Matthew 21:23-27 What Gives You the Right

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Well, good morning, and welcome to Recast Church.

As Dave said, I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, and welcome to Back Inside. God has been really good to us.

I hope that you've seen his goodness toward you. During this season of uncertainty, there's been a lot of uncertain things around us, but in the midst of all of that, there's one stable thing, and that is our

God. He has continued to love us. He's continued to listen to our prayers. He has continued to accept our worship.

He has continued to grow us closer to him, even in the midst of many trials, and he's continued to give us opportunities to bless others.

I hope you've been able to see that over the course of the last several months. Then just even as Dave said,

I just think it's cool how God works out timing of things that this would be the weather on the day that we first decide to come back in, and so it is a reminder of what fall looks like in the state of Michigan, and a reminder of why we chose in October to have our first services indoors.

What we're going to do this morning is we're going to do something that probably moving forward indefinitely, we're going to have the message first, and then we're going to have songs at the end, just so that we're not in here after having sung songs from the bottom of our lungs together.

That's kind of the way that we're going to do that moving forward. We'll have a couple of things that break things up here in the middle of it, but I'm going to introduce the message right now, and then we're going to have

Spencer come up and pray, and then we'll dive into the sermon. We're taking on the ending of the Gospel of Matthew, and really the last eight chapters cover the last eight weeks of the life of Jesus, cover that last week.

The Gospels, all of them, spend the lion's share of their ink and their time on a very eventful, yet small sliver of the last week of Jesus' life.

Now, any biographer who spent 30 % of their writing in a biography about a subject on their last week of life would either be a very bad researcher, or they would be calling and intentionally doing so to call attention to that particular subject's death, the way that they died, the end of their life.

I would suggest to you that Matthew wasn't a bad author. He was a man moved along by the Holy Spirit to shine a spotlight on the most significant part of the life of Jesus, namely the end.

He came to be a sacrifice. He came to us to die for us. The things he does here in these final days snap into focus in light of his impending death and resurrection.

The way that he rolls, the things he does in this last week, should be impressed on us more so because we know where he's going, we know he's going to the cross.

That ought to have an impact on the way that we understand the things that we're reading in the coming weeks in these chapters.

Our text this morning shows another confrontation with religious leaders. We'll see that as a theme in this last week of his life.

He's pulled out all the stops. He's showing them who he is. They don't like it. There's an increasing tension over this last week that culminates in, obviously, the crucifixion under the hands of the

Romans and really pushed that direction by the Jews themselves. What we're going to see of the religious leaders in our text this morning is they're going to, in essence, directly ask

Jesus, what gives you the right to teach? What gives you the right to do all of these things? What gives you the right to lead, to heal, to receive praise from the people in the temple?

What gives you the right? Even further, they ask, what gives you the right? Where do you get this right?

Who gives you this right? Who, meaning that they would have an assumption that maybe God would have something to do with it, and they're questioning even that.

His answer, as I read it here in a moment, it's not going to sound to our ears the same way it would have to the crowds that were listening in to this interchange between the religious leaders and Jesus.

There was a crowd there that was listening to his teaching. They were interrupted. At first blush, it may look like he deflects and refuses to answer the question, but in a way of masterful communication, he answers the religious leaders' question in a way that the crowds would have picked up on.

They would have understood his question as an answer, but he also answers the question in a way that stymies and pushes back against the religious leaders themselves.

Jesus was a master of subtle communication, as we're going to see in this text. He spoke in parables and stories that required thought all throughout his life.

In this case, there is no parable, but there is a serious inference that the mass of crowds gathered to listen to him in the temple would have easily picked up on.

In this text, Jesus shows us the way of subtlety as a valuable tool, and at face value, we see a way to interact with those who would attack our faith directly.

We also see in this text a reminder of the authority of heaven given to Jesus. He has authority to heal.

He has authority to teach. He has authority over all of these things. He is indeed the

Messiah. He's going to give a little bit of a logic here. He's going to bring John the Baptizer into the equation, and he's going to say,

John was sent by heaven to introduce the Messiah. If John was from heaven, then certainly

Jesus was as well. Let's open your Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew 21, verses 23 through 27.

