The spiritual blessings believers receive in Christ, focusing on God's predestination for holiness and adoption as sons. It highlights that true holiness, as exemplified by Christ, is achieved through God's power and the discipline of the mind through His Word. The message further explores redemption through Christ's blood, the forgiveness of sins, and the riches of God's grace, illustrating how believers are accepted in the Beloved and made heirs with Christ. Finally, it underscores the role of the Holy Spirit in sealing believers, providing access to the Father, strengthening the inner man, guiding Christian conduct, and empowering believers to be filled with the Spirit, leading to songs of praise and thankfulness.
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We said that, Lord willing, we would like to continue in this book all week long. And so I started it this morning in as much as I feel there are far more than I can ever cover in the book in the time I would have. So I tried to get a little head start anyhow. And this morning we were considering some of the things that He has given to us in that place of spiritual blessings. We saw that our blessings were spiritual. They were heavenly. that we have been accepted in the beloved. And then we saw that the choice, or we were chosen of God, and we were predestined unto holiness and to the adoption of the Son.
God's desire in predestining us or predetermining our destination was that we would be as sons to Him and found as holy. You know, holiness is something that is taken rather lightly today. And I would just like to suggest to you, brothers and sisters, I think we need to go back to looking at God's view of holiness. And we need to go back to what the Word of God has to say about walking in a holy way. We've been programmed so much by our culture to follow culture and the things of it that we have taken...
and used our Christian life as a manner that is common to this world instead of being separated from the world. God wants us to stand in a separated position. If we were to take holiness in God's sense, it means absolute perfection. When it comes to God, that's what true holiness is. Now, I read that there is none holy like our Lord, so please don't think a man is going to come to the to that perfection of holiness. One day we, well, will be when we're with Him and like Him forever. I look forward to that day. It's a thrill to me to think that there's going to come a day when this crazy mind of mine, you know, I think I got a grasshopper mind.
It goes fluk, fluk, fluk. And I think that there's a day when it's going to be fixed on Him, going to be like Him. I'm going to know Him as He is, and I'm going to be like Him. There's not going to be any more sin that's going to enter my mind. It's not going to touch this body, because then it will be spiritual. We'll be made for that realm in heaven where our blessings are. But God's desire is that we would be holy. So in the holiness that he does set forth as a word, he gives us the Son, the Lord Jesus, as an example, because he did say, even to one of old, be holy, even as I am holy. We said this morning, well, we look someplace, how do we get like that?
And the only strength we find to walk in holiness is from the Lord Himself. And that's what we see in the book. Remember, first half, Christ in us. Or, pardon me, first half, we in Christ. And then the second half, Christ in us. In the first half, we find our position in the Lord Jesus, accepted in the beloved one. In the second half, we're viewing our practical walk. And that of Christ working out through us. And that's a blessed place. So his desire is that we would walk in holiness. And that means the discipline of mind, doesn't it? It means that when our mind does turn to natural things, we have to discipline it and put it away.
And I find the best cure for that is the Word of God and meditation on the Word. When these things come, it's a good thing then to turn your mind to the Word of God. Sometimes I use that as a rebuke to Satan. when he thought whether it's unbelief or lack of holiness or whatever it might be as to the thought. I have to say, look, Satan, the Lord has said in his word, be holy even as I am holy. And through his power, that's the way he wants me to be. So in his predestining us, it was to be to the adoption of sons and to a holy walk.
You know, our whole lives reflect what we are in our assembly. Have you ever thought of that? This assembly here is made up of the people who come, and when you come, you bring your holiness or your lack of holiness here. Wherever your local fellowship is, and I see people from Greenfield and Berea and Atlantic all over here, but it's the same for your fellowship. You bring your life to that. If you're a person who has a desire to walk in holiness, then you bring that. If you have fallen into sin, then you bring that. There's a responsibility before you to walk in holiness. That's what he wants of his son.
That's why I like this verse. It's to the adoption of sons, predestined to be a son and to walk in holiness. Now we said this morning, there we see the blessings that come of the Father. We saw these blessings as divided between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. So we see the choosing of the Father, the predestined of the Father, the bringing us as sons as of the Father, the adoption of sons. And then we see that we're to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved.
So we see that in the Lord Jesus then we have a blessed place. We've been accepted in the beloved. That's where the Father puts us in His Son. When He looks upon us, He looks on His Son. Some people say, He sees me through His Son. No, I don't see that. He sees me in His Son. That's where I am. And I am accepted. So are you in that place in His Son. And so these things are of the Father. Now we view the Son then. He says, In whom we have redemption through His blood. even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. So through Christ now we have redemption and we have the forgiveness of sins.
