Creating heaven's culture on earth

Pastor Bill Johnson – Creating Heaven’s Culture on Earth

I grew up hearing about stories of miracles but didn’t get to see it. It’s always happening somewhere else like in Africa or a long time ago. I grew up believing a lie, I thought you had to be a special person, I thought you had to have a unique call on your life and I never had those things and I still haven’t been called into ministry. If it happens I’m going to do my best but until then I’m just going to do what I’m doing. I’ve never had the experience that so many people have or God says you’re going to be this, you’re going to be that. It could happen any day now but as yet it hasn’t happen.

But what I found on the pages of scriptures, there were these stories about what Jesus would do and the miracles will happen and then He tells His disciples how to do that and then before He left He told His disciples, teach your disciples the same thing. Which all of a sudden means this is for everybody. This is supposed to be maintained constantly. Years ago I heard a story of a pastor who was a tremendous Bible teacher, great man of God, he’s home with the Lord right now.

He was building a new building, a new sanctuary. He wanted so much to be involved in the hammering and the cutting of boards. He wanted to help build but he wasn’t a builder, he didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t know that stuff but he wanted so bad to help so and I didn’t know what I was doing.

I have the privilege of paying people to do stuff because I don’t know that stuff. He wanted so badly to help so he talked to the builder, the man in charge of the building. He said “ I want to do something”, so the man said “ listen we need a hundred boards cut, 6 feet long and you do that tonight and after we leave and come back tomorrow, all the boards should be cut and we get right to work”.

He took the first one and he took a measure of 6 feet and he marked it and cut that board and then instead of taking the tape measure and putting on the second board, he just used the board that he just cut and he put it on the next board and used a pencil and drew on the end of it then used a saw and cut that board but then instead of taking the second board that he cut, he took the third board and put it on the fourth board that was uncut and he laid it out and he marked it.

Those of you who ever done this know that every time you put a board where you cut it just right and you mark it, it’s about an 8th to a quarter of an inch too long and he did this for a hundred boards. By the time he got to the one hundredth board. He has boards that are over 7 feet long and they are all supposed to be 6 feet long.
For 2000 years, we keep using the last generation as the measurement of what Jesus looks like instead of the original cut/the original model. We’ve got to be current to which Jesus taught and what He said to do. Jesus Christ is perfect theology. Anything which you think you know about God that can’t be found from the person of Jesus, you have the reason to question.

Jesus came to reveal the Father. The Old Testament is necessary, it is profound it establishes the context in which the Messiah would come but the Old Testament did not reveal the Father, that’s why He came. There’s an incredible difference between Old and New Testament, it’s as different as night and day. I’m so thankful for the Old Testament, I love the Old Testament actually. Everything is so fatal in the Old Testament. The only answer for anything is to just kill the guy. If you got a problem with the rebellious son you just stone him. Kill the nations, kill the cats and dogs, you just kill everything. There’s this severity of sin that had to be realized by humanity, in the entire context of humanity. This thing was created where people realize sin is severe, I need a Savior, I can’t do it for myself, I hope somebody shows up to help and that’s the Old Testament.

Jesus came, everything’s different. And I don’t know why but people still try to pattern their ministry after wonderful men and women of God from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament the power of sin is a primary revelation and now because of that if you were carrying a lamb in the Old Testament to the temple to be sacrificed. You’re carrying this lamb and somebody came up who was unclean and they touched your lamb or they spit on it, suddenly you have an offering that is unclean. Why? Because the primary lesson was the severity of sin. Sin contaminates everything it touches. In the Old Testament, if you touched a leper you become unclean but in the New Testament you touch the leper and the leper becomes clean. In the Old Testament, you were warned about being with angry people, lest you too become angry. Who you associate with will contaminate you. In the New Testament, the believing spouse sanctifies the entire household, it’s the power of righteousness to realize what Christ has done in you. It’s actually come to a point where we have to start believing we are actually born again. That the Spirit of God lives in us and made us new, a new creation. What would it be like if we actually believe in the power of our own conversion? That’s what the Lord is doing for all of us, all over the earth. He’s stirring this thing up in us


