Matthew Pt. 84 - Inspecting the Lamb of God

Matthew chapter 22. We are in verse 15.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in

his words, and they sent their disciples to him along with the

Herodians saying, Teacher, we know that you are true and teach

the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's

opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.

Tell us then what you think, Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar

or not? But Jesus, aware of their

malice, said, Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin for the tax. And they brought him a Daenerys.

And Jesus said to them, Whose likeness, whose inscription is

this? And they said Caesar's.

Then he said to them, Therefore render to Caesar the things that

are Caesar's, and to God the things that are gods.

When they heard it, they marvelled, and they left him and

went away. The same day Sadducees came to

him who say there is no resurrection.

And they asked him a question, saying, Teacher Moses says, If a

man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and

raise up offspring for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers among us.

The first married and died, and having no offspring left his

wife to his brother, and to the second and third down to the

7th. After them all the woman died in

the resurrection. Therefore, of the seven, whose

wife will she be? For they all had her.

But Jesus answered them, You are wrong, because you know neither

the Scriptures nor the power of God.

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in

marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

And as through the resurrection of the dead.

Have you not read what was said to you by God?

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of

Jacob. He is not the God of the dead,

but of the living. And when the crowd heard it,

they were astonished at his teaching.

Jesus, we thank you for being so pure.

We thank you for being so perfect, for being so righteous,

for being a Lamb who was well qualified to be the sacrifice

tested by those who had no credentials to test him.

And still, Lord, you exposed your enemies and you revealed

yourself to be the perfect, spotless Lamb, qualified in

every way and worthy of all praise, glory, honor, and

reverence to receive all authority now and forever.

We honor You this morning. Open the eyes of our hearts, not

just so we would understand the context of what took place that

day, but that we would understand what it means for us

here, now, today, that we could out, that we could walk with

deeper obedience and deeper love for you.

Lord, if possible, would you deepen our admiration for Jesus?

Father, would You help us to see Him with even more glory?

Would You help us to see Him with even more splendor?

Lord, only You can do that thing.

We already love Him, we already honour Him, we already treasure

Him so highly. Lord help us to somehow, someway

treasure Him even more highly today, to recognize His

greatness, His beauty, His power and His goodness.

Our Good Shepherd, we love him, we honor him.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

So remember, we're still in the middle of Holy Week.

The Lord the King is courageously going to the cross.

He is fulfilling his mission. It's probably Wednesday and

we're very likely still in the temple court with 100,000

people. The mobs are everywhere.

Jesus is the attention thing of this Passover week.

This rabbi is going off. He has cleansed the temple.

The Saggis are super mad, the Pharisees are super mad, the

Herodians are super mad. He has found a way to poke

everybody in the eye. It hasn't been on accident, it's

been on purpose. He's saying, because he loves

the people, because he loves the humble flock who are trying to

follow these people. They're like the Pharisees.

They seem religious, but they crush us with heavy burdens.

They're like the best of the group, and they're still

terrible fools. And then we got the Sadducees

and we got the Herodians. They're just very much political

elites, and Jesus is very much just dethroning everybody and

enthroning himself as as humble people worship him and honor him

as they should. So it's probably Wednesday.

That means he's got tomorrow. And then tomorrow night he's in

the garden praying and he's bleeding and he's sweating great

drops of blood as he is experiencing the pressure and

the stress of an innocent man going to the crucifixion, going

to the Roman whip, going to the torture that he came for on his

mission. So the Pharisees, let's get

quick context, context on these groups of people.

We just read about Pharisees. They are religious teachers.

They are they're operating in the synagogues.

So the little local Jewish churches all throughout the

region, all throughout Israel, Pharisees are traveling and

doing these things. They have no temple power.

They are respected, but they burden the people with

traditions. The Pharisees hated Roman

taxation, the Herodians. So these are these are the

people under King Herod. So King Herod is the puppet king

that the Romans put in place. Hey, all right, we'll let the

Jew, we've conquered the Jews. We'll let them kind of have

their thing. We need somebody to kind of like

rule over the Jews and be our puppet.

