God's Power Works
The real glory of God shines for him and for us when his work helps and changes people. We see this in the miracles of Jesus and in the Bible account from Exodus 7:14-24. Find out how "God's Power Works" around people, in people and through people. January 17, 2010.
The world marshals its manpower, medicines, money, and other resources of aid as a response to the earthquake in Haiti. Good for humanity. We really care. Or do we? Where were the nations before the earthquake? Christian mission groups and humanitarian aid organizations knew already then – and acted upon – what most of the world didn’t know until Haiti made the news. Or if we knew we didn’t care. 60% of Haitians have no access to health care or clean water. Only half of all school-aged children are enrolled in school. 80% of Haitians live on less than $2 a day. And the average life expectancy is only 60-years-old. And those numbers become more devastating after the earthquake. Some of the cement houses with tin roofs and dirt floors, the garbage everywhere in the streets, the unpaved roads and emaciated dogs look like a result of the earthquake in the pictures we now see, but the untrained eye doesn’t realize that except for the crumbled buildings and deadly carnage, Haiti looked that bad before.
Why does it take over 50,000 deaths in a catastrophic disaster to summon the powers of the world to help a people in need? As much as one hopes we learn lessons from ignoring the levies of New Orleans, or the zoo interchange of Milwaukee, for too long before disaster strikes, humanity’s behavior still proves that our power to help doesn’t work as often – or as well – as it should. Human power is corrupt. Food distribution on our planet feeds the gluttonous and starves the hungry. Wealth on our planet pads the pockets of the rich and robs the poor. While international rescuers dig through rubble to save a life in Haiti, international enemies create the same rubble while bombing each other in Iraq and Afghanistan. From its highest conglomerates and kingdoms to its basest survival instinct human power is dysfunctional.
I mention this sad fact not to convince you there is no hope, no, there is a sure hope. But it will not be found in us or our human power. Psalm 98 says it all. “Sing to the Lord a new song.” Why new? Because the old way of power, human power, has proved to be impotent. “His right hand and his holy arm have worked.” God muscles his mighty work in the world in a way that is perfect and cannot fail. Psalm 98 ascribes to God’s power words like “faithfulness … righteousness … and equity.” And we sang them to tell God that we’ve noticed. We’ve noticed how human power has failed. But God’s Power Works. God can never act in a corrupt manner or fail because of dysfunction. God will not apply biased favoritism to certain groups and always does what he says. God’s Power Works.
Much like a doctor who discovers a cure for a disease is elated by the discovery but only because of its potential. The glad fulfillment comes when the treatment treats people. So also God’s work is marvelous all by itself, but the real glory of God shines for him and for us when his work helps people. Changes people. We see this in the miracles of Jesus (are there any miracles of Jesus that he performed behind closed doors apart from people?) and in the Bible account of the first of ten plagues God performed to free his people from the clutches of evil Pharaoh, ruler of the Egyptian empire.
Around people
Pharaoh had sniffed in disgust at the suggestion made by Moses that Pharaoh release all the Israelites from slave labor. Just to drive home the point that he was not to be messed with, Pharaoh issued the famous order that the Israelite slaves had to now gather their own straw yet continue producing the same number of bricks. He hoped to demoralize the Israelite slaves and turn them against their leader, Moses. And it worked, but only for the moment. Because Pharaoh miscalculated. He thought he had a problem with Moses but, in fact, he had picked a fight with God.
It’s not that Pharaoh and the Egyptians didn’t know anything about God. With life-giving water from the Nile River, or life-bearing reproduction in cattle and crops, God had provided for the people of Egypt in the same way he provides for people all over the planet: natural means. With spectacular sunsets and the moral compass of a conscience God had called the people of Egypt in a way that he calls people all over the planet: a voice of divine power and being beyond human nature. Listen to the Bible describe this: “The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands (Psalm 19:1) … Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made” (Romans 1:20). God’s power works around all people. It worked around the Egyptians who noticed his power, even though they wrongly attributed water and sunsets and reproduction to their own man-made deities. They worshipped the Nile River, for instance.
