RESURRECTION POWER!
PHILIPPIANS 3:10-11
05/31/95
Go over to light switch. Here is a source of power. When I turn on this switch power in the form of electricity flows through the switch and into the lightbulb, thus giving us light.
Now in the case of this power there are four things which I want to note. That is the way pastors are, they even put turning on a light into outline form. But anyway;
1. It is necessary to make the light work. If I ignore this switch the light will not come on.
2. The switch is what transfers the power from to the lightbulb. The electricity must go through
the switch in order for the light to work.
3. The third thing is that I have confidence that the switch will indeed work. I have confidence that power will reach the light when I turn this switch. We all have confidence in these little switched that we have all over our homes. Confidence because they usually work.
4. The last thing is that this power is useless if I do not use it. I would sit here in the dark if I did not use this switch to bring power to that lightbulb.
So by now I am sure most of you know where I am going with this. Those who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ also have in them a certain power. While the power that makes that lightbulb light up is not a living being that power that is in us, is. The power that lives in us is none other then God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit. Now Paul refers to that power in todays passage.
So please turn with me to Philippians chapter 3 verses 10-11. That is page 1018 in the pew Bibles.
"that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."
Now you may recall last week that we spoke of the need to gain Christ. And to do that we must lose all things. Which is to say we must put Christ first. Now Paul is continuing along those lines.
He saying that he counted all things as rubbish that he might gain Christ, that he might know Christ, and also know that "power of His resurrection." And the power of the Lord Jesus Christ is such an awesome power that every man, woman, and child, no matter were they are should desire the "power of His resurrection". As we shall see if we have this power alive in us, we have a tremendous thing.
Before we get into a detailed explanation of what this power does I first want to point out to you why this power of His resurrection is necessary. Why did Jesus have to be raised from the dead. Why did God choose to display this power through Christ’s resurrection.
Now for our purposes today I am going to be brief at this point and only list two main reasons.
First God displayed this resurrection power in order to attest to and prove the truth of what the Jesus Christ taught. God choose this method to give credence to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the gospel of John we read of a confrontation Jesus has with the Jewish leaders;
John 2:18-21 "So the Jews answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days? But He was speaking of the temple of His body."
Jesus told those leader the if you want prove of who I am and what I have been sent to do just wait. After being dead for three days I will come back to life. And through Jesus’ resurrection we can be sure that what he said was true. What greater prove is there. If one promises to give eternal life and then raises from the dead, that is pretty impressive. It shows that He has the power to conquer death. He has the resurrection power!
Buddha claimed to have the answers to eternal death. But were is Buddha. Six feet under. Not power there. Mohammed claimed to have the way to eternal life, but where is Mohammed, dead buried and gone. No resurrection power there. Jesus proved the truth in what He was saying when he arose on that third day.
If Jesus did not raise for the dead then what we believe is in vain, it is useless. If Jesus did not raise from the dead then our faith is in vain, just as those who have faith in buddha, and Mohammad have a faith which is in vain.
Note Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:14 & 17 (ver 17) "And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!
Ver. 14 "And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain.
So the resurrection power is necessary to show the truth in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is also necessary in order to show that God the Father has accepted the sacrifice offered by
Jesus Christ on our behalf.
Romans 4:24-25 "but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification."
When God the Father raised Jesus from the dead he was basically saying that the sacrifice He made on the cross was acceptable in the Father’s sight. When Jesus came out of the tomb, it proved to all that those who believe in Jesus are justified. Those who have placed their trust in Christ have their sins forgiven.
So as you sit here today, if you have but your faith in Jesus Christ, you be sure that your sins are forgiven because Jesus arose from the dead. We can be certain, because of that power which Paul calls resurrection Power. The power by which we are justified and made Holy before God.
So we have seen on two points why the power of the resurrection is necessary. Now I want to turn our attention to Paul’s point in this passage. That is he seeks to gain this power. This power is transferred to us, when we place our trust in Jesus as our Saviour. And when we receive that power, we can see exhibited in 6 ways.
The first is the power of the Holy Spirit. Now the power of the Holy Spirit that we have in us comes as a direct result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
John 16:7 "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you."
Jesus stated that he had to leave this world to accent to the Father that he might send the Helper, that helper being the Holy Spirit. So it is by the resurrection power that we receive the power of the Holy Spirit. And the power of that Spirit is an awesome thing. Now I am not going to go into details concerning the power of the Holy Spirit as that is a sermon in itself.
