Jesus and your Taxes, God and Government

The Gospel of Mark  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Call To Worship

Say: Let us now begin to worship the Father the Son, the Holy Spirit, Our Call to worship Comes to us from Reading

Psalm 65:5–8 ESV
5 By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas; 6 the one who by his strength established the mountains, being girded with might; 7 who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples, 8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

Introduction

Genesis, Volumes 1 & 2 (44. Babel Confused: Genesis 11:5–9)
I  n the aftermath of the horrors of the Second World War, a renewed desire for world peace resulted in the founding of the United Nations. The United Nations Charter, approved in 1945, lists four goals of this cooperative venture: “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, … to regain faith in fundamental human rights, … to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties … can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” To the historian who is informed by the revelation of God’s Word, these aims sound familiar. They echo the first great collaboration of the human race in their project to build a tower in Babel: “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower …, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4). The failure of the tower-builders to achieve a secular paradise anticipated the futile efforts of the United Nations to stem bloodshed and bring peace to the earth.
One may ask what Christians could possibly criticize in the ostensibly noble effort of the United Nations and similar attempts at world unity. The answer is the same as the Bible’s critique of the Tower of Babel. The problem was not the aims of the tower-builders, who were right to seek unity, security, and significance. The problem was that they sought these goods apart from adoring fellowship with their Lord and Creator, who made man in his image. Outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City, a statue depicts a workman beating a sword into a plowshare, complete with a reference to Micah 4:3. Yet despite this symbolism, the organization’s entire ethos remains radically opposed to biblical faith and obedience. Like every other secular-humanistic scheme, starting at Babel, the attempt to bring heaven to earth on man’s terms is doomed to fail.
As we look at God and state today...
....we are reminded why man will achieve paradise only through a return to God in faith.

Text

Mark 12:12–17 ESV
12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away. 13 And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” 15 But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” 17 Jesus 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.

Observations/Background

Right now this happens after the priests and had determined they were going to kill him, and the Herodians to.
This would be like the American Left and Right plotting together to destroy someone. These sides hated each other and now because of who Jesus is, what he does, who he is they’re doing as we read in Mark 12:7-12
Mark 12:7–12 ESV
7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 11 this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” 12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.
This is an unholy alliance to destroy Jesus! MArk in verse 13 Mark 12:13
Mark 12:13 ESV
13 And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk.
The word trap here is in the greek better understood that they went out hunting for him. The word in the grrek is only ever used here. The enemies of Jesus were hunting to destroy him, hoping to get him killed in some way. It is fitting that Jesus sees through their rouse and thwarts them!
The use of the Denrious here is intentional, when the Jew saw this coin it sitred up many things. They saw themselves as slaves for payong taxes to the Romans, on the coin it called Casaer August - the transendant one, divine son, an assult on God. It called Casaer the Pontif maxim, the high priest which only God is.
The Romans woul;d only allow the paying of taxes done in this coin, their coins.

Application note:

When you look at he person of JEsus he is able to se through the murk and lies.
Really this sermon is about Your relation to government so most of today’s message will be looking at the priniciples of this text

Point 1 - Sphere Sovereignty

This question to Jesus is there to trap Jesus into either backing the Roman occupation and thereby provoking the Jewish populace that hated the occupation. Or backing the Jewish patriots who wanted to through off the Romans, thereby being a revolutionary in the eyes of the Romans..
Genesis 2:7–25 ESV
7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
In this section alone you see the foundation of the major institutions. These exist before sin so God has things to say about this event
The Family
The Church
The State

Application:

We must keep each station separate, when one sphere becomes to strong the others fail. In pour age the State has grown to large. Many of you have dealt with some for of State backed medicine and you see how difficult that is. Those that deal with the VA really know what I’m talking about. You don’t want the government involved with your medical decisions or you may end up like Canada, which promotes state assisted suicide. This Is best left in the realm of the family, you may ask me my thoughts or any pastor, but the decision on your health is your family decision. The Pastor will let you know when something is entering the area of Sin, and the church may correct you with church discpline, i.e. speaking with you.
When it comes to the church, you may love someone, or think you love someone. The government might say what is a marriage, but that is our lane. Marriage was made by God not the state, so you or the state have no say over what it is. You can rocgnize what the church says, but you can’t overide us, at least not for long. Sin is currupting and rotting. Those that define marriage their way if they were members of a bibilcal church would rightly be discplined out of membership. A Spouse walks out for another person and doesn’t repent it would be right for church discipline. That is our place we have the keys to the kingdom. It would be right for me to say after proper church discipline as laid out in Mark to remove someone from the church who was in rank unrepentant sin.
When it comes to the state, the state is the tool of justice. Someone breaks the law it is the states purview to punish the offender. Someone transgresses over our country, our home it is right for the state to use military force to protect us. It would be wrong for the church to take up the sword to punish evil doers, the church get faly accused of this but if you know your history it was often the state using the church as a disguise to punish. It is wrong for the family to do so as well or you end up with a hatfields and McCoys situation.
What this looks like.
Church fails, family fails, state steps in
Family fails, church corrects, state avoided
Family is correct, Church fails, Church either chastened by God or Lampstand removed, State avoided
State fails, Families establish local order, church assist establishing local order, State corrected or reesablished
Best of all outcomes is a government that you would never see. Uncle Sam keeps you safe from bad guys, fires, etc., the roads working are working, paved, towns clean, the Military operating on all cylinders
Let me put this in modern terms last I read that this week at the DNC they had a truck their doing abortions and 25 children were murdered. If this is your party Christian it is time you leave it. The organization gave sanction to murder. I’m not saying you become anything else, but here my loving correction. If this is the party you support it is a sin now. You might say the otherside is just as bad, nothing is as bad as killing babies. We can have that discussion after you leave the party of Child murder.

Point 2 - Legitimate authority of the state

We see a lot of illegitimate actions of the state and that reminds me of Gen. 11:5
Genesis 11:5 ESV
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
Let me quote a commentary of mine real quick:
Genesis, Volumes 1 & 2 44. Babel Confused: Genesis 11:5–9

This brief statement drips with irony. Here is man’s great tower, reaching skyward to declare his usurpation of heaven. Yet when the Lord appears to consider man’s great achievement, he must stoop from his great height in order to see the puny monument. We get a sense of the text when we fly in airplanes above our cities. However grand are the buildings from man’s perspective on the ground, from high in the air they appear as small and insignificant.

To say that God “came down” or “stooped” is what theologians refer to as an anthropomorphism. While God is not physically located anywhere in creation, an anthropomorphism speaks of God as if he were a physical being. Here, God’s coming down expresses his infinite superiority to mankind. God’s supremacy remains true of the greatest human projects today, such as the NASA space program or the human genome project. The greatest of all that man can ever achieve is as nothing before the works of God, who created the immensity of the universe and formed our very being with his hands. In God’s eyes, nothing we can do will ever impress his sublime genius and infinite power. James Boice comments, “The only truly significant accomplishments are God’s (sometimes in and through us), for only these partake of the nature of God and endure forever, as God does.”1

A lot of what government does when out of it’s lane is tower of Babel building.
They may try to assure you that they’re using water proof bricks, or in today’s weather language, fighting climate change, but they really can’t do anything.
So what does good government do?
Romans 13:1–7 ESV
1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
The government is God’s deacon. Keeps the peace. Good governance is the ability for a man to walk alone at night without worry. Good governance is quite in the evenings, Good governance is when the government is so small you hardly think about it.
Most of today’s government work should be carried out by strong families and strong churches. Both of those institutions are so atrophied today because the government has eaten up their responsibilities.
So when Paul teaches let them be subject to governing authorities the issue is simaler to let a wife be subject to her own husband

Application:

You must seek good government in every sphere. This is the next part of your life. Christianity cares about then how shall I live. It’s both salvation and life directing.
Good government runs on Christian principle. In fact in the English speaking world Christian law is the foundation of every common law derived system.
So freedom of speech does not include blasphemy or obscenity.
Freedom of religion, doesn’t mean public displays of any religion other then the Christian one. Yes the 10 commandments can and must be displayed in our government, no the statues to false gods cannot be. If you think this isn’t American, I’d encourage you to study your own history you’ll find that the modern moment is in error.
Applicationally, the state is the sword bearer of God and as such the state must establish justice and order.
This means you’re free to be a non-Christian, we won’t kill you for it, but you’re not free to be so with support from the public. Doing so would be a violation of the 1st and 2nd commandments, which are foundational to the Anglo-American Legal system.
The sword does not convert souls, but the sword can direct men and women to live lives in which they are more able to learn about God.
Law is teaching, so what does that mean? In your home if you don’t want your kids to put their shoes on the table when they do so their is a consequence. That works. In the civil society we don’t allow people to light up cigarettes just anywhere anymore without consequence. What do we see? Less and less people smoking, they have been disciplined to that way of life.
Good government should have Sundays shut down of must things, so as to stir the hearts of men to worship God.
In PA where I grew up their was a move in Colonial times to encourage church attendance and it worked! In my home state and in VA they don’t allow hunting so the animals can rest
The ultimate good for mankind, the best way to establish order and justice is to encourage men and women to love their God.
You do this already around your dinner table, Government shouldn’t take Dad and moms place BUT it has authority to praise what is good!
Good government should praise and encourage the good and punish the wicked.

When it comes to wicked government

Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke Matthew 22:15–22; Mark 12:13–17; Luke 20:20–26

But this doctrine extends still farther, that every man, according to his calling, ought to perform the duty which he owes to men; that children ought willingly to submit to their parents, and servants to their masters; that they ought to be courteous and obliging towards each other, according to the law of charity, provided that God always retain the highest authority, to which every thing that can be due to men is, as we say, subordinate.1 The amount of it therefore is, that those who destroy political order are rebellious against God, and therefore, that obedience to princes and magistrates is always joined to the worship and fear of God; but that, on the other hand, if princes claim any part of the authority of God, we ought not to obey them any farther than can be done without offending God.

If Nazi's are at the door rounding up people who you are hiding in your basement and ask you to turn them in you say you don’t have any. This is not lying this is deception to obey God, just as Rahab did with the Hebrew spys.
You can pay taxes to a wicked government, but you may not participate in it’s actions, you must appeal if need be to the lessor magistrates, if thr President is bad, go to the govenor, and so on. To resist evil. You must use your abilities to bring about good, God-honoring government!

Point 3 - Render unto Caesar

Mark 12:16–17 ESV
16 And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” 17 Jesus 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.
Want to finish with this point. We have the image of leaders on our money and so we must pay taxes, but When Jesus ends this teaching with this It’s an implied question Whose image is on you?

Application: Pay the Lord his Due

You must render yourself fully to God, just like how we must pay our correct amount of taxes to the state.
I always ask this type of question to us Christians, because if you want to see revival in our nation, in our families, growth in our church, it starts with you. Men you need to follow Joshua’s call for you and your family.
Joshua 24:15 ESV
15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
To see the revival it starts in your heart, comes out of your hands, should flow from you and ladies from you as well at your dinner table, into your children, grandchildren, into your work place.
When you render yourself to the Lord Things will happen in your life, their is treasures in heaven in the future, and blessings today.

Gospel

Now if you’re hear and your not sure where you stand and your hearing this encouragement from one Christian to another and you want part of this The image of God is on you, render yourself unto the Lord!
(Give the gospel)

Benediction/Charge

Say: As we close our service of worship dear brother and sister please stand for our benediction and receive by faith this blessing from God

Matthew 6:33 ESV
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
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