, there's nothing new under the sun. All these lies and false pagan deities and beliefs, all these things have cycled throughout human history. We've seen the same things today. And lots of the cult religions and cultic beliefs, we see the same thing today.

We see people who believe that they can have some kind of a deep spiritual experience or get closer to the spirit world through drunkenness and drug abuse. And that always leads to all types of immorality and excessive sinful living. Really that was at the heart of what went on in the sexual revolution in the late 1950s and 60s. All this free love and drugs and all. Many thought that they could get close to the spirit world through those practices. Well they were getting close to a spirit world, but not a godly spirit world. So number two, I want us to finally get to the command.

Now I'm talking about the command in the second part of the verse. Let's go back to verse 18. He says, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery." We studied the practical side of that command last week. Now we've understood the religious side for them, those Ephesians. And notice here's the command, "But be filled with the spirit." Now we finally get to the command. This is at the heart of the teaching here. We already know what this filling of the spirit is not. We have seen in the scriptures this is not other works or functions of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life.

And this is not one of those terrible errors or mistakes that so many believe it means. And for us to begin to understand this command, we need to look at what the verse says in two ways. Now I want us to look at this verse in reverse by asking two questions. First, what is this spirit? You will notice in your English translation that it does not say Holy Spirit, but it says Spirit and it is capitalized. I mention this because there are some who say that this does not refer to the Holy Spirit but to the human spirit. Some scholars say this word in the original can refer to the human spirit as it is affected by the Holy Spirit.

And if you do some study on your own, many of you do, if you even do some listening on your own, you might run across someone who says that this refers to the human spirit as it is affected by the Holy Spirit. But that's not what's intended here. Paul was not speaking of being filled with our spirit as our spirit is affected by the Holy Spirit. He was saying to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is why the English translations that we have capitalized the word Spirit. It's because Paul is referring to the Holy Spirit. So we need to see this is the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, not the Spirit of a man.

Now why is this important? I could have easily not brought this up because of time. I mention this because we must make sure we understand this is the Spirit of God. This is the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And understanding this has a tremendous bearing on what Paul is teaching. But then second, what is this command? Be filled. Now the key to understanding what this means is to understand the language or the construction of the actual verb here. And as I unpack what is seen here in the language, really the light will begin to come on for you. First, this verb is in the present passive imperative.

It is a present passive imperative command. Now let me explain what that means. This simply means that this command has within it a conscience and continuous work. That means this verse can literally be translated, keep on being filled and be kept filled. The Amplified gets at this by saying ever be filled. And notice this looks forward. This looks into the future, not into the past. And then second, this is in what's called the passive voice. This is a passive voice command. This means that this can't come from a person or from within, which means this word cannot be produced by a man.

Well, that means that this verse can literally be read, let yourselves keep on being filled and be kept filled. And notice this verse does not say you go fill yourself. Paul is saying let yourselves be filled and keep on being filled. And then third, this is an imperative command, which means this is not some type of a suggestion. This is not an option. This is a command and it must be seen as a command and it is meant for all believers. So notice the meaning of the verse can read this. All of you who are believers, let yourselves keep on being filled and keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

But besides understanding the construction of the language, we need to know the actual meaning of the word filled. Really the meaning of the word filled here, it has many layers. When we think of what this word means, filled, we can think of filling something up, you know, like filling up a cup of coffee. Some of you filled up a cup of coffee this morning. You might think about filling up a glass of water or filling up a swimming pool. We know what that means. Well that is one correct way of understanding the meaning of the word. But scholars tell us that this word was used in three other ways.

This word filled was used to speak of the wind when it filled the sail of a ship or a boat. When the sail of that ship or boat was filled with the wind, then that ship, that boat could be on its way, it could be guided along. This word also was used to speak of something that was being soaked or saturated, like when meat was preserved with salt, and that was a big deal in that society. For a meat to be preserved, it had to be saturated. It had to be permeated totally with that salt to preserve it. This word was also used to speak of being in total control.

