Good morning. I want you to open
your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 17, where our lesson
will be from this morning. I was overjoyed to see Bob and
Rebecca come in this morning. I told Bob I just might cry.
Such dear, dear, dear, dear friends. So thankful. Let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, We bow before you this morning.
We bow before our God, our Lord, our Master. And we beg that this
morning that you would give us a word from thee, that you'd
open your hand of mercy and grace. Enable us to see the Lord Jesus
Christ, to believe him, to rest in him. Oh God, be merciful,
we pray. Show us your glory. Don't let us just play at church,
play at religion. But Father, give us a word from
thee that we might worship in spirit and in truth. What we
pray for ourselves, Father, we pray for your people who all
around this country and the world are meeting together with the
same need, the same heartfelt desire that we have to worship
you, to hear word from thee. Father, bless your word where
it's preached. We pray a special blessing for
our brother Eric that you bless him in preaching there in Danville
and bring him and Abby back home safe to us. Father, we pray that
you'd be with those who are hurting. There's so many now who are hurting
and need you especially. Father, be with them, we pray.
Comfort their hearts with your presence. Heal and lead and guide
and deliver according to thy will. And all these things we
ask in that name which is above every name, The name of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text this morning, our Lord
is going to teach us how to handle religious traditions, traditions
that are matters of indifference and they're matters of indifference
in this way. They make no difference to the
salvation or the keeping of God's people. And our Lord begins before
he teaches us how to handle these matters of religious traditions,
these matters of indifference. He begins showing us the matter
of all difference. This is the issue. It's him and
his sacrifice. This is the heart of the gospel,
the sacrifice of Christ, and we cannot be indifferent about
it. And if the Holy spirit will be
pleased. to show us Christ and Him crucified.
It'll put all these other matters of indifference in their proper
place. Let's begin here, Matthew 17,
verse 22. And while they abode in Galilee,
Jesus said unto them, the son of man should be betrayed into
the hands of men, and they shall kill him. And the third day he
should be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry. Now this is about six months
before our Lord's death. And he has told his disciples
before about his death, his burial, his resurrection. But now he's
gonna spend much more time with them privately, less time with
the multitudes, more time with them privately. And he's beginning
to teach them more and more and more about this matter that's
coming, this matter for which he came to the earth, his death,
as a substitute on Calvary Street. And there's four things I'd like
for us to take from these two verses about the sacrifice of
Christ. And we just cannot be indifferent
about him. First, we see how focused the
Savior was on his death as the sacrifice for the sin of his
people. Everything he ever did as a man pointed to that hour. He was always pointed to that
hour. He was always obeying the law. He was always pleasing his father
so that when he arrived at Calvary Street, he'd be the sinless sacrifice
for the sin of his people. He was always about his father's
business of redeeming his elect for the glory of the father.
Now he was so focused on this. If the savior was so focused
on his sacrifice, don't you reckon we ought to be too? You think
of everything that was going on in that day, everything that
the Jews were in their daily lives under the Roman boot, everything
that was going on. Was it right? What the Romans
were doing was right? What was the Savior focused on?
He was focused on His sacrifice for His people. And we should
be too. We should be too. You know, as
far as our religion goes, as far as our souls go, Christ is
always the issue. Always. His obedience is the
issue, not mine. His sacrifice that puts away
the sin of his people. That's the issue. That's the
issue. That's why we're always to preach Christ and him crucified,
because that's the issue. Our Savior was taken up with
his sacrifice that I'm confident we should be too. All right,
number two, the Savior never spoke about his sacrifice with
dread. He always talked about it with
anticipation. He was looking forward to this.
He talked about his suffering on Calvary's tree with joy. Now he wasn't talking about the
sufferings as joy. He was talking about what that
would accomplish. It was a joy to him. He anticipated
this. Hebrews 12.2 says, who for the
joy that was set before him. That's why he endured the cross,
despising the shame, because it was a joy for him to redeem
his people from their sin. It's a joy. because he loved
them perfectly. Now you think of that. In preaching
and believing Christ and him crucified ought to be a joy to
you and me too. It really should be a joy. The
sacrifice of Christ and what he accomplished by his death
on Calvary's tree is not a mere point of doctrine that separates
us from the Armenians. It's not something that we're
to debate with liberal religionists. The sacrifice of Christ is the
believer's joy. It ought not to make us mad because
other people don't believe it. This ought to be our joy. We're
saved from sin by the death of Christ. We're made righteous
and clean by the blood of Christ. Adam separated us from God. Christ
brought his people back to God. By his death is our substitute.
