"Authority" - Mark 1:21-28

I was joking in Bible study, but I did have two weeks. So buckle in.

I thought maybe we could do one sermon and then we could take like a 10 minute

break and then come back and do another one. See who shows back up.

Well, this morning is all about authority. And authority is a funny thing because

if you don't have it, you really want it.

And I remember growing up thinking that's what I, if I really,

if I had some authority, if I could do what I wanted to do, go where I wanted

to go, people would just trust me with something. I think that would be awesome.

And then you start getting authority and you're like, this is terrible.

I don't know why I ever wanted this.

One story specifically that I was thinking about, in fact, me and my dad were

talking about this a couple of weeks ago that made me think of it.

I was probably 17 or something in there. And, you know, when you start a construction

company, you do a lot of cleaning and I'm really good with the push broom,

like really good with the push broom.

And, um, and I, you know, you just want to be in charge of something.

You want them to give you something to do. So one day they were like,

Hey, go out. I don't know where I was going.

It was probably 30 minutes away. So pick the small town.

There's a little building that we're going to remodel. We need you to take the

floors up and we're going to give you four labor guys that we just hired for

the day. Labor ready guys.

Go out there with those guys. They're going to meet you there.

They'll take the floor up and then you load it up on a trailer and bring it

back. And I said, awesome.

I'm your guy. Thank you for this authority. I will not fail you.

Um, for the record, and as you hear this story, you're thinking he failed them.

I didn't. So just get that out in front. Okay.

The issue was we thought the floor was glued down. It was not, it was just floating.

And so I'm in charge quote unquote of these four grown men that are probably in their 40s and 50s.

And we get done at like 11 a.m.

Well, the issue is these guys don't get paid for hours they don't work.

In other words, they're not getting paid for a full day unless they work a full day.

And so as we're getting done, they're asking me like, well, what do we do next?

And I'm like, this is all we're supposed to do.

And they start getting pretty mad because they're like, hey,

if we're done, we're not going to get paid for the rest of the day.

And we drove all the way out here and they're getting upset.

And so I have this authority. Now, all of a sudden, this authority seems like a terrible thing.

All of a sudden I have authority and I'm like, what's that going to do for me?

Get me murdered by four labor ready guys in this random strip mall out in the middle of nowhere.

And so of course, what do you do when you've been given authority and now you

don't want it? You call the other authority.

So I go in the truck, I'm like, hey, let me make a phone call.

And I call my dad and he gives me sage advice. He asked me a question and he tells me what to do.

I tell him the situation. I said, man, these guys are really mad.

They're really upset. He probably didn't remember this story because it's just

a regular Tuesday for him.

But 17 year old me thought, again, I'm about to be on 2020.

And so I, these guys are really mad on me to do for them.

And like, I, what do you want me to do? Like they're, they're acting very aggressive.

He goes, are you in the truck? I go, yeah. He goes, are they in the truck with

you? I go, no. He goes, leave.

And I did put it in drive and I

took off and I see these guys in the room and they are upset

okay the best part was like i strapped the

stuff down but i didn't like strap it down you know

i didn't give it the like that's not going anywhere tug and so

as i'm going down the road like there's boards flying

off but in my head i'm like if i stop these guys are gonna like i i think and

literally for like two months i'm like these guys are gonna find me i don't

know how they're gonna find me they know my name they're gonna track me down

but that was my first like hey here's some authority and i'm like this is terrible

why do i want this well now of course in charge of like kids, which is nuts.

Which by the way, that's good advice. I would tell my kids do the same thing.

Hit the gas, baby. Get out of there.

Don't stop. What if the trailer falls off? Keep going. All right,

we'll go back and get the trailer.

So we all want that authority. And this morning, Jesus is going to put his authority on display.

And what we're really going to see is this clash of people that want authority

and the one person that truly has it.

Everybody wants authority We're going to see this morning that even the demons

Have authority and want authority The issue is when the authority When the true

authority shows up What's going to happen?

And I would challenge you as we do this to think in your own life,

when Jesus shows up, when you read the word, when you consider what he says,

when you think about what Christ has called you to, when he shows up as an authority

in your life, what is your initial response?

What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? Right?

We're going to see over and over again, as we go through the gospel of Mark,

his disciples are constantly trying to keep the authority that they have in their life.

Right? Peter's always the easiest example, but Peter's always saying,

Jesus, I think you're great.

