It’s really a trope in our society, age plays a great deal into how we treat people. The whole premiss of the early 90s sitcom of Doogie Houser was based on this idea that you have this teenager who was also a genius doctor. But through the show, the trope of him being too young to wield the authority he did was always center of the drama.
When Marika and I first came to Quartzsite, we were basically thrown into the deep end right away. We arrived on Saturday the 13th of October and unloaded the two trucks that we brought down. As far as how things ran, we weren’t really told much. We had our first Sunday and I taught Sunday school as best as I could, running on the adrenaline of starting a new chapter of our lives.
I don’t remember if it went bad, so I assume it went as well as it could. Then we had a Thursday night youth meeting which was awkward and we kind of just stumbled through. Then Friday came around and we had a mass of teens show up to check out the new guy. In all of this, Marika and I were basically going in blind. We did have some help that first Friday night; Marvin and Joan Akland, one of the elders and his wife, cooked dinner for us.
But it was either on that first night or the one that followed, where we had a run in with a neighbor. As has been since that first Friday, we let the teens play and hang out on the basketball court if they want to. On this particular night I was out there, playing basketball with the teens and trying to get to know them.
It was almost around 6 when a lady, probably in her late 40s or early 50s, came to the baseball court and started yelling at the teens because they were being to loud and rowdy. Which they were being pretty loud, I’d agree to that. The lady started to tell the teens that that she talk with the adult in charge. Seeing what was happening, I was already on my way, and when I approached her, she again demanded to see the adult in charge. I told her it was me, and she said, no, the real adult. I told here that the person in charge was me and she would have to deal with me if she had a problem.
I don’t think she liked that, and began to rail against me. Now, it wasn’t a good first meeting of the neighbors and it took years for us to do better towards them. And I knew why this lady didn’t believe I was in charge, I was 23 at the time, and I know I looked younger than that. And because I looked too young to be the youth pastor, I must not have been in her eyes, and I had no authority in the situation, and the church must have been letting the teens just do whatever they wanted.
And it’s this idea of doubting authority, that brings us back to our series in the Gospel of Matthew, where we’ll be picking it back up in chapter 21, starting in verse 1. And as we open up to Matthew 21:1, let’s look at where we are from last week.
Last week we started in on the fifth section of Matthew’s Gospel, heading towards the final main discourse or sermon of Jesus in this writing. In the opening of this section, we talked about, how our sinful desires always want more than what God has said we will get. And so, as Jesus’ disciples, we must be satisfied with what he had for us, because it is the best we could possible imagine.
With satisfaction in Jesus as our jumping off point, we can now turn to chapter 21 of Matthew and see where the Holy Spirit intends for us to go next. Let’s read together, Matthew 21:1-27.
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: 5 “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
16 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,“‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
18 Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.
21 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
24 Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
27 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
At the beginning of our talk last week, I had said that from chapter 20 to 28, the focus of Jesus’ authority would be called into question and be on full display, in what we just read, we can see this is the truth.
Starting last week, being satisfied with what Jesus gives us, is being satisfied in the authority of Jesus to give us what he deems is proper. This week, we can see that Jesus’ authority is being displayed and directly challenged.
We start with Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem or what is called, the Triumphal Entry. In this moment we see several Old Testament prophecies and images fulfilled. But what this entry does, is set us up for Jesus’ cleansing of the temple moneychangers. Jesus is touted as the long awaited Messiah, King of Israel, come to do away with the sin and corruption, and uncleanliness of the Gentiles that have infected God’s holy people. This is what the Triumphal entry is inaugurating in the minds of the people.
So then what is the first thing Jesus does? He goes to the heart of the issue. The cleansing of the temple is not just about the moneychangers. They are the physical manifestation of the deeper issue of sin.
Jesus quotes from two different prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah. The first comes from Isaiah 56:7, which is a passage of hope, “…these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Jesus has come that the house of the Lord to be the one who gathers together people from all nations.
But the second half of the quote comes from Jeremiah 7:11, “Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.” God had been watching the sin of Jeremiah’s generation fester and destroy the covenant that had been established between God and Israel. And in Jeremiah’s time, the Babylonian exile was the end result. Here too, God has been watching, and now a new exit was on the horizon. The generation of Jeremiah was repeating itself in the generation of Jesus.
But where there’s judgment, there’s also salvation, and after the tables have been flipped and the moneychangers thrown out, people came to Jesus for healing, and they were healed. But we’re told that the religious leaders were upset, indignant at what Jesus did and what people were saying about him. So Jesus quotes Psalm 8:2, “Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.”
