The Power of Power

The title, of course, of today's sermon is The Power of Power. Do you feel it? Do you feel powerful? Do you feel that you have any power at all? Some people in this country feel powerless. Some people, no matter where you are, they feel powerless. Is that true? Or do you feel you have power that you just don't use it? When was the last time you felt power? Lately? Maybe it was when you were younger. When I go to the gym, Tetiana does too, I look at a guy that's 30 years old and realize I'm not 30 anymore. And at 30, I felt a certain power that I do not feel now. But the actual word power can mean ability, capacity, strength, authority, control, influence. Do you feel it yet? What do you think of when you see power? A picture of a bodybuilder? No, this is not Neil before he got married. He showed me a picture last week and that wasn't it. Marriage can do things to you, Neil. Okay, we look at this and you think strength, power. Now how about this? Do you recognize power here when you see the Navy SEALs? What do you think of? Definitely power. It's what the world thinks. And that's what they're supposed to think. I would love if I got into trouble in Haiti for the President to send the Navy SEALs in to get me. I'd feel pretty good. I doubt he would do that, though. But it shows power. How about this?

As he says, this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world. More powerful, so powerful, it can take a man's head clean off. Do you feel lucky? We think of that in the world today. You see stories of guns all across our cities. And people have them because it makes them feel what? Powerful. They feel power when they have it. How about this? David can probably tell us. That's some powerful engines on an airplane, isn't it, David? 20,000 pounds? Thrust. Wow! There is a video on YouTube. If you have not seen it, you can. I actually got to see this in person when I had a layover in St. Martin's. You've been to St. Martin's before. Airport is right by the beach. And when the plane takes off, people will stand over by the fence, and it will blow them back. Just the thrust and the power of that engine. How about this? Is there power there? An African lion? Four to five hundred pounds. And they have actually captured a huge lion of over 600 pounds. And the amazing part is this animal for a short burst can reach up to 40 miles per hour. That's scary. That's power. Okay. How about this? Yes. That in today's society is power. They feel that way. It can be trouble, but most people think it's wow. I'd like to have maybe some of that power.

Well, there's a classic line from a movie. First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women. Yes! Is this power? No. She was voted the most beautiful woman in the world. That's by some people's opinion, but she has that designation, which also makes her very wealthy, and she has power. We all think about that. Turn with me to Matthew 28, if you will. Matthew 28. Matthew 28, verse 18 from the New King James Version. Jesus then came and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. That's power. All authority, he says. But you may say, well, but this was post-resurrection, an ascension. Did Christ have power on earth as a human? Go with me to John 10. Go with me to John chapter 10. Let's go to verse 17. John 10, verse 17. Therefore, my father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down. I have the power to take it up. Powerful words. He has had the power. We have a power. But do we use it? Do we use it? Incredible words. Power to take it up and power to lay it down. It's interesting that Victor Frankl in his book, Man's Search for Meaning, said, everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of his human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances and to choose one's way. That's power. That's power. Power we have. Power to think. Power to react. We have powers in ways you probably have never thought about. Buying a new car at a dealership. Buying a car at any dealership. I've done that a few times. And being a salesman for all the many years that I was, it made me realize that I have the power, not the salesman. I have the power to write my name on the contract or I have the power to decide to walk out. That's power. But yet some people go into a car dealership and they're intimidated because the guy's job is to make you buy and pretty soon you walk out and you're paying twice what you had planned to pay. Who has the power? You. You have the power to make decisions. In Luke 18 verse 1, Jesus Christ tells a parable about the unjust judge. And this widow that had something, a problem or an issue, she takes to the judge. He doesn't do anything. You remember the story now? And then, pretty soon, she decides then, I'll just call him or get a hold of him every day. And so the point is made that the judge says, I neither fear men or God, but this woman's going to wear me out. So we're going to take care of that. Who had power? Everybody would have said the judge. Christ is letting you know. Of course, the thrust of his parable was about asking your father about prayer. But in John 10 verse 18, as we looked at, power lay a down power to take it up. Christ had the power, as we see from that scripture, anytime during his life, to say, stop, stop it. No mas, no more. I'm walking away. He had the power to do that, but he did not do it. He did not do it until he had finished his job. And when he finished his job, he said, it is finished. What incredible power! How powerful was that? Consider Matthew 26. Turn over there. Matthew 26. One scripture. I don't know if you've considered this before. Matthew 26.

