Changed into his Likeness 17

By Pastor Samuel Chess

Grace Emmanuel Church

Port St. Lucie, Florida

(Joint Heirs With Jesus)

I. The Principle of Divine Exchange

II. The Principle of Deliverance

III. Appropriating Divine Exchange and Divine Deliverance

A) Joint heirs with Jesus!

These nine exchanges and these five deliverances are wonderful to talk about. They are the inheritance of every Christian believer. Remember you are joint heirs with Jesus and everything victory that he won as a result of his death on the cross and his resurrection to eternal life has been given to you as your spiritual inheritance!

It is absolutely true to you, personally, that:

Jesus was punished so that you might be (are) forgiven!

Jesus died your death so you might share His life!

Your old life died in Jesus so that His new life might live in you!

It’s just as true that:

You have been delivered from this present evil

You have been delivered from self and selfishness

You have been delivered from the world

All this has been provided for you, it is yours, it became part of your spiritual inheritance when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior…

Why then does it sometimes seem like you don’t actually possess some of these things?

Illustration: Let’s just say that somebody close to you, this last year, gave an enormous amount of themselves to make or buy you a present for Christmas. They brought it to you as something that would make a radical difference in your life and presented it to you on Christmas morning. You thanked them for the gift, told them how grateful you were that they had gone to such trouble to give so much of themselves on your behalf. You assured them that this gift was going to, indeed, be a life changer, and every few hours you returned to the subject of thanking them for their precious gift.

But when Christmas day came to an end; the gift, oddly, stayed under the tree and when the tree was finally taken down the gift conspicuously sat there.

After a while the gift was pushed off behind the couch because it’s presence was out of place in the normal look of the room, and finally the gift was shoved into a closet because it’s reminding presence was just downright embarrassing.

Did you legitimately receive the gift?

Was it your gift to keep and use?

Would the use of the gift make a difference in your life?

So if you have the gift, and it’s yours, and the promise is that the use of the gift will make a marked difference in your life; why then doesn’t the gift live up to it’s promise?_____________________________________________

In order for the 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) God’s Pattern…from the Book of Joshua

God doesn’t tend to change His pattern in dealing with humanity from generation to generation. Bill Gothard (who will be teaching our Anger Resolution Seminar next month)

Talks about the “ways of God”….if we can discover how God does something with several groups of people in Scripture, we can be fairly certain he will act consistently in every generation to follow.

We have a perfect example of how God treated the Children of Israel; as He led them into their promised land to guide us as He leads us into our new life in Christ.

After Moses died God gave Joshua the huge task of leading the Children of Israel into Canaan. Here’s what God said to Joshua about their new gift:

(Joshua 1:2-3) "Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land which I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. (RSV)

I checked a number of versions and most all of them pick up the fact that there are two distinct tenses used in these two sentences:

In verse two God says: go into the land I am giving to them…

In verse three God says: Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you…

One is very clearly present tense (am giving) with future implications

The other is clearly past tense: something already completed.

How do you explain God promising that He is in the process of giving Israel something that He then says He already gave them.

From the moment God promised Moses that he was giving the land of Canaan to Israel that land legally became theirs….Not legally in a human sense but legally in a divine sense.

Human laws bring legal rights….more importantly, God’s law brings legal rights.

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

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

It’s like the Christmas gift we talked about earlier… From the moment your loved one gave you the gift, it was yours….. But…. experientially the gift will not be yours until you pick it up and began using it the way it was intended to be used!

Israel could have had at least three wrong responses:

1) The first could have been discouragement: God said He was giving us the land of Canaan but look; we really don’t have any more than we had before!

Application:

2) Or they could have lined up on the east bank of the Jordan river and declared, the land is ours…thank God for his wonderful gift; then settled down to live there without actually ever taking possession of the land that had been promised them.

Application:

3) The third option is they could have actually crossed the Jordan, lined up on the west side of the river, said “see that land…it’s all ours…thanked God for his wonderful gift but never actually advanced in to possess the land.

Application:

Remember…when Israel crossed the Jordan and said, “see that land, it’s all ours”, legally they were right! Experientially… they were wrong!

