Radical Power // How to Live an Extraordinary Life, Pt 14

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Sometimes it seems that life is just a series of power plays – it’s all about who has power over whom. But there’s a different sort of power. The power of God. There’s nothing at all that compares to God’s power. And that extraordinary power is available to anyone who trusts in Jesus.

I wonder what the word "Power" means to you. Power is what flows to the light globe when we flick the switch on the wall. Seems that every time I turn around there’s another power bill in my letter box, and the price is always going up! Power is that thing people in government, that officials, that a bank manager exercises over us. We actually call them people in positions of power. Sometimes they exercise it wisely, other times not so much.

Power is something a lot of people spend a lifetime striving for; to get more of it; to be someone who is in a position of power. You see it sometimes in petty low and middle level bureaucrats who’ve become little despots just so they can feel that they have power over you. Then there’s another type of power. It’s a type of power that’s set completely apart from any other kind of power that you and I know about think about or have ever experienced. And that power is the Power of God. Why is it different? Because it’s greater than any other power that you and I can ever imagine.

Think of the immense power in one lightening bolt. It’s so powerful that it’s seriously scary. Well, all the power in every lightening bolt that has ever bolted since the dawn of time is just a drop in the ocean compared to the power of God. And today we’re going to talk about that power, because it’s that very power that’s the key to living the extraordinary life.

Because I’m your kind of rational, sane, down to earth kind of guy, one of the ruts I can easily get stuck into is imagining that … well … the outcomes of everything I do in life, in ministry, whatever, that outcome is actually up to me. The harder I work, the longer I work, the faster I work, the more I’ll get done, the more items I’ll be able to check off my to-do list and the more impact I’ll be able to have in people’s lives. But quite a few years ago God convicted me to pray more and do less.

The other day on the program I mentioned the young women at my church, Lucy, who was convicted by one of the posts on my blog sites was to do just that. And you know what she reported? She said, ‘Wow, the things I do have so much more impact these days. After just a month I am having all these conversations with my friends about Jesus, and one by one they are coming to faith in Him.’ I smiled to myself because that’s exactly what I found when I decided to pray more and do less.

And do you know why it is that when we pray more and do less we get more done, because prayer unleashes the power of God. And it’s the power of God that makes for an extraordinary life on this earth, because the power of God is so much greater than anything we can begin to imagine.

Now, engaging that power is something that Jesus didn’t seem to have much of a problem with. He just did it. You and I of course will say, ‘Yes, okay, what do you expect. He’s the Son of God, of course He had all the power, that’s Him. I’m just me.’ Well, let’s just take a look at how He tapped into that power, the power of God to do extraordinary things. Matthew Chapter 8 beginning at verse 5:

When Jesus entered Capernaum a centurion came to Him, appealing to Him, saying, ‘My servant is lying at home paralysed in terrible distress.’ And He said to him, ‘I’ll come and cure him.’ But the centurion answered, ‘Lord, I’m not worthy to have you come under my roof. Just speak the word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man in authority with soldiers under me. I say to one ‘go’ and he goes, I say to the other ‘come’ and he comes. To my slave I say ‘do this’ and the slave does it.'

When Jesus heard him, He was amazed and He said to those who followed Him, ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from the east and the west and eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven while the heirs of the Kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And He said to the centurion, ‘Go. Let it be done for you according to your faith.’ And the servant was healed that very hour.

Let me ask you something, was there any uncertainty in Jesus mind about the power that God had given to Him. Apparently not, He just did what came before Him, and what came before Him that day was a man of faith. Importantly not one of God’s chosen people, not a Jew, but a Roman officer. One of the foreigners, one of the gentiles whose job it was to occupy and oppress God’s chosen people. But He was a man with faith. In fact it was a faith so great that Jesus marvelled at it. "Many will come from the east and the west and eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven while the heirs of the Kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

It was the man’s faith that caused the power to flow through Jesus and onto the centurion’s servant who, by the way, was no where to be seen. Remote control, distance healing. Pretty amazing stuff. No wonder Jesus marvelled at this man’s faith. By way of sharp contrast, when Jesus was in His own home town of Nazareth He was able to perform very few miracles indeed. Why? Well, let’s have a look because Mark in his Gospel account tells us in Chapter 6 beginning at verse 3:

The took offense at Him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Look, prophets are not without honour except in their home town and among their own kin and in their own house. And He could do no deed of power there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and cured them. And He was amazed at their unbelief.’

I love that. With the centurion, Jesus marvelled at the size of his faith. Here he is amazed at the unbelief in His own home town. It seems to me that one of the keys to an extraordinary life is extraordinary faith. Faith that goes against reason; faith in the miracle working power of Jesus the Son of God. Now I’ve scoured the Scriptures – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – and Jesus never turned anyone away who came to ask Him to perform a miracle, to pour out the power of God upon their lives – not a one!

Why do we walk around in the miry clay, feet heavy, shoulders hunched, when we have access to the indescribable power of God to get His will done on this earth. Question for you today: would you rather that Jesus marvelled at your extraordinary faith in Him or your extraordinary unbelief in Him? Would you rather that He walks away pinching Himself to make sure that the faith that He’s just seen in you was real, or that He walks away shaking His head wondering how you could manifest such unbelief in this Jesus in whom you profess to believe.

There are so many things in this life that you and I can’t do; there are so many mountains we can’t move; there are so many things going on that are so beyond us. Have you noticed, God calls us into places and situations to do things we simply can’t do in our own strength. It happens all the time. What’s the matter with us that we imagine that we have to do this stuff in our own strength? Sure life is full of the mundane, it’s full of challenges, it’s full of hardships but life is also full of the power of God for anyone who believes in this miracle-working Son of God – Jesus Christ.

It seems to me that the difference between the ordinary life and the extraordinary life is a bit like the difference between those locals in Nazareth and that centurion who came to Jesus in faith.