Well, we are thankful that we can gather again this year in the wonderful name of our Lord. I would like for us to begin by turning to Colossians 2. These are our theme verses, as we saw in the announcement related to the conference, with the overall theme being Christ, Our Life.
As ye therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and builded up in Him, and established in your faith, even as ye were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
— Colossians 2:6-7
Then, over in Colossians 3:4:
When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.
— Colossians 3:4
If you can turn back to John’s Gospel, John 3. Most of the verses we are reading are fairly familiar verses, but John 3, starting in verse 15:
That whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him.
— John 3:15-17
Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
— Galatians 2:20
Now over in Hebrews 12, verses 2 and 3:
Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against Himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls.
— Hebrews 12:2-3
Finally, in Philippians 2, starting in verse 8:
And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name;
That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth,
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
— Philippians 2:8-11
Let us have another word of prayer.
Lord, we are thankful that, as we gather in this time, we do confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Lord, we are thankful for Your faithfulness that has kept us, Your faithfulness that has brought us together. It is through Your faithfulness that we can behold You this weekend.
Lord, we are thankful for Your Holy Spirit. We want to allow Your Spirit to have great freedom in our hearts and our lives as we come to sit at Your feet and consider together this matter of Christ our life.
Lord, open our hearts in a very fresh way. This is a very familiar phrase to all of us, but may there be a reality within this phrase touching each one of us in a new way this weekend. In Your name we pray. Amen.
So we have this theme this year: Christ our life. It is really a continuation of the theme from last year, Who Am I in Christ?, focusing particularly on Him living out His life in us. We are thankful that we have these opportunities to be together.
When you start to consider this matter of Christ our life, how do you even begin to explain His life? That undefiled life, that unfading life, that incorruptible life, that glorious life, that overcoming life—you can go on and on. We all know of it.
When we look at the theme for this year, Christ our life, many of us here have been studying that for many years. It is not a new phrase to hardly anybody. Different ones here have probably even taught on Christ our life. We study it in our Bible studies, and we have read books about it.
If we were asked, “Is Christ our life?” we would all shout aloud, “Amen!” We praise the Lord that Christ is our life.
Well, the question that came to me—the Lord hit me with—was this: “Well, if Christ is your life, why is your life in such a condition? If Christ is really your life, why do you have all these struggles? Why are you going through all this mess and everything? If Christ is your life, why is the life of your family as it is? Why are our families like this? If Christ is our life, why are our assemblies like this?”
Now, we are thankful for the part of Christ that we have all tasted and seen. I look around this room and see many ones in whom you see the life of Christ as a great testimony of things that they know of Christ being alive. But I believe also, within our own hearts, we know that little phrase: much more.
There is so much more of Christ that He is jealous for us to enter into. There is so much more of His life that He wants us to be partakers of in a living way—in our individual lives, our family lives, and our assembly lives together.
So one of the challenges that we have this weekend, when we talk about Christ our life, is overcoming familiarity with it. We are familiar with it. If somebody asks us what it is, we could start explaining it this way and that way.
So we have a challenge: “Lord, we do not want our knowledge of Christ our life standing in the way of us touching the reality of that.” We open our hearts this weekend that the Lord could really be able to work in a great way.
I was reading A. W. Tozer. It was really something related to something else, but when we think of Christ our life, we all say, “Amen.” We know that truth. We know that doctrine. We know that it is true.
A. W. Tozer was a very direct man, and he said, “Just knowing something is true, if it does not impact your life, what value is it?” Knowing the truth, knowing the correct doctrine—if it does not really impact our lives—what is the real value of it?
That is the challenge we have this weekend. We are desiring that the reality of Christ our life would impact us. We know that so often, when we take things into our own hands, we experience the weaknesses, failures, and frailties of our own life.
But we have also experienced times when we have allowed Christ to be our life. We have experienced those victories. We have experienced the fullness of Who He is—the reality of that. That is what we are really looking for this weekend.
In a right way, we do not want to be satisfied with just sound teaching. We do not want to be satisfied with just correct doctrine. We do not want to be satisfied with just our service or ministry, because those things in and of themselves are not life.
But when we have the life of Christ, we have sound doctrine. When we have the life of Christ, we have His Word illumined to us. When we have the life of Christ, that ministry and service come forth with an anointing and a power. That is what we are challenged with as we come.
