Being the Most Powerful Person in the Room

by Thomas Denegre

Today’s reading from Mathew 5:38-47

As a Christian, you are called to be the most powerful person in the room. I’m not talking about Bill Gates power, or President of the United States power, or a mafia boss power.  I’m talking about the power of God that is within us to change people and to change the world.  Let me tell you about Louie Zamperini.

In the true story called Unbroken, Louie Zamperini was an American Olympic runner from the 1936 Berlin Games.  In World War II his plane crashed in the Pacific and he spent 45 days adrift in a life raft. Hardly alive he was captured by the Japanese and was tortured for the next two years. Barely holding himself together after the war, he recounts his story to crowds of people.  But he must first numb himself with alcohol to tell his stories.  Living in a death-ward spiral in alcohol, Louie attended a Billy Graham crusade giving his heart to Jesus.  His life became transformed and renewed where he set up a powerful ministry transforming the lives of thousands. Truly, when his heart broke for Jesus, life, meaning, and power entered into Louie.

So let’s explore the nature of power.

To satisfy justice, Jesus explained the old way of tit for tat; or eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.  Throughout the ancient world the custom was revenge for a wrong against you.  This was the code of the sinner or the ungodly, (Psalm 1:1) who used their force of will upon one another. Force is not power.

We all know the outcomes of using the force of our will against another because for every push we impose we get one back.  Force always has a counter force.  Force seeks conflict and justification. Force is prideful, selfish, and brutish.  Force seeks to judge and condemn.  It results in polarization, not unity and its costs are high. Someone must always win or lose, whereby enemies are created requiring a constant defense. Being defensive is always costly as the anger, bitterness, envy, lust, and resentment will result in negative outcomes personally and culturally. This is the way of the sinner, the ungodly person, and the wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23

Then Jesus tells us how to become the most powerful person in the room.  He said we must love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, “that you may be the children of your Father in heaven.” (Matt. 5:45) Finally, Jesus said, “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(Matt 5:48)

Being perfect throws us all off, because we think it’s impossible.  Yet, we know our loving Father would never set us up for failure.  The Greek word here is 'teleios' and it can mean ‘perfect’ but it is more usually used to refer to maturity or wholeness. Research indicates the writers of the Vulgate translated the word into ‘perfectus’, when it really means “to be complete.” Or, to be made whole.

To understand this mystery the Lord brought to my attention two pieces of artwork.  In Japan, Kintsugi artwork will deliberately break a pottery bowl and mend it back with gold transforming it into a unique beauty.  The other artwork shows major cracks in a human sculpture with bright light shining through it.

The answer becomes obvious.  It is through our brokenness that our creator makes us whole and complete with the power of the Holy Spirit. Our brokenness does not come in our destruction, but when we open our hearts to God's love and trade in our pride for humility. In the same way, Louie didn’t become transformed and powerful until he opened his heart to Jesus. 

We become a unique beauty that radiates the light and power of God’s love.  By dying to Jesus, we admit to our brokenness, humility, failure, and incompleteness. We just can’t do things without God. By being born again, we become saints, (Eph.2:1-10) who are set apart to be with God. By living in life union with Jesus and having his words living powerfully within us, the power of God transforms us while His power radiates through our cracks into to the world.

When Jesus said, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one,” (John 17:20-23) we become the most powerful person in the room as the same glory of God that filled Jesus, fills us.  Did not Jesus say we will be doing greater things than himself? (John 14:12)  By being broken to God, His glory and power is allowed to complete us and to transform.

As a son or daughter of God we must understand the power of God’s glory is within us. Unlike the sinner’s (ungodly) use of force, a son (saint) of the light knows God’s power is rooted in love, meaning, significance, and purpose. Rather than having a counter-power, power stands still. It is like a standing field, such as gravity, that does not move, for love, forgiveness, mercy, kindness, compassion, and generosity are always received and never reacted to.

By being in God’s power we find nobility of purpose and sacrifice are inspirational, giving life significance. Like water filling a sponge, God’s glory completes us, enables us, and nourishes us.  God’s power is self-evident in that life is more important than death, that honor is preferable over dishonor, that the constructive is preferable over the destructive, that forgiveness is preferable over revenge, and that mercy is preferable over judgment and condemnation.

We become the most powerful person in the room by allowing our brokenness or humility to reveal God’s power through non-judgmental love, understanding, mercy, and forgiveness. By extending these powerful forces to friend and foe alike, we allow God to disarm them while soothing their wounded heart.  By living in life union with Jesus, we are given the ability or power to see people as God sees them.  Compassion, wisdom, and mercy will arise in our hearts from Jesus to make us the most powerful person in the room to transform lives such that, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”