Be Spirit Equipped

turn with me if you would to the book of isaiah we're going to study from the 11th chapter and i'm going to be reading the first five verses tonight this section of scripture uh really drew my attention over the past few weeks and if you would like a lesson sheet just lift a hand high enough so that the ushers can see that i see some over here on this side men and if you want one just lift a hand and the ushers will bring a lesson sheet to you this text really has drawn my attention in particular about the spirit of god that is talked about here and what the spirit will will do in fact i probably will be preaching from the first verse of this chapter on sunday morning and uh but in particular uh verse two is where we're going to focus our attention tonight but i'd like to read the context beginning with the first verse and through verse five the spirit is such a salient characteristic of an apostolic lifestyle the spirit of god is so important to us and god intends for us to experience his spirit he wants to come in to our lives and in in this text in particular what we are going to be looking at and addressing tonight is the way the lord informs us about the giftings or the abilities that we will be equipped with this has really lodged in my heart over the past several days that not only that the lord wants to give it but that it is accessible to every one of us and and i want us to begin to think now i can have what god wants me to have i can have what the scripture teaches and prophesies and promises that i can have and i'm going to try to lift those things up for us to see a little clearer tonight from isaiah 11 and the first verse and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots i'll address this more sunday but of course this is prophecy about the messiah 700 years before he is born verse 2 and the spirit of the lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel the spirit of might the spirit of knowledge and a spirit of the fear or the reverence of the lord the result will be is given in verse 3 and shall make him of quick understanding in or because of the fear of the lord and these next few lines whether do they ever apply to us today all of it applies but he shall not judge after the side of his eyes in other words you got to look deeper than everything you see on the surface and neither shall he respond or reprove after the hearing of his ears you hear a lot of stuff you read a lot of stuff and you've got to filter all of that and the spirit of the lord can help us to do that filtering is what he is saying but he is going to respond with righteousness to judge the poor and reprove with equity for the sake of the meek of the earth and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth this is talking about the power of his word smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked now that's pretty sobering right there the word of god and god there's going to come a day of judgment and he is going to speak the word of judgment and this terminology says he is going to slay the wicked it gets a little frustrating to see the rise of wickedness and the supposed triumph of wickedness but we need to pray for repentance on the part of those people but then we also need to believe that god is going to have enough someday and he is going to slay the wicked by the force of his word according to the promise of his word and righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girl of his reigns in other words god is wrapped in righteousness and his ways and his will is wrapped in righteousness and in faithfulness i want us to pray together to be able to receive the word of the lord and to receive the intent and the message that god wants to give to us tonight from this word would you join together and let's pray now lord we pray to receive i pray that you would help our ears to be open to hear yes physically but more than that to hear what you want to say to us in the spirit let the spirit speak tonight and help our spirit to hear god help us to yield and humble ourselves to a receiving of what you want to say and not to shun it or turn it aside to ignore or disdain it but help us to receive from you and receive your intended promises in the name of jesus we pray this and according to the power of your word in jesus name amen amen thank you for praying and you may be seated

the purpose of this prophecy that was given in particular i'm referring to isaiah 11 11 and 2 and it's in it's on the sheet there it's printed out for you or it can look in your scripture but the purpose of this prophecy is to inform us in in this way what the spirit did for the messiah the anointed one god wants to do for us and give to us i want i want you to think about that for just a moment and really uh pay attention to that what the spirit did for jesus christ the messiah he wants to do for every one of us tonight we go beyond no boundaries to expect that or to say that or to accept it this is one of the promises to and for those that he is anointing and intends to use in this hour maybe a better way to say this is none of these are beyond you and i none of these the spirit of wisdom counsel understanding the blessings and the favor of god none of these are beyond us i know many times i've heard messages been in services where in i didn't say it out loud but my default was well maybe brother so-and-so can attain to that our sister so and so can be that are attained to that but i would tell you tonight none of these none of these things and i will say this i i weighed out these words because i don't want to be just up here making promises to make anybody feel good or just to sound good but the truth is none of these blessings that he mentions in isaiah 11 and verse 2 are beyond any person tonight under the sound of my voice whether you are here and those of you that are on line god did not make a mistake in saving you calling you dealing with you and in sending tonight's message to you with his pin point accuracy he wants to anoint you with these attributes of the spirit he wants his spirit to rest and remain heavy in your life so that his presence through our presence i'm talking about when we are in our homes and influencing our family or when we are with others and associates and when we are in the workplace or wherever it is at school his presence through your presence would have a lingering residual effect in the world in which we live to make a spirit impact and influence verse 2 says that this spirit is the spirit of the lord notice in your bible the word lord is all caps which is always a reference to jehovah god jehovah the one true and living god so he says the spirit that we receive is almighty god the jehovah that we read about in the old testament manifested as god in the flesh jesus christ in the new testament this spirit of the lord that is in this room tonight the spirit of the lord that has touched your life as you have known to pray at any time the spirit of the lord that you have felt in your vehicle or wherever it is that you've experienced the presence of god that is not a secondary or lesser or subordinate spirit this is the spirit of the lord all caps it's the same spirit that moved on the face of the deep and created the same spirit that opened up the red sea is the spirit that is in this room tonight the same spirit that displayed itself as a pillar of fire and cloud that's the presence of god that is on this service and in your life no nothing less nothing subordinate to that the same spirit that caused a bush to burn and the voice of the lord came from that bush that burned and wasn't consumed a miracle in itself that same god that same spirit is consuming our lives and touching us if god can find a bush in a desolate desert he can find a child of god watching this service or sitting in this congregation tonight he wants his spirit to rest upon us so suffice to say the spirit of god the spirit of god is not a lesser spirit but it is the spirit of the one true almighty god when we study scripture you know that god got angry and was adamant against any doctrines that purported other gods are that purported that god gives humanity a lesser form of his spirit there is a doctrine that the apostle john and apostle paul addressed in that day called gnosticism maybe you've done some study about that but the simple summary of that was they believed and they taught that god was so holy and that humanity is so unholy and both of those things are true but what they they morphed their doctrine of god's manifestation to say that mankind was so unholy that god emanated from one form and then a little lesser form and on down in several stages until he got to be a god or sent to god among men that was more on our level and we really did not receive the spirit of the almighty jehovah all caps capital l capital o capital r capital d john refuted that by the holy ghost paul refuted that and i won't go into the scriptures but that's an interesting study that's that's some of the reasons they wrote some of the verses they did about how he is the one true and living god and there is only one god but god was adamant that we did not receive a lesser spirit so we do not need to think for one moment that we have some lesser god than who he is and here's another thing that sometimes we battle with that we we've received some spirit that is lesser than the book of acts had not for one moment the same spirit that opened that prison door for the apostle peter is the same spirit that can open doors for us if you need something opened up you pray and the spirit of god can open up any door for you amen you can do it there's not a lesser god the same god that healed that lame man sister sue taught it yesterday afternoon in a wonderful lesson or yesterday morning and wonderful lesson to our bible study in the prayer meeting but the same spirit that straightened those ankle bones and made those legs strong can heal somebody right tonight if you've got a bone that needs to be strengthened if you've got a muscle that needs to be mended if you've got a physical situation the healer is here and he's not one bit less than he ever has been the one that said i'm the lord somebody believed for your healing right now i'm the lord that healeth all of your diseases it's the same god the spirit of the almighty god that we have in our lives i feel it resonating tonight i'm believing it more as much now as i ever have i'm believing it more

the word of god is having its impact even upon me tonight as i teach this word he said here in this second verse the spirit that spirit shall rest upon him that word rest literally means shall descend on him and remain shall descend and remain not only does it come upon us but it attends us permanently this is not a casual transient occasional blessing or anointing of god now we all realize we have times when we're together like tonight and we we feel the touch and the presence of god as we gather together and as we worship and you could call those times high point times of the spirit but the spirit is just the same and will be just the same on thursday morning as he is here on wednesday night when the clock gets around to 12 hours from now at 8 00 8 thursday morning it will be the same spirit and it will be remaining on you i'm so glad when we walk out of those doors the spirit of the lord does not fall off of our life the mantle of the lord does not leave us but it remains upon us and when you're going through your darkest day the spirit is remaining that promise says you're not alone that spirit is remaining upon you and everywhere you go and whatever you walk through there is that permanent enduring resting of the presence of god our situations the darkness that we face would try to make us believe that god comes and goes god as far as his resting upon us does not come and then leave the presence of the lord doesn't say just wait right here a minute just be patient with me i've got to go take care of this he is an omnipresent god and one brother over here is somewhere in south city calling upon the lord and asking for his help and there's another one of us out in jeff county calling upon the lord and needing him and god's not up there saying oh my what am i going to do now but he's an omnipresent god and if brother mike's calling on him from his house he's going to have the same power that you have with the gem when you're calling up on him from your vehicle or wherever you are i'm telling you he's right here right now but those of you that are viewing on those those of you that are viewing online he's right with you he is where you are he is upon us why don't you just receive something from god right now

would you just lift your hands and god put into us put on us fill us lord with whatever we need right now oh yes oh yes oh yes touch us o lord yes we avail ourselves to it we yield ourselves to it we thank you for it we thank you for it hallelujah john 3 and 34 the record says that god giveth not the spirit by measure unto him that's another dual prophecy it was talking about the messiah but it's also a prophecy for all of us who would be filled with the spirit god does not give the spirit by measure in other words what god can do in your life is beyond what you can measure i do i want you to lift your hand i don't even need to look but as a sign of faith do you believe that i want my lifted hand to be saying the truth god what you can do in my life by the spirit can be beyond what i can even measure his spirit can take you beyond your natural limitations are abilities many times and i questioned myself and made sure and i checked with god before i started praying this and i've been praying it for a good while now and did tonight god take me beyond myself now i'm not talking about not studying i'm not talking about getting a bailout from god because i didn't prepare or i didn't feel like preparing but i'm talking about giving what we can give get the loaves and get the fishes which is what all that preparation is and then put it in the hands of jesus who would have thought the disciples didn't think so you know one of the reasons we this is hard to believe because even the guys that hang hung out with jesus had trouble believing this stuff that i'm teaching tonight didn't they they were human and we struggle with it but it dawned upon it it dawned upon simon one day he said you're the christ you're the one you're the anointed you're the one that isaiah wrote about in verse 2 of chapter 11. you're the one you're the one and it's dawning upon the church it needs to dawn upon us church we don't have much time and we're valuable to the kingdom of god and we can't do this in ourself but god gives a spirit without measure he can take us beyond our natural ability yes yes if you're willing to go into that god will lead you he will he will that was not simon's natural ability walking on that water but and he he made sure he wasn't just out there doing an impulse assignment impulse thing and he was impulsive but he said lord if it's you bid me to come he didn't ask for a guarantee and while you're bidding me make sure i don't sink he just said i don't need a guarantee all i need is an invitation hallelujah all we need is a verse of scripture that says the spirit is going to descend and remain on me and god took him beyond himself and took him beyond human ability look folks i don't know the other way say this god wants to do this stuff for us oh god i want to get you out of a box i want to get you out and i want to climb out with you saying god if i lay hands on somebody with cancer you can take that cancer away because you're the healer if i pray about an insurance situation god you can work it all out in fact you can work it out where the answer is better than anybody expected he can do it he's a miracle worker god wants to god wants to anoint you and give you his spirit without measure i want you to think about it in fact i it'd be good if you just wrote it down it's not one of the blanks but just write it that god wants to give me his spirit and everything that is attended with that spirit he wants to give it to me without measure he wants to bless your life with every attribute that is listed in this prophecy of isaiah chapter 11 and verse 2 and that's the one we're focusing on but you could go on to we read it in verse 3 and verse 4 and verse 5 there's other things that he will make him of quick understanding god can give us that an understanding of the times and understanding of situations we live in complex times and there are complex situations but the spirit of the lord can help us help us not to just judge by what we what we see or what we hear but to look deeper into his word and into his will and god can even do what he said he's able to do with the power of his mouth with the power of his words god can use our words and his word through us to make an impact on this world the first of the items or the anointings talents whatever you want to call them that's listed is the