And I think you should be in charge of a lot of things, just not in charge of me, right?

I want you to be in charge of other people, right? But I don't really want you to be in charge of me.

And we all look at Peter and we think, man, what a dummy.

But we all think that because we all think this way,

they need you to be their authority because they're not as smart as me,

right we would never vocalize that because I

don't think you would maybe you're that bold okay good for you

but that's how people think that's how I think like

I look at authority a lot of times and I kind of go you know

I'm really glad you exist for these people because they really need you I think

muscle just ran into the door right I'm really glad you exist for these people

like man these these poor people in other countries are like people I know in

my life that less fortunate or man, they just can't figure it out or they're

really going through something.

Jesus, I'm so glad that you're there. And I want to, I want to tell those people to submit their lives.

So you want to tell those people to give their lives over to Christ and die to themselves.

But then at times when it comes to me, it's kind of like, man,

I'm just so glad you're there for them. But I kind of have this figured out.

I'm pretty smart. I've got a couple of degrees, right? I've seen a few things.

I survived possibly being murdered by four random men at 17.

Like I'm good, man. Like I've, I've seen it.

So again, we're going to see how authority works itself out in the life of Jesus.

So where we are in Mark, Mark 1, 21 is where we're going to start.

To this point, we've been introduced to Mark.

Mark begins by saying the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

right? He draws language from Genesis.

It's the same way Genesis starts in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.

Mark starts by saying, this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

as if Mark is saying, this is a brand new thing.

You know Genesis 1. That's creation. That creation is corrupt.

Sin has taken over. Death and hell rule over that creation. And so what does

Jesus do? He sends his son.

And this is the beginning, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We're introduced to John.

John prepares the way for Jesus, right? He's this crazy guy out in the wilderness

wearing knapsacks and eat locusts and honey.

And what happens? Well, Jesus comes to get baptized. He gets baptized for really,

we don't know why in the sense that he had no sin, right?

The people are looking at Jesus and looking at John and going,

John, you said this guy was incredible.

You said this guy was awesome. You said you couldn't tie his sandals.

And now you're baptizing him as if he has sins. And what we talked about a couple

weeks ago is that when Jesus is baptized, he takes on the sins of the world.

When we're baptized, our sins are washed away. That's the difference between Christ and us.

And then last week we We talked about the temptation of Jesus and him calling

his disciples to himself.

And lastly, as Jesus comes into Capernaum, well, there's a preacher already

in Capernaum, a pretty famous one. His name is John.

So how is God going to clear the way for Jesus to preach? Well, he puts John in prison.

And we said last week, everybody wants to be used by God.

Most of us don't think that being put in prison is the way it's going to happen.

But that was John's life.

So Mark 21 begins this way.

Sorry, Mark 1.21 says, And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the

Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. This was pretty normal.

A synagogue is not really like a church.

It's really not synonymous with that in the sense that synagogues weren't temples.

They didn't function the same way at all. In fact, the word synagogue is often

translated in other, we'll say, first century literature as the gathering place.

This was a place you had to have 10, 13 or older Jewish males.

That's all you had to have.

Which the first thing I thought when I read that was, imagine if all you had

was 10, 13 year olds. And you're just like, hey man, this is a synagogue.

This is what we're doing.

But that's all you had to have. And what would happen is these traveling rabbis,

for the most part, would go from city to city and they would visit these synagogues on the Sabbath.

And there would be maybe one or two or three rabbis at different synagogues.

And they would open the word and they would read the law and the prophets and

they would give their opinions on it. They would tell them what it meant and

the people could ask questions.

And so it was much more informal.

But this, again, this wasn't really a worship service. This was more of just

like, hey, we're all Jews. We're going to get in one place. We're going to talk

about our law and then we're going to jet.

And so this isn't a weird thing that's going on. Jesus is a Jewish rabbi at this point.

He's in Capernaum. The first place Jewish rabbis go, when they go to a city,

they go to the synagogue and they're going to speak in that synagogue.

This is what happens. Verse 22, and they were astonished at his teaching for

he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes.

Who are the scribes? The scribes were basically the PhDs of the day.

They were the ones that taught in the seminaries. They were the ones that for

us would have known, they know Greek and Hebrew and Latin.

You meet people that you think, you're so smart, you can't have a conversation

with me because all I want to talk about is food and football.

