BWC DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SERIES€¦ · Becoming Grounded Part 1 SPIRITUAL WARFARE SERIES “Our...

BWC DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SERIES

Establishing A Powerful Prayer Life

Becoming Grounded Part 1

SPIRITUAL WARFARE SERIES

“Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

• In this lesson we are going begin our teaching series on Spiritual Warfare. Tonight we will be discussing:

– Critical Requirements for Spiritual Warfare

– Faith and Spiritual Warfare

– The Immovable Position – Fully Persuaded

– Spirit Led

CLASS AGENDA

SPIRITUAL WARFARE SERIES:Becoming Grounded – Part 1

INTRODUCTION

Becoming grounded in God is essential to being victorious in every single battle you engage in for the Kingdom of God.

Becoming grounded is the process to ensure that Satan, the enemy, cannot make you turn back and give up the battle.

Becoming grounded will cause you to stand, and having done all—to stand your ground without giving one inch back to the enemy.

Critical Requirements for Spiritual Warfare

• There are some critical requirements that need to be in place in your life before engaging the enemy in a battle.

• You must have a personal relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

• You must be confident in God’s motives towards you and your life (family, job, health, finances).


• You must know who you are in Christ Jesus. You must know your AUTHORITY.

• You must be fully persuaded that God is a good God and the devil is a bad devil.


• You must have a personal relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

• You must be born-again to engage the enemy. (Acts 19:13-16)

• You must know the Lord intimately or are in the pursuit of an intimate relationship with Him. (Colossians 3:3)

• You must be Baptized in the Holy Spirit to be led by Him. (Acts 1:9 & 19:2)


• You must be confident in God’s motives towards you and your life (family, job, health, finances).

• You must believe that God’s love for YOU is beyond reproach. It is without equal. (Romans 5:8 & 8:35-39)

• You must accept that His Word, the Bible, IS His will for your life and every word in the Bible shows His promises to you for GOOD and not EVIL. (James 1:17)


• You must know who you are in Christ Jesus. You must know your AUTHORITY.

• You must realize and accept the authority that Jesus Christ has given YOU as a believer to defeat ALL the power of the enemy. (Luke 9:1 & 10:19)

• You must EXPECT the enemy to back off when you exercise that authority. (Luke 8:30 & Acts 16:16-18)


• You must be fully persuaded that God is a good God and the devil is a bad devil.

• You must be fully persuaded that God has only benefits and good things stored up for you. You must be convinced that it is His will to give you the victory. (Luke 12:32 & Luke 11:13)

• You must be willing to give the devil his due: HE IS THE AUTHOR OF EVIL AND BAD THINGS! (2 Cor. 2:11 & John 10:10)

Faith and Spiritual Warfare

Faith and Spiritual WarfareBuilding Strong Faith

• One of the reasons that God allows Satan to operate is so that we can to build strong faith in Him. (John 16:33)

• Spiritual warfare builds faith because you are depending on God to give you victory. With each battle, your faith grows. It is a natural progression. (Jude 1:20-25)

Faith and Spiritual WarfareBuilding Strong Faith

• Faith must be exercised to grow. Just like muscles in your body must be exercised to maintain their strength. (2 Peter 1:5)

• The beauty of spiritual warfare is that once you have gone through the battle and come out stronger on the other side: it cannot be UNDONE. You will be stronger and you will go from strength to strength going forward. (Psalm 84:7)

Faith and Spiritual WarfareThe Faith Stand

• Every battle requires a faith stand. Once you have made your stand, bound the enemy, drawn the bloodlines etc., there comes a time when you just stand your ground and refuse to be moved off your position. (Ephesians 6:13)

• The faith stand is the toughest part of any spiritual battle. It is tough because you don’t see ANY progress at all in the situation. This is a critical juncture because it is so easy to turn back and give up. (James 1:3)

Faith and Spiritual WarfareThe Faith Stand

• The faith stand begins AFTER you have made your petitions, bound the enemy, gone to the Court of Heaven and applied the Blood and the Name of Jesus to everything.

• This is the point where you stand and declare God’s Word over the situation, day after day in FAITH. Giving Him thanks and praise and worship for the victory—in spite of not seeing any improvement.

Faith and Spiritual WarfareThe Shield of Faith

• The shield of faith is a defensive piece of equipment. It should be put on daily with the words of your mouth in faith.