We are thankful how God has desired to reveal His Son to us. We look back at the Gospel of John, and throughout all the Gospels we see the revelation of Jesus Christ. John testifies of how “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,” and how “we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Christ was revealed to John.
As you go through the New Testament, you see how Christ, through the saints, was revealed as a testimony. That is how the word Christian came about. It actually came about as a derogatory term. Believers did not go around saying, “We are Christians.” They said, “We are believers. We are disciples of Christ.”
Others looked upon them. What did they see? They saw Christ. That is the testimony we are after in this day and time: that when ones look upon us, when they see us as the people of God, they will not see us as just ones full of a lot of head knowledge and theoretical doctrines. They would see a life expressed through us in a way that would have an impact on them and on each one around us.
We are so thankful that God was pleased to reveal His Son in us. I was thinking on that little phrase, revealing His Son in us, and how God is desiring that even in our day and time there would be that revelation of Jesus Christ—not waiting until the last book of the Bible, but a revelation of Jesus Christ among His people.
He would be revealed through them. He would be revealed through each and every one of us.
I looked up that word revelation, and it simply means uncovering or unveiling. Another word for revelation is apocalypse—the transliteration of the Greek word, which I am not even going to try to pronounce.
I appreciated one brother’s definition of revelation: “To remove a veil or covering, exposing to open view what was before hidden.”
God is desiring that the life of Christ would be seen through each and every one of us. We want that veil to be taken away, that veil to be pulled back, and that which resides within would show forth to the glory of God.
But what is that veil? What is the covering that keeps the life of Christ from really shining forth in fullness? It is our flesh. It is our own self. We are that greatest hindrance. It is that self-love, self-sufficiency, and multifaceted nature of self.
But we are desiring that the Lord, by His great mercy, would pull that veil back. He has a wonderful tool to do that. It is one of the things that is everybody’s favorite thing in life: the work of the cross.
As we allow that cross to work within us, it does a great unveiling of the life of Christ in particular believers. If you notice the various verses we read to begin this time, there was an aspect of the cross in each one of them.
When we think of the life of Christ, or Christ our life, we are going to see a very close, intertwined relationship with the working of the cross. Christ was revealed to us through the cross, and He continues to reveal more and more of Himself to us through it.
Tonight, for my part, I would like for us to consider four aspects of Christ our life. There are many aspects of Christ; I am just looking at four. Our other brothers will also be developing this in a fuller and greater way.
The four aspects are:
Actually, we could have a conference on any one of those four aspects, and it would be a full blessing. That is why I am using the little phrase: we are just going to touch on them here.
When we come to this first aspect, eternal life, that is really the first aspect of His life that we touch. When we are born again, we touch that eternal life for the first time.
Again, when we think about eternal life, one of the challenges is our familiarity with the term. We all know of eternal life, speak of eternal life, and sing of eternal life. But what is the real essence of eternal life, this great gift that we have received?
There is a time aspect to eternal life. Yes, we live forever. But if we just stop and focus on the time aspect—the quantity of it—we really miss the true essence of this matter of eternal life.
It is far more than a quantity of life; it is a quality of life. It is an altogether new quality of life that excels any other life. It exceeds any other life we have ever touched or experienced. It is altogether other.
It is a divine life, not a natural life. There is a divineness about it. It is an uncreated life versus our created life. He is the great I AM. There was no beginning and no end. It is an uncreated life.
Thank the Lord, when we were born again, that eternal, uncreated, almighty life invaded our body. People like to talk about alien invasions today. Actually, when we were born again, there was an alien invasion that took place.
Someone from another kingdom came and invaded us who were dead in this kingdom here upon earth. An altogether divine intervention took place. We who were dead in our trespasses and sins, living in the natural kingdom of this world, experienced a divine intervention.
He came in and transferred us out of this kingdom of darkness, broke us free from the power of this dark world and its authority, and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son. What a great thing this eternal salvation was. We literally have been born again.
These familiar words—do we ever really stop and step back and see how great they are? Do you know the greatness of being born again? That is marvelous. That is the miracle of miracles.
Something that was dead was invaded by this One from another kingdom, and we were born anew. Not only were we born anew, but we were put into another kingdom. Oh, how great it is, brothers and sisters.
When we were born again, that eternal life—that exceeding great, almighty, magnificent life—came and lived within us. That life is a Person. Keep that in mind this weekend. When we are talking about life, we are speaking of a Person, not a thing. Christ is our life.
