SPEAKER_00: This morning, Ephesians five, verses eighteen through twenty-one, Paul says, 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.
SPEAKER_00: This is a passage that, the first blush, has a contrast in it that's unexpected.
SPEAKER_00: In the whole paragraph here, Paul is encouraging us to seek the will of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier he told us to take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, instead expose them.
SPEAKER_00: He's confronted our speech, he's confronted adultery and sexual immorality in our life, and so now he moves into drunkenness.
SPEAKER_00: And the contrast in verse 18 is what confuses people.
SPEAKER_00: It's a somewhat of unusual and unexpected contrast.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Do not get drunk with wine, instead be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And you have whole movements of charismatic Christianity that take this verse to justify holy giggling and acting silly and outrageous and running around chasing each other.
SPEAKER_00: Massive churches, not in some corner, but uh massive churches in our country practice getting drunk in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I remember as a new Christian watching big churches, mostly in Canada, that acted this kind of thing out with, you know, holy barking and people running around and meowing, and basically acting drunk in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And they derive that teaching from this verse which connects being drunk or contrasts being drunk with how you act in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, Paul's not describing holy barking or holy meowing.
SPEAKER_00: But what is he describing?
SPEAKER_00: And what is the contrast here between drunkenness and being filled with the spirit?
SPEAKER_00: It was early on in my marriage where my wife had made some kind of um chicken stock.
SPEAKER_00: She had made a uh chicken for dinner that night, and then she had, you know, boiled the chicken carcass or whatever with all kinds of other vegetables and stuff on the stove for several several hours.
SPEAKER_00: And I got up uh, you know, hours after we went to bed and got a drink of water and see this pot filled with dark liquid sitting in the sink.
SPEAKER_00: And so I dumped it out.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm trying to help.
SPEAKER_00: You understand this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to help.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and in the morning she wondered where her chicken stock had gone.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, that's not the embarrassing part.
SPEAKER_00: The embarrassing part is that over the course of our marriage, I have done that three times.
SPEAKER_00: Uh all three entirely accidental.
SPEAKER_00: All three, I thought I was trying to help.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we buy the Costco chicken stock now.
SPEAKER_00: The second time, she was in the kitchen with me, and I'm cleaning up the pots and uh dump it in the sink, and you I could feel like the air sucked out of the room, and she's like, and I actually look down at the trap where the garbage is supposed to think, can I pull that out and rescue this?
SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, it's embarrassing.
SPEAKER_00: The connection to drunkenness here is there was no alcohol involved with these mistakes, I assure you.
SPEAKER_00: These were sober mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: But the contrast Paul's going for here is kind of why that me dumping the chicken stock down the sink is such a like a hurtful thing to do, accidental, but hurtful, because what was in that pot had so much potential to, well, to feed me, honestly, is where it was going.
SPEAKER_00: It had potential to strengthen me and to feed me, and work had gone into it and labor had gone into it, and it would have been to my benefit, and instead I poured it out and dumped it away, giving nobody any benefit at all.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast in verse 18 here is not between drunkenness and filled with the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast here is not between alcohol and the third person of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast here is between the word debauchery, which in many translations is dissipation, which is probably a better word for it.
SPEAKER_00: The word for dissipation, the word for, it's the word for pouring out.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word for dumping something over and spilling it out so that it's meaningless, so it means nothing.
SPEAKER_00: That's contrasted with the word for filling up in verse 18, a word that has been used throughout the book of Ephesians, filling up plenero, which means could fill up from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: It is a is a word for uh wine jugs that are filled to the very top.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the most common ways that word is used in the Greek language.
SPEAKER_00: You have those water jugs or wine jugs, and you could fill them up to the top.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the the liquid goes inside and fills it up if there's uh other, if there's rocks or something inside of it, the water would fill in all the holes and the rocks and all the gaps, and it would fill up every nook and cranny.
SPEAKER_00: That's this word.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast with that is the other word, dissipation, where something is poured out.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the opposite, where something comes out of the bottle, and if you hold the bottle upside down, all the little droplets will come out and it goes in the ground, and you can't get it back into the bottle again, no matter how hard you try.
SPEAKER_00: If you dump water out of your water bottle onto your front lawn, you can't get it back into the water bottle.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's gone.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happened to it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the contrast in verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: That there is something, debauchery is a fine word for it, I guess, in the sense that when you're pouring out your life for meaningless, it's usually connected to immorality.
