This is Dave Scherrer, and this is Kingdom Offerings, the podcast environment of  One Hundred-Fold Ministries. We are still in the discussion regarding my story that I wrote called The Vase. We posted that here several weeks ago here at Kingdom Offerings, and this story is one of several that I hope will be a fresh way to connect through storytelling that can take us deep into the rich kingdom truths that we sometimes lose sight of in our Christian walk.

So if you missed the story, I’d invite you to go back a few of our podcasts in our archive found at 100foldministries.org. And listen to both parts. Our thoughts today will make more sense if you have that story in mind while we chat. So as I was saying, this particular podcast is the last of this series on The Vase.

And as a reminder, the last time that we were together here at Kingdom Offerings, we spoke about how this parable informs us about our identity in Christ. So you might want to take a listen to that (our last podcast) but without stretching it too much, I think that this story about The Vase also speaks to us about power. So, listen to this. I want you to listen to this little recording, this soundtrack, and see if you can figure out what it is. I think it’s going to be pretty easy.

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That, of course, is a huge truck going through its gears, powering up from a dead stop. A truck driver has to splinter their way through a bunch of gears to get up to full speed. We know what sound power makes.

Typically, power is manifest and it’s easy to see, it’s easy to hear, it’s easy to feel. Think about, I don’t know, Niagara Falls. That’s power. And power is a big deal in our times. There’s a lot of debate about how we get our power, whether that’s coal burning plants, hydroelectric, nuclear power, wind, solar. There’s talk about geothermal power – trying to take advantage of the heat from the core of our earth.

There’s lots of opinions out there as to how to get the power needs that we have. But there isn’t any debate about whether or not we need power or want power. The power demands in the United States have never been higher. And right now, we’re going through this dangerous hot spell in our country and the blackouts, the lack of power, can be deadly in these high heats. So we need power, no doubt. But what about spiritual power?

It feels like a common lament among Christian believers that I know that they feel a lack of power in their spiritual lives. Our church experience is, I don’t know, entertaining enough and encouraging enough. But when asked if you are now, having sat through a church service, more greatly equipped and empowered to affect the Kingdom influence on a fallen and broken world, I’m not sure how many would say, “Oh yeah, I’m ready to go now”.

Too many of us are looking for our church to be an encouragement, not empowering. But don’t get me wrong, encouragement does lift our hopes and that in turn can help us act with a certain resolve or discipline. If you’ve had an encouraging parent or coach or teacher, you know that encouragement is really a great thing. But the true power of God isn’t called up from loud music or entertaining sermons.

It is present in us as a gift of God in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. In our story, when Enoch pulls the vase from underground, from that underground stream, the precious and delicate handmade vase, which is, of course, of lots of value, but when it’s pulled out of that crevice amongst that living water, it’s discovered to be transformed.

It has gone from amazing and incredibly well-fashioned to now it is a vessel of immeasurable beauty and of infinite worth through the presence of the living water that now resides inside that vase. It is this water that gives the vase its new form and function, and I would say power.

So let’s talk about that power for a moment. When asked why it was that Christians seemed to lack power, A.B. Simpson, the wonderful preacher and hymn writer who was instrumental in founding the Christian and Missionary Alliance Movement, he said this: “Our God has boundless resources. The only limit in it is us. Our asking, our thinking, our praying are too small. Our expectations too limited.”

We noted the passage in our last podcast, when we were talking about the identity that we find in Christ, we noted that Paul, in writing to the church in Corinth, said this, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” So what Paul is saying there, if we’re to move the analogy forward in this story of The Vase, is we are the jar of clay. We are made from the dust of the earth. We are the jar of clay. And God fills us with His presence, His power, and it belongs to God. It’s not of us. We cannot summon it up by our own self-wishes. This tells us that we are filled and transformed by the power given to us by God Himself, not of our own doing. We cannot summon up this power by force of will.

We all know that this is true by our lifelong efforts to self-defeat our sins by simply being strong of mind. But we can’t grunt ourselves out of sin. That’s just not how it works. In my own fleshly efforts, it is not that I have limited spiritual power. It is that I have no spiritual power, none. The power to be transformed in my heart and soul that manifests in my being a new creature is found in God and God alone and is all about God’s power.

Okay, that seems true enough. I bet you agree with that. But then I want to ask, why do I feel so powerless some of the time? Why am I so constantly defeated in my hopes of living a victorious Christian life? So, my opinion on the answer to that question is that we underestimate the power that is within us. Second, we are measuring the substance of that power. We are measuring the power of that power against the wrong things.

Let’s tackle that first concern that we are underestimating or maybe taking for granted the kind of power that’s available to us inside of us. Paul teaches us some more about this treasure, this presence of power that The Vase was showing us, in his writings to the church in Ephesus. It’s found in chapter one, verses 18 to 20. Paul wants us to be aware. He wants us to know that we know, that we know – and this is the verse – that we ” know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance and inheritance in the saints”, and now this one, “and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the work of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places.” [Ephesians 1:18-20]

This power, this power that Paul says changes us is also spoken of in Romans 8. It’s resurrection power, the power that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. In chapter 8, it says that “the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from, the dead lives in you!” The inference is, this same resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead is now empowering me.

So my first thought is that we underestimate and certainly underutilize the power that’s already been given to us. We are living well below our spiritual amperage. That’s the first thought.

The second thought is I think we misunderstand what this power is intended to do. We are measuring this power against the wrong things in our lives in Christ. So, in my opinion, we put far too much attention in defeating sin and not enough attention to abiding in Christ.

We need to spend more time on this in the future, but if we remember rightly, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of this resurrection power within us, isn’t primarily the absence of sin. It is the presence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It is the increasing presence of these attributes of Christ that the power that resides in us desires to be manifest.

It is these things that we are in pursuit of. And as we pursue these traits, sin will naturally fall away as we are increasingly filled with the Spirit, as we increasingly abide in the living Christ.

So, I may get some hate mail from this, kind of hope not, and you shouldn’t take this out of context. But holiness is not so much the defeat of sin as it is about our abiding deeply in Christ and He in us.

And I think sometimes in modern evangelicalism, we spend too much of our time concentrating on trying to make sin going away rather than trying to invite Christ deeper into our lives. It is this state of becoming united with the Godhead that gives God His glory and us our holiness. It is His holy presence in us, transforming us, that actually gives us our holiness.

So power – we all want it. And power, spiritual power – we all have it. He has filled us with sufficient resurrection power for us to accomplish more than we could ever ask or think in contributing to the Kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven.

Well, thanks so much for thinking this through with me. Maybe re-read The Vase one more time and see if you see anything extra that I might have missed pointing out.

Next week at  One Hundred-Fold Ministries, we’ll have some more resources available to you in our blog format, which is called Backyard Conversations. So, I hope you take a look at that.

Take care and get back to me at dave@100foldministries.org and I’ll look forward to having a conversation with you.

This is Dave Scherrer. Take care.