I ended the last lesson on the Great Commission asking you to imagine every believer you know training two or three others in the basic truths and experiences of walking with Jesus. The results would be amazing. You are a part of fulfilling the Great Commission by sharing Jesus Christ and your life with others. That’s what Jesus was talking about when he said I will build my church.
As I’ve previously said the word used for church in the original Greek language is ekklesia and it literally means ‘called out ones’. The double-k in the word gives it a two-fold meaning, which is called out of the world and called unto God. The ekklesia then is a group of people who have been called out of spiritual darkness through the gospel of the kingdom and brought into fellowship with the King of the kingdom. It’s living your life under the present reign of Christ’s rule through spiritual rebirth and being filled with the Spirit. The ekklesia is not the kingdom, but it is the vehicle of the kingdom in the earth today.
Jesus the apostle sends each one of us with a mission to reach those in our sphere of influence. The gospel is intended to affect all aspects of our life and even society because we are to be salt and light in this present evil age.
It’s the responsibility of each member of the body of Christ to use their gifts wherever the Lord places them. It’s the breaking down of false ideas that separate the clergy from the laity, the sacred from the secular. If you have a teaching gift it does not necessarily mean you are to serve in a traditional church way. You may teach in a public school or university. You could use your gift as a motivational teacher to business leaders. We are called to impact this world and we are part of Christ's body no matter where we have been called to serve.
An apostolic movement applies the gospel to all spheres of life recognizing God gives people grace to serve in their sphere of influence.
We are to be a multifaceted body serving in various arenas, however our mission is not to take over the various communities in our world. It is, however, to penetrate them, to be present, to provide God's alternative to evil, demonstrating Christ's relevance in the here and now.
Jesus is the prototype and he was connected to an open heaven being guided by the Spirit. A prototype is a first or a preliminary model of something from which other forms are developed or copied. Jesus is the prototype producing children in his image. He is the model, the pattern and the mold that God set forth. He is the head of His body – He’s the Firstborn and we are being conformed to His image.
The Word became flesh and walked among us, but even the Son of God needed to be empowered to fulfill his mission.
Jesus was not sent to fulfill his mission until he was endued with the power of the Holy Spirit which happened at the age of 30, in the Jordan river. At Jesus's baptism into the Holy Spirit he was covered, consumed and lived his life completely governed by the wisdom and power of the Spirit. Baptism into the Holy Spirit which I fully covered in Lesson 15 is about the receiving of power for the purpose of mission. The power and wisdom of the Spirit is actually Christ's ability helping us to fulfill the missional mandate to make disciples. Christ as our prototype needed this empowerment and he told us we needed this same empowerment to continue his mission.
In Acts chapter 1 verse 8 right before Jesus ascended into the heavenly temple to be seated with all authority in heaven and on earth he said to his disciples that you will receive power. The power of the Spirit is Christ's ability working through us. When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, then you will demonstrate that power through living holy lives and setting captives free.
Just like baptism into water, baptism into the Holy Spirit is a very controversial subject. One of the reasons there have been such divisions is because the Bible does not define baptism into the Holy Spirit strictly nor put the experience into neat little boxes that we can check off. The rational mind likes to have everything figured out and always be in control.
The baptism in the Spirit is about being endued with power and it also means being governed by the unseen hand of God. It’s a life surrendered to the Spirit.
As I’ve said in previous lessons. You don’t see Wi-Fi or 5G transmissions, but you experience the result of them. You don’t see the wind, but you can feel and see its effects. It’s the same way with the power and wisdom of the Spirit moving through our hearts and lives. It’s why it’s called the walk of faith because it’s by faith that we allow the Spirit to govern our lives. The baptism into the Holy Spirit was the normal experience of believers in the first century church after Christ Ascension. It’s why the book of Acts has been called the ‘acts of the Holy Spirit’. It’s a submerging of our lives into Christ’s wisdom and power living the cruciform life from the inside out.
The Spirit upon our lives brings power to perform works of service and wisdom to implement the will of God. It’s the grace of God connecting us to the throne of the lamb. It’s the joining together of God’s space and mans’ space, the intersection of the heavenly realm and the earthly. Baptism into the Holy Spirit is about being clothed in the Spirit and empowered with gifts so that we can fulfill the task that Jesus has given us. It’s very simple. It’s all about fulfilling the will of God for our lives just as Christ did our prototype.
