Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Resurrection Power

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening Scripture

Okay, open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. We’re going to look at the word briefly. You know me when I say briefly, that’s a warning. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 15. Therefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of, of our Lord Jesus Christ, Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding or your heart, being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is 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 He raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And he has put all things under his feet and gave him to behead over all things to the the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Here in this, Paul prays for many things for us, the knowledge of God, the knowledge of God’s calling, the knowledge of our inheritance in Christ, but particularly what we want to focus on this morning is the fact that Paul prays that we would have an experiential knowledge of resurrection power. He says here in verse 19, and what is 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 and seated Him at His right hand in heavenly places. First point I want to make is this, is that resurrection power or the power that was manifested in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is available today for you. The resurrection power of Jesus is available today for you.

Paul prays that we would experience the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now for weeks I’ve been preaching on faith and one of the points I’ve been trying to get us understand is that we must take our faith in general truths and they must become particular and focused in our life. We believe if we are Christians, if we are professing Christians, we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. General truth. That truth, what does it mean for me in my life? It means that we, I, if I believe this truly, I can experience the reality of that resurrection power in my life. My life. When Paul prays that we would know the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, he is praying it for every Christian for all time. That means that this prayer is for us. The prayer to know the resurrection power of Jesus Christ is a prayer that Paul prayed for you. There is no elite class of There’s no special group that has the power and another group that can’t have access to the power. Every Christian can experience the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ in his or her life.

That means that even you, little old you, little old you who might feel like you’re just a plain old Joe, a plain old Mary, I’ll put it in Affinity Jew or Mary by the way, that you’re just a plain old person living in the Midwest and you’re a nobody, the reality is that you, if you know Christ, you can know the reality of his resurrection power in your life.

Available to Every Christian

It is not for a special group, it is for every Christian. It’s available. Point one, it is available. Secondly, it is essential. In other words, it’s not something that we should consider experiencing, but it is essential to the Christian life. As a matter of fact, a resurrection power is really essential to even being a Christian at all. Why do I say that? Because the new birth, what we call the new birth, regeneration Regeneration is a theological term. What that really is, is an experience of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in one’s soul. When someone is born again and they receive eternal life, the life that enters their soul is the same life and power that raised Jesus from the dead. Look here in Ephesians, in chapter 2, Paul, Paul talks about this. He says, “…and you…” meaning you, “…he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which he once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others, others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us. Even when we were dead in trespasses, He made us alive. He made us alive. He made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. We’ve been raised up together with Him. We sit together with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.” The making alive of those who are dead is what we call the new birth. It’s called being born again. There are not two kinds of Christians. Those who were born again and those who were not. I told you the story about this young man I led to Christ and came from a Roman Catholic family. Then after he came to Christ, he actually did crazy things like he read his Bible. He prayed. He wanted to go to church. And his mom who was a good Catholic was concerned. Concerned he read his Bible. Concerned he wanted to go to Bible study and not go out drinking with his friends. Concerned. He heard his mom talking on the phone to a friend and said, yeah, you know, all my kids are Christians, but my son, he’s one of those reborn Christians now. No, he’s one kind of Christian. The true Christian is the reborn Christian. The born-again Christian is the only kind of true Christian there is. The sad fact today is that unfortunately many professing Christians are not Christians because they’ve never tasted the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. They’re still dead in their sins. Their spirits are still separated from God. They’re alienated from the life of God. But Jesus Christ offers to give us eternal life. And when somebody embraces Christ in genuine saving faith, they come into a union with Jesus. They make contact, if you will. And the resurrection power of Jesus then raises their soul from the dead and they’re alive. So they’ve experienced the true resurrection power at the very beginning of the Christian life. I was fortunate enough, well, I shouldn’t put it that way.

Transformation and Power

I came to Christ as an adult and the transformation was dramatic. I lived in darkness for many years. I lived in the world. I lived in sin.

