 just so it's getting cooler here so anyway all right I'll come back for this next lecture we're going to continue from where we paused any questions on the previous lecture any thoughts any things anyone wants to ask or discuss all so let's go forward so we were talking about you know how to live this life in Christ right so we said first we said we live out of that completed work the work that God has completed for us in Christ we live out of that second we live with renewed mind heard we must walk in the spirit then we must walk in Christ as walking in conformity in alignment to Christ is then we are to be rooted in the person of Christ be rooted in him and then we move forward now to talk about Paul also said Colossians 2 7 be rooted in him and built up built up in him built up now he's using that word built up actually it's the idea of a building you know it's like construction you know you're you're constructing a building layer by layer you are being built up so that's the idea he's talking about us being built up layer by layer like how a building is being constructed and of course he says as you know built up and then will be established in the faith and we will overflow with Thanksgiving now that word built up really you know we we need to look at how Paul is using those those words in other places in Scripture to understand what's he trying to get at right and so you know if you go to Ephesians 4 13 and 15 and and again I'm just pulling this out from the classic amplified by the classic edition but he uses the same word built up you know and here he talks about being built up in the context of growing up to in all things to be like Jesus so then you understand okay what's he having in his mind when he says we have to be built up in Christ because he's using that same word and he's explaining it further in Ephesians so he says to be built up really means that we are growing up into Christ in everything or the amplified Bible says we're growing into mature manhood the completeness of personality you know which is you know going into the full measure of Christ's own perfection or grow up in everywhere and all things into him right so to be built up is to grow up in everywhere in all things into Christ so as we are living this life in Christ part of the process is we are becoming more like Christ we are growing up in all things to be like him so we are living in conformity to who he is we are rooted in the person of Jesus drawing our strength and our stability and our source of life from him and we also growing up to become like him and we understand this you know we understand in the Bible there are different stages of spiritual growth the spiritual birth we have babies and then we grow into mature maturity of perfection in Christ so there's this process of growth we understand spiritually so think about this again you know although we are complete in Christ yet we are growing up in Christ right so the completeness is the spiritual thing God has done for us the practical thing is look we're all growing up now in Christ we're being built up in him and we're being built up into what into being like him in all things we are being built up or growing up to become like him so our prayer must be Jesus I want to be more like you in every way it says grow up in every way and in all things so in every area of life you know personal family ministry social life that is in how we relate to other people in every area of life our prayer is Lord we want to grow up in all things to be like Jesus in every way grow up to be like him so that's part of our living in our life in Christ letting the Lord build us up make us more like him and that should be a constant prayer I want to be more like Jesus if we are not pursuing that then we won't be able to live out of our life in Christ because that's the ultimate purpose when you're living out your life from him your life in Christ the ultimate purpose we will see this shortly is for us to become like him and so that's the goal that's what we are striving towards and the last in him instruction we find in Scripture is to abide in him and this instruction was given to us by Jesus himself and we know this passage in John 15 right that very familiar passage on 15 1 to 8 Jesus said I am the wine true wine my father is the wine dresser and you know we are all we are all branches in that wine so Jesus the wine we are branches in the wine and the branches of course bear fruit the branches are connected to the wine and the life of the wine is flowing in the branches but throughout this passage Jesus gives us an instruction his instruction is abide in me and he repeats this over and over again abide in me abide in me abide in me abide in me abide in me right so he's saying look I'm the wine you're the branches you've got to abide in me and I've got to be abiding in you my words are going to be abiding in you meaning this whole connectedness must be there so there are these instructions the Bible has given to us on how to live this new creation life it says we have to be renewed in our minds where to walk in the spirit we have to walk in him we have to be rooted in him we have to be built up in him and then Jesus himself gave us this instruction we've got to abide in him so the word abide it is a very simple word it simply means to stay where you are you know remain continue 12 you know settle down there I mean no changing in position talking about us being continually connected to Jesus because you know he gave this illustration of the wine and the branches obviously we know if you break the wine at the branch of the wine the branches going to die it'll dry up then it's going to be just used as firewood so he's saying look you got to stay connected because the moment you see is being connected you can't bear fruit you will also dry up and it's of no use so stay connected and this whole part of abiding in Jesus you know is really elaborated by John in his episode especially first episode you know he talks about abiding in him and abiding in him now you keep his word we know that we are in him abide in him no he repeats this word abiding in Christ in his episode right and by just looking at scripture we can say look when somebody's abiding in Christ what will happen they will take on