Render To God the Things That Are God’s
Download MP3Reading from Luke 20 chapter verses 1 through 18. One day, as Jesus was teaching in the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priest and the scribes and the elders came up and said to him, tell us by what authority you do these things or who it is that gave you this authority. He answered them, I also ask you a question. Now tell me, what was the baptism of John, from heaven or from man? And they discussed it with one another saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, why did you not believe him?
Speaker 1:But if we say from man, all the people will stone us to death for they are convinced that John was a prophet. So they answered him that they did not know where it came from and Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. And he began to tell the people this parable. A man planted a vineyard and let it lent it out to tenants and went to another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard.
Speaker 1:But the tenured tenants beat him and sent him away empty handed. And he sent another servant but they also beat and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty handed. And he sent a 3rd. This one they also wounded and cast out. When the owner of the vineyard said, what shall I do?
Speaker 1:I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him. But when the tenant saw him, they said to themselves, this is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours. And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Speaker 1:What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those those tenants and give the vineyard to others. When they heard this, they said surely not. He looked directly at them and said what then is this that is written? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Speaker 1:Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush them. The word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Thanks be to God. Pray with me. Our Father, we ask that through the power of your spirit, you would speak. I pray that you would stir up our lazy hearts and our lazy minds that are so apathetic when it comes to things about you. Seize us.
Jeffrey Heine:Grip our attention. God, I know that there's people here who are hurting and distracted. Allow them to focus in on You and Your word. I pray for those who don't know you, Lord, that during this time, Lord, your word would penetrate deeply in their hearts. Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray now for me that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. The Lord, may your words remain and may they change us and the strong name of Jesus. I pray. Amen. It's been a few weeks since we've been in Luke.
Jeffrey Heine:The last time I preached in Luke was on Palm Sunday, and we looked at how Jesus, he came into Jerusalem, specifically came to his temple, and he began, you know, throwing over the tables of money. He began driving out all of these sacrifices with a whip, And we looked at how he was not doing this to reform the temple. That's not what he was doing, and you read a lot of commentaries and reasons why so the Gentiles could come in. And and those were certainly some of the reasons that Jesus was doing these things, but it wasn't the primary reason. He wasn't trying to reform the temple.
Jeffrey Heine:He was replacing the temple. He was shutting the temple down at this point. Because Jesus now he has come as the final priest. He's the final sacrifice, and now if you want to come and meet with God, you don't go to a temple. You come to Him in which the fullness of deity dwells.
Jeffrey Heine:And during this week, He stayed at the temple. He stayed there, and He would come every day, and He would teach. Verse 1 says that He was preaching the gospel, and I love this this term in Greek. It it literally is he was gospling. He was gospling every day.
Jeffrey Heine:And you've got to see the rest of this chapter in context of him gosspling. Because he's not just attacking the religious leaders here. That's not what he's doing, he's just attacking them. He's actually sharing the gospel with them. Let's look at this first confrontation that we see here.
Jeffrey Heine:The religious leaders, they asked Jesus, where do you get the authority to do this? I mean, you can't just come into our house and get a whip and start, you know, driving everybody out. Where where do you get this authority from? And and we know because we've been reading through Luke where he gets his authority. In Luke chapter 3, Jesus is baptized.
Jeffrey Heine:The Spirit of God descends upon him like a dove. They hear a voice from the heavens saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. We know where Jesus gets this authority. They don't. And so Jesus gets them to think back to his baptism.
Jeffrey Heine:And he asked them if they thought John's baptism was from heaven or from, man. It's a it's a really simple question. Multiple choice. You got 2 options. Actually, the worst exam I ever had in college was a true false exam.
Jeffrey Heine:But two options here. That's it. Was it from heaven or was it from man? What you see at this point is Jesus is once again forcing the issue. He's going to force these religious leaders to make a decision about him saying, you cannot ignore me.
Jeffrey Heine:You can't be neutral. You got to either crown me or you got to crucify me, but you have to do something. And I'll notice that as the religious leaders are deliberating, it doesn't even cross their mind to actually try to answer the question honestly. It it never even occurs to them to try to give a a legitimate honest answer to this question. You know, they obviously do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, or you could say at least they don't want him to be the Messiah, because if he is the Messiah, they lose everything.
