The encouraging feature of our country is not that it has reached its destination, but that it has overwhelmingly expressed its determination to proceed in the right direction. That was said almost 100 years ago now, five blocks down East Capital Street on the steps of our nation's capital by Calvin Coolidge.
The inauguration had a couple of firsts. It was the first one in which a former president administered the oath of office. William Howard Taft had been made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after he was president. And it was the first presidential inauguration to be broadcast live on the radio. For the first time, tens of millions of Americans from New York City to schoolrooms in California heard the presidential inaugural address live.
People are intensely interested to hear from and understand those who will lead them. And so there is a common practice of leaders giving speeches, like our presidential inaugural addresses, to set out before the people what they will do or, in Coolidge's case, not do. Before the leaders come into power, we like to hear from them; we like to read what they've written or consider what they've done. We devise ways of exploring their thoughts.
So for decades, debates of various formats have been used for those seeking office, where candidates face off before each other and before the public. Failing debates, interviews can be conducted by an inquiring reporter. And even when there is no formal press, questions could be asked in front of others in crowded public places. Much of ancient Greek philosophy or Jewish rabbinical teaching would come by asking questions of a wise man while he's walking around and crowds follow. Much of Jesus' public ministry has been like that.
And that's the situation that we find Jesus in one day during the last week of his ministry in Jerusalem, recorded in Luke chapter 20. Luke chapter 20, please turn there now. You'll find it on page 879 in the Bibles provided, page 879.
We thought in our last sermon from Luke back in May about Jesus' authority, there in the beginning of Luke chapter 20. Jesus and his disciples were teaching while they were walking around, it says, up in verse 3 of chapter 20, in the temple. Not meaning that they were walking around in the building where the sacrifices are offered, but rather in that whole complex of courts and covered colonnaded walkways that surrounded the actual temple itself. The whole area would be called the temple. This was a great area for gathering, for walking and talking and selling. I mean, that was the area in which Jesus had just driven the money sellers out the previous day.
And the last phrase in chapter 19 gives us a sense of the situation. The people, Luke says, were hanging on his words. And that's an unusual word. It's to be intimately tied up with. It's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament at the spot in Genesis where Judah is explaining to Joseph how dear his little brother Benjamin's life is to his aged father Jacob. And this is the word that's used. The father's life hangs on, he said, the boy's life; one relies on the other. Well, that's what was happening here with Jesus' teaching. As he was walking around through the temple courts, the people were listening. They were hanging on his words. And he was teaching some profound lessons about who he is and what he's come to do, about authority and the ever-popular topics of death and taxes. That's what we have before us today.
Through a series of questions put to Jesus, he ended up questioning those who questioned him. And in his answers to those questions, then we find help to questions that we still have today. Important for them to understand and important for us. Three points. Now you'll see the 20 we're looking at verses 9 to 40. If you just see the headings there in the ESV, I'll tell you what I think the point is for each one of those right now. And then I'll rehearse it again later as we come to it.
The three simple points are, I think, first that Jesus is the point. Second, that government's okay. And third is that the, well, hello, yes, I had two different ways to word it. Yes, that's the way I worded it. The best is yet to come. The best is yet to come.
So first, Jesus is the point. This is the story that Jesus told here in the beginning of our section in response to the question asked up in verse two, by what authority you do these things or who is it that gave you this authority? So Jesus tells a parable then that clearly shows that God would judge the Jewish nation and its leaders based on their response to him, to Jesus.
So look at this first section in our passage, Luke chapter 20, verses 9 to 18. And he began to tell the people this parable. A man planted a vineyard, let it out to tenants, and went into another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard, but the 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 yet a third. This one also, they wounded and cast out.
Then the owner of the vineyard said, what shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him. But when the tenants 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. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. When the people heard this, they said, surely not. But he looked directly at them. What then is this that is written? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.
Friends, Jesus told parables to capture people's attention, a valuable skill then and a valuable skill today too in these days of constant screen watching and web surfing. They invite us to see the truth for ourselves. Their stories, but their stories specially crafted to bring about self-knowledge and even the self-incrimination of those who are listening. The whole story was really told as a way for Jesus to quote Psalm 118. It was a story told so that Jesus would have a setting to bring out Psalm 118 verse 22. You see it? They're in verse 17. He's still answering this question. The elders had put to him up in verse 7 about where his authority came from, and that's where he wants to bring out this verse from Psalm 118. He wants them to notice this. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. That's really Jesus' answer to their question. He is the stone, that's the son, and people shouldn't be confused by the fact that the builders, though even the leaders of God's people, are about to reject him because it was prophesied that this would happen even to this one God was sending as the cornerstone.
Well, you wonder if that's the right way to read this story? Keep looking down in verse 19. This is clearly the way the leaders understood this story. They knew it was told against them, like verses 19 and 20. The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this 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.
So in their fear and anger, these teachers and priests now rushed to fulfill the very prophecy they despised. They despised that Jesus had prophesied publicly in this parable that this psalm said that the leaders would reject him, the cornerstone, and what did they do in their obscenities? They fulfilled the very prophecy that they claimed to be so upset by. This encounter was really not turning out the way these leaders had hoped it would when they began to approach Jesus by asking him this challenging question. The very leaders in the process of rejecting Jesus now are fulfilling the prophecy of what would happen to the promised stone in Psalm 118. That's why Jesus quotes it. That's why he tells this parable.
Now, of course, this rejection would not prevent Jesus from functioning as the cornerstone in the new building that God was building, the true temple. In fact, their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah was even part of God's plan about how he would fulfill God's will for him to serve his people as a substitutionary sin-bearing sacrifice. So in Jesus' story here, the tenants' rejection of the son was the crucial event in their relation with the owner, and it proved to be the cause of their own being broken and crushed in judgment. That would play out in history in the crucifixion of Christ just a few days later and then finally in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and it would be played out in individual lives as individuals learn of Christ and yet reject him and so face destructive judgment at the coming of the Lord in the last day.
What was true for them is true for us today too. An un-Christian friend, verse 14 here is an image of what people do today when they reject Christ. But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, this is the heir; let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours. I'm not saying you're a character in a story, but I'm saying you perceive advantages in your own life to Jesus not being who he claims to be, and so you try to live your life that way. This story stands as a warning to you that the crucial thing in your relationship with God is not how many times you come to church. It's not how much money you give. It's what you do with Jesus. It's who you understand Jesus to be. It's who you treat Jesus as. He is the crucial event. Our only hope is found in Jesus Christ in our having a Savior. There is only one Savior. No one else has the righteousness we need. No one else has been presented and has presented themselves as a perfect sacrifice substituting for all of us who depend and believe in Him.
Friends, programs of stoic virtue or strength cultivated a body or mind, good deeds of justice or righteousness advocated for in policy on the hill or in your own actions on weekends, none of these things will serve as a substitute for the need that we have, the indebtedness our own sins have brought us before God. None are sufficient to undo our sins before the ever-living, all-seeing God. Only Jesus Christ can save us. Only He can give us the mercy our souls need. And like these tenants, we Christians can remember God's sweet patience as He sent us messenger after messenger about His grace. Messenger after messenger offering us this truth of what He's done and was patient with many of us here while we listened and rejected and listened and were unresponsive. And then when He could have rightly acted in judgment, sent yet another messenger of His kindness in Christ.
Can you even now recall His gentle perseverance with you? Are there any lessons you're drawing from that to this week before you? And how you deal with those around you? Friends, the good news of Jesus Christ is that all of us who are made in God's image, and that's everybody, all of us, though we have sinned against God, and God has sent His only son to be a sacrifice for all of us, absorbing the wrath that we have been made guilty of because of our sins. And God has raised Him from the dead, showing He accepted the sacrifice that it was sufficient, and He calls us now to turn from our sins into trust in Christ fully. Friend, would you do that today? Trust in Christ. If you want to know more about what that means, talk to many of the people sitting around you here, talk to any of us at the doors after this. I'll be at that door at the back for a while afterwards. I love to talk to you about exactly what that good news could mean in your life today.
Dear friends, bad leaders, like the ones depicted here, like the ones who were dealing with Jesus that last week in the temple, bad leaders are for real. If you feel you've been abused spiritually or otherwise, know that God is committed to justice. According to the Bible, God's judgment is always right. When we look at Paul's argument in Romans chapter 3, he talks about us coming to a situation where the whole world may be held accountable to God. It seems like on that final day the truth will be so evident that when God pronounces His judgment, no objection will be able to be raised. As Guinness has put it, all human secrets will be laid bare, all alibis blown, all excuses, evasions, and hypocrisies exposed for the threadbare frauds that they are.
Friends, the son would be killed, and God's son would actually be raised, though rejected. He actually wins. Authority would not finally be abused. Authority would finally be used to punish the abusers. And friends, that's us, and our only hope is in Christ. So the son is killed, but the son is raised. The tenants are judged. These leaders didn't recognize Jesus, those who were questioning Him because they were misusing their authority to pit themselves against God and His will and even against His own Son. But in none of this today obscure the fact that Jesus is the point. This parable is told to show that the crucial thing in the relationship of the people with God is how they will deal with His Son. Friends, if you're here today wondering about your own relationship with God, the crucial matter is how you will deal with His Son.
Well, with such a sweeping claim, this parable of judgment was a perfect step up to the question about the occupying Roman's authority. I mean, perhaps the scribes and the chief priests were particularly concerned to expose Jesus. And so we read here in verse 20, catch Him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. Let's read this second section now, verses 19 to 26. Look, there are Luke, chapter 20, verses 19 to 26. The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on Him at that very hour, where they perceived that He had told this 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.
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 denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have? They said, Caesar's. He said to them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch Him in what He said, marveling at His answer. They became silent.
So in this second section in our passage, we see the message Jesus had, which probably surprised people and which we hear on Capitol Hill could learn from. And the point is simply this: number two, government's okay. Government's okay. If that seems underwhelming, it's meant to be. Government's okay. It's legitimate, and it is under God.
You were to go over to the book of Acts, chapter five, verse 37. You'd see Gamaliel reasoning with the Sanhedrin and mentioning a certain Judas, not Judas Maccabeus from Jewish history, nor Judas the disciple, but another Judas, a common name, who about 20 years earlier, up in Galilee, had led some of the people of Galilee away during a time when the Roman Empire was tightening up on its taxation and it was having a census decree because of that. And they started a poll tax, a head tax, a tribute that was very unpopular with the people. And this Judas from Galilee led a revolt based on that. That was put down.
Well, friends, think it's 20 years later. Now here is Jesus from Galilee, a popular teacher, popular with the Bible-believing types who listen to the Pharisees, the Bible teachers of the day, and many people say he is claiming or positioning himself to be the heir to the throne of David. So that would mean saying that the Roman occupiers are wrong and illegitimate. They think he's about to lead a revolt like Judas, only he's made it all the way to Jerusalem, and the crowds are large. Friends, this is why they want to catch Jesus, as we read in verse 20. This is why they were attempting to entrap him.
You know, when they had asked him about his authority up in verse 2, and he had responded with that either/or question, well, you tell me whose John's baptism is from, is it from God or not? It seems like they've learned that that either/or thing could be pretty clever. It could form a bit of a dilemma. You put out two options that seem to be the obvious options, and especially if neither of the options is good, oh, you've got a winner of a question. Some of you who work in press will understand.
Well, here it is. They get together in Matthew and Mark, by the way, let us know that those who sent these spies were an interesting group. It was the Pharisees. They're the ones who were least happy with the Roman rule, and the Herodians. They were pro-Roman. They were the local king Herod who was put in power by Caesar. Very odd partners, but then a common enemy can work wonders. Their point was to have witnesses either way on this one, to ask Jesus a simple question that would cause him by his answer either to lose the mass, Pharisaic popularity, or to undermine Roman legitimacy. Either way, whatever he answers, they win.
So they're coming up, I think, feeling pretty confident about this. So the matter in question here, just to be clear, in verse 22, was a poll tax, and it was incredibly unpopular. It helped finance Rome's domination of Judea, and behind their question was this attempt to hook Jesus on the horns of a dilemma. So the spies come and they ask this clearly devised question. You mean, you know, think of the parable Jesus just told. This dramatic parable about the vineyard being destroyed, so surely he's kind of worked up, and this is the right time to get him to publicly denounce Rome and to call for revolt. You know, it's Passover week, tons of people are there, you're in a public place in Jerusalem. It's just a perfect setup for this. Maybe Jesus was just about to announce the imminent judgment of God on the Roman governor Pilate and ultimately the Roman Emperor.
So they ask this simple, very carefully devised question. But that's not what Jesus did, and in fact, almost as soon as they ask the question, things begin to go wrong. I wonder if you've noticed this. Do you see how Jesus begins? Very subtle. Show me the denarius, and I think without thinking, guys are reaching down in their pockets, oh, I've got one here, pull it out. As soon as they've done that, they've stepped into the trap. They thought they were trapping him; meanwhile, his simple show me denarius, okay, and they start to go. So they now show that they all have this coin. Oh, they have brought into the temple this pagan coin, with the image on it of a guy who's claiming to be a god. Oh, they all used this coin. They've got probably lots in their pockets. They're part of the economy, and traditionally where the economy is, the rule of the king is recognized. So they have already incriminated themselves, even in the simple action of showing the coin that they were apparently trapping Jesus by asking him a question about.
Well, that's just part one. So they brought this coin to him, as Mark puts it, they were admitting that they were operating in the Roman system, and then Jesus gave this simple request, whose likeness and inscription does it have? Of course, the answer is obvious. He was setting them up to acknowledge the legitimacy of a pagan government. He says, render to Caesar what is Caesar's? Friends, to us, that doesn't surprise us. We're used to thinking of governments, but at the time, and in that context, where people assumed we're in a holy land that God has given to David and his heirs to the children of Abraham, pagans have no right to reign over it. When Jesus says, render to Caesar what is Caesar, he is saying that apparently, at least for the time, the earthly kingdom of David is done. It's an earthquake statement, at least for the time being. The Herodians were no doubt happy to hear Jesus so undercutting those who would oppose Roman rule, but Jesus kept going. And he said, and to God the things that are God's.
Well, then what does that mean? If they're to render to God, what is God? Well, what is God's? Where is the image of God like the image of Tiberius on the denarius? Well, the image of God is carried by every human being, every human being with images of Tiberius in his pocket. For that matter, Tiberius himself. They're all made in the image of God. All of this is to be rendered to God. So it's interesting. He's left him an understanding that everyone is subject to God. All we have in our belongs to God. And yet at the same time, he has said that there is a legitimate rule that the Romans may have. So he's both legitimized it and he's relativized it in comparison to the rule of God. There was no argument to be made for obeying Caesar instead of God, but as long as Caesar could be obeyed along with God, even the pagan Caesar could be understood as God's agent, not merely as God's enemy.
Friends, for us, work doesn't have to be ultimate in order to be good. Things of temporary value can be real and valuable. There aren't only two speeds to life: that which is absolutely most important and nothing else matters. Now, you can't live like that. You'll go crazy. Now you have to realize that the work that Caesar and the administrators do gives off some value. It's not of ultimate value. You render everything to God. He is the ultimate Lord of all, but that doesn't mean that our work, temporary in nature, can't be really and truly good.
So friends, that's the way it is in our own government work here. If you want to put all this together, remember from 1st Timothy chapter 2, what we often pray together on Sunday nights. We pray for those who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life. God, they dignified it in every way. If you want to write down some verses to think about this more this afternoon, so 1st Timothy 2, also put down Romans 13. Romans 13 presumes that the governing authorities are servants, ministers of God. And Paul is writing that about the very pagan government that's going to take off his own head in a few years. There's no illusions of them being perfect, but they are legitimate. Paul says, that's why we pay taxes.
But if you're writing down those verses, you also have to write down a couple of others because government is not ultimate. We Christians are never to be naive and expect the government to solve our most important problems, let alone make our world perfect. So in Acts 5:29, Peter says to the Jewish leaders, we must obey God rather than man. And Revelation 13 draws an even sharper picture to show that government can sometimes be beastly and even make a war on the saints, as some governments do openly today. We know that what's going to happen soon enough through the power of the Roman state to Jesus himself will show the beastly nature of fallen human government.
So Capitol Hill congregation, what that means is that working for the government can, on the one hand, never be our ultimate identity, but on the other, that such work can be a fine way to serve God as we reflect God's own concern for goodness and justice among people, all of whom are made in his image. As Christians, we want to cultivate obedience to legitimate authorities. So any children here who are still at home, children, you should obey your parents. That's how this shows itself in your life. Obey your parents. Friends, if you have a boss at work or those who are authority over you, you should obey them, not in ways ever that contradict what God says, but in other ways. We recognize the limitations of human authority. Our own church's statement of faith is actually very careful about this. I don't know if you remember it; our church's statement of faith is pretty short, written in the 19th century, but they have one whole sentence just on this very point. It's article 16 of civil government, and in its 19th-century kind of language, it says, we believe that civil government is of divine appointment for the interests and good order of human society, and that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored, and obeyed, except only in things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Lord of the conscience and the prince of the kings of the earth.
But anyway, Jesus that day was not threatening to replace Rome by directly ruling the people from a reestablished throne of David. That's the big headline coming out of that exchange because I think they would expect it, and they were expecting him to undermine everything and go for Rome's throat, and he didn't do that. Jesus was on another part of his mission. He was acting as a substitute in our place, about to be rejected because of us, for us, before he would rule his people, he would redeem his people. He was a king, but as he would tell Pilate a couple of days later, my kingdom is not of this world. But if Jesus is saying that Caesar's rule is legitimate now, then what about his kingdom? Oh, what kind of king doesn't have a kingdom?
So satisfaction with Jesus' answer here can only come because there's another world, the next life, where his reign is complete. And that life revitalizes and relativizes the importance of this one. That's what the third account shows. This final part of our passage this morning is where Jesus teaches number three, the best is yet to come. That's because what's coming after this life is the body being raised free of corruption and death forever. Look at this last section with me now. You can imagine this. They became silent, they became silent, verse 26. And now I think the Sadducees come in. And you can just imagine the Sadducees. You don't know the Sadducees. They are the smallest party, the richest party, the most powerful party. They're the one percent. They're the ones who control the temple. They are good with Rome. They have chastened religious beliefs. They accept the first five books of the Bible. They don't believe in angels. The big thing that we see again in the book of Acts is they don't believe in the resurrection of the body. They're kind of human materialists in many ways, it seems.
So Pharisees or the large popular Bible teachers in Sadducees, well kids, if you want to remember this, kids, the Pharisees, the Sadducees are sad, you see, because they don't believe in the resurrection. Sad, you see, because they don't believe in the resurrection. Be sure and repeat that to your parents several times over lunch today. Just let them know you're listening to the sermon. Well, that was the position. They were used to arguing with people. And I think here, after the lawyers have been silenced, their spies defeated, the Sadducees come forward. And I think it's a situation kind of like, step aside amateurs, let's show you how it's done. I think they come forward with the confidence of a university religion professor deconstructing a freshman evangelical's faith. I mean, they have done this so many times, it's not even funny. They know exactly how to do this.
So they are going to show their art by even employing a Jesus-like parable in order to trap Jesus in it and unveil the absurdity of belief in the resurrection and to do this all with humor so that it elapses in mockery at the silliness of the idea. Oh, they're feeling good about this one. Well, it doesn't go exactly as planned. Let's start reading with verse 27. Look at Luke chapter 20, verse 27. There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, teacher. And you can just hear the dripping, confident condescension as they address him, teacher. Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies having a wife but no children, that man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children, and the second and the third took her. And likewise, all seven left no children and died. Afterwards, the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.
And Jesus said to them, the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. For they cannot die anymore because they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he's not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to him. Then some of the scribes answered, teacher, you've spoken well, for they no longer dared to ask him any questions.
Friends, in that last phrase of verse 38, they're all live to him, that is to God. Jesus is teaching that death is not the end of life but that our souls continue on after our bodies die. In fact, the lastingness of this resurrected life is part of the image of God in us. The Sadducees were the elites of the priestly class; they ruled the temple. They just accepted these five books of Moses, which is why Jesus went to Exodus chapter 3 to prove the resurrection from even from the things that they knew were from God; they had not read it or understood it correctly. And so here Jesus is pressing home this important truth.
So were the Sadducees to have been right, if there were no resurrection, and if Jesus was saying to Pilate in a couple of days, my kingdom is not of this world, then he was a king with no kingdom. He was no Messiah. His kingdom was of the world to come, a different order of world than the one the Romans were so concerned with. If there were no resurrection, what was Jesus claiming to rule over then? But there is a resurrection, as Jesus himself would soon show, and he was truly a king, simply not the kind of king they were watching out for that day.
Now, whatever questions this may leave us with, we can certainly see that physical death is not the end and this life is not ultimate. Whatever heaven is compared to this life, you can be sure that it is better and that in heaven you and I will not be sitting around looking back longingly, though I believe we will be praising God for his good gifts to us in this life. Do you see the importance of this? This is not merely a simple phrase of the Nicene Creed or something that we sometimes will say or refer to in a hymn or a song. One former member, Danny Schrift, texted me just on Thursday with pictures and videos of a friend in Pakistan who shared news of terrible destruction. Seven villages dominated by Christian villagers raised to the ground. Twenty-five churches destroyed.
I wonder how Jesus' disciples in places like Pakistan receive promises from preachers of wealth in this world, of health in this life, of ruling the nation as Christians if they will only make a positive confession with their own words. Friends, the truth of the resurrection of the body is no removable appendix from the body of Christian hope. We need this truth, this hope to live the lives that God has called us to in this fallen world. The Lord Jesus holds the keys of death and hell. His authority is complete, and it shows itself in our new lives now and in the new life that's to come when we're raised that we're just about to see depicted in the symbol he left of baptism.
Brothers and sisters, live as if the resurrection is true because it is. Live all out for God. Do you like we sang earlier, all I have is Christ? Be able to say with Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, if only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. Friends, this is a large congregation. I don't know all the trials you're facing, but just take it from me as somebody who has been trying to follow Jesus for pretty much almost 50 years now. Wow. I have no idea what the next year is going to bring if the Lord allows me to have it, but I know this: with whatever I got left, I'm going to continue to try to follow him. Just with everything I've got, that's what I'm doing. Not because I know everything works out well in this life. May or may not; it doesn't in some ways and doesn't in others, but because I'm confident of what God has for us in Christ, because I'm confident of the resurrection of the body from the dead.
Friends, this is the truth that will allow you to be a Christian, believing or prevent it from all the religious trappings you may put in your life. The truth of the resurrection of the body is crucial for us to know. Come on Sundays, enjoy the previews we get. Have the hope for the resurrection growing in your heart. That'll help us to live for God and to trade in the small false pleasures of sin for the gigantic ever-expanding treasures of heaven. Friends, when you get a good-looking sin, it's always silly. It's like holding the penny up in front of the sun. You know, if you get it just right, it can block the sun, but if you ever look at it, pull it away, it's not worth the sun. There's just no comparison here. Our sins are the same. Pray that God help us to see the truth of our sin and so rejoice in the massive hope he gives us in Christ.
I love the little foretaste we get of the joy of that heavenly assembly each Sunday as we assemble together and be God's people together and pray as we do in Christ's name and hear His word and feast on His promises and sing His praises. So in this passage, Jesus takes the occasion of this trick question about the resurrection in order to affirm the resurrection of the body. This surprised and silenced the collaboration with the Sadducees. Jesus taught that there was a new age and that this is where His kingdom would come in its fullness. So Jesus pointed to an eternal kingdom where our happiness will be eternal. Jesus again teaches the truth: the best is yet to come.
So if the point is Jesus, and if God will judge you based on your response to Jesus, and if government can be good but God is even more important, then is there really more to life than this life? And if you know that there is, what difference does that make in your life today? Consider this past week. How would you have lived differently if you had known these things? Or did you? Maybe you did live like this. Like Coolidge expressed about America, so the Christian in this world has not reached our destination, but we have overwhelmingly expressed our desire to get there. Is that what your life's expressing?
Let's pray together. Lord God, we pray that you would stir our hearts and souls to life by the power of your Spirit as you use your word. Instruct and inform and enlighten and empower us even now. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
on Nov 05, 2023
