The Wonderful Spirit Filled Life 3 Eph 5:18 John 14-16; 14:15-18; 25-27;16:7-8;12-15

How does one get rid of the air in an empty glass? We fill it with water.
How do we get rid of the spiritual vacuum in the life of the believer? According to Paul in Ephesians 5:18, we are to be filled with the Spirit.
Last Sunday we looked at the 6th spiritual weapon necessary for the believer to press on with courage, and that was the Sword which the Spirit, gives us, which is God’s Word.

Because it is the Spirit’s sword, available to us in and through the Holy spirit, it is necessary that we look once again at the imperative of the spirit filled life. Without the Spirit, the Sword has no power. It is like a glove without a hand in it. And without the fullness of the Spirit, we enter into the battle with a mere hope of victory, but with no absolute assurance.

Oh, how the church today needs to feel the wind of God blow through our midst once again.

There is very little that we will have a desire to do in the spiritual realm, unless there is an energy at work within us which motivates us beyond our normal human desires to do spiritual things. I can do all the motivating that I please and it will do nothing for the body. You can listen to all the praise tapes in the world and as good as they may make you feel, they do not have the power to motivate us towards spiritual endeavors as a daily occurrence.

There is only one way that this motivation happens, and that is when God quickens us from the inside out through the sustaining, motivating, power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus considered this truth to be vitally important to His disciples. Nearing the end of His ministry, Jesus took them aside and revealed to them the innermost thoughts of His soul. This awesome, intimate moment in the upper room is recorded for us in John 14-16; 14:15-18; 25-27;16:7-8;12-15

The most important things that He had to share with them concerned the coming of the Holy Spirit into their lives. In discovering the Spirits significance for our lives today, the first dynamic that we must come to understand is:

I. The Promise of His Presence Within Us.

The first promise that Jesus made concerning the Holy Spirit was that a day was coming when the presence of Christ Himself would in a supernatural way make His home in us.

Max Lucado’s Little girl was standing in fron of the mirror with her mouth wide open. She was trying to look inside. Max asked her, "What are you doing?" "I'm looking to see if God is in there!

The Holy Spirit in our lives is the manifest presence of God in us. We don’t have to hope that He is here. We don’t have to look in a mirror to see if it is true. We know it’s true because He promised it.

1. The promise that God Keeps is a Personal Promise.

Acts 1:4-5 The Holy Spirit comes to the believer because God promised Him. We see in vs:3, that Jesus remained with his disciples for 40 days after his resurrection. In Luke’s post resurrection account in Luke 24:49, Jesus told the disciples that He was going to send what His Father had promised. What had the Father promised?
The promise came many centuries before through the prophet Joel. See Joel 2:28-32. Isaiah 32:14-15 spoke about the barrenness of the land spiritually until the Spirit of God would be poured out from on High. In John’s gospel, three chapters are dedicated to the promise of God's Spirit that was to come. And in our text, Jesus tells His disciples, "wait for the gift my Father has promised."

The Holy Spirit is sent to us because of God's personal promise. "Well," you may say, "if we can be so sure of the Spirit’s presence in us, then why do I have so many struggles in my life? Why do I battle to know God’s will? Why do I continue to make mistakes with almost every decision I make? How come my prayer life is anemic and my devotion to the Word a constant struggle?"

Listen. The presence of God’s Spirit is assured because of His personal promise, but the fulness of His presence comes by His conditional promise.
2. Conditional promise. Acts 1:4b "...wait for the gift" The only contingency for those disciples was to "wait" expectantly.

In our busy rat race society, we do not want to wait for anything. For us, waiting is a waste of time. We want to get on with other things. Waiting upon God is not wasted. The only key to effective activity is receptive passivity - wait for the gift.

For those first Christians, their waiting was in a unique sense. It was the first, historical outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all believers. Our waiting is in a different sense. For us, the Holy Spirit is already poured out into our lives. But we wait in a sense of preparing our hearts for what is already there.

We wait in a sense of expectancy for God to demonstrate His power through us as we seek a fresh filling of the Spirit in our lives. But wait we must. If those disciples who had been in the very presence of Jesus had to wait for heavenly power for effective living, how much more should we? Now, this waiting is not for His presence, but rather, it is for His fullness. It is also a waiting and not a striving.

