THE LIFE WE HAVE IN CHRIST

Introduction: A Life to Be Lived

I really want you to understand what life God has given us in Christ Jesus. The Christian life is not a doctrine to be believed in the abstract — it is a life to be lived every day. What we are sharing here is part of the preparation for what is about to happen. It is even closer than you might have thought. The reason it appears that He has delayed His coming is stated plainly by the Apostle Peter:

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  —2 Peter 3:9

Not everyone is going to come to repentance, but everybody is being given a chance. This gospel is a witness to all nations. We are winning. We are doing the right thing in God’s Word, and it does not matter how Satan tries — he does not stand a chance.

I. Understanding the Times

Covid-19 was not a real pandemic — it was planned, and they can no longer deny it. What is being rolled out under the guise of public health is something far more sinister. Never underestimate the subliminal messages being sent to the public. Satan does nothing without leaking it first — he copies God, and God does nothing without first revealing it to His prophets. Pray for your country. God knew these things were coming and told us to pray. What we are dealing with is the prince of Assyria — but God has shown us exactly how to deal with him.

II. The Defeat of the Assyrian

Scripture is precise about what will happen to this spirit and the system it drives. The voice of the Lord — the Word of the Lord, spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit — is the instrument of its defeat:

For through the voice of the LORD shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod.  —Isaiah 30:31

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt. For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction. And the LORD of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.  —Isaiah 10:24–27

Because we are the anointed of the Lord, functioning as the anointed one, the yoke shall be destroyed. They tried to put a yoke on us to stop us from fellowshipping with God. It cannot stay. The Lord’s purpose stands immovably:

The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?  —Isaiah 14:24–27

The prophecy of Micah draws together the birth of the Messiah and the final confrontation with the Assyrian in one breathtaking passage:

Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.  —Micah 5:1–5

The woman of Revelation 12 is Israel, and the dragon is the enemy who has stood against the purposes of God throughout history:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.  —Revelation 12:1–4

And yet, even in all of this, Jesus shall be the peace. He is the one who will reconcile Israel back to God. He ushers in the millennium, having been with the Church for two thousand years:

But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.  —Ephesians 2:13–14

III. We Have Already Had It for Two Thousand Years

Isaiah 35 describes what will happen when Christ returns — the vengeance that precedes the salvation, before He institutes His global kingdom in Jerusalem. It is a portrait of the millennium:

Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: and the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.  —Isaiah 35:4–10

But hear this: for two thousand years, the Church has already been doing this — unstopping deaf ears, opening blind eyes, healing the sick, casting out devils. They will have it in the millennium. We have been practising it for two thousand years. Let us make so much noise for the whole world by healing the sick and casting out devils everywhere. The Spirit of God is upon us now. We do not have to wait.

IV. The Life of the Saints: Joy, Fullness, and Eternity in Christ

Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.  —Philippians 4:4

This is the life of the saints. We are people of unspeakable, indescribable joy:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.  —1 Peter 1:1–8

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.  —Ephesians 5:19

You were born to live in eternity. And Christ is not just the man Jesus, or a theological category — Christ is a place. The place is named after Him. How can you walk or live in a man, if it refers to just a man? Christ is a place: the place of the totality of divinity.

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.  —

Colossians 2:6–10

The totality of divinity is in the place He has told you to live in. “Abounding therein with thanksgiving.” The place called “there” — Christ is that “there.” The life of the saints — how we live in that place — is with thanksgiving. And the extent of what He has done for us staggers the imagination:

And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.  —Colossians 1:20–22

In your mind, you were His enemy. In His mind, you were never His enemy. He knew what He was going to do before He did it. He reconciled you to present you holy, unblameable, unreproveable in His sight:

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.  —Romans 5:6–10

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.  —Ephesians 1:7–10

Conclusion: Living in Eternity

Christ is a place. When you are born again, you are brought into Christ — and Christ is eternity. Now that you are in Christ, you live in eternity. You have passed from time into eternity. You are ever-increasing. It is called ever-increasing development. This is the life of the saints. This is the life we have in Christ. Walk in it. Abound in it. Rejoice in it — with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

You’ve passed from time into eternity. You are ever-increasing. Live accordingly.