All Authority
Notes
Transcript
Bible Passage: Mark 1:21–28
Bible Passage: Mark 1:21–28
For the last 6 years i have been seeing the same counselor. This helped me process some pretty serious things and begin my path to mental health.
A couple years ago I hit a wall and decided to add a psychiatrist as well.
Through multiple sessions I was tested for ADHD. I passed with flying colors.
This “label” did not define me. It became a means to an end.
Labels can be hurtful or helpful. Only you can decide which.
The crazy thing is this actually became a tool for me. I didn’t use it as an excuse to not focus or expect everyone and everything else to conform to my “needs.”
I decided I would not allow this to define me. I would use this “label” to get healthy.
In Mark 1:21-28 we read about a demon possessed man who begins attacking Jesus, and how Jesus handles His attacker.
1. Authentic Authority
1. Authentic Authority
Jesus and his companions went to the town of Capernaum. When the Sabbath day came, he went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike the teachers of religious law.
Jesus was not exceptionally attractive or anything special to look at. His authority came through His teaching.
Jesus wasn’t just flexing here. He is our role model, an example of what humanity can and should be.
Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.
God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus is showing us that we can walk in the same authority over sin and death that He has.
Eternal life doesn’t just start after you die.
The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
I also want you to see where Jesus is on the Sabbath day. He is in the Father’s House. He’s at church!
2. Feared By Darkness
2. Feared By Darkness
Suddenly, a man in the synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, “Why are you interfering with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
Who else was in church? Demons.
Who are the demons scared of? Jesus
Jesus didn’t start calling out things or doing some crazy service. He was simply teaching the Scripture for that day. It was assigned.
Jesus will move and darkness will tremble without being directly addressed. Jesus Himself is terrifying to darkness.
The enemy of our souls knows our names, our sins, and most importantly our God.
So often we begin to focus more on the enemy than our Savior.
This demon was attempting to distract what God was doing. How often do we allow him to do the same to us?
This thing labeled Jesus, “Holy One of God.”
This was accurate. That is who Jesus is.
I can guarantee that it was not a positive label coming from this thing.
Jesus did not argue with it. He dealt with it.
3. Complete Control
3. Complete Control
But Jesus reprimanded him. “Be quiet! Come out of the man,” he ordered. At that, the evil spirit screamed, threw the man into a convulsion, and then came out of him.
Jesus didn’t pull up a chair and interview this demon.
He didn’t try to understand tragic backstory of this individual and how he came to be possessed.
Jesus told the thing to shut up and come out. Nothing it had to say was helpful.
So now I ask you, is the label people have put on you helpful?
Is allowing yourself to be pigeon hold really giving you this satisfied, eternal, joy-filled life?
I could stand up here and play the victim. Anyone can.
Grew up poor.
Mom had mental illness
Bullied and beat up all through high school
ADHD, PTSD, Anxiety Disorder, BiPolar depression
Marginalized, passed up and looked over.
I choose not to be the victim. Why? Because the Bible tells me so.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Want more?
This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
There’s more…so much more.
One of my favorites is
And from the time John the Baptist began preaching until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people are attacking it.
If Jesus truly is the One we pattern our entire life after, then when the enemy or people try to make us weak we are to remind them why we are strong.
4. Amazement at Divine Authority
4. Amazement at Divine Authority
Amazement gripped the audience, and they began to discuss what had happened. “What sort of new teaching is this?” they asked excitedly. “It has such authority! Even evil spirits obey his orders!” The news about Jesus spread quickly throughout the entire region of Galilee.
When Destiny and I were youth pastors Journey Youth began to get a reputation. People struggling with mental health or behavioral issues were welcomed. This did not make our job easier.
Hope is contagious.
There is a quote in the Hunger Games movies that has always resonated with me.
“Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous”-President Snow
Jesus offered hope and His name spread. It is the same today.
I conclude with this story from John 9
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”
“It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work. But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”). So the man went and washed and came back seeing!
His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said he was, and others said, “No, he just looks like him!”
But the beggar kept saying, “Yes, I am the same one!”
They asked, “Who healed you? What happened?”
He told them, “The man they call Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes and told me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash yourself.’ So I went and washed, and now I can see!”
“Where is he now?” they asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
Then they took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees, because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus had made the mud and healed him. The Pharisees asked the man all about it. So he told them, “He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!”
Some of the Pharisees said, “This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath.” Others said, “But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?” So there was a deep division of opinion among them.
Then the Pharisees again questioned the man who had been blind and demanded, “What’s your opinion about this man who healed you?”
The man replied, “I think he must be a prophet.”
The Jewish leaders still refused to believe the man had been blind and could now see, so they called in his parents. They asked them, “Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how can he now see?”
His parents replied, “We know this is our son and that he was born blind, but we don’t know how he can see or who healed him. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue. That’s why they said, “He is old enough. Ask him.”
So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “God should get the glory for this, because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.”
“I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!”
“But what did he do?” they asked. “How did he heal you?”
“Look!” the man exclaimed. “I told you once. Didn’t you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”
Then they cursed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses! We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.”
“Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.”
“You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue.
When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.”
“You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!”
“Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus.
Then Jesus told him, “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.”
Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, “Are you saying we’re blind?”
“If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.
Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.
Fear caused the pharisees to be stubborn. Fear caused the man’s parents to leave him on his own to fight for himself.
Jesus offer hope. And it scared the enemy.
Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.
What you have been labeled is not who you are. It is an opportunity to show others who God is.
