Jesus Has Real Authority

Well, if you're just joining us, we're doing something really cool this year.

We're going through the entire book of Matthew.

We started this a few weeks back, about a month or so ago.

We're calling this following Jesus.

We are spending the year following Jesus by going bit by bit through the book of Matthew, which chronicles Jesus' life, his teaching, the things that he did.

It's amazing.

And it's interesting, I read a quote years ago, written by a man who's known as Richard of Chichester, which is hard to say.

This was written 800 years ago.

Okay?

800 years ago, this man wrote this.

Check it out.

Day by day, dear Lord, of the three things I pray.

To see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, to follow thee more nearly, day by day.

800 years ago, that was written.

And what Richard, as I call him, expresses in that is something that I'm sure a lot of us connect with.

There's no one like Jesus.

There's no one like him.

There's never been anyone like him.

He stands alone, he stands atop of human history.

He is wholly unique.

And if we could know him better, if we could just see him more clearly.

Many of us, maybe you're new to the whole Jesus thing, or you're just checking it out, you're here with a friend, you're not even sure what you believe.

Maybe you're watching from home and you're kind of you're curious.

Well, what you need is to see Jesus more clearly.

You need to see him for who he actually is so that you can make a decision as to whether or not you're gonna you're gonna follow him.

Because the way Jesus is, I'm just gonna tell you this up front, you see him, the more clearly you see him, like you have to make a decision with him.

He's he demands it.

But what I've experienced is that the more clearly you see Jesus, the more irresistible he becomes.

In fact, there's this amazing verse in Hebrews chapter 1, it's the very first part of verse 3.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

It says that the Son, talking about Jesus, radiates God's, and here it means God the Father.

And if you're confused on the whole Jesus the Son, God the Father, the Holy Spirit thing, we call that the Trinity.

We've got a really cool podcast episode where we explain that to the best of our ability.

Look it up.

But it says that the Son radiates the Father's own glory and expresses the very character of God the Father.

In other words, Jesus shows us what God looks like because he's God.

He is the exact representation of God the Father.

And so if we want to have a clear image of God, we need a clear image of Jesus.

And this year we're gonna see Jesus more clearly.

And what I hope results in that is that for those of us who have already decided, yeah, I'm in, I follow Jesus, I love Jesus, that you just you love him more.

You ever have someone in your life that you love, but then you see something you've never noticed before, you appreciate them in a new way, and you just love them more than you used to, that will happen with Jesus.

There's never gonna be a day where you're gonna get to the end of him and you're like, well, I've seen it all.

No, no, no.

The more you see him, the closer you walk with him, the more you love him.

And the more your heart fills with a desire to follow him better.

Like I'm a Jesus follower, I'm not always a good one.

I love Jesus, I'm not always good at loving Jesus.

But I want to love him more and I want to follow him more closely.

And if any of that speaks to your heart, that you have a desire to see him more clearly, to love him more dearly, to follow him more nearly.

If any of that is like, yes, I want that, this year is for you because that's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to follow him so that we we check those boxes, he becomes more clear to us, we know him better.

We don't just know more about him, but we know him better.

So we're gonna follow Jesus this year.

And we're doing this as literally as we can.

We are kind of following along his journey, and so we've looked at a lot of maps, we've done a lot of a lot of dotted lines and kind of where he's at.

And let me get us all up to speed as we jump into what we're at today.

So, this is the part of the world that Jesus is operating in.

This is Israel, and we've broken this map down into the regions.

Um, if you've ever opened up your Bible, you've read books like Matthew, you see these words, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, you see these things pop up.

This is where Jesus hung out.

This is ancient Israel in terms of its regions at the time.

And uh a few weeks ago we we started looking at Jesus teaching the Sermon on the Mount, and all these people start to come to hear Jesus speak.

And they're coming from all over the place.

They come right to the north of the Sea of Galilee to hear Jesus, and right north of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus delivers the most incredible message that has ever been given.

He turns everyone's expectations, everyone's assumptions about God upside down and shows people that there is more than they ever thought possible.

Jesus does an unbelievable job of teaching us that God operates differently.

Even if we've grown up in church, like many of the people who listened to Jesus that day grew up in their version of church, he shows us that God is surprising, that God values things that we don't always value, that we're not as far from God as we might think we are, but also we don't know God as well as we might think we do.

There's so much to learn.

And for the next several weeks, as we see Jesus in the aftermath of this amazing message that he gives, we're gonna spend a lot of time around the Sea of Galilee.

So we'll kind of zoom in on this.

This is the area that we're gonna be operating in for the next several weeks.

Capernaum at the north there, that's where Jesus lives at this time.

It's not where he's from, but it's where he lives.

And we're gonna see Jesus just kind of going here, there, and everywhere along the Sea of Galilee.

Now it tells us in Matthew chapter 7 that immediately after, immediately after Jesus is finished with his message, the crowds are amazed.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

It says this in Matthew 7, verse 28.

