Leon Fontaine - The Great Exchange
I'm gonna walk through a ton of doctrine and I'm gonna give you a push towards studying this on your own. We don't believe for healing. We don't believe for prosperity. We don't believe for these things. If you want to see miracles you believe on Jesus who qualified you. You believe on Jesus who provided it. Your faith must be on Jesus, not on this rant. I'm believing God for a miracle. Why you get one? Because God said so. Okay but what if he'd say so? What? It says here whoever believes on him, Jesus, will not be ashamed. Anytime you're believing for a miracle where you have solid rock confirmation and miracles are coming your way is when you know beyond a shadow of believe this is mine and you only know that from the cross to the throne.
Jesus died on the cross. The Bible says you died with him. Jesus was buried, it says you were buried with him. It says he rose again, you rose again with him. It says he is seated at the right hand of the father, you're seated with him. This teaching is something few people seem to be talking about. I go to conferences of some of the world's greatest speakers and I listen to them and see. I'm gonna say it. The lazy way to preach, if you want to preach lazy, go get in the Old Testament Bible story and add 3 points. You can do it. We're gonna talk about David killed Goliath. Deal with your fear everybody, else is shaking. Get up there and God will anoint you. It's so easy to add 3 or 4 great points to an Old Testament Bible story. But if you're gonna teach out of the epistles, the revelation for the new covenant you better know your stuff. Because here is where the greatest discovery that is the people don't get in many cases.
It is in the new covenant. The old covenant was great we learn from it and I should preach as well and the odd time I will in the Old Testament but I believe that 75 percent of the messages people here should come from this new covenant. What is the agreement that God has with you and I today? Let me give you some of the things and I'm never going to get through them all. Let me give you some of the things that were exchanged in Galatians 3:14, it says Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us, for it's written cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree so the blessings of Abraham could come on us. Here it teaches us that Jesus got the curse so you could get the blessing. What an incredible portion of scripture. Here's another one.
In Matthew 27:46 at about the ninth hour of hanging on the cross, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What in the world is he talking about? Many preachers don't want to touch this cause they said there's no way that the son of God Jesus could become sin. Is there any other reason for God to forsake Jesus? When Jesus hung on the cross he became sin, he took our sin and while he was there, God turned his head as his wrath that was supposed to be for mankind's sin went on Jesus. When people start telling me God is judging Haiti. God is judging America. God is, and so that fire, that thunder, quit it. You don't know your Bible. God's wrath has been poured out. And it was poured out on Jesus for every sin, every sinner, for every area that needs Jesus.
God is looking and it's His love. It's His acceptance. It's His forgiveness that comes to you but we don't want to stay there. We want to move on. Jesus was forsaken as a son so that we could become sons. Romans 8 says that we are the sons of God and that there's something in our spirit that bears witness with his spirit. You cannot talk to any of my kids and go yeah, you know what, yeah, you're not really Leon and Sally's daughter. You could try all you want. You could trump up things. You could do DNA tests. You can do whatever you want and you will never convince them and this is how we need to be. When you begin to realize what Jesus did. You are not Jesus daughter because you're so perfect. You are not God son because you got your life figured out you stopped your bad habits.
You are not that because of what you earned. It was an exchange it was a trade off and man, did you and I come ahead in this trade off because he took our sin, sickness, disease, shame, our weakness, our timidity. He took and he exchanged something. He became, in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John he was never called the son of God. You know what he was called? The son of man. He became a man that we could become sons of God. It's an exchange. You can't earn. You can't try to get it. You can't be good enough to get. It is a free gift but it comes because of this Jesus. There's a verse in the Bible that says, the slothful man goes, there's a lion in the streets. I guess I shall die. Would you want to be married to a guy that you went on a safari? And you're looking at the animals and stuff when you get out of the jeep which you're not supposed to do and you're walking along, all of a sudden, a pride of lions and he turns to you goes, a lion. I guess we will die.
