Scripture reference: Colossians 3:1-4(TPT); Luke 16:19-31(ESV); Luke 23:46 (AMP), Matthew 26:39(ESV); Ephesians 2:1-2 (ESV); Psalms 16:10 (ESV); Acts 2:29-35 (ESV); Hebrews 11:39-40 (ESV), Hebrews 12:1-6 (ESV)
It is with awesome wonder Father, awesome, awesome wonder that we praise You and thank You and glorify Your name. There is a sense of awe when we look upon Your glory and Your goodness and Your greatness, and we can’t help it, but from the depths of our spirits, we say, thank You. We declare Your goodness, we worship You and praise You, because of Your goodness, hallelujah. I pray, Father, that at the end of this message that you would have me minister today, as your messenger, that there will be a greater revelation, and more wonderment, and more glory, more thanksgiving, and we will walk in more strength and more victory because of You. You are so good. I pray, Father, that You anoint every ear to hear, every heart to receive, the distraction of every mind to be removed, and they will be focused and clear and able to hear the things that the Holy Spirit will say, in Jesus’ Name. We thank You, Father. Amen. Amen. You may be seated.
Well, praise the Lord. It’s really something awesome to sit in the presence of God, and the sound and song that God is giving us and continues to use vessels to write songs and use vessels to make sounds. I marvel at it, I wonder at it, it’s a joy and a blessing, and it’s really truly amazing to me. Hallelujah.
Yeah, I often find myself busying myself in my bathroom, getting myself ready, getting clothes, shaving, doing things, and I’ve got Song of Psalms on and I’m listening, and I’m praising, and I’m having a good time in the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. It’s one of the ways God has given us to be able to sing and worship Him, give Him glory. Hallelujah.
I pray that you are ready for today’s message. Hallelujah. I believe that today’s message will bring some context to you and minister to your spirit about the resurrection life of Christ. Amen.
I’m going to read just this as our foundation scripture. I’m going to read Colossians three, verse one, in The Passion Translation, 1 Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honor, and authority! 2 Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm. 3 Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ. 4 And as Christ himself is seen for who he really is, who you really are will also be revealed, for you are now one with him in his glory! (Colossians 3:1-4 TPT)
Hallelujah. The greatest benefit that we have, the greatest value we receive in knowing Jesus Christ, obviously, if it had to be a choice of going to heaven or hell, then obviously you want to go to heaven, but I’ll explain why in a minute. That’s important for us to see that in some form of context here. Because going to heaven, for someone who has no heaven in his heart, is not possible. You have to have heaven in your heart before you can go to heaven in your spirit.
You can’t just say, “I’m a Christian because my ouma and my oupa were a Christian.” Jesus has to be real in your heart, and you have to have heaven in your heart before you can go to heaven. If you don’t have heaven in your heart, then you have something else in your heart and almost always, that something else is you—your focus on you and the focus on what you want in your life. There are people on the earth that their focus is evil. They want to do evil, they want to murder, they want to kill, they want to steal, they want to do bad things.
There are people like that on the earth; it’s in their heart, they want to do bad things, but for the most, the majority of people that live together in communities, their focus is not to do evil, but it’s also not to have heaven in their heart. It’s to live for themselves. So the greatest value that we have, once you’ve received Jesus in your heart, is that He begins to transfer; if you like, He begins to transfer heaven into your heart. You, on the other hand, should not focus on natural realities, but focus on heaven realities, so that what God is placing in your heart becomes what you live.
The most unhappy Christian is when heaven is calling them in their heart and they keep living in the natural. They are always uncertain of what to do and so what that means is that they are; the Bible calls them like a ship on the sea, tossed to and fro with waves. They’re up one day and down this way, going all over the place because they want to, they have heaven in their heart, but they want to do their own thing. They want to live for themselves. So, if I speak about the resurrection life of Christ, there is a lot that we have as Christians because Heaven truly is in your heart and if it’s in your heart, and it’s in your mouth, then you can live with heaven on earth.
I want to say this because I’ll read it later, you can live with heaven on earth, but you will also receive suffering and persecution on earth. Because you live for Jesus on the earth, I’ll get to that in a minute. For the meantime, I want to read you a story. That’s in Luke chapter 16, and this will give us some context in everything else that God has shown us and will be showing us in the resurrection life of Christ. I’m going to read from the ESV version. And so, this is about the rich man and another man called Lazarus, not the Lazarus He raised from the dead, but another man called Lazarus.
