The walk of the new man is characterized by wisdom, particularly in redeeming the time because the days are evil, as detailed in Ephesians 5:15-17. This wisdom involves understanding God's will and avoiding foolishness, contrasting with the temporary intoxication of wine. The sermon emphasizes that being filled with the Holy Spirit, a present, continuous, passive, and imperative command, is essential for believers. This filling is not a one-time event but an ongoing state, enabling believers to speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, sing and make melody in their hearts, and give thanks, ultimately manifesting Christ.
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Once aimlessly I wandered, No hope within my soul, Of Ethel with no pilot's hand, No heaven and no goal. I tried to find an answer, To calm the troubled sea, I drifted with no sight of land, till Jesus rescued me. He whispered, please, be still to me.
My heart obeyed his will. His word may come the rolling sea, When he said, Keep this still. And now I have a captain, He'll guide, I know he will. I've given Jesus full command, Then he said, Peace be still.
Oh, friend, if you are drifting, There's just one thing to do. Trust Jesus is the one demand. He'll whisper peace to you. Be whispered to me. Be still to me. My heart obeyed his will. His word may come the rolling sea.
when he says, Please be still. Well, Thursday, getting close and close to the end.
And I'd like you to all get to know somebody that has come and joined us in camp this week. A friend of ours down from St. Louis just got out of the hospital yesterday and from having an accident at work. was hit by a truck that was left in neutral up on top of the hill and came down and hit the truck he was in and he made like a ping-pong ball inside of his truck he got painted by all the cans of paint that were in the inside and he just first time he was up with yesterday and he flew down here to be with us and I know he needs a lot of loving right now a lot of encouragement and he's our local Irishman Tony Gualpieri But Antonio is here, so we're glad Antonio is here.
So, yeah, bonjourno. And I guess you know what that means. I don't know how fancy I did. I just hope it's not swearing. And I trust that y'all had a good night's sleep last night, because I didn't. And I'm going to need somebody to keep me awake during this message. And... You can smile. That's right. You people are looking so serious and so stern. How many of you went to a pizza hot last night? Those aren't my notes. Those aren't my notes. I don't preach with notes. Okay.
Thank you. Okay. Well, anyway. I'd like to go into the message today, the message that motivated me for this whole series. And that's in Ephesians chapter five. I'd like you to read with me beginning at verse fifteen. Okay. That's right. English. You know, it's really a terrible thing to follow a guy who spoke the last time in a three-piece suit.
I don't know if that was his girdle, trying to keep all the fat in. If I kept looking at him, it didn't look like there was much fat. So I don't know. And then you get this brother from England who, you know, despite intimidation, threatening, threatening and all the rest, he keeps wearing a tie. So he's there. so I come and I wear my tennis shoes and so unpolished but anyway Ephesians chapter five verse fifteen see then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is And be not drunk with wine, wear in his excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Father, we're thankful for your word, which is alive and powerful. We're thankful that, Father, in spite of our limitations, in spite of our lack of wisdom, in spite of our human frailty, that we have great confidence and knowledge that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are here with us today.
And that, Father, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is that which would bring honor and glory to your Son. And Father, we are confident that the Spirit of God today will bring honor and glory to your Son in our lives individually and in our lives corporately. Father, we know, even as Zechariah said, it's not by might, nor is it by power, but it's by your Spirit, say it at the Lord of hosts. We are trusting the working the outpouring, the filling of your Holy Spirit in our midst today. And we pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Just a couple real quick comments in verses fifteen through seventeen, because I really would like to get and spend that time with verses eighteen through twenty-one, as our time just seems to move on very, very quickly in the morning. First thing he says in verses fifteen through seventeen. Now, just kind of a quick review. We've been talking about the walk of the new man. If we go back to chapter four, the first thing we saw in the first three verses, that the walk of the new man is a walk in humility. And then you start at verse four, go down through verse sixteen. You see that this walk is a walk that is in unity, but a unity that has diversity, a diversity that has edification or building up within it.
