The Authority of Christ
Caleb Hyers | The Resting Place Apostolic Family | Matthew 4:23–7:28
In this message, Caleb Hyers walks through the authority of Christ as revealed in the bookends of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a look at why the crowds were astonished by Jesus’ teaching, and why the authority of Christ was never meant to stay in the first century.
Hallelujah. So glad you’re here. If it was your first time, meet me on the way out. I’ll shake your hand and say hi. We’d love to welcome anyone who’s been tracking with us. This is a very special day. And to our livestream, those who aren’t able to make it in person but are watching online, welcome.
This is the final Sunday of our Sabbath adventure until seven years later, when we’ll obey the Lord again with this pattern of Scripture. We don’t have time to share all of that today, but we’d love to invite you into the journey of tying a bow on it with the Sermon on the Mount today.
Next week is going to be very special. It’s going to be our first Sunday out of the Sabbath, where we’re starting a new season. We’re going to have multiple people up here in a panel format sharing what they’ve observed over the Sabbath year. That’ll be great for all of us who have been here. We can reminisce a little bit. We can celebrate. And it’ll be great for those who weren’t part of the whole Sabbath year. You can get a beautiful overview, a review of all that happened. So make sure to be here next week if you can. It’s going to be powerful.
As we end our twelve months in the Sermon on the Mount, I want to take a moment to look at the bookends. I was discerning with the Lord what to do, how to do this, because we have not touched every part of the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve been in it a year, and we feel like we’ve only scratched the surface. There’s so much more. If the Word is Jesus, then it’s deep and it’s wide and there’s so much more to explore. There are even sections we didn’t get to. We were praying for the Lord to lead us. I was praying about this with Victoria, and I asked her what the right way to end this would be. She said the phrase bookends. The beginning and the end. Something jumped in me. I’m excited about that. I believe the Lord is leading us today.
I Want to Hear the Word of the Lord
I want to pray, as always, that we would hear the Lord. Amen, that we would hear. I didn’t pray yet, Lord. That was early. Just kidding. That’s a joke.
I want to hear the word of the Lord. I don’t want to talk about my opinion. I don’t want to just hear ideas. Information is different than impartation. When you receive a word from God, you actually get changed. You don’t just learn stuff. A lot of times we come to church so used to information. We’re so used to learning new things, so used to getting a nugget to take us through our week. But I have a higher desire in my heart every time I’m up here: that we would actually interact with the Person of the Word and leave changed because He spoke, not because we learned about Him. There is knowing about God, and there is knowing God through firsthand experience. We gather to encounter God together. When we’re singing and everything is wonderful, that’s awesome, but this is also an encounter with God in His Word. That’s my desire. That’s what I want to pray into. Would you join me?
Father, we ask You to help us. Help me, Lord, to hear what You’re saying. We know You’re saying something. We know You are speaking to us. Help us to hear You. Help us, Lord, to remain undistracted for just a few moments. Help us to put the cell phone down. Help us to be in it with You, to hear You, Lord. Help us to not be thinking about the rest of our day, but thinking about the Son of Man, who is the light of day, that we would be hearing You shine in the places in our heart that we need to see. So God, we speak to our ears: hear the word of the Lord. Hear what the Lord is saying. Use this silly, long-haired, sunburnt man. Use him, Lord, to speak Your word somehow. That’s crazy, we work miracles, but do it, Lord. We want to hear You, and You alone. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
The Authority of Christ
My title this morning is The Authority of Christ. We could spend an entire year on that statement. But in looking at the Sermon on the Mount, how it begins and how it ends, I think there’s something special the Lord showed me for us today.
I want to take you to the very beginning, and even the preamble before the beginning, which is really Matthew 4. In Matthew 5 it talks about the crowds that He taught, but where did those crowds come from? Let’s read Matthew 4:23–25.
MATTHEW 4:23–25
He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
Their synagogues were their version of church, their temple. There wasn’t just one temple; there were many synagogues that resembled that, where they taught and learned from the Word of God.
Translation: this was not church as usual. They were piling in all the sick, the demon-possessed, everything, the people you and I might normally avoid, and this was the main event. Jesus was going to heal them, and He healed them all. This is not a fairy tale. This is history. His story.
Then Matthew 5:1, the next sentence:
MATTHEW 5:1
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying…
The Sermon on the Mount. Everything we’ve been in for the last twelve months. Now let’s pick it up in Matthew 7:28.
MATTHEW 7:28–29
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
I want you to catch the context. The scribes taught in the synagogue. They would have never taught upon a mountain; they would never talk like that. They were in the synagogue, with the scroll. They were the authority on the Scriptures, the authorized ones to tell everybody what it says in the book of Isaiah, what it says in Exodus. They retold the stories. They were the only ones qualified to do this. And yet Jesus, seeing the crowds on a mountainside, astonished them by speaking as one with authority, not as one of their scribes.
The scribes read the word. Jesus is the Word. This happens in church every single week, scribes reading a word with no authority on it, because it’s not actually what God is saying right now. It might be what God has said, but that’s all the scribes did. The difference is: what is He saying? Through His written Word, amen, but what is He saying to us? This is why I pastor this way. This is why I have everyone who teaches approach it this way: ask the Lord, what is He saying to these people right now through His Word? That’s the only way there’s authority, because it’s Him, the Word. His teaching is not one voice among many. It’s the ground every other truth has to stand on. Jesus is not a teacher. He is the truth.
Astonished and Authority
I love biblical language. If you know me, you know I’m a nerd for the Bible dictionary, so let’s nerd out a little on two words: astonished and authority. Can we nerd out together?
The Greek word for astonished is ekplesso. Strong’s Concordance defines it as to amaze or astonish, from ek and plesso, ek meaning out, completely out, wholly out, and plesso meaning to strike. It properly means to strike out of one’s senses. They were struck out of their senses, like, I don’t even know what day it is, I don’t know how I feel, is that wind, I can’t tell. Struck out of their senses, with the outcome of being utterly amazed, dumbfounded, or at a loss from witnessing the incredible, causing the viewer to gape in astonishment. Have you ever seen one of the wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon or something, and you’re just astonished? Not, “so many things to learn, that was so nice, I learned a lot.” Astonished. Gaping in astonishment.
The NET Bible’s overview of the New Testament says this word occurs thirteen times in the Greek New Testament, and it always describes a vivid, visceral reaction of people who encounter the word or works of God in Christ or His apostles. I wonder how many of us are preaching the Word in a way that would produce a little more gaping. Whether the setting is a synagogue, a roadside, a private conversation, or a Roman governor’s court, the response is consistent: hearers or observers are so overwhelmed they are metaphorically struck out of themselves. Astonished. Have you ever been astonished like that by anything? Where did I go? I don’t even know. It’s like you wake up and you don’t know what year it is. That feeling, struck out of themselves.
Why were they astonished? Not because of His eloquence, not because of how much Scripture He quoted. They were astonished because He taught as one with authority.
Our second Greek word is exousia. It means authority, jurisdiction, liberty, or power. It comes from exesti, carrying the idea of ability and privilege: subjectively, capacity and competency and freedom; objectively, mastery; concretely, magistrate or superhuman. We like superheroes. If Jesus, when He spoke, it’s like Superman is talking. Everybody’s listening. They were shocked. Superhuman. It carries delegated influence, authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right, strength. Helps Word Studies says it’s from ek again, same beginning as ekplesso, meaning out from, and it intensifies eimi, meaning to have a right or a privilege. Authority, conferred power, delegated empowerment, authorization, operating in a designated jurisdiction. Exousia in the New Testament means delegated power. It refers to the authority God gives to His saints, authorizing them to act to the extent they are guided by faith in His revealed Word.
Now, whenever you’re looking this deep into the Greek, it’s important that you don’t just take one thing, like delegated authority, and misapply it. You can’t just say, “Jesus was operating in a delegated authority that was given to Him.” That would be like going to the Grand Canyon, climbing all the way to the bottom, putting your face in the dirt, and going, “This place is great, look at this rock, look at that little beetle right there, that’s what makes this place.” And the truth is, it does make it that. Without that little pebble, without that rock, it’s not the Grand Canyon. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but I’m trying to teach you how to study your Bible. If you never step back and see the expanse, you’re missing the point of the pebble. You need the practice of looking closely and looking at the expanse. You need both experiences to understand what’s going on. Because you could say, “Jesus was operating in a delegated authority that wasn’t His,” and you’d be wrong. That’s staring at the pebble.
The Complete Word Study says this word, exousia, is used a hundred times in the Greek New Testament. It describes the right, privilege, or jurisdiction to act. It traces every exercise of legitimate power back to God, who alone possesses it inherently and who delegates it according to His redemptive purposes.
You see what we just did? We went to the bottom of the canyon and then back up to a summary of all its uses. Is this too nerdy? Your Bible wasn’t written in English. You’ve got to study it a little deeper than that if you’re going to study the Bible.
Jesus Is Authority
So all that to say: the crowds were astonished because of His authority. I have three points for you today.
Number one: Jesus is authority. Jesus does not only have authority, Jesus is authority Himself. He’s not authoritative; He is authority. Jesus is not a good teacher among other good teachers. He personifies truth, and there is no category next to Him. Christ’s authority is not delegated to Him, it’s inherent within Him, because Jesus is God. He doesn’t quote truth; He embodies it. This is the difference between Him and the scribes. He’s not quoting things about God, He’s speaking as God, because He is. His words can’t be placed beside human wisdom as one option among several. They are the foundation everything else gets measured against. They are the bedrock of all truth.
The Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth because He reveals Christ. Other spirits can lead you into assumption, but only the Holy Spirit leads you into all truth, because the Holy Spirit reveals Christ, who is true. You can learn from anyone, you can learn from anything, you should, but never call it the source, and never look for all truth in anything other than Christ.
John 14:6, He said this about Himself:
JOHN 14:6
I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Truth is a Person. His name is Jesus Christ. Let me say it a couple different ways: truth is not a bunch of ideas, truth is not a bunch of things you read. Your Bible contains the Word, but the Word is a Person the Bible talks about. Truth is a Person who lives right now, forever. He’s alive forever. He lives right now. He can hear you. He can see you. He has eyes and ears, and you can hear Him. He said, “My sheep know my voice; strangers they will not follow.”
His authority is not contingent on the religious structures of the day. He didn’t have the training. He didn’t have the title. There’s a moment where He opens the scroll of Isaiah and reads the messianic passage, and He says, “This scroll today is fulfilled in your hearing,” and then He sits down in the chair. Nobody sits in the chair, that’s for the Messiah. He’s claiming to be God the Son, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. This is why they tried to stone Him multiple times, because He was speaking as God. He says, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” There is one way to the source of truth. He is both the gate, the way, and the source of all truth.
Christ is authority. His authority wasn’t based on eloquence or reference material of the Scriptures. He wasn’t just quoting a bunch of Scripture off the top and impressing people. His authority superseded all of this. Whereas the scribes needed the synagogue and the scroll, He is the house and the Word.
I don’t think you believe me yet, so I’m going to read a bunch of Scriptures to you, uninterrupted, eight passages. Let’s see if the Word still astonishes us.
JOHN 1:1–5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
JOHN 1:14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
COLOSSIANS 1:15–20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
COLOSSIANS 2:8–10
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
PHILIPPIANS 2:5–11
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
HEBREWS 1:1–4
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
1 TIMOTHY 3:16
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
REVELATION 1:17
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”
Jesus has always been, and will always be, the ultimate person of authority, God the Son. There’s no category for someone like that. Who else has written up this way? Find me another. Who would dare pen such an expansive, exhaustive list of who He is? Find me anyone. And yet we let this speak, and we live from supposed truth.
His Authority Was Placed Upon the Early Disciples
Christ is authority Himself. Not my opinion, the Scriptures declare it.
Number two: His authority was placed upon the early disciples. It was delegated to them to walk in that authority, and they did. Let’s read Acts 3:1–10.
ACTS 3:1–10
Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And he took him by the hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
This is after Jesus died, rose again, and ascended into heaven, and this is also after Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit was poured out. Were they walking in the same authority? Yes.
When they say, “What I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus,” they’re saying: by His authority. Peter and John go on to proclaim to the crowd, “We have no power in ourselves.” They say, why do you look at us, like it’s our godliness that made this man walk? It’s by the authority, the name of Jesus Christ, whom you crucified, by the way. This is Peter, who was ashamed just a couple weeks earlier, Peter, who denounced knowing Him, said, “I don’t know the man.” Now he’s saying, this isn’t by us, it’s by the Man you crucified. There’s a different authority in play.
They preach in the temple right there that day, in the name and authority of Jesus, and the leaders of the temple, they didn’t say, “Oh, that’s great, call us out for killing God, that’s fine.” No. They got very upset. They threw them in jail overnight.
ACTS 4:5–13
On the next day, the rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
That means they made this a big deal. Everybody came. And when the rulers inquired by what power or by what name they did this, they were asking: who authorized you to do this?
Peter gives them their title. He doesn’t say they’re not in place. I just want to be there when he says that. By what name? Whose authority? They were astonished, and that word “astonished” is actually a different Greek word with a similar definition: thaumazo, meaning to wonder at, be amazed, astonished out of one’s senses, or awestruck.
It’s safe to say that the same authority Jesus spoke with was on Peter and John. They were astonished at the miracle, but they were also astonished at the teaching. How did Jesus get the crowds? He taught in the synagogues, He healed the sick, and they were astonished. Then he teaches again, and they’re astonished. The same pattern is playing out again in the life of the early disciples.
You Are Sent in That Same Authority
Point number three: you are sent in that same authority. We are all sent in that very same authority. This is not just, “Look at Peter and John, so cool, he did that, Peter was bold, that’s great, they’re heroes.” We’re sent in the same authority. This is the Great Commission, Matthew 28:18–20. You probably know it, but let’s think a little deeper here.
MATTHEW 28:18–20
And Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This is after He was raised, before He ascended. Do you know why He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”? Because there was delegated authority given to Adam that Adam gave away, and Christ, the last Adam, came and took it back.
That last part is the only reason they can do it, in His authority, because He’s with them. The reason you can do it is authority, because Christ told us to. It’s because you actually carry Christ everywhere you go. This is an explicit command to go and accomplish the task of discipling others. We should not be casual about this, friends. We should not be casual about this. This is why I spent the majority of our time talking about the authority of Christ. It’s a big deal that we carry the authority of Christ as ambassadors on the earth. What are you doing with it?
We should treat this as the baseline for all of our assignments. You might think, “Caleb, you disciple people because that’s your job, talking truth.” No, when I was working at the cable park, I was baptizing people at the cable park. I was telling people about Jesus. I was praying for people. When I detailed yachts, I was trying to talk to the owners, trying to be around them to let them know there’s a God in heaven who loves them, and that material wealth is not going to fill the hole they’re trying to fill, and that God wants to. This is not optional, friends. You can’t be given delegated authority at that high a level and not use it. Who do we think we are, just shirking that?
Some teach this command as casual, “as you are going, just as your daily life, just go ahead and make disciples.” There are reasons for that reading in the Greek, and I don’t have time to explain them right now, but that’s not a great understanding of this point. It’s the job of every disciple to go and teach what Jesus taught us. Someone asked in the first gathering, this is good to clarify, when He said, “teaching them everything I’ve commanded you,” it also includes that final command: to go, therefore, make disciples. So it was for the disciples, and it was for the next disciples, and the next. That’s a command He gave them. It doesn’t sound like a suggestion. Come here, go, go, therefore, in My authority.
So it’s required of us to go. Think of it this way: go and make disciples no matter where you go. That’s how you should understand this. Go and make disciples no matter what you’re doing. This doesn’t mean all of us need to go on a mission trip to Africa. I used to joke, stop sending all the good plumbers to Africa, let them exercise their God-given gift on my pipes in my house. Let them walk in their God-given assignment. We send people, we make them feel more spiritual by going on a mission trip. That’s not what this means. It means wherever you go, this is your main assignment: make disciples. He said everything He commanded you.
So what are we going to do with what we’ve received? We need to put these things into practice in the authority of Christ. We’re to act in the name of Jesus. If we do, people will be astonished, and they’ll recognize we’ve been with a higher authority. How did you do that? And it’s not just miracle signs and wonders, it’s patience, it’s kindness in the face of jerks. If you’ve never met a jerk before, let me help you, you are the jerk. Have you ever been with difficult people? It takes everything sometimes not to lose it. People should be asking, “How did you endure that with joy? How did you keep showing up? How did you keep caring for the people around you when you were going through that yourself?” I’ve been with Jesus.
Three Questions to Ponder
I have three questions for you to ponder.
Has Jesus become one voice among many in your mind, or is He the ultimate authority for everything in your life? Is He just one voice alongside the others? Are there multiple sources of truth, or is He the ultimate authority for everything in your life? Practically: is He the first thought in your mind? What do I do here, Jesus? What would You authorize me to do? What would You want to do? Let’s bring back the bracelets, What Would Jesus Do. I used to wear them, like fourteen of them, and never washed them. It was disgusting. I had to cut them off, they wouldn’t even unclip. Don’t do that. But we need that “What would You do here, Jesus?” mantra back in our soul. That makes Him the ultimate authority for everything in your life.
Number two: is anyone recognizing that you’ve been with the highest authority ever to exist? We can’t do a Christianity that just makes you feel good and go home unchanged. What are the names of the people who’ve been astonished because of you? What are their faces? Do they exist? There’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, so this isn’t to condemn you, but I hope you get convicted. If it’s hard to name some, it’s time to walk in a greater measure of the authority you’ve been given.
Number three: what needs to be put into practice in your life so that you are truly making disciples of all nations among us? What are the practical things you need to do? Do you have a prayer list with people on it? That’s practical, write their names, pray for them. Do you have goals? I have goals for the amount of people I want to bless and reach. In my personal life I have goals, I can’t tell you what they are, or I’ll lose my reward, but I have them. I want to do this for this many, I want to bring this many. What do you need to do practically to make it real? Maybe a practical thing is to stop complaining about your workplace, “this place stinks.” Well, you’re there, so bring the aroma of Christ, not the stink. Don’t stink up the workplace. Share the aroma of Christ everywhere we go. It’s biblical.
Christ is authority Himself. The early disciples had that authority, and so do we. It’s time to live like it. Coming out of our Sabbath year, we need to be ready and willing to apply what He said in the Sermon on the Mount, not just be aware of it and know it and regurgitate it, but walk in it with His authority.
Believe on Jesus Christ
Would you say amen? We’re going to have a prayer team come forward. I hope that was helpful, not just hurtful, but mostly helpful. Mostly helpful, a little hurtful, I’m good with that. All hurtful, not good, but anyway.
Let’s just go, Lord. If you’re here and you haven’t actually received His authority as your authority, if you’re here and you’ve never had the moment where you gave God your life and said, “I don’t want to lead this anymore, I need someone who knows what they’re doing to lead it,” here’s how you do it: you simply believe on Jesus Christ. Believe that Jesus is God, that He was born of a virgin, miraculously born, and that He lived a perfect and sinless life, never doing anything wrong to anyone, and that He perfectly displayed the Father on earth, that all of God was in Him. That He died a horrible, criminal’s death, your death and my death, not just for us but as us, on the cross. And that three days later He rose up from the grave on His own. No one lifted Him up. He stood up of His own accord and rolled the stone away. He appeared to more than five hundred witnesses, the disciples and five hundred others, and He ascended into heaven.
You might think, “This is too much, this is a lot to believe.” It’s not that you can’t believe it, it’s that you don’t think you can. But yes, you can believe it. I’m standing in front of you with my goals, I want to make it really hard to go to hell through Tampa Bay. I’m going to make it even more difficult to go to hell if you’ve been at The Resting Place. You step in here, you sit in here, you’re going to hear it.
On that day, when He cracks the sky, He promised He’d return, there will be those on His left and those on His right: those who rejected His authority, and those who accepted it by believing it’s true. Friend, I really want you to be with us in eternity, forever, celebrating His sacrifice, goodness, and mercy. All you have to do is believe. You don’t need to sign up to be part of this church, you don’t need to be anything, just believe that Jesus is God, that He was perfect, that He died and rose again and ascended into heaven. He’s waiting for the full number to come and believe it, and I want you to be part of that number.
Today, if you’ve never done that, this is your moment. Whoever would say, “I want to make Jesus the authority of my life, He is the ultimate authority I’m giving my life to,” I beg you to do that. This might be the last time you hear someone crazy enough to say it. I don’t know what tomorrow holds for you or for me. The sky could crack open in the next thirty seconds. No one knows the time or the hour. This isn’t a fear tactic, it’s the truth. He’s done everything necessary for you to be free, to be delivered, to be whole. Why would you reject it? Why would you say, “No, I’m good, I’ve got it on my own”? Don’t be foolish about it. “The fool says in their heart, there is no God,” the Scriptures say. It’s foolish. And you might say, “I’ve got too much pain, too much sin to know You.” No, you don’t. He’ll love the sin right out of your life. He’ll do it.
Father, I ask right now, by Your Spirit, would You draw men to Yourself? Not by eloquence, not by the stance of a scribe, not by manipulation through a text, but by Your Spirit, God. By Your Holy Spirit, would You pull the soul that is perishing? Would You reach into the depths of the pit some may be in? Would You make it plain that You are reaching for us? God, I pray there would be wisdom enough to know there is need of a Savior here in this room. And God, if anyone has not already accepted You, I pray by Your Spirit You wouldn’t let them leave until it happens. Stick their feet to the ground, keep them in the room, Lord, whatever You have to do. I want to plunder hell and populate heaven. Jesus paid it all, He paid for your way, He paid for my way. He’s not asking you to pay for your sins; He’s asking you to believe He paid for your sins. Oh God, by Your Spirit, would You draw?
And for those of us who have already received You, I pray that today would be a day of walking in more levels of Your authority. You need to be sent every Sunday. Say, Lord, send me, send me to my family, send me in Your authority. Send me to the beautiful gate of the lame man. Send me to my workplace. Send me to my home. Send me as an ambassador of Christ. Send me off. I say yes to Your calling, to go and make disciples. Can you pray that? Lord, send me as a disciple-maker. I’m asking Your Spirit to do it, to send us. Grip us for the gospel and send us, Lord. Thank You, Jesus.
Show us what You love and what You grieve. Give us understanding, prophetic insight on what is right and what is wrong. Give us a heart for the broken among us. Let us not be frustrated with brokenness, let us be broken by brokenness. Help us, Lord, give us a heart. Help us to care for one another on the journey of faith, as a family of faith. And as always, lead us in the light of Your truth. Your Word is truth, Your holy Scriptures. In Jesus’ name.
The Lord bless you, and the Lord keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and give you peace. Amen.
Are you glad you came today? If you’ve got your kids here, go get them first, but everyone is welcome to come and pray, say goodbye to somebody. Don’t just leave. Love you, love you, love you. We’ll see you next week for our first Sunday out of the Sabbath.
Transcript of a message delivered at The Resting Place Apostolic Family — Tampa Bay, FL — trpfamily.org