God has given us Spirit for wisdom and revelation. Love and sacrifice come through Christ who humbled Himself. He took this risk for the death of the Cross to make the way for Body Life in His Church, where we esteem others. (2 Corinthians 11:13-14; Philippians 2:3-8, Ephesians 1:16-20)

Speaker: Thomas Schaller, Gary Groenewold
Date: 2023-03-22
Time: Wed 7:00pm

P. Schaller –

Okay. Amen. Praise the Lord! Yeah! Wow! Turn to Ephesians 1 just for a moment. Thanks to the Body for the great
week we had. We actually like uprooted or we were sent over to Europe and the Body of Christ
ministered so much this past week. More than a 1,000 people came together and we broke
bread and had fellowship. Prayers are answered and a lot of good stuff happened this past
week.

I want to thank you and Emma and Ryan, Sebastian. A lot of people. Over there P. Chaba, P.
Brian,…many people that helped and just served and it was awesome. Most importantly, God
showed up for us. He did. God did it all. Honestly. He did it all. It was amazing.
Did I ask you to turn to Ephesians 1? Okay. Chapter 1:16, Paul is writing to the Ephesians, and
he knows how important it is for us to understand. Understanding our life. Understanding Christ.
Understanding what we are part of. Understanding what we do, what God has called us to do.
Understanding how to think. Understanding love. Understanding faith. Understanding his plan.
So, he prays this way, vs. 16.

Alright. Praying. How much? Always thanking. Always being thankful for you. All the time in my
prayers for you, the Ephesians. Praying for them. We pray for each other. We pray for the
church that we are part of. We pray for all believers everywhere. We pray for the Hungarians
and the Indians that came and Africans and the Germans and Swedish. We pray and get to
know each other and pray for each other. Walking into that room and the love and the joy and
the sacrifice that was made to make it happen.

Not just that event but the deep thing. How did it get there? How did it get into our heart but the Holy Spirit puts it in your heart, in your heart. You come here on a Wednesday night and we give our ears and our hearts to God and
trust him that he will feed us and speak to us and that we will understand. What? Vs. 17.
Spirit. Spirit. That’s a big part of life. Discerning spirits. What spirit are we of? Remember Christ
said that to the disciples. You know not what spirit you are of. But we have by God’s grace, not
always, but we have the spirit of wisdom and revelation.

We get excited about Bible study. I remember when I got saved. One of the things that happened to me was I got excited about studying the Bible. I wanted to learn the Bible. I wanted to hear the Bible. I wanted a wise man
like the men over here on my side over here and in the congregation, I want to hear what they
say. I want that.

I don’t know why this happened but I believe it’s an answer to prayer that people have a spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. When that spirit kind of falls on you or is in you,
when that spirit leads you and you are trusting God and you get hungry and thirsty for God, then
you give your ears. You have an appetite. Maybe that’s a good way to say it. My ears. My
stomach has an appetite but my ears have an appetite. Would you like to say that to your
neighbor for a moment? Just say your ears have an appetite. Go ahead.

Now, like with food, we could eat garbage. Same with our ears. We could hear garbage. We
could hear things that are not true. We could hear gossip. We could fill our ears with something
else. And when people eat like that, they get sick. They are not healthy. When they eat the
wrong stuff and they fill their stomach with something that cannot nourish them.

But when you are nourished in your understanding and your ears have an appetite, then you
want to hear. vs. 20. I remember when I heard that message. I remember when my heart was
full. I remember when I went home thinking about what I heard. I remember that it was, God
was asking me to make a decision. I remember when I ate good food. I remember when I
understood that thing and what that meant to me. I built my life on it. I heard it. I believed it. And
I built my life on it. Imagine that. Wow! That’s amazing, isn’t it?

But I will send a famine Amos said, Amos 8:11. I will send a famine. Not of bread but of the
Word of the Lord. Be aware of that. That we are in a culture where there is not the Word of the
Lord. There’s not the conviction. There’s not the understanding. We are not wise. We are not
talking wisely. We are not seeing people’s lives helped but watching them be destroyed in many
cases. We are watching them go from one foolish thing to another foolish thing which happens
in life. So, I’m going on a fast. I’m not eating the food of the world, but I want to eat the Word
from God that will change my life and help me and make me who God wants me to be.
Who does God want you to be? How does it happen but by hearing. vs. 18.

Wow! Wow! To be godly, to be alive, to love, to forgive. How much he is glorified by us living with the new normal.
Another way. Wow. To taste that, to feel it, to know it in our heart and work at it. I mean believe
it. Trust God. Trust God with all your heart. Walk by faith in him. He will show it to you. He will.
He will minister that to you and I.

vs. 19. How much power we have. What we have in us. “Greater is he that is in you than he that
is in the world.” How much power you have in your life. How much power in your prayer. How
you resist the devil and he flees from you. How you have power with God. Jacob, your name will
be Israel for you have power with God and with men. How did this happen? It was God opened
our mind up and showed it to us and we understand who we are. How much we love each
other. How we have a purpose in this life. How we want revival in Europe. That was part of our
prayer this past week. For God to visit the churches. For God to minister to the Body of Christ
and do this in us personally.

