What will we do when the authority of Jesus disrupts our lives? Luke 20:1–26
Notes
Transcript
Text: Luke 20:1–26
Subject: Authority
Theme: Rejected Authority
Thesis Statement
Luke shows that Jesus’ authority is unmistakable, and that rejection of Him is not a lack of evidence but a refusal of submission.
Principle Statement
Rejecting Jesus’ authority never looks like open rebellion at first; it often appears as delay, deflection, or debate—but refusing to submit to the Son is ultimately rejecting the God who sent Him.
Sermon Outline
When Authority Is Clear, Rejection Becomes Revealing
Introduction
Introduction
Most of us are comfortable with authority—
right up until it interferes with our lives.
We like authority when it protects us, serves us, or benefits us.
But when authority confronts us, corrects us, or disrupts our plans, something changes.
We start asking questions.
Who gave you the right?
Why should I listen to you?
Why do you get to tell me what to do?
Those questions are not new.
As we step into Luke chapter 20 this morning, Jesus is standing in the temple—
teaching openly, speaking plainly, calling people to repentance and faith.
And the religious leaders finally step forward and ask the question that has been simmering beneath the surface the entire time:
“By what authority do you do these things?”
It sounds like a theological question.
It sounds reasonable.
But beneath it is something far deeper.
This is not really a question about evidence.
It is a question about control.
And Luke wants us to see that how we respond to Jesus’ authority reveals far more about our hearts than about Him.
Because when Jesus comes near, He does not merely ask to be considered.
He demands to be obeyed.
And that raises a question every one of us must answer:
What will we do when the authority of Jesus disrupts our lives?
I. Questioning Authority
I. Questioning Authority
Luke 20:1–8
We pickup in chapter 20 this morning a day or sow after Jesus had cleared the temple of the vendors and money changers.
At the end of chapter 19, it says that Jesus was teaching daily in the temple.
That had occured on a Sunday, most scholars believe this to be Tuesday of Holy Week.
Jesus is intentionally teaching the people and preaching the gospel.
As he does this, some of the chief priests and the scribes and elders came up to him to ask him a question.
And they say to Jesus
English Standard Version Chapter 20
Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.
What they mean by authority is not mere power; it is the right to act with legitimacy. Luke repeatedly uses this term around Jesus’ unique divine authorization.
The question naturally arises as to what are the these things that they are referring to.
Things being plural indicates that Jesus cleansing of the temple is only one thing that is bothering them.
We must remember, they were also actively looking for the Messiah, and knowing scripture, they knew what Jesus was doing and proclaiming, but because it was not how they expected it to happen, they rejected it.
Jesus has had no formal training and is an outsider.
Jesus is not a mighty military leader.
Their question is what gives him the right to tell the priests, who had been running the temple for centuries, how to run the temple.
What gives him the right to come into the temple to teach and preach?
Jesus authority of course comes from God.
He knows that they will not accept that answer.
So he answers their questions with a question of His own.
He asks them what their assessment of John the Baptists ministry was.
Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?
John came from similar roots as Jesus.
He had no formal training, he preached repentance for all, including the religious leaders.
The people had already made a judgment about John.
John was a prophet.
The chief priests knew that.
But they had already made up their minds as well when he called them a brood of vipers.
But they discuss it with one another.
If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.
So they dodged Jesus question, their refusal is driven by fear and self-preservation more than by lack of evidence.
And Jesus will answer their question, just not in the way they want.
What we need to notice is that this question is not innocent.
They are not asking, “Help us understand who you are.”
They are asking, “Who gave you the right to disrupt our system?”
I think that is the question that many people ask when they are presented with Jesus.
They ask either God, or the person sharing the gospel with them,
Who gives you the right to disrupt my life?
And this is a right question to ask.
Jesus should disrupt your life.
If you are just trying to sprinkle a little Jesus into your life, you have all wrong.
Thinking of these religious leaders -
Jesus has not come through their channels.
He has not been trained in their schools.
He has not been approved by their councils.
He does not reinforce their expectations of what the Messiah should be.
And because Jesus does not fit their categories, they assume He cannot truly be from God.
This is how resistance to divine authority often works.
We do not reject Jesus because He lacks evidence.
We reject Him because He challenges our assumptions, our comfort, and our control.
We often question Jesus in the same way.
Not because we are confused—
But because we are uncomfortable.
We question His authority when:
His commands collide with our preferences
His Word confronts our habits
His lordship threatens our independence
And like these leaders, we can cloak resistance in respectable language:
“I just need more clarity.”