Matthew 7:28

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority, quite unlike their teachers of religious law.

I want us to lock that short phrase, real authority, into our minds, because that is going to be our theme for the next several weeks.

Jesus has real authority.

And it's a different kind of authority than we've ever seen on this earth.

Now, I do not know what your life experience with authority is or has been.

Some of us are naturally compliant.

Show of hands, if you're a naturally compliant person, obviously you're going to raise your hand because you are naturally compliant, right?

Those of you who aren't compliant, I'm not even gonna ask you to raise your hands because there would be no point.

You're not going to do it, right?

If you did, it would prove me wrong.

It would prove you wrong.

You're not, you're clear.

No, some of us, like, we're wired to be naturally compliant, so authority for us, yeah, we we're the we were the kids in school who did what the teacher said.

Right?

We lined up, we were quiet.

That was not me, but but we did those things, and and so we probably got to be like the line leader and the hall monitor and those types of things because the teacher trusted us.

Raise your hand, just be honest.

In elementary school, did your teacher trust you?

Show of hands, let's see the trustworthy people.

Show of hands that your teacher did not trust you, and you, yeah, I was one of those.

I had a desk, Miss Greshewsky, first grade.

She called it the island, it was right next to her, and I sat at the island all year long.

It just is.

Some of us like authority, we don't have a problem with it, we're naturally compliant.

Even if we don't fully trust it, we we're oh we just have an ability to kind of go along with that.

Some of us are like the opposite.

We are rebellious by nature.

We have problems with authority, and often authority has had problems with us.

A lot of us are wired like that.

And a lot of us are probably somewhere in between.

That's that's honestly where I've lived most of my life, somewhere in between.

There are certain authority figures that I don't mess with, and there's others that I do.

And it just sort of depends on how I read the situation.

So, like for me growing up, I was not rebellious with my parents.

Um, like normal stuff, like I lied and I did things I shouldn't have done and hid things from my parents to a certain degree, but not in anything, not in any crazy way.

I was a pretty compliant child at home, but at school, that is where I pushed the envelope.

In fact, uh one of my high school teachers has attended here at his hands for a very long time.

She's on our prayer team, and the fact that she goes here is it's truly a miracle.

Uh because I was really hard on Ms.

Zeph.

And every time I talk about school, I have to say, I'm so sorry, Ms.

Zeph.

You're amazing.

The grace of God and forgiveness that you have shown by being here at this church is incredible.

Um if you ever decide to disrupt one of my messages, I've had it coming for a long, long time.

So, Mrs.

Zeppo was awesome, but I gave Ms.

Zeph a hard time along with several of my friends.

But honestly, where I pushed the envelope the most when it came to authority growing up was if I ever had a substitute teacher.

And I recognize that in this room and watching from home, like there's probably several of us who are substitute teachers or have been substitute teachers, and man, you guys are brave.

And on behalf of everyone, I'm sorry.

I'm really sorry.

Because I there was a substitute teacher named Miss Cunningham.

And one time my little brother, six years younger than me, also had Miss Cunningham.

And I'd had her several times substitute at my school, and when she got to my little brother's last name, McTear is a unique last name, and she said, Aaron McTear, are you by chance related to Justin McTear?

And he went, That's my older brother.

And she literally said, I hope you're nothing like him.

She said that to him.

And he's a lot like me.

So that didn't go well for me.

No, but Miss Cunningham, like, one time, I'll give you an example that sort of showcases what this was like for her.

Um, she was actually substituting for, ironically, Miss Zepho, who attends here at his hands and serves as awesome.

And so she was our substitute in English class.

And myself and three or four of my friends just, I mean, we salivated if we saw a substitute teacher.

We were like, yes, we are going to ruin this class.

We're not gonna do any work, we're just gonna have fun.

And one day we broke Miss Cunningham.

We broke her.

Now hold on.

Some people, when they break, they shut down and they just sort of like sink within themselves.

Some people, when they break, lose their minds.

She was that one.

Okay.

So here's what happened.

It was awesome, but all but also awful.

So Miss Cunningham comes to her class, it's an English class, and at the time we were reading William Shakespeare, and William Shakespeare wrote a lot of sonnets, and those sonnets are just numbers.

It's like sonnet 20, sonnet 100.

And I don't remember the exact number, but Mrs.

Cunningham said, turn to, and let's just, again, I don't remember the numbers, but it was something like this.

She said, turn to sonnet 118 on page 82.

And my my good friend Trevor, who was like one of the guys, we were we were always messing with the teachers, he said, I don't see a sonnet 182 on page 118.

And she said, No, I said sonnet 118 on page 82, thinking Trevor was legitimately trying to find the right sonnet on the right page, but I knew that Trevor heard her very clearly, and he had an amazing idea.

And so I jump in and go, Did you say sonnet 108 on page 114?