Luke 3
I want to talk to you about creating a culture that is like the culture in heaven. Sometimes we pray prayers that we know are right because they are in the Bible but we don’t understand what we’re saying. For example, we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God actually plans for this world to become like that one. It wasn’t a carelessly thought out prayer by Jesus. It wasn’t a prayer about someday going to heaven. You don’t have the responsibility in going to heaven, you have the responsibility to bring heaven. There’s a difference between your destiny and your assignment. Your assignment as man and woman of God is people’s faith, is people who knows how to make godly decrees into the lands to respond to the Spirit of God with risk and radical obedience. We draw the reality of that world into this one. We love it when it shows up and brings healing into the body or bring deliverance to the torment on somebody’s mind. All those things are essential expressions of the gospel, but this gospel is bigger than that. It has to do with how we treat our wives and it’s not just that about being unkind to my wife. It’s literally that a relationship together is patterned after the reality of relationships in that world.
See in heaven there is honor for everyone. Everyone is celebrated, nobody is tolerated. In heaven, you celebrate who a person is without stumbling over who they’re not. So much time in the church life, there is a stumbling over offense that is because somebody is not good in that area or strong in that area, they have no gifts and its remarks like that that undermines the grace that is working at a person’s life and in the culture of honor we value people because they are made in the image of God. It doesn’t mean we ignore sin, it doesn’t mean we turn our heads when somebody needs our help or assistance to get out of the problem, doesn’t mean that at all. But it does mean that the Lord wants us to learn how that world relates, what is valuable in that world.

Number 1, everything rotates around the presence. In church after church, all around the world, tonight, tomorrow, all through this weekend. Millions of believers will be gathering. It’s a wonderful point of celebration to know that they are that many converts of the Lord Jesus Christ scattered all over the planet. Tens of millions of believers, its glorious. But most of them will gather around a sermon. Israel camped around the presence, it’s their supreme value of heaven. Everything about that world rotates around the value of the actual presence of God. It’s got to be more than a theory, it’s got to be more than a theological statement. It is a fact that everything rotates around the presence. And that culture is working to permeate this culture.
It’s wonderful when we can pick things up, you can see it in the worship, and you can see it in the celebration in the joy that’s involved with worshipping. That’s heaven. You can see it in the decrees, the absolute confidence in God, you can see it in the affections shown to one another. All these things are traces of that world permeating this one.

I want to emphasize it, highlight it, underscore it but I also want to say that there is more.
The Lord is ready to unveil blueprints of His world to show us how to adjust and pattern our lives on earth as it is in heaven. There’s an effect of kingdom culture on humanity. The way I like to illustrate it is what happened several years ago.

I was in Holland and had a break one afternoon in this conference that we were doing. So they took us down town where there were these large green houses and Netherland is known for the supplying of the large percentage of the world’s tulips. They are absolutely beautiful. God is such an amazing artist. My friend and I went into this building and we saw acres after acres of these tulips, beautiful tulips, all in rows, in entire sections of yellow, green, red. It was just acres after acres of them. It was spectacular, it was so great. There were people and the weather was just freezing cold on the outside and the inside was rather pleasant, it was actually a wedding going on. There was wedding gown and people were just celebrating the beauty in this fabulous place. You have control over light, you have control of moisture, temperature. What you do is you work to create an atmosphere so that in their case tulips grows easily. Now the interesting thing is the tulips there were in abundance inside the building won’t have a chance outside the building as the weather is too horrible but inside it was just spectacular. And what a kingdom culture does as we learn this in our homes, in our relationships, as teams, staff members in churches and in offices, businesses, schools etc. As we learn as a group of believers, how to adjust our lives first of all around the presence, that it is not just a theory anymore, not just a doctrinal statement but we are actually drew in together to honor the presence of the Lord above everything else and that presence dictates, determines the focus of the day. As we learn to live this way and it begins to permeate how we think and all the values we have of life suddenly we are creating a greenhouse effect over an entire group of believers. It’s quite possible in some nations, in fact it’s already happening here. There is a greenhouse effect and what I mean by that is , culture, the way you do life, the way you worship, the way in your leadership, the way you’ve stuck together in difficult times is created a culture in this house and what is it? It’s an atmosphere in which the right kinds of seeds grow easily and that’s the desire. You want to touch a city so what do you do? You learn how to do kingdom culture here and you get outside of the box you permeate society around you and bring heaven’s values into that culture.

