Matthew 13

The Authority of Christ

As we are jumping into the new semester and continuing on in Matthew I am going to try and condense some of the information in hopes of being able to number one finish the book before summer and two be able to spend more time on the most significant passages to you guys. If you brought your copy of God’s word with you tonight then please turn to Matthew chapter 8. We are going to be doing some jumping around tonight because what we are really doing is giving a broad look at the entirety of the miracles of Jesus. We will not discuss all of them tonight or in this study at all. In fact tonight will likely be the only time we are talking about His miracles in this study. Each miracle is significant and has it’s own lesson to be learned from it, but I want to look at the big picture of why He performed these miracles. What was the purpose of them?

When looking at them in a zoomed out lens I believe it is clear that the purpose of all of the miracles was to show the authority of Jesus as God. Jesus taught incredible sermons and lessons and claimed to be God with His words despite what some may say, but words alone were not enough for many people and thus He out of His love for us not out of any need of His own decided to prove that He truly was God by performing miracles to demonstrate His authority. He did this in several different ways so that there could be no doubt as to who He was. Let us look at our first example beginning in verse 5.

Authority Over the Body

Matthew 8:5–12 “Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.” And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Matthew 8:13 “Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour.”

This centurion, a Roman military commander, came to Jesus asking for his servant to be healed by Him. The centurion did not ask Jesus if it was possible for his servant to be healed, he simply made his request known to God and had faith that it would be done. And when Jesus says He will come to heal the servant to centurion says he isn’t worthy for Christ to come into his home but knows that Jesus has the authority to simply say it is done and it will be done.

We will circle back to the centurion later but for now, Jesus countless times heals people who are sick or are afflicted. Maybe they were a leper or blind or paralyzed, but no mater the affliction Jesus easily healed them and took away their pain. Why? Our first thought is that He loved them and did not want to see them suffer so He took their pain. If that is the case then why do we suffer at all? God loves all of humanity so why would He not take away the pain from all of us if it is just about loving us? Jesus did heal these people out of love, but not simply so their earthly wounds and afflictions would be healed, but through their story inumerable people would learn that the man named Jesus has authority over the body. The man named Jesus is truly the God of the most high. It is out of love but not such a small love as for one person, but out of a love for all of humanity that He wanted all to know who He is.

That is what we see in this story, we see Jesus putting on the full display of His authority over Humanity as a whole by healing a servant without even having to be present to do so.

Authority Over Creation

Matthew 8:23–27 “Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?””

I love that at the end of this passage the disciples are beginning to catch on. Up until this point they really did not know who Jesus was. They did not understand that He was God but after seeing Him heal the sick and now in the midst of a storm that appeared to be about to end their lives He is taking a nap? And when He wakes up what does He do? Does He tremble and pray as they are? No He rebukes the winds and the sea. Rebuke isn’t really a word we use often today, but it means literally to express sharp disapproval. He let the winds know that they needed to chill out and the storm stopped. Even the very forces of nature itself are beneath Him and must submit to His commands. Can you imagine to faces of the disciples? How astonished they must have been, I am sure there was relief that they would not die, but that relief was likely overwhelmed with the feeling of being utterly baffled.

In doing this Jesus displayed again His authority but this time not just that He has authority over our bodies, but He has authority over the entire natural world. All of creation trembles at His voice and must obey His commands because He is the foundations of the world itself.

Authority Over Spiritual Beings

Matthew 8:28–32 “When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way. And suddenly they cried out, saying, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. So the demons begged Him, saying, “If You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.” And He said to them, “Go.” So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine. And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water.”

Now Jesus is face to face with a man possessed by demons. Typically I would say if you have watched any horror movies before the reaction of someone faced with a demon possessed person runs screams or hides, something along those lines, but here it is the demons who are begging for mercy. They are saying please don’t kill us leave us alone. They beg to be allowed to go possess some pigs trying to bargain with Jesus here. Again imagine the shock that the disciples must have been in. Now not only does the physical world submit to this man that we are following, but with one word, with one two letter word, He sends the demons into the pigs and they run off a cliff and die. He has now proven that He has authority over our physical bodies, the natural world around us, and now He has authority over the spiritual beings too. All this and He is still not done demonstrating His power.

Authority Over Life and Death

Matthew 9:18–26 “While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.” So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. When Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. And the report of this went out into all that land.”

Now, we see that He has authority over life and death itself. I don’t know if you guys have watched the show the Chosen, but it is really a great show and there is a scene where they depict this very story and I can’t help but think of it when I read this story now to please go and watch it sometime when you get the chance. But Jesus here not only demonstrates that He has authority over life and death by raising this girl from the dead, but also demonstrates His humanity with humor is a situation that seems too dark to laugh during. This young girl has died. People back then may not have had modern medicine, but they knew when a person was dead and it was not as if she had jus passed away a second or two ago, but they already had the mourners there wailing and playing instruments. What does Jesus do? He says make way because she is just sleeping. They all ridiculed Him and likely laughed at Him because to them it was pretty obvious that she was truly dead, but for Jesus death is no different than sleep. He again demonstrated His authority by bringing her back to life proving that He truly must be God as there is nothing in the physical or spiritual world that does not answer to Him.

Authority Over Forgiveness

Matthew 9:4–6 “But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.””

Finally We see Jesus is brought a paralytic man and when they bring this man to Jesus what He does is not instantly cure his physical condition, but instead He tells the man that his sins have been forgiven. When Jesus does this the scribes that were watching in their minds thought He was a blasphemer. Jesus being God knew what they were thinking and responded with this in verse four. Jesus wanted to demonstrate that He has the power to not only control the physical and spiritual world, but because He is God He can forgive the sins committed against God. Then when they doubted that He had the right to forgive offenses made against God He healed the man to show that He does have that right and that power.

Application

So, what does the authority of Jesus as God have to do with us? Let’s think back to the centurion and to the ruler in this last story. Both of them had faith in His authority before they even saw Him demonstrate it. They knew that Jesus was God and that through Him all things were possible. In seeing their faith Jesus chose to demonstrate His authority for all to see in their lives. By serving Him and trusting Him they were able to partake in the benefits of that authority. Does that mean that if we have faith that Jesus has the authority to heal every affliction, control the physical and spiritual world, and have power of life and death then all of our problems will be solved by Him? In a sense yes, though we may not see it in this life. Jesus will use our hardships to demonstrate His authority and power in a loving way but it may not be in an immediate way like in these stories. Sometimes we don’t see the way that He exercises His authority, but that is where the faith comes in. We have faith that even if we don’t see it we know that in our worst times God is still glorified and good will come from the pain.

Is this without cost on our part? No, it is difficult and painful to live life with total faith and dependence on God.

Matthew 8:18–22 “And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.””

There are costs to being a disciple of Christ. We must make Him the number one priority in our lives above all else. Above ourselves and even above our own family. We are not promised total perfection apart from pain in this life, but in following the one with all authority we are promised that His glory will win in the end and that one day not only will we feel pain no more, but all of the pain and sorrow that we did face will be made right, we will understand the good that came from our pain and understand the glory that God recieved through our lives.