An Example Lightly Esteemed

He didn’t come into the world to teach a bunch of good things, although he did those things. He came into the world to save sinners. Now the next time he comes, it will not be to save sinners. It’ll be to judge sinners. But he has come to save sinners and he died upon the cross to save sinners. That’s the chief point. That’s the reason he came. And that’s an important point when we look at the following verses that we’ll see in just a minute.

Verse 23, it concludes and says, and they were exceeding sorry. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, doth not your master pay tribute?

He sayeth, yes. And when he was come into 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 sayeth unto him, of strangers. Jesus sayeth unto him, then are the children free? Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea and cast and 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. Would you pray with me this morning? Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for the scriptures that have been written to help us to know you. Lord, thank you for the life of the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, who was buried, rose again.

And thank you for the good things that he did in his life. Lord, we’re looking at this example where these people ask him about this tribute. We ask you to please teach us and help us to understand. Lord, what a great example that the Lord Jesus Christ has left us and has revealed to us a great truth about his priorities. Help us, Lord, to mimic those priorities in our own life.

And have the right heart and mind toward people around us especially. Lord, you know what your people need this morning. You know the lesson that needs to be taught, the reminders that your people need. So Lord, I ask you by your spirit to please do the work that I certainly can’t do, have no power to do. And you can meet the needs of each person here. Lord, our eyes are upon you.

In Jesus’ name, amen. Now you notice in verse number 24, it says, and when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, doth not your master pay tribute? And then in verse 25, the Lord Jesus mentions the kings of the earth taking custom or tribute. And so what we’re talking about here is we’re talking about what we would call taxes.

Now the word tribute is used, but it’s essentially a tax. And this is the only, this portion of scripture about the tax is only found in Matthew, which is interesting to me because even though this, all the narrative before this and after this is found in Mark and Luke, yet this part is the only part that’s not mentioned in the other two. And that’s interesting because Matthew was a tax collector.

So Matthew was one who was familiar with this subject and was, this would have been something kind of near and dear to him at least in familiarity. But there’s actually, when we look at verse 24 and verse 25, there’s actually several things going on. And I want to point it out to you because it’s important if we’re gonna understand the whole of what Jesus is saying, we have to understand kind of the details in the background.

Now in verse 24 it says, they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, doth not your master pay tribute? And then in verse 25 again, there’s a mention of the kings of the earth taking custom or tribute. Now the thing is that there are various words being used here to describe different kinds of taxes. The word, in our text we have the word custom, we have the word tribute in reference to the kings of the earth, but we also have this tribute in reference to these that came to receive it, right?

In verse 24. Now just like we have in our day, and we so gleefully and gladly have, multiple layers of taxation, how many of you appreciate that? Say amen. See, I almost got you there. A few people let it slip out. Nobody appreciates taxes. And we know that there are many kinds of taxes, and I know this is true because when we were missionaries, sometimes we got into conversations about taxes, and so trying to explain to the foreigner, someone not from our country, what our tax situation is like, sometimes it’s kind of difficult.

You could say, well we have taxes, but that doesn’t give you the whole picture, does it? Because you have federal income tax, and you have state income tax, and you have property taxes, and you have taxes about the roads, and you have taxes about, you have unemployment tax if you own a business, and you have duties, and excise taxes, and you can go on and on. I mean there’s just so many, corporate tax and all these different, so you can’t just say, well we have taxes, because there’s so many different kinds, and it was true in this day as well.

In this day, in these two verses, there’s at least three different kinds of taxes being mentioned in these three verses. Look at verse 25 to begin. Verse 25 says, of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? So that gives us a hint. These are taxes taken by the kings of the earth. In other words, these would be kind of like secular taxes. And the word custom and tribute are two different kinds.

So custom would be something similar to like a sales tax, or a tax for someone traveling. This would be, we call it in our modern vernacular, the indirect taxes, right? That’s what this is. And Rome, as the kingdom that ruled Israel at this time, Rome had these kinds of things. So if you travel from place to place, you might get stopped and have to pay a fee, pay a tax for your traveling.

