1. You will notice the apostle Paul says in Ephesians 5:19, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”
2. The word “heart” is found 830 times in the Bible. Vine’s Expository Dictionary says “the heart is used figuratively for the hidden springs of the personal life.”
3. First Peter 3:4 refers to “the hidden man of the heart.”
4. The heart of man can be either good or bad.  Our Lord said in Mark 7:21-23, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”
5. On the other hand, the Spirit God works in the hearts of men, producing regeneration and the fruit of the Spirit.
6. Peter said in Acts 15:8, 9 “And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.”
7. Acts 16:14 refers to Lydia, and says, “whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.”
8. Therefore, according to the Bible, the heart is the center of man’s spiritual life. 
9. What I would like to emphasize this morning is that genuine Biblical Christianity is a heartfelt religion.    We must reject cold, dead, formal, ritualistic religion.  
10. The devil employs many tricks.  The apostle Paul said in II Cor. 2:11, “For we are not ignorant of his devices.” 
11. One of Satan’s devices is to promote a cold intellectual Christianity.  This produces Christians with big heads and cold hearts.  Furthermore, it deadens soulwinning.  Cold Christians do not win souls.

I. WE NEED AN UNDERSTANDING HEART (5:15—17).

1. There is a great contrast here.  The foolish man does not walk circumspectly (5:15).  He is lost.  He does not know the will of God.   In fact, he does not care at all about the will of God.
2. On the other hand, the man in touch with God understands the will of God for his life (5:17).
3. The Christian’s “walk” is one of the great themes of the book of Ephesians (cf. 5:15).
4. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
5. Ephesians 4:1 says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.”
6. Ephesians 4:17 says, “That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind.”
7. Ephesians 5:2 says, “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us.”
8. Ephesians 5:8 says, “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.”
9. And then, here in Ephesians 5:15, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.”
10. To understand the will of God, we must know the Word of God.  Many Christians have been amazed at how George Muller understood the will of God.  He had thousands of prayers answered.
11. But let us not forget that George Muller read the Bible over 200 times.  Some of you ought to start getting serious about reading the Word of God.

II. WE NEED A SPIRIT-FILLED HEART (5:18).

1. Romans 5:5 says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
2. The indwelling Holy Spirit is given to all believers the moment they receive Christ (cf. Eph. 1:13).
3. But Ephesians 5:18 says, “Be filled with the Spirit.”  This is a command.
4. Nowhere in the Bible does it say, “Be ye sealed with the Spirit” or “Be ye indwelt by the Spirit,” etc.
5. You were sealed and indwelt automatically the moment you received Christ as your personal Saviour.
6. But the filling of the Holy Spirit is different.  This is a direct command from God.  Being filled with the Holy Spirit depends upon on our cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
7. In the Bible, wine is presented as a worldly substitute for the filling of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18).  Alcohol produces a feeling of exhilaration and gaiety but it is a worldly and devilish substitute for the joy of the Lord.
8. You may remember from I Samuel 1 that Hannah was fervently praying, pouring her soul out to the Lord, and “Eli thought she had been drunken.”
9. Eli said to her, “How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee” (I Sam. 1:14).
10. Hannah then said, “No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD” (I Sam. 1:15).
11. In Luke 1, the angel told Zacharias that his son, John the Baptist, “shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost” (Luke 1:15).
12. In Acts 2 we read of the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples as a “rushing mighty wind.”   “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues (languages), as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4).
13. Acts 2:13 tells us that some of the unbelievers who beheld this were mocking and said, “These men are full of new wine” (Acts 2:13).
14. “But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.  But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:14—18).
15. These Scriptures serve to remind us that people often mistake being filled with the Holy Spirit.  And that wine is a counterfeit for the Holy Spirit.
16. They often refer to alcoholic beverages as “spirits.”  In my old neighborhood in Flushing there was a liquor store called “Buzzy’s.”  He has a sign in his window that read, ‘When your spirits are low, let Buzzy know.”
17. We do not need those spirits.  We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  The command to be Spirit-filled is imperative (Eph. 5:18).  It is not optional; it is absolutely necessary.
18. The Bible teaches that when a man is born again he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  But there is a need for a constant infilling.
19. The Greek word translated “filled” means a continuous action – we are to be filled with the Spirit continuously.
20. This is the work of God in us, despite whatever may be going on around us.  Paul wrote this letter from a Roman prison, yet he was rejoicing in the Lord (cf. Eph. 1:3).
21. The presence of God was so real to Paul it was as if he were already in heaven.   Is the presence of God real to you?
22. To be filled with the Spirit means walking “circumspectly” (Eph. 5:15).  This means walking carefully in this sin-loving world.
23. To be filled with the Spirit means “redeeming the time because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16).  Col. 4:5 says, “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.”
24. To be filled with the Spirit means to be led by the Spirit.  This means “understanding what the will of the Lord is” (5:17).
25. We must be careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30).
26. First Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Quench not the Spirit.”
27. Galatians 5:16 says, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”
28. Twice in Romans 8 it says we “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (8:1, 4).
29. Wine influences and controls a man’s behaviour.  But God wants us to be influenced and controlled by the Holy Spirit.
30. Wine makes people feel happy (but it is not genuine happiness).  But the Holy Spirit in our hearts makes us genuinely happy and joyful (5:19).
31. The devil has his music.  Worldly people listen to it and it makes them feel happy.  Thanks to the Holy Spirit, we can appreciate God’s music – “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19).
32. “Be filled with the Spirit” (5:18).  It is in the imperative mood – it is a command.  It is in the presence tense, meaning continuous action.   It is plural in number – literally “be ye filled…”
33. It is also in the passive voice – this is something the Spirit of God does to us and in us.