And you want to talk about the idiosyncrasies of the different Jewish team.

You're like, man, I've just got nothing to talk to you about.

But these were the the geniuses of the day. These are the people when they showed

up, when they gave you some information about the word, you took it.

There was no arguing with the scribes. So I say that to say this,

the scribes were not small potatoes.

They weren't nobody. But yet when Jesus shows up, all of a sudden,

whatever way he's speaking is catching people in such a way they're going,

this is completely different.

The way this guy talks, the way this guy teaches is completely different.

All of a sudden, again, there is a greater authority in the room.

The scribes have authority, certainly.

But Jesus shows up and it's obvious there's a different authority in the room.

I think there's a couple of clues here to help us understand what's going on.

Because Mark really doesn't tell us, other than he speaks with authority,

why they're astonished. Why are they amazed?

If somebody comes in or if I go listen to a pastor, preacher,

and he speaks with a lot of authority, I'll be honest with you,

part of me is like, that's really good.

But I don't walk out going, man, that was incredible.

The Holy Spirit came like a dove as that guy was teaching.

Well, there's a couple of words, again, that I think will help us.

So the first one is this strike with amazement, this phrase strike with amazement.

I'm not exactly sure what it is in different translations, but ekplasio,

plasio, this visiting preacher is speaking in ways that no one else has ever spoken for.

And this word ekplasio is strike with amazement or fear.

It's an awestruck moment. It's like seeing something you've never seen before.

It's like I've heard people talk about going to the Grand Canyon or seeing the Northern lights.

You're seeing something, you're experiencing something that you realize,

I can't experience this anywhere else in the world.

This is the only place that I can experience somebody teaching like this, talking like this.

You got to imagine there's people in the synagogue that maybe are 60, 70, 80 years old.

They've been listening to Jewish rabbis roll through this synagogue for 50, 60, 70 years.

And this guy shows up and they're struck with amazement. They're struck with

awe because of the way he is talking.

The scribes would come in and do what most preachers do, right?

I'm going to read the word to you. I'm going to tell you what it says to the best of my ability.

I'm going to use a lot of other resources to study it. That's not how Jesus talked.

What was different about the way that Jesus spoke? Well, again,

I think there's a clue in the word authority here.

The word authority is exousia. Do we need to say that out loud?

I feel like I'm teaching a class a little bit. We're doing more Greek than we

usually do, but this is good.

Exousia. This is a really important word, by the way,ousia. Remember that?

If you ever study church history, this was the topic of conversation at the

Council of Nicaea in the fourth century.

It's why St. Nicholas slapped a guy named Arius in the face.

Good. That's why he did that. If you don't know that story, look it up. It's incredible.

But this word is exousia, ex meaning out of. It's an exit sign.

Everyone knows what that is.

You see an exit sign like it's on that door? That's how you get out of a building.

That's how you come out of something. And usia is the present tense of the phrase to be.

The present tense of the phrase to be. So it's being, substance, right?

It's weighty. And so what's being said here in this word authority is Jesus

spoke out of his own being, out of his own substance.

In other words, the scribes would come in and they would speak out of other substances.

They would grab different rabbis and different Jewish teachers and different

teachings from the law and the prophets.

And they would take all of these different things in and they would say,

I've formulated what all this means and this is what you should know.

And Jesus comes in and he doesn't grab anything from outside of himself.

He speaks out of his own being, out of his own substance.

I thought, what's a good way to give you an example of what this would look like?

Well, I think Matthew 5 gives you a good picture of how Jesus would have done

that. Matthew 5 is famously the Sermon on the Mount.

But I think what it gives us is when Jesus spoke, he wasn't giving a commentary on the word of God.

He spoke, as John would say, is the very word of God made flesh.

Jesus doesn't say, thus saith the Lord like the prophets. He says, I say.

Now, just as a side note, if we ever have a guest preacher or you ever hear

me say, I say, take them out back and stone them. I don't know,

Old Testament, whatever you'd like to do.

No one else gets to talk like this, but Jesus does.

And the truth be told, that's exactly how they would have treated most traveling

preachers if they talk like that.

But just listen to Matthew 5. We won't read the whole thing,

obviously, but I wanted you to hear kind of how Jesus handles this.

Matthew 5, we'll start in 21. Again, we're going to jump around.

I won't read all these examples.