SPEAKER_00: It's usually connected to what we would call debauchery.
SPEAKER_00: How opposed to that is having your life filled up.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what is an example of pouring your life out?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul's already talked about sexual immorality earlier, which is a very common way people pour out their life, but here he has something even more specific in mind, verse 18, do not get drunk with wine.
SPEAKER_00: Drunkenness is what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: You were designed by God to enjoy this life.
SPEAKER_00: You are designed by God to take delight in this world, and drunkenness deadens that.
SPEAKER_00: Wine is designed by God to gladden man's heart, the scripture says, but drunkenness deadens his life.
SPEAKER_00: Drunkenness is a pouring out of his life.
SPEAKER_00: We understand this contrast with food.
SPEAKER_00: Food is designed by God for enjoyment, but the glutton turns food into his master.
SPEAKER_00: The glutton becomes a slave to food.
SPEAKER_00: Something that was designed by God to give you joy, holds you captive, and robs you of your joy.
SPEAKER_00: And the same contrast is seen, of course, with alcohol, designed by God to gladden man's heart, but instead used to derail his life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure all of your families have illustrations of this principle in it.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who through drunkenness has harmed his family.
SPEAKER_00: God designs husbands to be protectors and a source of joy in the home, a source of provision in the home, and drunkenness turns the husband into a threat rather than a source of provision, a source of wastefulness.
SPEAKER_00: Drunkenness harms careers.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands are called to provide for their family and work hard and make a life for himself and how he provides for his family, and drunkenness wrecks that and ruins your reputation at work and limits opportunities for advancement and ultimately spends what money you have wasting it, spreading it out, dumping it on the floor.
SPEAKER_00: It harms finances rather than saving for your future.
SPEAKER_00: You spend for now and will have forgotten in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, it harms relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Families whose kids have to go away and live somewhere else because they can't be trusted around the drunk person in their home.
SPEAKER_00: That's dissipation.
SPEAKER_00: That's debauchery.
SPEAKER_00: That's a pouring out of your life, a wasting of your life, a deadening of your life, a washing your resources away.
SPEAKER_00: What starts with drinking to take the edge off becomes a wasting of your life.
SPEAKER_00: God means for us to use our money to advance the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: When you use it to deaden your life and alienate your family, it's wasted.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a little thought exercise.
SPEAKER_00: The CDC, and this is a statistic that comes from pre-COVID, so it's back in a trustworthy era.
SPEAKER_00: The CDC says that the typical alcoholic spends$70 a week in alcohol.
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know what to make of that number.
SPEAKER_00: And as you read the, there's a whole study that goes with this, it's on the CDC website right now.
SPEAKER_00: It chases down about, you know, how many six packs of beer or whatever are connected with a person who is the typical alcoholic getting drunk a few times a week.
SPEAKER_00: 70 bucks a week is what they came up with.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's roughly$15 a day, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: If you were to save$15 a day for 40 years with a 5% interest, which is a pretty basic form of interest, after 40 years, you would have$700,000.
SPEAKER_00: That's enough for a house, even in Northern Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: That's enough to pay for your cars your whole life.
SPEAKER_00: That's enough to leave a house to your kids.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a few kids, that's enough that when you die, your house can be sold and divided among your kids, and they would all have enough for down payments for their own houses.
SPEAKER_00: Even in Northern Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: Drunkenness is dissipation because it takes that away from your family.
SPEAKER_00: It takes the dad away from providing a house for his family and houses for his kids to nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Even if he's not violent, even if he doesn't rage and threaten everyone in the house, he pours out his life.
SPEAKER_00: This is in contrast with the rest of verse 18, being filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's not coincidental that Paul uses this contrast, obviously very intentional.
SPEAKER_00: He's inspired by the Holy Spirit, so this is the Holy Spirit inspiring a verse about himself.
SPEAKER_00: And the person who is filled with the Spirit becomes a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: There's a contrast to drunkenness in every way, leaves a legacy to his family, provides for his family, and creates a sense of warmth and worship around him.
SPEAKER_00: This is being filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You can just think of the contrast between the deeds of the flesh versus the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Deeds of the flesh are hostile and confrontive and divisive and self-centered and self-focused.
