Infinite Fellowship Ministries

God’s Eternal Purpose – Part 3: Sermon By Apostle Gobanga

Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. 

Colossians 1:25-28 (KJV)

There is a 1st eternity (John 1:1) that has no beginning and the 2nd eternity.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

John 1:1 (KJV)

John 1:1 refers to the beginning that was preceded by God’s eternal purpose.

John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 are not the same. The beginning in Genesis talks of the beginning of time.

The beginning that John 1:1 speaks about is a beginning that preceded creation. This beginning was preceded by God’s purpose.

After the Trinity promulgated the eternal covenant, Christ was inducted and revealed as the Word of God.

There is a time in eternity when Jesus was also ordained to be the full expression and revelation of the living God.

The 1st eternity and the 2nd eternity exist beyond time and space. They are joined together in heaven spanning eternity past and eternity future without the factor of time.

Before the foundations of the world were laid, the 1st eternity existed. It has no beginning. The 2nd eternity has no end.

God’s will is hidden in His heart, but His plan He has released to choice people.

There can never be a fulfilment of God’s purpose without a culmination of His will. God’s will culminates in the fulfilment of His purpose. Whenever God makes manifest His will, it means that He is introducing His purpose.

Without the Person of God, you cannot fulfil His purpose. God wants people to be more focused on His Person.

When you touch base with God’s Person, His purpose and nature will be relevant to you.

Christ means the ‘Anointed One’. Jesus was consecrated in eternity to be ‘the Christ’. God does not anoint people unless He has a purpose.

The Spirit of God is the personification of the anointing. Each time when God speaks, His Son steers the course, His Spirit executes it.

There is nothing God can do without the anointing. 

The Holy Spirit was hovering over the dark world. He is the anointing personified. He executes God’s pronouncements. 

At His baptism, the Son was anointed by the Holy Spirit. His ministry began.

Jesus was anointed in the Eternal Covenant as part of a seal and in His human nature He needed to receive the anointing as a man.

This was a public statement by the Father. The work of John the Baptist was to prepare the way. 

The Father spoke, after the Spirit came upon the Son. The Father does not speak where His Spirit is not. He only spoke at Jesus’ baptism after His Spirit came down upon Him.

When Jesus was baptised, the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus, anointing Him for the purpose of declaring His designation.

We were chosen in Christ and predestined to be sons of God in eternity. When you get saved, you connect with your election in Christ.

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. 

Ephesians 1:4-5 (KJV)

Upon receiving the Gospel (getting saved), your predestination/election gets activated. The Holy Spirit in you makes you cry out “Abba Father”.

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Romans 8:15 (KJV)

His plan is executed from the foundation of the world. This foundation is the expression of the divine blueprint of the eternal covenant of redemption.  

When the Bible talks about ‘the foundation of the world’ being laid, it speaks of its establishment and foundation spiritually, not physically.

Nothing physical exists without a prototype in the spirit. Without the spiritual realm, nothing on earth can exist. For example, heaven and earth. The earth cannot exist without heaven.

The foundation of the world has everything to do with the eternal covenant of redemption. The foundation is Christ.

The basis of man being created in God’s likeness and image has everything to do with God’s eternal covenant.

Jesus was already slain. God goes ahead of time, not waiting for an event to act or to plan.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 

Revelations 13:8 (KJV)

Everything about you was already established before the foundations of the world were laid.

God has a perfect will (already chosen, ordained, designated, expressing His heart’s desire) which is executed in heaven, not on earth.

If you want to understand the past from God’s perspective, look at the future. To understand the end from God’s perspective, look at the beginning.

God’s permissive will originates from God’s foreknowledge of every event that will and won’t happen.

The permissive will of God is based on the foundation of His perfect will. His permissive will always culminate in eternity.

God allows us to make mistakes and to be humbled by them. Once you repent, you will find yourself aligned to His purpose.

Nobody is lost. You are not a mistake. You are not a failure. You are a potential candidate of purpose.

The Mystery of God

A mystery is something hidden or a secret that is incomprehensible to someone.

Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen. 

Romans 16:25-27 (KJV)

The secret will and counsels of God are not known by man.