When you were saved, Christ came to live in you. It was not as though you got a little bit, they got a little bit, and somebody else got a little bit. No, we all got Christ. What a marvelous thing. We each have Him: Christ in us.
Even when we look around and see what we might call “super saints”—a Watchman Nee, a T. Austin-Sparks, or a Spurgeon—we may say, “Wow, they must have gotten a double dose of life.” No, they got the exact same life that we got.
I am not going to go into gifts, because we are focusing upon life. But what you see in brothers like that, and in dear saints with whom we walk day in and day out, is that when that life came in, they responded to that life. They said, “I want more of that life. I want to experience the fullness of this life.”
As they yielded to that life, there was a greater expression of that life, and it grew and grew. At times, within some, there was no real response, and that life just sat there—yearning, jealous. There is a life within us that is jealous to break forth and show forth the excellency of Himself.
Praise God, when we were born again, we all got that life. It is just like when a baby is born upon this earth. That baby has everything for life. It does not get a few more fingers later on, or extra parts later on. It has it all right there.
Brothers and sisters, when we are born again, we have it all right there. Praise God, in the kingdom of God there are no birth defects. Everybody is born anew. We have a great, healthy beginning.
The more we can realize this miraculous thing that has occurred in us, the more it will create within us a greater desire to allow Him to manifest Himself in us, so that the fragrance of Christ can really come forth.
We do not want to be those who stop and are simply thankful for initial salvation. Praise God for initial salvation, but that is just the initial aspect of this eternal life. There is so much more of Christ that He wants us to discover, and so much more of Christ that He wants us to enter into.
Paul says he wants to press on to know Him more and more. Would this weekend, as the various brothers share about Christ our life, create within us a deeper hunger and thirst? Praise God, I know there is a hunger and thirst here, or you would not even be here. But we want an even greater hunger and a greater thirst for Him.
We want to see Him in fullness for this day and time, and we want to press on to know Him. Well, how do you press on to know Him? What is that process? That process is called discipleship. It is allowing His life to be worked out in reality within us.
This matter of discipleship leads us to the next aspect, called the exchanged life. That is what we read in Galatians 2:20.
Again, it is a familiar verse. I imagine many in this room can quote it, and praise God for that. How we need to learn and memorize more and more of the Scriptures. But stop and meditate upon these verses sometimes.
As you look at Galatians 2:20, Paul has this wonderful declaration, and it applies to each and every one of us: “I have been crucified with Christ.” Not, “I will be,” or, “I hope to be,” but, “I have.” I have been crucified with Christ.
That old nature, that old Adam, has been dealt with. It is a settled fact throughout eternity. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
There is a Christ whom we have received, and He is living in us. He desires to come forth and express Himself in the fullest way He can.
The life which I now live in the flesh—I get tongue-tied here. You get talking about Christ’s life, you get excited, and you cannot even talk. If any of you can interpret my tongues, you are welcome to tell me that.
But Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh—we are still in this flesh—but the flesh does not have dominion. The life which I live in the flesh, I now live by faith. There is a step of faith in entering into allowing His life to be expressed through us.
We live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and delivered Himself up for me. Praise God, brothers and sisters, there is a tremendous transaction that has gone on here. This is what we are calling tonight the exchanged life.
That is obviously not an original term. I will give you a brief synopsis. We get that term from Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor was serving the Lord in China. When he went there, he was serving with all of his heart, in his own power and strength.
But the more he served, the more there was an emptiness and futility within him. He would try harder: “I am going to try harder. I am going to do more. I will stay up more. I will do this more.” But the harder he tried, the more he saw that he was not being successful. It was just his efforts.
Praise God for his zeal, but he was not getting anywhere. Even though people outwardly could see some things being done, he knew within himself, “Something is missing.”
Then, through fellowship with another brother, he received a letter. It said, in effect, “It is not a matter of improving your old natural life, your old self. It is not improving that. There is a new life—an exchanged life.”
So often, we take our old life, that old Adamic nature, our old self-life, and try to improve it. We want to inform it, reform it, and make it look prettier.
It is kind of like those television shows about flipping houses. They go in and see a house and say, “Oh, it has good bones. We can flip it.”
So often in our Christian life, we say, “Oh, I look at myself. I have some pretty good bones. Maybe I can flip this around and improve myself.” No, we do not have any good bones. We need to exchange all of that, tear it down, and allow the Lord to bring in a full new life.