And if you, based upon the goods that you buy or sell, you might have to pay a custom on those taxes. That’s one way they tax. And of course, that money went to some level of the Roman Empire. But you also have, in verse 25, in reference to the kings of the earth, a tribute, which is another kind of tax. And a tribute was what we would call a poll tax.

This is the kind of tax that you would get, like we find in Luke chapter two, when Mary and Joseph went back to Bethlehem, so that they could be counted in the census, and they could be taxed based upon the counting. Their property would be assessed. It would be something like, I guess like property tax a little bit, but that would be per person. So it was a different kind of tax entirely.

And so when you read it, sometimes you can miss that, but there’s a little indication of what’s happening here based upon the mention of the kings of the earth. So this would be what Rome did, which is also what we find in Luke chapter two. But then you go to verse 24. Verse 24 is a little bit different, even though the word tribute is used, which is just a tax, you know, so it doesn’t really specify what kind of tax.

But there’s a hint in verse 24. Because it says, they that received tribute. Now our friend Matthew, the writer of this gospel, the human writer of this gospel, was a what? He was a publican. He was a publican. And that’s a very specific thing. Now we call that a tax collector, but a publican was somebody employed in the Roman government to take the taxes, follow me, that are mentioned in verse 25.

Not verse 24. But in verse 24, the word publican’s not there. Do you see it? It’s not there. The word publican’s not there because the publican was not used to collect this tax. This is just someone who came around to collect this particular type of tax. This is a tax that is associated with the temple. Okay, so this has nothing to do with the Roman empire. This is a tax that’s associated with that, with the temple of the Jews.

So this is a religious tax. You find this tax mentioned in the book of Exodus whenever they took the sum of the children of Israel and each person had to pay half a shekel. Every person, whether they were rich, whether they were poor, every year, half a shekel, half a shekel, all right? And that’s the tax being mentioned here. And you can see a little hint of that in the fact that the word publican is not used, rather the collector of this particular type of tax.

That’s the word being used here. So again, there are at least three taxes that are being mentioned here. Now, why am I saying all this? Why am I saying all this? Because this is the whole story. If we don’t understand that, we will get this whole thing wrong.

Now, in verse number 24, again, we’ll read it to kind of pick up steam to where we’re going with this. It says, and when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, doth not your master pay tribute? Obviously, the Lord Jesus Christ, being a Jew, was expected to pay the tax that went for the support of the temple and its work, right?

That’s something that was found in the Old Testament scripture, and it was expected that he would pay it. All the Jews in this area paid it. They collected every year. And so it’s obvious. In fact, there’s a hint in here as well that the Lord Jesus had paid it in years past because it was a yearly tax. And in verse 25, Peter says, well, yeah, he pays it.

In other words, he probably had paid it prior to this. And so Peter thought, well, you know, I guess he pays it. So yes. And of course, he didn’t want the Lord Jesus to look bad by saying, well, I don’t know, or no, he doesn’t pay it. So he answers for the Lord Jesus. And it could be even that these tax collectors, if you will, went to Peter instead of directly to Jesus to kind of help the Lord Jesus save face because it was maybe overdue.

Maybe that’s the case. Nobody really knows. I’m just giving you some background information. Now look at verse 25. So verse 25 begins with the context of this temple tax, this temple tribute, okay? And the Lord uses this to kind of give an illustration. Because he’s making a point. Verse 25 says, and when he was coming to the house, Jesus prevented him. Now prevent in this case is not, he tried to stop him from doing something.

This just meant he cut him off and said, he went ahead and asked him ahead of time. And he said, what thinkest thou Simon? Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute of their children or of strangers? A little bit, I guess a little bit confusing wording here. It’s not something that’s very familiar to us because we don’t live in a place that has a king and a kingdom.

And I’m glad for that. But in a country that has a king and a kingdom, the royal family is exempt from taxes. That’s why it says, of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute of their own children? The answer is no, or strangers, well yes. Now in our country, we have a tax system that even the president, the vice president, members of Congress all have to pay the same taxes.

And, but in places where there’s a king and a kingdom, a monarchy, the royal family is exempted. It’s a perk of being part of the royal family. And so they are exempt from taxes. This is what the scripture describes as being free, free. Notice what it says in the next verse. Peter saith unto him of strangers. So Peter understood what the Lord is saying here. Jesus saith unto him, then are the children free.

