Empowerment Through God’s Promises

Empowerment Through God’s Promises

Colossians 1:11c

Colossians 1:11, “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” I would start us in our thoughts in Genesis 1:26 which is the call to dominion that God gave to mankind. “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

So that is God’s commission to us to have dominion over the earth. It’s the perversion of that that produces the Hitlers. It’s the perversion of that sense of authority that God has given us deep down over the world. It’s that, that is perverted by egotistic man into dictatorships and into all the ways that they want others to do what they want you to do and taking away individuality. So that’s the perversion that has taken place. 

 

It does connect up with our verse in Colossians because it brings us to the fact that God has actually arranged our lives to take part in that dominion. He has called each one of us to be part of his son and to help him to bring into the order of his will all that is here on the earth and probably eventually all that is in the whole universe.

It’s in connection with that that we have any kind of authority at all. It’s in connection with that that the promise is made in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” And it’s that commitment that God has given us in Jesus.

There are good works that we are made to walk in and there are works that he has prepared beforehand. In other words, he has not thrown us into the world and said, “Clean this place up. Do your best.” He hasn’t done that. He has foreseen the whole situation and he himself has cleaned it up. He has prepared works beforehand for us to walk in. They are works that he himself has already accomplished but he wants us to be part of his son and part of himself as he completes the universe that he has made.

And so each of us have works prepared beforehand that we are to walk in. We are free to agree with his plan or to disagree with it. But in a sense our life is already prepared for us and we are prepared for our lives. So he has not thrown the whole thing into a washing machine and then waited to see what it turns out. He has in fact made us in his image for a purpose that he has in mind and at any point we can say, “No, I don’t want that purpose.” That’s what is happening all over the world and has happened constantly down through the years. And he has committed himself to bearing that and bearing it until the very edge of nothingness. He has committed himself to bearing it until the very end.

I have put it in these terms. It’s like God is saying, “Hit me until you want to stop hitting me.” So he has expanded what free will means. He has gone beyond what anyone could expect anyone to go in order to give us the realization that we had free will. We could even kill his own son. So that’s the situation we are in. We are in a place where our life is laid out for us and prepared for us but we are still able to say “No, or Yes” to it. 

 

So each of us have works prepared for us that we are intended to walk in but we can refuse to walk in them. But they are no surprise to God. He has prepared them ahead. And so when he talks of us doing things, they are things that he has already planned and worked into his overall program for the universe. It will fit into not only his glory and enjoyment but into our glory and enjoyment.

So that’s part of what this call to dominion means. We have a life laid out for us that we can refuse if we want to refuse it. But also a life that we can walk in if we are willing to walk it. We can therefore walk in a known way and a sure path. We can walk in a confidence that we cannot produce ourselves. And so it’s in the light of that we are looking at the verse before us.

There are works prepared beforehand. That is, there are things that have to be brought into order in this world that are already laid out for us to walk in. Now the other mystery is that he has already brought them under his control. They are where they are by his permission. He is the once that says, “Seas, stop, come no further. Waves, stop there and go back.” He is the one that controls the limits of this chaos or this order. And so he is always there with his hand carefully on it in love. 

 

In that sense he has already done the work. That ties up with Ephesians 1:22. It is talking about Christ’s ascension to the right hand of God. Ephesians 1:21-23, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

And he has put all things under his feet. That’s one of the things that God did when he raised Jesus from the dead and destroyed death. He put all things under Jesus’ feet -- all the things that are chaotic -- all the things that are in rebellion-- all the things that have fallen apart. He has put all those things under his feet. He has made him head over all things for the church.

So God has put all things under Jesus and he has made all things right in Jesus. He has taken all the pollution and nuclear explosions that man has created and put all of those under his feet. He has made Jesus head over all those things. And those are the things many of us are involved in tackling each time we clean a toilet. In some sense we are dealing with what is not like God --- things that are dirty or corrupt or have deteriorated. We are part of him bringing that into the order and beauty of his mind and heart. That was put under the feet of Jesus. Jesus cleaned that toilet before we ever got near to it.

He cleaned up the ocean before BP ever started to clean away the oil spill. He has done all those things. They are only possible to us human beings because God himself has already done them in eternity and that’s what we all have difficulty with. We talk glibly about Einstein and the space world. But we are very slow at grabbing hold of the fact that eternity is now. This is it. It is now. It is a great eternal present moment and time is something that God has actually allowed for a little bit. He has taken a little bit of eternity and called it time. But actually it’s all one great moment.

That fact is what explains how Christ has actually done all these things. He has already cleaned all these things up and brought everything into order. He has already met the person that you are going to meet tomorrow who says, “Your jewelry is terrible. It’s miserable and not sold for me.” He has already dealt with that and brought it into order under God’s will. Because he subjects all things to the counsel of his own will. 

