A young lady was soaking up the sun's rays on a Florida beach when a little boy in his swimming trunks, carrying a towel, came up to her and asked her, "Do you believe in God?"

She was surprised by the question but she replied, "Why, yes, I do."

Then he asked her: "Do you go to church every Sunday?"

Again, her answer was "Yes!"

He then asked: "Do you read your Bible and pray everyday?"

Again she said, "Yes!" By now her curiosity was very much aroused.

The little boy sighed with relief and said, "Will you hold my quarter while I go in swimming?"

The little boy was straightforward and honest in his questions because he wanted to entrust to the lady something valuable. The Pharisees in our text for this morning are not being honest.

They have no intent in entrusting Jesus with anything. They are not looking for the answer to a question. They don't want someone to hold their quarter. They are looking for a way to get rid of this trouble making Nazarene named Jesus.

This group of Pharisees, showing their ignorance by assuming that Jesus had some sort of political agenda ("Why else would he be touring the countryside, making speeches, and hugging all those children?") came to Jesus one day with a tricky question. Or should I say ANOTHER tricky question.

Members of the religious establishment of Jesus’ day were constantly trying to trick him into making some statement or claim that would damage his popularity with the general public or get him into trouble with either the Roman government or the leadership of the synagogue.

But, interestingly, they didn't send out their first team.  It wasn't that they thought Jesus was an easy touch -- they knew better than that. 

It was that they were looking for a way to knock him off his pedestal without risking their reputations.  Jesus had made them look bad twice, and they were tired of walking around with egg on their faces. 

So the Pharisees turned to their disciples -- young men in training -- young men with no reputations to protect -- young men with nothing to lose.  The Pharisees designed a trap question and instructed these young men on how to use it against Jesus.

But first they trained the young men to set Jesus up.  Before they sprang the trap question on Jesus, they were to say: "Teacher, we know how honest you are. You teach about the way of God regardless of the consequences. You are impartial and don't play favorites."

They didn't believe that, of course.  It was just a way of buttering Jesus up -- getting him to lower his guard.  It was just a way of distracting him so that they could blindside him with The Real Question. 

Once they had flattered Jesus, one of them asked him, "Excuse me, Mr. Teacher. Would you just answer me one question? Should we just keep paying our taxes and not complain about it, even though the money we’re sending to Rome pays the salaries of all these soldiers who are currently occupying our country?

“You HAVE seen the soldiers, haven’t you, Jesus - the ones with the armor and swords and spears and stuff?"

Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly the way the question was worded. But that was what the Pharisees hoped the people would hear. This was yet another attempt by the hierarchy of the synagogue to force Jesus into a no-win situation.

The beauty of that question was that it offered Jesus only two choices -- Yes or No.  If Jesus said Yes, he would offend the people, who hated Caesar's tax.  If Jesus said No, the Roman soldiers would arrest him for sedition.  Either way Jesus would lose and the Pharisees would win.

And if Jesus somehow found a way out of the trap, it would be the young men who would be humiliated instead of the Pharisees.  But nobody expected Jesus to escape.  They were sure that they had him.

However, Jesus didn't say Yes and he didn't say No, did he?  He said, "You hypocrites. Who are you trying to fool with your trick questions?"  Now, that brought everything out into the open, didn't it?  Jesus knew what they were trying to do, and he made sure that everyone else knew it too.

But that wasn't enough to save Jesus.  If Jesus had said nothing more, he would look as if he were simply trying to dodge the question.  So he continued, "Show me the coin used for the tax," and they brought him a denarius.

A denarius was a significant coin -- wages for a day -- worth perhaps a hundred dollars in today's money.  But it was significant in other ways too.  The denarius bore Caesar's image, and was inscribed, "Tiberius Caesar, August son of the divine Augustus, high priest." 

Jews found both the image of Caesar and the inscription offensive.  For one thing, the Ten Commandments forbid graven images, so they hated the image of Caesar on the coin.  For another thing, Jews didn't believe that Caesar was divine.  They didn't accept Caesar as God.

And then Jesus asked, "Whose head is this, and whose title?"  They answered, "Caesar's."  So Jesus said: "Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

"Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's."  The word that Jesus used really means, "Give back."  So what Jesus really was saying was, "Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's."  This coin bears Caesar's image.  It bears his inscription.  It was minted in his mint.  It circulates at his pleasure.  He wants it back, so give it to him. Give it back!

