Fake News: Authority Activates Amazing Faith
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Fake News: Authority Activates Amazing Faith
October 20th, 2024
Matthew 8:5-10,13 (NIV) 5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” 7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” 8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
How was this servant healed?
The power of Jesus.
The authority of Jesus.
The faith of the centurion.
The Truth About Lies.
The origin of lies is Satan.
The intent of a lie is to control and destroy.
The power of a lie is in what we do with it.
The Truth About Truth
The origin of truth is in the reality of Jesus.
The intent of Truth is freedom and life.
The power of the Truth is in my following Jesus.
There are 3 “processes” of winning against Satan’s lies…
Identify the tone of a lie. Tone is the tipoff to whose talking and who is talking is the tipoff to intent.
Break agreements with the lie. A lie has no power until we act like, live like and behave like it is true.
Exercise your God given power and authority over a lie.
Winning spiritual warfare is…
one-part discerning content (truth vs lies)
one-part distinguishing tone (tone will hit your heart before the content hits your head)
one-part crushing the lies with our God given power and authority.
Two illustrations for the insurmountable power of Jesus and His immutable authority.
Insurmountable Power = Gravity
Immutable Authority = Laws
Everything and everyone exist within a spiritual system.
Jesus has insurmountable power and immutable authority in this system.
Jesus gives us His power and authority through salvation for freedom from lies.
We can learn to trust His power and exercise His authority in spiritual warfare.
Colossians 2:8-15 (NIV) 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Ephesians 1:18-23 (NIV) 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (NIV) 3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Divine power vs. human power
Demolish not dent!
His power demolishes strongholds (fortified areas), arguments (convoluted verbal aggressions), pretensions (false presentations meant for deception)
This applies not just in what we fight “out there” but what we fight “in here”, our own heart and in head.
2 Elements of Successful Spiritual Warfare:
Submit & Resist
James 4:7(AMP) 7 So submit to [the authority of] God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him] and he will flee from you.
Submit
Matthew 16:21-27 (NIV) 21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.
We can only live in and with the power and authority of Christ when we live in and under the power and authority of Christ.
To resist the devil is to break the agreements we have made with him with our words and our will.
Crushing lies aren’t prayers to God, they are direct confrontations with our enemy in the power and authority of Jesus. Jesus has already giving us this power and authority and He wants to learn how to be warriors with amazing faith and not wimps with anemic faith!
An amazing faith like the centurion comes from…
Great need.
A confidence in Jesus’ power.
A confidence in orderly systems.