The Question of Authority
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
We have a bunch of kids! That means that leaving the house to go run an errand requires one of two things. Either we can leave the kids at home under the supervision of another, or we all have to load up in the van and take the whole herd with us.
Imagine if every time you needed to go shopping you had to haul out the cattle trailer and go round up the herd, load them up, unload them, etc. to get anything done. It would be a pain!
So that leaves us with the question of authority. When we leave, who is in charge? We have to delegate one of the kids to be the one responsible for the rest of the herd.
We try to make the best decision possible, but inevitably, there will be a challenge. It’s like a pack of dogs or a herd of chickens where the pecking order has to be established. However, in this case, authority does not go to the biggest or the strongest or the most feisty. If it were based on feistiness, the youngest might be in charge, or concharge, as he used to say all the time.
Authority goes to the one that we have given it to. But even then, the authority that we have given is limited.
Now shift gears with me to Jesus. Jesus is God in the second Person of the Triune Godhead. God sent Him on a mission to this earth and gave Him authority.
This doesn’t mean that the Son is less God than the Father. They are co-equal, co-eternal, but the Son has submitted in His role to the Father, just like we are called to do as extremely lesser beings.
The Scripture says in Hebrews,
6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him?
Yet the irony is that man tries to exalt himself to the highest heaven, even above God.
This is what got Adam and Eve in trouble and it is what God the devil in trouble.
It is the scourge of every human to overstep the authority of God and claim the status of the divine for himself.
Today, we are going to turn to a challenge to Jesus’ authority given in the Gospel of Matthew.
Look with me this morning in Matthew 21 as we answer the question of authority.
23 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
24 Jesus answered them, “I also ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.
25 The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
26 But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
Pray
(See also: Bible—Divine Authority and Authorship)
The faith will totter if the authority of the Holy Scriptures loses its hold on men. We must surrender ourselves to the authority of Holy Scripture, for it can neither mislead nor be misled.
Saint Augustine of Hippo
1. Does Jesus Have Authority? (vv.23)
1. Does Jesus Have Authority? (vv.23)
23 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
Jesus has been teaching in the Temple, turning over the tables, and driving out the sellers
Jesus has allowed the blind and lame to come in
He is doing what the Temple priests should have been doing by teaching the people, which seems to be far from what the Temple priests were doing
The leaders could not deny that Jesus had authority
They ask who gave this authority to you?
What type of authority are they talking about?
The authority to teach
The authority to heal
The authority over creation
The authority over the enemy
The authority over life and death
The authority to forgive sins
In the immediate context, Jesus has been exercising authority as a Master of the House and not as a pilgrim who came to worship and needed to obey the rules of the tennants of the house.
Illustration: Imagine this morning that you have a rental property that you are letting out to someone on Air B & B or something. You need to go do some work on the property and there is a new neighbor that lives next door who sees you pull in. They are a nosey neighbor and they start to watch you pull out your tools and start doing some work on the property and they decide to come over and confront you. They don’t know you and have not met you yet and they decide to challenge you and ask you what makes you think you can come over and start doing things to the house.
What’s your answer? You could give a number of answers, but the real answer is that it is your house. You have the authority needed to do whatever you want to to the house because it is your house!
Application
God is the one sitting on the throne of Heaven and He gave Jesus full authority in heaven and on earth (see Matthew 28:17). He doesn’t need your approval for how He operates in this world.
We will come back to this in a moment, but for now, let’s move on to the next thing we need to ask.
2. Who Gave Him His Authority? (vv. 24-26)
2. Who Gave Him His Authority? (vv. 24-26)
24 Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.
25 The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
26 But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
They challenge Jesus by questioning where He got this authority
No one could deny that He had authority
They had all seen the miracles and they were undeniable
Jesus is the Master Teacher
As a rabbi, He was a skilled teacher and uses a common tactic of asking a question to answer a question
This is called making you think and apply - maybe we need more of this
It’s a lesson in logic and inference
It may seem like Jesus doesn’t want to answer them, but Jesus does give them the answer to their question, they just don’t like it
Where did John the Baptist get His authority
Put them in a quandary
They didn’t want to affirm John the Baptist as a prophet because John had pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world
They could not say that that John did not have authority from God because John had been affirmed by the people as a prophet
What they try to do is ride the fence
No on can ride the fence regarding Jesus
You have to make a conclusion about who He is
The truth is that the Pharisees did not care about the people; they did not care about God; they did not care about Jesus.
The only ones they cared about were themselves.
They wanted to remain in power and in control and get rich off the people. Anything that disrupted that status quo was in the way and needed to be removed, including Jesus - no matter how many miracles He might have performed.
Conclusion
That brings us to you this morning.
The Scriptures are here for us. They are not a history book to just give us facts. We have to do something with these facts that we have been given.
What about you regarding the question of Jesus’ authority?
Do you recognize Jesus’ authority?
Do you identify that it has come from God the Father?
Do you submit to His authority?
Two examples of how we can respond:
Peter
Some of the people did not like what Jesus had to say
They had tried to make Jesus king and He spoke to them of eating His flesh and drinking His blood
They went away and Jesus asked the Disciples if they would follow too
Peter responded:
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,
69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus had said some hard things to hear and receive. But hard things are usually the best things.
The Pharisees after Lazarus is raised
The Pharisees had followed Jesus around trying to find fault with Him and trap Him in what He said
45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him,
46 but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs.
48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all.
50 Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”
51 He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation,
52 and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
53 So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.
What Caiaphas said was right, though he had no idea why
Jesus had to die for our sins
It was better for us
We will perish if we reject His authority and His sacrifice for our sins.
The Pharisees wanted to silence Jesus. Do you?
The Disciples believed. Do you?
Jesus has the words of eternal life. Will you listen?
