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Ephesians 5:19-21
Three marks of a Christian: Joy, gratitude, submission
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in
your heart to the Lord,
20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
(Eph 5:18-21 NIV)
Pray
Absolutely profound and unique idea for what the church should be about
If you have been listening to me for longer than five minutes, you know that I have a plan. I
want, I need, to reach this town with the love of Jesus. I don’t mean by that that I need the whole
town to come to Jesus, although that would be awesome, but I do want every single person in
this town to equate this church with a group of people that love Jesus and show that by loving
them.
If I were to summarize this profound, mind blowing, totally unique plan of mine, it would be
with something like “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and
love your neighbor as yourself.” That would make a good coffee cup decal or youtube clip if
anyone wants to run with it.
Love God, love others. If you use it, please quote me.
This is the impetus behind Mission 3.10. It's the reason that I call us to fifth act living. It's the
reason that character matters. It's what’s behind wearing the raincoat now even though it isn’t
raining. It's making real what God has said about his church—we are a foretaste of heaven.
Now, I am not new to this whole church thing. I have had some sort of pastoral role since my
early 20s and I was a part of the church the twenty years before that. I know we aren’t always a
foretaste of heaven. We don’t always expose the darkness with our light, with our alternative
communities of peace, with our character and our love. I don’t want to dwell too much on that.
Let’s own it, let’s repent of it, and let’s move forward.
How do we move forward? We get (as verse 18 says) filled with the spirit. Or as the Colossians
passage says, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.” That is, that which was said about
Christ, maybe even that which was said by Christ, the gospel, let it take over our lives. When
these teachings grab hold of us in a way that is more than intellectual assent, we are filled with
the spirit. And verse 18 tells us to be filled with the Spirit.
And being filled with the Spirit is life. It's freedom. It's joy, its gratitude its submission.
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Grab hold of life
My call this morning is for you to grab hold of life. For these few minutes, ask yourself what life
would be like if you were truly filled by the Spirit. If you weren’t constantly going to lovers far
less wild. If you weren’t drawn to the filth around you. If you weren’t distracted by the gold and
silver and regular habits of the world. If you instead, let the Holy Spirit fill you. If you grabbed
life and held on knowing that it brings about joy and heaven.
Grab hold of life:
A young soldier and his commanding officer got on a train together. The only available
seats were across from an attractive young women who was traveling with her
grandmother. As they engaged in pleasant conversation, the soldier and the young woman
kept eyeing one another; the attraction was obviously mutual. Suddenly the train went
into a tunnel and the car became pitch black.
Immediately two sounds were heard: the “smack” of a kiss, and the “whack” of a slap
across the face. The grandmother thought “I can’t believe he kissed my granddaughter,
but I’m glad she gave him the slap he deserved.” The commanding officer thought, “I
don’t blame the boy for kissing girl, but it’s a shame that she missed his face and hit me
instead.”
The young girl thought, “I’m glad he kissed me, but I wish my grandmother hadn’t
slapped him for doing it.” And as the train broke into the sunlight, the soldier could not
wipe the smile off his face. He had just seized the opportunity to kiss a pretty girl and
slap his commanding officer and had gotten away with both!
Now, that young soldier knew how to seize the opportunity! He grabbed life as it came and he
got everything he wanted.
I want us to think like that. We have a moment. The lights will only be off for a second. Will we
jump in? Will we let the Spirit work?
Is there a technique?
Will you be filled? There is not exactly a technique to learn or a formula to recite. It's passive—
Let the Spirit fill you. But it is also imperative. Let it happen!
And those who do, those who are filled by the spirit will exhibit three things; none of which are
natural, and none of which are the first things you think of when it comes to attaining true joy.
But these three words summarize the five participles in this long sentence from verse 18-21. Are
you ready for the words?
Singing
Thanking
Submitting
If our church is a group of people who sing, thank and submit we will show the love of Jesus and
I am convinced that the Spirit will overflow to such an extent that the waves of this spirit filled
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ocean will wash over the 6,000 people here and down county and into Frederick and everywhere
we go. We will by our very nature, unified, cross-rallying believers, cry out to the powers in
heaven that God is wise and worthy of praise.
Okay, I know I go off on this often, but it’s exciting. But back to the task: let me show you why I
summarized these verse with Singing, thanking and submitting.
19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in
your heart to the Lord,
20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
(Eph 5:18-21 NIV)
Look at verse 19.