What does it mean free? It means the children, that is those in the royal family of the king, are under no obligation to pay the tax. Notice, I’m gonna come back to this, so follow me. The children of the king, the royal family, is under no obligation to pay the tax.

Okay? Now, and the result of that, that’s what it means to be free. Now look at, I’m gonna read a few verses and I wanna make a point with them, so kind of follow along if you can. You can note the references if you can. Matthew 15 verse six says this. It says, and honor not his father and his mother, or his mother, he shall be free.

Now we’ve already covered this in our study of Matthew, so I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on it. It says this, thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. You see, the Jews taught that if you, remember, the Jews taught if you had something that you had dedicated to the temple and you declared it as a gift, you said, this is a gift, you could no longer then use that for your parents when your parents were in need, which is the obligation of the children, right?

And so what they said is because you have dedicated it, you no longer have an obligation towards your parents to support them with that. You are free. That’s what the word used is, he shall be free. Then in John chapter eight verse 33, it says this, they answered him, we be, this is the Jews now, we be Abraham seed and we’re never in bondage to any man.

How sayest thou ye shall be made free? So Jesus said, you remember, that’s where Jesus says, ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Now the Lord’s talking about sin. We know that, right? He’s talking about sin, but they are not hearing sin. What they’re hearing is we’re not in bondage to any man. We have no, we don’t have to do what anybody tells us to do.

We’re independent, we’re free. You see the Jews understood freedom as being not bound or obligated to the Romans or to anybody else. That’s why they were so confused with what Jesus said. The irony is that they were still bound to sin. They were enslaved to sin, which is what the Lord is saying. Then you go to Romans three verse 24 says this, being justified freely, this is a great verse, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

What does it mean to be justified or made righteous freely? You know what that means? That means that God declares a sinner righteous, not because he fulfilled his obligation, but because Christ fulfilled his obligation. And that sinner is leaning upon the Lord Jesus Christ for his righteousness. That’s what it means. That means that God justifies us freely, freely. There’s a few more I wanna show you here.

Romans six, seven, he that is dead is freed from sin. Before we knew Christ, we were obligated, bound to sin. That’s why we did it so much and loved it because we were enslaved to it. We were not free from it. Romans six, 18, being then made free from sin, you became servants of righteousness. So as a believer, now that you have been born again, now that you are saved, you’re free.

You know what that means? There’s nothing in this world that means you are obligated to commit sin. You’re free. Isn’t that a blessing? You’re free. You’re free. Galatians five, one says this, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. In the early church, there was a big discussion as a Gentile believer, non-Jew, who had trusted in the Jewish savior, am I then required, am I then obligated, bound to the law of Moses to keep the commandments of Moses?

The answer was resoundingly no, you are free. That’s what he’s talking about. Stand fast in the liberty, freedom. And then lastly, in Revelation 22 verse 17, this is at the very end of the Bible, and the spirit and the bride say come, and let him that hear it say come, and let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will let him take the water of life.

What’s the next word? You know this verse, freely. When you go to a store and they’re giving something away, you walk out of the store with something we call it free. You know why? Because you’re not obligated to pay for it. That’s what we mean by free. So it is the water of life, water of eternal life, you could say, no price is required. That is price that we have paid.

We are not obligated to pay anything. We’re not obligated to do anything, perform anything, join anything. But that doesn’t mean there’s no obligation at all. There is an obligation, even for something that’s free. How many of you, you know, with a Veterans Day, how many of you went to go get a deal with Veterans Day? Oh yeah, I did too. Every year I try to go to Texas Roadhouse because they give away a free meal.

In other words, I’m not obligated to pay, but I am obligated to go to the restaurant and pick up the voucher. I have to receive it. And so it is with salvation. God offers it free. Christ paid for it. It’s freely given, no cost, no obedience is required. Christ did it all. We only are to receive it freely, right? This is what we mean when we say free.

Back in Matthew 17, Jesus makes a point. So the question is, Peter, the kings of the earth, when they levy taxes, do they levy taxes on their own family members and the royal household or upon everyone else? And Peter says, well, obviously everyone else. And so the Lord makes a point. He says this. So you’re telling me the royal household is free under no obligation to pay these taxes.

