Resurrection

Wayne, am I good to go? Okay.

Guys, Jesus' death was not proof enough

that the sins of the world were taken away by a sinless man.

Jesus' death was not sufficient proof

that the sins of the world had been taken away by a sinless man.

Because Jason could have gone and died for you.

And he could have come and told you that he died so that your sins be taken away.

But that wasn't proof enough. I could have died for you.

So Jesus' death was not proof enough that the sins of the world were taken away by a sinful man.

Because here's the thing, if the sin bearer was sinless, then resurrection would have to prove it.

If the sin bearer was sinless, then resurrection would have to prove it.

Because only a sinless man could rise from the dead.

After dying for the sins of the world, only a sinless man could rise from the dead.

So the proof that Jesus' death actually took away the sins of the world

had to be borne out by the sinless man rising from the dead.

Because the wages of sin is death.

And therefore if a man had not sinned, he could not be punished with death.

And therefore he had to rise again.

Jesus did not rise up again because he was God.

He rose again because it was impossible for death to hold him because the wages of sin is death.

Therefore in Acts chapter 2, verse 32 to 34 it says,

Acts 2:32–34

it was impossible for death to hold him.

Which is why we sang what we sang, eh?

Because I'll rise again.

There ain't no power on earth that can hold me down.

Because I'll rise again because death can't hold me in the ground. Why?

Because I can't be paid the wages of sin if I haven't sinned and Jesus did not sin.

But resurrection was proof that Jesus' death was sufficient.

That here was a sinless man who took on the infinite sin of the world in his finite body.

And then instead of staying dead, rose again because he was sinless.

So he could die for the sins of others.

And ten seconds before he rose, don't worry I'm not coming up with something new.

Ten seconds before he rose,

he was just a cold dead body on a slab inside a tomb.

Ten seconds before he rose, he was just a cold dead body on a slab inside a tomb.

And then, praise God man, when you read it in Romans 8-11, we see the Trinity involved.

You see the Father raising up the Son by the Spirit.

So ten seconds before he rises from the dead, he's just a cold dead body lying on a slab in a tomb.

And then ten seconds later, the Father by the power of his Spirit raises up his Son.

And here's the thing guys, in the Old Testament, the standard of power,

I mean if you went to anybody in the Old Testament and you asked them,

Hey, what's the measure of God's power?

And the response would be, the measure of God's power in the Old Testament was when God spoke and delivered his Son Israel

out from the ravenous bondage of Egypt and brought him through the Red Sea into the Promised Land.

That was the ultimate expression of power.

Everywhere in the Old Testament you'll find the psalmist, you'll find Moses recounting the story of the Exodus of Israel God's Son.

Israel God's Son, Exodus 4 verses 22 and 23, God says to Moses,

Exodus 4:22

Hey Moses, go and say to Pharaoh that Israel is my firstborn son.

And go say to Pharaoh, let my son Israel go so that he can serve me.

And so that was the standard of God's power in the Old Testament.

Where God delivered his Son Israel out of the ravenous bondage of Egypt,

which was just eating up Israelites and causing them to break their backs in servitude.

But the standard of power in the New Testament is when God delivers his Son Jesus

out from the ravenous bondage of death and raises him up and seats him beside him in heaven.

That's the standard of power in the New Testament.

Where now it was not the ravenous bondage of Egypt, it was the ravenous bondage of death that till that day had consumed everybody.

Sure people came back to life when Jesus walked the earth, but anybody who came back to life would go back and die.

Lazarus was raised to life, shortly after he'd have to die.

There was nobody who didn't die.

For the first time this hungry monster called death that kept eating people, kept eating people, kept eating people.

Finally, God raises up his Son and sets him free from the ravenous bondage of death.

And not just that, seats him in the heavenly places.

This is why in Ephesians 1, 18, 19 and 20, you actually hear Paul saying,

Guys, look at the incomparable power that God's mighty hand exerted in raising Christ.

Rarely does Paul talk like that.

But in Ephesians 1, 20, he actually talks like that.

He says, look at the power that God used, the might of his strength, the mighty strength exerted by God in delivering his Son Jesus.

Look at the incomparable power that God exerted raising him and seating him at the right hand of heaven.

That's the standard of power in the New Testament.

That's why in Colossians 1, 18, Jesus is called the firstborn from among the dead.

He's called the firstborn from among the dead.

