About this sermon
Paul urges believers to walk carefully, as wise and not unwise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Instead of getting drunk with wine, they are to be filled with the Spirit, which means letting the word of Christ dwell in them richly. The Spirit-filled church sings psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, gives thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and submits to one another.
Sermon transcript
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we approach that time of the worship service where we hear God’s Word read and proclaimed, and actually hearing the reading and preaching of God’s Word is also an act of worship. Worship is not just when we pray and think praises to God. Worship is also hearing with reverence God’s Word as it is read and proclaimed.
So, I’d invite you all to rise for our Scripture reading this morning. The sermon text today is taken from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 5, and as you’re turning there in your Bibles, just to give you a little preview of what’s coming ahead, starting on the next Lord’s Day, the first Sunday of December, I’ll begin a four-week mini-series for Advent on the prologue of John’s Gospel, and we continue this evening The three-part mini-series in The Marks of a True Church tonight will consider the Mark of the Sacraments. But today, our focus is on Ephesians 5, 15-21. I’m going to begin reading at verse 1, and read through verse 21 to give us the full context. So, let us hear God’s holy word, beginning at verse 1 in Ephesians chapter 5, Therefore, the imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
But sexual immorality, all impurity, or covetousness, must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving, for you may be sure of this. that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them.
For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unproofful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Just for a moment, please join me in prayer as we ask God’s blessing upon the preaching of His Word this day. Lord and Father in Heaven, once again we ask that You would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from Your Word, and we ask that You would set a guard over my lips that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word, edifying to your saints, and glorifying to your holy name. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen. Congregation, you may be seated. The title of my sermon this morning is, Always Thankful, Always Thankful.
Well, dear ones, the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is truly a majestic epistle. In this epistle of God’s Word, the Apostle Paul traces the origin of the Church to the very eternal counsel and predestinating purpose of God. In this epistle, Paul gives us the big picture, if you will. He gives us a big-picture perspective on what God is doing in history through the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I would encourage you, if you have the opportunity to sometime, perhaps this afternoon, to sit down and read through the entirety of this epistle. Approach this epistle prayerfully, and read from chapter one through chapter six. It should only take you, if you’re an average reader, a half hour or so at most. But, this is indeed a glorious, majestic epistle.
Now, many of Paul’s letters, many of his epistles, are what the Bible scholars call occasional letters, or occasional letters. Meaning that, in those letters, Paul is addressing particular occasions or issues in the particular churches to which he’s writing. A perfect example of occasional epistles would be 1 and 2 Corinthians. The Corinthian church, as you might recall, had all kinds of issues and problems, and so, in those two Corinthian epistles, Paul deals with the occasions, the local circumstances in those letters that were going on.
And, of course, we glean many, many important truths from those occasional epistles. But, in Ephesians, Ephesians was very possibly written as a circular letter, meant to be read not only in the church at Ephesus, but other churches in that region. And so, in Ephesians, Paul is not addressing specific issues at local congregations, but he’s giving us the big picture. Other epistles may deal with the trees, but here in Ephesians, Paul is giving us a view of the forest, if you will.
Now, in the first three chapters of this glorious epistle, Paul grounds us in the doctrinal truths that relate to and flow out of his major themes. And, in the last three chapters, Paul works out the practical implications of these doctrines, and he applies them to our lives, both as individual Christians but especially he applies them to the life of the Church, after all, the Church and the unity of that Church.
The unity of that Church in union with Christ is one of the central themes of this glorious epistle. We find our text for this Lord’s Day morning in the midst of this lengthy section of exhortations and commands. So, for my sermon today, I’ll attempt to take us through this text, verse by verse, focusing especially on verses 18 And as we do, I will seek to focus our attention on two major lessons that we can glean from this portion of God’s Holy Word. If you’re taking notes, these are the two main points that I want to have us take away from this passage of God’s Word today.
First of all, friends, we will consider the source of our Christian joy. We learn in this passage the source of our Christian joy. And then we will also consider some of the results and expressions of Christian joy. So, what is the source of our joy as Christians? What is the source of that which ought to make us always thankful to our God? Well, we learn in this passage, beloved, that the source of Christian joy is the filling of the Spirit. Look at verse 18.
Paul writes, and do not get drunk with wine, that is to say, do not seek your source of joy and exhilaration in wine, in a state of drunkenness, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, some of your versions may say that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.
