Living in the Supernatural

I believe that we are coming into a time when earthly knowledge our human intelligence and expertise will not suffice, it will not be enough to release us from the present problems and difficulties confronting the world, our nations and our governments at this time. The Bible talks in the epistle of James about the wisdom of this world being “earthy” (from the earth) and while mans intelligence has often been amazing and inventive, nevertheless it has at times been found wanting, or falling short. For example, some have come up with ground-breaking solutions to our problems, but eventually those same solutions had knock-on effects, which have created even more problems. The Industrial revolution brought pollution, while some of our modern medicines heal one part of the body, but creates side-effects and problems for another? At this present time many are running out of answers, and are at a loss to know what to do to correct the current downward spiral of daily disasters.

My Sermon today, entitled

LIVING IN THE SUPERNATURAL

is an attempt to show you how the Christian can effect change for Good and for God and positively reverse the “death cycle” which rules in our world. The apostle Paul speaking in Romans chapter 8, concerning the law of sin and death that has gripped our world, and is currently apparently working overtime, shows us in v22 that the whole earth is groaning under this death cycle, – this curse on the earth that is taking it backwards to chaos and confusion. The agent behind this is not just in the natural but in the spiritual realm. Satan, or the Devil as he is otherwise known, is aware that his time is short,

so he is hell bent on creating as much destruction as he possibly can. The “Law of Sin and Death” proceeds from the garden of Eden, when death entered into the world as a direct consequence of original sin. Until that point, there was no death, and no deterioration in any of the good things that God had created.

The Bible speaks of another law, that is the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” which “sets us free from the law of sin and death”. Romans 8:2

This is why, right now, the Church (the Christian) is going to be needed to counteract this overwhelming law of sin and death.

You and I as Christians have a blessing that rests upon our lives. The Bible shows us that through Noah, Abraham and of course through Jesus, blessing and favour rest on our lives. God never gave up on the Eden Mandate which he gave to Adam, to “be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it” Gen 1:28. The Church operates both in the Spirit and the physical or natural realm. The Christian, can go to desolate, neglected, abandoned and ruined places in the world and with the blessing he or she has resting on them, they possess the potential to make that place, that dry parched land, like the Garden of Eden.

For this blessing to show up, the God factor has to come into play, or HIS “super” has to be added to OUR natural! Such blessing can change and transform a broken world, a broken marriage, a broken home, a ruined business, and even a wayward child. So then, how can we live in the supernatural?
I have discovered that Satan works to steal your Image. God created man in his own image and likeness, and while sin has robbed us of our likeness to God, for He is without sin, we remain created and formed in his image. I am convinced then that Satan does not want us to have or understand what it is

to live and walk in the image of God.

He has been after that image from the very beginning when he tempted Adam and Eve. There are things around you right now, out to steal your image, so that you will see yourself as others see you and not as God sees you? In the Bible, God tells us and shows us what we are like, and how He sees us. Many of us spend too much time worrying about what others think of us,-what their opinion is? The opinion of others can either melt us or make us; yet we should be far more concerned about Gods opinion.

We are called not only to follow Christ, but to reflect His life

in our living … that’s carrying the image of God.

The apostle Paul writes in 2 Cor 3:18 “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the

Spirit of the Lord”.

As we behold or look at the Word of God, mediate on it, study it – the effect changes our image into what the word says and not what the world says. In that we stay in the word of God, and walk in its power, then God can use us, to the degree that everywhere we go, we can help bring that environment back to what God had planned for it, before sin got to it. But we must act on the word by Faith. Transforming the world into a heavenly place, is not in our gift, but Gods! We have been legally authorised and anointed by HIM, to bring heaven to earth. Praise God. Once we believe this, all things are possible.

Look for a moment at Marks Gospel chapter 9: here is the story of Jesus casting a demon out of a young boy, but Jesus is expecting his disciples to do this, and (it says) they COULD not, (not they would not) lets read from Mark 9: verse 19 …

“Jesus answered him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him

unto me. ²⁰ And they brought him unto Jesus: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. ²¹ And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. ²² And oft times it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if you canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. ²³ Jesus said unto him, If you can believe,

all things are possible to him that believeth“.

