 Do Christians have authority? If so, what type of authority do we have? Human beings, whether young or old, male or female, no matter what part of the world they're from, would like to know that they have some sort of a power, some sort of ability. That's why sometimes we oftentimes fantasize as young children that we're this superhero, we're that superhero that we've got powers. And as we get older, if you get at us a little bit of power, what do we want to do? We want to exercise that. We want people to know that we have power or authority to either do or say certain things or to cause certain things to happen. The question is, though, as a believer, do we have that authority? Sometimes, though, we get a little too ahead of ourselves and we'll look at a passage and cause that passage to be reflective of us, as though God is speaking to us in this passage, because we have a desire to be more than what we really are. One such passage is Matthew 10-1, where Jesus summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over clean spirits to cast them out and to heal every kind of sickness and disease. Now, later on in the passage there's these other 70 who are with them and they said that even the the demons are subject to us. Now, it's not sure as to if they were given some sort of authority or just the mere fact that they are with the disciples or the fact that they are walking in the name of Jesus and presenting the gospel, if that's what the demons were kind of just backing up from and they could kind of see that, because it doesn't tell us, for example, that they actually cast any demons out. It just says that the demons were a subject to them and so it'd be probably a leap to make too much of that, but clearly he's given this power to the disciples. As a matter of fact, we don't see a lot of other people using or exemplifying some sort of power that was given to them by God. Now, one passage that people will go to to say they have some sort of power would be Mark 16. So, let's go there, Mark 16-17. This passage, if you were to take the longer ending as to be canonical, meaning that it belongs, and again, there are different endings to this passage that's debated. We won't cover that. There's even a longer ending than this. There's a couple shorter endings. So, let's just go for the sake of this. Deal with this passage. These signs will accompany those who believe, and in my name they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will pick up serpents and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them and they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. The problem is, again, is how much of this is for us. It was always taken early that this passage, that whether it was added or it's canonical, is still referring to the apostles because we see them showing all of these where we did not see all of the believers, even in the early church being able to do so. One good example is when they call for Peter to come to heal the woman. Well, these are believers. Peter didn't tell them, you should have just healed her. No, he goes. And there are times where the apostles themselves can't even do it themselves. So, I think the power that we have, the authority we have, is only that that is given to us by God. And I think that's really the more important thing that we have to do. Remember, Paul makes this point in Philippians 2-12. He says, So then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. He says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. This has nothing to do with being, say, in a view of your salvation, now work. And here's the important part. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do, on start to will and to work for his good pleasure. In other words, it's God who's working. So, whatever is happening, whatever power that may actually come about as God is using you, he's just using you as a vessel. But for you to believe that you have some sort of power or some sort of authority, no, that would be a step too far. You do have the authority to speak boldly the gospel. But that's really it. We are frail, fragile, fallen human beings who happen to have, as Paul says, that's nothing good that dwells in us except the Holy Spirit. That's the only benefit that we have. That's the only power that we have, the only authority that we have. We have the authority to be called sons of God, those of us who have been, who have received the Spirit, but even receiving the Spirit, that's the work of him and not of us. And so, sometimes we might get too ahead of ourselves thinking that we've got the authority, the power to do whatever we want. As a matter of fact, one of the most misquoted verses in the Bible is Philippians 4.13. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. No, the point is, not that you can do all things, the point is, as Paul says, if we go back and read it earlier, he says that he's been up and been down. He's been in all these different circumstances, and he's learned to be content. And what he has learned is in all these things I can do, because it's Christ who strengthens me. Christ has given me the strength, the ability to go through whatever it is, even though I don't want to. It's not that Paul had or you and I have the authority or the power not to have these happen to us, not to allow these things to happen. No, we don't have that kind of power. We don't take dominion over this earth, and some will go back and say, well, God said to have dominion and subdue it. He didn't mean that you actually rule over it. You can control things. You can control the supernatural. No, that's not what you can do. All you have the authority to do is whatever he gives you, the authority to do or the power to do. And it's not you, but it is God working in you. As a matter of fact, one passage, another passage that's always taken out of kind of out of context is in Matthew 18. And this is even with the apostles, the disciples. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall have been loose. Some verse will say, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. But if we go back and look at the tense of this particular verse, whatever you bind, this is in the perfect tense, and whatever you bind will have been bound and whatever you loose will have been loose. The perfect tense is a completed action that's happened in the past. And so all Jesus is saying, whatever you bind or whatever you loose will have been bound already by heaven. And so you will have, at least in their case, the ability to declare what heaven's already done. In other words, they're going to have some sort of insight, but they're not actually doing it themselves. In fact, with the case, they would have just bound the devil and lived happily ever after. They don't have that sort of ability. Neither do you or not. We don't have the ability to bind the devil. And so forth. Because if we did, if we've got the ability to bind them, well, then someone certainly has the ability to loose them and they keep doing so. He gets bound every Sunday, where every time there's a group of Christians to get together, but someone is either binding him either too loosely, leaving the back door open, or someone is going back. Maybe you ought to bind all the demons. The fact of the matter is we don't have those sort of abilities. We want to, but Paul tells us not to think more highly than we ought to, but be so reminded in our thinking. So we do not have any sort of special powers except that we are in him. We have the authority to call on our father in time of need. We have the authority to proclaim his gospel boldly and that's the extent of it. But guess what? That's really all we need. We have the authority to come to him boldly through the throne of grace. We have that. And again, that's all we need. If we would just rest in that instead of trying to figure out how much authority, how much power we have, I think we would probably be a little bit better, a little bit better off, a little happier, a little bit more content than we are trying to figure out why does our supposed power, why is it not working? Amen.