How to Overcome Hypocrisy in Your Heart, Part 2

The sixty-four thousand dollar question is, “How do you deal with hypocrisy in your heart?” How does it work where God changes you, from the inside out?

If you’ll turn the page, let’s look at that together, and that’s basically the topic of our time this morning: how to overcome hypocrisy in your heart. And the answer you’re going to find is in Ephesians 5, verses 17 and 18. Just so you get the flavor and the context, let’s pick it up and follow along together, beginning in verse 15.

He says, “But be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.” Here’s our passage, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” And then he gives us the Lord’s will, verse 18, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery, instead be filled with the Spirit.”

Notice the evidences when you are filled with the Spirit: “Speak to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

And when your life corresponds with the Spirit of God, winsomely, lovingly, righteously, compassionately, and with holiness, when you live it out like that, you become the instrument of God that gives an invitation to people that are living in chaos and hurt and pain, that Christ is the answer.

And so what is at stake, here? The context is, How in the world do you live that kind of life where you honestly mimic God, and you walk in love, as children of light? The answer to “how” is verses 17 and 18. And the answer is this command to be filled with the Spirit.

So pull out a pen, if you would, I’m going to put you to work here a little bit. We’ll do a Bible study together. Let’s do some research in this passage and find out: what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? The meaning of filling literally means to be controlled by. When we think of being filled with something, we tend to think of a pitcher of water or a cup of water and we pour it in and as it comes up to the top we say, “The cup is filled.” That’s not the picture that you want in your mind.

The idea of this Greek word has the idea of saturation. Allow God’s Spirit to so saturate and be in control of your heart and your mind, that it will affect your speech, your attitudes, your emotions, and your relationships.

And so what I want to do, on the top of this page, is walk through, very briefly, the difference between the baptism of the Spirit and the filling. So follow along. First, baptism does not equal filling. They are two different things.

The baptism of the Spirit is the non-experiential, unrepeated work of the Holy Spirit, at regeneration – that’s the moment that you are saved – whereby we are placed in the body of Christ (Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Romans 8:9). I have given them to you; study them.

The filling of the Spirit, by contrast, is the unobstructed or unhindered control or influence of the Spirit upon every believer’s life.

The baptism of the Spirit occurs only once in each believer’s life. The filling of the Spirit is repeated.

The baptism of the Spirit cannot be undone. Jot down Ephesians 1:13. By contrast, the filling of the Spirit can be lost. So, one results in a new position. The other results in power. Baptism occurs when we believe in Christ; the filling of the Spirit occurs throughout the Christian life. Baptism, there is no prerequisite, except belief in Christ. It’s the day that you are saved. Filling depends on yieldedness.

Now, let me walk through one more thing. Acts 2, Acts 8, Acts 10, and Acts 19. Those are the four times where the baptism of the Spirit occurs.

And what you see in those four is that in each of those times, you have a different response. You have a new group being formed. The Jews came into the body of Christ, Acts 2. The evidence we have, they speak in this other language, as an outward confirmation.

Acts 8 you have the Samaritans. They are the half-breeds: half Jew, half non-Jew. Jews and Samaritans hate one another. So what happens is, can they really be a part of God’s family? They believe and then Peter and John come down a day or two later and say, “Yeah, God is in this.” And as they bless them, they speak in another language.

Then you have Acts 10, the Gentiles join the Church. And when the Gentiles join the Church, the pattern changes. There isn’t a second experience. As Peter is talking, they believe and the evidence is speaking in another language. And then you have in Acts 19, some of John’s disciples took off on their own and were trying to tell everyone but while they were gone, the Messiah came. And Paul explains to them.

And the point I want to make, very simply, is that when you look at the baptism of the Spirit, the only time it happens is when there was a new group to be placed in the body of Christ. There is not a uniform idea of them necessarily speaking in tongues. And you’ll notice in Acts 2 and Acts 8, it happens after their salvation.

But in Acts 10 and 19, it happens at their conversion. And there is a very key role that Peter has, as being the leader of the Church. And all I want you to see, from that little chart, we can develop it more at another time, is simply this: The book of Acts gives no normative pattern for how gifts and the Spirit’s filling work together. You can’t make one there. You can’t say it happens afterwards. Half of the time it does, half of the time it doesn’t.

The baptism of the Spirit has to do with God building His Church. Nowhere in the New Testament, in any of the epistles that are teaching about how to live out this faith, are we ever commanded to receive the baptism of the Spirit. Never is there any correlation throughout the New Testament that when you have the baptism of the Spirit, you’re necessarily going to speak in another language. But that doctrine, among people that I love deeply – my mom and dad came to Christ through the Pentecostal Movement, so there is no axe to grind, here.

But you can spend a lot of your life and energy chasing an experience thinking that, When I speak in another language or when I have this moving spiritual experience, then I am filled with the Spirit. You can know when you are filled with the Spirit when the fruit of the Spirit is being manifested in your tongue, your thoughts, your attitudes, and your relationships.

