Power of Resurrection – Session 1 – Ps John Bendixen (WTB)

Scripture reference: Philippians 3:10-11 (NKJV); Romans 1:16-27 (NLT); Philippians 3:8-9 (MSG)

Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Thank You. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord, that You are our Saviour and we bless Your name and we ask You to be part of everything that is said and done in this meeting today, as You already have through the music and the praise and worship of Your people. I thank You, Lord, for a demonstration of the Living Life that You are today. First in the hearts of people. Secondly, by touching their minds, their souls, and their physical bodies in healing. I ask You, Father, that today is a day where restoration begins and new growth begins and we are changed into life, greater, abundant life. In Jesus’ name. And everybody said, amen. You may be seated.

Welcome you all. It’s good to have you in church today. You can say; yes, you’re happy to be in church today. Jah. Good. I don’t think any of us like to be defeated. Who of us likes to be defeated? So I mean, if you’ve started anything in your life, you wouldn’t start it with defeat in mind, would you? Anything that you start in life, you would start with success and achievement and potential to be realized. Nobody starts, on purpose, does anything with defeat in mind.

I suppose there are people, and I know this is true, that people get into such a dark place emotionally that sometimes they want to end their life and in that case, I suppose, even then they’re looking for success. They’re not looking for failure, I suppose. Maybe some people are just crying for help and so they don’t want to succeed and they just cry for help. But nobody really starts out in life on anything, really wanting to fail and to be defeated.

I thank God that we are a people, that if we entrust our lives into the life of God, we make the first decision to not be defeated. That is a first choice that you make in not being defeated; is by having Jesus live in your heart.

You’ve heard me ask this question many times and I do feel led from time to time to ask the question, even of those people that know me well and they’ve been here for a long time. The question is; what’s the point of being a Christian? Well, the point of being a Christian is not so that you can stop yourself from going to hell and making heaven your home. Although that’s a good thing. Nobody really wants to go to hell. You really do want to go to heaven. Really, really.

Many years ago, we heard somebody make a statement about marriage. The statement went like this; for many, many people on the earth that are married, the closest they’re going to get to hell, is their marriage. On the other hand, there are some people on the earth that the closest they can get to heaven on the earth, is their marriage. Whichever part you fit in, the fact of the matter is that as a Christian, you, living on the earth, this is the closest you will ever touch anything that has got remotely anything to do with death and anything that hell would stand for, which is separateness from God. This is as bad as it gets for you. When you make Jesus Lord and Saviour of your life, you start a journey. You start your journey for everything to become better. Hallelujah.

So, now it’s all about leaving the baggage of the past behind and preparing yourself to walk into the future of goodness. I’m going to read to you Philippians 3 verse 10, 10That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:10-11 NKJV). The point of any Christian being a Christian is so that you can become spiritual. If you’re a Christian and you’re not spiritual, you’re touching the lowest form of heavenly life that you can only just touch while you’re on the earth. The minute you become spiritual in everything that you think, everything that you say, everything that you do, you enter into the realm of having the life of heaven become part of your life.

What’s the point of being spiritual? Because the spiritual ones are the only ones that can bring life from heaven to the earth. It cannot be anyone else. It doesn’t matter how clever they are, it doesn’t matter how well talented they are. No one else can bring heaven to earth other than spiritual Christians. I mean spiritual Christians, not just Christians. If you’re a Christian that doesn’t know God, you may not be going to hell, but you may not know how to bring heaven to earth and change your world.

The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, is not something I’m ashamed of. I stand alongside the Apostle Paul, who says in Romans chapter 1 verse 15, 16For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. 17This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. Not by knowledge, but by faith, although knowledge helps. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” (Romans 1:16-17 NLT)

So, in this meeting today, none of us want to actually fail at anything, we always have been made by God, we have been structured, we have been, our very DNA is to succeed and to have life and enjoy life and have a fulfilled life. The more we live in Him, the greater our capacity to live, in Jesus. I am not ashamed to preach the Gospel, I am not ashamed to live in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel includes three parts; it includes the cross, it includes the resurrection from the dead, and it includes the infilling of the Holy Spirit. If the cross, if there was only the cross, sin would still win, because if there was only the cross and Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then sin would still win because it would have killed Jesus’ Body and there would be no resurrection life. We could not live in grace. The power of grace and the real future is in the power God used for the resurrection of Jesus.

