Our God is Omnipotent (Part 7)

Now as related to Jesus’ ability, Jesus performed miracles and what is the significance of miracles as it relates to the power of God? Anybody remember? How do miracles show the power of God? They supersede the natural law. Right, which is also the power of God. So the power of God superseding the power of God and Jesus, because he performed miracles, he superseded the laws of nature and and by doing so, he he proved that he had power greater than that of nature which he he obviously has that as well and then we also saw how that Jesus has authority and what is the primary way we saw last week that Jesus demonstrated his authority?

Anybody remember? One particular way you see repeated that Jesus demonstrated his power in a sense of authority as it relates to what? Exactly. As it relates to unclean spirits with power and authority commanded even the unclean spirits and they do obey him. And the last thing we saw last week was delegated power. In other words, not only did Jesus have power over nature, not only did Jesus have authority over the devils and he had power over illnesses and diseases, he took a part of that power and he delegated it to others, his disciples or the 70 in whatever case you you look at. And they then from receiving that power from him, they then exercise that same power through him, which is we’ve already seen is something that the Lord does in civil government, he delegates power. So he doesn’t keep it all to himself where he’s the only one who does everything.

He delegates that to others. And that’s just my view, that’s just a super interesting fact about the Lord and especially when you look at other doctrines of Scripture, how that God delegates power. So he gives power without approving of how that power is used. And so that’s that’s just a fact of scripture. And so and so that’s what we have so far. Jesus delegated that power in the same way that we’ve we’ve seen that God delegates power thereby showing us that he is, of course, God. Now, there’s one other, aspect of Jesus or of power as it relates to Jesus Christ I wanna look at today, which is the power of Jesus’ resurrection. So we’re gonna be in John chapter 10. Let’s pray and then we’re gonna go through some verses that deal with the power of the resurrection.

Our father, thank you for the the opportunity to be here today. Lord, we pray for those who are, are not able to be here today because of illness and we pray that your blessing and help would be upon them and raise them up quickly, from their suffering, their bed of illness, and, Lord, we also pray for those who are traveling, that you’d protect them and, bring them back safely.

And Lord, for those who are going through difficulty, even if it’s not physical difficulty, but going through emotional or spiritual difficulty. Lord, raise those up and help those as well. And Lord, we pray that you would bless our time in Sunday school today. Help us understand and and believe and act upon and live by your power because you are an almighty God and there’s none beside you. So bless us and guide us in our study this morning. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.

Okay. John 10 verse number 17. Look at what the Bible says here. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again. Now laying down one’s life, now that you could there’s a couple different ways you can look at that, but to lay down one’s life, you could say, giving oneself to die, that’s something that any human being can do, giving one themselves to die is something any human being can do.

And that’s something people have done in the past and that’s not uncommon. You think of the military, you think of the country, you think of medals of honor and things like that, people can give themselves to die. But there’s another sense that Jesus gave himself when it says he laid down his life and it does speak more of a more of the authority over life than just merely giving yourself as a substitute.

It is the idea of the idea the idea of of choosing when and how you’ll die, right? And choosing for what purpose you’ll die and that’s what actually what we’re we’re getting into today in the in as we go through the passion of Christ in Matthew 26, is that the Lord is the one who reserved the power to determine how He would die and when He would die. And that’s all part of that narrative that we’ve seen. So it says, because I lay my life down that I might take it again, no man taketh it from me. So you might ask, hold on, what about the Roman soldiers?

What about the council that condemned him? What about Pilate who gave sentence that he should be crucified? What about all of those human actors? Again, I’m gonna I’m I’m getting ahead of myself here but you can’t help it. What we’ll see this morning in the Sunday morning service as when we study this Matthew 26 is that at any time, Jesus could have ended all of it. So the fact that he didn’t shows that he was laying his life down.

And it wasn’t man, and we have to get this right, we have to get this right when we talk about the gospel. It wasn’t a man centered idea that Jesus was dying on the cross. This was something that was planned and executed by God Himself. And that’s what this indicates, no man taketh it from me, though men might have been involved, but I lay it down of myself. I have, here it is, power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.

