(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

We're gonna go back to Colossians today.

Colossians is a letter that Paul wrote the church of young believers who had been kind of mixing up a lot of teachings and they weren't living exactly from all the power that God had given them and all the access that God had given them through Christ Jesus.

They were mixing in some other teachings.

So Paul writes them a letter to really encourage them to operate in all of what God had in store for them.

And so he understood the glorious, one of the things that Paul, the writer here, who basically helped start a lot of those early churches, he understood the glorious power of God and what that meant in the lives of people.

He understood the glorious power of God and what that meant in the lives of people.

And I want you to understand today what the glorious power of God means to you and your life here in 2023.

Because God unleashes his power in his people so great things can happen.

And if you don't really understand this power, hopefully God's gonna open your eyes to that, to his power and what that means in your life.

And we're gonna kind of dig into this passage of scripture, Colossians 1, verse 11.

And we're gonna start there today and then we'll talk a little bit about God's power, being strengthened by God's glorious power.

Paul says this, we also pray, we don't only pray for thanksgiving and the hopes you have in Christ Jesus.

He says, we also pray that you will be strengthened with his, God, with his glorious power.

That you'll be strengthened with his glorious power.

And you will have all the endurance, all the zeal, all the things you need to get to the end of the race.

You'll have all the endurance and patience you need.

May you be filled with joy along the journey and you're always thanking the Father.

Again, the encourager Paul here, he's encouraging the people and he knows the importance of God's glorious power in the lives of these people.

And so he's inspired to write this down in a letter and that letter today is known as the book of Colossians, but may we learn from what Paul writes down in this letter as he was inspired by God to write the church this letter.

May the church today learn from this letter too.

Because God calls us to operate in his glorious power.

Now, I don't know how many of you have ever driven up to the gas station, the gas pump or whatever you put in your car, but I don't know if you ever drove up and put the wrong kind of fuel in your car.

Anybody ever done that before?

You have?

Yeah.

Love God you learned to pay attention to what you're putting in the car, right?

You know, I did that once as a kid.

I actually put gasoline in a diesel engine.

I was about 12 years old and we lived on a farm and so we were always filling up tractors and you know, trucks and all these kind of things.

Well, I accidentally put gasoline in the diesel motor and I learned in a hurry, you pay attention to what you're putting in the vehicle that you pull up to the pump or you fill up with the fuel because it can be detrimental to the vehicle if you don't put the proper kind of fuel in it.

My dad got my attention the day that I did that.

In other words, he's like, you know, never do that again.

And it messed up a lot of things, but I learned not from just putting the wrong, the cost of putting the wrong fuel in the wrong vehicle, I learned from my dad disciplining my rear end to always pay attention to what I was putting in the car.

Come on.

You know, some of you just need a little discipline in your life.

Oh, oh, oh.

And you will start paying attention to what you put in the vehicle.

You know, the Bible says God disciplines those.

He loves.

Because he wants you to be putting the right kinds of thing in the vehicle, in your body, in your life, so that you can begin to function in the way that he desires for you to function.

And again, Christ Jesus came to forgive us of our sin, but he came for so much more than that.

He came to give us full access to God, our heavenly father, so God could flow into us and flow through us.

In other words, God wants to put his glorious power in us for a purpose.

And it's to flow through us so great things can happen for his namesake in the earth.

And so today we're gonna look at this glorious power that's available to every single one of us who live on the planet, but the question is, have you accessed the power?

Are you leveraging the power?

And do you really know what the power is for?

Because I think when we begin to understand the power of God in our life, what that power's for and how to continually keep it active, it's a game changer for many of us in this room.

Because life comes at you.

It is going to come at you.

It's never going to quit coming at you.

You're created anew in Christ Jesus and given the glorious power of God so you can continue to move forward in spite of what is coming at you and be all God has created you to be and function and do what he's designed you to do.

But what kind of things are coming at you in life keeping you from being who God has created you to be?

He's designed you, my friend, to move forward, to do things with the spirit that he has placed in you and move his mission, his vision here on earth forward in spite of what comes at you.

In other words, God invades his people with his spirit so that, everybody say so that.

