Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Matthew Hart, Mike's son. You can see them walking out there together. And I'll tell you, that song warms even the blood of those of us who are Celtic. Of course, it's our song. Anyway, Mark chapter 6. Would you turn there please in your Bible? If you have access to a pew Bible near you and you didn't bring your own this morning, please turn to page 995. Matthew, excuse me, Mark chapter 6. I'm going to begin reading in verse 1 of God's Word.
Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. Where did this man get these things, they asked. What's this wisdom that has been given him that he even does miracles? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them, only in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own house, is a prophet without honor. He could not do any miracles there except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits. These were his instructions.
Get nothing for the journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave as a testimony against them. They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. We'll stop reading at that point.
Would you pray with me, Father God, I pray that the Holy Spirit would now teach us, each one of us, something from this text that you want us to hear. And may we go away the wiser, the richer, knowing you better. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Heard a story this last week about an elderly gentleman in Texas who went to the car dealer and bought a brand new Corvette. He went out onto the freeway and he thought, let's see what this thing can do.
And he put the pedal down and got it up to 80 miles an hour, just flying along, the air blowing through his hair as much as was left of it. He's going down the freeway. He thought to himself, this is just great. He looked in the rear view mirror and he saw approaching flashing lights. And he heard the sound of a siren. He said, well, let's just see what this thing can do. So he pushed it down a little bit more. He got it up to 100. The blue lights were still approaching.
So he put it down to 120. The blue lights were still gaining on him. He said, this is absolutely silly. A man at my age, and so he slowed down, pulled over to the side, he waited for the inevitable. Well, it wasn't too long before the officer walked up to the car and said, sir. He said, it's 30 minutes before time for me to get off my shift. Today is Friday. It's late in the afternoon.
He said, I'm going to let you go if you can give me one excuse that I've never heard before for speeding like you were. The elderly man sat there for a moment and said, well, sir, I'll tell you. He said, several years ago, my wife ran off with a Texas Highway Patrolman and I was afraid you were bringing her back. The officer said, have a good day, sir. So much for the authority of a highway patrol in Texas, huh?
Hey, we witnessed quite a display of authority this week, didn't we, in the United Nations? We had presidents and dictators speaking to the world from the platform there. One of the most intriguing, at least from our media's perspective, was a gentleman from Venezuela by the name of Chavez, who made, shall we say, a fool of himself in the opportunity he had to speak to the world. There was one thing, however, that I appreciated about his address.
By the authority that he had as the president of Venezuela, he offered to move the United Nations to his country, and that sounds like a pretty good deal to me. It would free up some space in New York City that could be put to some beneficial use, and so I think it's a good idea. Authorities. Jesus was a man with authority. Mark presents him that way. He presents him as a man with authority, but not like a president, and certainly not like a dictator.
He presents Jesus as a man of authority who is also a servant, who is going from here to there to help people. He is a man of authority who does not dominate or abuse. He is a man of authority who blesses and saves. May I say to you that that is the way in which God intends for authority to be used. Jesus has authority to carry out God's purposes, and as we see in our text today in Mark chapter 6, he shares that authority with his followers. Jesus calls the twelve to him.
They've been with him before. They've gone back to wherever they were, and now he calls them to him, and he sends them out two by two in teams to the villages. There are three important insights about authority that I see in our text that I want to share with you this morning. I hope that the Holy Spirit will write these upon your heart. First I want to think about what authority is. Authority is the right to exercise power. Authority is the right to exercise power.
Under the Constitution of the United States, the president is given authority to do certain things. He doesn't need the permission of anyone to do them. He is privileged, but he is not a monarch. In our system, he does have some limitation. He does not have all authority, like the dictator from Venezuela.
The brilliant founding fathers of this nation saw to it that there were checks and balances written into the Constitution, so that the three branches of government would check and balance each other. Each branch has the right to exercise authority that is granted by the Constitution. Let me give you some more personal kinds of illustrations about what authority is, the right to exercise power.