When a person was or is under the control of an emotion, well this can be seen when someone is filled with anger or fear or joy, they are under control of that emotion. Well I know that's a lot. But look at how all of this comes together to help us understand what it means to be filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. Yes, when one is filled with the Holy Spirit of God, there is a sense in which they are filled up. But when one is filled with the Spirit, they are also filled like wind fills the sail of a boat, and they are carried along by the guidance of the Spirit of God.

Also when one is filled with the Spirit, they are also saturated or permeated with the Spirit of God, and everything in their life, really all of their being is affected by the Spirit of God. Again, when one is filled with the Spirit, they are also totally controlled with the Spirit, just like one may be filled with and controlled by anger or rage or revenge. Now many times I reference other Bible translations, occasionally I did this morning, I'll reference the Amplified, which is a paraphrase. Now I'm going to reference another paraphrase. This is the CSDA paraphrase, the Chris Shepherd double amplified paraphrase.

It would be totally accurate to say and explain and describe verse 18, just like this. Now listen close. Piles saying, "All of you who are believers, let yourselves be filled with the Holy Spirit of God, and let yourselves keep on being filled with the Spirit of God. Let the Spirit of God fill you so that you may be steered and guided all of the days of your life by the Spirit. And let the Spirit of God fill you so that your whole life and your very being may be permeated and saturated by the effect of the Spirit of God.

Let the Spirit of God fill you so that you may be under the total control of the Spirit of God all of the days of your life." That's exactly what the verse says. So if we have grasped what I put before you, we see what it means to be filled with the Spirit. And look, for all of us, we need to go back and let this marinate. We need to soak in this. We need to pray over this. But at this point in time, we've got to ask a few questions. Does what we're looking at here in verse 18 and how all of this comes out, does this describe your life? Let's be honest here.

Are we filled with the Spirit of God so that every area of our lives are saturated and affected by the Spirit of God? We might not understand what salted meat is like, but I'll tell you, we know what fried food is like. We love it. And you know, if you've got a good piece of fried chicken, every part of that chicken is saturated and permeated with what? Grease. Yeah. You eat that piece of fried chicken and I'm telling you, an hour later, you can still taste that grease all the way down to the bone. That's what makes it good, right? But here's my question.

Are we filled with the Spirit of God so that every area of our lives, really all of our being is saturated and affected by the Spirit of God? We've got to ask that question. Are we filled so that our lives are so permeated by the Spirit of God that our lives are guided by the Spirit of God? You know, we get in a boat and it has a motor. But we understand what a boat or a ship is like with a sail. You know, the wind hits that sail and the wind fills that sail and oh, the ship can sail. It can be guided. It can go out into the water. And so are we filled in such a way where we are guided and blown by the Spirit of God in our lives?

And are we filled to the point that we are totally controlled by the Spirit of God? We know what it's like when someone's life is controlled by something. Alcohol, drugs, anger, frustration, bitterness, oh, the list can go on and on. And when someone's life is controlled by those things, we know what that's like. And are we filled with the Spirit to the point where our lives are totally controlled by the Spirit? Well, if we cannot say yes, we must ask why. We really must ask why in a bigger way than you know. Now at this point, we need to ask two more questions.

These are very practical and much needed if we're truly going to be filled with the Spirit and keep on being filled with the Spirit. Now the first question, the one that we've got to get to, how? First, how are we filled with the Spirit? We clearly see that we are commanded to be filled with the Spirit and the fact that we must have God to do this work in us. So how? Where do we start? If you're like me, I've got to know the how. Usually I like pictures. First and foremost, we must see we have the need. We've got to start with the need.

If we are not filled with the Spirit like we see here in verse 18, then we are living in spiritual weakness. If we are not filled with the Spirit, then we are living in spiritual defeat. And if we have lived without the Spirit for a long period of time continuously not having the Spirit of God filling our lives, then we are spiritually undeveloped. We are in the tour as a believer, even maybe backwards as a believer. You know, if we've lived like this for a long period of time, we may even be spiritually retarded. That's a harsh word, but it's true. So first and foremost, we must see that we have this great, great, great need to be filled.