Again, Matthew 21, 23 through 27, and see if you can follow the logic of Jesus through this passage. If you have a device, grab that, so you can follow along, but again, recast

God's holy and precious word, a word that desires to change us and transform us, to change the way that we think of the world, and then go out and live according to it.

Matthew 21, starting in verse 23, and when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, by what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?

Jesus answered them, I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then

I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come?

From heaven or from man? And they disgusted among themselves, saying, if we say from heaven, he will say to us, why then did you not believe him?

But if we say from man, we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.

So they answered Jesus, we do not know, and he said to them, neither will

I tell you by what authority I do these things. May God bless the reading of his word.

Lord, we are so thankful to be gathered together in a community where we can praise you and worship you and encourage one another.

Lord, we're thankful for this church, where you have and are working to knit our hearts not only together as a community, but to draw us closer to you.

So Lord, I pray this morning, as we listen to the preaching of your word and as we worship, that you will work through that with your

Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ. Lord, we want to be people who are changed from the inside out, who worship you in spirit and in truth, and in everything we do, glorify you.

And so I pray that your spirit accomplishes those purposes this morning, and Lord, I'm thankful for this text that reminds us that we do not live for ourselves, that we do not have authority over what we do, but that we are an ought to submit to the

Lord Jesus Christ, who has authority over everything. So Lord, we are thankful that we do not have the burden to carry of being in charge, but that we can lay that burden down and live for your

Son, who came and died so that we might have eternal life. We pray in his precious and holy name.

Amen. All right. Well, I encourage you to find your spot again in Matthew 21, verses 23 through 27.

That's our text for this morning, so Matthew 21, 23 through 27, and if at any time during the message you need to get more coffee or juice or donuts, take advantage of that back there.

I haven't said that in a while, but it's there now. So just kind of introducing and thinking about this message, have you ever had someone ask a question that you were pretty sure wasn't a question?

It wasn't really a question. It had a point to it. It had something that was kind of a little bit of a barb or a little bit of a trap or a little bit of something like that.

Let me illustrate that by saying this. Men, the question, does this dress make me look fat, isn't a question.

It's a trap. The right answer is, I love you, dear. You always look gorgeous.

All other answers are wrong. They're all wrong. For those of you women here in the room, the question, what would you think about me buying a new boat, rifle, car, four -wheeler, country club membership, whatever it might be?

It's not what it appears at face value. What it really often means is, I already bought a new boat, bow, car, four -wheeler, country club membership.

How much trouble am I in? That's often what the question really means. All joking aside, I start off addressing the nature of questions because human nature uses questions in all kinds of ways.

In our text, we see, yes, we see a question used as a trap. We see that same question used to show an agenda, but we also see

Jesus offer a question as a subtle answer. By the time we get to our text,

Jesus has already run the money changers out of the temple just to set the table and remind us where we've been. He's already been into the temple.

He showed up in Jerusalem. This is the Passover week. The city is bustling. First thing he did, he made a beeline for the temple, cast out the money changers.

He arrived there to find that people were selling. They turned it into a marketplace, like a bank. They were exchanging cash there for different currencies and stuff.

He cast all of them out. Then he proceeded to heal some blind and some lame people in the temple, showing his authority.

He's refused to silence little children who were chanting his praises in the temple at that same event. The religious leaders, by the way, outright asked

Jesus to silence these children who were crying out, Hosanna, Son of David, or in other words, save us now,

Messiah. They were calling Jesus the Messiah, and they were turning and looking to him for salvation. Then go fast forward to next week, and we saw him ...

Last week, rather, we saw him curse a fig tree with no fruit. This was enacting a very stark visual lesson about the religious leaders of his time.

He's basically indicting them as all leaves and no fruit. All leaves and no fruit. You can go back and listen to that message that's recorded there on the podcast if you missed it last week, but all leaves with no fruit.

In other words, he's indicting the religious leaders, saying they do religious things, but they have no real heart connection to God.

They're not really of any benefit to others, since God is not really at work in them, and if God's not at work in them, then he cannot be at work through them.

What they're doing, what these religious leaders of his day were doing, was not something that was flowing from God, giving them power to then go out and live, but they were just doing their own thing.

Their ministry, in essence, was from man, not from God. It's in this context that he returns to the temple area here, possibly around the same morning that he cursed that fig tree, and he returns to the temple area, and again he likely enters to that outer court, the outer section of the temple area where the

Gentiles were allowed, and there would have been singing there, there would have been some prayers being offered there. He's cleansed it of all of that marketplace now, and it might be the implication is it's starting to become restored to its original use, and he begins teaching there, which again would be an appropriate thing in the temple area for somebody with authority.

Well, we get some of the content of the types of things that he taught in this final week, like what's he teaching?

How many of you, just whenever it says Jesus taught them, and you don't know what he taught them, you'd like to see what that is, but we're going to see some of that in the coming week, some of the types of things that he taught in this final week of his life, in coming messages, in the coming chapters, but for now, what we need to know this morning is that his teaching was interrupted, it was interrupted.

The religious authorities come up to him looking for his credentials, and I don't know how formal that is, it's unclear whether this is a formal request for credentials, as in who gave you permission to be here, where's your license, where's your teaching license?

We need to see it. You're here, you're in the temple, you're authoritatively gathering a crowd, what gives you the right to be here?

Judaism during this time had a strong appeal to authority, by the way. What they're kind of asking, to some degree, may sound to our ears like, or to translate to our ears, where did you go to seminary?

The chain of authority was pretty important in their minds. Rabbis studied under rabbis who studied under rabbis, and the more respected the rabbi that you studied under, the more respected you were.

And so they expect a proper authority channel for Jesus here. But it seems like the question flows from even a more generalized challenge to Jesus, as if to say, who do you think you are?

And as if to say, is God really behind you? Is God really behind your teaching?

Were you really sent by him? And I say this because what is in question is whether or not Jesus is really sent by God.

That's really what they're driving for. This is a brave and bold challenge to his prophetic ministry.

Do you speak for God? And what you need to remember is that you can glance back at chapter 21, I think it's verse 11, where it says, and you can even go back to verse 10.

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, who is this? Who's this guy? And in verse 11, and the crowd said, this is the prophet

Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. They declared the nature of his prophetic calling as he entered the city of Jerusalem there at the start of the

Passover. And so the religious leaders are calling that challenge, or are challenging that very claim. The people in Galilee are saying you're a prophet, but we are not quite sure that you're really sent by God.

And so they interrupt his teaching with two related questions. I think they're two almost synonymous questions.

What gives you the right and who gives you the right to do these things? So there's some things that are a little bit like a burr under their saddle here.

He's done some things. What things are the religious leaders concerned about?

Well, things like casting out the money changers and cleansing the temple. What gives you the right to tell us what we can and can't do in the temple?

What gives you the right to heal the blind and the lame here? What gives you the right to teach authoritatively in the temple precincts and gather a crowd?

Those are the kind of things, things that the religious leaders of the day and the age that are confronting him actually think they should have authority over.

You should have come to us for a license. You should have come to us for a certificate. You didn't come through our channels.

In other words, from their perspective, Jesus is stepping over their man -made authority in these things, and these religious leaders, as you can imagine, did not like it.

They weren't happy about it. So what Jesus does next in verse 24 might be lost to us when we read it at first, but it's a power move.

Jesus is not playing coy anymore. As soon as he starts to speak, he takes control of the conversation here.

He is no longer cautiously moving about the countryside saying, don't tell anybody I'm the Messiah. It isn't my time yet.

That's a theme all throughout Matthew until this final week. In this final week, he pulls out all the stops and reveals himself as he is.

Here's what you need to understand he's doing in verse 24. Confronted by the leading elders and the priests in the temple, he says,

I'm setting the ground rules for this debate. They challenge his authority, and he takes authority over their very challenge and says, here's the ground rules.

If you can answer my question, then I will answer yours. Do you see how he's taking authority in this situation?

Do you see how he's commanding immediately? He's saying, I'm in charge here, and you'll answer my question first.

The funny thing is, they go with it. They go with it. They respond to his authority. So he says, if you answer me, then

I will give you your answer. Now, did anybody watch a debate this last week?

I mean, maybe just some debate, just some random debate that happened this week. There were all kinds of problems with that debate.

We don't need to get into all the details about it, but some of them were like the faults of things that Jesus is accused of here.

So there's ad hominem, where you attack the person. You're not talking about issues. You're not talking about stuff. Maybe we saw a little bit of that, but there's this debate tactic called a red herring.

It's a fallacy. It's a problem in debating. This is where the person in the debate doesn't want to answer a tough question.

We might have heard some tough questions that some people didn't want to answer the other night. So in that context, what they'll do is they'll create a diversion.

A red herring is something that doesn't exist. You throw it out there, and you cast it out as kind of like, oh, by the way, look at this.

You're trying to literally shift the topic. You introduce something that's irrelevant to the subject, just to get things going.

What some people have accused, and some people who aren't thinking biblically or theologically think that Jesus is doing here, is they accuse him of a red herring.

They say that the religious leaders say, on what authority do you do this? On what authority are you doing these things?

Who gives you the right to do this? He says, let's talk about John. Do you see it in the text? Let's talk about John.

Red herring. Oh, so you want to talk about John, but you don't want to talk about your authority. But you see, Jesus is not throwing out a red herring here.

His question remains directly on topic. If you can tell me who

John is, then you know who I am. Why? Because of the very nature of the ministry of John the baptizer.

The very things that he did. The problem is, if we don't understand what John was sent to do, if we don't understand who John was, then we're not going to understand

Jesus' argument. We need a little bit of history in understanding John the baptizer. By the way, I like to call him John the baptizer, because baptist is a denomination right now, and it can be fuzzy in our mind as if he's the first baptist.

He baptized people, and so that's where he gets that title. But John was the first prophet.

You need to understand this. This was a big deal. He was the first prophet to show up in Israel in several generations.

Several generations of children being raised up and growing old and having kids and then grandkids. A few generations of that happening with no definitive authoritative word from God.

He was not speaking through prophets during that time. And then John. He was a big deal.

He came down out of isolation in the wilderness, dressed the part in camel skin and eating locusts and wild honey.

It's kind of confusing about why he's doing that, but he's looking the part, he's playing the part of Old Testament prophet. The Old Testament prophets.

Read Ezekiel, read Jeremiah. Anybody ever read those books? Anybody ever just kind of walk away with like, I have no idea what they're talking about here.

Do you know what I'm talking about? You got to study it. You got to get into understanding what the history and the culture is and all that stuff. But some crazy guys out in the wilderness talking smack to the kings and stuff like that and talking to the people and saying, you got to come down from your pride and humble yourselves before God or else he's going to smite you and all of this kind of stuff.

That was John. John was like that. And the people loved it. The people ate up John's ministry.

They absolutely adored him. John's ministry was to point as clearly as possible to Jesus as the

Messiah. That's why he was sent. The religious leaders knew that well.

And so did the crowds gathered in this place here in the temple as they're talking. The central part of the mission of John was to prepare the way for the

Messiah and lead the nation to repent in this. And he was so well known in Jerusalem.

As a matter of fact, Matthew chapter three verses five through six say this. You don't have to turn over there, but I'll read it to you.

Matthew three, five through six. Tell us this about the ministry of John the baptizer, quote, then

Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, to John.

And they were baptized by him, John, in the river Jordan, confessing their sins, end quote.

He was a popular guy. Jerusalem knew him. I mean, to be in Jerusalem during this time was to go, there's a prophet out by the

Jordan River and people were traveling out from the big city and in all their finery. It was kind of like, what do you do in the evening?

You want to go catch a movie? No, let's go down and hear John. That's what people were doing at the time. He was all the rage.

And so religious leaders showed up literally at the banks of the Jordan River to oppose John and he said, the ax is laid to the root.

You guys are, you're on the way out, in other words. They didn't like this. They did not like John.

So why would all of the people except John and the religious leaders wouldn't? Well, he was baptizing and speaking on behalf of God to the people, but the religious leaders did not like his authority, just like they don't like Jesus.

The people were super stoked to finally have a prophetic voice once again speaking on behalf of God.

So Jesus says, who sent John? On what basis was

John down there in the water baptizing people? What was that all about, says Jesus? Here's the question. If you'll answer that, then

I'll tell you on the basis of what authority I am speaking to you. Was it

John's idea to baptize people? Was it just from man? Or was John's ministry sent from the

Almighty? Was it from God in heaven? And the religious leaders in this question, hear me carefully, the religious leaders in this question were trapped and indicted all at once.

They're in trouble. And I find it extremely helpful, actually very intriguing and interesting, it adds spice to the story that we're given the behind -the -scenes look at the deliberations as the religious leaders and the scribes and the elders all pull off to the side in hushed tones and have a conversation about how are we going to answer this question.

Because the reality, the reality is, and you've experienced it, you've lived it, you know it, there are always and always have been people down through the ages who are not interested in truth.

These religious leaders are not interested in the truth. As a matter of fact, their deliberations have nothing to do with what they really believe about John.

Their deliberations have to do with how to answer the crowds. How to answer in front of these people who have their future in their hands.

There are people who answer questions according to what they think will make people like them.

And at the end of verse 25 and the start of verse 26, we see the two options that they lay out for themselves. If we say

John's ministry was legit, then we know that Jesus will challenge us and say, well, why didn't you follow him?

And then we'll have to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Because John said Jesus is the Messiah, declared it openly.

So why didn't you follow him? Why didn't you follow John? And therefore, why aren't you following me? But if they say that John wasn't from God, they knew immediately that they would lose the people who all believe that John was a legit prophet.

So they're in a catch -22. And in verse 26, it's outright stated that they were afraid.

Can you imagine somebody being afraid of the crowd? Can you imagine somebody being afraid of losing their power and their authority and their clout in the eyes of others?

I think we can imagine that because probably all of us have been there. We've all at times been challenged to answer with what we thought people wanted to hear and not the truth.

Well, that's exactly where these religious leaders are here. And I would state it this way, live by the likes, die by the likes.

If you live for approval, you will find that the truth becomes increasingly relative in your life.

If you live to have people like you, and that becomes a solid goal in your life, you will find that the truth matters less and less to you.

And you will find yourself having internal deliberations like these religious leaders. Internal deliberations that look like, well, what do they want?

If I say this, then they'll think this about me. But if I say this, then they'll think this. Do you get what

I'm saying? And that's what the religious leaders are here doing. So like Vassini, the

Sicilian criminal mastermind, the religious leaders could clearly not choose from the wine in front of them, and they also could clearly not choose from the wine in front of Jesus, only they actually knew that both in this situation, they knew that both contained the

Iocane powder. Sorry, spoiler alert for you. So they answer in verse 27, they give their answer, and it's a very weak answer.

It's a defeated answer. We don't know. We don't know where John comes from.

We don't know. We're going to... They claim agnosticism regarding the ministry of John the baptizer.

Was he a prophet from heaven or merely a man doing his own thing? We don't know, say the who's who of the religious establishment.

If anybody ought to know, it ought to be them, right? How many of you, if you're sitting in that crowd, you're like, these guys don't know where John comes from?

How in the world is that possible? Put yourself in the shoes of the crowd who is thoroughly convinced that John is the prophet from heaven.

You go, am I supposed to follow these bozos who don't even know that? Can't even figure that out for themselves?

It would not sound like a positive response to the crowds who loved John. And Jesus concludes with a surprising statement, well, if you can't figure that out, then neither will

I tell you by what authority I do these things. You can't answer that simple question, then you prove yourself to be not really in line with understanding or even seeking real true understanding about these things.

I think there's a little notion here about casting pearls before swine. I'm not going to entertain this any longer because you're being dishonest at this point.

And with that final answer, it sounds like Jesus is really just not even going to go there. But considering the context, he already has.

He has answered the question of his authority. By tying the discussion to John in the middle of a crowd that knows

John and loves John and believes that he was sent by God, he is giving every reason for the crowd to connect the prophecy of John and the work of John and the words of John, behold the

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The first thing that John said when he encountered Jesus, behold the

Lamb of God, the one sent to save his people, which is like saying

Messiah, the one who will save, behold him, says John. He says he's giving every reason,

Jesus is giving every reason to believe that John was a prophet from heaven and that he also therefore is the

Messiah that John was sent with the primary purpose to introduce him. So what does the

Holy Spirit want us to do with this text in our hearts and lives this week? Well let me give you three possible applications from the text.

Maybe the Holy Spirit would press something different on you or something that I say in one of these three would spin off in your mind into something. I pray over these every week that God would use these potential applications in your life that God would press one of them in for you.

The first is just to remember that John and Jesus were sent by God. Jesus has the authority of the

Father. He had the rightful authority to teach in the temple. He had the rightful authority to cleanse the temple and make it a place of worship.

He has the authority over sickness and death and has the authority over healing.

He has all of that authority. You see, in the flow of the logic here is John the baptizer was sent by God to wake up the nation of Israel to the

Messiah. And even after he has died, his ministry is still carried on here in this passage.

By the way, John is gone. John has been killed by the time that this passage occurs this last week of Jesus' life.

But he's died and his ministry still carries on here in this passage as a witness to Jesus. And when

John, as I said earlier, when John first saw Jesus in the crowd on the banks of the Jordan, the first time his eyes settled on Jesus, he prophetically cried out,

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Do you believe the testimony of John?

Do you believe John was right? Do you believe John was sent by God? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the

Messiah who came to remove the sin of his people? There may be some here who are just really starting to come to understand what that means and let me encourage you to ask questions.

I would love to talk with anybody about Jesus. If that means setting up an appointment to get some coffee sometime this week or a conversation out in the lobby after the service or whatever context, come with your questions and I will do my best to provide answers.

And I know the same for Spencer or for David who is up here or the elder on duty, I mean we would love to sit down and talk with anybody about the person of Jesus Christ and what he has done.

But salvation only comes through the good news. The good news that Jesus came to save us from the penalty of our sins.

And for those of us who are already in with Christ by faith, you've trusted him to save you from your sins and you're now walking with him as your

Lord, let me encourage you to camp out on passages like this one. In this passage we're reminded once again that God sent his son into the world to save us.

Don't wait for Christmas to celebrate the sending of the son to us. Daily give thanks and even live a life of thanks to God that he is the one who sent

Jesus to save us from our sins. And then also live in such a way that you acknowledge his authority.

Live in such a way that you acknowledge his right to call the shots in your life. Second, don't give in to people pleasing.

I hope you can see that as a pretty direct application from this text. Don't give in to people pleasing. The religious leaders were afraid of the crowd that stated directly in the text.

And this kept them, I would suggest to you that this kept them from seeing deeper truth. This kept them from really hearing what

Jesus was saying because they were so concerned for what the crowds thought of them. And they were indicted by their own deliberations.

Well, should we say this or should we say this? Well, you should say what you think, right? No, nope, not really.

But there was a standing right in front of them, face to face, was capital

T truth. Jesus Christ, the Lord over all, standing there.

John was sent by God and so was Jesus. And I would encourage you to kind of suss out your own motives here.

All kinds of motivations can get in the way of us admitting the truth. Maybe we fear the crowds and what they will say.

So we keep silent about Jesus. Maybe we have our reputations to protect, so we keep silent.

But let me just encourage you directly, stop, stop it with the fearing of the people.

Get to the loving of God. Get to the sharing of the truth.

And lastly, let's take a moment in our week. Take a moment even now to admire our

Savior for His subtle wisdom, the subtle wisdom that He conveys and the way that He just so masterfully uses language and communication here.

I love to read and study the words of Jesus, to watch the way that He was not afraid to be subtle and even artful in His communication.

And I think that I would put this forward as maybe my opinion more than a fact.

But my opinion is that when I listen to Christian radio, when I listen to preaching, when

I read Christian books, they lack something of art and subtlety. They often are like a slap in the face.

Like you have to state the whole thing every time. You have to say it from beginning to end every single time you say it.

And there's something that's just not very artful in the way that we do things. Yeah, I'm being somewhat critical, but it's something that I've observed.

