Who wants to kick off 2023 clothed with power, love, and joy? Tune into this month’s podcast episodes, pulled from a newly available sermon series, Clothed in Power. 

Part 1:

We can learn to move powerfully in the Spirit and affect change in the lives of those around us. The first step is expanding our idea of what’s normal. Then, we must get out of the way – meaning, yield to the work God is already doing inside of us through the Holy Spirit. His power works most effectively in us when a river of compassion is flowing. Our model, based on the example set by Jesus, is to make people feel so loved that they’re drawn to us, and operate out of that love. Listen in to discover how to possess this dynamic power/love combo and bring freedom wherever you go and whatever you do!

Listen to Episode 29

Part 2 airs Monday, January 23, 2023.

Additional Resources

Transcript

If you have your Bibles, open them up to Luke chapter 24, please. Luke 24. Last week the Lord did an interesting thing. Pam had just mentioned to me that some folks wanted to receive the Holy Spirit. And so I thought, well, yeah, that’d be good to bring a message on receiving the Holy Spirit. When I sent out the notice that we were going to have that service, I started getting responses from various people in the body who God was stirring up about the Holy Spirit. I had the sense that God was going to do more than just fill some people with the Holy Spirit, which would have been fine just filling some people with the Holy Spirit, but a number of people received their prayer languages. A young lady’s ear was opened, other healings were taking place, some were refreshed and received a touch of the Holy Spirit with joy, with some great things that happened and it was quite, quite exciting. Well, I had been praying about what to follow that teaching up with and I was going to go in one direction, but the Lord really stirred me that he’s not finished talking to us about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. 

So I’m beginning a new series tonight called clothed with power. Those of you who have been here for some time know I just finished a series a few weeks ago called The Indwelling, which was about the Holy Spirit in us. A very important part of our redemption is recognizing that we’re actually indwelled by God. God in the person of the Holy Spirit lives in you and I. And the Holy Spirit dwells in us to form Christ in us. Christ in you develops your character, right? If Christ is formed in you then the carnal, selfish ideas and strongholds and those things begin to be displaced by the character and nature of Christ being formed in you as your mind is renewed and as your faith grows. You begin to experience the presence and character of Christ in you, which of course is marvelous, but what I felt like the Lord was saying is, we need to understand the twofold ministry of the Holy Spirit. 

First of all, the Holy Spirit works in us to form Christ. He does that through the revelation of the word and the impartation of faith that comes by hearing the Word of God. But then there is the Holy Spirit upon you. You see the Holy Spirit’s within, but to do mighty deeds, he has to come upon us. When Jesus had already appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, and he began to talk with them, and he opened up to them the scriptures to show them that they were all about him. What’s the Bible about? Jesus. Where does it begin to talk about him? Genesis 1:2. Actually Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and everything that was created was created by him. 

So it’s all about Jesus. But you have to have the illumination of the spirit to see Jesus in it. Otherwise, you just see all the types and shadows, you see. And all they do is point to Jesus. Well, he opened up the scriptures to them and he showed them in the law, the prophets and the writings which were the three sections of the Old Testament, the things concerning himself. And he made this statement to them, he said, “should not the Messiah, having suffered enter in to His glory.” And then it says he breathed on them and opened the Scriptures to them, so they could see that in the word. 

Now think about this, they’ve already met the resurrected Christ. They’ve already shared a meal with him on the shore of the lake. And he said, “Touch me I’m not a spirit, I’m flesh and bone. Not flesh and blood, but flesh and bone. He had a resurrection body. But then he said, 

Wait in Jerusalem until you’re endued,” the New King James says, or “clothed”, the new American says with power. Clothed with power. In other words, they’d already believed for the Spirit to come in them in the new birth, but now they were to wait until he came upon them to do mighty works. 

Now I want to just trace with you a little bit of history here, because in his earth walk, his disciples moved in his ability, or we would say his anointing. First of all, he appointed 12 who went out and into the cities where he was about to go, and they healed the sick and cast out demons in his name. This is before the cross. Then in Luke 10, he appoints 70 more and he gives them authority to heal the sick and preach the kingdom. You remember last week, we talked about how the signs and wonders are to confirm the fact that the king is now enthroned. You see? The reason we need the miraculous, the reason we need signs and wonders, is we want to demonstrate the supernatural fact that God has conquered death in His Son Jesus. And that’s such an extraordinary supernatural miracle, that it takes the supernatural people to confirm that fact. 

What I want to suggest and if you recall, I did suggest this in the Healing Vision series that the church has not yet possessed all that belongs to it. I’m thankful and grateful for all we do know, and all we do have, and I’m thankful for what we currently see. But the more I have prayed for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God that he would open the eyes of my heart and flood them with light, the more I see how much is available to us that we’ve not yet walked in and possessed. So I have grace tenacity. I was not by temperament tenacious, but I have bulldog faith. And I don’t say that to boast about myself. It’s purely the grace of God. But I have something working in me that says do not be satisfied til you possess it all. And I believe that’s for all of us. Let grace work in you and you will get hungry and you will get tenacious to possess what God has for you. 

He says, “I want you to wait in Jerusalem, until the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” And we looked a little bit at that last week when we talked about how, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled the room, filled them, and then came upon them. 

What I want you to look at with me in this is that something I didn’t understand for many years, as anointed as Jesus was in his earth walk, and he had the Messianic anointing, the prophesied anointing as the Messiah, in some way which I don’t know that I fully understand, the fullness of the anointing for Him as Messiah was not granted until he rose from the dead and sat at his Father’s right hand. Because he was always God, but he was not always an overcoming man. Well, let me put it this way. He did not fulfill his assignment in overcoming until he was faithful unto death on the cross. And then, God raised Him from the dead and enthroned him at his right hand. And as I’m going to show you in the Word tonight, he received the fullness of anointing as the Messiah. All authority in heaven and on earth was given to us.

Now, all authority on earth was what Adam lost in the garden. Adam was created to have dominion over all the earth. But by the deceitfulness of a fallen being he was seduced into surrendering that authority. And Satan took from Adam, his dominion over the earth. But God had a plan to get it back. You and I are the recipients of his plan. It’s already been accomplished. It’s a done deal, but now we need to be both illuminated and empowered to walk it out. 

The Lord gave me a series I was going to preach at a church in Idaho many years ago. On the way there I’m asking the Lord what he wanted me to preach. He said, “I want you to preach on purpose, provision, and power.” I said, “Well, great, Lord. What am I going to preach?” You know, you gave me a great title, but I didn’t know what it was about. So I began to look into it. And I began to look up some passages on the divine purpose and then on the provision of God and then on the power of God. And I saw a very simple outline of the gospel. Father, God has a purpose for us in this world, the Son of God has made a perfect provision so that we can have everything we need to accomplish that purpose, and the Holy Spirit’s been given with a twofold ministry. First of all, to illuminate that purpose and provision to us, and then secondly to empower us to walk it out. 

What we’ve been talking about in the last month is the indwelling presence to reveal it to us. And now we’re talking about the mantling upon us of the Holy Spirit’s power and gifts to further the kingdom in the earth in these days. To demonstrate the resurrection and the present rule of Christ. You know, a lot of people say, “Well, you get saved because, you know, the Lord’s coming.” Well, I mean, however you get saved, I’m for it. But here’s the thing. It isn’t just because the Lord’s coming. It’s because he’s come. It’s because he presently has all authority in heaven and on earth. And it’s our job to demonstrate that resurrection glory. 

Now, something that you can probably hear in the minds of most people in churches is, “Well, I’m not called to full time ministry.” But let me say to you, you are. Whatever you do is full time ministry. If you’re a mom at home, that’s full time ministry and you need the anointing worse than most other people. I mean that sincerely, because you see, raising godly children takes the Spirit of God and that’s a majorly important assignment. But you say, “Well, I’m just a laborer.” Yes, but the people you work with need to see a demonstration of the gospel. And when I say that, I’m not just talking about laying hands on them and praying for them. I’m talking about speaking the truth in the meekness of wisdom, coming alongside of people when they’re in need and need help, and demonstrating the love of Christ in practical ways to them, as well as being ready if there’s opportunity to pray for them, to share with them, to testify to them about what God is doing in your life and in the lives of those around you in the body of Christ. 

Sometimes we we make things either or. “Well, some people are called to ministry and some people are not.” The Bible says that fivefold ministry, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are to equip the saints for the work of ministry. You see, my job to the best of my ability is to equip you to be effective where you’re called in the world. To show you in the word and to impart to you by the Spirit, everything you need to be successful in the sphere where you’re called. And I don’t just mean financial success, although I don’t not mean that. But what I mean is to effectively represent Jesus. We need to effectively represent him, or as Bill Johnson likes to say, re present him. That’s what represent Him is, it’s re presenting him. So we want to be effective representatives, able ministers of the New Covenant, empowered agents of the ministry of reconciliation. The way we do that is yielding to the indwelling, as God reveals Christ to us by the Spirit and forms Him in us. But then expecting him to clothe us with supernatural ability, wherever we go, and whatever we do. 

