Mortal Man Awesome God (endless Life Festival Europe) by Apostle Emmanuel Iren: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Love language applies to your walk with God

A man traveled abroad and, on his last day with his wife before leaving, went out for hours to surprise her with a car. She didn't want a car, she wanted his time. Subconsciously we love people the way we understand love, not the way they need it.

When it comes to serving the Lord, we have the tendency to want to perform, to do things for him. But he is saying one thing is needful: just sit down and receive from me.

Why knowledge matters

In Acts 19, Paul did not hold vigils against the principality Diana in Ephesus. He just preached the gospel, and the word of God grew and prevailed. The only way to get the gospel to prevail in a territory is by preaching the gospel. If you cast a demon out and it doesn't find a new habitation, it will come back. The only way to embrace the fullness of who you are in Christ is by knowledge.

Christianity described three ways

1. Christian

   The word "Christian" wasn't a revelation of what Christ had done, it was unbelievers describing a group who acted like Christ. Christianity describes external behavior, which every Christian ought to have, but it doesn't make you a believer. What makes you a believer is internal, and the external behavior is a fruit, not the cause. The Bible's real description of what God has done is baptism, we've been immersed into him.

2. Religion

   Is Christianity a religion? Yes and no. James 1:27 says pure religion is to visit orphans and widows and keep yourself unspotted. You won't find someone who truly knows God without religious practices like prayer, fellowship, generosity. But to call Christianity a religion in finality is to reduce it.

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3. Family

   If you read the Bible from an objective lens, you'll conclude the entire Bible is about a father and his family. Watch the salvation metaphors closely.

True story: Under persecution, a Scottish believer was stopped by a soldier on her way to a secret prayer meeting. Rather than lie, she said, "My older brother died and I'm going for a meeting with all the siblings in my father's house." She wasn't lying, Jesus is our older brother who died and left us a will (inheritance). Christianity can be described in family terms.

Three major metaphors for salvation in the Bible

1. A love story

   When you see the kingdom of heaven as a merchant seeking goodly pearls, and he found one pearl of great price and went with joy, understand: we've been taught sacrifice, but a lot of people don't understand delight, they only know duty.

2. A king and his kingdom

   Isaiah 54:5-6, "For your maker is your husband." He's saying I'm a spouse to you, trying to change your perspective. There should be intimacy in your dealing with him. Jeremiah 3:14, "Return, you backsliding children, for I'm married to you." The marriage/romance metaphor is littered through the Bible beginning to end.

3. A father and his children

   Stubborn children.

Love language in worship

The same reason you struggle in your walk with God is the same reason you struggle in relationships and marriage. Vibrant spirituality is counterintuitive, you will have to come out of what you already have the tendency to do. In the story of Martha and Mary, if Jesus came to your house, wouldn't you enter the kitchen and cook? We come wanting to give, wanting to perform, wanting to deliver, wanting to show him, but he's saying one thing is needful, sit and receive.

If you keep measuring your spirituality by how much you do, you will never be happy or fulfilled.

Salvation is two things

The utter helplessness of man and the sovereign intervention of God. The true understanding of salvation begins where your power ends. This is not an excuse to stop trying (antinomianism), we still make every effort, because he has already accepted us, not to be accepted.

Concepts we've trivialized: forgiveness is not as easy as we think. When someone easily forgives us, we secretly press to apologize more because we don't like to owe. But you cannot accept and enjoy salvation if you are not the debtor.

Two stories Jesus told

1. The rich young ruler and the eye of the needle

   A rich, impeccable young ruler asked what he must do to inherit the kingdom. Jesus said, "Sell all you have, give to the poor, then come." Does God really require we sell all we have? No, he was tackling a mindset, showing the man his journey begins at the end of himself. "It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven." The word used for "needle" was specifically the medical needle, even smaller than what we picture. It is not merely difficult, it is impossible to qualify by your own strength.

2. The wedding feast

   Matthew 22:1-14. A king arranged a marriage for his son and sent servants to call the invited, saying the oxen and fatted cattle are already killed. Before you were invited to come, the sacrifice had already been made. All things are now ready, your only participation is to come in and enjoy the party, it's called rest. Those invited made light of it, so the king sent servants into the highways, and they gathered both bad and good. The only thing that qualified anyone to enter is that they were invited. A man was found without a wedding garment (faith in Christ) and was thrown out, faith in Jesus, not moral qualification, is the only requirement.

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How To Walk In The Supernatural

by Pastor Anwinli Ojeikere

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Nobody qualifies by their own righteousness

Two prophets saw themselves in heaven by vision: Isaiah and Joshua. Isaiah 7:1 (the year King Uzziah died) records Isaiah seeing the Lord and crying, "Woe is me... I am a man of unclean lips." Uzziah died because he tried to offer a sacrifice only a priest could offer, and leprosy broke out on him, a picture of self-sufficiency. Romans 3, "There is none righteous, no not one." In Zechariah 3, the high priest is seen in heaven wearing dirty clothes, with the accuser ready to accuse him if God did not speak up for him.

Things to know as we round off

1. He died for all your sins

   1 John 2:1-2. He is the propitiation for our sins. In the Septuagint, the Greek word "propitiation" was translated in the Old Testament as "atonement" and "mercy seat," the covering over the tablets of the ten commandments where blood was sprinkled. By his own effort, no one qualifies, but he died for your sins. "Blessed are those whose sins are covered... whose iniquity God will not count."

2. He settled all Satan's claims

   The accuser of the brethren has been silenced forever. Colossians 2:13-15, having forgiven all our trespasses and wiped out the handwriting of requirements against us, nailing it to the cross, he disarmed principalities and powers and made a public spectacle of them.

Confidence in what Christ has done

It's not enough to know what Christ has done, you must be confident in it. If you're not confident, it doesn't matter in your life what Christ has done.

• Ephesians 3:12, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him.
• Hebrews 10:19-22, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart, full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
• 1 John 3:19-21, if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence.

• Lord Jesus, I believe with all my heart that you died for my sins once for all time and rose again the third day for my justification.
• I place my trust in you, I receive your Holy Spirit into my heart, I'm born again.
• Thank you for accepting me into your family and being my daddy.