As One Having Authority

So this morning is our final sermon from the Sermon on the Mount. This is number 50. We've been studying this sermon for just over a year now, and at the beginning, one of the first sermons that Martin Lloyd-Jones preached on, on this Sermon on the Mount, he described the Sermon on the Mount as containing absolutely everything that a Christian needs to know about how to live a Christian life. If we could put it in other words, we'd say that if you devoted yourself for the rest of your life to understanding just the Sermon on the Mount and the lessons that it teaches, you would not lack anything in terms of Christian living. And so this is what we've been studying this last year. And as it comes to a close, actually our text this morning is not actually a part of the Sermon on the Mount. It's actually Matthew's summary or observation at the end of the Sermon on the Mount of the people and of Jesus' teaching.

And so our goal this morning is to understand the people's response and then to emulate it in our own lives. Our text this morning is Matthew chapter 7, verses 28 and 29. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. For he was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Have you ever been amazed? Or when was the last time you were amazed? Perhaps you have something in your mind. You might think of some sort of crazy good news that you weren't expecting or shocking news. When was the last time you were amazed at something that you heard about the Bible or you read in the Bible? I think too often amazement is not our response ever to the things that we see or that we read in Scripture.

We've become callous to it in a way that prevents us from receiving it. You know, we haven't had any rain recently or much of it. And if your yard's like mine and you go out there, it's just hard. Like if you pour water on it, the water doesn't even go in. It just runs off. And the reason is because the ground is so hard, it's unable to receive the water anymore. And so if you get these big downpours of rain, it doesn't do the ground any good. What you need is for the soil to rehydrate, to soften up, to become able to receive the water again so that the grass and the trees and everything that draws nutrients from the soil can grow again. And so if you're thinking of amazement with regard to the word of the Lord or things he's done in your life and you think there's never been really any amazement, then from the very beginning I want to challenge you and say you're like the hard soil.

And there's a parable Jesus taught about hard soil. And the hard soil didn't do well. And so we should want, from the very beginning of this text, we should say, I want to be able to be amazed by the things that Jesus has said. We ought to want to be amazed. These aren't just words to us. When Jesus spoke, and one time a bunch of the people left him, and they said, well, these are hard things. And he asked the disciples, he says, are you going to leave me too? And they said, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of life. And that's true, that he has the words of life. And they understood it and were amazed at what he had to say, the things that he said. And so we should seek to be amazed by the things of God. They're not hidden from us. In the past, the things were hidden.

The Bible tells us that they were hidden for a time, that before Jesus came, things were veiled in a way that they're not veiled anymore. And there will come a time in the future when we will see more clearly than we do now. Our eyes will be opened wider. The things of God will come clearer into focus and closer to us. But even here when Jesus was teaching, Matthew notes that when he was done, the crowds were amazed. And this sort of amazement, you know, you might, you know, you might, I wonder how we would respond. What does amazement look like when you're amazed? This sort of amazement here, this word that's used to describe it in the New Testament is only ever used to describe the people's response to Jesus' teaching or to his miracles. It's not used, and sometimes the apostles.

Like when the father came up to Jesus and was talking to him about his son who was possessed of a demon and was thrown into the water and into the fire and says, is there anything you can do? Could you do it? And Jesus says, if? And then he heals them. The father says, we believe, help our unbelief. And then it says that all people were amazed because this boy who had been demon possessed was healed. They were amazed. How would you have responded if you had been there and seen this and known this boy? And then, all of a sudden, he's sane. That's the sort of amazement that goes on here. Other words we might use for this sort of amazement would be speechless. Have you ever seen something so wonderful that you just had no words for it? Couldn't look away? Couldn't get it out of your mind? Couldn't say a thing about it? You're just caught there, flat-footed, going, wow.

You might describe that as being in shock or being floored. That's the sort of response that these people had to Jesus' teaching, to this sermon. They were left completely without the ability to respond because they were considering the things that they had just heard. They couldn't believe it. The example that came in my mind of where you might experience this sort of thing is that if you're having a baby, And you're excited about having a baby. And then you go to the doctor and the doctor says, you're having twins. No one would say anything, would you? Like if you heard the of the one heartbeat and then the doctor did the weird thing with their head that they sometimes do and then they start looking more and you're like, what are you doing? Wait, what are you doing? And all of a sudden you hear a second in another place and all of a sudden you're just like, oh, we better sit down. It's a happy thing.

It's a terrifying thing. It's a wonderful, it's an amazing thing. That's the sort of amazement that these people had. And so when was the last time you were amazed at the word of God, the things Jesus has had to say in that way? Have you ever been amazed like that? Have you ever had the hair on the back of your neck stand up? Have you ever got the tingles that go all through your body when you read something that God has said or something he's done? That's what's being talked about here. You think of the woman at the well. when Jesus goes out to meet her, and they're having this interaction, and you think, at some point, she got wind that something weird was going on. When Jesus starts talking about, well, I have water, that if you drink, you'll never thirst again, and she says, what are you talking about? And he proceeds to tell her all about her life. You have had five husbands, and the man you're with now is not your husband. All of a sudden, you're just like, whoa, he knows everything about me. And you know that she had these, like,

This tingling going on. And so what does she do? She runs back to the city and she says, you guys have to come see this guy. He knew everything about me. She was amazed. Now we can read that story academically or we could read it theologically. But to read it spiritually is to say, have I ever been like that woman? Is she unique in that Jesus knew everything about her but doesn't know everything about me? No. Our Lord has numbered the hairs on our head. He knows us. He could have told her in that moment, not just how many husbands she's had, but how many hairs were on her head. He knew things about her. She didn't know about herself. That's amazing. That is our God. And the fact that he's decided to speak to us is amazing. His creation testifies to us enough to leave us without excuse, says Romans 1, that we would know that there is a God.

How wonderful is it that he's chosen to speak to us in his word? How amazing was it that he was sent into the world to speak at a period of time in person with people? It's incredible. And so when we come to the word of God, we have to be very careful first not to become like that parched soil, that dry ground that's incapable of receiving the moisture, the food, the word of God. We want to be the good soil that receives the word and that's amazed by it and that bears the fruit of it. These crowds were amazed. There are times when I've been preaching where I realize that there's a certain amount of noise that happens in the sanctuary, just normal noise, just papers and sniffles and shuffling and bustling. And then there are times when you could hear a pin drop in here where all of a sudden everyone together, and it's not because I said, now everyone be quiet. It's just silent.

And we're all sitting here going, you know, okay. And you're not the only ones doing it. That happens to me too. What's happening in that moment is the Word of God is being impressed upon us in a way that calls us to attention and lays aside all of the other stuff that's going on, all of the other noises, all of the other distractions. There's a certain awe and intensity. and comfort that comes in those moments. And those are the sorts of things that we ought to desire. We should desire to have those kinds of experiences, that sort of impression to be left on us. You remember those sorts of things. I'm sure that those who heard this sermon of Jesus's remembered his sermon and the things he said could have told you word for word what was going on. So if we come to the word of God and if we come to the preached word expecting some sort of affirming experience or some sort of stroking or some sort of theological exercise, some sort of mental interesting tidbit, you'd be very disappointed actually with the Sermon on the Mount. If you remember anything about the Sermon on the Mount, there's scarcely anything in it about theology proper. They're simply exhortations and warnings and promises.

