What is it to be “Spirit filled”?

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a story that I love. I think some of us who have gotten beyond the child age forget how frustrated mothers can get with little ones running around the house. This story is about a mother who had two children, and they had just about exhausted her in the course of the day. She was about ready to give up.

Finally, she reached that blessed hour when they could be put to bed. She got them in bed, then she went into her own bedroom and changed her clothes. She put on a great huge sweatshirt that was her husband’s, which was about three times too big for her. She put on a pair of dirty old jeans, and she went into the bathroom and began to wash her hair.

Just as soon as she got her hair well suds, she started hearing the children raising a ruckus. She had to finish the process, so she completed it, and they were getting louder and louder, and she was getting angrier and angrier. Charging into the bedroom, she put these two kids straight and kneeled around and started back for the door. She heard the two-year-old in a trembling voice say to his sister, “Who was that?”

I love that because I can picture that story. So can you. What do you think it was like on the day of Pentecost? In spite of all the preparations Jesus had made to the disciples that they were to get ready for this moment, that he was sending another comforter, a helper just like himself who would walk along beside him.

Even though Pentecost was the Jewish celebration of the giving of the law, and it was a celebration that came 50 days after atonement, it was the atonement that started the barley harvest. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost celebrated the harvest of that. Do you think they were ready for what happened? Don’t you think there were some people who said, “Who is that?”

Especially in the sluggish way that Jewish faith had become at this period of time, in which many of its traditions were just being walked through by people. In fact, we are told by historians that the Feast of Pentecost, so-called, by the way, that’s the Greek word for 50th. “Pentecost” isn’t even a Hebrew word. “Shavuot” was the name of the feast, but do you think they were ready for what happened?

Let’s turn to Acts 2, and you need to follow me for just a few moments. The Bible says in Acts 2 that on the day of Pentecost, when it was fully come, they were with one accord in one place, and there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

Now, I don’t know how you’re going to answer the question that comes from later on in this chapter because it says, later in the chapter, that all these people had gathered to this place so that these strangers heard these disciples speaking in tongues and magnifying God. In fact, they said, “We heard them in our own language.”

How did they gather? Well, it must be that this sound from heaven was like a tornado only upon this house. Can you imagine what would happen if a tornado moved around one house, not a neighborhood or a community, but around one house? It must have been like that, that this one particular house had this enormous sound coming from it and cloven tongues like as a fire. I have no reason to believe anything else but that there were tongues like as a fire sitting on. The artist, picture it that way. I think that’s probably what it was.

And here’s the word in verse 4 of chapter 2: they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance.

Of course, the crowd gathered and heard them. Most of the crowd marveled. They came from eight or nine countries that are named here, and it says they heard them speak in their own language and marveled. How are these people speaking in so many different languages? These Jews had a desire to come to Jerusalem, like the Arabs go to Mecca at least once in a lifetime. They’d come from all kinds of places for this particular holiday, like any Jewish holiday.

But not everyone thought this was a miracle. Some of the others said they are full of new wine. Verse 13, by the way, the Greek word there is gleukos. New wine means the sweet, rapidly fermenting honey wine, which was most deadly in terms of intoxication. These men are full of glucose, like some of us, right?

Then Peter stands up and preaches the message about Christ. In verse 33, he says that Jesus, the one they crucified, was buried and raised from the dead. He’s now in the presence of the Father, and he has sent forth the promise of the Holy Spirit. That’s what’s been poured out now. In verse 38, he says, “This promise is to you and your children. You, if you repent and are baptized, you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Now turn over a few pages to Acts 9, please. It’s now 35 AD, two years later. There’s been a horrendous persecution of those early Christians. They may have thought it was wonderful to hear them speak in tongues in Acts 2, but now they’re killing them. They’re throwing them in synagogues that have been turned into jails. They’re raiding homes and taking people’s property. They’re not feeling very good about it now.

