A Prayer For Easter Power Series

Many of you are working to restore kitchens and bathrooms in your homes as water pipes have burst in freezing temperatures from several weeks ago here in Texas. I am so grateful for the kindness I hear from so many of you as you respond to church family in need. You opened your homes and helped both physically and financially carry the burdens for those in need. Now before a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t know an organization like ERCOT even existed. Now we all know they exist. ERCOT stands for Electric Reliability Council of Texas. While I don’t aim to point fingers as so many people worked so hard to restore power, many on the board have resigned. More than 4 million Texas were reported to be without power during an unprecedented winter storm. Get the magnitude of this for a moment: ERCOT is responsible for scheduling power on an electric grid that connects more than 46,500 miles of transmission lines.

According to experts, Texas lost nearly half of its generating capacity and was just minutes away from a total meltdown of its energy grid. What makes the glaring weakness in power so frustrating is that Texas is the nation’s largest energy producers.

Carolina Reaper

Talk about your powerful things, what might look like ordinary hot sauce, but the Carolina Reaper was genetically tweaked by Ed Currie, aka Smokin’ Ed. Ed came up with the Carolina Reaper, the hottest thing in Fort Mills, South Carolina. The former banker turned to doing some pepper farming and started the PuckerButt Pepper Company. His chili pepper won the award of the Guinness Book of World Records for hottest pepper. One 34 year old man said he was in the hospital for days after eating one Carolina Reaper pepper.

I bring this recent event up, because is Ephesians 1 contains a prayer for power (page 1159 pew Bibles). It’s not electrical power but spiritual, moral, and supernatural power available to those who trust in Christ. Embedded in this magnificent passage is a prayer for to know power. A plea to the Lord above to make His power available to us for the needs in our lives.

There’s a dam in China that is over 1 mile wide and taller than the Washington Monument. It produces enough power each day to run the entire city of Orlando for 2 weeks. From Star Trek’s Captain Kirk’s call, “Scotty, I need more power,” the call is clear: we need more power in life.

Get this: the very energy that powered the first Easter is available to believers every day. The very energy that powered Jesus from the grave is offered to believers every day.

While this message is for those who already believe, so many of you have not yet placed your faith in Jesus. I am glad you are listening. My prayer for you is that you place your trust in Christ so that you will benefit from God working in your life.

Three questions this morning: 1) Just exactly what is being offered to me? 2)How does this benefit me? 3) And lastly, what is good will it do me?

1) What is Being Offered to Me?

God is offering you power and a whole lot of it. The Bible says God makes His power available to you.

1.1 Incredible Power

To describe this incredible power available to you, there’s a pile-up of words: “and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might” (Ephesians 1:19).

Paul is talking about God’s unlimited power and to show us the amount of power God has for us, Paul literally writes: “according to the power of the power of his power.” Paul strings together three words here to describe the surpassing greatness of God’s power. It’s the idea that you are plugged into God to receive His supernatural power for your life. To be crystal clear, it’s a prayer for those who have already experienced some of God’s power in their lives to experience even more.

The word “immeasurable” is the part the Greek word “huper,” and we get our word super from this word. The word “greatness” is the Greek word “megethos,” and we get our word mega from this. The word “power” is the Greek word dynamis, from which we get our word dynamite. Of course dynamite wasn’t invented for another 1,000 years after our New Testament. Yet, when they later witnessed the inherit power of dynamite, they chose this very word for “power.” So Paul piles up words for power here in an attempt to communicate the power available to the believer.

1.2 Incredible Power Continued

How much power is available to us? The very power that raised Jesus from the dead: “that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 1:20). The power that got Jesus Christ out of the grave 2,000 years ago is that very same power that can deliver you and I out of our mess today. That’s a lot of power!