Real Life Selkirk
**MAR 8** Final Authority (Matthew 9:9-34)
  • Holy Forever
  • How Good It Is
  • All Sufficient Merit
  • Lord I Need You

  • Sermon

    Key Passage

    Matthew 9:9–34 NIV
    As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast. “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples. Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment. When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region. As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region. While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”

    Vision/Mission/Process

    Vision- We exist to reach the world for Jesus, one person at a time
    Mission- We do this by creating Biblical disciples in relational environments

    Introduction

    In our series, we continue to walk with Jesus in His ministry.
    We have begun to see Jesus demonstrate His authority over all creation
    He has shown His authority over sickness
    He has shown His authority over nature
    He has shown His authority over sin
    He has shown his authority over the law
    Today, we will see a tension of authority that Jesus will have to navigate. It is a true challenge to Jesus’ authority.
    I want to begin with a passage from the end of the book of Matthew
    Spoiler alert!
    Matthew 28:18 NIV
    Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
    I want to rest on this passage.
    How much authority does Jesus maintain? All.
    How much is ‘all’? All.
    In Matthew 8 and 9, we have seen Jesus demonstrate this authority in a wide variety of ways.
    Authority is a funny thing.
    We all recognize authority in our lives and we all understand the necessity of authority.
    However, we live in a culture that we regularly challenge authority.
    I want to open with a story about the most dangerous phrase that can be spoken, “I know”
    I remember life as a 16 year old kid. I knew quite a lot. I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. I knew how the world worked. I knew who my friends were. I knew who I should listen to and who I wanted to avoid. I knew quite a lot.
    Now, I don’t remember specifics, again, this goes way back into the 1900’s.
    But I do know that my parents and I had a number of heated conversations. (Am I the only one?)
    Those conversations revolved around what I knew. And the conflict of what they knew.
    This was not an issue of intelligence or information.
    It was an issue of wisdom and authority.
    I hadn’t really thought about that very much until my own kids started rolling their eyes at me and saying, “I know, dad”
    What does every parent want to say at that moment?
    “No you don’t!”
    This is a simple interaction that we have all likely experienced on one end or the other of the conversation.
    But it is a daily struggle all of us feel on a day-to-day basis
    Do I trust my perception? Or do I trust someone who knows reality better than I do?

    Sermon introduction

    As we dive into our passage today, we will see four different struggles with authority. Four different people who roll their eyes at Jesus and say, “I know”.
    We tend to think the opposite of Christianity is atheism
    The Bible actually presents something different
    The issue is not: “Do you believe in God?”
    The issue is: “Who has the right to tell you what is real?”
    Everyone lives under authority. Authority is who directs or guides us to do what we do, to believe what we believe and to interpret what we interpret in the world:
    Culture
    Family
    Experience
    Emotions
    Tradition
    Experts
    Ourselves
    Matthew 9 shows us four different groups of people interacting with Jesus— and every group responds to the same person, but reaches a different conclusion.
    Why?
    It is because every group already had an authority they trusted more than Jesus.
    Let’s take a look at the first group:

    Preaching!

    Today, we will look at four places that people placed authority in something other than Jesus

    The Authority of Religious Tradition

    Matthew 9:9 NIV
    As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
    I can go quite a ways into this, but we have a ton to cover here.
    It is odd that Matthew is writing about himself in the third person.
    But Jesus went on from the last story and saw Matthew sitting at the tax collectors booth
    Tax collectors were sell-outs to the Hebrew heritage
    They were hired by the Romans to place heavy tax burdens on the Jews
    There are records of people having funerals for their family member because they became a tax collector.
    They would no longer be accepted by the Jewish people and the Jewish culture. They were outcasts and sinners.
    In fact, in the Gospel accounts, tax collectors are lumped into a group of sinners including prostitutes and other sinners.
    It was not honorable.
    Jesus sees Matthew and what he had become as a tax collector.
    He says, “Follow Me”
    There is no hope for Matthew from where he is. The only path forward is a Roman path. And because he is Jewish, that path is limited.
    When Jesus says follow me, we see another call to authority.
    Jesus has shown His authority over nature, sin, satan & demons, the law and sickness. Now Jesus is asking Matthew, “Can I have authority over you?”
    There is no hesitation.
    Matthew gets up and follows
    A couple of weeks ago, we see two other people who want to be disciples. Jesus lays down some expectations and it causes them to pause.
    But Matthew lays down no hesitation. He leaves his tax collectors booth and follows Jesus
    However, I want us to see this.
    Matthew doesn’t just leave his friends.
    He doesn’t tell Jesus, “I’ll follow you, but I’m not leaving my friends.”
    He says, “I’ll follow you, but come and meet my friends.”
    One is holding on to his authority
    One is demonstrating Jesus’ authority
    Matthew 9:10–11 NIV
    While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
    I want us to see this like the leper
    Jesus didn’t go to dinner and become unclean. Jesus is holy. He wasn’t there doing unholy things.
    Some of us read this passage and try to justify our stupid behavior with this.
    Jesus went there and showed God’s love, but held to His holiness, so they would see the Father.
    Jesus went to the house of tax collectors and sinners so they would become clean, not the other way around.
    I want to focus on the Pharisees here.
    The Pharisees saw Jesus eating with these guys and they asked, “Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
    The Pharisees had a crisis of authority
    Why were they unhappy with Jesus?
    Was it because He had done miracles? No, they couldn’t deny the miraculous things He had done
    Was it because He had called Matthew? No, well maybe a little, but their hesitation revolves around what I believe to be the true point and issue of their criticism of Jesus
    The Pharisees rejected Jesus’ behavior
    Why did they reject Jesus’ behavior?
    Because this act of dining with sinners violated their system of understanding God.
    Jesus could not be of God, because they had already determined in their heart how God was supposed to act
    The Pharisees had already decided:
    Holy people must be separate
    Sinners needed to clean up first
    God works within the holy not the sinful
    This is how God works!
    This was not based on the nature of God. This was based on the nature of the box that they had put God in.
    Their authority was RELIGIOUS TRADITION about God, not God Himself.
    Jesus saw this in them and Here is how He replied:
    Matthew 9:12–13 NIV
    On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
    Here is what is happening:
    They are not evaluating their beliefs based on Jesus
    They are evaluating Jesus based on their beliefs
    This is misplaced authority.
    I grew up in the church and this was my view for much of my life. I’ve had to unlearn church in order to find Jesus in some places of my life.
    I never rejected Jesus outright. I never said, “Jesus doesn’t exist”.
    I’ve even said, “It is relationship, not religion.” In fact, I’ve said it religiously!
    But, I have a box for how Jesus should operate, and the lives He should change.
    All authority is His.
    God is not confined to my own expectations and experiences.
    I don’t want you to swing the pendulum all the way in the other direction either.
    God will not work contrary to His Word or His nature.
    But God will work contrary to our word, our will and our nature a lot.
    When He does, we are left with the same dilemma as the Pharisees.
    God will not submit to my authority about how He should work in this world.
    When God doesn’t submit to my authority, will I go to him with the arrogant attitude of an overconfident teen. Or humbly trust Him in His work and change my understanding of Him as He demonstrates His authority?
    What a tremendous passage of hope.
    For the lost, the hurting and the sinners, I want you to see this: who did Jesus come for?
    He came for you!
    Not the people that think they have their lives together. Rather, He came for the people who know they don’t have their lives together.
    The Authority of Religious Tradition

    The Authority of Feelings

    Matthew 9:14 NIV
    Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
    This is JTB’s disciples. They came to Jesus and asked, “Why do the Pharisees have to fast and we have to fast? But, your disciples don’t fast?
    I don’t understand
    Matthew 9:15 NIV
    Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
    Jesus’ answer is very simple
    Jesus says, “There is a time for fasting, but that time is not now.”
    Why do we fast? We fast to know God more, to draw closer to Him.
    But if Jesus is standing right there, we don’t need to fast. We need to celebrate, because the result of all of our prayers and fasting in the past has become flesh.
    Jesus is here!
    In fact, this is one of the greatest statements of Jesus’ deity. It is hidden right here.
    If Jesus was not God, He would certainly have instructed them to continue fasting and He would do it right alongside of them.
    But Jesus is saying, “You don’t need to seek after God in fasting. You’ve found Him! Now is a time to celebrate!
    Jesus continues:
    Matthew 9:16–17 NIV
    “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
    This is the ultimate parable about authority and expectations.
    Jesus is not any other authority in this world.
    Jesus is not the authority of the law
    Jesus is not the authority of tradition or religion
    Jesus is not the authority of my feelings.
    Jesus is authority. We cannot fit Him alongside of every other authority in our lives.
    It didn’t feel right to celebrate Jesus
    It felt like they needed to do what they were doing before Jesus came.
    Their feelings were dictating their approach to Jesus.
    Jesus is telling these disciples of JTB that if you continue to look at me like the authority of your expectations, I will continue to break out of them.
    These people are not evil.
    They don’t even appear to be rebellious.
    However, they do expect that Jesus is like other authorities and he should be following the rules.
    How do we create the authority of expectations in our lives?
    We interpret God based on:
    How I feel in worship
    How my prayers are answered or not answered
    Whether my week went well or didn’t go well
    My emotional response to my circumstances.
    If I use my feelings as my authority, than Jesus must perform and continue to perform for me to trust Him.
    Reality is defined by who I am, not how I feel.
    The authority of religious tradition
    The authority of feelings

    The Authority of Human Reason

    Matthew 9:18–19 NIV
    While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
    There are two stories rolled into one here.
    They are both amazing and fantastic stories.
    The first story involves a synagogue leader.
    If we look in the Gospel account of Luke, we find that this man’s name is Jairus
    This man finds Jesus and comes to Jesus, kneeling before Him
    He tells Jesus that his daughter has just died.
    His request is that Jesus would come and touch the dead girl and Jairus believes that his daughter will live.
    This is the first time in Matthew that anyone comes to Jesus with a problem that involves someone who has died
    There are a couple of other instances where Jesus raises a dead person.
    One is a widow whose son dies. Jesus sees the funeral procession and has compassion on her and raises her son from the dead.
    Another is Jesus’ friend Lazarus. Jesus is informed that Lazarus is ill and Jesus travels to where he is. Jesus finds out on the journey there that Lazarus dies.
    The third is Jesus Himself.
    I imagine being this man.
    The religious elite had an adversarial relationship with Jesus. It wasn’t a good thing to be a Jesus supporter and be a religious leader.
    But in desperation, Jairus drops all conventional reason and in desperation falls on his knees in front of Jesus.
    We like to church this story up and think about the noble leader falling down in front of Jesus in confident faith.
    I imagine Jairus as a desperate, grieving man who just saw the death of his daughter and it devastated him.
    All of the hopes, dreams and joy are gone is a heartbreaking moment.
    He had likely prayed, gone to doctors, and done everything in his power to help his daughter, but she died anyways.
    This broken, grieving man fell before Jesus pleading for help.
    Jesus sees the desperation in this man and says that he will go to the mans home.
    They set out for this place.
    Now imagine being Jairus.
    How do you view the crowd? It is a roadblock. I imagine him getting out in front yelling for everyone to get out of the way.
    His desperation didn’t stop with his request. He was desperate
    It’s at this moment the second story begins.
    Matthew 9:20–21 NIV
    Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
    While Jairus is trying to get Jesus to move, another desperate person approaches Jesus
    This is a woman who has a bleeding issue that has been continual for 12 years touched Jesus.
    This story is similar to the leper from a few weeks ago.
    If you have a bleeding wound or if a woman had her period, they were considered unclean.
    I can direct you to go back to the book of Leviticus for more exciting reading on the rules of being ceremonially clean or unclean.
    The rules were that this woman was unclean.
    She was not able to go to the temple for sacrifice
    Not able to go for prayer
    She was alone and untouchable because she was unclean. Anyone who would touch her was also unclean because they touched her.
    By touching Jesus, the law said that she would have made Jesus unclean.
    So for her to push through the crowd, she was making everyone unclean, then by touching Jesus, she would make Him unclean as well.
    The leper simply fell on his knees before Jesus
    This woman was desperate enough, audacious enough, to press through the crowd and touch Jesus.
    Now remember, Jairus is trying to get Jesus to go.
    This woman is trying to catch up to Jesus and when she touches him, Jesus stops.
    This had to be an extraordinary moment of fear for her.
    She had tried to be invisible. She wanted to quietly touch the edge of Jesus robe while the crowd was around.
    No one would know. It would be her own personal miracle.
    The worst thing that could happen is that Jesus notices.
    When Jesus stops to see who touched him, her heart had to stop.
    At this point, Jesus had every right to call her out for making the whole crowd unclean. For making Him unclean.
    He literally could have had her severely punished for this brazen act.
    When Jesus stops and looks for her, I cannot imagine the fear she felt.
    Was Jesus going to punish her?
    Had she stolen a miracle?
    Was Jesus going to let her loose to the judgment of the crowd?
    Matthew 9:22 NIV
    Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
    Jesus says, “Take heart”
    The greek word here is “Tharseo” If you’ve attended here for very long, this is one of my favorite words in the Bible.
    Tharseo-
    Take courage
    Be over-bold
    Audacious
    To not move
    To be deaf to threats
    To have a heart of iron
    The woman had already been bold. She was bold in her desperation.
    Now Jesus was telling her, that her boldness in faith and going to Jesus wasn’t wasted
    It is good to be bold. It is good to go to Jesus in confidence.
    Jesus doesn’t turn the desperate away. He sees their desperation and their need for Him. He is near to their heart.
    Now at this time, Jairus is losing valuable moments. Jesus needs to be moving, but the woman has made Jesus stop.
    Jesus continues up the road to Jairus’ house:
    Matthew 9:23–24 NIV
    When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him.
    Jesus enters the house and the funeral has already started.
    there were people mourning, playing sad music, and grieving over the little girl who had died.
    This dad had walked out of his daughter’s funeral to find Jesus.
    Now, he returns. There were probably people that shook their heads in disapproval of Jairus.
    A good dad wouldn’t have went chasing Jesus.
    The Jesus makes the statement, “The girl is not dead, but rather, she is asleep.”
    This is important for us to see:
    These people are not wicked
    They are logical. They are the most reasonable people in this whole story
    They know what death looks like
    Jesus contradicts what they can verify with their senses.
    When He does, they laugh at Him.
    Why?
    Because Jesus had challenged the authority of their own eyes. Their logic. Reality.
    To these people, truth was determined by what they could see
    To Jesus, He is the truth, not their eyes.
    Matthew 9:25–26 NIV
    After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region.
    Our culture rests here above all others
    If we cannot see it, measure it, scientifically verify it, then it cannot be true.
    But Christianity rests on a claim that violates ordinary logic and observation.
    Jesus has authority over death. Resurrection
    The gospel begins where human reason reaches its limit
    Our God is a SUPERNATURAL God. The Gospel is a SUPERNATURAL truth
    Faith is not believing without evidence
    Faith is trusting a Savior with greater authority than our perception of reality
    Now the Pharisees return for one more challenge to authority
    The authority of religious tradition
    The authority of feelings
    The authority of human reason

