Robert Morris - Anointing
So we are finishing the five-week series, The Ministries of Jesus. They're found in Luke 4, and you might be thinking this one that you might not think of where it is because it doesn't seem to list it explicitly, but the Lord talks about it, and we're going to talk about it. But the five basic ministries or foundational ministries of Jesus, we've already covered four. Salvation. I called it Mending, the second one, which is emotional healing. And then we talked about Freedom, to proclaim Liberty to the captives. Last week was Healing. We talked about physical and spiritual healing. And again, we talked about that He heals naturally, medically, and miraculously, or supernaturally.
I want to make a statement. I'm not sure, I think you got it, but just to reiterate, if you're going through something physically, I believe you should pursue all three avenues of God's healing: natural, medical and miraculously. I believe you should pursue that. I think there are extremes in the body of Christ that if you go to the doctor or something like that, that's not faith. I think that's crazy. I think going to the doctor is faith. I think you should pray. I think God has gifted medical professionals, and all of you know that four years ago I was very, very grateful for medical professionals that showed up.
So this week, the fifth one, the last one is Anointing. And so going to show you in Scripture about this, but before I show it to you and talk about anointing or the anointing of the Holy Spirit, which is one of the ministries of Jesus, Jesus is the one who anoints us with the Holy Spirit. I wasn't planning on this. I wasn't even thinking about this. But this that I'm about to tell you is where Luke 4, the burden for this Luke 4 passage, for me to speak on it came from.
But it happened as just a message that I preached in the 90s back at Shady Grove Church, which is our Grand Prairie campus now, and it was just a message, and I called it, "Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up"? And the reason I did that was because many churches preach that Jesus can save you for heaven, but He really can't help you on this earth. And when Jesus shows up in Luke 4 and preaches His first sermon at His home church, He says, this is who I really am, and this is what I really do. In other words, if you have a broken heart, I can heal you of that broken heart. I can open blind eyes. I can set you free from a bondage or an addiction.
And that message, almost 30 years ago now, and now this is the first time I've ever done a series on it. That message came out of some trauma and a tragedy in our family. And so I don't think I've ever shared this with you. I've told you about the tragedy of the trauma on my mother's side. On my father's side, my father was the first believer in his family. He heard the gospel for the first time when he was 16 years old and accepted Christ, and that changed our family. He had two brothers. One of them struggled with alcoholism his entire life, in and out of jail, finally went to prison, and then died a few years after he got out of prison. for DUIs, DWIs, things like that.
The other brother went to Vietnam and was a war hero, but came back with mental health problems and emotional health problems. He had been married, had three children with his first wife, got divorced, married another woman, had three children with her. Divorced. They remarried, divorced. They remarried. But on the third time that he remarried the second wife... Is everyone following this? Some of you say, "Yes, I understand completely what you're talking about". Okay. He had tremendous problems with addictions. He had problems with demonic spirits that I believe he picked up in Vietnam. He had problems with shame because of things he had to do in war. He just had a lot of difficulties. But that third time that they got remarried, they said, "Let's go to church. Let's try church". They went to a church that at least preached that you can be born again and be saved. He got saved. He truly accepted the Lord and even started tithing.
They were attending every week, but he still had these dreams. He still had this uncontrollable rage. He still had this tremendous shame. I thought about even telling you a couple of the stories that he told my father of things he had to do in war, but I just thought it wouldn't help any to share, but it was just horrible. The thing that bothered me was, and this is where this message, the first burden in the 90s came from, was that he was going to church, he accepted Christ, but the message he was hearing was, Jesus saves you so that when you die, you go to heaven, but He really can't help you on this earth. And so finally one day he and his wife were talking, and she said, Why don't you go talk to the pastor about these dreams you have, about this anger you have, about this shame, the things you have.