As in, here was one who for the first time in the history of man, actually rose from the dead never to die again.

Why?

The Bible actually says so that he may have supremacy over everything else.

Because that is the ultimate enemy.

If you beat that, what's left, man?

Then there's nothing left.

You're the Stanley Cup champions then.

It's like that.

That's what's happening here.

So we often focus on the cross and that's a great thing.

But man, when you actually think of what happened on the third day, may I suggest that perhaps it's a greater miracle?

Because think of this.

Imagine I'm a stillborn and a stillborn is a baby that dies in the womb.

Imagine I'm a stillborn called Jacob and I'm in the womb of a mother called wages of sin is equal to death.

That's the name of my mother.

That is my mother.

And that is me.

And I am stillborn.

This is how it really is, guys.

I'm a stillborn called Jacob, born in the womb of a mother named death.

Why?

Because death is the wages of sin.

And the Bible actually says that it is the condition of every human being.

We are born in sin and born under the penalty of death.

There is nobody who isn't born under the penalty of death.

Everybody is born under the penalty of death and is born in sin.

So all of us actually, you can change this name to any name.

All of us in a sense, if you want to paint a picture, are born in a mother called death.

That's the name of your mom.

And you're born as a stillborn because you're born under the penalty of death.

That is your present condition before you become a believer.

That's where you're at.

And so, Jesus' death, really what Jesus' death does is it breaks open this womb and delivers the stillborn.

That's what death does.

Death doesn't bring life.

Death causes what needs to cease to exist to cease to exist.

Death does not bring life.

Death causes that which needs to cease to exist.

It stops existing.

There was a womb that every human being is born into called death.

When Christ died, he brought an end to this womb called death.

And he delivers the stillborn.

But the one that is delivered is still, stillborn.

That's only part of the story.

Because the next part of the story is what I think is perhaps a greater miracle.

Because this stillborn is now raised from the dead.

So imagine a mom, let me paint a gory picture.

Imagine a mom who's pregnant, who was caught up in an accident and now dies.

Inside her is a child that also dies.

They rush them to the hospital and somehow the doctors break open the womb and deliver the stillborn.

But the child is dead.

Doesn't help much except that the child is no longer in the womb, it's outside the womb.

Now comes a greater miracle.

This stillborn that has been delivered from the womb of death.

God now begins to raise up that stillborn back to life.

That is the greater miracle than the death of Christ.

Where he dies, but after death when the stillborn is released from the tomb or the womb of death, now the stillborn is given life.

The stillborn is raised from the dead.

Any questions before we go on?

Are you going to explain that a little bit more?

Perhaps.

The stillborn is raised from the dead.

Because if baptism was only I go into the water, I'm buried with Christ and then you stay there.

We'd find very small churches because every time someone gets baptized they drown.

But the intent is not that I was buried with Christ, but that after I have died I have been given life.

Because everyone born is born under the sentence of death, guys.

Because there's a debt owed, right?

And what is the debt?

The debt is death because there's a debt owed to the commitment of sin, which is death.

Everyone is born that way.

The miracle is that after we die in Christ we are raised back to life.

And that's what happens with Jesus.

Which is why God says with the mighty exertion of power, here lay a man completely dead on a cold slab in a tomb and God's power raises him up from the dead.

The stillborn is raised from the dead.

And given life by the spirit who raised Christ from the dead.

So you go into the tomb and there is Christ lying and the spirit of God comes upon him and he comes back to life.

What do you think happens when you get born again?

Same thing.

You are dead and suddenly the spirit of God comes and he raises you back into life.

Same incomparable power gives the stillborn life.

And what kind of life is this?

Guys, this is not life that came out of a sperm and an egg.

1 Peter 1.23 talks about that.

1 Peter 1.23 says, hey, that you were not born from corruptible seed.

That you were born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible seed by the word of God, which lives and abides forever.

Not by mortal sperm but conceived or birthed by God himself.

The life that you presently possess is a life that was birthed by God.

It is a life given to you by the spirit.

Just ponder on that.

The life that you presently possess, if you have given your life to Jesus, the life that you presently possess is a life that was birthed by God.

It is not the life that came out of a sperm and an egg.

It's not from mortal sperm.

It is by the living word of God.

If you have given your life to Jesus, that's the life you possess.

It's a life that is insurmountable.

It is a death destroying life.

This life that I presently possess cannot be destroyed by death.

It's not possible.

This life cannot be overcome by death.

This life that I presently possess cannot be overcome by death.

Out there, there are people walking up and down.

The life that they possess, death will overcome.

Death will bind them and keep them down.

I saw two, three people walking by.

When they die, they do not rise up from the dead.

Death overpowers the life that they have because it's a life that's made of egg and sperm.

The life that I possess inside of me is a life that is insurmountable, can never be overcome by death again.

It's a death destroying life.

If Jesus can be killed, then I can be killed.

If Jesus cannot be killed, I cannot be killed.

It's a life that is limitless.

It's a life that is unconstrained.

It's a life that is joyous.

It has the same quality of the life that Christ presently possesses.

Which Christ? The Jesus of Nazareth?

No. It is the same life that the risen Christ presently possesses.

It's a life that I have.

This is the miracle, guys, of salvation.

It's not dead again. It's born again.

The miracle of salvation happened on resurrection.

Man, death just delivered me from the womb of my mother.

Called the wages of sin is death.

But I still lay there dead and he had to bring back the stillborn to life.

And he did. And he didn't do it with another sperm and egg meeting.

He did it by the power of his word.

Because he says, it's my word that abides and lives forever.

And you are conceived of my word and not of mortal sperm.

Insurmountable, death destroying life.

It's a life that is unreceptive and impervious to the seduction of sin or the attractions of the world.

This life I actually possess has absolutely no interest in sin.

It's got absolutely no interest in sin.

It's not attracted by anything out there.

It's just obsessed with God.

That's the kind of life I have.

Within me.

It's impervious to sin. Not attracted by it at all.

It's a life that's actually from the future and is perfectly suited to living in heaven in the kingdom that is already but not yet.

It's suited for that. It's like having a Mars suit so that you can live here on earth and you can live on Mars.

That's the kind of life I have.

Because it's got no attraction to the world. It cannot be seduced by sin.

It's a life from the future.

This is the same life that I'm going to live after I die for a microsecond before I repossess life.

Dying is just the shedding of this body.

There is no death for me anymore.

There is no long sleep or stuff like that.

For a fraction of a second, for a micro fraction of a second, you'll see me disappear.

And I'll shed my body somewhere here and you'll have a great funeral and say nice things about me.

And then I'll be alive again.

Same life.

Forever.

This is a forever life.

This life does not end.

That's why I said unconstrained, limitless, eternal, vibrant, joyous life.

This life is joyous.

Because God is the most joyful being on the face of the universe.

This is the life I possess.

This is the life that was given to that stillborn called Jacob who was delivered dead from his mother's womb.

But his mother's womb was forever broken so that it can never hold him back again.

This is what we're talking about guys.

It's a life that revitalizes your mortal body guys.

It's a life, the life that I presently possess is a life that revitalizes my mortal body.

It's a life that revitalizes my mortal body.

The life that I presently possess is a life that revitalizes my mortal body.

Because look at it this way.

If God who raised Jesus from the dead, if God who raised Jesus from the dead lives and breathes in me by his spirit,

then my mortal body is as alive as Christ's.

Then my mortal body even though it will die is as alive as Christ's.

Romans 8, 11, not 11, somewhere else it says that his spirit quickens my mortal body.

And we always think, oh he'll raise it from the dead.

Sure he will.

But it quickens my mortal body.

Is it possible for the spirit of God to be alive in this body and not revitalize my body?

For your youth shall be renewed like the eagle.

How?

By the word of God both spoken, written and living.

This is the kind of life I possess man.

It is a life that is like living water which flows from my belly.

This life never stays stagnant.

You cannot stagnate this life.

It just keeps wanting to burst forth.

Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water.

What was he talking about?

He was talking about the life that awaited them once the spirit of God came.

Living water life.

This is, what am I talking about here?

I'm talking about what the Bible either refers to as resurrection life or refers to as the risen life of Christ.

Not after we die.

We presently possess it.

It is a life that Christ presently possesses.

And it is also the life of the risen Christ in me.

How did it come about?

1 Corinthians 6, 17 says that the life of the risen Christ was brought to me by his spirit who has become one with my spirit.

The life of the risen Christ, remember we talked, let's assume this was a tomb.

Risen Christ, the life that he presently possesses was brought to me the moment I decided to receive Christ.

