Unleashing the Dominion Power of the Holy Spirit II
In today’s western church:
- Most believers are living defeated and defenseless Christian lives.
- Satan and his demonic hordes are ravaging the saints.
- Most men today are fighting a losing battle with their physical appetites.
- Most people are constantly fighting off panic attacks, anger, depression, lusts, gluttony, and it seems most of us are just too busy and too powerless to do anything about it.
- Our churches have little power from the Spirit, thus they look more like corporations that are well run and function seamlessly. Yet, are the members of the corporation living new lives of freedom, joy and power?
- Worldliness and immorality are so rampant in our so called “Christian culture” that the levels of divorce, immorality, and sinfulness are just as high in the church as outside the church.
- I have found after 30 years of being a Christian, that most believers don’t know how to live victorious, powerful Christian lives…their lives look very much the same as the unbeliever.
- Most believers have never discovered the amazing power of the Spirit filled life.
- There is a day coming in these latter days that if you don’t know how to walk in the power of the Spirit you will not last long.
- Days are coming in the future, as the power and culture of the Anti-Christ is rising that you will need the unleashed power of the Spirit.
Life Flows from the Spirit
John 7:37-39
- Out of the spirit of the inner man the river of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, wants to flow out of your innermost parts.
- This is the Spirit of life:
Genesis 2:7
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
- Adam and Eve were under the complete leadership of the Spirit until they sinned.
2 Corinthians 3:6
who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
John 6:63
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”
- It is the Spirit that gives us life…it is the soul that leads to death in our lives.
- But this life often can’t get released in our lives! We are enslaved to our old man, our old nature that still controls our thinking, our decision making, and our desires
1 Thessalonians 5:23
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- When you come to faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit enters into your spirit.
- When you were born again, the Holy Spirit, fully God, came into your life.
- Holy Spirit is a real person, with real emotions, with divine intelligence.
- When we are born again, it is not just that we are forgiven, but there is so much more…we are born into a vibrant connectiveness to God Himself in your spirit.
- The saints of the Old Testament did not have this.
- You become one in the spirit with Christ…
1 Corinthians 6:17
But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
- God comes and takes up residency in your spirit.
- Your inner man is transformed by the Holy Spirit.
- With the Spirit of God in the spirit of your inner man, you can now talk to and listen to the Spirit.
- You can be led by the Spirit.
- Now that you are born again, God wants the spirit to have dominance over your soul, “old man” nature, and even over your physical body.
Romans 8:11
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
- He releases righteousness, not just healing, into our bodies.
- He puts a check on our flesh and these warring desires and releases spiritual energy into our bodies.
- But there is a violent war going on between our spirit and our soul and body…they violently hate each other.
The Inward Man and the Outward Man
2 Corinthians 4:16
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
Ephesians 3:16
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man
- Our tendency is to put our energy and focus on the outward man: our talents, skills, and giftings.
- But God focuses on our inner man and the release of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
- The biggest obstacle to victory and dominion over sin in your life is the old man, the outward man, who just keeps getting in the way and countering everything your heart desires to do.
Romans 7:15
For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
- God wants your spirit man, the inward man, breaking out of the controls of the outward man.
- God wants His life flowing out of the death of the old man.
John 12:24-25
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
- Life is the grain of wheat.
- If the grain of wheat doesn’t drop off and die, “it remains alone,” meaning that it doesn’t do anything and it has no opportunity to reproduce life.
- But there is a hard shell, husk on the outside.
- As long as the husk is not split open and broken, the life of the seed cannot get out, sprout and grow.
- Unless the grain of wheat falling to the ground dies. What is this death? It is the cracking open of the shell through temperature and humidity working together in the soil.
- Once the shell is broken and cracked open, the life of the seed can come out and grow.
- The question is not whether there is life in the shell, but how that life is going to be unleashed.
- The scripture continues (John 12:25): he who loves his life, (the word for life is psuche or soul) will lose it and he who hates his life (psuche) in this world will keep it for eternal life.
- Watchman Nee explains, “The Lord shows us here that the outer shell is our own life, identified as our soul life, while the life within is the eternal life which He has given to us. To allow the inner life to come forth, it is imperative that the outward life be replaced. Should the outward remain unbroken, the inward would never be able to come forth.”
