October 16. 2011

Just about all of us recognize the phrase, “May the Force be with you.” It comes out of the Star Wars movies. In those movies you have an emphasis on technology within the context of spirituality. The Force is this vague, personal power that can be used for good or evil. So when a person really needs help, he hears a voice from nowhere or he sees a phantom like image of someone who can help him. Together they are victorious. Now this is rooted in pagan spirituality which I believe is demonic at its core. If a person hears a voice or sees some image, I believe it is demonically produced.

When we read Scripture we come to understand that God indwells those who know Christ through his Holy Spirit. We don’t need to hear a voice, or see an image. As Paul says, we have the mind of Christ. We have the Holy Spirit in us. So what we do as Christians is always done together with God. And that’s the main point of today’s message. Christians live the Christian life in cooperation with God.

 

I. BE CAREFUL HOW YOU LIVE. Eph.5:15-17

Paul has just been exhorting us to live as children of light. Children of light live lives of goodness, righteousness, and truth. Children of Light expose the fruitless deeds of darkness in this world. In v.15 Paul tells us to be very careful about how we live. We must live according to wisdom.

Living the Christian life doesn’t just happen. In other words, becoming a Christian does not guarantee that we will live a Christian life. There are many who profess to be Christians and their conduct and speech are anything but Christian. Like anything of value, the Christian life requires effort.

William Law, an English devotional writer, lived from 1686-1761. He was the tutor and advisor of Edward Gibbons, the father of Edward Gibbons, the noted historian. Law wrote a book called, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. As Law looked out upon Christian England, he was appalled at the “self-satisfied mediocrity, and arid spiritually” he saw in professing Christians. In his book he writes, “And if you will here stop and ask yourselves why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you, that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.” Is that not what Paul is telling us? We cannot live the Christian life without thoroughly intending to live it, without exercising great care in our living. The late John Stott writes, “...we must take trouble over our Christian life.”

Now this raises red flags for some. Some people hear this and they think we are preaching a salvation by works. Not at all! Salvation is by grace through faith in Christ. I once read a statement by Dallas Willard that helped to clarify this issue for me. He writes, “Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort.” Then he says, “...becoming Christlike never occurs without intense and well-informed action on our part.”

This is why we continually encourage regular Bible reading and prayer. It’s why fasting and practicing solitude and silence can be so helpful. It’s why regular Sunday worship is so valuable. These are intentional activities that we can undertake to help us learn to know God and rely on him more and more. I grew up in conservative evangelicalism, sometimes bordering on fundamentalism. I understand how easy it is for these practices to become legalistic measuring sticks. We usually come out feeling like failures. They are not measuring sticks. We don’t do these things to score points with God. We don’t do these things to manipulate God into answering our prayers. We do these things because they are helpful in living as children of light.

We are also urged to make the most of every opportunity. Literally it says, “redeeming the time.” Once time has passed it is gone forever. You can’t get it back. This is one reason why we want to make good use of our time. But Paul gives another reason. He says we should make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Look, the greatest potential source for good in this world is the church of Jesus Christ. O there are many people who do many good things. But doing good ought to be our specialty as Christians because God is making us genuinely good. We are righteous in Jesus Christ. As long as we live on this earth we want to overcome evil with good.

Paul is not telling us to be busy every moment of the day. He’s saying that in every moment of the day we should be using it to promote goodness, righteousness and truth. So when the days are nice, I like to sit outside on the front porch to play my guitar. It’s downtime for me. But it also gives me a good opportunity to greet any neighbors that might be outside. Any way that I can facilitate a relationship for the cause of Christ is what I’m looking to do, while I relax, playing my guitar. Now don’t think that I’m such a good time manager. I also like to sit at the computer and play cubis. And I enjoy watching hockey & football and mysteries, etc. Again, Paul doesn’t make a law out of this, but he wants us to intentionally be mindful of how we can use our time for Christ and his righteousness.

In v.17 we are again urged to understand what the Lord’s will is. If we are going to live carefully, then we want to know what it is that God wants for us. Most of God’s will for us as Christians is found in the Scripture. The Scripture teaches us how to live in a way that pleases God. But then there are specific questions that many of us have regarding vocation, marriage partners, large purchases, job changes. We want to know what God’s will is for us. The way we learn God’s will in these matters is by prayer, careful thought, and the advice of others. We ask God to show us what he wants for us. If God has something specific to say to us he will make it clear. Otherwise I believe he is leaving it up to us. The important thing is that we seek God on these matters. All of this requires intentional thought and action. This is why we must exercise care in living the Christian life.