Yes. Everybody with me on the same page because we’re about to get to the point. Verse 27. Notwithstanding. Notwithstanding. That means even though this is true, even though this is the case, we’re gonna do something different. We’re not gonna, in other words, even though I’ve made a point that the royal household is exempt, we’re not acting on that. We’re gonna go a different direction. What is the Lord talking about?

What is this tax in verse 24 that we’re talking about here? This tax goes for the temple. The temple is whose house? It’s God’s house. The temple is God’s house. If the temple is God’s house, and you look at verse 25, the kings of the earth do not tax their own family.

You have the son of God here. The son of God is the son of the God of the temple. And this tribute is for the temple. And so what the Lord Jesus is essentially saying is, I’m not obligated to pay this. You know why? Because it’s my temple. In essence, it’s my temple. This is for the temple tax. It’s my temple. I’m the son of God. He doesn’t directly say that, but he implies I’m the son of God.

I am not obligated to pay it. In other words, I’m free from this obligation. So here’s the point I need you to make as we kind of build to the next stage is this. The Lord Jesus was not under obligation. He was not bound to pay this money. So if this half shekel, they came by and Jesus had said, and they said, are you gonna pay the temple tax?

Jesus could have said, no. And you know, if the Lord Jesus had said no, it would have been right because he was not obligated. Everybody with me? But that’s not what he did. This is the whole point. Because of verse 27, he begins it with notwithstanding. In other words, I am not obligated to, Peter, I am not obligated to pay this. This is my temple.

I’m part of the royal family, but we’re still gonna pay it. We’re still gonna pay it. The Lord Jesus Christ was not obligated to pay the tax. Now look at verse 27. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them. Who is the them? This refers to those who are coming around collecting the temple tribute. Lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea and cast and hook and take up the fish that first cometh up.

So you can see what is the Lord gonna do? Even though he’s not bound and he’s not obligated to it, he’s still going to pay it. And the reason he gives is that he is concerned about offense. He’s concerned about offending these people. What does it mean to offend someone? In the scripture. Now, I’ve talked about this before, but I’ll just reiterate a little bit. When you offend someone, when I offend someone, in the way we normally use it, we’re referring to like, we make a thoughtless comment about the color of their dress, or we make a thoughtless comment and like insult them, right?

And kind of say something that hurts their feelings. And that’s what we mean by offending someone now. But that’s not in scripture, that’s not what it means. Here’s what the word offend means. The word offend means it’s the same as stubbing your toe. That’s what it means, stumbling. And so the idea is the Lord Jesus is saying, lest we should offend them, He is concerned that if He doesn’t pay the tax, that He has no obligation to pay, that they might, as a result of that, they might stumble.

They might stumble. And they might misunderstand something about Him. And there might be fallout from that, that affects them. You understand, that’s what we’re talking about here. He is worried of offending them. And so He tells Peter to go and do the hook and get the coin enough for Himself and for Peter.

Now, the question I wanna ask you this is this, why would His refusal to pay the tax have offended them? Because here He is a Jew, and this is required in the Bible, right? Jesus is a Jew, and so He’s in their sight, in their view. And that’s the key thing you have to understand. In their viewpoint, He is obligated to this, even though in truth He’s not.

And so if He had said no, they would have then assumed something incorrect about Jesus and His view of the temple that He did not intend. Now here’s the thing. What do you think would have happened to those collectors of that temple tribute had Jesus done that? What I want you to see here is the Lord Jesus is not concerned with, He’s not concerned with what people think of Him.

Don’t misunderstand. He’s not concerned with that. Look at verse number 20, I think it’s 27. Look at verse 27. Lest we should offend them, He’s talking about those who collect the temple tax. So the Lord Jesus is concerned about their welfare. He’s concerned about those individuals’ welfare. It’s not like He’s trying to keep up safe face and look like a good Jew in front of everybody else, make sure He pays His temple tribute on time and all that.

No, that’s not what it is. He knows He doesn’t have to do it. He’s not obligated before God, before God is Father. He’s not obligated in that way. But His eye is upon the welfare of those individuals that will misunderstand Him if He doesn’t.

