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Living Hope Fellowship Church .... Sermons From the Pastor

WORKS OF GOD

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

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WORKS OF GOD

Preface

(works and faith)

James 2:17 says, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” Verse 22 says, “Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” Works are the finished product of faith.

The power of the Holy Ghost is not in natural ability or the talent of men. Don’t think that you are going to do the works of God without the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The works of men can be explained away, and they can be blocked or hindered by the devil, but all hell can’t stop one single thing of the works of God! That is why we need to make a transition.

What will we do with our opportunity in God? If we really have faith and want God to move, we need to cease from our own works and let Him work through us. We need to hunger and thirst after God.

WORKS OF GOD

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

James 2:17 says, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” Faith by itself is dead. Verse 22 says, “Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” In other words, works are the finished product of faith.

Verse 24 says, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” He did not say that works saved or sanctified; he said they justified. Works prove rightness. Verse 26 says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

Have you ever seen the body without the spirit? Have you ever seen a dead body? God equates faith without works the same as the body without the spirit. That is a pretty heavy definition. A church body without the Spirit is also dead. The angel asked the women at Jesus’ grave why they sought the living among the dead. Jesus was alive.

They met in an upper room where people prayed and believed God. That upper room was destined to see God move. God has decreed that faith, without activity of faith, is dead. That is like a Christian who says they believe, yet they do not live like they believe.

James 1:22 says, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” It is possible to be a hearer, and even a speaker of faith, but not be a doer.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

In other words, you aren’t saved by works. You cannot get yourself into any position to receive the grace of God. However, after having received God’s grace, God expects you to use His power to be more like His Son. God predestined us to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don’t know how to be like Jesus, then read what the Word of God says about Jesus. There have to be changes. We have to be transformed, and there will be activity of faith during those changes. That activity of faith, in time, is works, the manifestation of the change within you.

The Christian should be able to walk it, and we should be able to produce it, because God has called us for such a thing. In Isaiah 43:12 God said, “. . . ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God.” God sends some really limited individuals out there to represent Him! The way we represent Him is by the manifestation of the works of God.

There are works of man, and there are works of God. There are the works that you can perform, and then there are the works that the Holy Ghost can perform through you which you could not do before; that is the dividing line. The works of man cannot bring us any closer to God, but the works of the Holy Ghost in us can.

It is commanded that we yield over to the Spirit of the Lord to receive all that God has promised us. We should be doing everything that the first church did. That is our reasonable service. It would be a whole lot easier if we did it God’s way rather than trying to do it our own way in the name of God.

God has placed within us the Spirit of His Son that He might destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8 says, “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”

Before we got saved we did the works of the devil naturally. Sin just rolled right out of our mouth. We were born in a sinful world, we have a sinful nature, and we have sinful influences, so it is easy to sin.

God has called us to be holy, so something has to happen in us to convert us over that we might obtain holiness. That is found in the baptism of the Holy Ghost, because the Holy Ghost works the works of God in man in this world.

Jesus healed the man who was sick of the palsy. Matthew 9:8 says, “But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.”

God gives talent, ability, and free will to men as they are birthed. However, the power of the Holy Ghost is not in natural ability or the talent of men.

John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”

Adam failed, but Jesus Christ never failed. We are raised by the Spirit of life that dwells within us when we receive Christ. Those who receive Jesus are given power to become sons of God. The power it is talking about in that scripture is in the Holy Ghost.

Don’t think that you are going to obtain what Jesus did without the baptism of the Holy Ghost! Don’t think that you are going to do the works of God without the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Don’t think that you are going to do all the commandments that Christ gave the church without it. If we could, we would be greater than our Master, and that isn’t possible. Matthew 10:25 says, “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord.”

I’m not so naive or so puffed up to think that I don’t have to use the same tools, the same gifts, and the same Holy Ghost as Jesus had. I have to be endued with power, and that is when my faith begins to operate in the works of God, in activity of faith.

It is possible that God would be on you so heavy, and the whole world could be against you, but you could still be right. We don’t take a vote to see what God is going to do. We pray, and He tells us what to do. This is not a democracy or a republic; it is a Kingdom. God is always right; He never makes mistakes, and He never has to improve Himself.