The vehicle, the local church, his people will move forward and permeate this earth with his amazing presence and transform what's around it.

Man, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have the power of the living God living in you.

And what you've got to learn to do is operate by that power.

So let's begin to look at the glorious power of God and what it does in our life today.

You know, I had, I played for a great high school team back down in Georgia when I was growing up.

And we had a coach that always was giving out like t-shirts.

And I remember this one yellow t-shirt he gave our football team, you know, for a few years.

And it had this slogan on it.

Said, tough times, what did it say?

Tough times don't last, but tough people do.

And I'm like, and I started thinking about that again this week and I really think what Paul's saying to the people in the church at Corinth here is he's not saying what my t-shirt said.

He's basically saying, he's basically saying God's glorious power at work in you will begin to enable you to get through the tough times.

And again, so it's not about your toughness that gets you through the tough times.

In other words, it's God's power in you, at work in you that helps you get through the tough times.

Jesus says in this world, you will have trouble.

You will have trials, you will have tribulation.

He says, take heart because I have overcome the world.

And so how do we take heart with the things of Christ?

It's again, learning about the power of God and what's in us, the Holy Spirit that's at work in us and beginning to operate by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Where does this power come from?

Where does the power that God places in us come from?

I think it's an important question to answer from the scripture today so you know exactly where the power comes from.

It's not something you manufacture.

It's not something that you just kind of self-impose upon yourself.

Let me show you where the power comes from.

Acts chapter one, after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and before the ascension, Jesus appeared to people in the book of Acts and in the book of Acts chapter one, the Bible says this is some of the words that Jesus gave those people after he had defeated death, resurrected from a grave and before he ascended into heaven where he sits now before he returns to earth in the final days.

But the Bible says this in Acts chapter one verse eight.

He tells these disciples who were asking about the end of times, all these kind of things about his kingdom, he says, you will receive power.

Everybody say power.

When the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will what, be my witnesses, my storytellers, my advocates, my people, you'll be my witnesses telling people about me everywhere.

In Jerusalem where they were at that time, throughout Judea, the region they were, in Samaria, a little bit more outer area and to the ends of the earth.

He says you'll be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and the reason the Holy Spirit's gonna come upon you according to this passage of scripture is so you can complete the mission that I have for you in life.

You can complete the mission of the whole reason I came to earth in the first place.

You can complete the mission of God, you can be my witnesses throughout the world.

And then when we get to Acts chapter two, after the early church is being, or while it's being birthed here, the Bible says this, that Peter stood up and he preached to a lot of people.

And he says God raised Jesus from the dead.

He's announcing here that God had raised Jesus from the dead.

And he says and we are all witnesses to this at that particular time.

Now he is exhausted, exalted into the place of highest honor in heaven.

Now he's ascended into heaven at this point, okay?

At God's right hand.

And the Father, as he has promised, look what Peter says, gave him, gave who?

Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God to what?

To pour out upon us just as you see here today.

So here the Bible says the power that is in you as a believer comes from God.

And it's known as the Holy Spirit of God, the set apartness of God.

And the Holy Spirit of God comes in to people to redirect people's life, to be on mission with God, to build his church, let's call it today, to build his church on the cornerstone of Christ Jesus so that the church can move forward with the presence of God in all of the earth.

And so the power that rests in you isn't a power just to help you do great feats.

It's not a power for you just to be a militant person and stand up and make everybody do what you wanna do by the power of your muscle.

No, no, no, that's not what the power of the Holy Spirit that lives in you as a believer is for.

The Bible says Jesus, because of what he did on the cross, he gave humanity full access to God.

Now Jesus has ascended to heaven and he's poured out the third person in the trinity of God, the Holy Spirit, the one, and he's poured it out on men and women alike so that we can carry out his mission in the earth.

Don't miss this.

So God's power is given to you so that you can begin to do what God has designed you to do from the very beginning.

The Holy Spirit is a teacher.

He's the comforter.

He's the one that will coach you into greatness if you will learn, listen to this key word, to submit to the power of God in you.

He will help you function and fulfill your purpose.

And so, so many people don't know where this power comes from, but this power comes from God himself.

And that power is in you for great things.

That power is in you so you can endure according to Colossians chapter one, so you can endure and you can have patience all the way to the very end and you can be God's witnesses in this earth, okay?

And so here's the deal, is the power is given to us, not just so we can show off, but so we can show up with God's presence.

The Bible says God gives each and every believer a spiritual gift.

And that gift is given to you to put alongside of other gifts so together we can begin to display the power of the living God that's in us to the world around us.

Yes.

And so many of us are missing what God wants to do in and through us in this world.

And so let's know where that power comes from.

It comes from God and God alone.

And God gives it so we can finish the work, do what he's designed us to do, have patient endurance, be witnesses, and finish this race and finish it well.

Call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved.

Operate by the power of the Holy Spirit and you will function and do what God's designed you to do.

We don't always get this right.

But the reality of it is, when I know where that power comes from, it comes from God himself.

I didn't manufacture the power.

It's not self-will.

It's the God in me that allows me to submit to his authority and say, God, I know things are coming against me.

I know I have challenges.

I know when to say yes.

I know when to say no.

I wanna pay attention to what you say.

I know it's gonna be hard.

I know my flesh isn't gonna wanna go.

I know that my flesh is gonna wanna hold back.

I know my flesh is gonna wanna do this.

But I'm gonna submit to your power in me, your authority in me, your gift in me, and I'm gonna move forward, because it's you, God.

Whoo!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

Whoo!

I wonder how many of us are just trying to operate in our own strength, in our own power, our own education, our own thoughts, our own nationality, our own, you know, self-performance.

And my friend, if this is you, I want you to know that God came to save you from your sin, but he didn't just come to save you from your sin.

He came to save you from your sin, to draw you to himself, so you could function properly in a world that is off course, off target, that is missing the mark of God's glorious standard, so that you can continue to move forward in a world that's filled with sin.

It's the power of God that work in us, that begins to help us move forward, in spite of what is around us.

Know where the power comes from.

It comes from God, and it's because of what Jesus did on the cross, his death, burial, and resurrection, and his ascension, that God poured out the spirit into men and women in this earth, and it's to carry out and function, and do what his word is, or what his purpose is in this earth, is to manifest himself to all creation.

Second thing about the power of God is this.

I wrote it down this way.

Not only know where the power comes from, but again, know what the power's for.

I've already alluded to this, but it's so that you can be a part of the body.

God calls you to be a part of the church, his body.

It has different members, different parts, like fingers, and toes, and legs, and tongues, and back, and hair, and eyes, and all this kind of stuff.

The writer Paul, in one of his letters, he makes this analogy to a body, and Jesus is the head of the body, and Jesus is directing where the body goes, and feeding the body, but we're all members of the body of Christ, and we have to come together in order to display the power of God.

You gotta take your gift and put it with other gifts in order for God's power to show up in a powerful way in a community.

You're a part, you're not the whole, and understand this, it's very important if you're going to let the power of God flow through you to know what that power's for.

It's so that we can be God's witnesses in this earth, and a witness isn't just a person that talks with their mouth.

A witness is a people that operate underneath the submission of God.

He is Lord, he is leader, underneath the submission of God, and they operate in the function that God gives them alongside of the other believers, not in just what they wanna do, and what God gives them, and it displays his power to the earth around them.

My friend, God is doing great and mighty things, but some of us are not submitting ourself to the power of God.

We're trying to do things that God didn't design us to do, and it's why sometimes the church isn't moving forward.

Just do what God has designed you to do, get in the game, and let's see what God wants to do is so we can be his witness in the earth.

The whole reason we're here, we're here to encourage one another, we're here to lift up the name of Jesus, we're here to pray Jesus, and we're here to encourage all the believers and saints in this room today, but it's so that we can go out together as a community of people and be a witness to the world around us that God is here, and God is with us, and God is doing amazing things through us, and God is greater than anything you see in this earth.

It's so that we can be this witness in the community.

I like to say it this way, when we move across the waterway, yes, it's a place, it's a physical place, but the heart's desire is that to be a city on a hill filled with people operating by the power of God that becomes a light unto the community, come on, and it draws people in.

Man, I wanna encourage you, when you step across that waterway and we step on that campus, that's holy ground, I wanna call it today.

It's set-apart ground.

And again, I'm not saying go over there and be perfect, that's not what I'm saying, but what I'm saying, understand, when you step on that ground, it's to be a person and a people to function in this community in a powerful way to bring the light of Christ to this earth.

It needs to light up like a lightning bolt over there.

Come on, somebody.

Woo!

Woo-hoo!

And shine.

It's pushing through the obstacles, it's pushing through the difficult moments, it's enduring, it's having patience to get to the finish line so God's glorious light can shine like nobody's business.

You know, that's why I'm inviting you, don't quit in the last hour.

Don't pull over to the side in the last hour.

Oh, we've been enduring way too long with the power of the living God in us.

And again, it's not us that's doing it, it's God doing it in and through us.

A lot of people say, you know, how do you keep standing for all these years when you haven't been able to do what God put in your heart?

Because again, God said he's gonna do it.

I might not be here physically when he does do it, I don't know, but I know God said he's gonna do it and it's his power that's worked in me and you and he's gonna do what he says he's gonna do.

So we just operate and we endure by the strength of his power.

His power's given to us so we can have patience, so we can have endurance, so we can be his witnesses and be his people all the way to the end of the race.

So the last question I wanna answer about his power today, we know where the power comes from, we know what the power's for.

It's again, it's not for me to self-absorb and just to do my own thing, it's for me to function in what God's vehicle, which is the local church today, it's for me to function in concert with the vehicle and begin to display God to the world, but how do I keep that active?

How do I personally or we personally keep that active?

Because faith is like the key.

God is like the gasoline and you have to turn the key on to fire the gasoline up, come on, so the engine can go in the right direction.

But a lot of times, you know what, we don't have the faith to turn the key and we're wondering why the vehicle or the church is not moving forward and it's simply because we don't understand what it takes to keep activating and turn the key.

He's always gonna be there.

He's always gonna fire things up.

If you'll have the heart to turn the key, come on, he is going to ignite the engine and move it forward.

If you will submit to him, turn the key, believe him on a daily basis, an hourly basis, have the faith that God is gonna do what he says he's gonna do, my friend, God will do it.

So how do you keep on going?

How do you keep waking up and turning the key?

Because I know I'm just like you.

Some days I don't wanna turn the key.

I wanna forget about some things, but I wanna show you today in the book of Hebrews how I think you begin to keep the power active in your life, be filled with the Holy Spirit, as the writer says in Ephesians chapter five, verse 18.

He says, don't be drunk with wine, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Singing psalms and hymns, encouraging one another to keep on keeping on.

And so Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, he says, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Be filled with the power.

And I do believe when we're filled with the power of God, we're functioning and doing what God's designed us to do, but we're also beginning to display as a people the fruit of the Spirit.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Because that's evidence that it's a church that's moving forward with the power of God.

Let me say that again.

What is the fruit of the Spirit?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

But see, that's evidence that God's at work in us and working through us.

I'm not just talking about an individual, I'm talking about as a people.

But how we keep it moving forward in our life, it can begin to be depleted.

I think the writer in the book of Hebrews wrote something incredible that I think can help us all today and I wanna read it to us.

It's Hebrews 12, verses one through four.

Says here, as he wrote through and he wrote about all these people who displayed great faith in the face of adversity in Hebrews 11, he writes here in Hebrews 12, he says, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses, referring to those people in Hebrews 11, to the life of faith, he says, let us strip off every way that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.

And let us run with endurance, with the full power of God, the power of God gives us endurance, let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

We do this, how?

By keeping our eyes on Jesus, gazing at who Jesus is.

Set your mind, Colossians three, chapter two, set your minds on things above and not on earthly things.

Set, focus, don't get distracted, set your gaze upon Christ Jesus, who he is, what he's done, how he's defeated death, how he's resurrected from a grave, how he's poured out his spirit into this world and what he's going to do when he returns for his family.

Set your gaze on Jesus.

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.

The Bible says, because of the joy awaiting him, he displayed the power of God, he endured the cross.

How did you catch that?

Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the pain and hostility of the cross.

I need to share today what that joy was that caused Jesus to endure to the end and finish his mission.

My friend, it was you sitting in the seat today that you're sitting there.

See, the joy set before Jesus was he knew if he sacrificed his life and showed great love for humanity on that cross and defeated death by the power of God, that hopefully people will respond to the invisible God shown through the visibility of Jesus.

He was hoping that you would respond and when you respond to that love and that power that God displayed through Christ Jesus, that's what caused him to push through the cross.

That was the joy set before him.

It was people making a decision about their faith in God right here, right now, 2023.

No matter how young or how old they are, the Bible says, because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross disregarding its shame.

Now he's seated in the place of honor beside God's throne.

Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people and then you won't become weary and you won't give up and you won't quit in the race.

After all, you have not yet given your lives in the struggle against a sin.

So here in this short passage of scripture, he says, learn to let the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, purge out the things that hold us back.

Strip away the things that hold us back, remove some things out of our life.

I wanna encourage you today for you to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Right now, there's probably some things that you need to listen to what God wants you to remove from your life.

Some of you need to hit the delete button on some things today and strip it away in order to move by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I'm not telling you to have hate in your heart.

I'm not telling you to have animosity in your heart, but there's some things that are holding some of us back from living by the power of God.

He says, strip that stuff off and then set your eyes on Jesus, the champion of our faith, and keep moving forward with the new things of God in our life, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, and see what God's gonna do.

My friend, some of us, and I say us because I'm one of us, okay?

Some of us are hardcore and driven from our own self-desires, and we have to learn to lay those things down and submit to the things of God and His authority in our life.

And again, God calls His people to submit to His authority, His leadership, not because He wants to, you know, a Lord over us and He wants bad things for us.

No, no, the Bible says God's for us and not against us.

It's because He wants to coach us to greatness.

But until you become a person that is coachable, or what I want to say is teachable, then this great teacher, the Holy Spirit, you know what, He won't teach you.

He has to break you until you have a teachable spirit, a humble spirit.

The Bible says God's opposed to the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.

It means humble myself to listen to God and submit to God and follow God with my life.

It's a lifelong lesson.

But my friend, the reason the power of God is given to us is so we can function in this world and be a part of His people and do great things for His name's sake.

And if God is nudging your heart and saying, you know what, you need to be a part, then let this be the day you submit to God and you become a part of what God's doing in the world.

It doesn't have to be this local body.

It can be anywhere in the world.

But submit yourself to the body of Christ.

Offer yourself up as a living sacrifice.

This is truly your way to worship God is what the scripture says.

In other words, it's full submission to Christ Jesus.

But again, we are all headstrong and we all want to do it our own way.

One of the hardest things to ever learn to do is to submit my ways to His ways because His ways are higher than my ways.

And my friend, I believe God is calling His church to full submission, operating in full power to do exactly what He wants it to do in the earth.

Let's be that church.

Jesus, build your church.

Let me pray for you today.

God, you're an amazing God.

I thank you for the Holy Spirit.

I thank you for the third part of your trinity.

God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit who empowers us to move forward with our gifts to do what you've designed us to do as a church in this world on your behalf.

So God, I pray today we would function properly.

We would submit to your power, your leadership.

We would first know your love through what you did on that cross for each and every one of us.

You forgave us of our sin.

And God, if there's not a person here today to receive that gift of grace, that has not received that gift of grace and they need to step into your family, God, I pray today would be the day that they put their faith in Jesus.

Today, they would say, God, I admit I'm a sinner.

And I admit that I need Jesus to come in my life, forgive me and fill me with the Holy Spirit so that I can begin to function and be who you've designed me to be.

God, I wanna submit my heart and life to you today.

I wanna put my faith in Jesus.

And just tell God, thank you for that gift.

And today, you're gonna follow him all the days of your life.

You're gonna submit your spirit to his spirit and see what he wants to do.

And my friend, if you said that prayer today, I wanna welcome you to the family, but I wanna encourage you, let's keep on keeping on and keep on submitting our heart and life to Jesus to see what God can do in and through us.

It's in Jesus's holy and precious name, we pray today, amen.