You don’t start as far as adjusting culture, you don’t start by necessary getting them to believe in Christ even. It’s what we do we help to establish right relationships. We value people, we celebrate, we honor, we congratulate, we commend, we do what we can to help people in tragedy, in crisis. We just live that kind of a lifestyle obviously proclaiming Christ every chance we have but the point is your life establishes an atmosphere that creates a culture and here it is the seeds you want to grow, grow easily in your city.

What are those seeds? Healthy families. Many churches work hard to get healthy families in their cities but they haven’t succeeded in establishing a kingdom culture in the house so that it can be transferred out of the house. The point I’m trying to make is how we do life creates an atmosphere in which all the things that we value. Healthy families, businesses that succeed, where everybody wins. It’s a win win. It’s not we stop this person that a city flourishes. It’s a fact that drug abusers are dealt with and people live a life that is free from addiction and entanglements. It’s the kind of thing that everybody wants. All your schools teachers, all your political leaders. They all want that. Everybody has that same value and so we have common ground but we have the secrets, we have the key. What is it? It’s the presence of King Jesus.

We come into this environment, we learn to live with risk here so that out there we have a presence that begins to impregnate culture and society and bring about change.
Now I want to talk to you about this. I have to give it somewhat quickly cause I want to make sure we have time to pray for the sick at the end of this message but I’m not talking about healing. I actually don’t teach it very often. I just talk about Jesus, He likes to heal people so it’s a good combination. Here’s what I want to do. In Luke chapter 3, I’ve got a long list to go so I need you to listen fast. Instead of giving you a wine gauntlet, I’m going to give you a shot glass and refill it every once in a while. Take another drink and find out what God is saying, what He is doing.

Luke 3:21
21 When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. 22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
This story I cannot tell you how important this story is for me and my own life. So much of what I learned I spent the first goodness 25 years probably of pastoral ministry studying the entire Bible as you ought to. I focused a lot on Old Testament. I would try to draw out the truths that I could out of the Old Testament but something have happened in me in the last 15 years. I can just hardly get out of the gospels. I actually figured out that it was actually all about Jesus. I don’t know why it took me so long but I had to get it down that it is all about Jesus. And I’ve yet to get the lifestyle down and that is what I’m fighting to learn about. So I read this stuff about Jesus. He comes to John to be baptized and John is scared to death at the moment. Why? Because he just prophesied that there is one coming after me, I’m not even worthy to untie His shoes and Jesus walks right up to John and says “baptize Me” well that’s kind of weird because John baptizes a baptism of repentance and Jesus has no sins to repent of but He wanted to identify with you and me enough that He was willing to stand in a baptism of repentance when He had no sin to repent of. Amazing thing John knew he was not qualified but sometimes when you are willing to do what you are not qualified to do, that is what qualifies you. Jesus was baptized in water and when He came out of the water as Bible says the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove and remained. This is John’s gospel, adds this quality to it. I want you to hear this part. I have so much to say this evening but if you only got one thing this is probably going to be the most important. Jesus came out of the water, the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove and remained. I want you to understand something we need power and authority. Authority comes in the commission. Power comes in the encounter. To the degree we embrace the commission of God to that degree we walk in authority. Power comes through encounter. They are not the same. They are complimentary but they are not the same. That’s why Jesus gave authorities to His disciples in Matthew 28 but Luke 24 told them not to leave Jerusalem till they were clothed with power. They needed both. Jesus lived it. Here He is baptizes in the water, comes out of the water, the Holy Spirit comes upon Him in the form of a dove and the point I want you to remember is - and remained. Now if I’ve got a dove sitting on my shoulder and I don’t want him to fly away. I want Him to do it as it says with Jesus. Came upon me in the form of a dove and remained. If I don’t want Him to fly away, how do I walk around in this room? Every step is with the dove in mind. Every movement is to preserve what I value most.

