Let us live to the Lord in prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, precious and almighty Lord, thank You, Lord, for giving this wonderful opportunity today to come around Thy table, to exalt and adore Thee, remember Thee, Lord, and remember our salvation, as well as to prepare ourselves and wait upon Thee until Thy coming.
Dear Lord, thank You, Lord, for drawing us together so that, Lord, we will look at Thy face. Lord, open our hearts, open our ears and eyes to listen to You and to see You, so that, Lord, we would become what You want us to be.
Lord, prepare our hearts so that the seed which You are going to sow today would bring forth fruit in our lives. Lord, empty us. Remove pre-existing thoughts and our pre-existing knowledge. Meet us freshly so that, Lord, we could rejoice with You.
What a joy it is, Lord, to come together as a group of saints belonging to one body. Lord, as we are rooted in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, lead us this time. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
We thank the Lord for the opportunity which the Lord has given unto us.
Well, this may or may not be the day, but the whole world is celebrating Resurrection Day and Easter. But the fact is, it is a fact which we celebrate every day in our lives, and we gather as saints every resurrection day, or Lord’s Day.
Turn with me to Romans 6. We will read three portions: Romans 6:4-5.
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death,
we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.
Similarly, Philippians 3:10-11.
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death;
if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
The third portion is Colossians 3:1-2.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
When I was praying for the message, somehow I was meditating upon Leviticus for a long time. I had a plan to go through the priesthood and everything.
This Wednesday, I came late to the church prayer. Somehow my heart was not comfortable with what I was meditating upon. A few sisters started praying about resurrection life and resurrection power when praying for the brothers and sisters in Christ.
So the Lord was kind of pushing me towards this resurrection life—as we all pray, “Resurrection life, resurrection power.” I was calmly sitting in the prayer and praying, and another person also prayed the same thing. Then, while I was driving back, the Lord was putting these thoughts in my mind.
It was not planned because it was Easter, but that is the way the Lord plans, as the Lord had planned with the opening message from our brother.
These three passages which we have read speak about the resurrection power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead and is available to us today to overcome sin.
We are redeemed and risen.
A redeemed life focuses on forgiveness, freedom from penalty, and salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. But resurrection life goes further: it is an active, transformed, empowered new life in Christ that starts now and goes into eternity by victory over sin and death, which is given by the Lord Jesus Christ.
I was thinking, how should this life be? How should this power be? In one place it says, “newness of life”; in another place it says, “knowing Christ”; and in another place it says, “You are risen; seek the things above.”
Although redemption and resurrection life go hand in hand, redemption gives the position. The resurrection life provides the power to live out the position which we have in the Lord. If you have the position but are not using the power to live out that position in life, then somewhere we are not able to know Christ.
I was looking at Romans 6:4-5, and I divided the message into three parts:
The way I divided it, I may not be able to put it well, but let us see how the Lord helps us to go through it.
Romans 6:4 says that we “should walk in newness of life.” That means resurrection life replaces the old life with the life of Christ.
I was thinking: we are all born-again Christians. Some have been Christians for two or three generations; some have been born again more recently and are very active in the church. Sometimes we lose that newness of life, you know—that freshness.
When you buy a new car, you have that freshness with the car. You behave well; you drive well. When you wear new shoes, you have freshness in your legs, right? People can see and say, “Oh, nice shoes,” and you really rejoice in it. You are loving it.
It may be a new college or, I will not say spouse—spouse, okay? Whatever it is, there is a freshness. I was thinking, can a church like us also stop walking in the newness of life?
Then the Lord took me to Revelation 2, speaking about Ephesus. Let us read Revelation 2:2-3.
I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil:
and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
and hast borne, and hast patience, and for My name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
This is an excellent testimony which the Lord gives about Ephesus. When you look at it, it looks like nothing is missing, right? If you do not read the further verses, you feel that nothing is missing.
If the Lord gave the same testimony about us, we would be on top of the roof, you know. What else would we want? Carnal eyes look at these characteristics as essential things for individual life.
When I was reading it, I was thinking, “Man, what else do you need?” You have labour, patience, and you are keeping away from evil people. You are identifying who are liars and who are not preaching. You have borne, you have patience, and for His name’s sake you have laboured.
Everything visible that a church can do, and everything visible that a human can do, was there. But in the eyes of the Lord, something of newness was missing in Ephesus.
The assembly was still very busy. The Lord Jesus Christ observes their hard work, patience, endurance, and refusal to tolerate evil people. Yet, despite all their labour and patience and suffering, the Lord Jesus recognizes that they had abandoned their first love—which is not visible at all.
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
This is not visible to individual eyes. It is not visible to the church. It is visible only to the Lord and to you. See how the Lord is looking? If I was in Ephesus, I would think we were the best church in the world. But the eyes of the Lord look beyond the things which are visible.
The Lord is saying, “You have lost that newness. I do not find this newness of life in you.” When we take an earthly example, every new thing has a love toward it. The Lord is saying that the newness of life is not seen in them.
Out of all the important things required to be a Christian, the Lord recognizes that the most important thing is missing. First love refers to the fresh passion and devotion believers have in Christ. This is an individual matter. There is no human measure for it.
You can see if somebody has patience. You can see if somebody is doing hard work. You can see if somebody is doing a great work for the Lord. But you cannot see the first love—not merely the love we see when people hug, smile, and compliment one another, but that special ingredient, that first love which only God can see.
There is a reason Jesus Christ said to His disciples in John 13:35:
By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.
That love is visible to outsiders. But when we are so deep in duties, we forget the essence of the newness of life. Forgetting the essence of newness of life makes you like a robot.
Nowadays, robots are built with more patience than us, more endurance than us, and the ability to do more hard work than us. Give them the do’s and don’ts, and they can identify who is wrong and who is right.
Ephesus had hard work, patience, and endurance, and that is very appreciable. But as time passed, they became motivated by a sense of duty rather than their precious love to God. It had become so much about duty that they were just moving along because they had become tuned like robots.
But they were totally missing that precious love—the newness. Because they lost their first love, they were not able to perform the first works. You see how they are connected?
All the works were there, but still the Lord says, “You are not able to perform the first works.” Look at Revelation 2:5.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works.
They were doing the first works. If you look at Acts 18 and Acts 19, you can read about it. But because they lost that first love, they were not able to do the first works. The Lord asks them to repent.
This is considered a serious sin in the eyes of the Lord. That is the reason He says:
Or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Sometimes we do the things which the Ephesian assembly was doing, and we never even consider that losing our first love is such a great sin.
I do not know how that can be measured, but we all know. I can check my heart: do I have that love which I received from the Lord? Am I able to express it?
The problem is that there is no reflection in our lives. Love needs to be reflected out, and because of that the works stop. I am not giving a list of do’s and don’ts, but it is time for all of us to examine ourselves individually, as we form a group of blood-bought believers in the church. As we are raised with the Lord, do we have that newness in life?
The Lord speaks about Israel in Jeremiah 2:1-2.
Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord;
I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals,
when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
The Lord remembers this kind of love. They went with the Lord in the wilderness even though they had not seen the land. I do not know how the Lord expects this kind of love from us, but for us, He paid it all.
This kind of gentle love and devotion is what the Lord expects. The Lord asks the Ephesian assembly to remember and repent. He is not asking for a love which they have never experienced. He is asking them to remember the love which was once in them.
I had a question: did I ever have this love? Or was I simply redeemed and happy to say, “I am saved, I am saved”? In our churches they used to ask, “Are you born again?” I would say, “Yes, I am born again,” because there was joy in it.
The Lord is calling us into this love. If we have experienced this love but are not able to reflect it, it is encouraging us to consider it. That is one aspect of resurrection life; that is one aspect of newness of life.
When the Lord says, “Remember and repent,” it is not merely feeling sorrow or saying, “Oh my God, where is my love?” It is setting a new direction. I have been risen; my direction should be new.
Emotions can be dangerous. We may start thinking, “Oh, I did not show love to that person or this person.” It is not about becoming emotional. It is about setting your life in a different direction according to what you have experienced from the Lord.
