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Can I? May I?

Acts 3: 1 – 16

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 07 Aug, 2005

AUTHORITY AND POWER. May I do it? Can I do it? From home to church, we constantly deal with these twin issues. And they are difficult issues: responsibility, authority, capability.

The story of the healing of the crippled man at the temple steps is a story of power and authority. It encourages us in our use of power and authority.

Every one of us has authority; every one of us has power. Every one of us is equipped to fulfil his or her responsibilities.

Think of these situations:

• A child is misbehaving, and you wonder whether or not to discipline it. That’s a question of authority.

• You are aware of people with mental illnesses, frittering their lives away in Alex Trevallion Plaza, and you are thinking about whether to create a new ministry to them. That is a question of authority if you wonder whether you should do it, and a question of power if you wonder if you are capable of doing it.

• There is a deadline looming to get a legal form out to one of your workplace clients, and the CEO isn’t around to sign it. You wonder about signing it yourself to get it underway. Once again, that is a question of authority.

Many years ago, the church I was at had a Sunday evening open air mission. One of our deacons organised it, and I supported by playing my guitar and talking to passers by.

One Sunday, I waited at our street corner, but no one else came. After about 15 minutes, I decided I had better do something.

I prayed, I began walking around the streets, and I wondered what to do.

I was scared of preaching on my own.

I wondered if I should preach, because it was Noel who preached, not me. Did I have authority to preach just like that?

Also, could I preach effectively? Could I just speak off the cuff to people passing by, and say something meaningful? Did I have the power to preach?

After a while, a bunch of teenagers passed me, so I began to preach about Jesus. They listened for a few minutes, and then moved on. I assumed authority to fulfill my responsibility, and I found that I had the capability that I needed.

I mentioned responsibility, authority and power, because all three go together. So that’s what I want to speak about today.

RESPONSIBILITY

A few weeks ago, I spoke about Paul’s attitude to evangelism. We read his words,

2COR 5:11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men...

¹⁴ For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

We noted the two aspects of Paul’s sense of being under compulsion to preach the gospel. First, it was because he knew the fear of the LORD. And, second, it was because Christ’s love compelled him.

Paul had a responsibility to proclaim Christ. He was under compulsion, driven by love for the bound and by his own experience of fear of Christ, when confronted by him on the Damascus Road.

Jesus told us to preach the gospel. He said,

MK 16:15 ...“Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. ¹⁶ Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned...”

But some preachers tell you you have to preach about sin and salvation, about our depravity and the redeeming power of the cross, yet they leave out care for the needy. They are Christian gnostics.

We have to preach Christ and his salvation. That is central. But we also have to do good where we can.

In Matthew 25, Jesus teaches that, on Judgment Day, those he will condemn are those who have seen the chance to minister to those in need, and have failed to do it. Preaching great sermons and doing marvellous works never exempt you from basic humanity.

And Peter and John did exactly what Jesus expected of them. They saw a need and ministered to it.

One of the most frustrating and disempowering things in life is to be given responsibility without corresponding authority and power.

A senior manager at work had a bad habit of leaving everything until the deadline was close, and then handing it to someone else to do. Then he could blame you if the deadline was missed.

He did it to me. He told me to do work that I was not trained to do, using software in ways that I had not learned to use it.

In other words, he gave me responsibility without power.

He also expected me to arrange for our head office staff to publish materials that he had not checked; in other words, to take responsibility beyond my authority.

I told him I would not do what I was not skilled or authorised to do. He got very angry with me, and stormed around the office.

It is very stressful and worrying when someone does that to you! He had authority and power, but he was misusing it.

But that is not Jesus’ way. When he gives responsibility, he also gives the authority and the power.

Jesus has given you and me great responsibility, in life, in mission, in relationships. He has also given the authority and power that you and I need to do whatever he asks us.

AUTHORITY

When Peter and John saw that beggar on the Temple steps, they looked beyond the begging and saw a man.

C Peter Wagner was a missionary in South America, and had a lot to do with beggars. He points out¹ that beggars do not usually look directly at the people they are begging from. That would establish a social relationship. I wouldn’t imagine that beggars usually expect a personal relationship, and their benefactors generally don’t want a personal relationship. So this must have been an unusual encounter from the beginning.

I’m sure that all of us have been confronted by beggars. How often have you really eyeballed a beggar? How often have you tried to engage the beggar as a person?

A beggar on the train once asked me for money. Instead of giving it to him, I asked him why he wanted it. He owed a lot of rent. It turned out that he was paying a lot more rent than was reasonable for a pensioner.

So, instead of giving him money, I referred him to agencies that could help him, and told him how to recontact me through the church.

Months later, he fronted me in King Street in Newtown, still begging. Because I had looked at him and talked to him, I recognised him. So I asked him what had changed since we last talked. The short answer was, “Nothing much.” He’d paid his rent, but he was still cadging. So I talked to him again. Now he listened better.

