We seek and love the invisible. We seek Him. We cry, “Abba, Father.” Jesus came with the security of love as the Whole Person. He knew who He was and is. All things are made new in Him. Everything about me perfected in Him.  (Psalm 34:10, 1Peter 4:8-10)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller, Pastor Jim Lewis
Sermon # 11466
11:00 AM on 5/6/2018

P. Jim Lewis

I’m the one who got hit by a tram in Poland. It’s okay to laugh! Get over the fact that I’m still alive. My wife laughed after she cried. We’re planning on coming for Convention. We have people planning on coming. Keep that in prayer. I confessed also earlier that I am a needy Christian. I have needs and so do you. I know there was a poster or saying that where there is God, there is no need. But where there is God, there is a need for me to be where God is. God is here. Where two or more gather and the word is preached, God is here. We should have a need to be here. It goes beyond a desire or want or wish. It’s a necessity. Job said I have esteemed the words of your mouth more than my necessary food. Because it’s necessary for us to eat or drink to live, we spend a lot of energy, money and time just to buy food to put on the table to live and keep going. We don’t think about it because it’s a need I have to meet. If we could just look at going to church, being with the Body, seeing each other’s portions in Christ isn’t just something if I feel good or the weather is fine. It’s I have a need. If I have to drive through the rain, I’ll do it. If have to drive 400 miles, I’ll do it. It’s necessary for my spiritual life and growth. I need to see portions in the Body. Everyone has a portion. The devil comes and lies to people and says no body even knows I’m there. What do I do? I sit there and listen. That’s a tremendous thing. Concentration is the highest form of worship. You enter into worship if we all concentrate and sit and listen. The anointing would be tremendous. Needs are met without words being spoken. It’s the presence of the H.S. and the members in particular. I need to have the love of the Body; I need to be prayed for. If I’m going to preach the word, I need to hear it. I need to sit and know he’s God. Going to church we were talking about schedules and details of life and how the devil loves to bring those into play. I was talking to a gentlemen and he was saying wants versus needs. I want to go to church but. You made an excuse not to go. When I say I need to be there, I’m not going to give myself an out. It’s a necessity. To hear the word, to see the Body, experience the Holy Spirit’s presence in the Body. Don’t take it lightly. It’s more important to me now than ever before. I encourage you to be needy Christians this morning.

P. Schaller

Greetings from China. We were there for five days. It was a great trip. We had a GG conference there with believers from different cities in China. One of the meeting places was a room this size and a few hundred gathered. I want to share a little of that with you this morning.

Ps. 34, we are so thankful for the GG missionaries who have labored in China through the years. We are a Body, the Body of Christ. P. Lewis is pastoring in Peabody Massachusetts. He got hit by the train in Poland. He was in a car driving during Eurocon. He ran into a tram or it ran into him. He has a heart after God and became the pastor in Peabody. They had no building but a lot of hunger and people in the Lord. One family took their house and blew out their bedroom wall. They assemble in that large room with 80 chairs. People wanted a building but he said no building until all the chairs are filled. He’s a tough guy! Now the chairs are filled. Now they are looking for a building. Maybe the family gets the bedroom back!

Ps. 34:10 (picture of lions). Go ahead (making a lion noise). I googled it and the alpha male lion when it roars it goes 5 miles. If it gets in a battle with another lion, when it loses, its roar changes. The jungle knows. They know the roar of the winner. Isn’t that interesting? I know you don’t believe me! Google it yourself!

