Transcription
Matthew 17, we'll look in verses 22- 27. Verse 22- 27. Um, it's going to be a fun text to be able to look at and hopefully it'll be practical um, in your own life as you're kind of figuring out kind of where to land on different things that come up in your life. There are these two there are these two extremes. Um, as you do in life. Um, on one hand you could be very principled. Um, and on the other hand, you could be pragmatic. Principled and pragmatic. The one and some of you are on that spectrum. You're like more on the principled side of like, well, these are my principles. I'm sticking with it. This is, you know, life's just black and white. And then some of you are more pragmatic of like, you know, well, this seems to be the quickest route. there and things are a little bit more negotiable. Well, what does it mean to follow Jesus? To be a follower of Jesus, to have him giving you principles but then navigating life where things are not explicitly spelled out in scripture. And Jesus faced one of those types of situations. Um you you uh face these things when you're at work or you're navigating relation relationships. Um, you're just doing life, interacting with people who maybe are not following Jesus. And it's just like, well, you know, how do you how do we do this? So, that's kind of what we're going to encounter as we go through Matthew 17. Matthew 17 22- 27. Let me read the text to you. We'll pray and then we'll begin to unpack it. As they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus told them, "The son son of man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him and on the third day he will be raised up." And they were deeply distressed. When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the temple tax approached Peter and said, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?" "Yes," he said. When he went into the house, Jesus spoke to him first. "Um, what do you think, Simon? From whom do earthly kings collect tariffs or taxes? From their sons or from strangers? From strangers, he said. Then the sons are free, Jesus told him. But so we won't offend them, go to the sea, cast in a fish hook, and take the first fish that you catch. When you open its mouth, you'll find a coin. Take it and give it to them for me and for you. Let's pray. Lord, we come before you and Lord, would it be the state of our hearts that we are willing to submit to your word, that your word is authoritative over our life and we take up a posture of humility and obedience and readiness to say yes to what your spirit shows us this morning. As we're going through this text, we We recognize that you know our story even better than we can recall our own story and you have a plan and we ask God that you would graft us again into your good plan by your spirit. Speak to us Lord we pray this morning in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen. So as we're going through Matthew which is just a biography about Jesus, right? It's a early record of what Jesus did and what he taught. We come to this story in Matthew. Now this the there there are two parts here that I've combined together. We're we're looking at the second um prediction that Jesus gives about his death um in Jerusalem that's coming and then the bulk of the text is about this idea of the um uh the bulk of the text is about this idea of paying taxes. And so um we're going to we're going to look at both separately but we'll spend most of our time in this second question. Now if you go to Mark, Luke or John, you will not get this second section. Only Matthew records for us this interaction over the temple tax. This is going to be our thesis statement as we move forward. Jesus provides a pattern for Christian cultural engagement, maintaining our identity as God's free children while responding responsibly, navigating cultural obligations for the sake of our witness. Again, navigating cultural obligations for the sake of our witness. So, we've read through the text. Let's look first at this section. um verses 22 and 23. It says that as they gather together in Galilee, Jesus told them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised up." So this is the second time. Just a few weeks ago, we saw the first time that Jesus predicted his death. And so again, for those of us who have chosen to follow Jesus, what can we learn from this? One of the things that we have been seeing is that um Jesus is um not opposed to giving his disciples a heads up on what's coming. One of the benefits of walking with Jesus listening to the Holy Spirit, reading your Bible, and developing, cultivating your relationship with God is that God often times speaks in advance about what's going to happen.
So, we see this with Abraham, right? God says to Abraham before he gives Abraham a miraculous child, he says,"Abraham, this is what I'm going to do for you." Right?
Um, we see this in um the life of Joseph. When Joseph is a young man, he has these dreams that basically predict his future that taps him into this is God's plan worldwide. He he um has this vision of all of his siblings bowing down to him. And then what do we see with Pharaoh and the dream and then his interpretation? We see that God is giving to his people this insight into what is about to happen. The way one of the ways this has worked out in my own personal life, like as I went into this year, there was a passage of scripture that God um I felt was just like the Holy Spirit highlighter was pointing me to just saying, "Hey, this is for you this year." And it became like just a way to frame up my thinking about the year. And so, look, It is not a strange experience for Christians to have a sense of direction and anticipation about what's coming to be prepared. I remember I remember um before um 9/11 happened. Some of you are old enough to be alive when 9/11 happened. I had a dream
um about this horrible accident, this bloody situation. where people were being carried out on CS and um they were triaging this whole scene and there was this in the in the background of my dream there was this um there was the Manhattan landscape um and I I saw it I woke up there was this sense of like something's going to happen
and it was only a few weeks later that 911 happened and I forgot I I forgot that the about the dream but then after 911 Five or six months later, they were doing these like all kinds of remember how Time magazine used to do like commemorative editions where it was just like a photo display of like crazy pictures.