Jesus Himself did not begin to preach until after His empowerment with the Holy Spirit.
We see in Acts chapter 10 verse 38 when Peter preached the very first message to gentiles, telling them how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. How He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him. If this were true for the Son of God our prototype then how much more do we need this empowerment? We need it to pray, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God and setting captives free to build the ekklesia. Jesus did no healing, no miracles and cast out no demons until after He was empowered with the Holy Spirit. It then says he went about doing good and healing those oppressed by the devil.
In Luke chapter 9 verse 54 we see a story of when a Samaritan village rejected Jesus' ministry: then two of his close disciples John and James wanted to call down fire from heaven and destroy the village. Jesus rebuked them and said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
Jesus came to set the captives free and we are to continue in that mission.
If you look at Jesus’s first message in His hometown of Nazareth announcing his ministry he quoted the prophet Isaiah in chapter 61 verse 1 saying: the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.
Let’s take a look at this word anointed. The word anoint means to rub with oil, especially in order to consecrate someone or something almost 70 times it refers to the custom of rubbing or smearing with sacred oil to consecrate holy persons or holy things.
Priests, prophets and kings in particular were installed in their offices by anointing. The word Messiah or Anointed One comes from this word. Messiah was translated into Greek as Christos thus His name, 'Jesus Christ' which means Jesus the anointed one.
Now the anointing oil was to be made out of 5 ingredients. Each of these ingredients represented God’s power, truth, service, surrender and wisdom.
If we examine these five ingredients, we find a recipe to living an anointed life. It’s a life that God can pour out His Spirit upon and use to accomplish His will and purposes. If you want a detailed understanding of the anointing oil then listen to Lesson 29: Part II The Sacrifice of Prayer.
It was the anointing or empowerment of the Spirit which gave Jesus the power to heal the sick, cast out devils and confound His enemies with words of wisdom. Jesus was sent to destroy the works of the devil and it was the anointing that enabled him to fulfill his mission. I cannot overemphasize how being filled with the Spirit and having the anointing upon our lives is extremely important. It’s about the threefold cord of covenant which is the blood, the water and the Spirit. It’s living a vertical life of worshipping and loving God with all of our hearts so that truth is in the inward parts. The cross is the only pathway to having a Spirit filled life.
It’s a simple message and we need to stay focused on that simplicity because it’s the key to freedom, transformation, purpose, fulfillment and our mission.
Dr. R.A. Torrey in his book The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit writes, the Spirit guides in the details of daily life and service as to where to go and where not to go, what to do and what not to do. It’s possible for us to have the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit at every turn of life and it’s actually necessary for us to fulfill our mission.
Now I am going to share with you my personal testimony and experience of having received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I grew up in a small Texas town just 15 miles south of downtown Dallas, Texas called Lancaster that bordered the Dallas city limits. I grew up going to the First Baptist Church in this town.
At the age of 10 I distinctly remember a Sunday night when the preacher was preaching about John the Baptist telling about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire. I gave my life to Christ that night and was baptized into water shortly after that. Soon after my parents started having some relationship problems, my brother who was 4 years older started having drug problems and at the age of 13 my parents had divorced.
Lancaster had a major drug problem since it was a gateway city into Dallas and became a drug pipeline. A long story short, by the time I was 14 years old with no guidance from divorced parents who were having their own struggles and a brother who was literally out of his mind on drugs. I found myself smoking pot daily and started selling pot at the age of 14. At the age of 16, I started taking all kinds of drugs and selling them.
At the age of 19, I was at the end of my road. I’m not going to get into all of the details, but I was under surveillance by narcotics agents. My mother had turned her heart to God and had started praying for our family. I can’t tell you the number of times I should have gone to prison and I somehow never got arrested.
God began to talk to me, even in my darkness and He was showing me that if I did not get out of the drug lifestyle then I was either going to die or go to prison.
I had an overwhelming sense of dread which is the only way I can describe the feeling. My mother would keep asking me to go to church with her and I refused until one Sunday morning, I said yes just so she would leave me alone.
Well I walked into service that day which was a big building with about 2,000 members and I went up to the balcony to sit as far away from people as I could. I had never been in a service like that before. It had lively music and people were raising their hands during worship service.