My daughter, Candice, was sharing with us an experience she had recently when she went with one of her friends to visit a college group that was meeting at Pentecostal Church. At the end of the meeting, the leader suggested that they now pray for the Holy Spirit. He went into all kinds of actions, along with just about everybody in the room, to try and invoke the Spirit’s presence. Candice was quite troubled about this because of her understanding of the Spirit’s abiding presence and she felt God burdening her about the situation. After all of this, things got a bit quiet, and then all of a sudden, the leader says, "I believe that the Lord has given someone here a Word for us tonight." Boom! Without hesitation, Candice stepped out into the isle and headed straight for the mic. She says she just opened her mouth and allowed what God had placed into her heart to come out. Here was this young leader dripping with sweat, totally worn out, and all Candice said was, "Folks, He is here!." He has been here all the time. All He longs for is for us to "wait" on Him for His outpouring. We don’t have to give Him a Pep Rally to get Him to show up. He longs to be with us. He never needs a second invitation to fill us to the brim. All He wants family, is for us to abide around the promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. That He is present in all of His power. All that remains is for us to receive that. To surrender every part of our being into His subjection.

The word "wait" carries with it the idea "to abide around the promise." To stand in the promise. My experience in the Holy Spirit, as I abide in that promise with a sense of expectancy, should be so intense that it absolutely convinces me that God's promise is true.

His promise is He indwells every believer, yet He made another promise in Luke 11:13. He promised that if we who know Him as our Abba Father will ask Him, He will give us the Holy Spirit. So there is a sense in which we can expect more than simply His presence. We are promised both His presence and His fullness.
Notice in the second place:

II. The Potential of His Power to Fill Us.

To investigate this potential we go to two passages. First, back to Luke 11:13. Then to Ephesians 5:18. The Greek emphasis of the word "give" in this verse is not in the sense of giving once. It is a continuous action. It means literally to ask the Father and He will "keep on giving" the Holy Spirit to those who ask. The potential that we display as believers appears to be tremendously inhibited. There appears to be a lack of motivation. And yet we all have the presence of the Spirit if we are believers, so what's the problem?

The problem is in the area of yielding. There seems to be a phobia about the yielding or being controlled by the Spirit. We are like cars full of gasoline and ready to run, but we're afraid to turn the key. Or we're afraid to get the car dirty. Or to wear the tires out. Or we run out of Gas. We have all the potential in the world to be powerful dynamos of the Spirit's power but we choose rather to quench that power because of our personal hang ups. It is no wonder that the church in the world today is so powerless and ineffective. The New Testament speaks clearly to us of a potential which goes way beyond the presence that is promised at our conversion.

And that brings us to that second passage of Scripture, in Ephesians 5:18. Two commands. One negative and one positive. The one is something we must not do, and the other is something we must do. Four very simple observations from the commentary of John Stott on this passage.

1. The command is in the imperative mood. "You be filled with the Spirit." Or, Y’all be filled." Not a casual, polite or calm suggestion but an imperative. It demands obedience.

2. The verb is in the plural form. It is in the collective form. It is for all believers of all denominations, through all the ages. Not a Pentecostal thing. Not a charismatic thing. It is a God thing.

3. It is in the passive voice, "be being filled with the Holy Spirit." It is not something we ourselves do, but rather we allow the Holy Spirit to fill us through a process of obedience, commitment and dependence on the Lord on a daily basis. It is the same thought that Jesus had in John 15 where He speaks of abiding in the vine. Why? because He says that apart from Him we can do nothing

4. It is in the present tense. It is a continuous appropriation of that power on a daily basis. Jesus model prayer in Luke 11, Give us this day our daily bread. Fill me Lord, for this moment. Fill me for this day that stands before me. I deliberately and consciously make myself available and dependent upon you.

Family, this is called the Christian walk. This is called Kingdom living. If we are going to pray, Father, They Kingdom come, then we must also be prepared to pray, "fill me this day with the Bread of your Spirit. Give to me this day your power, your presence."

