Turn to Mark chapter 11 beginning in verse 27. If you'll stand in honor of God's word as I read. Great singing today. We also enjoyed actually a baptism last night and one this morning. And we might just challenge some of you to that even today. Mark chapter 11 verse 27. 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, Why then did you not believe him? But if we say from man, they will be afraid of the people. for they all held that John really was a prophet. So they answered Jesus, we don't know. And Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Father, I pray this morning that you would help us to rightly see the authority of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And Father, that we wouldn't question his authority in our lives, but instead we would submit to it. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. I don't know what you imagine the church office being like in your mind. Some of you spend some time there during the week, and so you're aware of what the church is like when we're not gathered on a weekend service on a Wednesday night. But really, the church office is a busy place. And I'm glad that it is. It's full of a bunch of folks from church here. And I'm glad. I want you to continue to come, because after all, It's your church office, and so it's wide open to you. We also have a number of people that come from the community, just different needs, different, you know, sort of sometimes working with the city on some things. We've had some meetings with different committees for the shelter expansion. Those kinds of things happen in our conference room, which is always a joy, you know, to be able to open our church up and to see city officials, other pastors coming to talk about those things. The other thing that happens too, you could imagine this, is there are hurting people that come into our church office from our community. They're coming to a church, and I'm not going to lie, every so often there's a crazy person that comes to the church office. That's just the reality. Maybe somebody that is either mentally not all there, or maybe they're on drugs, or whatever. And so that happens on occasions too, and usually when that happens, they call Pastor David. And I think the reason they call Pastor David and not Pastor Chris is because he's quite a bit larger than I am, and I think Pastor Rob would be second on the list, and then it goes down from there. I think what they do, the ladies out front, is they pretty much have, I think, kind of in their own minds, weighed us all in, and they kind of go down from there. So I hardly ever get the call. On a couple of occasions I have received a call, though one time, it was a long time ago now, but there was a man who was about six foot four and weighed at least a hundred more pounds than I did, and he was out front on the street screaming at parents that were coming to pick their kids up, you know, all kinds of cussing at them and yelling at them, scaring them. So one of the ladies came in and said, Pastor Chris, can you come quick? There's a guy out there. So I go running out there, and I just go up to him. And my approach, I'm like, hey, how are you? I'm Chris. Nice to meet you. Can I help you with something? And at that, he just came unglued at me. I mean, the guy was screaming in my face, pointing it down at me and whatever. And I was like, dude, I can take you right now. No, I didn't say that at all. I was like, ah, Lord, help. And I was really preparing myself to be hit in the face. And I thought, what a cool thing that'll be. You know what I'm saying? Like, come to church with a black eye. Like, this is what I do for you, people. You know what I mean? Like, no, that's not what happened, though. So finally, I talked to him off the ledge. He calmed down. And I go walking back to the church office. And he left. And just Steve Baker, who runs Grace Resource Center, he's six foot five himself. It's Rachel's dad. And he apparently was sitting in his truck. And I walk up to him. I saw him sitting in his truck when I was walking back. And his truck was pointed in that direction. And he said, wow, that was crazy. I watched that whole thing. I go, are you kidding? Cause my heart, I'm not kidding. My heart was thumping. I was, I was scared. I was like, are you serious? And he goes, oh yeah, don't worry. I had your back the whole time. I was like, that would have been nice. And then another time there was a man that was out there absolutely verbally abusing his family, his wife and his kids. Didn't go to church here. I don't know why he was here exactly, but they came to get me and they say, Hey, there's a man out there who's just, biting the head off of his wife and his family. And so I went running out there and I do get fired up over that. I really do because our church and our pastors, we won't tolerate men being harsh with their wives and their kids. That's not biblical leadership. The Bible commands you not to be harsh. And he was not only being harsh, he was being cruel, mean, foul. So I'm running out there and I just said to him, you will stop doing what you're doing right now and you will leave this campus. And he looked at me and he goes, and who are you? Now this guy was more like five foot six, so I was like, I'm Rocky Balboa, and I'm gonna take, no, I didn't say that. I just said, you know what, I'm the pastor of this church, and you're not welcome here, if you're gonna talk to your wife and kids that way. And at that, he calmed down, he goes, I am so sorry, I didn't realize you were the pastor here. And he actually came in my office, I shared the gospel with him, and I don't know exactly what happened from all of that, but nonetheless. I suspect that you guys would expect that your pastors, if they know something like that is going on, that we would jump into the middle of it. I think we have delegated authority from the elders and ultimately from Christ and a responsibility to respond in those situations because you have asked us and the Lord has appointed us to be leaders in the church. And so we would have, I think, not only the right, but the responsibility to respond in those situations. As you look at our passage this morning, you find Jesus in his own temple. and the day before he's cleared that temple and had all the authority and all the right to do just that, we would expect him to do that. It's his temple. And yet, these self-appointed spiritual leaders, religious leaders, who have licensed themselves, really, to be keepers of the temple, not licensed by God, are asking Jesus, who are you to come into our temple and do what you've done? And Jesus is simply saying, no, this is my temple and I'll do whatever I want in it. You're the ones who are out of place. See, Jesus had the authority and therefore the responsibility to not only cleanse that temple, but I think to condemn that temple. I think what Jesus was essentially doing there, as we've studied previously, the Monday of the Passion Week, is what Jesus was doing there is he said, hey, this house is to be a house of prayer for the nations, and this old system of the world coming to this temple to see the greatness of God is now stopped. Now my temple will be built up with my people. You will be my temple, he's saying to his church. I will be the foundation. I will be the chief cornerstone of that temple, but you will be like small pebbles built up into these walls to be the church, to be the reflection of God's grace and goodness to the world. You are his temple. It was a number of years ago now, a long time ago, that Pastor Dean, Pastor Dean Spolster, remember he was here, went and planted the church in Palmdale, which is doing incredibly well, by the way. And so is Neenak out with Mike Rice, and so is Little Rock with Jim DeVore. All three of those church plants from here are now all autonomous on their own. And Pastor Dean, a number of years ago, had an intruder in his house in the middle of the night. Somebody actually had come in his house, his wife heard it, and so he went out to, he went with his weapon downstairs, which if you know Pastor Dean at all, that was a baseball bat. So far they haven't made us license those, but they probably will eventually. I'm crossing a line, I'm crossing a line right there, okay, just come back, come back, I know. Some of you are clapping and some of you are mad at me right now, forgive me. Okay, okay. So he came down with his bat. It was a fungo bat, actually. And his wife called 911. Well, Pastor Dean and this man actually end up face to face, seeing each other. And Pastor Dean does what any good pastor would do. He hit the man in the face with a bat and dropped him to the ground. That's my kind of pastor right there, amen? All right. So he actually, he turned the bat this way. What he did is he turned the bat this way and he rammed it into his face. And the guy fell. And the police showed up at the door of his house, and he had opened the door, and he's standing over the guy now with the bat over the top of him. And so the police come, and of course, they don't know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. So they're like, drop the bat! So he drops the bat, and they arrest the guy, and they take him off. Now the cool thing is, is Dean knocked his tooth out clean, and the police didn't notice it, so Dean put it up on his bookcase for years as a little trophy. But can you imagine if that guy, it turns out what happened with the guys, he was drunk and he was just trying to get into his friend's house and he just picked the wrong house. Boy, did he. He was just planning on crashing on the couch for the night. He wasn't there to steal anything. But can you imagine if that guy laid on the floor and he looked up at Dean and he says, who are you to hit me in the face in your house? What would Dean's response be? I'm the owner of the house. Boom. You know what I'm saying? Like that's what's happening in our passage. Jesus has come into his own house. This is his temple. He's the Lord of the Sabbath. He's the Lord of this temple. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. He is God in the flesh. He comes into the temple and the religious leaders say, who do you think you are to come into this temple and clean it out? And what you're going to find by the end of this is Jesus is really going to essentially say back to them, no, the question is really, who do you think you are to even ask me, the Lord of glory, that question? You're the ones who are out of line. So 2,000 years later, I ask you, where is Jesus' temple today? In you. So can I ask you this question? before we get into our passage and ask you to ask the Lord to show you if there's any part of your life that's not surrendered to Him? Does Jesus have full authority and right and privilege to ask you the same question about what's going on in your temple? Does He have the same authority to ask what's going on in His church? We're the temple of Christ individually. We're also the temple of Christ collectively. He owns us. We are His. He has all authority in our lives. He is Lord. And I know all of us would say that, All of us would say Jesus is Lord with our mouths, but what I want to ask you today, is your life saying it? Or is there any part of your life or my life or this church that isn't fully surrendered to the Lord? He has a right to do what he wants with his temple. Let's look at our passage. Look at verse 27, starting in Mark chapter 11, verse 27. The first point I'd like to make, if you're taking notes, is the credentials of Jesus Christ are questioned. The credentials of Jesus Christ are questioned, verse 27. And they came again to Jerusalem. That's Jesus coming back to Jerusalem Tuesday after clearing out the temple on Monday. He came back from Bethany, a couple miles, and as he was walking in the temple in Luke chapter 20, it says that Jesus was actually preaching in the temple. He was actually teaching there. It's actually Luke 19, 47. The chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him. So he's preaching the gospel in the temple the next day. He is not intimidated. He just cleared it out the day before. He comes right back again. And he's teaching there in the temple. John MacArthur has said this, and I think it's an excellent point. He said, this is the one day where Jesus was in full control of the temple. The one day where the temple was really all his, to do what he wanted to with it. And what did he do with it? He preached the gospel. No doubt he condemned that religious system that was works-oriented, and he proclaimed the gospel of grace. And he came in, and the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him. In Luke chapter 20, verse 27, it says, they came up to him. The word there in the Greek is ephistomai, and it literally means to attack. And so they approach him with an antagonistic attitude. They are there with a sinister plot to try to trap him and kill him. So they're coming with animosity. Verse 28, and they said to him, listen to this, can you imagine? Okay, they're speaking to the creator of the universe right now. By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them? Now if you were Jesus, and you had all authority, you were God in the flesh, what would you say to these little peon punks in this moment? What would you say to them? You know what I would say to them? Pillar of salt, and I would put them on my fries that afternoon. You know what I'm saying? Like they would not survive this. But Jesus in his patience, and I'm thankful he's patient, he responds back to them with a question. But before we go there, I do want to ask you, by what authority was he doing those things? Let's look back at Matthew chapter 28, verse 18. This is the Great Commission, Matthew 28, 18. And then we're going to review a few passages in the Gospel of Mark as we've studied them. The word authority in the Greek is exousia, and it literally means the freedom to act, the right to act. And so Jesus had already shown his credentials to them, that he had the ultimate and absolute authority over all of creation, over all of the earth, over the spiritual realm, by his actions. He had divine authority and Jesus exercised it. He could do just what he wanted to do. He didn't have to ask for anyone's permission. And so in Matthew chapter 28 verse 18, notice this, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Did you see that? All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. By the way, this is our command. We're to take the gospel out to the world, make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. By the way, baptism for the believer is not optional. Baptism for the believer is not imperative in terms of you're not saved because you're baptized, you're baptized because you're really saved. But if you're saying you've come to Jesus Christ and he's Lord of your life, then you ought to be baptized immediately. In fact, even today, the baptistry just happens to be full of cold water. The evidence of that was the last two services. And I'm not kidding. If you have put your faith and trust in Jesus, and you believe he died on the cross and rose again from the dead, and you've trusted him as Lord, and as Pastor Rob said in the video today, he came to that place in his life where he surrendered his life to Jesus as the Lord of his life, and yet you've never been baptized, can I just tell you, that's the believer's first obedience. And in my house, delayed obedience is disobedience. If I tell my son to take the trash out, I'm not talking about in 10 days, right? So I would encourage you today, even though somebody will say, well, I'll get wet. And my answer to you will be, and you'll dry. God's calling you obey we're gonna give you that opportunity at the end of the service if you feel If you feel led by the Spirit to do that But we see here Jesus has all authority and he says verse 20 teaching them here It is to observe or to obey all that I've commanded you. So this is Christ with his authority This is what he's saying to us is if you're gonna be my follower You're gonna do as I say and by the way, John 14 21 says if you he who loves me Obeys my commandments, right? So we we obey him because we love him. We don't obey him to earn his love when he first loved us He who has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. So Jesus here establishes he has all authority. He's the boss of our lives. Turn to Mark chapter 1 verse 22. In Mark chapter 1 verse 22, this amazed those in the early part of his ministry when he began to teach that he taught with authority. Look at Mark 1 22. And they were astonished at his teaching. Here it is. For he taught them as one who had authority, not as the scribes. The scribes would always just quote other scribes. Jesus didn't quote any other human being. Why? Because he's God. He had all authority. When he spoke, he spoke as if God was speaking, because when he spoke, God was speaking. 