And then we see beginning in verse seventeen that this walk is to be a different walk. It's to be a unique walk. It is to be a walk that uniquely belongs to those who name the name of Jesus Christ and who have been crucified with Christ as the new man. And we put off the old man who no longer has a claim to us because he's dead with Christ. And we put on the new man that we have been created in Christ Jesus. And we saw the difference between that and the end of chapter four. Then we saw yesterday that this walk is to be a loving walk in verses one. through five of chapter five and then we see in verses six down through verse fourteen that this walk is to be a walk in the light and then the last part of this walk that we're just reading here is to be a wise walk that there's a need for great wisdom among the people of God in walking in this world because Satan is the type of enemy and adversary who throws up all kinds of traps who has all kinds of schemes, who has all kinds of devices that are out there to destroy the children of God, one way or another.
And by the way, I am convinced that Satan's masterpiece is not a bum on skid row. Satan's masterpiece is a wolf in sheep clothing. And there are a lot of those out there who are Satan's. devices in this world. But anyway, he says, to walk circumspectly, or that word is to walk carefully. And then he says, redeem the time because the days are evil. And he's saying, we're living in an evil day. And there is a great need for buying up, using our time. That, you know, if you lose a hundred dollar bill, you know, you can replace a hundred dollar bill with a little bit of work.
But, you know, if you waste time, that time is never replaceable. that the psalmist that teaches to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. And there's a great need for us to use our time wisely. That, you know, it's a type of thing. I enjoy football. I've seen Dallas Cowboy shirts around here. And I, you know, I can really get into watching football. But you know what? After you watch the football game, you spend three hours watching that football game and you get back up off of the chair and you say, so what? What? has been accomplished. Now I can see that sometimes there might be good therapy, maybe a little bit of time that we come apart and rest a while, or as Elton Trueblood says, you'll come apart.
You know, there is a need for having a Mid-South type experience, and there is, we don't need to feel guilty when we relax. You don't need to feel guilty if you sleep eight hours in a night and say, oh, look at all the time I've wasted. You know, God's built us mechanically that we need to have these times of respite and these times of rest. But there is also a place where there's an urgency. There's a place where we need to redeem the time. We need to buy it back. We need to use it to the utmost. And a wise walk, a person who is being wise in the Lord, is a person who's learned the value of time. And he uses that time wisely. Therefore he says, wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
Now, I'd like to go on and begin at verse eighteen. Now, we've got problems today, don't we? And the problems are is that whenever we start talking about the Holy Spirit, that those of us who are non-charismatic, non-Pentecostal, we go into nine shades of apoplexy. And I just look interesting looking now as I look out the preachers out here, they're all got their eyes wide open for a change. What is this guy going to say about the Holy Spirit? You know, we get all, we have, you know, now we reject Unitarianism, don't we? People who don't believe in the Trinity. But you know what? I think that we have a tendency of those of us who are becoming binatarians. That we believe in the Father and we believe in the Son, but don't you dare talk about the Holy Spirit because you know what's going on today.
All that nasty, cruel, mean stuff. Hey, now just a minute. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I agree with the brother yesterday, not the first, second, and third person of the Trinity, because there's no question of superiority or inferiority. They're all equal. They're all God. They're all equal in power, equal in knowledge, equal in where they're at. They're all equal persons within the Godhead. Now, they are different persons, they have different functions, and I don't, if you think you understand the Trinity, please come up afterwards and explain it to me, because I really, you know, the place, I mean, I believe it because that's what the Word of God says, not because I understand it.
And if you think I don't understand that, then we go into the hypostatic union, that Jesus being God man, and how that happened, how Jesus as a man could die, and yet as God not die, and And we can go on from there. I can't understand eternity either. Eternity past never having a beginning. You understand that? I mean, I can say the words, but I don't understand it. And now we want to talk about the Holy Spirit. Are you a spirit-filled Christian? Huh? Ever had anybody come up and ask you, are you filled with the Spirit? And you know what they mean, don't you? You know what they mean.
And you say to them, yes. And they know that you don't have what they're talking about. And say, oh, no, you're not. And you say, oh, yes, I am. Well, then have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Yes. Oh, no, you haven't. Oh, yes, I have. And you go on because the terminologies are very difficult terms today. And because they're so used and maybe misused so much today, that we've gotten to a place where we stopped using them. And here there is a command in the Word of God to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, it's interesting, of course, that there's a contrast here between don't get drunk with wine, wearing his excess, but, in contrast, be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now, to understand this a little bit, I think it might be kind of a fun thing to do before we talk about this, to back off and take a look. Now, I do have a few notes here, and I get them. And how this Word, if you're to take this little book right here, And you look up the word for fill or fulfill or something like that. It's the word play rao in the Greek New Testament. And if you look it up, and here's some uses the way it's used within the Bible. I'd like you to turn with me. So you just get an idea of what this word play rao means. Now, most of the time it's translated in the gospel by the word fulfill. The scripture was fulfilled. You know, the words of Jesus were fulfilled.
And so that's the way it's normally, the most of the times, it's translated by the word fulfill. But there's some other very, very interesting uses of it. John chapter twelve, verse three. In John chapter twelve, verse three, we see that Mary, the sister of Martha, is anointing the seat of the Lord Jesus Christ. And notice verse three. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spiked nard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.
same word. Play it out. Now, have you ever seen these things in the hardware stores where they, you know, that if you want to kill roaches in your house, what they have is this little thing that you go and you lift off the top and you light it and it fends off this nice big smoke and says, okay, after you light it, get out of the house. Make sure all the windows are shut, doors are shut, no, and what it does is It's not that the fact that the roaches are flying right through the middle of the air and it's going to zap them in the smoke cloud. It says that that smoke cloud will go out and it'll creep underneath the baseboards. It'll get into the cracks and crevices in your house. And if you've got a log house like we do, we've got all kinds of cracks and crevices, especially when I built it.
So there's all kinds of those. And so the smoke gets out there and it fills all these cracks and crevices where the roaches are hiding, where their eggs are laid and all the rest, and it fills it. And you take a look at that room when you're running out of there like gangbusters because you're afraid you might have a little bit of roach blood in you and you want to get out of there. And you take a look back at that smoke cloud and you see that it's going everywhere. That's the idea of this word. It fills the whole house. It went out into every nook and cranny. Okay. Acts chapter two, verse two. Uh-oh. Acts two. Day of Pentecost. Guess what? The word fill was there. Acts two, verse two.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house. Play Ra'o. It filled all the house where they were sitting. Okay, Acts thirteen, verse fifty-two. Acts thirteen, fifty-two. This is a little bit of a kangaroo sermon here hopping through the Bible. Acts, and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. An association there, do you think? Filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost.
Second Corinthians, chapter seven. Second Corinthians, chapter seven. Boy, there's a lot of wind here today. It is filling the building. We've got a playwright. Oh, wind today, don't we? This is challenging my old worn Bible here. Second Corinthians seven, four. Great is my boldness of speech towards you. Great is my glorying of you. I am filled with comfort. I'm exceeding joyful in all our tribulation. There he's filled with comfort. And then Philippians chapter one, verse eleven. Philippians chapter one, verse eleven.
And the appeal starts with the prayer beginning up in verse nine that he prays, verse eleven, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. They're filled, play-ra-o, with the fruits of righteousness. And then, this is an interesting one, Philippians chapter four, verse nineteen. You wouldn't have detected this out of the English text. but my God shall supply all your need that word supply is the word play Rao but my God shall fulfill all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus and then just one more Colossians chapter two verse ten Colossians chapter two verse ten and it says and ye are complete in him Same word, play Ra'al.
And ye are filled full in him. Okay, now let's keep on those ideas in our minds. And let's go back to Ephesians and let the wind blow those pages. Now Ephesians chapter five, this command of being filled with the Spirit is a present passive imperative. Doesn't that impress you? A present passive imperative. Not having had a Greek class or a Greek course, you can go back and you can tell all people in your home assembly. Ephesians five, eighteen is a present passive imperative. And they'll say, it sounds Greek to me and you'll say, it's right.
It is. Okay, present passive imperative. So what? Here's what? Present. Okay. The present tense in the Greek language brings with us the idea of continuousness. You know, the Aris Tense brings with the idea of punctiliar action or point action. It happens maybe once for all or it looked at a series of events and at one event. But the filling of the Holy Spirit is presence tense. Be filled with the Spirit. Be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, it's very interesting that the other ministries of the Holy Spirit are used in the Aris Tense or the Perfect Tense. Now, the Aris Tense. For instance, in First Corinthians chapter twelve, verse thirteen, when it talks about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it says, For we were all baptized into one body, if not the present tense, it's the other tense.
It's a once for all happening. It never occurs again, and there's never an encouragement from the Word of God to go out and get baptized with the Holy Spirit once, get baptized with the Holy Spirit a second time, get baptized with the Holy Spirit a third time. It's a once-for-all event, and that once-for-all event places a person into the body of Christ. The Word of God when it talks about us being sealed with the Holy Spirit. There's never a command in the present tense to go out and be sealed with the Holy Spirit. There's never a command to go out and get adopted. There's never a command to go out and, you know, many of the ministries of the Holy Spirit that we could think of. But the ministry of the filling of the Holy Spirit, though, is a present tense.
Be continuously filled. Okay, that's present, continuous. Passive. Okay, now there are three voices in Greek, two in English. In English, we have active voice and passive voice. In Greek there's active, middle, and passive. We don't need to get into middle voice. That's not important at this point. But active is the subject does the action, and there's an object, the receiver of the action. So subject does the action, the verb is the action, and the direct object of the sentence. You all remember this, English classes? I mean, if you're as fuzzy in your English as this man from Brumogen, you may not remember that. Okay, or if you went to southern school, you may not remember it either. And, but you know, there's the subject performing the action.
That's the active voice. Now, the passive voice is the subject is the receiver of the action. That the action is performed upon the subject. And so this is the difference, you know. I kicked the dog. That's active voice. passive voice, the dog was kicked by me. Okay? So there, the first situation, I did the action, the dog received the action. Now, I put it into passive voice, the dog is the subject, but it's also the receiver of the action. Now, being the passive voice here, notice that the subject of this is up, that he's commanding you, you all, it's a plural here, by the way, you know.
Amen. I said you all. And you do, I'm sure all of you have used the illustration of the Apostle Paul with Southern. You're right. Okay. Southern Greek. But anyway, it's in the Greek text too. But anyway, so that you all are the subject, but you're the receiver of the action. It's not that you out and go continually fill yourself. That's not it at all. It's that you all be continually filled by somebody else. And here it is by the Holy Spirit and Numati, that we are to be filled by means of the Holy Spirit. So it's present, that it's continuous. Passive, somebody else.
God himself is doing it to us. God is doing the filling. And thirdly, it's imperative. That is, it's a command. This is not an option. Now, of course, with an imperative, there is always the fact that the person who is being given the command has the choice of doing or not doing that command. That when the Bible says be filled with the Holy Spirit, we have to understand that we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have the option of saying, I will or I won't. I will be filled. I will allow the Spirit of God to fill me and all the way to the recesses of my life. Or I won't allow the Holy Spirit to fill me. That that choice is there and it's available for each believer to make.
Of course, the Apostle Paul is mightily encouraging him to make the right decisions. The wrong decision is saying, well, I'm going to live for myself. I'm going to do my own thing. Now, that's the wrong decision. The right decision is be filled constantly, continuously by the Holy Spirit, and that is what God expects from us. God does not expect people to be half-filled, quarter-filled, three-quarter-filled, partially-filled, mostly-filled. He expects them to be plerot-oed, fully filled, filled, filled, full, all rates of cracks and crevices in your life. That is the command of the Word of God. He wants spirit-filled believers, all of us.
So now when we think about this, now this is a command. Now you can go back to your home assembly, right, and tell them what a present passive imperative is. And Ephesians chapter five, verse eighteen, right? You can tell them what it is. And you can tell them that it is something that we have the choice of doing, and it is something that God expects us. He holds us accountable. He holds us responsible to be spirit-filled believers. Okay, now, the question is, what does a spirit-filled believer look like? How about verses nineteen through twenty-one? Just in case there's any question, just in case there's any doubt about what a spirit-filled believer is, here's what it is.
Speaking to yourselves, and that's the word for one another, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms. A person that's being filled, controlled to the cracks of his life by the Spirit of God is a person who goes up and he starts speaking to somebody else in a psalm. You know, that you come into a group of people and all of a sudden the Spirit of God just gives you a psalm. Make a joyful noise into the Lord. And you sing the psalm. Now, it would help if you had a voice like Brother Hurley, you know, if you could sing that song. But, you know, it doesn't have to be like that, does it? It could be a person who doesn't have that ability, but you come up and you speak to the brothers and sisters in a psalm, right out of the Bible.