vs. 10. This is Spurgeon “young lions are very strong, very crafty. They howl for hunger in the wood. They’re very bold and furious. They are not stayed from any need of depredation yet for all that they sometimes suffer hunger. These are just the type of many men in the world. They are strong men. They are cunning men. They are at times smart, sharp men. If anybody would be well supplied, one would think they should be. But many of them go to bankruptcy and ruin, and with all their cunning they are too cunning. And when they’re unscrupulous, they manage…full of and come to an ill end, they lack and suffer hunger. But here are the people of God. They are regarded as simpletons. Such simpletons as to seek the Lord. Instead of adopting the maxims of universal worldly wisdom, namely seek yourself, they have given up what is called the first law of human nature, namely, self-seeking, self-pleasing, self-serving and they have come to seek the Lord. To seek to magnify him. And what comes of their simplicity? They shall not want any good thing. Notwithstanding their want of power, their want of cunning, and the check which conscience also puts upon them. They cannot do what others can do to enrich themselves. Yet for all that, they have a fortune ensured to them. They shall not want any good thing.”

Isn’t that good. These animals are powerful. You think they can do it. They can always get what they want but it’s not true. They that seek the Lord we have found another way. We have a new heart, a new creation. We are people after God. We want God. God is invisible. That’s the point. There are people that live not with the invisible God but visible world of natural strength and wisdom and they suffer and lack and hunger. Sometimes they get their prey for sure but some day they will lack. Another group born again with a new heart and spirit. We are looking at the invisible. We ae seeking the invisible. We are believing in the invisible. We are worshipping the invisible. We know our heavenly Father because he has put in us the Spirit whereby we cry Abba, Father. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. You are awesome. I think you felt it. I can be strong and crafty and deceitful and proud and live my life like that and look for what I want and get what I want. I can go on social media and get what I want. Go after what I want.

There is another category of people. Someone said in Gethsemane when Jesus prayed, he said not my will be thine be done. There are just two categories of people: those that say my will be done and those that say not my will but your will be done.

Heart of man. Put a hole in it. Put a hole in the heart of man because there are two things man needs and he lost them. When he has God, we could say there is no hole in the heart. He has these two things: security and significance. I am valuable. I am important. Security. It’s safe. I’m not in trouble. I might be in trouble but my heart is not. God loves me. I am valuable because I can love another. To love and be loved. You can put them in the other order. I want to be loved and to love is very simple. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden and they sinned, this is what they lost. They lost their security and their value. They lost God. The nature of man is to try and fill the hole with something. There’s nothing to fill the heart with, revolving small things. A job, a friend, a pile of money. Good health, good looks, importance in society. I’m needy. Where can I find it? Jesus came into the world with it. This is the heart of God, the heart of Christ. He came with the security and the love. He came as a whole person. He wasn’t confused. He knew who he was. He had the relationship with his Father. He loved the Father and the Father loved him perfectly. He had no sin so no complicated psychology or wondering who I am.

What is my value and my purpose? I don’t see. I am lacking. I am missing something. When you are born again, you are given a new heart. In our life, we have one or the other operating in my life. When I am Spirit filled walking in the newness of who we are, I can sense this. I’m secure. I feel the comfort of the Holy Spirit. I feel the clarity of God’s mind. I feel there is not a question….In the mind of God old things are passed away and all things become new. Then we live in the flesh, the OSN. It’s connected with my material body. It’s with me as long as my material body is living. When it drops to the ground, halleluiah, I will not be in it. I will be gone without sin. The sin was put on Jesus and attached to my mortal body. My sins are gone when my mortal body drops dead. It’s never again a part of my life. This insecurity and search for value will never plague me again. I’ll never experience that again when we leave our body. In Romans, we have our teaching on the sin nature. We know we have sin that dwells in our mortal body. I’m not identifying with myself this way. I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ lives in me. The life I live in live by the faith of the son of God. This heart, this man, I am crucified with Christ. He was nailed to the cross. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. But not me. He’s crucified. Nevertheless I live but not I. I don’t live. Yet not I. But I live. I live, but not I. I live but not I. I’m not living there. That sin nature is what we allow to dominate unfortunately. We allow it to rule and reign in our life. We believe it and embrace it. This is the reality of my life. My sin nature. That’s me. That’s what we do. You came here today to hear another message. That’s what we don’t do. I am crucified with him and I live. The life I now live, I live how? By the faith of the Son of God. Doesn’t even say my faith. This new heart is God’s heart. It’s a new one. It’s not my heart scrubbed clean and fixed up, and do the best you can. No, you must be born again. You must have a new heart. That heart is not yours in that sense. Now I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and died for me. The Son of God is given us this new life. It’s an amazing new life of love and fellowship in him. Body life.