So what is possible for you and me is not based on what anybody else has done, or can do, but what’s possible is based solely on whether we can believe it. Things therefore that God cannot do for me, he cannot do because I am not believing. If we look at ourselves the way God sees us, then we can see that

“As he is so are we in this world” 1 John 4:17. And Romans 8 boldly declares that we are joint heirs with Christ. That does not mean that he gets 50% and we get 50%, …NO, he gets 100% and we get 100%. Understand this, that God does not have two natures; the same nature given to Jesus is the self-

same nature given to us. Some will argue that “there is none righteous no not one” quoting from the OT scripture in Psalm 53:3 and Paul refers to this in Romans 3:10. But these verses are not talking about the born again believer. If God has made me righteous, then I am righteous. God made me so and His word says say I am the righteousness of Christ, whether you see it or I see it or not. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not trying to bring God down, but open the word to raise you up. When Jesus left this planet, he left you and I here to finish his work. When God made Adam he duplicated himself. You have got to see yourself that way; and then when God sees you he sees you through Christ. God has you here for a purpose, to represent

and reflect Jesus wherever you go and in whatever you do.

Reflecting Jesus, and representing Jesus does not mean that you are Jesus. Having the life of Christ in you, does not mean you can automatically assume you can walk the walk and talk the talk, and live in supernatural things? There IS a way to live in the supernatural, and I’ll show you how, but there is way of walking and talking which deny the supernatural power of God,

– what I call the God factor.

So then how can we begin to live in the supernatural?

Turn with me to the 14th chapter of the Gospel of St John. and let us read at verse 10. Jesus says: “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me,

HE doeth the works“.

Jesus says here that “The Father does the work” so if you and I are taking Jesus place, then who is doing the work? Most Christians need to renew their thinking to the fact that it is God that works, and that their job is to believe. Hebrews 4:3 talks about entering into rest. Which means you rest, and He works. We read earlier in today’s Service from the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho in Joshua Chapter Six? – Did Joshua do any work, did Joshua set any explosives on the parameter walls, did they start chiselling away at the walls, or did they have a battle plan and a line of defence and a path of retreat? NO God did the work, God won the victory, all they had to do was believe, trust in Gods word. Our job is to believe that God is going to do His job. I’ll do the preaching, God will do the work in your heart and life and in your future and destiny. I know it and rejoice in it. Today, like me, you can enter into his rest, and He who is called the Holy Ghost will do the work so that in the end, none of us will be able to say “look at what I did” but rather “look at what God did”.

God wants to make you a trophy, a sign and a symbol of how Good and Great he is. People need to see Jesus in your Christian life, and experience the blessing of you being around them. But first of all you must get out of self. Self seeking,

self pleasing, self glory … all selfishness deny us the power and presence of God, and that supernatural life. What separates the Christian from the world is not how they look or dress, or the fact that they go to Church, but what separates us from the world-ling is the blessing and favour that rests on our lives because of the Holy Spirit that lives within us.

Some preach law, “do this, do that do the other and the smile of God will rest on you”. But Jesus who did what the rest of us could never do, came preaching grace and truth. He said: I am the vine, my father is the Husbandman (the Keeper) and you are the braches. Fruit comes on the branch. He wants to see the fruit of righteousness on the braches which are his Church. He wants the world to see that you are not broke, not sick, not mad, not confused, not condemned, not selfish, not proud, not rude, yes, all of the fruit to show in your life so that the world out there will want to eat of it, to “taste and see that the Lord is Good”. Some don’t agree with me and my kind of preaching, but then they don’t see nor expect any miracles, yet I see miracles virtually every day. Thank God!

Lets look for a moment at my namesake, the Shepherd boy who became King David. He looks at the opposition to God and Gods people and asks “Who is this Philistine?” No giant could stop him, no giant could slow him, no giant could slay him, and his courage took him to Saul, the King, the General, the Leader of men. I can hear the boy shout “I took a lion and a bear and I

can take down this big guy”. Remember David is a youth and Goliath a man of war from his youth, he’s got a PhD in war (says Saul) how are you going to beat him?

