BREATH OF GOD OR COPD?
Job 33:4
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. A man wanted to be a salesman, but he stuttered very badly. Then he saw an ad for a job as a Bible salesman for the Bible Society, and he decided to apply.
2. At the interview, they heard him stutter and said, "We're sorry, but there's no way you could do this job with that kind of stutter."
3. "Please", he said. "Just give me a chance." They did. A week later, the man returned. "I've sold out of Bibles. Can I have some more?"
4. The executive, shocked, asked him to explain how he'd done it. "Easy", he said. "I just ask them, 'Would you like to buy a Bible, or would you like me to read it to you?'"
B. TEXT
“The Spirit of God has made me, and the Breath of the Almighty has given me life” Job 33:4.
C. THESIS: THERE’S UNIVERSAL COPD TODAY
1. What is COPD? Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) -- a lung disorder that obstructs the airways and makes it difficult for the person to breathe. 16 million Americans suffer from this disorder.
2. SPIRITUAL COPD. I believe the modern church is suffering from spiritual COPD; we’re not getting the breath of life from God often enough to animate us, transform us, heal & renew us, and help us overcome.
3. God has a treatment for COPD – open up and breathe in God’s Holy Spirit until complete liberty comes! Begin absorbing the Word, lingering in God’s presence, entering into praise & worship -- breath in the Spirit of God!
I. GOD’S BREATH IS THE SOURCE OF LIFE
A. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE SOURCE OF LIFE
1. WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT? The Ruach is the Breath of God that formed and created the world (Gen. 1:2). In the N.T., this word is translated “pneuma,” breath. It’s connected to lungs and taking in vital oxygen. That’s why “pneumonia” is the name for the sickness that hinders our respiration/ breathing.
2. In John 20:22, Jesus “breathed” on His disciples after His resurrection, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” Up until this moment the 12 had been “dead in sins and trespasses,” Eph. 2:1. The first step was for them to ‘breathe in’ the Breath of God, as God had done to Adam in the beginning (Gen. 2:7), and this caused the disciples to be “born again.”
3. This was pictured in parabolic fashion by Ezekiel 37:9-10, “Thus says the Lord God: ‘Come from the four winds, O Breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’ So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.”
B. THE MYSTERIES OF THAT BREATH
1. In John 3:7-8, when speaking of being Born Again, Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
2. When you make yourself available to the power of God’s breath, you have no more control over where it blows or carries you; your life is not your own. To be in God’s will we must relinquish our own wills!
3. We are never truly alive until we are quickened by the power of the Spirit of God. God, in His infinite love and mercy, could give us nothing greater than to give us His Son and His Breath! His Son – to redeem us; His Breath – to impart Life & transformation. Praise God for His Spirit!
II. GOD’S BREATH GIVES US VISION & PURPOSE
A. LETTING GOD HAVE HIS WAY
1. The Holy Spirit is like the wind; He can’t be controlled. We can’t tell Him how to do His job.
2. Some churches want nice, safe services. They want their services to follow the outline on the back of the bulletin. But how many of you know, the Holy Spirit doesn't care about our bulletin!
3. Only He knows what He wants to accomplish in a service, so how can we tell Him how it's all going to go? Only He knows who is going to be present and what kind of ministry they are going to need.
4. The same is true of our average day at work or at home. We don't know who God’s going to send to us, so we must be walking in the Spirit to be useful in helping them.
5. So when the Holy Spirit begins to blow in our lives – He exposes what’s underneath the surface. He blows away our pretense, our masquerades, our reputations – and exposes the truth of who & what we really are!
6. We need the Holy Spirit’s cleansing so that we can become more like Jesus!
B. GETTING VISION FROM THE SPIRIT
1. We often find ourselves living drab, colorless lives without any real purpose. We’re like Gideon, with no greater vision than of trying to get a little food to survive (Judges 6:11). Then God’s Spirit came and gave him vision and courage (6:34).
2. WE NEED TO ACT ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL. “Woe to the obstinate...to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but NOT BY MY SPIRIT” Isa. 30:1.
3. Since, we have God's breath in us then we have His nature, ability, strength, wisdom, health and prosperity as well. God can’t put His Breath in us and not give us the full package. The God Who gave us His only begotten Son to die for us also so gave us all things!
4. A VISION TO WORK FOR GOD. “So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel...and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and BEGAN TO WORK on the house of the Lord Almighty” Hag. 1:14. We need God’s stirring so we will get to work!
III. GOD’S BREATH GIVES US POWER
A. POWER FOR MINISTRY
1. On the day of Pentecost, the Breath of God came in power, as a hurricane force wind. Wind can be gentle or it can be forceful: God determined the time was ripe for His power to be loosed.
2. “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them cloven tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” Acts 2:2-4.
3. The Holy Spirit equipped them to perform the same form of ministry that Jesus Himself performed. Jesus imparted to them the same power on which He relied. It was never His intention to leave us ill-equipped and unprepared for the task to which He calls us. It’s not His plan that we have less resources than He had, since He’s expecting us to perform the same ministries He did.
4. “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” John 14:12. By God’s Breath we can do exploits. With His Breath we can do great things in His name!
B. THE H.S. MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
1. Off the coast of Labrador, H. G. Bosch saw huge icebergs towering 400 feet into the air. Surprisingly, they all sailed right into the teeth of strong headwinds and huge opposing waves.
2. The secret lies in the fact that nearly 90% of their bulk is beneath the water, where the Labrador current takes control. This mighty force bears them along no matter how many obstacles they encounter.
3. That’s why when a person is filled with the Spirit, they can go against even the strongest winds of their culture, because “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” 1 Jn. 4:4.
4. As any good sailor will tell you, you also can’t get anywhere without the power of the wind. “This is the word of the Lord...: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty. Zech. 4:6
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: SOURCE OF THE POWER
1. Bible teacher F.B. Meyer once had a firewood factory that employed prisoners. He gave them a job to do, good wages, a place to live, and, when possible, spiritual encouragement.
2. In exchange, he expected them to render good employment. They didn’t, and he lost money. Finally, he fired them all and purchased a circular saw powered by a gas engine.
3. In one hour, it turned out more boards than all the men had turned out in a day. Meyer asked the saw, “How can you turn out so much work?” he asked.
4. “Are you sharper than the saws my men were using? No? Is your blade shinier? No? What then? Better oil or lubrication against the wood?”
5. The saw’s answer, could it speak, would have been, “There’s a stronger driving power behind me. Something is working through me with a new force greater than that working in all those men. It’s not I, it’s the power behind.”
6. The failure of many Christians in achieving God’s will for their lives isn’t the lack of desire, but their working in the power of the flesh.
7. They need to become linked to the power of God through the Holy Spirit.
B. THE CALL
1. Let’s ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit and begin leading us into the supernatural.
2. Servants like Moses were no smarter or more talented than we are, he was just more yielded to the Spirit.
3. Prayer & Salvation call.
[Some thoughts were adopted from Glenn Branham’s “Pentecost the Breath of God” and from Gbemisola Fafowora’s “God Gave Us His Breath”]
