Draft transcript prepared from the recording and edited for readability. Audio proofreading is still pending; please refer to the recording for the spoken wording.
You're listening to Sunday Sermons at Asbury Chapel. If you've got your Bible or if you're using a Bible app, there's also Pew Bibles there for you. You may find them in front of you or maybe they're right underneath your pew. But we're turning to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew 22. I'm reading from the NIV. We'll start with the 15th verse. Go on to the 22nd. Matthew 22, starting with verse 15. Hear the word of the Lord. Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians.
Teacher, they said, we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by others because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, you hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax. The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
You may be seated. The text this morning is one of those that has lots of background to it. And we get fascinated by what life was like during Jesus' day. I mean, you're dealing with first century Palestine. You're dealing with Jews who are under Roman rule. And the Jews had this sense of being able to be ruled by their own party, but at the same time not because Rome was this invader and they had taken over everything, the world as they knew it. And so in the text this morning, what do you have?
You've got Jesus. He's come. He's proclaiming the kingdom of God. He's preaching and teaching and healing and he's interacting with the people. He's gaining a lot of ground and influence and a lot of different people, especially by the time we get to the 22nd chapter in Matthew, a lot's happened. And at this point, you've got two groups of people who have made their way to Jesus. Now, both groups are Jewish, all right? But one is a religious party and the other one is a political party. Obviously, the Pharisees are the religious party who've come to Jesus.
And when they come to him, they are representing the temple and the law being who they are. The Pharisees are the experts in the law. They follow the law to the letter. If anything, they actually add a few extra things to the law because they want to be so strict. They want to be so faithful that they don't even want to. They want to eliminate every possibility of stumbling. So they add a little extra to it. So it's not just sets, you know, the Sabbath day aside and make it holy to God.
It's you can't do this and you can't do that. And you better not do this and you better not do that. And they just kind of narrow this thing down. And it goes from honoring God to really just being trapped. You just can't hardly move. I mean, they got to the point to where they said, Well, you can only walk so many steps on the Sabbath. So everybody had to be real careful. It was stressful. Stressful because rather than the law freeing us from captivity to that which is sinful and freeing us for an enjoyable relationship with God, instead the law had become the thing that they were bound to.
Not because God's law had done that, but because the Pharisees had taken God's law and they'd made it so strict and so constricting that it was really choking the life out of everybody. So that's the religious party that's standing there before Jesus. Now, the Sanhedrin was the ruling religious authority that had two divisions within it. You had the Sadducees. And when we were in seminary, they said, Just remember the Sadducees were sad because they didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead. They didn't believe in the spiritual things. I mean, these were people that they just didn't believe a whole lot, but they definitely wanted to be in Rome's good graces.
So it was influence that they cared about as opposed to being righteous and believing the Scriptures. That's just sad. But the Pharisees did everything but make things fair. And so the Pharisees were the ones who were the stricter side, the more conservative side. And so you had sort of the liberal side and you had the conservative side, and that's what made up the religious authorities that were there. And boy, they were all pressing in on Jesus because none of them liked the fact that Jesus had been gaining influence and that Jesus was starting to chip away a little bit at everything that they had built.
And herein lies the problem. It's everything they have built. But the Pharisees being the focus here, the religious experts, well, that's just one section of who it is that shows up to Jesus on that day. There was a second group. It's a group we only hear about about three times in Scripture, and you hear about it in this text here. It's the Herodians. Well, good night. Who were the Herodians? Well, it was a group of Jewish people who supported the line of rulers that Rome had set up that were basically Jewish, which in other words was Herod's line.
So you had Herod the Great and Herod Antipas. You had all these different Herods, right? This grandfather and son and all these people that had been ruling. And they supported this rule because this gave the Jews some freedom if you were of a certain status. And you got to stay in Rome's good graces, but at the same time kind of stay who you were. So in other words, Rome had to leave us alone just a little bit because Herod was going to protect that. So these were the political arm of the Jews who were going, Well, we're going to support Herod.
We're going to support his initiatives. We're going to support what he's doing. And Jesus is chipping away at that, talking about the kingdom of God and talking about how he's Lord and everybody's supposed to be proclaiming that Caesar is Lord. And we got to be real careful here. We got a delicate balance. We got to protect Herod and what Herod's doing here because Rome gave Herod this title and this responsibility. And so you've got religious people who were coming to him, and you've got political people who were coming to him, and they don't like each other.
The Pharisees want to be rid of Rome. The Herodians believe that they have all they have because of Rome. These two groups don't like each other at all until they find a common enemy. And Jesus becomes the common enemy for the Pharisees and the Herodians, and they come together and essentially say, We got to find a way to trap him. In the Pharisees' minds, they're thinking, If we can help him lose the popular opinion, if the people turn on him, they'll turn back to us. The Herodians are thinking, If we can get him in trouble with Rome and say he's trying to supplant Herod, who's really the king of the Jews, that was the title given to Herod, then we can get him in hot water.
And so they want popular opinion to overwhelm him, and they want the political parties to come after him, and they think, Well, we'll work together on this one. We have a disagreement, but if he says this, he gets in trouble. If he says that, he gets in trouble. Let's take it to him. They do. They show up. They come to him. They pose a question after flattering him. Oh, you're a good teacher, and you don't show any partiality, and you teach the ways of God. So we have a question for you.
Do we pay our taxes or not? Now, you got to know a little something about taxes. And you're all going, Let me tell you about taxes. Let me tell you about that. We even have a couple of accountants in the room. Anyway. So, tax farming. That was a thing that took place in antiquity. It kind of takes place now in different situations. But tax farming. And I'm not an expert on this. I'm going to get some of this wrong, but just go with me for just a second here. Okay? Tax farming was something that they did in antiquity.
Rome practiced it, and here's what it looked like. Rome did not want to have to take care of all the tax collecting in all the Roman Empire. It was too much. And it was bothersome and difficult. Now, they needed it, so they had to go, How can we do this without having to do this? So, they farmed out the tax collecting to third party contractors. So, the tax collectors in the Roman Empire were not Roman... How do I say this? They weren't Roman... I feel like I'm in Bible study now because I'm in teaching mode.
But these were not like Roman officers and Roman soldiers who were going out. These were contractors. So, they would work out a contract, and they'd farm out the tax collecting to a third party. Now, what they would do is, is the contractor would go, Okay, how much are the taxes for this area? And Rome would say, We need this much. And they'd say, Okay, we will go and get you that much. But if we take this contract, you've got to let us determine what the taxes are going to be for some goods and services and for transport.
I mean, they're going to tax all the different things. Rome only cared about a certain amount, and so they would give Rome and pay them a lump sum so that Rome had steady income. And these, they were called the Publicani or the Publicani. But the Publicani were the Publicans or tax collectors. Some of your translations, when they talk about tax collectors, talk about the Publicans. This was part of the Publicani. So what they would do is, is pay the lump sum, make sure Rome got their money, and then they lived off the surplus.
Now, this is where the excessive tax amounts came from, and they started bleeding the people dry. And yes, it got to a point where Rome had to step in and say, You boys got to back down. We're getting our lump sum, and this is how much the taxes are, but our people are now getting restless. And that's when Rome had to send in soldiers. That's when Rome had to send in dignitaries and say, We got to calm down. We got to get this thing under control. The Publicani are out here, and they're charging these exorbitant amounts, and the people are restless.
They're getting upset. Well, now, look at what happens. Either Rome gets rich, and the people get upset, or Rome gets poor, and the people feel better about not needing Rome. Do we pay the taxes or not? It was full of all sorts of unfair practices, and it weighed on the people, on their hearts, on their minds. It was weighing on their faith. And somebody's got to do something about this. Now, here comes Jesus, who's sticking it to the Pharisees just a little bit, and now he's putting it to the Romans just a little bit.
And now, all of a sudden, people are looking at Jesus, and they're going, Is this the guy? Is this the one who's going to come? Is he going to free us from Rome? Is he going to fulfill everything that the Old Testament's been telling us about? Or for them, it was just the Testament at that time? And so, they're starting to wonder, and Jesus is gaining ground. So, what's the scene here? The scene is, do we pay the taxes or not? What's at stake? Everything's at stake. Everyone's conspiring. And Jesus sees through it all.
He looks at the situation, and what he says is, you're trying to trap me. You don't care about obeying God and living to the letter of the law so that we have a righteousness with him. You don't care about whether or not God is the one who is reigning high. You just want to make sure you've got yours, and you're trying to prop up the political power here so that you stay where you're at. It's all about status. It's all about power. It's all about getting what they want. The question that keeps coming up is, why are these two groups really there?