That old Adamic nature is out, and Christ is in. That is the life we have. That is the exchanged life.
This day and time, everybody exchanges things, and it is so easy. In many ways, we have made this exchanged life and Christianity complicated. But when you have something you want to exchange, you take it back and say, “I no longer want this item. It is no good. It does not do what I thought it would do. It does not work like I thought it would work. It does not make me happy. I do not enjoy it. I do not want it.”
Then we exchange it for something totally new. That is really what we are doing with this exchanged life. We are saying, “There is this old life within me. It does not work. I do not like it. I am laying it back at this place, and I am receiving this new life.”
God has this wonderful transaction vessel used to work out this exchange, and that is the cross.
When we think about the cross, what is your normal immediate reaction? Is it positive or negative? Most people think pretty negatively about the cross. There is a negative aspect to it, but so often when we think of the cross, we only think of death.
Whenever our Lord Jesus spoke of the cross, He also spoke of resurrection, life, and victory—the whole completed work. Yes, there was death there, but out of that came life: resurrection life, victorious life.
That is why I really think we need to come to see the cross as our friend. Sometimes, when I refer to the cross as our friend, I get some odd looks. But if we really see what the cross does for us, we see the cross as our friend.
What is a friend? In a simple way, we could say a friend is someone who has your best interest at heart. A friend is one who looks out for you. They see you doing something stupid or making a bonehead move, and because they care for you, they speak into your life. Your friend has your best interest at heart.
That is what the cross does. When the cross comes to you, it is like that friend coming in and saying, “Look at all I can do for you. If you trust Me, if you believe Me, look at all I can do for you.”
“I can conclude the past—all the sins of the past. You will be set free from your past, from the guilt, and from the condemnation. If you trust and believe in Me, all that can be set aside.”
“All of those paralyzing forces of this world, the way the world tries to come in and cripple you—you have been crucified to the world. Believe and trust Me. You can enjoy a new freedom in Christ.”
The wonderful work of the cross deals with the very pride of life—that pride that causes us so much trouble. The cross deals with worrying and fretting about this and that. It deals with the stubbornness in us.
People who know me know I am pretty stubborn. I think I mentioned before that all of my grandparents came from Scotland, so I am a thoroughbred Scot. Growing up, at family reunions and times together, there was a lot of pride in the Scots.
They would boast, “We have fortitude.” So I grew up thinking, “Oh, fortitude, that is good. We can make it through anything. We have that fortitude. When tough times come, we can handle it.”
Once I got saved and the Lord started working in my life, I found out that what the world calls fortitude, Christ calls stubbornness.
We can have a pride of life, but there is really nothing there. But this friend, our cross, says, “I can set you free from that.” He says, “Not only will I set you free from all these entanglements and snares, but I will bring you into a new kingdom.”
“I will bring you into a kingdom of the Son of His love—the kingdom of love, the kingdom of victory, that eternal kingdom. Not only will I bring you into that kingdom, but I will make you a priest in that kingdom. I will make you a king in that kingdom.”
“You see this new heavenly Father that you have, this glorious One Who has loved you so much? I will make you His son.” Not just a babe to Him, but as you grow up, you will be His son.
Do we see all the benefits? The more we see what the cross does for us in a very living way, all the benefits we receive, yes, there is a negative side, but it pales in comparison to the great freedom, liberty, and blessing that we have in allowing the cross to work in us and set us free.
When we think of the cross as a friend, it reminds me of that proverb: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” Many in this room could testify of a friend who, at first, you thought had wounded you, but it ended up being a great benefit and blessing. When it first hits, you might think it is a wound, but praise God for that.
As we are willing to enter into this matter of the exchanged life, the Lord starts to do this marvelous work. But one of the challenges we have in entering into the exchanged life is that we already think we have entered in. We think, “Oh, I am okay.”
Thank the Lord, we have allowed the Lord to work in us in certain ways, and there are aspects of our lives in which we have entered in. But have we really entered into the fullness of that?
There is a great battle over this matter of the exchanged life. Who is controlling your life? Are you controlling it—that old self-nature—or is that new Boss, that new life, controlling it?
The enemy is so artful. He likes to bring in a counterfeit. I am going to use a contemporary term this evening. In the world, we have artificial intelligence. I hope there are no scientists out there, because I am an accountant talking way out of my realm.
But in a simple way, when we think of artificial intelligence, I think of man trying to create a human-like life. He is trying to create something human, even trying to improve it: “Oh, I can do this and do this. Artificial intelligence can make life better.”
