We're going to read together, um, from chapter
4 and through into chapter 5.
Ephesians 4, verse 17, I'm going to read
for you from my usual old-fashioned version,
the 1881 revised version, which, uh, is fairly
rare nowadays, but happens to be a version
that I, I like and enjoy and find
accurate.
Ephesians 4, 17, follow it in your own,
in your own Bibles.
This I say therefore, and testify in the
Lord, that you no longer walk as the
Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their
mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from
the life of God because of the ignorance
that is in them, because of the hardening
of their heart, who being past feeling, gave
themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness
with greediness.
But you did not so learn Christ.
If so be that you heard him and
were taught in him, even as truth is
in Jesus.
That you put away as concerning your former
manner of life, the old man which waxeth
corrupt, after the lusts of deceit.
And that you be renewed in the spirit
of your mind, and put on the new
man, which after God hath been created in
righteousness and holiness of truth.
Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each
one with his neighbor, for we are members
one of another.
Be ye angry, and sin not.
Let not the sun go down upon your
wrath, neither give place to the devil.
Let him that stole, steal no more.
But rather, let him labor, working with his
hands the thing that is good, that he
may have whereof to give to him that
hath need.
Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your
mouth, but such as is good for edifying
as the need may be, that it may
give grace to them that hear.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,
in whom you were sealed unto the day
of redemption.
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamor, and railing, be put away from you
with all malice.
And be ye kind, one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving each other, even as God also in
Christ forgave you.
Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved
children.
And walk in love, even as Christ also
loved you, and gave himself up for us
an offering and a sacrifice to God, for
an odor of a sweet smell.
But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let
it not even be named among you, as
becometh saints.
Nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, or jesting, which
are not befitting, but rather, giving of thanks.
For this you know of a surety, that
no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man,
which is an idolater, hath any inheritance in
the kingdom of God and of Christ.
Let no man deceive you with empty words.
For because of these things cometh the wrath
of God upon the sons of disobedience.
Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
For ye were once darkness, but are now
light in the Lord.
Walk as children of light.
For the fruit of the light is in
all goodness and righteousness and truth.
Proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works
of darkness, but rather even reprove them.
For the things which are done by them
in secret, it is a shame even to
speak of.
But all things, when they are reproved, are
made manifest by the light.
For everything that is made manifest is light.
Wherefore he said, Awake thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine
upon thee.
Look therefore carefully how you walk.
Not as unwise, but as wise.
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what
the will of the Lord is.
And be not drunken with wine, wherein is
riot.
But be filled with the Spirit.
Speaking one to another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs.
Singing and making melody with your heart to
the Lord.
Giving thanks always for all things in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God,
even the Father.
Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear
of Christ.
Our Father we pray that you would give
that illumination into these paragraphs for our own
learning, our understanding and our growth.
We've read here that Christ shall shine upon
us.
Grant it be so now, in the time
that we have together.
For Jesus' sake.
Amen.
We looked very briefly yesterday at something of
the structure of the epistle to the Ephesians.
First of all, God's purpose in creation.
His purpose rested in His heart way back
in eternity.
We do not live in a purposeless universe.
We're not just drifting round in space, coming
back through the same kind of place again
and again, drifting on.
There is a direction in history.
But it's not simply and merely modernization of
things so that we gradually evolve into with
a little bit deeper understanding of the way
we are.
We don't just move from wood fires to
microwave ovens.
The purpose in history, in God's might, which
will prevail, is that one day God should
have gathered up together in fellowship with Himself
a group of perfected sons and daughters who
were there by choice.
We saw too, then, a little of the
mission of Christ on earth.
God Himself come as Messiah to take that
great eternal purpose one significant step forward.
In chapter 2, verses 13 to 17, Christ
came to make a new man.
A being never seen before, out of Jew
and Gentile.
He came to preach peace, verse 17.
Verses 21 and 22, He came that a
temple might be built.
A holy temple in the Lord, in whom
you also are built together for a habitation
of God in the Spirit.
And then we come now into this third
section of the epistle, in which Paul is
writing about the new man, filled with the
Spirit of God.
And so we read at the end of
those previous verses, in chapter 4, verses 14
-15, that we should no longer be children,
tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine.
Verse 15, that we should grow up in
all things, into Him which is the head,
even Christ.
And so our focus in this final section
of Ephesians is on our growth as children
of God.
How to grow up into spiritual maturity.
How to live lives that are supernatural, filled
with God's Holy Spirit.
How now to live as God intended us
to live.
And you'll notice in the verses that we
read, reference again and again to how you
walk.
Verse 17 of chapter 4, no longer walk
as the Gentiles walk.
Chapter 5, verses 8, 9 and so on,
now walk as children of the light.
Chapter 5, verse 2, walk in love, even
as Christ also loved you.
One of the great steps forward as a
child is growing up, is when it learns
to walk.
You've seen perhaps even around the conference centre,
little kids learning to walk.
One of my best memories of this whole
conference is of your son, Stuart, little David.
And early in the conference, George was up
here preaching, the place was packed out with
people.
This little lad comparatively recently learned to walk.
And he walked up to the front and
he stood there, looking up at George.
And then he looked around at the crowd,
because the whole concentration had gone from George.
And they were all gazing at this little
fella.
And then he turned around and he found
a few hymn books and a few hymn
sheets.
And he started throwing papers around, one or
two things, wobbling about on his legs.
And then his mother came and whisked him
away.
Learned to walk, enjoying it.
I remember when my kids learned to walk.
Gone the days of clawing their way up,
holding on to the furniture.
Now, walk, wobbling along.
Life was entering a wholly new dimension.
They could now walk.
In the supermarket they could walk off, disappear.
Go around behind the tins of baked beans
when you were walking among the cheeses.
They were losable.
No longer did you just push them around
where you wanted in a little four-wheel
trolley.
Now they had independence.
Now they could go into different rooms in
the house and destroy things.
Life was becoming much more exciting, because they
had learned to walk.
And so it's, it's small wonder that the
moment Paul begins to talk about our growth,
that we'd be no longer children, tossed to
and fro.
That he begins to think about how we
walk.
And the structure of this section of Ephesians
I suggest to you, is Trinitarian, again.
We're going to be asked to think about
first God, and then Christ, and then the
Holy Spirit.
Because, well you can tell a great deal
about a person, by the way they walk.
You watch people walk up and down corridors,
walk up and down the stairs, people walking
in the streets.
You can tell much about them, just by
watching the way they walk.
You can tell how they think about themselves.
I've seen people walking around this conference, completely
shrunken in upon themselves.
Others striding along, you can hardly get them
to stop.
You know, you want them to do something
and, and, excuse me.
Other people, when they're walking towards you and
you're, you better get out of the way,
because they're coming right through.
The express train down the main line.
Other people, as they walk, are completely aware
of folks going on.
Watch how people walk.
I'll be very careful when I walk off
the platform at the end of this.
God's purpose is that we grow up to
be like him.
The key verse for us today, Be, therefore,
imitators of God, as his beloved children.
Imitate God.
Now from verse seventeen to thirty-two, at
the end of chapter four, he's going to
be talking about imitating God, but at the
back of his mind, is God as we
see him in Genesis.
And particularly, Genesis chapter three.
He begins by saying that we should put
off the old man, and put on the
new man, which after God, verse twenty-four,
has been created in righteousness.
You are a new creation.
You are not to be as you used
to be.
Do not walk as the Gentiles.
And then he picks out certain characteristics of
fallen man, fallen man in Genesis, and says
now do not walk this way.
Verse eighteen, they were darkened in their understanding.
Why was that?
Because of the ignorance that was in them,
because their heart had become hardened.
Adam and Eve allowed their hearts to become
hardened towards God.
Cain's heart was hardened towards his brother.
Lamech began to boast and sing pop songs
about how he killed a man, in Genesis
chapter four.
Their hearts became hard towards God.
And so they walked in ignorance and darkness.
Verse nineteen we read of people who are
now past feeling, and they give themselves up
to lasciviousness, to sensuality.
They're cut off from the life of God.
You remember how Adam was ejected from the
garden, and an angel was placed at the
entrance, with a sword that turned every which
way, so that he would not be able
to eat of the tree of life.
I imagine that Adam had been placed in
that garden, told not to eat of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
but every other tree of the garden he
was encouraged to eat of.
Including presumably the tree of life.
I believe that Adam left, if he'd lived
in obedience, would have lived forever, because he
would have eaten.
And God says at the end of chapter
three, that he no longer wants man to
be able to live in the garden, because
he would continue to eat of that tree.
They shall be like us, they will live
forever, ever.
And so he was driven out of the
garden, so that there's no longer access to
that tree of life.
Now we read that they're alienated from the
life of God.
Because of the darkness of their own hearts.
And they give themselves up to uncleanness.
You remember how things began to degenerate in
Genesis.
You reach chapter six, and finally God looks
down on mankind, and sees that the imagination
of their hearts is only evil continually.
Only one man finds grace in the eyes
of the Lord, in Genesis chapter six.
They are going corrupt.
That word is used again and again in
Genesis chapter six.
And here in Ephesians four, Paul says, that
they were waxing corrupt after the lusts of
desire.
But you are to live as a new
creation, created after the likeness of God.
You are to live as Adam failed to
live.
And in the next few verses from 25
to the end of the chapter, Paul will
pick out five characteristics of God himself, that
are to be our characteristics, as we grow
up showing this hereditary likeness.
The first one is in 25 itself.
Verse 25, you are to speak the truth.
Simply that.
The first characteristic of God as we look
at it in, as we look at God
in Genesis chapter three, is that his word
is absolutely true.
What a contrast to Satan's word.
Satan had come to Eve and said, you
will not surely die, you will become like
God.
Lies.
God's word is unalterably, unbreakably true.
That ought to be one of the greatest
single facts, principles of your entire life.
If God's word were not true, where would
your salvation be?
Where would you have security?
How could you ever hope to live another
day, if God's word were not to be
relied on, to be true in your experience?
Would you have any hope of salvation, if
God could turn against you?
If God could deny his own word?
Human words slap and break.
We promise people one thing and we do
another.
I wonder how many of you have come
from the background of broken marriages.
Your own parents have split up.
There was a time where they stood perhaps
in a church, or even in a civil
ceremony, and promised to love one another.
Promised to care and cherish for one another.
And how long did those promises last?
Year, three years, five years, fifteen, twenty years,
but eventually they broke.
Eventually that promise solemnly given was torn up,
and their word was no longer binding.
God will keep his word for all eternity.
The things that God said to Adam and
to Eve in the garden, have proved to
be true down through the generations.
Our whole salvation, our security this day, our
dependence upon the grace of God, upon the
strength of God.
You're launching out in this coming year.
You're going to the places that God has
led you to.
It all absolutely depends upon God's unbreakable word.
The entire leadership of OM, that you may
be beginning to trust a little bit, could
all prove to be worthless.
God will never break his word.
And we are to learn to speak the
truth, with one another.
Verse twenty-nine, let no corrupt speech proceed
out of your mouth.
One of the great marks of growing up
to be like God, is this very simple
matter, that my word is trustworthy.
I speak what is true.
Do you grow up to be like God?
Can people rely on your word?
And the second thing, in verse twenty-six,
is that we should not let the sun
go down on our rock.
Another very simple practical area.
In Genesis chapter three, Adam and Eve had
sinned against God.
What did God do?
Did he leave them feeling guilty, feeling upset,
feeling troubled?
Did he leave them for a few days
to stew in their own juice, as we
say?
No, God came immediately.
God, a God of judgment, a God of
wrath, a God who is going to point
out their sin and to discipline them.
But he comes immediately.
You know, it's very easy to be made
angry in OM.
Angry by what other people say, by the
way they let you down, by how the
expectations that you have of them are not
fulfilled.
What are you going to do about the
anger problem?
Be angry.
Anger is a part of normal Christian experience.
But don't sin.
And do not let the sun go down
on your rock.
This is not easy.
This is not easy for married men and
women particularly.
How many times do we sometimes go to
sleep grumpy?
Pull the bedclothes over us.
Not speaking to you.
Dangerous.
You won't sleep properly.
Anger destroys peace of heart, destroys sleep, destroys
appetite, destroys work.
If you're going to grow up to be
like God, one of the things you have
to learn to do is not let the
sun go down on rock.
Deal with it immediately.
God did.
Immediately they heard the sound of the Lord
God walking in the garden in the cool
of the day.
They hid themselves and God came, found them,
called them out.
God took the initiative in making peace.
God went to them and healed the breach.
This is why the Lord can say, you
know, if you've got something against someone, deal
with it.
If necessary, go to them.
Begin to take the initiative to make peace
as God did.
God came and found them.
Hiding, cowering, shivering behind their fig leaves.
Don't let the sun go down on your
rock.
It's a mark of God's own character.
And then thirdly, verse 27, give no place
to the devil, says Paul.
Again he's thinking of Genesis chapter 3.
Don't allow Satan in.
Don't allow him to start whispering those slimy
words in your ear that twist your attitudes,
that make you jealous, that make you envious,
that make you want what someone else has.
Don't even give place to the devil.
If only Eve had resisted Satan, he would
have fleed from her.
