"What Does the Holy Spirit Look Like." **Please note: this is a partial recording due to technical issues**

Tonight, would you open your Bible to the book of Ephesians

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5? This is the third message in our

series focusing in on the Holy Spirit.

The title of tonight's message is What Does the Holy Spirit

Look Like? Our first message.

We asked the question and hopefully answered it.

Who is the Holy Spirit? We saw that he is a divine

person, often referred to as the forgotten member of the Trinity,

but He is God nonetheless. Last week we built on that and

considered what does the Holy Spirit do?

Tonight I want to ask the question and answer what does

the Holy Spirit look like out of Ephesians 5?

We'll start in verse 15 and probably unlikely that we'll get

into chapter 6, verse 9, but that's that's kind of the the

parameters of the, the passage that we'll look at and consider.

And I'm asking this question, what does the Holy Spirit look

like? Because you may have come out of

a church background where some bizarre things perhaps took

place as an apparent evidence of what's called Holy Spirit

feeling. Maybe you've seen a, a church

service where it's like there's an athletic running track in

there and people are running around.

Or if it's not that, then it's like they're trying out for, for

gymnastics and they're flipping and doing things or, or waving

banners or it's like a cheer club.

I don't know what your experience is.

Maybe you've not experienced that.

Maybe you've at least seen it or witnessed it on TV or certainly

on online on YouTube or the like.

And often in those type of scenarios when you would ask

somebody, what are you doing, what happened then why are you

doing those things? They would almost give a

response like, you know, don't dare question and challenge.

The Holy Spirit made me do it, you know, as if that's like a, a

get out of gaol free pass on why the behaviour that just took

place is justified. And it's a little difficult to

try and argue against that. At least that's what they

surmise. But I'm a very practical person.

I think many of you are practical people.

And so if the Spirit of God is to come upon me, is to come upon

you, is to fill you, then it begs the question, what would

that look like? That's really what we're

considering tonight. And the question is probably not

so much what it's a Holy Spirit look like, but what does a

spirit filled believer look like?

That's that's really what is before us as we consider this,

you know, if you're I say that the Spirit of God is in me and

that's what this message is all about tonight.

How can we witness that, observe that, see that in somebody's

life. So what does the Holy Spirit

look like in a person's life? Paul says, as we're going to

read this passage is that he says, here's what it looks like.

It looks like everyday transformation.

It looks like there's something different in you.

It's evident in a heart for the lost.

We'll see. It's evident in a heart that is

filled with worship unto God. It's evident in a life that is

thankful, grateful unto God for who He is and what He has done.

It's it's evident in how we love our spouse.

It's evident in how we raise our children.

It's evident in how we as children respond to our parents.

It's evident in how we conduct ourselves in the workplace.

These are all that's before us in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 15

Ephesians 5:15

on and through chapter 6, verse 9.

And this is what we would call the Spirit filled life.

This is what the Spirit looks like.

This is what's before us. Maybe you've heard that the

Christian life is a walk. You know, you ever ask somebody

and the men we went up on Friday to out in Victoria Park to grab

a bite to eat and part of the the point of the evening was in

the carpool right up having met here at the church was to

converse one with another, see what God is doing.

Maybe maybe you ask one another on on that night in the car.

How's your walk with the Lord going?

We use that terminology. You know, it's part of our

Christianese. It's built out of what the Bible

teaches us. Here we go all the way back to

the book of Genesis and we see in Genesis that Adam and Eve,

what walked with God, It says there in Genesis 3, and we come

across a fellow called Enoch whose life was marked by this

fact that he walked with God. And it says that he was not for

God took him home. It's a pretty cool story in

Enoch. And then God told Abraham also

in Genesis chapter 17, Abraham, walk before me and be blameless.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

David said in Psalm 23, Yeah, though I walk through the valley

of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil because you're with

me. And we love Micah.

Micah 6:8

Chapter 6, verse 8, it says that our lives were to be about this,

to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

So we can see that through the Scriptures Old Testament, New

Testament, that our, our life is described as a walk with God in

the New Testament, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 7 says that we

2 Corinthians 5:7

walk by faith and not by sight. So the life lived with God is a

walk. And what this speaks of is, you

know, when you walk, you're in continuous movement, right?

There's there's action in a direction and it speaks

specifically in the Scriptures of our conduct of life.

What marks, what are the features, what are the

attributes of our life here on earth?

