The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth
4.The power of heaven

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Times of Refreshing: Summary and Application

Series 1:    “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”

Topic 4:       The Power of Heaven

Key Text:     Ps 62:11; Acts 2:22-24

1. Our Western Problem

  1. Clear absence of spiritual power in Western church e.g. physical healing. Is God prejudiced against white people?
  2. The Western church is infiltrated with cultural pride over what we have achieved in the world e.g. democracy, technology, capitalism.
  3. God has handed our nations over to spiritual impotency.

Application Questions

Can you identify a sense of prejudice in yourself when you think of Australia in relation to third world nations?

2. Where Humanity Lost its Power

  1. As long as Adam obeyed God’s Word, God’s power kept him from death (Ps 19:11; 62:11).
  2. Temptation was an opportunity from God for Adam to rule his inner life (Prov 16:32) and so become worthy of ruling the world with God (Gen 1:28).
  3. Satan’s goal is to persuade the first couple that they could have self- sustaining life (life in themselves) and so achieve natural immortality.
  4. The Fall brings spiritual death on the inside and so emotional and relational powerlessness e.g. guilt, shame, addictions.
  5. Humans/Australians turn to outside things (pleasure, materialism) to re-Edenise the earth and cover over their inner fear of death and failure.

Application Questions

“All nations seem to have a prevailing God – myth; ours is of a being so supremely powerful he is completely removed from the struggles of our inner life that cause us so much pain.” Can you resonate with this statement? If true, in what ways would it affect how we relate to God?

3. The Power of Jesus

  1. Jesus destroys all false images of God’s power by using his power to become weak, poor and mortal (John 1:14; 2 Cor 8:9; Phil 2:5ff).
  2. Power flowed out of Christ (Luke 6:19) because the Father ruled within him (John 14:10-11).
  3. Jesus enjoyed the Father’s power for others and not for himself (John 10:37- 38; Acts 10:38).
  4. The cross shows that God does not triumph by “good violence” but by the power of love. In the agony of the cross, Jesus feels God has no power either for him or others (Mark 15:34).
  5. The resurrection releases God’s power (Rom 1:4; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:43; Eph 1:19 Phil 3:10) with a new quality. It is the power of an indestructible life (Heb 7:16).

Application Questions

In what ways has God given you power for the good of others? How do you enjoy using it? (Pray for those who are uncertain in their response.)

The “myth of redemptive violence” teaches that “good violence” defeats “evil violence”. How is this myth embedded in film, discussions of law and order, foreign policy etc. How should Christians respond to all this?

4. The Power of the Christian Church Today

  1. The cross has the explosive power to stop men and women living for themselves, which is to die to who they are in God’s image(Mark 8:35; 1 Tim 5:6).
  2. The greatest power is not miracles but being free from the power of death (Rev 20:6)
  3. The present church focus on external power e.g. numbers, buildings, leadership, money, mass worship and gifting cannot change the popular culture of self –ism.

Application Questions

When people become Christians it often through a deep struggle to stop living for themselves. Have you lost sight of this principle over the years?

What would a church living in the power of God look like? Share your experiences and God- given vision for such a church.

5. Finding the Power

  1. Most revival movements break down because of personal ambition and self- confidence (Js 3:14).
  2. Jesus honours holy people who exercise inner authority over fleshly passions with outer displays of spiritual power.
  3. God desires to raise up a church in Perth that can warn our brothers and sisters across the globe not to go down the path that has cost the Western church so much.
  4. “God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6). God would seem to be opposing us.

Application Questions

Some enthusiastic Christians have an almost superstitious view about how God can transform church and culture? Why would they have this?

If God is really “opposing us” is here anything we can do about it? Enact your answer.

Times of Refreshing:

Series 1:    “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”

Topic 4:       The Power of Heaven

Key Text:     Ps 62:11; Acts 2:22-24

Introduction

“Power belongs to God”, and he is very particular how he shares it. During the days of John Wimber’s teaching on “power encounters” enthusiastic Christians were publicly praying for the sick on trains in Perth. These people were not healed.

Contrast this with what happened when a team from a local Bible college prayed for and saw the healing of blind boy Indonesia, or a Perth pastor in the same nation prayed for a mute child whose first word became “Jesus”. Why don’t we see these sorts of power displays in our churches? Is God prejudiced against white people.

