Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Was Jesus Confused About His Authority?

question-marks“Why does God not do miracles today?” was the question posed to me by one of my fellow college students. He was skeptical of Christianity and of the authority of the Bible because Jesus came and did miracles long before scientist in white, lab coats holding smartphones could analyses the data. He doubted that Jesus was God because Jesus came before his authority and power could be tested by our modern scientific minds. And his problem was made even more acute by the fact that he disagreed with the Bible’s sexual ethic. In short, he wanted to know why in the world an ancient Guru had the right to condemn him as a sinner. He wanted Jesus to prove his authority and his divinity.

He is not alone. In Mark 11:27-33, the chief priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees (the three main political and religious parties of Jesus’ day) approach Jesus and ask directly ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” (vs28b). They are referring back to Jesus’ cleansing of the temple which included the violent turning over of tables and stoppage of commercial traffic (Mark 11:15-19). They wanted to know why Jesus thought he had the right to condemn the Chief Priests, the Scribes, and the Pharisees’ religious practices. To put there question in the common vernacular, “Who does Jesus thinks he is?”

Instead of directly answering their question, Jesus asks the Jewish leaders a question.

“I will ask you one question: answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism from John from heaven or from man” (vs.29b-30)?

When Jesus pivots the question with his own question, he is not being cute or evasive. He is rather follow a standard rabbinic teaching method of answering questions through asking your own question that would have the same answer as they questioned posed to you.

Jesus knows the answer. He knows that he does what he does by the authority of the Father. In John 6:38 Jesus clearly states, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” Jesus is the son of God. He is fully God and is doing the will of God the father. He clearly knows the authority by which he does what he does. And he has told the crowds as much before. Undoubtedly the Jewish leaders know his claims. They are trying to trip Jesus up. They want him to claim that he is the God, that he cleansed the temple by the power of God. If Jesus identifies his actions with God, then the Jewish leaders can accuse Jesus of heresy and convince the crowds that Jesus must die for his sin of claiming to be God.

Jesus knows the scheme of the Jewish leaders. And instead of answering their question, he asks them a question that will undoubtedly force the Jewish Leaders to proclaim the answer that Jesus would give. He is forcing them to proclaim that Jesus is God: “Jesus does these things by the power of God the Father.”

The Jewish leaders our trapped. They do not want to confess Jesus to be God. But they also fear that they may lose all hope of swaying the people against Jesus as John the Baptist was popular with the masses.

The text says,

“If we say, ‘From heaven, he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But shall we say from man’?” – they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John was really a prophet. So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”

 

Jesus has put the men between and rock and a hard place. They must decide if they will believe John, the Scriptures and worship Christ or if they will continue to reject Jesus.

The Jewish leaders did not want to confess Jesus as Lord so they refused to recognize that words of John the Baptist. They ignored the words of heaven because they hated Jesus.

My friend and countless of other men and women refuse to believe the Word of God because they refuse to submit to Jesus. Their questions do not proceed from a lack of knowledge. The Pharisees, the scribes, and Chief Priest knew who Jesus was. They knew he had raised Lazarus from the dead, cast out demons, healed the sick, and commanded the wind and the waves. They knew who Jesus was and they hated him. They hated him because he exposed their sin. The light hates darkness. And the Jewish leaders hated Jesus because he was light exposing their dark deeds. He was the son of God calling moral and self-righteous people to faith. The Jewish leaders hated Jesus.

They refused to admit that John was from God because John ultimately pointed to Jesus. To believe John would be to believe that Jesus is the Lord of the universe, the Messiah who is worthy of worship. The Jewish could not do this. So the proclaimed ignorance. The proclaimed that they did not know by what power John did things. Today men and women reject the Bible, the gospel because it points to Jesus.

We must not hate the messengers and the message of God because they point to Jesus. When people reject the authority and the message of the prophets of God, they are rejecting God. They are rejecting both the messenger and the content of the message. They demand more miracles because they hate Jesus. No miracle would convince them. They are desperate to deny the Word of God because they have already denied the Son of God. They reject God’s power and his Word because they want to be their own God.

And sadly when we run away from God, we do not find peace and joy. After rejecting God, the Jewish leaders next concern is the people around them. They are consumed with public opinion. And actually deny their true identity to keep the masses happy. “They were afraid of the people.” If we are not beholden to God, we will be driven by others. We will seek to please other human beings and find our measure in the masses. And instead of finding peace, we find confusions and lies. When we deny God, we do not gain personal autonomy. We gain the fear of man. Instead seeking God’s favor, we seek the favor of our parents, neighbors, professors and friends. We crave their approval of our investment strategy; we long for them to notice our new dress; we want them to praise us for earning the next degree. We embrace a form of slavery where every thought is second guessed and reevaluated by every stray facial expression and loose word we encounter. This is not life; it is slavery. Embrace Jesus as Lord; he alone is worry of worship.

When we counter such hostility to our God and his Word, we must not retreat because Jesus is worth proclaiming. Though not popular, Jesus is God and we should proclaim him to be God. We should proclaim his power. He has the right to legislate our morality because he created the world. He is the God of the universe. He reigns. He performed miracles that hundreds and thousands of people saw.

Jesus answers the Jewish leader’s question with their own answer. They refuse to comment on John’s authority and so Jewish refuses to respond to their question. He is responding in kind. Jesus knows why he does what he does. He obeys the will of the Father. The Jewish leaders knew it too.

Knowledge was not lacking. Faith was lacking. While I readily admit Christendom benefits from a robust apologetics, I also believe apologetics will save no man, woman, or child. People do not believe because they lack scientific facts. They fail to believe because they do not love God. The hate the Bible and stumble over facts because they have rejected God. They do not reject God because they stumble over the facts. A lack of faith keeps people from recognizing and admitting that Jesus has divine authority. Only Christ can provide true saving faith. Only Jesus can turn our hearts from hatred to love. And he does.

Do you recognize Jesus’ authority?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Irrelevant: Pastors Don’t Matter?

irrelevantPastors do not matter. Seventy-five percent of Americans turn to resources other than their pastors when seeking to live out the Christian life. Only one in four Americans think their pastors have something relevant to offer when facing life’s problems. Commenting on these findings, David Kinnnamin and Gabe Lyons said,

You might say Christians leaders are viewed like a smiling greeter at Walmart: they might point you in the right direction, but after that you’re on your own.

I believe Christendom arrived at this troubling point by encouraging pastors to be professionals.

Pastors devote their time to preaching, developing programs, to sitting on committees and to a ton of other administrative duties. Because they are so busy with the ‘work’ of the church, they do not have time for the people of the church.

Well known, Baptists’ leadership groups encourage pastors to only briefly counsel with the people before passing those time consuming sheep off to the local psychologists. As Jared Wilson noted, “A sheep who wants to be feed is seen as someone in the way of the vision.” The pastor who goes beyond the occasional hospital visit and actually cares for his sheep is deemed by many church cultures to be a pastor out of focus. He is a pastor that has abandoned the growth of the church for people.

This sentiment is bizarre and yet very real. It is also grossly unbiblical. Christ was all about people. Paul was all about people. They were not all about programs and church growth models. Yet, most pastors today are all about creating programs and filling pews.

In their rush to grow the kingdom of God, many modern pastors have made the kingdom irrelevant to the very world they are trying to reach. These men have declared themselves too busy to deal with the messiness of people’s lives. As a result, they have communicated that the church and the gospel have no real solutions for divorces, embezzlement, abuse, pornography, and the many other sins that weigh down local church members.

Such an attitude of professionalism is deeply troubling because pastors have access to the most powerfully truth. They have access to the power of Christ which both saves and liberates men and women from their sin. When pastors bounce their church members out of their offices and into the sofa of the local, secular counselor, they are pointing their people away from truth to hopelessness.

As Dietrich Bonoffer wrote,

The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. 

He goes on to say,

Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of men. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness.

The world has no power to liberate the drug-addict from sin. The secular counselor has no power to restore a broken marriage. The psychologist has no power to heal the depressed. The power to change, to power to have abundant life and hope is found in Christ.  2 Timothy 3:16 makes this reality abundantly clear,

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I think many people do not value pastoral insight into their lives because their pastors have boldly declared for years that they have nothing to offer. In so doing, they have done great harm to their churches, to the body of Christ, and to our nation.

irrelevant-2The American church needs revival. It needs pastors who are not hooked on pornography and enraptured by their own self-aggrandizement. The church needs pastors committed to holiness. But the need even more than that. It needs pastors who are willing to shepherd their people. As Jared Wilson says, “we are not managers of spiritual enterprises: we are shepherds. And shepherds feed their sheep.”

At the end of the day, the pastor who will not counsel does not have an education problem. He has a gospel problem. As Bonhoeffer rightfully noted, “It is not lack of psychological knowledge but lack of love for the crucified Jesus Christ that makes us so poor and inefficient in brotherly confession.” Pastors are poor counselors because they have a poor grasp of the gospel. If pastors believed the gospel was radically changing their lives, they would boldly offer that same power to their church members.

The solution is simple. Pastors need to get serious about the gospel.  They need to love God so much that they cannot help but daily seek to repent and change of their sins. They need to be men who regularly confess their sins to others and invite others to speak into their lives. “Every person should refrain from listening to confession who does not himself practice it.” As the power of Christ takes control of their hearts, they will have something to offer to their congregations. They will be able to put the power of Christ on display. They will become relevant again.

My dear friend, the test of the Christian is not his busyness and his activity, it is his knowledge of God, it is his knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. –Martin Lloyd-Jones. 

Pastors, how are you doing?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

The Faith That Moves Mountains: Do You Have It?

faith-mountainsDo you have faith? Do you have life changing, mountain moving faith?

When Jan Crouch was twelve years old, her pet chicken was run over by a car. She and her friend prayed for the little bird in Jesus name, and the bird was resurrected. The famous teacher and healer, Benny Hinn, told people on October 19, 1999 that he would raise their loved ones from the dead if they would roll their loved ones’ caskets infront to a T.V.

The saga continues. Everywhere we go, we hear that our problems can be solved by having more faith. If we have the faith to move mountains, then we can be certain will we get our dream home, our spouse will return, and we will overcome our cancer. We can do all this and more if we have the mountain moving faith that Jesus talks about in Mark 11:20-25. Jesus told us in Mark 11:23 “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.” This is an incredible faith. This is a faith we should all long to have. But if we do not have this great faith, this faith that can bring chickens back to life, we must ask, “how do we get it?

But before we answer that question, we must answer another more pressing question. What is our faith in? What are we to believe in? The text tells us in back in verse 22: “Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.” The object of our faith and the power behind this mountain moving faith is God. It is not us, but God.

Often we misunderstand this fundamental nature of faith. Instead of placing our faith in God and his work on the cross, we place our faith in ourselves. We trust in our ability to manipulate God. We think that great faith equals some sort of mental disposition often expressed through prayer that will force God to work. We trust in our ability to persuade God to give us a new home, an awesome spouse, or a miraculous healing. We view this great faith like the hit-bell game found at state fairs. We grab the black harmer of faith and slam it down on the metal platform sending the little ball flying upwards to the bell. If we do not hit the bell, we swing again and again. We may take a brief break to go to one of the religious conferences held in the main pavilion on positive thinking or prayer in an effort to exercise our faith muscles. Then we come back and start swinging until that metal balls finally zips upward with enough speed to ring the bell for the world to hear. We ultimately believe that if we have enough faith in ourselves to force God to work, he will work.

To put it another way, we keep putting quarter after quarter into the vending machine believing that our efforts will eventually cause the machine to give us an ice, cold Coke. In both instances, the object of our faith is not God. The object of our faith is our ability and our works.

But Christ is not talking about such man centered faith.  He is not talking about raising chickens or about showing revivals in mortuaries. The faith to move mountains is not based upon us and our works but upon Christ.

What does the faith to move mountains truly look like? What does trusting in Christ look like? Those who have the faith to move mountains believe God’s words are true and regularly forgive others.

The whole conversation about faith is set against the back drop of Jesus’ words coming true. Jesus curses a fig tree in Mark 11:14 and Peter remarks that the fig tree is dead in verse 21. The remark about Jesus’ word coming true causes Jesus to launch into a discourse on faith. Jesus is placing mountain moving faith within the context of his word coming true. Jesus is not promising us that we will get everything we selfishly desire (new car, dream home, great health, kind spouse, beautiful kids) if we have enough faith. This is not his point at all. He is saying that if we trust in him, his word will come true.

Given a predisposition to charismatic thought, we tend to think that claiming God’s Word can be still be a name-it and claim-it endeavor. We can claim our mountains and have faith in God that he will throw them into the Sea.

Again this is not what Jesus is telling his disciples. He is speaking hyperbolically. Though there is some debate about which mountain Jesus is referring, the text seems to indicate that he is speaking about the temple mount. He was walking into Jerusalem by way of the Mount of Olives. The temple mount would have clearly been in view. He is saying that the temple could be tossed into the sea if we have faith. Jesus is not speaking literally. Jesus could have tossed the temple mountain into the Sea. He created the world and sustains the world. All of nature obeys him (Col 1:16-18). Every bird, mountain, and star awaits his command. But Jesus never tossed any mountain into any sea or ocean during his lifetime. Jesus is not telling us to command literal mountains, illness, or people by faith.

Jesus is commanding us to trust his Word. He is saying that believing in his Word trumps the sacrificial system. The temple is no longer needed and can be cast into the sea because God reigns and lives. God’s Word comes true.

True faith consist in believing the words of God up to the point where we know they will come true. True faith is the porn addict trusting God for purity and receiving it. True faith is the worry wart trusting God for all her needs and receiving confidence in the character of God. True faith is the liar trusting Christ for the power to speak truth and becoming truthful. Truth faith that moves mountains results in men and women becoming more like Christ.

We can recover from cancer without Christ working miraculously. We can manipulate our spouse into coming home without Christ doing a work in our heart. And, we can get the promotion at work without faith in God’s sovereignty.

But we cannot grow in our faith without Christ. We cannot grow in our love without Christ. We cannot get victory over our pride without Christ. We cannot become new creatures without the help of Christ. True faith is a faith that trust Christ to makes us into his image. True faith is a faith based upon the work of God that is defined by a confidence that God’s Word will come true.

And true faith lacks doubt. The word to doubt in verse 23 meanings to weigh or measure. To doubt means we are still analyzing God’s Word comparing it to Dr. Phil, Buddha, humanism, and the spiritual advice of our coworker who is really into yoga these days. Doubting means we give God a chance, but we are not sure if his word will come true. We are not sure if God really can help us overcome our drug addiction and our poor money management skills. We doubt that God’s Word will come true. We doubt that the power to change, the power to move the mountains in our life rest in Christ. We doubt, we second guess, and we are quick to mix in all kinds of worldly ideas into our quest because we do not trust God.

We are not supposed to doubt. We are supposed to believe. And we believe on the finished work of Christ. The fig tree is dead. Christ died for our sins and is alive. His word has come true. We should believe it without doubting. And when we do, we have all that we ask. “It will be done for him.” Christ will accomplish his word. He will change us. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours”(vs. 24).

He may not remove our cancer, but he will give us the patience to walk through the trial well. God make not change our spouse, but he will grow our love. Christ may not give us more money, but he will grow our contentment in him. He will do the impossible. He will makes us more into his image.

To have the faith that moves mountains is to have the faith that believes God’s Word will comes to pass.

But our faith will not have just a vertical dimension. True faith has a horizontal element; it effects how we interact with our friends and neighbors. Those who have the faith to move mountains are quick to forgive. Jesus says, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (vs.25). The presence of the faith that moves mountains is not found in how many Chickens you bring back to life. The faith is evidence by Christ radically changing your life and in your radically choosing to forgive those who sin against you.

If you have the faith to move mountains, you will be quick to forgive others. When we forgive others, we are not saying we have not been hurt. We are not saying that harsh words, that infidelity, that betrayed trust, that stolen money, and dashed hopes do not hurt. We legitimately have been hurt. We have something against the one who has offended us.

Rather, we forgive in spite of the hurt because we desire to be right with God. We forgive because we have been forgiven much and because we desperately want God to continue to forgive us. We forgive because we realize that we (like the people who have sinned against us) our sinners. We realize that we are not morally superior than those who have hurt us. Like our enemies, we daily sin. We daily offend God and others. We daily need forgiveness. Those who have been redeemed understand this reality. They understand that their best thoughts and works apart from Christ are filthily rags. They understand that they are sinners who daily need and experience grace. And because God has forgiven them, they forgive others. They have seen God forgive them and radically change their lives. They know that God must continue to work in their hearts for them to have growth.

Thus, they forgive others because they daily need the grace of God.

Truth faith is not measured by the number of cancer patients we cure. The faith that moves mountains is not measured by our ability to attain money, health, or success. The faith that moves mountains is based upon Christ. This faith is a faith that believes that God’s Word will come true in our life. It is marked by spiritual mountains being moved and by us having forgiveness. This is the faith to move mountains.

Do you have it? Is God’s Word at work in your life and are you forgiving others?