Pastor Zach's Blog

Who Has the Power?

July 26, 2021 at 5:15 am Leave a comment

Christians declare that God has all power. We live, however, like we have the power.

A few weeks ago on this blog, I recounted the famous battle between David and Goliath. When David goes to do battle with this terrifying and towering titan, there is no question over who truly has the power to win this battle. As David says to Goliath:

You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down. (1 Samuel 17:45-46)

God has the power to win this battle. And He demonstrates His power through David.

But then, David becomes king over Israel. And, at first, David continues to acknowledge and believe that God is the One who has all power and is the source of his power as king. Early in his reign, when David is readying his army to fight the Philistines, we read:

David inquired of the LORD, and He answered, “Do not go straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the poplar trees. As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the poplar trees, move quickly, because that will mean the LORD has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.” (2 Samuel 5:23-24)

The Lord is the One who will lead the strike on the Philistine army. He is the One with the power.

But by 2 Samuel 11, things have changed – drastically. David now clearly sees himself as large and in charge. He sleeps with a woman named Bathsheba, who is not his wife, and kills her husband Uriah, who serves valiantly as a soldier in his army, to cover up his affair. Instead of relying on God’s power to win his battles, he abuses his own power for his own pleasure and pretense.

Power, it seems, comes with a problem: when we get it, we have no idea how to use it. When David has no power as a shepherd boy fighting a giant, he does better than when he has massive power as a king who can get anything – or, as in the case of Bathsheba, anyone – he wants whenever he wants. Power without wisdom and righteousness is not profitable. It’s pernicious.

The apostle Paul writes very personally about power:

In order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

Paul fears that, if he was ever to get too much power, he would wreck everything in his conceit. Therefore, he boasts and delights in his weakness, for his weakness allows Christ’s power to work through Him. And Christ is much better at using power than he is.

Andy Crouch writes of power:

Power at its worst is the unmaker of humanity – breeding inhumanity in the hearts of those who wield power, denying and denouncing the humanity of the ones who suffer under power.

This is certainly how David uses his power with Bathsheba and Uriah. But what about power at its best? Crouch continues:

The Father’s love for the Son and, through the Son, for the world – is not simply a sentimental feeling or a distant, ethereal theological truth, but has been signed and sealed by the most audacious act of true power in the history of the world, the resurrection of the Son from the dead. Power at its best is resurrection to full humanity.

God is good with power. He uses it for us and not against us. He demonstrates it through us and not merely over us. Power that rests only in humans destroys humans. But power that is from God can restore humans.

God is good – and gracious – with power. This is why we can celebrate every time we pray:

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Entry filed under: Devotional Thoughts. Tags: Authority, David, Goliath, Power, Sovereignty, Stewardship.