The key was faith in God. It must be one or the other. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Please do not get in God's way. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what …the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe, in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places”. This new life of devotion to God and Christ means that we have new attitudes and actions. ILLUS - 2 Kings 5:1-14. And, do we realize that because it has begun it will continue until we find ourselves faultless and blameless, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing in the presence of God in the glory? The power for this struggle came from God through Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What can we do to remove any obstacles of weakness that we tend to inadvertently place in our own way? Paul told the Corinthian Christians: II Corinthians 4:16-17 Therefore we do not lose heart. All these spinning spheres in the heavens are maintained and sustained by God's power; everything is ordered by Him. This power of God that raised Christ from His tomb can do the same for us. Again, in writing to the Philippians, Paul says in Philippians 1:6, "being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. First, the greatness of the power in and of itself, and second, how we can be sure that this great power is working in us. Paul uses the best terms available, the surpassing greatness, the "exceeding greatness,"but they are not a sufficient description, so he adds to them by saying, "according to the working of His mighty power. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. Whenever the scriptures speak of the Almighty God, we need to train ourselves to see the whole Godhead in that statement. It is mysterious, it is miraculous, and it is incomprehensible, but we know the effects, we appreciate the results, and we are aware of the fact that it has taken place. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. He still sees the same bottle, yet it is not the same. He has made us alive; and if we are alive we are no longer dead. Salvation is the result of God's power at work—in us and through us. Sermon by Rick Crandall. If we do not pray for the messages, then we will not receive all that is meant for us. Disposition involves customary moods and attitudes toward the life around one. teaches that we are saved by grace through faith when God by the power He displayed in the resurrection of Christ raises us up together with Him. Again, they were all physical things. We Have To Do What It Says. Principle 2: How we can be sure that this great power is working in us? Countless explanations concerning the nature of his thorn in the flesh have been offered, among them chronic problems (such as malaria, migraine headaches, and epilepsy), or perhaps a disability in speech. The design of Isaiah 30:15 is to give a reason for the destruction that should come upon the Israelites. John 15:2 says that those who bear fruit, he prunes so that they can bear more fruit. We have to know "the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.". The Book of Revelation reveals that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the Almighty. The church was going to advance. We know that it has happened. Even after spending a week in prayer and fasting, we may still feel like we don’t have the power to do God’s will in our lives. Sermon illustrations: Power. ). So today I’d like to address … Although God has given limited authority and power to mankind, He still often actively intervenes showing His power in miraculous works, especially of deliverance. So here is the important question: what does all of this mean for you and me? In describing the power of God, Paul seems to struggle with human language to describe the power God uses. If they really believed in God’s power, they would know God’s power can just as well sustain us through suffering and affliction as it can deliver us from suffering and affliction. It can raise us out of any sin. God has the power to forgive and defeat sin. As He made His dead Son in the grave alive, He makes us alive spiritually. 1:18) Introduction: Our theme for today’s sermon is “the gospel, the power of God”. He made physical things; it was not spiritual things that He was making. And so we are regenerated with new life. On a radio program, one interviewer asked a Satan worshipper, "Why would you become a Satan worshipper?" What is new is a new disposition. He is not given a new brain; he is not given a new intelligence, or anything else. And that is what is happening to us; this eternal, illimitable might of God has been working energetically in us. Isaiah 40:22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. That reason was that God had indicated to them the path of truth and safety, but they chose not to follow it, and refused to put confidence in Him. He looked at it as God storing up goodness to use when it was needed. The God who created us recreates us into His image when we become Christians. What can the person who is dead in sin and under the wrath of God do for himself? The apostle Paul gives us a glimpse of the power of God when he writes of “his incomparably great power for us who believe. It is not mere static or potential power; energy is power that has been liberated, and is actually working to accomplish something. In scripture, the only true strength is the omnipotent sovereignty exercised by God, or ability that finds its source in God. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. Ephesians 1:20-21 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. Be holy for God is holy. God used this power to resurrect Jesus from the dead. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. Jesus made the promise to give us this power and authority in Matthew 16:18 when he said to Peter: "The gates of Hades will not be able to withstand or withhold the advancing church." We had no appetite spiritually, no understanding spiritually. The making of a Christian is the result of the manifestation of the might of God exerting itself. The Power of HIS PRESENCE. God's power not only surpasses our power of expression, it surpasses our power of comprehension! 8:26) 3) Even the angels assist in helping us (Heb. If we fail to realize the greatness of God's power in us, we will never quite realize the power of death. It will always be totally inadequate, but he tries. It is not as though nothing is happening. How can we access the power of God's Word? what is the immeasurable greatness of His power in us who believe." We have positive proof that there is nothing too hard for God, and that nothing is impossible for Him. Because we are human and we still have a great deal of human nature in us. Consider "quietness" of mind. The secret of Christian joy is to believe what God says in His Word, and act on it. In addition to all our own weaknesses and disobedience, our last enemy is death. When does God raise us up with Christ. This was to happen on the Day of Pentecost, when the power of God's Spirit would become operative in the life of the church. It is the love of God placed within us. Or why did Paul not choose one of these or other similar events; but instead, he chose the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead? Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The world as a whole is still cut off. How does He do this? If that is the case, we will not have much hope. God doesn't always use the most important people. He prays here, that the Ephesians will know what is the "exceeding greatness"—not only the greatness, but the exceeding greatness. "We know that God is great and powerful, but we do not have a clue as to how He is going to do that. It is understandable that Paul would consider his thorn in the flesh a hindrance to his performing of a more effective ministry, and that he would repeatedly appeal to God for its removal. Acts 5:12-29. God’s power is only accessible to us and will only protect us if we have faith. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit. A better word than "working"would be "energy." The Power of HIS CROSS; 3. Paul is speaking of the power of God working in him. And although we are all given a human spirit when born into this world, there was no divine spark in anybody because we are born children of Adam, born without God's Holy Spirit. "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . He has the power to make all things new. The greatest show of His power of deliverance is in the area of our individual calling and conversion to His truth, to His way of life. Luke 24:46 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. 1st Chronicles 13:14. Grayson Baptist Church – Aug. 18, 2013. God's goodness never ran out, because David could go to God in prayer and receive all he needed. Sometimes God withholds His strengthening of us until we do something. Also referring to his own preaching, Paul tells the Colossian members: Colossians 1:29 To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily. When we are called we have our responsibility to obey and overcome, but the entire teaching of the New Testament emphasizes above all else that we can do nothing until God has first done something in us. It's God's Word that transforms us from defenceless ordinary people into powerful warriors, armed and dangerous. The word of God has the power to reveal to us certain things that we could not know in any other way. Holiness connects you to the holy power of God. The Holy Spirit is also God-given spiritual power to overcome. The power of God shows us that God is not a fairytale for grown-ups but a wonderful reality. Since he goes on (in 2:1-6) to state that when we were dead in our sins, God raised us up and seated us with Christ in the heavenly places, his point here is that the same power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at God’s right hand is the power that saved us. God has made us alive.He has renewed us. We cannot receive any benefit until something has been done to satisfy the wrath of God, because we were not only dead and a creature of lusts and controlled by the ruler of this world, but were by nature the children of wrath. Everything in God’s nature has a tie to the glorious Gospel of Christ. All he wanted was strength to keep on living for God and magnifying His Word. 7. This is why we often find Paul and the other apostles referring to it as "a new creation"—"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.". "O Death, where is your sting? So Paul continues to help us with an illustration of it. Do we truly realize the exceeding greatness of His power in us? II Corinthians 12:7-10 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. This is an ongoing daily process. God is the author of creation, and Christ is the Word or the instrument by which He does it. This same power is available to us today! What happens to us after we die. It was not possible because God's mighty power cannot be overcome, conquered, or prevailed over by anything. When God calls an alcoholic who had eyes and could look at a bottle of beer, wine or hard liquor, and see certain things, and then he receives the Holy Spirit, he still has eyes. He walks with God, and has adequate spiritual strength to face the challenges of life, including war. He has called people for salvation out of a world that is completely (except for us) cut off from God since Adam. Principle 1: The process of Christian conversion and ultimate salvation is a demonstration of the power of God in us. The apostle Peter, in the first sermon delivered under the auspices of the Christian church on that first Day of Pentecost at Jerusalem, says in Acts 2:24, "whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.". True power, which is the ability to exercise authority effectively, belongs to God alone. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of understanding, imparting to the physical brain spiritual intellect, the ability to comprehend spiritual knowledge. You can see in all of these things that Jesus did that there is not anything that God cannot do if He wants to. . 3. I Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. God has given us new life. What power does he have? God's promises alone can empower us to live in such a way as to confound the world. God, by His mighty action, puts a new disposition into our mind and heart. POWER of THE CROSS 3. He tells us that God has placed His Spirit with in us. Jesus Christ shares this power, and members of God's church do too. Rather, his message was discernible by the power of God. Paul is very concerned about the Ephesian members (and us as well). And so, mankind has a great deal of God-given power over the earth to care for and properly use it. I Thessalonians 1:5-6 For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. Before this new Spirit of life in Christ came into us, we were dead in trespasses and sins and subject to a very different spirit—"the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. It is interesting that Paul illustrates the might of God by the resurrection of Christ rather than by the Creation. The energy of the strength of God's might has already been manifested in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. No one has power unless God allows it. We can advance spiritual strengthening by having the joy of God. No human can make himself a Christian; God alone makes Christians. They trembled and feared as they thought of this power that was there waiting to receive them. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18:may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19:and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Because I don’t want any one of you to think that because we believe in the absolute sovereignty of God that that would make us fatalists, uncaring and impractical men, like other religionists who say in the face of disasters, “The will of Allah!” Paul shows us that this cannot be so; he was full … One of my two favorite displays of God’s power in scripture: The Resurrection of Christ. No, what happens is that this new disposition given to the Christian directs his faculties in an entirely different way. Romans 8:1-5 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Something must happen before we who were dead and under the anger of God could ever be made alive. When we turn to Revelation 21 and read of the Lamb in the midst and all the glory, and that outside are dogs and all that is evil, we have our doubts. "To make alive," means "to impart life. They have not been able … All things work, and work together, because God has made them that way. with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. This morning we want to hear from God about “The Power to Change.” This morning I want to show you the resources that are already yours in Christ by which you can break free from those fleshly patterns that have a grip on you. We can advance spiritual strengthening by quietness and confidence in response to God. Even still, he is praying for them without ceasing, and praying that they will advance into greater knowledge and understanding of what God is working out in us, and the potential that that opens up. He struggled and agonized like an athlete in an arena would. All these things, the pressures of life and of circumstances, conspire together to make it seem impossible for us to find time for preparation for this glory. Paul also tells us that Christians are God's workmanship. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake.
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