Give Me Jesus

The Gospel Ministry and the Supremacy of Christ

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. I'm your host. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I am pleased to be here today. It's a wonderful luxury we have and an opportunity to spread the gospel through the airwaves and then through podcasts.

Lots of people listening. The audience keeps growing daily. The emails are flying in, and we are very, very thankful for that. I go back to MacArthur's adage, and that is if you take care of the depth of your ministry, the Lord will take care of the breadth of the ministry.

So I'm happy that the Lord is giving us more opportunities, and I have a goal in life, and that goal is to be faithful to the word of God, to proclaim God's word, and make sure, as I do that, to show the supremacy of Christ.

Actually, if you proclaim God's word, you will, in fact, proclaim Christ's supremacy. And on our show, we have a variety of different topics. I try to come at things from different angles. Since I'm not the greatest preacher in the world, I'm not Martyn Lloyd-Jones, I have to try to figure out ways to get you to listen, to try to kind of goad you along, to try to stimulate you, to prod you to listen.

Why Books About Jesus Do Not Sell

And so today, I'd like to talk about a subject that should make your eyes light up, that should make you want to listen without any kind of pomp or circumstance. And that topic today is Jesus Christ. I will never forget, as long as I live, sitting in a car, driving in Florida with Sinclair Ferguson, and Sinclair Ferguson is one of my Christian heroes, even though he won't be on No Compromise Radio.

Actually, I didn't formally ask him, I just know that, I asked D .A. Carson, and D .A. Carson said no, in a room with him, and we talked for a while. I said, yes, but Dr. Carson, I'm one of your students, but he's just busy doing what he does with editing and everything else, and I'm glad he's doing that.

But I said to Sinclair Ferguson in the car, I said, you know, I just finished my second book, and it's about Jesus, and would you write an endorsement? And he said yes. By the way, I still haven't gotten that endorsement yet, I better call him back.

And he said, you know, what's the book about? And I told him about Jesus the King, and he said, well, you know, the problem is books about Jesus don't sell. Books about Jesus don't sell. And I thought that was very interesting.

40 days of purpose, and you can take the Message Bible and contort the real text, and have no resurrection, and have no repentance, and have no gospel. People love that. People will fall all over themselves to read that.

But when it comes to a book about Jesus, it just don't sell so well. Now, I know you could say from one side, the all-time best-selling book in the history of mankind is a book about Jesus, and that would be true.

But in terms of books by publishers, the books about Jesus that sell are probably exceptions to the rule. Now, there are certainly some, the Gospel According to Jesus, I get that. But today, here's my point.

Christ's Supreme Authority in Luke 20

We're going to look at Luke chapter 20, and I want you to see the life of Christ. On Thursdays, I've been trying to have kind of a new little series, and that is focusing on Christ, His life, His preaching.

And so when you look at the Gospels, they are just fast-paced. I know Mark is the go-gospel, the immediately gospel, the straight-way gospel. But when you look at the other Gospels, Matthew, Luke, and John, you would just, you see Jesus, and it's just fascinating.

Whether He's talking to Zacchaeus, He's healing blind Bart, it is amazing to watch the person of Christ. And so He is the one who is the object of our faith, and whether He's doing something out of compassion, if He's doing some salvific work, if He's teaching, if He's dealing with Pharisees and talking to sinners, He is just fascinating.

There's no one like Jesus. And so today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, we're going to look at Luke chapter 20, and I want you to see Christ's supreme authority. And as we're looking through this passage, I want you to say, if you're a Christian, that is my Lord, that is my Savior.

He is one to be admired. He is one to be looked up to. He is one to be, and frankly, worshiped. He is to be worshiped, and He should consume your thoughts and your minds. And actually today, I need a good dose of, let's remember who Jesus is.

People challenged the authority of Jesus back then, and they challenged the authority of Jesus today. And so this is going to be very helpful for your praise, for your admiration. And also, in a sense, it's a case study in historical theology, where we go back to history, we see what Jesus did, and we say, you know what?

Jesus is immutable, and people, sadly, are the same. They're sinful and depraved, and they don't like authority. What are the three main authorities in the world? Government, the church, and the home.

And so where does the enemy attack authority? Where does the rebellious human heart attack authority? In the government, in the church, and at home. And so here we have authority incarnate, actually, Jesus.

And they are questioning, in Luke 20, His authority. And He gives a wonderful answer, and this is what I call theological warfare at its apex. This is the Mount Kilimanjaro of theological warfare. We have lots of people in the world today, and they want to get some oil and anoint people.

They think that's spiritual warfare. They like to march around a building and cast out territorial demons. They think that's spiritual warfare. They like to slay people in the spirit, and they would ponder in their minds that this is the apex of spiritual warfare.

But that's not it at all. We're going to see here theological warfare. And people sometimes don't like war. I just was in California, down with war, peace. There are many occasions that we'll see, actually, from the Bible.

To get peace, there must be war. There's gotta be bloodshed to get peace, and that's true with Jesus as well. The enmity between God and man, how we're God's enemies. It has to be God's wrath placated by blood, by violence, by war.

And so I'm very thankful that we know the end of the story as Jesus is on His way toward Calvary. He is dealing with Pharisees and disputing in the temple, Luke chapter 20. So let me read the text. One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, boy, that would have been great, the chief priest and the scribes with the elders came up and said to Him, now what do you think they'd say to Him?

They're the power brokers, they're the religious leaders. It's just like today when the word of God is taken out of the scabbard and wielded with authority of the liberal Christians, the liberal secularists, the liberal religion people, they don't like that at all.

Here's what they say. Tell us by what authority you do these things or who is it that gave you this authority? So they gather together. I don't even know how friendly they were toward one another, but when you have a common enemy, here they are ganging up on Jesus.

We don't really know what He was teaching exactly. That is parsing what He taught. It's not stated there except it says He's preaching the good news. And the good news is, of course, what God did, who God is and what He has done.

The good news is not including some kind of man's way to get to heaven and what He has to do. No, it's a declaration, it's a statement of fact, it's an indicative, here's what God has done. And of course, in light of that, you must believe that, you must repent from not believing, et cetera.

And so these men here are challenging Jesus. And so if you back somebody up into a corner, they really get after you, sometimes because they're trying to defend themselves or they lash out. Well, they're trying to put Jesus into a corner, but Jesus is no sinful man.

Jesus is not intimidated. Jesus is not going to be put in a corner and you'll see the real mean part of Jesus come out that's torqued by sinful Adamic nature. No, Jesus is perfect. Jesus has never sinned.

And Jesus is going to act perfectly correct. Whatever Jesus says, whatever He does, you're going to have to say, that was the right thing to do. Now, you might not be able to imitate everything that Jesus does because you're not Jesus and you are not told to imitate Him in everything.

But you can sure learn from Jesus and how He deals with people who think they have righteousness, who think that they're good, who don't think that they're needy, who don't think they're dependent like we saw in the series on Luke 18.

And so let's see Jesus as He's challenged by the chief priests, scribes and elders about basically cleaning out the temple. And we know that these men are not happy. They're not gleeful. They are, excuse me, in an angry mood.

Cole, the commentator said, the rumblings of the coming storm grow louder. And so what are you doing? Why are you doing this? On what authority do you do this? You know, authority typically is a derived authority.

There's usually a chain of command. There are proper channels. There's an inside club here. And Jesus, you're not practicing these things. And you need to be taken to the woodshed and hear these leaders.

What do they do? They pounce on Jesus. And these three groups, these three classes come right after Jesus because they are the authority. They are the ones. They're the ones sitting at the top of the Jewish ladder spiritually.

And they don't like Jesus's new authority. We're the ones who study. We're the ones who interpret the law. We're the ones who are the leaders of the people. And we are in alarm because you are teaching wrong things.

You're doing improper things. And so Jesus has caused such a stir that the big shots were attentive. And you know you're making ripples when the highest highest, as MacArthur would call them, the mucky mucks show up.

And Jesus's ripples, initially as he cleansed the temple, are now turning into tsunami type waves. And they knew that Jesus was attacking the very jugular of worship as they knew it. And they knew that what Jesus said and did was going to be a death blow to their position because it was a death blow to self-righteousness.

And we would like to see your papers, Jesus. We're No Compromise Radio Ministry. Info at nocompromiseradio .com. You can write us. And we're looking at Jesus today and how he is so great. And he's dealing with people who challenge his authority.

And you might learn some lessons today on people challenging the authority of the Bible. Oh, it's written by men. Oh, how do you know it's true? Oh, you know, there's scribal errors. Oh, what about this contradiction?

Oh, what about this? You know, there are other books. Oh, who do you think you Christians are? You guys are a bunch of hypocrites. You can hear the thousands and thousands of slams today. And men and women are no different because they will not have Jesus reign over them because they like to reign.

And so here are these scribes and these Pharisees and these elders. They want to know Jesus's credentials. What is your authorization? Show us the papers, please. And so they want to embarrass Jesus. They want people to say, you know what?

Yeah, he really doesn't have any credentials. He didn't go to Harvard. He didn't go to Princeton. He didn't go to Yale. He didn't go to any of these, you know, he didn't go to Union. He didn't go to any of the best kind of liberal schools.

And so you shouldn't listen to him. He's arrogant. He's prideful. It's just he himself and that's it. And what authority do you have? And of course, we know the source of the authority of Jesus because if you've been reading Luke, all Luke's readers have known so far chapter one, he's the son of the Most High.

If you've been reading Luke, you know that he is chapter two, the Christ. If you've been following Luke's argument, he's the Holy One of God, chapter four. He's the Son of Man, chapter five. He's the son of David, chapter 18.

He's Israel's King, chapter 19. Who are you? Well, the Pharisees might know some of this. We, the readers, know all of it. And the listeners of Jesus back in those days know some of it. And they are powerless to stop such a great King, such a Holy One of God.

Jesus, what kind of apprenticeship did you go through? You've got a mail-order degree. You're self-ordained. There's a lot of mail-order degrees out there today. And just because somebody has got a DD at the end of their name or a DMIN or a PhD, you have to see if it's a reputable institution.

This is simple logic. He's self-ordained. Jesus is attacking the way they worshiped. And they're saying, you know what? You're not really right with God. When he attacked earlier, what did they say? You are of your father, the devil.

Well, they said, basically, that's what Jesus said of them. You are of your father, the devil. But they were saying horrible things about Jesus. And so he cleansed the temple, he purges it, and he's taken away basically power and money and jurisdiction from these leaders.

He had just cleansed the temple in chapter 19. Why are you doing these things? Who are you? You're not a doctor. You don't have a degree. You're a untrained hayseed from Galilee. Well, what does Mark say?

Mark said that he went into the temple and he cast out those who were buying and selling in the temple. God showed up and he made a statement about the holiness of God in the temple. And he did not like the bingo-like atmosphere that was going on in the temple of God.

And so he just took care of that very issue. Why are you doing these things? By whose authority are you doing these things? And Jesus says, basically, in Mark's account, that the religious leaders were like robbers who found refuge in the temple.

And they're trying to find refuge in the caves of the temple. And Jesus is denouncing that. And he's saying, this is not correct. Jeremiah 7, will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known?

Then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered that you may do all these abominations. You're letting people just run into the temple and say, king's ex?

No, we're not going to do that. Earlier in chapter 19, they were hanging on the words of Jesus. So these guys in Luke 20 are demanding an answer. In Luke 20, verse three says, Jesus answered them, I also will ask you a question, now tell me.

I have to say that if Jesus ever says that to you, I have one comment. That is, you should gulp. You should think long-ly. Do you think long-ly? You should take a long, thoughtful breath, and say, uh-oh, we know something bad is coming.

And this is not some Jesus that's just emaciated, scrawny, wimpy Jesus. This is the God-man. And here, Jesus, like rabbis did back then, ask a question. And so he is going to try to vanquish his opponents by this very thing.

And he asks the question, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? John the Baptist has been martyred already, and he wants, Jesus now wants an answer. John the Baptist, formal training or no formal training?

Well, he had no formal training. And so they're questioning Jesus about his authority when they recognize, the people recognize that John the Baptist was a prophet, was a proclaimer of the truth of God, and he had delegated authority only.

He wasn't the son of man, but he had no formal training. He had no priest credentials. Jesus is asking them a question, and this is what we call the horn of a dilemma. You know, if you really believed in John, why weren't you repenting and then baptized by him?

And he says in Mark 11's account of this passage, answer me, answer me. Lenski said the entire tone of Jesus is superior. If these great dignitaries intended to impress him with their number, Jesus is not overawed for one moment.

So Jesus says, I have a forerunner, and I'll stake my authority to his authority. And you accepted his authority, or you rejected his authority. Now see, what's happening is the people are there, and the people, you know, the leaders want to look good in the people's eyes.

They rejected John's, the leaders rejected John's authority, and they killed him. Do you think God was behind John's mission or not? Well, they said in verse five, if we say from heaven, he'll say, then why did you not believe him?

Oh, but if we say from man, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet. See, Jesus had them. They thought they were going to question Jesus, and Jesus, this hayseed from the Galilee, of course, is the God-man.

So what did they do? Hey, let's just be cowards, and let's just feign ignorance. So they answered that they did not know where it came from, verse seven. Isn't that lame? Isn't that lame? You know, the fool has said in his heart, there's no God.

These people aren't stupid. The fool in Psalm 14 isn't stupid, but unbelief has a moral dimension. They don't want to believe. They don't want to believe because they don't want to have a higher authority.

So what do they say? No comment. Can't you just hear the bureaucracy grinding? We have no comment. So what does Jesus say in Luke 20? Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

I have no obligation to tell you. People say they want truth, and when you give them the truth, they reject it. Then you're going to be hardened. That's a lesson in the Bible as well. Oh, we want truth, we want truth.

And then when truth is given to them, they say, no, we don't want that truth. And so what happens? There's a callusing of their hearts, a hardening. Some is self-hardening, and some can be the hardening of God himself.

You have the official position of Judaism's leadership of that day hostile towards Jesus. And of course, nothing has changed over the years. And so what's happening? We have people who attack the authority of Jesus, then we give them Jesus's authority, and then they don't want it.

And then after that, Jesus gives a parable. He gives them a parable about the wicked tenants. And so he makes his point there, and I will probably have to go into the parable another time, but I'll at least read it in Luke 20, verse nine and following.

And so here's the punchline, as it were. Here's the warning. Why would Jesus put this parable here? Jesus has every right to criticize false worship in the temple since he is the owner's son. That's the point.

Now listen to Jesus here. And he began to tell the people this parable. See how it's tied in? Luke 20, one to eight, gives us the launching point for this parable. A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to the vine growers and went on a journey for a long time.

At the harvest time, he sent a slave to the vine growers so that they would give him some of the produce of the vineyard. But the vineyard growers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he proceeded to send another slave, and they beat him also and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed.

And he proceeded to send a third, and this one also they wounded and cast out. The owner of the vineyard said, what shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they'll respect him. But when the vine growers saw him, they reasoned with one another saying, this is the heir, let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours.

So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy these vine growers and will give the vineyard to others, Gentiles. When they heard it, they said, may it never be.

But Jesus looked at them and said, what then is this that is written? The stone which the builders rejected. He's quoting Psalm 118. The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone.

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. What a teacher, what a passage. These men come and question the authority of Jesus. And Jesus says, I am the owner's, I am the father's son.

I have all authority because the father has given it to me. And unless you accept who I am and what I have done and will do, you are in big trouble. Otherwise, the stone, I am the stone, you're going to reject this great chief cornerstone.

The judgment of God is going to fall on you like a huge temple stone falls on someone and pulverizes them. And so see, that's the thing. That's just like Psalm 2. Here is Jesus, the only Messiah, the only sin bearer.

And if you don't accept his authority, you are going to be crushed into pieces. And that would be not a literal crushing, but figurative. The literal would be you're going to be given a new body prepared by God to endure the torments of the damned forever.

It's Jesus or no one. And that's why the psalmist says in Psalm 2, kiss the son lest you perish. Worship him. You need to bow down and confess him Jesus as the Lord because one day you'll have to do it anyway.

Why not do it now? Why not be forgiven versus on judgment day, be forced down like some criminal in front of a king and accepting the sentence of eternal banishment. Get away from my presence. And so today we've looked at Luke 20 on No Compromise Radio just to see how great Jesus is, just to focus in on Jesus.

Just so our focus isn't on ourselves. Frankly, you ought to be reading the Gospels on a regular basis so you can get your eyes off yourself. We let ourselves down, we sin, we fail. Get your eyes on other people.

They sin, they feel. Get your eyes on Jesus and just be in awe. And be in awe of the passages that he talks about his compassion as he heals the woman with the blood issue or he heals blind Bart. Yeah, those are great passages, but so are these two.

Jesus' authority is a question and he says, I am the son of God. Do you believe it? No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church.

Firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text. Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six.

We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.