Jeffrey Heine:They lose their jobs. They they lose all of this. But they don't have the guts to say, Jesus, you're not the Messiah. They don't have the guts to say, John's baptism, it was from man. They don't have the conviction to do that.
Jeffrey Heine:Their answer is not gonna be an answer of conviction. It's gonna be about self preservation. That's what they're about. They're trying to to just make sure that they still have a living, preserve their lives. If they actually had any true conviction, they would have told them at John's baptism, when John baptized Jesus and he said, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that John was wrong.
Jeffrey Heine:We held that. That's we are convicted by that. He was wrong, but they don't have those convictions. So Jesus, he exposes them for the frauds that they are. Jesus says the same thing with us all the time.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, I found that most people in this world, they have neither accepted Jesus or rejected Jesus. They've just decided not to think about Jesus. They don't want to make up their mind. You know, to most people, Jesus is some historical figure that they kind of know a little bit of information about, but they don't ever feel like they really need to make up their mind about him. You know, one of my neighbors is is this way.
Jeffrey Heine:I I asked him one time, what did he think about Jesus? And that's exactly how praise is. So what do you think about Jesus? And I just got this absolute deer in the headlight looks like. I haven't really thought about him.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm thinking you you you spend hours and hours all the time every week thinking about little the little minutia in your in your lawn. How how can you not think about Jesus? Even secular historians say that he's the most important person to ever have lived. Certainly have some thoughts about him. But I know a lot of people who are the same way.
Jeffrey Heine:In college, I knew people who would watch SportsCenter, not once but twice, but 3 times a day. And they knew every single single sports statistic there was. And you would ask them, what do you think about Jesus? And they're like, I haven't thought about it. When I was in college ministry, I had a a girl who knew everything there was to know about Dawson's Creek.
Jeffrey Heine:And, it actually, we would have all these conversations, never watched the show, but she would always wanna talk about Dawson's Creek. She would tell me about why why Dawson and Joey were they were perfect for one another. And she, she had her guess at who was the father of Jen's baby. And she really wanted to talk to me about that. And she obviously put all of this thought into this and I'd ask her, who do you think Jesus is?
Jeffrey Heine:And she said, well, I haven't thought about it. Baffles me. Absolutely. Baffles me. Seriously, you put all of your time and energy thinking of that.
Jeffrey Heine:And you have a person who claims to be the son of God, who changed history, and you wanna know, you know, what happened to Bessie's boyfriend? Yeah. But that that's what her mind was consumed with. Deep down, when I think back at my last conversation with my my neighbor, I think he he he knew what would happen if he did make a decision. If he actually took time to think about it.
Jeffrey Heine:If he said, no. I don't think Jesus is the son of god. Well, they've been uncomfortable living here in the Bible because everybody at least says that. Now everybody believes it, but they at least say that. And if he said, well, you know, actually they're thinking about it.
Jeffrey Heine:I do believe Jesus is the son of God. Then his whole life has to change. Everything. The way he handles money, the way he loves people, forgiveness in his life. All of those things would have to change.
Jeffrey Heine:So the safest thing for him to preserve the way his life has always been going is to simply say, well, I haven't thought about it. I'm not going to think about it. Jesus is not going to allow you to remain in that position. Bible, and you'll realize Jesus will not allow you to just be neutral. And for those of you who have family members who just refuse to think about Jesus, encourage them not don't argue with them.
Jeffrey Heine:Encourage them to actually read the Bible and encounter Jesus. They'll realize they can't be neutral. Well, the religious leaders here, they say they tell Jesus, well, we don't we don't know where John's baptism was from, and so Jesus doesn't give him an answer them an answer. He he does he doesn't do this because they're not ready for the truth. They wouldn't get it if he told them.
Jeffrey Heine:And then he tells them a parable about a landlord and some wicked tenants that is gonna unpack this this gospel ink. And in this parable, we have a landowner. He's you can see him as the investor, and you have some tenants. Now the landowner here in Matthew's gospel, he does a lot of things. He builds a tower.
Jeffrey Heine:He builds walls for protection. In Luke's account, he provides a land and a vineyard here, And he rents this out to these tenants or to these farmers. And so they're to take care of the vineyard, and they are to pay rent by just taking some of the the produce, some of the fruit, and giving it back to the landowner. That's how they pay rent. And so, the land owner, he sends servants to collect rent.