Why are they there? The two groups want to maintain all of their personal purposes and all of their personal plans. And Jesus threatens that. Why are they there? Why are they standing there? God, who knows the thoughts of all men's hearts, knows their thoughts. The scripture even says it blatantly, 22, 18, but Jesus knowing their evil intent. The intent of the religious people and the intent of the political people was evil because it wasn't what God had in mind. And the irony of the whole thing is, is that we can go through the background here and we can talk about what the socio-economic, socio-political economic structure and context is in first century Palestine and what gave way to this moment.
We can talk about who these two groups are and I can tell you more about the Pharisees and what they believed. And we can go on and on about the political party here of the Herodians and what Herod was doing. And we can talk about the Publicani even. And I can tell you about how they were just skimming all this extra money off the top. It's why they hated Zacchaeus. It's why they struggled to bring Matthew in so that he would be a disciple. They were Publicani. They were Publicans. They were tax collectors, third party, living off everybody else.
But the point of this text is none of that. The point of the text is right under your nose. When you look at the scripture and you get down to the last verses there, it simply says, and we know this part, and when we quote it, we've quoted it, if you've been in Sunday school or Bible study, maybe you've done this. If you've never heard this before, this is so interesting because Jesus does give them an answer. They're just not expecting. They think he's going to pick a side because we all have to pick a side, don't we?
Don't we get frustrated with people when they don't pick a side? And we're wanting people to rule on something. We're wanting them to finally go, hey, pick a side. How do you feel about this? What happens, though, when you've got the question wrong? What does it say at the very end of the text? Hey, hey, give to Caesar what's Caesar's. Just stop there for just a second. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. Just write the check. You can almost hear him say, write the check, whatever. I mean, it's not in the text.
It's not hidden in the Greek somewhere. Whatever. All right. That's not in there. And I do not listen to me. Y'all know me. I get excited. I know I'm dramatic. I'm passionate about this stuff. But this stuff matters. And eternity is at stake when we understand what's getting ready to be talked about. Because at the end of the day, whatever, just write the check. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. And here it is. It's been sitting there underneath your nose the whole time. And give to God what is God's. And now here it is.
And what is God's? And now your real question, personally, this is where it hits home. This is where eternity matters. Are you giving to God what is his? Why are you here this morning? You got up. I hope you showered. You got dressed. You said hey to each other. Some of you put your stuff down. And you came and you sat. And you smiled and you hugged. And maybe you're visiting and you're trying to figure out what this church is all about. And maybe you knew a song. Maybe you didn't know a song.
Whatever. Why are you here this morning? Why are you here this morning? You know, we know why the Pharisees showed up to trap him. We know why the Herodians showed up to trap him. We know why most people engage the scriptures. Why they have conversations with you about religion. We know. They're doing the same thing. They're trying to trap God. They're trying to justify their opinion, their viewpoint, their perspective. They're looking for wiggle room somewhere, somehow. And Jesus is going, whatever. The question is, are you giving to God what is God's?
Why are you here? Why walk through this door and sit in these pews? It must be to give to God what is His. That has to be the question for each of us. Because what is it that Jesus does? But He strips all of that away. All of it. Whatever reason they had for showing up. And in this particular reason, when they showed up, it was an evil intent. I don't think anybody who's in this room today or right outside the room or what have you, showed up with any evil intent whatsoever.
But all you have to do is show up for your own intent. And put your own purpose and your own justification and your own thought and your own viewpoint. And it is immediately in God's way. Because we can talk about why the two groups show up. We can talk about why we have showed up. Here's the next question. I might as well bring all this down here. Here's the next question. We know why the Pharisees came and we know why the Herodians came. We've even jumped ahead 2,000 years and we've talked about possibly, or you've thought in your head, about why you have come.
Let me ask one more question. We just talked about why different people have showed up. Why did Jesus show up? There's your question. Because he certainly didn't show up and die on the cross in order for us to sit around and worry about whether or not we pay this tax or we don't pay that tax. Jesus is not interested in your checkbook. He's interested in your heart. And out of your heart, you then do all the other things like have a checkbook and use it for what have you. But the point, you give your heart to Jesus and then out of that holy heart and out of that redeemed heart, you vote.
And do those things as well. But what it boils down to and why Jesus came is to save sinners. That is why he's here. And when you don't want to make this about the saving of sinners, then that is when you walk straight into the devil's trap. That's when you're more concerned with being damned and being okay with it. You should not be okay with that. If anything, as the song tells us, we should cling to the old wooden cross. Why are you here? You can see Jesus looking at them and in his own mind, possibly thinking.
Why are you boys here? Why are you showing up trying to justify your opinion? Why are you here trying to get yours? Do you even know why I'm here? He came to proclaim the kingdom of God. He came to save sinners. When that angel showed up in front of his mama and his daddy and proclaimed his name over him. And you will call him Jesus. For he will what? Save his people from their sins. Why did he come? His own name, Jesus. Which is translated from Greek into English. If you translate it from English back to Hebrew, his name is Joshua.
What did the first Joshua do? Walk through the river Jordan. Cross into the promised land. Conquer the enemies of God. And lead the people into the land of promise that they would be God's people. What is it that Jesus does as he parts the waters of sin and death. And leads them through destroying the enemies. Not so much of the flesh, but of the heart. And by doing such a thing, he sets us up for eternity. Paying taxes to Caesar. That's what you're worried about. He didn't go to the cross for your taxes, folks.
He didn't go to the cross for your political candidate. He went to the cross for your sin. Because who you voted for really won't matter when you walk through the pearly gates. What will matter is whether or not your heart belonged to Jesus. That's where you need to cast your vote. That's where you need to take all of your energy and start pouring it into there. Don't show up with evil intent. Because now I want to bust your bubble just a little bit. You ready? The moment you show up to Jesus.
And the only thing you have to offer him is justification. That's the moment it separates you from God. And that's evil. That's awful. Jesus came to rip away the thing that would separate us from God. Amen. That's what the cross came to take care of. Whatever it would be that would take us or separate us from God. And so, whatever is wrong, whatever is of us, that needs to go away. It must go away. Because of why Jesus came. Why did he come? To save sinners. What did he come proclaiming?
His kingdom. He's not concerned with the kingdom of Rome, the empire of Rome. Guess what? Kingdoms will come, finish it. And kingdoms will? No. 250 years ago. Well, 251 years ago. We weren't real sure what all this was going to be. And those of us who have enjoyed being Americans for the last 250 plus years, we really hope, because being Americans is pretty amazing, we really hope that in the next 250 years we still get to do what we do. But it's how we use the freedom that's been given to us that matters.
That's what matters. And if you've been given freedom through the cross of Jesus Christ, how you use that matters. So are you going to use your freedom to show up with your intent and try to trap God just a little bit so you can feel better about your way, your opinion, or what's going on? Or are you going to show up and say, I'm wrong. Jesus, show me what's right. It's a little bit all over the place today, but I really hope, I really hope, I really pray, I really pray that what you can see and understand is that right underneath our nose from this text, give to Caesar.
Caesar. What is Caesar's? And I love how the NIV says it. It says, so give back. Give back. He had it. He gave it to you. It's taxed. It goes back to him. Give it back. But give to God what is God's. He's not worried about the thing that is temporary, folks. He's worried about the thing that's eternal. Are you worried about what's eternal? Why are you here? Why are you before the cross this morning? Why do you sing the songs? Why do you say the prayers? Why are you here?
I want you to wrestle with that as we close this morning and go into our song. I want you to wrestle with that when you leave today. I really do. I usually tell you to head out of here and I want you to go evangelize and I want you to tell other people and I want you to be kind and generous and all. I mean, I still want you to do all those things. But my hope and prayer today, selfishly, is that you would be very, very reflective today. That you would walk out of here and say, you know what?
I need to wrestle with my heart today. I need to start to actually deal. Why am I here? If your heart belongs to Jesus, answer it so quickly. Oh, well, I'm here to glorify God and I'm here to give in my life. And you can go and you can evangelize. But if you need to wrestle today, it's a good thing. You wrestle today with these questions and ask. Why am I here? And know that the answer is actually this, that you would give. Why are you here? To give to God what is God's.
And if he died on the cross and ransomed us and purchased us, then we owe him us. And so, go, give yourself to the Lord today, knowing that he is anxious to receive you. And he loves you. Let's pray.