“I am still thinking it through.”
“I am not convinced yet.”
But often, the real issue is not understanding.
It is submission.
Jesus’ response shows us that refusing to answer honestly is itself an answer.
And when Jesus refuses to answer their question, He is not withholding truth.
He is exposing hearts that have already decided they will not submit.
Questioning Jesus’ authority is not a sign of humility.
Sometimes it is the last refuge of a heart that wants control without surrender.
And when authority is questioned long enough and resisted deeply enough, it does not remain neutral.
It hardens.
What begins as questioning soon becomes rejection.
And Jesus now tells a parable—not to confuse them—but to warn them.
A parable that explains Israel’s history, exposes their present condition, and reveals exactly what they are about to do to Him.
II. Rejecting the Cornerstone
II. Rejecting the Cornerstone
Luke 20:9–18
This parable is not aimed specifically at the leaders, but taught to the crowd.
While the leaders are there listening, Jesus is giving the crowds a picture of what is happening right before their eyes.
He is giving the answer to the leaders questions of authority.
Jesus says,
“A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants…”
To our ears that sounds like a simple farming story.
But to a first-century Jewish audience, the moment Jesus says “vineyard,” the Old Testament starts echoing.
In Isaiah 5, Israel is described as God’s vineyard.
God planted it, cared for it, protected it, and expected fruit.
So Jesus is not telling a random parable.
He is telling a familiar prophetic picture.
And in this parable:
The owner represents God.
The vineyard represents God’s people and God’s kingdom.
The tenants represent the leaders entrusted with stewardship.
The fruit represents the obedience and worship God is due.
This is about responsibility.
God had entrusted them with something holy.
The Owner comes looking for what is rightly His.
2. The Servants: God’s Patience, Israel’s Pattern
Jesus describes the owner sending a servant for fruit.
But the tenants beat him and send him away empty.
So the owner sends another.
And another.
And they treat them shamefully.
This is not exaggeration.
This is Israel’s story.
Over and over, God sent prophets to call His people back:
To repentance
To faithfulness
To worship
And over and over, the prophets were rejected, mocked, opposed, even killed.
Through Jesus telling this parable, He is expressly stating this is not a new problem.
This is not a misunderstanding.
This is a pattern.
A long history of resisting the voice of God.
And if we are honest, it is not just their story.
It is the human story.
Going all the way back to the Garden, what was the temptation?
To reject God’s authority and be like Him.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
When the workers rejected the masters servants, he sent his beloved son.
Do not miss what Jesus is doing.
He is not simply one more messenger.
He is not simply another prophet.
He is the beloved Son.
This is the language God used at Jesus’ baptism.
Jesus is the final, fullest revelation of God.
God has spoken through servants.
Now God speaks through His Son.
And if they reject the Son, it is not merely rejecting a teacher.
It is rejecting God Himself.
And that is exactly what the tenants do.
Jesus says,
“But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’
So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.”
Notice something very important here.
Are the tenants confused about who the son is?
No!
They recognize him as the heir.
Their rejection is not because they lack information.
Their rejection is because they refuse submission.
They understand exactly what his presence means.
If the son remains, they must answer to the owner.
If the son is removed, they believe they can rule on their own.
That is the heart of sin.
Sin is not merely breaking God’s rules.
Sin is rejecting God’s rightful authority.
It is saying, “I want the vineyard without the owner.
I want the blessings without the Son.
I want the kingdom without the King.”
Think about it this way.
Imagine a grown child who still relies on their parents’ generosity.
They appreciate the help.
They accept the provision.
They enjoy the safety net.
But they resent the voice.
They do not want advice.
They do not want correction.
They do not want expectations.
They want the benefits of the relationship without the relationship itself.
And eventually, the issue is not behavior.
It is authority.
That is what Jesus is exposing.
Sin says, “I am fine with God’s gifts.
I am just not fine with God telling me how to live.”
Jesus’ parable tells us plainly:
You cannot have God’s gifts while rejecting God’s authority.
And here is where this meets us.
Most of us do not reject Jesus loudly.
We reject Him selectively.
We welcome Him where He agrees with us.
We resist Him where He confronts us.
But partial submission is still resistance.
And standing there in the temple courts, Jesus is is telling them exactly what they are about to do to Him.
He is the beloved Son.
He has been sent by the Father.
And He will be rejected, cast out, and killed.
Then Jesus asks a sobering question:
“What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?”
And He answers it Himself.
