Harmony - Ephesians 5:18-21

Ephesians 5:18 begins the third section of the last half of the book, the Christian's walk. Chapter 4, we had walk in unity and then walk in purity, Ephesians 4:17 through Ephesians 5:17. And now walk in harmony, Ephesians 5:18 through Ephesians 6:9. If you'll read these verses, you'll notice that Paul is talking about harmony in the home. He's talking about harmony between husbands and wives, harmony between parents and children, and harmony between servants and their masters. And so we can apply these scriptures to our own homes and to our own social situation.

Jesus said there shall be wars and rumors of wars. And this is true on the national and international level. There's discord in the world today. The Lord Jesus came to bring peace, and yet men would not have him to be the prince of peace, and so instead there's a sword. But now the Bible tells us that one of the greatest areas of conflict is not some foreign land, but the home. There is more discord in human hearts, in homes than any place else.

The home was the first institution that God organized. When he made the garden and he placed a man in that garden, the one thing about creation that God said was not good was the fact that man was alone. It is not good that man should be alone. And so God made for him an help meet for him, that is suitable for him. Among all of the animals, there could be found no creature suitable to be man's companion. And so God made the woman. And God performed as it were the first marriage ceremony, and the first home was a paradise on earth.

I dare say there are many homes today that are not heaven on earth, they are hell on earth, where wives and husbands fight each other, where parents are in conflict with their children. And unfortunately, in many factories and offices, workers and their bosses don't get along. And here we have in this section of the word of God, walk in harmony. Harmony between husbands and wives, Ephesians 5:18 through 33, harmony between parents and children, Ephesians 6, the first four verses, harmony between masters and servants, between workers and their bosses, Ephesians 6:5 through 9. Harmony. We need this today.

You know, when the Lord Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, that night many, many years ago, heaven came and sang. Heaven's harmony was revealed on that Bethlehem hillside. There's harmony in heaven. There's no discord in heaven. There are no sharps and flats that are discorded up in heaven. But on earth there's a lot of discord. What should be music has become noise. What should have become beauty is ugly. Discord, discord in the hearts of people and therefore discord in homes.

Now he says in Ephesians 5:18, be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit. A great deal is being said these days about the fullness of the Holy Spirit. You have all kinds of excesses and abuses and extremes. What does it mean to be filled with the spirit? Paul doesn't say one word in Ephesians 5 about speaking in tongues. The Holy Spirit of God did give men the gift of speaking in tongues. He says nothing about working miracles. He says nothing about raising the dead or healing the sick.

Paul talks about everyday things like husbands loving their wives and wives showing honor to their husbands, and parents respectfully disciplining their children, and children showing respect to their parents, and servants doing an honest day's work, and masters taking good care of their servants. This is what it means to be filled with the spirit. I have very little confidence in the spiritual life of a man who tells me he can do miracles, but his home is falling apart. Don't come and tell me that your life is filled with the Holy Spirit and that you can do miracles, or you've had great emotional experiences, but your children are not honoring you and obeying the word of God.

Paul is talking about being filled with the spirit and he says when people are filled with the spirit, you will know it because there will be evidence of it in their home and in their work in their daily lives. Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Here are three characteristics of the spirit-filled life. In Ephesians 5:19, there is joy. When a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, he's joyful. In Ephesians 5:20, he's thankful. In Ephesians 5:21, he is submissive. These are the three characteristics of the spirit-filled life: joyfulness, thankfulness, and submissiveness. Now the opposite of this is, when a person is not filled with the Holy Spirit, he is a complainer, a griper, a criticizer, a moaner, a groaner, a wet blanket, a pessimist, and he fights everybody.

Now you know Christians like this, and I know Christians like this, and perhaps all of us at one time or another have been like this. It is God's will that Christians be joyful. Now not the shallow happiness of the world. He says, don't be drunk with wine. You know, whenever the world wants to be happy and joyful, they take something in, they drink something, or they go to some entertainment, they throw a party, and they have a hangover. Most of the people in the world today are living on substitutes. God wants us to have deep, abiding, spiritual joy. He wants that the spirit of God shall overflow in our lives and make us joyful, and most people get their joy out of a bottle, out of a TV set, a movie theater, a sports arena. Be joyful.

The Holy Spirit of God wants us to be joyful. Rejoice because your names are written down in heaven, said the Lord Jesus. And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord, it shall rejoice in his salvation. Psalm 35:9. Joy. Philippians is the book of joy. Over and over again, the book of Philippians, Paul says, rejoice in the Lord, again I say rejoice. Joy. Do you have this kind of joy? Most Christians don't. Most Christians are miserable, and they make everybody else miserable because the spirit of God is not at work in their lives.

You see, we do not become joyful as Christians by taking something in, running to a meeting or listening to a speaker. These things can help us. It is by allowing the Holy Spirit of God who already is in us to control us. Now in the Bible, the little word filled has with it the idea of control. To be filled with the spirit means to be controlled by the spirit. When a man is filled with wine, he is controlled by wine. Now Paul is not suggesting one moment that a spirit-filled Christian is intoxicated like a drunk. There's nothing spiritual about a drunk. The Lord Jesus Christ wants us to be filled with the spirit, to be controlled by the spirit. Not that we should run our lives, but he runs our lives. He fills our lives, and we're joyful, and we're thankful.

Now a spirit-filled Christian doesn't complain. A spirit-filled Christian doesn't gripe. He doesn't groan and moan. He's thankful. Giving thanks always for all things. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Thankful. Thankful for what seems to be tragedy. Thankful for what men call tragedy. Thankful for so-called accidents, thankful for disappointments. Giving thanks always for all things. Now you can't do this in your own strength. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can.

So a spirit-filled Christian is joyful, he's thankful, and he's submissive. Submitting yourselves one to another. This means giving everybody else the opportunity to be first. In honor preferring one another, is the way Paul puts it over in Romans. Husbands submitting themselves under the Lord to make their wives happy. Not living selfish lives to please themselves, but submitting themselves to the Lord. Wives submitting themselves to the Lord and to their husbands, loving them to make them happy. Children submitting themselves to their parents. Husbands and wives, parents submitting themselves to the Lord in the raising of their children. It is a life of submission.

Now there are only two ways to live. We can either live to please ourselves or live to please the Lord. We can live under his direction, or we can live in our own way. We can go our own way or go God's way. There is no other way. Now the man who submits himself to the word of God and to the spirit of God is going to have little problem putting Christ first in his life.

Now I want you to parallel Ephesians 5:18, 19, 20 and 21 with Colossians 3. Let me read it to you. Colossians 3:15. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him, wives submit yourselves to your husbands, husbands love your wives, children obey your parents. You see, Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 say the same thing. Except in Ephesians 5, Paul says, be filled with the spirit, and if you are filled with the spirit, you will be joyful, thankful, and submissive. Colossians 3 says, if you are filled with the word, you will be joyful, thankful, and submissive.

Now don't miss this next statement. Are you ready? To be filled with the spirit of God means to be controlled by the word of God. You compare Ephesians 5:18 through 21 with Colossians 3:16 through 20, and you'll find the same characteristics. How do you know if a man is filled with the spirit of God? He is joyful, he is thankful, he is submissive. How do I know if a man is controlled or filled with the word of God? Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Well, he tells me, joyful, thankful, submissive.

Are you controlled by the spirit of God? Are you filled with the spirit of God? If not, let me tell you why. You have been neglecting the word of God. You separate the spirit of God from the word of God and you do not have spirituality, you have fanaticism. I want to make it very clear, though there may be some who will disagree with me, that when you separate the spirit of God from the word of God, you have extreme excess. The spirit of God always works through the word of God. The spirit of God wrote the Bible. The spirit of God lives in my heart. He wants to enable me to obey the word of God. He cannot fill me unless I am filled with his word. The word of God is the instrument, the tool that the spirit of God uses to control my life.

I have met Christians who tell me their spirit-filled and they cannot recite a Bible verse. Oh, they know John 3:16 and Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23 and Genesis 1:1 and John 11:35. But I maintain until a man is filled with the word of God, his mind and his heart are saturated with the word of Christ. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Be enriched by the word of Christ. Until a man's life is filled with the word of God, the spirit of God's not going to have much to work with. And a lot of this wildfire that we read about and that we hear about is not the spirit of God at work. It's some carnal substitute that the flesh has invented. Many people who think they are filled with the spirit are fooled by the spirits. And don't you be among them.

