Filled Up and Spilling Over to Others

Leslie Basham: Are you filled with the Spirit? Here’s Dr. Eric Mason.

Dr. Eric Mason: What the work of the Spirit does when He permeates every single area of your life, when He comes in He pours Himself into you, and as He’s poured Himself into you He begins to get into every area and crack and crevice of your life. 

Leslie: You’re listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of Seeking Him, for Tuesday, April 24, 2018.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: It’s easy for us to make excuses about why we're not more involved in ministering to others and in building the kingdom of God. But yesterday Dr. Eric Mason reminded us that we’ve been giving so much. We’ve been blessed so we can be a blessing to others. I know sometimes it feels like you just do have what it takes to be involved in ministering to others. But just a reminder, we have the wisdom and the power of God Himself working in us.

If you missed that message you can hear it at ReviveOurHearts.com. That’s also where you can get information on the conference True Woman '18, where our theme this year is: The Truth That Sets Us Free. Dr. Eric Mason will joining us to give us a pastor’s perspective on that theme. And Jackie Hill Perry, Mary Kassian, Betsy Gómez, Dannah Gresh, and I will all be talking about practical ways to walk in the truth.

True Woman '18 is coming to Indianapolis, September 27–29. The early discount ends after May 1, and space is limited. We expect the conference to sell out, so be sure to make your plans now.  You can get all the details at ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Here’s Dr. Eric Mason, who, again, will be joining us at True Woman '18, picking back up in the message we started yesterday, “The Resolve of a Spirit-Filled Teacher.” He’s in Ephesians 5, helping us lean on the Lord’s power as we pour out into the lives of others.

Dr. Eric Mason: Resolve that the Lord will be the strongest influence in your life. Look at what Paul says: "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand [comprehend] what the will of the Lord is" (Eph. 5:17).

As he begins to help them to develop a resolve, one of the great things that you see in this resolve is that a maturing teacher—a maturing believer—is always trying to be on the pulse of what God is up to for their life. And that's not merely for their life, but for the lives of those around them.

God has called you not to be a puddle but to be a pipeline. And as He's called you to be a pipeline, He wants you to be a conduit for His blessing. So you want to have a sense in which you know what the will of God is.

I was reading Joshua, and Joshua had some people come to him from Gibeon. They didn't want the children of Israel to destroy them, so they came up them with all these gifts and trinkets. Joshua asked them, "Where are you from?"

And they said, "We're from a faraway land."

Then they said, "Make a covenant with us." They didn't want to get killed; they knew the Lord was coming through there like a hurricane, so they said, "We're from somewhere else. We don't even know about this land. We just heard what the good Lord is doing through y'all!"

The Israelites were so mesmerized by the trinkets. The text says something that always challenges my heart. It says, they "did not ask counsel from the LORD" (Josh. 9:14). You've got to recognize something, that in every season you've got to make sure that you seek the counsel of the Lord so that you can know what His actual will is in this particular situation. That you're not just being merely creative and winging it, because, "Many are the plans of a man's heart, but the Lord orders his steps," (Prov. 16:9 paraphrased). So God wants to order your steps in showing you what His will is. Which we'll see how that's done, because we'll see how the Spirit does that in a second. He sets it up by saying, "Don't be foolish."

Foolish means to not seek God but just see an opportunity and want to jump on it. But every opportunity isn't a God-opportunity. He says, "Understand what the will of the Lord is" (Eph. 5:17). That means that you're able to discern—not looking on the outward, but inward—what God's will is, based on biblical standards. Are you still trekkin' with me?

Now check out what he says next. It just sort of seems out of place here: "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18). Let's lay this out a bit. The word for being filled with the Spirit is pleroo, which could be translated in several ways.

It could say, "be being filled by means of the Spirit." "Be being filled" means that a filling of the Spirit isn't something that happens at one point in time. Because if you look at the book of Acts, you see that Paul and Peter were filled with the Spirit on two different occasions.

When you look in Acts 2, you see Peter being filled with the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, but then in chapter 4, Scripture says that Peter, when he got before the leaders of Judah, he got filled again with the Spirit at that particular moment.

You see, Paul got filled with the Spirit in Acts 9, but when he looked at the person who kept talking from this demon, Scripture says at that moment he was filled with the Spirit and began to speak to the spirit that was in that person. In other words, "be being filled with the Spirit" means that you live a lifestyle of filling, that God has to fill you over and over and over again.

What does that mean? It means, Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, takes control of you. If we would allow ourselves to be filled with the Spirit (because it's in a passive—you don't fill yourself with the Spirit; the Spirit fills you), there's an atmosphere (we'll see in a second) that you can create that is a conduit for the Spirit filling you over and over and over again.

Paul says, "Be being filled by means of the Spirit." Now, this is interesting. The Spirit is the means (listen!) by which you're filled. He's not actually who you're filled with. Y'all are looking at me funny! In Ephesians 3:19, Paul says a prayer. He says, that you may "know the love of Christ . . . [and] be filled with all the fullness of God." So the Spirit is the means by which you're not only filled with the Spirit, but you're filled with the triune God.

You're under the control, when you're filled with the Spirit by means of the Spirit, you're filled with God the Father who seeks you out, the Son who saves you, and the Spirit who seals you. You get under the control of the Godhead. It's just like in Colossians 1, where the Bible says the fullness of Deity was pleased to dwell in Jesus in bodily form.

So the presence of Jesus Christ gives the grace and the power. We're not Jesus Christs, we're not little deities. However, we need the control of the Spirit in our life and in our ministry to help this thing go forward, or nothing—absolutely—will happen.

Now watch what Paul says. He says, "Be being filled with the Spirit," and as he talks about being filled with the Spirit . . . pleroo has two or three ideas of what this looks like. Number 1, domination. Somebody say, "domination." Being filled with the Spirit means that the Spirit dominates your life.

What we mean here is that the Spirit isn't the "punk" of the Trinity. Now why do I say that? Because some people, if you watch certain programs, think that they can tell the Holy Ghost what to do. "Holy Ghost, come over here, heal this person. Holy Spirit, come here and do this, that, and the third."

The Holy Spirit is God! He is Lord! Ask Ananias and Sapphira. Peter said, "You ain't lied to me. You can lie to me all you want. You lied to the Ghost!" And Ananias and Sapphira went to sleep.

Paul, in Acts 16, said the Spirit stopped them from going to Asia. And so the Holy Spirit is Lord. The Lordship of Jesus Christ is mediated through the Lordship of the Spirit in your life, by telling you what to do.

Have you ever had the Holy Ghost lead you to do something, and you start moving away from doing it, and you just felt this uneasiness in you—that you should have listened to—but you kept going the other direction because you were not looking carefully, you were looking with your physical eyes, not your spiritual eyes? You went on ahead and did it, and you got the tore-up ministry in your heart, where the Holy Ghost is boxing you. And then you finally went the way that the Holy Ghost told you to, and when you finally went the way that the Holy Ghost told you to, then you were like, "I'm so glad for the peace of God that passes all understanding, because I went the right direction this time!"

This is how you know that you're being led by the Holy Spirit. If it's something, in principle, that's in the Bible that you're not violating by moving that direction, and if it's something weird outside of you, that you wouldn't think to do yourself, you're being led by the Spirit. How do you know you're being Holy Spirit led? If you would have thought of it, you would think, I can't do that! That's the Holy Spirit! That's Him!

He's always going to tell you something that makes your flesh feel uncomfortable. Heh heh. Always. He loves fleshly discomfort—He smiles at that. He's like, "Good! That means death is taking place, mortification is taking place." So we see here, the Spirit does domination.

Secondly, this idea of pleroo or this idea of what God does through the Spirit, is not only that, but it's pressure. Somebody say, "Pressure." The word was pleroo used by sailors who would put up their sails and would depend on rua pneuma to blow them (wind) to blow them in the direction they were supposed to go.