1 Pet 4, this is what I saw in China and everywhere in the world where we are available to God. I want to say thank you to the Body. I love you guys so much. You’re amazing. I mean it in the greatest sense of the meaning. Not any other meaning but the reality of what we are talking about. This is Body life. Ever been in a garden party where you were self-conscious and protocols are important? Did I say the right thing? Am I looking okay? The protocol and behavior and do I fit in. Have you ever been in one of those situations? I’m so thankful we have been given something unexplainable where you have a person inside. You’re not caring about the things people care about in the garden party. You’re not caring about your reputation or impression you make on people. You have found love and security. Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. You’ll be free indeed. Real freedom. Freedom inside, in your heart. I am loving people. Doesn’t matter what people think of me. The ultimate non- conformity. Jesus was genuinely free so he wasn’t afraid of rejection. He was the expression of God in a sinful world. When God shows up, there is real freedom. When we are together as a group, there is real freedom. That freedom is our new heart. I know I’m loved and you know and I know I’m secure and you know but not aware of it because I’m not self-conscious. Not trying to attain anything. We’ve been given a new life.

In China, I saw this. A group of people sitting and taking notes. China is a different country, language, food. In a Communist country. But Communism is this kind of picture. Who’s in charge and who is the better man and the lesser one and who has the connections? It’s the same story everywhere in the world. When you have Body life, the heart of God in your spirit, we find freedom in Christ and the Spirit fills us and we love each other when we don’t even know each other. I know who you are in Christ. Doesn’t matter what city or language or country or generation or century you have lived. I always thought the first century Christians would be comfortable here with us apart from their clothing. Even with their clothing. They would bear witness to Christ in us. We would recognize it in them and have a trans-time fellowship. An eternal relationship with the same heart and mind as revealed in the Scriptures.

1 Pet 4:8, fervent charity, AGAPE love. The love of 1 Cor 13. The love is to be fervent among yourselves. That can’t happen without this death. I am alive but not me. Who cares about you? He is not at the center of our fellowship but AGAPE love. We have fervent charity. It’s ridiculous to think a church would be based – what is the ground for our fellowship? It’s the cross. That means I have Christ in my life and this is where we meet. Some churches meet on their denominational grounds. Have I been baptized? What if not? Can I still have fellowship with you? What is the grounds? GG or Pentecostal. What is the basis of our handshake? It’s love. Have fervent love amongst yourself. Love one another. We are not to be divided. We are not divided by his strength, his pride, his opinions, his prejudices. For a church to be based on race is not correct. How could it be based on my culture or race or country I came from? I understand if Russians what to fellowship and speak Russian in their assembly, that can be done. But if non-Russian speakers enter in, we would have the same fellowship in a fellowship of fervent love one for another. We have many nations here: Cameron, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Philippines, Chinese, Thais, etc. with the headphones on and listening to the message.

vs. 8. Here’s a man and he has a gift. Here’s another man or woman in the church and they have something. Maybe it’s questionable going on in their life. What does the brother do? He has fervent charity. Love will cover a multitude of sins. I don’t know who you are. I am like Jesus and his heart and it’s to love and give grace. He said I came not to judge. I came to save the world. My word will judge at the last day. Not now. I’m loving him with a fervent love and it will cover a multitude of sins. This guy will say what’s going on? No one has loved me like that before. You don’t know me. We had a service in Hungary and shaking hands at the door, I was saying I love you. One woman said how could you say I love you? You don’t even know me. What would you say? Good question. How can I love you? I don’t even know you. You’re a criminal or something. I should first know you and decide if I love you, right? No, God loves people period. God came to save people. God loves people fervently with AGAPE love. I don’t know if I said it at that spot but later that night I was thinking about it. The answer is this. I don’t love you because I know you. I love you because God loves me and I love you because God loves you. I’m not loving you because I know you. God died for you. Christ loves you. How do we love each other in this room? We’re not loving each other because we know each other and have been to the garden party together. Have we lost sight of finding out who I am and rather know who he is and what he has made me to be in him. I live but not I but Christ lives in us. This is the fellowship in the mystery of the Body of Christ.