Redemption is to buy back by paying a price. And that means to buy out of a market in the strongest sense was taken from the idea of buying out of a market with the idea of never being sold again. So when the Lord Jesus bought us out of the market of sin, his view is that he will never sell us again. It's like the illustration of the English gentleman who one day stood in a slave market. And there was a slave being auctioned off. And as that slave was auctioned, finally the English gentleman bid for the slave. And the slave was a fine specimen of humanity who had been educated in British school.
And so he turned and he looked at the English gentleman and he said, How could you bid for me as a slave when you trained me in your school, you educated me, and now you bid for me to make you a slave? He said, How could you do that? And then he began to curse him, but the Englishman never answered him a word. And pretty soon the bid went up and the Englishman bid again. The bid went higher and the Englishman bid again. And all the time in his bidding the slave turned and cursed him every time. And finally he bought the slave. And then auctioneer took the keys to the shackles that were on the hands and the feet of the slaves. And he brought him over to the English gentleman and he said, Here, you bought them, and you're at a key.
And so the gentleman took the keys and he unlocked the shackles and he dropped them at the slave's feet. And he said, I bought you to set you free. And then that slave fell before him and he said, Master, I'll serve you forever. You got the idea of God's redemptive work through the Lord Jesus. You and I were that slave in a slave market of sin. And God's purposes for us were fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. He bought us to set us free. He said, whom the Son sets free is free indeed. But the freedom that we have, beloved, in the Spirit of God, through His Son, that can come in no other way.
Our liberty is in and through the Lord Jesus, because we've been bought and bought to set free. He's never going to sell me. They're going to turn me loose. There isn't going to be any time through the endless ages to come when he's going to pick up a sin or some angelic being and say, hey, Ray, how about this one? Wasn't taken care of. No. The full price is paid, redeemed by the blood of the land. He says, with that redemption, we have the forgiveness of sin. I like that because that means forgiven. Have you ever liked that term? Have you come to appreciate it? to know that you don't carry a sense of guilt, you don't carry a burden. There isn't always that gnawing at something way back there.
Oh, Satan would like to do that because he wants to hinder your testimony for him. But he says, Forgiven. That's what he promised us through his son. Forgiveness of sin. How? Well, the redemption came through His blood and the forgiveness of sins as well, but that's according to, and that's a key word of the book again, according to the riches of His grace. So when we look at the grace of our God, there we can see the riches of His grace in giving His Son. When we look at the grace of the Lord Jesus, Paul said, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. As though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be made rich.
I am amazed at how he took this poor sinner and made me rich. He's done the same for you. You can lift up your heart today and appreciate the position that he put you in, accepted in the beloved, in the Lord Jesus, at his right hand today, having all the sins taken away. and have you set free. As a son, I have liberty. You know, my sons in my household, they had liberty. When they got older, they went up and borrowed my socks and a shirt fit them. They borrowed that. They had the liberty of the house. They didn't abuse that liberty by kicking out a window.
Their liberty didn't entitle them to a license of sin. but their liberty brought them to within the realm of the blessing of that household. And that's what our liberty of sons does for us. We have the liberty of sons of God of coming into his very presence. We have the liberty of addressing him as father. We have the liberty of walking here, yielding to his word and his spirit. That's a freedom that he gives to him. And in that freedom, it would be licensed if we turned aside from that. and begin to sin. And so in his son Memna, the next blessing we find in him is having made known to us the mystery of his will according to the good pleasure which he has purposed in himself.
Here again it's according to his good pleasure. And I like these according to. It all turns it right back to him, to his will, to his pleasure, to his purpose. And I said this morning, I believe in a sovereign God. one who is overall and works all things after the counsel of his own will. There is a will that cannot be wrong. There is a choosing that cannot be wrong. There is a calling that cannot fail. When I look at the eternal salvation that he's given to us, I'm glad that I can see it, that it was given according to the counsel of his own will. That's a perfect will. That's blessed.
And I can rest in that. And this way he's made known to us and the mystery. And as we go through this book, mystery is another thing that we find revealed to us through this book. Mystery is something that wasn't hitherto known before. But as we pick up this book of Ephesians, he begins to reveal the mysteries of his grace, the mystery of the church. He's revealing these things to us in his riches as we go along. And then we've obtained an inheritance through his son in verse eleven. And that inheritance we have as a joint heir with Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine this? You know, there was a church, the church of Smyrna. They thought they were poor. They didn't have much. They were suffering persecution. But he said, I say you're rich. Then there was the church Laodicea. Ah, they thought they were rich and increased with goods and had need of nothing. He said, I say to you, you're poor, you're blind, you're miserable, you're wretched, you're naked. He said, that's the way you are. And you know that's the way we become when we lift up our hearts in our own pride. But if we have the right place before God, we stand as those that are rich in and through the Son because we're heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
And our inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled, and it isn't going to fade away. It isn't going to fade away. I could leave an inheritance to my children, and you know, they could blow it in short order when it comes to the physical things, couldn't they? They could take it and get rid of it just like that, and many a child has done that. But when it comes to our inheritance from the Heavenly Father, and as the Son of God here, we have an inheritance that is incorruptible. Why? Because it's invested in Him and He's incorrupt and therefore the inheritance that's given to Him has the nature and the character of the Father. It is not going to fade away.
It's going to stand forever. So this morning we took a look at some of these blessings and we saw that the Father gave us some. The Son gives us some. And then we come to the one that the Spirit has given to us. Verse thirteen. verse twelve for continuity that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ in whom he also trusted after that he heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation in whom also after that he believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase possession under the praise of his glory now in God's calling us and choosing us and giving us all the things here, he had a purpose in that.
And that was that we would be to the praise of his glory. Now, I like that again because, see, in many times in my lifetime, especially when I was a kid, I guess I built a little wall around me, you know, because I had been hurt and I didn't want any more hurt. And until I saw there was a heavenly Father who had a love for me, and then my heart opened to that love. And then as it was open to that love, I was able to show love to someone else. And in calling us, he calls us onto something like that, that we might appreciate his love. And then no matter what kind of a sinner we were as youngsters or youth or older ones when we got saved, he could forgive us.
And now through the endless ages to come, every time the heavenly host looks upon this being or that being. They're going to look and praise God because of the work of His grace for saving this individual. You know, that amazes me to think through the eternal ages to come that I will be to the praise of His glory. We mentioned this morning, sometimes we say, why? Why did He ever see in me that He would save me? Well, He didn't see anything, as we said, other than we were sinners, and His grace was offered toward us. And when we see that, eternally, The angels are going to say, huh, that one there was really to the glory of His grace, to the praise of His glory through all eternity.
Isn't that wonderful? We may fail in walking here today and praising the way we ought to be, but I'm glad there's one day that will be when there is no failure and it will be an eternal praise to the glory of God. I sometimes wonder, as I look on my lifetime, if I've ever done anything to bring any glory to God, but I know in that day eternally I will be to the praise of his glory. Praise God for that. Now he says he wanted us as we walk in that way, but here's his process for calling us now. He says, in whom also ye trusted when he spoke?
of those who first trusted in Christ. We trusted after we heard the Word of Truth. You know, God teaches us in His Word, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That's the way faith comes. So we have to hear the Word of Truth in order that we might hear God's way of salvation. And then when we hear it, and that's the gospel of our salvation, and after we believe, He sealed us with a Holy Spirit of promise. And that Holy Spirit comes to indwell us. It is God putting His mark, as we looked at these three things this morning, that He put His mark on me.
That assures me that I'm His. That also gives me security that I belong to Him and I can never be lost. You know, and we want to talk about eternal security. This is a good place to come. to understand, to make me eternally secure, He placed His Spirit within me. His Spirit is the seal. I am His. That's His brand. And then it is His protection. He belongs to me. The Spirit is the earnest money from God. God said here, I put it down. I'm coming back. The Lord Jesus is going to come back and He's going to redeem the purchased possession.
So it is the work of the Spirit in this book. As we see it in its beginning, with some teaching of the Spirit, it is the work of the Spirit to mark His own as His. Feel them in the sense of protection and provision as to what they need, because the Spirit becomes our guide as well. So we're marked in those ways. We have His brand for His. He marked us for protection. and for sustenance our guidance as well, because through it he makes his provision. The Spirit is our teacher. The Spirit searches out the deep things of God.