Yet you and I know now that David beat him with a rag and a rock. If you’ve got God you’ve got Victory. David gives all the credit to God. He said; “you come with your sword and spear and shield, but I come in the name of God. This day shall God deliver YOU into my hand”. My dear friends, God wants to come out of the cupboard out of the book and stand with you. Today they might laugh at you, as they laughed at David, but they wont laugh when they see your fruit. People are hungry for the power of God. That’s why there is such a growth in the occult, these horror movies, and the supernatural staged effects.

Out there in the world, people know that there is a power greater than themselves, another dimension in life, another world, another way of living, and they are hungry for it, and are looking for the way to it, and the answers from it. Yet we Christians have the answer, because the answer was planned before the problem was present. Jesus is the answer. Boundaries may have been formed in our lives that have kept us down and held us back, because of how we have been programmed in the past, the people we hung around with, the preaching we listen to, the expectations we adopted, the limits we reached, and the dreams we had broken. But God has allowed me into your home today to change all that, God has sent me to tell you that “all things are possible to him that believes” … not my words but His Holy Inspired, Inerrant, Indestructible and Infallible Word.

If you must, don’t listen to me, but listen to Him.

Lazarus was dead, buried in a grave, stinking and decomposing, but Jesus says “if you can believe all things are possible to him

that believes” for with God its not possible to be impossible. There are no natural instructions for living in the supernatural. the Holy Spirit is our teacher, just step out of the boat, and walk on the water. You won’t know if you can do it, unless and until you try.

Let me read you a remarkable statement from Acts 13, verse 38: Lets read:

“Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Jesus is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: ³⁹ And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. ⁴⁰ Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets; ⁴¹ Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish:

for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall

in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you”.

Here the Word is revealing that God is in the “Wonder Working Business” I believe that we are about to witness in the supernatural, things that have never ever happened before. Remember God is not limited by our asking, in 10,000 different ways He can answer. When you have a problem, regardless of the magnitude of it, if you are a Christian – a child of God, then the word impossibility should not even cross your mind. Lift up your heart and hands to heaven, for often the miracle is waiting, as God knows what we need before we ask – we just have to accept it. Our God is able, and our God is Good.

Remember that Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God: Rom 10:17. Allow the Word to create faith in your heart, an expectation of the Greatness of your God, His mighty Power, His mighty Ability and His mighty Love.

In Matthew 5:13, part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching that we Christians are the “salt” of the earth. Salt is

not just for sprinkling on your chips, Salt preserves good and

halts decay. We should be preserving good and halting decay wherever we go in our world. Salt too creates a thirst. By our walk and talk we should be creating a thirst for God and the power of God among those who do not know him, or know about him. Many Christians fear the contaminating influences of the world, but these cannot contaminate you, unless you allow it.

“Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” the greater one is in you, not in them! God has not put all Christians in pulpits, he has put most of us among the people so that we can effect them, influence them and empower them. We can turn wildernesses into gardens. build up the old waste places and make them vibrant and alive once again. Sometimes I have had to venture into those dark places to let the Devil know that He is not going to hold people any longer. People out there are starving for the truth, they want answers, solutions, help and hope. Those of us who hide the truth both in our walk and talk, are robbing those who are hungry for life. God is releasing his power, … speak it and believe it. God will do the work, you just need to show up. We have been given a life-changing power so begin to share it where you are right now, in your home in your work place and in your neighbourhood. Sadly, some Christians listening me today, will disagree, they don’t intend to do anything anyhow. God has no Supernatural life for them, they don’t want it, and therefore they won’t get it.

Jesus spoke of those who would not inherit the kingdom,

or the benefits of a saved life. How sad?

NOW THIS FINAL WORD

One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. His father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you.”

He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, the smoke, and the blackness. As we can imagine, he was afraid to leave the roof.

His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch you.” But the boy protested, “Daddy, I can’t see you.” The father replied,

“But I can see you and that’s all that matters.”

That, my dear friends is FAITH, it is being prepared to step out into the unknown when the only thing you know is that God is THERE! So lift that burden you carry, that problem you shoulder, that weakness you struggle with, that pain you bear, that worry you fear, and that sin you feel guilty about,

and JUMP now, into His loving arms. He will not fail you. When you have learned to jump once,

you will jump all the time and

Live in the Supernatural