The Strength We Need

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham.

A little later in the program we'll tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's book of meditations on Romans 8. But first, here's his message, The Strength We Need. We all need. We all face the problem of tiredness and exhaustion. As a matter of fact, one of the most common refrains I hear is, I'm tired. How you doing? Tired.

How you doing? Really tired. And for some, that's physical exhaustion or tiredness. For others, it is emotional and even spiritual. But the answer to our exhaustion, the strength that we need, believe it or not, is not trying harder, pushing more.

The fact is that we are stressed out, overworked, overwrought, over worried and that creates so much of this exhaustion. So what we need to do is to learn how to rely upon the resources that we have in Christ to rest in the Lord and to rely upon the power of God. To trust God more, much more. You can over try, but you cannot over trust the Lord. Trust Him more.

Oh for grace, to trust Him more. And there is an inexhaustible strength that comes in our relationship with God who is the source of our strength. Sometimes I'm asked, from time to time I'm asked about the energy that I have. Keep the schedule that I keep, fulfill the responsibilities that I have. And I can tell you that it is much more than physical strength, though I try to stay healthy and exercise and eat right and rest well, but it's more than physical strength.

It's more than mental toughness. The source of my strength is the soul of Paul in prison that echoes through the centuries and therefore it is a prayer for you and me as well. And this prayer is a prayer for strength.

Verse 14. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant to you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. That you will, watch this, with all the fullness of God.

And then a doxology of praise. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. And we all said, amen.

We do. If I could put this sermon in one sentence, it would be this. All of God in all of us. All of God in all of you. All of God in all of me.

The secret of our strength is the power of Jesus Christ by His Spirit working in you. As I noted, this is Paul prayed. He's in prison. He is a wounded warrior, broken, facing the end of his life. And yet his spirit is free.

He is alive in Christ. He is strengthened in the midst of these terrible circumstances and he begins to pray. He hits a knee and he begins to pray.

He says, I bow my knee. Interestingly enough, bowing the knee bowing in prayer is not mentioned that often in Scripture. The Scripture speaks of standing in prayer, walking in prayer, lifting up holy hands in prayer, but rarely kneeling in prayer. And yet it is this posture that speaks of our humility and surrender before God in prayer. It is our disposition before God and it's good to pray always. You can pray singing, you can pray silently, you can pray walking, you can pray sitting, you can pray laying on your bed, you can pray laying on your face, and you can kneel before God. There's no one way, no one certain way to pray. And yet God asks, How bad can a man be if his hand has turned eyes?

Oh no, no, no, said Elder Snow, such posture is too proud. A man should pray with eyes fast closed and head contritely bowed. It seems to me his hand should be all steerly clasped in front with both thumbs pointing to the ground, said the Reverend Dr. Blunk.

Last year, I fell in Hodgkin's well. Head first said, and Sarah Brown, with both my heels are sticking up and my head are pointing down. And I done prayed right then and there the best prayer I ever said, the prayinest prayer I ever prayed, standin' on my head." So, it's not the posture of our praying, but the power that comes from praying. It's been said, you can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed. Prayer is life's limitless reach.

Prayer is when we link our nothingness, Spurgeon said, to His almightiness. It is in prayer that we are empowered and enabled to live the Christian life. We are strengthened in this prayer because of our wealth in Christ. Remember, Ephesians 1 through 3 is all about our wealth and our worth in Christ, your identity in Christ.

Who you are and what you have because you are a believer in Christ. And chapters 1, 2, and 3, from eternity past to eternity future, all of these blessings of God that are ours. And he speaks here of being strengthened in the inner man with the riches, the riches of His glory. You are wealthy beyond your imagination.

Did you know that? Your net worth is much more than you thought. Your portfolio is not here on earth or dependent upon the stock market or your bank account. You have something that money cannot buy and death cannot take away. You have Jesus and therefore all things in Him richly to enjoy.

You are a joint heir with Jesus Christ. You are a child of the King and it is out of these riches in glory that we rejoice. We are enriched in Jesus Christ. Think about the billions and billions of blessings that are ours and the billions and billions of years that we will have to celebrate Him throughout all eternity. It's hard to imagine just how great are our resources and our riches in Christ.

If you just read the first three chapters of Ephesians, you can underline words like riches and wealth and inheritance and blessings. No wonder Paul hits a knee, burst into prayer and includes the entire family of God from generation to generation which means me and you. He speaks of the church here as being a spiritual family. The church is not a business.

A business creates consumers and critics but the church creates followers and family and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are God's church. This is an amazing prayer because it is a prayer for strength. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, The Strength We Need. As a follower of Jesus Christ, you have every reason to hope and we want to help you experience that hope by sending you Pastor Graham's book of meditations on Romans 8 called A Hope and a Future. In it, he shows you how you can experience freedom from confusion, doubt or fear. This powerful resource is our thanks for your gift today and to thank you for a gift of $50 or more, we'll also include Pastor Graham's book, Help!

Hope and Healing for Life's Challenges. So call now to request your resources. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131.

That's PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit JackGraham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website again is JackGraham.org. Now let's get back to today's message, The Strength We Need. I just was recounting some of the promises of strength that I have claimed over the years in the Bible.

For example, Joshua 1 and verse 9, have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. And then in Deuteronomy 33, it says, as your days, so shall your strength be. As your days, so shall your strength be.

In other words, your strength will be equal to your days. If you are in Christ and you are receiving His resources daily, then everything you need that day is available to you. He goes on to say in verse 27, the eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath of the everlasting arms, we are held in His grip, kept by the power of God. Second Chronicles 16, 9, for the eyes of the Lord seek to and throw, run to and throw throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward Him. And therefore we are strengthened and the eyes of the Lord are here today and if you call upon Him, He will strengthen you. Psalm 46, 1, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. Isaiah 30, 15, in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

I can go on and on. Isaiah 40, 31, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles.

They will run and not be weary, walk and not faint. Even less familiar, Habakkuk 3.19, God the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deers. He makes me tread on my high places and to the choir master with stringed instruments. Mark 12, 30, let's flip to the New Testament. What did Jesus say? He said, you're to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and with all your strength. And then of course Paul said in Philippians 4, 13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I'm ready for anything, he said, because Christ strengthens me. What strength, what power we have in Christ.

What does this mean? It means that we are strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, then the Spirit of God lives in you.

You are made alive in Christ. You have the Holy Spirit. The question always is, does the Holy Spirit have you? You have all of the Spirit, does the Spirit have all of you? And there's such tremendous strength in the Holy Spirit.

How so? Well, it's the power to save. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that saves us. It is the work of the Holy Spirit not only to save us but give us power to witness.

But you shall receive power, Acts 1-8. Then the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witness in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the world. I was just reading this week concerning the witness of the church and the world today. And I was encouraged to read that worldwide, globally, there are over 80,000 people a day coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a massive movement of the Spirit of God around the world.

For example, there have been more Muslim people saved in the past 50 years than in the past 500 to 1,500 years before. We are seeing millions of people come to Christ in the continent of South America. We're seeing it all across Eastern Europe and in China, hundreds of thousands of people coming to faith in Jesus, and it won't be long if it hasn't already happened, that China, because of the number of Christians in that country, will have more Christians than any other nation in the world. I could go on and on, 80 plus thousand people a day coming to faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is at work in the world through His church, through His people.

That's the good news. The bad news is that of these 80 plus thousand of people coming to faith in Jesus Christ every day, only 6,000 of these are living in the United States of America or in Western Europe. And the fact is in our country, many are turning away from Christ. More atheists reported and nuns, that is those who report no religious experience or faith in God than ever before.

Western Europe is even worse. So as you can tell, we need revival in the church in America. We need revival in the church across Western Europe. What we need is the power of the Holy Spirit to fill us and use us for His glory. But it is the power of the Holy Spirit that gives us the ability to witness and the effectiveness of our witness. The power of the Holy Spirit gives us joyful hope. Romans 15, 13, may the God of hope fill you with all peace and joy in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. The power, the Holy Spirit gives us the power to overcome our fears and anxieties.

There's so much fear and anxiety it seems in our country these days. But what does the Bible say? For God has given us a spirit not of fear but love and power and a sound mind. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in our spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us power and provision for everything we need. His divine power, 2 Peter 1, 3, has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us in His own glory and excellence. We have everything we need to live the Christian life. It's all present because the Holy Spirit lives in each one of us.

For some of you this is elementary truth. You've known this for a while but it would be a good time just to bow your head and say thank you God for your spirit alive in me. Some of you have grown up in churches where you've never heard of the Holy Spirit, where you've not been taught the truth of spirit-filled living. I'm grateful that I grew up in a church with a pastor who taught us how to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. Some of you have never had that experience so this is new truth to you and I'm telling you you need to make the discovery that the Christian life is the greatest discovery I made outside of my salvation, the discovery that the Christian life is not hard.

