Knowing God is Loving God Part 8b: The Holy Spirit

Sunday Morning | April 26, 2026 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In Part 8b of the “Knowing God is Loving God” series, Pastor John explained that being filled with the Holy Spirit, as taught in Epistle to the Ephesians 5:18–21, means living under the Spirit’s control and experiencing His power through a deep, ongoing dependence on Him. He clarified that this filling is distinct from the baptism of the Spirit—referenced in Gospel of Matthew 28:19, First Epistle to the Corinthians 12:13, and Ephesians 1:13—which is a one-time act at salvation, while being filled is a continual posture of surrender. A Spirit-filled life is evident in grace-filled words that build others up, a heart of praise and dependence, a lifestyle marked by gratitude, and a joyful submission to spiritual authority. Pastor John concluded that believers pursue this filling by taking “CARE”: confessing and repenting of sin, abiding in Christ, respecting His commands, and engaging boldly in evangelism, trusting the Holy Spirit to work powerfully through their lives.

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Transcript

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Thank you. Isaac. Good morning Valley View. It's great to be with you while we're continuing our series. We just have a couple of weeks left in our series on knowing God is loving God. We're talking about theology. How do we, what do we believe about God? What do we know about him that shapes the way we live our life? That's what shapes the way we live with others and understand our relationship to others. Last week, we looked at the Holy Spirit. Who is he? What does he do? This week we're talking about how do we live a life full of the Holy Spirit? Being filled with the Holy Spirit. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit in them. But yet, how can we experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit? In the midweek update this week, I wrote about renting an e-bike and forgetting to turn on the battery, which makes it actually harder to ride the bike because it's heavier and slower as a result. I had the battery there with me the whole time. Finally figured out to turn it on and it was amazing. The difference. And I think many Christians live with the Holy Spirit in their life, but they're not accessing him. They're not leaning on him. They're not experiencing the fullness of what it means to live in the filling the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And so we're going to talk today about what that means. What does it mean to be filled with the spirit? What are some of the results of being filled with the spirit? We'll look at four of those, and then we'll talk about four ways how we can be filled with the spirit. How does that happen? What does that look like? What does it mean? All of this is important because of the statement I laid out last week, and it's in your notes near the top of your notes, the key to your spiritual life. In fact, it says the key to the power in your spiritual life is your dependence upon your commitment to your connection to the Holy Spirit. If you want to live a power filled Christian life experience in the fullness of all he has for you, you've got to be connected to the Holy Spirit. That's why it's so important that we know who he is, what it means to lean on him, what it means to walk in the fullness of the spirit. And so today we're going to look at a key passage in Ephesians chapter five, where it speaks specifically to this. And of course, we could look across all of Scripture to get a full picture of what it means to be filled with the spirit. But this passage speaks to it very directly. And so we're going to read from Ephesians chapter five. If you have a church Bible, I think that's on page 919. You want to turn there. And Ephesians chapter five speaks to a number of things. It's famous for the section on marriage. But prior to that it sets this idea up by focusing on being filled with the spirit. And so I'm going to read from verses 15 down to 21. And if you would stand with me together, let's do that again. As I'm reading the Word of God and you're following along in your copy of the scriptures, Ephesians chapter five, verse 15. Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. God, thank you for your word. Help our hearts to be open to hearing from you. May we walk in the fullness. May we walk filled with the spirit today. We love you. Amen. You can be seated. Ephesians chapter five has a lot going on. There's a lot of commands in this section. And, you know, in our study of Ephesians that the first half of the Ephesians is be the second half is do. The second half has something like 40 commands, the first half has one. And in chapter five we see already, if you had read over the chapter prior to this in verse two, walk in love in verse eight, walk as children of the light. And here we see in verse 15. Walk carefully. Be careful how you walk. Pay attention. Be mindful of life around you. All this builds up to this big command right in verse 18 that says, two sides to it do not be drunk with wine. Instead, be filled with the spirit. In contrast, be filled with the spirit. Now this is a powerful pair to put together because obviously Scripture speaks to the reality that being drunk with wine is a sin. Scripture is clear don't do that. Now it's also clear it's not a sin just to drink alcohol, but to be drunk with wine is not God's best. It's not his plan. And the command here is clearly don't be drunk with wine or anything else. By the way, there's not an exception clause. I wasn't drunk on wine, I was drunk on whiskey. Bible doesn’t talk about that. No, no, no, you understand it. Speaking alcohol in general. But this passage isn't primarily about being drunk. Yeah. It's there, it's clear. But the point is not to unpack the realities and the negativities of alcohol. The point is to set up the contrast to walking in the spirit. The difference between being drunk with wine and the contrast to that, and being filled with the spirit. And this all leads up to just a very general, basic definition of what it means to be filled with the spirit. At the bottom line, you can just say it means to be controlled and empowered by the spirit. If you are filled with the spirit, you're controlled and empowered by the spirit, and this is separate from or builds upon the idea of being baptized in the spirit. And the little diversion here, I believe, I believe Scripture teaches that all Christians already have the spirit in their life. There's not like I become a Christian. I accept Christ, and later I have to get the spirit. No scripture is pretty clear and I've listed out a few verses here