It was like God literally sat down and spoke directly to me during that service. At the end of the service, I raised my hand to dedicate my life to Christ. I got up to leave service and did not take a step when an older woman came to stand right in front of me. She asked me: Can I pray for you? Kind of taken aback, I said sure and she laid her hands on my head. From the top of my head, to the bottom of my feet, I felt a surge of power go over me and through me. I began to cry, not knowing what was really going on. I remember walking outside that building and thinking to myself, I see the sun.
I remember driving home and saying to myself, I see the trees. It was like I was blind and I could now see.
I had a quarter pound of marijuana at home. I remember going home and sitting on the toilet rubbing my hands through my marijuana and realizing the addiction I had for any substance was completely broken. I tell this story to let you know I would not be standing here and sharing this message with you if that older praying woman had not been filled with the Spirit. She was bold enough to walk over to me, lay her hands on my head and pray. It was her simple act of obedience that released kingdom power with a chain reaction of spiritual activity.
I never manifested demons, but when this lady prayed over me something left my life that had been tormenting me for years and I was filled with the Spirit. I did not immediately speak in tongues. It was a few weeks later as I had been praying and fasting that I then took communion alone one afternoon. As I did, then I began to speak in tongues by the utterance of the Spirit.
Jesus has anointed his body to continue on with his mission to set the captives free.
When Jesus instructed the Twelve and Seventy-two to preach the kingdom, he also instructed them to demonstrate the kingdom by performing signs and wonders. The disciples got the message and upon returning to Jesus they said, 'Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name'. The gospel is more than Jesus saves us from sin; it's also that he set the captives free by the power of the Spirit.
Paul said to the Corinthians that his preaching was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Then he said to the church in Thessalonica that the gospel did not come to them in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. Jesus has commissioned us to proclaim His name and this proclamation must be done in the power of the Holy Spirit, so chains of darkness can be broken over people's lives.
The advancing ekklesia has always been apostolic and one of the marks of the advancing apostolic ekklesia is the power and wisdom of the Spirit.
Kingdom ministry is about disciples being conduits of the powers of the age to come, in this present evil age and using the keys of the kingdom to set prisoners free. Healing, deliverance from evil spirits, prophecy, speaking in tongues, signs and wonders were accepted in the early church.
The ekklesia was birthed with a mighty wind of the Spirit and speaking in tongues. The apostles and disciples saw themselves as extension's or a continuation of the ministry of Christ. Throughout the book of Acts you will see that the apostolic leaders prayed that God's miracle power would be displayed to break the powers of darkness and they saw the anointing of the Spirit as needed to glorify Christ. For the gospel to be effective in setting people free it must be done in the power of the Spirit. It’s only through the power of the Spirit that people are convicted of their sin and convinced that the mystery of Christ is the power to set them free.
It’s the power of Christ in us and upon our lives that enables us to cast devils out of people, pray for healing, give words of wisdom, interpret tongues and do the works of Jesus.
Let me tell you a story of when I was 20 years old and a new believer. One year after getting delivered from drugs I wound up in a pretty radical church movement in East Texas. I’m not going to go over all the details of that three year experience, but it was part of me becoming the person I am today. Let me tell you one thing I’ve learned at 55 years of age and it’s that we are the sum total of our experiences. God leads us in directions we sometimes don’t understand at the moment, but through every experience of life he is trying to teach us something.
I was in this school of discipleship in East Texas at the time of this story. I was spending a lot of time praying, fasting and studying the scriptures. One night, I was sitting in my apartment and one of the school leaders called me up and said there was a homeless man down at Mc Donald’s causing problems. He asked me if I would go down there to see if I could help the situation since the manager had called him. I went down there and started talking to this guy. It was already like 9 pm and there weren’t any shelters in the small town of Marshall, TX. The closest shelter was in Longview some 20 miles west. I asked this guy if he wanted to come sleep on my couch since he seemed harmless to me.
So I have this guy on my couch and I don’t have much to eat, but I had some canned soup. I warmed him up some soup. As he was sitting there I walked over to him and just like something came out of me, I asked him if I could pray for him. He said yes. Well I laid my hand on his head and out of my mouth, I very forcefully called out the name of Jesus. The man went into a convulsion sitting on my couch with his head bowed and out of his mouth he spit up a big white foam ball on my carpet. He looked up at me and said you just cast a demon out of me. I was actually as surprised as he was. Seriously, I had no idea what I had just done. I was just living the life of a disciple.
If you have been going through this school of discipleship then you’ve been walking on the same journey I’ve been walking through, since that day when I was 19 years old, getting set free from the power of the devil.