19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side (bosom). I’ll talk about that in a minute. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, I’ll talk about that in a minute, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, this is the Lazarus that was dead —28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:19-31 ESV)
This is a fairly startling description of the human heart that lives for itself, a human heart that lives for itself. When they find themselves in a time after death, there’s a whole lot of things that they wish that they could have, that they would rather have done differently. In fact, they realise that there are people that they have left behind, that they don’t want to have the same outcome as them, but it’s too late. The only time you can make a decision for eternity is now while you’re in the body. Once this body goes home to be with the Lord, or sorry, once this body becomes decayed, corrupted, dust, it means little. Your spirit and your soul are what live for eternity.
It shows the condition of people’s hearts that when you are so properly living for yourself, even though you have Moses and the Prophets, and though you may even be living because, in this reference, he calls him father Abraham. He calls him son, or child, meaning he was a child of the Covenant, but he lived for himself. He didn’t live for God. He was born into the covenant but did not live the covenant life. So just being born into a covenant doesn’t give you automatic access to anything. He must live in your heart. He must live in your heart. Heaven must occupy your heart, not the natural world.
So, there’s a few references here that I want to refer to this morning. I want to refer to the reference that Lazarus went to Abraham’s bosom. I need to be a little descriptive here just so that you understand. I do not intend to offend anybody, but it will explain things to you. Okay? Are you ready for it? Alright.
If you had to directly, in the Greek word, if you had directly translate it, it doesn’t just mean chest or bosom; it means a bay. Like, a bay, like an inlet [Pastor John gestures a semicircle with his hands], in like Jeffrey’s Bay or Plettenberg Bay. It’s a space. It’s a space, like a bay, that has a roundedness to it, like a bosom, a roundedness to it like a bosom. It reads like this; it could be referred to as a creek. So, what is a creek? A creek is like a gully between two hills – like a bosom. It’s also the hollow formed by the upper forepart of a rather loose garment bound by a girdle or sash. If you get this idea of a girdle or a sash around your body and it creates like a holding place of things. You get what I’m…? That’s what a woman’s bra is; it’s a holding place. If you were to take the bra and just hold it up there and you had the two cups, it would form a bosom. Are you with me?
It’s obvious that when this scripture is talking about Abraham’s bosom, it was a separated place like a harbour, like a bay, like a holding cup of material, someplace where it was held and you were kept, and it was separated from other places. Those people, like Lazarus who died, who was a covenant child in his heart, when he died in his physical body and his body went into decay, his spirit and his soul could not go to God because there was not yet a sacrifice paid that would allow any departed spirit to go directly to God. So this departed spirit needed to go to a place which was not Hell or Hades, but it was a place of waiting, resting, holding.
If we talk about Hades, because that’s the other part here, where the rich man went into Hades or into hell, as some places refer to it. It is simply this. It’s the place of departed souls that are in the lower regions of the earth and those departed souls have no connection with God at that point, when I’m talking about this time frame. They had no connection with the place where you could go wait for the Messiah to come and deliver you. So, two different kinds of places. The indication is clear that in Abraham’s bosom, there was comfort for the soul and you will read that a lot in the book of Psalms, that there was comfort for the soul after death. But in Hades or in hell, there is no comfort for the soul, the spirit after death, only torment, because did he not say, “My soul is in torment.” 23…being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ (Luke 16:23-24 ESV)
If you read that word, there is anguish, there is torment. There are lots of desires that are unfulfilled. What is it that the rich man experienced on earth that he couldn’t get enough of? He couldn’t get enough of His opulence. Couldn’t get enough of his wealth, couldn’t get enough of the rich foods that were given to him. He couldn’t get enough of many things. What was he experiencing in Hades? Everything that he had in abundance that we couldn’t get enough of so he pursued it. To get more of it. So focused was he on pursuing his own desires and his own plan and his own thing for his life, that even the poor man outside of his gate, he wouldn’t share any of it with the poor man, he just merely had to live off the crumbs that came from the rich man’s table.
Most likely, the servants that were given the rest of the food that was left, their leftovers, was given to the man, the beggar. What is this rich man suffering in hell? Everything that he had an abundance of he could get none of that and was in torment. The poor man who could get none of it on the earth had it already in Abraham’s bosom.
The word torment from the Greek translation means to grieve, to sorrow, to cause intense pain, to be in anguish, to be in torment or distress, oneself. How would you like to live? I’ll tell you what you do, eat a bunch of salt, just take a handful of salt, put it in your mouth, or you probably wouldn’t be able to do that. So take a whole couple of tablespoons of salt, put it in a liter of water and drink that salt water. Just drink it if you can, half of it, drink that salt water, and see how thirsty you get. Or you can just eat a mac and cheese and all of the preservatives will make you that thirsty too. I won’t go there.
