Free #3 - The Triumph of the Cross

Context – we’re enjoying a brief season of ministry with a focus on freedom, deliverance and victory over the enemy – teaching Sundays and mid-week worship and ministry – after this particular season, this ministry will simply take a natural place in the church.

So what’s God’s normal?

Mark 16:15-18 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature . . . these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues . . . they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

It is not God’s normal to confine authority and power in the hands of a few – that’s what the enemy would like. No, God’s normal is for millions of believers all over the planet carrying the authority and power of the Kingdom and setting creation free wherever they go.

So what we’re doing in this particular season is for us all to learn, gain confidence and be equipped - so that undoing the enemies work in the lives of people is a wonderful, exciting and natural part of everyone’s life with God.

Every time a person is set free from demons it is a triumph of the cross!

Hebrews 2:14-15 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

1. •Because of Jesus and the triumph of the cross, we have become a ‘kainos’ creation (= of a completely new kind, brand new). Old things have passed away – all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).
   

1. •And as Colossians 1:13 shows us, this includes our deliverance from the power of darkness. In the redemption we are completely free from the entire realm of Satan’s kingdom. In Christ I am free.
   

1. •Colossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
   

1. •What else do I have in the redemption?
   

2. -the forgiveness of sin
   

3. -the death of my old sin nature
   

4. -we receive Christ’s nature of righteousness
   

5. -by His stripes we were healed
   

6. -Derek Prince wrote and taught about the exchange made on the cross, listen to Dr Prince:
   

7. Jesus was punished that we might be forgiven.
   

8. Jesus was wounded that we might be healed.
   

9. Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness that we might be made righteous with His righteousness.
   

10. Jesus died our death that we might receive His life.
    

11. Jesus endured our poverty that we might share His abundance.
    

12. Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory.
    

13. Jesus endured our rejection that we might have His acceptance with the Father.
    

14. Jesus was made a curse that we might enter into the blessing.
    

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3)

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (Colosians 2:9-10)

Our forgiveness, our healing, our deliverance, our blessing in every sphere of life and eternity is a triumph of the cross!

So let’s understand this …

1. •I was ‘in Jesus’ on the cross (I am crucified with Christ – Galatians 2:20), and on the cross every sin, every curse, every consequence of my fallenness with the rest of humanity (including demonization and sickness) died or was destroyed.
   

1. •The work on the cross was an unprecedented act of the love, mercy and grace of God toward me.
   

1. •Furthermore, God sent His Holy Spirit to … (here’s what Jesus said) take of what is Mine and declare it to you (John 16:14). Amplified “He will honor and glorify Me, because He will take of (receive, draw upon) what is Mine and will reveal (declare, disclose, transmit) it to you”
   

1. •It’s through of the ministry of the Holy Spirit that the full provision of the cross becomes a tangible experience in our lives; e.g. we are born again by the Spirit of God – in other words what is true in status (= position or legal standing) at Calvary becomes real in experience because of the Holy Spirit’s ministry in my life (and we normally know when and where we were born again).
   

1. •Likewise with healing – in status I’m healed at the cross; but I experience that healing at different times and in different places through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And it’s the same with deliverance and every other blessing.
   

This understanding should result in three things:

1. 1.A continual faith confession concerning our status (let the redeemed of the Lord say so!)
   

2. 2.A continual welcoming of the Holy Spirit in and around our lives – this is not a striving thing but an experience of God’s love in which there is both safety and anticipation.
   

3. 3.A continual guard against the enemy’s lies and discouragement (hence Put on the whole armour of God)
   

Note 1. Most of the reference to warfare and deliverance in Acts and the Epistles is teaching and exhortation to the believers to be free and stay free rather than descriptive stories of deliverance like those we see in the Gospels.

Note 2. The normal place of this ministry is on the frontline – where the Spirit-filled Church infiltrates the world, rather than in the Church years after people are converted (as we often see in our day).  The reason is that is was normal in the early Church to do what Jesus commissioned them to do – cast out demons – so as people came to Christ they were delivered as the Holy Spirit moved through the believers. That has been sadly lacking in the Church for a very long time (and all manner of doctrine and interpretations of scripture have been used to excuse the lack of something that should be simple and normal) – but we can choose the New Testament normal.

So, our forgiveness, our healing, our deliverance, our blessing in every sphere of life and eternity is a triumph of the cross! This means that the enemy can’t argue that we’re not good enough to be healed or delivered or blessed; we can be healed, delivered and blessed because JESUS was good enough and He secured every good and liberating thing for us!

Luke 10:1 After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.

v17-19 Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name." And He said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.  Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

There are two important words here: authority and  power.  (Exousia = the right to enforce, the privilege of position, authority … Dunamis = the might, strength, the active force or power).

1. •Like ‘paper, rock, scissors’ – Authority trumps power – it is over all. This is for two reasons (1) the devil has power but no authority – Jesus has “all”, (2) because having given us authority, God adds His power anyway by filling us with the Spirit.
   

1. •And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient (equipped with adequate power to do) as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6)
   

1. •So we are now ministers of the One (the Holy Spirit) who “draws upon” that which is Christ’s and “declares, discloses and transmits” it to people, we have both the authority and power to minister deliverance to whomever needs it.
   

1. •We ended with a great verse last Sunday. Acts 10:38 God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Now we can put our own name and town alongside that of Jesus’!
   

So what have we learned today?

1. •Because of Calvary there is complete and full provision for demons to be cast out, the works of darkness destroyed and the oppressed set free. It is the triumph of the cross!
   

2. •
   

3. •Through the Holy Spirit’s ministry we see the complete willingness and desire of God to make the triumph of the cross the real and tangible experience of every man, woman and child on earth.
   

4. •
   

5. •Every person in Christ carries the authority of heaven; and through the Holy Spirit, enough power to effectively minister deliverance and set captives free. We are ministers of the triumph of the cross!