It’s where this school has been progressing you towards from the foundations of our faith, to actively ministering in the power of the Spirit. The foundation of repentance from dead works is to help us understand that it’s not our power, but the power of Christ working through us, allowing the Spirit to live in us from the inside out. It’s living the cruciform life of faith working through love, truly living out the doctrine of baptisms by totally identifying with Christ.
As we lay hands on others, we are just being a conduit of his heavenly power. It’s understanding his resurrection power at work in us, his body.
Paul and Apollo’s had great success in the city of Ephesus and it was because there was a sovereign outpouring of the Spirit. Paul opened his ministry time in Ephesus laying his hands on a group of disciples who had only heard of the forgiveness of sins. Paul taught them about the power of the Holy Spirit and when he laid his hands upon them they were then filled with the Holy Spirit. An apostolic movement began, as the power of God was poured out and the gates of Hades were opened setting captives free. He then began to teach them for two years setting up a school of discipleship.
Acts chapter 19 verses 11 thru 12 says God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. It was such a powerful move of the Spirit that a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.
It was out of this apostolic movement that the church in Ephesus was formed.
Let me talk to you briefly about what is called the former and latter rains which I believe is tied to the first coming and the second coming of Christ. Israel has two rainy seasons; the early rains are in the Fall from October to November when farmers begin plowing and planting seeds. The latter rains are in the Spring from March to April when the crops become mature for harvesting.
The prophet Joel, Hosea, Zechariah and Jeremiah spoke of the former and latter rains. We know that on the day of Pentecost when the ekklesia was birthed it was the opening of the day of the Lord: it was an outpouring of the Spirit in Jerusalem and we see Peter quoting from the book of Joel concerning this outpouring.
It was the birth of the church age and symbolized the former rain when the ground was plowed with the seeds of the gospel being planted. The seeds of the gospel have been being planted for the last 2,000 years. We know that Jesus talked about the end of the age being a great harvest.
The redemptive story is going to be wrapped up in this age. I do believe the re-establishing of the nation of Israel in 1948 some 2,000 years after its destruction was a sign and acceleration of all that the prophets predicted concerning the consumption of the ‘day of the Lord’.
The church age began in Israel with Christ first coming and it will end in Israel. The church age is going to end with a latter rain outpouring of the Spirit, not just upon Jerusalem, but all the nations of the earth. The nations of the earth will be saturated with an outpouring of the latter rain of the Spirit before Christ returns to the Mount of Olives. I believe we are in that time period where we are going to see a great harvest. It will be a great ingathering of souls spiritually fulfilling the Feast of Tabernacles.
We will see two things happening at the same time during the end of the age which is all about harvest. Jesus talked about a great falling away from the faith: Paul called it the apostasy and the rebellion. At the same time the ekklesia will advance into the gates of hell rescuing a great harvest of souls.
Isaiah chapter 60 verse 2 says darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples, but the Lord will arise upon you and his glory will be seen upon you. The latter rain is an outpouring of the Spirit not just in Jerusalem, but it will be a worldwide outpouring of the Spirit proceeding the second coming of Christ, wrapping up this age consummating the ‘day of the Lord’.
The ekklesia was birthed with an apostolic outpouring of the Spirit and it will only be able to finish it’s mission with an apostolic outpouring of the Spirit. To dismiss the fact that we are seeing a great restoration of the church, since the Dark Ages, when a monolithic ecclesiastical religious order ruled most of the world, would be completely ignorant.
I think over-emphasizing Restoration Theology can lead us into error because in my experience it has the tendency to produce pride, arrogance and an elitist mentality. It’s a way of thinking that is totally contradictory to the cruciform lifestyle of Christ. However, I do think it’s important to recognize that God’s Spirit is always working to bring us into the fullness of Christ's power and wisdom for the building of his ekklesia. Since Martin Luther some 500 years ago, along with other Reformers they began to challenge the religious order of their day.
Up until the present day, we have been seeing an outpouring of the Spirit transforming the ekklesia towards the restoration of all things.
In the American colonies we had the Great Awakening led by English missionary leaders such as George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards. As these men preached they saw outpourings of the Spirit mainly in the New England states from around the 1730’s till about 1750’s. You can find very well documented occurrences of people getting filled with the Spirit and displaying manifestations similar to the book of Acts. As these men preached, people were experiencing trances, prophesying, crying out in repentance under the power of the Spirit and getting slain or knocked down by the power of the Spirit.
