Leon Fontaine - Do You Celebrate Your Suffering?
I want to talk today about the greatest miracle. Today I'm doing the 3 part series and the first service was different and I'm just, every service stands alone find so you're okay but I just, so many times I want to unpack some things and that way it's available whether you're going to get it on YouTube or how you get the word in you but when you look at Jesus' miracles, what was the greatest miracle? I mean he raise the dead. That shocks people but a dead body would come back to life but he did that. Or maybe the greatest miracle was the guy walked on water. Don't see that everyday accepting Canada and in winter time but I mean other than that to actually walk on warm water and what an incredible miracle.
You know over and over again when you study the miracles of Jesus that they're just astounding and he said that we would do things like he did. In fact Jesus as our example for what a Christian looks like, what they should function like in this world but the greatest miracle that Jesus did, none of us can repeat because it is the great exchange that Jesus did when he came and became sin so that we could be righteous. When he came in became sickness and disease so we could accept the healing that is in him. When you understand this great exchange you know so many people today are struggling in the area of the miraculous. And the key to and let's call it the supernatural because miracle sometimes can get people you know I don't like waiting till things get so bad you need a miracle.
I love the supernatural power of God in my everyday life helping me to move in and to make decisions and and as I deal with different people and even help different churches, denominations. It's like the highest. The highest level is to suffer together. Is there a meaning in suffering? That's a topic that people will walk out on. Because in on in most denominations today this is their whole meaning for life is how they're suffering. And if you ask me that question I don't have time to jump into it. It would be your definition on suffering must be looked at first because Jesus did tell us that when we go into the world and when we share our faith, when we stand up for the things of God, there will be a suffering as people reject us, attack us, in some countries will even kill you.
That's one kind of suffering but then there's the suffering that is just where the promises of God's word haven't been manifested in your life and God not delaying that miracle. God's not causing that problem you know if it's sickness, disease, poverty, all the things that go on. People are always looking for a deeper meaning in suffering. Everywhere I go it's like even when it comes to me that much of the new age stuff is that we seem to celebrate our suffering and the things that were going through and to be on this planet you're gonna suffer okay. You're gonna lose your great, great, great grandfather then you're gonna lose your great, great, great grandfather then lose your great, great grandfather you know like we all are dying off and so they're suffering there and as you know Jesus and if they know Jesus it's really minimized because heaven is real and it's just literally a graduation into heaven.
There's going to be suffering whether people talk about you come against you learning to just studying and get through school with the bullies and backstabbers and all of it everybody on this planet is gonna learn to how to how to handle suffering and Jesus will take you through but there's a whole 'nother level that some Christians are involved in where they just seem to think it's all about suffering but that's not what the Bible teaches. So today I'm gonna take you on a fairly quick, I'm not sure which one to get through. But I want you to have an incredible understanding of this great exchange that Jesus, the son of God he came to this planet. And he came to show us what a person filled with Holy Spirit looks like and then he came to die in our place and a number of things were exchanged and that's what I want to deal with because the key to great faith in the miraculous in the supernatural is all founded on what you know about the cross to the throne.
You know you can't even have a Bible faith until you know God's will. It is impossible to have Bible fate till you know God's absolute will without any area of what could be, might not be. Faith can only be we're Gods absolute will is known. So any area that you need a miracle, you need to look at this area from the cost crossed to the throne. Jesus died on the cross, he was buried, he rose again and he ascended to the right hand of the father. Those 4 things are so crucial and they're revelations that people don't actually even get into. I told the first service that you know we talk about LAF and I love how our leaders and Zach unpacked LAF.
This is our culture but if you stay there, how limiting that is. Can you imagine marrying somebody and they say to you, you gotta love me the way I am. You gotta accept me the way I am. You gonna forgive me for all that I do wrong. I'm never going to change but that's what love is. Just a minute. Just a minute. Nobody here is going to make it with a person who has that attitude okay because we believe that you can change. You can grow. You can deal with issues. You can handle temptations. You can become stronger. You can become and so much of the church of Jesus Christ just feels like we're just poor sinners barely saved by grace walking through this hurting world waiting to go for heaven. That is not what the word teaches.
Jesus came so that we could literally live a life that begins to bring change and he becomes our strength. He becomes this this amaze and I want to say a couple things that you know what I'm sorry but I'm probably gonna an edge all the rest of this year on some stuff. Most churches are only palette of care. We'll cry with you, weep with you, struggle with you, help you die and churches have to do that, we have, we must do that. I'm not knocking that at all. Nobody here goes to a palette of care unit if you don't have any loved ones there. Because it's a fun place to go. It's a very serious place. It can be a very beautiful place to somebody that you love. Goes into eternity and there's where you spend the last days of talking, laughing, sharing. I'm not minimizing a palette of care unit at all. Spend a lot of time in those places.
