Fishy Taxes

Introduction

Children’s sermon: “If you don’t do this , then I’m not playing”

Imagine you walk inside a gym where a basketball game is going on. There’s not too many people sitting in the stands so you sit down. Right away you notice one player who is always calling out every little thing. “Hey, you fouled me!” “I saw that travel.” “No, you knocked it out of bounds!” After the ball goes out of bounds in your direction an argument ensues between him and another player. You start to throw the ball back to them, but he calls you over. “You saw it right?” he demands, “Who knocked it out of bounds? It was him right? I’m not playing unless I get the ball.” That’s when the other player replies, “It’s just a game.”

Or imagine a father fishing with his kid. His kid gets a bite on the line but starts to have a tough time. He asks his dad for help. The dad reaches over and reels the line in, though it takes some significant effort. He pulls up a 17lb large mouth bass. His son jumps up and down with glee excited about his large catch. He asks his dad, “can I take my picture with it?” Then the father says, “What are you talking about son? This is my fish. I reeled it it.”

Or imagine a husband and a wife. They have been planning a date for a few weeks. The husband was in the recliner watching the football game and the wife walks it. He could tell she was about to say something and interrupt his game. So before she could even say anything he nearly shouted, “How many times do I have to tell you not to interrupt me when I’m watching my game?” Flustered, she walked out of the room without saying a word, tears in her eyes.

N

We all have a tendency to demand getting what we believe we deserve. We believe we should have something, such as time alone, peace in the home, control, money, an easy life, on and on the list can go, then we demand we get it, then we seek to destroy anyone and anything that prevents our demands from being met.

T

If anyone has the right to something it’s Jesus. His glory was just unveiled in the middle of this chapter. God himself approved of Jesus and told his disciples to listen to him. In this passage we will see: does Jesus make such demands?

R

Matt. 17: 24-27

O

Privilege Recognized, Privilege Relinquished, Privilege Resourced

What is Matthew communicating?

Christ has a unique status that he willingly lays aside for the benefit of others and makes provision for his people.

What is the need?

Christ to lay aside his privilege to make provision for the law’s demands so we can be God’s people

What is the felt need?

Always demanding

Privilege Recognized

Matthew 17:24–26 “24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” 25 He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” 26 And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free.”

Revelation

They have returned to their old base of operations in this passage, probably near Peter’s house. Then Peter is approached by the collectors of the temple tax. At the age of twenty, every Jewish male during this time would register for a census. They would be required to pay the tax annually. This tax was not sanctioned by the Roman empire, but it was not prohibited. The purpose was for the upkeep of the temple. A drachma was about an average daily wage, so the tax would be about $600 in today’s money.

The collectors approach Peter (it is his household in Capernaum) and ask about Jesus. Not everyone agreed with this tax. The Sadducees didn’t like it and the Essenes only paid it once in a lifetime. But the Pharisees promoted it. Many saw it as a patriotic duty. Collectors would go all around the empire and even outside the empire to collect this tax.

The way the collector questions Peter, they expect a positive response. Like, “Your teacher is okay with this tax, right?” Peter responds right away, “Of course he is.”

Jesus brings the matter up to Peter before Peter can even say a word to Jesus. Jesus anticipated what Peter was going to say, most likely because Jesus has supernatural knowledge.

Jesus makes a comparison to earthly kings. Who do earthly kings demand taxes from? Royal sons have a special tax exemption. Or as Jesus says, “Then the sons are free”

Relevance

Jesus has a special status because he is the Son of God.

Matthew Exegesis

that since God is the heavenly Father, especially of Jesus, but also of his disciples, they have no obligation to pay a tax to the divine King. Only the Israelites who did not follow Jesus had such an obligation. Jesus’s analogy clearly demonstrates that his followers have a relationship to God that all others lack

There’s a closeness between the relationship between Christ and the Father, and now also between the disciples and God. That closeness carries certain privileges.

Some relate to God simply on the basis of duty or obligation. They are constantly ready to jump through any hoop God throws their way. This are quite often the sort of people who believe that God owes them something too. And how quickly that desire from God can become a demand. “God you better give me this because look how faithfully I have served you.”

Still there are others who use a special relationship with God to manipulate others. You know the ones who try to seem super spiritual. Like the Pharisees who might say, “We know what God wants so you better do what we say.” Or perhaps its more subtle, putting on the air of spirituality to avoid rejection from others.

Some use the privilege of a special relationship with God to try to make demands of God. Some try to use that privilege to try and make demands of others.

Bridge

Is this how Christ handles this privilege of a special relationship to God?

Privilege Relinquished

Matthew 17:27a “27 However, not to give offense to them,

Revelation

The word “give offense” is the same word that’s used in Matthew 15 where Jesus offended the Pharisees with his saying that it’s not what goes in the mouth that makes a person unclean, but what comes out of the mouth. There were certain issues where Jesus was willing to give offense. One would be on how to correctly understand the law.

Jesus has a privileged relationship to God. He is the unique, only begotten Son. In sin, privilege is often held on to at any cost then used to make demands. But Jesus is willing to relinquish the privilege he has. Philippians 2:6 “6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,”

Relevance

Can you imagine God almighty, whom angels sing to day and night crying “holy, holy, holy.” Who upholds the world by his power. Who knows all things and exists eternally. Can you imagine him laying all that aside and being a little helpless baby?

Ignatius wrote, “who was before time, yet appeared in time; who was invisible by nature, yet visible in the flesh; who was impalpable, and could not be touched, as being without a body, but for our sakes became such, might be touched and handled in the body; who was impassible as God, but became passible for our sakes as man; and who in every kind of way suffered for our sakes”

The celebration of Christmas is the celebration that Christ set aside his divine privileges.

Bridge

But he does not just stop at setting them aside, he sets them aside with purpose.

Privilege Resourced

Matthew 17:27b “ go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.””

Revelation

Jesus truly is fully God and fully man. Jesus here displays his supernatural knowledge in giving these instructions to Peter. And, just as Adam was commanded to rule over the sea, we see Jesus, the new Adam exercising such authority.

But notice that Jesus has set aside his privileged relationship with God in order to make peace with others. He not only made peace, but he made provision.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this story comes right next to Jesus’s prediction of his death and resurrection.

Relevance

The cross of Christ is the ultimate display of Christ laying aside his unique privilege. He does not lay aside that privilege because he feels guilty about it or because he hates it. He lays it aside to make peace. Peace between God and man.

And in his resurrection he brings provision. He provides anyone who trusts in him a privileged relationship with God. John 14:6 “6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Application

Have you accepted this gift? If not, turn today. Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus.

If you have accepted this provision, provision of new life, a new standing before God, a new relationship with God, what are you going to do with it?

Are you going to take this privileged relationship with God and use it to make demands of others? Are you going to scream and pitch a fit when things don’t go your way. And say things like, “doesn’t so and so know I’m a Christian?” Or “Doesn’t God know how long I’ve faithfully served him?”

In sin, such privilege makes demands. It seeks to put self at the center of the universe.

But in Christ, privilege makes provision. “Because I’m a child of God, how can I serve others?”

When you consider your special relationship to God through Jesus Christ does it make you want to put on your boxing gloves or your work gloves? In other words, are you ready to fight with others in making demands or maintaining what you think is your right? Or are you ready to serve others to lay aside things you cling onto for the benefit of others?

The next time your tempted to make demands, to exert yourself above others, to hold on to what you have no matter what, consider: what did Christ lay aside? You see in this story that Jesus’s character did not change after he became a baby. He was always willing to lay aside anything he could for the benefit of his own, so much so that he laid down his very life.

Brothers and sisters, it is in the incarnation of Christ, the selfless life of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, and in his resurrection that we too can find the strength to live a life marked by selflessness not demand. Is what marks your life that you will always get your way? Or is it the selfless attitude that Christ displays in this passage: knowing who he truly is, but willing to let go of that for the benefit of others. What a savior.