author: Ryan Hayden Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 4 again. Luke 4. We are going to be covering from verse 31 to verse 44 this morning.

I want to preach this morning about authority. Authority.

Authority is almost a dirty word for us Americans. If there is one thing that has always characterized us as a people it is our disdain for authority.

I mean, going back to the very beginning, we were settled mostly by people who didn't like the authority in England. They wanted to do their own thing religiously, they wanted religious freedom, so they came to America to worship without the seeing eyes of the crown.

Then, we fought this whole war around about 1776 because we didn't want England to be our boss anymore. We wanted to be our own authority.

Then, less than 100 years later, half of our country went to war with the other half because they didn't want the government to have authority in matters of slavery.

From the Boston Tea Party to the Vietnam War to Edward Snowden our history is basically the history of a people saying "No one is going to tell me what to do."

And today, I am going to preach to you about the Authority of Christ. Because if you are a Christian, Authority is part of the package.

You absolutely do have someone telling you what to do and He has the right and the power to do it. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. That name for Jesus is used over 100 times in the New Testament. The "Lord" part means Jesus has authority. Authority over us.

So I want to look at this passage today and talk about Jesus' authority and what it means to us.

Lets read Luke 4 starting in verse 21 and going to verse 44...

[!bible] Luke 4:31-44 - KJV 31. And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days. 32. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power. 33. And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, 34. Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. 35. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not. 36. And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. 37. And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about. 38. And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her. 39. And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them. 40. Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. 41. And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ. 42. And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place: and the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. 43. And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent. 44. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.

Remember from last week, Jesus went to preach in His home synagogue and they rejected His message. They tried to throw Him off a cliff and stone Him.

Well, our text today tells us that wasn't the typical reaction to Jesus. He did typically teach and preach in the synagogues but most of the time they welcomed His message.

He left Nazareth and went down to Capernaum - the town that became Jesus' home town and home base.

Capernaum was a smaller city on the sea of Galilee - it had about 40,000 residents. So, it wasn't Chicago, but it wasn't Mayberry either.

It was a city that mostly revolved around fishing. There were cities all around the Galilee region and they relied on fish from the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum was a major center for that fishing.

So Jesus went to the synagogue in Capurnaum to preach there. And notice the summary of His message in verse 32:

[!bible] Luke 4:32 - KJV 32. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.

That word "astonished" means "to be struck by." In greek it's literally a compound word "ek-place-so" - "ek" is a preposition that means "by." "place-so" is a verb that means "to strike."

So the idea here is that Jesus' message really hit them. They were thunderstruck by it. Why? Because Jesus word was with "power."

Power in this case means authority. And we can surmise that because for the rest of this chapter we see Jesus' authority.

For instance, look at verse 36. Jesus commands a demon and look at the people's response:

[!bible] Luke 4:36 - KJV 36. And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.

In verse 39 Jesus shows his power or authority over sickness. This is a passage about the authority of Christ.

Now, I want to give you four points this morning about the authority of Christ from this passage and then I want to finish by talking about how the authority of Christ applies to us.

Let's pray and we'll get into that.

The first point I want to make this morning is...

1. Jesus showed authority in His teaching.

The Bible makes it clear that Jesus' teaching ministry was unique in it's authority.

Here in Luke it talks about his power. But the parallel passages in Mark and Matthew give a little more light.

Mark 1:22 says this:

[!bible] Mark 1:22 - KJV 22. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.

and in Matthew 7:28-29 it says:

[!bible] Matthew 7:28-29 - KJV 28. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: 29. For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Jesus teaching was unique because He had authority. He was not like the other teachers of the day.

When they taught, they taught about the Bible. They used big words and lots of quotations from other teachers. There message was:

• Gamaliel says
• Hezek says

They even bragged about this, saying "I have never said a word I didn't learn from my teachers."

But there is no authority in that. They were weak men, weak preachers, preaching a feckless message.

