Too Much Talk, Too Little Power In 1 Corinthians 4:18, Paul says, "Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." I think in America today, there's just too much talk in the house of God and too little power. And I don't know about you, but I'm very, very weary of it all. Jesus Christ told us in the book of Luke — He stood in the pulpit of His day and He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor." In other words, there's a message, there's an authority with the message that tells every man, every woman, every young person who feels like they don't have the resource to become anything in life — no, there's something of God. There's an anointing of God that just unravels that lie around the human heart and lets men and women and children know that God has a divine purpose — not just to save you, but to indwell you and to empower you and to enable you and to make you into what you could never be in yourself, and give you what you could never possess, and take you where you could never go. I know this because I have lived this. By the grace of God, I love the fact that most everywhere I go, I'm not qualified to be — which is an awesome way to live your Christian life. I've stood and preached, spoken to governments. I've been in places of civil war and seen God bring peace to areas of war. I've been invited by a president of another nation to see if, through national television and radio, we could avert another genocide in that nation. I've just seen God do what only God can do. I love the fact that it's not by might, it's not by power, it's by the Spirit of God. Walking in Spiritual Authority It's when you and I learn to cooperate with God — not trying to produce something in our own strength, but simply saying, "Lord, here I am. I'm available for You to use me to make a difference in somebody's life." And when that starts to happen in the body of Christ, then suddenly words of knowledge begin to come, words of wisdom. You begin speaking to somebody in a restaurant or in a store, and when you leave, you say, "That wasn't me speaking — that was God speaking through me. I didn't have those thoughts. I couldn't tie those thoughts together the way the Lord just did. How could I know what was going on in that person's heart?" God knew. God heard the cry. God knows what that person's been sighing about in the streets. And suddenly He gives a word of knowledge. He gives a gifting of the Holy Spirit. He gives us ability. I'm talking about spiritual authority. I'm not talking about just blabbing some scripture to somebody that might be true but isn't relevant to their situation. No, God gives us a word. I remember one time I was leaving Starbucks, and I was crossing the street to Times Square Church, and there's a young guy about 18 years of age standing there with a cup, begging on the street. And I walked right up to him — he was a big kid too — and I looked him right in the eye. I said, "What are you doing out here?" And then I said, "You have a praying mother. You have a praying grandmother. And here you are, a beggar on the street. Around the corner tonight, 7 o'clock, you go to church — because there, you're the son of the King. Out here, the devil's made you a beggar. In there, you're the son of a King." And as I began to speak to him, the tears started coming down his face. He said, "Yes, sir, I'll be there." He confirmed he had a praying mother and grandmother. That's spiritual authority. That's just the willingness to step out of the box. God puts a thought in your heart — you go with the thought. Will you always be right? No. If you're a baseball player, sometimes you strike out, but it doesn't mean you don't get back up to bat again. You won't always get it right, but if you don't try, you'll never get anything right. There was a famous hockey player who once said, "You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take." "He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind" — people who can't see a way forward, who can't see a way out of their dilemma, who can't see a way into a future, who have no idea what God wants to do in their lives — "and to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." The Pathway Is Not Easy Now, Paul was telling the Corinthian church that some people talk a good game, but you don't know if they can play or not until you see them on the field. There are a lot of people who talk a real good game in the church of Jesus Christ, but on the field, they're not much. There's a pathway to excellence in everything we do, and there's a pathway to excellence in God's kingdom — in His power being revealed through Jesus Christ in His church. Many, sadly, want preeminence but not the pathway that leads to power. They want to stay light. They want to be like a little flat stone skipping on the ocean. They never want to go through what we have to go through to get to the place where God is going to use our lives for His glory. In the book of Acts, when the apostle Paul was called in Acts 9:15-16, the Lord said, "Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake." Paul had spiritual authority — that's why we read his words today, 2,000-plus years later, and they still move our hearts. That's why Paul could say, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" — because he had to learn to do all things through Christ who strengthened him. Paul had a perspective that was eternal. Paul had a weight in his speech that nobody could ignore, because he had chosen to take the pathway that leads to spiritual authority — no matter what he had to go through, no matter where he had to be, no matter what it cost him. Listen to the testimony of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:23 and following: "Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool — I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness — and besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches." He doesn't even mention the snakebite. This was his testimony. It was a tough road, but it was the pathway through which the power of God began to flow through his life — and is still flowing today as we read his words. Getting Out of Self-Focus Romans tells us that we should present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service. God help us to get out of self-focus. God help us to stop always coming to the house of God asking, "What's in it for me today? What new thing can I add to my résumé? What new thing can I give to myself to have a more enhanced personality?" No — we ought to be coming to the house of God, in that transition into maturity, and saying, "God, give me something today for somebody else. Give me courage to go into that place and speak to those people. Give me victory in my own life that I can ta...
