S1 E27: Son of David

As you're being seated, if you would find your way in the in your Bible to the Gospel of Mark, Mark chapter 12.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, there's some in the pew back in front of you.

We're going to be on page 910 in that pew Bible, Mark chapter 12.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

It is good to be back.

It is good to be back in the pulpit.

It's been two weeks since I preached, and as a preacher, you just feel weird when you're not preaching.

And so it's good to be back.

Appreciate Ben doing a wonderful job opening up God's Word for us last week and Regan Miller the week before with our marriage conference.

But it is good to be back opening up God's Word together with you.

Appreciated the time away.

It was not vacation time, it was work time.

I spent time for about four days just praying and studying and seeing what God would have for us next in the coming year of opening his word together.

And I'll be telling you more about that in the near future, but I'm excited about where we're headed next in God's Word.

But we're finishing up the Gospel of Mark together now.

I don't know if you like riddles.

Apparently, uh occasionally I enjoy a good riddle.

You know, riddle me this Batman, try to figure these kind of things out.

And so let's see if you are good at riddles this morning.

Everybody ready?

I'm gonna give you a couple riddles.

I'm gonna start slow and then we'll get a little more, a little more difficult.

All right, so first riddle.

What do Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh have in common?

What do Alexander the Great and my granddaughter Annie's favorite Winnie the Pooh, what do they have in common?

They have the same middle name.

Very good.

Very good.

Well done, David.

Same middle name.

There you go.

Okay.

Some of y'all were like, man, what do wow, that's the same middle name.

There are two fathers and two sons in a vehicle traveling together, but only three people.

How is that possible?

Two fathers, two sons, only three people.

How is it possible?

Grandfather, father, son.

Two fathers.

Grandfather, a father, and two sons.

All right, here you go.

Last one for now.

What five-letter English word can you add two letters to and make it shorter?

What five-letter English word can you add two or two letters to and make it shorter?

What?

Short.

S-H-O-R-T.

Oh.

Oh.

It's a riddle.

It's supposed to be silly.

It's supposed to make you think.

As we come back to Mark chapter 12, you say, why are you starting with riddles, Bob?

Mark 12 · chapter mention

What are you doing, Pastor?

You've been off too long.

What are you thinking here?

As we come back to Mark chapter 12, we're going to come to a text of scripture where Jesus is confronting his critics.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

He has faced a parade of folks trying to trap him, and now it's his turn to confront them, but he's not trying to trap them.

He's not trying to trick them.

In fact, what he's doing almost sounds like a riddle, but it's not intended to be a riddle.

It's not intended to be cute or clever or to trap.

It's intended to be a gracious invitation.

As you may remember, we are in Mark chapter 12, which is the final week of Jesus' earthly ministry.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

He will, on Friday of this week that Mark records for us, be executed on a cross.

Just a few days before that, he came into the city in a triumphal entry with people shouting, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

He overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple.

He was then faced with question after question after question of these religious leaders coming at him, trying to trick him, trying to trap him, trying to get him to say something that would cause either his followers to turn from him or the Roman soldiers to arrest him.

He's faced chief priests and scribes asking him, by whose authority do you do these things?

The next group that came was a group of Pharisees and Herodians who wanted to trick him and say, Should we pay taxes to Caesar?

Then the Sadducees came and asked him about the resurrection by presenting a ridiculous hypothetical situation, mocking the resurrection, if you will.

And then finally, one scribe came to him, this one with a different attitude, this one seemingly more honest and sincere, coming to Jesus and asking him, Rabbi teacher, what's the greatest commandment?

What's the most important one?

And as Jesus answers that question, if you see in verse 34, it says that they were no longer willing to come to him.

No one ventured to ask him any more questions.

It was as if they got together and they had been saying, okay, you go ask that question, and you guys go try this one and you go try that one.

Now they look at one another and go, You got anything else?

No, I'm done.

We're done.

This is an uncle.

He wins.

We got nothing else we can ask this guy.

And now it's Jesus' turn, and so he takes the opportunity to ask them a very important question.

In fact, the most important question that ever was asked or ever is asked, and it's a simple question: what do you believe about the Messiah?

In short, what do you believe about Jesus?

This is the question that he asks them, and he uses scripture in order to do it, and he uses scripture in order to answer the question.

It's not a riddle, it's an invitation, but it appears to be a riddle.

It's the greatest question anyone could ever ask or answer.

