Your Convictions About The Crucifixion Of Jesus Christ – Dr. Charles Stanley

when you got saved you placed your

weight on Jesus Christ but his goal is

to take you to the deep end of

experience with God he wants to show you

what God can do where you can’t stand up

he wants to be able to let you

experience Deep Water God and not just

shallow water Christian he’s trying to

take you to Deep Water where you can’t

touch and where the supernatural has to

come

[Applause]

in

we are doing an exposition of second

Peter 1:

1-1 calling it the triumphant trip to

glory and our goal is

to be in sync with Peter’s

goal Peter had a two-fold

goal he States it in verse 8 if these

qualities are yours and are increasing

they render you neither useless or

unfruitful in the true knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ his first goal is that

you will live a useful fruitful life his

second goal is in verse 11 for in this

way the entrance into the Eternal

Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus

Christ will be abundantly supplied to

you so his second goal is that you will

enter Heaven as a winner and not a

loser everybody doesn’t go to heaven the

same way every Christian doesn’t enter

into eternity the same way

some will enter as losers some will

enter defeated some will entered having

not progressed never having seen

Victory because they were neither useful

nor fruitful because there was no

increase ever increasing he says in

verse

eight now we’ve already studied that God

has deposited within every believer that

which is necessary to live a useful and

fruitful life and to have an eternal

abundant in in the glory he calls that

the divine nature in verse four that

every believer has been given this seed

this deposit within them that is deity

but you get it in seed

form that seed or the DNA of deity the

god that has been deposited in every

Christian

Soul like any seed has to grow like like

the conception in the womb of a woman of

a new life that seed has to grow in

order for there to be the full

manifestation of the life that’s in the

seed and so he says at the beginning of

verse five now for this reason because

you’ve got the Divine Life already

deposited within you apply all

diligence stop shucking and

Jing stop playing around stop stop stop

taking this lightly and apply all

diligence take it seriously if you’re

going to get the benefit that it offers

offers you cannot be a casual Christian

and expect a magnificent

transformation it doesn’t happen that

way you must cooperate with what God is

doing

inside by as we saw in Philippians 2

working it out you don’t work it in it’s

already been put in you work it out that

is you exercise it so that what is

invisible becomes visible so that raises

a question question how do you do

it obviously his key word here is

Faith notice that you are adding to your

faith so he’s assuming something and

that is you have a faith to add to he’s

assuming you’re already a

Christian when you became a Christian

you had to place faith alone in Christ

alone for the Forgiveness of your sins

and the gift of eternal life you had to

trust Christ for

salvation that means you had to exercise

Faith because you’re dealing with

somebody you don’t see believing in an

event that you weren’t at the

cross but placing your confidence that

Jesus Christ on the cross died as your

substitute personally and you’ve receiv

them into your

life so you’ve received Faith which

deposited the divine nature inside of

you he says now to see that fully

expressed outside of you to see it

working in your life

you must Supply or add to your

faith so we’ve got to start off by

making sure we’re on the same page by

what we mean by

faith Hebrews chapter

11 verse one and verse

6 now Faith is the substance of things

hoped for the conviction of Things Not

Seen verse 6 says for without faith it

is impossible to please him

for he who comes to God must believe

that he is and that he is a rewarder of

them who seek him because faith is only

faith in God’s definition when it has

substance and notice this it is a

substance tied to something you can’t

see faith is the substance of things

hoped for and it is the evidence

something made visible about something

that is not

visible

the moment you add sight you no longer

have faith because if you have sight you

don’t need Faith so Faith concerns

itself with something you cannot see

that’s still

real that will manifest itself as

evidence that is it’s going to show up

but you can’t see it at the start of

Faith now why does this

matter because verse six says says

without faith it is impossible to please

him for them that he that cometh to God

must first believe that he is and that

he is a rewarder of those who seek him

so you must first believe that he

is that he exists for you to even come

to him in the first place but then he

says You’ got to believe something else

and that is that that he responds that

he is a rewarder of those who seek him

so you got to believe two things you got

to believe that he’s there and then you

got to believe that he acts he responds

he rewards that he comes through You’ve

Got to Believe In not only his

person his existence but his ability and

his capacity so he says if you’re going

to come to him you got to come by faith

therefore if you are a faithless saint

you cannot do business with God

faith says one

thing one driving factor and that is

that God has

Integrity that he cannot and does not

lie that God possesses

Integrity fact God says of himself am am

I a man that I

lie so since God possesses integrity and

therefore cannot lie he demands to be

trusted Faith becomes your positive

response to What God

Says and faith is measured by your

movement it is measured by your walk not

your talk your life not your

lips that’s why the Bible calls it

walking by

faith why does he want you to stir up

this Faith to expand your experience of

God so God can make himself more evident

to

you for faith is the substance of things

hope for the evidence of Things Not Seen

so God wants to make himself more

evident to you more real to you he does

not just want to be a concept an idea a

thought a perspective he wants you to

see him at

work but you will not see him at work

without

faith in fact it’s impossible to see him

so he wants you

to supply to your faith so you expand

your faith so you experience more of

him so that his

reality so you won’t have to picky back

off everybody else’s

testimony because you’ve seen in

evidence the invisible God bring visible

reality to your

life

when you get saved you begin Faith you

begin your faith

life but guess what Romans chap 1 verse

17 says it says the just those who

gotten saved shall live by

faith he doesn’t want Faith just to get

you started he wants Faith to become

your

lifestyle 2 Corinthians chapter 5:7 says

we walk by faith not by

sight so you when you got saved you

began Faith you began a faith Journey

but that Faith journey is supposed to

become a lifestyle way of operating not

just a past event that happened however

many years ago you got

converted see what a lot of people do is

they get started by faith and then

forget the faith that got them started

so they never get to see more than their

trip to Heaven they never get evidence

of God on

Earth he says add to your

faith attach to

it build it expand it grow

it so he will let you have challenges

designed to grow it why does he want you

to grow it he wants you to grow it so

that you learn to operate from the

spiritual and not just from the natural

see we operate from the natural where we

can put our foot foot down where we can

see where we can touch bottom God God I

trust you but I need to be able to touch

bottom I need the natural he’s trying to

take you to Deep Water where you can’t

touch and where it is all God and where

the supernatural has to come in but he

can’t do that if he leaves you in the

shallow so the question is does he have

Integrity can he be trusted or is he a

liar to be not believed we don’t even

like folk questioning our

integrity so you can imagine how a

perfect God feels when his Integrity is

being questioned by a human

being so he wants to attach you to the

spiritual but he will not attach you

apart from

faith and so God wants to EXP expand

your faith experience my faith

experience so that we expand our

experience of the invisible God entering

our visible World evidence

manifestation well how does this

work adding to your faith look at James

2 James 2 because his goal is that you

live a use ful fruitful life and have an

abundant entrance into

heaven verse 14 of James 2 says what use

is it my brethren because he’s writing

to Christians if someone says he has

Faith but he has no Works can that Faith

save

him well he’s not talking about going to

heaven because he calls them Brethren

they’re already saved and going to

heaven so it is possible to be a

Christian because he calls them Brethren

and have a useless Faith a faith you

can’t use a faith that doesn’t work for

you a faith where you don’t see God

coming through for you calls it a

useless faith it gives an

illustration he says if a brother or

sister is without clothing and in need

of daily food and one of you says to

them go and peace be warm be filled and

yet do not give him what is necessary

for the body what use is

that

verse 20 but are you willing to

recognize you foolish fellow faith

without works is useless

it’s a waste of time was not Abraham Our

Father justified by works when he

offered up Isaac his son on the altar

you see that Faith was working with his

works and as a result of the works Faith

was perfected and the scripture was

fulfilled which says and Abraham

believed God and it was reckoned to him

as righteousness and he was called the

friend of God now this is

deep he recites something that happened

in Genesis

22 AB Abraham had been long converted

Abraham was already a

Believer but God wanted to do something

new in his life different in his life

