"God's Power in Your Life"
Mark 4:36-39
Sunday, November 4, 2012

Introduction: Illus. “The Big Rock,” Hot Illustrations, p. 36. One day a young boy was playing in his sandbox. He decided to dig a hole to make a tunnel from one sand building to the next. As he dug down he discovered a large rock in the middle of the sandbox. He decided he wanted that rock out of his sandbox, so he dug some more, and then tried to push it out. However, the rock was just too big and heavy for the boy to move! As this was happening the boy’s father was watching it all from the kitchen window. After watching his son struggle for some time, he finally walked out to the sandbox. Then he asked his son: “Son, why didn’t you use all the strength you had available?” “I did. I pushed with all my strength!” his son answered. “No, son,” corrected the father, “You didn’t use all the strength you had. You didn’t ask me!”

            This morning I want to talk about this exact situation, how we are in the same place as the boy. We try and try with all of our strength, thinking that we are using all the power we have available to us, but forgetting that God is there willing and waiting to give us His strength! I want to talk about how you can have God’s power at work in your life.

I.                   Evidence of God’s Power- (Romans 1:20; Mark 4:36-39; 1Peter 5:8;

                        Luke 5:12-13, 7:12-15, 8:26-39; Matthew 4:1-11; 1 John 4:4)

All we have to do is look around to see the evidence of God’s power. Romans

1:20 (New Living Translation) tells us, “From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see His invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.”

 We can look at the world and see God’s affects. From the power of the sun, to

the great oceans and massive mountain ranges, the power of God is visible. But God didn’t just want to leave it there, and so God chose to come in human form, in Jesus Christ. One of the reasons Jesus came was to show us who God truly is, and for Him to share with us God’s power. And while I am not going to make an exhaustive list here about God’s power, I do want to show us how God’s power is seen in Jesus over nature, sickness, death, and Satan.

a.      Over nature- Nature is amazing. In good ways and bad. We are

thankful for the rain, for it helps things to grow and supplies us with the water we need; the water we couldn’t live without. But we see the power of water when there is so much rain that it causes floods, or when the water of the ocean becomes a tidal wave. We are thankful for wind, for it provides a cool breeze, and we can even harness it for power. But as we just saw this last week, when the wind becomes a hurricane, it can cause great damage.

All throughout time, people have experienced this power of God through nature. And in its extreme, nature does cause us to fear.

            In the Gospel of Mark, we have just such an occasion. Mark 4:36-38- “And leaving the crowd behind, the disciples took Jesus with them in the boat… A great windstorm arose and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But Jesus was in the stern of the boat, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him up and said to Him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’”

            In this passage we have two things going on. A storm has arisen, and it has caused the disciples great fear. Yet for Jesus, He is unafraid, unconcerned, as He sleeps in the back of the boat. You know that the disciples are afraid, because they wake-up Jesus, and they think they are going to perish. Now I have never been in a boat where the wind and storm is so great that I think I am going to die, but I have been on my brother’s boat when it is fairly windy. It is an interesting feeling when the bottom of the boat feels like it is starting to come out of the water!

            But the passage doesn’t stop here. What does Jesus do after He is woken up?

Verse 39- “He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ At Jesus’ voice the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.” WOW!!!

            What a demonstration of God’s power; calming the wind and the sea. The stillness must have been almost as eerie as the powerful wind.

b.      Over sickness- Another time Jesus was walking in one of the cities

when He came across a man covered with Leprosy. Now most sicknesses we encounter affect us mostly on the inside. But Leprosy is one of those diseases that affects you on the outside; it is very visible. It is a disease that eats away at your skin. But this isn’t the worst of it. In Jesus’ time, if you had Leprosy, if anyone came near to you, you had to yell out, “Unclean, unclean.” You couldn’t be touched. So this disease affected you mentally and emotionally because you were separated from society. How it must have worn on people to have to categorize themselves as unclean!

            When Jesus comes upon this man, the Leper bowed humbly before Jesus and said: “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” (Luke 5:12) The scripture tells us that Jesus “…stretched out His hand, touched him, and said, ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ Immediately the Leprosy left him.” (Luke 5:13)

            Jesus not only showed that He had power over sickness, but Jesus could restore wholeness as well. This person was healed body, mind, and spirit. This person, who was untouchable, could now be touched and held and loved and accepted!

c.      Over death- It is amazing to me how there are many people who want

to cheat death. A true story: In 1960, Californian millionaire James McGill  died. He left detailed instructions that his body should be preserved by freezing in the hope that one day scientists might discover a cure for the disease that killed him. This sounds amazing, but today it is quite popular to have your body frozen. In fact, the new technology is called “neuro-suspension” which preserves just the head. And you might have heard that the great baseball player, Ted Williams, after he died, his son had his father’s head frozen.

            There are least 3 instances recorded in scripture where Jesus raised people from the dead. The most famous of course is Lazarus, whom Jesus raised after Lazarus had been dead for 3 days. The second is the daughter of one of the synagogue leaders. And the third happened during a funeral procession. The boy, the only son of a widow, was surrounded by many mourners. When Jesus saw this, He had compassion on the woman, “touched the coffin, and said: ‘Young man, get up.’ At this the boy did get up and began to talk to those around him!”

            However, at some point these people did die again, and go to heaven to be with the Lord. That is why Jesus died, so that our death would lead to a resurrection where we would go to be with the Lord in heaven. Jesus conquered death by His death and resurrection!

d.      Over Satan- The last example of Jesus’ demonstrating God’s power is

how God has power over Satan. There are two main mistakes people make when it comes to Satan. The first mistake is that people think that Satan is not real, and therefore they are ignorant to the power that Satan can wield in a person’s life. But the Bible warns us, in 1 Peter 5:8, “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” Satan is real, and is our enemy. Do not disregard Satan in this world.

            The second mistake people make regarding Satan is the thinking that Satan is more powerful than he truly is. In this case, people allow themselves to be overcome with fear of the evil in the world. This fear paralyzes them, or affects them mentally to not see the reality of our world.

            Another important reason Jesus came to this earth was to show God’s power over Satan. He did it by: showing us how to resist temptation [when He resisted Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11)], He did it when he cast out demons (i.e. Luke 8:26-39), and ultimately He did it by dying on the cross, and giving us the power over sin and eternal death through our faith in Jesus! As the Scripture tells us: 1 John 4:4- “….greater is He that is in you (Jesus) than he who is in the world (Satan).”

II.                Experiencing God’s Power- (Ephesians 1:19; Philippians 2:13;

Isaiah 40:31)

Illustration: “Yukon Ho!” Calvin and Hobbes, p. 92- Have

you ever imagined what it might be like if you were God? Well,

in this particular Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, Calvin does…… It says:

“First there was nothing….                  then there was Calvin!            Calvin, the mighty god, creates the universe with pure will!                From utter nothingness comes swirling form! Life begins where once was void!                     But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He’s one of the old gods! He demands sacrifice!            Yes, Calvin is a god of the underworld! And the puny inhabitants of earth displease him!                        The great Calvin ignores their pleas for mercy and the doomed writhe in agony!

            Then in the last frame Calvin’s dad says to his wife: “Have you seen how absorbed Calvin is with those Tinkertoys? He’s creating whole worlds over there!” To which Calvin’s mom says: “I’ll bet he grows up to be an architect.”

      The good news for us, is even though God is all-powerful, He is a merciful

and loving God. And even more, He wants to pass on this power to us. As Paul says in Ephesians 1:19 (NLT), “I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of His power for us who believe Him.”

a.      God’s power to get going- How does God pass on His power to us?

Well, the first way is that God knows that sometimes we lack energy, desire, or drive to do what we need to do; sometimes we get unfocused or off track. So God passes on to us the power to get going. As the apostle Paul says in Philippians 2:13- “For God is working in you the desire to obey Him and the power to do what  pleases Him.”

            To really live a great life, we need to obey God, and we need to do the things that pleases God. But that isn’t always easy to do. To do this, we need the desire to do this. So where do we get the desire? From the power of God’s Spirit working in us. The more we allow God to work in and through us, the easier it will be to do what pleases God, and the better our lives will be.

b.      God’s power to keep you going- Let me encourage you to do a certain

practice that will help with this. Every day when you get up, say to God: “Okay God, give me the desire to follow You today.” The reality, is that once we are out into the world, we will be bombarded with frustrations, deadlines, hurtful words, temptations, etc… It doesn’t take much to get us off track again. It doesn’t take much to lose the desire to do what pleases God. So we need to repeat this statement throughout the day: “Okay God, give me the desire to follow You today.”

            Example- When my children were young, I loved to watch them play. In fact, I tried to do it without them noticing me, because I enjoy their creativity and their focus. Tiffany particularly liked this carpet we had bought that had a city embroidered on it. It has roads, a library, an airport, and more! However, it didn’t take long before Tiffany got bored of the cars and moved over to playing with her Barbies. The next thing you know, she was in Tyler’s room wanting to play with him. Young kids can get easily distracted and move quickly from one thing to another!

            Believe it or not, we are just like that in life. We get easily distracted from God’s ways, and move on and on to what the world broadcasts as the way to live or the thing to do. Or maybe it is not being distracted, but we try hard to do things on our own, and then we get tired.

            We are reminded in Isaiah 40:31- “But those who wait on the Lord will

                        find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They

                        will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”

God wants us to be able to not only get going, but to sustain it once we do. So God gives us power to keep going. Instead of allowing the distraction to derail us, or let our frustration cause us to falter, we turn to the Lord and wait on Him!

Conclusion: It is easy to think that God is all-powerful, but not think about it much further than that. Or to think that God is all-powerful, but His power was only important for Him to create the world. I hope this morning you caught a deeper understanding of how God not only has great power, but has exhibited that power to us for the purpose of helping us to believe in Him. He has exhibited this power so that we might trust Him more. He has exhibited this power so that we might give Him our love. And in trusting Him and loving Him we open ourselves up to Him to receive His power into our lives. God cares about us so deeply that He wants us to have His power, so that we might be able to live as He created us to live; with purpose, and the ability to do great things. To receive this power we have to come to God and seek Him out. To receive God power we have to ask for His help. To receive His power we have to live as faithful servants of the Lord. Receive today the power of God into your lives, and know that when you do, you will never be the same! Amen.