Matthew 22:15-22 Christian Citizens

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And I want to give a shout out to those who are joining us on live stream this morning.

Glad that you guys are able to join us. I can tell by the crowd here that there's probably more on there than normal, and so we recognize that.

And I'm glad that you guys are all able to be here with us, and I'm glad that we have the technology and the ability to allow people to participate who are not comfortable being out yet.

And so we recognize that this is a time that the cases are spiking in our area, and so just really encourage everybody to practice caution as we move forward.

I have noticed, and I am grateful for this, I've noticed that people are wearing more masks here by choice, and I appreciate that.

I think that's a good thing. I think all of us would like to continue to meet in person. And so if we're going to be able to continue to meet, extra caution is essential right now to avoid an outbreak of coronavirus here.

And so just encourage you, if you think of yourself as kind of a high -risk individual, it might be a good season for a week or two to just take this in at home.

And we've got that live stream and that technology able to do that, and recognize that there's a lot of opinions right now going on out there.

Anybody heard an opinion about COVID recently, anything? Anybody ever heard an opinion about politics recently or anything like that?

There's a lot of voices coming at us from different ways. Anybody? A lot of voices out there.

I'm hearing it. I've heard a lot this week. It's been a little bit, just honestly, I would really, really appreciate your prayers.

I've heard a lot of opinions from both sides within five hours. I heard from one couple who was saying there's no way we should ever meet in this context like this.

I heard within just a couple of hours of that, someone who was basically like, you're talking and writing emails about masks,

I don't want to come to your church, I've heard people then an hour later emailing me and saying, how in the world could you ever have church?

And so, I think you guys are hearing the same thing. You're hearing it on both sides, and as a leader, it can be a little bit stressful and a little bit difficult.

And yet at the same time, I just want to encourage us to look at God. How many of you want your pastor listening to all those voices?

Or how many of you want your pastor listening to what God is saying? I hope that you want me to be digging into the

Word and figuring out what God desires for us, and we're trying to move forward. The eldership of this church, the leadership, not just myself,

I'm one of several guys who lead this church, and they are very helpful. We met last Tuesday and talked through all of these things, and I'm confident that we're doing the best that we can, and I hope you are too, that we're trying to listen to God and move forward.

We believe it's vital, vital, vital, it's essential we continue to have an opportunity to gather together. And even as small of a group as this is, we want to provide the opportunity to gather together with God's people in as safe a context as we can.

We're very spread out in this room. I think there's probably 30, there's probably not 40 of us in this room right now, but I can hold 400.

And so, it's, I know the live stream can't see that, and I kind of say that more for their benefit. You guys can look around and see that yourself.

But God has been gracious to us. Hear me carefully. He has been so good to us. But let's be sure that we listen to God, and we're going to listen to God through a message that's kind of interesting on this subject.

It's kind of ironic that he pulls this text to us this week. But let's listen to God to hear

Him say what our role and our responsibility is during this shutdown again. And so, this morning we're going to be looking at a passage that's going to be stretching to many of us.

Stretching, not just, I guess, stretching to us because many of us have political persuasions.

I've talked with many of you about your political persuasions. I know where you're at. Some of you know where I'm at. And so,

I want to point out that when I encounter a text like this, my goal as a pastor is not to read it and then echo to you what resonates in my heart.

That's not what a sermon is to me. A sermon isn't taking God's word and saying, I like that part.

I'm going to share that with my church. I like this part and I'm going to share this with my church. I don't really care about that part that much, so I'm not going to share that with you.

I come to God's word every week with the goal that it would change me and challenge me. And this text challenges me.

This text is difficult for me. It's one that I take on and I go, ah, it's just, it kind of rubs me the wrong way to some degree.

And where the word of God rubs us the wrong way is a place where God, it's just one place where God is kind of leaning in and saying,

I'm still here. I'm still here and I've got truth for you. I've got something for you here that's to change you the way that you see things.

You see, because when I come into a text that says, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, that presses me.

I want to jump to exceptions. What kind of Caesar? A Caesar who's really inefficient with my money?

A Caesar who would use my money to do things that I wouldn't want him to do? Anybody with me on that?

Anybody who has a heart and a mind to look for loopholes? I do. Nobody else wants to raise their hand on that one, but I think a lot of us do.

I think a lot of us like kind of looking for loopholes and look for the exceptions and try to think around the edges of things and how could we get out from underneath this kind of instruction.

But instead of going into the exceptions, this is a text we're looking at this morning that's about normalizing reality.

It's about the normalizing of a relationship between the church and the state and what does that kind of look like?

Earthly government, here's kind of the gist of where we're going to go this morning. Earthly government and the rule of God coexist in this current era, they do.

And the default setting is not, hear me carefully, the default setting is not a rebellion and subversion by His people toward earthly governments.