They knew that they couldn't go anywhere on their ship unless they put their sail up. This euphemistically points to being a believer, where you have to learn how to put your sail up. And when the Spirit calls you to put your sail up, you can't direct the wind where you want it to go.

The Holy Ghost puts pressure on the sail of your soul to sail you places that you would never go. In other words, He will take you where "no man has boldly gone before." (laughter) That's the power of the Spirit!

He will lead you, relationally, to people you would have never discipled. Let me tell you something . . . some people you're going to disciple are people you never wanted to disciple, because they get on your nerves! (laughter) And guess what? Discipleship isn't just for the person He sails you to. He's discipling you through you staying there and discipling them.

And so, He'll sail you in different places as you put your sail up and give you the opportunity to be worked on and have surgery done on you as He does surgery on the person that you are called to minister to. So He'll sail you to different opportunities. That's what the filling of the Spirit does. He just moves and pushes you.

I remember, I told the Lord, when I got called to ministry, what I wasn't going to do! (laughter) I said, "God, now, let's just put some parameters around this calling thing, 'kay? (laughter) I'm not going to be a senior pastor of a church—that's number one. I've seen what they go through! Number two, I don't want to plant a church. Number three, I don't want to plant in the inner city or go to the inner city and do any type of ministry there. I grew up there, we grew up and got our education to get out. Boom! Last, but not least, God, when I get married, I'm not washing any more dishes. (laughter) Now, God, whatever You want to do outside of that, do Your thing."

And I can see God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit giggling on the throne. They said, "He doesn't know what we predestined for him, does he?" (laughter) And God had to break my hands open so that I would put up my sail, so that He could sail me toward the place where He had called for me.

And many of you need God to break your hands in some areas, but I would suggest you don't have to do that. Just do like this . . . Just go ahead and open up your hands and let Him sail you where He wants you to go.

Last but not least, we see that this idea of the filling of the Spirit points to domination. We see it points to pressure. But Number 3, it also points to permeation. Somebody say "permeation." Yeah, this is the one right here. Permeation points to the Spirit getting into every area of your life.

Remember last night we talked about opening different doors in your life. Well, the more doors in your life that you open, the more things in your life the Spirit can fill. So, permeation, if I can illustrate that . . . you know, today, now, I like Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice, non-concentrated, you know, I like that. We can afford it; it's expensive, like seven dollars, but I like it now, you know, like fresh-squeezed limeade and all that—I'm addicted to those things.

But back in the day, when the house was a little tight (I know some of y'all won't know what I'm talking about, but some of you all will) Kool-Aid was the ministry of the house. (laughter) Now I don't know if any of guys remember, but I was a Kool-Aid connoisseur, you know what I'm saying?

When you make Kool-Aid, you get a clear alabaster and put water in that mug and just fill it up, and then you take (my favorite was red Kool-Aid) the package, zip the top off, and take a sniff. I'd let it hit my head a little bit, and "Wow!" Then I would dump the powder into the jug, and the jug would turn from a clear color, and it would be saturated with red, everywhere.

Because, now that the Kool-Aid has gotten down into the water, it now permeates every single area of that alabaster. That's what the work of the Spirit does, when He permeates every single area of your life. He comes in, and He pours Himself into you. As He's pouring Himself into you, He begins to get into every area and crack and crevice of your life.

But you can't leave the Kool-Aid there, family. You've gotta put some sugar in it! (laughter) Now, putting sugar in Kool-Aid is an art! You never put sugar in cold water—never. You heat up the Kool-Aid to put the sugar inside of it, so that it won't be gritty and grimy and just settle into one place.

What you do was you heat up the Kool-Aid, so that the sugar can get into the molecular structure of the water and the Kool-Aid. It grabs the Kool-Aid, and it grabs the water molecules and the sugar just goes like this and gets all together with thing, and man! It's a blessed mix!

Why was it a blessed mix? Because heat was applied to it, and once heat is applied to it the sugar was able to dissolve smoothly into the mixture. All I'm trying to tell you right now is there are some ways in which the Spirit wants to work and fill your life. But it's not going to happen until your life is heated up! He wants to heat up your life! (applause)

How do we get filled with the Spirit? Then I promise, I'm outta your way. Right here, this is weird! He says, "Addressing," or "Exhorting" (Colossians 3 says "teaching"—this is where we get the teaching component). "Teaching one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:19–20).