SPEAKER_00: And the works of the Spirit are fruitful and loving and kind and generous, hospitable, patient.
SPEAKER_00: Just think of all of the words associated with darkness versus light.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all this is caught up in this contrast.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul's used this word for fillness over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 1, verse 23 is the first time we see it, where he says that Jesus is filled by the one who fills all in all.
SPEAKER_00: That God, our Heavenly Father, fills Christ with Himself.
SPEAKER_00: So the second person eternity, the Son, is filled with all that is God.
SPEAKER_00: The whole essence of God is the Son.
SPEAKER_00: He is filled up from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that is the Son that is not the Father.
SPEAKER_00: All the fullness of God is filled with the Son.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first place we see this in Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: The whole nature of God, all of the divine attributes fill Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus comes to the earth, and through the gospel and the sending of his Spirit, Jesus is the forms the church, which is the body of Christ, and the Spirit fills us.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God fills the church.
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians 3.19, Paul prays that we would be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: So the very image of what the Father did to Jesus earlier, filling him with himself, is now Paul's prayer that the church should be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Again, that's Ephesians 3.19.
SPEAKER_00: So I hope you see the contrast.
SPEAKER_00: Drunkenness pours out and wastes.
SPEAKER_00: But the life that is set on God is filled up and is filled up by God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's people ask theological questions on verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: It's an imperative, but be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's the imperative.
SPEAKER_00: It's a present imperative, which means like right now, ongoing, be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's an imperative to you, which means you're supposed to do it, but it's passive, which means it's happening to you.
SPEAKER_00: There's no good way to render that in English.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have English translation that captures that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have theological questions by just reading it in English, but be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I thought salvation was something God did to you.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't God regenerate you?
SPEAKER_00: God gives you faith and brings you from death to life.
SPEAKER_00: It's God who acts on you.
SPEAKER_00: It's what being born again is, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: You can't you don't cause your first birth, you can't cause your second birth.
SPEAKER_00: And so what does it mean with be filled with the spirit?
SPEAKER_00: If you're filled with the spirit of salvation, how can you be more filled with the spirit throughout your life?
SPEAKER_00: Do you grow in the level of spirituality you have?
SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's some churches that even use the analogy of leaking.
SPEAKER_00: I used to work at a church uh that that taught that that you uh at salvation you have the Holy Spirit, but then through sin, the Holy Spirit uh dissipates through your own life, and then before you go on a mission trip or something, you have people lay hands on you and you're refilled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You fill back up and then you leak again.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a very common teaching in a lot of American Christianity, and they get that again from this verse.
SPEAKER_00: But I think that's a wrong way of understanding this imperative.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it is passive, it's you're it's happening to you, the Holy Spirit is doing it to you, but the imperative nature of it is in contrast to debauchery.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than wasting your life, Paul is saying, continue in how you're walking, continue walking, being filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's the Holy Spirit who fills you, so continue along that way.
SPEAKER_00: Stay filled, in other words, with the Spirit, abiding in you.
SPEAKER_00: So he's making a contrast between wasting your life and using your life for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You think of the prodigal son?
SPEAKER_00: The prodigal son, the word prodigal, by the way, doesn't mean someone who runs away and comes back.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the word prodigal means.
SPEAKER_00: Although we use it that way because that's what happens in the story.
SPEAKER_00: So we say the word prodigal means, you know, the the cat went away and came back three weeks later, much fatter than he was when he ran away.
SPEAKER_00: It's the prodigal cat.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: The word prodigal means somebody who just spends all their money and is left begging.
SPEAKER_00: Think of the story of the prodigal son, he goes away.
SPEAKER_00: He had all the wealth of his family, and he wastes it all.
SPEAKER_00: He had the inheritance from his father, wastes it, and comes back in desperation.
SPEAKER_00: That's the contrast here.
SPEAKER_00: And when he comes back, the father has joy.
SPEAKER_00: The father is filled with joy, the very joy that is in heaven itself, when a sinner comes to faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's the contrast.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul is after here.
SPEAKER_00: When you walk in sin, you pour out your life in meaninglessness.
SPEAKER_00: But when you have faith in God, you are sealed with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit regenerates you.
SPEAKER_00: He gives you faith.
SPEAKER_00: You're set on a course, and the Spirit convicts you along this course, and you are growing in godliness throughout your life.
