THEY THAT DWELL IN MOUNT ZION

Strength, Identity, and the Life God Has Already Given

Introduction: The Ministry of the Spirit and the Perfecting of the Saints

When God ascended on high and gave gifts to men, He was not merely filling roles in a religious organisation. He was equipping a people for a work of eternal consequence. The ministry gifts that Christ distributed to the church — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers — were given with one overriding purpose: the perfecting of the saints. Not to build impressive institutions. Not to win public admirers. But to bring the children of God to a place of understanding, a place of knowledge, a place of maturity, so that they can live the life that God has given to them in Christ Jesus.

This is serious business. And it demands serious people. There is no place in ministry for weakness. There is no place for a beggarly, apologetic mentality that is forever asking God for what He has already given. There is no place for discouragement, or for the quiet resignation that disguises itself as humility. The calling of God is a call to strength — and the Holy Spirit has been given precisely to equip every minister who will dare to answer that call fully and without reserve.

Part One: The Mandate of the Minister — Lessons from Joshua

To understand the mentality that God requires of a minister of the gospel, there is no better place to look than the moment God commissioned Joshua to take the place of Moses. Moses was dead. The greatest leader Israel had ever known — the man through whom God had parted the Red Sea, rained bread from heaven, and spoken face to face — was gone. And in his place stood Joshua, facing a task of staggering magnitude: lead the entire nation across the Jordan and into a land full of fortified cities and powerful enemies.

God's response to this moment is one of the most instructive passages in all of Scripture for anyone who has been called to lead the people of God:

Joshua 1:1–9  Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Count how many times God says it: be strong and of good courage. Be strong and very courageous. Be not afraid. Neither be thou dismayed. In nine verses, God returns again and again to this single requirement. Not because Joshua was naturally timid, but because God understands the immensity of the calling and the ferocity of the opposition. The minister who goes into the nations must have this settled deep in their spirit: there is no room for fear. There is no room for being dismayed when things do not go as expected. The Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest — and that changes everything.

Notice what God did not say. He did not say, “Be still and wait for the land to come to you.” He said, “Arise, go over this Jordan.” The calling of God is always forward. It is always into the land. It is always into territory that must be possessed. And the promise that no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life is not a passive assurance — it is the backing of heaven for a person who is actively moving in obedience to the mandate of God.

Part Two: The Word in Your Mouth — The Secret of Good Success

In the midst of God’s commissioning of Joshua, one instruction stands out with particular force, because it is so different from what we might expect:

Joshua 1:8  This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Out of thy mouth. Not merely out of thy heart, though the heart must believe. Out of thy mouth. God is telling Joshua — and through Joshua, every minister of the gospel — that the word must be spoken continually. It must be on your lips. You keep talking it. You keep saying it. You do not merely store it in your memory as theological information; you speak it into your situation, your circumstances, your congregation, your community. The word of God in the mouth of the minister is a living force that creates what it declares.

Meditation and declaration work together. You meditate therein day and night — you turn it over, you think it through, you allow it to permeate every layer of your thinking. And then you speak it. Because faith without declaration is incomplete. The word believed in the heart must be confessed with the mouth. This is the pattern of creation itself: God thought it, and God said it, and it was. The minister who speaks the word continually is cooperating with the creative power of God. And the result, God says, is good success. Not just survival. Not just getting by. Good success — the kind that is evident, lasting, and glorifying to God.

Part Three: The Warrior Mentality — We Wrestle Not Against Flesh and Blood

The minister of the gospel must understand with absolute clarity what kind of conflict they have entered. The Apostle Paul — who knew ministry at its most demanding and costly — left no ambiguity about the nature of the battle:

Ephesians 6:12–13  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood. Paul did not say we do not wrestle. He said we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. There is a wrestling. There is a real, vigorous, sustained engagement with the powers of darkness that oppose the advance of the gospel and the maturing of God’s children. The minister who thinks Christianity is a quiet, comfortable life of nice meetings and peaceful communities has misread the commission entirely. You are a warrior. And you are in a war.

But it is a war in which the outcome has already been determined. It is a war in which you go into battle already knowing who wins. The armour God has provided is not for a defensive crouch — it is the equipment of someone advancing into territory that the enemy has been occupying, confronting principalities with the authority of the name of Jesus, and standing unmoved when the pressure comes. The minister who knows who they are and who they serve cannot be dismayed.

Look at the men and women of God whose lives are recorded in Scripture. Abraham was a man of faith — and he was also a man of war who defeated five kings in battle and was not afraid of armies. Moses stood before the most powerful ruler on earth and demanded the release of God’s people without flinching. Joshua led an entire nation into military campaigns against fortified cities with the unshakeable assurance that no man could stand before him. David, the shepherd boy, ran towards Goliath while the entire army of Israel ran away. Elijah stood alone against four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and called down fire from heaven. These were not weak people. These were not people who spent their prayer time asking God for the grace to cope. They were warriors — gentle in spirit, steel in conviction, immovable in the face of opposition.

The apostles were the same. Not one of them was weak-minded. Not one of them prayed the prayer of the perpetually confused: “I don’t know what I’m going through, Lord. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” They knew exactly what was happening to them. They knew exactly what they were doing. And they did it with a boldness that no amount of persecution could extinguish. This is the heritage of every minister of the gospel. You are the heir of these men and women. Do not shrink from that inheritance.

Part Four: What Christianity Really Is — A Definition That Changes Everything

If the mentality of the minister is to be rightly formed, it must be grounded in a right understanding of what Christianity actually is. There is a version of Christianity that is merely religious — a cultural identity, a set of beliefs held at a comfortable distance from daily life, a club with its own language and rituals. That is not what God had in mind.

Real, authentic Christianity is the demonstration and display of the virtues, the excellencies, and the perfections of Christ in the earth. It is not about having a nice church or a large congregation. It is not about maintaining a respectable religious institution. It is the manifestation of Christ Himself through human lives — His righteousness, His wisdom, His compassion, His power, His authority — made visible and tangible in the world.

The Apostle Peter captured this identity in words that should be the bedrock conviction of every believer and every minister:

1 Peter 2:9  But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

Chosen. Royal. Holy. Peculiar — a people for God’s own possession. And the purpose of all of that: to shew forth, to display, to set forth the wonderful deeds and the virtues of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. This is Christianity. This is what is on God’s mind when He looks at the church. Not a community of ordinary people trying their best. Extraordinary people who carry the life and the nature and the excellence of Jesus Christ, and who display it wherever they go.

We are not ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things — because the extraordinary One lives in us. He said: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.” He wants us to be visible, unmistakeable, and undeniable in our demonstration of who He is. That is the responsibility the minister carries — not just to preach about Christ, but to embody and manifest Christ before those they serve.

Part Five: Converts or Children? — The Spirituality of True Ministry

There is a question that every minister of the gospel must honestly confront: are you producing converts or children? The difference is not minor. It is the difference between a ministry that sees a constant turnover of people — many coming, many going, few staying — and a ministry that sees genuine transformation and lasting growth.

Converts make a decision. Children grow into an identity. Converts respond to an altar call and then find their level and drift away. Children are rooted, established, and genuinely shaped by the life of God. They do not come and go; they grow. And the only way to produce children rather than converts is to operate in the spirituality of ministry — to depend not on human charisma, organisational cleverness, or clever programming, but on the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus prepared to leave the disciples, He was deliberate about what He would leave them with. He did not leave them a strategy manual or a set of church growth principles. He sent them the Holy Spirit. He told them plainly: I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever. The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it cannot see Him. But you know Him, for He dwells with you and shall be in you.

The world lives in the realm of the senses. It cannot perceive the Holy Spirit because it has no capacity to go beyond what it can see, hear, and touch. But the minister of the gospel operates in a different realm. The Holy Spirit is not an atmosphere that comes and goes with the emotional temperature of a meeting. He is a Person who abides forever, who carries out His ministry in every life He inhabits, and whose work in a congregation cannot be replicated by any human programme.

God is not a machine to be operated by correct technique. He is not a vending machine that produces results when the right buttons are pressed. He is God Almighty, and He is in a relationship with you. Ministry is not a transaction — it is a partnership with the Holy Spirit. And partners must know each other, communicate with each other, and depend on each other. There are no shortcuts to this. There is no drive-through Christianity that produces lasting fruit. The Word of God must be followed. The relationship must be cultivated. And it takes time, attention, and intentionality.