Jesus lived in a way in which He neither grieve nor quench the Holy Spirit. Grieving has to do with sin. Quenching got to do with the stop of the flow of the Spirit of God. These are 2 complimentary subjects, 2 side of the same coin if you will. To grieve the Spirit is what we do when we sin, sin in action, in attitude, in what we dwell on, think. Sin grieves the Spirit of God but to quench the Spirit means to stop the flow of. Grieving is character issues, quenching is power issues. People asked me isn’t character more important than gift and I understand the thinking because I get so nauseated over people that are very gifted but they just can’t be trusted or they live immoral lifestyles and it’s so grieving to me but I want you to hear my heart on this unfortunately I have enough time to open a problem and then I leave town so I’ll let your pastors fix this. I want you to think carefully about this. Which is more important? To not grieve the Spirit or to not quench the Spirit? One is character centered the other is power centered. I believe that it’s absolutely essential to walk in purity and in character, I believe that with all of my heart but the problem is what we make character the pre-requisite for power, gifts are no longer gifts they are now rewards.

It says Jesus is baptized, the heaven opened and the Spirit of God came upon Him in the form of a dove. I want to hit one more thing if I can. The pastor earlier during the offering was talking profoundly about heaven opening promise in Malachi 3. There is something about radical acts of obedience in fact just simple acts of obedience just causes that open heaven to rest over us. At the same time I believe we are to look for ways to radically obey to rend the open heavens over our lives but also our cities, over our churches. There is also another reality that Jesus illustrated to us in the story. In Mark’s gospel, it says the heaven was parted at the water baptism of Jesus. Just picture this, He’s baptized in the water and when He comes out, the heaven parts, the Holy Spirit comes in the form of a dove and rest upon Jesus. But the word there for parting is actually a violent term, it’s not just the removing of clouds, it’s actually a violent action from heaven’s side of things. How do we know? Because the word parting is the word found in Matthew that talks about the tearing of the veil in the temple at the death of Christ so we know that is not merely the whispering of the clearing of clouds. It is a violent tearing of the spirit realm that hovered over Jerusalem, that hovered over humanity and so here’s Jesus and He is baptized in water and when He comes out, the Father tears open the heaven and the Spirit of God comes upon Him. It is interesting that word in Matthew is also used twice in one verse. It is not only used to describe the tearing the veil in the temple, it’s the same word used to describe the breaking of the rocks around Jerusalem at the death of Christ. Jesus died the veil in the temple was ripped from top to bottom and rocks around Jerusalem, just cracked open. That violent act of tearing rocks is the word described parting the heaven. I would like to suggest to you that what happens in this chapter in this moment is the answer to Isaiah’s prayer, rend the heavens and come down. The prayer he prayed over humanity, God we need open heavens. And he cried out, he taught generations in fact that prophetic word has been prayed probably by you guys. It’s been prayed by us countless times as we prayed God rend the heavens and come down and it’s vital that we prayed this kinds of things for our churches and for our cities but I also want to deal with it from another angle. Do you know that every believer has an opened heaven? That’s how the Holy Spirit is upon you. Do you know that the Father in heaven is zealous for the spirit in you can you think of any demonic power that can block the fellowship of those two? Listen what you most conscious of you will release into the atmosphere. You will always broker that which you are most aware of if you’re filled with anxiety because you’re fearful of this failure, fearful of the doctor’s report, whatever it might be. The anxiety that you feel, you walk into a room, you don’t have to say anything, people start picking up what you’re carrying. Why? Because you’re most aware of the issues and the problems but when you cultivate an awareness of the Spirit of God who rest upon you because you actually live and dwell under an opened heaven, guess what? You walk into a room and the atmospheric shift because somebody steward the presence well walks into the room and changes the atmosphere.