Jeffrey Heine:This is where the story takes a little bit of a turn. This was an everyday common affair here. But now these these tenants, when they see the servants coming, they actually beat up the servants. They refuse to pay rent. In Matthew's account, it actually escalates until finally they kill 1, they stone another.
Jeffrey Heine:They do not treat these servants well. To really understand what's what's going on here, you need to go back to Deuteronomy 6 and hear Moses's words to Israel. This is right before they're gonna enter the promised land. He says, and when the lord your god brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant. And when you eat and are full, then take care, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Jeffrey Heine:And and so all of the Israelites were given land they didn't work for. They were given cities they did not build. They were given homes they didn't build. Cisterns they didn't make. Farms they didn't have to plant or do the digging for.
Jeffrey Heine:They were given everything. It was given to them. Just like in the parable. Everything was given to them. The farmer gave them everything that they needed, but the the problem was, they didn't want to be tenants.
Jeffrey Heine:They wanted to be the landowner. Even though they had everything they needed, they didn't want anybody telling them how to live. And in this parable here, Jesus is revealing the fundamental problem of the human heart and that's that we all do not want to be tenants. We all want to be landowners. Deep down, we know that God has given us our life and that we're in debt to Him.
Jeffrey Heine:Deep down, we know that, but we don't want to recognize Him as the creator and giver of all good things. We want to be the landowner because then we get to do whatever we want. We get to use the land however we want. We get to use the produce however we want. We get used to use the profits however we want.
Jeffrey Heine:Each of us gets to be our own Lord. And now just look at this text from a creation viewpoint. God is our creator. He's given us, given us everything we have in this life. Even the very breath that we have life itself is a gift from God.
Jeffrey Heine:Everything we have is due to his grace And deep down, we know this, but we deceive ourselves, and we think that, where we are in life, how far we've come of in life is actually because of our hard work and not because of God's grace. And some of you, you think, you know, the great job that I have, I have because I worked my tail off in college, got great grades, was better than everybody else, and that's how I got the job I have. And you you consider yourself to be a a self made man or woman, and Jesus is challenging that assumption. He's saying, actually, you're wrong. You're wrong.
Jeffrey Heine:Nobody is a self made man or woman. Everything we have is due to God's grace. What if you had been born into a poor family, living in the countryside, 5th century, Western Europe? Do you think you would have made something out of yourself? You know, Attila the Hun.
Jeffrey Heine:He's he's roaming the hillside. You you think you would have become somebody? Or or what if you were born even today but you're you're born to, a family that had 9 other kids in Darfur? Would would you have really got the job that you have now? Would you really have everything that you have now?
Jeffrey Heine:The reality is, most of what we have, most of what we've achieved in life, do something is due to things that you had absolutely zero control over. Grace. God's grace. These tenants here were given everything in which to have a good life, but they hated the one who gave them this life. They hated the creator of their life.
Jeffrey Heine:They hated him trying to exercise creator rights over them. They hated grace, and they hated anyone who came to remind them of grace. They hated the servants who came and reminded them that everything that they had was because of the landowner. They hated it. They wanted to be landowners.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the fundamental problem of the human heart. And we do the same thing, and we know we're tenants, but we want to be the Lord. And we do this, we rebel in a couple of ways. Some of you rebel by being really, really bad. Hey.
Jeffrey Heine:Nobody tells me what to do. I'm gonna do whatever I want, when I want, how I want, and you just did the the worst things you could think of. Nobody's gonna tell me how to live. And that's how some of you become your own Lord, and and others of you become your own Lord by actually conforming, being a really, really good moral person. Trying to follow the letter of the law, and then saying, God, I did all this now you owe me.
Jeffrey Heine:You pay me rent for working on the land. You give me now a good spouse. You give me a good job. You now give me good health. You provide for me in all these ways because I have worked the land.
Jeffrey Heine:Both of those are making yourself your own lord. I I was reminded of this text this past week. I was at a pastor's conference and one of the pastors there, he he slowed down and he read through Philippians 3. Y'all turn to Philippians 3. And then and then Philippians 3, Paul is looking back at his old life in which he was trying to be the landowner.
Jeffrey Heine:He was trying to put God in his debt. Said, God I know you've given me everything, you provided for me all these things, much of this is completely, you know, because of you, but I'm doing my best and you owe me. Look at verse 4. Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the 8th day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.
Jeffrey Heine:As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness, under the law, blameless. What Paul's saying is he's just like these religious leaders to whom Jesus is talking. He's just like them.
Jeffrey Heine:He was like the elder brother we had in Luke 15. He was like the rich young ruler who said he had kept all the law that that was in Luke 19. He was just like the Pharisee that we found next to the tax collector in the temple praying, who said, I'm doing all these things right. Paul was just like them. And it says, according to the law, he was blameless.
Jeffrey Heine:Not many of us can can say that. He's saying he was blameless, but he held on to that and he said, God owes me. I'm living a really good life. God owes me. He was trusting in that to save him.
Jeffrey Heine:And so, we come to verse 7, But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my lord. I count my morality, my tithing, my fasting, my giving to the poor, my being a good teacher, my religious heritage. I count all those things in loss, as loss. And view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:So when you hold out all of your goodness to God, you hold it all out to Him, and you say, Look, God, I'm good. Therefore, you owe me salvation. You owe me rent. If you say that, you will never find god. That's what Jesus is teaching in this parable.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, Jesus's story up to this point would have been seen as a very common thing. Landowners rented land to tenants. Tenants wouldn't pay, then certainly they would have sent more servants. But if they refuse to pay, this is where the story takes a dramatic turn. Because no landowner would ever send his son.
Jeffrey Heine:That's just stupid, is what it is. It's absolutely stupid. It's not logical. Do you know of any father who would send their own child after they had sent servants who had been beaten and beaten and beaten, and in Matthew's count, killed, and then you think, oh, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna send my son.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you know anybody who would do that? It doesn't make any sense. No. Instead, you send the law, you you send the troops, you send the police. These people have, they've got a record of not paying.
Jeffrey Heine:They've been breaking the law. You can easily send in the troops, but he does it. Instead, he sends in his son, which is foolish. And I just I just kept thinking about this this week. What why in the world would you do that?
Jeffrey Heine:It's it's utterly foolish unless the land owner isn't after rent. Now if his goal is to get rent, you send in the troops, you send in the law, But rent is not his goal. He wants something more. What He wants is to restore a relationship that's there. And so He sends in His son.
Jeffrey Heine:Maybe they'll respect Him. Maybe I can restore, I can salvage this relationship. He's not after payment, he's after their hearts. That's why He sends His own son even though He knows it's gonna be bad. He's after their hearts.
Jeffrey Heine:And we know how the story goes. They, they kill the son. The religious leaders are gonna kill Jesus. And then Jesus says that the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. And what he's saying here is that the that he's the stone and they've rejected him.
Jeffrey Heine:They're gonna kill him, but in doing so, he is going to become the rock. Foundation of our salvation. Through His death and His resurrection, God is gonna take us off these sinking sands of a righteousness based on morality, and He's gonna place us in a righteousness and a salvation based on the grace of Jesus. And if you stand on that, it doesn't matter what you will not be moved. And then Jesus goes to the next story here and I I want us to read this one.
Jeffrey Heine:Seems to be an unrelated story about paying taxes to Caesar. But it's actually here that Jesus drives his point home. Look at verse 19. The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour for they perceived that he had told the parable against them, but they feared the people. So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.
Jeffrey Heine:So they asked him, teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of god. Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar or not? But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, Show me a Daenerys. Whose likeness and inscription does it have? They said, Caesar's.
Jeffrey Heine:He said to them, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to god the things that are god's. They think they have just nailed Jesus with the perfect question. They're they were actually trying to imitate him. You know, he asked him a question that they couldn't answer without being in trouble. So they think, that's what we need to do.
Jeffrey Heine:We're gonna ask Jesus a question he can't answer without getting into trouble. And so they they ask this perfect question about taxes. If Jesus says, no, you're not to pay taxes, then, of course, he's probably gonna be arrested by the Roman soldiers for, trying to lead all the people astray. And then if he says, no, yes, you're supposed to pay taxes, well then all these religious zealots are gonna go crazy. Actually, 40 years later, they will go crazy over the issue of taxes and it's why Jerusalem was overthrown because they don't believe at all that they should be giving tribute to Rome.
Jeffrey Heine:Seems to be the perfect question. In Jesus, he asked for a Daenerys, which is a small coin. And on one side, it would have had a picture of Caesar. On the other side, it would have had a inscription that read Tiberias Caesar Augustus, son of divine Augustus. And Jesus asked this question.
Jeffrey Heine:He says, whose image is on this coin? And they say, Caesar's. Then he says, well, give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and give to god the things that are god's. Now when he said and give to god the things that are god's, that's when he is tying it back into the parable. That's when he's really laying the hammer down here, driving the gospel home to them.
Jeffrey Heine:He's making what they thought was a very small issue about taxes, and he's making it something huge. To understand this, you gotta go back to Genesis 1. When god created man, it said, god created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created man. Now, so just as this coin had the image Caesar And now he's looking at them, and he's saying, all of humanity, all of man has God's image.
Jeffrey Heine:Was created in the image of God. So give to God the things that are God's. Give to God the things that have his image. And Jesus here, he's exerting his rights as their creator. And he's saying that, you religious leaders owe me everything.
Jeffrey Heine:You're created in my image. I have rights over every aspect of your life because you bear my likeness. You cannot make demands of me. You cannot act like you are the land owners. You were created and everything you have is by sheer grace alone.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't know if that's ever hit you. I feel like so often often we just hear the words grace, hear the words gospel, and, you know, Christians just kinda wanna go to the next gear and move past that into bigger and better things. We don't ever move past that. Ever move past the gospel. Has that hit you?
Jeffrey Heine:Is there any area in your life that you're telling God, mine. Hey, no. That's mine. And you're not letting letting him have it. And he's saying, nuh-uh.
Jeffrey Heine:It's all mine. Everything you have is his, because he created you and you bear his image. And because of grace, because you were saved by grace, you were created by grace, there is nothing now that god cannot ask of you. You realize that if you if you did even a little something, a little works towards your salvation, just a little bit of your own righteousness, then when god asks you to do something, you can negotiate. Yeah.
Jeffrey Heine:I hear what you're saying, god, but you know, I actually put a little bit of the work into that. Yeah. I'm actually responsible for a little bit of this, and god says, no. You were saved by grace. You were created by grace.
Jeffrey Heine:You bear my image. I own you. That means there is nothing that god cannot ask of you. If he asks you to move to Woodlawn, you move to Woodlawn. If he asks you to to leave this country, go on the mission field.
Jeffrey Heine:You leave this country, and you go on the mission field. If he asks you to give up your career, so maybe you could spend more time, with your family or more time volunteering or because he just sees the amount of pride that's working in your life, you give up your career. If he asks you to let go of your possessions, you let go of your possessions. If he asks you to to go and forgive certain people, you go and you forgive certain people. There's nothing that he cannot ask you to do.
Jeffrey Heine:And he's not doing this. He's not asking you to do these things him because he wants you. He wants rent because he wants you to pay him back. That's not it. He's after your heart.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not like God needs rent. It doesn't like like He needs you to give to the poor. It's like, thanks. I didn't know how I was going to get that one covered. Thanks for filling in for me.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't need that. What what he's asking you to do is let go of those things that you're holding on to, so you can grab hold of him. It's the relationship that he's after. He's asking you to, to count all of these things as loss that he asked you to give up. You count them as loss that you may gain Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:He's after your heart. All of us bear His image. All of us saved by grace. Absolutely nothing that he cannot ask of us that we should not willingly let go of in order that we we may lay hold of Him. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, forgive us for so often wanting to move on past the gospel. We don't even understand your gospel yet. It hasn't really worked into our lives. Forgive us for thinking we're so much better than others, trying to stand on our own righteousness. Forgive us for making demands of You, that we live such a way and that you owe us.
Jeffrey Heine:Everything we are is by grace. Everything. And you have total creator rights over us. We bear your image, and there is nothing that you cannot ask of us. And Lord, we want to give you those things, not as a way of paying you back, but just to be with you.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray this in the the strong image of Jesus. Amen.
