Power

Reading:      2 Cor4:7    2 Cor. 12.9    Zech. 4:6

A few years ago I was taking some young people home in my car after the evening service.  One young fellow at the back of the car suddenly spoke up and said: Timothy, wasn’t it  great to have some spiritual power.  
What sort of spiritual power, John ?  I asked  
Well he said, the sort that can make people better when you pray, the sort that would send people to the floor.  
Why do you think you need that sort of power I asked.  
Oh it feels good to be able to do that he said.  

Well he wasn’t the first one who thinks and talks like that about spiritual power.   You might recall that in the early chapters of Acts, Philip the evangelist was having  a successful campaign in Samaria, and many people became Christians and were baptized, including a man called Simon the Sorceror.   When Peter and John came down from Jerusalem and began to pray for the believers to receive the Holy Spirit, there was an unusual manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives.   Simon, looking on,  was intrigued, and he asked Peter to sell him that sort of power.   Why, maybe that would make him look important !!   But that was a completely wrong motive for the power of God and he was given a very swift and severe rebuke by Peter.   

Handling power, especially spiritual power is a very serious and often dangerous matter, and God often places constraint and a long preparation for people before he hands them the power.  

At the beginning of Jesus ministry, he went to the River Jordan to be baptised by John.  As he did so, the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit came upon him and he was filled with power for ministry.  But instead of going straight out to minister to the people, Jesus was led  by the Holy Spirit to the desert, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil.   What were those temptations about ?   I think they were about the use of power:   whether Jesus would use the power God has just given him for his own comfort, to catch people’s attention, for his own glory, or for the purpose of serving others in obedience to God. 

You would remember, that the devil waited until Jesus was very hungry, and he said to him, If you are really the son of God, why don’t you use your power to turn those stones into bread to satisfy your own need. 
Without any hesitation, Jesus replied:  No, power is not to be used to satisfy my own needs, obedience to God’s word is a lot more important.  
That sent the devil running for cover.  In the second temptation Jesus was asked to jump down from the pinnacle of the temple.  What a spectacle that would have been with all the people in the temple watching, and what a reception he would have had for his first sermon.  
No.  Jesus replied, that is also a wrong use of power, to force God to protect me for a very selfish reason.   All right then, since you don’t want to use your power, Jesus, try and have some of mine.   If you just forget about God for a brief moment and worship me instead, then you will have all the power you will ever need and the whole world and all its power and glory will be yours.  Again Jesus passed the test.   No God alone is to be worshipped.   He is the ultimate source of my power,  I don’t need any power of my own.  

Power is a difficult and dangerous thing to handle.  Whether you are a pastor, a leader, a teacher, an employer, a politician, a businessman or simply a parent, when we are in a position to make decisions for others, to make a difference in other peoples lives, we need to be careful that we do not abuse our position of power. Someone has said : power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.   That is true.   It is so easy to take advantage of our positions of power for our own gain……  In the process deluding ourselves for being what we are not. 

Richard Foster a well-known British writer shared about the illusion and deception of power. The publisher of his book invited him to a gathering of journalists and other important guests for a launching of some of his best books.   Within three hours of arriving at the gathering he said to his wife lets get out of here quickly; otherwise I will begin to believe what they are saying about me….

Although there is a danger of handling both spiritual as well as earthly human power, there is a difference in the way the two kinds of power operate. Human power usually depends on one’s position, one’s strength, and one’s wealth. Spiritual power depends on our realization that we are weak and helpless on our own and comes entirely from God……through his Spirit.
  
If you are the boss, the employer, then you can call the tune and get people to do what you want,

regardless whether they like it or not.  If you have the money, then you can probably use your wealth to buy up factories and businesses and then close them down if that suits you, even though many people may lose their jobs, their livelihood, and their self esteem  in the process. The main characteristic of  human power is that it is so very self serving…It gets ones way regardless of cost to others.  It thinks about one’s own need and wishes, but ignores those of others.   It dominate over others and their interests - it hems others in and destroy them in the process. Human power does not always need to origin from power and wealth either.  It can come in many different ways:-   

For example it can work on other people’s concern about us:
A young baby soon realizes that if it cries loud enough and long enough it will send its parents come running to it to meet its needs.  For babies, because they can’t fend for themselves, it is probably legitimate most of the time.   Unfortunately, some people have never grown beyond babyhood and they still yelled and screamed to get attention.
Or it can work on a sense of guilt:
One can say to one’s parents: If you don’t buy me that jacket, I will catch pneumonia and die, and it will be all your fault. A teenager will say to their parents : look everybody else allows their sons and daughters to go to the party. You are just too old fashion.   If you don’t let me go I’ll be a social outcast.
Or we can threaten the withdrawal of love or benefit :  A parent may say to her son : if you marry that girl, don’t expect to have any share in my will and don’t expect me to be at your wedding.
You can no doubt think of many other examples in which we use fear, anger, guilt, embarrassment and withdrawal of love as our weapon to force others to do what we want.  