God wants His people to do what Jesus did, so that the world may know Jesus is who He says He is, and that He is sitting at the right hand of Almighty God.

There is a great deal of wrestling in us. The greatest war ever fought is between the ears (in your mind). The only war that is greater is in your heart. You have to determine the thoughts and intents of your heart. Why do I believe on the Lord? What am I allowing God to do? What is my motivation? What do I want from God? What does God want from me, and what am I willing to give Him?

The Bible says that all things are possible to them that believe. God searches us in accordance to what we allow to let work based on what we believe.

James 2:19 says, “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” What the devils don’t know they sit in church and they find out from us who are inspired of the Holy Ghost. Then they report back to Satan and try to block it or to counterfeit it.

God checks the thoughts and intents of our hearts. You can know someone’s intention by their works. It doesn’t take a great deal of discernment to watch what somebody does to determine where they are headed! Sometimes you can determine it by their speech.

John 6:27 says, “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.”

John 4:34 says, “Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”

John 6:28 says, “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” Look at the key words here. Verse 29 says, “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Jesus took them from doing in the natural to believing. It is the work of God in you if you can believe on Jesus. It is a work of God when God saves your soul. It is a work of God when He fills you with the Holy Ghost. It is a work of God when He heals you or delivers you. It is a work of God when He draws you by His Spirit.

I want you to get a grasp of the group of people who asked, “What must we do to work the works of God?” They sounded mighty sanctified, but in John 6:26 Jesus told them, “. . . Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.”

Jesus and His disciples had gone over the Sea of Galilee, and He preached to people there. Late on the third day He told His disciples that they had to feed the people, because they would faint if they went home like they were. The anointing was great in the meeting, and the people were drawn so heavily that they didn’t worry about eating! What an anointing!

The disciples told Jesus that they didn’t have any meat. Only five loaves and two fishes were brought by a lad, so Jesus blessed the loaves and fishes, broke it, and multiplied it with twelve baskets full left over! Thousands of men, women, and children were fed that day.

The anointing was thick and heavy. They would rather listen to Jesus than eat. They were getting filled in their soul, and they didn’t worry about their body, because God would take care of that, and He did!

These people followed Jesus, because they saw the miracles. After they heard His teaching and were fed miraculously, they wanted to forcibly make Jesus their earthly King! They knew Moses had prophesied about a Prophet that was to come. However, they were trying to do something with Jesus that He wasn’t designed to do, so He slipped away and went up the mountain to pray.

One night before that Jesus was in the mountain praying alone. The disciples had come into some trouble in a storm on the lake, and the Lord came to them walking on the water. They received him in the ship, and immediately the ship went to the other side. The Bible declared that they went about 20 or 30 furlongs out before Jesus appeared to them on the water. As best as I can tell, He translated the shipping, tackle, and the disciples about five miles in the twinkling of an eye. Jesus somehow got a boat to go faster than a space shuttle!

The crowd had also crossed over, and the next morning they ran into Jesus and His disciples, and asked when and how they got there. That crowd missed something. They were fed miraculously with a child’s lunch, but they failed to see Jesus walk on water.

Jesus told them the reason they hunted Him down was because they ate a great meal, and that He could provide for them in the natural. God is looking for people that want Him, not just what He can do for them. He told us the priority, the order of importance in Matthew 6:33 – “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The people of Israel wanted out of Egypt so bad that they were willing to follow Moses. Sometimes it is our motivation for seeking the Lord that makes the difference in how our life goes. Sometimes God searches us out. The eighth, twelfth, and thirteenth chapters of Deuteronomy tell how God brought Israel through hard times. He was able to see what they were made of, and to see if they would stick with Him.

The crowd that Jesus fed was after the miracles, then the teaching, and then they were after the meal. I thought about the greater miracles they missed, the translation of the Lord on two occasions within a period of about 12 hours. Great and precious promises have been given to us, but we have to trust the Lord for them.

I believe that God works through people, but it is better when God sovereignly works for you and does something supernatural. If Elijah lived today they would be preaching to him about how to improve his finances so he wouldn’t have to eat by way of ravens. However, Elijah could tell them how to learn to walk in the Spirit, so that God, Himself, would feed them even if He had to use ravens to do so!

