12th November 2016 - Cooperate with God through Faith (3)
Transcription
12th November 2016 - Cooperate with God through Faith (3)
Cooperate with God through Faith (3). THEODORE ANDOSEH 2016 – PRAYER AND FASTING CRUSADE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP INTERNATIONAL - KOUME / BERTOUA I have four major topics this night, FAITH IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THE FINISHED WORK OF THE CROSS I want us to pray about faith in the person of Christ, in the person of Jesus Christ I want us to pray about faith in the power of Jesus Christ I want us to pray about faith in the Name of Jesus Christ I want us to pray about faith in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf I want you to know, I have a series of personal daily proclamations, the first set of proclamation, where there are 120, is what I call 'daily confession of my faith", in all the 120 confessions, I am appropriating for myself the Person and the work of Jesus Christ for me. So, I proclaim: Oh, Jesus Christ, Eternal Son of God, I solemnly proclaim: 1. That you are my Lord 2. That you are my Master 3. That you are my King 4. That you are my God 5. That you are my Saviour 6. That you are my Redeemer 7. That you are my high priest The last one. I proclaim Lord Jesus that you are my message, you are what I preach. I proclaim it and often when I am proclaiming it, I cry a lot. 1. You are my philosophy 2. You are my world view 3. You are my justice, because I don't expect justice from any court. How can unrighteous men render justice. It helps me not to be shocked. When I meet wicked lawyers, wicked magistrates, my life is in Christ. The only justice I want is what Jesus gives me. Everything about the quality of our Christian life hangs on our faith. I even proclaim: "Oh Eternal Lord Jesus, I proclaim and I accept You as my only jealousy "I am not practicing theology there, there are many things that people covet and are jealous about, I want to manifest only the jealousy that comes from Christ, that means, if I see my daughter talking with somebody, I don't want to manifest natural jealousy and suspicion, but I want to be jealous with Jesus's jealous over her, because jealousy is a good power to use, if you use it well, just like anger. But how will I know whether the jealousy I am feeling is of this world or my own? There are many feelings that go through the man's heart, they may either be form self, from the world, from the devil or from God. It may be the same feeling but it may come from different sources. There is a holy jealousy that comes from God, a zeal for God's things, for my heavenly father's things. And there are those who don't have that jealousy; the lose God's things. It is an important thing for the believer to take Jesus as his life, as you did when you first believe. When you first believe, you knew that you were bad, you lost every hope on what you could do for yourself, you knew that Jesus alone could save you and when you turned to Him and received him by faith, something happened to you, without efforts, life entered you and you knew that you were saved. Normally, in the different stages of Christian life, that is what we are to do with Jesus. The fullness of God's Head dwells in Christ, all that God is, He put into Christ. God has nothing outside Jesus to give you, and having given you Jesus, He has given you all He is. By faith, you have to learn to take, as you took Him as your Saviour and it worked for you and you were saved. When you come to the crisis of realising that even though you have received Christ as your Saviour, that your thoughts and your heart is not pure, that you are still a slave of sin, as you came to the Saviour, you must come to the Sanctifier, the same pathway. When you come to Jesus, you must own up your sin, your tendencies, you own up your corruption and as you did when you were a sinner, you must own up that your efforts and struggling to be holy have not worked, you have made all your determinations and your vows, they have not worked and when you own up, you must believe that after what Jesus did, He did not die and saved you from a fornication that you cannot be saved of. When you get there, you believe again the Gospel, that Christ died for you, that your flesh that likes in was crucified, that the body of sin that is inside you that loves sin, was crucified, when you believe, as you received Jesus as your saviour, you will not tell Him, : Lord Jesus, you only is my sanctification, you are my salvation from sin, I receive you by faith and now, I am free from the body of my corruption. But if like a church goer, you are still fighting with trying to show people how you are holy, if you are still struggling with your religion, if you have not yet come to the end of yourself, you cannot receive Christ, just like a church goers do not receive Christ, because they are still courting on something that comes from them. So even inside the church, while you are still counting on your different fasting, while you are doing it, you will remain under the power of your inner corruption. I think many of you have touch the light and it works in all our poverty all day. I find a brother I cannot love; this brother is just the exact contrary prepared by the devil. Yu can go to God and say: Lord Jesus, I cannot love this brother, he is very primitive, I do not know how to handle him but Lord Jesus, you love Him, I receive you as my love for brother E…, love him through me. And more and more, you shall live the fact that Christ is your love, and that is how it is possible to love those who have planned to kill you, that is how it is possible to love those who hate you, who reject your leadership, who plot against you. You don't have to be dishonest, to say that this brother is good, but knowing that he hates you, you can love him. If you have received Christ as your love, He loves even the unlovable, without hypocrisy, without pretending, and as your daily needs grow, you will find that in Christ God has put all of Himself and you can receive him. Christ is our life. The Lord Jesus Christ intended that just like natural bread and natural food sustain natural life, that He is our bread of life. That is why He said, unless you eat my flesh, unless you depend on Me, you have no life. Just like fasting long enough will me the natural life to die, the one who does not eat life Christ, receive Christ, depend on Christ, will have no life in him. In another parable, he said: I am the vine, you are only branches. Remain connected to Me. If you don't remain connected to Me, you will dry and you be cut off and you will be burn. In another parable, he says: you are only sheep, you have no wisdom, you don't know where to go, I am the good shepherd, follow me. God put all He is, bodily into Christ and He gave Him to us. The apostle Paul says: it is no longer I that live. The live I used to live has died, what I am, what I could do has died, it is no longer I that live, I have taken the death of Jesus as my death, but I am alive, the life I am living now, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and died for me. There is a replacement of life; Paul was saying: I have a replaced life. There is something that they call heart transplant, Paul was saying I have a life that has been transplanted, I am living by a life of another. Just like a person who receives a transplantation of heart is living by the heart of another, his own heart could not carry him, they took another person's heart so that he can live, living in another's heart. Some live with the kidneys of another, but for every child of God, we live by the life of another. That is why Paul says in Colossians: And when Christ who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with Him; Christ, our life; the bread of life, I eat it by faith. That is what I mean by receiving Him, confessing Him. Just as the heavenly Father sent me and I live by Him, the one who receives me live by Me. You will receive him with your mouth and your heart, you receive him in your heart with your mouth and you live. That is how the spiritual life is. We are all alive, we don't complain that we have to eat every day, in the same way, when you are born again, you don't complain about having to seek Christ, to eat Christ, the very life you have received is his life. That life cannot be sustained without Him; your determination cannot do it. If determination could do it, your former determination, when you were still religious could have helped you. Paul said: oh, foolish Galatians, you started with the Spirit and now you want to go on with your flesh, who bewitched you? Who told you that you have become different from what you were before receiving Christ? You have not changed; Christ has come into you. You turned away from Him, you will become worse than you ever be. I want to break what I have summarised so far into four topics. The leaders and the believers in our ministry need to believe in the Person of Christ. John 20:30-31 30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. NIV There are three stages in that verses: We need to know Christ from what He has done, from what has been written, from the testimonies of others. We need to know Christ from what He has done, from what is written, from what others say. And when we know Christ, when we see what he has done, when we read what is written, we are to believe that Jesus, the historical Jesus, the Jesus born in Nazareth, the Jesus born almost 2000 years ago is the Christ. Christ is not part of Jesus' name, Christ is an office, it is a title, it is a description. To believe that Jesus is the Christ is the faith that saves. There are many other faiths in Jesus, as the perfect man, as a prophet, as a miracle worker, when Jesus asked "what do people say that I am, they told him, some say that you are one of the prophet, some say that you are Jeremiah, some even say that you are John the Baptist, then He asked them, but who do you say I am, Peter said: you are Jesus, the Christ of God. What does Christ of God means? What does that title Christ or Messiah means? The title Messiah means one whom God selected, appointed, and anointed, equipped to meet all the needs of man. The Christ, Christ, Messiah means one chosen par God, appointed by God, and anointed by God and send by God for you, for all men. After God created man and man was lost, the only hope that man again can come back to God, recover his lost exaltation and privilege, the only hope that man could come back to God, recover his lost estate, was because of a hope that God gave to man, that one day He will send somebody to mankind, to bring them back. That is what the title Christ means. When we say, Jesus is Christ, we are saying; Oh Jesus, you are that One whom God sent for all men, for me, my only hope to ever get back to God, my only way out of the miserable life that has come upon me because of sin, Jesus, You are the One that God sent. You are the only One from the other side, from God's side. There are many religious leaders that founded religions trying to bring man back to God, Mohamed, Moses, the Law, even when the Law was given, the Scriptures reveals that man will not be able to keep the Law, there will be one that God Himself will sent to Israel and to all men, only that One sent by God will be able to carry man to God. The word Christ means "that One". The word Christ means "the chosen one", to do what work? To be the mediator between God and men, to be the bridge between God and man. What does this mean, brethren you may believe that Jesus is good, that is fine, you will not be saved. You may believe that Jesus is a miracle worker, that is good, but you will not be saved; the Jesus of Pentecostal does not save, a superman that performs miracles. Saving faith is that faith that believes that in the whole matter of man ever knowing God, coming back to God, only one person occupies that office and that is the Jesus of Nazareth, that was sent by God. To believe that as far as knowing God, having God is concerned, that Jesus born in Israel about 2000 years ago, is that Christ whom God promised to mankind, only Him. Only by believing that one can you have salvation. There was a man called Jesus from Nazareth, by his life and by his resurrection and by the power to give the Holy Spirit to those who believe, God testified that this is the One that gives eternal life. It is an office, if a man believes that Jesus is a miracle worker, there are many miracle workers, Egyptian magicians performed miracles, Moses performed miracles, there are Japanese shamans that perform miracles. To believe that Jesus is a miracle worker is not the faith that saves. The Bible says that many Jews believed in Him when they saw the many miracles he performed but the Bible says Jesus did not give himself to them, they received Christ and Christ did not come, because they believe in him because of miracles; later on they asked him, whom do you think you are, he told them, just the same I have told you from the beginning, and then he told them, unless you believe that "I am whom I say that I am, you will remain in your sins" the only one that the father himself send, you will die in your sins. There is only one kind of faith that gives salvation, that brings man to God, it is to believe from your heart, that Jesus is the one sent by God for you, to come back to God. What does it mean to have saving faith? It means to agree with God, that who he says Christ is, to agree with him by taking Jesus for whom God says He is. To allow Jesus to be inside your heart and allow him to be inside your heart and in your life what he is in heaven, what God has made him into. If your heart does not agree with heaven that what Jesus is in heaven, that is what He has become in you, you are still going to hell. Tel que Dieu a fait de Christ au ciel, c'est ainsi que tu l'acceptes dans ton cœur. Au ciel Il est Seigneur des seigneurs, Roi des rois, it is to agree with God about what He made of Christ in Heaven. Comme Dieu a couronné christ au ciel comme Roi, Maitre, celui devant qui tous les genoux vont fléchir, tout ce que tu sais que Dieu a fait de Jésus au ciel, accepter Jésus veut dire que tu fais de Jésus la même chose, sinon tu ne pars pas au ciel. Venir à Jésus pour être guéri, pour prospérer, croire en la puissance de Jésus parce que tu veux tirer de lui quelque chose, cette foi ne va pas te sauver ; et c'est dans cet état que plusieurs se retrouvent, ils sont comme ceux qui l'ont suivi à cause de ce qu'il avait fait ou à cause de ses enseignements, la Bible ne les appelle pas des croyants. La bible appelle croyant celui qui accepte que Jésus venu de Nazareth est le Christ que Dieu avait promis. Accepter cela veut dire que désormais tu annules tout autre système qui prétend t'amener à Dieu. Tu annules tout autre personnage qui prétend amener quelqu'un à Dieu. Oswald Chambers dit qu'il n'y pas la possibilité de connaitre Dieu en dehors de ce que on trouve en Jésus, le seul Dieu qu'on peut connaitre c'est le Dieu tel que on le voit en Jésus. Il n'y a pas de rapprochement avec les autres religions. Prions que nos dirigeants, et croyants dans notre ministère croient en Jésus comme le Christ de Dieu; il est ton seul parrain. Jésus est le seul parrain. Sans Jésus, on était tous perdus dans les ténèbres, errant, morts dans nos péchés. C'est très simple et c'est là qu'on commence. Toutes les choses, les miracles que Jésus fait, c'est pour t'amener à croire qu'Il est le Christ. Paul dit que Dieu a établi Jésus comme le Christ, témoignant qu'il n'y a personne d'autre en le ressuscitant des morts. C'est la résurrection qui atteste que c'est lui le Christ. La résurrection est le témoignage de Dieu. La capacité de donner aux hommes le Saint Esprit est la preuve de la résurrection. Il y a quelqu'un et Dieu a fait preuve de cela en le ressuscitant des morts et dans tous les pays, il fait preuve de la résurrection en leur donnant le don du Saint Esprit. Jésus est le Christ. Quand quelqu'un accepte Jésus et l'exalte dans son cœur, Il lui donne le don ponctuel et visible du Saint Esprit. 1 Tim 2:5-6 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all men — the testimony given in its proper time. NIV Pray that: The Lord will grant the people of our ministry to believe in the Person of Jesus. Everyone in our ministry will believe in the Person of Jesus as the Christ of God, as the Son of God, as the Son of man and the other titles that come from that office.