Turning Point

Guest (Male): In a culture that prioritizes personal power, submission is seen as weak. But submitting to the Holy Spirit is actually the key to living a dynamic life. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah continues his series on the Holy Spirit by examining the power of submission and why it benefits every believer. To introduce the conclusion of his important message, "The Filling of the Spirit," here's David.

David Jeremiah: Well, over the weekend we have taken a little pause from our discussion of what it means to be filled by the Spirit, but we'll pick it up again today on this edition of Turning Point. In the meantime, my sister called me and told me she's reading the book, *The Holy Spirit You May Not Know*, and she encouraged me a great deal. I would encourage you to get that book as well, because it's the resource for the month of June.

We can make this book available to you for a gift of any size during this month. When you get the book, you will have everything we talk about in this series plus a bunch of stuff we don't have time for, and all of the facts and figures that go behind every message that will help you understand what it means to walk in the Spirit. We're going to talk about all of these things going forward. In just a moment, we'll be dealing with part two of "The Filling of the Spirit."

Men and women, I want you to know that Turning Point comes with a lot of things to help you, one of which we talk about periodically, and that is our magazine. Our magazine comes every month and it's filled with truth to help you in your walk with the Lord and to draw you closer to him. It is an added value to every Christian who gets this magazine.

Every day, Monday through Friday, there's a devotional column, one for each of the weekends, and articles to help you grow in your faith. They're all practical, motivational, helpful articles, and it's beautifully designed just for you. It comes in the mail and you can have yours for the asking if you'll just take the moment to say, "Please send me the next edition of the magazine."

We will happily do it, and you will receive it as soon as it comes off the press. We're so thankful for the privilege of extending this ministry to you, but you have to ask. I hope you will. Here is part two of "The Filling of the Spirit."

Paul compares being filled with the Spirit to being filled with alcohol. When someone drinks, the alcohol comes from the outside and starts to control them on the inside. But when you let the Holy Spirit have access to your heart, your mind, and your life, he begins to guide and strengthen and empower you from the inside out.

Then the last thing about this is that it's in the present tense. That means you don't just get filled once. Actually, the text really says "keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit." All of us know there are times when we just slip into doing our own thing, whether we like to admit it or not. But if you want to have victory in your Christian life, you need to let the Spirit of God tell you what to do.

You say, "How does that work, Pastor? How does the Spirit of God tell me what to do?" First of all, I believe the Spirit of God speaks to us inwardly. The Bible says one of his goals is to convict us. Have you ever noticed that you're walking along, doing your own thing, and something comes along and you yield to it and you feel very uncomfortable about it? That's the Spirit of God in you saying you're going down the wrong road.

The same thing happens when something good approaches and you know you're doing the right thing. The Spirit of God speaks to you, but most of all, the Spirit of God speaks to us through the Bible. The Bible is God's written word, and when we read that, two things happen. We have the inspiration of the Spirit in the writing of the Bible, and we have the Holy Spirit living within us, helping us to understand what the Bible says.

I remember hearing a guy say, "I never could understand the Bible, then I got saved, and in the meantime I discovered somebody rewrote it." No, they didn't rewrite the Bible. You just got the interpreter on the inside and he's helping you to understand it. The Bible says the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit, for they're spiritually discerned. That means if you don't have the Holy Spirit because you're not a Christian, you can read the Bible until your eyes fall out and it won't make any difference in your life.

More and more as I grow in the Lord, I understand that being filled with the Spirit is an ongoing process. Sometimes as I'm reading and studying the Bible, the Spirit of God will reveal something to me, some area of my life or ministry that isn't under his control, and he brings it to mind. He does. And I have to either yield that to him or I have to deny it and go on doing my own thing.

We should never imagine that being filled is a once-for-all deal that you can nail down at some Bible camp and throw a chunk of wood on the bonfire and it's all settled. Being filled is a continuous thing. Every day you seek the Lord and you wake up in the morning and say, "Spirit of God, control my life today. I want to be a spirit-led, spirit-filled person on this day."

Now, what are the conditions for this gracious act? What do we have to do? How do we go about this? How do I become a spirit-filled Christian? First of all, you have to desire to be filled with the Spirit. If you have no desire for the Spirit of God to fill you and control you, guess what? It won't happen. John 7, Jesus says, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." And then he tells us later in the verse that that verse is about the Holy Spirit.

In the Beatitudes in the New Testament, there's a verse that says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness." What that means is, if you're a Christian, do you ever have this feeling that there should be something else going on in your life besides what's going on right now? You want something more, something different, something more aligned with what God's will is.

