Our text is Mark 11, 27-33. 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, But 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'll 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, Well, 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. Our text this morning is covered by three of the four gospel writers. So we can glean a few details from Luke and Matthew that Mark doesn't give us. And we'll do that. Jesus returns to Jerusalem in our text. Now, keep in mind the calendar here. We're in Jesus last week. And Saturday, Jesus arrived at Bethany and Bethpage and stays the night. Sunday, Jesus attends the party thrown by Simon the leper. and the crowd learns of Christ's presence and they show up to see both Christ and Lazarus. On Monday, we have the so-called triumphal entry. That pretty much took all day. Tuesday, Christ casts out the vendors out of the temple. Wednesday is where today's text takes place. Thursday, the disciples prepare for the Passover meal and partake of it with Christ. And Friday, Christ was crucified. So we are quickly coming to the end of Christ's ministry on earth. So Christ is in Jerusalem. We're told in the other Gospels that Christ is healing people and touching and teaching them. We're also told that the Jewish leaders want to kill Christ, nothing new there, but they were afraid of the people. So the fear that they had drives the leadership into some trickiness. This morning we're going to look at a very great contrast, a great contrast indeed. It's the contrast between spiritual leadership and political leadership. Spiritual leadership and political leadership. Now what do I mean by political? This is one of the definitions of the word political in the Oxford Dictionary. Relating to, affecting, or acting according to the interests of status or authority within an organization rather than matters of principle. It's looking out for the interest of an organization rather than going by principles. Now, why is it important to look at this contrast? It's important because it's the difference between true Christianity and all of its imposters. It's a clear way to distinguish between true leadership and false leadership, between right leadership and wrong leadership. I don't think it's a coincidence that this morning, this sermon is falling right in the middle of our presidential election. It seems that in every election, there's a lot of talk about Christianity, Christian principles, and Christian candidates. And because of that, we've got to be very careful that we keep our thinking straight. And we can't confuse political leadership with spiritual leadership. Anyone elected into the position of president is a political leader in our country. He will have to compromise. He will have to give up some things he thinks is important to gain some things that he thinks are more important. If he's to be effective, he's going to have to cut deals. He can't, and some would say shouldn't, enforce his minority morality on the majority. So while it would be good to have a leader who spiritually leads his home, to have a leader who is a Christian, this office of president is not a spiritual position, and we can't confuse it into thinking that it is. It's a political position. If we're to think clearly, we've got to regard it as such. I think it's foolish for spiritual leadership to endorse political candidates. In the end, it only serves to harm the reputation of the spiritual leadership. Every failure by the candidate becomes a reflection on the spiritual leaders who endorsed the candidate. For instance, Billy Graham endorsed Richard Nixon's run for the presidency, and it caused him a great deal of regret. The immorality of Richard Nixon then became a reflection of Billy Graham's character and ministry. We can't confuse spiritual leadership and political leadership. We can't mix the church and the world. With that said, let's look at the marks of political leadership that we find in our text this morning. First, we find that public opinion is a determining factor in political leadership. These Jewish leaders are afraid of the opinions of the crowd. We're told that in Luke. They would have taken Christ and killed him right there and then if they could have gotten it away with it. But they were afraid to do so. Why? Because the crowd admired him. Because the crowd opinion would be against that action. Public opinion kept them from doing that which they wanted to do. Even maybe what in their skewed thinking they would have thought was the right thing to do. Now let's look again at our text in Mark in verse 27. Then they came 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? Now, why did the leaders do what they did in front of these crowds? It's clear that they wanted to influence the crowd with their dramatics. They wanted to convince the crowd that they had a legitimate obligation to get Jesus off the streets. They're posturing that. They're playing a game, a role. They're trying to accomplish this perception. But they couldn't do it if the crowd perceived that they had no good reason to do it. So they had to come up with some good reason that these wonderful leaders are looking out for the public's best interest. So point two. we see that political leadership depends upon swaying public opinion. If public opinion first is a determiner, the second thing we see about political leadership is that it depends on swaying public opinion. It will use whatever strategy is necessary to sway the minds of the masses. That's what they're trying to do. Third, we see that political leadership must play legal technicalities to accomplish its ends. Look at the attack that they level at Jesus. By what authority do you do these things? That's the question. By what authority do you do these things? Now, what are the things that they're referring to? This is... If it wasn't so sad, it'd be funny. Christ, it was teaching with authority. He was healing with authority. He was doing miracles with authority. He was clearing the temple with authority. Now, look at those things that Jesus is doing. Do you think anyone in their right mind would have any trouble at all discerning where that authority was coming from to do those things? All of us would probably get that right at a glance. Look at the wonderful things he's doing and the way that he is standing up for the honor of God. He was doing all these wonderful things that were prophesied in the Bible that the Messiah would do. He was doing all these things that the Jewish leadership was absolutely powerless to do. There was nothing sincere in this question that the leadership was asking of Jesus. It's a technicality. They're looking for a legal loophole. They were looking to be tricky and to spring a trap on Christ so they can use that to justify the horrible end that they have in mind for him. Even the question itself is revealing. By what authority and who gave you the authority? The assumption in the question is that Christ must have had authority. No one could do what he was doing. No one could affect the physical reality with this spiritual power without having authority from somewhere. The only question is, where is it coming from? The religious leaders want to say it's from the devil. They've already made that their position and that's what they're still shooting for. But anybody looking on would say that's just stupid. Only someone with an agenda would avoid the obvious truth of what Jesus is doing here. Christ's authority was clearly from God. But it also bothered the Jewish leaders that Christ wasn't one of their card-holding members. He didn't go to their seminaries. He didn't buy their books. He didn't sign their statement of faith. He completely avoided any of their so-called spiritual leadership. He needed none of it to do what he did. And that had to be really hard on these guys. Okay, so third, political leadership plays legal technicalities. Fourth, we see that success in political circles is measured pragmatically rather than spiritually. We see all through the New Testament that the religious leaders were obsessed with power and wealth. So success to them means maintaining that system that keeps them in power and wealth. That's their goal. That's what they're shooting for. And they think that sacrificing Christ for that benefit is a reasonable thing to do. They never question the assumed goal. That never comes into their conversation. They never say, you know, Maybe we should consider shutting down shop, because we're doing such a horrible job. That's what they should have done, but that never dawns on them. Saying, maybe we should surrender everything we have to Jesus, because he seems to have the endorsement of God. No, that never comes up at their business meeting. That would have been clear to anybody else, but it wasn't even a question to them, because they were acting politically. Fifth, truth is not a determining factor. We saw that public opinion was a determining factor. Truth is not a determining factor to political leadership. Look how they answer Christ's question. The baptism of John, was it from heaven or men? You answer me. Look at the process they go through. Does anybody say, Well, what do you think, Joseph? Or what do you think, Levi? What do we really think about this? What have we evaluated and seen about Jesus' question? What really is the answer? That's not the question. That's not the process they go through at all. These leaders weren't looking for the truth when they answered their question. They're not considering the truth when they answer Christ's question. Look at what they say, verse 31, and they reasoned among themselves saying, if we say this, this will happen. If we say this, this will happen. We need to look at that hard. The answer was crafted carefully for its effect, not for its truthfulness. These guys didn't want a debate. They didn't want correction. They didn't want to lose ground. They didn't want the truth to come out. They just wanted to dodge the consequences of the truth about themselves. They wanted to dodge the consequences of the truth about themselves. We can't hardly go farther without asking ourselves the question, where do we do this in our conversations, in our relationships? Where in our relationships with God and with our spouses and with our parents and with our brothers and sisters in Christ do we reach this point? Where do we decide to answer a question with what will create the best situation for me rather than what is true? This is not to say that we owe all the truth to all the people. If somebody comes up to you and asks you a very private question about your life in public, that does not mean you must answer every question asked of you or answer it giving people what they want. We see in our text that Jesus did not answer the question that he was asked. There are times when prudence and discernment and wisdom are called for, but we must be very careful that we don't become like the Pharisees, where we weigh what we say for its effect rather than the truth of what we say. How often we avoid the ministry that we so desperately need by giving answers that avoid exposing ourselves, that give answers that avoid exposing the truth. How often our answers are aimed at creating a false perception rather than revealing a true reality. Our hearts really are the trickiest people we know. What truth are we hiding this morning from people that we know we can trust? What truth are we hiding from the people that God gave us to help overcome in those situations? Now, let's look at the realities of this situation. The religious leaders try to set a trap. The trap is in regard to Christ's answer of who gave him the authority to do what he is doing. And this trap has probably been fueled by the fact that Christ has just shut down their major income stream. He just shut down the process of buying and selling in the temple. That was big business, and these guys were the ones that were reaping that money. So it's probably been inspired by that. Now, if Christ says that God has given me the authority to do what he was doing, which is obviously the truth, the leaders would have used their political power to get Jesus accused of blasphemy. And in their thinking, they would be allowed by the Hebrew law to kill Christ. So they have just justified Christ dying. Now, they couldn't kill him for blasphemy under the Roman law, so they'd have to come up with something to get it accomplished. But it would set them free in their mind to say, hey, he deserves to die. How he dies is just a technicality. Now, Jesus had already told them by what authority He was doing things. He'd already done that, so it isn't that He's afraid of them and their opinion. He is not responding political leadership to political leadership. He's not weighing in His mind, well, you know, I really want to avoid the consequences, so I don't want to tell the truth here. You know, I'm afraid of what will happen. The truth of the matter is he was not required to step into their trap. He knew they weren't sincere followers asking a sincere question. They wanted to kill him and Christ is not obliged to help them do that. He'll do it later, but not yet. So Christ very shrewdly asked them a question in return. And I don't know how many years ago it was that I just noticed the trend of the wisdom of Christ in his answers to these guys. It is so... I look at myself and I think I blurt out way too much in my conversations with other people and don't consider it enough. Christ in his wisdom thought things through and he always turned the conversations around on the people who are trying to trick him. And there's a lot to be learned in that. But Christ very shrewdly asked him a question. He brings up the authority of John the Baptist. Now you talk about the perfect trap for those who are trying to set a trap. Here it is. If they say that John the Baptist had the authority of God, then the religious leadership condemned themselves for not receiving him. John the Baptist endorsed Christ. If they say John the Baptist was acting under the influence of the devil, the people are gonna kill him, you know, because the people loved John the Baptist. They knew who John the Baptist was. They knew that John the Baptist was a prophet of God. What Christ did with his question was to display the fact that the Jewish leadership was not fit to lead. They, by their own admission, don't have the ability to discern if John the Baptist was sent by God or not. If they can't figure that one out, they shouldn't be in leadership. Immediately, anyone in the crowd should have had the ability to know that these Jewish leaders are charlatans. They were reprobates. They were fools who were not sent by God and have none of God's authority, because they couldn't discern the simplest things that the guy on the street could discern easily, the most elementary things. So that's the highlight of political leadership. That's where it'll get you. Now we looked at political leadership, let's look at spiritual leadership. Let's look at Christ. How did his leadership differ? First, Christ never looked to the crowds to determine what his message was. He never concerned himself with the popularity of what he was saying. In John 8, 37 through 47, John 8, it says, I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. And verse 38 is the verse to focus on. I speak what I have seen with my father. I speak what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have seen with your Father. They answered and said to him, Abraham's our father. You know, you just see him getting all up in arms here. Jesus said, if you were Abraham's children, you'd act like he did. You would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, again, told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham wouldn't have done that. You do the deeds of your father. And they said to him, we weren't born of fornication. We have one father, God. And now they're making a slur on Christ because of his birth and his questionable birth because they didn't believe in his coming, you know, being the beloved son of God. And Jesus said, if you were, if God were your father, you'd love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God. nor have I come of myself, but he sent me." Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word. You're of your father, and then he goes on to define who the father is, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He wants to kill me, you want to kill me. It's kind of a family desire here. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he's a liar and he's a father of it. But because I tell you the truth, you don't believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears God's word, therefore you do not hear. because you're not of God. Pretty simple, straightforward reasoning he uses. We see here that Christ speaks the truth that his father says. Christ's source of speech was nothing like the religious leaders of that day. He spoke the truth. Sometimes he withheld the truth, but it wasn't because he was afraid of its effect. He was not trying to hide it for his own selfish benefit. He knew that telling the truth would not help the good, but it would only aid the evil. So he was selective sometimes in revealing it. Jesus clearly told people that he was given authority by God, but he was not going to say that in this situation. So we see it's not the truth he was withholding for fear of the people. That's what political leadership does. But he was withholding the truth from those who are not seeking the truth. And that's what wise spiritual leadership does. Spiritual leaders tell the truth because it's the truth. They don't take surveys of popular opinion before they tell it. They don't care if it's going to make them unpopular. They don't care if it's going to cut down their funding source. And they don't care if it's going to make fur fly in their relationships. Truth is disturbing. It's not a very good friend. Truth is disruptive. And while not every truth needs told at every time, I think we all learned that pretty early on in marriage, there is much truth that needs to be told. I saw a news clip this week where Votie Bauckham was being interviewed on a news show in Texas during the time when Sarah Palin was running for office. He's a Baptist pastor in Texas, and if you ever want to get on the internet and listen to something really good, listen to any sermon that Votie Bauckham does. Well, the newscaster asked Vodi if he thought it was a good thing that feminism was growing a foothold in Christian circles. And he said this, quote, no, I do not. Not at all. We're about the gospel. The culture doesn't dictate the truth. The gospel's what dictates truth. My job is not to be a political pundit or a political activist. My job is to be a pastor and to proclaim the truth of the gospel as clearly as I possibly can." Then the people on the show, who were both women, started making fun of him and his outdated views on women's roles. And he went on to say this, my job is not to translate into working class families. My job is to be honest with the text and the text says, and then he went on to quote some scripture, and he says, I will not violate the teaching of the text in order to somehow sound more appropriate to the culture. I am a herald of the truth of the gospel and my job is to teach the gospel according to what the authors have said, not according to what I think the culture wants to hear. That guy's my hero. I mean, that was, that's spiritual leadership. That is a perfect example of spiritual leadership. And I mean, he was being, the public opinion about him based on that show would have been, you know, he just lost half the crowd of uninformed visitors to his church. But he didn't care, because he represents God. True spiritual leadership only cares about accurately representing God. They might not like conflict any more than the next guy. They may not like rejection any more than the next guy. They might not like being controversial or being misunderstood more than anyone else. They may not like a lot of things that come with representing God. Look at the prophets. I seriously doubt that you would have liked much of what the prophets went through. Jeremiah being thrown in a mud pit up to his armpits. Isaiah, I believe, was laying naked on his side one way and then for a month later he was laying on his other side. You know, that sort of thing. Who would have wanted that? But it didn't matter because it's a message that God wanted to put out. True spiritual leadership tells people what they need to hear in spite of what they want to hear. True spiritual leadership tells people what they need to hear in spite of what they want to hear. They represent God no matter how high the price is for doing so. They don't refer to polls. They don't factor in what it will do to attendance or rating or popularity. Cool is not a factor to these people. They know that they will answer only to God and they live accordingly. The beauty of true spiritual leadership is that it's a whole lot simpler. There's no burden to be cool or sophisticated or liked. One doesn't need even to be quick on one's feet, which grants me a lot of relief. One doesn't even need to be all that creative. He or she only needs to know what God wants and do it and proclaim it. That simple. Wisdom will show us that we don't need to reveal truth to everyone who asks. Some will want to know truth only to harm us. Christ was not quick to reveal truth to these folks. But sincere seekers, Christ was fairly quickly to reveal truth to. Sometimes he would test them, but he would always give them what they needed in order to follow him. So true leadership, true spiritual leadership has a lot less considerations. We can look to God and ask, what do you want? That's all we really need to know. God, what do you want? Now at the end of our passage, Matthew adds something that Mark doesn't. Matthew 21, 28 through 32, it says, but what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, son, go work today in my vineyard. And the son said, I won't. I will not. But afterward, he regretted it, and he went. He showed up at the vineyard. Then he came to the second and said, likewise. And the second son answered and said, I go. I'll go. No problem. I'll take care of that. I'll go. But he never showed up, never went. Which of the two did the will of the father? And they said to him, the first. And Jesus said to them, assuredly I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you didn't believe him. And he's basically saying, you know about John. You chose not to believe him. But tax collectors and harlots believed him. They got it right, and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe it. We have to keep this in context to get what he's saying here. Jesus gave it to show the Pharisees about their own failure. That's why he told this little parable. In our family, we found that some of our kids would be very agreeable about doing their chores, but they were very slow in getting them done. and we had children that would fight us tooth and nail, but at the end of the day, their chores were done. It was easy to like the ones who showed the least defiance more, but it was unfair. Performance is what matters in the end. It doesn't matter what you say. At the end of the day, what you do proves more of what you are. That's what this parable is about. The religious leaders had all the right talk. They postured themselves as being the ones who would get things done for God, the ones who would show up on the vineyard and really work for God. But we find they weren't at all interested in doing anything that God said, except maybe collecting the time. But we have the whores and the tax collectors. They appear to care nothing about what God says by the way they're living their lives. They appear to have no concern about what God wants in the choices that they have made early on. If you were playing the video, you'd get the impression that they had no chance with God. But God works on them and gets to their heart and he turns them on a dime. and suddenly they care intensely. In fact, they care about nothing else but pleasing God. They want to honor Him. They want to follow Him, and they'll do anything for Him. It's interesting that Jesus brings John the Baptist into this discussion. The rulers were those in the parable saying, yes, we will serve you. Yes, we will prepare the way for the Messiah to take over. Yes, we care about your kingdom. But then John came, who was doing that very thing. I mean, that was what he lived for. That's why he had blood in his veins. And they hated him. They rejected him. They wouldn't have him. They wouldn't listen to him. But the lowlife of the society flocked to John and repented of their sins. They showed themselves to be the true followers of God. That should have had an effect. It should have driven the leaders to humility. They should have been able to say, man, we missed out on the work of God here. Let's get on board. Let's repent. Let's confess that we were lost in our profit-making schemes. It should have had an effect. It should have driven the leaders to humility. They too should have repented, but they instead continued to remind God of all the sins that they had not committed. This morning, where do we stand? Are we the ones that talk all day long about serving God, but we refuse to obey the simple tests that he puts in front of us day to day? Or are we the ones that don't really look all that promising, but somehow we just can't find a way to live in disobedience? Do we look at the polls and measure our every response against what the best outcome would be for us and what comes out of our mouth is based on what effect it's going to create for us? Or do we simply inquire about what God wants to do and do it? God wants us to say and say it and what the truth is and reveal it. In our relationships with each other and others, do we choose carefully what we say, measuring only the effect it will have in producing for us a peaceful, profitable environment? Do we pull our minds to see what people want to hear before we speak? Or do we only inquire with God to find out what the people need to hear, those around us, those we love? Are we leading our families and those we have influence with politically, or do we lead them spiritually, saying what God says, without regard for the price that we might pay? Spiritual leadership delivers the truth, no matter what the consequences of delivering the truth are. Spiritual leadership must have discernment, but not use discernment for lowering the cost of delivering the truth. We must use it for determining what God once said and to whom and when. Spiritual leadership will not back down in the face of conflict. We need to look at our leadership decisions this week. Where are we twisting or withholding the truth for our own advantage? To keep the peace, maybe? Or to avoid a negative response, maybe? Or to gain a positive advantage, maybe? That isn't true spiritual leadership. Tactfully telling the truth may be part of spiritual leadership. Choosing the best time to say it may be part of spiritual leadership. But withholding truth that needs told is not spiritual leadership. I think that's the application we can best make from our text this morning. Let's close in prayer. Lord, we thank you that you exhibit perfect spiritual leadership. We thank you for the life of Christ. We thank you for that perfect example. We thank you for the absolute wisdom and discernment He displayed in His conversation with His enemies. and his conversation with his friends, and his conversation in all ministry. We thank you that we can follow that example and know that we're barking up the right tree. We can know that we are following that which is correct. We ask that you would help us to become more and more ministers of truth, truth in our relationships, truth in our ministries, and that we would not get caught up in politics in our day-in day-out relationships. And we ask, Lord, that we would glorify you by being followers of your kind of spiritual leadership in all of our endeavors. We ask that you would convict our hearts, that you would show us where we are actually being political, where we are weaseling the truth to have a better outcome, and help us to submit wholly to your Lordship of our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen.