In this sermon Tim preaches on the power and works of the Holy Spirit when combined with the preaching of the Word and the Gospel! The things Jesus promised are available to us today, to quote John Wimber: when I prayed for no-one, no-one got healed, when I prayed for everyone, some got healed! How will this impact you this week?
Sermon preached by Tim Giovanelli on Sunday July 24, 2022.
05/02/23 – John 12:20-33 Following Jesus & Intro – by Tim Giovanelli – The Farewell Discourse Series – Manly Life Church Podcast
- 05/02/23 – John 12:20-33 Following Jesus & Intro – by Tim Giovanelli – The Farewell Discourse Series
- 29/01/23 – The Glory of Christ – Greg Beech
- 22/01/23 – Luke 15:1-8 God's Heart for the Lost – by Lani Daniel
- 15/01/23 – 1 John 4:11 Friendship In Church by Tim Giovanelli
- 08/01/23 – Philipians 3:17-4:4 Stand Firm in 2023 – by Peter Brooks
SERMON NOTES
I want to start today by showing just a quick clip of Pastor John Wimber preaching on signs of power accompanying the preaching of the gospel.
- I know I often mention him here at Manly Life…
- He was the keyboard player for the Righteous Brothers… who got saved and ended up starting the Vineyard movement of churches…
- But he also had a profound impact on the Alpha Course, and modern worship music and so much of my understanding of Jesus and the kingdom of God.
His basic testimony is he got saved, went to church, started reading his bible and then began to ask…
- “when do we start to get to do this stuff…” told, oh, we don’t do that anymore…
- Well that was not his reading of the bible and what Jesus promised… so he began to “do the stuff” of the bible and low and behold amazing things began to occur….
- Famously said, “when we prayed for no one, no one got healed, when we prayed for everyone, some got healed… so what would you prefer?”
Show video.
I want to speak today on the Word and Spirit…
- On the bible and the presence of God…
- On proclaiming and demonstrating the kingdom of God through word and deed
- I want to speak on truth and power
- I want to speak on how healing and miracles is often a result of telling people about Jesus.
- Or as Wimber would call it, the rational and the trans-rational working together…
- Because our faith is not just an intellectual consent to a truth about God… it is a relationship and experience of his power and glory…
Privilege as a young man of spending some time in Kenya with a marvellous mission organisation called African Enterprise…
- They are actually coming to Manly Life in two weeks time…
- And being there for 10 months as a 21 year old felt a bit like doing a practical work placement…
- You know, up until then I had learnt about Jesus and the kingdom…
- Got to have a go… did some preaching in schools and open air meetings… got to pray for people, got to visit amazing development projects…
Actually I was reminiscing up at the AE Sydney office last week. They were filming an interview with me for their 60th anniversary celebration is Zambia later this year…
- White suit… and the storm… so that was the end of my pristine white suit!
One of the things that struck me as I went on this practical work placement for Jesus, ministry and all things his kingdom was the expectation that my Kenyan Christian friends had!
- When they shared the good news about Jesus they expected two things to happen.
- Firstly they expected people to respond to the message and that they would come forward in faith to receive Jesus as their Lord and King
- But it was the second thing that almost shocked me more.
- And that was they expected that God would move in power and do miracles of healing or restoration in people who responded.
- And that was exactly what would happen time and time again… you would see people getting visibly impacted by the Holy Spirit.
So what does it look like when God’s kingdom comes close? When heaven breaks in…
- The word salvation in the bible is the Greek word Sozo… has many many meanings…
- Definition: To be saved. To be healed. To be made whole and well.
- Or as one scholar puts it; “Salvation, then, must mean more than simply being saved to go to heaven when you die. To be biblically saved means there are also earthly effects on our lives today. Not only are you free from the judgement of God, this salvation also includes the ability to resist temptations to sin, to be set free from oppression, and to receive healing in our physical bodies.”
And for that to happen you need not just a natural explanation of Jesus… but supernatural power to work in your life!
- 1 Corinthians 4:20 says; “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”
- Right?