Supernatural in his life so he said

sacrifice your son Isaac Abraham took

Isaac and obeyed God even though it

didn’t make sense it wasn’t logical it

felt illogical it was very

fearful but he obeyed God and when he

was about to complete his obedience the

angel of the Lord came and said now I

know that you fear me oh what a line

that is now I know wait a minute you God

you knew that before I got up this

morning what you mean now you

know well as we’ve said before God knows

everything informationally

academically but God does not know

everything experientially until it

happens that’s why God became a man to

experience Humanity so God hasn’t

experienced everything he knows like God

has never experienced sinning he he

doesn’t know what it is to do sin he

knows what sin is but but it’s not in

his experience to sin to Bear our sins

but not to sin

himself so guess what God wants to do

what God wants to do is he wants to get

the experience of how good it feels to

watch you trust him like Rahab verse 25

in the same way was not Rahab the Harlot

also so justified by works when she

received the messengers and sent them

out another way for just as the body

without the spirit is dead so faith

without works is dead her whole home her

whole home got saved and delivered

because she believed God and she was the

only one who did cuz sometimes believing

God involves believing him when nobody

around you is sharing the belief she was

the only one her and her

family and so she saw Supernatural

Deliverance and so there are many

Christians walking around today with a

dead

Faith they rarely see God do anything

they rarely see the supernatural they

rarely see Heaven visit

history they don’t see it because

they’re working with dead

faith meaning it’s useless there was

enough there to save them but not enough

there for God to intervene into

history so if you want to spend all of

your life never seeing God show up you

want to spend all of your life never

seeing God invade in in some way that he

chooses

to then you’ll just live in the shallow

end of the

pool you you’ll you’ll live and you

you’ll learn to swim in the shallow end

you you’ll stroke a little bit you’ll

walk a little bit you’ll stroke a little

bit you’ll walk a little bit but that

deep end

experience you won’t have it because

without faith it’s impossible to please

him and yes sometimes that involves

trusting him when there is no reason to

that is when you don’t have the

empirical

evidence

yet faith is like a muscle it must be

exercised in order to be

built you don’t you don’t you don’t get

muscles by hoping they grow one day

hoping you you bulk up one day wishing

for it feeling like it Desiring it none

of that is going to build a muscle it

must be exercised Faith must be

exercised in order for it to

grow if it’s not

exercised don’t complain that your faith

is flabby he says in Peter add to your

faith supplement your faith by putting

it to

work add to your faith so what that

tells you is Faith can be added too okay

wouldn’t tell you to add the something

if if if you know if the addition wasn’t

there now watch this notice what he says

second Peter verse two Grace and peace

be multiplied to

you okay this goes back to our first

sermon he wants Grace and peace on the

multiplication table not the addition

table so multiplication means you got a

lot more okay but he tells you to add to

to your faith Supply means to add the

word Supply was used of a band leader

who bought all the equipment for the

band he supplied the instruments so it

meant to supply fully or abundantly give

it all get throw it all in there so that

the all the parts are

covered he says add to your faith but he

said I want Grace to be multiplied

so guess what if you’ll add he’ll

multiply so he’ll take your addition and

integrate it into a multiplication

table so that God’s grace his favor his

unmerited favor is being multiplied to

you because you did some addition to

your faith now watch

this turn your Bibles to Romans chapter

5

Romans chapter

5 verses 1 and two therefore having been

justified by faith we have peace with

God through our Lord Jesus Christ so you

got saved through whom also we have

obtained our introduction by faith into

this grace in which we stand

whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

whoa he says in verse one you got

saved then he says in verse two when you

got

saved you experience an introduction by

faith into another realm called Grace

faith when you got saved how many years

ago that was gave you an

introduction to Grace when you got saved

when you accepted Christ verse

one that just introduced you to a whole

another realm called

Grace Grace is God’s unmar favor God

grace is God doing for you which you

can’t do for

yourself Grace is all that God has

agreed to supply to you when God gave

you the free gift of Salvation it was

access not only to Walk Around Heaven

All Day one day it was access to all he

wants to do in Grace for you on your way

