The Authority of Jesus
Download MP3If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Mark chapter 1. I'm gonna preach a little bit shorter today to save my voice for the other services. Plus I'm also preaching on demonic possession, so might as well keep it short. 1 of my daughters asked me how the 8 o'clock service went, and I said, I think it went really, really well. God showed up and moved.
Joel Brooks:She goes, Yeah, but you haven't got the emails yet. David Foster said he was gonna answer all my emails this morning, didn't you? Yes. So y'all are in it for a treat. So Mark chapter 1.
Joel Brooks:Last week, we began looking at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, which is really the beginning of Jesus' reign, and how He calls people to come and to follow Him. And in the text that we are going to read this morning, we get to see what his reign looks like. And what it looks like is deliverance and healing. Jesus, He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And so Mark chapter 1.
Joel Brooks:I'm actually gonna begin by first reading 1 verse from first John 3 verse 8. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Now Mark chapter 1 verse 21. And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue, and He was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.
Joel Brooks:And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. The Holy One of God.
Joel Brooks:But Jesus rebuked him saying, be silent and come out of him. And the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves saying, what is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.
Joel Brooks:And at once, His fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee. And immediately, He left the synagogue, and He entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and he took her by the hand and he lifted her up. And the fever left her and she began to serve them.
Joel Brooks:That evening at sundown, they brought to Him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door and he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew Him. This is the word of the Lord. It is to be with you.
Joel Brooks:If you would pray with me. Father God, we pray that through your spirit, you would show up. It would come into this place and you would move in our midst. Lord, we we have made plans, but we have no agenda other than to just be with you and to worship you. So, Lord, would you speak to us?
Joel Brooks:I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. In this passage of scripture we read, it begins with Jesus going to a synagogue.
Joel Brooks:He would often go to synagogues to teach. This is his first time doing that. It's a synagogue in Capernaum. And when people hear Jesus teach for the first time, they are they're blown away. They've never heard anything like it.
Joel Brooks:They're they're amazed. They are astonished. But then interestingly, we're never actually told what he taught. This is an oddity that we'll find through the gospel of Mark. The most common title that is given to Jesus, that people call Jesus is teacher.
Joel Brooks:His disciples call him teacher. Other people call him teacher. It's his most common title, and yet of all the gospels in Mark is where Jesus does the least amount of teaching. And so here, he talks about his teaching, but we actually don't know what he taught. And in Mark, there's no Sermon on the Mount.
Joel Brooks:There's no really long sections of discourse. We're mostly told of what Jesus did. We're told about his actions, because that's really how Jesus taught. That's where his authority could be seen. But when did Jesus did speak, his teaching was is contrasted to the scribes.
Joel Brooks:It's not like theirs. He he preaches with authority. You see all the other scribes, all the other rabbis, with all their fancy degrees, they loved teaching by just quoting one another. Rabbi Ezekiel, well he said this. But Rabbi Gamliel also said this.
Joel Brooks:Matt Chandler, he said this. But don't forget that Tim Keller also said this. And then he gotta throw in some Danish, you know, philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard. He also says this. And then Jesus walks in the room.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't do any of that. He doesn't quote anyone. He says, truly truly I say to you. And he speaks. Sometimes he he did even more than that.
Joel Brooks:He said, you've heard Moses say this, but now I say to you this. No one spoke like that. I mean, there was an authority with Jesus that just blew everyone away. But for Mark, Jesus' authority is mostly seen through His actions. And that's why Mark writes over and over about the things that Jesus did.
Joel Brooks:And here we see Jesus, He performs 2 miracles that shows that He has authority over the kingdom of Satan, and he has authority over every sickness. And so let's look at both of those. Let's first look at Jesus' authority over the kingdom of Satan. Verse 23. And immediately there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Joel Brooks:Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the holy one of God. Now there's a there's a couple of unusual things happening here. Well, there's a lot of unusual things happening here.
Joel Brooks:Also, you know, you're probably thinking I'm not qualified to teach on demonic possessions and exorcisms because I'm not a Catholic priest. Apparently that's a prerequisite for anyone dealing with a demonic, at least according to Hollywood. I I'm just waiting for some movie and maybe it will happen this Halloween, some movies gonna come out, there's gonna be some possessed person and they're gonna yell, is there a non denominational pastor in the house? Someday, someday that will happen. Alright.
Joel Brooks:There's a couple of unusual things happening here. 1st, there is a man possessed with an unclean spirit. Now this would be of course unusual in our day, but this was also highly unusual for a 1st century Jew. Did you know that before Jesus came, if you read through the Old Testament, you will not read of 1 demonic possession. There's not one in the Old Testament.
Joel Brooks:And then after Jesus, in the book of acts, we only read of 2 in chapter 16 and chapter 19. But in the gospels, while Jesus is walking around, demonic possessions seem to pop up everywhere. There was something about the presence of Jesus that that brought them out. These demons, of course, were there in the old testament. They're they're there after Jesus.
Joel Brooks:They're here now. But there was something about the presence of Jesus. When he walked into the room, they were exposed. As Christians, we believe that there are supernatural forces of good and supernatural forces of evil that are out there. We are not alone in this.
Joel Brooks:The vast majority of the world believes this and has always believed this. I think it's something we instinctively know. It's in it's in the core of our existence, which is why if we see something horrible happening, like perhaps mass genocide of a of of some ethnicity, we cry out evil. We don't say that's natural selection. That's just, I mean, that's just been happening, you know, for 1,000 and 1,000 of years of humanity.
Joel Brooks:And we look at where we are. That's that's evil. We we recognize evil exist. And there are evil forces at work in this world. The biblical worldview is 1 in which we understand the world has been deeply impacted by the powers of evil.
Joel Brooks:1st John 5 19, we read that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. This evil one is Satan. And in 2nd Corinthians 4, we read that he is called the god of this world. In Ephesians 2, He is called the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. And Jesus came to free us from his power.
Joel Brooks:1st John 3:8. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Now, what does being under the power of the devil look like? What does possession look like? Don't think of, you know, some movie, you know, don't think of The Exorcist or some child's head, you know, spinning all around.
Joel Brooks:It's not that dramatic. Demonic possession is the counterfeit to being indwelled by the Holy Spirit. So what does being filled with the Holy Spirit look like? It can at times be dramatic, but a lot of times it's more of the the slow, steady, powerful work of Christ in us. Producing fruits of the Spirit, giving us a new nature.
Joel Brooks:But those fruits grow, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, Well, when one is possessed or oppressed by evil, the opposite happens. It's not that your head is spinning around, but you do begin to become more twisted, more corrupted. You become less than human. I know I probably shouldn't do this on the heels of last week. And Chris Gabbie is saying that we're always, you know, referring to some kind of fantasy reference up here, But Tolkien got it right.
Joel Brooks:It's not like I'm quoting an Elvish every week, people. But, Tolkien got it right in understanding what these evil forces do to humanity. Anytime somebody got near the ring of power, what happened? Their good desires became corrupted. So so they might want the ring in order to to save humanity, to save a city, but that ring would turn that desire to save into a desire for control, a desire to dominate.
Joel Brooks:And it would twist and it would corrupt. And eventually you would become a wraith. You become subhuman. And that's what the oppressive powers of Satan want to do to people. Twist and corrupt you to become less than human.
Joel Brooks:Notice where this demon possessed man was. He wasn't in a bar. He wasn't at some political rally of, you know, whatever rival political party of yours. He was in the synagogue. He was at church.
Joel Brooks:Synagogue is the closest thing we have to church. That was a small group of people that were ruled by elders, had a teaching rabbi, and they would come every Sabbath, and they would look at the scriptures together. It's the closest thing we have to a church. That's where this man was who was possessed. No one had any idea he was possessed until Jesus walked in the room because this man blended in perfectly with the religious.
Joel Brooks:Demons feel right at home in a religious environment. I was coming here 1 Monday morning, and outside of this door over here had the strangest greeting, but there was a man, with no clothes on standing in front of the door. He he obviously was not right in his his mind. He had no clothes on. And he had one of our little paperback bibles that apparently one of you had graciously handed him maybe the day before on a Sunday.
Joel Brooks:And he had torn torn it all up. I don't normally call the cops on people. I thought, this one warrants a call. You know, we gotta do something. And so, I called the cops and and the cops come and we're looking at this this man here, and I I said, it's really sad.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I hated to have to call you sad. This man is obviously very mentally ill. And the cop goes, oh no. That man's possessed. Like, no.
Joel Brooks:He's not. He's not possessed. There's obviously mental illness at work. He goes, man, there are demons all over this man. And I remember thinking, no, actually it's way more likely for a person to be possessed in the church than outside of it.
Joel Brooks:That's that's where Satan feels at home in this kind of religious environment. You know, from time to time, I get asked to speak at other churches and do some consulting work. And I will meet with other pastors and their leadership team, the church staff. And one of the things I I I do, the first first few moments we all gather together is I ask everyone on staff at that church, I want you to think of a time that you came to church in which you really experienced God's presence, and you heard him clearly speak to you. Like he just he just moved in your life in just a way only the spirit of God can, I want you to think of that time?
Joel Brooks:Have everyone think about it. Say, okay. I would like for you to raise your hand if that has happened since you became on staff at this church. I have almost never had someone raise their hand. There's something about going to work at the church that quenches that.
Joel Brooks:There's something that about working on church, it closes out God's presence in your life. And that now, I've had some people say, well, you know, it's because when you work at a church, well, that puts a target on your back. Honestly, I'm not sure I'm that important to have a target on my back. I think the answer is actually a lot more simple than that. I think you begin to change your focus.
Joel Brooks:Whereas before you used to really focus on hearing God, listening to Him, wanting to worship Him. But then once you become on staff, you begin focusing on your performance. Were the powerpoint slides right? Did people like the new song? Was it easy to sing?
Joel Brooks:Was it too long? Was it too redundant? What was the attendance like? Did we finish on time? Were people cold or were they hot?
Joel Brooks:How was the air conditioning? Do I need to cut 2 minutes from the sermon or not? Do I need to change my illustration? Did we have enough volunteers to to put out the coffee and to greet everyone? You begin to focus on your performance.
Joel Brooks:It's easy to focus on your performance rather than your need for God's grace. That you need God just to show up or otherwise it's a terrible service. Satan feels right at home in that environment of performance. And you don't have to be in ministry to create this type of environment. Anytime we care more about our appearance than what's going on in the heart, or about our performance rather than our need for God's grace, we create the perfect environment for Satan to thrive.
Joel Brooks:That's exactly what he wants. It's us putting up a front in front of others. I remember it when preaching through Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, and he had for the first time ever, Ananias and Sapphira put up a front. They pretended to be somebody they were not and to take credit for something they didn't do. And God, through his spirit, struck them dead because it was the first time that ever happened in a church.
Joel Brooks:He says, you're not my church. Our church cannot be like that. It creates the perfect environment for Satan to hide. Remember in Paul in second Corinthians 11, he says, this is what Satan looks like. And he doesn't say he's red with horns.
Joel Brooks:He's not around like, you know, with his head spinning around looking all evil. Says he disguises himself as an angel of light. He looks morally perfect and put together. He blends right in with the religious performer. But when Jesus walked in that room, he was exposed.
Joel Brooks:When the demon hears Jesus, he immediately screams out in terror. People, I mean, they listen to Jesus. They were amazed at his authority. They're just amazed. Demons terrified because demons know who he is.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps if the people, the sinful people listening to Jesus knew who he was, knew that the holy one was in their midst. Perhaps they would have been terrified as well, but they didn't know who he was. But the demons knew and they shuddered. They screamed out. They they said This man said, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Joel Brooks:Have you come to destroy us? You could actually translate this. What are you doing here? You've come to destroy us, haven't you? It's real fear here.
Joel Brooks:These demons, you know, they've been rebelling against God since the dawn of time. But it's always been at a distance. They've always been able to, you know, they've been the ones on the offensive. They've been able to take a little pot shots at God. They've been able to attack God's servants.
Joel Brooks:Always at a distance. Always from their domain, and all of a sudden, God walked in on their turf. He walks right in the room taking the battle to them. And you can just hear fear. Woah.
Joel Brooks:What are you doing here? What do you Have you come here to destroy us? You've come here to destroy us, haven't you? We know who you are. You're the Holy One of God.
Joel Brooks:They think this is their final judgment and that they're about to be thrown into the lake of fire. So they're terrified and rightly so. Now ironically, it's the demons who confess who Jesus is throughout Remember, throughout this entire gospel, no one confesses who Jesus is. No one gets it. But the demons do.
Joel Brooks:People do not. Which once again is why people are amazed, but the demons are terrified. But the moment the demons acknowledge who Jesus is, he tells them to be quiet. He will not accept the testimony of demons. Notice there's no exorcism here as we would think of it.
Joel Brooks:I mean, you know, when you think of an exorcism, what do you have? You have this elaborate show. You've got this incantation that's gonna happen. You know, you gotta light a bunch of candles. Maybe you have people, you know, like, holding hands in a circle.
Joel Brooks:You maybe have to cry out in a loud voice. What does Jesus do? He actually does you could translate as this. Shut up and get out of him. That's what he says.
Joel Brooks:Shut up. Get out. And the demon shuts up and gets out. I mean, what authority. Jesus calls disciples, follow me.
Joel Brooks:They follow him. Jesus says, shut up. Get out to the demons. They obey him. No one has authority like this.
Joel Brooks:And at this moment, we see what Paul talks about in Colossians 1. We see that this man was delivered from the domain of darkness, and he was transferred to the kingdom of the beloved son. And if Jesus can do that with this man, Jesus could do that with anyone. There is no one in too, too strong to hold of darkness for Jesus not to free. Alright.
Joel Brooks:So after Jesus shows his authority over demons, he then shows that he has authority over sickness. Lauren and I, we both have aging parents with failing health. Lauren's mom has been battling cancer for years now. My mom has a multitude of, of issues and is not doing well. And and so what this has meant is Lauren and I have been spending our times going back and forth to Atlanta, often like ships passing in the night.
Joel Brooks:This past Wednesday, for instance, she comes in from Atlanta, and literally, she said, hey. She handed me the keys to her car. So I got the keys, and I went straight to the car, and then I went. While then, she goes and takes a child to a doctor. And we're not we're not this isn't unique to us.
Joel Brooks:I mean, a number of you are dealing with the same things. A number of you really modeled it well to us as to how we can be taking care of our parents during this time. And it's a privilege to do so because they've taken care of us for so many years. Anyway, this this past Wednesday night, I'm driving back from Atlanta. I'm too tired to make it back to Birmingham.
Joel Brooks:So I go to some hotel. I use that word loosely. I've never been in a hotel like it. I mean, have you ever been in a hotel? I won't name it.
Joel Brooks:Where they put a sign on the elevator. It said, please only one at a time unless you're with family. I don't even know what that means, but they apparently don't want 2 strangers in the elevator at the same time, and that's the type of hotel I was in. And so, I get in, I go to the room, and I have to work on my sermon. I've gotta do this.
Joel Brooks:So I get out the Bible, and I'm I'm reading through this text. And I just read through Jesus healing Simon's mother-in-law. It's just 2 verses. And I read through it over and over and over, totally captivated by it. And it's not because, like, there's a ton of details there, not because, you know, it's hard to understand or anything.
Joel Brooks:It's it's because it's the exact opposite. You you read, Simon's mother-in-law was sick. And then in verse 31, Jesus came, took her by the hand, lifted her up, and the fever left her. That's it. There's no doctor visits.
Joel Brooks:There's no endless appointments. There's no seeing specialist after specialist, ologist after ologist. There's no prescriptions to pick up. There's no endlessly waiting in waiting rooms. There's not trying to figure out what insurance is gonna cover, what's not going to be covered.
Joel Brooks:There's none of that. He doesn't get out a thermometer. Doesn't even take her blood pressure. He just takes her by the hand and he raises her up like it was the most easy natural thing in the world to do. We can't even fathom an authority like that in our modern day.
Joel Brooks:That Jesus could just, hey. Get up and you're well. This is the first time Jesus has healed anyone. And when people saw the authority of that, word spread like crazy. If if Jesus were to heal my mother-in-law like that, all of Birmingham would know within 5 minutes.
Joel Brooks:Word spreads when you see something like that. You can't keep it quiet. In verse 32, we read that once the sun went down, they brought to him all who were sick or who were oppressed by demons. The whole city was gathered at the door. Now, Mark makes a point here to mention that the people only came after the sun went down, and I had never noticed this until Wednesday night as I was reading through this over and over.
Joel Brooks:People came after the sun went down. Now this was due to, it was a Sabbath day when Simon's mother-in-law was healed and he could not travel on the Sabbath, because that would be work. But the moment the sun went down, the Sabbath was over. So it's like the Sabbath is over, now everybody comes. And picture like this.
Joel Brooks:So they're all flooding in the streets in the dark, making their way to Jesus. And I think this is what Matthew picks up on in his account of this in Matthew chapter 4. Matthew actually doesn't even mention anything about Simon's mother-in-law being healed there, But he does mention what happened when Jesus went to Capernaum and he began to heal. He says, this happened so that Isaiah's scripture, Isaiah's prophecy might be fulfilled that the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. And for those dwelling in that region and the shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.
Joel Brooks:I love that. Don't you love that picture? People walking in darkness, making their way to the light of Jesus. And there, He healed them. He delivered them.
Joel Brooks:Jesus has authority over the demons. He has authority over sickness. And later, we are gonna see that He has authority over death itself. Jesus began to take the battle to the enemy here at Capernaum, but He finishes the battle at Calvary. And I love here how we see the healing of Simon's mother-in-law, how it's portrayed because we read that Christ took her hand and the word is raised her up.
Joel Brooks:Raised her up. It's the same word that will be used later to describe Jesus being raised from the dead. It's also the word that will be used every time Jesus heals somebody who's lame or laying down or raises the dead, He raises them. We'll see this next chapter, Mark chapter 2 when Jesus heals the paralytic person. He he doesn't tell this paralytic man to stand.
Joel Brooks:He says, no, rise. And he says, and then the man rose. And the way Mark is telling this, he he wants you to know. He wants you to see the connection that this is resurrection power at work. This is the power that is gonna be unleashed someday over this whole world to make everything new.
Joel Brooks:But but now in this story, we see this resurrection power beginning to break through in the life and the ministry and the reign of Jesus. Simon's mother-in-law gets a taste of it. We, as believers, have gotten a taste of it. When we trust Jesus, His spirit comes in us and dwells and begins to unleash resurrection power. We once were dead.
Joel Brooks:Now, we're alive. We once had a heart of stone, now we have this heart of flesh. He gives us a new heart. He gives us a new life. And now we joyfully serve him.
Joel Brooks:Notice what happened to Simon's mother-in-law. She was raised to a new life and now she begins to serve. That's a picture of us all. What a wonderful, powerful King we have in Jesus. Let's pray to Him.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, thank you for coming and doing what we could not do ourselves. You've come to make us whole again. You've come to deliver us from the powers of evil. You've come to destroy the works of the devil, to break free our bond bondages. Jesus, You are a good, wonderful King with all authority.
Joel Brooks:Lord, I pray that if there's anyone here who does not know you, that you would raise them up to new life and that they would follow you. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, our present and our future king. Amen.