and illustrations and expositions of Old Testament passages that had been abused that were then cleared up by Jesus. It's just talking about how to live as a Christian, how to serve God, the one who made us. And so if we come to the word of God expecting to have our brain stimulated, we're probably doing that at the expense of having our hearts engaged. The people's hearts would have been engaged with these things. In the same way that the woman at the well's heart would have been engaged. She would have said, this guy knows me. He's talking about me. He understands my life and what I go through and what happens in my home. And so when we come to Scripture, whether it's you reading it or whether it's in a sermon, you should come expecting it to address your heart. You should come expecting it to speak to you. You should be finding yourself in the story, in the passage. If you come expecting for it to make you feel good,

you'll miss a lot of what goes on in Scripture. I don't know that going back through the Sermon on the Mount, we could point to very many places where he said, Jesus said that to turn the pressure down that the people were feeling. I don't know that he ever did that. That wasn't his goal. That wasn't the point of the sermon. And so the people were amazed. There is something else that goes into amazement. One of the things that goes into amazement that comes before amazement is acceptance. You can never be amazed by something you can't accept or don't accept. If your heart's grumbling and saying, well, I don't know that that's true, you'll never be amazed by it. You can think of a magic show for once. Who enjoys magic shows? What type of person enjoys a magic? Andrew Clausen enjoys magic shows. He raised his hand. That wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but thank you. So Andrew's the kind of man who enjoys. Why does Andrew enjoy magic shows?

He likes to be surprised because he's willing to believe the thing. Now, I know Andrew's not really willing to believe the thing, but the people who enjoy it accept it as happening and being real. They know in their head that it's a sleight of hand. They know that there's a trick. They know that it's not real. But there's another type of person who would approach a magic trick only for the purpose of figuring out how they did it. And they're miserable people. They're no fun. Because they can't be amazed. They can't say, wow, you are good at that. I know it's a trick, but you're really good at that trick. You got me. There's TV shows devoted to this, you know. I can't remember the name of it. There's two old music, anyway. Hen and Teller, there you go. Yeah, it's like America's Got Talent or whatever it is where magicians come and try to trick the old magicians. Can you be amazed?

Or are you the sort of person who has a principle against ever being amazed? Because you know better. Well, that's a shame. Because that is not limited to the things that you, to magic or those sorts of things. It means you can't be amazed by a sunset or by a rainbow or by anything you read in the Word of God because you're just too hard for that. And so Christians ought to be able to be amazed. They ought to be able to say, wow. Can you believe what God did? Can you believe what God said? It's not opposed to your theology to be amazed. It should never be opposed to your theology to be amazed by the things that God says and does. And so that's my first exhortation to you is that these people were amazed by what he said. They were in awe of it. And we should be able to testify to that same sort of awe in our own lives. What was it that was amazing to them? Well, it tells us. It says that,

That was actually the amazing thing to them, was that he spoke with authority. He spoke as one having authority. And then Matthew compares it and says their point of reference was their scribes. They have those who are in charge of teaching them spiritually. And we can... or deduced from this text that what they didn't do was teach with any authority. The scribes didn't teach with authority. And so they were amazed that he taught as one having authority. Now, that's the question that I want us to spend our time talking about. What does it mean to speak or to speak as one having authority? In our circle, though it's small, authority is something we talk about. It's something that we believe in.

It's also something that we have a lot to learn about. And there's a lot of ways to go off the rails when it comes to speaking about authority. God's authority, the authorities that he's vested this world with. And so that's what I want us to spend our time considering. Jesus taught as one having authority. You'll remember that... Leading up to this, or you know, throughout Jesus' ministry, there were times where the scribes and the Pharisees would get very upset with him, and this was the reason they got upset with him. Who does he think he is? He's talking like he's God. And that was sort of the backdrop or the context of them going and questioning him, or them going and accusing him, and ultimately of them going and killing him. This authority that he spoke with.

And so both the Pharisees and the scribes and the crowds all recognized this thing. There was something crazy going on, something that had never happened before. Jesus was speaking as one having authority. Their normal teachers did not speak this way. They did not speak with authority. So how did they speak? How did the scribes and the Pharisees speak? Well, you don't have to wonder too hard. You can look in the mirror and probably answer the question pretty thoroughly. They would reason and they would argue. They would negotiate. They would compromise. The one thing they never did was spoke with authority. Now you might argue with what I'm saying, saying, well, is reasoning bad? Is argumentation inappropriate? Is it automatically a denial of authority? And I'd say, sometimes yes. Is reasoning always bad? No. But when it's put in the place of speaking with the authority of God, then yes.