That's our walk. So now that we know what it

means to walk with God, the walk is to be the lifestyle, is to be

the action, is to be our conduct, is to be empowered by

the Holy Spirit, our lives as Christians, our walk with God is

to be spirit empowered. You see, we need the Holy Spirit

in us to live this life that we're called to live.

We can't do it in our own strength.

We need some supernatural empowerment to make possible

what we read of in the Scriptures to be those features,

those attributes, those marks, those characteristics of the

Christian life, the Christian walk.

We're about to see this now in Ephesians 5.

We're not reading it, but in in verse 2 and Paul, the writer to

the church at Ephesus, he asked them to walk in love in verse 2.

So all through this chapter, there's this idea of walk in

verse 8 there to walk in the light.

And verse 15 where we're going to start tells us he says, see

then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but

as wise. Now once again, walk, walk, he

starts with in verse 15, the Greek word.

There'll be a little, little bit of Greek language tonight

because it just helps to enhance the meaning of some of the

phrasing that Paul utilises here in our English, the word is

peripeteo. Peripeteo for walk.

And again, this speaks of conduct, of life.

So it's not just a a walk on a Sunday to church.

It's not just when we come back to church on a Wednesday

midweek. It's our whole conduct of life.

That's what's wrapped up in this Greek word, peripeteo, this

English word walk. See then that you walk.

It's the 24/7. It's the 365.

It's the every day of the week. Here is what your life is to be

marked by. Here is what your walk is to

look like. And so it says here, walk live.

May your conduct, may your action walk.

Live circumspectly, Circumspectly.

That's not a word that we typically use.

It's not part of my everyday vocabulary.

I don't know if it's a part of yours, but good luck to you.

If it is circumspectly, what does that mean?

Mean here? The Greek, again, the word

meaning to walk very carefully. Maybe your translation has that.

Maybe it's walk deliberately or with deliberation, walk with

focus, walk with discipline, walk with intentionality.

And so now we're starting to put it together that that my

Christian life, my Christian walk in the spirit is not just

this kind of haphazard bumbling about, you know, sometimes you

might go for an afternoon stroll.

We would say that physically and we've got no direction, no

purpose to it. It's just I'm going for a walk.

That's not what our Christian life is about.

We're not bumbling and fumbling our way through our days here.

Our walk, our our motion, our movement, our experience with

God, our life with God. There's some deliberation to it,

some intentionality, some focus, some deliberation.

There's a a purpose and a goal. It's careful.

That's what circumspectly means. So he says walk carefully, work

circumspectly. It's get this, it's watching

Jesus, watching Jesus. My wife and I, we've, you know,

dabbled with walking over the years.

And it's very, very tricky walking with her because she's

always about, you know, 5 to 10 steps ahead of me.

I'm like, I thought we were walking together.

Just slow down a bit. Oh, you're walking too slow.

And we have this and so I'm watching April in my walk to see

where we're going. It's just slow down a bit,

honey. And it's like, no, I'm not

walking with you if you're going to race.

So all of these sorts of conversations happen with us,

right? It's supposed to be a walk, but

our walk is with Jesus. And so our walk is that we're

watching, we're careful, we're focused, we're disciplined,

we're connected to Jesus. That's our our walk

circumspectly. And so Jesus told us to watch

and pray, to be focused in that way that, you know, enter into

temptation. That's what he said to his

disciples. So there's something to this.

And so the first mark of a spirit filled life, what does

the Holy Spirit look like? The spirit filled person.

So the spirit in US is that our lives are intentional that that

it's about wise God conscious living.

And Paul says that our walking should not be as fools, but as

wise, building on this in verse 15.

Now we know because we're we're good Bible students here that

the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible.

And so when we're looking at a term like fools, we go, what's

the Bible definition of what a fool is?

And the Bible tells us Psalm 14, verse one, Psalm 53, verse one,

this, that the fool has said in his heart that there is no God.

There's the definition of a fool.

And so the fools here are the unbelievers.

And so here he's starting to paint a contrast going on.

OK, the Spirit filled life, The Walking circumspectly with Jesus

is to be wise and not as foolish.

But the foolish, they're walking, they're living, they're

conducting their lives. There's action, there's certain

things going on, but there's to be a marked difference between

our lives as believers and the the fool, by definition, the

unbeliever in God. That's what he means here by

saying walk wisely, not as fools.

So the contract contrast is that our walk, our lifestyle, our

conduct is to be different to the world around us.

That's different. You know, you're here Sunday

night. For some of you, this is the

second time that you've been in church.

Probably your neighbours. No, that's not a part of their

walk, their experience. So there's something different

going on here and he continues and builds on.

