The Omnipotence of God

We're on lesson 12 tonight, which is the omnipotence of God. So we're almost done with our study. After this week, we'll have the truth of God, then the following week, the love of God, and then the last week, which will be, I think, the week of Thanksgiving, we'll have the holiness of God. So we've still got some great studies coming up. This is the third omni, the third "all" study. And omnipotence is a big word, but it simply means Almighty, the God who is all-powerful. If you've ever drank, say, something that's very strong, my mom used to make wassail at Thanksgiving, which is kind of like apple cider with spice in it. She made it really strong. And we'd say, "Wow, that's potent stuff." You know, it would wake you up.

That's what God is. He's all-powerful, okay? He's arresting in His power. There's nothing else that can compare to His power. We have eight points to look at tonight. Eight Bible points. Normally, we do six, and we also have eight points of application. So we'll be moving a little bit quicker tonight so we can cover them in the same time. So let's look at the first Bible point.

God has all power over all things at all times. God has all power over all things at all times.

No one has the power that God has. He has all power over all things at all times. In the book of Genesis, chapter 12, God comes to a man named Abram, and He says, "I want you to leave your country, and I want you to go to a place you don't know. Leave the land of your fathers, and I want you to go to a land that I promise you, and I'm going to make you a mighty nation, and in you all the world will be blessed." And so Abraham did it. Abram did it. He believed God, and he went to that promised land. A few chapters over, you get to chapter 15 of Genesis, and he's there in the promised land, and God reestablishes that promise to Abram. He says, "Look up at the stars and count them if you can. See if you can number them." He says, "So shall your descendants be." And the Bible says that Abram believed God and was counted to him for what? For righteousness. Exactly right. He had his name changed to Abraham at that point.

In chapter 16, though, he's been in the land for about 10 years, and he still doesn't have a son. When he was originally called back in chapter 12, he was 75, so now he's around 85 years old. He's not getting any younger. His wife is 75 or so at this time. She's about 10 years younger than him, and he knows that the window's closing, and God promised him a child, but God's not doing the job, so to speak, at least not in Abraham's timetable. So Abraham takes matters into his own hand, him and Sarah. And you know the story. He went into Hagar, Sarah's maid, and had a son, but it wasn't the son of promise, right?

God comes to Abraham in chapter 17 and says, "Abraham, my promises are still true for you, and I'm still going to give you a child." And at this point, Abraham is almost 100 years old, right? The book of Romans chapter 4 tells us that his body was as good as dead, and Sarah's womb was dead because he's 100 and she's 90. That's impossible for man, right? Just unthinkable.

God was always able. He was always possible, and He often waits till we think the situation is impossible, right? Because if it's left in our own hands, we'll try to do it and claim credit, right? It's kind of like Jesus. Remember when Lazarus died? He didn't go there the first day. He didn't go there the second day. He didn't go there the third day. It was the fourth day. By the time he stank, right, they want everyone to know that Lazarus was dead. He wasn't just sleeping, and God got the glory, right? And so when God re-promises to Abraham that he's going to have a son in chapter 17, we find the first mention of God's name, El Shaddai, okay? And so on our sheet here, "When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, 'I am Almighty God.'" That's El Shaddai, the proper name of God. This was the name that was known to Abram. It was also known to Isaac and was also known to Jacob, to the fathers of the faith, if you will. "I am Almighty God. Walk before me and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you and multiply you exceedingly." And God did. He did a miracle. He brought about a son for Abraham, right?

Later on, remember when Moses, some 400 years later, is a shepherd and he's walking with a flock and he sees a burning bush. God calls him from that burning bush. He says, "Take off your shoes, you're on holy ground." And He tells him, "I want you to deliver Israel out of Egypt, out of bondage, out of slavery, and into the promised land once again."

And he says, "Who am I going to tell them sent me?" And God gives him another name. He says, "I was known by your fathers, by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as El Shaddai, but you'll know me as Yahweh." The God who always is. The great I Am, who always has been and always will be. That is another way of looking at God's power, right? He's not only the God who's Almighty and strong, but He's the God who is the founder of everything, the granter of all being, the creator of this world.

