LUKE: YEAR OF OUR LORD (WEEK 21) - THE PROBLEM WITH POWER

In chapter 8, Jesus sent the disciples out to fly solo in doing ministry,  remember? And they had success! It was great! So naturally, they're pros now, right? They should be experts now and be able to run with thus authority and power without stumbling once…

Yeah. How often does THAT happen?

You try something and get lucky and have some success the first time you try it. “THAT’S EASY!” you say. And so you run into another situation with great confidence in your own abilities — and fine that it’s NOT easy.

The disciples had a great time the first time solo. It was exciting because they had success…

But I think that they misunderstood HOW it was supposed to work. Because today we will look at an event that follows the transfiguration of Jesus (we looked at that last week), where things weren’t so easy for the disciples…They stumbled and failed and didn’t get THEIR “atta-boys” either. So what makes the difference? Again, like me, I think they had an inflated sense of what THEIR part of the events in chapter 8. They put to much confidence in what THEY could accomplish.

They had experienced POWER, but there is a problem with power when you don’t realize WHERE the power comes from and under whose authority you are to be using that power. .