People of song
Do we speak with a melody?
Speaking, singing, and making music are three participles that explain the imperative—Be filled
with the Spirit. We are filled with the spirit when there is song. The speaking here is a generic
term that can include any communication, so don’t think you have to go around singing to each
other.
[sing songy voice]“Good morning Kyle, its so wonderful to see you”
[sing songy voice] And you, have you got that next sermon for me yet?
[Together blending our song] “We love Mondays.”
Do I have to include all the different kinds of songs?
And the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs could be different genres (hymns choruses and rock)
or its probably just a generic way of saying, all kinds of songs.
Does it have to be out loud?
We are supposed to sing. Singing is a mark of a Christian. And it’s not “In your heart” in the
sense of “not out loud,” this is a way of saying from your depths. With sincerity. It might not be
out loud all the time, but if this authentic desire to worship is there, it will inevitably become
verbal. How can it not?
My life flows on in endless song
Above earth’s lamentation
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I’m clinging
It sounds an echo in my soul,
How can I keep from singing?
(source unknown)
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Who do we sing to?
And note that we sing to each other and to God.
It's okay for us to sing to each other and encourage one another. Psalm 95 “O come., let us sing
unto the Lord…
It's antiphonal probably, back and forth.
It's “we’ve got spirit yes we do, we’ve got spirit how about you?”
And you expect a response.
This is exactly what happened in the early church.
The Roman Governor Pliny wrote to Emperor Trajan saying that on a fixed day before
dawn they were “reciting a hymn antiphonally to Christ as God.”1
Tertullian, writing from North Africa at the end of that century, describes a Christian
feast at which “each is invited to sing to God in the presence of others from what he
knows of the holy Scripture or from his own heart.”2
Is this normal for churches?
Songs to God have been a part of our history since before the word was made flesh. And it has
continued in St. Francis, called the Troubadour of God. Martin Luther made a big deal of hymn
singing in the church and Wesley wrote 6,000 hymns. The outpouring of the spirit during the
time of Charles Simeon brought great songs of joy that were even denounced by some churches
as too enthusiastic. Moody, Sankey, the Jesus people of the 70s, the Passion movement with
Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman, Hillsong young and free, Rend Collective, Gungor, a new type
of music for a new kind of song all trying to cry out the glories of our God and King and the
triumphs of his grace.
So, are you a singer? Are you a worshipper? Is there joy in your heart? This is a mark of being
filled with the spirit.
People of Gratitude
So is thanksgiving by the way.
Do you have an attitude of thankfulness towards God?
Thank him for everything? Even the really bad stuff?
I know the text says thank him for everything, but I think this is just a way of speaking that we
probably all naturally understand.
I looked up every commentary I had on this verse and none of them even hinted that we should
actually thank God for every single thing that happens to us. Most of the commentaries went out
of their way to insist that this is not what the text means. And just your natural experience makes
that clear, doesn’t it.
o If you were abused growing up, you don’t have to thank God for the abuse
o You don’t have to thank God that your mother left
o You don’t have to thank God that your son died
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F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Ephesians (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1973, 111, quoting Epistle to Trajan. x.96.
Ibid., quoting Apology, 39.
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o We don’t thank God that someone is sleeping outside in a soaked sleeping bag
that is now frozen.
o You don’t have to thank God that AIDS and Ebola and cancer are killing people.
o You don’t have to thank God that the Palestinians and Israelis are fighting or that
Ukraine is being hurt or that there is hunger in Ethiopia or that women are treated
like trash in Somali land.
These are evils that break the heart of God. This isn’t his plan for the world. He is fixing all of
this. Some of it he is fixing through scientists coming up with medicine, some through humble
politicians, some through mission trips and generosity of his church and some will simply never
be fixed until Jesus stands here in our midst again and wipes every tear from our eye.
What should we thank him for?
We don’t thank God for all these atrocities that he abhors. But we thank him for working in the
world and for sustaining it and for bringing solutions through his people. We thank him that we
are being fed, that we are warm, that people are coming to faith. We thank him that we
sometimes see his kingdom, that we sometimes enjoy the foretaste of ultimate life. A person
filled with the spirit sees a world full of thankful opportunities.