A mystery is that which can only be understood in symbolic terms, parabolic terms, a prophetic context.

God will always use parables and symbolism to convey a mystery. 

A vision is an insight of events in the supernatural world. Through experience, you are able to understand.

Since we live in time and space, the way that we can understand things is through events/experiences. God is a God of experience, but He Himself does not need experiences.

Unless you experience the supernatural, you cannot understand or grasp the supernatural.

A theophanic experience is a projection of God from the uncreated expanse via the third heavens to the earth/to time.

You access the Father and certain truths about the Father by being a part of the Body of Christ.

The uncreated expanse where God dwells is not for individuals but for community – the Body of Christ.

A vision is a revelation of truth made clear.

A mystery is self-disclosure by God about Himself. About His purpose, His Person, His ways, and finally, His works.

The truth that you pursue with faith and patience is what will usher you to your prophetic destiny and the place of rest.

The faith that you need to have is the faith of God, not of man. Don’t wait for the manifestation.

The mystery of God is Christ.

God’s will is that Christ should be the centre of all things and all things be subject to Christ as the Head.

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. 

Colossians 3:11 (KJV)

And he is the head of the body, the church:who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. 

Colossians 1:18 (KJV)

The reality of Christ in us is the foundation of the Christian life. Everything in heaven, earth and under it is wrapped up in Christ.

Christ in us the hope of Glory. He is the way to the Father who lives in the glorified dimension.

To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

Colossians 1:27 (KJV)

Only as you know Christ in you (not Christ with you) that everything else will make sense. God wants Christ to be manifest in you and through you. 

Christianity is not about doing right and avoiding wrong. To be a Christian means being crucified out of the way so that Christ may be seen.

Jesus (the man) was crucified so that His Spirit (Christ, the Anointed One) may be released from His physical body.

Jesus was crucified, but His nature was not crucified for you cannot crucify a nature. This nature was imparted to the disciples and they were called ‘Christians’, that is after the nature of Christ. 

Christianity is about Jesus Christ. It’s not about us or about going to church. Everything that you say or do must be centred on Christ – the fountain of your life.

The anointing within you cannot work within a carnal person. The anointing attracts trouble. After Jesus was baptised and anointed, He was led to the wilderness to be tested by the devil. 

Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ” Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”

And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ” Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ” And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ” Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.

Luke 4:1-13 (NKJV)

The work of the anointing is to consecrate you for service. The Spirit of God must deal with the flesh.

All things in your life must emerge from the revelation that you have received of Christ from God.

When Christ is being formed in you, there is an anointing being released in you to accomplish the supernatural and to be uncommon.

The purpose of the anointing is to manifest God powerfully, where He is unknown.

God has a purpose as to why Christ must be in us. It is so that we can be presented mature in Christ.

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. 

Ephesians 4:12-13 (KJV)

We need to be united with Christ and in Christ. The Person of Christ is corporate. He is one body (career, tribe, race, rich, poor, etc).

There’s a big difference between the old covenant (where God gave the law through Moses) and new covenant (He gave Himself).

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. 

Hebrews 8:7-12 (KJV)

God intends to put all His enemies under the feet of Christ so that Christ may be Lord of all.Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him. 

Ephesians 1:9-10 (KJV)

To be one in Christ means you have His nature. To be one with Christ means you partner with Him to fulfil His purpose.

Can two walk together, except they be agreed? 

Amos 3:3 (KJV)

God intends to put all His enemies under the feet of Jesus.

And since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 

Hebrews 10:13 (KJV)

When Christ’s life and truth fills you, you can be one with Him. When you are one with Christ, you are one with life. Jesus Christ is the way, truth and life.

God wants us to come to a place where He teaches us mysteries of His Son through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. For example, Paul’s Gospel was not taught to him by man but by revelation of the Holy Spirit.

God does not give you eternal life. He gives you Christ. Once you have Christ and believe in Him, you have eternal life. Christ becomes your life.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

John 3:16 (KJV)

God has not wrapped anything out of Christ. It is in Christ that you become a partaker of God’s spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1). Anything outside of Christ is not from God.

God has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness.

Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. 

2 Peter 1:1-3 (KJV)