He says, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder

and whoever murders will not be liable.

So again, Jesus is saying, you've heard this from other sources.

Verse 22, but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.

That's the kind of authority that we're talking about.

You've heard, you've heard it said, you've seen, you've heard these other people say these things.

I say, he just doesn't say he's not appealing to any other authority.

And when he speaks in our life, he doesn't appeal to any other authority.

Let me give you a few more. Just so you know, it's not a one-time instance.

He says, verse 27, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery,

but I say to you that everyone who looks on a woman with lustful intent has

already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Just jump down. Verse 38, you have heard it was said, an eye for an eye and

a tooth for an eye, but I say, do not resist the one who is evil.

Again, you have heard it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely,

but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. but I say to you,

do not take an oath at all.

Do you understand why the Pharisees and the scribes wanted to murder him?

They wanted to kill him because he made them irrelevant.

Once Jesus shows up, they're irrelevant. And listen, the lesson to us here is

every other voice in your life, every single other voice in your life is irrelevant

when Jesus speaks. It's irrelevant.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what someone thinks about you or says about you.

It doesn't matter what somebody else is trying to get you to do,

what someone is trying to coerce you to do.

It doesn't matter what every single person in the world is trying to convince

you is right or wrong, if Jesus speaks on it, he is the authority on everything.

He speaks out of his own substance. He doesn't need philosophers.

He doesn't need history on his side. He doesn't need personality tests.

He doesn't need any of those things. I'm not saying any of those things are inherently wrong.

What I am saying is when Jesus speaks on a subject, it doesn't matter what anybody

else has to say. He silences them.

And one of the reasons you see people try and take Jesus and make him into something

he's not, or try to reject Jesus in the world, or try and say things to you

like, well, you're a Christian, so you should love people. You're a Christian, you should act this way.

Because when we take the word and we say, listen, that's not all Jesus said.

Jesus said this and that, and we build a case on what Jesus said.

They're going, well, who are you to tell me how to live my life?

And we're saying, I'm nobody, but Jesus has spoken.

God in the flesh has spoken. And he has said that these things are true. too.

It's why Jesus says, like we've been reading in 1 Peter, do not be surprised at this fiery ordeal.

Don't be surprised when the world persecutes you. Is a servant greater than his master?

If an army comes in or an enemy comes upon a master's house,

they don't just kill the master. They take his servants.

His servants belong to the master. So don't think for a second that if you think

this way, if you live this way, if you act this way, that people are going to

be like, that's great for you. That's awesome.

They will not. But we know that we have authority on our side.

There's no one else to call.

There's no one else to bring into our situation.

When Jesus spoke this way, it says they were awestruck with amazement and fear.

And I pray this is our response to God's word as well.

That when God speaks, when he says something, that we listen,

that we're in awe that he would speak to us, number one, and that we're in fear

that we would do the thing that he's asked us to do.

It's amazing how many church fights I've seen take place without a Bible in the room. Incredible.

Incredible. It's amazing how many times churches do things just because they

think, well, I think we should do it this way and I think we should do it that way.

And maybe we should go ask people this. We should go ask people that.

What do you think people want to do without first going, has God said what we should do?

Because if he said what we should do, it doesn't really matter what anybody else thinks.

We talked about this a couple of weeks ago with the church growth movement that

came out of the 70s and 80s.

Literally what they did was they went and polled thousands of people that were

unchurched and unsaved and said, what would get you to church?

Now, I think, again, that comes out of an incredibly kind heart.

I don't think their intentions were wrong. I think the issue was God's told

you what you do in church.

God's told you how church works. He's told you what the gathering of the saints is supposed to be.

The truth is things like the church movement and other things have just made

it easy for us not to be evangelistic because I can just bring you to church.

I don't have to share the gospel with my coworker. I don't have to share the

gospel with my friends. If I can just get them to church, they'll love the music.

They'll love the pastor. They'll love the small groups. And maybe just maybe

we can sneak in the gospel on the back end.

If I can get them there during a

D now or a revival, and if I can get them crying on a Thursday, I got him.

That's not how Jesus works. Jesus shows up in the synagogue and he says,

I have authority to speak this way. Now, what happens when Jesus does that?

Verse 23, and immediately, right?

That's that word, over 40 times in Mark, immediately there was in their synagogue,

a man with an unclean spirit.