Then Jesus said, "And give back to God the things that are God's." I have heard it argued from both pulpit and pew that Jesus’ words "Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s" means that a Christian is duty-bound to love America, right or wrong. I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with that.

One Christian writer has said, "The greatest service Christians can render to their country is to become actively concerned about the destiny of the church."

What belongs to the emperor is always a relevant question, and sometimes it can be a tricky question. But is there anything tricky about what belongs to God?

A better question would be, what does not belong to God? 

The cattle on a thousand hills belong to God.  The hills belong to God.  The grass that feeds the cattle belongs to God.  The rain that makes the grass grow belongs to God.  The sun that warms the soil belongs to God.  Apart from God, all would die.  Everything DEPENDS on God, and so everything BELONGS to God.

But more to the point, WE belong to God.  Just as the coin bore Caesar's image, we bear God's image.  That is one of the first things that the Bible says.  It says: "So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27).

So if it is appropriate to give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, namely a coin that bears his image -- so also it is appropriate to give back to God what belongs to God, namely ourselves. 

God created us in his image.  We bear God's likeness.  God wants us to be his people, so let us give ourselves back to God.  Let us give God what belongs to him.

What does that mean?  What would it look like if we were to give ourselves back to God?  Let me first tell you what it would NOT look like! 

A man named Wilbur Rees wrote a tongue-in-cheek prayer for half-hearted Christians -- Christians who are willing to give God only a little bit of their lives.  Listen to his half-hearted prayer.  He prays:

        "I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please,
        not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep
        but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
        or a snooze in the sunshine.
        I don't want enough of God to make me love a black man
        or to pick beets with a migrant.
        I want ecstasy, not transformation.
        I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.
        I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.
        I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please."

But God despises half-hearted commitment.  God appreciates hot, understands cold, but spews lukewarm out of his mouth (as we learn in the Book of Revelation).  We can understand that. 

I like hot tea and I like iced tea, but I wouldn’t want a cup of tea that had been sitting on the counter for an hour -- a cup of lukewarm tea.  Nobody likes lukewarm.

God doesn't like lukewarm.  God likes hot!  God wants us to love him.  God wants us to give our best to him. 

And what would that look like?  What would it look like if we were to give our best to God?  The answer is that it depends.  It depends on who God calls us to be and what God calls us to do.

Shortly after I arrived at STHPC, I met a man and woman who gave themselves back to God.  They have served for twenty years as missionaries in Haiti, because that is where God called them.  I wouldn’t want to live in Haiti, but they call it home.  That is what giving themselves back to God looked like for them.

But you don't have to be a missionary -- unless that is what God calls you to do.  I know a woman who gave herself back to God.  She devotes herself to raising her own children as God's children.  She devotes herself to teaching other people's children about God. She has devoted herself to children's ministry.  That is what God called her to do.  That is what giving herself back to God looked like for her.

David Robinson, the great basketball player (San Antonio Spurs), gave himself back to God.  When he retired from basketball, he could have done any number of things.  He could have made lots of money.  He could have remained in the spotlight. 

But Robinson has always devoted himself to working with kids.  When he retired from basketball, he joined the staff of the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio.  That is what giving himself back to God looked like for David Robinson.

An old Gospel song says, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord.  I'll be what you want me to be."  That is what it looks like to give yourself back to God.  It means letting God set the agenda for your life. 

Let me close by asking you to think about this question:  What would your life look like if you were to give yourself back to God?  What would you do differently?

I know that many of you have already given yourselves back to God, but there is a sense in which we need to do that daily.  The world is a big magnet that tries to pull us away from God.  We need to start each morning by giving ourselves back to God.

Alcoholics know how to do that.  They know that their struggle is never over.  They know that they can't commit themselves to being sober for the next year. 

They simply commit themselves to sobriety for the day -- or perhaps just for the next hour -- or even for the next five minutes.  We need to adopt that attitude in our life of faith.  We need to give ourselves back to God every day -- every hour.

So think about this question this week:  What would it look like if you were to give yourself back to God?  What would you do differently?  What would you have to change?

And when you figure that out, I invite you to do it.  Give yourself back to God this week.  Give yourself back to God every morning.  Try to be faithful to God each day.  If you do that, God will bless you -- and God will make you a blessing for others.  Try it and see!
        Amen!