Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The Holy Spirit's first loyalty is not to your ministry.
It's not to the greatness of your name.
The Holy Spirit's first loyalty is to the Son of God.
Period. The end.
[00:00:25] Kevin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the well, an Elim Fellowship Leadership Podcast. My name is Kevin Neville. I'm the communications manager at the Fellowship and it has been a blast. It's been a real fun start with these podcasts as we began with the OASIS teachings, the teachings from the Oasis Conference 2025 that we are able to bring you every week.
And that's what this is going to be. It's going to be bringing together teachings, conferences, interviews, events across the Elim family. We're going to dive in over the next few weeks to something new. We started this this year back in July 2025 at the prophetic Conference.
And so one of our first speakers, Jonathan Evans, just brought an amazing word from the Lord and we're going to listen to part one this week. We'll listen to part two next week. And so let's dive in to Jonathan Evans.
[00:01:17] Pastor Phil McNeill: Shout can we say amen? And so this morning our first speaker is a friend of mine and I've gotten to know him over the last few years.
Jonathan Evans, pastors Elim Grace Life Church and just a great church they're building right now, adding on a beautiful sanctuary. And I've watched this man minister. We did some zoom calls during COVID with his dad and his dad sat back and let us prophesy and with pastors and just watched his the ministry that was coming out of him and the word of the Lord that was coming out of him. And so it is with great confidence I give you a man who's been faithful, faithful to his church, faithful to his marriage. Can we say that's the most important thing? Faithful to his children, faithful in so many ways and he's almost handsome. I don't know what happened there.
It must come from Pat. That's all I got to say right now. I love you both. And Jonathan, come on up. Give him a warm welcome this morning.
[00:02:27] Thank you.
Well, it is good to be here. It's good to see some of you whom I know and to meet others who had not yet met. As Phil said, I love my family.
She introduced her family. I've been married in October, it'll be 25 years.
We have six kids. The four oldest of our own, a one and a half year old grandson. And then we adopted a little girl a few years back and are getting ready on August 11th to adopt a little boy, two and a half years old, who we got when we were. When he was two weeks old. So there's been lots and ups and downs for that little boy. His name is Levi David. And we're super thrilled that we get to adopt him. So, anyway, love my family. It's good to be here. I'd like to do one thing before I start.
I gotta pull up the verse.
It's Jonathan, right? Bowden.
Yeah.
So last night, I think we spoke for a few minutes. But afterwards, this first came to me out of Acts, chapter 19.
The following night, the Lord stood by Paul and said, take courage.
For as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.
I feel almost like the Lord is saying he's been waiting for someone like you.
He's been waiting for somebody like you.
And you've known his encouragement and his strength all of your life. But I really feel like today he's coming to stand beside you. And he's coming to stand beside you for a new season of life and ministry. And for that season of life and ministry, he's here to strengthen you with great courage and with great strength. And he wants you to know that you've been testifying to facts.
They haven't been myths. They haven't been figments of your imagination. There have been times where you've wondered, is what I'm seeing and hearing actually real? And the Lord Jesus says to you, they are facts.
They are facts in the heavens that yet not have been manifest on earth. But those facts that you have seen and perceived will be manifest on earth. And as you've seen in heaven, so you will see on earth facts about me. And as you have testified in one season of your life, so you will testify about Me in another season. But the Lord wants to say to you that the next season will be intense.
The Lord wants to promise you today that no harm will be value.
No harm will come to your family.
But the season of life and ministry that he's calling you up into will be an intense season. And for that reason, he's coming you to you today. And He's. He's putting his hand on your shoulder and he's saying, I will be with you.
And today he wants you to receive his strength for this intensive season that you're about to embark upon and into.
And the Lord also says, there will be a time where he will be your defense on your left and on your right, he will take care of things.
But then he's going to go on the offensive for you.
So be patient, be still, and know that the Lord is with you during the season of his defending you.
But take courage, because he will go on the offensive for you.
He's going to fight those battles, he's going to slay those giants. And you will again one day testify to greater facts about him and what he's done in and through you and the season of life and ministry that you're into. So you're in the right place at the right time for the right reasons, and all of them are eternal in purpose and in scope.
