Mark 11:27-33

So mark 1127 through 33 they arrived to get into Jerusalem and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders came to him by what authority are you doing these things they asked and who gave you authority to do this? Jesus replied, I will ask you one question, answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John's baptism, was it from heaven or of human origin? Tell me.

They discussed it among themselves and said, if we say from heaven, he will ask then why didn't you believe him? But if we say of human origin, they feared the people for everyone held that John Really was a prophet . So they answer Jesus. We don't know. Jesus said, neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. Thank you Jeremy.

And in the center of those elders is this church, his former lead pastor Rick Gehring and his wife and I just want to read this statement that's been approved by our elders and and had been approved by pastor Rick Guerin. The central elders met with pastor Rick and Cindy Gehring on Friday and Saturday, August 16 and 17 out of the mutual desire to seek greater understanding and reconciliation from past wounds.

The Holy Spirit led those conversations and as a result, confession and forgiveness was offered and a great affirmation of love and respect was shown towards one another. The elders are thankful for how God clearly brought Rick and Cindy to central and how he worked through them to accomplish his greater purposes for the church. We bless their ministry now at their church in Fort Smith and we look forward to continued fellowship with them in the future.

So that's a very encouraging, well next today as as Jamie read so well is out of Mark 11 verses 27 through 33 and I don't know if you caught it when he was reading it or if you've caught it on your own reading it, but there's a phrase that kinda jumps up, at least it jumps up at me. And I think it jumps up that most of us, especially maybe if we've been born in the last couple decades because it's become such an issue in our culture. And that phrase is that phrase by what authority.

It's a challenge by what? Authority. Now. Now think of what authority means. That that word literally means the freedom to choose the the right to decide, the right to act, to do what you want without anybody else compelling you to choose or decide or act like they want you to. And when you think about it, most of the hot button issues going on in our culture right now essentially boil down to this matter of authority by what? Authority. Abortion.

And when, when people say that a woman has the right to choose, that is a claim by what authority, who has authority over a woman's body or even to me more significantly, who has authority over that unborn baby in a woman's womb. The way you answer that question really comes down to whether you recognize any higher authority or , or think of what the Bible calls the Bible uses the term poor ne , which means sexual immorality. It's kind of a catchall phrase.

It means any sexual activity outside the boundaries of what happens between a married man and a married woman. So anything outside of those boundaries, the Bible would label and, and speak very directly to as sexual immorality. But what do we see in our culture all around us? What are we tempted with that comes down to this issue? By what authority? By what authority? Can you tell me how I can I engage in sexual conduct?

So even sexual choices are a matter of the question of authority or think of the issue that five years ago I just thought would've thought you were crazy. If if we , if you would've said, we'd be talking about it today, transgenderism can a man determined that he really wants to become a really is a woman or vice versa. A woman determined that she is a man. That essentially comes down to the question of authority. Who has the authority to define our gender?

Do any of us get the ability, the authority, the right to choose the right, the power to act, to determine or change our gender or does that authority rest somewhere higher that we can't touch no matter what our preferences or think about even what we call the Gospel.

I know that's a churchy word that's kind of loosely use, but I use the gospel to say that that standing with God, the ability to know God and the ability to be forgiven of our sin and the ability to spend Aternity with him in heaven is all through and only through what Jesus, who Jesus Christ is and what he has done on the cross in his perfect righteous state dying for our sin and our culture would say that's absolutely crazy. That's bigoted. That is too narrow. That is too discriminatory.

But it really comes down to who says by what authority. Who has the authority to judge. You're in my life ultimately, spiritually, who has the authority to determine your or my or ternal destiny. So again, that phrase by what authority. That's the phrase for the text today, and in today's texts we see these men , these religious leaders confronting Jesus with this question. They're challenging his authority.

They're challenging his right to do what he's been doing, to teach what he's been teaching. They're challenging his right to decide or act. And we see it as he enters Jerusalem. Verse 27 he's walking in the temple complex. By the way, this is, this is the third time of, remember, this is the last week of his earthly life. It's what we call holy week or passion week. This is the third day. This is the Tuesday of passion week. He's come into the temple on Sunday and Monday and now Tuesday.