Or you can speak to one another in a hymn. I can remember there have been times when I was in a situation where there was a lot of conflict going. between some people. And all of a sudden I just looked up and said, Turn your eyes upon Jesus. And you know, you start to sing like that. And all of a sudden these people, they turn and the daggers come at you. But you're speaking to them, okay? And when you sing with my voice, they hear you loud and clear because it's all over the notes. You know, it's all around. And all of a sudden, you know, it's just amazing what starts happening. You're giving them an appeal. You're giving them an exhortation.
Or maybe it might be a person that is going through deep trials and you speak to them a song and you sing that song to them. or a spiritual song. What in the world is a spiritual song? That was done back during the slave era, right? Spiritual. Now, you know what spiritual song is? That's just a song that the Holy Spirit produces inside of a spiritual person. A person who's under control of the Holy Spirit has the Spirit of God all of a sudden just starts giving you a song. You ever had that happen to you? I mean, you're just walking along and you're driving your car and all of a sudden you start singing. It's not a song and it's not a hymn that you've learned. It's just the words that the Spirit of God is giving you right then. in English. Okay? Don't doubt me here.
Unless you know French or you know English or something like that, you start singing a song and you understand what you're saying and you're singing a song and your voice is being lifted up to God. And you don't know what the next word is until you sing it. You ever had that experience? You're looking at me like on some sort of odd song. But that's what a spiritual song is. Amen. Thank you, Hal Green. Okay, but then you go a little bit deeper. What happens next? A person fills the Spirit of God, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Now, you might be able to put on an act of singing a psalm or a hymn or a spiritual song. You might be able to put on an act.
But he says, hey, let's go a little bit deeper about a spirit-filled person. A spiritual person is a person not only has got his mouth working, it goes a little bit deeper, it goes into his heart, and his heart's working. And, you know, that out of the abundance of the heart, a man speaks. If the Spirit of God is filling your heart, it's just amazing how it comes out through your mouth. But he's going back to now down here, a spirit-filled believer, a person who's having the Holy Spirit going out and filling all the way out to his fingernails, all the way down to his toenails, right up the edge of his hair. He's still with the Holy Spirit all the way that this person is hard. It's just bubbling over. You know, I was listening to Stuart Briscoe, and he was talking about, you know, the psalmist says, My heart is... is indicting a good manner.
You know, does anybody know what the word indicting means? That's it. We got it. You didn't see that. That's what it is. It's a heart that's bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling. Your heart is just bubbling. You know, you come around that person. I had a chance of sharing. We had Ken Por come in from California. And he's and he's the kind of guy his heart just bubbles over we went into this restaurant about six fifteen in the morning before the conference started we're going to spend some time together and there's these four waitresses sitting on a table bragging on a cigarette and they look so sad i mean they really down and out and ken came in there and his heart was indicting a good matter it was bubbling over he was singing making melody in his heart and these girls looked up at us And we had four waitresses who couldn't do enough to please this guy.
Because he had a heart that was dobbling over. He was walking down this big Baptist church there where this conference was being held. And he was walking down there, this little old black janitor was walking down there. He was just shuffling his feet. And Karen just took a look at that guy and stopped and caught the guy's attention. Be careful there now, okay. And the guy looked at him, you know, and Karen went, That's all he did. I mean, just do like that. And you should have seen the smile go, right in the middle of that black face, all these white teeth were shown. And all day long, that little old black janitor was smiling. Just broke.
That's all. I mean, and it wasn't an act. It came out of a heart that was bubbling over from the Spirit of God. Let's go a little deeper. giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, we could talk about that one, but... Fourth one. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. That's the deepest level. A real mark of a person filled with the Spirit of God.
is how they respond to their God-given roles as a man, as a woman. And if you want to find out what that's like, come back tomorrow, same time, same station. We're going to talk about that. And we're going to talk about this afternoon at four, fifteen, a little bit, I believe, Brother Johnny, in Ephesians chapter five, when it talks about the role of the husband and wife, but we can go on to the role of parent and child, the role of employee and employer, but this submission to our God-given roles, to our God-given responsibilities. Now, see, the filling of the Spirit is marked by these things, but you can go on. You know, I believe the filling of the Spirit will be marked by how you pray. We pray in the Spirit. I think the filling of the Holy Spirit will mark our worship.
