Your Responsibility to Imperfect Authority Matthew 17:24-27

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realize is that tax season is upon us. This is the time of year where you gather together your documentation that shows your earnings for the year and you either do your own taxes or you pay someone else to do it for you.
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Tax season can be a stressful time because putting everything together is stressful and no one wants to find out that he or she has to pay a large amount of taxes to the government.
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It can indeed be a dreadful deadline that looms for every person.
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Founding father Ben Franklin once said, there are two certainties in life, death and taxes.
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Now there are of course more certainties in life than death and taxes, but this famous quote from Franklin makes people chuckle.
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Taxes are nothing new. They have been around as long as human governments have been around since the very beginning of time.
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In order for a kingdom or a nation to operate it must have income. Common infrastructures like roads and bridges are not free.
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Someone has to pay for them and it comes through taxes that these are paid for.
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When you read the Bible the nation most in mind is the nation of Israel. Israel had infrastructure that all the people used and so the people needed to pay taxes for these structures to maintain them as well.
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The most famous structure in Jerusalem was the temple. The temple was first built under Solomon in the tenth century
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B .C. It was later destroyed by the Babylonians and then rebuilt during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.
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The temple was the central place of worship in Jerusalem. It was the place that marked the special presence of God.
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They offered sacrifices daily and yearly to keep God's presence and blessing with the people.
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These sacrifices showed that there needed to be a payment in order for a holy God to dwell with sinners.
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But to keep this place going the people needed to pay taxes. In our text this morning the people who collected these taxes what they're going to do is they're going to confront
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Jesus' disciples about Jesus' status on these taxes. Does he need to pay them?
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Does he not need to pay them? And it's going to bring up a very interesting discussion that's very relevant to what we're seeing in our country and in our world right now.
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So I look forward to looking at this with you but at this time I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew chapter 17.
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We'll look at verses 24 through 27 and if you're using the Red Bible it's on page 978.
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This sermon is titled Your Responsibility to Imperfect Authority.
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And we'll begin by reading the text. Chapter 17 verses 24 through 27.
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When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two drogmataks went up to Peter and said, does your teacher not pay the tax?
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He said yes. And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first saying, what do you think
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Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?
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And when he said from others, Jesus said to him, then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel.
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Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself. Here's our big idea.
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What this text is calling you to do. Follow Jesus' example by submitting to earthly authorities.
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Follow Jesus' example by submitting to earthly authorities. And we will see one reason why in this text. And I'll tell you the reason why at the very end, okay?
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And we'll see it come out in these verses. But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we were one
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Sunday ago. We looked at verses 14 through 23. In fact, it was a two
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Sunday sermon. And what this text called you to do was to make a difference in this world for Christ's sake.
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And we saw three resolves how to make a difference. It starts by not relying on your own power.
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Jesus says that apart from me you can do nothing. We need to remember that to rely on your own strength is to forfeit
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God's strength through us. What God desires for you to do is to grow and rely on Him over time.
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To grow in this reliance. Just like the mustard seed. The mustard seed was the smallest seed and over time, it became the biggest plant in the garden.
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And that's how our faith is supposed to be. As we trust in God over time. And as you follow
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Him, you will not only be useful to God, but you will experience the blessings of faith.
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Now as you look once again at our text that we've already read, we will see here that Jesus is having a conversation with Peter about the temple tax.
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And let's begin by reading verse 24. Once again, when they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two drogmatax went up to Peter and said, does your teacher not pay the tax?
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So as they ask Peter this question, let's talk about the temple first. The temple, as I already mentioned a little bit, was the place where God's special dwelling resided.
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But the temple was not the first place in the history of Israel where this took place. The first place was the tabernacle.
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When you look at the history of the Old Testament, it is early on when God made a dwelling place for Himself. The tabernacle was a big tent that moved from place to place.
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There was an altar there where the people offered sacrifices to God. And just like anything that is built in life, upkeep on the structure needed to take place.
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Think about this building that we're standing in right now. This building will turn 100 years old next year.
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Over the years, a large amount of work has gone into this. And Sean can tell you more recently, right? The work that goes into it and other people in our church.
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Maintenance, right? You got to provide the necessary things that need to take place to keep this place going.
