We are never powerless. We think we are. We think we
cannot change the things that trouble us. But in fact we are
never powerless. We just give away our power.
We give away our power and do not know how to claim it
again. Those who have power over us have it only because
we let them have it.
The President of the United States is described as the most
powerful man on earth. For example, he is Commander-in-
Chief of all our armed forces. But he cannot at will do
whatever he wants with our military muscle. He must
operate within the law, he must consult with Congress, and
the President must win and keep the consent of the
American people. Viet Nam showed us that. So even the
most powerful man on earth has power only as we the
people give it. We are never powerless. Those who have
power over us have it only because we let them have it.
Sometimes I get a little envious of my colleagues in other
branches of Zion. Catholic priests and Episcopalian rectors
and Methodist pastors have power. They have authority,
and their people are supposed to do what Pastor says.
When Father Harmon was installed as rector of our
neighboring church, Trinity, Bishop Dixon admonished the
congregation to follow his guidance and treat him well, or
else, she said, “You will reckon with the bishop.” Must be
nice! I wonder where I can find a Baptist bishop!
And yet, I will wager that even in churches where the pastor
has power unlike anything known in a democratically
governed Baptist church, those pastors discover that really,
their power comes from their people. The pastor cannot lead
them where they refuse to go. Church people are never
powerless. They just give their power away. None of us are
without power. Those who have power over us have it only
because we give away our power.
I hear many of us talking about being powerless. I hear us
saying there is nothing we can do about the things that
trouble us. Nothing we can do about our own brokenness.
Nothing we can do about the plight of others. Nothing we
can do to change things. Too many of us feel powerless.
We feel frustrated at the immensity of our problems, and so
we give up. “What’s the use?” And we surrender without a
fight. We believe that against the forces of evil, against the
stubborn mischief of others around us, and against our own
shortcomings, we are powerless.
But we are never powerless. That is not what the Bible
teaches us. That is not what Christians who know their faith
believe. We are taught that we are never powerless. The
most wrong-headed, damaging, and blasphemous thing we
can say is that we are powerless to do anything about evil in
this world. It is wrong-headed because it ignores the facts.
It is damaging because it holds people back. It is
blasphemous because it means that we think that God is
powerless. No, hear the word of God: God is never
powerless; and so, we are never powerless.
But we do give away our power. We need to learn how to
claim it again, so that we are never powerless.
I
To do that, first we have to affirm that it is in Jesus Christ
and in Him alone that there is power to change anyone. We
have tried all kinds of strategies to effect change, but I
submit to you that anything that does not have at its core the
redeeming power of Jesus Christ is doomed to fail. In Jesus
Christ and in Him alone is there power to change.
Jesus was working to prepare His disciples so that they
could function once He left them. Jesus knew that He could
not stay with them and hold their hands for everything. They
would have to be responsible for their own lives and for their
world. That meant that Jesus would empower them. He
said something most challenging:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in
me ... I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.”
“Do not let your hearts be troubled” That means, don’t feel
powerless. But know that in Him, in Jesus, there is the way
that lives are changed. If you want to feel empowered; if you
want to hope that your own brokenness or that the issues
others around you face can be dealt with, you must begin
with this: that in Jesus Christ and in Him alone there is the
power to change.
I know that this is a controversial point. I know that what I
am saying is not politically correct. We live in America,
where we are supposed to be tolerant. Some of us think that
means we should blindly accept all faith systems. We live in
the 21st Century, and are expected to know that many of the
world’s peoples do not share our beliefs. I know that quoting
Jesus’ statement about His being THE way, THE truth, THE
life, and no one comes except through Him .. I know that
those quotes are provocative to some, worrisome to others,
and insulting to a few. Nevertheless, I am bound in
conscience and by conviction to argue that it is in Jesus
Christ and in Him alone that there is the power to change
lives. We are not talking about religious philosophies. We
are talking about the power to change lives.
Someone says, “Well, I know some awfully nice Muslims,
and I have a very friendly Buddhist neighbor, and then I
know some very fine people who have no religion at all.
What about them?” Well and good. But I ask you, has
Mohammed changed their lives from the inside out? Has
Buddha revolutionized their thinking? Has polite skepticism
brought them out of addiction, destroyed their craving for
crime, or connected them with the power to become
something more than merely nice people? I do not think so.
person when you are already a nice person. I am talking
about the power to overcome brokenness, disgrace, shame,
guilt, sin, the works! I am talking about the power to change
a life. And that comes only by Jesus Christ.
Someone else says, “Well, you need more than religion to
change people. You need education, you need therapy, you
need social services, you need lots of things. Religion is only
one piece of the puzzle.” I agree, but I don’t agree. We’ve
tried lots of things, haven’t we? We’ve tried education.
