THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS IN OUR LIVES - BY REVEREND MATTHEW OLANREWAJU
It has been coming! It has been coming for a long time, the only surprise here is the fact that the Pharisees, Chief priests and the elders had held on for so long before running out of patience with Jesus. I mean, for a long time they had been wondering about Jesus, you know, what to do with him, how would they approach him? What strategy would they employ? What would they say? What questions would they asked him?
They might have even held a meeting regarding what to do with him. On top of their agenda for this hypothetical meeting would have been this Jew who claimed to be something, you know, who claim to be somebody like Elijah of old, Is he like John the Baptist? But who was he really? They knew that he was a Jew, son of Joseph the carpenter, who lived in Nazareth. Nazareth? Yes, Nazareth. But he goes around the place healing people who are sick. Some of the Pharisees and the elders can deal with that – they’ve had magicians before, may be he was one of those, one of those who used Beelzebub as a source of power.
But this Jesus is more than that, he was not only healing people, he had followers as well – his disciples and these people called disciples dress the same way, ate the same food and did the same things, and much more than that the crowd, that is the people follows them around whilst he teaches them. He teaches the crowd everywhere, even he comes in to the temple and teaches there in the temple. The Chief priests and elders have had enough and they have decided to challenge Jesus the next time they meet up again.
So in Matthew 21:23-32. Jesus came back to the temple. As he taught the word of God, the chief priests and the elders came to him and challenged him. “What right have you to do these things? Who gave you this right?” In other words or comically one could put it this way “Look, we’ve had it with you. You ride into town acting like the Messiah. You disrupt the activities in the temple. You accept praise and worship from little kids, and you curse an innocent fig tree. Who do you think you are? By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?”
Well, let’s have a deeper look at these questions.
1. The Chief priests and the elders are feeling threatened by the presence of Jesus on their patch.
2. They felt resentment towards Jesus as Jesus did not attend the same college and trained in the same way as they trained. In fact, Jesus doesn’t need the type of rabbinic training and study like ordinary men.
3. Their popularity has gone down; crowds no longer take them serious, instead followed Jesus.
With these embellished mindset the Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests and elders, who are all sometimes sworn enemies suddenly became friends and united in one purpose, to challenge Jesus and disturbed the salvific process for which our Lord was sent.
Application: Christians today must be wary of people who see you as a threat. In fact, whilst Christians must be wary of people with embellished mindset, we can also take courage and pride that we are doing something right. You see, brothers and sisters, the devil, Satan and indeed all his servants of darkness in our world today are not afraid of people who are not Christians, they are not afraid or feel threatened by people who are disloyal to God, no, they are not afraid of people who call God’s authority over their lives into question, because such disloyal people are not a threat to the devil and his kingdom, rather, they are already part of the devil’s kingdom of darkness. However, as we see, from the behaviour of the chief priests and elders who challenged Jesus, they only challenged Jesus authority because they perceived Jesus as a threat.
If you think Satan or people of the world feel resentment towards you, take heart, and be of courage as the Lord Jesus was in the same situation as you are. Do not be afraid, as the Lord will provide strength for you in your hour of need.
So back to their original questions, “what right have you to do these things? Who gave you this right?” It’s a trapped question. If Jesus says “God gave me the authority,” the chief priests and elders will say “You’re a lunatic. God never tell anyone to do the things you’ve been doing!”
And if Jesus says “I acted on my own authority, the leaders will say “You’re a heretic! Who do you think you are to act on your own accord?” They think they have trapped Jesus and got him where they wanted, with the crowd as witnesses.
But praise to the Lord God Almighty who is the source of all wisdom and has kept the wisdom from the wise and choose to reveal it through our Lord Jesus to the lowly. The foolishness of God is wiser than men 1 Cor 1 :25. Here our Lord Jesus turned the table around and he used a tried and tested old Jewish debating and argumentative method – answering question by asking another question so that the answer to their original question lie in the originator’s answer to the rebounding and secondary question. Jesus answered them, I will ask you just one question, and if you give me an answer, I will tell you what right I have to do these things. He asked them about his cousin, John’s baptism – where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or from men?”
The bible tells us that chief priests and elders began to argue among themselves, but the bible also records what our Lord Jesus says about the devil and his kingdom, that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and once the devil and his people start to argue among themselves over your commitment to the Lord in your life, brothers, then you know you are on the right track. You see the chief priests and the elders and the Pharisees and Sadducees are never good friends, they are just convenient friends against Jesus and so it was good to their nature of friendship to start argument, theirs wa already a divided house.
Today I pray for all who read this piece, that once the devil and his people challenge the authority by which you bring good news to the poor, healing to the sick and release to the captives, that the Lord Almighty will cause disturbing argument among the devil household and among the devils’ people so much that the house of darkness shall never hold sway over you and your family. The gate of hell will be divided and will never overcome the kingdom of love, peace, healing and freedom. Amen.
