Testing God

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. So we're going to turn our Bibles to Mark chapter 12 beginning at verse 13. Israel showed themselves time and time and time and time and time again unfaithful to the Lord. Sad story. The story continues in Mark chapter 12, beginning at verse 13. Mark chapter 12, you can find that on page 896 if you're using the New King James Pew Bibles. Mark chapter 12, and this morning we'll be looking at verses 13 through 17. Hear now God's word. Then they sent to him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to catch him in his words.

When they had come, they said to him, Teacher, we know that you are true, and you care about no one. For you do not regard the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?

But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, Why do you test me? Bring me a denarius, that I may see it. So they brought it. And he said to them, Whose image and inscription is this? They said to him, Caesar's. And Jesus answered and said to them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him.

Well, in the reading of God's word there, let's go to him in prayer now. Father, we thank you for your word. And we pray now that you would please help us. Father, we confess to you that it's easy for us to be dull and to turn off. And so we pray that your Holy Spirit would enlighten our eyes to the knowledge of Christ this hour. That we would follow after you. We need you to be our teacher, Lord, to apply these words. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

People today, and I don't know, maybe I'm just getting older and older, I don't know, but it seems like every year people become more and more infatuated with politics. I'm old enough, and I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to still remember when you could turn on the news and it was actually news, and not nothing but political commentary. Where it was just, this is what happened, and it was up to you to make up your own mind, but it seems like this happened, and here's the political reasons why it happened, and here's the political reasons what we need to do about it. It's politics. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Politics, politics, politics, politics, all day long, it seems. But we gotta be honest.

Christians love politics, too. Oh man, do Christians love politics. And there is a whole bunch of people who really want Christians to like more politics. And there's many people who will call themselves Christians just because they want you to like their politics. There's Christian politicians who have no desire for holiness. And there's Christian politicians who will call themselves Christians but say they've never sinned.

Many of us in our own houses and even when we're in our cars will gobble down all the politics of the day. We'll engage in the politics without ever stopping and asking, where is my heart in all of this? Where's my heart in engaging in all of this politicking and all this power grabbing and all of this control and organization of society? Jesus this morning comes head to head with the politics of his day. And Jesus gives a clear command that we are to give to God what he is due, faith, worship, loyalty, and obedience.

And so as we go through verses 13 through 17, I'm going to need you to do something and it's going to be hard. I'm going to take you through a history lesson. I'm going to try to zoom through hundreds of years of history fast. I've even given you a timeline on the back of your writing bulletin underneath the prayer request as a timeline for you to write down things. And then we're going to switch back to the front of the timeline for you to get back into here. So first things first, we need to understand what's going on in the culture in which we're just plopped down to in the temple. We need to understand what's going on.

See, in 164 BC, The Jewish people fought for their freedom against their Greek overlords. I mean, the Greek rule had become so bad over the Jewish people that one of the Greek leaders walked into the temple and he sacrificed a pig on the altar in the temple. And the Jews were like, that's it, that's enough, we can't handle this. And they rise up and they overthrow the Greeks.

It's a highlight in the life of the Jewish nation. It begins what's called either the Maccabean era or the rule of the Hasmonean empire. All that is, this is Jewish rule of Jerusalem. And it's a high point in Jewish history. If you ever study Jewish history today, you don't even need to look too far. If you have Jewish friends or know anything about Jewish culture, Why do they celebrate Hanukkah? It's tied to this with the miraculous lighting of the lights of God actually providing this victory for His people in 164 B.C. But then something happened in 152 B.C. As one of the sons of Maccabee, his name was Jonathan, made himself high priest.

But he wasn't of the family of Zadok, he wasn't of the family of the priest, and so people start saying, well, hold on here. How are you allowed to be both the king and the priest? You're not even of the right family, this isn't supposed to happen, and so you start to see a fracturing, and this is where you actually have the Pharisees starting to come about. as a reaction against this, thinking, hold on, this isn't right, but we're willing to live under this, but we're going to speak against it, we want reform. And then you have another group called the Essenes, who are just like, this is totally corrupt, forget you guys, we're doing our own thing in the desert.

This starts almost 200 years before our story, but then in 37 BC, Herod the Great is able to actually become king of the Jews. He receives that title from Caesar himself. He becomes king of the Jews. But see, something happens. In 4 BC, Herod dies. Herod dies and it goes under provincial rule. All Judea is made a province, but it's under the entire area of Syria. And there's a governor of Syria. And in 6 AD, he does something that Luke chapter 2 records.

He actually wants a census. He's going to take a census of everyone because he wants to tax them. Now isn't that convenient? Cyrenus, the governor, takes a census and imposes a three-part tax. The word here in Mark chapter 12 is not any type of tax. In verse 15 when it says, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? This word, quinsus, is directly tied to this idea of a poll tax. This is a three-part tax.

So they've never had to pay this tax before, and now all of a sudden they have to pay, farmers get ready for it, an ag produce tax. So everything you get from the field gets taxed. Oh, by the way, the property in which you farm, it doesn't matter if you get a prop or not, that land is taxed. And then there's a census tax for every single person who lives in the land, you get taxed as well. A three-part tax that's brought on them in 6 AD by this Roman governor.

This doesn't go well with all Jewish people. There's a certain sect that says, you know what, forget this. Josephus actually says that one of them, who's a leader of a revolt, this man's name was Judas, and he wrote, taxation was no better than introduction to slavery, and extorted the nation to assert their liberty. This was their Boston Tea Party moment. down with the Roman taxes, we're going to revolt. But unlike the American Revolution, the Jews were quickly stamped down, they were quickly put back under rule, but yet there remained this class of people, the zealots.

So now we need to flip back, so you've gotten your timeline and you flip back to the other side of your notes and we need to talk about the people that Jesus is operating with because We often know about the Pharisees, and we know about the Sadducees, but who are the Herodians?

What's going on here? There's a lot of historical baggage. I know I'm going to take you to school. Stick with me here, because you need to understand it to get what Jesus' point is. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the time, tells us that there were mainly four sects, philosophies, ways of thinking, ways of living. The first was the Pharisees.

These are very letter-of-the-law people. They're very reform-minded people. He says they lived average lives. They were very popular with the people. They were reasonable. They wanted to do what was good for themselves. They were respectful of the elders.

They believed that the soul was immortal, that there were rewards for living a virtuous life, and there were penalties after death. for living in a vicious or unvirtuous life. They were willing to give worship and prayers and sacrifices at the temple despite the fact that the Romans were ruling. But life was primarily about virtue.

So that's the Pharisees. The Pharisees. The next group of people is the Sadducees. We're going to come into them next week in verse 18. But the Sadducees are also milling about at this time. They're the type of people who says, when the body dies, so does the soul. Right? That's it. You're put into the ground. Story's over. That's the last chapter. It's done. Jesus has a lot of words for them.

They would say things like, don't do anything don't do anything against the law, or don't do anything that the law doesn't say. So the Pharisees have all these traditions, all these things of the elders, right? If you're gonna eat, you need to wash your hands a certain way, you need to do these things, and the Sadducees just said, nah, we're not gonna do all that. They would say, you can't walk this far on the Sabbath, and they would go, nah, forget that. We're just going to stick with what Moses said. That's it. We're not going to go with the elders and their different traditions. And they thought it was a virtue, Josephus says, to dispute philosophy. They really, really liked to get into arguments philosophically with people.

But they didn't have very many followers. Actually, most of their followers came from the priests in the temple. But see, the Sadducees had a problem. They were mainly the aristocrats of the Jewish people, but they couldn't exactly get rid of the Pharisees. See, we often think of Sadducees and Pharisees as like fighting against each other. In a sense they did, but the Sadducees, if they alienated the Pharisees too far, they wouldn't have enough support to actually stay in power. So they were really politically maneuvering type people.

And then there's the Essenes. I'm not going to mention too much about the Essenes. Think of these as like the absolute curious. These are like the monks out in the desert. If you want to write down something and look into it later, write down Masada. Josephus says there's only about 4,000 of these people around during Jesus' time. But these are the ultra-spiritual. Everything in Jerusalem is corrupt, so we live in the desert. Everything with Roman politics is wrong, so we stay out of it. Roman taxation is evil, so we're not even going to touch the money. Right? We don't want anything to do with any of that.

One of the things that I did think was fun, that I wanted to share with you from Josephus, and Josephus loved the city life, right? But Josephus said this about the Essenes. They were entirely addicted to their husbandry. So, farmers' wives, maybe you can sympathize with Josephus here. They were completely addicted to their farms. This is what their lives were about. They just wanted to go farm and be away and just forget the world.

They also held all things in common and there's no doubt why the Essenes didn't last very long because they also held the celibacy. Eventually, if you say you can't marry and you can't have babies, what eventually happens to your movement? Well, it dies after about a generation or two.

So those are the Essenes. But then there's a fourth sect that Josephus brings about. This Jewish historian, as he's writing about the Jewish people, he's really concerned about a fourth sect. And this fourth sect is what's undergirding this whole conversation about, do we pay taxes to Caesar? See, the Zealots The zealots were the Pharisees plus fire in their bellies.

The zealots were unmovable in their attachment to liberty. That's how Josephus says it. They were unmovable in their attachment to liberty. They would say things like, God is our only ruler and Lord. That's like thumbing their noses at Caesar. They would say that dying and death doesn't scare them, and you can't threaten them with anything. They would literally be willing to go to the grave to die, rather than saying that Caesar was their Lord.

And so in chapter 12, verse 13, Then they sent him, these are the leaders of the people, the scribes, the high priests, and the elders, they sent to him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians, the reformers and those in power. The people who want to live by the traditions and change society, and those who actually had the power in society. Have you ever heard the phrase, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That's what's going on here. The Herodians and the Pharisees were not friends typically, but they have a common enemy at this point, because Jesus is overthrowing both of them. And they come to catch Jesus in His words. And there's a question behind their question. When they ask, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay? What they're really asking is, does Caesar have any right to impose taxes? Was the governor of Syria wrong in 6 AD? Should we revolt like we did against the Romans and against the Greeks before?

Jesus, are you a zealot? Remember what's just happened. Jesus has just come up that windy road from Jericho over the Mount of Olives, down the Hill of Olives, in a triumphal entry where people were proclaiming Him as King. And they're asking, is the riot coming? What type of king are you going to be, Jesus? They're spying Him out to figure out if they can entrap Him. And notice the trap that they've set for Him.

If He says, yeah, go ahead and pay to Caesar, what's He going to do? He's going to alienate all these people who don't like Caesar, don't like Roman rule. But if He says, no, don't pay your taxes, what's going to happen? Then they can hand him over to the Romans and say, he's a revolutionary, you need to kill this guy, stop him right away.

The Romans have been clear that they're willing to do that. And they have, the motive of this is no doubt that they are trying to catch him. In verse 13, that word that they're trying to catch him is the idea of trapping an animal. Of going out and trying to set a trap and bait the animal to go into the trap so you could kill it. That's what they're trying to do with Jesus.

They don't come to him with reality of wanting to be taught by him. The hypocrisy of it is right on the face, right? And when they had come, verse 14, they said to him, teacher, they don't want to be taught. This is empty words. They don't want to be taught. They call him teacher.

And then they say, we know that you are true, but they don't think he has the truth. And then they say to him, and you care about no one. The idea there, more literally, is you don't judge anybody by their face. You don't care about class, you don't care about social standing. Jesus, we know that you are an impartial judge. The irony is that they're not impartial in their judgment.

For you do not regard the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth. And Jesus calls him on the carpet for it, right? He knows their hypocrisy. And he just says it, right? Why do you test me? This is the same way that Satan was trying to test Jesus. But what are you trying to do here? What are you up to?

And then we have the coin. Denarius, this is a silver coin. About one day's work, but I wish we were doing Chalk and Talk today, because maybe I'll do it next week. I want to show a picture of this coin. Because on the front of that coin, when Jesus says, whose image is this? Whose icon is this?

It's got a picture of Emperor Tiberius. And what's written on it is the words, Son of Divine Augustus. And on the back side is a picture of Pax, the goddess of peace. And it says on the back, Pontiff Maximus, that this is the idea that Caesar, or the emperor, was the one who was the high priest of peace.

And so there's a reason why Jewish people didn't like this coin. Actually, there's a whole bunch of Jewish people who refuse to even touch this coin. They would rather use little copper coins. This is where we get our word penny from. And they would rather use those coins than touch the silver coin for the poll tax.

But notice what happens. Jesus tells them, bring me a denarius that I may see it. Notice Jesus doesn't have the denarius who does have it. Who's got no problem handling it? The people trying to catch him. The people trying to test him. But Jesus not only touches the coin, right? He takes it in his own hand and he seems to inspect it and it's almost like he points his finger at it and he says, whose is this? Who's the icon on it? And what's written on it? And they tell him, Caesar's.

And then Jesus says something that catches them totally out of left field. Verse 17, And Jesus answered and said to them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Jesus teaches them a little something about Christian government. Now I'm going to say, I'm going to fly through this section, because I don't think this is the main point of this passage. As I read through commentary after commentary after commentary after commentary after commentary on this, most of them spend a lot of time on this section, but I don't think it's the main point. Jesus is teaching us about government in a sense that they were the ones who lived under a civil authority, and it is what it is.

They live under the Roman rule just like the people in Israel lived under the Babylonian rule. Guess what? You live under the rule, you pay the taxes, that's it. You have to be subject, you have to pay your taxes. I know that it's horrible. I don't like doing it either, but this is what Jesus commands. Not just here, but also in Romans chapter 13 and 1 Peter. We gotta do it, right? So this is what Jesus says.

But see, that's not the issue that Jesus is getting at with them. They are obsessed with their own power. They don't want to pay Caesar taxes. They don't want any of this Roman rule either. They're accepting the Roman rule so far as they're able to stay in their own power, have their own authority, and engage in their own lifestyles. They're obsessed.

These same people who asked Him, by what authority are you doing these things, are the same ones who are now sending a delegation to try to impale Jesus on this question of should we pay taxes. But what were they not getting? What are they not understanding? They all pay their taxes anyways. The Herodians pay their taxes. The Pharisees pay their taxes. They're already doing this, so what are they not doing? What are they not getting? It's the second part of the passage that I think is the more pressing point.

And pay to God the things that are God's. Whose icon is on the coin? Caesar's. whose inscription is written upon it, Caesar's. But what they're not seeing is they are willing to give to Caesar what they know is due to Caesar's, but they are not willing to give to God what is God's. the icon of God himself. This is how Colossians chapter 1 speaks of Jesus. He is the exact image and representation of God. The word there, exact image, is the word icon, the same word that Jesus uses here. He is the image of God himself, and they owe obedience, loyalty, faith, and love to Jesus, but they are the vinedressers unwilling to pay the landowner.

They'll pay to Caesar, they'll do whatever they need to stay in power, but God forbid he demand of them to obey his son. That's too far. And they're the ones in rebellion. They're the ones who refuse to give to God what is God's faith, worship, obedience, loyalty. They're the ones unwilling to love God and love their neighbors. The icon of God is standing right in front of them and yet they're unwilling to listen to Him.

They just want to trap Him. They just want to get rid of Him. That is what I think is going on in this passage, and that's why they're shut with their mouths. They can't say anything. What do we do? Because they know that He's attacking them in these words. So like every sermon, I still have to ask, so what's this got to do with me?

Right? That's great. You guys had a history lesson. Congratulations. You're like the rest of the people apparently on a Twitter poll who said, what are you thinking about most this week? And most of the guys said the Roman Empire. Congratulations. That's you too. Right? But how does this actually apply to your life? What does this mean to you?

Well, Christian, you can be obsessed with politics, and you can go after your own power, you can go after your own authority, you can go after your own way. You might even think that you yourself are building the kingdom of God. In all reality, what you're doing is building your own kingdom.

Does your faith in God and His goodness depend on who is winning in the polls? When a new president is elected, do you wring your hands and go, oh no, I wonder if God is still good today? I'm telling you this because I had to be called out by a Christian man for this when a person was elected that I didn't like a long time ago. I was a brand new Christian, and I had gotten so involved in the presidential election, I was really pumped up and hyped up about this. And when my guy didn't win, I remember sitting there getting all sad and dour and sulking, and the guy just said, what is wrong with you? God puts rulers in power, and obviously this is the one he wanted, whether it's for our good or for our bad, but it's for his glory. God's still on his throne. Does your worship of God hinge on your party winning?

Does what the justices on the Supreme Court say take more of your attention than what God says in His judgments and His Word? Oh man, I'm going to step on toes here. Do you listen more to what is said on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, I don't care what channel you're watching, NPR you're listening to, I don't care. Do you listen to more of what they say about how you should think and live your life and put your hopes on then God's Word? Is your trust in princes and in principalities?

Because our King, Jesus Christ, is alive today. Herod died. The Herodians went away, and guess who was still king? Jesus Christ. The Pharisees lost their authority and their power, but guess who still sits on his throne? The King of Kings, Jesus Christ.

The zealots actually did rule for a time. They rose up in 66 AD. They fought the Romans and they lost. The temple was destroyed. But there was still a king on his throne in heaven. The Roman Empire came burning down by the barbarians. But guess who was still king?

Jesus Christ. Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Yesterday, today, and forever. So being engaged in politics is fine. But you've got to understand that Jesus' kingdom is not a kingdom of this world. Be engaged in this world. That's fine. If you want to run for mayor, please do. If you want to run to be a politician, please do. If you want to be a judge, please do.

But do it for the glory of God and for the benefit of others. It must be driven by our love for God and our love for others because this is what Jesus commands us. Give to God what is God's. We have a plague in our country of appointed leaders and elected leaders who rule for themselves and not a love for God and not a love for others. And many of those people even call themselves Christians.

Do not, though I need to warn you, do not put your trust in earthly princes or principalities. If you put your hope in any president, I promise you, your hope will be dashed. If you put your trust in any prince, in any prime minister, in any name of P who rules people, I don't know. You're going to have your hope dashed because they will fail you.

Jesus today calls us, like he called the Pharisees and the Herodians in the first century, to give to God what is God's. So what is it in your heart you have been unwilling to give? Is it your marriage? Is it some friendships? Is it your money? Is it your popularity? Is it your loyalty? What is it that you have been holding out onto yourself, wanting for yourself?

Closing Prayer

Instead of being willing to give to God, what is God's? Jesus is commanding us this morning to give to Him loyalty, obedience, faith, and love. Give to God what is God's. Let's pray. Father, this has been a long sermon. In many ways, I'm sure a very tedious word.

Father, we pray that you would please let us be people of integrity. That by your spirit, you would please let us be those who would love you with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, that we would not reserve a part for ourselves and for our own glory, but that we would live for you. Please, Father, teach us to be good citizens, not just of the kingdoms of this world, but Lord, that we might be faithful citizens of your economy, of the kingdom of heaven. We thank you that you have made us dual citizens.

And we pray that we would live in light of that calling in Jesus' name. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.