-Transcript-
00:26 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:31 Welcome to the cafe, Pastor Clark Covington with Heartland Community Baptist Church out of Kings Mountain, North Carolina. Good to be here today. Hopefully you are doing great.
00:46 Today we are looking at God and all powerful God. And are you experiencing all his power? This is the third part of a three part series on how God is all powerful.
00:54 Our text verse here is Jeremiah 32:27, behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me?
01:03 And God’s asking that question. It’s punctuated with a question mark. Now here’s the thing, Jeremiah is all about the problems that God’s people were facing, the captivity, the Babylonian captivity.
01:24 It must have stunned God’s people. They must have been so distraught because Jeremiah had been warning them and other prophets had warned them and they did not heed the warning. In fact, they threw Jeremiah in jail.
01:30 They wanted to kill Jeremiah for giving a warning such as this. They didn’t like God’s warning that his judgment on sin would come and it would come harshly in the form of captivity.
01:39 Man, I can’t think of much worse than I can’t imagine someone knocking on my door or knocking down my door and saying, come with me and handcuffing me and taking my kids and my family and saying, we now own your property.
01:52 We own your house. Everything in your house is ours. You will now be serving under us and we’re going to take you off, let’s say, to this far flung country and you’re going to serve us there and we don’t speak your language and we don’t worship your God and we’re going to follow our ways and you’re going to follow our ways too.
02:10 And that is a simple example, but somewhat profound being that the Israelites had had power, had come from glory, had lived assumptiously in a lot of ways and now they’re facing judgment.
02:25 And in the midst of that judgment, God is letting the Israelites know through the prophet Jeremiah that he has all power, amen, that nothing is too hard for him, that he has chosen this judgment to come upon them.
02:36 And so as we face difficulties, let’s not think it is God not being able to move, but let’s realize that it is God willingly allowing these things to happen or even sovereignly making them happen.
02:52 And it may not be out of a judgment for sin. I mean, there are many, ask many people in the ministry that understand what sin is and try their best to depart from sin and go to the Lord for repentance every day.
03:05 They still face many battles and many struggles.
03:06 Well, they’re not being punished or judged for their sin. They’re just living a life that’s pleasing to God in the midst of a tumultuous fallen world, broken world, and they’re going to face obstacles like anyone else would.
03:16 So whether it’s judgment, whether it’s God’s sovereign will, whether it’s for us to build patience and faith, endurance, all of these things, nothing is too hard for God, whether we’re going through a good time or a bad time, we have to believe and understand that nothing’s too hard for God.
03:30 Isaiah 59:1, behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither hisear heavy that it cannot hear. Jeremiah 32:17, ah, Lord behold, thou has made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm. There’s nothing too hard for thee.
03:47 God made heaven and earth, amen. Think about that. What’s too hard for him? Numbers 11:23, and the Lord said unto Moses, is the Lord’s hand whacked short? Thou shalt see whether now, whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.
04:02 Moses saw a great movement from God over and over again. Genesis 18:14, is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return unto them, unto thee according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son.
04:15 And that’s foretelling the birth of Isaac at a very late age for Sarah and a very late age for Abraham.
04:26 So the secret to unlocking God’s power is drawing close to him. We talked about that last episode, the idea of repentance, James 4:8, draw nigh to God or draw near to God, and he will draw nigh to you, cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.
04:40 And so James 4:8 tells us, yeah, get close to God, he’ll get close to you.
04:47 And while you’re at it, cleanse your hands, ye sinners, purify your hearts, ye double-minded. You know, if we want to be close to God, we have to get right with God. We must repent before God.
04:55 We must call upon him in truth, Psalm 145:18, the Lord is nigh unto all them that callupon him, to all that call upon him in truth. We must trust him. You know, trust is another word for faith,
05:12 Psalm 73:28, but it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God that I may declare all thy works,
05:21 Psalm 73:28 tells us that we must trust God or have faith in God. And finally, must realize our condition. God won’t be near the proud,
05:29 Psalm 34:18, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
05:38 So Psalm 34:18 kind of echoes what the Beatitudes mentioned there in Matthew when Jesus is speaking to the multitudes about how blessed are the poor in spirit, are the brokenhearted, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
05:53 The idea here is God is near those that realize their spiritual condition. And when we realize our spiritual condition, then we realize we need God.
06:07 And that’s when God shows up, right? Think about it. If you have been blessed, let’s say you were very successful in life. You did great in school.
06:16 You went on into the business world and you made a bunch of money. You’ve got a great family. You know, you’re part of all the great Rotary Club or whatever it is, the country club, you know, life is good.
06:28 Now you may say to yourself, well, why do I need to change or why do I need God? Everything is good the way it is.
06:36 But let’s say something happens, you know, you end up going bankrupt, you end up in critical condition in the hospital, you lose your whole family, something like Job, right?
06:45 Where all those things happen. Well now all of a sudden you realize your need for God like you didn’t before.
06:53 Now in the book of Job, Job already knew God and loved God and so forth. So I’m not trying to say he didn’t, but I’m trying to give the example of when we really seek God, when God shows up, for example, in the book of Job, when God literally showed up was when Job was at his bottom, right?
07:06 And ask a prisoner, you know, ask the men there in the rescue mission when God’s showing up. It’s oftentimes when we are at our lowest place.
07:16 Why? Because that is when we realize our need for God. And so we see that God has all power. We see the tap into God’s power.
07:26 We need to follow traits like repentance. We need to actually repent before God. We need to call upon him in truth.
07:33 We need to trust him and we need to, which means have faith and we need to realize our condition because he won’t be near the proud.
