It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda. The scripture for our sermon
today is found in Matthew chapter 22. Beginning at verse 15 we
read, Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might
entangle Jesus in his talk. And they sent out unto him their
disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that
thou art true, and teach us the way of God in truth. Neither
carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person
of men. Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to
give tribute unto Caesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their
wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? show me
the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.
And he saith to them, Whose is this image and superscription?
They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he to them, Render
therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto
God the things that are God's. When they had heard these words,
they marveled, and left him, and went their way. The title
of our sermon today is, Give God His Due. The first lesson we see in the
scripture is that at the root of the greatest evils and the
most evil of men lies the evil of self-righteous pride. The
Pharisees and Herodians, the Sadducees, the scribes, the rulers,
and the chief priests constituted and represented the idolatrous
religion of free will, of man's work, of man's pride in his own
salvation. Just prior to Jesus' encounter
with these men here in Matthew 22, He had spoken three parables
against them. The first parable in Matthew
21 verse 28 through 32, Jesus told of two sons, one who repented
and then did the will of his father, and a second son who
promised to obey but then did not do the will of his father.
In that parable, Jesus compared these men to the second son. They did not do the will of God.
They would not hear God's warnings from John the Baptist. They would
not behold the Lamb of God, as John had preached to them. Therefore,
by their willful, stubborn, self-righteous pride, they refused to believe
Christ. Their unbelief was disobedience. It would keep them from entering
heaven. Meanwhile, though by that parable
Jesus pronounced judgment on these men, he also declared his
grace to sinners. Because at the conclusion of
that parable he said, tax collectors and harlots will enter heaven
because they believed John when he preached Christ and him crucified. In the second parable, in Matthew
21, verse 33 through 46, Jesus told of a landowner who rented
his vineyard out to men to care for it and then bring him the
fruit of that vineyard. But those men failed to give
the fruit. In fact, they killed the landowner's
only son. Jesus said that in that parable,
the stribes and Pharisees were like those murderous men. To
national Israel, God had entrusted the oracles of God. But these
men did not see Christ in scripture. In John 5, 39, Jesus says, They did not believe him. They
trusted their own righteousness. They did not preach Christ to
the people that God might be glorified in their salvation.
These men were the wicked caretakers in the parable who would not
bring the landowner the fruit as payment from his vineyard.
Because these men did not preach Christ to the people to bring
them as fruit to God, the gospel would therefore be taken from
that nation and given to another nation, that is, the heavenly
Jerusalem, the chosen nation of God, the holy nation, the
true Israel of God, which is the church of Jesus Christ. The
plain teaching in those two parables preceding Matthew 22 is that
the Pharisees and those who are like them failed to give God
what belonged to Him. They did not obey in the first
parable, and they did not feed Christ's sheep in the second
parable, because they did not preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And in all of this, they did
not give to God the glory due His name. Then, in Matthew 22
verses 1 through 14, Jesus gave a third parable against those
unbelieving Jews and all who followed them. In the third parable,
Jesus said that these Jews were like those who were called, but
refused to come, to the wedding feast of the king's only son. One who refused to come went
to his farm. That man took more delight in
the labors of his own hands and the fruits of his work than he
did in the feast that the king had prepared, or in the king's
son, or in the king's marriage. Another man in that parable went
to his merchandise. That man loved the pleasures
and security of this world more than the king and his son. Jesus
said the Pharisees were like those in the parable who despised
God, despised Christ, and killed God's servants throughout time.
