We're glad to have everyone back. I know school is about to begin for many of our students, and I know they're getting ready to start the new semester, so glad to have you back. We look forward to seeing what this year holds for you and what it holds for us as a congregation. We are in the Gospel of Luke. We find ourselves in chapter 20 of Luke. We will be looking at the first eight verses of chapter 20. If you have your copy of the scriptures, would you please turn there? I ask that you join me in a word of prayer. Great Father of glory and Father of lights, we thank you that you have forgiven our sins in Christ. that the authority that was given to Him, that He took that to the cross, and He overcame the great enemies of sin and death on our behalf, and was raised to life, and He reigns at your right hand, showing us that one day we too will reign with Him. We ask, Holy Spirit, that You would enliven our hearts this day. Would You make our minds to understand Your Word, and would you engulf our hearts in a desire to obey and to honor you with our lives. We ask now that you would take the reading of your word, implant that word in our hearts, that you would unstop our ears, and that you would open our eyes. And Lord, for those who do not know you, Lord, that they would see the beauty and, more importantly, see your authority and submit to your lordship. And we ask all this in Christ's name. Amen. Join with me if you have your copy of the scriptures. I'll read and if you follow along, Luke chapter 20, verses 1 through 8. Now one day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who is it that gave you this authority? He answered them, I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? They discussed it with one another, saying, now if we say from heaven, he will say, then why did you not believe him? But if we say from man, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet. And so they answered, they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, Well, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. As we have been looking at the Gospel of Luke, the previous verses that we looked at over the past couple of weeks started this journey of Jesus coming into Jerusalem in verses 28 through 40 as he exits the Mount of Olives, makes his way down the trail towards Jerusalem, We see that he enters into the outlying area of Jerusalem and he weeps and shares a prophetic lament over Jerusalem, the city itself, in verses 41 through 44 of chapter 19. And then Jesus actually makes his way into the temple area, the outer courts area of the temple, in verse 1945. And at that moment, we are told by Luke that he cleanses the temple, that he kicks those out who were doing commercial transactions in the place that was supposed to be a house of worship and prayer to the Lord. And upon cleansing the temple, We are told by Luke in 1947 that Jesus returns, and he begins to teach in that area, bringing back the truthfulness of Scripture in a place that had become a place of false worship. It's at this time that the chief priests, the scribes, and the principal men, or the elders of the people, decide that they need to destroy Christ. They set out vividly at this moment to seek to destroy him. But we are told in 1948 they couldn't get to him because daily, as he's in the temple teaching, that the people gathered around him. They were so thick that they couldn't get to him. And the fact that the people revered his teaching and that they were hanging on to all the words that he was sharing. Now by way of introduction, today's text picks up again with Jesus in the temple, and we also have the same group of people, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders reappear as Jesus is teaching in the temple. They bring a question to him, and this question deals with where does Jesus derive his authority? Jesus, as any good rabbi of his day would have done, he decides that he's going to answer their question with asking a question. And Jesus asking this question, he's going to find out how serious these men are about the question that they're asking of him. In doing this, we find out that they are trying to trip him up. If they can't get him physically to destroy him. Now what they're going to try to do is they're going to try to trump up some charges against him and get the crowds to basically turn against him as he is supposedly going to answer this question that they've asked of him about authority. So Jesus does something in his questioning. He appeals to a co-laborer in God's kingdom. He makes an appeal to John the Baptist. And in asking this question about John the Baptist, we see that Jesus' question is clear, it's succinct, and it's straight to the point. Jesus says, if you want to know where I derive my authority, then you need to tell me from where did John derive his authority. And with that question, we see the tables are turned. As Jesus had been kind of put on the carpet with the first question, now it's returned back to their lap, and they are put on the carpet now. You see, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders realize the possibilities that lay before them. There are basically two. They can either agree that John was from God, or they can disagree and have to face the people who thoroughly believe that John was from God. In some ways, it's almost like a game that's going on here. And at this moment, as they ask the question, Jesus kind of receives that punted football, and he puts a knee down in the end zone, and he moves the ball out to the 20-yard line, and then he calls a freeze on the game. He agrees that he's not going to play by their rules. The rules really are false rules that they've set up. They've tried to entrap him. You see, they know what the answer is. They're just not willing to say it out loud. What the story for us today uncovers is something about their ignorance. Their answer for them was, I don't know, or we don't know what the answer is. But there's something that's underlying that ignorance, and we need to be aware of what that is. They are unwilling to embrace the truth. It is their own culpability and their own reasonableness that they put aside in not being able to and not desiring to embrace God's truth found in Jesus Christ. And it is their unwillingness that they would rather not face the people, that they would rather die in their sins, than bend their knee to God's salvation that's provided in their Messiah. Because in their eyes, the Messiah doesn't match up to what they want. So Luke connects Jesus's rejection and cleansing of the temple to another type of rejection that we see here in this passage with the Pharisees, the scribes, the Jewish leaders, rejecting Jesus again as the stated Messiah. And the grounds of their rejection are based upon the idea that he doesn't have the authority to do what he's doing. They believe they had the authority to lead the people, and they do not believe that He does. So Jesus' authority, we know as we've been looking through Luke, has clearly been displayed through miracles, through healings, through the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, through the teaching that He's given the people. And in doing so, he clearly points out in these events, the words, the miracles, the actions point out to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. All of these attestations of his actions and words prove that he is the one whom God has sent. Luke, at this point in the Gospel, coming up to this point, has also told us that Jesus is the Son of God. He's also said that He's the Christ. He's the Son of the Most High, the Son of Man, the Holy One, even the King of Israel. The people affirm Jesus' authority. They listen to his teaching. They hang on to his words as at the close of chapter 19. They follow him. They listen to him daily in the temple. But what is it that he's teaching? Well, Luke tells us in the first verse, said that he was in the temple daily teaching the gospel. Yes, verse 1 says he was teaching them the gospel, the good news. The good news that reconciliation with God, the creator of this universe, that reconciliation has come and it wasn't by their ability to keep the law. It wasn't by giving of tithes and offerings. Their salvation wasn't about the heavy yoke of labors and spiritual activities and asceticism that the Pharisees and the scribes and the elders had prescribed to them as the way of salvation. It wasn't that you would be saved if you would be like one of the Pharisees. The reality is, is that what Jesus was telling them was that they have to be even better than the Pharisees to have the salvation that God offers. And in the people's mind, who could be better than a Pharisee? The Pharisees loved doing the law. They loved making their private spiritual habits a spectacle. for public show in the temple and even on the street corners. No one, in essence, could be better than a Pharisee. They seem to be the pinnacle of spiritual vitality and even an icon that many people looked up to. Yet no one could be better than a Pharisee and the people knew that. And this is why that when Jesus preaches the gospel, the good news to them, that reconciliation is not about your works, that they affirmed Him. This is why the people clung and hung on to the words that He shared with them. You see, it's those without God's perfection given to them in Christ whom God must condemn, and they must seek to enter into God's heaven by their own works, by their own deeds, by their own goodness, based upon their own righteousness. And the Scriptures tell us, for none is righteous. There is no one who does good. There is even no one who seeks after God, according to the book of Romans and in Isaiah. So Christ came preaching the Old Testament gospel. He came preaching the gospel from the Old Testament. He took them to the Pentateuch. He took them to the Psalms. He took them to the prophets and the wisdom literature. He clearly showed them where God is a God of grace, a God of mercy. who has provided a way of salvation when the people in and of themselves had no way to appease and to be in right relationship with God. You see, they needed to receive Messiah as their only hope. by living a life honoring to God, by repenting of their sins, agreeing with God that they were a people of need and that Christ the Messiah was their only hope. It is by trusting God and the way that He has made and ordained that salvation is a free gift by God's grace through Christ and that complete satisfaction of God's wrath would be put upon Christ on that cross. that God's people would never fear for themselves to suffer under the wrath of God because Christ had taken that upon himself. You see, the message of God as a gracious God and a loving God was not the message of the Pharisees, the scribes, and the elders. Their message was try harder, do more good things, and then maybe God will honor what you're doing. Honor your efforts. You see, we must remember that the scribes and the Pharisees and the elders held great power over the people. They exercised this power over the people. And they claimed that unless they could be as good as themselves, as the Pharisees and the scribes, and keep the law to the degree that even the Pharisee would tithe off his spices of mint and cumin, that unless you did this, you're not worthy to enter into the life hereafter. You see, it would be only as the people emulated the Pharisees and sacrificed all they had and believed that their own self-righteousness would buy them a place in the afterlife. It's only believing this message that the Pharisees and the scribes would be happy. You see, what they began to see as they're looking at the people and the way the people are reacting is that they are losing their credibility and they're losing their sway with the masses. And they had to get rid of, they had to destroy the one who was causing the people to turn from their authority and begin to embrace another authority. You see, the leadership who relied heavily upon their authority through succession of previous rabbis and schools of thought, they decided it was time to confront Jesus. And the way that they would get to him was to question his authority. If they could undercut his authority in front of everyone, people would see this man is not what's claimed. They choose to try to put Jesus into a mold that they themselves were raised in. And that mold was one where because you came from a particular school of thought and you studied under a particular person, therefore you had an authority to speak on certain topics or situations. Jesus didn't have this. We see nowhere where he was trained professionally. We see him befuddling those who had been trained professionally when Jesus was 12 in the temple, giving answers to their questions. They were in amazement. But he didn't have the pedigree, and that upset them. That upset the establishment. The leadership thought if they could just ask Jesus this one question, and once he had to give the answer that he didn't have the pedigree, that would take care of it. And our question is, would it? Would that really have ended everything that's been going on up until this point in the ministry of Christ? If they could just ask this one question and have him give what they thought would be a horrible answer. So they asked the question, from where or from whom do you receive your authorities? Now the leaders, according to our text, are quite surprised that Jesus doesn't give them a simple answer to the question. I'm sure many of them were to expect that he might have a rebuttal question coming their way, but they probably weren't ready exactly for the one that was coming. It seems for them to come out of left field, and Jesus, as a good Jewish teacher, does what a good Jewish teacher would do, and he asks a question they too must answer. Look at verse 4. Jesus's question, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? It's at this point that the tables get turned. This is the pivotal point in the story. And immediately, the religious leaders are put on guard. They're put on defense. There's two possible answers given. Jesus states them in verse 4. Either from heaven, the authority is from heaven for John's baptism, or it's from man. This phrase, from heaven, is just the same thing as saying from God. God, the dwelling place of God is heaven, therefore the authority comes from heaven, therefore it could just as easily been stated that John's baptism was from God. But the statement, either from God or from man, has the reverse effect. If it's not from God, it's from man. Therefore, it's a different authority, and since a lower authority, and one that doesn't carry as much weight. The leaders began to discuss among themselves, the text says, They begin to whisper and to seek to find a unifying answer to the question that has been presented to them. They find themselves in a dilemma. The first horn of that dilemma is if they affirm the answer that John's baptism is from God, then they find themselves and they throw themselves under the bus. Because they did not obey John, nor did they receive John's baptism. and in not receiving John's baptism, they reject John and his supposed authority. That's the first horn of the dilemma. The second horn of the dilemma, they don't discuss. They just make a statement. Well, if it's from man, then the people are really gonna be upset with us because everyone out there believes that John was a prophet sent from God. He was that second Elijah. And they see in him a true man of God, and in doing so, they say to themselves, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet of God. So what are they going to do? This is their dilemma. They decide, after talking amongst themselves, that they're going to give the answer in verse 7. We do not know where John's baptism came from. Knowingly, they were caught in a dilemma and they sought to avoid such a problem. And so basically what they did was they pled ignorance. We don't know. Now this should strike us as very odd. We have a culmination of the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders. They devoted themselves to the study of the Scriptures. They devoted themselves to looking for the coming Messiah. If you had a question in life, regardless of what that question was about concerning religion, the Old Testament, these are the men you go to. If these men don't have the answer, nobody's gonna have the answer. And yet, for them, to save face, they pled ignorance. We don't know. Now the problem with that answer is they did know. It's a lie. What underlies their ignorance is insincerity, pride, Hypocrisy. These are the things that shaped their answer. They are not willing and they refuse to acknowledge John as a man of God and a prophet sent from God with a message from God. And now what they're doing is they are distancing themselves from Jesus. Just like they did John, they're distancing themselves from Jesus and they're doing it through the veil of ignorance. The problem is, is that it needs to own up to their decision. These men are smart. They knew the answer to the question. It seems to be what Jesus does and why he asked this question comes in verse 8. You see, they're unwilling, they have an unwillingness to seek the truth. They have an unwillingness to admit when they are wrong. Verse 8, Jesus says, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. The discussion that he was having, he was having with biased people, hostile people, people who were actually... had moved the discussion into basically a worthless category. Jesus was not going to cast his pearl before swine. Jesus was not going to answer a fool according to his folly. Jesus basically ends the conversation by being true to Proverbs 9, verses 7 and 8, which say, whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse. And he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. Not everyone that you run into is due an answer at the time that they ask that question. That's kind of hard to swallow, isn't it? In a day and age where we're smart, we have Google, everything seems to be at our fingertips. But when it comes to Jesus, and who God says He is, and who many people in our society claim Him to be, an answer is not always deserved. Why am I saying that? Well, the issue and lesson for us concerns Jesus' authority. We ask ourselves, did Jesus have the right to cleanse the temple and to point out the hypocrisy of the false religion which Judaism had become and its false worship? Answer that question. Did he have the right to do that? The answer is yes or no. Yes, he did. Did Jesus have the right to preach the good news of salvation found in the free grace of God alone to those who had been led astray, who had been captivated by a false understanding? The answer is yes. even an obligation, if we may say, to speak the truth, to set the captives free. Either Jesus has the authority and the right and the power to speak of such things and to do of such things, proving that he's sanctioned by God, or Jesus was wrong. He shouldn't have stepped over those boundaries. He didn't have the authority. He didn't have the power. You see, Jesus is not just a good man. This day in our society is very kind the way they want to speak to people and almost benign concerning the respect our culture pays Jesus. He's a good teacher. He's a wise man. He's a moral man. He's someone that in many areas of your life you should emulate. because we believe that he was good. But this is not a possible category for Jesus concerning the Scriptures, that he was just a good man. The Scriptures never present Jesus as just a good man, as just a wise man, or just as a good example. The Bible doesn't leave that category open for Jesus. You see, Jesus doesn't allow fence sitting. The scriptures in presenting him, the gospel writers in writing about Jesus, especially Luke here, doesn't allow you to sit on the fence. He should be embraced as Lord and Savior or he should be directly opposed to as a liar or a lunatic, someone who was crazy. If John the Baptist pointed him out as the coming one, as the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world, then Jesus is just who John says He is, just who the Father says He is at His baptism, at His transfiguration, just who the people begin to claim that He is as they follow Him and they say He has an authority. He speaks as one with authority even though he doesn't have the pedigree. All of these things are pointing to the fact that Jesus is who God says He is, who the Scriptures say He is, and who many of the people around Him confess Him to be. We need to notice that Jesus has a hesitation to answer those who sought to destroy Him. Sometimes, When ample opportunity has been given to respond, there no longer remains any reason to keep answering essentially what is the same old question that comes back around over and over again. This is not the first time the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders have confronted him and had done so in an unwillingness to listen to what he had to say. And we find the same thing in our lives. Maybe you have someone in your life that you've been witnessing to over time, over years. You've seen them struggle. You've seen them up and down and up and down. And when it's down, they're asking about God. And why did this happen to me? And when it's up, God's nowhere in the picture. And you see this over and over and over and over, year after year, this cycle where God's in the dock. My life's bad. It's going horrible. And God must be the reason for this. Never my choice. And I chose to do all this. It must be God's problem. And you come to that person and you share with them the goodness of God, the graciousness of Christ, and the fact that most of their struggles come from sinning. And that there is a cure for that. But they don't want that. And more hardship comes, and your message to them is, God has the answer in Christ. and they have more questions, often other directions, never dealing with Christ. There comes a time for you as a Christian when you find them in one of those low places and they're asking those questions that kind of divert from the real problem where you don't need to answer them. You need to call them into account and say what you've seen all the way up through this time of your life has been the graciousness of God and the revelation that he's given to you about who he says he is in Christ Jesus is something that you now need to reconcile. I'm gonna love you as your friend. I'm going to walk with you for what I can do, but the time for bringing up new questions that are off the path is put away. and what you have been confronted with already on what you know about God and Christ needs to be taken care of. That's love. You don't always owe them an answer to the question. Jesus did not answer their question. He forced them to deal with who He was. And I'm going to encourage you to prayerfully consider that with the friends around you whom you've been sharing Christ with for years on end, I'm going to ask you, by the leading of the Spirit, to know when it's time not to answer the questions, and to ask them to reconcile what they already know to be the truth. You see, we need to start asking ourselves some questions about the Jewish leader's response. The question is, do we do the same thing? Do we hesitate to speak up for our association with Jesus in a context that might not be so popular to speak about Jesus? Do we tell people in public dialogues that we are searching for the truth when we already know that we've made up our minds and we don't want to listen to anything that they have to tell us? Are we manipulative like the leaders presented here? Jesus urges us in Matthew chapter 5 verse 37, let what you say simply be yes or no and anything more than this comes from evil. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. It increases your integrity, it does not undercut your trust that you will build with people. And the issue for us, honestly, is one of authority, even to this day. Authority is a key issue. By what authority or by whom do you claim to live and make the choices that you make? This is not just something that was presented to Jesus from the Pharisees. This is something that's presented to us today. What is your ultimate authority? What is it that is the foundation that undergirds the reason why you get up every day and make the decisions that you make? What is your authority? Basically, there are two. The Christian view of the world and the non-Christian view. The Christian view of the world says the authority is from God, revealed in the scriptures, and this is where we find our final authority. The other view is of a worldview of humanism or atheism. And in this worldview, authority comes from man's finite knowledge and the authority that one can find through their self-discovery and one's own intellect alone. These are the two camps. When it's all said and done and shaved down, you fall into one of these two camps. The answer is simple. The authority is either God or self. That's it. There's not a third option. Either you see yourself under the authority and the lordship of God through Jesus Christ, or you see yourself as your own God and authority in your life, and you make your decisions based upon what you want, when you want them, how you want it, and if anybody gets in your way, you're gonna cut them down because you deserve it. You see, either Christ has the right and the power and the authority to demand your allegiance as your only God and Savior, or you believe that you've got it all figured out and that Christ is no part of the answer to any of the problems that you have. Jesus, through the eyewitness accounts, has been shown to be Lord over disease and death and demons and creation. There's no fence sitting. There's no fencing. Either you are for him or he's against you. That's what it comes down to. Does Jesus have all authority? You know the answer to the question. There's no plea of ignorance here. The scriptures are clear. God is clear. The church has been clear through millennia. Jesus has all the power and authority. You have to face the facts that are being presented. Either he has this power and authority, and the eyewitnesses, and the father, and the prophets, and all those who claim to have had their lives changed by him, are all liars, and you're right, or you're living your life based upon the wrong authority. That's exactly where the Pharisees found themselves. And they weren't willing to admit it. And they weren't willing to suffer the consequences for it. And in the end, they did suffer the consequences for it. So my question is, by what authority do you claim to be acceptable to God? Is your acceptance by God through the perfect life of Christ and His death on the cross for your sins as He stood in your place and received the wrath of the Father that was due you for your sins? Or will you seek to claim ignorance and say, I don't know if Jesus who He says He was, I don't know. Are you willing to take your chances on the possibility that you have it all figured out just the right way? You're that smart? Are you willing to place eternity in the scales of justice and bet on yourself as better than God's only hope for you in Jesus Christ? All power and authority has been given to Christ as is stated in Matthew 28 18. And one day he will share that power and authority with those who have bowed their knees and their hearts to his authority. You can be sure that we will see a grand display of that as He approaches and comes back to this earth in His return. One hand holding a scepter and the other hand holding a sword, as is spoken of in the Revelation. The scepter represents Him as Lord over His people, benevolent and loving and good, as a King should be to His people. And the sword represents His justice. that he will cut to pieces his enemies, and he will reign over them as a mighty king. It's because he has all authority and power that he can do this. In John 17, verses 1 through 3, we hear this. Jesus prayed this. Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given Him all authority over all flesh, and to give eternal life to all whom you have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." God says all authority belongs to Jesus. By what authority do you claim to have peace with God? Through God's authority in Jesus Christ? Or through your own intelligence and reason and good works? Would you join me in prayer?