We find further revelation as the story of the Bible unfolds. We find it in the book of Revelation, which can be seen as a culmination of Scripture. In chapter one, yet another name for God that depicts His power. It's found in Revelation chapter one, verse eight. This is speaking of Jesus. Verse seven talks about how Jesus is going to be coming on the clouds to judge the world. He says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

In the Greek, the word for Almighty is Pantocrator. It's a big word. But what it literally means, if you want to be woodenly literal, it means the God whose finger is on everything.

Because the finger or the hand was deemed to be the locus of power. Think about in your everyday life. Don't we use our hands all throughout the day, right? How blessed to have our hands. We use our hands to hold a pen to write, right? We extend our greeting or peace with our hands. We fight with our hands. We eat with our hands. We drive. We do everything with our hands. It's synonymous with power, right? That's why Christ has been exalted to the right hand of God, at the most powerful place that can be imagined. Even David in the Old Testament, Psalm 18, he says, "Lord, you teach my hands to war and my fingers to fight," right? Jesus said, "If I by the finger of God cast out demons, then you know the kingdom of God has broken out among you." So the idea of Pantocrator, the best way of looking at it is the God whose hand touches everything, who manages everything, who controls everything, the God who upholds everything in His hand.

When we're young, we sang a song a lot of times, maybe in children's vacation Bible school, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." That's what's being described here when God's called Almighty in the book of Revelation. It's found seven or eight times in the book of Revelation and once in 1 Corinthians, and it literally means the God who controls everything. And that is our God. There are mighty people who have power within their own sphere. Maybe they're a powerful politician. Maybe they have power socially. Maybe they have power in business. But God's got the whole world in His hands. It's by His will that everything is held together. By His might, everything is cared for, and there is no one like Him. He's God Almighty. So the application for number one is that we are to love, trust, and praise Him. We're to love, trust, and praise the one who holds us in His very hands.

Psalm 18, verses 1 through 3, says, "I will love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies." Because He's the God who holds us in His hands, He's the one who's worthy of our trust. He's the one who's worthy of our praise, and He's the one who's worthy of our love.

2 Chronicles 20, verses 5 through 6, is a wonderful exaltation of God. It says, "Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, 'O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? And do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? And in your hand is there not power and might so that no one is able to withstand you.'"

It's a good place to be in God's hand, right? It's a place of security. And so He's worthy of our love and of our trust and of our praise.

Bible point number 2: God does all that He desires. Nothing is challenging or too difficult for God.

God does all that He desires. Nothing is challenging or too difficult for God.

Have you ever seen on social media these "challenges" people do? A few years ago, a popular thing was trying to eat like a whole tablespoon of cinnamon and keep from barfing everywhere because it's hard to do. Another year or two ago, there were some crazy kids who were putting Tide Pods, detergent pods, in their mouth, which are meant to dissolve, and seeing how long you could stand to have that soap foaming in your mouth. So these are supposedly challenges that kids do. They do stupid stuff, right?

But for many of us in everyday life, we face challenges all the time, right? Some of us face challenges just getting up out of a chair, right? Have you ever been sitting down in a chair and your leg falls asleep and you're trying not to look like an idiot when you rise up? That's very common. We face challenges in our job, right? We face challenges in our relationships with people, right?

We all know people, and maybe it's in our own family, where we have a challenged relationship. Maybe our marriage isn't going so well, or maybe we're at odds with our brother, or our sister, or uncle, or someone in our family, right? We all have challenges. But you know God has never had a challenge.

No one has ever been able to challenge God. He's never found anything difficult at all. He's never had a challenge and he's never found anything difficult because He has all power. He does everything that He desires. Look at Psalm 135, verses 5 through 6. Would someone read that for us, please?

Amen. Whatever the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and in earth and the seas and all the deep places. Wherever there is life, wherever there is sentience, He is there and He is in control. Look at Jeremiah 32, 17: "Ah, Lord God, behold, you made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you." Nothing is too hard for God. He has no challenges. He has no difficulties. The application is this: we can do all His will by His great power. We can do all His will by His great power.

Whatever God has called you to be, if God has called you to be a father and a husband, you can perform that role by His great power. You may think, "Well, it's an impossible task. My kids don't listen to me. My wife is strange. There's no hope in this situation."

