Last week at City Harvest Church, advisory pastor Phil Pringle presented the second installment of his message on faith.
By Dawn Seow
CN PHOTOS: Daniel Poh and Tan Song Kow.
“Some people think being happy is shallow, but it’s the deepest thing you can do! (The apostle) Paul says ‘Rejoice!’”
This proclamation by Phil Pringle at City Harvest Church brought encouragement to churchgoers. He went on: “Don’t worry, be happy, and be excited! The joy of the Lord is your strength! You are the sunshine when you walk in the room! The future is far better than the past!”
Pringle is the founder and president of C3 Global Network of Churches, a thriving movement of more than 200 churches worldwide and the senior pastor of C3 Church in Sydney, Australia. His sermon last weekend expanded on the message of faith which he shared at CHC two weeks ago.
Starting with a revision of “who we are in Christ”, Pringle read from Jude 1:20-21 and taught the congregation to “build yourselves up” according to the verse. “Don’t just pour out your troubles to God and pray yourself into depression; learn to confess positively.”
There are many facets to God and the attitude one has determines which perspective they see. “God is as big as He can get but the Bible still says to magnify the Lord. What does it mean? It means to make God bigger in our sight—it refers to our attitude towards God.”
In Romans 11:22-23, Paul asked Christians to “consider the goodness and severity of God”. Pringle explained that faith will lead them to the goodness of God, but unbelief causes people to become negative so they would only see the severity of God. “When you move in faith and get out of fear, you will anticipate good things and find yourself looking for the mercy of God. My expectation is that God will show great mercy on me and we will move towards the goodness of God,” explained Pringle.
WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE HAVE
To explain what it means to be “in Christ”, Pringle borrowed from the movie The Avengers: Christians are powerful when they put on the “Christ suit”, in the same way that Tony Stark is only “super” when he puts on in his Ironman suit.
“If you are in Christ, you are powerful. The only one who defeated the devil is Jesus and only in Him can we be powerful like Him,” said Pringle.
Pringle established that Christians are:
- Images of God in the Earth
- New species of being, a brand new creation
- Overcomers
- Sons of God
- Kings, ruling in our world
- More than conquerors
And they have
- Dominion, authority
- Wisdom of God
- Power of God in HS & anointing
- Power over the devil
- Forgiveness
- Justification
- Regeneration
- Adoption
- Sanctification
- Redemption
- Inheritance
- Every Blessing
- Prosperity
- Healing
DOMINANCE AND AUTHORITY
The word “power” has two meanings in Greek–Dunamis and Exousia. Dunamis–where the English word “dynamite” comes from—means energy, explosion, or a force, while Exousia means God-given authority in Christ.
“Exousia triumphs Dunamis every time,” Pringle said. “If I try to hold back a truck with my own power and energy, I will be run over and flattened. If I am a policeman, I just need to put my hand up and the truck will stop; because I have the authority of the police force backing me up. We as Christians have all the authority of Jesus to overcome the devil.
“Because He reigns, I reign. If He rules over the devil, I rule over the devil.”
Reading from 1 Peter 3:22 and Luke 10:19, Pringle taught that “angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.” Jesus transmitted His authority to His believers and they are now to implement that authority throughout all the earth.
“When we are connected to Christ, nothing will by any means hurt us. But the devil will try to camouflage himself in your life; you might think that the cause of your depression is your husband, children or even your parents but our battle is not against them, it is against the devil. We need to stand against the devil and resist him, and he will flee from us.”
Before Jesus breathed His last on the cross, He said “It is finished.” By this He meant that the sacrifice was finished. Pringle explained that Jesus went down to Hades after he died, but because death only has power against sin, it had no power over Jesus who knew no sin. Jesus could march straight to Lucifer and cast him down, taking back the key of hell and death. Because He had defeated the chief devil, every demon has to bow to Him, and to all who carry His name because they have authority and dominion over the principalities, power and demons on all the earth.
“The demons are disarmed and the only thing they have left is deceit, they can only lie to us that we have no power. So when we choose to believe the Word of God and live in the authority, we can defeat the demons,” said Pringle.
“You’ve got to know who you are! Don’t let the devil deceive you into believing that being pious is being powerless.”
Pringle concluded his message with the story of a centurion coming to Jesus, asking Him to heal his servant. The thing that amazed Jesus was that the centurion believed that with one word from Jesus, his servant would be saved.
“This is how kings rule, with their words. When we speak the words in the name of Jesus, it would be like Jesus said it,” Pringle said.
“But we need to understand that the power doesn’t do all the work all by itself,” he reminded the congregation. “The Ironman suit only moves when the man inside moves, in the same way, God moves with us moving first. When we stand against the devil, depression, condemnation, the power of God will move on our behalf.”
Throughout history, God has used the things in his servants’ hands to bring breakthrough to their lives. When the child of God stays connected to Him and holds on in faith, he will see the salvation of God.
“Remember, no one sits on the throne except the God who loves us,” said Pringle in closing.
