We don't like it when people interfere with our lives,
especially when we don't believe that they have the right to do so.
By nature, we have an authority issue.
Even when they're doing something that exponentially benefits us,
like organizing our clothes in the right way to make it easier for us to find what we need
and to wear what actually fits.
We take offense when other people exercise some type of control or they correct us in some way.
And this is rebellion, isn't it?
It's our rebellious nature, and it shows up in different ways.
Sometimes this rebellion shows up in a resistance against what others are saying.
It's a determination that I don't care how right they are or how much better this would be for me.
I'm not going to listen to what they have to say because who are they to try to correct me?
Who are they to try to tell me what to do?
That's how it's revealed, maybe more often as we're younger, but perhaps as we get older as well.
There's another way that this reveals itself, too, in our hearts.
When we become envious, when we see that there's another person at work or there's another person maybe in the church
or another person in our home or in our lives, and they seem to have more authority than we have,
and they seem to exercise more influence than we have, and we get envious of them,
not because they're bad or because they're wrong or because they're causing us problems,
just because they have more authority than us, and we don't want to have to submit to anybody's authority except our own.
And that's exactly the position that these rulers in Israel were finding themselves at this point in Mark's gospel.
For them, Jesus is no longer a distant Galilean problem.
They're being confronted by him and by his teaching and by his actions every day in the temple now.
Two days before this, Jesus rides on a donkey into the entrance of Jerusalem
while a crowd of people are singing his praises and shouting his praises,
claiming and believing that he is their deliverer, that he is the one that they want to follow now.
And then the next day, he has the audacity to go into the temple,
and as he goes into the temple, he starts to flip over the money-changing stations,
and he's chasing out all the merchants that these leaders had put in place.
He's ruining every effort that they have of trying to have a successful business
and exploit the people of God and the purposes of God.
He's now in their face, and he's getting in their way.
He's now entered their turf, and he's making a wreck of everything they had established for themselves there.
And Jesus had their attention.
And their urgency now to have him killed is intensified greater than we've seen it anywhere in Mark's gospel up to this point.
And this text records for us the first of a series of confrontations between Jesus and these men,
and these confrontations are going to take us all the way through the end of chapter 12.
And the overarching theme here, especially in this section, but really in the whole thing,
the overarching theme is this issue of authority.
And it's the explicit theme of verses 27 and chapter 11 all the way through verse 12 of chapter 12.
This is really that whole span is this same interaction.
We're just not going to get to the second part until next week.
And I want to point out to you here at this point a particular word that's used in these verses
that I think will be helpful for us to have some understanding and application in particular.
The word is authority.
And I have on the screen for you how we would define this from its original language.
Authority is how we interpret it in English.
The Greek word here is exousia.
Exousia.
And it means to have the right to govern, to control, to exercise dominion over something or someone or some process.
That's repeated in this section.
This is the word that they keep saying.
These Pharisees or whoever it is else that's a part of this group,
they come up and, and who has given you the exousia to do these things?
And Jesus tells them at the end of it, you answer my question and I'll tell you who has given me the exousia.
The, the authority, the right to govern over all these things and to control them and to exercise dominion,
even over you.
And the point of conflict in this text is the religious leaders challenged to Jesus.
His, their challenge to his right to teach what he was teaching
and to act as if he was the one that had control over the temple procedures in particular.
And so as they witnessed the crowds continue to flock to Jesus and begin to accept what he was doing,
these men found that his exousia was a threat to their own.
And for their influence and power to remain, Jesus's authority would have to be denied
and Jesus himself would have to be destroyed.
And this is the setup in Mark's gospel.
As we're going through chapter 12, this is the setup for Mark's gospel for Jesus's trial and execution
that's going to come in just a few chapters.
And as we read through this, your first thought may not be that it's a complicated passage,
it's really not that complex, it's, it's pretty simple.
And you may find it to be informative as it contributes to the overall narrative of Mark's gospel.
But you may be wondering, what exactly does this interaction between Jesus and these men have to do with me?
What is so significant about this that we should take time to study it on a Sunday morning?
What does it matter to me?
How is it going to affect my life today?
And what I want to show you this morning is that Jesus's authority over the temple and its rulers
is the same authority that he has over you.
It's the same.
And just as these men sought to destroy Jesus in order to preserve their own power,
so do we very often seek to destroy or ignore Christ's lordship in favor of our own lordship over our own lives.
But because of who he is, Jesus indeed has the right to govern, control,
and exercise dominion over your life and mine.
And that authority demands our faith and also our obedience.
The first thing I want you to see here as we look at verses 27 and 28 is his authority resisted.
His authority resisted.
Look at verse 27.
So there's three groups of people that have combined as a single delegation here.
We're told that it's the chief priest, the scribes, and the elders.
All three groups would have made up what was known as the great Sanhedrin.
But we throw that word out there sometimes.
I don't know that I've ever really described it to you.
The Sanhedrin was a governing body in Israel.
It consisted of 71 men, and they all came from the three groups that were listed here in verse 27.
The Sanhedrin had full power, complete power, when it came to the religious affairs of the people of Israel.
And it had significant power, though restricted, when it came to the political matters relating to Rome.
And in this case, the council itself is sending a delegation.
This isn't all 71 men, most likely.
This is a representative delegation of those men.
And they've been sent to Jesus specifically to confront him in this way in the temple.
This would be similar to one of us being personally confronted by a united delegation
from both or from all the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government in the United States.
This is like the vice president with a few congressmen, along with a couple of Supreme Court justices,
confronting us after service today to let us know they don't appreciate very much what we're preaching,
and they don't appreciate very much the way that we're behaving in regards to our faith.
Jesus, in this moment, is not up against a few rogue agents in the religious establishment.
He's against the establishment itself now.
These are not just a few of them that are irritated.
This is not a few power-hungry men.
This is the entire establishment of politics and religion in the nation of Israel
that are now coming to Jesus and threatening him and trying to destroy him.
And as they approached the Lord, they issued this public challenge, demanding his credentials, essentially.
Who said you could do these things?
But the conflict of authority wasn't a new one in this relationship.
This exact issue has been simmering for a while, and it's only just now coming to a boiling point
now that Jesus is in Jerusalem and he's in the temple and he's doing these things.
I want to just walk you through, just briefly, some passages that we've already looked at in Mark's gospel
that deal with this simmering issue.
In fact, flip with me a few pages to chapter 1.
Mark chapter 1.
Jesus' public ministry has only just begun in Galilee.
And I want you to look with me at verse 22.
And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority
and not as the scribes.
Let's get down to verse 27.
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.
I want you to think for just a second what's happening in that passage.
Remember, authority is excusia.
It's the same word here.
Now, what they're referring to when they're talking about Jesus' teaching
and when they're talking about his power over demons,
they're not talking about the power itself.
This is not the word for an ability to do something.
They're not shocked by Jesus' ability to teach
and his ability to cast out demons.
If that was the case, they would have used a different word,
the word dunamis.
Dunamis is used all throughout the Gospels as well.
It's a reference to his specific power to act.
It's the same word we get dynamite from.
It's explosive power, ability to act.
That's not the words they're using here.
Here they're using the word excusia.
In other words, when they hear Jesus teach,
they're saying he teaches us as if he has the right to teach us.
He is teaching us as if he is the one who actually has the right
to tell us what to do and what not to do.
And by the way, this is markedly different than how the scribes teach.
Now, do you think if you were a scribe in that particular prayer meeting
in the synagogue that day,
you'd be a little bothered by the estimation of the people?
Of course.
Because up to that point, as a scribe,
you've been the one with the authority to teach.
You've been the one that everybody was supposed to listen to.
But now they hear Jesus, and they don't care about the scribe anymore.
This guy, there's something about the way he's teaching,
and we like it.
There is uniqueness here.
There is exousia here.
And then immediately after, he's confronted by this demon-possessed man.
And what does Jesus do?
He cast out the demon.
And what was their estimation of that miracle?
Not dunamis, exousia.
He not only has the power to cast out demons,
he has the right to control demons.
It's authority.
And the tension begins between Jesus and these scribes.
Flip over to chapter 2 now.
You remember this story?
The four men, they bring their paralytic friend to Jesus,
and they tear open the roof, and they drop him down.
Look at verse 7.
As soon as the man comes down, Jesus says,
Your sins are forgiven.
Here's how the religious leaders responded.
Why does this man speak like that?
He's blaspheming.
Who can forgive sins but God alone?
And what is it that Jesus says?
Verse 10.
That you may know that the Son of Man has exousia on earth to forgive sins.
Not just the power to forgive sin, but the right to exercise that power.
He says that you may know that I have this authority.
He said to the paralytic,
I say to you, rise up, pick up your bed, and go home.
Don't you think the Pharisees and the scribes that were in that prayer meeting,
do you think they were very pleased by that?
No.
So the tension continues to build.
Look again at chapter 2.
Verse 24 this time of chapter 2.
Pharisees didn't like very much that Jesus and his disciples were plucking grain
from the corners of the field on the Sabbath day.
Verse 24.
The Pharisees were saying to him,
Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?
Verse 28.
Jesus says,
The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
What's he getting at there?
Well, he doesn't use excusia there, but he basically does.
He says, listen, I created the Sabbath.
I am Lord over the Sabbath.
I can do with it what I want to do with it.
I have that right.
Chapter 3.
Verse 1.
Just after that, they bring in the man with the withered hand.
And again, he entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand.
And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.
They're already irritated with him.
They want to destroy him.
Verse 6.
The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him.
How to destroy him.
Why?
Because he healed a man on the Sabbath.
And he made them look foolish in the process.
Not because he intended to make them look foolish, but they stepped into it.
Chapter 7.
I know what you're thinking, Jared.
We've already been through all this.
It's taken us a year and a half to do it.
It's going to take us a year and a half to do it again.
Just this morning, it feels like.
This is the last one.
Chapter 7, verse 5.
The Pharisees and the scribes asked him,
Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?
Now understand this question.
What are they asking?
Why aren't you and your disciples submitting to our authority?
That's the question.
They didn't ask him why they weren't obeying the word of God.
Because they weren't.
They wanted to know, why aren't you following our rules?
And he said to them,
Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites?
As it's written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men, Jesus says.
So we can see now how this issue of authority has been simmering for a long time.
And Jesus is no longer that distant problem in the backwoods of the Galilean region.
That's not what Jesus is anymore for these men.
And the catalyst for this confrontation in chapter 11 was the praise-filled entry into Jerusalem,
and then the subsequent clearing of the temple.
And these men were coming to Jesus in the temple, and they were essentially asking him,
Who or what gives you the right to teach these things and interfere with our lives?
What gives you the right, Jesus, to tell us how we're supposed to run things here at the temple?
And it's the same question that all of us have asked at some point,
and maybe you're asking today, as you resist and rebel against Christ's authority in your life.
What gives Jesus the right to tell me what to do with my life?
What gives him the right to tell me who or when I can have a sexual relationship?
What gives him the right to tell me what I should do with my money?
What gives Jesus the right to tell me what I can do with my body?
And so on and so forth are questions.
What gives him the right to tell me how I should worship,
and who I should worship with, and when I should worship?
He's interfering with my life.
The root of all these questions is very seldom a genuine curiosity.
The root of these questions is unbelief.
It's unbelief, and it's rebellion.
We don't want anybody telling us what to do, even if it's God himself.
And so it was with this delegation.
They weren't genuinely seeking for an answer from Jesus.
They were trying to issue this public challenge as a means to trap him.
And the trap is this.
They would have public justification for his execution,
and they would preserve their own form of corrupt authority
if they could just get Jesus to say the words out loud that they wanted him to say.
This is all about political rhetoric for them now.
Think about it.
The authority that Jesus had demonstrated in his teaching and in his miracles
could only come from one place.
There is no question about that.
The people knew that.
These men in this delegation knew that.
There's only one possible source for this,
and that is God himself.
But if they could just get him to attribute publicly his authority to God,
they could then bring a charge of blasphemy against him,
which was punishable by death.
That's what they wanted him to say.
They wanted him to say it out loud.
And it's the very charge with which they condemned him later in the week
when they sentenced him to death by the cross.
And let's be honest.
Their rebellion isn't really all that different from ours.
We try to set the same traps,
maybe not quite as blatantly as these men.
You say, well, how am I setting a trap in this way?
We set a trap when we diminish the word of God in our lives.
We say, I don't have to listen to any kind of authority
if I take the one source of authority that I have in the word of God
and I just kind of cast it off to the side
or if I change it to say what I want it to say.
Or if I just ignore it or if I find a church
that isn't going to deal with it like this
and they're just going to try to help me be a better person in my life
and we begin to diminish the word of God
and the significance of the word of God.
We begin to question the authority of it.
We begin to question the inerrancy of it
and we begin to question all these things.
That's a way of us setting a trap to say,
Jesus, you don't have any right over me.
We set a trap when we cheapen our worship.
We make our worship about us
and what we can receive out of it.
We become consumers by it
and we choose our churches
based on which one we like better
when they're decorating their buildings
and when they're gathering their bandmates
and they're doing all their things
and we cheapen our worship
so that it's not about the Lord
and we set this trap.
It's all a trap to make us the God of our lives
as opposed to submitting to the Lordship of Christ in our lives.
We set this trap when we reject the community
and the fellowship of the local church.
We say, I'm fine with Jesus
but I don't want any of his people telling me what to do.
I don't need that kind of accountability.
I belong to Jesus.
I don't belong to anybody else.
We become rogue agents ourselves.
And what is that really all about?
We're diminishing Christ's authority in our lives.
We're setting the traps.
We see his authority resisted.
Number two in verse 29,
we see his authority then revealed.
His authority revealed.
Now, you may be thinking,
removed from the hard-hearted rebellion,
this is actually a pretty good question.
What is exactly the source of Jesus's authority?
How can we trust that authority and know it?
That's a good question.
And it's one we need to answer.
And the key to understanding his authority
is to recognize his identity.
The key to understanding Jesus's authority
is to recognize his identity.
And that is the essence of his answer to these men.
And in a sense,
he's setting a trap of his own here.
The difference was,
he wasn't trying to destroy these men by his trap.
He was trying to lead them to truth.
That's what's happening.
At first, his answer may seem evasive,
but it's not evasive.
It's actually very revelatory.
And using this wisdom
that is characteristic of Jesus,
he leads them on a path
of understanding his identity
so that they would open their eyes
to his true authority.
And if you have ears to hear this morning,
you too can understand and believe this.
Look at verse 29.
Jesus said to them,
I will ask you one question.
Answer me and I'll 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,
why then did you not believe him?
But shall we say from man?
They're afraid of the people.
For they all held that John really was a prophet.
So Jesus made a deal.
If they would give him an honest answer
to his question,
he would give them a straightforward answer
for theirs.
And there's so much wisdom here
in this response.
But part of the wisdom that we see here
is that the right answer to his question
is the right answer to their question.
Do you see that?
Jesus took their minds back
three years
to the ministry of John the Baptist.
His question,
was John's ministry
ordained by God
or contrived by man?
So contrived by John,
was it just John being a lunatic in the desert
or was God actually doing something there?
Was he commissioned by God for this task?
Was what he said true?
And we did a thorough study of this in chapter one.
You can reflect back on that online if you'd like.
The unique feature of John's ministry
was his preaching of repentance from sin
and then his baptism of those
who would confess and believe that message.
That's the unique feature of what John did,
but it wasn't John's purpose.
Remember?
John's purpose
was to be the forerunner of the Christ.
His purpose was to proclaim
that the Messiah has come.
He was preparing the hearts of the people
to be ready when that Messiah came.
So God didn't send John to baptize people.
God sent John to proclaim Jesus.
And John's preaching and his baptism,
they were signs of his identity,
but his real purpose was to proclaim the Messiah.
And even John had his own run-in
with these authority figures in Israel.
Flip over to John chapter one.
Gospel of John chapter one.
Let's look at a few verses here,
beginning at verse 19.
John chapter one in verse 19.
This is important.
Pay attention here, okay?
John chapter one, verse 19.
This is the testimony of John
when the Jews sent priests and Levites
from Jerusalem to ask him,
who are you?
That sounds familiar, doesn't it?
There's a delegation coming from the leaders,
and what are they asking?
Who are you?
And who gives you the right to do this?
He confessed and did not deny,
but confessed, I am not the Christ.
And they asked him, what then?
Are you Elijah?
He said, I'm not.
Are you the prophet?
And he answered, no.
So they said to them, who are you?
We need to give an answer to those who sent us.
What do you say about yourself?
And he said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.
Make straight the way of the Lord,
as the prophet Isaiah said.
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees,
and they asked him, then why are you baptizing
if you are neither the Christ nor Elijah nor the prophet?
And John answered them, I baptize with water.
There is no real significance to my water baptism,
but among you stands one you do not know.
Even he who comes after me,
the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.
And these things took place in Bethany across the Jordan
where John was baptizing.
And the next day, he saw Jesus coming toward him,
and he said, behold, the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world.
This is he of whom I said, after me
comes a man who ranks before me
because he was before me.
I myself did not know him,
but for this purpose, I came baptizing with water
that he might be revealed to Israel.
And John bore witness.
I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove,
and it remained on him.
I myself did not know him,
but he who sent me to baptize with water said,
he on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain.
This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
And I have seen and have borne witness,
John said, that this is the Son of God.
You see, what is John's purpose?
Not to baptize people in the river.
His purpose was not to baptize the population in the Jordan.
His purpose was to introduce the nation to its Savior.
And the people were convinced
of the validity of John's ministry.
But notice how Mark emphasized
what the focus of their thoughts were.
Look back at Mark chapter 11.
Why were they afraid of the people?
For all the people held that John really was a what?
A prophet.
When the people thought about John,
they didn't think about a preacher of repentance first.
They didn't think about a baptizer first.
They thought prophet first.
And what was the nature of John's prophecy?
Jesus is the Christ.
Jesus is the Son of God.
It's he that has come to redeem us and to save us.
He is the Lamb of God slain for the sins of the world.
God.
To acknowledge the authority of John's ministry
was to recognize the supreme authority of Jesus.
Do you see why this was so wise of Jesus?
He wasn't seeking to destroy these men.
He's leading them to truth here.
Guys, think about John for a second, he says.
Did he make all that stuff up?
Or was that from God?
If they would just answer him honestly,
they would have the very answer
that they came to him looking for.
Because as Sinclair Ferguson said,
to acknowledge that John's baptism was God-ordained
would be to confess that Jesus was the Christ.
And Jesus' question puts these men in a difficult position.
Should they affirm John's ministry?
They would have to admit what they suspected was true of Jesus.
They'd have to admit that Jesus actually did have this authority.
But if they blatantly denied John's baptism,
they set themselves in opposition to the general public.
Luke's account said they were worried
the people were going to stone them
because the people would have seen this
as rejecting one's sin from God,
which was in itself blasphemy
and worthy of death.
So they couldn't just say no.
They couldn't say from man.
Do you see how Jesus' response here
was intended to reveal his authority?
Just as Jesus did for those hard-hearted men,
he has given us all the truth that we need
to believe and follow him.
All the evidence of Jesus' identity and authority and grace
is provided for us in the pages of the Bible.
And his right to govern, control,
and exercise dominion in our lives
is found in the fact of his identity,
that he indeed is the Son of God.
Although the authority of the Sanhedrin
was derived from man,
Jesus' supreme authority comes from his very nature.
The fact that Jesus is God.
He is your creator.
And if you're a believer,
he's also your redeemer.
No matter how you look at this,
no matter how you shake it up,
the only solution when you come to Jesus
is to at least recognize that he is Lord.
And who are we?
Who are we to look at the Lord
and say, don't tell me what to do?
Who are we to look at our creator and say,
who gave you the right to tell me
who I can sleep with and who I can't sleep with?
Who gave you the right to tell me
when I need to go to church
and how involved I need to be with my church?
Who gave you the right to tell me
how to live my life?
He has that right by sure essence of his very nature
and who he is as God and creator and redeemer.
No matter what you do, he is Lord.
And his identity demands our faith and obedience.
And how do the men respond here?
Verse 33.
33.
They huddled.
This must have been humorous to the disciples, right?
Jesus asked this question.
They can't just answer it.
They got to get their huddle together over here.
And they have this discussion.
And they break from their huddle.
They're supposed to be the smartest men in Israel.
And here's what they say.
We don't know.
Which was actually a lie.
They did know.
In reality, it wasn't Jesus being evasive here.
It's these men being evasive.
They're taking the political approach.
Edwards said,
So they answer,
We don't know.
That, of course, is not entirely true.
They certainly have some suspicions about who Jesus is.
And they might learn more if they enter into honest dialogue with him.
In reality, they are unwilling to know.
They're unwilling to know.
And so Jesus exposes their corruption and the hardness of their hearts.
It made up their mind about Jesus.
And their unwillingness to know was concrete.
He gave them everything that they needed.
He gave them everything they needed to believe.
To follow him.
To have eternal life.
And they still rejected him.
Not because they were ignorant.
But because they were hardened.
Kind of like the husband.
That says,
I know this is better for me.
But because you decided to move my clothes.
I don't like it.
And I'm going to reject it.
And I have to ask you this question.
Are you unwilling to know?
Have you so hardened your heart?
That no amount of truth will ever convince you to surrender your life to him?
Are you so hardened that you can stare truth in the face and still call it a lie?
Finally, we see authority rendered.
Rendered.
Verse 33.
Jesus said to them,
Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
So Jesus not only reveals his authority.
He acts in that authority in this moment.
This is not a concluding statement merely.
This is a statement of judgment.
When Jesus responds,
then I'm not going to tell you.
That's not Jesus' way of getting out of it.
Because he clearly continues the conversation in chapter 12.
We're going to get there next week.
This is Jesus saying,
I'm not going to tell you as a way of judgment.
It's the same judgment.
It's the same judgment Jesus referred to in chapter 4.
Remember that chapter on the parables.
Here's what Jesus said in verse 24.
You say,
Why is Jesus getting at it there?
He has given us his truth.
And as a form of judgment,
When we reject that truth,
He removes that opportunity to respond to that truth.
That's what Jesus is teaching.
And it's what he's acting out in chapter 11 with these men.
He provides all the truth that we need.
When we reject it with a hardened heart,
eventually,
He takes away even what He had given us.
He takes away the potential for understanding that leads to faith.
This is why the writer of Hebrews quoted that psalm so often.
Today,
If you hear His voice,
Harden not your heart.
Only a fool thinks that he has the rest of his life to respond to Jesus' call of salvation.
If you don't answer when your heart hears His voice,
You may never hear it call again.
And we get in our minds sometimes,
Well,
I can do that later.
I can deal with that later.
You might not be able to deal with that later.
But,
He's a gracious Savior for all who believe.
But He's a righteous judge for all who refuse Him.
And His judgment is swift.
And it may come sooner than what you expect.
Yesterday afternoon,
Sitting with Wanda,
Her sister was there.
And she was telling us about when she was saved.
She was saved as a teenager.
And she said,
She said,
I was in church and I made many professions of faith.
And nothing was ever any different in my life.
There was nothing,
No surrender.
There's no lordship of Jesus.
It's just these professions of faith and acknowledgement of facts about Jesus.
And she said,
I did this over and over as a young person growing up.
And over and over,
It was the same thing.
And she said,
I was sitting in a church service one day.
And she said,
The Lord was working on my heart.
And it just,
It was like He was telling me.
She said,
It was like,
Marianne was her name.
She said,
It was like He was telling me.
If you don't do this now,
If you don't respond to me now,
I'm never calling you again.
And she said,
I knew I was going to grow to be an old woman.
And she said,
And I knew if I didn't figure out what this issue was in this moment,
She said,
I just,
It was impressed upon my heart.
And she believes by the Holy Spirit.
She said,
It was impressed upon my heart that I was never going to respond to it again.
I was never going to hear that call again.
And she said,
She went to the altar that night.
I think it was a Sunday night.
She went to the altar and she was praying.
And she went through all the things she always did.
She went through the confession.
She tried to think of every sin she'd ever committed.
And she was thinking,
Well,
God will just save me if I say the right sins that I've done.
And then it hits her as she's praying.
As a young person,
She says,
How can I do this?
If I can't even remember all the sins I've committed.
And so she starts going through the other things.
And saying all the magical prayers that she had been taught to say.
As she was growing up in church.
And she couldn't remember.
And no matter what she did,
She battled spiritually.
There on the altar in a church on that night.
She was battling over and over with this dynamic of she's praying.
And she's confessing.
And she's doing these things.
But she has no peace.
And she said,
It's like the Holy Spirit just in that moment finally says,
You can't do anything.
And she said in that moment,
I just said,
Lord,
Just have mercy.
Just have mercy on me.
And she said it was like this peace that she had never experienced before.
And finally in that moment,
She had experienced what she believed was her conversion in that moment.
And I was struck as she was recalling this.
And listened to her speak after that about the growth.
And the understanding that she has of the word of God now.
And I was struck by the fact,
In studying this passage,
That's exactly what Jesus was doing with these men.
Answer me men.
And this is your chance.
This is your chance.
If you don't take your chance,
You'll never get another.
And I don't know what it was that made her feel that way that night.
I tend to believe with her,
It was the Holy Spirit working on her heart that night.
And he might be working on your heart today too.
Finally saying,
Listen,
Stop with all the stuff.
I'm calling.
I'm calling you now.
I'm calling your heart now.
I'm not going to call again.
You better answer now.
Because if we keep pushing and we keep rejecting and we keep denying,
Eventually he stops calling.
And if he doesn't call,
You can't come.
Jesus' authority and conclusion
Is ultimately proven in his resurrection.
We can study it out in his identity and we can see all of those things.
But what ultimately is the proof?
His resurrection.
We know that he's the Messiah.
We know that he's the Son of God.
Because only he has conquered death.
Proving that he has excusia over death itself.
Which means he has excusia over life.
Which means only he can give life to you.
It's amazing what we can learn at Easter.
What is it about?
His resurrection.
John chapter 10.
Jesus said,
For this reason the Father loves me.
Because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
No one takes it from me.
I lay it down of my own accord.
I have, get this, it's amazing.
Get this.
I have excusia to lay it down.
And I have excusia to take it up again.
This charge I've received from my Father.
What's Jesus saying?
It's not that I just have the power to resurrect.
I have the right to resurrect.
Because I control life and death.
Acts chapter 2.
Peter in this sermon on the day of Pentecost.
This Jesus delivered up to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
You crucified.
You killed by the hands of lawless men.
God raised him up.
Loosing the pangs of death.
Because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
Why wasn't it possible for Jesus to be held by death?
Because Jesus has authority over death.
How does he have authority over death?
Because he's God.
He's God.
Why does he have right over my life?
Because he's God.
And this itself demands our faith.
Believe him.
And it demands our obedience.
Follow him.
When we come to him, we acknowledge that he is savior and Lord.
And all who come to him are welcomed with open arms.
And they're granted all the benefits that his authority provides.
Reconciliation with God.
Forgiveness of sin.
Eternal life.
Peace.
Rest.
Love.
but those who faithfully follow him also bow to his lordship
there's no question that jesus is the lord the question is is he your lord