The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

Sermon: David's Lord (Mark 12:28-44)

David’s LordSunday, January 28th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 12:28-44
28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? 29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. 32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: 33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.
35 And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David? 36 For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. 37 David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly.
38 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces, 39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts: 40 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.
41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. 42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for Your law which is perfect, converting the soul. We thank you for your testimony that is sure, making wise the simple. We thank you for Your statutes that are right, rejoicing the heart. And we praise you for Your commandment that is pure and enlightening to our eyes. Fill us now O Lord with love that descends from above, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
This morning, we finish out Mark chapter 12, and this is the conclusion of an ongoing showdown between Jesus and the highest authorities of the Jews.
Jesus is teaching in the outer court of the Temple, it is Passover week, and so the place is filled with visitors. So far we have seen representatives from different Jewish factions take turns trying to stump the Lord Jesus.
First the chief priests, scribes, and elders (the Sanhedrin) challenged Jesus’ authority, “who gave thee this authority to do these things?” (Mark 11:28).
Jesus’ answer was “the same authority as John the Baptist.”
Next, the Pharisees and Herodians came along and asked whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar.
Jesus’ answer was, “give to Caesar what belongs to him, and give to God what belongs to God.”
Then, last week, we saw the Sadducees come with an argument against the resurrection.
Jesus answered them by saying, “ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?” and then proceeded to demonstrate the resurrection from Exodus 3:6.
So Jesus is as a great fighter in the ring, and when he knocks out one opponent, immediately another arises. And yet for all their persistent attempts to catch Jesus in his words, to stump him theologically, in every case they end up indicting themselves.
And so this section in Mark’s gospel, Chapters 11-12, are really intended to expose the falsity and wickedness and duplicity and hypocrisy of the entire Jerusalem establishment. There are still pockets of faithfulness here and there, God promised there would always be a faithful remnant, but on the whole, the powers that be are corrupt and unjust. These are the false shepherds in Israel who devour the sheep (Jer. 23:1). These are the wicked servants in Jesus’ parable of the vineyard who steal God’s stuff and murder his servants.
And what all of this exposing of sin is building up to is chapter 13, where Jesus is going to foretell that within one generation, the temple and its leaders are going to be destroyed. The powers that be will be shaken, the stars will fall from the sky. And the Son of Man shall come with power and glory to bring judgment on the old world, and usher in the new.
So this radical change in the authority structure of the whole cosmos, is what these doctrinal controversies are really about. The Jews recognized that Jerusalem and the Temple was the center of the world, they know the promise of Isaiah 2:1 that, “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow unto it…For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
The Jews also knew the many prophecies that a king would arise from the line of David, and that as it says in Psalm 72:8, “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, And from the river unto the ends of the earth.”
So the Jews were primed for this universal king to come and reign. But as with the arrival of any new power or regime or kingdom, it is those who are currently in power who are most threatened by any change to the status quo. And it is that change that Jesus comes to bring about, but it is a change far more profound than either the populists (who love Jesus) or the upper classes (who hate Jesus) recognize.
What almost everyone is blind to is that Jesus is God in the flesh. In Jesus, God Himself has come to reign. And so in arguing with Jesus in the temple, they are arguing with God about His Law and doing so in His House. And this is what makes their opposition to Jesus so ironic and outrageous. These are the people who claim to speak for and represent God and His Word. And yet they cannot recognize God, or the Word incarnate, when he is staring them in the face.
So our text this morning is the conclusion of this public showdown, and there are four sections to this passage, and each has an important application for us.
1. In verses 28-34, Jesus tells us what the greatest commandment is.
2. In verses 35-37, Jesus tells us who the Messiah is.
3. In verses 38-40, Jesus warns us of seeking worldly honorand riches.
4. In verses 41-44, Jesus gives us the example of the poor widow.
#1 – What is the greatest commandment according to Jesus?
This is the question a scribe poses to Jesus in verse 28, and Jesus responds by saying, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
Notice that Jesus begins his answer with the most famous verse in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:4, also known as the Shema. It was customary for Jews to say the Shema twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, and it is the Old Testament equivalent to our Christian confession that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
And so notice the first verb, or action Jesus commends for us as the greatest commandment, is “Hear.” Yes, love for God and love for neighbor is the great commandment, but even prior to love is the necessity of Hearing. We must hear and know the voice of God and believe that He is one Lord.
We cannot love what we do not know, and therefore you must know the One God and to Him alone should all your heart, soul, mind, and strength be given.
In other words, it is not enough to be radical in your devotion if the object of your devotion is false. If the object of your devotion is anyone or anything other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then it is idolatry. And so Jesus says “Hear,” take heed to who it is that you are worshipping.
Now if you have ever read the Old Testament, you know that there are many strange laws and regulations and many of them are hard to understand. And what Jesus is giving us here is the answer to key to understanding all of those laws. Because when you reduce the divine intent behind every law down to its most basic principle, it is simply: love God more than anything, and love your neighbor as yourself. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:40).
The scribe recognizes that Jesus has spoken well, and in a surprising and refreshing turn of events, after all the aggressive opposition, he agrees with Jesus and adds that this is “more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
As it says in 1 Samuel 15:22, “to obey is better than sacrifice.”
God says in Hosea 6:6, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
And so here Jesus gives us the ultimate end of our existence. Why did God create you? What are you here for? What is life all about? What is my purpose? What should occupy your attention? One thing: God.
Man’s final end is to know and love God, there is nothing higher. And therefore, everything else, even and especially many other good things, must be subordinated and ordered towards that end.
Now, if knowing and loving God is our highest good, then what is sin? Sin is settling for any lesser good than God. There are many ways we can do this, but at bottom, sin is choosing to give your heart, soul, mind, or strength, to someone or something other than God.
Or to put it in terms of St. Augustine, sin is to have disordered loves.
So we exist to know and love God with all that we are, and to love our neighbor as ourself, and this Jewish scribe agrees with Jesus that is the first and highest commandment. And yet, according to Jesus, this is not sufficient for him to enter the kingdom.
In verse 34 it says, “Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” He is close, he is near, but he is not yet in.
And so what is this scribe missing? Well, that is what Jesus is going to address with a question of his own. And he poses it in the form of riddle, taken from one of the psalms.
Verse 35-37
35 And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David? 36 For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. 37 David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly.
#2 – Who is the Christ?
The question Jesus is asking is, “How can the Christ be both David’s son and David’s Lord?”
If the Christ is David’s son, and no son is greater than his father, no father calls his son lord, how then can David call his son in Psalm 110, “my lord.”
Scripture teaches both of these realities about the Messiah. God promised in 2 Samuel 7, that David’s throne would last forever. And even after the kingdom was divided, and the Jews were in exile, God promised again in Jeremiah 23, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth” (Jer. 23:5).
So whoever the Christ is, must be a fleshly descendent of David. And yet David, inspired by the Holy Ghost says in Psalm 110, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”
What the scribes could not understand, was that in this Psalm, David was extolling the Lord Jesus. David was contemplating the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation.
The Father who is God and LORD, said unto the Son, who is God and David’s Lord, “sit thou at my right hand.”
And so the answer to Jesus’ riddle is also the thesis of Mark’s Gospel. Who is Jesus Christ? He is the eternal Son of God (Mark 1:1).
And so only God could be both David’s son and David’s Lord, and that is who Jesus is.
It is this belief and faith in Jesus as both son of David according to the flesh and Son of God as a fully divine person, that grants us entrance into the kingdom. While the Shema is good and right and true, the Shema is not sufficient to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because to truly Hear and know the one true God and one Lord, one must also accept that Jesus Christ is that one true God and Lord.
This is why Jesus says in John 17:3, “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Jesus is the doorway into the kingdom.And so it is doubly true that this scribe was not far from the kingdom for indeed he was talking to the king himself.
Who is the Christ? He is both David’s son and David’s Lord. The Christ can be none other than the One God of the Shema.
Having posed this riddle so that the one who figures it out may enter the kingdom, Jesus now proceeds to do two things: First, he warns us of seeking worldly honor, and second, he shows us what keeping the greatest commandment looks like.
#3 – A Warning Against Worldliness
Verses 38-40
38 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces, 39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts: 40 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.
There are two warnings here.
The first is to beware of the people who use religion for selfish and self-serving purposes.
There are scribes who pray and teach and look very religious, but in the eyes of God it is all a show. It is all a pretense to devour widows’ houses and gain status in society.
The church must be on guard against such hypocrisy both in ourselves and in our leaders.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:17, “keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.” He says in 1 Timothy 3:8, that officers in the church (elders and deacons) must not be greedy for filthy lucre.
What is filthy lucre? It’s ill-gotten gain. It’s using your authority and influence to manipulate the widows in the church. To steal their deceased husband’s estate, taking their inheritance and putting it into your own pockets. This is what the teachers of God’s law were doing in Jerusalem. And so Jesus is saying, beware of those scribes, they are liars and frauds, not everyone deserves your trust.
The second warning is to beware of the temptation to worldly glory.
All of us are susceptible to vanity. All of us naturally desire to look good in front of others (make a good impression), and we all want people to think and speak well of us. And while none of those things is inherently evil, when that becomes our aim, instead of honoring and pleasing God, we quickly become slaves to the world and to our own self-image.
This is why Jesus says in Luke 6:26, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”
It is not a sin to care what people think of you. We should all aspire to have a good name and witness and reputation. Proverbs 22:1 says, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, And loving favour rather than silver and gold.”
So having a good name is not a sin, but it is a sin if you have a good name with the world, and a bad name in the eyes of God. And this is what the whole Jewish establishment was guilty of.
So how then shall we live? How then shall we keep the first and greatest commandment, and enter into the kingdom?
Well, we have had many negative examples, and many cautionary tales of what not to be like, and finally, Jesus gives us the positive example of the poor widow.
#4 – The Poor Widow
Verses 41-44
41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. 42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
So within the temple complex, there was a place to give your offerings. And tradition holds that there were thirteen of these “shofar chests,” which were large trumpet-shaped receiving containers where people could throw in their contributions. And as the coins went in, you could hear the clink-clink-clink and know, was that a large offering, or a small offering.
So Jesus is watching people bring their offerings (into His House) and put them into His treasury. And many rich folks come through and give large offerings (clink clink clink clink clink clink) very good. But then comes the poor widow, and she has the equivalent of what we could call pocket change, perhaps enough to buy a candy bar or a package of top ramen. Two mites. And she puts both of them into the treasury (clink clink).
And then Jesus says, “this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury. Because the rich gave from their abundance, but she gave all her living from her want.”
In other words, if ever it would have been reasonable for a woman to keep back at least one of her mites, this was the occasion. And yet, she so casts herself upon the mercy and generosity of God that she gives to Him what probably was her daily bread. She exchanges the totality of her temporal goods (“all her living”), which is not much, so that she might gain more of God.
What is the price of heaven? What is the cost to enter Christ’s kingdom? Well, Jesus is teaching us here that the price cannot be measured in dollars or coins or any worldly possession. It is measured rather, according to the intention and contents of the heart.
Not only is the gift measured in proportion to what God has given us, more importantly, it is measured according to the love for God we have for him in our offering. Do we regard God as worth all our living? When we give to Him our tithes and offerings, does it represent all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, or is it just 10% off the top to keep our conscience clean?
Two people can give to God the same 10% of their income, but in God’s eyes, one could be robbing Him (because they are giving it grudgingly), and the other could be offering their whole self to Him in that tithe. This is why God says, “I love a cheerful giver.”
So love for God is what makes an offering acceptable in His sight, no matter the amount. And this is what makes the widow’s offering of two mites worth more than a king’s ransom. And yet it is not just that the widow has given God all her living, it is that her gift represents her real spiritual state. She is both materially poor and poor in spirit, and thus the beatitude comes to pass as Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). This woman is not far from the kingdom, she is inside of it because of her love for God.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:3, “though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
In other words, you could hear this sermon, and try to be like the poor widow and give God all your goods, but if you lack charity, then you haven’t actually given Him what He wants. He wants your heart!
This principle is crucial for us to understand because it means that all of our actions and attitudes all day long, can either be a pleasing offering acceptable to the Lord, or a foul smell in his nostrils.
Remember Cain and Abel. Both offered sacrifices, but one was accepted and one was not.
And so what are the two mites God has given you? Or what is the great abundance God has blessed you with? What is your livelihood and vocation? Because no matter how much or little you think you have, all of us have an equal opportunity to give all of ourselves in love to God.
Moreover, God Himself is the greatest reward any of us could receive, and the more we die to this world, and give him all our living, the more we make space in our soul to be filled by Him.
Remember what God said to Abram in Genesis 15? Abram had just returned from rescuing Lot from Chedorlaomer and three other kings. He defeated them, and thenMelchizedek came out and blessed Abram and Abram gave him a tithe. And yet he would not receive any gifts or reward from the king of Sodom. And then it says in Genesis 15:1, “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.’”
This poor widow was a true daughter of Abraham, a true woman of faith. She had God for her shield and her exceedingly great reward. And so the more you divest yourself of worldly desire, and the more you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, the richer you become.
This is how Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 6:10, we are “as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”
The person who has God as supreme in their affections is the one who possesses everything. And God is the gift that Jesus Christ comes to offer.
Conclusion
Jesus Christ offered Himself on the cross for the life of the world. He loved His Father, and He loved you, even unto death.
And so what is two mites, or what is all your possessions, compared to so great a love?
Become like Abraham, become like the poor widow, and choose God as your shield and as your exceedingly great reward, for that is a reward that can never be taken from you.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Lesson 6: As Knowledge in the Knower and the Beloved in the Lover (The Architecture of Reality: Sacred Time & Sacred Place in Holy Scripture)

The Architecture of Reality: Sacred Time & Sacred Place in Holy ScriptureLesson 6 – As Knowledge in the Knower and the Beloved in the Lover
Review of Lesson 5
Last time we were together, we started working on this question, “In what sense is God inside of us?” And we spent a good half hour studying all the ways God is not and cannot be inside of us. Does anyone remember some of the ways we said that God cannot be inside of us?
We looked at 8 modes/ways that one thing can be said to be in another:
As a body is in place. Example: Paul is in the Areopagus. Or, you are in this room and not at home.
As a part is in the whole. Example: A finger is in the hand.
As the whole is in its parts. Example: A hand is in the fingers, for there is no whole hand over and above the parts (fingers).
As a species is in its genus. Example: The species (man) is in the genus (animal).
As the genus is in the species. Example:The animal (genus) is in the man who is of the species rational animal.
As form is in matter. Example: The soul (immaterial form) is in the body (matter).
As an accident is in a substance. For example, whiteness is an accident that exists in the substance Socrates, and yet if Socrates goes out in the sun and gets dark/tan, he is still Socrates despite no longer being white, thus whiteness is accidental to Socrates. Substance on the other hand is the principle of unity and self-identity that persists across all accidental changes.
As agent is in a patient. Or put another way, as an efficient cause is in its effects. Example: As an author is in his story. As Tolkien is in Middle-Earth.
God is in us in this way, as the one who gives us our very existence (“in him we live and move and have our being,” Acts 17:28). However, this is God’s Common Presence in all things and all people, not His Special Presence in the saints.
Question: Did anyone think of some other ways that one thing can be inside another?
Lesson 6
Tonight, I am finally going to tell you the true and actual way that God is present inside the believer. So we are not talking about God’s common presence (as efficient cause) in that He makes us to live and move and have our being, we are talking now about God’s special presence in the saints by grace.
Remember the reason we are asking this question is twofold:
1) Because this is one of the two realities signified by God coming and dwelling in the Tabernacle and Temple (the other is the Incarnation).
2) Because there are a ton of verses in the Bible that speak of God/Christ/Holy Spirit being in us and us being in God. And because there is no higher joy or pleasure than being united to God, we should want to 1) understand what this union is, and 2) see if Scripture tells us how we can experience more of it.
So how does God dwell inside the believer?
The answer to the question is that God dwells in the believer as knowledge is in the knower and as the beloved is in the lover. God is in us as knowledge is in the person knowing, and as the object loved is in the person loving. God dwells in the saints by knowledge and by love.
Let me read you a few examples of this from Scripture, and as I read, listen for that connection between knowledge, love, and indwelling.
John 14:15-17, “If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
1 Corinthians 2:12, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
1 John 4:12-13, “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.”
Ephesians 3:14-19, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
So when we become Christians and make God our refuge and dwelling place, He also comes and makes us His dwelling place. So there is a mutual indwelling of us in God and God in us.
Now to better understand what this means, that “knowledge is in the knower and the beloved is in the lover,” let us consider how this kind of indwelling work amongst creatures, and then work our back up to God.
So consider two people falling in love, we’ll call them Adam and Eve.
Adam is lonely, he has a knowledge of animals and even loves the animals, but something is missing in his life.Adam wants to know and love someone that is his equal, someone more like him. Well, it’s Adam’s lucky day, he falls asleep, and when he wakes up there is a beautiful something standing in his garden.
Adam sees this something, and what happens in his soul/mind/intellect?
First, he apprehends that this is no mere animal. This thing is shaped like he is, but a little different. He abstracts from the images that his sensory powers are feeding him, and judges, this animal has the same substantial form as he does: human. It speaks and laughs and reasons, and therefore must be like Adam as a rational animal with a human nature.
But despite having this shared human nature with Adam, there are also some real bodily differences. Adam sees that this naked woman has different organs for generation than he does.
And therefore, in his mind, proceeds this internal word or concept of understanding that we might call a name/definition.
You cannot name/define something until you have grasped and understood it’s nature. What is its genus? And what is its species? How is it like or unlike other things.
So Adam beholds this other person, and grasps both the similarity and dissimilarity that is evidenced in her body and pronounces externally what is said in Genesis 2:23, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” And then in the next verse Adam is married to this Woman, and the two become one flesh.
There is physical union and indwelling of husband and wife.
Now after the fall, in Genesis 3, Adam’s knowledge of his Wife/Woman increases, and he learns that she is the mother of all the living. And because of this increase in knowledge about her, he gives her a new name, which is Eve (Gen. 3:20).
And then in Genesis 4:1 it says, “And Adam knewEve his wife; and she conceived.”
So in what ways are Adam and Eve united?
1. They are physically unitedin the marital act.
2. They are legally/covenantally united as one household/family.
3. But they are also spiritually united as knowledge in the knower and beloved in the lover.
When Adam’s knowledge of Eve increases, and he knows her to be good, His desire for her is aroused and he freely chooses to love and delight in her. And so even if Eve is not physically present, she is present to Adam in his memory, in his affections, and in his enjoyment of knowing who she is and that she belongs to Him.
This is what we mean by the mingling of souls. Because love is a unitive force, it draws us out of ourselves and into the object of our love, so that the mind and will of the person we love, the more we know and love them, the more their mind and love is inside us.
We can know what they are thinking and feeling because they are inside of us a knowledge in the knower and the beloved in the lover.
To give you a couple non-romantic examples of this, Paul says to the Philippians, “It is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart.”
He says to the Colossians, “For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.”
So the Philippians and the Colossians, and all the churches and people Paul knew and loved, dwelt within him. And so it is with us.
The things we know, remember, love and delight in, are inside of us, and that is how God wants to be inside of us. As the supreme object of knowledge, and the supreme object of our love.
Conclusion
It says in Psalm 10:4, “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.”
God does not dwell in the wicked, because He is not in their thoughts.
And unlike Eve, and unlike any other created thing that we can see and know with our eyes, God is invisible, God is a spirit, God is incorporeal, eternal, and infinite, and as it says in 1 John 4:12, “No man hath seen God at any time.”
So how God can the invisible Triune God come and well inside of us?
Well, this is why Christ came, he is the image of the invisible God. And as the true knowledge of God is proclaimed in the world, and as we increase in that knowledge of God through reading the Bible, hearing sermons, praying and meditating, God dwells in us personally as knowledge in us who know Him.
And then from that understanding of the truths that we know about God, proceeds the supernatural love that unites us to Him. And so Paul can say in 1 Cor. 2:16, “we have the mind of Christ.”
This is eternal life, this is the purpose for man’s existence, it is know God and love Him, and that is how God dwells within the saints.

Sermon: Because Ye Know Not The Scriptures (Mark 12:18-27)

Because Ye Know Not the ScripturesSunday, January 21st, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 12:18–27
18 Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, 19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. 21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. 22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. 23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. 24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? 25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. 26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.
Prayer
Father as we consider the life that is to come, and ponder what resurrection and eternity with you shall be like, we confess that we are far too carnal in our thinking. It is hard for us to imagine any joy or pleasure or love that surpasses what we enjoy in a good marriage or enjoy with our bodily senses. And yet, you have promised to us a life of bliss and fullness of joy in your presence, for as it says in Psalm 16:11, “at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.” And so we ask now for you Spirit to be at work within us to make us into more spiritual creatures, with spiritual desires, that transcend this world which is passing away. Make us to live for eternity, for we ask this Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
What will life in the new heavens and new earth be like? What will that future state of glory and resurrection be like for the saints?
The Bible teaches that when we die, and our soul is separated from our body, our soul (that immaterial part of us that knows and loves) immediately goes to heaven to be with God.
Paul says in Philippians 1:22-23 that to live in the body is fruitful labor for the Christian, but to depart and be with Christ is far better.
Likewise in 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 he says, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle [referring to the body] were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.”
So in this life we groan to be with God. And when we die, our soul is welcomed into the Father’s House, and God Himself becomes our dwelling place, our habitation, our house not made with hands. We behold Him in His essence and our soul is made radiant.
And it is there in heaven with God, that our glorified soul awaits the final resurrection and reunion with the body.
This final resurrection is spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 where the Apostle says, “the body is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: 43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”
The final destination for the Christian, is not being a disembodied soul in heaven, though that is far better than being here. Our final destination is the resurrection of the dead wherein God by His power reunites soul and body never to die again. This is the eternal life that the resurrected Son of God has purchased for us, and it this power and resurrection that the Sadducees of Jesus day did not believe in.
In our text this morning, the Sadducees pose a question for Jesus that is a kind of reductio ad absurdum. What isa reductio ad absurdum? It is an argument where you take the premises of your opponent and follow them out to their logical end, and the intent is that the logical conclusion is so absurd or contradictory that it makes the premises invalid.
For example, against atheists we can run the reductio that if there is no God (as they claim), then there is no objective basis for morality, and therefore any moral objections they have against Christianity are purely arbitrary.
Or to give a very different example, if the world is flat, then there is an edge, but because no one has seen or found that edge, it is absurd to think the world is flat.
So that’s the basic structure of a reductio ad absurdum. And this is the argument the Sadducees deploy against Jesus regarding what is in their mind the absurdity of the resurrection.
Now before we look at their argument, let me first say a word about who the Sadducees were.
Who were the Sadducees?
The best we can conclude from what Scripture and other ancient sources tell us, is that the Sadducees were an upper class or aristocratic group of Jews, and they had strong ties to the high priesthood in Jerusalem (Acts 5:18). It is possible they received their name and lineage from Zadok and thus laid claim to being the divinely appointed heirs of the high priesthood (Ezek. 44:15).
As to their doctrine, Mark tells us here in vs. 18 that they did not believe in the resurrection, and we are also told in Acts 23:8, “the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.”
So the Sadducees were theological enemies of the Pharisees (Jewish heretics), and Paul actually uses this to his advantage when the Jews are trying to kill him.
Josephus (who was a 1st century Jewish historian) tells us, “But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of anything besides what the law enjoins them” (Antiquities 18.16). Elsewhere he adds that they reject God’s sovereignty over man’s actions.
So the Sadducees rejected any Scripture outside of the law of Moses, the Pentateuch alone was their canon (Genesis-Deuteronomy).So they are already working with a truncated canon, and one of their great points of contention with the Pharisees was this doctrine of the resurrection and the existence of spiritual substances (angels, an immortal soul, etc.).
So those are their premises, and what they try to do against Jesus is take the Pharisees premises and run them out to absurdity.
How do they try to do this? Well let us turn to expound our text.
Verse 19
19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
Note first the appeal to Moses and the law as their authority. What specific law are they referring to?
It is Deuteronomy 25:5-10, which we heard earlier in the service, and this is often called the “levirate marriage law.” This word levirate comes from the Latin word levir, which means “a husband’s brother.” So a levirate marriage is literally a marriage to a brother-in-law. Elsewhere the man who fulfills this law is called the “kinsman redeemer” (גאל).
We are given the purpose of this law in Deuteronomy 25:6, which states, “it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.”
So because of the tribal inheritance each family received in the promised land, it was importantfor a male heir to carry on his father’s name and ensure that the inheritance God had given them stayed within the family.
One of the most famous instances of levirate marriage is the story of Ruth. Ruth is a Moabite who married into the tribe of Judah, but her husband dies, and her father-in-law Elimelech dies, and so both Naomi and Ruth are widowed and in danger of seeing their family line come to an end.
In God’s providence, Ruth meets Boaz, and Boaz fulfills this duty (after a closer relative declines) and raises up seed to carry on Elimelech’s name. And it is by this obedience to the law in Deuteronomy 25, that Obed is born, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David, and from that line of Elimelech we eventually have the birth of Jesus Christ.
Now while this law might sound strange to our modern ears, it was God’s way of both providing for widows and also the means by which His promise to Abraham could be fulfilled.
God had promised in Genesis 15, to give Abraham seed as numerous as the stars, and also to give him the land of Canaan as his inheritance (Gen. 15:7, 18-21). And so for family name to die out, was like having a star go out in the sky.
We read in Galatians 3:19, Paul answers the question, “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made.”
So God gave many ceremonial and judicial laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, laws like this levirate marriage law, as a temporary and typological safeguard to preserve the people of Israel until the Seed, the Lord Jesus Christ was born. Jesus is the seed God promised to Abraham, and by faith in Jesus, we also become heirs together with him.
So that is the background to this law that the Sadducees are now going to use to prove the absurdity of the resurrection.
Verses 20-23
20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. 21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. 22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. 23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.
So the argument of the Sadducees is that if there is a resurrection from the dead, then in that resurrected state, this woman will have 7 husbands. And because having 7 husbands is clearly contrary to God’s law and violates the one flesh monogamous union of marriage, there can be no resurrection.
How does Jesus respond to this attempted reductio of the Sadducees?
He begins by rebuking them for their ignorance.
Verse 24
24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?
There are times when ignorant people ask stupid questions and the best way to respond is to not answer at all (Titus 3:9-11). As it says in Proverbs 26:4-5, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
This is one of those occasions where Jesus chooses the latter and will answer them according to their folly so that they are not wise in their own eyes. The way he begins then is with a stern rebuke: You are in error because you don’t know the Scriptures, neither the power of God. In other words, “You have no idea what you are talking about.”
And just in case they didn’t understand this rebuke the first time, Jesus will say again at the end of his response in vs. 27, “ye therefore do greatly err.”
So Jesus is challenging the false assumptions behind their question, which they have arrived at because they don’t know the Scriptures or God’s power. And remember he is saying this to men who style themselves experts in the Scriptures. In verse 25 he tells them what that false premise is.
Verse 25
25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.
So whereas the Sadducees argued that there is no resurrection because that would make marriage eternal (and create all kinds of polygamous situations), Jesus says that they’ve got it backwards. Marriage is not eternal, but the soul is, and in the resurrected state men do not marry, and women are not given in marriage, but are like the angels who cannot die and find all their satisfaction in God.
The problem with the Sadducees is that they are enslaved to their carnal senses, and therefore when they read the law of Moses, they come to it with a warped and corrupt mind, and therefore warp and corrupt the Scriptures. In their minds, the only sense in which man “rises again” and “lives on after death,” is in his children. This is the only “resurrection” or “raising up” they can imagine.
And because the Sadducees denied that there even is a spirit, or an immortal soul,what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:6 comes to pass, that “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
If you come to the Bible with false assumptions, you are going to read it and the letters will slay you. False assumptions lead to false conclusions which lead to ignorant questions, and this is the great error Jesus wants to expose.
So Jesus says that when we rise from the dead, we are not rejoined in marriage to the spouse (or spouses) we were married to on earth. Marriage is a temporal institution for the raising of children, for help and companionship, but as Paul says in Ephesians 5, marriage is a great mystery that will give way to something far greater, which is the union of Christ and the church, the union of God with the human soul.
Now many people find this teaching about no marriage and no sex in the resurrection to be a bit of a letdown. But that is only because we are thinking like Sadducees. We are allowing our carnal senses and sentiments to blind us to the far greater love and intimacy that we shall have with God and all the saints, including our former spouse (if they were a believer) in the resurrection.
The truth is that however great and pleasurable your marriage may be (and I hope that is!), it is not worthy to be compared with the love and pleasure we shall enjoy in the world to come. Even in this life, there are far higher pleasures than sexual intimacy and marital friendship, namely the pleasures of knowing and loving God.
This is why Jesus can say in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
To be a Christian is to love God in such a way that nothing and no-one else competes with God in your affections. You love God more than life itself.
And so if you have not experienced this pleasure of the soul, this pleasure of union with God that brings peace and gladness and indestructible joy, then search your heart. Consider what it is that you really love and are living for. Because no matter your state, whether single, or married, or widowed, or divorced, the love of God and abundant joy is constantly held out to you.
Unlike a husband or wife, whose time and attention and affections are limited, God is unlimited. God is not bound by time or matter. He does not grow weary, He neither slumbers nor sleeps, and therefore God alone can be your constant companion.
Moreover, whatever goodness or beauty you find in your spouse, whatever loveliness there is in them, God is the source and fount of that goodness and beauty and loveliness, for it is from Him that anyone has these qualities. God has all of those things essentially, infinitely, endlessly.
And so if you find it a letdown that there is no sex or marriage in the resurrection, consider that when you were a child, you thought that eating ice cream or chocolate, or playing in the mud was the highest pleasure there was. Before puberty, you thought girls had cooties. A newborn baby has no conception or ability to begin to understand sexual marital love.
Well in this life, we are babies, and we cannot even begin to imagine the joys that await us in the resurrection. When the Apostle Paul was caught up into Paradise, he says “I heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:4). The things that Paul heard and saw were so great, that God had to give Paul a thorn in his flesh, to keep him humble. And that was just heaven, not even the full consummation that awaits us.
Isaiah 64:4 says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man, The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
In Isaiah 65:17 God says, “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: And the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”
The joys that await us in the resurrection are so great, that this life will become as a distant memory. As it says in Ecclesiastes 5:20, “For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.”
So again I say, if this joy is foreign to you, search your heart, consider your loves, and then ask God to help you re-order them so that He is utmost in your affections.
Returning to our text, Jesus having stated their errors regarding marriage and the resurrection, he goes on to prove from the law of Moses, that the dead rise again.
And it is a good test for us to pause here and ask ourselves, if we were in Jesus’ shoes, and had to prove the resurrection from the Old Testament, where would we go? What verses would we use?
Perhaps some of the Psalms comes to mind, David speaks of God not leaving his soul in Sheol in Psalm 16. Or we might think of Job who says famously in Job 19:25-26, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God.”
Well of all the passages Jesus could have used to prove the resurrection, he limits himself to only what the Sadducees considered to be authoritative, namely the law of Moses.
Verses 26-27
26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.
Now maybe, you are scratching your head, and wondering how is it that that verse proves the resurrection. What does Jesus see in this text that the Sadducees (and many of us) are blind to?
The passage Jesus cites is Exodus 3:6, where God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and reveals this name to him, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
There are at least two ways in which this passage proves the resurrection:
1. First, is from the fact that “God is the God of the living and not the dead.” The argument runs as follows:
Premise 1: Dead bodies cannot worship God or have him as their God.
Premise 2: When God revealed this name to Moses, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for hundreds of years.
Conclusion: Therefore, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must still be alive in some sense, and this proves the existence of the immortal soul. And because it belongs naturally to the soul to be united to the body (since that is how God created it), by the same power of God, the body and soul of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shall be reunited in the resurrection.
Summary: So if God is the God of the living, as the Sadducees accept, and if God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as they also accept, then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive and shall rise again.
2. The second way this can prove the resurrection, is by remembering the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This argument runs as follows:
Premise 1: God promised to Abraham in Genesis 13:15, “All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.”
Premise 2: Abraham died not having received that promise (Heb. 11:13-16).
Conclusion: Therefore, either God is a liar, or He keeps His Word, and one day Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shall be resurrected and the whole land given to them.
So both of these arguments demonstrate that the Sadducees have not rightly interpreted their own Scriptures. And Jesus has used their highest authority, Moses, to prove what they reject.
In Matthew’s version of this same scene it says, “And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching” (Matt. 22:33).
Conclusion
One of the things that our world and our region is in desperate need of is hope.
Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.”
Our land is filled with hopeless people who think they can treat a sickness of the heart, a sickness of the soul, with medication, with prescription drugs, with surgery, with money, with things that promise to make us happy but cannot actually touch that spiritual part of us that needs healing.
Well Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life. And it is He alone who can touch our soul and heal us. Only the God who never changes and who is infinitely happy in Himself can give us a new heart, with new desires, that shall be fulfilled and make us into trees of life.
As Paul says in Romans 5:5, the hope that God gives is a hope that shall never put us to shame, “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
God wants to you give His very Self, His Holy Spirit. And when you receive the Holy Spirit, you are receiving thedown payment and guarantee of a resurrection to come. And so forsake your earthly and carnal hopes, lift your heart to heaven and say with the Psalmist in Psalm 43:5, “Hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The State of the Church 2024

The State of the Church 2024Sunday, January 14th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Proverbs 16:2-9
2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; But the Lord weigheth the spirits.
3 Commit thy works unto the Lord, And thy thoughts shall be established.
4 The Lord hath made all things for himself: Yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
5 Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord: Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
6 By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: And by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.
7 When a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
8 Better is a little with righteousness Than great revenues without right.
9 A man’s heart deviseth his way: But the Lord directeth his steps.
Prayer
Father as we enter into another year of service in the Lord’s Army, as members of the Church Militant, we ask that you would give us renewed courage to act like men, to be brave, to be strong, to fight the good fight of faith, and to let all that we do be done from love. Please crown us with charity, for without love, we are nothing. We ask this all in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
I was not initially planning on giving this State of the Church 2024 sermon, but because of where we are in Mark’s Gospel, and because I want to further develop some of what we studied last week, with the whole “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” bit, you can consider this sermon as a kind of Part 2 to last week. This is essentially all the personal application from last week’s text, so I won’t be giving an exposition of Proverbs, although these Proverbs summarize a lot of what I want to exhort us with.
So just to briefly refresh your memory. Last week we were in Mark 12:13-17, and we saw that the Pharisees, the Herodians, and the highest Jewish authorities are all trying to catch Jesus in his words. Because Jesus is a threat to their political power, they are trying to do everything they can to either discredit him before the populists, the Jewish masses, OR, provoke him to run afoul of the Roman authorities.
They thought they had the perfect question to trap Jesus, which was, “is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar or not?”
If Jesus answered, Yes, then he would lose credibility with the masses who wanted relief from this tax.
If Jesus answers, No, then he could be hauled before the authorities as stirring up rebellion.
Jesus responds by making the Herodians and Pharisees answer their own question. He asks for the coin, and they give to Jesus the denarius with Caesar’s name and inscription on it. What this reveals in front of everyone is that they approve of the tribute. By the very fact that they have such a coin within the temple complex and knows whose image is on it, proves that they are being hypocritical in asking Jesus this question.
Nevertheless, Jesus gives them an answer which makes them marvel. The answer in so many words is to give back to Caesar what Caesar has given them, namely this coin and its tribute (pay the tax), but also and equally, give back to God what God has given, namely our entire selves and all that we are, for we, and Caesar, and everyone else, bears God’s image, and the saints doubly so, because God’s name was inscribed upon us in baptism.
So far from Christianity undermining or nullifying our earthly duties to our earthly authorities, God commands and requires that the way we give back to God what belongs to Him, is by giving to our earthly superiors what is their due. The New Testaments gives us many specifics as to how are to do this. For example, Paul says…
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is just” (Eph. 6:1). This is rendering, giving back to your parents, what is due to them.
This also means, “servants (employees) obey your masters according to the flesh, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unreasonable and harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully” (1 Peter 2:18-19, Eph. 6:5-6).
This also means, masters, employers, owners, political leaders, church leaders, managers, “do the will of God from the heart, not with eyeservice as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, judge justly, without partiality, leave off threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him…He will reward and punish each according to his works” (Eph. 6:9, Rom. 2:6).
So when Jesus says “render to God what belongs to God,” this includes rendering to our various earthly authorities the submission, obedience, honor, and tribute that is due to them. Because as Romans 13 says, “there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves” (Rom. 13:1-2).
Now we live in a day and culture not totally unlike the Jews and Christians in the 1st century. And that means, there are times when Caesar claims something that does not actually belong to him. So while Jesus commanded they pay tribute to Caesar in the form of the denarius, he is also forbidding by that very same command, giving worship to Caesar as if he is Lord. So Jesus’ words establish limits on what Caesar can claim.
And so when the Romans started to persecute the Christians, and require that they offer sacrifices to Caesar and worship him as Lord, the faithful refused even unto death. And why? Because render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to Caesar worship does not belong. As Jesus says to Satan in Matthew 4:10, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
So there is a line that Christians must not cross in our submission to the God-ordained authorities. That line is when the government commands us to sin. It is no sin to be stolen from. It is not a sin to be oppressed, or to be made a slave, or to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake. It is a sin for the government to do this, and God will judge them, but it is not a sin for us to be sinned against. This is just what Jesus suffered and we also at times will suffer the same.
But it is a sin for us to commit idolatry. And so should Caesar ever demand our worship, it is there that we must simply not comply.
The Martyrdom of Polycarp in 155 AD is one of the most famous of such acts of resistance to the government overstepping their authority.
Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna, he was at least 86 years old when the civil authorities arrested him, and they said to this old bishop, “What harm is it to say, ‘Lord Caesar’ and to offer a sacrifice and so forth and be saved?” to which he responded, “I am not about to do what you advise.”
They then brought him into the stadium, before the crowds, and threatened him with death by wild beasts. The proconsul said, “I have beasts, I will throw you to them, unless you repent…(and swear oaths to Caesar and revile Christ),” to which Polycarp said, “Call for the beasts, for repentance is impossible for us from better to worse, but it is good to change from wickedness to righteousness.” Then the proconsul said, “I will cause you to be consumed by fire, since you despise the beasts, unless you repent.” To which Polycarp responded, “You threaten with fire that burns for a little awhile and then is extinguished. For you are ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly. But why do you wait, bring about what you wish.”
The crowds hearing that Polycarp was a Christian began to shout and rage, “this is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods, who teaches many to not offer sacrifice or to worship them. Let a lion be loosed upon him!”
Polycarp turned and said to the faithful with him, “I must be burned alive.” And then the crowd frantically began building a funeral pyre around him, Polycarp uttered his final prayer and praise to God, and after his “Amen,” the fire was lit. And yet by some miracle, the fire would not consume him, and so the executioner was commanded to stab him with a dagger, and the report is that so much blood came out that it put the fire out.
It was these kinds of acts of courage, love, resistance, and martyrdom, that eventually won the world over to the Christian faith. And while we pray fervently that such days of persecution never arise in our nation, we must always be ready in principle to suffer and die for the sake of Christ. We must always have ready at hand, the apostolic conviction, that “we must obey God rather than men.”
Caesar has his jurisdiction, he has duties before the Lord which he will answer for, but there are limits to that authority established by Jesus Christ.
So as we consider the year ahead of us, we must remember first and foremost that is the year 2024 Anno Domini, the year of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is king, all authority belongs to him, and we want to see that authority manifested on earth as it is in heaven.
So I want to place before you three things that Caesar (our civil government) wants from you, that you must not give them. And they are:
1. Your children.
2. Your morals.
3. Your worship.
#1 – Your Children
To whom do your children belong?
Remember the word Jesus uses when speaking of giving to Caesar or giving to God is this word render, which means “to give back.” So if you want to know to whom something belongs, just ask yourself, who gave this thing to me? Where did it come from?
According to Isaiah 66:9, God is the one who opens and closes the womb. Caesar does not!
According to Psalm 127:3, “children are a heritage from the LORD,” not from Caesar.
Psalm 139 says that God formed our inward parts, He wove us together in our mother’s womb, and He wrote all our days in His book before we were even born.
So in a very real sense, children most certainly do not belong body and soul to Caesar, and they do not even belong to us as parents in the first instance. Children belong first and foremost to the God who created them and placed them in our arms. This means we parents are stewards, not owners, of these little humans God has given us. And as stewards, we are going to be judged by God as to how we return these children to Him.
What does God desire from us as parents? It says in Malachi 2:15, “He seeks godly offspring.” God does not merely want children from our marriages, he wants godly children from our marriages. And so he appends this warning in the next verse, “Therefore take heed to your spirit, And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.”
So children belong in the very first instance to God who gave them to us. They belong in the second instance to us as parents who are stewards. And then He commands certain duties of stewardship for fathers and mothers towards these children, so that they become the godly offspring that He desires.
So God does not just demand godly offspring and then leave us to figure it out. No, he gives us tools and instruments to accomplish this by faith, and those tools are the various duties He commands of us in Scripture.
What are some of those duties?
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.”
This means training your children to live as Christians, from their very earliest years, from birth to adulthood. It means requiring of them faith in Christ and obedience to His word, and doing with them what Deuteronomy 6 commands, “You shall teach God’s laws diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
Paul says it is the Father’s responsibility to make sure this happens. Ephesians 6:4 says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture (paideia) and admonition of the Lord.”
There are many methods by which this principle can be accomplished. The method might be homeschooling, or a co-op, or a private school, or a private tutor, and these methods may fluctuate and change as the years go by. But what must not be surrendered in any method, is the principle that your children receive a distinctly Christian education.
Jesus says that when a student is fully trained, he will become like his teacher (Luke 6:40), and so we should not expect to send our children to be taught by unbelievers and then expect them to turn out as the godly offspring God desires. We would be tempting God to expect good fruit from our disobedience.
Now our civil government has stacked the deck against Christian parents wanting to do this. We have to pay for the secular indoctrination of our neighbor’s children, while also trying to fund our own children’s Christian education. Financially, this can be a real challenge, and it is why CKA exists, and why we have things like the Christian Education Fund for our members. Because if we will not train our children “in the Lord,” the government is more than happy to train them in the ways of the world, and those ways lead to death.
If our children come from God, then we must do whatever it takes to give them back to God holier and more righteous than we found them.
Jesus says in Matthew 7:6, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine.” So do not give your children, who God claims are holy (1 Cor. 7:14), and who are more precious than pearls, do not give them to Caesar, to the dogs, or to the swine of our filthy culture.
The second thing you must render to God and not to Caesar is…
#2 – Your Morals
By morals I simply mean your biblical convictions about what is right and what is wrong.
When each of us became a Christian, we all had to acknowledge up front that we had sinned against God. This was a confession that whatever morals we had, we did not live up to them, OR our morals were wrong altogether.
And so from the moment we repented of our sins and trusted in Jesus, we were in essence declaring the words of Isaiah 33:22, which says, “The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, The Lord is our king; he will save us.” When we confess that Jesus is Lord, this is what we mean.
And so to become a Christian is to have your entire moral compass and sensibilities reshaped by God’s Word. Because Jesus is judge, Jesus is lawgiver, Jesus is king. What Jesus says, goes.
Now what kind of moral standards does our civil government and culture promote and enforce? Is it a Christian morality, or is it what the Bible calls immorality, lawlessness, injustice?
While there are still some remnants of our nation’s Christian heritage, weAmericans are an overwhelmingly immoral, apostate, and hypocritical people. We no longer believe the basic moral laws that God gave in the Ten Commandments. There are entire denominations of professing Christians who do not even know what the ten commandments are, and if they did they would not bother to keep them. It is in large part because of the church’s apostasy that we now have:
An economy built on envy, bribery, and false weights and measures.
We have parades and celebrations for the very sins that turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes.
We have denigrated marriage and motherhood and made “sanctuary states” for murdering the innocent.
And all of this while 70% of Americans claim to be Christian. This is what I mean by Americans being hypocritical. Jesus says to the Pharisees, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:8-9).
So I have two exhortations for you on this issue:
1. Do not let Caesar or our secular culture dictate your morality.
2. Do not make a hypocrite of yourself by claiming Christ while your heart is far from him.
As much as our world wants to normalize all that is wicked and ungodly, do not compromise, do not comply, do not be false to the truth.
The reason why so many churches folded like a cheap lawn chair when Covid happened, or whenWoke happened, or when the push for gay marriage happened, was because so many Christians were already living with a bad conscience, with unconfessed sins, and with hypocritical hearts.
When people are guilt-ridden, they are easy to manipulate. When a nation is addicted to sports and television and they watch pornography every day, they have no courage to stand for what is morally upright.
It is hard to be courageous when you have a guilty conscience. It is impossible to fight for freedom when you are a slave to your own appetites. This is how we got to $34 trillion of debt as a nation. We don’t know how to say to no to ourselves.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Our loss of liberty, and our voluntary (we voted for it) slavery, is because weas a nation, have rejected the authority of Jesus Christ.
As God says in Jeremiah 2:13, “My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
Our secular immorality can hold no water. Our “free” and “tolerant” and “liberal” society devoid of Jesus, can hold no water.
There is no other fountain of life and freedom than the fountain of forgiveness that Jesus offers. And so do not budge an inch on the law of God, because God’s moral law brings knowledge of sin, and sin is exactly what Jesus Christ has come to forgive. Do not rob yourself, or your neighbor of that knowledge. Because the knowledge of sin is the pre-requisite for the knowledge of salvation.
The third thing you must not ever give to Caesar is…
#3 – Your Worship
We already said that if Caesar wants you to call him “Lord” and burn incense to him, of course you must not comply. But not giving Caesar worship is just half of the commandment, there is still the give back to God what is God’s part that we must obey.
So practically how should we render ourselves to God?
Paul says in Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
If you want to know God’s will for your life, then offer your body to Him as a living sacrifice. How do you do that? By treating every action as an act of worship, and by treating every location, as a place of worship.
Worship in the strictest sense is to bow down and kneel before the Lord our maker (Ps. 95:6). It is to do physical obeisance at the same time you are reverencing and adoring Him in your heart. This is the special act of worship that we do privately in our homes when we pray, and publicly when we gather every Lord’s Day. And it is worship in this strict sense that inspires and informs worship in the broader sense of doing everything for the glory of God. How exactly do we do everything for the glory of God?
It says in Ecclesiastes 9:10, “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” And as Paul says in Colossians 3:23, “whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord.”
So what has God given you to do? Well give to Him the worship of doing that thing with all your might, heartily as unto the Lord. Because that is the altar upon which you offer yourself as a living sacrifice.
Does it feel like death to do the dishes with a good attitude? Does it feel like dying to continue on in that job you don’t really like but have to do to pay the bills? Well, that’s what being a living sacrifice feels like at times. What turns those often-monotonous routines into worship is that you render them to God as an offering.
You say in your heart, “God, I am flipping this burger for You.” “God, thank you for this vomit I get to clean out of the carpet and my hair.” “God, thank you for this co-worker who gets on my nerves, help me to show them the love of Christ.”
When you do those things with lovefor God in your heart, and love for your neighbor, you are starting to do it for the glory of God. That is how you turn every time and every place into an altar for worship.
The is how you render to God the things that are God’s.
Conclusion
We are going into an election year, and I expect there will be many opportunities for us to be loving, and courageous, and to witness for the truth.
And the truth that we must lead with is well summarized by our text Proverbs 16:6, “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: And by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.
We have good news for lawless sinners: that by God’s mercy, and the truth of Jesus Christ, the iniquities of our nation can be purged. Our sins can be cast into the bottom of the sea, never to be seen again.
Moreover, how can America depart from evil? By the fear of the Lord, and nothing else.
This is the message of hope to our hopeless world. This is the message of freedom for those who are guilt-ridden.
Jesus Christ already knows what you have done. And Jesus Christ has already died and rose to forgive those sins. So worship Him, obey Him, because as verse 7 says, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
I don’t know about you, but I do not expect 2024 to be a peaceful year in our nation. Primarily because there can be no peace until all our ways please the Lord. So while I do not expect much political peace, and much of that is outside my control, I do intend to pursue peace with God and peace in the church, by seeking to please Him, come what may. And it is that peace that I invite you all to zealously pursue as well, so that God will make even our enemies to be at peace with us.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Lesson 5: The Mode of God’s Indwelling (The Architecture of Reality: Sacred Time & Sacred Place in Holy Scripture)

The Architecture of Reality: Sacred Time & Sacred Place in Holy ScriptureLesson 5 – The Mode of God’s Indwelling
Prayer
Father, we thank you for your indwelling presence, and that you are closer to us than we are to ourselves. We praise you for this knowledge that is too wonderful for us, and so high that we cannot attain it. And so we ask for help now as we attempt to ascend to You, give us the mind of Christ, for we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Review of Lesson 4
Last time we were exploring how the Tabernacle and the Temple are humaniform structures, that is, they are buildings that have human features or characteristics. And when you put these all together, what you have is the tabernacle or temple as a symbol of the human person.
We already know from the New Testament that Christ and the saints are temples/tabernacles, but from the perspective of the Old Testament, it is the tabernacle or temple that is the pointer to God’s future presence in the person of Christ and in the church, his bride.
We saw last time that this is hinted at by the fact that the dimensions of both structures are given in terms of the proportions of our body (a cubit, a span, etc.).
More explicitly, we saw that in Hebrew, in 1 Kings 6:3, the temple is said to have a face (עַל־פְּנֵי֙ הֵיכַ֣ל “upon the face of the temple”).
If we continue reading, we discover that the temple also has shoulders and even ribs.
Again, this is somewhat obscured in English where they translate כָּתֵף (shoulder) as side (Ex. 27:14-15, 1 Kings 6:8, 7:29), and צְלָע֖וֹת (צֵלָע) (rib) as chambers. This is the same Hebrew word that is used to describe the rib that God took from Adam and then built into a woman (Gen. 2:21-22).
So the temple has human proportions, a face, shoulders, ribs, and more. Depending on how imaginative you want to get, there are other humaniform features you can find such as eyes, mouth, nose, stomach, legs, feet, etc.
It could be argued that everything that man builds/creates is inherently humaniform because we cannot help but fashion things after our own image. The highest form of sub-creation is the begetting of children who are in our very image and likeness. And then there is a descending scale of image bearing that other things have (cars, houses, computers, furniture, etc.). We cannot help but leave marks/traces of our human nature (intelligent design) on whatever we build.
In a similar way, God cannot help but leave traces of his wisdom on all that he fashions, and so when He gives us detailed instructions for a place of worship, and then says that Christ and the Church are those places, we have in these structures a fruitful place for learning about Christ and the Church, and even what it means to be human.
So this is what we mean by humaniform structures. Any questions?
Lesson 5 – The Mode of God’s Indwelling Presence
Tonight, we are going to begin our study of God’s special presence in the saints. By way of reminder, who can tell us the three ways in which God is said to be present?
Common Presence: as efficient cause of all that is.
Special Presence: by grace in the believer.
Hypostatic Presence: in Christ as the God-man.
We’ve already covered God’s common presence. In my sermon on Christmas Eve we studied hypostatic presence, and now we will explore God’s special presence in the saints. So the question before us is as follows:
In What Sense Does God Dwell In Us?
When the Bible speaks of God dwelling inside of us, what does this mean in reality (metaphysically)?
John 14:23 says, “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
Romans 8:10-11 says, “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
Colossians 1:27 says, “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
So we know based on these passages and many others that God/Christ/Holy Spirit dwells in us, but how should we understand God’s presence within us?
In order to answer this question, I want to proceed by way of a process of elimination, and so tonight we are going to look at all the ways in which God being inside of us cannot be true. And my hope is that by eliminating some of these false notions, it will help us better grasp the true sense/mode in which God indwells the saints.
Aristotle identified eight different senses in which one thing can be said to be “in” another (Physics IV, Chapter 3). Philosophers have made additions to this list, and the Bible supplies us with examples of just about all of these different ways in which one thing can be said to in another. So let us consider if any of these modes of being “in” can account for God’s dwelling in us, based on what Scripture says about who God is.
The Possible Modes of Being In Another
1. As a body is in place.
Example: Paul is in the Areopagus. Or, you are in this room and not at home.
Is God in us like a body is in place?
No, because God is not a body, He is immaterial, He is infinite, therefore it would be impossible for God to be in us like a body is in a place.
This is however the primary(?) metaphor in the Bible for how God indwells us. The question we are asking is, “What does this metaphor of God being in us like a king is on his throne, or like a glory cloud is in the sanctuary, actually mean?”
To grasp the truth of this metaphor we have to first negate and strip away any body-ness or finitude about God. For as Solomon says in 1 Kings 8:27, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!”
So God is not in us like a body is in place.
2. As a part is in the whole.
Example: A finger is in the hand.
Is God in us like a finger is in the hand? God is the finger, and we are the hand, and so without God we are not wholly a hand.This is false for many reasons. Why?God is altogether simple and unchangeable, which means he has no real composition in himself, there are no parts in God, for “all that is in God is God.” So whereas we are composed of soul and body, God is a spirt, and you can’t take any parts of God and attach it to something else. (https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.I.Q3.A7)If God was in us like a finger is in the hand, this would make God finite, and it would make us a part of God. This is monism, pantheism, etc.
So God is not us as a part is in the whole, and logically this means that God is also not in us in Aristotle’s second mode, which is as the whole is in its parts.
3. As the whole is in its parts.
Example: A hand is in the fingers, for there is no whole hand over and above the parts (fingers).
So God is not in us as a part is in the whole or as the whole is in the part, because this would make God dependent on creatures. He could not be God without us.
4. As a species is in its genus.
Example: The species (man) is in the genus (animal).
An animal is just a something that has a sensitive nature, i.e. some kind of sense organs (it can see, taste, touch, smell, and hear). We call this the sensitive soul. So man has five senses which places him in the genus animal (unlike plants). And then what kind of animal is he? He is the kind of animal that has a rational soul. In biblical terms, this is the image of God that distinguishes us from the animals.
So we say that man has the specific difference of rationality which is inthe genus (larger category) animal. And likewise, we can say that the genus animal (a sensitive nature) is in the species man.
5. As the genus is in the species.
Example: The animal (genus) is in the man who is of the species rational animal.
So is God in us like a genus is in its species or like a species is in its genus?
If God was in us like a genus is in a species, then that would make us God, which is false. Isaiah 46:5 says, “To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal and compare Me, that we should be alike?”If God was in us like a species is in a genus, then that would make us higher than God, which is false.
In our mind, a genus is prior to what it contains, but nothing is prior to God either mentally or in reality. Therefore, God is not in any genus, and therefore also not in any species. For example, there is not a genus called divinity, wherein the Christian God is contained, rather, the Christian God just is divinity. (For more on this read: https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.I.Q3.A5)
6. As form is in matter.
Example: The soul (immaterial form) is in the body (matter).
Is God in us like the soul is in the body? God is the form, and we are the matter.We already handled this question under God’s Common Presence and said the answer is “No,” because pantheism.This is also impossible because whatever is composed of matter and form is a body (that is, it has dimensive quantity, exists in three dimensions: height, width, length.) But God is not a body as already stated, and God is infinite. (https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.I.Q3.A1)
God is not even in Christ as a form is in matter, because finite matter cannot contain the infinite divinity. Which is why we say that in the hypostatic union, the Son of God joined a human nature to his Divine person.
7. As an accident is in substance.
To understand this mode of indwelling, we have to explain what an accident is and what a substance is.
By accident we do not mean something that is unintentional (like a car accident), but rather as something that does not have existence in itself. Accidents, by definition, only exist in a substance.
For example, whiteness is an accident that exists in the substance Socrates, and yet if Socrates goes out in the sun and gets dark/tan, he is still Socrates despite no longer being white.
So substance is the principle of unity and self-identity that persists across all accidental changes.
In Aristotle’s famous ten categories/predicaments, which is his attempt to adequately reduce the entire created order into its most basic categories/predicates, there is first substance, and then 9 accidents (quantity, quality, relation, place, time, posture, having/habitus, action, passion) which only have existence in a substance. These accidents help us account for different kinds of change in the world.
To give you a few other examples, the accident in Centralia is in all of us substances sitting here, and yet we will still all be ourselves if we leave Centralia.In Centralia is accidental to our being.
The accident hard-working is in the substance Hank Doelman, so Hank has hard-working as a quality or habit of his being, but if Hank retired and did nothing but crossword puzzles all day, he would lose that habit of hard-working (unless those crossword puzzles are really hard!).
So is God in us like an accident is in a substance? Obviously not.
God is not an accident that only has existence insofar as He is in us, this is absurd and blasphemous.
God is not even a substance in that there is not a genus substance into which God can be placed, for we cannot know what God is in this life (Job 36:26). God is therefore “super-substantial,” or "substance beyond substance."
8. As an agent is in its patient. (As an efficient cause it is in its effects.)
Example: As Tolkien is in Middle-Earth.
Yes! God is in us as the one who gives us our very existence (“in him we live and move and have our being,” Acts 17:28). However, this is God’s Common Presence in all things and all people, not His Special Presence in the saints.
Closing Question: Are there any other modes or ways that we say that one thing is in or united to another that you can think of?
Next time we will study the actual way in which God indwells the sai

Sermon: Render To Caesar (Mark 12:13-17)

Render to CaesarSunday, January 7th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 12:13-17
13 And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words. 14 And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 15 Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. 16 And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s. 17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.
Prayer
O Father, we praise You for impressing upon our soul the image of the Holy Trinity. We thank you for creating us in your image and likeness, and for writing upon our foreheads the Name that is above all names. We thank you also for ordaining the governing powers that be, and we ask that you would establish them in righteousness so that instead of groaning your people might rejoice. Teach us to render to each man what is their due, but most of all to give back to you our very selves, whole and entire. We ask for Your Spirit now in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
It is Tuesday of Passion week in Mark’s gospel, andJesus is continuing to faceoff against the Jewish authorities in the temple. And it is these interactions that will provoke and bring about Jesus’ crucifixion a few days later.
Recall that Jesus has just cleansed the court of the Gentiles, which was to be a place of prayer for all nations. He then masterfully refuted their questioning of where his authority comes from (from God or from man) by standing in solidarity with John the Baptist. Where John’s authority came from, so also Christ’s. And then last week we saw that Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Jewish leaders/husbandmen in the parable of the vineyard.
What was the sin of these husbandmen/tenants in the vineyard? It was twofold, first they were stealing God’s stuff, not giving to God the tribute or fruit He deserved. And second, they were killing the prophets and messengers that God had sent to them. They refused John the Baptist, and now they are refusing God himself in Jesus Christ.
Malachi 3:1-3 prophesies of both John and Jesus’ ministry in these terms: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, Even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.”
What is Jesus doing in these arguments with the Jews? He is purifying the sons of Levi (the priests, the scribes, the elders). He is coming like a refiner’s fire so that only gold and silver will remain. And the purpose of all this cleansing is so that God’s people “may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.”
Israel is God’s vineyard, God still wants the fruit of love and good works and justice from them, and He is going to get that fruit one way or another. So God prunes us to make us more fruitful. God purges us with fire to make us more glorious. What destroys the evil in us, makes us more like God.
Now all of this is important context for understanding the hypocrisy of the question the Pharisees and Herodians pose for Jesus, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give?” Do you see the hypocrisy?
Here are the husbandman from Jesus’ parable who refuse to give God His tribute, they refuse to give God the fruit that He deserves, and yet here they are now pretending in front of Jesus to be torn on this question of whether it is really lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not, as if there is some tension between paying taxes to Rome and giving God His due.
This is kind of like someone who refuses to pay their tithes to God, but then wants to object to paying their income taxes on religious grounds. They claim “no king but Christ” when it comes to paying their taxes, but then they don’t give to God as king what actually belongs to Him. So this the hypocrisy Jesus is going to expose.
So we’ll consider this text at two levels.
First, we’ll try to understand what Jesus is teaching and how it would apply in the 1st century. And that is going to require a lot of historical background.
And then next week we’ll attempt the more difficult work of applying this to us living in the 21st century, where I’ll give a kind of State of the Church 2024 message.
So this sermon might leave you with some practical questions, and we’ll try to handle those next week.
Verse 13
13 And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words.
Who are the they that are sending the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus?
These are the same “chief priests, scribes, and elders” he started talking to back in Mark 11:27. They are the highest Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, and together they composed the Sanhedrin, which is kind of like the Jewish Supreme Court. They are also the “husbandmen/tenants” that Jesus just described in his parable of the vineyard.
So the chief priest, scribes, and elders send the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus.
Why send these two groups to Jesus to ask this specific question about paying tribute to Caesar? The Sanhedrin are clearly setting a trap for Jesus, but what trap are they setting, why send the Pharisees and Herodians?
The reason is because the Pharisees and Herodians were theological enemies on some issues (like who the Messiah was), but they were united in that Jesus was threat to both of their power.
Who were the Herodians?
The Herodians likely believed that Herod and his sons were the rightful heirs of the Davidic monarchy. For them, the Herodian line was the coming of the Messiah, and in proof of this they could point to various exploits and actions of Herod the Great, chief of which was that he rebuilt the temple at Jerusalem.
In 20 BC, Herod leveled the temple that was built by Zerubbabel in Ezra and Nehemiah’s day (Ezra 5), and he expanded and beatified the structure into one of the greatest wonders of the world at that time.
It’s also interesting, especially in the light of Jesus’ parable of the vineyard, that one of the additions Herod made to the temple was the construction of an enormous gold and jeweled grape vine that hung above the entrance to the sanctuary. Ancient writers speak of how beautiful this golden grape vine was and so Herod was in many respects, the one responsible for making Jerusalem and the temple externally glorious again. Jerusalem was a real tourist destination because of the beauty of its temple.
Furthermore, during Herod the Great’s reign there was a time of severe famine in Judea, and Herod generously fed the nation and kept them from starving. He was perhaps in some minds like a new Joseph in this respect. And so despite being born from an Edomite father, Herod had a Jewish mother and claimed to be a Jew, and that was enough for some people to accept his rule.
At the same time, this was the same Herod the Great who tried to kill Jesus as a child. He ordered the slaughter of all the male infants born in Bethlehem, because such a child born according to the Scriptures threatened his claim to be the king of the Jews.
So that was Herod the Great he died around 4/1 BC, and at his death the kingdom was divided amongst three of his sons. Herod Archelaus was made ruler of Judea/Jerusalem but was removed after 9 years by Rome for his incompetence, and from then on Judea/Jerusalem became a Roman province and subject to paying tribute to Caesar (6 AD).
One of Herod the Great’s other sons, Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee in the North and Perea (to the East), and he is the one we met earlier who killed John the Baptist, and he is the Herod that these Herodians represent.
So the Herodians had a complicated relationship with Rome, and the Jews had a complicated relationship with Herod. Herod was a kind of buffer between the Jews and Caesar, and while far from ideal, many Jews preferred to be ruled by an impious quasi-Jew like Herod, instead of being ruled directly by pagan Romans.
This is not unlike our situation today in that most Christians would prefer to have as President or Governor, someone who is a professing Christian even if they are immoral and hypocritical, rather than an avowed atheist or anti-Christian in power. Herod was the lesser of two evils as far as many Jews were concerned.
So the Herodians were pro-Roman in that they derived their power and actual authority from Rome. Herod Antipas could be deposed by Caesar if he got out of line. At the same time, Herod was interested in expanding his power to include Judea/Jerusalem as well, just like his father Herod the Great. This is likely what is behind the comment in Luke 23:12 during Jesus’ trial, that “Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves.”
So Herod needed Rome, but he also eyed Jerusalem as a place he would love to govern.
There is a lot of politics happening in the gospels and different parties jockeying for power, and the Herodians were one faction.
The Pharisees on the other hand were the more “orthodox” and “conservative” party in that they rightly believed that the Messiah had to be a real Jew, from the tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem, and descended from David. And since Herod the Great was an Edomite, and had murdered his wife, and many other family members, and Herod Antipas was not much better, it was clear that he was not the promised Messianic king.
So the Pharisees rightly rejected Herod’s messianic pretensions, they knew better, and their chief concern was to maintain their own power and eventually regain real Jewish sovereignty in Judea. So they did not like paying tribute to Caesar, but they had no choice and so paid it anyways.
Summary: Despite whatever theological disagreements there were between Pharisees and Herodians, they were united in their hatred for Jesus, and thus as it says in verse 13 they want, “to catch him in his words.”
What is the trap they are going to set?
Verse 14-15a
14 And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 15 Shall we give, or shall we not give?
Well as it says in Psalm 12:2, “With flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.” These Herodians and Pharisees set their trap with flattery and false compliments to Jesus.
They say that Jesus is true. They say that Jesus judges justly, that is without respect of persons (he “carest for no man”). They say that Jesus teaches the way of God in truth.
And in all this flattery there is a double irony. First in that they themselves are doing the opposite of everything they are applauding in Jesus.
And second, while they intend these compliments falsely, in reality they are speaking truer words than they realize.
Because Jesus really is the truth. Jesus really does judge without respect of persons. Jesus really does teach the way of God and is himself the way the truth and the life.
So while the Pharisees and Herodians think they are setting a trap for Jesus, they are really setting a trap for themselves.
As it says in the next verse in Psalm 12:3, “The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, And the tongue that speaketh proud things.”
Now before we see how Jesus cuts of these flattering lips, let us consider the human cunning behind their question, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?”
What outcome are the Sanhedrin hoping for? In their minds this is win-win question no matter how Jesus answers.
1. If Jesus says “yes, it is unlawful to give tribute to Caesar,” then they can have him arrested by the Romans for stirring up rebellion. “He claims to be a king, and now he’s telling people not to pay their taxes, that is the definition of treason and sedition, therefore he must die.”
A few days later, when they actually do arrest him and drag him before Pontius Pilate, they are going to run this same play. It says in Luke 23:2, “And they began to accuse Him, saying, ‘We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.’”
Pilate sees through this false accusation and sends him to Herod. But you can see that this is the charge they are trying to make stick to Jesus.
2. The other option is that Jesus says “no, it is lawful to pay tribute to Caesar,” and then he loses the favor of the masses who expect him, as the Messiah, to throw off Roman oppression and restore to the Jews their political and economic freedom.
So as far as the Sanhedrin are concerned, either Jesus alienates his “base,” the Jewish masses who want to enthrone him as king and get some tax relief, OR he incriminates himself by saying tribute to Caesar is unlawful, and they can charge him with sedition. In their minds, this is the perfect question with a win-win outcome. Whatever he answers, Jesus will lose his influence.
How does Jesus respond?   
Verse 15b
But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it.
So Jesus openly says, “why are you testing me?” He wants them to know that he knows that they are being hypocrites.
This question about the lawfulness of paying tribute is not an actual question, it is merely hypothetical, because if any of them actually refused to pay the tribute, they would lose the very thing they are desperately trying to hold onto, namely their status and authority which Rome gives them.
And so at first he does not answer their question, but rather asks them to bring him a Roman denarius (translated as penny in the KJV).
The denarius was a standard issue Roman silver coin (you can see a picture of it in the bulletin),and it represented about a day’s worth of labor (Matt. 20:2). So if minimum wage is $15 an hour, and you do 8 hours of work, a denarius would be roughly equivalent to $120. So it’s not a lot, but it’s something. And everyone in Judea was required to pay this tribute/head-tax.
Now remember, because Jesus was living in Galilee, he was in Herod’s jurisdiction, not Pontius Pilate’s, and therefore this tribute/tax did not actually apply to Jesus. He did not have to pay it. So the Sanhedrin could appear to be asking Jesus this question because he is an outsider, He’s a Galilean. He is a neutral third-party judge who can settle this “intramural question” among the Jews. Does it violate God’s law to pay tribute to Caesar?
One of the arguments that some zealots used against paying this tax, was that the money itself was idolatrous and blasphemous.
Leviticus 26:1 says, “Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land…”
And if you look at the coin, you can see that on one side is a graven image of Caesar, and written upon it says, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus,” and on the other side, PONTIF MAXIM, “High-Priest.”
So on this coin, was a graven image and Caesar was claiming to be both son of God and high-priest. And so the argument goes that to pay such tribute was to break the first commandment. It was to commit idolatry. And no such images should be allowed in the holy temple.
A generation earlier, in the year 6 AD, a man named Judas the Galilean led a tax revolt against this tribute to Caesar, and he is quoted as saying, “They are cowards who would endure to pay a tax to the Romans, and would after God, submit to mortal men as their lords.” The logic of these zealots was that Israel was a sovereign theocracy ruled by God and God alone, and therefore no foreign power could extract tribute from them.
And while that might sound biblical and pious, it is actually the opposite of what God had commanded after the first temple was destroyed (see Jeremiah, Daniel, etc.).
So these zealots were the more extreme “Jewish nationalists” who wanted to set up God’s kingdom by force, rather than submit to the authorities God had placed over them, and the reward for their zealotry was that Rome violently destroyed them. It would be this same zealotry that would spark the final war between Rome and Jerusalem which Jesus will foretell in the next chapter (Mark 13).
So the Pharisees and Herodians and the Jews are all aware that this tribute to Caesar is a touchy subject. People had died rebelling against it a generation earlier, and there was a diversity of opinion about whether such tribute and revolt was lawful or not.
But Jesus sees through this trap, and calls them on their hypocrisy by telling them, “Bring me a penny, that I may see it.”
What is Jesus doing by asking for this coin? He is making them answer their own question. If they bring him the coin, then they reveal that they believe it is lawful and therefore lose whatever influence they had with the populists. If they don’t bring him the coin, then the charge of sedition and disloyalty to Rome can be leveled at them. Jesus has now put them in a lose-lose dilemma.
What do they do?
Verses 16a
16 And they brought it.
So they could have said, “we don’t have any, we have the courage of our convictions and refuse to pay such idolatrous (or oppressive) tribute to Caesar.” But by the very fact of them having and bringing to him such a coin, within the Temple complex, they are revealing where they stand on this question. They cannot pretend to be sympathetic with the zealots or Jewish masses.
Jesus goes further and makes them acknowledge what is on the coin.
Verse 16b
And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s.
Whatever arguments they pretend to have against paying this tribute, whether theological, political, or otherwise, Jesus is exposing as hypocrisy.
The fact that they have a denarius, and know what is on it, and all of them pay it, proves that their question about its lawfulness is hypocritical.
Nevertheless, Jesus gives them an answer to their question that makes them marvel.
Verse 17
17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.
What is Jesus saying in answer to their question? Is it lawful or not?
The crucial word in Jesus’ answer is this word “render” (Ἀπόδοτε), which means to give back to someone. And since you can only give back to someone what was first given to you from them, the question becomes, what is it that Caesar had given to the Jews?
For starters, the denarius that bears his image and inscription was only in circulation because Caesar made it so. And what that coin and tribute represented was the many other blessings that Caesar had provided for them, like safety and protection from foreign invaders.
Before Rome had authority over Jerusalem, the region was fraught with civil wars and constant threats from other nations and empires. Jerusalem was geographically located at the crossroads of many trade routes, and so it was a very strategic city that any empire would want to occupy.
So humanly speaking, Caesar and the Roman Empire provided the security, stability, and peaceful conditions for the Jews to worship God and even prosper.
And for those who knew the prophets well, especially the book of Daniel, God had revealed that the Jews would be governed by four subsequent foreign empires until the coming of the Messiah (Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and then Rome). This is what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2 foretold (the great statue), it is what God revealed to Daniel in Daniel 7 with the four beast empires, and so the Jews should have known that if they kept covenant with God, He would take care of them just like he had in Esther’s day, just like he had preserved them under the Assyrians, preserved them under the Babylonians, preserved them under the Persians, and so forth.
If they obeyed God and were faithful to Him, these beast empires would eventually either convert or God would replace them. Which is exactly what happened in those 400 years between Old and New Testament.
And so when we read in Romans 13, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God,” we have restated for us what the policy had always been: Bear witness, be faithful, worship God alone, keep the commandments, and unless the government is requiring you to sin (bowing down to the image), submit to their authority, pay the tribute. Maybe its theft, maybe its unjust, maybe its tyrannical, but it is not a sin to be stolen from. It is not a sin to give back to Caesar what Caesar has made.
Paul says more explicitly in Romans 13:6, “for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.”
Now it is this second part of Jesus’ answer that really makes the crowd marvel, “Render to God the things that are God’s.”
If the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears his image, what bears God’s image? Caesar. You. Everyone. Everything belongs to God, and therefore we can trust that when we give back to Caesar what God commands, namely tribute/taxes, we are giving to God what belongs to God. Because all things come from Him and the powers that be are ordained by Him.
And so Jesus is calling all of his hearers to not only give to Caesar his due, but to give back to God what God has first given to them, and that means giving to God our everything, our heart, our soul, our mind, our strength, our breath, our time, our talent, our treasure.
And when you truly belong to God and offer yourself to Him, and you know that God is the power behind all earthly powers, including the evil ones, you can live in the midst of a wicked world with “a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5).
Or as it says in 1 Peter 2:16-17, we can live “as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. 17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.”
The Jews wanted to use God as a cloke for their envy, and greed, and maliciousness. The Jewish zealots tried to use God as their justification for rebellion, and murders, and civil wars.
And in a similar way Christians, especially those living under oppressive and wicked regimes (as we are) will be tempted to use God and the Scriptures as a cloke for all kinds of things that are actually disobedience to Him.
So we need to get really clear in our minds what belongs to Caesar, and what does not, and we will work on that next week. But you cannot actually answer that question unless you know first and foremost what belongs to God, and whose image you bear.
Conclusion
Jesus Christ suffered and died and rose again, so that the image of God in you, could be renewed and transformed into the image of Christ. As Paul says in Romans 8:28-29, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son…”
The life of a Christian, whether under Caesar or under any other authority, is one in which if you love God, He will make all things conspire for your good. And what is that good? That you are conformed into the image of Christ.
There is no higher good or higher reward than to know God and be made more like Him. So render to your Creator the life He has given, and He will give it back to you immortal and resurrected and far more glorious than before.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: Lord of the Vineyard (Mark 12:1-12)

Lord of the VineyardSunday, December 31st, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 12:1–12
1And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winevat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. 2And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. 3And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. 4And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled. 5And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some. 6Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. 7But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. 8And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. 9What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others. 10And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: 11This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? 12And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people: for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them: and they left him, and went their way.
Prayer
Father, we praise You who are Lord of the Vineyard. We thank you for sending your beloved son, to suffer and die on our behalf, so that we might become heirs of your kingdom. Make us to abide in Christ who is the vine, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
When God created the first man, it says in Genesis 2:15 that, “the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” The very first job that mankind was given, was to be a guardian and servant in God’s Garden. God had already planted the garden, it was already bearing fruit, and Adam’s job was to be a faithful steward and cultivator of what God had given him. Moreover, when Adam and Eve were married, God commanded them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Together they were to extend the fruitfulness of God’s Garden to wherever the four rivers from Eden flowed.
Later in Israel’s history, we learn that the priests were given this same task of guarding and keeping the Tabernacle. In Solomon’s Temple there were cherubim and palm trees and flowers and pomegranates carved into the walls, so that to enter the Temple was like entering the Garden of Eden again. To worship at the temple was to return to Paradise.
Likewise in Ezekiel’s Visionary Temple there was a river of healing waters that flowed from the sanctuary. It says in Ezekiel 47:12, “Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
So from the very beginning, God gave to man the task of tending God’s garden sanctuary. Adam, like a priest, was to cultivate God’s vineyard and give Him the produce from it. This was instituted in the law by the various harvest festivals wherein the Israelites would bring their first fruits, their tithes and offerings, and offer them to God at His sanctuary.
Of course, these literal fruits were themselves symbolic of the person offering them. We are made out of earth, we cultivate the earth, the earth feeds us, and so to give God the fruit of the earth is to give Him a portion of ourselves.
We offer to God our first and our best produce as a sign that He owns us. We give Him tribute and a tithe to remind ourselves that we are stewards, we are servants, and God is in charge, He is Lord, He is master, and to Him belongs all things.
If we were to survey the entirety of Scripture, we would learn that human beings are signified by different kinds of plants and trees. Perhaps most famously in Psalm 1, we read that the person who meditates upon the law of God day and night is, “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, That bringeth forth his fruit in his season; His leaf also shall not wither; And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: But are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.”
So in the Bible, there are wicked men who are thorns and thistles, chaff and bramble bushes. And then there are the godly, the saints, who are as cedars of Lebanon, as pillars in the house of God, as Jachin and Boaz at the entrance of the temple. Or they are as Esther, whose name is Hadassah which refers to the humble and fair myrtle tree. Or they are as children who grow up like olive trees around the table. Or as Psalm 144:12 prays, “That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; That our daughters may be as pillars, Sculptured in palace style.”
So from Genesis to Revelation, human beings are portrayed as different kinds of plants and trees. And the nation of Israel itself is identified among other things as the vineyard of God.
We heard in Isaiah 5:7 that God says, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression; For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.”
So people are trees, the vineyard is the nation of Israel, and what is the fruit that God desires? In Isaiah 5 it is justice and righteousness.
In Galatians 5 Paul expands this saying that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” This is what means to bear fruit for God.
When God placed Adam in the Garden to tend and keep it, he put him there to bear spiritual fruit. And the test for Adam was to obey God, by not stealing fruit from one forbidden tree. This test, Adam and Eve failed, and the history of Israel in the Old Testament is the story of many sons and daughters of Adam failing again and again.
So when Jesus comes along and tells this parable of the vineyard, we find that unlike some of Jesus’ other parables, this one is pretty easy to understand. So easy that even the scribes and Pharisees and elders can interpret it.
So this morning I want to consider this parable from two different perspectives:
First, we’ll consider it in its original historical setting as a judgment from Jesus upon the leaders in Jerusalem.
Second, we’ll apply this parable to the church today because we are now the vineyard of the Lord.
So we’ll look at this parable first as it applies to Jesus audience, and then as it applies to us.
#1 – Exposition of the Text
Verse 1
1And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winevat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.
So let’s identify the different characters and figures in this allegory.
Who is the “certain man” who planted the vineyard? This is God, and specifically God the Father. He is later called the Lord of the Vineyard who sends his well-beloved son.
What is the “hedge” around the vineyard? Most likely this refers to the law of God which separated Israel from the nations, or perhaps the angels who were ordained to administer that covenant. Paul says in Galatians 3:19, “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.”
So this hedge around the vineyard might be the law, it might be the angels, whatever the case, there is a hedge of protection around this vineyard.
What about the winevat? A winevat is a place where grapes are treaded and crushed into liquid. The winevat holds the blood of the grapes. In Isaiah 63:2-3 we read of God trampling his enemies “like a man treadeth in the winevat.” Since this is the place where the blood of the grapes is poured out, this is almost certainly a reference to the altar of sacrifice in the temple court.
As for the “tower” in the vineyard, this likely refers to the temple and sanctuary, which was the center of the nation and the high place to which all of Israel looked.In the parable,this tower would have functioned as a place to oversee what is happening in the vineyard.
What about the “husbandmen (γεωργοῖς)”? Who are they? A husbandman is a farmer, specifically a vine dresser in this case, and they are contract workers or tenants who lease the land from the owner in exchange for giving the owner a certain amount of fruit as rent.
By the end of this parable, the scribes, pharisees, and elders recognize that Jesus is talking about them. They are husbandmen, they are the God-ordained authority figures in Jerusalem who have been entrusted to guard and keep the people. They are the shepherds, they are the farmers, they are the overseers of God’s property. But they are renters/tenants who have contractual obligations to the owner while he is away in a far country.
So that’s the basic setup. Let us see now how this plays out.
Verses 2-5
2And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. 3And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. 4And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled. 5And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some.
Who are these servants that the Lord of the Vineyard sends? They are the prophets. Prophets are the ones who enforce the law of the covenant when it is not being kept.
Ordinarily, the husbandmen would be doing this (this is their job). But when the priests, and scribes and elders are failing in this duty, God raises up a prophet, sometimes from among them, sometimes from outside their ranks, and he sends that prophet to “enforce the contract,” to call them to repent and obey what they swore to do.
It says in Amos 3:7, “Surely the Lord God does nothing, Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.”
So God sends Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Joel, Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Jonah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and most recently, John the Baptist. And the message of all of these prophets could be summarized as, “repent and keep covenant with the Lord.” Listen to how John the Baptist preached this message, and note all the references to trees and fruit:
He says in Matthew 3:8-10, “Bring forth fruits keeping with repentance: 9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. 10 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”
So John is the last of old covenant prophets, he is the last of the servants sent by the Lord of the Vineyard to receive fruit from Israel. And John’s message is that if you do not bear fruit, the axe is laid at the root of the trees, ready to cut you down and cast you into the fire.
How did the husbandmen respond to such a message? The scribes and pharisees refused John’s baptism, they refused to repent, and they are delighted when Herod cuts off his head.
Remember the context of this parable is that Jesus has just asked the leaders of Jerusalem, whether the baptism of John was from heaven, or from men. And they could not answer. And so Jesus gives them this parable as a final warning about where they are in the timeline of the story.
Jesus is giving them in story form what he will later make explicit in his “Woe’s” against these husbandmen. Jesus says in Matthew 23,“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. 32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? 34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. 36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings, and ye would not! 38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”
This is the judgment that these husbandmen are going to receive if they do not repent and keep the covenant. And so in verses 6-9, Jesus describes that immanent destruction in these terms…
Verses 6-9
6Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son.
7But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.
8And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.
9What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.
In Matthew’s version of this same parable, Jesus says, “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”
So this a prophecy about a transfer of power from the leaders in Jerusalem, to Christ and the apostles.The husbandmen will be deposed, they will be fired, andthe Lord of the Vineyard will give to the Son all authority in heaven and on earth, and then the Son delegates that authority to the Apostles as they lay the foundation for the church.
The church is the new vineyard that God plants in Jesus Christ. Christ’s body is composed of both Jew and Gentile, and together, we are as it says in 1 Peter 2:9-10, “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God…”
Paul says explicitly in 1 Corinthians 3:9, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry (γεώργιον, cultivated land), ye are God’s building.”
The church is God’s vineyard, we are now that holy nation who is to bring forth the fruit that the Lord of the Vineyard desires.
Jesus then concludes his parable by asking these husbandmen, the Sanhedrin, if they know their own song book. He says…
Verses 10-12
10And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: 11This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? [that is a quote from Psalm 118:22-23]
12And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people: for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them: and they left him, and went their way.
So Jesus uses Psalm 118 to sum up the point of his parable. Which is that God himself is going to come to His vineyard in the form of a servant, he will be rejected, he will be murdered by the husbandmen, but somehow, miraculously, he will become the cornerstone for a new temple and a new nation. This is what the murder of the well-beloved son ironically brings about.For “this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
Well that’s our exposition, let us turn now to apply this parable to us as the church.
#2 – Application to the Church
Just as the nation of Israel had husbandmen/tenants to watch over and tend the vineyard for God, so also the church has elders and deacons and at times civil rulers to watch over her.
One of the major differences between Jesus’ parable of the vineyard, and the parable of the vineyard in Isaiah 5, is that in Isaiah the vineyard was destroyed and laid waste, whereas in Jesus’ parable, the wicked tenants are destroyed, and new tenants are installed, so the vineyard survives. Jesus says, “he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.”
So we see in the book of Acts, the remnant of faithful Jews was preserved, they became Christians. Gentiles were joined together with them as the gospel went forth. And the apostles ordained elders and deacons throughout the church to be the new tenants over God’s vineyard.
There is warning then in this parable for all who are in authority, but especially for us who have authority in God’s vineyard. And the warning is that if we are unfaithful tenants, if we do not keep and enforce the law of Christ, if we do not give the master his fruit in its season, then we also shall be destroyed.
How does the Apostle Paul refer to himself in so many of his letters? As “Paul a servant of Christ.” Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, Elders, Deacons, we are all servants and stewards who tend to God’s property. The saints are God’s vineyard, God wants the fruit of the Spirit, justice and righteousness must be growing among us, and our job as husbandmen, as servants, is to help make that happen.
Of course, we cannot in ourselves make anything grow, that is God’s job, but as Paul says, one man plants, another waters, but it is God who gives the growth.
So our job among you is to till the soil, to pull the weeds, to prune the branches, and keep our the little foxes that soil the vines. Our job is to make you sure get plenty of sunlight and nourishment (which can be hard to do in the PNW).
How do we do this? This is why we have Reformation Roundtable and Ladies Fellowship and Mid-Week Service and Psalm Sings and Feast days and do counseling meetings and elder visits. But most importantly this is what Lord’s Day Worship is, this is what our liturgy seeks to accomplish.
We confess our sins; we ask God to take away our bad fruit. We profess our faith; the creed is like a trellis for the vine to shows us how to grow up into Christ. We sing the psalms to teach us to how to pray, to teach us how to worship, how to feel and how to govern our feelings by the Holy Spirit.
We hear the word of God read. We fellowship together before and after service. We partake of communion. We play. We eat snacks. This is all light and fresh air that our souls desperately need.
And perhaps most importantly, we hear the word of God preached. Scripture tells us that preaching is like the scattering of seed upon the soil. James 1:21 says, “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”
Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” (1 Cor. 3:6).
So God through his servants, through his ministers, through the liturgy, through His Word, tends to his beloved vineyard, which is you.
Our job is to make sure that you are abiding in Christ and bearing fruit for God. And your job, is to bear fruit that remains.
So we each have our job. And all of us are going to have to give an account for what we did with what God entrusted to us. Were you a faithful member? Are you bearing fruit? Are you turning a profit on the trials and challenges that God has given you? Are you serving the Lord with joy, or do you have a bad attitude?
We have a great and high calling as the people of God. And so look to your branches. What are you producing? Paul says in Galatians 6:8-9, “For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Conclusion
When you read this parable and see how the wicked tenants treated the Lord’s servants, it is almost unbelievable that after all those deaths and beatings and mistreatment of his servants, that the Lord would think to send his most-beloved son and say, “they will reverence him” (vs. 6).
Imagine you owned a property on the other side of the country. And you hired someone to manage it for you, and had not received a single dollar of rent money in 15 years. You had sent letters, you had sent employees to go and collect what was owed to you. But instead the manager you hired killed those employees of yours and is now claiming your property as his own. How would you feel? What would you do?
First of all, none of us is that patient. None of us would allow 15 years to go by without getting paid from our property. Our patience would have been spent after the first year we were not paid and after the first servant got killed. And the last thing we would do is send what is most precious to us, our own child, to go and collect what is owed from such a wicked manager.
And yet, this is what God has done for the human race. He has been exceedingly and painfully patient with us and our sins. When he tells us his name, He calls himself “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Ps.103:8).
How many years have you not given to God the fruit that He deserves? How long will you go on sowing to your flesh and reaping corruption?
God sent Christ to give you a fresh start. So take it! Receive forgiveness. Repent and keep covenant. If you do this, you will be saved.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Fourfold Advent of Our Lord (Christmas Eve Evening Homily)

The Fourfold Advent of Our LordSunday, December 24th, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Psalm 50:2-32 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence…
Prayer
O Father, we praise you for your infinite wisdom. We thank you for making good on your promise to send a savior to crush the serpent’s head, to save the world from sin and death, and to renew all creation, so that your will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Come unto us now, by the power of your Holy Spirit, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, and Amen.
Introduction
Tonight, we celebrate the fourth and final Sunday of Advent. Advent simply means “coming” or “arrival,” and traditionally, the first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the new church year, and then the final Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of Christmastide, or the twelve days of Christmas. It was also customary in the church to preach a sermon on each Sunday of Advent that focused on one of the different comings/advents of our Lord. In Holy Scripture, Jesus is said to come to us in many ways, and so this is a season not only of remembering his first coming to earth as a baby, born of the virgin Mary, but also to remember the other ways he has promised to come to us. And so this evening I want to consider the fourfold coming/advent of our Lord. You can consider this four different advent sermons all condensed into one.
So what are the four ways in which Jesus is said to come to us in Holy Scripture?
#1 – The First Advent: Incarnation
The first, as I mentioned before, is Christ’s coming to us in the Incarnation.
This coming of God in the flesh, was prophesied in manifold ways in the Old Testament.
For example, Micah 5:2 speaks of a ruler who will come from Bethlehem, “Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”
Whoever this ruler is that will come from Bethlehem, is someone who also has existed from time everlasting, from ancient of days. Who else but God can be said to “go forth from everlasting?”
Likewise, Isaiah 9:6 speaks of a child who will be born, “And the government shall be upon his shoulder, And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Jesus is called Wonderful because a single name cannot suffice to describe all his excellency. As the angel of the Lord said to Samson’s father in Judges 13:18, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?”
Jesus is also called Counselor because he possesses the fullness of all wisdom.
He is called the Mighty God because His power is infinite.
He is called the everlasting Father, not referring to God the Father, but to the Son as the one who begets many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10), and as it says in Isaiah 22:21, “he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, And to the house of Judah.”
Jesus is also called The Prince of Peace because he is the one mediator between God and man, and as it says in Ephesians 2:14, “He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation.”
Who else but God could be this child born and given to rule forever? His goings forth were of old, even from everlasting, and yet this eternal Word from the Father was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).
So Christ comes to us in the fullness of time, born of a woman, born under the law, born to save us from our sins. The God who cannot change, the God who cannot die, took to himself a human nature, so that in our nature, he could die and in so doing conquer death (and our fear of death) once and for all. As Jesus says in John 10:18, “No one takes my life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” Who else can say this but God?
It is this first coming of Christ that establishes all the rest. And during his first advent and ministry on earth, Jesus promised also to come into us. And so we’ll call this second advent, “the coming of Christ into our soul.”
#2 – The Second Advent: Christ Comes into Our Soul
Jesus says in John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
How does Christ and the Father, come to dwell in us?
Well, first we must consider who we are as human beings, what are the “places” inside of us that God could possibly come and dwell in?
Because God is immaterial, it should be obvious that He cannot dwell in us like food dwells in our bodies.And of course, Jesus says in Matthew 15:17, “whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated.” So (transubstantiation notwithstanding) God does not come and dwell in our bodies in any corporeal or material fashion, nor could He, because God is a spirit (John 4:24).
So if it’s not our body that God comes into, well there is only one other place God could come and dwell, and that is in our soul.
In order to understand how God comes into our soul, we need to know what our soul is.
The soul is that which gives life to the body. In technical terms, we say the soul is the substantial form of the body, it is what gives us our shape. So the essence of human nature is to have soul and body joined together, and when they are separated, we call that death.
And yet within the soul, we can distinguish different powers. The highest of our powers are what we call rational/intellectual powers, in biblical terms this is the image of God in us, and is sometimes called the spirit, or the mind, or the heart (1 Thess. 5:23, Heb. 4:12, Mark 12:28). This refers to the strictly immaterial aspect of our soul which we can further distinguish into two powers or “places.”
1. Intellect/Reason, which is ordered towards the universal truth. Our intellect is where we apprehend, judge, and reason. It’s also where we abstract species from our physical senses and retain them in our memory.
2. Will/Rational Appetite, which is ordered towards the universal good. It is where we enjoy, delight, intend, deliberate, take counsel, and choose.
Put another way, the intellect is where we judge what is true, and the will is where we love what is good. And together these two rational powers are given to us by God to order everything beneath them (our appetites, our passions, emotions, etc.).
And it is in these two highest “places” of our soul that God comes and indwells us by grace. Christ dwells in us as the truth that we apprehend and hold onto (we call this faith), and Christ dwells in us as the object of our love, as the beloved is in the lover (we call this charity). When we tell our spouse or our children that they are “inside of our hearts,” this is basically what we mean. In a similar way Christ comes into us, and we are in Him.
Let give me you some examples of this from the New Testament.
Paul says Ephesians 3:17-19, I pray, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Likewise in 1 John 4:12-16 it says, “No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
Notice that in both these texts (and there are many others), God is said to come and dwell inside of us when we have true knowledge of Him by faith, and when we love God and love one another.
So if you want Christ to come and live within you, you must first know who He is in his first coming, and then adore Him. Jesus says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
That is the coming of Christ into our soul. So Christ comes first in the incarnation, He then comes by grace into our soul, and then the third advent/coming of Christ is when He comes to us at death.
#3 – Third Advent: Christ Coming to Us at Death
Jesus says in John 14:3, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
The context of this statement is the immanent death of Christ, and the fear the disciples have about Jesus dying and leaving them. And so to give them comfort, Jesus tells them that although he is indeed going away, he is going to prepare a place for them, and afterwards he will come and receive them to himself, so that they will be together always.
The place that Jesus is going is to the Father. Just before this in verse 2, he says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”
According to the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthian 5, our life in this mortal body is like living in a house that wears out, and breaks down, and has issues, and is eventually demolished. We are all fixer-uppers that eventually get bulldozed. And Paul says that while we are in this earthly house, “we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.”
The promise that Jesus gives his disciples, is that there is a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, that awaits us when we die. It is the Father’s house, and there are many mansions inside of it. That is, there are many ways in which we will enjoy the infinite happiness of God.
And so for the Christian, who has Christ dwelling in them by knowledge and by love, death is when Christ comes to us with an inseparable fullness. Death is when Christ brings us to the Father’s house, and we behold God face to face. For as Jesus promises in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).
If God is your refuge and strength in this life, then when you die, He will become your home and dwelling place forever. This is how Christ comes to us at death, to receive us into everlasting life.
Finally, Jesus promises to come again at the final judgment.
#4 – Fourth Advent: The Final Judgment
After Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts 1, the angels say to the disciples, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”
So just as Jesus ascended bodily into heaven, so also He shall come bodily back to earth.
This final coming in judgment is described in Revelation 20 as follows. John says, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”
This present life is passing away. We are only here a for a little while, and then judgment. And how you feel about the final coming of Christ, will depend upon how you respond to the first coming of Christ.
Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God? Do you receive from Him forgiveness for your sins? Do you love Him and embrace Him as your ruler, king, and master?
If so, then the final coming of Christ, will be your victory. It will be the day of your resurrection unto glory, it will be a day of crowning, and entrance into an ever-increasing enjoyment of His kingdom.
But if you refuse this Christ, if you do not repent of your sins. Then this life is as close to heaven as you’ll ever get. And that’s pretty sad. So do not choose the lake of fire, do not choose the second death. Choose Christ today, and know that this time when he comes, he will not keep silent.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.