Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

One modern philosopher admitted, “I want atheism to be true … It isn't just that I don't believe in God, and, naturally, hope that I'm right about my belief.

It's that I hope there is no God!

I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."”

Now I know you immediately recoil as a believer when you hear quotes like this.

You certainly don’t agree and would probably rather not even hear such blasphemous language.

But, I have to admit that I find a lot of that sentiment in my own heart.

Now, don’t get me wrong.

I am not an atheist, but you don’t have to be an atheist to prefer your own control to God’s.

While many refuse the title, “Atheist,” those very same people also refuse the term “surrender.”

But the reality of an omnipotent, sovereign God demands nothing less.

NEED

ME:

I find this great need for control in my own life constantly.

Recently we went on our staff retreat.

We always handle some items of business on the way to wherever we’re staying.

This year we took a personality test.

Yep, that’s right!

I suppose we were trying to see if any us actually had a personality.

Anyway, one of my strongest personality markers is the melancholic temperament.

The melancholic temperament, according to the little handout Brian gave us when we took the test, is perfectionistic and (you guessed it) always likes to be in control.

You know, when I first read that, I was in denial a bit.

I don’t need to be in control, and I am certainly not perfectionistic.

I remain calm, cool and collected, no matter what is going on, at least, that’s what I told myself.

But then, the next morning, I went downstairs early to work out.

Now my room was located on one end of the lodge at Ridgecrest and the fitness room was all the way down at the other end of the complex.

I took the walk from my room (a workout in itself), and made it to the room.

I worked out for about 30 minutes I took my room key with me.

After a good hard 30 minutes I took the long walk back to the room, feeling good about myself . . .

until I almost back to my room.

It was then I realized that I had left my room key in the fitness center.

Not only could I not get back into my room, I would not be able to get into the fitness center to retrieve the room key unless someone in the fitness room interrupted their work out to come and open the door for me.

I felt really dumb!

In fact I could feel myself getting mad over it.

Isn’t it amazing how the gentle Holy Spirit can just point things out to you when you least expect it?

Right in the middle of that experience I just heard the Lord saying in my spirit, “Do you really thing that everything in your life has to go perfectly?

Really?

Maybe you do have a problem with control.

Maybe you are a perfectionist.”

You know what I also noticed?

When I am insisting on control or I am angry about something that’s going wrong, I am not very joyful.

I am usually expressing frustration with my circumstances, not confidence in God.

YOU

Can any of you relate?

Do you feel the need to forcibly control your life?

Do you gnaw your fingernails at stoplights shortening your life with intersection stress when nothing you can possibly do will make the light turn green any faster?

Do you And you may even say, “Well, Sure I do, Rusty, but is that a bad thing?

I mean, how are you going to get anywhere if you don’t take control of your life.

Are you telling me that I just need to passively sit around and wait for lightening to strike and everything to fall into my lap.

That doesn’t seem like a very wise thing for me to do.”

Well, it’s interesting that you mention wisdom, because that’s where our text starts today, and just let me say that there is a great connection between being wise and knowing who is in control.

In fact, it is the beginning of wisdom to know who is in control.

The Bible says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

Simply put, being smart is being reverent!

Being wise means recognizing God’s authority in your life.

That’s why, when Paul begins to discuss the control that the Holy Spirit wants to exercise in our lives, he begins by talking about wisdom.

In v 18 he tells us, And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit.

Now that verse has to do with control: The control of our lives by the Holy Spirit.

That control, however, is related to wisdom.

In fact it is related very concretely through the parallelism that exists between vv 17 and 18.

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

The first phrase of v. 17, “Do not be unwise” equates to the first phrased of v 18, “do not be drunk with wine;” and the second phrase of v 17, “but understand what the will of the Lord is,” equates to the second phrase of v 18, “but be filled with the Spirit.”

Simply put, the path to wisdom in life, that is, a path to knowing how to apply God’s Word to the specific situations in which you and I find ourselves comes as we are filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Which makes these two verses a kind of climax for what comes before in this book and for what follows.

Understanding and doing the will of God is a pretty good summary for all the instructions Paul has just finished giving the church about how they should be living out their faith in this evil world and being filled with the Spirit is the only way to receive the power necessary to have the kind of church and family described in chapters five and six.

In fact, being filled with the Spirit, we can argue, is the key to the Christian life.

It really is our greatest source of joy.

It provides the confidence we need to know that God is going to take care of us, no matter what.

If that’s the case, then we need to know how this “filling” happens.

If we want the wisdom that comes from walking in the Spirit, we need to know how to walk in the Spirit.

So, how do you do that.

How can you and I be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Well, right here in these two verses we can get some answers.

In the first place, if you want to be filled with the Spirit, I must

DIV 1: RECOGNIZE MY NEED OF HIM

EXPLANATION

The path to the filling by the Spirit begins with simply recognizing our need, and it is clear that we are in need when you understand just what’s being said in v 18.

In fact, there are several things you need to understand about v. 18.

In the first place it is a repetitive thing: In other words, you could more properly translate “be filled” as “keep on being filled.”

In other words, it isn’t something that is a “once-for-all” sort of action, but an action which must be happening constantly.

In the second place, “be filled with the Spirit,” is an imperative thing.

That is, it is a command, and since it is a command, it takes an act of our will to obey it.

It is not automatic.

It is something which we must do.

But how we do it is quite interesting because not only is “be filled” repetitive and imperative, it is also passive.

In other words, being filled is not something I can do to myself, it is something which, with my will, I must allow to be done to me, and it begins as I realize that I am not able to empower myself.

I am not able to make myself effective.

I am not even able to arrive at the right decisions about life on my own.

I am absolutely dependent on the Holy Spirit to fill me.

I cannot do it alone.

ILLUSTRATION

Though it has not been scientifically proven, feats of what psychologists call “hysterical” strength do occur.

In 2006 in Tucson, Ariz., Tim Boyle watched as a Chevrolet Camaro hit 18-year-old Kyle Holtrust.

The car pinned Holtrust, still alive, underneath.

Boyle ran to the scene of the accident and lifted the Camaro off the teenager, while the driver of the car pulled him to safety.

In 1982, in Lawrenceville, Ga., Angela Cavallo lifted a 1964 Chevrolet Impala from her son, Tony, after it fell off the jacks that had held it up while he worked underneath the car.

Mrs. Cavallo lifted the car high enough and long enough for two neighbors to replace the jacks and pull Tony from beneath the car.

Marie "Bootsy" Payton was cutting her lawn in High Island, Texas, when her riding mower got away from her. Payton's young granddaughter, Evie, tried to stop the mower, but was knocked underneath the still-running machine.

Payton reached the mower and easily tossed it off her granddaughter, limiting Evie's injuries to four severed toes.

Curious, Payton later tried to lift the mower again and found she couldn't move it.