Jesus Is The Boss

“For the time is coming,” says the LORD, “when I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. And this will be his name: ‘The LORD Is Our Righteousness.’ In that day Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety.”

It’s impossible to read through the Old Testament and not see the many references and prophecies to Jesus that are made. This is just one example. Of course many people denied the truth about Jesus when he lived on the earth and most in our world continue to disbelieve the claim that Jesus made about himself that he was the Son of God.

Last week we read the story from John 7 where Jesus interrupts a festival to preach his purpose of redeeming people from their sin. And some in the crowd thought that he was the messiah prophesied about in the Old Testament, but, others who didn’t believe him said, “the Scriptures clearly state that the Messiah will be born of the royal line of David, in Bethlehem, the village where King David was born.”

One Old Testament Scripture that they would have referred to was this one in Jeremiah 23. There are two categories of people on earth. There are those that have heard the good news of Jesus and those who haven’t. Of those who have heard, like these folks in John 7 a choice has to be made. Many will not believe his claim. But Jesus wasn’t intimidated by that and neither should we. The priority of Jesus was to get his message out there for those who were open to it. This is our single greatest priority today as his followers. Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

Everybody has a boss. We all know what it means to have a boss. One of the churchy words we use is the word, “Lord”. I don’t think that we have a really good understanding of that word, simply because it’s not a word we use in everyday vernacular. Now I would love it if I came home from work and as soon as I walked in the door Kristi greeted me with, “My lord, it’s good to see you, what can I bring you?” or my kids say, “Oh lord, what an honor it is to sit at your feet and learn from your great wisdom.” In Jesus day that’s how they talked. The word “lord” was meant as a word of respect for someone in authority. The American Standard Version of the Bible is probably as close to a literal translation of the ancient Greek text as any version we have and I searched for the word, “lord”. Jesus said, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his lord” Matthew 10:24.

Jesus used the word “lord” to convey that a servant is not in authority, his master, or boss is. When we use the word boss today we are conveying the basic same idea. A boss is our authority. We do what our boss tells us to do. I have been in a situation in my past where I wasn’t comfortable doing something my boss told me to do, so what do you do in that situation? The boss isn’t going anywhere, so guess what, I had to leave the job. Today we can make that choice if we want to. In Jesus day they didn’t have a choice. Slaves or servants didn’t have a choice but to obey the master, or lord. This is one reason that in a free society we struggle with this word “lord” because we don’t have to submit to authority if we don’t want to. We can simply take another job, or move to another location, we have the freedom to do that. I think it’s great that we have that kind of freedom, we’re blessed. But the downside is that we struggle with what it really means to be under the power of authority. If we don’t like or agree with authority we can protest, or leave the job, we can get a divorce, or move away.

This is why for Jesus followers it’s vital for us to have a better understanding of who Jesus is, why He came and what our response to Him must be. For the last couple of Sundays, we have taken a look at the life of Jesus. We have discussed Jesus as a person and reflected on his personality, priorities and power. Jesus was a human being who existed in the middle eastern region of the world and lived for about 33 years. He claimed to be the Son of God and many who lived during that time believed his claim. After his resurrection the authorities were completely inept at coming up with an explanation that made any sense for how the body of Jesus disappeared and as a result the early church of Jesus exploded. It made more sense to many folks in that day that Jesus did what he said he was going to do, “All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” John 2:19. All of a sudden that comment made sense. The politicians, the Roman Guard, the Saturday School Teachers didn’t have an answer. They had conspiracy theories. We believe that Jesus the person was the Son of God and he raised himself up.