This commandment have I received of my father. I have power, the thing I want you to see here is the power of the resurrection. I have power to take it again. Now death, we don’t usually think of death in terms of a thing of power, right? When you think of a thing of power, might, like we’ve talked about before, we might think of gravity. And we understood when we were going through the part about creation, God’s power shown in creation, we’ve seen the power of the principle of gravity or the law of gravity if you will. And it takes great power, physical power to overcome that power, right? So that’s, you know, we talked about that with rockets and such. It’s just that the power of death which in the same way that gravity is a principle that rules over the physical world, so death, going way back to the Garden of Eden, in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, right?

Death which was introduced with sin, the power of God or rather the power or the principle if we could say that, the principle of death is also a power in this world on the spiritual level. And just like you can’t simply just undo it or overcome it with gravity or whatever power you might be, you you might look at in the physical world, so it is true in the spiritual. Death is a principle, it is a power that cannot be easily overcome.

It rules. In fact, the Bible says, death reigned from Adam to Moses in Romans chapter five. So that reigning implies what? It implies power, it implies authority. And so, the idea of death, the principle of death, both physical death, spiritual death, is a power in God’s universe as a result of sin. Right? So, therefore, all of that to say, therefore when Jesus says I have power to take my life again, I have power to rise again from the dead, what does he actually say? He’s saying his power supersedes that principle of death.

Death is subjugated and that He overcomes it. His power is greater than that. And so really any statement that Jesus makes or the scripture makes about the resurrection is actually a statement about power over death, the principle of death, the law if you will of death. And so that’s what this verse is saying, he has this power in himself. And again, there is no listen, it is not possible to overcome the principle or power of death without God. You know why? Because God instituted that.

God instituted that power. And even when you think of the physical powers like you think of gravity or something like that, we’re not overcoming gravity. Well, guess you could say we’re overcoming gravity. We’re not defeating gravity. We’re not undoing gravity when the rocket launches into space. What are we merely doing? We’re just counteracting that power enough to accomplish the thing we wanna do. We’re not like unraveling the principle altogether, but with death you can’t do that.

You have to The only power that is sufficient to undo that principle is the power of God and that’s exactly what Jesus is demonstrating here. Look at Acts chapter two. Acts chapter two.

Look if you would at verse, this is Peter preaching Verse 23, Acts two twenty three, the Bible says this, him referring to Jesus of Nazareth in verse 22, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of god, there that we’re repeating ourselves again. Here it is. Jesus said, I have power to lay my life down. It was an act of his will. Here it says the same thing. Jesus went to the cross not because a bunch of guys hated him but by a determined act of God. Determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death. You think of pains in if you visualize that as chains, that’s a symbol or an illustration of power.

Someone’s in prison, there’s no way to get out, there’s a power binding them, right? You can’t break out of jail, you can’t break out of prison, why? The power is binding you. And so it says here, because it was not possible that he should be holding of it, which again brings us back to who Jesus is. If it was not possible that he should be holding with the power of death, that means that he is very God, that he can undo that power. Look at Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one.

Romans one verse number three Romans one verse three says, referring to the gospel of God in verse one, it says, Concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh and, here it is, declared to be the son of God the son of God with power. Alright. So we I’m not doing this on purpose, but we keep on coming back to the same truths which is who is Jesus? How do we know?

He is the son of God. He is God in the flesh. How do we know? Because he exercised it, he performed miracles, because he has power over death, declared to be the son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, here it is, by the resurrection from the dead. So there it is, Jesus showed his power by the resurrection from the dead.

Jesus showed his power by his authority over devils. Jesus showed his power by his ability over the laws of nature in miracles. In each case, you see Jesus’ identity demonstrated. Look at two Corinthians chapter 13.

Two Corinthians chapter 13. Alright, look down to verse number four. Second Corinthians 13 verse four. The Bible says this, for though he was crucified through weakness, that is the power of death, he was subjected to it, he was arrested, in every case, as you follow the gospels, obviously this is fresh on my mind for obvious reasons, but as you start at that point when the sufferings of Christ begin, from the arrest, the binding, the judgment, the whipping, the cross, all of that is are are all ways in which we see that Jesus was as a human being, he was subjected to weakness, right? Someone could bind him, that implies weakness, right?