If what I'm going to do is make a case for what God has said through reason and logic as opposed to saying to you, God said this, then yes, it's bad because it's a counterfeit. It's laying aside God's authority and replacing it with man's wisdom and his ability to think and put together an argument or a case. Maybe an example would help. If someone was fornicating, how would you try to convince them to stop? What would you say to them? If everyone would agree, and I think you could even get unbelievers, if they've touched that hot stove enough to say, this isn't good for people, like it doesn't produce good things in them, it's not good for their mental health, causes bad stuff, right? So there's this general consensus across the aisle of believer and unbeliever that this is harmful. How then would you argue that it's harmful? Or why is it harmful? The world has plenty of reasons for why it's not good for you.

It affects your emotions. It affects your decision-making process. It affects your health. There's all kinds of reasons you can say, well, this isn't good for you to do. And they're logical, and they're true even. But none of them have any authority in them. And it's very, very different than saying, God made marriage, and he made the sort of things you're doing with your boyfriend or your girlfriend. the one you're hooking up with on Tinder or whomever, those desires and impulses, he made those to be expressed and acted upon only in marriage. And he says that those things will destroy your soul and that you'll have pleasure in this world and it'll last about this long and then your soul will be lost to hell for eternity. That's very different than talking about mental health. Now I'll ask you, which one is more acceptable? Which one is easier for you to say?

You all understand which is easier and less helpful. Because one of them has authority behind it. One of them sounds like a judgment, right? It sounds like a moral judgment. What you're doing is wrong. The other is saying, that's not good for you and I don't want you to have bad things. So please don't do things that are harmful to yourself. One is coddling. One is trying to reason and explain. And the other is a declaration that can say all of that stuff's true, but the truth is it doesn't actually motivate very many people. We do things every day that are bad for us, and we do it knowing it's bad for us. We're not as smart or as disciplined as we might like to think. And so we need some other motivation, some other thing to move us and get us to change our behavior. And so Jesus spoke as one having authority, the scribes and the Pharisees.

Their ministry was marked by not teaching with authority. Meaning they didn't say things that were costly. They didn't say things that were hard. They didn't say things that were unpopular. We often talk about the Pharisees, but there were other religious groups, other Jewish religious leaders at the time. The scribes were sort of a sect, and there was a Sadducees, and there were some others as well. And there was this fighting. that existed between the Pharisees and the Sadducees over the resurrection and over the angels and some other different things. It's the argument that Paul ends up pointing to in Acts 17 or 18. He causes a fight between the two of them. But the fight didn't matter to any of them. The question of whether there was a resurrection from the dead didn't actually matter to them. They just liked to argue about it. But they were buddy-buddy about it. There was no cost to the things that they said. And that's how they taught.

There was no cost to the things that they said. Jesus said of them toward the end of his ministry, he says, you guys are as whitewashed tombs. It'll travel over heaven and earth to make one disciple, which basically means to take one person who's trying to serve after God, to turn them out of that and into a disciple of your own, and then you'll make them twice the son of hell as you are yourself. You have no concern for them. You will not do anything for their good. All you care about is yourself. And that's what's being contrasted here. And the people see it and are amazed by it. Jesus spoke as one having authority. Whereas the scribes and the Pharisees, they may have spoken about God, but they were never willing to speak for God. And this is the primary difference between Jesus and them. So what does it mean to speak or to teach or to lead with authority? We have lots of examples being tried, and many in the trash heap having been tried and failed.

How do you speak or teach or lead with authority? In your homes, in your workplaces, in the church? What's it look like? I'll give you some examples, first with leadership and then with teaching. Are you guys familiar with the term servant leadership? It's trying to negotiate this reality of like there being some authority in a relationship. How do we negotiate that? How do we do it the right way? What is servant leadership? What sort of authority does the husband have? The servant is supposed to be the husband because Jesus was, a servant. He served all. He said, you know, the greatest among you will become the least. There's a biblical precedent for it. What does it mean for the husband to be a servant leader? How does he exercise his authority? He has the responsibility to exemplifying Jesus' servanthood, and that this is the primary way that the husband is to exercise his authority. So what does servant leadership move off the table and say, you can't do that? You can't say no.

A servant can't say no. Now, did Jesus say no? Many times in Jesus' life and ministry, he said no. He spent a lot of time saying no. But servant leadership as we understand it or as it's practiced around us today, there's no no. There's no discipline. There's no boundaries. The same sort of thing could be said about gentle parenting. There's no boundary. There's no this far and no further. I'm the parent. I will tell you what to do. Gentle parenting has none of that. These are examples of leadership around us trying to sort out the question of authority. Perhaps a little better than servant leadership would be complementarianism. What is complementarianism? It's another attempt at how to negotiate the relationship of a husband and a wife in the marriage context, trying to figure out how to thread the needle between The Bible is saying that the husband is head over the wife, and yet we don't want the women to be oppressed and trampled on. Which I don't agree is what actually happens in godly marriages, but this is the broad-brush picture of it. What is complementarianism? Well, I think if you ask someone, they would say, well, the husband has tie-breaking authority in the home. So if he and his wife really, really can't sort out

a decision and come to unity, then he has tie-breaking authority in the home. But if you ask men who are complementarians if they've ever had to break a tie, the answer is no. They never have to break ties because there are never ties. And is that because his wife is so perfectly submissive and always following him and such a good wife? No. And he's no better of a husband. What he's done in many ways when it comes down to the practical nuts and bolts of life is he's abdicated his responsibility and replaced it with a happy wife. My job is to make my wife happy. And as long as she's happy, everything will go well. And so all that is is a transfer of authority from him to her and saying, you can make the decisions. Wives are not happy when they live in marriages like that. Not to say that they're always happy when they live in marriages where their husbands don't do that, but

This isn't the key that opens this door, solves this riddle. Now, servant leadership's probably not something many of you are enticed by, and complementarianism is probably something you think, well, we can do a little better. Maybe we should get to the direction of father rule or the patriarchy, where we celebrate the man's authority, the husband's authority, the father's authority over everyone around him. He's the head. He gets to make the rules. He gets to command everyone underneath him. And you hear my tone, right? Because that tone goes along with this sort of thinking in most places. It's both superior when the man's saying it and condescending to those who are underneath him. They need him because he's the real spiritual one. There's a danger here too. What I find with father rule and patriarchy, which is appropriate.

in terms of how the home or the authority or the leadership should be structured in the home. I'm not arguing against that. What I find, though, is people talk way too much about their authority and not enough time exercising. They don't spend hardly any time actually exercising it. They don't lead. They just keep clearing the ground for their leadership. But they never do anything with it. And so there's dangers all the way around. It's actually quite difficult to figure out how to... to teach or to lead as one having authority? Maybe the answer is abdication. Maybe that's been the answer and that's no good. Maybe the answer is to become authoritarian and tyrannical. That's equally bad. Maybe it's to talk all the time about being the authority and the boss and the head and the man and the responsible one and all that stuff. What I tend to think is the more I hear men talk about their authority, the less I think they have.

They're always trying to convince people that they're a man. But a tree is known by its fruit. In fact, Jesus said that just a few verses ago in this sermon. A tree is known by a fruit. A leader is known. You don't have to tell someone you're a leader. They just go, oh, he's the leader. If we put together a group, I remember Max Carell telling a story one time when he used to work for Frito-Lay. And they had to get all these people together that were in training, and they'd take them to training, and they would give them this scenario, a business problem, about the routing and the supply chain and all this stuff. And they were supposed to work in their groups to come up with a solution, a business solution to the problem. And they spent all day working on it.

