A Battle over Authority

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

I’m sure it’s no surprise to anybody in the room that there’s a lot of conflict in our country right now. This is not news to you, right? You knew this before you came here?

Most of it, though, when you stop to think about it, I don’t know about most, but a lot of the conflict is over authority. As much as what are we going to do in a particular situation or which policy do we want, it’s as much about authority as it is over any of those things. You know, when we talk about what’s going on in the country and the arguments over the border, and those things are working their way through the courts.

And I am getting to a violent point with this. I didn’t come to talk policy with you today. But as those things work their way through the courts, the question they’re arguing about is not what should we do, should we do this, should we do that, which would be better.

The question they’re arguing about is who has the authority to decide. Is it a state issue? Is it a federal issue?

The student loan thing that’s been discussed, as it works its way through the courts, they’re not discussing, is this a good idea, is it a bad idea? And I know we have people in this room that are on both sides of that issue. What they’re discussing is who has the authority to do this.

Is it the president? Is it Congress? We have a little thing called the Constitution that decides that.

These are questions of authority. I heard about a court case yesterday where a government agency in one state refused to send a child back to her parents in another state because a government employee disagreed with the way they were. We’re not talking about an abuse situation.

It disagreed with the choices the parents were making regarding the raising of the child. So now that’s working its way through the courts. Who has the authority to decide?

A government agency or the parents? And as long as we’re not talking about abuse or neglect, I’ll tell you which side of that I come down on every time. We have these battles about authority even in our own homes.

If you’ve ever raised children, you know that’s the case. Sometimes it’s a battle between us and the kids. If Charlie and I are discussing, we’re out and we’re discussing what to do about dinner.

I said, I’d really like to go to Chick-fil-A. And she says, I think we ought to go home. And then I hear a kid throwing a temper tantrum in the backseat.

I want to go to Chick-fil-A. Now we’re going to Chick-fil-A over my dead body. Because you do not, you’re not the one.

We’ll take your input. But you’re not going to throw a temper tantrum and take over. With five kids, we hear constant fights about you’re not the boss of me.

Oh, yes, I am. None of you are the boss. All right.

No. Sometimes I don’t even want to admit to being the boss, right? These struggles about authority are part of our human nature.

They’ve been going on since the garden. If you go back to Genesis chapter 3, and you can turn there if you want to, but that’s not where we’re going to be this morning. If you go back to Genesis chapter 3, when the serpent says to Eve, did God say, he’s not saying, did God really say that?

The question there is, can you trust the word of God? Can you trust what God said? It is a question of God’s authority.

these questions about who gets to call the shots who gets to make the decisions they’ve been going on since the beginning of humanity and this morning we’re going to look at a situation as we continue our study through the book of mark another one of these battles over authority this time between jesus and the religious leaders and I probably am not spoiling it too much to tell you from the beginning jesus wins the the battle as jesus tends to do I mean he’s jesus but we come to we come to mark chapter 11 the end of mark chapter 11 and there’s this battle over authority it’s what’s really going on as we read the passage this morning so if you would turn with me to mark chapter 11 if you haven’t already mark chapter 11 if you don’t have your bible or can’t find mark chapter 11 it’ll be on the screen here behind me and once you find it if you would stand with me as we read together from god’s word we’re just going to look at about six or seven verses this morning, starting in verse 27.

It says, then they came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him, and they said to him, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority to do these things? But Jesus answered and said to them, I also will ask you one question.

Then answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men, answer me. And they reasoned among themselves saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, why then did you not believe him?

But if we say from men, they feared the people for all counted John to have been a prophet indeed. So they answered and said to Jesus, we do not know. And Jesus answered and said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

And you may be seated. If you didn’t pick up one of the handouts on your way in, that’s all right. You don’t have to have to follow along, but if you want to take one with you when you leave today, there’s a handout at the doors over here and over here that outlined this passage line by line with the account in Mark, excuse me, I’m tongue-tied this morning, and I don’t know why, with the passage in Matthew and Luke as well.

And I do that and give it and send it with you for a couple of reasons. First of all, when we take the details from multiple Gospels, we get a fuller picture of the story because they all tend to focus on different details at some point in the story, but also to show you how the Gospels complement rather than contradict each other. There are difficult places, but there’s always an explanation.