You know in your heart you're not walking the straight and narrow; you're living on the fringe areas. If that doesn't bother you and if you don't have a desire for there to be something more in your life, you're never going to be filled with the Spirit of God because he doesn't come where he's not wanted. He's not going to come into your life and take control unless you ask him to, unless you desire for that to happen.

Are you thirsty, maybe a little desperate for a closer walk with God? You say, "Well, that makes me feel like something's wrong." Let me tell you something. The Bible says you're blessed if you hunger after righteousness. It doesn't say you're blessed if you're righteous, although that's true. It says you're blessed if you hunger and thirst for righteousness. Do you have a desire for more of God, more of his will, more of his person? You're a candidate for the Holy Spirit's filling. That's what the scripture says.

Some people have told me, "Pastor, I wish I could get to the place in my Christian life where I could just be happy." Jesus says you will be blessed if you hunger and thirst after righteousness. The word blessed is the word happy. Happy is the one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

Don't deny that in your life. Don't push that away. Don't say, "What's wrong with me? I just keep wanting more of God." If that's true of you, the Bible says you're a candidate for the Holy Spirit's infilling. Then you have to denounce sin in your life. Let me tell you something. The Holy Spirit will not cohabit a life that is filled with willful sin.

If you're living in habits that are not honoring to the Lord, the Holy Spirit's not going to move in next to that. His first name is Holy, and he's going to want to be in a place where holiness is true. Paul explained it like this. He said, "Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates the body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God."

When we come to be filled with the Holy Spirit, first of all we have to want to be, we have to desire it, and secondly, we have to be willing to deal with the things in our life that are not pleasing to the Lord. I'll tell you something I've learned. You say, "Well, I don't know if there are things like that in my life." If you ask the Lord to reveal them to you, he flat out will do it.

You won't have to ask him a number of times. You won't have to say, "Oh Lord, Lord, please show me the things that are wrong in my life." What I've discovered is, if you ask him for that, he will show it to you through his word, through a sermon, through something you hear on the radio, through a conversation. I don't know what it will be, but he has this way of always making us aware of the things in our life that are not pleasing to him.

You may be afraid to ask that question because you don't want to know the answer. That's what I discover from a lot of folks I know. Why don't you ask the Lord to show you those things in your life that are not pleasing to him? Because you already know those things in your life that are not pleasing to him. You don't need God to tell you those things.

So you don't ask. The Bible says if you want to be controlled by the Spirit of God, you have to get serious about not living your life according to the old way before you were saved. You need to live your life in a new way. Denounce sin in your life. Third thing you got to do is you have to dedicate yourself fully to Christ. To be filled with a Spirit is to yield to his control.

The Holy Spirit doesn't want to just be the resident of your life; he wants to be the president of your life. He wants to sit on the throne of your life. He wants to rule every day in the decisions you make and the things you do and the places you go. I used to pray when I'd get up in the morning, "Lord, help me to take Jesus Christ with me wherever I go and be an influence for him." And then I realized that's a prayer I don't have to pray because he's going with me anyway.

So to be filled with the Spirit is to yield to the Spirit's control. Romans 12:1 and 2 have been used over the years to illustrate this, and I'm not going to read it from the King James; I'm going to read it from Phillips' paraphrase because it's so good. Listen to these words. "With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies as a living sacrifice consecrated to him and acceptable by him.

Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good and it meets all of his demands and moves toward the goal of true maturity." So we say, "All right, Lord, you know what I want and my life is clean now and I've confessed my sin. Now I'm just going to give you control in my business, in my home, in my free time, in every part of me. Lord, you've got it all. No strings attached, no clauses, no reservations. You've got me."

Someone has illustrated this as a house with a bunch of rooms in it. Jesus wants access to every room in your life. He wants to control. You can't lock him out of some rooms. You can't say, "No, this is my thing over here, Lord. I'll take care of this. You got all the rest of them, but I got this." He wants absolute, total control.

Some of you know that I went to Dallas Seminary. Dallas Seminary is a wonderful place. It was founded by a man named Lewis Sperry Chafer. I wasn't there when the school was founded; that was a long, long time ago. But I've read a lot about this man and he was unique. He did things most people wouldn't have the courage to do, and usually it turned out pretty good.

I remember reading that on one occasion in Dallas, he was asked to speak at a banquet and there were a lot of preliminaries. A lot of music, a lot of announcements, along with various presentations and endless acknowledgments. I know what that's like. I've been in that spot. I went to a place once where they had a bunch of sponsors on the radio and they let every sponsor speak for five minutes.