Then vs. 19-20. That power that did that has been given to us. That kind of power that raised
him from the dead and set him at his right hand is the kind of power that we are walking in. The
kind of power that we have in our lives. The kind of power that affects us deeply and changes
our lives.

I want to say the Lord visited our conference and blessed us in this regard and people went
home rejoicing and trees clapping their hands. We understanding what we are part of and how
good God is to us and what he wants to say in this wicked world. That to be honest, the world is
in trouble as you see.

The world is in trouble in many ways, but we are God’s people with this hunger in our ears and
this stability in our heart and attitude of faith and this relationship with his power. So, we can be
humble sheep in the midst of wolves. We can be God’s people in a troubled world. We can be
clear in our lives and in our hearts waiting for his coming. Anticipating meeting him. Waiting on
God in this lifetime with his presence and his grace. Amen. Would you pray with me just for
thanksgiving. (Prayer and testimonies from Eurocon).

Okay. Just take a moment and fellowship with each other for a minute. We’ll give a short
message. Just share with each other for a little bit. Say I’m really thankful. The Spirit that we
have is, you know, so precious. We’re just thankful. You’re free to talk for a minute or if you want
or pray.

Okay. I’ve got one gem I think. I don’t know. Lord, bless this message. Ten minutes. Maybe
twelve. It doesn’t matter how long or short, right? I just want to get it. I just want to get a gem.
Okay. Humility. I think when you were talking right now with thanksgiving and just talking to each
other for a minute after hearing Cheryl, P. Gary, and those testimonies that we are thankful.
One of the roots of thankfulness is humility. When you are humble, you are thankful. They go
together. I think we are a congregation that worships and is thankful and relates to life like this.
God, thank you what you do in my life, in our lives, in every day life. Just getting up in the
morning we are thankful. How about breakfast today? Wasn’t it good? It was very good. That
piece of bread I had was very good. There was even some butter on it. Okay.

Now, the other part of life is very common and that is pride. I want to say a couple things about
that and a couple things about humility. Turn to 2 Corinthians 11. And we have the tendency in all of us
for pride. Spiritual pride. Kind of feeling – do I have my Ipad? Feeling privileged. Feeling
honored. Many of us are very privileged in life. Maybe you can say take a man or a woman,
anybody, Mr. X., and he might be in a high place somehow by way of his life. His health, his
position, his money, his reputation. Let’s say a doctor at Hopkins got the whole thing. Operating.
Very highly distinguished and honored person. But that person can also be humble. And here’s
the thing: here’s somebody of a lower status. We could even say very low. Low life. Maybe
uneducated, unemployed, poor, maybe bad habits, not so well – does this man, can he love
somebody different from him? What do we mean by love? Sacrifice. The words go together.
Sacrifice.

If he loved him, and could identify with him and care about him, his friends might say to him up
here, don’t get associated with him. Don’t get associated with that guy. Why are you with that
guy? Why do you care about that guy? Why are you, – you associate with him, you might lose
something. You might lose your reputation. You might lose your status. You might lose your
honor and so on. This is very typical. Very common. People will say I love but they don’t.
Same with this hunger for social justice. They talk about justice but do they love? It’s easy to talk
about justice but it’s another thing to talk about love and sacrifice. But proud people can’t
sacrifice. They protect. They have to protect themselves. Humble people run a risk. They can
identify and sacrifice and say I don’t care about losing my honor.

I’m a doctor at Hopkins but that is not my life. I have something else in my life. I have Christ in my life. I have the Spirit of God in my life. I have love in my heart. That person is important. That person, I care about them.
So, I think this message could really go somewhere. Maybe some time in the future we can go
over it a little bit more. I want to make a couple points. 2 Corinthians 11:13, we have false apostles.
They are not the real thing. They are not the real thing. If you take our picture here and you put
Christ there, Christ is the Son of God. He’s in heaven with God but he humbles himself to be
with us and sacrifice. What does he sacrifice? He sacrifices his privilege to be God. He
becomes a sinner. He becomes a servant. He sacrifices himself. He is humble. He is humble.
God is with him in his humility.

The Bible says that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. So, this doctor so and
so whoever he is, he has no problem coming and being with this man in order to help him. To
sacrifice his reputation or his personhood is not a problem to him because he is Spirit filled. He
is not protecting himself. He is loving. He is able to show up. He’s able to impart something to
the man. He is able to love the man. Not in word only. It’s easy to say it on the hill top that you
love or you want social justice or whatever the thing might be. But it’s another thing to be in the
game and to actually be humble before God. God brings you there.

That’s what you will see in your life when you are Spirit filled. You are able to love cause the fruit
of the Spirit is love. You’re able to be there or you’re able to love in your heart people that are
different from you or people that are maybe even a risk or people that are in a prison or people
that have problems or people that are unemployed or people that are begging for money or
people that are not that way but somehow you are able to do this because this is the nature of
God. This is something to think about. Okay.

So, we have false apostles and the idea is there you could put in the word “pride.” vs. 14.
Loaded verse. Satan is light. This is what it’s saying. He’s not light in the sense that God is light
but he’s an angel of light. He has the ability to appear as a beam of light. Now, if we put a box
here like this. The light just to say, Satan is like this box. Inside him is dark but on the outside
there is light. Do you see that? Satan inside he is a liar. Satan is a murderer and he’s a thief and
he’s a false light. Because he’s proud. The pride, he doesn’t love. He cannot love.

Now, go to God and this is interesting. God is light and no darkness at all. So, you could say
actually God is light on the outside but God is light on the inside. No darkness at all. In the same way with us as people, we could give the impression of light but inside is self. It’s pride. It’s me.
It’s me protecting myself, protecting my life, my reputation. Me protecting my benefits, my
advantages. Not loving. I cannot love. I can be a false apostle and have the message of religion
but not have the ability to be humble. I don’t have that ability. I cannot be humble without Christ.
Christ is humble.

Let’s look at that and we’ll finish. Turn to Philippians 2 and what does this have to do with p it has a lot
to do with Body life. Philippians 2 and we have the humility. vs. 3. Imagine being with a group of
people and everybody is esteeming everybody else better. They actually care about the other
and think about them as – you don’t think of yourself as much as you think of how they are. How
they are. They actually, that’s an incredible thing for human beings to do that. But this is Body
life.Body life is a fellowship of humility and thanksgiving and spiritual life and blessing. We saw it.
You know, it isn’t in word only but it is in what you see. You see a Body member. You see their
love, their quietness, their gentleness, their sacrifice. When we are in fellowship like at a
convention and I’m thinking about our patio out there as the weather warms up and how much
we like to be together and talk a little bit and have a coffee and fellowship. And then I’m thinking
of graduation. Also, convention coming up June 20th

and what happens at those times. What is it. vs. 3-4. Others. Others. How are you? Others. How far did you travel? Others. How is your mother? Others. Are you okay? Do you have enough? Is there anything I can do for you?
Others. Isn’t that amazing. When we live in a world where people on the outside are talking
about things but on the inside you have this authority in your heart and you actually, we love.
And here we have humility.

vs. 5. and we can finish. There it is. Lord Jesus, we don’t even notice you. Even in the garden of
Gethsemene, the people that came to arrest him needed to know which one it was. In the dark,
they didn’t want to arrest the wrong person. They wanted to make sure, so they needed
somebody to kiss him to identify who he was. Somebody who would know him and that was
Judas who did that. And I kind of think of it that Jesus wasn’t so identifiable in the crowd by
himself. He was one of us. He humbled himself and became one of us.

He did it because not pride. He did it out of love. He was humble. He would run the risk of losing in order to gain. But
even not sure about the gain. We can’t make a deal with God and say I will lose if my gain is
greater. It has to be I will lose because that’s your nature. I can run the risk. You love me, so I
can love others. And in that love, there is a fellowship of love.

vs. 6. That is actually the very essence of God. Harpazo, to grasp that being God. You know
how a rich man could be grasping at being rich, having the riches, keeping them for himself.
Jesus is God but he’s not grasping for. Robbery is like a snatching it. Snatching it that I am God.
Everybody must recognize that I am God. Everybody give me your attention. I am God. He
didn’t do that. He was okay losing that in the sense of people not understanding him. He was
okay with sacrificing himself for us.

vs. 7. In history, there have been kings who have come down from the throne in the evening, put
on the clothes of a beggar, walked out in the street, walked through the little cottages and find
out how the people are, what they were thinking, and who they were. And he was the king but
they didn’t recognize him as the king. Imagine this story. This doctrine. He lost and he became a
servant.

And the death of the cross in vs. 8. He was very humble. He humbled himself and became
obedient unto death. vs. 8. Even the death of the cross. Not to die only but even the death of the
cross. This is what is in our mind.

Let’s finish. This man who is privileged is not protecting himself but he is loving. He is willing to
sacrifice something for somebody else. He loves them. This is our fellowship. When that Spirit,
the Spirit of God is in us and that mind is in us, we love each other and it’s mutual. It’s
reciprocal. It happens with us that we really love each other. We don’t have to protect ourselves.
We just have the blessing of God on our life and may it always be the way we live and how we
think. Amen. Would you pray with me, please. (Prayer)

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.