Ron Dunn Podcast - Be Filled With The Spirit (Holy Spirit In Ephesians)

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Ron Dunn continues his Holy Spirit in Ephesians series

You know they say that it's rude to be personal. I want to be rude to you tonight and be impolite. They say it's rude to ask personal questions. You don't ask people how much money they make at their job. You don't ask people how much they paid for the home they're living in. Personal questions can sometimes be rude and impolite. I want to be rude to you for just a moment and ask you a very, very personal question, and I want you to answer it. Not out loud, but you'll have to answer it in your own heart. Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?

Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Now that is the most personal question I'll ever ask you outside the question, are you saved? And I want to ask you that again, and I want you to answer it in your own heart. You have to answer it. Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Right now, in this service, at this very moment, is the Holy Spirit filling you? Are you completely and totally tonight filled with the Holy Spirit? Now, if you cannot answer that question, one of two things is true. Either you do not understand what it means to be filled with the Spirit,

and so therefore you do not know if you are. Or you do understand what it means, but there is some sin in your life, or there is an area of rebellion in your life and you have not yielded yourself unreservedly to the spirit if you cannot say yes and you don't say it to me you say it to god if you cannot say yes lord it's best i know how as far as i know right now the holy spirit is filling me then either you do not understand what the filling of the holy spirit is or you do understand that you have not allowed him to control you absolutely. Now, the Bible commands us to be filled with the Spirit, and that's the first point of my message. To be filled with the Spirit is a command.

And Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18 is the verse that I want us to look at tonight, and the verse is following. You listen as I read, beginning in verse 18 and reading through verse 21. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. You see, that is a command. It is in the imperative mood. And what I'm going to be doing mostly tonight is taking the Greek words of that verse and the tenses and the moods and applying to our lives. It is in the imperative mood. It is not a suggestion. It is a command. Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

submitting yourselves one to another out of reverence for God. But that's what it means. Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit in the imperative mood. It is a command. It is a command. Therefore, I have the right to assume that if I am not filled with the Spirit at this moment, I am living in disobedience to God. It is a sin, you see, not to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, I don't want to take the time to talk about things that we already know about. We already know that every Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, indwelling him.

But there is a difference between the Spirit of God indwelling us and the Spirit of God filling us. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit. I heard a preacher preach one time on how to get the Holy Spirit. The sermon was good, it just wasn't scriptural. You already have the Holy Spirit. If you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit. At that moment of your conversion, he came to dwell, as we preached this morning, permanently in you.

But you can be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and not be filled with the Holy Spirit. Every Christian is indwelt by the Spirit, but not every Christian is infilled by the Spirit. It is a command, it is a sin not to be filled with the Holy Spirit. As I was reading this verse this afternoon, I began to think about our deacon election. And you know, one of the requirements that we read a moment ago is that he can't be addicted to strong drink. Why, we wouldn't elect any man as a deacon who was a drunkard. We wouldn't do that.

You wouldn't have a pastor that was addicted to strong drink. We say that's a sin because the Bible commands us not to be drunk with wine. But I want you to notice that the same verse that commands us not to be drunk with wine also commands us to be filled with the Spirit. I think both of them are equally wrong in the sight of God. How is it that we can dissect and divide and separate, take what we want and leave what we don't want? It is just as much a sin in the sight of God not to be filled with the Spirit of God as it is to be drunk with wine. One is a negative command. The other is a positive command. And you know that the Bible puts much more stock in positive commands than it does in negative commands.

And many of us are satisfied with our Christian life, you see, because we are not drunk with wine and all that that symbolizes. That means that there are some things in our life we don't do. Those things that Baptists have tagged as sin, those things that the church has tagged as taboo, hands off. And so we refrain from doing these things, and we equate our spiritual life, our Christian life, with the things that we don't do. But he says it's just as much a command of God to be filled with the Spirit as it is not to be drunk with wine. Now, I want to repeat the question I asked at the beginning of the message.

