The Rev. William Klock: “With Power and Authority” (Luke 4:31-44)

From the Rev. William Klock of Living Word REC in British Columbia, here is another excellent sermon on the Gospel of Luke, titled With Power and Authority.  In this message, based on Luke 4:31-44, Fr. Bill talks about who Jesus was, and what his ministry was – and then he goes on to speak to us about our role in this:

Now, what about us?  We’ve all experienced Jesus’ authority in our lives to overcome our sin problem.  In our baptism we’ve been washed clean, had his Spirit poured into us, and been grafted into him—into the life-giving vine, and brought back into fellowship God.  We are his kingdom people.  But how often are we like the people of Capernaum?  Are we keeping Jesus and his kingdom to ourselves?  A lot of Christians seem to look at Jesus only in terms of what he can do for them.  Do we see him as our own personal miracle worker?  A sort of heavenly Santa Claus or a divine vending machine?  Are we only serving him in the hopes of getting something in return?  Brothers and sisters, if that’s what the Christian life amounts to for us, we haven’t understood grace.

Maybe we do understand grace.  Maybe we do understand that God’s grace is a gift given to sinners, to his enemies, and that it can’t be earned.  Maybe we do follow and serve him out of love and gratitude for his grace.  But we still often keep that grace to ourselves.  For far too many Christians, the grace we’ve been given manifests itself as little more than private piety—reading our Bibles, praying, going to church, avoiding sin—all while we wait in hope of our Lord returning one day to rescue us from this evil world so that we can go to live with him.  Brothers and sisters, that’s not our calling either.

Jesus understood that his mission was to establish his kingdom here on earth.  He did that not only by preaching good news to the poor—to all those oppressed by sin and death—he came and did battle with sin and death so that he could call us into that kingdom  Now he calls us to do the work of the kingdom at his side.  He’s filled us with his Spirit and he’s gifted us with the gifts of grace so that we can carry on the battle.  This has been our calling as human beings from the start.  Adam was born into a garden that represented God’s temple and the mission he was given was to be fruitful, to multiply, and to have dominion over God’s creation—he was to spread the influence of God’s temple over the whole earth.  He failed.  Then in Abraham, God called Israel to carry on that mission.  At the centre of Israel was the temple—the light—and their mission was to carry that light and the influence of God’s temple to the gentile nations.  But Israel failed too.  And yet, brothers and sisters, Jesus came to fulfil that mission given to Adam and given to Israel.  And Jesus succeeded in his mission.  He has established his kingdom here in his Church.  But friends, he didn’t establish his kingdom so that we can sit around being good and holy while we wait for escape to heaven.  We, his Church, are the beachhead of the kingdom.  He’s given us his light and now calls us to spread it to the nations in anticipation of that day when he will return in final victory to cast sin and death into the lake of fire.  In the Lord’s Prayer we pray: “on earth as it is in heaven”.  That’s a prayer of anticipation, brothers and sisters.  It’s a prayer that looks forward to that day when the kingdom, now in the Father’s safe-keeping in heaven, will be brought by Jesus to earth, to finally establish his temple as Adam was originally called to establish it throughout the earth.

As Christians we must seek to succeed in our ministry of evangelism – spreading the Gospel at home and abroad.  Jesus has succeeded in His ministry and mission; let us succeed in ours, with the help of God.  (You can hear this message by Fr. Bill here.)