You may think “Well what’s the big deal?” He already made Adam and Eve. They were already vessels. This is the point that this represents, this marring represents our freewill, like Isaiah; each person goes their own way. Sin at its root, “I do what works for me. I’m going to go my way, not God’s way.” “Well, you mean I exist for that purpose to be conformed, to be transformed, to be all this?” Yes. Now, if you have that, then you’re going to need to look at the process.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that number three. This is my favorite part of the message. How does God carry out His process? The wheel. And I’m the clay and He’s the one doing work, He’s the potter doing the work on the wheel, which is how the process is going to be carried out. And I’m on this wheel. Now please I don’t even want to see hands. How many of you in the last seven days thought, “This is my circumstance, what I’m going through, my troubles, my tribulations, my everything.” How many of you thought, “This is part of my wheel. Thank God”? Don’t show me your hands. I know because I’m guilty. I griped about something instead of saying, “This is part of my wheel. This is how God’s shaping me.
Everything that’s going on in my life God enters into all things to work His good. If you can caricature for a minute, how many of you view your life, your life circumstance, your failures, your short fallings, all the debacles in your life, how many of you view yourself as caricature on the wheel with hands lifted up, as your life looks like it’s spinning out of control? How many of you feel like you’re on a wheel, lifting your hands up and saying, “Lord I know you’ve got me. I’m praising you. I know you’ve got me. It’s okay.” Versus the ones where the wheel is revolving and you’re on the wheel and you look like a woman that’s fighting, “Get me off of here!” No, mine is supposed to be the genteel wheel. You know, the smooth kind. Right?
“Well my child’s been born in the church” versus “I just came into the church,” two different worlds? No. All born in Adam. You don’t have to turn there; I’m going to read it to you right out Romans 5. You can turn there if you want. I’m not going to stay there. I want to read one little passage because it tells you, you cannot escape this mindset.
According to Pastor Melissa Scott that it says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world.” And we still live in that very same world. We haven’t departed. We were by nature children of wrath. Now see how simple this. You say how do we get victory over the world, the flesh and the devil? The Bible has many avenues and says many things. The victory over the flesh is not like it’s going to happen right now. The victory begins when you’re plugged in by faith. It’s been the same message. Grace is the message and it is the connection, that connection of faith. You pull that plug out, say ‘bye-’bye. No more juice flowing through you. You might as well just go out and get back into the current. And it is a drag. It’s one of those things like used a magnetic pull. I know. I was out there. And to pull away from the world, God has got to come in and do what verse 5 says, “He quickens us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” Not quickened us alone.
So “His for we are masterpiece, poem” as I’ve translated this ktisthentes “having been created.” And this is what’s so great about Paul’s writing. He doesn’t make it confusing, “Having been created” something that previously wasn’t there. What is it? “In Christ” en Kristo Yesou “in Christ Jesus.” What wasn’t there before. Why? Because if you go back to verse 2 and verse 5 “when we were dead, dead in trespasses and sins, He quickened us, He enlivened us.” Previously this element wasn’t there. And this element got in us by faith, through the implant, by faith, grace and the implant of the Spirit deposited in us. And then we get to this epi ergois agathois, which is the good works. I’m going to leave you dangling with that. I want to tackle this in such a way that when I get to it I will show with multiple scriptures and multiple uses of the word.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that do you remember when Dr. Scott described when he was going to do his doctoral dissertation on Paul’s use of the word sarks? How many remember that? He spoke of that. And he has to drop the subject because he found that Paul used the words interchangeably pnuema, sarks. He could not pursue it because there was not a definitive in there. I’m going to show you how these ergois, erga “works,” I’m going to show you how there are works and then there are works. And the works that you might be thinking of are not the works that God’s thinking of because our ways are never God’s ways.
This shows you by the way, before progressive education, before a lot of things. This actually emanated from Tyndale’s translation, I believe, in 1525. “To program the mind, let me give you something cushiony before I give you the one-two punch. Let me give you something good to digest, ‘You hath He quickened.’” No.
He did do that. But why do we need all of this icing? Because we know already what came before in the first chapter. We got some good stuff. Now I know some of you are probably saying, “Good gracious! what is this? I heard Dr. Scott say, when they played that program, he said, “I’m going to have my wife, one of these days write in Russian and Chinese.” So I said I’d better at least use one of them. So put I put some Russian up here; it’s just because you said so, I’d do it.
So, this, we’ll do it phonetically first. We’ll do this phonetically. I know you’re all going to leave here speaking like true comrades, yes? All right. What this is, a little accent there. K- h- po- - I’m tempted to make somebody else come and read this because it could be – I could really butcher this that badly, I think. But we’ll just do it phonetically for you. I know people call in and say, “How many languages does that woman speak? I don’t know. Ask God. I don’t know. Only He knows. I might speak languages I don’t even know I speak. That’s pretty good. All right.
I want to take a minute because I know there are a lot of people every week that join us. There are people joining us this morning on the Internet, I want to just take a brief minute to explain it again because we play one or two messages that have what it is. What is a King’s House? And a lot of times that will play on the network and people will respond, but there are countless messages that play including Dr. Scott’s teaching and other messages that play where it doesn’t say what it is.
A King’s House simply is the way you identify with us and we identify with you with this ministry. Most ministries say, “Let’s partner together.” We don’t partner here. God’s the boss and we salute the boss. Now if you want to make your home dedicated to the Lord; it may already be; but attaching yourselves in this capacity. You say, “My house is dedicated to the Lord, therefore it is a King’s House and I become a King’s House.” You call and you get a number that says this is your number and you don’t have to call in and give your name every time because we do do things by the way of Matthew 6 trying to keep our privacy or however you want to say it. When we give, we do give in private although when I say it’s offering time here, that’s different. We’re in the Lord’s house.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that and the reason why I make this subtle distinction about something is if you’ll read back in verse 13 and 14 where it says we were sealed with that deposit of the Holy Spirit, then something needs to be pointed out. Too many times, and I’m guilty of it, I will come and I will say this is the life of the saint. You’re going to have tribulation; you’re going to be tried. And I really think it’s God up there going, “hee, hee, hee! No, it’s really; actually what it is, is it’s God saying, “are you going to be faithful? Are you going to tough it out? And this trying by fire, what comes out at the end is going to be the gold. That’s the gold God is expecting to see come forth. He gives us something. He doesn’t just send us out there. Now we believe, we’re faithing. Wonderful – send you out into the wilderness to be eaten by wolves? No. We don’t serve such a God.
Three words that I want to briefly look at. Your King James reads, “the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power.” dunameos I covered this last week but it’s very important. It’s a subtle thing but it’s very important. Dunameos, kratos, iskous. These three power words, correct me if I’m wrong, if I just told you the revised standard version says “the power in us” that means the power’s already been deposited in us. And how it’s been deposited is by the Spirit deposit in us. If everybody agrees to that then you have to turn around and say these words here, which I was tempted to bring and analyze each word, but I’ll just summarize it.
I will tell you what is my heart’s desire for this church. I am not empowered to go and save the world, but I am empowered and commissioned by God to help you have a fuller life in Christ. I do not teach a doctrine of prosperity. To those who ask, “Are you going to teach on the more abundant life that we should be living?” I say, “Yes, in Christ.” I have no other message than that. I have no desire to bring you health products or the latest gadgets. It is my heart’s desire to grow with you. I have not “arrived”; I’m still on a journey to grow with you in this faith walk.
Now I spent a lot of time reading Romans 9 this week and with all my heart, I really understand what Paul meant when he opened that chapter saying, “I would be accursed from Christ for my brethren, for my kinsmen.” It matters not if you want to say that was a rhetorical remark; it came from the heart, as if to say, “I would go to hell for you if you would just hear me out.” And I don’t mean that offensively; I mean that with all of a heart towards God. So to those that are joining us today for the first time, please open your hearts and your minds to hear the words I’m going to speak. I only bring the Gospel. That’s all I have, which to me is everything. To some people it’s not enough. To me it is more than enough and more than sufficient.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that last week, we looked at the Christ-centered life. Today, I want to continue on that path. I’m not done speaking about Romans 9, and I think we can understand an analogy in terms of the things of time. I know of at least one man in our congregation who is a fireman. Firemen are trained and equipped to go into a burning building, and they don’t stop and count the cost to themselves. It is assumed when you begin that vocation that there are risks, that you may lose your life in the act of saving somebody else’s. That is an act in time. I look at the Gospel as not being any different; but we are dealing with eternal things.
So, to understand who the “thy people” really are, we must delineate between peoples at an historic “Y” fork in the road of prophetic revelation. When it was time for Jacob, who had been renamed Israel, to pass on the birthright and decide who is going to get what, you begin to see at that point the blessings out of Jacob/Israel’s line should have gone to Ruben. But Ruben defiled his father’s bed, so Jacob/Israel decides by God’s empowerment who should inherit the promises, instead of Ruben. And it splits into two: the scepter and right to make the law goes to Judah, and the birthright promises go to the sons of Joseph. We see that in 1 Chronicles 5.
Read the story of Joseph in Genesis 37. His brothers sell Joseph off as a slave, and Joseph is sold to Potiphar’s house, falsely accused and put in a prison. He’s left there to rot in prison. While he’s in prison, he helps out and interprets the dreams of two other prisoners, but he’s still left there to rot, until we have that beautiful story of how God entered in: first He enters in, as the Scripture says, like iron entering into Joseph’s soul. Then, God entered in to raise up Joseph out of that prison to be the ruler of Egypt.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that Joseph was the ruler of Egypt. When there was a famine in the land, the brothers come to Egypt to get food. Later when the brothers are restored and everything’s made good, you know how the story ends up: Joseph assigns his brothers the richest land and they rule Egypt completely. They control everything. Then we read in the opening chapters of Exodus that there rose up a king, a pharaoh, who knew not Joseph. The brothers who ruled the land are known in history as the Hixos or the Shepherd Kings. But when this king rises up, he kicks them out of the land.
Some will erroneously say that all of the promises are to the Jews, and everyone is homogenized into one camp. That is not true. Why did Paul talk about the wild olive branch, in Romans 9 through 11? We are that wild olive branch, the church; we have been grafted on to the trunk of Abraham. But the time of that wild olive branch will come to an end. And God’s word says, “I will go back to My people in the end, those that first rejected me.” There will come the Great Tribulation on this Earth, and it will be a horrible sight. But we are not going to be here. We will be gone, so don’t worry about it.
There are those who will take a promise and twist it “As thy day, so shall thy faith be.” No. “As thy day, so shall thy strength be.” I really have come to terms with this. You can wake up in the morning and not feel your best. It shouldn’t affect your Faith. Your Faith should still be strong even though your body feels weak. You go back to the same principle “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
I still live in the same flesh that I lived in when I didn’t know or understand anything about God. I haven’t received new skin (flesh). But I am a new creature in Christ Jesus. By His power I am made whole and He has washed my sins away. That brings us to Romans 7:15, “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Maybe I will help somebody get delivered from the doctrine of ‘perfectionism.’ I’m still a sinner being saved by God’s Grace and I’m not afraid to admit it.
Thank God for I Corinthians 15:54 where it says until “this mortal shall put on immortality.” No one wants to read that because they want it ‘Zap’—right now. Until “this mortal puts on immortality,” that tells you it’s not going to happen here. I am a work in progress. The promise of God “As thy day, so shall thy strength be.” That’s a wonderful promise for us because you know there are days, and today was one of them, I just felt miserable this morning. I really felt bad, but by Faith I’m here. “The steps of a good man or woman are ordered by the LORD.” So what happens when you fall? Well, I know you’ve all been taught ‘Get up and point in the right direction.’ But if “the steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD” and you take a fall, what then? These are all the principles we’ve been taught. We can go back to Isaiah 50 and say don’t doubt in the dark what God showed you in the light, “Trust in the name of the LORD.”
Paul could have used hamartia because we know through most of the text he uses hamartia. But here he uses this, and there’s a specific reason. Now, let me go through this all at one time and make sure that we’re all on the same page, because this is one where I don’t want anybody to misunderstand what I’m saying, lest I be misinterpreted. “In whom we have,” which is a continuous action, “the redemption through,” or by, “his blood,” the blood of Him, the aphesin. And I’ll get back to this, “the forgiveness”; I put that in quotes “the forgiveness of the trespasses, according,” kata, “according to,” ploutos, “the riches,” from where we get plutocrat, “the riches,” ploutos tes charitos, “grace of him.” “According to the riches of the grace of Him.”
Now we can pick and pull this apart, but the one word I want to focus on is paraptomaton. Why paraptomaton, and not hamartia? I remember reading a book that had in the title Sin of Sins. Now, I bet you anybody who’s going to be channel surfing when I say that, they’re going to be riveted to hear what it is, or they’re going to change the channel. What is the sin in sins?