And she says, No, I said sonnet 118 on page 82.

And then Trevor, he's playing along great.

He goes, I'm on page 182, and there is no sonnet 18.

And she said, No, I said sonnet 118 on page 82, and I said, I'm on page 182, and there's not a sonnet anywhere on this page.

And this is just going back and forth for several minutes until our good friend Evan made it too obvious what we were doing.

He said something like sonnet seven on page four, and then she realized that none of the last five minutes had been spent with us earnestly trying to find the right sonnet, that we had just been having fun at her expense.

And when that happened, this was like the fifth time she had subbed for us, she slammed the book down and just did one of those adult shakes.

You know what I'm talking about?

Like where you as a young person go, ooh, we may have gone too far.

She lost her mind, and it was glorious.

But honestly, Miss Cunningham, if you are watching, I don't know why you would be, uh, but I am, I'm sorry.

Just something about messing with authority.

All of us have interesting experiences with authority, right?

And in a perfect world, we would all respect authority, we would all follow authority, because in a perfect world, authority would have proven to us time and time again that it can be trusted and followed.

But that is not the world that we live in.

We've all experienced authority being misused.

We've probably all had situations where maybe we had a boss or someone else that was in leadership that had the authority to stop something that was really bad.

Like something was happening, there's some dynamics that are happening that are they're just wrong and they're causing all kinds of stress and drama, and the person who's in charge is maybe conflict adverse, or they just don't like to feel awkward, so they won't handle it, they won't deal with it.

And we have to sit there and endure a really tough situation because the person who has the authority to do something about it doesn't want to get involved.

So it's hard to trust authority when authority doesn't always use that authority to take care of things, or we've seen authority abused.

Situations where someone has authority and they use that authority to make everyone else feel small, to take advantage of people, to berate people.

That authority is often used selfishly to make sure that they have what they need, but there's no desire to serve anyone else.

We've all seen authority mishandled, and so we have a difficult time trusting and following authority.

But what we're gonna see today is that Jesus is an entirely different type of authority.

There's never been anyone like him, and we can trust him and we can follow him.

In fact, I would say that we we have to, we need to.

We need to be led, and we need to be led well, and there is no one, there is no one better to lead us than Jesus.

So I'm gonna read the majority of Matthew chapter eight.

This is immediately after Jesus returns from the Sermon on the Mount.

These are the first experiences that people have with him after that.

And what you're gonna see over and over again is Jesus' authority at work.

And then we'll explore this together.

So let's let's read.

Matthew chapter 8 says, Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

Suddenly a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him.

Lord, the man said, If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.

Jesus reached out and touched him.

I'm willing, he said, Be healed.

And instantly the leprosy disappeared.

Then Jesus said to him, Don't tell anyone about this.

Instead, go to the priest and let him examine you.

Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy.

This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed.

When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him, Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.

Jesus said, I will come and heal him.

But the officer said, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home.

Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed.

I know this because I'm under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers.

I only need to say, Go, and they go, or come and they come.

And if I say to my slaves, do this, they do it.

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed.

Turning to those who were following him, he said, I tell you the truth, I haven't seen faith like this in all Israel.

And I tell you this that many Gentiles will come from all over the world, from east and west, to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven.

But many Israelites, those for whom the kingdom was prepared, will be thrown into outer darkness, but there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And then Jesus said to the Roman officer, Go back home, because you believed it has happened, and the young servant was healed that same hour.

When Jesus arrived at Peter's house, Peter's mother-in-law was sick in bed with a high fever, but when Jesus touched her hand, the fever left her.

Then she got up and prepared a meal for him.

That evening many demon-possessed people were brought to Jesus.

He cast out the evil spirits with a simple command, and he healed all the sick.

This fulfilled the word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah, who said, He took our sicknesses and removed our diseases.

When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he instructed his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake.

And then one of the teachers of religious law said, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.

But Jesus replied, Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.

Another of his disciples said, Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.

And Jesus told him, Follow me now.

Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead.

And then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples, and suddenly a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat, but Jesus was sleeping.

The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, Lord, save us, we're going to drown.

Jesus responded, Why are you afraid?

You have so little faith.

And then he got up and he rebuked the wind and the waves, and suddenly there was a great calm.

And the disciples were amazed at saying, Who is this man?

Even the winds and waves obey him.

So Jesus is very busy in the aftermath of the Sermon on the Mount.

And time and time again we see, we see a lot, but what we specifically see here is the authority of Jesus.

And even though it was kind of in the middle of what we read, I want to focus for a moment on the Roman officer, also known as a Roman centurion, we find from other details.

This man, he gets it.

He gets it.

He gets the authority of Jesus like that, faster than pretty much anyone else around Jesus has understood.

He doesn't just see Jesus as someone who has ability or influence or even power.

We'll talk about that in a little bit, but he sees Jesus as someone who has authority.

Jesus can make things happen.