SPEAKER_00: Jonathan Edwards described it this way.
SPEAKER_00: He explained this verse by saying, the Christian is filled, but as you grow in godliness, your capacity grows.
SPEAKER_00: The size of your cup increases.
SPEAKER_00: Your cup runs over, of course, but as you grow in godliness, the size of the cup grows.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the course you're set on your whole life, where you continually grow in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: You continually grow in your knowledge of the Word.
SPEAKER_00: You can continually grow in your conformity to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: By understanding, verse 17, what the will of the Lord is.
SPEAKER_00: That's your growth.
SPEAKER_00: So it is an awkward English phrase, but it's not awkward because the theology is awkward.
SPEAKER_00: It's awkward just because translation is awkward.
SPEAKER_00: So my question for you this morning is: Is your life being filled up or poured out?
SPEAKER_00: As you seek the Lord in your life, or are you filling up or are you pouring out?
SPEAKER_00: Are you walking in a way in your life that is glorifying the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Bringing peace and joy and worship to those around you, or are you walking in your life in a way that is pouring out what the Lord gave you?
SPEAKER_00: Living for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's going to go on in verses 19 and 20 and 21 to provide three descriptions of what it means to be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And again, these are not causative.
SPEAKER_00: You don't do these things in order to be filled with the Spirit, but because you are filled with the Spirit, this is what your life looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Holy Spirit does seal your heart and guarantee your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: From the language back in Ephesians 1, this is what that looks like practically in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're taking notes, you can jot these three headings down.
SPEAKER_00: First is worshiping.
SPEAKER_00: A person who is filled with the Holy Spirit has a life that is fixed on worship.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
SPEAKER_00: No, all three of those are a form of singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.
SPEAKER_00: So when you take verse 19 here, it's talking about corporate worship.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're singing to one another.
SPEAKER_00: You're communicating, the word, here it's translated singing in the SV.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a word for communicating.
SPEAKER_00: You're speaking to one another, you're communicating, or verse 19, addressing one another.
SPEAKER_00: But when you're addressing one another, we have an English word for this.
SPEAKER_00: When you're addressing one another with a song, it's called singing.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what he's after here.
SPEAKER_00: You're communicating to one another with hymns and songs and psalms.
SPEAKER_00: But what's spirit-filled about that is not the volume out of your mouth, although that's an indication of it, but what's spirit-filled about that is the melody that is in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that is such good news for some of you.
SPEAKER_00: Such good news.
SPEAKER_00: You can be a beautiful singer and not be able to carry a tune in a U-Haul.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Because what makes the singing of the church beautiful is the melody that is in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like a cheesy card or Christian poster or something, but it's not.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually a biblical principle.
SPEAKER_00: The beauty of your voice is in the melody that is in your heart as you sing to one another, as you make the music of the church.
SPEAKER_00: I loved this morning's music.
SPEAKER_00: What appropriate music to celebrate Reformation Day.
SPEAKER_00: What appropriate songs.
SPEAKER_00: I loved the choir anthem, Immortal, Invisible God.
SPEAKER_00: What an incredibly beautiful depiction of music.
SPEAKER_00: That there's no way I could ever sing anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: But to hear it sung magnifies the glory of the Lord in the room as people are singing with that kind of skill and capacity.
SPEAKER_00: So it a little bit discourages me that I could never sing like that.
SPEAKER_00: However, the other songs that are participatory, you can't join in on the choir anthems, you know that, right?
SPEAKER_00: You let them sing.
SPEAKER_00: You make melody the Lord in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: But it causes you to grow in your love for the Lord so that on the participatory songs where you do sing, it's the melody to the Lord in your heart that is coming out.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be spirit-filled, to have such a love for the Lord that you sing.
SPEAKER_00: It's not coincidental that after launching the Protestant Reformation, one of the Luther did a few things.
SPEAKER_00: He took a wife, he got married, devoted himself to preaching, devoted himself to Bible translating, translated the Bible into German, and then to writing songs for the church to sing, songs that were participatory, songs that a congregation could sing as they worshiped the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be spirit filled.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's you know three words in here psalms and hymns and Spiritual songs.
SPEAKER_00: I preached a whole sermon on these three before.
SPEAKER_00: It's on our church website.