In praying about the spiritual state of the western church I have been overcome at times with a sickening and intoxicating feeling of pride. I felt the Spirit said, “These people love to rule but they hate to be ruled.” We have given the world democracy, technology, capitalism, science, soccer, English and “Christianity”. We colonised the world by force of arms and are now globalising it with our market values. Australians try to rule the world through… sport.

After taking the gospel to all continents and reaching amazing standards of living, western nations have forgotten their God and have been progressively handed over to spiritual impotency. E.g. new EU constitution omits reference to Christianity; JY train conversation with American living with his girlfriend who seemed to have no pangs of conscience about this at all because his pastor had assured him he was “born again.” All over the western world we are lacking power to live for God. To grasp our problem we need to go back to the beginning.

Where Man Lost Power with God

In Adam’s original fellowship with God he had all the power he needed to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and rule over it” (Gen 1:28). In tending the garden, naming the animals and relating to his wife God’s Word ruled his spirit (cf. Gen 2:15) and everything was in peace. The psalmist said, “your Word have I treasured in my heart that I may not sin against you” (Ps 19:11). As long as he shared God’s Word with him (Gen 2:17) the “power that belongs to God” (Ps 62:11) kept him from death.

This was not however the whole plan of God: Proverbs says, “he who rules his spirit is greater than he who conquers a city” (16:32). If Adam was to be great enough to rule the earth with God he needed to rule his on inner life. For this reason he had to be tempted.

The appearance of the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:1) totally contradicts everything God has taught Adam and Eve about himself and his creatures. This being does not speak or act like a creature. It claims to have penetrated the secrets of God— it claims that it knows the secret of being so powerful that you can be like God and possess life itself , you can create your own reality, you can move outside of the realm of death “you shall not die” (Gen 3:4).

The Satanic temptation can be illustrated by a dialogue in the Lord of the Rings where the evil wizard Saruman is trying to bring the good wizard Gandalf the Grey over to the side of the Dark Lord.

Saruman says: “What is the greatest power?”

Gandalf replies: “Life”

Saruman: “You fool, life can be destroyed. Did I teach you nothing?”

Gandalf the Grey: “Creation.”

Saruman: “Yes, the power to create life (is the greatest power).”

If you have the power to create, everything is subject to you and nothing can destroy you. Death becomes impossible. Under this spiritual deception Adam reached out to take grasp a material object in order to have the source of life in himself. The tree was “good for food, a delight to the eyes and desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen 3:6). But in disobeying God’s Word the first humans lost his indwelling presence and necessarily entered the realm of death.

On the inside Adam and Eve knew straight away something was terribly wrong, where God’s peace had reigned (Col 3:15) they were now filled with guilt and shame (Gen 3:7, 10). They had no inner living connection with God they were relationally powerless; they were dead on the inside. Cf. Addictions to things… prayer requests for youth self-mutilating, depressed and suicidal.

The person who cannot rule their own spirit cannot rule God’s world. As a punishment and a reminder that the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23) Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden into a world where death reigns. Under the fear of death the human drive for power in a perishing world is always self – preserving and self- extending. Given the opportunity, all cultures seem to gravitate to materialism.

Australians have never learned the lesson of Eden. As a nation whose first inhabitants, both indigenous and criminal, were despised and shamed we are a people who have traditionally “turned outside” of ourselves for meaning. The bush, the beach, the booze, the ‘barbie,’ and the ball have been substitutes for a fulfilling inner life. The Australian obsession with the sensuous and material tells us that we lack inner power.

Denmark is one of the most beautiful places in Australia. The river and forested hills come down to vast stretches of ocean beach and rolling surf. On retreat there I believe God said this (in part) to me:

“This place is like the Garden of Eden to those who live here, a place of delight, pleasure and a paradise. Such a spirit of pleasure and the thrill of adoration has filled the hearts of the people and prevented them from seeking God. This spirit is also permeating the church.” (Compare God’s warning to Israel recorded in Deuteronomy 8:7-14.) “The spirit of triumphant pleasure is cloaking the fear of death that grips people both within and without the church (Heb 2:14-15)”

Comment of a South Korean Christian on first migrating to Australia: “This place is like the Garden of Eden, no wonder the people don’t believe in God.”

All nations seem to have a prevailing God-myth; ours is of a being so supremely powerful he is completely removed from the struggles of our inner life that cause us so much pain. [A God unconsciously made in the image of our cultural heroes: the bushmen, sporting heroes, soldiers as a (typically male) self-contained God who does not show weakness.]

The Power of Jesus

Jesus destroys of all our false images of power. He said, “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26). What sort of “life-in-himself” does the Son have, is it a life that was kept aloof in heaven, a life that is alien to this earth, an immortal and deathless life? Does God’s life-in-himself imply life for himself?

The sort of power over his own life that the Son has received from the Father is the power for the “Word to become flesh” (John 1:14; 1 Tim 3:16), the power for the “rich to become poor” (2 Cor 8:9), the power for the immortal to become mortal (1 Tim 6:16). to be humiliated and die (Phil 2:5ff.). God’s act of self-emptying reveals that the supreme power is complete self-rule, the unselfish rule of sacrificial love. He is so powerful that he can immerse himself in the uncertainty, suffering and limitations of the human condition.

For thirty years Jesus lived an outwardly ordinary human life that was not at all tempted to impress and influence others by works of power. From his baptism (Luke 3:21-22) however the works of power that Jesus does on the outside show that he is completely ruled by the Word and Spirit of God on the inside. “Power went out from him” (Luke 6:19) because the Father was within him [“I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10-11)] and he was totally “a man under authority” (Matt 8:9).

Moses, forfeited entry into the Promise Land by misapplying a miracle (Num 20:9-13), David’s kingly power led to adultery and murder (2 Sam 11), Solomon’s sovereignty became corrupted through idolatry (1 Ki 11:1-8), Elijah’s victorious power encounter with the prophets of Baal was followed by burnout (1 Ki 18-19). (Sounds like the history of many revival movements.) Jesus however was never affected (“heady”) by power.

This is because he enjoyed the Father’s power for others: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38).His works are the works of his Father’s kingdom; [ “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”(John 10:37-38)]

In refusing the temptations to perform miracles in wilderness Jesus exposes the myth that the true purpose of power is to set ourselves free from uncertainty, suffering and the limitations of the human condition (Matt 4:1-11). (Cf. unite us to God.)

The disciples however never seemed to understand the true nature of his power, “he gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:1), but when he seemed powerless at the cross they all abandoned him.

[When Pilate said to him, “Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?”, Jesus reply was, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.” (John 19:10-11).]

The outstanding aspect of the film “The Passion of the Christ” is that it exposes “the myth of redemptive violence.” Hollywood, Islamic terrorism and western military might have all swallowed the same deception, “good power” overcomes “bad power” by violence. The cross tells us that this is man’s way of seeing the world. “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:17-18).

[The journey of Jesus to the cross is one of inner power and victory.] In utter agony in Gethsemane, Jesus prays, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you, remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36). The all – powerfulness of God that Jesus entrusts himself to is the power of a loving Father – in his terrible distress he has no sense of his ability to carry through the verdict of the Father upon guilty humanity. [The Father knows that it is not possible to keep alive the expression of his love for the Son and to live for us at the same time. God the Father must sacrifice the outpouring of his love on Jesus by pouring out his wrath upon him or our sakes.]

In the climax of the cross Jesus enters into the state of guilty humanity – absolute impotence with God (Mark 15:34). Only here the Father does not show Jesus what he is doing (John 5:20), so that here alone he does not feel the power of the Father’s indwelling presence nor sense that his death is the work of the Father The dreadful state of the cross for both Father and Son is that they have become in their experience what sinful man has always believed God to be— totally locked up in himself.

Yet the inner truth is that Jesus “loved not his life even unto death” (Rev 12:11). The only final power in the universe is a life that gives itself to death. In Jesus, the absolute rule of God’s Word in the human spirit is completed by death. “The weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Cor 1:25)

The New Testament is full of references to the power of the resurrection (Rom 1:4; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:43; Eph 1:19 Phil 3:10). Jesus “lives by God’s power” (2 Cor 13:4b) in the “power of an indestructible life” (Heb 7:16). In submitting to the utter weakness of the cross (2 Cor 13:4a) he has purified humanity of all its elements of self-preservation and self-extension (“greatness”)(Heb 2:10; 5:9). In Jesus, the indwelling power of God is made perfect (2 Cor 12:9) so that he now has “power that enables him to subject all things to himself” (Phil 3:21 cf. John 17:2; Matt 28:19). Since the second Adam has absolute rule over his own life under the authority of his Father he has absolute rule over the world.

