JR Vassar, The Holy Spirit

In this weeks staff meeting we watched a sermon by JR Vassar, Founding and Lead Pastor of Apostles Church in NYC.  I found the sermon to be so inspirational that I decided to post my notes.  Here is an excerpt from the sermon.

NOTES from JR Vassar's sermon on The Holy Spirit

• Do not settle for the works of your flesh, but be dependent on the works of The Spirit.

Intimidation can create ONE or TWO things in you.

1. It can drive you to the Lord in desperation.
2. It can lead to imitation.

What happens is we become so overwhelmed and intimidated by the things infront of us that we begin to look for somebody thats doing something that works and when we find them we just imitate it. 

The danger is we adopt a vision that's not from God.  It's a vision God gave someone else and God didn't give us the capacity to fullfill it, so we spend our ministries frustrated.

• When you begin to imitate, you start manufacturing things in your flesh instead of really manifesting the power of The Spirit.
• John 20:19-21

Jesus had a Prophetic Mission, Priestly Mission and a Kingly Mission.

• Prophetic - Jesus was to reveal God to this world.
• Priestly - He was to redeem this world to God.
• Kingly - Jesus was to renew this world with His reign.

Followers of Jesus have the same mission.

• Prophetic Community - speak the words of God to reveal the salvation of God.
• Priestly Community - care for the spiritual needs of people and share with them the message of redemption.
• Kingly Community - live under God's reign and extend His reign into this world to bring healing and renewal to it.

"The Father sent Me so now I'm sending You."

• If your going to carry out the mission of Jesus, your going to need the same resources as He had. Look at John 20:22
• When you become envious of someones ministry, you will always credit it to something other than the Spirit of God.

When we become envious or jealous of someone's success, we usally try to credit their success to something in their flesh rather than the move of the Spirit of God.

WHY. Because we wrap our identity up in the success of our ministry and it causes us to be driven to comparison. 

• Hebrews 9:14
• If you are going to carry out the ministry of Jesus, you will need the same resources as He had.
• John 16:7 - It's one thing to have God among you, it's another thing to have God intimate and within you.
• Ezekiel 36:25-27 - The promise of the new covenant is that God would give us His Spirit.
• The point of the new covenant is there will be a removal of your sin and corruption and a bestowal of the Spirit of God.
• The message of the Gospel is your sins are forgiven so that all obstacles in your life are removed so that the Holy Spirit can come live in you.
• Galatians 3:13-14
• Imitation slaves creativity.

What would it look like if we experienced the Spirit in similar ways that Jesus did?

Confirmation of our sonship.

• What the Spirit wants to do with increasing clarity is for you to know you are a child of God.
• You will have contempment in your identity.  Luke 10:20
• Don't rely upon what you can produce.
• Identity wraped up in ministry vs identity wraped up in your status as a son of God.
• Identity achieved vs Identity received.
• You will use people to build up your ministry instead of using your ministry to build up people.
• If you have to succeed, people become tools.
• Jesus continued to refer to God as His Father and it was that confirmation of His own sonship that allowed Him to press on even when the people rejected Him.

Prompting toward ministry and an empowerment toward ministry.

• The Holy Spirit is wooing this world to Jesus.  He does that through the hearts of His people.
• You have no idea what's on the other end of a prompting that you forfeit when you quench the Spirit.
• "Only as I'm linked to God's purpose can I expect God's power." - E. Stanley Jones
• Many people want power so that they can become prominent and important...so the power never comes.  It eludes them and God withholds it.
• God entrusts the prompting and power of the Holy Spirit to people who actually attempt things that require it and to people who are ready and willing to respond to the prompting of God out of love for people and not for reputation. 
• There has to be an expectancy in our hearts for this prompting. - Luke 11:11-13
• "You don't have to overcome God's reluctance, you just lay hold of His highest wellingness." - E. Stanley Jones
• Live with Expectancy
• A lot of us overlook the significant because we're looking for the sensational.
• The anguish of aspiration. I want to experence the Spirit like Jesus experienced the Spirit with similar results.
• Repent of grieving the Spirit.
• "You can not expect God to come into the occasional, if you refuse Him in the continuous." - E. Stanley Jones