Ephesians 5:1-20 - Live under the influence of the Spirit.

Everything in moderation. Not too much, not too little. A nice balance between the two extremes. Everything in moderation. It has a nice calming, soothing effect. It means driving a nice, sensible car. Not too junky, not too flashy. It means dressing in decent, appropriate clothing, not too showy, not too plain. It means carrying ourselves with control. We’re neither too loud nor too soft. We show up but we don’t stand out. It’s a nice way to live. Everything in moderation.

It even sounds Biblical, like God doesn’t want extreme people doing fanatical things. He wants calm, cool, collected people going through life making as few ripples as possible. Which is just fine with us, because ripples scare us. We get noticed when we make ripples. People label us, people look at us. So, fit in as much as possible, have a little, but not too much, and when we reach that balance, we’ve become Godly. Godliness equals moderation, is how we think.

Until we read Ephesians 5. Oh, we’re fine with the first 17 verses. Don’t do bad things. Don’t be greedy, don’t be immoral, don’t be obscene. Got it. No problem. And then we come to verse 18. And we’re even okay with the first part. We know we’re not supposed to get drunk with wine, or Jack Daniel’s or anything else for that matter.

Where we stumble is in that last part. Instead of being filled with wine, we’re supposed to be filled with the spirit. Instead of losing control to alcohol, we’re supposed to lose control to the Spirit. And that just seems to go against everything we know. Being filled with the Spirit seems extravagant. It seems extreme. Being filled with the Spirit brings to mind images of charismatic churches, dancing in the aisles, and we’re certainly not going to do that. No, everything in moderation. Calm. Quiet. Less noticeable.

Problem is, this is not the kind of life God has planned for His people. An unnoticeable Christian is a contradiction of terms. Christians get noticed, or they’re supposed to. Christians do extreme things. Christians are living under the influence, driving under the influence, talking under the influence, not of wine, but of the Spirit.

We’re going to be taking a look at a few parts of the Bible that seem strange and extreme, verses we don’t really know what to do with, verses we tend to assign to fringe groups of the church, not normal Christians like ourselves. And we’re going to see that these verses, just like all parts of the Bible, are for us, too.

So, we hear God telling us to be filled with the Spirit, not with the spirits. We hear God telling us to be influenced, to be controlled, not by any chemical, not by anything created, but by the Spirit of God Himself. Verse 1:

This is how children learn, they imitate their parents. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes it’s not so good. But it’s the way kids learn. They learn language. They learn habits. They act the way their parents do. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as we say.

And God is saying, "Exactly! Do that! Imitate Me. Do what I do. Talk like I talk. Think like I think. Watch Me intently, just like a dearly loved child watches the lips, the movements of her mom. Be like Me!"

Now, if that seems a little weird, a little vague, that’s okay. God knows. He’s so far above us, how are we ever going to imitate Him? We can’t see Him. How can we be like God? Verse 2:

Just look at how Jesus lived. He didn’t give two hoots about the "important" people, the people with all of the influence, all of the money, all of the power. Who He cared about was us, the sinners, the people who had nothing and didn’t even know it, the people who were swimming around in our own sin, playing around in our own filth. We are the people Christ loved. We are the people Jesus died for.

And God says, "Imitate that. See the life of Jesus and live that kind of life. Look at where He spent His time, and do the same." And then we get a detailed description of what that looks like. Starting in verse 3:

Everything in moderation sounds Godly. Not going to extremes seems Christlike. But not according to verse 3. Sinning in moderation is obviously not what God wants from us. Living in imitation of Christ means extreme purity, without even a hint of sin.

Is this how we think? Is this how we live? Or do we accept hints of sin in our lives, in our minds? We play those games, don’t we? We think, "Well, we haven’t technically sinned yet. We’ve thought about. We’ve imagined what it would be like to sin this sin. We’ve let the temptation linger a little longer. We’ve nursed our grudges a little longer. And when someone pushes us on it, when our sin, our hint of a sin, is pointed out, we say, "Come on, what do you expect? Everyone sins. Don’t get all fanatical on me. Stop pushing. I can’t be perfect.

And, yet, there it is. God’s expectation. Not even a hint of sin. Not a breath. Not a whisper. Not a thought. Absolute purity. This is extreme, pushing holiness to the edge. This is us not being satisfied with "normal." This is on being obsessive about our actions, our thoughts, our words. Constantly comparing our motivations, like in verse 3, our joking, like in verse 4, with God’s expectations, with Christ’s life. It’s us never settling for just alright.

Does this sound exhausting? Does this sound impossible? It’s not. Verse 8:

Talking like Jesus would talk, acting like Christ would act, that would have been impossible for us before we knew Jesus, before we were saved. We were darkness, says verse 8. Not just that we were living in darkness. Not just that the darkness surrounded us. We WERE darkness. We WERE the evil.

But we’re not anymore. Jesus changed that in us, when He died on the cross. When you heard that He had died, and you believed that He had died for you, for your sin, for your darkness, you stopped being darkness. You became light. Jesus said, in Matthew 5:

We’re not dark anymore. We’re light. Let there not be the least little hint of darkness, let our little lights not even flicker for a second in how we treat each other, in how we spend our time, in where our thoughts travel, in our television habits, our eating habits, our drinking habits.

Yes, our drinking habits. Paul gets very specific on this in verse 18:

Paul has pinpointed several areas of sin, sexual sin, talking sin, sins of motivation. Now, he points at drinking. Don’t let there even be a hint of sin in drinking. Don’t do anything that would even suggest you’re coming close to getting drunk.

He points to this sin because he knows the motivation for getting drunk. People are looking for joy. They’re looking for the escape from the problems in their lives. They’re looking to feel good. All good things, but they’re not going to be found in drinking. Again, we feel comfortable with the rule "everything in moderation."

But Paul says, No, that’s not even the answer. He’s not saying don’t drink alcohol. He’s just saying, Be filled with something else. Again, verse 18:

Not in moderation. Filled. Not in a nice balance of not too much, not too little. Filled. To the extreme. And this is where we begin to squirm a little. We like the moderate Christian life. It’s quiet, it’s safe. We’ll do the normal, accepted things, not too many people will notice. Everything will be fine. Everything in moderation.

Except that’s not the life of Christ. That’s not imitating God. That’s not being light. When we are filled with the spirit, things happen, things that might make us uncomfortable at first. Like in verse 19:

Wouldn’t that be an extreme way of living, speaking to each other with psalms?

Wouldn’t that sound strange. So, okay, we don’t need to talk songs to each other. But wouldn’t it be wonderful, wouldn’t it be encouraging, wouldn’t it be holy to speak to one another in this way? To talk about the wonders of the Lord. To encourage each other to come and worship. To tell each other what God is doing in you. When we are filled with the spirit, when we’re not allowing anything else, not even a hint of sin, we’re going to talk this way. We will live life to the extreme.

Not only that, but when we’re filled with the Spirit, we’ll always be giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I thank God for the car that brought me here. I thank God for the seat I’m sitting in. I thank God for the air coming in my lungs right now. I thank God for you. I thank God for you. I thank God for you and for you and for all of you.

Being filled with the Spirit will cause you to see people different. You’ll see people who are hurting, even hurting because of their own bad choices, and you’ll love them. You’ll be filled with compassion. You won’t pity them, you’ll love them. You won’t look down your noses at them, you’ll stretch out your hand to them.

Let’s make sure we’re clear. If you’re not interested in this kind of life, a life of praise and thanksgiving, a life of service, a life of light, then fine. Don’t be filled with the Spirit. Settle for the hints of sin in your life. Life your life in moderation.

But if you want to imitate God and live a life like Christ, you will live life to the extreme. There will be thrills as you see your Lord working. There will be times when you’re really not sure what’s going to happen next, but you know it will be good, because God is working. A life filled with the Spirit is a wonderful way to live life. Granted, people will notice, and they won’t always know what to do with you. That’s okay. You’re living life. You’re singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You’re giving thanks to God for everything. You’re filled with the Spirit.