That's not the default setting. This would be, I hope you can respect how much this would be a question that would be on the forefront of the minds of an occupied

Israel during the life of Jesus. More so even than us, more so than where we stand in our political climate.

This would be an incredible hot button issue. They were occupied by an outside force that dictated their religious practices, dictated their economics, dictated their movement of all different kinds of things, their ability to have their own army, their ability to do anything.

They were completely subjugated by an outside occupying force. And not only that, to the average

Jew, they didn't think they were just occupied by an outside force, they thought they were being occupied by filthy pagan

Romans. I mean like, spit when you say it kind of thing. They assumed that, by the way, the only way that God was going to work in that context was an inevitable overthrow of that Roman power.

And they were looking for it, they were eager for it, they were anticipating it, they told stories to their kids about it, and they hoped for one who would come that would provide that overthrow.

They even placed some of their hopes in Jesus as the one who would start the whole rebellion. Some of them thinking, oh he's a prophet, he's a guy.

I mean you have this really obscure passage where the disciples, the twelve disciples are asking Jesus how many swords should we buy?

We skip over that one. How many swords should we buy, Jesus? If you think about it, that's the mindset that these guys had in this context.

And so here we see that the leaders, the religious leaders of the day, the religious

Jewish leaders of the day, in our text are going to try to lay a trap for Jesus. They hope to get him in trouble.

That's their intention, it says it right in verse 15 right from the start. They want him to be in trouble with the people who didn't like paying taxes to the

Romans, or they hoped he would get in trouble with the Romans for undermining their taxes. But either way they thought they could force

Jesus in this context to indict himself. But instead, Jesus in our text we're going to see with wisdom, resulting in awe and wonder and marveling by the people who are listening to his teaching,

Jesus draws out a much deeper answer from a very simple question.

And they are going to walk away astonished at his teaching, and I hope we do too. I hope this morning that to a person in this room we walk away astonished and marveling at our

Lord and Savior. Now it's humorous that our text has political overtones this week. This is really one of the benefits of teaching verse by verse and chapter by chapter through scripture is that things just come up, things just pop up as we walk through from chapter to chapter, chapter to chapter.

And so many times over the years God gives us just what we need when we need it.

For whatever reason over the summer he did not want to send Song of Songs, and so we didn't do that.

And we probably would have been already moved on to 2 Samuel by now, that was going to be my next sermon series. We're going to get there, we'll get caught up.

But for now, right now, I just have felt conviction by the Spirit to continue to move through Matthew and we continue to do that.

I think that's where we're going to be for a while here and continue to go through the life of Jesus leading right up to his crucifixion and resurrection.

But let's read together, open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22 verses 15 through 22. So, chapter 22 verses 15 to 22, use your device, navigate over there, and let's listen to what

God has to say to us from his word. A correcting word I think to many of us, a word that challenges many of us, and a word that is going to be important for us to apply.

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him along with the

Herodians saying, teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully.

And you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us then what you think.

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, why put me to the test, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin for the tax. And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this?

They said, Caesar's. Then he said to them, therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are

God's. When they heard it, they marveled, and they left him and went away.

Let's pray. Father, I am so grateful that you are a God who gives us a word that speaks right into our circumstances, speaks right into our life.

You are not removed, you have not left us to try to figure these things out to ourselves, but you have revealed to us this amazing reality of the way that you, the way that you have a desire for us to give our whole selves to God, still while maintaining a relationship to the authorities around us.

I truly believe that you are over earthly government. You say as much in your word and in Romans 13 and indications here.

And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to navigate this. It's such a tricky time for us as a culture and as a society, and knowing what do we render to you, and there's so many opinions and so many voices.

I pray that you would help us to hear clearly from you about what you desire of your people. I pray that you would guide us and direct us into truth this morning, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Hey Recast, I'm Jason.

I'm Mark. And we're excited to worship with you today. We have a couple announcements before we get started. The worship folder has a lot of information about what's happening here at Recast.

You can fill out a connection card if you're new to Recast and drop it off at the welcome table. Also inside is an offering envelope.

We don't pass around an offering plate around here at Recast, but if you feel led to give, feel free to drop this off at the same table.

The second session of Recast Bible Institute is coming up soon. Pastor Spencer will be talking about New Testament Survey and Systematic Theology.

More info to come. Next Sunday is our Thanksgiving service.

It's a special service. We have two ways for you to participate. It will be an open mic where you can come up and share your thanks to the

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Also make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the bell for notifications. Thanks for watching. Yay. I do.

I like those video announcements. That's been a fun thing. Fun addition, so. I encourage you to keep your

Bibles open so we can keep our focus on Matthew 22, 15 to 22. As we dig in, we're going to walk through that text and kind of talk about it.