Are you right now filled with the Holy Spirit of God? Is the Holy Spirit of God right at this moment as I preach to you? Is he filling you? If he isn't, then you are sinning against God. It is a sin of omission. There is some atmosphere, there is some area of your Christian life that you are not obedient in. Now, the reason that he wants us to be filled with the Holy Spirit,

you see, is because everything that happens to us in our Christian life comes to the medium of the Holy Spirit. He is the operator of the Christian life. God does not work apart from the Holy Spirit. This is the age of grace. This is the disp of the Christian life. God does not work apart from the Holy Spirit. This is the age of grace. This is the dispensation of the Spirit. And when Jesus ascended to the Father after his resurrection, he turned the reins of the government of his kingdom over to the hands of the Spirit.

Every act of the Christian now is under the control of the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit, you see, is not filling us, then he cannot do in us what he wants to do in us. Over in Galatians chapter 5, when it speaks about the fruit of the Spirit, it says the fruit of the Spirit is love. You have trouble loving people? Are you hostile towards people? Then the Holy Spirit is not filling you. If the Holy Spirit is not filling you, he cannot produce his fruit in you, you see. The Holy Spirit is love. The Holy Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is joy. Have you lost the joy of your salvation? Are you not tonight happy in the Lord? I didn't ask if you were happy. I asked, are you happy in the Lord? There's a difference between being happy and being happy

in the Lord. I'm happy in the Lord. Are you happy in the Lord? You know, just to know him, just to know him and just to know him, and to fellowship with him, and to know that he's with you, and to be able to worship him, like I said this morning, that he dwells in you, and you walk down the street of Dallas,

and you don't have anything to do, so you worship the Lord, and you think about Jesus, and you think about what he's done for you, and your joy just bubbles up, and your heart is filled, and like one man at the retreat said the other day, he said, if I don't get up and tell what Jesus means to me, I'm going to burst. That's joy in the Lord.

Oh, there are a lot of Christians that are joy in the church. They're happy, you know, when the church door is open. They're happy when they're singing in the choir and they're happy when everything is going all right. But that's not the same thing as being happy in the Lord. And David prayed in Psalm 85, Lord, wilt thou not revive thy people again that they may what? Rejoice in thee. Rejoice in the Lord. I want you to know tonight that I'm happy in the Lord

just to know Jesus. Just to know him and to fellowship with him and to know that he indwells me by his spirit and know that he loves me and to know that he's my Lord and that tomorrow

he's going to do something for me he didn't do today. And every day with Jesus is better than the day before. This has been the greatest day I've ever lived. And tomorrow, if I let the Spirit of God fill me, will be the greatest day I ever lived.

I haven't lived my best day yet. I haven't preached my best sermon yet. I know some of you wish I'd hurry up and get there, but I want you to know I haven't had the best yet that God has for me. Every day it's better and it's deeper because all the treasures of God are in Jesus, and I have never been able to plumb the depths of Jesus. Join the Lord. Join the Lord. Friday, we went to visit some of those mines up around Silver, Cripple Creek, and Victor, those gold mines. And they're still open.

They're not working. They're shut down, but the shafts are still open. I didn't realize they just let those deep holes in the ground be open. And so we went to look at one of those and got out of the car and walked over there. And I tiptoed because, uh, there's some things that I'm not too crazy about. And one of them is falling into a mine shaft. And, uh, we tiptoed over there and I looked down there. It was dark. He couldn't see anything. And I, I said, well, I wonder how deep that is. And we picked up a rock and we dropped it down there and I never heard it hit bottom.

I just never heard it hit bottom. Now, you know the Lord's like that. You know, the Bible says in 1 Peter that the angels desire to look into our salvation. Now, you think about that for a minute. The angels who stand before the Christ Holy God throughout all eternity and sing and shout holy, holy, holy.

