The death of Christ at the Cross propitiated the Law of God. All debts were paid. This made it possible for His mercy to flow freely toward us. (John 3:18-19; Ecclesiastes 9:1; 1 Corinthians 3:21-22)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller, Pastor Muhib Khalifa
Sermon # 11317
11:00 AM on 8/20/2017

 
P. Muhib

In Bible school we learned when we hear truth, we possess it. We take ownership of truth. God wants to give his people the mind of Christ. We have every legal right that Christ has with the Father. That’s amazing. You do have that legal right. I love reading the four Gospels. He’s interacting with people.

Mt. 4:16a, imagine J.C. coming to the scene in Jerusalem. These people are used to a religious culture. In that culture, there is a religious man, the lawyers, the teachers of the law. Christ had what they lacked. They lacked the power. They did not have the authority to teach. Christ came to them. They are all in darkness. Jesus didn’t come to condemn. He came to take them from that darkness. He knew when people get transformed from darkness to light, they get in a process of learning. It doesn’t happen overnight. Jesus gave them a position right away but to experience the light they need time to glean and get R imparted to them. When they believed, it was imputed but they need time for R to be imparted. I divided these people into 2 categories.

Mt 4:23 Jesus is going around teaching and healing and raising the dead.

Category 1 they were following Christ because of his fame and things he’s able to do. He can get things done. They look on him as a human being. They don’t know doctrine. They don’t know much. Jesus is receiving them and loving them. Just follow me and learn. It takes time. Taking time with God. They are being loved and welcomed. Christ is saying come along and enjoy the journey with me.

Category 2 is where we are as a church. Jn 4 Jesus came and met the woman by the well. She believed and went to Samaria and said I met a man who told everything about me. They believed. Were these people in darkness? These people that just believed hadn’t seen Christ. Actually, Christ went to Samaria and preached and more people believed.

We heard the message and got transformed from darkness to light. Doesn’t mean we are perfect in our experience. We can be in complete failure but we get up. I’d like to know what is in the mind of God concerning my experience. God says there are provisions – Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening and Bible college. We are category 2 people. We listen, we sat down by faith and we take ownership of truth. The Father said to the Son you will become like them. You will appear to them as a mere human being and will reveal my mind. You are the logos. In Bible college, you start to learn who you are in Christ. Two floors. Get diagrams, and P. Schaller and other pastors. It’s exciting. It takes time. You are perfect in Christ but you aren’t going to be perfect. The learning process takes place and you enjoy it and love it.

P. Schaller

Have any of you interpreted you life through your experiences? Through the good times and the bad times. When it’s a good time, God’s blessing is on me. When it’s a bad time, you wonder what is going on. Two principles to cover today. We pray the Spirit will minister to us. (Ec. 9).

We will speak on the doctrine of propitiation. If you come to this church and are being taught the Bible – I hope that is the case – then you will hear over and over two principles. The doctrine of justification or salvation. We are saved and have our status or our standing or we say our position. What is our legal status? What is our position in what God has planned before the foundation of the world? We need to get adjusted to the privilege of thinking with divine viewpoint. The Bible is really revelation. It opens our eyes and we see beyond the curtain of life. How do we know this? Christ said the mystery of the kingdom of God is like. And then he would tell the earthly story. The seed is the Word of God and the seed is sown. This is the mystery of the kingdom. P. Scibelli preached recently on the mystery. It’s not so obvious to me. I need help in understanding it. This book is written over 1,600 years by 40 men moved by the Holy Spirit to write down their part. All of it comes together so not one part lacks her mate (Is. 34:16).

They gambled for Jesus’ garment. It was woven through and through. If uncut, it would unravel. In the same way, the Bible is one message and all that goes together. By this we learn things we would not understand otherwise. What is our standing or status or position? It’s what God has done for us through the crucifixion of his Son. When Jesus died on the Cross, something happened. He died for our sin. We were crucified with him. When he was on the Cross, he was forsaken by the Father. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What does this mean? What happened on the Cross? You will see by God’s grace and understand something happened on the Cross that is the greatest news you could ever hear, the most important thing you could ever understand, the greatest work God’s ever done. With his finger he made the universe but with his arm he saved you. He did something when Christ was crucified that was beyond.