The Lord of glory chose to save me when he could
have passed me by. The son of God willingly suffered
and died on purpose for me. And He's leading me through this
life to take me to glory, to be with Him forever. To be made
like Him, to be with Him where He is forever. Now that's a matter
of joy. And we'll talk about this more
in the message this morning. That's not a matter of debate.
That's not a matter to be debated. That's not a matter to be angry
at folks about. This is a matter of joy. Redemption in the sacrifice of
Christ. The redemption in the sacrifice
of the Son of God. for the likes of you and me. Why do I ever get sad? When you
think of that. All right, here's the third thing. The death of Christ is the eternal
will of God. This is how he's going to accomplish
the redemption of his people. The Savior tells his disciples
here about six months, we're going to go to Jerusalem and
I shall be betrayed and I shall be killed. How do you know that?
How did he know that was going to happen? Because that's his
father's will. Not only is that his father's
will, that's his will that he go there to be betrayed and to
suffer and die at the hands of men. The Savior was betrayed
by Judas. The disciples didn't know this
yet. The Lord did. The disciples didn't know this yet. Judas probably
didn't even know it yet, but he was going to be betrayed by
Judas. But you know why he was? Only because it was God's will
from eternity. Judas really wasn't in control of that. He tried
to take it back, didn't he? He tried to give the money back.
It was too late. He couldn't do it. Because it
was the Lord's will he betrayed. The Savior is going to be wickedly
beaten and executed. Beaten by both the Jews and the
Romans. Executed by the Romans in the
most shameful, horrible way that they could imagine to put somebody
to death. But that only happened because
that was the Lord's will. I know they did what they wanted
to do. But when they did it, they accomplished God's will,
didn't they? Pilate, Pilate thought he was in control. Pilate wasn't
in control. He did everything in his power to let Jesus go. And he couldn't do it, could
he? You know why? It was the Lord's will, he suffered
not. At Calvary, the Lord Jesus Christ was not a helpless victim.
He was there to accomplish his will. He was there to accomplish
the redemption of the people that he is loved from all of
eternity. Now again, since the death of Christ is a sacrifice
for sin, that's the will of the Father. That was the will and
joy of the Savior. Did Christ and him crucify? That's
got to be our only message. Why would we ever bother trying
to take up our time behind this pulpit talking about something
else? I won't even say preach about something else, because
if we're talking about something else, it's not preaching. Why would we ever
talk about anything other than Christ and Him crucified? This
is the message that God uses to save His people. It's Christ
and Him crucified. This is the message that God
uses to comfort the hearts of His people. Be a good Jew. Christ has redeemed you. That
comforts your heart, doesn't it? And this is the message that
God uses to correct his people. This is the only message we need.
It's the message that caused God's people to come to Christ.
It's the message that comforts God's people. It's the message
that God uses to correct his people. When we find ourselves
having a selfish attitude for a believer now, What message
more than the message of Christ's willing sacrifice for his people
will correct that selfish attitude? What will? What will correct
a miserly attitude, just wanting to hang on to everything I got?
What will correct that attitude more than the message of Christ,
the unspeakable gift of God? What will correct a hard, unforgiving
attitude that believer will find themselves having from time to
time. What will correct that attitude more than the message
of God forgiving sin through the sacrifice of his son? What
will correct that attitude? That will, that message will.
What will motivate you to follow and serve Christ more than hearing
the message of his faithfulness and his obedience unto death
to put your sin away? It's the message that God uses
to correct and teach his people. And in that, I know you see this
already, Christ is always the issue. In everything about our
spiritual life, Christ is always the issue. Christ is my doctrine. Christ is my preaching. Christ
is my hope. Christ is my joy. And by God's
grace, I just utterly refuse to get off on a tangent. He's
the only message we have to preach and to believe. He's the only
thing we have to hang on to. And these verses also show us
a fourth thing. It's the importance of repeating the gospel message
over and over and over and over again. This is at least the third
time that the Lord has told his disciples, he must go to Jerusalem,
he must be betrayed, he must suffer and die and rise again
the third day. At least three times now he's
told them that. And each time he told them that,
they were filled with solace. At least three times he told
them the third day, I must rise from the dead. As far as I can
tell, up to this point, they still hadn't heard it. They still
hadn't heard he's gonna rise again from the dead. They should
have been filled with joy. But no matter how many times
he told them, it just seems to me like they still never heard
that. All they can hear about is he's gonna suffer and die,
go away. And you know why? I know that their sorrow, They
loved the Lord. I know they loved him. He's their
master. I know they loved him. And losing
him had to be hard. It had to be. I know watching
somebody that you love suffer like that has to be unimaginable. I mean, I just can't even imagine.