A stronger power holds him. So, he was crucified through weakness yet he live it by the power of god. Now, we know that. So, that’s another, again, just another proof verse over and over. Power of god by the resurrection. Power of god by the resurrection. Power of Christ by the resurrection. Now here’s where it gets here here’s where we kind of extend it into the practical part. Remember when we do our study of these different attributes, we look at the theology, we look at Jesus Christ, and then we look at the practical part.

And we also look at the gospel and really, when we’re talking about the gospel, we’re we’re talking about Christ’s resurrection which is part of the gospel. So, it’s kind of all interrelated but in this case, here’s where the power of Christ in his resurrection extends and overlaps into our practical life as a believer. Alright, notice what it says here.

For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. Now in this verse, verse four, it is a little quiz here. Look at the verse and and I want I want to I want you to to answer this question. What is the power of God in this verse? In the second part of the verse it says, it says this, but we shall live with you by the power of God toward you. Now as I was studying this, the thought came to my mind, alright, I know we hear the word the power of God, and that’s obviously a fine word, but what specifically are we talking about when we say the power of God? Because there are many variations of it, many ways it’s manifested like we’ve already seen.

But in this verse, the second part of this verse, you might say verse 4b, what does the power of God actually refer to? What specific manifestation of the power of God?

Let’s look at it. Look at the top of the verse, the front of the verse. Because he says you have two mentions of the power of God and this is the way you gather the context. So, I’m asking the question, it says, we shall live with you, live with him by the power of god towards you. Alright. So, there’s a there’s a power of god, the omnipotence of god, right? There’s a power of god in us. That’s what the verse says, Everybody get that?

But what is that talking about? Go up to the top of the verse because it also uses the word power of God and in that case, at the first part of the verse, the power of God is referring to what? It’s referring to the resurrection. Notice the top of the verse, it says, though he is crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. So, the manifestation of the power of God on the first part of the verse is the resurrection.

That same power is the power we’re referring to at the second part of the verse, which is no longer the resurrection of Christ, but the power that’s working in us. So now we have, and this is the fun of it, the gospel is for the believer, the gospel is not a far off truth that happened two thousand years ago. The gospel becomes a part of our life today in 2026.

The power of God was was in was in in action and in effect when Jesus rose from the dead. That’s obvious. But that same power is still active and in effect in us. That’s what the verse is saying. It’s saying both about the same power.

Yeah. Right. Which is the which is the principle of death, right? Well, you get you get something else. Okay. Yeah. That’s exactly where we’re going with this. Is the principle of death not only is physical death, but the principle of spiritual death and the resurrection of Christ. Alright, so let’s continue this thought because this is where it gets interesting. Look at Ephesians chapter one.

Ephesians chapter one. This is the famous, if you want a good study, here’s a study. You wanna know how to pray for people when you don’t have a specific prayer request or even when you do have a specific prayer request? Ephesians one is a really long prayer. Paul’s saying, this is how I pray for you and to show you, verse 15, wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.

And then the following verses are all of the ways that Paul prays for the saints. So follow following that, verses number eighteen, one of the prayer requests is verse number 18. The eyes that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. Now follow it carefully, what is he saying? He’s saying, I want you, I want you to know, I want you to know what is the hope of your calling. I want you to know what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance.

I want you to know, verse 19, what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe. So here’s the thing, Paul prayed and God wants us to know the power, omnipotence, the power of God that is at our disposal or that is at work in us. And here’s the reality, if anybody in here who’s honest would have to say, as a Christian, I do not feel powerful.

Right, would you admit that? I feel weak. I feel bound. I feel like I struggle. Would everybody kind of nod and say yeah, I get that, I know what that, I feel weak. And there is absolutely a weakness at work in us, no question about that. But Paul’s saying, I want you to know, church at Ephesus, I want you to understand that there is a power at work in you.

And it says, not just any power, it says, the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe. So whether you feel it, whether you know it, whether you live by it or not, you and I as believers, God’s power is exceeding great toward us and it is working in us. I think what happens is sometimes we forget what it was like before we knew Christ, we get used to living with this power.

And so when we get used to living with it, we forget that we have it and we feel weak and sometimes I think it’s good to feel weak obviously. It would be like, I was trying to think of a good example.

Say you were driving a car that had a really strong engine, right? When you first get in the car at the very beginning, you know, maybe you’ve been driving just a little old beater and you know, has two cylinders and you know, like our van in Cambodia and you press the gas all the way to the floor and all it does is smoke and doesn’t speed up, that’s true, that’s a true story.

And so you get a new car and it has a large V eight engine, right, and it’s got some turbos on it or whatever. And you press the gas and it goes. Well after a little while, after a few months you’ve been driving that car, you’ve gotten used to the power, right? And so you get in the car and you press the gas and that booger just goes, it goes.

And you think it’s normal. But it’s not. There’s a power there that you’ve gotten used to when you drive and you just assume it’s always gonna be there and it is, but you just assume it and then somebody else comes along with a greater power, come in with a, what do they call them, a virin, what do they call it Isaiah, those fancy cars, those muscle cars.

Yeah yeah, Bugatti, the kind that you know that has the fins that go down and it sits low and it yeah, it costs like $1,000,000 or whatever. A couple. A couple million. And you get one pulls up beside you. What? 3,000,000. 3,000,000. Okay, whatever. One pulls up beside you and all of a sudden you’re like, and when he floors it, like you might as well be sitting still.

There’s a greater power, right? There’s a greater power at work. But you’re forgetting that you’ve been driving with all that power all this time. And it’s always there. It’s always there. And I think that’s a little bit, maybe it’s a crude comparison, but that’s a little bit of a comparison with a Christian. When you’ve been a Christian for a long time like I have and like many of you have, the newness of God working in you wears off.

The newness, not God working in you, that never wears off, but the newness of it, the sense of newness wears off and so the power is always there and always working but you get used to it and it kinda makes you feel weak over time.

But it is an exceeding great power. Notice what it says, verse 19. Exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power. Now, the question is, now look at look at me real quick because I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna give you another test. Alright, here it is. Two times in verse 19 he says power. The power exceeding greatness of his power to usward to usward who believe according to the the working of his mighty power. So God’s like power, power, power. You know, he’s like, he’s focusing on power. Now look at verse 20. Look at put your eyes there on verse number 20 and I want you to tell me what specific power God is talking about.

Verse 20 says what? It’s the resurrection. But this power, of course we know it acted when Jesus rose from the dead, but it’s not talking about Jesus resurrection anymore. It’s talking about that same power at work in us. You see that? At work in us.

Now, you say, well, I don’t I don’t really feel very powerful. I don’t feel like I’m doing very much. Which he wrought in Christ, verse 20, when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. You see, verse 19 tells us that the power that raised Christ from the dead is the same power that mightily works in the saint of God. Look at Romans chapter seven.

Look at Romans chapter seven. Verse five. Romans seven verse five says this, for when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. That word motions of sins, that kind of implies power. In other words there’s a force at work driving a sinner to sin, you know what that is, that’s the power of death. That’s the principle of death and the principle of sin.

That’s our nature, what we were before we knew Christ and really we still are in our flesh. It’s the nature that drives us to sin. You know what, a person who doesn’t know Christ does not have the ability to simply say, I ain’t gonna do that.

You know why? Because it’s overwhelming. That force to sin, that lust, that nature is overwhelming. And I know there’s a few people that are able to like stop drinking or stop doing drugs, you know, by themselves on their own but usually, if you pay attention, usually, sometimes it’s temporary and number two, sometimes it’s in the pursuit of another thing that they want that is potentially sinful. And so there is a power here. Look at verse number six.

Romans seven verse six. But now we are delivered from the law. That being dead wherein we were held, that’s the power of death, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. So it says that we were dead and that’s the power of death at work in us, but now that’s not, that has been overcome by the power of the Spirit of God.

