“We are resurrection people living in a Good Friday world” – Desmond Tutu
Moreover if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you. So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh Romans 8:11-12
‘That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection…’
We live in a Good Friday world. Pain/suffering/death/brokenness/curse on the world.
One day this world will know the power of His resurrection, when the curse of pain, sin, sickness is removed from the earth. We will live under a new heaven and earth…
But until that day, we need to understand that God not only made us alive when we were dead in sin, He raised us up to sit with Christ in heavenly places.
See; Ephesians 2:4-6; Colossians 3:1-4
God wants you this morning to embrace the power of His resurrection in your lives, learning to walk in triumph, even when the whole world seems against you.
Good Friday…hope gone, two disciples on the road to Emmaus…despair, deflated, walking away from the cross.
God does not want you to walk away from the cross, He wants you to run toward the cross, and realize the virtue of its hope and power through the resurrection of Christ.
God longs to break off that which inhibits you from expressing fullness of life. It is through His resurrection we have been given the opportunity to live in a new way.
See: Romans 8:9-11
Too often we are content to live our lives apart from the reality of this new life in Christ. His resurrection should chance how we live, even in this Good Friday world when all is not perfect.
Romans 6:4 ‘Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life’
What does it mean to walk in this newness of life?
1 – Need to embrace the virtue of forgiveness
- God has forgiven you
- You need to forgive yourself
So often in our failure we can live under a cloud of condemnation and shame, we feel guilty and unworthy to come into His presence. Self-condemnation is a common feature of our human experience. He has covered all our sin…past/present/future. We have someone who will intercede for us.
The devil loves to play on our feelings of unworthiness, through the power of suggestions, he tries to lead us back into condemnation and bondage, where we are held captive to our failures.
Listen to Gods report about your life…
2 – Need to embrace the virtue of victory
‘We walk always in triumph in Christ Jesus’
Jesus triumphed over sin, death, and the power of Satan, and invites you and I to join Him on the march of victory.
‘The two weapons of Satan, guilt and fear, are rendered useless in the life of the Christian who stands on the finished work of the cross’
We share in Christ’s victory, everything that flows to us out of the cross, does so because Jesus won the victory.
See; 1 John 5:4-5
3 – Need to embrace the virtue of provision
See; Romans 8v32
‘His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness’
Every time we struggle with a sense of failure and weakness in these earthen vessels, we should come back to the cross and understand our new identity.
Yes, we might live in a Good Friday world, with brokenness and failure, but we are resurrection people. ‘…the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me’
Listen: All we ever need is included in Him, and through faith in Him we know that release of His provision into our lives day by day.
Release of grace every day…
Blessings and mercy are new every morning
How do we walk in this newness of life?
- Keep your faith active
‘The just shall live by faith’ ‘…we live by faith of the Son of God’ ‘As you have received Christ the Lord so walk in Him’
- Abide in the vine
John 15:5
2 Corinthians 3:5
‘In Him we live, move and have our being…’
‘I am the bread of life’
Are you abiding in Christ? Are you eating of the bread of life?
If we are to experience His power, His newness of life, then we must have a daily life flow of Jesus Christ.
- Recognise and relate in what God is doing today
‘Give us our daily bread’
You cannot maintain freshness in your Christian life if you are living on the memories of the past. ‘Don’t let yesterday’s blessings become rituals for today, when God wants you to flow in the newness of life’
Blessings and mercy are new every morning…
See; Isaiah 43:18-19
- Drink of the Holy Spirit
‘Be been filled with the Spirit (continuous present tense)
This freshness of God’s blessing will only come when we walk in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit.
Christ not only demonstrated the Kingdom of God, He opened the Kingdom to those who believe.
Through His resurrection and death, you and I can become Kingdom dwellers, being filled with the Holy Spirit, embracing the culture of resurrection and life, showing Gods rule, even though we live in a Good Friday world.
The anointing of his Spirit that stems from the cross can beak every chain.
- Disorder in relationships…broken…
- Walk in the flesh…enslaved to pornography
- Habits that please the flesh
- Anger and unforgiveness
- No joy, no peace…
- No direction, no purpose, running around aimlessly not knowing the will of God for your life
Come to the cross…know the ‘living hope’