SPEAKER_00: If you look up Ephesians 5.18 on our church website, you'll uh 5.19, you'll find this on the church website.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to re-preach all of it except to say that they are three different things, even in the Greek language.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms is legitimately the book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: They're put to music.
SPEAKER_00: Like when we sing uh Mighty Fortress is our God, that's Psalm 46, and it is a psalm that is basically put to music.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews would sing the psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Most famous, those are the Hala Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: They sung at Passover.
SPEAKER_00: They would sing through the Psalter.
SPEAKER_00: Certain psalms that were chosen for them to sing.
SPEAKER_00: They would sing the Psalms of Ascent, for example, one starting in Psalm 120, they would sing those psalms on their way to Jerusalem with the pilgrimages.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means here.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms that were written by God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, for us to sing in worship.
SPEAKER_00: Hymns is a word for poetry that is put to music.
SPEAKER_00: And you would see these.
SPEAKER_00: We have hymnals in the Purachs.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd open up the hymnals, most of the hymns in the hymnal, not all of them, but most of them are hymns.
SPEAKER_00: And what a hymn is, is poetic.
SPEAKER_00: They have stanzas and structure.
SPEAKER_00: Something is a hymn, not based on what year it was written.
SPEAKER_00: Like if it was written when you're, you know, it was written before you were born, it's a hymn.
SPEAKER_00: And if it was written after you're born, it's a song.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the distinction.
SPEAKER_00: There's hymns written right now.
SPEAKER_00: There's hymns written today.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not about the music.
SPEAKER_00: Like if it has a drums, it's a song, but if it has the organ, it's a hymn.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Also, or you can it's not about the music that goes with it.
SPEAKER_00: It's about the structure.
SPEAKER_00: Poetry put to music.
SPEAKER_00: Something with stanzas and lines and rhythm.
SPEAKER_00: Their music repeats the stanzas.
SPEAKER_00: It's poetry put to music.
SPEAKER_00: That's hymn.
SPEAKER_00: It's a hymn.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Greek word means, and we keep the same distinction in English as well.
SPEAKER_00: Although, you know, in English, I guess it's kind of more for him, it's more religious, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00: But then spiritual songs.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual songs have a testimony aspect to it or a more free-flowing aspect to it.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have the poetic structure.
SPEAKER_00: This is a lot of uh songs that we do sing in church, follow this.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd have put the words, the words wouldn't have a poetic structure.
SPEAKER_00: It's more about the affections of knowing the Lord, the experience of encountering the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that hymns are better than songs or songs are better than hymns.
SPEAKER_00: But it's that you worship with all of those.
SPEAKER_00: Because the point here is not is there a balance between hymns and songs?
SPEAKER_00: The point here is what's the melody in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: So if you're angry about how many hymns we sing, then you're out of tune.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just talking about a church, although you hear the music at church, of course, you're singing to one another, but this is a pattern in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You're communicating, but it's reflecting what's in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna leave the walls of the church here, but before we do, understand why singing is such an important indicator if you're filling your life up or pouring it out.
SPEAKER_00: Because you ask who's the audience to your singing?
SPEAKER_00: When you're singing here, the choir is not the audience.
SPEAKER_00: They're looking at you, but they're not the audience.
SPEAKER_00: And when the choir is singing, you're not the audience, everybody is singing before the throne of God.
SPEAKER_00: We're singing to him.
SPEAKER_00: He is the audience.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one receiving our worship.
SPEAKER_00: You think of David dancing before the ark when the ark finally got moved back into Jerusalem and his he was dancing and worshiping and singing, and his wife told him, Stop.
SPEAKER_00: This is embarrassing.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to be the king, and you're dancing all around every which way, and you're singing, and you're just making a scene.
SPEAKER_00: Act like a king.
SPEAKER_00: Kings have dancers, they don't dance.
SPEAKER_00: And David's response was, Oh, I will do even more despicable things before you than that, because I'm singing, he used the word, I'm singing before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that's my audience.
SPEAKER_00: So you understand that same principle is true in church that we sing before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And this is his worship.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Holy Spirit who provokes us in our own heart.
SPEAKER_00: So, first, worshiping.
SPEAKER_00: Second, thanking.
SPEAKER_00: Thanking.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, giving thanks always and for.
SPEAKER_00: No, don't say it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't say it.