Now it makes sense that this man would understand this because he is a he's a Roman soldier.

And Rome was all about authority.

The one thing you did not do in Rome was cross Rome.

If you crossed Rome, you were crushed.

He's a Roman soldier.

The whole Roman Empire was built on maintaining the authority of Rome.

There was constant reminders about it.

In fact, Jesus says something interesting in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

This was in the Sermon on the Mount.

He says, if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.

Which is an interesting thing for us to think about.

What situation would someone force you to go a mile?

What's he talking about?

That's why the New Living Translation, which tries its best to really make sure we get the meaning, not just the actual, not just the words, but the meaning, puts it this way.

If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles, because that is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

You see, there was a law in Rome that a Roman soldier could walk up to any citizen or non-citizen, anyone in the area at any time and say, Hey, here's my pack, carry it with me as I go this way.

A Roman pack would weigh between 65 and 100 pounds.

This is the gear that soldiers are carrying with them everywhere.

And so soldiers are going by foot, they see you on the side of the road, they're like, hey, you, walk a mile.

Now, by law, they were only required, you were only required to go a mile.

And Jesus actually says, hey, if a soldier tells you to carry my 65 to 100 pound pack for a mile, be like, I'll do two.

That would have been a surprising thing for the Jewish people to hear Jesus say.

Roman soldiers were always reminding people about the authority of Rome.

That's what that rule was sort of designed for.

It wasn't just to make the life of soldiers easier, it was to remind all the people at any moment, anywhere, anytime, you are under authority.

Do what you're told.

And this man is a centurion, which means that he has a hundred soldiers under his command.

He's part of our legion.

Roman legions were five to six thousand soldiers.

He's part of a century, would be a hundred soldiers.

They were divided into smaller groups, and this man is in charge of a hundred other soldiers, so he gets authority.

He understands the authority of Rome.

He's been a soldier, he can tell people what to do, and they do it.

And he sees in Jesus authority.

To the point where he tells Jesus, look, you don't even have to bother yourself, you don't even have to come in person, just say the word.

I know it's gonna get done.

He recognizes the authority of Jesus in a way that really no one else up to this point has.

And it kind of blows Jesus away.

This insurian, he's got it, he's right.

Jesus does have that level of authority.

I mean, the question that the disciples ask later, who is this man?

Even the wind and waves obey him?

Like, who has that kind of authority?

Jesus does, but like I said earlier, it's a kind of authority that we've just never seen on this earth.

And it's so unique and it's so amazing.

For one thing, it's not just authority, it is authority and wisdom.

Jesus has authority and wisdom.

The worst type of situation I can imagine being in is being under the authority of a fool.

Like if you're under the authority of someone who doesn't know what they're doing, that's that's terrifying.

I'm sure none of us have ever been at a job where our boss didn't know what they were doing.

Right?

Like the authority of a fool is a terrifying thing.

But Jesus is no fool.

No, no, he has tremendous wisdom.

In fact, one of my favorite stories with Jesus, I love Jesus so much, and one of my favorite stories with Jesus is in John chapter 7, he's in the temple, and the Jewish leaders in the temple who don't like Jesus, they send some temple guards.

John 7 · chapter mention

These are guards whose whole job is to work at the temple.

They're at the temple day in and day out, right?

They're hearing all the temple things going on, all the teachings, all the sacrifices, and they're supposed to keep things in order, and they're sent to arrest Jesus in the temple, and they go to arrest him, but then they don't.

And they come back and they have to explain themselves to their bosses.

And in Matthew chapter, or John rather, chapter 7, it says, When the temple guards return without having arrested Jesus, the leading priests and Pharisees demanded, Why didn't you bring them in?

We have never heard anyone speak like this, is what they said.

In other words, we think about this.

They are sent by teachers.

Their bosses are the Jewish teachers, the leaders in the temple.

They're sent by these teachers who they've heard teach thousands of times, go arrest this guy.

They go there, and what Jesus is saying is so amazing, so profound, so incredible, they just sit and listen.

And then they forget to arrest them.

They go back to their bosses, and their bosses are like, why didn't you arrest them?

Like, no offense.

We've just never heard anyone speak like that.

That had to be so offensive.

But it's true, like people would just hear Jesus teach and it would blow their minds.

That's why we spend Sunday after Sunday just pouring into what Jesus said and what it means and all the implications.

Because Jesus understands life like only the author of life could.

He understands you more than you understand yourself.

All those moments where you go, why do I do this?

Why do these thoughts enter my head?

Why can't I shake this?

Why can't I get past this?

Why do I keep this same cycle going over and over?

And you don't understand yourself?

Jesus understands you.

He knows you better than you know yourself.

He understands you better than you understand yourself.

And I promise you, he loves you more than you love yourself.

And so you can submit to his authority in your life because it's not the authority of a fool who knows little.

So with Jesus, we have authority plus wisdom.

But we also have authority plus love.

In Matthew chapter 8, very first things that we read really this morning, it said, Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

And suddenly a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him.

Lord, the man said, If you're willing, you can heal me and make me clean.

And Jesus reached out and touched him.

I am willing, he said, Be healed.

And instantly the leprosy disappeared.

Now, Jesus didn't have to touch this man.

In fact, he wasn't supposed to.

He didn't have to touch this man.

We already know from Matthew chapter 8 that Jesus can heal just by word.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

He can tell a storm to stop and it stops.

He can dismiss sickness from miles away, apparently.

But this man is a leper.

And in his culture, if you had leprosy, you were cast out, you were banished, and you were not allowed to be touched.

And it can seem harsh and unloving, and in many ways it was, but at the same time, that disease spreads so fast that caution had to be taken.

This is a man who likely has not had another human being embrace him in who knows how long.

And he's not asking Jesus to give him a hug.

He's not asking Jesus to put his arm around him, he's asking Jesus to heal him.

He says, Lord, if you're willing, and Jesus is willing not only to heal him, but to love him.

And Jesus touches this leper.

But instead of Jesus getting leprosy, this man's leprosy goes away because again, Jesus is different.

It's amazing the first miracles that we see Jesus do after the Sermon on the Mount, we see him heal a leper.

This person would have been viewed as the least important in the entire world.

Just a leper.

We see Jesus heal a servant or a slave.

Slavery was massive in the Roman Empire.

About a third of the population would have been slaves.

Slaves were not viewed as people, but as property.

In fact, if you were a Roman slave owner, you could not be convicted of killing one of your own slaves.

It was impossible because you're free to kill your slave.

It's your property.

That's the way the world viewed those people.

And Jesus heals a slave.

So we have a leper and a slave.

Jesus is really going after movers and shakers.

You know, he's really trying to help those who can really help him in return, right?

No, not at all.

These are the lowest people in the kingdom.

Then he heals the mother-in-law of a fisherman.

So he's climbing the ladder now.

We've gone from lepers to slaves.

We're at mother-in-law's in-laws of fishermen.

That's where we're at.

But think about how often people who have authority use their authority to bless people who are important.

We see that happen all the time.

People who have authority, who have say, they use their clout to bless people who have the ability to bless them back.

But not Jesus.

He helps the lowest of the low.

Why?

Because he loves people.

We don't always see authority combined with love in our world, but we see that with Jesus.

And it's amazing.

He has authority, but he has love.

He loves all of us.

None of us are too low or at too low a point for Jesus to step into our lives and to do what we need done.

Now, Jesus not only has love and wisdom, he also has integrity.

And this is maybe the most rare, someone who has authority and integrity, both of those.

We see this in Matthew chapter 8, verses 19 and 20.

Matthew 8:19

One of the religious leaders said to him, Teacher, I'll follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus said, Are you sure?

Basically, he goes, Hey, foxes have dens to live in, birds have nests, the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.

Jesus knows that he's going to spend the next three years being an outlaw.

He's not going to live in a little cozy home.

He's going to be on the run.

He's going to be sleeping in tents, homeless.

That's what Jesus' journey is going to be.

And he's telling this teacher of religious law who likely would have been fairly well off, saying, Are you sure?

Because it's not going to be what you think.

Like we're not staying at the nice hotels.

Okay?

We're sleeping outside.

But this shows us something about Jesus.

He has all the authority in the world, and yet he doesn't ever use his authority to benefit himself.

Ever.

A couple weeks ago we looked at the temptation of Jesus in Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

He's very hungry.

He's been fasting for a long time when Satan shows up to tempt him.

And it says, During that time the devil came and said to him, If you're really the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.

Use your power, feed yourself.

And Jesus could have done it.

We'll get to lots of stories where Jesus feeds people who are hungry.

He uses his miraculous power to feed hungry people, but he doesn't use it to feed himself.

Think about all the miracles that Jesus performed.

And if you're new to church, you may not know that many.

But if you've been in church your whole life, you might just have a long list in your mind.

Like, think about him.

Which all the miracles.

This person, he healed, that person, he fed these people.

Like, which miracles did Jesus do for his own benefit?

Can you think of a time when Jesus used his own power for his own sake?

You can't think of one.

That's, I mean, think about in our world how people often who have authority use that authority for themselves to make their life better, to make their life easier.

But Jesus never does that.

There's zero corruption in Jesus.

He is incorruptible.

He has authority and he has integrity, which means you can always trust him.

Which means he never asks you to do something that he has not done himself or would do himself.

If Jesus ever asks you to make a sacrifice, he's willing to make an even greater sacrifice he already has.

Because he has integrity.

Now he also has power, and this is the last one we're going to focus on.

Jesus has authority plus power.

And that's manifested in so many stories, every story that we've read really, but I think it's it's the most climactic with the storm.