So, while I am not saying you have to thank God for every evil in your life, I do think a mark of
a Spirit filled believer is one who doesn’t complain or grumble or have a negative spirit. We who
have so much, can’t feel we have been jilted because we don’t have that persons house, car, wife,
job, vacation, etc. That is missing the Spirit.
It's said that one day, Tauler, the fourteenth century mystic and preacher, met a beggar.
“God give you a good day, my friend,” he said.
The beggar answered, “I thank God I never had a bad one.”
Tauler said, “God give you a happy life, my friend.”
“I thank God,” said the beggar, “I am never unhappy.”
Tauler, in amazement responded, “What do you mean?”
“Well,” said the beggar, “when it is fine, I thank God; when it rains, I thank God; when I
have plenty, I thank God; when I am hungry I thank God. Why should I say I am unhappy when
I am not.”
A matter of obedience and a matter of identity
Joni Eareckson Tada, who has been a quadriplegic since a diving accident decades ago said –
“Giving thanks is not a matter of feeling thankful, it is a matter of obedience.”
Yes, and it becomes more and more a part of the natural state of someone filled with the spirit.
People of Submission
The third mark of the spirit that he mentions here is that of submission.
What do you think of when you hear the word “submit?”
I can’t think of a word that better antagonizes and turns off Christians and yet perfectly
summarizes what Christians are then the word “submissive.”
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I plan to talk more about this over the next three weeks since Paul is about to give us three
different examples of what submission looks like, but let me state what I know you are thinking.
We never give up
We never submit
We will stand and we will win
And we don’t say this out loud, but “God help you if you get in my way.”
Next week we will talk about wives submitting to their husbands. The whole idea puts us on
edge. By the way, I don’t think this means exactly what you probably think this means. But let’s
not get there yet. Right now it’s not talking about wives, its talking about you. It's talking about
Christians. And notice who is says you submit to—one another. Not just bosses, not just
husbands, not just people you respect. Submit to one another.
What does submission have to do with being a church?
Over the past many years, even before I was a pastor but especially since I have become a pastor,
I have wrestled with what it took to be a church.
“Where two or more are gathered, there God is in the midst.” Well, yeah. But isn’t God right
there if only one person comes? That verse probably shouldn’t be used to define a church or to
define when God hears us.
Maybe it’s where singing, prayer, preaching and reading the word take place. And that is true,
but that is more specifically when the church gathers for public worship.
I have a few different friends who are involved in the home church movement. They wonder, as
do I, at what point does their community group become a church. They meet and eat good food.
Their leader throws out a topic and they discuss. The leader directs them to scripture for help in
finding the answers. They do a few good things in the community. Are they a church? Do they
have to sing a song? Do they have to take the Lords Supper?
I think Ephesians has been very helpful for me in helping me summarize a church. I don’t claim
to have the last word on it, but I think the two themes that come across so mightily to me in this
book are those of Unity and Submission.
So if I were to define a church it would involve at least this: a Church is group of people who
unify together around the cross and who agree to submit to God and one another.
There is an obvious vertical dimension here and I think also a horizontal one.
What happens if someone disagrees with us?
But in our evangelical culture, we think we don’t have to submit to anyone. We attend a church
because it agrees with most of the things we agree with. It's easy to submit to a group of people
who are pretty much the same.
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But what happens when your pastor decides he likes the Democratic agenda more times
than the republican?
What happens when he disagrees with you on Genesis and Revelation
What happens when hippies or gangs start attending every week?
What happens when someone teaches a class that states unapologetically that all war is
wrong.
For that matter, what happens when the music we talked about earlier gets rockier, or gets
more reserved.
What happens when there isn’t someone to make our childrens department awesome all
the time?
What happens when those children are forced to come to worship . . .for the whole 90
minutes.
Well, in our culture, we simply change churches so we can do things the way we want to.
When everything is okay we consider ourselves submitting just fine. But that is not submission.
Submission happens when you don’t prefer the decision. Submission happens when you don’t
get your way.
And this includes every area of your life, not just here in the church I think.
Would your spouse say that you are someone who submits or presses the fight?
Does your neighbor hear things about others that show you have a submissive spirit or
are you always stating about how you will “deal with that,” or “they won’t get away with
that.”
When your parents ask you to do something, are you quick to comply; quick to submit?
When your boss doesn’t have a clue, are you antagonistic, patronizing or submissive?
These are all the questions I will be asking you over the next few weeks, but here I want to stay
general. Is your light shining in darkness? Is your character exemplary? Are you a person of joy
and thankfulness and submission?