But what did he do the day before? What did he do the second day of Holy week or on Monday? Pastor Luke preached on that a couple weeks ago. He, he drove out all the , the merchants. He upturned the tables of the money chamber, a changers. He halted the offerings and the sacrifices of the sacrificial system. He casts the temple into disarray and he shut it down. Can you imagine, I'm sure that this time, by this third day that the merchants had set up their tables and booths again.

Can you imagine how they reacted when they see Jesus walking into the temple again, probably guarding their tables. You know , wondering if he's gonna come over to them again, but even more significantly. Can you imagine what these chief priests and these scribes and these elders were thinking? Can you imagine the hostility that exuded from them? I mean, these men considered themselves the absolute authority over religious life and Israel.

And here, this man who has no credentials, doesn't have a degree from their seminary or their diploma on their wall is not even recognized by them. And he is coming . He shut the whole temple system down and all of that hostility that barely withheld hostility spews forth in their challenges in first 28 by what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do these things.

Now by these things, he certainly meant what that certainly met what happened the previous day, the clearing of the temple. But, but I think by this point, that was just the icing on the cake that had just become the top of a big mountain. They, they, they, they were so irritated.

They, they were so hateful towards him for his presumption to be able to forgive sins for his acceptance of humble sinners for his , uh, his really rejection of all their sabbath rules and their tradition for his teaching, without their credentials, without their permission. And so they ask them two questions. The first question, by what authority, they are challenging his right to do what he has done.

And this is an attempt to embarrass Jesus if they can show, if they can get him to admit, well , he really has no seminary degree. He has no credentials. He has no diploma. They think, well, maybe this will embarrass him before the people and the people will lose respect for him. By the way, this is the ploy of many college professors every fall. At so many secular universities, there seems to be, you know, one probably way more than one these days.

You know, a philosophy professor, a biology professor, some other professor who just takes it upon themselves as their personal mission to destroy the faith of incoming freshman .

And so those first couple of weeks in class as that professor intentionally leads in a conversation and a discussion in a lecture , uh , that that touches on where there is authority and that that professor starts stabbing spears through the reality that there is ultimate truth, that there is a god, that there is only one way to heaven. And some poor freshman boldly speaks up. This is the line of attack they use . They may not say this question, but they're asking this by what authority?

You're a freshman, you have a high school education. I have the PHD. I have taught at this university and this university. It's an, it's an attempt just like these men were doing to embarrass the one who would dare stand up against that authority. But there's a second question they go on to say, who gave you this authority? They want to force Jesus to go on record that he claims to speak and act for God.

Because if he claims that God has authorized him to do what he's doing and to say what he's saying, they can accuse him of blasphemy . And you may know if you've read the rest of the Gospel Accountant , this is eventually what they judge him for and crucify him on the basis that he's committed. Blasphemy, you know , makes me think I , I've heard often over the years the phrase as a pastor, I've heard somebody say, God told me.

I mean the one that sticks out the most memorably is a young man who told a young woman that you know, he had an affection for in his heart. God told me that we are supposed to get married. You know, that's that. That's that same kind of claim. She wisely responded. Well, God hasn't told me that yet. I think we ought to be, by the way, really leery of anybody that definitively saying, God told me, but this is no anybody is that this is Jesus. This is the son of God.

This is the one of whom scripture says over and over, and let me give you just a little sampling. Mark One 22 this is the one who , who is set up that he was teaching them as one having authority. You could see it in his teaching or mark to 10 this is the one the son of man who has been given authority on Earth to forgive sins. This is the one Luke four 36 that with authority and power commands the unclean spirits, the demons, and they come out.

This is the one John Five 27 that because he is the son of man, he has been given authority to execute judgment, to judge every member of the human race. This is the one John 17 two that the father has given to him all authority to give eternal life to those who gives it. If you're saved, it's because Jesus has been given the authority to save you. This is the one I could go on and on, but let me finish it out with this one. This is the one who just before he ascended into the father.