Church, there are still scribes today. There are still men who teach without authority. Listen to this quote from a speaker named J.J. Altizer:

Insofar as an eschatological epiphany of Christ can occur only in conjunction with a realization in total experience of the kinetic process of self-negation, we should expect that epiphany to occur in the heart of darkness, for only the universal triumph of the Antichrist can provide an arena for the total manifestation of Christ.

What???

That's word salad. Some of you have told me stories about churches you went to where the preacher got up and basically preached from Reader's Digest, or talked about the great Albert Sweitzer, etc.

That kind of preaching is safe. But I want you to understand - the message of Jesus is not like that - it has authority, it has power!

Now, where did Jesus' power come from? Well, we don't have to look to far to figure that out.

Just in the last chapter we see that Jesus was anointed by the Spirit for this work of ministry. He didn't start His ministry until the Spirit empowered Him.

So Jesus' authority came from the Spirit. We can also see in chapter 3 and 4 that Jesus' power came from the word of God. When He was fighting Satan, He fought Him with the word. When He preached, He opened and explained the Word.

Last week we saw Jesus preaching and explainging Isaiah 61. The Sermon on the Mount was Jesus explaining the law. Even when Jesus resurrected, He met with the disciples on the road to Emmaus

[!bible] Luke 24:27 - KJV 27. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

So Jesus' power in ministry came through the Spirit and came through the Word.

And I want to tell you before I move on that when the Word is preached in the Spirit - there is authority there.

God's word should have an effect on your life. It should have authority in your life.

Sometimes, you ought to come out of a sermon saying "ouch." Sometimes God's word ought to challenge you. If God's word never challenges you you are probably not worshipping God - but you.

So Jesus showed authority in His teaching ministry. The second way Jesus showed authority in this passage is...

2. Jesus showed authority over demons.

Look at verses 33-35 again:

[!bible] Luke 4:33-35 - KJV 33. And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, 34. Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. 35. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.

There was a man in this congregation at Capurnaum who was possessed by a demon. This demon was diametrically opposed to Jesus and wanted to cause a scene, but Jesus rebuked the demon and cast him out of the man.

Now, I want to make a few points here about demons.

First, demons are real. We might not like to talk about demons and you might want to pretend like they aren't real, but the Bible, over and over again, talks about this demon realm and demon possession as a real thing.

Demons are fallen angels, a third of the angels God created, who left Heaven in revolt against God and who are condemned to work on this earth until the time they are bound up by Christ and thrown into Hell. They are real.

Ephesians 6:12 says:

[!bible] Ephesians 6:12 - KJV 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Demons are real, they are organized, they are powerful and we are wrestling against them.

In general, I'm not into conspiracy theories - so what I'm about to say might shock you - but I do believe there is a conspiracy controlling the world - it isn't lizard people or the Rothchilds or Elders of Zion - it is demons - spiritual wickedness in high places.

Demons are real.

But I also want you to know a second thing about demons: Demon possession is rare.

Some people like to talk about demons and demon possession like it is an everyday thing. But that's not what we see in the Bible. In all of the ministry of Christ, He cast out demons from less than 10 individuals. The stories are repeated in each book of the Bible, so it seems like there were more - but it wasn't like everywhere Jesus went He was running into demon possessed people.

I think there are two dangers when it comes to demons: first to deny their existence - that's the most common danger, but on the other side we can attribute everything to demons. "Ooh, I burnt the biscuits, those demons are at work."

That's foolishness and it doesn't match what was actually going on in scripture.

So demons are real, demon possessions is rare. A third thing to note about demons is that demons are completely reigned over by Christ.

That's really the main thing in these verses - Demons have to listen to Jesus. Everything Jesus tells them to do, they have to do.

Remember the book of Job? There is that passage in the beginning where the devil goes before God and asks permission to hurt Job. The devil and His demons are limited in their power and all Jesus has to do is command them and they obey. He has full authority over demons.

