Authority from God

Well, uh, if you're just joining us, we are doing something this year called Following Jesus.

And it's an interesting title because actually we're following Jesus all the time, at least we should be.

If we're a church that only follows Jesus for one year, then we're not a very good church.

We're always following Jesus, but we're in a year-long study through the book of Matthew that we are calling following Jesus.

I was thinking about why we're doing this this last week and kind of preparing for today, and a verse from Ephesians popped in my mind.

It's Ephesians chapter 1, verses 1 and 2.

Ephesians 1:1

It says, Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.

Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.

Be an imitator of God.

That's an interesting concept.

Like do a really good impression of God.

That's what it's basically saying.

And I don't know if any of you are good at impressions.

I'm always blown away when I see a video of someone who can do an impression of a celebrity and like nail it.

I cannot do that.

I have like a very mid to low Australian impression, which would definitely offend anyone from Australia because it's pretty much based on the movie Crocodile Dundee and that alone.

But I remember, for example, when I was in college, I worked at Chili's and uh and we had this really slow night, and a buddy of mine, it was like a Tuesday night, and he hadn't had any tables yet, and a buddy of mine who was a server, he said, Hey, I'll pay you five bucks if you do your next table, the first table that comes in, like in a different accent.

And I said, Well, what do you mean?

He said, Well, do you do any accents?

I said, Well, I kind of do an Australian accent.

And he's like, Alright, do it, I'll pay you five bucks.

And I was like, Deal, let's have some fun.

So this table comes in, and I walk up and I do the like in it, I just say uh good day, which is again offense.

I've only seen crocodile, that's all it's based on is a 1980s cliched movie.

So I just say, Good day.

My name is Justin, I'll be a serve tonight.

Can I get you started with an awesome blossom?

That's what I say, okay?

And they look at me like they could, you could tell that they can tell.

I'm not really.

It had to be so confusing for them.

But I'm just like, whatever, five bucks, we were goofing off.

What I did not think about though was the fact that I would have other tables sat in the middle of their meal.

I had other tables close to them.

And so I'm doing it, I'm having fun, I'm laughing, I can tell, like, he's like, Do they believe it?

I was like, I don't think so.

But it's so how do you bring that up?

How do you look at your servant and go, hey, are you doing a fake accent?

That's just something you wouldn't say.

And so this other table gets sat halfway through, just right next to my table, and I go, oh no.

I either go to my normal accent and then switch to the bad Australian accent, and I have to just deal with that, like they're gonna hear me, or I've got to commit to this.

And so I committed to it, and for about two and a half hours I had to maintain this terrible, just absolutely ridiculous Australian accent.

It was one of the most exhausting experiences of my life.

Like, I'm not good at that.

Some people have a gift for impressions, I'm not good at that.

But I tell you who I do an incredible impression of my little brother.

You don't know him, so you wouldn't appreciate it, and I could do it spot on, and you wouldn't even know.

But I'm just telling you, I can do a really good impression of my little brother.

My grandpa, uh, oh man, me and my brother both do a we just we can nail grandpa, I'm telling you.

We do it perfectly.

But you don't know him, so it wouldn't mean anything to you.

I would imagine that most of us in this room, most of us watching from home, you can probably do a really good impression of your parents.

Maybe, maybe it's their voice, maybe it's their mannerisms, or maybe you just know how they would react to a certain thing.

And you could you could do it so well because you know them so well.

It's not that hard to imitate people that we know really, really well.

And so if you want to be an imitator of God, if you want to have the ability, like Ephesians says, to do a really good God impression as you live your life, you have to know Jesus really well.

And the more deeply you know him, the closer you are with Jesus, the more you understand him, the more you study him, the more you think about him, the more you explore what he says and what he does, and you allow him to speak into your life, well, the better you know him, the better of an impression you can do of him.

And you can begin to live your life, as Ephesians says, as an imitator of God.

And so all year long, as we're following Jesus, as we're opening up scripture and we're looking at everything that Jesus said and did, and just saying, Lord, help us see it so clearly, help us understand it better, help us explore this and think about you from angles that we've never thought about you from before.

We just want to know you better so that we can we can live this out, we can be an imitator of God.

That's what we're doing this year.

And I love it because it's forcing me to think about Jesus more than I normally do.

And I think about Jesus a lot, but I'm blessed to think about him even more.

So I'm so excited that we're doing this.

Now, uh, today we're actually gonna wrap up our last message in a little mini-series that we have within our Following Jesus series, and this one is called Real Authority.

Real authority.

We've been exploring the authority of Jesus.

And we we looked several weeks ago about how Jesus has a different type of authority.

We see authority misused or not used at all, even though it could be.

We see authority misused all the time in the world.

And we see all types of bad authority.

We see authority without character, we see authority that is selfish, that's corrupt, but Jesus is not like that.

He has real authority.

And that that's something that people noticed about Jesus.

As soon as he got done teaching his kind of big introductory message that really started to spread his fame, we call it the Sermon on the Mount.

The people, it says in Matthew, were amazed because he spoke as someone with real authority.

Jesus could just speak and it sounded different.

He carried, his words carried weight that most people's words don't carry.

People notice that.

But as we see in his life, his authority, it's met with wisdom and with compassion and with love and with character and with power.

There is no authority like Jesus.

And so if you're gonna follow anyone in life, and we all follow someone or something, if you're gonna follow anyone, follow Jesus because there's no one like him.

A few weeks ago we talked about how Jesus has spiritual authority, he has the authority to forgive sin.

And if you weren't here last Sunday, listen to that.

That's an interesting thing to think about.