Now, if those people, you gotta remember, the Lord Jesus is not, He’s not a private figure. He’s not like a seminary professor in some college somewhere that you have to go to. No, no, no. He traveled from place to place throughout Galilee and Judea and He preached and He taught in front of thousands and thousands of people. Everybody knew about Jesus of Nazareth. I mean, this is about midway through His ministry.

Everybody knows about Him at this point. And probably a lot of people have already drawn their conclusions. So if these collectors of this temple tribute come and they ask Jesus for it and He says, no, I don’t have to pay that, He would be right.

But then they would think that He had a dim view of the temple, which He doesn’t, but that’s what they would think. But that’s what they would think. He is concerned about that. Because if they thought that, how then is that going to affect how receptive they are to what He says?

Do you think that those individuals, you can see the Lord is burdened, the Lord is concerned with individuals. It’s not about maintaining heirs. He’s concerned about their welfare. And He knows that if they misunderstand Him because of what is His right to do, refuse the tax, they will be affected and their receptivity to Him and His message is going to be affected. And He doesn’t want that.

Because you know why? In Him is eternal life and there’s no other place to get it. If someone gets offended and stumbles at the Lord Jesus Christ, because they have misunderstood Him, even though He’s right, but they have misunderstood Him, and they then therefore reject Him, where are they going to get eternal life? They’re not. Because if they reject Him, right or wrong, they still go to the same lake of fire.

They still perish just the same. So what the Lord Jesus did, go back a couple pages to Matthew chapter 16. I want to show you exactly what Jesus did. Our Lord set an example for us. Not only that, but our Lord, He practiced what He preached right here. Matthew 16, we studied this not too long ago, Matthew 16 verse 24, look what it says.

Then said Jesus unto His disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. You know what the Lord Jesus is doing here? He’s denying Himself.

That’s what He’s doing. He had a right to refuse this. He had freedom not to do it. He has no obligation, but He sets that aside. He sets that aside. He sets that aside and denies what is His right for the sake of another.

To avoid unnecessary and wrong, unjustified offense because He cares about that person’s soul. He cares about whether they will listen to Him, whether they might receive Him or not. Because He knows if they get offended at Him unjustly, He can wash His hands of them. He can say, well, it’s not my fault, not my problem. I’m right.

Let me tell you something, but just because He’s right, it doesn’t change where that person’s gonna end up. You see, our Lord said, if a man will be His disciple, He must deny Himself, take up His cross and follow Him. He’s going to the cross. We know that. The Lord Jesus Christ is going to the cross. He is going there, but the cross is like the furthest kind of extreme of self-denial, is it not?

But the Lord Jesus was not just about that. He wasn’t just about going to the cross. He was self-denial to that degree. Even the death of the cross, Philippians chapter two says, but everything between here and there also. Sometimes we talk about, we talk about, well, I would die for Christ. I would die for Christ. If they came in, if the authorities came in here with their M4s and in their SWAT gear, and they came and said, you deny Christ, or we’re gonna shoot you, I would stand here and I would not deny Christ.

I would confess Christ. And we can say that. That’s all fine and good. It’s all fine and good to say that. But that’s the extreme. But what about the self-denial, the everyday daily self-denial when you refuse to assert your own rights and your own freedoms and liberties with a view upon how those things might affect other people and how they might misunderstand what is your right?

You know, that is self-denial. It’s easy to practice, it’s easy to say, well, practice self-denial when the guns pointed at us, the cross. But before you get to that, in verse 24 of Matthew 16, what does it say? That’s first, and then take up his cross.

The problem is that we all have a very hard time refusing, we all have a very hard time denying ourselves that which we believe is our right. Our country is built upon human rights, right? It’s in our constitution, and I’m glad it’s there. But somehow it’s kind of seeped into our mind that because something is our right, we must therefore do it.

And the Lord says, where’s the self-denial? He sets the example for us, himself, in life, on earth. We’re in a bad place, I wanna tell you something, we’re in a bad place when we think we have freedom and we might, we think we might have liberty to do something and we might, we think we have a right to do something and we might, but then we do it with disregard for how it affects other people.

Hear me? You think, well, I can go where I want, I can do what I want, I can say what I want. But if you go there, is someone around going to see that and perhaps misunderstand why you’re there? You say, but I have liberty to do it. You do, you do. I’ll give you, I’ll give you an example, this is kind of a minor example, I’ll give you an example.

The liquor section of the grocery store. There is, as long as I’m alive and breathing and in my right mind, there is never a case, I don’t care, I don’t care if I’m on my deathbed that I’m gonna buy liquor, okay? Rock and rye, notwithstanding, it ain’t happening. Okay?

Do I have freedom and liberty to walk and browse through the liquor aisle of the grocery store? Yeah, it’s not a sin. There’s nothing in the Bible that says it’s a sin to do that. Now you might question the motivations behind that, but there’s nothing in the Bible that says it’s a sin to walk through the liquor aisle.

But if I do that and there happens to be somebody, perhaps somebody, a coworker of Sister Brenda, she works at Publix. And they see me do that, and I’ve been trying to witness to them. And they see me browsing the liquor aisle. Do I have a right? Yes. But is the exercise of that right going to potentially cause a misunderstanding, which then will fall out to what could be an eternal matter?

Yeah. This is where our liberty and our rights should be denied. Now I’m gonna be honest with you. On this particular case, this is kind of hard to apply. Because we all can’t live in a way where we’re bound by the imaginary ideas of what other people might think or feel about what we do. We can’t live in that kind of bondage. However, when there is a reasonable, when there is a reason, a legitimate reason for us to think, they might actually misunderstand this.

The question is, are we going to love that person enough to deny ourself? Or better yet, are we going to love the Lord enough to not cast a potential stumbling block, even if unjustified, before the feet of another who doesn’t yet know him?

That’s the cause that we would say, I can, I have a right, but I won’t. That could be, listen, that could be true in your family. I’m getting ahead of myself. I wanna, what the Lord Jesus is doing here is he is living out by example. He’s kind of introducing something that the apostle Paul covers in a lot greater detail in 1 Corinthians chapter eight. If you would look at 1 Corinthians chapter eight, I wanna show the, kind of the fuller handling of this with you.

With you. 1 Corinthians chapter eight. 1 Corinthians chapter eight. This, to many of us, this might be a chapter that is a little bit confusing. It talks about eating things, eating food that had been sacrificed to idols. So let me give you the short version of this. So basically, they would take this food and it’s super pragmatic. You’re gonna understand what I mean in just a minute.

I’ve seen it done in real life, so it’s easy to understand. So they prepare food for sacrifice to their idol. They take the food to the temple and they lay it out there. And of course, nobody eats it because obviously, it’s a dead stone. It doesn’t, it can’t eat the food. And so they think, over the years, the religious of our world have thought, well, why are we gonna let this just sit there and rot and let flies and worms eat it?

So what they do is they take it after it’s been offered a specified amount of time, they take it back and then they can sell it, right, at the market. And then people come and buy and they make sure people know, this is special because this has been offered to the God. And so people buy it and take it home and they eat it like regular food because that’s what it is.

The question in 1 Corinthians eight is, am I allowed to buy and eat that food or not? That has been offered. And you know what the answer is? No.

But the answer might surprise you. The answer is no, not because it’s a sin. The answer is no, not because the food is any different or it’ll poison you. No, that’s not the reason the answer is no.

Look at verse seven or verse six to pick up the context. But to us, there is but one God, the Father of whom are all things and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by Him, how be it. There is not in every man that knowledge. For some, with conscience of the idle unto this hour, eat it as of things offered unto an idle.

And their conscience being weak is defiled. But meat commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we better, the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse. But verse nine, take heed, lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak. You see that? So here’s, do I have a right to eat that food that had been offered to an idle?

Yes. Is it a sin? No. Is it any different than any other food? No, it’s just a dumb idle. But I ain’t touching it. Not because I’m under an obligation before God, but because my mind and my heart is on what that seller of that food, or the person who knows, might think of what I’m doing. And they might then misunderstand something about me or about the Lord Jesus Christ in particular, and that then might harm them.

It might alter their how receptive they are to Christ. Now listen to this. As we go into chapter nine, look what it says. Verse 11. And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish. Now this is speaking of Christians. I’m getting to there. For whom Christ died? For when ye so sinned against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, ye sinned against Christ. So again, if the Lord Jesus had taken that, had said to those people receiving the temple tribute, he had said, no, I’m not giving it.

He would not have sinned against his father because he had no duty to do it, but he would have sinned against those who are collecting it. Because out of a lack of love for them and lack of concern for them, he was not considerate of how it might affect them. You say, hold on now. So you’re telling me that as a Christian, I have to walk on pins and needles and on eggshells worried about what people think.

Now what I’m saying is, as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have an obligation to care about the souls of others, just like our Lord is demonstrating here, to the degree that we are unwilling to do something that we think might have a negative effect upon them, especially as it relates to where they stand with God. Yes.

Look at verse 13. Paul takes this to the extreme. Wherefore if meat, that is food, make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend. You see that? He took this seriously, did he not? He said, I will not do it. If that means I never eat meat for the rest of my life, I won’t.

You know what that is? That’s serious self-denial. You go into chapter nine, he talks about as an apostle, the power that he had as an apostle. Look at verse four, he mentions it. He says, have we not power to eat and drink? Look at verse 12. If others be partaker of this power over you, are we not rather, are not we rather? Nevertheless, we have not used this power.

Notice he had the power, he had the right. This is talking about taking a, taking basically a salary from the churches, but he refused to take it. He says, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.

Look at verse 15. But I have used none of these things. Neither have I written these things that it should be so done unto me, for it were better for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void. So Paul said, Paul did take money from some churches, but in the case of Corinth, he didn’t, because he was afraid that someone might misunderstand his motivation, and therefore judge his ministry and his Christ by that misunderstanding, even though it wasn’t true.

I wanna tell you something, brothers and sisters. The Lord knows there are so many occasions and opportunities for people to get, to misunderstand and mischaracterize why you do what you do. It’s everywhere. It’s everywhere. There’s so many opportunities, both saved people and lost people.

But the principle we see here is, your life and my life is not about our own satisfaction and the exercise to the nth degree of our own rights. For what do we live? For what do we live? Do we live to exercise our own rights, to assert that which is in our power to do what? We have liberty to do. You see, the moment that a person says, I have liberty, I can do what I want, true.

But the moment that we do that and trample over the effect and potential harm upon others, we’re now sinning against them and against our Lord out of lack of concern and care for that person’s welfare. That’s no longer living for Christ, and that’s living for oneself. That is essentially self-centered, and that is antithetical. That is the opposite of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

You see, this is where the rubber meets the road when Jesus said in Matthew 16, let him deny himself. This is what we’re talking about. This is the hard stuff.

Where before we make a decision, we think about how it might affect our brother or our sister in Christ. Before we make a decision, we think about how it would affect our family member. Or before we make a decision, we think about, before we go to that place or engage in that thing or involve ourselves in this, we think about, how would this affect this person that I was witnessing to if they happened to see me?

How would this affect them? How would it color the Lord Jesus Christ? You know what, there are some times when the scripture presses us and we have to do it anyway, even if a person stumbles. But in cases of liberty, when we have freedom to do whatever we wish, listen, we should think, how is this going to affect them? How is this going to affect? Is that something that comes into your thinking?

Are you mimicking the Lord Jesus Christ in your concern for the spiritual welfare of others? There’s a lot at stake. There’s a lot at stake. Because if because of you or me, someone misunderstands something that we have freedom to do, and their heart is turned against the Lord, yeah, they’ll give an account for it. They’ll perish. They’ll be judged for it.

But what does that say about our love for that person? What does that say about our, the purpose of our life? Whether our life is actually lived for the Lord Jesus Christ, or whether it’s lived to satisfy our own desires. This is what Christian liberty is all about. You know what it’s really about? We have a lot of liberty to do a lot of things, but it’s about saying, Lord, I don’t have to do that.

I’m good, because I care about that person. I care about this family member. I care about my kids. And I’m gonna take the high road. I’m gonna take the high road so that nobody misunderstands what I’m doing and therefore about the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray together.