Scripture reference: John 6:63 (TPT); Romans 1:1-6 (AMPC); Romans 5:9-11 (TPT); Romans 5:10 (AMPC); Colossians 3:1-3 (AMPC); Colossians 3:1 (AMPC); Colossians 3:2 (AMPC); Colossians 3:1-4 (TPT)
Hallelujah. Just raise your hands and praise the Lord, praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus, praise You, Lord. Hallelujah. Let all the people praise the Lord. Let all the nations praise the Lord. For He is great; He is great. He is awesome, living, Almighty God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Glory to His name. Praise the name of Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Oh, Jesus… [Pastor John singing in the spirit]. Hallelujah, hallelujah, praise You, Jesus. The Bible says, “Those who give thanks in Spirit give thanks truly and give thanks well.” Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Glory to God, you may be seated. Praise Jesus. It’s a good day to be in church. Glory to God.
Thank you for coming to church. I thank you and the Lord thanks you. Really, because church is meant to be where Christians hang out. You know, people who don’t know Jesus, they tend to hang out in different other spaces like bars, and you know, other places. Christians hang out at church. And wherever there are two or three Christians gathered together there is Church. Hallelujah. So we come together and hang out together and have a good time in the Lord. Praise Jesus. Glory to God.
Well, the Lord has put something on my heart to minister and it’s going to take some weeks, it may even go all the way through to the end of the year. We’ll see how the Lord leads, how this set of messages is going to be taught. So I trust and I pray that you will be responsive to the Word, you will receive the Word in your heart and you will receive the Word in such a way that it will not just be things that you hear and temporarily come in your heart, but it will be something that will change the way that you live your Christian life, forever. Hallelujah.
I can certainly say that I have progressively become more intimately acquainted with this knowledge and this topic. If you like, I’m going to just use that phrase for a moment, this knowledge of what we have as Christians. And so it’s certainly over the last couple of weeks, it’s become much bigger in me. So here we go. Glory to God.
I didn’t give you this Scripture, so you don’t have this on what I sent you, the message. But I want to read you the scripture from the Passion Translation in John chapter 6 verse 63, it says, 63 ”The Holy Spirit is the one who gives life, that which is of the natural realm is of no help. The words I speak to you are Spirit and life. But there are still some of you who won’t believe.” (John 6:63 TPT) So if I can repeat that to you, 63 “The Holy Spirit is the one who gives life, that which is of the natural realm is of no help. The words I speak to you are Spirit and life. But there are still some of you who won’t believe.” (John 6:63 TPT)
So you are a spirit being. If I had to say to you, “What manner of creature are you? What kind of creature are you? Why are you a different creature to animals that roam around the streets and roam around the bushes? What manner of creature are you?” Well, your answer would be correct if you said, “I am a spirit creature,” as opposed to other creatures that do not have a spirit. I am a spirit creature.
So I have a soul and live in a body. The wonderful thing about that is, the body is going to die, it’s going to cease to exist at some point, but my spirit and my soul will live eternally. So when Jesus says there are things in the natural realm that are of no help. The words that I give you are spirit and they are life. Then it means you, spirit creature, it does you good. That helps you. Because whatever you put into your spirit while you’re in this natural realm, whatever you put into your spirit grows you and it works eternity, and your redemptive eternity, every day. It’s of great help to you that you receive words that are spirit and life. That’s the words that you need. Natural things are of no help to you. Amen.
It’s an amazing thing that when you are a spirit being creature, that there are things that can happen and do and will happen around you that if you are a born again Christian, if you are a believing Christian, the things that will happen to you will constantly, daily, force you to make decisions for life or for death. It’s something that you can do that no other creature can do. And so, if you are not born again, if you have not received Jesus into your heart, if He doesn’t live there, then you have no confrontations with the spirit realm, other than that which is your natural basic instincts that you follow as a human being.
Those basic instincts that you follow, they confront your choices. But your spirit man is not involved because it’s not connected to God. Your soul and your basic instincts as a person is what drives your life. If you are a Christian, who does not live with words that are full of life and full of Spirit, then you are no different to those other Christians or those other people that have no God living inside of them. They follow their basic instincts and they follow what they desire. So as a Christian, you need words that are life and Spirit. When you receive them, it’s completely different to someone who has no God living in their spirit.
Which is why it’s really a shame, actually, when Christians who have given their lives to Jesus continue to live like other people because they make themselves no different to anybody else that lives on the planet because they don’t fill their lives with words that are Spirit and life. The way Jesus and God communicate with you is He doesn’t communicate with you through circumstantial activities. “I circumstantially let this happen to you to speak to you.” He speaks to you, words of Spirit and life and that’s what will change you, will change your future. Hallelujah.