What do you believe about the promised one that God said would come and save you?

What do you believe about them?

If you're willing and able, would you stand with me as we honor God's word this morning and we read from Mark chapter 12?

Mark 12 · chapter mention

We're gonna pick up in verse 35 and just read to verse 38, just a short text this morning.

And Jesus began to say, as he taught in the temple, how is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David?

David himself said in the Holy Spirit, the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet.

David himself calls him Lord, so in what sense is he his son?

And the large crowd enjoyed listening to him.

Let's pray together.

Father, we stand before you with our Bibles open, our hearts open, and our minds open so that you might teach us truth.

Lord, help us to remain that way, open to hear, open to respond, and open to act.

Lord, let us not just be near this truth, let us embrace this truth.

Thank you for your word.

Thank you for how Jesus used your word, understood your word, and honored your word.

Lord, we pray that we would do the same in our lives, and we pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you.

The first three books of the New Testament are called Gospels.

Actually, the first four books of the New Testament are called Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The first three are what are known as the synoptic gospels.

Synoptic is a word that just means to come together or to take together.

And Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all eyewitnesses of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

And they are reporting to us his life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, in order that we might weigh the evidence and come to the conclusion that he is who he claimed to be and did what he claimed to do.

He is the Son of God who laid down his life so that you and I might be made right with a holy God.

He proved that in his life, he proved that in his ministry, he proved that in his miracles, and he proved that through his resurrection.

So they're writing so that we might understand that.

And taken together, they give us a whole picture.

If you were to read one of the Gospels, Matthew, and then compare it to Mark, you're gonna find that they don't contradict one another, but they don't always share the same information.

Imagine if two different reporters were to go to the scene of a crime and they were to report on that crime back to their newspaper or their or their television station, they're not gonna report the exact same things.

They're gonna have a different point of view as they look at things, and that's how God used these authors.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all reporting back to us, looking at it from a different perspective, reporting back, honestly, to different audiences.

And what I want you to see this morning is that this account that we've read in Mark is also included in Matthew and in Luke.

And they're very close in comparison, if you were to lay them out side by side.

They're very close in comparison, but Matthew adds some details that Mark leaves out.

Luke adds some details that Mark leaves out.

And so I want you to see what they look like if we were to put them all together.

And I just want to read them to you together, okay?

So there should be a slide coming up that has all of them together.

All right, so if you compile Matthew, Mark, and Luke together, this is what it says.

This is called a harmony of the gospels, by the way.

There are Bibles available that harmonize the Gospels, put them together for you so that you can see this together.

While the Pharisees were together, Jesus questioned them.

That's from Mark as he taught in the temple complex.

Matthew adds this what do you think about the Messiah?

Whose son is he?

David's, they replied.

And the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?

No one was able to answer him at all, and from that day no one dared to question him anymore, and the large crowds listened to him with delight.

Now that doesn't sound very different than what we read in Mark, does it?

But there's a couple little details in there that I want us to see.

Three things I want us to talk about this morning.

There is a common perception that Jesus addresses, a common perception, there is a correct exposition.

Jesus takes their possession perception and he goes to Scripture and he says, What does Scripture say about what you perceive to be true?

And then there is a compassionate invitation.

Alright?

Everybody ready?

Common perception, what everybody believed to be true, a correct exposition, going to the Bible to say, what does the Bible say about what you think is true?

And then a compassionate invitation.

Alright?

So let's talk about, first of all, a common perception.

Jesus has just been talking to a scribe who has come to him in honesty, in sincerity.

And he says, Tell me about the greatest commandment.

And Jesus tells him, the greatest commandment is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength.

The second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

And the scribe says, You are right, sir.

You are right.

And do you remember what Jesus said to him?

You are not far from the kingdom.

He does not say you're in the kingdom.

He says, you are not far away from the kingdom.

And Jesus now wants to engage that man into a deeper conversation.

He wants to take him where he is and move him where he has not yet gone.

He wants to help him take that next step, the final step he needs to take.

He says, You are so close, but you are not quite there.

This is amazing to me.

Jesus has just faced attack after attack after attack, just wave after wave of people coming to trip him up, to trick him, to lie about him, to destroy him.

They have attacked him left and right, and his response to that is not bitterness.

His response is not retaliation.

He does not respond in kind.

Instead, Jesus offers this man an invitation to salvation.

He offers this man an invitation to understand who he truly is.

Mark chapter 8, Jesus had asked his disciples a very similar question.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

He asked the Pharisees and the Sadducees, he asked the scribes, what do you believe about the Messiah?

He asked them right here.

In Mark chapter 8, he asked his disciples the very same question.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Who do people say the Messiah is?

Who do the people say that I am?

And they responded, Well, some say you're one of the prophets, and some say you're Elijah, and some say, and Jesus said, Fine.

Who do you say that I am?

And you remember Simon Peter stood up and he said, You are the Christ, you are the anointed one, you are the Messiah, you are the Son of God.

And Jesus says, Well done, Simon.

You got it right.

Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but my Father who is in heaven, you understand who I am.

You've got it.

Now you need to embrace that.

Jesus wants to take this scribe who is close to the kingdom, but yet has not recognized Jesus, the Messiah, standing right in front of him for who he is and what he'd come to do.

And Jesus wanted to move him so that he was not adjacent to the kingdom, but that he was in the kingdom.

You know, you can be near teaching all the time.

You can be near Jesus' teaching.

This scribe was, the Pharisees were.

Judas, Iscariot, heard Jesus teach the greatest sermons ever preached.

And yet he was not in the kingdom.

Likewise, we can come to church week after week.

We can sit in a core group and listen to a teacher expound on scripture.

We can listen to a pastor preach a message over and over and over and be near the truth.

Be near the kingdom, but not yet in it.

And Jesus wanted to move this man who was close because he'd heard truth.

He just had not embraced truth.

He had not embraced Jesus for who he was.

And Jesus says, I want you to understand who the Messiah is.

I want you to understand that I am him and what that means.

And so he enters into this conversation.

Not based on public opinion, not based on tradition.

What does the Bible say about who the Messiah is?

Jesus and this man had a lot of differences.

They would have differed on many different things.

But Jesus does not start with what they have in the differences.

He starts with what they have in common.

He says, let's find some common ground.

And so he says, here's the perception.

The perception is that the Messiah, the promised one of God, would come from the line of David.

Everybody agrees that God promised David all the way back in 2 Samuel chapter 7, that David was not going to be the one to build a kingdom that would last forever, but that God would bless someone from David's line, that he would come and he would have an unending kingdom.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

2 Samuel, God promised King David, the greatest king in Israel's history.

David, you're not going to reign over my throne forever, but there will be one that comes behind you, who is greater than you, who will deliver my people, and whose reign will never end.

It was universally accepted.

The perception was that the Christ, the Messiah, those words are synonymous.

They mean the anointed one, the one provided by God.

He would come from the line of David.

In fact, the most popular name for the Messiah in the time of Jesus was Son of David.

If you hear them say, Son of David, if you read about them talking about the son of David, they're referring to the Messiah.

There's a couple instances, even in Jesus' ministry, in Mark chapter 12, he'd cast a demon out of a man and they began to ask, hey, come and see.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

This man could not be the son of David, could he?

They began to ask as they saw Jesus ministering, is this maybe the Messiah?

Is this the one we're waiting for?

Just a chapter before, or just a few stories before, Jesus has come through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem.

And he heals two blind men in Jericho, one on the way into town and one on the way out of town.

And do you remember what the one on the way out of town?

Blind man sitting on the side of the road.

Remember what he kept hollering out?

Lord, son of David, have mercy on me.

Son of David, have mercy on me.

When they used that term, they understood that meant Savior.

That meant Messiah.

Perception was that the Messiah, the promised one who would deliver his people, came from the line of David.

Secondly, he said, when David wrote this, notice that Jesus is taking them somewhere.

Where does Jesus take them?

Hey, my teacher told me that this is the truth.

Hey, the rabbis say this.

No, where does he take them?

Help me out.

Where does Jesus point them?

Scripture.

He said, when David said this, where did David say this?

Anybody have a footnote in your Bible?

There might be a little mark there.

Psalm 110.

He is quoting from the book of Psalms.

Psalm 110.

David, this great king, was also a great musician and a great author.

He wrote many of the psalms.

And it was universally accepted that the King David wrote Psalm 110.

Jesus is saying, hey, remember when King David wrote Psalm 110, and in it he wrote these words?

So here's the perception.

The Messiah would come from the line of David, and David wrote Psalm 110.

You say, okay, that doesn't seem earth-shattering to me.

Thank you for sharing that.

That's not earth-shattering.

Here's the third point.

Will you go back to the compilation of text for me for a second?

The slide that had everything, the harmony of the text, my A V team.

There you go.

Go one more.

Alright, go back.

Something's missing from the slide.

That's my problem, but that's okay.

That's right.

So he said, when David said this.

When in doubt, go to the text, okay?

Look at your text.

Mark chapter 12, verse 36.

Mark 12:36

Read it with me.

David himself said what?

In the Holy Spirit.

Don't blow by that.

When David wrote Psalm 110, we all agree he wrote Psalm 110.

He didn't do it in his own words.

He was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

God used him as his instrument to provide the word of God.

God spoke through King David to write what he wanted written.

He used his talent, he used his personality, he used his abilities, but God recorded what he wanted and he did it through the Holy Spirit.

So here's a perception.

The Messiah's gonna come through the line of David.

Can we all agree on that?

Yes, we can all agree on that.

They would have all said, absolutely.

We agree on that.

Can we all also agree that David wrote Psalm 110?

Oh, yeah, we can all agree on that.

David wrote Psalm 110.

And when he wrote it, he was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

God was directing his words.

Scribe, would you agree with that?

Pharisees, would you agree with that?

Sadducees, would you agree with that?

Oh, absolutely.

Yes.

David wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

He found common ground.

What a great way to start a conversation with somebody, by the way, about salvation.

We have differences with a lot of people.

I have differences with my neighbors.

I have differences with people from different religious backgrounds.

I have all kinds of differences.

Why don't we start not with our differences?

Why don't we start with what we have in common?

If you want to start having spiritual conversations with people, start things that you have in common.

What do you have in common?

We all have creation in common.

Romans chapter 1 says we are without excuse.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

We can look at the world and we cannot say there is no God.

Creation is a common experience for all people.

We all live in a fallen world.

We can look around us and see suffering and injustice.

And we can start having conversations about where does suffering come from?

Where does injustice come from?

And what are the answers to suffering and injustice?

We can see that many people desire to be part of something bigger than themselves.

They're not satisfied unless they're starting to something great.

And we can use there are so many things we have in common with those who do not know Christ that we don't need to start with our differences.

Let's start with what we have in common and lead them where?

To what Scripture teaches about Jesus Christ.

This is what Jesus does.

He starts with their common perception.

And then he asks a question.

David himself said, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies at your feet.

Here's the riddle.

It sounds like a riddle.

David said, My ancestor, my son.

He doesn't call him son.

What does he call him?

Lord.

He said, You agree, David wrote this, right?

Yeah, David wrote this.

You agree that he did it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, right?

Yeah.

So did David make a mistake when he said, My ancestor, my son, will sit at the right hand of God?

Because he doesn't say that.

What does he say?

My Lord will sit at the right hand.

How can his son also be his sovereign Lord?

It seems backwards.

A son is not the Lord over their father, the father is Lord over their son.

A Middle Eastern man would never refer to his son as his lord.

But in this instance, David is saying the one who comes after me is greater than me.

The one who come after me is not just the son of David, he is the son of God.

He is going to be placed at the right hand of God with authority and power, and all of his enemies will be placed under his feet.

How can David say that if all the Messiah is, is a human being.

This is what David wants him to think through.

This is what Jesus wants the man to think through.

So we have this common perception: the Messiah is coming from the line of David.

But when they thought about a Messiah, they thought about one who does not deliver individuals from sin.

They thought about one who delivers a nation from bondage.

And Jesus said, hold up.

You're not thinking deep enough.

And so he takes them from this common perception to correct exposition.

Jesus pauses and he says, look, we don't need to consider what tradition says about the Messiah.

We don't need to take an opinion poll to find out what public opinion is about the Messiah.

We don't need to find out what the expectation is of people for the Messiah.

You know what we need to do?

We need to go to God's word and find out what God's Word says about the Messiah.

And Jesus knew the Old Testament.

Jesus loved the Old Testament.

Jesus understood the Old Testament.

And Jesus taught the Old Testament.

And when he went to answer the question, who is the Messiah?

He went to Scripture to answer it.

He went to the inerrant, infallible, inspired, accurate, sufficient Word of God and said, this is where you need to get your answer to the most important question.

Not what you think, not what you feel, not what your people think.

What does God's word say about it?

Am I hitting this drum hard enough?

Not yet, because I've just started.

I want you to see what Jesus felt about Scripture.

Three things, Jesus, I just want us to pause in the midst.

This is kind of a two-part message, okay?

One part is, what do you believe about the Messiah?

Part two is what do you believe about the scriptures?

And Jesus pauses right here and he says, hey, let's talk about scripture.

First of all, scripture is inspired.

He said, when David wrote, he wrote in the Holy Spirit.

The Word of God is inspired.

When I say inspired, I'm not talking about the inspiration that we experience when a writer or an artist or a musician writes a really good piece of art.

We say, well, that was inspired.

Or we see a building that is a wonderful piece of architecture, and you said, man, they were really inspired when they wrote that.

That's not what I'm talking about.

The word inspiration literally means to be God breathed.

To be breathed out.

Let me give you two texts of scripture.

2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, and 2 Peter chapter 1, verses 20 and 21.

2 Timothy 3:16 2 Peter 1:20

2 Peter, or excuse me, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16.

2 Timothy 3:16

All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

All scripture is breathed out from God.

2 Peter chapter 1, verses 20 and 21.

2 Peter 1:20

Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The word of God is not simply men's words.

The word of God is God's word written to man using human instruments as the authors.

They were not secretaries writing dictation.

God used their abilities, God used their talents, God used their experience, but he breathed into them and he moved them along just as a sailboat is moved along by the wind in order to record what he wanted recorded.

And the Bible is the word of God.

Why should I believe that?

Because Jesus did.

Jesus says the word of God is inspired.

I believe that the word of God is inspired.

He also talked about the accuracy of Scripture.

Not only is it inspired by the Word of God, it is accurate in what it records.

You may remember back when the Sadducees asked about the resurrection.

Jesus said, guys, you got this one completely wrong.

Do you remember in the story of Moses in the burning bush?

When God said to them, I am the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac.

Do you remember that?

He said, Look, I am the God.

These men aren't dead, they're completely alive.

The tense of that verb was important.

He doesn't say, I was their God, he says, I am their God.

It's been there the whole time.

Can't you see it?

Now, in this instance, he takes these scribes, these experts in the law of God, and he says, How do you not see this?

It's been here the whole time.

How have you not recognized that when David said, my Lord said to the Lord, sit at my right hand?

How do you not recognize that he's not just talking about a human being?

How do you not recognize that he's talking about a sovereign Lord?

In order for this to be true, the Messiah couldn't just be a human being from the line of David.

He had to be much more.

He had to be the Lord.

I'll unpack that in a minute.

Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Jesus left heaven, came to earth, humbled himself to the point of death, being obedient to the point of death, even on a cross.

Therefore, what has God done?

Church, what has God done?

Because God, because Christ humbled himself to the point of death, what does Philippians chapter 2 God did?

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Therefore, God did what?

Exalted him and has seated him at the right hand, with his enemies underneath his feet?

Who do you think that's referring to?

It's referring to Jesus, it's referring to the Messiah, it's referring to the Son of David.

How is it possible?

How can David's son also be the Lord?

How can David refer to his son as sovereign?

Because he's not just a human being.

The riddle is solved in the incarnation.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The riddle is solved in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Who, yes, he was of the line of David.

They were right about that.

But they stopped short.

He wasn't just a human being.

There were many people that came from the line of David.

They were not all the Messiah, because they all couldn't have done what the Messiah was sent to do.

But he came and he lived a perfect life.

He was both God and man.

He fulfilled the law perfectly.

Then he took the punishment of sin upon his own shoulders.

God took his wrath against our sin and he placed it on the sinless shoulders of Jesus Christ.

The word for that is he imputed our sin onto him.

He punished him in our place.

So that he would be separated from the Father, so that you and I would never have to be separated from the Father.

And God raised him from the dead.

And the Bible says that salvation doesn't come by works, salvation comes by grace through faith.

Faith in what?

Faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

God promised Abraham, I'll make a great nation of you.

Genesis chapter 3 says, Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Not 3, 15.

It was credited to him.

Why?

Because he believed.

Faith is only as good as in the object you place it.

And faith does not come by works, faith does not come by anything, but us placing our faith in Jesus Christ, the one who came from heaven to die in our place.

And when we do, God takes his righteousness and he puts it on us.

And that's only possible because of the incarnation.

Those of you that are from the country will understand that.

Those of you that are not, you're looking at me like I'm talking about something foreign to you.