So when Jesus died on the cross, He had to put His trust in God completely because He could not raise Himself from the dead. Even though He was perfect, even though He had not sinned, while He was on the earth and He was made to be sin, for our sin, even though He was divine in His being, the humanity part of Him would have restricted Him to death forever; meaning separated from God, forever. Jesus did not have the power to raise Himself from the dead. The only being in the whole universe that had the power to raise Jesus from the dead was the Father, God and He needed to have an authority that was His life previously established, authority to raise Him from the dead. Hallelujah.

That same power that He used to raise Him from the dead, He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit to help us every day. The Holy Spirit partners with us, in our new life with the same power, that same power that causes something that is dead, separated from God, has no future, has completely got nothing going for it, there is nothing that can establish it as anything good or valuable to you; that power can take that dead thing and raise it to life. Hallelujah.

Part of my encouragement to you today is, you need to tap into the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead for everything that you do in life. I cannot beat myself, I cannot defeat my human nature that is within me. My human nature was born into separatedness from God, as a sin nature. I cannot overcome my own weaknesses. I cannot defeat my humanity, my humanity by its very self has got its own weakness built into it, and because it is, weakness built into it there is no way that I can actually defeat that weakness. I have to depend on Jesus. I have to depend on the very power that raised Jesus from the dead, I have to count on it. Hallelujah.

I want to just, for a moment, talk about how you have, how the global economic shutdown, separation, isolation, how all of that has affected you. Can I say it this way? That in recent, the last couple of months, and I believe that yesterday we were day hundred in South Africa, and other countries have reached that milestone in different times. In a hundred days of lockdown, how much has your life been impacted? Let’s make it simple. There has been uncertainty about what the future holds, right? There has been uncertainty, I mean even in the first month or six weeks or however long that time was, people said don’t go and panic buy, and it’s like everybody went and bought all the toilet paper. I don’t know why toilet paper, but they tended to buy the toilet paper first. People still bought and went into panic buying because there was uncertainty about the future. Yes?

Everybody had to stop working and or at least their businesses would work from home, and there was a transition of uncertainty about business and your job and whether it is going to exist or not exist. Suddenly, some people had to find themselves living with each other night and day, night and day, night and day, when they weren’t used to living with each other, night and day, night and day, night and day. All kinds of cracks began to appear where there were no previous cracks. Don’t shout me down because I’m preaching the truth now, and because you’re behind a mask you think you can’t say, amen.

I want you to understand that the whole earth is in a pressure cooker, it’s under stress, it’s under angst, there is an anxiety and a stress in the whole earth. For me, some of the greatest stress that I discovered, for me, was my right to make decisions for myself was taken away. Isn’t that right? I mean, I wanted to wake up in the morning and get onto my bicycle and go ride someplace and whoops, sorry you can’t. I want to get outside and go and have a walk, sorry you can’t. You had to literally stay indoors, by yourself. And so those early days that restriction, was quite impactful. Although you might not have felt the stress of a lot of other things, certainly there was a pressure cooker happening waiting to happen because some of your choices were taken away from you. So you were unable to make choices that you would normally make. Right?

Well, let me tell you, this is the whole plan of the devil from the beginning to manipulate your choices and make you make choices. That the choices that you make limit your power, limit your freedom and limit your capacity in Christ Jesus. He does not want you to know, what the full power of resurrection life is like, because if you know what the full power of resurrection life is, that same power that raised Jesus from the dead, if you ever find that out, then you will bust every wicked thing, every twisted way that tries to bring and takes your choice away, you will bust it in the chops every time.

So, he comes with deceiving things that make it look good for you to choose things that actually are so bad for you, but in the moment they look good for you, but ultimately it takes away your choice. It is so simple, ne?

I mean you can get in your car and go down the highway and you feel good in your car and your engines and you just have a feel-good moment, and you put your foot on the gas, before you know it, you’re doing a 150. You’re not even thinking, “Ja” you are just thinking, this feels good then this guy jumps out. Hey, stop ‘n bietjie, pull over. Then you say, What was I doing? When he writes out that ticket R1 500 because you were doing 140. Right?

So, when you make those kinds of choices, you’re deceived into thinking that there is no consequence, but in the moment you make the choice to put your foot flat on the petrol, if you knew the consequences was a R1500 and someone would standing there shouting at you, “You got to pay R1500.” You would say, Haal bietjie daai voet af, nou! Right?

I’m trying to make that simple, in our everyday life where you think you have a freedom of choice, but the freedom of choice that compromises the law that is supposed to protect you. There is a consequence, and sometimes you don’t feel it ,but you do later. Hallelujah.

Philippians chapter 3 verse 8 to 11 in the Message Bible says 8-9Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant, say again, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant. That means, he was born into a high born family in the Jewish nation. You must understand, he was born for example into a family that he got the highest Ivy League, education of those days. He stayed in the best areas of town. He’s mom and dad were connected to all the best, all the highest, wealthiest people in the area. He wouldn’t have had this start in life that he could have had if he didn’t have those privileges. And yet he says, “Everything that I could have had that actually would have done good for me is insignificant compared to the knowledge I have of Christ Jesus.”

So, I’m not writing this, the New Message Translation is writing this. Everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung. In other words, like poop. There are other words for it, too. And then the next verse is rather unfortunate in the way it starts cause it says I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness, which is about rules and regulation, about do’s and don’ts, that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness (Philippians 3:8-11 MSG).

Trust in Christ, that’s what it’s all about, that’s how we release the power of the resurrection. The cross has taken care of our sin. Without the cross we wouldn’t be able to have resurrection. Without the cross you would still have no capacity to overcome any sin in your life. With the cross your sin was nailed, but by the resurrection you receive the power to live life in abundance. Because through the resurrection, the same power that raised Christ from the dead, now becomes your portion and the Holy Spirit helps you to use that power every day. This is a daily walk of power to be free.

I want to close with this and say, there are many things that many people can say about religions. There are many things that people can say about philosophies and ideologies and things that people want to talk about, that they believe this and they believe that, and this is the right thing and that’s not the right thing. One of the favorite things that people like to talk about is, how can you say that Christianity or Christ is the only way, is the only religion available to all men.

Well, it’s very simple. He’s the only One that is ever, been raised from the dead. You see resurrection makes Christianity the difference. I’m not trying to run anybody else’s religion down, but I am saying to you this, that there is no other religion whether it been the Hindu’s or the Muslims or whether it be any other kind of religion that you follow, that any one of their gods, that they so called, was raised from the dead and now lives forever. He lives in the heavenly realm and He lives in your heart, and in your heart you have this cry, I know I belong to Christ Jesus. And in any given moment you should have say: Because of the power that Christ is in my heart, I use that power to overcome my own thoughts, I use the power to overcome things that oppress me, I use that power to overcome things that want to hold my economic future, and hold my family and hold my things in this restricted space.

There’s one thing that I am going to keep reminding us, as time goes by; the devil wants to restrict you. If the coronavirus showed us anything, it showed us, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what the devil really wants to do to the human race. This is the tip of the iceberg. Believe me, if the devil could have had his way, this would have been a far more serious thing than it is, and this is pretty serious. The world has not yet really felt the impact of what this has on people’s lives. But the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is a time for us to stand up, it is a time for us to raise up, it is a time for us to be counted as ones who believe in the resurrection of life, so that He can resurrect each of us in our hearts. As we are resurrected life beings, Christians, we can bring heaven and the order of heaven into the earth. Hallelujah, praise Jesus, glory to God.