God is always our hope, right? He is always our power. So we can do all His holy will by His great power. Philippians 4:13 is a verse that is often used in sporting events. Ken's got a funny shirt about it. "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me." Often that's misused. You may have two quarterbacks who have that both emblazoned on the back of their helmet and they fight each other in a football game and one wins, the other one doesn't. Does one have more faith, or was one more favored by God? No.

We can use things sometimes in ways that weren't meant, okay? But that doesn't mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. What that verse means — it's, of course, in the context of being content — but whatever God has called us to be, and He's called us to be content, doesn't that mean that we can be that through Christ, who strengthens us? If God's called you to be a godly mother, you can be that because God has called you to do that, and He's going to strengthen you for that task. If God's called you to be a bold witness — and He has; He's given us all the great commission — He will strengthen us for that task. If He's called us to be faithful, which He has, He will strengthen us. We can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us.

Reference number two on the back.

In Genesis chapter 18, this is where God is telling Abraham that he's going to have a child and that Sarah, his wife, at 90 years old, is going to bear a son. He says, "And the Lord said to Abraham, 'Why did Sarah laugh, saying, shall I surely bear a child since I am old?'" When she heard that, she laughed because she knew she was beyond the age of childbearing, right? In verse 14, God asked rhetorically, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

"At the appointed time, I will return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son."

Then of course we see in Luke chapter one the proclamation of the angel to Mary saying, "For with God, nothing will be impossible." She had not been with a man. She was not married. So how can I have a baby? Like you're telling me — with God, nothing will be impossible.

Bible point number three on the front page.

God's power is irresistible. He can't be defeated. God's power is irresistible. He can't be defeated.

Isaiah 43, the Bible says, "For indeed before the day was, I am He." God's saying, "Before there's ever a day, I've always been, and there's no one who can deliver out of My hand. I work and who will reverse it?"

Can anyone open up the hand or the palm of God?

Can anyone turn back His work and reverse it? No one can. He can't be defeated. He is irresistible.

A lot of times what we believe about God is informed by popular culture, unfortunately. And in the 90s, there was a popular series of so-called Christian fiction by a man named Frank Peretti. Maybe some of you may have read his books. And they were about the unseen battle going on between angels and demons. And this was fiction, of course. And so you would have a lady with her children in the back of her car and she's driving. She misses a turn. She's about to go over a cliff. And in the story, you've got the demons pushing on one side of the car. And then on the other side of the car, you've got the angels pushing, trying to keep it on the road. And it's this battle going back and forth. Oh no, who's going to win?

That's blasphemy.

The end is never in doubt.

God doesn't even need His angels to do His work. He doesn't need us to do His work, though He uses means, right?

God's will is irresistible. His power is awesome. And the end of His victory is never in doubt.

The application is this: we can trust His strength and not our own. We can trust His strength and not our own. I'm reminded of the scripture in 2 Kings chapter 6. The prophet Elisha — God has blessed him and is using Elisha to warn the king of Israel where not to go because the king of Aram is trying to ambush the king of Israel. And everywhere King Aram sets up his ambush, Elisha is told by God, and Elisha goes and tells the king of Israel. And Aram finds out about this. He says, it's almost like Elisha is in our chambers and he knows what's going on. He says, where is this Elisha? I want to find him and take him out. They say, well, he's over in Dothan.

So they send his whole army, horsemen and chariots, which at that time would have been like a whole column of tanks, to come after this one man, to come after Elisha. And early the next morning, Elisha's servant wakes up and he goes outside the tent and he sees that they're surrounded by King Aram's armies, by the chariots and by the horses.

And he wakes Elisha and goes to Elisha and says, we're in trouble.

And look what Elisha tells him.

2 Kings chapter 6, verse 16: "So he answered, 'Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.' And Elisha prayed and said, 'Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.' Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."

"So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, 'Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.' And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha."

While they were surrounded by King Aram's men, King Aram's men were surrounded by chariots of fire by the armies of the Almighty God. Right. And God blinded them and actually spared them, showed them grace. Right.

Man's armies, man's strength is not to be depended on. They're nothing compared to the strength of God.

Look at Psalm 20, verse 7: "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." And let that be what we remember. Amen.

In the New Testament, Acts chapter 5, the disciples are disobeying the orders of the Jewish leaders to not preach the gospel. They're preaching the gospel anyway. And the Jewish leaders are perturbed and want them to be stopped. They've tried to imprison them, but what happens? They get released. Right. And where do they go? They go right back to the temple and to the public square and they begin preaching some more. And then Gamaliel, finally, who is a very wise Jewish person, says this: "And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing."

"But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God."

Don't want to pick a fight with God. That's not a fight you'll ever, ever win. Look at our Lord Jesus in Colossians 2:15, which Pastor, of course, went through this just recently. Talking about Christ on the cross, He defeated death. He took the handwriting of ordinances that were written against us and nailed it to the cross. And it says in Colossians 2:15, "Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it."

He mocked the devil. He mocked the powers of darkness. He rose from the grave. He defeated sin and He defeated death. And He took away the power of the accuser because, by His actions, we are all declared just — whoever believes and puts their trust in Jesus Christ. So He mocked the enemy and triumphed over them. 1 Peter 3:22 talks about Christ's ascension: "who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him."

If there is one doctrine that the church needs to recover, it is the doctrine of the ascension of Christ — that He is ascended into heaven. And right now He sits at the right hand of God Almighty, from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. The power of the universe has been entrusted to the hand of Jesus Christ, and He's the head of the church. He is the one who is for us. And if He is for us, who can be against us? Nobody can.

Number four: God's power is inexhaustible. He is never spent.

Many of you may be very strong, but sooner or later you wear out, right? After a 14-hour day or a 16-hour day, you start going down. Toby and I, we may start to watch a movie or something on television late at night around nine o'clock, and usually about 10 minutes in — what am I doing, Toby?

Exactly. I'm sawing logs because I'm spent by that point of the day, right? But God operates a life unspent.

He is never exhausted.

He has infinite reserves. With God, there's always more.

I used to visit, when we lived down in Palm Beach County, regularly with a man in our church who was a self-proclaimed old-timer, and he enjoyed talking about days gone by. And his life was so long. And his eyes would light up when he would talk about two things. You'd talk about Jesus, his eyes would light up. And when you talked about dynamite — as a boy, he lived out in a rural area with a lot of farms and mines, and he'd make extra money cleaning out people's outbuildings, whether it's their shed or their barn or whatnot. And he would haul the stuff down to the dumping yard. And his greatest joy was that sometimes he would find a box of dynamite. And so he'd go down to the dump yard and he'd find an old refrigerator or an old farm implement, something that's heavy and metal. And he'd put that dynamite under there and he loved to see how high he could bounce it up in the air, right. But when dynamite goes off, it all goes off, right? It's destroyed. It's gone. That power is one time and it's gone. Then it's spent. There is no more. Not so with God. There is always more. His power is inexhaustible. Look at Isaiah 40, verse 28: "Have you not known? Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable." He never faints and He's never weary. The application is He gives strength and power to the weak.

The very next verse says, "He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might, He increases strength." That's us. We are weak and we have no might, yet He gives us power, right. As you know, Isaiah 40 goes on and says, "Even the youth shall faint and be weary. The young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint." Those who wait upon God gain His strength, right. And He's happy to share it with them. He has more than we can ever imagine.

Let's look at Ephesians chapter 3 on the back. We'll be reading this in a couple of months, I'm sure, as Pastor goes through Ephesians. It says, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think" — He's able to do exceedingly abundantly far beyond what we can imagine, what we can even ask. It says, "according to the power that works in us." Christ in us, the hope of glory, is at work within us. The Holy Spirit is at work within us. It says, "to Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever."

So we should praise our God who strengthens us, and He's always at work within us.

Number five: God's power is the ground of our faith and fear.

God's power is the ground of our faith and fear. Remember when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. God sent the plagues into Egypt, right. And finally with the 10th plague, Pharaoh relents and the children of Israel make a run for it. And so they are getting out of Egypt.

He's granted them getting out of Egypt. God has granted them great favor with the people. The people give them treasures even as they are leaving Egypt. And God is leading them out of Egypt. He's going before them as a cloudy pillar by day to give them shade and as a fiery pillar at night to give them light. Then they get to the Red Sea and Pharaoh's armies are behind them. And so that pillar goes from the front of them to behind them to get between Pharaoh's armies and Israel.