But a way that we can see it in a practical way is that it is through the Holy Spirit that we can manifest the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Those fruits being;
Galatians 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law."
All those things mentioned are things that we are capable of when we trust in that power of the Holy Spirit. While I am sure if we look at this list there is something there the each one of us may struggle with know that we have the power at work in us to perform whatever it may be. Whether loving someone, showing kindness, patience, what ever.
The second way in which this power is exhibited is that that power of the resurrection give to us the power to over come sin in our lives. There are several verse within the Scripture that reveal this to be true. One passage that I want to give to you today is
Romans 6:4-6 "Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin."
By the power of the resurrection we no longer have to be slaves to sin. Those things the we continually do over and over again, we can and do have victory over. People struggle with the same sin time after time. But we don’t have to. If we learn to use the power that is at work in us, we do away with those things. They will no longer control us be shall control them.
Another way in which the power of the resurrection is exhibited is that we have the power to do all things. Not on by own power, but by the power that is in us.
Ephesians 3:20 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,"
It is a shame how much Christian will limit God. We just do not believe this passage of Scripture to be true. We limit ourselves by saying well I can’t do that, but what we are doing is limiting God and saying well God can’t do that. He can’t work through me.
God can fill this room. He can fill the balcony. He can force us into having two services. He can do it all if he so chooses. But how many of us pray to that end. We say I would love to see this place over flowing with people, but we don’t want God to use us to make it happen.
God can bring revival to this town. He can save your neighbor! He can save the meanest person you know. He can save that person you know will never be a Christian. He can save all your family members. God can save any one and everyone. And he can us you to do it. Because he has given us the power to do all things.
And I know God can save anyone because he saved me.
I just want you to know that you can do things you never dreamed possible through the resurrection power of the Jesus Christ. Don’t limit God! Don’t limit the power that is in you.
Another way the power of His resurrection is exhibited in us which goes with what i just stated is that we have the power to preach the gospel. Each person here can be a preacher. While there is a specific gift for being a pastor, we are all called to be preacher of the Gospel. And God as given each of us the power to do it.
Notice what is stated in these two verses;
1 Corinthians 2:4 "And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,"
Romans 1:3-4 "concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead"
The declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ does not come from our own ability. It does not come for going to speech class, it comes from the power of God. And if you find yourself unable to present the gospel to someone it is because of one of two reason first you don’t know how to present the gospel to someone. That is east to correct, simply look to the Word of God. Or you are relying on your own ability to do it therefore you fail to do it because you do not trust in your own abilities.
We need to trust in Him who as given us the power to preach the gospel. The power to declare the Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So never say that you can preach the gospel, that you can show someone how to be saved, because it is not that you can’t it is that you won’t. Because if you are a believer in Jesus Christ you have the power to preach the Gospel.
The final item which this power is exhibited by is the power to be confident of a future life in the presence of God.
1 Corinthians 6:14 "And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power."
Because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead we to can be confident that when we trust in Him he will raise us up as well. God has shown the us that He has the power to do it. He has show us that just He promised to raise Jesus, He has promised to raise us.
And just as Jesus was raised with a glorious body so shall we be raised with a glorious body.
A body that has not the effects of the sinful world in which we live. Many of us have parts that do not quite work like the used to. But when we are raised we will receive an incorruptible body.
So as we have seen the different ways in which this power of the resurrection which Paul speaks of in this verse as been exhibited.
I just want to go back to the illustration I used at the beginning of the sermon. Those four things I pointed out concerning this light.
1. Necessary to make the light work. The power of the resurrection is also necessary to get us to do the work God has for us. Just as without power the light will not light, with out the power of the resurrection we will cannot hope to do the things of God.
2. It is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ that that power is transfer to us. We heard how Jesus said He had to leave this earth, so that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, the source of our Power, would come.
3. We need to be confidant in that power. Just as we are confident when we turn on that switch at home we know that the light will come, we need to be confident in the power of the resurrection. Know that you have the power at work in you to do all things.
4. If we do not use the power in us what good is it. It is useless. Just as if we do not turn on the switch and use the power in our homes we will sit in darkness. If we do not use the power in us, not only will we sit in darkness, but others will sit in darkness as well.
In conclusion I just want to state the obvious, we need this power, we need to seek this power. We need to as Paul stated in verse 11, "attain" the resurrection, we need to attain the power. That can only happen when we know Christ as our personal Saviour and trust in the Power He has given to us.
SHALL WE PRAY
