SPEAKER_00: As you're being seated, if you would join me again as we continue our study through the final week of Jesus' life in Mark chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to pick up in verse 13 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 12, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, there are some in the pew back there in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be on page 909, or excuse me, 910 in that pew Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 12 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: For those that spend any amount of time with me, they will tell you that I'm a bit of a neat freak.
SPEAKER_00: I can admit this to you publicly.
SPEAKER_00: I can work through these things that I have in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I prefer things to be neat and tidy.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot function in clutter and chaos.
SPEAKER_00: If things aren't where they're supposed to be, my brain does not work the way it's supposed to work.
SPEAKER_00: Everything in my life, everything has a proper place.
SPEAKER_00: And it should be in that proper place.
SPEAKER_00: And if you borrow it from that proper place, I'm expecting it to be returned to its proper place.
SPEAKER_00: This is how I function.
SPEAKER_00: My wife will testify to this, as will my children.
SPEAKER_00: And most I got an amen.
SPEAKER_00: I finally got an amen for my wife.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't work well in clutter and chaos.
SPEAKER_00: This is true of me just in physical space.
SPEAKER_00: I my office has to be just neat and tidy before I start to study.
SPEAKER_00: Everything just needs to be that way.
SPEAKER_00: It's true also in relationships.
SPEAKER_00: I need my relationships to be neat and tidy, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't like clutter and chaos in my relationships.
SPEAKER_00: There are so I'm working on it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm working on it.
SPEAKER_00: So there are some, you know, we we all have intimate relationships, close relationships, we have distant relationships, and we have everything in between.
SPEAKER_00: And I need to keep that fairly in order.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, if I allow somebody to come into a relationship with me uh that is closer than my relationship to my wife, that's gonna cause chaos in my life.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: The relationship that I ought to have that's closest to me than anybody else should be Darlene and I.
SPEAKER_00: And if I allow anybody else into that space, that's gonna cause not only chaos, it won't go well for me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure that that's gonna be the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Um but you know that's also true spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: It's true spiritually in my life that I don't do well in clutter and chaos spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: And I certainly do not do well when I allow somebody to take the place that only God should have in my life.
SPEAKER_00: When I allow somebody to have a more prominent role in my life than I allow God to have in my life, there tends to be clutter, and there certainly tends to be chaos.
SPEAKER_00: This is the essence of the text that we're gonna look at this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna read one of Jesus' famous sayings, render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God's what is God's.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes people will take that and they'll go off on different tangents.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the ultimate point of that: Christ's supremacy in all things.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So before I go any further, the point isn't about patriotism, the point isn't about paying taxes, the point is Christ should be supreme in every aspect of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: It is right to pay the government what they're due, but it is not right to pay the government what only God is due.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're headed this morning, because that's the point of Jesus' conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Our ultimate devotion should be to God.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the middle of Passion Week here in Mark's Gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus on Sunday has come into Jerusalem for the final time, riding on the foal of a donkey to great praise.
SPEAKER_00: It is the triumphal entry.
SPEAKER_00: They expect him to be the Messiah who's going to overthrow the Roman government.
SPEAKER_00: They're shouting praise to him.
SPEAKER_00: On Monday, he goes towards the temple.
SPEAKER_00: He curses a fig tree because it's not bearing fruit when it's appearing that it should be.
SPEAKER_00: He throws out the money changers and turns over the tables in the temple because the temple is not doing what it's supposed to be doing.
SPEAKER_00: On Tuesday, he gets up and he heads back to the temple to teach.
SPEAKER_00: And as he's going, the disciples notice the fig tree that he's cursed the day before withered.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes into the courtyards of the temple and he begins to teach.
SPEAKER_00: And we see these five confrontations that take place between Jesus and the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders of the day.
SPEAKER_00: The first one, they came out and said, Whose authority do you do these things by?
SPEAKER_00: By whose authority are you doing all this stuff that's causing disruption?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, I tell you what, you answer my question and I'll answer yours.
SPEAKER_00: Was John the Baptist baptism of God or of man?
SPEAKER_00: And they couldn't answer the question.
SPEAKER_00: They knew the answer to the question, but they refused to answer the question.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, Then, I'm not going to answer your question either.
SPEAKER_00: They sent another delegation to him as they were questioning Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus began to teach them a story.
SPEAKER_00: He taught them in parable.
SPEAKER_00: And last week we looked at the story of the wicked tenants, about the landowner who purchased the land and put a vineyard on it and provided everything that they needed to produce fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And then he put some tenant farmers on it.
SPEAKER_00: And the agreement was you live on the land, you produce fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And he sent a servant to collect at the appropriate time the fruit of the labor, but the tenant farmers beat him and sent him off.
SPEAKER_00: So the owner sent another one and they killed him and they sent another one and they beat him and he sent another one and continually sent all of his servants until he finally said, I've got one left.
SPEAKER_00: It's my own son, I'll send him.
SPEAKER_00: Surely they'll respect my own son, and yet they take him, they kill him, and they throw him outside of the city.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is having confrontation after confrontation with these religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to trip him up, they're trying to trap him to say something that will cause him trouble.
SPEAKER_00: And as we come to chapter 12, verse 13, we now have a third group that is coming to him from the Sanhedrin.
SPEAKER_00: Yet another group that is coming to try to trap Jesus, trying to get him to say something that will either cause the people to stop following him or cause the Romans to pay attention to him.
SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, what's the primary point?
SPEAKER_00: Christ's supremacy over all things.
SPEAKER_00: If you're willing and able, would you stand with me as we read from God's Word?
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 12, beginning in verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Then they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to him in order to trap him in a statement.
SPEAKER_00: They came and said to Jesus, Teacher, we know that you are truthful and defer to no one, for you are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth.
SPEAKER_00: Is it lawful to pay a poll tax to Caesar or not?
SPEAKER_00: Shall we pay or shall we not pay?
SPEAKER_00: But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, Why are you testing me?
SPEAKER_00: Bring me a denarius to look at.
SPEAKER_00: They brought one, and he said to them, Whose likeness and inscription is this?
SPEAKER_00: And they said to him, Caesar's.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.
SPEAKER_00: And they were amazed at him.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, as we open your word today, I pray, as we always pray, that you would open our minds and our hearts, our lives to your truth.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let us see that this wasn't just a conversation that was appropriate two thousand years ago between Jesus and religious leaders then, but it's a conversation that is appropriate today for us as Christ followers.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let us see the truth behind this simple yet profound statement that Jesus made about rendering unto Caesar what is his, but rendering unto you what is yours.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let us not just understand it, but let us live by it.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we pray for the supremacy of Christ in all things, starting with our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the matchless name of Jesus Christ we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: So Mark tells us that they sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to set a trap for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The they is the Sanhedrin.
SPEAKER_00: It is the religious leaders of the day.
SPEAKER_00: It's the ruling party of 70 men who oversaw everything civil and religious of the Jewish people at the time, and they did not like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was messing in their nest.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to get rid of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so they kept sending these delegations to try to get Jesus to do something that would cause him harm.
SPEAKER_00: And so this time they send an interesting group.
SPEAKER_00: They send the Pharisees and the Herodians.
SPEAKER_00: I just have three hangers that I want us to hang our thoughts on this morning.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, the trap that was set, the truth that was taught, and the takeaway we need to consider.
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the trap that was set.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about the truth Jesus taught, and then what do we do with it, the takeaway.
SPEAKER_00: So the trap that is set, they have sent these people.
SPEAKER_00: They will stop at nothing to harm Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They will stop at nothing to get rid of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They will do things that they would never ordinarily do.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they partner with groups that they never would have ordinarily partnered with.
SPEAKER_00: In this case, it is the Pharisees and the Herodians who come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is more than a strange alliance.
SPEAKER_00: These two groups could not stand one another.
SPEAKER_00: This would be like the Republicans and the Democrats getting together and actually passing a common sense law that helps the United States in some way.
SPEAKER_00: This would be tanamount to that.
SPEAKER_00: These people did not like each other.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees were the conservative religious people.
SPEAKER_00: The Herodians were the liberal political people.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees concerned themselves with the things of God, the word of God, and religious things.
SPEAKER_00: The Herodians could not have cared less about the word of God, the things of God, or religious things.
SPEAKER_00: They were called Herodians because they supported a man who was a puppet king of the Roman Empire by the name of Herod.
SPEAKER_00: He was not a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He was of Idiomian background.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews hated him, and they hated the fact that the Romans had put a non-Jew over them.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees were called the separated ones because they separated themselves from anything that was not Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: They separated themselves from the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: They separated themselves from the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: This group could not have hated another group more than they possibly hated the Herodians.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here they come, arm in arm towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
SPEAKER_00: And so these two groups come together, even though they cannot stand one another, and they approach Jesus in order to trap him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the only time this word is used in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting word.
SPEAKER_00: It means to violently pursue, like an animal being violently tracked down and trapped.
SPEAKER_00: They are pursuing Jesus in this violent way.
SPEAKER_00: And I say violent, but at first they start with flattery.
SPEAKER_00: They start with words.
SPEAKER_00: They come to Jesus and they call him teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that was a term of endearment.
SPEAKER_00: It was a term of respect.
SPEAKER_00: It would be like walking up to somebody and saying, I respect you as a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: I want to hear from you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to hear what your opinion is.
SPEAKER_00: I want to hear what you have to teach us.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing could then have further from the truth from the Pharisees and the Rhodians.
SPEAKER_00: They did not respect Jesus as a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: They did not respect him as a rabbi.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to know what he had to say, but they were interested in trapping him, and so they came with a new tact.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't come attacking him this time, they didn't come abusing him this time.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't come insulting him this time.
SPEAKER_00: They came with a different tact.
SPEAKER_00: Teacher, we respect you.
SPEAKER_00: And they used flowery language.
SPEAKER_00: They used language that would flatter Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what they say, they don't mean.
SPEAKER_00: Teacher, we know that you teach truth.
SPEAKER_00: Truth is the word orthos here.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word we get orthodox from.
SPEAKER_00: It means straight, it means true, it means right.
SPEAKER_00: It means when you teach, you always teach the truth.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to take an oath that says, I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't need an oath because we believe you always teach the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Their goal was to get Jesus to let his guard down.
SPEAKER_00: Their goal was to get Jesus to think, well, maybe this group is different than the others.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this group actually does want to learn from me.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this group actually does care about truth.
SPEAKER_00: And so they come, these false friends with flattering language, and say, you always teach the truth.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you don't defer to anyone.
SPEAKER_00: You are not partial.
SPEAKER_00: When you share the truth, you share the truth no matter to whom you are sharing.
SPEAKER_00: It does not matter.
SPEAKER_00: You are not like a politician who takes an opinion poll in order to figure out where you stand on an issue.
SPEAKER_00: You do not put your finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing before you say this is what's right.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of if you're standing before a pauper or a king, you always tell the truth.
SPEAKER_00: They believe that.
SPEAKER_00: Then they say, You teach the way of God in truth.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine these guys who believe that they are the mouthpiece for God.
SPEAKER_00: Coming to Jesus, who they're trying to destroy.
SPEAKER_00: Who for three years they have been pursuing, and now they're using language that says, Oh, we you are a great teacher.
SPEAKER_00: You always teach the truth.
SPEAKER_00: We believe you teach the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now the irony in this is they don't mean a word of it, but every word they say is absolutely true.
SPEAKER_00: The hypocrisy is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Hypocrisy just means to play a part, to put a mask on, to pretend like you're something on the outside that you're not on the inside, to use language that you don't really believe in order to gain an advantage over someone else.
SPEAKER_00: That's all they're doing here.
SPEAKER_00: They're using flowery language.
SPEAKER_00: They're pretending to trick Jesus in order to let him get his guard down so that they might trap him with a gotcha question.
SPEAKER_00: You know what a gotcha question is?
SPEAKER_00: It's a question that the person who presents it doesn't think you can answer it without causing yourself trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are old enough to remember the 1984 presidential election.
SPEAKER_00: Not many of you, but some of you are old enough to remember the 1984 presidential election.
SPEAKER_00: It was between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.
SPEAKER_00: Ronald Reagan at the time was 76 years old, or 73 years old.
SPEAKER_00: Walter Mondale was 53 years old at the time.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: 73, 56.
SPEAKER_00: Reagan was 73, Mondale was 56.
SPEAKER_00: In their presidential debate, one of the moderators of the debate asked Reagan about his age because it had become a topic on the campaign trail.
SPEAKER_00: Many people were saying he was too old to run the country.
SPEAKER_00: And many of you might remember his response: I will not make age an issue in this campaign.
SPEAKER_00: I will not exploit this issue for political purposes and make much of my competitors' youth and inexperience.
SPEAKER_00: Reagan took a gotcha question and he turned it around.
SPEAKER_00: Even Mondale was laughing hysterically at the response.
SPEAKER_00: That is what is happening here.
SPEAKER_00: They think they have a gotcha question that they have buttered Jesus up, they've let his guard down, and now they're gonna ask him a question.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the question: Is it okay for us to pay taxes to Caesar?
SPEAKER_00: Should we or should we not?
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a simple question to us.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in that situation, they thought they were putting him in an impossible situation.
SPEAKER_00: They thought they were giving him an impossible dilemma that he would never be able to recover from.
SPEAKER_00: He was going to have to either alienate the people who he needed to make him the Messiah, or he was gonna have to alienate the Romans who would not tolerate such a question.
SPEAKER_00: They thought, we've got him.
SPEAKER_00: This is it.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus says, yes, pay the taxes, all the people who were supporting him on Sunday as he came in and were crying out that he is the Messiah, they are all gonna turn against him because they hated the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: They hated the fact that they had to pay taxes to the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: And if this man was going to be the Messiah, if this man was gonna overthrow the Romans and he's now telling us we should pay taxes to the Romans, all of his followers are gonna quickly turn against him.
SPEAKER_00: If he says yes, pay the taxes, that's what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: But if he says no, don't pay the taxes.
SPEAKER_00: The Romans knew who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: They knew he was a religious rabbi, but they did not care about him as a religious leader.
SPEAKER_00: He had done nothing to stir their attention.
SPEAKER_00: Surely they were following him because he had large following and large crowds around him, but at this point in his ministry, he had done nothing to upset the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: However, if he began to tell people not to pay taxes to Rome, that would quickly get him on the Roman radar.
SPEAKER_00: Historical background.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus was an infant, 86, he was still being raised by Mary and Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: There was a man by the name of Judas of Galilee who rose up against the Romans and started an insurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what the issue that he thought most about was?
SPEAKER_00: Taxes.
SPEAKER_00: He says, we shouldn't be paying taxes to these Roman oppressors.
SPEAKER_00: And he raised up an army and he tried to fight against the Romans and they utterly destroyed him.
SPEAKER_00: AD 66, another man, some 30 years after Jesus Christ, rises up, same situation, begins to cry out, we are not going to pay taxes.
SPEAKER_00: He raises up an insurrection.
SPEAKER_00: This time, the Romans don't just wipe him out, they wipe everybody out.
SPEAKER_00: And in AD 70, the temple is destroyed, the Sadducees no longer exist, the Temple Mount Mount is not there.
SPEAKER_00: It is all destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Over the topic of paying taxes to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: And these people know if we can just get Jesus to tell his followers, don't pay taxes to Rome, Rome is not going to tolerate that.
SPEAKER_00: They are going to take care of our problem for us.
SPEAKER_00: And so they think if we can just get Jesus to say, uh, no, don't pay the taxes, the Romans will destroy him.
SPEAKER_00: And if he tells them to, his people will just desert him.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the gotcha question that they think they have?
SPEAKER_00: They think game over.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how he responds to this, he cannot win.
SPEAKER_00: We've got him this time.
SPEAKER_00: We finally tricked him.
SPEAKER_00: We finally set the trap he cannot get out of.
SPEAKER_00: And how does Jesus respond?
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus tell them to do?
SPEAKER_00: Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
SPEAKER_00: Pay the tax.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to pay the government what is due to them.
SPEAKER_00: So we've seen the trap that was set.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this truth that Jesus teaches.
SPEAKER_00: Mark tells us there in verse 15, the second part of verse 15, that he knew their hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saw right through this.
SPEAKER_00: Their flattery, their pretending to be his friend did not trick him at all.
SPEAKER_00: He sees right through it.
SPEAKER_00: Luke tells us in Luke chapter 20 that he detected their trickery.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew's account, Matthew 20, 22, it says that he recognized their wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not tricked by these men.
SPEAKER_00: He's not trapped by their question.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he asked them, Why are you testing me?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you bothering with this?
SPEAKER_00: You haven't trapped me in the past.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't trapped me now, and you will not trap me in the future.
SPEAKER_00: You are wasting our time.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you continuing to test me?
SPEAKER_00: Have I not proven to you over and over again that you cannot do it?
SPEAKER_00: But yet, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Bring it.
SPEAKER_00: But I've warned you.
SPEAKER_00: What's he asking for?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, somebody bring me a denarius.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Roman coin, a silver coin about the size of a quarter.
SPEAKER_00: It was equivalent to a common worker's daily wage.
SPEAKER_00: This was what they used to pay the poll tax that they're asking about.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus doesn't have one.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have one in his pocket, he doesn't have one in his wallet.
SPEAKER_00: He has to ironically ask somebody, can you bring me a denarius?
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at the denarius.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so bring me a donarius.
SPEAKER_00: And they bring it to him, and I just imagine him holding it in his hand, maybe flipping it, looking at it, and holding it up, looking at it in different directions.
SPEAKER_00: And he asks this question, whose likeness and image are these?
SPEAKER_00: And they all know the answer.
SPEAKER_00: That's Caesar's.
SPEAKER_00: Now Caesar was just the title for the Emperor of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: In this particular case, it's the Emperor Tiberius.
SPEAKER_00: And they say, that's Tiberius, the Emperor.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, okay, that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And what's the inscription say?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that it says, Tiberius, Caesar Augustus, son of Divine Augustus.
SPEAKER_00: It says, This is Caesar, the Supreme, son of the divine Augustus.
SPEAKER_00: His father had been Caesar Augustus, who was considered a god.
SPEAKER_00: And he is now considered a god.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's it's Tiberius Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: It's what's on the other side?
SPEAKER_00: The other side was a picture of Tiberius's mommy, with the phrase Pontifix Maximus.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone good with Latin?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone know what Pontifix Maximus means?
SPEAKER_00: High priest.
SPEAKER_00: One side says he's divine, the other side says he is the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: The emperor of Rome is considered the divine high priest, the political, the cultural, and the religious leader of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He says, whose image is on here?
SPEAKER_00: Caesar's.
SPEAKER_00: So what should you do?
SPEAKER_00: Render unto Caesar what's Caesar's.
SPEAKER_00: It's his image on that coin.
SPEAKER_00: He put his image on that coin so that everybody would know that coin belongs to him.
SPEAKER_00: Pay what you owe.
SPEAKER_00: The implication is you owe something to the government, whether you like the government or not, whether you agree with the government or not, whether the government is godly or not, you are living underneath the protection of the government.
SPEAKER_00: You are given provisions of the government.
SPEAKER_00: And even though the Jewish people were conquered and were oppressed by the Romans, they received great benefit from living underneath the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: They were given protection.
SPEAKER_00: No army was coming to fight against them and against the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: They were given provisions.
SPEAKER_00: Their social and their cultural infrastructure.
SPEAKER_00: The Romans famously built roads throughout this region of the world that allowed the region of the world to travel like they'd never traveled before.
SPEAKER_00: They build aqueducts providing water to these various regions.
SPEAKER_00: And all Jesus is saying right here is you are benefiting from the government.
SPEAKER_00: Pay the government what is owed to the government.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are looking at me like, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Remember the point of the text.
SPEAKER_00: I told you before we ever started is what?
SPEAKER_00: The supremacy of Christ in all things.
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget that.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth that Jesus taught here in first century Jerusalem is still true today in 21st century America and everywhere else.
SPEAKER_00: You may not like it.
SPEAKER_00: The people Jesus was talking to certainly didn't like it.
SPEAKER_00: But he said the government is placed there by God's ordained authority.
SPEAKER_00: Submit to the government, owe them, pay them what you owe.
SPEAKER_00: When he's writing this, Jesus is writing and talking about, excuse me, when Jesus is saying this, he's saying this about a government that in three days is going to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: You guys, lest you think I'm making this up, I'm going to give you three texts of scripture that I want to point you to.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Hear what Romans chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes to the church in Rome, and he writes these words every person is to be sub in subjection to the governing authorities.
SPEAKER_00: For there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are established by God.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.
SPEAKER_00: For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to have no fear of authority?
SPEAKER_00: Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.
SPEAKER_00: For it is a minister of God to you for good.
SPEAKER_00: But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing, for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience' sake.
SPEAKER_00: For because of this you also pay taxes.
SPEAKER_00: For rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.
SPEAKER_00: Render to all what is due to them, tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom is due, fear to whom fear is due, honor to whom honor is due.
SPEAKER_00: Three times in that letter, Paul refers to the civil government as a minister or servant of God who has been ordained by God for the protection of people, for the provision of people, and to have the sword.
SPEAKER_00: That is capital punishment.
SPEAKER_00: He says, you ought to subject yourself to the government that God has put over you.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, what does he call it?
SPEAKER_00: Does he call it good?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: All right, you don't like Paul.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you another one.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Same author, I'm afraid.
SPEAKER_00: For all of you, then I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all goodness and dignity.
SPEAKER_00: So not only should we submit to the authorities that are over us, we should pray for the authorities that are over us.
SPEAKER_00: Which ones?
SPEAKER_00: The ones we like, the ones we agree with?
SPEAKER_00: All of them.
SPEAKER_00: All right, you don't like Paul?
SPEAKER_00: You don't like his opinion.
SPEAKER_00: Let's find out what Peter had to say on the issue.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you'll like what Peter has to say better.
SPEAKER_00: First Peter chapter 2, verses 13 through 17.
SPEAKER_00: Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.
SPEAKER_00: For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.
SPEAKER_00: Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God.
SPEAKER_00: Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.
SPEAKER_00: I don't often get this look from you people.
SPEAKER_00: Usually I'm getting okay, all right.
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm getting.
SPEAKER_00: What is Jesus telling them?
SPEAKER_00: That authority that is over you is ordained by God, whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, it is there for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And you are benefiting from it.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, pray for them, submit to them, pay your taxes.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said that about an authority that was about to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: Paul and Peter said it when Nero was the governor, when Nero was the emperor, excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: And if you know anything about Roman history, you know that Nero persecuted, he massacred Christians by the thousands.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, the apostles are saying, the authority that is over you, pray for them and pay your taxes.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine living in a country that is not a democracy like our own.
SPEAKER_00: We struggle with this in our culture.
SPEAKER_00: We struggle with this when we might be Republican and there's a Democratic president, or we are a Democrat and there's a Republican president.
SPEAKER_00: We struggle over this in our culture.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine living in a culture that has a brutal dictator.
SPEAKER_00: Or a horrible oligarchy.
SPEAKER_00: Or a Muslim caliph.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine living in China and being told to submit to your government.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, Jesus says, pay your taxes.
SPEAKER_00: How are we to do this?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was not an anarchist.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says governments have a legitimate place.
SPEAKER_00: God has ordained them.
SPEAKER_00: There are three institutions that God has ordained.
SPEAKER_00: God has ordained the family, God has ordained the church, God has ordained civil government.
SPEAKER_00: All of them have a responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: They don't all have the same responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Families are supposed to procreate, reproduce the earth or produce the earth, and to raise children in a godly fashion.
SPEAKER_00: That's the job of the family.
SPEAKER_00: The job of the church is to take the gospel to all the world.
SPEAKER_00: The job of the government is to protect us and provide for us.
SPEAKER_00: How do we submit to the government?
SPEAKER_00: How do we follow this?
SPEAKER_00: Even if we don't like it, if we don't want to, how should we do this?
SPEAKER_00: Here's how I remember Pops, P-O-P-S.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for them.
SPEAKER_00: This is something I've got to work on in my own life.
SPEAKER_00: Praying for the authorities that are over us.
SPEAKER_00: Praying that God would change their hearts, save many of them, put people with wisdom around them that they might make godly decisions.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for our government.
SPEAKER_00: I can submit to the authority of the government by praying for them.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, oh, I can obey the laws of the government.
SPEAKER_00: Obey the laws.
SPEAKER_00: Three, pay taxes.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like them, but I understand them.
SPEAKER_00: We should pay our taxes.
SPEAKER_00: S, have something to say.
SPEAKER_00: You should vote.
SPEAKER_00: You should get involved in the conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Don't sit back and then complain when you didn't vote and somebody gets voted in that you didn't agree with.
SPEAKER_00: We should say something.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all alright?
SPEAKER_00: Are there exceptions to this rule?
SPEAKER_00: Should we always submit to civil government?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Because we serve by even a higher authority than the authority that God has placed over us in our government.
SPEAKER_00: He is the highest authority.
SPEAKER_00: And when our government tells us to do something that goes against what our higher authority tells us to do, then it's okay to stand up and say, no.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to answer to God before I'll answer to you.
SPEAKER_00: They think they have him.
SPEAKER_00: They think, man, we've got him.
SPEAKER_00: How can he answer this question?
SPEAKER_00: If he says yes, the people are going to abandon him.
SPEAKER_00: If he says no, the Romans are going to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: They've got him.
SPEAKER_00: How does Jesus respond?
SPEAKER_00: Pay your taxes.
SPEAKER_00: Render unto Caesar, what is Caesar?
SPEAKER_00: Does he stop there?
SPEAKER_00: No, and here's the whole point: render under God's.
SPEAKER_00: What is God's?
SPEAKER_00: The man who is on this coin thinks he is God, thinks he is the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: His image is on that coin because he thinks it belongs to him.
SPEAKER_00: But did you know that when your creator created you, he put an image on you that says that you belong to him?
SPEAKER_00: And God has created you, and then when he did, he created you in his own image.
SPEAKER_00: And while we may owe the government what we owe the government, we owe God far greater than we owe any other government.
SPEAKER_00: Christ should be supreme in all things.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta wrap up.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said in this simple and profound statement, render unto Caesar what is Caesar, unto God's what is God.
SPEAKER_00: He put everything in its proper place.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to pay what's right to government, but we ought not pay what's wrong to pay to government.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to pay what's right to pay to government, but it's wrong to give them what only belongs to God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's my ultimate allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: That's my very life.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is not in a constitution.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is not in a government.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is not in the things of this world.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The trap that was set.
SPEAKER_00: The truth that was taught.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to give your your honor to the government, to the king.
SPEAKER_00: But Christ should be supreme.
SPEAKER_00: What's the takeaway?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do with this?
SPEAKER_00: How do we walk away from this?
SPEAKER_00: Number one, don't fall into the trap.
SPEAKER_00: There will be so many opportunities for folks to come along and tell you that there are things that you can pour your life into.
SPEAKER_00: And you ought to give all your allegiance and all your resources and all your effort and all your energy towards these things.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them may be very good.
SPEAKER_00: And there will be some fake friends who will come along and flatter you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you'll be so wonderful at this, and you have so many talents, and you can help us with this, and you have so many things, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: All the while trying to pull you away from what should be supreme in your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to pursue things as long as you pursue Christ supremely.
SPEAKER_00: And don't fall into the trap of pursuing lesser things.
SPEAKER_00: And then live by the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Give to the government's rightly theirs, but don't give to them what's wrongly theirs.
SPEAKER_00: The second Thursday of every month, we have a men's prayer group that gets together.
SPEAKER_00: Been doing this for many years.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, they started doing this before I was the pastor when they were searching for a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: A group of men in the church got together on that Thursday and began praying for the new pastor.
SPEAKER_00: And then when I got here, they invited me to come to the meeting.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Are you still praying for a new pastor?
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not sure I want to come to that meeting.
SPEAKER_00: But the focus has changed over the years, and Brian Mark leads that group now.
SPEAKER_00: And we meet at Patch's Place and we just have a time where he leads us in praying for our church and praying for one another, and he does a devotional for us each time, each month.
SPEAKER_00: And this month was the topic was patriotism in the godly man, a timely conversation in our 250th anniversary as a country.
SPEAKER_00: And what he shared was I told him Thursday, man, it's such in line with what I'm where I am on this text.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to share a couple things that he shared this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I did not ask him permission, so Brian, can I share some of the things?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, buddy.
SPEAKER_00: Um I just want to close with this.
SPEAKER_00: Here are just two quotes from Thursday.
SPEAKER_00: Patriotism can be a good and honorable thing when it is kept in its proper place.
SPEAKER_00: I told you last week I am a proud patriot.
SPEAKER_00: I'm proud to be an American, but I owe a higher allegiance to my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I may be a citizen of the United States of America, but ultimately I am a citizen of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And everything I do is not dictated by my earthly residence, it's dictated by my heavenly residence.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a good thing to be a patriot.
SPEAKER_00: It is a good thing to be a proud American.
SPEAKER_00: It is good to be proud of our country.
SPEAKER_00: Even when we don't agree with it and some of the things that are going on with it, we should be proud.
SPEAKER_00: But it can be honorable to do so as long as we keep it in its proper place.
SPEAKER_00: And I started by telling you, I like things in their proper place.
SPEAKER_00: Because when they're not in their proper place, chaos takes place.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the other quote, and we'll finish.
SPEAKER_00: Biblical patriotism must always begin with this truth.
SPEAKER_00: Our highest loyalty belongs to God, and he alone is Lord of the conscience, and that civil government is ordained by God for the good of society.
SPEAKER_00: Christians are called to obey the law, respect authority, pray for our leaders, and be responsible citizens, but we are also reminded that no government, nation, or earthly authority stands above the authority of God.
SPEAKER_00: A godly man can love his country deeply, but he must love Christ supremely.
SPEAKER_00: All I can say to that is amen.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to love our countries deeply.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to love those that are serving us deeply, but we ought to love Christ supremely and serve him supremely.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel did it.
SPEAKER_00: He did it in the courts of many kings who were foreign ungodly men.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph did it in the court of Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_00: We can do it.