So if you don’t have one of those, pick one up on your way out. But this is a battle over authority. When they come to Jesus, he’s there in the temple, he’s teaching.

And we see that Jesus and the Sanhedrin were challenging each other’s authority. They were each a threat to the other’s authority, or at least posed some difficulties. Jesus had come in and he had cleansed the temple.

This is what we discussed last Sunday night, how Jesus came in and he cleansed the temple for a second time. There’s an account in the book of John, I believe it’s John chapter 2, that as far as I can tell, talks about a previous time when Jesus cleansed the temple at the beginning of his ministry. And he comes in, Matthew, Mark, and Luke record him cleansing the temple again at the end of his ministry because they didn’t get the message the first time.

So he cleansed the temple back in the earlier part of Mark chapter 11. And now he’s there again. So this is about Tuesday of the week leading up to the crucifixion.

And he’s there in the temple and he’s teaching the people. What we need to understand is that when he came in and cleansed the temple the day before, he was asserting authority. He was saying, I have the authority to do that.

You know, there’s a reason I don’t try to go behind the counter at the bank. Because I don’t have that authority. That’s a good way to get in trouble.

But I have no problem walking into the office here at church because I have the authority to be there. For Jesus to come in and say, no, this is not what we’re doing. We’re doing this instead.

It was an assertion of his authority over the temple, over those who were there. And now he’s teaching as a rabbi. He’s teaching as somebody who has authority.

And for the religious leaders, for the religious establishment, it was a threat to their control over the people. Because at this point, they get to decide who is right with God, they think. They get to decide who’s worthy.

They get to decide who can come to the temple. It’s part of why Jesus flipped over their tables. Because they were setting up a market in the court of the Gentiles, literally keeping people away from worshiping God.

They were putting up obstacles, people coming to God. So his very existence, teaching and cleansing the temple, doing the things that he was just doing, being Jesus, going through his ministry, that was a threat to the authority of the Sanhedrin. And they, in turn, challenged his authority by coming and asking him, right did he have to do these things?

In verse 28, that’s what they asked him. What right do you have to teach here? Now, as far as it goes, that’s not an unreasonable question.

They did have responsibility for what was being taught in the temple, at least from a human standpoint. You know, if I walk in here on a Sunday morning and there’s somebody I’ve never seen before and he’s teaching a Sunday school class, I’m going to have some questions. You would expect me to have some questions because I bear responsibility for what’s taught here.

And so they were coming and if their motives had been different, this is not a bad thing to do. Who gave you the authority to teach here? But there’s a background here of them rejecting Jesus, of them knowing what he taught, knowing what he was doing, and always trying to undermine his authority.

The problem here is that they were not actually interested in the answer to the question. They had already decided what the answer was. So the question was not so much to discern whether or not he had the authority to be there.

It was not to discern whether or not it was right for him to be there. They were looking for more ammunition to use against him, to try to destroy him. They were not interested in the truth.

And we can see this from verses 31 and 32 when we get a peek into their deliberations, into their conversations amongst themselves. And we see what their concerns are. We’ve got two options here he’s given us in this question Jesus asked.

John’s baptism, is it from heaven or is it from men? Basically, is it a divine institution or is it a human institution? Who’s calling the shots there in John’s baptism?

God or people? And they weigh these two options. And if they say that John’s baptism was from God, well, it doesn’t fit their narrative, to use the terminology we use today.

It doesn’t fit their narrative because they had rejected John’s baptism too. And so that became really inconvenient for them. If they were to say, well, John’s baptism, of course it came from God.

Jesus’s next question to them they understood was, then why didn’t you accept what John had to say? If John was speaking on God’s behalf, why did you reject him? So that answer didn’t fit their narrative.

The other answer in verse 32, that John’s baptism was not from God, was dangerous for them. It was politically dangerous for them. It was going to turn the people against them.

We’re going to lose the support of the people. Might even get stoned on the way out of here. So they’re concerned about answering this question in a way that protects them and protects their narrative, but never did they express any concern over what was true.

And that is a dangerous place to be. By the way, we need to be careful about that as well. As believers in Jesus, we should not be afraid of the truth.

