(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

Hey, you're listening to Cut For Time, a podcast from Faith Church, located on the north side of Indianapolis. My name is Claire Kingsley. And I'm Dan Breitwieser. 

Each week, one of us will sit down with the person who gave Sunday's sermon to discuss their message. Cut For Time is a look behind the scenes of sermon preparation, and they'll share with us a few things that we didn't hear from the sermon on Sunday. Thanks for listening.

All right. Hi, Patrick. Good morning.

Good morning, Claire. How are you? I'm good. And thank you so much for giving us time. 

How are you doing this morning? I'm great. I'm great. Yeah. 

Excited to have the conversation and I appreciate you having me on. Patrick, you just told me that you're preaching like eight weeks in a row, which is way more than you typically do. And we're towards like, you know, the end of that streak and now you're giving us additional Cut For Time time. 

So first, thank you. And second, how are you balancing all of those responsibilities or commitments with work and family life? How are you doing all of this? Well, I think I'm living Sunday's sermon, which was wholly divided. I feel like I live it every week, but I'd have it no other way. 

It's been a lot of fun. And I think the one who gets to teach and preach is always the one who benefits the most. And so it's a blessing and I love it and thankful for the opportunity and for faith to have had me last Sunday.

Okay. Well, why don't you give us a sermon summary? Title was wholly divided, W-H-O-L-L-Y divided. It's the passage where the two groups of religious elites, the Pharisees and Herodians, approach Jesus to try to trap him with the question, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? And so, you know, when I'm looking at passages, I'm always trying to say, what's the human predicament? What's God saying? And then what's he saying about what he's saying? And so really the subject is, as I studied this and meditated on it, it really was one of allegiance. 

And there's a lot going on. We can talk more about it in terms of the context that Mark is writing. Some really things opened up for me that I really hadn't seen before around allegiance and totality and ownership. 

But in this particular passage, it's really one of divided allegiance. And how do we handle that? We live in different spheres of life. We're called to be totally devoted to God. 

And so my question in terms of the human predicament was, how do we pay the world what we owe when God's name is on the title of our life? And so there's a play here between Caesar's image being on the coin and God's image being on our life. And so by way of just summary, the introduction, I tried to personify what some may call Sunday scaries, which is you get to Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, and you feel the weight of the anxiety of the upcoming week and all that you have going on. And so personify that in a debt collector who comes most nights and sits on the edge of your bed and reads aloud to you the invoices of your life, each invoice coming to collect on you.

And we ask the question, well, how do we deal with this? And as we engage the complication, you often hear that the answer is just simply to balance your life better or draw healthy boundaries. And I don't know. I just think the more we try to do that, the more imbalanced our life becomes.

And what was interesting in this passage is, you know, as they're trying to trap Jesus, I really came to realize that they themselves were in a trap and, you know, and really us as well. And the trap is that, you know, I think we're often told that we can somehow live in a secular or sacred divide, that we can give God Sunday and maybe not mention him the rest of the week. But their question exposes the fact that that's not possible. 

It's a binary choice. You know, you notice, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? You know, answer yes, and the Pharisees are going to brand you a traitor to God. Answer no, and the Rhodians are going to arrest you as a traitor to Caesar. 

So we then said that, you know, all these different spheres of life make a demand. They said, give me all of you or else. But really the gospel in Christ and saying this passage is, give me all of you and I'll reorder everything else. 

And that's a fundamental change. It's a fundamental shift. And so the big idea is that you can give the world the best of you and God has the whole of you. 

You can give the world the best of you and God has the whole of you. And so the question then is, well, how does that happen? And that unfolds the last half of the sermon in three applications, which we could talk more about, but it's pay the right person. We have to pay, you know, those that have limited authority on us, pay what we owe to those we owe it. 

Secondly, pay on the right terms. Each sphere of life wants to creep beyond its intended boundary or function. And so we, as a church, have to stand up and proclaim the order priority, which Christ is first, and then pay with the right currency is really the idea that, you know, I think over time we start to pay Caesar things that are rightly due Christ, like our identity, our devotion, et cetera. 

And it's only in paying Caesar with the right currency that we're free to pay God with the currency that's due him. And then ultimately, I mean, I think as you look at this is that it's, this is about Christ. Christ paid our tax for us to be freed from the power of the world by paying the right person, the father, paying on the right terms, the cross, and paying with the right currency, which is his perfect life.

Yeah. All right. Thanks, Patrick. 

So we have this within a series called Hard Sayings of a Kind Savior. What makes this saying hard? Yeah, it's funny. I, before the sermon, a gentleman walked up to me and he said, you know, you got a powder keg here on your hands. 