Jesus has authority over spiritual matters.

Last week, Easter Sunday, we talked about the fact that Jesus has authority over death itself, and that's amazing.

He has defeated death, he has authority over death.

Death has to do what Jesus says, and that's powerful, that's incredible.

Today we're gonna wrap all of this up by exploring an aspect of Jesus' authority that I think it's really important for us to understand if we ever want to be people who can be imitators of God.

This is actually something that Jesus gets that we can get to.

And we can live with the same sort of clarity that Jesus lived with.

If we can understand this concept that we're gonna explore today, understanding where your authority actually comes from, what is the source of the authority by which you live your life?

If we can get this like Jesus does, oh my goodness.

It gives us clarity in a confusing world.

It allows us to be people of conviction, who, even though we live in a world that where like the rules are changing all the time, we can be steady, we can be focused, we can be resolute.

And that's the kind of life that, I don't know about you, I want to live that kind of life.

I don't want to be a person who just sort of blows whichever which way the wind is blowing, right?

I don't want to be a person who just goes here or there based on what's happening around me.

I want to be someone who lives with purpose, I want to be someone who's steady and resolute, even in a world that's chaotic, and Jesus teaches us how to do this because Jesus understands the source of his authority.

So let's explore this.

Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

It says, After Jesus left the girl's home, and remember, if you weren't here last week, or if you were, this is the girl that was dead and he brought back to life.

So after he left her home, two blind men followed along behind him, shouting, Son of David, have mercy on us.

Now, son of David is a title of authority.

They are recognizing that Jesus is the Messiah.

Son of David is a title that they would have given to a descendant of David who they believed would be fulfilling the prophecies that had been made about King David of Israel and his family line and a coming Messiah coming from that family line.

So just by shouting, Son of David, they're acknowledging, we believe that you're the Messiah.

They say, Have mercy on us.

Then they went right into the house where he was staying, and Jesus asked them, Do you believe I can make you see?

Yes, Lord, they told him we do.

And then he touched their eyes and said, Because of your faith it will happen.

And their eyes were open and they could see.

Jesus sternly warned them, Don't tell anyone about this.

But instead they went out and spread his fame all over the region.

I've always wondered if they're disobeying Jesus, or was Jesus just playing chess, and he knew if I tell them not to do it, they'll do it even more.

I'm not sure, but either way, his fame spreads.

When they left, a demon-possessed man who couldn't speak was brought to Jesus.

So Jesus cast out the demon, and the man began to speak.

The crowds were amazed.

Nothing like this has ever happened in Israel, they exclaimed.

But the Pharisees said he can cast out demons because he is empowered by the prince of demons.

So there's a lot going on here.

And there's some things that we need to understand.

Number one, what Jesus is doing is completely unprecedented.

And that may seem obvious, but we have to remember that there actually was a precedent for many of the miracles that Jesus has performed thus far.

Like Jesus healed a leper.

And that's incredible.

But there was a story in the Old Testament of a leper being healed.

So when Jesus did that, it was amazing, it was incredible, it was a it was like a confirmation that he was from God because the only people who could do that had to be prophets, had to be people that God was working through, but there was a precedent for it.

It had been done before.

But you can read the entire Old Testament, no blind person had ever been healed.

There's no precedent for this.

Jesus is the only person who's ever done this.

And as far as the demon possession thing goes, I know that that can be a little bit of a trip for some of us.

We talked about that a few weeks ago if you're interested.

Listen to that.

In the Old Testament, no one had ever done that.

No one had ever had the authority to tell an evil spirit what to do.

And so the Pharisees, they they have a really hard time with this because now Jesus is not only someone who's doing something that there is a precedent for, even though it's something that hasn't happened in a very long time.

At this point in time, it's been about 400 years since Israel has had a prophet.

The Pharisees have a problem because now Jesus is doing things that even the prophets of old, even the prophets that they have admired and taught about and idolized, maybe, those men never did the things that Jesus is doing.

Jesus is doing something no one's ever done before.

And the Pharisees have to figure out, they're the religious leaders.

They've got to figure out how to frame this.

Do we follow this guy?

Do we do we get behind him?

Do we start calling him son of David like the blind people are?

And they decide, no, instead, we're gonna oppose him.

And this is the first moment we see in the book of Matthew where Jesus faces real opposition.

He's definitely faced skepticism.

There are those who clearly don't believe and they question Jesus, they doubt Jesus.

There's maybe implications in that doubt, but this is the first time we see a moment where they just come out and say, We're against him.

They say the reason he has power over evil is because he is evil.

That is what they say.

Jesus is in league with Satan.

Jesus is evil.

I don't know if you've ever been accused.

You probably have.

Someone said something about you.

You've been someone who's faced accusation.

I remember whenever I stepped into this leadership role years ago, my mentor at the time, uh still a mentor of mine, Steve, who started the church.

I'm gonna talk about Steve in just a little bit.

But Steve told me something, great piece of advice.

He said, Justin, if you want to be a leader, people are gonna say a lot of things about you, and some of it's gonna be true.

They're gonna say a lot of bad things about you, and some of it's going to be accurate.

Can you own that?

Can you deal with that?

And I was like, I think I can.

And then he said, they're also gonna say a lot of things about you that it's not true at all.

People are gonna say things about you, they're gonna insinuate things about you, they don't like your leadership style, whatever it is, and you're gonna hear all kinds of things that people are saying about you, and you have to resist the temptation to jump in and defend yourself and whatever.

And I'm telling you, I think when he said that, I kind of nodded, like, yeah, that could happen, but I didn't really think it would, but I have experienced that.

