A Matter Of Power

“A Matter of Power”

About six years ago, something terrible happened to man named Sid Taylor and his wife Christy. It seems that one afternoon, Sid was underneath Christy’s car working on the steering linkage, when the jack that was holding the front end up suddenly gave way and the chassis of the car came crashing down on Sid’s chest. Not being able to breathe, he couldn’t call for help so he frantically kicked his toolbox over with his feet. Christy heard all the noise and ran from the kitchen to the garage and found her husband trapped underneath the car. Terrified, she ran back into the kitchen and called 911 for help. Sadly, before the fire and rescue squad arrived, Sid had already died of asphyxiation.

And only six months later, a very similar tragedy occurred. A man was putting an exhaust system on his truck in the garage when, again the jack slipped and the truck came down on him. He was able to get out one short yell for help; his wife heard his yell and came running to see what was wrong. When she came into the garage, she saw that the truck had fallen on her husband and he was only minutes away from death-- she didn’t run for the phone to call 911......nor did she go across the street to get the neighbors to help her. None of these common sense thoughts crossed her mind, she simply grabbed hold of the truck’s bumper, and this forty-six year old woman lifted the front of that truck up high enough for her husband to roll out from underneath it! Thanks to his wife, the man survived this incident with only two broken ribs and a whole new respect for the woman he’d been married to for twenty five years.

Needless to say, it required an awesome amount of power to save this man’s life--where did this power come from? Sure, it came from God.. But a lot of unspiritual people would tell me; Dwight, that’s not a miracle--- God didn’t do that-haven’t you ever heard of adrenaline? They can even go as far as to explain that it is a hormone secreted by the adrenal gland located just above each kidney. That this particular hormone is secreted all the time but an extra amount is injected into the system in times of distress. And large quantities of this chemical could sometimes provide a person with almost super-human strength. After they have done their best to explain this in medical and scientific terminology, I would just smile and nod my head in agreement and say; just as I said, God did it!

Now, why did I tell you both stories? Well, because the power to save was present in both instances, but it was only summoned in the second. The first lady looked at the car on her husband and used her head “knowing” that she couldn’t pick the car up and tried to get help somewhere else. The second lady saw her husband dying underneath his truck and knew only one thing; that truck was going to move. And with that attitude and faith, the truck did indeed move and her husband was saved.

In the same way that most all of us have this extra boost of potential strength within our grasp through adrenaline, we also have another form of power available to us as Christians; power that is far beyond our capability even to comprehend. But, just like that first lady that failed to save her husband because she didn’t realize that this power was available, many Christians allow themselves to become victims of circumstance instead of claiming this power of God and becoming victorious through Christ.

Jesus told some Sadducees one day; “You are in error because you do not know the scriptures nor the power of God.” I want to suggest to you that we too sometimes have the same problem.

This morning we are going to talk about this power and how, if we allow it to, can change our lives in ways we would have never thought possible.

1Corinthians 4:20 says; “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk....but of power.” You know, this one verse speaks volumes to us Christians today... We find ourselves talking to each other about how much we wish we could do something good for the Kingdom--how we want desperately to be soul winners for Christ and to become Christ-like ourselves. But we excuse ourselves from serving God in this manner and we give up on becoming Christ-like, saying that we don’t posses the right spiritual gifts to witness. Besides, we don’t even have the spiritual strength to conquer our own sinful nature.

Friends, the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk or excuses, it’s a matter of POWER. Not our power, mind you because we know that our power is limited--but His power has no limits. And you know, there is a key to unlocking this power of God....and that key is faith. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that faith is; “...being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”