Jesus reveals a lot here. If we go back to the context of Psalm 8, we get something really important as to who the Psalmist is talking about. Psalm 8 begins with, “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.” Jesus isn’t just claiming to be another messiah figure, like Moses, Jospeh, Joshua, or David. No, Jesus is equating himself to the God of the universe. Jesus is God Almighty, and if we recognize what Jesus is doing, then the next two moments make a lot more sense.
First, as Jesus reenters Jerusalem not eh next day, he encounters a fig tree. This tree had leaves on it, which would indicate that there was also fruit on it, but it didn’t. Jesus curses it, and it began to wither. The disciples respond with, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” They missed it. The answer was found in the Psalm that Jesus quoted in verse 16. Why would the tree so quickly wither, because it was responding to the word of its Creator. God Almighty has spoke to it and it withered.
And Jesus reiterates something he said back in chapter 17 about mountain moving faith. But it’s not the concept of faith that Jesus’ is talking about, it is the object of faith. When people say, if you only had faith, this or that could have been done, what they’re talking about is, if you had a feeling of belief. But what Jesus is talking about when he talks about faith, is if you have faith in Jesus himself, that he is God Almighty, that he is the Creator, then mountains, fig trees, hardships of life, are under his authority.
It’s here that we are imminently brought to a situation where Jesus’ authority, that which we have already seen established in his entry, in the temple, and at the fig tree, is challenged.
Again Jesus enters the temple, and you have to wonder if the moneychangers showed back up, or if they took the day off. Well up to this point, Jesus has been dealing with the lower levels of the religious establishment, but now it’s a full court press. The chief priests and the elders of the people come out to challenge Jesus. And they directly ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?…And who gave you this authority?”
The reader should already know. We should know after the first several chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, but if we haven’t figured it out yet, like the twelve, we should have gotten it by now. Jesus’ authority comes from and being God.
But instead of coming out and saying it, Jesus challenges them. This challenge sets up what we’ll talk about next in Matthew, and it gives us a clarity that it wasn’t just the moneychangers who were making the temple a den of robbers.
Jesus’ question about where John’s baptism comes from, is asking the priests and elders where John’s authority came from. In this case the priests know what Jesus is asking. If John’s authority came from heaven, then they would have been wrong not to follow what John said. But if they believed, which it seems they did, that John’s authority came from nothing but human will, then they would be rejected by the people and may even have a riot on their hands.
And so they duck the question, “We don’t know.” That’s right, they don’t; they are so wrapped in themselves, seeking their own kingdoms, that they cannot see the vanguard of the kingdom in Jesus standing before them.
They didn’t recognize where John’s authority came from, so they cannot recognize the source of that authority as well, which is Jesus. This sets up Jesus’ parables that follow., which will discuss in the coming weeks.
But this is a call to us that we recognize Jesus and his authority. It’s so easy to downplay Jesus’ right to tell us what to do, and we see this in our generation. We have leaders that proclaim to be Christians yet they do not know, nor submit to the authority of Jesus. There are those outside the Church, in our politicians, that use the Bible to move forward their own agendas. They’re inside the Church too, professing Christ, yet rejecting his basic teaching for their own.
As disciples we are not called to subvert Jesus’ authority for our own. No, we are to place ourselves fully under it. We are to act the way he calls us to act. We are to speak the way he teaches us to speak. We are to move where he wants us to go. In all things, we are the fig tree who must respond to our Creator’s command, bearing the fruit that only comes through the actively of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
And when we do, when our faith is solely in Jesus, that’s when mountains move. Jesus isn’t holding back on us, it is us who hold back on Jesus. We easily fall into the thought process of Jesus can’t help here. Jesus it’s too difficult there. Jesus you don’t understand this. Jesus if you do this, then I’ll do that. No, we need to come to a place where Jesus’ authority is absolute over us. That his will becomes our will. That what he desires, we desire. Not the other way around.
That’s what Jesus is calling us to do, and where he is taking us towards. Where his authority is so undeniable and concrete in our lives, that our first thought is, “Your kingdom come, your will be done (Matthew 6:10).” And everything else falls behind it.
This week I want to challenge you to memorize and pray Mathew 6:10, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” Pray it as the first thing you do every morning. Pray it as you go about your day, and when you start new activities. You start your morning routine, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” You get into your car, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” You walk through the doors at the store, or begin a conversation with some, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.”
Let us be a people who put ourselves under the authority of Jesus who is God Almighty, and who’s will should be the only thing that matters in our lives. Amen.
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