Okay they're incredible number listen to me but a church is not just a palette of care place. It's a place where you can meet Jesus. Or you can be loved, accepted, forgiven, but don't stop there because now you can find out who you are. You can become born again. You can find the presence of the power of God to change life not with your strength as we've all tried our own will power and it doesn't work that great but you can find the very presence of God and the strengths that Holy Spirit brings into your life. It's incredible. When Jesus died on the cross something incredible happened because Jesus was our representative for the human race.
The Bible does not call Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the son of God. They always call on the son of man. He represented us and so he was a representative but the Bible also brings up that he was our substitute in making a new covenant and so the greatest miracle that ever took place was this great exchange that so many Christians don't push through and learn all whole salvation. They just stop it LAF. God loves me. God accepts me. God forgives. That's beautiful, the way you are, you can come to Jesus, whoever can come to Jesus amazing an exception you, forgives you. You get a brand new life but then people stop there. They just stop there and they don't move on into the most incredible things that the great exchange did in our lives so.
When you look at the Bible, I'm gonna say a couple things and you need to start studying this area but. Most people only know the historical Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. What he did in different villages, different miracles, different places but epistles as Paul begins to teach they teach what happened from the cross to the throne there are 3 days so power packed, so full. What did Jesus do when he died and he became sin and he took your sin and then he died for the curse of the law and the Bible says he even said before he died my God why are you for shaking me? What's going on here? Most Christians haven't got a hot clue what took place in those 3 days and it's in those 3 days that all of the things that you and I can exchange with Jesus for took place and it's a big argument across the denominations as to what happened from the cross to the throne.
Where was he for those 3 days? And then you know and he came in he would walk around the planet for awhile but would do what he just kind of hang on the cross? Was his spirit in limbo. Did it go hang out with God? Did he go to hell because he was taking our sin? Like all of these things are taught in very few Christians walk them out and the revelation that is there for you when all of a sudden you realize if Jesus did that then it's mine that I could walk in this new life. Yes, you can. Your faith will explode when you get these 3 messages. They're crucial. We've caught on them multiple times but I'm gonna take a moment.
I'm gonna condense them into 3 messages ago. If you want to walk in a faith, an overcoming fate, if you want to see change you don't want to just stay in LAF. You want to say yes. We'll always LAF. We'll always love. We'll always accept. We'll always forgive but we want to show you how to change. We want to show you how to become. We want to show you how to rise up and be what God called you to be you can win over temptation, win over addiction, will win over the enemy, begin to come up and rise up and be who you are when it comes to business and family and marriage and home and that generations of your family name can maintain strong when this revelation takes place.
Isaiah 53 says first verse who can believe this? Who can believe this? This report is so amazing. It's so beautiful. It goes on talking Isaiah 53 of how Jesus was wounded for us and it was just some beautiful things. Now, okay I gotta go fast. I got 7 minutes and 26 seconds. I'll give you a few of them. Here we go. Number 1, the things that were exchanged. 2 Corinthians 5:21. God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God. Yeah. Jesus got our sin. We got his righteousness. You're not right just because you're so cool. You ain't righteous because you got a few things cleaned up. You're righteous as a gift because Jesus exchanged our sin. Your sin, my sin for his righteousness. This is an incredible thing that you're righteous and you got it by trading with Jesus.
The great exchange. Another thing that was a great exchange in Galatians 2:20 says I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live or the old me that selfish sinful nature no longer lives. Many Christians teach you have 2 natures in you. Nature of sin, nature of righteousness and they're at war all the time. That's crazy. Okay the NIV started that years ago by putting a mistranslated about 200 and sometimes they missed translated the word flesh for nature okay so your nature is the nature of God inside of your spirit, sealed there. You have a new nature. The old nature is dead. That old you is dead and gone. You have a new nature. A nature of faith, a nature of love, a nature of life okay so that old nature's gona and then here it says that I have been crucified with Christ.
It's no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in this flesh body. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and delivered himself up for me. Everything about your life always comes down to Jesus. Everything you read in the Bible you better bring Jesus on the cross into it because if you don't you'll never understand it and it'll never grow your faith. If I look at you and say are you righteous? I'm not asking you if you are perfectly sin free. I'm asking you your identity and the nature of that is in you and the answer should be if you're born again, I am. Okay not because you're perfect. The word righteous has been changed but it is talking about your nature.
Now you still have to renew your mind and you gotta control your body both the Bible show you how to do. Because it's been trained by the old nature your but your mind's been filled with stuff from the old nature, your body hasn't been made a living sacrifice. It's been allowed to do whatever it wanted so now you've got the power to change things. So here it's talking about, 2 Peter 1:4. For by these, He has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises in order that by them you might become a partaker of the divine nature. Not the sin nature, the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Jesus got our sin nature. We got his divine nature. He became sin. So that we could become his nature.
In other words it's not just right just as a title. Literally this righteousness, this incredible powers' in your spirit and as you begin to renew your mind with the word, as you begin to choose to work with Holy Spirit to make your body a living sacrifice, you can't do like so many places I go so many Christians after years of study still talk like we're just percenters saved by grace walk into this world of war waiting to get to heaven where it's all going to be okay. It's not what the Bible teaches but it's kind of a good way to do it because you can kind of do what you want, where you want, how you want. I'm just a sinner. No, no. You're a saint, the Bible says. Okay, you are your spirit. Now you got to get control of your mind, get control of your body in its desires and the Holy Spirit will help you do that.
