322 Jesus has sat down?
The writer to the Hebrews speaking of Jesus’ shed blood, says that …“… this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;” Hebrews 10:v12
Today I want to talk with you about the meaning of these two words “sat down” a simple message that has been often missed by the Church and the Christian. Incidentally, we should notice that the phrase “on the right hand” does not necessarily mean “the right hand side” … he is not speaking here merely about a location, but about an office. We must be careful not to confuse the Human Spirit within us by misunderstanding the instruction of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself makes reference to the fact that he would be sitting down in Matthew 22:44 quoting the prophesy made earlier by King David in the Messianic Psalm 110, as did Peter in his Pentecostal Sermon
in Acts Chapter 2.
I have often remarked after a long day, as I’m sure you have, “oh its great to get sat down”… as we indicate thereby that our works are finished, or our tasks are done, or our duties are performed, or our expectations realized. This is precisely why we are told in no uncertain manner, that JESUS HAS SAT DOWN? The work God commissioned him to do for our lost world and our lost humanity is complete, the job is done, the price is paid, the battle is over, the victory is won, the enemy is defeated, the paradise lost has been regained. What Adam lost, Jesus got back, and actually, he got back more than ever was lost.
We need to understand what has been restored to us before we can live in it and enjoy it. Tragically in many of our Church traditions we have failed, and failed miserably to grasp the full extent of the amazing work that was “finished” on the Cross.
Many, if not most church-going folks in this part of the world, believe that Calvary dealt with our sins and nothing more, they have no concept of the extent to which Jesus’ sacrifice and shed blood enriches their everyday lives and living. They wrongly assume that their Salvation is all about heaven, when it is really about a living, loving and amazing relationship with Jesus Christ, here and now! They pray expecting that Jesus will run their errands, and grant their wishes like some “fairy godmother” without realising that God is not their servant –
to do their bidding, – neither are we His Servants, we are his Sons!
Listen very carefully, for I would hate to add to the much confusion that exists today. Many of you are striving and struggling to be what you already are, and to get what you already have?… and you don’t know it! If Jesus has “sat down” AND HE HAS, then He has no more work to do for you, no more effort to put into your case, no more preparations to make for your successes – and while you are waiting on GOD, God is waiting on YOU! The work is done – Jesus has sat down!
So in the moments left to me today, I want to help you discover and uncover the benefits and blessings of your Salvation.
I want to help you to see WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU HAVE … and if you can grasp this revelation then it will transform your life, as it has mine. This is not some new age theology, this is fundamentally the TRUTH of Gods word, this is the Gospel, and it is imperative that we embrace it. It is important for all Preachers, that we do not merely give you Information, but that we truly seek Revelation from God for you Sunday by Sunday.
A Revelation is something you will not have discovered or uncovered before, – that’s why I must pray and wait before God week in and week out, otherwise, I am just giving you information. When God gives me Revelation, I just can’t wait to pass it on to you. The Apostles Peter and John have both said something similar in Acts 4:20
“For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Like me, the Revelation of the word burns within and today’s message has been burning in me for a long time, I am eager for you to catch the energy and the excitement of it too.
Lets go back now to Hebrews Chapter 10, where I began, to set the foundation stone, on which I will build this message.
We read … verse 1
Hebrews 10:1-2
(1) For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
(2) For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.
We are being told here, that although the LAW was perfect, it could not make the worshippers perfect, and if it had, then there would no longer have been any need of it. Verse 4 says …
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
So although this LAW was birthed out of the Perfection of God, its consequences proved to be imperfect and invalid – in other words it did not do what it was meant to do.
But look now at verse 7 – “Then said I, (that is Jesus) Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
v8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
v9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
v10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all“.
So here we see that Jesus’ coming, his death, his sacrifice, his shed blood, his broken body, WAS SUFFICIENT, in that it removed the first plan of Salvation, and established the second, and moreover, this Sacrifice was a “once for all” deal! It need not be repeated year on year as did the first plan. Which brings us to verse 11…
v11 And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:
v12 But this man, (Jesus) after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; “
So this then is the Foundation Stone on which the work of our Salvation is built. Incidentally, we need to remember that although Jesus came to the Jews, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, THEY REJECTED HIM, and held on to their LAW, (even to this day) but to us Gentiles, God never gave the LAW, the only thing God gives to the Gentile world is GRACE! Praise God for ever!
(and if you are trying to add law, any law to your grace, then you are walking in what Paul says is “the law of sin and death” Romans 8:2. from which Paul rejoiced to be free. The “moral law” embodied in the 10 Commandments however is not something we should or could ignore, that would be to
“throw the baby out with the bathwater”!
Satan wants us to be always Sin Conscious, that way he can cripple our Faith and rob us of our strength and our song in Christ Jesus. If you are sitting week by week under a ministry that condemns the children of God as it may condemn the sinner, then you are clearly sitting in the wrong place. You are being robbed of your rightful location in Jesus Christ. I am not ever suggesting that we tear from our Bibles the Ten Commandments and other God given laws, and assign them to the waste basket, NO! but these laws retained in our Bibles are INFORMATION only, (we are not legally bound by them)
for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. John 1:17. In order to break down the partition wall between Jew and Gentile, to make “one new man” Jesus has “ABOLISHED the law of Commandments” Eph 2:15
Some believers find that “hard to swallow” but that is what the Bible says! (Read the whole of Ephesians 2 for yourself)
Many of you are holding on to the past and its keeping you from your future, clinging to your History and so missing your Destiny!
Let me show you now WHO YOU ARE, and WHAT YOU HAVE, and don’t allow the devil to steal these things from you today or ever!
Turn back to the Book of Romans in the 8th Chapter and at verse
10 we read “ And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.(11) But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (make alive the word is in the Greek) your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.(12) Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
(13) For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.(14) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.(15) For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
(16) The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:(17) And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
Did you catch that “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” and Adopted Sons not Servants! So what does it mean to be a son and a joint heir with Jesus. The answer is
a simple one, but we have complicated it, spiritualised it, weakened it, and lost it. In all of our academia we too often have much information and no revelation. Jesus told the story of the “Prodigal Son” to help us realize and recognise just what Son-ship was all about. We regularly as Preachers will use that message as an evangelistic outreach to the wayward, (that is of course both possible and profitable) but the real message of the story is about the Father, and his relationship with his two sons?
We dare not miss the tender heart of the Father, the giving and forgiving heart of the Father, the caring heart of the Father, the loving heart of the Father and furthermore we dare not put in our future what God wants in our present. This was the problem of the brother who had stayed at home, He reckoned that the inheritance of the Fathers Farm and the Fathers Fortune was coming to him some day after the passing of his dear old Dad.
This is our common problem also with this Scripture in Romans 8:17. We mistakenly imagine that because we have been called “heirs” then that’s something to do with the “after we die” time in our lives. But Paul does not say The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we will be the children of God –
he says that we are the children of God! (present tense)
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;
Do you know what a “joint heir” is? Most don’t know!
Being a joint heir is not about sharing an inheritance as was the case in the story of the Prodigal Son. Those two boys were “co-heirs” – it was a 50/50 split. God is not going to split up the Kingdom, the Power and the Glories of Heaven, now or in eternity and divide them out amongst us. NEVER! God says we are JOINT HEIRS with Christ – and glorified together!
That means that whatever Jesus gets, we get too! He gets 100 per cent of all that heaven affords, and we get 100 per cent too.
What is His, is mine, what is mine is yours, what is yours is ours – we ALL get his glory, and we are all called his SONS and Daughters.
This is why the apostle John was so emphatic and enthusiastic about his assertion in 1 John 3:v2 “Beloved NOW are we the Sons of God” – and the glory we have now is nothing by comparison to what we will eventually have. Romans 8:18.
We are meant to be walking in the Glory that is ours, in the same Glory that was Jesus’ – remember what He said about it –
in John 17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them – He didn’t say, I will give to them, (future) he said I HAVE GIVEN THEM! (present tense) We should be walking every day in the Glory that is ours, a Heavenly and a Holy Glory. Sin’s consequence in the world meant that we were born “short” of the glory of God, but Jesus has given that glory back to us in his resurrection; Praise God!
This leads me from What we are, to What we have. Remember that I said at the beginning of this message that I believe – Many of you are striving and struggling to be what you already are, and to get what you already have? Let me show you what God says you have. This does not necessarily mean that you have it in your hand, or in your home, or even in your heart, but nevertheless, God says its yours, and if its yours, then you ought to be claiming it and walking in ownership of it.
(and how do I get what is mine, I hear you ask, – you get it by Faith – you get it by calling those things that are not as though they were! – and laying aside “double-mindedness“!) There is only one law with which we believers may concern ourselves, – and that is the “Law of Faith” Rom 3:31.
Turn with me again in your Bible, if you will, to the Book of
Romans in the 4th Chapter, this time, and we’ll read from verse 20 here Paul speaks of the Patriarch Abraham …
(v20) who staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
(21) And being fully persuaded that, what he (God) had promised, he was able also to perform.
(22) And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
(23) Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;
(24) But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
(25) Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
Paul is reminding us that our righteousness must be gained in the same way, the way of FAITH! When we believe and accept the Death and Resurrection of Jesus as our sin and sickness bearing Substitute and Saviour, then by placing faith, (confidence) in Him and not in Self, we become the Righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. The first of the Heavenly Glories we receive is the Righteousness of God, or to be more accurate – the RIGHTEOUSNESS of Jesus.
So that when God sees us, he sees Jesus. This is why we can come with “boldness” before God, and stand not in our own shoes, (as it were) but in the shoes of Jesus, – we come not in our own name but in the name of Jesus. Paul says to the Ephesian Church …
In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Eph 3:12 and again to the Hebrews
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, Heb 10:19.
If you like, here then is the next thing we have, BOLDNESS.
Faith leads to righteousness which leads to boldness, which in turn leads to the Victorious life. Jesus came to grant us Life abundant and life eternal, the eternal part does not begin when we die, both the abundant and the eternal begin the moment we accept Jesus and make him Lord of our lives. You don’t need to walk out and leave the Church if you are not a Christian; You don’t need to switch off, if you are not a believer, – you can become a Christian today, right now – what had to be done has all been done on the cross. – It is finished, – all you have to do is to believe it, accept it, and walk in its benefits and blessings.
The victorious life is the normal life which God has designed for every one of us, – sadly many Church going Christians, are not living in victory, but in defeat. Not enjoying blessing, but enduring burden. Not walking in love, but walking in fear. Not expecting the miraculous, but dreading the inevitable. Not seeing the favour of God, but witnessing a fight with the Devil. Not walking in Health and wholeness, but in disease and sickness. What is so dreadfully wrong with us? Why has the Devil crippled and crushed us so? How have we allowed ourselves to become Victims instead of Victors?
I have struggled myself with these truths for many years, and have come to the conclusion that at the heart of our dilemma is our inability to digest and ingest the WORD of GOD, to appreciate and appropriate it in our lives. Many of us know the word, we know it in our spirits, but we don’t know it in our souls and in our bodies. Psalm 107:20 reads, “He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions“. It is only Gods word that can change your circumstances, your condition, your crisis and your crying – Gods word must saturate your entire being, before you will
see its power produce change.
Now, CONSIDER THIS, MY FINAL WORD.
Supposing I needed a bath, after a dirty day in the garden, and I take a sponge and set it in the bath and drop ONLY a few drops of water onto it every hour, by the next hour the sponge will have dried up, and I will never have saved enough water to take my bath. Many of us will gather a few drops of the Heavenly and Holy Dew of Gods Word every day, but we settle for a few drops, never enough to immerse ourselves completely therein.
I need to say to you that GODS WORD must so fill our Spirits that it overflows into our Souls and eventually begins to show up in our Healthy Bodies and in our Holy Life-styles.
We have Faith, we have righteousness, we have boldness and we have the word. If you have these in your hand, then you are truly favoured … but you also have Jesus – now get out there and take His hand into this new week, and bring heavens glory into your circumstances and heavens solutions into your problems.
God Bless You. Amen.