SPEAKER_00: Everything.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of those words that you'd like to edit out, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to give thanks always and for everything.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say give thanks for a lot of things and complain about the rest.
SPEAKER_00: But give thanks always and for everything.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you supposed to be thankful for everything?
SPEAKER_00: Because there's suffering in the world, there's hardship in the world, there's drunkenness in the world, to use an example from just the verse before this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is hard, difficult, sinful things in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you supposed to be give thanks to God for those things?
SPEAKER_00: Because you understand the other biblical principle that God is at work in and through all things for his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: That all things can be used for God's glory and for your good.
SPEAKER_00: Even sin magnifies the glory of God in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And if you take that and say, well, I should sin so that grace can abound, may it never be.
SPEAKER_00: You don't understand grace or what glory means then.
SPEAKER_00: But the principle here is that you give thanks for all things, even hard things, even difficult things, even you're the victim of sin.
SPEAKER_00: You can give thanks even if you're the victim of sin because God is going to do something through that.
SPEAKER_00: You may not know what in this world.
SPEAKER_00: You may not know what, but he's going to do something.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the that's the basic theological principle.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's not teaching that principle here.
SPEAKER_00: That's taught in other passages of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's not taught in this passage, it's taught in other passages.
SPEAKER_00: But in light of what he teaches about God being sovereign over all things in other passages, he draws out this principle here, which is you're supposed to give thanks for all things.
SPEAKER_00: So you understand how this imperative is conditioned on the truth that is taught elsewhere in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You give thanks to all things.
SPEAKER_00: You think of Job seeing his family die and losing everything, and you know, he can he can go before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He wrestles with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He wrestles, he recognizes the Lord has the right to do what he wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't understand how glory is gonna come out of this, but of course it does.
SPEAKER_00: We don't all have our prayers answered like Job had his prayers answered, of course, but the principle stands that if you're Joseph sold into slavery, you recognize God's gonna do something with this.
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna do something.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can give thanks.
SPEAKER_00: You're thrown in prison like Paul and Silas were, you can give thanks.
SPEAKER_00: They were singing songs of thanks while they were in prison.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't know what was gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: But they were thankful for it before it happened.
SPEAKER_00: You go through a trial and you're thankful for the trial.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know what God is gonna do for the trial, but you're thankful for it when it's happening, in all things, through all things.
SPEAKER_00: Always.
SPEAKER_00: So is there a time you're not supposed to be thankful?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: You're always supposed to be thankful.
SPEAKER_00: What a great indication of if you're if you're spirit-filled.
SPEAKER_00: What a great indication is you're walking according to the will of God is are you thankful for where you're walking?
SPEAKER_00: If you're not thankful for where you're walking, are you walking in the spirit?
SPEAKER_00: Are you walking according to the will of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: So you're thankful at all times.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that this, even this is Trinitarian, it's according to the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: You're giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father, but how can you give thanks to God the Father?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can only approach God the Father through the Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There is no way, there's no pathway, there is no channel to God the Father except through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father except through the Son.
SPEAKER_00: And no one can come to the Son unless the Holy Spirit draws him.
SPEAKER_00: And so this really is Trinitarian.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Paul is very well aware of what Jesus taught in his life, that if you want to come to the Father, you come through him, and that no one can come to the Son unless the Holy Spirit draws him.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's making reference to that, I think, here in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: I mean in verse 20, you're giving thanks to God the Father in the name or according to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And it began, of course, back in verse 18 by being filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So you can reverse engineer this.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit indwells you, gives you faith, opens up your eyes to behold the truth of God's word, and causes you to see God at work in the world, even through your prior sin that led you to a point of brokenness that causes you to put your faith in the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is, of course, where the Son of God, Jesus Christ, died for our sin, bearing the penalty that we deserved, buried in the grave, resurrected on the third day, offering free life to those who would believe Jesus got to the cross because he was sent by the Father.
SPEAKER_00: So you go backwards.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit saves you by giving you faith in the Son.
SPEAKER_00: The Son was on the cross because the Father sent him to the world to be the substitute for sin.
SPEAKER_00: Or go frontwards, that in heaven, the Father designed a plan of salvation with the Son and the Holy Spirit that involved the sending of the Son to the earth to be our substitute for sin, which Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: He died on the cross, buried into the grave, resurrected on the third day, ascends to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The Father and the Son together send the Holy Spirit into the world that gives you faith and draws you to faith in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So you can be thankful for all things.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it frontwards, backwards, sidewards.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Just be thankful at all times.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, submitting.