So he went and told the pastor kind of his story, things he had done in war, how he couldn't get over it. He basically had PTSD, but nobody knew, and it was very, very severe. And to hear a car backfire, these memories would come back. Remember, Jesus can heal broken hearts. He can heal trauma. But he didn't know that. So he went to the pastor and talked to him. He came home. I'm telling you, it's a tragic story. I'm warning you. He came home. His wife was excited. She said, "What did the pastor say"? And my uncle said, "He said, Jesus can't help me". And he kissed his wife, told her he loved her, and went upstairs and committed suicide.
And I preached his memorial service. And it wasn't but just a few weeks after that when I was reading in Luke 4, and I got so angry that we would preach about a Jesus that can save us, but He can't touch us and heal us and heal our broken hearts on this earth. And that's when I preached the message, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? Because Paul said in Corinthians, If anyone comes and preaches another Jesus to you, don't believe him. So I'm letting you know, yes, the most important ministry of Jesus is what I started the series with on Easter: Jesus can save you from your sins. But I'm telling you, according to Luke 4, He can do more than that. He can help you get through the traumas of living in a fallen world. He can help you. And one of the most important ministries of Jesus is that He wants to anoint us with the Holy Spirit.
And you might have missed this in Luke 4, so I'm going to show it to you. In Luke 4, verse 16, "So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written", before he starts anything else, "'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me...'" Now, what you might not have put together... Josh covered it when he talked about the humanity of Jesus. It's Theology 101. Philippians 2 is the major chapter that explains it. But Jesus was fully God and fully man, but He laid down His divinity and became a human. Jesus did everything He did when He was on this earth through the power of the Holy Spirit. So wouldn't it be great if when He left, He would make that power available to us?
So first of all, let me give you a little background, and then we're going to pray for a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. Would that be okay? All right. So first of all, I need to let you know what the word anoint means in the Greek here. It means to rub or to smear thoroughly, to rub or to smear thoroughly. In the Hebrew, it actually means to pour. The reason I say that is because when we think of anointing someone with oil, you've seen this before. You take a little bottle and you dab a little on their forehead. And if you're like Michael Jr., the comedian, talks about people who are over-saved. If you're over-saved, you do it in the form of the cross. Anoint you with oil here, brother.
I remember one time a guy said, "I just feel like putting more oil". And he put it like this, and then it got in my eyes, and then I needed healing. So anyway, but let me just show you, in the Old Testament, when people were anointed, they didn't get dabbed. Genesis 28, this is talking about Jacob. We talk about the gateway of heaven. Verse 18, "Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it". He didn't dab it with oil. He poured oil, which is the same word for anointing. He anointed this stone. Exodus 29:7 is talking about when you anoint Aaron, the priest, "'And you shall take the anointing oil, pour it on his head, and anoint him.'"
When Samuel anointed Saul to be the first king over Israel, 1 Samuel, 10:1, "Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head, and kissed him and said: 'Is it not because the Lord has anointed you commander over His inheritance?'" And then we talk a lot about the alabaster flask. You remember the woman who broke the alabaster flask, but we miss it, and it's in the Gospels. I'm only going to share one of the passages. James preached on it a few weeks ago. Matthew 26:7, "A woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table". Most... well, I shouldn't say most. I don't know if it's most. Many theologians believe, because of the cost of it, it tells us the cost; It was one year's wage, because it was one year's wage, many believe that it would have been around 16oz of oil, about a water bottle.
So if I asked Thomas to come up and I poured a water bottle... You know what? Let's do that. No, I'm joking. And just poured it over his head, it would take a while. Are y'all following me? So here's my question for you. Would it be okay with you if Jesus didn't just give you a dab of the Holy Spirit, but He thoroughly rubbed and smeared and poured the Holy Spirit all over you, all over you. And again, I talked about how Jesus did all that He did through the power of the Holy Spirit. I don't have time to go through all that, but you could easily see that. But let me just show you one verse, Acts 10:38, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth", Nazareth, remember, that's where He grew up, "with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil".