If only she had been absolutely bolted and
barred in her own mind, she would not
give even a toehold to the evil one.
She would not listen, she would not discuss,
she would not be in conversation with him.
How different might the history of the world
have been.
Give no place whatever to Satan.
And then fourthly, another mark of the character
of God, as Paul thinks back to Genesis
3, is that we should simply work hard.
It sounds tremendously mundane, doesn't it?
Very down to earth.
Let him that stole steal no more, rather
let him learn to work.
If you're going to grow up to be
an imitator of God, be a worker.
It's one of the very first things that's
said of God in the Bible, that God
is a worker.
He's pictured as creating, as making, as working
six days, as then resting one day.
The whole pattern of life's work is established
by God, by himself, by his own example
in chapter one.
Desperately easy in Christian work to become lazy.
God is a worker.
When Jesus Christ came incarnate to this planet,
he lived as a worker for thirty years.
He worked as a carpenter.
He says, my father worked, and therefore I
still work.
The Holy Spirit is pictured for us as
the one who comes alongside the paraclete and
literally helps us do the work.
We are to be fellow workers with God.
Work is a great thing.
It's part of the dignity of being human
that we can work.
In the Old Testament days the Pharisees, as
well as becoming teachers of the law, were
taught a trade.
They became leather workers or copper workers.
You know of one particular one who was
trained up to be a tent maker.
The man actually who wrote this epistle.
They were given work to do.
There is something extremely godly about doing practical
work and doing it well for many hours
of the day.
Actually, far more dangerous to your Christian life
than working is sitting in meetings like this.
You can become completely up to here with
spiritual teaching.
You become bilious with it.
You get frustrated with so many ideals.
What you need to do is get out
and do a bit of washing.
Work, because that is godly.
God allows himself to be pictured in Scripture
as a worker.
So, as you grow up to be an
imitator of God, work with your hands, that
thing which is good that you may have
whereof to give to him.
And then the fifth mark, characteristic mark of
godly character developing is that you should put
away malice, bitterness, anger, clamour and instead give
yourself to forgiveness.
What is it that broke out between Adam
and Eve the moment they got detected in
sin?
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep,
beep, beep.
If it wasn't for that woman that you've
given me.
Don't know this would have happened.
The serpent beguiled me.
Yakety yak.
They're immediately blaming each other.
And so it has been down through the
history of human relationships.
How quick we are to blame someone else.
How slow we are often to choose the
path of being kind, tender hearted and forgiving.
But God is forgiving.
How kind is God in Genesis chapter 3?
He comes to them.
They need to hear cleansing words.
They need to have the sense that they
are still valuable to God.
They need to have a little bit of
God's time that he forgive and he redirect.
And God is kind, tender hearted, forgiving, making
them clothes, telling them where they've gone wrong,
giving them some new disciplines to live under,
but also giving them promises for the future.
Tremendous, glorious promises that one day Satan will
be trodden underfoot.
Do you see how as Paul writes the
end of this chapter, chapter 4, he's got
Genesis 3 in mind when he's talking about
the new creation.
You and I in very practical ways are
to grow up to be like God as
God appears at the time of the first
creation.
And then he goes on to speak in
chapter 5 of the second person of the
Godhead.
You're to be imitators of God as his
beloved children.
You're to walk now in love as Christ
also loved you.
And some new aspects of godliness will begin
to come out as he thinks now of
Christ.
Christ, first of all, gave himself.
Gave himself as a loving sacrifice for us.
We, the unlovable.
I wonder do you ever really see yourself
as God sees you.
God's love is completely different from normal human
love.
We love people that we like because of
what we can see in them because we're
attracted to their face, shape, character, conversation, jokes,
stories, past background, denomination, anything about them.
God loves people who are by definition unlovable.
His heart goes out equally to people whether
they deserve his love or not.
To really begin to understand that can start
a revolution of security in your own thinking.
You know we often think that God will
love us more if we do certain things
for him.
He'll love us more if we go out
on a weekend team.
He'll love us more if we lead somebody
to Christ in our first month on evangelism
on a team.
He'll love us more if we have a
consistently good quiet time every morning.
You may be sitting next to somebody who
had absolutely no devotional time with God this
morning.
They meant to but somehow it didn't work
out.
They lingered over breakfast talking to somebody.
They got up a little bit late.
They didn't feel like it.
They had two or three things to get
done before they came.
If you preach a heavy message on having
a consistent life privately with God, they're going
to be under the seat by the end
of the message with guilt and conviction.
And that person can easily think that God
doesn't love them so much today.
