The way I prepare for a sermon is I’ll read a Bible text, and keep rereading and praying about a text, until the Holy Spirit gives me understanding. Every story, word or syllable is inspired by God. “Lord, what do you want me to see?” As Luke carefully investigates everything, and writes this “orderly” account of everything Jesus did from the beginning, what does he want us to most understand about Jesus? What do people today still need to understand?
First, Luke wants us to sense Jesus’ Power. A while back my brother put me onto these YouTube videos of a famous Ukrainian powerlifter named Vladimir Schmondenko. He likes visiting these powerhouse gyms, where he poses as a cleaner. From all appearances, he’s looks like a scrawny middle-aged man. He only weighs 170 lbs. Some hulking muscle head will be bench pressing, squatting, or curling some insane amont of weight—and there is “Anatoly” doodling around mopping, dusting, annoying these ripped beasts of men. He’s half their size! He’ll tell them they’re doing stuff wrong. He’ll give them unsolicited advice. Often, they want to punch him! They’ll shove him away. And then he explains how he's also a trainer. He’ll show people photoshopped images of himself with the Rock, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or whoever.
Right when they think Anatoly is a total con, he’ll grab their weight bar, and effortlessly flip it over his head. Or he’ll load it up more and do twenty reps. Or he’ll take what some NFL linemen is deadlifting and walk it off to the side so he can mop the floor. Video after video, he leaves people shocked and humbled.
This is Luke’s portrait of Jesus as well. In snapshot after snapshot, Luke wants us to sense Jesus’ power. We all know what an ordinary human is capable of. We also know what extraordinary humans are capable of. Every so often an Anatoly comes by, and we have to calibrate our formula, but in general, we know the range of power one might possess.
Jesus didn’t just have extraordinary power, he had supernatural “DIVINE” power. Luke weaves this thread through story after story. Let me illustrate:
• In Luke 1:35, the angel Gabriel tells Mary, the power of the Most High God will overshadow her baby Jesus. In Luke 1:37 he announces, “nothing will be impossible for God.” People discount the miracles of the Bible because seemingly impossible things happen. But that’s the point. They are impossible, unless of course, maybe you’re God!
• Luke 1:52. Jesus would topple powerful kings and kingdoms. That’s sheer political power. He’ll send rich away empty. That’s economic power.
• But the real headline is Jesus possesses “spiritual power.” Luke 3:16 John would baptize in water, but one more powerful was coming and Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire!
• In Luke 3:22 the Spirit of God descends upon, and indwells Jesus at his baptism. In Luke 4:1 we’re told Jesus is “full of the Holy Spirit” and the Spirit compels Jesus out into the wilderness, where Satan will begin his attack. If Jesus would just bow down and worship Satan, Satan promised him power and authority over all the Kingdoms of the world!
• Luke 4:14 Unmolested, Jesus returns to Galilee in the “power of the Spirit.”
• Luke 4:18 Jesus stands in his hometown synagogue and announces “The Spirit of the Lord is on me”… “because he has anointed me…”
• Luke 5:17 Luke tells us the Lord’s power was in Jesus to heal people.
• Luke 6:19 Luke tells us power was oozing out of Jesus, healing everyone who touched him. Luke 8:46 Jesus felt power go out from him, when the woman who’d been bleeding 12 years touches him.
Anatoly tells people the secret to his power is “knowledge.” Luke tells us the secret to Jesus’ power is that he’s filled with the Spirit of the Living God. Jesus’ Holy Spirit power was so great, there is no masking it! Power was a plainly observable fact of Jesus’ existence. He went forth in the power of Elijah and Elisha. He goes forth in the power of Moses—he miraculously feeds thousands, he controls the wind and waves of the sea, in Luke 9 he’s transfigured on the mountain and not just his face, but whole person radiates the blazing glory of God. Jesus is like Elijah, and like Moses, except Jesus oozes transcendent power.
Spoiler Alert. Luke tells us that this same Holy Spirit power we see in Jesus will soon be unleashed among the Apostles, and within Christ’s Church, and within ordinary believers! Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Luke was Apostle Paul’s companion. In Ephesians 3:16 Paul writes, “I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit.” Ephesians 3:20-21, “Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” As you read Luke, let the sheer power of Jesus shock and humble you, even as it shocks and humiliates God’s enemies. Even Herod is put on notice.
Second, Luke wants us to sense Jesus’ Authority. In Luke’s gospel Jesus’ power and authority work in tandem, for the glory of God and good of man. It’s not just the fact of Jesus’ “power” that matters… its Jesus’ “authority.”