Here, Paul tells us not to be drunk with wine, but instead to be filled with the Spirit.” Now, that’s a rather interesting contrast, isn’t it, when you think about it? Why does Paul make this contrast? Why does he contrast the filling of the Spirit, on the one hand, with drunkenness, with wine, on the other hand? Well, consider the context.
Paul has just finished telling his readers to walk—that is to say, to live out your life wisely in this present world. We believers are to be wise and careful in the way that we live out our lives in the midst of this present evil world, and we are to seek to understand what the will of the Lord is. Look with me, if you would. Let’s go back to verse 15, after Paul has called upon us to be imitators of God, including walking in love as Christ loved us. He gave himself up for us, a sacrifice to God, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, as it says in verses 1 and 2, and after he exhorts us to walk in love to one another and to avoid impurity and so forth, to walk as children of light, he then says in verse 15, look carefully, then, how you walk.
Now, when Paul and other New Testament writers use this imagery of the Christian life as That makes sense, doesn’t it? The Christian life is a journey, and it is a journey on the narrow way, and what is that narrow way? That narrow way is Jesus. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father except by me.
So, when Paul says, look carefully how you walk, he’s not telling you to watch your feet and look at your He’s talking about, look carefully, consider carefully how you live out your Christian life. Reflect upon how you are living out your Christian life. Paul has already talked about our salvation in Christ, how we’ve been raised to newness of life in Christ, how we are in union with Christ, and as I said earlier, in this section of his epistle, He’s speaking of how to live out the implications of our identity in Christ in our day-to-day lives, and one thing that is required of us is that we consider carefully how we are living, not as unwise, but as wise. God’s Word calls us, as those who have been redeemed by Christ through sovereign grace, God’s Word calls upon us, beloved, to walk with wisdom. divine wisdom, and that wisdom comes through the Word of God, and as our minds are renewed through and transformed through the Word of the Living God. Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise.
Verse 16, making the best use of the time. Boy, that is convicting to me. I don’t know about for you, but I don’t always make the best use of my time. Time is a gift of God. Let us use our time wisely for the glory of God. Let us, in the way that we schedule our time, the way that we spend our days, let us make sure that we order our days for the glory of God, out of gratitude for His wonderful gift of salvation in Jesus.
So, we are to make the best use of the time. Why? Because the days are evil. The days are evil. We live in this present evil age. This period of time between our Lord’s First Advent and His future, glorious Second Advent, this present age is characterized in many ways by evil.
God is restraining the evil, and the Gospel is going forth, and sinners are being saved, but nonetheless, it requires of us in the age that we live in, beloved, to walk carefully, to seek to live with wisdom, divine wisdom. As he says in verse 17, as he reinforces what he’s been saying already, he says, therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Where do we find the will of the Lord revealed? We find it in this book, The Infallible Inerrant Word of God, this book which is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. And so here we see this call to walk, to live carefully with wisdom in this present age. Now, that brings us back to the setting that Paul is addressing here.
In the first century, in the Roman Empire, and especially here in the city of Ephesus, one common source of folly in that particular environment was the sin of drunkenness. Now, that’s been true of many cultures, many societies. have been afflicted with the vice of widespread drunkenness, but that was a very common vice in the first century Roman Empire and in the city of Ephesus. Many in that environment had turned to excessive indulgence in wine as a source of exhilaration, a source of joy.
Now, it is possible, by the way, that when Paul tells his readers not to get drunk with wine, he might have had more in mind than mere drunkenness. The Scriptures in many places, numerous places, tell us to avoid the sin of drunkenness. The Bible does not condemn, of course, the moderate, self-controlled enjoyment of alcoholic beverages, but the Bible certainly does condemn drunkenness. And yet, again, as I said, Paul may not be simply prohibiting drunkenness as such, although that is prohibited by the Word of God. As a study note in one of my study Bibles, a Bible that used to be called the New Geneva Study Bible, today I think it’s called the Reformation Study Bible, the study note in that Bible says this about this passage.
It says, this is more than a prohibition of simple drunkenness. Paul probably refers to an orgiastic form of worship such as was practiced by the cult of Dionysus or Bacchus, the god of wine. Worship of Dionysus involves drunken states in which the god was thought to enter the bodies of worshippers, inspiring prophecy and frenzied dancing and music. Such worship is, quote, dissipation.”
