Sunday Sermon by Pastor Rajesh Mathew, November 20, 2022 

2 Corinthians 13: 14- May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

1 Samuel 5: 1-5- 5 After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2 Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon. 3 When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! They took Dagon and put him

back in his place. 4 But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained. 5 That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor any others who enter Dagon’s temple at Ashdod step on the threshold. 

• The first verse we read is the blessing that pastors declare at the end of every service or prayer meeting.
• Fellowship of the Holy Spirit! May it always be with us! Koinonia is a Hebrew word which means a Fellowship. One of the meanings of this word is “partnership”. • The Holy Spirit is doing something on earth and He wants us to be a partner with Him in what He is doing on earth. God desires to offer us that partnership.
• The church has a partnership with Him to work alongside Him. 

Holy Spirit asks us, are you ready to work with me as a partner? Will you come along with me as a partner? 

• How will you respond? Will you say, ‘Yes Lord. Please, I want to fellowship with you and I surrender to you, Holy Spirit. Not my ways, not my plan!” If you would say that, you will experience the Holy Spirit’s leading, guidance and counsel like you have not experience ever before. Just imagine being in a partnership with the Almighty God! 
• God showed His mercy and His grace. A partnership with God! Isn’t it such an Honour?! A partnership.
• The Holy Spirit is called the Breath of Life. 

A believer needs to do three things when in partnership with the Holy Spirit:

1. Lead someone to Jesus. You can have all kinds of conversations with people but still do you connect them to Jesus? It is a sign that you have the Holy Spirit in you when you connect people you meet to Jesus. 
2. Establish and root someone in Jesus. To those who comes to Jesus, the Holy Spirit will establish and root those people in Christ. The Holy Spirit will make them firm in Christ.

• The devil and the flesh exist to shake you and weaken you in Jesus. The neighbours, media, friends are there to shake your faith but then the Holy Spirit-filled person is the 

only one who can establish you in Christ. More grace, more anointing and more blessing is coming upon those who are doing this.

• Luke was an apostle who was used by the Lord to established people in Christ. He wrote two books- the Book of Luke and the Books of Acts. He wrote this

Acts 1:1- In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach. 

Luke 1:1-4- 1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. 

• Theophilus means the “Lover of God”. Luke is writing to establish just one person in Christ! Luke was making sure that his faith in Christ should not waver and that he should not turn back from His calling. He wrote the letter just for one person!
• Luke must have gone to Jerusalem and interviewed Mary, the Mother of Jesus. He must have spoken to her, to the disciples and others concerned to learn all about the death and resurrection of Jesus. He researched extensively and understood from the people of God about what happened just to establish one person in CHRIST!!!

Are there children who know the value of establishing at least one person in Jesus?! 

• When the devil on one hand is trying to destroy the church before the second coming of Jesus, I praise God for those who are rooting people in Christ, on the other hand. May you be converted to become a person who will make someone else stand firm and be established in Jesus.

3. Grow into the headship of Christ- The Lord wants to church to grow in Jesus and be joined in Christ. The early church was partnering with the Holy Spirit. We can't grieve the Holy Spirit. 

• One of the pastors who is a 4th generation believer, I met recently said, “in our country we have hurt and grieved the Holy Spirit. They were 4th generation. Now you are first generation”.
• I had asked one more pastor- “How have so many people come to the Lord here?” he replied and said to me, “we lay hands and pray, they fall under the power of the Holy Spirit and when they get up, they are converted”. In Kerala, we may just tend to become proud if we win at least 10 souls. But there with a true heart they just pray to the Lord and they received from the Lord.
• Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. Stir into flame the Spirit of God in you. Don’t quench the Holy Spirit. Stir Him again! 

The Holy Spirit wants all of us. Not just our spirit but also our bodies. The body has to respond to the move of the Holy Spirit.

• Even our emotions. We think we should be very serious and go back from church with a straight face without showing any emotion. But he truth is when the Holy Spirit touches us, you may feel like crying, laughing, dancing and jumping.
• If you feel joy express it. If you feel tears, cry! Just surrender your body and your emptions to God. Be a Glory carrier. The Holy Spirit needs your body! 

He needs your mind and emotions and your body. 

• In the meeting where I recently went to, the disciples ran, they cried, they fell, they swept all over! Give your body to God. In Azusa street revival, people were all over the place when the Holy Spirit came, some knelt, some were lying flat, some on their knees! We don’t want to express because we worry about what people will think if we laugh, cry etc! Don’t stand 

there still. Just give your body, mind and your thoughts to the Holy Spirit. Give them to God! 

• Jesus never grieved the Holy Spirit. He wants us to repent if we did. Tell the Lord that I will never resist the Holy Spirit. We will not be a traditional Pentecostal church. No matter how much people make fun of us, no matter how many humiliate us, Lord, I want to partner with you. This church is for you! Lord, we will bring people to Jesus, we will establish them in Christ and build them in Christ. 

May the Lord bring forth pastors, apostles, evangelists, ministers, worshippers from the midst of us. Let people who carry the glory of God arise from our midst.

1 Samuel 5:2- 2 Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon. 

• How could the Philistines catch the Ark and carry it??? How can the Phillistines be glory carriers? People who touched the glory would be consumed. How then could these people carry the glory of God? 

