Matthew twenty one, verse twenty three begins this way When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching and said, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? Jesus answered them, I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John. From where did it come from? Heaven or from man? Well, they discussed it among themselves, saying, if we say from heaven, he will say to us, then why did you not believe him? But if we say from men, well, we were afraid of the crowd, for they all hold the. John was a prophet. Blah blah blah. So the answer Jesus, we don't know. And he said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. You know the word at the end. There is really a single word that could encapture the entirety of Jesus's ministry. The word is authority. So much of Jesus's ministry and his teaching boils down to that singular word who is in charge? What authority does he have? I mean, one of the first uses of this in Matthew's Gospel is at the end of the sermon on the Mount, when Jesus is done preaching Matthew five six and seven. Do you remember the. The crowd was astonished because Matthew says they had never heard somebody teach with that kind of authority. They're blown away. He didn't teach like the scribes and rabbis, the scribes and rabbis. I mean, they had the Jewish system was this intricate system of authority. Every scribe or rabbi had a rabbi above him. And that went on to a chain of rabbis, schools of thoughts, denominations, we might call them. They were all easily identifiable by the hats they wore. The rabbis would wear these hats that would kind of display what their denomination was. And the Jews in Israel today are like that still. You can see Rabbi walking around with like a, you know, a four foot tall fur hat, like it looks like a Russian hat on his head. And that's one school of thought. Others have these minimalistic kind of yarmulkes. Some rabbis have kind of in between. Some look like the London Guard, you know, the patrolling, the Buckingham Palace. Some look like the guards outside of the Vatican. They all dress differently even to this day. And that identifies which authority they have, which school of thought they're part of. And in their system. When you say something, you have to cite case law. You have to cite tradition. You have to cite how you have the capacity to say what you're saying about God. Who taught you that, and what school are you part of? That was the way the Jewish system worked. Well, in walks Jesus. And guess what? Jesus is not wearing a hat. Literally. He's not a trained rabbi. He's not part of a school. And yet he goes up on the the mountain and preaches a sermon on the Mount, and they don't know what just happened to them. They've never heard teaching like that. He has authority over the law. He claims authority over the Scripture. He says, you have heard it say, but I say, what this means is he's speaking as if he's the one with authority over the very Word of God. He tells in Matthew chapter twelve, he claims that he has authority over the temple. Over the Sabbath. He says he has authority in the. Early in Mark's gospel over the demons. Remember, the demons see him and shriek and they get bossed around by him. He has authority over the wind and the waves. He rebukes the wind in the waves. And you remember the disciples were overcome with fear. And then they ask, what kind of man is this that the wind and waves listen to his voice. I mean, that's just bonkers. They didn't know what to do. Last week we saw he has authority over fig trees. You know, you can't even boss a tomato plant in your yard. He has authority over sin. Do you remember the lower the paralytic through the roof? And he says, I say to you, your sins are forgiven. And they say, RA. Who can forgive sins except God? And so Jesus says, okay, then take up your mat and walk. And the guy walks out of there. I mean, that's checkmate. What kind of person does that? He has authority over death. He raised the dead. Like just a couple of months ago. Lazarus was resurrected. It comes down to authority. Yesterday, he walks into the temple on Monday and clears the temple, opens up the birdcages, drives the animals out, turns over the money changers tables. And remember, don't picture this like a like a courtyard or like a TSA security line. Picture this like a massive bazaar thirty five acres. I use the same measurement last week, but the size of RFK Stadium. That's what you're dealing with here. And he walks through all of it and turns over everything, and then goes home and comes back the next day on Tuesday morning. And to run into this question of what authority do you have? That's what they want to know. It says here that he comes into the the chief priests and the elders. That's the Sanhedrin. That's seventy one of them. That's the leader of the Jewish people. They would have had the chief of the the temple guard there. He's kind of the second in command. One commentator calls him the vice president of the temple, underneath the chief priest and the chief priest. There's two of them right now, because one termed out and handed it over to his son in law. And so the two of them were kind of chief priests together. But then there's the captain of the guard. He's the one that's going to arrest the disciples in acts chapter five for preaching the gospel in the courtyard of the temple. He's there. The seventy one of the Sanhedrin are there. They also have this system of priests that are called the the annual priests. There's twenty four of them. Each one is on duty for two weeks a year. They would be there and they have distinguishing robes as well. They have what they call the daily course priests. There are one hundred and fifty four of them. They serve for two days a