The Benefits of Christ

0:00Psalm 103:1-5

Amen. All right, so Psalm 103. Psalm 103. This will be familiar to you — if you didn’t know this was it, it’ll sound familiar in just a moment. Psalm 103 says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, and satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” If you think that sounds good, you ought to just look at your neighbor and say, “That sounds pretty good to me.” That sounds good to me.

Last week I ended the message with this thought from Ephesians chapter 2, that says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” And I said this: that when we put our faith in Jesus’ finished work, by grace, Jesus releases everything I need. In other words, my belief releases his supply. This is a good “amen” message right here, so y’all, let’s go ahead and just say it and get it out of your system. I know you want to amen. My belief releases his supply.

1:19Know your benefits

And so this morning what I want to talk to you about are the benefits of Christ. That’s what today’s message is going to be called: the benefits of Christ. Now, you’ll notice at some point — you might not know what it is, but if you ever look at me and think, “He doesn’t look the same as he did the last time I saw him,” it’s usually not a haircut. I usually wear pretty similar clothes. What it is, is if you see me and you go, “Something looks different about him” — I have a ton of different glasses. I just have tons of them.

I started doing this when we worked at a church in Michigan, which is actually the home church of our general superintendent, Doug Clay. And I was joking with somebody last week that I can go over Doug Clay’s head, because I know Sister Clay. Amen? That’s his mother. And Sister Clay, if you’re watching, we have implemented so many things we learned from you in our ministry over the years. We love you, sis. And if you knew Sister Clay, you’d love her too.

But I was working at this church and found out that we had a package, a benefit package, that allowed us to get multiple pairs of glasses. So not only did it do optical, or Optum, or whatever you call that — go see the eye man. It’s a good Alabama way to say it. I went and saw the eye man. And so, not “go see the eye man,” but also you get a bunch of glasses. I thought, well, I’m going to take advantage. I don’t know if y’all are like me, but I mean, if they tell me it’s free, I can spend a good three hours in Sam’s Club. Come on, somebody.

And so I started to get all these glasses. One day a guy came up to me and he says, “How are you affording to get all these glasses?” He was one of our pastors on staff. He said, “How are you affording to get all these glasses?” He said, “I mean, going and getting your eyes checked is expensive. How can you get all these glasses?” I said, “Man, this is part of our benefit package. Did you not know that you have optical on the insurance?” And he had never gone and seen the optometrist to get new glasses, because he had no idea it was part of the benefit package. And the only difference between him being blind as a bat and me having options was, I knew the benefits.

When you know the benefits, it allows you to tap into everything that the Lord has for you. Because see, Jesus didn’t just pay the price for you to go to heaven. He paid the price for you to be fully righteous and counted as a son of God Almighty, bringing with it full rights and privileges.

This is kind of the principle I want to anchor into this morning. It’s a verse you’re going to hear me quote — if I’m going to preach 7,000 messages, you’re going to hear me quote it 21,000 times. It’s this, in Romans chapter 8, verse 32. It says that if he did not withhold his Son, how will he not also with him freely give us all things. Amen. That’s a good word right there.

So it stands to reason from this verse that if God were to withhold anything from you, it would mean that he actually values it more than his Son. But how many of you know that there is nothing more precious to the Lord than his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ? Amen. So everything can come in your life subsequent to the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Now, this psalm that we’re going to use today, I like it because it gives us a nice, clean list of five benefits that you can trust to flow into your life from the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Now let me just speak to the religious spirit that kind of gets roaring up when we talk about this stuff. Because it amazes me that you can be in a church that’s preached faith since the ‘60s and still somebody in the room’s getting upset because you’re talking about God, I don’t know, like, doing something for you. Okay, but let me just say this. Whenever this stuff comes up, you start to hear people say phrases, and here’s the one I always hear come up. This is a good Southernism right here: “Well, brother, it ain’t all about health and wealth.” Y’all ever heard anybody say that to you? “It ain’t all about health and wealth.”

In fact, people say this so much that me and Ashleigh were doing a training for a health supplement company, for the salespeople of the health supplement company, one time. And inevitably I started talking about the Bible. If you let me go more than seven minutes, I am going to preach, by the way. It doesn’t matter what we’re talking about. And so I started saying something about the Bible, and somebody in the chat wrote, “It’s not about health and wealth.” And I’m thinking, your job is to sell health supplements. It’s exactly about health and wealth. What are you talking about?

So this is just that religious spirit that rears up. But understand this: it is not selfish to draw attention to the benefits that come from serving Jesus. The passage here in Psalms opens up by saying, “Do not forget his benefits.” You could just slide that right into a command right there. You need to know what is going to happen, what God has made provision for on your behalf. Amen.

