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So some of you know that I have a spoof site on Twitter. So it's not me, somebody else that likes to spoof my ministry. And so I did not look at it this morning, but Michael turned and showed me the post from this morning. And so it answers a lot of questions that I've already received this morning. So I think I'll read it to you. This is from NotBradleyRushing Twitter account, three hours ago. After the LSU game last night, I will change my sermon from the book of Luke and will be preaching out of the book of Lamentations. Take your copy of God's Word and turn to the book of Luke. Luke chapter 20, the passage that we're in is verses 27 through 47. I've got to tell you something as you turn there. This is a serious word. Now, every time we get into the word of God, it's serious. But this is the real serious word. This is what he talks about today has implications of heaven and hell, life and death, eternal type of implications. So we talk about refusing to submit to the authority of Christ. Mr. Garrett Everett is going to come. And where is he at? Here he is, right in front of me. He's going to read this passage for us. And so let's stand to honor the reading of God's Word. Luke chapter 20, verses 27 through 47. Now after he finishes reading, I'm going to get on my knees and I'm going to pray. Got a lot of guests here today. We do something a little bit different. The Lord convicted me a good while ago that we need to learn to get on our knees. So if you have the ability to join me on your knees, to ask for God's guidance and a word from God, to hear from Him, I want you to join me. Now, some of you can't because of health issues or because of spatial issues. I get that. But if you can, join me and we will seek the Lord together. Embrace yourselves. This is a bit of a long one. There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children, and the second, and then the third took her. And likewise, all seven left no children and died. Afterward, the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife. And Jesus said to them, the sons of this age marry or are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age into the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. For they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him. And some of the survivors answered, Teacher, you have spoken well, for they no longer dare to ask him any question. And he said to them, How can they say that the Christ is David's son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. David thus calls him Lord, so how is he a son? And in the hearing of all the people, he said to the disciples, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation. Amen. Thank you, Gary. Pray with me. Heavenly Father, this morning I pray that in the presence of a world that has so many leaders and so many kings and rulers that our minds would be keenly focused who rules them all. And where we stand before you, O King. And so, Father, I pray that you'll give grace today that there would be someone in here who's had a hard heart toward King Jesus, that you would soften their hearts, that you would speak truth through your word to them through the power of the Spirit, and maybe for the first time, they would submit to the King's authority, and they would rest in the King's love. They would know the King's grace, and they would live in the King's life forever. Lord, give me grace to preach now for your glory, for the ongoing of your kingdom, for the salvation of souls, for the exaltation of your name. I pray all these things in Christ's name, amen. For Noah's 8th year old birthday, we went to Six Flags over Atlanta. And so he was finally getting tall enough where he could just start to ride some of those roller coasters that were a little bit bigger, a little bit scarier, a little bit more intimidating. And I was absolutely diligent about the fact that he was going to ride those with us, with me this year. And so we go there and we walk up to one of the roller coasters and he says just real, I'm not riding that thing. I said, no, baby, you are riding that roller coaster with me today, right now. We're getting on it. It's tall, big, huge drop. Dad, I'm not riding that thing. Oh, no, if you're tall enough, you're going to get on it. I'm not tall enough. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. So we got in line, and the lines weren't very long. And so we made our way around for about 30 minutes. And we never saw a little thing that measured, but there was this little bar up there. So we got closer, and it looked like it might be the measuring bar. And he kept looking at that. hope is I'm not gonna be tall enough not gonna be tall I'm not gonna have to ride it and so we got up to the moment where we were supposed to step on and no one asked to measure it and Noah looked at the attendant and said you better measure me right now He said, I don't have anything to measure you with. That bar right there, you measure. I see it. That bar right there. And it wasn't. It was like for a maintenance bar or something. And literally, he let out this blood-curling scream as I threw him in the car. And we locked him in, and off we were. But when we were done, you know, I thought he was just going to be scarred for life, but he wasn't. He started philosophizing. Well, you know, that wasn't that bad. know I could daddy I learned something I can do some things I didn't think I could do I can overcome my fear I learned daddy that if I trust the Lord I can make it through anything and I said now that's a that's good word Noah proud of you and so we rode several other roller coasters not the huge ones but the ones big enough that he could he could ride. And so I felt pretty good about that. Well, a few months later, we went to an aquatica in Orlando. And I thought, sure, he's going to ride it all with me now, because he's kind of getting tall enough. Well, sure enough, there was a slide at aquatica. It made my heart flutter. I'm just going to be honest with you. And so I look up at that thing, and I said, all right, you see that thing up there? You see that slide? I said, I do, Daddy. I said, you're going to ride that slide with me today. And he said, daddy, I ain't writing that slide. And I said, oh, no, you remember a few months ago, you remember at Six Flags, you didn't think you could do it, but you learned. You can overcome your fear. You can do things you didn't want, didn't know you could do. You can trust the Lord, and by trusting the Lord, you can overcome anything. And he didn't philosophize. He didn't give arguments. He looked at me, and in the clearest, most resolved voice an eight-year-old can give, said, daddy, I don't care what you say. I'm not riding that slide." And that was it, and true to his word, he did not ride that slide. But I want to tell you, it's one thing for an eight-year-old to look at his dad and be resolved to refuse to obey an offer to ride the slide. It's quite another thing. for people to look face to face into the sovereign king of the universe and refuse to submit to his authority. And that's what this text is about today. That's what this entire text that we've been dealing with as we've been in this section of the book of Luke is all about. It's about the authority of Christ. And see, the reason I'm so convicted about this text this morning is I am quite sure that there are folks in this room today that have heard the call of God you have heard the gospel go forth repent believe be saved step down off your high horse you know you're not king but come to the one who is you've heard you felt the Holy Spirit moving in your heart you know that you should respond but they're just things that you're not willing to give up and up to this point you have spent your life fighting against the sovereign God and refusing to submit to his authority well God's got a word for you today Some things that need to change, four clear commands for you this morning. First of all, what would he say to you? Quit denying the clear evidence of Christ's authority. Quit denying that clear evidence. At the beginning of this section in Luke chapter 20, verse 2, Jesus is preaching the gospel in the temple and he's He's encountered by some religious leaders, chief priests, the scribes, the elders. have a question for him in verse 2 if you look there you'll see it says tell us by what authority that's what this whole this whole sections about tell us about what authority do you do these things or who it is that gave you this authority and so we need to know exactly what they're talking about what are these things that they're questioning who gave you the authority to to do these things well we know what these things are about we've moved through the entire life of Jesus Christ in the book of Luke and and we've seen that He's done all kind of things that display the fact that he is the Messiah, that he's the son of God. And these religious leaders would have been very familiar with Jesus' ministry. They would have seen him have this prolific healing ministry as he would heal people and people would flock to him and he would drive out illness and disease and he would make them whole again. met people that Jesus drove demons out of and he would meet demon possessed people and Jesus would just by his command drive the demons out and they would obey. No doubt they would have heard about the violent storm that Jesus and the disciples had been caught in and Jesus was sleeping in the boat and when the disciples feared for their life they woke Jesus up and Jesus was like, why are you so afraid? Where's your faith? And he speaks to the wind, he speaks to the storm. And even the storm obeys the authority of Christ. Who has that kind of power that even the weather obeys? No doubt they even would have spoken to some of the people that Jesus raised from the grave with the power of His Word, with the authority of who He is. now in our text just before this we saw that Jesus went into the temple going in having gone into Jerusalem for the first time since he was just a little boy and he drove out those who were abusing the temple for their own profit and gain and so when you read verse 2 and and see them asked by what authority are you doing these things I want to ask how can you not know Oh, they knew exactly whose authority he was doing these things by. They just didn't want to submit to that authority. And I wonder if that might be you today. But you know who Jesus is. You're convinced of his messiahship, his lordship, but you just won't submit. Well, it might be. It might be for a number of reasons, you know. I suppose some of you are here, and like I was as a little boy, I can remember the Lord speaking to me and me being concerned about what my friends might think or what might happen after that. Some of you might say look I wish Jesus would just hush in my life. I don't want to follow him I've made it very clear to him, but you can't execute the Living Lord So what you can do is you can just ignore him, but the fact is you can't ignore him the king of King cannot be silenced and there is there is an element here was you read this read this text is an element of what who do you think you are and denying the authority of Christ, refusing to submit to the authority of Christ. Think about it for a moment. Nature submits to Christ's authority. Demons submit to His authority. Illnesses and disease submit to His authority. Even death submits to His authority. And you don't. And you don't. And so it's time to stop denying the authority. of King Jesus and submit to him this morning. So that would be the first command the Lord has for you. The second would be this, abandon weak arguments to oppose Christ's authority. Abandon those arguments, particularly the people that he's speaking to in our text this morning. or Sadducees. Now, the Sadducees are not a huge group of people. They're a small group of, they would consider themselves as conservative Jewish religious leaders or religious people. And the particular belief that we need to be concerned about, as Luke brings it up, is that they do not believe in the resurrection. Now what that means is they don't believe, not necessarily in Jesus' future resurrection, I mean because that hasn't happened yet, they don't believe that anybody's resurrected from the dead. That there is no afterlife. That you're dead, you're dead, you're gone, you no longer exist. So where does this come from? I thought you said they were religious leaders. Well they are, but to them this whole idea of a resurrection and afterlife is a very Greek notion. And they didn't want to be adulterated by Greek ideas. And so They didn't even recognize the whole Old Testament as to be scripture. They only recognized the first five books of the law, the Torah, to be their scripture. And so they've got a problem with Jesus' preaching of the gospel because Jesus' gospel preaching is repent and believe, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. There is an afterlife and you need to be right with God now so you'll be right with God then. The kingdom of God is expanding and you need to come into that kingdom because You're going to live forever. And so they rejected that notion and they brought up a ridiculous argument in order to reject that notion. Biblical argument at that. And it had to do with a teaching of Moses called Leveret Marriage. Leveret Marriage. Deuteronomy 25, 5 and 6 speaks to this. I'm not going to read it but the idea is is that if a man was married to a woman and the man died without having children, then that woman would be married to the brother of that man. Okay? And so what the goal of that was is that brother would have children with his now dead brother's wife so that he could essentially have children for him and pass on that wing of the family name. very important at that time that the name that the name of the family be carried on and be passed down but now they put forth a scenario that says look well if that's true you can't have an afterlife and this this is why let me give you a scenario look at verse 29 following here this is what they bring up to Jesus this is their argument just now there are seven brothers the first took a wife and died without children and the second then the third took her and likewise all seven left no children and died afterwards the woman also died in the resurrection therefore whose wife were the woman be for the seven had her as a wife and so their argument is ultimately says look Jesus you're wrong about the afterlife because this doesn't allow for a proper understanding look whose wife would this this this woman be he was married to all seven brothers in the afterlife every one of them's got a claim on it you've got a problem with your theology you got a inconsistency and because they saw this perceived inconsistency between Moses and Jesus they said well Moses must be right and therefore they rejected Jesus's authority. It's a good argument, right? No, it's not. It's not a good argument at all. As a matter of fact, well Luke's version doesn't bring up Jesus's immediate response. But Matthew's version does. So I want to read you Matthew's version of what Jesus said immediately after they were done with this argument. Matthew 22, 29. But Jesus answered them, you are wrong. Good argument. You are wrong. You've missed the mark. You don't understand some things. Your theology is skewed. You don't understand who God is. You are wrong and here's why. Because you neither know the scriptures nor the power of God. That's harsh. That's reality. He says you're wrong about truth, you're wrong about the future, you're wrong about the afterlife, and the reason you're wrong is because you don't know God's Word. Now that's a serious statement to the Sadducees because they view themselves as the only one that really held to the true Word of God, the only one who really know God's Word. And so essentially what he was saying, and I'm sure he must have been somewhat offended here, boys, you're going to bring the Word of God up to me and make an argument to me with the Word of God? Hey, listen, boys, you're speaking to the Word of God. I am the Word of God in the flesh. And so I want you to know something, and you need to listen to the Word, because you're missing some things. You may be reading the Word, but you don't know the Word. And if you don't know the Word, then you won't know the God of the Word. And that's why you don't see me as who I really am. And so he gives a response, and in that response, it's really helpful because he gives some clarity about eternal life itself and about salvation and about what all that looks like. And so I want to speak to this just for a moment. What does he say, and what he says He helps us understand something about the nature of faith, the type of faith that gains eternal life. The first thing he would teach us through this is that eternal life is gained through a tested faith. says, let me correct your weak arguments, your wrong arguments and let me explain something to you. And in his explanation he helps us see that eternal life is gained with a tested faith. Look at verses 34 and 35. Jesus said to them, the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage." So he's comparing this age, the age that we live in, the fleshly age, the age of today, to that age, the age of eternal life after this body is laid in the grave. And notice, did you notice what he says here? He says, those who attain to the age of eternal life are considered worthy. These are You see that? But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age. Now that does cause us to pause just a moment, doesn't it? What do you mean, those who are considered worthy? What does that mean? So I went back to a word study on that and it means just what it says. It means to consider something of comparable merit or worth. So does that mean that God's gonna look at my life and he's going to say, well, you were good enough to earn passageway into that age or not? I mean, is this a works-based salvation that Jesus is leading to here? Well, no. And the reason we know that is the way that word is used, considered worthy. It's only used three times in the entire New Testament, here and two other times. And both other times that it's used, it means to have a faith, now listen, this is very important, to have a faith worthy to endure suffering. Both times it's used, it means to be, to have a faith that is worthy to endure suffering for the name of Christ. One time it's spoken of is in 2 Thessalonians 1, 4, and 5. You look at the screen and see this. He says, therefore we ourselves boast about you, Apostle Paul talking to the church in Thessalonica, we boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness in faith And what is the core of their boastedness, their steadfastness? What is it? It's faith in all your persecutions and in afflictions that you are enduring. So you're enduring afflictions, you're enduring persecutions for the sake of Christ and you are holding fast in the midst of those afflictions. persecutions. Verse 5 it says, this is the evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be, watch this, considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering. So he's not saying that they earn salvation through a certain kind of life what he's saying is is that look if you have a genuine salvation God will also Reflect on that genuine salvation with a kind of suffering that will allow you to glorify God with your salvation. Does that make sense? In other words, hey, if you just got a charmed life and nothing ever goes wrong, well, hey, I want Jesus, too. Jesus give you that nice car, Jesus give you that big house, Jesus give you all those friends, Jesus give you that good job, Jesus give you that education. Hey, if Jesus give me that, man, that's awesome. I want that, too. Not the way of the Christian life. Nor is it the way of the world. We live in sin, we live in brokenness. And so what God does often is with his people, what he does with his people, is he says, I want you to know something about your faith. I want you to know that it's genuine. I want you to give the opportunity to glorify me through a genuine faith. And you'll glorify me when you face suffering. and torment at the hands of enemies. When you face people that will kill you because of your belief in me, and you endure, you'll show a lost world that God is your treasure, that Christ is your king. Right? And so he says, don't be surprised when God tests your faith. Let me show you another place that it's used. It's in Acts chapter 5, verse 41. In this setting, the disciples, same thing, have encountered a great deal of suffering. They've been thrown in jail because of their faith in Christ. They've been released by the angels. They're preaching anyway. The council meets. They bring them all in. They're upset that they're preaching the gospel. Verse 41, after they leave, It says, and then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy, there it is again, counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. So they interpreted their suffering as evidence that God viewed genuine their faith. And they counted it a privilege, a joy to suffer so that God might be glorified in their life. And so many believers here today, I know that you're facing suffering of some form or another. And so what we need to realize is that when we suffer, it is an opportunity for God to get the glory. That God privileges us with suffering. You know, it's really easy from time to time for people to ask, well, why did this happen? Where was God when that tragedy happened? Where was God when the accident happened? Where was God when the cancer happened? Where was God? I don't understand. And the answer is God is right there. Early Christians didn't ask, where was God? Early Christians rejoiced in the fact that God allowed suffering to come and their lives got to shine brightly the glory of God in an age that needs to see it so clearly. Eternal life, remember, is gained through tested faith. And Jesus' response points to that. Eternal life, we also see, means that we never die again. This kind of gets back to the real issue that Jesus is dealing with. In verse 35 and following, look again, it says, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age, in other words, when God sees your faith as have enduring suffering and is genuine, is treasuring Christ, that that person who is considered worthy to attain to the age of eternal life and to the resurrection from the dead, what is their marital state in the future? Well, they neither marry nor are given in marriage. So, hey, look, is there going to be marriage in heaven? No. There you go. It's till death do you part. Some of you are going, whew, man, that's good. Man, that's good. There is an end to this deal. All right. But you need to understand why there's not marriage in heaven. There's not marriage in heaven because there's no death in heaven. All right? See, that's the issue. Remember the whole issue of Leverite marriage? Well let me just read the rest of this, verse 36 here. It says, for they cannot die anymore. You're not, they're neither married nor given in marriage and there's a purpose clause, verse 4, for they cannot die, verse 36, for they cannot die anymore because they're equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. See, when Jesus Christ rose from the grave, he destroyed death forever for believers. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that awesome? And so, we're gonna die, our bodies are gonna go to the grave, but we're never gonna die. We're gonna see one death, and it's gonna be a physical death, and our souls are not gonna die, they're gonna go forever to be with the Lord. That is what's gonna happen. And the whole point of Levirate marriage is that had to happen because it was important for the name to be handed down for the heritage to last and and so the reason the only way that could last is because it is for children to be born because people were going to die and what Jesus is saying that in the eternal life you will never die again there's no reason for you to be married there's no reason for you to have children because you're not going to die your name's not going to go away you're going to live forever because Christ lives forever and that's the heart of the gospel That's the heart of the gospel. That's the point. And so the Sadducees, you see, what he's done is he's brought this very weak argument to Jesus and he has just shown how their logic was wrong. He's shown how their interpretation of who God is is wrong. And then he added one more level to it. He showed how their interpretation of what even they read as scripture was wrong. Look at verse 37 and following. He turned right to the Torah. And he asked his question. Well, he didn't ask the question. He brings up this particular issue. He says, hey, look, guys. You know that verse where Moses was talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now is he not God of the... Now he is not God of the dead. but of the living, for all live to him." You see what he's saying? He's saying this has been a significant amount of time, hundreds of years between Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and they have been dead, they have been in the grave for a long time and Jesus is saying, you realize that when Moses stood at the bush, he recognized this as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now, if he is the God of Abraham and Isaac of Jacob currently, then guess what? Even though they're in the grave, they must live today. There must still be an Abraham, an Isaac, and a Jacob. So even your view, your perspective of your own scripture is wrong. You see, you don't understand eternal life because you don't know the Word of God. And so that's true for us today. You realize that we're going to get God wrong if we don't know his word. We're going to get eternal life wrong if we don't know his word. We're going to fall into all kind of fallacies of, well I've got to work hard and I've got to earn eternal life. No, you're going to get it wrong if you don't know his word. And so he takes these weak arguments and he He just lays them flat. And there's some of you that are walking in with arguments that you're just saying, God, I can't follow Jesus because I've got these issues with the Word. You know, I've met a number of people who would say, You know what, I just can't believe, Bradley, that God created the whole universe, the whole world in seven days, seven literal days. And you come in and you've got this problem. He says, because I can't understand that, I'm not going to submit to the authority of the king. Or maybe you've got some other problem that you just can't square out in your mind. It's got a logic problem. apologetic problem and you say because I can't understand this issue about who Jesus is or this issue about who God is or this issue about the way the world came about or this issue then I refuse to submit to his authority and I want to submit to you today you submit to his authority first because we gain understanding after we give obedience you see it's what he says because Two things I need to tell you. If you bring that weak argument with you to judgment day, Jesus is going to fillet you like he did the Sadducees. And it's not going to hold water. Alright. But secondly, that if you could see truth like Jesus did, that argument that keeps you from submitting to Christ's authority today wouldn't even be an issue for you. You see, the Sadducees couldn't see truth, but Jesus could. And there's somebody here today, and you're struggling, but here's the deal. You can't see truth, but Jesus can. And that's why you've got to trust Him. You've got to trust His Word. You've got to repent and believe, and then as a follower of Jesus Christ, grow in truth. So abandon those weak arguments. And finally, stop, or third, and these won't take quite as long, stop ignoring the important testimony of Christ's authority. The important testimony. So Jesus now, he looks after he deals with these Sadducees, he looks at all the religious leaders that have been questioning him, and he says, guys, I've got a question for y'all. I've got a scriptural question that I need to ask you. And so he brought up this issue in verses 42 and following. And the issue is based on the general prophecy that the Messiah would be in the lineage of David, that the Messiah would be the son of David. They all believed that, they all held to that, 2 Samuel 7, 12-14. It's a clear statement to that. And so, he asks them, he says, well, if that's true, then how is it that David said in Psalm 110.1 that the Lord, that's the Father, said to my Lord, that's the Messiah, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. David thus, Jesus says, calls him Lord. So how is it that he is his son? You see that? It's that it doesn't make sense, does it? So y'all are confused because the son's supposed to honor the father and the father's not supposed to honor the son. How is it then if David can call the Messiah, who is not on earth yet, his Lord? How can it be his son and his Lord? And the real issue that he's getting at is here is how can the Messiah be only David's son? This is what David's getting at. Y'all are so focused on the fact that the Messiah is supposed to be part of the lineage of David, that he's supposed to be part of the household of David. He's supposed to be a king in that lineage. But what you're missing is that the Messiah is not only David's son then, but David said, the Messiah is my Lord today. He's not just David's son, he's David's Lord. And so that begs the question, why won't we submit to the authority of Christ? Why won't you submit to the authority of Christ? Why won't you? It doesn't make sense because even the king does. Even the most revered man in Jewish history, great King David, he says, I'm the king, but the king has a king. Who are you that you would submit, that you would refuse to submit to the king that the king submits to? You see the problem? So you have a testimony that you need to learn from. Stop ignoring those important testimonies. Then finally, the word that God would have for you today is listen to the urgent warnings from the one that is in authority. The warning of Christ is to be very careful who influences you. Be very careful who you listen to. Look at verses 45 through 47. See this, he says, and in the hearing of all the people. In other words, he's not just talking to his disciples, he's not just talking to the religious folks that are rebelling against him. He says, I want you all to hear this. He says to the disciples in the hearing of everybody, beware of the scribes who walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogue and the places of honor and peace. Beware of all these people that want you to listen to them, that want you to have a hearing because it's in your hearing that they gain status. It's in your hearing that they feel like that they're somebody before God. They want you to think that they're better than they really are. You should be real careful listening to these people who you honor. Be very careful listening to these people that you were taught to honor. Be very careful listening to what they have to say about God. Because they don't know God. You know your word. In which, by the way, that's why in Southern Baptist life we don't have priests. All right? Like, you know, Brother Mike and I and the other pastors here, we're here to help teach, we're here to help lead, but not to the negation of you taking the Word of God and seeking to know God yourself. You gotta be like the Bereans and make sure, test and make sure that what we're teaching is right, that what we're teaching is true. Because if what we're teaching from this pulpit is different from what the Word of God teaches, then we're wrong. Then we're wrong. And you have the responsibility to find out if your teachers are wrong. And Jesus says, these teachers are wrong. Don't listen to them. And that's one of the reasons I teach verse by verse through books of the Bible. So that you can see, thus saith the Lord. This is not thus saith Bradley. This is not thus saith Mount Gilead. This is thus saith the Lord. So be very, very careful who you listen to. And so I want to go back to the beginning and we're going to wind this up. The question that ultimately was asked by Jesus is, by what authority do you do these things? And I submit to you that that's the wrong question to be asked. The real question that we've got to grapple with today and that somebody here, I imagine, has to grapple with today is what authority do you have to refuse to submit to Christ's authority? What right do you have to refuse to bow the knee to the king? The weather submits to his authority. The demons submit to his authority. Illness submits to his authority. Death submits to his authority. Even the king submits to his authority. What right do you have to reject his authority today? And the answer is none. It is time to stop rebelling. It is time to stop refusing the king's right over your life. And this morning it's time to submit. So here's the thing about the king. He's pretty harsh on these Sadducees. He's pretty harsh on these religious leaders. But he says there's one command. One command I have for you. Just repent and believe. Turn from yourself. Turn from trying to own your own life. Turn from trying to set your own rules. Turn from all of that. Just quit denying the evidence of who Christ is. Abandon all those weak arguments. Stop ignoring the important testimony of the King. And listen to the urgent warning of Jesus. Let's say, hey, there's coming, there's, even the King, even the King submits. And the Word of God would tell us there's coming a day. that every king will submit, that every king will bow the knee, and you have the opportunity to bow the knee today. So stop refusing God's right over your life and trust Him with it. He made you, He created you, He laid out good works for you to accomplish in your life, all right? Jesus went to the cross and he died for sin and he rose again so that I could stand here to say if you'll turn from sin and you'll put faith in the Lord Jesus Christ you will live forever regardless what the Sadducees say regardless what your philosophy teacher says regardless what the media on TV says that if you'll turn from sin and you'll put Jesus Christ as your king today if you'll willingly bow the knee today then Christ will willingly give you his life forever. But if you don't willingly bow the knee today, he will force you to bow the knee then. The question is not, is will you bow? The question is, what will come from your bowing? So trust the Lord. Stop resisting. He loves you, created you. He sent his son to die for sin so that we might live. He's got a purpose for your life. You're in his hand, you're in his world. This is a good day. Today's the day of salvation. Find yourself on your knees and you'll find his strength in you forever. Would you pray with me? Father, I lift up our church here this morning. I lift up those who have heard your word today. No doubt there are people here that identify with what Jesus is saying. And I know this is a hard word. I know this is a scary word. I know that it's hard to submit. I know it's hard to say, I'm not in control. I can't save myself. I've got sin. Especially as an adult. But Father, I pray for our adults here today. I pray for somebody that has had a lifetime of rebelling against you, trying to silence your word, trying to silence that still small voice of the power of the Holy Spirit in their heart. And I pray today that they would say, I no longer refuse to submit. But today I run to Christ. I run to Him. I embrace Him. If that's you, would you be willing to do that this morning? Would you be willing to run to Christ and to embrace His sovereignty, to embrace His redemption, to embrace His love for you, His grace for you? That's extending out this morning. But what it means that you can't be Lord of your own life anymore. He's got to be Lord. I want to tell you that's the best way to live life. That's what David said. David said, my king reigns. The father said to the Messiah, the father said to the son, you sit right here and you reign. And he said, that's my king. The king has a king. And the fact is we must have a king. And that king doesn't sit on a throne in any nation, he doesn't reside in a White House, he doesn't rule over some little group of people, but he sits on the throne that is above every throne. He rules over all people, over all things for his glory alone. So Father, I pray now that you would move in the hearts of men and women, boys and girls, and they would stop denying who you are. And today they would respond. believe repent and glorify that's you today we're going to sing a hymn of invitation I'm going to be down here And I want you to come, and I want you to trust Christ. Brother Mike, he's gonna be down here as well. I'm gonna have him stand up, and if you would like to come talk to him and pray. Maybe you've got loved ones that are just not following Christ, and they're resisting Christ, and you want one of us to pray for you and pray for your loved ones. I want you to do that. Maybe you wanna come and just kneel right here at the altar and do business with God. Let's do business with God this morning. Holy Spirit, work in us that this day might have an eternal difference in the life of someone, I pray. In Jesus' name, amen.
How The Church Should Use Money
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