Wednesday, June 8, 2022 PM

Prayer. Father, I thank you for this day. I thank you for the time you have given to us tonight. I pray that you would help us to make the most of it as we read your Word, that you would bless the meaning of the text to us, that we would, by your Holy Spirit, by your grace, we would give an amen to what you have to say.

Lord, we pray these things, looking only to Jesus, in whom you are well pleased. Amen. All right, Luke chapter 20, beginning in verse 20. So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on his words, in order to deliver him to the power and the authority of the governor.

Then they asked him, saying, Teacher, we know that you say and teach rightly, and you do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God and truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, Why do you test me? Show me a denarius, whose image and inscription does it have? They answered and said, Caesar's. And he said to them, Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

But they could not catch him in his words in the presence of the people, and they marveled at his answer and kept silent. Then some of the Sadducees, who denied that there is a resurrection, came to him and asked him, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers, and the first took a wife and died without children. And the second took her as a wife, and he died childless. Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also.

And they left no children and died. Last of all, the woman died also. And everybody says, Amen. Verse 33. Therefore in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife. Jesus answered and said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are counted worthy to attain that age in the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, nor can they die anymore.

For they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

For he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him. Then some of the scribes answered and said, Teacher, you have spoken well. But after that, they dared not question him anymore.

And he said to them, How can they say that the Christ is the son of David? Now David himself said in the book of Psalms, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.

Therefore David calls him Lord. How is he then his son? Now we have three interactions here and each one centers on a point of conflict, a riddle, if you will, a difficult question to be answered. And the background of this, of course, is the ever-increasing conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders as his authority becomes more and more apparent over and against the authority of the religious leaders.

It has become incredibly intense because Jesus has entered into the city of Jerusalem as the Messiah. He rode upon the colt, the fall of the donkey, and everyone is declaring his kingship and he's not denying it.

He has cleansed the temple. He has told the parable of the wicked vinedressers, the wicked tenants who deserve destruction for their failures. And the Pharisees and scribes, the Sadducees, chief priests, they know exactly who he's talking about.

He's talking about them. And so they are agreed and they are looking for opportunity to kill Jesus, to lay hands on him, to arrest him, to end his teaching, his preaching, his ministry. So how do they respond?

Let's consider this first of all in verses 20 through 26. What is the riddle? What is the hard-to-answer question? What is the apparent conflict that they hope to use to trip up Jesus in verses 20 through 26?

Right, so Caesar is a problem. He's a problem not for the Gentiles at large necessarily, but Caesar is a problem. Tiberius is Caesar right now, son of Augustus. What's the problem with Caesar? What's the problem of Caesar for the Jews?

Yes, so the imperial cult began once removed from Augustus as he began to talk about the divinity of Julius Caesar, the first of the emperors. After Augustus died, immediately after his death, Tiberius promoted with great robust nature worship of Augustus.

So worship of Julius Caesar was somewhat removed from the time that he was. It's kind of like reflecting upon the past. But as soon as Augustus died, there was intense worship of Augustus much more than with Julius.

And then with Tiberius, it was beginning to become more and more of a thing. Now of course, it's at the stage where Caesar doesn't necessarily want to tell people, now you better worship me. It's better if others kind of promote that, right?

Okay, yes, but we have we have an imperial cult. There is a sense that Caesar is, if he's not divine yet, he will be when he dies. Maybe he's a demigod right now. Certainly he deserves a lot of veneration if not worship, shall we say, if people were making that distinction.

So why else is Caesar a problem for the Jews? So he does tax. He does tax, doesn't he? Now, Caesar wants to be paid in what kind of money? Imperial coinage. He wants to be paid in Caesar money with, as Jesus points out, the image of Caesar is on the coins.

Now there were other, there's other kind of money that could be used. There was some, there was money that the Jews felt comfortable using, but they did not necessarily feel all that comfortable always using Roman money.

And why is that? Why would Roman money feel dirty to a Jew? Well, when you put both of this together, there is this stench of idolatry, because if he's saying I'm a god at any level, okay, and his image is on a coin, and you're holding an idol, and you're using idols to do, to do business with, and this is a problem, okay?

Why else is Caesar a problem? Not just the worship aspect and the taxes, somewhat related to the taxes? Yes, exactly. Tension, the tension is about the, the temple religion of the, of the Jews at this time, the religion and the state, or Caesar and the temple.

That was where the tension was. How, how is this going to be resolved? Now, you may remember that there is a Ijumean ruling as a, a vice-regent over the country, Herod, and Herod is under the authority of Caesar.