We should seek what’s true, whether it’s popular, whether it’s the easy answer for us or not. They were never concerned about what was true. It was all a matter of what worked best for them.

And what was best for them was to hang on to their authority instead of acknowledging Jesus. So we’re in this standoff where they don’t have an answer, and Jesus is not about to answer them without an answer. And he didn’t need to because Jesus had already demonstrated his authority, and he didn’t need to justify himself to anybody.

Jesus did not just show up in a vacuum devoid of any history or context. Suddenly he’s here teaching in the temple, and they don’t know who he is. Jesus had a 30-plus year track record of life and a three-plus year track record of ministry that they could look at, and they knew what he was all about.

As a matter of fact, later on this week, when he goes to be tried, and the Sanhedrin starts to ask him questions about what do you teach about this or that, he says, why are you asking me? Ask all the people who’ve heard me. I’ve taught out in public.

Everybody knows what I’ve taught. That was his answer. This was not a mystery to them.

He’d been teaching for three years. He’d been teaching in the synagogues. He’d been teaching in public.

He’d been even rebuking and correcting the religious leaders. This was not their first rodeo with Jesus. he had demonstrated his authority by his teaching because you notice Jesus was not shy about saying you’ve heard you’ve heard you’ve heard but I say and that was not Jesus putting himself in opposition to the word of God that was Jesus putting himself in opposition to the misinterpretations of the word of God by all the religious leaders and whereas they had to come over here and say well I believe this because so-and-so said, and so-and-so taught them, and so-and-so taught them, and they’re leaning on all the elite religious leaders, all the scholars, all throughout history, they’re leaning on them.

Jesus says, you take all that authority, but I say. I mean, that’s a pretty bold assertion. So he demonstrated his authority already by the way he had taught.

He had rebuked and correct the religious and political leaders, and they hadn’t been able to get a one-over on him the whole time. But not only that, he demonstrated his authority through his miracles. I like to go back in these conversations he has when they are questioning by what right he’s ministering, by what right he’s teaching, anytime they confront him, I like to go back and look and see what has happened up to that point in the ministry of Jesus, if we look at it in chronological order.

And here’s my summary of what has happened. By this time, he has already fed more than 9,000 people on two different occasions with just basically a few crumbs of food. The feeding of the 5,000, which was 5,000 men and their families, and the feeding of the 4,000, which was the same situation.

So that was pretty miraculous in and of itself. In addition to that, he had healed 28 people. Now these are recorded public miracles that the gospel writers attest to, things that happen in public.

Healed 28 people. He had cast demons out of five people at least. He had raised three people at least from the dead. He had calmed a storm.

He had walked on water and he had turned water into wine. I mean, if you’re looking for some sign that a guy’s got supernatural power, I think he’s covered it. And so you notice he didn’t rush to defend his authority because he didn’t need to.

He’d already shown it. The problem was that all the evidence he had given up to that point had been rejected. And at this point, really, there’s no argument he can make.

There’s no sign he can show that they’re not going to reject because he told them on other occasions, you want me to jump through your hoops. This is my paraphrase. You want me to jump through your hoops and show you miracles to satisfy your curiosity.

And you’re not going to believe anyway, because the only sign you’re going to get is the sign of Jonah where he’s talking about his resurrection. Jesus Christ died. We know that he was dead when he went into that cross because the Romans made sure of it.

And we’ll get into that more as we come to that part of the book of Mark. They made absolutely sure of it. The 1800s view that Jesus just went into the, he just was sick when he came off the cross and he fainted and woke up.

It’s garbage. All right. We’ll get into that further.

Jesus was he was buried in a tomb where everybody in Jerusalem knew where he was. Three days later, the tomb was empty and Jesus was seen walking around and interacting with people in ways that changed his followers from despondent to bold and courageous and changed even hardened skeptics in his own family into believers in Jesus Christ. There was ample evidence for people around him that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and most of the Sanhedrin still rejected the evidence of him. If he could do all that and still not convince them that he was the son of God.

I don’t know what else there is. And it wasn’t because Jesus couldn’t convince them. It was because they had already decided they were not going to be convinced.

