If you are a follower of Jesus, who you are in him is way more powerful than anything else happening in the world right now.
When Jesus said in John 10 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.
Jesus was not talking about some future reality like, oh, when you die and go to heaven someday, then you'll have this abundant life.
But you have to kind of survive the world first in order to access that life later after you die.
No, maybe you've heard that quote unquote gospel before, but no, the verb tense here is present.
The life Jesus is talking about isn't merely like a good life, the abundance of material goods or physical well-being, it's so much more than that.
The Greek word is Zoe, and it means the very life of God himself.
So Jesus is saying in John 10 10, I came that you may have my life and have it in abundance, not in small measure, not a little bit of Jesus right now to help get you to survive this world so that one day you can have all of Jesus in heaven.
No, it's his life right now in fullness.
And here's what's bothering me.
I keep meeting Christians.
I was this type of Christian, good people, sincere people, but they don't actually believe that this is possible, not for them, not now, not in this crazy world.
We just got to get out and get to heaven someday.
And that's when we can really be transformed fully.
No, Jesus did not just come to save you from hell.
He came that you would experience God's life, his power, his peace, his continual, never leaving presence that will transform you and transform the world around you.
And if that is feeling out of reach, I get it.
I used to believe the same thing.
But I think that creation is paying a price of unbelieving believers.
We're living in a unique cultural moment right now.
People are not just struggling with life.
They seem to be genuinely afraid of it.
And I think the statistics tell the story.
Things like anxiety, depression, suicide rates, they're climbing, particularly among young people.
And it hit me that we could end up with a generation that's more afraid of living than dying.
And if we followers of Jesus are not aware of what Jesus actually came to give us, we could be preaching a, quote unquote, gospel that feeds that fear.
We could be believing a gospel that feeds that fear in our own hearts.
Jesus did not come to just give us hope for a better life when we die.
He came to give us his life, the very life of God, so that we can actually live victoriously in this world, not just in the world to come.
The gospel, the good news, that's what gospel means, is not Jesus died and rose from the dead so that one day you'll die and raise in heaven.
No, this is the gospel.
Jesus Christ died as you and you were raised as him.
Let's look at scripture.
Romans 6, it says that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life.
Zoe, the life of God himself, not someday, but now, present tense.
Later in that same Romans 6, it says in verses 10 and 11 that the death he died, he died to sin once and for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
And it says in the same way, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
And then the next verse, don't skip it, verse 12, it's important.
Embrace it.
Embrace the power and the authority that the gospel gives you.
It says, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body.
Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourself to God as those who have been brought from death to life.
Right before the cross, Jesus is talking to his disciples in John 14, 20, and he says something that should rip every defeating thought from our head and every ounce of unbelief from our hearts.
In John 14, 20, Jesus says, in that day, you will know that I am in my father, you are in me, and I am in you.
Okay, so get this, the same union that exists between the Godhead, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that perfect, unbreakable, intimate oneness, that's the union that you and I have in Christ.
So as he is, so are we in this world, verse John 14, 17.
He in you than he that is in the world. 1 John 4, 4. Christ is in you. It's in the Bible.
His life is flowing through you right now. Jesus did not come to simply cushion the blow of sin
for us. It still leads to death and perhaps at times even a longing for death. God is gracious,
sin is not. Sin punishes itself. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life,
Zoe, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Before sin is a behavior, it's a belief, and the belief is
I am separated from God. And that goes all the way back to Genesis. The offer from the serpent
was eat this fruit, be like God. The lie that Adam and Eve believed was that they were not
already in union with God and that they needed to become something else apart from him. And then we
see all through the Old Testament how this belief plays out. When people hold fast to this belief
that they're separated from God and then they try to do more to get back to him or do something
else to become something apart from him, it gets weird. It gets so destructive. If you and I, as
followers of Jesus, we have a belief that we're disconnected from God, life becomes terrifying.
Every challenge feels insurmountable. Every failure feels final. Every risk feels like
it could, you know, destroy us. And here's what's so crazy. People in religion live that way. I used
to live that way as a Christian, so caught up in the rituals and rules to try to get closer to God.
But as followers of Jesus, we're not trying to get close to God because we're already one with him.
You're not trying to access Christ's peace from the outside. His peace flows through you
from the inside because you are one with him. His joy is your joy. His strength is your strength. His
courage is your courage. Not because you're trying really hard to be like him, but because you
believe and you know the truth. There's no separation between his life and yours. When we
preach that gospel, that's the good news that we get to share with others. If we, as Christ
followers, are only living to die and get to heaven, the world is going to continue to live dead.
You cannot live disconnected from your union in Christ through unbelief and expect to restore
distorted identities to those in this world. We will only continue to enable more identity,
confusion, and distortion if we live with that unbelief. And it's what James calls in
scripture double-mindedness, and he says it will cause you to be unstable in all you do.
I don't want to live that way. So let's get practical. How do we actually live from union
instead of separation? How do we break out of this sphere and step into the abundant life
that Jesus came to give us? Well first, we have to stop trying to get what we already have.
I used to be so exhausted in my Christian walk because I was trying to earn and achieve and
access something that God had already given me. So we should stop praying for God to give us peace
because he's already the Prince of Peace that's living in us. Let's stop begging him for strength.
Christ's strength is already flowing through you and I. We don't have to ask God to come close,
to come into the room, to show up. He's already in us. The question isn't, will God give me what
I need? The question that we need to really solidify the answer to in our heads and hearts
is, will I believe that he is who he says he is and I am who he says I am? So something I've done
instead of asking, I've started thanking the Lord for the things that he's already given me.
Second, we need to identify the lies that we're believing. I think that's helpful. We don't need
to spend a lot of time there, but what are we afraid of right now? What feels insurmountable
to you? What's making you anxious? What's keeping you up at night? Ask yourself, what am I believing
about God or about myself that is making me feel so afraid? Because fear always reveals a belief
of separation somewhere. Like, I feel like God's abandoned me. I feel like he's not going to show
up. I feel like he doesn't like me. He's not pleased with me. If you're terrified, you're
believing a lie about who God is right now. So let's name it. Let's bring it to the light and
then speak the truth over it. Go to scripture. I'm not separated from God. Christ in me the hope
of glory. His life is my life. Nothing can separate me from his love. Another thing we can do is we
can start to take that truth and begin declaring our union. This is not positive thinking, okay?
This is not like, let's just think a good thought. This is agreeing with what God has already said
is true about you. This is choosing to be true to the truth, choosing to trust the truth. So when
you wake up in the morning, before you check your phone, before you start going through your to-do
list, before you brush your teeth, speak it out loud. And if you're like, I don't know what to say,
go to scripture. Here's some ideas. Christ is in me. I am in Christ as he is. So am I in this world.
Greater is he
that is in me than anything else in this world. I am more than a conqueror through him that loves me.
And this is not you trying to change your reality to match the truth. This is not declaring to make
something happen. This is reminding yourself of what has already happened. This is reminding
yourself of what is already your reality. And then we're going to practice living from it and
not towards it. So we're going to stop trying to live like we're trying to reach some spiritual
mountaintop, where we'll finally feel like we've arrived and we're close to God and we're full of
maturity. You're already there. We're growing in maturity every day, but we are already seated
in Christ, with Christ in heavenly places, Ephesians 2.6. So when you face any challenge
today, you are not doing it from the bottom, okay? You are raised and seated with Christ,
looking at your situation and talk about it with him from that place, that perspective of being
above and not beneath. Practice doing life with Christ because you're one with him and his life
is now your life. Finally, always look to Jesus, okay? When we don't know what this looks like,
I don't know what to do. Look to Jesus. How did he handle opposition? How did he respond to
hostility? How did he love people? How did he confront sin? How did he rest in the Father?
He's not just our example. He's our life. And it says the same spirit that raised Jesus from the
dead now lives in us. It dwells in us. You are in Christ. Christ is in you. His life is flowing
through you right now. And that life is stronger than your fear. It's bigger than any circumstance
you're facing. It's more powerful than any news headline, any unhinged social media posts you
might come across today, anything trying to still kill or destroy. Who you are in Christ is bigger
than that. Jesus came that we will have life and have it abundantly, not someday, but right now.
So let's go live it.