The Power of God

Yes, glad to be here today. Thank you Brothers and Sisters for being here and yes another day that the Lord has blessed us with

And YES we are continuing another favorable year of the Lord. Thank you Jesus. For all the many things that you have done for us when we were still sinners.

You know God just never stops amazing me every day. Just more and more about how awesome His grace is. I'm so grateful. For the grace of God and not the grace of men. 

His love, His compassion , His pertinence. That he has predestined all of us. To be with him in heaven. Which is His will and pleases Him, that was his plan from the very start. But just like always, we do not listen, we mess up. We have to change our attitudes and behaviors, repent and turn back. See God always makes a way, and that way it's Jesus Christ. That's the truth.  

So going forward today, if you've been here on the last four times that I was allowed and invited. And I thank everybody for that The time that we spend here on Sundays together is such a blessing. I love you guys. You guys are awesome. I truly, truly mean that.

When my mom passed and I was asked. If I would. Give a Mother's Day message. And without hesitation. You guys laid hands on me and prayed and I'll never forget that. Thank you. This is definitely a loving, praying, God fearing church. 

Well, moving forward through the Epistle to the Ephesians written by the Apostle Paul. To recap quickly. We started out. With our introduction, who the Ephesians were, the church their location.

We started out in verses 1 and 2. With the Paul's greeting to the church and what it meant to be called by God. What the grace of God was and how it was much different than the grace of men. 

Leading into. The eternal plan of God for the Christian believers, that's us and the blessings of God. Given to all of us who believe in His Son Jesus Christ. The spiritual blessings. That come when you received in faith the Lord Jesus. That there is a place for us in heaven, being adopted and being predestined for ordained. To be with him and that was his goodwill. 

Last time I was here. we talked about The knowledge of God about having a strong testimony, which this church has, as I spoke just a minute ago.

How, We should never stop praying for each other to grow more and more in the knowledge of who God is,

and Do not make a god , little g in your mind, H.S. always points to what Christ has done for us on the cross..... Asking for the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of revelation, and enlightening our hearts so that  we know God's calling for us, that we know God's inheritance, Because of the Holy Spirit, which? At that point, we know God's power. His resurrecting power. 

Which leads us to the closing of Chapter 1. Which is the the power of God demonstrated in Christ exaltation, raising him up. Glorifying Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son. Thank you Jesus.

That by his body that was broke and beat, we have the healing of ours physically, spiritually, and by his blood that went down the cross we have the forgiveness of sin that because of this.

We have a way to be in the presence of God for eternity in heaven. God loves us, Isn't that amazing? And it never stops mind blowing me when I look around and how well he takes care of all these things that. We don't have to worry about or be concerned about because God's got this. And he loves you and he loves me. It's just. Awesome. I'm glad to be here today, Glad to be alive. 

Glad to be a servant of the King of kings, our savior , Jesus Christ, the Great I AM.

So today we're going to start from chapter 1, verses 19 through 23, which is the end of our charter. 

Ephesians 1:19–23 “and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Lets Pray

The power of God. This much needed subject needs to be cover. See if mankind ever needed anything, We need the power of God in our lives. 

If men and women have ever been gripped by evil and shame, bitterness and hate, lust and immorality, cursing and anger, robbery and assault, murder and war, selfishness and greed, division and strife, disappointment and emptiness, boredom. And purposelessness it is today.

Men and women desperately need the power of God to help them in their daily lives and to right the wrongs of society. We need the help of the Holy Spirit. The helper.

Today more than ever with social media. In the way that we can communicate in a snap of a finger, we see all of this everywhere, in real time right now, as it's going on. The truth is, right here in the Bible we have it, the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The glorious news. Is that God offers his power to man and women if you will only turn to His son, Jesus Christ.

He promises his power to all believers, all those who believe in faith. Now I just want to bring to our attention that this section of passage is a continuation of the prayer of Paul.

 He's praying at the Ephesian church. The believers there might know God personally and intimately, for God gives His power to those who truly come to know him. Coming to know God is the key to receiving, receiving the power of God the Holy Spirit, to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. 

Acts 1:8 “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.””

Jude 20 “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,”

Ephesians 1:19 “and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.

When we as believers really, really know God. We experience his power, the power of God Himself. It is exceedingly surpassing, unlimited, immeasurable beyond imagination.  

A thing to note from this. Is that God's power is toward us who believe. That God takes his power and extends it, presents it, and makes it available to us who believe in faith.

And how do we know this? Because of what God did for Christ. What God did for Christ, he will do for us who believe. God's power is demonstrated by what he did. For his son Jesus Christ. 

 See us as believers. Are to experience this power of God? The same power? That raised Jesus Christ from the dead, the resurrection power of God himself.

Just imagine the enormous power that is needed to raise a person from the dead. And God has that power. The resurrecting power for Jesus. who is The resurrection.

And the point is, when God raised up, Jesus Christ exalted him. He demonstrated 3 things for men and women. He showed men that he had the power to do these three things. 

The power to conquer all the trials, all the temptations of life and when God exercised the power to raise Christ, he conquered the most powerful trial that. Faces mankind, that is death, and in conquering death, God demonstrated that He has the power to conquer all trials, all temptation that man could ever possibly see. Death was defeated at the cross. The sting of death is no more. 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ shows that God has the power to give man a new life and the power to live a new life before him to be spiritually reborn.

See after Jesus Christ had Been raised from the dead. He was not living his old life, the life he had before his death. He was a new man, he had a new life. He had been raised from the dead to live a new life before God forever. He walked before God in the newness of life.  

Romans 6:4 “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Colossians 3:10 “and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—”

And thirdly, the power to raise Christ from the dead shows that God has the power to raise all mankind from the dead, and us as believers shall experience the great resurrecting power of God and be resurrected from the dead if we truly believe in Jesus Christ God's only begotten son. 

John 6:40 ““For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.””

Experiencing the power of God. The same power that took Jesus Christ to heaven and set him at God's right hand. God did not just have the power to resurrect Jesus Christ. He had the power to take Jesus Christ into another dimension of being,

into a spiritual world that is the world of the Spirit. God brought Jesus Christ. To himself and set him at his own right hand. He is literally there. His body is in heaven. The spiritual world and dimension of being. 

Luke 22:69 ““But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.””

The point of God's power is crystal clear, that He took Christ into heaven and raised Him, exalted Him, in order to demonstrate that He has the power to take mankind to heaven and to raise them. THATS US. 

John 14:2–3 ““In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

Acts 7:55–56 “But being full of the Holy Spirit, he(Stephan, Steven) gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.””

Ephesians 1:21–22 “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,”

Experiencing the power of God, the same power that exalted Jesus Christ above all creatures, all creation, both in this world and in the next. Being seated at the right hand of God simply means having the highest seat of honor and authority in all the universe.

What God did was exalt Jesus Christ to rule and to reign over all authority, no matter how great or powerful. Christ has been exalted above all principality and power and might and dominion, and to make sure nothing is excluded, Jesus Christ has been exalted. Over every name that is named, not only in this world, but in the world which is to come, all things are placed in subjection under Him. 

1 Peter 3:22 “who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.”

Here's the point. God gave Jesus Christ the authority to rule and to reign over all. Everything he demonstrated , shows that He has the power to exalt us, to rule and to reign with Christ. This God promises to do. 

1 Corinthians 6:2–3 “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?”

Revelation 22:5 “And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.”

Experiencing the power of God, the same power that made Jesus Christ the head of the church. Jesus Christ paid the supreme price to start and to build the church. He died for it. Therefore, God has given him the supreme position over the church.

Here the church is called the body of Christ, that is us. See, this is one of the Bible's most descriptive pictures of Christ and the Church, the picture of the human body, with Christ being the head and the Church being his body.

The head cannot function without the body, nor can the body function without the head. The head dreams, dreams and plans, plans. But a mind all by itself is of no use.

The head must have the body to carry out the plans so that the dream can be realized, can be captured. See, Christ came to bring the dream and the plan of peace and reconciliation to a world of lost People.

 The lost people who were alienated from God and from one another. Now the body, the church that's us, must carry out the dream and the plan, the message of peace. In the power and authority of Christ. which is The gospel message of Jesus , that must be taken. To all mankind by the Church. 

Here's the big take away. The big point here. If God had the power to create the church and to make Christ the head of the church, then he has the power to make the body function and to work for Christ Jesus.

God has the power to get us busy for the Lord. The power to help us in our witnessing. The power to stir us up to proclaim the message of reconciliation. And to minister to a desperate. Fallen. World ,lost in its weight of sin and darkness and starvation, disease and suffering and war and anger and hatred.

Then we will have the power, when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, to carry the gospel message of Jesus Christ. And to save people from the fire. 

Acts 1:8 “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.””

Jude 22–23 “And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.”

Matthew 28:19–20 ““Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.””