 

II. BE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. Eph.5:18-21

I don’t know about you, but Paul’s exhortation about not being drunk on wine, seems to come out of the blue to me. But when we connect it with the next phrase it begins to make a little more sense. Drunkenness causes a person to lose control and impairs sound judgment. One’s reaction time is slowed. When you have to be at the top of your game, you don’t want to be drunk. Paul makes it clear that drunkenness leads to debauchery.

Before I go on, perhaps I should say a word about the use of alcohol. As I read the Bible I do not see a prohibition on the use of alcohol. I do see a prohibition of drunkenness. In Ps.104:14-15 we read, “He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart.” That said, we also read in numerous places that we should be very careful about the use of alcohol. Anything that causes us to lose self-control is dangerous for the Christian. In our society where alcohol is a huge problem, Christians must exercise great care in the use of alcohol. As Chrysostom said, “Wine was given to gladden us, not for intoxication.”

But more important is this command to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You ask, “Well, how do I go about being filled with the Holy Spirit.” Paul doesn’t tell us how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The late Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ published a little pamphlet, explaining how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. At the end is a little prayer asking God to fill us with his Spirit. Surely there is nothing wrong with that. In Lk.11:13 Jesus says, “...how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Of course if you are a believer, the Holy Spirit dwells in you already. One scholar writes, “Fullness expresses unity with the triune God and the completion that God’s salvation brings. The call to be filled with the Spirit is a call to live in that unity and to enjoy the wholeness of life with God.” Our responsibility is to live with an awareness that the Holy Spirit is in us. We live in such a way as to not grieve or ignore the Holy Spirit. We open our hearts to the Holy Spirit as we seek the Lord in prayer and in his word.

Now what does a spirit-filled life look like? A more literal translation of the next four phrases describes a spirit-filled life. We read, “but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is not the only place where Paul describes a spirit filled life. In Galatians we read about the fruit of the Spirit. But one thing we see right off the bat here is that our being filled with the Holy Spirit impacts our relationships with each other in the church.

We encourage each other and teach each other as we speak and sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to each other. How instructive to see that the fullness of the Holy Spirit promotes singing. My sense is that the primary application of this is found in worship. In worship we encourage one another in speaking and singing. You notice that we sing a whole variety of different kinds of songs. And not only are we singing to one another, we are singing to the Lord. He loves to hear us sing. And when we sing Paul points out that we must sing with the heart. Don’t like the song we are singing? God likes it. Don’t appreciate the voice of the person behind you? God appreciates it. God is looking at the heart. So we must sing with our heart.

And then we see that the spirit-filled person will give thanks always and for everything. I do not think Paul is telling us to give thanks for evil or pain. Rather we give thanks for God’s strength in pain and God’s victory over evil. We give thanks in the name of Jesus. We give thanks for that which is consistent with the person and work of Christ. Giving thanks is an act of gratitude and trust. We thank God for his blessings and we thank him for his faithfulness in times of stress.

In v.21 we see that another evidence of a spirit-filled life is a submissive attitude. The context is the local church. Spirit-filled believers submit to one another. In other words, in our relationships in the church, humility, dying to self, and serving each other are foundational. Selfishness and pride are destructive in the local church. Church leaders are accountable to the congregation. The congregation is accountable to the leaders. There is mutual accountability. How this actually works out in any given situation will vary. But we must come at every situation with humility, death to self, and a willingness to serve. We won’t always agree, but should always be able to get along and work together. Our dreams, ideas, personal opinions and feelings about things must be surrendered to the Lord, who is the head of the church.

 

At the beginning of this message I said that Christians live the Christian life in cooperation with God. We put forth effort. We try to carefully walk the pathway of Christ. It doesn’t just happen. We seek to be intentional. But we do this in the power of the Holy Spirit. We yield our hearts and lives to God, trusting the Holy Spirit to work within us, producing his fruit and his unity in the church.

This past Summer, on one of my vacation Sundays, we drove up to Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington. It had been awhile since we went to Willow. It is always impressive. The service was compelling. The message was challenging. Everything was done to perfection. It’s almost too perfect for me. There is no want for equipment, technology, convenience and comfort. Now I am not one who bashes Willow Creek. God has used that Church to accomplish wonderful things for his Kingdom. However, much of what I see there is, to me, a luxury. Would it be great to have all the technology? Well, we could do some wonderful things here at Forest Park with some of that technology. But at the end of the day it is not needed for what we are seeking to accomplish. Making disciples of Jesus Christ is not dependent upon technology. And making disciples is what we are trying to do. So we fix our hearts on Jesus. We pursue living a Christian life to the glory of God. We put forth every effort, recognizing that apart from God we can do nothing. Christians live the Christian life in cooperation with God.