I’m going to set a platform for us today because if you engage in debates with people about God and about the existence of God, there are a lot of arguments that they will have scientifically to try and say, “Prove to me scientifically that God is.” And so they actually go to the very question of the existence of God and they go to the questions of belief. At the end of the day when people engage in these kinds of debates, the one thing that even if they’re scientists and they have lots to say about science actually disproving God and so there’s actually a whole group of people that exist and they’re called, and they do this as a living, they’re called apologists and they are involved in apologetics, which is the defence of the gospel or the defence of God. Okay, so they are prepared to go and debate with scientists, evolutionists and all manner of different kinds of people that have lots of things to say about whether God exists or doesn’t and at the end of the day, they question belief itself.
And so then, with all of their theorizing, when you ask them, “Do you believe actually what you’re saying? If you don’t believe it, then why argue for it?” So then they actually have a belief, they have just chosen to intellectualize a different belief. Right? They’ve chosen to intellectualize a different belief. The one thing that all of the people that have these conversations and have these debates about, and you will find that it always gets most heated, normally these kinds of debates happen when there’s someone adjudicating the debate and oftentimes when it gets most heated, they just bypass the adjudicator. If you have all these professors and all these people having public debates in forums and things, they bypass the adjudicator, and mostly it’s about the subject of the resurrection of Christ.
Because the one thing that is the most powerful thing about the Christian faith that no other faith has is that they have a resurrected Saviour, Who actually beat death. No other god can profess and no other theology, no other idol worship, no other gods have a God that they can prove raised from the dead. Well, some of them say, “You can’t choose people’s witnesses as proof.” Well, you can actually. You can because the reality is that that one guy that was raised from the dead has become millions and we are the witnesses. And so, there were those that witnessed His resurrection and they saw Him with their own eyes and they testified to His resurrection and we continue to exist that even though we don’t see Him, we yet believe Him and He lives in our hearts which is why words of Spirit and life are important to us. Hallelujah.
So how does the resurrection of Christ apply to you and me? Why does it matter? Why does the resurrection of Christ matter to you and me? I’m going to read from Romans chapter 1, the Amplified Bible and I’m going to read from verse 1 to 6, so if you’ll bear with me, there’s quite a lot of words here. 1 From Paul, a bond servant of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) called to be an apostle, (a special messenger) set apart to [preach] the Gospel (good news) of and from God. (Romans 1:1 AMPC)
I want to just make a point here; my primary calling and gifting is a pastor-teacher. That’s primarily what I’m called to do. The works that our ministry has done; reaching many, many different peoples in different nations, we have many, many churches across Southern Africa that are connected to Heritage of Faith South Africa, that see us as their spiritual overseers, if you like, they connect to us spiritually, we support missionaries that live in those countries, whose job it is to travel amongst the churches and report back to us on the wellbeing of those churches in southern Africa. We have also continued, we started and do continue all these 18 years or so, have many Bible schools, many Bible training facilities in South Africa and southern Africa, which would make us as a ministry, special messengers with a gospel that we preach to many nations.
Under the definition of a special messenger, that would make this ministry an apostolic ministry. That is not something that you have, you’re not given that gift, you’re not called by God with that gift as a primary gift. You are faithful in the other gifts that God gives you and then He gives you the ability to speak to many nations if it’s His will. Amen. So I can only say, as the Apostle Paul said, “I am a special messenger to you today.”
2 Which he promised in advance [long ago] through His prophets in the sacred Scriptures– 3 [The Gospel] regarding His Son, Who as to the flesh (His human nature) was descended from David, King David, 4 And [as to His divine nature] according to the Spirit of holiness was openly designated the Son of God in power [in a striking, triumphant and miraculous manner] What was this striking manner of divinity that was revealed? by His resurrection from the dead, even Jesus Christ our Lord (the Messiah, the Anointed One). 5 It is through Him that we have received grace (God’s unmerited favor) and [our] apostleship to promote obedience to the faith and make disciples for His name’s sake among all the nations, 6 And this includes you, called of Jesus Christ and invited [as you are] to belong to Him. (Romans 1:1-6 AMPC)
So this passage of Scripture just gives you an outline that Paul is a special messenger and he is appointed as a special messenger by not only the human Christ, who came as a descendant of David but came as a Divine-Being-Christ, proved through His resurrection from the dead. And because He was resurrected from the dead, He has appointed messengers to take this gospel to all the nations which includes you. I bring you today good news; because of the resurrected Christ, not just because of the Christ that was born. I bring you the good news because of the resurrected Christ. Hallelujah. This is a great message for all of us to receive; the message of the resurrected Christ.
I go to Romans chapter 5 verse 7. I’m reading from the Passion translation again: ⁷ Now, who of us would dare to die for the sake of a wicked person? We can all understand if someone was willing to die for a truly noble person. A king or president or such nobility. ⁸ But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly! All of us had no right for salvation; it doesn’t matter which parents you were born to, none of us had a right to salvation. Salvation is a choice that you make to receive Jesus in your life because He paid the price; He died for us. ⁹ And there is still much more to say of his unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in my sight.” (Romans 5:7-9 TPT) Could you all just say this with me? [Pastor John placing his hand on his chest] “I am now righteous in the sight of Jesus.”
It’s not a bad thing for you to wake up in the morning, every day, and say, “Wake up, righteous man. Go forth and be righteous for you are righteous.” Come on now. You know, it doesn’t matter what you did yesterday. I ask you; I suppose you can remember what you did yesterday, yes? Maybe you made some phone calls, maybe you went to the shops, maybe you did a few other activities, maybe you slept a little bit, I don’t know what you did yesterday. But surely you can remember what you did yesterday. Can you change it? [Congregation: No] You can’t even change the fact that you came here. I mean, you might not like what I’m saying, and you can get up and walk out – please don’t do that [Congregation laughing]. I mean, you could do that, but you can’t even change the fact that you came here because you’re here. Right?
And so what does it help you to wake up in the morning with the thought of yesterday on your mind, preventing you from meeting and greeting God as your Saviour on this day? When everything that He did took care of everything yesterday, which He now no longer remembers; all of the things that you did yesterday unless they were in obedience to Him in which case they speak eternally as fruit and as rewards for you. But anything that you did that was not in His will, He doesn’t remember. So what does it help for you to get up in the morning and say, “I remember yesterday and that was a bad day for me. I behaved so badly I didn’t even think I was a Christian.” So you might remember it, but it has no relevance to your current, now relationship with Jesus.
So you wake up in the morning and you say “Good morning, righteous man. It’s time to go forth and be righteous. Behave righteously today.” And if you behave unrighteously in the next 10 minutes and now you’re all unhappy because you did something; I dare you to go back and change it. Still can’t change it. So why live there? Rather just go back to being a righteous man. Because the real man is not what you do in your clay vessel, the real man is in your spirit-man because the words that He speaks are Spirit and they are life and they are the ones that matter to you as a Christian.
So say this with me again: [Pastor John placing his hand on his chest] “I am a righteous man in Jesus’ name.” You are telling the truth. If you don’t say anything else today other than this, it’s the most truthful thing that you were to say ever. [Pastor John waving to congregation] “Hello you righteous people, you. It’s good to see all of you righteous ones.” Hallelujah. Glory to God. Welcome to the event of all the righteous ones that have all come to gather together, all you righteous people. Hallelujah. Why live in unrighteousness when you can live in righteousness?
9 And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God. (Romans 5:9 TPT) Where are all those people that want to talk about all the bad things that God wants to do to you? Huh. He can’t do bad things to righteous ones. You’re looking at me like… Come on now, is Jesus living in your heart? If Jesus is living in your heart, your spirit-man, if He’s there then that life is incorruptible. So it doesn’t matter, whatever bad things you do in your flesh, that Spirit that is Christ in your spirit cannot be corrupted. That means you can wake up every day and a thousand times a day you can say, “I am a righteous one,” and it will always be true. Even if you behave badly. I’m not saying you must behave badly.
Because that’s what the Apostle Paul says, “Because you have grace, don’t abuse it.” That’s not the point of grace; to abuse it, but nevertheless, it is still so that you are still righteous and you cannot experience the wrath of God. You may experience the discipline of God, but not the wrath of God. It’s different. Hallelujah.
10 So if while we were still enemies, God fully reconciled us to himself through the death of his Son, then something greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, and because we share in his resurrection life, how much more we will be rescued from sin’s dominion! ¹¹ And even more than that, we overflow with triumphant joy in our new relationship of living in harmony with God—all because of Jesus Christ! (Romans 5:10-11 TPT)
How many of you want to live in triumphant joy in your new living relationship with Jesus that always puts you in harmony or unity, in well-being with God? How is this all possible? Because …something greater than friendship is ours now that we are at peace with God, and because we share in his resurrection life. (Romans 5:10 TPT). Therefore, resurrection life becomes rather important. Resurrection life becomes rather important. It is because resurrection life is given to us through Jesus, that we have a greater unity with God.
I would like to paint you a picture for a minute. If I was standing here and suddenly my body stopped operating, actually my spirit-man would still be standing. My physical body might just collapse in a heap here. I’m trying to give you an example. I’m trying to show you something. I’m not going to collapse. Hopefully, I’m well enough groomed so that my collapsing, you know, I don’t want to upset my grooming for you [Congregation laughing] and for those watching on the cameras. But if I was to collapse because my body stopped functioning right now, it just stopped; you all probably will get a big fright. Some doctors in the audience might come and try and hit my heart, might try and find out what’s wrong with me and try and revive me. Some of you might begin to pray in the Spirit and try and raise me from the dead. Please do all of that [Congregation laughing] feel free, you know, if that happens to me.
I’m trying to describe to you what would happen to me, is that actually, my spirit-man would stay standing and as my body collapses in death, my spirit-man stays standing, ascending, all the while, instantaneously, into the very presence of God Himself. Actually, the realm of the spirit and the heavenly realm is so close to us that we as spirit beings, we can actually feel the presence of that spirit realm on a regular basis. If you are trained in the Spirit, you know that the spirit realm is right here and so actually if my body collapsed, my spirit-man would just continue existing in the spirit realm that your eyes can’t see and I would instantly be in the presence of God. And all the angels that are here would see me and I’d see them and we’d say, “How’s it?” you know, and they would all recognize that a saved one has entered into eternity, a righteous one has entered into eternity. And they will greet me as one that has got Christ in me because I will look only like Christ, I will look nothing like my dead body. Hallelujah.
This is the joy that we have as Christians that we look forward to, why death is not a problem for us because whatever happens to your body, your spirit is instantly in the presence of the Lord. Now just hang out with me in this space for a second here. Now let’s just say my body’s not going to collapse and die. What’s happening to that spirit realm that’s around me? How do they see me? Come on, how do they see me? They see the life of Christ in me. They see me as a righteous one. I already have the robe of righteousness as my spirit clothing. So, therefore, that being inside of me that has the robe of righteousness that is in me, has constant unbroken harmony, communication with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with the Father, who doesn’t discern whether I’m in the flesh. The spirit-man is recognized as righteous.
Now, if my physical man speaks many natural words that have no spiritual meaning, it’s like gobbledygook language to the Spirit. That’s like, what are they saying? It’s nonsense words. We don’t respond to those words. But the minute you speak words that are life and truth, they immediately pay attention. Here’s the spirit being, here’s the righteous one. He’s speaking the truth. He’s speaking the life of God. What is he saying? We must respond to this. Every word that speaks out of your heart that is in line with truth and life, they respond to that. You speak other nonsense, they just fold their hands. “Nothing to do. Got nothing to do here.” “Spirit and life let’s act.” Hallelujah.
So remember, and I’m going to read to you, verse 10 again from The Passion Translation. I read it to you from the Amplified. I’m going to now read it to you from The Passion Translation. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain], now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved (daily delivered from sin’s dominion) through His [resurrection] life. (Romans 5:10 AMPC) How are you delivered daily from the dominion of sin? Resurrection life. So what’s the big deal about resurrection life? Everything, everything.
Colossians chapter 3 verse 1 to 3 from the Amplified Bible. 1 If then you have been raised with Christ [to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead], aim at and seek the [rich, eternal treasures] that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth. 3 For [as far as this world is concerned] you have died, and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3 AMPC)
I’ve got news for you; if you want to go and make friends with the world, they don’t like you. They only like you if you behave like them and talk like them because if you behave like them and talk like them, then you do not appear to them as a righteous one and then your life is not a challenge to their lives. But if you are resurrected, if you have a life that has been resurrected with Christ, you’re as good as dead to the world. Did I just read that in the Bible? I’m not making this up. Praise the Lord. Resurrection life.
So, 1 If then you have been raised with Christ [to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead] (Colossians 3:1 AMPC) Okay, what’s the big deal about being resurrected from the dead? Can Jesus die again? He can’t because He already died. His body died. So, He was resurrected from the dead and when He was walking around on the earth, He was walking around as a spirit being with a soul and He was walking in a glorified body, not a natural body. So I don’t want to go into all the things, but you know, Jesus just appeared in different places and He walked through doors and walls and appeared in rooms, which His normal natural body couldn’t do but His new resurrected body could do.
So if you are identifying with the resurrection of life that is in Christ Jesus, what do you think it is that Jesus spends His time doing? He spends His time seated at the right hand of God, performing everything that the will of God wants to perform, because He’s sitting at the right hand of God. So, His mind is on the things that God wants Him to do; so, aim at and seek the [rich, eternal treasures] that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth. (Colossians 3:1-2 AMPC) So where should you spend your mind’s time thinking? [Congregation: Things above] Say again? [Congregation: Things above] Please say that again [Congregation: Things above] Things above? Not on things here? So, how much time do you think you spend time thinking about stuff here rather than there? [Pastor John pointing up]
So where do you think most Christians have problems in their lives? The problem in their life is that they have this spirit-man that wants them to think about everything that is in the heavenlies and their natural man says, “Take care of all of these natural things. You have to, you have to, you have to think about this. Think about this, think about that.” So they live between two worlds. They live between the things that are natural things and they live between, “I know that I’m actually created for greater things.” And so because they spend so much of their time in their natural thinking, they don’t actually get to think that much about the things that are above.
Can I read the same passage of scripture to you out of The Passion Translation? I really like this, are you ready for this? 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. So which is your true life? The one that’s in Christ, not the one that’s living every day. 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.
So, your resurrection, or let’s rather go back to the Word; when it says, 1 Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. The minute you believe that Jesus is Lord and Saviour of your life, the minute you receive Him into your life, you identify with Jesus that He lives today, that He did not die and remain dead. He died and was resurrected. Come on, this is very, very important. Because I will get to it in a future session, I will get to talk to you with the whole debate that Paul has with the Corinthian church about whether Christ is resurrected or not resurrected and he gives a marvellous debate that I can’t do any better than just read it to you, because he does such a good job of debating with the Corinthian people about the resurrection of Christ.
But here is what I can say to you today; and this is part of the way that he debates them, so I’m just going to give you a foretaste of it. If Christ was not raised from the dead, then why do we serve Christ? We might as well serve any other god. I’ll tell you which god I would serve if I wasn’t serving Christ. I would serve the god of money. Or maybe power. I mean, I wouldn’t settle for a little god, like, you know, a little god that just meets my needs every day? No, why? Why serve a god like that? I mean, at least make a god, like a big god, like a big power god or a big money god or, you know, a big, you know, economic god, or maybe a creative invention god, where when you serve him that maybe you actually can get some of what he’s got. So that you can have lots of money and you can have lots of power, whatever god you choose.
I mean, Paul actually had this debate. He said, “You guys, you serve all the other gods, you serve all those because you think you don’t want to upset any gods. And in case, there’s a god that you have upset, you’ve got to idle to him too. And they’re called the unknown God.” And he says, “I can tell you who that God is, I want to introduce you to Him. His name is Jesus.”
Okay, so please stay with me. Why? Why serve Jesus? And why become a Christian if Jesus didn’t get raised from the dead? Because He would still be dead? Why do you want to serve a dead God? Come on now. Because you have challenges with your everyday life, with your body and your mind and your flesh and your desires that tell you that you want to do certain things. But if you’re serving God, your conscience tells you, “Don’t do those things.” So Paul debates with the Corinthian church and says, “We are pitiable people if we’re serving a God that didn’t raise from the dead. Because now we’re thinking we’re serving a God that’s a real God and we are denying ourselves all these pleasures that we think we really want in the favour of a God that didn’t get raised from the dead. So then we’re the most stupid of all people. We are actually really fooled. Because we think we’re serving a God. But he’s actually dead.” So then, we have to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. Right?
Okay, come on now all of you. How do you know Jesus was raised from the dead? The most basic thing is, He’s in you? How do you know that He’s in you? You know. [Pastor John gestures to his inside] I don’t have to try and convince you. Right? You know; you know. If you don’t know, we need to pray with you. Because then you haven’t really believed that Jesus is Lord. You haven’t really made that decision in your heart yet. Then you need to believe that. Because if you believe that, then you can invite a living God into your heart.
So it was important that Jesus would die. Why? Because He lived perfectly as a human and He lived perfectly in the will of God as a divine being. So when He was killed, He was killed illegally because death had no dominion over Him because sin was not found in Him. Because He died illegally, God could do something about His death and He had the legal right to raise Him up from the dead and declare Him as the Saviour of all mankind because He defeated everything that humans could not defeat and God raised Him up from the dead and He says, “Now, all matters under the earth are given over to the Son who was a faithful Son.”
So now it’s no longer about how well you behave yourself, it’s if you believe in Him. Which means if you believe in Him, then you receive the resurrected life of Christ in you because He lives. He lives! The Father raised Him from the dead. And He said, “Because You were a faithful Son, I’m handing authority of the entire universe, everything in the heavens, everything on the earth, everything below the earth, anything that is named anywhere, all of it is given under Your judgment, Son.” And the Son says, “I’ve been resurrected by You, Father, and so I only do what I want You to do.” So the will of the Father and the Son are in complete harmony. Praise Jesus.
So, 3 Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, why do you want to live like everybody else lives when you can have a much better life? Hello? Let me tell you something, if you know this, whether you have money or not, is irrelevant. People will say, “Well that’s easy for you to speak until you have no money.” I’ve been there. I’ve had no money. But when you have Jesus in your heart, you know that He’s going to take care of your needs, because you are righteous and if you speak righteous words about, “He’s taking care of you,” then He must take care of you. So, why do I want to live like anybody else lives; chasing after things all the time when I’ve got much better things to enjoy. 4 And as Christ Himself is seen for who He really is, who really are will also be revealed, for you are now one with Him in His glory! (Colossians 3:3-4 TPT) You are now one with Him in His glory. Hallelujah.
So I’m going to finish my message this morning. I’ve got a lot to talk about on this subject and I’ve just laid a foundation today. But I’ll tell you what really has become big in my heart this year. Pastor Sharon and I have been married forty years. Forty years. I’ll tell you how many people when you walk around and you talk about forty years, people in the shopping centres and things like that when you meet people and they always talk about us like, “You’re such a loving couple, you know, how long have you been married?” Because we show love to each other. We have lots of wonderful, intimate conversations at a restaurant. People always are interested in this, us the way that we are just, it’s obvious that we are just completely in love with each other; after forty years. When we tell them forty years or thirty-eight, however long it’s been, they can’t believe it. They say, “Eish, in this modern day, it doesn’t happen anymore.” We were away for a couple of days, we’re told one guy, we’re married forty years. He says, “Eish, I’ve been married seven years. How do you do it?” He says, “I’m struggling after seven.” You know. It became so big to me it has become so big to me. It’s been growing in me.
I received a Word from the Lord. I was in my early twenties, last week you saw pictures of me when I was much younger. As a young man having the righteousness of Christ in me. The righteous One spoke to me, through His Word. He spoke to me. And He said, “John, if you will do the Bible in your marriage, the dreams that you have in your heart for your marriage, you can have it. If you will do what the Bible says you must do. I’ve given you My Word on marriage.” That word was love your wife as Christ loves the Church and give yourself up for her and as you give yourself up for her, just like Jesus is washing the Church with the Water of the Word. So you will wash your wife, and you will present her to yourself in glorious splendour, without spot or blemish or any wrinkle, you will have a glorious marriage. That is a word that God spoke to me nearly forty years ago. Because it didn’t happen immediately, I got married as it was some months or maybe a year after I got married, that God spoke to me about it. Call it forty years, will you? For a couple of months.
So you know what happened is when the Word of God came to me, the Word of God was received into my spirit man and they were spirit words, and truth and life, spirit words; He spoke to me. In my spirit man, that is alive to Christ, I received the spirit words and now I had a contest. My contest was, why think about the natural realm of how to run a relationship when God has already spoken His heavenly realities to your spirit. Every time I was faced with a natural realm reality, I had to make a choice, whether I was going to do the spirit realm reality, or the natural realm reality. I didn’t always get it right. I very often got it wrong. But I also got it right a lot of the time. The more I did it, the more the reality of it grew in my heart, the truth of it, the power of it, the livingness of it. How alive it was to me.
Can I tell you what happened to me? Is that I was then and still am a partaker of the resurrected life of Christ. Which means when you have been resurrected from the dead, there is no more sin that can control your body, because your body is no longer controlled and governed by it’s natural desires or instincts. It is governed by the life of Christ that is in you. As I identify, I couldn’t teach this to you then… Then I was just obedient to the Word, and every day, I would have this conflict, in a disagreement, in an argument, in a big decision, a small decision. You know how quickly things can get into tension in a home. It hardly can take anything, just that just the wrong tone in a voice. “What’s wrong with you?” “Nothing.” “Yah, something’s wrong with you.” “Nothing’s wrong with me.” “I can see something’s wrong with you.” “Nothing’s wrong with me.” “I can tell you; I can see it.“ Already the tension has escalated. You haven’t even got to the problem yet, and the tensions escalated because you deny the problem. The other one says you have a problem… and the tension is up there. Come on, this is this is how life works, right?
For me, in a relationship, I’ve got to make a decision, “I’m going to go for the natural realities, or I’m going to go for what God said.” So you understand, you’re not always going to get it right. But if you’ve got the Word of God, it’s going to keep working. When you give it to Him, He’s going to keep working it; He is going to keep working it; He is going to keep working it. What is the power that’s at work there? When I speak the Word of God out of my spirit, what is the power that’s working? It is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Same power. I’ll get to that next week. Same power.
I am not exaggerating one little bit, if I tell you that after 40 years of marriage, we have a sweeter marriage now, than we had then. Hold on a minute now, before you go crazy on me. I want to just say something. There are many people that will say when they get older, “Our marriage is better now because we understand each other, we communicate better.” They’ve got lots of words for why they say they’ve got a better marriage. Part of the reason is because when you, I must be careful what I say now, but at some point, sex becomes less of a problem in a marriage, for one reason or another. So when that tension is removed, we have a better marriage now. Don’t shout me down now, don’t look at me with a skeef eyeball, when I’m talking the truth. For more on sex in marriage, we’ll have a private, different session where children are not invited. Then we can tell you the truth, what God’s Word says. Hallelujah.
Also, oftentimes, if the issue of sex is kind of no longer a big thing in the marriage, oftentimes, money isn’t either. Because now you’re saved all your money, paid off your bond, paid off your cars. So sex is no longer an issue, money is no longer issue; so we got a good marriage, we understand each other better now after 30 years. If that’s your marriage, I’m not demeaning it; I’m saying I applaud you for being together for 30 years. But what we have experienced is not that. We have a marriage that is built on, I give up myself, to love her as Christ loves the Church. She responds with everything that a woman should respond, by the Word of God, because the power of resurrection life has been working. Now I ask you, what do you think is happening in our marriage, when the resurrection life of God has been at work in her spirit, in her soul, and in her body, in my spirit, in my soul, and in my body for 40 years? The power of God has not diminished in our marriage, it has become greater.
The power of God has become stronger. The ability and the empowerment to walk in harmony with God in our marriage has got better and better. It is an absolute marvel to me, and part of the reason I’m ministering the resurrection life of God to you, is because it’s so real to me that after 40 years we are celebrating with such abandon, with such joy, with such harmony together, we are celebrating life in our marriage. I have to stand before you and say it is because of the glory of God. It is because of the truth of the living Word of God. It is because the resurrection power of life that is in Christ Jesus is working in me, it is working in Sharon. It’s hard to describe to you. It’s hard. It’s difficult. My English teacher would say, “It’s not hard, it’s difficult.” It’s difficult to describe to you what it’s like to have the resurrection life of Christ working in your marriage.
The thing that is so, so beautiful to me, so great to me, is that when I started with this, I couldn’t have believed how it would take its course and work. And it started, and then it worked, and it kept working; and it kept working. Now, come on now, if my natural realm had an idea of what marriage should look like, and now I’m taking a heavenly reality, and I’m bringing it into my natural world; the more I do the heavenly reality, the natural realm starts to become less and less relevant. As this heavenly reality happens, the resurrection life of God just gets stronger, and stronger.
So you would ask me, and I will tell you this next week, you would ask me and say, “So pastor John, why are you on about marriage all the time? And why are you talking about your marriage that is good?” Because here’s what the Lord said to me in the very early years of my marriage. In fact, I knew this even when I was a teenager, but I had no reason to really understand it until I got married. If you are going to be a shepherd of God’s people, you need to have your household in order. God speaks about a man that will lead God’s people, and shepherd God’s people. He speaks about him as a man who knows how to love his wife, who knows how to run his household, and has got everything in order in his natural world, because he has brought heavenly realities to his natural realm.
How can a man shepherd God’s people? How can a man teach God’s people, when his own natural life is not in the life of God? How can I tell you about God? I can teach you stuff that is out of the Bible, and certainly I can preach nice sermons to you, and I can get them all, you know, nice power inspirational sermons. But it is not the sermon that matters. Paul says, “I don’t come to you with nice enticing words, but I’ve come to you with words that are full of power. Because the words that are power are the words that I do in my life.” So I started off by saying to you, “I am a special messenger to you” not because I just have a gift, and I have a calling. But you all have lived around me for many years, those of you that are new here, you can talk to those who have been around me for many years. You can come and test my life. In fact, you have tested me. You may not think so. But you have tested me. Because you have been around me and you’ve watched me and you’ve observed me and Pastor Sharon; you’ve watched us. You’ve checked us out. Spoken words about us, done things around us. Come on now. I’m happy to say and I’m blessed to say that there are many, many people that are in our ministry that are married today because of our marriage, how good it is. I’m happy and blessed to say that there are many young people that are getting married or newly married and their marriages are just getting great and better, and they’ve got a chance to really get into a marriage that is divine and heavenly.
Why? Because someone else did it. After 40 years, I think our marriage is going to make it. If you come and hang around us, you can taste that we are adoring each other. If you don’t believe me, ask the interns, they’d lived with us camping for 16 days. You’ve been a witness your whole life son [Pastor John pointing to Brynn] [Congregation laughing]
You know, the resurrection life of Christ that is in you can’t help itself but be a witness. You want to reveal Christ as you go everywhere. You want to tell people and you want your life to be a witness of the very life of Christ. I’m doing my best to close here, but I’m wanting to leave you with this; with this, as best as I can.
I’m wanting to leave you, that the power of God’s Word is working, whether you see it or not. The power of God’s Word is working. It’s working. It’s working. The resurrection power of God is working. When Jesus’ body died on the cross, and He said “It is finished.” The resurrection power of God began its work. Because immediately Jesus went into the bowels of the earth, there was a confrontation between the legality and the rights to have Jesus in there, to keep Him in there eternally. God’s power said, “You can’t hold Him any longer. You can’t keep Him there… Three days, you might say that’s a long time. In spirit time that isn’t even, it’s like [Pastor John clicking his fingers together] Jesus hit the bowels of the earth, and He was walking amongst His disciples again. I’d like to read you some scripture. You can read it for yourself. When Jesus was resurrected from the dead, all those righteous ones that were dead before Him, came from the grave, and they started walking amongst the people in the city of Jerusalem. Other people witnessed these people that had been dead, and they were walking around them.
Resurrection power. Resurrection power. It’s what makes the difference between our life and anybody else’s lifestyle. What a shame, what a shame for us to have all this power at our disposal and we want to live like everybody else. What a shame that we want to make relationship decisions like everybody else. Why would you want to make a decision like, what’s her name? I don’t know. Famous actress. She divorced her husband. They were like ‘the’ couple. Huh? Angelina Jolie, that’s the name I’m looking for, and Brad Pitt, beauty versus handsome. Married many years, adopted kids, had their own kids. You know why they got divorced? Because Angelina thought he didn’t share the same values as she did in the way that they were raising the kids. You want to live your life with their example? We have a life. We have a life. It’s the resurrection life of Christ inside of us. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
I’m expecting the faith that God has given you when you got saved. I’m expecting that faith to rise inside of you. As I minister this message week after week, I’m expecting that faith to rise. I’m expecting the power of God to touch sick bodies, or areas that have been affected in your life. God is going to touch you. God is going to bring restoration in relationships. He’s going to bring restoration in finances. He’s going to bring restoration in sickness and disease, because the resurrection life of Christ is what we have. We are not ordinary people. We are extraordinary people. We are a special group of people. We are a royal priesthood unto God. Hallelujah. Praise the name of Jesus.
So will you, as the resurrected life being, will you please tell your body to stand. You know, you can also tell your body to sit again if you want. But please don’t do that now. But in a minute, you will tell your body to leave. And in a few more minutes, you will tell your body to get into a car or walk somewhere. And in a few more minutes, you will tell your body to eat. Right? Maybe by late this afternoon, you will tell your body to be resting. The reason I’m talking to you like that is because the resurrected life being that’s inside of you tells your body what it needs to do. Your body doesn’t tell you. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Won’t you just put your hand on your heart and say this with me. Say, “I have Jesus as my Lord and Saviour living in my heart. I believe this, and I receive this in Jesus’ name. I am a righteous one. And tomorrow morning, I will say ‘Wake up righteous one.’” Now you’ve all made an oath. Tomorrow morning you will wake up and you will say wake up righteous one. Hey, that’s a cool thing to do when you’re lying in your bed. And it’s like, “Wake up righteous one, wake up, wake up.” Hallelujah. Glory to God. Can I pray for you?
I pray that the love of God, the peace of God and this revelation of the resurrected life of God would grow in your hearts; it will be strong upon you. The peace of God will rest upon you. I pray that no weapon formed against this word will prosper and against your life will prosper. I ask You, Father, to protect their finances, their income, I ask You to protect their health, I ask You to protect their wellbeing and to save their lives in any area that they need Your salvation power to be working in, I ask You for that Father in Jesus name. No weapon formed against them will prosper. I pray that Your favour and Your blessing and Your increase rests upon Your people in Jesus’ name. And everybody said, Amen. Thank you for coming to church. Please don’t get offended by one sermon hey? You’ve got to come, at least, at least another five or six times to understand the whole story. Amen. Okay, bye julle.
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