How do you get filled with the Spirit, as a teacher? Worship. Worship! Teachers worship, and the worship teaches. That's what the text is teaching us, that is creating an atmosphere in your life of Holy Spirit movement through worship. I like the fact that this points to being in community.

It points to the fact that teachers don't only need to be in the gathering when they are teaching. Oh, y'all are quiet on that part. It means that you have to be somewhere where everybody else is getting in with the Lord, and what happens in that open, gaping opportunity is the Spirit—at some point—fills you and takes absolute control to dominate, to permeate, and to put pressure on you, to send you where you're supposed to go.

That means that we, as teachers, have to be worshipers. We have to have music that points us there, that points us to the Deity of Christ, that points us to the gospel of God, that points us to the attributes. And in that atmosphere and in that movement, that's where the resolve takes place, that's where the depth takes place, that's where the strength takes place, that's where the passion for God takes place, that's where the change takes place. It's not just for our charismatic brothers and sisters, it's for every one of us to open our mouths and give God the fruit of our lips! (applause)

One last illustration, and I'm out the way. I went to Houston, Texas, and you know, I'm an East Coast boy at heart; I'm from Washington, D.C. When I went to Houston, we were driving in Houston; me and my wife were going on forty-five. And I saw these, like, things out there, these oil things, and they were going like this . . .

I was like, "What is this right here? I've only seen this on cartoons." (laughter) But I saw the things just going like this. I said, "What is that doing?" The guy said, "Oh, that's real simple. It's bowing." I said, "What do you mean, 'It's bowing'?"

He said, "The oil is under there, but it keeps on bowing because that invokes the pressure of the oil—the richness of that crude oil—to come up. It doesn't stop bowing until the oil comes up. And so, all it does is it keeps going up and down, up and down, until the oil comes up."

Some of you as teachers need to learn how to get on your knees. And one of the things you need to learn how to do is bow up and down in worship to the living God. He may not come when you want Him, but He'll come right on time. The Holy Ghost can't ignore the power of a worshiper. And at some point in time, during the enjoyment as you admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, all of a sudden an eruption in the Spirit will take place, and there will be transformation like you've never, ever, ever seen before!

Some of y'all ain't got it yet, but some of you all need to get in the position. I wish I had about two or three women that were filled with the Spirit and committed to the filling of the Spirit and would get on their feet and say, "God, I want everything You have for me! I want You to dominate me, I want You to permeate me, I want You to put pressure on me. God, I want to bow before You. I want to worship before You! I want to live before You, and I'm waiting for the oil to come!" 

Nancy: Wow! Whenever I speak, I ask my praying friends to pray that the Lord will give me what I call “fresh oil.” And Dr. Eric Mason has just been powerfully reminding us how much we need that fresh oil in order to minister to others. And he’s reminded us how important it for you and me to be intimate with the Lord first, then invite others to experience that intimacy.

Dr. Mason will be joining us for True Woman '18, the Revive Our Hearts conference coming to Indianapolis September 27–29. The theme this year is: The Truth That Sets Us Free. Dr. Mason will share a pastor’s heart on that topic. And then I’ll be speaking on topics inspired by my updated book Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free. I'll be joined by my friends Dannah Gresh, Mary Kassian, Jackie Hill Perry, and Betsy Gómez who will be speaking as well.

You can still get in on the early discount when you register by May 1. But don’t wait! This conference is on track to being full. Get all the details at ReviveOurHearts.com.

If you have younger kids at home or any children or teens in your sphere of influence, make sure to hear tomorrow’s Revive Our Hearts. Young people have an amazing ability to memorize God’s Word. And we want to tell you about an exciting tool to help you get God’s Word not only into your kids', but into your whole family as well. Be sure and be back with us tomorrow for Revive Our Hearts. 

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to help you be effective for God’s kingdom. 

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

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