Ron Dunn Podcast - Be Filled With The Spirit

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Ron Dunn continues his sermon series on the Lifestyle Of The Spirit

Every heart, every mind, every will to be open to Thee. Lord, I pray for every person here. I do not know them, You do. Some Lord conscious of a need in their life, some unconscious of the need. And I pray for both. I pray, first of all, for those who are not conscious of any need, who are satisfied and complacent. And Lord, I pray that the Spirit of God might do in them the work

of making them hungry and thirsty. And then, Lord, for those who come today hungry, those who come today thirsty, those who come today seeking, maybe not knowing what, but, Lord, there's who've come today hungry, those who've come today thirsty, those who've come today seeking, maybe not knowing what, but, Lord, there's something that needs to be done in my own life, and I don't know what it is. And they've come today.

Just perhaps they may find what they've been looking for. Lord, I'm thankful that Jesus Christ is all-sufficient. Everything is in him, and he's everything. Christ is all and in all. And so may the Holy Spirit right now again point our eyes to Jesus. May we see nothing else but Him. I pray that Jesus would get glory for Himself out of this session. This is our prayer. This is the desire of our heart. This is our plea that to God be the glory and that the Lord may be praised. In Jesus' name, amen. They tell me that it is rude and impolite to ask people personal questions, especially people you don't know real well.

You don't ask a man how much money he makes. I go into a hospital if someone is ill and had surgery, I do not pry and ask personal questions about the nature of their illness. That would be rude and impolite if they want to tell me they can. I want to be rude and impolite for just a moment. And I want to ask you, each one of you, a very personal question. And I want you to answer it, not out loud, not with an uplifted hand, but you answer it in your own heart. I want to ask answer it, not out loud, not with an uplifted hand, but you answer

it in your own heart. I want to ask you a very personal question. Is the Holy Spirit filling you right now? At this very moment, preacher, singer, Christian man, Christian woman, boy or girl, is the Holy Spirit filling you right now? Now, there are three possible answers you can give to that question. One, you can say, yes, praise God, I know the Holy Spirit is filling me right now. You may be able to answer, no, he isn't. There is a third possible

answer. You may say, I am not certain what you mean by the filling of the Holy Spirit. I don't know if I am filled with the Spirit or not. And I pray by God's illuminating that before we are through, you will be able to answer that question honestly, clearly, certainly. I think next to that question, do you know Jesus? This is the most important question anybody will ever ask you. Is the Holy Spirit of God filling you right now? And I want you to answer the question, is the Spirit of God, without any shadow of a doubt, filling you right now? Now, there is some misunderstanding about the filling of the Holy Spirit. But as I mentioned earlier, I think one of the greatest truths in all the Word of God

is that when I became a Christian, the Spirit of God came to permanently indwell me, to make His home in me. Now the being filled with the Spirit of God is not having more of the Holy Spirit than you have now. I've often in times past used that illustration of an empty glass with a little bit of water in it, and I've said, now that water represents the Holy Spirit, and being filled with the Holy Spirit means that I pour more water until that glass is filled. That is not a scriptural illustration, because when you were saved, God gave you the whole Holy Spirit. And I think one

of the grandest truths of all is that I have all of God dwelling in me right now. I don't have just a little bit of God in me and a little bit of God in you and a little bit of God in you like God kind of spread himself thin, you know, and passed himself out to all of us. I have all of God in me

and you have all of God in you and you have all of God in you. When the Spirit of God came to indwell you, the whole Spirit of God came to indwell you. And, you know, it takes that to save you. A half of God in you could not save you. That little daisy growing out yonder needs the whole sun to keep it alive. You say, well, such a little flower doesn't need all of that sun,

doesn't need all of that light. But if you were to subtract half of that sun, that little flower would die. It takes the whole power of the whole sun to keep one little blade of grass alive. And it takes the whole God, all of God, all God there is in you to save you and to sustain you. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is not having more of the Holy Spirit than you had before. Paul commands us in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18, and this is my main text this morning. We're going to be using several other verses, but this is the main one.