Matthew 28 18 says, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me so he could have responded where all of that, but he doesn't. How does Jesus respond to their hostile challenge? Verse 29 I will ask you one question, then answer me and I will tell you by what authority I am doing things was John's baptism from heaven or from men. Answer me, he speaks as a command. Now, by the way, this isn't a dodge. This isn't that Jesus wants to avoid or evade there .

Question answering a question with a counter question is a common rabbinic custom in the midst of debate and actually if they, if they think through the question he's given to them, they will come up with the answers to their questions. Why does Jesus ask them what they think about John the Baptist Ministry? Because their decision about John is a decision about him.

What they decide about the authority of John's ministry is really a decision about what they decide about the authority of Jesus who was affirmed by John's ministry. Think back to the baptism of Jesus mentioned here, what happened when Jesus was baptized by John The baptist. You remember early in mark early and in the other Gospels, the heavens were open.

God let his presence be known and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and they could hear the audible voice of God speaking and declaring that this is his son. Can you imagine any greater demonstration of God giving authority to his son, the Lord Jesus Christ? If they believe that this is what happened, they would have to admit that the authority of Jesus is in fact the authority of God, but what do they do? They step back. They have this little caucus off to the side.

They have this little huddle. Verse 31 they begin discussing among themselves, well, if we say from heaven, well he'll say, then why didn't you believe him ? In other words, if they acknowledge that John's baptism of Jesus was divinely inspired, then they're going to have to admit that Jesus has authority, really comes from God. They think they only have one other option and that that we see in verse 32 but if we say from men, in other words, yeah, but John Wasn't really a prophet.

He really didn't have authority to do that. Well, they were afraid of the crowd. Mark tells us because everyone thought that John was a genuine prophet. So in their minds, on the other hand, if they admit that they don't believe that John was sent by God to affirm that Jesus is the son of God. Well, they're saying publicly that John is a fraud. John is a, a false prophet. And prophets were popular in those days, especially prophets who'd been killed.

So, so he is a dead prophet, revered by the people. And these, these men know that they will infuriate the crowds if they were even to suggest that John is not really an authentic prophet, because that's who the people believed him to be. That's who he was. And so in verse 33 they do, what would I call from my legal background? They plead the fifth, you know , the fifth amendment. I really don't want to admit whether I'm guilty or I'm innocent.

I really don't want to give you any more information you can use against me. So I'm going to claim my constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment not to incriminate myself. That's , that's what they're doing here. So they answered Jesus. We don't know. We don't know. He's educated men. We don't know that. That is not entirely true. That they don't know. They certainly had some suspicion of who Jesus is from his miracles.

I mean, I think we get that a lot today and maybe you get that from, from unbelieving friends that you have. Maybe some of you are here today and this is kind of where you're at. Well, I really don't know. I don't have enough evidence, you know, and there seems to be counter-evidence isn't there some gnostic gospels or something like that out there? And here's the reality. There is more.

There's an overwhelming amount of evidence that supports Christianity, that supports the Bible, that supports who Jesus is, that supports the gospel. It's not that we don't have enough evidence. It's not that we don't have enough information. If we're at the place where we say, I don't know, it's where these men are. They really don't want to engage in real conversation where they would get to know more. Why? Because they are unwilling to know . They don't want to know.

They deliberately refuse to accept the truth. And here's the reality. Jesus is more than open to anyone who's open. If you're, if you're even coming this morning from a place of unbelief, but you're open and you want to learn and you want to know and you have honest questions and honest doubts and you want to lay those out before him, Jesus opens his eyes, arms wide to you. But if you're not open, you're like these men and you have a closed mind and a closed heart.

Jesus will not open himself to you. And that's exactly what occurs here. That Jesus says, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. You know the issue of Jesus, his authority is not whether we have enough evidence, it's whether we're willing to receive and respond to the evidence, the overwhelming evidence that we already have.