And so these people, and they're going to work hard, and they're all thinking, we've got to come up with a solution. We've got to have the best solution. It's got to be the most profitable. They've got all the details figured out. Frito-Lay didn't care one bit about any of that. You know what Frito-Lay wanted to know? Who the leader of the group was. That's all they wanted to know. Who does the presentation? Who is the one, as we walk around and as we interact with the group, which one of them talks to the mentor? Which one does that group who's never worked together before, which person?

do they naturally defer to? Because that's the skill set we need. Now, was there any discussion in those groups about who was going to be the leader? No, there couldn't be. They had a problem to solve. And the leader just went to solving the problem. Maybe there was someone in the group who was like, well, we need to decide the structure and we need to take a vote and it needs to be a secret ballot. But that person, I guarantee you, their name was not the one at the top of the list to be the leader. Those who have authority exercise it. They don't spend their time talking about it.

If you say to your kids, you have to do what I say because I'm your daddy, it's not going to be nearly as effective as you just telling them what to do and not feeling bad for having to do it. Just tell them what to do. Do this, son. Daughter, please, stop that. No more. That's so mean. No, it's not. It's actually a big comfort. Now, are there dangers? Yes. But I'm not here this morning to talk about the dangers and the excesses and the abuses of authority. I would just like for us to have a concept of what, Jesus did in what was amazing to the people. He spoke with authority. Maybe it's helpful to think of it this way. How much in Jesus' life and ministry did he spend talking about his authority? How did he respond when they said, who do you think you are? He talked about himself in the third person. Well, the son of man came to seek and to say, the son of God. He never named himself. He never said I, that I can recall.

Perhaps he did at some point. But the vast majority of his ministry, he didn't spend defending his ability to say the things or do the things. He just did them and said them. What's that? Yeah, he did. Yep. But the people were frustrated. Not the crowd so much, but the Pharisees and the scribes were frustrated as one who spoke with authority and who didn't enter into their negotiations and machinations about how to sort out who the boss is and what you're allowed to do and where the boundaries are. He simply did the work. He simply loved the people and said the truth. Perhaps the primary place where Jesus talked about his own authority was after his resurrection at the Great Commission, where he says to his disciples, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore. And so he takes the authority that he's been exercising and speaking under and performing miracles under, and he says, all of that authority that I've received from my Father, I now give to you. Now go and continue the work that I did.

There he spoke about his own authority, but only in the context of passing it along to his church. This is what amazed the people. And so when you think about authorities in your own home, when you think about authority in the Christian world, be wary of those who spend all of their time talking about authority, their own authority, trying to get you to believe that they're your authority. It's not good. Leadership doesn't have to twist the arm of the people behind it. Of the people following. You don't have to twist their arm behind their back to get them to follow you. Followers tend to follow leaders. It's just kind of how it works. And so if you'll lead, you'll have followers. If you're supposed to lead. So we've talked about leadership and authority in the home. Parents, husbands, wives. What about in the church? How has the church in our day figured out the answer to this question? How do they teach? How do they reconcile teaching and having authority?

Well, in large part, in our Christian world, authoritative preaching or teaching is often called, anyone want to venture a guess? Spiritual abuse. Abram knew it. I figured someone would know it. Anything that gets in the direction of authority, anything that gets in the direction of pressure and expectation on the people is written off as spiritual abuse, which is meant to be a big club to whop you upside the head with and get you never, ever, ever to do it again. You can't tell people what to do. And the reason is because that's what we used to have. And it's produced bad, bad fruit. Instead, what I'd say is historically what we've had, long before anyone recognized it, was a failure to speak with authority. We replaced it with legalism. And legalism has failed us. And it's fundamentalism in its many forms. And now what's replaced it is just grace abounding in every place.