Caesar has his pro-council in play. There's a mix of different authorities, and we have people who relate differently to Caesar and to Herod. We remember that there's a faction called the Herodians. I mean, they, they get along great with Herod.

You know, if Herod needs them to talk to the Jews in a way that could convince Jews to be pro-Herod, I mean, that's what they're there for. Also, the Sadducees, who made up the vast bulk of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council for the Jews, the Sadducees were very much in agreement with Rome.

They would, they would heartily agree. We have no king but Caesar. They'd be very happy to say so. The Pharisees were not as much pro-Rome, but they certainly weren't interested in bringing down the wrath of Rome upon their nation, but they were certainly praying that God would deliver them.

And they believed that the more holy that the people were, the more devout the people were, if they would follow God's law and be completely committed to the Lord, that this was the ticket that God would finally look upon them with favor and deliver them from their oppressors.

I mean, haven't you read the, uh, the standards of the covenant in the Old Testament? If they repented and came back to the Lord and they did everything just right, and they were, they were super holy, well that was the mechanism that would bring about their deliverance.

Okay? Which is why they're also very irritated with people who wouldn't agree with them because you're the reason why the Romans are still here. Right? And then you had the Zealots, who were not accepted at the temple, but were very religious and very fervent themselves, and they were ready to stab Romans if they ever got the chance.

Okay? So there's a lot of, a lot of question about how the, how those who are worshiping at the temple should relate to Caesar. Church and state relations. How does this, how is it supposed to work? Okay?

So we remember Caesar as an occupier. So they think they've got an issue that will trip Jesus up. They've got, they've got him one way or the other. Okay? It, their question is this, is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

Now notice how they frame this question. Lawful. Okay? Now they don't say law of Moses or the law of the land or Roman law, but whatever way he answers, they're going to get him. He's going to be, if he agrees with one law, he'll be in disagreement with the other law.

If he agrees with the law of Moses strictly, well then he's a Zealot. Turn him over to the Roman authorities. If he agrees with the oppressor's law, then they can discredit him with the populist people here, the populist position as they follow him and they see him as a deliverer.

So they're going to, they're going to get him one way or the other. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Lawful for us, meaning the Jews. But he perceived their craftiness. Now what craftiness was going on here besides the tricky question?

What is their motive? Their motive is to lay hands on him. But why will they not lay hands on Jesus? Why would they just not go up to him, grab him and drag him away? Why won't they just take him? They are afraid of the people.

People consider Jesus to be a prophet, so they're not going to allow these religious leaders to get away with that. That'll spark a riot and that won't be good with the Romans either. So they have, they're in this, they're in this fix.

So instead of grabbing him, verse 20 says they watched him. They watched him. Now this kind of watching is the kind in which they're not interested in learning from him or following him, but they're hoping to find an occasion to have him accused to one group or another to discredit him.

They sent spies. I just love it when people say things like, oh, they wouldn't do that. You know, when you read the Bible, you get a pretty honest account of human nature and the things that men do when they get upset.

What? Religious people sending in spies because they're trying to discredit other people? No, they wouldn't do that. That's just, that's, that's outlandish. Well, look here. Look here. The enemies of Christ sent in spies for the purpose of, of discrediting or trying to undercut the authority of Jesus.

And remember what Jesus said to his disciples. If they have called the master Beelzebul, what were they going to call you? You know, it's, it's not all that surprising that these things happen. We've had spies come to our services, homosexual activists come to our services and scout us out to see, you know, whether they can accomplish something or not.

And there are very religious people as well. They worship quite differently than we do. But these people are being crafty. The scribes, the Sadducees, they are being very crafty and they want to deliver him to the power and the authority of the governor.

In other words, they want to use, isn't this interesting? The people who are defending the temple want to use the power of the state to take Christ out at the knees. Well, didn't they eventually accomplish that?

Isn't that what ultimately that was the plan that they, that they worked out? And isn't that exactly the same play that they keep running all the way through the book of Acts? Sometimes it doesn't work.

Sometimes the, the Roman governor or the Roman official, you know, looks at the Jews getting everything riled up and they look at him and they're like, what are you talking about? This isn't part of our law.

Sometimes it does work and the, and the city or regional officials are like, yeah, they're causing a problem. Let's throw them in jail. You know, but that play gets run over and over again in the book of Acts and we see them working on it even as far back as here.

So they don't ask him a legitimate question. They're not asking a question to learn. They're not asking a question to submit to his authority. They're not trying to grow in their understanding. They already have a very comfortable connection to the state.