• Demons are real
• Demons are rare
• Demons are reigned over by Christ

Let me say one more thing about demons before I move on: Demons were ruined by Christ at the cross.

[!bible] Colossians 2:13-15 - KJV 13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

When Jesus was on the cross, defeating sin, defeating the law, one of the things He did was "spoil the principalities and powers" and He did this by "making a shew of them openly."

I do not believe that Demons today have the same power and influence they did in Jesus' day because Jesus exposed them and triumphed over them.

Christian, you don't need to fear demons. Your Lord and Savior has complete authority over them.

The Prince of Darkness grim,  
We tremble not for him;  
His rage we can endure,  
For lo! his doom is sure,  
One little word shall fell him.

• Jesus showed His authority in His teaching.
• Jesus showed His authority over demons.

Look at the third point with me:

3. Jesus showed authority over sickness.

Look at verses 38-39:

[!bible] Luke 4:38-39 - KJV 38. And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her. 39. And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them.

It was customary then, as it is customary now to leave the church service and have a sabbath dinner. Apparently, Jesus was the guest at Peter's house.

Peter's mother in law (Simon Peter was married) was sick with a fever. She probably wasn't going to die, but she was incredibly sick. Those of you who have ever had a fever can know how awful that is.

Jesus just stood over her and rebuked the fever and the fever left here and she was immediately strong enough to get up and start serving supper.

When the evening came (and the Sabbath was technically over) a bunch of people came to Jesus to be healed and he healed every one of them.

Jesus was demonstrating His power over the material world and over sickness.

Listen, I still believe that Jesus has power over sickness. There are a lot of charlatans out there - who stage healing services and prey on simple minded people. We reject that nonsense. I don't believe Christians today (at least in America) get the gift of healing.

But I still believe that Jesus has authority over sickness and can heal people and we praise Him when He does.

Listen, do you know what Jesus' unique healing ministry did? It showed people that Jesus was God. He could command nature and it would act at His command. He could touch a withered hand and miraculously it would grow back. He could touch eyes that had never seen and they would immediately start seeing.

Jesus has authority over the demon world and the physical world. He was a man with obvious authority.

Now, there is one more thing I want to show you in this passage and then I'll make a quick application and be done:

• Jesus showed His authority in His teaching.
• Jesus showed His authority over demons.
• Jesus showed His authority over sickness.

The fourth point I want to make is...

4. Jesus showed his own submission to authority.

Do you know what is interesting to me? Throughout Jesus life on this earth He himself was submitted to authority. We can see that in this chapter. Look at verses 42-43:

[!bible] Luke 4:42-43 - KJV 42. And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place: and the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. 43. And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.

The men of Capurnaum wanted Jesus to stick around. You would too if you could have someone who could heal everyone.

But Jesus said to them "I cant, I must preach the kingdom of God, because that is where I am sent."

Jesus was recognizing that God has a plan for Him. God had an authority over Him and He had to submit to that authority.

You can go back to the end of chapter 2 and see that Jesus submitted Himself to His earthly parents.

[!bible] Luke 2:51 - KJV 51. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.

Jesus submitted Himself to the authority of God's plan, to the leading of the Spirit, to the Word of God and to the authority God had placed over Him while on this earth.

Jesus obeyed the laws. Jesus paid taxes. Jesus obeyed His parents. Jesus submitted to authority.

And I want to close this morning by making the point I started out by making: Authority is a part of being a Christian.

You cannot be a Christian and live in the "no one is the boss of me" attitude. No, as a Christian Jesus is the boss of you, He leads you through His word and through the people and institutions that He makes a lesser authority over your life.

Jesus preached the gospel of the Kingdom. Do you know what you have in a kingdom? You have a king!

So I want to close this morning by asking you this: Are you recognizing Jesus' authority in your life?

He is the authority. He has the authority. All power is given to Him on heaven and in earth.

Are you submitting to Him?

Listen, some day you will.

[!bible] Romans 14:11 - KJV 11. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.