Let me ask you a different question—are people asking you about where your hope is found? Do
they want to be around you because you show them light? Are you attractive because you try
hard to be joyful, because you regularly appreciate them, because you are willing to give in?
When was the last time someone mentioned how joyful you are all the time, how grateful, how
willing to yield?
These three marks lead people to Jesus
If this is how we are known, I really think we will see others come to Jesus. And that is how I
started all of this. I want our church to make a difference. But as long as we remain selfish and
discouraged and aggressive, we won’t be seen like Jesus. Jesus yielded his life an atonement for
sin. Jesus gave everything so that you might have joy. Jesus showed us the way to live and to call
others to live.
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I don’t think this text was written specifically to teach this, but I find it remarkable considering
our topic. Do you remember when Paul cast that demon out of the slave girl and she couldn’t do
all the cool magic tricks she used to do. The owners realized they had lost a bunch of money and
dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace to face the authorities. They accused them of
throwing the city into an uproar and the crowd attacked. Even the authorities stripped them and
beat them and flogged them. Then they went to prison.
Deep in their cell, under guard, and fastened in stocks you can imagine their anger and misery.
They freed a girl from demonic possession. They were loving the hurting. They were rescuing
the enslaved. They were doing good. And they were stripped, beat, and imprisoned.
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other
prisoners were listening to them.
They were praying and singing.
It doesn’t say the song they sang or the prayers they prayed, but I wonder if these were prayers of
thanksgiving and songs of joy. This isn’t the only night they had spent in prison. They knew the
call of the Christian. I don’t think they were asking to be freed, I don’t think they were
bemoaning their fate. I wonder if it’s fair to say that they were thankful for the privilege of being
servants of God and that they were praising God for the work he was doing. I think that because
Paul is constantly saying that he thanks God that he is worthy of suffering for the gospel and
because of the rest of the story right here
26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were
shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose.
That might lend us to think they were praying for escape and God answered it, but there is more.
27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and
was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.
28 But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself! We are all here!"
They didn’t leave. They didn’t escape. They submitted to their jailer. They remained imprisoned
even though they were free. They were joyful, thankful and submissive and look what happened:
29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
30 He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
(Act 16:19-30 NIV)
Christians, I want to make a mark on our town. I want to see them loved with a supernatural love
that allows us to be people of song, thanks and submission. And I am praying for even more. I
am praying that as they see you and they see Jesus’ love through you, that they are brought
closer to this God that we serve. And that ultimately they might find this Jesus, who for the joy
set before him, endured (submitted) the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God.
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Let me end with that verse:
3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow
weary and lose heart.
(Heb 12:2-3 NIV)
Consider him, congregation of Christ.
Consider he who went to the cross on your behalf.
Consider he who took the pain and the consequence of sin on himself, the consequence that you
deserved
Look at this table and remember.
WE come to the center of worship. A means to grace in our life. A significant and necessary
filling of the Spirit takes place here today.
It is not for all, it is for those who have repented of their sin and pledged to live for Jesus. It is for
those who have received baptism and had their sins washed away. So there is a sense in which
this is not for everyone. That is, I am asking that if you don’t yet know Jesus, that you let this
cup and bread pass. It is a sign and seal of a covenant that you have not yet entered into.
But it is not for Baptists alone. It is for Presbyterians, Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, and even
those who hate all the labels and just prefer follower of Jesus. It's for you even if you aren’t a
very good Catholic or Baptist or whatever. In fact, its that moment when Jesus reminds you that
it isn’t your goodness that makes you worthy, but his alone. The whole basis of this table is one
of grace. So if you are a pretty big sinner, who leaks all the time, this is your chance for filling.
Take and eat.
Lords table
Blurb
Dear Family,
The church, like the world, is a mess. We are more interested in what is next. We want to know
how to reach the next step. We need to be aggressive, fight the good fight, and be on top. But the
Bible tells us to be filled with the Holy Spirit and it says that the marks of being filled in this way
are singing, thankfulness, and submission. Definitely not the marks that I would have expected.
So, let’s make this short and sweet: would people describe you as a person of song, gratitude and
sacrifice? Are we as a church unified around these three things? Why not read Ephesians 5:18-21
and spend some time considering how you might strive to be known for these things. Looking
forward to worshipping with you.