Think about this, it is how Peter’s shadow can heal the sick. There’s no substance to a shadow. But the truth is your shadow will always release whatever overshadows you. We’re carriers of a Person, of a Dove that remains. Living aware of this open heaven.

How do you increase in finances? By correct stewardship.
How do you increase in favor in relationships? By stewarding what you have.
How do you increase in open heavens? By stewarding in what you’ve been given.

Verse 1 of chaper 4.

Jesus been filled with the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Being tempted by the devil for 40 days, in those days He ate nothing. Afterward when it had ended He was hungry. That’s a miracle verse to me, I don’t understand how you can, not eat for 40 days and only get hungry after you have finished fasting. The devil said to Jesus in verse 3, if You’re the Son of God command the stones to become bread. Look at verse 22 of chapter 3. A voice came from heaven and said You’re My beloved Son, in You I’m well pleased. Yet in verse 3 of chapter 4, the devil said to Him if You’re the Son of God. This is a pretty big deal because if we don’t understand how things work in this born again life, in this kingdom of heaven, the King’s domain, the realm of His dominion. If we don’t understand how the economy of that world works we’ll be constantly frustrated because we’ll think we’ve done something wrong when we are in a conflict when often times we’re in a conflict because we did something right.

Jesus goes into the wilderness, He’s fasting and the devil shows up “If You’re the Son of God turn the stones into bread. What was the last thing the Father spoke to Jesus? “You’re My beloved Son. What was the first thing the devil attacked? Was the last thing He heard from the Father. You have to understand that, what the Father speaks to you attracts conflict. If you don’t get that you’ll constantly have negative self-talk, self-criticism, you’ll find fault with others around you because you don’t understand what’s happening in your life. The word of the Lord attracts conflict. We know this from Matthew 13, it talks about the seeds that was planted in that rocky soil and Jesus used this phrase “and when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word” the word of the Lord attracts conflict.

There is probably a thousand reasons why but I have 2 reasons why. The first is the word of the Lord needs to be opposed in order for you to see the strength of that word. See the Lord releases a promise over your life that you are now ready to take a bullet for. The Lord summons you, calls you into eternal life He gives you divide purpose, He releases a word over your life that’s going to shape the remainder of your days and now you’re to hold to that word as though it is your very life. Are you going to do that if you’re going to begin by questioning the strength and authenticity of that word? No. So the word must be opposed so that you can see how strong that prevailing word is over your life.

The Lord is trying to toughen us up, He’s trying to make us faithful soldiers that are truly committed to one thing. Our resiliency, our resolve, our focus to be able to serve Him completely regardless and so He put a word in us that actually attracts conflict. Why does He do that? Because it’s the only way we can see the strength of the word released over our lives. That word can be released to you in so many different ways, it may be just a desire of your heart He confirms to you. It’s maybe you’re studying the scripture and this portion of scripture stands out to you and you realized that God is summoning you to something in particular. Let’s say it’s this passion for evangelism, you just weep over the lost, you just have this sense God is really putting an evangelistic anointing on you and it may come through a prophet, you may have some man of God or woman of God come and they are preaching and they stop in the middle of the message and say he who is in the red stand up and that person stands. And they began to prophesy and they may say something of this nature “I see the Lord putting upon you a mantle much like the one He put upon smith Wigglesworth and disease will stand before that man and he will raise the dead and he will do such and such. And you’re called to do the same thing. It’s a great encouraging word and anybody who receives word of such nature should be ready for some conflict for the word of the Lord attracts conflict. It’s wonderful to dream, we see people get these great words, they are right words, accurate words but they get these words and they don’t know what to do with it. They try to go out and perform it. Much like what Abraham did, he tried to create his own son, he tried to bring about the purposes of God on his own and it always creates a problem. And here is the word of the Lord over your life, you’re going to walk with extraordinary faith, you’re going to be called an apostle of faith, bringing miracles to nations all over the world. It’s a little intimating but still encouraging.
Here’s the word of the Lord over your life, it’s a revelation of divine purpose and assignment. As sure as I’m standing here, something will happen where you’ve got a love one or friend who needs a miracle and you prayed your best prayer and they are not healed. What do you do? You now have the word of the Lord and a contradictory experience. Do you know what this is? It’s 2 trees in a garden. There has to be 2 trees in every garden
The second reason the word of God must come under conflict and opposition is because there has got to be a second option created for you to either respond to the word of the Lord or the question that undermines the word. Why is that necessary? Because God wants me to fail? No. He just wants to reward you for making the right choice and there is no reward where there is no options.

