Making God's Power Personal Series

This is a series designed to deepen your worship of God. The Bibles offers us three lenses to view God. The first lens, the Bible gives us various names of God including Yahweh (Lord), Elohim (God), and El Shaddai (God Almighty). The second lens, the Bible presents word pictures of God. You probably know the Bible pictures God for us as a Shepherd and a Judge, a Shield, and a Rock. But did you know the Bible also pictures God as a Potter (Romans 9:19-22), a Farmer (Isaiah 5), a Landowner (Matthew 20:1-6), and even a Knitter (as we’ll see in a few minutes). And the third lens, the Bible describes God with numerous traits, attributes, or characteristics.

My aim in this sermon is to deepen your sense of reverence for God, to encourage you resist the encroaching sense of cynicism of our age where nothing really matters in life, … and to encourage you to rest in the refuge of God’s protecting power during times of distress.

1. Hope in God’s Power

When your life seems out of control, God wants you to know of His power. When you feel like a pinball bouncing from one trouble to another and you are powerless to stop, God wants you to know of His power. In fact, one thing we are told to pray for other believers is that each of us know more of God’s power in our lives: “and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might” (Ephesians 1:19). So the Bible calls on us to pray for one another to have a deeper knowledge of God’s power. God has the power to do all He wants to do. God has the power to carry out every one of His plans to perfect completion. There’s nothing God wants to but can’t. “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20–21). In fact, one of the Bible’s favorite names for God is God Almighty. Almighty appears nearly 60 times in the pages of Scripture. Job could say, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2) In place of saying, “Yes, we can,” Christians unite in saying, “Yes, He can.”

Now, everything about God is mighty. He is mighty in mercy – He can forgive the hardest heart. He is mighty in wrath – God has an intense hate against all sin. He is mighty in wisdom – He knows more than enough to help you in your crisis. He is mighty in power – no force of evil can threaten Him. Even though Satan roams around like a roaring lion, God Almighty is His safari hunter. Once you are in Christ, no one can remove you from God’s Almighty hands. He is mighty in love. At the height of his success, John Lennon wrote a personal letter to an evangelist. After quoting a line from a Beatles song, “Money can’t buy me love,” he said, “It’s true. The point is this, I want happiness. I don’t want to keep on with drugs. . . . Explain to me what Christianity can do for me. Is it phony? Can He love me? I want out of hell.” Yes, God is mighty even in His love. God’s power glitters through in all His works.

Here’s three quick-hitters to increase your hope in God’s Almighty power:

1.1 God Cannot be Stopped from Accomplishing His Purposes

“No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the LORD” (Proverbs 21:30). Remember what the angel Gabriel said to Mary? “For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37)

1.2 God Does Whatever He Pleases

“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:6).

1.3 God is Superior to All Other Powers

Do you remember the story when Jesus was sleeping in the boat and the disciple woke Him because of the fierce storm on the Sea of Galilee? Jesus awoke and spoke to the lake and do you remember the reaction from the 12 disciples? “And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him” (Mark 4:41)?

In the heart of this series, we are spending four Sundays examining Psalm 139. This psalm actually breaks down into four almost completely equal and matching parts of six verses each. The first part (verses 1-6) tells us we are surrounded by His knowledge. The second part (verses 7-12) tells us we are surrounded by His presence. The third part (verses 13-18) tells us we are surrounded by His power. While the fourth part (verses 19-24) is a response to the first three parts, telling us we are surrounded by His pure justice.