John Gunter: This morning, we go from, Luke or from Mark. I'm I'm still in Luke and Acts from class. And we go from Mark, chapter 11, in verse 27, and we're gonna get on into, chapter 12 as well today. And so the the first reading today, and they came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, by what authority are you doing these things or who gave you this authority to do them? Jesus said to them, I will ask you one question, answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me. And they discussed it with one another saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, well, why then did you not believe him? But shall we say from man, They were afraid of the people. For they all held that John really was a prophet.
So, they answered Jesus, we do not know.' And Jesus said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.' And so, Jesus' ministry has been filled with people questioning Him, right? You've seen that over and over. And that's what we see today. By what authority are you doing these things or who gave you the authority to do them? And so, Jesus has been doing things that they see as different.
They see as, okay, He is trying to say He is the authority on there. And so, the question is a question not of I won't understanding. The question is a trap. Because if he says, again, as he says before, I am the son of god. Well, guess what?
That's blasphemy. We're gonna kill you. Right? And and so, I just wanna talk about for just a minute Jesus' authority because he has set this up, from Mark one, the beginning chapter of Mark, and they went into comp into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. Okay.
So Mark, in his telling of Jesus' ministry, starts here. That he teaches as one with authority and not like their normal scribes. Now, you need to understand what that means. So, what the scribes would do was not give you anything unique or new, not any any kind of new teaching from God or new understanding, but what they did really was regurgitate what they had heard, what had kind of been passed down, the traditions. And so they just kept the traditions going.
Alright? So, you can actually go and you can see some of these things. They kind of, put it into book form in the Mishnah around February. And so they actually had, like, kind of a standard thing. Well, what do you think on this?
Well, Rabbi so and so said this and so we just keep passing tradition down and so when the scribes taught, that's how they taught and and guess what? Our church, our churches still want that kind of thing sometime. Don't give me anything new. Give me what I'm comfortable with, right? And so, anything new sounds like, oh, okay.
There there's some kind of new teaching or new authority. We want what we've already gotten. Sometimes, that's great and sometimes it's not, Right? Can we say that? You seen that before?
Yeah. And so, Jesus, when he's teaching, they notice, they recognize that what he is doing is not the normal thing from the scribes. He is giving them, this is the word of God. You you've misunderstood it. Remember, there are times where Jesus said, well, you have heard it said, but I say.
And, of course, some of the hearers heard that and changed their lives. Some of them said, what kind of pompous guy is this? That he's going to change what I have known to be true, right? And so that's the misunderstanding, that's the, coming into butting heads with Jesus and who he is and what he's teaching. It says, And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, what do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.' So when they ask, By what authority do you do these things? Mark has already told you, even the demons know by what authority he does these things, right? They know that you are the Holy One of God, which, again, in the Gospels, is kind of this funny, almost running joke. It's kind of funny that the outsiders, the people that are not the religious church people, are the ones who understand who Jesus is.
Even the demons believe, right, and they shudder, right? Okay? Who are you, the Holy One of God? What would you have to do with us? And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent and come out of him!
And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, What is this? A new teaching with authority? He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him. So this is not just a guy claiming something, this is a guy who, when he teaches, when he does things, proves that he has authority.
That even the demonic spirit within the guy says, you are the Holy One of God. What we see in verse nine of the same chapter, in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when He came up out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, You are My beloved Son. With you, I am well pleased.
By what authority does Jesus do all of these things? God. And God says, for all who could hear in the moment, This is my Son. This is the person I have sent. This is the authority that Jesus has.
Now, the the question is, as Jesus looks at them, he doesn't answer that. Again, in verse 29 of Mark 11, he says, I will ask you one question, answer me, and I will tell you by what authority do these things. I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.
You hear the authority in that? Somebody tells you answer me. You go, hold up. Back up just so you're a little aggressive this morning. Right?
Answer me. But that that's what Jesus is showing. He's not backing down from this. Answer me. Alright?
You brought me a question. Alright. You answer me this. Okay? And and they discussed it with one another saying, alright.
We say from heaven, he'll say, why did you not believe him? And if we if we say for man, they were afraid of the people, they all held that John was a prophet. And so why go back to John? Why does Jesus go back to John the Baptist to kind of have them answer this question? Well, notice what what what John well, they answered Jesus, we don't know.
And Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority. So Jesus says, alright. If you can't answer me, I'm not going to answer you. Because this is this is what John did and and to begin Mark's gospel, Mark starts with John the Baptist. And it says, in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the beginning, this is what Mark wants he sees as important to start with.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, as check your Bible. That's what Mark's saying. Check your Bible as it's written in Isaiah. Scroll over there. Right?
Go over there. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So Mark sets this up.