I was what Paul described here, fulfilling the lust of the flesh and of the mind. And I was dead. And when Jesus Christ came into my life, He totally transformed my life. It was going from darkness to light, it was going from death to life. It was radical transformation. I knew the resurrection was real because I tasted it. But we need the resurrection power not just to be born again, but to grow in the Christian life. To grow in the Christian life. Paul continues on here in Ephesians 2. notice this in verse 7 he says God has done all this great stuff for us that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God it is not of works lest anyone should boast but we don’t it doesn’t stop there for we have been created for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk them. We’re saved for two reasons. One, to bring glory to God and two, to serve God, to fulfill the works that He’s given us to do. The thing we have to understand is this, is that the Christian life isn’t us doing something for God to earn His favor. The Christian life is the reality of the, of the resurrection life and power in us working its way out as we serve others. Peter says that God has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness. But he’s given us this by God’s power. By God’s power. Spirituall growth, maturity, victory over sin, character development, call it spiritual formation, call it whatever you will. These are not the result of mere will power. We grow and we conquer sin by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, freeing us from the law of sin and death. We’re going to come back to Ephesians, look at Romans for a moment. Let’s look at Romans for a moment. In Romans 8, Paul says in verse 1, There’s therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, Jesus, has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, and that it was weak to the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement or the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. The key to victory in the Christian life, the key to cockroach sin in the Christian life is not more effort. It is more yielding. It is more of the reality of Christ’s power in our life through the Holy Spirit.

Read Romans 6, 7 and 8. Read them over and over and over and over. And what you see is in chapter 6, a declaration, we are free from sin. Chapter 7, Paul, I’m not free from sin.

Chapter 8, the Holy Spirit, I am free from sin. It’s really that simple. Too many Christians are stuck in Romans 7. They’re living in Romans 7. Romans 7 is the New Testament counterpart to Israel and the wilderness in the Old Testament. It is the defeated Christian life. The reason many Christians quit, many Christians give up, the reason many Christians walk away from the faith is they say it doesn’t work. But what they mean is they’ve tried and it doesn’t work. They’ve struggled and it doesn’t work. You know what? That doesn’t work. Because I can assure you, by your own willpower, you cannot conquer sin.

Now, maybe you can break some bad habits and you read stories even about non-Christians who lose weight and non-Christians who beat. beat smoking and non-Christians who do this and non-Christians who do this. But that’s all on the outside. The heart, the heart has to change. And when your heart is sinful, a sinful heart can’t make a good heart. We need something or someone or some power from the outside of us, if you will, to change us. I can assure you that the key to living the defeated Christian life is to just keep on trying. The definition of insanity is what? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. many Christians are clearly insane because they go week, week, month after month, year after year trying the same things and there’s no progress, there’s no growth, there’s no transformation. They’re spiritually insane by that definition. The key to growth isn’t your will. It is the power of Jesus Christ that he displayed in His resurrection and which is available to us today. It is also not only available, not only essential for our growth, it’s essential for our service. I can give a whole sermon on this, but the key to effective witness, excuse me, whether that is witnesses through acts of mercy, acts of justice, whether that witness is through proclamation, the key to that is the reality of the resurrection power in our lives. Paul said that wherever he went, he was a saver of death, the sum of the saver of life, meaning some received the message and they received life and some didn’t, and they stayed in death. But wherever he went, he was a fragrance of Jesus Christ. That’s because the power of Christ was working in him, in his ministry. So the resurrection power of Jesus is available today. It is needed today and it is obtainable today. How do I obtain the resurrection power of Jesus Christ? That’s the question, right? Number one, you pray. You pray. Here in Ephesians five, that’s what, excuse me, Ephesians one, that’s what Paul’s doing. He’s praying. He’s praying that our eyes would be opened to see and to know the reality of resurrection power in our lives. If you’re not walking in victory in your life as a Christian, you need to pray that God would open your eyes to the reality of Christ’s resurrection, the reality of it. Not just a general assent to it, but that you would know the reality of his resurrection in your life. See? That’s where the general belief becomes localized and focused in your life, in your moment. This morning I was really getting frustrated. Anybody ever have a frustrating morning? They’re like, oh yeah, I got a bunch of little kids, you don’t know frustration, getting them all dressed. And the Lord just said, my power is available right now in this moment. This moment, that’s what faith is. Faith isn’t saying, Jesus rips from the dead, but I’m gonna scream at everybody today because I’m frustrated. No, Jesus rips from the dead, And that power is available to me in this moment to have victory in my situation. It’s available today. It’s obtainable. You pray for it. You ask God to open your eyes to see the reality of the resurrection and to pray that His resurrection becomes experientially true in your life.

Exercise Faith

That means also that we must exercise faith. I’ve been talking a lot about faith lately. We must pray, but we must pray in faith, right? Throughout the Bible, displays of God’s power are often the answered to faith. The formula is pretty simple. Little faith, little power, but faith, much power. In Mark 6, Jesus went to his hometown. and doing wondrous things, he comes to his hometown and the [audio unclear] Remember, Jesus was healing the sick, feeding multitudes, raising the dead. It says, Jesus could not do. . Something was hindering Jesus. Jesus could not do many mighty works. Because of their unbelief. Wow. Let that sink in. Their unbelief was hindering the the work of Jesus. Now could Jesus have done great things in spite of their unbelief? Yes he could have and sometimes God actually does that in spite of our unbelief he’ll do something miraculous. But usually the formula is very simple. We believe then we receive much faith, much power. Little faith, little power. That is the biblical pattern. So we pray for the reality of the resurrection power in our lives, but we must pray in faith, believing. The last last point I want to make is that we must fellowship with Jesus Christ.

Fellowship with Christ

How many times have you heard the phrase Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship? Many times, right? It’s true and false. But the point I’m making here is that as much as we talk in the Evangelical Church about having a personal relationship with Christ, I’m not sure that many of us really believe that. Because we talk about Jesus very often as if he’s distant and remote. We pray to him as if he is distant and remote. When having a relationship with someone very close to you, when having a relationship with someone means that you actually know them. You know them like you know the person sitting next to you. You talk to them as you would the person sitting next to you. If we would experience the power of the resurrection of Christ, we must know the Christ that was resurrected. Paul says in Philippians 3.10 that he lost all things for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And he said he wanted to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection. And guess what? Those two things are inseparable. If you want victory over sin, if you want to see God work in your life in a miraculous way, you don’t simply ask for those things and then, you know, disregard Jesus. You seek Jesus Christ first, and in knowing Him, you experience the reality of what He has done. Anybody hear me? You know Him, and by knowing Him, you know the power of His resurrection. It’s not simply that we seek power or that we seek victory or that we seek success or that we seek prosperity. We seek Jesus Christ. We seek to know Him and in knowing Him, He is He being the source of all of these other things, then we experience the reality of those things. But it’s through knowing Him. So when we pray for presence power, when we pray for the reality of resurrection power in our lives, we’re really praying for presence power. We’re praying for the reality of the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives. His personal presence, the personal presence of the risen Christ can be real to every one of us. Every one of us. You know, I’ve witnessed to many people over the years, and people say, well how do you know Jesus rose from the dead? I say, because I met him. He’s not in the tomb. Well, how do you know? Because I met him. No, I haven’t met him physically, but I’ve met him. I know him. Jesus Christ, you know, for too many of us, the tomb’s empty. Like, hey, great, Jesus is up in the house. Yay, the tomb’s empty. Jesus isn’t in the tomb, so he can be doing other things. He can be revealing himself to people. He can be entering into a relationship with people. If you know Jesus Christ, then you know the resurrection’s true, because you can’t know a dead person. You can’t know a dead person. Jesus is alive. I’ve met him. I trust that some of you have met him. I know him, he’s very nice. He’d like all of us to get to know him a little more. And the more we know him, the more he changes us, the more we know him, the more we understand that the resurrection power of Jesus resides in him and it resides in knowing him. And as we know him more, we experience the reality of that power more. The resurrection of Jesus means not that our sins are paid, but that Jesus Christ is now alive. Say it. He’s now alive. Now say it like you believe it He’s now alive. Okay, so later today when you’re really crabby because your lunch isn’t ready on time, He’s now alive. Okay, when your kids are frustrating you, He’s now alive. Tomorrow when you’re at work and your boss disses you, He’s now alive. Mom, when the kids are to screaming, He’s now alive. He is now alive. He is alive and if you know Him, you can know Him in the present moment. Stop putting Jesus back on the cross. Stop putting Jesus back in the tomb. Jesus is not dead. He is alive. And if you have the Spirit of God in your heart through the new birth, He can be alive to you at every moment. Whatever your situation, whatever your need, Christ is available to you by faith. He is now alive and He now reveals Himself to all who desire to know Him. He not only gives power, He is that power. His presence in your life is the key to power over sin, to power over Satan, to power over the world, to power over self. Jesus Christ is that power. His resurrection power, His presence power. What transforms you into the image of Jesus is Jesus. Are you trying to live for Jesus, but not live with Jesus. That’s the road to despair. That’s the road to religion in the worst sense of the word. Turn. Turn to Jesus and He will be your all-in-all. He will be your life.

He will be your power. He will be your victory. It’s available to all. It is needed by all, and it is obtainable by all by faith. Amen? Let’s stand together.

Closing Prayer

Lord we thank you that you are present in [audio unclear] And we thank you, Jesus, that you have come again in the person of your Holy Spirit, who dwells in the heart of all those who truly believe. I pray for myself and my family and everyone here, for all of us, Lord, that we would by faith, truly by faith, walk, and a personal, a real vital relationship with you.