• “Father, I put on the shield of faith around me to quench every fiery dart of the enemy in Jesus’ Name.”

• The shield of faith allows you to make progress in the face of the enemy’s onslaught of fiery darts and resistance.

Faith and Spiritual WarfareEyes on Jesus

• Faith looks to Jesus Who is the Author and the Finisher of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2)

• Keep your eyes on Jesus and you can walk all the way across the sea with Him. (Matthew 14:22-33)

• When the waves are a hundred feet tall its hard to keep focus, but still we must. Peter could have walked all the way if he would have kept his eyes on Jesus.

Faith and Spiritual WarfareSeeing The Desired End Result

• God always looks at the desired end result. Everything He does, He does with that in mind. He looks with the eyes of faith. (Isaiah 46:10)

• What is the desired end result of your battle? Your financial breakthrough, healing, deliverance, salvation of loved ones?

• THINK ABOUT IT FOR A FEW MINUTES

Faith and Spiritual WarfareSeeing The Desired End Result

• The desired end result is your “vision” for victory. You are chasing the vision that God has placed in your heart. (Jeremiah 29:11 & Habakkuk 2:2)

• Having a vision in your heart will keep you focused. The vision makes it difficult to let go. It’s in your heart—your spirit. It was placed there by God.

• Faith and spiritual warfare go hand in hand, you can’t do one without the other. Remember: Faith is the currency of heaven.

The Immovable Position: Fully Persuaded


• What is the immovable position? The immovable position is a new “micki-ism” that I have come up with.

• It means that you get to a place in God where it doesn’t matter what it looks like or how impossible it seems—you refuse to stop believing. You refuse to quit. You refuse to let go of His promise.


• The immovable position is when your faith is rooted so deep that nothing can sway or change your mind about it—except God.

• A person who gets into the immovable position is a real pain in the neck to Satan. It’s like he is fighting one of those blow up punching bags that keeps bouncing back for more.

• A person in the immovable position is convinced they have the victory. They are convinced and fully persuaded the battle is won in their favor and Satan has to flee.

The Immovable Position: Fully PersuadedA Look At The Apostle Paul

• The Apostle Paul stayed in the immovable position. What makes a person able to get to this place and then STAY in this place?

• Paul KNEW God—He had a personal, intimate relationship with Him! Because of the deep intimate relationship, Paul became fully persuaded that God not only COULD do anything, but that He actually WANTED to help Him! (II Timothy 1:12)

The Immovable Position: Fully PersuadedA Look At The Apostle Paul

• Paul kept his eyes on the prize. Jesus Christ is the prize. He is the Pearl of great price. (Philippians 3:14)

• Paul was prepared to go all the way for God. He was determined to complete his race. To lay his crowns at the feet of Jesus on that day. (II Timothy 4:7)

• Paul was in the immovable position and there wasn’t anything Satan could do. He tried to kill him time and time again. He only could when Paul’s race was over.

The Immovable Position: Fully PersuadedA Look At Job

• Job is another man who loved God and pursued Him with everything he had. As a result God blessed him in every way.

• He had lots of children

• He was the wealthiest man in the entire East

• He had lots of servants

• He was healthy and strong


• But Job had one weakness: his children were undisciplined and wild as young adults. They loved to party.

• Job knew their rebellious ways would eventually offend the Lord, so every time they had a wild party, he would offer sacrifices for them.

• He should have taken them to task over it, but for some reason he did not. His constant sacrifices was an indication of fear for his kids.


• Enter Satan, who was watching all this with great interest. He had been looking for a way through the hedge surrounding Job and this was it. Fear is the opposite of faith. Fear empowers Satan and ties God’s hands.

• Satan had legal ground against Job. He went to the Court of Heaven and made a charge and won permission to attack him. But God set parameters.


• Satan then goes out and destroys all of Job’s wealth and kills all his children in one day. Job kept getting bad news all day long. Yet he kept his immovable position. He refused to blame God.

• Satan goes back to the Court of Heaven and demands permission to attack Job’s physical body. He gets that permission.

• He puts loathsome sores all over Job’s body even on the soles of his feet.


• Job is now one of the most miserable human beings that has ever lived. He has lost everything dear to him—except his wife.

• Now he is covered with these horrible, painful sores. He looks like he’s dying. Satan used his wife against him, when she said “curse God and die.” Whose words are those?