Isaiah has said there's going to be one who who sets the table for the Messiah. And then he says, and John appeared in the wilderness. Okay, you see what he's setting up? Okay, here he is. He's preparing this way.
It said, And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey, and we like to hang on to that. That's so weird. Right? And he preached saying, after me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
I have baptized you with water, then he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. What John does and what John repeats over and over in his ministry is, I am not him. I am baptizing. I am calling people to repentance, but I am not Him. I am preparing the way, I am setting the table for the one who comes after me.
And so, the question is, as they came, came back to this, let me get back to where we were here, when Jesus asked this question about John, again, they have to huddle up. They come together because, again, John has never claimed, you know, John is the one preparing the way. He is the prophet, the one crying in the wilderness, but he's not him. And the people, again, they are taking John as a real prophet, as you see there in verse 32. But notice the religious leaders.
The religious leaders are not at all interested in what is the truth. You notice that? In their discussion among themselves, it never comes up, what do we really think? What is the truth? The question is, what is safe for us to say?
Because if we say from heaven, he's gonna get us. He's gonna say, well, if you think he's from heaven, why are you not following John? What did John say? Jesus is coming. I'm preparing the way for him.
God's Messiah. So why would you stand in the way of that? Right? But if we say, for man, well, they were afraid of the people for they all held that John was a prophet. And so the concern in the moment is not about what is true or right, The concern in the moment is how do I save face or how do I save something safe that people don't look at me differently?
And guess what? We still do those things in church. I have people, I feel like, as I was studying for this, I'm like, man, I've had these conversations before. Because someone will come up with a question, Why do you do this? And when you ask that question back, Well, why this?
Then it's just anger and mad, like, I don't want to answer that. Because I'm not concerned, you know, I've come to you, and it seems like I want to appear like I care about the truth, but I really don't. What I care about is either I get my way or that you'll change, which means I get my way or, you know, whatever, which is exactly the way they approach Jesus. And so it seems kind of catty that Jesus ends with, well, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Like, okay, well you're not gonna say, I'm not gonna say.
But really what Jesus is doing is is saying, well you wouldn't accept what God has done before this. Why are you going to accept what God is doing right now? You've already rejected John, which they know, right? We get the insight. I'd love to know how Mark comes to know this, right?
He's got an insider. He's got a mole. I've been watching some CIA or declassified secrets lately. Sorry, I'm on that kick. So that's that's what I go to now.
At one point during the first Bush's term, we opened we opened up, to the Russians where we didn't even follow them around in our, secret places, and they put a bug in the place. Guess what, you know? That's what I feel like, you know? There's a bug in here. But we get the insight, we understand their heart, and we know that that kind of thing still happens, right?
That we go into things and our heart is just not right. We want to appear as if our hearts are right, but we really don't care about the truth. And so they end up answering the safest thing they can answer is, we don't know. And you probably heard it said, if you don't want any problems in life, don't do anything or something to that effect? Because as soon as you put yourself out there, as soon as you say something, as soon as you stand before people especially, well then, we've got a target on our back.
You've got an opportunity for people to attack. Why you said that? One time I called my parents, my grandparents, in a sermon. Everybody starts laughing, and I have no idea why they're laughing, because I've just called my parents, my grandparents. I made them older than they were.
But every time you stand or you make a stance or you speak, you make that target bigger, right? And that's what Jesus has done, that's why they're approaching him. Why are you doing all of these things? What he's doing is he's infringing upon their territory. Remember, this is an early thirties rabbi, right, going up against these older men in the faith, right, that have kept the faith, that the people have looked up to, that they have, been the teachers of the law, even though, as you said, they knew the scribes didn't speak with authority, but that's what they got, and then this young, kind of upstart teacher is causing all of these problems.
One thing we didn't read, as we went through Mark in the same chapter, you have the triumphal entry where Jesus comes into Jerusalem where people, remember, are throwing palm leaves down and everything and singing Hosanna, right? Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And they're they're they're seeing Jesus come in as the Messiah. And so that's great for us, but the religious leaders of the time said, who does he think he is? And they were hardhearted.
We pray for open minds and open hearts. Right? Because we don't wanna be there. We don't want to have this closed off way where the Messiah was standing in their midst and they said, No, thank you. We'd like to think that all of us in this room, if Jesus was here today, we'd accept him and follow him, right?
You know, those people over there, you guys are thinking those people, they wouldn't follow him, and y'all are thinking those people wouldn't follow him, right? And the thing is, we would probably all be skeptical, we would have the same some would follow, some would have faith, and some wouldn't. Well, that's what Jesus is saying, is you have already rejected what God has done. Now, again, it says that a lot of the people knew and they believed that John was who he said he was. But Jesus said, You have not done this.
This. And so, when they say, We do not know, Jesus said, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Jesus has shown over and over the way he cast out demons, the way he healed sicknesses, the way he calmed storms, the way he walked on the water. Do you think he has authority? He's shown you in every single thing that he has done that he has authority, not over this one little thing, but over everything.
Because God has given it to him. This is my son, God says. And so you have a choice. Do I want to believe that or do I not? And so Jesus said, If you reject it, I'm not going to tell you.
In Mark 12, Jesus, it seems like, goes from what we have just read, and for why we have a chapter break here, I don't know, but it seems like Jesus goes right into, this section here. And so, and He began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country. And when the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty handed.
Well, that's wonderful. Any of you own land? Anybody ever hired someone to work that land? Can you imagine going back to your own land and getting beaten? Right?
And having people take over that stuff? No, I hope not. But this is a normal situation that Jesus is setting up in this parable. That there would have been people who lived way off that would have had others tending to their, cropland, farmland, and basically there were some, land laws that you had to produce something, you had to get something from that to be able to retain possession of your land. Okay?
And so part of this was, so I continue ownership, I need to produce something. Now that may be foreign to us, but that was common to them. And so what he's doing, he's asking for, we've done all this work, now I need some of the produce, some of the fruit of the land. And, okay, so, they took him and beat him and sent him away empty handed. Jesus continues, And again, he sent them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully.
Now, we don't know exactly the, the Greek word there. It's like struck him on the head, and we the the shamefully remember, this is an honor, shame culture. And so we don't know if somebody just walked up to him, slapped him on the face. Right? It just made oh, man.
It just created this shame, like, you are you're worth nothing. I'm just gonna slap I'm not even gonna close my feet. I'm just gonna slap you. Probably something along those lines. Right?
And he said he sent another, and him, they killed. First of all, Jesus, why why is why is it that you're leasing this land to these people who kill folks? I I don't know. That's what that's what set up. Alright?
Beat the servant. Beat another servant. Alright. We're gonna kill this other one. And so with many others, some they beat and some they kill.
Well, I'd hate to be on Craigslist and find the opening for this. I need a servant to run down there real quick. By the way, the last few hadn't come back, but I'm not sure where they are. But he said, and he had still one other, a beloved son. Finally, he sent him to them saying, they will respect my son, but those tenants said to one another, this is the heir.
Come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. Now, does this sound ridiculous to you? It should. That's the point of it. The point of it is that it sounds ridiculous that that the owner of the land would continue to send people to get beaten or killed.
Right? It's ridiculous that the tenants of the land would be beating and killing servants. Right? It's ridiculous to think that the owner of the land would think, I've got a son. You know, they killed and beat all my servants.
They'll respect my son. Sure. And that sounds ridiculous and it should because that's the way Jesus is telling it. Okay? But again, the answer, what we get is, but those tenants said to one another, this is the heir.
Come let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. Because again, if we kill all the family, the land's ours. We own it. Right? I get to take it.
It says, And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
This was the lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eye. And they were seeking to arrest him, but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them, so they left him and went away. The smartest thing they could do because that's exactly what happened. What Jesus is doing is Jesus is repeating their history to them. Because remember, we just talked about John the Baptist, you ignored him.
They know Jesus knows what they're thinking. Well, if we say this, then this. We say this, then this. So we don't know. Well, Jesus tells a parable about how God has sent prophet after prophet to them and what have they done with that?
Rejected it. And so the owner, we know to be God, says, you know what I'll do? I'll send my son. I'm the most prized person in my life, right? My son, they'll love him, right?
No. And so Jesus, without saying it, without saying what authority, is saying, I am that son of the father, and what you're seeking to do is kill me. Now, what you think in the moment is that if we kill him, if we do away with this issue that has cropped up, alright, I'll get my way. In the parable, I'll get the land. Things will go back to normal.
Right? We don't like all this uprising, we don't like this new teaching, we don't like all this new stuff, so we want to go back to where it was. And if we kill him, that's what will happen. He says, What will happen when the son is killed? And he says, The father will destroy and give to others.
Well, guess what, church? You're looking at the others this morning. You're looking at the other nations. When we say Gentiles, it means nations, other people, everybody else. Because for a lot of the religious people that were sitting here hearing this trying to trap Jesus, they would ultimately reject him.
And so when Jesus tells this parable, he's talking not only about them, but he's talking about us. But he's not just giving it to us, we still have a choice to make, don't we? That we either accept or reject, we choose to believe whether or not he has authority, and what do we do with that? Because we can sit here and we can just go along with things, we can play church, or we can be serious about it. We can really believe that Jesus has authority, and we can change our lives because of it.
Or you can come and you can try to fake it, and try to act like you want the truth, and go back home and know that's not really what you wanted. What we got this morning was the insight into what people were thinking. What if all of our inner thoughts were laid in front of us this morning? How many of you are sprinting for the door right now? Right?
