A Sermon Delivered on Wednesday evening, August 19th, 2020, by
Evangelist PAUL ACQUAH, Live on MZ Radio London, UK
What you believe is very powerful. If you change what you believe, you change your life. It’s important to
learn the truth about how God really sees you and why it’s vital you believe right about Jesus, and what He has accomplished for you. You will break free from destructive habits and overcome every challenge in life as you simply hear and believe the powerful truths shared about your righteous standing in Christ.
The finished work of Jesus on the cross didn’t just secure you a place in heaven, it also delivered you from darkness to light and qualified you to enjoy God’s goodness. You see, an understanding of Jesus’ finished work makes all the difference in knowing God’s heart for you in any matter. The cross has made all the difference to why you don’t have to walk around sin conscious or be afraid of God’s judgement as a believer. This message unfolds gems of truths about your right standing in Christ today.
The Christian life isn’t a changed life, but an exchanged life. People may say what does that mean? Change can mean exchange, but exchange doesn’t necessarily mean change. So, change has a much wider usage, while exchange means one set thing. When you change your clothes or change, you take some, or all of your clothes off and put-on different ones. For example, exchange is to give something to someone and receive something from that person: I might offer them my old car in part exchange for a new one. Or for example, the process of changing one currency for another: An occasion when you give or return something to someone, and they give you something else. God is asking every Christian to let Him live through us.
The Christian life is not a changed life but an exchanged life. This can only be accomplished when the Holy Spirit is leading and empowering us.
We no longer live for ourselves. The Bible says in 2 Cor. 5:15 that: “
and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again”. The apostle Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Jesus came into this world in His physical body exactly as we did. He had to grow and learn. He became just like us so that we could become just like Him. So, the Bible says in 2 Cor. 5:21 that, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” This is the great exchange I want to talk to you about. He became like us so that He could bear all our iniquities and become a mercy high priest for us.
Our sin debt has been paid. Not only that, but we have become the righteousness of God in Christ. This is the great exchange. He not only took away our sin but gave us His righteousness. We are now as clean and holy in our spirits as Jesus is. The Bible says in 1 John 4:17 that, “as He is, so are we in this world”. God put His judgment for sin on Christ at the cross so you wouldn’t have to bear it. When you believe and receive the Lord, He places Jesus’ righteousness upon you. This is the Great Exchange I’m conveying to you. “ For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).
He exchanged our position of alienation to a state of forgiveness and right relationship with God. Jesus was willing to switch places with us. He actually switched places with us, even though the trade was in no way beneficial to Him. Even though He possessed all the riches of heaven, Jesus chose to renounce His position of glory and became a man in order that we might enjoy a relationship with the father. Jesus gave up everything He possessed in order to provide us with everything we were lacking. What a great exchange we have in Christ.
Our relationship with God is based on an incredible exchange. Jesus took our sin and died on the cross and rose again for our justification. After His resurrection, He poured on us spiritual riches instead of the eternal destitution that we deserved. This indescribable exchange means that we can stand perfect and whole before God once we accept Jesus’ gift of life. When we believe in Jesus Christ, He freely offers us what we could never have hoped to earn in any way.
Friend, it’s very important to know who you are in Christ. Like Jesus, grow in your wisdom and
understanding of who you now are in Christ. How do you see yourself? Let’s look back at 2 Cor. 5:21, “
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
You see, not you making yourself righteous. He made us righteous, not us making ourselves righteous. If
you have received Christ as your personal saviour, then you have been made righteous. But do you believe and accept what you have been made? You can only believe by renewing your mind.
Why do people live in sin?
One of the reason why people live in sin even after they received Christ is because they still see themselves as sinners. They aren’t seeing themselves as righteous. They could break free if they ever understood that through Jesus, they have been forgiven of all their sins. They easily give in to sin because they think they are sinners anyway. But that’s not the case, we have the righteousness of Christ. Halleluiah! You need to have the right view of yourself. There is a positive and negative part of you. The negative part of you is your flesh. Jesus said in John 6:63 that, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”
Jesus said the flesh profits nothing. Obviously, He didn’t say it’s totally useless because you wouldn’t be
alive if you didn’t have the flesh. It’s like our vehicle that we get around in. but He was just emphasising
that it’s the spirit where the life is. So, the Bible goes on to say in Gal 5: 16-17 that, “16I say then: Walk in
the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the
Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you
wish.”