The newness of life should deepen in such a way that first love becomes even stronger. When you are married, you love a person; as you grow old, the depth becomes different. It becomes stronger in a way that no one can understand until they live it.
Many relationships do not go into that depth. Husband and wife is the best relationship according to the Bible, yet people are not able to go into that depth. That is why they are not able to become strong. It is the same with the Lord.
We have become so duty-oriented. The Lord says, “No, no, no. You have risen. If it was only duty, then I would have given you only do’s and don’ts. I am expecting this depth of love to become stronger and stronger, so that Christ’s image will become stronger and stronger in us.”
If not, we are redeemed and walking in one direction, while the Lord is trying to form something else in us. In any relationship, love is the essence of it. Without receiving and expressing the Lord’s love, we are not able to do the Lord’s work as we should.
Coming to the second point: resurrection life focuses on Christ. Once you start loving the Lord with first love, then you focus. When you wear new shoes, you love the shoes and focus on them; you walk differently. When I wear new shoes, I try to walk straight. Otherwise, I walk carelessly.
When you love the Lord with first love, you focus on the Lord. Then you can understand the resurrection power. Many times we pray, “Lord, I want to see the resurrection power. Lord, I want to understand the resurrection power.”
Let us see what Paul was saying when he made this statement. Turn with me to Philippians 3:7-11.
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings,
being made conformable unto His death;
if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
I was thinking about verse 10: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection.” Before that, verses 7 through 9 are very important, because they lead to Paul’s statement in verse 10.
Obviously, Paul is not speaking about head knowledge of Christ. He is insisting on no confidence in the flesh. Knowing the Lord and knowing the power of His resurrection means having no confidence in the flesh.
We all like to quote Galatians 2:20: “Not I, but Christ lives in me.” But we, as children of the Lord, are not able to leave the “I,” right? In fact, we bring all the best qualities of “I” and try to satisfy the Lord.
We hide the bad qualities of “I,” bring the best qualities of “I,” and want to serve the Lord. That is the way the world has taught us. You go to school and bring all your best qualities because you want to excel. You go into office culture and bring all your best qualities so that you can be recognized.
We are so habituated to this that we come into the presence of the Lord, come among the people of the Lord, or come to serve the Lord with the same “I.”
When Paul says, “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss,” Paul had a great résumé. Who had a résumé like Paul? Achievements and education. But after meeting Christ, knowing Christ, and walking with Christ, he recognized that these achievements were the very things which kept him away from Christ.
All his knowledge, achievements, and capabilities were keeping him away from Christ. Have you realized that all we have—the “I”—will try to keep us away from Christ? That is why Paul counted it as loss.
It is not like an Indian way of loss, where you go to the Himalayas searching for truth and then come back feeling proud that you have all the power of God. It is not like that. Paul identified that all his résumé, all that he had, was the very thing keeping him away from Christ.
In that direction, he was trying to know Christ. If he came through the direction of his résumé, he could never know Christ or the power of His resurrection.
Knowing Christ is not just leaving bad things. When I was a child, I thought knowing Christ meant simply removing bad habits. That is true, but it is not just leaving bad things.
Knowing Christ is better than all the good things that the world has to offer: security, reputation, power, satisfaction, and comfort. It is so difficult to live without security, reputation, power, satisfaction, and comfort. It speaks to me.
Understanding what the Lord offers is more than all these things. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, unknowingly, we run after the very things which keep us from living for Christ.
Running after those things will not take us in the direction of knowing Christ and knowing the resurrection power of Christ. We need to change direction.
For a long time we have been told that our satisfaction is important, our reputation is important, our power is important, and our comfort is important. When I see how missionaries went to countries like India and elsewhere, I am surprised.
We speak about them now as though they had great reputation, but their lives were not reputation-centered. That is why they could tap into the resurrection power.
It can go to such an extent that, from the point of church life, we spend more time learning about Jesus rather than spending time with Christ. The enemy is very, very smart.
