Rabbi Schneider - There Must Be Justice
We're picking up right now, beloved ones, if you have your Bible, we're picking up in chapter 1. And I'm going to pick up today in verse number 11. Here we go. Paul is speaking and he says, "...we have obtained an inheritance, that's you and I, those that have been purchased by God through the blood of Jesus, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined..." There's that word again, predestined. You heard me preach that same word in one of the earlier episodes in this series. We talked about what that means. It literally means that God determined your destiny in advance. This is why Paul says that you were chosen in Jesus before the foundation of the world. You did not choose Him, He chose you. So Paul is saying here, "...we have been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will".
So let me read the whole sentence again. Verse 11: "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose..." God's got a plan here. Okay? God's got a plan. "...who works all things after the counsel of His will". I want to talk just for a moment here about part of God's will and part of this purpose that Paul's speaking of here. There was a purpose in this. I want you to consider with me that you're a creator and my creator is both just and merciful. He's just and merciful. So, at times, these two characteristics can be difficult to reconcile. In other words, think about somebody that committed the worst crime in the world. I mean, just whatever you could think of, just the worst crime against somebody that you could imagine. I mean, it was intentional. It was torturous. It was completely unjust.
Some underdog was greatly taken advantage of. And then all of a sudden, the person that took advantage of them just decides to say they're sorry. They say, "You know what? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that". And then they walk away. Does that confession meet God's demand of justice? You see, we see the just side of God oftentimes in the Torah, where the Lord said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And when someone committed a sin, they had to pay for that sin. They had to pay for that sin. This shows us God's justice. It's not just enough to say, I'm sorry. God's justice has to be met.
Now think about that in connection with the fact that the wages of sin is death. In other words, when we sin against the Creator, when we spit in the Creator's face, and all of us have done that, whether we know it or not, the penalty for that is death. So, God is just and the wages or the penalty of sin is death. How now does God show mercy when we've sinned against Him and the penalty is death? He's able to reconcile His justice and His mercy through the purpose that He accomplished in Jesus. Jesus came to earth, died in our place. He took the lashes. He took the whip. He took them, pulling His beard out, pulling His hair out. He had the thorn of crowns pressed down in His head, blood pouring out. They put the nails in His hands. They put the nails in His feet.
Then they thrust a spear in His side, and the blood came out, and He died gasping for breath, saying, "Father, why have You forsaken Me"? He that knew no sin became sin on our behalf that we could become the righteousness of God. So God was able to satisfy both His need for justice and His desire to show mercy by sending Jesus to take the penalty that was due upon us upon Himself. And so this is what Paul is speaking about here. "That we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will". And this all happened, He said in Christ. "He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention, which He purposed," verse 9, "in Him. He forgave us and redeemed us," in verse 7, "through the blood of Yeshua".
So all of this is happening, all of God's kindness is being released to us, and this inheritance that we've received has all come to us because Yeshua Jesus, has satisfied God's justice and His need to punish sin, the wages of which is death. Jesus died in our place, and now God is free to forgive us, show us His mercy, and even give us an inheritance. Paul continues there, once again, also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who are the first hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. Paul's just saying that we have been saved, those of us that are the first fruits of those that have been saved, to the praise of His glory.
And then Paul continues on, and he speaks a word specifically to you and me. And he says in verse 13, "In Him, in Messiah of Nazareth, you also," that's you and I today, right now, "after listening to the message of truth..." Okay, a lot of people today, they think about Christianity. Christianity turns them off. Did you know that the term Christianity is not in the Bible one time? Did you know that the term Christianity is not in the Bible one time? Now, the word Christian is in the Bible three times, and it simply refers to those that are following the Christ, the anointed One, Jesus. So what I'm saying is, people are turned off to Christianity, whatever they think that is.
You know, whatever mistakes the church has made, that to the world is Christianity. But we're not talking about that. Whatever people think Christianity is, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the truth. Okay, the truth is revealed in God's written word. Not some concept of a religion that people have in their mind. We're talking about the truth. So Paul says here, "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth..." Not some denominational theology, right? You heard the message of truth. Remember, Jesus came. He is the messenger of truth. He came to bear witness to the truth. Paul continues, "...in Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-having also believed, you were sealed in Him, in Messiah, with the Ruach HaKodesh, with the Holy Spirit".
