And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

When I look at the story of Scripture from beginning to end, there is a command that runs through the whole thing, and it has never been revoked.

In Genesis 1:28, God blessed the first humans and said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion." That was the first command. Not a suggestion, not a nice idea... a command. Multiply. Fill the earth. Subdue it. Take dominion. And the first Adam failed. He chose his own way, surrendered his authority, and the mission stalled before it ever started.

But then Jesus came. The second Adam. And what the first Adam failed to do, the second Adam finished. After His resurrection, after He had defeated death and taken back every bit of authority that was lost in Eden, He stood before His disciples and said this in Matthew 28:18-20, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Now, the early Christians who lived under the Roman Empire possessed no seats of government, no military might, no political power, and no cultural influence that would have given them an edge in changing the world. They had none of that authority. The only authority they had was given to them by a man who was wrongly accused, beaten, and murdered as a criminal in the worst death imaginable by the very empire that thought it could not be touched. And that man rose from the dead and declared that all authority in heaven and on earth belonged to Him.

So when Paul walked into Ephesus, he was not operating on his own credentials. He was operating on the same authority that Jesus passed to every believer who would ever live. The same authority He has given to you, right now, today. The question has never been whether or not you have it. The question is whether or not you believe it.

We often think of multiplication as a numbers game, and in that we lose the heart of it. Multiplication in the Kingdom is not about how many people you can reach. It is about faithfully stewarding the authority you have been given so that the gospel goes where you go. The first command to be fruitful and multiply was given in a garden. The final command to go and make disciples was given on a hillside. And both of them share the same heartbeat... fill the earth with the knowledge and the glory of God (Habakkuk 2:14).

You have already received the authority. The real question is what you are doing with it. Tomorrow we will look at what happened when ordinary people in Ephesus actually believed what Jesus said and started living like it was true. The results were so real that the economy felt it.

Take a moment and say this out loud today, "I have been given authority by the risen Christ to carry the gospel wherever I go." Say it before you leave the house. Say it in the car. Say it because you need to hear yourself believe it. Then look for one conversation today where you can live like it is true.