10.22.2023 - What Do We Owe?

Scripture: Matthew 22:15-22

Matthew 22:15–22 NIV

15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” 18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” 21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” 22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

10/22/2023

Order of Service:

Announcements

Kid’s Time

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon -

Closing Song

Benediction

What do we owe?

Reputations in the Bible

How many people in the Bible had questionable reputations?

Peter had a reputation for leaping before he looked, speaking before he thought it through, reacting instead of responding. James and John were called the Sons of Thunder. To my ears, that sounds like professional wrestlers’ names or names that indicated they quarreled a lot with themselves and others. Or it could be a reference to their father, Zebedee. Thomas was called the twin, which makes Bible scholars think that he may have looked a lot like one of the other disciples or someone they knew well. And others in scripture had big reputations.

Samson was a lady’s man with great strength and a very short temper. David was a mighty warrior and a talented musician who struggled with family relationships. His son Solomon was known for wisdom, many wives, and great wealth, but the people outside Jerusalem did not love him. During the birth of Jesus, King Herod the Great had a reputation for being paranoid, and his Son Herod Antipas, who was king when Jesus was crucified, was known as “the fox” because he was a weaker king and used deceit to rule instead of power. Each of them had their excuses for making their choices, good and bad.

There are many others throughout Scripture who we know by their reputations, both good and bad. And it is not just in scripture that reputations play a role. History is highlighted by the reputations of those who went before us, and the Church itself has been marked and marred by the reputations it has earned. Each of us also has a reputation, and we make it every day by our integrity in witness and character as the world watches how we live.

As followers of Jesus and chosen children of God’s kingdom, our reputation is attributed to Jesus and ourselves. To a world that cannot see God for themselves, we, His children, show with our lives whether He is a promise-keeper or a promise-breaker. Therefore, God calls us to fulfill both our worldly and heavenly obligations.

Integrity

As we have read through the Gospel account these past few months, you may have noticed the teachings getting more pointed and the opposition and questions of Jesus becoming more intense. Our passage today tells us this was when the Pharisees teamed up with the Herodians (those Jews who had sold out to the Roman leaders) against Jesus. During this last trip to Jerusalem, Jesus took several groups of Jewish leaders who had been at each other’s throats for generations and unified them against Him as their common enemy.

They gave Jesus a false compliment, setting Him up for a fall.

“Jesus, we know you are a man of integrity.”

And He was. The Jews could not figure out how to live under the rule of Rome without breaking God’s law. They argued with each other, but no one ever devised a solution for how to live right. Jesus, on the other hand, lived a life that Rome ignored, apart from the few times they came to Him for healing. He also lived a life free of sin. He lived right every day and appeared to do it as easily as breathing. It made everyone so mad being around them unless they humbled themselves enough to sit at His feet and learn from Him.

Integrity was an impossibility for everyone, and they knew it. To Jesus, it must have been like watching children learning to swim for the first time, not recognizing that the first thing they had to do was quit struggling long enough to let the water bring them up to float. A better example is watching someone stuck in quicksand and again knowing there is no particular way to move or shift to get above the sand. What you need to do there is call for help and let someone save you. But these people did not want to be saved. They just wanted to pull Jesus into the quicksand with them.

So they threw out their hands to try to catch Him unawares with the biggest trick question they could find to test His loyalty to God and the Roman empire:

“Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?”

If Jesus said yes, they could claim He was a coward and a traitor to the Jewish nation - certainly not the promised Messiah who would set them free and restore their kingdom.

If Jesus said no, they could tell the Roman officials that He was a Jewish fanatic who was going around, drawing crowds and telling them they shouldn’t pay their taxes. That never goes over well.

They gave Him the option to pick the lesser of two evils simply by asking Him one of the biggest questions that plagued their hearts and minds. They held out their hands, intending to pull Him into the quicksand with them. And then, Jesus performed a miracle.

Instead of being pulled into the philosophical quicksand, Jesus pulled them out. All of them. He showed them what it truly meant to be a man of integrity.

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Witness and Character

Jesus asked them to get a coin and tell Him whose image was on it. “Caesar’s”, they said.

Jesus then showed them the way out of their problem. “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Jesus addressed two aspects of reputation with this answer: Witness and Character. To be a witness is to represent someone else by word or deed. Often, we think of courtroom cases where witnesses are brought forth to represent the prosecution or defense regarding the current case. But it happens in smaller, less official ways as well. If you were thinking about getting a new pet and were unsure if you were a dog person and saw this picture on the screen, it might sway you to think about getting a hamster or goldfish instead of a dog. This one puppy, with a tiny act of violence against pillows caught on camera, could unintentionally give all dogs bad reputations.

The same thing happens to us as followers of Jesus. Deciding to do something we know is wrong can give all Christians a bad name. Even worse, to those who don’t follow Jesus, it gives Him a bad name. If His followers do that, how much more does Jesus do? What we communicate in our witness is usually just good or bad. Like restaurant reviews, our lives show whether Jesus is a one, two, three, four, or five-star Lord of our lives, and it often goes no further than that. Give to Caesar what you owe Him. Give to others what you owe them. Don’t be someone who claims a moral high ground but takes advantage of others. Jesus taught that when you love those who love you and hate those who hate you, there is no difference between you and anyone else. That is perfectly acceptable for an atheist, but when a Christian does that, it shows the world that Jesus did nothing for you.

Witness is what happens in a moment. Character is what develops over time. Witness only shows good or bad. Character goes beyond that and tells the story of our identity. Character is a week of witnesses or a year of witnesses, and the more we witness one way or another, the more it solidifies into becoming our character.

Now, we all have our flaws. We make mistakes. But the character problem occurs when we do it over and over again. When I was young, my dad started teaching me to play piano. After a few years, he sent me to a music teacher for lessons. I used to drive him crazy because I wouldn’t practice my lessons until the last minute, and when I did practice, I didn’t take it seriously. I would make excuses that I was too busy to practice or knew the song well enough already.

One December, the local bank had an open house for Christmas and invited my dad and me to play a piano duet. Again, I didn’t take the practice seriously and waited until the last minute. The moment came for us to play the duet, and I cannot tell you how many wrong notes I hit. It was awful, and while I didn’t care then, my dad was embarrassed. My bad witness in practice had become a bad character that I lived out, and my dad never asked me to do anything like that again. For him, it was not the one moment in public. It was the many times I had done wrong and not cared enough to try to do better.

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No Excuses

We are all made in God’s image. When we bring a bad witness and character into our lives, we mar that image and give others the wrong impression of God. Following and obeying Jesus means fulfilling our obligations to others and God. If we are in situations where we feel like we have to choose between one or the other, we may be missing out on a third choice that Jesus wants to show us. When we make mistakes, getting up and trying again differently is essential.

When others see us admit our mistakes and watch Jesus transform us, we become better witnesses than if we did everything right the first time. The way God created us and our relationships with Him, there should be no way for us to do anything but share a witness to His Goodness. Our mistakes cannot mess God up. There is only one thing that can: our excuses.

When we make excuses for our mistakes, we imply that the rules don’t apply to us or that whatever we have done is not wrong. One of the hardest things about following Jesus is that He leaves no room for excuses. He said, let your yeses be yeses and your no’s be no’s.

Excuses become the chains we carry through life. In The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Ebeneezer Scrooge is visited by a ghost in chains - his former business partner Jacob Marley. Marley tells Scrooge that he has to carry those chains for all the obligations he failed to meet in doing good things with the blessings God gave him. He and Scrooge were skilled at making excuses and forging those chains to hold them down.

When I was in college, I read a book together with some friends in our student ministry. One of the challenges we took away from the book was to get rid of excuses from our lives. So we made little notes such as bookmarks, labels on our folders, or cards in our wallets that said “No Excuses.” Every time we saw them, we were reminded that by saying yes to Jesus, we were saying no to excuses in our lives. Living in a world that seems to run on excuses some days, it was a big adjustment to admit mistakes without making excuses.

It was a challenge, but it was worth it. It allowed me to say no to the things I needed to say no to and to focus on fulfilling my obligations (at that time, such as homework and studying) that needed to be done. I wasn’t making excuses. I was learning to make better choices, and living like that was liberating. It felt like the spiritual chains that held me back were being broken, one link at a time.

Jesus wants you to experience that freedom, too. The question is: do you want it? Do you want it enough to let go of your excuses? Will you give your life to God first so He can lead you and show you and empower you to give Him what belongs to Him and fulfill your obligations to everyone else?

You will fail on your own. That’s not an excuse. That is a fact. If you start with God, He will lead you into new priorities and break the chains that hold you back from living the life He created you to live.