And one of the most intense persecutors of the church was a man whose name was Saul. Whether he was in the Sanhedrin or certainly a vehicle of the Sanhedrin, he was going all the way to Damascus in Syria where Christians had been scattered. On his way in chapter 9, he was knocked from his beast of burden, blinded, and had an encounter with Jesus. Then the Holy Spirit tapped the shoulder of some poor deacon or elder in the church and said, “You’ve got to go pray for this man.” This man who probably killed Christians. You need to go pray for him. Look at verse 17 of chapter 9. Ananias said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus has appeared to you on the road and has sent me so that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” The scales fell off, he arose, and was baptized, and so forth. The rest of the story of what happened follows in that passage.

Now turn over again to several chapters, Acts 19. We have now passed into the summer of 53 AD, 18 years since Paul had been converted, and 20 years since the day of Pentecost. Paul finally gets to Ephesus, which is the capital city of Asia Minor. He wanted to be there. He knew, just like San Francisco and New York are keys to reaching this nation for Christ, he needed to get to Ephesus. It was a key kind of center for everything that went on in Asia. But the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let him go there when he first turned his heart towards God. Now he goes there and finds some disciples of John and asks them, “What’s his first question?” Listen, 20 years after Pentecost, what’s his first question? “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believe? Now you can do what you want to.” Theologians have argued about this passage, whether they were really Christians or not, but that is not the issue at all. I believe they were. John always taught about Jesus in every message. He was about the Jesus who would come. I don’t think there’s any way they could have been John’s disciples and not be believers.

But anyway, they were baptized in the name of Jesus. And listen, here’s the word, verse 6: Paul laid hands on them. The Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues. And then it continues about the fact that for two years he preached the gospel there. Now that’s Ephesus. Twenty years. Now turn to a book called Ephesians in the New Testament, a letter written to this same church, the so-called epistle of Paul to the Ephesians. I’m not gonna get into all the theological arguments about whether this was a round-robin letter and whether it really was addressed to them or not. Certainly, if it wasn’t specifically addressed to them, they were one of the churches to whom it was addressed because it was addressed to the churches in Asia. This letter, now it’s 62 AD, now we are 30 years from the day of Pentecost.

We are almost 20 years from the conversion of Saul, rather, almost 27 years from the conversion of Saul. And we are more than 10 years from the establishment of this church in Ephesus, this church to whom this letter was written. And you know what the key of this letter is? Anyone who knows the Gospels knows it’s verse 10 here.

Everything will be fulfilled in Jesus. Everything is centered on Jesus. The ages are centered on Jesus. The kingdoms are centered on Jesus. And one day everything will find its fulfillment in Jesus. And yet with that as the center of this, 14 times in the letter to the Ephesians, the Holy Spirit is mentioned.

Look, chapter 1, verse 13, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit. Chapter 1, verse 17, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Chapter 2, verse 18, you have access by the Spirit in prayer to the Father. Verse 22, you are built up as a habitation of God by the Holy Spirit. Chapter 3, verse 5, the word of God is revealed to you by the Holy Spirit, and so forth and so on. We’re strengthened by the Holy Spirit, all these 14 references. But we come to chapter 5, which is a kind of concluding, it’s a key practical section in which this message turns around to individuals and begins to speak man to man. And Paul’s talking about some very important things when he begins in chapter five, verse 15. “See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise people, redeeming the time because the days are evil.” The actual Greek there says “buy back the opportunities.” I saw a new translation this week. I love it. It says, “take the time off the market. Take your time off the market.”

Some of you already have a whole week and you’re already wondering what you’re going to do. Your time is just on the market for anyone who wants to buy it. But Christians who redeem the time have taken time off the market. It’s not available. Therefore, don’t be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

The keyword here is verse 18: “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

Now, what’s the connecting link between all of those verses in Acts 2, Acts 9, Acts 19, and the book of Ephesians? It’s 30 years. No, we’re not talking about the first events or something. We’re talking about a church that’s a generation later and the word is “be filled with the Holy Spirit.” This isn’t just a passing Day of Pentecost or initial things all over the world in the church.

Today, preachers will say that those things only had to do with that day and getting the church started, but that’s not the case. In the very end moment of the message, in 62 AD (about a year and a half before Paul’s death), he was one of the last of the apostles to be filled with the Spirit. It’s interesting because the Greek word for filled, Pleroo, not only means to be brought to accomplishment and fulfillment, but also to be under the influence of or controlled by, especially when it has to do with persons.

