Full of What?

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Introduction

I have a book, Hope for the Flowers.  It’s a fictional tale about caterpillars who are all climbing to the top of a pillar.  They are treating each other like stones to walk on, struggling to get to the top with all their might. 

One joins in the climb and asks why everyone’s climbing.  “We’re trying to get to the top of the pillar.”  Why?  “Well, it must be good, because everyone is trying to get up there.”

This caterpillar finally gets to the top (although he hates what he had to become to get there.  When he gets there… there’s nothing!

So he starts to climb back down.  He tries to tell people there’s nothing there.  Some are so close to the top that they don’t even listen.

Some accuse him of trying to keep them from getting to the top.

Others won’t talk to him because he had been evil to them in his climb to the top.  Others are jealous and don’t believe him.

So often we are in the same boat, aren’t we?  How many of you feel like you’re climbing up with everyone else, but you don’t really know where you’re going?  Or maybe you’re climbing back down, but don’t know what to do next?

Stephen Covey says we spend all our time climbing the ladder in the business world, only to find out that our ladder is leaning on the wrong building.

Our text this morning gives us a vision for life that is meaningful, significant, and worth our time and effort.  It helps us to know where we are going, why we’re going there, and how we can make it.

Three points this morning from our text.

  1. Seize the Day!
  2. Know God’s will!
  3. Be Filled by the Spirit

 

If you’ve been around Dick at all, you’ll recognize this as reflective of what every good leader does.  In every walk of life—in the church, in business, anywhere—great leaders provide Vision, a Plan, and Fuel.  This is exactly what Paul does here with these three points.

  1. Seize the Day! (v15-16)

PROPHET—VISION:  we’ve got a world to redeem

Be very careful, then, how you live…

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    1. Live in wisdom:  Not as unwise, but as wise.  Major theme of the Bible.  Do you know people who have wisdom?   Wisdom is knowing how to act, what to do, what to say, what not to say in the differing situations in life.  Life is challenging—knowing how to be successful in all of life takes wisdom.  Takes knowledge of the world, knowledge of people, knowledge of yourself.  The key to wisdom also is the ability to take the truths and put them together so you do the right think in complex situations. 
      1. Examples: 
        1. Thinking about last week’s sermon:  How do you apply the principles of Scripture to a dating relationship?
        2. How do you be a good friend to someone who is engaging in destructive behavior?
        3. How do you decide political issues?  Takes wisdom!
      2. Wisdom—we get the world, we line up with how it is when we love God.  We grow in what we have already been given in fullness. 
      3. Wisdom makes Christianity different.  Religion=rules. 
        1. Wisdom is great because it shows another way that Christianity isn’t like religion.  Religion has a list of rules that you blindly follow.  Christianity does have rules, but it also teaches principles and truths that are designed to make us wise. 
        2. People who don’t get this, churches that don’t get this often end up trying to enforce a list of rules that don’t connect to real life.
      4. To live intentionally, we need to be able to take the truths of Scripture and live them out in the midst of life in the city.
    2. And that’s the point.  Ecause God’s vision for us is to redeem the time. 
      1. This is our mission.  We are called by God—as a community to bring God’s power of redemption to this time, to this city, now.
      2. This is expressed in v15.  We are to make the most of every opportunity.  It’s finding a treasure of a piece of furniture at a garage sale or an antique shop.  Someone doesn’t know it’s value.  You get it cheap and clean it up so that its glory is on display. “We are to buy up all the time we have and devote it to the Lord.”  Every situation can be used to bring honor to God, to express our devotion to him, to help others, to build friendships and community. 
      3. So seize the day!  Make the most of every moment.
      4. This is the whole point:  the kingdom of God is his people living in his world, following his ways, shining his light. 
      5. Phillip Melancthon—repented of wasted time at the end of every day. 
      6. If you want to feel guilty about your efforts in this area of life, read any of the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards.
      7. Qualification
        1. NTW  63—Verse 16 can, of course, lead people to an obsessive lifestyle, calculating and counting every minute and giving oneself and everyone else no peace.  If that’s a particular danger for you, then take note and learn how to relax, how to rest, how to let go of your over-organized life and allow God to bathe you in his peace.  Ps 127 says, “It is vain for you to rise up early and go to bed late.  For the gift of God to those he loves is… sleep.”
        2. NTW  64  But for many people the danger is on the other side:  of not taking each day and hour as a gift from God, to be used for his glory, but instead letting htme wash over and pass by, like water down a river, never used, never to return.  For such people, verse 16 is another wake-up call:  these are evil times we live in, and you as a child of light have a chance to do something about it.  Take that chance with both hands.  Make most of the time
    3. We’ve got to do this because the days are evil.  Because there are great forces against us.  There is much to do.  But there are also evil powers in the world that God wants us to overcome. 

 

God’s vision for Uptown is that we are a group of wise, intentional Christians whose lives are pushing back the evil in San Diego.

But how do we do it?  Well, there’s 2 kinds of how:  Plan & Fuel.  Point 2 is the plan: 

  1. Know God’s will! (v17)

KING—PLAN:  This is the plan.  To bring redemption to the world, we’ve got to line up our lives with what God’s doing in the city.  We have to know his will.

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    1. So, don’t be foolish.
      1. Now this isn’t meant to be insulting, it’s meant to warn us against acting foolish—this is believers and unbelievers because we’re both susceptible to living foolishly.
      2. Pr 1:7—fools despise wisdom and instruction:  You don’t get to the point where you can’t be taught, or listen to others.
      3. Pr 7:6-27—We all face temptation.  Those who are foolish give in without a fight. 
      4. Pr 12:15—fools think they are right in their own eyes
        1. MacA  226—“When our priorities aren’t his, he can do little with us because he has so little of us.”

 

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    1. You need to Know God’s will
      1. There is so much talk about God’s will.  For some people, they think that God’s will is this hidden mystery that you can discover only by a spiritual discipline that you could never achieve.  It’s really simple.  God’s will is in Scripture.   The more you know the Bible, the more confidence you’ll have that you’re in God’s will.
        1. God’s will is that you know him.  1 Timothy 2:4  4 God desires all people to be saved.
        2. God’s will is that you be filled with his power and presence.  Eph 5:18  #*#
        3. God wants you to be growing and maturing.  1 Th 4:3-7  3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification.
        4. God’s will is that you be a blessing to society.  1 Peter 2:15  13 ¶ Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution…15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
        5. God’s will is that you suffer.  2 Timothy 3:12   12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.  1 Peter 4:19   19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.  This may be hard to understand, and more should be said about this, but when we suffer, we have the opportunity to show that God is more powerful than our suffering.
        6. God wants you to be saying thanks.  We’ll see this more in the next point.  1 Thessalonians 5: 18  18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

 

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    1.  
      1. What next?  If you’re doing these things:  then you do whatever you want!  If those five elements of God’s will are operating in your life, who is running your desires?  Your wants?  God is!  Ps 37:4—delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
      2. You start here.  Keep connected to what God says. 
      3. The more you know the Bible, the better you’ll understand how more and more of your life can line up with God’s will.

 

So what do you do?  After you check to see if you’re following what God says in his word, then you are free to go and do whatever you want!  How do you want to redeem the time?  How do you want to bring God’s redemption to San Diego?  To your workplace?  To your neighborhood?  To Harbor?

It takes wisdom.

This is the plan.  For some of you, this will mean drastic changes because you haven’t been thinking about the will of God like this.  For others of you, this may not change what you’re doing, but it will change how you think about it.  More of your life will be connected to God’s will and you’ll have more confidence.

So we have the vision and the plan, but what keeps you going?  What fills your tank?  This is where Paul goes next…  Point 3…

We’ve got the vision and the road map, but where’s the fuel?

  1. Be Filled by the Spirit (v18-21)

PRIEST—FUEL:  only God’s presence can get you there

Paul has to talk about this, because he knows there are competing opinions out there. 

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    1. Don’t get drunk:  Paul says that’s not going to fuel you on this road of redemption.  Don’t get drunk with wine.  That leads to debauchery—it leads the opposite direction from “making the most of every opportunity.”  It’s not the road of God’s will.
      1. Now, the use of wine takes wisdom. 
        1. Scripture teaches that wine is a wonderful gift of God to people.  It makes the heart glad, it consoles those who are suffering, and it is appropriate to enhance celebrations.
        2. But wine and drunkenness can also lead to great evil.  Most of us know people whose lives have spiraled out of control—men and women have lost their money, their jobs, their houses, their marriages, the children, and their connection to a meaningful life because of abusing alcohol.   Every good thing that God gives us, if it is made the ultimate thing in our life, becomes an idol, and it will control us.  Authority is abused, love flees, and the darkness grows with drunkenness.
      2. But Paul’s focus here isn’t on the social evils of drunkenness, Paul has a religious focus.  He’s talking about worship.
        1. MacA 232—Religious temple:  “To the Ephesians, drunkenness was closely associated with the idolatrous rites and practices that were an integral part of temple worship.  In the mystery religions [of Paul’s day] the height of religious experience was communion with the gods through various forms of ecstasy.  To achieve an ecstatic experience the participants would use… frenzied dances designed to work themselves up to a high emotional pitch.  Heavy drinking and sexual orgies contributed still further [into sensuality] led them to think they were creating communion with the gods.”
        2. Even today, we need to be careful that our experiences don’t drive our commitment to God. 
        3. What’s the answer to false worship in Paul’s day?  It starts with true worship.  This is what Paul describes in the rest of our passage:
    2. Be filled with the Spirit. 
      1. What it means?
        1. Filled with your inheritance.  The rest of the letter tells you what it means to be filled.
        2. Filled with the presence of God (3:19).  This is your new self:  who you are when you are filled with God’s love and power and character.
        3. Completely controlled by what fills you.
        4. Wind filling a sail and carrying a ship along.
      2. How to do it?
        1. Passive:  not “fill yourself,” but “be filled.”
        2. Command:  “be filled” so you are responsible
        3. Preach the gospel to yourself
        4. Fill yourself with the word of Christ.  Col 3:16. 
          1. What truths of Scripture get you motivated to follow God?
          2. You preach these to yourself, and God will fill you.
        5. As we are filled with God’s word, it controls our thinking and actions and we become more and more under the Spirit’s control.  2Cor 3:18
        6. MacA250—The Christian who is filled witht eh Holy Spirit can be compared to a glove.  Until it is filled by a hand, a glove is powerless and useless.  It is designed to do work, but it can do no work by itself.  It works only as the hand controls and sues it.  The glove’s only work is the hand’s work. 
    3. Cultivate it with the Upward cycle of worship
      1. Singing:  when God puts salvation in your soul, he puts music on your lips. 
        1. NTW, 62-3  Singing, whether aloud or in your heart, was, he thought, an excellent way of actually practicing the faith.  If you don’t want your garden to grow weeds, one of the best ways is to keep it well stocked with strong, sturdy flowers and shrubs.  If you don’t want your mind and heart to go wandering off into the realms of darkness, one of the best ways is to keep them well stocked with wise and thankful themes, so that words of comfort, guidance and good judgment come bubbling up unbidden from the memory and subconscious.”
        2. Singing and Psalming in your hearts:  music is the means by which believers minister to each other and worship the Lord.  Hoehner
        3. Lincoln  349—fulness of the Spirit can only be properly experienced in community.

***We’re singing to one another!!!

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      1. Thanksgiving:  Acknowledge God’s acts of love to you
        1. For blessings
        2. For trials
        3. When you can thank God in the midst of suffering, then you are truly free from being controlled by circumstances. 
        4. I am amazed that no matter how bad things get, no matter how frustrated I am, no matter what is going on in my life, there are always things I encounter in the songs in worship that drive me to give thanks to God.
      2. Submitting to each other

 

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    1. Sunday worship sets the tone for the rest of life
      1. Sets the pattern for our daily relationship with God
      2. How filled?  What resonates with you in worship?
        1. Music?  Why?  Words?  Tune?  Community?
        2. Sermon?
        3. Flow of the service?
        4. The Prayers?
        5. Confession?
        6. Afterwards—hanging out with people?
        7. Serving the church by setting up or cleaning up, running sound?
        8. What makes you feel like, I want to live for God?
        9. CULTIVATE THAT.
        10. Then here are the results:  thanks, singing, submitting

 

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        1. MacA  268—“Because Jesus emptied himself to the point of giving his own life, he is able to fill us with everything of which he emptied himself, including life. ”
        2. His death takes away our sins, and his life fills us with love and power. 

 

God’s vision for us is glorious.  His plan is clear, exciting, and meaningful.  And his power is suffiecient to meet our needs and to make us his agents of change in San Diego. 

Do you know him?  Are you ready to follow him?  Confess to God you want to follow Jesus, and he will fill you tonight. 

Let’s pray.

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