- We imprison the life of Jesus in our lives! The Spirit cannot be unleashed with dominion power because our outward man, our outer life, our old man has not been broken.
- It is not that the Lord cannot bless you; it is that the life of the Lord is confined and still enclosed within the shell of your soul.
- God must break us; God must split open the old man for the life of the Spirit to be released.
The Shell Must be Broken
2 Corinthians 4:7-11
- God has made us fragile in our soulish areas so that we will need Him.
- The “treasure” is the Spirit, Jesus, within us but he is encased by our old man and our bodies.
- But the “earthen vessel” must be broken for the treasure to be unleashed.
- This is the objective of the Lord, that you would be broken so that the treasure can be seen, the life of Christ.
- The Lord blesses the world with broken people who have nothing of their soulish nature or their physical body to depend on, so that the treasure, Christ, can be seen.
- Brokenness is the way of blessing! It is the alabaster container of perfume, broken so that the fragrance of the perfume can fill the world.
2 Corinthians 2:15-16
For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things?
- But notice how God breaks us in our passage:
2 Corinthians 4:8-11
- The way to fruitfulness is letting God break us.
- The way to blessing is brokenness.
- The way of fragrance is brokenness.
- When we understand that the trials and difficulties and pain of this life are really for growing us up, we can take an entirely different view of them.
- Trials and difficulties are gifts from God to break our outer man so that the treasure, the life of Jesus, may flow out to others.
- This is why the scriptures tell us to rejoice in our sufferings.
James 1:2-4
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
- The joy is not in the trials, but in the man or woman of God that He is forming in you as you go through the trials.
- But you must embrace the breaking process. For many this is not what they do.
Praise or Pouting?
- We have a choice when God begins His deeper work of breaking in our lives: Either we can run to it with praise or run from it with a pouting attitude.
- Unfortunately most believers pout all the way and never learn the lessons of God…they run from their problems and never learn the discipline of the Lord.
- And the power can’t be unleashed!
- What is unleashed? More of us! More of your old life, your flesh.
- Study 1st and 2nd Peter if you really want to understand God’s breaking process in your life.
1 Peter 1:6-7
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
- God will bring new meaning to the cross when we learn to apply it to every area of our pain.
- It is in placing ourselves on the cross that we see the power of the cross.
My Will be Done or Thy Will be Done?
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
- Watchman Nee: “The cross reduces the outward man to death. It splits open the human shell. The cross must break all that belongs to our outward man—our opinions, our ways, our cleverness, our self-love, our selfish interests, our all. Clearly, this is the Lord’s way.”
- It is our selfishness and self-love that hinders the unleashing power of God’s grace, anointing and healing in our lives.
- We are really not willing to go to the cross and be crucified there.
- But when we place our hopes, dreams, vision and self-desires on the cross, God can kill them and resurrect them with His power and timing.
- Even Jesus had to come to terms with: “not my will but your will be done.”
- This was why Jesus gave us the great prayer:
Matthew 6:9-13
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
- Notice the progression for the unleashing of the Spirit: We can’t ask for anything until we’ve really settled, “Your will be done.”
- Have you settled who is in control? Who is really running your life? Have you settled whether it’s going to be “My will be done” or “Thy will be done”?
- When you really settle that question, the unleashing of the life of the Spirit can break out in your life.
- No life manifests more beauty than the one who is broken! When stubbornness and selfishness have given way to beauty and grace, everyone will notice!
- Marriages committed to being broken by God are marriages that experience the unleashing dominion power of the Spirit.
- When a husband and wife can say, “Thy kingdom come” in their lives, they will see miracles start to happen! They will experience intimacy with Christ that will lead to intimacy in their relationship.
- If as a single you can be crucified with Christ, you will experience His power on a whole new level in your life.
Conclusion:
- Take time right now to thank God for your pain and trials.
- Thank Him that He is forming Jesus through the cross experiences you are going through.
This sermon was produced at Mountain Springs Church in Colorado Springs, with Senior Pastor Steve Holt. www.mountainsprings.org
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