And I think that in part is because we don't give ourselves permission to allow things to be subtle like Jesus did.

He was not timid. I want to point that out. He wasn't timid. He wasn't afraid.

Coming up in chapter 23, we're going to see that He can go on the offensive and He can skillfully turn a phrase and He can skillfully leave things hanging in the air and skillfully and artfully use language and then

He can also go after it. And we'll see that again in chapter 23. But what I think many Christians lack is that art of subtlety that Jesus shows here.

And I'm not saying we need to be as articulate or as wise as Jesus. You'll never share your faith if you feel like you have to be as articulate or as wise as Jesus.

Do you know what I'm talking about? You're not going to get there. So don't, that's not your standard. But I am saying that we need to give ourselves permission to let the truth hang in the air sometimes.

Let people, give room and space for people to process and think. Are you guys getting what I'm saying?

I'm getting some blank stares. Give some room for people to process and think. And what I kind of think of is the modern evangelistic techniques

I studied when I was younger, when I was in college I took a class on evangelism, it felt less like leaving salt on somebody's tongue to make them thirsty and more like a punch of hot curry to the face.

Do you know what I'm talking about? And some people, the thing, the criticism that I get about their evangelism, I don't want to share the gospel because I don't have a big enough two by four.

I just want to swing harder. What I'm taking it from is I don't have all the answers.

So you need to have all the answers? Are you going to sit down with somebody in a five minute conversation and answer all their questions?

What do you hope to accomplish in a five minute water cooler conversation with somebody about man I got drunk again last night and I just keep getting drunk and drunk and drunk and I just want it to stop.

I party every weekend and now it's bleeding over into the weekdays and I'm struggling right now.

I mean I'm presupposing some things or I'm going through this nasty divorce right now and it's just drained everything out of me and I don't feel like I've got the will to live.

What do you offer to somebody in five minutes? You got all the answers in that five minutes?

Are you going to bludgeon them with the gospel two by four or are you going to leave them with some flavor of hope?

That you show them that you're a person that's trustworthy with their pain. Are you getting what

I'm saying in this? And a lot of times it ends up being a bam, aim for the fence every time.

And Jesus doesn't always go there. Sometimes he just lets it hang. He just lets it stand there.

I'm not going to answer that question here. This is, I mean is that like, is this a little bit shocking to see

Jesus leave the religious leaders in that text that way? It's a little shocking at times the way that he responds to people.

Jesus would say things that made people think. He had no problem giving it room to sink in.

He didn't always attempt to seal the deal. It was often good enough for him to give them just enough salt to make them thirsty.

So as we come to communion, let's remember together the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And if you're all in with Jesus, and I encourage you to take a cracker to remember his body that was broken in our place.

By the way, if on the way in you somehow missed one of those tables, there's communion back there.

You can get up and get enough of that for your gathering, whoever you're with here. But the reason we do this is to remember.

It's a remembering time. We do this every week to bring everything back to the center of our faith.

The center is Jesus Christ crucified, bleeding, dying, and raised again to new life for us.

So we take the cracker to remember his body broken for us. Take the juice to remember his blood that was shed for us in our place.

But if you're still trying to figure out where Jesus fits into your life, then just skip the communion and take in the song.

And then again, feel free to come up to me with questions, and I would love to talk with you about Jesus. But recast, let's go out from here with grateful hearts that Jesus was sent by God to save us from our sins.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the way that Jesus models here for us.

Just this artful communication, even just a subtlety in the way that he interacted with people who were in opposition to him.

But Father, most importantly, I thank you for the baseline argument here, and that is that he does indeed have authority.

He didn't have to go through any man -made rules or regulations or cross any T's or dot any

I's or get a license to teach, but Father, at the end of the day, he is our master, he is our

Lord, he is over all things. So Father, I pray that you would help us to lean into his authority as our

King, the one who has the right to call the shots. And I thank you that he has shown himself to be good.

It would be scary to give all of that over to somebody who is a tyrant and a wicked ruler, but he is a good and kind leader.

He is a good King who laid down his life for his people, and we remember that by taking this cracker and this juice right now together in Jesus' name.