year, where they're leading the actual worship in the temple for two days a year. They have priests over the courtyard. They have priests over the location of all the money changers. They have priests over the treasury, the collecting of the coins. They have priests over the branches. They use to wave at the wave offering. They have a whole group of priests that are responsible for the keys, for all the gates and all the stalls where the temple shops are set up. They have priests that are over the ashes that remove the ashes after the offering. They have priests that are over the animal sacrifices. They're basically butchers. They have priests that are over polishing and shining the utensils in the temple. They have priests over the gates guarding each gate. The treasury priests, baking priests, trumpet priests, salt priests, wood priests, drink offering priests, animal priests, robe priests. Everyone has authority. The robe priests, by the way, are responsible for the uniforms of all the other priests. So when it says Jesus walks in and is confronted by all these people, don't again, don't picture like a manager in two security guards like picture a thousand priests dressed outrageously. Moreover, there's leading synagogue rulers and priests from all over the known world. At the time, really, the Jewish system had expanded through the expulsion of the Jews from Israel. There were Jews in Cairo, there were Jews in Damascus, Corinth, all over Asia Minor, Greek, Rome, and to become a Jew in that area, a synagogue leader, you had to go for your ordination in Jerusalem, in the temple court, in front of all these people. If you passed, you might be given a position of authority over the gates or the keys in Cairo or whatever. Then you could be promoted, but work your way back to Jerusalem. But the point is that Passover week, which this is everybody's back, massive numbers of people here. That's who confronts Jesus and says he's confronted when he was teaching. Verse twenty three says. Mark says he was walking around and the children were singing. Luke says he was walking around preaching the gospel. So you bring that together. And that's the scene. Jesus shows back up on the temple Tuesday after he cleaned out the temple. None of the four Gospels tell you what was going on in the temple when Jesus came back. Like, were there new animals there? Did they reset up the money changers? Did they bring the birds back? And we'd have no idea. But we do know Jesus is walking around, zigzagging up and down throughout the temple court, teaching as the crowd is growing bigger, preaching the gospel. He's got the kids with him, the kids that are singing Hosanna in the highest. They're back on Tuesday singing around Jesus. And likely, by the way, those kids in the temple would be the children of the priests, the Levites. So the priests kids are they're following Jesus around singing. I mean, this whole thing is a rodeo, isn't it? It might be helpful to know that there's two different words in Greek that are both translated in English authority, and the distinction between the two is helpful for this passage. One is the Greek word dunamis, which means strength or force, and that's the actual physical ability to do something. So can you bench two hundred pounds? You have the force or the strength to bench two hundred pounds. That's dunamis. You have the capacity to do it. The other word is exousia. Exousia means that you have the legal authority to do it. You have the the right paperwork, so to speak, you know. So to give you an illustration Today I have a Saint James membership that, well, my wife does. So that means that I can go to the Saint James. I have the legal authority to go to the bench press bar. There does not mean I can bench press two hundred pounds. I do not have the dynamite to do it. Some of you might have the dynamite to do it, but not a Saint James membership. So you can't walk into the place and go bench because they will say, do you have a membership? No, but I have the ability to bench a lot. Okay. Security. That's the scene. They want to know who gave Jesus the legal authority to do what he was doing. They did not argue with his physical ability to do it crystal clear. When he healed the man who was lame, everybody knew him by the. In John chapter five, he had been laying the cripple there beside the the pond for forever. Everybody knew the guy. Jesus heals him and says, pick up your mat and walk. Nobody questioned whether or not he was healed. The guy is walking around. Everybody knew Jesus had the physical ability to heal him. They were upset that he did not have the legal authority to tell him to carry his mat. That's the kind of people you're dealing with right here. And so they're not questioning, can. Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves. Can he raise the dead? They know all that. They're questioning what school of rabbi tradition is he part of? Who told him he could do these things? Remember, the temple is everything to these people. It's everything. Every intricacy, all of Jewish life is detailed down to the jot and tittle. But even more so at the temple. My goodness. And that's where Jesus goes. And that's, of course, where he's confronted. I call this Jesus's first trial. He's going to have a second trial. This is Tuesday morning. He's going to have a second trial Thursday in the middle of the night, which is, of course, against Jewish law. They can't start trials under the cover of darkness, but they will on Thursday night, and they'll sentence him to death. But that's that's still three days from now. Tuesday morning, they have their first go at it. Jesus shows back up at the temple. They're not going to kill him this morning. They would like to. They might try to, but they're