So, I want you to have this picture in your mind that before Jesus came to the earth, there were these three conditions after death. There was a condition of Heaven, where God the Father lived. There was a condition where there was Abraham’s bosom, there was a condition that is Hades or hell. The Bible says that in later time to come, there will be a fourth condition, some theologians say it already exists and there are some that live there, which is called the abyss and that is where Satan and demons will be locked for a thousand years. Anyway, that’s a whole different conversation, but there are compartments that are in the spirit realm—separated from each other.
When Jesus has fulfilled everything on the earth, everything that the Father, God gave Him to fulfil on the earth, He starts to receive the stripes of beating on His back—thirty-nine stripes, lashes. It lashed His back into something that was beyond our modern-day imagination of how a person’s body could look. When they put a crown of thorns on His head and then told Him to carry a cross which his physical strength gave out. Why? Because in that moment, there was no angel to help Him. In that moment, everything that was happening to Him was happening to Him in His human body. Whilst His Spirit Man was alive to God, all of His suffering, and all of what was about to happen to Him was happening into His human body, like every other human man.
This is extremely important—because while Jesus was on the earth, everything that He said was what the Father told Him to say. Everything that He did was what the Father told Him to do. Everywhere He went—was where the Father told Him to go. The Bible is very clear, and Jesus Himself is very clear that the way that He lived His life was He said nothing of Himself. Him and the Father lived in such unity, with the Holy Spirit that it was all one—one as though one living on the earth. Jesus even said, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.” That’s how close they lived.
When Jesus goes into the Garden of Gethsemane, and He’s in a moment of what is called the great temptation. He was tempted to do what? Because He knew in the spirit realm that He was about to go through a condition in His physical body and persecution. He was about to suffer such severity in His body, and His soul was about to have so much pressure to quit, because in these moments He was human. The Divine was in there, but the Bible says that when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, such was His anguish, or state of mind, or the pressure on His soul, that His sweat drops of blood. God sent an angel to strengthen Him because in the moment when He was in the garden, He had to determine for Himself that this human body and the pressure of the soul that will come at Me to quit will be the most intense since Adam. No one would have been under this much pressure to quit since Adam.
All of the thousands of years, where the enemy of God has learned to use the words of men, and words by men to bring about their sickness, and their disease, and their violence, and all of the wars; this was not anything that came out of Jesus, but all that accumulated sin, all that accumulated stuff on the earth was about to come upon Him in pressure to quit. Jesus met Calvary in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knew because He told His disciples, “My time has come. You watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.” What was He doing in the garden, praying? He was preparing Himself not to submit to temptation.
How do you prepare yourself to prevent temptation? You’ve got to be with the Father, and you’ve got to be in prayer, and you’ve got to be with people who you can trust to pray with you. Sometimes the temptation to quit on God and follow a different plan for your life is so great that even Jesus Himself said, “If it is possible, may this cup pass from me.”(Matthew 26:39 AMP)
In that moment, He was faced with what? He was faced with God’s plan and God’s will for His life, which was to die on the cross; or His own possible outcome that He could still choose for Himself as a pure, sinless man. And in that moment, He said, “I still choose to do the will of God.” It was His temptation. He dealt with the temptation before He got to the cross because He knew that if He didn’t deal with it before He got there, He may not get there. Hallelujah.
After Jesus has received these lashes, after Jesus has had the crown of thorns on His head, after Jesus has walked and tried to walk with the cross on His back and can’t; and so Simon of Cyrene was called upon to carry the cross up to Calvary. They nailed Jesus to the cross, and then they took a spear, and they put it into His side, and see if He’s dead. Right before Jesus is about to die, there’s a man on either side of Him, and the one man says, “If you are truly God, save Yourself, and save us.” I wonder whose voice he was talking? Who was his voice coming from, God? That wasn’t a God test. That was a devil test. “If you are God, save Yourself, and save us, too.”
Let me tell you, it doesn’t matter how strategic the moment is in your life; even in the most strategic moments of your life, you will have two voices, and the voice is either “Follow God.” or “Do things your way.” All the time. If you are a born-again Christian, those are the choices before you; do things God’s way or do things your way. Always.
There is another man on the other side of the cross, next to Him, and he says to Jesus, “Forgive me. I am a sinner; forgive me. I repent.” Jesus turns to him and says to Him, “Your sins are forgiven you; today you will be with Me.” Where? In paradise. Where’s paradise? Not heaven; neither is it Hades. Paradise was in Abraham’s bosom. Hallelujah.
We know that something was happening spiritually here that was going to occur in the natural earth, and in Luke chapter 23 verse 46, we see Jesus: 46 And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!” Having said this, He breathed His last. (Luke 23:46 AMP)
The Bible will tell you that after He spoke these words and breathed His last, darkness descended on the earth. There was a great earthquake and shaking and thunder in the heavens, and in the Holy of Holies where there was a great curtain that separated the Holy Place from the inner court; that hugely powerful, unbreakable, untearable, big curtain had separated the Most Holy from the Holy. The Bible says, “Was rent in two, it was just pulled apart into two parts.” Signifying spiritually and eternally that there would no longer be a separation from the Most Holy place by anybody. Hallelujah.
This is an amazing encounter. This is an amazing story of what happened with Jesus. Well, when Jesus got to Abraham’s bosom, He began to make declarations. He began to make declarations, and the declaration was, “I am the Messiah. I am illegally here. Death cannot hold Me because I am forever, eternally the divine One and the human one, in which there was no sin found in Me. The Father and all of His glory is rested upon Me. Me and the Father are one, and the Father will restore Me to My glory.
What did Jesus say? Everything that He said in the Bible is what He said in Paradise. There was only one confrontation essentially between the enemy of God and Jesus and God, the Father, and that confrontation was the right to Jesus’ death of His body. God, the Father, said, “You killed Him illegally, so He will be raised with an eternal body,” as were all the other saints that were there.
Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1, 1 And you who were dead, this is talking about us now being alive, you who were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, (Ephesians 2:1-2 ESV) those trespasses and sins that you once walked were a trespass. They were sins that did not acknowledge God and you did not acknowledge Jesus as the Lord and Saviour of your life. You lived your life as you chose. Right? That’s how people live their lives without God, they live their lives with their own choice.
2…following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:2 ESV) So, you who were dead in trespasses and sins, you followed along the course of this life and you followed along with the sons of disobedience who did whatever they chose to do. We as Christians cannot look at the world’s lifestyle and say we must follow their course of action because they are sons of disobedience. They do not obey God. You are delivered from that. You are set free. You are set free from having to run your life and see your whole life through the eyes of the sons of disobedience who live their lives according to the natural course of this world.
What is the natural course of this world? “Here’s an opportunity. Here’s an opportunity. Here’s a desire. Here’s a desire. Here’s my passion. Here’s my passion. Uh, I think I’ll go here. I desire power, I desire wealth. [audio breaks up] I’ll do whatever I can do to accumulate, to obtain, to push myself to become something.” Come on. Am I not telling you how the world lives its life? That’s how sons of disobedience live. They’ve got no God to live for, so who’s their god? Themselves. And so, themselves choose to worship other gods like money, like power, like status, like everything else. They make gods for themselves. That’s the disobedience.
We are not designed to live like that. We were once like that, and now, now we must live according to heavenly realities, not natural realities. This is one of the most liberating messages that you can have because the very power that raised Christ from the dead, is the same power that lives in you to enable you to not have to follow the sons of disobedience, for you to not have to follow according to the natural pattern of this world, for you not to just follow the passion and desire that just comes up in your thought life, “I’ll go after that I think.”
You are delivered from that. To have what? To have Heaven in your heart. The more Heaven you have in your heart while you’re on the earth is the more Heaven you’re going to live on the earth, is the more you’re going to be acquainted with Heaven when you get to Heaven. The whole idea is that the process begins now. The process doesn’t begin when you get to Heaven. The process is; now, Heaven is in your heart.
Psalms 16 verse 10. This is David quoting. 10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or to Hades, or let your holy one see corruption. (Psalm 16:10 ESV) You know, even Jesus’ body was not yet decayed after three days. It’s only on the fourth day that they actually say your body decays. That’s why Lazarus had to be raised on the fourth day and that’s why Jesus was in the tomb for three days.
I read to from Acts chapter 2 verse 29. It’s all the same translations, the ESV. 29 “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. What is He pouring out? The Holy Spirit. 34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, Father God said to Jesus, “Sit at my right hand, 35 until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ (Acts 2:29-35 ESV)
We are in this moment in time; we are in this place of human energy time. Our business is singularly, as Christians, our business is to live life with Heaven in our heart, with the power of resurrection life in our mouth. So that as we live, we become like Christ, not just singularly as an individual, but corporately as a body, that we will make the enemies of God, His footstool. This means that He has given us the power of the Holy Spirit, His power in us, to make the enemies of God—that means principalities and powers and rulers of darkness in the heavenly realms, it also means all of God’s enemies on the earth, the enemies of God, His footstool.
How do we make the enemies that are in the spirit realm our footstool? Well, how do they communicate with you? They come to you, in the same way they came to Adam; “Did God say? Does God say?” Comes with words, comes with ideas, comes with influences, comes with things for your consideration, manipulation. “Live your life, man; it’s your life. You’ve got one life to live and live it. You only got one life, live it to the full. Do whatever you want, do what you please.”
There are many things on the earth that come as a result of this pattern; sickness and disease, poverty, oppression, violence, wars. Many other things that are on the earth, that the church, as a corporate collective, have power, by the resurrection of Christ to live in such a way that we can be let out of a jail cell just because we pray. That God can shake the earth to open jail cell deals so that these people can walk out. Yes, we even have power as a church that we can completely superimpose ourselves out of time by the Holy Spirit because it happened to Philip did it not? Where he was one place one second and in the next second, he was another place a long way away. He was preaching the gospel to the unit from Ethiopia and the next minute he was in another place. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, and only by the Holy Spirit, can do things like that. That’s not something you can face every day and say I think, “Lord I’d like to live a life of translation.” Well, sure, who wants to buy cars when you can be translated?
There are many things that the Church can do. There are many things that we have so much power of the Holy Spirit, so much power, and we have not tapped into it because we busied ourselves. Even as a Church we have busied ourselves with a natural course of events rather than heavenly realities. To be honest, Pastor Sharon and I have realised that there has been many things that we’ve preached in the past that as we’ve preached them, people haven’t been willing or abled and ready to receive them. But God has had us preach them anyway. Even we, ourselves, when we sometimes receive some things from God, we find it that we have to really have conversations with each other and go and dig the Word and go and find and say, because this is quite a revelation. I am aware, I’ve seen this and I’ve heard this for myself Kenneth Hagin has been shown things by the Spirit, and he would say, “There are things that God has showed me and in the Word that I’m unable to share with you yet.” Even Jesus Himself said that. John, in the Isle of Patmos, saw things in the spirit that he didn’t write down… Couldn’t explain it.
One Peter chapter three verse 18 says, 18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, He died for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit; 19 in which also He went and made proclamation. Please listen to me now. He went and he made proclamation to the spirits now in prison. Where were they in prison? Abraham’s bosom. They were captives there. They couldn’t get out of there until Jesus came. When Jesus came, He went and He preached to them. 20 Who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. (1 Peter 3:18-20 NASB)
Jesus went, and so if you read the book of Hebrews 11, and I’m going to read it to you right now, but read all of it, you will see that Jesus went and preached salvation to those that were in Abraham’s bosom. He did not go to hell because those evil people that landed in Hades, in hell, were are eternally waiting for a judgment day. On that judgment day, they will appear before Jesus, and He will judge their actions, He will judge their words, and then another set of events will happen, which will cause them to be locked in the abyss with demons and the devil for 1000 years. Then there are other things that will happen for a very short period of time and then Jesus and His Church will rule and reign forever; in a new heaven and a new earth, us together.
You don’t often hear me preach like this, do you? So I’m just giving you a broad picture here because there are things that are happening. It’s time for us to be obedient. It’s time for us to follow God’s not the natural course of this world. It’s time for us to walk in power. Hallelujah. We need to be able to walk with such authority, that as we are following God, in the natural course of life, our heart is so filled with heavenly realities, that what comes out of our mouth is a heavenly reality reaction, every time. When that happens, the natural course of this world will be altered to fit the heavenly reality. If you live in a natural course of this world, you cannot bring heavenly realities and say, “Please bless this.”
God will do His best, if you’re a Christian, but living according to the course of this world, together with the sons of disobedience, He will do His best to help you. But you cannot say, “God, this is my choice. You must bless me.” God says, “No, no, My blessing is the heavenly realities in your heart. Follow that. Put it in your head, put it in your heart, put it in your mouth.” Follow that, then the heavenly realities will change the natural course of human life to fit the heavenly realities. It may take some time. It may not happen overnight. But if you stay with the heavenly realities in your heart and in your head, natural course of events will come and bow to the heavenly realities. If you don’t fully get what I’m saying, now, you need to meditate on the scripture because this is the reason why Jesus died. What’s the point of being a Christian? Of course, so you can go to heaven and not go to hell. But the point of being a Christian is not just so that you can go to heaven, the point of being a Christian is so that you can become spiritual.
Spiritual people understand heavenly realities. They want to be in the heavenly realities. That’s where they want to live their lives; spiritual people. They want to speak what heaven speaks. They want to think what heaven thinks. They want to live with the desires of the Father that is in heaven, not with the desires that they have on this earth. You do that long enough, and you’ll see that the natural course of events begins to bow to the pressure of your heavenly reality that it puts on the natural course of events rather than the other way around.
How do you say that, Pastor John? Well, Jesus was faced with temptation, and He bowed to the Father of heaven, and He called on the Father of heaven, and He spoke to the Father in heaven, and even though His soul was in anguish, and the Father sent an angel to strengthen Him. In that moment, the natural course of events that were going to happen were about to bow eternally, not just naturally, eternally to what Jesus was going to go through. The death of His body was a small price to pay for the eternal transition. Hallelujah.
What do we think? We think we don’t get rent money for a month, and now we quit on God? We got a little bit of sickness in our bodies, and we asked God to heal us, and it doesn’t happen immediately, and so now we blame God, or we blame our faith, or we blame something else. We’ve got to stop the blame game. We got to stop the accusation game for ourselves and others. We got to stop this guilt stuff. We got to stop all the stuff where there’s strife and enmity and all manner of bad words and arguments and stuff that happen all the time. Hey, let’s live with heavenly realities.
I’m not going to finish everything today, but I do need to read this to you, and this will be my last scripture; Hebrews 11, verse 39. I’m going to read through to Hebrews 12, verses 1 and 2. So this is talking about men of faith that died, and just read it for yourself. Many people that died lost their loved ones to the sword, lost their lives in famine, lost their lives, in various things, but they lived by faith. They believed in the covenant God. All of these people I’m just talking to you about, as well as Abraham and Jacob, and Isaac, and Sarah and all of the ones named in the hall of faith, Hebrews 11, Gideon and all those. 39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39-40 ESV)
In other words, when they died, they went to Abraham’s bosom because there was yet a Messiah that was going to come and pay the price once and for all for past and present and future generations, and they could not go and be in heaven and be perfect until we came. Until Jesus came for us; to redeem all of humanity. 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. (Hebrews 12:1 ESV)
In other words, don’t live according to the way that everybody else says you must live. That little sin that easily tries to cling to you, put it aside. Put those sins aside those little sins… and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV)
I say to you, the greatest thing that you will source back to the Garden of Eden is fear and shame. Despise it, walk with God in the heavenly realities. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Hebrews 12:3-6 ESV) Hallelujah.
I spoke to you last week about how I had a bad confession about fixing the roof, and my Heavenly Father disciplined me, and He said, “If you don’t change your confession, I won’t send the provision to fix the roof.” Because that’s not where you want to spend the money, and so I said, “I apologise, Lord, I repent. I repent.” And immediately, I started changing my confession. That gives me great confidence that I’m a son. That gives me great confidence that I’m a son, that I’m abiding in Him, that I’m living with Him, that I’m filling my mind with heavenly realities. Because the moment my conversation followed the normal course and pattern of this world, He corrected me and said, “Don’t follow that course. That course can’t take you anywhere. That course has got no life for you. That pattern can’t bring you any good thing. Change your conversation to what I wanted it to be. I want to provide for you. I called you. I appointed you, I brought you, I placed you, I located you. I’ve kept you. I’ve strengthened you. You’re here because of Me. I can fix a roof like [Pastor John snaps his fingers] that.” And so within six weeks, the money’s in, paid, ready to go. Just waiting for this stuff to come, and they’ll start building. Hallelujah. I don’t want to beat myself up and say, “I should not have let those words come out of my mouth.” I say, “Thank God, I’m a son that listens.” Because the minute He corrected me, I changed it. I said, “I’m doing what You say, God, I’m used to doing that. I’m used to receiving Your corrections. I’m used to changing my mind. I was talking wrong. I’ll do another talk. I was going that way, no, no, I’m not doing that. I’m going this way.” Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
I remember a time when I was training, ready to go on a big stage race, the Jock Tour thing that we were going to do. I’m psyched for it. I’m pumped for it, and everything’s going. The Lord said to me, “If you go, I can’t protect you.” I said, “Uh, okay,” and I fussed a bit because I’ve been training hard. I was committed to people, we paid our money, and all the people around me, you know, I am a fundamental part of what was going on there. I had to make a decision, obey God, and so called let people down or get the wisdom of God to do what God said. So, I called some of the men together, and the people that were going to ride, and I said, “Guys, God said to me, this is what He said. He said, if you go ride that race, I can’t protect you.” So, I can’t go.
See, the normal course of events says, “You ask God about riding a bicycle? When you trained?” Well, listen, if God spoke to me, and He said, “I can’t protect you.” I’m not putting my life… I know the voice of God. I know. “Well, Pastor John, nothing happened to you?” Because I obeyed. I stand before you today because I obeyed. I didn’t go, and nothing happened to anybody else, and I was at peace with that because it wasn’t about them. It was about me. Because the devil has a target on my back, and obviously, in that particular event, he had a double target on my back. Who knows what might have happened to me? I mean, it might not have been dramatic, like being taken out by a car or something like that. I might have had something go wrong in my physical body, and then there’s nobody there to rescue me, nobody there to do anything; and then I’m gone.
God knows everything. “If you go, I can’t protect you, John.” “Yes, Sir.” I changed my mind. I’m not doing that anymore. I’ll stay at home. Do you know in my humanity, my natural thinking? Hey, every day I’m checking, those guys are leaving now. They’re about this way on the course, probably up that mountain, sweating, and it’s 32 degrees. I wish I was there. My natural man, but in my spirit, man, I’m at great peace because I’m following God, I’m not following the natural course of this world, and my mind was filled with heaven realities, and it saved me from myself. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
That is the greatest walk that we must now walk with Resurrection Power, understanding this; that when Jesus was raised from the dead, and He said, “All those who believe in Me, receive the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit. All those that believe in Me, all of your past sins have been paid for. All of the sins that you’re sinning now have been paid for. All of the sins that you will sin, it’s been paid for.”
Your life should no longer be a sin minded life. Your life should be a heavenly minded life because inside of you is the new life, that is the Christ-life. So, Resurrection Power is at work in me to deliver me; from myself. So, what does myself attract? Myself attracts to my own ways, and I don’t care how well you manage it… I don’t care how well you make it look to someone else. I don’t care. I don’t care how well you hide it from someone else. Your own self will cause death and destruction. I’m sorry to tell you that. Not really, but I am sorry, in some ways. You know, because the truth is that the more you live for yourself, by your own designs, by your own purposes in your own plans, the more you are going to attract self natured stuff, and there is no good there. There’s no life there.
The more you live in heavenly realities, the more you live with the Resurrection Power of Christ, that power that’s inside of you. When it’s faced with temptation, it’s got the ability to say no; it empowers you to say no. Grace is not the forgiveness you get because you sin. Grace is the power you receive to say “No” to sin. I’ve heard people preach it this way. “Grace is the most important message for young generation people, teenagers and young adults. Because of the way the world is structured, sin is just what they live within their lives. And so, grace is the greatest message that they can have.” Because as they live their life and they sin, like they sleep with each other, and they smoke with each other. I mean, you know, dope and stuff. And they and they do all manner of alcohol stuff, and who knows what they get up to? All of that stuff is the natural course of things that young people explore. So because everybody in the new generation is doing that, they need grace, because they need to know they can still come back to God after they’ve sinned like that. Well, they do need to know that. But that’s not what grace is. Grace is the power to say “No” to that, and live the way God wants you to live, and not carry the baggage of all of that nonsense into your future.
The Resurrection Power of Christ. You know, most of the reasons why we live with poverty in our lives, is because we have a poverty mentality baggage that is in our mind, and in our experience, and in our world, which we carry with us like a big ball and chain, we carry the poverty mentality and scarcity mentality with us everywhere we go. And every future decision we make, we make it with a poverty mentality that we lived with, with our parents, with their grandparents, with their grandparents. They lived with poverty, they lived with poverty, they lived with lack, they lived with scarcity, and so we carry that value system with us into the future. God says, “If you live in the heavenly realities, you can be free.” Cut off from this life’s ongoing access to poverty and scarcity. And that mentality of there is not enough you got to save to get to somewhere in your life. I’d rather give to get somewhere in my life.
So, as you go through life, you got to hoard up more money, and you’re going to be like that guy in the parable, I’ll build myself bigger barns, and I’ll build myself bigger houses, and be drink and eat and be merry because you’ve done good for yourself here. But tonight, your soul is required from you, then where do you leave that stuff? For who? Oh, well, that’s honourable; I’ll leave it for my kids. Who knows what your kids are going to do in the future? What scarcity mentality has been installed in them, what worldly ways have been installed into their thinking and in their soul and the following of their lives? You can’t guarantee what your kids are going to do. They got to make their own choices. If you think the devil is not going to target them because you paid the price for them, sorry, it doesn’t work like that. I can’t even pay the price for my wife. The only price I can pay for her and she for me is we can pray for each other, we can be the love of God to each other. But I’m saying I can’t pay the price for her for whatever decision she may make in the future. That’s between her and God. Same with our kids. Same with everything. So you can’t do everything for legacy. You have to do everything for heavenly, not for legacy.
If you do everything for heavenly, then at least you give the next legacy a chance to become heavenly. If you give the next legacy a chance to become heavenly, then their heavenly becomes their reality. And the more heavenly their reality becomes, the more we begin to live a generation free and free and free and free from all of that stuff.
Hallelujah, resurrection life of Christ. The resurrection life of Christ, the power that raised Him from the dead, lives in me, and it raises me up from the dead; that lifts me up from myself nature, it lifts me up out of my mentality of this natural world that wants to pull me down. The resurrection life of Christ pulls me up and says “Come on, John. You got the life of God in you. You’ve got Jesus in you. You’ve got the Holy Ghost in you come out, John.” Hallelujah. When I wake up in the morning, the Holy Spirit says, “Come on, John, the life of God is in you today. Do something great.” Do something great. Worship Him, praise Him. Thank Him. Give Him glory. Live for Him. Make Him the priority of your day. I got to go to work, Pastor John, you don’t understand. I do understand. I went to work every day, and I made Him a priority in my day. I spoke words constantly out of my mouth, and it delivered me from myself. It delivered me from poverty. It delivered me from a knowledge that my education can’t get what my life in faith can get for me.
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Still today, Sharon and I have been living this, this faith message, this faith that came to us, this way of life. That is actually the Bible’s way of life. We got to find out about this liberty 40 odd years ago, and in these 40 years, we are getting still better at it, and we are still getting delivered day by day, week by week, we are walking a greater degree of glory, every day. Every day.
Please stand with me. Hallelujah. It is my declaration and I’m saying these words over you. Every time we are together, that the resurrection life of Christ is bringing healing to your body. The resurrection life of Christ that raised Him from the dead, that power that same power, is resting upon you, to heal your body, to heal your mind, to heal your emotions, to heal all manner of oppression and depression and sickness and disease and all manner of evil spirits that have come to come and cost your life anxiety and pressure and depression and all those oppressions that are on your life. That spirit of poverty that comes upon you that says you can’t do something when God tells you to do it. I declare that the life of Christ is working in mighty power in the inner man, inside of you that is raising you up from the person that is holding you back. It’s raising you up above yourself, delivering you from yourself in Jesus name. Hallelujah.
I’m declaring that as the resurrection power of Christ is working in you, it begins to deliver your mind so relationships can be restored. It delivers your heart so your heart can be pure to the people that you need to be, brothers, sisters, family members, husbands, wives, children, that you can have a restoration of relationship, because you become heavenly minded in the way that you see them. Not in the selfish way that you live your life with them. Hallelujah. I declare the resurrection life of Christ begins to raise you, raise you, raise you, raise you up, raise you up from your normal average life mentality. I don’t care how much money you got and how much degrees you’ve got. It’s still average. Because the heavenly realities are where life is. Heaven’s realm is in your spirit. It’s in your mind, let it out. Let it out with words of life, let it out with words of victory. Let it out with words of power. Let it out with words that are God’s Words for your life. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Praise Jesus. Just raise your hands and say, praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Lord, praise You, Lord, praise You, Lord. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
We are living in a strategic time. God has got a strategic message for us. This is one of them that God has spoken, that He’s going to do things if we live with a heavenly minded mentality. And with the resurrection power of Christ in us. There is nothing we can’t accomplish together. Together, we can do anything. By myself, I can walk on the water, but all of us can cross together in a boat. Even though the storms that come, we can talk to the storm. So don’t make me walk on the water by myself. Let’s go all in the boat together and we’ll talk to the storm on the way. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. God didn’t intend for Peter to be the only one who had the miracle, He had all of them to have the miracle. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.
Put your hand on your heart like this. Say; I’m a child of God. Because Jesus is my Saviour. Thank You, Lord, for living in my heart. Thank You for resurrection power that comes into my heart, fills my mind and sets me free. In Jesus’ name. I believe in Jesus, in the name of Jesus. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Wow. Wow.
That’s how simple it is. If you believe something in your heart. That’s how you can live your life. Glory to God. May I pray for you, please? Let’s pray together. Father, I pray that Your blessing rests upon Your people. I thank You, Lord, as always, Your Holy Spirit has spoken through this clay vessel and these words that I have spoken are eternal words that You’ve put in my mouth. I ask You that they will have eternal impact in the hearts of Your people. Wherever my humanity has been interfering, I ask You to look past that and let the true power of Your Words, find the root in the hearts of Your people. Let them live there, grow there, become a great harvest there, and that will impact every area of their lives. I pray this week, Lord, that You protect each one of us from any and every strain of virus that is out there. I thank You, Lord, that no weapon of sickness or disease will come near us. No weapon of poverty or economic downturn will come near us or our dwelling place. No danger of death will come near us or our dwelling place. I thank You, Lord, we are blessed going out and blessed coming in and we are protected by Your Word and the blood of Jesus and the very angels that You send to surround us and protect us. Thank You for it Lord. Bless Your people with peace and well being in the week ahead. In Jesus name.
You all receive it by saying? [Congregation: Amen.] Thank you for coming to church today. God bless you.
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