It was brought to me by whom?

By the same agency that brought it to Jesus, the spirit of God.

By whose command?

By the Father's command.

Same thing again.

By the Father's command, the Father said, here is a boy who has just received my Son as true Savior, spirit of God.

Go and do in him what you did in Jesus.

Raise my stillborn Jacob from the dead.

And Jacob comes alive.

And who enters him?

The same one who entered Christ, the spirit of God.

And what happens to Jacob?

He rises up with what?

With the risen life of Christ as his present possession brought to him by the spirit of God.

And how does the spirit of God bring it to him?

He brings it to him by becoming one with Jacob's spirit.

1 Corinthians 6, 17, do you not know that you have become one with the spirit of the Lord?

You have become one with the spirit of the Lord.

You have become one with the spirit of the Lord.

No separation man.

Thank you.

This is the life we presently possess.

This is the risen life of Christ, the resurrection life of Christ.

Any questions?

Any difference of opinion or any challenges?

Go ahead Maria.

1 Corinthians 6, 17.

You have become one with the spirit of the Lord.

Yeah, 1 Corinthians 6, 17.

Any questions?

Here's a crazy thing.

This resurrection life, this risen life of Christ is carried by me in this physical body.

This resurrection life of Christ is carried by me in a physical body.

And I am the resurrection life of Christ.

This resurrection life of Christ is carried by me in a physical body.

And I experience the limitations of sin in this body.

What is the greatest limitation of sin?

It's that this body is going to die.

The greatest limitation of sin is this body will die.

And so I carry the resurrection life, the risen life of Christ, life that can never be destroyed.

I carry that life in a body that experiences the limitation of sin.

And therefore one day will die.

Well what happens is guys, the enemy uses this body and our faculties and our soulish way of operating.

The enemy uses that to anesthetize me to the immeasurable capacity of the resurrection life I possess.

He has me constantly focusing on what I cannot do, what I end up doing, the limitations I have, the aches and pains you may have.

He keeps having you focus on that and anesthetizes you to the fact that within you is a whole different life that has immeasurable capacity.

And that if you and I began to plumb would help us live on earth in a very different way.

This is why Paul in Ephesians 1, 18 had to say, I pray that your eyes be enlightened and open so that you can grasp the hope of your inheritance.

And the incomparable power that God mightily exerted in raising up Christ from the dead and seating him above every other rule or authority.

And Paul says, Jacob I pray that your eyes be enlightened so that you stop looking at your physical body and get anesthetized or dulled or deadened to the fact that inside you is the life of Christ himself as he presently possesses it.

Pray that prayer guys for yourselves because we are so limited by this.

So limited by this.

Questions?

I pray that for us right now that our eyes would be open today.

That our eyes would be enlightened so that we can see two things.

One, the inheritance that God has for you in Christ.

And secondly, that we may begin to understand the incomparable power that is actually present in us.

So that we can begin to experience the life of God here on earth.

Even in these physical bodies that are limited but which one day will be swallowed by life itself when the corruptible will be replaced by the incorruptible.

1 Corinthians 15, 54.

I pray that for us.

That the spirit of God actually does that.

That we begin to experience.

Hey guys, the only way we can experience this is that if we now engage faith.

Faith will enable me to see the life of the risen Christ.

Faith will enable me to see the life of the risen Christ that the Father has given me as a gift.

And that at present I possess in this physical body.

Faith will enable me to see the life of the risen Christ that I presently possess as a gift from the Father in this physical body.

And grace will enable me to walk in it.

Faith will enable me to see it.

Grace will enable me to walk in it.

What do I mean by grace?

We'll talk about that.

Grace will enable me to walk in it.

Grace will enable me to experience life on God's terms here on earth in this body.

Grace will enable me to experience life on God's terms in this body here on earth.

Guys, you can have a Volkswagen Beetle with a Lamborghini engine and you don't know it.

And you drive it around like a beetle.

While inside it's just raring to go.

It's just raring to go.

And all you may have in the end when it starts is the seat and the engine because everything else will fall off.

And you're just going to have to get the seat and the engine off.

And all you may have in the end when it starts is the seat and the engine because everything else will fall off.

But that's the kind of power we are talking about which we are blind, dead into and ascitized to.

So we live this life thinking that one day in the sweet by and by.

While all the while I am supposed to open my eyes to what I presently possess.