All of heaven backs the revelation of your life. That word of promise that He gave you that summons that call that I’ve put on to mantle that is similar to that of Smith Wigglesworth. Ok awesome word. Here’s the word of the Lord. All of heaven is ready to attend to that word, to support it, to cause it to come about. Now you have a contradictory experience. There is no power or authority in that contradictory word. But you have authority and if you lend your heart to the question, you empower a powerless word so much that it can undermine the prophetic word over your life. And the Lord is looking for soldiers, soldiers who will embrace the word over their lives regardless of circumstances. I’ve learned more about the goodness of the Lord since losing my dad to a disease we see healed. What happens in disappointments like that? What happens in loss? What happens when you cried out to God, you prayed the way you’ve always prayed and you do the things you’re supposed to do. A great man of God, a great man of faith and he dies. I watched him at his bed side as he withers away and dies. Nobody could look at that man and that disease and believe that God gave it to him as a gift. It’s from the powers of hell and we should hate the disease as much as Jesus hated the disease. It brought Him to a place where He bore stripes on His body. He despised it so much. And you look at that suffering that somebody goes through. Thankfully it ended in death, he is eternally with the Lord. I rejoice in that.

But here is this moment. You’ve got confusion, you’ve got questions, you’ve every reason to start questioning this that’s been declared over your life.

What are you going to do with your moment?
What are you going to do with your disappointment? How about the stuff you now can’t explain?
You have more questions than you have answers. What do you do?

I tell you what I did. I took the painful season and I held it as close to me as I could. All the pain, all the confusions, all the questions, and I held it as close as I could and then I gave God praise for being good. Because you see, I’ll never have disappointment, loss, confusion, I’ll never have any of those things in heaven. The only chance I’ve to give Him an offering out of my pain is here on earth. I only get one chance at this to give Him an offering with the fragrance of loss, disappointment and pain. I’m going to take my moment because I’ll never have another one like this, I’ll never have another of this experience in which to declare His goodness and His greatness so I embrace these moments as though as incense being flavored by loss. There is something of that pain that I want to influence my absolute celebration of the goodness of God and we stood as a family, with hands raised. Thanking God for a dad who taught us the priority of worship. We stood there with his lifeless body. Willing to embrace the call that we were worshippers before we were anything else. We want this loss to affect the offering as we will never have another chance in eternity to give Him that same offering.
God is looking for people He can trust. He can only find out He can trust you by allowing a second tree in the garden. It’s the contradictory experience.

What do you do with the questions?
What do you do with the confusions?
What do you do with the disappointments?

If you feed your heart on what God is doing you’ll always do well. If you feed yourself on what He hasn’t done you’ll end up with the spirit of offence and you’ll end up unbelieving. Unbelief is a partnership with the demonic realm against God.

Luke 4:14
14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. 15 And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

Just notice that after this encounter with the Spirit of God, He went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil when He came out that’s when He could display power. Many people cannot display power or even though they had many wonderful experiences but they cannot display power because they keep tossing between the word of the Lord and their contradictory experience. Jesus made it through that experience when the devil said “If you’re the Son of God” questioned the very word over His life. When He navigated that experience, He came out and displayed power.

16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

I’m looking forward to the moment the body of Christ stand up and say to the world :

18 “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,[j]
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”[k]

Jesus reads these verses to Nazareth His hometown but something is starting to happen in that room, He’s in the synagogue. They’ve never heard from God before. I don’t know if you realized the context which Jesus is ministering. He stands up to read. Picture this. He is in Nazareth, in the synagogue and there’s a hundred people there. He is inside the synagogue, stands up to read, He is just one of the guys. Nobody knows anything about Him yet except His mom. She knows He is the Son of God but nobody else knows. Picture this, for 4 hundred years the heaven have been silence toward humanity, no dreams, no visions, no prophets, no prophesies, silence.