So, when Paul says, do not get drunk with wine, again, he might be saying more than just avoid drunkenness. Don’t drink too much. He also might be saying, avoid the idolatry to which the drunkenness is often connected And what is the alternative to this idolatrous dissipation, this drunkenness? Again, verse 18, “…do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”
What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? In this present time in Christian history, when the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements a powerful impact upon world Christianity, it’s important for us to understand what Paul is getting at here, because I would suggest that there are perhaps many misconceptions about what it means to be filled with the Spirit. Now, the Greek is pleruste ennumati, pleruste ennumati. It could be translated, as it is here in the English Standard Version, be filled in or with the Spirit, capital S meaning the Holy Spirit. but it also technically could be translated, be filled in spirit, lowercase s, meaning your human spirit.
So, what is Paul saying? Is he saying, be filled with the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, or is he saying, be filled in your spirit? Well, in order to answer that question, we need to look at the context, and given the context, since It would seem more reasonable that Paul is, indeed, talking about the Holy Spirit, not the human spirit. After all, if Paul intended to refer to the human spirit, then he hasn’t told us what we are to fill our human spirits with. See, notice the contrast again. If Paul meant human spirit, he was saying, then, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled in your spirit.
What question does that raise? That raises the question, well, Paul, what am I to fill my spirit with? So, it makes more sense that he is speaking of the Holy Spirit. It also makes more sense that he’s speaking of the Holy Spirit, because in the broader context of this passage, he mentions the First and Second Person of the Trinity, as well.
In verse 20, he says, “…giving thanks always and for everything to whom? To God the Father.” That’s the First Person of the Trinity. “…in the name of whom? Of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.” So, it would make sense that, earlier on, he refers to the third person of the Trinity.
Paul’s writings and his thinking under the guidance of the Spirit, indeed, is imbued with this Trinitarianism throughout, and we see that especially in Ephesians. So, these are some of the reasons why most translators and commentators agree that Paul is speaking about being filled with the Holy Spirit, not merely being filled in your human and that’s reflected in your translations. I imagine that most of your translations, the word spirit, as is capitalized, indicating the Holy Spirit. Now, notice again that being filled with the Holy Spirit is here contrasted with being drunk with wine.
Now, let’s think for a moment about what is involved in drunkenness. Have you ever encountered a drunk person? Have you ever, perhaps you’ve, and you don’t have to You don’t have to confess, but perhaps there’s been a time in your life when you might have been guilty of drunkenness. What is a drunk person characterized by? Well, to be drunk with wine or with any other alcoholic substance involves being under the influence and control of that alcohol. We sometimes refer to those who are drunk as those who are under the influence. Are we Christians to be under the influence of alcohol? No. By contrast, instead of being drunk with wine, instead of being under the control and the influence of a substance like alcohol, we are to be filled with the Spirit. We are to be influenced and controlled by the Holy Spirit of Almighty God.
So, what does it mean, then, to be filled with the Holy Spirit? How do you think many Folks today would answer that question. How do you think many Christians would answer that question today? My suspicion is that many, many believers today might answer that question by saying, well, if you’re filled with the Spirit, you’re going to have this powerful emotional religious experience that causes you to, you know, jump over the pews, use the pews as hurdles in a track contest, or run up and down the aisles, or roll in the aisles, or speak in tongues, or something like that.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with showing excitement, with being emotionally impacted in worship. We ought to be emotionally involved in worship, and there’s nothing wrong. The scriptures speak of various postures of worship that are expressive of the joy in the Lord that we experience. And, in some cultures, some cultures are much more expressive than we tend to be in our Western culture. So, raising hands, for example, lift up your hands to the Lord, the scriptures present that as one posture of prayer. The same thing with falling down on your face, bowing before the Lord, and so forth. There’s nothing inherently wrong with those things unless they’re done to draw attention to yourself.
But being filled with the Holy Spirit, beloved, when Paul talks about being filled with the Spirit, he isn’t referring to some powerful post-conversion religious experience. Instead, to be filled with the Spirit means to be under the influence and control of the Holy Spirit. And what does that mean? That means that your thoughts, Your words, your beliefs, your behavior, your attitudes will reflect the Spirit’s gracious influence in your life.
The command here is to be filled with the Spirit. And, by the way, this isn’t just a one-time filling. The Greek is continuous. It indicates continually be filled with the Spirit. This means to allow the Spirit of God to have His way in your heart and life.