This is a mystical reality. You are sealed, beloved one, and I've been sealed, listen, with the Ruach HaKodesh. What does it mean to be sealed? If you're sealed by something, you're encased in it. Your life is encased in the Ruach HaKodesh. You are saved. You are protected by the power of God. The Spirit of God is in you and He surrounds your life. Now, our calling is to continue to work out our salvation so that we can come into a greater revelation and understanding of this. That God's Spirit literally seals our soul and that He's inside us. I don't know about you, but this is a lifetime labor to become aware of this. And sometimes it's easy to experience it when we're in a worship service, or when we're sitting outside in nature like I am now.
And by the way, the reason I try to film a lot of the episodes, beloved ones, in nature. Because I believe that when we're in God's natural surroundings, when we're in creation, it becomes a point of contact to help us tune into our Creator. So I try to film as many episodes as I can in nature. God's beauty is beautiful, green, lush nature that's surrounding me here. I hope it's a blessing to you. It's easy for us sometimes to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit while we're sitting in nature or when we're in a worship service and everybody's singing and worshiping. But it's a lot harder, is it not, to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit when we're in the midst of a battle, when we're having relational stress with somebody, when we're in conflict with a neighbor or a friend or a loved one, when we run into a circumstance at work that's just so frustrating.
That it's very difficult to feel the Holy Spirit. So to me, it's a lifetime effort to keep growing in my understanding and my grasp of the fact that I'm sealed in the Holy Spirit, that I'm safe. I remind myself when I'm feeling overwhelmed by a situation, I remind remind myself greater is He that's in me than he that's in the world. When I don't feel in touch with God, when I even feel bad about myself because I don't feel in touch with God, and I'm feeling miserable about myself because I feel I'm being overwhelmed by a situation, rather than being confident in Him and in who I am in Him, what I do is I begin to talk to God.
I say, God, please forgive me. Help me. Help me to become aware that the reality that I preach, that I'm more than a conqueror in you. Lord, that it's at work right now. That whatever the situation is that I'm facing, I'm gonna overcome it. That I'm gonna wind up on the other side of this thing victorious. Help me, Lord, to not allow my heart to be made afraid. Help me not to allow my heart to tremble. Let me not be so shaken, Lord when I face troubled things, troubled times in relationships or circumstances, or whatever it might be.
So my prescription to grow in grace, beloved, is keep talking to God. His power is perfected in our weakness. And when you're overwhelmed, remind yourself about the fact that you're sealed in the Holy Spirit, just like we just read. And begin to talk to God about that. Say, Father God, Jesus, your words as I'm sealed in the Holy Spirit, but I'm not feeling that right now. I'm feeling disconnected, you can say. And Father, I'm feeling overwhelmed. And here's this person, Lord, that's persecuting me, and they're not even a believer, and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Father, strengthen me to know that the power of the resurrections at work in my life, that I'm more than a conqueror in you. Father, that you've destined me to be the head and not the tail. Let me know the victory that I have in Jesus.
Beloved, keep talking to God. Talk to God in the struggle. I don't know what more I can tell you. Talk to God in the battle. This is prayer. People think that prayer is some formula, like they say, okay, I pray every day at this time. That's fantastic, but what about the rest of the day? Paul said, pray continuously. This is not some mechanical thing that you're doing if you're praying continuously. You're just talking to God. You know, it's knowing that He's aware of you, knowing that He's aware of your thoughts, and then talking to Him. It can be silently from your heart or from your mind. It can be out loud. It can be in your spirit language. Talking to God is key. Think about it. When the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, the breath of God came on those first disciples in Acts 2, on the day of Shavuot, the day that we call Pentecost, right?