If you want to go about doing good and healing people, that the Devil's oppressing, you need to be anointed by the Holy Spirit because that's how Jesus did it. Luke 24, another word here I want to explain to you. Verse 49, "'Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.'" Now, I'm going to show you the Greek word enduo, which means to be clothed or to sink in the clothing. You've probably heard the expression when you see someone with some tight clothes, "He poured himself into those pants". By the way, I was thinking about this, and for 30 years now, cleaners have shrunk my clothes. 30 years. It's been happening. Since I was about 30 years old is about when it starts happening, and you get a pair of pants back, and you can't snap them. And so all cleaners are... Nevermind. They need deliverance. Something's wrong because I know it's not me. Okay. I just thought of something.
There was this guy who's a member of our church, and I was with him this last week. He was telling another guy about the church, and he said, "You really need to come. Pastor Roberts is this great preacher. He expounds the Word", and then he said this, though, he said, "But he does tell corny jokes". And I actually thought about a corny joke, and since I haven't told one in a while, and I talked about my stomach and the clothes getting smaller, I want you to know that it is a physical, it is a physical ailment that I have. It's called the Donelop disease. It means my belly has done lopped over my belt. All right. I just, don't make fun of me because I have a physical ailment, okay.
All right. Here's the point. If Jesus did what He did by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that power is available to us, which I'm about to show you, and when you get that power, you can heal people who are oppressed by the devil, then don't you think the devil would try to get us to not talk about the power of the Holy Spirit? And don't you think the devil would try to make us think that any church that talks about the Holy Spirit is one of those goofy churches, and you should stay away from a Church that believes in the Holy Spirit? I've actually been asked by people, and some good and some bad, "Does Gateway believe in the Holy Spirit"?
Well, the Holy Spirit is God, so they're asking me if we believe in God. And I've had people ask me that meaning in a good way, because we want to go to a church that believes in the Holy Spirit, and I've had people ask in a bad way. Who would make it up? Who would make up all this controversy and confusion over the anointing of the Holy Spirit except the one who is afraid of the Holy Spirit, and that would be the devil. So don't be afraid of being anointed by the Holy Spirit because Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit, and again, I don't have time to share it, but it talks about when He was baptized, how John the Baptist knew this, and how God spoke it to him. And it's in all four Gospels.
Now, I haven't gone through to see how many things are in all four, but not many. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are synoptic. They are similar. They cover the last year of Jesus' ministry. Of course, they cover the birth, but then they'll start, say around chapter three to chapter five, after the death of John the Baptist, which that happened two years in Jesus' ministry. John writes his gospel years later, after the Matthew, Mark, and Luke have written, and he writes things that happened in the first two years of Jesus' ministry. That's why you'll find things in John that are not in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
John 2, the turning water into wine. That's the very first miracle Jesus ever did.
John 3, Nicodemus.
John 4, the woman at the well.
John 5, the healing of the blind man.
John 6 and 7, that whole discourse is not in Matthew, Mark, or Luke.
John 8, the woman caught in adultery.
John 9, the healing the blind man.
John 10, the good shepherd.
John 11, the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
John 12, then, talking about that anointing which is in the other ones, but it's leading to His death.
But then John 14, 15, and 16 is the conversation Jesus had with the disciples in the upper room, if you would like that.
John 17 is the prayer Jesus prayed in the garden, if you'd like that that's there.