But God isn’t interested in being seen as a power at work in man-made myths or as one menu choice of many gods. God’s Power Works so that he is seen as sovereign over all. “By this you will know that I am the Lord,” is how God explained the purpose of the plagues in Egypt. In them he’d step toe-to-toe with the Egyptian gods of nature, beginning with the Nile. He’d directly attack these fraudulent deities – the river god, the frog god, the weather god – beating them at their own game so to speak, in their own backyard, because ultimately it was only his game and only his backyard. Not theirs. Not Pharaoh’s.
You may have friends who don’t go to church, and trying to convince them to enter a church building is like asking them to join a cult. They just don’t see the church as a safe place. So if they’re bucking the church thing then back off for the moment. Instead of bringing them to God, bring God to them. Ask them about the work of God they do notice in creation and their conscience. Ask them to consider such work as coming from the hand of a loving God who wants not just to be seen, and not just to be sovereign, but to be salvation for all people. Including them.
In people
That was the purpose of the plagues God would be sending on Egypt to save the Israelites, which he described as “miraculous signs and wonders” (Exodus 7:3). A sign’s purpose is to point to something, and a wonder is something that makes you say, “Wow!” So these plagues God unleashed pointed to something that would make the Israelites say, “Wow!” And here’s what it was, in God’s own words to them, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 6:7). They would see his work and know that he was the Lord God. Their God. Their Savior, Redeemer, Promiser and Protector. God’s Power Works in people. It works faith. It works resolve. It works peace, joy, love. These are more than personality traits; they are God’s work in us!
When Jesus turned water into wine or performed any of his other miracles, it wasn’t for entertainment value. He wanted to change people. He wanted sinners to repent, skeptics to reconsider, and slackers to recommit. He wanted believers to believe more and followers to follow better. And it worked, according to the Bible’s assessment of his first miracle in John 2, “He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” God’s Power Works in people. If you’re waiting for a miracle today like the ones Jesus performed while on earth, however, you’re missing out on even greater miracles of God’s work taking place every day, not around you but in you. Jesus says that wicked people with a warped idea of God look for miraculous signs to appear from the sky to help us heal or grow or decide whether to become a nurse or to move to Cudahy. If you want to stand on the wrong side of God’s power then tell him you’re not ready for anything until he shows you a miracle. That’s not to say God can’t or won’t perform miracles today as dramatically as he has in the past. It’s to focus our attention where God specifically states a miracle will happen. In us. God’s Word in Ephesians 3 states that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask, or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” The power of God that created the oceans and called off the plague of darkness is at work within us, who ask God for help and imagine how he might answer. The power of God that sent God to become man and put Pilate in authority to instigate the crowd’s cry, “Crucify him,” and resurrected Jesus from the dead is at work within us. The power of God that forgave a murderer and gave words of witness to a simple shepherd is at work within us. The power of God that fed 5,000 … and helped avoid a wedding wine disaster … in us.
Through people
The question isn’t, “Does God still work miracles.” The question is, “Do we notice, and if so, how does it change us and, more specifically, how does it change us to help change others?” One of the phrases we hear throughout the account of the ten plagues is, “the Lord said to Moses. So Moses …” The LordGod, in an epic battle against world powers and mythical deities where the lives of millions were at stake, enlisted a runaway renegade and murderer named Moses. God gave Moses nothing more than a staff and a willing brother named Aaron, and he gave Moses nothing less than a second chance and all the powers of heaven. With those, Moses rescued the Israelite slaves from the clutches of a world dynasty. Moses performed God’s work. Where is God calling you to perform God’s work with God’s power? Don’t sell you and God short. God’s Power Works through people.
“And all the water was changed to blood … Blood was everywhere in Egypt.” The Nile River was a god in Egypt. To this god the Egyptians had fed Israelite babies after Pharaoh ordered their execution for population and political control, throwing them to the crocodiles whose jaws snapped shut and spilled the blood of little babies. Now this river bows down to God – changed to blood so that the life-giving water of this Egyptian god becomes death to the Egyptians and life for the Israelites. Even as the lamb’s blood in the last plague was death for the lamb but life for the Israelites. Even as God’s own blood – a blood abused by corrupt human powers in suffering, death, and crucifixion – becomes death to sin and guilt. And becomes life to us. So live. You are no slave to sin, or to hopelessness or fear, or to death. Live by God’s power working around, in, and through you. Amen.
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