Opening illustration: The job of the church is not to impact the church, but to impact the world. It’s like a huddle in a football game. 67,000 people don’t pay $25.00 a ticket to watch the Titans huddle. What if you went to a Titans game and for 2½ hours you watched 11 men stand in a circle and talk? That’s not what you pay for!! 67,000 people pay $25 a ticket to see what difference the huddle makes. What they want to know is, having called the play in secret, does it work in public?
The challenge for the church is not what we do when we call our Sunday morning huddle, but what we do when we break our huddle and head to our Sunday morning and weekly God given assignments. When Satan lines up against us, what difference does it make that we are Christians?
Let us turn to Matthew 4 & 9 and see what Jesus did and expects the body of Christ to do …
Introduction: Our relationship to Christ is defined as those who -
• confess that Jesus is the Son of God (Rom 1:4) and is Lord (Rom 10:9)
• It is through his sacrifice that their sins are forgiven (cf. Rom 3:24f; 1 Cor. 15:3)
• “…and through him that they receive the Spirit (cf. Gal 4:4f; Rom 8:2f)
• Christians live in Christ and he lives in them
• “…the activity of the Spirit is the activity of the Risen Christ”
• are baptized into Christ
• put on Christ
• are his property
• must love, serve, please and imitate him
• move and walk in the power of the anointing
• exhibit the fruit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit
What does Christ expect from the church?
1. More than just preach a message [Tri-prong Ministry] … (Matthew 4: 23; 9: 35)
(a) Teaching (for the spiritual growth of the ‘Body of Christ’)
• Spend enough time in prayer, studying the scriptures, pursuing holiness and purity and having a daily intimate walk with God
• Line up with scripture (OT & NT)
• Open to the leading of the Holy Spirit (John 14: 26; 16: 13)
• Stay away from heresy and non-biblical material
• Glorifies the Triune God
• Stay silent where the Bible is silent (don’t draw your own conclusions) and be explicit where it is explicit
• Does your understanding of a Bible passage harmonize with the rest of Scripture? Remember, the Bible DOES NOT contradict itself!
• Study the original language (Hebrew or Greek) words and their meaning(s) behind a Bible verse
• Do not form conclusions based on partial facts or insufficient information, or the opinions and speculations of others
(b) Preaching (for seekers, those who are new in Christ and also for the mature …)
• Spend enough time in prayer, studying the scriptures, pursuing holiness and purity and having a daily intimate walk with God
• Line up with the Old & New Testament
• Open to the leading of the Holy Spirit (John 14: 26; 16: 13)
• Stay away from heresy and secular material
• Glorifies the Triune God
• Try to keep the scripture passage short and articulate God’s Word in a very simple form with illustrations
• Stay silent where the Bible is silent (don’t draw your own conclusions) and be explicit where it is explicit
• Seek to understand the general context of a particular Bible verse by reading the verses and chapters just before and after it.
• If possible study the original language (Hebrew or Greek) passages and their meaning(s) behind the Biblical passage
• Do not draw your own conclusions based on partial facts or insufficient information, or the opinions and speculations of others
• Do not bring your own personal assumptions and preconceived notions into your understanding or conclusions
• Application of God’s Word in today’s context
© Healing (spiritual & physical)
• When Jesus walked the earth, people believed that sickness was from the devil, and that healing was from God. Things have dramatically changed in two thousand years. Now, many think affliction is allowed and sometimes sent by God to build character, and those who pursue the ministry of healing are deceived by the devil. While the thinking of the church has changed, God hasn’t. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus healed every person who came to Him asking to be made well. There were no exceptions. It didn’t seem to matter if they had great or weak faith, or even sin issues. They all left His presence with their miracle.
• "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself ..." Jesus was unable to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out devils, or cleanse the lepers, unless God worked through Him. When He commanded His disciples to do these things, He was requiring them to do what was impossible without God’s help.
