Hamilton Elim Church
7 July 2024 - Matariki: Prophetic Anointing
we have been celebrating Matariki. I love Matariki, it's just, we get to, we get to celebrate the New Year twice. Well over the beginning of the end, the middle of the year, it's just a great way of doing it. And the way we're ending our Matariki celebrations is through a prophetic anointing service. I'm excited, I'm going to share a little bit about what that is. So if you knew anything, what is that? We're going to flesh this out a bit more what it is and things like that. But also what we're doing is that at 1pm at various locations, we've got lunch for it's our Matariki lunch ending, celebrating the present with food. And so you get a few, some people signed up already, you get a text and you'll turn up to the, you have 90 where you're going, just bring food to share at 1pm today. You can still do that, you can just go to the info desk, give you the details, we'll send you a text, just turn up with something to share. And then we're doing that today. Praise God, what did you know? In 2023 in June, I injured my nerves and my arm. And my arm and at rugby training, at rugby training. And you're like, well, you're still playing rugby at your grand old age. And I was going, well, actually, I'm the coach. And I injured it as a coach. And I had this nerve damage for 13 months. And when everything's get cold, you name it, I just some pain. And winter last year, you see me, I had, I had thermals on, had scarves, had fingerless gloves, because all of the pain, because winter was cold. And praise God, we went off to a sabbatical to the Cook Islands for five weeks. And I said, great, I'm set free from this pain in my arm, nice warm weather. And after that five weeks, the last weekend before we came back to New Zealand, I started to feel a little anxious. I started to feel flat. And the reason why I was feeling flat and anxious is because we had sold our church building, and we had no building. And we're just wandering. We were wandering through, like, felling through the desert. And I was just felt. And I really thought, we'll secure the location before we went away, but we didn't. And so now I'm about to head back, I'm feeling flat, I'm feeling like, okay, here we go. And so we end up at my cousin's church, as Cook Island Pentecostal Church. Turn up to this church. And then they see me, and I was the only white person in this whole church. And my mom's Cook Island, but my dad's Parkia. And so they flick on the econ, because there's a white guy here, he needs an econ. So I flick it on. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm in pain now, because please turn this econ off, please. Anyway, I'm sitting there, holding my arm. And then all of a sudden halfway through, and I'm also deflated, I'm thinking, okay, but anxious, got to go back and where I'm going to build. And we're just wandering. And so halfway through the sermon, the pastor stops. And he points, and he points right at me, and he says, brother, and he starts speaking, but he has to prophesy over me. I say, from the moment you walked in here, the Lord gave me this verse, Isaiah 60 verse, "When a ride shine for your light has come." And it was like a sunshine was on you when you walked in there, I was thinking, is my board head? Was it this sunshine? And the Lord will say to, do not worry where your supply will come from. For the Lord, his light is shining on you, and he's got about to raise your influence and take your leadership to another level. And people are going to gather, and there's a warmth about you that people will be attracted, and they're going to, and through their God's going to propel them into this place of breakthrough. And I tell you what, whenever you're deflated, I'm thinking the word that he gave it, or just started to rebuild, because I was like down here, and as he began to prophesy, began to rebuild and comfort me, especially me. And then at the end, and then he moved on, and then at the end of the service, he goes, if you need prayer, put your hand on that place where it saw, and I was like 13 months of this pain. It's like, hey, the Lord, if this word is you, pray for healing. And I tell you, right after the pre-ended, I release my heart, and I will set free. 13 months of pain, set free. Be to the doctors, x-rays, you name it, ultrasounds, all sorts, but it was the power of the Holy Spirit to set me free. And the word that was released to encourage, that was prophesied, was exactly what I needed. We came back to New Zealand, and I was ready. And no long after we secured this place, and here we are today, the rest is history. We've got a new children's building going up here in slowns. Things are happening. Next week, we're going to come along, and this is going to look different again out there. And I just praise God, but God was restoring repairing us. And today, we're going to be speaking about the prophetic. We're going to speak about the anointing of God, because God spoke back then, and he still speaks today. He didn't just stop. He continues to speak, and he speaks through people through the presence of the Holy Spirit. And you know, when God created you, He created with you with purpose in mind. You have purpose. And do not even ever discount yourself. Who am I? And only other people discount you are, and I love what Jeremiah 29 and 11 says. It's a great verse for Materiki, because it's about propelling us to the future. The Lord says this, "For I know the plans I have for you declares Yahweh, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future." And you hear this quite a lot in churches, but it's a true statement. Regardless of what you're going through right now, God's plans for you are good. You may not see it right