Idiom: chapter and verse (used idiomatically: yes)
and John one in verse twelve it says but as many have received him , to them he gave the right , the authority , the , the power , to become children of God , even to those who believe on his name and this of course is what making our commitment to Christ is , it 's receiving him for ourselves , it 's plugging in , it 's saying yes I have n't got that power myself , I am not able to do it I need you to come and do it for me , I accept that you have that power , you have that authority , you have dealt with my sin and I receive it for me , we trust Christ to save us from sin and commit ourselves to his kingly ruling our lives , we are as the bible says then , born again , new creations , we are made alive in Christ , I give you one verse in Colossians and in chapter three , verse four it says when Christ who is our life is revelled , then you also no sorry verse , verse three , verse three , sorry for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God but you say that 's all very well that , that brings me into the place of becoming a follower of Jesus yes I 've accepted him , but what about all this pressures here , Christ I , I 'm willing to receive them and to make the centre of my life , I 've received that he died for me , but what about all those things that 's twisting and marring and distorting my life , that 's rubbing me , my life can be more , God wants it to be , well that 's the great thing when Jesus comes , he does n't just come and sit down and that 's all there is to it , but he comes in by the holy spirit and as Christ is the centre of our life so he , as we submit to him and to his authority as we become obedient to his word , doing what he tells us , what he says for us , then the power of his spirit in our life starts operating , God the holy spirit , cos that 's how we become Christians , we are born again of God spirit and God Christ was in us , not the man who walked here on Galilee , he is a man in glory , but he comes into your life and into my life by the holy spirit and he gives us new spiritual resources which help us to overcome those influences of evil that are pressing in on us and trying to , to , to , to distort our lives and depress it into its mould , those things that have spoiled our lives , he gives us spiritual power and spiritual resources over them . The holy spirit gives us a new prospective on life and it , it , it deepens our relationship with God , we do n't have to try and make , make a success of our new Christian life by ourselves , you know it does n't matter whether you 've been a Christian for a week , for a day , for twenty , for fifty years , if you try to do it one day by yourself you are guaranteed failure , there is no way you can do it , it does n't matter how long you 've been a Christian or how short a period , you can not do it , if the great apostle Paul , he could , he said I can do nothing of myself he said I am not sufficient , for all my learning , for all the wonderful visions I 've had , for the knowledge that God has given to me , that I 've been able to write these great apostle 's , he says that I can not do it myself , I ca n't live this Christian life myself and the tremendous thing that none of us , no matter who we are , we do not have to try to make a success of our Christian life on our own , it 's a partnership and God is the senior partner in it , he does n't expect us to do it by ourselves , listen to what the , the , that , the same apostle Paul says when he 's writing to the , the Gelation Christians , in , in chapter two , verse twenty , listen to what he says there , he says I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life which I know live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and delivered himself for me , he said I do n't do it by myself , why not , very simply cos he ca n't , he did n't know how to , he did n't have the power to do it he says but the life I 'm living , I live by the power of Christ who died for me , who gave himself for me and who now lives in me now by the holy spirit Paul again when he 's writing to the Philippians , in chapter four and verse thirteen , he says I can do all things , oh how arrogant of you Paul , how boastful you are , oh no he did n't just finish there did he , he says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me , and writing to the Romans in that tremendous eighth chapter of Romans and verse thirty seven he says in all these things , in all the problems of life , in all the difficulties and all the temptations , in all the pressures that we are called to go through he says , in all of these things we overwhelmingly concur , we are triumphant he says , how , through him who loved us . So he has given , God gives this power within , power of the holy spirit , the indwelling Christ , in you and in me , so I 've got no advantage over you , and you have no advantage over me and the person who 's been a Christian for fifty years has n't got an advantage over the Christian who 's been a Christian for one day because that same power that raised Christ from the dead , hear that , the same power that God used to raise Christ from the dead , that is the same power that dwells in you and in me , that 's what the bible says . If that power was sufficient , the holy spirit , if that power was sufficient to raise Christ from the dead , you not think he 's able to exert that power in your life and in my life to make us live lives that are pleasing to God , of course it is so we do n't do it ourselves , just let me in closing mention one other thing , this relationship we have needs to be maintained , you know for any relationship to grow , one needs to spend time with the other person , I do n't give a lot of credence to the saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder , it does with somebody else , it 's true , it does not make it grow fonder of that person the person is you know who you , you heard this story so often , like particularly like going back during the last war , folk who were separated sometimes for , for , not just for months but for several years , there they were in concentration camps perhaps , in prisoner of war camps , separated for years , they come back home they 've got to get to know each other all over again you see that a relationship on a human level as well as in our relationship with God is dependent on , on association , it 's dependent on companionship , it 's dependent on spending time with the other person and in our relationship with Christ this is achieved by , by prayer , by knowing and understanding God 's word , by having fellowship with other Christians and fellowship with other Christians is not just meeting them and passing the time of day with them , oh that 's fellowship but it 's far more than that is required , there 's the fellowship in worship , we worship together , of course I can worship God at home of course I can do it , so can you do it and we , we should do it , but there 's that re , there 's that need , that requirement as God 's people we come together to worship him in a corporate act , in the sacraments , in , as we mentioned in , in earlier on in taking the bread and the wine and remembering the lords death , there 's a sense in which I can do it by myself