Sometimes I feel that if I read the Word for a couple of hours or read a book, I am very satisfied because I feel I have learned something. That is good. But spending time with Christ means letting go of all these things.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we find family relationships, church relationships, church function, and church division affected because people say, “We are not satisfied.” Have you observed that?
Some people find that in relationships—whether church or family—they do not have enough power, comfort, or security.
Paul says in Philippians 3:7-8, “The things which were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ,” because he knew they were stopping him from going forward to know Christ.
These things keep you busy knowing about yourself. People write biographies of others, but we write our own biography within ourselves: what I am, how comfortable I am, how secure I am. This is what destroys the work of Christ individually and in the assembly.
With this security, reputation, power, satisfaction, and résumé, you cannot know the power of Christ or the resurrection power of Christ.
In the secular world, you are given a position because you can speak well or do a job well. It is good to identify that a brother has talent; I am not saying otherwise. But the same thinking has been replicated in the church.
Even personal ambition—to pursue ministry or a deeper spiritual life—can fall into this category, because everything becomes personal. It becomes about what I did and what I can do, rather than about the power of the Lord.
It is difficult because you need to change direction. The more you live for yourself, the more you are going in the direction of “I.” But the Lord says, “Come in My direction. Then only you can know Me.”
Through the power of resurrection, we can move in that direction. If the Lord had merely redeemed us, perhaps we would need our own personal strength and ambition to pursue ministry and deeper spiritual knowledge. But there is resurrection. You have risen with the Lord. Therefore, the direction needs to change.
It is difficult. The direction from the secular world should not be carried into the church. Rather, we need to reverse the direction from the church and take it into the secular world. Then only can we know Christ and give Christ.
The world gives so much knowledge that is contrary to Christ. All knowledge that is other than Christ is antichrist. Somehow, as a church, we are not able to give the knowledge of Christ and the resurrection power of Christ to those outside because we ourselves are moving in wrong directions. I am not saying this is true all the time, but at times it is true—like Ephesus. They had fallen; they had lost their first love.
We need to have that first love. With that first love, we set a direction toward Christ, forgetting our own résumé. Then we can know Christ and understand the resurrection power of Christ.
Simply praying, “Lord, I want to see the resurrection power of Christ,” or, “Lord, I want this brother to understand the resurrection power of Christ,” does not help by itself. We need to pray, but this is a life that needs to be lived, not merely prayed.
It should be lived. That is why life is given: to live it. If we are not living in this direction, then we are not using the power of resurrection. This is overcoming power. That is why God asks all the assemblies about overcomers: “Overcomers, overcomers, overcomers.”
The third point is Colossians 3: the risen life. The first point is having first love. The second is setting a direction away from self and toward Christ. The third is action.
Colossians 3:1 says:
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Now God is calling for action. When I was reading this chapter, I saw do’s and don’ts. I thought, “We are born-again believers. We do not go in a legalistic way. We do not consider do’s and don’ts.” But the Holy Spirit has a purpose.
If the Holy Spirit was not interested in action, He would not have written these instructions. I am not saying we need to live merely by a list of do’s and don’ts, but it is important to examine ourselves.
We have become so “spiritual” that we think whatever we feel is right must be the Spirit telling us. That is how the enemy is deceiving people now. In many charismatic meetings, everything they think is assumed to be coming from the Spirit of the Lord.
Colossians 3 gives instructions concerning the sins of the flesh and suffering in verses 3 and 5, and concerning speech and relationships in verses 8 and 9. But my eyes were drawn to verses 9 and 10: put off the old man and put on the new man.
Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.
This is action expected from people who have risen with the Lord. We know how to dress, how to go, and how to speak when we go to the office. When we come to church, we do the same. So we know what it means to take off and what it means to put on.
“Put off the old man with his deeds” and “put on the new man” are deliberate statements. The phrase calls for a decisive break from past behavior and attitudes that are inconsistent with the life of Christ.
We do not drift into holiness. There are chances that we drift into unholiness, but we do not drift accidentally into holiness. Has anybody drifted accidentally into holiness? No, right?
We choose to put off. We choose to put on. We choose to put off the clothing of sin, which we can do by the grace of the Lord. This putting off and putting on is very important in the Christian life.
Putting off the old man and putting on the new man refers to a positional change which has already been achieved in Christ. You are not trying to put on the new man so that you may become good. Your position has already changed; therefore, you put on this change.
This is not legalism for salvation. It is like this: if you are selected for a football team, you have to put on the right clothing when you go to the match. We are in an eternal match.
It is not that we come on Sunday, put on Christ, and then remove Him afterward. In my early Christian life, my wife used to say, “You are so spiritual on Sunday, but slowly it reduces from Monday to Saturday.”
That is a fact. It may sound funny, but it is a fact. We did not change our day; we did not put off. We come, receive, pray after the message, and go. But somehow we are not putting off because we are not taking deliberate action every day.
Then we become weaker and weaker. Our day-to-day life must align with the risen life.
It sounds complicated to me when I read it. I do not know whether reading these do’s and don’ts can really help, but I feel that this is a great provision the Lord has given for weaker people like us. From Colossians 3:18, it speaks about wives, husbands, children, and more. We can put on Christ in those places.
If your day-to-day life is not reflecting the putting on of Christ, then we are not living that victorious life. We have excellent knowledge, but action is lacking.
The Lord may be thinking, “What else should I give them? I have given My resurrection power, but they are willfully not putting on the new man. In their day-to-day life, they are not ready to live the resurrection life.”
Resurrection power is not a magic thing where you pray and pray and surrender, and then the Lord gives you a light called resurrection power. It is a deliberate choice to put on the new man.
When the Spirit of the Lord speaks about putting off and putting on, He gives a list very clearly. I am not saying we need to follow rules for their own sake, but they help us see where in our lives we are not putting on Christ.
You may be a great Christian, but in marriage life, children’s life, or office life, there may be places where you act as though you have not put on Christ. The “I,” your résumé, and your own standing rise up and say, “I am successful. I am not satisfied,” or whatever it may be.
That is what destroys the life of the church. When I say “the church,” it attacks first the individual, then the family, then the church. It has a process.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Lord has brought these things before us. The risen life is a deliberate-action life. It is not magic, where somebody holds you and gives you power and then you begin walking with that power. That is not Christian life.
Christian life is deliberate action. That is why, when Paul wrote these things, he counted everything as loss. He knew it. He left himself.
If Paul wanted, he could have used his own earthly résumé to convince intellectual people and make at least a few follow Christ easily. But Paul chose not to go in that direction. Likewise, Paul chose this in every aspect of his life.
Today, the Lord is encouraging all of us to choose deliberately to live a risen life in our individual life, in our family life, and in our church life. May the Lord bless this word.
Dear Lord, we look at Thy throne, thanking You for the risen life. Lord, we always want to know Jesus Christ and want to know the resurrection power, but Lord, everything is given unto us, and yet we deliberately live in our own selfish life.
Lord, we are so busy doing the things that need to be done in Christian life, but we have forgotten the first love. Because of this, we are not able to do the first works. As the Word says, “Remember and repent.”
Lord, remind us from where we have fallen, so that we will repent—not just emotionally, but by setting a new direction.
Lord, help us to know that our own self, our own capabilities, satisfaction, power, and recognition are the things which keep us away from Christ. Sometimes we think all these things are given by You, and we try to use these things to convince You and work in Thy presence.
Lord, help us to set the direction. Let the direction not be toward us, but toward You, losing all that we have and all that we think is great. The greatest things of the world fall short before the things You have prepared for us.
Lord, help us deliberately to put off the old man and put on the new man. Lord, we cannot do it by ourselves, but thank You, Lord, that through the overcoming power, through the resurrection power, we can do it.
Lead us, Lord, to walk the risen life in day-to-day life. It is not only when we come to church, when we read the passage of the Word, or when we read somebody’s autobiography.
Lord, let this putting on of the new man be continuous in our life—an everyday choice whether to put on the new man or not, in every context of our life and in every action of our life.
Lord, teach us. We are unwise and unworthy people, Lord, so that we could continuously walk in the power of resurrection. Once again, we give You all glory and honour. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.