You have probably in your wallet this morning a little piece of plastic that has your name on it and a certain number from a bank, and that grants you the authority to purchase something. You don't even have to put cash down. You have the authority to buy that based upon your credit. It's called a credit card, of course. And probably in your wallet you have, or you wish you had, a license to drive. It has your picture on it.
It is issued by the state of California, and because of that piece of plastic with your picture on it and a number from the state, you have authority to drive on the highways of this state and throughout the United States. Some of you have positions at work by which you have authority to move people around, to manage them, or to sign off on projects. Some of you enter a secure facility using an ID card, or maybe it's even a thumb print or the scan of the retina of your eye.
But the point is that you are authorized. You have the power to enter that facility. But the fact is that none of us is free to do exactly whatever we want to do. That is not what liberty is all about. We hear the statement today spoken by some who say, well, nobody has the right to tell me. And then they name their right. And that may be true or it may not be true. Because you see, ultimately, only God, only God is absolutely free to exercise authority. Why is that?
Because all authority belongs to Him and comes from Him. He is supreme over all the universe. That's why He's God. He has ultimate authority, the ultimate right to exercise power. But there's another subpoint I want to make as we talk about authority, and that is that authority is not the same thing as power. I don't want to make too big a deal about this, but technically speaking, the two have some distinctions. Authority is the right to act.
But power is the ability to actually perform what you have the right to do. Understand the difference there? In the language of the New Testament, the Greek language, there are two words that differentiate these ideas. And both of them are used in our text today. There is the word authority. The Greek word is exousia. It is a word that comes from a verb that means it is lawful. And so it comes to mean in its noun form an authority. It's lawful for me to do this. I have authority to do this.
And so Jesus gives authority to his 12 over evil spirits, it says in verse 7. But there's also the word used here for power in our text. It's the word dunamis, from which we get our word dynamite. It's used here and translated as miracles in the NIV. It's used in verse 2 and then again in verse 5. And it refers to the ability, the might, to actually do what you have the authority to do because you see one can have authority without power. And one can have power without authority.
When you think about authority without power, think for example of a bouncer at a party who weighs 110 pounds. He's got the authority, but does he have the power? Or I think of the President of the United States who has authority to command the military. He is the chief commanding officer of the military. He's got the authority. The question is, does he have the power to actually send them out in battle because Congress has to fund the military?
And Congress can withhold the funds and therefore the military has no ability to go and to fight the war that the President commands them to fight. That's part of the check and balance system you see. There is such a thing as having authority but not the power. But you can also have the power not the authority. I think of this from my own childhood. My mother was widowed very young at 33 with four children and she had to go to work to support us, put food on the table literally.
So she worked in a grocery store. And while she was at work, guess who was in charge? I was the oldest of four. I was 10, 11, 12 years of age in those years and I had a brother two years younger than myself, a brother four years younger than myself, and then a sister who was seven years younger than myself. And I remember on Saturday nights in particular I wanted to do something special for our mother because she worked hard. She worked hard.
She would work in town at the grocery store and then she would come home and she would do chores around the farm that we were too young to do. And so on Saturday nights once Have Gun Will Travel was off and once Gunsmoke was off, some of you will remember those programs. And before she got home we had about half an hour, 45 minutes. Grocery store stayed open very late in that little town. And so I would use the power to get my siblings to get busy and let's clean up the kitchen for mom.
And we would go to work at it. And if they didn't want to do that, well, that was tough. I had a yardstick. I call it the shepherd's staff of course, but it was a yardstick. And I had had it, I knew how to apply it because I had had it applied. And so I didn't ever have to really apply it that way. I would just carry it around with me. And if there needed to be a little tap, there'd be a little tap and I had three slaves who helped me get the kitchen clean for mom.
You see I had the power, but I didn't really have the authority. I just took it. You can have power without authority and you can have authority without power. But God has both authority and power. He is unlimited. God can do whatever he wants to do with what is consistent with his nature. For example, in Psalm 115 the psalm says, why do the nations say, where is their God? Our God is in heaven. He does whatever pleases him. That is our God, supreme in both authority and power.
