Death & Taxes (Morning)
Download MP3I invite you to turn in your Bibles if you have them to Mark chapter 12, if not it's there in your worship guide. We've taken 2 weeks away from our study in the gospel of Mark, but we are reentering this morning, and we are looking at the topics of death and taxes. I know you guys are glad that you showed up this morning. Death and taxes. It's likely that everyone here has experienced at least something like this situation before.
Joel Brooks:Maybe you experienced this at Christmas dinner, or maybe it was the Thanksgiving meal, but you're gathered around a really large table with your extended family, people that you are forced to spend time with a couple times a year, or you get to spend time with a couple times a year, And you know, you've always got some of the crazies that are there, and so so you're just trying to make sure the conversation is light, it's pleasant, talk about safe mundane things like school, or or what you do at work, or or maybe football, something along those lines. But then somebody always says something. Someone at the table might say something like this, I cannot believe what Taylor Swift said, and you don't know where it's gonna go at this point. What she said about that political candidate, you know, she should really stick to what she knows, writing predictable songs about heartbreak. And it's like when that was said all the molecules in the room just changed in a moment, and everybody's just nervous waiting, but what's gonna happen?
Joel Brooks:You don't know what to do, do you change subjects? Do you do you ask somebody to pass the roles, ask them about the recipe for the roles? Yeah, I mean not like you care, you just to say anything, do you excuse yourself? Do you go to the bathroom? And then as you're thinking of all of these things, it's too late because someone chimes in.
Joel Brooks:Well, I think it was brave of her. Brave of her to use her platform to say something good for a change because we need change, unlike what the other candidates are saying, like, oh gosh, then it's on. I mean you know at that point it's on. Everybody starts talking, yelling, talking over one another, your great uncle says so what you're telling me is you think it's okay for the government to take my good hard earned money and to give it to somebody else to pay for their college education? And then somebody looks back and they're like, hey, well at least you could afford education in your day, it costs more than a house now, which by the way is equally as unaffordable, and you're just going back and forth.
Joel Brooks:We've all experienced this, if you haven't it is 67 days away on Thanksgiving. I just wanna give you something to look forward to. But this morning, we're gonna look at the 2 topics that can turn any pleasant conversation into an all out war. We're going to look at politics and religion. Thankfully however, we have in the text we're about to read we have Jesus and navigating these, turbulent waters for us.
Joel Brooks:He's gonna take on the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Herodians, which are almost as bad as the brooks at the dinner table, almost as daunting. So Mark chapter 12, we'll begin reading verse 13. And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians to trap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, teacher we know that you are true and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
Joel Brooks:Should we pay them or should we not? But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it. And they brought 1 and he said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this? They said to him, Caesar's.
Joel Brooks:And 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. And Sadducees came to him who say there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question saying, teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. There were 7 brothers, the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. And the second took her and died, leaving no offspring.
Joel Brooks:And the third likewise, and the 7 left no offspring. Last of all, the woman also died. In the resurrection when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the 7 had her as a wife. Jesus said to them, is this not the reason you are wrong?
Joel Brooks:Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For when they rise from heaven, they they neither marry nor given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses and the passage about the bush? How God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Joel Brooks:You are quite wrong. This is the Word of the Lord. Amen. You will pray with me. Father, I pray that in this moment through Your Spirit, we would know both your scriptures and the power of God.
Joel Brooks:Would you do that in her midst? I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So nothing unites people together like a common love or a common hate.
Joel Brooks:Here we see 2 very different groups of people uniting together in their hatred for Jesus. You actually could not get more opposite ends of the political spectrum than these two groups here, the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees are what we would call the right wingers, the Herodians the left wingers. The Pharisees were deeply religious people, they were conservative, they were nationalistic about Israel, the Herodians the opposite, they were secular, they were liberal, and they had come to accept and even to embrace Roman rule. So them uniting together would be like thinking of, you know, the most liberal Democrat you could think of and the most conservative Republican that you can think of, them uniting together, becoming allies in their hatred for Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Picture, you know, Bernie Sanders holding hands with Marjorie Taylor Greene, all in unity over over some common enemy. And that's what you have here. But you need to understand, that's how much they felt threatened by Jesus. And please keep this in mind, both sides, the liberals and the conservatives felt equally threatened by Jesus. So they came together with a plan, and it's an ingenious plan.
