Take Thou Authority

We’re coming to a great moment in the gospels today. It’s this moment when the disciples have been just driving around with Jesus, passengers in the car, seeing all these amazing things that Jesus has been doing, and in Matthew 10 Jesus stops the car, and he gives them keys. It’s your turn to drive!

We probably can all remember a moment in our life something like this. When suddenly whatever we learned had to be put into practice. It can be a scary thing, but it’s exciting too.

I go to Hoxworth blood center every now and then to give blood, since I’m a special O- blood person, universal donor and all that, and last year I go to give blood, and there is a young man who is going to be my flobotomist. And I lay down, and he’s getting me ready to stick the needle, and he says, “this is the first time I’ve been allowed to do this by myself!” Not an encouraging word for me, who began frantically looking around for other responsible adults…I said after he was done, man, you’ve got to tell people that AFTER you do it.

There comes a moment where you have to simply trust in what you’ve been given, your knowledge and your ability. There comes a moment when YOU have to do it, when no one else can do it for you.

For me, in my own ministry, I remember one of those moments. In college, I was a ministry intern for a summer with my dear friend and mentor Chris Morgan, the person who basically gave me the blueprint for what a pastor is and what a pastor does.

Well what was unusual is Chris was moving that summer to a new church, and I as an intern moved with him and his family. It was a very up close baptism by fire of what it’s like to be in a pastoral family. But I had been with him several weeks at his old church, and then we moved to his new one in Franklin, KY. And on the first Sunday we were there, Chris’ first time preaching at that congregation, he gets a call that the organist’s mother Agnes was in a car accident; like 15 minutes before the first service. And so I get sent to go this little Franklin hospital, to be the pastor for this family in a bit of distress. And so, I go, and they were probably looking at this 21 year old kid thinking, really? Like my flobotomist, I probably should have said, “this is the first time they’ve let me do this by myself!”…but I was there, I was their pastor in that moment, and it was the first of many of those kinds of situations.

Jesus in this passage today has a challenge for his disciples, these men he has been apprenticing into the spiritual life—and it’s a challenge for us. Today the challenge he gives is, you’ve learned enough, you’ve seen enough, it’s time to go out and do it. Today Jesus wants to give authority for us to do what he did.

This is what the disciples have seen Jesus doing, just in the past three chapters:

called the disciples

Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 7:28-29

Matthew 7:28–29 NIV

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

Heals man with leprosy

Heals the centurion’s servant

calms a storm on the boat on sea of Galilee

casts out demons into a herd of pigs

raises a little girl from the dead, cures a woman of her twelve year bleeding

Heals the blind and the mute

And then, in Matthew 10, he says: it’s your turn!

WALK THRU JESUS’ MISSION FOR DISCIPLES

Matthew 10:1 NIV

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

Matthew 10:5–8 NIV

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

Authority is a really important concept in the book of Matthew. Jesus teaches with authority, and the crowd is amazed. The centurion recognizes that just like he is a man under authority, Jesus also has authority: if he says it, it happens! Jesus’ authority will be questioned by the Pharisees, and throughout, Jesus will be lending authority to his disciples, like when Jesus gives the keys of the kingdom to Peter and to his church in Matthew 18…

Authority: the power given to us because of our position

responsibility and right to use power, give orders, and make decisions

Authority is given to you; a parent has authority

“Authority is the capacity we have due to our position. I have the authority of God in me due to my union with Jesus Christ.” -Mike Riches

Authority means our WORDS carry WEIGHT

examples: judges words lead to one year or ten years in prison; the pastor’s words at a wedding (“by the authority invested in me…I pronounce you man and wife); the surgeon’s authority matters more than a non-expert over what we should do;

if we have authority this means when we speak, things happen; the ultimate authority in the cosmos is God; when he says something, like let there be light, it happens—his word makes it happen. With God there’s no difference between him saying it and it happening

Authority can be ABUSED

we see this politically—leaders have authority given to them by the will of the people, but they abuse it; the do not use their power for good, they use it for selfish ends; and corruption and lying and bullying are abuses of authority

we see this spiritually…pastors who abuse their position, abuse their power (TALK ABOUT FRIEND WHOSE PASTOR IS IN JAIL)

Authority can be NEGLECTED

fathers and mothers who don’t use their authority

been in institutions when people did not use the power they have been given, and everyone suffered

Jesus gives AUTHORITY to all that he calls…

the mission he gives them is beyond their ability, he’s so honest!

the mission to announce the kingdom, it will lead to opposition, persecution, ridicule;

the mission will strip them of their wealth and their wordly status

he says I am sending you like lambs before wolves; this foe I’m sending you to is beyond your strength

And so he lends his authority to his disciples; he gives them a position in the kingdom to use power

…but that authority must be TAKEN UP

By spending time with Jesus (PRAYER)

By asking him for power (THE HOLY SPIRIT)

By obedience (DOING WHAY JESUS DID)

2 Timothy 1:7 RSV

for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control.

Luke 10:19 NIV

I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.

2 Peter 1:3 NIV

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Romans 8:11 NIV

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

Acts 1:8 NIV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Ordination story: Take Thou Authority

TALK ABOUT MY OWN STRUGGLE TO TAKE UP AUTHORITY…CONVICTION THAT IT’S TIME TO BE BOLD

Have you been given a mission by Jesus? do you know what it is?

You have been given authority…but have you taken it up?

Do you know the weight of your words and your prayers and your life, as someone who is in Christ?

We are called to be humble, but not fearful. We are called to be humble about what we can do, but BOLD about what God can do!

Ephesians 3:16–19 NIV

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.