So we are currently on a teaching series that I have entitled “God Loves You!” where we are camping on the subject of God’s love for each of us individually.
Thus far, we have looked at how important it is that we truly come to “know” His love. Yes, while a lot of Christians would say they know He loves them, the fact is most do not. What these are saying is that they have mentally accented to the fact that He loves them, but that doesn’t mean that they know His love the way the Scriptures teach us we are to know it. We found that “knowing” in the Biblical sense describes an intimate kind of knowledge like how a husband knows his wife and vice versa. So how does one know if they know His love in this sense? Well, like it said in Genesis 4:1 that Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived and bore a son. So it’s to be understood that when you and I come to “know” a truth like God’s love for us, it will produce fruit in our lives. Amen? In other words, if I truly have come to know God’s love for me, I will see evidence of it in my emotions, in my love for others, etc. But we also learned that it’s important that we have faith in His love and not just base it on the things we can see in our lives. Yes, like it is with so many things in the kingdom of God, the key to receiving from the Lord is to believe it without any physical evidence. God’s love for us is no different – He expects us to have faith in His love based on what He did for us on the Cross and then we can start seeing it’s fruit in our lives. In other words, while God definitely wants us to experience His love, we need to avoid gravitating towards needing to feel it or have any other evidence of it in our lives. But like we learned a couple of weeks ago, even though our circumstances & situations shouldn’t be things we base God’s love for us on, the fact is with most people, they do. And the reason for this is because of what the vast majority of people believe about God’s “sovereignty.” So we dispelled a lot of popular theology out there about who God is and how He operates because this is one of the greatest obstacles to understanding God’s love for us. And last week, we looked at that very familiar passage of Scripture, John 3:16, and saw how God’s motivation for sending Jesus in the first place was because He “so loved” us. Now we saw how it would have been enough for Jesus to tell us that God loved the world, but He went as far as saying that He so loved it. I used the example of how I’m sure there’s certain foods that we love but others that we “so love.” We might say, “we love Chinese food” but we “really” love Italian. Then there’s certainly people that we love but others that we “so love.” Like we might say we love a certain friend, but we “dearly” love our child or grandchild. These are the ways that we might differentiate a general level of love for something or someone and a more special level of love. So we learned that God “so loved” you like you really love your most treasured thing and like you dearly love the most precious person in your life. But here’s a big difference between God’s love and ours—Jesus said that He so loved the “world.” We learned that the Greek word for “world” is the word kosmos and describes this world in a wide & narrow sense. It can describe this planet and the universe around it (i.e., the physical world we live in), and it can also describe the inhabitants of this world and the things which concern us. So, He didn’t so love a world that was perfect, that loved Him in return, and was worthy of that love. No, God so loved the very creation that rejected Him, sinned against Him, and was following the flesh & satan. That’s who & what God “really, dearly” loves. Amen! So what we saw was that God so loved the place & people who certainly did not deserve it, who were lost & enemies of their Creator and destined to die for our sin, that He gave us the most precious thing that He could ever have given us, His only Son, so that we could live together with Him. Now that’s love, church! That’s the greatest example of love that you will ever find! But do you know what else is one of the greatest examples of love that we have? A mother’s love! Yes, there is not a greater example of God’s love in this world we live in that the love a mother has for her children. So with it being Mother’s Day today, I felt led to share on the love of God from a somewhat different perspective. MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM You see, most of time when it comes to this subject, we rightfully focus on the fact that God is called our Heavenly Father. So then the emphasis gets placed on a father’s love, but did you know that God does not just have paternal (i.e. fatherly) characteristics; He also has maternal (i.e. motherly) characteristics too? Now I know that this needs to be prefaced with an explanation because I am certainly not saying that God is a “She.” In fact, God is a Person—not a “He” or a “”She”—but He is most definitely to be referred to in the masculine form simply because that’s the way we see Him referred to in the Scriptures. So with that being said, let me explain where I get this that God also has maternal characteristics: In the beginning, we are told that when God created man that He created him in His own image and according to His likeness (See Genesis 1:26). This resulted in His creating the first man named Adam. In fact, in the next verse, we are told— “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Now that’s interesting, isn’t it? Well, before God went through the process of taking woman from this man He just created, we are told that “male and female He created them.” This, of course, could be a forecast of what God was about to do and not necessarily a chronological account of what happened, but it also could be the fact that when God created Adam that it was to be viewed as His creating both male & female at that time—which is exactly what I believe was the case. Let me explain … You see, it was some time after this (how long we do not know) that God said that it was not good that man be alone (See Genesis 2:18). This resulted in God putting Adam into a deep sleep and drawing “woman” out of him. Most translations describe this as God taking one of Adam’s ribs, but the Hebrew word that is used, while it could certainly describe a physical rib, literally refers to the “side” of something or someone. And on a side note, let me tell you why I don’t believe it was Adam’s ribs: How on earth could a loving God ever take ribs away from a man? That wouldn’t be love, would it? I mean, have you ever had good ribs? They are awesome, so I just cannot see God taking a man’s ribs away from him. LOL! But all joking aside, here is my point: If man was created in God’s own image and likeness and then woman was taken from man, then wouldn’t that mean that “woman” also would have at least a portion of the image & likeness, the nature & characteristics of God? Sure, she would! She would also have a portion of the image and likeness of God too! So what this means then is—in and of himself, man does not fully represent the image and likeness of God. Only man and woman, when joined together in their perfection and God-instilled characteristics, fully represent the image and likeness of God! So this means that a man can only represent a portion of what God is like just as a woman cannot fully represent Him either. It is only when a man and a woman join together in one flesh that God can fully be personified. ONE FLESH On a side note, have you ever wondered why God gave us the institution of marriage? There are several different reasons for this, but I believe what we have just been talking about is one of those reasons—so that a man and woman can become one and full represent the character & nature of God. This revelation was birthed in me one day while Shannon and I were talking about one of the reasons God put us together: I was explaining to Shannon how she possesses certain traits and characteristics that I am not as strong in. So God put us together because He knows what He has called us to do and what we both needed in each other in order to perfectly complement each other for that calling. You see, man needs woman and woman needs man in order to be perfect and entire lacking nothing. Now of course this does not at all mean that God cannot make up for what one may lack in a mate. Our complete sufficiency is found in God alone! But as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 4:12— “A threefold cord is not easily broken.” It is the three cords of God, man, and woman when joined together that is not easily broken. God has to be involved in anything, including our marriages, in order for it to be successful, but the other two cords of husband and wife are part of the equation too. Husbands, your wives are vital to you being successful and fulfilling God’s plan and purpose for your life. And wives, your husbands likewise are vital to you as well. You see, men and women are different! If you do not know this already, then you have definitely never been married Marriage can offer a myriad of challenges because of the sole fact that men and women are just different. But that does not mean that men need to change and become more sensitive and emotional like women generally are. And it also does not mean that the woman needs to change and become more reason-oriented and less emotional like the man is. The remedy to these challenges is first of all recognizing and understanding these differences and then learning to appreciate and yield to them instead of change them. But back to my point of God having some of these characteristics that women have. Let’s look at a few scriptures that validate this truth about His Person … You see, there are, albeit just a few, feminine metaphors used to describe God in the Bible. So let me highlight a few of these maternal or motherly metaphors used to describe God in the Scriptures. MOTHER BIRD & MAMA BEAR One of the common images of God’s maternal side that we have in the Scriptures is Him as a mother bird sheltering her children under her wings. In fact, there are a lot of Scriptural references of this. Let’s look at a couple of them …
And because God loves us so, He will do what? He will do what that mother bird does for her young— He will carry His young, bring us to Himself, and hide us under the shadow of His wings! Another very familiar verse--Psalm 91:4—says, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge …” This points to the protective nature of mother bird to cover and hide her young from predators—all because she loves her chicks. We call this the nature of “mama bear”—which, in fact, is used to describe God in the Scriptures as well: In Hosea 13:8 we are told— “Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open,” says the Lord. Here, we see that the maternal instinct to protect the children can produce wrath as much as warmth. Beware of the protective instincts of a mother. Finally, let’s look at how Jesus picks up these images when he laments over Jerusalem: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” (See Matthew 23:37) Now one thing that is worth noting in all of these images and that we see clearly in Matthew 23:37 is how just because God’s nature is have that motherly protective instincts doesn’t automatically mean it’s going to happen for us. Notice how in Matthew, Jesus is speaking to Jerusalem, God’s chosen city of God’s chosen people. He is lamenting over the people of God, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! This describes the voice of God because the prophets and those sent to her were the ones coming to declare to them the Word of the Lord. Now we are quick to judge them and wonder how they could reject God’s messengers like this but how many of us do the same thing? Now we might not be rejecting a physical messenger but most of us reject the message that God speaks directly to us. When we are making a wrong decision or are headed down a wrong path and God’s still small voice speaks on the inside of us, “Don’t go there, Don’t say that, Let’s go another direction, etc.” what do we do? We try to suppress that inner voice because we don’t want to hear what He is saying. We want to go ahead and do what our flesh wants to do. We basically are stoning that still small voice when we do this which is essentially the same thing that Jerusalem did to the prophets sent to her. And what does Jesus go on to say? “How often I wanted to gather your children together…” If you were to ask your average Christian “Does God get what He wants?” your resounding answer would be— “Yes, of course He does!” But is that true? Does God get everything He wants? According to this Scripture, He often wanted to gather the children of Israel together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings! And based on the analogy we have just been using, this a picture of God’s protection. So He wanted to gather His people together under His protective covering- close to Him and free from all danger- but they were not willing! Now, again, was God willing? Yes! He wanted them under His wings! But they were not willing- proving to us that our will can override His will. And we have to know this is true when you see the majority of God’s church weak and powerless and living defeated, not turning the world upside down like the early church did. Friends, if we are not seeing what the early church did, then it is not God who changed; It is the church who is not willing. Amen? No, saints, God wants His church to be under the shadow of His wings. It is the church who rejects the still small voice of God and does its own thing. But not us! I said, not us! We are going to be those chicks that listen for that low clucking sound of the Master and stay hidden and sheltered under the protective wings of Almighty God! We are those who will learn to listen to that inner witness of the Holy Spirit and be led out of all temptation and, subsequently, delivered from all evil. For His is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen! But the fact is, God’s maternal nature is absolutely willing and desirous to protect & keep His children just like a mother will do what’s in her power to guard her children from harm. THE ALL BREASTY ONE But not only does a mother’s love protect; it also provides … We are familiar with the first name God was given in the Bible, El Shaddai, right? Most know this name to mean the “Almighty,” but it literally is defined as “the All Breasty One.” Now in their time, this described something beautiful & powerful—the all-sufficiency of a mother to provide nourishment for her children. So in their day, seeing God has the “All Breasty One” revealed that God gives “more than enough” provision to His children. And, oh, does God show this to be His nature throughout the Scriptures?! We see time and time again God has providing more than enough for His people, David saying in Psalm 23:5 He prepares a table before him in the presence of my enemies and his cup runs over. This shows God as having the heart of Martha in that He desires to feed and serve His children with abundance. So that nature that we see in many mothers to provide a good nourishing meal for their children is obviously God-instilled. In other words, mothers get that tendency from Love Himself. But like it was with the protective instincts of mama bird, the providing instincts are contingent on us receiving them. I’m thinking of one passage of Scripture that echoes this, and it’s found in Psalm 81:10. It says, “I am the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt; Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” We saw earlier in Exodus & Deuteronomy how the Lord described the deliverance of His people from the Egyptians as Him being that mother eagle who bore His people on His wings and brought them to himself. But notice how the Psalmist goes on to say, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” This describes how those little eaglets react to food being brought to them by mama eagle. Have you ever seen how baby birds respond to mama bird when she brings her young food? They open up their beaks as wide as they can, desiring mama to feed them. Well, this example from nature describes how one gets “fed” by the Lord. It comes through great desire and diligence. You’ve seen how a litter of puppies goes after their mommy’s tummy when it’s dinner time, right? It’s survival of the fittest in some respects. She doesn’t pick and choose who gets the best spot at the “table.” No, they choose! Likewise, we choose where and how much provision we receive from the maternal nature of our God. As the apostle Peter reveals to us in First Peter 2:2-3— “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” Church, this shows us how even with us humans, newborn babies show their hunger by how they cry out for their mama’s milk. So, again, it’s the desire. It’s opening our mouths as wide as we can so that we can get filled! Amen? THE HOLY HELPMATE Finally, let’s look at one last and very important part of God that points to His maternal nature—the Holy Spirit. You see, I see the Holy Spirit as sharing a lot of those maternal characteristics that we see in mothers. Let’s look at a few examples of this … The first is in God’s creation when we are given our first reference of the Holy Spirit--Genesis 1:2. In this verse, we are told how the Holy Spirit moved upon the face of the waters. This describes Him as brooding over the waters during creation like a hen ready to lay her eggs. And if you recall we see the same thing in the beginning of the New Testament where the angel answered Mary after she asked how she would bear a son that the Holy Spirit would overshadow her (similar to how He overshadowed the face of the waters in Genesis 1:2). Well, all of this shows the Holy Spirit’s similarities to a mother bird laying her eggs—which points us towards a role we see in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit plays. We are taught in the New Testament that just as the Holy Spirit was used to birth the original creation and form the Lord Jesus Christ in Mary’s bosom, He is the one who gives (re)birth to God’s children under this new & better covenant—for we are regenerated by Him. Yes, the Holy Spirit is the One who does the work of the new birth in our spirit when we call on the name of the Lord. So you could say that He is maternal side of God in being the One who gives us our life. Sticking with Genesis, did you know that Adam & Eve both typified many things. One is that Eve was called a “helper,” and we know what the Holy Spirit is referred to in our New Testament—the Helper. So I see the Holy Spirit as representing some of the more common feminine qualities & characteristics. This is borne out in other verses of the New Testament that describe Him with some more “emotional” traits— We are told that He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30), how He can be jealous (James 4:5), etc. And while these emotional tendencies are not exclusive to women, they are said to be more prominent in them. You see, many people think that being emotional is not spiritual, but God gave us our emotions. Therefore, emotions are of God. The problem is that too many people are led by their emotions, but I digress. The fact is, there is a lot that points towards the Holy Spirit bearing a lot of those maternal characteristics of the Godhead. And we need to understand just how valuable those are to us receiving God’s love. Yes, just as it is not good that man be alone, it is not good that we only receive the paternal, masculine traits of love in our lives. We need the Helper to perfect our understanding of God’s love. Amen.
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Currently, we are on a series that I have entitled “God Loves You!” where we are camping on the subject of God’s love for us. I’ve given this series this title because it is so important that we let it sink into our hearts that God doesn’t just love us but that He loves YOU and ME.