Ephesians 5, 18, Paul says, And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit. What is the filling of the Holy Spirit? First of all, the filling of the Holy Spirit is a command of God. It is a command of God. You know that that verb is in the imperative mood. It is a command of God. It is a command of God. You know that that verb is in the imperative mood. It is a command. It is not a suggestion. It is not a wish. But it is an undeniable and unalterable command of God. Be filled with the Spirit. And it's in the plural. He's not talking to super

saints. The filling of the Holy Spirit isn't for the hierarchy of heaven. It's not for the elite of the elect. It's not just for preachers and evangelists. It is for everyone. And God commands every person who is saved to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The first thing that you and I need to understand is that this filling of the Spirit of God is not an optional item. It's not luxury equipment in the Christian life. It is standard equipment in every Christian life

if he is to be effective and to bring honor and glory to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a command to be filled with the Spirit. Now, if it is a command for me to be filled with the Spirit, then if I am not filled with the Spirit, I am living in sin. Did you know, has it ever occurred to you that it is a sin for you not to be filled with the Holy Spirit? We need to be convinced of this, and we need to be convicted of it. I think a great many people in our churches think that it would be nice if they could be filled with the Spirit,

and they would love to be filled with the Spirit, but it's not absolutely necessary, and I doubt if very many people are convinced and convicted that not to be filled with the Spirit is a sin against God. But it is. It is just as much a sin against God not to be filled with the Spirit as it is to be drunk of wine. Now, I don't know any other way to read that hate-themed verse in that way. There are two commands in that verse. One is a negative command, and the other is a positive command. The same God made both commands. The same spirit inspired both commands.

It is a sin not to obey the command of God. With one breath, Paul says, don't be drunk with wine. With another breath, he says, but on the contrary, and in contrast to that, be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Not to be drunk with wine is a sin against God, and not to be filled with the Spirit is a sin against God. What do you do when you ordain deacons in your church? Bring them together, question them. You've got to make certain that these men fulfill the scriptural obligations. Do you tithe? Do you drink wine?

Are you the husband of one wife? Did you know, according to Acts chapter 6, that it's just as much a qualification for a man to be set apart for service, to be filled with the Spirit of God, as it is for him to tithe? Actually, it's more of a qualification, because the Bible never tells the deacon he has to tithe. You'll never find that as a qualification for a deacon. Every Christian ought to, but it's not listed in the qualification. Let me tell you what to do to kind of get things going in your church. The next time you have a deacon organization or ordination and you begin

to select men, you stick to the Word of God and bring the level of your experience up to the standard of the Word of God and demand that no man be ordained unless he knows that the Spirit of God is filling him with the Spirit. Because, as we've already said, the ability to serve in a church has nothing to do with your natural talent or your native ability. And the one reason we have so many problems in our church is because we have ordained men to the ministry as well as to the deaconship who have not been and are not being filled with the Holy Spirit of God. It is a command to be filled with the Spirit of God, and if the Spirit of God is not filling you right now, you are living in sin and in disobedience to

God. Well, why is it a command? Why does God command it? Well, I want us to look at some verses, and we're going to see that there are many reasons, but primarily there are two reasons why God commands us to be filled with the Spirit. First of all, it is necessary for purity of life, for purity of life. You'll listen as I read or turn over in your Bible. It says Galatians chapter 5, verse 16. Paul says, This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, he goes on to point out that every Christian has something inside him the Bible calls the flesh. And he also has something inside him called the Holy Spirit. And these two are opposed one to the other. In other words, the flesh is drawing us one way.

The old self, that ego, the big I, my old unredeemed, unregenerated nature, it's still there. You know, I've discovered something about that old nature, and that's that when God saved me, he didn't change that old nature. God did not convert that old nature. It is a terminal illness and it cannot be changed.

And I've discovered that the reason I failed so much in my Christian life is I kept trying to control and to improve and to sophisticate and to Christianize the old flesh and the old nature and I've been trying to fight it. You cannot do it.

You are no better now than you were when you were saved. I don't care if you've been saved 20 years, you are absolutely no better now than you were when you were saved. The only good thing in you, the only thing that's different about you is that Jesus Christ through his Holy Spirit is indwelling you, and if he were to remove himself from you, you would immediately revert back to your pre-conversion state. You haven't changed one bit. You're no better than you've ever been. God hasn't changed one bit of that old nature.

He doesn't try to convert it. He crucifies it. But it's still there, alive and active. It'll do anything. And it's a very powerful force. And every time you want to serve God, that flesh, that old nature, the old ego is there saying, don't be a fanatic, don't overdo it, let somebody else do it. Every time you try to serve God, try to pray, try to read the Bible, try to please God,

the flesh is there asserting itself, overpowering you. You have the flesh dwelling in you. Now, the works of the flesh are obvious, he says. And he gives a whole list of them there in verses 19 and 20 the works of the flesh And they're not merely just these big gross sins that we call the works of the flesh But they had to do with your attitude bitterness Unforgiving spirit a critical attitude powerless all of these are there Now you also have someone else dwelling in you that the Bible calls the Holy Spirit of God.

Now, I want you to listen for just a moment. You have three enemies in your Christian life. Three enemies in your Christian life. The devil, the world, and the flesh. The devil is the tempter. The world is the temptation. And the flesh is the tempted. The devil stands on the outside, holds up the world is the temptation and the flesh is the tempted the devil stands on the outside holds up the world and appeals to the flesh within me say look here what i've got and james 1 says

that a man sins when he is led away of his own desires that old sinful desire that old unchanged nature that the bible calls the flesh is in you It looks and sees what the devil is offering the world, and it reaches out and takes it. Now, you have three enemies. Two of them are on the outside, the devil and the world. They're on the outside. The only enemy that you have on the inside is the flesh, the old nature. The only way that the devil and the world can get into your life is if that flesh opens the

door and lets them in. The only part of us that the devil and the world can appeal to is that old nature. Every sin is an inside job because that flesh, that old nature, that old unchanged desire within you sees what the devil has, sees what the world has, opens the door and allows this to come in. Now, I don't have to worry about the devil. I don't have to worry about the world. If I can somehow reinforce this harbor, if I can somehow build a hedge around the flesh,

if I can somehow make my flesh inaccessible to Satan and the world, I'm all right. The only way the world and the devil can get into me is through the flesh. That's his bridgehead. That's my vulnerable spot. That's the only spot the devil can reach me. And every time he tempts me, he appeals to that old lower nature. The same with the world.

So my problem is the flesh, the old nature, the big I, my ego, self. And if I can somehow reinforce that and get victory over that, then victory over Satan in the world will follow. All right, here's what Paul tells us. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not by no means. That's what the Greek says, bad drama, but great theology. Ye shall not by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh, the desires of the flesh. And I want to ask you, do you believe that?

You shall not by any means whatsoever fulfill the desires of the flesh. All right? It is walking in the Spirit. It is living in the Spirit. It is the power of the Holy Spirit controlling me and filling me that conquers the flesh in my life.

Now, I want you to notice who fights the flesh here. Who fights the flesh? Most of us have been fighting the flesh, educating the flesh in my life. Now I want you to notice who fights the flesh here. Who fights the flesh? Most of us have been fighting the flesh, educating the flesh, taking study courses, making rules and regulations, trying to somehow buttress the flesh. We've been fighting the flesh and we miss it every time. Notice who fights the flesh? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit fights the flesh. I don't have anything to do with the flesh. If I try to fight the flesh, he'll overpower me. The Spirit of God fights the flesh. I step out of the way, take myself out of the picture. That's reckoning yourself to be dead.

I get out of the picture and allow the Holy Spirit to take in, and he fights the flesh and he overcomes every time. But I tell you, it's a fixed fight. It's a fixed fight. Because I say who wins. Every time the flesh and the spirit get in the ring together, I pick the winner.

And I have the terrible and awful responsibility of saying the flesh is going to win in this particular situation. I can yield to the flesh and he'll win because the spirit of God will never force himself upon me.

Or I can say I am going to yield to the Holy Spirit, and when I do that, what I do is untie the hands of the Holy Spirit, and I loose him and let him go, and he defeats the flesh. He defeats the flesh. Now, what we've been trying to do is overcome the flesh and the energy of the flesh. Now, that's ridiculous. Jesus says, can a kingdom divided against itself stand?

Of course not. The flesh isn't going to oppose the flesh. And so in the energy of my flesh, you know, when I was saved, somebody said, all right, now Ron, the next thing you do is to go out there and do your best for Jesus. We stand up and sing, hear you the Master's call, give me your best. I'm going to do my best well I've done my best and the flesh never opposes itself and I want you to notice how beautiful the Holy Spirit fights the flesh and if I

walk in the spirit that means if I let my daily life be controlled and ordered by the holy spirit i will not by any means fulfill the desires of the flesh now i want you to see something in verse 22 but the fruit of the spirit is love now do you agree with me that there paul is picturing the holy spirit as a tree planted within the Christian. Right? The Holy Spirit who dwells within us will produce fruit. So the picture is a tree planted within the Christian. And this tree wants to bring fruit of love, joy, and peace. But I've got a lot of old dead leaves of fornication, uncleanness, idolatry, hatred, and envy.

How can I get rid of that old dead works of leaves and spoiled fruit? And how can I have the blessed sweet fruit of the Holy Spirit for these things? Well, I discovered something. I discovered that dead leaves don't fall off a tree. I always thought they did. Come autumn, the leaves turn, they die, they fall off the tree. No, they don't fall off the tree. You go out here and you cut a branch off a tree

and let it fall down on the ground and let it lay there beside that living tree. Now, as the seasons pass, the leaves will brown. And on that living tree, those dead leaves will begin to fall off. If you look at that branch on the ground, unless you pull them off or knock them off, they're still there. They don't fall off. They don't fall off.