And all I want you to see is that Jesus is trying to get this scribe who is this close to the kingdom to embrace who he is.

He asks him, What do you believe about the Messiah?

What do you know about the Messiah?

Oh, he's coming from the line of David.

You're right.

That's right.

He is coming from the line of David.

And in David, Psalm 110, David said, he called him Lord, and that he was going to sit at the right hand of God, and all of his enemies would be put underneath him.

Yes.

Do you know what that means?

Do you know who I am?

Jesus talks about the inspiration of Scripture, the accuracy of Scripture, the sufficiency of Scripture.

Jesus doesn't take the man to anything other than the text.

Because all we need for life and godliness we find in the Word of God.

You don't need my opinion about anything.

If you want my opinion when I'm not in the pulpit, I'm happy to offer it to you.

But you don't need my opinion to change your life.

The word of God is what changes our lives.

And Jesus says the word is sufficient.

Common perception.

Correct exposition.

The Messiah isn't just a man who came to save a nation from slavery.

The Messiah is the Son of God who came to set people free from sin.

That's the correct exposition of Psalm 110.

But all of it leads to this compassionate invitation.

Because now he's presented this truth to this scribe.

He says, You agree with all of this, right?

You said that the Messiah comes from the line of David.

You agreed that David wrote Psalm 110.

You agreed that when he wrote it, he was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

And when he wrote it, he said the Messiah that is coming from David would be his Lord.

You agree with all that, right?

Either this is true or it's not true.

Either I accept this or I reject this.

But if it's true, I need to respond.

And yet, what happens?

The scribe doesn't say a word, and none of them ask another question.

They walk away.

This close to truth, standing in front of the Messiah himself, the light of the world who's had compassion on them and revealed truth to them.

They're this close, and yet they do not answer.

And when you do not answer, you're answering.

When you do not make a decision that Christ is who he claims to be and did what he claims to do, if you don't make a decision about that, embrace that, then you are making a decision about it.

You're rejecting it.

Because what these men decided was in their silence, they accepted the promises of the world more than they accepted the promises of Jesus.

Because they recognized if we acknowledge that Jesus is who he claims to be, it's going to cost us our power, it's going to cost us our position, it's going to cost us our prestige.

It's going to cost us everything that this world has given us.

It's all going to go away.

And we would rather have the things of this world than what he's promising us.

Don't make the same mistake as the scribes.

And decide that the lies of this world are more worth the freedom and joy and peace that you have in knowing Jesus Christ personally.

Because the greatest question that was ever asked is what do you know about the Messiah?

What do you know about Jesus Christ?

Upon that hinges your joy and peace in this life and the hope of your eternal life.

And all of that is worth more than anything this world has to offer.

The crowds, it says, enjoyed it.

They were entertained by this conflict.

They were entertained by Jesus confronting the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees.

A matter of fact, I think they enjoyed these guys getting humbled a little bit.

They stood back and giggled as each time they took a volley at Jesus and he smashed it right back into their court and answered their question.

And they were getting enjoyment out of these guys who were holier than thou, who paraded over them, just getting it handed to them left and right and left and right.

I think they're enjoying this.

It's entertaining to them.

But yet none of them come forward and say, Jesus, I hear what you were saying, and I believe.

But you can be near and not in.

And being adjacent to the gospel does not get you in to the kingdom of God.

We started with a riddle, we'll end with a riddle.

Jesus appears to be presenting a riddle to these men, but it's not a riddle at all.

How can the man who followed after David be his son and his Lord?

Make sense out of that.

To us, we read right by it.

You've probably read that text many, many times, just read right on by it.

But Jesus says, Stop for a minute.

How can he be his son and his lord at the same time?

The only answer to that is the incarnation that his son is his sovereign.

He is God in the flesh.

That's the riddle.

But he didn't ask it as a riddle.

He didn't try to trick them or trap them.

He was asking him to invite them to understand it and to accept it.

What's the greatest treasure in all the world that will cost you absolutely nothing?

What is the one thing that you cannot earn that is worth more than you could ever earn?

What is the one thing that is priceless and yet you can't purchase it?

What's the one thing that changes everything?

But you can't earn it.

What's the one thing that will take your despair and turn it into joy?

What's the one thing that will take your past and turn it into an eternity of hope?

What's the one thing that will take your guilt and turn it into peace?

What's the one thing that will take your sin and wash it white as snow?

The answer to that riddle is Jesus.