It says Jesus got into the boat and he started across the lake with his disciples, and suddenly a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat, but Jesus was asleep.

The disciples went, they woke him up shouting, Lord, save us, we're gonna drown.

Jesus responded, Why are you afraid?

You have so little faith.

And then he got up and he rebuked the wind and the waves, and suddenly there was a great calm.

The disciples were amazed.

Who is this man?

They asked.

Even the winds and waves obey him.

Think about that.

Even the winds and the waves obey Jesus.

I mean, that is power.

That's power.

None of us know what that is like.

None of us could even imagine.

I mean, we can imagine, but it would be hard to really think about being able to just tell the weather what to do.

Like I would settle for just being able to tell my kids what to do, and then they would do it.

I'd in fact, I'd settle for like 70% of the time.

My kids do what I ask.

That amount of power, I don't, maybe I can't be trusted with that much power.

Maybe that's why that doesn't happen.

Because God's like, you're not ready for that kind of power, man.

It'll go to your head.

I don't know.

But but Jesus has power over sickness, over weather, over depending on what your theology is, this might be a little strange, but that's okay with me.

Over demons.

Like they obey him.

It said that he he cast out evil spirits just by a word, just by get out.

Go.

And they're like, all right, we're going.

That's power.

So Jesus, let's think about this for a second.

Jesus has real authority, unlike anyone else this world has ever seen or will ever see.

And it isn't just authority for authority's sake.

He has authority plus wisdom.

He has authority plus love.

He has authority plus integrity.

He has authority plus power.

And so the question is do we trust that authority?

Or maybe a better question is how could you not trust that authority?

The reason that we don't trust authority in our world is because we see authority without all those things all the time.

We've seen authority without wisdom, we've seen authority without love, we've seen authority without integrity, we've seen authority without real power.

But we've never seen someone who has all of that, who has authority and wisdom and love and integrity and real power.

And if that kind of authority is standing in front of you, how could you not submit to it?

How could you not follow that?

And so the question that I'd love for all of us to consider today, whether we're we're new to Jesus, considering Jesus, or have been following Jesus for a long time, is do I truly submit to the authority of Jesus?

I was thinking about it this week and it kind of hit me.

It's a greater level of faith to have faith in Jesus' authority than it is even to have faith in his love or his power.

Like we should have faith in those other things.

You should have faith in the wisdom of Jesus.

You can listen to the things that Jesus said and do those things, and man, it's it's a whole different way to live.

It's awesome.

It's tough, but it's awesome.

And you can have faith in the integrity of Jesus, you can believe in with your whole heart that Jesus is who he says he is and that he's a good guy.

You can have faith in the love of Jesus, right?

That he really cares about you, that he knows you, that he thinks highly of you.

You can have faith in the power of Jesus.

You can believe that Jesus is capable of anything.

And you can pray with that kind of faith, having faith in his power.

We like to have faith in his power.

We should.

But what I'm asking is, do you have faith in his authority?

Because I believe that that's a higher level of faith.

It's a higher level of faith to believe in the authority of God and to trust the authority of God than just to trust in the power of God.

And by the way, we see Jesus live this out.

He's always the model that we follow in all of this.

In Luke chapter 22, Jesus is praying to God the Father before he goes to the cross.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

He says, Father, if you're willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me.

Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.

And here's what we see in Jesus in this moment.

He has complete faith in the power of God the Father.

He knows that God the Father has the power to remove him from his suffering.

God the Father has the power to get Jesus out of the situation that he's in.

When Jesus was on the cross, he knew that he had the power, God the Father had the power to just, nope, not doing it.

And so he prays, trusting the Father's power.

If there's any way, take this.

Get me out of this.

But then he shows a higher level of faith and obedience.

And it's faith not just in the power of God, but in the authority of God.

Because he says, you know what?

Ultimately, whatever you say, not my will, but yours.

Jesus shows us what it means to trust in the authority of God.

Where it's not just, Lord, please do this, because I know you can.

But Lord, here's what I'd love for you to do.

And I'm asking for you to do this.

And I'm asking because it seems like what I'm asking for goes along with your goodness and your love and your power.

And I know you can do this, Lord.

And I have faith in all of that, but but Lord, ultimately, I'm submitting to your authority.

And I'm trusting your decision.

And whatever you say, I'll do it.

And if that means I have to go through a really hard situation, I'll do it.

And if that means I don't get out of this difficult circumstance and I have to endure, so be it.

That's a different level of faith.

To say, not only do I trust in your power, but I trust in your authority.

I submit to you.

Submission is it's it's like it's a bad word.

That's why I would never send an email out saying, come Sunday, we're going to talk about submission.

No one would be here.

Okay, a few people would be here.

But no, honestly, submission is hard.

We don't like to submit.

But man, if you have authority in your life, and it's authority plus wisdom and love and integrity and power, and that is all within Jesus, I'm telling you, you have to submit to that.

You surrender your life to that.