People often say they want more of the Holy Spirit, but that’s impossible. The Holy Spirit isn’t a quantity like a pitcher of milk; He’s a divine person. So the issue here is influence.

What happens if you’re drunk with wine and you get on this freeway and you see little red lights behind you and they pull you over to the side and write you a ticket? It’s for DWI, driving under the influence, or DUI, driving under the influence, not of the Holy Spirit incidentally, but of spirits without question. Under the influence. Under the control. It’s interesting because this word, this particular verb here, “being filled with the spirit,” is in the present participial form, which means it actually says, “be continually being filled with the Holy Spirit.” And it’s a posture, which means it’s not something you make up; it’s something you allow.

So if you were to translate this word probably in the way it’s best translated, you would say, “be or allow yourselves to continually be under the influence of the Holy Spirit.” Now here’s where Pentecostals make a tragic mistake. Most Pentecostals talk about receiving the Holy Spirit in the past tense. “Yes, I was filled with the spirit in October 1945. So what, so what now?” I believe that there is an initial experience in yielding to the Holy Spirit, and we speak about that baptism in the spirit. But that is not the issue that Paul’s concerned about. That issue is not the one that goes on through the generation of the Christian Church.

No, no, no, no, no. The issue there is not a one-time experiential emotional fireworks. Oh no, it’s a lifestyle. It’s a lifestyle of continually being under the influence of the Holy Spirit. You know, Dwight L Moody was a great evangelist, a marvelous evangelist who shook two continents for God, America and Europe. But he was a terrible stutterer. When he got preaching under the power of the Holy Spirit, he never stuttered. But he’d go off the platform and stutter so bad you could hardly understand what he was saying. People used to make a lot of fun of him. He’s kind of pot-faced and big, huge body frame. And one day someone said to him, one of the reporters following his crusade, “Mr. Moody, why do you tell your people to get so many infillings of the Holy Spirit, and why do you talk all the time about so many fillings of the Holy Spirit?” And Dwight L Moody said, “Well, well, it, it, it must be because I leak.”

Anybody else around here leak? The word says this has nothing to do with an emotional, one-time experience. It has to do with allowing this indwelling Holy Spirit to take charge of your life on a continual daily basis. It’s not an emotional experience; it’s a life. But there’s a second thing that’s equally important, and that is the concept of contrast here.

Why does a good teacher like Paul introduce drunkenness in the moment of talking about the Holy Spirit? Now, I’m enough of a speaker to know there are certain illustrations you don’t use. You’re not preaching in an 11 o’clock service and start talking about roast turkey. See, that did it for some of you, just to mention that, let alone use an illustration. All you have to do is start talking about food, and you lose people like that.

Why would Paul risk it to talk about drunkenness at this point? Some people think it’s because it’s a text for a temperance sermon. Listen to me, be careful for him. The Bible does not teach abstinence. That is not a biblical posture. The Bible teaches temperance. Now, abstinence may be a very important necessary imperative and godly choice for you to make, but that is not what the Bible teaches. It teaches temperance because the Bible wants you to know that the issue has to do with food, jobs, television, and everything that you’re not under the control of anything.

This isn’t a temperance text, by the way. The suggestion is that, because of the way the Greeks read here, these Christians in Ephesus had a problem. The first word is “don’t,” don’t do this anymore. Don’t be drunken anymore. And then the word “drunken” is an interesting word because it means to be just satiated or actually soaked.

This is not gleukos, by the way; this is another Greek word for wine. Don’t be soaked with wine. Don’t continue to do this. But the point is this: why does he make this comparison of contrast and similarities, not between wine and the Spirit? Please note that that’s what he’s doing.