spirit of wisdom wisdom very simply defined is the choice of the best means to secure or arrive at the best ends in other words choosing the best means are the best ways to get to the best answer the spirit produces or gives this god's wisdom and we can have it we can have it don't settle don't settle for anything less than going after the wisdom of god and getting the will it's for us folks i know sometimes myself and i've talked with others and i could tell by their conversation it's like it was out of reach it's like trying to reach from here to the front pew it's just it's just out of reach but that's not how the spirit of the lord is and that's not how and where this wisdom is it he has put this within our grasp to be able to have a wisdom that the spirit produces all of us have choices all of us have decisions all of us are living with life choices and this is what i'm talking about i'm not only talking about determining what we'll do with our life as far as god's concern i talk about everyday life wisdom here and we need that we need the influence of god on every decision we make whether we move or finances or jobs or family situations we need the wisdom of god if we try to do it by our own wisdom and our own thoughts and our own plans it will never be as effective as if we have the wisdom of god and i wouldn't be preaching or teaching this if it was something that is out of our grasp but we need to get a hold of the scripture and bring it into our lives and say i can have this this this wisdom here also refers the word they use is a word that talks about comprehending the secret things of god i want to know the secret things of god god knows that you and i don't want that so we can go around bragging that we know more than somebody else you know this spirit these blessings do not make me better than anybody else they make me better than me they nev they will not make you better than somebody else they will make you better than you i need to be a better me you need to be a better you and it comes by the spirit that comes to us and we can know the secret things of god i'm going to tell you church i want to tell you and god's doing this god's doing this i've had people just this very day i had a lady in in this church two two different ladies in fact text to me insights and and experiences that they had this very day that had to do with the secret things of god the insights of god this is happening and they text me but i don't know how many others have had incidences where the spirit of the lord has revealed something to you and have give given you an insight into some of the secret things of god i'll tell you what else our min not just our ministry but i'm going to throw this into here our ministry needs that we need the wisdom of the lord as we teach and as we preach and it we just can't go and and off some copied outline somewhere we need the wisdom of god and he'll give it to us in other words this is the wisdom about which you could say this is how god would handle it here's how god would handle this situation here's what god would do and there's a desire for that and there it's a gifting and god wants to give it to us it's a heaven sent wisdom we can get wisdom and it's good that we do we can gain it through experience and various encounters and over time and god arranges for that but there there is the difference between a human wisdom and the wisdom of the spirit and i'm not talking about always having to have some bright shining light or or some some experience like that that comes to us but i believe in our everyday walk and just in our everyday thought process god can drop something in there this is why it's important to be in prayer why it's important to read the word of the lord how many times have you had that happen either in prayer or reading the word of the lord and some insight would come to you about the word of god or about life as you were in the presence of god through his word or through prayer it i'm not saying it only happens there but i'm saying it does happen there and that's a good atmosphere and a good mindset for us to be in and so the wisdom of the lord and you can read through scripture of how wise god is and it's jesus christ is referred to as being very wise then there is the spirit of understanding that comes to us this refers to good judgment that results from that wisdom in other words coming to the understanding are the true picture and i have this as a a phrase to fill in how god wants us to understand and see a situation how god god how do you want me to understand this how do you want me to see this situation how do you want me to understand this person sometimes we say in frustration i just don't understand them because we're limited and sometimes a situation or a person can be so frustrating to us or by their actions or words or whatever it is but there can be and this is within our grasp also he talks about a spirit of understanding a spirit to judge a spirit to get the true picture of how god wants us to understand and this understanding refers to being able to distinguish things to be able to decide on their character is this right is this good is this wrong is this bad and then to be able to discern differences the difference of things so much so many things can just look so muddy and so much alike and the world wants to do that we it the spirit of this age wants us to blend in and and uh wants us not to be able to delineate between right and wrong and the the blending of oh you're just you're too straight or you're too judgmental or you're to this or you're too that wants to blend all that in but the understanding of god will help us to discern the difference understanding would be could be said and defined like this to be able to discern the right thing to do and the right word to say a spirit of understanding and i want to address the topic of discernment because of the importance of discernment and understanding in this hour the word discern are discerning in scripture comes from a root word that means to sift or to separate in other words go through and not just take the whole stack of paper but to sift through to take time to make sure we know what each document is and what each document is saying in other words sift it take the time to separate things to be able to decipher whether the spirit that we are dealing with is it of god is it a human spirit is it the spirit of satan and then also to be able to discern what's the motive what's the purpose here you know wrong motives can be camouflaged in good clothing it's like the analogy that jesus gave wolves in sheep's clothing there takes a discernment i read an article of someone and it's been several months ago but i came back across it of someone who had entered into one of our united pentecostal churches and was really quote living the life and pretending to be everything and then they admitted in this article everything that they were doing to just put on the show as a pentecostal and as and living in holiness but really their motive was wrong and they were wanting to expose and make fun of and demean the united pentecostal church i'm going to tell you god can help us with this and give us a spirit of understanding he can expose this this happened to us several years ago at 13th and gravois a man came and on a sunday night service and at the close of the service he came up to the front and he he spoke and there was uh some others were were with me but he spoke to me and he said pastor uh i have i own one of the tv channels here in the st louis area and i'd like to come back in a couple of weeks to help make a documentary and to film and i want to broadcast that and he made it sound like he wanted to highlight the moving of the spirit and the gifts of the spirit and all of that and so at that moment i accepted that and i i said let's stay in contact and let's let's talk but the spirit didn't want apostolic pentecostal church being made

i'm going to tell you god's protective of his kids and if we'll stay discerning and folks we need this in this hour we need it in our families we need it for the protection of our own personal life we need discernment there's some stuff we shouldn't let into our homes and on our cds and videos and reading material some discernment and it's that blending here oh there's nothing wrong with that that won't bother me and that won't bother discern the spirit and that spirit of jesus will help to check us that man went his way and a few days passed and the time was nearing and i got a call from one of the men in the church and said pastor i hesitated to call you on this but i just need to call you there was a worker doing some plumbing work at my daughter's house and he they started talking and and in the conversation he realized the connection that this lady this daughter who was not attending our church but the father did they talked enough about 13 the gravois and apostolic pentecostal church and so he he began to brag oh yeah we're going to that church and we're going to make a film and we're going to broadcast it and they think we're coming just to give them some good promo and to to glorify god but he began to spell out how they were going to make fun and how they were going to take the documentary the film that was made and doctor it up and make it say what they wanted to say and that brother the daughter told this man and that man called me that day and i just said thank you brother thank you and i got on the phone and immediately and i called that producer that channel owner i don't know what channel it was or i said tell you not to watch it he's probably out of business by now operating like that i don't know the opera like that get you somewhere in this day and time sad to say i said sir you're not welcome to come for that filming in however many days it was oh why not pastor we want to give you i said no first i just i just played it off then i got a little more courage i said here's why i just heard what your agenda is and what your motive is and the things of god are too precious to play with and this is the church of god and this is the house of god and these are the people of god and these are precious people that have given themselves to god and you're not about to make light of them or make fun of them and so the deal is off and that was the end i'm telling you now i didn't have the discernment at that moment in time but god exposed it and revealed it and he can do that and you may not have the particular discernment at the time and i guess i could have just shoved that off and said oh no we need to take advantage of this we need to let people speak into us folks if somebody gives you a little warning pay attention to it if they say something to you about what you're watching or what you're reading and i'm going to tell you what it shouldn't all have to come from this pulpit there should be and i'm not making all of you deputies and for you to do do my job but we've got some holiness standards that we live by as the people of god and the things that we live in and abide by and god wants to give us that spirit of understanding to open our understanding and to see so that the enemy is exposed but not only will the enemy be exposed but the glory of god is going to be revealed when we open our understanding to the will and god's going to give us and he's going to help us to see here's how i can take my family here's how i can keep my children safe here's what i can do to have the glory of god in my life he's going to reveal it there are so many kinds of spirits existing in our world today we need this gifting i think i did i put it it's near the top of the second page discernment is essential for our own spiritual protection stay sharp in the word stay sensitive in prayer stay full of the spirit of god because it will give us understanding to protect ourselves spiritually there would be a daily prayer that would be good to pray pray for protection physically pray for protection emotionally and mentally but pray for protection spiritually our souls our doctrines our values that we hold pray that prayer in fact i pray it in reverse order i pray first protect me spiritually protect the congregation spiritually protect us emotionally and mentally and protect us physically throughout our day i want the protection of god i'll just say it as plain as i can i want the protection of god i don't want to be injured or my life taken in an accident but i'd rather be protected spiritually than protected physically