Education is wonderful. But, friends, if you take a criminal
mind and educate it, you have not done anything but make it
a more sophisticated criminal mind! Before he went to
school, he could mug you on the street. Now, with an
education, he can mug you, hard wire your car, defeat your
home security system, and computer hack his way into your
bank account! Education alone does not change people.
Only Jesus Christ can do that.
We’ve tried lots of things to fix up those who make a mess of
their lives. We’ve tried philosophies, we’ve tried counseling,
we’ve tried self-help techniques. In fact, there are lots of
folks out there making money from the public by selling self-
help stuff. Go to any bookstore, and you will find a huge
collection of books, teaching you how to do everything from
lose weight to find a mate! Go to any counseling clinic, and
you will fill your pocket with brochures for groups promising
to deal with everything from addiction to self-esteem to
uncovering buried memories. I do not put down any of that.
There’s a lot in it that can be helpful. But one thing I must
claim, with all the conviction of my heart: that any program,
any group, any technique, any book, or any philosophy from
which Jesus Christ is absent is doomed to failure. It cannot
change us from the inside out. Only He can do that.
If you want power in your life, seek it from Jesus Christ. If
you want to see someone else’s life changed, point him or
her to Jesus. It is Jesus who took the cheating, lying tax
collector Zacchaeus and led him to repay those he had
cheated. It is Jesus who took the prostitute Mary Magdalene
and led her to give precious treasures instead of sell her
body. It is Jesus who took the predatory Pharisee Saul, who
had wanted to hunt down believers, and made him the
greatest of the apostles. The critics of the early church said,
“This thing is full of thieves and criminals, slaves and sluts.”
But soon they found out that the thieves no longer stole, the
criminals no longer committed crimes, the sluts became
faithful wives, and the slave mentality was erased. What did
that? It was not a what, it was a who. Jesus Christ did that.
If you want power in your life, seek it from Jesus Christ.
Once you know Him and follow Him, you will never be
powerless.
II
Well, pastor, you say, that’s fine where I am concerned. I
can see how I can turn to Jesus Christ and ask Him to
change me. But what about all these other people around
me who are such a mess? Pastor, you don’t understand.
You work with nice Christian people all day long. You
haven’t met the losers that I know. My co-workers, my
neighbors, my school chums, my family. They don’t want to
be changed. They are not interested in Christ or in anything
positive; they are powerless, and I am powerless to change
them. I just have to walk away and leave them alone. What
about them?
My answer to you is, first, that I know more about this than
you might think. Just because the people I associate with
are Christians and church members, that does not mean that
they’ve got themselves all together. In fact, some of us who
have been around the church for a long time are the most
frustrating people in all the world, because we’ve been
inoculated with a mild case of Christianity and are thus
immune to the real thing! So do not tell me I know nothing
about stubborn, unchangeable people!
But we are never powerless around people who need to
change, because we do have available to us the gift of
prayer. In prayer we become part of the redeeming work of
Christ. With prayer the stubborn can be made flexible, the
vicious can be made loving, and the lost can be found.
Listen to what Jesus promises and see if you still think we
are powerless to change others:
I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I
do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am
going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that
the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me
for anything, I will do it.
“I will do whatever you ask in my name”. If that is true, we
are not powerless. We have the gift of prayer. And listen to
the other part, “the one who believes in me will do [even]
greater works than [Jesus did].”
The issue is whether we truly use this gift. It’s one thing to
have a weapon; it’s another thing to use it. In England we
went through Windsor Castle, and saw several rooms with
wonderful displays of spears and swords and pistols,
mounted in beautiful arrays on the walls. That’s fine. But
those weapons were not available for use. They were just on
display for tourists to see.
Have you and I just have our prayers on display and they are
not truly used? We utter pretty words out here in public, but
do we pray with intensity and faith for those who need our
prayers? If we were to use the power of prayer for each
other, we would see miracles happen. But instead we are
tempted to be cynical. We are tempted to forfeit others to
Satan, just let them go – not out of malice but out of neglect.
We have neglected the power of prayer. We have taken
ourselves out of the battle and put ourselves in the museum.
Suppose – just suppose – you are concerned about
somebody who is addicted. There’s somebody in the family
or in the church or in the neighborhood who is under the
control of alcohol. Every now and then you talk a little, and
help him out, and he seems to do better for a while, but then
it happens again. He’s out there making an idiot of himself.
And so what do we do? “Ah, I’ve said everything I’m going to
say. Once that stuff gets in them, they’ll never change.” And
we write people off, we give up on them. Mind you, I’m
talking not just about alcoholics; I’m talking about any kind of
addiction – drugs, sexual activity, stealing, gambling, lying,
even eating. We assume that nothing can be done.