These unbelieving religious leaders rejected the gospel. The wedding
feast in the parable corresponds to the gospel of God's free grace
in Christ. When God sent His Son, when Christ
came to do the will of God, when Jesus fulfilled God's will in
His own obedience unto death, and thereby saved all of His
people from all of their sins, that corresponded to the wedding
feast in the parable being made ready by the King. All things
were now ready. But these men, because of their
self-righteous pride, despised the gospel of God's grace. They stubbornly held to their
own righteousness and would not submit to the righteousness of
God. The righteousness of God is the
obedience of Christ in His death. which fulfilled God's eternal
will to save His people, to obtain their eternal redemption, and
to justify them forever by His own obedience and His own death. Now in the account before us,
here in Matthew 22, these same sort of men come to Jesus. They
heard three severe warnings against themselves, yet rather than taking
counsel with Christ how they might be saved and turn from
their wicked unbelief, they rather took counsel among themselves
how they might kill the Lord Jesus Christ. All who stubbornly
hold to their self-righteousness are fools like these men. Proverbs
27.22 says, Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among
wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from
him. Neither the threatenings of eternal
damnation nor the wooings of sovereign grace will turn a fool
from his foolishness. Only the almighty operations
of the Spirit of God can do that. We see the reprobation of these
men in their stubborn unbelief. Paul said in 2 Timothy 3.13,
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse. deceiving
and being deceived. These were reprobate men. They
only grew worse. They were deceived by their own
self-righteousness, and in their pride, by their false teaching
of man's free will and man's work in salvation, they also
deceived others. What is the lesson we learn from
all of this? The lesson is this. The worst
evil of all is the evil of proud, self-righteous unbelief, which
refuses to submit to the righteousness of God in Christ. Romans 9, verse
33 through Romans 10, 4. That root in the heart of these
men ultimately rose up and killed the Lord Jesus Christ. That root
was the cause of their eternal damnation. that root can only
be uprooted by God's free grace. May God grant you and I this
gift of repentance that we might turn from our own free will and
self-righteousness to acknowledge the truth as it is in Christ."
2 Timothy 2.25. But there is here in this scripture
a more basic and glorious lesson taught. It is this, in every
assault of every enemy against the Lord Jesus Christ, He gloriously
triumphs over His enemies and reveals His wisdom, His power,
and His grace to the adoring wonder of His people. David taught
this by his prophecy of Christ when he said in Psalm 118, They
compassed me about like bees. They are quenched as the fire
of thorns, for in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.
No matter how wise the counsels of evil men, no matter how crafty
their schemes, no matter how determined and relentless their
efforts, no matter how many the enemies of Christ, In their every
attack on Him, He always triumphs. In every battle, His victory
and His grace make Him more glorious in the eyes of His adoring people,
who in themselves have no power against their enemies. Christ's
sheep find all their victory in His victory. When Israel stood
helpless before their enemies at the Red Sea, God destroyed
Pharaoh and his armies before their very eyes. They faced an
impossible foe in an impossible situation, yet Christ overcame
their enemies. And He will overcome every enemy
of His people in the same way, to His great glory and to their
eternal salvation. By Himself, on the cross, He
put away all the sins of all of His people. He cast Satan
out of heaven. He overcame the world. The gospel
of His grace now goes forth into all the world through preaching.
He calls His elect to see His victory. He tells them to flee
to Him for refuge. He points them to His complete,
perfect salvation in Himself. And even in every trial, Christ
gives His victory to His people. 1 Corinthians 15.57 says, Thanks
be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. We see that victory by faith
in his word. Isaiah said this, No weapon that
is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness
is of me, saith the Lord. Isaiah 54 verse 17. Now, the
third lesson we learn builds on the second lesson. The lesson
is this. These evil men only meant evil,
but the Lord Jesus Christ overruled their evil intent for the good
of his people. Christ turned the evil trap they
devised by their fawning posture and flattering words to a lesson
of his grace. Their hypocritical question was
insignificant. Against their dark intent, the
Lord Jesus turned the bright light of His truth. The truth
of the gospel of God's grace in Christ and Him crucified is
the weapon we wield against every enemy. The weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, Paul told the Corinthians, but mighty, through
God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and
everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,
and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,
2 Corinthians 10, verses 3-5. The sword of the Spirit is the
word of God, the gospel of our salvation. The light of Christ's
words both exposed these men as hypocrites and revealed the
gospel of God's grace to his people. The wisdom of Christ's
answer astounded even his enemies. He not only did not fall by their
trap they laid for him, but in just a few words, only 17 in
the original language, Jesus did three powerful things. First,
he put Caesar in his place. Caesar, a mere man, claimed to
be God. But in Christ's answer, he made
a distinction between Caesar and God. He said, give to Caesar
what belongs to Caesar, but to God what belongs to God. In his
answer, Jesus distinguished between Caesar and God. He spoke of Caesar
and God as two, not one. Therefore, Caesar is not God,
and God is not Caesar. Not only this, but Caesar's image
was on the tribute coin. Yet God's image is in man, Genesis
1, verse 27, and Genesis 9, verse 6. Though God's image is in man,
though God's image in man is marred by man's fall in sin and
by his own sinful nature, nevertheless, God's image in man identifies
him as belonging to God. Men, therefore, must give God
all that they have, even their own lives. The second thing Jesus
did by his answer was to expose and silence his enemies. He showed
that their question about taxes was diversionary. They aimed
low at unimportant matters. They completely missed what was
important. They concerned themselves with
temporal things like taxes, money, rulers in this life. They were
trying to avoid matters of the heart. Therefore, their question
was the question of men who deal only superficially with God.
