1. "Sometimes we ask questions to learn, other times to teach. Questions can be funny or absurd or shocking or explosive. We can ask questions to reveal or to conceal, to admire or to mock, to confirm or to undermine."

2. "If you've had a week in which you've sinned this week and you thought, maybe I'm not worthy to come to church, you've misunderstood Christianity. If you have a life in which you've never sinned, we as a Christian church have nothing to offer you. We have nothing for perfect people here, just not a thing, nothing at all."

3. "It's scary to think how familiar you can be with God's Word and be a complete stranger to God."

4. "The problem isn't that we're dumb, but that we're bad. All of us, apart from religious education, just who we are, we have thrown away whatever the good gifts are that God has given to us, a fellowship with Himself, and we are all spiritually blind by nature, hard-hearted toward God and others, and deeply confused in our thinking about Him."

5. "Truth never leaves those who hear it in neutrality. You either accept it and so receive more, or you reject it and so erode your grasp on the little you may already have."

6. "These leaders are not investigating to find the truth. They are consulting to forecast the results, the spin. They're more interested in tactics than in truth."

7. "What do you most fear this morning? The opinions of others, your wife, your employees, your parents, your followers on social media, your teammates? Those you most fear are those who control you. They are the ones you serve. We are made to finally fear God alone, to reverence and obey Him."

8. "He does what He does to serve others for time. They do what they do to protect themselves and their jobs."

9. "Religious leaders aren't always right just because they're paid. So we should all study God's Word and believe what we find there, even if it's inconvenient to us or unpopular."

10. "The ruin of thousands is simply this, that they deal dishonestly with their own souls."

Observation Questions

1. According to Luke 19:47-48, what was Jesus doing daily in the temple, and what was the response of the chief priests, scribes, and principal men of the people toward Him?

2. In Luke 20:1, what two activities was Jesus engaged in when the religious leaders approached Him, and who specifically came to confront Him?

3. What specific question did the chief priests, scribes, and elders ask Jesus in Luke 20:2, and what were they demanding He explain?

4. In Luke 20:3-4, how did Jesus respond to their question, and what counter-question did He pose to them about John the Baptist?

5. According to Luke 20:5-6, what two possible answers did the religious leaders consider, and what consequences did they fear from each option?

6. What answer did the religious leaders finally give in Luke 20:7, and how did Jesus respond to them in verse 8?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that the people were "hanging on" Jesus' words (Luke 19:48) while the religious leaders were seeking to destroy Him? What does this contrast reveal about recognizing true spiritual authority?

2. How does Jesus' question about John the Baptist actually answer the leaders' question about His own authority? What connection exists between John's ministry and Jesus' credentials?

3. What does the religious leaders' reasoning process in Luke 20:5-6 reveal about the difference between seeking truth and seeking self-protection? How does their approach to this question expose their spiritual condition?

4. Why did Jesus refuse to directly answer the leaders' question about His authority after they claimed ignorance about John's baptism? What was He teaching both the leaders and the watching crowd through this exchange?

5. How does this passage demonstrate that familiarity with Scripture and religious position does not guarantee genuine knowledge of God? What warning does this provide for religious people in any era?

Application Questions

1. The sermon emphasized that Jesus' words are worth "hanging on." What specific practice could you implement this week to demonstrate that you value Christ's words as the people in the temple did—whether in personal Bible reading, prayer, or corporate worship?

2. The religious leaders were more concerned with protecting their positions than discovering truth. In what area of your life are you tempted to avoid a clear teaching of Scripture because acknowledging it would require uncomfortable change or threaten something you value?

3. Jesus used questions to teach and expose hearts. How might you use thoughtful questions rather than only statements when talking with a non-Christian friend or family member about spiritual matters this week?

4. The sermon warned that "those you most fear are those who control you." Whose opinion or approval do you find yourself fearing more than God's? What would it look like to take one concrete step toward fearing God alone in that relationship or situation?

5. The preacher urged Christians not to be like leaders who teach God's Word but do not obey it themselves. Is there a specific command or truth from Scripture that you know well and perhaps even teach to others, but struggle to practice consistently? What one step of obedience will you take this week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Luke 3:1-22 — This passage describes John the Baptist's ministry and his baptism of Jesus, including the heavenly voice declaring Jesus as God's beloved Son, which is the event Jesus references in His counter-question to the religious leaders.

2. John 1:19-34 — Here we see the Jewish leaders' earlier investigation of John the Baptist and John's explicit testimony that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

3. Ezekiel 34:1-16 — This prophecy condemns Israel's unfaithful shepherds and promises that God Himself will come to shepherd His people, a promise the sermon identifies as being fulfilled in Jesus' temple teaching.

4. Matthew 21:23-27 — This parallel account of the same confrontation provides additional details and context for understanding Jesus' exchange with the religious authorities about His authority.

5. Luke 9:18-22 — In this passage, Jesus reveals His identity as the Christ and predicts His rejection by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, showing that the opposition in Luke 20 was part of God's redemptive plan all along.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Power and Purpose of Questions

II. Jesus Teaching in the Temple and the Leaders' Opposition (Luke 19:47-48)

III. The Religious Leaders Challenge Jesus' Authority (Luke 20:1-2)

IV. Jesus Turns the Tables with His Own Question (Luke 20:3-4)

V. The Leaders' Self-Interested Deliberation (Luke 20:5-6)

VI. The Leaders' Confession of Ignorance and Jesus' Response (Luke 20:7-8)

VII. Recognizing Jesus' True Authority Over All

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Detailed Sermon Outline

All questions are not the same.

Sometimes we ask questions to learn, other times to teach, don't we?

Questions can be funny or absurd or shocking or explosive. We can ask questions to reveal or to conceal, to admire or to mock, to confirm or to undermine.

In research, whether of the detective or the doctoral candidate or the scientist or the lawyer, finding the right question is often the key to everything. Even the briefest of questions, though, can have a powerful effect. William Borden, who left a financial fortune in America a century ago to go abroad as a missionary, was famous for asking his friends, Are you steering or drifting?

That simple question was used in many people's lives. To get them to reevaluate and even reorient what they were doing. On the other hand, questions can be longer and more considered and formal. Think of the three questions that I just put to Michael and to Joseph and to Mark. Those were very carefully considered questions constructed long ago, used very precisely in this setting to elicit a certain response.

Some questions are pressing even Urgent circumstances conspire together to make absolutely central a particular issue. Events that can seem to be arrows pointing toward a certain question and its answer, especially questions of jurisdiction and authority are appreciated in a congregation like this, in a place like the District of Columbia. That was the kind of question that the political religious leaders shot at Jesus one morning during His teaching period in the temple courts. If you turn to the very end of Luke chapter 19, you'll see the event that I have in mind. It's where we left off last week.

You'll find this on page 879 where the Bible is provided. And I encourage you to leave your Bible open because you'll notice you will be absolutely without an outline of the sermon this morning.

All you'll have are those verses. So just leave the Bible open, keep your eyes down, we'll go through them. We'll have no outline today other than the verses. So Jesus entered The city is a king we thought of last week. He went to the temple as a king might go to his palace, his home.

But you remember right at the end last week we saw what he found there was not encouraging.

A little background. The Scriptures required worshipers present animal sacrifices. Well, these worshipers are coming from all over Jerusalem and most of them from outside of Jerusalem and most of them have to walk up a very long elevation to get up to Jerusalem. That's why people prefer to go up to Jerusalem, up to the temple. They're coming, in fact, from all over Judea and actually from beyond that, around the world they're coming.

And imagine the inconvenience of bringing animals all that way.

So what developed very quickly was an industry of providing sacrifice-worthy animals at the temple. But there was a second wrinkle in this. You couldn't use unclean coins. That is coins that would have an image on it, especially of a human, and particularly if a human was worshiped as a god. And of course that's going to be all the Roman coins.

So there had to be shekels used in the temple that were clean ceremonially. That means that for almost all the people coming, they would need to exchange the currency they brought to buy the animals to present into temple shekels and then with those purchase the animals that they would use in sacrifice. So there was an industry that had grown up that was there around the temple itself. And that's what we see Jesus interacting with so vigorously in the last verses we looked at last week in verses 45 and 46 where Jesus condemns the practices that were going on saying this had become a den of robbers. He's quoting Jeremiah there.

And we see in Luke 1945 that Jesus drove out those who sold. From Mark's gospel it seems that Jesus did this driving out on the Monday and then came back on the Tuesday to do some more teaching. And it's this teaching, the day after driving out the sellers, that's described here in the verses we pick up with this morning.

Luke 1947. So that's all background. Now our text, Luke 1947.

And He was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy Him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on His words. Well, immediately there in verse 47 we see this collection of heavyweights, the chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people. Now, Jesus had had religious leaders angry with Him and opposed to Him throughout His ministry. But they've generally been local Bible teachers, Pharisees, fellow rabbis, not the higher-ups, scribes, the general description of Bible scholars.

But the principal men of the people would be the non-priestly elders who were in the Sanhedrin. The national senate, as it were, and the chief priests were the Sadducees, the richest and most powerful priests who controlled the temple. The Romans allowed them to control the temple area in order to minimize the potentially troublesome nationalism of the temple and its worship. I mean, you think, why are all the people coming for Passover? That's why Jesus and all the pilgrims were there.