So receive the strength of the Lord for which he is giving to you today for the season of life that you're in. So. Amen.
Can we just take a few seconds? Can we just extend our hands towards him?
Lord Jesus, we give you thanks for Jonathan, we give you thanks because you have been waiting, as you said, for somebody like him for such a time as this.
And as Elim fellowship, as friends and family, we receive him as the man of God that he is, but we also receive him as the instrument of God for such a time as this in the fellowship and as his family. Lord Jesus, we ask you to seal this word upon his heart, Lord, that even as we heard last night that this would be a prophetic word by which he would wage a good fight and the good warfare in days and months and years to come.
May you write it upon his heart. May you etch it upon his heart. And Holy Spirit, may you be quick to bring it back to his memory in days to come.
And Holy Spirit, we ask that right now you would impart the strength of the Lord Jesus to him for the season of life that is in head. Let the joy of the Lord who calls him be his strength. Let the joy of the Lord who equips him be his strength. Let the joy of the Lord who has saved him and cause him to be born and born again for such a time as this.
Be his strength, and in your name we pray. Amen.
Amen.
[00:07:34] All right, so say after me, if the work is worth it, the gifts are worth it.
I've yet to see a strong man.
[00:07:47] Take a nail to a piece of wood and drive it in with with his hand.
But give him a hammer and he can do it.
[00:07:55] The work that God has called us.
[00:07:57] To do is incredibly valuable.
[00:07:59] And if the work he's called us.
[00:08:00] To do is worth doing, and it.
[00:08:02] Is worth doing right, then the gifts are worth it.
And we are here to talk about the gifts of the Spirit in particular, one of them. So those gifts are absolutely worth it.
[00:08:11] And therefore essential to the work.
[00:08:14] But also if the gifts are worth.
[00:08:16] It, the giver is worth it.
And a lot of times we can.
[00:08:21] Lose sight of the giver within what we might perceive to be the brilliance of the gifts.
But today I want to go even further back in so to speak, and.
[00:08:29] Really talk about the giver of the gifts. And that's the Holy Spirit.
And so I want to talk about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the friendship of the Holy Spirit.
[00:08:38] And the verse that came to mind.
[00:08:40] A few nights ago, I think it was the first night that we were here was Luke 11:13, where Jesus said.
[00:08:46] If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give?
[00:08:54] What?
[00:08:55] The Holy Spirit. Who? The Holy Spirit. The greatest gift to those who ask him. That's a key part of the verse.
He wants to give the greatest gift of all, the person of the Holy Spirit, to those who ask him back.
[00:09:10] I think it was in June.
[00:09:11] I was down in Mexico for ministry.
[00:09:14] And one of the nights that I.
[00:09:16] Was there, we were having a family conversation. I stayed at my brother in law.
[00:09:20] And sister's home and my nephew Jared was there visiting from Mexico City with his wife.
[00:09:25] And we were just having a conversation.
[00:09:27] As a family with my brother Londreas and Kelly and Jared and his wife Adelis.
[00:09:32] And they start talking about ministry and life in the church. And Jared said, dad, that preacher, and if I named the name, you would know because they're world famous.
That preacher was really good.
But dad, there's just something special that.
[00:09:47] Happens when you preach, right?
[00:09:49] And Andres didn't exactly do that.
But Andres was very quick and he's.
[00:09:54] Like, no, no, no, it's not, it's not me, Jared. Here's what it is.
[00:09:58] He's like we were taught.
[00:10:00] And he pointed to himself and to my sister, to myself.
[00:10:03] It's like we were taught by our parents to ask a very simple question.
And the simple question we were asked, which is the secret Andres was hinting at to the specialness that Jared was perceiving. The secret is in the question. And the question we were taught to ask is this Holy Spirit, what do.
[00:10:22] You want me to do?
[00:10:26] Simple question, but a fundamental question on which all, quote, successful men, ministry is built.
[00:10:33] Holy Spirit, what do you want me to do?
[00:10:37] That's it, that's it. Listen, the greater the power, how many of you want the power of the Holy Spirit? The greater the power, the Greater the sensitivity to the Spirit, the greater the anointing. How many of you want a greater anointing in your life? The greater the anointing, the greater the friendship with the Spirit is required.