An insurmountable death destroying, unconstrained, limitless, joyous breakthrough life that overcomes everything and is subdued by nothing.

This life that I possess overcomes everything.

Overcomes everything and is subdued by nothing.

This life that I possess actually quickens my mortal body.

Got a flu, got a cold.

Sure ask for healing, pray for healing, speak the word, seek God's power to come upon you and heal you.

But also know that within you is the life of God himself.

And that it actually invigorates or revitalizes your physical body itself.

We got no problem believing that when we take, what are those things you take?

Bio something?

No, no, no, the medicine.

Antibiotics.

Antibiotics, yeah.

Sorry, bio something.

We take antibiotics so that our body is resistant to certain things.

And we got no problem believing that.

Why? Because the doctor told us that.

That if you take these antibiotics your body will be now strong enough to resist this and this and this and that.

Of course there will be loss of hair, diarrhea, blindness and bloated tummies.

And that they say very quickly and it's in the end of the television commercial.

So it's planting sunlight.

Pardon?

And take life. That's what antibiotics mean.

Okay, there you go.

But we got no problems believing that if we take that in we are resistant to things.

But we got a very difficult problem and we tried to examine it in Greek and Hebrew.

When God says I live in you therefore surely your body will be quickened and we postpone it to the future.

Why? Because we suffer from a disease called futurism.

Everything is going to happen in the future. Nothing now.

Irritates me man.

But I don't want to go down that line because I said I'll be a good guy on resurrection day.

Full of kindness and love and joy and stuff like that.

Guys, and the crazy thing is yes.

I have experienced this God life lived out even more splendidly in this present body.

But here's the crazy thing.

This present body is also going to be swallowed up by life.

That's the other miracle of resurrection.

Resurrection is actually more miraculous at the risk of offending people who think crucifixion is the ultimate thing.

It is. Without crucifixion you cannot come out of the womb of death.

But it's resurrection that raises the stillborn.

The miracle of resurrection is that these bodies will be swallowed up by life.

These perishable bodies, these corruptible bodies, these mortal bodies.

Use whatever word you want.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 54, Hey Jacob, you can experience this life right now in this body.

But guess what? Even this body will be swallowed up by life so that your body will become incorruptible and immortal.

How long will that take?

A twinkling of an eye.

Which is like happened about six seconds ago.

Ha! Talk about a good deal.

So how do we? I said grace will enable me to walk and experience life on God's terms in this body.

How? What does that mean?

So let's look at that and then we'll conclude.

Man, we are finishing fast today.

Perhaps I should talk about some other things because if we leave at 12 it might shock your system.

What does that mean?

Guys, last week we said that crucifixion does a few things for us.

One, it cancels a legal debt.

And what was a legal debt? Death.

So that's what we talked about.

The womb that I was born into, the mother that bore me was a mother called wages of sin is death.

That womb has been broken.

So when we spoke about crucifixion on Thursday, we said it cancels a legal debt.

That is one of the things it does.

Two, that we said that all my sins are removed or taken away.

That was the second thing we said happened at crucifixion.

All my sins are removed.

Not just my past sins, not today's sins, not the next 53 years, but all my sins.

I'll be 102 or less.

Oh shucks, I gave my age away.

But these things happen.

All my sins are removed or taken away.

That's the second thing that happens in crucifixion.

And thirdly, we said that God's wrath is satisfied and I am His pleasure now.

So here I am His righteousness.

Here I am His pleasure.

And here I am free.

What a cool thing this has been.

Crucifixion brings all this to me.

I'm free from the womb of death.

I now have His righteousness because all my sins have been removed away.

And thirdly, the wrath of God is satisfied so I am His pleasure.

So these things have already been accomplished.

Now we move to resurrection and we find that oh shucks, the stillborn is now raised from the dead.

And the life he actually possesses is the life of the risen Christ.

So now I, by the grace of God, have only one thing left to do on earth for the rest of my life.

Make righteous choices.

The life that I have inside of me is really not interested in sin.

It's got nothing to do with sin.

It's not influenced by sin.

I think I've said this before.

When my dad died, we had to take him to another city about three hours away by road because that's where he wanted to be buried.

So we are driving him and I'm looking at him and I'm sitting in the back of the van with his body.

I'm thinking to myself, man, he looks so dead.

And that it wasn't him really.

Because that's not my dad. He looks so dead.