• One of the great temptations for the church in America is to reduce the Bible to our level of experience and understanding. This present move of God, which many have called The Father’s Blessing, has awakened us to God’s purposes. There’s a growing sense of the church’s indebtedness to the world - that we might represent Jesus properly, which is to re-present Jesus. The cry of our hearts is to lift our experience and understanding to the standard set in scripture. Yet the worst is when we try to figure out God like we go about figuring out people. It doesn’t work that way as God is not human or an item that can be figured out. The best thing is that He has already figured out each one of us.
• If we don’t live on the edge of impossibility we will reduce ministry to what we are capable of doing through our own gifts. That makes us no different than any of the other service clubs in our communities. They are nice to have around, but they’ll never be credited with a renewal or revival. That distinction has been reserved for a generation that will openly display the raw power of God. That generation will live from the revelation of Paul’s message, "For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power" (1 Corinthians 4: 20). The world has heard our words. It’s time for them to see the power.
2. Continue the same ministry and much more … (John 14: 12; Mat. 10: 7-8; Mark 16: 17; 1 Cor. 14: 39)
(a) Deliverance (Ephesians 6: 12)
• What Satan tries to do is get us to see our sin and failures as greater than the Blood of Jesus. He wants us to discount and mock the precious Blood of Jesus, and consider it powerless against our sin. WAKE UP to what Satan is trying to get you to do here, and begin to thank God that His son’s Blood is greater than all your failures! Is there any sin too small or too great for the blood of Christ to forgive?
• Many times a person’s bondage needs more than just applying the spiritual warfare tactics presented in the Bible, but also the Biblical process of driving out evil spirits. If you are vexed (which means to be harassed, tormented or troubled), oppressed, or controlled by them, then you likely need more than just spiritual warfare to break free ... you may need to have the intruders driven out in Jesus’ name!
• The purpose of spiritual warfare and deliverance is not to fight the devil, but to learn what we have in Christ, and use the weapons Jesus gave us to experience victory in every area of our lives. The purpose of confronting Satan is so we can remove the obstacles in our lives that are hindering us from experiencing the best that God has for us! If you want to live in spiritual freedom, peace, joy and love without constantly facing blockages and walls ahead of you, then you need to learn what the Bible has to say about spiritual warfare, and begin to apply those principles in your life today!
• I wonder how many people in today’s churches that Jesus, His disciples, the early church and those 70 disciples would find in need of deliverance (Luke 9 & 10). I have to say that many times, today’s pastors would not agree with me about a person having a demon until it is actually manifested during a deliverance and the person is set free. Many times, you would never know the person has an unclean spirit until it is confronted and brought to the surface to be dealt with! At times the evil spirit may return with many more (Luke 11) after finding the house (human body) has been swept and clean.
Some questions for us to ponder ~
• How are you supposed to cast a demon out of somebody who is spiritually defiled?
• Why would you cast a demon out of somebody, who will receive 7 more even worse demons when it returns?
• Why cast a demon out of somebody who refuses to accept Jesus as their Lord and savior?
• Why is authority required to cast out demons, if they leave on their own the moment their legal rights are removed?
• If all you had to do was get a person saved and their demons went away automatically, then what is the point in casting out demons at all?
• Is deliverance not needed today, like it was back then? (The fact is that for every 2-3 healings, there was a deliverance that took place in the New Testament.)
• Is it possible that we just aren’t seeing the need for deliverance, because we don’t know how to diagnose a demon in a person’s life?
• Is it possible that we are diagnosing spiritual problems as mere physical health issues? (Jesus diagnosed the woman who had a spinal disorder as having a spirit of infirmity (see Luke 13), and a man who couldn’t talk was healed when a demon was driven out (see Luke 11: 14). Jesus also dealt with an evil spirit in a young boy who was having seizers in his brain (see Matthew 17: 15-18), and when the demon left, the boy was restored and normal again.)
• Could we be praying for a healing, when we really ought to be casting a demon out?
