240108 ALR Reflection with Todd Gibson on Weekly Cedars Zoom hosted by Ambassador Tony Hall and Congressman Joe Pitts

January 8, 2024, 11 am CST

· Thank you, Ambassador Hall and Congressman Pitts for your faithfulness in hosting this Zoom each week.

· I also want to thank Todd for his invitation speak on this first meeting of 2024, for which I am honored.

· 23 is now behind us, and for some it didn’t end as expected. We have heard and need to pray for:

o Lee and Paula Corder and the recent hospitalization

o Nancy Musser on the passing of her husband John

o Margie Frank on the homegoing of her husband Jonathan

o And others.

· A new year brings changes and opportunity to set lofty goals, but as these friends demonstrate, life is uncertain and unstable, and we can’t control what is coming.

· Todd and weren’t able to connect until late last evening and I have been in meetings all morning, so I am going to briefly share something I learned over the holidays from my new pastor friend, Jonathan Murphy from Northern Ireland, about a new perspective on a familiar Scripture, with application for us in the new year:

· Matthew 17: 24-27

“Peter and His Master Pay Their Taxes

24 When they had come to [a]Capernaum, those who received the [b]temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?”

25 He said, “Yes.”

And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?”

26 Peter said to Him, “From strangers.”

Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free.

· The Temple Tax was a religious tax – like a litmus test of loyalty to show you were a good Jew.

· The religious leaders of the day tried to get to Jesus through Peter, asking if He paid the tax, essentially implying, “Is your leader really a good Jew or is this just God talk?”

· Peter assumed Jesus did, because He was a good Jew, (in the chapter before, Peter declared he was the Christ, the son of God), but Jesus teaches him an important lesson.

· Just as the king’s children are exempt from paying taxes to live in their father’s kingdom (one doesn’t tax oneself or one’s family), since Jesus is the Son of God, why would He pay taxes to His father’s temple?

· This tax chat continues into vs. 27 with the ultimate fishing story:

27 Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a [c]piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you.”

· Jesus is the Son of God and doesn’t owe anyone anything, yet to not cause any offense, he pays it.

· There were easier ways to do it, but because Peter was a professional fisherman, he had a custom-made plan to show He knows all – even conversations with religious leaders of which he wasn’t a part, and what every fish in the lake had for breakfast.

Several Takeaways for us as we pivot to the New Year

· Personally, God is challenging me to see things in a new light – perhaps re-parent me - even at 70.

· If we are aligned with God, He transforms us into the people he wants us to be.

· God is sovereign, and we’re not, yet often at the beginning of a new year we act like we are in planning things out without any control of what lies ahead.

· Jesus is God and owes us nothing, yet as God, He knows all, cares for all – and custom-cares for each of us.

· As such, we may not know what may happen in 2024, but we are called to cast it before the Lord, because He is the only one that has already been to next year.

· My pastor friend reminded me that 30 years after experiencing this ultimate fishing story with Jesus, Peter wrote in I Peter 5:7:

7 cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

· So, perhaps rather than resorting to the two top resolutions for 2024 (according to Google) to “lose more weight to look better or make more money to live better,” an anointed New Year’s Resolution for all of us might be:

o To cast (not just our line, like Peter, but) your life onto the Lord in the coming year, because he knows all, and “custom cares” for you.

o To which I would add, something I learned from Grace Nelson two years ago following the first virtual NPB, to “Live Life Unoffended.”

· May God bless each of us in the coming year as we remain faithful to Him and support each other in friendship and fellowship and our common mission to lift up the name of Jesus with everyone as we have opportunity.