But do you know what has invaded Christianity? There is a Christian artificial intelligence that says, “Oh, have we got a life for you.” It sounds so good. It can look like Christ, sound like Him, and act like Him. It can have many good features and be very appealing.
It tries to convince us: “It is so good, so much better, and you will be so happy with this. Just enter into this life that we are presenting to you.”
It even interprets the Scriptures and says, “Look, these Scriptures are so old. They are a few thousand years old. We have reinterpreted them for you for this day and time, to make them more relevant in this modern time.”
As I was sitting in my little office or study this week, considering this message, I was looking at some books. Anybody who knows me knows I like books. Sometimes I order books from CBD, Christian Book Distributors, because they have a good price. Being a Scotsman, I am going to get a good price.
Do you know what the CBD motto is? I was sitting there, and I looked at the side of a box. Right on the side was: “Everything Christian for less.”
Now, if you are a bookseller, that is good. I have no problem with their business model. It is very successful. But when it comes to Christianity, that phrase has permeated us. That is this artificial intelligence: “Everything Christian for less.”
What is the “less”? Less of the cross. No suffering. No pain. “Listen to this new teaching, and you will have this wonderful Christianity—everything Christian for less.”
It is so deceiving. There is a counterfeit there. It can look good; it can look pretty. But it is not the real thing. It is artificial. It is counterfeit. It is not His life.
Sadly, many believers have tasted of that tree. When you think of what I am talking about as Christian artificial intelligence, there is nothing new under the sun. It just comes from that old tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If you look at that tree, it looks good: “Taste this. Do this. Do that. Taste this, and you will be like God.” That is what the enemy told Eve. “You do that. You eat this, do this, do that, and you will be like God.” Everything Christian for less.
Sadly, many believers have bitten into that. The worst aspect is that we actually think we are in a place that we are not. That is the deception. We think we are further down this path; we think we are progressing along, but we are not.
Would the Holy Spirit, in a fresh way, come in and touch our hearts? Would we allow Him to search us and set us free from these things that would try to keep us from the reality of Christ?
We just love shortcuts. It is in our nature. I love shortcuts. Everybody loves shortcuts, and everybody likes something for less. But when we see that it is not the real thing, we need to recognize it.
It is like going to Taiwan and finding a man on the street who has a Rolex for you for ten dollars. You think you are boasting to everybody because you got a great deal. You did not get a good deal.
In the end, this “everything Christian for less” is not a good deal. Would the Lord open our eyes so that we could see that?
The more we see, the more we start to understand that this is a lifelong process. In this lifelong process, as we press on to know Him, it can become wearisome. That is where we start to taste the blessing of His enduring life.
Turn back over to Hebrews 12. This is the real testimony of the life of Christ enduring.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against Himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls.
— Hebrews 12:2-3
Praise God, as we are going along, there is that looking off unto Jesus—that looking away, that fixing our eyes upon Him. To me, the very basic principle of that is getting our eyes off ourselves.
Getting our eyes off ourselves, off our circumstances, off what we think are the issues, and looking to Him. In the Gospel it says, “Look up; your redemption draweth nigh.” There is that looking to Him.
As we look to Him, contemplate Him, and consider Him, we are encouraged because we see all that He endured. Then we start to realize that we have that enduring life living in us.
The One Who endured the cross, the One Who despised the shame, the One Who is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God on high, is now in us to help us through whatever situation we might find ourselves in.
Would we see that this is an adjustment of our perspective—to see beyond the immediate? He saw the joy set before Him. He saw the Father’s heart. He knew that God had a purpose. He had that vision within Him in reality, and that kept Him going.
If we are going to experience more of the Lord in this aspect of enduring life, we have to have a clear understanding and a clear vision of the call of God upon our lives, the purpose of God upon our lives, and everything that we are doing.
God has an end in view, and He is calling us. He saw the Father’s heart, and He knew the end. Would we see that Father’s heart also?
We considered this a couple of years ago at the conference here. The theme was Seeing Him, Knowing Him, and Following Him. Just seeing Him, fixing our eyes on Him.
I was reminded of Hebrews 11, of how Moses endured “as seeing Him Who is invisible.” Moses saw beyond.
You see this common theme throughout Scripture. Joseph saw beyond; those dreams held him. David, when Samuel anointed him king, did not feel like a king, but something was registered within his heart—an eternal registering.