So there’s five benefits. It says this — I’ll just list them for you. He forgives all your iniquity, heals your diseases, redeems your life from the pit, crowns you with steadfast love, and satisfies you with good. I’m going to go through all of these and give you a little something for each one. I need you to know I’m preaching the brochure today. You’re going to have to stick around for two years if you want all of this just rung out, okay? If you want the juice, you gotta stick around. But today I’m just going to give you the infomercial. All right, if you’re ready for me to dive in, say, “Let’s go.”

All right.

6:58He forgives all your iniquity

Number one: he forgives all your iniquity. Jesus removes all condemnation. Romans chapter 8, verse 1: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We talked last week about the fall of man and the law, which was the opportunity for righteousness, but ultimately it didn’t work. And so then there was the cross, which provided full forgiveness for all sin.

And oftentimes what we do when we think about the cross is we do kind of just look to sin, and we just think about sin. But the sin that Jesus has forgiven you of, the sin that Jesus has removed from you, is so much deeper than just doing some little bad stuff. It’s that this word “iniquity” actually means — it’s more like the deep thoughts and intentions of the heart. It’s not what you do, it’s why you do it.

See, there’s some sin that comes from a place, it’s not really that deep, it’s just the lust of the flesh. But there’s some sin that comes from a very deep place, that’s the pride of life. It comes from a deep place in you. And there will be a moment — if you haven’t yet, and I’d be surprised if you haven’t — where you will be confronted with a deep wickedness inside of you. Right? Like, I don’t know about you, but if I have a tough week, especially if it’s with a person — like, I’m not going to go slit their tires, but I have a plan for how I would do it if I wanted to. Y’all hear what I’m saying? That’s in here.

And Jesus reaches down into that, and he forgives you of that. It’s not just something you do wrong, it’s something that... So with that, Jesus also removes all condemnation.

He removes all condemnation. And the reason this is important — and I’m going to teach you this over time — is that condemnation is one of the most dangerous substances you can encounter. Because we often think condemnation and guilt are the same thing. Guilt is actually something you should feel. When you do something wrong, you ought to feel a little guilty. You ought to. That’s called having a conscience. That’s called not being a psychopath. Right?

So, but condemnation is this thing that almost gets in front of an action. It almost gets in front of the things you do, and it tells you, “This is the kind of person you are, so go — well, you’re already a bad person, go do bad.” But it also says, when you say to yourself, “You know what? I think I’m going to start praying. I think I’m going to start reading the Bible. I think I’m going to serve at church. I think I’m going to do some things that might help me in my life” — it also gets in front of those actions. It says, “You’re not good enough to do that.”

But he forgives you of all your iniquity. Because he forgives you of your iniquity, the most deeply corrupted parts of you are forgiven, so you could come boldly before the throne of grace in your time of need. Somebody give the Lord a praise.

10:09He heals all your diseases

Number two — I told y’all we were going to move fast today. Number two: he heals all your diseases. Here’s a promise. Okay, preachers my age get nervous for saying stuff like this, for good reason, but I’ve just decided I’m going to trust the Lord and take him at his word. Here’s the promise: if you’ve got it, God will heal you of it. If you’ve got it, God will heal you of it. I believe God wants to turn your physical situation around, your emotional situation around, your mental situation around. I believe God will touch you and touch your life.

Healing is part of the covenant inheritance. It is not just a rare bonus. It’s a basic provision.

I was listening to an elder minister talk recently, and he was saying that one of the reasons that we don’t see certain miracles or certain acts of the power of God that we used to see is just because there’s a resource. He said the reason that Pentecostals used to see so many healings 50 years ago is because Pentecostalism had such a stronghold in rural areas. He said God didn’t heal people because he just, you know, was healing people — these people didn’t have insurance. God heals you, or you don’t get better. There is no other option. He said, “We’d have people come into church with headaches and pray for them and they leave.” He said, “We don’t do that. You have Excedrin Migraine.” You just pop a little Excedrin and the headache goes away.

So there was a reason. But here, listen, there’s still some stuff that you can’t get free of, that you physically can’t move past unless the Lord touches you. And I’m here to tell you today that it’s part of the covenant promise that he will do it.

But you also have to set some reasonable expectation around the way that God does things. Mark 16 says that we will lay our hands on the sick and they shall recover. It’s a real interesting word, “recover,” and this is a word Pentecostals don’t do well with, because we like it now. We want it today. We want it quick. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of powerful altar ministry over the last 20 years that I’ve even been a part of, but I’ll be honest with you: if the Lord don’t touch you when I come to you, I’ll probably move on. Because that’s Pentecostals, man. We want it fast. But the word here is “recover,” meaning that there’s some things that the Lord will start that have to keep growing.