And you see, I'm leading from these men to you and me today because the issue of Jesus is authority is not just something that these religious leaders struggle with. We all struggle with it. You know, somebody came up to me after the first service today and said, you know , pastor Dan or you or you think you're right on that. Do you think you think that everybody struggles with it? Don't , don't.

Most people here on a morning like this, don't most people here except the authority of God and the authority of Jesus over your life. That's not my experience. That's not where I wa I was before coming to Christ. That that's not I think where most of the generations that come out of come after me are at.

I think we start from a position of questioning, authority of challenging authority and even, you know, if you have come into the church, if you have become a believer, we live in a southern evangelical Christian culture that puts so much emphasis and so much stress on that initial decision you make to ask Jesus into your heart. And again, I'm not wiping that away, that for many, many people, including myself, is where it begins. But I know many, many people stop there.

They accept Jesus as Savior, as if they're buying a fire insurance policy. I got my fire insurance policy, I can go play with matches the rest of my life and they live the rest of their life thinking I'm covered because Jesus is my savior without submitting to his authority.

So I think whether you are an unbeliever or you know one believers or whether you're here today and you're one of those believers that you made that decision at one point that you look back to and put all your confidence in and you live as if you are the one who's completely in charge of your life.

I think Jesus speaks to us either way when we're here today, unbelievers, what you have in common with these men is that you probably know enough about Jesus to realize that he does make a claim upon your life. You know, you know in some sense that you will stand before him one day. You may not know this verse, but you know the truth behind it. You sense the truth behind it, John Five 27 because he is the son of man. God has given him the authority to judge all men.

We have some sense, some deep sense that we will have to answer one day for how we've lived our lives. And all we've said and all we've done. But here's the good news. As the son of God, he not only has the authority to judge, he has the authority. Mark Two 10 to forgive your sins and he has the authority. John 17 two to give you a terminal life. But if you're unwilling to accept the truth of who Jesus is, Luke 12 five he also has the authority to cast you into hell.

So do you see how authority is such a such a a , a wide, a wide spectrum. If you are open to him, even with your questions and even with your doubts and you come to him humbly, he by his authority, he answers you. He forgives your sins, he gives you a Turner life. But if you keep him at a distance or you keep all these false arguments, these false lack of evidence arguments up in front of you, he has the authority that if you die in that state to cast you into hell.

Believers, which you may have in common with these men is that you acknowledged some of who Jesus is the savior part, but not all of who he is. He is savior and he is Lord. He is king. He has authority over all of our lives and I know there's been books written back and forth about can you accept Jesus just as savior and not as Lord and I'm not going to get in the middle of that aisle other than to say this.

I worry about a person who is so concerned about saying you can claim Jesus as savior without claiming as Lord in order to justify living life exactly how they want to live it. I worry about whether that person is self deceived because I see Jesus, his claims of authority like he makes here and like we read over and over in scripture, so Jesus, his confrontation with these religious leaders highlights the central issue for all of us. For me, for you today, what is our final authority?

How are we going to decide those bigger questions? Like I mentioned at the beginning, how are we even going to decide the basic questions that we face every day and in their responses? I think we see the ways that we humanly decide who is the authority, the final authority over our lives first, I think we see the predominant way and that is that we all want to be our own authority.

I mean that's really in the the the the religious leaders expression in verse 31 if we say from heaven, he will say, well, why didn't you believe him? They realize in other words, at some level who he is and what he claims, but they ignore it. They deny it because they want to preserve their own power and control. If they admit that he truly is who he said he is, they have to admit he has the authority and that's you and me.

Just in modern circumstances that we have that temptation to want to be empowered to one , to be in control, to be our own authority. It's the, it's what's behind that word, autonomy. Do you know that word? It comes from two Latin roots, auto meaning self and no most meaning law. We want to be a law onto ourself. We want to rule ourselves. We want to govern. We want to decide. We want to choose with no one else over us. Autonomy and we live in a culture of increasing autonomy.

It's, it's, it's, you can see it in our music. I know this goes back a couple of decades, but Frank Sinatra, what is the song that he is probably most well known for? I did it my way. That is a statement that is a bold declaration of autonomy, of self , rule of self authority or maybe a few decades later, John Mellencamp, I fought authority and authority always wins. You know what's that a statement? Fight, authority, fight authority. Even if they keep prevailing over you. It's challenge.

Anyone who would rule over you and what we see in our culture and in our music goes all the way back to our first father and mother in the garden of Eden at the fall when Satan tempted our first mother, Eve, genesis three five you will be like God knowing good and evil. You can be like God. You can choose what is right and what is wrong for you. That's the prerogative of God and it can be your prerogative if you make this sinful decision. It's what we see in every culture all throughout time.

I love the, the way the , the culture and the time of the judges was described in the very last verse of judges, Judges 2125 everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Boy, is that a statement? Is that a description of our culture today? That is why God speaks again and again through the prophets. Like Jeremiah 1612 you stubbornly follow your own evil desires and you refuse to listen to me. He's condemning our autonomy. He's condemning our desire to want to be our own authority.

And yes, while that is certainly true of unbelievers, unbelievers boldly on an unabashedly say, yes, I want to rule my life, but how many who claim to be Christians really are , are , are ruled by their own desire to be in authority. There are two , uh , high-profile Christians may be , you've read in the last couple of weeks who have to some degree renounce the faith, and I won't mention the names other than to say one is a nationally known young pastor.

The other is an internationally known worship leader. And both not have only chose to leave the faith, but to very publicly do it and to talk about it on social media. And I don't know these men, of course, I don't know what is behind their decisions. I think a lot of that will come more and more to light, but I've known many people like them and it usually, actually, I think I can say this exclusively. It never happens over night . It's always a trajectory.

And that trajectory usually is in the direction. Will I really want to do this? I want to engage in this activity. I want to have this kind of relationship. I don't like these boundaries of God around me. I want to reject the boxes of God's authority because I want to go after that, and the easiest way to do that is reject that authority entirely. Maybe it's the most intellectually honest way to do it. How many of us are attempted to do that?

Our desires, what we really want that go beyond God's wise and good and loving boundaries draw us off somewhere out of the boundaries of God's authority. Each one of us this morning need to honestly ask ourselves, do I acknowledge Jesus as his authority over me? I am not questioning your salvation. If you made a decision at some point in your life to as Jesus into your heart as your savior, only God can know that and my experience is that's where it begins with with most people.

But I am worried about your salvation. If all your reliance is upon that initial decision and the rest of your life is lived with you and control and you calling the shots and you determining how that you're going to live, I'm at least very concerned about your salvation.

If that is the case you need, like I need to ask ourselves, do I acknowledge Jesus Christ's authority over me when my will, what I want to do, my desires when they conflict with Jesus's will, with what he says in his word, do I compromise or reject or do whatever necessary to go with my will and my desires or do I submit to his will even if I don't perfectly understand it ? That I think is the ultimate test. Well, for many of us, maybe it's not, you know, it's not that bold.

We want to be our own authority. Maybe it's the second to what I say, our fear of man is our authority and I see that in these religious leaders as well. In verse 32 it says they really didn't want to give them the honest answer, why they were afraid of the crowd. And we'll see that again in chapter 12 verse 12 they really didn't want to , they wanted to arrest Jesus, but they wouldn't because they were afraid of the crowd. They were afraid of the people.

So what is that honestly revealing to us? They really didn't have a fear of heaven, of God's authority, but they feared losing face in the public eye. They fear losing credibility with the people. Their pride was such that the worst thing that they could imagine was be to be publicly humiliated and humbled in some way. And it was this fear that govern what they did.

So think about that is that applies to us when what other people will think about us, when what other people's approval or disapproval shapes our choices shapes our behavior more than anything else. The Bible says we are governed by what proverbs nine calls the fear of man, the fear of man. Proverbs 29 25 is a snare. It is a trap, but the one who trusts in the Lord is protected or another way the Gospel writer John puts it this way.

John 1243 tell talking about many people they love the approval of men more than the approval of God. Is that where you are in your daily life? Well , I really want the approval of these people, of, of the, of my friends and or my family or the people I work with. I really want to be thought well of people's opinion of me really matters. Yeah, God's opinion matters. But you know, I gotta live with these people every day.

That is essentially a calculus that says the approval of men is more important than the approval of God. The fear of men of people is more important than the fear of God. By the way, if you struggle with that, I think many of us, maybe most or all of us have at least a little bit of a fear of man and us. Edward Welch has written a helpful book about this. When people are big and God is small, there is a description of the fear of man. People become big. God becomes small.

When we're primarily driven by the fear of man, other people become our functional authority, our choices, our actions become determine more and more by what other people are going to say or say or approve or disapprove. That is our funk. That becomes our functional authority and we are no more following God at that point. And the person who insists on personal autonomy. So again, I think each one of us needs to honestly ask ourselves this morning, do I acknowledge Jesus as authority over me?

Do I really fear and fear, I mean the sense of revere and honor him as King? Do I fear the Lord Jesus Christ more than I fear the approval, the opinions of people around me and when the will of other people, when other people are pressuring me with what I should think or what I should say or what I should do? If that conflicts with what Jesus would have me do is clearly revealed in his word. Do I submit to his authority or do I submit to their authority?

Every one of us need to wrestle through that question. Finally, many of us just try to dodge the issue to evade the issue. That is what they do in a verse 33 there they avoid the question of authority. They answered Jesus. We don't know and we've already said it's not like they don't know. They are unwilling to know and this is what many people do today. Maybe this is what you have done or are currently doing today.

You know well the truth about Jesus Christ and who he is, the truth about his exclusive Gospel, the truth that every man, woman will stand before Him in judgment someday I I'm not so sure what I think about that. Maybe I'm an agnostic. I just want to keep an open mind. Those are all the popular expressions of what these men are doing here. They are avoiding the question of authority. And it may be agnosticism or skepticism or being openminded that you call it.

But in reality, what you're doing when you go to one of those places is you are hardening yourself against God's truth. You are doing what Paul describes in Romans Chapter One 21 although you know God, you really know the truth of God. You're not glorifying him as God. You are not acknowledging him as the final authority. You're not giving thanks to him. And so Roman says, the result is your thinking will become feudal.

And boy is there a description of popular thought today or Romans one 25 you exchange the truth of God for a lie, for one of the many constantly evolving lies of our culture. So one more time. Each one of us here this morning beginning with me needs to ask ourselves, do I acknowledge the truth? Do I recognize Jesus Christ Lordship and his authority over me? Do I submit to his authority?

And if you're here this morning and you have not done so, you know, again, there's, there's hard news and there's good news. And again, I want to emphasize the good news. You open yourself to Jesus. No matter what doubts and what questions you bring to him and he opens himself to you. He opens himself with truth. He opens himself as his Holy Spirit begins to light up your life so that you can see the truth that is already there in front of you. He opens himself with forgiveness and grace.

He opens himself with the promise of eternal life. Let me close with this prayer. When we think of the Authority of Jesus Christ that Paul wrote in Philippians two Jesus humiliated at the cross, Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit says that's not the end of the story. God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

That is what is going to happen someday. All of us, every person who's ever lived will stand before him and those of us in the words of Phillips, Craig and Dean who have gladly received him. Now we will do so with joy. We will bow down. We will cast our crowns before him. We will claim him as Lord with joy in our voices, but those who rejected him to the very end, they will be forced to. They will be forced to admit what they can no longer deny any longer and then they will be cast into hell.

You have a choice. This is what will happen. Will you gladly choose him

And Lord I pray there is real fear in what's behind all of this, but before the fear is grace, and I pray that it is grace that you would call men and women even here today who have not received you as savior. And Lord, I pray that it is your grace. They would respond. It is your kindness that would lead to repentance. It is your long suffering in your great patients that they would respond to.

Lord, I pray that all of us would be warned about the danger of ignoring the reality that one day we will all stand before you to answer to you as savior in the answer you as Lord as king. Show us yourself, Lord Jesus as Savior. Show US yourself. Lord is king . We pray in your holy name. Amen.