The Good News of Giving Back

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the Erickson Covenant Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us today. We confess that we don't have all the answers, but as a community, we seek to find and follow Jesus and to discover daily the life he has always wanted for us. We hope this message will be encouraging and will inspire you to take the next steps on your spiritual journey. If we can help you in any way, please connect with us. The easiest way is through our website at Erickson Covenant CA let's get started [00:00:38] Speaker B: when you live I don't know if you know this, but when you live in a politically divisive time, where you stand on a political issue can make conversations tricky, especially when people are out to get you. Any talk about who's in leadership or what's been done or what's been said, or who's been compromised or how we're going to get out of the mess that we're in polarizes people more often than uniting them, and even when pulling together would serve everyone best. People prefer to bicker and destroy than unify and win. Loaded, divisive terms are used to crowd people into separate camps that can either be claimed or condemned, depending on what is valued or despised. Sometimes, though, unity does happen, doesn't it? If a certain person is loathed enough by everyone, or a particular person or man or woman doesn't fall in line with the accepted narrative. And the unity of the mob can be a terrifying thing, descending on whoever it is that's hated without warning, first by vilifying them through speech and then using slanted questions and slanderous rhetoric, and then escalating as soon as they can to more drastic means of destruction. Vicious and duplicitous people use political devices to wreck people's lives whenever they fail to support their policies, and especially if they threaten to topple them from their comfortable positions. If you read history, you will see this story played out again and again, and it's the story we see on display today in Luke chapter 20. You didn't think God was talking about us, did you? The political climate of Jesus Day was heating up as he rode into the Temple as the true King of Israel, and then he confronted the Temple leadership with his good news message. It was a political climate that was rife with revolution, and it had given vent again and again to violent uprisings led by wannabe messiahs again and again and again. We are in fact, a politically unified bunch compared to them, it's true, compared to the ancient world of Jesus Day, 1st century Judea and Samaria under Rome. Compared to the politics of Jesus Day, we are positively tame and civilized. I'm not joking. It's true. All knives were out in Jesus Day and death was wafting in the wind. We only catch a whiff of the political rot in our passage today. But it rises from a rank ferment that's so pungent that Jesus was warning his people again and again and again all throughout his teaching that there was going to be a day coming that would destroy them if they didn't stop their revolting ways. Jesus could see that the political fanaticism of the leadership was going to lead them into direct confrontation with Rome. And that confrontation would result in the total destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem. Jesus prophesied that event very specifically. It's one of the reasons why we trust him. This is one of the reasons why we know he's the Messiah. It's one of the reasons why the Bible is trustworthy. Because within one generation, as Jesus said, the temple was torn down and Jerusalem was overthrown by Rome. And so it's under these brooding skies here in Luke chapter 20 that we witness a political attempt to destroy Jesus and Jesus amazing response. And we learn from Jesus as his apprentices. We learn from Jesus how we can wisely maneuver as gospel people, as good news people in who might also be in divisive times to navigate destructive traps in order to proclaim the good news of Jesus for all. So let's watch and learn from the Master today. Are you ready? We're going to walk through today's conflict. Remember, it's a conflict setting. That's how Luke has structured. Jesus has arrived at the temple after a very long walk. Luke covered 10 chapters. It takes Luke to tell us about this long walk and then a very short ride at the end. Luke then narrates a bunch of back to back conflicts. We saw one last week, we'll see one next week. Here we are in the middle. So pull out your paper Bibles. Remember those? Been encouraging to bring one of these. There's some under the seats so you can look like you planned on it all along. Just pull one out. But I encourage you to bring one because we're going to be digging into this and I want you to be doing that. And you know how much I appreciate the digital youversion app and I promote that. But I do want you to start bringing your paper Bibles if you can. We're here in Luke chapter 20, Matthew, Mark, Luke, first three books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and we're in chapter 20. And we're going to start in verse 20 and read through verse 26. So here we are now. I just got to find it on the page here. Yes, verse 20. Keeping a close watch on him, Jesus, that is, they sent spies who pretended to be sincere. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. So the spies questioned him. Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right and that you do not show up partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? He saw through their duplicity and said to them, show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it? Caesar's, they replied. He said to them, then give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in the public. In public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent, outmaneuvered again by Jesus, the master teacher. This famous interaction, of course, has been used often in combination with other scriptures like Romans 13 or 1 Peter 2 to teach that Christians should pay their taxes. And yes, they should. And it's a legitimate application of this teaching. Some of you, the older generation, didn't even hear it in what I read, did you? You heard the words render. How many heard? Render, Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Right. From the old King James. I know, I heard it too. So, you know, you may not like it much, but pay your taxes, folks. We're done for today. Yeah, but that's just where Jesus gets started. That's the bare minimum application. There is so much going on in Jesus response and we need to explore what it is. We need to understand what he's doing here so that we, as we watch him faithfully finish the mission the Father has given him. We can faithfully finish the mission that he's given to us. So let's start by asking maybe the obvious question. Why is this such a dangerous question for Jesus to answer? I mean, you complain about government taxes over coffee all the time, don't you? No one gets you in trouble for that. No one cares. So why is the question, is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Something that if answered incorrectly, think about it, could be used to hand Jesus over to the power and authority of the governor. Well, it's important to know that the tax here in question is not your like, hey, let's play for some Roads and some schools kind of taxed tax. It's a specific tax known as the tribute tax, the census tax. It was levied by Rome on Jews and payable by every Jew in Israel. What's more, it had to be paid with a Roman denarius bearing the stamped image of Caesar himself, with an inscription that read Maximus Pontifex the great bridge builder is what that means. And it proclaimed him on the coin as the son of the divine Augustus. So think about that for just a moment. Just process this. A devout Jew who fiercely opposes graven images of God of any kind, like hello 10 Commandments here, had to hold in his hands a stamped symbol of a quasi divine king, a son of God, and was forced to use that blasphemous symbol to pay their evil overlord for the privilege of being ruled by them. You think some Canadians are less than keen about having King Charles in The new Canadian $20 bill? That's nothing compared to how the Jews felt about having Tiberius Caesar stamped on theirs. Paying this very tax had triggered bloody uprisings already such as the revolt of Judas the Galilean in 6 AD which actually gave rise to the whole zealot movement which was gaining steam in Jesus day. If you read really carefully, you realize that even one of Jesus own followers had been part of that movement. So this is no regular run of the mill government tax. This is the ultimate symbol of an idolatrous overlord and an insulting practice that rubbed every Jew the wrong way and mocked them for their subjugation. So when they asked, should we pay the tax or not, this is not an innocent question. They figured they trapped Jesus into a lose lose situation. What was that? Well, if Jesus said yes, we should pay it, he'd lose credibility with the crowds that loved him but hated Rome. He'd be seen as supporting the oppressive, hateful Roman regime, validating their occupation and propping up Caesar's idolatrous claims. But if Jesus said, nah, don't pay it, then they would pounce on his seditious speech and report him to the governor as yet another dangerous messiah that needs to be eliminated. And of course, as is often with the case of these kind of deceitful political types, they just later lied about what Jesus said anyway. And when they were in front of the governor, Pilate, this is just in Luke 23:2, they actually told Pilate that Jesus did oppose paying tax to Caesar. After all, you just cannot win with some losers. So on this day though, they thought they'd got him. They thought they'd trapped Him. They buttered Jesus up, of course, with that nice little speech about him being impartial. And then you teach what is true. And then they pop their slippery question. But just like the previous question about Jesus authority, they're no match for the abundance of Jesus. They never are. Jesus sees right through their duplicitous viciousness for what it truly is. It's a lame brain effort to trap him. Like, give up, guys. Show me the money, Jesus says, which is actually an incredible turnabout. Do you see why? See why? It was like brilliant, right, right here at this moment, Brilliant. Think about it. Jesus doesn't have an offending coin on him, so he makes these very men dig around in their purses and pull out the filthy money they despise and hold it up for everyone to see. The God blaspheming Caesar stamp, Jew insulting tax coin. Jesus never even had to touch it. But these guys had to hold it up for him. Jesus is already winning at this point, you understand? Then Jesus simply asked them, describe the coin for me, whose image and inscription are on it? Image. In Greek, the word icon is also used to translate the word idol. All the same word indicates ownership. It stands for ownership. So when you see this particular image, Tiberius Caesar, you know who's on the throne, you know who's in charge, you know who's running the show, you know who's got true ownership. The one whose image is embossed on the metal is the true owner of that coin, no matter whose pocket it's riding around in. It's kind of like if you find a wallet on the street and you flip it open to find what? Whose image and inscription is on this? It's called the driver's license. Why? So you can put it in your pocket and return it to its rightful owner. It's the same idea going on here. That's what Jesus is saying. He said, well, this coin has an owner whose image and inscription is on it. Well, what are you holding onto it for? Give it back at the guy, for crying out loud. But that's when Jesus drops the theological hammer on them. Not only are they to give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, they're also to give back to God what is God's. And what's that about? I need you to track with me on this. It might seem a bit subtle, but Jesus is doing something very important here. And the Bible scholars all go with him on this. They go with me on this, if I can just put it that way, by directing their attention to the stamped image of Caesar and then telling them to return it. Jesus not only trips them up in their attempt to trap him, he then sets up everyone to hear the most important thing about themselves. You see, money was not the only thing in the crowd that day that had been stamped with a divine image. Every single person standing there listening, from the deceitful opponents to the curious onlookers, every teacher of the Torah and mom in the mix, had been stamped with the divine image of Yahweh in himself. And they knew it. Each and every one of them knew it. Every Jew knew this most basic truth about being human. Humans are created in the image of God. This is the most fundamental thing they understood about themselves. They would have learned it from their mother's milk and from their father's lips and through the opening verses of the Torah. Genesis 1:26, 27. Remember that we heard it earlier. After creating everything else by the word of his mouth, God then said, verse 26, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God. He created them male and female. He created them in complete contrast to every other system of belief or philosophy or religion that surrounded them. The Jews knew by revelation, they knew what everyone else failed to comprehend. Human beings are God's images on earth. Wherever you see those images, you know who's on the throne. This genesis beginning forms the theological core of Jewish and Christian understanding about human identity and by the way, the very foundation on which Western society's values rest. What does that mean? Well, I've been keen to teach on this a lot because I actually think human identity, the questions around human identity are the most core questions that we're asking and needing to answer today. And so a few years ago, on one of my many breaks from the Gospel of Luke, I taught a six week series on human identity. And here's a snippet from the opening of that series. As human beings, we are reflected identities. We are reflected identities. That is, we do not possess an identity without reference to, to the God that we reflect. This is very, very important in many ways. We can't move forward with understanding what it means to be a human being according to what the scriptures tell us if we don't accept this. To image or to reflect the Godhead, or to be an icon of the Creator, God means that Our very essence, our very core identity as humans is derivative. It's secondary. It's an extension of and in reference to a very big someone who is outside of ourselves. That God has made us in his image and in his likeness. We did not make ourselves. Therefore, we do not possess the power to define our own identity. Like the moon that reflects the sun's brightness, we can't be seen for who we are without looking at the God who shines on us and shines through us. And we then reflect on from there. So here in Luke 20, I want you to follow the brilliant logic of Jesus. He says, show me your stamped coins. That image of Caesar means it's owned by Caesar and should be given back to him, lest you be viewed as seditious and disloyal. Pay your taxes, show me your stamped coins, and I'll show you your stamped souls. Because you bear the image of your creator God, which means he rightfully owns you, and you must give yourself back to him, lest you be viewed as seditious and disloyal to Yahweh and to God. What is God's? You see how this interconnects? Jesus turns a tricky tax question designed to expose disloyalty to Caesar into a higher call for loyalty to Yahweh. You're getting all wrapped up in the latest political scandal, the way the government robs its people talking to you. Now, don't you dare be forgetting the greatest political corruption scandal of all time is you and me robbing the true king of his stamped image by denying him your loyalty, by rejecting his leadership, by failing to return to him what is rightfully and truly his all along your very lives and the true God has a right to demand it of us. You know, if Caesar, a blasphemously bloated, idolatrous overlord, has the right to collect his stamped little bits of tin, which he does, apparently. How much more does the God of the universe, the Lord of all creation, the Holy One of Israel, Yahweh, God, in whose image you are made as a living soul, have the right to demand that you offer back to him what is truly and rightfully his? He has every right. So it's a worthy question we pause and ask at this point, don't we? Have I been doing that? Have I been offering myself back? Or have I been holding myself back, thinking of myself as my own possession and denying God his rightful offering? Are you giving yourself back to the God in whose image you have been created? The apostle Paul urges us to do Just that in Romans 12:1, when he says, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your true and proper worship. Are you. Am I? Can you? Will you? Will I. This is what Jesus is teaching here. Just as Caesar had the right to demand his stuff back, his images back, so does Yahweh. So this is a question that's worth asking because it confronts us with a reality that we often don't perhaps consider. We are required to offer ourselves back to God in Whose image we're made. Do we? Will we? Are we even able to? And how does that work? Well, in order to get to that, there's something else we need to see first, because there's actually still more going on here. Because the truth that Jesus is proclaiming exposes so much more than people failing to offer back to God their very own selves. It exposes their failure to recognize the One who is already doing so for their sakes. You see, at that very moment, the truest image of God to have ever graced this planet was standing there in front of them. And they couldn't see him for who he was. The Apostle John put it this way. In chapter one, 10 and 11 of his gospel, he said, he, referring to Jesus, was in the world. And though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Jesus, Israel's Messiah, was present in the flesh and was very soon to be offering himself back to the Father as an offering for the sins of Israel, for the salvation of the world. And he said, if you've seen me, this is Jesus own words. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. But they didn't see him at all. Of course, there's more as the story develops. The Son, we're told in Colossians 1, we heard that this morning as well, is the image of the invisible God. And over in the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter one, verse three, we read that the sun is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. When you see Jesus of Nazareth, you see God. This is why we spend so much time in this Bible. This is why we spend so much time in the Gospels. This is why we've been in Luke for years and years and years. When you read about and see Jesus of Nazareth as revealed through this book, you are seeing the perfect image of God the Father as a human being and as the Son. Of God. But they didn't see that. And worse than not just seeing, there were those among them. Not all, of course, but there were those among them who were conspiring to kill Jesus. Why they were trying to kill him for being that very image. They didn't recognize it as that, but that's what they were pushing up against. This was this man, this prophet, this rabbi who was teaching them the truth about God the Father. And they didn't like it. They were rejecting the God he was reflecting to them perfectly and so plotting his downfall. They foolishly thought that his death would be the end of him. Whoops. And the end of the trouble for themselves not realizing that it would be through their vicious attempt to destroy Jesus that death itself would be undone and sins sacrifice made complete and salvation made available to all, including them. The Father and the Son performed the greatest reversal in all of history by tricking Satan and his minions into a duel to their own death, resulting in his life for all. And so we need to hear this Jesus by the end of the week. It's going to take us a few months to get there, but by the end of the week in Luke will offer himself back to God his Father. He would be practicing on the cross what he's preaching to the crowds, giving back to his Father what was truly his in the first place. The last words that Jesus said on the cross here in the Gospel of Luke. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, giving back himself to the Father. So Jesus hadn't arrived at the temple that day to pay Caesar some tax that he was due that is less than irrelevant to what's going on. So many people get distracted by the politics of their paltry kingdoms, kingdoms that rise and fall, and they miss the kingdom of God that has already come in power and come in Christ and will outlast everything you and I think about is important today will outlast them all and will last forever. We have to keep our eyes on the ball. Jesus had arrived in Jerusalem as their true king, the true image of God, their rescuing father. Jesus had come to offer himself as a living tribute to Yahweh on behalf of the people God had made in his image. And Jesus would on the cross offer himself as a payment for the redemption of Israel from her true overlord, her overlord of sin and death, not Rome. And accomplishing the reconciliation of the whole world from her real oppressor, which is the sinful condition of the human heart and the spiritual powers that are committed to destroying God's images. Jesus would be doing this, of course, not only for Israel, but also for Rome and every other nation and every other people on Earth, both then and now. It's like Caesar, you've got nothing to do with what's really going on here, folks. Pay your measly taxes and then get on with the real kingdom tribute. I hope you can hear this. I hope you can hear that coming right out of this conflict that must have seemed so important to these guys, must have seemed so real. You know, the politics of the day, really important stuff, isn't it? Coming right out of this conflict. The good news of Jesus Christ gets proclaimed over it all. This man, this Jesus, the perfect image of God. He will render unto the true God what humanity owed him but could not pay. Jesus will make Himself humanity's tribute and he will pay what we owe in full so that the world, so that you and I are redeemed back to God through the offering made by Jesus himself. That's how Jesus finished his Father's mission. He offered himself as the perfect image of God on our behalf. But he did it so that we could do it too. Through the gift of His Holy Spirit to us, we are now empowered to finish the mission he has given to us in the same way. This is the answer to our question above. Like how are we to offer ourselves as living sacrifices? Well, we find out that we can only do so in Christ, and we can only do so by the power of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us, has a big job. What we learn in all the scripture is that he has the job of conforming us into the image of the Son and is enabling us to now offer ourselves daily as living sacrifices to God, not in our own power, not because of our own goodness, but because of Christ alone. If Jesus hadn't offered himself first on our behalf so that our debt was paid to God with the return of a perfect image of God, then we'd never be able to offer ourselves and be a wholly acceptable gift of worship. We are compromised images, contaminated coins as it were, corrupt in body and soul. Like these leaders, we are more apt to reject the claims of Jesus and oppose his rule in our lives. We are more likely to question him and push back on his authority than we are to bow our knees in holy submission before the true King and the true God in whose image we have all been made. What we must do, which is offer and return and give back to God what is truly his, we're unable to do because of sin. And so Jesus steps Up he pays our proper tribute. He offers himself back to God on our behalf. This is the whole story of the Gospel. He offers himself in our place. Our tribute paid in full. And then by the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is doing this hard work of conforming us, very hard work of conforming us into the image of the Son. But we are now able in Christ to offer ourselves back to God as living sacrifices that are really and truly holy and pleasing to God. They've been made righteous in Christ. We have been made righteous in in Him. The price has been paid. And as a result, we are fully accepted. And that's why we live out this declaration that Paul made in Galatians 2:20 when he said, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. But Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me. In Christ alone and by the Spirit he's given us, we are able to finish the mission that Jesus has given to us. We are able to offer back to God the Father all that we are for his glory. Well, we could end there, but I want to offer you three practical takeaways from this, because I do think it relates to us today, particularly in our conversations with others. We see Jesus here confronted by questions. And so the first practical takeaway is that when we are confronted with questions that maybe they are meant to trick and trap you, or maybe they're not. Maybe they're just hard questions to answer. Jesus shows us how to respond. We can take a breath and trust the Holy Spirit to help you point people to who God is and who we are. That's all that Jesus did here. You know, he leveraged a deceptive question to reveal the truth about God and the truth about people. We need to do this with all the questions that we get. Whether they're tricky questions or sincere questions from friends or family or foe, all questions, be they questions about evil and suffering, questions about creation, questions about gender identity, questions about politics, questions about relationships, questions about kids, questions about prayer, questions about the environment, questions about anxiety. All questions one way or the other, they all lead to the who question. Who is God and who are we? And we need to take it there, like Jesus. Do not get distracted by the lower level stuff and fail to get to the most important thing. In other words, do not waste too much breath on whatever is happening. Is it the month of October yet? The month of October in British Columbia. Do not waste all your breath on that I'm not saying it's not important, Please, all the caveats, blah, blah, blah, blah, but don't waste all your breath on that and then neglect the most important thing, which is helping people understand who God is and who they are. Because Christians among us, I'll only speak to you, all those of you others who are checking things out, just hear me talking to them. That's your job. That's your job. If you're a follower of Jesus, help people understand who God is and who they are. Which leads to the second point, because in order to do that very well, you gotta get solid on the identity questions. You need to understand who God is. You need to understand who we are, because the more you know who God is and know who we are, the more equipped we are to handle any question that comes against us, any question that comes up in conversation. And I urge you to take this seriously. As I already said a few minutes ago, the question of human identity is probably the most important question of our day, of our decades, maybe of the century. And it's just going to keep going, by the way, with AI and transhumanism and blah, blah, blah, blah. So we got to know who God is and who we are. We got to be sharp on this stuff. We got to get solid on it. And so one place to start, if I may, is go back and listen to that six week series that I did just a couple years ago. I asked Ryan. He's going to send out a link in this next week's email. So get on the email if you're not, but you can find it on all the channels that are listed there. Go back and reverse yourself. Learn more about what it means to be a human being and understand who God is as we reflect Him. That is your responsibility as a Christian to know these things. We can't proclaim the gospel without knowing answers to these questions because three, at the end of the day, we need to help people get to the most important question. That's really what this is about. The question that Jesus puts before all of us here in Luke chapter 20. Will we recognize who God is as our rightful Lord? Will we recognize who Jesus is as the One who reveals the Father perfectly? Will we see who we are in relationship to the God who created us in his image? And will we acknowledge that this God sent His only son, Jesus, his perfect image to be that offered tribute for us? Will we bow the knee to this Jesus who offered himself back to the Father for us, doing what we could not do for ourselves? And Will we, in gratitude and in humility and by the Holy Spirit, offer ourselves now in Christ back to the Father? Because that's our calling. It's a beautiful calling. It's everything. And it's really, really good. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for being our tribute offered on our behalf. You are the perfect image of your Father and we look at you in awe for who you are and all that you've done for us. Help us today in the power of your spirit, not in our own goodness, but in full faith in yours. Offer ourselves back to you as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to the Father. Help us, Holy Spirit, conform us more to the image of Jesus and may we be a people who help others as we respond to questions, as we have conversations, as we bring stuff up. Help people understand who you are and who they are. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Perfect image. Thank you. Amen. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Thanks for listening in today. We hope you feel encouraged and challenged. If you know someone who would benefit from what you have heard today, please share this podcast. For more information or if you have questions, you can connect with us through our website, Erickson Covenant ca. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Erickson Covenant Church.