I know that made them sorrow. But their sorrow, more than anything,
was a lack of faith. They're still hoping that the
Lord's gonna set up an earthly kingdom like David's, except
it won't be like David's in this way. It'll never end. They just
thought the Lord's going to set up this thing and just the Jews
are just going to be on top of the world again and he's going
to reign forever. We have this earthly kingdom, you know, and
their sorrow. If he dies, we're not going to
have that kingdom. They're still looking at the
fleshly and the material more than the spiritual. And you and
I can't be hard on him, can we? We fall in the same trap every
day. I'm afraid that we pray more earnestly for physical healing
than we do for spiritual. I'm afraid much. Maybe it's not
that way with you. Maybe, maybe you're not like
me. Maybe I should just say this about me. Being afraid that we
pray more earnestly for physical provision than we do for spiritual
provision. And since that's true of our
nature, we need to be reminded of the spiritual often. We need
to have this message of the gospel. Christ him crucified repeated
us over and over and over again. And like I said a minute ago,
we need to be reminded often because we just only hear part
of the message. Either we only hear part of it
or there's only so much, you know, that we can retain. Just
like the disciples, they just keep missing the most important
thing. He's saying, I'm going to rise
again the third day. The resurrection of Christ makes
all of the gospel good news. The resurrection of Christ makes
the death of Christ good news. Because the resurrection of Christ
is the evidence. His sacrifice put away the sin
of his people. This ought to have filled them
with joy, but it didn't, did it? And how often have I heard
a message and thought, boy, I've never heard that before. When
what really is true is this. I've never seen such a clear
revelation of Christ from this passage before. I've just never
heard it that way before. I've heard it before, but I didn't
hear it before. Not like I did this time. And
that's why we need to preach the same message over and over
and over and over again. That's why Paul wrote to the
Philippians and said, to write the same things to you, to me
indeed is not grievous. It's not grievous for me to keep
repeating this message to you, because for you it's safe. We
need to be reminded that Christ is the issue. The preaching of
Christ must take center stage in everything we do in worship. In everything about our spiritual
life, the Lord Jesus Christ absolutely must take center stage. He's
the only issue that matters. Someone's gonna say, but now,
Frank, there are other issues people have. People have issues
in their lives, you know, and people have, thoughts and ideas
and things about the way the worship service is supposed to
be run and what a believer should do and shouldn't do, where they
should go and they shouldn't go and these different things.
What are we supposed to do about those things? Well, those issues
are matters of indifference. They make no difference to the
salvation of somebody's souls. And God forbid we make them one.
God forbid we make them one. Our Lord here tells us, how do
you handle these matters of indifference? Verse 24. And when they were come to Capernaum,
they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, does
not your master pay tribute? And he said, yes. And I think
this is what I think. I think Peter said yes, but he
didn't really know for sure what the answer to this was. He just
said yes. And when he was coming to the house, Jesus prevented
him saying, what thinkest thou Simon? Of whom do the kings of
the earth take custom or tribute of their own children or of strangers?
Peter saith unto him, of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, then are
the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should
offend them, go to the sea and cast an hook, and take up the
fish that first cometh up, and when thou hast opened his mouth,
thou shalt find a piece of money, that take and give unto them,
for me and thee. Now this tribute money here is
not a Roman tax. It's not tax from the government.
It's a temple tax. That's what this is. We'll deal
with later on in Matthew with paying the Roman tax. This is
a temple tax. It's a Jewish tradition. That's
what it is. Now, this tradition began with
something good. It began with something that
God had ordained. When Israel had left Egypt and
they were in the wilderness and they were gathering together
the materials to build the tabernacle, remember that? This tradition
began with the atonement. that Israel paid to help build
the tabernacle. And everybody is for this atonement
money. That's what God called it, the
atonement money. Everybody, everybody above 10 years or 20 years old
paid the exact same amount, half a shekel. The rich didn't pay
more and the poor didn't pay less than half a shekel. Everybody
paid exactly the same. And that atonement money is a
picture of the blood atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
same payment was made for the sin of every one of God's elect
that Christ redeemed. His blood. Some didn't pay more,
some didn't pay less. The exact same price was paid
for the redemption of all of God's people, the blood of Christ.
And you know what they took that? Everybody gave their half a shekel.
And you know what they used that silver for? They took all the
silver that they got and they melted it down and they made
silver sockets. And those sockets were the foundation
of the walls of the tabernacle. They put those boards, you know,
that they made for the walls and set them in those silver
sockets. Those silver sockets were the foundation of the tabernacle. Now you see the picture, don't
you? The atonement of Christ is the foundation of everything
we believe. The atonement of Christ is the
foundation of everything that we preach. The atonement of Christ
is the foundation of everything that we hope for. And if what
we preach does not have its foundation in the atonement of Christ, it
ought not be believed and it ought not be preached. So that's
where all this began, that half shekel of the atonement money.
Well, that half shekel became a tradition to the Jews. They
thought this is a good way for us to raise money every year.
We'll do this, not just once back there in the wilderness,
we'll do it every year. It'll be a way to pay for the
upkeep of the temple. And when it came time, at that
point in time, everybody would pay this, what do they call it
here, tribute money. People would come and make a
big show. They wanted to be sure everybody
sees me giving my half shekel. It was a big show. Everybody
has to see me giving it. Isn't it a shame that somebody
wants everybody else to see them giving it? Our Lord taught about
that too. I won't even go into that. You
see what a shame that is. And that's what they were doing.
Now this tradition, I guess it was, I mean, as far as I can
tell, I reckon it's fine for them to give that half shekel,
you know, pay the upkeep of the temple and so forth. But the
problem is this. It became a very, very serious
matter of religion to them. They took this paying of the
tribute money. This is a tradition they made
up. And to them, it was every bit as important as the day of
atonement. They put them on an equal plane.
Now you see the danger in that, don't you? They're taking a man-made
tradition and they're exalting it to the picture of the atonement
of Christ that is all through that day of atonement. I think
about our traditions, whether we like it or not, we have It's
just, you know, it's a tradition because it's the way that we've
always, you know, done things. And I really spent some time
thinking about that. I wish that I could find a way to change
up the way we do things just so we don't think, oh, you've
got to sing two songs or three songs. You've got to have a script.
You've got to have this order of service or it's not worship.
You know, I can't. figure a way to do it. But sometimes
they just say, I wish we could just change everything up. Other
than the preaching of Christ now, other than the preaching
of the gospel, I just wish we could change everything up so
we don't get a tradition that people think if you don't do
that, you're not worshiping God right, you know? Our Lord tells
us that there's these customs, there's these traditions, and
he uses the illustration of the king and his children. The king's
children don't pay taxes. The king's children don't pay
tribute. They're the children. And our Lord says, God's children
are free. Christ has made you free. You're free from the burden
of the law. Christ has made you free from
that. He kept it for you. You're free from that burden.
He put your sin away. You're free from these religious
traditions and these religious ceremonies. There are pictures
of putting sin away. You're free from that. You're
free from that. Christ put your sin away for you by his sacrifice. See, if Christ kept the law for
me, I don't have to keep myself, do I? No, you're free, you're
free. And we don't have to follow all
these traditions in order for God to accept us, if we're accepted
in the beloved, if we're accepted in Christ. So these traditions
and these ceremonies, all they are, are matters of indifference. And remember, a matter of indifference
is something that makes no difference to the salvation of your soul.
And in short, our Lord told Peter, This temple tax is just a matter
of indifference. He said, Peter, just pay it so
they don't get hung up on it. Just pay it. And this is what
this teaches you and me. In all matters of indifference,
we should give way unless somebody makes it a matter
of faith, a matter of salvation. I thought about what Brother
Scott Richardson said. He said, don't tell me my boys
can't play basketball on Sunday. If you tell me they can't, I'll
make them play on Sunday. I'll make them play on Sunday.
As long as they don't make it, make it a matter of faith. As
long as they don't say, oh, if you do this, you're not saved.