If we've been ignorant here, well, you're not ignorant anymore. Now, at this point, I want to give you four responsibilities that we have from the Scriptures. As a matter of fact, some of you are familiar with, you have this resource, the Bible commentator William McDonald. I ran across this this week and I used some of it and some other influences, some other writing. It's a little bit of mine as well. But some of you are going to study this and you should and you'll see what he says here. But we are responsible to engage in four works so that we can be filled with the Spirit.

So if you're asking how, how can I be filled, you need to take this down. Number one, we must confess all known sin. Number one, we must evaluate our lives and confess all known sin. First John verses, first John chapter one, verses eight and nine says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Verse nine says, "If we confess our sins, he," that's God, "is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Here we see that if we say that we do not have sin, we are deceiving ourselves.

But with God's help we can recognize our sin and then we can come to the place of confessing our sin to God and we can be confident, confident that God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from our sin. Let me say this to you. I didn't have this in my notes. Some of you here are dealing with deep, grievous sin, unspeakable things you've done. When you come to faith in Christ Jesus, those sins can be forgiven. You're carrying a deep, dark burden over grievous sin.

You are never going to get that burden off of you until you come to faith in Christ, you're born of God and the Scripture says God is faithful and just, faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. You can be gloriously free. But here in this verse we see that if we say we do not have sin, we deceive ourselves. But with God's help we can recognize our sin and confess our sin to God and we can be confident that God will forgive us of our sin. But look, confession requires repentance, which means to turn from that sin and confession and repentance require restitution sometimes. That means restitution must be made where it is needed.

So with God's help we can recognize our sin and we can confess our sin so as to be filled with the Spirit. And then number two, we must empty ourselves before God. Number two, we must empty ourselves before God and to God. Galatians 2 verse 20, Paul says that I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. He says, "In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me." And here we see that if we're going to be filled we must be emptied, you see. And spiritually speaking this makes perfect sense.

Paul says that if we reckon ourselves as empty and we do the work of emptying ourselves of sin and self in all things that pertain to sin and self in the world, then and only then can we be filled. You may point out that Paul never mentions being filled as he's writing here in Galatians when he's talking about being emptied. But yes he does, he is saying that the life that is lived by faith in the Son of God is truly the Spirit-filled life. So we see that we must empty ourselves of ourselves so as to be filled with the Spirit. And then number three, we must surrender ourselves to God for the work.

Number three, we must surrender ourselves to God for the work. Galatians 12 verse 1, Paul says, "I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship or active worship." Here we see that to be filled the believer must present their bodies even their entire lives to God as a living sacrifice, you see. And this surrender means the surrender of the believer's body, of the believer's mind, of the believer's will, of the believer's abilities and resources and time and talent, really every part of the life.

So we must see that we must surrender all of ourselves totally completely to God so as to be filled with the Spirit. And then number four, we must allow the Word of God to dwell richly in us. We must allow the Word of God to dwell richly in us. Paul says in Colossians 3, 16, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God." And here Paul tells us that to have Christ inhabiting our lives, that takes place by allowing the Word to take up residence in our lives. And notice the connections Paul makes here.

Paul connects the Word to Christ and Christ in the Word to this dwelling and this inhabiting. He seems to be saying that for Christ to inhabit the believer, it starts by allowing the Word of God to inhabit the heart and the life. So here we see that we must allow a work of God to allow the Word to richly inhabit our hearts and our lives so as to be filled with the Spirit. And look at what we have before us. When we ask how can we be filled with the Holy Spirit, and we should be asking that question, these four points of instruction from the Scripture, these four points are secrets, they're keys to unlocking the door to being filled.

Look, some of you are holding on to sin. Some of you have held, you are really a believer and you've held on to sin. Look the door is shut and bolted. You know what the bolt is? The sin that you love. And you can't be filled because you're holding on to that sin. Some of you are not empty. Your life is cluttered and full. You know what it means for a room to be cluttered and full, when the house is a mess, it's cluttered and full. You can't walk from one side of the room without coming over all kinds of obstacles.

