Thursday, April 5, 2018
Resurrection power
Ephesians 1:19,20
[that you man know] … the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead …
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the game changer and the differentiator. There are many religions, many belief systems, many isolated displays of power in one situation or another, but there is no display of power like the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on the third day.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus and surrounding areas, said this much. In the opening chapter, Ephesians 1:15-23, He argues that the resurrection is the ultimate proof of God’s power and a demonstration that the schemes of men will not stop the power of God.
Jesus spoke of this power long before the resurrection and some of those who heard him declared that He was either stark raving mad or possessed by a demonic spirit.
Jesus said to a gathering, “My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” John 10:17,18.
God is never in a power contest but for us, the outworking of the power of God when we are in a ‘contest’ has always been a cause for praise. We can go all the way back to the Red Sea to what I believe is the first example of congregational worship on record. Right after the Red Sea crossing when Pharaoh’s soldiers were turning up dead on the seashore, God’s people broke out in song.
Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord, and spoke, saying: “I will sing to the Lord, For He has triumphed gloriously! / The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!” Exodus 15:1. Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. Exodus 15:20.
Skipping down some centuries we get to the prophet Elijah in a contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Faith and trust in God were at stake, the lives of those who trusted God were at stake, and Elijah’s own life was at stake. He was now up against the 450 prophets of Baal, but he was also up against Ahab and the mass-murderer Jezebel.
Elijah said to them, “you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.” 1 Kings 18:24. Elijah was confident that the power of God was going to be displayed.
“Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”” 1 Kings 18:38,39.
Then in 2 Chronicles, we have the story of Sennacherib, King of Assyria who boasted against the Lord. “He also wrote letters to revile the Lord God of Israel, and to speak against Him, saying, “As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people from my hand, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver His people from my hand.”” 2 Chronicles 32:17.
“Now because of this King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed and cried out to heaven.” 2 Chronicles 32:20. Read the rest of the story. God demonstrated His power against the Assyrians, their king Sennacherib, and their gods.
People always try to test the power of God especially against the ‘power’ of the things in which they believe. However, on that Sunday when the stone rolled away from the tomb in the garden mysteriously and miraculously, the power question was settled once and for all. Paul said that God worked (exerted, NIV) His mighty power in raising Jesus from the dead. Ephesians 1:20.
We understand this more as we recognise that every force arrayed against God had a vested interest in keeping Jesus in the tomb. Every word He ever spoke would have been forever buried with Him. We might never even have heard about Him if He had stayed in that tomb. The record of His life, at best, might have been one of the forgotten footnotes of history.
But the reality is that God exerted His power and Jesus got up, made His bed, and walked out of the open tomb. The resurrection changes everything because the resurrected Jesus now has all authority in His hand. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Matthew 28:18
In the passage we’re looking at in Ephesians, Paul also writes about, “the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.” This is a deep truth for us to appropriate. God’s power, exerted in the resurrection, is available now, through the resurrected Jesus, to those who believe.
God’s power was always made available to those who believe in a specific way, it was available to Moses at the Red Sea, it was available to Elijah on Mount Carmel, it was available to Hezekiah in surrounded Jerusalem. But now, with the resurrection, it is available continuously to us all who believe.
The resurrection of Jesus should change how we see ourselves, our faith, our church. We have available to us the resurrection power. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20,21
Think on these things:
- Do you have an experience of the resurrection power of Jesus in your life?
- Is there a demonstration of the resurrection power in your church?
- What would you expect that demonstration of the resurrection power in your life or your church to be like?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would constantly experience the resurrection power of Jesus.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex