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The Gospel According to Matthew
Matthew 22: 14-33
Introduction: Here it is...I have had an incredibly challenging week. It has been so difficult that I have felt the heaviness, the crippling weight of it all! Most of what has made it such a difficult week I can not share because it is not mine to share, but that doesn't make it any easier to walk through. As I study this passage, do I find comfort? At first nope! At second maybe and at third, absolutely. I hope this lesson opens a renewed ability to exhale and relax because our God is so much bigger!
Question of the Day: What are you most looking forward to about heaven?
READ: Matthew 22:15- 22
Paying the Imperial Tax to Caesar
15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax[a] to Caesar or not?”
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.”They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
Here Matthew makes it perfectly clear what the Pharisees were trying to do. Interestingly they tried to get others to do their dirty work. They sent others. They sent their disciples. NOT to be confused with the disciples of Jesus. This is not the same men. These were the chosen select who were intelligent enough to be disciples of the Pharisees. So they were bright men.
How did they approach Jesus?
What did they say to Him?
It is a perfectly good strategy. Is there anything wrong with pointing out the strength of someone?
Of course not.
Is there something wrong with "buttering up" someone when you are about to ask a difficult question? Of course NOT!
So why was it so sleazy?
It wasn't how they were talking to Jesus but what they were trying to do to Him.
Frankly it goes back to what Jesus had spent His whole ministry talking about. It is the inside, the heart that makes the difference!!!
When Jesus answers them, what part did he address first?
What did this say to the disciples of the Pharisees?
How many times do we come to Christ under false pretenses? Have you ever? Are you prayers for others really about you? Or your prayers for the church really about getting things your way? Or could it be that sometimes we pray about an issue we know we have no intent of correcting? Do we ever come to Christ trying to sugar coat how things really are?
How well does that work?
Jesus already knows your heart, so lay it out. No amount of sweet talk is going to make something pretty if the heart is filthy. Jesus would rather have our filthy heart than a fake one. He can transform filth into beauty but he can't change our heart if we are giving him a plastic toy one!
Then Jesus still answers the question. I've heard this story since I was a child and His answer to them, most people can quote. When I realized that I wouldn't be teaching today and that today the first passage was about taxes I was thrilled that Chris was teacher and not me.
Taxes are right up his alley. I was so thankful not to have to find a way to pull out life application out of pay your taxes. Yet, the answer Jesus gives is about so much more than taxes.
In his answer he first showed them that He knew their heart.
Second, He could answer their trick question by taking out the trick and answering in such a way that got Him off the hook.
Third, it all points to Jesus is Lord! He is not ordinary! He is not just a smart man but an all knowing God!
How many times have you heard, "Give to Caesar what is Caesars."
Have you ever heard that before. Well that isn't correct. If you leave off the second part it becomes an untrue statement. He didn't just say, "give to Caesar what is Caesar's", he also said, "and to God what is God's."
When you hear that line, do you start to make a list? You know, one of those lists with two columns, one for Caesar and one for God. Is that what we do? Or do we say, "everything belongs to God"?
What do we do with this?
It is interesting to note the trap that was being laid by the Pharisees. If Jesus said that they should not pay Caesar, then they could report him and he would be arrested. If he said they should pay Caesar then they would discredit him for not acknowledging God as Lord of all. Yet the irony is that it was because the Jewish nation had not made God Lord of all that they were in this mess to begin with.
When Jesus answered he left them with no argument. So they just left.
Then came the Sadducee. To help us better understand them, let's look at what Ellen White says about them in Desire of Ages.
"No sooner were the Pharisees silenced than the Sadducees came forward with their artful questions. The two parties stood in bitter opposition to each other. The Pharisees were rigid adherents to tradition. They were exact in outward ceremonies, diligent in washings, fastings, and long prayers, and ostentatious in almsgiving. But Christ declared that they made void the law of God by teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. As a class they were bigoted and hypocritical; yet among them were persons of genuine piety, who accepted Christ's teachings and became His disciples. The Sadducees rejected the traditions of the Pharisees. They professed to believe the greater portion of the Scriptures, and to regard them as the rule of action; but practically they were skeptics and materialists.The Sadducees denied the existence of angels, the resurrection of the dead, and the doctrine of a future life, with its rewards and punishments. On all these points they differed with the Pharisees. Between the two parties the resurrection was especially a subject of controversy. The Pharisees had been firm believers in the resurrection, but in these discussions their views in regard to the future state became confused. Death became to them an inexplicable mystery. Their inability to meet the arguments of the Sadducees gave rise to continual irritation. The discussions between the two parties usually resulted in angry disputes, leaving them farther apart than before.
In numbers the Sadducees fell far below their opponents, and they had not so strong a hold upon the common people; but many of them were wealthy, and they had the influence which wealth imparts. In their ranks were included most of the priests, and from among them the high priest was usually chosen. This was, however, with the express stipulation that their skeptical opinions should not be made prominent. On account of the numbers and popularity of the Pharisees, it was necessary for the Sadducees to concede outwardly to their doctrines when holding any priestly office; but the very fact that they were eligible to such office gave influence to their errors.
The Sadducees rejected the teaching of Jesus; He was animated by a spirit which they would not acknowledge as manifesting itself thus; and His teaching in regard to God and the future life contradicted their theories."
Two very different groups with different beliefs. Both sides working to get their way. The polarizing nature of "God's" people. Does that ring any bells?
Do we ever try to be right so bad that we stop being a family?
In your relationships at home, or work, is being right so important that the focus stops being on the most important part?
Are we keeping our focus on Jesus and letting him guide us through our questions or are we just trying to make ourselves right?
READ: Matthew 22: 23-33
Marriage at the Resurrection
23 That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 24 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. 27 Finally, the woman died. 28 Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”
29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’[b]? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
So the Sadducees were proud of all they knew, so Jesus calls them out by saying what?
They thought they knew, but really they were just trying to put God and the afterlife, in a box they could understand.
Do we ever try to put God in a box of our own understanding?
Do we KNOW the scripture? IF Jesus were here today could he say what he said to the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Would he say, "You don't know the scriptures and you don't believe in the power of God."
Would He be able to say that to us?
So what is the over arching theme of this lesson?
1. God KNOWS me! REALLY KNOWS me!!!!
2. Give to God what is His!
3. KNOW the scripture!
4. Believe in the power of God!
5. HEAVEN is going to be amazing because this battle, the great controversy will be over!
Who Am I?
I am a girl who needs to stop hiding who I am and just give Jesus my real dirty filthy heart and let Him transform it! I am a girl longing to better know Him through His word and I am so looking forward to spending eternity with Him!
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