1 Corinthians 3:16- Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 

• You need to KNOW that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You are bought by the precious Blood of Jesus. You need to know that. The Corinthians had forgotten about this. They had forgotten that they carry God’s presence here on the earth. 

Your body is not for sin. Your thoughts are not for sin. It is for the glory of God. It is the instrument to carry His presence and gory! Your body is an instrument for God! 

Here the Philippines carried the glory and placed it in the template of Dagon. 

1. Two objects cannot occupy the same space. Whether it is in your life, your home, in our nation.

Philistines carried the ark. The Ark was kept together with the statue of Dagon.

The world will try to uproot your conviction, silence your voice, quench your hope and remove your happiness. Because you are carrying the glory of God.

• There are powers on the earth to try and destroy your spiritual testimony. • There is a spirit of Pharoah that keeps people enslaved. There is a spirit of Goliath to humiliate and make fun of you. There is the spirit of Jezebel to intimidate, destroy and kill men and women of God. Spirit of Absalom that tries to divide the church and families. But there is a greater Spirit than all these spirits. They won’t be able to do anything. That is the Holy Spirit of God. He is more powerful than the Spirits in the world. 
• The one in you is greater than the one in the world. Jesus saves, Jesus delivers, and He will come back again. There are spirits to destroy this truth in our minds. But the one in you is greater than the One in the world. The Holy Spirit in you is more powerful than the spirits in the world. He is greater than the spirits that try to attract you to the world, tempt you towards sin.
• There are spirits to destroy the prayer life and the spiritual presence that you enjoy. In the midst of that you need to say that the Holy Spirit is within me. I have the partnership of God within me. I am surrendered to you Lord! 
• For every Pharoah there is a Moses. No matter how dark the world is, God will always raise somebody up. If a Goliath raises, God will bring forth a David. If the Jericho walls are high, God will raise up a Joshua. 
• Anointing and praise of God that will come forth through you can bring the powers of the enemy down.

I will not allow the world to take away my hope and joy in Christ. 

• Two objects cannot occupy the same place. Your old life or your new life that God has kept for you can’t dwell together. One of them needs to fall. You can't desire truth and lie at the same time. Forgiveness and unforgiveness cannot dwell together.
• Your dreams and nightmares can't dwell together. Faith and fear can't dwell together one of them has to fall down. Today your fear will fall! Holiness and unholiness can’t dwell together. One has to fall. Decide. In partnership with the Holy Spirit, choose the things of God.

Praise God for you who won't allow the ark of God to fall. Don’t lose your anointing and your spiritual fervour. Let Dagon fall. Let unholiness fall. 

How did Dagon fall?

• The ark and Dagon were placed next to each other. When the people of Ashdod opened the door the next day, Dagon was lying face down. 
• The powers that scare you, make you diseased, the spirits that try to occupy the same space as that of God, will fall in front the Holy Spirit and Jesus face down! If you are filled with the Holy Spirit! 
• They picked Dagon up and once again made it stand. Dagon did not get up on its own. They picked it up and made it stand.

Don't pick up what God has cast down. Don't make it sit next to you or don't allow anybody to do that in your life. Whether it is your failure, unforgiveness, unbelief, fights, unholiness, unbelief. 

• God removed that wrong relationship, don’t run after it and hold on it. There is a complete victory for the children of God who are walking in God’s glory. The Holy Spirit is saying that. 
• IF Jesus is your Lord, Dagon will fall. Don’t allow people to bring the dagons back into your life. No two things can occupy the same space. If God be for you who can be against you. • When dagons are placed next to you, what do you need to do? Nothing! Just stand in the anointing and the glory of God. Then disease, curse, hurt, pain will fall before you. bondage addiction will fall before you. You just stand firm and flaming in the Holy Spirit. There are people who try to bring the dagons back.

I am a glory carrier. I am called to partnership with the Holy Spirit. 

Dagon, the second time around was found with it hands and head cut off. There are people who irritate you and who instigate you or the church. God will make sure that those hands are cut off and works of the Holy Spirit will be revealed through you on earth. NEVER again will it take that place! 

God is going to send a never again moment in your life. Whether it is disease, curse, addiction, there is going to be a never again moment – an anointing God will release upon His church.

Jericho will still fall in front of a praise. 

Goliath will fall before a shepherd boy, no matter the way he came from. The lion will fall before a prophet matter which way it came from. 

You past will fall before your future 

Your fear will fall before your faith. 

Your sickness will fall before the healing 

The serpent will always fall before the lamb of God 

That’s the glory that you carry 

What did the ark do? 

• Inside the ark were the Aaron’s rod and the tablets of Moses. When you read the Bible, you find that the ark did not do anything, it just stood. The ark just stood still in peace. 

Just stand firm in the shalom of God and God will do a miracle. Don’t become upset for nothing. Don’t worry unnecessarily. 

• You make sure that you are in the partnership with the Holy Spirit. You fan into flame the gift of the Holy Spirit. Moses, stood before the red sea. 

Psalms 46:10- Be still and know that I am God.

• God will open the way out for you. He will break the manna for you, HE will pour forth waters from the flinty rock. The armies around you may be bigger. The Holy Spirit is moving in our state.

No two objects will occupy the same place. What needs to fall will fall in this nation. The Holy Spirit is moving in His church. What is inside us is the power of His resurrection. 

• The Holy Spirit is still working on planet earth!