Well, what's Passover? A celebration of God delivering his people from the mighty Egyptian empire. So you can see how the Roman Empire might not be super comfortable with tens of thousands of people getting together to remember this and celebrate this as their very national identity. So having people who are in charge of all that, who are okay with the Romans, is very, very important.

So that's the kind of situation. The Sadducees then, this party of priests who were in cahoots with the Romans, were on a very large scale nationally what Zacchaeus was on a local scale. Zacchaeus that we considered a couple of weeks ago, a tax collector, he was a member of the family of Israel, but he had turned, as it were, to feed on them for his own personal profit as a job. He gave money to the Romans, the occupiers. Well that's what the Sadducees made sure happened on a national level.

And because these leading priestly families curried the favor of the Roman occupiers, they were left to be in charge of all purely domestic matters. So if Herod and his family were the limited constitutional monarchs, the Sanhedrin led by these chief priests was the national senate.

And in direct control of everything was Rome's emissary, the procurator Pontius Pilate, if need be. But when everything went well, he could stay in the background and the locals could get on as they would. But here in our passage, chapter 19, verse 47, we read that this impressive collection of impressive people were seeking to destroy Jesus. That's the language we read here. But then look at the counterbalance there in verse 48.

They could do literally nothing. Why? Well, look at the last phrase there in chapter 19. For all the people were hanging on his words. We see in verse 47, Jesus was teaching daily in the temple, daily.

So Jesus there, he taught and he taught. And he taught. I think that at the beginning of this week, Jesus seemed to be in about as powerful a position as he would ever seem to be during his earthly ministry. Fresh off the great works in Jericho, blind Bartimaeus' healing, Zacchaeus' salvation, his repentance, the raising of Lazarus in the nearby village of Bethany that everybody was talking about, and then entering Jerusalem as a king with a tumultuous this welcome from the crowds shouting messianic titles, and then just the day before driving out those who sold money and animals in the temple precincts. And through it all Jesus was preaching and teaching.

What do you think Jesus was saying? What do you think He was teaching about? That the words were that the people were hanging on.

Well, Luke chapter 20 tells us more. In fact, we see more teaching in the next couple of chapters. Here in chapter 20, verse 1, we see one day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes of the elders came up and said to him, but before we see what they said, let's just pause and notice what Jesus was doing. He was teaching the people in the temple, preaching the gospel, the gospel, preaching the gospel. So the news that Jesus was announcing was good.

It was his own coming to save the people.

You look up in verse 10 what he had just said in Zacchaeus' house, the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. This is the message Jesus has been teaching increasingly, it seemed, ever since He was publicly identified by His disciples as the Messiah. If you look back in chapter 18, verse 33, even as He warned them that He would be killed, He was also telling them that He would rise.

His death, he taught, was his giving his life as a ransom for many. Now friend, if you're here and you're wanting to understand Christianity, this is the center of it all. This idea that no one here is perfectly righteous, that all of us have sinned, that our only hope is in sincerely turning from that sin, repenting and trusting in Jesus and his righteousness.

So friend, if you've had a week in which you've sinned this week and you thought, maybe I'm not worthy to come to church, you've misunderstood Christianity. If you have a life in which you've never sinned, we as a Christian church have nothing to offer you. We have nothing for perfect people here, just not a thing, nothing at all. Maybe you'll gain some social acceptance because you're perfect, but other than that, just nothing. Religiously, all we have is for sinners.

But then inside of that we don't have something for any sinners who aren't repenting. So if you are somebody who is repenting of your sins, struggling perhaps yes, but sincerely repenting, trusting in Christ fully, that is who Jesus came for. Specifically to lay down his life as a ransom for many. His death on the cross was a substitutionary sacrifice in the place of all of us who would turn from our sins and trust in Christ. And God raised him from the dead.

He ascended to heaven. He presented his sacrifice to his heavenly father who accepted it and calls us all now to turn from our sins and trust in him. Friend, you can have new life and forgiveness if you will turn from your sins and trust in Christ. I urge you to do that. There are so many here today who the first time they came in this building had not done that.

And who some point between then and now have and are now here as Christians and as members of this church, I pray that you will be added to that number soon.

This is what Jesus was teaching. Even before the cross and resurrection happened, these were at the center of Jesus' teaching. I remember a few years ago reading about a poor street vendor in London about a hundred years ago who was sick in bed at home when a faithful Christian worker knocked at his door and came in and visited with him, and he shared this very gospel with him. His name was Bill. Bill laid in bed sick.

He was not doing well. He received a number of visits and seemed not to be recovering physically, and he also seemed not very interested spiritually. But then This worker who made these visits recorded a journal and he said in his journal, April 27th, found him cheerful but very low. His son was present and I commenced speaking to him about spiritual matters. Bill interrupting my conversation said, Give him that little bit.

What bit? I said. That little bit about Christ taking my place and how he had my punishment for me. That's the bit. The street vendor knew more than a lot of theologians these days.

He knew exactly what the point was. He knew exactly where his hope was. He knew what he wanted this Christian worker to tell his son, that Jesus was such a gracious savior. Friends, that's what Jesus was preaching and teaching his own disciples even before he went to the cross. So Jesus and his disciples were teaching while walking around in the temple.

And when you see the temple here, of course, not meaning the building in the middle of this whole complex where the sacrifices were made, but you could refer by the temple to the whole area around it, in the middle of it, and everything out from there, an area about the size of the Capitol Grounds at the end of East Capitol Street. It was covered, there were courts that were covered and colonnaded all around the temple itself, and they were supposed to be dedicated to religious purposes. They were surrounded by a veritable forest of 40-foot-high columns.

They were holding an elaborately decorated roof, and this made an immense porch for gathering and walking and talking. And this is where much of the selling was done that Jesus was removing to outside the area. This is the area that Jesus had just driven the money sellers out of the previous day. Anyway, the people, Luke says here, were hanging on his words. And this is a very unusual word.

It's to be intimately tied up with. It's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament and that spot in Genesis where Judah is speaking to Joseph, he doesn't realize he's Joseph, and he's explaining about his father back in Israel. And he's explaining how the father really can't afford to lose his young, Judah's younger brother, Benjamin. And when he explains it to the Egyptian ruler, who he doesn't realize is his brother Joseph, when he's explaining it, he uses this word in the Greek translation. It's the father's life, he says, hangs on Benjamin's life.

Intimately tied up with, dependent on, reliant on. It's a sweet word and a strong one. That's the word Luke uses to describe what was happening where those listening to Jesus' teaching, they were hanging on His teaching. A stunning fulfillment of exactly what the Lord promised in Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 34 when we read, I will feed them.

I will be their shepherd when the Lord promised to come and to feed His own sheep who were being so abused by the shepherds of Israel at the time. Well Christian friends, Jesus' words are worth hanging on. They're worth us turning to. That's why God's Word is so prominent in our services here. We read His Word to each other as we did just earlier.

We pray from it, we study it, we preach it, we sing it. We work together to obey it in every way that we can. The way we acknowledge that God has given Christ all authority in heaven and on earth is by reading and believing His Word.

So we try to respond to Jesus the way his people here were by recognizing his authority. And this was as it was supposed to be when the Lord comes to his temple. That's how people should respond. That's how we want to respond Sunday by Sunday as we gather together as the body of Christ. We want to hear his word and respond with our ears and hearts.

That's the right reception for the returning King. But that's not the only reception he got that day. When he came to the temple, we find that in the rest of our passage. Ironically, it's the religious leaders of the people, the priests who reject Jesus' claim to be from God. Their motive was self-protection, and to that end they wanted to get Jesus to stop Because what Jesus was doing was making their present position and prosperity in danger.

And to them, that was primary. Read back in John 11:48, their concern that if Jesus continued to gain followers, quote, the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. When leaders like that were mortified by Jesus' popular entry one day, and then the very next day he drives out the money changers, I mean, who would be next? So they needed to act now. He had come into their space, and so they plotted to get Jesus either to alienate the crowds or alienate the Romans.

And their question was formed to force that choice on Jesus. He deny He was from God. And then disillusion all the crowds in their messianic hopes. Or he could affirm it and alarm the Romans as they realized that one claiming to come to take the throne back had come among them.

Well, we see here in Luke 20:1 that this group of chief priests and the scribes and the elders came up to Jesus I mean, they had to after what Jesus had done the previous day. Here was Jesus, this self-appointed rabbi with no formal authority, not even a priest there of the temple in Jerusalem. You know, he had no standing at the bar. And yet the previous day he had delivered a stinging public rebuke quoting Jeremiah in the process. Jesus had faced off with religious leaders before, friends.

We see that in the Gospels, but never a group like this. He had before, as it were, only been on local affiliates. Now he was on national TV.

What would the crowds think that these leaders were coming for? Imagine the excitement, the tension building as they walked across the vast stone courtyard, the morning sun coming in from over the Mount of Olives, long shadows, cooler morning air amidst the sound of all those shuffling feet, the distinct sound of a number of men walking all together with deliberate purpose coming to Jesus and the disciples. So far today, Jesus had made no scene, but He had certainly come preaching the gospel. We read here in verse 1, so they came, those who were in authority over this space, the religious and secular leaders, not only of the temple, but of the whole Jewish nation. And the people around must have been wondering what was happening.

Here was the one who just two days earlier had arrived in Jerusalem to the acclaim and shouts of crowds, welcoming Him as the Messiah, the great heir of King David. Thousands of pilgrims were swelling the city that day, expectations were high. For several years now, the towns throughout the hills and valleys of Judea and Galilee were filled with people recounting to their neighbors what they had heard, the healing they had heard of, the sermon they had heard. And so when Jesus finally came to Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover week, interest. Was at a fever pitch.