the mind of Christ they will be thankful in everything they will be taught by the Spirit the Holy Spirit is teaching them by the word of God they're going to be walking in obedience they're going to be walking in holiness in other words you know for us to stay connected with him you've got to keep out things that disconnect us from him now when I said disconnect I'm not saying you know he will just throw us off and be spiritually lose our position in Christ no it's talking about relationship that connectedness you and I be abiding in him and he abiding in us through his word so there's that spiritual harmony there's a spiritual connectedness that we have in Jesus and there are things like sin and you know other things that disrupt that connectedness so we keep those things away and protect our abiding in Christ protect our connectedness with him because that's very precious and it's in that place that his life can be expressed through us we can bear fruit people will see Jesus in our lives and so on okay so if you put this all together what is the scripture instructing us to live out of our life in Christ scripture is teaching us to renew our mind walk in the spirit walk aligned to Christ be rooted in Christ be built up in Christ and to abide in Christ this one scripture is instructing us as you live like this and if you live like this you'll be able to live out of that union that you have with Christ and live out of your identity live out of your inheritance that is in Jesus and that's our goal renew your mind to that but in any situation who I am in Christ what is my inheritance I'm going to walk in it my I'm gonna walk aligned to who Jesus is what does the Holy Spirit saying I'm gonna follow his instruction I'm gonna be rooted in the person of Christ not be shaken from that I'm gonna make sure that in everything I'm gonna grow up to be like him and I'm gonna protect my connectedness with him so that nothing should interfere with that you live like that we will live out of our life in Christ now the last closing thought that I just want to leave with us is why did God bring us to be in Christ he brought us in him so that we could all be like him so God brought us into Christ so that we could be like Christ and that's that's really the heart of the father right he wants a people he wants a family of sons and daughters and he made Jesus who is the son of God to be the prototype and we're all to be conformed to that image and now in order to make that possible he said I'll put you in that image I'll put you into that mold you know that makes absolute sense right suppose you want something in a certain image what do you do you put it into the mold so example Jesus the mold says I want you all to be like him so I'll put you all in the mold he put us in Christ now we're in him and he says okay the work is complete I've put you in Christ the work is complete but in everyday life I want you to live out of that so that in practice in practical life you will also be like him that's what he's after so we are in him to be like him and you can find scriptures on this first on to six says he who abides in him as you're talking about being in Christ what'll happen you are to walk just as he walked now think about it walk just as you walk what a high standard I mean to conduct yourself live your life just as Jesus lived if you are in him live like him be like him is what the scripture is saying let me push on 417 it says love has been perfected among us happens we have love of God filling us perfecting itself in us and so we have boldness of the day of judgment so we're not afraid of judgment day no we're not afraid of it why because as he is so we in this world because we are right now living just like Jesus to put it in simple terms we are living just like Jesus or all that Jesus is so are we in this world as he is so are we our life is in this world is the same as his so yeah here to be like him and we are living in this world like him so that's the ultimate enough we are not obviously we have not arrived yet in the natural spiritual God has done the work in the natural it's an ongoing process of course but that's our goal to be like him and that's what we should be after Lord I I just want to live this life the way you would live it and I want people to see Jesus in me so we are in Christ to be like Christ okay now let me let's do a quick review of this entire course I'm just looking at the course outline the very first document I gave you know so what did we cover in this course of our identity in Christ and I divided this into initially I divided into 12 then I made it 13 sections let's review this so in the first section we talked about the revelation that Jesus himself said that we will receive the revelation of our being in him and him being in us and the apostle Paul started writing about this revelation then in section two we looked at what does it mean to be a new creation you know we have a new identity we have we're totally new and the use that you know that analogy or a comparison of how an orphan boy in the slum is adopted by every family you know how what a what a difference it would make in his life this thing is in a similar way but in a much greater way God took us into his family everything became new and then we understand who we are and a new creation it'll change the way we relate to God it'll change the way we relate to one another it'll change the way we face life situations it'll change the way we confront the morning powers it'll change our own image of ourselves it'll change everything then we said you know some of the key things we see in scriptures we have justified we have made righteous in the eyes of God there is no condemnation against us we have been made holy so God has already said we are holy people we are called saints and therefore we live like saints because he made our saints then we spent two weeks on you know being identified with Christ that is we are identified with Christ's death burial resurrection ascension and seating at the right hand of the father we're identified with that what happened to him happened to us and there's there's relevance to it now our old man is crucified our we're buried the whole life is gone we've been raised we have a new life we have been ascended