I actually took my hand and felt his flesh and I thought this is so not him.

And he wasn't responding to anything. He was cold. He wasn't him.

A dead body does not respond to anything.

If you have died and if you have a new life and the life is the life of risen Christ,

know that the life inside of you actually does not know how to respond to sin because it's dead to sin.

It doesn't speak that language.

So life now is a series of choices and a series of righteous choices.

And by the grace of God, I can make righteous choices, disallowing sin to rule in this mortal body.

I can make a series of righteous choices.

I made a series of righteous choices this morning between 930 and now.

Made a series of righteous choices.

It's not difficult. It's a question of choices.

Guys, if I gave you a million dollars and asked you to make righteous choices today, you would, you know.

If I said, Heidi just got a million dollars deposited into the Acts 29 account, which may or may not be true.

And so if you Doris, live the rest of this day making righteous choices, you can have that million dollars.

Guess what? Doris will live righteously for the next 24 hours.

And so will Roslyn and so will I.

In which case it would be passed on to Wayne and Wayne would do the same.

The point being, guys, it's fascinating how easy it is to make righteous choices.

How easy it is.

Jesus was continuously making righteous choices. Why? Because he loved his father.

And why do I make it? Because I love a million dollars.

Jesus made it because he loved his father.

And at the end of the day, we go back to the same fundamental core factor.

You can make righteous choices when you love somebody.

Your husbands make righteous choices every day. Your wives make righteous choices every day.

Why? Because you love your spouse.

And so you continuously make righteous choices, regardless of whether she's watching or not.

This is how it works.

I love the fact that life is simplified down to one simple thing or two simple things.

Here take a love the father and make righteous choices.

That makes it kind of simple.

Go ahead, Maria.

How is one related to Galatians 2.20?

Galatians 2.20. I have been crucified with Christ. Same thing. Crucifixion.

I no longer live. Why? Because I'm dead and buried.

But Christ lives in me.

Resurrection, the stillborn has been given life.

I no longer live but suddenly I came back to life. Why?

Because Christ by his Spirit has given me life.

And I now live by the life of Christ in me.

Why does Christ live in me?

He was free choice, free will to choose whatever he wants.

No. The moment you received Christ, Christ started living in you by his Spirit.

The same way the Spirit of God came and raised Christ up, he's raised you up.

But now that he lives in you, you have that life.

But whoever you obey is your master.

I am slave to whatever I obey.

If I obey obedience, I walk in righteousness.

If I walk in the path of disobedience, it leads to death.

The point is that choice is mine.

But it never negates the fact that the life in me is the life of a Lamborghini,

regardless of whether I drive like a Beetle or drive like a race car.

That's up to me.

Those choices are up to me. But it does not take away from the life inside me.

What the devil does, and it is actually the devil that does it,

through pastors, through pulpits, through commentaries, through experts in Greek and Hebrew,

and through normal worldly ways, convinces us, convinces us,

that this life is limited, limit here, because everything awaits you once you die,

and that you really don't possess that kind of life inside you.

Bam! That's not true, because otherwise resurrection is a lie,

and the life I received at resurrection is some mediocre sperm and egg life.

It's not being born again, it's being re-polished again.

When you receive Christ, you are re-polished.

Your old life is just given some spit and shine.

Only it's God spitting, it's not human.

Since my actual life, guys, it fascinates me.

And remember, I've said this before, guys, Sue, you wanted to ask something?

You were just stretching? I'll make a righteous choice and ignore it completely.

Guys, you inhabit what you think.

You inhabit what you think.

You inhabit what you think.

Go think about these things, because you will begin to inhabit it.

As in, it will become part of your way of thinking.

You inhabit what you think.

And your thoughts will always take you somewhere.

And so when I begin to think on the fact that the life I actually possess

is really not subject to sinful cravings,

and as I begin to think on that more, I think to myself,

oh shucks, the power of sin is actually broken.

I'm not necessarily someone who's at the beck and call of sin. Why?

Because the life I actually possess inside of me has no sinful cravings.

I don't have to yield my body as an instrument of wickedness or an instrument that sins.

I don't have to.

That I'm actually able fully to yield myself to God.

Who said this? God.

God said it.

Let me read to you Romans 6 verses 7 to 19, an abridged version from the message.

Romans 6:7–19

Listen to it first and then you can read it in your own version later.

