Authority (2)
Notes
Transcript
Good Morning
What is the difference between a poorly dressed man on a tricycle and a well-dressed man on a bicycle?
Attire!
I just want to say Happy Mother’s Day again to all the mother’s! We wouldn’t be here without you. Literally!!
Today we are going to be in Mark 11:27-33.
Last week we looked at Jesus’ teaching about the withered fig tree. He taught about having faith in God. It isn’t about how much or how strong our faith is, what matters is the object of our faith, God! He has all the power. Jesus used moving a mountain as a symbol of what power our God has and we should have faith in Him and Him alone. His reference to the mountain would have had special meaning. Where they were standing, they could see Herod's palace. Herod’s palace was built on a mountain, but that mountain was not there originally. Herod used slaves to move a near by mountain to where he wanted to build his palace. They would have known this and been able to see the palace. But Jesus wasn’t literally talking about moving mountains, although God can move mountains, we do not have that power. We can’t take this verse out of context and ignore all the other verses on prayer. We have to put them all together to understand how to properly pray. Jesus ended His teaching with talking about forgiveness. He taught that if we remember that we have something against someone, we are to forgive them. Jesus is tell us if we can we should forgive, He is telling us to forgive. This is a command, and imperative. He tells us that if we forgive, then our Father in heave may forgive us. Forgiveness is essential to the life of a Christian.
Today we are going to look at Jesus being confronted by the chief priests, scribes and elders while He was in the temple teaching. They questioned His authority and again they are trying to trap Him and get Him to say something that would be heresy. But like always, Jesus has a question for them and they end up looking like fools.
Please stand as we read God’s word
27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, 28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” 29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.” 31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. 33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
We see that Jesus is back in the temple after He had cleansed it and chased out all the thieves. He is walking around teaching. I imagine that He is walking around and using things that are either there in the temple or can be seen from the temple to use as illustrations for His points. This was a normal way for the rabbi’s to teach, they would either sit down or walk around while they taught. I imagine He was teaching with more zeal and authority than ever before, knowing that this was one of His last times to get to teach and He was in the Temple of His Father. 75 times Jesus said, Truly I say to you. He taught with authority that no one had ever had before. The scribes and other rabbi could not say that, they had to say thus says so in so. Jesus said this is what I say! He is the Word of God! Not only did He teach with authority, He actually had authority!
While He was teaching a group of chief priests, scribes and elders approach Him and ask Him who gave Him the authority to do what He did. They are talking about Jesus running out all the robbers from the temple yesterday. They were mad, they were losing a lot of money! They didn’t like it. They were supposed to have the authority in the temple. Now, this question is not out of place. Think about it, if I were to go to a Buddhist temple and see that what they were doing was wrong. If I started turning tables upside down and making a mess of the place, someone would come up to me and say, “ what do you think you are doing? Who gave you the right to do this?!” There question is not wrong. Their motives are. They were trying to trap Jesus again. They were trying to arrest and destroy Him. They didn’t care about anyone’s authority but their own. Jesus new this and He responds with a question of His own.
He asks them, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? This was normal for a rabbi to answer a question with a question. His question was a simple one. But a brilliant one! I never put this together until I was studying for this sermon. They would never have said that John’s baptism was from heaven, because that would have affirmed that John was a prophet of God. What did John say about Jesus? John 1:29-30
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’
And what happened when Jesus was baptized by John? Mark 1:10-11
10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
If they admitted that John’s baptism was from heaven, they would be admitting that Jesus was the Messiah! They would never do that!
Jesus asked His question and they had a holy huddle to try and figure out what to say, how to answer this question. Once again, Jesus had them! They knew the answer but they were not willing to admit it. They loved their sin to much to admit that Jesus was the Messiah. They wanted things to stay the same, they loved the money and power that they had. More than they loved God.
Look at what motivated their answer, they were afraid of what the people might do to them. The people knew John was a prophet from God. If you called yourself a prophet and you weren’t, you were to be stoned to death, also, if you said someone wasn’t a prophet and they were, you too could be put to death. They were scared of the people. Fear motivated their answer. What does the Bible say about fear? Proverbs 29:25
25 The fear of man lays a snare,
but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Fear that causes us to do what is wrong or to not do what is right, that is from the devil. As a believer, we are not to fear anyone. These religious leaders, who knew the Bible better than all the people there, except Jesus, were afraid of the people. They couldn’t answer correctly, because they would lose all they had and they were scared.
The answer they gave was also very hard for them. These leaders were supposed to know the Bible better than all. These were the leaders of the leaders. The most educated on the Bible that there was. Plus, they had some of the biggest egos around. They thought they were something special, they thought they were better than the rest of the people. For them to give the answer that they did would have been very embarrassing. They said that they don’t know! What! Oh, they knew. They were scared. That would be like me standing up here and say that I don’t know where Jesus got His authority from! It was from God! He is the Messiah, the Son of God who takes away the sins of the world!
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
They knew and since they would not answer, Jesus didn’t answer them. You know the saying, “don’t go away mad, just go away!” That is what happened here. Jesus wasn’t going to play there game. They wouldn’t be truthful with him so He wasn’t going to answer their question.
We have to answer that same question. Who gave Jesus His authority?
It is an important question. If we get it wrong, our salvation is at stake. There is only one Jesus in the Bible. We have to make sure that we know that one and only that one.
He wasn’t just a good man
He wasn’t just a prophet of God
He wasn’t just a teacher
He was all of these and so much more.
He is the Son of God.
He gets His authority from His Father. He is God. He is authority!
Any other answer and it is wrong.
We can’t be like the religious leaders and be afraid to answer the question truthfully! We can’t be afraid of how the world is going to treat us if we answer truthfully. We can’t be afraid of how our non Christian friends are going to treat us if we answer truthfully. We shouldn’t be afraid! We have Him in us! Will not our Good Father take care of us?
Jesus left heaven to come to earth and be born of a virgin, walk with us, reveal God’s truth to us, then be rejected, beaten and murdered, then He rose on the 3rd day! All so that we could be afraid to answer truthfully! NO! He did all that so that we do not have to be afraid to stand up and boldly say that He is God’s only Son! His authority is from His Father, God. He deserves that from us. We should have a boldness that defies worldly thinking. A boldness because our debt is paid, and we know how everything ends! God wins! We win! Pain and discomfort is temporary, heaven is forever! Jesus is God! Jesus is our Saviour! We can be bold about Him and our faith! It is unpopular because the path is narrow that leads to heaven. There aren’t many of us on it. That is why we have to be bold! There are less of us and more of them. We have to let them know where the path that they are on leads to! We have to do it with confidence! Because we know the end.
Liberty, boldly go on the mother’s day and let the world know, Jesus is God’s Son!
Let’s pray
