“Kingdom of God: The Power of God’s Grace - Part 1”

In 1 Cor 4:20, Paul preached the kingdom of God to those Corinthians.

He said there: ‘For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.’

Paul, having been born a Jew, came to Corinth with no particular qualities that the Greeks would have admired and respected.

Of his own admission, he did not consider himself to be a great orator, nor an intellectual philosopher.

So - his subject matter - which was strictly Jesus Christ and Him crucified - was subject to heated discussion among the Corinthian elite and educated.

What was primary in Paul’s mind, however, was not the myriad of words spelled out in debate and argument among those people.

But what was primary in Paul’s mind was the simple, plain Gospel of Jesus Christ - the ‘Good News’ of salvation - the Christian message of ‘Christ in us, the hope of glory’ - only that!

For himself, he could well echo the declaration of Rom 1:16: ‘...For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation...’. 

And for others, he was equally interested in their Christian walk, about the element of the power of God through the work of Christ.

Was this Word of power working? 

Was there the character of Christ being formed in them? 

Was the hope of divine glory awakened in them and was it functioning as Jesus had spoken of it and promised it?    

Jesus had come saying ‘the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins’?

His word was with power. 

In the Great Commission, He gave authority and power to those who would serve Him. 

So - Paul was concerned whether this Gospel of Christ was having the same effect in their Christian walk among those believers.

This is what I would like to concentrate upon this evening as we look at the mighty, working power of God. 

There has always been much talk, discussion, debate, and argument about the ‘power’ of God down through the centuries.

Many people today would argue that that power in Christianity cannot be seen - that Christianity is more talk than anything else - that Christians are ‘stupid’ people for they embrace an illusion, a myth. 

But, whether we care to admit it or not, we are obliged to acknowledge that Christianity has been the greatest civilizing influence this world has ever known.

The kingdom of God has always emanated in and with power.

From creation onward, all those associated with the Kingdom of God experienced God’s power in one way or another.

Go through the OId Testament and see how the power of God’s kingdom came through to humanity.

What power of God is shown in Abraham’s life alone! 

He became the father of a new spiritual race, a great posterity, of which you and I are members. 

Then look at the power of God in Moses’ life as he lived among the Egyptians.

And see the amazing wonders of God’s power in dealing with the hard-hearted Pharoah!

And see how the thousands of Israelites were guided through the parted Red Sea and how God’s powerful hand rested over them in their wilderness journey.

Then look at Daniel’s life, at David’s life, at Elijah, the prophet, who had fire rain down from heaven that licked up the water-soaked altars - see in all of them examples of the power of God’s kingdom being in full effect upon the earth.

There are so many, many more instances given in the Old Testament writings.

Make a study of them, if you wish, and I daresay - it will take some time to list every single one that you will find in the Old Testament alone.

To add to them is what happened in the New Testament where the greatest effect of God’s power is seen in the coming of His Son to earth.

At His very birth, He was surrounded by angels, from the announcement of it to the day He was born.
 
That was no small display of the power of God’s kingdom! 

That power was obvious throughout all of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

After He finished His sermon on the Mount, the people were impressed and said: ‘For He taught them as one having authority, and not as scribes.’

They had experienced His power, His authority, the conviction He showed of knowing that what He said was pure truth, truth as never before uttered upon earth.

That was the power of God moving with force.

That same power was clear in His miracles. He healed the sick, the crippled, and the lame, raised the dead.

He opened blind eyes and deaf ears, showed His power over the hold demons had, calmed the raging, stormy seas.

He even encouraged a group of tired, unsuccessful fishermen by filling their net with a hefty day’s catch just by the power of His word.   

That, too, was the kingdom of God at work.

But - far beyond all that - the greatest display of divine power emerged upon earth on the day Jesus was apprehended by the authorities.

In the midst of all that, He ‘opened not His mouth’ when He was severely beaten and bruised, reviled, spat upon.

Was that not God’s power resonating in Jesus? 

And it continued right through His death, for - after He was crucified, He was given power to overcome death and the grave.

He was ‘declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead.’ 

Then, Peter, after the Lord’s ascension, preached and three thousand people confessed Christ as Savior and Lord.

This was no small thing, either, if you consider the fact that, in those days, for a Jew to become a Christian meant putting his physical life on the line for a lifetime of persecution.

But those three thousand souls on that day demonstrated ‘...the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believed; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.’

Later, Peter and the other disciples became known as ‘men  that have turned the world upside-down’.

But they readily admitted they had nothing to do with it. 

It just happened!

And how did it happen?

God had - once again - shaken the earth with His power by the salvation Christ procured.

It was all His initiative, all His doing, manifesting His work in His kingdom.

And, if we were to go on from the end of New Testament times to this present day and list all the movements of God’s power upon the earth, we would never come to the end of the list.

We would need to consider the various movements starting with the Roman Empire down through the Reformation Period down to this present day.

We would need to consider the lives that were changed, the communities that were changed, the morality level that kept rising through all this time in which the power of God - through the salvation He furnished in Christ - had its profound effect.

And as we do - sooner or later - we would have to acknowledge that God’s power - in the framework of His kingdom absorbed through the Christian life - has been the greatest influence in this world.

The divine power is a power in which God guides with a marvelous strangeness in the history of the world and in individuals.

It is divine power carried out in such a secret way that a human eye can never really discern it. 

It is like footprints in the sand forever washed away with the first tide!

It supplants evil, it lifts up and out of the power of darkness and emancipates from it.

It elevates a man’s morality. 

That is what the power of God does.

What makes a Christian is not just saying: ‘I am a  Christian’.

A ‘Christian’ is one in whom God has done something unexplainable and untraceable.

It is a mighty power that comes upon him, takes hold of him, turns him around from what he was into what he is to  become.

The story is told of a lecturer who delivered a speech against Christianity and tried to explain how the story of Christ is just a ‘myth’.

One of the mill-hands - who was in the audience - asked a question of her.

And he said: ‘The question I want to ask is this: ‘Thirty years ago, I was a bum, a curse to this town. Everybody avoided me. Nobody respected me.

I tried to do better many times but I was never successful.

The teetotalers got hold of me, but I broke the pledge so many times, they figured me to be a hopeless case.

Then I was arrested, brought before the judge, put into prison - but that did not do anything different in me either.

Then - Christ took hold of me, touched my heart, and did something in me that made me a new person.

And now I am honored in the community. My fellow-workers respect me.

So I ask, if Christ is a myth, how is it that this ‘myth’ is stronger than all the others put together?’

Yes - he was testifying of being changed by the mighty power of God unto salvation.     

And because it is the power of God, it is something that affects, not just the surface part of life, but it is something God does.

And He does it in the very depth of the soul.

There is nothing greater than the power of God unto salvation.         

It is not in word, but in God’s power which has no limit!

His Kingdom is nothing but a series of His powerful actions and it is power from beginning to end!

Do you think, by any stretch of the imagination, that the kingdom of God has lost its power in the world today?

I daresay, that if we had faithfully compiled a list of God’s active power within our own midst for the past number of years, if we could have seen them at all, we would be astounded! 

But - what is the wellspring of this marvelous, miraculous power?

Have you ever felt as though you could go on no longer in this walk called the ‘Christian Walk’? 

Have you ever felt it was of no use to ever talk about it again?

And, yet, deep within, you could not let it go. 

You really could not walk away from it for - in the deep, deep recesses of your heart - there was something there that called for a depth of response to your frustration and sore disappointment of life.

It was as if a strange calm way down under the agitations of life was calling for a release of that outer frenzy and disturbance to a concentration into that restful depth within.

That, my fellow believers, is the power of the grace of God mightily at work within.

It calls and asks for a yielding to the divine power of God - to see that all is all right, that all is being safely kept - in the powerful, sturdy hand of Christ’s atoning, sanctifying work.

Perhaps it was when a loved one, even though you were aware that he or she would soon go on to be with the Lord, did pass away on a day you least expected it.

It takes great grace to say with Job: ‘The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away: blessed be the Name of the Lord.’

God gives you that grace at such a time as this!

Or - perhaps it is when someone accuses you wrongly and even denigrates the integrity of your character and you feel defenseless and helpless to do anything about it. 

Or - perhaps it was when some unthinking friend made a cutting remark about you.   

It is the mighty, working power of God’s grace to be able to bear provocation and forgive it.

God gives you that grace at such a time as this.
 
Or - perhaps you are just impatient with others, with their obvious faults, their failures, just irritate you beyond words, and you know you have every right to be perturbed with them.

Oh - what blessedness it is to know of God’s working power of His grace that releases those irritants to oblivion!

God gives you that grace at such a time as this!

Or - perhaps - you have been waiting for an answer to prayer and have wanted to step out on your own, thinking that is the way your faith in Him ought to act - but, you wait on and on, maybe even for years.

Yes - let me say it once again - it takes the mighty power of divine grace to accept the heart’s counsel of ‘Be still and know that I am God.’

He gives you that grace at such a time as this!

These are the elements of the power of God’s grace Paul was anxious for the Corinthians to develop as he ministered among them.

Yes - the power of God, as it has been shown down through the ages, still works effectively. 
  
And, remarkably enough, even as powerful as it is, it can mightily touch every human being.

But - like the touch of a velvet cushion - it eloquently ushers forth from the core of each heart His glory, the power of God’s amazing grace through Jesus Christ.  

Let it work - let it work, I say - and, when we do, all of us will know for ourselves, how mighty it is in its changing power!

May the Lord grant each of us the power of His grace to ponder these things before Him this week.

Amen! So be it!

Let us pray.