Listen close: Legally, once you are born again you are hears of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ:

(Romans 8:17) Now if we are children, then we are heirs-- heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…... (NIV)

Everything Jesus provided for on the cross belongs to us, it has already been fully provided, it is already ours! Amen?…. Experientially, when a person gives his heart to Christ he may have instantly inherited all that Christ provided on the cross but he certainly does not immediately appropriate everything Jesus provided for him.

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

Do you remember this verse that I used earlier in this series?

(Hebrews 10:12-14) But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God…..For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. (NKJV)

Did you get that…. He has perfected forever ( done deal) those who are being sanctified. (not a done deal)

The Israelites once they got over the Jordan and into their Promised Land still had to come to possess what they already legally possessed.

There are even more comparisons here between the Israelites accepting their gift from God and you accepting your gift from God.

God performed two big miracles to bring the Israelites into the Promised land… the heaping up of the Jordan Rover and the destruction of Jericho.

Oddly after that time Israel then started to have to spend some real energy to conquer new territory…..maybe that’s not so odd after all.

Many of us when we came to Christ kind of rode on a wave of God’s grace that seemed to push all of satan’s attacks and opposition out of the way….for a while.. Then God seems to make us have to exert more spiritual commitment to achieve the next steps he had planned for us. That’s not an accident…or even a bad thing.

God wants to know how serious you are about coming into all the grace that he has provided for you, how serious you are about leaving the old ways behind…how serious you are about unwrapping his gift and putting it to use for the purpose it was intended…….How serious are you???

Interestingly enough Israel did not press straight on into what God intended for them. They made some advances, then they retreated a little bit….then they advanced some more. At some disastrous point they decided it would be easier to leave some of the enemy in place and just learn to co-exist with them rather than to drive them out and live in purity! It was disastrous!

Do I really need to apply this?__________________________________

Well I decided to anyway! If you are going to stand on the west side of salvation and say, All that Christ provided for me is mine…I’ll be happy to accept that fact, thank you very much. Yes I, know that in my personal life I am still living with heathen Canaanite people and practices on every side, but God promised me that this land is mine and Bless God, In spite of the fact that all the old inhabitants are still living here I’m content in the fact that God has declared this land my promised possession!

If you decide that is the way you are going to live…you are going to live in spiritual defeat!!! Israel spent hundreds of year vacillating between victory and defeat…They spent scores of generations, for a while rejecting the sinful temptations they had allowed to coexist in their promised land, and at other times completely giving in to them. Finally God drove them completely out of the promised land altogether until they could become pure in their devotion to the one true God. Finally the prophet Obadiah records a promise to Israel from God that is very interesting:

(Obadiah 1:17) "But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance, And there shall be holiness; The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. (NKJV)

Deliverance…..

Holiness…….

God’s people possessing their possessions!!!

C) Possessing our Possessions

How does one go about possessing our possessions? If gets a little tricky here because nothing about our salvation is what we earn.

Our salvation is not based on what we do!

Yet, if we do nothing, (stand on the side of Jordan and declare the land ours) we end up claiming everything and possessing nothing.

What absolute, necessary, ingredient is required in Christian faith that is both something you do and something you don’t do all at the same time?____

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)

True or False: You gotta have faith!

True or False: You gotta have faith that God exists!

True or False: You gotta have faith that God rewards seekers!

True or False You gotta believe that God rewards those who diligently seek him!

True or False: You gotta have faith and…… diligence!

All-right how does faith come?____________________________

(Romans 10:17) So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (NKJV)

One of the reasons the Elders are trying so hard to get you to ingest the Word of God this year is because we know that that is a sure way to increase your faith. But I want you to notice that Romans does not say: “Faith comes by reading the Word of God”…it say:

“faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God.”

Faith does not come by reading the Bible; it comes by hearing from God through the Bible! Hearing comes first…then comes faith.

Greek for Word here is not “logos”….it’s the Greek work Rhema

“Logos” of God is established in Heaven forever; but it becomes “Rhema” when it gets off of the page and buries itself in your heart.

(Matthew 4:4) Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word (rhema) that comes from the mouth of God.'"

2) Embracing the Guidance of the Holy Spirit

God is not a bit interested in His children reaching 20% or 30% of their spiritual potential.

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)

A) Holy Spirit Administrates your Salvation:

(John 16:7) "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. (NKJV)

B) Holy Spirit guides you into all Truth and Points to Jesus:

(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)

C) Holy Spirit helps us discern Truth:

(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.

Conclusion:

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