And you say, I will follow you anywhere.

I will do whatever you say.

Because that authority will only lead you where you could never get to on your own.

You could never get there on your own.

Now I spent some time this week like thinking through this.

Lord, on worship team, you guys can make your way up as we we close.

Lord, am I actually treating you like the authority that you are?

And it's tough sometimes, to be honest with you, because I mean I love Jesus so much.

I love him so much.

And I'm so amazed by Jesus.

And I know he loves me, and he's so good, and he's so kind, and he's so patient, and he's so gentle, that sometimes, if I'm just being honest, sometimes I can focus so much on his love and his goodness and his gentleness and his faithfulness that I can almost forget, oh yeah, he's in charge.

Like he's Jesus.

All authority in heaven and on earth.

We're gonna talk about that in a few weeks, what that means.

Jesus says, I've been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

And I need to follow him.

I need to love him, I need to serve.

All those things are good.

I need to worship him, I need to celebrate him.

I need to talk about it.

But at the end of the day, I need to follow Jesus.

And I spent some time this week going, Lord, is there any part of my life that is not fully submitted to you?

And the answer was no, Justin, you're doing it perfectly well.

Everything's going great, not one thing.

Yeah.

No, they were, oh man, it was amazing how many, how many little things just popped in my mind where I went, man, in that part of my life right now, yeah, I'm not, I'm not even thinking about submitting that to you.

Like that's my thing.

And so I've had a few areas of life that I've I've had to wrestle with a little bit this week and go, you know what, Lord?

All right.

I haven't been doing this for you.

I haven't been listening to you in this part of life.

I've just kind of, I'm doing, I've got my you time and then I'm doing my me time.

And that's not how it works.

It's all his.

My life is his.

And if you've given your life to Jesus, you've given your life to Jesus.

And so I would encourage all of us to just say, is there any part of my life, any part, that is not submitted to you?

There's a silly illustration that pops in my head.

I've I've gone to this for years.

I think this is something that it's not very original, but it's something that kind of popped in my mind when I was a youth pastor working with students.

But I I've always been impacted by Revelation chapter 3, verse 20, where Jesus says, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone would hear me and open the door, I'll come in and we'll share a meal together as friends.

Revelation 3:20

And I think about what it would be like for Jesus to knock, knock on your door.

You know, and in this scenario, imagine that this door, it's a metaphor for your life, right?

It's it's you.

And so many of you have experienced this.

Jesus, quote unquote, knocked on your door, he he stirred within your heart, and you at some point in time open that door.

Maybe you haven't yet.

Maybe you're still resisting, maybe you're looking out the window, the peephole, going, Can I trust him?

You know, he'll keep knocking.

Um, but he loves you, he won't kick the door in, he'll just knock over and over.

Just open the door, okay?

Uh but if you've opened the door, here's what Jesus does: He comes in.

Now he's in your home, now he's in your life.

And he wants to go everywhere and do everything and mess with all of it.

But we don't like it that way.

When you have a guest in your home, do you just go, hey, go wherever?

Or do you go like stay here?

You know?

We have guests that come to our house, we clean the living room, the guest bathroom, and then we shut a bunch of doors.

We're just gonna pretend those things don't exist.

Those are doors to nothing.

And if someone ever to go to one of those doors and open them, we'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, come back over here.

You know?

Don't go down there.

Don't go upstairs where the three boys in our home live do not go upstairs.

We don't even go upstairs.

Um, but see, Jesus, he's not like that.

Like, he'll start going to all your doors.

And he'll be like, hey, I want to go in here.

And you're like, ooh, Jesus.

That room's kind of like it's like private.

Mm-mm.

No, he's got authority.

And the fear that we often have is that if we let Jesus in, if we submit those areas of our life to Jesus where we kind of have the door shut, so to speak, the fear is that he'll mess with it and he'll make it worse.

Jesus has never made anything worse.

And he's the only person who's ever lived who's never made anything worse.

And you're right to suspect that if you let Jesus into those areas, if you submit those areas of your life, you're right that to suspect he will mess with them.

No doubt.

And maybe those are areas that you just really like the way that they are.

Maybe they're areas that you hate, but you're embarrassed and you're ashamed, and you're like, Lord, let me get it into a better state, and then I'll open the door to you.

No, no, no, that's not how it works.

He's not gonna be shocked.

He's got plans, he's got good intentions, and he knows what to do.

And so, I mean, I'll just ask it: are your relationships submitted to Jesus?

In every aspect, are your romantic relationships submitted to him?

Do you say, Lord, this part of my life it's yours, and it's to bring honor and glory to you?

And I submit my relationships under your authority?

Are your relationships with your family members, your co workers, your superiors, right?

The people that you lead at work, are those relationships submitted to Jesus?

Do you conduct yourself in those relationships in a way that honors Him?

And if they're not, just open that door and say, Lord, help me.

I don't know how to do this.