Matthew 28: 6:12

19. You're baptized in the name of the father, son, and Holy Spirit.

First Corinthians 12: 6:15

13 you're baptized into one spirit.

Ephesians 1: 6:18

13 you've been sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit. Those who know Christ have the spirit. But again, do we always walk in the fullness of the spirit filled up with the spirit? All that the spirit offers in guiding and directing us? Well, no, of course we don't. That's what makes this picture of drunkenness so powerful. Because to be full of the spirit means I'm controlled and empowered. And of course, if you're full of alcohol, you're controlled and empowered by alcohol. Alcohol. Some have called it liquid courage. You find a brand new power to do things you might not have tried before. You might take on someone twice your size even though you're barely standing, barely walking, barely functioning. But now all of a sudden, I'm emboldened. I found some new source of strength. I act ways I wouldn't normally because the alcohol has taken over me. And of course, the same is true of the spirit. Of course, alcohol does it negatively. Alcohol is a depressant. Alcohol seeks to deaden your senses. Alcohol is an escape from reality and the spirit is the opposite of that. If you are filled with the spirit, though, you act different than you normally would have. You have a fresh power in your life to do the things you might not normally consider for Christ’s glory. The spirit overtakes you in that way and fills you up when you're walking in the spirit. The contrast here that he sets up is very powerful. Now, what does this look like if you are filled with the spirit? And we could look at a lot of aspects of Scripture. There's places like the fruit of the spirit in Galatians five. That's something we could look at. But right here, after the command to be filled with the spirit and the contrast with being filled with alcohol, right here we have there's four verbs that follow this as a follow up. Here's what this looks like. Here are the results of being filled with the spirit. Here's some of what your life will manifest. Here's some of the ways you will act if you are controlled by the spirit rather than the flesh. So just look here at verse 15 first or verse 19. We'll go back to 18. Do not be drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. That is sin, that is dissipation some translations say, but be filled with the spirit. And then we have four following verbs, or participles if you want the fancy grammatical term for all of the English, English majors out there, and we have these in a row and they all support this verb of being filled with the spirit. So verse 19 says, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So the first result I put here in your notes of what it means when you are filled with the spirit. How does this play out in your life? It's grace filled words with one another. When you're walking in the power of the spirit, you give grace filled words to one another. Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs in your conversation. And even if you're not singing to one another, behind your words are the grace of spiritual songs, of spiritual words. You know, just prior to this,