Without any no. You can't do that as a Christian. You can't say that. That doesn't honor God. No. So if our teaching is not supposed to be authoritative, because that would be considered spiritual abuse, what are the appropriate or acceptable descriptions of Christian teaching today? First of all, it would need to be palatable. It needs to be missional. It needs to be passionate. It needs to be Christ-centered. Or gospel-saturated? You've heard these terms. You could probably name more of them. What are these things? They are replacements for authoritative teaching and preaching. They're a different way to do it. A better, a purported better way. And it's also helpful if the one who's communicating is attractive and a good communicator. These are the things that ought to mark.

Christian teaching, which is to say the authority of it all has just been left aside. There's no saying no. There's no discipline. There's no shaking the dust off of your feet. There's no judgments. Maybe if we moved away from sort of the Christian teaching and we came into your lives, and I ask you this, is there a point or where is the point at which you have a friend that you say because of their behavior and because of their actions, you will no longer spend time with them? Because you're a Christian. What would be said of you if you did that? I'm sorry, your drunkenness and your fornication. I'm sorry, your blasphemy and your taking of the Lord's name in vain has reached such a point that I can't spend time with you anymore. I'm not willing to spend time with you anymore. Because we've talked about it and you're unwilling to repent. Could you imagine what would be said to you? What if it was a sibling that you said that to?

How would Thanksgiving go then? I'm not the only one who has responsibilities here to act and behave and speak like a Christian. You do too. You realize how fearful it is and how you're like, well, that wouldn't be very Christian of me to do it. Some of you might be familiar with this concept of the 11th commandment, especially the Baptists among you. What's the 11th commandment? Be nice. Do you know that having an 11th commandment is blasphemous? Because it's to add to the word of God. To joke around with the moral law that God's given to us and to act like we can just add to it and jokingly say that we know a better way is blasphemy. We should never speak in such terms. Jesus warns us against adding to his word and yet we walk around and say, well, but we all know the rules. The rules are really...

Leave the first ten commandments off. The only one that matters is that you have to be nice. That's really what being a Christian has amounted to. And I'd say, then the salt has lost its savor. And the light has lost its lumens. And it's become worthless. And there's nothing amazing about it. Is there anything amazing about watching a Christian capitulate and knuckle under when the pressure shows up? Is there anything that catches your attention and you say, wow, they're doing the thing, man. It's not impressive. It doesn't catch your attention. For me, it just grieves me. It grieves me when I do it. Because I'm just like, what kind of Christian are you? Haven't you got anything to say? Haven't you got anything to do? Is there anything more to this life than simply going along to get along? The root of this whole question, the problem, and the thing we have to solve is this question of authority. Talking about it is not the solution.

Speaking and teaching and living as one having the authority of God is the solution. What's interesting to me is that unbelievers understand the necessity of authority these days better than Christians. They don't mind exercising authority. They don't mind saying no. They don't have any problem with it. They don't flinch. They don't feel bad when they do it. They just do it. And they expect you to comply. If you've gone to university, and you've taken college classes, did your professors, were they ashamed of telling you what to do? Were they ashamed of saying wicked things, godless things, blasphemous things? There was no shame in it. They were like the adulterous woman, it says in Proverbs, that wiped her mouth and says, I've done no wrong. There was no shame. There was no hesitancy about it at all. Have you ever been left speechless, not because they said something that came from God's mouth, but came out of their mouth, and you're left saying, did they really just say that? Like, did they say that out loud? Or did they really just do that? They don't mind speaking with authority. It's not God's authority, but they understand the necessity of it. They understand that actually authority is compelling. Men in the manosphere, they understand this, the successful ones. They don't have to be Christians, but they understand it.

They understand that if they will speak with authority, if they will get in your face, if they will tell you no, you will follow them. And it doesn't matter if they're Christians. You're as a Christian, you'll follow someone who is not a Christian and learn from them and do the things they say because they're willing to say them and to not apologize for saying them. And so we love Joe Rogan and we love Jordan Peterson and we love Andrew Tate. Because they're good men to follow? Because they're the kind of men we want to become? No. Simply because we're looking for someone who will say something and mean it and not apologize for it. It's amazing to us. It's provocative. It's appealing. But in those instances, it's also godless. They're nothing more than blind guides who are leading on the path to destruction. This is the condemnation of the scribes at Jesus' time.