- If God is in the business of sozo’ing people… getting them saved, healed up, made whole
- Then we should expect that the Spirit of God and his Word will be at work to accomplish these things!
And of course what I would go on to learn is that this is exactly what we see in the bible… in Jesus, in the early church, in Paul’s letters and through church history!
Paul says this in Romans 15:18-19…
18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— 19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
- Gordon Fee on this verse says this: “Paul begins by indicating the two means through which Christ has effectively been at work through him: By ‘word’ and ‘deed’. Word surely refers to his proclamation of the gospel, but deed calls for some explanation, so he immediately adds, “by the power of signs and wonders.”
- The expectation for Paul was that as the good news of the gospel went out through the world it would be preached and demonstrated with power…
- For Paul a full proclamation of the gospel of Christ, the good news of Jesus…
- It meant preaching and signs and wonders. And both of those were a demonstration of the power of God.
- I wonder do you have a testimony of this? Hearing the truth, encountering power… (say again)
Well, if this is what we are to go after… in our lives, our ministry and our church gatherings, where do we see this or get encouraged into this. And I want to suggest 4 quick, good places…
- In the life of Jesus
- In the early church
- In Paul’s letters to the churches he planted
- And finally in church history.
So firstly, Word and Spirit in Jesus…
Come with me to Matthew 9:35-36. It says;
“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
So motivated by a deep compassion for the people that he encountered…
- Jesus who sees the people as harassed and helpless ministers to them in word and deed, with truth and power.
- He proclaims the good news of the Kingdom of God
- And he heals every disease and sickness…
- He tells them the good news of God’s grace and mercy and demonstrates this new reality with signs and wonders, with power!
- Can you imagine being there? People getting healed… wild!
So this is Jesus. In Luke 4 we are told about him that he was “full of the Holy Spirit”
- And we can read what this means for his life and ministry.
- One of my favourite Jesus stories is just a few chapters on in Matthew in Matthew 11
- John the Baptist sends a messenger to ask Jesus if he is the Messiah?
- It’s not exactly the biggest vote of confidence in Jesus… are you it?
- Anyhow Jesus replies “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”
- The rational… and the transrational… word and Spirit. Good news and signs and wonders. That’s the proof that the Messiah has arrived.
- Of course I could give you dozens more examples in the gospels of this…
Secondly this is in the Book of Acts and the early church
Come with me to Acts 3 and 4…
- So basically as you know after Pentecost, Peter full of the Holy Spirit gets up and preaches in Acts 2 and it says 3,000 people get saved.
- So then in the next chapter… Peter heals a lame beggar…
- So it’s always this combo or preaching and then miracles… or Word and then Spirit!
- Here is the Boom, mic drop moment… verse 6 “Then Peter said, ‘silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
- And this poor bloke gets up, starts to walk and begins praising God.
- And it says the people were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
Now, it’s a cool story right. The stuff Jesus was doing is now continuing to happen through his Spirit filled followers.
- But remember what Wimber said in that video… it is the demonstration of the power of God that leads to the explanation of what has happened in Jesus.
- The order isn’t that important… sometimes its healing then preaching. Sometimes preaching then healing…
- But it’s the rational working in tandem with the trans-rational again!
- So now that Peter has got everyone’s attention… once again he preaches the good news.
You can read it yourself as he has lots to say…
- But again… here is the Boom, mic drop moment… we hear in Acts 4:2-3 that the religious leaders aren’t happy that Peter is proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead
- So they chuck them in jail… bummer right…
- But here is what Peter says, verse 8; ‘Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them’… verse 12 ‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
- There is that word again – salvation… in all of its meaning and glory!
- So the transrational healing is followed by the rational proclamation… all works of the Spirit. All works of salvation in a persons life.
- Of course I could give you dozens more examples in the Book of Acts of this…
Thirdly this is the life of the churches planted by Paul
Now I don’t want to do too much on this as this is where we are heading in the next few weeks in this series…
- But simply to say, these demonstration of power and the preaching of the truth are not then limited to evangelism and outreach
- The gatherings of the early churches in Corinth and Ephesus and Rome all experienced the continued work of the Holy Spirit in their meetings.