Well, this event with Lewis Sperry Chafer, it was three hours before he got to speak. Three hours. He immediately endeared himself to the audience when he got up and he said, "I had prepared a somewhat lengthy message, but the hour is late. I will not detain you. Therefore, I'm just going to present a three-point outline of the message and let the Spirit of God speak to your heart."

Here's what he said. "My subject is the reasonableness of fully surrendering our lives to God. Reason number one: He is all-wise and he knows better than anyone else what is best for my life. Reason number two: He's almighty and he has the power to accomplish that which is best for me. Reason number three: He loves me more than anyone else in the world loves me. Conclusion: The most logical thing a Christian can do is to surrender his life completely to God. What more can I say? What need I say more?" And with that he sat down.

He got a standing ovation. Not because of the message, but because it was over. But the message was worth that ovation. God knows you better than anyone else knows you. God loves you more than anyone else loves you. And God is more powerful than anyone else could ever be and can accomplish in you what no one else can do. So why wouldn't you want to give your life over to him and his Spirit in your heart?

You have to have a desire to be filled, you have to denounce sin in your life, you have to dedicate yourself completely to the Lord, and the Bible says that when we do these things, the Holy Spirit will take control. There are two verses in the New Testament that have often intrigued me about the Holy Spirit. Maybe you've read them and wondered what in the world does that mean? They have a lot to do with what we're talking about today because these things can get in the way of the Spirit of God controlling your life.

First Thessalonians 5:19 says this: "Do not quench the Holy Spirit." What in the world does that mean? It means that when the Holy Spirit's on fire in your life, don't throw cold water on what he wants you to do. Don't shut him down. Don't put him on hold. You quench the Holy Spirit by not doing something he tells you to do.

And when you walk in the Spirit and are filled with the Spirit, you don't want to quench him. When he tells you to do something, do it, because if you don't, you're quenching him. You're pouring water on the influence of the Spirit in your life. That's why total obedience is required here. You don't get to pray about it. You don't get "Give me a couple weeks to think this over, Lord." He tells you to do something, you know it's from him, you do it. And if you don't, you quench the Holy Spirit.

The other one in the New Testament that's similar to this is in Ephesians 4:30 that says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God." How do we grieve the Holy Spirit? Well, if you're not going to walk in the Spirit, if you're not going to be filled with the Spirit, the last thing you want to do is to grieve him or in any way to shut him down.

The Holy Spirit tells you to do something and you don't do it, you grieve him. You do something that's dishonoring to the Lord, you grieve him. The Holy Spirit is a living, vital person who lives within you and wants to help you live your life. Then the scripture tells us we have to depend on the Holy Spirit daily. Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Man, have I got an illustration for you on this point. I've had to learn how to walk all over again in the last couple of years.

I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there. What I've learned is, when you walk, you put one foot out and you have to depend on that foot to hold you while you move the other foot to get ahead of it. You have to take your steps one at a time. If you get too far ahead of yourself, you end up on the floor. If you get too crazy and try to go too fast, you can't keep up with yourself.

Walking is a wonderful privilege. I didn't realize how wonderful it is until these days. What a joy it is to be able to walk. But the Bible says we're to walk in the Spirit. What does that mean? That means we're to depend on him every day, one step at a time. I remember years ago there was a big debate in the church about how to know the will of God. And I read the books and heard the sermons and I never did quite get them.

And one day I realized the will of God for your life is composed of the will of God for every day of your life. If you walk with the Lord every day, you will end up in the place where God wants you to be. We worry so much about what God wants us to do tomorrow, next year, next month.

And God, I think, is more concerned about whether or not we're putting one foot ahead of each other and depending on him and walking in the Spirit. That's the challenge every day. Lord, help me to walk with you today. Walking in the Spirit means trusting in the Lord God every moment. Every day you get up and say, "You're in control of my life. I'm going to depend upon you today."

Now, one last thing before we close our Bibles. What happens to you when you're filled with the Spirit? You know, if you watch Christian television, you're going to hear somebody say when you're filled with the Spirit, you will speak in tongues. The Bible doesn't teach that. I'm not here to debate speaking in tongues; that's not the purpose of this message. But you know one of the things that's interesting to me? That's very mysterious, very obsolete.

The real evidence of being spirit-filled is much more practical than that. In Ephesians it says this: "Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God in the name of the Lord Jesus, and submitting to one another in the fear of God."