And I turned to one page in this Time magazine thing. I think I still have it. And it was literally the image from my dream. It was like the picture, the triage picture. They're carrying this woman who is all bloodied.
And it said in the description like, "Hey, this, you know, this is a woman being carried in the triage section. That's not special. That that that can be a normative experience. At least as we look at Christians, godly people, as we go through Old and New Testament, we see it as a familiar experience that God is giving a heads up to his people. And so what does that mean for us practically? It means that we are we want to have a tender heart and be listening being those people who are can be entrusted with that heads up. Like, why would I give you a heads up if you're forgetful? You don't write stuff down, you're kind of flippant with what's going on. No, those things are things to be stewarded over. And so, here we see Jesus telling his disciples, "This is what's going to happen".
Now, you would think, okay, well, well, what if they mess it up? Like, what if they step in and they try to thwart what's going to what's going to occur. Jesus isn't afraid of that. Jesus is fine with just saying, "Here's what's going to occur." And their response is they they were deeply distressed. Well, that's not very loving. That's not very loving. Why would Jesus say something to them that would cause them to be deeply distressed? It seems like It seems like it just makes sense that Jesus is okay with giving his his closest followers, his his future leaders a heads up about something that would cause a deep sense of stress. Yeah. Smiley.
Yeah. Um does it mean that he's also preparing them for what's to come?
Yeah, I think so. I think this is an an opportunity for them to prepare their hearts for something that's tragic. Now, their response is kind of messy. Kind of messy. But they um they're able to look back on it and see like, wow, look at look at how Jesus he warned us about this thing that was going to occur. That's a good observation. Thank you for that. So, let's keep going. Let's look at um this second section starting in verse 24. It says that when they came to Capernaum and and what we already saw there in Galilee and you you'll remember like Galilee is really important in the book of Matthew because a lot of the ministry that Matthew explains to us about Jesus. It's happening in this northern area um around the Sea of Galilee. So there's all these small towns and one of them is Capernaum. And those who collected the temple tax approached Peter and said, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?" And the response that Peter gives is yes. Now, we'll go on into the rest of verse 25 in a second, but let's just look at what this temple taxes like. What is what's the cultural context? Why are they asking this question? So, in Exodus 30, Exodus 30-16, it says, "Everyone who is registered must pay a half shekele. according to the sanctuary shekele 20 garas to the shekele. This half shekele is a contribution to the Lord. So when we go back to Exodus, what we're looking at is when God gave instructions to Moses about setting up the tab the tabernacle, excuse me, the tabernacle worship. And so he says this half shekele is to be paid as a cont contribution to the Lord. Each man who is registered 25 years old or more or 20 years old or more must give this contribution to the Lord. The wealthy may not give more and the poor may not give less than half a shekele when giving the contribution to the Lord to atone for your lives. Take the atonement price from the Israelites and use it for the service of the tent of meaning. It will serve as a reminder for the Israelites before the Lord to atone for your lives. So, there's a couple different purposes for this tax. It's a flat tax. Doesn't matter if you're poor or you're um poor or rich. It is everybody pays just a half shekele. uh and it would be used in the future to get a count um on how many men were 20 years old or older. It was a an instrument for almost a census in a sense. It was used to um help keep you know it's the community taking care of their worship space together but then it also has this spiritual um reminder of atonement um of being bought back. Um so there's this spiritual engagement that's going on. So this has been a part of the the culture uh the Jewish culture for years all the way up until the time of Jesus. And um the question that is posed, those who collect this temple tax ask Peter, well, you know, does your master, does your teacher pay the temple tax? This could have been a trap to test Jesus's loyalty to the Jewish tradition. um it or it could have just been just a simple question of like, well, do you pay? Um and Peter without really talking to Jesus, he just jumps out there and he says, "Yeah, this is what happens." So, let's that sets the stage. Let's look at this next section, part three, the first principle. It's the sons are free. So, we get into verse 25. Peter's already said yes. And then in your version, uh it should say something like this. When Peter went into the house, Jesus spoke to him first. And he just asks this question. "What do you think, Simon? From whom do earthly kings collect tariffs or taxes? From their sons or from strangers?" So Jesus is going to use the example of earthly kings to teach a principle about the heavenly kingdom. Okay? So he's saying, Peter, in the world that you know of in the culture, Who is it that kings are taxing and levying uh tariffs to? Is it their kin? Is it their kids? Or is it to those who are strangers? And Peter's response is that it's from strangers. And so Jesus then says um the sons then the sons are free. So he's again using this example that's like Roman Empire, you know, historically who gets taxed and then he's layering on to that and he's saying good. So, we have this working idea that the kids of the king, they don't pay taxes. They're free. They're exempt from that tax. What Jesus is doing is he's establishing a what we call a first principle. He's establishing this um idea that is um applies to