we are separated from this world we are seated we are in a place of authority then we talked about the fact that we are redeemed now God has taken us out of the powers of darkness he has brought us in his own kingdom Satan has no right over us no claim over us then we talked about the fact that we are free we are free from man made rituals man made ideas we are free from our vain forms of worship and traditions so we are free in Christ and yet we exercise our freedom with out of love out of the place of love so love overrides the exercise of our freedom so we don't exercise our freedom in a way that would hurt somebody else or offend somebody else no we are free but we let love guide us then we also said we are children and joint heirs and this is the highest honor that God could give to us to make us his heirs and joint heirs that means he's like come your next in line so to speak yeah your heirs your next in line you're my children I mean this this is no higher honor God could have given to us so we are in that place of high honor that God has put on us in Christ then we talked about the fact that we are blessed we went through so many blessings different blessings so we just call that section blessed but then we listed almost I think about 20 different blessings that we could identify not including the ones we'd already seen earlier we are blessed in Christ to be in Christ also means we are one body that means we are connected to everybody else who's in Christ and so we learn how to live as one body we honor other churches that are also in Christ and we recognize that we also I also I also added one more chapter called the spirit of life in Christ I added it here section five the spirit of life so there we emphasize the work of the spirit in us living this life in Christ so I added that while you're going along then we talked about the fact that we are ministers and ambassadors in Christ we have our ministry in the Lord every one of us we are ministers and we are ambassadors in Christ and lastly in the closing which we did today we talked about the instructions God has given to us on living the in Christ life this is what he's told us this is how you must live because you are in Christ and that's how we live out of our identity and our inheritance and the life that we have in Jesus Christ so that we come to the end of this course in our study what we are going to do is I'm going to put out three assessments I need to work on it and hopefully this week I'll make time to do that I create three simple assessments for you based on this content and put it out in the coursework in the classroom and also the e-learning portal for students who are studying on the e-learning portal and the rest of November is just for you to finish these three assessments and you'll be done with the course that's it but most importantly I want you to live by these things that you've learned and that you put it make it part of your life and I cannot I'm trying to be contained in what I'm saying but you know if there was one thing you tell me what should we teach believers I would say teach them about their identity in Christ that's like the first and the most important thing teach them about that and let it just sink into them and sometimes you have to repeat it you know 10 times the same thing to keep repeating it before it really sits in all of us need that you know because we may not get it the first time so we keep hearing it again and again and again until it really settles into our hearts it's okay this is who I am and we need to be reminded because we tend to forget and so I cannot overemphasize how important this revelation is on our identity in Christ and keep repeating it till it sinks into you and sinks into you know the people that you might be ministering to that it sinks into their hearts that this is who we are and we have to live out of that okay and we are actually working on expanding this as a book and we will release it and then you know you will get the the full PDF will be available on our church website and you can use it for your own spiritual growth and to teach others build them up and yeah so we can strengthen the body of Christ any questions before we close off for today okay yeah I want to thank each of you for being part of this course I hope you found it enriching and useful and we will I'll see you on Friday when we get into our course on when you ramp up our course on faith and yeah it's been a good journey and I trust many of you will continue on I'm next semester we will have some again some good courses I would be usually teaching a how many texts that is how to interpret scripture and I'm not sure what else I teach in the second semester but yeah for those of you who will be going into your third semester yeah again you have some interesting courses as well okay who would like to pray the closing prayer and and then we can dismiss anyone can please pray with the whole class would like to do that hallelujah go ahead Inak shall we pray father we want to say thank you we give you all the glory we give you all the praise thank you for everything you have done for us the gift of life thank you love for this school thank you love for this opportunity to learn at your feet we give you all the glory we say thank you in Jesus name my father my god all we have learned today please love we want to be a doer of your world sinking into our lives and let the reflection of your glory in us in the name of Jesus Christ as we are going to a various offices various work various ministry daddy god almighty you will be with us all the days in the name of jesus and we commit the rest of the lectures into your able hands although it shall be is for signs and wonders in the name of Jesus Christ thank you for our lecture room you have used today we ask you love daddy refreshing and fresh in the name of Jesus Christ strengthen more and more and all the lecturers and all the students in Jesus name I have prayed amen amen amen amen thank you everyone thank you for being part of this course so just look out god bless you just look out for the assessments and I'll see you all again soon god bless bye now bless you sir thank you so much god bless you thank you thank you everyone god bless thank you thank you thank you god bless