Live Like a Champion - Week 24 - First Baptist Church

Live Like a Champion – Week 24

Posted on Jun 13, 2021 by Jerry Ingalls in General, Live Like a Champion, Sermon Notes |

“The Promise of an Anointing!”

Last week, we learned that when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior you are sealed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of promise. This promise of a seal secures you in two things: 1) your identity as a child of God, and 2) your eternal life with God.

We are signed, sealed, and delivered in the Trinitarian fellowship of God because God has called us to be a part of His team to go into the world and represent Him—we are Image Bearers, ambassadors of Jesus Christ, messengers of His Gospel, ministers of reconciliation. People see God’s love in and through us because it is the Holy Spirit who verifies us as God’s Image Bearers. We are authenticated by the Holy Spirit, sealed for this purpose and anointed to do this very work.

We are now a part of God’s rescue mission and this week’s promise is an essential part of God’s plan of salvation. The play of the week is “The Promise of an Anointing!” The memory verse for this promise is 1 John 2:20, “You have an anointing from the Holy One.”

Let’s look at this promise in the context of 1 John 2:20-27:

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.

What does it mean that we have an “anointing” from the Holy One?

The concept of being “anointed” carried a specific meaning in the minds of the original audience because the anointing was a key part of the Old Covenant. Anointing oil was “used to show that an official, such as a priest or king, was chosen by God, by pouring the oil on top of the person’s head. The anointing oil was stored in the tabernacle and, later, the temple. [In Exodus 30:22-31], the oil is to be used on the tent of meeting, all of its furniture and utensils, and the priests.”^[1] The anointing oil was a visible practice of an invisible reality—God anointed that which belongs to Him! He sets it apart for His use!

To summarize, when you are anointed it means you are consecrated or set apart (chosen) as a person for a special work of God. Literally, you are declared holy by God. The anointing means that you have the presence and power of the Holy Spirit “abiding” in you. According to Peter in 2 Peter 1:3, the anointing is “His divine power [that] has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”

The anointing of the Holy Spirit is not about being an elite soldier for Jesus or gaining a special status or position in the church through secret knowledge or increased revelation, because the anointing is what makes each of us a Christian in the first place. You don’t need something more to make you feel more special than everyone else, because God has already made you His treasured possession! When a person is anointed or when we say there was an anointing on a service or worship time or sermon, what we are actually saying is that the presence and power of the Holy Spirit was witnessed. To walk in the anointing is to walk with Christ in His easy yoke. It is the way of life for every believer.

The anointing comes from God at the same time as the seal. As Paul makes clear in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22,

“Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.”

Not only are we given the identity of and security as the children of God, but we are anointed by the Holy Spirit to do the work of God’s household. The promise of the anointing equips each of us to fulfill the purpose for which we have been chosen! As Pastor Ken will teach us more about next Sunday, the Holy Spirit is God’s power within us! This was true for Jesus in His ministry, just as it is for our own. Listen to Jesus, as He began His ministry in Luke 4:14-21,

And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district. And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all. And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus was quoting from Isaiah 61:1, which was again applied to Jesus in Hebrews 1:9. This same anointing is applied to set apart New Covenant believers for God’s glory.

Peter make this very clear in 1 Peter 2:9-12,

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

And just to close the loop, Peter is directly referencing Isaiah 61:6; Deuteronomy 7:6; Exodus 19:6; and Hosea 2:23.

The anointing is established by God in the Old Covenant; fulfilled in Jesus Christ with the New Covenant, and imparted upon us and fulfilled through the Holy Spirit! This is who you are as the Church—the anointed ones (hagios) to whom Jesus has promised victory through His victory. John declares in 1 John 4:4,

“You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”

How do we overcome?

Because the same power that rose Jesus from the grave lives in us. By the power of the Holy One who has anointed us for this very reason—to defeat darkness and shine the Light! The following is a series of teachings about the Holy Spirit by Jesus on the night He was betrayed, from John 14—16:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father” (John 14:12).
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:16-18).
“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John 14:25-26).
“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning” (John 15:26-27).
“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:7-8).
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you” (John 16:13-15).

This is Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit is the One who sees to the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises for God’s glory. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when he stated in Philippians 2:13-16,

It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.

This is the promise of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. In Mark 1:17, Jesus made the promise of discipleship to all who would follow Him:

“Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”

Why are you anointed with the Holy Spirit? TO MAKE YOU BECOME… It is the anointing of the Holy Spirit that fulfills in and through us the promise of Jesus Christ to all who follow Him! God is the means by which we can partner with Him to do His will for His glory! All glory to God!

Church, the question is not whether or not you are anointed, because it is impossible for you to be His Church apart from this promise! As a member of the Body of Christ, you are His anointed!

The question is whether or not you are walking in the anointing and experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit in you!

You can listen to this message from Pastor Jerry here:

Or you can watch the video by clicking Here.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016), Ex 30:25.

Live Like a Champion – Week 24