So these bad people argued among themselves and as they are also with some wisdom they figured out among themselves and wondered “what shall we say? If we answer it’s ‘from God’, he will say “Why, then, did you not believe John?” But if we say “From human beings, – we are afraid of what the people might do, because they are all convinced John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus “We don’t know.”
So Jesus says “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. In other words, “Why should I tell you anything when you have no platform to stand? You are sitting on a fence. It is a convenient fence but no more than that, just a convenience – a place to hide.
Brothers in the Lord, there is nothing more dangerous than an inconclusive mind. There‘s nothing more dangerous than a mind without a foundation. Jesus was in another way saying to the chief priests and elders here and indeed those who care to listen today, that God can deal with a lost mind, because a lost mind is not actually lost, in a way a lost mind is temporary unaware of its location. And God the creator of the universe and who has the greatest compass can find you and bring you home. For the bible tells us, whilst we are still far away and lost he met us in the way and brought us home. Were the chief priests and elders to have given the wrong answer, for example if they said the wrong thing, like John’s baptism is from man, just as we think that Jesus’ authority is from man, then I am sure Jesus would have educated them and show them the way to salvation. No, they knew what they were doing all along and Jesus exposed their evil machinations and laid it bare for the world to see. The chief priests and the elders who challenged Jesus have already made up their minds about Christ and what they wish they would do to him; they were just looking for ways to carry it out and accomplices from the crowd.
Today people still challenge the authority of Jesus and your authority to carry our Christian evangelism. By the way as a Christian, your authority for Christian mission is Matthew 28: 18, 19-20.
Today people say faith in religion is a private thing, yes, they are right, faith in God and in Jesus as your personal Lord and saviour is a private thing between you and God, but the effect, influence and the consequence of such is an overwhelming power that transcends the local mind. If anyone says I will do it my way and I have no care for God and any such thing, they are invariably challenging the power of God and hence like the chief priest and elders asks Jesus by what authority are you doing these things?
Beware of the Three Ists.
THE INDIVIDUALIST
THE NARCISSIST
MATERIALIST
All these ISTS challenges the role of God in their lives and hence challenges the place of Christ in their lives and in our world today. Don’t fall prey to their ideologies or it would be along way back brother.
THE INDIVIDUALIST thinks about himself alone and both at home and work they want to boss everyone around and be THE MAN. The individualist says “I accept command only from one person: Me. I answer only to myself! Proverbs 16:18 says pride comes before a fall. Remember the angels that sinned, who, through pride, fell into condemnation, because they were not able to accept the thought that Jesus (human being), in the person of the Son of God, should be greater than them; fell through pride. Also Adam and Eve fell as a result of pride, because they were not content with their present state and circumstances, and wanting to be gods ‘so that they take no orders from no one’, knowing good and evil, ruined themselves and all their posterity; and as it has done in many of their sons, as in Haman, Nebuchadnezzar, and others; so we know that pride can bring you to challenge the authority of Christ in you, be careful.
THE NARCISSIST loves only himself admires only himself and does all things to adore only himself. In fact he worships himself as well. Be careful not to be a narcissist. This comes from a Greek mythology, Narcissus is the character that sees his reflection in the water and falls in love with himself. In our world today we have a lot of people who only think about how they look and how they feel and what they wear. Jesus already tells us not to worry as god our father knows we need all these things and he will give them to us. We even have pastors who dressed in designers suit and stand on a choreographic platforms to preach, they wipe their faces a hundred times as they speak as they wish to look the part on stage, they worship themselves and asks you to send your credit card details after a word of prayer touches your TV screen, be careful, they are challenging the authority of Jesus, of God and they are narcissist. By rejecting the authority of Jesus as laid down in Matt 28:19, they have aligned themselves in the corner of the chief priests and the elders who colluded to nail my Lord and Saviour on the cross at Calvary.
THE MATERIALIST: This is you and I; we are so materialistic that we forget what our Lord told us in Matthew 6:20-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. Also in Matthew 6:29-33 the Lord tells us, “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”
Matthew’s gospel is full of Pharisees and Sadducees and chief priests episodes, in Matthew 22:34 when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced their mutual friends Sadducees they went again to him to try and trap him with a question about the law, “Teacher, they asked which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind.” The second is like it, he said, Love your neighbour as you love yourself” The whole Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments. Now, there’s very little wrong in having worldly possessions as long as they are for ‘your needs’ and not acquired for ‘your wants’ needs says I need to have this for my survival and comfort, wants says I want to have this and keep it just in the case I will need it one day and most importantly because I can. When worldly material becomes so important and takes priority over everything else in our lives including the Lord and God, our worship becomes self propagating, our witness becomes shallow, and the Word of God is compromised, then we are rejecting Christ’s authority over our lives. Now, let’s go and do something about that.