We're still going to have pilot there, but we still need like,

we'll let you have your little oh, oh, pick me.

He's not even a full blooded Jew.

He's he's not really a religious Jew much at all.

He's just like, I'll be the guy. I think think like tax

collectors. Hey, I'll sell my people out.

And King Herod's the same way. So faithful Jews hate Herod as

well because they're like, this guy has betrayed us.

So the Herodians, these are political supporters of Herod

and of Rome. They've compromised to keep

power. Therefore they support Roman

taxation. Now we have the Sadducees.

These are wealthy. These are the wealthy temple

elite. These are the chief priests.

These guys deny the resurrection.

They deny eternal life. They think when you die it's

just lights out like a bug. He's squished, he's gone.

He just don't no more. He's all finished.

There's nowhere for him to go. He's on.

There's no consciousness. They don't believe in angels.

They only believe the first five books of the Old Testament,

which they do not understand, but they think that they

understand. They're considered experts, but

they're they're largely unpopular.

So if you're an average Jew in Israel, you're the Pharisees are

more your role model than these other two groups.

But even still, the Pharisees like something still ain't quite

right. But you can never pinpoint it.

And then Jesus shows up and humiliates the Pharisees in

front of everybody for their pride, for their presentation,

for the weights, the extra laws that they put on top of God's

laws to say, well, God says this is holy, but we say this is

holy. So Jesus has exposed everybody.

That's the context of these people.

All these groups hate each other.

They hate each other, but they have found unity now in hating

Christ together. They've united around.

We got to do something with Jesus.

He messed up the money system. He threw over the tables of the

money changers and said to all the people, this is wrong.

This should be a House of prayer.

And the Sadducees are going, OK, you just started messing with

our money. Now this guy has to die.

Like, it's not like he just made a mess in the temple.

He's speaking against the whole process of everything that

they're doing this. I told you, you were going to

understand more. Why?

Like why did they kill him? Like I thought Jesus was just a

nice hippie. I know y'all know better.

I thought Jesus was just a nice hippie who just went around like

doing good. Well he did go around doing good

unless you were prideful and hard hearted and then you didn't

think it was good at all because he was calling out your lies

with the truth. He called everyone to repent.

That's how the ministry of Jesus began.

Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And then of course, he shows what the Kingdom of heaven looks

like. He's done that for three years.

He has built momentum, He's built steam, and now he has come

for the week of Passover. The Passover lamb has to be

sacrificed. But remember, hundreds of

thousands of lambs are being sacrificed in Jerusalem this

week, hundreds of thousands of them for all these different

families that are represented there.

Of course, they don't realize that there's one Passover lamb

that's finally going to fulfill what started back in Exodus.

Kill the Passover lamb and put the blood on the doorpost and

then the death Angel will pass over your household that is

finally being fulfilled. They think they're just supposed

to do it forever and ever and ever and ever.

No, no, no, it's fulfilled. There is coming one perfect lamb

so that we can stop with these animals.

These animals were innocent and still their blood is can only

can only provide a temporary sacrifice.

Oh, if only we could have a permanent sacrifice.

He's finally here. The thing that would happen with

Passover lambs is they would be inspected during the week.

The priests would inspect them. And because they were liars and

manipulators and greedy men, you would bring the land that you

perfectly selected from a flock. You purchased it.

And then they would inspect him to go, oh, I found this problem

here. But you can buy a temple

certified lamb over here at this table and pay a lot more money

for it. So they're extorting the people,

they're manipulating the people. It's disgusting.

God hates it. It's really, really wicked.

But they have power and they got a decent, they got a decent gig

going here. Jesus is ruining, ruining all of

that. They would have let him heal

some folks and heal some folks and not that.

But now he's getting all up in their business.

He's saying, I'm changing, I'm turning over everything that

you're doing and I'm exposing you in front of the people.

And they're like, OK, now he has to die.

We have to kill him because he's going to chase like the Romans

are going to come like, oh, what's going to happen to our

system? What's this going to mean for

us? Instead of honoring the King as

they should. So now these people have united.

Do we see people uniting against the name of Jesus in our day and

age? We most certainly do.

The hatred, hatred for Christ still unites people in our day

and age. The LGBT community, feminists,

Islam, those are three odd bedfellows.

You would not find these groups together all the time, but they

can unite easily against the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

and go, I hate him. Why do you?

Why do you hate him? The the friend, The enemy of my

enemy is my friend. So that's the approach that that

we face in our modern day. So we're going to make some

applications here for our moment.

But the first Test comes from the Pharisees and the Herodians.

They want to put Jesus in a no win situation over taxes.

Why is this a no win situation? Why do they think it is?

Because on one hand, Rome demands money.

On the other hand, the Jews hate being forced to pay it.

And that's the tension. You and I feel those same

tensions. We hate paying taxes to a

government that uses our money for wicked purposes.

And we know our government uses money for wicked purposes and we

know our government uses money for foolish purposes, maybe not

always wicked, but sometimes foolish.

And we go, I paid for what I paid for what.

You know, we think about that the all the things that Doge

exposed over, you know, over the past, what was that six months

ago, all the things that came out that that Elon and his team

found, we paid for this. We paid for this and we won.

I knew we were doing some dumb stuff, but like I would have

never imagined it was that insane.

I would have never imagined the depravity.

I would have never imagined the the the transgender demonic

ideologies that we were promoting in foreign nations.

I got just how in the world did this happen?

And you know, thankfully those things are being exposed, But so

I hate paying taxes to that. So now as a citizen, I love the

Lord. What do I do when it comes time

to pay taxes? This is a real question that

people go, how can I support this thing?

I want to I want to do what's right, but they're going to use

it for wrong. What's it look like?

This is a real tension that people lived in that we live in

as well. People on the earth still deal

with governments that demand things from us and they use our

money for unrighteous purposes. Go to verse 15.

The Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his

words. So remember, we got enemies

here, Pharisees and Herodians, Pharisees with religious elites.

Herodians are the political loyalists.

They hate each other. They've joined forces because

Jesus has threatened them with their money, their theology.

The first thing you need to remember here, the application

that you can make is everyone who asks you a question isn't

necessarily your friend. I have a question and you're

thinking this is my chance to share the gospel.

Maybe, maybe. Or maybe you're naively walking

into a trap. The nature of the question, who

is it coming from? Do you have any context with

this individual? Jesus has context for the

Pharisees. He has context for the

Herodians. This isn't a random Jew going,

hey man, me and my wife and my kids, we're trying to figure all

of it out. We got you as a rabbi.

We got them. We that's different.

That's a humble guy going, I'm trying to figure it out.

Tell me the truth. Jesus has context for these

folks. When you got context for

somebody, when somebody is showing you over and over who

they are and you're like, I know kind of who this person is, then

believe them. Stop being naive.

Be as wise as a serpent. Have no venom.

Be as innocent as a dove, but be as wise as a serpent.

Sly, clever, Serpentine. I'm hard to hit if I'm if I'm as

wise as a serpent. I've killed a lot of snakes in

my day. I hate snakes.

I love to kill snakes. It brings me pleasure and joy to

kill a snake because I hate them so much.

If you love snakes, you should repent.

If you've ever owned a snake. Bradley, he told us as a kid he

owned a snake, which I was like, the Lord will forgive you, but

the Lord will forgive you and I'll try.

But where? Where were we?

I lost the plot. Be as wise as a serpent.

Whenever somebody asks you a question that is not necessarily

your friend, sometimes they only want to draw you in and set you

up. So now verse 16.

And they sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians

saying, teacher, we know you're true and you teach the way of

God truthfully, blah, blah, blah.

So now blah blah blah to the scriptures blah blah blah to

these fools who are think that they're going to trap the Lord.

But notice how they sent their disciples.

So everybody has disciples. They would all have young men.

Jesus had young men. The disciples were very likely

teenagers, but they they send their young men.

Why? Because maybe they're tired of

getting spanked is my suspicion. They're like, hey, hey boys,

here's what we want you to go. You guys send your guys and you

guys say y'all send them like I don't want to get humiliated in

front of everybody anymore. So that's what I'm guessing is

going on here. So they send the young men

probably because they don't want to face humiliation again, where

Jesus dismantles them in front of everybody and they think they

can hide behind their students. They begin with their flattery.

Teacher, we know that you are true and you teach the way of

God truthfully. They're just flattery.

Beware of flattery. Flattery is not a compliment.

Flattery is manipulation. Oh, you know what?

You're so good at? Mowing the lawn.

Mow my lawn. It's just like it's a trap.

It's not sincere. It's not actual praise, it's

mockery. So they're coming in, but they

they think that Jesus doesn't see through this.

They think that Jesus can't recognize what's happening here.

We know that you're true and you teach the way of God truthfully.

This is supposed to be a compliment and you don't care

about anyone's opinion for you're not swayed by

appearances. Isn't it interesting that at

this time period, when when this was being said, that was a

compliment that was supposed to be a compliment.

Nowadays this would be an insult.

John Michael, you know what your problem is?

You don't care about any what anyone thinks like that would be

the that's the way it would be used against you now.

Like you don't take other people's feelings into

consideration. They were actually praising

Jesus accurately going like, teacher, we know you're just

going to tell the truth. Back to a Charlie Kirk

reference. I'm not sorry for referencing

Charlie Kirk. He's a great man.

Everybody listening on the podcast, Charlie Kirk was a

great man. I hope to be half the man he

was. So he's rejoicing with King

Jesus in heaven right now. So where were we?

Pastor's going on three hours of sleep.

So they were flattering him. They're flattering him because

he always tells the truth, because he tells the truth.

In our day and age, you're not praised for being the truth

teller. There it was.

You're not praised for being the truth teller.

That's the thing that makes you a bad person.

That's the thing that makes you a hateful bigot.

That's the thing that makes you an Islamophobic, homophobic,

white supremacist, A misogynist. Like insert accusation here.

If you just say, hey, this is a truth, this is a reality.

And people go, wow, that's really close minded.

But it's just funny how in this moment they're going like,

teacher, we know you're just going to focus on the truth and

dismiss what everyone else says. Well, that's that's high praise.

That's actual being a truth teller and a truth seeker.

We don't want to do it to condemn anyone, but the truth

does cut and we recognize that. Hey, we're going to come in with

the healing balm. It's called the gospel.

So you felt like garbage. Hello, bad news.

You are good news. I was too.

Better news. Jesus will forgive and Jesus

will make us a new creation so we don't stay garbage.

He will make us something. We were dead and he will bring

us in to life. He makes us new.

Keep going here verse 17. Then tell us what you think.

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not.

So the trap is set. If Jesus says yes, here's why

this is a trap. If he says yes, pay taxes to

Caesar, then the problem is he's going to be honoring Caesar as

God. I don't have time now to go into

the context all the as I'm probably getting ready to do it.

So the denarius, I don't have time.

You'll be late for lunch. You'll be OK.

The denarius coin that they had to carry.

This is a coin that honored Caesar as the Son of God.

So for a Jew to have to carry this coin on you is a constant

reminder of the blasphemy and the idolatry of Rome who has

conquered you. Like the very coin that you're,

you're required to use this actual coin.

You can't even use other coins. You can't use, you know, some,

some sort of other currency. You have to pay with a denarius

for this particular tax. There were many taxes just like

us. There are many different kinds

of taxes. But with this particular tax,

you have to pay with this coin. So the Jewish man has to walk

around with this coin saying Caesar is the son of God.

And now they brought this coin with a claim, a man claiming to

be the Son of God to the actual Son of God.

And they're saying, what do we do with this?

So if Jesus says pay taxes to Caesar, then all the Pharisees

and the more conservative theological people are going to

go. He's honoring Caesar as God like

this. This was a hot, hot button

issue, this tax, this thing. Like there was full context for

all the hearers and all the listeners around this tax and

around this coin. There was actually a rebellion

before from a man from Galilee because of this particular tax,

and they killed him. He led an uprising, and now we

have the man from Galilee who's going to answer with certainty

and clarity if he says no, don't pay the tax.

Well, now the Herodians are there listening as well.

So the Pharisees go, you better not say pay to Caesar, and the

Herodians going, you better say pay to Caesar.

And they think we got it. We're brilliant.

We've trapped the Lord because they're going to say he's

rebelling against Caesar. But Jesus sees right through

them and he doesn't say boys, boys, you're misguided, He says,

you hypocrites. He doesn't call them friends.

He doesn't call them misguided. He doesn't call them confused.

He calls them what they are, deceivers.

What can you see? What can you learn here?

Sometimes the most Christ like thing you can do is to call sin

exactly what it is. Let me say it in a different

way. Let me say it in a different

way. Let me say it a different way.

My brother is in Christ, My sister's in Christ.

If you're dealing with a dog and a pig, which Jesus said you are

to judge and determine if folks are, there ain't no way you can

say it. It ain't because you didn't say

it good enough. It ain't because you said it

bad. It's not anything because of

you. It's because in their

unrighteousness they suppress the truth, as Romans one told us

that they would, as you and I used to do.

And we love them and God loves them.

And also at the same time we honestly assess the situation

and we say you're a hypocrite and we say this is nothing but a

trap. You have no sincerity in your

question. You don't actually care what the

Lord wants. You want to somehow incriminate

me of being a bad person, which is ironic because you have no

objective standard for what good or bad even is.

I have the word of God to say this is good and this is bad.

You have nothing except a changing society that changes

its mind. You are your own God and that's

the reason that you hate the living God.

But he still loves you and I still loved you.

At this point, they're already foaming at the mouth.

You probably didn't maybe weren't able to get that far,

but that's what it looks like to deal with a dog, a pig, a liar,

a snake. And we want them to repent as

such we once were. But for the grace of God we

would still be. But we tell the truth like

Jesus. He was full of truth and grace

both. And but we will not let the

opponents of Christ tell us all how to act and how to behave and

how Jesus acted and how Jesus behaved.

Because spoiler alert for them. We've already read the Bible and

we see who Jesus is. He's the right thing at the

right time for. So for enemies, we don't deal

with them the same way as we deal with a genuine question.

Hey, I got a question, something I'm confused about.

What is it about? Like, is homosexuality a sin?

And you say, oh, you know what, let's go to the Scriptures.

There you go. You're not the great answerer.

You're not the great decider of this hot button issue.

Hey, is this a sin? I've heard people say this.

Hey, you know what? I got my Bible in the car.

Hey, you know what? I got my Bible on my phone.

Let's pull it up right here. The Scripture says this.

The scripture says that. And now folks have to go.

Well, I don't believe that. You go, Oh, well, I believe

that. I know, but it's about belief.

It's not you versus me, friend. It's there is a king and we're

under his rulership. Well, I don't like his laws.

That's up. That's up to you to deal with.

That's between you and the king. I just want you to know his laws

are actually really good. Just so you know, they're

actually really good. They're actually for our good.

So everything he says is good and right and perfect and he

wants what's best for you. So he's actually super loving.

And I don't want you to be confused by the fact that he has

standards because people who love people have standards for

people. And God loves us more than

anything. So Jesus sees through them.

He calls out their lies. Why is it so hypocritical of

them? It's so hypocritical of them

because they're pretending to seek truth while plotting

against them. They're pretending.

Hey, we really want to know the right thing to do.

No, no, no, no. Like, serious question, Mr.

Rabbi, Seriously, if you could, like, answer it.

But they're not. It's completely false.

They're already using Caesar's coin and paying the tax, but

they're simultaneously pretending to be zealous for

God. That's what the Pharisees are

doing. You better not say we're

supposed to pay the tax. Hang on, Mr. Holy man.

Hotshot. You already got the coin in your

pocket. Don't show me a denarius.

Oh, I have one right here. You were carrying it.

You, you use this coinage all the time.

I thought you were so righteous and holy.

So the whole thing is just stupid.

It's like when non believers would be like, I'm going to

stump these stupid Christians. Can God make a rock so big that

he can't move it? And they think, Oh no, what will

we do with this brilliant question that's so profound?

It's not, it's super stupid. It doesn't deserve an answer.

Don't answer it. It's an unanswerable question.

It's a trap. And you go, I just realized I'm

no longer dealing with a person who sincerely wants to know

about God, his creation, his expectations, or his son.

So you don't have to play stupid games.

The only if you play stupid games, you're going to win

stupid prizes. So we don't want to play stupid

games. We want to love people.

We want to tell people the truth.

And we're going to say I'm going to opt out of the stupidity.

But if you have any sincere questions about the Lord, I do

want you to know I really love him.

I really love you. He really loves you too.

Anything you want to know, I'll do my best to answer.

But no, I'm not going to answer. Your your rock too big for God

to move question. I think it's dumb.

No, it's really serious. It keeps him up at night.

Well, take it somewhere else. Google it.

Good luck. Let's keep going here.

Y'all listening slow, Jesus aware of their mouths.

Why do you put me to the test, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin for the tax. They barn the denarius whose

likeness? Caesar's.

He says. Therefore render to Caesar the

things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are gods.

When they heard it, they marvelled.

They left him and they went away.

Jesus's answer is brilliant because he sidestepped their

trap and he affirmed earthly authority without compromising

loyalty to God. He addressed everything that

needed to be addressed in brilliance and in simplicity.

So the word he even used their rendered render to Caesar it

means return to. So if it's got his face on it,

he meant it. It it's his coin.

So Jesus didn't say give generously to Caesar as an act

of worship. He didn't say, oh Caesar, I love

you and I honor you as the Son of God.

So he even in his brilliance, and of course it's Jesus, but in

his brilliance he's even showing them you can pay your tax with a

clean conscience and you're not honoring Caesar as the Son of

God. You're giving a coin to a man

who once distributed a coin out to you and to the public.

It's his coin. The coin goes back to him.

He was simplifying it and gutting of any power that Caesar

had intended for it to have. Simultaneously, he's honoring

earthly authority that he has authority over.

He has established governments. Governments do have the

authority to tax for purposes of righteousness and punishing

unrighteousness. That should be their focus.

But even still, we've got an unrighteous wicked Rome leading

and Jesus says pay your taxes, guys, pay your taxes, render to

Caesar, give back to Caesar. What's Caesar's right but give

to God what is God's. Well, they're like we weren't

asking about God. He's, I didn't say you were

asking about God, but I'm telling you about God.

And this wasn't about the tithe. This wasn't about bringing, hey,

give to Caesar financial worship and give to God.

He wasn't saying pay taxes to Caesar and get financial worship

to God. That's a, that's like a

secondary or a tertiary point we could make there and say, yes,

duh, of course. But the point he was making is,

if this coin has Caesar's image pressed into it, whose image is

pressed into you? You were made in the image and

likeness of God. Render to Caesar, give him his

coin back. Here's your coin, big boy.

You can put whatever picture on it you want and call yourself a

hero, but give to God what is God's your entire life.

You are the image bearer of God. You belong to God.

You owe God you. You owe God you.

What do I owe the Lord what I have to give back to Him?

That breath is not yours. That's his.

You will return it to him. It's the last thing you'll

literally do on the earth. You return your breath to him.

That's the last thing that we'll do.

It's the first thing you do, and it's the last thing you'll do.

Render to Caesar what is Caesar's Pay back to him.

Give it back to him what belongs to him, but give back to God.

That's the bigger point here, what belongs to God.

So honor the honor the government appropriately, but

give to God what is God's. Honor him with your very life,

your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength.

Here's the heart of it for us, another application we can make.

Christians should be the best citizens of any nation.

We should pay our taxes. Our government uses our taxes

for weakened and unrighteous things, and we should elect

better people. And we should get involved in

politics because everything belongs to Jesus and we should

enforce and expect righteousness that pleases the Lord.

We are disciplers of the nations.

That includes every part of a nation, civil, religious, and

anything cultural, anything in between.

We seek the good of our nation. We seek the good of our

communities. We live in a way that honors

government where it should be honored, and we honor God above

all. You want your coins back?

Here's your coins back. It's April, It's tax time,

Here's your dollars back. They got your faces on them,

Here's your dollars back. I'm an honor God with what's

God's, and he will always come first.

This is exactly what the founders of our nation

understood. They wanted to prevent the

government from establishing or controlling the church, but they

never meant to silence the church from speaking into the

government. It's not a two way St. it's a

one way St. Separation of church and state,

which was pounded into my brain in public school.

Anybody else? Separation of church and state.

Separation of church and state, which by the way, is not in any

of our founding documents. You will find it in a letter

Thomas Jefferson was writing to Christians where he was actually

explaining, hey, we don't want the government to interfere with

your church. That was the point from actually

a godless man who literally like cut his Bible apart to make it

say the things he wanted it to say.

Not a good move, Thomas. So that's what separation of

church and state supposed to mean.

It's not supposed to say there should be this massive divorce

between the two. They're saying state you have no

power over the church and no influence yet state, you can't

establish a church. It's not your job.

And state you don't. You don't set a primary church.

Our founders had in mind that Christian denominations should

not be said. They would have never imagined

that the government should not establish Christianity over

Islam or over Buddhism. Like no way in the world would

they have ever tolerated a thought like that.

The point was, hey, we can't say America is Presbyterian.

We can't say America is Methodist.

We can't say America. Well, not all those

denominations existed at the time.

Yet we can't say America is Anglican.

That was their point. They were saying we can't say

America is 1 church. But of course all the principles

that they founded our nation on were Christians.

That was the expectation. What's the point here?

The point is that Christians should seek the good of their

nation. That includes paying taxes.

But I'm connecting some dots here for you so you understand.

What is Jesus's expectation? We love God above all and that

will have implications for the way we pay our taxes.

That will have implications for the ways that we vote.

That will have implications for the things that we expect our

government to do and not do. Trying to figure out how to wrap

it up because we don't have time to go into the whole section on

the Sadducees. They were very sad, you see.

So I had to get had to get it in at once today.

No pastor has ever preached and talked about the Sadducees

without using that joke in the sermon.

It's required. It is required.

They probably teach that in seminary.

You have to do it. Yeah, there's probably a verse

for that. Man, this was going to be good.

It's going to have to be good next week.

All right, let's close then.

So of course, we see all throughout the Scriptures

they've tried to trap Jesus. All throughout Matthew, they

keep trying to trap him. They keep trying to trap him.

They keep trying to trap him over and over.

They fail. The king of glory.

He's so perfect. As much as we love him, to love

him more, he would be worth it to love him more.

He would be deserving of it. To be in all of him and just say

he's just awesome. He's just awesome.

There's nobody like him and he's perfect.

They're inspecting him. They don't know that's what

they're doing. They're they're trying to just

expose him. They're like, we got to kill

him. They don't know that they are

actually cogs in God's wheel and that they are fulfilling the

sovereign will of God and that Christ will be crucified by his

enemies. They don't realize that's what's

happening. They don't realize they're

inspecting the Passover lamb to make sure there's no any,

there's no spot, or they're trying to trick him.

No one's ever been grilled or inspected like Jesus.

No one's ever been through what he went through.

And they're going, we can't find any faults in him.

Of course, he's eventually going to go all the way to his trial

and they're just going to make up lies.

They just make up lies at his trial, at the false sham trial,

back and forth through the night, Herod and Pilate and the

chief priests and all the, all the lying back and forth.

I don't, I find nothing wrong with him.

Oh, you got to crucify him. But what's he done wrong?

Well, he said some stuff and he's he's going to raise an

uprising against see, there's no legitimate accusation.

He is the spotless Lamb of God. He is qualified to be the

sacrifice for your sins and for the sins of the whole world.

He became sin on the cross, who knew no sin, so that we could

become the righteousness of God in Christ.

That should give you confidence for you.

That should give you confidence in love for your friends, for

your family, for your neighbors, for your enemies, for those who

hate Christ, for those who hate you, for those who hate us

together. It should give you great

compassion for them and go. But there's a sacrifice.

It should change the way you pray for people, but there's a

perfect sacrifice. So no matter how dark you see

somebody's darkness is, and you'll see it, it will grieve

you. Haven't you been grieved by

people's darkness? Haven't you seen darkness?

I mean, you're like man, man, and you hate wickedness.

You hate wickedness. You love this person, but you're

grieved by it. But then you should come back to

hope. You should come back to the

cross. You should come back to.

But there is a sacrifice. Lord, save them.

Lord, rescue them. Don't let Jesus death be in

vain. Lord, breakthrough, pull the

veil off of their eyes so that they would see.

The enemy is blinding them. Their own pride is blinding

them. Lord, wreck them and bless them

with your goodness so they would receive the righteousness of the

Lord Jesus Christ, so that their sin is dark and as awful as it

is that you would remember, Saints, it was put on Christ on

the cross. That's why he was sweating those

great drops of blood in the garden.

He knew what was coming. Not just the physical torment,

but all the the things that will always be impossible for us to

ever understand. The weight of the separation of

the Father, where the Father turns his face from the Son and

Jesus cries out, why have you forsaken me?

As he quotes the Psalms that were prophesied about him and

for him to become sin who had known no sin.

So the Father putting all the weight of sin, all of your sin,

the thing you don't want anybody to know, the thing you're most

ashamed of, the thing you're like, that thing the Father

treated Jesus like he did it so that he could take all of Jesus

righteousness for you. Remember that when you're

looking out at the world, when you see filth and disgust and

perversion and hatred and fear and demonic activity, it's all

there. Remember that when you see that

it's not too great, It is not too great for the cross.

It is not too great for Jesus. Nothing is too much for him.

That Passover lamb was enough. There's no other sacrifice to be

made. Bulls, goats, lambs, doves.

Unnecessary. We don't have to pay money for

our sins to be relieved and forgiven.

We just have to give honor to God.

Give to Caesar what's Caesar's, but give to God What is God's

God. We give you our lives.

Yes, we give you our lives afresh.

Your image has been stamped upon us.

We have been made in your image. We belong to you.

You own us, You deserve us, You deserve more than us, but

somehow in your great love and your affection, you love us.

God, Thank you for your love. Thank you for loving us.

Thank you for forgiving us of our sins.

Jesus, thank you for paying it all, carrying it all, relieving

us of it all. Remind us of the image on us at

all times as image bearers of God.

As humans. That's true for every human.

But as Christians in particular, we are image bearers of the sun.

And we don't carry a coin in our pocket with Jesus's face on it.

We carry Christ in us, inside of us, to bring hope Christ in us

to be poured out through us. God has image bearers.

It changes the way we think. Like we said earlier, it changes

the what thoughts we even allow. We take thoughts captive because

we have the mind of Christ and we have the love of God.

The love of Christ compels us, strengthens us, and enables us

to face whatever we may be facing.

God, strengthen your people today as they carry their cross,

as they follow you in obedience all the way up the hill of

Golgotha, laying down in obedience on the cross to be

living sacrifices. Lord, we're yours, we live in

you, we die in you, and we live forever in Christ.

There is a resurrection. We will enjoy it when we leave

this body. We'll be present with you.

Thank you for fresh hope today. Thank you for the sunshine that

even came out during the preaching of your word.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face Shinedown

upon you, and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you great

peace in Jesus name. The name above every name.

Amen.