And it's it's very difficult to hear people say things about you that you're like, that's not true at all, and just not care.

But that's what we see Jesus do.

They they say that Jesus is evil.

They say that Jesus, think about this.

You're G just imagine for a second that you're Jesus.

That's hard to do.

But if you're Jesus and you have come to save the world, you have come to rescue the world from the grip of Satan, and people now say, not just people, the religious leaders who are supposed to be the experts on God, the ones who are the most prepared to hear from you and receive from you, and they say that you're in league with Satan, that you're evil.

I mean, you talk about like accusation and opposition.

And what's amazing is that Jesus is unfazed.

He's unfazed.

And it's because he understands where his authority comes from and where it does it.

And he's intentional about this.

And guys, like I said, this is huge.

If we could grasp this, if we could live this way, Jesus understands where his authority comes from.

If we fast forward a little bit in Jesus' story, Mark chapter 11, Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

And it says that as Jesus was walking through the temple area, the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders, these are the Pharisees, they came up to him and demanded.

They demanded.

Think about that, you're demanding something of Jesus.

That's by what authority are you doing all these things?

Who gave you the right to do them?

And I love the way Jesus responds.

This is so epic.

He says, I'll tell you by what authority I do these things if you answer one question.

Did John, talking about John the Baptist, did John's authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human?

Answer me.

They talked it over amongst themselves.

They said, Well, if we say it was from heaven, then he's gonna ask why we didn't believe John.

But do we dare say that it was merely human?

For they were afraid of what the people would do because everyone believed that John was a prophet.

You can just see them like, Jesus got us again, you know?

And so here's what they do they they just try to wiggle out of it.

They just say, we don't know, they won't commit.

And Jesus said, Well, then I won't tell you by what authority I do these things.

But see, here's the thing, they they knew, they knew what authority Jesus was acting out of.

They knew that it came from God.

We know this in John chapter 3, there's a man named Nicodemus.

John 3 · chapter mention

He's not just a Pharisee, uh, he's he's actually a ranking member of the Pharisees.

And he tells Jesus, he says the quiet part out loud, he says, We know, talking about the Pharisees, early in his ministry, we know that you have come from God because no one could do the things that you're doing unless God were with them.

We know you've come from God.

So when they sit there and say, by what authority are you doing the things you're doing, they know.

And Jesus knows.

Jesus knows exactly by what authority he's doing all the things that he's doing, he's saying all the things that he's saying.

He knows that it's the authority that comes from God the Father.

Jesus references this all the time.

Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?

Well, they replied, Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others say Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.

And then he asked them, Who do you say I am?

I love this because here's Jesus asking, Hey, what are people saying about me?

And people have really good opinions about him.

They say, Oh, he's he's a prophet, he's one of the prophets of old, like, come back.

And Jesus is unfazed by that.

Because his popularity does not come from the popularity that he has with people.

His authority does not come from the opinions that people have of him, it comes from a higher place.

And so we see him reference this in John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

Jesus says, I tell you the truth.

The Son can do nothing by himself, he does only what he sees the Father doing.

Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.

In John 12, he says, I don't speak on my own authority.

The Father who sent me has commanded me to say what to say and how to say it.

John chapter 14, he says, I don't have much more time to talk to you because the ruler of this world approaches.

John 14 · chapter mention

He has no power over me.

But I will do what the Father requires of me so that the world will know that I love the Father.

Come, let's be going.

Jesus is always saying, Hey, I'm doing what I do, and I say what I say because of what God the Father has told me to say, what God the Father has told me to do, Jesus is always appealing to the authority of God.

He's appealing to the authority of God the Father and saying, I am under that authority.

So when the disciples say, Oh man, people say that you're like a prophet, you're Elijah.

That's a big deal.

Jesus doesn't go, really?

Wow.

Whoo, I'm popular.

He's unfazed.

And that's the cool thing about Jesus.

He's unfazed by the criticism, he's also unfazed by the praise and the adulation.

He understands the way this works.

Whatever you allow to feed you is what can starve you.

And so if Jesus allows his authority to rest on what people say about him when they say good things about him, that means that Jesus is allowing his authority to be diminished when people say all kinds of horrible things about him.

Whatever feeds you can starve you.

And Jesus not for a moment allows himself to believe that his authority is in any way based on his popularity amongst the people or the opinions of anyone, even experts, even the Pharisees, even the religious leaders, he does not allow anyone other than God to be his authority in terms of how he's living his life and what he's doing.

It's really powerful.

A person who does what they know or deeply believe God is telling them to do is a very powerful person.

I don't know if you've ever been around someone like that.

Someone who lives with such conviction and they can they can like they can stay focused, they can tow the line, they can overcome a massive amount of resistance because they're doing what God has told them to do.

Because they can appeal to the authority of God and they can back it up.

That's a powerful person.

And I've known people like that and I've seen people like that, and and man, like short of Jesus, they're my heroes.

Like, for example, I mentioned them earlier, uh, the the couple that started our church, Steve and Susan.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you were around when Steve and Susan were around?

How many of you not?

You've these are just names to you.

You have no, okay, some of you didn't participate at all.

That's fine.

It's it's fine.

So, okay.

Steve, Steve Craig started our church years ago, 2005 is when it officially started.

And many would argue he is the second best pastor in the history of his hands church.

That is something, it's just something people say.

I've heard it, he led this church directly for seven years.

I've led it for ten years, that's more, but it's fine.

Um, I mean, he's he's great, great dude.

He didn't start the church, so it's so easy now that we've been here this long and that God's blessed us in so many ways to sort of go, wow, they did a great thing and forget how hard it was.

There were so many people when they started this church that opposed what they were doing.

And I got to be part of this in the early days and experience some of that.

So if you don't know the story, this used to be a Kmart.

And this is gonna blow you away.

But when Stephen Susan sold their company that was extremely successful, and decided that what they were gonna do with their money was to buy an old abandoned Kmart building, spend about$20 million to renovate it and make it into a church, take zero salary for themselves, um, their financial advisors were not like, that's a great idea.

That's exactly what you should do.

They had a lot of people telling them, you're crazy.

You're crazy.

That's the this is a terrible idea.

But they were absolutely convinced that it's what God had called them to do, and they were wise enough to have that belief confirmed through a variety of of people and situations where God was able to say, no, no, this is what I want you to do.

It wasn't just something that they emotionally decided to do and stuck to it.

No, this was something God confirmed in many different ways, but when they believed that this was from God, that God wanted a church right here, nothing swayed them.

In fact, very few people know this story.

Uh, this building had sat vacant for something like five, seven years, and no one was interested in buying it.

Who wants an old Kmart?

Let's be honest.

They bought it, and then within like a week, someone came in and made an offer on the building.

And it would have been a massive profit.

Like someone came and said, Oh, actually, we want to buy it from you.

And if they would have just turned around and sold it immediately after buying it, they would have profited millions of dollars.

And you could see how how that would be so easy for them to justify and even see as a blessing from God.

They could say, Oh my goodness, we we we we did what God said, we we bought this property, and then like a few days later, an offer comes in for millions of dollars more.

Lord, we're gonna sell that building, take the extra millions, we'll use that to make an even bigger church or an even better or whatever.

Nope, not at all.

They were like, man, if anything, this is a confirmation that this is a special place, and they saw it as a temptation, that they had just done what God told them to do, and now someone comes along and has an offer that would make them give this up, and they said no.

To millions of dollars.

This is something Steve would never talk about, but I'm not Steve.

And uh, so I can.

The amount of opposition that I watched them face from even from like within the church was incredible.

There were pastors who wrote letters to them saying that they were doing a disservice to our community because they they did things differently.

We've always done things a little differently here.

They they got they got letters saying that they were making a huge mistake, and that if they continued through their plan of building a church based on everything people had heard, that they were going to like literally ruin a community.

They got letters like that.

And there were all kinds of rumors that were out there.

I mean, it was crazy.

It was it was insane.

I remember this lady, I was the youth pastor, and this lady came here and she dropped her kid off, and she was very nervous.

And um, and I talked to her and I asked her what was making her nervous, and she said, Well, I've heard that you guys have all these rooms, and each room is dedicated to a different religion.

And I just I that really freaked me out.

And I'm like, it's every room's Jesus.

I can promise you that.

And we got a Jesus room, another Jesus room, there's a G over there's a Jesus room, I mean, with Jesus statue out front, right?

Like, we don't think that's Jesus, it's just an artistic representation to show people that Jesus is welcoming and loving and all that.

But I mean, there were it's like, where did that come from?

There was all this opposition.

And I watched as they dealt with that.

And no matter how hard it was, they never relented.

Because they they did not get their confidence from what people said about them.

They never allowed anyone other than God to be the source of their ultimate authority.

What they were appealing to in their decisions ultimately was what the Lord had told them to do.

And they were actually willing to say, maybe we heard from God wrong on this.

We would rather go to our grave saying, Oh, God, I'm sorry, I thought that's what you wanted me to do, than to say, yeah, Lord, I thought that's what you wanted me to do.

But then everyone else was saying these other things, and so I went and did what they said.

And what's really cool is uh last Sunday we had three people get baptized.

We got some people getting baptized when we're done uh this morning as well.

And you know, when we have someone get baptized, we light up one of those lights on that big giant chandelier we have in the lobby, and there's 300 of those, and every time 300 light up, we go back to zero, and then we put another little spotlight down of our logo, and that represents 300 people.

We're like 20 away from doing that again.

And so, whenever that happens, I don't know when that will be, sometime probably in the next few months.

Uh we'll have a big giant party and we'll celebrate that in a really big way because that will mean that since we started as a church, uh, over 2100 people have been baptized here.

And that's awesome, right?

And here's the thing: none of that would have happened.

That would not have happened if Stephen Susan had resisted the craziness of the plan that God put on both of their hearts to buy an old Kmart and turn it into a church and spend their entire fortune doing that.

Um, all the advice they got against that, all the hate that they got, all the discouragement that they got, even from within the church, even from other pastors of other churches, all the rumors that were started.

Like, if they had listened to any of that and relented, that wouldn't be the case.

And I'm so glad, I'm so glad that they learned that lesson from Jesus and that the authority that they appealed to was the authority of God.

Jesus understood that his authority did not come from his popularity.

He understood that his popularity would ebb and flow.

There were times, guys, where Jesus was the most popular person in Israel.

Everyone loved him, everyone adored him, he'd show up in a town, thousands of people would be there, they would cheer, they would celebrate.

But he knew that that could change in an instant, and many times it did.

And the people following Jesus would swell from thousands at certain times to just a few left, and it would come and go, and Jesus never let that stir his heart.

In fact, if you look at his ministry, many times Jesus at the height of his popularity would say something really challenging and hard.

And if you would have been one of his disciples, you're like, Why are you saying this now?

Jesus, no, not now.

Like, things are going really well.

Say the stuff that people like to hear.

But but Jesus would say something challenging, and then everyone would leave and go, I don't know about that.

It's almost like he didn't care how popular he was.

Because that's not what gave him his authority.

It wasn't the opinions of people, it wasn't his popularity, it was one thing and one thing alone.

What has the Father said?

What has God said?

And I believe that if we could live like that, that if we could have that hyper-focused of a mentality when it comes to by what authority am I living my life, by whose authority am I making the decisions that I make?

Am I making the choices when I choose how I'm gonna live, how my family's gonna operate, you know, what I'm gonna do in life, by what authority do I appeal to when I make those decisions?

Because we do have to realize we're always appealing to some authority.

Always.

And what if that was God and literally, what if, what if God's opinion like ranked here and everything else is like you couldn't even compute how little it mattered.

What I believe that would do is it would give us, like I said earlier, the ability to live extremely clear, focused, and resolute lives in a world that is chaos.

Because our world is it's crazy sometimes.

And I'm not like dogging on the world or anything like that, it's just the way it is.

The world's crazy.

The world's chaotic, the world changes, everything, it's so flimsy.

And so if you decide as a person, if you play a little thought experiment, if you decide, hey, I'm gonna base all my decisions on whatever is popular in the world right now.

If that's how you choose to live your life, oh man.

I'll tell you this: you will have an adventure.

I promise you that.

You will have an adventure.

And hey, adventures are great, you'll have an adventure with God too, it'll be a different kind of adventure.

But your life will basically be built on, as Jesus said, sand.

Because the beliefs, the values of our culture, they change all the time.

You there's no way to build life on that.

If we allow what the majority of people in the world think, or we allow what the people who are supposed to be the ones who know everything think, if we allow those things to be the authority that we live our lives from, like it will not work.

Jesus didn't live like that.

I want to be like Jesus, I want to be an imitator of him.

So let me give you a few examples as we as we wrap up.

The thing I love about Jesus and about Scripture is if we know it and we go to it, it brings clarity to confusion.

And on a daily basis, I have all kinds of decisions that I have to make, like all of us do.

I don't mean as a pastor, I just mean like as a person.

And when I make those decisions, it's like, ooh, what am I gonna do?

I'll give you an example.

Um I I do I do basketball training on the side.

And uh sorry, I have a side gig.

I apologize.

I think I let that slide.

So um I have, I know if you know this, I have a son who plays basketball and he's really good.

And so what happened is some parents a few years ago were like, hey, could you train my kid and your kid's good?

And I just pretended like I'm the reason he's good, which really isn't the case.

Um and I was like, sure, no, no, I I really enjoy that, and I I work with kids different times during the week at night, and so it's something I really enjoy.

I love basketball, and if I can do that, how many weeks in a row have I talked about basketball?

It's gotta be like six.

I should stop.

Next week, zero basketball, zero sports.

How about that?

Zero sports analogies next week.

Some of the people out there who are not sports people are like, thank you, finally.

Jesus didn't use any sports analogies, but Paul did.

Okay, sorry.

I'm on a tangent.

Okay.

Um but I don't want to appeal to the authority of Paul.

It's Jesus, whatever.

All right.

So last year, it was tax time, right?

Or I guess not last year, like I was doing my taxes recently based on last year, and you know, now that I've done some basketball trainings, I have all this stuff in Cash App or in Venmo, and it's tax time, and I'm like, well, what am I gonna do with this stuff?

And you have two options when it comes to taxes, really.

Just either tell the truth or lie.

Those are your options, right?

It's it's that simple.

I'm sure has anyone here ever been tempted to lie on your taxes?

Anyone at all?

Just be honest.

Will someone here be honest in church?

I'm not I'm not saying have you lied on your taxes?

There's not an IRS agent in the back, all right, ready to take you away.

I'm just saying, have you at least been tempted to go?

I don't have to be totally accurate there.

I was like, oh man, what do I want to do with this?

Because I kind of feel like the government has enough of my money.

And, you know.

But but here's the thing.

I gotta cheer.

If you're not clapping, it means you don't pay your taxes.

So we know that.

Okay.

But check it out, Jesus.

So so clear.

Anytime I have something that pops in my mind like that.

Matthew chapter 22.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

The Pharisees met together to plot how to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested.

So they sent some of their disciples along with the supporters of Herod to meet with him.

Teacher, they said, We know how honest you are.

You teach the way of God truthfully.

You are impartial and don't play favorites.

Now, like is it flattery's gonna work on Jesus?

Is if he's gonna be like, oh, oh, okay, thank you.

We've already established he doesn't care what people think about him.

He cares about people, he doesn't care that much what they think.

And so they say, Tell us what you think about this.

Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

But Jesus knew their evil motives, you hypocrites.

He said, Why are you trying to trap me?

Here, show me the coin that's used for the tax.

And they handed him a Roman coin and he asked, Whose picture and title are stamped on it?

Caesar's, they replied, Well then, he said, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.

And his reply amazed them, and they went away.

So every time, I guess it's a simple illustration.

Every single time, if I've ever done my taxes and I'm like, ah, you know, I don't, ah.

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give to God what is God's.

Thank you, Jesus.

Clarity.

I can be resolute, I can do the right thing, and I'm appealing to the authority of you.

I'm not gonna appeal to what anyone else says.

If there's someone out there that's like, oh, you don't have to, you don't have to put that on your taxes, you don't have to.

I mean, no, they're not gonna check that.

It's no, I'm gonna do what Jesus says.

Give to Caesar what's Caesar's, give to God what is God's.

It's clarity in a confusing world.

Or what about like, man, what about a situation where someone wrongs you?