And my heart goes out because I have been on that journey where you go from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, trying to get more of the Holy Spirit. Listen carefully, you have all the Holy Spirit you will ever get and you don’t need any more. He doesn’t come in installments. When you prayed to receive Christ, the Spirit of God came into your life. You didn’t get seventy-seven percent of Him, and another twenty-three percent to be named later. You got all of Him. The question will be, that we’ll find in just a minute, is: Does He have all of you?

Now, back to our main topic. What I want to talk about now is, how does it work?

Four principles to help us get there. Number one, the issue, as I said, is not getting more of the Holy Spirit. It’s Him getting more of you. And I came up with a little picture. There’s actually a booklet called, My Heart – Christ’s Home, that was instrumental, written by Robert Munger.

And the picture that I came up with in my mind that really helped me is this picture here: the Spirit-filled life. Do you see the furnace down there in the corner?

Do you know what “H.S.” stands for? Holy Spirit. Good. The furnace is in a house. Okay? What does the furnace do? The furnace creates heat and then do you see all those little blocks? Those are the vents. Imagine those as the vents in your house.

When the furnace creates the heat, it goes through a duct system, and there’s a vent in each room. If the duct vent is open, what happens? The heat, out of the furnace, comes in. And the more heat it begins to change the atmosphere of the room, right? It begins to exert influence over the entire room. But if the furnace is going, it can go very, very strong. But if the duct is closed, say, in a closet, or if the duct is closed in the family room, or if the duct is closed in the work room, the heat of the Holy Spirit can go in different parts of your life, but appear to really not impact some others.

The issue is not getting more of the Holy Spirit. When you pray to receive Christ, He is in you. His power is available. The same that raised Christ from the dead is available. Here is the issue. The issue is allowing Him, beyond the prayer room, and beyond the private thinking and to open every duct as God leads you, and to allow the Spirit’s influence to begin to take control in every area of your life.

And that’s why some of you and some of us have met people, and this is true of your life to a degree; it’s true of my life to a degree. Have you ever met someone and you have prayed with them and there was a real sense, man, they are really in touch with God.

And then you saw, maybe, at work or in a ministry setting, and you thought, Man, this is authentic. God is really working. And then have you gone home, maybe, and just gotten lunch with them or something and you think, Whoa. This guy treats his wife worse than a dog! You know? Or there is a lady, similar situation, and, I mean, she is just cold and mean and harsh with her kids but, boy, could she teach Bible study!

And you look at that and you think, Man, what is going on here? In your life and in mine, we are, at various levels, allowing the Holy Spirit’s control. And sanctification, or walking with God, becoming more holy, living like a child of the Light, is incrementally opening the ducts to every area of your life, including the closet, the stuff that no one knows about, the stuff that is too painful to look at, where you, literally, open the duct and let the Holy Spirit begin to deal truth and life and love and forgiveness and restoration.

And then what happens is the change happens from the inside out. And then outside this thing you are, this house, you begin to exhibit the characteristics of Christ, more and more, in every situation.

And so the issue of being filled with the Spirit isn’t getting more of Him. It’s Him getting more of you.

The second principle is that we are never told to seek an experience or a gift as an evidence of being filled with the Spirit. I’m all for spiritual gifts, I believe God uses them greatly, I am all for big experiences. I want as many as God will give me! Just make sure that your gifts and experiences – don’t equate those with whether you’re filled with the Spirit or not, or you’ll spend your whole life seeking experiences rather than focusing on the Lord.

Third, probably most important, the conditions for being filled. There are conditions. There are three conditions to allow, to open those ducts so the Spirit of God is working in your life. Condition number one is obedience. Yieldedness. Dedication.

The apostle Paul, after teaching who we are in Christ, for eleven chapters, in chapter 12, verse 1 of Romans, says, “Therefore I urge you, beloved brothers, in light of God’s mercy, that you present,” a point in time, “your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable,” or logical, “sense of worship.”

And then look at verse 2, “And do not be conformed to this world,” don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold, operating under the flesh, but – what? “have your mind transformed by the renewing of your mind, that your life,” or lifestyle, “might prove,” or demonstrate, “what the will of God is, which is good, acceptable, and perfect.”

And so what you see is the way the Holy Spirit works and fills you, He will transform your thinking, your attitudes, you mind, your worldview, your perception. In fact, you want to really know how to get filled with the Holy Spirit? Let me show you a chart. As I was reading through the New Testament, I came upon a very interesting passage in Colossians 3. Ephesians and Colossians are what are called “twin epistles.” They were written about the same time, to two different groups.

Look at the parallels. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you.” Now let’s look at the parallels between being filled with the Spirit and being filled with God’s Word. When you are filled with the Spirit, what is true of you? “Speaking to one another in hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs.” When you are filled with the Word, “teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, spiritual songs.” Does anybody see a parallel here?