You see, it is easy to gravitate towards believing that God loves all of us without it ever dawning on us that God loves each of us individually. In other words, He’s not just all about His overall plan and things that pertain to His kingdom’s cause; He actually cares about you as an individual and loves you personally. I’ve found that this is where the real disconnect is with a lot of people—they can believe the truth that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, but they never come to realize that God so loved them that He gave us Jesus. This is where receiving His love for us individually comes in—which is what this teaching is designed to do. Yes, I believe the Lord wants you to know today that He loves YOU! He came for YOU! He died for YOU! He rose for YOU! It was all for YOU! As we started off talking about in this series, this is what is important for us to both “know” and “believe.” We talked about how the Bible’s use of “knowing” is different than the way we use it in the world today. In the Bible, “knowing” something is to have an experiential and intimate knowledge of something. So, we need to have an experiential knowledge of His love for us to where our hearts have been impacted by it and we haven’t just mentally accented to some fact. We made the point that while many Christians might claim they know God loves them, what most have done is simply mentally accented to the fact God loves us. In other words, they have come to agree with some facts that they have heard or read, but how many of you know that there’s a big difference between knowing something in our heads and experiencing it in our hearts? But we saw how it is also important that we believe the love that God has for us. So what this means is that while it is great that we come to experience the love that God has for us, there is also a place for believing in this love whether we ever experience it or not. In other words, while God definitely wants us to experience His love, we need to avoid gravitating towards needing to feel it or have any other evidence of it in our lives. That is not when we are to come to believe the love God has for us. We learned that the reason this is important for us to understand is because what so many Christians want is other manifestations of His love for them—like financial, emotional, or physical provision. However, this is not the primary way that God has chosen to manifest His love. Sure, He has promised to provide for us and heal our bodies, etc., but these are not meant to be the manifestation of His love that we look to; only the Cross is! In other words, the only evidence of His love that we need is the giving of God’s only begotten Son. And this is how God chose to manifest how much He loves us. But there are many who want God to prove His love for them, basing His love for us on their circumstances. Saints, the only proof we need that God loves each and every one of us is the fact that He gave us His Son. The disciple whom Jesus loved said that this is the manifestation of God’s love for us (See First John 4:9). It’s not our circumstances or our situation. It’s the Cross, and the Cross alone. But like we learned a couple of weeks ago, even though our circumstances & situations shouldn’t be things we base God’s love for us on, the fact is with most people, they do. And the reason for this is because of what the vast majority of people believe about God’s “sovereignty.” So we dispelled a lot of popular theology out there about who God is and how He operates because this is one of the greatest obstacles to understanding God’s love for us. You see, if I believe that God is the One who is “in control” of all that happens in my life, including the bad things, then how am I going to believe He loves me? Sure, someone might say, “That’s because in His love for you, he knows what’s best for you”, but is that true? It’s certainly not true in this world we live in. There is no parent who throws their children to the wolves because they love them. So let’s not overcomplicate this whole thing: If God is love and He is good, let’s give ourselves enough credit to know what is good and what is bad, what love looks like and what it doesn’t look like. And last week, the Holy Spirit led me to share a testimony of how He taught me about how faithful His love is. It was powerful and it was a great example of how it doesn’t matter how far gone we think we are, God’s love is the most faithful kind of love that there is! Church, God IS LOVE and He IS GOOD, and we need to understand that. Then and only then, can we know and believe the love God has for us! Amen? SO LOVED THE WORLD So this week, let’s look at a very popular & powerful Scripture that most of us in here are very familiar with—John 3:16. Now even though we might have heard many sermons on this verse and can even maybe quote it—that doesn’t mean we “know” it. My prayer today is that the Holy Spirit will reveal the wonderful truths contained therein and help us to see God’s love in a special way through it. Now this verse describes His great love for us that motivated all He did for us in Christ Jesus, but I want us to begin in the couple of verses before because I believe they give us better insight into what Jesus said in the 16th verse … John 3:14-16 reads — “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Now we know what happened in the wilderness, don’t we? The people became impatient and began to speak against God and Moses. And when they did this, the Lord sent venomous snakes that began killing the people. So when the people asked Moses to plead with the Lord to take the snakes away, God told Moses to make a snake and put in on a pole so that everyone who was bit could look on it and live. So here Jesus is showing us that this bronze serpent that was lifted up and put on a pole was a type of Christ who would be lifted up on the Cross. What’s interesting to me is that here in John chapter 3, Jesus equates “believing” with the “looking” that we see in this story. So evidently, a big part of believing is what you are looking at. You see, the children of Israel were simply told to look at that bronze serpent if they had been bitten and they would live. Here, Jesus says that we must believe on what Jesus would do for us on that “pole” in order to have eternal life. So where our focus and attention are set is obviously a big part of faith. Now what I find interesting about that story in Numbers is how guilty the children of Israel were, yet God provided a means for salvation from the serpents. In other words, they were ungodly and deserved judgment, yet God heeded the intercession of their high priest, Moses, and offered them a way for mercy. Well, that echoes something I see in John 3:16 that I’d like us to highlight about God’s love for us! Again, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” So Jesus starts off by saying, “For God so loved the world …” Now it would have been enough for Jesus to tell us that God loved the world, but He went as far as saying that He SO loved it. You know, we can go around saying that we love our spouse, we love our kids, we love coffee, we love pizza, etc. We throw all of those same things under the same category that we call “love”, but do you know how one might differentiate their love for one thing from another? They might say, “I so love” this or that. What are the things that you so love? Well, I’d imagine it would be the people or things that are on a completely different level than the other stuff you like or enjoy, right? I’m sure there’s certain foods that we love but others that we “so love.” We might say, “we love Chinese food” but we “really” love Italian. Then there’s certainly people that we love but others that we “so love.” Like we might say we love a certain friend, but we “dearly” love our child or grandchild. These are the ways that we might differentiate a general level of love for something or someone and a more special level of love. So God “so loved” you like you really love your most treasured thing and like you dearly love the most precious person in your life. But here’s a big difference between God’s love and ours—Jesus said that He so loved the “world.” So what did Jesus mean by the “world.” What is the “world”? Was He talking about this planet? No, of course, we know that Jesus was not just talking about the earth itself—although His sacrifice did pay for the redemption of this physical world we live in as well. The Greek word for “world” is the word kosmos and describes this world in a wide & narrow sense. It can describe this planet and the universe around it (i.e., the physical world we live in), and it can also describe the inhabitants of this world and the things which concern us. Now we know that all of these things that kosmos describes were thrown into a cursed, sinful state through the sin of Adam, right? This is when death entered in, which is why everything physical & natural is passing away. It’s why every physical inhabitant of this world and why the earth itself are destined to die. But again, this condition of the world is not because we are without fault—for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is none good, none righteous. We are all guilty and worthy of condemnation & damnation. Yet this “world” is what God so loved! In other words, He didn’t so love a world that was perfect, that loved Him in return, and was worthy of that love. No, God so loved the very creation that rejected Him, sinned against Him, and was following the flesh & satan. That’s who & what God “really, dearly” loves. Amen! What this means for you and I is that God’s love for us is not based on merit. It’s not determined by us. It’s solely based on the way God feels about us—even in our fallen, sinful state. Thank You, Jesus! And what makes this Gospel even “Gospelier” is that God so loved His creation that had become wicked & corrupt that it motivated Him to do something … John 3:16 goes on to say that God so loved the world “that He gave His only begotten Son …” So God—because He loved us so much—gave His very best, most prized thing, described as His “only begotten Son.” So I want you to see this: God so loved the place & people who certainly did not deserve it, who were lost & enemies of their Creator and destined to die for our sin, that He gave us the most precious thing that He could ever have given us, His only Son, so that we could live together with Him. Now that’s love, church! That’s the greatest example of love that you will ever find! NOT ONLY THAT Now let’s look over at Romans chapter 5 because I believe the apostle Paul describes all of these things best there … Romans 5:1-11 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” So the apostle Paul starts off by saying, “Therefore, having been justified by faith …” As I like to say, when you see the word “therefore,” you need to find out what it’s “there-for.” And in this case, I see this statement as being a summary of what he had been teaching in the previous two chapters. Yes, in Romans chapters 3 & 4, Paul was attempting to explain to this body of believers how righteousness never could come by the law but could only be obtained by faith. (I’d encourage you to study these two chapters in depth in your own time as they are critical to our faith). So when Paul said here, “having been justified by faith,” he is establishing the truth of how one is now made righteous in the sight of God—by faith in the Lord Jesus. Then he goes on to say, “(Therefore) we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now the “peace” that is being spoken of here is not to be confused with the peace of God. This is referring to peace with God. That describes the peace we have with our Heavenly Father and our Creator. In other words, “through our Lord Jesus Christ” God is not mad with us. There’s no longer a great divide between us and our Creator. Why? Because the sin issue has been taken care of through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. Not only that, but Paul goes to describe that “through whom (Jesus) also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Glory to God, in Christ Jesus, we also have access by this faith into this grace in which we stand! Now to have “access” denotes favor. Say we were to give you a key and alarm code to the church building, then you have “access” right? Well, that obviously means you are trusted by us, that you are important to us, etc. So if we have “access” into this grace in which we now stand, that means God trusts & values us. We have great opportunity & responsibility in Christ! So do you see where this is going? Regarding the grace that we’ve received in Christ Jesus, it’s one thing on top of another. We’ve been justified! We have peace with God! We have access into this grace! Yes, we’ve received all these things and so much more through our Lord Jesus Christ! Glory to the Lord! Speaking of glory, we also can rejoice in our hope of God’s glory that is to come! I’ll tell you, church, we have a lot to be thankful for in Christ Jesus! There’s so much that we have received, are receiving, and have to look forward to receiving. Then in verses 4-5, Paul says, “And not only that …” as in, “But wait! There’s more!” However, in these next two verses, he begins talking about the grace that is found in trials and tribulations when he said, “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” You see, church, there is even grace found in the difficult times. Why? Because we have the opportunity to grow spiritually through natural/physical adversity. So even in tribulations, we have reasons to rejoice—because of the perseverance, character, and hope they can produce in us. And how did all of this grace get provided for us? Through the great love that God so loved us with! Amen! In other words, all of these wonderful & amazing things that have been provided for us in Christ, were given in the giving of His only begotten Son. And what motivated Him to give us Jesus? It was how He “so loved” the world. Which is the point Paul went on to make in verse 5: Romans 5:5 says, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Now I will come back to this verse at the end, but one thing that is noteworthy about this verse is that it is obviously referring to God’s love for us. Yes, this is the love of God that the Holy Spirit has poured out in our hearts. The reason I know this is because of what Paul goes on to say in the following verses … Verses 6-11 say, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” Wow! There are some powerful truths contained in these verses! Let’s look at them … The apostle starts off in verse 6 by saying, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” The words “without strength” describe those who are weak, infirmed, and feeble, and saints, this was most definitely all of our conditions before we met Christ. We were powerless to help ourselves (as one translation says), we were sick in need of a physician, and we were too feeble to walk without Him. So when we were in this helpless, weak, and infirmed condition, Paul says, “in due time” Christ died for the ungodly. That means “at the right time.” On a side note, the thing we can learn from this is that when we were at the end of our rope, at our weakest moment, that’s the “due time” for Christ to show up on the scene and help us. So if you are nearing the end of yourself and just don’t feel like you can do it any longer and have no more strength, then rejoice—because that’s the “right time” for Christ to give you the power & strength that you need. Amen! Well, in this case, who was it that was “without strength”? It was the ungodly! This is who Christ died for! It wasn’t for those who were okay or not as bad as others. No, it was for the pure, unadulterated “ungodly” person. This is what God did in His love—He died for the ungodly! This is what Paul goes on to further explain in the following verses … Verse 7 goes on to say, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.” The word “scarcely” describes “barely, rarely, or hardly.” So this shows how even for a person who is considered righteous (i.e., a good, moral person who does right by people) will hardly ever find someone to die for them. But Paul goes on to describe how a person who is considered to be a good person will not have too many people who would dare to die for them either. So in this world, we will hardly ever see someone lay down their life for a good or righteous person outside of a person who is physically related to them. And that’s the point—in this world, you will be hard pressed to find that kind of love—one willing to die for someone else, even a person who is considered to be a person worth dying for. But as Paul goes on to say in verse 8— “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Have you ever thought about this? Christ did not die for us when we were at our best; He died for us when we were at our worst. It was when we were sinners, not when we were righteous. So if He loved us enough to die for us when we were sinners, then I wonder what His love will do for those who at least desire to love Him in return. But that’s the way most of us think, isn’t it? If I could just love God more and be more a good & righteous person, maybe God would love me in return. No, that’s not how it works. The truth we have revealed to us here is that God demonstrated the kind of love He has for us by sending Christ to die for us when we were still sinners. Glory to God! In verse 9, he goes on to say, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” I love this “Much more then” phrase! He’s using a brilliant argument to show that if Christ would dare to die for us when we were still sinners, then there’s “much more” we expect Him to do for us through that same love! And in this case, it is this— “having now be justified (or made righteous) by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” In other words, if He loved us enough to die for us when we were lost in sin, then how much more can we expect Him to save us from the wrath of God that is to come? Church, how many good, well-meaning Christians fear the judgment that is to come? They are terrified that they haven’t done enough and are in danger of being judged. But do you know what the Bible teaches us about the wrath of God? It teaches us that it’s not aimed at the redeemed. It’s not targeting those who are justified. No, the wrath of God is reserved for those who have rejected Jesus and the salvation He purchased for us. Isaiah chapter 54:4-10 shows us what God’s covenant of peace, purchased by the blood of Jesus, looks like: It says, “‘For your Maker is your husband, The Lord of hosts is His name; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth. For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused,’ says your God. ‘For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,’ says the Lord, your Redeemer. ‘For this is like the waters of Noah to Me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has mercy on you.” Church, this chapter follows what Jesus was going to do for us on the Cross! So this is the result of our new & better covenant, called here our “covenant of peace.” Praise the Lord! Then in verse 10, we see Paul continuing to make his argument-- “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Here, Paul clarifies what we were when we were “sinners” & “ungodly.” He says here that we were God’s “enemies.” Wow, that puts a different spin on the way we view the ungodly sinner, doesn’t it? We all were once God’s enemies. Yet, through His great love, Jesus died for us and reconciled us to God! This is that covenant of peace referred to in Isaiah chapter 54—the gospel of reconciliation where you and I now have peace with God through what Jesus did for us on the Cross. Furthermore (or as Paul said, “much more”), having been reconciled to God (which denotes we are no longer enemies, but at peace with Him), we shall be saved by His life. This “life” spoken of here is the resurrection life He experienced, so Paul’s point is that if we experienced reconciliation with God through Jesus’ death, what we can we expect to receive through His life is even more evidence of Christ’s love! Then Paul says again, “But wait! There’s more!” by saying, “And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” So now we are back to rejoicing: Earlier Paul said that we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Then he said we rejoice in tribulations. Now he said we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ! Why do we rejoice in God through the Lord Jesus? It’s because He so loved us enough to send Jesus for us! Thank You, Father! YIELDING TO HIS LOVE But in conclusion, I want to draw your attention back to verse 5 where Paul says that the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit … Saints, what a glorious promise we have here! That means that all of us who have been born again & filled with His Holy Spirit have resident in our hearts God’s amazing love for us! So it’s the Holy Spirit who helps us to experience the love of God. Now the term “poured out” is used in other places to describes how Jesus’ blood was poured out for us, how the bowls of God’s wrath will be poured out during the tribulation, and even how the Holy Spirit Himself will be poured out on all flesh under this new & better covenant. So let’s look at this latter example of “pouring out” because I believe it shows how you and I can experience more of God’s love in our lives: When the Holy Spirit is poured out on us in what we call the baptism of the Holy Spirit or being filled with the Holy Spirit, does this mean that He just takes charge in our lives and starts making us do things in our lives? Of course not! The Holy Spirit is the perfect gentleman, so even though He takes abode in us, we must yield to Him. We must be led by Him. And we must learn to follow His directions. Amen? Well then, it’s to be understood that if this is the way it is with the One who has been poured out on us, then it must be similar with the thing that He pours out in us—the love of God. Amen? Yes, church, we must yield to and be led by the love God has put in us like we yield to and are led by the Spirit. You see, some of us have never learned how to yield to certain aspects of God. It’s there. It’s available. But it must be submitted to and learned to be led by. And it’s definitely that way with God’s love too. We must learn to receive, submit, and yield to that love in our hearts. Then, and only then, can we begin to experience it in our lives. I’ll tell you—I am thankful for the infilling of the Holy Spirit, but it wasn’t until I learned how to be led by Him and how to yield to Him that I started experiencing all the fruit He was meant to produce in my life. Likewise, I believe that we need to learn similar things about the love God has for us so that we can experience all the fruit of His love. So for a couple of weeks now, we have been looking at what I consider to be the single-greatest truth we can ever have revealed to us—God’s amazing love for us. And church, I want you to know today that this subject is oh so very important to your life! If you need healing in your body, you need to know God loves you! If you need God to meet some financial/material need in your life, you need to know God loves you! If you desire to simply grow in God and become the Christian you are called to be, you need to know God loves you!
Saints, it is all wrapped up in knowing His deep, passionate love that He has for us! Once we are rooted and grounded in His love, our lives can be built on this foundation and brick by brick we can see the fruit of God’s promises manifest in our lives! Amen! The reason I say this is because the very virtue that we use to receive any & everything from God—faith—is said to “work by love” (See Galatians 5:6). The word “work” is where we get our word “energy” from, so if our faith is “energized” by love then it’s going to be hard for our faith to have any power without knowing we are loved, right? Therefore, we aren’t going to be able to receive much from God, not having energized faith. So this is why I say knowing & believing God’s love for us is so vital—because it is the foundation of our faith and us receiving everything He has for us. Amen? Now over the first two weeks of this series, I have talked about the importance of knowing & believing the love that God has for us. So let’s quickly review these very important foundations of God’s love … REVIEW We made the point that while many Christians might claim they know God loves them, what most have done is simply mentally accented to the fact God loves us. In other words, they have come to agree with some facts that they have heard or read, but how many of you know that there’s a big difference between knowing something in our heads and experiencing it in our hearts? Like where I used the illustration of three kinds of knowing last week—there’s the knowing of someone like we might know about a certain famous person, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we know them. Then there’s someone who is a friend that we have spent time with and have come to know. We definitely know that person much more than we know someone whom we’ve never even met. But then there’s the knowing someone like spouses know one another, where they share the same roof, the same bed, and so many other things. That is the intimate kind of “knowing” that is available to you and me when it comes to knowing Love Himself. So we looked at a few passages of Scripture that talk about this intimate, experiential kind of knowing of His love and saw how this kind of knowledge of His love is not taught; rather, it is caught. This was what he called “knowing the love of Christ that passes knowledge”—that is, experiencing the love that you would never be able to fully understand. But then last time, we looked at how it is not just important that we know His love in this way; we also need to believe the love that God has for us. I made the point that next to the “knowing” of God’s love, this is a huge issue in the body of Christ. People do not truly believe that God loves them. Again, they might say they believe that He loves them, but look at their fruit. There is a big difference between believing that He loves us in our head and believing He loves us in our heart. Faith of the heart produces a change in our life. This is the place we all need to desire to get to concerning the love of God—knowing and believing the love God has for us. So what this means is that it is great that we come to experience the love that God has for us, but there is also the place where we believe in this love whether we ever experience it or not. In other words, while God definitely wants us to experience His love, we need to avoid gravitating towards needing to feel it or have any other evidence of it in our lives. That is not when we are to come to believe the love God has for us. There is only one manifestation of His love that we need, and that needs to settle it for us, and that’s the giving of His Son. The reason this is important for us to understand is because what so many Christians want is other manifestations of His love for them—like financial, emotional, or physical provision. However, this is not the primary way that God has chosen to manifest His love. Sure, He has promised to provide for us and heal our bodies, etc., but these are not meant to be the manifestation of His love that we look to; only the Cross is! In other words, the only evidence of His love that we need is the giving of God’s only begotten Son. Again, this is how God chose to manifest how much He loves us. I also made the point that another reason why I feel this is important for us to realize is because the devil likes to tempt us to doubt God’s love for us when our circumstances are not favorable. And too many believers take this bait by basing God’s love for them on the situations and circumstances that occur in their lives. For instance, if a tragedy or disaster occurs in certain Christian’s lives, they begin to question whether God really loves them or not. But what they need to understand is that our circumstances are not in any way a reflection of God’s love for us! How many times have we heard—when someone has suffered a tragedy or something that they needed did not come to pass in their life—that they do not feel God loves them? This is one of the greatest devices satan uses in our hardships—bringing into question God’s love. This should not be so, saints! We looked at the example of Abraham and his willingness to give His only begotten son, and how God knew that He feared Him because of His willingness to sacrifice Isaac for Him. We learned from this that we should likewise know that God loves us since He did not withhold His Son, His only begotten Son, from us! In other words, we should know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves us and will provide us with everything we need—spirit, soul, and body—simply because He gave us Jesus! Hallelujah! You see, there are many who want God to prove His love for them, basing His love for us on their circumstances. Saints, the only proof we need that God loves each and every one of us is the fact that He gave us His Son. The disciple whom Jesus loved said that this is the manifestation of God’s love for us (See First John 4:9). It’s not our circumstances or our situation. It’s the Cross, and the Cross alone. SOVERIEGN LOVE But the fact is, even though our circumstances & situations shouldn’t be things we base God’s love for us on, with most people, they do. And the reason for this is because of what the vast majority of people believe about the Almighty and His “sovereignty.” You see, there is the common belief about God that if He is God, then He is the Creator of all things. Yes, and as the Creator, He is the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent One. This means that He is the All-Powerful, All-Knowing, and All-Present God of universe. Therefore, God is the top of the food chain and the One that is, in fact, “Sovereign.” And you know what? All of this is absolutely true, and just about every true Christian would and should agree to all of these things I just said about the One True and Living God. The problem is, however, in how people then assume God does or does not do things in light of His sovereignty. Let me explain: Most people believe that because God has all the power, then He can do anything He wants. Yes, if He is the Almighty, then nothing enters our life that He has not allowed. Therefore, if something does or does not happen, then it must be because God decided not to do something about it. And this is, therefore, where doctrines come from that say God “allows’ certain things to happen because of His higher purpose—because after all, His ways are above our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts. These belief systems say things like God is in control and that everything that enters our life has passed through the hands of God and happened because of either His perfect will or His permissive will. Now, church, before I go any further, I need to go ahead and tell you that the things I am going to tell you today, you might have never heard before. In fact, some of these truths might be a shock to your religious nervous system because these sacred cows of Christianity are ones that many hold near and dear. But its high time that we BBQ these sacred cows so that we can understand the truth about God’s nature and His love for us. Amen? So turn to your neighbor and ask them, “Are you ready for some BBQ?” You might be wondering what does this have to do with receiving God’s love for us? I believe it has a lot to do with it. In fact, I believe one of the greatest obstacles to understanding God’s love for us is the misunderstanding of who He is and how He operates. Let me share with you a couple of examples: Say there is a young boy who had a father who was diagnosed with cancer. The boy is deathly afraid of losing his dad that he loves so dearly, so he, being brought up in church, starts praying every night for God to please heal his dad. Well, after a long fight with the cancer, his father passes away. The boy, already dealing with so many emotions from losing his dad, begins to question God with things like “Why didn’t You heal my dad?” Then at his father’s funeral, their pastor makes comments like— “Well, I guess God needed him in heaven more than we needed him here” and so “God decided to take him.” The boy then becomes very confused and angry thinking, “How could God possibly need him in heaven more than I need him here? Why would God take my father away from me?” Or how about this example … There is a young girl who goes over to her cousin’s house for the weekend, and while she is there she is abused by an extended family member. She, believing in God, wonders why He would let that happen to her. Why didn’t He intervene, she asks herself? She then becomes very bitter with God for what she believed was Him letting her be violated like that because in her heart she believed that God could have done something so He must have let that happen to her. Church, these two examples I’ve just given you are things that have actually happened, and there are countless other examples out there like this that have wounded people. They are also things that make it confusing to people who have gone through situations like this when they are told that God “loves” them—because, in their mind, if God loved them, then He wouldn’t have let situations like this happen to them. So it’s hard for people to receive God’s love when they think that He allows all of the evil that happens to them. So, this is why I see one of the main reasons people struggle with receiving God’s love is their misguided belief in His sovereignty. Yes, in their believing He is responsible for all the bad things that happen in the world, they cannot understand how He can love us if He causes/allows all of these bad things. And you know what? If God truly is the One responsible for all of the evil and bad that happens in our lives, then it would be hard to accept that He is love because, after all, why would love do that? I mean, you don’t do things to hurt & harm people you love, do you? In fact, why don’t you go and purposely share your cold/flu with your friends that you love and get them sick and then see if they “felt the love”? No, they