And they've seen everything that God has ever done. They were there when God spoke and the worlds came into existence. And they were there when he fashioned man out of the dust of the ground. They were there when God destroyed the world with fire and with water. They were there when Jesus was born

of a virgin Mary in Bethlehem. They were there when Jesus died. They were there at the resurrection. But they're still interested in my salvation. And the Bible says that they desire to look into my salvation. There's so much to my salvation. The angels are jealous of it to a degree,

and they're interested in it. And I find I stand tonight ankle deep in a fathomless ocean, and the more I learn about Jesus, the more there is to learn about him. Just like that, just like that mine shaft, you never hit bottom. Join the Lord. Join the Lord. Let me ask you tonight, is the Holy Spirit producing that fruit in your heart? He can't make you happy in the Lord. You don't have any joy of the Lord tonight if the Holy Spirit of God

is not filling you. You see, it is necessary for you to be filled with the Spirit for your Christian life to work. You know what abundant life is? Why, I've been doing a lot of teaching about abundant life lately, and the Lord gave me a good definition of abundant life when I was on this retreat. You know what abundant life is? It's the same thing as abundant health. You know what abundant health is?

That's when everything works right. That's what abundant health is? That's when everything works right. That's what abundant health is, when everything works right. You know what abundant life is? It's when everything works right. It's when you know that you can pray and God hears you. It's when you know that you have victory every day. As Paul says in Romans chapter 5 in the Amplified Version, we are daily delivered from sin's dominion. Everything works. Everything works. That's abundant life. Some of us sitting here tonight have been saved for years and years and years,

and your Christian life has never worked for you. Over in John chapter 16 and verse 14, Jesus is trying to emphasize to the disciples the importance of the coming of the Spirit. You can't emphasize too much the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, you can get sidetracked and exalt the Spirit, and that's a sin because the Spirit just wants to exalt Jesus. And Jesus says, when he has come, in verse 14, he shall glorify me. Now, notice this, for he shall take what is mine and show it unto you. Now, for a long time, I thought all that meant was that the Holy Spirit would get facts about Jesus and relate that information to me.

Well, that's part of it, but that's not what it really means. The Greek words in those verses means this, that the Holy Spirit will go to Jesus and get what belongs to Jesus and will deposit it in me. You see? That's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit goes to Jesus and takes what belongs to Jesus and transmits that to me, not just facts,

character, attributes, power. For instance, I may need patience tomorrow. Maybe I have a problem. Maybe I'm going to be working with someone that I'm a little impatient with. I need patience. And so Jesus Christ is infinitely patient, and the Holy Spirit goes to that treasure house of patience. He goes and takes the patience of Jesus and gives it to me. I may need wisdom in facing a decision, and the Holy Spirit, if he's filling me, will go to Jesus. And the Bible says all the wisdom of God is treasured up in Jesus, and he'll take some of the wisdom that belongs to Jesus,

and he will deposit it in my heart, in my mind. I may face a temptation tomorrow. Well, no may be about it. I will face a temptation tomorrow. Well, no may be about it. I will face a temptation tomorrow. I need strength. I need power. And so the Holy Spirit goes to Jesus who says, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth. And he takes that which is Jesus. He goes to that mind of power and takes that which is Jesus and deposits it in my own heart. And I have power. You see, this is why it is so important that I'm not a clogged channel, that everything is open between the Holy Spirit and myself.

If I am not allowing the Holy Spirit to fill me, then he can't do for me the things that he needs to do for me. I ask you again tonight, is the Holy Spirit filling you? Well, you say, what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? All right. Point number one, it is a command to be filled with the Spirit. Point number two, to be filled with the Spirit is a command to be controlled by the Spirit. It is a command to be controlled by the Spirit.

This verb, be filled with the Spirit, is a passive verb. The New English Bible translates it this way, let the Holy Spirit fill you. You see? You see the emphasis? The Holy Spirit wants to fill me. The only thing that's keeping me tonight from being filled with the Spirit is I just won't let him. For me to be filled with the Spirit means that I yield to him without reservation. It means that I allow the Holy Spirit to fill me. Now notice how Paul fuses these two ideas together in verse 18. Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.