The power of God exercised in the exodus, in the law and the prophets and in the earthly ministry of Jesus in the Gospels, was exercised in a world that was perishing through guilt (Rom 8:20-22). Now the power of God has a new quality, the quality of the eternal life that came in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the quality of a new creation. This why the greatest power of all is the power of the gospel (Rom 1:16). To be confronted by Jesus is to be impacted by a quality of life that comes from heaven and is able to set us free from everything that would trap us in this perishing creation. “9 Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.’ (1 Cor 6:9-11). [Cf. “And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying, 18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.’19 Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.” (Numbers 14:17-19); Rev 11:17 “you have taken up your great power and begun to reign”]

The Power of the Christian

The cross has an explosive power that stops men and women living for themselves i.e. dying (Mark 8:35; 1 Tim 5:6). When Saul saw Stephen praying “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (Acts 7:60) he encountered a power that belonged to another world; soon he would never be the same again.

The cross creates disciples who trust in God for life and not for personal ambition (James 3:14). Apostolic power says “Silver and gold have I none but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth stand up and walk.” (Acts 3:6) [and goes on to say “ as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk” (Acts 3:12)]. What Peter and John had was the power of a dead and risen man pulsating within them, they lived, prayed and worked miracles by the life of another.

Most of the church in the western world is like the situation in this story. The great scholar Thomas Aquinas was visiting Pope Innocent II in Rome once when the latter was counting a large sum of money. “You see, Thomas,” said the Pope, “the church can no longer say, “‘Silver and gold have I none.’” “True, holy father,” said Thomas, “and neither can she now say, ‘Arise and walk’.

The saints reign with Christ on the earth now (Rom 5:17; Rev 1:6; 5:10). Their greatest power is not the working of miracles, [evil powers can do the same (2 Thess 2:9-10)], but living in a way that is impossible to counterfeit, living a life of suffering for the sake of the kingdom of God as those over whom the “second death has no power” (Rev 20:6)

Power and the Church Today

The churches focus on external power is totally incapable of issuing in a genuine transformation in western society. The obsession with numbers, buildings, leadership, money, mass worship and gifting is simply a spiritualised form of the materialism, hedonism and selfish ambition that is killing our culture— not merely in a temporal but an eternal sense. Despite all our conferences, programmes and inspirational speakers the power of God is not a commodity (cf. Acts 8:18-24) but a life that has been through death and resurrection (Rom 6:1-4).

I believe that the devil allows some churches to grow so that others might copy them rather than seek God for themselves.

Even Judas had the “raw power” to heal the sick but he never experienced inner power (Matt 10:1ff. cf. Matt 7:22-23). Much of the power of the western church is like the power of the disciples in the Gospels (Matt 10:1ff). It took an experience of total personal failure and a radical encounter with the death and resurrection of Jesus for them to realise that the power of God was not for themselves.

Paul prays “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.” Philippians 3:10. In putting resurrection before suffering he means he needs this power to be able to live the crucified life.

Conclusion

JY: Wodonga to Shepparton , crushed spirit but release of resurrection power (Isaiah 57:15; Ps 51:17).

It took the death of Jesus for God to be able to form a body that could hold resurrection power (cf. Hosea 6:1-3). It will take a mighty death to the values of our culture for God to form his body the church into a community that can hold resurrection power without soon falling, as most revivals do, into division, immorality and heresy. As he hung on the cross Jesus had no sense of his ability to carry through— until we too are brought to this point we will never live in resurrection power.

In the things of God the inner always has priority over the outer. It is a holy people who exercise an inner authority over fleshly passions that the Spirit of Jesus will honour with outer displays of visible power. Such persons will not be influenced by issues of personal security, wealth or status.

Where better for God to solve the Western problem than in one of the most prosperous and peaceful cities in the world? Where better to raise up a community with a prophetic vocation to warn our brothers across the developing world not to go down the road that has cost our Western societies so much.

I was in a “leaders meeting” a few weeks ago and said something that was not very popular: “God is opposing us.” “God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6) “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that in due time he might exalt you.” (1 Peter 5:6). Surely our Father is saying to us proud Westerners, “You will only ever see my hand in the power of miracles, healings and mass conversions to the degree that you come under it’s might in humiliation— just as my Son did.”

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