Now I am not saying for one minute we need to be trampled over by every wish of everybody.  But when we uses manipulation to get what we want, then we using our power in a very wrong way. The tragedy of using power like this is that other people are manipulated by us into doing things that they are reluctant to, and we destroy them, rather than building them up.  We imprison them within our will.   We force them to do what we want because it is to our advantage, not theirs.   In many cases we maintained a relationship on the outside, but huge cracks already begin to show on the inside.   

On the other hand : divine power does just the opposite.   It is a power that enables, a power that sets free….It is a power that brings healing not destruction, freedom and not bondage.   It has the best interest of others, not myself.   It is a power that serves……   

The description of Jesus in Phillipians2   :   is an example :  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus : Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing , taking the very nature of a servant.

Most of you will know the story of the prodigal son well enough, and we usually focused on the Son and what he did. But spare a thought for the Father too.   Imagine the Father was sitting down after a hard day’s work and the Son came charging in.  Dad I want to go overseas, he said.  
OK, go then Son.  
But I need money Dad, lots and lots of it.  
OK   I thought you have saved enough. How much do you need ? 
Well this is a bit embarrassing Dad, but could I have my share of inheritance now, the amount of money I should get when you die, but then, you are too healthy and I am getting a bit impatient to wait any further. 
Son, can’t you stay around and help your brother in the mean time ?  
No Dad I have to go ! I can’t wait.  

What would you have done in the Father’s situation ?   I would have said: Hard luck Son, you just sit around and wait.   In any case I  can’t trust you with my money, you are such a good for nothing fellow !   You would squander everything I give you.   Besides I need to have money for my retirement.
No, the Father did not hold on to his son. After talking to him and realizing that he can’t change his mind, the Father sold his property and gave the half share to him and said:  Look son, I am sad that you have to go.  Here is the money.  Use it carefully and remember I will be waiting for you to come home when you are ready.  And the Father prayed and waited each day for his son to return, probably high on the balcony, so that he could see him first when he rounded the corner. You know the rest of the story.
This tells me a lot about our God…. The God who sets us free in order that we may come back to him out of our own free will. 

Many of you are probably very keen gardeners.  I am not a keen gardener but I like the display of the many rose plants  in the front of my house.  When the first buds appear on the rose bushes, I look forward to the time when they will open up a little at a time until it was fully open in all its splendor towards the sun.  No matter how desperate I was to see the flower, I would never dream of forcing a bud to open.   To do so will only destroy it entirely.     As gardener we learn to wait, to let go, to allow a plant to take its time. 

The Father in the prodigal Son’s story did exactly that.   He waited and waited and waited until the son was ready and when the Son came back voluntarily it was a time to have a party and to rejoice.  

In the same way, we need to release our grip our control in situations, in peoples lives and pray that God will bring about changes in peoples lives when they are ready.   As we learn to let go and release control, so the people that we care about can come to a place of change through the gentle work of the Holy Spirit rather than us pushing and manipulating. 

One of the most amazing things I am discovering about God is that he takes time, he is not in a

hurry.   He knows that he is changing men and women for all eternity and so it is possible to spend five, ten or twenty years to bring about changes, to bring about maturity.    How long did he spend with Moses ?   Forty years to grow up in the Egyptian palace to learn how the Egyptian politics work , and 40 years looking after sheep in the back of  the desert to discover and learn patience and faith in God, and then he was launched into one of the hardest tasks any one could have expected to do, leading half a million of grumbling, rebellious and fickle individuals through a trackless desert, having to feed them, cloth them provide water for them and protect them from enemies and from themselves.  I doubt if Moses could have done the job without all 80 years of preparation. 

  And when God sent Jesus into the world, he did not send an adult, he send a baby, and for the next thirty years, Jesus grew up - he took time to understand what it is to be a child, to be a young person, to be an adult, he went through all the trauma that any other human beings would go through in order that he can understand you and me when we pray, and he sustains us when we go through pain, disappointment, suffering and if he does not rush into every situation when we pray, it is not because he does not care but because he gives us time for things to change, for people to change.

You see God does not use his power to bulldoze us into submission, to demand an instant obedience, an instant holiness, and an instant maturity. We can’t cope with that.  God could have made millions of robots and programme them to sing I love you Lord every minute of the day.  But that would have been meaningless and brings no pleasure to him.   God similarly does not force us to love him and obey him without giving any choice to us.  No God rather chose to manifest his power and his love for us by sending his Son to die for you and me, in order that you and me, being set free from our sins and our selfishness, can in gratitude raise our voice in thankfulness and praise to Him.

How does God release his power in this world ?  Strangely enough, it is mainly through fallible weak human beings like you and me.   Very often we think of people like Paul in the New Testament as powerful servants of the Lord and we can never accomplish what he does.  But when we turn to 2 Corinthians we read another side of Paul:  2 Corinthians 4:1-7   Here Paul is saying that his ministry does not consist in manipulating people using craftiness and deceit. It does not consist of  just a powerful display of eloquence,  but it comes from a fragile human being who feels pain, who can be broken :   we have this treasure in earthen vessels  :   clay pots  - crude, rough and easily broken  -  but the treasure - the powerful saving grace of God through Christ  —  this light that shines in darkness — this power that breaks the chains of Satan and sets people free — this glorious light that takes away the blindness which the Enemy puts over people’s eyes — powerful stuff —  where does this treasure  stay ?   inside earthen vessels — not stainless steel or platinum or gold or

silver — not super duper Christian who can never do any wrong - who can recite all the scriptures without mistakes — who never feels down or depressed — but people who can come alongside others, who have experienced heart ache pain and suffering in their own lives — people who will not be inflated with their own self importance, it is people like that God uses.  

Paul writing later in 2 Cor 12: complained about a thorn in the flesh that Satan planted in him and  he wanted God to remove it from him — we are never sure what that was, but it was obvious painful and most inconvenient — but God said no….. the thorn stays — why ?   Jesus said:    My grace is sufficient for you for my strength (my power) is made perfect in weakness……..  God’s power flows out of us who are weak and who know our own limitations and pain.    

Some of you may know about John Wimber who recently passed away.  He was a leader of  a very powerful ministry of healing and worship in America.   He always said that people in his ministry team who pray for others for healing must themselves have first experienced healing in their own lives.    That is they are not operating from a superior position, but people who themselves know what it is to suffer pain and weakness and were in need of God's touch and so they can come alongside people to pray with them rather than for them.    John Wimber himself  was constantly in pain, with a weak heart and although many heart patients have been healed by his prayers, he himself was never healed. Quite an irony.   And some of his conferences were postponed or cancelled because the leader of the healing ministry team was sick…..what an irony !!!  But this is the way of God’s power ?   Why ?   so that the sense of power will not corrupt us……

Some of us have prayed long and hard for revival of our nation, renewal for our Christians. We have asked for God’s power to be poured down in such a mighty torrent that people will be changed, crimes will cease and our prisons will become empty. When I look at the young people in our nations many of them have been so damaged through abuse, through drugs and through broken families, that I yearned and prayed that God would heal them by his power. 

But that power can only flow out through us…. His people….The fire can only be lit through us who are willing to pay the price, to be servants, to be carers, disciplers, youth leaders,  people who are channels, clean channels for his power to flow through…..people who will resist the temptation of using the power for our own needs….  People who know our own weakness, people who have scars of suffering, who carry within us the power and presence of God’s Spirit to bring hope and healing to those around us.  

Let Us Pray

Father I want first of all to pray that you will set us free from the corrupting influence of human power.  And if we have used our own power to manipulate others for our own selfish ends, please forgive us and set us free. And bring healing to me and to the people I have manipulated.

Secondly father I pray that you will release your divine power in our nation.   Use me, use each one of us, as frail and fallible human beings, so that the excellency of that power may be entirely of you and not of us.   And so glory be given to you and not ourselves.    Bring about a spiritual awakening in our nation.  Bring about healing between the different peoples of this nation.   Pour your Holy Spirit into the lives of our beautiful young people so that they will have a longing for you and your love and that they may turn to you in their thousands. We lift up every Christian pastor and youth pastor and Christian youth worker and teacher in this nation that you will renew and refresh them and empower them to do your work of restoration of our people.   For your name sake.   Amen
LHBC 8/2/1998