When you are filled with the Spirit: singing, making melody in your heart to God! When you are filled with the Word: singing with thankfulness! See the parallel? When you are filled with the Spirit: always giving thanks for all things. Filled with the Word: giving thanks through Him to God.

When you are filled with the Spirit: submitting to one another. When you are filled with the Word: whatever you do, do all in the name of Jesus, submission implied. And then after that, both epistles talk about what relationships and family and children look like when you are filled with the Spirit. Do you see the parallel between being filled with the Spirit and being filled with the Word?

The Spirit doesn’t do some mystical work where He just changes you. He uses the raw material of God’s Word. Even Jesus said – what? “Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

Let me tell you something, upfront. If you are not in God’s Word on a very regular basis, not just to read it, but to read it, to think about, to digest it, and obey it, you will not be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is impossible. The raw material of the Spirit of God is the Word of God.

It’s so that you can have your mind renewed, every morning, or every night, or both, so that the Spirit of God could put truth in your mind and you will know the truth and truth will set you free.

The first condition to being filled with the Spirit is obedience to God and to His Word. The second condition is an undefeated life. And that doesn’t mean perfection. What I mean is when you know about sin, I’m sitting in the parking lot, I just sinned. I blew up at my kid. God has convicted me. I have a choice. I either repent of that sin, or I say, “You know what? I’m tired. He deserves this. I know I was wrong. Get in there, have your music practice. I’m a pastor. The heck with you, kid.” I have quenched the Spirit.

I have news for you. Spiritual fruit is not going to be born until I deal with that. I either apologize to him, confess to God, the word is repent. The word repent means just to have a change of mind. I was wrong. This is wrong behavior. This is not godly. Repent! Seek forgiveness, be restored, ask Him to fill me afresh.

If you’re involved in activities that you know are wrong, you will not be filled with the Spirit. If you’re involved in a relationship that you know is sinful, you will not be filled with the Spirit. If you are not handling your money in a way that God has made clear to you in how you should handle your money, you will not be filled with the Spirit.

If you’re watching material or reading material that you know doesn’t honor God, and you have this twinge of guilt and you know it’s wrong, if you keep doing it, you will not be filled with the Spirit.

Ephesians 4, 30 and 31, notice what it says, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Don’t grieve Him, don’t make Him sad, this is about a relationship. What does it say? “Get rid of all bitterness and rage and anger and brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”

And then I love the next verse, “And be,” positive, “kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,” – how? “just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

Condition number one, obedience to God and His Word. Condition number two, an undefeated life. That means you deal with known sin. Condition number three is a dependent life: John 15. It’s the picture of the vine and the branch. It’s this dependency, that you need God. It’s practicing the presence of God. It’s talking to Him as you’re getting dressed and when you’re shaving and in-between times and while you’re driving the car.

It’s this link, all the time, of, I need You. Galatians 5:16 says, “Walk,” or, “live by the Spirit and you will not” – what? “fulfill the desires of the flesh.” Notice it’s a walk. You take a step and stumble, you take a step and stumble. God understands. This isn’t about perfection. This isn’t about having it all together. It’s about obedience to God and His Word, it’s about dealing with what He shows me, and then living with a sense of dependence, like a child to a father.

And the final one, here, is remember this is not mechanical. It’s relational. This is not about, Okay, I want to be filled with the Spirit. Three chapters a day, one at night. Let’s see, I’m going to pray for seven point five minutes. “Dear God. I love you. I love everyone. Bless the world.” Good deeds, I’m going to do two good deeds today, and, oh, I got a tract. I’m going to tell someone about Christ. “Here, have you heard about Christ?”

Go try that, when you think about building a relationship with another human being, what do you do? Time, commitment, conversation, listening, scheduling time away to be together, a connection of the heart. Does it involve discipline? Sure. Do you always want to spend time with someone you want to get close to? You don’t always feel like it, but you do it.

But it’s not about legalism or rules. It’s about a heart relationship. The best picture I can give you is just, I am committed to building an intimate relationship with my wife and with my kids. But it’s not like, Okay, Mondays, I give her candy. Wednesdays, I send her flowers. “Hi, honey, how are you?” You know, it’s not mechanical.

Do we set aside Fridays? A date each week? Yes. Do we commit to, every day, having a time where we really talk? Yes. Do we sit down and do some planning about what we are going to do with our money and our time? Yes. Do we plan a couple, or three weekends a year to get away? Yes. But it’s about your heart. It’s about wanting to be close. And God longs to be close to you. He wants to fill you with the Spirit. He wants to saturate your life with His love and His joy and His peace.

But before you walk out the door, you are at the fork in the road. You can be run by you, or you can yield to the Spirit of God, right now, and begin a journey of being filled with the Spirit. And it will change your heart and you will increasingly become less and less hypocritical.

Just privately talk with God. And ask Him, God, ask Him, God, if You will show me the first step to be filled with Your Spirit, from what I have heard today, I will do it. You pray that and sit quietly, and He will show you.