“The Kings Riddles: What Can Caesar Tax, but Never Rule?” | Matthew 22:15-22 | Sunday Morning Worship Service

Matthew chapter 22, verse 15.

Matthew 22:15

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle Jesus in his words.

They sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are true, and you 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 do you think?

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, Why do you put me to the test, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin for the tax.

And they brought him a denarius, and Jesus said to them, Whose likeness and inscription is this?

And they said, Caesar's.

When they heard that, they marveled, and they left him and they went away.

In A.D.

410, invading armies entered and sacked Rome.

It was almost unimaginable.

Rome had dominated the Mediterranean world for centuries.

Rome had conquered nations, it had toppled kingdoms.

It had ruled as an empire stretching across Africa and through Asia and all of Europe.

It had dominated the global landscape for centuries.

And then, in one battle in 410, Rome itself had been conquered.

The psychological effect on this was enormous.

If Rome could fall, who was safe?

If, by all accounts, the most powerful empire in world history could collapse, could be defeated by basically savages, is any empire safe?

Almost immediately people begin asking a religious question.

Why did God allow this to happen?

Or, if you were a Roman, why would the gods have allowed this to happen?

And the answer wasn't hard to figure out.

For generations, centuries, Rome had dominated the world and had been overtly pagan.

They worshipped the Greek pantheon.

They had gods and goddesses celebrated throughout the empire.

They deified their Caesars, their emperors were made out to be many gods.

They taxed their people in the form of religious offerings.

The citizenry of Rome had to pay tribute to the Roman gods.

Failure to do so would be grounds for persecution or even execution.

For centuries, Christianity had been outlawed in Rome and Christians themselves persecuted.

All of that changed in the fourth century.

In the fourth century, an emperor himself became Christian.

Baptism was allowed, even celebrated, in some parts, even mandatory.

The Roman gods fell by the wayside as Christianity began to rise, and within one or two generations, not centuries, I'm talking decades, of Christianity being allowed inside of the Roman Empire, Rome fell.

The cause was obvious.

Rome stopped worshiping the Roman gods.

The growth of Christianity led to the downfall of Rome.

That accusation prompted Augustine to write one of the most influential books in church history.

Not one of the most read books.

That would probably be Pilgrim's Progress, but certainly one of the most influential, The City of God.

I say not one of the most read because it's massive.

I mean, the original version was like 14 volumes.

It is a long treatise where Augustine argues that people are trying to understand history incorrectly.

They're trying to draw out a straight line history of cause and effect between a nation's religiosity and their prosperity.

And Augustine said that that starting ground is wrong.

To understand history, to understand nations, you need to see it through the lens of two different cities, the city of man and the city of God.

The city of man is the realm of government.

The city of man is the realm of possessions, of property, of laws, of political powers in this world.

And the city of man rises and falls all the time.

Nations wax and nations wane.

Base entirely, Augustine argued, on the secret providences of God.

Why God decrees one nation to grow and another to fall is a mystery that is held inside of his own council.

Certainly there's political causes and effect, but Augustine argued they are entirely disconnected from the city of God.

The city of God is the church.

The city of God is people's worship, their religious affections, the gospel, the kingdom of God on earth through the lordship of Jesus Christ.

That is the city of God.

The city of man and the city of God have entirely different ethics.

They have different principles.

And most importantly to Augustine, they have different ends.

The city of man rises and falls.

The city of God is invincible.

The gospel only goes forward, it only advances.

This is the most important election of our lifetime.

And if only the church would rise up and do this, or if the church would rise up and do that, that would ensure this result in the election.

That is conflating the city of man and the city of God.

Augustine was not indifferent to the city of man.

He valued law and peace and order and justice.

He taught that Christians should seek the good of the societies in which God has placed them.

But his warning is crucial.

You cannot confuse the two cities.

You cannot hitch the success of one to the effectiveness or the activity of the other.

The two advance through entirely different means.

Or to say it differently, the success, the success of a nation is not the same thing as the success of the church.

And the decline of a nation is not connected to a supposed decline in the church.

The idea that the church's job is to remote or ensure the success of the city of man is misplaced.

Because the city of God has a different king, a different citizenship, and ultimately a different destiny.

And that's probably a separate sermon altogether how those two cities relate, but it does raise some basic questions that are at view of this text this morning.

What is the relationship between those two cities?

What does the Christian owe to the government?

What does the government have the right to demand from the Christian?

Should the church rule the government or should the government rule the church?

Where does Caesar's authority end and God's authority begin?

