Trying Not to Offend (Sermon)

Let's once again open up to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 17.

Matthew chapter 17, and the title of this morning's message is Trying Not to

Offend.

Okay, trying not to offend.

Now as Christians who believe the Bible, if we talk about our faith, if we share

our faith, no doubt about it, people will be offended at

times.

Have you ever offended somebody just by bringing up the name of Jesus?

Probably.

So when we talk about trying not to offend, because in this passage, Jesus takes this

approach where he says, listen, you know, I could do this, but that would offend them.

So as not to offend, we're going to go this other direction.

So Jesus used wisdom and didn't want to offend people on this one occasion.

Here's what we're not talking about this morning.

We're not talking about compromising.

We're not talking about watering down the message to get people, you know, more

comfortable with things.

You know, we don't want to compromise.

We don't want to do that.

But at the same time, Christianity itself, just the Gospel message itself can be

offensive to some people.

Just our, you know, sense of morality based on the 10 Commandments can

be, you know, offensive because it's so out of step with the world.

So the reality is, you know, we're going to offend at times anyways.

We don't want to try and offend people, you know, if we can avoid at times offending people,

we want to make sure that we avoid it, if at all possible.

So we're going to learn some principles here about Jesus.

In last week's message, remember there was a bunch of people around Christ and he made a statement about that being an

unfaithful and perverse generation.

He probably offended a few people, but here they ask him if he's going to, or they asked Peter, does

your master pay the temple tax?

And Jesus knew if he didn't pay the tax, he would end up offending many

of the Jews.

So Jesus didn't want to offend.

This wasn't worth it.

You know, it's really about picking your battles, I think.

So let's try to see what we can learn from this passage, Matthew 17, 24 through

27.

It says, when they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax

came to Peter and said, does your teacher not pay the temple tax?

Notice how they're framing this, you know, does he not pay it?

So there's like something built into the question.

And Peter says, yes.

We're not even sure that Peter knows he's just saying, yes, he pays.

And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him saying, what do you think,

Simon, for whom did the kings of the earth take customs or taxes

from their own sons or from strangers?

You know, do kings tax their own children or do they tax their subjects?

And Peter said to him, their subjects, they tax, take the tax from strangers.

And Jesus said to him, then the sons are free.

Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a

hook and take the fish that comes up first.

And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money and take that and give it to

them for me and for you.

So you see Jesus performs this miracle where they pay the tax.

It's not even really coming out of their own pocket.

But why did Jesus do that?

So as not to offend, what was the goal of Jesus and the disciples?

I mean, what did they really want?

Most of all, ideally, they wanted people to believe on

Jesus as the Messiah.

And if they're going around offending people over tax issues, I mean, that's just not really

helping the cause.

So again, trying to find out when we want to take a stand, when it's not worth it, pick your battles.

And we'll talk about that more in a moment.

Let's just start with verse 24 and go through some of these verses.

See what we can get from this.

It says that Jesus and his disciples came to Capernaum.

This is located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Capernaum was known as the town of Jesus.

Back in Matthew chapter nine, verse one, it's referred to as his own city.

Now when you think of Jesus, his own city, what do you think of?

Nazareth.

Yeah, you probably would think of Nazareth.

He was born in Bethlehem, but he grew up in Nazareth.

He was called a Nazarene, but during his three and a half year ministry, he spent so much

time in the Galilee region, so much time in Capernaum, that was considered his home.

Now as for this temple tax, all Jewish males over the age of 20

were expected to pay half a shekel once a year, and that was the

equivalent of about two days' pay.

So this would help to fund the upkeep and the service of the temple, and it's like, you know, with the

church, you give money for the ministry of the church and obviously for paying the bills and

the upkeep, and it's the same with the temple.

So the Jews would pay this temple tax for all the things going on in the temple.

Basically, it says it's a tax, but it's questionable whether or not it was

absolutely mandatory.

From what I understand, it was based on an Old Testament concept, but you know how

the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders were, they kind of added traditions, so

it wasn't what it was originally meant to be.

So what it started out as, it kind of developed into something to where now, in

order to be seen as a faithful Jew, in order to be seen as a

faithful Jewish man, you needed to pay the tax, even though technically it

wasn't binding under the law of Moses, if you wanted to be technical about it.

So the idea is that Jesus would pay, otherwise if he didn't pay, you know, he's

questionable.

Is he really, you know, is he patriotic?

Is he really a true Jew if he won't pay the tax?

That's basically why they come to him and frame it that way.

You know, does he really not pay?

Is that how they said it?

They made it sound like it was in question.

So the people coming to Jesus probably are trying to make him look bad or, you know, questioning Peter,

putting them on the spot, as they often did.

So again, to be seen as a loyal Jew, you were expected to pay this tax.

You know, it got me thinking, are there any things today that, in order to be a faithful

Christian, you know, traditions have developed that in order to be a faithful believer, you need to do

this or you need to do that.

Does anyone come up with an example?

A tradition, something that's developed that in order to be seen as a faithful believer, you need to

do something, even though technically it's not commanded in the word of God.

Does anyone have any examples?

Don't judge.

Okay.

Okay.

That's, that's, that's true.

I'm sure we have these types of things as well, but just to spend a moment on this idea

of giving and giving to the temple and the temple tax.

I mean, rarely do I preach about money and giving, but you know, since it's

brought up here and since we're doing a Sunday school series about finances,

honoring God and your finances, I figure this would be a good a time as any.

Basically the situation here is there's a, there's a difference between

new Testament giving and old Testament giving.

Are they under the old covenant at this point or are they under the new covenant?

Technically they're still under the old covenant right now.

So in Israel, a church and state at this point, in a sense, were

connected.

And this was true in old, old Testament, Israel, the offering, certainly the tithe that was

part of the law.

So that was part of the law of Moses.

It was the law of the land.

Do you remember that verse in Malachi about robbing God Malachi three,

eight says, will a man rob God yet you have robbed me.

But you say in what way have we robbed you well in tithes and offerings.

So if an old Testament believer was not paying their tithe, they were violating the law

and they were, that was seen as robbing God.

Now, how much is a tithe?

You probably heard about the church that in order to try to get more people to come, the pastor decided we're going to

lower the tithe to 9%.

And that kind of boosted attendance.

And then the church down the road heard about it and the pastor said, yeah, we're going to lower our tithe to

7%.

And then more people started going, well, you know, I don't think that really happened because a tithe is

10%.

You can't lower the tithe, but it was seen as mandatory.

And even though this temple tax technically wasn't mandatory under the law, it

had basically become that.

That's how it was seen today.

We're not under the old covenant, are we?

We're not under the law.

There is no temple to pay a temple tax.

So today, because we're living, especially because we're living not only in the new Testament,

we're living in a land where the church and the state are separate.

People today sometimes have the mindset that, yes, giving was mandatory back

then, but giving today is optional.

I talked to a woman one time who grew up Catholic and she said that, you know, growing up, church

attendance and giving, even giving the tithe, she said it was seen as a sin to

neglect this.

If you didn't go to mass and if you didn't pay your tithe, I mean, they really held you accountable.

And she said, but for us as Protestants, she said, it's all optional.

I'm like, well, I don't know if it's quite like that, but that's the idea some people have.

But taxes in our society are mandatory, right?

What would happen if you didn't pay your taxes?

You know, you'd get a fine.

I don't know.

I've never, thankfully, I've never.

You get a fine, I think it starts with a fine.

And then of course, if some people owe too much money, they end up going to prison.

So because the weight of the government is not behind giving with the church, I mean, sometimes

people think, well, we can sort of get away with it.

And from God's perspective, that's not the way it is, right?

What does the Bible say about the New Testament?

I don't want this to be a whole sermon on giving, so I'll just say one thing about it.

Second Corinthians nine, six through seven says, he who sows sparingly

will also reap sparingly.

And he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly

or of necessity for God loves a cheerful giver.

And even that was more of a one -time love offering as we would call it more than weekly

giving because Paul speaking to the Corinthians and first Corinthians 16 to tells

the church members to lay up something aside on the first day of the week.

We know that that's Sunday.

So all that to say this, there's a big difference between Old Testament giving and New Testament

giving.

But if they didn't give to the temple, what would happen?

Temple might fall into disrepair.

Things would go bad in Israel.

Would God bless them if they weren't giving to the

service of God?

No, he wouldn't.

And I think that same principle applies today.

If we don't give to the Lord's work, we can't expect him to bless

us either.

But back to the text here, verse 25, they come to Jesus

asking him, or they asked Peter verse 25 says that Peter, when he had come into the house,

Jesus anticipates him because I think Peter just answered without really knowing.

They're trying to trap him maybe and Peter just wants to protect Jesus and he says, okay, of

course Jesus pays the temple tax and then he's going to go into the house and say that I was right.

Right.

You do pay the tax, don't you?

I mean, that's the impression that I get.

So it says when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him saying, what do you think Simon?

Jesus doesn't even really address this, but he's, he gets into this other conversation from who do the

kings of the earth take customs or taxes from their sons or from

strangers?

Now why is Jesus asking this question?

Well, it's based on the fact that the temple is whose house.

We could say that the temple is the house of God, the father, and Jesus

is the father's son.

So the question about kings collecting taxes, they don't collect taxes from their

own children.

Therefore does Jesus really have to pay the temple tax to his own father's house?

No.

One commentator puts it this way.

Technically Jesus as God's son was exempt from the tax,

but to avoid offense, he paid it on behalf of himself and Peter.

And the way Jesus does it is nothing less than miraculous.

In verse 27, Jesus tells Peter to go fishing.

This is the only example in the Bible, I was listening to someone yesterday talking about this.

This is the only example.

There's a lot of fishing in the Bible.

Usually they're fishing with nets.

This is the one example where a hook was used, you know, for the fishermen out there.

He catches a fish right away and the fish comes up and has this coin

in its mouth.

So if a half shekel is two days pay, so this is what, four days pay?

Let's just call it four or $500.

I'm assuming the fishermen here, you've never caught any fish with something like this in its

mouth or its stomach.

Just imagine, yeah, you find a gold coin.

But what does this miracle display?

I mean, it proves the absolute sovereignty of God.

Just think of all the different things that would have to line up perfectly in order for this

to happen.

I don't know if it's the most complex miracle, but it seems like it's one of them.

However, the coin got tossed into the sea, then the fish coming along at just the right moment,

having the coin lodged in the fish's mouth, and then, you know, Peter throws in the

hook just at the right time and the fish just so happens to bite.

And of course, it's God controlling all of it.

And that really does tell you something about the Lord.

When we say he's in control of all things, right, in our prayers that you hear that come out of our mouth a

lot, well, this is why we say that, because he really is in control of everything, and this

just proves it.

And to me, that's a great comfort for me, like no matter what happens in this world, just

the direction a fish is swimming in a lake somewhere, like God is sovereign even

over that.

But as God incarnate, the point being, as God incarnate, he was not obligated

to pay the temple tax.

The temple is his house, you know, it's his father's house.

Now, on the other hand, the men who are running the temple, would they view it that way?

Let's say Jesus approaches the temple, and this is my father's house, I'm God's son, so I don't have

to pay the tax.

How would that have gone over?

You see, they didn't believe that.

The men in charge of the temple, they didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

So if he tried to exercise this privilege, it would have created an offense, it would

have created a controversy, and Jesus, knowing that, he doesn't feel that this is the

time to take a stand.

There will be times, and there have been times where Jesus does speak up.

There are times where the apostles take a stand, but he decides this is not the moment.

It's not worth the $400, it's not worth the shekel, it's not worth

it.

So we need to learn from this and determine, okay, there's some times where I need to take a stand, I

need to exercise my rights, like, as Americans, we love our rights.

I hope you love your rights, because if you don't love your rights, you're going to lose them, and we're losing them, and that's another

sermon for another day, but sometimes we want to exercise our rights, but there's a time where

maybe it's not wise to do that, and this is kind of a difficult

subject to determine when is the right time and when not to.

Jesus could have exercised his divine right, but then accusations would have been made.

He's not a faithful Jew, he's whatever, you know, they could come up with all sorts of different

things.

This could have led Jesus' followers to decide, hey, Jesus doesn't pay the tax, what would that tell

his disciples?

We don't have to pay our taxes either, so all sorts of things could have come from this.

Simply was not worth it.

So, Peter, hey, do this, go fishing, get the coin, pay the tax, let's not

cause an offense.

So, when we look at a story like this, we have to ask ourselves, what's the point of the story?

What's the takeaway?

Where do I draw from this?

This is admittedly, this is not a prescriptive passage.

I've explained this before, and it's good that everybody knows the difference.

When reading the Bible, it's good to know the difference between a descriptive passage and a

prescriptive passage.

A prescriptive passage is when Jesus is teaching his followers, do this, don't

do that.

He's teaching them.

This isn't really that, it's more just describing, descriptive, it's describing what

happened.

But there's still things we can learn even from descriptive passages.

Let's turn to Romans chapter 13 for a moment.

Just as far as paying the temple tax, is Jesus

teaching his disciples that they need to pay their taxes?

Let's see if you're paying attention.

Is the point of this passage, Jesus teaching his disciples you need to pay your taxes,

is that the point?

That is not the point.

Now, does the Bible say that, that we need to pay our taxes?

Okay, I'm hearing conflicting things here.

Some of you wish it said you didn't have to do that, but technically, you

know, what kind of Bible teacher would I be if I just told you what you wanted to hear?

But Romans 13, this is kind of that key passage on the subject, Romans

13, starting in verse one, the apostle Paul says, let every soul be

subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and

the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

Therefore, whoever resists the authority, resists the ordinance of God and those who

resist will bring judgment on themselves.

So we see here that Christians are basically instructed to be good law abiding

citizens.

Throughout history, the heathen have always tried to smear Christians.

In the early days in the Roman Empire, the heathens would say about believers that they

were cannibals.

Why would they say that?

Well, because Christians ate flesh and drank blood.

Of course, they're totally distorting communion to make Christians look bad.

They would tell lies and there's lies that are being told about Christians today to make us look bad.

And you probably know some of those lies.

So we need to be careful.

We want to be good law abiding citizens, not to cause offense.

The offense is going to be there one way or the other.

We don't want to add to it.

So we, we need to be good citizens and yes, we even need to pay our taxes.

Verse seven, Paul says, render therefore to all their due taxes, to whom taxes

are due customs, to whom customs fear, to whom fear honor, to whom honor.

So as Christ followers, the example that Jesus gave, he did pay

his tax and we are told that we should do it here.

Okay.

So we do see that Paul is actually teaching.

This is prescriptive.

Paul is teaching Christians.

They have to pay their tax and you can say, yeah, what if the taxes went up to like 90 would we still have to pay

them?

I'd be sympathetic to people arguing against that, but that's not the case.

Do all people think taxes are too high?

Every country people say that, are they too high?

Probably, but still that doesn't give us an excuse because if we don't pay, it's going to create

problems, right?

Let's say, we'll move into some of the application for this.

Let's say a Christian is a United States citizen and they see where their tax money

is going.

It's funding, maybe a war that I don't agree with, or maybe it's funding, you know, certain policies

that, you know, Planned Parenthood is funded by the federal government.

You can create a whole list of things that I don't agree with how my tax money is being spent.

Therefore, and there have been a few believers throughout history who have said, I'm not paying

and you know, I don't blame them.

That's between them and God and the government, but it, guess what?

If you don't pay, what's going to happen?

You're going to be thrown in prison and you have to ask the question, is that really worth it?

Well, I think based on everything we see here in my estimation, I don't think that's

worth it.

This is not a place to take a stand.

So as your pastor, I would recommend paying your taxes.

Are there times to take a stand where someone might be offended if you

don't do what they want you to do, they might be offended.

Here's another example where maybe a little civil disobedience would be the right thing to do.

And again, I realize not everyone will disagree with me on this, but you know, we have to sort of

figure out the application.

When's the right time?

What battle should I fight back in 2020?

You know, when churches were told to shut down for two or three weeks, we didn't shut down.

Most people stayed home.

That was fine.

You know, I can understand how people weren't really sure how this was going to work out even for the first

several months.

You know, if, if people stayed home or a church shut down for the first month, I think that

is understandable.

However, when it became clear that things were just being pushed forward and forward,

you know, if you were really following the government, you would have had to shut down for

basically like two years.

I mean, the only way to really follow every command that they were or dictate, it would have been like

two years.

Is that a time that was worth, you know, saying no, in my opinion, that was

worth taking a stand and say, Hey, listen, if you want to stay home, stay home, but we're going to meet, we're going to assemble.

Why?

Because Jesus tells us to assemble, say, where does he tell us that?

Well, anytime he talked about the church, because the church is the assembly.

And of course, Hebrews 10 25 says, do not forsake the assembly.

Now, does that mean it's wrong to not go for a week or two?

That's not what it's talking about.

But when you stop going for years, you know, if you didn't go to church for three years or

five years, I mean, who knows what might happen in the future?

I think you, that was a time where you ran the risk of offending people by opening up,

but it was worth it.

So you kind of have to decide, you know, when do you want to risk offense?

When do you not want to risk offense?

Let me just say this.

I never intentionally try to offend anyone.

Now, have I offended somebody in my preaching?

Don't answer that.

No, but I realize, I realize I've, I wouldn't be

surprised if I've offended every person in the room, honestly.

Have I ever tried to do that?

Have I ever set out Sunday morning and say, okay, I'm just going to, no, I've, I've never

done that.

And let me just say this.

If I've ever offended anybody in this church or just an

attendee, someone's watching online, you only been here once and you got offended and you never came

back.

I've never intentionally offended someone.

And I am sincerely sorry if I have, but at the same

time, I do realize that I've preached things that like, this is what the Bible says

and it's offensive in our culture.

Am I sorry I preached that?

No, I'm not.

Okay.

The gospel is to the Jew, what a stumbling block to the Greek it's

foolishness.

So preaching the gospel, there's something called old fashioned term, the offense of the cross.

Am I, am I bothered by if someone's offended because I'm preaching the gospel?

No, but I apologize for that.

No, but there are some things, let's face it.

There are some things that you can preach and technically what you're saying is right, but the

spirit in which you do it is not right.

You see, I could say something that's technically true, but maybe my demeanor, my tone

of voice, how it's come across or why I'm doing that, that it can offend people.

We don't want to offend people.

Um, there, there are some people out there.

I don't think it's anything that we deal with here, but there are some people that

they're, they're a jerk.

There are some Christians who, you know, they exercise their right and technically they are

correct and some of the things that they say, but the way they come across, they act like a

jerk and I'll just say it.

This has been the way it is in some fundamentalist circles, uh, in time past.

And that's the one reason why I might not, so I'm going to risk offending fundamentalists.

Actually, I would say the fundamentalists, I'm probably more sympathetic to the fundamentalists than I

am a lot of the mainstream denominations, but I'm just saying we don't want to offend people

if we can, if we can avoid it.

One last point, the last person that I want to offend, the

last person, what's the title of the message?

Trying not to offend.

Who's the one person we never want to offend God.

We don't, we never want to offend Christ.

And this is something that's been a burden on my heart for years.

Just the way some people do church, just the way some worship

services are, the sermon, it's all man centered and they're trying so hard because there's

extremes you can go to on both sides.

I'm almost done, but you can go to one extreme and be that jerk for Jesus, you know, and just

be rude and confrontational.

And that is an extreme on the other extreme.

You're so worried about offending people, you're compromising, you're watering down the message.

There's some things that there's some passages in the Bible you will never preach from because you just don't want to

offend anyone.

And in the process you end up offending God because you compromise his word.

And that is happening in a lot of churches.

And it's something that we personally can do because we're, we're, we're, this is the term

we have the fear of man and we don't want to risk offending someone.

So we have to balance that out.

And I would just say this, read this passage again for yourself, pray, ask yourself,

what are those circumstances where I need to take a stand and I can exercise

my rights.

And then those circumstances where, you know what, it's just not worth it.

Yes, I could speak up right now and I could say something, this person was wrong and I could put them in their

place and tell them how foolish the thing they just said about the Bible was.

But you know what?

Is that going to win them over?

Probably not.

So do I have the perfect explanation for every situation?

No, but I do know that our goal, just like with Christ and his disciples

is to win people over and that's what we want to do.

So let's try not to offend.

Let's pray.

And heavenly father, I do ask forgiveness.

If I've ever said something with the wrong spirit for the wrong reason,

even if technically it was true, if I ever did that, Lord, I, I believe I have

gone and would go to the person to ask for forgiveness, but Lord, I do ask for your

forgiveness, Lord, help your people to have wisdom.

Give us knowledge to know when to speak up, when to remain silent, when to take a stand and

when to be like Jesus here and say, you know, I really don't have to pay this tax,

but so that we don't offend, I'll pay it.

Lord, give us this wisdom.

And as always, if there's someone here who has never placed their trust in Jesus, I pray today

would be the day that they would seek not only salvation and forgiveness, but also wisdom

for life because your word is full of wisdom.

And I thank you for these things in Jesus name.

Amen.