You know what happens to dead leaves? They don't fall off. You know what happens to dead leaves? They don't fall off. They're pushed off. They're pushed out as the sap, as the life flows through the branches. It pushes out those dead leaves to make room for the fruit and the new leaf. Now listen. Here's what some of us have been trying to do in our Christian life. We've been going around pulling off dead leaves.

Pulling off dead leaves. We've been saying, I've got to. Pulling off dead leaves. We've been saying, I've got to get rid of this dead leaf of bad habit. I've got to get rid of this dead leaf of filthy language. I've got to get rid of this dead leaf of an impure mind. We've been going around pulling off these dead leaves. That's not the way to do it. Oh, it's so simple.

All I have to do is just to yield myself to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to flow through me and to fill me and allow Him to fill me with the fullness of Christ. And as the life of Jesus and the power of the Spirit flows through me, it just pushes off those old dead leaves. They just fall off, pushed out by the power of the Holy Spirit. What we've been doing is focusing all of our attention on our failure. And that's the trick of the devil.

You focus your attention on your weakness and your failure, and you'll groan that way. You forget about your failure. Don't look at your sins and forget about your habits. And you focus your attention upon Jesus Christ, on the power of the Holy Spirit. And as he infills you and as he flows through you, he will push off all those dead leaves.

You won't have to worry about that. I'll read over in John chapter 15 that mine the vine, you're the branches. My father is the husbandman, and he will do the pruning. Oh, I thought I was supposed to do the pruning. Man, all my life I've been going around pruning here trying to clip off the bad things in my life. And all of a sudden I realized the Father is the husband. He'll do that. He'll do that.

Listen, you need to be filled with the Spirit for purity of life, for purity of life. You've been trying to overcome the habits and overcome weaknesses, and you'll never do it. You'll never do it. Let the Spirit of God fill you,

and as He produces love, joy, and peace in you, He'll just naturally push off those old dead leaves of sin. Necessary for purity of life, necessary for power and service. I love old Elijah. Oh, I feel with him. I identify with Elijah for one reason. He was on Mount Carmel. He brought one of the best sermons I've ever heard.

It was eloquent, powerfully delivered. And when it finished, the Bible says, the people answered him not a word. Oh, I've been in that church, haven't you? Oh, I've preached there many a time. You just preach your heart out in the best you know how, and you get through, and they just... They don't say amen.

They don't say praise the Lord. Nobody gets saved. Nobody mad. Nobody glad. Nobody sad. Nothing. When Elijah preached with fervor, they answered him not a word.

When the fire fell, when the fire fell, the people fell on their faces. They said, the Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. Oh, yeah, you're right, Elijah. He's God. He's God.

Elijah had been trying to get them to say that all along, but they wouldn't do it until the fire fell. And when the fire fell, they said, the Lord, he is God. We must be filled with the Spirit to have power and service. Now we go to another portion of work in John chapter 15, one of my favorites. And with this, we're illustrating the principle of power and service. Now we go to another portion of work in John chapter 15, one of my favorites. And with this, we're illustrating the principle of power with service. You must be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to have power with service.

We're always interested in how we can have more people saved in our churches and how we can have more baptisms increase every year. Well, right here, Jesus tells us, but I've never heard anybody use this as a method of evangelism. Jesus said in John chapter 15, I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit,

he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Isn't that what we want? More baptism, more people saved. All right. How do you do that? He purges the branches that they may bring forth more fruit. Isn't that what it was? More baptism, more people saved. All right, how do you do that? He purges the branches that they may bring forth more fruit. Now look in verse 4. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches,

he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth what? Much fruit. Fruit. More fruit. Much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. And he goes on to say in verse 8, Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear

much fruit. He's not glorified just with fruit or more fruit. Did you notice that? He's glorified with much fruit. He's not glorified just with fruit or more fruit. Did you notice that? He's glorified with much fruit. A man has a vineyard. Is he honored? Is he glorified? Is his vine produced fruit or a little bit more fruit? No. He's not satisfied.

He's not glorified until every branch is bearing fruit. Until every vine is producing. He is glorified when that vine produces much fruit. Well, how are you going to produce much fruit? Listen. Jesus said, I am the vine.

You are the vine. Abide in me and you'll bring forth fruit. Now listen. Here is the relationship that the Christian has with Jesus. Jesus is the vine. the Christian has with Jesus. Jesus is the vine. I am just the branch. Did you know the branch doesn't produce fruit? The branch simply bears the fruit.

The fruit is produced by the vine. The life flowing through the vine. The branch is just a coat rack to hang grapes on. That's all the branch is for. It just must be there so it can bear fruit. It never produces fruit. It never produces fruit. It cannot produce fruit.