The Bible says when you're filled with the Spirit of God, your relationships will be different. You'll be speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You'll have a holy way of dealing with people. You won't be always antagonistic to everything that happens in your life.

And then it says singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Worship is one of the evidences of a spirit-filled person. Let me tell you something else. Worship is the evidence of a spirit-filled church. If you're out someplace, maybe you have to move and you're trying to find a new church, you can find out a lot about that church before the pastor ever gets up to speak.

What's going on with the worship? Are the people worshipping? You can go to some churches where there's two or three people singing on the stage, nobody singing in the pew. Spirit-filled churches are worshipping churches. That's why I love to come to this church, because before I ever get to speak, I get to worship.

And then the Bible says we're giving thanks. Do you know that giving thanks is impossible for those who complain and are grumpy and grouchy and whining? A lot of the problems in churches these days are people that are unhappy over crazy things. They don't like the pews, they don't like the colors, maybe they don't like the preacher.

The Bible says if you're spirit-filled, you're going to be filled with gratitude. You're going to be thankful for the things God does for you. You know, I've been taken away from some of the things I love to do over these last two years, but God has shown me that I can be thankful for the things I can still do, and I am very grateful for that. To be spirit-filled means to be filled with gratitude, to be grateful, to be thankful.

I'd love to be around people like that, don't you? They just lift you up and make you feel worthy of every day. Here's one that will touch all of us. The last one on this list in this passage is to be submitting. It says submitting one to another. Do you know when I first came here, I did a lot of weddings, and I had a wedding ceremony and in this wedding ceremony it says, "Wives, be submissive to your own husbands."

And I once had a lady call me and say, "I won't let you marry me unless you take that out of the ceremony. I'm not going to do that." I said, "We're going to have to get somebody else to marry you because that's what the Bible teaches." One time, however, I did a wedding where I got it mixed up and I had the husband submitting to the wife. Took me a long time to get that one straightened out.

But you know what's interesting about all of that? What's interesting is, this is not about wives submitting to husbands; this is about everybody submitting to everybody. What does it say? "Submitting to one another in the fear of God." It means to have a spirit of not always having to be number one, not always having to be the one who makes all the decisions, but being submissive, having an attitude of submission.

Do you know what I'm talking about when I say that? Be submissive one to another. Give everyone an opportunity. Don't always have to be first. Jesus said that when we are filled with the Spirit, out of our life rivers of living water will flow. You know what that means? Spirit-filled people will have an influence on others. Spirit-filled people will have a life that is contagious.

I need to tell you this. I've told you this before over the years. One of the people like that that I met when I came to this church was Tim LaHaye. You know, he taught on the spirit-filled life, but he lived the spirit-filled life. When I was with him, I always left him feeling better about life and desiring to do better myself. He had a contagious spirit.

You can have that spirit if you let the Spirit of God control your life. If you'll just be willing to say, "Lord, I've been trying to do this on my own and I need to be filled with the Spirit." I would encourage you this week to explore that thought in your life. Let me tell you, if you're not a Christian, if you're not a believer, you don't have the Spirit, so that doesn't work. You need Jesus first. When you get Jesus, you get the Spirit. Amen.

When you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, the Bible says you're baptized into the Spirit. And the Spirit comes to be the resident in your life. When you allow him to fill your life, he becomes the president. And that's the most important thing. Don't let him just live in your life; let him rule and reign in your life and find out what it's like to live every day under the control of the Holy Spirit of God.

Tomorrow we're going to talk about the illumination of the Spirit. How did the Bible get written, and how did the men of God who wrote the word of God know that it was indeed God's word? What does the illumination of the Spirit mean and how does it work? That's tomorrow and Wednesday here on Turning Point.

On Thursday and Friday, we're going to talk about walking in the Spirit. In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, I hope you will get a copy of the book, the third in the trilogy of books about God. *The Holy Spirit You May Not Know* follows *The God You May Not Know* and *The Jesus You May Not Know*. This book will help you in your walk with the Lord. It's yours for the asking for a gift of any size this month. Thank you for your generosity.

Guest (Male): Today's message originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Senior Pastor Dr. David Jeremiah. Drop us a note to let us know how God is using this ministry in your life. Write to Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Visit our website at DavidJeremiah.org/radio or call 800-947-1993.

Ask for your copy of David's new book, *The Holy Spirit You May Not Know*, a valuable resource that's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smartphone or tablet, or search in your app store for Turning Point Ministries to access our content. Visit DavidJeremiah.org/radio for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue *The Holy Spirit You May Not Know* on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.