Joel Brooks:They asked Jesus Jesus if it was right to pay taxes or not. I mean, if he says yes to that, well then his followers are gonna label him as a collaborator with Rome, certainly he's not the Messiah coming to usher in a new kingdom, and then if he says, no, well, he's gonna be labeled an insurrectionist, and he's gonna be arrested, and he's gonna be killed by Rome. This actually had happened 25 years earlier with a a man named Jacob the Galilean. He did a lot of the same things that Jesus did. He he claimed that he was the new King, the Messiah.
Joel Brooks:He made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he went straight into the temple, he cleared it out with his armed group. And right after he did that he declared no taxes. We were to no longer pay taxes to Rome. And of course he was quickly arrested and killed. The Herodians and the Pharisees are essentially telling Jesus in this moment, it's time to put your cards on the table.
Joel Brooks:Exactly what kind of revolutionary are you? What kind of insurrection are you going to bring? And they don't care about his answer. They don't care if he says yes, or if he says no. They know that however he answers, their problem is done with.
Joel Brooks:The people will either cease to follow him or he will be killed by Rome. So they ask him this, verse 14, they say, teacher, we know that you are true, do not care about anyone's opinion for you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. I mean, this is just flattery buttering them up, but they're actually right. And here's the question, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay them or should we not?
Joel Brooks:Notice how tightly the trap is laid here. They give absolutely no room for any political nuance at all. No room for any discussion on the issue. They just demand right now, yes or no Jesus to this. And just as that trap was laid then we see this trap laid all the time now.
Joel Brooks:We've seen it laid over and over during this election season. Can I just say, during this election season, you absolutely cannot say to someone who is voting differently than you, how can you call yourself a Christian? How can you be a Christian and vote this way? Because Christians only vote for this candidate, you cannot say that. Can I say, yes as Christians, we have absolute clarity concerning moral issues?
Joel Brooks:The Bible's very clear about the morality that we are to believe and we're to preach and we're to teach, but politics is way more nuanced than that. For instance we have a clear moral mandate as Christians listening to God and His word, a clear moral mandate to help the widows, the orphans, and the poor. God's crystal clear about it. How should this play out in our lives? Well, how that could best be played out can wildly differ.
Joel Brooks:There's gonna be some who think that should be done through government programs, and there's gonna be others who think, well, absolutely, it's best done when the government's not involved at all. But both sides agree, we look at God's word and are like, we know we have the mandate, we're to help the widows, and the orphans, and the poor. We both agree, I mean all people Christians will agree that every person is created in the image of God, worthy of dignity, worthy of respect, but how is that played out? Well, that can vary wildly in politics, And we just need to have this grace with one another and not try to trap one another into this either or, that's just so prevalent right now. We can't tell people they have to vote this way if they consider themselves a Christian.
Joel Brooks:We can say, you need to hold to this morality, you need to hold to what the Bible teaches, how it plays out in the political world is a lot more nuanced. And here we see these these Herodians and these Pharisees are doing away with all that nuance, give us a yes, give us a no. Jesus won't be drawn into that. They're asking Jesus not just about whether they should pay taxes, to make this even more heightened volatile question, they're asking them about a very particular tax. You see there are all different types of taxes that were out there, there were temple taxes, there's local taxes, taxes to Herod, and then of course, there's taxes to Rome.
Joel Brooks:This was a tax to Caesar. It's what was known as the head tax, and it was a tax that every individual paid simply for the privilege of having, Caesar as their emperor. You paid a tax for the privilege of being his subject. And, this is actually the least of all the taxes, it wasn't very much money, but it was definitely the most painful for every Jew to pay. Because look at what it represented, That little tax reminded them that they are not free, that their Messiah has not come, but they are subjects to Caesar.
Joel Brooks:And not only this, but this tax had to be paid with a very particular coin called a denarius. On one side of this coin was an image of Caesar, and on it it had this inscription, Augustus Tiberias, son of the divine Augustus. Then on the other side of it, it said, High Priest. Can you think of a more blasphemous coin for the Jews to carry around? Literally they would carry around in their pockets something that said, Augustus, Tiberius Augustus, he is he's the Son of God, and he is the high priest.
Joel Brooks:And they actually saw that his image there was a graven image as well, and they would be forced to carry this around. And so how is Jesus gonna respond to this? I mean, it's His answer is brilliant on so many levels. At first, he does a major strut, I mean it's just a huge flex here. He says, could somebody bring me a denarius?
Joel Brooks:I mean that is a jab if you don't see it, it's a jab. This is what he's saying, oh, I'm sorry, I don't, I don't have one of those blasphemous things that you guys carry around with you. Do one of you have that blasphemous object on you? I mean, that's a strut right there. And of course, they're all like, I mean, nobody wants to pull it out.
Joel Brooks:But Jesus just waits, and finally, somebody's like, I mean, I got, I don't know how I got here, but man, I got, I got one, yes. Jesus is like, Bring it to me. Let me look at it, almost as if He hasn't seen one for the first time, like, come here, let me look at it. And he looks at it, he goes, Now, if anybody should have been offended by what he was holding, who should have been? Jesus, it literally says, that Caesar is the son of God and the high priest of anyone he should have been most offended.
Joel Brooks:But instead, he he goes, whose likeness and inscription is on this? And they say, Caesar. He goes, okay. Well then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and render to God the things that are God's. The answer is brilliant.
Joel Brooks:It's been discussed now for 2000 years, because here in just a single sentence, Jesus gives, gives a validity to human government, yet he also sets firm limits on it. Notice the first thing that Jesus does here is he doesn't give them a yes no answer. He's not gonna be drawn into that. There's no yes no answer there, but he actually gives them a huge answer. He says render to Caesar the things that are Caesar.
Joel Brooks:Caesars, that word render there doesn't just mean to give, it means to give back. Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. So I a lot of people come and they borrow tools from me, I've got a lot of power tools, and they borrow them. If somebody borrows my power tool, one of the things that I do is I get a Sharpie pens or pen and I write Brooks on it, and what should you do if you find one of my tools in your shed that say Brooks? And it's not a rhetorical question, I'm missing, like I'm missing some power tools.
Joel Brooks:So if you were to go into your tool shed, and you were to see one there that says, Brooks, what should you do? You should return it to its owner. Good, I mean, this is ethics 101, you return it to its owner. That's what Jesus is saying here. It's like, whose name is this on it?
Joel Brooks:Well, Caesar. Looks like you should give it back to him. It's Caesar's, so we give it back to him. It looks like that's the right thing to give property back to its owner. And, who can argue with that?
Joel Brooks:Nobody can argue with that. But then, Jesus adds this little line, he says, and give back to God, give to God the things that are God's. Or, look around, does anything else have God's name on it? If it does, you should give that back to Him. What has God's name on it?
Joel Brooks:Well, actually everything. In particular, we have His name. You see that coin had the image of Caesar, but every human being is created in the image of God. And so, we owe Him our entire lives, He gave us life and we owe Him everything we have. So Jesus is saying this, He goes, you know, go ahead give your coin back to Caesar, but you have to give your entire life to God.
Joel Brooks:You owe him your every breath. So notice here that Jesus, he recognizes that the state, the government has some authority, but that this authority falls on a under a much greater authority of God. God's over everything. So yes, if you use the government, you use the government's currency as a tool. If you use its roads, if you depend on the government for its military protection, or whatever, Jesus is saying that you probably should return that tool back.
Joel Brooks:They gave to you, now, you give back to them. And then, in the same breath, he says, you know what? If you've used this world, the sunlight, the water, the trees, your very body and breath, If you use those things, well, they're God's and you should give them back. You owe everything to him. It's a brilliant answer.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, he moves straight from this trap though right into another one. This time, it's the Sadducees laying the trap. The Sadducees, they were the wealthy intellectual elite of the day. Anybody here grow up in Sunday school singing the song about the Pharisees and the Sadducees? The Pharisees, they thought they were so fair, you see?
Joel Brooks:The Sadducees were so sad, you see, anybody? I mean, come on, at least he had father Abraham, didn't you? Arky arky? Alright, so your whole childhood wasn't deprived. I mean those are the songs that that I grew up on.
Joel Brooks:The Sadducees, I always picture them sad intellectuals, that they were wealthy, the intellectual elites that enormous power and influence. They also only believed in the first five books of the Bible. Only the first five books known as the Pentateuch was authoritative, and so they also did not believe in angels, demons, or the resurrection. And so they come to Jesus, and they ask Him a question that they believe is going to demonstrate to everyone the absurdity of Jesus's beliefs. They give this outlandish scenario about a married man who has a wife, but then he dies without her having children.
Joel Brooks:So then the brother steps up and marries the widowed wife. Now, I mean this honestly, it just sounds gross in our day, I mean it's just said, you're like, ugh. This is a pretty common practice not just in Israel, but even for the the nations outside of Israel to do this, it was a way of protecting and providing for the widow, and also making sure that that widow had an heir. Someone to pass on the inheritance and the name to. And so, this is really seen as a way of protection here.
Joel Brooks:And so the Sadducees are giving this scenario, and they're saying, but here's the thing, the next brother when he married her, they didn't have a kid and he died, and then another brother married her, no kids died, and on, and this happened 7 times. Then here's theirs, Zinger. So Jesus, in the resurrection exactly whose wife will she be? This was obviously a stop question, one they've I'm sure asked many times to a certain effect, to great effect in the past. It's kinda like that question, oh, you think God is all powerful?
Joel Brooks:Well, can he create a rock bigger than he can lift? Zing. Me, we get questions like, so they're not after truth, they're just out to try to embarrass you. How can you say that God is good when you just read the headlines and you see so much evil in the world? How can you say that homosexuality is wrong, when in the same Bible doesn't it say that you shouldn't eat shellfish?
Joel Brooks:How can you possibly believe that prayer works after I know you and thousands of other people were praying for this one person, yet they still got sick and died? I mean, those questions people aren't wanting an answer, they're wanting to make fun of what you believe. It's a way of mocking you, and Jesus's answer to the Sadducees is the same answer he would give to every one of those questions. 1st, you're wrong. And you know why?
Joel Brooks:You don't know the scriptures, nor the power of God. You might have lightly skimmed over some of the headlines of scriptures, but you have no idea what you're talking about. He'd give the same answer, you don't know the scriptures, and you don't know the power of God. He's actually really not giving 2 different reasons here, when he says, neither the scriptures nor the power of God. I think those two answers at the very least, they're so intertwined, which is we should see them as a unit.
Joel Brooks:We know the power of God when we know our Bibles, when we know scripture. Because when we read the Bible, we we see God's power, we see it on display in creation, we see it in the Exodus, we see it during, the conquest of Canaan, and and how the walls of Jericho came falling down, or when David fights Goliath. We get story after story of God's power being displayed throughout history, and so we know how God demonstrates His power and it gives us a confidence as to how God is gonna work in the future. So knowing His scripture is how we know His power. So hear me, if our culture is asking a question of you or mocking you with a question, and you do not know how to answer it, perhaps you're not studying your bible.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps you're studying the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, maybe even TikTok is where you're going for your answers. You know, the average American's gonna spend 11 years of their life looking at a phone. 11 years looking at a phone. It is no wonder that when our culture asks us a question, we are so confused and powerless. So do you not know the scriptures nor the power of God?
Joel Brooks:After telling the Sadducees that they're wrong and why they're wrong, Jesus gives his answer. He first says in verse 25, for when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given a marriage, but are like angels in heaven. First off, Jesus does not say that when one dies they become an angel in heaven. So when your great uncle Jimmy, you know, passed away, it wasn't because God just needed another angel. I mean, I've heard some of the worst theology preached at funerals.
Joel Brooks:That's not what he is saying, you don't become an angel, you're not given your wings. But he does say in some sense, we become like them. His point is this, your next life is gonna be a radically different type of life, than the one you are currently living. You see these people they had made the mistake of thinking that, the resurrection was really just like a resuscitation, and God's just gonna kinda do some holy CPR on us, and just kinda raise us back up to the exact same type of existence. And Jesus says, you are such flat earthers.
Joel Brooks:You really are, you're flat earthers, you have no idea like the glory in the new life that awaits us. The resurrection is way more life changing than you are imagining. It's not just a continuation of life, you know, only being meaning maybe, you know, we keep living but our bodies no longer break down or hurt anymore, or we get to see old loved ones again. Is that's not what it's like. It's entirely new, an entirely new type of life.
Joel Brooks:It's glorious. It's a transformation, which is what Paul unpacks in 1 Corinthians 15, when he talks about the resurrection, he says that we will be transformed. And in this new transformed life, Jesus is saying, marriage is no longer necessary. Now, I I know for many of us in here, those who have good marriages, you read that and at first it's like this little prick, it's like, I kinda don't like that, that we're not gonna be married in our resurrected state. But you need to understand what Jesus is not saying.
Joel Brooks:He's not saying that that's an end to love and intimacy and joy that you've known in marriage. He's saying those things were the shadow point to in to a much greater love and unity, and intimacy, and joy. Those things are the shadow, but when you're resurrected, you experience the reality. So in our new resurrected life, we're gonna look back and be like, wow. At my best moments in that marriage, all I did was put a signpost pointing me towards the much glorious marriage between the church and Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And a lot of people don't think about this, but Jesus, you know, when he comes again, it's always described as a marriage. He's marrying us, bring that theology in with the theology of us being given resurrected bodies, and then go back to Genesis, and you'll realize that Jesus is gonna essentially say these words to us on the marriage day. At last, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, And we will be united with him, our resurrected body with his resurrected body. That's the joy that awaits us. So it's not that those things go away, it's just they will be more deeply enveloped in a greater joy.
Joel Brooks:And now Jesus is gonna tell the Sadducees why he believes this is true. Verse 40 or 26. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus starts off by saying you're wrong, he ends by saying you're wrong. Basically, if you don't believe the resurrection, he goes, you're wrong, wrong, wrong. He's passionate about this. You're wrong. Now Jesus could have gone to other places like Ezekiel or to Daniel to give a fuller picture of the resurrection, but instead he goes, here he goes to the second book of the Bible.
Joel Brooks:He goes to Exodus, because remember the Sadducees only believed in the first five books of the Bible, so he goes fine, I'll go to one of those. Let's look at Exodus. And he talks about when God appeared to Moses at the burning bush, and God told Moses his name, and he introduced himself to Moses, and he introduced himself by saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Jesus is saying, did did you notice what he said? I mean, did you actually read what he said?
Joel Brooks:I mean, even though Abraham had been dead for over 500 years, he talks about Abraham in the present tense. God did not say, I was the God of Abraham. He says, I am the God of Abraham. And it would be ridiculous of God, wouldn't it, to say that he is the God of someone who is no longer existing? He's not the God of the dead, but He's God of the living.
Joel Brooks:Abraham is very much alive right now in the presence of God, and God will rise raise him again in the resurrection, but he's alive now. So do you get do you get the thrust, the heart of Jesus's argument here? This is actually why I wanted to preach this section alongside the section about politics Because I I wanted us to see politics and resurrection, I wanted us to kinda mix these things together and and see what theology we could pull out of both of them when we look at them together. Politicians make promises all of the time. All the time.
Joel Brooks:And they break their word all of the time. And even if they can keep their word better than most, their promises do not endure after death. But if you were to put a little heading over what Jesus is teaching here, it's this, God keeps His promises. And He promised Abraham, I will be your God. That promise doesn't break at death.
Joel Brooks:I will be your God. I will always be your God. When God makes a promise, He keeps it. Death can't break it. His promises are eternal, therefore they demand that we live forever.
Joel Brooks:I mean, picture the conversation with Abraham. Abraham, I will be your God. And Abraham's like, okay. Now, I will be your God. Abraham, when you die, I will be your God.
Joel Brooks:Oh, oh, like you will always be my God. That means I will always be alive in your presence. Boy, what a life changing promise that is. Nobody has the ability to make a promise like that, or the power to make a promise like that. Governments can't, politicians certainly can't, God's kingdom alone is the one that's everlasting.
Joel Brooks:A day is coming when no matter how great you think our country is, or whatever president is, a day is coming when all governments, all presidents will be spoken of in past tense. Thomas Jefferson was the president, he isn't the president. But God will always be our God. What a unbelievable hope, and yet a very certain hope we have in the promises of God. Let's pray to him.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, you alone have a kingdom that never ever ends. God, you alone give us a word, and when you promise it will never ever ever be broken. Death itself cannot break your promises to us. You have promised to be our God, and for us to be your children, and we will always be your children, and you will always be our God. And we delight in this, we thank you, and we pray this in your name, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