Nebuchadnezzar, the great king, the monarch of Babylon learned this the hard way. God humbled him as you recall in the fourth chapter of Daniel. But part of his confession after that humbling was, all the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. Nebuchadnezzar talking here now, he's speaking about the God of heaven, the God of Israel. He says, he does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. He's talking about the immaterial world, the spiritual world of angels.
And he's talking about the human realm, the material realm. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, what have you done? My mother ultimately held me accountable on those Saturday nights. She would come home and she admired the kitchen and how well we had cleaned it up and organized it. And then she heard the complaints. And then there was reckoning. You see, she could say to me, what have you done?
But friends, nobody can say that to God. Nobody. Jesus demonstrates in this gospel that he has both authority and power. He is God. He has the authority and the power to deal with disease, with demons, with nature. He forgives sin. He tells a woman she is saved as well as healed. He raises the dead. But here's something interesting we see in this text. It's very sobering. For the sake of his purposes, God limits himself in some respect to the faith of people.
Jesus had power and authority to do what he wished, and yet when he came to Nazareth, his hometown, where he was raised, where he was known, where he belonged to a family, and their names are listed here. In that town it says he could do no miracles there, no dunamis, no powers there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. Now you and I might say, wow, that's pretty good. Lay your hands on some sick people and heal them.
But compared to what Jesus did elsewhere, that was nothing. Nothing. His authority, his power in Nazareth was the very same as it was in Capernaum or any of the other cities. But in Nazareth something was different. There was an unbelief that characterized the people. You say, well, was this sort of the kryptonite syndrome? That's the stuff that weakens Superman, right? He's around that and his powers are drained from him. No, that's not the case at all because the power does not drain from God.
That by his own purpose he's limited himself. And his freedom to act is limited by the faith or the lack of faith of the people. That's true in our church too. That's true in your family. It's true in your life. You see, God has the power to do whatever pleases him, but it is your faith and mine, it is our faith together that either loosens the hand of God to do what he has the authority and power to do or which restrains him and limits him by his own plan.
And because he could do no mighty works in Nazareth, he left there. And he went to other villages. You see, where the Lord finds unbelief, he moves on. I know you agree with me. I don't want him to find unbelief at Los Gatos Christian Church. I don't want him to find unbelief in me. I don't want him moving on. I want my faith to be growing. I want our faith to be growing. I know you agree with me on this.
We want to be pushed beyond our comfort zones, beyond what we're used to, the way we've always done it. We want our faith to be able to grasp what God can do so that what is done here is clearly God doing it. It is so far beyond what we could accomplish by ourselves that people will have to say it must be God. Isn't that what you want? Can you say amen to that? That's what we want together. That's what you want personally.
I need to move on though to a second observation about authority in our text. And that is, authority is either inherent or it's entrusted. You see, authority may be given or delegated just as you as a parent employ a babysitter and you delegate part of your responsibility as a parent to that babysitter for the evening. Authority may also be attributed because of the position that one holds, such as you as a parent. There's nothing in particular you've done to earn it.
Hopefully you've earned respect as a parent. But the very fact that you are a parent gives you authority. It's the position that you hold that's attributed to you. But then in another way, authority may reside innately in someone because of simply who they are. This is what is true of God. Jesus has authority on all of these counts. He is God, so authority and power is inherently His because of who He is. Secondly, He holds a position. It is the position of the Son of Man.
The messianic Savior of the human race. And so authority is attributed to Him because of the position that He has. And thus He can, as He does in chapter 2, forgive sin. He says, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins, I say to the paralyzed man, take up your mat and walk. And then God has delegated authority to Christ. Jesus says in John chapter 10, if you want to turn there you're welcome to in your Bible, to John chapter 10 and verse 17.
It's page 1062 in the Pew Bible. He says, the reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I receive from my Father. You see the Father delegated to Him this authority. Lay down your life. Take it up again.
If you want to turn over a few pages to John chapter 17 in verse 2, Jesus is praying here in this high priestly prayer. He is praying in the third person talking about Himself and the Father. And He says, for you Father granted Him the Son authority, verse 2, authority over all people that He might give eternal life to those you have given Him. So God has delegated to Jesus the authority to give eternal life to all of those that the Father gives Him and who therefore come to Him.
Jesus has all authority and there is absolutely nothing in all of creation that is above Him. Nothing is subject to Him. As Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 1, God raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority, power and dominion and every title that can be given. Not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. He wraps it all up there and He says that He is absolutely over everything.
And what we see here is that this one who is over everything delegates authority to his followers. Do you see that? Going back to our text in Mark chapter 6, He delegates authority to the twelve to carry out God's purpose. For them it was to go and to preach and it was to deal with evil spirits. You see what we learn here is that Christ's followers do not have inherent authority. We have assigned authority. We don't have authority in who we are to do God's work.
But folks, we do have authority that Christ has entrusted to us. And that brings me to my third observation and that is authority is intended to be used. Authority is not an honorary entitlement. It is not a privilege that is given to us to be played with. Jesus did not give authority to the twelve so that they could go out and be successful and then retire or go on vacation or become celebrities. He gave them authority to be used all of their lives in this world.
He gives them instructions for this particular time in verses 8 through 11. They were to go out with very little. They were not to be anywhere very long. If a city didn't receive them, they were to shake the dust off their sandals indicating that the place had rejected their message and therefore they were being rejected and they moved on. The twelve used that authority. And it says they drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.
If you are a follower of Jesus today, you have authority that has been given to you, delegated to you. The question is what are you doing with your delegated authority? You say, well I'm too old. I'm retired now. I don't do authority things. I've done my part in the past. I've put in my time. Now it's the younger people. It's their turn to use their authority. Some of us would have to say, well I'm frankly too wrapped up in my career to use my authority.
I'm too busy juggling the stresses of my life. I don't have time to use my authority and focus on reaching out to others or serving others. That's outside my comfort zone anyway. I want us to think for just a minute about the authority that you have from Jesus. What is it? Now I need to insert at this moment, are you a follower of Jesus?
Because if you're not a follower of Jesus by faith, having trusted in him as your Lord and Savior, then you have none of the authority we're going to talk about. So the first critical question is, are you a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ? You say, well yes I am. I'm saved. I've trusted Christ as my Savior. If that is the case then whoever you are, whatever your position in life, you have the following authority delegated to you from Jesus Christ. Got that?
The first delegation of authority from Jesus is found in Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 to 20. You know these verses. Jesus came to his followers and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. We've already seen that. And then he says, therefore you go and make disciples of all nations. And then he says, I am with you always to the end of the age. What is Jesus doing here? He is delegating authority to his followers to go and make disciples of Jesus.
We're to do that in his name, which means we are to go as his representatives. He delegates authority to proclaim the gospel. He delegates authority to baptize the converts. He delegates authority to teach the word of God, all the things that Jesus has commanded us. You have that authority. You say, well I'm not a missionary. I know, maybe you're not in the sense that we use that term so often. But you are God's delegated person and you have authority to preach the gospel wherever you are.
John chapter 14 we see a different delegation. Verses 12 to 14. Jesus says, I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I've been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I'm going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Son may bring glory to the Father and you may ask for anything in my name and I will do it. Here we have the authority to address the throne of God in his name.
I remember a time in my life when I went on a particular mission for someone, part of my job, and the person handed me a credit card and said, whatever you need while you're on this trip, here's the credit card. Buy meals, get the gas, do whatever you need to do, get the job done, here's the credit card. Essentially that's what Jesus is saying here. You are my follower and I delegate to you the family credit card. You can come to the Father yourself and pray.
But you have to understand what an amazing thought this was to the Jews because they were used to distance from God and walls and curtains and rooms. And you had to be a very special class of person, a priest, even a high priest, to get that kind of access to the throne of God. You went through other people. Jesus says I'm opening it up. Here's the credit card. Pray. Now this is not carte blanche, right? We know that. In other words, we need to ask according to the will of God.
We need to ask from pure motives. We need to ask as we understand what God wants and then we surrender to whatever he does. But folks, you and I have the authority to go to the throne of God itself. Are you using that authority? First Corinthians chapter 5 brings us to a very sobering one. Here we have the context of a member of the Corinthian church who is in a state of sinning and he will not repent of his sin. It's a terrible moral stain on the church. And so Paul says this is wrong.