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We don't want it to fall apart. And that comes through funds. And so some of your offering goes to maintaining the building.
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The tabernacle in the Old Testament period needed to be maintained and money would come from the Israelites to maintain it.
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The Lord instructed Moses in Exodus 30, verses 13 and 14, each one who is numbered in the census shall give this, half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary.
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Half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. Everyone who is numbered in the census from 20 years old and upward shall give the
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Lord's offering. So what this text tells us is that the people 20 years old and upward were to pay the half shekel to help maintain the tabernacle structure.
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And then later on in history, of course, it would be there to maintain the temple, which was located in Jerusalem. The half shekel tax was to be continued to be paid by the people as long as the temple was there.
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And in our text, the temple is there, because this is roughly about 33
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AD. The temple was not destroyed until 70 AD. So not too long after this.
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And the coinage changed, of course, from Old Testament times. It says half shekel, but this is
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Roman money here. And so what we see in our text is two drachma. It's the same amount, just different currency.
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And the time when the tax was collected was near the Passover, which took place in the spring. And well in advance of the
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Passover, Jewish tax collectors were sent throughout Palestine to collect the tax.
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These are not Romans who are collecting the tax. These are Jewish tax collectors. In fact, the person who's writing this gospel,
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Matthew, was a tax collector. So he would know exactly what he's talking about here. These tax collectors are sent out to collect this tax.
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The Romans, of course, had taxes too. And all these taxes are here for the people to pay.
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But this tax is for the Jews only, because the Romans were not responsible to upkeep the temple. What we have seen throughout
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Matthew is that Jesus had been repeatedly challenged by the Jewish leadership.
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They hate what He is doing. They hate that all these people are following Him. They hate that the people are saying that He is the
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Messiah because they don't want Him to be the Messiah. The Jewish leaders want the authority.
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They want the power. Jesus is coming. All the people are going after Him. They don't like Him.
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So the Jewish leadership has the goal of completely discrediting Jesus. With that in mind, you can see in verse 24 that this is probably not an honest question.
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An honest question would be the tax collectors asking the disciples, did Jesus pay the tax yet?
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You know, honestly wondering, did you pay it yet? But these tax collectors are from the
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Jewish leaders. And they were likely sent by them to discredit Him. They know that Jesus is important.
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He is making big claims about Himself. He is doing all these miracles. And crowds and crowds of people are following after Him.
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So the question is this, because this man is so important, does this mean that He is exempt from paying the temple tax?
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Is He so far above it that He doesn't need to pay it? As Peter is asked this question about Jesus' status on these taxes, he knows the answer.
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And the answer is obvious. Of course Jesus pays His taxes. Jesus as the
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God -man is the model citizen. Peter knew this and he had seen Him pay taxes before.
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And so at the beginning of verse 25, Peter answers, yes, He pays His taxes. Just like any law -abiding citizen would.
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In the introduction to the sermon, I mentioned the reality of taxes that come upon every US citizen every year.
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To not file taxes is to break the law of the land. And to not pay taxes is to also break
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God's law. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 13, 7, that all of God's people are to pay to all what is owed them.
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Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed. I remember when
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I was growing up, there was a man going to our church who was a professing
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Christian. And somehow everyone knew that this man did not pay his taxes. And he avoided the authorities.
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I'm not sure if he avoided them forever, but at least to that point he had avoided them. And it's no surprise as far as I know that this man is not walking with the
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Lord to this day. Now this man did not pay taxes because he thought we should not pay taxes to an evil government.
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Now, if we are asking whether or not the tax code is fair, the answer is probably right.
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The tax code is not fair. You should not be punished for making lots of money, but our tax code does that.
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A fair tax code would require the same percentage from everyone. In the
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Bible, you see that with tithes, right? 10%. We can be sure though that the
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Roman tax code had serious issues as well. And yet the New Testament commanded first century Christians to pay those taxes.
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In our text, what we see is that Jesus set us this example by paying his taxes, whether taxes that came down from Rome or taxes from the
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Jewish temple that we see here. He sets us an example that you and I should follow.
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After this episode where Peter is confronted by the tax collectors, Peter and Jesus are together.
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And let's see what Jesus says to him. Concerning whether he really needs to pay this tax in verse 25.
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And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first saying, what do you think Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tax?
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From their sons or from others? You will notice that verse 25 says that they are gathering together in a house.
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And what's interesting is that this is Peter's house. Matthew 8, 14 says that the place of gathering, their center point of meeting was in Capernaum.
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And this is worth noting. Jesus did not have a house. The most powerful man in the history of the world did not have a house.
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I just think that's worth saying here. But as they are in this house,
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Jesus asks Peter the question. And the question is about king's sons and whether or not they were required to pay taxes.
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Now what brings up this question in the first place? What we know about Jesus is that he is not only fully human, but he's also fully
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God. And as one who is fully God, he knows all things. Jesus lived in submission to his
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Father. And when the Father led him, he was able to access his divine knowledge.
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It looks like that is what is taking place here. Jesus knew that Peter had this conversation with the tax collectors and he could read his thoughts.
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And Peter may have been wondering, why does the Christ, the Son of God, pay the temple tax?
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Jesus responds to that question in Peter's mind by responding with a question in verse 25. He says, what do you think,
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Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?
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As Jesus asked this question, what we must understand is that world history is largely a story of kings.
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We are fascinated by kings because it is a relic from the past that is largely lost in the modern world.
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It's kind of like dinosaurs. We don't see dinosaurs walking around. We see their bones, but we don't see them. Kings is largely a thing of the past.
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Today, the most prominent monarchy we know about is in England with Queen Elizabeth. But she does not exercise authority.
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That comes from the prime minister and parliament. The days of kings having the authority are pretty much gone.
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But as Jesus asked this question to Peter, this is what he and everyone living during this time knew about.
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They knew kings. That was the way the world worked. Most of you probably have a deck of cards in your house.
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One of the 13 cards in the deck is a king. And there are four kings in a deck, just like there are four of every other kind of card.
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What is interesting is that there are four different kings represented in these four cards. King David, Alexander the
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Great, Caesar Augustus, and Charlemagne. It's interesting.
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These kings that are pictured in these deck of cards span a period of 1800 years from King David in the 10th century
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BC to Charlemagne in the 9th century AD. The way things work, and you see this in the monarchy in the
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Bible, is that kings pass on their kingdom to their heirs. And their heirs rule in their place.
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You see this in the Bible. The line goes from David to Solomon to Rehoboam and so on.
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The kings of the world down through history have their own governments.
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They're in charge. These were not republics, although on occasion there were republics in ancient history like Greece and Rome.
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But largely speaking, world history is a story of kings and queens. Where one man, or in the case of queens, one woman rules the kingdom.
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And they have taxes. And these taxes had two purposes. To support the royal family and to support the royal government that provided necessary services to the community.
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The kings collected taxes from the population, but they did not collect taxes from their sons.
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Because these sons relied on the king for their livelihood. The sons did not have jobs.
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The money the family acquired came from the people. So for a king to tax his sons, it would be taxing himself.
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It was his money. In ancient times, kings and their sons were the ones who received the taxes, not those who paid them.
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So when Jesus asked this question to Peter, but from whom does the king collect his taxes?
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The answer is obvious. To him from what he knew. This is how Peter responds in the first half of verse 26.
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He says, from others. It was only the responsibility of the population to pay the taxes, not the king's sons.
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In the second half of verse 26, Jesus tells Peter that he is correct by telling him this. He says, then the sons are free.
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The sons are free not to be taxed like everyone else. What Jesus is saying here is that he technically does not need to pay the tax, or any tax for that matter, because of his supreme status.
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Jesus is technically the son of the king because he is the son of the father. The father is referred to in scripture as king and Jesus as his son is also the king.
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Jesus is the king of the universe and he's also the Lord of the temple. In John 2 .19, he calls his body the temple that will be destroyed and raised on the third day.
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Jesus is God and as God, all the sacrifices in the temple were made to his father.
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So why would he be required to pay the temple tax? But even though Jesus says this, that he technically does not need to pay the tax as son and as king, he still thinks that he should.
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Verse 27, he says this, however, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast the hook and take the first fish that comes up and when you open its mouth, you will find a shackle.
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Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself. So Jesus not only pays the tax, but Peter does as well and he does it miraculously here.
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Go fishing and you'll find money inside the fish's mouth.
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Now we went fishing yesterday. We did not experience this. We experienced a lot of things.
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It was cold. It was windy. It was very few fish, but we had a good time.
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But this shackle here is equal to four drachmas. Which was the
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Roman currency. It covered Jesus tax and it covered
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Peter's tax. Now there are some interesting questions to ask here. Jesus says that he doesn't have to pay the tax because he is
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God's son. Now as you are thinking through this carefully, what you come to realize is that every genuine
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Christian in this room are children of God. Okay, so you are sons of the
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King. The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 4, 4 -7 that when the fullness of time had come,
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God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
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And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father.
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So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.
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So follow the logic here. Christ says that he is the son of the King of the universe, his father.
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Therefore, he technically does not need to pay the temple tax or any earthly tax for that matter.
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It is also true that anyone who is in Christ is the son of the King and therefore, technically, does not need to pay taxes.
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Okay, now if I stopped there, we'd be in big trouble. But we're not stopping here. Now earlier
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I told you that Scripture commands you to pay taxes and if we don't, it is sinful. Is the
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Scripture contradicting itself? And the answer, of course, is no. Okay, let me say this right now.
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This book never contradicts itself. It is inerrant. It is inspired.
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It always tells the truth. It's a perfect harmony from beginning to end. Okay, so what is going on here?
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People who are more liberal -minded, they look at apparent contradictions and they just jump and say, oh, see contradiction.
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No, you have to dig. And if you dig, you find out no contradictions. What Jesus is getting at here is that technically, no son of God is subject to the kingdoms of this world, but only to God.
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In Philippians 3 verses 20 and 21, the Apostle Paul wrote that our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a
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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body.
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God desires for you to be good citizens. He does not want you and I to be seen by the world as rebels, as insurrectionists, as those who desire to overthrow human governments.
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Do you know who is going to overthrow all human governments one day? God is.
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Yeah, Jesus, that's right. That's the answer in Sunday school, right? Always the answer, Jesus. Every kingdom in this world will be destroyed and His kingdom will go on forever.
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But God tells you, as we saw earlier, that you are to pay taxes. The verse
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I quoted earlier was Romans 13, 7. The other verse is 1 Peter 2 verses 13 and 14.
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It tells you to be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by Him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
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This world is not our home and Jesus is the greatest example of this. He was here for a short time and during that time, as an earthly citizen,
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He paid His taxes. And you and I need to follow His example. This is not our home.
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We are God's children. But while we are here, we are to be seen as good citizens.
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Jesus gives us the reason why He paid taxes and why we pay taxes to fallen human governments in verse 27 when
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He says that we are to do it not to give offense to them. We could say this is the world of unbelievers and so unbelievers should be the ones who pay the taxes.
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Not us, but as believers, we are citizens here too. Technically, this is not our home, but we do have dual citizenship for a time.
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Our citizenship is on earth temporarily and eternally. Every believer has a citizenship in heaven and while we are on earth, even though we are sons of the
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King now, we are to follow Jesus' example and pay taxes. We are to follow everything.
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The government tells us that doesn't cross the line. We are to do this because above all,
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Christians are to be law -abiding citizens. We should be the most law -abiding citizens there are.
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We are not to bring offense, as Jesus says. We have speed limit signs. We should follow those signs.
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We have license and registration fees. We should pay those. We have voter
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IDs. When we vote, we should willingly show our voter ID. We should pay the fees, all the fees that our state gives.
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Fishing license, right? Yesterday, we should pay that fishing license. We should pay whatever taxes we are taxed, as Scripture tells you.
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You are to be good citizens. You are to be model citizens. Now, you might be asking a very relevant question.
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What about evil governments? There's no perfect government, right?
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But sometimes the government reaches a point where it becomes an evil government. And it is obvious that we are living under an authoritative government.
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And this government is global, as nations link arms. And I hope you're seeing this. And as many of you are, there's a globalistic movement in our world.
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And the Bible talks about that. There's going to be all these empires that come together. There's going to be one world religion.
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There's going to be one world government. One man is going to reign over that world. And years ago, it almost seemed hard to see how this was going to happen.
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But in 2022, it's clear. We can see how this is happening. The table is already being set.
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It's called the Great Reset. In a previous sermon,
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I mentioned the oligarchy that is over us. And it's not just in one place. It's all over the place in the world.
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It's first world countries. From China, to England, to Canada, to the
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United States, to France, to Germany, and many more. An oligarchy is a small group of elites who hold the most power.
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In the world we live in, it is important to understand when to submit to the authority of government and when not to.
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According to scripture, the only time we disobey human government is when government operates outside of God's design for human government.
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When the government operates as God intended, we should follow without making a fuss. We should be willing.
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We should be joyful in our obedience. I mean, you know people like that. Whatever the government says, they complain.
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And they don't want anything to do with it. We're not supposed to be like that. We're supposed to be law -abiding citizens.
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We're supposed to do it willingly, just as Jesus did here. Willingly paying this tax. We should follow speeding laws because speeding laws are good.
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We should follow other laws. Some laws are kind of silly, but you know what? Let's just follow along with it.
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It's not because it's an authoritative government so much, just because they're lacking in some wisdom.
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We should pay our taxes because governments need taxes to build things like roads and bridges. There is a place for taxes, even though some of the taxes go for the wrong things.
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And this was certainly the case, by the way, with Jesus and his disciples paying the temple tax. The corrupt
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Jewish leaders ran the temple. The very ones who were going to kill him are running the temple. But he says, you know what?
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Let's pay it because God commanded that they pay taxes to the temple.
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And there are good reasons to pay taxes because they need to upkeep it, even if the people using it are using it for some evil purposes, which they most certainly were.
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But here's the question. What if the government is using their power not to punish evil, but to advance it?
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What if government is using their power not to promote good, but to punish good?
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In Acts 5, Peter and the other apostles were preaching the gospel, and the Jewish leadership told them, you cannot preach in that name.
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In Acts 5, Peter and the other apostles responded, we must obey
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God rather than men. Now, when a government reaches a point where we should no longer obey, we need wisdom to know when that is.
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Because like I said, sometimes the government does some silly things. They'll say, okay, you know what? Just follow along with it.
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But sometimes they reach a point where you're saying, no, not going to do that. The American government and many governments all around the world are unrighteous.
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And what the Lord wants you to do is to submit to the government as long as the government is functioning the way
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God designed it. And let me say this, requiring people to take a shot when their conscience is telling them they shouldn't is wrong.
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That's not the government's responsibility. This is an authoritarian government that is not operating as God designed it.
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Every Christian, I believe at minimum, should say, you know what? No vaccine mandate.
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Okay, that should be controversial to say that. And I know there's some people who have taken the vaccine and that's fine. But we should at minimum say, no vaccine mandate.
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That's an authoritarian government that requires that. It's different than the tax code.
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Earlier, I mentioned that we don't have the best tax code, but we should still pay those taxes. And during the height of the
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COVID -19 pandemic, the government was telling us not to meet. Okay, we listened for a time.
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We wanted to be law -abiding citizens, but it became clear that the government did not see the importance of church.
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They told us not to gather, but at the same time said it was okay to protest in the streets. And when you see that blatant contradiction, it's like, okay, we should be meeting.
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And people could stay home if they wanted to, right? But for those who are able to come, we're safe enough, they should come.
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And we should worship God together. We are commanded in the Bible to meet. Hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25 says that we should, we must.
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And at that point, all churches should have started meeting, but many did not. That's the problem.
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And why is that? It's because a lot of people don't understand what the Bible teaches about submission to governments. Submission to government does not mean we submit always to everything.
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It means we submit as long as it is following God's design. And when the government is acting in authoritarian ways, we are not to submit.
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We don't do everything the government tells us to do. You obey as long as they function as God has.
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Right now in Canada, it is illegal to convert someone to Christ who is gay or transgender.
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But the Bible tells us to preach the gospel, to call sinners to repent. No Christian in Canada should listen to this evil law that was passed.
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But we should pay taxes and do everything that does not violate God's law. As God's son,
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Jesus was superior to human authorities, but as one on the earth for a time, he subjected himself to the governing authorities in order to be a law abiding citizen.
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And he set us this example. Technically, every Christian here belongs to the king.
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You are God's son. You are not under the absolute authority of any human. You are only under the authority of the king of the universe.
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But God does not want you to cause offense, as he says in verse 27, by refusing to do everything a secular government says.
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He does not want Christians to have a bad reputation because they take stands where they should not take stands.
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And let me say this, a day is coming, and I would say is already here, where Christians will have bad reputations.
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But if we're taking stands where we should take stands and we have a bad reputation, that's okay. That's called persecution.
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And you are in line with the prophets of the Old Testament, with Jesus, with the apostles, with faithful Christians down through church history, because you will be called all kinds of names.
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But if we are not obeying, like, okay, I'm not going to pay my taxes, or I'm not going to follow speeding laws, that's not good.
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People look for reasons to blame Christians for the ills of society. As 1
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Peter 2 .15 says, that by submitting to government, you put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
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And if people have a question, they might say, you're not following the government. And say, you know what? I am a law -abiding citizen. I'm just not following them on this point.
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And here's why. And by the way, what an opportunity for the Gospel. You can say, you know what? I submit to Jesus Christ.
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He is my King. And here is why I'm not doing this. And you must recognize that you are a sinner, and He is the
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Savior. And one day, He is going to reign on this earth. And you will have the King you've always longed for.
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Think of the opportunities for the Gospel during this season of life that we live in.
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But if we don't follow the law that are according to God's design, that gives order to society, this will lead unbelievers to say, see, they are bad for society.
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And this is a poor witness to the world. It is God's design for Christians to be seen as the best citizens.
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Because as God works in your life, you are the best people in the world. That's what the Scripture says. You are the light of the world.
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A city on a hill that cannot be hidden. And so we should be seen as these people are really good for society.
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They do a lot of great things. They help people out. They truly help people.
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They truly do what is necessary to bring order to society. And by submitting to government, we support the law and order that God established through human governments.
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Even though those governments are far from perfect. So as we obey, we're obeying God. Oh Lord, You designed these great things.
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This order in society through human authorities. And let's follow that as long as they're operating the way
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God designed them. He wants Christians to be seen by the world as those who truly make this place a better place, whether we pay taxes or follow all the laws that are put before us.
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God is glorified through our obedience to civil authorities as we submit to the aspects of government that are designed by God to bless humanity.
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And when the laws are hindering humanity, harming people, that's where we rise up and we say, no.
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And may God give us the wisdom to know when that is. And those are good conversations for us to have.
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When is the line being crossed? So here's our summary here.
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Follow Jesus' example by submitting to earthly authorities. And in this text, we have seen one reason why. Here's the one reason why.
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To be seen by the world as law -abiding citizens. To be seen by the world as law -abiding citizens.
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As we are passing through, we are to be seen as law -abiding citizens who only submit to human authorities because we submit to the highest authority,
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God. In our text, this morning, Jesus set us the ultimate example.
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He is the king of a different world. Of a much better world. But He submitted to the authorities of this sinful world in order to glorify
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His Father. And may we follow in His steps. Now next Sunday, we will see the disciples ask
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Jesus a question that you hear a lot in our world. Who is the greatest?
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We're obsessed with greatness. And they're asking Jesus, who is the greatest? As you might expect,
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Jesus answers it way different than anyone else would. But we will see that next
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Sunday. But this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in heaven, thank you for your word,
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Lord. It corrects our thinking. It truly is living and active.
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It truly is sharper than any double -edged sword. It's the most relevant book in the world. If we want to know what is going on in the world, what are we supposed to do?
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How are we supposed to live as Christians? Go to the book. And Lord, we saw that today.
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Help us not to give offense. Help us not to be rebels. Help us only to rise up and to speak things and to do things if the government's not functioning the way you designed.
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And give us the wisdom to know when that is. And we live in a world, Lord, where this is a very relevant question.
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And as we near the end, as we near the point where the Antichrist will come and reign, and when there will be one currency and one government, help us to live as Christians who are pleasing in your sight.
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Help us to do our responsibility. Help us not to be immature. Help us to be honorable people who do what is right always.
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And use us, Lord, to be a light to others that you would be glorified in it all.