• Still in all that, Job refused to blame God. He said “though He slay me, yet will I praise Him.” (Job 13:15)


• Finally here comes Job’s friends who think they know God. They proceed to tell him things about God, they knew nothing of, which angered God.

• God was not angry with Job. God had no intention of doing anything to hurt Job. God accepted Job’s sacrifices and prayers for his children. God knew Job’s love for Him.


• Satan is the one who accused Job before God. Satan is the one who saw the legal ground of fear in Job’s life. Satan made a demand on eternal law and God granted it. God’s mercy and grace were towards Job through all this.

• Finally, after all the talk of his friends, Job began to curse himself and wish himself dead. God then began to talk to him and straightened him out.


• In the end, Job’s relationship with God was closer than ever. God restored his wealth and his health and his marriage. God gave him ten more children to replace the lost ones. God not only restored his wealth, but He actually doubled it! God then added many, many more years to Job’s life and he saw several generations of his children. He died full of days.

• The immovable position pays off.

The Immovable Position: Fully PersuadedThe Fiery Furnace Attitude

• There were three guys who were companions of Daniel the prophet. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Their Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. (Daniel 1:6)

• These young men were of the nobility of Israel. Well-bred men of royal lineage. Well-educated and intelligent. (Daniel 1:3-4)

• These young men served the Lord. They worshipped Jehovah God Almighty—and they were GROUNDED in Him.


• From the very beginning of their captivity in Babylon, Daniel, Shadrach, Mesach and Abnego determined in their hearts to not part-take of the king’s idolatrous foods. (Daniel 1:8-15)

• Their minds were set to obey God at all costs. At the very outset, they stood against what the Babylonians represented. They knew the Word of God very well and they knew what it meant to eat at the king’s table.


• They made a deal with the chief steward of the young men. They asked him to give them just vegetables and water for ten days.

• The chief steward was afraid that they would be looking starved and he would be executed, so Daniel made this deal with him. He agreed. (Daniel 1:11-14)

• At the end of the ten days they looked better and healthier than all the rest of the men eating at the king’s table! (Daniel 1:15)


• The king wanted all these young men to help him communicate with the Israelite captives. That is why he chose the noble youths of the nation because they were natural leaders.

• So the king began the interview process with these young men. After he had talked with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abnego, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters who were in his realm! (Daniel 1:18-20)


• Life was pretty good for these guys, even if they were in captivity. How many of us know, that a period of blessings is seasonal? Trouble will inevitably come around.

• The king got the bright idea to make this huge golden image on the plain of Dura. It was ninety feet tall and nine feet wide. He called in all the people in authority in his kingdom and told them the new law was to bow down to this image whenever the trumpet blew. Everyone, everywhere was to do this. (Daniel 3:1-7)


• The law was in effect. To disobey this new law meant certain death. It was way more than civil disobedience to refuse this law. It was a violation of God’s Law – Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me—nor bow down to them.

• All this time these guys had supernatural favor with the king. They were his golden boys. His bright stars. How quickly things can turn.

• They did not bow down and they were accused before the king. Their accusers pointed out the law to the king. He had to kill them. (Daniel 3:8-12)


• The king was not hesitant at all, in fact, he was enraged that they refused his command! He did give them another chance though. (Daniel 3:14-15)

• But the young men told him not to bother that they had determined in their hearts not to bow down. Do what you have to do King. (Daniel 3:16-18)

• The king gets even more enraged and tells his men to heat the furnace seven times hotter than normal! (Daniel 3:19)


• So the young men were bound and thrown into the burning fiery furnace. The furnace was so hot, the heat killed the king’s men who threw the guys in! (Daniel 3:20-22)

• What happened? Jesus came into the middle of the fire with them! The king was astounded when he saw a fourth man in the furnace. (Daniel 3:24-27)

• What was the result of the fiery furnace attitude these guys had? God was GLORIFIED in the midst of the heathen. And they got promoted yet again. (Daniel 3:28-29)

Spirit Led

Spirit LedThe Power & Purpose of the Holy Spirit

• The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Godhead or the Trinity as is commonly known.

• The Holy Spirit is very, very precious to God the Son and God the Father. In fact, all manner of blasphemy can be forgiven EXCEPT blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 12:31-33)


• Throughout the history of mankind, the Godhead has been individually involved. God the Father formed mankind from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him. (Genesis 2:7)

• God the Son, came to the earth as a man, lived as a man and died as a man. He arose from the dead forever tied to man in an immortal body.


