Living With a Jesus World View Part 1

What Authority Do I Live By V.1-2

A. People were both disturbed and amazed with Jesus.

1. His earlier temple cleansing and this radical view of the Temple “His house was to be a house of prayer.” Luke 19:45-48.

NOTE: “all the people were hangin on every word He said.” The religious leaders wanted Him destroyed. So days later when the religious leaders confront Jesus asking what authority they were more than likely referring to His actions in the temple but also what He was teaching from day to day.

B. Jesus spoke openly about where His Authority came from.

1. John 5:19 Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

2. John 7:15-17 “The Jews then were astonished, saying, ‘How has this man become learned, having never been educated?’ So Jesus answered them and said, ‘My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.”

C. He was day to day teaching and Preaching the gospel.

2. John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

TRANS: These religious leaders demanded that He tell them by what authority He did these things and taught these things. Jesus had no need to entertain their request because they heard all he had taught and it was true.

So Jesus asks them to tell Him where John received his authority, heaven or men. V.3-4

The religious leaders reasoned, concluding that they did not want to believe in Jesus and they did not want to be stoned to death by the Jews so they said “we don’t know”. V.5-7

What they said was we love our current worldview and our lives more than the authority from heaven.

You and I, as has every generation been faced with this dilemma, “What Authority will I Live by.”

ILLUST: Paul said Galatians 1:10 For am I now seeking the favor of people, or of God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.

TRANS: Jesus is not going to tell you and I what authority we have to live by but we are asked to choose. Our Culture has become, and now at lightning speed a battleground as to what worldview you will live by. Worldviews claim authority as to Origin (were we created male and female), Morality (Up to what age can we kill babies), Meaning (Is this life and things all there is), Destiny (Is it this life or after this life)

Let me share a few examples and then let you decide just how important it is that you and I choose now what authority we will live by.

EXAMPLE: LGBTQ and Transgenderism.

NOTE: This world view that humans are created with biological anatomies or feelings that make them predisposed to same sex attraction or that they can decide which sex they want to be when they grow up. The view is based on personal, sinful, and taught beliefs about sexuality and human identity. It creates ideas and beliefs about origin, morality, and meaning in life that are contrary to the authority of scripture.

1. Matthew 19:4 “And He answered and said, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them MALE and FEMALE, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his Father and Mother and be joined to His wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’”

NOTE: Genesis 1:27

THOUGHTS: These desires and feelings are no different than any other sinful desires in that we live in a world that loves self more than God. Anyone who is going to find freedom from sin you will need to come under His authority so He can set you free. (Becket Cook “A Change of Affection)

EXAMPLE: Transhumanism is a philosophical movement that advocates for the transformation of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies able to greatly modify or enhance human intellect and physiology Wikipedia.com

NOTE: Some see this as a self directed evolution, a scientific field specifically in medicine where some are simply looking for quality of life, some are looking for extension of life (Immortality) or “Posthuman”. The research rest in what is known as the human Genome.

“Each cell has 46 chromosomes 23 pairs along these chromosomes are genes or instructions that tell the cells what to do. Scientists can fix a broken or missing part of these instructions with new functional ones. Or they can add completely new genes to create something other than.

ILLUST: CRISPR . . .

Genesis 1:26 Then God said “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 2:18-20 “. . . ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him . . . the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky , and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.”

ILLUST: Some believe this to be one of the reasons for the great flood along with the sons of God taking wives and having giants. “In the Talmud (BT Sanhedrin 108a), Rabbi Yohanan teaches that animals prior to the flood were mating not only across species but also across genera, and that humans were mating with “everyone.” This interspecies orgy was the “corruption of all flesh” (Gen. 6:12)

Genesis 11:1-9 “. . . Come let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the earth v.4 . . . and now nothing will be impossible for them. . .” I think we may be t a point in time again where these words are true. We were not created to be the authority, that is reserve for God alone. You and I need to decide which authority we truly believe.

EXAMPLE: The Human Heart

NOTE: This world view idea may actually be more rejected than the two we spoke of because Jesus speaks directly to the surrender of the human will to Gods authority.

5. Luke 6:27-28 “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

NOTE: How many followers of Jesus desire to learn and follow this worldview of Jesus?

1 John 4:20 “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

NOTE: There may come a day when Artificial intelligence and the desire for physical life will call you to worship a kingdom that says in order to be a part of this world you cannot hold a Jesus’ Worldview. What will you do? Will you know His teaching enough to not be deceived?

NOTE: Who has the authority to speak into these cultural issues we live in today? If we are not learning Jesus’ worldview and making this temple a place for Him to transform us and give us divine wisdom we will be deceived.

CLOSE: Jesus is not going to tell you what to believe. But He has taught who He is and it is your responsibility to choose what authority you will live by. And because of the world we live in you and I need to get serious about knowing what Jesus teaches because the world is blurring the lines at lightning speed and many people who say they follow Jesus are learning to love their life and this world way too much. So By what Authority do you live by?

Unless we know where Jesus' authority comes from and choose to let His authority rule our lives, we will be decieved and whether you say you are a Christian or not you will reject His Kingdom and choose this one.