It ought not to be the condemnation that we perpetuate as well. So what does it mean to teach or lead with authority? What particularly was so amazing about Jesus' teaching? Four things. First, he simply spoke for God. He was not ashamed of standing up and saying, he could say, you know, I'm the son of God. We can't say I'm the son of God. But we're ambassadors, Corinthians tells us. We're ambassadors on this this planet and in this life for Christ and for his kingdom. And so we ought to speak for God, speak the words of God without shame and without fear. That was the first thing Jesus did. He simply said the truth without saying, well, I know that's hard. When the disciples came to him and said, well, that actually is a really hard thing. Who can bear it? He says, there it is. So first, What was amazing was that Jesus spoke for God. Now, he was God, but we ought also to speak for God, God says. It should be a part of our reasoning and our rationale and our logic, but God says. Second, he was convinced of the necessity of teaching this way. Say it plainly. Is there anything more painful than watching a Christian try to say something hard indirectly? It's the most painful thing to watch. It's like, just say no!

Hey, can you and my boyfriend come and stay at your house while we're going to pass through? Can we stay at your house? Well, you're not married. Like, no. No, you can't because you're not married. Like, it's a whole sentence. Abram informed me recently, no is a complete sentence. No, you can't. Jesus was convinced that high levels of comprehension and communication were a benefit. That's the wide path. That's the narrow path. Bunches of people are on that one. Few people are on that one. That one goes to hell. This one goes to heaven. Make sure you're on this one. We can all understand that. Any other sort of teaching is corrupting to both the teacher and to the hearer. The third thing, Jesus did what he said. He lived out what he taught other people to do. It's very important. If you'll say good things, but you won't do good things, then you are a hypocrite. You're a Pharisee.

whom Jesus describes as tying up heavy burdens around the necks of other people, but being unwilling to lift even a finger to help them. Do the things you say. And if there's a great disparity between the things that you say and the things that you do, then you should shut up until you start doing the things that you say. How else do you speak with authority? Here's the fourth one. When the teaching was costly, when the thing he had to say came with a price tag, even his life, He said it anyway. I'd really like to be able to tell you and myself that there's a way of threading the needle, of being sure you're being faithful to God and being able to avoid the suffering. But I'm just not convinced it's possible. And I don't think we should entertain that in our lives and make that our ordering principle. All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, Paul tells us, will suffer. And so if our ordering principle is to avoid suffering and to avoid pain and to avoid hardship, we will not bear good fruit.

Just because all hell's going to break loose if you say something doesn't mean you shouldn't say it. Jesus, like we, faced pressures when he stood trial and was asked, do you not know that I have authority to free you or to kill you? That's pressure. If you will just shut up, you can live. And Jesus' response was, you have no authority to do what you're doing if it wasn't given to you from my Father in heaven. And then he was killed. So these are the things that mark Jesus' ministry in this sermon. He taught as one having authority. And then he invested that authority into his church and into his people so that we would speak and live the same way he did, according to the truth. No one else in the world, no other religion, no other nice people, no other Americans, no other political party has what the church has, which is the authority of God.

Not in the same way. There's no other name in heaven and earth by which men may be saved. And so we have to speak and live the way Jesus commended us to speak and live in the Sermon on the Mount. So that at the end of our lives or at various points in our lives, people will be able to say to us, that's amazing. The only explanation for the reason that guy did that or the reason that woman did that or the reason that kid did that was because they believed in Jesus. It's the only explanation. They told us and then they did it. And there it is and it's undeniable. You should be known by your good works. So even when you're despised and even when the world hates you, they will not be able to reproach you because of them. This is our life. This is what they heard. The same is true for us. Don't be ashamed of Jesus and the things he says and don't enjoy them privately. They weren't given to you for private consumption. They were given to you to take into the world and to be salt and light and to build God's kingdom. Let's pray.

Thank you.