Changed into his Likeness 18

By Pastor Samuel Chess

Grace Emmanuel Church

Port St. Lucie, Florida

(Joint Heirs With Jesus)

This series is the Energizer Bunny series.. it just keeps going and going and going…

I. The Principle of Divine Exchange (x9)

II. The Principle of Deliverance (x5)

III. Appropriating Divine Exchange and Divine Deliverance (x2)

A) In order for a gift to make a marked difference in your life….your have to receive the gift to yourself and use it in the way it was designed to be used!

B) Example of Israel receiving the gift of their Promised Land

1) Legally, the moment God spoke to Moses, Canaan became their land…

2) Experientially, they did not actually occupy any more land than they had before God spoke.

3) The Israelites inherited the promised land from God but they had to physically march in and appropriate it before they could live there!

Right now as you sit there in that seat, ever bit of life transforming grace that Jesus provided by dying on the cross in your place, fighting the forces of sin and satan, defeating death and hell, and the grave, and rising from the dead to give eternal life to all who believe……everything he provided….everything He provided has already been credited to your account! From God’s perspective it is yours…you have legal title to it.

Experientially, some of what Jesus provided for you may not yet have kicked in. You have this sinful habit over here that you know Christ death provided to have erased from your life…yet the sinful habit remains.

Didn’t Jesus die so that that sinful habit could be obliterated from your daily actions?….Yes! Didn’t he promise you in all these verses we looked at over the last 17 weeks that complete and total victory over that sin was your spiritual birthright?….Yes!

In order for a gift to make a marked difference in your life….your have to receive the gift to yourself and use it in the way it was designed to be used!

You have to march into your promised land…. You have to:

C) Possessing our Possessions

1) Embracing Faith

(Hebrews 11:6) But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who

diligently seek Him. (NKJV)

God is looking for his children to have faith and diligence….persistent, diligent, un-shaking faith

God is not a bit interested in His children reaching 20% or 30% of their spiritual potential. Jesus didn’t come to this earth, take your place in an excruciating death on the cross so that you could just profess faith in him and live on with the same sinful behavior and lifestyle that you had before you accepted his eternal gift He didn‘t die in your place so you could reach 10% of the spiritual potential he planned for you life. Look back again at that promise filled chapter in Romans 8:

(Romans 8:32) He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (NKJV)

Before Jesus left this earth He made the most careful provision for you to have your sins forgiven.. and…for you to rise above the sinful behavior of the past and take on his righteous character. Everyone of you have the gift of all of these exchanges and all of these deliverances sitting in front of you just waiting to be unwrapped, just waiting for you to reach out and possess you possessions!

If you are looking for the source, for the key that Jesus Himself provided that is going to bring all these Principles and all these Deliverances into a reality in your life where would you look? If the gift of all God’s grace is sitting in front of us waiting to be unwrapped and we are having a little trouble getting the ribbon off of part of the package…what special divine ribbon cutting, paper disintegrating tool has Jesus provided to get the wrapping off our great spiritual gift? The Holy Spirit!

2) Embracing the Transformation of the Holy Spirit

Watch this important statement:

A) Holy Spirit Administrates your Salvation:

We have in this church an Administrator…. Reva Mirti…Her job is not to do all the ministries of the church herself but to grease the wheels to make sure that an atmosphere is created around everyone so that the greatest possible amount of coordinated effective ministry can be accomplished by everyone else.. Now let me repeat my point:

A) Holy Spirit Administrates your Salvation:

Pastor…where in the world did you come up with an idea like that?…..from Jesus!

(John 14:16-18) And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (NIV)

Counselor: paraclete- someone who is called in alongside to help

Not only did Jesus provide for you the gift of complete salvation with his time here on earth…when he left he provided totally for you to be able to unwrap the gift.. in it’s entirety. Nothing was left missing;

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of truth…. he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans…

Why does Jesus call the promised Holy Spirit, another paraclete? Interestingly enough it is exactly the same word as this word used in 1 John 2:

(1 John 2:1) My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (NKJV)

So once Jesus ascended back to heaven he is there acting as an advocate with the Father on your behalf and he sent the Holy Spirit here to take his place in the world to act as an administrator of all Jesus was providing on your behalf in heaven.

Why didn’t Jesus just stay here and be our “paraclete” himself? Because he took on our form and became connected with a single body, now a glorified body but still a single recognizable person. His Holy Spirit, on the other hand was going to be able to minister the salvation that Jesus provided for all mankind to all people, in all places, at all times, and give everyone of them 100% of his attention…all at the same time!

(John 16:7) But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. (NIV)

He will be able to bring my life changing transformation into all of you at the same time, to the farthest reaches of the world, in every language, every culture.

B) So where is this Holy Spirit right now? Everywhere? Yes and no….

In terms of God being everywhere all the time and holding together every molecule in the universe by the Word of his power….. Yes… the Holy Spirit of Christ is everywhere.

But more specifically, where is his home? Where is his address? Where does His manifest “paraclete” presence reside?

1) In His Church…. Paul speaking to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 3:16) Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? (NIV)

Even more specifically:

2) In the Believer…. (1 Corinthians 6:19) Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?.…You are not your own; (NIV)

I’ve spent 17 Sundays talking to you about the transforming principles of God exchanging his character for yours, and I’ve assured you that God wants to deliver you from the sinfulness of this life and now I’m sharing with you the medium, the vehicle, the means God has chosen to make those changes in you. It’s not some far out fantasy that you have to always reach for and never quite grasp.

The Holy Spirit is not someone you have to chase after, he chases after you!

You don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to find the Holy Spirit, He comes to you when you open the door to his guidance.

You don’t have to get into the Holy Spirit….He get into you!!

(John 14:16-18) And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of truth….. he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (NIV)

The Father…will give you another Counselor

He will stay with you forever!

He lives with you and will be in you!

Jesus has not left you as an orphan

He promised to come to you….He has!

The coming of the Holy Spirit promises radical difference in our lives. His presence guarantees that the Principles of Exchange can take place. His indwelling presence in your life sets the stage for you to be delivered from this present evil age, delivered from the bondage of the Law, delivered from self and selfishness, delivered from the flesh, and deliverance from the world.

Remember how the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit affected the disciples after Pentecost?

1) Gone was the brain fog! - All through Jesus ministry with them it was like they were never quite able to grasp the significance of what he was doing. The moment the Holy Spirit came, it was like the fog lifted and they had a totally different comprehension of His life and ministry .

2) In came the boldness! - Even after the resurrection, the disciples were still hiding behind closed doors afraid of what the Jewish leaders might still decide to do to them. Once the Spirit indwelled them they didn’t give a rip. They would wade right into the middle of the very people that had frightened them spit-less and read them the spiritual riot act.

3) Out went the normal and mediocre! - From the time the Holy Spirit arrived in the disciples lives, the Bible tells us, history tells us, that their impact on the world around them went up, up, and off the charts. They did things in the next few years that no one, who knew them before would ever have imagined.

C) What does the “paraclete” do for a believer?

1) He reveals God’s truth to us

(John 14:25-26) "All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (NIV)

(John 16:13) "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. (NKJV)

(John 16:14-15) "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. "All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

2) He guides us step by step in obeying the truth he has revealed to us

(Romans 8:14) For as many as are led (continually) by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. (NKJV)

This open the door for a potential blockage, not on the part of the Holy Spirit but of us.

3) He lifts us out of “spiritual mediocrity”

I want to point out something to you in Hebrews. This is one of those super hard to understand scriptures that talk about someone who is apostate and falls away from Christ. In seminary I studied this passage extensively and wrote a paper on it and I still don’t understand exactly what it means. It reads:

(Hebrews 6:4-6) It is impossible that those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to

public disgrace. (NIV)

I’m not going to attempt to deal , this morning with the obvious question that raises about falling away and not being able to repent…I do want to point out the characteristics of the person before they fell.

They have been enlightened

They have tasted the heavenly gift

They have shared in the Holy Spirit

They have tasted the goodness of the Word of God

They have tasted the powers of the coming age

All of us know that the next life is going to be radically different than this life. This one is a sinful preparation for the eternal life to come. What we don’t necessarily understand is that the Holy Spirit in this life is here to give us a taste of the life to come. Look at the words….above.

In fact, God gives us this profound truth as well:

(Ephesians 1:13-14) And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-- to the praise of his glory. (NIV)

The Holy Spirit is Jesus deposit in us. He has made a down payment on the next life for us right here in this life. He has placed the deposit so are not to be sold to someone else.

His deposit is his guarantee that he will continue to pay into our account until he completes his purchase. We already belong to him but we have only received the down payment; the full payment is yet to come!

4) He helps us commune with our Savior and heavenly Father

(Romans 8:26-27) In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. (NIV)

5) He pours our his love in our hearts

(Romans 5:1-5) Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God…. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (NIV)

6) He gives “life” to our mortal bodies

(Romans 8:10-11) But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (NIV)