As he is surrounded then in the Garden of Gethsemane, they have come to arrest him with a whole group of men with clubs and swords. Peter decides to give one of them a haircut, but he misses. He doesn't get the hair, he gets the ear. I guess that always reminds me of the thing when you get your haircut, they lower your ears. Well, I think Peter lowered his ears. But as they were taking him, I'm sure the disciples looked around. Let's go there. Matthew 26. Then Jesus said to Peter, Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will provide me with more than 12 legions of angels? Power? Extreme power! The ultimate power! How about your father? Same father? Hmm. He realized that at the time, a legion at this time was known by the Roman army, and a legion was at least 6,000 men. That was a legion. And there's actual historical counts where one legion was up to 11,000. But 6,000 soldiers, a legion. So He's saying 6,000 angels in one legion, and He could send what? More than 12? But look at 12. How many angels is that? 72,000 angels? Like that? Now, if you study your Bible and go back to the time of Hezekiah, when the Assyrian army had surrounded the city, and that night it says, one angel went out while the army slept. One angel killed 185,000 men. Like that. Now, think one legion of that type of angel is 1.1 billion people. Twelve legions with that power? We're looking at what? 13.5 billion people. That's twice as many peoples on earth right now, roughly. Power? Our Father? Hmm. You remember that story? Remember the story of Elisha? He was surrounded, and he had just a servant with him. He got up all worried next morning, because he saw all these soldiers out there to take him and his master. And God said what? God opened his eyes so he can see. And when he saw the other dimension, God opened his eyes so he could see an army of angels. Power. Power. Power. Can I be like Christ and have the power to lay it down? Well, Christ's God in the flesh life was worth more than all human life that will ever exist. So no, I can't. I don't have a power to lay that down. But he says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. But there's one thing that we can do. One place that we can take it up or lay it down. One area where we can be like our father and our elder brother. One area where we can't have that power, that that power is given to us. And that's what I want to talk about today. Go with me to Mark 2. Go with me to Mark 2, if you will.

Here, Christ is healing an individual who can't walk.

And he says in verse 10, why does he heal? He says, but that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. Wow. And the Son of Man has a power to forgive sin. And that's a power we also possess. No, not the power to forgive some person. That's left up to the high priest, which is Christ and God. But we have been given the power to forgive. When someone sins against us, don't we? That is incredible power. That is power we need to look at. Christ had the power to forgive, and most of all, the desire to forget. Do we? Do we have that power to forget? Let's go to 1 Timothy 2. 1 Timothy 2. Well, I'll fight through my Bible here. 1 Timothy 2 and verse 4. Let's go to 3. 3 first. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. That's a powerful statement. He didn't say most men. He didn't say Jews. He didn't say Gentiles. He said, all men, our Savior, desires that. Do we? Do we also desire that? That all men, women, will come to the point of repentance? Do we desire that as much as Christ desires it? Let's go over to 2 Peter. 2 Peter. 2 Peter 3 and verse 9. 2 Peter 3 and verse 9 says, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering towards us, thank God. I need that. I hope all of you need that. Long-suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Do we want that? How about that pain that lives next to us? How about the enemy that's been in your life for a while? Someone that just cannot stand you, doesn't like you for whatever reason. Can we forgive? Do we have the power to forgive? But do we have the desire? Oh, we can say forgive, but do we have the desire to forgive people? We have been given the power to forgive our fellow men, to lay it down. Lay down the offense and forget it, because we're all going to be offended, right? Somebody's going to offend you or sin against you sometime today. Chances are. And tomorrow and the day after and the day after and the day after. Wait a minute. This sounds like what? Back this up. This sounds like my prayer life, doesn't it? Where I am too many times saying the same thing to God every morning. I did last night. I did this morning. Okay. Thankfully, he doesn't slap me upside the head and say, Repetition! Chuck, you're getting old. He's getting old. He doesn't. How about us? With other people?

We have the power to lay it down. We have the power to hold it. When it comes to forgiveness. It is so easy sometimes to forgive, but not forget. Okay. I'm going to say, I forgive you for this, but just wait till you do it again. Husbands, wives, mother, father, children, God, us. God gives us the power to be like Him, to forgive and to forget. Do we want that power? Do we want, truly, to have that and use that power?

Because that's not easy in certain circumstances. It defies logic to do it sometimes, doesn't it? There may be people, and I still have to work on myself, I have not seen for 30 or 40 years, and I may see or read something about them. All of a sudden, there's, I remember what that guy did to me. I remember that kid in high school, bully. Yeah. I didn't forget. I have a ways to go, and I realize the power of power.

Do you? The power to forgive is divine. You know, there are some extreme examples of forgiveness in Scripture. Hope you'll think of them. Make that your Bible study sometime. Well, one of the biggest to me is in Luke 23. You don't have to turn there. You know the story. Christ has been beaten, stripped naked, nailed to a tree, a piece of wood, and hung up there and spit on, mocked, laughed at. And what were His words? Forgive them, Father. They don't know what they are doing. Forgive them, Father, they don't know what they are doing.

That's why He's a Messiah and I'm not. Where's those angels? Just give me a couple here. Let me clear this area out. They want to mock and say, where's your Father now? All so that we could have this lesson almost 2,000 years later. All so that we can develop that character like God. To forgive and to forget. Tough. Tough. But He did it. But there's more to it than that for us, like you go with me. That famous sermon on the Mount, because there's a real application here. Real application. Let's go back to Matthew 6. Matthew 6. Right after He told them how to pray.

And verse 14. Matthew 6 and verse 14. Says, For if you forgive men their trespasses, offense, sins, trespasses, something they might say. Right? Because so many offenses today are what? Verbal? Verbal? May not be verbal. It can be written. Oh, can you fire something off on an email that you'd never say to somebody in person?

So easy! Yet it's so easy to type. Please. Forgive me. It's so easy to type. It's no problem. I forgive you. But then we move on. As it says in verse 14, For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. As I say, thank God. Thank God for that. If I forgive, He's going to forgive me. It's so crystal clear. That's not hard to understand. It's not complicated. A six-year-old can understand.

But then we have verse 15. There's more here. And meets the eye. But, that's a big but, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Is that again? But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. How many of you think you have quite a few trespasses against God?

God's law. God's way. So what He's saying, you can be like God, or He can be like us. You can be like God, and forgive, or He can be like us. That lays it out pretty straight and direct to us. As Matthew 7 lays out another time, whatever you want to measure somebody, how you want to measure that, it'll be measured back to you.

Do you want to give forgiveness? Maybe you only want to give... there's one inch. One inch of forgiveness. Well, guess what? If we believe the Bible in it, it says what? You're going to get one inch back. Whatever you measure someone in, that's what you can get. If you forgive others, just okay. Let me be generous. That's what God's going to give us. You know what I want? I want all I can get.

Don't you? I want all the forgiveness, all the mercy, all the grace that God can give me. So I need to stop measuring by my standard. Do you? Do you need to address that in your life? Is it also our desire to pray for this world or to condemn it? It's easy to condemn it. It's a lot easier to condemn it than to pray for it. But what did we read earlier? He desires that all men, do we have certain knowledge that God has blessed us with?

Absolutely! And that is beautiful. Now what are we going to do with it? And this is part of that incredible knowledge, this power, this power that defies logic for most of the world. Power and forgiveness are two terrible things to waste. Remember the old TV commercial from the 70s here? And what a mind is a terrible thing to waste? Just think about it. Power and forgiveness. The power to forgive.

Because there's power and there's forgiveness, but with us, they need to be together. The power to forgive. If we have them, but we don't use it. Where does that put us with God?

It really puts us in an awkward place. Because you see, forgiveness can be habitual. Can be habitual. I can tell you from my life, it can be habit forming. It's a great habit to have. There's other habits I have that are not great. But I've had to try to develop the habit of forgiveness. Because there's one thing that didn't teach you in our theology classes. It's one thing that didn't teach us when you become a pastor. That you're going to offend a lot of people. Not even meaning to. That people are going to be upset with you for no reason at all sometimes, or sometimes they have a reason. And you better have a very forgiving heart. And that's what I've tried to develop. I still need more. But I realized how important that is. Because of all the reading in the scriptures of that three and a half years is laid out for us in Christ's life. Every day somebody was hating on him. Had antagonism. Sinned against day after day after day.

Called him a child of fornication in front of a group of people.

Called him a liar. Called him a demon. And yet he turns and says, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing. But you know there were some that knew what they were doing. And he still wanted them, God, to forgive them. Wow! I read that and I'm like, I've got a ways to go. But I understand the power of power. I have the power to lay it down. I have the power to hold something against someone. Or I have the power to lay it down and forget about it. Just like Jesus Christ. Just like God the Father. We looked at all those pictures of power. How beautiful is the power that God has given to us. The power to forgive. We have the power to lay it down. We have the power to take it up. But do we have the desire? That's the thing. Do we have the desire to forgive people and then forget it? Put it out of our minds. Because it takes desire. I don't always have that desire. I have the power, but sometimes...

That's just a little too much. But the power and desire to forgive. Desire is a big thing. It has to be a motivating factor. I want to lose 15 pounds. I have the desire to lose 15 pounds. Put down the fork. Chuck. Put down the fork. But I'll go to the gym. But the desire always takes place in our mind. A certain mindset is required to have the desire to do what's right, to follow God. That's why God isn't calling the entire world this time. They don't have a desire to follow Him. And He wants that desire. He wants desire. He wants passion. He wants... because He knows to follow Him and to do this, you're going to need passion. He doesn't want somebody to be doing the studios. Oh, yes, I know there's a God. I've read there's a God. What does He want? He wants it in here. He wants it in here. He wants that passion. He wants that desire. Because it's going to take that to follow the pattern that Jesus Christ set up for us. But it's in here. It's in here. I've got to work on this thing. When I was 17 years old, I played on a basketball team, and the coach said at the start of the season, the season had even started, we were training. He said that there were 12 of us. Everybody on that team is going to have to run a mile in less than six minutes. Well, you're not going to be on the team. Wow! Okay, so we have about two weeks to get ourselves in better shape. And then he's going to clock us. I'm going to run around the gym, outside this track for a mile. And I remember training and training, getting up in the morning before I was a farm, even the cows, I would have to get up 30 minutes early to milk the cows and get that done. And then I would go out and run for a couple miles before I ever went to school. Because I don't want to be cut because I can't run. Of course, 155 pounds, that's a lot different than today. But when we ran, I remember I came in second, and I ran a mile in five minutes and 25 seconds. Closest I've ever, the shortest I've ever run. The coach lied because the best players on the team, I wasn't one of them. Guess what? Seven minutes, eight minutes. You know, life lesson there. But today, I would love to be able to go out and run a six or seven minute mile. I might be able to run a seven or eight minute mile. I might, because 10 years ago I could. But you know the issue? I don't have the time. The desire. The desire is not there. I don't run, and my knees are sore sometimes. I'm on elliptical machine, and after 30, 40 minutes, I say, But you see, what I would like to do, I have the power to go out and run that. Seven, eight minute mile. But I don't have the desire. So how about us? We have the power to forgive. Do we have the desire? It has to start there. And if it isn't there, there's only one way to get it. God. God needs to move. And you need to have more of God's Holy Spirit in your life. He can give it. He desires to give it to you. It's time to embrace power used by God and endude to you this week. Yes, it's a gift. It's power. God did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. I want you to feel it this week. I want you to feel the power. We must desire the mind of Christ and of God the Father to have the power to forgive. It isn't natural. It's unnatural to forgive. And this world teaches us that. But what do we teach the world? What will you teach them this week? The power of power.