Shavuot is the Hebrew name. Pentecost is the Greek name meaning 50, 50 days after Passover. They were sitting in that place and suddenly the Spirit of God came in the upper room. And when the Spirit of God came upon the church, how did the Ruach HaKodesh manifest Himself? As a what? A tongue of fire. Now, what's a tongue? A tongue's a speaking oracle. If you don't have a tongue, you cannot speak. He came as a tongue. That means something. He could have come as a dove, right? He could have come as anything. He could have come as a white horse. He could have come in many different ways. But He came as a tongue of fire. Why? God is communicating to us that He's given us the gift, listen, of communication with Him and the ability to communicate Him to others. So talk to God. You're sealed in the Holy Spirit. Keep talking to God.
Let's continue on. "In Him you are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise," verse 14, "who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of His glory". In other words, what we have right now, this sealing that's taken place of our soul in the Holy Spirit, this is just the beginning. This is just God's salvation of our soul that's keeping us in this world. We're being kept by the power of God that will endure to the end, that will be kept in relationship and communication with Him. The Holy Spirit is at work in our life, transforming us. But this is just the beginning. It's with a view to the redemption, the full redemption of God's own possession.
What's God's own possession? You. You're God's own possession. You are sealed with the Spirit. God claimed you, right? And He took you from the devil. You've been called out of darkness into His marvelous light. You've been redeemed from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of His beloved Son, Jesus. And this is just the beginning because God's got a destiny for us. It's so great, the scripture says, eye has not seen and ear has not heard. It's never even, beloved ones, entered into the heart of man. It's so far beyond our imagination. What God has in store for us is so wonderful, it's so big, it's so true, we've never even been able to imagine what it's going to be. That's what God's got in store. So this Holy Spirit we've been sealed by it with a view to the redemption, the full redemption when we meet Jesus face to face of God's own possession.
Again, you and I are God's possession to the praise, there's that phrase again, to the praise of His glorious grace. And so why are we here on earth? We're here to be Jesus lovers. We're here to be Jesus praisers, amen? Let praise ring forth from our lives. Don't be afraid to wear that Jesus cap. Don't be afraid to wear your TakingTheRainbowBack.com t-shirt. Don't be afraid to wear that WWJD bracelet. Let your light shine. Jesus didn't save us that we would carry our relationship with Him secretly so that no one knows we're Christians except those people that we talk to in church every week. That's pathetic, right? No one knows we're Christian, but the people that we go to church with every week, because we're too ashamed, we're too embarrassed, we don't have the courage to talk about Him in the streets.
When Jesus said, go into the highways and the byways and compel people to come into my house that it might be full. And yet how many of us as God's people, and I'm not talking to those of you that are homebound for health reasons? I'm not talking to you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God loves you. I'm talking about those of us that are healthy. We can walk. We can talk. We're in good health. But everywhere we go, no one's hearing about Jesus. It's a farce. I'm sorry, my friends. It's an absolute disconnect from what God has called us to be. We are saved to the praise of His glorious grace. Jesus said God takes a light and He wants to put that light on a hill. So people will hear praise from our lives and they'll be drawn into a relationship with God and give God praise. That's why we're here.
Jesus said, "You'll be baptized with the Ruach HaKodesh, with the Holy Spirit, and you shall be My witnesses". So let's live for Him like we're called to live for Him. Let's be who we're called to be. Maybe right now you just need to shake off your life and break that spirit of fear. Beloved one, Jesus loves you. He has not given you a spirit of fear or timidity, but of love and power and a sound mind. We need to break fear off our life. We need to step out and be His witnesses. I'm just trying to shake you up and wake you up. Jesus said, "If we are ashamed of Him and," listen, "His words, the Word of God, if we're ashamed of God's Word in this wicked and adulterous generation," Jesus said, "I'm going to be ashamed of you when I come again in the glory of My Father with the holy angels".
We need to break fear and intimidation, the fear of what man thinks off our life. We need to stop being more concerned about being accepted by the world than we are about pleasing the Father. We've been saved unto His glorious grace. Think about what Jesus went through to save you and I. Think about what He went through, the scars, the nails, what He went through to save you and I. Doesn't He deserve our lives back? We need to live for Him and give our lives to Him, even as He gave His life to us. Let's stop being timid, beloved ones. Let's stop being scared. Let's be bold witnesses.