Whether my your mind has been in somewhere else. Right? You've got something to do today, and you hadn't listened to a word, and you're feeling bad about that. Or you're upset about the discussion you had on the way to church or something that happened yesterday, something that needs to happen in your family. We can be all over the place, but at the end of the day, we want to come back to this and say, okay, this is mean something to me.
We look around at the culture, and you've heard me say this before, we think the culture is no longer spiritual. The culture is spiritual, but what they want is authenticity. And man, what I don't want to do and what I will not do is come here and play church. You want to do something real? Let's be a part of it right here.
We want to call people to better things. We're not calling people just to sit in a pew on Sunday morning. I love that you are here. I hope we fill these things up soon. We have been having good crowds, great worship, I am uplifted.
But I would rather have a few people that are serious and authentic than a full house of people who are fake. A full house of people who are inwardly thinking, I don't really care about the truth, just tell me what I want to hear so I can go home. I don't play like that. Because I take the word of God very seriously. And so, if I take the word of God seriously, that means I give authority to Jesus and the words that I find there.
And that doesn't mean we say, Hey, that's great, and go on about our day. We have to allow those words to change us. It changes how we live, it changes how we speak, it changes how we interact with one another, it changes how we forgive one another. That we humble ourselves, that we come and, Yeah, it's hard, maybe I have to say I was wrong. Oh, I don't like that.
I don't have to do it much because I'm always right, but I know some of y'all. Right? That's how it feels sometimes. I just can't do it. I'm not used to it.
But the authority given to Jesus should change everything about everyone in this room. Now, what I don't mean this morning is that you should be sitting here feeling guilty, knowing I've done this, I did this this week. Hey, I understand. We're not going to be perfect. You understand that?
Kids, what you need to understand is those kids that are in the room, you're not going to be perfect. We baptized Trace this week, and and Trace, I I don't want to speak out of school, but but you you said something to me that I hear all the time. Trace said, I I kept waiting until I got it figured out before I was baptized. And guess what? You do that?
Now you've baptized people who've been baptized a long time, you ever going to get there? You're never going to get that perfection, are you? But what we do is we cling to a savior. Because we can't do it on our own. But Jesus, who has the authority, can handle everything.
That when you are baptized, that you repent and are baptized, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That God, again, is not out here somewhere just away from you. That God has chosen to come and live inside you and help guide your life. Do you need that? I need that.
I want that. Sometimes it feels like, oh, I need God, you're gonna have to give me a bigger dose today because I'm not exactly sure where to go. But I know he's there, and I know the spirit will lead me. And I don't want to be like those people, just trying to find the the trap, trying to go against my brother or sister and and find what they've said that I can just say, oh, I don't want to grow real, authentic relationships. And again, if we have a church like that, we're going to have to find a bigger place.
So you've got to decide this morning, and every morning, but let's get serious. Do I want to be a part of that? Do I want to have a hand in creating that kind of culture in a place like this? You talk about refreshing. That's what I've been lately.
I I hope you guys have come in here and left on the mountain top as I have, but that's the way I felt. And I think that's the way you feel when you walk into a room, you know, those people love you. And loving people doesn't mean you're always going to agree. Y'all know that? So if you walk out thinking, well, I'd like to love him, but he just doesn't think like I do.
I don't think you understand love. Married people, yeah, We disagree. But we love each other because of Jesus. And we come around and when we figure out we had the discussion over at the McCartneys the other night, and one of the questions was, what are the non negotiables? What are the non negotiables where if you believe this, I just can't be with you?
And, Rebecca said something like, my non negotiables are so high and so few, and I agree completely with it. Is there a lot of things we're going to disagree on? How you parent your kids? You know, all all the different things in life that come up that, you may disagree. Even interpretations of scripture.
You understand that? Scholars who do this all the time, who know all the languages that I have compared to them, I've only dabbled. They disagree sometimes, and we're going to do that. The non negotiables are high. They are Jesus, right?
Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Jesus has the authority, right? The Word of God. We're gonna go there. And all that other stuff, we can work out and we can love each other.
And we can say something like, well, I disagree. Let's go have lunch. Let's go eat together. Let's go break bread together because we love one another and we're part of God's body. So this morning, we're just gonna ask you, are you authentic?
Have you strayed from the path? Jesus is there. He's told us that god is like a father waiting with his arms wide open ready for you to come. We have a a time of invitation where we'd love to pray with you. We'd we'd love to have the, aisles filled up this morning.
That we come and ask for prayer but if if that's not good for you, if if you're, worried about that, what I want you to do again is find someone who loves you and cares for you that you know in this place, that will hold you accountable. Again, authenticity. Not just pat you on the back and say, oh, it's fine. It holds you accountable. Do that this morning because what I want to do is have us all right with God.