When a man is drunk with wine, what's the matter with him? He is under the influence of another power. He is being controlled by an outside force. His tongue, his walk, his mind is under the control of something other than himself when a man is drunk with wine. Now, that is exactly what it means to be filled with the Spirit. It means that I allow the Holy Spirit to control me. I allow him to control me. Another way of saying it is, I let Jesus be Lord of my life. The command to be filled with the Spirit is a command to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. Now, you know there are a lot of people that like to be filled with the Spirit is a command to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. Now, you know there are a lot of people that like to be filled with the Holy Spirit,

but I want us to think of it tonight in the light of being controlled by the Holy Spirit. Do you really want tonight to be controlled by the Spirit? Because, you see, if you are going to be filled with the Spirit, and if you're going to be controlled by the Spirit, it means that you're going to be controlled by a person who will not tolerate any of your selfishness. Do you want to be controlled by someone that won't let you think of self all the time? Do you really want to be controlled by somebody who won't let you be happy telling a lie? Do you really want to be controlled by somebody tonight that will not intolerate will not tolerate your impurity will not tolerate the magazines you read and the jokes you tell do you really want to be controlled by somebody tonight that will not tolerate your gossip and your criticism

do you really want to be controlled by a person tonight who will not tolerate your jealousy and your envy do you really want to be controlled tonight by a person who will not tolerate your jealousy and your envy? Do you really want to be controlled tonight by a person who will not tolerate your prayerlessness and who will not let you rob God with your tithes and offerings? Do you really want to be controlled by someone like that? I'm afraid some of us want to be filled with the Spirit. We don't know what that means. To be filled with the Holy Spirit means that I come to the Holy Spirit. I come to Jesus Christ, and I allow him to control me. That means my thoughts and my tongue and my eyes, my whole life, he controls me. Absolutely, I say with that songwriter, make me a captive, dear Lord, and then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword, and I conqueror shall be. I sink in life's alarms when by myself I stand.

Imprison me within thy arms, and strong shall be my hand. You see, that's what it means. It means that I become the slave of Jesus. I let the Holy Spirit control me. Absolutely control me. Now, this gives an indication of how a person is filled with the Holy Spirit. You can be filled with the Spirit tonight. You can be filled with the Spirit tonight. You can be filled with the Spirit every day of your life. By the way, this is in the present tense, and that's

my third point. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is, first of all, a command. It is a command to be controlled by the Spirit, and thirdly, it is a command to be continuously controlled by the Spirit. That's in the present tense. I think the Amplified Version brings it out like this, but be ye filled, be ye being filled with the Spirit. It indicates a continuous habit of life. Every day, every hour, every moment, the Christian is supposed to be being filled with the Spirit. Every moment of your life, you are to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul means in Galatians chapter 5 when he says, walk in the Spirit. Well, how do you walk in the Spirit? You allow the Holy Spirit

to take charge of every step you take, even the trifles of life. Oh, and he does not tolerate the trifles of life. You become super sensitive to the sins in your life. I remember some years ago in a service, an evangelistic service, when the pastor gave the invitation, a woman walked down the aisle and confessed her sin. You know what her sin was? You know what she confessed? She said, I've been playing dominoes.

I think for a lot of years, I thought that lady was some kind of nut. What in the world is wrong with playing dominoes? Not a thing. But you know what? That lady said she'd been spending too much time. Too much time. Now, do you want to be controlled tonight

by somebody who's going to nag you once in a while when you spend too much time fooling around, wasting time? Some of these things that are not wrong in themselves, but they're robbing Jesus of precious time in your life. You become super sensitive to sin, you see. Oh, if you slip and say an unkind word, or if you say something about somebody that you didn't mean to say, you just don't have any peace about it, and you have to go and make it right. Some of you wondered, why in the world in our revival so many people kept going to other people and saying,

