His Word Has Authority

The Authority of God’s Word in Jeremiah and Creation

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to.

St. Luke chapter 4 verses 31 through 44. And he went down to Capernaum, the city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath. They were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.

And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon. And he cried out with a loud voice, Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are.

You're the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down, in their midst he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, What is this word?

For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region. And he rose and left the synagogue and entered Simon's house.

Now Simon's mother in law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she rose and began to serve them.

Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him. And he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And the demons also came out of many, crying, You are the Son of God.

But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ. And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And all the people sought him and came to him and would have kept him from leaving them.

But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. And as he was preaching, and he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

In the name of Jesus. So some people are saying, oddly so, that the great tribulation begins in March of this year. I wish I was making this up, but it's absolutely true. There's people out there engaging in prognostications regarding the end times saying that the great tribulation begins in March.

To this I say, pa, it began when the latest presidential candidate election season began. It has been tribulation the whole time. The news has been just difficult to bear. And the reason I bring this up is because I don't know if you have noticed this about politicians, but they have a tendency to say words but never follow up with actions.

It's as if this is an entire year long where we get to hear all these wonderful words of what so-and-so is going to do when he or she assumes office in the presidency, and we all know that the words that they're telling us is poppycock.

They're just telling us what we want to hear so that when we go to the polls in November, we will pick their name and pull the lever so that they can go to the White House. Right? We know this about politicians.

It's this wonderful fiction that we've set up. They tell us what we want to hear, we vote them into office, and then they proceed to do whatever they want. Right? Yeah. In other words, the words of politicians don't really have all that much value?

Maybe a good way to say it? Remember, what was it that George Bush, the first George Bush in office said, read my lips, no new taxes? Well, that campaign promise didn't last very long, did it? Maybe he should have said, read my lips, no new taxes the first year I'm in office.

Now, the reason I bring all this up is because today in our text, our Old Testament and our Gospel texts, we see that God's words are very different than the words of men and politicians. When God speaks, something happens.

The words of Christ have authority. That's kind of our theme for today. So if you would, turn back with me to Jeremiah chapter 1. We're going to walk through our Old Testament text to set the foundation for our theme today as we look at our Gospel text.

Jeremiah chapter 1, starting at verse 4, it says this, Now the word of the Lord came to me, the me there is Jeremiah, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you and I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

By the way, there's so much we could talk about here. Notice that apparently even unborn yet conceived children have value in the eyes of God. Right? So I think that unborn children even today still have value in the eyes of God.

But also consider the implications of this. Where is Jeremiah's free will? Doesn't seem to exist. Poor little Jeremiah, when he was growing up, people would ask him, Jeremiah, what do you want to be when you grow up?

He says, Well, I wanted to be a fireman, but God consecrated me before I was formed in the womb and appointed me to be a prophet for the nations. So what I want to be when I grow up really doesn't matter.

God's going to have his way with me. He could have said that, could he not? Right? So I appointed you, the Lord says, a prophet to the nations even before he's born. And then I said, oh, Lord God, behold, I don't know how to speak for I'm only a youth.

Oh, that's not going to work either here. We've heard Moses give similar complaints to God. But the Lord said to me, do not say I'm only a youth for to all to whom I send you, you shall go and whatever I command you, you shall speak.

Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. Yeah. In other words, the fact that he's a youth at the time of his calling to be a prophet that does not cause God to say, well, wait a minute here.

Yeah, I guess you're right. No, God says, nope. Don't worry about it. I'm sending you and don't be afraid about what you're going to speak because I'm going to give you words to speak. Oh, and by the way, Jeremiah, this is going to be a rough gig.

The reason I say that is because, well, I'm sending you to a bunch of people who are steeped in idolatry, steeped in sin. They do not listen to my words. And so when I give you words to speak, they're going to get angry at you.

You can almost hear Jeremiah saying, please don't shoot the messenger. All right. I'm only telling you what God told me to tell you. So then the Lord put his hand and he touched my mouth. This is similar to what we see happening with the great vision in Isaiah six, where, you know, Isaiah goes to heaven and says, oh, I'm undone.

I've seen the holy one of Israel. And then the angel come and grabs one of the one of the embers from the fire, touches his lips and says, this your sins have been atoned for. Very similar words going on here.

You'll notice here. Then the Lord put out his hand. Whoa, whoa, whoa. When does God have hands? God has whatever he wants, whenever he needs it. But this was before Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Do you think our understanding of time has any bearing on God's understanding of time?

All right. Notice what it says. So then the Lord said to me, behold, I've put my words in your mouth. Who's God's. See, I set you this day over nations, over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to pluck up and break down and overthrow to build and to plant.

But you dress yourself for work, arise and say to them everything that I have commanded you. Oh, and don't be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. Yeah, it's as if God really understood what poor Jeremiah was going to be up against.

It's kind of like, well, let's say that we decide that we're going to send you to go swimming in the ocean. And what we're really going to do here is we're going to slap some red meat on you, right? Rather than a scuba tank, we'll throw some pork, pork loin and maybe some big brown steaks on your back and tie you up and throw you in the water and chum it with blood, right?

This is the context into which Jeremiah steps in to preach the words of God and proclaim the word of the Lord to Israel. And so knowing how dangerous this is, God says to Jeremiah, listen, don't be afraid of them.

Be afraid of me. Focus on me, not them. My words are going to do what I sent them to do. But you dress yourself, rise, don't be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. And behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar and bronze walls against the whole land and against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land.

They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the Lord to deliver you. And is this exactly what happened? Exactly what happened. Why? Because when God speaks things happen.

You remember how the universe was created. There was darkness, chaos over the deep, the tohu abohu there in the Hebrew, right? And God says, let there be light. Could there be darkness anymore for another split second?

Of course not. As soon as God says, it acts. Now here's the idea here. God's word is performative. It has authority. When God says it's this, it's that. When God says this is going to happen, you know what's going to happen?

That's going to happen. Period. God doesn't lie. His word accomplishes the thing to which he sends it out to do. And so when we come back to our gospel text in Luke chapter 4, verse 31, keep in mind who it is that we're tracking with right now.

Jesus is none other than the word of God made flesh. That's what John 1 .1 says in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. The word became flesh. So here we have the word of God in human flesh and he's going to go to church.

Now granted back then they didn't call it church and they met on Saturday rather than Sunday, but it was church nonetheless. This was the gathering of those who believe and says this. He Jesus went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath Saturday and they were astonished at his teaching for his word possessed authority.

Literal translation, the word of him possessed authority. It's a little stiff in the English, but it really makes the point. His word had authority. Jesus didn't teach like anybody they had ever heard.

The rabbis in the synagogue, they kind of preach like this. Well, as we look at this text in the prophet Isaiah, Rabbi Shiva, he interpreted it this way and told me about it this way. And of course, we all know that Rabbi Shiva studied under Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Eliezer.

He learned his stuff from Moses. They always have to footnote everything. No rabbi would speak on his own authority. Jesus on the other hand, he gets up and he says things like what we hear in the sermon on the mount.

You have heard it said, but I say you have heard it said, but I say this is authority. Jesus is speaking with authority. He's doing this and the people in the synagogue are going whoa, his word possesses authority.

Indeed, it does. And now keep in mind, all right, we all like to think that the devil is really hard at work out there, you know in Hollywood, maybe in Washington DC, places are loaded with demons, right?

Think of Las Vegas. It's just got to be teeming with demons. Why would the devil spend all of his time trying to deceive people he's already deceived and already has? Think of it this way. If we're at war, where are we going to station most of our soldiers?

Where are their efforts going to be focused on? The front line, right? Taking enemy territory. Those places that we already have under our dominion we put a couple of guys there and pretty much leave it alone, right?

So where is the devil most active then if he wants to take ground from the enemy? Answer, church. The devil never leaves church alone. And we read in this story that there was a man who had an unclean demon.

Now before you sit there and say, wait a second, are you saying the demons are real? Well, yeah. What's the text say? Right? The text says there was a man who had an unclean demon. He came into church.

Nobody knew the guy was demon possessed. Nobody had any idea at all. And let me ask you this, what is the devil always attacking? Answer, the word of God. Do you remember the attack in the Garden of Eden?

What does the devil say? First words, did God really say? Oh, the devil knows that the word of the Lord possesses authority and has power. So the thing he's got to get you off of is the word of God. Well, this poor guy in the synagogue who was demon possessed, the demon could stand it no more.

Oh my goodness, all of this work that I've been doing in this synagogue, deceiving this people, Jesus comes and shows up and it's all just disappearing right before my eyes like a snowfall in June. Right?

And so the demon can't help but do what he does next. And it's very important you pay attention to the details here. So the guy literally stands up and the demon cries out. And here's what he says. Ha!

Now the ESV says this. What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Not bad, but let me clean it up a little bit because they tried to make it understandable in the English. Let me go back and give you the literal translation.

Here's what he literally said. Ha! What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? And then he says, I know who you are, the Holy One of God, which then begs the question, what's this we stuff?

What's this us stuff? Right? What is this demon referring to? Now it's very easy for us to conflate and think, well, this is like the demoniac in the Gerasenes, the guy who was living in the tombs who had the legion of demons, right?

So the we and the us has to refer to other demons. Oh, not so. That's not what's going on here. Now to help us understand this, I've decided that we're going to, for the sake of argument, recreate the scene of the crime, if you would.

Okay? So I would like you to imagine that it's any given Sunday here at Kongsbinger. I'm up here preaching about Christ and proclaiming to you the Word of God. And right in the middle of my sermon, this.

Happens. What have you to do with us, Pastor Roseborough? Have you come to Kongsbinger here to stir up a lot of trouble?

See, you can have a seat. I won't rebuke the demon because I believe he's not demon obsessed. But now notice, okay, if somebody stood up in the middle of my sermon and did that, all right, what do his words tell you is going on?

He's standing up as one of you, one of the members of the congregation. Basically, what he's trying to do is cast doubt on the word that I'm bringing to you. This is exactly what's happening in this text.

The demon stands up. Ha, what have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? The us there is the people in the congregation. The demon's trying to cast doubt on this authoritative word of Christ that's going out in their midst.

And so he's trying as best as he can to basically make Jesus look like he's not there for their good but there for their bad. Have you come to destroy us, Jesus? I know who you are. You're the Holy One of God.

And you can see the people in the synagogue going Jesus is here to destroy us? Really? He's the Holy One of God? Ah! Right? That's what's going on in this text. But, and that's what the text says, but Jesus rebuked him saying be silent come out of him.

And when the demon had thrown him into their midst, so you can almost see the guy diving right into the center of the synagogue, the demon came out of him having done him no harm. And then everyone, they were all amazed and said to one another, what is this word?

What is this word? For with authority and power he commands even the unclean spirits and they come out! Of course, everyone was sitting there going, I don't understand why Moshe was demon possessed. How long was that going on?

And none of us knew, right? Maybe that explains why he was, you know, they have to do a post-mortem on this later. So, the text then says this, reports about Jesus went out to every place in the surrounding region.

This is very early in Jesus' ministry. So Jesus arose, left the synagogue, and he entered Simon's house. This is Simon Peter. Now watch this. Now Simon's mother-in-law was ill and had a high fever. Now if you have any Roman Catholic friends, you can point into this text and say, hey, did you notice that the first pope had a wife?

They believe Peter is the first pope. Well, he has to have had a wife if he had a mother-in-law, because no one would want one of those voluntarily. I'm joking. You just don't go down the street, I think I'll get myself a mother-in-law.

Right? So he has a mother-in-law. Now watch this. So she was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. And rather than saying to her, ah, listen, it's only a fever, have some water and it'll go away in a couple of days, here's some Tylenol, you know, right?

Here's what the text says. He stood over her, and, same word, he rebuked the fever. Jesus is rebuking demons, he's rebuking fevers, both of which are a result of our fall into sin. Right? And the fever left her.

Immediately she rose and began to serve them. Selah. Okay. I think this is a good idea for mothers-in-laws to be doing. Okay. Now, when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases, they brought them to Jesus.

And he laid hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, You are the Son of God! But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ, or you could say the Messiah.

Now, the question is, why on earth would Jesus silence the demons? Trust me when I tell you, when a demon says the truth about Jesus, it's because their hope is to do something nefarious. Right? So the demons are out there saying, You are the Son of God!

And the reason for this is because they know that if they can get people to listen and hear that and understand that, it's going to bog Jesus' ministry down. And plus, the demons clearly had been spending a lot of time confusing the children of Israel regarding what the Messiah would do when he showed up.

The demons had them focusing in on the second advent of Christ. The prophecies where Jesus is going to come in and flex some muscle and slay the evildoers and get rid of the idolaters. And what's happening in Israel at this time?

They're under the thumb, well, more like the boot of the Roman Empire. Right? They're chafing under this. And even the disciples don't quite get what the Messiah is going to do. And over and over and again, they get it wrong.

As they're on their way to Jerusalem, what do the Zebedee brothers do with Jesus? Hey Jesus, when you come into your glory, can one of us sit on your right and the other on your left? They're jockeying for cabinet positions in Jesus' administration.

They don't even know what they're talking about. And even after Jesus rises from the dead, what is it that the disciples say to him just before he ascends? Are you now going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

This is the equivalent of a guy going to seminary and everything rides on the last test that he takes. The big final that covers all four years of seminary, and he gets an F. The disciples flunked the final.

And you can almost see Jesus going no! You know, as he descends up and they go, what's happening right here? So not only they fail the final, and they do miserably, this shows over and again they had the wrong idea of what the Messiah would do.

Because the prophecies in the Old Testament regarding Christ are two-fold. One, it is first coming to come and to serve and to die as a sacrifice for our sins. And the second is the second coming, where he comes in glory to judge the living and the dead.

The kingdom of God is not here on this earth, if you would. The kingdom of God is coming. It's here among us. Tough to see, but I kind of see it right now. It'll disappear quickly after the church service ends.

So, the demons are saying, oh, you're the son of God! Not to help Jesus, but to bog him down. And this is what happens. The text says this, So when it was day, he departed, went to a desolate place, and the people sought him and came to him, and they would have kept him from leaving them.

See? All this is starting to get in the way of things. But he said to them, hey, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well. Why? Because the word of God has authority.

Jesus is God's word in human flesh. I was sent for this purpose, and he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. So where does the rubber meet the road here? Here today, in our Old Testament text, in our Gospel text, we've heard about the authority of the word of God.

That it accomplishes what it says it will do. It's unlike any word that we hear, especially from politicians. Well, I want you to think of it this way. This morning you have heard the word of God. You've heard the word of God in the Gospel text, you've heard the word of God in our Epistle text, and our Old Testament text.

And I would tell you this, the authoritative word of God spoke to you this morning also in our Psalm text. Let me read again a portion of our Psalm, Psalm 71. In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame.

In your righteousness, deliver and rescue me. Incline your ear to me and save me. Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come. You have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.

There it is. The Lord has given the command to save you. He has. We all know that we are sinners by nature and we deserve God's wrath. But the command has gone forth to save even you. You heard this morning in the Absolution, not my words but the words of Christ, your sins are forgiven.

If we were having the Lord's Supper this morning, we'll have it next week. You will hear these words, take, eat, this is the true body of Christ broken for you for the forgiveness of your sins. Take, drink, this is the true blood of Christ shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

God's Word is performative. He desires your salvation. No, He has commanded your salvation. And in the words of the Absolution, He declares your sins to be forgiven. In the words of Institution of the Lord's Supper, we know that we are receiving the true body and blood of Christ in, with, and under the bread and wine for the forgiveness of our sins.

And Christ has commanded that your sins be washed away in the waters of your baptism. His Word accomplishes what it sets out to do. His Word has authority. Do you believe these words for you? Or do you believe that Christ is like the politicians?

His words sound nice but at the end of the day, they have no cash value. That's the question. What do you believe about Jesus' words? In the name of Jesus, Amen.

The Word of Christ in the Sacraments and the Absolution

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