1 Peter 4:9 you give something to someone, then don’t complain afterwards about doing it. You open your home up; don’t be begrudging afterwards. Share a ride with someone and do it happily because of your new life.

1 Pet 4:10, even so minister the gift. I think this is why some of us stay out of drugs and other temptations. We have so much fun ministering the gift. This is why so many of us live for decades in the faith. This is what is happening with new people coming into our fellowship. They hang out and minister the gift. They spend time before or after the service. They come on a Monday night or a Wednesday night and they minister the gift. The women’s ministry ministering the gift. The Sunday school ministering the gift. The teens gone this weekend in the Poconos ministering the gift. GGCA our day school, at the home schools, the moms and dads doing the best they can ministering the gift. We have a gift and we learn to minster it. We also learn to wait on God. The butler in the English home standing in the big room and he has this concentration on serving. Is he doing anything? Right now he’s just waiting. Is he doing anything? Not at the moment. He’s a servant. Everything was ready and prepared and it looks like he is doing nothing. That is like us sometimes. I’m seeking the Lord. I’m waiting on God. I know he will take care of me. Other people are more clever or strong and live their natural way. I am waiting on God. He will take care of me. I’m able to go and wait on him. Our lives are blessed. We seek God and we find him.

Is 55:6, Jer 29:13, 1 Peter 4:10, stewards. I used to have a shed filled with junk. I went on a trip and my wife got busy. I came back. Where is my favorite junk? I didn’t throw anything out. Where’s my jacket? Oh, that did go. A steward. You don’t let things rot. You don’t let things go in the attic and never see them. Dirty, not used, no value there. A steward. We know what is valuable. The gift God has given us is valuable. Don’t get discouraged. Be encouraged. You have a gift and you are a steward of it. As you use it, it will help you. I don’t care about the other kind of life. Can you imagine if I go to a bar room and talk foolishness and drinking? We need to grow in who we are. When you grow in who you are, you can’t imagine going back to the pigsty. I don’t want to go back to the vomit. I don’t want to return to my old ways. I don’t like the pride of the jealousy of the human heart, the envy, the fear, and the insecurity of the human heart. Stewards of the manifold, many sided, many aspects, manifold grace of God. A lot of grace. A lot of it is ministered. To us.

We were in China. These people have found the grace of God. They’re so excited about it. Some want to be pastors. Some are living in faith. We saw the work of God in China. It’s not just GG. The word on the street is many Chinese are coming to Christ.

It relates to P. Hadley’s offering, until the times of the Gentiles is completed. We are watching it in Nepal, China, Iran, in Pakistan. It’s in this country where they are falling away. But not us I hope. We are showing up. Become a church goer. Don’t make it a condition. If the sun is shining, I’ll go. If there’s rain or it’s cold, I won’t go. If you give out a free coffee, I’ll go. If they ask for money, I won’t go. If they preach about grace, I will go. If they preach about hell, I will not go. You are Peter built. Peter built trucks. You are built for life, for Christ, for God, for reality. Enough of the garden party emptiness. We go the real thing. When young people get the real thing they are hungry for. I remember preaching in the Soviet Union and the KGB officer I saw the change in her face when she realized what I was saying may be true and she is wrong. Maybe she is wrong and Communism is wrong and what that preacher is saying is true.

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.