Realize the importance of the priority being God. Jesus said in Matthew 6:28, “And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:” In other words, they don’t fret about how they look. Matthew 6:29 says, “And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Matthew 6:26 says, “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”

We are better than the fowls of the air; we are in a higher position. Why do we look at total dependency on God as a bad thing? Total dependency happens when our works have ceased, and there is nothing more that we can do for ourselves. We have finally arrived to where now it is going to have to be Jesus or nothing else! Jesus wants us to realize that is where the miracles are! That is where the abundant life is! God blesses us in our natural living, but God wants to be involved in our lives in such a way that it is Him working in us all the time!

When a man says, “Ok Lord, I will take it from here,” that is real dumb! We get our priorities mixed up. I have said, Lord, if you get things hooked up for me where I don’t have to work, I will spend more time in prayer. Some of you have prayed, Lord, you give me some more time and I will seek your face. God will provide for you if you meet those conditions. Some of the prophets in the Word of God didn’t have to work. The time they normally spent working, they spent praying. Those weren’t works of men; it was works of God.

The works of men can be explained away, and they can be blocked or hindered by the devil. All hell can’t stop one single thing of the works of God! That is why we need to make the transition.

People were drawn to Jesus by curiosity, but Jesus said that if you come for any other reason other than the fact that the Spirit of the Lord drew you, you are wasting your time. John 6:44 says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. . . .” John 6:66 says, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.”

God examines the motivation and intent of your prayers. There are some things that God wants us to get done. These are things that men can’t tear down and the devil can’t stop. These are things that the Holy Ghost has already provided, and God is waiting for you and me to enter into that place. It is the elevated position that Jesus walked in; Paul walked in; Peter, James, and John walked in. When they saw a need, they could produce the results, because it wasn’t them doing it. God was working in them!

I was told if we could get a fire hydrant in the water line right next to the church building that our insurance would go down. It is because help would be really close by. We are the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, placed in the world, not to work the works of man anymore, but to work the works of God Almighty. Yet most sick and afflicted people go for years or maybe an entire lifetime, and nobody touches them with the healing and delivering power of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Something is wrong with this picture! I want to see them get saved and healed! I want to see them get delivered! I want to see them get filled with the Holy Ghost! The works of men won’t touch that! It takes Almighty God.

When you go to do something, God checks your motivation, and He is always right! When you get to fasting and praying He comes along and asks what you are doing it for. You will go to searching your own heart also. Why am I doing this?

The works of God were still on Elisha though he was dead! They lowered a dead man in on Elisha’s bones and life came into that man again.

In John, Chapter 6, you see Jesus wrestling with the “would be” church and “would be” Christians. He was wrestling with the “would be” apostles, pastors, prophets, and teachers. I said, God, you ought to take what help you can get, but God won’t do it. God, why are you picking on me? You aren’t picking on the ones that aren’t trying! He said he didn’t even hear them! He tries the ones who are trying and frequently sacrifices the ones that are perfect, to purify His works in them.

Did you know that is possible for you to do everything that Jesus did (excepting the atonement)? John 14:12 says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”

God has called you to something bigger than you are right now. You may say, Well, I have failed in everything else. It could be that God has caused you to fail everything else so you would finally seek His face to find out what your real purpose in life is. You may say, Oh, you don’t know how old I am. I can’t do anything. God can redeem the time. He couldn’t work with Moses until he was 80 years old. Moses got in his own works and ended up killing a man!

What will we do with our opportunity in God? If we really have faith and want God to move, we need to cease from our own works and let Him work through us. We need to hunger and thirst after God. As you draw nigh to Him, He will draw nigh to you. He won’t listen to your words or observe your actions, until He goes right into your heart to see if you mean it.

Many are caught up with their own failures and limitations, unable to see the limitless power and life in Jesus. They are diverted from the things of God by being so self focused. God can wipe away the “storms” in your life in a heartbeat.

Become yielded to God, and He will make you a son of God. Can you believe Him for this? Think of the world wide revival that shall come because of this. We are on the verge of it now.

It isn’t about what we can do, because our inability stops us quickly. It is all about what GOD can do if we will but let go and let Him work.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL 62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord. Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.