Then we'll sing some songs afterwards and have communion together. But for the past three sermons in Matthew, we've had

Jesus tell three parables all in response to the religious leaders in the temple courtyard.

Jesus was there. He was teaching. They were pressing him, what authority are you teaching?

What basis? They thought that they were the ones in charge of the temple. So they were basically challenging him, what gives you the right to do these miracles and what power, what authority are you doing this?

So they were challenging that. Now our text this morning is the first of three questions that we're going to see over the next couple of weeks that the religious leaders asked

Jesus in order to trip him up. So we're kind of seeing a couple of threes here. Three stories, parables that Jesus told, and then three questions that he's going to answer.

So this is the first of three. We see that in this last week of his life, remembering that from the date that he's being asked these questions and challenged by the religious leaders and authorities, he's only a few days out from being crucified.

This is his last week of life and he's dealing with these kinds of questions and this kind of challenge to him.

We see that the religious leaders are really turning up the pressure on Jesus, and so he's kind of starting, for the first time in all of his ministry, he's starting to give it back to them.

They wanted to see him fail. He was in the way of their religious power and their authority, and so he was kind of in their way and starting to draw followers away from them, and so you can imagine some of the thoughts that might be rummaging around in their mind, and they're like, we need to get rid of this guy.

So in verse 15 we see the intention of the Pharisees immediately exposed. We don't have any guesswork as to the nature or the reason why they're asking the questions that they're asking.

They're not coming to Jesus in this next passage, hoping to get more information. They are not deeply concerned for the things that they're asking about.

As a matter of fact, Jesus is going to rightly call them hypocrites. He's going to say, you're acting like you want to know. You're acting like you're really curious about these things.

You're even trying to act like you like me. But they are, what they're doing, it says in verse 15, they're plotting, they're scheming.

They're actually trying to craft a question. They're getting together, kind of off to the side, having a conversation.

How can we trap him? How can we get rid of him? How can we ensnare him and entangle him? And in many ways, they're looking for ways to get rid of Jesus that doesn't involve them looking like the bad guys.

You see, the average person during this time, they're kind of interested in prophets. And this teacher has come into Jerusalem, and he's there, and he's teaching wisdom, and he's gathering a crowd because people are like, man, this guy knows what he's talking about.

He seems pretty solid. He's speaking with authority. And it was all throughout Jesus's life that the masses and the crowds were like, man, this guy's got a lot going on.

And so they want to get rid of him, but they don't want to look like the bad guys. How are they going to do that? So what would be perfect for them in the perfect world for the religious leaders, they're thinking it would be great to trick the

Romans into getting him out of the way. If we could just get them involved. And so that's why they're starting to lean into these kinds of political questions.

Should you support Rome? Should you not support Rome? That's why they're asking this. By the way, that very plot, the very intention behind the plot of this question will be the demise of Jesus, will actually be his crucifixion.

They're actually going to be successful in getting the Romans to crucify him. That's going to happen. And so the very seeds of this question and this animosity and this hoping to ensnare him, it's not that his answer to the question gets it done, it's that their lies, they eventually begin to manufacture lies that he's claiming to be a king who's going to overthrow

Rome. He's claiming that he's higher than Caesar. And so that's going to be the indictment, king of the

Jews. That's what's over the top of his head in the writing on the cross, right? King of the

Jews. That's what he's going to get in trouble for and not having done anything wrong. So their plot involves some of their less known disciples.

What they decided to do is they said, we're not going to go talk to him, he knows us. So the Pharisees by this point probably had had enough interaction with Jesus down over the course of his life that they knew him and he knew them and they knew that he would potentially be defensive or onto them right away.

And so they think they can connive and send some of their disciples, some of the Pharisee wannabes are involved in this text.

And so they are the ones who they put up to going to Jesus and posing this question that they've come up with.

And the Pharisees, according to verse 16, team up with a group known as the Herodians. Now we don't know a lot about the

Herodians, but just by their name alone, it's pretty clear from historians that these are people who would have had their allegiance to the dynasty of the

Herods. Now the Herods were a group of kings that had passed on from father to son, father to son among the

Jews. They were Jewish kings, but they were puppets during this time, puppets of Rome. These were

Jewish families of kings who were permitted to remain in authority over the Jewish people as long as they remained loyal and worked with the

Roman occupiers. So in one sense, to be a Herodian or to be a follower of Herod was to be a person who kind of sold yourself out to the occupiers.

Sold your own people out for your own benefit, for your own power, your clout, your authority. The Herods were wealthy.

They were kind of like just tons of money flowing in and out of the hands of the Herods. Because they were going out in the desert and building palaces and all that that entailed, they had tons of money because they were in with the

Romans and the Romans wanted to prop them up because then they could have authority over the Jews through the

Herods. This means that the Herodians, who come along with the Pharisees in this context, would have been sympathetic to Rome.

But what is helpful to understand is that this combination of the Pharisees and the Herodians would be like water and oil.

They didn't mix often. These two groups would not agree on much. But what they are able to come together on, what they are able to agree on is that Jesus is in their way.

An enemy of my enemy can sometimes be my friend. And so that's kind of the notion that's going on here.

These two groups would not like each other very much, but he is a risk to the Herodians if he truly thinks himself to be a king.

And he's in the way of the Pharisees if he is truly teaching with the authority of God. So both would like to see him exposed as a fraud.

And so they come together in this question to try to root him out and expose him as a fraud.

So they pose a culturally and politically charged question to Jesus in verse 17, a very pointed question. Is it lawful, and here

I'm going to change a word in here, see if you can find it, look at your text and see if you can find the word that I changed. Is it lawful to donate taxes to Caesar or not?

That's the word that's kind of used there. You may notice that I changed the word from pay to donate.

That's because that word in Greek there has more of a nuance of generosity in the payment that is required.

It's a guided and leading question that they're asking him. The way the question is posed shows the

Pharisees bent to see Roman law as an option. They bend the question in that direction hoping to catch

Jesus in an openly rebellious answer. What they want him to say is of course you shouldn't give your money to that filthy government.

Of course you shouldn't give your money to Caesar. And so they bend it that way. Is it even right for you to donate your taxes to Rome?

To give money generously to Rome? It's obvious that this was a place where God's law,

God's law appeared to come in conflict with man's law for the religious Jews. Man's law, pay the taxes to Caesar.

God's law have nothing to do with those filthy pagans. That's their opinion. So they had religious tithes to give.

They had the temple tax to pay. They had other things, religious duties to give for their money.

And now the Romans are coming in and interfering with even that. They're taking away money that ought to be used in the service of God or at least to line my pocket.

And further, the Romans used that money they collected for all kinds of awful things, didn't they? And maybe at this point, the text applies pretty directly to some of our lives.

Maybe this is a place where suddenly it's kind of like there's not much difference between Rome and America.

There's not much difference between the way that we view taxes and the way that they viewed taxes, right? Are you getting what I'm saying on that? This might come over pretty directly to us.

I don't want you to raise your hand on these next two questions. I want you to just internalize these. Anybody else ever thought that the government might not be great stewards of your money?

Anybody else ever question the types of things that your money that you pay for in taxes, what kind of things it pays for and where it goes and what it does?

I think probably most of us, anybody here that's paid taxes probably thought a couple questions like that. But please don't lose sight of what

Rome was. Jesus is talking about the government He was born and raised under.

And it was wicked. It was terrible. It was a crazy wicked culture.

Prostitution was common and legal. Homosexuality was sanctioned all the way up to the emperor himself.

Abortion was commonplace, especially of little girls. And so the

Jews asked Jesus, is it even permitted for a good Jew to donate taxes to a cause like that?

Look at verse 18. Jesus doesn't go straight for the answer. He's going to give a little bit of an object lesson here, but first He's going to get down to their hearts.

He knows what's going on in their hearts. Jesus was aware of the plot. He knew the evil intentions of their heart even to the degree that He uses the word malice here in the text.

He knew this was a temptation to failure and that they were trying to indict Him. And He outright calls them hypocrites.

Now their hypocrisy comes from something I skipped over just real quick in verse 16. We'll go back to it here for a second. Their hypocrisy comes in the form of flattery.

You see these Pharisees and Herodians heaped a bunch of flattery on Him for the purpose of the people.

So only because there's a crowd around Him. I don't think they talk to Him this way if there's not a crowd. But because there's a crowd around Jesus and they're paying attention to this, they want to look generous.

They want to look gracious. They want to look kind. So they come to Him, oh good teacher, rabbi, great teacher, a man of truth.

I think that all of this is said with kind of like a little bit of pomp and arrogance. You are a truthful man who always speaks the truth.

They're building Him up, but they're also setting Him up. They rightly identify by the way. They have some good theology about Jesus here, ironically.

These people are trying to trip Him up, but they get all of this flattery is just absolutely true.

You see, you're not a man swayed by appearances. In other words, Jesus was not the kind of guy who answered to the rich one way and answered to the poor another.

He wouldn't tell you what He thought you wanted to hear. He was a man of the truth.

How many of you are glad that your Savior and your Lord is a man of truth? Always, always, always on the side of the truth.

A guy comes and says, hey, I'll give you a million dollars if you'll say this about me.

He couldn't be bought. He wasn't a man of appearances. He didn't care who He was talking to.

He just cared about the truth, and He was going to bring that at all times, and they say that about Him.

They say, well, you know, you're not a guy who pulls punches. You'll say it like it is. And they were, of course, right about all of that. But if that's truly what they thought of Him, this is where the hypocrisy comes in.

If that's what they really thought of Him, then they are doing a truly, truly wicked and evil act trying to trap a man like this.

By the way, the beauty is they don't only say you speak the truth. They're basically saying it is in your integrity.

It's a part of who you are. We know this about you. You are a truthful man who then speaks the truth.

They're hypocrites, by the way, the Greek word. The word hypocrite gets really muddied down in our mind, and so when you hear the word hypocrite, ask yourself if the word actor fits there, and if it does, then you're on the right track.

The word, the Greek word is literally actor. You're acting a part, but not really the thing that you're acting.

And so they were acting kind to Him. They were acting gracious. They were acting like they really wanted to know. They were acting like they just really needed this information about Roman law and what should we do, and there was no integrity behind that at all.

That's not at all. They were playing a part, straight up, acting. So Jesus knows the intentions of their heart.

He says, it's malice. It's evil what you're trying to do. So we asked them to bring Him a coin that would be used to pay this tax.

Now, the tax they're likely referring to here is a poll tax or a head tax, a particularly insidious and kind of gross kind of tax.

It's super annoying type of tax levied on all citizens for making it to adulthood, basically.

It's a head tax, count the heads, tax them all, kind of the gist of it. What I mean by that is it's not based on income or the movement of goods or it's not tied to any type of specific government benefit.

We have a few of those, too, in our culture and society, don't we? So Jesus cryptically tells them, give me a coin, give me one of the coins that you would use to pay this specific type of tax.

Now, it would be a one -day coin, the coin that would be worth a day's work, a denarius.

And they had to go find a denarius. Now, the Greek, you don't get it so well in English, but the indication is that none of them could reach in their pockets or their purse and grab a coin.

They didn't have this coin on them. They're good Jews. They're actually in the temple courtyard.

Now, when you think, when I say in the temple, they're not in a building, they're in a courtyard outside. It's a walled -in courtyard with just gates and some stairs, wide stairways going up into this large, flat, paved area.

The temple's there in sight, in the middle of it, but that's where this teaching is going on there.

And he says, go get me a coin. They have to go. They might even have to leave and go down the steps out of the temple to get a denarius.

There's a reason for that. The Jews hated that coin. They didn't even want to touch it. They didn't want to keep it in their presence.

Part of the reason is because it actually, the coin itself, spoke against a lot of their central beliefs.

It had on it the image of Tiberius Caesar on one side, and the image of the goddess of peace,

Pax, on the other side. And we found many of these. You've got a picture of one up there.

And even the inscriptions were blasphemous to the Jews. What it says on that very coin, on one side it says,

Tiberius, the son of the divine Augustus, ascribing divinity to the

Caesars. The other side declared Tiberius Caesar, the high priest of peace, the high priest of peace.

So Jesus draws attention to those corruptions. Where's he going with this?

Give me a coin. Who is that? And what does it say? Who put that inscription on there?

How many of you think that if you were in the crowd, you would have a notion of what direction he was going with this? Who has uttered these blasphemies?

Who has taken upon himself to put his own image on a piece of metal and share it with all of you?

They hated images. They despised it according to the Ten Commandments. They didn't want images of God. They didn't want images of other things.

Who put this inscription on here? He draws attention by asking them to identify who did this.

The question is really impressive, actually. Who's responsible for this coin? Because at this point in the event, nobody who's listening really knows where Jesus is going.

Should we pay taxes to Romans? The question. Well, bring me a coin. Whose image on it? And who inscribed these blasphemies?

Now, he didn't call them blasphemies in the text, but there's no question that he and all those Jews listening knew exactly what he was getting at.

So in verse 21, they answered with a one -word answer. What was it? Caesar. Caesar.

And they are absolutely correct. Whose image is it? Who wrote these inscriptions and these blasphemous pronouncements?

Now, if you're in the crowd, I think you're wondering, is he going to do it? Is this the time?

Is this the revolt? Is this the insurrection? Is this the moment where he's going to speak it and say, be done with Rome?

Look at this. Look at this blasphemy. Look at this image. Look at this inscription. If you're in that crowd, what are you expecting to do next?

Is he going to speak against Rome in their taxation right now? He has drawn attention to their blasphemies.

And what he says, I hope that puts it in the context of how radical it is what he says next.

I think we might have missed it when he says, give it back to Caesar. It's his.

Make sure that you give God the things that belong to God. This is money.

Just give it to him. It's his. In this one phrase, Jesus is showing the amazing lack of grip that money and treasure had on his heart.

Do you see it there? It's got his picture on it, give it to him. And further,

I think that another application and understanding is the role that money or the lack of a role that money really does play in his kingdom.

Just think about what he's getting at here. This coin, sure it represents a day's work.

It's got the emperor's image on it, just he asked for it, give it back to him. Now Jesus wasn't dumb about money.

Hear me carefully. I think he knew fully well what the coin represents work. It's not just a piece of metal. It's not as if Jesus is saying, you know, it's like the equivalent of finding a goat that has

Caesar's brand on its hind quarter, so you give it back to him because it's clearly Caesar's.

He's not being that kind of dumb about money. Money represents work and labor.

We know that. Jesus knew that. And still with that in mind, knowing that every

Jew who ever paid a denarius or was paid a denarius had to spend a day of work to get it, they should still give that denarius to pay the head tax or the poll tax to a corrupt government.

Jesus is teaching us something deeper about his kingdom in this text. If we came into this text with any notions of a theocracy that God was going to set up where Jesus was going to rule

America here and now, it should be shattered by the end of this text. That is not the image of the way the government and the church work together.

The secular government of Rome, Jesus is here basically saying they were a legitimate authority in his eyes.

And if there was ever a time for him to establish himself as a revolutionary against Rome, it would have been this text.

It would have been now. Look at this blasphemy. Look at the way that they roll.

Look at the things that they do. Of course you don't give your money to that. No, he didn't.

When instead he calls his people to fulfill their obligation to the ruling authorities and to God.

He didn't have to add that. We're going to get there in kind of the application portion of the message. But he's asked a question about Rome, and he cannot leave

God out of it. You have to understand that rendering to Caesar what belongs to Caesar always, let me just ask you a question and that will get to the point.

Who has more authority, God or Caesar? Do you have an angle on that?

Do you have a direction that that leads? You do. But he has no less calling you to respect your government here.

Obligation to beholden to God and to those over you. It's not defined, it's not defined directly, the things, the word things, if you were just to do a study on the word things throughout the

New Testament, you would find that there's some things that need to be defined. There's stuff that, the word is used enough that you have to define it and it forces you to think.

So what are the things that you render, give to Caesar what is his, and give to God the things that belong to him?

What are those things? It doesn't say. So you have to wrestle with that, you have to think through, what are the things in context?

Since Jesus has just told them to give Caesar the things that bear his image and his inscription, it seems like a reasonable stretch to say that the parallel would be to give to God the things that bear his image and his inscription.

What bears the image of God? What bears the inscription of God?

And there's only one thing in all of creation that bears God's image.

What is it? Humans. Humanity. Us. Our lives.

Our hearts. Our very selves. And further, I would even go so far as to say we bear his inscription.

That we have a law written on our hearts. We have all of humanity, all humans down through history and tribes and all around the world have within them an eternity that's set in their heart.

They have within them a worship that is set in their heart. They have within them a moral code that is set in their heart.

So that at the end of the day, even those without the gospel are still without excuse, the word says.

All of us have it written on our hearts. We all have the knowledge that there is a God and that there is a moral code.

We are those who bear his image and his inscription. And therefore, what are we being told to do in this text?

Give to God what belongs to God, our very selves. To give to God the things that are his or to give our very lives to him.

The Pharisees in training, the Pharisee wannabes here in the text and the Herodians marveled at this response from Jesus.

Marveled. They were in awe. They were astonished. They were shocked. They walked away amazed at his ability to get out of their trap.

Jesus was able to outthink them with the truth. And so here are four applications that come naturally out of this text.

Now, whenever I draw out applications, I have to confess that as a pastor, for a while, it took me a while at the start of Recast to even want to give you applications at the end of the message because I'm so desirous of the spirit to communicate with you.

And I fear sometimes that by giving you my applications that it might muddy what the spirit wants to say to you. So just listen to him and some of these might resonate with you too.

Maybe one of these is the very one that you need to take on. These are things that God has pressed on me from this text, but I want to make sure that you understand that it might hit you in a different way.

But the first is kind of on the surface, but it's worth stating directly, don't try to outsmart

Jesus. Now, I'm not sure anybody in this room really sets out to trap Jesus like that's ever been a stated goal or stated purpose,

I'm going to trick him. But we may try to negotiate with him from time to time. Have any of you ever tried to get him to compromise or come halfway?

There's a big reason and it's kind of mentioned in this text why Jesus doesn't come halfway. He's the truth.

He's the truth. He's not going to bend. He's not going to flex. Jesus doesn't compromise to your agenda or to your plans.

And so trying to outsmart him or trying to get him to come over to your side, that's just flat out dangerous. Because at the end of the day, any place that he would come aside from the truth where he stands would be a compromise to your detriment, it would be bad for you.

But there's all different kinds of ways we might try to outsmart him. We might try to outsmart him by hiding our sin from him.

Anybody ever try to hide a sin? There's one who always knows. Or even another way that we try to outsmart him,

I'll just sin today and I'll ask for forgiveness tomorrow. Or we might look for loopholes, loopholes to the way that he has instructed us, to the guidance that he gives us, to the things that are difficult that we don't want to hear him on.

And so rather than even just try to negotiate, we just look for ways out, well maybe he didn't mean it that way or maybe he didn't, you know, there's some kind of way

I can wiggle out from underneath this. But the end result of those who tried to outsmart Jesus in Scripture was always amazement in his wisdom and teaching.

He's always right. Don't try to outsmart him. The second thing is, hear me carefully, give to the government their due.

Give to the government their due. Now, I have no problem pointing to this passage as an outright declaration that we are not permitted to cheat on our taxes with any justification.

There's absolutely no grounds upon which you can cheat on your taxes and be in compliance with what

Jesus is instructing for his followers here. There's just no way around it. What would be even worse would be any kind of justification that tried to cheat our government based on some kind of spiritual justification.

They use the money for wicked things, they're corrupt, we could think of all kinds of spiritual reasons why we could justify ourselves in not giving them money, even just all the way down to something that's less spiritual, but they're just not very efficient, they're corrupt.

But as uncomfortable as this text may make some of us, I cannot read it and come away with any lesson about my relationship to the governing authorities that doesn't include me paying the taxes that I owe them.

Do you see how direct it is in this text? Do you see it? How many of you, raise your hand if you see this as a pretty direct correlation.

Just be honest with your taxes, be honest with your taxes, it's straight up. It's a very direct application, very direct teaching, and there's no way that I can get out of this text.

Well, sometimes I don't have to, sometimes I can be dishonest, there's just no room for that.

Now, a quick statement here, some of you have been trying to figure out the exceptions and the loopholes for this entire message, but this is not a passage about loopholes, it's not a passage about exceptions, it's a passage about the normalizing of a relationship between the people of God and the state, and this is our

Lord and Master talking to us here. And He says, give to the government what belongs to the government, subversion is not the normal relationship between the church and the state.

I'm not going to go much further than the text goes in sharing my political persuasions here. I don't know that that would bring much benefit for you to hear what my thoughts are about all of this, but the third point comes to bear with the force like the second point, only stronger because of who it's talking about.

We talked about that just briefly a second ago. Give to the government their due, but that has a limitation, has a limitation, because the third point in the text is this, give to God His due.

Give to God His due. You are created in the image of God, recast, and you bear

His inscription on your heart in a morality and an eternity that is written on every human heart.

Bearing His image, bearing His inscription. Let the government have their money, but you let the

Lord have you. Let the Lord have you. Yes your time, yes of your resources, yes of your talents, of your love, of your devotion, of your commitment, of your obedience.

Let Him have you. Let Him have your heart. That must flavor the second application, because God is always to be the highest, and that is why

Jesus introduced obligation to God in the midst of a discussion about obedience to the ruling authorities.

Why does He even go there? Why doesn't He just stick with, do what the government tells you? Because we know that we also have a

God to serve. I have to say, in all honesty, it just, you know,

I said this in the first service, and I mean, this is kind of where I went off script a little bit. There's been a lot of pressure, and I mentioned that earlier on in the message.

There's been a lot of pressure from both sides right now, and I want to hear from God, and I want to hear what He's saying in all of this to me.

And at the end of the day, are we going to be a people of faith?

Not a people of ignorant faith, but a people of trust in God. I recognize that there's dozens of reasons why you might feel comfortable being here.

I recognize that there's dozens of reasons why people that are taking this in on the live stream are not here, and not all of them are good reasons.

God does not call us to a spirit of anxiety, He does not call us to a spirit of fear, and we may need to confess that before Him.

But neither does He call us to a spirit of arrogant, uncaring, unloving attitude to the world.

We have to, I think all of us can be indicted in some way this morning. Where's our heart in all of this?

I do believe, by the way, I think you can tell by the fact that we have a gathering this morning, the direction that I lean.

I lean towards the belief that we are called to be a people of faith, and that the primary thing that the church needs to be right now is there for people, demonstrating to them that there is not only hope in this life.

How many of you have actually wrestled with your mortality at all this year? Anybody? Any of you known that this could take you?

Because that's real, and if you're not there, then you're not facing reality. This is a real disease that kills real people, and we know that, so we don't face this blindly as if it can't touch me,

I'm a Christian. That's not the faith I'm talking about here, guys. It's a faith that says, though he slay me,

I will trust in him, and he very well may. Though I go into the fire like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, he can save me, but he's not obligated to, and yet I will trust him, because I believe that this life is not all that there is.

Yes, it's a tragedy when one life is lost, because every life is sacred, but we know that we're mortal, and so what is our calling, church, our calling to love?

I honestly haven't said this to the church at all, I've said this to my family, and I've been wrestling with it in my mind, where was the church in history in the past pandemics?

Is it because we know more about science that we withdraw now, or is our calling still the same?

Who ran the hospitals in Europe during the bubonic plague? Who was at the forefront of taking care of the sick and the dying during the

Spanish flu? It was those who knew where they were going, those who had hope, those who said,

I wouldn't want a non -Christian caring for that person, because I know where they go, so I'll go.

You get it? It's a calling, and not only that, but just that we are here gathered, because how many of you would just confess,

I need people, I need encouragement, I need to gather and sing, and maybe more so because of the darkness, right?

Maybe more so in these next three weeks, because all the more because the darkness is real, and with care and with caution, and again,

I just look and I say, yeah, we're a small group, and that's okay too, and none of this is meant to malign anyone who is listening in on the live stream, we love you, and we long for the time that we can all be together, and at the same time, we look at this and we say, we want to hear from God, and hearing from God might mean that some of you here aren't here next week by conviction, and some of you on live stream might be here next week by conviction, and we have to listen to God and hear from Him where we're at right now.

I want you to do an actual practice this week, thinking about giving God His due, and ask yourself, maybe this is a question around your table at lunch today, or with your family sometime this week, but what is something that you've been withholding from God?

Spend some time this week asking Him to reveal what it is that you've been withholding from Him, and then yield that up to Him.

Now, it may be a kindness He's calling you to offer to others in love, something that's been tough for you.

It may be a trust in Him that gives over your fears and anxieties to Him. Anxiety is a sin, because it betrays a lack of faith and trust, and yet an arrogant attitude towards those living in fear and anxiety is equally a sin, and that leads to the last application here.

Marvel at Jesus. So our applications were, don't try to outsmart Jesus, give to our government their due, give to God His due, and lastly, marvel at Jesus.

In our text, the religious leaders marveled at Jesus, and all that they had was just a little snippet of His teaching here, and they're astonished.

But we have the big picture, don't we? We have this glorious big picture of what Jesus has done.

We know His incarnation. We know His sinless life. We know His sacrifice on the cross. We know His resurrection, and we even look forward to His return, do we not?

I look forward to His return. In my quiet time the other day, I was reading in Revelation, the very beginning of Revelation, and there's this beautiful picture,

John, the Apostle John, and he's encountering the risen Lord, and all of His splendor and His glory, and it says

His eyes were like burning flames and He's just dressed out in pure white, and John falls on His face.

Now, this is John who rode a boat with Jesus. This is John who ate meals with Jesus. This is

John who saw Jesus crucified, and his response to seeing the risen Lord is to fall down on His face in terror, and what does

Jesus do? He reaches down and touches Him. Like, I love that.

He doesn't just speak to Him. He touches Him and says, arise, fear not, and do you know what the basis

He gives for not fearing? I was dead, but now I am alive forevermore.

What is the hope that Jesus gives to John? Death is in my pocket.

I own it now. I've conquered it. Church, that is, how many of you marvel at that?

It's His. He totally owned it and conquered it, and He is victorious over it, and He's offering that same conquest to all of us by faith in Him.

That is the hope. Not that we make it through this pandemic alive. The hope is the life to come.

It's the resurrection. Trust in that by faith. Marvel at Jesus.

We know the work that He's done for us. So if you've asked Jesus to forgive you, if you've asked Him to be your Lord and Savior and to forgive you of your sins, you've invited

Him to be in charge of your life, then take communion this morning with grateful and marveling hearts.

Be astonished with Him again, and let this communion be a time of remembering all that He went through to save His people.

Let's pray. Father, I thank You for the hope that we have in Christ. I pray that You would just guide and direct each one of us into the application that You desire for us.

I recognize that this is going to hit so many people in so many different ways. Some people may even be angry about this message on both sides.

So Father, I pray that You would help us wherever we're at, that You would correct us. Father, I'm convinced that many of us have arrogance in our heart that needs to be corrected on both sides, that many of us have fear in our hearts that needs to be corrected on both sides.

And Father, I pray that You would help us to hear Your voice over the cacophony of so many other voices, scientific journals and news articles and this and this and this and people's opinions and other churches trying to speak in our church and other, just so many voices.

Father, speak clearly to us. We want to hear from You.

Thank You for the sacrifice of Your Son. Help us to marvel in Christ and the great victory

He has bought for us, that we celebrate now by taking the juice that represents His blood and the cracker that remembers, that helps us to remember

His body that was broken for us. We love You, Jesus.

We want to honor You in the things that we do, and we want to love our community and our neighbors well. In Jesus' name, amen.