The greater the gifts, the greater the fellowship of the Spirit.
There's a price, there's a cost for some of the things that we are absorbing and talking about and pursuing in terms of the gifts of the Spirit. The price and the cost is friendship with the Holy Spirit ever deepening, ever increasing, ever heightening.
The Father wants to give the Holy.
[00:11:23] Spirit to those who ask Him.
[00:11:27] Number one, the gift of the person.
[00:11:29] Of the Holy Spirit.
[00:11:31] The Father doesn't want to give a thing.
He doesn't want to give a force. He's not giving an impersonal power. He's not giving something that necessarily is environmental or atmospheric.
We talk a lot about in our service, let's create an atmosphere. What does that even mean?
I understand what we're hinting at and implying, but the reality is that the environment and the atmosphere causes nothing of eternal significance unless the atmosphere that we're trying to create is a welcoming environment and submission to the person of the Holy Spirit.
Because that's what he's giving the person of the Holy Spirit. How much more will the Heavenly Father give the person of the Holy Spirit?
Would he gift the Holy Spirit to be used primarily or not or to be known primarily? Well, a person is to be known, not used.
And I think the primary reason, the utmost reason, that he gives the Holy Spirit first and foremost is to know Him. Long before we're introduced to the gifts of the Spirit and Paul's Epistles were introduced to the person of the Holy Spirit.
Because that's foremost, that's fundamental to all that we're called to be, to all that we're called to do, to be known and to know the Holy Spirit. It's the gift of the person.
The power of the Holy Spirit comes from the person of the Holy Spirit.
To know the person is to know the power.
To know the power without knowing the person is dangerous ground.
We're called to know first and foremost the person of the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in Second Corinthians 13:14, One of my favorite benedictions, to give in my church the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship. Not the power.
I mean, it would make sense, right? Grace, love, power.
But that's not what he says.
His parting words, the blessing that he wants to give to his congregation is go with the grace of the Lord Jesus. Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That's what you need more than anything.
The power is not a force. It's a person.
The power and the presence of the person of the Holy Spirit.
But we know that the Holy Spirit is tied to another person.
Acts, chapter one, verse eight. Jesus said, you will receive power when the person of the Holy Spirit comes upon you for a reason.
The person moves into the vicinity of your heart and life with his power for the purpose that you will be my witnesses, says Jesus.
The power is not to bear witness to your church.
It's not to bear witness to your platform is not to bear witness to how great a preacher you think you might be. The person of the Spirit is tied to the person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
And the power of the Spirit is foremost for the testifying and the bearing witness to the facts about Jesus Christ.
That's why the power comes. That's why we should be seeking more of the power of the Holy Spirit. Because we desire greater testimony to the glory of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done.
That's why we should desire power.
The Holy Spirit's first loyalty is not to your ministry.
It's not to the greatness of your name.
The Holy Spirit's first loyalty is to the Son of God.
Period. The End.
One disciple betrayed Jesus. And many of you have seen this powerfully portrayed in the Chosen series.
One disciple betrayed Jesus, another denied him. The rest scattered from him. Only one person never failed Jesus, the Holy Spirit.
From beginning to end, it's the only person that never failed Jesus. So I want you to understand before anything else that what we've received is, is the gift of the person who never failed Jesus.
Which means the Spirit abiding within you wants to see you succeed in all the work that he has called you to do and all the things that he's equipped you to do. But he wants you to succeed for the purpose of exalting Jesus.
He never failed Jesus.
[00:16:13] He doesn't want you to fail either.
[00:16:17] His success is in the exaltation of Jesus first and foremost. That is what he is after.
In my church, we're blessed with a lot of young men who I love to give the opportunity to.
[00:16:30] To preach right.
[00:16:32] But a lot of times, some of our preoccupations right out of the gate as a preacher is, I want to preach great.
And eventually that's like, I want to be a great preacher.
But what I say to them is like, listen, the secret to becoming a great preacher, when you ask the question, how can I become a great preacher? The secret to becoming a great preacher is that you must love something more than preaching.
And the thing you must love more than preaching is Jesus.
If you love Jesus, you will become a great preacher because you are preaching and testifying to the facts about who Jesus is to you, what he has done for you in and through the power of the Holy Spirit, who comes for the very same reason.
How can I operate powerfully in the gifts? Anybody here ever said that? We all have. That's why we're here.
And it's a valid question. It's a genuine and sincere prayer that we should continue to pursue.
We want to operate in the fullness of the gifts of the Spirit, as we should.
But how can I operate powerfully in the gifts? You must love something or someone more than the gifts.
[00:17:49] Jesus Christ.
[00:17:51] If you love Jesus more than the gifts, the gifts will be powerful in your life because they're serving a higher purpose and a deeper meaning than what you want and what you think you need.
Love Jesus and the gifts will become powerful. The gifts become most valuable when they are not the most valuable thing in our eyes.
When they are subservient to the greatest thing, which is the glory of Jesus Christ, that's when they become powerful. When Jesus is most valuable, the gifts become valuable.
When all things serve to exalt his name, the gifts become precious.
To proclaim his worth, to proclaim his value.
That is why we exist. That is why we are equipped. That is why we are skilled. That is why we are called all things. And all gifts and all skills serve to magnify the name of Jesus Christ.
[00:18:48] Here's the secret. I've said this to my congregation a few times.
[00:18:52] Do you want to know the secret I say to them? To growing big in Christ.
Our vision at our church is we're growing not a big church, but a big people. A people big in Christ.
And so I say to them, do you want to know the secret to growing big in Christ? Everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, right? And everybody's thinking formulaically, yeah, give me the three steps to growing big in Christ. Give me the title of the book. Give me the long form podcast, right? Here's, here's what I've learned to be the secret to growing big in Christ.
It's the words of Isaiah, chapter 48.
[00:19:26] Verse 11, where God prophesies through the prophet Isaiah.
I will not give my glory to another.
I will not give my honor to anybody else but the Son of God.
If you Want to grow big in Christ, big in the gifts, Whatever is on your heart to do in and through and for God. The secret is that the honor belongs to Jesus Christ.
If we give our lives to the honor of the Son of God, then.
[00:19:58] The Spirit can dwell powerfully in our midst and the gifts can grow fruitful.
[00:20:02] And be everything they are intended to be.
[00:20:05] Live your life. Live my life. For the glory of the Son, for the honor of the Son. And in that sense, we are growing.
[00:20:12] In the fellowship of the Spirit.
Ask, says the Father, and I'll give you the person of the Holy Spirit.
[00:20:21] But number two, I want to talk about the power of the Holy Spirit's friendship.
Jesus says to those who ask him. So again the question, what are we asking for, in my phrase, for this particular sermon? We are asking for the power of the friendship of the Holy Spirit. Friendship with the Holy Spirit is a force to be reckoned with.
It will reckon with you. It will wreck you.
And people who are friends with the Holy Spirit are forced to be reckoned with in the world.
If Elim fellowship is in fellowship with the Spirit, we're a force to be reckoned with.
There's power in the friendship. There's the power of the friendship of the Holy Spirit. You will receive power, said Jesus, when the Holy Spirit comes, comes upon you. Listen before. It's a power to do anything. It's a power again to know somebody.
Jesus said in John 14, 16 and 17, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. And he will be in you.
So he's with you forever, but he's also in you forever. And that friend, that helper that Jesus is talking about in John, is the same helper that he says in Acts 1:8. You're going to receive power when that helper, the Holy Spirit, comes upon you and dwells within you. And the greatest thing he wants to accomplish is to show you the facts about Jesus Christ so that you can testify about me.
In John 15:15, Jesus said something almost too good to be true.
He said, I now call you.
But he says, the reason I'm calling you friends is because now I'm showing you what I'm doing.
A servant is just told what to do.
But friends are shown on an intimate, close proximity level. Here's what I'm doing, here's why. He explains things to us. We are friends with the Son of God. Listen. The best friends are the best witnesses.
The best witnesses are friends.
Anything that thrills you in your life, what do you. Do you tell a friend about.
Because those are the people closest to your heart who share something in common with you that motivates and drives one another.