And you and I cannot produce fruit. And I can't produce it. And you can't produce it. Jesus produces it. He said, all I want you to be is just a branch. Just make yourself available. You just abide in me. Now, where is the responsibility for fruit bearing? On the branch? No, on the vine. Where is the responsibility for fruit bearing in my life? On me? I used to think so and I worked myself to death and then worried I hadn't done enough until I discovered that the responsibility for fruitfulness is not on me, it's on Jesus.

He is divine. All he asks of me is to be a branch. And what does a branch do all day long? It abides in Jesus. And it lets the life of Jesus flow through him, and the life of Jesus, as it reaches through me, touches the lives and transforms. Now, how are we going to have more fruit? How are we going to have more baptisms? Well,

baptisms and church down. Let's organize a new committee. Let's come up with a new program. Let's go hear this man. He baptized so many years. Maybe he's got some secret formula, some method. I want us to look at the method of Jesus. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. You know the way to bring forth more fruit? It's just to abide more in Jesus, in Jesus, getting closer to Jesus, abiding in Jesus. And as I abide in him and as I let his words abide in me,

as more and more of the Spirit of God flows through me, there will be more fruit, more fruit, more fruit. Listen, when I want to see more people saved in my church, the thing for me to do is to make certain that my people are in Jesus more than they've ever been, and the fruit will come from the Lord. I remember a fellow pastor of mine one time was commissioned to preach on how to learn to love the law. And at an evangelism conference, and so he said, let's look for a text.

And at an evangelism conference, and so he said, let's look for a text on learning to love the law. We thought, that'll be easy. We found a lot of verses that told us why on learning to love the lost. We thought that'll be easy. We found a lot of verses that told us why we ought to love the lost. We found a lot of verses that showed us what would happen if we did love the lost, but we could not find one verse of Scripture that told us how to love the lost. That's why a lot of people don't witness.

They say, I just don't love the lost. We say, pray, Lord, give me a love for the lost. And then the Lord showed me over in John. You remember when Jesus had his little breakfast and talked with Simon Peter? Simon Peter comes and sits down, and Jesus said, Simon, do you love me? Peter said, Lord, you know I love you. Jesus said, feed my sheep. He asked him a second time, Simon, do you love me? Jesus, you know I love you. Simon, feed my sheep. He asked him a third time, Simon, do you really like me?

Simon said, Lord, you know I do. Feed my sheep. Did you know that Jesus never one time asked him if he loved sheep? I can just imagine old Simon Peter, Jesus said, Simon, feed my sheep. Oh, Lord, I don't like sheep. I didn't ask you that. I asked if you love me. No, I don't care if you love sheep or not.

If you love me, feed my sheep. And all of a sudden, I realized the way to learn to love lost people is to love Jesus. That's the motive. That's the motive, and I want to tell you this morning the most useless preaching I've ever done in my life. The most useless preaching I've ever done in my life is that I stood on Sunday morning and Sunday night and told my people,

you better win souls, you ought to win souls, you need to get out and win souls. They knew that, and they wanted to. They were scared to death. They liked motive. They lacked power. And I'll tell you something else. Nearly every Baptist has a guilt complex because he doesn't win souls, and he knows he ought to. The pastor gets up on Sunday morning and adds to that guilt complex and intensifies it and says, you ought to witness and you ought to win souls. They know that. I believe honestly that most Christians, you ought to witness and you ought to win souls. They know that. I believe honestly that most Christians,

they want to do it, but they don't know how. One day God showed me what it was all about. He said, listen, you sit trying to get them to win souls. You get them to love me and let me be Lord and let the Spirit of God fill them. I'll take care of all that other stuff. And when our people begin to love Jesus and when they begin to enthrone Jesus

as the Lord of their life and they begin to appropriate the fullness of the Holy Spirit, they went out everywhere witnessing and sharing Jesus Christ. That's the answer. That's the key right there. And you must be filled with the Holy Spirit

for power and service. Because you see, one of these days, all of us are going to stand before the Lord at the judgment seat and he's going to give us a reward or loss of reward according as our work shall be. Jesus Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3,

The Lord shall try every man's work of what sort it is, not what size it is. The judgment seat of Christ is concerned with quality, not quantity. And there are two sorts of work. There are two kinds of work he describes in that passage. One is that which is wood, hay, and stubble, and the other is that which is precious gems and gold and silver. Those are the only two sorts of work. And every man builds on the foundation of his salvation

a superstructure of Christian living made out of either wood, hay, and stubble or precious stones, gold, and silver. Now, there are only two kinds of good, human good and divine good, right? God rejects all human good. There's only two kinds of energy, the energy of the flesh and the energy of the spirit.

