And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast- to Him be the power forever and ever. Amen.  I Peter 5:10,11

            Yesterday we were going like gangbusters at the church rummage sale.  There must have been 200 shoppers in the gym.  Someone came in and said that the lights were out in the hall.  We went to the fuse box and began flipping switches that looked weak and then someone yelled, “The lights went out in the gym now and they’re not coming back on!”  Woops!  We tried a couple of different things to no avail.  Finally the right breaker and appropriate switch were flipped and the lights began to slowly come on.  The darkness seemed like an eternity to me, but it was only a few minutes. 
            This past week, SCE&G sent a guy to change our power meters out.
He was so very nice.  He came to warn us the power would be out.  That allowed us to save our bulletin, our newsletters, our financial records, everything we had been working on and not lose the work of the day. 
I was expecting a big long power outage and then a tremendous surge or spike when the power came back on.  Instead- it was just about a fifteen second “blip.”  That was it.  The phones didn’t go out- our computers, which were on battery back up, weren’t even fazed. 
Have you ever had the power go out on  you for any length of time, and you are sitting there wondering when it will come back on? 
            I can remember a couple of ice storms in Columbia where we had to light the fires in our chimneys, and everyone huddled around the living room.  I can remember Hurricane Hugo- when the power was out in our town of Hartsville about a week.  I can remember a storm passing through Chapin a couple of years ago- but the power was only out about four hours.  Have you ever anticipated losing your power, and then wondering when it would come back on? 
            Peter said, “after you have suffered a little while, God himself will restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast- to him be the power forever and ever!”
            Some of us unplug ourselves from God.  We purposefully don’t want his power.  Maybe we want to go our own way.  Maybe we don’t want to hear God tell us “No” or even “Yes.”  Sometimes, it seems that the energy, enthusiasm, excitement we have about God fades, and we wonder how do we get it back?  Sometimes bad things happen that make us wonder if God has any power or ability at all.
            God is the ultimate source of power.  If we believe in God at all it is that He is powerful, Almighty, He created the sun.  He created oil. He created wind and waves.  He created all the energy and the potential energy that we have in this universe.  He spoke and it came to be.  The universe came from nothing. Today most scientists believe there was a big bang.  If you had to describe the act of creation scientifically I believe that fits- God spoke and “pow!”- it was.  There was nothing and then- creation exploded into existence.  If God is really the source of all power, do we want to separate ourselves from Him- our power source?  If his power can raise even Christ from the dead- should we seek to ignore, unplug, refuse to turn on to that kind of power? 

            Peter was writing to a suffering people.  They were being persecuted for their faith and they were saying, “What’s all this about?”  “Is this what I signed up for?”  Peter was saying, you may be weak now, you may feel powerless now, you may be crucified now- but don’t forget your resurrection power.  Don’t forget the God who is able to restore you!
            Have you ever anticipated losing your power from God?  Maybe you don’t even know you have power from God.  Each of us does.
I remember once going camping in a little pop-up trailer.  I had been camping in tents all my life, and when I first got my pop-up camper, I thought it was just like a tent with a trailer floor.  But one big difference I didn’t even notice until that night.  That night I was using my coleman kerosene lantern, and had a campfire going.  But what I didn’t know is that I could plug a light right into the camper if I had the camper plugged into a pole.  It was like magic!  It is so much better to have a lamp you can plug in than a lamp that you spend 20 minutes trying to start, and that will go out on you.  To know of God’s power in your life, is like discovering you don’t have to do it the hard way.  You don’t have to go it alone- in fact, all this time you think you’ve been living your life all by yourself- he’s been right there all along- available for you- you just need to get plugged in!
Spiritual Enrichment/Revival/Renewal/Celebration of Faith- is all about getting plugged into the power that is available to you- the power of God.  Paul said, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection (Phil. 3:10).  It is our quest too.  Ascension, Pentecost and the resurrection have something in common - that is the power of God.  The resurrection showed his power over death.  The Ascension showed his power to be far above our ability to attack or degrade his power.  Pentecost was the big bang of the church.  It was our birthday.  Jesus foretold it- he talked about waiting for the Spirit to come on them in power.  It is the power to love, to be graceful, to witness, the power to expand and bear fruit for God.  It is the power of God among mere human beings.

Some of us lose our power from God just because you can’t be turned on all the time.  I have found very few people who are really on “bright burn” for God all the time.  Yet I believe that the more we seek to burn bright for him, the more he supplies us with the energy we need to do so.  The more we shrink back from shining for Jesus, the less power we have to live our lives for him.  Why should God give us more power to live our lives in a wicked way?  Why should God give us more energy to live our lives simply for ourselves?  Yet if we seek to glorify God- this is a faith statement here- I believe God will give us all we need to do that.  Maybe it is not as much time, energy, life as we would like, but God gives just the right amount if we seek Him. 
            Mr. Buster talked about how God sees, and how we should use our talents and abilities for Him.  Well, God does see, and He does strengthen us for what we are called to do. 
            There are so many promises about God giving us strength and power.  They that wait on the Lord will renew their strength and shall mount up with wings like eagles.  They shall run and not grow weary, walk and not faint (Isa. 40:28-31).  Or “God is our refuge and strength an ever-present help in trouble.”