“He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”
That is not an empty threat.
That is a declaration of accountability.
When Jesus said that the vineyard would be taken away and given to others, he was really saying that Israel’s priests and scribes—
the men who were challenging his authority and planning his murder—would no longer lead the people of God.
Spiritual leadership would be transferred to the apostles of the church, as the gospel went out to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.
Jesus is saying that rejecting the Son brings real consequences.
When the crowd hears this, they cry out,
“Surely not!
The people who were there knew exactly what Jesus was saying, and they could not believe it.
Surely God would never take the vineyard away from the Jews and give it to the Gentiles.
It was completely unthinkable.
But Jesus does not back down.
Rather, Jesus looks directly at them and says,
“What then is this that is written:
‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?”
This is Psalm 118 once again, that messianic coronation Psalm that the people quoted praising Jesus as he entered Jerusalem.
The builders—the leaders—reject the stone.
But God establishes that very stone as the foundation.
A cornerstone does not exist to be admired.
It exists to be aligned with.
And in this case, rejection does not cancel God’s plan.
It fulfills it.
Jesus final statement in this section is a call to account.
“Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
There are only two responses to the cornerstone.
You can fall on Him in repentance and be broken.
Or He will fall on you in judgment.
Either way, the stone does not move.
Jesus is the cornerstone whether He is welcomed or rejected.
The question is, how will we respond to Him?
Jesus parable confronted his listeners then and us today with a question we cannot avoid.
Will we embrace the Son, or will we resist Him?
Because rejecting Jesus does not always look like open hostility.
Often it looks like:
wanting forgiveness without obedience
wanting salvation without surrender
wanting Jesus to serve our plans rather than reshape them
But the vineyard belongs to God.
The Son has been sent.
And God will have fruit from His vineyard.
And the leaders understand exactly what Jesus has done.
Luke tells us they know this parable was spoken against them.
But instead of repenting, they double down.
They do not surrender to His authority.
They strategize against it.
And now they will attempt one final move—not with theology, but with politics.
They try to trap Jesus with a question about Caesar.
But Jesus shows that rejection always leads to judgment, but submission opens the door to hope—and now Jesus shows us exactly what God rightfully claims.
III. Render to God
III. Render to God
Luke 20:19–26
The scribes and chief priests now send spies to pretend to be sincere to try and trap Jesus in something he says.
There were probably other examples of this, but the Holy Spirit had Luke include this example here specifically because it continues the point about authority.
They begin by buttering Jesus up.
English Standard Version Chapter 20
Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God.
And then spring their trap.
English Standard Version Chapter 20
22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?
The thing that we need to understand culturally is that this is a very loaded question.
If Jesus answers yes, the people, who despise Roman occupation will turn on him because He is accepting Roman rule.
If Jesus answers no, the leaders can turn him in to the Roman authorities as an insurrectionist.
I picture the leaders conniving together racking their brains when one of them all of the sudden gets a big grin on his face.
I have the perfect question.
But as we see in verse 23, Jesus perceived their craftiness.
Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 Q & A
There was one flaw in their reasoning, however, and seeing it will help us understand the answer that Jesus gave. When these crafty men said, “Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” they were asking a yes or no question: either the tax was lawful or it wasn’t. But this assumed that things belonged either to Caesar or to God, but not in some way to both. In effect, by demanding a simple, categorical answer, these men were insisting on a total separation between religion and politics. Some things are for Caesar and some things are for God. “So tell us, Jesus, do our taxes belong to the government, or do they belong to God instead?”
Jesus asks for a denarius and asks them a question.
Whose likeness and inscription does it have?
Their response was clear - Caesar’s.
So Jesus tells them to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s
But he doesn’t stop there, he continues and to God the things that are God’s.
At first glance, it sounds like Jesus is dividing life into neat categories.
Politics over here.
Religion over there.
But that is not what Jesus is doing.
Jesus is not dividing authority.
He is ordering it.
Does Caesar has real authority?
Yes.
Do earthly governments have a legitimate place?
Yes.
But their authority is limited.
The key point that we need to see from Jesus response is that if Caesar can claim a coin because it bears his image…
What does God have the right to claim?
These coins bear Caesar’s image.
People bear God’s image.
From the very beginning, Scripture tells us that humanity was created in the image of God.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
his foundational claim appears again in Adam’s genealogy, where God is said to have made humanity “in the likeness of God” in Gen. 5
The New Testament applies this image-bearing identity to believers specifically.