And he cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Total side note, can you imagine the lunch after this day at the synagogue.

It's like, dude, we showed up at the synagogue today like we always do.

There was this guy named Jesus there. He was speaking completely different. We were awestruck.

And then right as we were getting over that, this dude with an unclean spirit

comes in like this. It was nuts. It's a big service for them.

Says, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?

I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

But Jesus rebuked him saying, be silent and come out of him.

And the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice came out of him.

And they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves saying, what is this?

A new teaching with authority.

He commands even unclean spirits to obey him.

So Jesus has authority to teach. He has authority to speak. Everything he says is the final word.

He not only has that though, he has authoritative power.

He can do whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it to whoever or whatever

he wants to do it to at any time, at any time, right?

You say, well, I'm so glad he has power over demons to do that.

Well, he does the same thing in essence to Paul on the road to Emmaus, right?

He calls these demons out of this guy and says, get away from him.

And he blinds Paul on the way to Emmaus to say, you will suffer for my namesake.

Jesus has authority to do things that we can't do. I said that in my prayer

earlier. I have no ability to save anyone.

I can make this make sense. I can explain it.

We can sit and go to Starbucks or wherever for five hours and try to explain and make sense.

And this is why they did that. This is where the Bible came from.

And this is from church history.

But if God doesn't step in, if Christ, who is the authority,

doesn't step in, there's nothing anyone can do.

And you got to imagine this guy has had this unclean spirit for who knows how long.

I would imagine the people probably knew who he was, right?

Every church has somebody that shows up every now and again where you're like,

I'm not saying they're unclean spirits. I'm just saying maybe, okay?

But this guy comes in and that's the response they have. Like,

hey, Jesus, this is Bill. He's the unclean spirits guy. I don't know.

They don't seem to be frightened by it. Like it's written in Mark in the sense

of like a man with an unclean spirit. Like, yeah, this is the Sabbath.

We get together. We talk for a while. Bill shows up.

They're not expecting anything to happen other than someone to go over to Bill

and hopefully be kind to him and say, hey, buddy, we got to get you out of here, right?

How can we help you? How can we get you out of here? Just like we would do,

just like we've done before when someone shows up, right?

Hey, how can we help you? What's going on? But that's not what Jesus does.

Jesus speaks directly to this demon. Now, it's interesting.

This demon knows exactly who he is. Now, a demon doesn't know exactly what he's

going to do and exactly how he's going to do it. But the demon does know who he is.

The demon does know that God's plan is for him to send his son and for that

son to ultimately crush the head of the serpent of Genesis 3. They know that.

It's interesting that what the demon does is this is a form of aggression, you could say.

But he says, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

Think of the story. We did this a couple months ago when Jacob wrestles with the angel.

Trying to get your adversary to tell them your name is a way for you to get them to submit, right?

I don't want my enemies to know my name, right? If I'm in a fight with somebody,

if there's something going on, like I don't care to announce who I am.

And that's exactly what's going on here is the demons thinking,

I'm gonna show up And i'm gonna look this guy in the face.

I'm gonna tell him I know exactly who you are I know exactly what you're doing

and i'm not leaving this guy,

Jesus listens to this for a little bit and he says, that's enough.

So listen, I said before, when Jesus says something, that's the final word on whatever that is.

Secondarily, when Jesus decides it's time to do something, it will happen.

When Jesus decides it's time for something to happen, it will happen.

He's not waiting on the world to catch up to his plans.

He's not waiting in your own life for you to figure something out,

for you to have some new theological revelation, for you to come to your senses,

for you to stop sinning, for you to get everything right, for your theology

to reach a certain level. He's not waiting for any of those things.

When Jesus is ready to do something in your life, he will do it.

And for this man, that's what happens. He looks at the demons and says, be silent.

The Greek there is much stronger than be silent, but be silent and come out of him.

And the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out a loud voice came out of him.

That's an incredible thing that just happened in one service.

Jesus speaks with authority. He has authoritative power to do whatever he wants.

And what happens, verse 29, and at once his fame spread everywhere throughout

all the surrounding region of Galilee.

Well, yeah, Yeah, I think so. That's not the weird part.

So again, he speaks with authority. He has authoritative power.

When he speaks, things happen.

So just a couple questions as we close and we get ready to take the Lord's Supper.

Number one, is God's word the final authority in your life, both positively and negatively?

