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Power Moves
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We passionately pursue growth in God and enthusiastically receive the word of God with the expectation that what is taught will come to pass.
I want to share a story that illustrates today's message perfectly. A man desperately desired to take his first cruise but wasn't financially able to pay for it immediately. Over 16 months, he saved incrementally, scraping together resources until he had enough to book his cruise.
Once aboard, he was gregarious and outgoing—attending all the foam pool parties, doing line dances, going on excursions, and building relationships with other passengers. Near the end of the cruise, a friend he'd made asked him a critical question: "Bro, I see you at all the events and excursions, but I never see you in the dining room. Where are you eating every night?"
The man replied, "The dining room? Oh, no. I don't have enough money for the dining room. I just had enough money for the ticket."
His friend looked at him with compassion and said, "Brother, this is an all-inclusive cruise. The food was paid for in the ticket."
This man was sitting in his cabin eating crackers and tuna when he could have had access to the feast in the restaurant. It had already been paid for.
What happened to that man on the ship is exactly what can happen to us on the ship called salvation. It is possible to be confined to a cabin not realizing you have access to the whole ship.
It is possible to be redeemed but still live restricted. It's possible to be chosen but still live chained. It's possible to be delivered but still live defeated. It's possible to be forgiven but still live famished.
We settle for crumbs when God has not only set a feast but made a promise: "I'll prepare the table in the presence of your enemies."
Because God is the ultimate expression of love, He will actually let you live in the cabin even though you have access to the whole ship. Love leads, but love doesn't force. Love will direct you, but love won't drag you. Love will prompt you, but love will not push you where you don't want to go.
When love shows up looking like coercion, that is not love—that is control. That is manipulation. In the Old Testament, this predatory behavior is described as witchcraft. Witchcraft is not just incantations or someone with a broom and hat. Witchcraft is when a person recognizes the emotional fragility of another and uses their influence in a predatory manner to exploit and manipulate that person.
I pray that God supernaturally sabotages every relationship sent by Satan to spiritually distract you. They smelled your vulnerability. This reveals that even though we've relegated witchcraft to the female gender, it is not gender specific. Gaslighting is manipulative behavior, and it destroys lives.
God says, "I paid for the ship," but even though He doesn't want you to choose the cabin, He'll let you choose it. I paid for the whole ship and I want you to choose the ship, but I'll let you choose the cabin because I'll let you live on whatever level you settle for.
We see this throughout scripture. In 1 Samuel, Israel was in a season where they had been guided and governed by God through judges. Yet they got trapped in the comparison trap. They examined other nations and noticed they had kings. Comparison infected them with discontentment.
They were content until they started comparing. They were fine with their life until they scrolled and said, "I went to Cabo, but they went to the Maldives, and now my vacation doesn't feel special."
They got caught up in comparison and said, "These other nations have a king and we want a king." God said, "You don't need a king. You got me." They said, "We want a king." This went back and forth multiple times, but God finally said, "Okay. I'll give you a king named Saul."
It was toxic. It was turbulent. It was terrible. Then they said, "We don't want a king." God said, "I tried to tell you."
There are times when God has to give you a yes when you need a no, so you can trust His no when you want a yes. God said, "I'm going to give you what you ask for because you think you want it. Once you get it, you're going to see you don't need it. So I'm going to give you a yes when you need a no so that when I give you a no next time, you'll trust it."
Therefore, our spiritual journey isn't just determined by what God is willing to give, but it is equally impacted by what we are willing to access. Your spiritual journey is about accessing what God has already paid for.
The Bible is divided into two testaments—Old and New. The word testament means agreement or will. When the writer of Hebrews talks about the New Testament, he frames it as a legally binding will.
Here's how the writer of Hebrews puts it: "A testament is not enforced until the death of the testator." If I put some things in my will for you, you don't get access to what I put in my will until I transition.
This is what makes the story of the prodigal son so insulting. He knows he's in the will. He's tired of daddy still living. So he goes to a living daddy and says, "Give me my stuff because I'm tired of waiting on you to die."
The New Testament is the will of Jesus Christ. When the Bible says you have been engrafted onto the tree or the commonwealth of Israel, you and I are family with Jesus. We're heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
Because I'm family, I'm in the will. I'm in the will, and everything in the New Testament is the will. Jesus died to give me that.
Peace that passes all understanding is in the will. Joy unspeakable, full of glory is in the will. "Thanks be unto God that always causes me to triumph"—that's in the will. The devil doesn't want you to know what's in the will. But you need to come out of that cabin and walk on the whole ship.
Your spiritual journey isn't just about acquiring spiritual information. It's about accessing what you're reading in the will.
I'm not impressed by what you can repeat. The devil can quote scripture—Matthew 4 proves that. I'm not impressed by the scriptures you can quote. I'm impressed by your level of access. Can you say, "My foot just touched the room of healing. My foot just touched the room of breakthrough. My foot just touched the room of joy"?
Spiritual mediocrity and apathy are getting ready to break off of you. I want somebody to shout: I want the ship, not just the room. I want the ship. I want everything that's in the will for me.
And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will lay their hands on the sick people and they will get well.
This is a post-resurrection conversation. It comes after Jesus's great commission. When Matthew tells the story, he ends at the commission. But Mark, whose gospel is actually Peter's story and the earliest gospel, continues the conversation after the commission.
This is not about head knowledge, but about experience. Jesus is having a conversation with the disciples about what they can expect to experience. After I read, I want to experience. I don't want to just quote, "No weapon formed against me shall prosper." I want to experience watching the weapon form and then watching it not work.
This entire passage is a conversation about access.
When Jesus says "those who believe," this is multifaceted belief. It is comprehensive. It is a belief that begins in Jesus personally and then extends to what Jesus has provided. Those who believe that everything needed to be accomplished to reconcile the relationship with the Father was accomplished through Jesus's death, resurrection, and ascension.
The gospel is the good news that life as God intended is available to every human because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
When a person believes that, Paul says that belief leads to a confession, and that word confess means to say the same thing. This is why telling somebody to repeat what Romans 10:9 says is not a guaranteed salvific formula because the Bible says the heart and the mouth have to agree.
I can say "Jesus is Lord" but my heart may not have made a decision to surrender my life to His leadership. The confession with the heart—man believes unto righteousness—and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. It's when a person says, "If you love me that much to send Jesus to give His life for me, then I trust you to show me how to live this life."
You can't rescue people who won't obey you. In order to save, you have to lead. Because salvation isn't just reactive (that's savior); proactive is Lord.
When I make a decision to surrender my life to the leadership of Jesus, I receive His act as the forgiveness of my sin. I stop trying to earn my own righteousness because I can't. I accept that I'm accepted. Grace is scandalous good—God is this good to us even though we've been too bad for God to be this good. But grace will give you what you don't deserve.
When you make that confession, God's spirit in the form of the Holy Spirit comes and lives in your human spirit. Paul says, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." The Holy Spirit occupies the human spirit, not the human body.
The human spirit animates the human body. When we transition from this life to the next, all your organs are generally in place. What left? The animating energy—that's your human spirit. Paul says, "This body, not the real you. If this earthly house, this tabernacle shall be destroyed, I've got another building not made with hands."
The human spirit exists without the Holy Spirit, but the apostle Paul calls it dead: "In trespasses and sin." The Holy Spirit comes and lives in the human spirit, and you become what Jesus calls born again.
Now you have spiritual capacity that you did not have based on your first birth. You are no longer limited by the limitations of your first birth. What you could not do in your own human strength and natural ability—when you got born again, you got capacity to do things you could not do before. You stepped into your redemptive potential.
Here's the issue: You have a fleshly nature that lives in a human body. When Paul talks about your flesh, he's not talking about your body. He's talking about a nature that will be in the human body as long as the human body exists in this form. That nature is to pull you against divine design.
The Holy Spirit inside your human spirit wants to pull you toward divine design. But this other nature wants to pull you away from divine design. When you become born again, you go from one nature to two natures.
Struggle is evidence of growth. Prior to being born again, you didn't struggle. But Paul describes his own spiritual journey: "The good that I want to do is not what I find myself doing. And the thing that I don't want to do is the thing I find myself doing. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Oh wretched man that I am."
I want somebody who knows I haven't dotted every eye or crossed every tea—I still have some kinks that are being worked out. I thank God for the struggle because the struggle says I'm growing. I didn't used to care. I didn't have conviction. But now I have a struggle. I used to say what I wanted and then sleep at night. Now when I try to lay down, the Holy Ghost won't let me rest. He starts self-correcting. You don't have to have other people check you. The Holy Ghost will have you checking yourself.
So I have the Holy Spirit in the human spirit and the flesh living in the human body. Both are fighting for influence over what's going to make my decisions. They're both fighting for influence over my soul, my mind. What kind of day you have spiritually is going to be based on which one of those natures is winning that day.
This is the biblical theology of sanctification: You cannot outgrow the flesh. You can outgrow its influence. You can't reform the flesh. The flesh cannot be reformed. But you can renew your mind.
When Jesus says "these signs will follow those that believe," the belief starts with understanding this. If you don't understand the spiritual capability you have with conversion, the stuff He says you're capable of won't be believable to you. Jesus said this new life should bring new things for believers.