We are friends of the Son of God, and friends make the best witnesses. Jesus has called us friends.
Psalm 25:14. The friendship of the Lord.
[00:23:05] Is for those who fear Him.
[00:23:10] The friendship with the Holy Spirit is not a casual thing.
It's not gifted, so to speak, to just casual witnesses.
The gift of the Holy Spirit and the friendship of the Holy Spirit is for those, says the psalmist, who walk in awe of God.
In other words, to walk in awe of God is to know him more fully, more deeply, because you walk in awe of Him. He is able to show you more because your heart has been formed and conformed into the image of His Son, with whom he has complete, eternal trust.
To walk in awe of God, in worship, in humility. And here's the thing. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him and, and God therefore makes known to them his covenant.
A lot of times God wants to show us deeper and higher things, but what he's waiting for is for us to walk in a closer proximity and friendship and fellowship with Him.
And it's out of the friendship that these things are born, that these things come to us. It's one thing for you to have the Holy Spirit. Everybody in this room says, I have the Holy Spirit.
It's another thing for the Holy Spirit to have you, because you can claim to have the Holy Spirit, but still live a portion of your life for yourself.
But the people powerful in ministry, the people doing things in the kingdom of God, are not the people who necessarily have the Holy Spirit, but they are the people whom the Holy Spirit possesses in, in friendship and in fellowship, to whom he can reveal things about the Son of God and the eternal purposes of God, because they are trustworthy, because they stand in awe of him, because their life is given and devoted to the glory of the Son of God.
I discovered something a few months back. I discovered that I'm on social media, different platforms, but, but, but I'm on Facebook. And I discovered that on Facebook, I can unfollow somebody without unfriending them.
You're like, that was worth the price of the conference alone.
Like, I don't like reading these person's posts, but I don't want to unfriend them because I'm afraid I'm going to offend them. But let's be honest, you don't really care about them.
You can unfollow people without unfriending them.
Listen, you can't unfollow the Holy Spirit, but stay friends.
Well, I'm not going to follow you.
[00:25:48] There, Holy Spirit, but let's stay friends over here.
[00:25:53] You can have this aspect of my life, but this aspect is still mine.
To follow the Holy Spirit is to.
[00:26:01] Be friends with the Holy Spirit.
[00:26:02] To be friends with the Holy Spirit is to follow Him. And there's a power in the friendship because the power is transformative.
It takes over your life and your heart because you become, as Paul says, a temple for the dwelling of the Holy Spirit and the glory of God intended to fill the entirety of the temple, not just a portion of it.
He wants our hearts discovered. That as I've grown in friendship with the Holy Spirit, that number one, there's the power of conviction.
And by the power of conviction, I mean something that lasts for a season.
[00:26:47] But then it lifts.
[00:26:49] The Holy Spirit might speak something to you, and there's the power of the conviction. But you might deal with it or just it sort of begins to dissipate.
[00:26:56] And it goes away after a time.
[00:26:59] These are the things that we feel when we're teenagers. I feel guilty for doing this. There's a power of conviction, but we rationalize it. Or a few days goes by and then we don't feel guilty anymore and the power lifts.
There's the power of conviction, but then there's the conviction of power in which the Holy Spirit will not let you go, in which the Holy Spirit will fight for you, to defend you, to set you free from temptation or trials or other things. And then there are times when he fights in you and with you because he desires your victory. And then there are times when he fights against you.
We can be a stubborn people, especially pastors and leaders, and what an act of mercy it is when the Holy Spirit starts fighting against you. Jonathan, don't do it.
Don't do it. But I want to. But don't do it. But don't do it. But don't do it. What condescension of humility for the Holy Spirit to fight against us out of his great love for us, giving us a conviction of power so that we are not therefore going our wayward way and doing the things that we know will harm us, will harm Him. The friendship, the fellowship. I'm thankful for the conviction of power that he does not. Let us rest.
[00:28:19] Kevin: Thank you for listening to the well. An Elim Fellowship leadership podcast. This sermon from Jonathan Evans had been divided into two parts. We listened to part one this week. We're gonna continue it next week. So I hope to see you guys next week. God bless and have a wonderful.