And if you're going to get anything from God, it's going to be through his Spirit searching the deep things of God. And I said, I took you in a little review for a purpose. Some of you weren't here this morning, but I said this afternoon. I'm going to take a thread that's given through this book. I'm going to leave off the rest of the chapter now, and I'll pick it up tonight. But there is a thread of teaching of the Spirit of God through this book that is much ignored, just grabbing it here and there. But there is a consistency of teaching the Spirit in this book, the same as there is in teaching the three in one. We see in every chapter, as I mentioned, Father, Son, and Spirit. And so when we view the work of the Spirit, as far as the believer is concerned, there is that beginning work in his life where the Spirit comes in.
Now when the Spirit indwells us, he says in Romans eight, nine. I like that verse because so many people are looking for the Spirit today. But he says, He that hath not the Spirit is none of his. You either have his spirit and you're his or you don't have it and you're not his. There's no in-between. And so the Spirit is the mark, we're His. And when we come to chapter two now, we view in chapter two the Spirit being mentioned several times. We're reminded again of the position that He gives us.
In chapter two we're looking at the experience of salvation. And so in this chapter we're seeing that as we enter into the Christian experience, he has something for us in it. And so we read in this chapter several things that he has done. Verse eighteen. For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners. but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.
He shows us here that our way of access into his presence is through the Spirit. It is for through him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now when it comes to access to God, we can see it in a couple ways. We can see it first of all in and through the Lord Jesus. We see him as our intercessor. We see him as the one who has gone in to God for us. We see them if you go back to the view of the tabernacle in the Old Testament, as we have in Hebrews chapter ten. There you had the veil. Remember if we were to look at the tabernacle as you came into it this way.
Out here in the courtyard there was a door, was a way of access, wasn't it, called the gate. And then you get to the brazen altar, to the labor, then you would come to the door of the tabernacle itself. It was a way of access. Now you get through that door and you come to the veil that was the access into the holiest of all. No one could go in there, save the high priest once a year. And he couldn't go in there without the blood for the atonement for himself and the nation as well. Now if we take a look at that approach to God, When we view it in the first sense we can see in the outer court as we approach the brazen altar, there we can see the Lord Jesus as a way of access.
He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And so the Lord Jesus stands there as the way. When we get to the door of the tabernacle, he stands there as the truth. because inside there in the place of ministry of the priest he learned something of the truth of fellowship he learned something of the truth of walking in life and he learned something of the truth of worship as he was there at the brazen altar and then when we would go through the veil into the inward place there we have the way of access through the veil And the book of Hebrews says, That is to say, His flesh.
And so when the Lord Jesus laid down His life there at Calvary's cross, it was a picture of that veil there. And so our entrance in there is through Christ the way, the truth, and the life. He went in for us, and so we can go in with Him. Now when Christ went in, in Hebrews chapter nine, what was His way of access? What was his way of offering? I read he offered himself through the eternal spirit. That's how the Lord Jesus offered himself up at Calvary's cross. It was through the eternal spirit.
He didn't take up a work just on his own. He took up a work in a full authority of the Godhead. And when he presents that work, it was through the spirit. You and I then have an access through Christ, first of all, and through His Word. But then we have it through the Spirit as we are able to come into His presence. And we indeed come in that way, because if we were to go all the way back and say, where did we get the life from as a Son of God who could come into the presence of the Father, we would have to say we got the life from the Spirit. The word of God says, He that hath the Son hath light.
And I can accept that because I come through the Son, but He also teaches me this, that the Spirit quickeneth and the Spirit giveth light. John six, sixty-three. And so the Spirit is the one that quickens. Remember as we take a look at the not by works of righteousness, but according to His mercy, hath He saved us. By the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. And so our way of access into the Father is through the Son and through the Spirit as well.
And this is what He's saying here. He's brought us to our heritage in Chapter One. And in chapter two, the key word we said this morning was, Wherefore remember in verse eleven. And so in a remembrance of our way of access, then we see we've been accepted into the beloved and we come in and through the direction of the Spirit. And so he says then in that verse eighteen, For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Jew and Gentile, made into one body, come in a way of one access unto the Father. And so then the Spirit opens the way for us.
Now we see in verse twenty-one and twenty-two that the Spirit again has done something for us, in whom all the building, fitly framed together, grow us to a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. Now we view that one body, Jew and Gentile, brought together. That's in the body we call the church today. And that body has been built into a holy habitation of God through the Spirit. I like that. When we view the local church, then we can view the local church as the house of God.