• Could we be ignoring one of the most important areas of ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Elements needed to be addressed during deliverance ~
• Inner healing
• Tearing down strongholds
• Removing legal rights
• Casting out the demons
(b) Speaking in Tongues
• In Acts 2: 4 Luke uses a different adjective when he says, “they began to speak with other tongues.” The word “other” (Gr. heteros) simply means that they spoke in languages different from the normal language they were used to. The context substantiates this. Notice the surprised reaction on the part of the hearers—“And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?” (Acts 2:7,8). Every man heard them speak in his own language (Acts 2:6). Here the word “language” is the translation of dialekto from which our word “dialect” comes. The two words glossa (tongue) and dialektos (language) are used synonymously, making it obvious that the disciples were speaking in known languages other than the language native to them.
• In Revelation each passage where the word “tongue” is mentioned it means one of the languages associated with the various nationalities and races.
• It would be an arbitrary and strange interpretation of Scripture that would make tongues-speaking in the New Testament anything other than known languages. There is no trace of Scriptural evidence that tongues were ever heard by anyone as incoherent, incomprehensible babbling.
• With unmistakable clarity Paul says, “Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not . . . ” (1 Corinthians 14: 22).
• When the Apostles used the gift of tongues it was because they did not have what you and I have today, the completed Word of God, God’s full and final revelation to man. When they went about preaching the Gospel, their message was confirmed by the exercise of the sign gifts. Tongues-speaking vindicated both the message and the messenger. “Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds” (2 Corinthians 12: 12). Signs were for the Jews rather than for Gentiles.
• Some people mistaken this gift as a sign for the ‘Baptism of the Holy Spirit.’
• Our present generation is witnessing the growing menace of satanic activity in the realm of the miraculous. Where the Devil does not succeed in taking the Bible from us, he works hard at taking us from the Bible. And he succeeds in getting Christians to focus their attention on the claims of men and women to some supernatural experience, and in so doing those seekers after the experiences of others have neither time nor interest in searching the Scriptures for God’s truth.
• The Church of Christ does not need a new Bible, nor new apostles, nor new faith-healers, nor new charismatic movements, nor self-styled miracle workers. What the Church needs is to return to the Word of God and proclaim the whole counsel of God in the power and love of the Holy Spirit.
© Prophesying
• The gift of prophecy edifies, exhorts, and comforts (I Corinthians 14: 3); helps us build up or strengthen; and should lead us to the Word of God. It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to convict of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come (John 16: 8-11).
• Prophecy is divinely inspired and anointed utterance; a supernatural proclamation in a known language. It is the manifestation of the Spirit of God - not of intellect (I Corinthians 12: 7), and it may be possessed and operated by all who have the infilling of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 14: 31).
• Intellect, faith, and will are operative in this gift, but its exercise is not intellectually based. It is calling forth words from the Spirit of God. The gift of prophecy operates when there is high worship (I Samuel 10: 5-6), when others prophets are present (I Samuel 10: 9-10), and when hands are laid on you by ministers (Acts 19: 1-6).
• People sometimes think that "prophecy" means to predict (foretell) what will happen in the future. Apparently, the simple gift of prophecy is essentially forth-telling; it is a ministry to make people better and more useful Christians now. Prophecy in the New Testament church carries no prediction with it whatsoever, for "But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men" (I Corinthians 14: 3).
• This gift helps the church live holy in the culture and time that they are appointed. It rebukes, strengthens and encourages believers. The gift also helps the church in long-term planning and seeking God for His guidance.
3. To go beyond the physical realm … (Hebrews 5: 13-14; 1 Cor. 2: 14; Eph. 5: 18; 1 John 2: 20; Acts 11: 16-17)
(a) Desiring Solid Food (not satisfied with milk)
• Defines the purpose of attaining to the Christ-likeness. Here the purpose of the maturity discussed in the previous verse is emphasized by presentation of the contrasting picture of an immature, indecisive child who is spiritually unstable, easily tricked in spiritual matters and easily led astray from the truth.