 

That’s why God can sleep at night because he has brought all things into order. God has touched everything and brought everything under his own control. To us it’s a mystery but God is able to bring all things under his will. And that’s what he did in Jesus.

That brings us to the kind of thing that you face every day. It’s back in Colossians 1:11. “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” “May you be strengthened with all power…..” What Paul is saying is, “May you yourself be strengthened with the power that God has already exercised over the chaos of the world and that he has already applied to the works to which you are involved day by day. May you be strengthened with that power that he has already exercised in Jesus when he put those things under his feet.

The person who said to you, “Your jewelry is so dull and old fashioned”, at that very moment the whole wrong attitude has been dealt with by God our Father. The answer has already been designed by him so that he will lead us in triumph in all things in Christ Jesus. He has already done that and Paul is praying that you will receive the power that that has been exercised against that lack of God’s will in the universe.

And you will receive that power and will experience it in that situation. That power will lift you above that situation. He is saying, “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might.” His glorious might is the might that he has exercised in Christ at his right hand far above all authority and dominion and power. That’s what the glory means. It’s that place that is above the earth and its limitations. 

 

May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance with patience with joy. It separates you from the miserable little thing inside where you are thinking, “Oh she thinks that jewelry isn’t very good. Maybe it isn’t good. Maybe it is old fashioned. Maybe it won’t sell.”

It lifts you above all of that and enables you to endure all that with joy instead of with fear. You are not a little nobody who is trying to pander a few bits of jewelry to a shop owner but you are with Jesus at God’s right hand far above all authority and dominion and power. That’s what the glory means. It’s that place that is above the earth and its limitations.

May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance with patience with joy. It separates you from this miserable little thing inside where you are thinking, “Oh she thinks that jewelry isn’t very good. Maybe it isn’t good. Maybe it is old fashioned. Maybe it won’t sell.” It lifts you above all of that and enables you to endure all that with joy and not with fear.

You are not a little nobody who is trying to pander a few bits of jewelry to a shop owner but you can operate with endurance and joy. You know that God foresaw this work. He planned for me to walk in it and he is certainly not going to walk me into a wall. He’s never done that before. He has a way for me to walk through this and he has a way forward. 

 

And that’s what he means, “May you be strengthened with the power and the might at his right hand.” God gives us the power to see these works and to walk in them in joy. Not a false joy, but a certain joy that he has solved this in reality. This has been solved. This is a temporary moment in time but this has actually been solved and he has already carried your own life beyond this and into victory in his son. You are already at his right hand and he already has his hand on your shoulder.

And it’s that that Paul is praying for -- that you’d be strengthened with that kind of power. Colossians 1:11 “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” It’s because all of it has already been done and has been solved.

The situations that you walk into day by day are already written in his book, every one of them. He has already examined each one and worked out how he is going to weave it into the pattern he has for your life. Paul is saying may you be strengthened with power that has brought order into all the things that you come up against in your day by day life. May you be strengthened with that power so that you can walk with endurance, with patience and with joy.

And it’s again what Watchman Nee says, “Position is everything.” Am I really this poor little Midwesterner with a little bag of jewelry trying to pander some stuff over to a buyer? Or, am I God’s child whose life has already been written clearly in his book and who has been raised up to sit with his son at his right hand and has already taken part in the victory over the world and the bringing into order of the world itself. 

 

So the issue is, “Are you walking in things for the first time trying to find your way through this muddle or are you walking in works that God has already planned for you and the solution that he has already worked out?” It’s a matter of which is which. He’s praying that you’ll know what is true and that you live in victory because all of it has already been done and has been solved.

The situations that you walk into day by day are already written in his book, every one of them. He has already examined each one and worked out how he is going to weave it into the pattern he has for your life. Paul is saying, may you be strengthened with the power that has brought order into all the things that you come up against in your day by day life. May you be strengthened with that power so that you can walk with endurance, with patience and with joy.

So it’s interesting that all the things that you and I meet day by day are old stuff to the Father. They are things that he has already settled in his son. They are things already under his Son’s feet.

The last important point to make is, “How do you know what to do in that situation?” And that’s where he prays for the Holy Spirit to give you light so that you can see that he has already done the work and then in the light of that what you’ve to do. Your reaction is very different if you know he has already solved this.

Your response to the person in that situation is very different from your response if you’re wondering, “What is the answer to this? Maybe they’re right. Maybe this jewelry is the pits. Maybe it won’t sell.” That’s a different situation entirely. Then you have a whole problem inside that you struggle with and you fight and have conflict within. So it’s very different and that’s what he is saying, “See it as it really is. See it as something that is under the feet of my son, that I have already solved and believe me it’s beautiful jewelry.”

And God is able to help you to see reality, to see things as they really are. That’s what he is praying for here, that you’ll be strengthened with the power to respond in the light of the reality with the power that comes from how things really are rather than from the way you think they are.