We use the state to get what we want, right? They already know how to relate to the state. They've got it all figured out, they think. So they're asking Jesus, they're not going to learn anything new.

They're just trying to trick him. Some questions are asked for the goal of trying to criticize and discredit. Some people ask questions to try to criticize and discredit. Some people try to ask questions because it's a defense saying, don't ask me questions.

Okay. And Jesus in perfect wisdom, superior to even that of Solomon, answers perfectly. He received their craftiness and said to them, why do you test me? Why do you tempt me? Why are you trying to trip me up?

Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have? In other words, you know, look at the coin and this is someone's, someone's picture on it. And, uh, and his name's on it. Tell me what it is.

And the answer is just staring them in the face, right? They answered and said Caesar's, right? This is very obvious. And he said to them, render therefore to Caesar, the things that are Caesar's and to God, the things that are God's.

Pretty good answer, but they could not catch him in his words in the presence of the people. Are they trying to turn the opinion of the people against him? And they marveled at his answer and kept silent.

So he, he quieted them with his wisdom. They were, they were without rebuttal. Let's consider this answer. Render therefore to Caesar, the things that are God's. Um, now, even though the question was illegitimate and it came from a skeptical position.

Okay. And even though we know that they had a illegitimate relationship with the state, they were trying to use the state as a bully club to make other people comply to their preferences. Okay. Despite all of that, what we have in this moment in Jesus's answer, we have a wonderful help as we too face the riddle of church and state.

All right. Okay. So that we have a sphere of church government, wherein we, uh, we, we come together and we, uh, we have a way of doing things here. And we get to decide, uh, you know, what day of the week we meet because Jesus tells us to meet on Sunday.

So we'll show up on Sunday. And, uh, uh, we sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. You know, that's what the scriptures say. So that's how we're going to organize ourselves. And we've got elders and we've got deacons.

And, uh, this is how we were to relate to one another and to love one another. And if we ever have an issue with each other, there's a process that we go through. And, and so all these things are about church government.

Okay. We think church government, just think this is the way we're organized to live life together under the authority of Christ. Okay. Now there is the state and there's going to be some overlap on certain occasions between the state government, what the state is responsible for and what the church is responsible for.

Okay. So for example, um, if somebody who's a part of our church, um, commits crime, okay. Um, you know, member A, uh, steals member B's truck and beats them up in the process. The elders do not then say, well, this is in house matter.

We'll just take care of it. We're not the mafia. Okay. When that happens, not only will the church exercise church discipline, we're also calling 911, right? Because God has appointed the state as a minister to punish evildoers.

Okay. And that goes for more serious things such as, uh, the crimes of, uh, of, of, of molesting a child where a lot of churches is like, we're just going to handle this in house. You know what? Now you're going to handle it, but you're also going to call the authorities, aren't you?

Right. Okay. So, so that's, so this was, there's some overlap. There's some overlap. Okay. Um, uh, another silly example. Um, uh, someone, uh, let's say from the mafia, okay. Uh, comes running into our, uh, build our services, um, crying out that they, uh, they want asylum in the church.

Right. You know, they've got some weird idea about how churches function and they run in and, uh, and, uh, you know, a good percentage of us are packing, you know, and, uh, but, uh, if there's no direct threat, you know, I mean, we're not going to shoot the guy, right.

We're not going to say, you know, you've trespassed our borders. Where's your papers, please? You know, um, that's not how that works. And we're not going to be unafraid to call the state in to say, Hey, we've got an issue here.

Okay. So there's some overlap, some overlap. The question about how the church and state, so Jesus says, render unto Caesar, the things that are Caesar's and to God, the things that are God's sometimes there's overlap, but there's still going to be what belongs to Jesus, what belongs to God, what belongs to the worship of the Lord and what belongs to the state.

Now there are some things that belong to Caesar like taxes. Okay. And Romans tells us to pay the taxes because they're being a minister to punish evildoers. All right. They don't do a great job of it, but still, um, you know, honor where honor is due.

So you pay your taxes. Um, Samuel tried to explain this to Israel. Look, you don't want a king to come do that. He's going to be tyrannical. He's going to ask for 10%. 10 is tyrannical. Um, so that in the church, some things belong to the Lord.

Some things belong to Caesar. So render to both what belongs to both. Okay. Well, that's helpful. That's helpful. Um, some people want to draw the pick the, um, the circles a little bit differently. You know, there's separation of church and state and nothing to do with one another whatsoever.

Okay. Now this is a fiction. This is the fiction because it imagines that the, you know, life is not connected, but this fiction actually is prelude to something else. Um, in paganism where everything is one, uh, the state functions as the, um, the great coalescing of the one and that all these other aspects of life are simply, um, you know, like appendages from the one amoeba.

Okay. So as the, the, the church is an appendage, uh, underneath the state. So also is a family. So also is business and everything else. Okay. So let's say, uh, we've had to think about this a lot lately.

Uh, let's say the monkey pox gets really bad and it comes out as another variant and it's gorilla pox. Okay. Um, and all orders come back out again, says the state says to the church, uh, church, you can't sing hymns church.

You can't have communion. It's like the, you know, the governor of Kentucky telling Christians, you're not allowed to take communion. Just think of the spiritual meaning of it and you'll be fine. Um, you're not allowed to gather together in your churches.

And even if you park your cars in a parking lot with a space in between you, the highway patrol will come and give you your tickets. Right. That doesn't belong to Caesar. Jesus says, render unto the Lord, the things that belong to the Lord and render unto God and render unto Caesar things belong to Caesar.

There are many, many things that do not belong to Caesar. And the church is specifically told by Christ not to render unto Caesar the things that are God's. There's a difference. There's a difference.

Um, Caesar doesn't know that. Caesar is pretty ignorant when it comes to the way that the world is put together. Right. But there is something called the pillar in the ground of the truth. There is something called the salt of the earth.

There is something called a city stood up on a hill. There is something called the light of the world. There is something called the church. And there does need to be a ministry of education to Caesar so that he will know what belongs to him and what does not belong to him.

And that's the, that is given as a ministry to the church. And if the church doesn't do that as the best citizens that any state has, right, then we're doing them a disservice. Right. Um, so, uh, so excellent passage that helps us apply, um, a, um, a difficult riddle to sometimes parse.

Render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar and render unto God the things that belong to God. And these are not entirely overlapping. You know what I mean? All right. Any questions or thoughts about our passage tonight?

We didn't get through the whole passage, obviously. Yes. Well, I think, yeah, well, well, um, obviously if you recall the formation of the, um, uh, the government that we now hold near and dear to our hearts and pledge allegiance to the flag too, and there's a constitution and a bill of rights and so on, whole bunch of preachers were involved in that.

Um, and, uh, so it's important to remember that. Uh, and again, um, again, the, the, I think that the role of the church under the authority of Christ is a ministry of truth, clarifying things for everybody.

Okay. So, um, as the pillar and ground of the truth, as the light of the world, as the city set on a hill, as the salt of the earth and so on, uh, the church is to be clarifying things for everybody because, not because we're something above everybody else, but because of the authority of Christ being declared through the word.

Now there can be an idolatry about pastors, which is not helpful. I, to be clear, it's not just pastors, it's everybody in the church needs to be speaking to, um, whether it's members of school boards or if it's talking to city council folk or, or whatever, everyone needs to be involved in that.

That's not a special purview of pastors. Okay. Um, in some traditions, especially in Baptist tradition, um, the pastor is seen as a politician, right? Because he has to hold the whole thing together and speak to everything and so on and so forth.

That's okay. Um, I'm to preach Christ from all the scriptures until he is formed in all of his people. I'm preaching you the word of God, teaching you the word of God, um, and that doesn't absolve me of my responsibilities.

I need to be good citizen too. Okay. But, but this is also for all of you to call people up, talk to people, write letters and so on. I mean, I'll show up to places, uh, we go down to the Capitol and to the psalm saying, and we sing in the state Capitol, um, go to abolition day.

We write letters to the governor. Um, we call people, email people and so on. Um, and y 'all can do that too. Um, and bring the authority of God's word to bear on everything. Yep. Yes, brother Ken. Yes.

Yep. Yeah. Unless the state is, um, unless the state is discipled and to be reminded that they are a, uh, a deacon, a minister, then the authority, um, the authority will grow and grow and grow until, um, they become something along the lines of a traditional Baptist deacon, right?

Ruling with an iron fist and everything's my purview. You know, I'm a servant in the sense I'm going to tell you everything you're supposed to do. Jesus had a thing to say about that, right? About how service works in his kingdom.

It's not telling everybody else what to do. Um, so, uh, the, the state needs to be discipled, educated, brought to recognition of the authority of Christ because the Christ is the authority of the state, authority over the family, authority over the church.

Did you have something to say brother Yes, I love the story. Absolutely. Um, and in that case, it was something that needed to be worked out with fellow Christians and how much of a blessing were you guys that this didn't have to be handled by the state, right?

Yeah, it's a good deal. It's a good testimony and good example for us. All right, let's turn our attention to.