Paul describes man as “the image and glory of God” (1 Cor 11:7),
In Colossians he describes the new self as “being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col 3:10),
and Ephesians speaks of putting on “the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24).
James appeals to the fact that people are “made in the likeness of God” as a reason to refrain from cursing them (James 3:9).
Ultimately, God has “predestined” believers “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29), making Christ the ultimate model and goal of this transformation.
All of this goes to show that Caesar may claim taxes.
But God claims lives.
Caesar may claim what is stamped with his image.
God claims what is stamped with His.
If you are listening this morning, you need to hear that Jesus is not asking for a portion of your life.
He is asserting rightful ownership over all of it.
Your thoughts.
Your desires.
Your obedience.
Your allegiance.
Jesus has escaped the the leaders trap here—not by avoiding the question, but by exposing their hearts.
And he wants to expose our as well.
The religious leaders were trying to decide how much authority Jesus should have.
Jesus reveals that the real issue is whether they will submit to God at all.
This matters deeply for us.
As Christians, we live under dual authority.
We are citizens of earthly kingdoms.
We are to obey laws, pay taxes, seek the good of our communities.
But our ultimate allegiance is not to a nation, a party, or a ruler.
Our ultimate allegiance is to Christ.
This means that our obedience to earthly authorities is always secondary
Our values must be shaped by God’s Word, not cultural pressure
Our identity must be rooted in God’s kingdom, not political power
This is the upside down, inside out call of the gospel on our lives.
Jesus is not calling His followers to withdraw from society.
He is calling them to live in it as people who belong to God.
The question is no longer about Caesar.
The question is about God.
What are we rendering to Him?
It is possible to give God:
attendance without obedience
words without surrender
belief without allegiance
But Jesus does not ask for religious tokens.
He is not standing there with a clipboard watching you check off boxes.
Jesus is asking for what already belongs to Him.
Your heart.
Your will.
Your life.
Because you bear His image.
If the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears his image,
then our lives belong to God because we bear His.
And that means the call of this passage is not partial devotion, but full submission.
Not negotiated obedience, but joyful allegiance.
And Luke tells us that when Jesus finishes speaking, they are amazed.
But amazement is not the same as faith.
The question Luke leaves us with is not whether Jesus has authority.
He does.
The question is whether we will render ourselves to the God whose image we bear.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we step back from this passage, Luke wants us to see the progression clearly.
Jesus’ authority is questioned.
Jesus’ authority is rejected.
Jesus’ authority is finally clarified.
And in every scene, the problem is not that Jesus is unclear.
The problem is that submission is costly.
The leaders questioned Jesus because His authority threatened their control.
They rejected the Son because His presence demanded surrender.
And when faced with the truth that God owns everything, they tried to reduce the issue to politics.
But Jesus will not allow authority to be minimized.
He shows us that all authority flows from God.
That rejecting the Son is rejecting the Father.
And that as image bearers, our lives already belong to Him.
The real question is:
“What will I do with the authority of Jesus?”
Jesus is the cornerstone.
You do not build around a cornerstone according to your own design.
You align everything else to it.
And Luke hits us with some brutal honesty.
There are only two responses to the cornerstone.
You can fall on Him in repentance and be broken—
or He will on you and you will be crushed.
There is no middle ground.
But here is the good news.
The beloved Son who was rejected was not defeated.
The cornerstone that was rejected was raised.
And the judgment we deserve for rejecting God’s authority fell on Him instead.
On the cross, Jesus bore the punishment of rebels.
He died for those who wanted the kingdom without the King.
And through His resurrection, He now offers forgiveness, life, and restoration
to all who will stop resisting and start surrendering.
To trust in Jesus is not merely to believe facts about Him.
It is to submit to Him as Lord.
It is to render to God what already belongs to Him—your life.
If you are here this morning and you know that you have never truly submitted to Jesus,
not because you lacked evidence,
but because you wanted control—
Today, the call is not to clean yourself up.
The call is to surrender.
To fall on the cornerstone in repentance
and find that brokenness leads to life.
If that is you this morning, I would love to speak to you more about this.
And for those of us who do belong to Christ:
This passage calls us to honest reflection.
Where have we questioned instead of obeyed?
Where have we delayed instead of surrendered?
Where have we rendered God words—but not our hearts?
Because Jesus does not merely ask for part of us.
He claims us entirely.
If you would like to discuss any of these questions further, I would love to do that with you.
If the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears his image,
then our lives belong to God because we bear His.
And the only right response to the authority of Jesus
is joyful, wholehearted submission.
