Do You Pass the Test?
Notes
Transcript
We’ve got another long passage today. In the middle of this passage, Jesus makes a strong statement against the religious leaders:
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“ ‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
The religious leaders were constantly trying to put Jesus to the text, to challenge him, to disprove who he really was, the one true God come as Messiah, who deserves to be followed. Even more, who they needed to follow to save them from destruction.
But, in their testing, Jesus, the king, turns the discussion around and challenges them. He puts them to the test.
In fact, that is what he does for everyone. The world approaches Jesus with skepticism. But, he puts them to the test, seeing if they will pass or if they will fail. Every day, we are put to the test. The few who are followers of Jesus pass, but the rest fail and they are crushed, broken to pieces.
Today we are going to see Jesus challenged and Jesus challenging. And we are going to see how we line up.
Before we dive in, will you pray with me?
A. Jesus Is Challenged
A. Jesus Is Challenged
Our passage opens with a direct challenge to Jesus authority.
A. His Authority
A. His Authority
Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
We’ll read the rest of this passage on another point. The Pharisees have the question that so many people ask: You say that you are who you are. You do the things that you do. You make crazy claims and demands, by what authority? Why should I listen to you? Why should I care?
We line Jesus up with all the other people we are listening to, the ones we like, the one’s we don’t, the one’s who are just cukes. And we say, prove to me why we should follow you. Prove to me your authority.
Even though Jesus has already proved it. But, to often, we disregard it just as we disregard all those who point us to him.
B. His Integrity
B. His Integrity
After a period of teaching, the religious leaders again challenge Jesus, but this time it is his integrity.
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”
But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
His answer, if he picked a side, would betray his integrity, because he would either be standing for government and against the people of God or he would be standing with Israel and against God’s appointed leaders. The leaders thought that they had him stymied, not realizing that he would take the third option.
So many people, try to pin Jesus to the wall, to rip apart his supposed integrity. They may not realize that they are doing it. But every time someone takes the Word of God and claims that it isn’t true, they are declaring the the Word of God, Jesus, makes claims that are not true, are contradictory, that he has no integrity.
They may say that they are just talking about this book, but he inspired this book and he looks at us and asks us to believe it, and through it to give to God what is God’s.
C. His Theology
C. His Theology
Well, they don’t like his answer, so another group of religious leaders approach and challenge his theology.
That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”
Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
The Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. They said that this life was all there was. And so, to test Jesus in his theology, they bring a question that they loved throwing at people who believed in a resurrection. Oh, and the Sadducees believed that only the first 5 books of the OT was inspired. And everyone used the rest of the OT to prove the resurrection.
Well, they come to Jesus, thinking that they could stump his theology. But, he in fact stumps them, because instead of focusing on the question, he goes to the root of the issue: is there a resurrection. And he meets them where they are at, in the first 5 books of the OT, showing them the truth.
So many people challenge Jesus, because his teaching does not line up with this other person or how they were raised, and they want to go with that instead of the truth. And Jesus says: I am the way, the truth, and the life.
D. His Devotion
D. His Devotion
The last group of religious leaders approached Jesus in frustration and tested Jesus as to his devotion to the One True God.
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
This is the root of the Jewish faith and the Christian faith, our responsibility to God. The question demands Jesus to proclaim whether he supports a devoted following of the One True God or whether he was calling for a new religion. But he proclaims our faith and the result of that faith in our relation to each other.
Many people have a misconstrued understanding of what devotion to the creator is. They think that they have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops, that they have to keep so many different rules, and they are afraid that if they throw all of that out, they won’t be devoted. They think that if they accept the free gift of Jesus in faith, they won’t be devoted.
There are others who are devoted to other things rather than the creator and they don’t want to turn to Jesus because they don’t want to be devoted. But, that is another message.
The religious leaders put Jesus to the test.
2. Jesus Challenges
2. Jesus Challenges
Well, Jesus turned around and put them to them test. He challenges them on where they are with God.
The first group challenges Jesus’ authority, but Jesus challenges their belief.
A. Belief
A. Belief
John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
Did they believe that the forerunner of the Messiah was sent by God or not? The answer to that question dictates what they believe about the Messiah.
And Jesus asks us the same question: what do we believe about the prophets who spoke about Jesus? And based on that, would do we do about the Messiah? Do we believe that he is God? If he is, he must be followed. If we don’t believe that, are we willing to declare that all those who pointed to him and proclaim him, including Jesus himself, are liars.
B. Devotion
B. Devotion
Jesus challenges that groups devotion next. Through two parables.
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.
“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
There are so many people who say that they believe in God. But, they refuse to follow the one whom God sent. If they truly believed in God, they would follow God’s son, who came to die that they might be redeemed. Where does their devotion lie, with their perception of reality or the truth given by God himself.
C. Purity
C. Purity
Jesus then challenges the religious leaders as to their purity.
Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
The religious leaders didn’t like this one. They knew that it was focused on them. They knew that they were the previous guests who were subsequently killed. Not very nice. But, maybe they weren’t. Maybe a few them made it in. But, then there is that line about the guest who didn’t have the correct clothing. He didn’t have the wedding clothes and he was kicked out.
So many people think that their lives are okay. They are basically good, right? But, Jesus says through this that we cannot depend on our lives or our spiritual heritage. Those that stayed in the marriage supper were invited by the king and they allowed their clothes to be changed by the king.
He asks us if we are pure. But the only way that we can become pure is to be changed by the king. If we never have, we are not pure and are cast from his presence.
D. Theology
D. Theology
Jesus then, challenges the last group on their theology.
While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”
“The son of David,” they replied.
He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.” ’
If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Through this clever question and explanation, Jesus teaches a very important thing that is found throughout the Old Testament: The Messiah is God, the Son of God.
The Jewish leaders, though they claimed to be top studiers of Scripture didn’t have their theology right. They believed that the Messiah was merely a man, a descendant of David. But Jesus explains that David called the Messiah his Lord, which is the shorthand for God, Yahweh. If David called him that, how could he be his son? Well, whose son is he? God’s son.
And if the Messiah is God’s son, why do we not treat him as such. Why do we not follow him?
We can challenge Jesus all we want. He will withstand every test. But, what about us? Do we withstand his test?
Will we say boldly that he is the Messiah sent by God to redeem the world? Will our devotion to our creator push us to follow this Messiah? Will we admit our impurity, and seek to be purified in the only way possible the gift of this Messiah on the cross? Will we confess that this Messiah is God’s son, fully God, and follow him.
Do we pass his test? Or are we still lacking?
