MATTHEW 22:15-22 It was a bipartisan deal.

The Pharisees, who hated Roman rule, and the Herodians, supporters of Rome's puppet king Herod, joined forces to trap Jesus in his words. They come to him with a question about whether it's right to pay taxes to Caesar. Their sinful reasoning runs like this: If Jesus says yes, they can denounce him before the people as a traitor to his religion, one who compromises with the uncircumcised Gentile oppressors. If he says, no, they can denounce him to the Romans as a traitor to Caesar, a charge that will mean crucifixion. Jesus turns the tables. He asks them to show him the coin used for paying the tax. Whose portrait is this? asks Jesus, and whose inscription? Behind Jesus' question there is another: How is it that you, proud Jews, who consider yourselves free men who have never been slaves to anyone how is that you are under Caesar's authority? What caused you to be subjects of the Romans? They won't answer. For the answer is, that they have brought Caesar's yoke on themselves. They have enslaved themselves to the ruler they hate by their rebellion against God's authority. This has been the pattern. Foreign oppressors have been God's method of chastisement since they were enslaved under Pharaoh eighteen centuries before this. The faces changed: Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans. The names and faces and times change, but again and again, Israel has forfeited her freedom by rebelling against God. God's chosen people have worshiped idols. Every time, their desire has been to do what God says in Psalm 2, Break their chains, and cast off their yoke. We sinners want to be our own authority. This, we think in our blindness, is freedom. But it's not. It's slavery. True freedom comes from loving obedience to God. What we consider freedom is anarchy, the absence of all rule and authority, which leads to chaos the chaos into which the devil brought the entire created order when he led our first parents away from God's authority by making them follow his lies instead. Rebellion is the essence of our sinful nature. Do you remember the grumbling gripes of the Israelites in the Sinai desert? They wanted to kill Moses and Aaron and choose new leaders to replace them. And what would those new leaders do? They wanted new leaders to take them back to Egypt. There they would become Pharaoh's slaves again. They thought of slavery as a good thing. They remembered the flesh pots of Egypt. They fondly recalled the garlic, leeks, and cucumbers they feasted on when they were Pharaoh's brick makers. They forgot the filthy mud pits, and remembered only how their slave masters fattened them up. At the end of this week during which Jesus has this conversation with them, Israel's leaders will show they are rebels against God and his Anointed One by crucifying Jesus himself. And what was Jesus' crime? Telling them the truth about his authority by confessing that he is the Son of God. Rebellion against authority is idolatry. And we all commit that sin. We just had an election in America. Roughly half of the American people are displeased by the result. Both sides were guilty of idolatry. For both sides said, If we can just get the right person, or the right party, in power, then things will go right in America. If our person takes, or keeps, power, then all will be will. But God's Word commands us to put our trust in the Lord, not in princes. So, to crush our pride and expose our idolatry, the Lord disciplines those he loves, and scourges everyone he receives as a son. God, the Lord of history, puts men and nations on the stage of history, and then sweeps them away when they have served his purposes. If you're a Democrat, you languished for eight years under George W. Bush. If you're a Republican, you're unhappy about languishing for eight years under Barack Obama.

But in both cases, God put these men into authority, for there is no authority except that which God has instituted. The authorities that exist have been established by God. The job of the government is to keep order in a sinful world by punishing evildoers. The job of the church is to proclaim the Gospel. The church has one command from her Lord: Paul writes to Timothy: that requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for . kings and all those in authority, that we may lead peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and honesty. Peter writes, honor the king. The church prays for the leaders of the government, that we may be free to proclaim the Gospel. What happens when we have bad leaders, with bad policies, who lead America to hell in a handbasket? Well, Christian, when that happens, the church looks more like the church. And that's a good thing, isn't it? So, our mission as a church hasn't changed. We proclaim the Gospel. As individual Christians, it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. The chief characteristic of Christians in an ungodly society is to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Christians will never get a bunch of unbelievers to hold to values like the sanctity of human life or the beauty of marriage between a man and a woman by imposing those things with the force of the government. For the force of the state doesn't change the state of man's sinful heart. Only God's Word performs that miracle. So, says Jesus, Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Caesar's thing is obedience to law and order. Jesus also says, Give to God the things that are God's. What are the things of God? Repentance over our sin of idolatry and rebellion, trust in Jesus as our Savior from sin. Jesus is still on his throne, no matter who's in the White House, or in Lansing, or anywhere else. Jesus is far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Today that King will give you a feast: not Pharaohs flesh pots; but instead, his own body and blood, with which he won for you the victory over sin, death, Satan and hell. Whose image and inscription are on this Communion wafer? Jesus, crucified and risen that you may be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.