I said, what do you mean? He was just talking about the, just the nature of the passage. I think all the, all the passages that have been preached probably in this series are difficult. I look at it as it is a passage or the big idea, something that needs to be explained. 

The thrust of the message is the explanation is something that maybe is not, isn't readily understood, but maybe is not persuaded. Folks need to be convinced or is it the third? It's readily understood, readily accepted, but needs to be shown how to work, be worked out. And I really feel this is where this one is, to pay the world the best of you and God, only when God has the whole of you, you know, that's easier said than done. 

So show us what that looks like in terms of application. So that's, that's where I tried to try to focus on. Yeah. 

And you just said, someone mentioned, this feels like a powder keg or grenade. And it was of course also just, it's the weekend of July 4th. So you, did it feel like a big ask to put pair this passage with this holiday weekend? How did that play into your message and your preparation? Yeah, it's, it's interesting you bring that up. 

I, I never thought politically about this at all. I really tried to think Biblical. And there's some deep theology in here in terms of role of government and, you know, what's our responsibility as citizens. 

And so I wanted to draw those things out. And, and, and so I, you know, I was obviously aware of the holiday and such, but, didn't, didn't at all try to think politically, just really tried to think Biblically and to be helpful to people. Okay. 

You said you were really thankful to reflect on and teach on this passage. And you also learned some new context that maybe discovered before. So would you share a little bit about that for us? Yeah. 

I, I think just in a way of a personal application, it was just so rich for me. I mean, you know, I'm 46 and, you know, family, work, ministry, all those different things. And, you know, I just, I feel every day life being divided in these different spheres and in, you know, a desire to be devoted to God as well. 

And I think there can sometimes be, you know, some guilt that comes along with that because you're, you're limited in how much time and energy that you have to give to certain things. And I really wanted to make the, the sermon purpose, one that, that, that we're, we rediscovered whose image we bear with the idea that this is a passage about, you know, really Christ freeing us, you know, under the, under this, this trap of, you know, divided allegiance. So that was so meaningful to me in so many ways. 

I feel like I live it out every day. In terms of the context, there's some things that just really, I'd never seen before in Mark's gospel. I'd always, you know, if you look at my Bible, I've always, I've gone through and always noted, you know, certainly talked a lot. 

Mark talks a lot about Jesus's authority. You could go through and almost highlight every time he mentions that word. Obviously people were amazed at Jesus's teaching. 

He teaches as one would have the authority. And so the end of this passage, they talk about being marvel, you know, marvel at his response. But so those things were familiar to me. 

What wasn't familiar to me, which is linked to that same idea, which makes sense, is this idea of totality and ownership and wholeness, which is really where I anchored in on this passage. And you could go through about every chapter in Mark, and we could draw out the themes, you know, but even from the beginning of Mark's gospel, he calls the disciples to leave their nets. They have to leave what they're doing in total devotion, total obedience to him. 

But then as you get closer even to Mark 12 and moving on towards the end of the book, we mentioned this in the sermon, but Mark 12, he gives a biting parable about tenants who mismanage a vineyard. And, you know, they send servants to get some of the crop, and they mistreat them and kill them and even their own son. And the idea is that the tenants want to take the whole ownership of that vineyard. 

And so then following that, you have, you know, the question about Caesar paying taxes in 13 to 17. And then when the Pharisees and the Herodians aren't able to trap Jesus, they send the Sadducees to talk to him about, you know, how example of, you know, if a wife dies and, or if a man dies, and whose wife is she going to be, seven brothers, et cetera. And so they try to divide her up, not, you know, almost in eternity.

And then, of course, you have the great commandment of the Lord, your God, you know, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And then it culminates, you know, at the end of 12, which is the widow giving the offer. And she what? She gave all she had, which is really, you know, the play on the coin.

And then it's all moving towards the fact that the temple is going to be destroyed. And the whole system, the whole system, Jesus is telling him is compromised. So just really, really interesting, really beautiful picture about what Mark is doing.

And I think it makes sense in the context of whole allegiance and being undivided, you know. So as you're studying, you're looking, you know, on either side of the passage, and then you're seeing this develop. Did you go back to the start of Mark and you start like flipping through and you're like, okay, I see it here. 

I see it here. Would you encourage somebody who's listening to like, go look at Mark and just pick out all these things or read through it with a different lens? Yeah, it's a great question. I try to, you know, I tell people that understanding the Bible doesn't come from reading it. 

It comes from rereading it. And so, you know, G. Campbell Morgan had said, you know, as you're teaching or preparing, you want to read a passage 50 times. And I just, I think the best way to read the Bible in its parts is to read the books in its whole.

And it's harder to do that with some books. They're just a lot longer. They're, you know, it takes a longer time to read them. 