It is impossible but in Christ all things are possible. The Holy Spirit, the living presence of Jesus in you will enable you to live this Christian life, to overcome temptation, to witness of your faith, to be strengthened in the midst of any circumstance in your life. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the power of God. You know it's interesting that this prayer is one long sentence. It's broken up into sentences in our English language but as Paul delivered it, as it was written it was just one prayer without a pause.

It's as though Paul can't stop speaking and praying of all that God has done. So we are strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now the word for power here is the word dunamis and it can mean authority, power, might, ability or strength. So the strength that comes from within is the power that God gives and we must plug in to this power.

If you have a cell phone or a tablet or technology you know that ultimately it runs down and you need to plug it in and regain the power. So it is in life, certainly in the Christian life. We must always be plugging in to this power and this power is abundant. It's the power of God, the very power of God through Christ by His Spirit. The Trinity is at work here.

You say Trinity, yes, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all of the power of God. Remember I said at the outset, all of God in all of me. This is our wealth, this is our worth and it's an inner flow that comes from deep within. If you understand this, it is your position that will change your condition in life. Your identity in Christ will change your reality. So don't live beneath your blessings. Don't live beneath the privileges and the possessions that you have in Christ.

Begin declaring who you are and what you have in Him. Stop saying I can't and start believing that you can by the power of God. Stop wondering and worrying about something that may look impossible when the God of the impossible is in you. You have a strength to overcome, to defeat the enemy, to defeat and destroy that addiction in your life, to overcome temptation, to live in victory, to rise out of the ashes of defeat in your life.

You are not just a lowly worm, you are saved by the grace of God. The power of Jesus is in you. You are strengthened in Him every single day.

Say it, declare it and believe it. I'm a child of the King. I'm a member of God's eternal family.

He lives in me. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, The Strength We Need. When you feel like you're being tossed by waves of doubt, fear or confusion, the only way to stay afloat is by focusing on your true source of hope, Jesus Christ. Pastor Graham wants to help you experience that hope in all of life circumstances with his book of meditations on Romans 8 called A Hope and a Future.

You'll discover how God gives you perspective, protection, purpose and power to keep you from sinking in life's storms. A Hope and a Future is our thanks for your gift today to help boldly proclaim the truth of the gospel and the hope it brings to more people around the world. And as thanks for your gift of $50 or more, we'll also send you Pastor Graham's book Help, Hope and Healing for Life's Challenges. So call now to request your resources and thank you for your generosity. Call 1-800-795-4627, that's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. Text PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit JackGraham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional.

Our website again is JackGraham.org. Pastor what is your PowerPoint for today? Scott I hear a lot of people talking about how tired they are, how overwhelmed they are by the challenges of life, just how tough and hard life can be every single day. And there are folks listening to us right now who are on their way to work who are wondering can I get through another day? There's a mom who's got kids running around everywhere and she's thinking I don't know if I can do it again today.

There's a dad who's thinking about not going home because he's just so fed up with his life. Jesus Christ will give you power to meet every obstacle. It doesn't mean we won't have obstacles, in fact we know we will. There are challenges, there are tough things in life that are almost overwhelming. But when you know Jesus Christ, when the spirit of the living God is in us, he makes the impossible possible.

He enables us to live that life that which he's called us and to meet not only the requirements of the day but to go over and above and beyond because God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think in our lives. I think of that great Old Testament scripture in Zechariah chapter 4 when the Bible says not by might, not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord. So if you're overwhelmed today, if you're tired today, if you're needing strength, I'm not talking just about physical strength, I'm talking about the strength that comes from within.

It's the secret of living. The source of our strength is Jesus Christ living in us and you can plug into that power. And the way you plug into that power is by giving up self, denying self and saying Lord Jesus rule in me, reign in me, take control of my life, take control of this situation. I'm tired, I'm worn out, I'm struggling, but you will enable me to get through this day for your glory and under the praise of your name.

I want to challenge you to seek the Lord through prayer and Bible reading that you give your life completely to him that you would seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then right now thank him for filling your heart and filling your spirit and renewing your life. Ask him to show you how to tap into his power every single day and you will discover what real power can do in helping you to have a spirit-filled, power-filled life. And that is today's Power Point. Remember when you give a gift to Power Point we'll send you Dr. Graham's book of meditations A Hope and a Future as our thanks. Call 1-800-795-4627, that's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word Power Point to 313131. Text Power Point to 313131. And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about the incredible power that comes with fully embracing God's love. That's next time on Power Point with Jack Graham. Power Point with Jack Graham is sponsored by Power Point Ministries.