They do something horrible to you, and it's it's bad, and you have this choice do I forgive or not?

Forgiveness is hard.

I think it's one of the hardest things in the world to do, which is amazing when you think about the fact that Jesus forgave you for everything.

Everything.

It's so hard for me sometimes to forgive people for one thing, for one thing.

And Jesus forgave me for everything.

But anytime I'm in a moment where someone has done something to me or they've said something about me, and I have a choice, I can either let it go and forgive and move on, or I can hold on to it and become bitter and angry, which to be honest, sometimes is a lot of fun for a little bit, and then it's poison and it destroys you from the inside out.

But in those moments where I have to choose that, I go to Jesus.

I appeal to the authority of my God.

And Jesus says clearly in Matthew chapter 6, if you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

That's so clear.

It's so clear.

When I'm faced with that challenge, do I forgive or not?

Do I retaliate?

Do I do I enter the fight?

What do I do?

No, it's not even a question.

I forgive.

Because Jesus said, if I forgive, he will forgive.

It's clear.

Jesus gives you clarity amidst confusion.

If you appeal to the authority of God.

If you were to go to people around you and say, hey, should I forgive or not?

If you were going to put a poll on social media, I promise you you would have a lot of mixed results.

But we don't live that way.

We appeal to a higher authority.

And it's clear.

This next part, um, I should have maybe given a disclaimer.

I do want to touch on a couple of issues.

I've I really prayed about this.

Because I think one of the things that this idea of appealing to the authority of God helps us with the most is when we have to take stances on really controversial issues.

And um sometimes as believers, it can be really hard in a culture that has very different values than maybe the values of our faith.

How do you navigate taking a stand on things when you know that that stand might be very unpopular?

You know, if you appeal to the authority of culture, then you're gonna have to change a lot of of what you believe, and you're gonna have to distance yourself from a lot of scripture.

That's just the reality.

But that's very common in our world, and it's actually very common in the church.

And so, a couple of things as I talk about, I'm not gonna go into like it, some people are like, what is he about to say?

It's not that big of a deal.

Um, but sometimes whenever controversial things get brought up in church, I just like to say on the front end a couple of things.

Number one, I think it's very important if you're new to his hands.

Um I think it's very important from time to time for churches to be extremely matter-of-fact and clear about issues that for whatever reason are often talked about in a muddy way in church because maybe they're touchy.

But if churches are wishy-washy about what is true and what is good versus what is not, uh, it doesn't help anybody.

And the reality is we should be able to be very clear and matter-of-fact about issues that scripture is very clear on.

And now, if people don't agree with that, that's fine.

That's fine.

Clap for that.

Cool.

Um Peter chapter 3 says, Um, even if you suffer for what doing what's right, God will reward you for it.

Don't worry or be afraid of their threats.

Instead, you must you must worship Christ as the Lord of your life.

And this is the part I want to focus on.

If someone asks you about your hope as a believer, and we might actually say, if someone asks you why you believe the things you believe, we might use that language.

If someone ever asks you, hey, why do you believe this about that, right?

If someone ever asks you that, always be ready to explain it, and here's the key, but do this in a gentle and respectful way.

Okay?

So when I think about appealing to a higher authority in my life and how that helps me navigate life, how that helps me be resolute, and how that helps me uh be someone who can sort of toe the line and stay the course even when the world around me is chaotic, one of the things that comes up the most is man, what am I gonna do with all these issues that I'm confronted with in culture that are kind of hot button issues and they're hard.

How as a believer am I gonna navigate this?

Well, I know that number one, I have to appeal to the authority of my God, not to the authority of my culture.

Number two, I have to, whatever stance I take, I have to do it in a way that's loving and respectful and kind and gentle.

Okay, so let me just bring up two issues.

Um, abortion, I'm gonna use in this one, and let's talk sexuality and gender.

We'll kind of lump that together.

I'm gonna say this on the front end.

I'm not bringing this up to be, you know, I'm not bringing this up to get clicks.

We don't, we're not a church that gets clicks.

Um I don't even know how to get clicks.

So there's that.

But but I've had a lot of people ask about these issues.

And so as I prayed about this this week and I thought about this concept of appealing to the authority of God in a world that's chaotic and a world that often disagrees, and how Jesus did not, uh he did not base his opinions, what he said, and what he did on what everyone around him said, this just came to my mind.

But here's my ask.

Anytime we talk about a controversial uh subject, if you agree with what I say, please do not say amen or clap.

Because not everyone will agree with that.

And many people might still be processing, and oftentimes those claps and amens when we're talking about something that's sensitive can feel like an attack, even though they're not.

I know they're not, but it can feel that way, and it's just I don't need the claps for this or the amens, and I don't know who the dude that says amen over there is.

You're gonna have a hard time with this one because you're you know who you are.

You know who you are.

I don't I don't even know who you are, but you're my amen guy, and you're gonna have to work hard, okay?

I and actually, I don't know who that is that says you know who you are.

Um but I kind of don't ever want to know who you are because so don't come up to me and say, hey, I'm the guy that says amen.

I I want it to be a mystery.

It's fun.

I'm serious about that.

So, all right.

I love having fun.

Okay.

I know a lot of people who have had abortions, and uh even people very close to me, and I love those people.

In fact, we work with the Hope Center across the street, and they're a crisis pregnancy center, and they they they help young women who are maybe in a really difficult situation carry a child to term and encourage that mother that they can do it, and that might mean raising that child or giving that child up for adoption.

They also have post-abortive counseling, and we've actually had classes that we've taught here by women who have had abortions, counseling women who have gone through that, how to have peace, because a lot of times there's guilt and shame.