But Solomon said in Proverbs 4.23, My son, keep thy heart
with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. And
the Lord told Samuel, Man looks at the outward appearance, but
God looks at the heart, for Samuel 16, verse 7. Important matters
are heart matters. God does not hear flattering
words and long prayers. God hears the cry of sinners
who worship Him in their heart, looking to Christ as all in their
salvation, all of their righteousness, all of their truth, all of their
hope and glory. Such a cry and such a look are
the work of God's grace alone. These self-righteous hypocrites
strained at gnats of insignificance, but they swallowed camels of
damning error. They looked for specks in the
eyes of others while carrying beams in their own eyes. But
Jesus' answer silenced them. They failed to give one thing
of all that belonged to the eternal King of Glory, the Lord God of
heaven and earth. That one thing is of far greater
importance and will result in far more serious consequences
than paying or failing to pay taxes to a temporal earthly king. Men must give to God what belongs
to Him. And the third significant thing
Jesus did by his answer was to teach the gospel of his grace
to his people. These men asked whether it was
lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, but there was much more important
questions they should have asked. Jesus' answer exposed their hypocrisy. By comparison, never mind Caesar,
you have failed to give God his due. Why didn't they ask this
greater question? Why didn't they ask, what does
the Lord require of me? Micah 6 verse 7 through 8. Why didn't they ask, what belongs
to God? Why didn't they ask, How can
man be just with God? Job 9 verse 2. Why didn't they
ask, How can I, a filthy, diseased, wretched sinner, give to God
what is His due? Psalm 29 verse 2. We all ask
and continue to ask all the wrong questions unless God in his mercy
drives us to Christ. We ask insignificant questions
because we think we know the answers to the difficult ones.
We mistakenly imagine that we can do what God requires, that
we can give him his due. This is a huge mistake. We know that we fall short, but
knowing that we fall short, we substitute things we think we
can do for things that God truly requires. We cannot do the things
God requires, but by creating simpler rules of religion, we
expect God to accept us for the things we claim to do, though
we only outwardly and occasionally keep even the man-made rules
that we boast in. We expect the true and living
God to be like the idols of our imagined gods. We think God can
and will accept from us less than what he requires, but he
will not. The gospel begins by exposing
our sin. The Gospel begins with the undeniable
fact that we are sinners. The first principle of the Gospel
is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and
only sinners. If Jesus came to save sinners,
then only sinners will be saved. If Christ came to save sinners,
if He only forgives sinners, then we must take our place among
the lepers, crying, unclean, unclean. Our sin is evident to
others, and it goes deeper, much deeper than our skin. It penetrates
all the way to the way we think in our conscience, even in our
very nature. That is the sin we need to own
before God. Therefore, the Gospel begins
with this principle, sinners Jesus came to save, 1 Timothy
1.15. Jesus did not come to call the
righteous. He came to save sinners. If we fail to see our utter guilt
before God, if we hold the self-deceived notion that we can meet God's
requirements, then we do not know God. We do not even know
ourselves. We suppress the truth of what
God requires. We deny that we are sinners. We deny that we have utterly
failed to do one thing of all that God requires. We deny that
we have failed to give God what belongs to Him. If, as the Gospel
so plainly declares, Christ died for our sins according to the
Scripture, 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3-4, then our sin must
be exceedingly sinful. What? Only the substitutionary,
sin-bearing, wrath-enduring, justice-answering death of the
Son of God in our nature could satisfy God's holy justice against
us for our sin? and God must be holy beyond all
comprehension, and our sin must be evil beyond all of our ability
to grasp. Therefore, the difficult question
we should be asking is, how can I, who have willfully refused
to give one thing of all that belongs to God, how can I be
accepted by Him? Or, how can a sinner like me
give to God His due? How can I fulfill this most fundamental
requirement of all? The Gospel answers these questions. It is to the Gospel that Christ
points us by His answer to these men. What does the Lord require
of me? What must I give to the Lord?