The Greek will not allow that. The structure of the verse does not compare wine versus spirit, but rather the two states or conditions of being drunken with wine versus filled with the spirit. By the way, it doesn’t say Holy Spirit here, incidentally, and that’s another fight for theologians. Is it the arena we’re talking about, meaning the human spirit, or is it the Holy Spirit in either sense? The issue is that you are controlled by your spiritual nature and for Christ who are controlled by the spiritual nature, it is to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. Don’t be controlled by your fleshly nature. Be controlled by your spiritual nature. That’s what he’s saying as well. Be continually under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Why would he make the similarities or contrast? You know exactly what I did. People who drink excessively or who drink period do so generally because they think it’s a social thing. We even call it social drinking sometimes. It’s a place of commonality. We think this is a place of losing your inhibitions, and a place of having some sense of joy or happiness. No, everyone in this room knows that that’s not true. All the opposite is true. You drink long enough and you end up fighting. You drink long enough and you end up depressed. In fact, look in a dictionary. Sir, you didn’t have to get this from me. Alcohol is not a stimulant. It is a depressant. It’s the disease. Well, lots of things are diseases, I guess, especially in this context.

What is Paul speaking about in this instance? Why is there a comparison? He’s saying, in fact, one of the greatest men I know of, one of the greatest Bible teachers who that I know who preached a message from this text. You know how he began? He quoted the words, “be not drunken with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit,” and his first words were these: “You’ve got to fill a man with something.” This is not a negative text. If you think it’s a negative text, you’ve missed the whole point of what Paul is saying. It’s a positive text. You’ve got to fill a man with something, and Christianity does not end up being negative. We don’t eat or drink or swear a spin you or go with those who do.

No, it’s not that at all. It’s the opposite. It’s speaking about the stimulation in creativity and joy that is meant to be in the life of a man or woman who allows the Holy Spirit to control them. But you do need to understand that the apostle is willfully speaking to the issue, specifically speaking to the issue that the thing you’re searching for is in the spirit, not in wine or anything else.

Now, a large part of this understanding comes from the word in the King James “excess,” or in this translation having to do with drinking to the point of lack of control. But the word is interesting in the Greek; it’s from the word “sōzō.” It is the word “asōtia” with a little “a” in front. And in the Greek, if you want to mean “without” or “against” or “no,” for example, “atheist” means “no God.” So this is the Greek word for “sotia,” only with an “a” in front of it. “No saving.” “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is wantonness, waste.” Wherein is the opposite of salvation, wherein is the opposite of saving your life. The issue here is the thing you’re seeking for won’t come in that source. In fact, in that state of drunkenness, in that state of debauchery is a lostness, a wantonness, a taking away of all the things that.

And whether or not the issue for you is drunkenness, the issue for many Christians in this room is the same thing. You’re seeking it in wrong kinds of conversation, wrong attitudes, pessimistic and negative spirits, the same thing, or job-oriented or denominational or whatever else you are seeking, but what you’re seeking is just waste. It is absolutely wanting, because it will never meet the need. The thing that you seek can only come by the control of the Holy Spirit. And it’s interesting because Paul then does, and even the Baptist commentators will tell you this: I was so dumb, I’ve never seen this before, but they’ll all tell you the four clauses that follow are four participles, and the four participles that follow all are subordinate clauses to the word “be filled with the spirit.” So he is saying, in essence, if you are filled with the Spirit, this is what happens. No, I know there are tons of people around who say if you’re filled with the Spirit, you speak in tongues.

I’ve got news for you. I can say this without a doubt. I don’t know of an exception in this building. I speak with tongues more than you do. I do not deprecate the gift. I speak and teach on speaking in tongues. I believe in it. But if you think speaking in tongues is evidence of being filled with the Spirit, you are wrong. People can be as carnal as a bedsheet and speak in tongues in one minute and criticize the preacher and tear down other Christians in the next. Speaking in tongues does not prove that you’re under the control of the Holy Spirit.

But Paul says here are four things to do: a man who’s filled with the Spirit and not drunken with wine. Number one, he’ll be a man who speaks to one another. You will speak, in part, simple form. You will be speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. “Psalms” here is the Greek word “psalmos”. It means a song of praise. “Hymns” is the Greek word “hymnos”, from which we get the word “hymn”, meaning praise to God. “Spiritual songs” is an interesting phrase because “song”, the Greek word “hode”, is accompanied by the phrase “songs of the spirit”. This is what the Bible calls a new song. A song that you didn’t create, a song you didn’t learn from someone else. A song that comes to you from the Spirit. We call that singing in the Spirit sometimes. But notice this: this is not singing, that’s the next phrase. The first participle is you are speaking to one another. Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs.