In the last few months, as I’ve been teaching about the healing vision, I’ve been endeavoring by the grace of God to stir a higher vision of what is normal to you. To get you to see that we’re not really normal. But you have to see you’re not normal before you’re going to reach for anything more. But what the secret is, is to see you’re not normal without condemnation. Because condemnation is a lousy motivator. And there’s far too much guilt motivation in church. I refuse to play the game. But I do want to exhort you in the love of Christ that God’s grace can help you grow, develop and excel in the things of the Spirit of God. 

Something that some of you partake of now and some of you that have come in recent months are doing as well is working in The Healing Centre. You know what? If you pray week after week for a few months in The Healing Centre, you’ll get over your fear of praying for people. Then when an opportunity arises in the marketplace, you’ll just do what you did in the healing center. You’ll say, “Well, let me pray for you. Let me anoint you with oil. Let me cast that demon out of you.” You don’t have to say that to him. Just do it. 

There’s ways to subtly deal with demons that don’t freak people out. You know sometimes people, you say demon they say, “Ohh, the exorcist.” You know, it scares them. It freaks them out. But you know, a lot of times people are oppressed by demons spirits. And you can just lay your hands on them and say, “well, in the name of Jesus, I just break the power of this oppression off my sister here. In Jesus name I set you free.” They don’t even know but they just got delivered from demonic influence. 

We’re not trying to put on a show, we’re trying to get people free. In The Healing Centre you can be a little more direct because people are coming in. They’re wanting to learn about things and I’m shortly going to post a series on the website called Dealing with Demons so you can learn about demonology and deliverance. And if people come in and want to know something they can listen. And then come and get prayer. Because we want to be a place where people can come and get genuine, sincere help. I’m not saying other churches don’t offer help. They do. But I’m saying we have a particular calling and we want to walk that out and that has to do with healing and deliverance and building people up in the grace of God. We want to accomplish those goals with everybody we touch.

It’s not about a meeting, whether Sunday morning or Sunday night. It’s about God’s people in the marketplace. You’re not the body of Christ on Sunday morning or Sunday night. You’re the body of Christ seven days a week. And so you want to be transformed by the renewing of your mind and begin to think like a member of the Body of Christ. Now let me just say Jesus was so not self righteous that sinners felt welcome around Him. You know what I’m saying? Here He is, the spotless Son of God who’s never sinned, and yet sinners are drawn to Him. Why is that? Because there was no condemnation in Him. Now, that’s our model to make people feel so loved that they’re drawn to us. In fact, that’s the key to effective healing ministry, is having people be so open to you because they trust you because they know you love them. You see? 

So when we talk about being closed with power, we’re really also talking about being equipped with genuine compassion. Because the power works most effectively when the river of compassion is flowing. And I think it’s safe to say we have a hunger to see a greater measure of the power of Christ happening in our lives and in our services and in all that we do. And part of that is learning to yield to the flow of love within you. 

John Osteen, the late father of Joel Osteen, had a message. He was a Baptist preacher that got filled with the Holy Spirit and had a wonderful ministry. But Osteen wrote a little booklet called The Divine Flow. And his message was, he had begun to see healing in His ministry. And as a spirit filled Baptist preacher, he began to pray for the sick and being in Texas he would regularly take mission trips to Mexico and have crusades there. He began to see a lot of healing and miracles take place, but he discovered something that he talked about in this book. He said when he would yield to the Holy Spirit and say, “Holy Spirit, where is your love being poured out right now?” He would be drawn to certain ones. When he acted on that impression of the Spirit, greater miracles happened than he would normally see. He told the story of a little kid that I think was crippled. And as he was looking down he was just drawn to this young person. And so he went down and prayed and a tremendous miracle took place. And what he said was, “Learn to yield to the divine flow.” 

How to be led by the Spirit of God? Well, where’s love leading you? What’s love directing you to do? Who is love drawing you toward? That love that’s in you. Out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. He said concerning those who would receive the Spirit, John 7:37-38, because the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Now, here’s the deal. Jesus has been glorified and the Spirit has been given. It’s not like you have to earn the Holy Spirit. It’s not like you could earn the Holy Spirit, but you have to receive. 

“Well, Joe, I’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit for 25 years.” Me too. But here’s the thing. You leak. I leak. We looked last week about how they were filled on the day of Pentecost and then after the persecution arose, apparently they had to exert some anointing to overcome the persecution. Then they had to get refilled. And I’ve been telling the Lord, I’m ready for a refill. Actually, I’m ready to step into my clothing of the supernatural. I’m ready to step into the induement of power from on high.