Some of your lives are not empty, they're cluttered, they're full with all kinds of stuff, sin, self, and just the world and just life. Some of you can't be filled because you're not surrendered to God for the work. You're just not surrendered. You've got areas of your life that you like to be in control of, the door is closed, the window is shut. And some of you are not filled because you're not letting the word richly dwell in you. Look, to let the word richly dwell in you, you've got to study the word and read the word and know the word. Don't say you don't have time because we all watch plenty of television.

And as a result of this, as a true Christian, what? You're weak, you're blind, you're immature, you're even retarded spiritually. That's a harsh word today, but that's exactly what some of you are because what? You're not living filled with the Spirit. Well then second, this question is just as important as the one that we've just asked. Can we as Christians hinder the work? This question is more important than you know. Can a believer hinder or even prevent this feeling of the Spirit? The answer is yes. And there are three small portions of Scripture that show us that we as Christians can indeed hinder and even prevent the Word.

Number one, believers can reject the Holy Spirit. Yes, believers can reject the work of the Spirit in the life, the feeling of the Spirit. And we see this in the case with some of the Galatian believers. Now this is where I want you to turn back to Galatians chapter 3 verses 1 to 5. Now I get you to turn back here because there are some of you that do not think that the Spirit can be rejected like this. Galatians chapter 3 verses 1 to 5. Paul says, "Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" That means to cast a spell over you. Let me give you the background here.

These Galatian Christians had come to faith in Christ by faith and there were some who had come in behind Paul and they were teaching them to live out the Christian life by the works of the law. And he's saying, "Who has bewitched you?" It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. In other words, Paul preached Christ crucified to them. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? What is he saying? You came to faith in Christ not by hearing the law but by hearing the gospel and you came by faith. Are you so foolish?

Verse 3, "Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected or sanctified by the flesh?" What is he saying? You're trying to sanctify yourself by works. Did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed was it in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Now here we see that there were some genuine believers in the Galatian church. They had begun their Christian journey by faith and in the Spirit, but they had turned to works of the law. This simply means that they were seeking to grow in their faith.

They were seeking to be sanctified not by and through the working and the filling of the Spirit in their life, but by their own religious works. So here in this verse, Paul is clearly showing that these true believers, they rejected and believers can reject the filling and the working of the Spirit in their life. I have known people like this. They come to faith in Christ and they think that there's straight theology. Oh the doctrines that they love, oh the rules that they have for their lives for sanctification. They come to faith in Christ by faith, but yet their doctrine and their theology and how they live out their life is scripted out.

They think that's what's going to sanctify them and what are they doing? They are rejecting the work of the Spirit in their life. Those people are always mean. They're legalists. They don't edify you. They condemn you. At first you think you can't measure up when you're around them because they can perform, but then after a while you start to realize, no they're condemning. Number two, the believers can grieve the Holy Spirit. We've seen that believers can reject the Spirit. Here we need to see that believers can grieve the Holy Spirit.

Yes, believers can grieve the person and the filling of the Holy Spirit and we see this in the book of Ephesians. We read this and studied this a little while back in Ephesians 4 verse 30. Paul says, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." And here in verse 30 and the surrounding verses we see that the Holy Spirit of God is grieved when the believers refuse to put their past life behind them and when they continue in sin. Here the Holy Spirit's personhood is clearly seen in that He can be grieved. This means that the Holy Spirit can be distressed. He can be offended.

The Spirit can be afflicted with sorrow. The Spirit is grieved in a believer's life when they hold on to sin. The Spirit is grieved in a believer's life when they have gross sin. The Spirit of God is grieved in a believer's life when they hold on to anger. The Spirit of God is grieved in a believer's life when they have these sinful thoughts and desires that no one knows and they hold on to them. The Spirit of God is grieved in a believer's life when they neglect their spiritual walk. I could keep going on. And then number three, believers can also quench the Holy Spirit. We see that a believer can reject the Holy Spirit.

