From weakness to glory series—Week 9: ‘Spiritual fulfillment’.

We’ve all heard accounts of people, who, under the influence of alcohol, find themselves in disastrous situations. But perhaps the most bizarre was what happened in the Western Australian town of Esperance, in 2017. A woman returned home to find a thief passed out on her bed. He had forced the front door open to gain entry and burgle the residence, after which he discovered a bottle of champagne and drank it. When police arrived at the scene, the man had a blood alcohol reading eight times the legal limit. The Officer in charge, Richard Moore, reported:

“He has consumed some champagne, I’m not sure how expensive it was…It must have been quite potent because he has fallen asleep in the resident’s bed, which is not a good thing, and the owner has returned home and located this male person in her bed.”[1]

No crime syndicate will be hiring this guy anytime soon. Rather than being wise, he made the biggest blunder by being under the influence of alcohol, which led to the easiest of arrests.

In today’s text, Paul urges the Ephesian Christians to be careful about which influence they come under. They were not to get drunk on wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Ephesus was one of the most significant cities in the ancient world. Politically, Ephesus had important status as a seat of proconsular government in the Roman empire, at a time when the worship of the Roman Emperor had become established. Commercially, Ephesus was a major trade centre bringing different cultural influences to its port. Spiritually, the Greek cult of Artemis dominated religious life, which was known synonymously by the Roman name ‘Diana’. Diana was revered as the goddess of the wild animals, and also a fertility deity, invoked by women to aid conception and childbirth. Over thirty shrines were erected to Diana, but the Temple at Ephesus was the major site, and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. In this cosmopolitan society, indulgence and excess of worldly pursuits and pleasures was mixed with the intoxicating spirituality of the Greco-Roman world.

It’s against this backdrop that Paul writes his letter to the young church at Ephesus, emphasising that being filled with the Holy Spirit is essential to the Christian living out their new life in Christ. With a clever play on words, Paul urges the young church: “Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”

Notice that Paul doesn’t say: “Don’t drink” but “Don’t get drunk on wine”. People drink and get drunk for various reasons: to escape boredom, to self-medicate against the pain of broken relationships and abandonment, to numb the inner pain of grief, to gain the approval of peers, to forget one’s problems and relieve stress.

But wine—or anything else—can never fulfil those needs in any lasting way. Rather than removing problems from life, being under the influence compounds problems and introduces others, as the champagne-guzzling burglar found out. However Paul is not just addressing drunkenness. By contrasting ‘being drunk on wine’ with ‘being filled with the Spirit’, Paul is contrasting two very different ways of life. ‘Being drunk on wine’ represents living by the values, priorities, goals and pleasures of the world. Elsewhere Paul says that God’s people should “deny worldly lusts, and live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.” (Titus 2:12). From 1 John 2 we hear: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.” (1 John 2: 15-16).

Paul was concerned to impress this on the early church at Ephesus, for the ways of the world are not harmless. They become intoxicating, and under their influence one’s alertness to God and desire to hear his word becomes dimmed, so that rather than walking the path to life in peace and freedom, we stumble and stagger. Jesus taught: “The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things enter in and choke the word, so that it becomes unfruitful.” (Mark 4:19).

So Paul urges the Ephesian Christians: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.” (Ephesians 5:3-4). He warns them with urgency: “For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.” (vv 5-6).

Is 21^st Century Australian society really any different to that of 1^st Century Ephesus? People still look to self-medicate their pain with alcohol, and all kinds of drug cocktails cooked up in backyards. People engage in risky sexual behaviour to find someone to love them. Or they seek the approval of others by working hard to people please and climbing the ladder to status. People are desperate to escape a sense of emptiness, loneliness, brokenness, looking for the next product or experience that will provide happiness. Some fifty years ago, American history professor Christopher Lasch said: “The contemporary climate is therapeutic, not religious. People today hunger not for personal salvation…but for the feeling, the momentary illusion of personal well-being…”

Fifty years on, is this not the same social background in which the church is placed: the contemporary climate is still not religious, but therapeutic. Are not people not turning to anyone, and anything, that will fulfill their deep ache to feel good? That was the same goal in life of Ancient Ephesus, and really, it is at the heart of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God, to take that which they had no right to partake of. It’s always been there—to fulfill our needs for purpose, worth, joy, peace and life itself with what the world says is good.

Paul’s words to the 1^st Century Ephesian Christians are just as true for us as 21^st Century Australian Christians too, as the church lives out its faith against the backdrop of a cosmopolitan, pagan, licentious society. God’s people need to be continually under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

God does not withhold himself from his people. He does not give a taste of the Spirit, enough to confess “Jesus is Lord”. In Paul’s exhortation to “be filled with the Spirit” the word for ‘be filled’ means to ‘make full’, ‘influence fully’, ‘possess fully’. He means not a once off event, but a continual, ongoing filling, emphasising that true fulfilment cannot be found in the things of this life but only in a deep and personal connection with God—one in which we do not possess the Holy Spirit, but he possesses us, bringing us to live our lives under his influence in our heart.

All the reverence to Caesar and obedience to the harsh rule of the Romans, all the prayers to Diana, and indulgence in drink and whatever else, could not help the people with the pain of living in an empty and fleeting life. But the Ephesian Christians had something the rest of Ephesus didn’t. They were no longer what they once were, but filled with the Spirit, they were something new, and people saw just how different these Christians were. They were filled with the Spirit to have a fulfilled life in God. They knew what it meant to be content with what God had given them, even if it seemed little and lowly in the eyes of the world. Rather than complaining, they gave thanks, which was completely counter-cultural in a greedy world. As they lived under the political power and might of the Romans, they had the power of the Holy Spirit who had raised them from death to life and seated them in the heavenly realms with Christ.

This meant that they no longer needed to turn to wine or other worldly pleasures to escape their pain, because they knew the peace that passes all understanding. Their sense of identity and self-worth was bound up in Christ’s selfless, sacrificial love for them. Rather than living in sorrow and grumblings they could not but help sing in response to the salvation and new life God had given them, as the Spirit overflowed in their hearts to sing Spiritual songs in joy and praise.

Being filled by the Spirit meant the Christians related with one another in a completely different way than the people around them as they lived in the world: not love of self, but walking in the way of Christ’s love as his holy people. Just as Christ became the least, giving up his life for others, the selfless way of living as the people of God showed the world whose influence they were under. And how they lived in their family was one of the greatest witnesses of all. In the harsh Roman Empire women were belittled and objectified, treated like chattels and a means to an end. If women fled an abusive situation it was like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. There was no real work or social status for women, who were only wanted for their domestic skills and bodies. But walking in love as a Christian husband and wife meant submitting to one another in love. The husband was to love his wife as Christ loved the Church—that is, he was to die to self, giving up his very life for his wife. This is the second time in today’s passage that Paul equates love with the self-sacrifice of Christ. As the head of the family the husband was to give up his life for his wife and love her as himself.

This was foolishness to a self-centred, pagan world. The change that the Spirit brings to a person’s heart means that they no longer need to abuse or dominate, or bully others to feel better about themselves. Under the influence of the Spirit, they are free to love, and serve and bless. The wife then had no need to flee the security of the loving relationship God intended. As her husband was to cherish and protect her, the wife had a counter-cultural place of significance, dignity, worth and safety in the world that could not be found anywhere else, as she submitted to her husband as he cared for and blessed her.

Many people today assert that God’s word is out of touch with society. Yet 2000 years on from Ancient Ephesus, the world has not really changed since the time Paul wrote. We live in a broken and breaking world where political leaders enthrone themselves, where the cult of the self brings conflict and pain to others at every level, and which indulgence in debauchery does not bring purpose or fulfilment in the face of hurt and fear. But we are not called to try to change the environment around us with force or strategy. We are simply called to keep on being under the influence of the Spirit. As the Holy Spirit fills us and brings fulfilment of our deepest needs, the world notices there is something radically different in our lives and observers come to wonder just why it is we walk in love, respect, thankfulness and joyful praise.

Brothers and sisters at St Paul’s, to whom—or what—are you under the influence of? May you always seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, who shows you that Christ loves the church so much that he gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. He gave up his life for us, to make us holy, cleansing us by the washing with water through the word, to present us to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. He keeps on feeding us and caring for us through his word and sacraments so that in life with our Good Shepherd, we would not want, but have fulfilled lives as streams of living water flow from within us. He fulfils our deepest hunger so that we have basketfuls of leftovers to share with others. God does not just give us a taste but abundance as he pours himself out into our hearts, that no matter what our circumstances, we would always find our fulfilment in being filled with the Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Tim Ebbs

St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg

Time after Pentecost, 2026.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

“We are not called to try to change the environment around us with force or strategy. We are simply called to keep on being under the influence of the Spirit.”

 

1. Why do you think Paul connects wisdom with being filled with the Spirit?

 

1. What does it mean to be continually filled with the Spirit rather than just having a one-time experience?

 

1. Why is gratitude such an important mark of Spirit-filled living?

 

1. What distractions or influences compete with the Holy Spirit’s work in your life?

 

1. How can you be more intentional about making the most of your opportunities this week?

 

1. In what areas of your life do you need God’s wisdom right now?

 

1. How would your daily routine change if you consciously sought to be filled with the Spirit each day?

 

1. Is thanksgiving a consistent part of your life? Why or why not?

 

1. Who is God calling you to serve or submit to in humility this week?

 

1. What evidence in your life would show others that you are filled with the Holy Spirit?

 

1. How does the Holy Spirit help believers understand and follow God’s will?

 

1. What barriers can prevent Christians from experiencing the fullness of the Spirit?

 

[1] Meachim, Laura: Esperance alleged burglar passed out after downing expensive champagne, police say https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-31/esperance-police-thief-passed-out-after-too-much-champage/8761210 last accessed August 1, 2026 at 1:30pm.

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