Words, when the world treats you a certain way, when you feel a certain way

about yourself, when the devil who is the accuser and the liar of the brethren,

when he gets in your ear and says, he will never forgive you for this.

If anyone knew about this sin in your life, they would never forgive you.

They don't want anything to do with you.

If you were honest about your past, if people actually knew what you were like,

if people actually knew what kind of stuff you were into, then they would not

like you as much as they do right now. So make sure and keep those sins hidden.

Keep those things covered up. Don't let anybody into your life.

When the devil does that, is Jesus's word the authority in your life to say no? No.

Jesus has told me that he is faithful and just to forgive me of my sins if I will repent of them.

Jesus has told me he will be with me always. Jesus has told me that he loves

me and cares for me like a brother or a sister, that he's adopted me into his

family, positively and also negatively.

If you're doing things in your life, if you have certain habits,

if you act certain ways, if you have certain attitudes, is Jesus' word enough

authority in your life to make you stop?

One of the downsides, we've talked about this a lot, but having so many churches

around us is you can find one that lets you do what you want to do.

And what I mean by that is every church has a culture.

That's not bad. That's part of having people at a church, but different cultures

allow different sins, right?

There's certain sins that every culture will be quicker to call out than others.

And what we end up trying to do sometimes is, well, I'm going to go find a place,

find a group of Christians that we all kind of have the same sin.

And we have the same sin because they won't call me out for that.

And we can look at the world and we can go, can you believe,

can you believe the audacity of the world to talk, to do the transgender thing

or the marriage thing or the political thing?

Can you believe the world would do that?

All the while we sit in our holy huddles and go, at least we're not that.

At least I don't do that. I loved it this morning. We were studying 1 Peter.

For those of you who are in here, you know what I'm talking about.

And Peter's talking about, hey, don't get persecuted for doing these things.

In other words, get persecuted for being a Christian. That's really good.

Don't get persecuted for these things. He names three things.

Murderous, check. Don't want

to do that. Fievery, check. Don't want to do that. And meddling, dang it.

I couldn't believe, I told him, I couldn't believe that that was the triplet.

It's like, I'm thinking murdering, thieving, and I don't know, pick your big one.

Adultery. I don't know. Whatever it is. Like those three, I'm like,

yeah, those three go together.

But it's as if Peter knew, hey, they need to make sure that they understand

that murdering and thieving are bad, but meddling, something as small as meddling isn't exempt.

It's as if he knew that this church he was writing to, that Peter's going,

you know what they like to do.

They like to sit around and go, can you believe the unbelieving world and how murderous they are?

Can you believe these unbelievers and how much they steal and how much they are greedy?

And then he goes, well, don't meddle either. And they're like,

well, dang, we like to meddle.

Is Jesus's word the final authority in your life?

When he tells you not to do something or to do something, do you trust him?

I think in a lot of ways.

Peace is a good barometer as to who your authority is.

We talk about this again often, but you can always tell when a child has peace

about where he's at, he's got a lot of freedom, right? They run and they play.

They just have a good time because it's not because they're the authority.

It's because they have an authority over them that loves them well, right?

They know if everything hits the fan, if everything goes wrong,

someone will bail me out. I know someone.

I know the person that's in my life that has authority over me.

They will be there for me. They will make it right.

And by the same token, Christians, when they properly come under the authority

of Christ as king of their lives, have that kind of freedom.

To live their lives in such a way that says, listen, no matter what happens

to me, I know that the one that I follow, the one that's in authority over me, he will make it right.

No matter what injustices are done to me, no matter the way people treat me,

no matter how people talk about me, no matter how the job goes,

no matter how the health situation goes, that Jesus has authority over everything

and he will make it right.

A Christian that lacks peace is a Christian that is in a rebellion against the Lord.

Because if we lack peace, either Christ is failing to keep his promise or we

are failing to trust his promise and Christ doesn't fail to keep his promises.

God the Father is called the God of peace in Hebrews 13. God the Son,

the Prince of peace in Isaiah 9.

God the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of peace in Ephesians 4.

If these are our authorities, if this is the authority of our life, peace flows out of that.

Philippians 4, famously, verse 6, Do not be anxious about anything,

but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving,

let your requests be known to God.

That's an incredible thing that you can even do that, but he's imploring them.

Paul saying, let them be known to God. And what happens?