So I want you to know if that's something you've ever experienced, we have resources that can help you with that.

And there's no judgment here.

We've all made mistakes, we've all sinned, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and those sins do not outrank other sins.

Okay?

But I had someone ask me, like, hey, what's your stance on abortion?

And as a Christian, it's really simple.

Like, it's really simple.

This is an example of how Scripture and the authority of God gives us clarity in what otherwise seems confusing.

People can say, oh, well, well, this or that, they can try to use different terminology, they can try to talk about it from a variety of different angles, but but it's for me as a Jesus follower, it's so simple.

I believe in Jesus.

And because I believe in Jesus, that means that I believe that the hope of the entire world at one point in time was an unborn child in a mother's womb.

And that mother just so happened to be a teenage, unwed mother.

And if I believe that the hope of all of humanity at one point in time rested in the womb of a young woman as an unborn child, and I look at scripture and I see the number of times that unborn children have destinies, that God will speak to people and say, Hey, the child in your womb will do this.

The child that you carry will become this.

There is no way for me to reconcile abortion with that.

There's zero way for those two things to be reconciled.

So as a as a Jesus follower in a world that has all these issues, that are, and there's a lot of people that are very loud about issues like this, and there's a lot of people that make interesting arguments, and sometimes we're so compelled by just listening to people who are really passionate, and that's fine and all, but as a follower of Jesus, I say, no, what's the authority that I appeal to?

It's the authority of God, it's the authority of Scripture.

And Scripture teaches me clearly that unborn children have destinies.

And that at one point in time, the hope of the world, my very own Savior, was an unborn child in the womb of a woman who was in a really tough situation that many in our culture would absolutely make the poster child for having an abortion.

I can't reconcile those things.

Thank you for not saying amen or clapping.

Uh, but does that make sense?

You can say yes to that if it does or if it doesn't.

Okay, cool.

Okay, so again, controversial issue, but we live in a chaotic world and scripture gives us clarity.

I can't reconcile those two things.

And so my stance on that is very simple.

It's very clear.

It may not be popular, and it may offend some, and that's okay, because I love even those who I offend.

But I have to I have to appeal to a higher authority when I decide what stances I take on things.

Take sexuality and gender.

This has probably been the most hot button issue of our time.

And all of us either know people or or maybe are same-sex attracted, or uh we have close family members and friends, and it's like that we're given these options where it's either support it or you know, support it, celebrate it, or you hate it and you're a bigot.

It's like those are the only two choices.

And oftentimes the world gives us that false choice where we either go all in and say, yeah, we're for this, and if you don't, that means that you are judgmental and that you're hateful, and that sort of bullies us intellectually into saying, well, then I don't want to be that.

Right?

But scripture is very clear.

On gender, it's very clear.

Uh, God made them male and female.

That's the way God made us.

He made us male, he made us female.

Two.

That's it.

It's very clear.

On issues of sexuality in the Bible, whether you look Old Testament, New Testament, it's very clear.

That God's plan for humanity is for men and women to have relationships with each other, and any sexual relationships, romantic relationships that are outside of the boundaries of a man and a woman in marriage, by the way, that's outside of God's biblical ethic.

We actually did a series a few years ago, a couple years ago now, spent three weeks talking about it.

We called it the biblical sexual ethic.

If you ever want to go and do a deep dive on that, you can.

We even had people that we interviewed as part of that who had been same-sex attracted and would still describe themselves as same-sex attracted, but they submitted, they submitted their sexuality to Jesus.

And so when I hear people say, well, this is how I was, this is how I was made, this is how I was born, I always ask the question, well, which birth are we talking about?

Are you talking about your original birth when you were born as a human being?

Because we're told very clearly in Scripture that we're born and we're born with a sin nature.

We naturally want to do things that are outside of the boundaries of what God says is good and right.

All of us want to do things that are wrong.

All of us.

It might manifest itself in different ways.

But when we say I was born this way, what we're supposed to appeal to is our second birth.

Jesus said that anyone who wants to enter the kingdom of heaven must be born again.

Right?

We're born again.

We're born again through the power of the Holy Spirit, and that new birth in us creates a new nature, and that new nature does not desire things that are apart from God, and we're supposed to appeal to that desire when we make our decisions.

So I remember having a really difficult conversation with someone once who was asking me, So are you telling me, this is a person who is same-sex attracted, are you telling me that God wants me, even though I'm same-sex attracted, are you saying that God wants me to deny that?

And I was like, Yeah.

Jesus says in Matthew chapter 16, if any of you want to be my follower, you must give up your own way.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

Take up your cross and follow me.

And that's hard, right?

Some things are harder to give up than others, but it all depends on your perspective.

The friends that I have that have uh that are same-sex attracted, but have submitted that to the Lord, their perspective is so interesting.

They say, Man, yes, that's a really hard thing to submit to God, but what a what an amazing thing that I get to be someone that has given God even that.

What a beautiful offering that I've been able to say, Lord, I love you so much that I will submit every part of my life to you, even that.

We're all called to submit to God.

We're all called to deny our own flesh and to deny the things that we want.

And if the authority that we appeal to is our flesh, that's what happens, by the way, when someone says, I was born this way, they're appealing to their flesh, their desires.

Well, this is okay for me.

Why?

Because I really, really want to, and these desires are strong.

And if we live our lives and our ultimate authority is our own desires, oh my goodness.

We're in a lot of trouble.

Because the flesh desires things that are apart from God.

Scripture teaches that really clearly.

Now, again, you may not agree with this, and that's okay.