The great exchange, the second thing is Jesus became since he took this sin nature that goes to sin so quickly and goes to selfishness so quickly and we get his divine nature which is to love others, to believe for others, to desire to help others. You know they have this saying that when it comes to power that you know the power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts but you see the thing is that when you get a born again person who's you know submitted himself to God's word you don't have the old nature and we can lead our families. We can lead our business. We lead our churches without that old nature correcting it and causing us to manipulate people and etcetera. We can instead influence for Christ. Because of Jesus this is yours.
Third thing I'll go through quickly. Jesus took our name all through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John he's called the son of man. He's not called the son of God. Why is it a big deal? Because even the demons cried out when he was Jesus. He was walking around. Who are you? What you doing here? Our time's not up. He didn't come as God. Of course he was God, was born of a woman. He walked the planet as a man. He had the right to be here because the planet was given to mankind which by the way why when Adam and Eve fell all the sin and the junk of it goes on. So when Jesus walked in a human body because he was born of Mary that it says here that his name was he was the son of man so that we can get the use of his name Jesus which now carries all authority.
When you pray what you ended with? We pray to the father in the name of Jesus. The name has been given to us. This name is ours. He took you know the man kind, he took our name as a son of man and as it as he became a human we became children of God. This exchange took place from the cross to the throne. The fourth thing. It says in 1 Peter 2:24 and Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the cross that we might die to sin. Okay because you don't have a sin nature, sin is not alive in you like it was before so if you still desire to do wrong things and you given your life to Christ that's not been the sin nature driving you. It's just the old training driving you. It's the old habits driving you.
If I was to go, if there's a company next door to us here that had you know 40 stories and it's a huge worldwide company and I buy it. Because the old owner who was the CEO, let's say and the chairman of the board and he was running it into the ground and I go and buy that whole company with you know 7.000 employees and all the department heads that are there. I'm the new owner. There's new nature coming to this company. Oh really. Because all the old employees and all the old department heads, they have all the old attitudes and come in late, leave early, who cares what happens, collect your paycheck. So if I go in there and I want to turn this company around I have to bring in new principles and those who won't abide by them, fire and now hire because I've got, there is a new nature at this because I'm the owner. But now I must begin to bring this down from the top all the way through the lines of this organization.
There's kind of a good analogy so it says here that he himself bore our sins on his body on the cross so we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by his wounds you were healed. Jesus got our sickness and disease. We get his healing. If you go to Psalms 22, the entire chapter is a picture of what Jesus looked like after dying on the cross and it talks about they've pierced my hands and my feet. My bones are out of joint. It talks about like the weirdest looking person so full of disease and sickness like all that took place from across to the throne is taught in the epistles and it's shown in prophecies in the Old Testament. So this thing about what did Jesus do for me? He exchanges, he took your sickness. Whenever someone asked me, why didn't God heal me? I know they don't understand it because when he took your sickness in your disease, he exchanged healing and inside of your spirit is the healing power for every miracle you'll need.
The Bible says in Romans 8 that if the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, it quickens your mortal body so where is the feeling coming from? Not from heaven it's his presence within you so every miracle you'll need in the future, miracles of protection, miracles of a mind being healed, miracles of diseases that maybe come from your past or whatever and these things begin to come in, God knows your future any is provided in every situation the miracle that you need and it's with in you. So he's not making a decision. Sow I gotta go this fast I know it is in this is new to you like he's not making a decision on every individual miracle.
There's not seven million strings in heaven and we're begging and bugging God or screaming at a devil who's in control. No. When you pray, you are connecting yourself to the almighty God and Holy Spirit is teaching you who you are and the inheritance that is yours because of Jesus so to learn this and my time is up so just stop at that point. I could go on and on of all the things that were exchanged between Jesus and to you. This life of serving God is not you know we're all gonna just suffer like crazy and find meaning in our suffering and stay locked up in our suffering like we're in a palette of care waiting to be rescued in the heaven which is the only real place of beauty. John 10:10 says the thief comes to steal kill and destroy but I've come that you might have a life that you might have it more abundantly. In the Greek it means superior in quality, innumerable in quantity.
Now this word zoe in the Greek is not the life of human life. It's God's life in a human body. God's life in a human family. God's life in a human marriage. God's life in the generations of your family. There is a way for you when I to believe and understand that what Jesus did on the cross from the cross to the throne that it says in Romans 6 that when he died on the cross, we died with him. That when he was buried we were buried with him. That's why we get baptized we're remembering that were bearing the old man. When he arose again we arose with him. When he ascended to the right hand of the father where he now sits and the Bible says in Ephesians 1 all authority is given to him not just on the planet but in the universe. He's the head, we're the body and we are seated with him all of these in hims are a revelation that you need that way when you go to pray for something you need to know is it God's will? Yes, it is because it is in from the cross to the throne.