Satan Said Condemned, Jesus Said Free: Bought With a Price

Sermon outline

Jesus bought you out of Satan's slave market with His blood and made you the righteousness of God, so it is now in your nature to love, to give and to give others a chance.

1. Point 10: You are bought with a price, a foundation for discernment

   He calls the series 'faith for the miraculous' because understanding the blood lays a foundation in the heart. Christians flock to anyone doing miracles without discerning whether it is from God or the devil, and in the last days even the elect will be drawn away by false signs and wonders, so believers must know the Scriptures and stand on a firmer foundation.

   “We've got to know what's of God and what's not of God.”

   • Matthew 24:5
   • Matthew 24:24

2. Redeemed: bought back out of Satan's market

   Redemption means to be bought back. Every one of us was a slave for sale in Satan's marketplace, as Paul says, 'carnal, sold under sin'. Jesus, whose Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills, walked into that market and bought us with His own blood.

   Illustration: In Roman times a slave stood in the marketplace under a Roman spear. Paul's sin was the spear over his head, and ours too, until Jesus paid the price.

   “When Satan looked at us and said, condemned, Jesus looked at us and said, free.”

   • Romans 7:14
   • Psalm 50:10
   • John 1:4-5

3. Don't be a Pharisee: give people a chance

   Jesus could not stand the Pharisees, who were squeaky clean and always pointing the finger, and it is easy to forget what God forgave us. Everyone is at a different level, and others in the family or church may not yet have had your revelation. People who have met phoney love become suspicious of genuine love, but Paul grew from hating and persecuting the church to weeping and giving his life for it; we are all under construction.

   Illustration: When someone asks for a meeting, people wonder whether you want to borrow their car or money. When the pastor phones, it is often just to ask about their welfare because God laid them on his heart.

   “We are all under construction.”

   • Matthew 23:27
   • Matthew 23:33
   • Acts 7:58

4. Your miracle comes through men and women

   When God puts someone on your heart, He is moving you to intercede, and a miracle is coming to them. God has delegated authority on the earth to man, so He works through men and women, and sometimes a single word from a man or woman of God is all you need.

   Illustration: The prophet asked the Shunammite woman what she needed; she lacked only a child, and he said that this time next year she would have one.

   “Yeah, God will do it, but not without man.”

   • 2 Kings 4:13-16

5. Don't write anybody off

   A slave has no choice about his work; people are where they are because Satan put them there, so we must not condemn them. God has given us the ministry of reconciliation to pray and work for them. We become less critical as we become more godly, and only by the love of God shed abroad in our hearts can we love our enemies instead of taking an eye for an eye.

   “Satan decided what we would be, but Jesus' blood breaks his hold.”

   • 2 Corinthians 5:18
   • Romans 5:5
   • Matthew 5:38-44
   • Romans 8:1

6. Righteousness is a gift, not a wage

   He struggled for years thinking that dressing, speaking and doing right would make him right. He came to see that righteousness is not earned by merit but transferred by grace and imparted to your nature when you are born again, and it cannot change. If you don't understand this, Satan will whip you again and again; when you do, you can stand against the enemy and say there is no condemnation.

   Illustration: He mentions his book The Righteous Man, which came out of his series on the righteousness of God.

   “Righteousness is not earned by merit. It has been transferred by grace.”

   • Romans 8:1
   • Psalm 42:7

7. It's in your nature to love and to give

   It is in a snake's nature to bite, and it is in the believer's new nature to love, give, sow, share Christ and be kind. The more you give, the more God gives back, so when you feel led to do something, do it, as Mary told the servants at Cana. It is your nature to be like your heavenly Father and give and give, even when the reasoning man feels taken advantage of.

   Illustration: He avoids snake parks, and he saw a crocodile at a zoo nose up to a diver in a cage, and tells the fable of a snake that bit the animal carrying it across a river because 'it's in my nature'. He grew up poor, with a giving mother who would split one pie nine ways, and he confesses he was once an angry driver looking for a fight, but after he was born again it became his nature to give way and say thank you.

   “It's in our nature to give. It's in our nature to sow. It's in our nature to love.”

   • Ecclesiastes 11:1
   • Galatians 6:7
   • Luke 6:38
   • John 2:5
   • Romans 8:14
   • Psalm 37:4