I'm not good at this, but I submit this to you.

Are your finances submitted to Jesus?

Like truly, do you see it as everything you have is a gift that He's given you to use in a way that, yes, takes care of your needs, but also does the things that He's asking you to do in this life?

And sometimes that means being generous and giving to someone in need, and sometimes that means saving up and being wise.

But whatever it is, it's just I'm doing what he wants me to do.

Even that part of your life, is that submitted to him?

Is your future, your plans, the things that you're dreaming about in life, or are even your dreams submitted to Jesus?

Where you give him the authority, because he has it already, but you trust that authority to say, Lord, I submit my future to you.

And wherever my life goes, Lord, I want it to go where you want it to go.

Are your thoughts submitted to Jesus?

To where when thoughts come in your mind that are wrong, that aren't good, that aren't honoring of other people or him, you catch it and you go, Whoa, this thought does not belong in my mind, Lord.

I submit this thought to you.

The jealousy that I feel, I submit it to you.

The bitterness that I feel, the anger that I'm holding on to, Lord, I submit it to you under your authority, because I know that you're gonna lead me well.

You're gonna lead me with wisdom and with love and with integrity and with power.

So I submit all of it to you.

Are the things that we set before our eyes submitted to the Lord?

Are the words that come out of our mouths submitted to the Lord?

And I know when I say all those things, it's kind of daunting.

Like that's a lot of stuff to submit to the Lord, Justin.

But we're gonna see this.

I just, if I told you anything different, I would be liar, I'd be a liar.

We're gonna see this very shortly.

Jesus is asking for everything.

Jesus is going to ask you for all of you, not some of you, all of you.

He's gonna say, give me everything.

Your whole heart, your whole life.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must give up his own way or her own way, take up their cross and follow me.

That's a big ask.

And the question is, do I trust him enough to submit everything to him, to open up every door and say, You Lord, have free reign.

You go where you want to go, you say what you want to say, you do what you want to do, because I submit everything to you.

And what I'll tell you is that if you do that, if you submit to him fully or more than you ever have before, it will not be easy.

There will be challenges, there will be moments where you're like, oh, I don't, Lord, I don't, mm-hmm.

I don't know.

But he will lead you well.

He will free you from the things that have you captive.

He will release you from those things that have been bugging you for years that you can't get past.

He will open your eyes to a whole life that you've never even seen, and he will make you the person that you're meant to be.

But you have to trust him, you have to submit.

He has real authority.

He can do anything.

So let him do anything in your life.

See what he does.

We're gonna take Lord's Supper together.

And if you didn't grab a cup on your way in, feel free to do that now.

It's totally okay if you forgot that.

This little meal that we take, it's amazing because it's amazing for many reasons, but one of the reasons it's amazing is because this is a moment of intense submission to authority.

This is Jesus.

We kind of referenced this earlier as he was in the garden, right?

He prayed, Lord, if there's any way, take this away from me, this cup of suffering, but not my will, but your will, Jesus submitted to the authority of God the Father.

And we might say, Well, that didn't really work out for him, because you know, he was beaten and crucified.

And yeah, if you stop the story there, correct.

But then he rose to life, defeated death, ascended to heaven, where all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him.

So it worked out really well.

Jesus is never asking us to do something that he hasn't done.

And as we take this meal together, thinking about this idea of submitting to the authority of Jesus in every aspect of our lives, we remember that Jesus did the same thing.

That he's not asking us to do anything that he hasn't already done because he submitted himself.

Philippians chapter 2 says that God, that Jesus submitted himself even unto death, which is what this meal represents, his death on the cross, his body and his blood.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

And so as we take this together, let's let's ask God to give us, let's ask the Father to create within us by the power of the Holy Spirit that that same willingness to submit, to say, not my will, but your will.

And let's live that out in our lives.

Or at the very least, let's commit to it and trust Him with it.

So let's pray, Father, we thank you for this bread.

This is your body given up as a sacrifice.

Lord, you loved us so much, you care so deeply about us that you willingly submitted yourself to death.

Even though death has no claim over you, sin has no claim over you because you never sinned.

The wages of sin are death, but you didn't owe death a thing, and yet you submitted yourself on our behalf to free us from the power that sin and death have over us.

Lord, help us be inspired by that.

Help us follow in your footsteps, Lord.

Lead us lead us well and lead us in that, Father.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Let's take the bread.

Lord, we thank you for this juice.

It represents your blood.

Your blood was spilled as a sacrificial offering, not to appease an angry God, but to appease the grave itself.

And because of this sacrifice, Lord, we're free.

Death has been redeemed, it does not have the last say.

We have eternal life through you.

And that is only possible because you submitted yourself to the plan of God the Father, even though that plan had to be a difficult plan to submit to.

You did that, Lord.

Help us do the same.

Help us follow your lead, Lord.

We pray this in your name of Jesus.

Let's take the juice.

Oh man.