Me and Ashleigh knew a man who prayed when he was a teenager — he had crooked teeth. They’d have no money, either, so he had to pray. He said, “Lord, I want straight teeth.” And an evangelist laid hands on him and nothing happened, and he was so disappointed. And the next morning he woke up and he looked in the mirror, and then he looked back up in the mirror, and his teeth were straight. Just took a night. How many of you know that’s still a divine, powerful miracle? Amen.

So there’s a recovery process sometimes. In fact, the Bible even says that wisdom brings healing. Proverbs says this, in Proverbs chapter 4: “My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.” The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, Proverbs 9 says, meaning that as soon as you give your life to Jesus Christ, there is some measure of wisdom that immediately comes into your life. And guess what? By that wisdom your life begins to improve, and you begin to sense healing in your body just from better choices.

Sometimes you just — you got to know this — the problem isn’t something else. Sometimes the problem isn’t genetic. It’s that you drink a Sunkist for breakfast every morning. Some stuff is just wisdom.

But also, interestingly, the removal of condemnation has the ability to improve your health immediately. Did you know that condemnation produces so much stress that it’ll elevate your cortisol, which is a stress hormone? It’ll weaken the immune system, and also give you a higher risk of heart disease, ulcers, migraines, chronic pain and fatigue. So whether pragmatically or supernaturally, healing is your portion. He mends broken minds, broken hearts, and broken bones. Amen.

14:47He redeems your life from the pit

Number three: he redeems your life from the pit. God will improve your quality of life. He’ll improve your quality of life. This is mine and Ashleigh’s testimony. We were both raised in highly dysfunctional environments. The fact that we aren’t strung out on drugs, or alcoholics, or broke, or God knows where — maybe even in prison — the fact that none of that is, is the hand of God on our life. It is only by the supernatural hand of God that rescued us out of the pit.

In fact, Ashleigh was even downright persecuted in her home. Ashleigh was kicked out of the house. I’m not meaning to tell your story, but it was good for preaching, so I might just go ahead and do it. Amen? But Ashleigh was kicked out of her house. Her mother confronted her and said, “Do you believe in the lifestyle I’m living?” — which was pretty egregious, by the way — “Do you believe in the lifestyle I’m living, or do you believe in the Bible?” And Ashleigh said, “The Bible.” And she said, “Pack your stuff.” And God rescued us out of that. We’ve experienced total transformation in our quality of life. And I’m telling you, God will pull you out of complete dysfunction.

But also, let me toss in a wisdom droplet here: you deserve what you tolerate. Now just let that be. I’m not going to preach this point, but I’m going to give you a little piece of information and let you do your own sermon writing with it, because I need to move on.

But — and I’m not making this up — the Hebrew word for pit... Say, “He’ll redeem my life from the pit.” You can do better than that. “He’ll redeem...” There you go. The Hebrew word for pit — and I’m not making this up, I would not lie to you — the Hebrew word is shahit. You can write your own sermon with that. Amen.

But he’ll turn your life around, and he’ll put you in a — I’m not kidding. Y’all are looking at me like y’all don’t believe me. That’s the actual Hebrew word. Amen. He will, he’ll pull you right out of it. But he’ll turn your life around, he’ll set you in a broad place. And some things do have to change in your life, but the psalmist said that even those lines have fallen in pleasant places for me. Hallelujah.

16:59He crowns you with steadfast love and mercy

Number four: he’ll crown you with steadfast love and mercy. I’m going to spend a minute here. But as you take hold of these benefits, as you take hold of these things that the Lord will do for you in your life, as you begin to get free of condemnation, and healing comes into your life, and he pulls you out of the pit, God will begin to change your reputation. God will change the way people think about you. God will change what comes to mind when people hear your name. Your reputation has the power to affect positive change in your realm of influence.

Genesis chapter 12 tells us of Abram, and it says this. It says, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I’ll make you a great nation. I’ll bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”

We have summed this verse down into a little trite saying, where we hear people say it all the time: “I’m blessed to be a blessing.” I’m blessed to be a blessing. And that sounds real good, and I hope that you would be a blessing in your life. But I would just like to draw your attention to the fact that that is not at all what that verse said. The verse did not say that you are — “I will bless you and you will be a blessing.” That is not what the verse says.

Can y’all go back to verse two for me real quick on that? It says, “I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.” I will make your name great so that you’ll be — there is something about having a great reputation that causes you to be a blessing.

Let me explain it to you this way. Y’all heard it taught, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime,” right? Okay, that sounds great. But listen to this. Similarly, if you were blessed and you come up on a homeless man, okay, and you give him a twenty dollar bill — you know he can get six chicken nuggets from McDonald’s, because my God, it is so expensive out there — but you think you can feed him a meal. You give him a hundred and feed him for a day. You throw him up in a hotel room and give him a good night’s sleep, let him get a shower. You could do all that. That’s all great. That’s all fine. I hope you would. I hope you would do that.

However, there is a difference when you can look at this same man and say, “Why don’t you hop in the car? I know where to get you work.” And when you roll up in there with somebody who does not look like they might be hireable, and you have the ability, because of your great reputation, to look someone in the community in the face and say, “This is my friend. We just met. He needs a job” — you can change his life. That is the power of a good reputation. Hallelujah. Y’all should be shouting. I’m preaching better than y’all are letting on.

And through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, you become a person of influence with a good reputation in your sphere. Look at the person next to you, just say, “I’m somebody, and you don’t even know about it.” Amen.

20:26He satisfies you with good

Number five: he’ll satisfy you with good. God wants to see his people blessed. Psalm 35, verse 27 says, “Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, ‘Great is the Lord, who delights in the welfare of his servant.’” The NASB says “the prosperity of his servant.” God wants to bless you. He wants to see you increase. He wants to see your money go up. He wants to see your home be more peaceful. He wants to see your needs met. God wants to bless you, and this is a distinct benefit of people who follow Jesus Christ.

Again, I go back to Romans 8:32, which says that if he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things. Again, the NASB says “freely give us all things.” With him come all good things. And this comes supernaturally. This is not just cause and effect. This is a supernatural prosperity that comes on you.

But if it was not supernatural — if you just took the sum total of the other four benefits: you’re not living under condemnation, you’re healthy, you have a good reputation, your life isn’t steeped in dysfunction — what do you think the outcome of that’s going to be? It’s going to be increase. Hallelujah. Even if it wasn’t supernatural, you’re still set up to prosper. Hallelujah, I’ll receive it. If you don’t, Lord, everybody who’s not amen, give me their portion, in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah.

22:17Your youth renewed like the eagle's

So I want to look at one more thing. The verse ends telling us that flowing from these five benefits — from these five benefits in verse five, it said, “so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” The result of these five things — he forgives our iniquity, heals our disease, redeems our life from the pit, crowns us, satisfies us — the result of that is a rejuvenation of strength and vitality and joy and passion.

I’m telling you, you get a hold to this and God will give you more energy at 80 than you had at 50. God will do more with you at 40 than you did at 20. God will do something with you at a hundred that you just dreamed about doing at 70. I’m telling you, he’ll start turning your beard back black. I need to get a revelation of it, in Jesus’ name. Hey, I’m telling you, God will renew you, and renew your strength, renew your youth.

The ancient Greeks and Romans had a fascination with the eagle. They believed it was the bird of the god Zeus. The king of their so-called deities was always pictured with an eagle by his side. It wasn’t just a majestic bird to them; it was a symbol of divine authority, power, and renewal. And they told a story — this is a myth — that the eagle was the only creature that could stare directly into the sun. While every other animal had to look away, the eagle could look into the light without flinching, without blinking, and without being blinded.

In fact, they said that when the eagle started to feel old and weak, it would fly toward the sun, not away from it. And as it soared higher and higher, closer and closer to the burning light, the heat would scorch off the old feathers, burn away the dead skin, melt the grime of time — and the eagle would come back renewed. Strong again. Sharp again. Young again.

We obviously aren’t talking about Zeus’s pet bird this morning. We’re talking about Jesus Christ and the benefits that flow from the finished work of Jesus Christ. And I just want to tell you this morning that the born again believer is the only creature on earth that can look directly into the face of the Son of God without flinching. Hallelujah.

I’m telling you, the light that blinds the world, it will transform every part of your life. And the more you put your hope and your trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, the more the impurities of sin, dysfunction, weakness, disease, time — they just burn right off of you. And like the eagle, your youth will be renewed.

He doesn’t just save you. He makes you new. He doesn’t just restore what you lost. He rebuilds you stronger than before. He doesn’t just bring you out of the pit. He gives you the ability to soar and stay above the fray of life.

And I don’t know if you’re in here this morning and maybe you feel weak. Maybe you feel tired. Maybe you feel beat down by life. I’m just here to tell you: turn your attention to the Son. Put it in his hands. Trust him. Take him at his word. Believe on his promise. And everything that he has will be handed to you as your inheritance. Come on, if you believe that this morning, give the Lord a hand clap.