Nominal Living, Spiritual Expectations: The Journey to the Anointing (Alternate Recording)

Sermon outline

Believers cannot live nominal lives and expect spiritual results; the anointing comes through seven steps, from hunger and surrender through the crushing, waiting, the refiner's fire and unwavering obedience, until the vessel disappears and only the glory of Jesus is seen.

1. Nominal living, spiritual expectations

   His heart cries to see believers living nominal lives, doing the regular while expecting spiritual results and becoming desperate only in a crisis. Church becomes a religious activity for weddings, funerals and dedications. Malachi confronted a turning away from God, and after him heaven was silent for four hundred years. Believers must not let the economy, culture and the next big thing set their lives, and church-hoppers who are never grounded will never flourish.

   Illustration: People hop from church to church the way they go from KFC to McDonald's to Burger King, and leave if the service is not done by ten.

   “They are happy to do the work as usual, but they're expecting spiritual results.”

2. What the anointing is for

   The anointing empowers ministry and godly purpose, leadership in every form, and supernatural authority like armour that ranks you in the spirit realm. In the Old Testament kings and prophets were anointed for their calling. It breaks limitations, destroys yokes, brings direction and understanding, and gives boldness to share the faith. God will not trust His anointing to people who are reckless with His Word, church, presence or commands.

   Illustration: When he meets people who say they are Christians he asks their church, their pastor's name and their function there; he finds that most cannot name their church or pastor even after fifteen years.

   “If you find it difficult to tell people about Jesus, that means that you don't know Jesus for yourself.”

3. A blueprint to break stagnation

   There must be more to life than blessing, a nice house and a nice car. Success is strategised, not luck, and grace is for all but only diligence, discipline and responsibility distinguish people. One life affects five generations, about two hundred years, through the blessing or the curse they inherit. If God gets two hours on Sunday and work gets sixteen hours a day, work is the value of your life. Move from being a spectator of the news to being a newsmaker.

   Illustration: Christians cannot drink with the boys on Friday, get drunk at a braai on Saturday, and stand in church on Sunday as men of God.

   “Success is not by luck and it is not by chance. It is strategized.”

4. Steps one to four: hunger, surrender, the crushing and waiting

   He recaps the first four steps. Hunger and thirst begins with divine dissatisfaction with church as usual. Total surrender means 'not my will but Yours', because the Spirit cannot fill a vessel already full of itself. The crushing is dying to self: Jesus lived thirty years to give three that changed the world. And the anointing is not fast food; you linger in His presence until you are endued with power, not checking your phone and the clock.

   Illustration: God's anointing is not McDonald's, not even KFC, and not a sixty-minute delivery.

   “God is not fast food. His anointing is not fast food.”

   • Matthew 5:6
   • Psalm 42:1
   • Isaiah 44:3
   • Matthew 26:39
   • John 12:24
   • Isaiah 40:31
   • Psalm 27:14

5. Step five: the baptism of fire

   God always purifies His vessels. The fire burns away the wood, hay and stubble so that only gold remains, purging lips, thoughts and heart to make a vessel of honour. Gifts, talents and education are only tools. The 'I am who I am, I say what needs to be said' attitude lasts until you are the one corrected, and eye-rolling at an instruction from a boss, mentor or pastor shows the impurities that remain.

   “God's not going to give it to you because you're cute.”

   • 1 Corinthians 3:12-13
   • 2 Timothy 2:21
   • Matthew 3:11
   • Malachi 3:3
   • Hebrews 12:29

6. Step six: unwavering obedience

   The Holy Spirit is given to those who obey Him; if God cannot trust you to obey, He will not trust you with His power. The Spirit is not a sat-nav offering three routes; there is one way. God's permissible will is a grace period that runs only so far, and the line is His to set; then the grace runs out and He brings you to your knees, as with Jonah. Obey the small instructions promptly, and do not demand a meeting to discuss every word from the man of God, so long as it is according to Scripture.

   Illustration: He ran from the call of God all his life, knowing he had a purpose, until the Lord brought him to his knees many times and he realised God would not let him go. A true man of God will never tell you to drink insecticide or eat grass.

   “If God cannot trust you to obey, he will not trust you with his power.”

   • Acts 5:32
   • Isaiah 1:19

7. Step seven: the manifestation of God's glory

   The final step is when the vessel disappears and only Jesus is seen. The anointing is not for your fame but for His glory. Your life becomes a reservoir from which rivers of living water flow into schools, society and the world; your marriage becomes a pillar of the community, your children are distinctly different, and you go from watching the news to being the good news. It is costly, and the cost is you.

   Illustration: Like gym, the first days leave you aching so you cannot sit or stand, but if you push through, the pain goes and the muscle grows. A child's Superman suit with padding looks buff but is not the real thing.

   “The anointing is not for your fame, but it is for his glory.”

   • 2 Corinthians 3:18
   • Isaiah 60:1
   • Revelation 12:11

In this message