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts

and minds in Christ Jesus.

Now, this is one of those terrible verse breaks in the Bible. Terrible.

I'm not saying I'm smart on the guys that put verses in there, but this is a bad one.

And here's why. The end of verse five should be the beginning of verse six. This is how this starts.

So again, verse six starts right now. Do not be anxious about anything but in

everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be known to God alright,

the end of verse five. The Lord is at hand. The Lord is at hand.

This was written to Christians who are under the constant threat of someone

coming in and legally splitting up their families, taking their children away

from them, taking their homes away from them, getting murdered by the state.

That's who this is written to. And what is Paul's appeal? What does Paul say?

He doesn't just make an appeal to their emotions and say, listen, God loves you so much.

He loves you so much and he cares for you so much. And if you would just ask

him, if you would just pray to him, oh, he would take that away from him.

No, he appeals to the authority of God when he says, the Lord is at hand.

The Lord is on his throne and he knows your frame. He knows you're fragile.

He knows you sin. He knows you stumble. He knows that you're going to get a lot wrong.

He knows all of those things. And so, hey, do not be anxious.

Why? Because the Lord is at hand.

That relationship that you're so worried about, hey, listen,

it will not overtake you because the Lord is at hand.

That health scare is not outside of the Lord's authority.

That job won't be the end of you. The Lord is at hand, right?

The Lord is at hand and he holds your children in the palms of his hands.

The Lord is at hand and he knows the deepest pains that you carry with you.

The Lord is at hand and he can forgive that sin that you were so ashamed of.

The Lord is at hand, so do not be anxious.

Let your requests be known to God. And the peace that he promises you will be

given to you because not only does he alone have the authority to do that, he is willing to do that.

So as we get ready to close, I'm

going to pray. I'm going to have somebody come up and play a little bit.

The Lord's Supper is here. The way we do that, just so you know,

there's two cups that you grab.

Juice is on top, red's on the bottom, so we'll do that separately.

As you get ready to take the Lord's Supper. If you're a believer in Christ,

we ask that you take the Lord's Supper.

If you're in good standing, we want you to do that. If you're not a believer,

we ask you to refrain from that simply because this is something for believers.

But as you do that, my prayer for us is that we come to this table,

submitting ourselves to God's authority in every way.

Again, whether positively or negatively, whether you need the Lord's authority

in your life to remind you, hey, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

He loves you. He cares for you.

You have been made righteous and blameless. You stand before God without a single fault.

Or if there's an area of your life that you need to repent of and say,

God, I have bucked against your authority.

I know that you've called me to do that. I know you've called me to forgive.

I know you've called me to be gracious. I know you've called me to be giving,

but God, I have bucked against that authority.

Make that your prayer as you come to the table this morning.

Because I don't know if there's a better picture in the Christian life of coming

under God's authority than coming to the Lord's table to say,

I can't save myself. It's your broken body.

Your blood spilled out. That is where we come to the table to say,

I don't want to be the authority on my life anymore.

So let me pray. I'll have somebody come up and pick a little bit.

As soon as I get done praying, feel free to come up here, grab the Lord's Supper,

and just come back to your table, and then we'll partake.

So Lord, thank you for today.

Thank you for the chance to be here, to be with your people.

God, I pray that as we get ready to take the Lord's Supper, we would have this

message in mind of authority.

Christ has authority. Your son has authority. He speaks authoritatively.

He has authoritative power over demons and over men, over kings,

over presidents, over nations.

God, first and foremost, that we would take the words that you say to us and

they would be the final word in our lives.

Whether we need a soft touch this morning that says, and as a reminder that

we are loved and cared for, or whether we need some discipline in our lives

to say, submit yourself to the authority, Lord God, would you do that?

Would you do that? Spirit, would you help us to see, give us hearts that are tender to that?

Second, God, that we would trust your power.

We would trust Christ's power in our lives, that when he is ready to do something,

we know that he will do it.

And we wouldn't spend our days running around thinking of all the things that

we need that we don't have, but instead we would put those at the feet of Jesus

and say, Lord, when you're ready, I know that it will happen,

because nothing will stop you from doing what you set out to do.

And we thank you for that.

Pray for us as we come to the table. We would be repentant sinners this morning,

that you would forgive us of the sins that we have committed, both known and unknown.

Who would come to your table humble and expectant that you would show up.