As the person who's been up since six
without an alarm clock and has been on
their knees before God in a glory hallelujah
time they've got a little bit of heaven
now lodged in their heart.
You know God loves you both equally.
Exactly the same.
God loves you whether you think you're lovable
or not.
And more than that God will give himself
up for you.
As a sacrifice.
Christ has come and given himself up for
people who can go years without understanding his
word.
Who don't care to listen to him too
much in the mornings.
People who are stubborn.
People who are lazy.
People who are hard hearted and not very
good at forgiving each other.
People who may take the rest of their
life even to begin to understand the second
half of chapter four.
Christ will still give himself up for you.
A sacrifice.
A sweet smell that has come up to
God.
Do you think that Paul is still thinking
about Genesis?
Maybe perhaps Genesis chapter eight, chapter nine.
You remember that sacrifice that Noah made when
he came out from the judgment.
And the aroma of a sacrifice ascended to
God and God gave a promise to all
mankind that never again would he judge because
of the sacrifice.
Men and women were to be eternally secure
from that judgment.
Because of the sacrifice which Noah offered.
And now because of the sacrifice that Christ
has offered all who trust and believe in
him are to be secure in their relationship
with God.
So we are to imitate Christ in giving
ourselves up walking in love and sacrificing our
time our plans, our desires for other people.
Particularly the people that we don't always find
ourselves naturally.
And then Paul will go on to mention
three particular areas where we are to watch
how we walk.
The area of sex, the area of materialism
and the area of the way we speak.
Look between verses three and verse five.
Fornication, covetousness, foolish talking.
In each of these three areas we are
to learn to judge ourselves and to walk
as Christ walked.
Friendship with anybody is a two way thing
isn't it?
Friendship with God is a two way thing.
Have you made any friends at this conference?
Have you got any friends at home?
Are there people that you really care about?
That friendship is a two way business.
You have to take care for what they
want.
What they need.
If you invite someone to come to your
own home.
Maybe we've used this illustration before, you forgive
me.
But supposing I ask Jonathan McCloskey to come
and stay with me for a few days.
He arrives and I say now Jonathan I'm
so pleased to have you.
It's great, you know, we can just spend
some time talking.
But is there anything that you really don't
like to eat?
Any particular food that you can't stand?
And he says, no, no, no, soldier.
Well, well maybe porridge, can't stand porridge.
That slimy, lumpy Scottish stuff.
Can't stand it.
I say fine, say no more.
Breakfast the next morning I give him a
big bowl of steaming porridge.
And then for lunch after we've had a
few peanut butter sandwiches just to keep him
happy.
One of the old faithfuls.
I give him cold porridge left over from
breakfast.
And for tea some slices of congealed porridge
on fried bread.
A further cup of porridge with a spoon.
Now what would he think of our friendship?
He would think I was perhaps trying to
hint something about his stand.
Was porridge.
And I've done nothing but give him what
he has already said he doesn't like.
John 15 verse 14, if you love me
you will keep my commandments.
The Lord says that if we want friendship
with him we must bear in mind what
he wants.
What he needs.
Just as he has given himself up for
us.
In love.
Friendship with God involves you sitting down and
thinking does he want dry days from me
where I rush through without a thought for
him?
Does he want me to live for weeks
on end without hardly bothering about his word?
Does he want me to rush around the
conference completely blinkered thinking only of my own
interests and no time for those of anyone
else?
What does he want?
What would satisfy him?
Am I serving God up cold porridge every
day?
I'm not going to preach at you about
these three areas we talk about them a
certain amount in OM.
The area of sexual self control.
The area of materialism.
The area of the way you speak.
We are to live as children of light.
Just those three areas alone.
If we begin to walk in love to
walk imitating God those three alone will have
an impact in this dark world.
Because I think if you were to try
and pick out three areas where there is
perhaps coming an increasingly great contrast between the
son and daughter of the kingdom of God
who has not yet been born into that
kingdom.
You couldn't have three greater areas of contrast.
And then he goes on let me finish
to talk from verse 15 down to 21
about a life lived under the control of
the Holy Spirit.
This is what I meant by speaking of
this section as Trinitarian instruction.
He asked you to think of how God
is in scripture and now how Christ is.
Walk as a child of light.
And now look carefully how you walk.
Redeeming the time.
Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
A life filled with the Holy Spirit will
be marked by certain characteristics.
One is the productive use of time.
This world is temporary.
What Paul is actually saying here is grab
time like a bargain.