Jesus stands up to read. They all sitting there, going through the motions on every other Sabbaths. Jesus stands there and says “ The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me” something happens. Jesus reveals what happen on John 6. He said “My words to you are spirit and they are life”. Here is the Son of God, He is the word of God made flesh, but now when He talks the words becomes spirit. Remember He only says whatever the Father says. So when He speaks now His words become spirit. Why is that vital? Why is that so important? Because the Holy Spirit is where the kingdom is.

Romans 14:17
17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The kingdom of God is in the Holy Spirit. The kingdom is in the Spirit. Another way to look at it is where the scripture says “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty” lets rephrase that to emphasize something. Where the Holy Spirit demonstrates the Lordship of Jesus, liberty is the evidence, liberty is the result. Citizens of the kingdom are free, that’s the point, He came to set us free. The evidence that we are the citizens of the kingdom is we are free. So now Jesus comes to a crowd, words become spirit. He stands up to a group of people and begins to preach to them. Picture now what’s happening. Words become spirit, what does the spirit contain? The kingdom. What is the kingdom? It is the answer to every earthly dilemma. On earth as it is in heaven. And as He speaks He says repent. Repent means to change the way you think. And so He comes announcing the reality of His world co-existing with the world that we live in and as He speaks the Holy Spirit is released over the group of people and changing the options that they have because just moments ago there were no solutions to their disease. But Jesus began to talk and says “now the kingdom of heaven is at hand” it’s within reach. Why? He just spoke.

Because in God’s world, the word creates. He speaks and changes the reality over the group of people. Says repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, it’s within reach. Most Christians repent enough to get forgiven but not enough to see the kingdom. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It’s from, onto.

As Jesus reads these words, everybody in the synagogue are sitting there somewhat stunned by what they are hearing because they’ve never heard God’s voice before. They don’t know what it is. You know it every day of your lives. You sit and read the scripture and feel the life of God’s words. They have no experience of the word coming to live, they don’t know what it is like to have the prophetic word change their lives.

Jesus stands up to read and He says these words “the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me” but the difference now is His words became spirit and the spirit filled the atmosphere and everybody in the synagogue is realizing something is different with this moment. My particular translation, I really like how it treats this verse. Verse 22. It says “ all bore witness of Him” what does this means? The implication of this is I think is incredible. They are all sitting there looking at Jesus, having an internal witness that this is the Messiah. What is this important? What was Nazareth known for? Unbelief. Nazareth in the Bible was known for unbelief the same way that Babylon is known for immorality. But what I want you to see is they didn’t start there. They started with the divine encounter, started with the release of the presence into the atmosphere. There was something that was happening with them as they heard Jesus’ inaugural address. Announcing His ministry on planet earth, declaring the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me and as He announces these words. Words become spirit. There is an atmospheric shift all over the synagogue that people are sitting there and they all have the internal witness. “This is what we prayed for, for generations”. The next thing it says “they marveled over the gracious words proceeding from His mouth”. What is grace? It is divine favor. But it’s more than that. Jesus increased in grace and in favor. It’s the empowering presence of God, it’s as though favor releases the Spirit of God upon you where He enables and empowers you to do what only God can do. It’s divine favor that enables and empowers because it releases presence.

They are sitting in the synagogue and they have this internal light that goes off. It’s like it’s the first time they feel alive and then it says they were marveled, stunned, they were intellectually baffled by the grace filled words that are coming from His mouth.

Then somebody in the group leans over and says “isn’t that Joseph’s son?”
God is not opposed to reasoning but reasoning that doesn’t have Christ as it’s center will be demonic in nature. God is not intimidated by anybody’s questions. But questions that put God on trial are not accepted in heaven. Mary the mother of Jesus had a question “how can I bear the Christ, child? I’m still a virgin” God is not intimidated by questions. What He doesn’t like is Zachariah’s question when the angel shows up and says “You’re going to have a son”. “How do I know this is really true?” Questions that put God on trial are not acceptable. Questions are actually out of inquisitiveness or desire to learn, are celebrated in heaven.