would actually question your love for them by asking, “Why would you do that? I thought you loved me?” But, church, that’s exactly what the majority of Christianity accuse God of, even though the Bible explicitly declares to us that GOD IS LOVE. No, love does not do things to subtract life; Love is always willing to give abundant life! But the question that needs to be answered then is— If God is love, then why do these bad things happen and why doesn’t God stop them? Well, first of all, there are multiple reasons why bad things happen—for one, we have an enemy out there who has come to steal, kill, and destroy. This might be obvious to some of us, but to much of the church, there is a lot of ignorance over the fact that the devil is real and is responsible for a lot that goes on in this world. Again, they believe that God is the One bringing everything into their life, but that’s not true! You see, in the example of Job, there was an unseen & unknown culprit behind all of Job’s afflictions, satan. From his perspective, it was the Lord who took his children, his possessions, and his health from him. But from our perspective, we see in Job chapter one that it was the devil who brought all these calamities on him. I wonder how many Christians have been in Job’s shoes. No, not in his shoes from the standpoint of what he went through, but in his shoes in how he was ignorant concerning the source of his problems. You see, you’d have to add to the Bible to say Job knew it was Satan who brought all this suffering on him. Likewise, I don’t think the majority of the church knows this either. I believe most attribute everything to God, but the truth of the matter is that the devil is responsible for some things, and its not rocket science to figure out what those things are. It’s things that are NOT GOOD, things that steal from us, attempt to kill us, and are aimed at destroying us. Amen? This is how James was able to say that we are to submit ourselves unto God and resist the devil (See James 4:7). We are only able to know what to submit to and what to resist IF we know what comes from God and what comes from the devil. So, yes, the devil is largely responsible for a lot of the evil we see happening in the world, but contrary to that statement you might have heard—"the devil made me do it”—the devil CANNOT just do whatever he wants to do. He has to have a person who will cooperate with him (and we will learn why here shortly). So a lot of what happens in the world around us is due to flesh—that is, that fallen, sinful nature in people who yield to the enemy’s will and choose the curse & death. Which is exactly what happened in the beginning, and that’s why we have the curse present on this earth, which creates so many of the bad things we have in the world around us. So there are several reasons why bad things happen that show that it’s not all up to God and prove that He is the not the source of them. Yet there are books trying to explain this very thing. One popular title is “Why do bad things happen to good people.” Well, the truth is that bad things don’t happen to good people. Why? Because the Bible teaches us that there is none good! If you recall, when Jesus was called “Good” by the rich young ruler, He responded by saying, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.” (See Matthew 19:17). In Romans 3:12, the apostle Paul said, “There is none who does good, no, not one.” So I think it’s crystal clear that God doesn’t consider any human being “good” when being compared to Him. Now if we compare ourselves among other people, we might be relatively good. But others are not our standard. God is the standard! So standing next to Him, no, there is certainly no one who should be put in the same category as His goodness. How many of you know that was another mistake that Job made? It was when he didn’t understand why all of those bad things were happening to him, his self-righteousness started accusing God of wrong doing – basically exalting his own character above God’s character. And church, that’s bad. But we do this same thing all the time – saying that so and so was a good person, why did this happen to them. The truth is, we ALL deserve bad things to happen to us when it comes to who we are in the flesh. We all make poor choices, fall short of the glory of God, and are inherently “evil.” Matthew 7:9-11 says, “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Now Jesus was not calling us “evil” here from the standpoint of who we are compared to other evil people on this planet. He is obviously comparing us to the goodness of God. In comparison to God’s goodness, I am, in fact, evil (that is, in my flesh). But His point was, if I am evil in comparison to God’s goodness, and I know how to give good gifts to my children, then how much more will my Heavenly Father give good gifts to me when I ask Him? You see, I am not going to give my son a stone or scorpion when he is hungry. No, I will meet His needs and give him the desires of his heart, not give him something that’s harsh and harmful. But again, God’s people have accused Him of this, haven’t they? We’ve said things like – “God gave me this cancer to teach me something” or “God took so and so to heaven because He needed them there more I needed them here.” All kinds of stuff people believe about God and it’s just not true. I said, God is not the source of our tragedies, suffering, etc. And the reason I can say this so matter of “factly” is because GOD IS LOVE, and love doesn’t do that to the objects of its love. Amen? So the answer to that proverbial question—why do bad things happen and why doesn’t God stop them—is simple. It’s because we live in a sin cursed and fallen world—a world that is under the sway of Satan—and this is due to the fact that because God, in His sovereignty, gave the earth to mankind. THE EARTH IS OURS You see, Psalm 115:16 says, “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; But the earth He has given to the children of men.” What this verse is saying is that “heaven”—where God dwells—is His domain and where He rules. And this is the reason that heaven is perfect, to where there’s no death, suffering, or imperfection of any kind. It’s because this is God’s sphere of authority and His domain. Yes, heaven is where God has control. However, here on the earth, we are living in a world that is far from perfection, right? We have all kinds of injustices and so much suffering present on the earth including sickness & disease, and poverty & lack. And do you know why these things exist on the earth. It’s not because God is in control of the earth; it’s because man is in control of it. This should be easily understood because look at the mess that has been created since the beginning of time. God doesn’t create messes. He creates things in perfection & beauty. No, all of the death, destruction, suffering, etc. that we experience on this earth is not because God willed it. Ultimately, it’s because we willed it. Perhaps not you and I, but mankind as a whole is who has allowed the imperfections that we see in this world we live in. It’s tight but it’s right. This is what the psalmist said in the second half of this verse—that the earth He has given to the sons of men. That means that the authority over the things that happen on this planet are in mankind’s control. Now this planet does still have plenty of beauty left in it. But compared to the way God created it in the beginning, the earth is not in the same condition. And that is because of the sin we allowed in it in the Garden of Eden. That’s where this downward spiral began to where the earth was corrupted and lost much of its luster. Might we use the comparison of a new car: You know, when we get a new vehicle, the paint is perfect, the interior is flawless, and the new car smell is awesome! But the longer we own it, the less “perfect” it becomes. That new car smell eventually goes away. The exterior & interior doesn’t look the way it did when we drove it off the lot. That’s simply because we now own it and it’s now being driven in this world we live in where everything is corruptible, defiled, and fading away. So, the truth is, the reason why our new car lost that new car smell was because we stunk it up. However, the apostle Peter speaks of an inheritance awaiting us that is “incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven” for us (see First Peter 1:4). And the reason things are that way in heaven is because of this truth—that the heavens are the Lord’s domain. We see this in the ministry of Jesus—how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (see Acts 10:38)—and when He sent His disciples out to do the same, He had them tell the people that the kingdom of God had come near to them. Why? It was because when people get healed, delivered, blessed, etc. by the Lord, that is a manifestation of God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. In other words, that’s how things are there! Amen! So, my point is that the reason things here on the earth don’t completely mirror the way things are in heaven is because God is not the One in control of the earth. Now that might run completely contrary to some people’s belief system, but I challenge you to look at it from this perspective of the psalmist—that the heavens are the Lord’s but the earth He has given to the sons of men. Therefore, the earth has become what mankind has allowed it to become. This is through our choices that we’ve made, both in the natural and in the spiritual. For example, if we choose to pollute our planet, we can destroy it from the outside in. If we choose sin and it abounds, that can even destroy earth from the inside out. WHO HAS THE CONTROL? Friends, so many Christians believe that if someone gets blessed, it was the Lord’s prerogative to bless them. On the other hand, if someone experiences a tragedy in their life, it was part of God’s purpose for them as well. These also believe that if someone dies prematurely, then the Lord took them. All of these things that the church believes and says indicate something that I firmly believe is a lie from the pit of hell. You see, all of these Christian clichés that say things like “God is in control” basically are saying that everything that happens in our lives—whether good or bad—is all a part of God’s plan for us. They indicate that the mindset is present that everything that we experience in life has somehow passed through the hands of God. And this is simply not true. Now please do not take this the wrong way: With the things I am saying here, I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty or condemned who has had any of these negative experiences and has incurred loss in their life. My heart goes out to those who have experienced hurts like these. But in spite of our experiences, we need to learn what the Bible has to say about these things so that we will not believe a lie and can be equipped to change the things we experience in the future. Amen? Take a child for example: We like to say that children are gifts from God, that He has blessed us with these children. Well, how many of you know that the parents had something to do with that little blessing? Yeah, that’s right! They cooperated with a little law in nature about how children are conceived, didn’t they? And I know there are people out there that do not practice the various methods of “not trying to get pregnant,” just believing that God will give them as many children as He wants to. Well, I think it is interesting that all of those people have more children than the average family, don’t they? So, unless the husband and wife have something preventing them from having children, they are going to have a bunch of children unless they do something to lessen those odds. So, my point is—there are laws and principles that God has set up in this natural world that if you do not abide by them, you will reap the fruit from the seeds sown. Well, if it is this way in the natural (and it is), then we would be foolish to think that it is not that way in the spiritual things as well - for God has set this natural realm to mirror the spiritual realm. Saints, we need to understand that there are spiritual laws and principles that God has set up, and He is not in the business of superseding these laws and being the great puppeteer in the sky—controlling and manipulating everything that happens here. Sure, there are times that He does suspend natural laws and performs what we call “miracles,” but this is the exception and not the rule. And the truth that I want us to begin to see this week is the truth of our authority in Christ—because I am here to tell you, church, God is not the one who is in control of everything that happens on this earth. He is not picking and choosing people to bless, heal, deliver, etc. any more than He is picking and choosing the people who will be saved. No, just like it is in salvation where we must call on the name of the Lord and confess Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior in order to be saved, we must operate according to the other principles of God’s kingdom in order to experience the fruit of God’s kingdom. So if this planet is given to us and we are the ones who are in control of it, then this should answer all of those questions like “why is there so much death & suffering?” It’s because we allowed it, not God. Now of course this all started in the Garden, didn’t it? God gave the authority over the earth to Adam in the beginning let him have dominion over the rest of creation and to subdue Eden. But of course, we know what happened. Eve was deceived, Adam partook of the fruit with her, and sin, death, and the curse entered into this world. But have you ever wondered why God didn’t stop this from happening—because if there was ever a situation the Lord would intervene in and stop, it would be this one, right? Undoubtedly, this was the worst thing any person ever did to another in the history of mankind, right, because Adam’s sin caused every sickness, disease, death, tragedy, etc. So I believe we can see that if God is not going to Personally stop that from happening, then He’s not going to Personally stop other things from happening. Now He does make efforts to stop these tragedies. He does this by speaking to our hearts, leading us by His Spirit, etc., but unfortunately, we don’t always listen, obey, or pick up on what He is leading us to do. This is oftentimes when these bad things do happen. But on the other hand, there are times where God does get through to us and helps us avoid these tragedies. One example I can’t help but think about is the 9/11 tragedy of the world trade center. We are told that the world trade center was a lot emptier on 9/11 on that day than usual, and people who didn’t show up that day that normally would have been there said things like their alarm never went off in the morning or they just didn’t feel good about going in on that day. Additionally, we learned that there were a lot of people all over the world who were awakened the evening before and felt led to pray, not knowing why or what for. So that’s an example of how God works to try and prevent certain tragedies, and the answer to the question of why does He do it that way is because that’s the way He has set things up. Again, the earth is ours. We have a free will. And if we will work together with Him, we can experience His protection, blessing, and providence. But the fact is, most don’t do this, and we become much more susceptible to the bad things that surround us on this planet. Amen? EVERY GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT So, I am here to tell you that everything that comes into your life is not necessarily God’s will for you! No, LOVE’S will for you is life and life more abundantly! He only desires your good, and that’s because He is good. James 1:13 says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.” What James was saying is that we should never say God is the direct or indirect source of our afflictions. So to say that God took a life in order to bring some good into others lives is a direct contradiction to this verse. James goes on to say in verse 17 what God is responsible for. He says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” God is the One who gives all the good and perfect things in our lives! God is the Father of lights! That means that there is no darkness in Him. He has no darkness to give! That is why He does not tempt anyone. It is because He does not have darkness to tempt with! And the great news is that the Father of lights does not change. He does not give good and perfect gifts one day and then the next He pours calamity on us. No! He has no variation or shadow of turning. He is constantly and consistently pouring out His life on us. This is the God that we serve under the New Covenant! But the truth of the matter is this – love always gives a choice. This is why the opportunity to sin was even given in the Garden. This is why when man took that opportunity, God didn’t stop him. This is because Love isn’t looking for robots that cannot choose right and wrong for themselves. Love desires the objects of its love to freely will to love and honor it back. But while love gives free will, it’s perfect will is for the ones that it loves to live a happy & blessed life! It does no harm! It is not evil! Sure, there are things that happen to us in life that are painful, but God is not the source of that pain. He is love and love is not complicated. It follows suit with what you desire to do for your children & grandchildren. It seeks to honor & serve you like you seek to honor & serve your spouse. This is who God is and how He has chosen to do things here on the earth. Amen? Happy Resurrection Day, church—a day that is so critical to our faith!
You know, one of the most important parts of Christianity is found in this one word—faith! Shoot, even it is described as “the faith.” So that means that faith is a big part of God’s kingdom—one even calling faith the currency of the kingdom of God. That means that believing God is how things are obtained from Him—which obviously includes salvation itself (or rather, Himself). Well, the resurrection of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ is something that we ALL must believe in order to experience salvation from the Lord. No, it’s not something we have to have personally witnessed or seen with our own eyes. It simply requires faith—the belief that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and that He did this so that we can be raised up together with Him. Amen? I’m reminded now of the example of Doubting Thomas & Jesus’ Resurrection in John chapter 20. We know the story: Thomas wanted proof of His resurrection, and Jesus said to him— “Blessed are those who believe who have not seen!” (John 20:29). Just as it is with Jesus’ resurrection, you don’t need a sign; you only need to believe in what is written! Likewise, we don’t need manifestations and signs to believe; we just need to truly hear the Word and let it spawn faith in our hearts. And this certainly applies to the subject at hand—God’s amazing love for us. We don’t have to have any evidence of it in the natural; we just need to believe the good report that was given to us that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son …” (See John 3:16). Which is what you will learn more of this Easter Sunday as we continue our study entitled— “God Loves You!” REVIEW We started this new series last week, where we are striving to get the single greatest revelation that one can receive—God’s great love for His creation! Church, when we come to truly know His love for us, it will transform our lives. Like we saw last week, we will love both God and our neighbors more—for we love because He first loved us. When we experience His love in our hearts, our joy & peace level will go through the roof. Not to mention, our ability to believe God will skyrocket as well. So there are a myriad of benefits to knowing God’s love. But like I said last week, by virtue of the fact that so many Christians seem to struggle with loving God and others, with walking in joy & peace, and with believing and trusting God, this is proof positive that they are failing to taste & see His great love for them. Amen? Now like we made the point of – these Christians that struggle in these areas would not admit to not knowing God loves them, and the reason for this is because they simply have mentally assented to the fact God loves us. But there’s a big difference between knowing something in our heads and experiencing it in our hearts. Like I used the illustration of three kinds of knowing last week—there’s the knowing of someone like we know maybe a certain famous person, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we know them. Then there’s someone who is a friend that we have spent time with and have come to know. We definitely know that person much more than we know someone whom we’ve never even met. But then there’s the knowing someone like spouses know one another, where they share the same roof, the same bed, and so many other things. That is the intimate kind of “knowing” that is available to you and me when it comes to knowing Love Himself. So we looked at a few passages of Scripture that talk about this intimate, experiential kind of knowing of His love and saw how this kind of knowledge of His love is not taught; rather, it is caught. This is what the apostle Paul prayed in Ephesians chapter 3—that they would come to “take” or “lay hold” of it. So Paul also thought that it’s not good enough to “comprehend” His love; we need to “apprehend” it. This was what he called “knowing the love of Christ that passes knowledge”—that is, experiencing the love that you would never be able to fully understand. And we learned that this is why this prayer Paul prayed is so valuable—because it proves that this experiencing God’s love is God’s will for each us. How can I say this? It’s because we know all Scripture is inspired by God, and therefore, is the will of God. So if there is a prayer that the Holy Spirit breathed, then it must be God’s desire for all of us to see manifested in our lives. Therefore, these Pauline prayers are “cheat codes” for praying & receiving God’s will in our lives! Amen! BELIEVING THE LOVE GOD HAS FOR US So let’s go back over to First John chapter 4 and look at a verse that we looked at last week—because we only looked at half of what the apostle John said in this verse. Again, First John 4:16 says, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” Notice that the apostle John did not stop with knowing God’s love in this verse: He also said that we are to believe the love God has for us. Church, next to the “knowing” of God’s love, this is a huge issue in the body of Christ. People do not truly believe that God loves them. Again, they might say they believe that He loves them, but look at their fruit. There is a big difference between believing that He loves us in our head and believing He loves us in our heart. Faith of the heart produces a change in our life. This is the place we all need to desire to get to concerning the love of God—knowing and believing the love God has for us. So what this means is that it is great that we come to experience the love that God has for us, but there is also the place where we believe in this love whether we ever experience it or not. In other words, while God definitely wants us to experience His love, we need to avoid gravitating towards needing to feel it or have any other evidence of it in our lives. That is not when we are to come to believe the love God has for us. There is only one manifestation of His love that we need … THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD’S LOVE Back in First John 4:9, we are told— “In this the love of God was manifested towards us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” In this verse, John says that this example of God sending His only begotten Son into the world is the manifestation of God’s love for us. In other words, the giving of Jesus is how God has purposed to manifest His love for us. Now this word “manifestation” is a popular word in our “Christianeese” language, isn’t it? We like to use this word like so— “I believe Jesus Christ paid for my healing; I’m just waiting on the manifestation.” What we mean when we say this is— We believe that Jesus provided healing for our bodies, but we are looking for it to actually come to pass in our lives. Well, did you know that you don’t have to wait for the manifestation of God’s love for us? That’s because the manifestation of His love occurred on this earth 2,000 years ago when He sent Jesus to pay the price for our sins. Amen? Now it is important for us to get this, so I’ll say it again: It was in the giving of Jesus—from the manger to the Cross—that God has manifested His love towards us and proven to us that He loves us. The reason this is important for us to understand is because what so many Christians want is other manifestations of His love for them—like financial, emotional, or physical provision. However, this is not the primary way that God has chosen to manifest His love. Sure, He has promised to provide for us and heal our bodies, etc., but these are not meant to be the manifestation of His love that we look to; only the Cross is! In other words, the only evidence of His love that we need is the giving of God’s only begotten Son. Again, this is how God chose to manifest how much He loves us. Another reason why I feel this is important for us to realize is because the devil likes to tempt us to doubt God’s love for us when our circumstances are not favorable. And too many believers take this bait by basing God’s love for them on the situations and circumstances that occur in their lives. For instance, if a tragedy or disaster occurs in certain Christian’s lives, they begin to question whether God really loves them or not. But what they need to understand is that our circumstances are not in any way a reflection of God’s love for us! The apostle Paul dealt with this issue in Romans chapter 8 when he asked the questions— “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (See Romans 8:35) Why did he refer to Christ’s love in the midst of all of these hardships? It is because life’s difficulties oftentimes can tempt one to question whether God really loves them! How many times have we heard—when someone has suffered a tragedy or something that they needed did not come to pass in their life—that they do not feel God loves them? This is one of the greatest devices Satan uses in our hardships—bringing into question God’s love. This should not be so, saints! But the reason why he has been so effective with this is because there is a misconception about God in general … SOVEREIGN LOVE You see, the main reason that most Christians doubt God’s love for them is because they believe wrong. They believe God is in control of everything that happens on the earth, and this is simply untrue. They say things like- “If God really loved me, He would have stopped this from happening.” But what they need to understand is that God has bound Himself to His Word. Therefore, He cannot just stop things from happening. He can only intervene if He has a man or woman who invites Him to intervene through their faith and prayers—whether that is the person who needs the intervention or an outside intercessor. But the truth is that God has already done His part to show us how much He loves us—and He did that through the Cross. He provided everything for us that pertains to life and godliness through Jesus and now the ball is in our court. The Father sent Jesus to the earth as a man so that He could regain what we lost in the Fall. Then Jesus, in all of His perfection and righteousness, gave all of it up on the Cross so that we could be perfectly redeemed. Then, after He was raised from the dead on the third day, He delegated that authority that He had rightfully regained over to us. Praise, Jesus! So now we have the keys to the kingdom! We have the authority! And God is not sitting up in heaven deciding to intervene whenever He so desires. He has, in all of His sovereignty, limited Himself to His plan for the earth—which is the giving of the earth to the sons of men. The truth of the matter is this – love always gives a choice. This is why the opportunity to sin was even given in the Garden. This is why when man took that opportunity, God didn’t stop him. This is because Love isn’t looking for robots that cannot choose right and wrong for themselves. Love desires the objects of its love to freely will to love and honor it back. But it is because so many fail to understand this very important truth that so many Christians blame God for the problems in their life and, therefore, question His love for them. But again, God is not failing to manifest His love for us during the hardships of life; He has already manifested His love for us through the giving of His only begotten Son. The cross was God’s perfect expression of love! You know, God has already done everything that He ever needs to do to prove that He loves us through Jesus! This is something that every Christian needs to hear and understand! I have dealt with a number of Christians during my walk that have been confused about God’s love for them because of the negative circumstances in their life. They wonder if God really loves them because their lives are in a mess, and they are facing life’s difficulties. But what I have had to remind them of is the truth that in the world we will have tribulation (John 16:33) and those who are living godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (Second Timothy 3:12). I have to remind them that even their mistakes and shortcomings do not affect God’s love for them. You see, we will encounter struggles and difficulties in life that the enemy will try and use to remove us from God’s perfect will for our lives, but we should never base God’s love for us on our circumstances or even on our sins; we should always base His love for us on the Cross! The fact that He sent His Son to die for us proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that He loves us unconditionally. He need do nothing more to prove to us that He loves us than the Cross of Christ! If this was all that He ever did for us, we should still be fully persuaded that He loves us. Never forget that! HOW MUCH MORE? But the awesome truth that I want to end this message with is that the giving of Jesus is not all that the Lord does for us through His love! The truth is that if He loved us enough to give us Jesus; He loves us enough to freely give us all things! In Romans 8:32, the apostle Paul makes this very elementary yet profound point: In it, he says that if God did not spare His only Son, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things!?! You see, this is a truth that is just plain common sense: If God gave us His very best—manifesting His love for us through the giving of His only begotten Son—then how will He not give us all things that are much less costly and precious? For one to believe that He won’t, say, provide them with the finances to pay their bills when He already paid the price of putting Jesus on the Cross is absolutely ridiculous! And I will add this: It is actually downright insulting to God for us to think this way. But this leads me to what I want to conclude this Resurrection Day message with: We actually have an example of what I have been referring to this month in the story of Abraham’s offering up of Isaac … In Genesis chapter 22, we see how Abraham was told by the Lord to offer his son—his only begotten son, Isaac—as a sacrifice to Him. And in verse 12, the Lord said something so powerful that echoes what we are talking about this week … When Abraham had Isaac on that altar and was just about to offer him up to the Lord, we are told how the Angel of the Lord (many believe this to be Jesus) called to him from heaven and said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; (Now get this part) for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from Me.” This is such a powerful truth, church! You see, what the Lord was saying here was that this proved to the Lord that Abraham feared Him (i.e. that he revered, respected, and was completely sold out to Him) because he was willing to sacrifice his one and only son to Him. So just as it was said that the Lord knew that Abraham feared God because He did not withhold His son, His only son, from Him, likewise we should know that God loves us since He did not withhold His Son, His only begotten Son, from us! In other words, we should know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves us and will provide us with everything we need—spirit, soul, and body—simply because He gave us Jesus! Hallelujah! That is good stuff right there! You see, what the Holy Spirit wants us to understand today is that the giving of Jesus is God’s manifestation of love. We need look no further than Jesus to know and believe that He loves us unconditionally. We need not base God’s love for us on our circumstances. Just as we should not be moved by what we see, hear, or feel but only by what we believe—likewise, we should not let ourselves be moved off our faith in God’s love by what we see, hear, or feel. We must simply believe He loves us because the Bible tells us so! Just like this simple childlike faith in the rest of God’s promises is what brings their manifestation to pass in our life, faith in His love is what yields a greater manifestation of that love in our lives. First by faith, and then followed by feelings! For example, there are many who want God to prove His love for them, basing His love for us on their circumstances. Saints, the only proof we need that God loves each and every one of us is the fact that He gave us His Son. The disciple whom Jesus loved said that this is the manifestation of God’s love for us (see First John 4:9). It’s not our circumstances or our situation. It’s the Cross, and the Cross alone. Likewise, the only proof we need that God will work a miracle for us and that we can receive our resurrection is the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead. Amen? What a simple title, huh? A simple title for a simple truth. However, while the truth that God loves us is so simple, most do not know it. Now they might claim to know it, but the truth is that the vast majority of God’s children truly don’t.
