Our country’s elections are fast approaching.  If you turn on the radio or TV, you hear more and more advertisements.  You probably are receiving spirited pleas from various people about why you should vote for one candidate or another.  The passion and rhetoric is picking up.  Things are getting heated.  Why?  Why does everyone get so excited about the elections?  Because we are picking who will lead our government.  And our government is our nation’s authority.  We recognize that the people in authority have a very powerful role over our life.  And since we live in a nation that allows us to have a role in picking the leaders in our government, we take that responsibility seriously.  And so we pick the people we want to submit to.  We recognize that the government is in a position of authority, and so we want to pick the leaders who we want in that position of authority over us.

You see, that’s what I want us to think about today – authority.  That’s the question that is raised in our passage for today.  There is a question of authority in our passage.  This question has to do with Jesus.  Simply put, by what authority is Jesus acting?  Jesus is obviously acting from a position of authority, but whose authority is it?  Let’s take a look at this passage and find out.

Passage: Mark 11:27-12:12
Author: Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Sermon originally preached during the Morning Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/02/2008 in Novato, CA.

Click here for the manuscript.

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The disciples in our passage thought they were part of something exclusive.  They were part of Jesus’ official disciples, and for that matter, part of his inner circle of twelve who followed him everywhere.  And so when they encountered a man who was casting out demons in the name of Christ, but who wasn’t part of their ordinary group of followers of Jesus, they objected.  They tried to stop the man because he wasn’t one of them.  The disciples evidently thought they were part of something exclusive.

And in one sense, they were right.  The Christian message is in many ways an exclusive message with exclusive claims.  For example, Jesus says that salvation is only through him.  In some important ways, however, Christianity can be very inclusive.  For example, Jesus calls us to deliver the gospel of salvation to everyone in the world.

But looking specifically at our passage for today:  Did the disciples do the right thing here?  Jesus says no, and teaches them more about being a part of his kingdom.  The disciples didn’t properly understand the scope of Christ’s kingdom.  And so as we think about the exclusiveness and the inclusiveness of Christ, we have to look to Christ to define that for us.  In other words, we see the disciples here didn’t fully understand what made someone a part of Christ’s kingdom.  And so we’ll look today at what Christ teaches us about who is with him and who is not.

Passage: Mark 9:38-41
Author: Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
Sermon originally preached during the Morning Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 09/07/2008 in Novato, CA.

Click here for the manuscript.

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