Live With Power Series

Luke 9:1-6

Live with Power in Ministry

Greetings: The Lord is good and his love endures forever.

A preacher trained his horse to go when he says, “Praise the Lord,” and to stop when he says, “Amen.” One day, the preacher mounted on his horse, and said “Praise the Lord,” the horse immediately started a ride in the nearby mountains. The horse started heading toward the edge of a cliff on a narrow mountain trail. The preacher got excited and said, “Whoa!” But the horse was running then with a fear he remembered to stop him, and said, “Amen,” then the horse stopped just short of the edge. The preacher was so relieved that he looked up to heaven and said, “Praise the Lord!” (adopted)

Context: Jesus called his disciples one by one at various occasions form their various vocations. Simon Peter, James, and John (Luke 5:8-9) were fishers. Then he called Levi (Luke 5:27) a tax collector. He spent the whole night in prayer (Luke 6:12) and in the morning he called the entire company of the disciples and limited to twelve and named them as apostles: Simon, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot (Luke 6:12-16). He taught them the values of his kingdom, he trained them in the ministry of healing, caring, and in preaching. He taught them to face the crisis, persecution, and suffer for the sake of righteousness. He taught them to be good faithful civilians. Now Jesus sends them to do the team ministry, and later he sent them to do the ministry as two by two (Luke 10:1).

I would like to leave with you three thoughts in the evangelistic, soul winning and church planting ministry. Understand the Power and authority invested on you, Your limitations in ministry, and your limitless mission field.

1. Power and Authority (Luke 9:1-2)

Jesus invested his time, energy, strength and the kingdom with his disciples and trained them for many months. Jesus gave them Power, and authority to drive out demons, and to cure diseases, and heal the sick after preaching the kingdom of God. Jesus never sent anyone without power and authority as his delegate to the mission field. God calls and God equips all of us. Jesus delegated the work with power and authority (Enduring Word Commentary). The equipping is understood and felt and experienced in the field and not in the class rooms and training centres.

“To give” (Greek: didomi) refers to the ordination of the Twelve under the hands of Jesus himself. Jesus laid his hands on one by one. The Greek nouns are dunamis and exousia, common terms in Luke’s record to describe the divine power and authority (Luke 1:35; 4:6, 14, 36). The word Dunamis means "power, might, strength, force, ability, and capability." It refers to the power needed to accomplish through an action. The word Exousia refers to the power exercised by rulers or those who are in high position by virtue of their office. It is known as the "ruling power, or official power." Dunamis is the raw power, exousia is the authority to use that power (ref:Jesus walk ministries). They were ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood, full authority of the Apostleship (Luke 8:1 and 9:2). Hence, they apparently received priesthood authority in steps and exercised priesthood powers (Luke 9:49–50).

Moses had power over Pharoah and the Egyptians through the Staff. The ordinary shepherd turned into powerful leader to bring the Israelites from Egypt. God told Joshua that no one would stand against him as long he lives. Gideon was given power to topple the enemies’ kingdoms through the pots. Samson was filled with spirit to do extraordinary things for God among philistines. Elijah was given power to command the clouds and the rains.

The early Christians, the deacons, and the evangelists were filled with power(Acts 6,8). They all have done their ministry, served people in their own generation and accomplished whatever the Lord has entrusted to them. Paul was possessed with power and authority to stand before the kings and the judges. God never sent anyone without power and authority in his kingdom.

Jesus gave authority "to heal." (Greek therapeuo), "serve, be a servant," then "care for, wait upon, treat (medically), heal, restore." Once Pope Francis commented the Church is a field hospital or mobile hospital.

Jesus gave power “to preach” (Greek kerysso, keryx, “herald,” and kerygma, “proclamation”), tie particularly to the message about the kingdom of God and about Jesus. Their work of preaching might happen in open-air settings, street corners or marketplaces. It might happen in synagogues. It might happen in small groups or one-on-one conversations. Jesus used the media that was available to Him and used it well (Enduring Word). Jesus told them to do Ministry to the whole person, that means, feed the soul, heal the sick, treat the emotional disturbances. Jesus is sharing his own mission and his own powers with us in all our frailty.