In the Old Testament, the house of God, was there in the tabernacle and the temple. In the New Testament, the house of God is the body of Christ taking in the many members, be he Jew or Gentile, brought into one. And now in that one body, it forms a habitation of God through the Spirit. Paul put it this way when Paul wrote to Timothy, First Timothy chapter three, verse fifteen. Think he says that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God, which is the church of God, the pillar and ground of truth.
And so when we view the house of God, the church, it is the habitation of God through the Spirit. He lives within it. And the Spirit, then the Spirit of God makes that habitation living. That is why. You and I in a meeting, such as we were at this morning, gathered here in a remembrance of the Lord Jesus, can know His presence with us as He directs the meeting through the liberty of the Spirit. God is then glorified in it and His house is glorified because of this habitation that He has here through the Spirit.
I want to ask you, were you found this morning in the place of gathering? where you could bring a worship to His name, to the house of God, the church of God, the pillar and ground of truth, where they met in your local area. Did you meet with them? And was there a time when then you offered that worship to Him because you could come through His Spirit, which is there in the meeting? A habitation of God through the Spirit. Now, what does that Spirit do in that meeting then? that spirit then takes the praise, the worship, the adoration and brings them to God Himself because they're offered through the Spirit.
And I bless God for that. I rejoice in the fact that He can take that which is of the Spirit and the Spirit will present it to Himself. I think, and I'd like to just throw this out to you, okay? I think the Spirit would be freer to operate in our hearts if we were more careful of what we did on Saturday night. In other words, if there was a time of preparation with our own hearts Saturday night and Sunday morning, that we were thinking upon the things of God and the work of Christ, and then as we fellowship here, there is the seed that's already within the heart of the Word of God, then that the Spirit can move upon brother after brother and use it for his own glory in his own house, in the house of God.
And the Spirit then brings the worship which is to the praise of His glory. In the Gospel of John chapter four, when the Lord spoke to the women at the well, he said, The Father seeketh worshippers. That's what the Father is seeking today. You know, we've got a strong emphasis on mass evangelism and all this stuff. And I don't want to take it away from that in this sense. So I hope you get the proper light of it. I think we need to do the work of an evangelist. But let's put it in the proper perspective. First of all, we need to have a right relationship and a right fellowship in a vertical position.
That vertically we stand in the right way with God. and then that horizontally we can be right with men. If we're right vertically with God and we have the going through the Spirit to God and we're worshippers throughout the week, then on Lord's day when we gather together we're going to be a worshipper then. I'm surprised at how many people talk about being in fellowship with the idea of a group of people who just meet on Sunday morning on the Lord's Day morning to remember the Lord in His death. There's more to fellowship than that. Fellowship is a joint sharing, a sharing in common of the whole body of truth in the believers.
And if all we do is find ourselves in a place of worship, Lord's Day morning without thinking too much of a durn, then we're in a wrong position. We're not worshiping in spirit and in truth. The Father seeketh worshipers. Trust God will encourage your own heart to prepare your mind and thought before Lord's day morning. I'd like to go to chapter four now. Pardon me, I want to go to chapter three. I skipped the chapter here. Chapter three in verse sixteen, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory.
to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. Now there is a work of the Spirit here in strengthening the believer. First of all, the believer was to know of the blessing that he has in Christ. Secondly, the believer is to remember what he was and what he's been brought through the Spirit. Then he now comes into the place of the house of God. And in chapter three, now he wants the believer to be reminded that he can be strong in the past and not to faint, because the words to remember in this chapter are wherefore I desire that he faint not at my tribulations for you.
And so the Christian, in order not to be faint, not to be faint-hearted, needs to be strong in the Lord. He needs to have some strength, and that strength is going to come through the Spirit. You know, you read of Mr. Faintheart in Pilgrim's Progress. You find some along the way who, when the troubles come and the trials are there, they've got faint-hearted and they seem to slip away because the trials and the burdens are so great. But God said, that's not necessary. I've given you my Spirit. I've given you my Spirit to strengthen you. And the Spirit does the strengthening through the Word of God.
And that comes out of the riches of his glory. You know, that's what he said, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man. His purposes are to take out of the riches of his glory and then to strengthen the believer. And the believer is to be strengthened by God's Spirit in the inner man. The inner man. You know, I've found a lot of people in my lifetime that are very weak outwardly. I can never ever forget a young woman who most of her lifetime was tied in knots just like this from arthritis. Her body all twisted and out of shape.