We see that a believer can grieve the Holy Spirit. But yes, a believer can quench the working and the filling of the Holy Spirit in the life. First Thessalonians 5.19 Paul says, "Do not quench the Spirit." Here in this instruction Paul is using language that speaks of putting out a fire. Well, the fire, it may be put out or it may be fed or nurtured. You understand the two. So it is with the filling and the controlling of the Spirit and the life. Paul is saying that the filling and the work of the Spirit should be encouraged. It should be fed. It should be nurtured. If not, the Spirit can be quenched. Now how is it quenched?

The same way it's grieved. You see? It's really saying the same thing two different ways. So we clearly see that the Spirit of God and the work of the filling of the Spirit of God in the life of the believer, it can be outright rejected. It definitely can be grieved and the Spirit of God can certainly be quenched. And the opposite should be the norm of every believer. Yes. Paul says that the believer should be filled, guided, saturated and controlled by the Spirit. He says in Galatians 5.16, notice how similar this language is. He says that the believer should walk by the Holy Spirit. So my question for you is this.

Are you quenching and grieving the Spirit? Have you downright rejected the Spirit because you think you can walk with God by your rules and your doctrine and your theology? Anything this man made? Now at this point I want to begin to wrap things up. We're looking at this command to be filled with the Spirit. We know who the Holy Spirit is. This Spirit is the Holy Spirit of God. And we know what this filling truly is. This filling is a believer's life that is totally saturated by the person of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Therefore the believer is guided by the Spirit. They're controlled by the Spirit. They're filled with the Spirit.

And we have seen how we may seek to be filled with the Spirit. We have seen that we can hinder, we can even reject the Spirit and its filling, but we see how we can get the help of God in this work. And I want to do this so I'm going to go back to my double amplified paraphrase. Verse 18 literally reads, says and means this, "All of you, all of you who are believers, let yourselves be filled with the Holy Spirit and let yourselves keep on being filled with the Spirit of God. Let the Holy Spirit of God fill you so that you may be steered and guided all of the days of your life by the Spirit.

Let the Spirit of God fill you so that your whole life and your very being may be permeated by the effects of the Spirit of God. Let the Spirit of God fill you so that you may be totally controlled by the Spirit of God every day of your life." Now two things as I wrap up the message. Look at how all this comes together. When we hear the gospel of our salvation and we believe in Christ Jesus, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit of God, Ephesians 1, 13, 14. When we savingly believe in Christ, we are baptized by Christ into the body which is His church, 1 Corinthians 12, 13.

When we are converted to Christ, we have this indwelling Spirit of God within us. Romans 8, 9 says that if we do not have the Spirit, we do not belong to Him. But unless we are filled with the Spirit and unless we live day to day allowing ourselves to be filled and continue to be filled, well we are living in spiritual weakness, we are living in immaturity, we are living in a level of defeat and frustration and look we may even be living in sin. And if this continues, we are living in spiritual immaturity which continues and ultimately it can lead to spiritual retardation. What did Paul say to the Corinthians?

Yeah you are spiritually retarded. Now look, this feeling of the Spirit, this is the key to living the Christian life. You know honest frustration as I was studying this all week, I thought this is the key, why didn't Paul start the beginning of the practical section with this verse? The practical section starts at chapter 4, I thought if this is the key why didn't he start there? Well, God didn't lead him to start there. But what am I trying to show you? This feeling of the Spirit that we have here, this is the key to living the Christian life here folks.

If we do not have this feeling well, we are living the Christian life through some type of self effort. We are seeking to live the Christian life by our religion or rules by a whole host of ways and it is all the same, it is self effort. Now this morning what have we looked at? It's a lot but the title comes right out of the verse, Be Filled with the Spirit. My challenge for you this morning is this, take what we have studied and you go to your prayer time, you go to your study and you study over this and study over this and pray over this until you are confident that you are filled as you should be in walking in that feeling.

So let's pray and we will commit these things to the Lord.