But that's not in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Okay, so I don't know for sure everything that's in all four, but I can tell you this: they all four cover the birth, the death, and the resurrection of Christ. And then they all four cover, you ready for this, the baptism in the Holy Spirit. That's the other thing they all four mention. and I'm going to read them to you because I want you to see. Matthew, here's Matthew 3:11. This is John the Baptist speaking. "'I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.'" This is one of the ministries of Jesus. He, Jesus, will baptize you, immerse you (and I'm going to give you the definition of the word baptize here in a moment) with the Holy Spirit. Mark 1:18, "'I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'"
Luke, now we got Matthew, Mark, Luke, 3:16, "John answered, saying to all, 'I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.'" John 1:33, "I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'" Now the word baptize in the Greek is baptizo, and it means to immerse. The only thing is that most of the Greek lexicons that you find use the first century illustration of it, but it was used 200 years before, and I had to look to find it in a very obscure place. But I knew what it was. I knew where the word came from, but I wanted to show you. But let me tell you, the way it was used, the word, lexicon; don't get strung out over that word. It means dictionary, a collection of words. But the way people define it, you may have heard this, is that they would take a cloth, a fabric, and dip it, immerse it, in dye to change the color of the cloth.
And so most lexicons, Greek, lexicons, Greek dictionaries, will use that definition. But 200 years before is the first known recorded time that the word baptizo was used. And I want to read it to you, I want to show it to you because I just like it, okay? All right. So here's the word, and I'm putting it on screen for you: "To dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, to overwhelm. The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander who lived about 200 BC. It is a recipe for making pickles. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be “dipped” into boiling water and then “baptized” in the vinegar solution". Now watch this. "The act of “baptizing” the vegetable produces a permanent change".
Is that cool? For those of you who have experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit, you would say the same. You didn't become perfect. It produced a permanent change in your life. My spiritual eyes began to be opened. They're still being opened. I'm still learning. I'm still growing. I'm still maturing in Christ. Something happened when I said, I grew up in a church where we didn't talk about the Holy Spirit, and where I was warned about the Holy Spirit, and I'm not trying to say something negative about that church, but when I finally said, "I am sorry. Will You forgive me? Jesus, will You baptize me, will You dip me repeatedly, will You immerse me, will You submerge me in the Holy Spirit, will You pour the Holy Spirit, will You rub me thoroughly with the Holy Spirit"?
And He did it. This is one of His ministries. Everything changed. So please do not be afraid of this. Do not be afraid of Him as a person, okay? He is a wonderful person. I want to bring this to a close the whole series here, but I want to tell you the reason that I wanted you to know that these are the five foundational ministries of Jesus is because if you need them, Jesus is available to give them to you. In other words, He saves us from our sin, from the penalty of sin, but if you need to be saved from the power of a sin, if you fall and make a mistake, you can go to the throne of grace with boldness. That's what Hebrews tells us. You can go because one of His ministries is to forgive us of sin.
If you have a trauma that every time you think of it, I took you through some inner healing a few weeks ago. If you missed that week, you need to get that week. But if a memory comes to you that brings stress with it or fear or shame, you need to go back and listen that message and just think about that prayer and just submit that memory to the one who can heal the broken heart, who can set you free from a bruise or an inward hurt. If you need deliverance in an area, if you need anointing. Listen, if you have teenagers, you need anointing. If you're married, you need anointing. If you can fog a mirror, you need the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We need the anointing.
And by the way, while we're talking about deliverance, I just felt to tell you because I told Debbie this the other night, I said, "I really believe there's still an area of bondage in my life and I need to get free, and so I'm submitting to you". And then I felt when I was preparing the message, I just need to submit it to you. There is an area of addiction in my life. I know it now. I am addicted to Blue Bell. And I need to, like I did before one time, it was at an AA. I need to say, "I'm Robert Morris and I'm a Blue Bellaholic". So I want you to pray for me. Really, it's gotten bad. I bought syringes and I inject it directly into my veins now. That's why I wear long sleeves, so you don't see the tracks.
Okay. I want to show you how you can be anointed repeatedly, also. Remember, Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came. Acts 4, Peter and John are sent to prison, to jail, for talking about it. They're released, and then it says they find their companions. And Acts 4:31, "And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness". These are the same people who got filled in Acts 2. We still need to be filled. And one of my favorite scriptures in the Old Testament is when David said, Psalm 92:10, "I have been anointed with fresh oil".
I want everyone today to ask for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But don't say, "Well, Pastor, I was baptized the Holy Spirit years ago". You need fresh oil. We say, and it's true, I was going to ask you the question, but are the last words of a person deemed important? Of course they are. What are the last words going to be? By the way, you see all these movies where people are dying and then they say this great thing? Well, since four years ago, and I had that near death experience, I thought, that's just in the movies. I mean, maybe you can, but I couldn't say anything to Debbie during that time.
But anyway, I think they're important. But we have the last words of Jesus. And what I decided to do was take them from The Message version, and some of these are from John when he's at the Last Supper, and then we're going to go to Acts, and it's right before He ascends. It's on the 40th day. And you'll see the references. Later, if you want to go back and look at the message, the references will be on the screen. But I'm just going to read from The Message and I want you to think about how important these last words are. All right. Starts in John 14, verse 16. "'I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you.'" Isn't that good? "'The Friend, the Holy Spirit'", so we know who the friend is, "'whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you.
So let me say it again, this truth: It’s better for you that I leave. If I don’t leave, the Friend won’t come. I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.' As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but 'must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit.' 'And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses'", in the city in which you live, 'cause He's talking the disciples, all over the Metroplex, or the area, the region, the state, the adjoining states, and wherever you go, even to the ends of the world. "These were his last words". Don't leave until you get anointed by the Holy Spirit. "These were his last words".
I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes. It is my prayer that every person that's hearing this message at every campus, every Gathering, online, on television, wherever you are, that you will not be afraid because of some religious upbringing, that you will not be afraid to ask Jesus to do for you what He had done for Him. Remember, He began His sermon that day with, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me". And then He began to list, to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to open blind eyes, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And then His last words were, "I'm not going to leave you on this earth to make it on your own. I'm going to send the same friend that has anointed Me to go about doing good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil. I'm going to send Him to you. Make sure you do not leave until you're immersed, until you're dipped repeatedly, until you're submerged, until you're smeared with the Holy Spirit".
So I'd like for you just to take a moment, and I'm going to pray for you, but I want you just to pray first in your heart, just in your heart, and just tell Jesus, the one who saved you from your sin, the one that we read in Scripture, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. I just want you to ask Him, "Will you baptize me today with the Holy Spirit"? Exactly what we read in the Bible. Nothing scary. Nothing to be afraid of. The whole controversy, all the confusion, it's from the enemy. He doesn't want millions of people baptized in the Holy Spirit. He doesn't want millions of people anointed by the Holy Spirit. But Jesus wants to do this for you. He says, "When He comes, He'll lead you unto all truth. He'll make everything plain to you. You'll never have to be alone again. And everywhere you go, you'll be My witnesses".
So would you just ask the Lord right now, and you might just tell Him, too, "I want, I want to be anointed by the Holy Spirit. I want You to anoint me with the Holy Spirit".
Now, Lord, I come into agreement with my brothers and sisters, and Lord, I'm standing right here with them. I'm not the expert. I'm someone saved by grace through faith, like each person here, and I'm telling You, Lord, I need fresh oil. I need a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit. And according to Your Word, I am asking You to baptize me, to anoint me, to fill me with Your Holy Spirit right now. And I ask You, Lord, for my brothers and sisters, I ask You to baptize them, figuratively, from the top of their heads to the bottom of their feet; spirit, soul, and body. Lord, we're asking You, will You do what You said Your Word says You do? Will You anoint us with Your Holy Spirit? and Lord, we tell You now that we receive it by faith in Jesus' name. The same way we receive forgiveness of our sins, we receive. What the disciples received in the upper room we receive by faith right now, Your precious, wonderful, Holy Spirit. And Holy Spirit, we tell You, we receive You. We receive You in Your fullness. We receive You in Your power. We receive Your love and Your grace and Your mercy. We receive the opening of our eyes. We receive the healing of our hearts. We receive Jesus in all of His fullness, and we receive the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name, amen and amen and amen.