going to settle with a question first. The indictment is read, and in the indictment, they ask the right question. They confront him and they said, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you the authority? Before we look at that more closely, I just want you to pause and recognize that is at least a very good question. That is the million dollar question. It's a great genre of scripture. When Jesus opponents ask the right question, they just don't like the answer. This would be one of those occasions who gave Jesus the authority to do what he is doing. I mean, these things is funny by itself, right? What things? Jesus could have played dumb. What are you talking about? What things? You know the Lazarus thing. Come on. What things? Rebuking the wind in the waves. Healing the man on the Sabbath at the synagogue in Capernaum. That was when they first decided to kill him. According to Matthew's gospel, that was the first time they decided to put him to death. Is he's a healer and he heals a guy on the Sabbath. You're not allowed to work on the Sabbath since he's a healer, you can't heal on the Sabbath. I mean, another person who's not a healer, I suppose, could heal someone on the Sabbath, but not a healer. That's his job. Jesus does it anyway. And they're furious. They're furious. I've heard it said, like, the easiest way to pick a fight with a bureaucrat is do something you have the power to do without their permission. And that's what Jesus does. Jesus doesn't entertain their whole system. Do you notice that? He doesn't. He doesn't go to the chief priest first and say, can I clean out the temple? He doesn't go and get the rabbis together and go through first Kings eight and show what the temple was supposed to be. He doesn't do any of that. He just does what he wants to do. And they want they want to see his permit. Who told you you could be here? There's a whole committee in charge of turning over the tables. It's a twenty five dollars application fee. They meet the third Tuesday of every month. You have a two minute period in which you can speak to them. Jesus. Jesus ignores that whole system almost with disdain towards it. Oh, and he has their kids following him, singing their songs. So you want to talk about fighting, fighting bureaucrats here? He ignores their authority, does what he has the right to do anyway, while their kids are with him singing his praises. So they ask him, who told you this? Which rabbi signed off? Same question from John five. Who told you you could tell him the guy could carry his mat on the Sabbath? Who told you these things? Well, again, Luke says that he's walking around preaching the gospel. So think of the words that are coming out of his mouth while he's doing this. Certainly he would be talking about the holiness of God. And you know this because this is what he preaches. We have several of his sermons. This is what he always preaches, that God is holy and that God is a holy judge. He will judge sinners, that people are sinners. We are separated from God. God's word sets a standard. We break the standard. And if you break God's law at one part, you stand guilty of the whole thing. That's the kind of stuff Jesus is saying. But that God makes a way that you can have your sins forgiven. He prophesies in the Old Testament a Savior that will come and be the substitute. He told Abraham, hold back your knife from Isaac. I will provide a sacrifice. You knew the sacrifice would be a son. You knew the sacrifice would be holy. It's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Every year at Passover, they offer a Passover lamb to demonstrate their hoping for God to send a substitute. You know that the Savior will be David's son and David's Lord. In fact, we know that's one of the things we know Jesus said at this occasion because it's recorded. That's what he's saying when he's preaching the gospel. He's telling people that God is holy. Man is sinner, but God sends a substitute to die in the place of your sin. That substitute will be David's descendant, but also David's Lord. How can they both be true? That's one of the things he says in this sermon. Of course, he says the Savior is going to die on the cross. I mean, how many times has he said that in Matthew's Gospel, I'm going to Jerusalem to die, to be mistreated by the chief priests, to be crucified and to rise again from the grave on the third day. He has said that over and over again. He's obviously saying it here, too. That's what he's preaching. God is holy. People are sinners. Christ is the substitutionary sacrifice to forgive your sins. He's going to be killed. Rise from the grave and then ascend into heaven. And they interrupt him. I mean, not just interrupt him. They surround him. A mob of a thousand screaming rabbis wanting to know whose authority he's operating under. Jesus is talking about a narrow road that leads to eternal life and a wide road that leads to destruction. And they're saying, what school of rabbis taught you that? And he's saying, Moses did in the wilderness when he lifted up the snake on the pole. Haven't you read it? And they say you don't have authority for this kind of thing. Well, that's the indictment. They're asking the right question. At least you have to appreciate that that is the best question to ask. That leads to the cross examination. Jesus turns things on their head in verse twenty four. Let me ask you one question. If you tell me the answer, I will tell you by what authority I do these things. So first of all, Jesus is in one sense, not in every sense, but in one sense. Jesus is dodging their question, right? They ask him a question. He does not answer it. Instead, he answers with his own question. This is classic rabbinical style here. This is. Have you ever met a rabbi? This is how they talk. You know, the waiter says, what would you like for lunch? Well, I have a question. What would you if you were me, like for lunch? You know, that's that's the way rabbis talk. And so Jesus here is playing their own game with them. He's distancing himself from their authority structure. He's just showing disdain for that disregard for that. But he is he is still speaking to them as a rabbi. I'll ask you a question. And if you know there's a sense in which he's dodging their question, there's another sense in which to keep the legal motif going. He's pleading the fifth. He is pleading the fifth here. It's not because he's guilty, but it's because he doesn't want to die on Tuesday. He's going to die on Friday, not Tuesday. So they're hoping, of course, the Jewish leaders are hoping he'll say, I'm here as the Lord of the temple. He said that before up in Galilee is when he said that before in Matthew twelve. They're hoping he'll do the same thing here and say, this is my place. I am the God of the temple. I'm the Lord of the temple. And they could seize him right there. Remember I told you last week, there's a tunnel that goes underground from the Antonia Fortress into the Temple Mount. Roman soldiers could be there like that. If there's disruption, they can shut it down. Imagine what would happen if Jesus came in and declared that he was Yahweh in the flesh, come to take over the temple. They would be there. It's not. It's not Tuesday. So Jesus says, I'm not going to answer that question, but I'll ask you this question. There's another sense, though, in which he is answering their question. If you think about it, if you answer this question, you'll have the answer to that question. You ask me question A, I ask you question B. The answer to question B is the same answer to question a. That's his logic. All right, let's play along, then. What's the question? Verse twenty five. The baptism from John. From where did it come? So that feels like out of nowhere, doesn't it? Where did John the Baptist come from? It's been a long time since we've intersected with him. Well, John is all over this passage. John is the one that you recall that condemned the Pharisees. John had a voice from from heaven authenticate his ministry. He was a massively well-known person. Several scholars and commentators described John as possibly the most well known and most seen person in the world at this time, except for maybe Caesar. Hundreds of thousands of people came out to the wilderness to see John preaching. People traveled from Egypt and from all over the Mediterranean basin to hear John's preaching, and he was out in the middle of nowhere. They went out to listen to him, and he was offering repentance from sins, and the Romans couldn't figure him out. Remember, he would condemn Roman leaders for their immorality and for redefining marriage. And where they said, I can I can marry who I love. And John said, you can't marry that person. And they arrested him. But he didn't overthrow Rome. He wasn't after a revolution. He was after repentance, not overthrowing the government. That's why he's a hard one to figure out, isn't he? The Jews, in a sense, wanted him to go further. The Romans didn't understand what he was doing, and so they settled for arresting him. The Romans and the Jews had basically an agreement. The Jews got to keep their own religion. The Romans would stay out of the way as long as it's used and try to overthrow Rome. Bottom line, that was their agreement. Arresting John the Baptist is a flagrant violation of that agreement. The Jewish leaders should have gone after John to rescue him. They should have gone to Pilate. They should have gone to Herod. They could have appealed to Caesar and said, this isn't right. We had a deal. John is one of us. Give him back. That's what they could have done. But they did not do that. Do you remember why? Because John condemned the Pharisees to the Pharisees, made their two day walk out to the Jordan River to listen to John's preaching with one hundred thousand other people. And John says, who told you to flee from the wrath to come? Why don't you go curl up under a rock? I mean, he rejected them. That that hurts. He's baptizing Roman soldiers and tells the Pharisees, you guys get out of here. Go back to. You know, it doesn't even have branches in the temple to look after. That was the way John treated them. So when John gets arrested, they're totally cool with that. He's dead. Problem solved. The other reason Jesus brings us up is he understands. That's the play they're running against him. That play worked. He's a football analogy. That week. That play worked in week four. Why not try it again in week eight? They got rid of John this way. What if they got rid of Jesus that way? What if they convinced the Romans to do the same thing? Get Jesus arrested on trumped up charges and convinced the Romans he should be killed? Problem solved. That's their plan. Jesus knows it. That's why he brings up John the Baptist back to them. Did his baptism come from heaven or from men from heaven is just sitting in there for God? In other words, is John operating with God's authority or from man's authority? This is not a hard question. Are there Old Testament prophecies about John? Yes. Did he fulfill them exactly. Also, yes. Was there a voice from heaven authenticating his ministry? Yes, yes there was. Okay, so now we're stuck at the point with the Old Testament says he's from God. God says he's from God. The people say he's from God. Are you ready to consider the outside chance that he might be from God? Of course they're not. They huddle up. They say they put their arms around each other. Verse twenty five. They discussed it among themselves. They were discussing. It's an onomatopoetic word. It means I picture them, a thousand of them putting their arms around each other. And they're talking about like, well, if we say he's from God, then they'll say, why didn't she believe him? Well, that is a great question, isn't it? If we say he's from man, well, we're afraid of the people. The people will overthrow us. Notice at no point does anyone ask what's true. Notice they don't ask. Are there Old Testament prophecies about Jesus? Did he fulfill them? Exactly. Did a voice from heaven declare that he's from God? That would be pretty strong evidence that Jesus, like John, is from God. So notice the argument structure here. Jesus is saying, it's so obvious that John is from God. I'm from the same place. My authority is likewise from God. You have to have one doctrinal distinction here that is so helpful to understand what Jesus is doing in his humanity. He has his authority from God. Like John in his deity. He has his authority from nobody. At his baptism, the spirit descends on him. The voice from the father testifies about him. It is a triune authority according to his deity. Jesus's authority is not derived from the father. This is called the doctrine of Aseity that Jesus has life in and of himself. He has authority in and of himself. He is authoritative. That's why the audience, the crowds, the masses couldn't comprehend what he was doing. They could just see the divine authority in him, but they couldn't make any sense of it because they had never seen anybody like him, not even John. Remember when John saw Jesus? John falls down and says, I'm not worthy to tie his shoe. Jesus had authority like John and his humanity, but unlike John and his deity, it was the same authority as the father and the same authority as the spirit. And that's what is on display. And if you take a step back and thought about it for five seconds, you would get to that conclusion. But they don't want to do that because they're afraid of the crowds. It is a sad and pathetic scene. It's a sad and pathetic scene. Which leads third to the mistrial. The judges end up condemning themselves. Verse twenty seven, they break their huddle and they say, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know anything. We don't know about John. We don't know about you. We don't know. That's just pathetic. This is the Jewish leaders. These are the rabbis. These are the most educated people. They're the scholars, the scribes. They're the experts in the Old Testament. They get they get together and they say, honestly, we don't have any idea. We don't know what we're talking about. It's sad, but we don't. Sorry. What a window. What a powerful window into the heart of unbelief, even unbelief. That starts with asking the question. You know, remember, it's a good question to ask is Jesus have the authority of God? Where is Jesus from? Is Jesus true? Is he from God? Is the Bible true? Is it from God? Those are great questions to ask if you're looking for the answer. They're very sad questions to ask if you don't want the answer. The answer is obvious, but you don't want it. You suppress the truth in unrighteousness. I've heard people say, I can't believe the gospel because the gospel is true. That means my family's not saved and I'm not ready for that truth. It's a very common thing to say. But that's that's this logic right here saying, I don't want that to be true. Because if it is true, this other thing that I don't like would also be true. That's not the right way to go about discovering if something is true. Here's a better question. Is it true or not? Do you want it to be true or not? Would there be bad implications of it being true? I mean, every truth has implications. That's the way truth works. There are obviously truths implications to every truth. Two plus two equals four. The implication is that I'm out of Oreos. It's a sad truth. Every truth has implications. It's very sad to decide whether or not something is true or something is not because you don't like the implications. It is better to ask what is actually true. They don't want to wrestle with that. I have seen people whose lives are being destroyed by sin, whose marriages are in shipwreck. Who's losing their job because they steal from work? Who are, you know, full flung into sin? And they say, I can't believe the gospel because the gospel condemns this, this kind of sin. I've seen a person who left his family for an immoral relationship who says, I can't believe the gospel because the gospel condemns my relationship. I'm like, well, no kidding, no kidding. It does. Your relationship is making just a train wreck of your life. It's hurting so many people and it's immoral, but it's hurting so many people when they hold on to it. That's that's these rabbis here. We can't say that Jesus is from God because if he's from God, that means that my job in taking out the ashes will be obsolete if he's the final sacrifice. My job of ushering the Passover lamb to the altar is obsolete if he's the final sacrifice. I can't believe that I'd lose my job. At some point, when you watch sin destroy your life. A little humility is required. Like, do you open your eyes and say, listen, I'm on the wrong side of all these issues. Maybe I should change my mind. I'm on the wrong side of. If you're mad at the guy for carrying his mat who just got healed, maybe take a step back and ask yourself, are you on the wrong side of this? Well, they declare a mistrial. They have no idea. There's some implications from this. I'll go through four of them real quick. This is the logic of Christ's authority here, the logic of Christ's authority. First, you have implications from epistemology. Here, all truth is an authority claim. All truth is an authority claim. When you say something is true, you're making a claim about authority. That's why Jesus was the master teacher because he did this so well. He said things that were true and he drove home his own authority. This is true at the basic level. Two plus two equals four. What's your authority? I take two here and I take two there. I've got four. It is true at the philosophical level. How do you know something is true? And there are so many schools of thought. Utilitarianism says whatever is good for the most people must be true. There's the gist. No, that's a very common American thing. I just know. Well, just know is not a claim of authority. Some people more the nationalistic side say that something is true if it's been voted on. Like if the government says it's true, if there's been a law passed, it's true. Oh, the, you know, same sex marriage must be right because there's been a law passed. Maybe there was a law passed. I'm not really sure. But there's people who make that kind of claim of the government says it science. What science says is true science. The majority of scientists, nine out of ten dentists recommend this toothpaste. One of the blessings of Covid is that I think our Western world was so enraptured by that worldview. If most scientists say this, then it must be true. And Covid kind of put dynamite to that and exploded it. Popular opinion. You hear this one all the time. Ninety percent of people think that that's wrong. Oh, wow. You have to ask yourself, what is the right basis for a truth claim? God says something is a pretty strong basis, which leads to theology. The theology of the thing. All religion has one of two sources. It's either from man or from God. This is what's so clarifying about the way Jesus structures this, isn't it. He says John's baptism from God or from man, there's no choice. See, like, obviously everybody has mixed motives. You know, obviously every pastor has good sermons and bad sermons and good doctrine and bad doctrine in some places, like, obviously we're all hot messes here, but Jesus is getting down to the bottom point is the person from God or not? Is John from God, or is he from man? There's no see, like kind of both. Yes, he has the calling of God, but the robes and locusts are weird. There's no there's no see, like get to the heart of the issue. Either religion is from God or it's from man. I think at first Kings eighteen, with all the prophets of Baal that are like man, if we recognize that Baal doesn't exist, we just have all these statues we have to sell on eBay. That would be such a shame. Third, anthropology. Unbelief is a moral issue. That's what this section does. Such a strong job of exposing that unbelief is a moral issue. If the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God, it follows that the greatest sin is failure. To do that, it is very common to have people say, you know, non-believers can be just as moral as believers. No, they can't, they can't. Because loving Jesus is the greatest moral command possible, and refusing to do that is a rejection of all that morality is and stands for. Yes, you can help an old lady across the crosswalk. Great. True morality is loving and worshipping the Lord. Unbelief is a moral issue. And fourth Christology. You have a moral obligation, then, to worship Jesus. You have a moral obligation to worship Jesus. That's the takeaway from this. I was listening to NPR one day and they had this my own mistake, but I was. And they had this guy on and he was like, it was a Cullen thing. And he's like, I challenge anybody to call in and tell me one moral thing that nonbelievers don't do better than Christians. And I almost got in a car accident. I worship Jesus. Conclusion here. I called this sermon The Fickle Fear of Man. The tragedy of this passage is not that the Sanhedrin reached the wrong conclusion. The tragedy of this passage is that the Sanhedrin reached no conclusion at all. They refused to render a verdict. It was not ignorance. It was rebellion against Christ. And by the way, the world is still filled with people today who are in the same boat. They refuse to render a verdict about Christ. They'll go to church repeatedly, volunteer at VBS, the whole thing. They'll do so many things, but they don't want to render a verdict. They don't have enough information. They just don't know. Like the benefits of church. And they like being around Christians. Sure. Why not? The coffee is decent, but they won't make a decision for Christ. But refusing to make a decision for Christ is a decision. Refusing to bow before God is a decision to refuse to bow before God. The Sanhedrin put Jesus on trial, but by the end of the passage, they are the ones on trial. Obviously, Matthew now hands the case file to you. You're now the jury. The only verdict left to render is yours. God, we know that so many people have been in jury deliberations for years. I pray this morning you would use the authority of Christ to move their heart to repentance and faith. The gospel is wonderful. Lovely news, beautiful news of a Savior who bled and died and rose and ascended. What good news. He taught it beforehand. He lived it out. He validated it with his own resurrection. Lord, we have enough information. The heavens declare the glory of God. The sky speaks forth your handiwork. Day after day declares the truth about Christ. The empty grave still speaks The Word of God is still living and active. I pray that every heart here would be moved to a verdict. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. And now for parting words from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc dot church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to tms dot edu. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C. area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.