How can I give a ransom for my soul? How can I give God one
thing of all that He requires when I have failed to give Him
everything that He requires? The answer to all of these questions
is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the good news that
God has provided for His people who are sinners all that He requires
from them in the obedience and the death of His Son. The Gospel
reveals that because man failed to give God what is his due,
and because sinners cannot give God what belongs to him, that
God himself has provided what he requires. The Gospel reveals
how that God provided all that he requires for his people in
the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel reveals that when
Christ offered himself to God, he was accepted, and his people
were accepted by God with him. Listen to Romans 5, verse 10. When we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Jesus said, to give
God the things that are God's. Listen to this scripture. First
Chronicles, chapter 16, verse 29. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto His name. Bring an offering and come before
Him. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. At least three things are mentioned
here that we must give. We must give God the glory due
His name. but all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God." Romans 3.23. Only the Lord Jesus Christ
glorified his father by his obedience and his death. Jesus said to
his father, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished
the work thou gavest me to do. John 17 verse 4. Christ gave
to God all that was his. He offered himself. But he did
not offer himself for himself. He offered himself for his people. He died the just for the unjust
to bring us to God. 1 Peter 3.18 Christ paid God
all that His people owed by the ransom of His own life in obedience
to God, even obedience unto death." Matthew 20, verse 28. He restored what He did not take
away, but what we did by failing to give God what belongs to Him. Psalm 69, verse 4. 1 Chronicles
16.29 also says we must bring an offering. But what offering
can we bring? There is only one offering God
will accept. That is the offering He has provided,
the offering He Himself has offered up in His Son. We do not bring
an offering, but we look, in faith, to Christ, who God provided
and gave as an offering for his people. Christ offered himself
to God as a sweet-smelling savor. God accepted him. God accepted
his offering. And God-given faith looks to
Christ alone as all my sin payment, all my justification before God.
It was in His offering that Christ established everlasting righteousness
for His people. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, God
has made Him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. And 1 Chronicles 16 says we must
worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. But how can a sinner
worship God? only in Christ. When we see God
is so holy as to require His Son to die to reconcile His people
to Himself, when we see that our sin is so evil that God required
Christ to die to make atonement for our sins, and when we see
that God provides and accepts only Christ and His obedience,
when we see that God is sovereign and that His mercy to save sinners
is His prerogative, When we see all that God has done to satisfy
His own justice and honor His own law that He might lavish
grace on His chosen people in Christ, then we worship God in
our heart. When we see that though we have
failed to give God one thing of all that is His due, and that
God has provided all that He requires in Christ, and has received
from Christ all that He requires for His people, Then it is in
Christ alone that we come to God and worship Him. Jesus told
the woman at Samaria, you worship you know not what. We know what
we worship for salvation is of the Jews. John 4 verse 22 and
23. We can only worship God when we worship Him in Christ who
is our salvation. May God save us from our self-righteousness,
our willful, stubborn unbelief. May He show us His grace that
He has abundantly lavished on sinners in Jesus Christ. May
we know from scripture that Christ has actually obtained salvation
for his people by his one offering completely outside of our own
personal experience. It is his work, not mine and
not yours, that glorifies God. It is His offering that God accepts
for His people, and it is Christ and Him crucified that is the
basis and the subject of all of our worship. May God glorify
Himself in His Son, saving us from our sins and causing us
to give Him glory by believing Christ only and worshiping God
in Him, in our spirit, taking no confidence whatsoever in all
that we are in ourselves. Philippians 3, verse 3. "'Tis
not that I did choose thee, Lord, You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our website
at ysgracechurch.com.