himself. There is um not just the idea of a there's not just the idea of um Jesus being the son of God and therefore free from paying the the tax on his father's house, right? So, um that's why we saying father's house, by the way. So, um there is not just that sense of freedom, but there is this bleed over into the idea that when you become a follower of Jesus, your and my life is seated in Christ. The book of Ephesians talks about this at length. It is this idea that um we become co-airs we become identified with Christ. So what Jesus gets in terms of being a son of the father, we get that identity too. So there is this establishing of a first principle, this freedom, this this privileged position as a son of the king. So So that's the underlying principle. And by implication, you would think like, well, because I'm a son, then I'm free. I don't have to pay the tax. But there is this practical concession that we see in verse 27. And here's how Jesus explains it. He says, "But so we won't offend them, go to the sea, cast in a fish hook, and take the first fish that you catch. When you open its mouth, you'll find a coin, take it and give it to them for you and me." So, the coin is enough for it's a full shekele. So, you've got a payment for two people that is going to be found. Um, but what I want you to notice is that Jesus gives a reason for the concession. So, he says it's so that we won't offend them,
I want you to pay the tax. And then there's this crazy part where a miracle is done. There's a miraculous provision of the tax money to pay it, right? Which we'll talk about in just a minute.
But I want to spend a minute just looking at this this um what we would call like a paradigm because the early church and this this um as I was studying this this week I was appreciating the way that this is laid out and I would call it what we call like an interpretive key. Um, or you remember when back in the day when we used to take tests and we'd fill in the dots, you fill in the dots and then the teacher would have like the you would lay like the key the answer key over the dots and and it would tell you like okay what questions you got right. This is kind of like that in that Jesus is not just teaching in the moment, but he's providing an interpretive key for how to how do we handle first principles that may be in tension with the cultural realities. These things pop up all the time um as we're as we're doing life. And I'm going to give you some examples of of this from other places in the New Testament in um in 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2 we have um this idea of this is 216 Peter tells these Christians to "live as free people" very similar to Jesus's teaching "live as a free person" but then he calls upon them to "submit to the authorities for the Lord's sake". So he establishes that look, you are a free people. He tells this to slaves. He tells this to Roman citizens. He says, listen, your true identity is that you are a person that is free. No one lays claim to your life. But because we are a people on a mission, We we live in this disposition where God is is bringing the good news of his kingdom to people all around us. Like we were talking about Jimmy earlier, you know, God's like God's carrying the message, the good message of his kingdom through us, to people all around us. And if we just start standing on our principles, our identity, we're going to take off a bunch of people and offend a bunch of people unnecess necessarily. Does that make sense? And so if these slaves were to just say, "Listen, I, you know, I follow Jesus now, so you know, screw you. I'm not going to follow you master anymore." That would get in the way of that master receiving the kingdom message. So Jesus, it's subversive. What Jesus is doing and what then Paul and Peter teach is um a message that upholds human dignity where you give it enough time and the Christian message, the kingdom message infects the world enough that slavery becomes untenable to a culture that embraces even just the the the basic idea of human dignity. And so, but it is it is tactful of the Christian to say like Jesus, we don't want to offend In this moment, we are not looking to unnecessarily offend even though there is a first principle that that gives us an excuse for not paying the tax. Now, there is this temptation as we engage life and we learn about who Jesus is and what he's done for us. You can abuse that liberty, that freedom, and you can say, "Well, I'm at liberty. I'm I have my freedom." Like, forget everybody else. and and all of a sudden you start having an interactions with others that are offensive in the name of now my life's changed I'm a follower of Jesus and it becomes this upside down backwards sense of following Jesus it it's not recognizing no wait Jesus saved you so that this mission can be um carried on through your life. there's another example of this in the early church um in Rome. The early church in Rome was a mixture of of many Gentiles, some Jews who were becoming followers of Jesus. And there were some in that um church, many in the church who had come out of paganism. And a part of the paganism was taking and offering your meat to idols um and just kind of um in the process of acquiring your meat, it would go through a offering to the pagan idols process. And so there were Christians who were becoming followers of Jesus and they were like, "Wow, I don't want to have anything to do with paganism or meat sacrificed to idols." And so they would just decide, I'm going to be a vegetarian. I cannot culturally have anything to do with meat sacrificed to idols. And there became this dispute. There was a fight in the church over this stuff because there are other people who are like, "No, let's go back to first principles. Like if we if we understand who God is and what those idols are, they're nothing. They are not gods at all. They are just statues that have no meaning. And so them being offered meat being offered to an idol and then being sold at a discount rate in the marketplace, that's just a good deal on meat and it has no spiritual significance.
So you had this fight between people who in their conscience they didn't want to eat the meat because what it had gone through and you had other people who were like, "No, I'm free in Christ." Well, Paul says to the people who are exercising their liberty and eating meat. He says, "Hold on. Those you're strong in your faith. You you're theologically you're right that those idols are nothing and eating meat does not separate you from God. You've got the theology right, but the way you're treating your vegetarian brothers and sisters is absolutely wrong. and you're getting in the way of them feeling close to God and you're bringing this meat that the to the barbecue and it's interrupting the fellowship that's going on amongst the church. And so Paul says, "For the sake of not offending your brother, stop. Don't eat meat because I care about the person more than my barbecue." Okay? I care about the person more than my barbecue. It this comes up in 1 Corinthians 8-10. The same thing is there. In 1 Corinthians 9, there are people who are accusing um they're slandering Paul uh for uh being financially supported and they're saying it's less spiritual to be financially supported by being a church planter and a pastor. And um and Paul has to defend himself there in 1 Corinthians 9. And he says, "Wait, don't I have the right, that's the first principle. Don't I have the right like Peter and others to lead about a wife?" In other words, to get married. Don't I It's not unspiritual if I wanted to be married. Don't Don't I have the right to be paid for uh being a pastor and the obvious answer is yes, you have the first principle right to those things. He can you could back it up with scripture until your face is blue. But then Paul says, "But I've decided I've decided to not take a salary because I don't want to get in the way of you receiving the gospel." Now, that was a specific decision he made with the church in Corinth. Now when he was in um imprisoned and he was working with the church in Philippi, he took he gladly took support. But in that season of life, he opted out of financial support because he knew it would mess with his message. And the gospel message is more important than standing on your rights. Now listen, we as Americans have this long history of like, I'm going to stand for my rights. dog on it. I'm going to stand for my rights, my liberty, you know.
Amen.
But the follower of Jesus has a story that they understand they're a part of. They see God at work and they make a conscious decision sometimes to put their rights aside for the sake of not offending because it's, hey, I want to see you come into the kingdom. This also comes up in the household codes or as we look at like gender roles. Um we see that um Paul h Paul explains gender roles within the framing of culture so as not to give an offense. And unfortunately some of Paul's passages on gender have been abused throughout the years as like no see Paul said you know women should just keep silent in the church. Well if he said that then why a few verses earlier did he have women praying and prophesying in the church you know
but this is the thing Paul gave guidance that was targeted into the culture so as not to give an offense because the culture sometimes broken and sometimes people's hearts are broken people's conscience like the vegetarians in in Rome not vegetarians today but the vegetarians in Rome their theology was kind of broken but that was okay. It was more important to set those rights aside because I want to love my brother and I want to strive for the unity of the church. So, let's just in the last couple minutes here, let's just kind of bring this home in some practical ways. There's a number of different areas where there's the first principle There's the theology piece and then there is the okay but then there's what's going to offend this idea of um your kingdom identity and understanding um your position in Christ is taught throughout the New Testament and there is this underlying idea that that we want to be a people that are holding in intention both what is true about our identity, our freedom in Christ, our the fact that we're forgiven, the fact that um that God's going to take care of us and provide for us, right? There there's that reality, but then there's our human engagement. So, one example is this idea of we live in an urban context. Many of you live in this urban context. Um, some of you struggle with poverty. You may go into like a social security office and you know, you know that, hey, the Bible says that I have dignity, that I am created in the image of God. And that means that I should I hold a position of honor. Not only that, but as a follower of Jesus, that I'm forgiven. I'm a son of God. But the person across from you behind the plexiglass there, is rude and demeaning. And you've got a decision to make. Am I going to stand on the principles that I know or am I willing to be mistreated in the moment? Because being pounding somebody over the head with my Bible is probably going to keep me from the check that I need, but it's also may get in the way of a future witness to this person, an opportunity for a conversation about the gospel.
Amen. We want to engage um there are times where you may feel like your rights maybe Christian rights you may feel like your American rights are being trampled as Christians we can engage in that conversation not as like I'm going to stand for my rights but I'm going to stand for the mission of the kingdom the message of the kingdom and We want to see people through this lens of what's going to get you closer to God.
So when it comes to like Christian liberties, um you know there there there may be somebody let's say that after church today there's six or seven of us who are like you know let's go out for lunch but somebody is new in our group and they may come out of a um let's say a setting like Eastern religion setting and uh Buddhism and they may be like, "Look, I can't go and eat at that Chinese food restaurant because there's a little Buddha back there." And they're offering sacrifices in that place. And and they may feel like, "Look, that's that's I can't do that. That's that's going to violate my conscience." Well, the the Bible informs the rest of us to not be like, "Oh, you know, come on, grow up." No, the Bible teaches the rest of us as a group to love that person. and to be like, "Okay, we can find another place to go and eat at. We can go and eat at ECU or something like that," which would be which would be my choice, you know, 100%. Um, the same thing comes comes up with like content. Let's say we're all going to go out for a movie, but but somebody in our group feels like, "Look, you know, I have this conviction about the kind of movies that I watch." And so rather than demeaning that person, we want to um we want to care for that person. The two principles that underlly this is is I don't want to take Christians that I'm around and do stuff that makes them feel like they're further away from God. Does that make sense?
I I don't want to do stuff that keeps people feeling like they've now all of a sudden been separated from God. I want people around me to feel closer to God. Amen.
The second principle is there's people around me that don't know God yet.
And so I want to not do anything in my life that's going to keep those people from knowing God. Anything that's going to disrupt my witness to them. The beautiful thing in this section is that one you understand your kingdom identity. The second is that you consider the gospel witness. But this is the third awesome thing about this story is trust in God's provision. You know, when you put your when you put your rights aside, you take the hit. You decide that you're not going to stand up for your rights. The temptation is in that moment to feel like you're going to be the one poorer in the moment. You're going to be the one that gets ripped off. You're going to be the one that gets the short end of the stick. But what we see in this story is that Jesus miraculously provides the temple tax.
And as you're making these decisions of like, you know what, I'm willing to take the loss strategically so that the gospel can move forward. I'm going to hold on to verse 27 that God can just stick a coin in a fish's mouth. Right.
Amen.
The painful thing in this setting was for Jesus would have been like, "Dude, that's my house." Like, "Why am I paying taxes on my own house? You know, that's my father's house."
And Jesus, "No,
I don't want to offend him."
Just go fishing and pull the pull the coin that's under there and that fish is mouth.
How much is a shepherd?
I don't know. It's small. It's like a small amount. I don't know. Can I look it up and get back to you?
I'll look it up.
The the the currency in Israel is still a shekele, but it's would be different.
I know. I would imagine if God's telling both the poor people and the rich people to give half a shekele, they'd be a small amount.
Oh, yeah. Could you look it up and let us all know?
All right. Okay. So, I don't know. I don't know what the holy spirit's speaking to you through this text.
But there is a sense of let's trust in God.
Let's put others first,
right?
Let's understand better and better. What are those first principles? What's our identity? Like how beautiful to all of a sudden see taxes through this lens of like I'm the son of the father. That's awesome. And then from that position to to operate in differentiation and say I'm still though even though I have the right to not pay the tax I'm still going to do it. Just beautiful the way that it's laid out. Let's pray. Lord, we um we love being able to sit and just sit in your word for a few minutes. There's wisdom here. This is interpretive key. You're giving us guidance on how to do life. And um it's it's not a rule, but it's it's some guard rails. It's some principles to follow. And I pray, Lord, that you would just embed these types of things, these wisdom principles in our life. that we could honor you, Lord Jesus. Make yourself known in and through our lives. We pray and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.