So here's why our lives are to be marked with this difference.

Verse 16 now not as fools verse 15 but as wise redeeming the

time because the days are evil. The Greek word for the phrase

redeem there exaggerazo comes from 2 words Ek even though it's

EX in the the condensed form, the combined form which means

completely out of and agarazzo, the second part means to buy up

the opportunity. So here's why I highlight this.

It was used back then. So the audience they would hear

this, it's written in Greek and they would hear it and they

would immediately understand Paul's reference.

The reference was its use was in the buying of a slave out of off

the slave market. You know the 1st century Roman

Empire 10 Many speculate more like 20% of the population were

slaves. As Rome would conquer and defeat

various nations, those defeated peoples would become slaves of

the Romans. And so slavery was something

that was very well known and the people versed in the language

and terminology and the experience, particularly in this

time. And so this process of buying a

slave off the market is, is what Paul uses metaphorically here in

the language to describe how we need to buy up in our walking

the opportunities that we have for us in our lives as

believers. Making the most of the time,

buying out of slavery every minute, every hour is to be

focused on that which we're called to as believers.

Because the days are evil and we're walking amongst fools.

And man, you don't have to watch the news for very long to figure

out that the days are evil, right?

There's a whole heap of tomfoolery going on out there.

If there's anything needed right now in this chaotic world, it's

this. It's believers walking in the

light, empowered by the Holy Spirit, focused in on the

mission of Jesus. Right?

Because there is a messed up world out there of people

bumbling and chaotically walking in the dark.

But we're walking in the light with the Spirit guiding us,

taking and making the most of the time that we have in the

days in which we we live. OK, so to do what?

With that time, Paul gives us the answer.

Now you know, here tonight, we're here to worship God.

We've done that in song. The Bible tells us that we're

made to worship. Revelation 411 gives us an

indication of that, that we're that we're made to glorify God.

We're here tonight to study God's word and we need his daily

bread. Jesus said that man shall not

live by bread alone, but by every word that precedes mouth

of God. We're also called to the mission

that Jesus called his disciples to.

It's called the Great Commission that we're called to declare the

good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel.

Now here's what I want to say in that, you know, when we are in

eternity, we're going to be able to worship God, right?

We're going to join with all of those that have been washed by

the blood of the Lamb before us to worship Him and to sing and

to lift our voices in our resurrected bodies.

No, no restrictions in our voices.

To be able to praise him, to sing on key, to sing with all

that's within us, to not have, you know, emotions get the

better of us and be able to just declare how good and how

wonderful he is. We get to do that for eternity.

How awesome that will be. When we're in eternity, we're

going to be able to sit at the feet of Jesus.

John chapter 1 tells us in the beginning was the Word, and the

John 1 · chapter mention

Word was with God, and the Word was God, or is God.

And so we're going to be face to face with the very Word that we

devour and that we love and that we enjoy studying for all of

eternity. But you know what we cannot do

in eternity, that we can only do here now on earth, is to win

souls to Christ, is to share the good news of Jesus.

So that's what we buy out the opportunity to do now for the

days of evil to be about winning souls under Jesus, to make the

most of the time. A Holy Spirit filled life is one

that is burdened for the lost. This is what the Spirit filled

life looks like. Is is Paul's first port of call.

It's not wandering aimlessly through life.

It's knowing that your time matters, that your days are

short, and that your life is part of God's saving plan.

So what does that look like? Buying up the time with that as

a focus. Maybe it's instead of bingeing

Netflix and devouring the next series, it's going, you know,

I'm going to, I'm going to give my mate a call.

It's been a while since I spoke to him.

He's an unbeliever. He needs Jesus.

I might use that time to just catch up with him and just

continue to share the good news of Jesus.

Maybe instead of scrolling for 30 minutes through my social

media feed, it's maybe, yeah, I'm going to take 5 minutes to

pray for someone and redeem that time and commit them to the Lord

again. You see the the spirit filled

person sees time as precious because verse 17 he says,

therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the

Lord is. Oh, and they're the most popular

sermons, aren't they? What is the will of God for my

life? And people come and they go, oh,

they want to find out. It's a wonderful study.

God's will for my life. Absolutely.

And I'll connect it to these verses here tonight.

God's will is that souls get saved.

God's will is that souls get saved. 2 Peter 39 He says God

isn't willing that any should perish, but for all to come to

repentance. That's God's heart, that's God's

will. On Timothy 2 verses 4 to 5 it

says this God desires all men to be saved and come to the

knowledge of the truth. So the will of God, what God

desires is souls to be saved. And he has chosen us for

whatever reason. And the angels look at it and

go, they're just mind blown. Why has he chosen them?