Now, go if you would to Romans chapter six, we’re really close there, verse four. Romans six verse four says this, therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. You see the connection between the power of life, newness of life working in us, which is directly derived from the power of the resurrection, they’re connected.

They’re connected. Now here, I want you to get this. This is not to say that because this kind of feel good fake Christianity, this is not to say, and here’s the way people chalk it up. Honestly, people that are in Christian religion, right? Who are members of churches or whatever, but don’t actually have God in them. Here’s the way to chalk it up. Because Jesus rose from the dead, I’m inspired to live right. That is not what we’re talking about. There is something way better going on here. This is not an inspirational quote.

This is the same power that actually rose him from the dead is working in you to overcome those other powers that wicked nature and the power of death that’s in you and to cause you to do right. It’s not mere inspiration feel good. It’s a it’s a VA, maybe a VA supercharged hemi that the lord has permanently affixed to our life. It’s not just feel good, happy talk But that, listen, that’s exactly what this religious world thinks. That all these things, these deep, meaty, doctrinal truths that are practical in our life, it’s just happy talk.

It’s just another version of self help. I’ll remember this and it’ll make me stronger. That is not what we’re talking about. Whether you’re stronger or not, whether you’re weak, whether you’re puny, whatever you feel, however you act, whatever, God is doing something in you, right? That’s power. Look if you would at Romans six verse seven. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.

You think, well, he’s talking about at the at the resurrection of the saints when we receive our new body, not necessarily. Look at verse 11. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto god through our lord for Jesus Christ our Lord. That is not when Jesus comes, that’s now. That’s you’re alive now. Death has no power now. Sin has no power now.

You see, God’s power in the resurrection of Christ, God’s power overcame and vanquished death in Christ. But that same power has overcome and vanquished death and the nature of death in the believer. It’s done, you’re saved, that power is there in you. Death and sin does not have to have authority and power over you and over me any longer. We are not slaves to it, we are freed from it.

And that enables us to live for God. This is why a believer does not have to sin. This is why. Look at verse number look at chapter eight, Romans eight verse 10.

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness. Verse 13, for if you live after the flesh, there it is, you shall die but if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. This idea of living and dying. You know that power that works in you, not only do you have a new nature that doesn’t want to sin, it’s free from sin, it overcomes sin, it’s not subject to that law of death, You also have the spirit of God to energize and activate and drive that nature.

So really for a believer, I wanna end in Ezekiel, look at that Ezekiel 36. Because this is an Old Testament truth as well, or is hinted at and foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Ezekiel 36, there is no reason that a believer should be subject to sin and enslaved to it. We can sin obviously because we have the flesh and it’s drawn towards sin, but we do not have to yield to it because there is a power. It’s like this, you’re at a drag strip in your your V eight whatever charge, supercharged Dodge Charger or whatever whatever your preferred muscle car is, and you’re at the drag strip back in the rear dragway. You know what I’m talking about. Right?

And you come there’s like a an old timey Ford Escort beside you or a Model A or whatever, know. There’s this old old beater car beside you and the light turns green, the Christmas tree goes to green and and you start going and he pulls ahead. You know what that is? That’s the flesh. And the only reason that we’re losing the battle.

The only reason we’re not we’re losing the battle. It’s not for lack of power. It’s because we won’t press the gas. And you know what that is? That’s our walk with God. Because when God, when we yield to the spirit in us, to the spirit of Christ in us, it’s like pushing the gas. It is not hard. You don’t break a sweat because all the power is of God to overcome that puny little competitor, if you will.

Alright, Ezekiel 36, we’ll finish here. Verse 26, God says this, a new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh. That is a stony heart’s dead. A heart of flesh is alive. Right? Death, life. And I will put my spirit within you. There it is again. That I just said that, right? I just said that. That’s the thing that drives this new nature and here it is, cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them. This is not what we do. This is what God does in us. Man, isn’t that fantastic?

You say, oh well, I’m a good racer. No, you’re not. You just have a really good engine that’s given you by grace and that’s why you can destroy every car that comes out to compete against you in the drag race. Amen. Let’s pray together.