Mark is the gospel that's kind of, you know, short and quick and almost like a movie. And so, yeah, I think that's, there's a tremendous value to being able to read the book in its entirety so that you can interpret the parts in light of the whole. So yeah, I would encourage folks to go through Mark's gospel, highlight everywhere they see the word authority or everywhere they see someone being amazed at Jesus. 

So are you saying as a part of your sermon preparation, you do try and read the entire book multiple times through before you really start to like hone in on those verses that you. Yeah. I usually have an idea as I work through the big idea of the passage, I have to test it. 

You know, I say, is this, you know, this idea of, you know, I, for this passage, I was in there some thinking we could talk further about it. A pastor theologian that was under kind of Nazi rule. And he talked about that the totalitarianism, totalitarian government, they want the whole of you. 

And that really resonated with me in this passage. And so as I developed that thinking around the big idea, best way to pay the world what you owe is for God to have the whole of you. I had to test that within the broader range of Mark. 

And as I did, I thought, wow, this is this, this really makes sense. And so it's almost like you're trying to find it's like, you know, the path of the Holy Spirit. And because you're not trying to say anything new, you're just you're trying to bring out what's already there. 

Well, you've mentioned a few times like, hey, we could talk about this. What do you feel like you had to cut from your sermon for the sake of time that you wish you could have included? Maybe it's something like you just were sharing about this pastor theologian from, did you say Nazi Germany? Yeah, he's got a work out there called Theological Ethics, and he's got an entire volume devoted to politics. And, you know, he's an interesting figure.

I, years ago, right since 15 years ago, I read some sermons on him, and they were just so insightful, so meaningful. And so I had, you know, just again, kind of how God works in his providence. He'd been reading some things before this passage was assigned to me. 

And so, you know, he says some really interesting things about totalitarianism. I'd hinted at it a little bit in the sermon. You know, one of the things about this passage, again, that's really interesting, and he was helpful for me to think about this, is after Jesus tells them the biting parable about the tennis mismanaging the vineyard, maybe it was before, they really want to take him by force, but they can't because fear of the people. 

And Tealica talks about that, you know, totalitarianism in a government rule never starts with physical terror. If it did, it would be instantly rejected. And instead, it starts with, you know, propaganda to target the mind and make you willing to surrender. 

And so that's why I said in the sermon that it's interesting they don't send soldiers, they send ideologues. They're trying to get at, you know, trapping in an ideology. And Tealica talked about propaganda as not trying to convince you, but more trying to pummel you. 

And it's kind of like this onslaught of ideas that try to convince you over time, and I'm sure that as they asked this question, there were other, you know, listeners around saying, well, that is a good question. And so they're introducing concepts into the mind to sway the opinion. But in the passage, obviously, Jesus is going to have none of it.

And the response, I think, is that everyone marveled. That's a pretty brilliant response. And then, you know, how does this work out practically in our lives? So what would you say is the role of government? And how can Christians faithfully navigate situations where obedience to God and obedience to government seem to conflict? Yeah, great question. 

So, you know, I think the role of government, I think, you know, I'm influenced by a lot of what Martin Luther said is really God's emergency order. It's a gracious intervention by God for a period of time to preserve a fallen creation. And so the role of government really is to protect liberty, to give time and space for us to repent, to come to faith, you know, for Christ to bring forth his kingdom. 

And so I think we need to, as Christians, we have a responsibility and obligation to obey those in authority, Romans 13, but only as far as we're able. And that's the challenge. And I would probably say it like this, that, you know, our obedience to government ends where our disobedience to God begins. 

Our obedience to government ends where disobedience to God begins. And what I mean is, you know, God has a claim of higher authority on us as Christians, and we want to obey a government as far as we're able, but to the extent that it goes against what God has laid out in his word and disobedience, then we have to think seriously about maybe not following through, you know, civil disobedience kind of thing. We see this, there's many biblical examples of this, Acts 4 and 5, Peter and the apostles are told not to preach in Jesus's name. 

We've talked about that. We see Esther, you know, in the book of Esther, there's a rule that you can't approach the king, but Mordecai tells her she must be, you know, to save the unjust killing of the Jews. And so she does, she civilly disobeys that law, you know, for almost a higher law to, you know, preserve the unjust killing of the Jews.

You know, Obadiah in 1 Kings 18 is another example, Rahab and the prostitutes. And so all of that, you know, you have to do obviously civilly and nonviolence and all that stuff, which is, you know, really important. And then you have to be willing to accept the penalties which are going to come from it. 

But, you know, again, we want to obey as far as we're able, but there are several times where we have a higher allegiance. Yep. Okay. 

