What is the greatest power in the history of mankind? Some might argue that it is manmade power and for them, the ultimate man-made power would certainly have to be a nuclear bomb. The world saw that kind of power unleashed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. And today’s nuclear bombs are thousands of times more powerful than the bombs that were dropped on Japan. There is no doubt that they have great power.
But others would argue, and rightly so, that there is no man-made power that can compare to the power of God. I think that all of us here this morning would agree with that premise. So this week, I was thinking about how God demonstrates His power. God certainly demonstrates his power through nature. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the destructive power that Hurricane Katrina unleashed on Louisiana and Mississippi last year or the tsunami that killed nearly 300,000 people in December of 2004, or the power unleashed when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980. And that’s only a small sampling of the great power of God we have seen demonstrated in nature just in most of our lifetimes.
Or how about the power of creation? Can you imagine what kind of power it took for God to create the entire universe just by speaking it into existence? That had to be even greater power, it seems to me, than the power we frequently see evident in nature. The magnitude of that power is incomprehensible to our human minds.
But as we continue our basic training through the book of Ephesians this morning, we’re going to see that there is an even greater power than that, and what’s even more amazing is that that power is at work in the life of every follower of Jesus Christ!
Paul began his letter, by describing, in one long sentence, the spiritual blessings that are ours through the work of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We have been chosen by God the Father from before the foundations of the world and been predestined to become part of His family. We’ve been redeemed from bondage and an empty way of life through the blood of Christ. And the Holy Spirit lives in our lives as a guarantee that the best is still to come.
And then, beginning in verse 15, Paul responds to all those spiritual blessings by praying for his readers. We’ve already looked at a portion of that prayer, but let’s go back and read that whole section again, so that we can put this morning’s passage in context.
Read Ephesians 1:15-23
Paul begins his prayer by giving thanks to God for the faith and love of his readers. He then goes on to ask that God would give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they could have a deeper, more intimate relationship with God. And then, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, he prays that they might understand that God has called them into hope in the past, He has promised an inheritance of glorious riches in the future and that he has made available to all believers His power for the present.
In the passage we’ll look at this morning Paul goes on to describe that power in greater detail. Since Denny and I had to do some shuffling of schedules this week, this passage will actually be your memory verse for next week, so let’s just read it out loud together this morning.
That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
Ephesians 1:19b-21 (NIV)
Paul wants us to understand that the power he is describing in these verses is indeed the greatest power ever known. So he uses every word he can think of to describe this power:
The word for “power” is the Greek word from which we get our word “dynamite”
“Exerted” is the Greek word from which we get our word “energy”
The words for “mighty” and “strength” are two more synonyms that describe the “incomparably great” power that Paul is writing about here.
And what is that power? It is the power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. It is the power that has placed Jesus Christ above any other power or authority here on earth or in the heavens and above every power known to mankind right now or that will ever be known in the future. It’s resurrection power! That is the greatest power ever – greater that any man-made power and even greater than the power that God displays in nature or even the power He exerted in creation.
That resurrection power is the greatest power ever is quite evident from Paul’s words here. In fact, Paul is making the point here that it is the power of the resurrection that makes possible all the spiritual blessings that he has already written about up to this point in his letter. It is the resurrection that makes it possible for us to know God and have a relationship with Him. And it is the resurrection that assures our future as well.
That’s all well and good to intellectually understand that resurrection power is the greatest power ever. But what difference does that make to you and to me? One of the reasons that resurrection power is the greatest power ever is that it is the only power that is able to transform my life. There are some things that only resurrection power can do. So this morning we’re going to look at just three applications of that power in our lives:
WHAT ONLY “RESURRECTION POWER” CAN DO:
Conquer my past
In a few weeks, we’ll come to Ephesians chapter 2. At the beginning of that chapter, Paul describes what all of our lives were like before we experienced resurrection power:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
Ephesians 2:1-3 (NIV)
Not a pretty picture is it? And without resurrection power, that is still what our lives would be like. We would be in bondage to our sins. We couldn’t help but succumb to the lusts and cravings of our sinful nature. And what would be the result of that kind of life? That’s right. Death. Not just the physical death that we’ll all experience some day. But spiritual death, too. A death that would mean eternal separation from God, subject to His wrath.
But the power of the resurrection is the power for all of us to deal with our past and to conquer our sins. Most of the time when we talk about how Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, we focus on His death on the cross. As well we should. In verse 7, Paul wrote about how we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ.
But without the resurrection, Christ’s death on the cross would have been meaningless. Anyone could have claimed to die to pay the penalty for the sins of others. In Jesus’ day, crucifixion was quite common and any one of those people being executed in that manner could have declared that they were the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and that they were dying for the sins of others. But it is the resurrection that proved that Jesus was who He said He was, and that therefore He was the only One who could die in order to redeem us from our sins.
Here’s how Paul describes the importance of the resurrection in conquering my past:
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
1 Corinthians 15:17 (NIV)
Paul makes it really clear that without the resurrection I would still be the person Paul described in Ephesians 2 – I would be dead in my transgressions and sins and be subject to the wrath of God.
But through the power of the resurrection, God has enabled me to conquer my past. Unfortunately, the problem for many of us is that we haven’t taken advantage of that power.
When electricity became available in remote rural areas, one woman went to great trouble and expense to have electricity installed in her home. A few months after the wiring was installed and the power was turned on; the power company noticed that the home didn’t use very much power. Fearing that there was a problem they sent a meter reader to check on the matter. The meter reader saw that the power was indeed working properly and then asked the woman, “Do you use your electricity?” The woman replied, “Of course we do. We turn it on every night to see to light our lamps and then we turn it off.”
Doesn’t that just sound ridiculous? Having all of the power that you need and the ability to tap it all of the time but only using it just enough “get by.” But that’s exactly what some of you are doing when it comes to the resurrection power of God. You’re still trapped in the past. You’re paralyzed from doing anything significant for the kingdom of God because of your guilt over some past sin. You’re afraid to take a risk for God because in the past someone hurt you or you feel like you failed God.
If there is anyone who had the right to feel that way, it was Paul. Before his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was persecuting the followers of Jesus Christ. He even stood by and gave his approval when Stephen was stoned to death for his faith. But resurrection power allowed Paul to conquer that past and to write these words:
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13, 14 (NIV)
Folks, it’s time for some of you to quit just grabbing enough of that resurrection power to get by. Like Paul, you need to plug into all of that power so that you can forget the past and strain for the prize to which God is calling you.
But resurrection power doesn’t stop with my past. It also allows me to…
Consecrate my present
Let’s face it. It’s not always easy to live out our faith on this earth right here and now. When we try to live consecrated lives – the kind of “holy and blameless” lives that Paul wrote about in verse 4 we confront all kinds of obstacles. We live in a culture that is anything but holy and blameless most of the time. All of us encounter trials and difficulties from time to time. And if we’re not careful, our circumstances will prevent us from living the kind of lives that are pleasing to God.
But resurrection power enables us to overcome those obstacles. I really like the way Peter describes that process:
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
2 Peter 1:3 (NIV)
Notice that God’s power gives us “everything we need for life”. In fact, you might even want to underline those words. God’s power is sufficient for every need in my life. It is enough to overcome every trial and temptation. It is adequate to allow me to live out my faith in an unsupportive culture. We already touched on that briefly a couple of weeks ago when we talked about God’s incomparably great power for us who believe. But other than the context of Ephesians 1, how do I know that it is resurrection power, and not some other type of power that we are looking at here? I could take you to a number of passages that would support that premise, but let’s look at just a couple.
First, let’s go to another of Peter’s letters:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)
Peter doesn’t use the word “power” in this verse, but if you’ll go back and read the verses which follow, you’ll find that Peter writes these words in the context of God’s power enabling us to persevere in the trials of life. That’s what he’s writing about when he says that we are given a “new birth into a living hope”. And how do we get that power? Through the resurrection of Jesus. So it is resurrection power than enables me to consecrate my life to God right now.
But how does that work in practical terms. In order to understand that, we need to go to the writer of Hebrews:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2 (NIV)
It is the life of Jesus that demonstrates how resurrection power enables me to live a life that is consecrated to God. In fact, the writer of Hebrews exhorts us to look to the life of Jesus as a demonstration of how resurrection power should work in our lives.
We know that Jesus faced all kinds of opposition in his ministry. The culture of His day wasn’t very receptive or supportive. People wanted to destroy His ministry, even if it meant killing Him. To be real honest, most of us haven’t faced even a small fraction of what Jesus went through. And yet Jesus was able to face all those difficulties and still live a life without sin and fulfill the mission for which He had come to the earth.
And how did He do that? He kept His focus on the joy set before Him. Jesus could endure because He looked forward to the resurrection. That was the joy set before Him. Because he knew that His Father would exercise the greatest power ever known in order to raise Him from the dead, Jesus could face whatever circumstances came His way.
Today, we’re on the other side of the resurrection. And knowing that God had the power to raise Jesus from the dead and seat Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms means that God certainly has the power to help us get through our everyday life and remain faithful to Him. Compared to raising Jesus from the dead, helping us through the trials of life is frankly a pretty meager exercise of God’s power.
But again, some of you aren’t fully plugging into that resurrection power in your everyday lives. You go through life worrying and fretting. You’re afraid to really give control of your life over to God or to stand up for your faith. But you don’t need to live life that way. The same resurrection power that God exerted when raised Jesus from the dead is at work in you right now, helping you to be a devoted follower of Jesus Christ.
And like Jesus, we can do that by looking forward to the joy set before us. Which leads us to our third principle. It is only resurrection power that can…
Confirm my future
The fact that God raised Jesus from the dead is our guarantee that he will one day do the very same thing for you and me. Paul couldn’t have made that fact any more clear than he did in his first letter to the church at Corinth:
By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.
1 Corinthians 6:14 (NIV)
Do you realize what that verse is saying? God will one day use the very same power he used to raise Jesus from the grave to raise us up as well. Isn’t that amazing? Not only does the resurrection of Jesus allow me to conquer my past sins, not only does it allow me to consecrate my life to God right now, but it also provides that one day I’ll receive a new, resurrected body of my own. Paul writes about that in more detail later in that same letter:
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive…So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
1 Corinthians 15:20-22, 42-44 (NIV)
I know that many of you here this morning suffer with physical ailments that plague you day after day. For some of you, no amount of doctor’s visits, surgeries, medications and physical therapy has brought you much relief. But one day, you’re going to get a new resurrection body – one that won’t get sick or wear out or bring you pain. And that’s all a function of the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead.
The power of the resurrection gives us the assurance that one day we’ll get to spend eternity in the presence of God, serving Him with the new resurrection bodies that He will give us. And knowing that is what also gives me the power to persevere in my life right now. That’s how I look forward to the joy set before me no matter what I might be facing today.
God’s resurrection power is clearly the greatest power ever known – far beyond any power that man could ever create, and even far beyond God’s power in nature or in creation, as awesome as that might be. As we’ve seen, it is the only power that can transform our lives by conquering our past, consecrating our present and confirming our future. So who wouldn’t want to have that kind of power at work in his or her life? That leads to the question that I’m sure many of you are asking yourselves:
HOW DO I PLUG INTO GOD’S RESURRECTION POWER?
Although the answer to that question is really quite simple, many people, including many Christians, are trying to find power in all the wrong places. Just for the fun of it this week, I entered the word “power” in the search engine at Amazon.com just to see what would come up. Here are just a few of the titles that I found:
• The 48 Laws of Power – The editorial review from Amazon.com describes the book like this: “The 48 laws outlined in this book have a simple premise: certain actions always increase one’s power ... while others decrease it and even ruin us."
• The Power of Intention – Here’s the description from the back cover: “The latest ground breaking book by visionary author Wayne Dyer. For years Dyer has been researching the power of intention, the energy that surrounds all of us. He tells us how we can train ourselves to tune in to this source energy and step beyond our minds and egos. When we do this we become what Dyer calls “connectors” and make ourselves available to the energy of success.”
• The Power of Positive Thinking – Here’s a partial description of the book: “Eliminating all the negative thoughts that prevent you from achieving happiness and success, The Power of Positive Thinking is an inspiring program that will help you create a positive change in your life.”
Unfortunately, even well meaning Christians have come up with some ideas, programs and principles that aren’t much more Biblical than many of these secular approaches. The way we get God’s resurrection power into our lives and then plug into that power is really quite simple. I don’t need to have some additional manifestation of the Holy Spirit in my life; I don’t need to go through some ritual or perform some task. In fact, as we’ll see in just a moment, I don’t even need to pray and ask God for His power in my life.
I receive resurrection power through my belief
Let’s go back to the first part of Ephesians 1:19, a verse that we looked at a couple weeks ago:
…and his incomparably great power for us who believe…
It seems pretty clear that there is only one prerequisite to obtaining God’s resurrection power into our lives. And it’s the same prerequisite that Paul has clearly set forth for every other spiritual blessing in this first chapter of Ephesians. I must believe, I must place my trust in Jesus Christ alone as the means of my relationship with God. And at the very moment I do that, I get all the spiritual blessings that Paul has written about. I get redemption from my sins. I get all of the Holy Spirit that I’ll ever get coming to live in my life. I get a future inheritance. And I get God’s incomparably great resurrection power.
In other words, every follower of Jesus Christ has God’s resurrection power. But unfortunately, as we’ve seen, not everyone plugs into that power.
Several months ago, I got in my truck and tried to start it, but nothing happened. I just figured that my battery was dead. But as I looked under the hood, I discovered that one of my battery cables had corroded. So I went down to the auto parts store and bought a new cable and installed it. And then my truck started just fine. My battery had plenty of power. It’s just that because I didn’t have a good connection to that power, I couldn’t make effective use of it.
That’s a pretty good picture of what has happened to a lot of us. The power is there, but we just don’t make use of it. So how do I plug into that power?
I plug into resurrection power through my actions
As I’ve already said, I don’t need to pray for God’s power – it’s already present in my life if I’m a believer. But I do have to act on it. That’s how I make effective use of it.
I have to quit being hindered by my past, because God’s resurrection power has already conquered my past. I have to be like Paul and forget the past and strive toward the prize in the future.
I have to quit allowing my circumstances to rule my life in the present because God’s resurrection power has already allowed me to consecrate my life to God. I need to endure because of the joy that is set before me.
And I have to quit worrying about the future because God’s resurrection power confirms that one day I’ll get to spend eternity in the presence of God, serving Him with my resurrection body.
Every day and every moment of each day, I decide whether or not I’ll live my life by trusting in the resurrection power of God. And I can think of no greater power that I would want to rest my life upon.