Now, I didn’t say this, Jesus said it. He said, “What you are speaking from your mouth is evidence of what’s in your heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” And you don’t have to be around folks too long to get that message. You know, I can be, and so can you. This is not just me. I can be around some people, and it’s so depressing. It takes me months to get over a half-hour conversation. You know what I’m talking about. I’ve been around other people, and in five minutes, they tune me in spiritually until for a week, I’m still going on something they shared with me. Isn’t that right?

And those people are generally people who are sharing something. They say, “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me today. I feel like I need to share this word with you,” affirming the control of the Holy Spirit, which always speaks forth in this kind of language: Psalms, hymns, and songs in the spirit. Then he says, the second part of simple is you will sing and make melody. I love that phrase. I know it doesn’t mean that, but I like the idea of making melody because I seldom can keep on the right one sometimes. How about you? It kinda gives you a freedom. If you don’t know the melody, just sing your own. Make it up. Make a melody. Actually, that’s not what it means. It means to play instruments. But anyway, I like that translation: sing and make melody.

Christianity, the control of the Holy Spirit is meant to be manifested not by some miraculous power that bowls people over, but by a spirit that counteracts the spirit of this age, a spirit which sings, a spirit which glorifies constantly. And it doesn’t mean that you’re always breaking out in song. I don’t think I would wanna be around of course, you knew it was always breaking out. That’s what I was talking about. It’s the fact that in your heart, in your spirit, there’s constantly this breaking form and the melody of God’s Holy Spirit.

Thirdly, he says, “You are giving thanks always for all things unto God the Father.” We have a wonderful new Greek restaurant here that some of us have come to know very well and love, and the food is marvelous. Excellent. The Greek word for thanks, which is still used today, is “efcharistó.” You say it in the language of the streets to say thank you to someone: “efcharistó.” It’s the word from which we get “Eucharist,” the Holy Eucharist, the bread and body of Jesus Christ. That’s the word used here: “efcharistó.”

The third evidence of the Christian life is thanksgiving. People that are grateful, for people that respond in gratitude, their heart is linked to Him. You don’t have to kick them once a year to say, “Be thankful.” Their heart is united to what God has done for them and what people do for them. Just the other day, I had an experience with myself. I was involved in a process involving a legal situation in this city, and I got in the car, started away from the business, and I was overwhelmed with a sense of thanksgiving for the order of this nation, for its government, for the way it operates. Oh, there’s a lot wrong about it, but there’s a lot right about it. And I just began to think, and the words started coming out to me.

Lord, I’m thankful for the policeman who stands on the corner. I’m thankful for the officers who enforce rules. Let me tell you something, sir. The Christian life is a controlled life, and it’s a thankful life. The last word Paul uses is submitting. That’s the last part of simple: submitting yourself to one another in the fear of the Lord. The word “submitting” is a military term, which means “line up”.

Those who are under the Holy Spirit are not Johnny-Come-Latelys out here doing their own thing. It’s not just “Jesus and me”. I’ll worship God according to the dictates of his word, not the dictates of my heart. And a man who’s being led by the Spirit is a man of orderliness. In fact, Jesus said once to a centurion who wasn’t even a godly man, “I am a man under authority. I know what it is to be under authority. I know you are under authority, and you have authority. You speak the word and it’ll be done. You don’t even need to come to heal my son.” And Jesus said, “I’ve never found this kind of faith in Israel.”

There is a biblical principle of order, and Satan attacks it constantly, even in sense of renewal and revival movements and a fresh thing. And the solemn assembly. We had a real word from God that God wants to do a fresh and new thing among us, and I believe that’s true: a shaking presence of God. And I sense the beginning and the flowing of that this morning. But I tell you what, in whatever God does, it will be decently in order under authority.

We’re not little stellar stars flung out here to do our own thing. The more a man is under the control of the Holy Spirit, the more orderliness there is in his life. It’s interesting that 30 years after Pentecost, it’s still the centrality of a life filled with the Spirit. And I want to tell you, 2000 years after Pentecost, it’s still the same.

I don’t care about denominational rhetoric. It doesn’t matter to me about the divisiveness of this and the divisiveness of that, and the doctrine of this, and the doctrine of that. I want you to hear me clearly. 2000 years later, the issue is simply this: Jesus Christ is first and he’s Lord, and you must be filled with the Holy Spirit. You must be under his control.

And young lady, obviously, the Ephesian Christians were struggling with this. I’ve already told you the tenses of the verb suggest that these good Christian people, that he’s already acknowledged as being good Christian people, and yet they were struggling with some of these things. They were looking in the wrong place for what they needed. Do Christians look in the wrong place? You better believe some of you here this morning are looking in wrong relationships for the thing that will never supply the need in your life. Some of you are looking in the wrong place, through the habitual and wrong use of various substances, including food. It will not stimulate you, it will not fulfill your needs.

Some of you in your work are looking for it through ambition, through career, through success, fame, popularity or acceptance. It’ll never happen. That’s the key of this message, that’s the key of Paul’s words. The comparison is what you’re looking for will never save, it will never bring this thing that you’re looking for. Only in the control of the Holy Spirit will you be stimulated to your best, released to your utmost and fulfilled to the very level of your human need this morning. That’s where it happens, in the Holy Spirit.

Would you bow your head with me, with your eyes closed across this auditorium? It doesn’t matter to me what your background is. It doesn’t matter, for example, what the denomination or even what the prior experience has been. What I want to ask today of you is a simple question, and I’m asking it as sincerely as I know how to ask it. It’s not simply because it’s Pentecost.

But the question is this: do you sense in your life right now, whatever your prior experience, whatever your name or wherever you’re from, do you sense a need to be filled with the Spirit, to be released in the control of the Holy Spirit? Some of the words we sang about this: “Dryness in my desert spirit of God, come as a spring in my desert, come as dew in my dryness.”

So the question is, do you sense – is there personally, has nothing to do with impressing anybody else – but is there in your heart and in your soul a need for an infilling of the Holy Spirit? May I just see your hand? Testimony, and you raise and say, “I need an infilling of the Holy Spirit. I need a filling of the Spirit.” As Paul writes, God bless you all over. I see his hands. Anyone else just in this moment,

let me guarantee you, he will only come where he’s allowed. He will only take what he’s given. He will only give and release what is approved. He will never do any more than you allow, and that’s why the very tense of the word here is “allow.” Allow the Holy Spirit to take. You can grieve him, you can resist him.

You can lie to him. You can deny him. You can quench him, or you can release him. You can covet, desire more than anything else, to have his spirit control you. Would you stand with me? And there is a word, most of you know it. It’s a song we’ve sung in this church in the past. “Holy Spirit, flow through me and make my life.” It’s there in the bulletin and I think maybe you need to reach it, and the words are important enough.

You need to take the time to do this. It’s right by the very ending part of the service: “Holy Spirit flow through me and make my life what it ought to be. Holy Spirit flow through me.” Let’s just sing it together: “Holy Spirit, flow through me.” Again, just those words: “Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, flow through me.” And then, “Holy Spirit, rest on me. Holy Spirit, rest on me.”

Lord, praise. Miss Bower Hearts again. Now as we close this time, Lord, it is an earnest desire this morning not only to recognize truth but to own up to it in our lives personally. We thank you that you desire, now as you have always desired, that your people would be empowered, freed, released, controlled and thereby released to be stimulated to be all that you want them to be by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Just help us this morning as we stand around this auditorium, Lord, ready to go into our activities. Help each of us, those who raised their hand, and every person here that you look for that more than anything else. You put an X on the heart of the man or woman who is open to that. You mark us not by our particular goodness or some separation from others, but you mark us by our openness to your Holy Spirit. And I pray, Lord, that this people, this church, and each of us as individuals will have that openness in our spirit. Make it true. In Jesus’ name, amen.

God bless you. Share Christ’s love with someone who’s beside you as you go this morning. God bless you.