And this brings us around to dealing with what’s going on here between him and them. And the reason for his answering the question with a question, that’s that Jesus doesn’t owe more truth to those who reject what he’s already given. You know, he did tell his disciples not to cast their pearls before swine.

The way they rejected his authority, the way they rejected all of the evidence in favor of his authority is the reason why he answered the way he did. Jesus was not being evasive. Jesus wasn’t scared to answer.

Jesus was not trying to be a politician and weasel out of giving a direct response. Jesus was demonstrating that they had already made up their minds about his authority. he had already proven it as much as he needed to.

They had already rejected it as much as they could. What else is there to talk about? And that’s why he says, first, tell me about the authority of John.

I will also ask you one question, then answer me. And I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men?

Answer me. Now the reason he goes back to John, it doesn’t mean that his authority came from John. Right?

John did baptize him. John did point people to him, but his authority comes from the fact that he’s God. He doesn’t need John’s authority.

You’ve got God’s authority, you don’t need John’s. But the reason why he brings John into this is because that was the focus of John’s ministry. John’s ministry was to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah, and once Messiah came, that’s Jesus, once the promised anointed one that God had been telling Israel about for thousands of years, once he finally showed up, John’s purpose was to point people to Jesus.

And he said, I must decrease and he must increase. That was the purpose of his ministry. And the fact that they rejected John’s ministry and they rejected his message about the Messiah, they even rejected his message about repentance and preparation for the Messiah.

The fact that they would reject that, pointed out to them and to everyone else listening, everything they needed to know that they had already made up their minds. If they rejected John, they had already made up their mind to reject him. Their understanding of the scriptures was incomplete or incorrect.

They had, the Pharisees had gotten, and Sadducees had gotten far off base, far afield of what God’s word taught. And so God sent someone to point them in the right direction. That was John’s ministry.

You’ve gone sideways here. Come back this way. Come back to the Lord.

Messiah is over here. And they just rejected it out of hand. And now they’re demanding more.

Now they’re demanding more without having obeyed what he has already showed them, and it doesn’t work that way. I think I’ve told you before, that I always laughed at these tabloids. I don’t know if they still have them, because we, I try to avoid the grocery store now.

But my first job was at Homeland, and I used to laugh because I’d have to sit there and look at those tabloids while I’m checking people out, and it seemed like every year it would be new Bible revelations for 2005. We as a species have largely ignored what he’s already told us. So I’m not sure he’s going to satisfy and tickle our curiosity with something in the National Enquirer.

I don’t think it works that way. I was always puzzled by that idea. When God has told us what we need to know and we’ve ignored and rejected it, he does not owe us then to turn around and tell us what we want to know and satisfy our curiosity.

It doesn’t work that way. And so many times, though, that’s how we want it to work. We want to ignore what God’s word says because it’s hard, it’s inconvenient, it’s uncomfortable.

But when there’s something we want to know, when there’s some insight we want, we think God should just answer us right then. When we’re looking to make a decision and we actually want God’s guidance on it, we wonder why he doesn’t answer. I’ve learned in my life that sometimes the answer is go back to the last thing he told you to do and then do that and then come back.

But this is what they’re wanting. They want to be able to ignore everything God has said, everything God has revealed up to this point, and now they want God to jump through hoops. And it doesn’t work that way because we are accountable to his authority, not the other way around.

So in verse 33, Jesus answered and said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. If you have already decided to reject me and to reject the authority of God’s word, then there’s nothing left for us to discuss here. And he doesn’t owe it to us to satisfy all of our questions.

By the way, I’m not telling you don’t ask questions. I have tried during my time here to make it very easy to ask questions. I think church should be a place where we bring our difficult questions, not just so we can sit around and enjoy our questions, but so we can come to answers in the Word.

It’s not just questioning for the sake of questioning. But God can handle our questions. And here’s the thing, He doesn’t owe it to us to satisfy every bit of our curiosity.

We owe it to Him to submit to His authority. And I know that is not a fun message to hear always. That is not a fun message to say, because I know at some point this week it’s going to come an issue for me.

It’s everything I tell you to do then happens the next week and I have to do what I said, right? And it’s not always fun. It’s not always easy.