- So we are going to look at that next week in 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul compares the church to a body with different parts
- And each part has a role to play…
- And he explains the gifts of the Holy Spirit at work when they gather as… well verse 7…
“the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. (then he lists the gifts given through the Spirit) including the message of wisdom, knowledge, faith (it says), to another gifts of healing, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy…” and so on…
So for Paul, as we become followers of Jesus and are filled with the Holy Spirit, the same inspired words (that is messages of wisdom and knowledge)
- Are accompanied by supernatural gifts of healing and miraculous powers, prophecy and so on….
- In other words in our meetings, as Jesus is powerfully proclaimed, people full of the Spirit will also do the wonderful deeds that Jesus did in his ministry!
- Is this building? Is this compelling?
- Do you want in on this?
- Because there is a bit of a randomness to all of this and when it happens…
- But in general I would say that when Jesus is preached there is a grace for healing… (Stop there… REPEAT – whole point of this sermon)
OK, and finally, this is all through church history.
Of course the story of Jesus being proclaimed and signs of healing has continued through the ages…
- If you go to the writings of the early church Father Irenaeus who was writing in the second century, he talks about the sick being healed.
- Or Origen in the third century, wrote that “the name of Jesus can take away diseases”.
- I was very interested to read St. Augustine of Hippo – fourth Century theologian, perhaps the greatest theologian of the first four centuries of the church.
- He wrote a book called The City of God and in that book there are page after page after page of stories of people being miraculously healed, set free by God.
- He talks of a blind man’s sight being restored in Milan.
- He talks about a lady called Inno-centius who was cured of incurable breast cancer.
- He talks about a doctor healed of gout in the very act of baptism, an old comedian who was cured of paralysis
- So the story continued and continues today…
I loved Kirrily’s story of her mum being filled with the Holy Spirit and laughing for a couple of days and being healed and transformed from a whole bunch of ailments…
So finally, how does this all work? How might this even occur right here today? That we might encounter not only the truth of Jesus, but the power of Jesus through his Holy Spirit. 3 suggestions…
- Get yourself in an atmosphere of faith
It seems to me that there is a link between the presence of God, faith and power…
- Sometimes in a room of God’s people there is such an atmosphere of faith and presence…
- Go with it!
- Church aint always going to be like that every meeting… sometime we just come and get a really encouraging message from the Word and that is awesome. …
- But we know this here at Manly Life right – there are services where the presence of God is thick. …
- I’ve known people who don’t know the Lord to come to our services and just start crying (not because they are terrible services…) but because of something they’ve never felt before.
- It’s the presence of God… so press in!
- Throw the script… significant for Annie…
- The name of Jesus…
If we want to see the Kingdom of God manifest, remember it’s about the King. His name is Jesus!
- Techniques… even Wimber had his 5 step model of healing…
- When we pray for healing it is simply in the name of Jesus
- That’s what Peter says in Acts 3, “in the name of Jesus, walk.”
- In Acts 4 they pray this to God; ‘Lord stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’
- And just as Jesus had compassion on the helpless and harassed, start praying with mercy, and end with mercy… just pray and love.
When you start praying for someone for healing… you are loving on them – you’re obeying the highest commandment… so be gentle and loving, considerate…
- And just proclaim the powerful name of Jesus to heal.
- And when Jesus and Peter and others do miracles, they use simple prayers…
- Things like… See! Come forth! Walk…
- Command… (only if you know the Holy Spirit is with you)
- You know the anointing is coming upon you! Spirit of the Lord was on Jesus… when the Spirit is on you – go for it. You will know!
- Practice makes perfect
Famous John Wimber quote is ‘when I prayed for no one, no one got healed, when I started praying for everyone, some got healed.”
- We live in an age of scepticism and doubt and unbelief… but people are strangely open to prayer!
- Just start… offer prayer and, do it then and there… not I’ll pray for you later…
- Wimber – after a season of praying for the sick and nothing happening, people leaving, complaints… felt God say; “do not preach your experience, preach my word”
- That’s when things started to happen. That’s when God began to really show up!
Shall we stand…