If you walk in the spirit you will not fulfil the lust of the flesh because the flesh is against the spirit, they
that walk in the flesh cannot please God. Your flesh profited nothing. Your self-righteousness is like a filthy rag. We have bodies that are corrupted by sin and so we do wrong things. Not only the things that we do wrong but also the things that we are supposed to do, we are failing to do. So, the Bible says in 2 Cor. 5:16 that, “Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer”. The flesh here is not about our skin that we sometimes call our flesh, but it’s a term that the scripture uses for the body and the soul part of you that has not been renewed by the Lord, and it’s in contrast to your spirit.
If you knew people after the spirit, you would relate to them in a completely different way. There are people who are not born again, if you are to know them after the spirit, people who don’t honour God, you may relate to them, love them as your fellow human beings, have compassion for them and try to help them to know the Lord. But you wouldn’t be impressed with their flesh. And yet many Christians are very impressed with people’s flesh. If you know people after the Spirit, you wouldn’t be impressed by all of their stories and statements. And a lot of Christians have left out Jesus and made popular people their
friends. You wouldn’t say what’s in your heart. You will compromise because you relate to things after the
flesh. We don’t do that anymore; we don’t know people after the flesh. It’s not only about other people
but you need not to know yourself after the flesh. You have a new identity; you became a new person.
The Bible says that, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold,
all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). You are a brand-new person and yet you still have this flesh.
You still have the same physical body. If you were a woman before you got born again you are still a
woman after you got born again. If you were a man you are going to be a man, if you were short you are
going to be short unless you are still young and growing. If you were fat you are going to be fat unless you go on a diet. Your body or your flesh doesn’t change and your mental emotional part of you doesn’t change.
You still have your thought, you still have your memory, you still have your history. You don’t have
somebody else’s history. You don’t remember where they grew up, you don’t remember their friends. Your body and soul don’t change when you get born again. They are subject to change anyway. You can renew your mind and change your actions and become delivered from things that you were in bondage to, by the word of God. Halleluiah!
If you want to know what your body is like, you go and look in a mirror. If you want to know what your
soul is like, you need to go by how you feel. So how do you know how your spirit is like? Jesus said in
John 3 that, that which is born of the spirit is spirit, and that which is born of flesh is flesh. This is another
way of saying that the spirit and the flesh are in different realms The Bible says, God is Spirit and those
who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
If you want to see how your spirit is like, you cannot go by what you feel. You have to go by the word God.
So, the Bible says in James 1:23-25 that, 23 “
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is
like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately
forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it
and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does”. Verse 25
is the spiritual mirror we are talking about, and that’s the word of God. “But he who looks into the perfect
law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does”.
My friend, make sure you are looking in the spiritual mirror, which is the word of God, so you know the
condition of your spirit. You have been made righteous; you have the righteousness of God inputted in you.
Halleluiah! Believe it and make sure you understand, so that the devil will not snatch this truth away from
you. If you don’t understand why a holy God will input His righteousness in you, then Satan will steal this
truth from your heart, and you will not live up to your expectation. I hope you will understand this and
thank God that He has made such a great exchange. And if you have not received Chris as your personal
saviour, then whatever I have said doesn’t apply to you. You are still in the hands of Satan. And if you will
receive Him right now, pray this prayer after me, saying every word from your heart.
Dear Lord: I recognise that I am a sinner and need to be saved.
I understand that Jesus died in my place and suffered the judgment of all of my sins.
I believe that Jesus rose from the dead and He is at the right hand of the father.
Lord Jesus, I surrender my Life to you.
Come and Live in my heart and be my Lord and saviour.
Thank You for saving me. Amen!