That's totally okay.

What I'm saying is that I have to live my life.

We all have to live our lives, understanding the authority that we appeal to.

What made Jesus, and worship team, you guys can make your way out on that note, um, what made Jesus unstoppable was not his own power.

This is really important for us to understand.

What made Jesus unstoppable was not his own power.

We know this because in Philippians chapter 2, it says that even though he was God, he did not consider equality with God as something to cling to.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

He gave up his own power, he gave up his divine privileges, and he humbled himself and became a human being and submitted himself as a human being even to death on a cross.

Jesus was not a superhero.

Jesus was not someone walking around with just all this power within himself.

The power that Jesus had was power that he got from God the Father.

The authority that Jesus lived by and lived out of when he taught and when he said things and did things, the authority that Jesus used was not even his own authority.

He says constantly, I do what the Father says, I do what the Father does, I follow the Father.

He always appealed to that higher authority.

And if we want to be people like Jesus, who are unstoppable, I mean nothing that they did, said, not even death itself could stop Jesus because everything that Jesus did, he did out of a submission to the authority of God.

And that's what charted his course.

So we take Lord's Supper together if you guys want to grab this.

You know, you think about this moment, and if you don't have this, by the way, there's cups at the back.

When you think about this moment, this is a picture of Jesus doing exactly what we're talking to.

Imagine again that you're Jesus.

It's hard to do.

But imagine that you're Jesus and you're about to die.

And you know that in a matter of moments you're gonna be arrested, you're gonna be crucified, humiliated, mocked, you're gonna have to go through that.

You're gonna watch all of your best friends scatter from you and deny you.

He prays in the Garden of Gethsemane before that happens, and he says, Father, is there any way that you can take this cup of suffering away?

Lord, take it away, Father, take it away.

But then he does, he stops.

And he does exactly what we're talking about.

He submits to the authority of God and he says, Not what I want, but what you want.

When I brought up those controversial topics, I wasn't doing that to create a stir, and it definitely wasn't doing that to hurt anyone.

And by the way, if that's created any questions and you're like, I don't know what to do with that, I want you to know, no matter what, no matter who you are, where you stand on different issues, uh, we love you.

I love you.

I don't believe that I have to agree with you to love you.

In fact, I actually think it's a greater form of love if you can love people you disagree with.

And so if you want to talk about that, if you have any questions, if that felt hurtful, um, I'll sit and talk with you as long as you would like.

I promise you that.

I didn't bring up those those topics to create any type of hurt.

I brought up those topics because I want us to understand that we live in a world that is going to challenge us constantly to disregard the authority of God and instead appeal to the authority of something else, and it's always something less.

So our culture will say that you need to appeal to the authority of everyone around you.

What does everyone else think?

If Stephen Susan would have appealed to that authority, this church would not exist and 2,100 people would not have been baptized.

There he is.

And if you appeal to the authority of convenience, if you appeal to the authority of your deepest desires, that's actually you setting yourself up as God and saying that I'm gonna serve my own self, I'm gonna serve my own desires, and I don't believe I should ever have to submit any authority or any part of my life to the authority of God.

I mean, that just contradicts Jesus very clearly.

Anyone who wants to be my follower must deny themselves.

And I'll be the first to admit that I've struggled with that and I fail at denying myself all the time, and if you fail too, there's grace for you.

But it's still something we're called to do.

Can we be people who live our lives submitted to the authority of God?

Because Jesus did that in this moment.

He said, Not what I want, but what you want.

He appealed to the authority of God even when it was hard, even when it meant sacrifice.

And that's one of the reasons that we can trust Jesus so much.

And so I want to invite you a little bit differently, as we take this meal together, I want to invite you to do so in a spirit of submission.

What I mean by that is you don't have to take this meal right now.

There's no pressure.

But we're gonna do this today, and in a private conversation with God as we do this, just understand that as we take this, today, we take this in the spirit of Lord, not what I want, but what you want.

That just like you, Jesus, gave up your body and your blood and you denied yourself to do what the Father asked.

I want to live like that.

So, Lord, whatever it is, I'll submit it to you.

Whatever it is, God, even if it's hard, even if it's really, really deeply personal, even if it's something that I I love, but it doesn't line up with what you've said, Lord.

I want to submit everything to your authority.

That's the manner that I want to take this in.

And that's serious, and I don't want anyone to feel pressured to do so.

But if you're willing, pray with me.

Let's open up the bread.

Father, we thank you for this bread.

This is your body given up, submitted to death.

Now we know that you defeated death.

We know that you now have authority over death, but that authority did not happen, Lord, fully until you submitted yourself to it.

Lord, this is an act of submission.

This is a model of you saying, not what you want, but what the Father wants.

Lord, help us be people who submit to your authority, God.

Help us be people who, just like Jesus, just like the one we're supposed to imitate, help us be people who appeal to the highest authority as we live our lives.

And help us be resolute and focused as we do that.

Let's take the breath.

Lord, we thank you for this juice.

This represents your blood.

It was spilled for us, Father.

And your blood is what covers sin.

It's what cleanses us.

And Jesus, if you were willing to submit yourself to such a brutal death to save us, as we take this, Lord, we just want to say to you that we submit to you.

We want to honor you.

We want our lives to be surrendered to your authority.

We want to appeal on every decision we make, the small things, the big things, Lord, the stances that we take on moral issues in the world, Lord, even if it's difficult, even if it goes against the grain, Lord, we want our whole lives to be submitted to your authority.

And we want to be people who make no appeal to anything less.

So help us live that out, Lord.

Let's take the Jews.