The Greek word for power is “dynamis”, from which we get “dynamite.” If I lit a stick of dynamite and put it in your hand, I’d certainly get your attention! My grandpa raised cattle, and sometimes the bull would get loose and go on a rampage. Mom described how it would destroy everything in its path! It’s not the fact of Jesus dynamis power alone that is noteworthy—it’s how Jesus exercised the Holy Spirit’s dynamite power with total control and authority! He’d exercise the Holy Spirit’s dynamite power with all wisdom and understanding. Of the two, I’d say Luke is most enamored with Jesus’ authority over Jesus’ power.
In Luke 4 there is a man possessed by an unclean, demonic spirit. He’s scary. He’s crying out in a loud voice. In Luke 4:34, the demons confront Jesus, “Leave us alone! What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” [They know Jesus’ power]. Luke 4:35 says, “But Jesus rebuked him and said, ‘Be silent and come out of him!’ And throwing him down before them, the demon came out of him. . .” Again, that power! But notice the little phrase Luke adds in verses 35, “. . . the demon came out of him without hurting him at all.”
Astrophysicists sense the great power that exists in the Universe. There are trillions of stars, planets, galaxies, unfathomable power on full display. But here is God in the flesh, and he’s able to exercise authority over that power, and direct that power not just to create and fashion life (Genesis 1). Jesus is able to exercise authority to snatch sinful man from any ruler, power, or authority (whether spiritual or physical, visible or invisible, demonic or human, political or economic, psychological or militaristic). Romans 1:4, Jesus “was appointed to be the powerful Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. . .” Romans 1:16, “the gospel is the power of God for salvation of everyone who believes.” Romans 8:11, “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.” Romans 8:35-39 neither “affliction, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, death nor life, angels, rulers, things present, things future, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any created thing” can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord…” Why? Because Jesus doesn’t just have the power, he also has the authority to do what is impossible for man, but not impossible for the God whose spirit overshadows!
Paul is so analytic. In Romans 8:35-39 he gives us a list of things Christ has authority over. In Luke 1-9, Luke gives us story after story where Jesus showed his authority to bring salvation. Luke 4:36, “Amazement came over them all, and they were saying to one another, “What is this message? For he commands the unclean spirits with authority and power, and they come out!” Notice that power and authority work in tandem. And notice when God saves there isn’t collateral damage! Luke 4:35, “. . . the demon came out of him without hurting him at all.”
• Luke 4:40 Jesus has authority over sickness.
• Luke 5:6, authority over the fishes of the lake, that fill the disciple’s nets, and nearly sinks their boats.
• Luke 5:13-15. Authority over leprosy and all that makes a man unclean.
• Luke 5:24 Authority over the irreversible over spinal trauma, physical paralysis.
• Luke 5:20 Authority to forgive all sin.
• Luke 6:5. Authority over Sabbath.
• Luke 6:9 Authority to give or destroy life!
• Luke 7:14. Authority to raise the dead.
• Luke 7:18 John the Baptist is in prison, and he sends his disciples to investigate Jesus, to see whether Jesus is “the One”. Luke 7:21 says, “At that time Jesus healed many people of diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits, and he granted sight to many blind people.” In Luke 7:22-23 “He replied to them, “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news, and blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me.”
• Luke 8:25 authority. Even the wind and waves obey Jesus.
• Luke 8:31 authority. Even the demons, “LEGION” obeys.
• Luke 8:46ff authority. A woman who’s been bleeding 12 years, a little girl of 12 years who’s dying. Jesus has authority over their bodies, to give and take life.
• Luke 9. Authority to rain bread from heaven, to multiply bread and fish to feed thousands, to fill and satisfy the hungry of any need they possess.
• Luke 9. Authority. Jesus appears on mountain, he’s transfigured into blazing glory, the great Elijah, the great Moses are speaking to him. Moses and Elijah were extraordinary servants—but Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Holy One… the Divine sent to exercise all power and authority to save.
If you have enough power, you can coerce anyone, you can bend anything according to your will. Such exercise of power leaves a trail of destruction a mile wild. The most delicate thing coercive power destroys is human freedom, and the most essential thing coercive power destroys is love. Jesus didn’t come to establish a relationship of coerced fear…
So, Jesus combines power with authority. He uses power in way that never violates human freedom nor frustrates God’s goal that we love, not fear him. Jesus didn’t come making us love him, he came using his power and authority to woo our love. Jesus was entitled to use his power anyway he wanted—the devil knew that and tempted Jesus to take short cuts. But for Jesus there would be no shortcuts. On the cross, by his death, through his resurrection, he would demonstrate his power to destroy sin and death utterly. But Jesus’ deepest authority resides in his love. Jesus’ love wasn’t the “do it or else” coercive power of the Herods or Gentile Kings. Jesus’ love was the “I’ll do it for you…I’ll take up your sin, I’ll take your up death… and I’ll exercise my power and authority to give you life… only believe on me!” BELIEVE!