The watching crowd that was no doubt forming and watching were wondering, what's about to happen? Is this the national leaders coming to recognize Jesus, to acknowledge Him as the Messiah? Well, the answer comes here in chapter 20, verse 2. Tell us, by what authority you do these things? Or who it is that gave you this authority?

Now on one level, these leaders were just asking Jesus a question. And that's not unusual. That's how rabbis taught. You ask questions while the rabbi walks. We rabbis like to walk and talk.

That's a traditional way of teaching for rabbis. What is a disciple after all? Literally, but one who follows along. It's in the very nature of the word. The image of a rabbi is as a peripatetic teacher, somebody who walks along talking about life along the way, exposing religious truths.

And in a space like the temple courts with people all around, the crowds love the exchange that would come often with humor and with insight, with reassurance, sometimes with challenge. If you just think back in Jesus' ministry, think of how many of His own teachings happened through questions, through Him being asked questions, a conversation with somebody. That's how He taught. Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the disciples just that morning in the way they had seen the withered fig tree and commented on it to Jesus, you can read that account in Mark or Matthew. There are so many examples of Jesus' teachings being really exchanges with others, people who had observed that Jesus' disciples weren't fasting like the disciples of other rabbis.

And they asked why his disciples were acting as they were on the Sabbath. They had asked Jesus for a heavenly sign. They had asked him about divorce. Much of Jesus' teaching was done as question and answer. So the mere fact of him being asked a question was not unusual.

But This question from this group of people on this occasion felt different.

You see, the matter at hand was Jesus' authority, which it quickly became clear they did not come that morning to acknowledge. It's interesting, if you want to look back through Luke's gospel, you'll find that the common people who listened to Jesus teach immediately recognized his authority. You can see that back in chapter 4. Jesus had taught openly that He had authority to forgive sins in Luke 5. He taught that He Himself and those who followed Him would exercise authority in a new way.

And friends, Jesus' actions the previous day where He had cleared that very area of the temple that they were in had openly and dramatically contradicted what the chief priests allowed and condemned them as being unfaithful in their stewardship.

So no matter what Jesus answered, they weren't going to listen. That's not why they'd ask him the question. Now, we should appreciate that the chief priests had a delicate task. They had to make sure that the Roman overlords, whose soldiers were garrisoned in Jerusalem and who kept it under a very close watch, especially this time of year, these Roman masters had to be made to understand that Jesus was a big enough problem that he had to be dealt with.

But these leaders couldn't do this in any way that would undermine the Romans' confidence in these leaders' own ability to handle the matter. So you see the kind of tightrope they had to walk. Jesus must be exposed publicly, and if not disgraced, then at least made a non-entity.

But that was looking like a shrinking possibility. Because of all of the things that had happened. Really the only path that seemed still open was the risky path of drawing Rome's attention to Jesus' popularity, helping them see how potentially politically unsettling the effects of this man would be, and then using the Romans' power to crush him. Because you see, as much as these leaders might hate Jesus, and really want to destroy Jesus, Rome did not allow their conquered peoples power of capital punishment. The only ones who could do capital punishment were the Romans themselves.

So these leaders had to figure out a way to provoke Rome just enough. That come to the temple that morning to pray. Not to pray to God, but to pray upon Jesus. They were going trapping. The people's reactions were the trip wire and the Romans are the hammer ready to come down with the slightest trigger.

So their question is meant to be the bait. And Jesus to pray. They may be questioning Jesus' authority, but ironically, there they were in the temple, they ran asking Jesus questions. There's many things about the scene when you stop and think about it are ironic and scream out the opposite message from what these leaders were wanting.

All right, so what happened next? Maybe he'll tell them and they'll believe, and the Messianic Kingdom will begin. All right, look at verse 3. He answered them, 'I will also ask you a question. Now tell me...' so hold on right there.

Jesus' power, His right to act as He had was being challenged, and He responds to this challenge to His credentials by yet again just assuming leadership. He wasn't gonna be their passive puppet. He would turn the tables and question them publicly. Soon enough, in just a few days publicly, Jesus will answer their question. But for now, he would question them.

He would use his question to them to teach all the people around the truth about these teachers.

And you know, in that sense, him turning to questions, is a lot like we see God acting with us humans throughout the Bible. How many times does God in His Word come with questions exposing us to His lordship? Remember, Where are you? the Lord asked the sinning Adam.

Who gave man his mouth? he said when Moses was trying to beg out of some duty. That the Lord called him to? Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? Remember we heard him just a few months ago in Job, asking Job that question.

How can the Lord pasture sheep that are stubborn? The Lord asked His people through Hosea. Who are you that you fear mortal men? He asked His people through Isaiah. Again and again in Scripture, God teaches His people through tough questions.

Parents, do you ever teach your children through questions? We know that we're supposed to teach truth, but have you considered how sometimes the best way to do that is by asking questions? When our kids were little, one thing we used to do was take a book of Proverbs, take the chapter of whatever the day is, today's the 28th, take chapter 28, We would go around and each read a verse and turn and then take turns trying to summarize what that verse was saying. Just a question to get us into conversation with each other about the truths of God's Word. Questions have a wonderful open-endedness about them that sometimes elicit more from a person answering them than they may have even realized they knew.

Do you see that? Do you ask questions of your children?

Does it ever help them to better understand what you're teaching them as they prepare in their own mind to answer your question?

Do you see how I'm doing that even now with you by asking you questions?

Even if you don't like the question, there's something almost irresistible about a question. When you hear a question, it's like the mind just has to get to work solving it, answering it, fixing it. It's just what we do naturally. It's the way the Lord has made our minds. We can dislike questions, but by their very nature, in our very nature, they're hard for us to ignore.

So much of my regular pastoral work is simply listening to you and then honestly asking you questions, trying to figure out the answer. Friends in your evangelism, challenge your non-Christian friends to consider why they're asking some of the questions they're asking. Gently but firmly, prayerfully, help them to become aware of some things they might be trying to protect or prevent or avoid. Friends, this question of authority is an important issue for us as we understand who Jesus is. It's important for you to consider if you're here today as a non-Christian.

It's important for us as a church to consider the authority of Jesus. This church isn't mine. It doesn't belong to the elders that we just saw up here. Dear congregation, it doesn't even ultimately belong to you. This church belongs to Jesus.

Jesus died for his own, for his sheep. Every church that preaches the gospel is his. We have to be clear on Jesus' ownership, on his authority. So these leaders had come to Jesus to exercise their authority over him by requiring him to answer their question, and instead he would turn the tables on them and put them in the position to need to publicly answer his question. You know, sometimes people think of Jesus as just a nice guy.

If I become a Christian, then that'll make me a nice guy, and I'll be nice to others, and they'll think I'm nice. And I would just say, there's some truth in that. But that's a very partial picture. You just got to keep reading some more of Jesus and you'll see things like this. Because following Jesus can involve you in conflict even with religious people, as we see Jesus himself knew.

So you can come to Jesus with your agenda, but I promise you, he's going to have his agenda and he will pursue that with you. Now, what would his question be? Well, look at verse 4, we see.

Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?

Now consider the tension of the moment when Jesus first publicly responded to the corrupt temple establishment attempting to question Him. Imagine the tension that was engendered by their question and then even more by His response. This clearly, I think, now is moving over to the conflict meter in the general public perception. The baptism of John that Jesus asked about stands for John and his whole ministry. So the baptism of John was in fact from God.

He was a prophet from God. You can look at Luke 1 or John 1 to learn more of God's calling and sending of John the Baptist. In fact, the Jews of Jerusalem had actually done an investigation early on in John's ministry.

To see whether or not he was from God. You can read about that in John chapter 1. John the Baptist was an amazing figure in Jewish history whose ministry ended the silence of the centuries since the last Old Testament prophet had preached. Dressed like Elijah, preaching repentance, baptizing not Gentiles converting to Judaism, but Jews as if they were Gentiles, publicly confessing their sins by being baptized. All of this had been shocking and electrifying to the people.

So John the Baptist was greatly loved and feared in Jerusalem and greatly loved by the people who recognized him, but feared by Herod, whose incestuous marriage John had denounced fearlessly before Herod had had John's head separated from his body.

So why ask this question? Why would Jesus come up with this question to ask them, just to stump them and show to the crowd that these teachers are really stupid and not worth following? I don't think it was quite that simple.

Jesus' own authority was, in fact, from God. But do you remember how Jesus began His public ministry three years earlier? It was by John the Baptist baptizing him. And when John baptized Jesus, you can read about it back in Luke 3, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, you, are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. It was in Jesus' own baptism by John that Jesus' credentials were published, as it were.

So by referencing John the Baptist, Jesus was asking them if they accepted John's testimony. John who had said of Jesus, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So Jesus was indirectly asking them if they spoke the language which God had already answered their question in. Did they regard John's ministry, his teaching as being from God? You see friends, the answer to their question was the answer to his question.

From God. He knew that. He knew they knew that. So while we can look at this as a fun, maybe informative for a press secretary sort of evasive cagey Jesus, it's a lot more than that. It's more a Socratic Jesus who is showing them that he knows exactly what they're asking and they know the answer and he knows they know the answer.

And so now here's a question right back at them which elicits that very answer. So back to you. Will you say it? Because you know it.