I make a declaration over you today, that as I am standing preaching this message, the order of heaven comes into your finances today, in Jesus Name. The order of heaven comes into your bodies for health and healing, in Jesus Name. The order of heaven comes into your relationships, with your children, with your partner, with other siblings, with other people, the order of heaven comes into your home, comes into your life, into relationships, in Jesus Name.

I declare the order of heaven comes into your mind and into your thought life, and that the power of the resurrection light begins to overwhelm you, and come inside of you and bring peace to you, because that’s what the Bible says: “The peace of God will rule and reign in your mind and in your heart, it is a peace that passes all understanding, because it is not based on what you experience in the world around you, it is experienced by the resurrection life of Christ that is raising up inside of you, it brings you peace.

And may His peace be upon you, may His peace rest upon you day and night, may it rise up inside of you, and may your joy be full. It doesn’t matter what the lockdown is, may your joy be full. I tell you what, get home and do a lap around the kitchen or do a lap around something, just do a lap and just say I have the joy of the Lord is my strength, the joy of the Lord is my portion today, in Jesus Name. Hallelujah.

This is a, I’m telling you, I am not lying down and playing dead because the world wants me to, or some virus wants me to. I am tapping into the resurrection life of Christ, that is strong inside of me. Hallelujah, glory to Jesus. Hallelujah. I cannot be defeated, not because of my strength of will, but because of who is inside of me, I can’t be defeated.

Won’t you stand up on your feet, and now you look at your feet and say, I cannot be defeated. Listen this is a good thing you know, when you walk and you look at your feet and oftentimes when you walk down the passage or something, you walk down and you look, you remember, You can’t be defeated.

Come on, that’s cool hey? I can’t be defeated. The very fact that I have my feet on me, means I can’t be defeated. As you walk down the passage, get into your car: I can’t be defeated, I can’t be defeated, the Greater One lives in me, His resurrection power has raised me up from my humanity into something spiritual. And even if you mess up, and if you just look at your own self and you say: Jis, I didn’t think that I could be so bad, you know, even that I could be a strong Christian. I could say those words or lose my temper, or do whatever you do that makes you feel like….neh, neh…..you know…. The moment you feel like… neh neh, you say: I still can’t be defeated, because it is not about me, it is about the life of Christ in me. Hallelujah.

Won’t you put your hand on your chest like this and say with me today, I am a son of God, because I know Jesus is my Lord and Savior. Hallelujah. Thank You Jesus that You cleansed me from all my wrong doings, and You wiped them out in my life, and from today I live free from everything that has held me back, from my past, and from today, I live in a resurrected state of the power and the life of Christ, in Jesus Name. Hallelujah, glory to God, praise Jesus, praise Jesus, glory to God.

I want to encourage you when you get out there into the world this week, put a smile on your dial, put a spring in your feet and tell people: I’ve got a smile and I cannot be defeated. If they ask you, What does that mean? You say, Well, I’ve got happy feet you know, I’ve got happy feet.

Well, what does that mean? I’ve got Christ inside of me, what must I be afraid of? What must I feel down about? Hallelujah. If God is for me, then who on this planet and what on this planet can be against me?” Azikho, nothing, nill, niks, zulch. Hallelujah.

May your week be blessed, blessed going out, blessed coming in, whatever you put your hands to will prosper, wherever your feet go, God gives you that territory to bring His power to being, bring His power wherever you go, bring His power wherever you go. Make that statement: Wherever you go, I’m bringing His power with me, I’m bringing His power, it’s in me, it’s around me, I’m bringing His power, I’m bringing His power, I’m bringing His power, I’m bringing His power. It’s not my power, it’s His power, I’m bringing His power. When I sit down in a business meeting, I’m bringing His power, when you sit down and oh, I got a seer keel, or maybe maybe… No! I’m bringing His power.

Hallelujah, I better shut up now so you can go and others can come in. Thank you for coming to church, God bless you all.