As those who are believers in Christ, if you are trusting Christ and Christ alone as your Lord and Savior, the reason you have that faith is because you’ve been born again. During our Christian education class this morning, we watched a video where Reverend Steve Lawton gave a lesson on the new birth. I’d encourage you folks to come out and join in on that series. It’s a wonderful series. Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again.
If you are born again by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit has shown you your need, your sin, and shown you your need for the Savior, and so you’ve come to trust Jesus as your Savior. You have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. You, believer, are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, so the imperative here is to go on being filled with that Spirit who has regenerated and who is indwelling you.
But how does the Spirit do this? How do we go on being filled with the Spirit? Is it something we’ve worked up in ourselves? What does Paul mean, what does it mean when he says be filled with the Spirit, and what means does God use to bring us under the Spirit’s gracious influence and control?
Well, in order to answer that question, I think we would be well advised to keep our fingers in Ephesians chapter 5, and I want you to turn to a parallel text. in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, where Paul uses similar language to what we see here in Ephesians 5.19.
Turn to Colossians 3.16. Actually, let me start reading at verse 14. I’ll read through verse 17. Colossians chapter 3, and notice the similarity between this passage and the passage in Ephesians that we’re considering today.
Paul writes this, Colossians 3, 14 and following, And above all these, put on love, which finds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God, and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
In Ephesians 5.19, Paul says—I’m sorry, 5.18—Paul says, “…be filled with the Spirit.”
In Colossians 3.16, Paul says, Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.
The point here, beloved, is that to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit, is to be filled with the Word of Christ. You are filled with the Spirit as the Gospel of Jesus Christ so captures your soul that you are brought under its influence. the Spirit of God and the Word of God go together. To be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with the Word. So, how are you filled with the Spirit? You are in the Word, and you meditate on and reflect upon the Word, the message of the Gospel, especially the good news of your salvation through the obedient life, atoning death, glorious resurrection, and ascension of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that good news front and center of your life, as you seek to live out your life in light of who you are in Christ, in light of the fact that you are a redeemed, blood-bought, justified, adopted child of God, and that you are headed for glory, and that you are secure in God’s everlasting saving love. As you live out your life in light of that Word of Christ, that will impact—the Spirit uses that to impact the way that you relate to others, the way that you behave in the body.
The point here, beloved, is that the Spirit uses the Word. We cannot divorce or separate that which God has brought together, and God has chosen to bring together Word and Spirit in His working in our souls. And this, by the way, is why the common Pentecostal de-emphasis and even denigration of sound Bible doctrine in favor of having experiences of the Holy Spirit, this is a false dichotomy. The spirit uses the word. This does not limit the spirit. The spirit has chosen to limit himself to using the word, but it shows the power of the spirit in using the so-called weakness of the gospel to display his power.
The point in all of this, beloved dear ones, is that the source of our Christian joy is none less than the blessed spirit of the living God. the third person of the Holy Spirit, that Spirit who has caused us to be born again, that Spirit who has regenerated us, who indwells us, who is in the process of sanctifying us, making us more and more willing to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. As we are continuously filled with the Spirit, which means being filled with the Word of God and allowing the Word to influence our lives, we allow ourselves to be controlled and influenced by the Word and Spirit of God. And the result of this, beloved, is indeed a joy, a joy and an exhilaration and an inner satisfaction that far exceeds the false joy and destructive exhilaration that is produced by the sin of drunkenness.
Why do people turn to alcohol? Often because their lives are empty. They feel their lives are empty. They’re looking for solace. happiness and joy. And drunkenness can give you a temporary delusional sense of these things, but then there’s the hangover the next day. There’s not a hangover with the fullness of the Spirit. There is. He is present with us at all times.
And as we are in the Word and meditate on the Word and live in light of the Word, Our lives will be filled with a joy that is from above, as the scriptures say, a joy which is inexpressible and full of glory. Dear listener, let me ask you this. Do you know the joy of the Lord that comes from believing the gospel and trusting in Jesus Christ as your very own Savior and Lord? Do you know that joy? God’s people have different personalities. Some are a little more Gregarious than others, some are a little more somber and solemn than others, and that’s okay.
But there is a joy, whatever your personality type, if you know Christ as your Savior, if you know that though you are a wretched sinner, apart from grace, dead in your trespasses and sins, deserving of God’s everlasting wrath and help, but you’ve come to know that Jesus Christ, the God-man, the Word made flesh, came to this earth, lived a perfect life, as the second Adam on behalf of all of God’s people, died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, and rose from the dead. And if you know that trusting in Him, you are forgiven all of your sins, past, present, and future, have been nailed to the cross, buried in His tomb, cast into a sea of forgetfulness. If you know that your sins are forgiving you for Jesus’ sake, that you are justified once and for all and forever, you can’t lose your justification. There’s therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
If you know that you are a spiritually well child of God, that spirit of adoption within you cries out, I’m a father. If you know these things, then you know the joy of the Lord. And you can know that joy even in the midst of sorrow, even in the midst of tragedy. Do you know that joy, dear listener? That joy is offered to you through Jesus Christ.
It is freely offered to you in the gospel. And Jesus says, O weary sinner, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Come to Jesus for salvation rest today. Rest in Him, in the perfection of His merit, the perfection of His sacrifice. And then, by the grace of God, the joy of the Lord will be your strength.
So, we’ve considered the source of our Christian joy, and that is the fullness of the Spirit. Next, from verses 19-21, let us briefly consider some of the results and expressions of Christian joy. Paul mentions being filled, continuously filled with the Spirit, and as we are filled with the Spirit, what are we to do? Look at verse 19 and following.
Addressing one another in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. One of the results and expressions of Christian joy is the singing of praise. We make a big deal of praise in this congregation, and I love our newspaper Himmel, because we get to sing all of the psalms, we get to sing the great hymns of the church as well. We are called upon in this passage to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. But who are we singing those psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to? To whom are we singing those psalms?
Paul makes it clear in verse 19 that there is, in a sense, there’s a horizontal trajectory to our praise as well as a vertical trajectory. When we sing praise, what does it say? Verse 19, addressing one another. This is one of those one-anothering passages.
When you come to church on the Lord’s Day, and you hear the congregation of God’s people singing together in praise to God, That’s an edifying thing, isn’t it? Yes, we sing to praise God, as it says at the end of this verse, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. The Lord meaning the Lord Jesus, most likely. That’s how we sing praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
But, there is a sense in which when we sing together as a congregation, we are addressing one another, we’re teaching one another through the Psalms and the great hymns of the faith, we’re encouraging one another. As we sing praise to God, I’m very encouraged when I come to grace and I hear your wonderful singing. This encourages my heart. This is encouragement to one another. This is why the ordinance of praise is such an important worship ordinance. So there is a horizontal direction of our praise as well as a vertical direction.
The late William Barclay in his commentary on Ephesians says, quote, the early church was a singing church. Its characteristic was songs and hymns and spiritual songs. It had a happiness which made men sing. That happiness that comes from the fullness of the spirit.
Now, given the context in which we live here in western PA, I think it would be good to briefly go a little bit, do a little bit of off-roading this morning, and talk about briefly—this is not a sermon on exclusive psalmody, but I do want to mention that our exclusive psalmody brothers and sisters, they look at this passage, verse 19, and they look at these three terms, psalmos, humnos, and hode, psalms, hymns, and songs, spiritual songs, and they say, well, these are just different titles for the hymns.
These three terms are used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, to refer to various psalm titles. So, they’re just saying, they would argue that this is a pleonasm, this is a way for Paul to express that we are to sing all kinds of psalms from the biblical Psalter. The problem I have with that perspective, beloved, is that all three of these terms can refer to compositions other than the canonical psalms. Even the term psalmas could refer to sacred, right, sacred compositions that are non-canonical, not of the canonical psalms. If Paul had wanted to restrict our singing of praise to the biblical psalms, he would think he would have made that clearer.
For example, he could have used a definite article. There’s no definite article here. He could have said, speak to one another in the Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Psalms, namely, the well-known Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Psalms, but he doesn’t say that. And, look at that term, spiritual.
Some, like the great theologian, Dr. John Murray, who was an advocate of exclusive psalmody in our own denomination, a great theologian of the Church, argued that this term, spiritual, means spirit-inspired. But, contextually, that doesn’t make sense. In the context, Paul is not speaking of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual songs are songs that are composed out of the fullness of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, not out of the inspiration of the Spirit. He does not use the term God-breathed, or theopneustos. He uses the term pneumatikos here, spiritual, not inspired or God-breathed.
And so, beloved, While we love our Covenanter brothers and sisters, our Reformed Presbyterian brothers and sisters, and we respect their reverence for the Psalms, and we ourselves love the inspired Psalms, we sing the Psalms, we ought to sing the Psalms, I believe that verse 19 certainly does not restrict us to singing only the Biblical Psalms.
But that issue aside, again, we can flesh that out sometime in the future, in a future study. But getting back to our point here, beloved, as we are filled with the Spirit of God, one of the expressions of the fullness of the Spirit is the singing of praise. Beloved, do we know the joy of the Spirit’s fullness? Then let us sing about it. Brothers and sisters, God not only wants us to proclaim and confess our faith, He wants us to sing out our faith as well. Let us continue to strive to be a church. that displays the glory of God through our singing of praise from the heart. But not only are we to sing praise, notice next there is the giving of thanks to God always and for everything.
Verse 20, giving thanks when times are good? Giving thanks when times are comfortable? No. Giving thanks always and for everything. And to whom are we to give thanks? To God the Father In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we approach the Father through the mediation of the Son, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Here, Paul focuses on thanksgiving, and we are to give thanks always and for everything, not just in good times, but even in those other times as well. And here’s the thing, when you give thanks to God, even during a time of adversity, you bear powerful testimony to the fact of your faith, that God is sovereign, that he’s working all things together for your good, and that can be a powerful witness for the gospel.
Many years ago, in the mid-90s, I was an intern in New Jersey, at an OPC church in New Jersey, and during the year of my internship, there was a tragedy that occurred in the church that I was privileged to serve as an intern. There was a young family in the church, they had numerous children, But their youngest infant son tragically died. There was a tragic accident and their little boy passed away. It was a crushing, crushing loss for this family. And yet, their faith in Christ and their joy in the Lord sustained them through that tragic loss. And it was such a powerful testimony amongst those in their circle.
And it’s my understanding, if I’m remembering correctly, that a number of folks that knew this couple, knew this family, saw their faith and how their faith sustained them in that time of tragedy, and their testimony to Christ in the midst of that tragedy brought some of their friends to faith in Christ. God can bring good even out of tragedies. And this is why we can be thankful at all times and in everything.
No matter what happens in our lives, we have the promise that Romans 8.28, God is causing all things to work together for our good. And God will use even the tragedies and struggles and trials in our lives to glorify his name and for our own ultimate spiritual good.
And so, the expressions and the fruits of the fullness of the Spirit, singing praise to God, a thankful heart in all circumstances, and also, and there’s many other things that Paul, I believe, could mention. He’s giving us just a limited expression of some of these things that are the result of the fullness of the Spirit, but the final thing that he mentions here in this particular passage that we’re considering today is mutual submission in the Church. Verse 21, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. submitting to one another. As we are filled with the Word and Spirit of Christ, and as we express the Christian joy we experience through singing and thanksgiving, we will also get evidence of the fullness of the Spirit by mutual submission to one another in the Church and out of holy reverence for Christ.
What this means, among other things, is that any attitude in the Church that seeks to lord it over others, that seeks to dominate others, that basically says, hey, it’s my way or the highway, is totally out of line with this passage and totally incompatible with being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that the works of the flesh are evident, and one of those evident works of the flesh is trying to get your own way on those things where there can be Christian liberty. Now, certainly, I’m not suggesting that we ought to compromise on sound doctrine or anything like that. When it comes to the essentials, when it comes to sound doctrine and the truth of the Word, we need to hold our ground.
But when it comes to things where Christians may have different views and where there’s allowances for latitude, we need to be willing to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. As we in the Church seek to submit in love to the Lordship of Jesus Christ our Savior, let us also seek to have an attitude of self-giving loving concern for one another. an attitude that shows itself by the action of submitting to one another, of considering others better than ourselves, of seeking others ahead of ourselves. Among other things, that means we must not insist on getting our own way, and we must seek to honor others above ourselves.
In conclusion, dear ones, we have so much for which to be thankful, especially for God’s sovereign grace which has chosen us for Christ’s redeeming love on the cross which has redeemed us and saved us, and the Holy Spirit’s gift of the new birth. As we’ve already received the gift of the Holy Spirit, let us go on being filled with the Holy Spirit, and as we are, may God give to each and every one of us the grace always to keep in step with the Spirit.
Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in Heaven, Sovereign and Eternal God, We do thank you and praise you, God, for your amazing grace to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you, God, that your Spirit dwells in us and among us as the body of Christ. We ask, O Lord, that in your grace we may be continually filled with the Spirit and experience by your grace that joy which is inexpressible and filled with glory. May the Word and Spirit of Christ dwell richly in us and influence our behavior and our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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