I mean, those sound like very modern questions in the post-COVID era, don't they?

But they are not.

They were already being asked 2,000 years ago, including in this morning's passage.

I'll give you an outline to navigate these questions this morning, how to navigate the church-state trap.

And I call it a trap because that's what Matthew calls it.

In verse 15, the Pharisees went out and plotted how to entangle Jesus in his words.

That word entangle is the word for trap.

It's specifically the word for a fowler's trap, a kind of trap that you would hide and you would catch a bird or a small animal in.

Picture like one of those little raccoon traps is what we have in our world today.

It's a different word than Mark's gospel uses.

Mark's gospel uses the word for a violent trap.

They were looking how to ambush Jesus, would be the word there.

But here in Matthew, it's a fowler's trap.

You know, and even a bird won't fall for a fowler's trap if the bird sees you lay it out.

The bird watches and goes, I feel like I've seen this before.

I may have only a bird brain, but I'm not falling for that.

The Pharisees went out and plotted how to entrap Jesus in his words.

They did this, by the way, because of the parable Jesus just told.

He told the story about a king who invited everybody to his wedding, and rather than come, the citizenry rose up and exercised violence against the king.

They murdered some of the king's servants who invited them to the wedding.

Jesus says the king's actions are evident.

The king is gonna burn those cities to the ground.

Even though they're his own cities, he'll burn them to the ground.

And rather invite the Gentiles who are just passing through, invite the visitors to the city and make them the wedding guests, if not your own citizens.

And it was very obviously a parable told against the religious leaders of Israel.

They did not respond with introspection.

They didn't respond by saying, oh, maybe I'm the bad guy in the story.

They responded by going outside and scheming how to murder Jesus.

It's incredible to think that they heard a story about people who violently reject the king, and their response to it is to go outside and scheme how to violently reject their king.

What they come back with is a series of coordinated traps.

Three riddles.

They recognize if we're going to beat Jesus, we're not going to beat him with swords.

We're not going to trap him with the intricacies of the law.

We're going to have to trap him with three, one of three questions that will put him in a box.

The crowd there is massive outside the temple.

Remember, hundreds of thousands, if not a million people, have pilgrimed to Jerusalem for this Passover week.

Jesus is at the entrance to the temple.

He's like a log blocking the creek here.

The whole masses of people are backed up around him as he's on the temple steps, the southern steps, entering into the city.

That's where this is taking place.

All the pilgrims from Bethany and Bethpage and Bethlehem, this is where they would come in.

And Jesus is blocking the way, so to speak.

And so they have to take him down.

They're going to do that by trapping him with questions.

If he answers it one way, the crowd will turn against him.

If he answers it the other way, Rome will turn against him.

These were not honest questions.

They were not flippant questions.

These were questions the religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, those that were in charge of the religion of Israel, their brain trust got together and crafted these questions specifically designed to take Jesus out.

So as you read these questions, know that the smartest people in Israel put effort into these questions to figure out how to trap Jesus.

And this is what they came up with.

They're clever, complicated, and for our purposes, timeless questions.

The first about the relationship of church and state.

The second about who is sovereign over marriage.

And the third is over basically what happens to good people that die without knowing the Lord.

And it is fascinating that all three of those questions are still used to trap Christians today.

Let's look at the first one.

The first one starts with the first point of our outline: beware of the hypocrisy.

They sent their disciples to him, the Sanhedrin sends their disciples, which is their younger, the younger people, the students.

Why would they do that?

Because they're trapping him.

If they walked in with their big hats and their flowing ground, the Sanhedrin is well known.

It's obvious who they are.

So they can't go themselves.

Jesus would see through that.

So they tell their students what questions to ask.

So the students can come pretending to be innocent inquisitors.

We're just here to learn, Lord.

Now, what's fascinating with these three questions, they assign, obviously the Sanhedrin assigns these, one question to each group that makes up the Sanhedrin.

The Herodians, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees.

What is so interesting, all three groups ask a question that is the opposite of their party's own convictions.

The Herodians ask a question about taxes to Rome.

They're called the Herodians because they're pro-Hero.

They are the pro-Roman party.

It's crazy.

It'd be like a Democrat starting the conversation with, and we all know how seriously we take the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.

So in light of that, I have a question.

What are you talking about?

The next question is a Sanhedrin asking a question about the resurrection.

They don't believe in the resurrection.

Like a Republican starting a question with, we all know how important government spending is to expand our government's reach and influence in society.

In light of that, what are you talking about?

