Articles
Who's In Charge Here?
Luke 20:1-26
Jesus made plenty of waves that disturbed the religious rulers of his day. This conflict reached a boiling point during the week leading up to the Passover before his death. Yet every time his authority was challenged, Jesus flawlessly and skillfully rebuffed the chief priests, scribes, and elders. They took offense and felt threatened because, as Jesus’s parable of the wicked tenants illustrates (vv. 9-18), they saw themselves as the religious authority of God’s people instead of God Himself.
Don’t we do this in our own lives? We consider ourselves master of our own fate, when it is really God who gives us life and breath and everything (Acts 17:25). Or perhaps we don’t like to admit what the rulers were also ashamed to acknowledge: popular opinion and the influence of societal pressures can hold sway over our hearts and minds (see v. 6). We even look to world organizations and institutions of power when we think their agendas can serve our own advantage (20-22).
Look around at your life right now. Who is in charge? Each of us answers this question and lives accordingly whether we realize it or not, but the reality is that Jesus is Lord of all. His authority is from heaven (vv. 4-5), that of God Himself. His power reigns supreme so that no other authority can overcome Him (18). And His domain remains unlimited, so that nothing is outside the scope of “the things that are God’s” (25). It’s one thing to comprehend these facts. But to live according to them means to obey Jesus’s rule over our thoughts, our bodies, our homes, our work, our worship of Him, and every other facet of life.
