Title: The Bloodline of a Champion – 3
“God’s Meeting Place”
Text: I Peter 1:18-20
“He who once gave His blood for us will surely, every moment, impart its effectiveness. Trust Him to do this. Trust Him to open your eyes and to give you a deeper spiritual insight. Trust Him to teach you to think about the blood as God thinks about it. Trust Him to impart to you, and to make effective in you, all that He enables you to see.” (Andrew Murray)
At the beginning of this year we spent quite an extensive time talking about the glory of God and what it is and does in our lives. What is the glory? The glory is His manifest presence, His goodness, His mercy, and His compassion. It includes all of the advantages, favour, blessing, wealth, and provision of God. Last week we talked about Adam and Eve being covered with the glory of God. And when the disobeyed, the glory of God lifted off them. We also just touched on the fact that they tried to cover themselves and found out that it was satisfying to God. God had to shed blood and use the skins of the animals to cover them. The whole story of the Bible is the story of how God restores His glory to man. Adam lost that glory and God sends a second Adam to restore the glory and fellowship back to mankind. God reverses what Satan did in Adam and brings restoration through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Romans 3:23-25; “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;” (KJV)
The Amplified Bible says: (All) are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favour and mercy), through the redemption which is (provided) in Christ Jesus, Whom God put forward (before the eyes of all) as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood and cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, (to be received) through faith.”
The Lovett Translation: “God’s method of justification is to give men His righteousness as a free gift. It is possible for Him to offer it completely by grace, since it comes through the redemptive death of Christ Jesus. God offered Jesus as a public sacrifice that His shed blood might cleanse us from our sins when we put our faith in Him. At the same time, this act vindicated His justice. The sacrifice of Jesus clearly showed why God, in His forbearance, was able to overlook the sins of men in the past.”
Forbearance: “A refraining from the enforcement of something (as a debt, right, or obligation) that is due.”
I love this Scripture! Every one of us have sinned, every one of us have missed the mark, every one of us fallen short, but this Scripture is so uplifting to every one of us. Being justified, that means, just as if I had never sinned. Through the grace of the Almighty God, He has made it through the blood just as if I had never sinned. I am innocent of every claim and accusation brought against me. I am free and free indeed! But in order to be truly free, I must have faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I must believe that He has made me just as if I had never sinned through His blood. I have to have faith in that fact before I ever experience true forgiveness and victory in my life.
Jesus took the sin of the past and He paid that debt. Then He reached into the future and He paid for the sins of the future. How do we receive that victory or that forgiveness? We receive victory and forgiveness through faith in the blood.
The Bible tells us that we have propitiation through the blood of Jesus. The word propitiation means, “Reconciliation” or “restoration of fellowship, friendship or favour.” There we go again. We have been restored to fellowship and favour with God by faith in the blood. That was the main purpose of the shed blood. It was to restore fellowship with man that Adam lost.
THE MERCY SEAT
Exodus 25:21-22; “And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. 22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.”
The Amplified Bible says in Romans 3:25; “Whom God put forward (before the eyes of all) as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood and cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, (to be received) through faith.”
The Amplified calls redemption through Christ the mercy seat or the meaning of that is actually, “God’s meeting place.” In the Old Testament, the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant was the place where the priests applied the blood. It was also the place of God’s glory and presence. At the mercy seat, God met with His people and communed with them.
The mercy seat also represents God’s infinite mercy. We can never do anything to deserve God restoration to favour. Our access to the holy and holies, or His presence both starts and ends with the mercy of God. Nothing we can do can merit His forgiveness; we are saved not by works of righteousness, but by God’s mercy. He is so rich in mercy!
Deuteronomy 4:31; “(For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.”
Psalm 86:5; “For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.”
Psalm 103:17; “But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;”
Psalm 108:4; “For thy mercy is great above the heavens: and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds.”
Lamentations 3:22-23; “It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
Joel 2:13; “And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”
Ephesians 2:4-10; ΒΆ “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
Titus 3:5; “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;”
So many people think that God had a personality change between the Old and the New Testaments. No! We serve a God who never changes. He has always been merciful from the beginning of time. He is rich in mercy! His mercies are new every morning. He has mercy for our failures and grace for our future! He is the Father of mercies.
While the mercy seat in the Old Testament was a physical location, the New Testament mercy seat is actually faith in the blood of Jesus.
The first benefit of faith in the blood of Jesus is that we are restored to fellowship with God.
The moment you exercise faith in the blood, you will have a meeting with God.
NOT WITHOUT THE BLOOD
In the Old Testament, the people could not approach the presence of God without the blood. How many times have we tried to access the presence of God based on things other than the blood of Jesus? Thank God for the blood. God said He would meet us at the mercy seat, but not without the blood.
Hebrews 9:6-7; “Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. 7 But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:”
It makes specific mention in this Scripture to let us know that the priests would not dare to enter into the presence of the Lord without blood. The blood was a necessity. They had to have blood. This is why the blood of Jesus is no essential.
Hebrews 10:10-12; “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11 And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: 12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;”
In the Old Testament they had to constantly get blood from pure lambs, and even that blood could never take away their sins, it could only cover them. Now the blood has been shed for us once for all, or one time for everyone. The price has been paid. The blood has been shed for every person on the planet, now the only thing we must do is have faith in the blood that was already shed. Our fellowship with Jesus Christ is meaningless if there is no shed blood. We cannot enter into His presence without the blood.
Hebrews 9:22; “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.”
What does remission mean?
Remission of sin includes forgiveness, but it is much more than forgiveness. “Remission also includes the cancellation of a penalty and the removal of guilt.”
If you had a terminal disease such as cancer and you went the doctor, and he said that the cancer is now in remission, it would mean that it has stopped or become inactive. However, the Dr. would want to check you on a regular basis to make sure that cancer remained inactive in your body.
The blood from the sacrifices of goats and calves in the Old Testament only covered sin. The blood of Jesus in the New Testament is for the remission of sin. When the blood is applied by faith, the devil cannot stir up that mess from your past and make it active again. If you want to keep it in remission, you need to get up every morning with faith in the blood.
You need to confess every day, “The just shall live by faith and my faith is in the blood of Jesus. When His blood was shed, I was forgiven. I am redeemed, I am set free! The curse is broken; I am healed, I have access to God and can enter into His presence at will. I have found that meeting place with God and it is through faith in the blood.”