Eph 3:20, 2 Cor 9:15 thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. It transcends our language. In a way, it transcends what we could think. It’s God’s great work, his mystical work in becoming a man and taking our place. By his blood, God would be propitiated. The principle is simple. In paganism, the minds of men had ideas about the gods. They would say the gods are unhappy with us. We need to offer up pigs or sacrifices. Even human beings, the blood of a child. The blood of Moloch and Chemosh. I read about the Mayan Indians in Mexico. They had huge ziggurat temples. Two Catholic priests were in the area and heard they had slaughtered in one month 125,000. With the blood running down the temple walls day and night to appease or propitiate to make peace with the gods. This word is also used in our Bible. He teaches us the blood of the lamb would propitiate God. God would be wanting the blood of the lamb. God wanted a sacrifice for sin. God is not like a pagan god and is angry and must appease by the blood of animals and people. Our God is merciful and loving all the time. When it comes to our sin, he hates it. He and sin do not go together. You have truth and the truth is I hate the sin. God is saying I am a merciful God and I want to give mercy. I can’t give mercy without truth being satisfied. I have to have truth and never violate it. I can’t give mercy without truth being satisfied. It could be illustrated many ways.

A young girl is speeding in a town and her dad was a judge. He gave her a ticket and went to court. Her dad heard the case. She was guilty and the fine was $125. He went in the back room and changed his clothes, and went out and as her dad gave mercy and paid the fine. He paid the fine and met the judgment on the basis of truth and in doing that he was able to say you are forgiven. I paid it.

In the same way as us. We have a standing now. We have a position that is secure. God said guilty, gave his Son and the Son’s blood propitiates the Father. The Father says I’m satisfied with him and her and I’m happy to give yout mercy without end. My mercy is everlasting. I’m able to give mercy again and again and pour my blessing out on people. They are saved, salvation, justification, redemption, reconciliation, and this word propitiation. I cannot see their sin. I see the blood. I see my Son. I cannot see it the way you see it. The way you and I see ourselves is different from the way God sees us. The world is condemned. I can feel it. My guilt. I am late, short or coming up short, deficient, and not enough. I don’t work enough, pray enough, not good enough, humble enough. I am condemned.

The other word we can use that happens in life with us is my experience. My experience I sense condemnation. Where does it come from? In the subconscious mind. They say the subconscious mind is filled with all kinds of underlying thoughts and experiences not consciously brought to service. 90% of our brain operates out of the subconscious mind. Guilt is often a normal part of the sin nature of man. Guilt and fear and shame. We feel it and sense it. In our experience we may walk around in some kind of vain religious idea about my life. When something bad happens, I interpret it as of course that happens to me. I was in an accident because my daughter is sick because or I have problems at work because this happens to us.

We have two words that are part of our new life as believers. They are our position and you may hear us talk about it because we teach about it often, and our experience. I am seated in heavenly places. That’s my position. How about my experience. I have to be honest it does happen we feel and sense we are in heavenly places while seated in Baltimore [and vice versa]. When God gave his Son, he gave him not so we would be struggling in this life but so there would be an outpouring of his Spirit in our life. He gave his Son so our mind would be renewed. We would feel the victory in the Son of God. Not so much circumstances good or bad but interpreting things by the thought God has, the reality of God’s thought. We have the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus. We are learning to think the right way. We have a tendency to interpret life based on what we feel and experience and in our circumstances. What a great subject. Are you following it with me? We died and were raised from the dead. Really? Yes, really. Wait, you died? Yes, I died. They that believe in him shall never die. He died once and we died with him and we will never die. We will die one day. Not me. I will leave my body. I will not die. He tasted death for every man. We look at a dead body and we say he died. We don’t contest that but did he really die or leave his body in full life? He just leaves his body and is 100% alive.

He’s absent from the body and present with the Lord in Php 1. We are without sin. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things have passed away; all things have become new. Sounds good. That’s not my experience. We said in your position you are without sin. You are as righteous as God. He has declared you to be.

He’s glorified you even in Rom 8:29. What shall we say to these things?…all things?

Rom 8:32. Do you see in all these things even persecution, death, sword, peril, and things to come – nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors. Hold it. What’s conqueror. Napoleon Bonaparte and Patton and Lincoln and Grant conquered. Military men conquered. Then they died. We are more than conquerors because we conquer and even more than them we have conquered death. They have too if they are believers. Just men that conquer will one day be conquered. In Christ we are more than conquerors. We will never be conquered. This is our position, our privilege at our family table. This is our heavenly Father speaking to us. Saying to us from the Bible you are my children and I will never be against you. I will never let you down. I’ll always pour my blessing on you. I have chosen you and elected you. You need not fear anything. It’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. At my right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Ps 16:11).

In his presence is the fullness of joy. In the presence of God is the fullness of joy. Our position. Propitiation made it happen. God could say I’m angry at the wicked every day. What does it mean? He says I hate wickedness. Did you ever hate the guy you worked with? Hate the lying, cheating always eating you lunch! You work with him for a couple years and hate what he represents. Have you ever come face to face with a demonic mentality that plagues and hurts and offends? Put that on steroids and God hates iniquity. He cannot stand it. It is not part of him. He cannot relate to it. There is a separation between God and evil. God made a place possible for us to give abundant mercy to us day and night and never stop. He gave us a position that is secure and can’t be changed. You can’t change it if you are born of God. You are secure. Keep them Father. Keep them. Keep them. He said it seven times. The Father answers the prayer. He is able to keep you. You have an amazing position.

Ec. 9:1 in the context, he is not able to figure out life, not able to figure out why good things happen to good people and vice versa. Why bad things happen to bad people. Why in the beginning of a life it was good and later bad and bad at the beginning and good later and bad again. Never able to figure out how this works.

vs. 1. That is a message in itself and would take a whole 30 minutes to do a good job on it. It’s enough to think about this week. I think about it in life. Why did that happen to that person? Why did an evil man get a hundred children, live a long life, have so much money, live such a good life and seem like he died happy? Why was he protected? Why did God protect the evil man and give him a long life?

Ps. 73.8. It’s a great theme. Another man is godly and ends up sick at 39, has a cancer and dies young. Never married, lives in poverty and yet a godly man and in many ways blessed of God. How can you figure this life out? Some of you are new believers and some are visitors. I have some feeling about it, passion about it. I think it’s a great mistake to live like that. And for me, I have to get beyond it. No man knows either love or hatred by all that is before them. How I see and look at life I don’t know love or hatred by what I see. A car accident and someone says God hates me. That’s so superficial. Great birthday party, God loves me because what I see. You can’t know love or hatred by what you are seeing. You cannot interpret life that way. My position has nothing to do with how many children you have or what your income is. It has to do with God’s mind and giving his Son. It has to do with what God says happened there. Who am I? How am I thinking? What spirit do I have? What is God’s mind? Someone has a car accident. Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward (Job 5:7).

Jn 16:33…but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. There is something deeper. We possess something incredible. You don’t realize I have problems at work and might lose my job. I understand but I’m happy you can come to a church and hear about your position and what God has to say to you about life, about who you are, about what spirit you have and you have prayer. You become a lender and not a borrower.

De 28:12, the Bible has a historical, literal meaning and many spiritual applications. He is speaking to the Jewish people and then many applications. It also applies to us.

We are spiritual Jews in Rom 2:29. There is a message to the Jews and we go to Israel every couple years and pray for Israel. The Spirit of God gave us the Bible and I appreciate it so much.

vs. 12. You’ll get all the food you need and you’ll lend to many nations and not borrow.

You will be the head and not the tail, vs. 13. When you walk around and say I got in a car accident and say God doesn’t have favor with me, you are the tail, interpreting life by your circumstances. That circumstance will be the head. Here’s a snake, the head and the tail follows. The head is in charge and you follow. That’s how you interpret life. My baby is sick so what did I do to cause that? I lost my job. Why doesn’t God bless me? I’m the tail because circumstance is in charge. Circumstance is telling me what God thinks about me. Tha’s wrong. That’s not true. By the propitiation, his favor is toward us so he gives us all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. I felt it in prayer. This is what I feel. I sense it. It’s stirring me in the Spirit. I understand, Lord. People that have things they have their material life and are afraid of losing it. They have a new boat and afraid of who will steal it, when will it get old or break. I become a borrower. I’m the tail and not the head. I need you to help me, give to me. I’m a victim. Make me happy. Consumer generation. Give me, give me, give me. The horse leach has two daughters crying give, give. It’s a lot of fun when you start to think and hear from God saying to you, I am for you. I am for you no matter what it looks like. Joseph is in prison. What’s the big deal? Thanks for the free food! I’m in charge. What are you talking about?

1 Cor 3:22, all things are yours. What do you mean all is yours? Isn’t it hard to get it? That’s what I’m feeling today. God is saying you are in charge. You have credit card debt, but you’re in charge. I’m a lousy spender and saver but listen to me, you are in charge. Do you get it? Christ dwells in you. He is in charge. You are in charge because the Spirit of Christ dwells in you. If you would realize what happened at the Cross, you will be able to appropriate, live in, relate to, embrace that reality, your position and say I am a child of God. The Spirit of God does dwell in me and I have his mind. I’m able to lend to others. I can help you. I have got God. He helps. Remember Cain said am I your brother’s keeper? Jesus would answer yes. I am your brother’s keeper. I have given you a new life. Enjoy it. Walk in it. If you interpret your life and drag yourself around and interpret your life by experiences, circumstances and you’ll be the tail. All it takes is one bad relationship with someone who tells you off and you’re devastated by it. God will say you are bigger than what anyone can throw at you. Sticks and stone may break my bones but names will never hurt me! I can’t remember Scripture, so I quoted that! Our life collapses by things people say and things that happen. You come so there is depth in your spirit and heart. You are opening up your Bible and learning it in a beautiful way. We find a new way of satisfaction. Drinking a glass of cold spiritual water and finding satisfaction. I’m understanding my life is bigger than all these things. All these things are ours. We are the head and not the tail. We are able to give to others. What I have received, I received freely and what we give out, we give out freely. God loves you and is giving you a new opportunity to know him in your position and walk in it in your experience.

Be not drunk with wine. Why? Wine affects my nervous system. I have zero tolerance for alcohol. “You should drink a little. It’s not stylish.” I don’t drink at all. Zero. Abraham Lincoln never drank. He didn’t and other successful people don’t drink at all. We have a relationship with God and we dance and sing and clap and get wisdom and live in love. I don’t need any of that. It causes car accidents, kills people, and divides marriages. You say something foolish and you say did I say that to him? You said it and the relationship is over. I got a lot of things to say about it. That’s another message. Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to yourself – that means self-talk. My position, the words of God. Not just me. I’d be bored to death if it was just me. Put me in a room alone for 24 hours and it drives me crazy but put this in the room (the Bible), put God in the room. Singing, making melody to yourself. Now you’re experiencing doctrine in your heart. You will be the head and not the tail.

Joseph gets the keys to the prison. A dream by Pharaoh and he got the dream, got the keys, and let him out and he becomes prime minister. Has those keys. Food for Egypt and those keys. Relatives come and gives them food, and he has those keys. He is the head and not the tail.

You say my life is the opposite of that. Don’t believe that. That’s a lie. God‘s attitude is I am for you and not against you. You are the head and not the tail. Think like it, walk in it, experience it, enjoy it, and have a mystery that is effective in touching and reaching people that need it.

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.