07:45 If we don’t think we need him, he’ll say, go ahead and suit yourself, live on your own and see where that gets you. So all of these things sound great.
07:51 It sounds great to tap into God’s power. And you may be dreaming about what you could do with God’s great power on your life. I mean, I can’t even fathom it, to be honest.
07:57 I mean, again, you start looking at the complexities. I took our church, we took a fellowship trip to the Georgia Aquarium, probably two years ago. I can’t believe it’s been that long, but I think it’s been a year and a half, two years.
08:11 And there was this whale shark in one of the tanks and it’s as big as almost a building. It’s incredibly big. And you look at that and you say, who made that? Well, God made that whale shark, amen.
08:24 And God made the people that made the aquarium and all the other fish and the ecosystems and all these things. And you start thinking about it and it’s beyond comprehension.
08:35 God’s power, his amazing power to create, his amazing power to develop a world, an ecosystem where the world kind of feeds off of each other.
08:47 You know, the air comes out of the tree and then we breathe it out and it goes back into the tree and the water comes from the cloud and eventually ends up back in the cloud and on and on and on.
08:58 I know there’s scientific words to describe all these things, but the point is God has amazing power because not only is he all powerful, but he’s all knowledgeable.
09:06 And so imagine applying all power to all knowledge and you have a wonderful, amazing, magnificent God.
09:15 And he wants us to put his power into practice. You know, how do we do that? How do we put God’s power into practice?
09:20 How do we have God’s power on our life? Number one, we have to make God the priority in our life. The priority.
09:28 Is God the number one priority in your life? You know, I’ve always heard this in church, amen. Joy, Jesus first, others second, yourself last. Okay.
09:42 And there’s ways you can kind of look at that a little deeper. But the idea is, is God first? You know, I don’t have personal social media anymore, but I used to, and I’d post pictures of my kids and my wife all the time, like anybody probably would.
09:57 And I’d be bragging on my kids and my family and all.
10:02 And I would always say that our marriage is so good because she’s not number one. God’s number one in my life and in her life, God’s number one. And so as we put God first, amen, then all of a sudden we have peace in our marriage.
10:14 And I was communicating that, you know, years and years ago when I was on there. And what we see here is that principle of putting God first, making him a priority.
10:26 And then the fruit or the power of that principle being a healthy marriage, a happy marriage.
10:30 And those things are completely intertwined. I know myself, I know, I know I have, you know, selfishness in me and pride in me and all these things. And without God, we would have been fighting all the time.
10:44 And I’m sure I’d always be in the doghouse, amen, more than I am already, amen. I’d be having problems left, right, and center.
10:51 But our marriage is peaceful because we have a loving God that we put first and we serve him above and beyond anything we would do for each other.
11:00 And then he gives us peace in the marriage and that’s God’s power. So making God the priority in your life. Think about this.
11:08 That means actually doing it. You know, it’s one thing to say, oh yeah, I love God. And then your life tells a story.
11:15 You know, I talked to our congregation. If you made a journal of all your actions throughout the day, what story would it tell? Right? And so it may tell a story of someone that works a lot or studies a lot for school or someone that is reading a lot or playing music a lot or playing sports a lot, whatever it is, but your actions don’t lie, right?
11:36 So if you write down in your diary, I woke up at 6 a.m. and I spent an hour with God alone. And then you look at that diary and you say, well, the first thing that individual did was spend time with God.
11:49 Now, that’s how it should be, amen. Well, maybe in the mornings are really hectic. Maybe it’s the evening, you know, an hour or two before bed.
11:57 Or I read about a great missionary, a really big name, and I’m not leaving his name out on purpose. I just don’t, I think I remember the first name, but I don’t want to misstate it.
12:07 And that missionary, he was out there really, really busy doing incredible mission work.
12:12 And he would spend time with God from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. And no one was around and he could really be close to God and hear that still small voice and all have that time with him.
12:21 So we have to make God the priority. That means actually spending devotional time with God.
12:32 We have to continue to make sure that we’re repenting before God, going to God every day, asking the Lord to forgive you of your sins and to point out anything that’s standing in the way between you and God.
12:39 You know, just get in that habit. I try to do it every single day, and it’s very important for me to do it because I need to be repentant, repentant before God.
12:45 I need to have that cleansing on my life before I can go preach to others, amen. And so I always want to make sure that I’m doing that. And you need to do that too, because you’re making God the priority.
12:55 Spending time in his word goes without saying, studying his word to reveal truths like these, serving him, applying his word to your life, and worship and praise, of course.
13:05 And I wish I had time to get into more details of each of these. But as we do these things, making God the priority, showing that in our actions, staying repentant, studying our Bible, serving the Lord, worshiping the Lord.
13:18 As we do all these things, we’re going to have a closeness with God that will be enviable. And that closeness with God will lead to power on your life. I gave you the example of marriage.
13:29 But God’s power is evident all over your life when you’re close to God. In your prayer life, the Bible says that God hears the prayers of the righteous. What I’ve described is right living and biblical living.
13:39 Your prayer life will be stronger. If you’re in the ministry, your ministry will be stronger, amen. My preaching is only strong by the power of the working of the Holy Spirit, amen.
13:50 So your ministry will be stronger. Your worship will be better. Your praise will be more fulfilling.
13:57 The joy in your life will be bigger. Your witness to others will be more effective. God’s power, again, not what you can do, but God working through you, by you simply being obedient to him, great things will happen.
14:12 When you’re in his word, by the way, I’ve always said this, when you’re in God’s word, if you study his word enough, it’s going to manifest and blossom out all over your life.
14:20 So just get in his word, pray to him, seek him, and the rest will take care of itself. I thank you for listening today.
14:26 Tune in next time. Take care. God bless and amen.