I'm sorry for what I said, and I'm sorry for what I did. And you thought, how in the world could anybody stand up here and publicly confess to the church some sin of their life? Well, I want to say, once you've known the filling of the Holy Spirit, you'll die to have it. And you can't buy it with money. And once you've known what it means to be happy in the Lord and know that peace and that joy and knowing the Holy Spirit is filling you and controlling you every day of your life,

you will give your life to know that experience day by day. So you're not going to tolerate anything that would quench that spirit in your life. That's why some of us tonight not feel the Spirit. It doesn't mean that much to us yet. Oh, the more I preach, the more helpless I feel. Oh, the more helpless I feel. The more I realize it's all of the Holy Spirit. It's all of the Spirit. Oh, I tell you, if the Spirit of God doesn't do it, it's not done at all. Now, I want to make this very practical. I want to make this very practical. This is not for preachers. That Greek word is in the plural. It says,

be ye filled. That's plural. That's not singular. Paul isn't writing to the bishop at Rome. He isn't writing to the pastor at Ephesus. He's writing to the rank and file of that church. And he said, every one of you ought to be filled. You remember the prophecy of Joel? The Lord says, in the last days, I will pour out my spirit upon all, A-double-L, all flesh. That means you. That means you. Listen, when the Holy Spirit of God fills you, then you can be a witness.

Boy, the Lord has really been dealing with me about this matter in our church this week. You know what I'm praying for now? I think we've gotten pretty well right with the Lord, a lot of us have. I believe we're just starting. I believe we're just beginning. I believe God's just gotten us where he can use us. And one of the sins of this church has been the fact that we've not been witnessing and winning people as we ought. But what difference does it make?

We've not been able to because we've not been right with God. I think the Lord has gotten us to a place now where he can. What difference does it make? We've not been able to because we've not been right with God. I think the Lord has gotten us to a place now where he can. But it is the Spirit of God that gives you the ability to witness. I'm going to be teaching a course on Wednesday night, but I want to tell you I can't teach anybody to witness, and you can take this course and learn the book and memorize every sentence and still not want to witness and go out and fail. It's the Spirit that does it.

He must witness through you, and he will if you yield yourself to him. I'm not going to be satisfied if our church doesn't come to this place where our people are witnessing and winning people to Jesus. It takes a while to do that. You don't do that overnight.

And the Lord has been dealing with us for a long time now getting us to this place and I want to ask you the question again and I want to keep asking and I pray the Lord will ask it of you every moment of this night are you filled with the Spirit of God

right now this very moment is the Holy Spirit of God filling you and by that I mean is the Holy Spirit right now as best you know how in absolute control of your life? Well, if there is a known sin in your life that you're not willing to let the Lord take away, then he's not filling you, because he's not in control, is he? You see, you can come to the altar and you say, Lord, fill me with the Holy

Spirit. Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit. And the Lord will say, all right, I'll fill you just as soon as you go to so-and-so and apologize to them for what you did. I'll fill you just as soon as you go home and take that stuff out of the refrigerator. I'll fill you with the Spirit just as soon as you go home and rummage through your magazine rack and throw out some of that junk. I'll fill you with the Spirit just as soon as you make up your mind you're going to start honoring God with your tithe and your offering. I'll fill you with the Spirit if you're willing to be a witness for me. I'll fill you with the Spirit if you'll get rid of that sin. And if you ignore that, and if you build a

detour around it, and if you say, no, I want to be filled with the Spirit, but I'm not willing to do that thing, then you forget it. Because the Spirit of God is not in control, you see. You see, being filled with the Spirit is simply allowing the Spirit of God to control us, moment by moment. Now you can be filled with the Spirit one minute and not filled the next minute. You can be walking down the street filled with the Spirit a minute, and then you can sin, and the Spirit of God is not in control, but immediately you can confess that sin to God, and the Spirit of God is in control again, you see. It's just a matter of allowing the Holy Spirit to absolutely control us.

Is the Holy Spirit controlling you right now? You know, Paul says in 1 Corinthians, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Now, one translation has it this way, and I love this. It says, where the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty. You know what that's talking about? Do you know anything about that? Liberty? Liberty to pray?

Liberty to witness? Liberty to witness. Liberty to be free from those sins, some that have been bugging you and binding you ever since you were saved. Liberty. Freedom emancipated from selfishness. When the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty. Is the Lord in your life?

Is He controlling you? Then you know what I'm talking about when I talk about liberty in the Lord, don't you? Is He controlling you? Is the Spirit Lord tonight? The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent.

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