Our scripture reading this evening is taken from the gospel of Mark, so I would invite you to turn with me there to Mark chapter 11. Picking up where we left off in our series through this gospel, verse 27. We'll read and consider to the end of the chapter, verse 33. If you are using the Pew Bibles, that can be found on page 895. Mark chapter 11, verse 27 through 33. Hear the word of God. Then 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? And who gave you this authority to do these things? But Jesus answered and said to them, I also will ask you one question, then answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men? Answer me. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, why then did you not believe him? But if we say from men, they feared the people, for all counted John to have been a prophet indeed. And so they answered and said to Jesus, we do not know. And Jesus answered and said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. And so far our reading of God's word. May he add his blessing to the preaching thereof. a congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was only a couple of months ago as we had been working our way through the Heidelberg Catechism in the Lord's days in the Ten Commandments. It was a couple of months ago that we were in Lord's Day 39 where we considered the Fifth Commandment. The Fifth Commandment is honor your father and your mother. It is a commandment that has to do with how it is we ought to respond to not just father and mother, but to all authority, both our response in our inward attitude and as well as our outward actions. And it's worth reminding us and repeating what it is, at least a little bit here, what we drew out there at that time, and namely that A Christian rebel is something of an oxymoron because being a Christian and being a rebel are incompatible. You can't put them together. At the very essence, the very heart and soul, so to speak, of who a Christian is, it is one who has been brought underneath the lordship of Christ. One that recognizes the authority of Jesus Christ. A recognition that leads to a loving and a willing submission, where every thought is brought into the obedience of Christ, and in all things, The Christian seeks to do what is pleasing to God. It is by the grace of God that a Christian has come to follow Christ, take up the cross, to do so willingly, to do so comprehensively. Not one area of life where Jesus is not Lord over it. And so, the matter that is before us has to do with a question of Jesus' authority. Time and time again, we have seen through the Gospel of Mark that the Pharisees, the scribes, the elders, these religious authorities of the time and of this day, were those who were set in opposition to Jesus. In other words, they were rebels. They rebelled and pushed against Christ and against the claims that he had of the authority being the Son of God, the Messiah. And so this lays before us once again that matter of who is a Christian and the matter of that as it comes to bear under the nature of authority. A Christian is one that recognizes and submits to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, is not one who questions it and rebels against it. And we hope to bring these things out under the theme of questions surrounding Jesus' authority. And we notice this in three points. Sanhedrin question, they question Jesus' authority. And then Jesus, secondly, questions the Sanhedrin. And then thirdly, the response to these questions. Or if you want an alternate outline, one that may be a bit more basic, think of point number one, comprising points one and two of your outlines. Point number one is an exposition, a drawing out of the doctrine that is there with some application. The third point will deal with application. And so, at least more heavily so. And so, the Sanhedrin questions the authority. Jesus questions the Sanhedrin and the response. And so first, we consider the Sanhedrin. They question Jesus' authority, but the question that we ask here is, well, who is the Sanhedrin? Who are these individuals? And we read of these three groups, these three classes, in verse 27, who approach Jesus as a smaller delegation of the Sanhedrin, which was a council made up of 71 members. They were those that were made up of the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. And sometimes we read in other places of scripture that it was the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. Maybe think of that as something of a political party or a party that has certain affiliations where these other ones, these other titles like the priests, scribes, and elders, it may be something more along the lines of a class. or an office. But this is what the Sanhedrin is. They're an assembly. They're those, a council that sits together and they were placed there and they are there as a kind of a buffer, a legislative or an authoritative body governing over civil and religious matters as a buffer between the nation of Israel and Rome. They were granted, as it were, by Rome some authority to judge on certain matters, to arrest, to try, to have a trial, to question and convict. They could only go so far. They had a limit in their authority. We see that play out toward the end of the gospel when they seek the death penalty. for Jesus. You have to go to Pontius Pilate before they can carry that out. But here we have is a body of individuals that have some measure of authority that is here within society. Authority more so in religious matters. less in civil, but the focus mostly has to do with the religious life, authority concerning doctrine, authority concerning teaching, authority concerning the way of life and how it is that they as the covenant people are to live in the land of Israel. These are the ones who come to Jesus. Body of authority. I have some questions. A couple questions in particular, and they refer to these things, these things that Jesus is doing. And the question again, what are these things that they refer to? Think of the immediate context. Jesus had just cleansed or driven out the money changers within the temple here and he was overturning the tables and he was scattering the livestock. Certainly, in view here, we can include that there were other controversies that have come up in this three-year-long history and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there are many different conflicts and provoking instances. Think of these controversies that occurred in chapter two. It was many that were there. Jesus forgives the sins of the paralytic and the scribes and the Pharisees that were present asked themselves, well why does this man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sin but God alone? Jesus also, he called into question many of their practices of who belongs and Jesus called the tax collector into his fellowship and he dined with them. He challenged their understanding of the Sabbath, of what it is for, what it's about, how to observe it, how to keep it. He questioned and called into account the oral tradition that they had, the tradition of the elders with their washings and their fastings. It includes so many of these conflicts, these things that they did not look well upon. It really is something that takes into account the whole ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. These things, well, what is it? Everything that he has been engaged in these past years. The parallel accounts to this passage, to this episode, reveal to us that what Jesus was doing in the temple at this time, he was teaching. He was preaching the gospel. We need to remember what Jesus had said earlier that the main thing that he had come to do was to preach the gospel, to preach the word, the glad tidings of the salvation that he was anointed to bring and to accomplish. All of these other things that were going on, the interactions, the miracles, the healing, the exorcisms, and everything of that sort were good, necessary, and wonderful things to witness, but they were not the main thing. They were signposts, as it were, pointers to what it is that he was preaching, what he was teaching. And we read then in Mark, we could see that Jesus is doing quite a bit of this all the way through the end of chapter 13. It takes up the space of one day. So he's very busy in teaching, and he's in the temple, which is the place of authority, the place where there was the ceremonies and the sacrifices, which themselves were teaching something of the coming Messiah and of the coming Christ. It's the teaching, it's the preaching, it's also the activity that he's engaged in. And they come and they ask, what authority do you have to do this? This is the issue that they bring up here. It wasn't so much about what Jesus is doing as it was his right to do what he is doing. It was meant by the question, by what authority? What is the source of authority? Authority is the right to do something, the right to exercise power, the right to give orders, to give commands, the right to expect and to demand submission and obedience, the right to declare this is true, this is not true. This idea of authority is something that is more and more becoming foreign to us. Here in the West, especially, we are very individualistic. We kind of snort at the idea of authority. We recognize that it's a thing, but we do not like it. We don't like that word. If anyone comes to us and they tell us that, well, they have the right to tell us what to do. They have the right to tell us what to think. They have the right to tell us what to say. What do we do? We rebel. Who are you? to tell me what to do. I'm going to do what I want and I'm going to decide. And this response to authority is flat out sinful and unbiblical. We would refer ourselves back to the fifth commandment here. All of society and everything that is given to us in this world is built on the structures of authority that God has instituted and these structures of authority that have been given the right to command and to demand obedience. And that all comes right to the fore in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. For he is the one that grants that authority. What authority do you have to do this? It's a good question and it's a bad question at the same time. It's a good question to ask at times because the Bible is very clear that no one has the right of themselves to take upon the work of ministry and to engage in that ministry. And this is something that Jesus has engaged in for these last three years or so. This ministry and the right to do so must come from God. For example, Hebrews 5 verse 4 is very clear on this. It's speaking there of the priesthood. It says, no man takes this upon himself, but he that is called of God. It's the same with a prophet. They could not just get up on their own and start prophesying and start saying some things. They needed to be called by God and commissioned by God. The same with the king. We have been going through, in the last little while, Dr. Calderman's series through Samuel with the stories of David, of all of these rebellions, these individuals coming up and saying, no, I want to be king. No, I want to be king and ruler. That is not appropriate. It is one that must be called by God and put there. And so it's a good question. Where do you have this authority? What gives you the right to do this? But at the same time, it's a bad question. Because the question is not being asked in sincerity. These members of the Sanhedrin, They're scribes, chief priests, elders. These are learned men. They know the Scriptures. They know by what authority Jesus is doing these things. They ask because they want to reject it. They're seeking for an excuse to charge Jesus with blasphemy. They know because Christ's ministry has been absolutely crystal clear from the very beginning. His right to do this does not come from man, but it comes from the Father who sent him. And the other Gospels make this so very clear. Jesus says in John 5, verse 16 through 30, many things about this, but essentially He says that the Father is the one who sent me. And everything that I do, I do not of myself, but of Him. And so it is one that is commissioned directly by the Father. He's not gone rogue on his own. And so, by what authority? It is a divine authority, a divine right. He is sent by God and is the Son of God. The people themselves understood something of this. This authority has been a major theme that has come up all the way since the beginning of Mark. Take, for example, chapter 1 verse 22. His authority was revealed in his teaching where the people were astonished at his teaching for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. And then immediately after that, Jesus goes on to demonstrate his authority over this spiritual host of wickedness, casting out a demon in the people, then said among themselves, chapter one, verse 27, what is this? What new doctrine is this? Where with authority, he commands even the unclean spirit, and they obey him. It's not just the people. But the Sanhedrin, they know Christ's ministry is from God. Nicodemus knew this, a member of the Sanhedrin. He said, we know you are a teacher. Not just I know you are a teacher. Nicodemus said, we know. You are a teacher, and no one can do this except God be with him. They knew the answer already, but they rebelled. They look for an excuse to condemn him. Jesus knows if he just outright says, oh, I get my authority from God, they can lay hands on him, so to speak, as an authority and arrest him for blasphemy. But at the end of the day, we know that it is ultimately the authority of Christ that is the thing that often causes the greatest offense to all his opponents, to those that are in rebellion against him. They're offended. There's a spirit that resides in us by nature as well. Who are you to tell me what to do? Is that not in our hearts by nature? Is this not the thing that we need to guard against? We read on and consider on about how Jesus then responds to this and he responds with a question. This is our second point. Jesus responds with a question, and he asks a counter-question. And we should be clear that this is not a Jesus dodging the question. He is not buying some time. And we note, too, that there is a certain kind of authority in this question where he's taking control, laying down the terms, saying, I'll ask you the question, and you answer me, and then I'll give you the answer. So Jesus also, he's speaking with authority, but he's not giving a power play upon them and taking one over on them. Jesus is responding with wisdom, utmost wisdom. He is the wisdom of God. He is no fool. He knows they're trying to set a trap for him, and he's not going to fall for that trap. He's not controlled by passion or emotions that take control over him. He's one that has no sin in him, and he knows the hard mind of man. He's not controlled by the fear of man. And so he answers. in a wise, wise way. This is really 1 Corinthians 13, or 1 Corinthians 3 verse 19 in action, which says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their own craftiness. The Sanhedrin thought that they had a perfect trap. But when they go toe-to-toe against Jesus, they're going to go toe-to-toe with the wisdom of God, the power of God, the Son of God. So Jesus' question, his counter-question, concerns John's baptism. And so, with this question of where does this authority come from, it has not been stated so explicitly in Mark where this comes from, but the seed of that truth about Jesus can be answered. Basically, back to this one event, the baptism of John, and that makes us also then to wonder, as it was supposed to make them wonder as well, what does John's baptism have to do with Jesus' authority? Well, turn with me back to chapter 1 of the Gospel of Mark. There we have the account. And just focus on verses 1 through 9. What we read here of a prophecy. of one who's coming in the spirit of Elijah, ultimately, in the spirit of Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord. And so this was really what John's ministry was all about. That was the purpose of it, to prepare the way of the Lord. Jehovah, covenant God, to come. And how is it that he was to do that? And we gather from the other Gospels, like the Gospel of John. Well, he was sent by God. John 1, verse 6 says, John was sent from God. And then he was to bear witness to this one. so that everyone would believe. Bearing witness, behold, here is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Here we read about John the Baptist. Here he's coming in the spirit of Elijah, but then Jesus comes and was baptized by John, and there were the heavens. They opened up, and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, descended upon Jesus like a dove, and a voice rang out from heaven. You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This is Jesus anointing, as it were, to the office of Christ and an anointing and a commissioning and a being sent and being given the Spirit without measure for the empowering, for the authority to do the work of the Messiah and accomplish it, to bring deliverance to his people in misery. So if the Sanhedrin wants to know from whence Jesus received authority to do these things, they need to go back and reconsider John's baptism. But a statement about John and a belief about John would be a statement about Jesus and a belief about Jesus. So was it one where John was sent of God himself, or was he an imposter? Did he just make it all up? And so they're in a corner. They know who he is. They know where it is from. But they are those who are afraid of the people, and they are those at enmity with the Son. And they refuse to believe. So they give an answer. We don't know. It is a lie. It is a flat-out lie. That's their response to the question. That's our third point here. The response to the question is not just a lie that they give. The response that they have is that they give is something of an ignored appeal to the conscience. It's a lie they're telling themselves. It's an answer that they wish was true but is not true. And they're determined to not give up their lies and their beliefs. And they're ashamed to admit that they're wrong and to say the truth of these things. And so what they do is they answer this confrontation. And this is the case of so many of us as we are confronted with the authority of Christ and we are confronted with the truth of the gospel, as we are confronted with the reality of the law of God and the sin that is in every part of our lives and our souls that we give false excuses and we believe lies. We pretend that we don't know. We pretend that we don't understand. One seeks to maybe assure himself that he will really try to understand and really tried to repent. Maybe another comes up with another thing and says, well, I would love to serve, I would love to believe, but I have no time here. These are worthless excuses, as worthless as the chief priest of the Sanhedrin's answer. You might think that the mature thing to do would be at least to engage in some honest dialogue with Jesus instead of engaging in these defensive maneuvers and these excuses that they give and these lies they tell themselves so that they may come to the right answer that they seem so eager to hear, but that would require humility. That would require being open in their own heart and their own mind, so to speak, to the possibility that Jesus is who he says he is. Along with the necessary response to this, which is to bend the knee in repentance and faith, to submit to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. We learn here, in response to these questions, a particular lesson of the fact that unbelievers reject Christ's authority. Here we have that being brought to a head, to the fore here. This is a classic picture of the unregenerated, of an utter rejection of Christ, an utter rejection of who He is, and that upon lies and upon these falsehoods. They know the information. They know that Christ is Lord. They know they have, that Jesus has this authority, and they refuse to submit. Now why is it? Well, we could answer, well, there is in the unregenerate, the unbeliever, that they're totally depraved, and so they cannot, and this is theologically true, In 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14, the natural man received not the things of God, neither can he know them. So there's no ability, but that's not the full story. They don't submit because they will not submit. It's foolishness to them. They love the darkness rather than the light. They don't want to be ruled by another. They don't want to submit to another. They don't want their life to be determined by someone else. They don't want their life to be controlled by another. Men and women of the world want to be a god of their own world. And so when Christ comes in the gospel with his authority, He said he is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. The natural inclination of man is to deny Christ. Because if he believes in Christ, his entire life has to change. He doesn't want that to happen because he loves his sin. This is why you get a lot of men and women who are very religious. Maybe even read their Bibles a lot, or come to church a lot, or even talk about church a lot, and talk about Jesus a lot. They may enjoy so much about the priesthood of Christ and his sacrifice. They may enjoy so much about the prophethood of Christ and the wise sayings, but when it comes to his kingship, denying themselves, and loving him, and living for him, The answer is a flattened no. Well, because I like my life my own way. I like my sins. And I'm not gonna change for nobody. It's just like these scribes. How does one then come to believe that Christ is submitted to the authority of Christ? but comes by the Word. His teaching, His preaching that comes with authority which He was engaged in. We believe that comes by the work of the Spirit where it says that no man can say that Christ is Lord except by the Spirit and the Spirit employs the preaching of the Word, the preaching of Christ holding before us His person and His work. And in so doing, He changes our hearts and our minds, and He cleanses us from all unrighteousness, and gives to us a new heart, and softens what is hardened, and makes our wills willing, and moves us to say, truly, this is the Son of God. This is the Lord. He has all authority. Everything that He says is true. The Spirit makes us to see the beauty of this authority, the goodness of this. Think of the splendor of a king, and all of his regal majesty, and a good king at that. Think of many examples that the Bible lays forth of who good kings are. David in a lot of ways, and Solomon in a lot of ways at the beginning. These are good kings who rule well. This king is the king of kings. He's fairer than all the sons of men, and when He speaks and when He teaches, it is not with the words of ugliness and with tyranny, but with grace and with truth. The Spirit makes His authority to be attractive. that we would delight in it, that we would love it, that we would enjoy it as we had sung in our, before the sermon, that this is the king who rules his people righteously and maintains faithfulness. And therefore we ought to respond with awe and praise, worship, and obedience. cannot have Jesus as our Savior and not as our Lord. He's Christ, prophet, priest, and king. It's one package. And so we submit joyfully, lovingly, willingly to the authority of Christ, not calling it into question in our own heart and mind. And so what does his word teach? His word is authority. He does not teach as the scribes do. What does he teach about how it is that you are to be a husband? What does he teach about you being a wife? Seek to live it in prayer. What about living as a citizen in this nation, in this world? What does his word say? It has authority. What does he say about sexual ethics? Seek to live it. About kindness, about treating our neighbor and the poor. The authority that he has must sincerely and evidently be displayed in our lives because that, that's a Christian. It's one who is his. One that sees the beauty of his authority. One that bows the knee and knows it's a good authority. He's a good king, a righteous king. One that trusts his authority, his leading, his guiding for all the moments, for all the time, all the things that we engage in. That's where we ought to be looking toward, is to Christ. That's the view that we are to have. Not a proud, vain, and arrogant, I'm going to do what it is that I want to do. Not one that compartmentalizes our life and say, well, when I'm out in public or at church, then I will do the things and submit, but it is one even when those that aren't looking. where you submit to the will and to the word of God. Because he's our savior, who has given all, who has laid down all, and took our sin, took our rebellion to the cross. And there he shed his blood from that cross. There he has purchased life for us, a life to be led under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, for whom all will say at the end, at the day of days, every tongue will confess, every knee will bow and confess that Jesus is Lord. Now let us pray. Our gracious God and our Father in heaven, we come before you grateful for this authority of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We pray that you will not give to us the spirit and heart of these scribes and Pharisees, the spirit and heart which we must daily war against, the spirit and heart which you have delivered us from. We thank you that you have given to us an answer, a fuller answer, and you've not responded and answered us in this way, but in grace. And so we pray that we would respond in gratitude, and so we pray for your Spirit to enable us and help us in these things, not just in this evening, but in all our life. We may give glory to the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It is in Jesus' name we pray, amen.