God’s grace is so powerful that is causes exchanges to occur in our lives.
Zechariah 3:1-5
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and will clothe you with pure vestments.” And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So, they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by.
Joshua the high priest was being accused by Satan. Joshua had sinned and was standing with the filthy garments of sin and, instead of God listening to Satan’s accusation about Joshua, he exchanges his filthy clothing for pure and clean garments.
Because of His grace, God takes our sin and wrong doing and replaces that with His clean and pure righteousness.
That’s what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21. That verse says, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The Father took our sin and put it on Jesus and took Jesus’ righteousness and put it on us. In Jesus, we are the righteousness of God.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is by grace exchanging our filthy sin for Jesus’ pure righteousness.
What are some things that we have or have done that can be exchanged for who Jesus is or what He has done?
We can exchange Galatians 5:19-21 for Galatians 5:22-23.
Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
By God’s grace we can exchange our works of the flesh that exclude us from the kingdom of God for characteristics produced by the Holy Spirit that makes us like Jesus.
We produce works that are in opposition to God and His will. When we surrender our lives to God, the Holy Spirit produces fruit that conform us to the image of Jesus.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is though God’s grace becoming more and more like Jesus.
We exchange Jeremiah 2:13 for John 7:38-39.
Jeremiah 2:12-13
Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
John 7:37-38
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
We can exchange our cisterns that are broken and will not hold water for a fountain of living water that is constantly filling us and flowing out of us.
We can try to live life based on ourselves and our human resources, which are broken and weakened by sin or we can live based on the filling of the Holy Spirit and on God’s resource which are limitless.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being filled with the Holy Spirit and relying solely on God’s unlimited resources.
On the cross Jesus gave His life for our lives and we have the privilege of exchanging our sin, failures, weaknesses, and brokenness for Jesus’ sinlessness, victory, power, and completeness. And it is all through the grace of God.
In God’s Grace Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,
Joe
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