God Empowers You

The word empower means to give authority to, to authorize, or to allow. So you can say that God allows, authorizes, or gives us the authority to live a Christ like life.

Good morning, I’m Pastor Benny Anthony, and the title of this talk is “God Empowers You.”

In the God Designed You talk we learned that God made us, pursues us, and offers us a personal relationship of love. This is called Prevenient grace.

In the God Loves You talk we heard that God gives us faith to say yes to that relationship with God and to live anew as the beloved children of God. This is called Justifying grace.

In this talk we’ll learn that God gives us power to live and grow in that relationship for the rest of our lives. We call this Sanctifying grace.

The good news is that the Holy Spirit empowers us to reach the goal for which we were made.

The Holy Spirit is God’s presence and power in our lives. The Holy Spirit empowers us to die and rise with Christ again and again. The Holy Spirit empowers us to fly with Christ in the service of love and continually grow in His likeness. When we decide to live a Christ like life, God is there with us. When we step out in faith to follow Jesus, God gives us power from within to do so.

The big question for us is how does the Holy Spirit empower us? First of all the Holy Spirit pardons us. We can’t win God’s love by changing our ways. Rather, we change because god loves us and is always giving us a chance to make a fresh start in life. God’s Spirit “witnesses to our spirits” within our hearts that we are God’s beloved children. Romans 8:15-17 tells us that we are accepted by God just as we are.

The Holy Spirit perfects us. Christian perfection is becoming complete in Christ’s love for God and neighbor. When we are open to the Holy Spirit, we are rooted and grounded in Christ’s love so it may increase in us.

As we keep our minds and hearts focused on Christ, the Spirit will make us aware of attitudes and actions that need to be pruned away in order to make room for new fruit.

Conversion is not a one time experience. It is a lifelong process of dying to what is evil and false (the sin in us) and rising to what is good and true (Christ in us). The Holy Spirit is the power that is behind that change.

The fruit of the Spirit grows within us and blesses others through us.

The Holy Spirit gives us peace. The peace of God is not something other people can give us. It comes from being right with God. Jesus gives us His peace, a peace that lasts.

We are a long way from being perfect in love, but the Spirit gives us peace in knowing that we are on the way.

Our peace is not in thinking we are better that anybody else, but it is in knowing that our life is fuller because of our relationship with God.

The peace of God in us frees us from needing to prove ourselves or being big shots (you know that “holier than you are” attitude).

Because we have peace within ourselves, we can live in ways that make for peace. God enables us to let of our pride, prejudices, and hatreds that destroy peace.

The Holy Spirit gives us power. The Holy Spirit empowers us to accept those who are hardest to accept or those who are different from us. Christ died as much for them as He did for us. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to forgive people who hurt us.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to love our enemies. The Spirit empowered Jesus to forgive and pray for those who killed Him. The Spirit empowers us to live as Christians even when it hardest to do so.

The Holy Spirit gives us power to do what is right. God’s help is available to avoid gossip, avoid hurtful behaviors, and to act on good intentions.

The Holy Spirit gives us purpose. God calls us to a ministry that is bigger than any of us. None of us can do Christ’s work by ourselves. The Holy Spirit equips us with gifts for ministry. Though you may feel you have little to offer, the Spirit gives each of us a gift. Sometimes other people see our gift best. What gifts do you see in the others at your table?

The Holy Spirit equips us to be the church in the world, to be the body of Christ to the world around us; that is where we seek to know our gifts and share them freely to help others. You’ll hear more about the church in another talk.