Last week we celebrated both Good Friday and Easter. We saw through that weekend the whole picture of the Gospel message. We saw Jesus choose to go down the path that would lead to His death, because He knew that His death and His blood was the only thing that could save all of us from the consequences of our sin. He went through the trials, the mocking, the beating, the shame, the abandonment of friends, betrayal, and more, all the way to death to provide THE WAY, THE ONLY WAY, of salvation for each one of us.
We talked about all of that on Good Friday, but then we celebrated on Sunday that yes Jesus did in fact die, but just as He said that He would, He left that grave to be our living, Savior. His resurrection is the thing that ties everything together. Scripture tells us that if Jesus had stayed dead, that we wouldn’t have any hope and that we would still be lost in our sins. That would be terrible. But His resurrection finalized everything, it sealed the deal for the possibility of our salvation, and that’s why we stop and celebrate it every year. It was the final piece of the puzzle that brings the whole picture into view of how we as a human being can be saved in light of a Holy and awesome God. Please don’t ever lose the gravity and the significance of what it means for us, because we would be doomed without the events of Good Friday and Easter.
And it’s the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for our sins that is the core focus of the “broadcast Jesus” part in our church mission statement. These truths need to be shared, they need to be broadcast in every way and to every person that we possibly can. We come back each year to ground ourselves in these truths and then we live for the purpose of them.
But now on to this week.
We’re coming from the dramatic high point of the gospel message over Good Friday and Easter to now talking about … TAXES …yay?
It’s only a couple of verses, Jesus and the disciples get questioned about some taxes, but Jesus makes one interesting decision in these few verses that I believe gives us some good application to learn from. So, let’s read our passage for today.
Read Matthew 17:24-27
So, what’s going on here?
As we have seen many times before, Jesus and His disciples have traveled back into Capernaum. It’s like their main base of operations. There’s even family and family homes for some in this area. But as they arrive back today, there are tax collectors out and about. And so, some of these guys that were collecting the taxes approach Peter, in verse 24, and ask him a question.
Read Matthew 17:24
And now as we look at this, I want us to understand that this isn’t really a government required tax like we would understand today. We should all be really familiar with this right now, as our taxes are all due by Tuesday, I believe it is. And so, we probably understand the ways that we are taxed in these days, we are taxed for buying things, we’re taxed on our income from both the state and the federal government, there’s all types of other little taxes on specific things, there’s taxes on property, but generally we can understand taxes as part of our money that is required of us to collectively pay for different parts of the functioning of the government that is over us. That’s basically where taxes start and end for us these days.
Now, there will be another passage in a few chapters that deals with a government sponsored tax, but this one isn’t that this is a bit different. There’s still some politics wrapped up in this, and different groups with different opinions, and I was going to go into that a little bit, but I think we’ll save that conversation for another day and focus on a different point that Jesus makes here.
Like I said, this isn’t a government sponsored tax, because this actually a tax for the temple. Still some politics in play like I said, but it wasn’t supposed to be a political issue because this tax was a God instituted tax for the people of Israel. This tax was for the operating costs of the temple. This was put in to place by God back in Exodus 30.
Read Exodus 30:13-14
Every person that was twenty years old or older was required to give a half-shekel towards the temple. And the temple at this time was the tabernacle that we talked about a few weeks ago. This passage comes right in the middle of all of God’s instructions about the tabernacle while the Israelites were still out there in the desert.
So how much is a half-shekel?
The half-shekel at that time was worth two days wages. So, each year, everyone that was at least twenty was required to give up two days wages towards the operations of the temple. A little bit further down in Exodus 30, it says:
“And you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of meeting”
This was a God required offering, but a tax from the people that paid for the functioning of the temple. And so, it’s this tax that is still in place, it’s this tax that the tax collectors are asking Peter about in Matthew 17. They had asked Peter, “Does Jesus not pay this tax?”, and like always in these situations, it’s very likely that one of the religious political sides is trying to use this question again as some sort of trap to try to catch them up in. But Peter responds and says, “Yes”, He said Jesus pays His temple taxes. He kept the answer short and sweet, which is smart, less ammunition for these guys to work with, but then Peter heads back to the house to find Jesus.
Jesus, being Jesus, already knows what the conversation is going to be. Which must always be an interesting thing for these guys, instead of Peter coming in and relaying the conversation to Jesus, Jesus is already starting by asking Peter a question about the thing that he hasn’t told Him about yet. So, Jesus asks Peter about his thoughts on taxes.
Read Matthew 17:25-26
Jesus basically asks Peter, do kings that require taxes take the taxes from their own family, or do they take them from everyone else? And Peter’s says that they take them from everyone else. Jesus following Peter’s logic in verse 26 says, then the sons are free, they’re free from the taxes. The King isn’t going to charge his own family, he’s not going to charge his own sons.
The dots that Jesus is connecting here is that this Tax was called for by God, Jesus is literally God the Son, Peter had also been brought into the family, and so technically they should be free from the taxes. But … and I want us to catch this … even though Jesus should be exempt from the taxing … Jesus chooses not to be.
And this is where I want to start looking at our main point for this morning.
And we’re probably like, GREAT!, didn’t really want to be talking about taxes this morning, especially right in the middle of tax season right now.
The whole tax collection thing is just what is going on in this situation, but this turn that Jesus takes in the conversation, I think is the real lesson to be learned from this passage. Jesus was kind of explaining through this brief conversation with Peter that He of course and it sounds like Peter as well should be exempt from this temple tax. But Jesus says that we’re going to pay it anyways, and He makes this decision as He reflects with Peter about how others will be affected by His choice.
And it’s this sort of mindset that I want us to consider this morning. Sometimes we talk about this thing called, “our witness” as Christians.
And what does that mean?
These days we would probably think about a witness as a witness to a crime or something like that. Somebody saw something that happened, maybe saw the people involved, and now they are called to give testimony about the things that they have “witnessed”. But when we talk about our witness for Jesus, it’s kind of reversed in a way, it’s about us walking, talking, living, and doing the things that other people “are witnessing”, and are they witnessing a life that proclaims Jesus? Or are they seeing something completely different?
Jesus knew that they were technically exempt in this situation, but He also knew that if they didn’t join in the tax that it would have a poor effect on the other people involved. Jesus considered the results of their actions and came to the conclusion that it would be better for them do something that they didn’t have to do, if it would help people, then to not do it, and maybe confuse people or cause unnecessary controversy.
We really need this, others focused mindset, as we maintain our witness of Jesus to anyone watching.
That’s not to say that we automatically do or don’t do every last thing because it might bother one person in some way. But we absolutely need to consider the big picture of our actions, we need to consider what Jesus would have us do in a particular situation, we need to consider what affects our actions might have towards our witness of Jesus towards other people.
I say I follow Jesus, but if my actions look like I don’t, or if they in anyway seem to discredit or cheapen Him, then my actions are probably wrong at that moment.
Jesus was teaching Peter that lesson right now. Peter thought that he was just coming to talk about taxes, but instead in that simple choice and explanation that Jesus gave, Peter ended up getting a valuable lesson about his witness and mission. I want to go look at another passage together in Galatians 5.
Read Galatians 5:13-15
This is probably the clearest explanation of the mindset that Jesus is teaching to Peter back in Matthew 17. Paul is teaching the Galatian church and he is like, look, we have been made free, we have freedom in Jesus, BUT, this freedom is not to just to serve the wants of our own body and flesh, instead the heart of this freedom is a heart for others. The heart of this freedom says, how in love, can I serve the people around me?
In this freedom that Jesus has given me, it’s not all about me, it’s about Him, and it’s about others.
It requires actively considering how our actions are going to work out, how they will affect other people, how they will affect our witness for Jesus, how they will help or slow down our purpose and mission to tell others about Jesus.
Jesus knew that if they didn’t do this one thing, that they didn’t have to do, that it would hurt their mission towards some people. So, He called the play and He went down this other practical path, because it helped other people, not because it did anything for them. Let’s read some more of Galatians 5.
Read Galatians 5:16-26
Paul starts this passage talking about there being a little war going on between our flesh and the Spirit of God. For those of us that have been saved by Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God, we have God Himself inside of us. But we still live in these bodies of flesh, and our flesh has problems, our flesh wants to sin, our flesh wants to be selfish, our flesh will fight against the influence of the Holy Spirit in our life to try to lead us to the wrong ways.
But I want you to see something, we see here a list of the things that flesh will lead us toward and we see a list of the things that the Holy Spirit will lead us toward.
All of the works of the flesh are really rooted in a sinful self-centeredness. If I give in to my flesh then it will have me pursuing unclean things to satisfy myself, it will have me mad and fighting with others, likely because I’m just not getting my own way, it can lead me to envy and even murder maybe because others have what I want, it will lead me to drunkenness and parties and things like that because those are self-satisfying pursuits.
But then you see the fruit of Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit are all anchored really in that one word … love, but then worked out practically through joy, peace, longsuffering (or patience), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Where we saw how incredibly self-centered our flesh naturally is, we also see how incredibly others focused the Holy Spirit would have us be. All of those description words are wrapped up around action towards other people.
And so, Paul tells these people in verses 24 and 25 that if we are Christ’s people, then we crucify our flesh and all of its self-centeredness, and then we walk in the Spirit of God with a necessary LOVE OF GOD, but also a very distinct, God caused, love for other people.
Back in Matthew 17, we see this simple moment talking about taxes. But even in this brief talk, Jesus still injects teaching and discipleship to teach His disciples, to teach Peter right now, to think and to act differently. Jesus was basically like, we don’t need to do this thing, but we’ll do this thing anyways, because it will helpful for other people.
We need to take that into consideration when we make the choices that we make even in daily living. Will my decision to do this, even if it’s not technically wrong, will it have a negative effect on other people? Will it hurt their outlook on Jesus, because they see me as a representative of Him?
Ultimately this was a real simple turn for Jesus to make in this situation, but it’s still a very valuable lesson for us. Jesus decided that they need to pay their temple taxes and so He sent Peter down to the water, He had him cast in a single hook instead of the nets that they were used to, He had him take the very first fish and told him that the tax money that they needed would be in its mouth.
That’s crazy and it’s another just totally miraculous moment from Jesus.
But as we end today, this was just a simple, short, conversation about taxes, but let’s not miss the lesson of considering others, because Jesus didn’t miss it as He made these decisions. I hope we walk away today understanding that:
We need our mindset transformed from worrying about ourselves, to being more concerned about Him and His glory and other people. Our actions can absolutely encourage people towards Jesus, but they can also push them away.
Let’s pay attention and be on the right side of encouraging people towards Jesus by what we say and by how we live.
Let’s Pray