From Spiritual Attack to Spiritual Victory: Becoming the Righteousness of Christ

There's an interesting thing that happens to us as we grow as believers. And it's kind of like the more that you learn and the more you grow, the more the things you learned at first becomes the simple things, the boring things, the things that we tend to even later lose sight of. And the moment we do, we find ourselves in bondage. And I think a lot of us are feeling a lot of things right now, and I want to submit to you that some of us are even feeling things that are in great contrast to what God's word is speaking. But our feelings are causing us to doubt. We feel empty. We. We're asking God if we're still okay with them. A battle is raging all around us, and it's trying to keep us from God's kingdom. We wonder even perhaps, has God left us? Look at what has happened. We may even question our salvation or simply our relationship with him. We may feel discouraged at people or situations, disappointed even in ourselves. We may ask, is there something that we aren't doing? Or something more we should be doing? And maybe even we ask if God's fire has left us. God, I don't hear you. I'm not sure what you're saying. What should I do? What is your will? So that's why we have to talk about this. In this teaching, we're going to talk about how to stay close to the kingdom of God, no matter what you feel, what you're going through, and how to stay close to his righteousness that's been given to you. Many of us live in the lies of what the enemy says God thinks. Just like in the garden did God really say is what Satan said. He didn't really come to invent new things as much as take what God has said, because he knows what God says yields authority. Now, so he takes that, and he places his own spin on it to make it sound authoritative in our lives as well. And so one of the biggest issues is that we actually think God is saying something when it wasn't God who said it at all. So let's let God reveal what he thinks. Not what you think, not what Satan thinks, not what the world thinks. None of that matters. What God thinks matters. Ephesians two, one. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Right? So God is saying some things here that's like, wow. Like, you guys were children of wrath. You were carrying out the desires of the body and mind, what you think you were carrying out, what the world thinks you were carrying out, and you were just like the rest of mankind. And then look at what he says next in verse four. He says, but God. See, you once were that way. But God, not but you. But God. God was the one who intervened in your life when you were dead, in your trespasses. And so if he's intervened back then, when you had no hope, when you were dead, why would you think that he's not still intervening constantly? That his thoughts about you are so many that he has your hairs on your head counted? Is he not still calling your name? Does he not still have plans? Is he not still saving you? Is he not still redeeming you? So let's finish that verse. He says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us. Come on. Hallelujah. The great love that he loved us with, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. So hold up, hold up. Like, do we take the word of God seriously? Like, do we believe it for what it says? He says you were dead. What do you mean, I was dead? When was I dead? I mean, I've. As far as I remember, I was born, I lived, and here I am. No, you were dead. There was a time when you didn't know God. And the moment that you do not know God, you are dead spiritually. You had nothing to offer God. Get this, guys. Nothing. You could. It's not like God was looking at you and he was like, well, there's. You know, there's so many things that I need from you. No, God doesn't need anything from me. I had nothing special into myself to offer him, but I was his child. He made me. He loved me. He had so much grace on me, despite my evil actions. And even though I had nothing to offer him but death, he even took that. Yeah, he came in the flesh. He took death from me and from you. He took it upon himself. And he died because he knew that he needed to take death out of you in order to make you alive. Because all of the life that was in him was given to us. It was an exchange. And then death, as it came over him, had no hold upon him, and he was resurrected. And that is the promise we have as well. And so he didn't die and go through all that, take death from you, making you alive, in order for you to simply question the life that is inside of you. See, so many times, even after coming so becoming intimate with what Christ has done for us, as we may at least think, then we come and we start questioning God. Are you really in there? Yeah. Like, is God really putting life in me? Has he really, like, is that for real? To question the life inside of you is to question his death for you. Because his death, as real as that is, was the payment to put life inside of you. You say, well, Peter, I don't feel like there's life inside of me. Stop walking by your feelings and stop and start walking by. What the word of God proclaims is the truth. His death made you alive for you to have a great purpose. To make others around you alive by the power of the spirit that he has died for you to inherit. And so we read on. In verse five, he says, by grace, you've been saved. And raised us up with him. And seated us with him in the heavenly places. Christ Jesus. Okay, what does that even mean? He's saying that he not only died for us, took our death, raised us up, but he seated us with him. But he's not here. He's with the Father in heavenly places. I mean, I'm seated here on the chair, here on earth. How can I be seated in heaven? See, this is what the word of God says, guys. Spiritually, you are seated with him in heaven. In Christ. Remember when God looked upon Christ and he said to Yeshua at his baptism, in you I am well pleased. Matthew 317. That is an amazing thing to say for the living God upon a person. In you, I am well pleased. And yet, that is exactly how the Father remains to see Yeshua. As Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, in him, the Father is well pleased. And so, in the same way, when we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, we have to recognize that the only reason we can do that is the same reason that Christ can. Because of the righteousness