The Second Great Awakening was from the late 1750’s to the early 1840’s. The main leaders were Charles Finney a Presbyterian minister, then the English missionary brothers John and Charles Wesley. Charles Finney became credited for starting the mass crusade evangelism model that Billy Graham and Oral Roberts popularized in the 1950’s.
The John and Charles Wesley brothers were probably the most prolific church planting missionaries in America and their apostolic movement founded what is today known as the Methodist Church. It is well documented that through the outpouring of the Second Great Awakening manifestations of the Spirit like trances, prophesying, crying out in repentance under the power of the Spirit and getting slain or knocked down by the power of the Spirit. You even have documentation of speaking in tongues, although it was not popularized during the Second Great Awakening.
That brings us to the1901 Azusa Street revival in downtown Los Angeles. The Azusa Street revival probably brought the greatest divisions which we still see to this day in the church. One of its main leaders was a black man named William J. Seymour and out of this revival we have several Pentecostal denominations that were started with the biggest being the Assemblies of God.
Restorationists point to Azusa street as the beginning of what is termed the latter rain move of the Spirit spoken of by the prophet Joel and Peter in the book of Acts.
The 1950’s healing revival is looked at as ‘Great Leap Forward’ in the restoration of the church which happened simultaneously with the restoration of Israel. Then you had the Jesus movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s documented in the recent movie Jesus Revolution. One thing to understand is that any genuine outpouring of the Spirit will have some level of disruption. I’ve had the privilege of being involved with some outpourings of the Spirit in the mid 1990’s from the Toronto Blessing, to the England and South African outpourings during this same period of time. Like the first Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Azusa Street revival and 1950’s along with the 1970’s renewal movements there were excesses.
Just like on the day of Pentecost when the wind blows and the fire falls, it’s going to bring disruption because the Spirit is being poured out on our humanity.
I’ve witnessed excesses, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a genuine outpouring of the Spirit. It’s why mature facilitators are to be in the community of the faithful so they can make sure things are done properly and in order, without quenching the moving of the Spirit. Remember the ekklesia was birthed with an outpouring of the Spirit that brought disruption. The disciples gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost were accused of being drunk at 9 am in the morning and they were drunk, but they were drunk with the new wine of the Spirit.
All of these outpourings have one thing in common manifestations of the Spirit like trances, prophesying, speaking in tongues, crying out in repentance under the power of the Spirit, getting slain or knocked down by the power of the Spirit, holy laughter, deliverance and healing. The outpouring also brings cleansing through the river of life flowing from the throne of the lamb renewing all, who experience the Spirit’s power.
As I said at the beginning of this lesson: Jesus is the prototype and he was connected to an open heaven being guided by the Spirit. A prototype is a first or a preliminary model of something from which other forms are developed or copied.
Jesus is the prototype producing children in his image. He is the model, the pattern and the mold that God set forth. He is Head of His Body – He’s the Firstborn and we are being conformed to His Image. The word became flesh and walked among us, but even the Son of God needed to be empowered to fulfill his mission.
Jesus was not sent to fulfill his mission until he was endued with the power of the Holy Spirit. Baptism into the Holy Spirit is about the receiving of power for the purpose of mission. The power and wisdom of the Spirit is Christ's ability helping us to fulfill the missional mandate.
Christ as our prototype needed this empowerment and he told us we needed this same empowerment to continue his mission.
How do we get this power of the Spirit? It takes dedicating ourselves to a lifestyle of prayer, fasting and meditating on the word of God. If you want the power of the Spirit you have to surrender your life. Jesus said you have to be hungry and thirsty for this outpouring on your life. The power that Jesus ministered in is the same power He wants to give us. Jesus ministered as a man endued with the Holy Spirit. He was dependent on the Holy Spirit for His ministry just as we are.
To effectively minister to people we need the anointing of the Holy Spirit. It’s not just for a select few, but his entire body.
Kingdom ministry is preaching the gospel, healing the brokenhearted, liberating the captives, praying for deliverance and healing them with the power of the Holy Spirit. The disciples in Acts prayed that this power would be present among them. We need to pray that this power will be upon our lives. Unless he builds the house we labor in vain. It’s not by might, it’s not by power, but it’s by the Spirit that the work of God is accomplished.
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Next Lesson: Lesson 45 - The Body of Christ
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