But he has chosen you and I, spirit filled believers to be

about the business of connecting souls to Jesus, of redeeming the

time for the days of evil. Walking is wise, carefully,

circumspectly, for this is the will of God.

Verses 1516 and 17 and now verse 18, the power for this Christian

walking and really the verses that have come before that have

kind of been a little bit of the entree.

This is the main course now, right?

This is really the meat of the message.

Verse 18. Here it is.

Paul now shifts from describing how we walk to what empowers.

That walk and so this verse, think of it as as the engine of

everything that follows. You know, you're thinking,

hearing this. Yeah, I want to be wise.

I want to redeem the time. I want to walk circumspectly,

but I don't know how to do it. I can't do it in my own

strength, my own energy. I see it as important.

But help me God now, verse 18, here it is.

Do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be

filled with the spirit. It's what we've been focusing

on. This is what we've been teaching

through and studying. So the word dissipation in

English, again, probably not part of your regular vocabulary,

but in the Greek asotia, the A at the beginning means without.

And so Tia, the root of that word is where we get salvation

from. All right, so to put the 2 words

together, associa dissipation, it means without salvation, do

not be drunk with wine. Wherein is dissipation without

salvation, Not salvation as in the saving of our souls, but

without deliverance. So he said don't be drunk with

wine where you aren't like you look like you are anymore.

That's kind of the the point behind it.

And that really makes sense to us now when we hear it that way,

because we all know, we've all seen, we've all experienced

people, you know, a timid person.

Couple of drinks in, it's like, man, that's got the better of

them in a pretty powerful way. Wherein is dissipation.

But notice he says that we would be filled with the spirit.

Don't be drunk with wine where you aren't looking like who you

should be, where you're without salvation almost, but be filled

with the spirit. Now that word filled again.

The Greek play OO is how you pronounce that.

Even though it looks like Pleeru play OO, there's a few different

uses of it. And I think they're all kind of

helpful for us in understanding what it means to be filled by

the Spirit, because immediately our minds go to those kind of

hyper Pentecostal experiences of filled with the Spirit and out

of control, right? They would use it.

Back then sailors had a use for it, that Greek word play, to

describe how the winds filled the sails of a boat, carry that

boat on to its destination and so to the picture, The imagery

connected to the life of the Spirit, the walk of our lives,

our conduct is that we allow the Spirit of God to fill the sales

of our lives and carry us to the destination of becoming like

Christ. That sanctification process at

work in us. The second use of this word play

row OO was used by by bakers or or or cooks to describe often

their use of salt and it's permeation through through meat

in particular. You know, in the days of lack of

refrigeration back then, salt was a great preserver, but also

we enjoy it today and they would use it back then for the same

reason for flavouring. And so too, we should allow the

Spirit of God that the filling of the Spirit to permeate our

lives, to give our lives flavour, the flavour of Christ

in particular, so that when people come around us, they

should be kind of taste a bit but different, right?

There's is that salt in you? There's different to to you in

the way that you respond to situations, to circumstances.

Your colleagues at work, they notice that they sense that

your, your family, your loved ones, the people that you come

in contact with that there's something, I don't know, just it

tastes different about you. So they would use that.

You got a different flavour than everybody else has.

That's why Matthew 513, Jesus uses this language that we're to

be the salt of the earth. So that's the second use of the

word. Now the third use of the word is

really more what's used here and it spoke of total control.

Total control. The Spirit filled life is a life

that is totally controlled by the Holy Spirit, just as alcohol

controls an individual. So we should allow the Holy

Spirit to have total control of our lives.

So who's controlling your life today?

You know, as you're as you're looking at your life, as you're

examining your walk, thinking about the day to day, the 24/7,

the 365, what those hours look like circumspectly, carefully,

who's controlling it? And because what I'm about to

say to you in in verses and what's ahead, what's the flow

there and how far we get into these verses, time permitting,

is not even possible without the Holy Spirit play 00 filling you.

You have to be filled. You have to be empowered by the

Holy Spirit. If this is in any way possible,

you and I we need to be empowered and that word power

used in Acts chapter one verse 8.

Remember Jesus said to the disciples that they were to wait

in Jerusalem, He would ascend into heaven, that the Holy

Spirit would come upon them and he would fill them with power.

