Exousia (The Authority Of Jesus) Series

Good morning! Last week I spoke from John 6, and we went through the story of Jesus walking on water after the feeding of the 5000. We spoke about being aligned with God’s will, and the continual need that we have both as the church and as individuals to make sure that we are realigning ourselves with God whenever the potholes of life bump us off track.

So for the next two weeks, we are going to be looking at the “Great Commission” in Matthew 28. This is really important, because when we talk about aligning ourselves with God’s will, Matthew 28 is an actual command that Jesus gave his disciples to follow, until “the end of the age” according to the passage, so this is something that we definitely need to be concerned about as the church today as well.

Sometimes we forget that the cross wasn’t the end of Jesus’ time on earth. After Jesus rose from the grave, he visited a number of people and did a number of things, and eventually, when it was time for him to leave and go to heaven, he gave a command to his disciples, and this command is what drove the early followers of Jesus to share the good news with the world, to spread the love of Jesus and to allow Jesus to build his church through them. It is such an important command, both for the early church, and for the church today. So this is what we are going to look at for the next two weeks.

So let’s read these two verses, and if you have your bible with you, I am reading from Matthew 28:18-20: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So the first thing we need to do is look at the context of this Gospel, and I won’t spend too much time here. All four gospels were written for different purposes, and to different audiences. Understanding these factors for the gospel of Matthew will give us insight into the wording that is used here, how it was intended, and how it applies for us. So Matthew wrote his Gospel to the Greek speaking Jews of his day, and really what he was trying to do was make a case for them as to why Jesus IS the promised Messiah, and that he has fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies. You have to remember that in the first century, there were many people claiming to be the messiah, and so to them, Jesus was just another person doing the same. So Matthew really works to build a case for the Jews of his day. This is why Matthew starts off with Jesus’ ancestry at the beginning of his book, to show that Jesus’ bloodlines go all the way back to King David. And this theme runs through Matthew, there is a lot of looking back at events and scripture that show Jesus fulfilling prophecy, which we will see a little bit today in our passage.

So going back to the passage, there is a key word in the great commission that is very important to recognize when studying ANY part of the bible. Usually, when reading the Great Commission, we focus on the GO aspect, make disciples, baptize them and teach them. However, we often don’t recognize that verse 19 started by saying, “Go therefore” in the original greek. There is a cute rhyme they teach in classes on exegetical study, “when you see the word therefore, you have to go back and see what it’s there for.” And the idea is that whatever comes BEFORE the word therefore in a passage, directly impacts and influences what comes after. You need to understand what comes first before you can understand what comes after. In this case, what comes first is the statement by Jesus, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” THEREFORE, GO. So next week we are going to focus on what comes after the word GO. But THIS week, I’m going to talk about The Authority of Jesus. Because of the word therefore, we must understand what this Authority of Jesus means before we can fully understand the Great Commission, the GO part of the passage. Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”. But what does that mean, and what does it mean for us when it comes to the Great Commission, to go out into the world and make disciples as the church? To explore this and to understand it better, today we are going to look at three big ways that Jesus has expressed his authority, to help us fully understand and appreciate the Authority of which he speaks, the first of which is his Authority as Creator and Sustainer.