Paul saw beyond when he was captured on that road to Damascus. Many saints have wonderful testimonies of how the Lord captured them. They saw, they pressed through, and they entered into more and more of this great reality.
How we need this vision in this day and time. Many people get tired of people talking about vision and think it is very ethereal. Vision is very practical. It impacts our lives.
It impacted Paul’s life. Because of the heavenly vision Paul had, he was able to be in prison several times. You read through Corinthians of all that Paul went through. Was that because Paul was a tough man? No.
Paul was able to endure all those beatings and shipwrecks because he had the enduring life within him, and he allowed that enduring life to carry him through.
I know we could have testimonies from many in this room who have been through various trials and situations. They would say very quickly that it was not themselves, but that they had the enduring life within them that carried them through.
That is the vision. That is what we are after. That is what we need in these last days. If we do not have it, we will grow weary and lose heart, as it says at the end of Hebrews 12:3.
There is this danger. The Lord knows us. He does not want us to grow weary and lose heart. But without vision, we do grow weary and lose heart.
You can have saints doing the exact same thing. Take a meal after a Sunday meeting. I know many assemblies here eat together on Sundays, as we do in Richmond.
If you look around sometimes, you can see different saints doing the exact same thing, but one has a big smile on his face. He has a big round face and is so happy because he sees the purpose. He says, “This is fellowship. This is sharing with one another.”
It is beyond the food—even for you Chinese, it is beyond the food. It is the fellowship. It is that life of Christ sharing with one another. That is the joy.
But then others are there with long faces. They are so sad, and it is a drudgery to them. “Oh man, this guy eats so much. They do not like this. Nobody…” They can find anything to complain about.
They are doing the exact same things, but with a different spirit, because one sees the purpose and one does not. Would the Lord capture us with His heart and purpose for what He has called us to?
That is how we enter into this enduring and pressing through in these difficult times. The more we press through, the more we see the nature of this enduring life.
As we press through, we start to get a glimpse and a taste of that exalted life. Turn back to Philippians 2, because there Paul testifies of this exalted life.
If you really look through this chapter, you see all that our Lord Jesus went through. What we are looking at here is the life of our Lord Jesus. We are seeing that He is the exalted life. Exalted life is a Person.
We see before our eyes how He left the splendor of heaven, how He existed in the form of God, but did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped. He emptied Himself, took the form of a bondservant, and was made in the likeness of men.
He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Praise God, do we realize the magnitude of the Son of God humbling Himself to the point of death?
To me, that is one of those things beyond our comprehension. It is not beyond our appreciation, but it can be beyond our comprehension. There was a great thing done there. What a display of love.
It was all because He had a vision and purpose in view. What was the response?
Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name;
That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth,
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
— Philippians 2:9-11
What an exaltation we have here. He is the One Who humbled Himself. How did Christ enter into this exalted life? He humbled Himself to the point of death, and He obeyed His Father. There was humbleness and obedience.
Do we want to enter into an exalted life more and more? There is a humbleness set before us. There is an obedience set before us. But praise God, we have this life within us, and there is a fragrance there.
Another word for the exalted life is the overcoming life. That is the life that has overcome all things. He is high above all. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the all-victorious One. He has won that mighty victory.
Do we realize the power of that life which we have within us? We have that exalted life living within us. Paul was trying to express the power of this life in Ephesians 1 when he spoke of “the exceeding greatness of His power.”
His power exceeds all other powers. Whatever powers we think are so great, there is a life in us that exceeds that power and surpasses that power. That is the life we have within us. That is Christ our life. It is not dependent on us; it is His life.
This week, many brothers and sisters had the blessing of being able to visit our dear brother Hosea. We were blessed to visit him yesterday afternoon.
You looked upon him, and he was very weak and incapacitated outwardly. There was kind of nothing there. But as soon as you walked in that room, there was the presence of the Lord. There was an exalted life there.
It was a testimony of one who had run the race, one who had laid a life down. There was an exalted life.
It is so strange. You are there to be a comfort to him. You are there to pray with him. Yet, without him saying anything, you are the one who is blessed because you have touched life.
That is the exalted life. That is the life each and every one of us has within us. As our Lord had to go through the cross, daily we go through the cross, and we see how the Lord brings forth more and more of His life within us.
