The speech choir has asked us a pointed question, "Were you there?" "Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?" They went on, "Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?" And finally, "Were you here when He rose up from the grave?" Were you there, they want to know.
You can say we were, because our issues are just like the issues of those who lived then. Our needs are just like theirs. In a sense we were there, as Christ died once for all people in every time and in every place.
But then, we weren’t there either. We didn’t literally see the crucifixion; we didn’t experience first-hand the pain and the shame. We were not there in the immediate sense. We didn’t stand in awe at the cross or stumble down the garden path to the empty tomb. That was all two thousand years ago, way back in history. And we weren’t there. We are here! We are here now! So what does His being raised have to do with you and me today? We are not there. We are here. What can we experience today?
I am carrying around a dirty little secret. Would you like to hear my dirty little secret? Believe me, I would not tell you my secret if I did not think it was yours too. I believe that what plagues me attacks you too. It happens to all of us.
That dirty little secret is ... that I cannot even begin to do what I want to do, and, more than that, I cannot honestly claim to have done half the things I’ve pretended to do! The story of my life, and, I suspect, of yours, is that there are so many things we think we want to be and to do, but we just cannot do them. We cannot. And, worse than that, there are so many things we pretend we have done, but they are a facade. They are not real. They are a sham.
A dirty little secret, isn’t it? I cannot even begin to do everything I want to do. I start out every day with a long list of tasks to be performed, I dutifully put them into my computer, which spits them back out at me. I prioritize. Twenty tasks to do today, in order. What happens? How does it go? I do the first two or three things, and then hit one that’s too hard. It looks boring. So I’ll skip it. Set it aside for another time. Procrastinate. I don’t ever get done all I think I ought to do. I feel powerless.
Worse than that, there are things I want you to think I have done, but I haven’t. There’s an image I want to project, but that’s all it is, an image. It’s not real. A Russian general named Potemkin wanted to make things pleasant for the Czar to see as he traveled, and so built villages that were just the facades of houses, nothing behind them. Too much of my life is like that. I bring you to my home and I tell you I have painted the woodwork at our house. But don’t pull out that couch, or you will see that I didn’t paint behind the couch. I show you bookshelves I constructed; you are supposed to be impressed with my handiwork. But don’t pull on that one over there, it was never anchored to the wall. It’s not really finished. It might tumble down.
Is your dirty little secret a lot like mine? Our lives are riddled with failures and tortured with half-truths. Our lives are propped-up versions of what we really want, shadows of what we really hope for. We feel powerless! Powerless!
Every day I see how fragile our accomplishments are. A sudden heart attack cripples a man, and he cannot work any more. Death steals up in the middle of a cold night and with its icy fingers snatches away a partner. Plans are suddenly shattered. That child for whom you had such dreams is slowly but surely sliding away, and all your brave efforts are going nowhere. That estate you built up with hard work and careful planning … there was a nosedive on Wall Street, and where is it now? That relationship into which you invested so much – she blew it away. She dismissed it like so many filthy rags. Our accomplishments are very fragile. We feel powerless.
We need power. We need to experience a source that will sustain us. We need power. We need it now. Not a relic of the past nor a vague hope for the future, but power, now.
I know of a man who wanted personal power. He wanted to feel on top of his game. He had worked at being the best that he could be. He had worked at his craft, and had lived an honest, decent life. He came from a good family; he was well regarded in his circle of friends. In fact, I’d guess that most of them thought that here was the one truly successful guy. They would point him out as an example of what you could do if you really worked at it. They even hired him as a kind of consultant to go on the road and show other people how the job should be done. Man, he was at the top of his game! Everybody felt that this guy really had it together.
But one day it all came crashing down. One day this man came to realize that it all meant nothing. He felt as though a lot of the things he had done were either unfinished or pointless. Everything was a sham. It was all headed in the wrong direction. It had not been worth doing; it was garbage. Nothing that he had done, professionally, personally, or any other way, was giving him satisfaction. He wept and said that he would give everything he had for personal power.
This man’s name was Saul of Tarsus. And he said it like this, "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection." There we are! That’s us. I want to know power! "I want to know power". But Saul took it a step further, "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection."
Well, Saul of Tarsus got there. Saul got his power. We know Saul better as the apostle Paul, one of the greatest minds of the ancient world and a world-class achiever. He got his power. How did he get it? Can we get it too?
I
If you want power, the place to begin is to let go of everything you’ve achieved. If you want power, you begin by letting go of everything you’ve done. It goes on the garbage heap. Don’t claim anything. You start by admitting that everything is a sham.
Paul speaks about "becoming like Christ in his death." What does that mean? "Becoming like Christ in his death". It means that we walk away from all the striving, the image-making, and the posturing that makes us look good. And we admit that it’s all useless.
The Biblical word for this is repentance. Repentance means that we wake up and smell the coffee. Repentance means that we admit that our lives are off target. Repentance means that we tear down the façade and push aside the pretenses and just stand spiritually naked out in the cold and admit, "It’s not working." And believe it or not, there’s power in that. There is power in admitting failure! Power in acknowledging defeat! The first thing we have to do to get power is to admit that what we’ve done isn’t good enough.
We have a deck attached to the back of our house. Over the years we haven’t done anything for it, so this year we noticed that it was getting very gray and dingy. More than a weathered look -- it was plug-ugly and was getting slimy with mildew and algae. So cleaning the deck got pushed way up on my spring honey-do list. Now my wife reads all these home-and-garden magazines, the ones for which you spend five dollars just for them to tell you how to do things that are perfectly obvious. Who needs expensive advice? I don’t. I know what I’m doing.
And so, although her magazines gave instructions on how to clean decks, who needs them? I got a mop and some water and cleanser and scrubbed away. And quite a lot of the grime came up. I thought it looked good. It looked better than it had. True, there were some streaks; and true, the green algae were now gray-green algae. But I thought it looked better.
Guess what? It didn’t pass inspection. It was not up to par. She who rules the deck wanted a clean deck said I had to do better. I needed to follow the instructions. I needed to use the right cleansers - bleach and baking soda and that most essential of all ingredients, elbow grease! I wasn’t happy with that, but I did it. Aha! Once I saw the results, I couldn’t pretend any more that a grime-coated deck was good enough. Once I saw bleached wood, clean and bright, I saw that it costs something to get at the dirt. I saw that good enough isn’t good enough - that you have to dig to get at the dirt. But it’s worth it. It’s worth it.
Repentance means to quit pretending that we’re pretty good people. Pretty good is not good enough. Repentance means acknowledging that on our own we are powerless. Repentance is about getting down and dirty and letting the whole sordid business hang out. Yes, it will hurt. But it’s worth it. It’s worth it.
Don’t ever forget that the only way for Jesus to have been raised from the dead was, first, to die! You cannot have a resurrection without first having a death! If there is no Good Friday, there is no Easter Sunday. If there is no cross on Calvary, there is no empty tomb in the Garden. Jesus’ victory involved a death. And so will yours and mine. The first step to power is to "become like Him in His death." It is to let go of the things we’ve done. To repent and to let go.
II
But, next, if we want power, after we have let go of everything we have achieved, we also have to let go of the control of our lives. Not only must we put all our accomplishments on the garbage heap - that’s repentance; we must also let go of the command of our lives. That’s called faith. After repentance comes faith. Faith means giving over the controls of your life to Christ.
Paul has an interesting way of describing this; he says, "Christ Jesus has made me his own." I don’t belong to me any more. Christ Jesus has made me his own. I belong to him. Listen to this: you get power by giving away your power. You get power out of trusting Christ and not yourself to govern your life.
Do you know what a control freak is? A control freak is a person who has an inordinate need to manage everything. If you are a control freak, you go crazy when somebody does something you didn’t authorize or supervise. If you’re a control freak you don’t trust anybody but yourself. Nobody can do it like I do it! But is there power in that? Do you get personal power by controlling everything yourself? I suspect not. There’s no energy in that. That’s all drain. That’s exhausting. If I have to carry something all by myself, I’ll wear myself out. There’s no power in controlling.
Just the other day I read a church newsletter, written by a fellow pastor who is about to retire. He was informing his congregation about the things that he had been doing for them. It was an intriguing article. This pastor did not speak about preaching. He did not mention counseling. He wrote, "Since I am retiring as pastor, you need to get someone to write and mail the weekly newsletter, you need to get someone to do the payroll and file the tax forms, you need to find someone to manage the church property, and - this is my personal favorite -- you need to get somebody to stock the soda machine in the lobby!" Wow! Now I may do a lot of things around here, but I must tell you I never thought of stocking a soda machine! What I hear in this brother is a strong need to control things. He wants to be in charge, or else it won’t be done right. He has to do it, or it won’t be done.
But the truth is that there is nothing more power-giving than giving up control to someone who cares for you. There is nothing more wonderful than to let someone who is capable do for you what you need not do for yourself. Tomorrow morning my wife and I will go to a surgery center, where her physician will use his skill and his tools and will remove a cataract from her eye. Now presumably she could try to do that for herself. Foolish as it sounds, she might decide that she is in charge of herself, thank you, and perform surgery on her own eye. I have heard of people doing that. But would that be power? No, that would be foolishness. Control is not power; it’s dangerous.
Keeping control is dangerous to our spirits. Me being in charge of me doesn’t work. God’s being in charge of me is for my own good. Paul found out that he got power in his life by turning over control to Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ gives power. "Christ Jesus has made me His own."
III
But finally, if you really want power, and if you want it now, there’s something else. If you want power now, you must step up and do what God and God alone wants you to do. You must be obedient to what God is calling you to do. To get power, you begin with repentance, you continue with faith, and then you really get the prize with obedience. Obedience. Paul says, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus." Not the prize of great riches or the prize of a good name or even the prize of personal happiness. Those are all good things. Nothing wrong with any of them. But everything pales into insignificance next to the prize of the heavenly call of God. What is that? The "heavenly call of God"? It means doing God’s will. It means that when you know, down deep, what God wants you to do, you do it. You obey God’s call.
Oh, you see, again, sometimes we fool ourselves. Sometimes we get into power trips. We have to go our own way. But when God says, "Do" and we don’t do, we only hurt ourselves. When God says, "Go" and we don’t go, we only damage ourselves. If we don’t obey, we strip ourselves of power.
Did you hear the story about the American aircraft carrier that was sailing off the Canadian coast? The bridge of the ship received instructions from some Canadian source. The instructions were, "Please divert your course 15 degrees south to avoid a collision." Well, the captain of the American carrier was offended by that and responded, "I do not intend to do anything of the kind. I recommend that you divert your course by 15 degrees north to avoid that collision. The Canadian radio crackled, "Negative, negative. You will have to divert 15 degrees south to avoid a collision. The American captain screamed back, "I am sailing the USS Lincoln. We are the second largest ship in the Atlantic fleet. In my wake I have three destroyers, three cruisers, and other support vessels. We are not changing course. You change course. I demand that you change course." There was a moment of silence, but the Canadian voice ended the argument, "Suit yourself, captain. You are speaking to me from an aircraft carrier. I’m speaking to you from a lighthouse on the shore."
You and I may bluster all we want about doing our own thing. We can talk all we want about our freedom and how sweet it is to do what we want to do. But I tell you, God is not changing course. God is a lighthouse showing us the way, and it’s up to us to obey Him or else flounder on the rocks. If you want power in your life, not only do you repent and admit you can’t do all you want to do. And not only do you put your faith in Him and give over the controls to Him. You obey Him. You do what He wants you to do, you live as He wants you to live, you choose what He wants you to choose, or else the result is disaster. "The heavenly call of God". Obedience.
On the Fourth of July 1917, an American Army officer, Charles Stanton, stood in for General Pershing at a ceremony in Paris. The occasion, as the date suggests, was America’s Independence celebration, the Fourth of July. But it was not in America; it was in Paris, 1917, in a city and a country torn by the First World War. The location in Paris was a cemetery, specifically the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette, as you know, was a French soldier who had come to America a century and half earlier and had played a key role in helping the colonies gain their freedom. Now, at Lafayette’s tomb, in Lafayette’s devastated land, the sons of his American achievement had arrived to push back the forces of tyranny. Stanton, as spokesman for the American Expeditionary Force, drew back his shoulders, saluted the general’s tomb, and announced, "Lafayette, we are here." What did he mean? Lafayette had helped us, back in history; we are here now to do what we can do for his country. Lafayette, you did something for us; it inspires us now, at his tomb, to do something for him, for his people. "Lafayette, we are here."
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? No, but, Christ Jesus, we are here, to be like You in Your death. To put to death all of our pretensions and falsehoods, just let them go. We are here, to repent. Christ Jesus, we are here.
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb? No, but, Christ Jesus, we are here, to let go of the controls. To take our hands off and trust You to guide us. We are here to put our faith in You. Christ Jesus, we are here.
Were you there when He rose up from the grave? Not literally. But, Christ Jesus, we are here. We are here before Your empty tomb, we are here in the presence of Your risen life, to know You and the power of Your resurrection. To follow You and to obey You. Christ Jesus, we are here. We are here sharing in Your victory over death, we are here knowing that You are King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We want Your power. Lord, we need your power. Christ Jesus, we are here, right here, right now, "Wherever you lead, we’ll follow. Wherever you direct, we’ll go. Whatever you command, we’ll accept." Christ Jesus, we are here. You have done so much for us. Now we are here for you.
Oh, I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection. I want it. Now! Here! Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you?