    The Authority of Myself

    Matthew 9:27–34 NIV
    As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region. While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
    Here, we see the Pharisees escalate their challenge to Jesus
    They cannot deny the miracles that had taken place
    Blind people were not blind.
    A demon-possessed person who couldn’t speak was now talking to them
    A synagogue leaders daughter was dead and now she is alive.
    Everyone saw the same things.
    They couldn’t deny the miracles, so they reinterpreted them.
    Notice this:
    They do not lack evidence
    They reinterpret the evidence to protect their own authority.
    Whose authority accomplished these miracles?
    God’s
    How audacious to say, “I have the authority to determine the power, the glory and the credit of the source of these miracles.”
    But they did.
    Jesus is Lord, they are not, but they would rather call God demonic than surrender their own authority.
    This is the most dangerous spiritual condition:
    Not the ignorance of truth
    Rather, resistance to the implications of the truth
    Many people believe Jesus existed, but the implications of His life, death, burial and resurrection is the core of the Gospel

    Conclusion

    In our passage, every group encountered the same Jesus:
    Matthew followed Him
    The Pharisees criticized Him
    John’s disciples questioned Him
    The crowd laughed at Him
    The leaders condemned Him
    The difference was not the evidence.
    The difference was who they allowed the authority to interpret the evidence.
    Matthew 9 begins with a tax collector standing up and following Jesus
    Matthew had:
    Less knowledge
    Less morality
    Less religious history
    One he had one life-changing thing:
    He let Jesus have authority
    A disciple is not someone who understands everything
    A disciple is a person who lets Jesus overrule every competing authority in our lives:
    When:
    Jesus contradicts your feelings
    Jesus contradicts your expectations
    Jesus contradicts your reasoning
    Jesus contradicts your preferences
    Who wins?
    That answer reveals your true authority
    Everyone in this room already has a highest authority
    It may be:
    Your past
    Your politics
    Your fear
    Your pain
    Your desires
    Your intellect
    You do not decide whether or not to live under authority
    You must decide what authority you will live under
    Jesus calls us to follow him
    the first act of following is surrendering the right to have the final word.
    Faith is not agreeing that jesus exists
    Faith is allowing Jesus to disagree with you— and still obeying Him
    Gospel
    Directed Prayer/Communion

      • Matthew 9:9–34NIV2011

      • Matthew 28:18NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:9NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:10–11NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:12–13NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:14NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:15NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:16–17NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:18–19NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:20–21NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:22NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:23–24NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:25–26NIV2011

      • Matthew 9:27–34NIV2011

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