I Have Power
I HAVE POWER!
JOHN 10: 14-18
Today I want to speak to you on the subject: I HAVE POWER! Power is a very descriptive word in the New Testament. Dunamis = Power – means inherent power, power which resides in a person by virtue of its nature. In John 10 Jesus used this phrase or the implication of it at least 5 times. Quite a statement. Jesus said, I HAVE POWER! To have power is what lots of men talk about but none actually have.
Men on Wall Street think they have power - World leaders think they have power –Sadaam Hussein thought he was invincible but they found cowering in a hole in the ground and hung him by the neck till dead. Muhammad Ali thinks he was the ‘GREATEST’ but he wasn’t. Today we have ‘Girl-power’, ‘white power’, ‘black power’, and Chicano power. NUCLEAR POWER, FOSSIL FUEL POWER, AND SOLAR POWER.
ILLUSTRATION – Some years ago I was talking with a man who was in the habit of mistreating his wife and children. He abused them terribly. He wasn’t too bad till he started to drink, which was often. I spoke with him about giving his life to the Lord. He let me know that he didn’t need God. He was plenty strong enough without him. Some weeks later that man had a stroke caused by a tiny clot in his carotid artery. That big, strong, self-sufficient man who did not need God was reduced to someone having to push him around in a wheel-chair and feeding him. HE NEEDED GOD. He wasn’t as powerful as he thought.
What is it that determines if a person is really powerful or not? What feats of valor or difficulty would one have to do to prove he is truly powerful?
READ John 10:14-18. We find the words of Jesus identifying what truly makes one powerful.
CIT – Just a few days before Jesus was crucified for our sins he spoke boldly to his disciples about the most telling issue of true power—THE ABILITY TO BOTH LAY ONE’S LIFE DOWN AND THE ABILITY TO RISE FROM THE DEAD.
NOW THAT IS POWER.
ILLUSTRATION – Very possibly one of the most powerful things in our solar system is the Sun. To harness its power is a marvelous accomplishment.
French scientists have built high in the Pyrenees the world’s largest solar furnace. This amazing furnace, with its complex of nearly 20,000 mirrors, can concentrate enough sunlight to create temperature in excess of 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to Time, “Anchored against a reinforced concrete office and laboratory building, the huge concave mirror consists of 8,570 individual reflectors. For the furnace to operate efficiently, these small (18 inches square) mirrors must be precisely adjusted so that light will converge exactly at the parabola’s focal point 59 feet in front of the giant reflector.
“It takes only a minute for the powerful light from the reflector to cut a fiery hole through 3/8-inch-thick steel plate.”
WOW, that is powerful – JESUS MADE THE SUN.
THESIS – It is one of the deepest longings of my heart that Believers and Unbelievers alike will take pause to consider the great power that is within Jesus and within us, and that we use that power to live the Resurrection everyday.
So, Jesus had power. Let’s look at John’s Gospel and see what he recorded as Jesus’ instruments of power.
JESUS SAID I HAVE POWER…
I. …TO OPEN OR CLOSE HEAVEN – V.1&9 “I am the Door…if anyone enters by the door…saved.”
- Most people want a better life in the next than they have in this one. There seems to be much confusion about how to make it happen. GOOD WORKS, CHURCH ATTENDANCE.
ILLUSTRATION - Two men and a youth—Arnold Dobson, Harold Most and his son Harold, Jr.—perished in the blasting summer heat of the Death Valley area. Sheriff deputies found their bodies seven, fourteen and seventeen miles from an abandoned car. “They were kind of strung out like a black line. The heat turned them black,” said deputy Red Landergram.
In leaving their stranded car to seek help, the three had tragically headed in the wrong direction, going toward a ranch house they had passed thirty miles back. Just a mile in the other direction was a grove of willows and a spring!
APPLY – How many of us are headed in the wrong direction today?
BIBLICAL BKGRND - Man born blind, questioned, put out. “AND THEY CAST HIM OUT.” They put him outside the door…BUT REMEMBER JESUS HAS THE POWER. They close one door but Jesus opened a new door and a new order.
APPLY – How many of us are facing doors in our lives that have been closed? Your old life may have been closed but Jesus has the power to get you into a new life.
Biblical BKGRND – Sheep FOLDS (Wall)>FLOCKS>DOOR = hole in wall. Many folds but one flock.
ILLUSTRATION – A man was traveling in the Holy Land – Came upon FOLD (WALL). Only one way into the fold, a hole in wall. Man asked Shepherd. Where is the door to the fold? He said, There it is, pointing to the space in the wall. “No”, the man said, “that is a whole where is the door?” The Shepherd said, “I am the door”. The Once the sheep are in the fold for the night I lie down in the space between the walls. No sheep goes in or out except by my word and no wolf gets in.
Jesus has the power to let you in. The world can’t get you in but Jesus can. Why? He is the Good Shepherd.
So, Jesus has the Power to Open or Close Heaven but He also has the Power to…
II. …TO SUSTAIN YOUR LIFE – V.9-10 “…go in and out an find pasture…but I am come…life.”
A. Jesus has the power to feed you.
1.If he can save you he can keep you. Paul said, 2 Tim. 1:12 “I am persuaded that he is able to keep…”
Romans 8:38-39 “I am persuaded that neither death…in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
John 6:51 “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever:”
- What is his flesh and blood? Matt 4.4 – “Man shall not live by bread alone…”
“…every word…of God…”
-LITTLE LAMBS FEED FROM UTTERS OF SHEEP NOT FROM HAND OF SHEPHERD.
2.Jesus leads his sheep to pasture – “by him…go in and out… pasture…”
So, Jesus has the Power to Open or Close Heaven and Sustain your Life but He also has the Power to…
III. …TO TRULY KNOW YOU…v. 3,14,27 “…He calls his sheep by name…I know my own and my own know me…My sheep hear my voice…”
Who really knows you? Not how you want to be known but who really knows you? Jesus really knew his sheep.
A. He knows your name.
- Peter, Zacchaeus, Mary Magdalene
B. He knows your nature – fears, joys, likes, dislikes, etc
C. He knows your differences – Peter=impulsive, Thomas=hesitant, doubtful, Nathaniel=trustworthy, Andrew=people person, Judas=user, manipulator.
D. He knows your needs.
So, Jesus has the power to open and close heaven, to sustain your life, to know you and…
IV. …CHOOSE DEATH AND LIFE -
Man can choose the time of his death…but no man can choose life once he is dead.
JESUS DID.
A. He had the Power – Dunamis –within himself. Life and death.
He chose to die to protect the sheep. He gave his life for the sheep.
B. He rose victorious to share his new life with the sheep. Read Eph. 1.18-23
CONCLUSION
“Low in the grave he lay, Jesus, my Savior. He rolled the stone away, Jesus my Lord.
Up from the grave he arose…”
When you stop to think about it. Who really has the right to talk about being great or having power? True power is not gained by being faithful to exercise. True power is not attaching several degrees after your name. True power is not about how many people you can get to do what you want them to do. True power is found in sacrifice. It is the ability to lay down your life for another. Men can do that and we call them heroes. But when one both lays his life down and then takes it back up we call that person, LORD.