And now please take your copy of God's Word and turn with me to the gospel of Luke. Today in chapter 20, I introduced last week by saying that we were beginning a series of three confrontations in the temple between Jesus and those who oppose Him. We saw last time an outright challenge to Jesus' authority by the priests and by the scribes. Today, we will see a covert challenge by the priests and scribes through their agents. And next week, Lord willing, we will see a challenge from the Sadducees about the reality of the resurrection and the life after death. But today we're reading a well-known passage about what we are to give both to God and to Caesar. Today, chapter 20, beginning in verse 19, and we will read and study to the end of verse 26. You can find that, if you haven't already, at the bottom, beginning in most ESVs on page 879, if you happen to have one. So today, Luke chapter 20, beginning in verse 19 and reading through verse 26. Hear now the Word of God. The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be sincere that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. So they asked him, teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar or not? But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have? They said, Caesar's. He said to them, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marveling at his answer, they became silent. Thus far the reading of God's holy and inerrant word. May he bless our study and reading of it together today. You're aware that as long as there has been conventional wisdom, the conventional wisdom has been that in polite company, you never discuss religion or politics. Strange then that that same conventional wisdom tells us that the two inescapable realities of life are death and taxes. Death and taxes, politics and religion, God and government. The two topics that most reliably turn a conversation into an argument. And so we're told that the realities that we can't avoid are the topics that we shouldn't discuss. In America, you know how it goes, these two topics are so incendiary that we imagine we keep both of them safer by separating them completely. And so we have what is a so-called separation of church and state. And from a policy standpoint, that's actually a pretty good thing. I can't imagine that many of us would rather live in one of the places that we pray for week after week, one of these countries where churches have to track their members and report their members and register their buildings. and promote the official propaganda of the government. Actually, a separation, a boundary between church and state for the sake of our free exercise of religion is a pretty good thing. Our own PCA Book of Church Order, one of the constitutional documents of our church, our Book of Church Order puts it this way, the church has no right to construct or modify a government for the state the state has no right to frame a creed or polity for the church, they are as planets moving in concentric orbits. And so a boundary between church and state, pretty good from a policy standpoint. But when it comes to our individual approach to the world in which we live, our place in it, what we ought to think about society and what God is calling us to, It's not so easy to divide our theology and our politics, to separate God and government. In fact, that was the trap that the opponents tried to lay for Jesus. That was a tactic they tried to use to get Him to say something explosive. They tried to get Him to choose sides between obedience to Caesar and obedience to God, and whatever He said, whatever side He came out on, they were hoping that His words were going to blow up in His face. So we see from verse 19, the beginning, that the religious leaders are still stinging from Jesus' most recent rebuke. They perceived, it tells us, and they perceived rightly, of course, that when Jesus told His parable about the wicked tenants in God's vineyard, He was talking about them. What's more, they perceived that the people were just as perceptive as they were. And that means that now the crowds are on high alert. They're watching for any sign, any symbol of opposition among the leadership of Israel to show them that actually the shepherds of God's people always oppose the Word of God, just as Jesus was telling them in the parable. And so it's time for a new approach. So they watched him and they sent spies who pretended to be sincere. That word there, pretended, in the Greek, it shares a root together with the word from which we get our word hypocrisy. They hypocrited themselves as though they were righteous. That's what it actually says. And in the parallel passage from Mark, we learn that the spies who were sent were actually representative members of the groups of the Pharisees and the Herodians. Among the factions in Israel at the time, these were two groups who were on far opposite ends of the spectrum with regard to their views on Rome and its involvement in Israel. The Herodians were the collaborators. They sympathized together with the foreign occupiers for the sake of gaining power, gaining influence. They were the collaborators. The Pharisees were the oppositionists. They wanted nothing more than for the Messiah to show up and to wipe the pagan dirt from the sandals of Israel. But here they are, these two groups, and just the fact that they are gathered together against Jesus should tell you that something sketchy is going on. Imagine representative members of the KKK gathering together with representative members of BLM to go to some popular preacher and ask them their question about race relations in the United States. You don't have to know what the question is and you don't even have to know what the answer is to know that the answer is not the goal. Whatever it is, the goal really is the soundbite. The goal is that all popular audio clip that can be repeated in the ears of all the wrong people to paint their target in the worst light possible. And that's what the leaders are after. They sent their pretenders from opposite sides of the tracks to