of Christ himself. The righteousness of Christ is what pleases the Father and was imputed to us. So when the Father is pleased in Yeshua, in the same way for us who have put faith in him and have been saved by him, the father is pleased. In you, he says, my son, my daughter. In you I am well pleased. Because you've been made so clean by Yeshua. So clean that you can come before the father, in freedom, in confidence, in joy, knowing that you're accepted as a son and as a daughter, you say, well, Peter, I've done a lot of bad stuff. Yeah, we've all done a lot of bad stuff. And that's exactly what makes this miraculous. The fact that despite all the junk that we've done, that he looks upon us and has grace upon us, that we can be seated, even though in some ways this is spiritual, this is difficult for our minds to get in. I get it. I'm seated here, but I'm also seated in heavenly places. That speaks to my position spiritually, that spiritually, I am in heavenly places, in Christ, by the Father already. Look what he says further. Two Corinthians 521. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we may become the righteousness of God. You become. You become a substance that is called the righteousness of God. It is who you are. It is your. Let me just. I just want to get this into your head. This is your identity. This is what makes you a son. This is what makes you a daughter, that you have become the righteousness of God, which is just God. How does that even work? What is the righteousness of God? It is everything that makes God holy, everything that makes Christ holy, every good thing that he's ever done, every bit of love that he had, the compassion he had, the healing he poured out for people, the demons he cast out when he was on the cross, and he took the nails through his hands when he bled and died for us. Everything he did, even though. And went through that, even though he deserved none of it, all of the righteousness that he is now, too. He says, you have now become that. And it's like God. How can I question. Oh, God, forgive me for questioning. Forgive me for questioning what your will is that your will for me is good if your will for my circumstances is good, if. Even though I struggle to hear you today, whether you're still close, man, I've become the righteousness of God according to the scriptures. That is not, guys, we've read it so many times, but have you really digested that? He says further in Ephesians 120 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the one to come. Man, Christ has been given. He's the name above all names he's been given. The highest authority. There is no one. Listen, no one that is higher in authority than Jesus, than Yeshua, than Christ himself. And so if he possessing the highest of all authority in the entire this world, in the kingdom above us, and in this age, and in the age to come, he decides, as he looks upon me, that he is going to show grace to me with how much joy should I respond? How much joy should you have? Because, see, this world, they've got a lot of rulers, a lot of powerful men, a lot of presidents and dictators and all kinds of leaders. And yet it's almost like the more powerful they become, the more corrupt they become, and they oppress the weak. They don't have grace. They rule disastrously upon people. And yet the one who is above all names and has more authority and power than anyone else, he says, I humble myself. I die for you. Whilst you were dead, whilst you had nothing to offer, I did that. So now, after I've redeemed you, why are you questioning where we're at with one another? Why are you questioning whether I still intend to use you? As I have been saying, I want to use you, and as I have been using you, why are you even questioning the guarantee of your faith, the seal of the spirit that I have sealed you with? Why are you questioning whether I'm going to be for you in this trial that you're facing right now? Why are you questioning whether I'm going to provide for you? Why are you questioning whether my salvation is as real for you today as it has always been and will continue to be? Remain close to me, abide in me and I in you, and you will be secure in me and my will. Let's look at what he says regarding that seal of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 113, he says, in him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. So there is an inheritance that is coming, that is, to eat of the tree of life, to live forever, to receive a new body, to be face to face with our king. And as we're on the way to that, though, he says, I'm giving you a guarantee, something to prove to you that that is in your future, and that is the Holy Spirit, that your salvation is proven by the spirit of God, that you in that is now inside of you, that empowers you, that changes you, and as you see him work in you and in your life, even though that can be up and down like life can be hard, we have challenges and trials. But as you see him constantly work in your life, you can be reminded that he is with you, that he is the comforter that seals your inheritance for you. And as long as you continue in the works he has prepared for you, as long as you do not harden your heart against him, as long as you do not rebel against him, the spirit and the truth of God, as long as you keep your eyes and your heart close to the messiah, you are secure. And I guess a lot of what we are talking about now is security. A lot of us struggle to feel secure. You know, this world is not secure. This world is passing away. There's so much, like, shaky ground in this world, so many inheritances in this world that is uncertain. You know, you can have a parents that may be able to leave you a massive inheritance, but even that is uncertain and passing away. But Christ is speaking of an inheritance that he is leaving you that will not pass away, that will not be touched, that will be there for you. As he said, I am preparing a place for you in my father's kingdom. Do you believe that? So let me start concluding here with reminding you just about the depths of his grace, Ephesians two seven. He says, so that in the coming ages he may show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of your undoing. It is a gift of goddess, not a result of your works, so that no one might boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. God has prepared good works for us. See, good works, they don't come out of me. They don't come out of you and of yourself. We were dead. Death is what we could produce, and nothing but death. But because he's redeemed us and put his spirit in us, and he's writing his law in our hearts and changing our nature, he's delivering us from the curse of death that Adam fell into, that virus of sin that came into mankind. We received the cure. And now he said, and guess what? I have also prepared good works for you to walk in them. So he expects of us to walk in good works. He expects good works to be the output of our faith in him, because if he truly is who he says he is, if he's truly as righteous and holy and amazing as he is, then us being his disciples should provoke the power of God to change us more into his image and bring a result of that change as we walk in, the works that comes from him. See, and that's key here, because many of us, we try. We're like, God, I want to do better. I want to be better. Good. I need more works. I need more goodness coming out of me, you know, like, I want to be like an orange that, like, when you squeeze it, you get nice, juicy, fresh orange juice coming out. Like, I want to be that. I don't want to be some rotten fruit. Like, sometimes we depend on ourselves, but we all know that a fruit, it gets its life from the tree it grows on. It doesn't get any life in of itself. The moment you pluck it from a tree, it starts dying. It starts rotting from the inside out. It becomes vulnerable. And so, in the same way as we are grafted into Christ, we ultimately find that we get nourishment from him, that he produces fruit in us. He gives our fruits life. Everyone has fruit. I mean, what kind of fruit, good or bad? So instead of the bad fruit we were producing because we weren't plucked into a healthy tree, now we are plugged into the tree of life, who is Christ and who gives nourishment to us, who is also by the waters of the Holy Spirit, who gives life. And he says, drink of me and you will live forever. Like our fruits needs the living water. Are you depending upon him for those good works, or are you just trying harder yourself at the expense of understanding how much you need him? See, for me, it's God, I. I cannot do anything, Lord. I cannot. I cannot speak about you to people and have anything good come out without you producing fruit in me. God, I can't look after my family, provide for them, be a good example. I can't escape hypocrisy. I can't escape, you know, the lying tongue, the gossips. I cannot escape adulteries of the heart. I cannot escape whatever your sin issue is or was or may be, you cannot escape it without absolute dependence and surrender to him. The more that you think you've got a hold on something, the closer you are to falling, the more you recognize that you need him. The more you recognize that without the tree, you are dead, the more you will be alive, because you will draw near to him. You will depend on him. Not your own mind, not your own flesh, not your own ideas. Yes, God gave us our mind. God gave us our flesh. God gave us. But these things, art can only produce goodness when it comes from reliance on him. And it sounds so simple like, and why am I hammering on this? It's because we talk about it so much, what we do of it, so little. John 1510. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Recognize the love that God has for you first and foremostly, because from there, when you truly grasp his love and his sacrifice, truly you can have faith and trust in him. And from that identity of security that he has prepared for you, that you are his son and his daughter. Now, you can also love other people in the same way you can love them with the love of Christ out for you, because you recognize how much you need him. You recognize how much death you really had when you experience his life for the first time. And then when you see death in the lives of other people, you're able to love them like never before, because you recognize yourself in them, that you were once as they may be right now, that you were once far off, that you were as the rest of mankind as we started this teaching with. And yet it is not out of yourself. But God came into the picture. God saved you. And therefore, how can you boast over someone else who may not have seen what you have seen? Because it wasn't you in the first place that opened your own eyes. It was Christ who opened your eyes. It was Christ who delivered you. It was Christ who put his love inside of you and his spirit inside of you. Therefore, now that the spirit is inside of you, why don't you love them into the same place that you are, a place of deliverance, a place of freedom. We see that it was the compassion of Christ that healed people. As he looked upon the crowds of compassion, he started praying for them, and they got healed. And so if you want to see miracles, you want to see people delivered, you want to see life come out of your life, then have compassion as Christ had compassion. Put down your pride, put down what you think you know. Put down all of your selfish ambitions. Die to yourself so that Christ can rise in you, so that you can become truly, truly one of his own, a disciple known for the fruit that you carry plugged into the tree. Father, I pray for everyone listening right now that you would come, Lord, and give them life. That you would come and deliver them, father. O Lord, deliver them of selfish ambition. Deliver us, o father, from any conceitedness. Deliver us from pride. Deliver us from thinking of religiously that we are more righteous and of ourselves not seeing that you did it all. Lord, help us to be humble so that we can be loved to one another, to other people. Help us to be a serving heart. Help us Lord, to prepare the way for your second coming by looking after the poor. For you have said what you do to the least of these, you do to me. Lord, help us. Help me to treat the least in this world as the greatest in your kingdom. For you are the greatest in your kingdom. Help us to serve. Help us to love. Help us to sacrifice. I pray all this in the name of Yeshua the Messiah. Amen. Thank you so much for joining me this week. May the father bless and keep you. Subscribe to this channel for more like this one. I want to say a special thank you to all of our partners who made this teaching and every other teaching this month possible. All. I love you guys and I'll see you in the next one. Shalom.