The Greatness of God's Power
Praying with Paul • Sermon • Submitted
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Intro:
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power
Tonight, we will continue [Praying with Paul]. The title of my message is, [The Greatness of God’s Power].
If we have been in church for any amount of time, we have all heard that God is great. But what did Paul mean when he wrote that he desires us to know the greatness of God’s power toward us.
Paul had two perspectives of God’s greatness.
His unconverted idea
His saved idea
Paul was unique from many people who get saved today. Paul was a sinner, hie even called himself the chiefest of sinners. But prior to his conversion, he thought about God and thought he knew God.
Generally speaking, when people in our society get saved, they have little knowledge of God. They hear the Old Testament accounts with great joy and interest.
Paul was different. Before his Damascus road experience, he was definitely lost, BUT he had knowledge about God.
I would say most people who got saved at a Billy Graham crusade did not have the first five books committed to memory. They would not have been experts in Old Testament law.
But Paul was. He was trained under the greatest Rabbi of his day, Gamaliel. He knew all ABOUT God, but he did not know him personally. God revealed His great power to Paul as he walked down the road.
When he came to Christ, he then encountered God’s greatness. He had a first-hand experience with the greatness of God. Everything changed for him.
Now, he writes to the Church at Ephesus and talks about his desire for them. Remember, we’re praying with Paul. We have not heard him pray, but we can read what he prayed for God’s people.
This is what we’ve focused on all year. We have joined Paul in prayer that:
God would give us wisdom and revelation
We would know the hope we have in Him
We would realize we have an inheritance
How can we walk out these prayers?
Through experiencing the greatness of God.
Knowing about God’s greatness is not enough. God wants us to experience His greatness in our lives.
Let’s look at God’s greatness from Paul’s perspective. Here are a few ways we see God is great. He has, [Power over Death], [Power over the Devil], and [Power over the Disciples].
1. Power over Death
1. Power over Death
20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
Throughout the Old Testament, God revealed His power in many public ways:
Moses parting the Red Sea
Joshua and the battle of Jericho
David killing Goliath
Solomon dedicating the Temple
Daniel in the Lion’s den
Israel and Judah defeating their enemies in battle
But His power, while great, was revealed through one nation for one nation— Israel.
God had his sights on something bigger. He never forgot His promise to Abraham to bless his descendants, but He also did not forget His promise to send the Seed of the woman to bruise the head of the seed of the serpent.
We could take all of God’s powerful acts of the Old Testament, combine them, and they would still not scratch the surface of the power of the resurrection.
We can count the resurrections of the Old Testament on one hand. These events dramatically changed the lives of the people who came back to life and their families.
After the story is told, little is said about these people. Jesus on the other hand experienced the most high profile death in Scripture. He faced the Cross and His life appeared to end in defeat.
Once, He came back to life, His resurrection changed history. It altered the course of human existence.
But the greatness of Jesus’s power over death came into two ways:
what was seen
what was unseen
People SAW Him die. The SAW the empty tomb. They SAW His glorified body. They SAW Him for forty days before His ascension.
Paul focused on what was unseen.
Because of His power over death, He possesses a place of the highest honor and authority in the heavenly realm.
He is now seated at the right hand of God in heavenly places.
How do we know the greatness of God’s power? Remember, His power is so great, not even death could stop him.
2. Power over the Devil
2. Power over the Devil
21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
Jesus is enthroned in heaven, seated at the Father’s right hand. Why does He have this place of honor?
First and foremost, He is the Son of God, the second member of the Trinity. He did not have to do ANYTHING to be considered great to have power.
We have to remember, EVERYTHING Jesus did, He did for us. He did not have to come to earth, He did not have to die, He did not have to send the Holy Spirit, and He does not have to come again.
But in God’s great love for us, Jesus willing came to die in our place and give us victory. His defeat of the devil gives us a path to defeat the devil.
Since the beginning, Satan has sought to stop God and pervert His perfect will and way. His pride and arrogance gave him the illusion that he could actually succeed in usurping God’s greatness and power.
Something that we MUST remember about the devil— he is NOT all powerful, all knowing, or everywhere at once.
Satan is limited in his abilities. Therefore, he comes to deceive and distract God’s people, bullying them into thinking he has more power than he really does.
So Jesus’s defeat of death, was also a defeat of the devil. Death came as a result of Satan’s manipulative lies and temptation against Adam and Eve. Since then, every person has carried the weight and burden of sin.
I do not want to stand and say that Satan is totally rendered powerless. We can look around and see that many people have submitted to his ways.
Much of the world has submitted to the enemy and his plans for the world. Right now, he flexes his evil muscles because he knows his time is short. Very soon:
1 After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!
3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.”
4 And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.
Satan’s power over this world will not last forever. For Jesus has the ultimate power over every ruler, government, and leader.
So we must come out of the idea that we have to be intimidated by the enemy, for he has NO power over the child of God, for we are under the pavilion of the greatness of God’s power.
3. Power over the Disciples
3. Power over the Disciples
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Often when people hear the word disciples, they think of the twelve who followed Jesus. And that is partly true. But, God envisioned that EVERY believer would become a disciple.
18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Jesus spoke with ALL power and authority to His disciples and instructed them— REPRODUCE YOURSELF. Go make more disciples.
When we come to Christ, it is more than praying a prayer and going on with our lives. Instead, coming to Jesus means we put ourselves beneath His authority.
We submit our will, our wants, and our desires to whatever He wants.
How do we learn such submission? Jesus modeled it on earth.
19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.
If Jesus, who possesses all power and greatness, submitted to the FATHER, He did so that we might follow His example. He really does have all power.
Now, as the church, the body of disciples, we are filled with Him through the Holy Spirit, and we submit to Him, following Him in everything we do.
Close:
Praying with Paul means more than repeating the passages that record his prayers. Instead, the aim is to get what Paul prayed about deep within our spirits.
It is to our benefit to pray that God reveals the greatness of His power to our lives, our families, and our church.
Imagine how dramatically changing God’s power was to Paul. Everything shifted the moment he came to the revelation that what he THOUGHT He knew about God was nothing compared to what he experienced when he had a moment in God’s power.
We should never overestimate the enemy’s power and underestimate Jesus’s power. He is omnipotent, He has all power and authority.
Whatever we face, we must remember, Jesus has:
Power over death
Power over the devil
Power over the disciples