Well that's an amazing husband. I wanna marry that guy. Are you kidding? That's gonna be, come on. Take him on because there's something when you know your rights and privileges as where real faith is and so why can you have faith for healing? Only if you understand that at the resurrection when Jesus rose again you might know that at the cross he died for your sins but that's not enough. You see, everywhere I go listen closely. Don't be offended but what I'm about to say. So many Christians and churches are palliative care units, helping people suffer and die.
Now as pastors we spent a lot of time in palliative care and I'm not cheapening it. Because some of the most meaningful conversations I've ever had took place at the bedside of some of your fathers, grandparents. Where we prayed. And palliative care's got beautiful people, nursing and doctoring to minimize the pain. And to help them. But church is not just a palliative care yet everywhere I go I'm meeting people who when they talk to me they just want to identify with people's, we're to weep with those who we, come to church we're gonna hug your neck and we're gonna help you out with all the pain. We can identify with it. You know what I want more. I want more than that. Because once we hurt and I share my hurt and you share your hurt and in its by the way that's a profound thing. Weep with those who weep is not a put on. It's someone who has the ability to look at someone's eye and say. I know.
And when they understand at that level it's beautiful. Church can't be a place of tee-hee-hee or we don't understand the deep suffering and the pain that everybody here has gone through in different areas and certain places but if all we do every Sunday is have me preach on we're all painful. We're living in a cruddy world so full of heartache and let's just sing swing low sweet chariot till we all go home that's just a palliative care unit. At some point no one goes to palliative care units unless there's somebody there they love. Nobody goes there for fun. No one's going for lunch there just because.
I know I'm being very blunt but I've got to get something in you to understand. Jesus said I've come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly in John 10:10 and that world life means zoe. It's the God kind of life and how do we get the kind of faith to do that? You've gotta know what Jesus did at the cross and his resurrection and when he ascends to the father's right hand. When someone asks me how do you know healing is yours? I can, boom, here. If you don't know this your faith is not faith. It's hope. Hope is a future tense. I'm hoping. I'm praying. We're hoping but when you know that you own something, when you know what's a part of your inheritance.
When Sally's mom and dad passed away, our job was to kind of help walk everybody through and they left an inheritance. None of that family even doubted that they were there. That inheritance was theirs. As we carefully went through the inheritance, month after month, year by year and quickly divide not quickly slowly is what it took to divided up between each of the sons and the daughters. There was 4 sons. There was 4 daughters nobody else qualified. I didn't qualify although they love me and I love them. There's no blood. It was these 4 sons. It was those 4 daughters. They knew they qualified and they sat at the table and they had a voice and they would call me as the person directing things because their sons and daughters.
Listen to me you are sons and daughters of God. You're not just on the fringe somewhere hoping that you fit in. Jesus died for you and he took to your sin and he took your shame and he took your weakness and he took everything that holds you back when he took it on himself. He exchanged his peace, his joy, his sonship with God, his strength, his faith, his joy, there was an exchange. Now you go ahead and keep living. In your stuff. Are you can reckon that I was I died with Jesus. I was buried with him. I rose again with him and I'm seated with him. These revelations are powerful. Powerful. You know in Matthew 27:46 it is says about the ninth hours. Read it again. Jesus cried out saying my God my God why have you forsaken me? He became a human while we became children of God.
When you look at Jesus. He literally Jesus experienced rejection from the father so that we could receive acceptance from the father. Jesus went my God why have you forsaken me as God turned His head because he became sin and you took your skin so that we could receive Jesus who had never committed the sin. He was righteous through and through. He exchanged his righteousness to us. If somebody has paid this great a price for you to get a life. Why would you stay in the heartache of the hurts that you've experienced? Why would you live in a palliative care unit even your loved ones won't want you staying there?