First, this new life brings new liberation. "They will cast out demons in my name."
You might say, "Pastor, this is about exorcisms." There is no word in the New Testament Greek for demon possession. The word is demonization. The Holy Spirit influences your behavior the same way an evil spirit influences your behavior. The more influence you give it, the stronger hold it has. Sometimes something gets a hold of you and you can't get out of its hold. Now you need a spirit stronger than that one to break its influence off of your will.
Spiritual warfare is here. Strongholds are not what has a stronghold on you. The word stronghold means fortress. It is the stuff the devil sets up in my mind that keeps me trapped in the addiction. I can't get free from the addiction until I get free from the lie I believe. But you're getting ready to get free.
Jesus isn't an exorcist. Jesus is a liberator. Because He's a liberator, He will set you free from whatever has you bound, even if you are bound by the influence of an evil spirit.
I want to talk to some people whose issue is like Pharaoh's—he let you go and then chased you down. I pray that what God did to Pharaoh in the book of Exodus is what He will do to yours. May He drown him in the sea.
Jesus said, "I give a new kind of liberation and my liberation lasts." When you free yourself, it doesn't last. "I'm done with him. I'm done with her." It doesn't last. "I'm done with this." It doesn't last. But he whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
I know somebody that still breaks shackles and still breaks chains and still destroys feeds. He sets you free.
This new life also gives you new language. "They will speak with new tongues."
Everything Jesus says in this text is supernatural in orientation. Handling snakes, casting out devils, laying hands on the sick—so it's logical to assume that when He says new tongues, it's supernatural in its orientation also.
He's talking about what happened in Acts 2 or what Paul discussed in 1 Corinthians 14. On the day of Pentecost, when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they literally spoke in other languages. The Holy Spirit empowered them to remove the language barrier that gets in the way of people receiving the gospel. Sometimes it's not the gospel you present that's the problem. It's the way you're presenting it. You need the Holy Ghost to give you language to articulate the truth of the gospel to people who will only hear it in their language.
Some of you don't even realize that God's giving you a new language. When your friends used to call you with their trouble, you used to only give them clichés or take them to the bar to take the edge off. But now you're in a season when they call you, and stuff starts coming up out of you. You start quoting scripture. You start speaking life. You start ministering to them. And you're like, "I didn't even know all of this was on the inside of me." He gave you a new language.
There's something else in the text. "They will handle snakes with their hands and when they drink deadly poison it will not hurt them at all."
Jesus is not commissioning snake handling. If you read His teachings in the gospels, you will see He speaks frequently in metaphors. He says, "If your hand offends you, cut it off"—please don't go home and cut your hand off. He says, "If your eye offends you, pluck it out"—please don't go home and pluck it out.
When He talks about handling snakes, He's talking about how the Holy Spirit will give you new longevity. The Holy Spirit gives you spiritual immunity that enables you to survive that which is poisonous to the soul.
This is personified in the Apostle Paul's experience in Acts 28:5. They were shipwrecked at Malta, starting a fire, and a snake came out and bit Paul. The Bible says Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects.
Yes, you got bit. But when you have spiritual immunity, I know they betrayed you. I know they lied on you. I know they broke your heart. Some people are trying to answer why you're still standing and they have no idea. God's giving you new longevity. You are looking at a survivor.
Verse six says, "The people expected him to swell up and suddenly fall dead. But after waiting a long time, you're watching. You're watching to see if I'm going to get swole and die. But keep waiting. God has given me longevity. I will outlast this fight."
Yes, the pain is here, but I'm well. The grief is here, but I'm well. Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, it is well with my soul. I want somebody going through something right now to raise your voice and say, "It's well."
The text says one more thing: they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well. New life gives you new leverage.
When you gain new leverage, when you find yourselves in predicaments, you need to know you are no longer limited to natural remedies or restricted by human resources. You can leverage heaven's help.
You never have to feel entrapped, snared, and in bondage to what somebody else will do for you. You don't have to just leverage earthly relationships—you can leverage heavenly relationships. He's saying there can be spiritual intervention through physical contact.
It is not a guarantee of outcome in terms of remedying the physical malady, but it is a guarantee of wellness even if you keep the malady. I don't care what's got you sick. Your testimony is you're still well.
The pain is here, but I'm well. The grief is here, but I'm well. My heart is broken, but I'm well.
Nothing I said today, even though you understood it, can be executed and implemented without God. You need Him.
If you haven't ever really heard the gospel the way I put it earlier—if you've never received Jesus as the leader, the Lord of your life, and the forgiver of your sin—I want to help you make that step.