When he says redeem it I don't know
what some of your more modern versions say
but the idea back in the Greek is
that you grab time like a bargain.
I don't know whether you've ever been to
one of these big stores, big department stores
where they're going to have their special sales.
They have seemingly more and more of them
as the years go on.
But often after Christmas they will be selling
goods off at a cheap rate.
Or after the summer holiday they'll be selling
bathing garments cheap.
Have you ever watched early in the morning
at one of these sales where the women
get down there about five o'clock in
the morning they're ready for battle.
January the 1st the doors of this big
store are going to open and these women
are ready.
They've got bricks in their handbags.
He gets complete and they'll get all the
shoes I mean you don't know whether they're
the same shoes, same color they get socks,
plates, cold smoked salmon fishing rods, underwear the
whole lot grab it up because it's cheap.
You've seen them seizing the bargains.
Paul says time you get one chance only.
It's a non-returnable commodity isn't it.
Today you have only once.
You'll never again have the 19th of September
1984.
Grab it.
Use it.
Treat time carefully.
Wisely.
There was a man called Baxter great minister,
preacher in Britain in centuries gone by.
He was supposed to have been a walking
museum of diseases.
He had almost everything wrong that you could
imagine.
He was renowned for his house to house
visiting.
Constantly going around praying with people exhorting them
listening to them encouraging them.
Busy man.
He wrote 128 books.
He wrote something like 35,000 closely printed
pages.
He said I have these 40 years been
sensible that means been aware of the sin
of losing time.
I could not spare one hour.
Scripture speaks strongly about the sluggard the lazy
man in the book of Proverbs.
In Proverbs chapter 13 verse 4 the sluggard
never gets down to a job.
In chapter 20 verse 4 he doesn't plan
ahead.
In chapter 15 verse 19 and chapter 26
verse 13 you can see he's problem orientated
not solution orientated.
He doesn't get up in the morning because
he's afraid there may be a lion out
in the street.
No there may be a lion he might
devour me.
I'm going to stay safe here in bed.
He thinks far more about the possible things
that can go wrong than about what he
wants to achieve and so he achieves nothing.
In chapter 18 verse 9 speaks of him
as a destructive influence.
This year give yourself to using time not
lazily but as the Holy Spirit would lead
you.
And then a second mark of a life
filled with the Spirit is self-control.
Verse 18 be not drunk with wine wherein
is riot loss of self-control uncontrolled behavior
but be filled with the Holy Spirit.
You can see in those closing verses four
marks of the filling of the Holy Spirit.
You become vocal verse 19 You speak one
to another God's work in your heart will
show itself through your mouth.
You also become joyful verse 19 You make
melody with your heart to the Lord.
It's interesting to watch George when he cannot
use his voice because of this operation that
he has.
So he can't sing, he can't pray.
Do you know what he does in prayer
meetings?
He whistles.
I've been in so many prayer meetings recently
where we all break into some song and
George...
and he tunelessly whistles the thing that we're
singing.
Joyful in heart.
You become, verse 20 thankful always giving thanks
to the Father.
Your relationship with God the Father as you
grow up is one of thankfulness.
You know fathers are nearly always delighted by
what their children say to them.
You watch it.
You watch it daddy.
If you have a little six month old
baby this baby looks up lovingly into its
father's eyes just six months just beginning to
learn to recognize father's face from the mass
of all the other faces that peer at
you and go goo goo goo and this
baby will look up and say lovingly to
its daddy mmmmmmm as
they talk back to their little one but
you know if a sixteen year old looked
up at its father and said mmmmm how
do you think the father would feel?
Do you imagine the father talking back in
the same sixteen
year old that talks like that would probably
get a thick ear.
Now friends how is your prayer life growing?
As you speak to God are you still
a baby?
Are you learning to speak to God in
the way that he wants you to speak?
Joyful?
Thankful?
Listening?
Giving thanks always for all things in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God
and the final mark of the filling of
the spirit is that you become humble, submissive.
You ever thought how submissive the three persons
of the Godhead are to one another?
Have you ever noticed in the Gospels how
Christ is always speaking of the greatness of
God.
He speaks with great approval and admiration of
the work of the Holy Spirit and yet
when God the Father speaks he wants you
to appreciate the son.
This is my son in whom I am
well pleased.
He wants to get you to think well
of the other and how each person of
the to the other one.
What a model for human relationships.
Exalting the other, submitting to the other.
This is what goes on within the triune
Godhead and we are to grow up to
be like that to submit to one another
because God himself is submissive.