if you turn back to Ephesians 4: 9:21

29, he addresses this directly. What should our speech look like if you are filled with the spirit? Verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as good for building up as fits the occasion that it may gave give grace to those who hear. That's the kind of person I want to be around whose words are fit for the occasion that are building up. And even if they're hard words, by the way, hard words can be meant to tear down or meant to build up. And you know the difference. Are you there to cut someone down? Are you there? Even if you've got to say something hard? It's ultimately for their good. Let that be at the core of our words. He goes on to say in verse 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. These are some of the aspects of what your speech should look like with one another. How you address one another. At its core should be kindness, generosity, building up for edification. So that's one of the ways one of the results of being filled with the spirit. How it looks like in your life. The second one here back in Ephesians five, look at verse the second half of verse 19. We had addressing one another, but then the next part. Singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. I think this speaks to the inward mindset of the heart. What is the status, the state of your heart? Well, we wrote in your notes is that you should have an attitude of praise and dependence in all that you do. The attitude should be one of praise to God. Glory to God. Dependence on him and all that you do from the core of your heart. And of course, we all know there are times where you don't feel that way, but we're talking about when you are full of the spirit, when the spirit isn't controlling and empowering you. One of the results of that is to be full of praise toward God, focused on his greatness and glory, mindful of how great he is, thinking of how wonderful he is, and that being at the core of your heart and who you are. A third way, a third result of being filled with the spirit then goes to verse 20. So we have addressing one another. Singing in your heart. And then verse 20. Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Number three, we should be living a life full of gratitude, living a life governed by a thankful heart. There should be an attitude of gratefulness and gratitude rather than an attitude of complaint. And look, I'll be the first to confess to this. I think many times the tendency, especially in traffic, is to immediately go to complaining. Why is life so hard? Why does everybody hate me? Why won't everybody get out of the way and off the road? Why did anybody else want to drive today? How dare they ruin my life? You know, it's immediately a tendency to go to complaining rather than. Thank you, God that I have a car that's working today. Even if I'm sitting still, it's still running. Thank you God that I can drive somewhere I didn't have to walk or catch a bus. I got a car. Thank you. Yeah, maybe it's slower than normal. That's okay. Maybe you have some plan for me in the midst of this. How can I be attuned to what you're doing? How can I walk in gratitude instead of choosing complaint and negativity and assuming the worst, that God has the worst plan for you in life. No, walk in gratitude. When you're full of the spirit, it's easier to walk in gratitude. And then number four, verse 21, another sign that you're full of the spirit is that you are submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, joyfully submitting especially to spiritual authorities in your life. If you're full of the spirit, there's an eagerness. There's a desire to be ready to follow the spiritual direction of people you admire and respect in your life. There's a sense that I need others to speak into my life. I want their direction and guidance rather than a resistance to that. And of course, look, I know there have been abuses in churches of leaders who call themselves spiritual and then abuse others emotionally, spiritually, even physically. Okay. I know that. So obviously it takes great wisdom to know how to apply this, but there should be an attitude in our heart that says, God, I submit my life to you, and I know there are people who know you better, and I want to follow them and what they say as well. When the elders come to me. So our church is led by a team of elders, not just by one person. I'm not ultimately in charge of the church. Obviously, I have a big say in our direction, but it's a team of elders that work together. We have a chairman that is ultimately most responsible for the church, and you vote to affirm those elders that come on to this team. They rotate every three years or are renewed every three years. We usually do that around October when we invite on new elders, but when they come to me and say, John, here's something we want you to work on for the church, we feel like this is an area where we need to focus. I don't immediately say, well, how dare you tell me what to do? Who do you think you are giving me direction? I'm the pastor. No. Actually, in fact, you know, my attitude is it's-- thank you. Thank you that you care about this church that you're looking for the direction of this church, that you're looking out for, areas where we need to work and grow. I can't see everything. The the staff can't see everything. We need other people to be mindful of it. People we trust, people who are invested in the church and care deeply, who've been here their whole life aren't going anywhere. Thank you. Yes, please. Let's work together. Let's move forward in this, there should be an attitude that delights in the opportunity to submit to one another. But the key phrase there is out of reverence for Christ, I can do that with him, because I know ultimately there their job is to submit to Christ. First and foremost. They're not just on some personal power trip and certainly that happens. And that takes wisdom to know how to navigate that. But that's one of the results of being filled with the spirit. God, thank you that there are other people in this world that I can walk with, that I can lean on, and that will pour into me. Help me to have an attitude that delights in that. All right. So that's some of what it looks like. Again, that's not everything we see in Scripture. Again, we're going to walk through the fruit of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We could walk through all those we can spend forever just on love. For instance, what does it mean to love one another? How do we do that well, in the fullness of the spirit? But here in this passage, we see those specific results of being filled with the spirit. Okay, now how do we how do we do that? How do you live your life full of the spirit? It's not always easy. What do we do? Here's the phrase we're going to look at today. It's the word-- It takes “care ” to be full of the spirit. We're going to unpack that word “care.” You could say it takes intentionality. It takes attentiveness. You've got to be mindful, attuned. You've got to care about it. And here's a good contrast, I think when you think about going back to do not be drunk with wine, what does it take for someone to stay drunk? You got to keep drinking, right? It's pretty straightforward. So what does it take to be filled with the spirit on an ongoing basis? Well, part of that is what we're going to unpack. But it's a constant activity. It's an ongoing activity. Okay. You got married. If you're married, you got married on your wedding day and you didn't say, I'm all good. It's all done now. I found this person. We're good. You might have. That's not the right mindset, though. To stay. You want to grow in your relationship. You want to stay connected. That takes daily effort, right? That takes constant activity. We've got to be sure to talk, connect, go on dates, go on getaways, go through marriage material together, connect and grow in that. And that takes constant ongoing effort. And so when we're talking about being filled with the spirit, baptism of the spirit was a one time thing. That occurred when you came to know Christ, and the Holy Spirit came into you. But the filling of the spirit is a daily activity and ongoing activity. In fact, Bill Bright, who I think has written more helpful material on the Holy Spirit probably than anyone, and at the end I'm going to offer up I'm going to have copies of a lesson he wrote, a seven day lesson on how you can learn more about being filled with the spirit. He would pray every morning, God, would you fill me with your Holy Spirit? Every morning a key part of his prayer time. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. I need the fullness of your spirit today more than ever. And this was a guy. If you've heard of Campus Crusade for Christ, I mean God used him to really build the largest missions organization in the history of the world. And still praying fill me with your spirit today. So it's an ongoing activity that takes “care.” So let's look at each of these letters. Letter C