Again, the Greek word is dunamis, where we get in English

the words dynamite dynamic from. So you can really understand

that the power here that's utilised in that terminology is

that when the Holy Spirit would come upon them, there would be

this dynamic shift transformation in their lives

that would come from God, the Spirit in them.

And so to even do anything that we're about to read about, it's

impossible without the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit filling

our lives, controlling us. And So what does the Spirit look

like in the believer, You know, running around doing cartwheels,

flipping on the stage, me swinging off the the lights up

here at the front, no rolling on the floor and laughter.

Now it's all as we're about to read here from verse 19 in

chapter 5 through into verse 9 of chapter 6.

It's evident in our worship under God.

It's evident in our interactions one to another in the church.

It's evident not only in the church life, but in the home

life, in our marriages. It's evident in our parenting.

It's evident in our response to our parents.

It's evident in the family. It's evident in the workplace.

That's what's before us. So what does a spirit filled

person look like? What does the Holy Spirit look

like in our lives? Not something wild or strange,

but someone deeply stable, Worshipful, thankful, submitted,

loving, reflecting God in what they do, in what they say.

So let's look at as many verses as we can in the time that we

have left. Verses 19 through to 21 to begin

with speaking to one another. So verse 18, don't be filled.

So don't be drunk with wine, which is dissipation.

Be filled with the Spirit. Now here's what that will look

like speaking to one another. Verse 19 in Psalms and hymns and

spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to

the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the

Father. Verse 20 in the name of our Lord

Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.

Let's look at those verses. We want to know what does the

Spirit look like? What does the Holy Spirit look

like? We're we're really considering

what does the Spirit filled life look like?

Verse 19, it's Worshipful speaking in Psalms.

You know, the book of Psalms in the Old Testament was really the

hymn book for the nation of Israel.

These were the songs that they would sing as part of their

worship. These were songs that Jesus

himself sang with his disciples, with his family.

And hymns are those songs that you know, I, I handed down

through church history, those songs that that point to God

Almighty, that stir up within our hearts a passion for his

name. Spiritual songs are those songs

often birthed out of hurt, out of trial, out of tribulation in

our lives, our spirit crying out unto God, connecting our spirits

with with he's and saying, God, I need you, I need you in this

moment in this circumstance. And it's just that connection

that we're having bursting forth in song as as an expression of

emotion within us, singing and making melody in your heart to

the Lord, you know when you're Worshipful in this way.

And we know that worship is so much more than just songs,

right? But it's a whole attitude that

that all that we can do, it can be worship.

But there's something special in in singing in psalms and hymns

and making melody with our hearts unto the Lord.

There's something meaningful in that, right?

No matter what life throws at you, that capacity to be able to

worship in light of that in response to that ever found

times or experiences in your life where you go, man, I just

need to put on some worship music right now.

We'll we'll say I just need to steal and and quiet my heart in

the presence of God because man, there's just something that's

gone on at work or something going on in my family or in in

this relationship and I just need to connect with God and it

breaks out in worship within us and something happens within us.

There's something supernatural going on in that.

It's the spirit filled life at work.

And it's more than just, you know, because the world sings

songs too, doesn't it? But there's a difference in in

songs that we sing as worship to what the world sings as worship.

You can see what the world worships in the songs that they

sing. They're worshipping this

relationship, this experience and country music.

You know, my dog died, my pickup truck's broken down, and I don't

know what's going to happen, and woe is me and all of that.

But you and I, we worship. There's something different

going on in our songs. It's Lord.

I lift your name on high. Lord, I love to sing your

praises and worshipping songs. You know, like tonight.

It's not just a warm up for the message or just a thing where

you know, I can kind of arrive a little late.

No, it's there's something a little more significant.

There's intimacy and heartfelt expression going on connection

with God Almighty in worship, in psalms and hymns and spiritual

songs. Ever known someone?

Maybe you're it but and I just struggle to sing a song in key,

but boy, when I worship, tears streamed down my face because

there's a connection to the spirit.

Someone going through a difficulty illness, maybe it's

cancer, still lifting their hands in praise, worshipping

God. That's what the spirit filled

life looks like. Worship breaks forth and then

thankfulness. Verse 2020.

Now again a lot of people want to know what is God's will for

my life? God just direct me, guide me.

Here's 11 Thessalonians 5 verse 18 in everything give thanks.

And then Paul says, for this is the will of God, the will of God

to be thankful, to be grateful. God wants us so we are as spirit

filled people. One of the marks, one of the

attributes of us is to be Worshipful, yes, but is to be

thankful.