now, but quite often when we get there and we look back, I didn't see God in it, but God was in it all along. And God's plans for you are good. And God wants to speak and give you a word today through the power of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 14, 3 says this, "But the one who prophesies, strengthens others, encourages them and comforts them." And this is the power of the prophetic word. The purpose of the prophetic word, it builds you up. It encourages you. It strengthens you. This is what it was. And this is exactly what I needed. And today we're going to be anointing people of oil. And we're going to be praying for the sick. We're going to be praying that God is going to release the word for you that you need to hear. God wants to build you up, restore. There's some restoration that needs to take place. And so I'm going to unpack what is anointing. What is this kind of thing? What's this weird thing about an anointing oil? What is all these things? And the Greek word to put oil on someone is the word krio, krio. So I've got anointing oil. So what I'm going to do, I am going to Creo Justin. So I've just, I've just Creod him. He's just been Creoed, right? So now he, now Justin's been Creo, so now he is Christos. He is now an anointed one because I've just, that's what this word means. Christos. The word Christos is where we get the word Christ from. This is what the word Christ means. Christos means to be the anointed one. That's what it means. And then Hebrew is Mishyak where we get the word Messiah. The word Messiah means the anointed one. And so when we say that Jesus is the Christ, Christ isn't our last name. It's not a surname. You know, Joseph and Mary Christ have the baby Jesus Christ. Not a surname, it's a title. And it's actually more, it's actually more proper to say Jesus the Christ, Jesus the anointed one. Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the name. It means one who has been anointed with oil is what this word means, to be anointed with oil. And what we find in Acts chapter 11 verse 25 is that this persecution in the early church with Jews were ethnic Jews. And the Holy Spirit comes upon them, follows of Jesus and persecues and hits the church and they begin to spread around the world. And they come to Antioch and these Jews start telling these Gentiles, non-ethnic Jews, non-Jewish people, about Jesus. And they get saved full of the Holy Spirit. Now you've got this community of Gentiles and ethnic Jews living together and it's like, we can't call you Jews because you're not Jews, because you've got all these Gentiles there. And so they would begin, so people who observed them began to observe them, they began to call them Christiano. These guys are Christiano where we get the word Christian from. And so the followers of Jesus were known as the anointed ones, anointed with oil ones. They got known as this Christiano. They're the anointed ones. This is where this term Christian from when we see it. And so the first on the word Christian appears is in Acts chapter 11 verse 25. And it's mentioned one more time in the book of Acts and then again in Peter. So our Christian Bible, the word Christian only appears three times in our Christian Bible. It's really quite amazing. So this is where this whole word of Christian, it's all about the anointed. And this Christos is an anointing with oil. This is what this word actually means. So in the Hebrew scripture, the Holy Spirit is represented as oil. Why oil and not wine? Why oil or not wine? So when we look, when we open up the first page of our Bibles, get to Genesis, what we see is the Spirit of God is hovering over the water and then creation happens. So Genesis 1, creation is about water and spirit, water and spirit. Now I want you just to get this and to hear this water and spirit together. Then we get to Genesis chapter 2. And the life in Eden begins with this dry, desolate land. And God brings life-giving water, waters the land and the garden sprouts up and out of the dust, the water forms the dust, and out of that God brings his spirit into this dust, these dirt creatures and they become human beings. So what we see, we see water and spirit working in creation. Water and spirit in the garden are Eden bringing life. And so human beings, human beings, we are the earth and heaven in one being. This is who we are, we're heaven and earth. This is who we're, this is our creation. Therefore, the garden and Eden was we're heaven and earth overlapped. Heaven and earth overlapped in the garden. This was the picture of the garden and of Eden. This restorative power of Eden and earth met together. Beautiful picture of what the garden and Eden was. Until humanity decided, you know what, we don't need to follow you God. I'll rather decide and redefine for me what's good in evil in my own eyes because I like to define what truth is for me and not listen to you. Isn't that what we say today? Live your truth. Actually, I want to love God's truth. And so we forfeit our right to stand the garden. We cast out of the garden. So now when God begins his restoration of the human project, he speaks to Moses at Mount Sinai with the 10 commandments. The God gave the 10 commandments and he speaks to Moses to make anointing oil, to make anointing oil. And he gives a recipe. This is the recipe for anointing oil. He's found in Exodus chapter 30 verse 22 to 38. He says, "Then Yahweh said to Moses, 'Click choice spices, 12 and a half pounds of pure murh, six and a quarter pounds of fragrant cinnamon, six and a quarter pounds of fragrant calimis, and 12 and a half pounds of cassia as measured by the weight of the century shekel. Also get one gallon of olive oil like a skilled incense maker, blend these ingredients