And I know that authority is kind of a dirty word in our culture because we’ve gotten back to the book of Judges. Every man wants to do what’s right in his own eyes. But listen, I am not with what we’re talking about here.

I am not your authority. This church is not your authority. And we have some responsibilities for shepherding the flock, but you are not your authority either.

God is our authority and he’s told us what he expects. He set a perfect standard of right and wrong. He holds us to it whether we like it or not.

Whether we like it or not, reality is reality. Every four years, no matter who wins, somebody starts saying, so-and-so is not my president. Well, like it or not, you know, They count electoral votes and I don’t have the power to change it.

Doesn’t change who’s sitting in the White House, how I feel about it. Or how I feel about it doesn’t change who’s sitting behind the big desk. Gravity’s not my theory.

Well, you don’t have to believe in gravity, but it’s real. Gravity, jump out of a tall window, gravity will remind you real quick. Whether we like it or not, he holds us to a standard of right and wrong. It hasn’t changed and doesn’t change.

I don’t get to decide for myself. whether God knows what he’s talking about or not. I don’t get to decide whether God’s way is right or not.

Now, I can decide whether I’m going to be obedient or not, but I also decide whether I get to deal with the consequences of that disobedience. Here’s my point in this. As Jesus pointed out to the Sanhedrin, he is the authority, not them.

He is still the authority, not us. And if he says this is right, then this is right. Apply it to any situation.

Whatever he says is right is right. If he says it’s wrong, it’s wrong. If he says this is the standard, it’s the standard, whether I like it or not.

And admittedly, in my flesh, sometimes there are parts of the scriptures that even though I believe them, they are very inconvenient. But he, as he holds us to this perfect standard that we all fall short of, that keeps us separated from him, because God is sinless and perfect in a way we can never dream of. And every one of us, the Bible says, have sinned.

We have fallen short of the glory of God. Every one of us has broken that standard. To illustrate this one time when I was teaching children’s church, I taped a Hershey bar to the 12 foot ceiling and told a kid if they could jump up and it was a big Hershey bar too.

If they could jump up there and get it, they could have it. Guess what? Every one of them fell short.

Then I used the ladder with help as a picture of Jesus. We all fall short of God’s standard. And we may not like God’s standard.

As humans, we may not like God’s standard, but it’s God’s standard. And we all fall short of it. But God has also made a way for that standard to be fulfilled.

And that’s through Jesus Christ. Now the world looks at it and says, that’s so narrow-minded to say there’s only one way to God. Listen, I didn’t come up with that. I didn’t invent that.

That was going on long before I came on this planet. Jesus said it. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes unto the Father but by me. You don’t like it, take it up with him, right? For me and for you, when we just stick to God’s standard, it makes it a lot easier to defend ourselves because we don’t have to.

He said it, not us. He’s made the way. The world likes to look at it and say, it’s so harsh to say there’s only one way.

It’s one way more than we deserved. He sets the standard. He determines how and if we get in to his kingdom.

His standard is absolute sinless perfection. We all fall short of it. But he made a way because Jesus Christ, at the end of this week we’re looking at now, went to the cross and he was nailed there and shed his blood and died, taking responsibility for everything you or I have ever done, said, or thought that was displeasing to God.

Everything that puts an obstacle between us and God. All of the things that we don’t want to acknowledge are wrong in God’s eyes. Jesus died for those.

He paid for them so that we could go free. And we as a species can be upset if we want to that there’s not another way. That being upset doesn’t change the authority of God.

That he said, here’s the standard. Here’s how you’ve fallen short. Here’s how we get around that.

and if you’ve never trusted Jesus as your savior this morning I implore you don’t be like the Sanhedrin where they looked at everything that he said about himself and just rejected it because it didn’t fit what they wanted the world to be instead acknowledge that that because he’s God he’s God the son he can do what he wants to And if he says we’ve sinned and fallen short, then we have. If he says he’s the only way to be right with the Father, then he is. If he says that we can come to the kingdom through him, then we can.

And this morning, all you have to do is acknowledge that you’ve sinned and come short of the glory of God. That you have no way of getting into heaven or a relationship with the Father except through Jesus Christ. Believe that He died for you and rose again. Then you can ask God’s forgiveness on that basis.