God rejects the energy of the flesh. Everything that I energy, the energy of the flesh and the energy of the Spirit. God rejects the energy of the flesh. Everything that I do in the energy of the flesh, or in other words, everything I do without the fullness of the Spirit, constitutes wood, hay, and stubble. I go to that judgment seat and we all go together, and I look over, and I see a big old stack of works with my name on it. Well, I can hardly wait until I stand up before the Lord, and he rewards me for that. Look at that. Look what I've done.

Look how many I've baptized. Look what I did. That big old stack. You say, that's yours over there? Well, that's all right. You made it in heaven anyway. It's kind of small. Yeah, I believe I see it.

Yeah, there it is. Your name tag is bigger than your pile of work. Yeah, there it is. Well, it's all right. So the Lord reads my name. And the closer I get to that big stack of works, all of a sudden I become aware of something. I stand there and it's wood, hay, and stubble.

And the Lord Jesus Christ strikes the match and sets the fire through it and says, let's just see if you lived in the spirit or in the flesh. Let's see if you preached and sang and taught and witnessed for my glory or your ego. And he touches the fire through it. He comes over here to this little fella, little pile of gold and silver and precious stones, and he says, let's test yours and he strikes them back. It doesn't hurt because that's how you make gold, silver, and precious stones, fire.

I want you to know this morning, and it is a solemn fact, a very solemn fact, that it is highly possible that a man can live all of his life as a minister of the gospel, a preacher, a deacon, and work and work and work and work, and stand before Jesus at the judgment seat of Christ, and have his entire life of Christian service lost. I believe that with all of my heart. And the key is not building bigger churches because sometimes you're just building bigger haystacks. That's all. It's got to be done

in the power of the Spirit if it's going to stand the test. And I want to know this morning if you were to stand before Jesus Christ at this moment and he were to test your life, has your life been lived in the fullness of the Spirit or in the energy of the flesh? And if your life has been lived in the energy of the flesh, it's going to be wasted, and it'll go up in smoke, and you shall be saved yet so as by fire. You will be like a man who is awakened in the middle of the night, and they say, your house is on fire. Run for your life, and you get out, and all you escape with is just the sheet wrapped around your body. And you look back, and your whole life savings, your life's work, your home, everything, all of your possessions, goes up in smoke. I say that's a very solemn proof that a man's ministry, a Christian's entire life of service,

can be lost at the address of Jesus Christ unless it is done in the fullness of the Spirit. All right? It is a command, secondly, and more briefly, it is a command to be controlled by the Spirit. Let the Spirit of God fill you. That's a passive verb, and the New English Bible, I think, translates it properly. Let the Holy Spirit fill you. You see, that puts the reluctance on our part, not on his part. Some of you have never been filled

with the Holy Spirit because you think God is reluctant to fill you, and you beg him and plead with him and hope that someday you'll grow up into the filling of the Holy Spirit. Listen, you do not grow up into the filling of the Spirit. You grow from the filling of the Holy Spirit. There is no spiritual growth until you are filled with the Spirit. Now, from the filling of the Holy Spirit. There is no spiritual growth until you are filled with the Spirit. Now, you may grow in knowledge and may grow in church membership and church activity, but spiritual growth comes only after the filling of the Holy Spirit. You do not grow towards the filling of the Holy Spirit. Maybe one of these days I'll attain to it. No. You have, you appropriate the filling of the Holy Spirit, and then you grow

from it. What does it mean to be filled? It means to be controlled. One man translates this to be possessed completely of the Spirit. And we get that idea from wine. When a man is drunk with wine he is controlled by that wine. And to be filled with the Spirit

is to have the Holy Spirit controlling me. You say, I'd love to be filled with the Spirit. Would you? Would you really now would you really like to have a person controlling you that would not tolerate any self-centeredness in your life you mean that you really want to be controlled by a person who will not tolerate any thinking yourself first you really want to be controlled by a person who will not tolerate any thinking of self first? Do you really want to be controlled by a person who will not tolerate any envy and jealousy? Do you mean you really want to be controlled by a person

who is going to demand that you recognize you have no rights of your own and you're nothing but a slave? Do you really want to be controlled today by a person who is going to demand absolute holiness of life and will not tolerate anything else? It is to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. And I think in that controlling,

there's two things involved. One, of course, is dethroning self, saying no to self. There can only be one operator of the Christian life, either self or the Spirit. And the first thing I have to do is to recognize that I'm not my own, I'm bought with a price, and I dethrone self. That's just a negative. The real test, the real key, is I must enthrone Jesus as Lord in my life. I was saved when I was nine years old, and I was called to preach when I was saved when I was nine years old and I was called to preach when I was fifteen.

I preached my first revival when I was sixteen and passed my first church when I was seventeen. I cut my teeth on good old fundamental conservative Southern Baptist preaching. But all the days of my ministry there was something. And I had no idea what it was. Because I would preach victory and live to see. I would preach peace and no anxiety. I would preach love and yet was aware of critical spirit and bitterness and jealousy and envy. You know, after preaching for a few years, I went and ran out of gas. I went stale and stagnant

I had to force myself to get a new pool but I drive to church on Sunday night and see other people out barbecuing you know with charcoal and during training and I wish I could do it I'll tell you there is nothing worse than making yourself go to church and there is no feeling to compare

with that horrible feeling of making yourself preach because you get paid to do it and you wish you didn't have to. I tried to get out of the ministry two or three times. I just couldn't do it. I never doubted my call to preach. I never did. I've doubted my salvation in times past. I've never doubted God's call to preach. I didn't know what was wrong. You know, I'd go to one conference and I'd hope, boy, maybe this is it. Maybe one of these days I'll just read a book or I'll go to a conference or something will happen.

I'll turn a corner and all of a sudden something will happen. God will lay something on me that will just change everything. And it never happened. I had a lot of emotional experiences. I got inspired by inspirational speakers. And I would come back and after two or three weeks I'd fizzle out of it. Back down in the valley.

I remember kneeling in my office many a time and saying, Lord, I don't know what it is I need, but I need something. I don't know what's wrong, but I know there's got to be more to it than that. And I'd just say, Lord, would you do something? Lord, just do something for me. Do something in me.

I prayed that for years. I knew all about the deeper life. I'd preach sermons on the deeper life. I'd preach conferences on the deeper life. Listen, you can preach it and not know it. I knew all of the facts, but I didn't know it. There was just something left. Until a day, a night, about two years ago,

when I was away in a revival meeting and the power of God just came down like I've never seen it before. And that week I went to the mountains and that week I walked in glory. And on a Tuesday night after service, I said, Lord, I can never go back to what I was. I dreaded leaving the meeting, but I knew I had to go home. I just just said I can't stand to go back to the drudgery to forcing myself to trying to live up to it all I said Lord Jesus

why can't it always be like this and the Spirit of God seemed to say to me Jesus isn't Lord in your life since the day you were saved, since the day you surrendered to preach, Jesus has never been absolute, total Lord in your life. And he was when I was saved.

You've got to be or you're not saved. But since that time, I had taken the controls of my own life. And the minute the Holy Spirit told me that, I knew it was true. All of a sudden, things began to come back, moments when I became aware in years past that I was holding back and had some reservations.

I can't tell you this afternoon what happened, but all I know is that when that plane stepped down in Dallas the following Monday and I stepped off that plane, Jesus was Lord in my life. And, man, I tell you, things changed. Oh, man, things changed. Man, there was a love. You know, I always loved people because I was supposed to,

but I think I tolerated them, you know. And people were a bother. And I loved people who would help me and who were for me. I loved people who loved me. But all of a sudden, I found myself loving everybody. Man, I just loved everybody. There were some people in our church that we didn't see eye to eye. We had been deadlocked and opposed to in certain issues.

Something strange happened. All of a sudden, I loved that man. I loved those people. And I couldn't help myself. I just couldn't help myself. I just loved them. And there was a joy that I've never known before. And my wife even remarked on it.

I just was so happy. There was such a joy. And there was peace. I've never known such peace. I'd come home after working at the church and I'd walk up and take my little girl and walk up the alley and just think about the peace.

The fact that Jesus is Lord. I don't know, all of a sudden everything just was so peaceful. I'd lay awake at night, couldn't go to sleep just thinking about Jesus. Lord, what a change. Peace.

There was self-control. There was victory. I'd had problems as you do, weaknesses and sins and habits as you have, and I'd never been able to get victory over them. And all of a sudden, they were gone. One of my deacons came to me and said, Ron, it's evident that God has done something in your life. How can the same thing happen to us?

I said, I don't know. He said, I don't know what's happened. I don't know what's happened. I don't know what's happened. But I started then saying, Lord, show me what you did. Show me what happened. I went to the book. I wanted to know if this was scriptural or not. And I wanted to know. I said, God teach me. I need to tell my church this. Because when I came back on a Wednesday night, I wrote every member of my church. And I said, I want you to come. I want to tell you about the revival. And I told them about that revival.