The third question: a Pharisee asking about an honest question, Lord, I'm having a hard time prioritizing the order of importance of the law.

You're a Pharisee.

You know the importance of the law.

These questions are designed to be hypocritical to trap Jesus.

Look how they start.

Teacher, you gotta love it when somebody addresses Jesus that way.

Teacher, we know that you are true.

And you teach the way of God truthfully.

It was so nice I said that twice.

You don't care about anyone's opinion because you're not swayed by appearances as they're putting away their hats.

What hypocrites.

This has all the tone of a six-year-old who says, Mommy, dearest, mommy, I know that you love me.

And you only want what is good for me.

You want to make sure all my deepest desires are met.

And we know that you are too strong of a woman to care what daddy may have said no to a few minutes ago.

You are your own woman and you can give your own answers.

And we all know how much I need a chocolate chip cookie.

No, none of those words mean anything.

If they think Jesus is a good teacher, why are they trying to trap him in his teaching?

If they think he doesn't care about appearances, why are they disguising their appearances?

This is flagrant hypocrisy.

Tell us then what you think, verse 17.

The Herodians ask, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

You have to love that they end it with like yes or no question, is how you say it in English.

Yes or no.

Here's a very complex question about the relationship of church and state, the relationship of the Roman occupation of Israel, a political divide that has lasted over a hundred years at this point.

This is a very difficult and tricky question that I would like to phrase in a yes or no form.

If you've watched any televised hearings of Congress, you know committees often function that way.

I just have a would you answer this yes or no?

Are you evil incarnate?

Just yes or no.

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?

Yes or no, please.

This is a trap.

It is not some abstract question about tax policy or anything like that.

When Rome took control of Jerusalem, they mandated taxation of the city, the Jews hated that, and yet they had to pay.

Israel at this time has revolt in the air.

It is teetering on the edge of rebellion, and they all know that.

There have been rebellions before this, there will be a rebellion after this a few decades later that will involve the Romans destroying Jerusalem.

That's the atmosphere that is in the air right here.

So when they ask Jesus, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?

Listen, the Jews hate paying taxes to Caesar.

And so if Jesus says yes, he will alienate the crowd because the crowd believes Jesus is the Messiah.

It was two days ago.

They welcome him into the city with chance of Hosanna in the highest.

They think he's the son of David.

They are expecting the Messiah to overthrow Rome, not on day two in the temple, say, make sure you pay your taxes.

No way.

But if he says no, don't pay taxes to Rome, the Roman government would probably immediately intervene.

They wouldn't wait until Thursday.

They would do so right here.

You can't have somebody out front of the temple telling tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people, don't pay taxes to Rome.

They would end that immediately.

So that's the trap.

That's the trap.

Jesus, of course, is smarter than a bird.

He sees through it.

He says, notice verse 18, he's aware of their malice.

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

You hypocrites.

He sees through all of it.

He's not fooled.

Here's how he navigates their hypocrisy.

Show me a coin for the tax.

The Pharisees are proud of saying they didn't use this coin.

They condemned people for having the coin.

It has a picture of Caesar on it.

They viewed that as a violation of the second commandment, an image if it's a living Caesar of one who is on earth, if it is a Caesar who has already died of one who is in heaven, they would say, denied.

They hated this coin.

It was blasphemous.

In fact, the coin itself has inscribed on it, Tiberius Caesar, the divine, the divine son of the divine Caesar, the heads side of the coin proclaims Caesar to be the son of God.

The tail side of the coin says Pontificus Maximus, the high priest, is what that means.

My favorite trivia from this coin is that when the first Roman Catholic Pope to join Twitter, joined Twitter, he chose as his Twitter handle Pontificus Maximus, which is on the one hand very funny, and on the other hand, also blasphemy.

It's a funny joke from history, but also speaks to the Catholic heresy of the Pope promoting himself as the high priest, the one who is indeed sitting on the throne that rightly belongs to Christ.

That's on the coin.

Of course, the Pharisees don't like this coin.

And so Jesus asks, Can you show me one of those coins?

Notice Jesus doesn't have the coin in his pocket.

He's not carrying one of these blasphemous coins that the Herodians are so concerned about not having the coin.

The Herodians, about not having a pro-Roman coin in their pocket, they ask Jesus this question.

Jesus doesn't have the coin.

They do.

They're the ones with the coin.

They take it out.

Their hypocrisy is on full display.

Jesus asked them a question.

Whose likeness and inscription is this?

And they said, Caesar's.

They recognize it.

Like I said, they are hypocrites.

They're standing in the temple holding a coin that calls Caesar the high priest, while the true high priest of heaven is in front of them, and they are pretending to ask him a question about the coin that they are pretending to see as blasphemous while carrying it around.

By the way, this connection between church and state is still a trap today.

And I don't mean to offend too many people with this, but I have noticed over the years, whenever somebody asks me, Why don't you tell the church who they're supposed to vote for?

I have never once had somebody ask me that question from good motives.

Nobody asks that question because they are confused about who to vote for.

Nobody who has ever asked me that question, why don't you tell the church who to vote for, has ever asked because they are confused who they should vote for.

It's always because they want other people to know who I say they should vote for.

It's designed as a trap.

It's designed as a trap.

Well, secondly, not just the trap itself, but notice, we do all end up living in the city of man.

We live in the city of man.

Jesus does not end up saying that government is autonomous or that government is sovereign.

Look at what he says.

Whose inscription and likeness is this?

And they said, Caesar's.

And Jesus said to them, Therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

Again, Jesus is not saying that the government exists outside of God's authority.

Quite the opposite.

God is the one who established government back in Genesis 8 and Genesis 9.

All government that exists in the world is from him and ultimately for him in his glory.

God remains sovereign over government.

He established government.

Jesus answering the question this way underscores that.

He is the one in this question that says, give to Caesar what belongs to him.

If it belongs to him, give it back to him.

Jesus says that.

By virtue of him saying that, he is demonstrating that he is sovereign over government, not the other way around.

He does not answer with Caesar told me to tell you.

He answers with the Pharisees' own words and says, I'm telling you to give back to them what belongs to them.

He's going to make this so clear in a few days from now when he's going to look Pilate in the eyes and tell Pilate, You would have no authority, Governor Pilate, unless God gave it to you.

Pilate may have the rightful authority as a governor or so-called king.

It is only authority that is delegated to him by God.

Even if kings and governors don't recognize that, that's the reality.

The world did not always have government in it.

God established government coming off of the ark.

That's where a government comes from.

And every government that exists comes from that.

There were not always nations in this world.

God established nations coming off of the ark.

If you go back and read Genesis 4 through most of chapter 8, there is no government and there are no nations.

There is a lot of violence and a lot of bloodshed and no laws and no borders.

After the flood, God makes laws and borders and governments to enforce them.

And that checks evil in the world.

And God decrees that people render to government what is owned to government.

Government has real authority, but it is not sovereign authority.

Government does not have independent authority, it has delegated authority from God.

So Caesar is not sovereign.

God is sovereign over Caesar.

And therefore Jesus can say, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, because there really are things that belong to Caesar.

They're legitimate duties that Christians and all people, in fact, owe to civil government.

As long as those duties do not require us to disobey God.

Here are some of those duties.

Jesus doesn't go into them all here, but the rest of the New Testament does.

We owe submission to government.

And when I say submission, I don't mean we have to submit to everything the government says.

We have to submit to everything the government says that is in accordance with God's design for government.

Which when you go back to Genesis 8 and 9, is, I mean, really quickly, in order, the protection of the food source, the ensuring freedom to worship and the ability to worship, the protection of the family and human life and property, and the advent of nations.

That all flows from Genesis 8 and 9.

So when the government regulates food and protects family and protects worship and protects borders and instills fear and terror in the heart of evildoers, that's what God designed government to do, to bear the sword and to protect, to punish evil.

So we submit to that part of government.

The example I've often used before is if the government were to command everybody to drive only white cars, to fight global warming or some such thing like that.

Well, that's outside the bounds of government.

That's not one of the decrees that God gave government.

And so you don't have to submit to the rule to only drive a white car.

You might want to submit to the rule to only drive a white car because the government can throw you in jail or fine you for driving a red car.

And your whole speech about Genesis 8 won't do you any good.

And so it may be a good idea for you to sell the red car for the white one and not pay the fine, or maybe your conscience will bother you.

You'll think, oh, I only want the red car because of worldly desires.

And so if that's the case, then get the white car then.

You can submit to silly and unbiblical laws if it helps your conscience or if it keeps you out of jail and keeps you from paying a fine.

That's fine.

But that's not allegiance that's owed the government.

The allegiance that's owed the government is when the government acts in accordance with how God designed the government to function.

Again, to protect food, to protect family, to protect worship, to protect life, and to punish evildoers.

We obey government, Titus 3.1 says, when they function that way.