A month or two later, I saw him on the train again, sitting reading a magazine. So I went up to him and asked him how things were going.

Before he could answer, I could see some change. His clothes were neater and cleaner. He looked washed and combed.

He’d been to one of the agencies, and they’d helped him get support. He wasn’t begging now. And he talked to me about this church, and about the gospel. He wanted to know, because I had shown him care.

You can't minister to every beggar you see, or every other person in need. But, when you have that sense of Christ's call to minister in a situation, then you have every authority to do it, and you will receive all the power you need for the task.

Let’s get back to Acts. A bit later in the conversation, Peter says to the beggar at the Temple gate,

“Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

Have you noticed it? Peter is acting under authority. He does not preach his own power or godliness. He is an authorised agent of Jesus Christ.

In Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzances, at the end, the police confront the pirates. They aim to capture the pirates and rid Penzances of the problems of piracy.

After a short, sharp battle, the police are all roundly defeated, and each constable is flat on his back, with a pirate sword to his neck. And the Police Captain is also defeated. The Pirate Chief stands over him with a sword.

The Police Chief calls out, “In the name of Queen Victoria, I call on you to surrender!”

The pirates hesitate for a moment, then cast down their swords. They may be pirates, but they are not disloyal to the Queen.

The policemen have been robbed of all the trappings of power, but they have authority regardless of their power, and they use it very effectively. The pirates respond to the authority. They know that ignoring the police would be tantamount to ignoring Queen Victoria.

And that is how authority goes. What Jesus gives us is a right to act in his name.

Here’s Jesus talking to his disciples:

JN 20:21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

He’s saying, “You have the authority to act in the same way as I have acted. As I have the authority to forgive sins, so have you — in my name.”

You have the authority you need.

POWER

Peter tells the beggar,

“Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

What Peter has is power to heal. He can only legitimately use it in the ways authorised by Jesus. But it is there.

When he ascended into heaven, Jesus made this promise:

ACTS 1:7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

There is a clearly different Greek word here. It is not exousia, authority. It is dunamis, power. On the one hand, Jesus gives the right to minister; on the other, he gives, through the Holy Spirit, the power to minister.

The work of Jesus includes the conferring of authority; the work of the Holy Spirit includes the conferring of power.

These principles apply regardless of whether we are talking about serving the needs of our family, about serving the needs of our community, or serving the needs of the lost. Whether you are applying correction to your child, or preaching the gospel on a street corner, you need, and you have, the authority and the power that you need.

There are only a couple of caveats.

First, you don’t have spiritual authority and you don’t have spiritual power if you have never entered into a saving relationship with Jesus. These things are only found in him.

Second, you can lose a lot of power — and a lot of authority — if you grieve the Holy Spirit through sin, or if you quench his promptings.

That’s a topic in itself, but be clear on it. If you are just a make–believe believer, or if you keep pushing the Spirit away, you will not have much to go on with when you need to have all the power and authority you have been given.

But a true believer, filled with the Spirit, is a formidable player for God’s Kingdom.

A Catholic lady met me in Marrickville one day. She had a vision for a ministry, an important one for Marrickville. But she didn’t know how to start. How would she get her priest to begin this ministry?

I said, “You have the authority and the capacity to do what you need to do. If Jesus has shown you what you must do, he has authorised it and given you the power. It is your ministry. He will clear the way as you go. Tell your priest what you feel called to do, and ask him where you can go next.”

She has told me how important it was to her to know that she had the authority to do what she was called to do.

In effect, as she went, she just kept saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I am doing this.”

And doors keep opening. The ministry is growing. I am sure it will be a memorial to her long after she is gone.

She is not a strong person, but she prays and she believes, and she acts. It is as you do these things that you find the power you need.

Nor does this just apply to healing ministries. Whatever the case, as we trust Jesus to have gone before us, we will constantly be surprised at the many facets of his power in us.

CONCLUSION

Just like the apostles in the early days, you and I have the authority and the power to do what we are responsible to do. It is not authority derived from me, or from the church meeting; it is authority derived from Jesus Christ our Lord.

That doesn’t mean you can involve the church in your ministry without consultation. It does mean that you, in your own right, can do what you know Jesus is calling you to do.

Do you remember I spoke about having the mind of Christ? The more we know what he wants of us, the more we will know where his authority allows us to go, and the more we will find his power at work in and through us.

If you see a need, you don’t need my approval to meet that need out of the authority and resources you have. If it is a bigger need than you can meet in that way, you can seek someone else to work with you to expand that ministry. And, it it is too big for both of you, then you ask the church if we can help. That is how ministries get grown.

These principles apply wherever you are and in whatever situation. Jesus died to break the old authority structures which kept access to God in priestly hands. He breaks down prison doors and sets you free!

Look around you! See the possibilities!

And act in the full authority of Jesus our Lord, act as a beloved child of the living God; and his power will be with you and will bless many through you.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)