SPEAKER_00: Submitting.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to be submissive to the authority structures that God puts in your life and in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, all of the spirit-filled life is hostile to the way people in the world would want to live.
SPEAKER_00: People in the world do not want to gather together in a group and sing the psalms to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Not going to happen unless the Holy Spirit dwells in you.
SPEAKER_00: People in the world do not want to be thankful at all times and for all things.
SPEAKER_00: They don't.
SPEAKER_00: They want to complain and grumble.
SPEAKER_00: And people in the world definitely don't want to submit.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to submit to authority because you are the authority.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in a secular worldview, you are the authority, or the government is the authority, and you can submit to the government if it's the one that you voted for, then you're okay submitting for it to it.
SPEAKER_00: But if it's one the other people voted for, ain't no way you're submitting to that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the that's your typical worldview.
SPEAKER_00: It's so contrary to the Christian worldview, which recognizes that there's authority in the world placed there by God.
SPEAKER_00: And that you submit to the king because he is God's king.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who put him there, even if the king doesn't know the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: If Paul can submit to Caesar, you can submit to an electoral college kind of logic here.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And Caesar was not democratically elected, nor was he in favor of the First Amendment or the right of churches to worship or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Paul says, and Peter both, Peter is going to end up being martyred, submit to the king.
SPEAKER_00: Here, though, Paul is concerned about something more specific than your general submission in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Here, he's concerned about submitting to one another, to one another out of reverence for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So again, the broad picture of submission to authority in the world, and just because the the era, the COVID era we live in, you need your footnote here.
SPEAKER_00: The command to submit to the government does not give the government the right to regulate worship or your own spiritual relationship to Christ to the Word.
SPEAKER_00: That belongs to God, not to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean that there aren't things that don't belong to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the world does belong to Caesar and you submit to him in that category.
SPEAKER_00: But here, Paul is more specific about submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, submitting to one another.
SPEAKER_00: The verb here is a middle verb, which means it's not something happening to you, and it's not something you're doing to someone else.
SPEAKER_00: What this means is that it's something you're doing to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Again, very awkward to say in English.
SPEAKER_00: But you're submitting here.
SPEAKER_00: Submitting means you're getting yourself in line.
SPEAKER_00: If you've flown Southwest Airlines, this is the word right here.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, they have the boarding groups, and you gotta sort it out.
SPEAKER_00: You have your number and you figure out who's in front of you and who's behind you, and you get in line that way.
SPEAKER_00: The gate agent's not gonna help.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody just, it's a free-for-all, but it kind of works out well, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody kind of does it.
SPEAKER_00: That's this word.
SPEAKER_00: You find your place in line and you get there.
SPEAKER_00: You're doing it to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But you're submitting to others.
SPEAKER_00: You're submitting to others.
SPEAKER_00: There's still a contrast here.
SPEAKER_00: The drunkard is not in control of himself as he pours out his life.
SPEAKER_00: The believer is in control of himself as he orders his life.
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean that every Christian submits to every other Christian because then there would be no such thing as submission.
SPEAKER_00: That's called anarchy, or also known as democracy.
SPEAKER_00: When he says submit to one another, what he means is that there is authority structures, even in the church, that require submission.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to give you a list of them coming up, and we'll get to this in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: But he begins with wives are supposed to submit to their own husbands.
SPEAKER_00: Some people will say because of verse 21, everything's reversed.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands also submit to their wives.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say husbands also submit to your wives.
SPEAKER_00: It says submit to one another, and here's as the heading, and here's some examples of that.
SPEAKER_00: Wives submit to their husbands.
SPEAKER_00: This becomes very clear in chapter 6, verse 1, children are going to submit to their parents.
SPEAKER_00: Your kids can't come home and say, hey, because of verse 21, parents, you have to submit to me.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that we're supposed to submit to one another, and you're one another, so you need to submit to my authority, the child says.
SPEAKER_00: Not gonna work.
SPEAKER_00: And this list isn't exhaustive, but verse 5, slaves will be submissive to their earthly masters.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk more about that when we get to it.
SPEAKER_00: But the main point here is that there is structures in this world, and Christians submit to those structures.
SPEAKER_00: This is not an exhaustive list of structures.
SPEAKER_00: There's elders that lead the church, Paul says in Hebrews 13, and the congregation is supposed to submit to them as they worship and serve in the church, otherwise the elders will be grumbling and that doesn't help anybody.
SPEAKER_00: That's the structures.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to have an attitude of submission.
SPEAKER_00: There's order, structure, authority, and accountability in the church and in the world.
SPEAKER_00: To have a peaceful world and God is a God of peace, it requires a structure because Proverbs 21, verse 2 says that everyone is right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody thinks they're right.
SPEAKER_00: Submission is not about thinking you're right.
SPEAKER_00: Submission is not about thinking the other person is right.
SPEAKER_00: When you're submitting to someone who's in authority over you, you don't have to be persuaded that person is right.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_00: That's because that's not submission, that's agreement.
SPEAKER_00: Submission is you recognize God has designed authority structures in the world, and you place yourself underneath those authority structures.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is the opposite of drunkenness.
SPEAKER_00: The drunk person is not taking his thoughts captive for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: He's often drinking to forget, not to remember, to be thankful.
SPEAKER_00: He's certainly not cultivating an attitude of submission.
SPEAKER_00: You see the Trinity all over this passage, the Spirit who initiates this in your heart by drawing you, and you now are submitting to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21 says, out of reverence for Christ, who himself was submissive to Pilate, Christ who himself and his humanity was submissive to his heavenly father.
SPEAKER_00: You see that structure even in him, the man Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, sent by the Father.
SPEAKER_00: When you want to zoom out one picture here, and we'll end with this.
SPEAKER_00: Others think that what makes a life well lived or a good life is happiness or joy or living for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: That's going to lead to debauchery and drunkenness and dissipation.
SPEAKER_00: But notice here in the spirit-filled life, the judge of the good life is not you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even your kids.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even the one another's.
SPEAKER_00: The audience for all of this is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The audience for all this is God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that judges the life.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's the one that sends the Holy Spirit with the Father to your heart to draw you and fill you.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that you're making melody to.
SPEAKER_00: You're making melody to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You're singing to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And he's the one that receives your thanks.
SPEAKER_00: You're always giving thanks to everything through Christ Jesus because you recognize that all things have redemptive value because he's our redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, verse 21, you submit to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Not just because that's how the way God designed the world, but you submit to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Just a more personal thing here.
SPEAKER_00: You submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Paul doesn't take you back to the Tower of Babel and show the importance of world governments.
SPEAKER_00: He just takes you back to Jesus and says, Do you love him?
SPEAKER_00: And have some reverence in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Do you love him?
SPEAKER_00: Then submit.
SPEAKER_00: You know what an example of that he was.
SPEAKER_00: God, we're grateful that you designed our salvation in eternity past in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And that you enacted it in time by sending your son, we returned to your right hand, and together you sent your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're thankful that because the Spirit resides in us, that we can live this kind of life, we can sing songs to each other and hymns.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms even.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the joy we have from the Holy Spirit in our heart.
SPEAKER_00: We can be thankful for things nobody in the world would be thankful for.
SPEAKER_00: For suffering, for death, for calamity.
SPEAKER_00: We can genuinely be thankful because we know you're sovereign and we know you're good.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know why.
SPEAKER_00: In different circumstances, things happen.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know why people lose their jobs or gain other jobs or people go through divorce or kids walk away from the faith or even die.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much hardship in the world, and we don't know why.
SPEAKER_00: But we do know that we are supposed to be thankful to you through the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, Lord, we pray for the grace to be submissive to the authority structures in our life and in our world.
SPEAKER_00: You know that you have designed authority for a peaceful world and a check evil.
SPEAKER_00: But even more personally, we know because you the Lord Jesus did all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: You tell Pilate there'd be no, he would have no authority unless it were granted to him by your heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: So out of reverence for him, we too submit.
SPEAKER_00: Lived out through Christ, his death and resurrection, now for the faith that your spirit brings.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone who's here this morning whose life is in disarray, who's tried to get away from drunkenness without success, who has tried perhaps even to be submissive without success, who's tried to be thankful but only complains.
SPEAKER_00: I pray today that they would confess their sin to you.
SPEAKER_00: That you would forgive them of their sin because you are forgiving God.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in the name of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.