Pentecostal DNA
By: Pastor Donny Granberry
Remembering Our Spiritual Roots:
Our choice of text tonight is a letter Timothy received from Paul, who at the time of this letter was imprisoned and about to be executed by Nero, a psychotic tyrant who murdered his own mother, wife, step-brothers and many others.
Nero imitated the first great persecution of the church in a time that was called “The Carnival of Blood.”
It was a time when being a Christian was not just unpopular, but dangerous, especially to the Christian leaders.
The theme of 2 Timothy was “ Don’t compromise, and Don’t quit.”
Paul reminds Timothy:
• 2 Timothy 1: “v13 Hold fast to the form of sound doctrine.
• 2:15 “Study … not to be ashamed … rightly divide the word”
• 3:14 “Continue in what you have learned…”
• 4:2 “Preach the word … in season, out of season.”
In the opening of the letter, Paul reminds Timothy of his Spiritual DNA.
2 Timothy 1:2-6
To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. 6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
Paul begins to remind Timothy of his heritage, that he was walking in the footsteps of the faithful.
He reminds him that he owed it to them to neither compromise or quit.
Another man Timothy owed a deal to was Paul.
Paul was a Pharisee, the strictest sect of all Jewish religion, and in his early life was very proud of his Jewish heritage.
Before his conversion he was the leading persecutor of the church.
Yet when Paul was converted to Christianity, he was just as faithful of his Pentecostal heritage, or DNA.
Timothy knew the price that Paul had paid for the cause of the Gospel..
• Paul was stoned in Lystra, Timothy’s hometown.
• Timothy was with Paul in Philippi, where Paul was severely beaten and jailed.
• Three times he received 39 stripes +1.
• Many of the Christians still feared Paul and the Pharisee’s wanted him dead.
• Yet nothing had been able to cause Paul to compromise his message or quit his ministry.
Romans 1:16
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes:
Timothy was just going through a time of fear and discouragement.
ILLUSTRATION
Andy Griffith Show.
Episode where a bully was taking Opie’s milk money.
Andy told him, there will be a lot of bully’s in the world; you have got to stand up to them.
He stood up to the bully, got a black eye, and lit into that bully like a whirlwind.
At the end Opie said, you know what Dad, a sandwich sure tastes a lot better with milk.
There will be a lot of people who will try to bully you into Pentecostal compromise, but the pathway to Heaven sure is a lot better with the Holy Ghost’s help.
Paul was reminding Timothy, do not compromise. It will be worth it all when you see Christ.
Stir into flames; stir up the gift of the Holy Ghost in you.
The product is worth the price.
If I am going to go out to the Houston Raceway to race cars, I want a nitro fueled car and not a hybrid.
I am not going to be concerned about the price of the fuel, the emissions it puts out; I am going to be concerned about power and speed.
We live in a time when far to many are willing to compromise anointing for animation, power for prosperity, and supernatural for superficial, but I’m here to remind you, God has not lowered His standards or the price for the real thing.
I am not concerned about who might be offended by me speaking in tongues or the gifts of the spirit in operation in this church.
Have you taken a look at the appearance of many people today?
• They have more gel in their hair than a Jell-O factory,
• You don’t know the real color of most people hair,
• They have pierced noses, tongues, eyebrows, and who knows what all else,
• Boys wear make-up as much as girls.
• They speak some foreign language that sounds somewhat like English, and we think they will be offended by our speaking in tongues.
That is just an excuse for compromise.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:18 … “I thank my God I speak in tongues more than you all.”
I can agree with Paul tonight, I thank God I speak in tongues.”
It’s a part of my DNA.
My Mother & Father are Pentecostal believer, my Grandparents on both sides were Pentecostal believers, my great-grandmother Granberry was a Pentecostal, and I plan on passing this DNA to my children and grandchildren.
My family was saved because of a Pentecostal Revival in Freestone County in 1939.
Before that Revival, my DNA was alcoholism. Everyone except my great-grandmother were alcoholics, but O’h what a difference Jesus has made.
On the first official day of the 20th century, January 1, 1901, a woman named Agnes Ozman, who was a student at Stones Folly, a bible school operated by Charles Parham was filled with the Holy Ghost.
These Events marked the beginning of the modern Pentecostal revival in which millions were reached for the cause of Christ in the 20th century.
Statistics say that today there are more than 500 million Pentecostal believers worldwide which makes Pentecost the largest and fastest growing movement the world has ever known.
Nothing has ever affected church history greater than the old stable located at 312 Azusa Street.
There was group of 300 people who had experienced Pentecost because of the Azusa Street Revival that gathered together in Hot Springs Arkansas in 1914 that gathered together to protect the distinctive doctrine of the initial physical evidence that formed what today is known as The Assemblies of God.
Now some 94 years later, the emphasis on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues has not changed in the bible, or in this fellowship.
There have been attempts to compromise, but thank God we can still declare as Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.
There is a need today to rediscover the real power of Pentecost and its God given purpose.
It is time to re-dig the wells of the Holy Spirit, of the gifts of the spirit, and receive a fresh river of life within our spirit.
• If you are struggling spiritually and feel like God is not doing anything in your life, spend some time praying in the spirit.
• If your prayer life has gotten boring and dutiful, spend some time praying in the spirit.
• It is time for people to start going to some of the clubs and dens of sin in our city and begin walking the lot praying in the spirit and interceding for souls and shut them down.
You might say, Pastor, I don’t know how to pray like that.
Romans 8:26-27 NIV
6 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