because i can go to heaven out of an accident but i can't go to heaven with my soul damaged and what i believe damaged and my values damaged you needed and i needed for our personal spiritual protection i feel the spirit of intercession here right now we're going to pray in just a moment we need discernment for our family oh i heard the story of what is happening to just a very young child oh i heard another story of what's happening and what has happened in the life of one of our young people we need we need the covering of god and understanding and protection and discernment for our families our spouses we need it for our brothers and sisters we need it for our brothers and sisters spiritual protection discernment i don't think we'll have to worry about this and if it happens i'll take care of it but i don't want us to be tentative about speaking into one another and if you have some kind of a spiritual caution or direction or instruction and i know there's a fine line in all of this but i'm in the holy ghost right now don't look at them as some other just a holy joe or they're just they're just always been like that we need some folks like that yeah to speak in to us now we got to do it by the leading of the holy ghost we got to have the right motive can't we we're not trying to and even even a leader me i can't be doing this kind of stuff just because i want to direct or exercise authority but it's a gifting that god has put in the body it's a spirit god i said earlier this is within your grasp you can have this discernment some of these words have spooked us because people have abused them but not everybody abuses the talents and the gifts and the blessings in the favor of god or else he wouldn't put them out there for us god give us understanding to understand what you want us to understand we need it for our spiritual family and i really feel this we need it for those that we are leading we are mentoring we are influencing there are people in and then outside of your family that you are mentoring and that you are influencing i know we all got to be responsible for our own salvation but we're also to be helpers to one another and you can i believe this you can help somebody to be saved hear me church i guess the flip side's true we can hinder somebody from being saved too but we can help somebody to be saved by receiving these gifts and saying i can have this i can have discernment and i have enough confidence in the precious people of this church those of you that are here and those of you that are online that you're going to know how to rightfully use and you won't abuse it and you won't misuse what god speaks to you be open for god to speak to you and then be open to speaking into somebody and then be open to receive it from somebody would you stand together please i feel a hallowness right here i'm asked for as little moving around as possible right now only for you to stand and i want us right now to let god speak to us and talk to us and move upon us and and

would you just begin to talk with god right now have a conversation about engaging these giftings god we want these there's nothing wrong with telling god you want these and you may be exercising them already they may already be employed in your life but go ahead and talk to god and say god i want it to i want it honed i want it sharpened and anything that i'm missing oh lord tell him tell him anything that i'm missing god i want it there because you intend you intend for us to have your spirit you intend for it to remain upon us you intend for us to have these abilities these elements oh god it wasn't only for the earth your earthly manifestation but it's far your earthly manifestation now your church help us oh lord give us your wisdom i pray give us your counsel o lord god give us your understanding o lord jesus give us your discernment thank you jesus thank you lord hallelujah hallelujah with nobody looking around but

would you just if you're willing if you're if you'll surrender this would you just lift a hand or both hands before the lord do it those of you that are at home or wherever you may be other than here we're giving ourselves to your spirit now lord we're giving ourselves we want your wisdom we want your understanding we want your knowledge we need you god we need you and thank you for offering it so full and so free you've made them readily available god we don't have to twist your arm tonight you're wanting these giftings in your church you're wanting these giftings upon every believer god i thank you for the true spirit of the lord the almighty spirit of the lord that we have i thank you jesus oh i thank you o lord i thank you jesus thank you o god you're resting upon us hallelujah hallelujah it's not going to make any difference when it is or where it is this is a wonderful atmosphere when we come to the house of god and then what we're feeling right now and it in many ways it seems so much easier to employ it and to have it at this time but no matter where you go no matter where you go in your house your vehicle workplace name it wherever it is that same spirit and those same giftings location doesn't limit the power and the operation of the spirit of god it doesn't all of this we say often this isn't a sunday religion it's not it's an everyday lifestyle it's an experience and aren't we blessed i'm glad god didn't make these blessings just sunday blessings hallelujah he knew we were going to live life monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday he knew that we were going to face those things he's a good god let's offer him thanks and praise right now lord i thank you for giving us your spirit and thank you for everything your spirit contains oh lord thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you okay for the work of your spirit jesus we thank you o lord thank you jesus hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah