“Powerful Words!” – FBC Morning Light (1/10/2025)

What a good morning to you. Today I want to share a few thoughts from Matthew chapter 8. You know, Matthew chapter 8, here's a profound thought. Matthew chapter 8 follows on the heels of Matthew 7. The reason I've emphasized that is what the last verse of Matthew 7 says.

It says that He, Jesus, taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. So Matthew 7, that last verse, wraps up the Sermon on the Mount. And what we read in the last couple of verses there in Matthew 7 is that, you know, people were impacted by that teaching.

So when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at His teaching because He taught them as one having authority. All right, so Matthew 7 ends with an emphasis on the impact of Jesus's teaching authority or His authoritative teaching.

But then Matthew 8 takes off on that and emphasizes not simply the impact of His authoritative teaching, but the impact of His authoritative Word in its power. His Word itself has power. And here's how we see this in Matthew 8.

It's a repeated emphasis throughout the chapter, and actually going on into chapter 9. So as the chapter begins, a leper comes to Him and says to Jesus, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

And Jesus, He defied the custom, reached out His hand and touched the leper. You didn't do that. Touching a leper would make you unclean. But no, the pure purity and the power of Jesus, instead of Him being unclean, cleansed the leper.

In fact, Jesus simply touched him and He said, I am willing, be clean. That's it. He just said, be clean. And it says, immediately his leprosy was cleansed. You talk about an authoritative Word, be cleansed, and He was cleansed.

Well then, right after that, the next episode is the centurion comes to Jesus, and he's all upset because he has a servant in his household that is paralyzed, and he says he's dreadfully tormented, verse 6 tells us.

And Jesus says, I will come and heal him. And then the centurion understands the power of Jesus' Word, and he says, no, listen, I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof, just speak a word, and my servant will be healed.

And Jesus marvels at the man's faith, and when all is said and done, in verse 13, He doesn't go with the centurion, but He does what the centurion asked. He said, go your way, as you have believed, so let it be done for you.

He just simply says, so let it be done. And then it says, his servant was healed that same hour, with just the will of His spoken Word, that servant is healed. Well then, a couple verses later, verse 16 says, when evening had come, they brought to him many who were demon possessed, and he cast out the spirits with a word.

He cast them out with a word. Now you see this illustrated more graphically at the end of chapter 8, when these two demon-possessed individuals come from the country of the Gergesenes, and they cry out to Jesus, what do we have to do with you, Jesus, you Son of God, and they beg to go into a herd of swine, and Jesus just simply says to them, go, go.

And they were gone. They left, and they went into the herd of swine, and the demons controlling these swine caused them to go down a cliff and into the sea, with just a word. And sandwiched in between those two episodes is the scene out on the sea.

Jesus and his disciples get in a boat, they're going to cross over from Capernaum to the land of the Gergesenes, and we read that there's this great tempest that arose on the sea, Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat, disciples are scared to death, they're afraid they're going to all drown, which, by the way, is not possible, because that would mean Messiah drowns, and well, if he drowned, then he wouldn't be paying the penalty of our sin by the shedding of his blood.

But anyway, they're scared to death, and understandably so, I would have been too, you know, I'm not suggesting in the least bit that my faith would have been any stronger, it wouldn't have been. But Jesus, we read, gets up and he says, why are you so fearful, you of little faith?

He arose and he rebuked the winds in the sea, boom, and there was a calm. He just said, be still, boom. There was a great calm. So much so that the men marveled at this, saying, who can this be, that even the winds in the sea obey him with just a word from his mouth.

So not only did Jesus teach with authority, anything he commanded, verbally commanded, had no choice but to comply. This is a multiple expression of his will within. I will, be clean, he says. Go your way, he will be healed, as you've requested.

He cast out the spirits with a word, he says to the legion of demons, go. He says to the sea, be calm. And in every case, every case, his authoritative word is immediately obeyed. Oh, what power, oh what authority our Lord Jesus has because of who he is.

Our Father and our God, we thank you today for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for his authority, not only in teaching, but in action. And with a word of his power, he can cleanse and he can heal and he can forgive.

We thank you for all that he is to us in all of his power and authority. We pray these things now in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, listen, have a great rest of your day. I trust the Lord will bless you in it.