together, make holy, anointing oil." So God gives Moses the ingredients to make holy, anointing oil. And this oil is infused with a pungent aroma spices that makes this incredible perfume. Because that's how perfume is made. It's from oil. It's this beautiful smelling, perfume. This anointing oil is a beautiful smelling perfume. And what the biblical authors want us to see is that the anointing oil is the life of Eden, the life of Eden condensed, condensed in this dense liquid that the anointing oil represents water and spirit. That's what the anointing oil represents with my little anointing oil. Here we go. That's what it represents. It represents the life of God and the Eden just condensed in this dense liquid. The anointing oil represents the water and the spirit. This is what this is what what it represents. And then what we read on, Moses is then commanded to anoint the tabernacle, the equipment and the tabernacle and the utensils and the tabernacle. And if you don't know what a tabernacle is, it's basically what's this tent. It was like a portable temple. They didn't have a temple. They had the tabernacle, this tent, tent of meeting where God's present dwelt. And when you read the Bible, it was furnished like the garden of Eden had pictures of trees, it had cherubums. And it was a picture of what Eden looked like. So it was this portable garden of Eden, mini garden of Eden. So it was a place where heaven and earth overlapped was what the tabernacle was. And so it's anointed to be this place, this overlap, this place of overlap with God and some martial arts or something. So this is what it was. And then God tells Moses to go and Aaron, his brother, to become the high priest. So, and so he pours or any anoints, it's quite interesting to read because it's the word poor and anoint, which is related words. And anoints is head. He smears oil on his head. And so then Aaron has, from that point on, has two titles. He's called the high priest and he's called the Messiah. The Messiah. What does a Messiah means? It means the anointed one becomes anointed one. So this word Messiah and then throughout history, priests are now anointed and called the Messiah. Then we've got kings being anointed and called the Messiah. But then the prophets get, and then another, and then a prophet gets anointed with oil. So you get all these, these groups of people get, they get the priest anointed, the king's anointed, then the prophet anointed, Elijah is told to go and anoint and lush with oil. With oil. And so again, it's this picture of this, of the representatives between heaven and earth. It's this picture of heaven and oil. This is what it represents heaven and earth coming together. To go forth and to, and to anoint. And this is, this is, this is what, what was happening. And so when we see the first king being anointed with oil, well, we, this look what happens to the king who's anointed with oil. One Samuel 10 verse one to 10. Now then Samuel took a flask of oil and he poured it on Saul's head and he kissed them saying, has not Yahweh anointed you, ruler over his inheritance? Listen, listen to the result of what happens with this anointing oil. We get to verse 10, verse 10. So this is Saul, when he and his servants arrived in Gibia, a procession of prophets met him and the spirit of God came powerfully upon him and he joined in the prophesying. So that's prophesying, like the spirit of God is upon him and now he's prophesying with all the other prophets. The power of the Holy Spirit comes mightily on him after his anointing anointing of oil. And we see the same thing happen with King David, the, the next king and the greatest king that Israel ever had and this, this picture of, of what's to come. One Samuel 16, 13. So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers because the brothers, because his older brothers, they thought that they were going to be the anointed ones, but they weren't. God chose David. And from that day on, the spirit of the Lord, spirit of Yahweh, came powerfully upon David. So you got this connection of oil and spirit. The, the oil is a symbol of the power of the Holy Spirit. It's just a symbol, but behind that symbol is the power of the Holy Spirit. And, and then, and then, so you've got these anointed ones. The kings are known as anointed ones, are known as messiahs. We've got prophets called messiahs, but then there's this prophecy that there's one to come who will be the Messiah, the anointed one, one who will come to liberate the world, to bring restoration to all these, there's, there's one Messiah coming. This is prophecy that, that's set, that's set loose. So we're priests and kings being anointed, a prophet being anointed. We have the tabernacle and this furnishings being, being anointed, but did you know, did you know what the very first thing anointed was in the Bible? The very first thing anointed. And you think, okay, it must be something really grand and amazing. What was the very first thing anointed? The first thing anointed was a pillow. It was a pillow. Yeah, what? A pillow. So I'll tell you about this pillow. So Jacob, Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, he's on the run from his brother Esau. Okay, he's on the run from his brother and this, and so, and Jacob's father's Isaac, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and he's on the run and he comes to this place and he goes to sleep. And whenever you go to sleep, you need a nice comfortable pillow. So he finds this nicely shaped stone, puts it down and he lasers head on it. So he's got a stone for a pillow. So if you ever have trouble sleeping, try a stone. Just give it a go. Don't, don't rock it till you try it. Anyway, let's carry on. It's just, this, this part of my gift thing that God gives me. So, so he goes to sleep. He puts his head on the stone, goes to sleep, and he has a dream. And God opens his eyes, what's really happening in this place and begins to, and he has a revelation. The revelation means to unveil and he sees what's really going on. And what he sees, and this is a stairway from, from where his head's laying on this pillow, the stairway ramp from, from this place into the heavens. And it sees the head, and it is the word head again. The head of the ramp is in the heavens. And then he sees, he sees messengers of the Lord going up and down, seeing angels of the Lord going up and down the stairway between heaven and earth, heaven and earth going back and forth. And on the stairway, he sees Yahweh. Yahweh is there. And Yahweh begins to, to, to give, begin to speak to, to Jacob. And, and, and he says to Jacob what he said to, to, to Abraham and then, and his father, Isaac, that through you will, I will build a great nation and whoever blesses you will be blessed, whoever curses you will be cursed. Then he wakes up, he wakes up from this, from, from what he sees, and, and we pick up the story in Genesis chapter 28 verse 18. The next morning, Jacob gets up very early. He took his pillow, took the stone, the stone head rested his, his head against, and he, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured all of all over it. And he named that place Bethal, which means the house of God. And this story is foundational in the way for helping us to understand the meaning of the symbol and the meaning of this ancient practice. To anoint with oil, there's this connection between heaven and earth, this connection to heaven and earth, that this, this place is, is where heaven and earth overlaps. This is connection place. And so, when I bless, when I go to someone's house and I bless their house, this, this is what I'm doing. I bless it. I always, always have oil in my car and I go in and I bless someone's house and anoint their house of oil. And what I'm doing, I'm calling on the blessings, blessings of Jacob, that this house will be known as the house of Bethal, the place where heaven and earth overlaps. It, anything that is not of God, you are not welcoming in this place, but we, we call on the power here and we bring, and bring this connection together. So, bring this connection together. So somehow this oil becomes itself a symbol of liquid life, the spirit, the restorative power of God that touches down here on earth, the restorative power from heaven to down here on earth, which is why the New Testament writers, they begin to connect these ideas because, because the, because the Bible is a, is a unified story, start to function, everything's connected, everything's connected. And they begin to connect oil to healing from heaven to earth. And we read this in James chapter 5 verse 14 and 15, and today we want to anoint people, a reward for healing as well. Is anyone among you ill? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up if they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Now, this is the last time this practice is mentioned in the Bible. Notice how oil and prayer are connected, oil and prayer, they're connected. Like, what's prayer? What's prayer? Prayer is asking for the release of God's heavenly purpose, heavenly life, heavenly power, release here on earth. That's what prayer is. We release the God, we're reaching out to God to release His heavenly power, His heavenly purpose, His heavenly life here. That's what prayer is. And when someone is sick, we're so well, reaching out to heaven, Lord, we just pray for your healing. There's this connection, heaven and earth. Everything's connected. Everything's connected. These stories aren't in there randomly. They're not random stories, but everything is connected. Everything's connected. Let's go back to that anointing oil recipe just so you can jot it down, go home, do some cooking. Exodus chapter 30 verse 32, but listen, listen, listen, what does this say? This is interesting. It's after he says, anoint everything else and anoint Aaron. Then Lord says this, it must never be used to anoint anyone else. You must never make any blend like it for yourselves. It is holy and you must treat it as holy. Anyone who makes a blend like it, or anoint someone other than a priest, will be cut off from the community. Does anyone want to be cut off from the community? Who's anointing oil for? Priest. In the last service, I got anoint, a priest, a gene priest. She's a member of our church. She thought she'll tell me that joke when she went out with anointo. I did anoint a priest today, a gene priest. It's a surname, by the way. Now, what's the purpose of a priest? The purpose of the priest is to represent God to the people and the people to God. That's the purpose of the priest. This is his purpose. What's really interesting is that God intended the children of Israel to be a nation of priests and to represent God to all the other nations. This was what God intended the children to be, a nation of priests. This is what he says in Exodus 19, 5, 6, and Mount Sinai. He says, "Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you'll be my treated position. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be, for me, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." This is what you're supposed to be. But Israel failed to step into their calling. So instead of being a nation of priests, they become a nation with priests. But the story is moving forward and it's pointing to Jesus. It's pointing to the anointing one, the anointed one, the one who's going to restore, bring humanity back to the place of our calling. It's pointing to the Christ, the Messiah. Jesus is where heaven and earth dwells. He is the temple of God and he declares it when he reads the gospel. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is where heaven and earth dwells and he steps into and he begins to release his calling upon people. In fact, I want to read this interesting story. It's a story where Jesus is anointed with oil before his coronation. It's a story where Jesus is anointed over before his coronation. And you may be thinking, I can't remember Jesus being anointed to the oil just before his coronation. I love the way the gospel writers, everything's unified in and they go to these hyperlinks, everything's connected. Everything's connected. Mark chapter 14, verse three to nine. While he was in Bethany, this is Jesus, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the leper. Simon had been healed of leper through Jesus. So now he's referred to as Simon the leper. Can you imagine that that became a surname? Simon leper? Anyway, what McCain was an alabaster jar, a very expensive perfume. This perfume you're looking at in today's economy was about two to three thousand dollars. That's how much this perfume is worth. Made of pure nard. It's oil. It's oil made of nard. The perfume is made of oil. She broke the jar and she pulled the perfume on his head. She anoints him. Creo, she anoints him. And now he becomes Christos, the anointed one. Now, the disciples are like, what a waste of money. We could have taken that perfume and sold it and given it to the poor. Right? That sounds pretty cool. But Jesus was like, hey, just leave her alone. Leave her alone. And what she's done, she's done a beautiful thing. And let's pick up the story in verse eight. Then he says, she did what she could. She pulled perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for for my burial. Now, what's this going to do the coronation? Well, the gospel authors are going to make a very, make it very clear for you that Jesus coronation was his crucifixion. That he was given a crown, not a crown or gold, but a crown of thorns. And he was lifted up, not onto a throne, but onto a cross. And it was declared, here is the king of the Jews. This is his coronation. It's the upside down kingdom, the upside down world. And that this king will conquer death through his resurrection. Beautiful story. Can I just say the no one thing of God wants to fall on you today? It really does. It's going to say that no one can God always wants to fall on you. It always wants to fall on you. It's whether you're aware of it or not. It wants to restore what you have lost. Our love of Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3, 5. He says, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. He's connecting them to our calling in the garden. When God created us to step into our purpose, to partner with Him, to walk in who we have been created. We are given an earth in one body. This is who we are, but we lost their calling. And Jesus is calling us back that you're born of Spirit and what is calling us back to this calling. Born again. It's all connected. Everything is connected. Today we're going to annoy people with oil. And you might be here saying, well, I'm not a priest. She was in the other service. Well, listen to this. Listen to this one, one Peter, two, nine, Peter's. He's addressing this community of ethnic Jews and Gentiles, non-Jews. This unique, this multicultural group, there's nothing like Christianity, multicultural coming together. Our diversity that unites us in Christ. And he addresses them. And this is what he says to them. He says, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood. There's some restoration that needs to take place. It's just the nointing of a priest and a king, a royal priesthood is bringing it together. They're bringing these ideas together. Peter didn't just all of a sudden. He knows the scriptures, bringing it together, the Holy Spirit, for the moving of the Spirit is coming together. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. That's who you are. God's special position that you may declare. This is why. That you may declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. This is your purpose. You've been called out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Why are you priests and kings? What's the purpose of a priest and king is to represent? God to the people, to God, you are to represent God and your workplace. To those who are still in the darkness. And to your place of education, wherever you are, you know, Elliot was here talking about Alpha, this is exactly what God has called you to do. This is why you'll be an ordained. This is your purpose. You are partnering with God. This is your vocation. That's who you are. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. God's special position is coming all together, the priest and king motifs. That's who you are. The Bible is a beautiful unified story from start to finish. See, it's time for you to step into your calling. Some of you need to be restored. Some of you have lost your confidence. Some of you have lost your confidence. Even in this morning, I was praying, you've lost your confidence in who you are. Because the enemies got into your head, because look at you, look at what you were doing last night, look what you were doing yesterday. And it's trying to keep you from coming before the throne, before the cross. And God wants to restore and bring you back to who he's called you to be, his son, his daughter. For you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special position. And you know, we want to pray people, we want to know people who are going to bring healing, healing of body and mind. The oil is just a symbol, but behind the symbol is the power of the Holy Spirit.