Kingdom Focus

Today we are going to talk about rage bait. What is rage bait? The Merriam-Webster definition says: Rage-bait is content (usually, but not always, found online) that tries to provoke anger or outrage, as a means of gaining attention or making money.

You live in a world of constant “rage bait”. People who tried to provoke you, who try to get you to respond to what they say, who will attack you personally, attack your faith, attack people and things that you love. But notice what word I used there “attack”. Because that is how rage bait makes us feel “attacked”, it makes us feel like we need to defend ourselves against what other people say.

Rage-bait is almost never accurate, in fact most of the time it is intentionally false. That’s what makes it so hard to not respond to.

So how do we deal with “rage-bait”? What should be our response be towards those who seek to attack us or our faith?

The good news is that Jesus shows us how to do this. In fact, we will see Jesus respond to His own rage-bait. His response will be revealing to us.

But what we will also see is that the rage against Jesus will go further than words, in fact they will kill Him because of His refusal to subside THEIR rage.

The first story of Mark 12 reveals this. In it we see how, although the vineyard owner was owed grapes, the farmers refused to give him what he owed, up to the point of sending his own son. How did they respond? They “seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.” Jesus is predicting exactly what will happen to Him soon.

But what we will see in this story is that...

God sends us salvation through Jesus even when we ignore His grace in our lives.

God’s grace in His sovereignty

The Pharisee’s ask Jesus a question. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? The question they are really asking is, “are you going to treat Caesar as a god?” Because if he did they would say he was blaspheming. But if he said no, then it would be treason against the Roman empire.

There are many people who like to make us choose between what it means to be an American citizen and being a Christian. But the truth is, that God is sovereign over all of it, so we can serve Him while also caring for the country that we live in. Now, we can certainly make serving our country into an idol, but they are not at odds with one another.

It’s like summer. How many of you are ready for summer? Summer is great. Vacation, sleeping in, hanging out with friends, playing video games, going to the pool and the beach...its amazing! But how many of you, by the time you get to August are bored of summer? Too much of summer isn’t good. School is MOST important, it is necessary for you to learn and to grow, but summer is also good and important. They are not in contention with one another, but one is far more important then the other. Summer doesn’t threaten school, in fact, school shows just how good summer can be in its proper order.

Because God is OVER creation, over the country we live in, over every leader, over our school, over the sports and extracurriculars we are apart of. HE has appointed each one, they are all in God’s hand.

We need to make sure that Jesus is LORD of our lives.

We should carefully consider the place of other things in our lives with where God is, but they do not need to be in conflict either.

God’s grace through Scripture

Then the Pharisee’s try to take several different teachings of Scripture in order to catch Him in a conflict.

Have you ever had anyone who tries to point out the contradictions of Scripture to you? Someone who tries to use some absurd example in order to “prove” to you God doesn’t exist.

People like one “Can God create a bolder to big for him to carry?” Does this actually do anything to disprove God? No. But it feels like a good “gotcha” moment for some.

(This is called an “Argument from absurdity”. The answer is that this is a “logical impossibility”. For the same reason God “cannot lie” because he always tells the truth, God “cannot” create a bolder to big to carry because he is all-powerful?)

The good news, that Jesus shows us, is that even when we don’t always understand the answers that He is great enough to overcome our weakness. Jesus reveals in v. 24 that the reason they don’t understand is because “you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God”.

But when the scribe asks a question he did not know, Jesus gave him an answer that went beyond what he had understood from God’s commands. Jesus tells him “you are not far from the kingdom of God.” That is the beauty of the Gospel, our humble misunderstandings and questions bring us closer to God.

Then Jesus asks them a question they don’t know the answer to. He shows them that they are bringing their rage-bait arguments against Him, yet there are things in Scripture that they have yet to grapple with even when they should have.

God’s grace in our weakness

Here we see the paradox Jesus has already shown us. The greatest must be the least, the poor in Spirit are the rich, the one who gives the least in fact gives the most.

The Scribes look at outward signs of “faith”. How do you prove to others that you are a “good person” and are “important?” Rather than recognizing what God notices, our hearts. God’s grace is seen in that he cares much less about how others feel about us, and much more about how we seek to serve him even when no one else is watching.

In mini-golf, or golf, is it the person who hits the ball the hardest that wins? Know, its the person that know the character of the course and how to plan in line with the course. The course does the work for you if you know it, all you have to do is your best to play within the rules you’ve been given.

In the same way, the more you know God, the more you will be in line with His character of how He seeks you to live.

Focus on the Gospel