Listen to this, eh? This is how the message puts it.

And I've rearranged the verses so that they come out the way they're going to come out.

If I have been included in Christ's sin-conquering death,

I also get included in His life-giving resurrection.

If I have been included in Christ's sin-conquering death,

then I also get included in His life-giving and life-saving resurrection.

From now on, I'm going to think this way.

From now on, I'm going to think this way.

Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to me.

Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to me.

We tried this on Thursday.

And if you don't bring the other things, you'll get into trouble.

She doesn't understand anything I'm saying because I'm speaking in Malayalam, which she does not.

Understand, it's a dead language to her.

It's a real thing, but it's a dead language.

If you want a translation of that, you'll have to ask Derek.

From now on, I'm going to think this way.

Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to me.

God speaks my mother tongue.

I am actually dead to sin and alive to God.

That's what Jesus did for me.

So I must not give sin a vote in the way I conduct my life.

So I must not give sin a vote in the way I conduct my life.

I don't have to give it the time of the day.

I don't have to run little errands that are connected with the old way of life.

Sin can't tell me how to live.

After all, I'm not living under that old tyranny any longer.

Given that I have been raised from the dead, I will throw myself wholeheartedly and full time into God's way of doing things.

And at the end of the day, to whom I continually surrender myself to do His will, His slave I am.

This is what the Bible says. This is what God says.

Any questions?

Because I'm going to ask you questions after we're done.

Any questions? Go ahead, Matt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Two things. One, here's Gabby.

She's got a brilliant mind.

She's got the athleticism of an amazing sportsman.

She's got the athleticism of an amazing sportsman.

She's got a brilliant mind.

She's got the athleticism of an amazing sportsperson.

She's an amazing scientist.

And she's actually one of the world's best singers.

And none of you believe me because you can't see it.

Because at present, she's only two.

But as she grows up in an environment where things in her are drawn out,

what if you see all the things I've said come to pass?

The life that I presently possess has all that, but it now needs to be matured.

And it's always matured in the context of a people, not in isolation.

Meanwhile, let's assume a baby who has all these qualities also has an itch on the back of her head,

a scratch on her shin, and an owie on her elbow.

Again, the only way it goes away is when she comes to people who can put a bandage,

put medicine, take away the itch, take away the owie, and make it all go away.

That again sometimes a child cannot do, but requires someone else to do it.

Again, it happens in the context of a people.

These are the places and the environments we are supposed to create

so that anyone can walk in and over a period of time can become if they cooperate with God.

Matt just spoke about this homeless person, right?

Go back 27 years, and the only difference is I had a room.

I had a room to go back to every night.

But otherwise, I had the same addictions Matt just spoke about.

Only I wasn't homeless. I had one room to go back to.

For five years, I lived in that room.

Probably had more addictions than this person Matt was speaking about.

But I wasn't homeless.

It is absolutely possible. Why?

Because the life inside you ain't no namby-pamby life.

It's an insurmountable limitless, unconstrained, breakthrough kind of life, the risen life of Christ himself.

May our eyes be enlightened to see what we have inside us.

It's a joyous life where when sadness surrounds us and we are emotionally spent and exhausted with sadness,

there is the ability to connect to that life which is inside me, the risen life of Christ,

not just my physicality and my emotionalism, and draw once again strength and rise up again.

This is in us. It is not outside us.

It is in us.

Order, we have the life of Christ in us and we are in God.

Silla.

Any other questions?

So we've talked about crucifixion or death, we've talked about resurrection.

You think the miracle would end here, but on May 12th maybe, or May 16th or whenever, Sunday in May,

we'll talk about the third part of this miracle, ascension.

Forty days after he rose from the dead, he ascended.

And gosh, if you think that this was wonderful enough, you got a new set of things happening when he ascends.

A new set of things happening when he ascends.

All that's happened thus far, if you look at this Sunday, what has happened is we've left Egypt,

we've come and worshipped God at Mount Sinai when God came down.

God has come down.

But now there's another place we go to, which is the promised land,

which we can ascend to, not when we die, but in the privileges that have been afforded us through his ascension.

We'll talk about that on May 12th or 16th or whenever the day is.

Yeah?

Bless you guys. If you need prayer for anything, feel free to come up and someone will pray with you.

And God has descended on Mount Sinai, and you are Mount Sinai.

Yep?

I am so sorry I preach short today. I apologize.