We worship in the Spirit and the truth. I think it's going to mark the way we evangelize, where the conviction of the Holy Spirit comes and people, you know, it may not be the most eloquent. You know, Jonathan Edwards, you know, with leaders of the Great Awakening of the United States, you know how he gave his sermons. He sat on a high stool behind a high pulpit, reading a manuscript right in front of him in a high, squeaky, monotone voice. Sinners in the hands of an angry gong. You know, and I don't know what it sounded like. We don't have any tape recordings of Jonathan Edwards. And before the message would be even halfway over, people were coming down the aisle and crying out and throwing up the hands and say, you know, God, save me. I'm a sinner. I'm lost. I'm going to hell.
I say, now, just a minute. That guy didn't exactly set the mold of Howard Hendricks. I mean, he didn't have all the eloquence and all the power and, you know, I mean, you know, heat. That's a kind of adult preacher. But the problem was, not the problem, the thing was, he was filled with the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God took his word and brought conviction. And you think the filling of the Spirit may affect our evangelism. It's not the best preacher that you want behind the pulpit. It's a preacher that the Spirit of God is using. And I believe the Spirit of God did that last night. We don't want to look for the most eligible preachers. We want people who are filled with the Spirit of God. We don't want the most talented businessman to run our church. We want men who are filled with the Spirit of God.
We don't want women who are just maybe the best school teacher at school teaching our Sunday school classes. We want women who are filled with the Spirit of God. I believe the Spirit of God will make a difference in all of that. But then the question that we have to ask in just our last couple minutes here is, how are we filled with the Holy Spirit. Obviously, two objects can't occupy the same place. If you're filled with sin or if you're filled with self, then you can't be filled with the Holy Spirit. And you can ask our brother Tony, two trucks can't occupy the same place. You know, when they try to occupy the same place, you got a collision. It just doesn't work. And if you're filled with sin in your life, you're filled with self, guess what?
You're not going to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So that's where we need a confession of sin. that all of our sin, we confess it to God, and we give it to Him and say, Lord, look at our sin. That's where the blood of Jesus Christ, right now, present tense, continually cleanses us from all sin. The Spirit of God is cleansing us from all sin. And from ourselves, we yield up to our God. Lord, I'm not the boss anymore. You're the boss. You're the master. You're in charge. You're in control. So there's a yielding to God and acknowledging Him as our Lord and master. But still, it is a command here. I believe part of being filled with the Holy Spirit is being filled with the words that the Spirit of God has given us, letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, and the Spirit of God taking His Word will produce the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in our life.
But I believe there's one more thing, that if this is a command, we recognize we can't do it ourselves, and we recognize we need it. I believe there's a place, having dealt with the sin, Having yielded the authority and control to God and zealously studying the Word of God, I believe there's a place where we as believers ask God to fill us. Say, God, I can't fill me with you. It's you that's got to fill me with you. I need it because I know how weak, how selfish, How finite, how incapable, how unsafeful, and all these things, I have the tendency of my flesh to be.
But God, I know you're different from that. I know you're capable of coming and filling my mind, filling my heart, filling my entire being right out to my fingertips and toes and hair. I want it all to be filled with you. Just like the sweet savor of the ointment of spiknard from Mary's Box. So we want the Spirit of God to fill all of us so that the evidence would be that people would not see us, but that which the Spirit of God would make manifest. And what does the Spirit of God make manifest? He always makes manifest the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of God filling a Christian demonstrates Jesus Christ. Oh, how inadequate we are to speak your words. I pray for each of us that we would have lives that reflect Jesus Christ by the filling constantly of your Holy Spirit. And Father, that there would be nothing that we would allow in our lives that would hinder the working of the Spirit of God. That He would have total freedom. to work, to control, to lead and guide and direct and to magnify your Son in each of our lives.
Father, I pray and I ask for myself and for each person here. He would be filled to the full with your Holy Spirit. Amen.