And when we are prepared to go to those lengths and to that degree of relationship with the King, He will allow us to experience His kingdom in a powerful new way. A way which is profound beyond our wildest imagination.

III. The Profoundness of His Power Among Us.

To investigate this power, we must turn to the passage in scripture which picks up where John 16:7 leaves off. The record of Jesus' final departure. Acts 1:4-8 Our Lord's ascension was immanent. His disciples had gone through the trauma of the trial and the crucifixion. Those that had deserted had returned after Jesus had shown Himself to them. Now He gives them some final parting instructions. "But you will receive power."

When Jesus told them this, He was not suggesting that this would be the first time man would experience the power of God in their midst. His power had already been evident for millenniums before. It was present at creation. It was His power that opened the Red Sea. Brought water from a rock, and fire from heaven. Stopped the sun in it's tracks. And it was that same power that had raised Jesus from the dead. They new about that power, but this was to be different. This was a new power. The word dunamin meant that it would be a power to enable. From the root dunamai which means to be able.

The kind of power that could take a group of men who at first glance would have been unlikely misfits for the task that was given to them, and turn them into powerhouses for the gospel. A group of men whose stomachs churned at the last supper at the thought of going on alone without Christ. So much so that he had to try and calm them down. "Let not your heart be troubled," Not only were they afraid, but they were confused. Thomas, "Lord we don't know where you are going, how will we know the way?" Later, Peter was so afraid of persecution that he denied Jesus. And he was the leader of that little band. And then, at the bitter end, according to Matthew 26:56, every last one of them deserted Jesus. They all quit. Even at his resurrection. They were surprised at the thought of Christ's body not being in the tomb. That same evening, knowing that he was risen, they hid together behind closed doors. Why? Because they were afraid of the Jews. John 20:19.Even after Jesus had appeared to them, one of them was still filled with unbelief and said that unless He saw the wounds, he would not believe.

Jesus knew all about them. He knew that in their own strength they were destined to failure. Knew that Judas was deceptive and that Peter was rash. He knew that Thomas struggled with doubt and that John was a dreamer. But that was the only plan he had. So how was this all going to change, as we know it did.

Church, it changed because the power that God had promised them, and Jesus had made available to them was now among them.

Read Acts 2:1-4 He sent them "another helper" just as he had promised. And here we have the warp and woof of the power of the gospel. It is in the power of the Holy Spirit.

D.L Moody had become a great preacher. But seemed powerless. At the height of his preaching career he often became indignant at the prayers of one dear old prayer warrior who persisted in praying that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit. But she continued to pray, and Moody testifies how one night walking along a lamp lit street the Spirit of God came upon him, and he was never the same.

Family, we in this body of believers today, before we can face the challenges of our faith in a contemporary society that rejects righteousness, desperately need such a filling of power. Steven in Acts 7:55. Paul full of the Holy Spirit was able to withstand all of the trials that came before him. And if we are ever to experience the full potential of this spiritual armory, we must know the abiding fullness of it’s owner.

Nothing less than a total yielding of ourselves to Him will accomplish that.

A fable is told of a Great ruler who once found himself with a serious heart disease. If he was to live he would have to receive a new heart. From all over his kingdom offers came rushing in from loyal subjects who would be prepared to give him their heart. So many in fact, that he did not know how to decide who would have this tremendous privilege. Then he had a brainwave. He called all of his subjects together to announce his plane. They thronged to the palace courts. The King came out onto the balcony, and the crowd cheered. Great are you O king! Long live the King. Take my heart O King!

Then he announced that because so many had responded to his need, he had to devise a way that would be absolutely impartial in selecting the donor. He would drop a white feather from the balcony and the person upon whom the feather fell would be the privileged one. He dropped the feather, and down it wafted in the wind. All eyes were wide and fixed upon that feather. As the feather came within reach of their heads you could hear the chorus echoing all over that crowd. Take my heart O King, Phew! Take my heart O King, Phew! Take my heart O King, Phew! As each one tried to blow the feather away.

That kind of commitment is not what will initiate the kind of power that God longs to pour out upon our live today. This morning. Here and now. We must be able to say, "Take my heart o King. Take it all, and take it now. I hold nothing back from you.