One last thing I wanted to mention about this life is that the work the Lord does in us is multifaceted. By that I mean that there are different facets of our lives. We have a lot of facets and a lot of aspects in our lives.
Maybe in one area of our life, we have somewhat entered into the victory of that life. Maybe there was something in the past that was a real snare, but praise God, by His grace, in that certain area we have entered into the exalted life. We can say that we have victory over that, and we say it is not us, but Him.
At the same time, in another part of our life, maybe we are still struggling with some things in that exchanged life. We give it to Him, and then we take it back. We give it, and we take it back. We wrestle through some things.
That is okay. That is normal. He does not change us all at one time like that. The enemy will accuse us in that way. He will say, “Look, you think you are so great because of this. Look at this part of your life.”
But we do not have a ground to stand before the enemy on the basis of any of our works. It is all based on what Christ has done.
We are thankful that He works in a multifaceted way. But the promise we have is that the work He has begun, He will complete. Praise God for that promise.
God is so jealous. It says that our God is a jealous God. God is so jealous for the life of His Son to be revealed, lived out, and seen through His people.
As we are here this weekend considering that, may we return to a place of simplicity in Christ. The world today, and Christianity, like to make things so complicated.
But the more you look at the life of Christ, how simply He humbled Himself in various aspects of His life, you see there was a simplicity there. He is calling us to walk in that simplicity.
May we see in a fuller and enlarged way more and more of the unlimited nature of this eternal life. May He give us a fresh vision of this eternal life now living within us.
Would the Lord enable us to see the freedom and beauty of this exchanged life? We have been set free. Praise God, would we enter into that glorious freedom as the children of God, the sons of God?
Would we be encouraged and strengthened by this enduring life—not growing weary, but allowing this enduring life to carry us all the way through as a testimony unto Him?
Would we be those who are simply falling down and worshiping at the feet of this exalted life, this overcoming life, this life that is all-victorious, this life that is living within us?
What a treasure we have in this earthen vessel. Would we see more and more of it?
I believe this is so vital, and I appreciate our brothers coming up with this theme because the days in which we are living are so evil and so dark. There is a call in this day back to Christ. That is the way through.
The more we enter into Christ being our life, there will be an impact. We have a heart for the Gospel. If Christ is our life, if the life of His people is strengthened, the Gospel will go forth. There will be that overflow of God.
Why is the Gospel so-called ineffective at times? Really, it is because of our own weakness. But the more we allow Christ to come within us, simply humble ourselves, obey Him, and allow that glorious Gospel to go forth, the more His life will be expressed within us.
We pray that it would also be a strengthening and encouragement to ones who have become discouraged and disillusioned. We see so many dear ones, ones who have even been at this conference through the years. Where are they? They have become discouraged and disillusioned—off here or off there.
But if there is a reality of Christ in us that can shine forth, it encourages ones to come back. There is an overflow that comes back and allows those ones to be strengthened and recovered, so that they too can be running this race to His glory and honor.
For the faithful ones who are continuing to press on toward the goal, there is encouragement. We are thankful for the many ones running this race and pressing on.
The more we see Christ our life, the more it encourages us not to grow weary and not to stop doing good to the household of God, but to encourage, strengthen, and press on, that we could all end up being those overcomers.
Overcomers in the sense of those living the normal Christian life. Because of this artificial intelligence, there are so many living a subnormal life. But would this normal Christian life really be recovered in a way that could draw ones to Christ?
Simply, He desires to live out His life through us. May we not be the hindrance to that. May we step out of the way and allow His life to come forth for His glory and honor.
Through this, may we be those allowing the Lord to work in such a way that His return would be hastened. We have this desire for His return. We know it is so imminent.
Would we come into a place of being a living testimony: Christ our life? May the Lord use this weekend to work in each of us. May the Lord bless our other brothers as they share on other aspects of this, that we could see the fullness of all that we have been brought into, and His great jealousy for His Son to be seen in His people.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are so thankful that we are the privileged ones upon this earth, and that privilege comes because of Your grace. It is not because of us. But by Your grace, You have called us unto Yourself. By Your grace, You have drawn us. By Your grace, You have kept us.
Lord, we are thankful for the life that we have within us. We are thankful for the many ways we have experienced that life. But Lord, we also know there is more and more of the fullness of Christ that You desire each one of us individually, in our families, and in our assemblies to experience.
For this weekend, Lord, we want to offer ourselves unto You and grant You great freedom and liberty to work according to Your purpose for this time together.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.