III. WE NEED A JOYFUL & THANKFUL HEART (5:19, 20).

1. The Spirit-filled life is one of ceaseless praise and gratitude to God (5:19, 20).
2. Lewis Sperry Chafer wrote, “All manifestations of divine power in the heart are in the line of things most vital and are so practical that any child of God will detect the presence or absence of them in his own heart.   It is only by a supernatural power that one may always be singing and giving thanks for all things” (The Ephesian Letter).
3. Most of our great hymns and Gospel songs were written during a time of revival – either personal revival or a church revival or a citywide revival, etc.
4. One of my favorite hymns is “Cleanse Me,” written by James Edwin Orr in 1936, during a great revival in New Zealand.  One report says, “For some time prior to this revival, an attitude of unusual expectancy had been prevalent among these people. Prayer meetings spread throughout the city with much fervency, and intercession led to wide-spread confession and reconciliation among the believers. Great numbers of unconverted students professed faith in Christ. The next night was given over to exultant testimony, with singing such as one expects in heaven.”
5. The revival news soon spread throughout all of New Zealand. Dr. Orr reported that as he was leaving New Zealand, four Aborigine girls approached and sang for him a beautiful Maori farewell song. Dr. Orr was so impressed with the beauty of this Polynesian melody that soon afterward he wrote new verses to the tune on the back of an envelope. The text was based on the familiar words of Scripture found in Psalm 139:23-24:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

6. Colossians 3:15—17 is very similar to our text.  Colossians 3:15 says, “and be ye thankful.”  Verse 17 says, “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.”
7. Also note Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom…”   We need to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly.

CONCLUSION:

1. Let me ask you?  Do you have an understanding heart?  Do you understand what it means to be led by the Lord?
2. Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?  Do you want to be?
3. Last night we enjoyed a nice ordination service for Pastor McGowan.  One of the hymns Bro. McGowan selected was “He Leadeth Me.”

He leadeth me, O blessed thought!
O words with heav’nly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be
Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.
 
He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me;
His faithful follower I would be,
For by His hand He leadeth me.
 
Sometimes mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters still, over troubled sea,
Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me.
 
Lord, I would place my hand in Thine,
Nor ever murmur nor repine;
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.
 
And when my task on earth is done,
When by Thy grace the vict’ry’s won,
E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
Since God through Jordan leadeth me.

4. Like most of our favorite hymns, there is a beautiful story behind it.  It was written by a young Baptist preacher named Jo­seph Gil­more on March 26, 1862.
5. At one time, Gilmore’s father had been the governor of New Hampshire.  In fact, for a while Joseph Gilmore served as a secretary to his father the governor.
6. He also pastored several Baptist churches, taught Hebrew at Newton Seminary, taught English literature at Rochester University, and published several college textbooks on these subjects.
7. He also wrote several hymns, but his most famous is “He Leadeth Me,” which he wrote when he was a 28-year-old preacher doing pulpit supply at the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
8. Here is his account: “As a young man who re­cent­ly had been grad­u­at­ed from Brown Un­i­ver­si­ty and New­ton The­o­lo­gic­al In­sti­tu­tion, I was sup­ply­ing for a cou­ple of Sun­days the pul­pit of the First Bap­tist Church in Phil­a­del­phia Penn­syl­van­ia. At the mid-week ser­vice, on the 26th of March, 1862, I set out to give the peo­ple an ex­po­si­tion of the Twen­ty-third Psalm, which I had giv­en be­fore on three or four oc­ca­sions, but this time I did not get fur­ther than the words ‘He Lead­eth Me’ (Psalm 23:2). Those words took hold of me as they had ne­ver done be­fore, and I saw them in a sig­ni­fi­cance and won­drous beau­ty of which I had ne­ver dreamed.
   
   It was the dark­est hour of the Ci­vil War. I did not re­fer to that fact—that is, I don’t think I did—but it may sub­con­sciou­sly have led me to real­ize that God’s lead­er­ship is the one sig­nif­i­cant fact in hu­man ex­per­i­ence, that it makes no dif­fer­ence how we are led, or whi­ther we are led, so long as we are sure God is lead­ing us.
   
   At the close of the meet­ing a few of us in the par­lor of my host, good Dea­con Watt­son, kept on talk­ing about the thought which I had em­pha­sized; and then and there, on a blank page of the brief from which I had in­tend­ed to speak, I pen­ciled the hymn, talk­ing and writ­ing at the same time, then hand­ed it to my wife and thought no more about it. She sent it to The Watch­man and Re­flect­or, a pa­per pub­lished in Bos­ton, where it was first print­ed. I did not know un­til 1865 that my hymn had been set to mu­sic by Will­iam B. Brad­bu­ry. I went to Ro­ches­ter, New York to preach as a can­di­date be­fore the Se­cond Bap­tist Church. Go­ing in­to their cha­pel on ar­riv­al in the ci­ty, I picked up a hymn­al to see what they were sing­ing, and opened it at my own hymn, ‘He Lead­eth Me.’”