God tells Moses to raise his staff and to part the Red Sea, and Moses does. And the children of Israel make it across safely. Of course when Pharaoh and his armies try to pursue, God holds back His protection and lets those waves crash upon Pharaoh and his armies and upon his horses and upon his chariots.

Number five reference verse, Exodus 14:30 through 31: "So the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses." Fear of the Lord in the Old Testament is kind of an Old Testament way of saying they had faith in the Lord, but they had a reverential faith in the Lord, right. And so God's display of His power led to reverence and led to faith, right. That's what we see here. God's power is the ground of our faith and our fear.

Look what Jesus said in Luke chapter 12: "And I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do." That was a great comfort to the martyrs, both early in Christian history and later in Christian history, right. And we think about the men and women who were put to death for their faith in Jesus Christ, for saying that the just shall live by faith. But they could face that death because they didn't fear those who could put to death merely the body. What Jesus says, in verse 5, is, "But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear Him who after He is killed has power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him." Who is that? God, right. Only God has the power to cast into hell, right. He is the omnipotent judge. And that's the one that we need to be concerned about. Not what man can do. The worst that man can do is give you an express ticket to heaven, right. The moment we die, we're beholding the face of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The minute we die, we're joining the heavenly chorus. The minute we die, there is no more pain. There is no more sorrow. There are no more tears. Those are all gone. And now we're with the whole host of the heavenly in the presence of God Almighty, worshipping Him and seeing Him as He is.

The application is: trust in God's fearsome yet benevolent arm. Trust in God's fearsome yet benevolent arm. Romans 8:31 through 32 says, "What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" He is the ground of our faith and of our fear.

Number six: God's power is limited. Wait — I thought he said that God is all-powerful, right? And God is all-powerful in all places at all times. But here I'm telling you God's power is limited. It's limited in a couple of respects. First of all, number six: God's power is limited by His holy nature.

God's power is limited by His holy nature. There are some things God cannot do. God can't break His promise to you, can He? He can't lie, right. God who is immortal can't die, right. God who is holy and righteous can't sin. He can't cease to be the righteous God, the perfect one. He can't do that. For Him to do that would not be an act of power but an act of impotence, right. If He went against His holy nature. So He's limited only not from without but only from within, limited by His holy nature. Numbers 23:19 says, "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent or change. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"

The application is this: do our actions reflect our inner reality?

God is wholly consistent.

His actions always are in accordance with His nature. So there are things that He won't do and can't do because it would go against His nature. As Christians, we have a new nature, do we not? We are new in Christ Jesus. But our outward actions — do they always line up with that nature? Not always, right. So Romans 7 is about the things that we want to do we don't do, and the things that we don't want to do we find ourselves doing. We're in a battle between serving the flesh and serving our Lord Jesus Christ, right, in this world. That's why Christ is sanctifying us, right. Slowly and surely He's making us into the image of Christ. And one day when we get to heaven we'll be perfectly sanctified. We'll be glorified, completely made into a finite image of the infinite, perfect one. But in this world we do battle with that, right. And so we need to strive our best to be consistent, to have our outward actions matching our inward reality, right.

Romans 6:11 says, "In the same way, count yourselves dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Every day we need to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. We need to emulate Him, the one who is perfectly consistent, who always acts according to His perfect nature, right.

Number seven: God's power is limited. There's a second way His power is limited — not just by His nature, but God's power is limited by His wise and holy will.

God's power is limited by His wise and holy will. God's self-limitation is an act of omnipotence.

Think about Christ.

Christ left heaven, left the glory that He was sharing with His Father there in heaven and the angels singing praises, and He came down to earth and took on a human nature, adding that to His divine nature. And in His humanity He suffered, right.

In His humanity He thirsted, He hungered, and in His humanity He was tired. He narrowed Himself down in His humanity to take on our sufferings so that as a man He could suffer in our place, that He could pay our price on the cross. And He felt the full wrath of God on the cross. That is a self-limitation.

Of Christ.