first: 18:55

confess and repent. So in any relationship, sin causes a barrier in the relationship. It makes it hard to connect. If I've offended you, if I've hurt you, there's going to be a distance in our relationship. We've got to confess and repent and work through that to reconnect. And the same is true in our relationship with God, and the same is true if we want to be able to hear from the Holy Spirit in our life. Going back to Bill Bright, he talked about this as spiritual breathing. I love this idea. It's eye opening for many people. He calls confession spiritual breathing, meaning confession is breathing out. I breathe out the sin in my life. God, would you forgive me? First, recognize that I have this sin in my life. I confess it, I acknowledge it. And by the way, we do that for us. He already knows. It's not like. Really? Wow, John, I'm so glad you finally shared your anger problem with me. I had no idea. No, he knows we confess it to acknowledge it ourselves and admit it because we've been denying it. We've been trying to hide it, push it down, keep it out of the view of anyone else. So first we confess. We admit, Lord, I know this is in my life. The sin is in my life. We repent. I'm sorry. Okay. You can acknowledge something and not be sorry for it, right? Yeah. That sins there, but I'm okay with it. No no, no. Confess and repent. I'm sorry. That's the breathing out. But the breathing in is breathe in his forgiveness.

First John 1: 20:30

8-9 talks about this. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You confess and repent, he will forgive you, and many confess and repent and then feel like, well, he could never forgive me for that and walk in the guilt and shame of that the rest of their life. No, he will forgive you. He does forgive you. Confess, repent, breathe out the sin, breathe in the forgiveness, and walk in the joy of that forgiveness. And that has to be an ongoing activity in life. You don't just do that once. Any time sin comes up in your life, confess, repent. Receive forgiveness day after day, moment by moment. That's what increases our connection to the Holy Spirit, our dependence on the Holy Spirit. So that's the letter C. Now look at the letter A,

first confess and repent: 21:19

letter A under “care;” Abide in Christ.

John 15: 21:25

5 is a great passage for that. All of John 15 is about the vine and the branch, and how we stay connected. In fact, he says, abide in me. Apart from me you can do nothing. The word abide can also be translated remain in me, stay in me. For a vine or a branch to grow, it's got to stay connected to the vine. And the stronger the connection, the better the growth. We want to continue to stay connected to Christ. Abide in him. Remain in him. Walk with him. And that's an again, an ongoing daily activity. That's where you build in your quiet times, where you're regularly meeting with him, studying his word, praying every day, multiple times a day. You're in fellowship with other believers who will speak truth into your life and encourage you and point you to Christ. You're faithful and regular in your church attendance and activities, and even in serving and those who serve regularly. You know, I've watched God work in my own life because of the way I need. I'm called to serve when I have to step up and serve, I feel the presence of His Spirit in fresh, new ways. I've got to depend on him more than normal. But we want to remain connected to him and it's an ongoing activity. Confess. Repent. Spiritual breathe. Abide in him and then look at letter R, respect God's law, respect God's law. Psalm 119. You could read through that whole section. It's incredibly long chapter in the Bible, but there's a number of places in there where he talks about delighting in God's law. It's a joy to keep your commands. Psalm 119 nine through 11. How does a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. Do not let me stray from your commands. I've hidden your word in my heart so that I might not sin against you. You see the delight, you see the joy. You see the the willingness, the eagerness to follow God's commands. And the more that we seek to align with what Scripture teaches, the more likely you are to hear from the leading and direction of the Holy Spirit in your life. There's a story a marriage counselor tells him, it’s Emerson Eggerichs in his book of a title I've forgotten. He talks about the story of a couple he was doing marriage mentoring with, and they came to him and said, listen, we really have been praying. We've been desiring they weren't married yet. We've been designed deeply to hear from God's direction in our life. We want to know what is his will, what is his will for our future together. And it feels like we're not hearing from him at all. And so Emerson says, well, are you sleeping together? And the room gets real quiet and they look at each other awkwardly. We weren't expecting that question today. Well, yeah, we are, he said. Well, let's turn to first

Thessalonians 4: 24:25

13,

4: 24:27

3 where it says, this is the will of the Lord, that you abstain from sexual immorality. If you are willingly, outwardly, continually going against God's clear, direct commands in Scripture, don't expect to hear from him. That's like corrosion on the battery terminal or it's blocking the connection. You got to clean that off for it to work well. And the sin the directly going against God's clear commands. It's blocking that connection to the Holy Spirit. It's hard to have a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. It's hard to hear from him when he's been clear and you're just ignoring his clear commands. And look, I know. I know we all have areas of struggle. This isn't to heap guilt on anyone for where you are, the decisions you've made, whether that's in your sexual life or in the area of addiction. As we've already mentioned. Okay, I know it's we all have struggles, and our hope here today is not just a heap shame and guilt on you, but to give you a vision for a new path forward. You don't have to stay where you are spiritually. Come as you are. We say that all the time. Come on. But you don't have to stay there. We all want to grow and experience the fullness of all the Holy Spirit has for us. That's why you're here. You wouldn't be here otherwise. You want to know God, what do you have for me in a fresh, new way? I want to experience life abundantly. Start by respecting his commands, keeping his commands. And it won't always be easy. Sometimes it means really hard choices in life. But I'm telling you, he will honor those. And that will open the pathway for you. Experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Hearing from him. It will increase your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. And then lastly, letter E. Engage in evangelism with boldness. This is again another one from Bill Bright and he is really big on it. It wasn't just Bill Bright, it was Jesus as well. By the way, with some of the last words he gave to his disciples in Matthew 28. Go into all the world, make disciples, teach them, baptize them.

And then Acts 1: 26:41

8 he says, you will receive power. This is one of the main byproducts and results of the Holy Spirit. Experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit in your life is the power to evangelize, the power to witness. You see Him in Acts four talk about they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they continued to speak the Word of God with all boldness. And you've experienced this. You've known this. When you're walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, there have been people that you have been terrified to talk with about your faith. But when you're full of the Holy Spirit, there have been times where you've sensed I can still move forward. I had a friend I grew up with here and in college kind of went his own way, and later in college we got reconnected and he's and I knew I needed to talk to him about my faith and had become so deeply important to me. But I was terrified of bringing it up. And I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, and I knew that the Holy Spirit was giving me the power, the boldness to bring it up and use wisdom. Be aware of a good sense of timing. Boldness doesn't just mean rapid fire machine gun all the time, right? Boldness may mean waiting in fact, waiting for the right moment. But there's an eagerness, there's an urgency, there's an excitement. And the right time came. And I said, listen, man, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about. And you know what? It didn't go as well as I had hoped, but I felt like I was walking forward in the boldness of the spirit, in the confidence of the spirit. And you never know how God is going to use that in their life. You never know. Campus Crusade used to say all the time, it takes something like ten times for someone to hear the gospel before they even start to move towards it. You know, that's an average. Sometimes it's the first time, sometimes it's hundreds of times, but you don't know where you are in that process. You may be the very first person. You may be the last. Ultimately, it's Christ that gets the credit. So the hope today, as we look at His word and as we think about what does it mean to walk in the fullness of the spirit is that we can be attentive, we can walk with care and experience all that he has for us.