And you know, I've never met a more joyous person in all my life. That woman was strengthened by the spirit in the inner man. That woman knew who the spirit of God was. And what the Spirit of God would teach her and guide her into all truth. And she took the truth that he gave to her and guided her in. And she was strengthened in it. Now, the Lord does that out of his riches in glory. Oh, boy. God's got an endless treasure of riches that he wants to give to us if we're only willing to let him minister to. If we're only willing to draw on those riches. He wants to strengthen us.
with might. And that's power. Now Paul puts here through the Spirit. But in Philippians chapter four in verse thirteen we again see one of these parallels because he says, I can do all things through Christ who empowers me. And so we see strength given and strength ministered by both the Son and by the Spirit. Now we come to chapter four. And in chapter four we're reminded in verse four. that there is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in the hope of your calling. The spirit of God had something to do in our calling.
We read in the beginning that the call and the election was of God. But here we see the spirit in that as well. And I see a total message coming from all these things in his book. that we find our completeness in Father, Son and Spirit. That there are different times where the Father is emphasized in His work, different times when the Son is emphasized in His work, and different times when the Spirit is emphasized. But the work is in a perfect unity. And that's what we see in the One Spirit and in the hope of our calling. Because we read that, for instance, We receive Jesus Christ, John one twelve.
Then we read that we have the Spirit within us as well, Romans eight nine. And here we read that we have the Father in us, total. It says in verse six, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. There's the totality of the Godhead in the working of our salvation. and in the strengthening of us along the way. And in this book he sets out some things that the Spirit of God does to strengthen us and to guide us in the way. Now, in chapter four is a chapter that we enter into Christian conduct. And in all this Christian conduct, the Spirit of God is the one who is our guide and the one who gives us the direction in the way.
There is one Spirit in the total body of Christ, and it is in all the gifts that that one Spirit is exercised. That one Spirit takes the gifts that were given again through Christ's ascension. When He ascended, He gave gifts to men. The Spirit takes those gifts, uses them in the totality of the body, the habitation of God, and uses them to the glory of God, they're used through the Spirit to Him. And so He takes us in that perfect way of direction through the Spirit. Now, chapter five, we're brought to a place of being filled with the Spirit.
And we see this in chapter five and verse eighteen. Be not drunk with wine, we're in a success, but be filled with the Spirit. Now, you do not find a period there. so the sentence isn't complete. He says, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts of the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things unto God in the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord. Now he gives us the work of the Spirit in filling the believer and he commands the believer in verse eighteen not to be drunk with wine not to take up something that controls but to be filled with the spirit and he gives us three things that i would like to suggest to you this afternoon that indicates a spirit-filled believer if you've got a question in your own mind am i a spirit-filled believer then take a look at these three three things because paul paul speaks of The filling of the Spirit or being filled, the command to be filled with the Spirit.
Then he says, speaking to yourselves and psalms and hymns, spiritual songs. Do you have a song in your heart? Let me ask you right now. These past days have your song. Some of you have a lot of suffering. Some of you have got literal thorns in the flesh. Some of you might have troubles in the home. Some of you might have financial burdens. Some of you might have jobs where you go. Do you have a song? Do you have a song? He says, Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You know, the cure for depression is to take up a song, to take up the Word of God.
I find the forty-second song. Here's a song of a depressed man, isn't there? He said, Why art thou cast down on my soul, and why art thou that is quieted within me? And then he answers his own question. He said, Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the health of his countenance. See, can you go back to the Word of God and have a song that you can speak to yourself? A song. A song. And then lift your heart as the Spirit of God does the work through it. Then secondly, he says, giving thanks always for all things unto God in the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that's one that got a little bite to it, doesn't it?
It's easy to sing, isn't it? We can find a song sometimes, even when we're laying on our bed at night and can't sleep, and we go looking for that song, and God gives the song when we look for it, but now to give thanks for everything. People have said to me sometimes, now, wait a minute, Ray. You know, it's all right to give thanks in everything, and that's what he says in First Thessalonians He says, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you, in a situation to give thanks for. But then they say, now, Ray, to give thanks for, who we? That's another matter.
But look what he says. Always for all things. Always for all things. A mark then of the being filled with the Spirit would be an individual... who can come to the place to say thank you. What indication, what does that indicate? That would indicate a life of faith, wouldn't it? Because it would only be a life of faith that could say, Lord, I believe you are sovereign. I believe that there's nothing going to happen to me by accident that you have design in it all. And you have a purpose and something to fulfill. See?
I remember the first time the Lord taught me to add a bill in my house and did a lousy job on a