8 - 23 - 18 "be filled with the Spirit" (3 minutes)

Ephesians 5:18 – “And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”

Surely this is an injunction against going farther with a girl than you would have had you been sober. Surely this is an injunction against getting too drunk at a family party and cussing loudly in front of your young cousins. And this is most certainly an order to stop the behavior that leads you to be passed out on a riverbank, too drunk to stand even after you’ve puked five times, so that your friend has to carry you to the nearest road, where you get picked up by a guy in a pickup truck who won’t let you sit in the cab so you lay in the bed like roadkill.

              Then he says that you should spend “a little more time reading the good book and a little less with the fourteen extra,” whatever that means. Talk about providing witness.

              Undeniably, obviously, this is no metaphor to be taken artistic liberties with. When we lose our capacity for reason, we lose one of our chief similarities with God. When we lose our capacity for autonomy, we lose one of his greatest gifts to us. And when we intentionally weaken our wills and expose ourselves to corruption, we give the Devil an easier victory than he is accustomed to.

              But this passage is so much more than an injunction against raucousness and binge drinking. The metaphor “drunk with power” illustrates this moral teaching’s versatility quite succinctly.

              Replace wine with anything that can give us pleasure in a way deviant from God’s will, which is truly anything, including insincere prayer. Replace debauchery with any vice that will develop from this intoxicant or behavior that will result from it.

              “And do not get drunk on worldly success, in which lies greed, but be filled with the Spirit.”

              “And do not get drunk on physical comfort, in which lies sloth, but be filled with the Spirit.”

              “And do not get drunk on the esteem of others, in which lies pride, but be filled with the Spirit.”

              I’ve certainly been guilty of all of these, I think nearly all of us have been guilty of nearly all of them. This verse is not simply ammunition for stuffy old people to wag their fingers and pound the Bible at people who like the sauce. There is a deeper truth here, nothing with which we seek to fill ourselves, to lift ourselves, to change how we feel will truly satisfy, other than God’s presence in us.

              I think much of the reason people use drugs is not that they feel bad, but that they feel numb. They want to feel different, whether that’s happier, more energetic, or often, just different, just something. They’re seeking something outside the experience of a life that has become so boring, monotonous, utterly uninspiring. These have certainly been among my reasons in the past.

              But this is all good news because these false, worldly things that we seek to fill ourselves with are actually harder to obtain by our own efforts than the grace of God. Well, the grace of God is impossible to attain by our own efforts, but it is freely given yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so that’s not too much of an issue.

              I don’t need twenty bucks to get a thirty rack of salvation. I don’t need a nice resume for God to take me on board his organization. I don’t need linen sheets to feel the peace and comfort of my savior dwelling in my heart.

Notice how the Spirit is received passively. We are not told to seek the spirit, or fill ourselves with the spirit, but to “be filled with the Spirit.”

Be filled with the Spirit.