Part Six: Speaking in Tongues — The Minister’s Essential Practice

When it comes to the practical equipping of the minister for effective prayer and fruitful ministry, one provision stands out above almost all others for the clarity and force of the scriptural endorsement: speaking in tongues. The Apostle Paul, who built more churches, influenced more lives, and endured more suffering in service of the gospel than perhaps any other human being in history, gave a simple but telling testimony. And he left on record the spiritual practice that underpinned everything he did:

1 Corinthians 14:4  He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself: but he that prophesieth edifieth the church.

He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself. The word “edifieth” means to build up, to strengthen, to cause to grow. When you speak in tongues, you are building up the inner man. You are strengthening yourself at the level of your spirit — the level at which the real battles of ministry are won or lost. And Paul himself declared: “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all.” More than all of them. Not occasionally. Not as a crisis measure. Abundantly, consistently, as a regular and central practice.

For the minister who wants to be genuinely effective — not just impressive in the short term, but truly fruitful over the long haul — speaking in tongues is not optional. It is not a minor devotional extra for those who prefer a more charismatic style. It is the means by which the Holy Spirit builds you up, keeps you sensitive to His voice, enables you to pray prayers that exceed your natural understanding, and aligns your spirit with the purposes of God that your mind cannot fully perceive.

Human charisma can attract people. Clever content can hold their attention for a season. Impressive personality can build a following. But none of these things can build a church that endures, produce children who are genuinely transformed, or accomplish the work of the Holy Spirit in human lives. Only the Spirit can do what the Spirit does. And the minister who spends consistent, serious time speaking in tongues is the minister who will find that the Holy Spirit moves through their ministry in ways that defy natural explanation — because they are partnering with Him at the level of the spirit, not merely operating in the natural realm.

Part Seven: Clarity of Purpose and the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

Everything we have considered comes to a point of focus in this: the minister of the gospel must have absolute clarity of purpose. Not a vague sense of doing good. Not a general desire to help people. A definiteness of purpose. A clear answer to the questions: Why am I here? Who am I? What has God specifically called me to do?

You are a saint on a mission. You have been called by the God of the universe, equipped by His Holy Spirit, and sent into the world with a commission that no human institution can match in scope or significance. Your task is to bring God’s children into the inheritance that belongs to them in Christ Jesus — to lead them into the knowledge of a God they cannot see with their physical eyes, but who is more real than everything visible around them; a God they cannot perceive with their natural senses, but who is more present than anything that appears to those senses.

That is a huge task. It is not a task for the weak. It is not a task for those who are still asking God for the grace to serve. God has already given the grace. He has already given the Spirit. He has already given the commission, the authority, the name, and the power. What He is waiting for are ministers who will arise with the mentality of Joshua — strong, courageous, unmoved, word-filled, Spirit-led — and take the people into their inheritance.

When the Holy Spirit carries out His ministry in your life, He does not merely give you tools for the job. He makes you into the kind of person who can do the job — someone whose inner man is strengthened with might, whose spirit is built up through prayer and the word, whose sensitivity to the voice of God is refined through consistent fellowship with the Spirit, and whose presence among God’s people carries something that human personality alone can never produce.

Conclusion: Extraordinary People Called to an Extraordinary Work

The message of these four sessions resolves to a single, urgent call: be who God says you are, do what God says to do, and do it in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is not religion. Religion is a human system that manages the distance between God and man. What God is after is the elimination of that distance — the manifestation of Christ in and through human beings who have been transformed by His life.

Do not grow up wrong in this. Do not let anyone persuade you that discouragement is normal, that weakness is acceptable, or that the quiet life of the spiritually passive is what God is after. It is not. He has called you to be strong and very courageous. He has told you that the word must not depart from your mouth. He has armed you with the whole armour of God and sent you into the field against principalities and powers. He has given you the Holy Spirit to pray through you, build you up, guide you, and make you effective in ways that exceed anything human skill can produce.

The ministry gifts were given for the perfecting of the saints. Your calling is to bring people from wherever they are into the fullness of what God has provided for them in Christ — from converts to children, from the edge of the kingdom into its depths, from a vague religious identity into the blazing reality of a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people who display the virtues, the excellencies, and the perfections of Christ wherever they go.

That is your assignment. Speak the word. Pray in the Spirit. Put on the whole armour of God. Stand strong and very courageous. And go. The Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.