• The Holy Spirit came after the Son ascended to the Father and sat at His right hand on the throne.

• Now is the age of the power of the Holy Spirit. He was sent to guide us into all the Truth of God! (Acts 2:1-5)


• A few things to know about the Holy Spirit:• The Holy Spirit is the POWER of God.

(Romans 8:11)• The Holy Spirit can be grieved. (Ephesians

4:30)• The Holy Spirit is a “He” not an “It” (John

14:16)• The Holy Spirit speaks to people. (Acts 8:29)


• A few things to know about the Holy Spirit:• The Holy Spirit wants fellowship with us. (2

Corinthians 13:14)• The Holy Spirit is everywhere—He is

Omnipresent. (Psalm 139:7-10)• The Holy Spirit is all-knowing—He is

Omniscient. (I Corinthians 2:10-11)• The Holy Spirit is all-powerful—Omnipotent.

(Psalm 104:30)


• The Holy Spirit’s purposes on earth are:• To instruct us and teach us. To reveal truth

(revelation knowledge) to us as HE WILLS. (Luke 12:12; John 14:27; 15:26; 16:13, 14; Acts 13:2; 1 Corinthians 2: 10, 13;

Ephesians 1:16, 17; 3:5; 2 Peter 1:21; 1 John 2:20, 27)

• To counsel and guide us. (John 14:26; 16:13; Acts 11:12;

16:6, 7; 20:22, 23; Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:18)

• To intercede for us and help us to pray effectively. (Romans 8:26, 27; Ephesians 2: 18; Jude 20)


• The Holy Spirit’s purposes on earth are:• To comfort us (John 14:16)• To anoint for ministry (Act 31:2, 20:28)• To convict believers and unbelievers of sin

(John 16:8-11)• To give power and boldness to believers

(Ephesians 3:16)• To testify that we are the children of God

(Romans 8:16)TO NAME A FEW…

Spirit LedBaptism of the Holy Spirit

• Jesus talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit after His death and resurrection. He told His disciples to go and wait for the Holy Spirit to come. (Luke 24:49)

• The 120 disciples of Jesus Christ did just that in the upper room until the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came in and baptized them all in His power. (Acts 4:31)

Spirit LedThe Baptism of the Holy Spirit

• The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the impartation of the POWER of God into the life of a believer.

• This power gives us boldness and confidence to do what the Holy Spirit tells us to do to advance the kingdom and engage in spiritual warfare.

IT IS ALL ABOUT ADVANCING THE KINGDOM! IT IS NOT ABOUT US!

Spirit LedListen & Obey The Holy Spirit

• To be led by the Spirit is to listen and obey Him. Remember this: He knows the very heart of God. He has the thoughts, purposes and plans of the Godhead.

• He knows the end from the beginning. He is all-knowing. He knows what is going on in the hearts of all people at once. That is how powerful He is.

Spirit LedListen & Obey The Holy Spirit

• Before you do anything regarding any kind of spiritual warfare, ALWAYS check with the Holy Spirit! (Romans 8:14)

• People will go in where angels fear to tread sometimes! I know because I have! It’s not pretty!

• Jesus did ONLY what the Holy Spirit told Him to do. He did not heal everyone. He healed those the Holy Spirit brought to Him.

CONCLUSION OF PART I

• TO BE FIRMLY GROUNDED IN GOD IS AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT IN SUCCESSFULLY ADVANCING THE KINGDOM THROUGH SPIRITUAL WARFARE.

• JESUS LOVES US SO MUCH, HE WANTS US TO BE WISE AND FULLY EQUIPPED TO FULFILL ALL THE PLANS HE HAS FOR US.

• THOSE PLANS INCLUDE SPIRITUAL WARFARE SOMETIMES IN OUR CHRISTIAN WALK.

NEXT WEEK: Spiritual Warfare: Becoming Grounded Part 2

• Next week we are going to continue our Spiritual Warfare Series on becoming grounded. We will be looking at who our enemy is and the price that was paid for our redemption.

NEXT WEEK: Spiritual Warfare:Becoming Grounded Part 2

• Next week’s lesson will include teachings on:

– Who is our enemy?

– The Great Purchase: The Price Jesus Paid

BWC DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SERIES€¦ · Becoming Grounded Part 1 SPIRITUAL WARFARE SERIES “Our...

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