RESURRECTION POWER
We can gather from his own writings that the apostle Paul was not the kind of man who would command respect when he walked into a room — you wouldn't even notice him. He wasn't good looking. He was a poor speaker. Yet, you wouldn't have to be around Paul half-an-hour before you could see that in spite of his weak appearance and his lack of eloquence, here was a man of tremendous power.
This little man was going around opening doors that Caesar himself would not be able to shut; and shutting doors that the Imperial Army of Rome would never open.
Wherever Paul went and spent some time he left behind him a colony of beings who had been raised right out of the dust of this earth and were now partakers of the Divine Nature - Sons of God. Paul did this by a power working in him which was not his own.
"I'm dead", he said. "It's Jesus who lives in me. And through Jesus living in me the work of the Father is done."
Paul did not need to use high sounding words. He did not need to exercise fleshly influence over fleshly minds. He did not rely on the sword,
or money,
or the backing of the state. Listen to him in I Corinthians 2:1-5:
When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
By this power of God Paul brought men from darkness to light, healed the sick, cast out demons, gathered believers together around the cross, equipped the churches with every needful ministry without any props or gimmicks just the power of God.
Sometimes after Paul left town to go on to another place there would be people who would scratch their heads and say,
"What did we see in him? His bodily presence is weak and his speech is of no account. Why should we follow his teaching?"
And they would plant the seeds of uncertainty in other minds.
Then a letter would come from Paul saying,
"I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out, not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power. For the Kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power."
Then the talk would stop and these talkers would be shaking in their boots for they knew that when they were dealing with Paul they were not dealing with Paul the man, but with the Lord himself.
It is still true;
"The Kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power."
The man who has the power doesn't have to talk a lot. He doesn't have to make any claims, and he doesn't have to put on sample demonstrations of how he can do his stuff. He just goes on about his business ministering in the power of the Lord where the Lord shows him to minister.
When Jesus saw the dead man being carried out of Nain, He didn't go through one of these evangelistic warmups.
"Wait a minute! Hold the fort! Do you realize that if you people had enough faith, I could raise that man from the dead? Now I'm going to ask every head to bow. And while I pray, I'm going to ask the men of faith to gather around this coffin with me. For I believe that God wants to do a miracle here today."
None of that stuff. Notice how few words Jesus spoke. To the mother he says, "Weep not." To the dead man, "Young man, I say to you arise." And the dead man sat up and began to speak. Not talk. POWER!
And that power is meant to rule the life and ministry of every believer. Not just the preachers,
the Bible teachers, the healers, every believer.
"Now to Him, who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think....."
What is this power that is to be at work within us and to be flowing out of us? It is the same power that brought forth the Son of God from his grave. It is the power of Jesus' Resurrection.
If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through the Spirit which dwells in you.
The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear shall live.
Resurrection power that makes you alive with the very life of God and enables you to impart life in Jesus' name to every heart that will receive it.
When you have this power in you,
- you don't have to cover up your inadequacy with talk.
- You don't have to camouflage your fears with talk.
- You can get on with the job that needs to be done because you have the power to do it.
In Ephesians 3:14-21 Paul is praying for this power to flood the lives of the believers in Ephesus. And he describes in his prayer exactly what this Resurrection Power is.
Notice where it starts. Not on the outside — on the inside. Not: "Give me the Spirit so I can feel the glow”, but rather, "Strengthen me with might through the Spirit in the inner man.”
Put your life, 0 God, in my dead center.
Raise my inner man from death!
How many people are busy doing so many things, making so many plans, setting up a thousand schemes. They look alive but if you could see inside them to the inner man you would see a corpse as cold as stone. First of all, the Spirit of God has to come into that abysmal grave within and bring the inner man to life.
"That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
The Spirit quickens your inner man so that your inner man can get up out of his coffin, walk across the room, open the door and let Jesus in. And when you open the door and let Jesus in, you have life.
- You have the mind that obeyed the Father from the glorious heights of Heaven down to the shame of the Cross, dwelling in you.
- You have the heart that never ceased to have compassion for the people, dwelling in you.
- You have holiness that did the perfect will of the Father in you.
- You have the living Lord who said, "Let there be light", and there was light in you.
- You have the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world embodied in your flesh.
3. Resurrection Power is to be rooted and grounded in love.
So rooted and grounded in love that you are able to assimilate the blinding love of Christ that keeps burning in from Heaven upon the saints on earth 24 hours a day.
You're like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in due season. And the roots of that tree sink down deep and draw into themselves holy love. And the branches of that tree reach toward the sun and draw into their leaves - love. And when that tree bears fruit it bears the only fruit on this earth that is able to heal the nations - love.
Not "talk love." Lived love. Practiced love.
Love that lays down its life for the brothers.
Love that goes out of its way for its neighbor.
Love that carries a cross.
Love that is not arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way,
is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in the wrong but rejoices in the right.
The people who work with you every day may not be able to understand all the doctrines about Jesus, but they'll sure recognize the love of Jesus when it's in you.
4. Resurrection Power is to be filled with the fullness of God.
Anybody who lives within range of God's grace gets a touch of God from time-to-time, and will do a few good deeds in the afterglow. You get a shot in the arm at a Bible Study and go home and give your wife a smile for a change. But we need more than a touch. We need to be filled with the fullness of God,
- so that God's glory fills the temple of our body,
- so that there is no area of our life where God is not present.
Your body is God-filled. Your days are God-filled.
Your relationships with people are God-filled.
The meanest drudgery and lowliest tasks are God-filled.
And everything in you that God will not enter and fill is cast out of your life.
Now this Resurrection Power is something that God puts into you. You can't put it into yourself any more than a dead man can bring himself to life.
And God will put it into you.
God will strengthen you with might by his Spirit in the inner man.
God will cause Christ to dwell in your heart by faith.
God will cause you to be rooted and grounded and surrounded in love.
God will fill you with His very fulness.
But there is one thing you have to do: you have to answer when Jesus speaks to you.
Not with talk but deeds.
You have to answer the call of Jesus and keep moving with Him as He moves on up ahead.
The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear (who respond) shall live.
- Answer when Jesus says to you as he said to that dead man, "Arise! Come on - get up!"
"Come down out of that tree Zaccheus I want to have dinner at your house today." Zaccheus doesn't talk — he acts. Zaccheus climbs out of the tree into the very resurrection power of the Lord.
The resurrection power of Jesus is given to those who answer Jesus not with talk but with obedience.
- If he tells them to repent - they repent.
- If he tells them to trust - they trust.
- If he tells them to launch out into the deep - they do it.
- If he tells them to go make something right - they do it.
And now Jesus is speaking to you. He is telling you to do some specific thing. He is telling you to come toward him in some specific way.
“Arise.
Come out of that stagnation you're in.
Come out of that bondage.
Come out of that preoccupation with your problem. Come to Me.
Put your life under the command of my word and I will raise you from the dead, not just on the last day, but right now."