there now watch this this blows your

mind verse eight but God of Romans 5 but

God demonstrated his own love toward us

in that while we were yet sinners Christ

died for us well that’s salvation but

look at the next two words much more

than oh wait a minute more than getting

saved yeah much more than having now

been justified by his blood saved we

shall be delivered from the wrath of God

through him watch this for if while we

were enemies we were reconciled to God

through the death of his son much

more having been reconciled we shall be

saved by his life okay did you get that

he saved you but there’s a whole lot

more

than just going to heaven how could

there be something better than going to

heaven Experiencing God on your trip

there he says there is much more because

we will experience him and his

delivering power in our life that’s a

promise that’s a promise his resurrected

life him sitting on the right hand of

the father right now is designed to do

much more than just take you to heaven

when you die

and yet a lot of Christians are living

to just go to heaven when they die never

having experienced much of God on the

trip

there but he says there’s much

more he wants to do so much more now now

now watch this now because I want to

clarify

something he says that this salvation

gives you an introduction into his

grace into whatever his unmerited favor

offers now this is where people get

messed up on one of two

extremes

one they exercise faith in something God

is not

offering see and that’s where you can

get tripped up with prosperity theology

you can get tripped up with with some of

these ideologies promising you something

God never promised see one extreme is

trying to get what he doesn’t offer The

Other Extreme is is not getting what he

does offer so some people over there are

are waiting for God to do something he’s

never gonna do because he never said he

was going to do it he never confirmed he

was going to do it and by the way let

let me answer this question since I’m in

the question answering

mode because the question is well how do

I know if God is offering it that’s a

question two

ways one is it supported by scripture

that’s the first way if it is it

consistent with his revealed word

because if it’s not supported by

scripture you you then you don’t have a

basis for it but then the scripture

doesn’t talk about everything so how do

I know that this thing that’s consistent

with scripture is for me that it applies

to me Bible has a regular answer for

that two or three

Witnesses the Bible says by two or three

Witnesses shall a matter be confirmed so

the Holy

Spirit confirms an application of a

Biblical principle by by giving two or

more confirmations of

it and those confirmations mean that

that principle applied in this way

belongs to you so you look for the

confirmation as long as it’s consistent

with the principle and then you walk in

faith even though there’s nothing you

can

see no

sight and then you’re introduced to this

grace and this Grace begins to

supply an ex expand your experience so

you’re moving from the shallow end to

the deep end so let’s get this

straight Faith does not make God do what

he does not intend to do Faith does

faith does not force God I believe in

you I’m trusting you I’m believing you

I’m beli in you you you don’t make God

do anything here’s what it does faith

accesses what God has already planned to

do okay everybody in here has

electricity everybody in here your home

is has

electricity in other words everybody’s

home has power you have power because

you have electricity that means you’re

connected to the power

company in fact there is so much power

out there it’s got everybody’s house

covered there nobody who lives in a

house here who who uh has to worry about

power because you’re attached to

electricity and to the power plant this

guy hasn’t has enough power

for your whole house for all of our

houses is this power

Galore but let me make a

suggestion I I would

suggest that you don’t call up the power

company and ask them to come turn on

your

lights say t Electric to you electric I

want you to come over here and turn on

my

lights they ain’t going to

come they ain’t going to

come they’re not going to turn on your

lights what they’re going to do is give

you access to their

power you must plug in your own

lamp and flip your own

switch but that doesn’t create power all

that does is access existing

power you have to cooperate with the

power connection in order to have

evidence of the Po’s

presence

some Christians are satisfied just to

turn on a closet light and so all they

get is a closet experience with God

other Christians will turn on a bedroom

light they’ll get a bedroom experience

with God some are not satisfied they

want to light up the whole premises and

guess what there’s enough power for just

your closet and there’s enough power for

all of your premises so the question is

how much God do you

want

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