And you people are bragging about this man. You think that you have a lot of tolerance because you're allowing him to be a part of your fellowship and he's disgracing the glory of God.
And so he says when you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, verse 4, and I am with you in spirit and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, notice that, the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan so that the sinful nature, the flesh may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. What is happening here? The word of God says that there is an authority delegated to the church to hand a sinning believer over to Satan.
This is the most extreme kind of church discipline. There are all kinds of steps leading up to this. But now the extreme point had been reached in this case and Paul says you as a body of people in the name of the Lord Jesus with the power of Jesus, you are to turn this man out from the church into the realm of the world that Satan may be able to destroy his body so that in the end he will repent and his spirit will be saved. God raises questions, I understand that.
We don't have time to deal with all of them this morning, but there's one implication you need to get here and that is by being a part of the church there is some supernatural protection for me from the evil one. But if I allow sin to so corrupt my life that I am turned out from the church and the church uses its authority to put me out, that protection is gone. And the evil one has access to me that he did not have before to destroy my body, to bring me low. And don't you think he will do it?
The end result of that is intended to be the repentance of my heart and restoration to God that ultimately I'll be saved. This is a sobering delegated authority to us as a church. Here's a fourth delegated authority as found in Mark chapter 9 as well as other places. I'm going to skip down to the end of that text of verse 41 where Jesus says, I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.
You and I are authorized by Jesus to serve others in need, to do it in his name. When we see they need the cup of cold water, they need the piece of clothing, they need the financial assistance, they need the comfort, they need your presence. We are authorized, every one of us, to meet that need. And Jesus says, don't you know that when you do that, you're going to be rewarded. Number five, Luke chapter 10. What a delegated authority do we have?
Well another one here, the 72 returned on this occasion with joy and said, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. And Jesus replied, I saw Satan fall like lightning from the heavens. I've given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you, however do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Rejoice in who you are.
But Jesus does imply here that his followers have the authority to enforce the power and the victory of the cross over Satan and demons. We are not weak victims of the powers of darkness. We can be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might and put on the full armor of God so that we can stand in the evil day. That's the position we have, that's the delegated authority that is given to us, to enforce the cross over the powers of darkness.
And finally, Colossians 3, 17. Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. You and I have the authority to represent Christ in everything we do. We need to get out of this mindset that we inherit that seems to separate life into the sacred and the secular. This is the sacred duty of my life, this is my secular responsibility. That is not a biblical view.
The biblical view is that all of life is sacred and whatever I do is done to the Lord. It's holistic. And so I have authority from Jesus Christ to go into the classroom. And in that classroom to represent Christ by the kind of work I do and the attitudes that I display. I have the authority of Jesus Christ to go into my workplace and thereby the quality of my work and by the team-manship and the way that I get projects done to represent him, I'm delegated that authority.
Take that into every realm, the home and friendships and relationships. Whatever you do, do it in his name. You're authorized to do that. Let me summarize by saying Jesus knew who he was, why he had come, and he used his power to serve God's purposes for him. Passionate followers of Jesus know who they are, why they are here, and they use their delegated authority to serve his purposes. Are you a passionate follower of Jesus?
Knowing who you are, why you're here, are you using your delegated authority to carry out these six and many more areas where Jesus has given us authority? Is that you? Let's pray together. Father, as we look at your word, our hearts are instructed and sobered and challenged. We feel deeply our sense of need and coming short in so many ways, we all do.
I pray that rather than being overwhelmed with that, we will understand your grace in which we stand, that we will understand who we are in Christ and why we're here, and that we will not play with the authority you've put into our hands, but we will use it until the day that we're called home and not give up on it a minute before. Make us serious about the authority you delegated to us to use it for the glory of God. In Jesus' name, amen. Jesus knew who he was and why he had come.
We're going to remember that now in the Elements of Communion. The ushers will distribute these elements, and we invite you, if you're a follower of Jesus, to partake with us. Please receive the element, and I'll be back in a moment, and we'll eat and drink together.