But we have failed to use the power of prayer and we have
failed to believe that Christ works through us. We have
rendered ourselves powerless because we have not
understood that the redeeming Christ wants to work through
us. If we will pray faithfully and consistently for those who
need the power to change, we will discover that the Lord
puts them not only on our hearts but also on our agendas,
and we will work and encourage until finally, in the
providence of God, they do change. Prayer changes things
because prayer changes us when we pray, and then we
become partners with Christ in changing others. We are
never powerless, not as long as we pray in faith and do what
that praying prompts us to do.
Now I hear someone saying, “Well, I have prayed for so-and-
so and his problems for years. I have over and over again
asked the Lord to deal with her stubborn sin. And nothing
has happened, so I am about to give up.” Anybody here feel
that? That there is some situation or some person you have
prayed for and nothing is happening, so might as well give
up?
No, if you do that you are giving away your power. You are
suggesting that you do not believe that Christ can make a
difference. The Bible says to be “constant in prayer, in
season and out of season”, when it feels good and when it
doesn’t. We are to hear what Christ prompts us to do when
we pray. Usually we will be prompted to offer support in
some very concrete way. We will be prompted to do
something very positive for those we are praying about.
I never disclose what people say to me in private
conversations. But let me at least mention, without names,
one situation. One person told me as I visited her several
months ago that she had grown up in a home where nothing
positive was ever said. She told me that no matter what
happened, no matter what she did, she could never get any
loving or encouraging word out of her family. And so she
came to this church hungry and thirsty for a caring
environment. And praise God, she found it. She found
people who were prayerful and faithful and who believed in
her, and she felt herself changing. She found her job
situation changing – she saw her family problems improving
– she even noticed her depression beginning to disappear.
Praise God, she found that she was not powerless any
longer because God’s people are never powerless and they
supported her!
The only prayer that will not be answered is the one which is
not uttered; the only prayer that will not be completed is the
one we abandon. We are never powerless.
III
And so the challenge today is a challenge for holy boldness.
I challenge you today to claim the power of Christ as your
own power. I challenge you to give Him your own
brokenness and expect it to be healed. I challenge you to
give Him the issues in others around you and expect not only
that He will deal with them but also that He will call you to
participate. I challenge you today not to give your power to
the enemy.
For yes, there is an enemy. There is an evil that is larger
than we and cunning and crafty. I know that. Theologian C.
S. Lewis said that Satan’s greatest accomplishment is that
he has been able to persuade some of us that he does not
exist. No, we know better than that. But some of us have
thrown up our hands and have said, “The enemy is too big
for me to fight.” Not so. We are never powerless. Jesus
tells us why:
The ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me.
“The ruler of this world” – that’s Satan – “is coming”. Make
no mistake about it. He is active and busy. No one should
have any illusions about that. But here is the key truth: “He
has no power over [Christ].” Jesus Christ, crucified and risen
again, is triumphant. The powers of evil have done their
worst, but Christ has broken them, and no longer is evil in
charge. If there is any one thing Christians know, it is that
Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He shall
reign forever and ever. If that be true, then He is never
powerless and we are never powerless.
And if that be true, how vibrant rings Jesus’ concluding word:
Rise, let us be on our way.
Yes, indeed. Rise, let us be on our way. If there is someone
in the family who is in trouble, let us not sit back and worry
about what is going to happen. Let us confront in love and in
prayer and do what needs to be done. Rise, let us be on our
way.
If there is a spot in our community where criminal activity is
taking over, let us not cower behind stained glass. Let us
deal with it with boldness and prayer. Rise, let us be on our
way.
If there are people whose behavior is an issue, let us not
spend useless energy grumbling. Let us learn about their
needs and smother them with kindness. Rise, let us be on
our way.
If there is a brother or a sister sitting with you in the pews,
and he or she is the single most cantankerous creature you
have ever known, let us not get on the phone and cluck and
complain. Let us speak the truth in love to that brother, that
sister, and expect Christ to do His changing work. Rise, let
us be on our way.
For if we give up on ourselves, we have given away our
power. If we give up on each other, we have compromised
our power. If we give up on those whose lives are not right,
we have denied the power of Christ. If we give up on those
who have hurt us, we have announced that evil has won the
day. For this one thing we do know, beyond all others – the
ruler of this world has no power -- none, none whatsoever --
over Jesus Christ. What else is there but Christ’s command,
“Rise, let us be on our way”. On our way to witness, one our
way to ministry, on our way to mission; on our way to saved
souls and rebuilt minds. On our way to new hearts and
changed lives. Thanks be to Christ, we are never powerless.