Then I told them about mine. I told them that Jesus was Lord and that I wanted him to be Lord in this church. And if people didn't want Jesus to be Lord in this church, they can go somewhere else. We want Jesus to be Lord in this church. And I finished. And I didn't give an invitation or anything. I just dismissed them. I stepped down, and the congregation as one lined in a long line and came to me and said,

Praise the Lord. We're with you. And I thanked God for the church that didn't turn me off. They said, We want what you've got. I said, Lord, I've got to tell these folks. They're wanting to know what happened. I don't know what happened. Lord, show me.

You know what I discovered when I made Jesus really Lord? There was love, there was joy, there was peace. You know what that is? That's the first three things mentioned in the seed of the Spirit. What happened was when I made Jesus Lord, really Lord, after the Holy Spirit had awakened me to my need. He has to do that. Just saying it doesn't make it so. The Holy Spirit must reveal to you the need and awaken you to the need. And when I made Jesus Lord,

you know what happened? The Holy Spirit filled me. He filled me. And it's made all the difference in my life. It's made all the difference in my ministry. It's made all the difference in my life. Made all the difference in my ministry. Made all the difference in my home.

I discovered that you can't fulfill Ephesians 5, 21, 22, 23 about why submit yourselves to your husbands and husbands love your wives until you're filled with the Spirit. That follows verse 18, did you know? That is a result of being filled with the Spirit. Made all the difference in our home. We have a new home. I've got a new church. Church has a new pastor. I've got a new Jesus, a new Lord. All things were

new. And a filling of the Holy Spirit to control. Now, in closing, let me mention this one last thing. To be filled with the Spirit is a command of God. It is a command to be controlled, and it is a command to be continually controlled. That verse literally reads, and be ye being filled with the Spirit. It's not a roller coaster type of existence, friends. I'm not talking about a little inspiration now and then. I'm not talking about a little holy kick once in a while. I'm talking about a daily walk, a daily abiding in Jesus, continually filled

with the Spirit. That's why I phrase the question, not has the Holy Spirit filled you, but is the Holy Spirit at this moment filling you?

Is He at this moment controlling you? Is He? And I've discovered that in my own life there are two ways for me to continue to be filled with the Spirit.

One is instant confession of sin. The moment I become aware of sin, to instantly confess it. Secondly, by immediate obedience. The moment the Spirit of God impresses me to speak, to witness, to pray, to whatever, immediate obedience and instant confession. And it is a continual filling that the Spirit of God wants to give us. Now let me ask the question again. Is the Holy Spirit of God filling you right now?

Is it? Is the Holy Spirit of God filling you right now? By that I mean, is the Spirit of God in absolute sovereign control of you right now? He's not in control if there's any unconfessed sin, if there's any disobedience. If you know of a command in this Bible that you're not obeying, He's not in control. If there's unforgiveness, if there's any sin at all, the Spirit of God is not in control. Is the Holy Spirit filling you, controlling you right now? Let's bow for prayer. Before we pray, I want to ask you a question, ask you to think about something. I'm talking to everybody, not just people in full-time service. Talking to husbands and wives. Everybody.

Listen, it'll make a difference in your home. God knows what he's talking about. This is his plan for the home. It'll make a difference. Husband and wife, you have a little trouble praying together? You feel awkward around each other when you just want to pray or talk about spiritual things? It's amazing how the Spirit of God filling and controlling both of you makes that home what it ought to be.

Before I pray, how many of you say this morning, I know that the Spirit of God is not filling me. I know that he is not in control. Or it may be in times past you were filled with the Spirit, but self-ego has got back on the throne. And you know this morning that the Spirit of God is not filling you, but you want him to. And the Holy Spirit has showed you that. And you want right now God to touch your life.

And you want, as best you know how, to just say no to yourself and to enthrone Jesus Christ as Lord and claim by faith the filling of the Holy Spirit. You want God to touch your life. You know that you are not filled with the Spirit. The Spirit is not filling you right now, but you want him to. Would you lift your hand? God bless you. God bless you. Now let's pray together. Lord Jesus, I pray now for each one whose hands were lifted. Lord, there is no magic formula about this. It's really very

simple. The Holy Spirit wants to exalt and glorify Jesus in every facet of my life. And when I come to the place where I want what the Holy Spirit wants, then he fills me. And so, Lord Jesus, I pray that you'll do your work of convicting of sin right now, pointing out areas of disobedience, pointing out reconciliation that ought to be made, need to go to somebody and say, I'm sorry, I apologize. Perhaps restitution needs to be made, something that was taken. The Lord just revealed to us ourselves and that Jesus Christ is an absolute Lord. And then Father, grant that faith that enthrones Jesus as Lord

and simply not looking for any fear. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. If you would like to listen to additional Ron Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn.

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