Reasoning apart from divine knowledge undermines the revelation. The revelation of Jesus the Messiah and the second tree of It’s Joseph’s son. What happened in Nazareth is they all embraced the contrary experience and they undermine the greatest revelation any city has ever had since the beginning of time. And that was the unveiling of Jesus as the Messiah. And how was it undone? By a question, a contradictory experience. Jesus tries to help them through this issue and began to teach in verse 24 “Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.” Another way that was taught is stated “a prophet is not without honor except in his own country”.

Matthew 10:41 says this “if you honor a prophet in a name of a prophet, you will receive a prophet’s reward”. If you honor a prophet according to the favor God has given him then you will be able to draw fully from their gift. If you honor a prophet not as a prophet but as a brother then you have access to the reward of a good brother. Why? The concept here that Jesus is teaching the people is the honor you give determines what you receive.

25 But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; 26 but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath,[m] in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

The message that Jesus gives in these 3 verses is the culture for miracles or the culture of unbelief. He’s presenting a contrast and Nazareth has already bought into unbelief by elevating human reason above faith.
The mind is important. Jesus died to protect the mind of men. The problem is the mind is either being renewed or it’s at war with God. The mind is not to be worshipped. The heart can take you places the head can’t fit.

Jesus turns to His own citizens in His community and says there are a lot of widows in need of food and the famine in Israel but God took care of only one. He said there was a lot of lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet but he healed only one and it wasn’t even in the nation of Israel. Here’s the point Jesus is making. He’s illustrating healing power and supernatural provision. Elisha called forth famine, for the rain to stop, for the rain to start. A tremendous man of faith he was. Jesus told them their own history. There was famine, God is Jehovah-Jirah He is the Great Provider. It’s not just what He does, it is who He is. He sought for people to provide for but because there was not sufficient honor for those He had favor on. He could not release supply to a group of people because the honor wasn’t sufficient. So He found a widow to display His nature upon. God must express who He is and if His own covenant people do not respond in honor to what He’s doing He will find somebody outside the family to touch.

This explains why the most difficult people to minister to are the people in the church. The world gets healed so quickly and people say it’s because of God’s heart of evangelism. No. It’s not either. Is He an evangelist? Of coz. Does He love the loss? Of coz. But He doesn’t bring you into the family so that He can ignore you. He doesn’t bring you into the family and then ok now I’m mad at you. It will be a perversion of a household if I’ve fed all the neighborhood kids and I didn’t feed my own children. It’s not either or.

Elisha a man with double anointing comes along and a lot of lepers around according to Jesus’ sermon and God who is a Healer by nature looks around the land and cannot find a measure of honor necessary to draw the gift out of the prophet so God sovereignly goes to the general of an enemy’s army and heal to manifest to humanity who He is. The sovereignty of God has you written into the equation. What we do with what He’s given us has a tremendous impact on humanity. God invites us into this partnership.

Jesus points it out. Hey Nazareth do you know why your breakthrough never happened? Remember Elijah? Remember Elisha? The Spirit of God was upon both of them but because the entire nation rejected giving honor to what was resting on them even though they brought the answer to solve the issue of famine and disease neither were experienced by the nation.

The reason we are supposed to learn ministry at home before we learn ministry outside of home. Jesus said a prophet is not without honor at home. Why do you need to learn the ministry at home first before ministry outside? So that you do not become addicted to the applause of men. It’s important we learn ministry in the context where people know more than they need to know about us because if you can weather that one then you can be entrusted with favor.
The anointed man and woman of God is often times the person sitting next to you, in front of you, the one we are familiar with. That’s the problem. The problem is familiarity causes us to stop seeing the favor of God that is resting on a person. It’s not practical till it’s with the people we know well. Paul says we are to know one another after our spirits. Not after our personalities or our histories.