75 times in the Gospels, Jesus says this phrase, truly I say to you, When he spoke, he always spoke the truth. Mark chapter two, verse five, we also see that Jesus had the authority to forgive sin. And Jesus saw their faith and said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven. Is anybody here glad that Jesus has the authority and the ability because of his death to forgive sin? Who's glad that Jesus has the authority to forgive sin? I'm incredibly thankful. Not only that he's able to, but he's willing to, and he paid the price to. Does anyone else on this planet have the authority to forgive sin? They don't. That's why I'm not going to go into a commentary against the Catholic Church, but that's where I would take real exception, the idea that you go to a man to confess your sins. What I would tell you is that man is powerless to forgive your sins. You know why? Because your sins aren't ultimately against him. That would be like if you offended me and you went to Pastor Kevin to get forgiveness. And Kevin said, well, you didn't do anything to me. You did that to Chris. You need to go ask Chris. He could extend that forgiveness to you. I can't. You offended him. Psalm 51, David says, against you and you alone have I sinned and done what is wicked in your sight when he prays to the Lord. So only God can forgive sin, the sin of man. Only God has the authority to forgive the sin of man. And all of our sin ultimately is against him. And so Jesus comes and he says, hey, your sins are forgiven. He says this to the paralytic. Well, the skeptics in the crowd are saying, who does this guy think he is, God or something? He even thinks he has the power to forgive sinning? Is that authority? Verse 10, this is so important here. But that you may know that the Son of Man, here it is, has authority, there it is again, on earth. to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home. See, what he does is, is he proves that something that happened in the invisible spiritual realm was a reality by saying to the physical realm, okay, I'm gonna show you that I have the power to do that. I'm gonna tell this paralytic, get up and go home. Everybody knew the paralytic. He had lived in their town forever. Everybody knew, this guy never walks. And now all of a sudden, he can walk? Okay, so now what Jesus says is, is what happened in the spiritual realm is true, and the reason you can know it is because of what just you saw with your eyes in the physical realm. So Jesus has authority to forgive sin. Look at Mark chapter 2 verse 28. Jesus is also the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was so sacred to the Jewish people, but Jesus says this in verse 28. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath, which was tremendous to a Jewish mind. Great authority. In Mark chapter 4 verse 39, we see that Jesus is Lord of the weather. Mark chapter four verse 39 says this, and he awoke and he rebuked the wind and the sea. I love this. Peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was great calm. Is there anybody here that wishes you had authority over the wind? I do. Jesus has authority over the wind. Jesus could speak to the wind and the waves and say, stop it. And they stopped. Jesus has absolute divine sovereign authority. Look at Mark chapter 5 verses 10 to 13. We see that Jesus has authority over the demonic realm, over the spiritual realm. Look at verse 10 of Mark chapter 5. And he begged him earnestly not to send him out of the country. Who's speaking here? This demon called Legion is begging Jesus, don't send us out of the country. Verse 11, now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. You remember this story where the pigs run into the water, right? Verse 12, and this is what I want you to catch. And they begged him, the demons begged him saying, send us to the pigs, let us enter them, and catch verse 13, this is so important. So he gave them permission. You see, Satan ultimately is under the sovereign all-powerful, authoritative hand of Jesus Christ. He gave them permission. Now you might say, well, why would Jesus give them permission? Listen, we're not right now, have we not established that Jesus has all authority? That's not my job to question him. I'm just telling you that you can rest assured and see so often we're all freaked out by demons and Satan and I'm saying get your mind off of demons and Satan get them on your Savior who is greater than any of those forces that would wage war against you spiritually. Keep your eyes on him. He wins the victory for you. The victory is in Christ. It's not in yourself. He's in command. Your Savior Jesus is big and he's bad. And he's way bigger than those demons. They beg him. You remember how the story ends up, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs and the herd. And remember, about 2,000 rushed down a steep bank into the sea, and they were drowned in the sea. Some people have called that suicide. I don't know what you might want to call it. I'm not sure. But what we can see there is the authority of Christ. That's what's important. Mark chapter 5, verse 41, there's something else Jesus has authority over, not only demons, but also over death. Remember how Jairus came to Jesus begging, please come heal my daughter. And in the meantime, a lady stops and slows Jesus down, the lady who had the blood issue. And Jesus heals her and Jesus gets there and the girl's already dead. The mourners are already weeping. And in verse 41, it says this, taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha Kumai, which means little girl or literally little lamb, I say to you, arise. And immediately the girl got up and began walking. When Jesus was confronted with death, Jesus had more authority and power than death does, and he could counteract the cause of death, he could counteract the effect of death, and he could say to this little girl, get up and walk. He could speak to dead people and tell them to get up and walk, and he had such authority, they had to obey. The little girl couldn't say, oh no, I'm fine, thank you. Get up and walk, what do you do? Listen, when the author of life and the one with all divine power and authority says, get up and walk, what do you do if you're dead? You get up and walk. Now the significance here that Jesus has power and authority over death is, don't miss this, he also had power and authority over his own death. Jesus said, no one takes my life from me, I lay it down on my own accord, and I can bring it back up again. Jesus was able to come back to life because of the divine power within him, and by the way, because he rose, you too will rise if you put your faith and trust in him. So because Jesus has authority over sins and forgiveness, He can forgive you. And because Jesus has authority over death, you can live eternally with Him. And so death has no power over you if you're in Christ. Because Christ has authority over death. That's who your Jesus is. One more, Mark 8, verse 31. Jesus also has prophetic authority. He could see into the future. He knew exactly what would happen because he's God. Mark 8, verse 31, it says this, and he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things. So Jesus prophesying about his death, and catch this, this will take us back to our passage, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days, rise again. And he said this plainly. You see what's happening here? Jesus is predicting exactly what happens in our passage. that the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees would come and want to arrest him and kill him. And so Jesus here is showing prophetic authority that he knows the future. But what I want you to catch, if nothing else, from this little survey of the Gospel of Mark is the authority of Christ in that Jesus never asked permission from anyone to do anything, and he never had to ask forgiveness for anything he ever did. You know the old phrase, right? It's better to ask forgiveness than permission. Which by the way, I think is mostly bred in the heart of a rebellious person that doesn't want to submit to authority over them. So I'll just do it and then I'll ask forgiveness and count on the benevolence of those who are in authority over me. I'd say that's not the right way to live. That's not actually honoring to the Lord. But Jesus never had to ask permission and he never had to ask forgiveness because he wielded his divine authority perfectly. The next thing we see in our passage is the cowardice of the Jewish leaders. Turn back to Mark chapter 11, the cowardice of these Jewish leaders. They are cowards. Jesus comes back in verse 29 with the most appropriate response, an incredible comeback. Remember those who approached Jesus, approaching with hostility, not to receive direct answers or with good intentions. They had phony intentions. They weren't there to learn. They weren't seekers. And so Jesus turns this around on them. They have the audacity to ask, what authority do you do these things? Verse 29, Jesus said to them, I will ask you one question. Answer me. He's saying this authoritatively. You'll see it in just a moment. And I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me. I love that. Answer me. You will answer me. This reminds me of the book of Job. Remember Job? Remember Job? He goes, listen, the guy suffers terribly. But by the end of his three friends coming to him, he's finally at a point of despair, and instead of, at the beginning of Job, where he's just humble and contrite and saying, Lord, you know what? You have your way in my life, you know, whatever. You give and take away, but I'm gonna praise you no matter what. And then a wife that comes along and says, curse God and die. Thank you, sweetie, for your encouragement. What a helpmate. And then his friends come, and they're all trying to assess the situation, but they don't really know what they're talking about, which, by the way, We don't either. Most of the time, we don't know why God's doing what he's doing, so you shouldn't try to speculate on that with people. So we should just really call people to trust him. So we get to the end of the book of Job, and Job's finally had enough, and he just goes, God, you're gonna answer to me, God. And he really accuses God, and he says, I've got some questions for you, and you will answer me. I know there's a line of thought in Christian circles from good people, who would say, when you're suffering, it's OK to, if you're mad at God, tell him. Just yell at him. Yell at God. Go ahead. Get it off your chest. I'm thinking, that's insane. I don't hold to that view. I do think you can be real with God and say, God, I'm suffering. I'm hurting. I'm bringing this to you. But don't ever bring an accusation against the goodness of God. I wouldn't recommend it. And if you're going to do that, let me know. And I am going to get to a different zip code, because when that lightning strikes. Now, it turns out God is way more patient than that, right? But Jesus says, no, the issue here, and remember, in fact, remember how that ends in Job chapter 38? God actually comes to Job and says, no, Job, actually, you're not asking me questions. I'm gonna ask you questions. Prepare yourself like a man, Job. Where were you when I created the earth? Where were you at the foundations of the earth? Where were you when I made the mountains? Job, you're a nobody. You don't know. You're out of your league, Job. I think that's really what Jesus is doing here. You're asking by what authority I clear the temple. I'm asking you what authority you have to even ask me such a question. I love this. Watch what he does. When he says this, he goes, I'm going to ask you a question. The baptism of John, was that from heaven or from? Now Jesus is putting them in the horns of a dilemma between a rock and a hard place, between a dog and a fire. I probably shouldn't go there. But you know what I'm saying? Jesus has them trapped in their words. Why? Because if they say that John the Baptist came from God and he's a prophet of God, who did John the Baptist point to as the Messiah? Jesus. Remember, he said, he must increase, I must decrease. Remember, he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Like, John, if he's a prophet from God, which he was, and he's saying, there's your Messiah, I'm getting out of the way, he's your guy, and they're rejecting that guy, then really they're rejecting what? The word from heaven, which is precisely what they were doing. And it's what some of you are doing today, too. You know God's spoken to you, and you're being stubborn in your life. And so they were stubborn, and they were in their sin, and they didn't want to give up their power and authority in the temple that they really didn't have anyhow. By the way, that's why many people don't come to Christ or don't surrender to Christ. Even as believers, we get stubborn because we don't want to give up the power and authority that we think we have, that we really don't. You know the old phrase, you got to make Jesus Lord of your life? That's right, but it's wrong. You can't make Jesus Lord of your life. He is Lord of your life. You just have to choose if you're going to submit to that or not. He is Lord. You don't make him anything. He makes you and he makes me. So if they say from heaven, well then they're trapped. But if they say from man, these people all thought John was a prophet and was from God, so then they would turn against these spiritual leaders and they would lose their positions of authority. So they are indeed in the horns of a dilemma. And sadly, they would rather lose their souls than their power. And so notice how they answered. And this is why I say it's cowardly. Look at verse 32. I'm sorry, verse 33, so they answered Jesus, we don't know. That had to be a hard thing for these people who had great intellectual and spiritual pride to admit, to say we don't know. Because really what they're saying when they say we don't know is that we're not able to discern what's really from God and what isn't from God, which would honestly put into question how smart are you and how spiritual are you? You don't even know the difference between a prophet's from God or not from God? So even that, they lose credibility. As they're trying to tear down Jesus' credibility, he puts them in a situation where they can gain no power. They lose their own credentials right here. No matter how they answer, they lose their credentials. If they answer, John was from heaven, then why aren't you following Jesus? If they say he was from man, then the crowd turns on them, so they have no character at all. They're cowards. And now if they say, we don't know, they're also losing credibility here. Why? They're losing credentials because you can't tell the difference. You're supposed to be spiritual leaders. Aren't you supposed to be the ones who have responsibility to the people to tell them if John's from God or not? If you can't discern it, then what hope is there? And that brings us to our final point, the condemnation of Christ for the hypocrites. Jesus does indeed condemn. In fact, in John 5, verse 27, Jesus says he has the authority to execute judgment. And Jesus executes judgment here, and I want you to catch it, just the last half of our last verse. Verse 33, and Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. What Jesus has done is he has completely cut off the faucet of revelation to those people. They've been watching him for three years. They've been taught by him. They've seen his miracles. They've seen the girl risen from the dead. They see the paralytic rise to his feet. They've seen it all. He's given all the many convincing proofs that he was who he said he was, and yet they continue to reject and reject and reject. And what we see in this passage is, is Jesus finally shuts the lights out. Because if you reject the light of revelation from God long enough, eventually the lights go out. In fact, listen to Hebrews. Chapter 10, verse 26. For if we go on sinning deliberately, doesn't mean we're not going to sin after we're saved, but if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the truth and knowledge of the truth, there is no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and the fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. What I would tell you as Jesus is saying to them is, I'm done talking to you. This is an incredibly sad moment in the lives of each of these men who had come to oppose Jesus. Somebody has said this, they had passed beyond mere unbelief to apostasy, and God always leaves the apostate to work out his own doom. I'm not gonna talk to you anymore. If you're coming here with such a disingenuous motivation just to destroy me, you're not here for the truth. If you're not even gonna answer the question, is John from God or from man, if we're not even gonna, you know, we don't know, then there's no truth left for you. I pray that if you're somebody who has sat in church for a long time, and I know those people exist, maybe you have a lot of different reasons you're here, and you listen, and you listen, and you listen, but you never believe, and you never believe, and you never believe, I just wanna warn you, there might be a day where you can't hear anymore. And you say, well, when is that day? It's today. Today is the day of salvation. If you're hearing my voice now, and you're hearing the gospel, and you're hearing that Jesus has this authority, and you believe that he died on the cross and rose again from the dead, and you believe in the many proofs that he gave evidence of that he was who he said he was, and yet you're still holding out, today's your last chance, as far as I know, because you're hearing it today. Now the reality of it is, is none of us has the authority as the judge. And so we never give up preaching, praying for people that we love that don't know the Savior, that have never experienced His grace. We never give up. Why? Because God's the only one that knows when that faucet of revelation is stopped. You don't know. In conclusion, I've written a conclusion. I really wrote a conclusion for myself. I just put it into a sentence. What's my takeaway from this passage? Here's my takeaway, my personal application. You do what you want with it. Jesus has absolute authority over my life. Therefore, I must commit to walking in absolute obedience to his word and his ways. I didn't say if Jesus has absolute authority in my life. He has absolute authority in my life. He has every right to tell me to do whatever He wants me to do. Turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9. This is to be the response of a believer. And then we're going to sing this song together as we close. Acts chapter 9. Everybody loves Acts chapter 9. It's the conversion of Saul. But I'm afraid sometimes we look at the conversion of Saul, we miss the man Ananias. In Acts chapter 9, verse 10, it says, There was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, and he said, I love this. You see this right here? I love this. If you're wondering, what is the Christian life all about? Here it is. One sentence, four words. The Lord spoke to Ananias, and Ananias said, here I am, Lord. That's the proper attitude of a Christian. Here I am, Lord. Whatever you want. I'm your servant. And the Lord said to him, rise, and go to the street called Straight, and to the house of Judas, and look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying." Now, if you remember, Saul was the guy that was killing Christians, right? Or persecuting the church, killing Christians. And Ananias knows about this. And so Ananias just goes, God, are you positive that's a good idea? Because he could kill me. Verse 15, and the Lord said to him, go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. And I love us for 17. So Ananias departed and entered the house. He went. Just trust the Lord went. In my opinion. We are called as Christians to submit completely to the Lordship of Christ in our lives. And we don't do it perfectly. And when we don't, we repent and we remind ourselves again, no, Jesus has the authority. He's the Lord of the universe. He's my savior. He's my boss. There's a phrase that has developed, and I don't know where it came from. I've heard it so many times, but you heard people say this, you're not the boss of me. And really church, we need to say, Jesus, you're the boss of me in every way. So today, whatever the Lord might be calling you, whatever secret sin you might have, if you're holding out to surrender, if you were like Pastor Rob, you're like, yeah, I know, I know Jesus, I know he died for me, but I gotta come to that place of my own faith. Maybe you're a teenager, I wanna submit to his Lordship. Today's the day of salvation, and we're gonna have some baptisms. If you want to be baptized, actually, I don't know that we're gonna have any. If God's calling anybody to be baptized, we'll do that today. We didn't really plan to, so I don't even know who's gonna do it, but one of us will jump in there with ya, get wet. We'll both dry, right? But delayed obedience is disobedience. So if you put your faith and trust in Jesus, be baptized today, and whatever else God might be calling you to do, maybe it's not such a public display, why don't we do that? Joel, would you come, let me pray, and we'll sing together. Father, thank you for the reminder today of the authority of Jesus Christ. over this universe, and certainly over the hearts and souls of your children. I thank you, Jesus, that you, as the Lord, author of life, came to save us with a tremendous act of humility. And Lord, now we humble ourselves into your mighty hand. We trust you. Father, I pray for those who are anxious today that they would remember how big Jesus is and that that would ease their anxiety. I pray for those of us who maybe, maybe there's some besetting sin, some secret sin in our lives, something that we're hanging onto that we haven't fully surrendered. I pray that today we would surrender as we should because we love Christ, but also because he is our leader and our Lord. And God, I specifically want to pray right now if there's anyone here that has never given their life to Jesus, fully surrendered, submitted to His Lordship, that today would be the day of salvation, that this would be the moment, even now. I pray in Christ's name, amen.