As long as they don't make it a matter of faith, then just
do it. Give way so they're not offended. The other example I thought about
is prayer in a restaurant. I don't happen to be a big fan
of that. I just, you know, what I've been taught from the time
I was a little boy, you know, it makes you look like a Pharisee.
You know, the Lord knows you're thankful. I'm just not a big
fan of it. But I've done it before. If I'm with somebody, it would
really, really, really bother them not to pray before they
ate, not to give thanks before they ate. It would just really
bother them. I'd do it. No problem. No problem. Just
give way. It doesn't matter. Don't make
it, oh, if I pray in public, then I'm a Pharisee, I'm not
saved. See, we're just doing the opposite. It's a matter of
indifference. Just give way on it. Now, all that being said, let
me stress this. We can never give up God's rights. We can never give up His right
as Lord, as Savior, as Sovereign. We can never give up His rights,
never. But we can and we should give
up our rights to help others. We really should. Now, we can't
compromise the gospel ever, but I can compromise my rights and
my freedoms as a believer. This is the other example I thought
of. There's no sin in drinking alcohol. I know people made that
a sin, but there's no sin in drinking alcohol. As a child
of God, I'm completely free to do that. You are too, completely
free. But I tell you this, I'd give up my right and not drink
it if I was with somebody that would offend. I just give up
my rights not to be offensive. That's compromising my rights
for the good of others. Can you think of anything more
foreign to our society today than giving up my rights to help
somebody else? Now again, let me stress, we
can never compromise the gospel. We can never compromise. Salvation
is by faith, not by works. If somebody makes these matters
of indifference a matter of works in order to earn salvation, we're
gonna have trouble. We're not compromising on that. We can
never compromise salvation in the blood of Christ. But in all
these matters of touch not, taste not, handle not, give way. Just give way and compromise
those things. unless they make him a condition
of salvation. As long as they leave it a matter
of indifference, treat it as a matter of indifference and
compromise. That's what the Lord's teaching
here. But even in teaching this lesson to Peter and us, the Lord
shows, Peter, this is a matter of indifference. And he shows
us he is still the issue here. in what he tells Peter to do.
He told Peter, Peter, you go down there to the sea and you
throw a bare hook in the sea and you pull up a fish and you
open up that fish mouth and there's gonna be a coin in there and
you take it and you pay this tribute money for you and me.
You know what I see there? I see our Lord's absolute sovereignty
over everything, everything. Bob, you've done a lot of fishing.
And you're such a good fisherman, maybe you've caught a fish with
a bare hook, but I don't think so. That's pretty rare, isn't
it? Peter went down there and threw a bare hook into the sea
and pulled a fish up. How'd that happen? It's not even
possible. It's hard to catch a fish when
the hook's camouflaged with bait, isn't it? How'd that happen?
The Lord made it happen. And Peter went down there for
hours waiting for a fish to bite. He threw that, hook in, pulled
it up. Because the Lord's sovereign.
He's sovereign over the fish in the sea. He's sovereign. He's
sovereign over everything. Oh, if God make us bow to the sovereign. He's sovereign over everything.
He's the issue. He's the king. And Peter caught
a fish that had a coin in his mouth. How'd that happen? The Lord made it happen, didn't
he? And he took, now the fish didn't have two coins in his
mouth. He didn't have a coin to pay the tribute money for
the Lord and a coin to pay the tribute money for Peter. He had
one coin in his mouth to pay the tribute money for both our
Lord and Peter. You know what that shows? It
shows union with Christ. Union with Christ. Our debt became
his debt. It wasn't two debts, it was one
debt. Our debt became his debt. He took it. And he paid it. He paid it for us by his one
sacrifice for the sin of his people. Are you going to get
hung up on this matter of indifference and this matter of the tribute
money? When the Lord shows us his sovereignty, when he shows
us his union with his people, how he's going to pay the sin
debt of his people to set them free forever, you're going to
get hung up on that? Or are we going to focus on the Lord? Are
we going to focus on the Savior? Our Savior is so glorious in
everything about Him, everything about His character, everything
about what He has done, what He's accomplished for His people.
His success is the Savior of His people. My prayer is, you and I both,
would be so taken up with Him that He would just fill our senses,
that He'd fill our heart, that He'd fill our desire, that we'd
never even be tempted to get off on a tangent on one of these
matters of indifference, because that's how we're supposed to
handle it. All right. Oh, Lord bless that to you.