The Presence Of Ultimate Authority Series

The Presence of Ultimate Authority

Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)

Brad Bailey – February 3, 2019

Text: Luke 4:31-41

Intro

I want to begin with a word… a topic. And give us each a second see what comes to mind.

“Authority” When you think of authority… what comes to mind?

My guess is that if we reflect long enough…we can have some pretty mixed feelings associated with authority.

Many of us may have some negative feelings…perhaps at different levels. For some…those associated with authority may have been abusive. For others… there may just be a more general distrust…enough figures have failed us.

And generally speaking, there is a part of most of us…that just doesn’t like to be told what to do.

But there can be another element that knows that order is essential to life. We might talk about chaos lightly…but we know that we really don’t want complete chaos. We want to believe that someone should be able to step in.

It may be helpful to keep that in mind ….as we continue in our series this morning. Encountering Jesus through the Gospel of Luke.

The Gospel of Luke… one of the accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus. These have been divided later into chapters and verses to be able to reference any one in particular. We are on a journey together… last week… in chapter 4.

Luke began his account of what led up to the birth of Jesus… and last week…we reached the moment in which Jesus was anointed and declared his ministry.

What Jesus had just declared in the previous synagogue…was now at hand: The prophecy was being fulfilled:

Luke 4:18-19, 21

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."… "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Those in the local synagogue who heard these words were in awe…until Jesus began to challenge their sense of religious self-assurance. He reminded them how God had done miracles for Gentiles in the past. His point to those who heard then…and to us now…is that what he is bringing to bear is for everyone.

If you think you can decide who is worthy… you don’t understand what and who you are dealing with.

Jesus didn’t see people as religious or unreligious.

He saw people as self-righteous and declaring their independence to the very end…or those who knew they and the whole world needed change…and were able to receive him and the restoration of life with God which was at hand.

And now Jesus begins his mission…

Luke 4:31-32 (NIV)?Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people. 32  They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority.

What was gong on here? Something very different than the usual way in which religious teachers taught.

The long history of Israel was clearly rooted in divine revelation…and then by the time of Jesus… the role of the religious teachers was one of opinions about that revelation.

God had spoken through the prophets. Religious leaders were those who now provide their various understanding of such truth…and how to follow it. SO they would cite various opinions to make their point.

Jesus operated out of another dimension.

He is speaking of what is the ultimate truth.

There are natural elements that we associate with authority. The best way I can describe it…is that Jesus spoke as one connected to the other side of the finite.

It is a different authority at hand.

We generally ascribe authority based on credentials that we associate with knowledge …or what endorsements that authors or speakers are given… or with the intensity of the claims that they make that what they say is true… or even with simply with style of presentation.

> But the ultimate truth lies in the source of the authority… that it is connected to that which is beyond mere finite perspective. [1a]

The first thing we discover about Jesus today… is that Christ bears…

Authority to declare ultimate truth (how things really are)

The people were amazed… something was different….Jesus spoke as one connected to the infinite side of reality.

Someone has come who was foretold would bear connection….who claimed connection…and what they have declared still bears connection… “living Word.”

That is another scale of authority.

When rabbis offered their best wisdom about how to find one’s way…how to discern truth… about how to find life…. Jesus was quite clear about his bearing something very different. At one point,

John 14:6, 9b, 10-11 (NIV) ?Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me….Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father….The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.