Jesus' answer was the kind of thing that we might experience maybe when we're, maybe you're in an argument with your husband or your wife and you're just saying like, Ah, not in front of the kids. I need to somehow communicate in a way that we understand each other and these are not going to understand it fully. Maybe there's a little bit of that going on. He had a little more teaching that he wanted to do. He didn't want to just come out and say, From God and elicit that Roman hammer then and be crucified on Tuesday or Wednesday because he had more that he wanted to teach.

And so in order to bless the people ultimately with this more he would teach, He gave this answer, an answer that he knew they would understand, but that would forestall Rome's public revenge. Jesus' answer may have seemed publicly cagey, even evasive, but privately, I think to those leaders, it was emphatic, emphasizing the truth that he taught and that they should believe. Again, friend, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I urge you to discover who Jesus is and what he came to do. He came to seek and to save the lost. What a wonderful mission.

That means you. Talk to your Christian friends about this. Try to understand more of what it means. If you're in a period of where you're trying to question who Jesus is and what he came to do, what it means to follow him, consider what Jesus said to his own disciples. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.

He who loves me will be loved by my Father. Loved by my Father, and I too will love Him and show myself to Him. Is Christ showing Himself to you today?

Are you understanding who He is? Kids, you don't have to be 30 or even 20 to come to know Jesus. You can come to know Jesus at 10. You can come to know Him, to understand Him, to take Him as your own Savior. Speak to Christian friends, a Sunday school teacher, speak to your parents about what that would mean for you.

My Christian friend, you might want to take a leaf out of Jesus' book here and when you're talking to your non-Christian friends, instead of just telling them things, ask them questions. In this regard, there are good books out there for you to read by Randy Newman, by Max Stiles, Os Guinness' book Fool's Talk. Is really good for this, helping you form some of those questions. Anyway, back to our story. Jesus' question was a harder one for these leaders than we might at first guess.

So look at verse 5. And they discussed it with one another, saying, if we say, 'From heaven he will say, 'Why did you not believe him?' you' can just see these leaders surprised by the way Jesus responded to this question, pulling back into a huddle, not expecting this.

Talking it over, reasoning with each other, maybe even arguing. And just understand, these religious leaders are not asking each other if the God they profess to worship had in fact been communicating to them through John the Baptist. They're not having a theological conversation. No, I'm not sure they were used to talking about things like that. Rather, they were justifying to each other why they can't publicly acknowledge John.

Because then they would be found to be at fault for not having believed him when he was alive and preaching to them, perhaps even for not believing John's testimony about Jesus.

Friends, how could those who led God's special people, those who taught God's law, those who were in charge of acting out the lessons of the sacrifices, how could these people be so callous to God's special revelation of himself?

To the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world, to the very Son of God incarnate standing in front of them.

I have to tell you, staring at this passage and meditating on it, it's scary to think how familiar you can be with God's Word and be a complete stranger to God.

That's what these leaders are showing us.

According to the Bible though, we've all been made in the image of God, we've all rebelled against God. The problem isn't that we're dumb, but that we're bad. All of us, apart from religious education, just who we are, we have thrown away whatever the good gifts are that God has given to us, a fellowship with Himself, and we are all spiritually blind by nature, hard-hearted toward God and others, and deeply confused in our thinking about Him. The Bible calls us all now naturally dead in our sins and transgressions. And my friend, that's the truth about you, regardless of how eminent you are in your field, or successful you are in business, or satisfied you are in friendships, or popular you are at school, or good at sports, or promising in your job, or valued at work, or loved by your family, you stand liable to God's judgment because God is good.

You stand in need of a Savior.

And if I could say a further word to you, you won't find it by simply standing around and talking to each other, just with your non-Christian friends. You see here they discuss it with one another.

What light is to be found there? These are the people who are also self-interested, who love the darkness. What truth among those who are just trying to avoid public rebuke and shame? My non-Christian friend, that Christian you know, that is part of God's grace in your life. Latch onto them.

Talk to them. Keep pursuing them. Even if they think you're taking too long, you keep pursuing, listening, watching, learning. That Christian you know is part of God's amazing grace in your life. Brothers and sisters, let us resolve not to be like these here who teach God's Word but who do not quickly obey it ourselves.

Let's not be like that in our homes or in our offices or in our friendships here at church. Pray that God make us eager, sincere, humble disciples simply shaped by His truth. Pray that even now, as we listen to this portion of God's Word, as we study the Bible together this morning, pray that God will help us not to protect our sins and so hurt ourselves That's what these leaders were doing. But may God help us now to learn the truth and trust him and so protect ourselves and forsake even our dearest sins. God preserve us from such hypocrisy as we see among these teachers here.

Anyway, that's how these teachers could get it so wrong. So that leaves us with the conclusion that as wrong as they may have been, these, these teachers will have to speak up about John the Baptist. They're going to have to come clean in front of the crowd. But we find in verse 6, the leaders were unwilling to denounce John the Baptist. Look at verse 6.

But if we say from man, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet. John the Baptist was very popular. They're convinced that John was a prophet. The people did recognize John's authority better than the religious authorities did.

Truth never leaves those who hear it in neutrality. You either accept it and so receive more, or you reject it and so erode your grasp on the little you may already have. Beware of deceiving yourself, my friends. Don't assume simply because you truly do think something, you have so-called my truth that what you believe really is true.

Now we see even more clearly the depravity of these religious leaders. These leaders are not investigating to find the truth. They are consulting to forecast the results, the spin. They're more interested in tactics than in truth. After all, their livelihood depended not upon what they thought was truly the case, but upon appearances and knowing how the crowds would respond.

I wonder who here in our own city could relate to such a situation.

If we're honest, we know ourselves and we know we don't have to be in politics to be more concerned about what people think than about what's really the case, about what God knows.

What do you most fear this morning? The opinions of others, your wife, your employees, your parents, your followers on social media, your teammates, do you fear those who look up to you or suspect you? Those you most fear are those who control you. They are the ones you serve. We are made to finally fear God alone, to reverence and obey Him.

Pray for us as a church that we would always prefer truth over convenience, that we would always be attentive to God's Word and obedient to the Lord. I thank God how much He has clearly worked that in this congregation. It is a joy to pastor you. I regularly have occasion when I'm with other pastors to talk about you and to brag about you and to praise God for the evident work that He's done among you. Back to the story.

Okay, so if this is the leaders' bind, what can they say? Well, we find out in the last two verses of our passage, verses 7 and 8, where the leaders confess their ignorance. So they answered that they did not know where it came from, and Jesus said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. They did not know. Ah, these leaders were lying.

The truth is they didn't want to say because they wanted to protect their own jobs, their status, their position. They valued those things more than God's truth even though they had just asked God Himself a question. Neither will I tell you. By denying the divine nature of John's mission, they rejected the answer Jesus would give them. And they all knew that.

Even their unwillingness reveals the truth about them and their state and their discernment and their stewardship. We can see now what Jesus did. He exposed the leaders' blindness to the people watching and exposed their duplicity to themselves while at the same time making yet another implicit claim to have God's authority because he answered a question which presumes the answer is from God.

So yet again here in the temple itself, in front of the Sanhedrin, he is now claiming to have God's authority in a way that he knows the leaders will understand. They've heard it from him. John acted with God's authority. John taught that Jesus was the Lamb of God come to take away the sin of the world, but they were at least publicly deaf to these notes. They didn't seem to speak the language of true faith.

This delegation had no doubt walked up to Jesus that morning with the purpose to undo Him publicly by questioning His authority. They wanted to test His mettle and to embarrass Him, perhaps to see if because of His lack of training in traditional forms of rabbinical recognition or engagement, He was up to it. But what ended up happening was instead Jesus publicly raised the question of their ability even to judge such a matter at all. The irony, this is not what they expected. The leaders of God's people not recognizing the identity and authority of God's own Son.

It's as if they are unfamiliar with God himself.

How could that possibly be?

So Jesus has come to Jerusalem to complete his work, to go to the cross, and then to reveal his glory in the resurrection. And in this little encounter, he turns the table on the national leaders to show who is really in authority. In order to expose them, Jesus will not answer their question. They will not answer His question so that they can hide. He does what He does to serve others for time.

They do what they do to protect themselves and their jobs. Friends, do take note of how blind even paid religious leaders can be. This district of Columbia, this Capitol Hill is sadly littered with churches that long ago stopped believing the gospel of Jesus Christ that they were founded to propagate. Religious leaders aren't always right just because they're paid. So we should all study God's Word and believe what we find there, even if it's inconvenient to us or unpopular.

J.C. Ryle observed that the ruin of thousands is simply this, that they deal dishonestly with their own souls. May that be true of no one in this crowd today. Jesus truly is Lord. I pray that we all recognize this.

Do you?

What is your response to Jesus' claim of authority?

Jesus predicted clearly back in Luke 9:22 that He too would be rejected. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Even in their rejection of Jesus, these chief priests and scribes and principal men were fulfilling another of Jesus' own predictions. Even they couldn't escape Jesus' authority.

So what about you? What do you make of Jesus' authority?

Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that by your Holy Spirit you would call your own. Pray, Lord, that you would show the authority you gave to the Lord Jesus to each heart here. Help us not to refuse to recognize your authority in Jesus. Lord, make us not like these religious leaders, but like those who are hanging on his words. Do this, we pray, for our good and for your glory.

In Jesus' name, Amen.