But this is just human nature to think we “know” something just because we have gathered the knowledge of that truth in our intellectual faculties. In fact, you will hear people moan and groan when you tell them to turn to a particular Scripture that they have heard many messages about. Why? It is because they think they understand all there is to know in that verse and because they want to hear something new and exciting. But if we ever get to the point where we are not excited or at least anticipating something that we maybe have heard before, then that is proof positive that we do not really “know” that Scripture the way the Bible speaks of knowing something. Have you ever noticed that when a particular subject or truth is alive to you- that is, it has impacted your heart to where you have seen its light- that you get excited when you are about to hear another message on it? And why is that? It is because when you have come to truly know a truth, you do not want to hear it less; you want to hear it more! So, if your response was- “Aw, man! I don’t want to hear such a simple message of God’s love for me! I already know He loves me!”- then you are exactly the person who needs to hear this. You need to open your heart and let the revelation come so that you too can become excited and full of joy at the wonder of God’s love. So, I know most Christians will say, “Oh, I understand God loves us!” or “Sure, I know God loves me!” but just because one has mentally accented to this—meaning, they can acknowledge in their head that this is true—that doesn’t mean that they know it the way they should. And here’s the honest truth—there is no one reading this who cannot stand to grow in their knowledge & understanding of God’s love for them. That’s the fact, Jack! No, what these Christians mean when they say that they already know God loves them is that they have just acknowledged that this is true in their head. In other words, they have the head knowledge of Scriptures that say that God loves us such as John 3:16, but the truths of those Scriptures have not truly impacted their hearts! This is what I am talking about—knowing something in your heart! This is when it impacts you. And the Gospel in all of this is that when His love truly does impact your heart, it holds so many awesome benefits for you! In fact, in the time that I have been a born-again Christian, I have come to the conclusion that this one truth is the single greatest revelation that we could ever receive of and about God. The reason I can say that is because knowing in our hearts God’s great love for us will produce in us several other virtues. Perhaps the most important is the ability to fulfill the Great Commandment. Let me explain … You see, through understanding that God loves us, we will be drawn into a more intimate communion with Him—thus fulfilling God’s primary purpose for our lives of knowing God and having a personal relationship with Him. And what this does is it propels us into fulfilling the Great Commandment which is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. How does this work, you ask? When we realize who He really is and that truth abides in our heart, it will make us want to love Him more in return. On top of that, knowing His love will not only produce more of a love for Him, but it will also produce more of a love for others—thus fulfilling the second great commandment, which is to love our neighbor as ourselves. You see, you cannot give away what you have not first received, and this applies to love as well. If you have not first received love, then you will have no love to give—not to God nor to God’s children. You must be filled with His love in order to pour that love out on others. This is what First John 4:19 was saying when it said, “We love because He first loved us.” We are enabled to love when we are loved first. In other words, we can love (God and our neighbor) because (or, when we know) He first loved us.” But simply fulfilling the Great Commandment is not all that knowing His love does to us! You see, when a person truly sees how much God loves them, there will be some profound changes in them. For one, it will be hard to wipe the smile off their face—for there will be joy unspeakable and full of glory in their life! Knowing God’s love will result in the ability to trust, believe, and receive from God better—because when you believe in your heart that He truly does love you, it’s difficult to not believe that He will do all that He said. So in light of all these changes God’s love makes in our lives, it should be obvious then that most born again, Spirit-filled believers do not truly know God loves them much at all because look at their fruit! There is a lack of the fruit of the Spirit in most Christians, which is essentially the fruit of God’s love - love, joy, peace, faith, etc. There is also a lack of fulfilling the Great Commandment in most Christians because the majority don’t really love God the way He ought to be loved and they certainly don’t love their neighbors as themselves. Church, I don’t say any of this to condemn, but simply to shed light on our need to know God’s love in a greater way—for it is absolutely the solution to this dilemma. However, like I said earlier, although God’s love for us is such a simple & powerful truth, there is the false notion in so many that they already know it. And again, that’s because we tend to equate knowing something with simply agreeing with something in our brains. Church, that is not exactly what the Bible means when it speaks of us “knowing” something—and this certainly applies to knowing God’s love. So let’s look at a few verses today that talk about knowing God’s love so that we can learn what it means to truly know it the way God intends for us to. Let’s start in First John 4:16 where the apostle John uses this terminology. In this verse, the apostle John says, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and the who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” The word John used for “known” here comes from the Greek word ginosko which means more than just mentally acknowledging something is true. No, this word for “known” describes knowing something experientially and intimately. Church, we need to know God’s love for us like this—experientially and intimately. In fact, this word is used in the Gospels of Matthew & Luke to describe something a little bit more “intimate” than the way we think of knowing something: In Matthew 1:25, which just happens to be the first time ginosko is used in the New Testament, it was used to describe how Joseph did not “know” Mary until she had brought forth her firstborn Son, Jesus. (See Matthew 1:18-25). Now we know that this does not mean that Joseph didn’t know of her or did not get to know her during this time. No, I’m sure Joseph knew Mary very well, but this is obviously talking about having intimacy with her—thus the fact that she was a virgin. We see the same thing said by Mary in Luke 1:34 when Gabriel visited her and told her about how God had chosen her to conceive & carry the Messiah. Her response to this news was “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” Now how many of you know that the way we use the word “know” today, she “knew” plenty of guys. But by using the word ginosko, we know she meant something entirely different. She was obviously talking about having physical relations with a man. But do you see the point I’m making? Knowing God’s love is not just about knowing of something or even knowing it in some intellectual way. This “knowing” God’s love is intimately experiencing it. Let me illustrate it like this: I see it like how we can know people on three different levels. If I were to ask you if you knew Andrew Wommack, you know a lot of people would respond, yes. That’s because a lot of us have listened to his teachings, have seen him on television, been to his conferences, and some of us even have met him. But does that really mean that you know him? No, not really. It just means that you know of him—meaning, you’ve heard him speak, you know he lives in Colorado, and you know he loves to talk about God’s unconditional love. So what are we saying when we say we “know” someone like that? We are saying that we know of them—that is, we know that they exist and who they are on a surface level. But how many of you know that there are others who actually do know him? In fact, someone like myself or Pastor Robert who have actually talked with him and spent some time with him might actually “know” him. On top of that, he has some really close friends whom he’s known for years and spent a lot of time with who truly know him in a way that few do. But guess who knows Andrew in a way that no one else does? His wife, Jamie! Jamie knows Andrew in a way that others do not and will not, because they enjoy a happy marriage together. Therefore, they have spent countless more hours together than even Andrew’s closest friends have, not to mention the intimacy they have shared through their union together. Let me give another example of what I’m talking about that’s a little closer to home … How many of you know that a lot of you would say, “I know Shannon,” but there’s a difference between how you know her and how I know her. And I am not just talking about the intimacy in our relationship; I’m also talking about how my “knowledge” of her even results in me knowing what she’s thinking a lot of times. You see, because of the time I’ve spent with her, I “know” her at a much deeper, thorough, and intimate level than anyone else in here knows her, while you might say that you “know” her. However, most of you in here know Shannon much more than you know Andrew Wommack because you’ve probably had multiple conversations with her and/or spent some time with her. But again, that’s different than the level of knowledge I have of Shannon. This just illustrates how our knowledge of God’s love has levels. So just because you might know of the love of God (like you know of Andrew), that doesn’t mean you really know it. And just because you might know Shannon—having spent some time with her and have gotten to know her through your conversations with her—that doesn’t mean you know her like I do. You see, when it comes to God’s love, He wants us to move beyond the simple “Oh, I know that” kind of mentality to the “Yeah, I know that fairly well.” But His best is for us to move on to the level of knowledge, understanding, and intimacy that a husband & wife share. That’s what’s available to us with God’s love! Now let’s look over at Ephesians chapter 3 and see what the apostle Paul had to say about knowing His love. In this chapter, we have a prayer that Paul prayed for this body of believers, and in this prayer we see how he focuses on them knowing God’s love for them. In Ephesians 3:14-19, he prays, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” So after focusing on the strengthening of their inward man and Christ being at home in their hearts, Paul turns his attention to what he says is them “being rooted and grounded in love.” What this speaks of is how important it is that our roots go deep into, and our foundation is laid on, the love of God. Church, it is so important that our life is founded on God’s love. So many base their lives on other things such as their works, obedience, and behavior, but that is a shoddy foundation. As the old hymn says, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking stand …” But then the apostle goes on to say that when we are founded on His great love we “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height (of the love of Christ).” That means building our lives on His love “enables” us to comprehend all the dimensions of it. Now the word “comprehend” literally describes “taking” something or “laying hold” of it. A better translation of this word might be “apprehend,” which is exactly what we are talking about—that it’s not good enough to “comprehend” His love; we need to “apprehend” it. In other words, we don’t just need to know it in our heads, but we need to capture it in our hearts. Amen! But the thing we need to understand about Christ’s love is that we will never be able to fully apprehend it! And the reason for this is because of its height, width, length, and depth! In other words, it is so vast that it is going to take us all eternity to grasp it! It’s awesome and incomprehensible! This is why the apostle Paul said in Romans 8:35-39— “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You see, nothing can separate us from the love of God because of its immense dimensions. It’s higher, wider, longer, and deeper than anything! Amen! So, while we will never be able to exhaust it, what we can do is apprehend it little by little, ever increasing in Christ’s awesome love! This is why Paul continued to pray for the church of Ephesus that they would know the love of Christ that passed knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). On the surface, that seems to be an impossible statement because how can you know something that passes knowledge? Well, the key to understanding this is to know the difference between these two words—“know” and “knowledge.” The word Paul used for “knowledge” is the word gnosis, and this word describes knowing something generally. It actually means to know something thoroughly and have a good, overall understanding of it. So when Paul said that the love of Christ “passes knowledge,” he was simply saying that you’re never going to know it in and out. No, you won’t ever master it. You won’t ever exhaust all the knowledge there is of it. However, Paul prayed that we still can come to “know” it. And this word for “know” describes what we talked about earlier – an experiential, intimate kind of knowing. And that’s what the Lord desires from us—that while we can never come to fully know His love, He invites us to experience it one bite at a time. This is why the Scriptures teach us to taste and see that the Lord is good! Amen! You see, Paul understood that the love of God can only be truly known by revelation so that is why he prayed this for the Ephesian saints. And church, here is the good news for any of us who “know” we need to “know” God’s love more—we have a Holy Spirit inspired prayer right here in Ephesians chapter 3 that is God’s perfect will for us. Amen? You see, in all of Paul’s prayers (Eph. 1:15-23, 3:14-21, Phil. 1:9-11, Col. 1:9-12, 1 Thess. 3:10-13, 2 Thess. 2:16-17, etc.) we discover God’s will for us because each prayer was inspired by God (Second Timothy 3:16). So when First John 5:14-15 states that we know if we pray anything according to His will that we know we have the answers to those prayers, then we can pray these prayers for others and for ourselves and expect God to perform them! Therefore, these Pauline prayers are “cheat codes” for praying & receiving God’s will in our lives! Amen! So, as we go through this series entitled “God loves you!” I want us to pray this prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21 over ourselves and expect God to bring us to “know” more and more of His great love for us. Yes, let’s embark on a journey to turn this head knowledge into revelation knowledge so that this truth of God’s love for us impacts our hearts the way it should. Amen? REVIEW
So today, I believe we will be concluding our series on how to be the Lord’s witnesses, and I hope that you have been stirred to see the importance of our witness to the world. We started off talking about the power that we have to even be the Lord’s witnesses in the first place and how the Holy Spirit is that power. We also looked at how we are called to be witnesses before we are ever called to go witnessing. Therefore, the necessity of bearing His fruit and gifts in our lives. We have also been learning what it means to be the Lord’s witnesses and we have seen that this is a much bigger part of our purpose here on the earth than we’ve realized. In fact, aside from personal relationship with God, the reason we are here is to bear witness of the goodness & glory of God to the rest of God’s creation. Then we began getting into some of the practical parts of being Christ’s witnesses such as how we can break through the darkness that has blinded the lost, how our spiritual sandals are this preparedness to share the gospel, and specifically where we are called to witness … Now I would like to conclude this series with a couple of very practical things regarding how to be a witness—specifically how to actually witness to someone and how to prepare and give our testimony. Let’s begin with how to be a witness … HOW TO BE A WITNESS I’ve found that far too many Christians are not very confident and even are downright terrified to witness about Christ to others. This should not be so, saints. Sharing the Gospel with others should be second nature to us and we should never shy away from telling others about the Lord. Yes, we should always be ready to share the good news and love others enough to give them the truth. The apostle Paul said he was ready: In Romans 1:15, he said, “So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.” This was after saying that he was a “debtor” to both Jews and Gentiles (vs. 14). In other words, he saw it like he owed it to, first, the Lord and then to every person to share the Gospel. Church, I believe we are “debtors” as well. So, as the apostle Paul said, “as much as is in us” we need to be “ready” to share the Gospel. Amen? Then Paul goes on to say in verse 16— “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.” Church, we have nothing to be ashamed of! For this Gospel is the power of God to salvation. There is no other way. So, if we do not share it, how can man be saved? We have a corner on the truth, saints! So we need to be bold and confident and know that the Gospel that we are sharing is the answer, whether the world realizes it or not. But we still need to know how to share this good news and there are some very practical things that I believe are essential to being as effective as possible. So let me quickly share with you some tips on how to witness to others … Now these tips are not the only way to do it. As always, the most important thing is to be led by the Holy Spirit. However, these are just some good practical wise tips that generally are good methods when approaching others with the Gospel. The first is that whether you are in the “in season” or “out of season” time, to always have your spiritual antenna up. By “in season” times, I am referring to those times where you are actively out looking to witness to others. This would be when I am going somewhere for the purpose of witnessing to someone—that is, I’m participating in a group who is going out to share the Gospel or I personally am going to a Christian meeting looking to share the love of Christ with others. Now the “out of season” times would describe other times where we are out and about to do something other than witness. Like maybe going to the hardware store to pick up a tool or going to a restaurant to pick up a meal. Of course, we should always be looking to witness, but that’s my point: We need to always have our antenna up, and pick up on when the Holy Spirit is targeting a specific person. You see, the Holy Spirit knows people—and He knows when they are ripe for the pickin’. So if we would just stay in tune with the Holy Spirit, He will show us who to approach and how to approach them. It just goes back to the old adage—just be LED. The Holy Spirit is here to lead & guide us into all truth. Those who the sons of God, are called to be led by the Spirit of God. So when it comes to witnessing, being led by the Holy Spirit is key to being effective. By having our antenna up, we will be in the right place at the right time to share with the right person. Secondly, after the Holy Spirit identifies the person or persons we are to share with, I believe a good rule of thumb is to start out the conversation with less “in your face” topics of conversation. Now of course, a lot of this is determined by the time & situation. Sometimes you might need to move in a little quicker because time is of the essence. But if you have the time, I think it is better to start off the conversation with something that shows the person that you really do love them and care about them. You see, there’s nothing worse than someone who just gets right into their sell. If you show actual care and concern for someone, I believe that most people will be more apt to hear what you want to tell them. So, if you can, start off the conversation with something like— “Hey, is there anything I can pray with you about? Is there something you would like me to ask God for you?” Or you could simply show concern by asking them “How they are doing?” and make sure to tell them that you are not just asking to ask, but you really want to know. The possibilities are limitless, but I’ve just found that a softer more loving approach is the best way to earn entrance into sharing the truth with people. And, in fact, if we are doing this right, the real reason we want to share the Gospel with them is because we do love them and want God’s best for them. Thirdly, I would add that we need to listen in our heart to the Holy Spirit and pay attention to the pictures He is showing you. What I mean by this is that when you and I have approached the person, we need to be listening to them, yes, but at the same time listening in our heart for things that the Holy Spirit would give us to share with them. I’d also add that we need to pay attention to any pictures He might show us. It’s not always going to be words we hear from Him. Sometimes, we might see things in our hearts and while we cannot always make sense of what they mean, the person we are speaking to might be able to. Many times, I have communed with the Holy Spirit in my heart while carrying on a conversation with someone. I’ll even ask Him questions in my mind, knowing that I need specifics from Him to better help the person I have in front of me. I’ve had the Holy Spirit give me some really good things to share with people—some stuff that I never thought of before. As you’ve heard me say already in the series, the Holy Spirit is “witnessing made fun!” And if we would just listen to Him, He can give us creative ways to evangelize and share the Gospel with others. He will do this through the various gifts that He gives us and through wisdom that was outside of ourselves. And next, one very important thing to do when witnessing to someone is to keep it simple. You know … that old K.I.S.S. acronym … KEEP IT SIMPLE, SAINT (No, not stupid). Yes, we need to keep the Gospel simple, saints, by not overcomplicating the message, but simply sharing the things we have seen and the things we know. You see, the devil will try and get us over into what we don’t know—he will do this by trying to convince us that we don’t know enough to share with others and he will also stir up those we might be sharing with to try and show us what we don’t know. Don’t fall prey to that. Simply share the truth you do know, which is Jesus, His love for us, and your own personal testimony. As we’ve learned, these simple truths are what overcomes the devil in others. YOUR TESTIMONY Now when it comes to sharing our testimony, I believe there are some very important things we need to know … For one, we need to realize that every born-again believer HAS a testimony. I’ve run into a lot of Christians that don’t believe that they really have a testimony because they maybe were brought up in a Christian home and never did some of the things that others did like coming out of a lifestyle of drug & alcohol abuse or being saved out of a life filled with committing what we consider to be the “big” sins, etc. No, the fact is, we all have a testimony, and all of our stories, which are different, can be used to help people who likewise have come from different backgrounds. For example, if you are someone who might not have had a dramatic conversion, being raised in church and receiving the Lord at an early age, you should still have an “ah-ha” moment where your eyes were opened to know something about the Lord, right? Maybe it was when you received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Maybe it was when you came to realize some truth like how your religious deeds do not justify you, how much God loves you, etc. It can even be when you received some healing or miracle in your life as a Christian. There are so many things we’ve experienced in our lives that can be used to help witness to others. So I’d encourage everyone to think about what these things are. Go back and remember the various experiences you’ve had with the Lord and the things He’s done in you and revealed to you. In fact, you’ll be amazed at how much it encourages you to recount these things. Yes, the memory of all that the Lord has done in your life will stir you up in your soul! But my point is that we all have a testimony to share with others. We might need to recall what these evidences of Jesus are in our lives, but they are there, nonetheless. Stir up the memory of these things, saints! Now when we look at our testimony from this much broader scope, we ought to realize that we all have multiple testimonies we can share. So I believe a good practice is to write all of them down separately—perhaps in a journal. Yes, either put them on paper or save a file of them electronically. One of the reasons I believe it is important to write our testimonies out is because it can stir up our minds to remember things. Not only that, but it can cement the memory of those things by simply writing or typing them. Personally, this is how I discovered that God had gifted me to write as well as speak because as I began to put truths on paper, I realized how it flowed so easily. Perhaps you have a gift within you to write that hasn’t been discovered simply because you haven’t given it a try. But another reason it is good to write out our testimonies is because it’s just good to be prepared. You know, some of us are ramblers and most of the world has short attention spans. So that’s not a good combination. Therefore, it’s good to have our testimonies written out in a short and concise manner—no, not so that we can read it to others, but so we have them hidden in our hearts and, therefore, are prepared to share it quickly and efficiently. Now we have our long, detailed testimony that we might get the opportunity to share with someone if we have an hour or so to sit down with them. But these times are few and far between when it comes to evangelism. What most of us will run into when trying to win people to Christ are the shorter five to fifteen minute time frame that we have to share our testimony. Those are the ones that we need to be differently prepared for. So let me give you some tips on how to write out these shorter versions of your testimony:
So basically what you are mapping out is the before, the after, and the line in between that divided between the before and after. Now here are some other helpful hints to writing out your testimony – whether it’s the short or long version:
CONCLUSION So, in review, my four tips for effective witnessing are this:
If we will simply walk in these four simple guidelines for witnessing, I believe we can be very effective in testifying of and for the Lord. REVIEW
So, we have been learning what it means to be the Lord’s witnesses and we have seen that this is a much bigger part of our purpose here on the earth than we’ve realized. In fact, aside from personal relationship with God, the reason we are here is to bear witness of the goodness & glory of God to the rest of God’s creation. Most recently, we’ve started talking about some practical things regarding how to be a witness, and last week we talked about where we are called to be His witnesses. We saw in Acts 1:8 that after Jesus said that His disciples would receive power to be His witnesses that He said it would be “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” So, we saw how these places are progressive: They were to start in Jerusalem, which was the city where they were currently at. Judea and Samaria were the regions surrounding their city. And to the ends of the earth obviously included everywhere beyond the previous two. So, we looked at what these places symbolize to us: First of all, Jerusalem being the place where they were currently at, shows us that God calls us to bear witness of Him where we live and with those close to us. And we saw how this can speak of many things: Geographically speaking, our “Jerusalem” could describe our neighborhood, our county, or our own city. But our “Jerusalem” can also describe certain close people in our lives like our family, friends, co-workers, etc. So, in essence, our “Jerusalem” would be those close to us and where we are at. This is where we are first called to be His witnesses. Now we saw that our “Judea and Samaria” symbolizes the places and people outside of where we live and those closest to us. So geographically speaking, our “Judea” might be the state we reside in. So whatever we consider our “Jerusalem” to be, our “Judea” is the much more expansive part of it—like if we look at our “Jerusalem” as our immediate family, then our “Judea” would be our more far reaching family members like our uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. If we consider our “Jerusalem” our friends who are close to us, then our “Judea” would be those who are just outside of our inner circle of friends. But we saw how our “Samaria” is different than our “Judea” in more ways than one because while our “Judea” are people who like us, our “Samaria” is not most people’s preferred place of evangelism. Our “Samaria” is obvious: Geographically, it would be the places that are outside of our comfort zone. Like, for instance, to the southerner who was born & raised in Georgia, “Samaria” might be the northerner that talks a little differently and culturally, might be a little out of their comfort zone. But symbolically, the “Samaritan” might simply be the person who is different than you religiously, culturally, racially, sexually … the list can go on and on. The bottom line is, Jesus was telling His disciples that they are not just called to be witnesses to those who are like them both physically and spiritually, but to those they don’t necessarily like, those who are different than them, etc. Church, this is the Lord’s heart—that we possess His perfect love that goes beyond just loving our friends & family to loving the stranger & our enemies. And, last but not least, being witnesses in all of the earth doesn’t necessarily mean that we are all called to be world travelers. No, in this world we live in today, we are just one click of a button away from communicating with people all around the world. So I see this as another way that we can be witnesses! We can utilize the technology that we’ve been blessed with today to share the Word with people! We can use email, social media platforms, YouTube, etc. to spread the Gospel and share what God has done in our lives! We then looked at Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan and saw an excellent picture of how we are to love & witness to people! In this parable, Jesus perfectly illustrated how to love our neighbor as ourselves by what He did for us. And church, this is how we need to view & treat those first in our “Jerusalem,” then in our “Judea and Samaria,” and also everyone all around the world. Jesus has said, “Go therefore!” Go into your Jerusalem! Go into your Judea and Samaria! Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature and be His witness! Amen! THE GOSPEL SANDALS Now this week, I would like us to go over to Ephesians chapter 6 and take a look at a piece of our spiritual armor that echoes our call to be witnesses. Now this chapter is basically devoted to the subject of spiritual warfare, and in it, the apostle Paul describes six pieces of armor that make up the whole armor of God. Well, one of these described by Paul are the shoes/sandals of the soldier—and that’s what I would like to talk to you about this week—the sandals of the soldier. Let’s look at Ephesians 6:15 … In it, Paul said, “and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” First of all, what is important to understand about this piece of the armor of God is that it is not just the sandals of peace, but it’s the preparation of the gospel of peace. This is important because the terminology makes a big difference in understanding what these sandals are. You see, most people have taught how these are the shoes of peace and, therefore, the peace of God is one of our weapons. And while I certainly believe that peace is a virtue that we ought to use in combatting fear, worry, anxiety, etc., I don’t believe that this is the peace Paul was talking about here. No, the peace Paul is speaking of here is “the gospel of peace,” which is obviously talking about the good news we are called to share with the lost. So, what is this gospel of peace? Well, we know that the word “gospel” means “good news,” right? Which is a very important point of what it is that we are sharing with those we witness to. You see, the gospel is not that God hates sin, people are going to hell, and that there is a judgment to come. No, the gospel is the good news in light of these issues of sin, hell, and judgment. In other words, the sharing of the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ—everything from His death, burial, and resurrection and all that these events provided for mankind. That’s the gospel! But Paul tells us specifically what he considered to be the gospel that we are plundering the kingdom of darkness with – It’s the good news of “peace.” So, what is this good news of peace? Well, I believe that Second Corinthians 5:18-21 best describes what the gospel of peace is … Verse 18 starts off by stating that we have now been reconciled to God and now God has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Verse 19 states that this word of reconciliation that we have been given the responsibility to share with others is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. So, we can see from this passage of Scripture that this “gospel of peace” is referring to the good news that we can have peace with God. In other words, it is the good news of reconciliation—that is, that God is not mad at mankind but wishes to impart His righteousness to them and is not imputing their trespasses to them. If you recall, this gospel of peace was what was proclaimed at Jesus’ birth in Luke 2:14 when the angels appeared to the shepherds singing, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” What were they declaring? It was that with the birth of the Messiah, God has sent the Way for peace between He and mankind! Glory to God in the highest indeed! Therefore, when our sandals are shod with this gospel of peace, we are to be proclaiming the good news that there is a merciful, loving God who is willing to reconcile them to Himself just like the angels were. This is the good news of peace, and this is what our walk should consist of—sharing the gospel of reconciliation! HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET But what do our feet have to do with the gospel of peace? The Scriptures give us the answer to this question… In both Isaiah 52:7 & Romans 10:15 the Bible tells us “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation.” Wow! We can see here a direct connection between our feet and preaching the good news of peace. Notice the phrases, “good news,” “peace,” and “glad tidings of good things” in connection with the feet of those who bring the message of salvation. Therefore, it seems very obvious that Paul’s intent of identifying our shoes with the gospel of peace is to describe how our walk is meant to be a walk encompassed in bringing the good news of reconciliation to a lost and dying world. This is our complete mission on this earth—to bring others into the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. In fact, the words “bring glad tidings” come from the Greek word that is transliterated “evangelism.” Did you know that this word “evangelism” literally describes a good message, a good report, and good news? So I submit to you if there is no good news being proclaimed, then there is no evangelism going on. You see, we weren’t given shoes so that we can survive. We were given shoes to bring others unto salvation. This is a major misconception about spiritual warfare. Many only identify our armor with what we need to bring ourselves victory, but our armor is meant primarily to accomplish the great commission. In other words, our armor is meant to propagate the gospel of the kingdom and not to merely experience God’s kingdom in our own little sphere of life. Now, according to these Scriptures, proclaiming these things makes our feet beautiful. We need to make sure our feet are “beautiful” and not “unattractive” by preaching condemnation and judgment. Now I am not saying that there is not a time to preach “fire and brimstone” messages, but the most consistently effective witness is to tell people God loves them and wants to give them a life full of fulfillment and purpose. The apostle Paul said that it is the goodness of God that leads people to repentance. Unbelievers already have an inward intuition of an impending judgment (Romans 1:18-19). Therefore, primarily preaching what the ungodly already know in their hearts does not offer the hope that they are looking for. In other words, they don’t need to hear more of what the problem is (i.e. sin & death, hell & judgment); they need to hear more of what the solution is to the problem. Yes, what they need to hear, and what is “attractive” to them, is the “good news” not the “bad news.” It is in this gospel of peace that righteousness is revealed (Romans 1:16-17). Now again the sandals of a soldier are what he or she walks in, right? So regarding our spiritual armor, the sandals of the gospel of peace represent what our walk (or, lifestyle) should consist of. In other words, our life and conduct should be tied up with the sandals that are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. So this reiterates what we’ve already been learning about our witness: this is not just something that we do occasionally when there is initiative put forth to go witnessing. No, this is what our Christian “walk” is all about—being witnesses. Therefore, it’s not just something we do from time to time; it is who we are all the time. So, what are these shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace? They represent a walk that consists of witnessing to others and sharing the good news- the gospel of peace! So now that we have seen what the shoes of our armor represent, let’s look at what Paul specifically said regarding them and how they are to be walked in … HAVING SHOD YOUR FEET He begins by saying that we are to have “shod” our feet with this preparation of the gospel of peace… The word “shod” comes from the Greek word hupodeomos which comes from the words hupo (meaning “under”) and deo (meaning “to bind”). Therefore, this word means to bind something very tightly under one’s feet. Of course, the shoes of the Roman soldier of those days looked more like sandals than what we think of nowadays when we think of shoes. Thus, the reason Paul describes to bind up tightly underfoot. You see, our walk must be “wrapped up” in the preparation of the gospel of peace… All of us are well aware of what can happen if we have the laces of our shoes untied: We could trip up over them and also our shoes will not be as securely on our feet. Therefore, Paul uses this as an illustration to show us how, if the shoes of our armor are not securely fastened, we can lose our footing or stumble. What this means is that having our spiritual sandals tightly laced up is an important part to not stumbling around in our Christian walk. If we were to have on all the armor of God except the shoes of the gospel of peace, how would that leave us susceptible to being defeated? It is because if we do not have our walks with a focus on reaching the lost then the enemy can and will confuse our purpose, destiny, and life. Without a lifestyle that is primarily focused on winning souls and sharing the good news with unbelievers, we will lose our sense of purpose and will “stumble” around. Church, that’s how one becomes “De feeted.” The high calling of every born-again believer is to be Christ’s witnesses and without a commitment to that calling, we are open to being confused and deceived by the enemy. Oh, how many times have I heard Christians say, “I wish I knew what God has called me to do. I want to know His purpose for me.” Well, while I know what they are referring to (i.e. they want to know what their place is in the kingdom of God and what their specific calling is), I believe their “stumbling around” in finding their purpose is primarily because they have not “shod their feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” In other words, these people are trying to find their “ministry” but have missed the fact that their ministry is, first and foremost, “the ministry of reconciliation.” Therefore, if their walk in not “tied up in” sharing the good news with those they come in contact with, their walk will tend towards confusion and be void of purpose. BE READY! So, let me ask this question: what are we tying up our shoes of the gospel of peace with? Paul said that “having shod our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace! The word “preparation” comes from the Greek word etoimasin which means “readiness or preparation.” So what Paul is saying is that the act of having our spiritual shoes shod with the gospel of peace is us being prepared or ready to share the gospel of peace throughout our Christian walk. There are a couple of Scriptures that further describe this preparedness of sharing the good news … One is found in Second Timothy 4:2 which says, “Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” In this passage of Scripture, the word “preach” used here was from the Greek word that describes an imperial herald. The herald would go into the king’s throne room, receive the message from the king, and then go out on the balcony and deliver the message to the people. This is what we must do! We must spend time in the presence of the King of kings so that we can be full of the message to declare it to the people. But this is one of the reasons so many “preachers/proclaimers” do not have beautiful feet. It is because they have never truly come to know their God. They have never spent time with Him to let Him teach them His true nature of love, goodness and peace. Therefore, they can only draw from the well that they have personally drank of. Saints, we need to get into the presence of the King of kings and let Him teach us this “ministry of reconciliation.” Then, once we have received it for ourselves, we are able to proclaim it to others! Then Paul says in Second Timothy 4:2, “Be ready…” Be ready to what? Be ready to preach the Word! The word “ready” was a Greek military term which meant “to stay at your post and not leave it.” We must always stay ready to share the gospel with people—that is, having our feet tied up tightly with the message of peace. He then says to “be ready in season and out of season.” This means we are to stay ready in the good times and we are to stay ready in the bad times. What are the good times? An example of an “in-season” moment would be at church and someone comes to the altar to be prayed for. This would be an in-season moment because, hopefully, we would be prepared to minister to this person. Another example would be when we are specifically going to witness as a group somewhere. These are the “in season” times—the times when we are focused on being a witness and are in the position to witness. So, what are the “out of season” times? These would be the times where maybe it is inconvenient or is unplanned. For example, if we are in our work place and a co-worker begins to open-up to you about their need for God. This is most certainly not a time or place where we are planning on sharing Christ with someone, but when these “out of season” opportunities present themselves, we must take advantage. Other examples of the “out of season” opportunities to share the good news may be when we are shopping at the grocery store, when we are at a sporting event, or when we are eating at a restaurant with family and friends. These are the “out of season” times—the times that we are not focused on and specifically prepared to witness. But it is during situations like this that God might lead us to tell someone about Jesus and we have to be ready to do so. Paul then said there are times we are to try and “convince” people of the truth, not argue with them. There are times to “rebuke” people by calling them out on their sins. There are times to “exhort” and encourage people in the Lord. We are to “convince, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering,” that is not getting quickly frustrated if they do not immediately say the “sinner’s prayer” with you, but bearing with them and giving the Holy Spirit time to work. Sometimes it is just to be seed planting times. And, last but not least, Paul says we are to be this witness “with teaching”—that is, being able to explain and instruct in what the Scriptures say about Jesus and His death, burial, and resurrection. The other passage of Scripture that I want us to look at is First Peter 3:15… It says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” Notice that Peter, first of all, said, “Set the Lord God apart (i.e. sanctify) in your hearts.” This literally means, “Make sure God has His own place of prominence in your hearts.” Why? Because whatever or whoever has that set apart place in your heart is what is going to be talked about the most, thought about the most, and lived for the most. Then Peter went on to say…”and always be ready …” Again, God tells us to be “ready” to be a witness. That is why Peter first said to sanctify the Lord God (the Greek literally has “Christ as Lord”) in our hearts because we will be even more ready to talk about who we have in our hearts the most. Ways we can be and stay ready are to be mindful of our surroundings and seeing the places we go as harvest fields. Also, we can be ready by being well grounded in what we believe so that we can be more convincing through our understanding and our confidence. Peter concluded this verse by saying (always be ready) “to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” “Giving a defense to everyone who asks” shows us that sharing the Gospel is not just going to happen because we approach people, sometimes it will happen when people approach us! So, we must be ready for that reason as well. “The hope” that they will question us about is our lifestyles that reflect our belief in the resurrection, the second coming of Jesus, heaven, no fear of death, etc. Hope is one of our greatest tools to attract people to the Lord because they are without hope (Eph. 2:12). Just like Paul did in Second Timothy 4:2, Peter tells us how we are to witness (or, in what spirit) when he says, “with meekness and fear.” “Meekness” describes being gentle and considerate. This would mean that we are not the only one who gets a word in, not being overly opinionative, and being considerate of their feelings. “Fear” literally means to be respectful or reverential. This would describe respecting their views and being careful not to offend them or drive them away because you place great value on them. A good example is how we witness to our loved ones. We are very careful with them. Why? Because we are afraid of driving them further away. This is the same attitude of meekness and fear that we are to witness to others in. So, from these two passages of Scripture we should be able to see the importance that the apostles placed on being ready to share the gospel of peace. IN CONCLUSION So, in conclusion, I can promise you that if you do not have your walk prepared to share the good news, you will be susceptible to the enemy’s deception. If you do not stay on ready to fulfill the great commission, you will stumble and fall into one of the devil’s most deceptive devices—apathy. Stay ready! Be prepared! Keep your shoes on, always being ready to move forward and take ground for the kingdom of God! There is no greater fulfillment; there is no greater sense of purpose than when we seek first the kingdom of God by sharing the gospel of reconciliation! REVIEW
So, we are on a teaching series right now where we are learning about what it means to be the Lord’s witnesses. And like I’ve made the point of, this is a much bigger part of our calling in Christ than most Christians believe. You see, we live in a day where believers are focused on discovering their identity and understand what Jesus has done for them. And while knowing these things is critical, it is also important to understand what is expected of us after we’ve received His love & grace—and that is, we are called to be witnesses for Him. So, church, we need to recognize how big of a part that our witness plays in our life here on the earth. It’s the reason the Lord physically left us here even though we’ve been raised up together with Him. It’s our purpose! So, we started off talking about the power to be a witness. In other words, we have looked at the promised Holy Spirit and seen the role He plays in making us effective witnesses for Christ. And we discovered that in order for us to be lights to the world, we have to have power to do so. And this power is that second work of grace that is available to us when the Holy Spirit comes upon us and we are filled with Him. Over the past two weeks, we’ve been looking at the word “witness” and we’ve learned that the Greek word used is martys, which is where we get our word “martyr” from. So, when we think of the term “martyr”, we think of a person who gives their life for the Gospel—meaning, they are put to death because of their faith and/or the sharing of it. But the fact is, in the original sense of the word, a “martyr” was not just one who died for their faith; it is one who lived for their faith! Might we say that a witness—a martys—is one who is “dying to testify of Jesus Christ”? Well, the fact is, we did die to become a witness because everyone who has called on the name of the Lord and been born again “died” to themselves and had their old man crucified in Him. Therefore, we have been born & created as His witnesses. But our point was that a martys (mar-tose) is someone who is so committed to the cause of Christ that they are not only willing to die for what they believe but they will live their lives committed to bearing witness of what they believe. So, are you a “martyr”? Am I a “martyr”? Are we someone who is willing to both live & die for our faith and are living our lives to testify of Him and make Him known? This is what I believe the mentality of the early church was and ought to be the same mind that is in us. Amen? Now last week, we looked at Revelation 12:11 and learned how overcoming the devil in those he has blinded is done—by three things: 1. The blood of the Lamb 2. The word of our testimony 3. Not loving our lives to the death. If you missed that one or any of the others for that matter, go back and listen to what the Lord has been teaching us about being His witnesses. But again, our emphasis has been that of Acts 1:8—that we have received power to be Christ’s witnesses because of the Holy Spirit and therefore are called to testify of Him! WHERE DO I START THEN? So, the question many of us might have is – “Where do I start?” I mean, the immensity of the call can be so overwhelming because there are so many people out there who need Christ. Therefore, it can be intimidating to consider what the Lord expects out of us as His witnesses. Well, I believe Jesus gave us a very practical directive to fulfilling His great commission of being Christ’s witnesses in Acts 1:8. In this verse, He said that His disciples would be His witnesses— “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” So, I want you to notice that the places the Lord called them to be His witnesses in was progressive: He started in Jerusalem, which (as you are about to see) was the city where they were currently at. Judea and Samaria were the regions surrounding their city. And to the ends of the earth obviously included everywhere beyond the previous two. So, let’s look at all three of these in detail… First of all, notice that the first place that Jesus mentioned for His Jewish disciples to begin was the city where they were currently at—Jerusalem: You see, we know this is where they would be because in Luke 24:49, Jesus told them to tarry in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. Therefore, when Jesus said in this verse that they would receive this power when the Holy Spirit would come upon them, He was referring to them being witnesses in the place they were doing the “tarrying”—thus, they would be in Jerusalem. So let me say that it’s rather obvious that each one of us are not called to begin in the city of Jerusalem like Jesus’ disciples were; no, we are called to begin in our own “Jerusalem”—which is in the place where we are at. Therefore, geographically speaking, our “Jerusalem” could describe our neighborhood, our county, or our city—depending on how far reaching you want to make it. You see, we are to find the places and opportunities around us in the “city” in which we live and take advantage of them. Yes, we need to actively be looking for the opportunities contained in our center of influence and comfort zone as much as we can! The possibilities are limitless. The key is just possessing a sense of urgency and an acute awareness of the opportunities around us! Now I don’t believe we need to only look at this geographically either. Our “Jerusalem” can also describe certain people in our lives like our family, friends, co-workers, etc. So, in essence, our “Jerusalem” would be those close to us and where we are at. That’s where we are first called to be His witnesses. What this teaches me is that one of the places that we need to put our focus on is our own household and in the household of God. Have you ever noticed that from the Lord Jesus to the apostle Paul, they always went to the Jews first. Yes, when Paul went into a new city, he would go to the synagogue first. Jesus Himself was not called to the Gentiles but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This is why Paul said in Romans 1:16 that this salvation is to the Jew first and then to the Greek. Yes, this describes those born Jewish, but it can also be applied to those who call themselves Christians and are churched. We need never forget that—that the Lord has called us to be His witnesses within these church walls by loving one another. And this certainly applies to when we get together with other believers of other churches & denominations, which we are currently doing through Hope for the Heart of Georgia. This should be a practical lesson for us that when it comes to fulfilling the great commission we do not need to get bogged down by the immensity of the call and try to figure out where does the Lord want me to go. As Jesus said, we just need to begin where we are at! We need to first find the opportunities contained in our “Jerusalem” and be witnesses to those who are around us. Then notice what Jesus told them next: He told them that they would go into all of Judea and Samaria. This was the surrounding country and region around the city that they lived in. Now the fact that Jesus mentions Judea first is significant in the fact that Judea was one of the few regions of Israel and it was where the city of Jerusalem was located. So geographically speaking, our “Judea” might be the state we reside in. So whatever we consider our “Jerusalem” to be, our “Judea” is the much more expansive part of it—like if we look at our “Jerusalem” as our immediate family, then our “Judea” would be our more far reaching family members like our uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. If we consider our “Jerusalem” our friends who are close to us, then our “Judea” would be those who are just outside of our inner circle of friends. Do you get the point? Our “Judea” are those who are around us, which I’ll describe here in a moment … But our “Samaria” is different than our “Judea” in more ways than one. You see, to the Jews, Samaria was not their preferred place of evangelism. There was a lot of religious prejudice there, so the Jews & Samaritans did not care much for each other. So our “Samaria” is obvious: Geographically, it would be the places that are outside of our comfort zone. Like, for instance, to the southerner who was born & raised in Georgia, “Samaria” might be the northerner that talks a little differently and culturally, might be a little out of their comfort zone. But symbolically, the “Samaritan” might simply be the person who is different than you religiously, culturally, racially, sexually…the list can go on and on. The bottom line is, Jesus was telling His disciples that they are not just called to be witnesses to those who are like them both physically and spiritually, but to those they don’t necessarily like, those who are different than them, etc. Church, this is the Lord’s heart—that we possess His perfect love that goes beyond just loving our friends & family to loving the stranger & our enemies. Therefore, when we have done what we could do in our “Jerusalem”, we are to move on to “Judea and Samaria” which is symbolic of the places surrounding our circle of influence. This would obviously be the opportunities we are surrounded with and see in the “marketplace” or the place just simply outside of our comfort zone like Samaria was to the Jew. You see, we all want to stay in our “Jerusalem’s” (i.e. the places where we are comfortable and that we are familiar with), but God has called us to eventually move out of our comfort zone and into a ministry that might stretch us. That would certainly be in the grocery store, the movie theatre, the airport, etc. So be aware of those “Samaria’s” that the Holy Spirit might desire to manifest Himself through you unto. And, last but not least, He included all of the earth so that they were not confused about His intention to preach the gospel to every creature all around the world. So, this is a process to expand until we have covered the whole earth! Jesus has plans for His kingdom to spread like leaven until it fills the whole earth and this is only going to occur as you and I first claim our “Jerusalem’s” and then our “Judea’s and Samaria’s.” Now going “to the end of the earth” is obviously not for everyone—for the Lord is not going to call all of us to go to the far reaches of the earth to share the gospel. Now some of us might be called to go outside of this nation to be His witnesses, but I would venture to say that most of us will not physically go beyond our “Judea / Samaria.” But here is what is awesome … In this world we live in today where with just one click of a button you can communicate with people all around the world, we have an awesome opportunity to share the gospel and be a light from our own home! Jesus taught us in Matthew 24:14 that this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world and then the end will come. And I believe the technology that we possess today is a big way that this is capable of happening. So I see this as another way that we can be witnesses! We can utilize the technology that we’ve been blessed with today to share the Word with people! We can use email, social media platforms, YouTube, etc. to spread the Gospel and share what God has done in our lives! Of course, we know the devil has used these things for his purposes, but I believe God gave us the technology we have today to promote His agenda. So even though the devil has perverted it, using it for his purposes, that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want us using it for cause of Christ. So, here’s the lesson in this: Let’s use it for His glory! Let’s take the tools God’s given us to be His witness to the ends of the earth! I can’t tell you how many times I have posted a Scripture or an exhortation online on something like Facebook and get responses thanking me saying, “That was just for me today!” or “I needed to hear that.” Personally, I have a lisp when I refer to Facebook—To me, it’s faithbook! Lol. I also use things like Facebook & YouTube to promote videos & teachings. I have over 10,000 people watching these things weekly. And that’s not just because I’m a pastor/minister. It’s simply because I’m utilizing the tools God has given to me, and figuring out the best ways to use them. What I’m saying is that there are a lot of ways to witness and testify of the glory & goodness of God to people that I might never see face to face. So we need to use those vehicles to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. The bottom line, church, is that we love people. If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we will be a great witness in our own Jerusalem, in our Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Having God’s love in our hearts for others is the key, accompanied by having the right perspective on eternity. So I would like to end today by sharing with you what I consider to be a parable that perfectly illustrates what it means to be a witness in all of these places in our lives—the Parable of the Good Samaritan. THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN This parable is one that Jesus taught to answer the question of who our neighbor is: You see, the Lord said that one of the greatest commandments is to love our neighbor as we do ourselves. Well, the real question then that comes up is “Who is my neighbor?” If you recall, this was a question that a lawyer asked Jesus, seeking to justify himself. You see, what this religious dude was trying to do was determine where the line was. What I mean by that is he wanted specific requirements to having eternal life, so that he could do the bare minimum to “pass the class.” But Jesus did not let people do this—because it’s not just about following a bunch of rules and fulfilling certain criteria; it was about actually having it in our heart to love everyone—which ranged from those we like to those who are our enemies. So Jesus gave this man a parable to answer his foolish question—what we call the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus began this parable in Luke 10:30 by saying, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.” So this “certain man” was obviously a Jew because he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Now let me quickly make the point that if our “neighbor” that we are called to witness to was strictly in Jerusalem, then it would be easy for someone to just pass on by this hurting man because, after all, he technically wasn’t in Jerusalem, right? So this Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho and something terrible happened—He “fell among thieves.” These thieves stripped him of his clothing, physically wounded him, and then left him there half dead. (All of these things pointing towards a far worse condition which we will get to in a moment). Then, in verses 31-22, we are told— “Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side.” So both of these religious Jews—a priest and a Levite—saw the man yet passed by on the other side. Now why would they both have chosen to go around the man by passing by on the other side of the road? It’s because people know instinctively that if they passed by close to the man, that they should be the one to help this man. It’s kind of like how we might see something that might solicit compassion on television, and we change the channel real quick before it tugs on our heart strings. Well, these religious guys did not want to cross that line even though they saw that there was someone in need on the road. But then Jesus said in verses 33-35, “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.” So Jesus used a Samaritan—a religiously and socially unacceptable person in the Jewish way of thinking—to represent to His Jewish audience the one who truly loved their neighbor. He did this to show that your “neighbor” is not just your friends and affiliates; your neighbor is also someone totally different from you. Therefore, Jesus’ point was that your neighbor is anyone you come across on your way regardless of the color of their skin, what side of the tracks they live on, their religious beliefs, etc. In other words, your “neighbor” is whoever you come into contact with and whoever is close to you at the time—not necessarily geographically, but also those whom you are aware of. So, in verses 36-37, we see the culmination of Jesus’ point from the parable: He starts off by asking— “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” Then we see the lawyer answering him – “He who showed mercy on him.” So Jesus answered and said to him, “Go and do likewise.” Now here is another important point that I believe we need to see in this Parable of the Good Samaritan: It also paints a beautiful picture of our Savior Jesus Christ and His redemptive work … Notice in verse 30 that this certain man (a type of mankind) fell among “thieves.” Satan is called the thief in John 10:10. Then notice the three things that the “thief” did to him:
The stripping him of his clothing can symbolize several things: It can refer to stripping mankind of his robe of righteousness and garments of salvation which he lost when he transgressed in the garden. It can also refer to the same instance when he was stripped of his authority over the earth. And, last but not least, his “clothing” can refer to his prosperity thereby leaving him in poverty (one third of the curse of the law). The “wounding” of this man describes his physical affliction. This symbolizes our physical afflictions consisting of all of our sicknesses, diseases, pains and infirmities. Then with the last effect of the thieves, we see that they departed him, leaving him half dead. You see, this is always what Satan and sin will do to you: They will entice you, and then when they are through destroying your life, they will forsake you. But notice that they left this man “half-dead.” This symbolizes the state that man was left in after his transgression—half dead—that is, left alive physically, but dead spiritually. You see, these three things – being stripped of his clothing, being wounded, and being left half-dead – can symbolize the three-fold curse of the law—poverty, sickness, and death. Our run-in with sin left us cursed, but our rescue by our “good neighbor” left us blessed. Yes, this “Good Samaritan” is a type of our Lord and Savior as He too likewise “journeyed” and came where the man was. This symbolizes Jesus journeying from heaven to earth, where we are (vs.33). When He saw us, He was moved with compassion. Then, in verses 34-35, we see what Jesus did for us … Number one, He bandaged our spiritual and natural wounds! How? By pouring on oil and wine! The oil represents the indwelling of the Holy Spirit upon salvation. The wine represents the infilling of the Holy Spirit after salvation. He then put us on his animal which describes us taking His yoke upon ourselves which is easy and light. Then in verse 35, after doing so much to take care of us, He departed but promised He would come again! CONCLUSION Church, Jesus perfectly illustrated how to love our neighbor as ourselves by what He did for us. And church, this is how we need to view & treat those first in our “Jerusalem,” then in our “Judea and Samaria,” and also everyone all around the world. We need to recognize that we are called to be witnesses to those we pass in the grocery store, those we sit next to at our jobs, those who live in our neighborhood, etc. etc. etc. The majority of these people are that certain man who fell among thieves. They are stripped of the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness! They are wounded, damaged, sick, and infirmed! They are half-dead—being alive physically but dead spiritually! Every day we pass someone in this condition, and the Lord has called us to love our neighbor by being His witnesses to everyone we come in contact with. Jesus has said, “Go therefore!” Go into your Jerusalem! Go into your Judea and Samaria! Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature and be His witness! Amen! REVIEW
So, for the first four weeks of this series, we have spent our time looking at the power to be a witness. In other words, we have looked at the promised Holy Spirit and seen the role He plays in making us effective witnesses for Christ. We saw how being filled and baptized with the Holy Spirit is the first step to becoming witnesses because in order for us to be lights to the world, we have to have power to do so. And this power is that second work of grace that is available to us when the Holy Spirit comes upon us. We then started looking at the various ministries that the Holy Spirit is meant to provide in us that make us better witnesses—ministries such as being the Convicter, Counselor, Intercessor, Strengthener, etc. We went through these different workings of the Holy Spirit and learned how there is a lot more that the Holy Spirit is willing to do in and through us that not only helps us in our own personal walks but helps in being a light to others. Then over the past couple of weeks, we have looked at how the Holy Spirit also produces certain things in us that also contribute to our witness. In fact, these are two groups of nine things—the fruit of the Spirit & the gifts of the Spirit. First of all, we talked about how the most important way the Holy Spirit helps us be Christ’s witnesses is by the fruit He produces in our lives. Yes, the love, joy, peace, etc. that we have manifested in our lives speak to and validate our faith to the world around us. Jesus taught us that we will know the nature of wolves by their fruit. Well, if that’s the case with those who are not Christians, then it will also be that way with us who are. Yes, the world will know us by our fruit. That’s right—these nine fruit being produced in our lives will cause people to look at these here branches and say, “Yup, that’s a Christian tree! And I want to eat the fruit of what this Christian tree is saying!” Then last week, we looked at the role the gifts of the Spirit play in our witness. And we saw how the Holy Spirit desires to manifest these gifts in and through us when we are ministering to people, as a help to us and a sign to them. We saw that the Greek word for “gifts” is where we get our English word “charisma” from. So, the gifts of the Spirit are the “charisma” of God, and we sure know that we could use some charisma to be more attractive to unbelievers, amen? And this charisma of the Spirit are these nine gifts He manifests in our lives. So, we looked at all nine of them and saw how the vocal gifts (different kinds of tongues, the interpretation of tongues, and prophecy), the revelation gifts (word of knowledge, word of wisdom, and discerning of spirits), and the power gifts (gifts of healings, working of miracles, and special faith) all can be used in our witness to the world. But like it is with the fruit of the Spirit, these gifts have to be cultivated. These things the Holy Spirit is there to produce in our lives don’t come automatically. No, they must be planted & watered. The ground must be cultivated and tended. And we learned various ways that this occurs. DYING TO BE A WITNESS So now that we have spent ample time talking about this power we have to be witnesses, let’s transition to specifically talking about the witnesses that He has made us. Again, Jesus said in Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” This word “witnesses” here comes from the Greek word martys, which is where we get our word “martyr” from. Now when we think of the term “martyr”, we think of a person who gives their life for the Gospel—meaning, they are put to death because of their faith and/or the sharing of it. But the fact is, in the original sense of the word, a “martyr” was not just one who died for their faith; it is one who lived for their faith! Might we say that a witness—a martys—is one who is “dying to testify of Jesus Christ”? Well, the fact is, we did die to become a witness because everyone who has called on the name of the Lord and been born again “died” to themselves and had their old man crucified in Him. Therefore, we have been born & created as His witnesses. In fact, specifically what we have been called to do is be the Lord’s ministers—His ministers of reconciliation. This is the purpose of our witness. But my point is that this is who we have been made; not just what we ought to be. This is why Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we will be witnesses. If you recall, in Luke 24:44-49, we see how Jesus said something similar: These verses read— “Then He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” So, notice in verse 48 that Jesus said that they were witnesses of these things. What things? Of how the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day as well as all of the other things that would come as a result of His death, burial, and resurrection. But notice that upon experiencing these things, Jesus said that they “are witnesses.” Not “will be witnesses” but that they currently were witnesses. Now this does not mean that those who walked with Him on this earth are the only witnesses of Christ. No, any of us who experience Him, have our lives changed by Him, etc. are His witnesses too. So being a witness is not something we become. It is something we are once we come to know the truth. I just have run into a lot of Christians who believe that they are not good witnesses of Christ because they don’t always represent Him well and because they associate what they do with who they are. No, the fact is, you are a witness regardless of your behavior or actions. And this is important to understand because when we see the importance of how we live our lives, this ought to change the way we live them. You see, people watch us. When they know you are a professing Christian, they are watching to see if we are practicing what we profess. This is why so many Christians are accused of being hypocrites – because people are looking for any sign of hypocrisy. This might not always be entirely fair, but it is what it is. Therefore, we ought to be very careful how we conduct ourselves before the world because we are witnessing to something whether we know it or not. But my point is that a martys (mar-tose) is someone who is so committed to the cause of Christ that they are not only willing to die for what they believe but they will live their lives committed to bearing witness of what they believe. You see, I think this is something that we all need to look at in ourselves and determine—Do we really see ourselves as a witness? Are we so committed to the cause of Christ that we are living our lives with this purpose—to show Him to the world around us. This would range from our families, coworkers, etc., to even the strangers we run into in the marketplace. So, are you a “martyr”? Am I a “martyr”? Are we someone who is willing to both live & die for our faith and are living our lives to testify of Him and make Him known? This is what I believe the mentality of the early church was and ought to be the same mind that is in us. Amen? WHAT IS A WITNESS? This leads me into my following point: When we hear this term “witness,” what do we think of? In today’s society, we generally use it to describe a person who is a “witness” in a court of law—meaning, they are someone who has been summoned to court to testify of something or provide evidence in a trial. These “witnesses” usually possess knowledge or proof that is relevant to the facts of a suit, and they convey their relevant knowledge as lay testimony or as expert testimony—depending on their experience and expertise. So, a witness is, first of all, “called or summoned” to testify: Isn’t that the way we should see ourselves as witnesses of Christ? It’s not something that you & I should see as an option. No, it is required of us, and is not optional. As the apostle Paul told us, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ …” (Second Corinthians 5:10). And I know that this is more referring to us being the ones on trial at the end of this age, but I bring this up because our witness is going to be a major part of what we will be judged by on the judgment seat of Christ. So, we need to first of all know that we have been “summoned to court” and are called to be witnesses for Him. Secondly, we need to understand that it is our job to testify of something specific—something that we know, have seen, have experienced, etc. So, when it comes to us, our job is to share what we know kind of like an expert witness where they come in with expertise in an area to help prove a case like a doctor, scientist, or something like that. What is it that you know? Well, I know God is good. I know His love is real. I know He has been faithful to me. Well, if that’s what I know, then that’s what I need to bear witness to. You know, a witness does not come to court to just share anything they want. They are asked specific questions and are expected to just state the facts. Likewise, we need to understand that when it comes to our witness, we need to share simply what a witness is called to share. I’ve seen far too many Christians get over into trying to argue with unbelievers and try and prove their case. That is, in my opinion, leaving the witness stand and trying to be the Advocate. Church, this goes with everything, but specifically when it comes to witnessing, we need to let God do His job and just do ours. Do you remember when I made the point that Jesus said that the Holy Spirit has come to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment? Therefore, He is the Convicter, not us. We are the witnesses that need to stick to the witness stand and let the Holy Spirit do His job of the convicting. This is oftentimes us having a Messiah complex and being Holy Ghost Jr. That’s not how we get God results. Church, we have to realize that we are not the Savior and let God be God. Most don’t realize they are doing this, but so many of us like to be so much in control of things that we try and make things happen. That’s where we get in trouble. The Bible teaches us that it’s the humble that get more grace (James 4:6)—and if we want to get grace for leading people to Christ, we have to learn to take our hands off the wheel sometimes and learn to take a back seat, letting the Holy Spirit do His job. So no, this trying to outwit the atheists and pushing the gospel on the agnostics doesn’t usually have the best results, and that’s because we are doing it in our own power & might. But what does the Bible say again? It’s not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord (Zechariah 4:6). This is how people are going to come to Him—not through our programs, methods, arguments, etc. You see, I believe the best way to get through to an unbeliever is by our testimony, because people cannot argue with a testimony. They might be able to argue Scripture. They might be able to argue science. They can argue a lot of things but one thing they cannot nullify is our testimony of how the Lord changed our lives. They either have to call us liars or acknowledge that there is some power that gave us a new life! THE WITNESS THAT OVERCOMES What does Revelation 12:11 say? “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” So, first of all, the apostle John said that we overcome the devil … Did you know that overcoming is a big part of the faith? We have Scripture after Scripture in the New Testament that talks about us overcoming satan, the world, etc. And we need to see ourselves this way, saints! We are not “under-goers”; we are “over-comers.” In other words, we are not going under, we are coming over! I’ll tell you, church, there is something to be said for having a heart, an attitude, and a mentality that sees ourselves as overcomers! That pervasive loser’s mentality of how bad it is, how bad I am, etc. is what I would call “stinkin’ thinkin’.” We need to have the mentality that we are victors, more than conquerors, and always triumphant! Amen? Well, guess what else this overcoming satan includes? It includes the impact we can have on the lost—that is, the devil’s deception, the blinding of this world’s eyes, etc. You know, the Bible teaches us that this world lies under the power of the devil. Second Corinthians 4:4 talks about how the devil has blinded unbelievers. It says, “whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” But it wasn’t just them; this was our condition as well! Ephesians 2:1-4 teaches us how we all once were under the sway of satan, being dead in our trespasses and sins, just living our lives according to the course of this world and being driven by the prince of the power of the air. This spirit that is leading & driving the lost is working in & through our flesh. So, my point is that when it comes to us being a witness to the unbeliever, there is a certain sense of needing to overcome the power of the devil in them that needs to occur. And church, here me on this … One of the reasons it is important to understand this is because some live under the delusion that if we can just have a good enough argument, build a strong enough case, or have the best programs in place that we can convince unbelievers of the truth. And while I certainly believe it’s important that we have all these I’s dotted and all these T’s crossed, it’s more important that we don’t just wage this warfare carnally—for as the apostle Paul said in Second Corinthians 10:3-5, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and bringing into captivity every high thing to the obedience of Christ. You see, all of those things are the strongholds, imaginations, high things that satan as erected in people’s hearts & minds. So, they are not going to come down by us just doing the natural/carnal things right; it will require spiritual weapons of warfare—these things that are mighty through God! Amen? And I believe that the weapons of our warfare for pulling down the strongholds and opening the eyes of others are found in the rest of Revelation 12:11. John goes on to say the devil was overcome by the blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and that we do not love our lives to the death. So, the first thing we see that overcomes that blindness in unbelievers is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ! I see the blood of the Lamb as the evidence that we point to as witnesses! So, from the witness stand, we are saying this thing right here is the power of God unto salvation! This is how everything was made possible! If it wasn’t for the blood of Jesus, none of us would be able to be free from the power of sin. And this is why we will for all eternity celebrate the Lamb and His shed blood, throwing our crowns at His feet, saying, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise! For it is by Your blood that everything good has been made possible!” Amen! But what seems to be happening in most of the church? We are turning away from what God gave us as evidence and are trying to win people to Christ through the other “seeker sensitive” formulas. Church, there are some things that we must never move on from, and one of those things is the blood of Jesus. You see, this world is trying to get us to erase things that they deem offensive, such as terms like the blood of Jesus, repentance from sin, etc. But these cornerstones to our faith are the power of the gospel. We don’t need to talk less about the blood of Jesus; we need to talk more about the power of His blood! We don’t need to skirt the subject of sin; we need to call evil, “evil” and good, “good.” There are some things that the spirit of this world is trying to take away from us to disarm the gospel, but I am not ashamed of the true gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes! Glory to God! So, we need to always celebrate the blood and we need to continue pleading the blood! For His blood speaks better things than that of Abel’s—wherein it cried out for justice, Jesus’ blood cries out justification! Amen! But notice what comes next—it’s the word of our testimony! So now that the evidence & “power” of the case has been provided, the word of our testimony comes into play—and this is one of the big things that “overcomes” the devil’s sway and power over someone’s life—because as we’ve seen, this is what provides the opportunity for a conviction. But notice that it’s not just our testimony itself that enables us to overcome; it’s the “word” of our testimony: This word is logos which describes that it’s not just us having a testimony but us sharing that testimony. In other words, our words hold power and by us putting a voice to what God has done for us in our lives, we break the power of satan. I mean, if we will be held accountable for every idle word we speak as Jesus taught us, that means that all of our words are being recorded and are significant. Therefore, when we share the things that God has done in our lives, there is something powerful that takes place! Yes, the simple utterance of what God has done for us can break the strongest of strongholds, penetrate the hardest of hearts, and shed light on the darkest darkness. That’s the power of putting a voice to our testimony! Finally, the part of Revelation 12:11 that most people tend to leave off is the last part— “and they did not love their lives to the death.” You see, it’s not just the power of the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony that overcomes the devil; no, it is also us not loving our own lives so much. Specifically, what these were celebrated for was that they did love their lives “to the death”—meaning, they were willing to die for their faith (and many of them did). So, the key we are seeing here is that the power to overcome is found in not loving ourselves and not fearing others. Did you know that these are probably two of the top things that keep people from sharing their faith with others? Yes, loving our own lives will keep one from being the kind of witness the Lord expects us to be because we don’t want to be rejected, we want people to like us, we don’t like conflict, we care about how we look, etc., etc., etc. These are all things that are symptomatic of loving our own lives in an unhealthy way. The fearing others & death is similar to loving our lives: Many believers don’t share their testimony because they are afraid of messing up, embarrassing themselves, losing friends, people talking about them, etc. So, I believe a big part of us being effective witnesses for Christ and overcoming the devil is found in us loving others souls more than we do our own life and not allowing the fear of man to have place in us. Amen? This is really one of the reasons why some people are terrified of public speaking and things like that. It’s because we care too much about what other people think about us. What if we had more love for the one we were sharing with than we did for ourselves? What if our concern was genuinely for their soul more than it was for what they are thinking about us? Church, I believe if Christ’s love is shed abroad in our hearts and we allow that love for the lost to spring forth, our effectiveness for the kingdom of God will reach the ceiling! And then, if we remove any & all the fear of man, death, etc. from our hearts, then it will go through the roof! So, a great way to pray would be something like— “Lord, help me to love the lost like you do. Take the love of my own life out of me and put in me a love for others.” Also, “Father, help me to have zero fear of man in my heart. I desire only the fear of You in my heart so that nothing keeps me from sharing your love with others. I want to have a heart that’s willing to die for you.” Which bring us full circle back to the basic meaning of the word “witnesses” … We saw how this word “witnesses” comes from the word where we get our English term “martyr” from. So, in essence, a witness is someone who does not love their lives to the death. In other words, they are willing to do anything to testify of Christ, whether that means they are rejected or even might be put to death for their faith. CONCLUSION Church, I believe this is a mentality that we must adopt if we are going to be His witnesses: We cannot fear man, rejection, or persecution. We cannot love our own lives so much. No, we must love the Lord and our neighbor so much that we are not worried about what they might think or how they might reject us. So, I think a good lesson to take from this today is that the Lord would have us to die to be His witnesses—that is, that He wants us to die to ourselves, our passions, wants, dreams. And He desires for us to let people know what we know, what we’ve seen, and what we’ve heard. We share with them the truth of the gospel and our testimony of how it has changed us, and let the Holy Spirit do the work in them. This is how we overcome the devil’s deception in people, church. It’s not through a bunch of smoke & mirrors, formulas & programs, or arguments & debates; the way we see people come to Christ is the simple sharing of the truth of gospel—things like the blood of Jesus, the necessity of repentance, the love of God, etc. It includes the sharing of our testimony—which is what God has done in us, what we’ve experienced, etc. Finally, it is enveloped in the genuine love of others more than our own life while having no fear of man. These three things work together for the Holy Spirit to do what He does best—drawing sinners to repentance. Amen. REVIEW
So, for the past few weeks, we have been on a new series of teachings on how to be witnesses for the Lord. We have started out talking about the power to be witnesses because as Jesus taught us in Acts 1:8, before we can be His witnesses in our own proverbial Jerusalem, Judea & Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, we have to receive the promise of power in the person of the Holy Spirit. You see, I can have a lamp, but if I don’t have any power, the lamp does me no good because it needs to be plugged into a source of power that enables it to do what it was designed to do. Likewise, in order for our light to shine to this dark & perverse generation, we have to be plugged into the power of God—and this is the Holy Spirit. We then learned how having the Holy Spirit empowering us to be a quality witness for Jesus works together with the various ministries He provides, such as His calling to convict, counsel, comfort, strengthen, intercede, etc. We went through these different things and learned how there is a lot more that the Holy Spirit is willing to do in and through us that not only helps us in our own personal walks but helps in being a light to others. Now last week, we began looking at arguably the most important way that the Holy Spirit helps us to be Christ’s witnesses—through His fruit & His gifts. You see, the New Testament reveals to us that there are two sets of nine things that the Holy Spirit performs in and through our lives, and these play a big role in our ability to effectively be Christ’s witnesses. First of all, we talked about how the most important way the Holy Spirit helps us be Christ’s witnesses is by the fruit He produces in our lives. That’s why it is called the fruit of the Spirit. This means that these nine fruits are what the Holy Spirit is meant to produce in our lives, which are a big part of our witness. Therefore, the love, joy, peace, etc. that we have manifested in our lives speak to and validate our faith to the world around us. Didn’t Jesus teach us that we will know the nature of wolves by their fruit? Well, if that’s the case with those who are not Christians, then it will also be that way with us who are. Yes, the world will know us by our fruit. You see, Jesus taught us that the world will know that we are His disciples by our love for one another (See John 13:35)? Well, that’s fruit #1, isn’t it? And what Jesus was saying here is that the world isn’t going to necessarily know we are Christians because we have a t-shirt or a bumper sticker; it’s by how we love! But we also saw that love isn’t the only fruit that testifies of Him. No, the rest of the fruit also witness of God’s goodness. Speaking of goodness, what does the Bible teach us leads men to repentance? It is the goodness of God (See Romans 2:4). So how do you figure this works? Is God personally showing forth His goodness from heaven so that unbelievers are repenting hand over fist? No, that’s not how it works. Although He is good, and he makes the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust, it’s the fruit of His goodness in the lives of His children that will draw men to repentance. Amen? Yes, these nine fruit being produced in our lives will cause people to look at these here branches and say, “Yup, that’s a Christian tree! And that’s the tree I want to eat from!” So we looked then at how this fruit of the Spirit is produced in our lives, so if you missed that, I’d highly recommend going back and listening to that message because, nothing makes us better witnesses than us being fruitful Christians. Amen? SPIRITUAL GIFTS Now although producing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives is the best witness we can have, there is something else that the Holy Spirit is there to produce in us that also helps us witness for Christ, and that is His gifts! Yes, I trust that most of you have heard of these things, but the vast majority of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ has little to no revelation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thus the exhortation given by Paul in First Corinthians 12:1 to not be ignorant of them has come to pass in the Body of Christ, because it’s a small percentage of us that have a good knowledge & understanding of the Spirit’s gifts. But I am here to tell you today that these gifts described to us in First Corinthians chapter 12 are still a very real part of the church today! On top of that, they are a big part of our witness! Now, first of all, I want to point out something about the phrase “spiritual gifts” in First Corinthians 12:1—and that is, how the word “gifts” is in italics. That means that it was added by the translators and was not in the original Greek manuscript. However, in this case, I believe it was added correctly because spiritual gifts is the obvious context of this chapter. But I believe there is an important truth that can be seen from this point: Since the Greek word for “gifts” (Greek charisma) was not used by Paul here, the more literal translation would be— “spirituals” (it is plural in the Greek). Therefore, a good translation would be— “spiritual things.” Now there is an important principle to understand in this because, although the gifts of the Spirit are dealt with in the following verses, Paul was instructing this church (and the universal Church as a whole) of spiritual things and their proper order and importance in the Church. So, if we desire to be “spiritual,” then these things mentioned in First Corinthians chapter 12 should be a part of our life as well. In other words, the spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit bestows on us are simply things that go into a life of true spirituality. Therefore, one cannot say— “Well, I am walking in the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and living a truly spiritual life,”—and there be a total absence of the gifts of the Spirit manifested in their life. No, these charismatic gifts are to be a normal part of a Christian’s everyday walk! Amen. My purpose for bringing this out is because of the “denominational” mentality in most of the modern-day Church where there are certain groups of Christians and then there are the “charismatic Christians.” No, sweetheart, all Christians of all churches can and should operate in the “charisma” of the Holy Spirit. Now I am not saying this mass of Christians who do not operate in the gifts or even believe that the gifts of the Spirit are for us today are not going to heaven. Heck, it might get them there quicker! What I am saying, however, is operating in the gifts of the Spirit is available to every born-again Christian and if we want to truly be a spiritual man or woman of God, then the gifts are to be a regular part of that spiritual walk. But some avoid this subject like the plague because they see “spiritual things” as “spooky things.” In other words, some think that if you are spiritual then you are weird and peculiar. No, even though the Bible teaches that we are His own “peculiar” people, the expression does not mean that we are weird, strange, or odd. You can be absolutely “spiritual” and have the same personality you had, and good character to boot. Actually, in First Peter 2:9, the word translated “peculiar” literally just meant a people who have been purchased, obtained, and possessed by God. So, no, it does not mean that we are strange; it just means that we have been peculiarly obtained as God’s own purchased possession. The Lord was the One who was peculiar—choosing a peculiar group of people for His own prized possession. So, now we have no Scriptural precedence for believing a spiritual Christian is an odd or spooky Christian! To be “spiritual” is to simply be different—but not different in personality; different in fruit! We are different in that we can lay down and get a good night’s rest in a den of lions through the peace that passes all understanding and that we can sing at midnight in prison through joy unspeakable and full of glory. We are different in that our circumstances do not mold us, but we are the same no matter what life throws at us and we change our circumstances by God’s Word. This is what it means to be spiritual. It is the opposite of being carnal, which is to be led by our senses and moved by our feelings and circumstances. To be spiritual is to be full of the Spirit and to let His fruit manifest in our lives. You see, some believe that if we are too spiritual that we won’t be good witnesses because we won’t be relatable to the world. But I don’t believe that—I believe that if we walk in the Spirit, producing His fruit & His gifts, then we will be better witnesses. Sure, there will be those who will ridicule and slander us for these manifestations of the Holy Spirit, but that doesn’t mean we are doing something wrong. In fact, it probably means we are doing something right! Church, the world needs us to be different! They need to see true spirituality by seeing the power & life of God in us! This is what will draw people to Him. YOU GOT CHARISMA! Along these lines, did you know that the Greek word that Paul used for these “gifts” in these verses is the word where we get our English word “charisma” from. So the gifts of the Spirit are the “charisma” of God. Now when we use the word “charisma” in our modern-day language, we use it to describe someone who has flare and a gift to influence and attract people’s admiration. It is often tied to people in positions of leadership—specifically because their magnetism is what launched them into that position. Well, the truth is, if you have the Holy Spirit, then you have “charisma!” Yes, if the Holy Ghost resides in your heart, then all of the gifts that He gives are in you too! Amen? So, guess what that means? It means that you are gifted! It means that you’ve got flare! Yes, you’ve got charisma! All of which should make you attractive to the world. But one of the ways the Holy Spirit gives us charisma before the world is through these gifts He provides. And church, these gifts are available to all those who will earnestly desire them! Yes, we can all see ourselves used in these nine gifts as we seek after and press into them in our lives. Church, the truth is, if you have the Holy Spirit, then you have “charisma!” Yes, if the Holy Ghost resides in your heart, then all of the gifts that He gives are in you too! Amen? So, guess what that means? It means that you are gifted! It means that you’ve got flare! Yes, you’ve got charisma! Amen! So, what we did then was we looked at the various times that this Greek word charisma is used in the New Testament and saw that the common usage is that we’ve already got it! Therefore, the point that the Lord was making last week is that we do not need to have the mentality that we are trying to get these gifts of the Holy Spirit. No, we’ve already got them—for if we already have the Holy Spirit, then we have the gifts that He gives. Amen? Church, this is when I believe the gifts will begin to flow like rivers of living waters—when we tear down the dam of unbelief, complacency, and indifference. Let us believe God when He says that we have charisma and walk in that favor today! Amen! THREE GROUPS OF THREE So let’s quickly look at these 9 gifts of the Spirit and see how they can be used in being witnesses: Now these nine gifts of the Spirit can conveniently be broken down into three groups of three:
THE VOCAL GIFTS Let’s start with the three vocal gifts … These first two—the different kinds of tongues & the interpretation of the tongues—work together in a lot of ways: We see how tongues can be us speaking in another known language for the purpose of ministering to people who speak that language. In fact, this was how the church got started in Acts chapter two—because when they were all filled with the Holy Spirit in the upper room, the people outside heard them speaking in their own native languages, which was obviously a testimony to them to listen to what Peter had to say. But as Paul said, there are different kinds of tongues—and another kind of tongue is not the tongues of men, but the tongues of angels. In other words, the Holy Spirit gifts us with a heavenly prayer language that speaks directly to God and edifies us in the process. And do you figure if we get “edified” that will make us a better witness? I guarantee you it will. Yes, building ourselves up on our most holy faith will charge us up to be a better witness than we ever could have been in ourselves. For one, it will get us on the same frequency with the Holy Spirit, which will help the flow in witnessing to others. Now the gift of the interpretation of tongues works together with the gift of tongues in that it allows us to supernaturally know what those other tongues were communicating. This can be helpful in witnessing because it can provide us with insight that will assist in sharing with others. Now this next vocal gift—the gift of prophecy—certainly helps in being a good witness … My definition for “prophecy” is that it’s a supernatural utterance given to us in a known language (which corresponds to tongues which are a supernatural utterance given to us in an unknown language). And what is this supernatural utterance meant to do? Well, Paul said prophecy was meant to provide edification, exhortation, and comfort to people (First Corinthians 14:3). So, can’t you see how this would be helpful in regards to our witness? Yes, having this gift in operation when speaking into people’s lives is tremendously helpful in building them up, encouraging them, and bringing the comfort of the Holy Spirit into their lives—and it does this by supernaturally giving us the words to speak and by showing us pictures that we convey to them that “read their mail.” So these vocal gifts can and should be used in our witnessing to others by using our mouths to share the goodness & love of God with others. But what about those revelation gifts—the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, and discerning of spirits? THE REVELATION GIFTS Well, it’s important to understand how these three gifts of the Spirit help us to know something, which comes in handy when you have someone in front of you that you might know nothing about. You see, when we are witnessing to someone, there are obviously going to be times where we have no idea of who that person is, what they have gone through in the past, or what they are currently going through. Well, thank God for the Holy Ghost and these three revelation gifts that He gives us—for they will give us information we need to be able to minister to them more effectively. Now the terminology is important here: You will hear believers saying that they have the “gift of knowledge” or the “gift of wisdom.” But these gifts are not just called knowledge and wisdom; they are called the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom. So, these gifts of the Spirit of the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom are not just natural wisdom or knowledge that one can accumulate. No, they are a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom that are given supernaturally by the Holy Spirit. So, what does this mean? Well, first of all, we need to understand that they are both a reference to the knowledge and wisdom of God: now we know that God is omniscient. This means that He knows everything. He is all-knowing. We also know that God possesses all wisdom as well. True wisdom comes from God. The Scriptures say specifically that God alone is wise. So, when Paul says that the Spirit will give us the gifts of a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom, this means that He will give us, of the complete knowledge and total wisdom that He possesses, a word of that knowledge and a word of that wisdom. Amen. A great example of this is with the word of knowledge: The Greek word used for “knowledge” here is the word gnosis. This word describes a complete or thorough understanding of a subject. We see this word used in Ephesians 3:19 in reference to Paul’s prayer for this church to know the love of Christ. He prayed in the first half of this verse that we would know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. This seems like an impossible statement, does it not? How can you know something that passes knowledge? Well, the key to understanding this is in understanding the difference between the Greek words for “know” and “knowledge.” The word “know” comes from the Greek word ginosko which literally describes an experiential knowledge. Ginosko was more of a broad, general knowledge than the word that was used for “knowledge” here. Can you guess what the Greek word Paul used for “knowledge” here is? You guessed it! It is the same word gnosis as he used in the word of “knowledge.” So, when Paul prayed that these saints would know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, he was praying that they would experience the love of Christ that could never be fully comprehended. In other words, He wanted them to taste in their minds just a bite of the love of God that they could never fill themselves up on. In essence, we could say that Paul was praying for them to have a word of knowledge concerning the love of Christ because he was saying, “Hey guys, you’ll never be able to completely exhaust the knowledge of God’s love, but I’m praying that you’ll get a word of the knowledge of His love!” In other words, he was praying that they would get a word of that knowledge. He was praying that they would taste and see that the Lord is love and He is good. And that is exactly what the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom are. They are simply “words” that are given to us in specific and strategic moments that originate from the complete knowledge and understanding of the all-knowing and the alone wise Creator of all things. And, no, I am not referring to “word” as in He only gives us one actual word, but “word” as in He gives us a communicated thought or a statement. The Greek word used for “word” in both of these gifts is the Greek word logos which describes “a transmission of thought, a word of explanation, an utterance, a divine revelation; a statement, instruction, or oracle. It is a divine promise, a divine doctrine, or a divine declaration.” So, when we see this word logos being used, we need to understand that it is more than just one actual word. It is the transmission of a thought from the mind of God. For example, the Bible is referred to as the living and powerful Logos of God (Hebrews 4:12). Well, the Bible is not all of that which God knows. It is not all the history of the human race. You know, there was likely a lot left out between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2. There were over 2,400 years of human history in those 50 chapters of Genesis. The Bible is also not all the truth and wisdom that there is in the world. It does not hold all the answers to every problem that anyone will ever have. But do you know what the Bible is? It is all of the knowledge and wisdom that we need concerning salvation and concerning knowing who God is and what His will is. In essence, the Bible is a “word of knowledge” and a “word of wisdom.” It is the Living Logos! So, to summarize, we can conclude that these gifts of the Spirit called “the word of knowledge” and “the word of wisdom” are simply small fragments of God’s vast knowledge and wisdom that are communicated to us as the Spirit wills and for the edification of the body of Christ. Now the word of knowledge is a fact from the past or present, while the word of wisdom is direction for the present or future. In other words, the word of knowledge is a supernaturally revealed piece of information that either has happened or is happening and the word of wisdom is the direction or guidance that is supernaturally revealed to us for what is happening or what will happen down the road. Well, don’t you see how these two gifts can come in handy when witnessing with others? Say the Holy Spirit shows me how a person was abused as a child and I share that with them, I can guarantee you that this person will be a little more open to what else I have to tell them. And then, I end up telling them how I know this and that the One who let me know loves them very much and has healing available for them. Then He gives me a word of wisdom of what this person needs to do to get that healing. Wow! Now that’s witnessing made fun, church—and it’s available to us! Now notice that the other revelation gift is not called “the gift of discernment.” You will hear this phrase thrown around many Christian circles, but it is important to realize that the Bible makes no mention of a “gift of discernment.” Sure, there is a certain degree of spiritual discernment that every believer has the ability to walk in, where the Holy Spirit shows us things, but my point is that there is no mention in the Scriptures regarding a gift of the Spirit called “the gift of discernment.” What many refer to as a gift of discernment that they possess is really just a knack for criticism and fault finding. They like to spiritualize their vice by saying, in their arrogance, that it is a gift that God gave them. No, friends, no one has a gift of discernment, but some do operate in the gift of the discerning of spirits. So, what is this gift of the Spirit? Well, notice the terminology used in the New King James version: Paul called it “the discerning of spirits.” Most other translations say that this gift is the supernatural ability to “distinguish between spirits.” Therefore, the discerning of spirits is the supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit which enables us to have insight into the spirit realm and distinguish between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God. You see, the word “discerning” comes from the Greek word diakrisis which means to “distinguish, differentiate, or pass judgment.” But, like we said, it is not a gift that gives one the ability to pass judgment on people. No, it is the ability to be able to correctly judge something behind the curtain of the spiritual realm, which could certainly be a spirit motivating and inspiring a person. Church, we need to understand that the spiritual realm is more real than this physical realm that we live in and can make contact with our five physical senses. In fact, God created the natural world through the spiritual world. So, we should be able to accept this truth that the spirit world is more real than the natural, because the spirit world is the parenting force. But my point is that the spirit world is very real and, in this world, there are angels in abundance and demons on every corner. Someone might say, “Pastor, you are not one of those who see a demon behind every bush, are you?” No, I’m not—I see five or six demons behind every bush. In fact, if our eyes were to be opened to see clearly into the spirit realm, our jaw would likely hit the floor. We would see the most giant and majestic angels encamped around us, but we would also see the most ugly and vile demons as well. This is the real world out there, saints—and God has given us the ability through this gift of the Spirit to perceive these spirits in specific situations. You see, this gift is important in order to set people free. We need this gift in order to identify the cause of many spiritual, emotional, and physical problems that people we are witnessing to experience so that we can get them delivered. For instance, this gift is extremely useful in the area of deliverance and healing. Sometimes in these situations, it is extremely important that we are able to discern a specific spirit that is causing their afflictions so that we can speak to the specific mountain that is keeping them in bondage. I am convinced that the reason that some stay sick or stay afflicted is because the one doing the ministering has not correctly identified the root cause and are praying amiss and are taking authority over the wrong things. Friends, we need this gift in order to distinguish what we are specifically taking authority over so that we can have better results when we pray. You see, sometimes the person might be experiencing panic attacks or extreme anxiety because there is a spirit of fear that has attached itself to them. Sometimes a person might be in bondage to a certain lust of the flesh because they are bound by a spirit of lust. This is why it is so important to be able to discern the activity of a spirit in a person’s life. It is because in both of these situations the world and the church have their own ideas as to what the person is dealing with. For instance, with the anxiety, the world will just immediately label the person with some mental medical condition and try to band-aid the problem with medicine. Well, there might be a medical condition involved because people can certainly be sick mentally and emotionally like they are sick physically but sometimes people’s condition is a result of demonic activity. Likewise, in the church, if a person is dealing with a bondage to any lust of the flesh, we immediately say the problem is their flesh. But we need to understand that sometimes a spirit can be involved. Sometimes the problem can be an unclean spirit that is causing the unclean lusts. So we need this gift of the discerning of spirits to be able to truly help those we are witnessing to, saints! THE POWER GIFTS Now we’ve already seen how the promised Holy Spirit is the promise of power. And this final category of gifts certainly falls under this idea of “power”—for these gifts are “the working of miracles, the gifts of healings, and the gift of faith.” Let’s look at the “gifts of healings” first: Notice that this gift is not called the “gift of healing” but rather “gifts of healings.” In other words, the word “gifts” is plural and the word “healings” is plural. So, what does this tell us? It tells us the same thing that the gift of “diversities of tongues” told us—that there are different kinds of gifts of healings. You see, Paul could have called this gift—the gift (singular) of healings—and that would mean that there is a gift that imparts different kinds of healings. And that is partly true. Paul could have also called this gift—the gifts of healing (singular)—and that would have meant that there are different kinds of gifts that bring healing to people. And that would have also been part of the truth of what this gift of the Spirit is. But the apostle Paul said that this gift of the Spirit is “the gift(s) of healing(s)” (i.e. multiple gifts of different kinds of healings). In other words, this means that Paul is describing different kinds of gifts of different kinds of healings. You see, the same principle exists with this gift as it did with tongues. While there are the tongues that every Spirit-filled believer can operate in, there are also other kinds of tongues that only certain parts of the Body can operate in. Likewise, there are different gifts of healings that are given. There is the gift given to all believers where we simply lay hands on the sick and see them recover and then there are the other gifts of healings where people are healed in other ways supernaturally. So, let me explain what this means: It means that just as there are different kinds of tongues that the Holy Spirit gives us—some for one purpose and others for another purpose—there are different kinds of gifts of healings that are used for various purposes. For example, some people may have more success with healing cases of bad backs, where another may have a stronger anointing to heal cancer cases. In other words, the Lord will sometimes specialize on the kinds of healings He will want to do through an individual believer. So we need this gift operating through us in our witness because how many of you know that we don’t need to just be coming with words when sharing the gospel with people; we need to bring healing to them in order to ring the dinner bell! What about the “working of miracles”? The “working of miracles” is a supernatural intervention by God in the everyday, ordinary course of nature. In other words, this gift of the Spirit is God, through the Holy Spirit, interrupting the natural laws governing this earth. For example, a miracle would be things we see in the Bible like the parting of the Red Sea, the sun standing still, the floating ax head, (good) earthquakes that open prison doors and unlock chains. Now it should be noted here the terminology: Paul called this gift— “the working of miracles.” Actually, this word used to translate “working” is the same word used in First Corinthians 12:6 when Paul said that there are diversities of “activities” but the same God who works all in all. As we have already seen, this means that there are different ways that God works through the various gifts and ministries given to the body. In fact, these are the only two times this Greek word energema is used in the New Testament. So, what does this teach us about this gift of the Spirit? It teaches us that what comes before the miracle is an activity or a working. What do I mean by that? I mean that there is an action or a work of faith that always precedes the miracle. This is why I believe that the gift of faith usually works hand in hand with the working of miracles. Why? Because there is usually a supernatural, special faith that is deposited in the heart of someone before they step out and see the miracle. You see, there has to be some sort of cooperation between us and God for the miracle to occur. He will tell us to do certain things that just don’t make sense in order to position us for a miracle. But if we don’t “just do it” then we won’t “just see it.” It is that simple. In fact, if you look at the instances of most miracles recorded in the Bible, you will find that there were some pretty strange directions given that led to the miracles like “Go dip in the Jordan seven times! Throw a stick in the water! Stretch out your rod! Strike the rock! Speak to the rock!” On and on and on, you see God giving specific directions and when those directions were followed—leprosy was cleansed, axe heads floated, plagues came upon God’s enemies, and water came out of the rock. There was a cooperation, and then, there was a demonstration! And why? It is because God requires faith! Faith always precedes miracles! There is to be a working on our part—not just “works” but the “works of faith” (First Thessalonians 1:3)—and when there are those corresponding actions of faith that are based on what God has said, then we see miracles. Amen! And this leads us to this final power gift of the Holy Spirit: the gifts of the Spirit simply called “faith.” Now many see this gift of the Spirit called, in the King James Version, faith, and say, “See, not all have faith. It is a gift of the Spirit.” Well, that is not completely true. The gift of faith that Paul is speaking of here is not the normal measure of faith that every believer possesses (See Second Peter 1:1). This is faith that far transcends where our faith is at. This faith can remove the largest of mountains, create planets, and give life to anything that needs it—and this is God’s faith! You see, sometimes it will take higher levels of faith to receive a major miracle from the Lord, and where our faith levels will not be high enough or good enough to be able to do this, this is where the direct faith of the Holy Spirit Himself will then move up in us and pick up the slack with our own imperfect faith levels so God can then manifest the miracle that He will be looking to do through us. And this is what this gift of faith is—It is a temporary impartation of His faith. Amen! In other words, it is the gift of faith by God taking a little amount of His faith and giving it to you for a specific situation. This is why I do not like to just call this gift of the Spirit—faith. I like to call it special faith—that is, faith that is different than our own faith which we have received. It is a temporary borrowing of God’s wonder working faith (see the Amplified Bible’s translation of First Corinthians 12:9) so that we can operate at a higher level than we are at at that time. Hallelujah! This too might be called upon when we are ministering one on one with someone because, for instance, the person has a need in their life that transcends where our faith is at. In other words, we have a hard time believing for that. Well, the Holy Spirit can grant us this “special faith” for those times so that we boldly declare to them— “By the time you get home, that situation will have changed!” Well, what do you think that gift of faith will do for their faith? I can guarantee you they will be more of a believer than they were when you first started talking to them. Amen? EARNESTLY DESIRING THE GIFTS And church, this is the point of all nine of these gifts. It’s so that our witness can be even more effective—for we do not want to come just in the wisdom of words, but also in the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power when we are sharing our faith. Sure, it’s the Word that produces faith in people, but it’s the fruit & the gifts that make what we say more credible. So we need these nine gifts of the Spirit to operate in our lives to ring the dinner bell (so to speak). So how do we begin to see more of this manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our lives? Well, I believe the answer to this is found in the Scriptures … You see, we are told in various ways in the Scriptures that if we seek, we will find; if we knock, it will be opened, and if we ask, it will be given to us. Yes, we are promised that when we hunger & thirst for righteous things with all of our heart, we will be filled. So I believe the main reason we don’t experience the full manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit is because we don’t honor those gifts. Saints, I can assure you that the reason that the Holy Spirit is quenched in many different churches, gatherings, and Christian homes is because these believers are lightly esteeming His manifestations! In other words, they are not placing value upon and honoring Him—particularly the ways in which He manifests in our midst! We need to honor Him—not just in respecting Him, but in actively and aggressively seeking Him! We need to be more like Jacob where He was hungry for the blessing and birthright and less like Esau where he was hungry for the things of the world. This is why the apostle Paul exhorted the church of Corinth twice in First Corinthians to “earnestly desire the best gifts” and to “desire” that they may prophecy. (See 1 Corinthians 12:31 & 14:1)! Does “earnestly desiring” the gifts of the Spirit make a difference? Apparently, it does! For why would he tell us to desire it if in the desire was not found more of the manifestation of it? This is the key to seeing more of the gifts of the Spirit manifested in our churches, gatherings, meetings, and in our everyday life also … It is simply in getting hungry for the gifts! To earnestly desire them like we hunger for our next meal! To seek them as precious jewels! For when we seek for the things of the Spirit with our whole heart, we will find them! Let’s get hungry for the Holy Spirit! Let’s not let a day go by where we do not say, “Welcome Holy Spirit!”- and not just welcoming Him, but welcoming the wife and kids as well (i.e. His gifts and His fruit!) You see, what many Christians do is they are only open to some of the Holy Spirit. Sure, they want the Holy Spirit to bring the sinner to repentance in & through their lives, but they don’t want nothing to do with those gifts or fruit. This would be like me, Shannon, and Levi knocking on your front door and you saying, “Trey, you can come in, but I don’t want her or that boy of yours in my house.” Friend, if you were to despise the presence of my wife and son, then you just despised me! And you certainly will not experience my presence in your home! Holy Spirit, you are welcome in my life and ministry! And, by all means, bring the whole kit and caboodle with you! Bring the whole family! I am hungry to not just experience communion with you but also to experience communion with the gifts and with the fruit! I want it all! Amen! |
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