• Spiritually immature believers who are not grounded in the knowledge of Christ through God’s Word are inclined to uncritically accept every sort of beguiling doctrinal error and fallacious interpretation of Scripture promulgated by deceitful, false teachers in the church. They must learn discernment.
• We may differ on a lot of Biblical applications, theologies and teachings but when the basics are not clear and the people of God are not firmly grounded in His Word, how can they ever proceed ahead in their Christian walk. The mistakes our forefathers did, we tend to walk the same road and not take their example and steer completely away from unwise choices, poor discernment and hopeless lifestyle.
Illustration: The American Banking Association once sponsored a two-week training program to help tellers detect counterfeit bills. The program was unique - never during the two-week training did the tellers even look at a counterfeit bill, not did they listen to any lectures concerning the characteristics of counterfeit bills .... All they did for two weeks was handle authentic currency, hour after hour and day after day, until they were so familiar with the true that they could not possibly be fooled by the false.
(b) Desiring Spiritual things (1 Peter 1: 12)
• Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view— we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our work only begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not only to save souls, but to disciple them. Many pastors when they get together, they just talk worldly stuff and even when discussing about their ministry, they dwell upon the number of baptisms, marriages, funerals etc. they did that year.
• We must understand that salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce the Godly kind spiritually, and those lives will be God’s testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
• In Luke 10: 20 Jesus told His disciples not to rejoice in spiritual success and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of the Christians do rejoice. "Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven."
© Being filled with the Holy Spirit
• Following Pentecost, the power and the filling of the Holy Spirit became available to all who accepted Christ, born of the Spirit (John 3:3-8). This is an amazing event, only experienced by the believer, so we should understand just what it means to be filled by the Spirit. Being filled by the Holy Spirit is conditional, we can or cannot be filled. The filling of the Spirit, depends on our relationship with the Lord. This is not about salvation, which requires the Spirit of God to dwell in us, all believers must have this, but not everybody is filled by the Spirit.
• The difference scripture makes between being “saved” and “being filled” is clear, it is about the degree of the relationship we have with the Lord. When someone comes to Christ they are saved (they have the Spirit), what do we choose to do with our salvation is another issue. If for example you received an inheritance, the property and money of an estate became yours. You could either squander the blessing or use it to accomplish more. In the same way, when we receive the Spirit, we receive an eternal inheritance from God, we have the choice, to allow God’s Spirit to use or not use us.
• When we yield ourselves to the control of the Holy Spirit, an amazing event happens; we become filled with the Spirit. Scripture commands us to seek the continual filling of the Spirit in Ephesians 5: 18
• When we have the Spirit in our lives, we are being transformed into the image of Christ. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, to make us Christ-like.
• Sin is what hinders the filling of the Holy Spirit, and obedience to God is how the filling of the Spirit is maintained.
Illustration: The man who walked miles to come to attend the underground church service at Nakhl.
Note: (a) Is the church ‘binitarian’ OR ‘Trinitarian?’ Many believe in the Father or Jesus Christ and just pay lip-service to the Holy Spirit. (b) Does the church concentrate mostly on teaching the acts of compassion but neglect operating the gifts of the HS in love, healing and completely avoid the demonic realm? (c) We must understand that science will never find Satan and apparently he is playing a new game of making people believe that he doesn’t exist.
Illustration: A Churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I’ve gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: "I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"
When you are DOWN to nothing ... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!
Application: Reflecting on Christ and His relationship with the church, we have a part to play. Christ has done His part by going to the cross for each one of us and redeeming us by His blood, giving us His Word and He promised to send us a helper – the Holy Spirit for His glory, He did it. What are we doing with His Word, the Holy Spirit and the authority that He has given to each one of us through His sacrifice. Are we just going to sit on it or stand on the sidelines OR really do something about it? This relationship is the most precious relationship for each one of us, for without it we are nothing …