The eternal one would take on human nature and suffer death in His human nature, right. It's mind-blowing for us to get our minds around, but that's what Christ did. That's part of His gracious condescension towards us, His people. Philippians talks about this, chapter 2, verses 5 through 8: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross."

The application is to humble yourself under His mighty hand.

The one who has limited Himself for your salvation, humble yourself under His mighty hand. 1 Peter 5:6 through 7 says, "Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."

Psalm 18, number seven on our reference, talks about this gracious condescension: "For you have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your right hand has held me up. Your gentleness has made me great."

God's self-limitation made David great, right. When I was in high school — this is going back a long time ago — we had a Rottweiler at my mom's place. We had two acres of land. And he was a big boy. His name was Petra, after the Christian band, and he looked like a rock. He was about 130 pounds, and we raised him from a pup, and he was a gentle soul even though he looked scary. He was a gentle soul, and I'd get out there and wrestle with him. And we would have a great time, and before we knew it we'd be rolling on the ground and he'd take his mouth and just swallow my arm, but he's gumming my arm, right. He's being gentle with me. But when my arm was in his mouth, if he wanted to exercise his jaw strength, he could have dismembered my arm. Those dogs are very strong, right. But he was being gentle with me, right. His gentleness was a foundation of our relationship. I wouldn't wrestle with him if he was a mean dog and a vicious dog and a dog who I thought would turn on me, right.

That's God's self-limitation — that He would limit Himself not just according to His nature but according to His will in order to save us, right, so that we would not have to endure His wrath. He endured His own wrath, Christ on the cross.

Number eight.

God's power is given to us through Jesus Christ. God's power is given to us through Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 12 says, "And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." I know you know the context of this verse. Paul has a thorn in his flesh, whatever that is, and it's greatly troubling him, and three times he's prayed for the Lord to remove it, and God doesn't see fit to remove it.

But what He does see fit to do is to give him grace, to give him the grace of Jesus Christ. And He promises, "My grace is sufficient for you. It's all you need," right.

We always want God to answer prayer in our time, like Abraham wanting a son on his own timetable, right. We often think, if God would just remove this from my life, or God would fix this, all would be well. But God is in the process of sanctifying us. He sanctifies us through His Word, but He often uses circumstances. He may use hardships to get us to depend on Him, to get us to trust in Him. No matter what hardship it is that we face, though, we can count on His sufficiency — the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Pantocrator, the one who holds all things in His hands, okay.

The application is this: be thankful and rejoice in Christ. Be thankful and rejoice in Christ in all things. 1 Corinthians 15 says, "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." The resurrection of Christ is our victory, is it not? Because Christ rose from the dead, we too will rise from the dead. We too will one day be in His heavenly presence and be made complete, right.

Let me read quickly four verses that talk about God's mighty strength, the strength of Christ working in our lives. Colossians 1:29 — Paul says, "To this end I also labor." He wants to present every man complete in Christ. He says, "I labor toward this end, striving according to" —

His working which works in me mightily. That can be translated: His power which is powerful in me.

Colossians 2:9 through 10 says, "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." We're complete in Jesus Christ, and He's at the head of the class. He's the head of all principality and all power. He is subject to none, but all are subject to Him.

2 Peter 1:3 — this is a wonderful promise: "His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness." Through knowing Jesus Christ, by His goodness, by His grace, we have everything that we need to live a godly life. We may think, well, if I went to Bible school then I would have what I need for a godly life. Or if I had a mentor, you know, that could just pour into me, then I would be able to live a godly life. Or if I had more time, or if I had more financial resources, I would have everything I need for a godly life.

You have His wonderful, exceedingly great promises. You have Christ Jesus Himself. Ephesians 1:18 through 20 — Paul prays for the Ephesian church and says that "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" — which is mind-boggling, that God's inheritance is us and our inheritance is Him. How He would deem us worthy to be considered a prized possession and inheritance, but He does. "And what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power" — so he's praying that we would comprehend the exceeding greatness of His power to us — "which He worked in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places." The same power that raised Christ from the dead and lifted Him up at the right hand, obtaining the throne of the universe, is at work in us. And Paul prays that the church would grasp that. Let that be our prayer to Him. Amen.