Matthew 22:1-22, God's term and God's right

Reading Assignment: Matthew 22:1-22

Main Ideas: God’s terms and God’s right.

Key verse: Matthew 22:21

Overview:

1.        God’s terms seen in the parable of the wedding feast

2.        God’s right seen in Jesus’ teaching on the poll-tax

Prayer:

1.        Examine your heart. Are you wholly submitted under God’s authority? Do you see that God has the right to own you and direct your life? Pray to express your commitment to the Lord in repentance or pray to repent of your rebellion against Him.

Transcript

Let's pray and we'll begin our time.

God, this morning, as we turn our attention to You, we remember that You truly are God. It is You who made us and not we ourselves. We thank You that in Christ that we are Your people, and that we approach You not as those who are estranged and hostile, but as those who are beloved, as those whom You welcome into Your presence. Thank You for Christ, who paid for our every sin that we might have the joy of communion with You. We pray that You would teach us this morning. Speak to us as we look to Your word, as we pay attention to the precious words of Your dear Son. Guide us during this time. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The next reading assignment is Matthew 22:1-22. I have two main ideas here. They are: God's terms and God's right. The key verse is found in verse 21 where Jesus says, "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” We'll unpack the meaning of this in a little bit, but suffice it to say, this has to do with God’s right over human beings as His own. We do not possess ourselves; we don't direct our own lives.We humbly submit ourselves under God’s authority. That's the key verse. But before we get to that point, let me first guide us through the first section which teaches us about God’s terms, that we must all come to God on His terms, not our own.

Jesus here is continuing to speak to the religious leaders who were upset with Him. As you would recall, at the end of Chapter 21, Jesus had told the parable of the vineyard owner that revealed the wickedness of the heart of the religious leaders. They are clearly upset with Jesus and they wanted to arrest Him, but they couldn't because the crowd loved and respected Him. And at this juncture, Jesus does not back down because of their anger. He wanted them to see their own state of sin, and so He goes ahead to expose their sin even further. Why does Jesus do this? Is it because He is unkind? No. It's because He cares. This is the only way that people would ever come to repentance, if they recognize that they are sinners who are in a state of rebellion against God. And so Jesus continues to speak. And this is the heart of our Lord. He doesn't simply call people to repentance. He shows them that they need to repent. And so Jesus here tells another parable to do exactly this.

This next parable is about a wedding feast. Now there is a big difference between wedding feasts today and the wedding feast that Jesus is talking about. To properly understand this story, there is a culture gap to bridge. To make this story more understandable, I'm going to tell you the events of the story in chronological order. This should help you make sense of the parable when you read it. First, there's a king who plans a wedding feast for his son. He then sends out the invitation to the guests. The guests then accept his invitation. Once the feast day nears, the king sends his slaves to call the invitees to come to the feast. The message to all the invitees is this: "all the preparations have been made and the feast is prepared. Come and enjoy the feast.” Now, before we get to the next event, let me explain something about the ancient world. Once the animals have been slaughtered to make the meal, the food must be eaten. There is no refrigeration. There is no freezer. Once the food is prepared, that food must be consumed during the feast time. And so when the king has made the preparations it is expected of the guests who had agreed to come to now attend the feast. But there’s a twist in this story. All the invitees ignore the king's message. They act like they heard nothing. They just go right back to their own lives. They pay no attention. They go back to their farms. They go back to their business. They give no thought to the king's message. It’s actually even worse. They do what the vine-growers did in the in the parable of the vineyard owner. They seize the king’s slaves, the messengers, mistreat them, and kill them. The king finds out what happened. He becomes rightly provoked and sends his armies and destroys these invitees. They accepted the invitation but snubbed the king and even killed his messengers. This was a grievous act of evil, especially because this was not the wedding feast of a mere friend but of the king. This was no mere disrespect for a fellow man. This was to disdain the king! The point is that the king’s wrath is justified. Now, having dealt with those invitees, the king must still account for the feast which has been prepared. So the king directs another group of slaves to go to the highways and byways to bring guests to his feast. So the slaves fill the banqueting hall with new guests. Now the king has instructions about the guest’s attire. All the guests are given wedding clothes to wear. This is his son's wedding celebration, and so everyone is to be properly dressed for this joyous occasion. But it turns out that someone chooses not to wear the king’s clothes. This person snubs the king's orders to put on the wedding garments. These are wedding clothes; they are beautiful; they are befitting the occasion. There is no reason for anyone to reject the king's instructions. But this man did. When the king finds out, he deals with this man severely even as he did the invitees. Why? Because in the same way that the invitees did not honor the terms of the king, so this man also refused the king’s terms. The king therefore declares, “bind this man hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Now, if you know anything about Jesus' words, these words of “outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth," they describe hell. And so Jesus, as He nears the end of the story, He shows that this is no longer just a story about a wedding feast; this is actually a story about people's eternal destination. The point of the story is this. All who truly are reconciled to God come to God on His terms. Whether it's the invitees or it's one of these other guests, they must abide by the king's terms. There's no way for people to just do whatever they please and ignore the king’s orders, because this is the king's feast. Take it out of the analogy, what are we talking about here? Well, we're talking about the people of Israel and the Gentiles, and that all who come to God (whether Jew or Gentile) must come to Him on His terms. God had called the people of Israel. He had invited them to enter His Kingdom. To prepare them for this, God sent the prophets in the century before the time of Christ. Then of course, as the final prophet, He also sent John the Baptist. Jesus is the One who gives the final summons to enter into the Kingdom of God, but the Jews rejected Jesus. They refused to come to the feast. They did not honor God's invitation and they refused the call of Jesus to enter His Kingdom. Therefore, God sent His judgment upon them. What judgment would that be? There are at least two ways to see that judgment. First, in AD 70, Jerusalem was destroyed. And the Jews all end up going into exile. Another way to see this is that a hardness of heart fell upon the people of Israel. They rejected Christ, and as a result, God hardened their hearts so that as a nation they will not embrace Jesus as the Messiah. This means they will continue to be in a perpetual state of God's disfavor until a later time when God will give them a new heart. This is what the people of Israel have experienced ever since the time of Jesus Christ. Thus God has dealt with the people of Israel, as seen in the parable. Then God extends another invitation to others that were not originally invited, these are the Gentiles. God sent His servants, the apostles, and other missionaries to take the good news of the Kingdom of God to the Gentile world. Though the Gentiles had never received the original invitation to God's Kingdom, God called them anyway to come and enter His Kingdom. Of course, many Gentiles have placed their faith in Christ. But here's the interesting catch: not every Gentile who says he believes comes to God on His terms. If you would, they refuse to wear the wedding clothes. I’ll take it out of the analogy and talk about the substance here. There are many people who say they believe in the gospel, but they refuse to bear the fruits of repentance. They refuse to submit themselves under God's authority and to live by His word. And Jesus shows us that all who refuse to come to God on His terms, God will reject them. This means they are not saved. Even though they say they believe, they refuse to honor God and keep His word. And all those who refuse to come to God on His terms, their place will be in the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. All those who are saved, repent and submit under God's authority, they come to God on God's terms. And until someone comes to that point of humble surrender to the Lord, that person is in a state of rebellion, and they will face God's judgment whether Jew or Gentile. It doesn't matter what their ethnicity is. At the end of the day, every person must come to God on God's terms. Every believer must be willing to forsake everything to do whatever God wants them to do. There's no way that a person can be a Christian while holding back on God. Holding back on God with regard to family, with regard to personal property, with regard to their time, with regard to their hobbies, whatever it might be. All those who would truly believe Christ become His disciples and they follow earnestly after Him. All who would be reconciled to God must forsake everything to follow Christ. Jesus puts it this way: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” That's from Matthew Chapter 10. We read those words before. We find the same thing also in Luke 14. “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters and yes, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” In the context of Luke 14, Jesus is talking about the cost of following Christ. He is saying that we must love Him more than anything else and that if we must do things that our family members may interpret as hateful to them, we must be willing to do so. Why? Because Christ is God. Jesus is God. And if we are to be reconciled to God through Christ, Jesus must be our supreme love. He must be our supreme object of worship. All those who would be reconciled to God must come to God on God's terms. This is an important encouragement for us to never hold anything back from Christ. In fact, if there is anything that you are holding back from Christ today, I submit to you that you are not a Christian. You have yet to embrace Jesus for who He is as Savior and Lord. That's the first part.

The second part has to do with God's right. The story begins with the Pharisees trying to trip up Jesus with a pesky problem that the Jews had when time came for their poll tax. Well, what is the poll tax? “Poll tax” is literally the “census tax” in Greek. It's the tax that everyone in the empire was required to pay. Everyone, as in every head, every human being in the Roman Empire, was taxed. This was also known as the head tax, because every head would have to pay this tax. Of course, the Jews hated this tax because this was a tax by Gentile foreigners. The question here was meant to trap Jesus. If Jesus answered in support of the tax, then He would betray His countrymen and the Pharisees can use this to turn the people against Jesus. If on the other hand, Jesus answered to deny support of the tax, then the Pharisees would report this to the Roman authorities and hand Jesus over to them for insurrection. So, they thought they got the perfect question to get Jesus either way. Whether Jesus answers yes or no, it will be the end of His ministry. Here was Jesus' response. He asked for the coin that was used to pay the poll tax, a denarius. Now the denarius had a portrait of Tiberius Caesar on it. Tiberius Caesar is also known by his title Augustus. Then He asked the Pharisees, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” The answer was obvious. They answered, “Caesar’s.” Then Jesus said those words from our key verse. He said, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” What does Jesus mean by this? The coin belonged to Caesar because it bears his image. Humans on the other hand belong to God, because they bear His image. Jesus shows us what is a human being. A human being is not a free entity that can go out and do whatever they please with their lives. That is a false idea. That is fueled by the lies of Satan. What we find in the Bible is that humans were created to bear the image of God. And what Jesus explains here is that by virtue of that, God has the right over us, in the same way that Caesar has right over his own coins. God has the right over us; therefore, the objective of human life is to give ourselves to God. While the Jews thought their big problem was taxes to Rome, Jesus showed they had a much greater problem. The real problem was that there was a lack of devotion to God in the heart of the Jews. The real problem had nothing to do with the burden of taxation, the real problem was their unwillingness to give themselves to God to serve and worship Him. God has the right over them as their Creator, and this is true of us also. God created us to be His image bearer. He has the right over our lives. We either acknowledge this truth and so serve and honor Him, or we reject His authority and rebel against Him. Our objective in life is to give ourselves wholly to God in worship and in service and in love for Him, because we belong to Him, because He made us and we bear His image. So these are the two lessons: 1) all who come to God must come to Him on His terms, and 2) God has the right over every human being. The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, the world and all who live in it. Everything belongs to God, every human being. If you see and believe this, then your right response to the Lord is this: “God, You own me. I am Your slave. You are my Master.” And if that is true in your life, then you have come to repentance. But if there is any resistance against the authority of God and the words of Jesus, then it is time for you to repent and get right with God today.

What can we pray about? I think all of these passages in this part of Matthew is asking us one question: Are you right with God? Have you submitted it your life under the authority of God? If you have not, you are not yet reconciled to God. But the invitation is there. Jesus went to the cross so that all can come back to God. And Christ is calling every person to humbly subject themselves under God’s authority, to become His worshipers, His servants, with a singular desire and objective to honor God and to keep His word. So I invite you to think about these matters. Read through the passage. You'll see these points once again. And make sure that there's nothing that’s holding you back from Christ. He is the Lord, and the Word of God repeatedly shows us that we must honor Him as the Lord.

Let me pray for us and we'll close.

God, thank You for Your word. Thank You for Jesus, who speaks the pure and unadulterated truth. Thank You for showing us that we are not our own. We belong to You and You own us. This is Your world, and whatever You have said are the terms by which we must be reconciled to You. We don’t set the rules; You do. Thank You that there is mercy and forgiveness of sins to all those who repent. And I pray that every single person here would have that heart of repentance that humbly comes under Your authority. Thank You for Your precious word. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

All right, that's it for today, Lord bless you all and see you on Friday.