When I die I promise you, I promise you the last thing I want is my kids having a party around or having a little thing around my grave yard every weekend and I want them to go get a life. I raised them to get a life. I want them to get a life. I want them to live. I want to find purpose. I want them to get up and live and be a husband and a wife. I want them to know Jesus and change this planet because I'm just watching from heaven. Don't live in a palliative care unit. Jesus was rejected so you could be accepted. When you go through the Bible I could share with you on and on the things that were traded but I want to bring you back in closing to this one verse that I started with.
If you want to know so many people a lady after the second, she just stopped me with tears in her eyes she's going through so many things and she said I just need to know how can I believe? That's what I'm talking about. What do you base your faith on? Well if I was to ask that poor lady who lost her car because somebody is sitting and this is my car. How are we gonna prove whose car it is? You get me a bill of sale. Maybe the police. I don't know. Maybe a police officer can go through and find the ownership of that car and then we can print it out or put it on a thing and say owner is her. Arrest that guy for trying to steal the car. How do we know who the owner is? We've got solid proof.
If you want to own feeling, if you want to own laughter, if you want to own prosperity, if you want to walk in a sense of significance and champion the cause of life, you can only have faith for that. If you know what's your right. The Bible talks about an inheritance that you and I have. We are heirs. What did we inherit? Everything that Jesus has. In fact whenever you see this word these 2 words in the King James Bible where it says in Him. That's yours. In him and when the Bible says we are the righteousness of God in Christ. Someone ask you this question earlier. What do you mean by in Christ? Well that's saying that we are righteous in Christ. He provided the righteousness. There's an exchange. I'm not righteous because I got my life figured out and I'm holier than you and better than you and less problems. Righteousness is not perfection. Righteousness is in nature. That's within you because Jesus died and that old sin nature is gone.
Now renew your mind because it's been trained in sin and deal with your body because it's been trained to get what it wants but the power of God in your spirit will cause you, you know Sal and I were talking one time about this culture that we always share and Zachary shared it today that love, accept, forgive but you know the Jesus will always love you. Jesus will always accept you and if you ask Jesus will forgive you. But here's the thing. If you stay at love, acceptance and forgiveness, nobody else is going to like you. Can you imagine girls, you marrying some guy and he just says baby the culture of our marriage is gonna be love, acceptance and forgiveness. I love you, too, honey. Okay, I forgive you but he doesn't change ever. Ever. Every problem, every failure is you got to love me, baby. You just got accept me. This is me, come on, babe and yet just forgive me. How long? First 6 months? First 6 years? First 6 decades. When's it gonna come?
So what's beautiful is it you don't stop at the cross. Keep going, there's a resurrection and at the resurrection there's resurrection life that you get but you got to know this and so I'm challenging you. Some you mature Christians think you know the Bible. Some you baby Christians need to know this. This is the foundation for great faith. It is here from the cross in these 3 days were Jesus died, buried, went to hell, rose again. Says he went to heaven and his blood actually even changed the instruments of worship. I don't understand some of these things but in those 3 days everything changed to such a degree. The prophets of old looked ahead at the time of Jesus and realize what we would have because of Jesus. It makes you love him that my kids are guaranteed healing, that my children can know the protection of God. It's a part of the promises.
Jesus' life was taken early in exchange for a long life that he gives you. I mean, Jesus didn't just die one death. Okay. I'll give you a couple of thoughts to think about and he didn't. It's that Jesus died deaths, plural. You the word death means separation. The word death does not mean to cease to exist. When you die physically you are simply separated from your body. Okay, you're still very much alive but you're separated from your body. When you die spiritually it doesn't mean your spirit ceases to exist. It means you're separated from God. Death is separation. And so when Jesus became sin he was separated because God can't have sin. He can't partake of sin. Jesus took our sin. And then his physical body died, he died physically. I'm gonna weave this into some more of our messages because herein lies your ability to kind of go, I want to play that the Clint Eastwood music. I can't even, we're also in the doom. You see this guy walking down.
There is this strength you know whenever I watch these western movies, they got a certain music to play. John Wayne, Clint Eastwood is on the street you know they ain't gonna lose. The music is playing in the background you know I mean? Like when you read the scriptures. And you begin to find out who you are it's no longer I'm hoping and praying. It's my inheritance and God is telling me fight the good fight of faith that means you know you own it. You know because Jesus qualified you. Jesus took your failure. You don't qualify for your miracle but that's what he'll attack. How many people are in the hospitals where you know they're believing God for a miracle and then we'll see why do you think this is happening to me? I go, what? Because you're living in a fallen world full of viruses, bacteria, sicknesses and diseases, because of Adam. Yeah but how, forget that. You have an inheritance from Jesus, that inheritance is the life of Jesus which includes every promise in the Bible that he qualified you for.
Now let's get focused on this. You begin to focus on this. Some man, I'm telling you something will change inside of you. You'll become this, you know, everyone thinks Jesus looks like a little cute baby and I love babies. I'm a grandpa. Sal and I are so in love with our grand kids but Jesus is not a cute little baby with his thumb in his mouth, sucking in a cradle. Jesus is not some long haired hippie at 30 years of age in a dress walking down the street going peace, love you all. Okay, that's what, the baby is what he looked like when he was born. That 30 year old man with a long brown hair and that look like is when he was a Jew but right now what does he look like?
Go to Revelation 1 and 2 you'll find a man of war. His body is like bronze armor, his hair is like white like wool, his eyes are like fire and out of his mouth is a double edged sword. All it's showing you is that he is the king of all kings. He is the lord of all lords and he became human being, the son of man and he died on the cross to exchange with you all weakness, all patheticness, all hurt, shame, heartache, brokenness, timidity, whatever it is. You don't have to do it on your own strength. He exchanged it. In the second service today, I shared 6 other things that were exchanged. Because Jesus took your place.
Today I want to just challenge you. There is an inheritance of how you live. That is yours but to walk in it, anchor your faith. From the cross to the throne, know what he did and don't what Christians talk you out of it. I was chatting with a scholar quote unquote who's got knows all these languages and he says you know Leon I just go to talk with you. I have to disagree with your with your television message. I was at a studio somewhere so you know the cessation of all miracles took place and he starts quoting all these verses that he kind of twisted and I listened to him, listened to him, listened to him. Okay, bro, just stop there. You know I don't know what to tell you because like I can't even count the number of miracles that I've seen and most of them with before and after doctors' tests, x-rays, blood tests. What do I say? Well what are you gonna say that?
Now, the scripture you and I disagree on but what do I do when the doctor told me we don't understand why the growth not there? It was there before. We don't understand and we have a whole church every Sunday someone gets up and reads miracles like Zach was reading today. I mean incredible phenomenal miracles what are we gonna say you can't convince me with doctrine that miracles don't happen because everybody in my church has had a few at least in some what's. Hello. The greatest miracle ever was the exchange that Jesus did Hello. The greatest miracle ever was the exchange that Jesus did Hello. The greatest miracle ever was the exchange that Jesus did with you. Where he exchanged everything hurtful, negative and weak. He exchanged and in your spirit you aren't going to have if you're giving your life to Christ in your spirit is the energy, is the strength, is the healing.
In fact, let me put it this way. God knows the future and He knows which diseases will push at you, which traumas will try to happen to you, which things we try to cut your life short, which mental illnesses will try to harass your mind, which people will try to stab you in the back and take you out. He already knows all that. And did you know every one of those things He's provided a way of escape or put it this way He's provided a way to escape the control of that thing and walk in the victory of it? He's giving you a way to walk and help and He's freely giving you all things Peter says.
So when people say, well, Leon, why didn't Jesus heal me? I know we don't know the cross of the throne. Leon, why is He prospering them he's not prospering me? I know they don't understand the cross to the throne. They'll say, Leon, why am I struggling with this? I've been believing God and nothing has happened? I said it's okay let me deepen your believing by showing you the cross to the throne where the exchange took place not just one. This great exchange as a multiplicity of things that were included as the presence of Jesus came into your spirit and he took that nature.