Speak, Sing, Serve: The Heart of a Spirit-Filled Church - Eph 5:18-19

Good morning, and what a blessing it is to study God's Word with you today. My name is Pastor Simon.

Our mission here at Dillingham Moravian Church is to make disciples of Christ

through the study of God's Word as we trust in Christ together.

One night, a couple of weeks ago, my boys Jamal and Jonathan and Paul and I

emptied Paul's birthday balloon that was filled with helium.

When I say emptied, what I mean is that we emptied the helium into us.

When we did that, the helium changed our voices so that we began to speak with

high-pitched squeaks rather than our ordinary voices.

It was extremely funny to see all of us sound like chipmunks and was a time

of great fun and silliness for the boys of our family.

My point with this family story is to communicate to you that similar to the

balloon and then later on us, Flynn boys,

being filled with helium, God calls us who are in Christ Jesus to be filled

with the Holy Spirit and as such to live according to the ways of God and for

His purpose in this world. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we come before

you. We thank you for this opportunity to hear from you in your Word.

May you teach us, may you guide us. May you encourage and build us up by the

ministry of your Word today, Lord, and by your Holy Spirit. May you.

Show us what you want us to know from your word today.

And may you help us to understand and to apply it to our lives through the power of the Spirit.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Turn with me this morning to Ephesians 5, verse 18-21.

Ephesians 5:18–21

Ephesians 5, verse 18-21. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation.

Ephesians 5:18–21

But be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and

spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord,

always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

Here at Dillingham Moravian Church, we have been studying for some time through

Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

The main theme of Paul's letter was the unity of God in the church of Christ

and how the church is to display the unity of God to each other and to the world.

Previously in Ephesians 5, God through Paul taught us that believers in Christ

are not to take part in sinful activity.

Rather, we are called to humbly and lovingly expose the unfruitful works of

darkness, as we gently reprove our brothers and sisters in Christ,

using God's Word, when they are disobedient to the Word.

God, through Paul, taught that believers in Christ are to keep watch over our

lives, being careful to live our lives according to the ways of the Lord.

Paul also communicated that since the days are evil and human systems and societies

will become even more evil before Christ returns.

We, as Christ believers, are to make the most of the time that we have left

to advance the kingdom of Christ to the glory of the Father.

And this leads us to our passage today that we just read, where there are two

main truths that I want you to study with me.

Now, we're not going to get to all of these verses today, but the first overarching

truth that I would like to bring to your attention is that as Christ's church,

we are not to be filled with alcohol, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Paul in Ephesians 5, verse 18 wrote, And do not get drunk with wine,

Ephesians 5:18

for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.

As we start our study into verse 18 of Ephesians chapter 5, I want to show you

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

two principles that can be derived from this verse.

The first principle I want you to see is that Christ believers are not to get

drunk with wine and all other alcohol, which is dissipation.

The context of this verse was that Paul called believers to be watchful over

their lives and be continually alert to how their lives impacted others for

Christ because the days were evil and would continue to get even more evil the

closer to the return of Christ.

And thus getting drunk with wine dulls our senses and can eventually control us.

And we can include all alcohol in here, and it would be a hindrance for Christ-believers

who are trying to stay alert and watchful over their own life and others' lives for the Lord.

I also want you to notice that Paul made the point of teaching that getting

drunk with wine is dissipation.

The word that Paul used for dissipation meant debauchery or wild living.

I believe that Paul made this point because getting drunk on wine or other alcohol

may not have culturally been viewed as debauchery.

And thus, Paul clearly taught here in this verse that it was and is.

Debauchery is the excessive indulgence in sex, alcohol, or drugs.

In our modern understanding, debauchery is parting hard, and sexual immorality

is often connected to getting drunk because our inhibitions and control of ourselves are lower.

And therefore, instead of getting drunk by filling ourselves with alcohol,

Paul taught that as Christians we are to fill ourselves with the Holy Spirit.

One commentator wrote, By the ancients, moreover, an overdose of wine was often

used not only to rid oneself of care and to gain a sense of mirth,

but also to induce communion with the gods,

and by means of this communion,

to receive ecstatic knowledge not otherwise obtainable.

Such foolishness was often associated with Dionysiac orgies.

Dionysus was the Greek god of wine.

And the apostle contrasted this with the serene ecstasy and sweet fellowship

with Christ, which he himself was experiencing in the Spirit when he wrote this

letter to the Ephesians.

And this brings us to the second principle in verse 18 that I want you to see,

and that is that the church of Christ is to be filled with the Spirit.

Now, this statement of Paul's has led to many differing views on what Paul meant

by filled with the Spirit, and are often controversial.

Now, we're going to spend some time on this concept of being filled with the Spirit.

To do this, we must first look at Acts 2, 1-4, where Luke recorded,

And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place.

And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind,

and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

And there appeared to them tongues like fire distributing themselves,

and they rested on each one of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other

tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

We need to make clear here that the gift of speaking in tongues was not an angel language,

rather the speaking of the gospel in people's own language, but those listening

heard the gospel in their own language.

And what was the purpose of this miracle? To declare the gospel.

Because we know that right after being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Peter preached in his own language, and 3,000 people heard it in their own languages,

and they came to salvation in Christ.

There was probably more than 3,000 people there, but 3,000 of them came to know

Christ through this miracle of the speaking in tongues.

In Acts 4, verse 31, the Jewish leaders had just threatened the apostles with

Acts 4:31

harm if they had preached about Jesus.

And the apostles' response was prayer. And here's what happened.

Verse 31, And when they had prayed earnestly, the place where they gathered

together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began

to speak the word of God with confidence.

I want you to notice that there is no speaking of tongues in this instance,

yet there was an earthquake at the place where the apostles had gathered,

and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

What was the purpose in this passage for being filled with the Holy Spirit?

That the apostles and those with them would speak the word of God with confidence.

And then there is Luke chapter 1, verse 13 to 16, where the angel announced

Luke 1:13–16

to Zechariah about the birth of John the Baptist.

And verse 13, But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid,

Zechariah, for your prayer is being heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear

you a son, and you will call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness,

and many will rejoice at his birth.

For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will not drink any wine

or strong drink. And here's what I want you to see.

He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb,

and he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.

God, through John, never did any miracles in his life, except for John's birth

and the miracle of preaching and leading people back to the Lord through the

baptism of repentance in the Jordan River.

My point here is that there are some groups who view being filled with the Holy

Spirit as connected directly and exclusively to the speaking of angel tongues.

In Acts 2 and other places in Acts, being filled with the Holy Spirit led to

speaking in tongues, among other signs of power.

Yet I show you that there are other passages that depict being filled with the

Spirit expressed outward in different ways.

More than that, in all the instances in the New Testament of being filled with

the Spirit, the purpose was that the will of God be accomplished through the

building up and the growing of the church of Christ.

Even when Peter was preaching and the Holy Spirit filled him and he was able

to speak in his own language, but people were hearing him in their own languages, what was that for?

It was for the growing up of the church of.

Refer to the preaching of God's Word. And this is super helpful because back

in Ephesians chapter 5, when Paul taught in verse 19,

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

that believers in Christ were to be speaking to one another in psalms and hymns

and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord,

always giving thanks for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

I want you to see that all these actions expressed in verse 19 to 21 are all

outcomes of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

And what I'm trying to help us understand is that it's super important for us

not to limit the work of the Holy Spirit when the Scripture does not give those limits.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament was about growing up

the church of God, which included the biblical understanding of tongues,

but was never limited to it.

One commentator wrote this about being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Thus, a believer, rather than controlling himself, is controlled by the Holy Spirit.

It may be more accurate to say that the Holy Spirit is the agent of the filling,

and Christ is the content of the filling.

And thus, in this relationship, as a believer is yielded to the Lord and controlled

by Him, he increasingly manifests the fruit of the Spirit.

There are two applications that I see in this verse.

The first application is that we, as Christ believers, are called to be alert

and watchful over our lives, and to do that, we must be sober in all things.

Paul's admonition does not exclude Christians from taking a little bit of alcohol once in a while.

But Paul was explaining the dangers of being drunk, which then can be very easily.

Lead to debauchery. As Paul reminded Timothy in 2 Timothy 4,

2 Timothy 4:5

verse 5, but you, and here it is, be sober in all things, endure hardship,

do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

To fulfill the ministries that God has given each of us, we,

you and I, must be sober so that we can keep our focus on Christ and His work being done in our lives.

And this leads us to the second way that we can apply Ephesians 5,

Ephesians 5:18

verse 18, which is that we, as Christ followers, are not to allow ourselves

to be controlled by alcohol.

And I include non-doctor prescribed drugs in this as well.

But we are to be controlled by the Holy Spirit.

What then does it mean to be filled or controlled by the Holy Spirit?

Again, the purpose of the filling or being filled with the Holy Spirit was about

the growing of Christ's church for the glory of God.

To be filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit, we must first be born again

by the Holy Spirit, by the grace of God through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Secondly, as Galatians 2.20 teaches us, we are to believe and trust that Christ

is living and acting in us and through us by the Holy Spirit.

Thirdly, we must pray that by faith in Christ for the Holy Spirit to moment

by moment fill our minds and hearts with Christ so that in every thought,

every emotion, decision, and action we make is in obedient surrender to what

the Holy Spirit has written in His Word.

And as part of our obedient surrender to the Holy Spirit's Word,

we are to speak and sing God's word to each other in Christ's church.

We are to be continually thankful to the Lord, and we are to be subject to one

another in the fear of Christ.

This leads us to the next point I want to bring your attention to,

and that is, as Christians, we are to speak and sing to each other in the Lord.

Has there ever been a time when the preaching of God's Word in a sermon was

not penetrating your heart, but the songs with the same biblical truth got past

the walls that you erected? That's happened to me once.

I was at a sing conference down in Tennessee with my beautiful and wonderful

wife, Abigail, and I had some real hardness in my heart at that time.

The sermons I had a hard time paying attention to.

But then Joni Erickson Tata was brought on the stage, and she began to sing

an old hymn about the goodness of God.

Joni is paralyzed and has so many challenges and inconvenience in her life,

and yet she has such a joyful and indomitantly thankful spirit that when she

sung her song, I realized how much I indeed had to be grateful for.

And then I could see my self-pity and my worries and the things I was holding

on to for what they really were. And God lightened my heart.

I share this small testimony with you because God through Paul commands his

church not to only speak God's word to each other, but also to sing God's word to each other.

And the sung word is also very powerful in a different way.

Paul continued on in Ephesians 5, verse 18-21, speaking to one another in psalms

Ephesians 5:18–21

and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.

Paul commanded the believers in Ephesus that they were to sing psalms,

hymns, and spiritual songs to each other.

These songs based upon God's Word were to be sung outwardly to other believers

and to the congregation.

This outward singing was the result of inward singing and making melody with your heart.

I grew up with the phrase, that person has a song in their heart,

meaning that they were filled with such joy that it came out in song.

And this is what Paul was getting at.

The word making melody meant to sing praise.

Additionally, the word heart was the locus of a person's thoughts.

That's their mind, their volition, meaning their will, emotions,

their knowledge from right and wrong, or their conscience.

All this understood as the heart.

Paul was explaining to the Ephesians that they were filled with the Spirit,

and Christ, through the Holy Spirit, was controlling them.

And they would be compelled to sing praises to God.

Singing God's truth in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,

singing praise to God in hearts, are expressions of a believer who is controlled by the Holy Spirit.

So all the Christian's internal and outward being is to sing praises and give glory to God.

And not just individually, but to each other, corporately.

You see, as we sing to each other God's Word, the Holy Spirit,

who is indwelling and controlling us, takes the truths of God's Word and interacts

with the other believers in Christ to encourage them,

build them up in Christ, and to convict and keep us accountable to each other,

and to stimulate believers to praise and love God and love others.

Hebrews 4, verse 12-13 says, For the Word of God is living and active and sharper

Hebrews 4:12–13

than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit

of both joints and marrow,

and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

There is no creature hidden from his sight, and all things are uncovered and

laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we have an account to give.

The word of God that the Spirit wrote and uses is living and active and sharper

than any two-edged sword to permeate our hearts when it is spoken.

But when it is sung, the word of God sharpens and encourages in a different way.

The Word of God still has the Holy Spirit's same power, but there's something

about God's words sung and put to music that soothes us, empowers us, and motivates us.

Imagine a powerfully well-done movie that's emotionally provocative and moving.

Then take away the music. Would that movie be moving as well?

Probably not. Probably boring. I recently watched a movie that was extremely

powerful, and it was a musical.

But I realized afterwards that if you take out the singing and the music,

the message of the movie wasn't really good.

And it wouldn't have been a very exciting movie either if it wasn't for the music and the singing.

It's essential for us to notice that in Ephesians 5, verse 19,

Ephesians 5:19

Paul didn't just command God's church to sing God's word, but also to speak

God's word to each other.

Both vehicles of delivering the message of the gospel and God's truth are essential

to building up the body of Christ and for declaring the wondrous glory of God to the world.

And God's word never goes back to God void or empty, but accomplish that for

which He purposed it and succeeds in that for which He has sent it for.

How do we apply this to us as Christians? First off, we, you and I,

who have been remade and been given new life in Christ, we have Christ Almighty,

God, through the Holy Spirit, dwelling in the inner lives of our beings.

And as such, we must let the Holy Spirit, filling us, burst out with song to

the Lord and to each other.

Because of the blood sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the cross and His resurrection.

We have been adopted as sons of God. We have been forgiven of our sins,

and the blood debt that we owed has now been paid in full.

We have been made holy and blameless in the sight of God.

We've been set free from the power and control of sin and debt.

And God Almighty, creator of everything, is now abiding in us,

and we are abiding in him.

All because Yahweh, the only and almighty God, loves us so much that he sacrificed

everything most dear to him for us.

All because Christ Jesus, God's only begotten Son, joyfully obeyed the Father

by coming to earth as fully man and fully God, and offering Himself as the sacrificial

blood offering on our behalf.

Christ rose from the dead, breaking the power of death and sin over those who

trust Christ as Lord and Savior.

Aren't these truths worth a continual song of praise in our hearts?

I love how David preached to himself as Psalm 42, verse 5, proclaimed,

Psalms 42:5

Why are you in despair, O my soul?

Why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise

him for the help of his presence.

You see, praising God in our inner life is the key to being so full of joy that it bursts out in song.

Don't we wish to be a people who have this much joy in our hearts?

What a witness we would be to the world for God. If just our local church or

the churches in Dillingham lived with that much joy, the world would be knocking

on our doors wanting to know why.

Secondly, we, you and I, are to speak and sing to each other with the Word of God.

God's Word does not return to God void.

God's Word is not just written on paper, but the living and acting Word of the

Holy Spirit that moves from our spoken and sung word to dwell in and grow in

people's hearts as an act of worship to God.

But God's word doesn't stop there. As the word of God grows in us and the Holy

Spirit transforms us and Christ is increasing in our lives in ever-increasing measure,

the Holy Spirit compels us to speak and sing God's word to each other and to

others so that the Holy Spirit then works in them as well.

Then those Christians and new Christians share the Word, and the Holy Spirit

continues in this glorious cycle of worship.

Speaking God's truth to one another also can refer to singing.

This includes our times of worship and service and Bible study in our homes

or in the steam, when we praise God together with hymns and biblically founded songs.

There are more than 400 references to singing in the Scriptures,

and about 50 of them are direct commands.

As Keith and Kristen Getty say, that to not sing praises to God is to disobey.

One of the things I love about Moravians is that music and singing is such an

integral part of our denominational identity as part of the larger Church of Christ.

We Moravians will sing to the Lord at the drop of a hat.

What a wonderful and powerful testimony to God's love, that is.

What truths of God can we take away from today's message?

First off, God through Paul has taught us that we as Christ followers are not

to allow ourselves to be controlled by alcohol, and I include drugs in this

as well, but we are to be controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, we as Christ's church are called to communicate God's truth in psalms,

hymns, and spiritual songs to

each other who are in Christ, and as we sing praise to God in our hearts.

Living like this is part of the way that God demonstrates that we as believers

in Christ are controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Just like Simeon, who was drawn and guided by the Holy Spirit to be at the temple

in Jerusalem at just the right time to see baby Jesus, the Messiah, and God.

So also we too must live our day-to-day lives controlled by the Holy Spirit.

God orchestrates His Holy Spirit moments all the time where He can use us to

share Christ with Christians and non-Christians.

I want to encourage us today to be controlled by the Holy Spirit so that we

will not miss what God will do with us and through us.

Let's trust Christ, and let's be controlled and operated by Him through the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray. Father, we are grateful that You loved us so much that You sent

Your Son, Jesus Christ, to die on that cross for us.

You sent Your Holy Spirit to dwell in us, Lord.

Through Him, Christ now lives in us and operates us.

Help us, O Lord, to surrender to You and allow You to be working Your Son,

Holy Spirit, one God working in us and operating us so that your life will fill

us and that your life will exude out of us and go from us to other people and

grow your church that way. Thank you, Lord.

Use us, precious Father. Grow us in you. In your precious Son's name,

Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

I'll leave you with this benediction from Romans 15.13. May the God of hope

fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy

Spirit you may abound in hope. Amen.

Have a wonderful Sunday. May the Lord bless you.