Whenever someone says to me, I am a spirit-filled Christian, my next question is, tell me what the word of God means to you. Do you spend time daily in the Bible? Do you study the word? Do you obey the word? Do you memorize the scriptures? And if he hangs his head and says, well, no, I guess I don't, then he's not a spirit-filled Christian. Because to be filled with the spirit of God means to be controlled by the word of God. In Ephesians 5 says the evidence for this fullness is that I will be joyful. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord. Not always melody on our lips. Some of us can't sing, but we can sing in our hearts to the Lord. Not singing to entertain man.

I find myself greatly disturbed when worldly stars, Hollywood stars, performers take the name of Jesus Christ, the name of God on their lips and sing these so-called religious songs. That's not the kind of singing God wants. You don't want that kind of singing in your home. I don't care how beautiful his voice might be, if his life is ugly, God does not hear him sing, and I don't want to hear him sing, and I wouldn't have his records in my library. God wants the melody to come from our hearts, and if Jesus Christ is not in our hearts, and if the word of God is not in our hearts, we're not going to have much to please him. The man who is filled with the spirit makes melody in his heart to the Lord, he's joyful. Not giddy, not a clown, not shallow, not running around with some silly grin on his face. He may have tears in his eyes, but there's a melody in his heart.

He's thankful, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We need thankfulness today. Once a year in America, we bow our heads and give thanks. We ought to thank God always, not just one Thursday in November, always for all things. That covers a lot of territory. Some of you listening to me are going through difficulty. You may have lost your job. There may be sickness in your home. Perhaps the cold hand of death has reached down and touched a loved one. And you say, preacher, however could I be thankful? You can't apart from the Holy Spirit. Just a few hours before I came to make this lesson, I was with a dear sorrowing saint whose husband was called home. Be thankful always for all things. A Christian can do this. And she was thankful that she had Jesus Christ with her in the hour of death.

The Holy Spirit of God enables us to be joyful and to be thankful, not to be complaining, not to be griping. Christians can afford to be thankful because all things are working together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Our Father is taking care of us. He knows our needs. Thankful. The one thing that we appreciate as parents is the gratitude of our children. How often have you said to your children, you certainly take everything for granted. How wonderful it is when a child comes up and says, Daddy, I want to thank you. Do you thank the Lord? Are you grateful? You may be in a hospital bed. You may be an invalid in a nursing home. Do you lift your heart to God in the power of the Holy Spirit and say, thank you, Lord. Giving thanks always, submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of God.

Whom are you fighting? Your boss? Your boss is making things hard on you? Your parents? Wife, husband, next door neighbor, mother-in-law, father-in-law, uncle? Who's making things hard in your life? Have you ever submitted yourself? We've been studying in our Bible school at Calvary Baptist Church the life of David. Saul pursued David the way a man chases an animal on the mountainside. The way a hunter goes after a fox, Saul chased David. And twice David had the opportunity to kill Saul and didn't do it. Saul submitted himself to the devil. But David submitted himself to the Lord. And because David submitted himself to the Lord, he was able to submit himself to Saul. If I speak to some children and young people right now who are fighting their parents, may I say to you, you are breaking God's word, you are disobeying God's word. God wants you to submit yourself to your parents. He wants husbands and wives to submit themselves to the Lord and then be God's deputies here on earth to raise those children. When a Christian is filled with the spirit of God, he is joyful, he is thankful, and he is submissive. He's not fighting. Not I, but Christ. Not my will, but thy will be done. Walk in harmony.

Now the Holy Spirit of God is the only one who can bring harmony. There are many symbols of the Holy Spirit in the Bible. The Holy Spirit of God is compared to a dove. A dove is a symbol of peace. The Holy Spirit is compared to fragrant incense. The Holy Spirit is compared to oil. Ever try to drive your car without oil? Even the joints in your body require a certain kind of lubrication. And when you don't have that kind of lubrication, you have problems. The Holy Spirit of God is the divine unction, the oil that keeps the machinery of our lives working in harmony. Have you submitted yourself to the Holy Spirit? Are you filled with the word? Are you controlled by the Bible? If you are, then you'll be walking in harmony. Shall we pray together? We thank thee, Father, for the harmony that comes to our hearts and our homes when the spirit of God is in control. Help us to yield to the Holy Spirit to be joyful and thankful and submissive through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.