So when they ask Jesus this question, Jesus holds up this coin and points to the coin. Um, if Jesus were holding up something for our culture today, instead of this coin, what might he use to expose where ultimate allegiance lies? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you think about the passage, so they're juxtaposing two, two spheres, um, the civic and the religious. 

And so, um, so he's holding up a coin. I think if we had other spheres that we would hold up, I mean, I think about our kids, uh, especially here in the Midwest, we might hold up a soccer ball or a baseball bat, use sports, uh, in terms of where our, our allegiance is. Um, you know, if we were to hold up our leisure, if we're talking about our, you know, our leisure time, we might, we might hold up a, uh, an iPhone, right. 

Uh, all of our attention, right. You can't say amen, say ouch. Right.

So, um, you know, you could think about any sphere of life. You could think about the 24, seven news cycles. I mean, they're, they're set up to, you know, not just inform you, but consume you. 

Right. Uh, they just don't hold a part of you. Uh, they want all of you. 

So I, there's probably lots of things. Um, and you know, and, and we have to kind of search our own hearts and lives. And I said in the message, like, you know, we want to be careful that, um, Caesar things don't become Christ things.

And the way that we do that is we have to, you know, we'd have to follow the coins in our life, you know, where are all the obligations we're paying and, and ensure that, um, you know, we're paying them, um, in the right way that ultimate allegiance is, is to God. And that's, you know, we're all, we're all stuck in the trap that the Pharisees and the Robins are. And, you know, it's only by grace that every day through the gospel that got freezes from it.

Okay. So just to wrap up, just maybe do you have some, uh, someone who's listening, just something practical to think about as they go forward. Um, I heard you say, think about those coins, follow those coins. 

We've got actual like money, where's your money going? How is it being spent? I'm trying to think through those other forms of currency. I love that, that, uh, perspective you've given us of like, how else are we paying outside of just money? So I've heard you say like, um, time or attention. Um, what else would you say are those forms of currency that we should maybe follow? I think, yeah, I think it goes back to time, talent, and treasure. 

Um, and those are, those are all, all things that we're giving every day. We're giving of our time to work and to family and friends and other obligations. We have to pay in our time. 

We're giving our talents in those different spheres as well, uh, as we serve. And then financially we're giving our treasure, um, you know, in, in some way as well. So, I mean, I think you could start there. 

Um, ultimately there's, there's only a finite number of spheres of life, you know, and there's different research about how many there are and, and such, but I mean, you know, the basic ones are, are going to be your, you know, your, um, um, probably your work and your family, um, you know, your church, um, your, your, your, your civic, those types of things. And so thinking through time, talent, and treasures will get you to the coins. And then I think what you want to do is you want to, you know, go back and think about where in your life are these spheres making demands and not requests? Where are they making demands and not requests? I mean, that's what the Pharisees and Herodians are doing to Jesus. 

They're making a demand, give me all of your else. I mean, their question in that way is exposing that, that fact through their ideology. And so that's a good telltale sign of, you know, where you might be in your life going from paying in the right currency to the wrong currency. 

Um, and then thinking about how it is that, and what it may look like. This requires wisdom. There's not a right or wrong answer for, for a lot of these things, but what's it look like for you or your family, for those around you to, to reorder yourself around, you know, Christ is the priority. 

And, you know, we gave the example about youth sports. I love sports. I mean, I mean, baseball is so formative in my life. 

I love the game. Um, but there does come a point where, you know, it, all of that becomes your identity. Um, and it maybe becomes your identity as you play. 

It maybe becomes your identity as a family, all those things. And, um, again, folks are going to land at different spots, but, uh, follow the money and, and it'll take you to your Christ. All right, Patrick, thank you so much.

Thank you for speaking on a hard topic, this grenade that we gave you when you didn't feel like it was. So I'm really glad because that would be unfortunate if you were like, yeah, geez, guys, come on, cut the guest preacher, some slack here. Um, no, I'm just thankful that you were willing to tackle it. 

And I appreciate your perspective that you came into it with and all that work to, um, to prepare. So thank you so much. Well, I'm grateful. 

Thank you for your ministry and, uh, really appreciate that. Uh, you guys allow me to worship with you on, on Sunday and in that passage, as I said, it was just really a blessing to me. So, um, so I thank you and, and, um, the pastors and staff for the opportunity. 

Awesome. Thanks for your time, Patrick. Thanks Claire.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Cut for Time. If you wish to submit questions to our pastors following Sunday's sermon, you can email them to podcast at faithchurchindy.com or text them into our faith church texting number, and we'll do our best to cover them in next week's episode. If this conversation blessed you in any way, we encourage you to share it with others. 

We'll be back again next week.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)