We pay our taxes to fund the government doing those things.

We honor the government, the scripture says.

We pray for the government.

And ultimately we give thanksgiving for the government.

And these are not suggestions, they are Christian duties.

Listen, if you refuse to give the government the honor God says is due to them, that's a sin.

If you refuse to pray for rulers because you dislike them, that's a sin.

And that is so hard for us in the United States because we spend all of the election season, which is what, like four years convincing ourselves that this person is, you know, evil incarnate or whatever, and then they get elected.

And it's hard to flip the switch in our mind to go from their evil incarnate to being genuinely thankful for them and praying for them, but you have to be.

Refusing to do that is sin.

That doesn't mean you have to be thankful for everything government does.

I mean, I'm thinking of here's my example right now.

The bridge on Backlick right now is they're building a sound barrier over the railroad tracks that adds an hour to your commute to church.

You know the one I'm talking about?

Oh my goodness.

Are you thankful it's gonna take them a year to build a sound barrier for railroad tracks?

I'm not.

But then I remind myself of what Genesis 4 through 6 describes.

When the water is broke in my street, the government comes and fixes it.

They replaced a gas line on my street this past month.

You know, so we get more efficient gas.

They if the power goes out, they put it back on.

If somebody breaks into my house, the police come.

The world did not always exist that way.

So I can be thankful for that along with sound barriers.

You have to be thankful for government because it's not Genesis 4 through 6.

You have to pay your taxes.

A Christian that refuses to pay their taxes is sinning.

A Christian who deliberately evades taxes illegally, taxes that they lawfully owe, should be ashamed of it.

And yes, you should use every legal deduction available to you.

You should structure your finances wisely.

If there's a loophole in the tax law large enough for you to drive all your income through, then drive all your income through it.

You're not responsible for the tax code.

That's not up to you.

I'm okay, I know some of you it is up to you, but for the rest of you, it's not up to you.

And so if there's loopholes, take advantage of them, but not dishonestly.

You leverage every legal opportunity for your benefit, but you don't lie, you don't hide income, you don't cheat.

You don't say, oh, this is paid to me in cash, so nobody needs to know about it.

That's sinning.

If Jesus could look at people in Rome and say, pay your taxes, certainly we can do the same.

That's what is owed to those in the city of men.

You know what?

This isn't everything.

You know what's not on this list?

Worship's not on this list.

We'll get to that in a second, but I remember during COVID when the governor tried to pretend that he could enforce how close you sit together in worship.

That doesn't belong to him.

Where you sit in church is not under the domain of the government.

Do you remember there was an executive order when our church opens with an orchestra?

We were probably the only church in Virginia with an orchestra.

The governor released an executive order saying that if your church has an orchestra, they can't use woodwinds.

Do you remember this?

Woodwinds.

Well, that's we're gonna go ahead and say that's outside the realm of what government can control is what instruments we use in worship.

But we have to be thankful for them and pray for them and pay taxes to them.

Nevertheless.

Third, we worship in the city of God.

Jesus goes on to say to God, the things that are God's.

Had he stopped before that, he would have fallen into the trap.

But notice he goes beyond the question they asked.

They asked him about taxes, and he answers them about everything else in the world.

He makes two categories, things that belong to Caesar and things that belong to God.

And there is no third category.

We love to pretend there's a third category, especially as independent, autonomous Americans.

We love to say there's, you know, my life that belongs to my boss or to the government, there's my life that I give to God, and then there's my house, my family, my stuff that belongs to me, my castle kind of language.

There is no third category, though.

If the government doesn't have claim on it, it belongs to God.

And by the way, God has claim even on what the government has.

The second half is where the action is.

The Pharisees were asking in the Sanhedrin and the Sadducees and the Herodians and the disciples, were asking about Caesar, and Jesus answers about God.

Take the thing for the coin, whose likeness and image is on it.

The Greek word for he uses for likeness is icon, and we get our word icon from it.

It's the Old Testament word that's used for man is being made in the image and likeness of God.

Human beings are in the image of God.

Whose face is on the coin?

Caesar's.

Whose image are you in?

It's not Caesar's.

You belong to God.

It's the word used in Hebrews 1 that Jesus Christ is the radiance and the exact representation of the image of God.

Jesus, the one they are trapping right now, is the image of God.

They recognize the dollar bill, they don't recognize the Lord of the universe.

Your money may belong to the government.

It says property of the U.S.

government on it or something like that.

I've had people try to argue with me and say, oh no, that's only true because of the gold standard and if the gold was in Fort Knox and the money would belong to the government, but it's my mind turns off when I hear Fort Knox.

You know, I don't understand the intricacies of finance and currency, and uh at some point money is fungible, and taxes and interest rates and investment fees, and blah, blah, blah.

Who cares?

Whatever.

The government does taxes.

You are not fungible.

You are concrete.

God made you with a soul and it belongs to him.

The word inscription is another biblical word.

In the Old Testament, God writes his name on his people.

In the New Testament, his Holy Spirit seals the heart of believers, inscribes his name on you.

You are in his image, and if you are a Christian, you are inscribed with his name.

You doubly belong to him.

Your heart, your mind, your body, your allegiance, your worship, your life, your identity, your hopes, your fears, all of that belongs to the Lord.

Caesar can make a claim on some of what you own, but God makes a claim on who you are.

And if you are in Christ, he has a double claim on you.

Everything you have belongs to him.

Your worship belongs to him.

With that, Jesus closes out the Herodians.

What are they gonna say?

How do you argue with that in the temple?

How do you argue with being in the image of God when you're standing in the temple of God?

The lawyers here cannot find a loophole.

Their mouths are silenced.

They thought they had the perfect trap and they leave.

It says empty-handed.

Look at verse 22.

When they heard the crowd marveled, the crowd had never seen the Pharisees' body slammed like that.

They hadn't seen the tables turn on the Pharisees that fast since yesterday, probably.

The Herodians left him and went away.

This is a funny turn of phrase.

The trappers went away empty-handed.

The trappers picked up their trap and went home.

Notice the wickedness of these men, though.

It's in Luke's gospel, it tells us a few days later, they go to Pilate and tell Pilate, Jesus told us not to pay taxes to Caesar.

That's why Pilate authorizes his arrest.

They will murder Jesus for his answer here.

They knew it was a lie.

They heard him say the opposite, but they couldn't deal with what he said, so they lied about it.

They never cared about the tax, they never cared about Caesar.

They only wanted Jesus dead.

And by the way, who wrote this description for us?

Matthew, the tax collector.

I mean, I bet his mind was blown at this scene.

Jesus' answer esteems Matthew's profession.

Did you catch that?

Matthew, who'd been so beleaguered his whole life, who was hated by the Jews and used by Rome, Jesus' answer authorizes and esteems his profession.

Crazy.

What does this mean for us?

Well, honestly, I think many of us are less in danger of cheating Caesar than we are of overpaying him.

I mean, we live in the shadow of the Washington Monument.

Your license plates say no taxation without representation.

Thousands of people in our area, in our church, even, work for Caesar, literally.

Uncle Sam.

You know, there is a Christian obligation to do good in society.

If you work for the government, you have an obligation to make our society and our country better because of your presence there.

To put terror in the heart of evildoers, to protect family, to ensure freedom to worship and all of that, enforce borders, etc.

You have an obligation to be a blessing to your nation.

Hopefully, our nation is better because of you.

But you cannot confuse the two cities.

Caesar may have your taxes, but he better not have your heart.

And you can diagnose this in your own life.

I mean, what gives you hope for the future?

What makes you afraid for the future?

Where do you get your identity from, or who's your loyalty to?

I hope it is not to government.

It is worth asking yourself the question this week.

Is there anything with God's name on it that you've been handing over to Caesar?

Do you give Caesar your sense of peace or identity, your hope or your fear?

You're supposed to fear God and honor the king, but fear God.

They left away empty-handed.

You know, we live in attention, of course.

The city of man and city of God don't have different ends.

They don't have, I mean, they do have different ends, they do have different motives, they do have different ethics and all that.

It will not always be that way.

One day the Lord Jesus is going to come back.

The book of Revelation says, when he returns, the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

Until then, the answer Jesus gave in the temple still stands.

Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.

Never forget which one you are.

Lord, we are so grateful for the economy of words you used here.

There's so much more to say.

There's an ocean of depth here.

You summarized it, and we're so thankful.

Lord, our hearts and our fears, our identity belongs to you.

We are your servants.

We pray that you would use us in the world to make the world a better place.

For those that work in the government, I pray that you would enable them to carry out your will for government.

For those that don't, Lord, we are truly thankful for the nation we live in and the people that work for it.

We are thankful for them, truly.

But Lord, help our worship be given only to you.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or you want more information about what it means to follow Christ, please go to our church website, ibc.church.

If you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to see you at one of our own worship services at Emmanuel Bible.

Now may the Lord bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.