ask their question, their hot topic to Jesus, hoping that he's going to hang himself with his own answer. Either he is going to say something to alienate public opinion or He's going to say something that could be taken for treason. And if he does the latter, they will take that soundbite and they will whisper it into the ear of Pilate so that Rome will have no choice but to do their dirty work for them. Actually, it reveals another level of irony and another level of hypocrisy among the religious leaders. What were they hoping to get Jesus to do? Well, they were hoping to get him to say something. They were hoping to catch him in something that he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and the jurisdiction of the governor. They sent him with a question about Roman legitimacy, but actually they didn't have a problem with Roman legitimacy. As long as the government was in their favor, they would use it. They would use the authority and the power of Rome invested in Pilate to get their own ends met. And so they sent their spies and they asked their false question. It's a shame that it was shrouded in so much duplicity because the question really touches on a real dilemma. It was a sensitive topic in Israel at the time, as you might imagine. Many Jews were wondering, they were wrestling with the question of what should we think about all these Roman taxes? They're wondering whether God might be pleased when His people paid these taxes or whether He was somehow offended. Now, the controversy wasn't so much about what the tax cost. When Luke talks about a tribute here, he's talking about the annual tribute tax, a head tax, or sometimes called a poll tax, and it really was only a single day's wage for every adult male in Israel paid directly into the coffers of Rome. It was not one of these crushing financial burdens. It was the significance of the thing. It was what it meant. It was what this tribute symbolized. And what it symbolized were Jews living in the land that God had promised to their fathers and paying pagan overlords for the joy of existing where they are. And so it wasn't about a burden, it was about what it symbolized. The implication was that every aspect of their earthly lives was ruled by someone who didn't look like them and didn't talk like them and didn't believe any of the things that they believed. And it felt like capitulation. It felt like compromise. Not to mention the deplorable things that their money might end up going to pay for once it got to Rome and once it worked through the Roman system. You could imagine the thoughts in the minds of these Israelites at the time. What if they paid their taxes as they were commanded to do and then it went to Rome and Rome took that money and turned it around and paid soldiers who then showed up and raped Israelite women? What would they think of the money they were giving to their oppressors? What if they paid their money to Caesar and Caesar used it to pay his own pagan priests? What if they gave their money to Rome and Rome melted it down into some statue and people began to dance around it and offer sacrifices to it and to worship their gods of power and plenty? I mean, with all that could go wrong with paying their taxes, didn't God-fearing Jews have a moral responsibility to see that they had no part in such things? Maybe it's not pagan priests, maybe it's not silver idols, but if you change the terms, maybe that line of reasoning sounds familiar to you. What will happen to the money that I pay into the coffers of the government? And it's a question that believers down through all ages have asked. So tell us, Jesus, is it right? Is it lawful? Does God approve when we give tribute to Caesar or not? Jesus' answer comes in three distinct stages as he deals with these spies. First, He exposes them in their hypocrisy and then He answers their question. Finally, He silences them. So verses 23 and 24, He, that is Jesus, perceived their craftiness and He said to them, show me a denarius, whose likeness and inscription does it have? Now, you may have heard this passage preached or taught upon before. You may have been told that when Jesus asked someone else for a denarius, it was a sign of his humility. It was a sign of his poverty, really. He came as one with nothing, not even a coin in his pocket. And if he wanted to make a point, he had to ask somebody else. And maybe there's something to that. There's a much more strategic reason why Jesus asks to see the denarius. See in Palestine at the time there were several kinds of currency that you could use that were generally accepted wherever you went, whatever it was that you wanted to buy. There were coins from Tyre up in the north, there were Greek coins, there were Egyptian coins. Herod himself was even allowed to mint several different kinds of Judean coins. And as a general rule, wherever you went, depending on who you were dealing with, you could use any number of currencies to buy whatever you wanted to. But the Roman tribute could only be paid in Roman currency. To be precise, it could only be paid in one silver denarius. And you can still see a denarius online. I bet you can probably buy them on eBay if you look hard enough. Denarius is a small silver coin and on the front it had a picture of Tiberius Caesar, surrounded by the words, Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus. And then on the back, it had a picture of Tiberius' mother, Livia. And she's seated on a throne, dressed up like the Roman goddess, Pax, the god of Roman peace. And around her are the words, Pontifex Maximus, highest priest. And you can imagine what the Jews thought about a coin like that. They thought it was propaganda. They thought it was a blasphemous idol, small enough that you could fit it into your coin purse, and as a rule, most Jews objected to using them. They didn't even like to be associated with graven images like that. You know, the fact that Rome required them meant that even the most scrupulous Jews found it a little bit easier just to go with the flow. And first, the denarius found its way into their economy, and then it found its way into their routines, and eventually it found its way into their pockets. And so when Jesus, in the temple of all places, tells these Jews who have moral objections to paying taxes to Caesar, when he says, show me a denarius, well, the answer to their question is right there in their hands. The implication was that if they were willing to engage in Roman commerce, they've got to play by Roman rules. If they wanted the benefits of Caesar's economy, they had to submit to Caesar's regulations. And he exposed their hypocrisy, and all it took was a little piece of silver. And then he answered their question. Because once they admitted that the money in their hand had Caesar's authority written all over it, he told them, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. These are probably the most famous words ever spoken, ever written down about the relationship between God and government. We're going to come back and unpack some of the implications. But for now, what you need to know is that Jesus is putting human power in its proper place. That was the whole point of this answer and the two parts that it has there. Jesus is putting human power in its proper place. The first thing he does is he acknowledges the legitimacy of earthly power. Caesar wields the sword. Caesar holds the gavel. Caesar has the right to demand taxes. And human governments have the legitimate power, the legitimate authority to make laws and to enforce them. They have the legitimate authority to demand obedience and payment from their subjects. That is what Jesus is telling us here. He was not some radical. He wasn't some anarchist out to overthrow human governments. Jesus says, Caesar has rights, and you have to give to Caesar what is his. This is essentially the same argument that we find in Romans 13 from Paul. Paul says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. pay to all what is owed to them, taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. It doesn't mean that earthly power is limitless. It doesn't mean that there's no room for an orderly opposition. It does not mean that all the tyrants of history should have just been placated and ignored and allowed to wreak bloodthirsty havoc on all of their people. That's not what it means. But it does mean that our faith is not an excuse not to pay our taxes or not to obey the laws that are over us. Jesus acknowledged the legitimacy of earthly power. But in the very next breath, Jesus denied earthly power ultimate authority. Render to Caesar, he says, the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. It is an almost direct contradiction to the claims that were stamped all over those tiny coins. Tiberius might have been born to Augustus, he might have been the son of the great Augustus, but he was not the son of God. God alone is Lord over all, and to him all creation owes allegiance. That actually is the thought that undergirds the rest of Paul's argument in Romans 13. He says, actually, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. And the part that I skipped was that, for there is no authority except from God. Those that exist have been instituted by God. There is an ultimate authority, Jesus is telling us. There is a Lord whose power has no limits. There is a God over all whose rule may not be opposed. There is one Lord of Lords. There is one King of Kings. There is one Governor of Governors. And when you compare God to Caesar, Caesar shrinks. So with his answer, Jesus put human power in its proper place. He acknowledged It's earthly legitimacy, but he denied it ultimate authority. The final phase of Jesus' answer to this question comes in the silence of his opponents. Take a look at verse 26, they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but they marveled at his answer and they became silent. Now that's important for the way that it describes, it details the wisdom of God in the person of Christ. The snares of evil men are not able to triumph over Christ and His divine wisdom. It's important for that reason, but it's also important for how it condemns the religious leaders. Think about what they were trying to do. They were hoping to catch Jesus in saying something wrong so that they could turn Him over to the power, to the authority of the governor. but he gave them nothing that they could work with. He gave them no ammunition to use against him, and so they put their own words into his mouth. Luke 23, beginning in verse one, the whole company of the Jewish council arose and brought Jesus before Pilate, and they began to accuse him, saying, we found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar. That's a direct quote, a direct lie. It was a falsehood intended to pervert justice. It was, in a sense, a refusal to render unto Caesar what was Caesar's. What belonged to Caesar in this situation? Well, it belonged to Caesar through his governing officials, through the men he put in place. It was his right to try people in the land. It was Caesar's right, it belonged to him to see that due process of law was maintained. It belonged to Caesar to see that men were not murdered for political gain. But when the priests, when the scribes stirred up a mob to try and get what they wanted from Pilate, they showed that they didn't have any interest at all in legitimate authority. They only wanted to claim power for themselves. They would not give to Caesar what belonged to Caesar because they would not give to God what belonged to God. They had everything out of order. They were only thinking about what they could gain for themselves. What did they owe to God? Well, they owed fear and reverence. They owed worship. They owed obedience and submission to the son he had sent into the world. They owed faith to the Lord of glory who was standing in their midst. And in the end, these men, these leaders are condemned, not only for their violence in the presence of Pilate, but also for their silence in the presence of Jesus. They had nothing against him. There was no reason to condemn him. He was neither unpopular with the people nor treasonous against the empire. But it didn't matter. Justice or worship was all the same to them. It was all something they could throw away. They didn't give to Caesar what belonged to Caesar. They didn't give to God what belonged to God. Now, by this point in the passage, we've seen what there is to see. We've seen what's going on. We understand the way that Jesus answered them. They came with this fake question about a real dilemma, and Jesus, in his answer, he put human power in its rightful place. We need to take some time and think about how this applies to our daily walk. That's a difficult thing to do with a passage like this, especially because our political situation is so much different from their political situation. The Jews of Jesus' day, his contemporaries, could probably never have imagined in a million years the idea of a representative democracy. A legislative body elected from among the people, what is that? It doesn't even make sense. You mean we have a hand in shaping the laws of our own land and interacting with the government on a meaningful way. There was no Magna Carta to curb the power of kings. There was nothing restraining earthly governments from doing whatever they wanted to. And so this is different in a sense. In a way, Jesus' words are spoken into a different political universe than the one in which we live. And yet God's Word is still alive and it's true. It still applies to our lives and it still makes demands on God's people. So how can we summarize, how can we apply what Jesus is teaching us here? Well, first of all, I think we can say that when it comes to our human governments, what we owe them, what we ought to render unto Caesar in a sense, is honor and subjection. Christians owe honor and subjection to human government. This is not a new idea. This should be very familiar to you. This is the New Testament language that describes our duty toward the civil government. It's a language that Paul used in Romans 13 that I've already quoted. It's the same language Peter uses, 1 Peter 2, beginning to read in verse 13. Peter says, be subject. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good. A few verses later, Peter ends that section. Verse 17, he tells us to honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. Subjection and honor. Subjection is easier to deal with. We know what that means. It deals with our bodies. It deals with our belongings. It deals with the obedience that we give. It means obeying laws and paying taxes, sometimes even when we don't agree with them. And here is a wonderful argument for the fact that we are supposed to obey laws and pay taxes even when we don't agree with them when you consider the Caesars and power and the time that these things are written. Nero is the Caesar in power when Peter is writing this. And yet Peter can tell us honor the emperor. Now we do often disagree with the laws of our land. We may sometimes think that the taxes are unfair, unjust. By God's grace, we have options available to us, orderly, lawful options. If we disagree with the laws that are over us, we can write to our representatives. We can peaceably assemble. We can run for office if you happen to think that you can do a better job than the person who's doing it already. But what you cannot do as a Christian is to claim that following Jesus gives you a pass on a requirement that feels inconvenient to you. or on a tax that seems unbalanced, or to claim that it gives you a pass to ignore laws that don't reflect your personal approach. There are limits, of course. There were the midwives in Egypt saving the infants who were about to be slaughtered by Pharaoh's decree. There were the apostles in Jerusalem before the Sanhedrin and they were being told not to speak the name of Christ. There are the church leaders that we prayed for today in Tajikistan. who were fined the equivalent of a year's salary because they were attempting to translate God's Word into the language of the people. There will always be limits to human government and times when we have to stand together with faithful brothers and sisters and say, we must obey God rather than man. If we do that and when we do that, we need to be ready to face the consequences. But so long as the law doesn't force us to personally engage in sin against our God, Christians ought to be the most radically law-abiding citizens in our nation. When the speed limit is 35, Christians ought to be the ones who are driving 34. We should be those who subject ourselves to the earthly authorities that God has given us. We should also be people who give honor to those same earthly authorities. In a sense, this is trickier. This is more difficult than giving subjection to laws and taxes because this deals with something that isn't illegal. In fact, giving honor to our elected officials might even fall under the protection of free speech. It's the American way, right? If you disagree, if you dislike a president or a senator, or a governor, or a magistrate, or whoever it might be, if you disagree with some authority and power, you can make your voice heard. And you can be loud, and you can be clear, and you can be obnoxious if you want, and you can stand behind the First Amendment and say, it's all okay. And it may be all okay from a legal standpoint, but God's Word calls us not to give into the temptation to dishonor the leaders that He's given us. I think that temptation actually is everywhere. It's the culture in which we live. And so honoring our authorities, our leaders, might look like not giving in to the mentality that is all through the media. Both sides, it doesn't matter if you're watching liberal media or conservative media. It doesn't matter where you get your news sources. The common way nowadays is to tar and feather the opponent. to talk a little bit about the policy, but also to tell everyone how terrible they are and what a horrible person they are, and everybody should just be appalled that this person ever got into government, and that's the language that we use, and it stirs up people on our side to rally behind us, and it shows how much different we are from people on the other side. I think honoring our elected officials means that we don't take part in that. It means that we guard the language that comes out of our mouths. It means that we guard the things that we click and share and like on social media. Things that at the end of the day really are nothing but venomous speech and ridicule and slander. Getting online or speaking to our friends or dropping an email to share something malicious and spiteful about that other party and their terrible, stupid, outrageous ideas. Now, honoring our elected officials might mean keeping a watch on our tongues from time to time and on our keyboards. It might mean praying for those politicians that we're tempted to pray against. And if we're listening to Peter, it means doing it all for the Lord's sake. That's what he said, be subject for the Lord's sake. It means doing it not because it's our idea, not because we love all the policies that are over us. We love all the laws that are being passed. We love the social cause du jour. We do it because Christ has commanded it. Because if we're pursuing obedience to him, we owe honor and subjection to our human governments. It also means that if we're pursuing obedience to Christ, we owe our ultimate allegiance to God alone. Human government should get our honor and our subjection. God alone should get our ultimate allegiance. And one of the other snares of our modern political system is the temptation to give the government more credit than it deserves. In past centuries, government was something that existed. It just was. You didn't choose it, you didn't choose the tyrant who may be over you, you didn't choose the king or the emperor or the leader of your people, and unless somebody else came along with more power, with better ideas, you were stuck with what you had. Well, now we have a government of the people and by the people and for the people, and that means that we imagine that our earthly authorities are really just an extension of our own power. It's our voice and it's our vote and we're involved in it. And because we love ourselves so much, we tend to give our government more credit than it deserves. We do it sometimes in various ways. We do it when we imagine that the government is, excuse me, I lost my place. We do it when we imagine that the right laws, when the right leaders, when the right economic policies are going to be the answer to all of our problems. On the other hand, we do it when we treat the government as the root of all of our bitterness. And so when things are going well, when our people are in office, then the sun shines a little more brightly. and things are good and life looks good and it seems like we have a future and the society is going in the right direction. You know the sorts of things that we tell ourselves when our people are in office and we like what's happening. But then on the other side when our favorites are voted out, when the laws we like are not being passed or they're being opposed. Well, then the sun is darkened in our eyes, then the dungeon of despair opens wide to swallow up all of our hopes and all of our dreams and our ideas about our future. The reality is that sometimes, depending on where our political system goes, you may be one of the people who vacillates wildly between those two extremes. If you find yourself subject to those extremes, it may be a sign that you actually are giving something to Caesar that only should be given to God. Yes, we owe the government our subjection, we owe our honor, we owe civil obedience, we owe civil engagement. Many of the people in this room have given their careers, their time, their lives to serve our nation. Those are good, noble pursuits. But it's God alone who ought to receive our hope, our adoration, our worship, our ultimate obedience. When we begin to get upset about what's happening in the world out there, and we begin to be tempted to say, well, it's because this government, or it's because this law, or it's because that tax, we need to remember that our deepest problem is the sin in our own hearts. And when we're tempted to think that the government will save us from everything that's going wrong, that when our candidate gets in, everything will be different, when our laws are passed, all the world will be right again, We need to remember that Christ alone is our Savior. We have to remember that any answer to our societal ills that doesn't stand on sin forgiven in Christ is only temporary, fleeting, and earthly at best. God alone deserves our ultimate allegiance. Christ alone is our all-sovereign Lord. In fact, he's the king who sacrificed his life in obedience to the father. He's the leader who sets us free from the guilt of sin that is of the people and by the people and upon the people. There is no government entity, there is no smiling politician who can do for us what Christ has done for us. And there is no government entity, no smiling politician who deserves from us what Christ deserves from us. And so give your taxes to the government and render your obedience to human laws, but give your hope and your worship and your ultimate allegiance to God. Just like our Savior, we need to put human power in its proper place. It means that we, yes, should give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but we should never give to Caesar the things that are God's alone. Won't you pray with me? Gracious Lord, we thank you for your word and we pray that you would speak to us each where we need to hear it, whether we imagine ourselves political or apolitical, whether we imagine ourselves theological or atheological. Oh, Lord, speak a word of truth from your word and by your spirit and draw us closer to Christ. Help us to trust in him, the one upon whose shoulders the government rests. Everlasting Father, Mighty King, Wonderful Counselor, O Lord, help us to trust in Him and to worship Him and to give praise and glory to You alone, we pray in His name, amen.