Sermon Notes Mark 12:13-17

 Let me start with, I don't ever want to get any glory from teaching or preaching Gods word. It all goes to Him. With that when I preach or teach I want to give my all and do my best to present it withing the context that it should be taught. Please feel free to ask any questions about my notes and what the direction of the message was heading.

I.                Stand, Read, Pray, You can be seated.

¹³ And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. ¹⁴ And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone's opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances,^[a] but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” ¹⁵ But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius^[b] and let me look at it.” ¹⁶ And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar's.” ¹⁷ Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” And they marveled at him.

II.               Why did they (who are they?) send the Herodians? The persons they employed were the Pharisees and the Herodians, men that in this matter were contrary to one another, and yet concurred against Christ, The Pharisees were great sticklers for the liberty of the Jews, and, if he should say, It is lawful to give tribute to Caesar, they would incense the common people against him, and the Herodians would, underhand, assist them in it. The Herodians were great sticklers for the Roman power, and, if he should discountenance the paying of tribute to Caesar, they would incense the governor against hum, yea, and the Pharisees, against their own principles, would join with them in it. It is no new thing for those that are at variance in other things, to join in a confederacy against Christ.  

III.              Who sent the Pharisees and the Herodians?

1.     They were sent by the other Pharisees whom “went away” to see that we need to look back a few verses Jesus had just called them out 12:9-12.

2.     The Pharisees were pretty ticked off at Jesus because He called them out for not recognizing that He was the prophesied Messiah. v. 10-11 He did this over and over, even later on today we’re going to see that. The Apostle Paul even did it but his was pure Acts 26:2-3 unlike the others.

IV.             Now for the butter up v. 14 This was a common practice for lawyers and others to butter up officials before asking a question. The idea was to get a favorable answer or make them think that they actually cared about the answer they were giving. Have you ever had someone talk with you like that? In this case it was His enemy’s and He knew their hearts.

 

One of my favorite examples is when Kelly wants something from her dad. She will call him and say daaaadddddyyy. You’re such a great daddy… can you help me with…it is easy to butter someone up when you want something, before you ask right?!?

1.     They were trying to get one of two answers from Jesus. Either way If He had said they needed to pay taxes to Cesar. It would have caused an uproar from the Jews who were being oppressed by the Romans

2.     If Jesus had said they shouldn’t pay taxes the Herodians would have gotten Him thrown into jail and they would have been able to accomplish their mission of trying to have Him arrested. Remember v. 12 (read)

3.     This is one of those situations that we need to be conscious of it is why we need to be in sync with the Holy Spirit. We need to make sure that we are careful with our words.

V.               v. 15 really shows us why its important to just ask our questions and not try to butter people up. Jesus of course being God knew “their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” This verse reminds me of another time that the pharisees were called out by Jesus for their hypocrisy. In Matt. 9:2-6

1.     In each instance we see Jesus exercise His authority as God calling the pharisees out for their critical thoughts of Jesus. It stems from the fact that the didn’t believe He was the Son of God. They even said it themselves Matthew 12:22-27, the pharisees called Jesus Beelzebul, repeatedly Jesus calls out the pharisees because of their unbelief. Back in Mark, Jesus is going to answer their question. But the answer He gives isn’t anything close to what they expected. “bring me a denarius.” The Denarius was a day’s wage for a laborer. It wasn’t an insignificant amount of money.

VI.             I love this Jesus asks everyone there who’s face was on the coin, their answer must have been one of complete confusion. I can hear it now, “Caesar’s” Total confusion as to His answer, this passage isn’t so much about paying taxes to the government or not paying taxes. But what we see is in Jesus’ answer let’s look

VII.           “render to Ceasar the things that are Caesar’s and to God things that are Gods.” And they marveled at Him.

1.     Not one person who was there expected that answer. But it is the correct one. We all have things that we think belong to us in reality everything in the world belongs to God. God created everything in it and that’s the beauty of Jesus’ answer God already owns everything in the world. In His answer we have what we need to be doing. God has placed the government in authority to us that means we need to be paying out taxes, we need to be good stewards and do what the government says…UNLESS it infringes on our service to God.

VIII.          Let’s wrap this up. There are a few things that we can take away from this passage of scripture.   

1.     People are going to try and trap us with hard questions, questions that we will not be able to answer on our own without the Holy Spirit. This is why it’s so important too. We see that over and over the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, and even Satan himself tried to trip Jesus up.

a.     Be careful of flattery Charles Spurgeon a famous preacher said this to pastors, “It is always best not to know, nor wish to know, what is being said about you, either by friends or foes. Those who praise us are probably as much mistaken as those who abuse us.” We need to give God the glory and not take it for ourselves.

b.     Study God’s word. Study to show yourselves approved 2 Tim 2:15

c.      Listen to Holy Spirit; two things with this and we can look back at the last point. God will never contradict His word. But they will try to use it against us,

d.     I want to encourage you just like I always have to memorize scripture and if you just learn the verse also learn the context it was written in.

e.     Trust that God has your back. He will give you the answers you need when you need them.

f.       And finally, as important as it is to give to Caesar aka the government what is “his” it is also as important to give to God and that is ourselves. And we are going to finish with this 1 Cor 6:19-20

He is risen!!!

Matthew 28:1-10 ESV

 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ² And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. ⁴ And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. ⁵ But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he^[a] lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” ⁸ So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

Wow! What a thing to witness, the Apostle Peter outran the beloved Apostle John to the tomb, but the first to see Jesus was Mary Magdalene who along with the other Mary went to the tomb to put spices on the body of Jesus. There was an earthquake and the angel of the Lord appeared rolled away  the stone then told them what was happening. I'm sure that they were pretty scared since the guards fainted, passed out, looked like they had died and this angel was in pure white and I'm sure pretty intimidating. The angel told them that Jesus had risen and to go find Peter and the rest of the disciples.

You're probably wondering why this was significant...During this time, women were not considered to be the same standard or rank as men, lame I know but the fact that they were told to go to get the disciples is super important. Jesus chooses to use things that the world considers foolish to accomplish His tasks, 1 Corinthians 1:27-31. God uses those things that people aren't ready for. Why? The 31st verse here gives the reason. "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord". No one would have expected Mary to be the first one Jesus appeared to, He could have appeared to the Pharisee's and said, Look you killed me but now I'm alive, you should believe those things I told you but you didn't. Jesus chose Mary because He has/had a plan. God can and will use you in the same why. Mary watched Jesus die she also saw Him first after He rose. Don't ever think that God can't use you because He can and if you'll let Him, He will.

Good Friday???

 Was it really good? 

Mark 15:33-39

³³ And when the sixth hour^[a] had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.^{[b] 34} And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ³⁵ And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” ³⁶ And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” ³⁷ And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. ³⁸ And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. ³⁹ And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he^[c] breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son^[d] of God!

Let's break this down, the 6th hour is noon, think though about the fact that it was completely dark during the middle of the day doesn't it make that kind of weird? Something was off, the Son of Man was hanged on the cross for all to see. It is a historical fact that on this day over 2000 years ago that this happened. The next verse here Jesus cries out with a loud voice, those standing by thought that He was calling for Elijah to come save Him, which is ironic because Elijah couldn't and even Jesus wouldn't save Himself. 

Over this period of 3 hours of darkness that light that had been on the world was off, why is that? Jesus is also know as the light of the world, Matt. 5:14-15 In fact I don't think it's weird at all that darkness had come over the whole land until the 9th hour, wouldn't it be hard as a Father to watch your Son die as the sacrifice. Jesus willingly allowed Himself to be hung on that cross and to suffer and die so that we might be able to have eternity with Him. During this time from Jesus's trial, suffering, and death on the cross there was a Holy work being done. God was accepting that we would no longer have to have a priest atone (pay) for our sin through a sacrifice. This was the final time that it would have to be done for sin. 

You might be asking yourself where is that proof, well it's in the next 2 verses. Verse 38, "and the curtain was torn in two from top to bottom". First of all that curtain was thick, 4" thick, 60' long and 30' wide, it would take over 300 priests to even move it. Here is my first proof, even if they wanted to the priests would have had to have everyone there to rip it, and they wanted nothing to do with Jesus, it was them who condemned Him to death in the first place. Second it was torn from top to bottom. This is one of my favorite verses, because it show that God through accepting Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice that we have access to Him directly and don't need a priest to go in and give a sacrifice on our behalf. Finally, in verse 39 even the Roman centurion declares that Jesus was the Son of God, it doesn't get any more simple than that. Yes, Jesus died the Apostle John in Ch 19 verses 33-34 chronicles it in more detail by saying that "when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. v. 34 But one of the soldiers pierce his side with a speak, and at one there came out blood and water." That couldn't happen unless Jesus was dead.

 It was at the moment Jesus died that our payment was made for our sin. It is because of that payment that we get to have a relationship with God. We don't, can't work off our sin. This is the difference between Christianity and every other Religion in the world. We get to rest in Gods sin payment.

 

So to answer my question I proposed earlier, Yes! today Good Friday is good, very GOOD!

Until the whole world knows 

Nick