Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Pastor James is encouraging us to keep the main thing, the main thing.

James Kaddis: People have been asking me, "James, why aren't you commenting on all the crazy things that everybody is saying right now about your friend? Why aren't you getting online and talking about this and talking about that and talking about here and talking about there?" I'll tell you why I'm not doing it.

I'll tell you why I'm not addressing the liars. I'll tell you why I'm not addressing the naysayers. I'll tell you why I'm not mentioning people by name and I'll tell you why I'm not going out of the way to straighten out the record. I am refraining from doing all of those things because God does not want us to lose focus on the main thing.

The main thing is the work of the kingdom that must continue to be pursued because the moment we take our eyes off of what we have for that which we lack, we will find ourselves to be in a place of destruction.

Guest (Male): Today on Light on the Hill, Pastor James Kaddis will talk about the government. The question we're confronted with is who's in charge? We'll hear why we must stay focused on the main thing in life, the work of the kingdom. Getting sidetracked with superficial matters will only lead to problems. Here's Pastor James Kaddis continuing our study of Mark's Gospel in chapter 12.

James Kaddis: All right, Mark chapter 12 and we are going to start in verse 13. By the way, I do want to bring this out because this is kind of an important thing. I want to talk a little bit about the way the world thinks versus the way that God thinks.

Unfortunately, when we have this discussion, perhaps one of the more dangerous areas to pursue is to talk about the integration of the world's philosophy within the church. I think that a lot of that has happened. I think a lot of it still exists and unfortunately, I think a lot of it is carried through.

I'm not going to talk about the obvious ideas. I'm not going to talk about the obvious thoughts. I'm not going to talk about the type of things that we've been seeing on full display over the last couple of years where you might have pastors who not only don't condemn abortion, but they're actually supporting it.

You might see these leftist ideals or thoughts being taught from the pulpit. When people speak concerning conservative issues, they're often times threatened about having their tax status revoked. By the way, quick note on the revocation of tax status.

When a church files for a 501(c)(3), what they are doing is they are telling the government that they believe they need the government's permission in order to obtain tax exemption, where in the law, the IRS, actually we see it stipulated within the United States Code and within the law, churches are not required to ask for tax exemption.

As a matter of fact, by statute, they are actually tax exempt. So there are many churches who have not asked for 501(c)(3), yet they still obtain all the rights and the benefits thereof of churches who have asked for it. As a matter of fact, it is one that is completely irrevocable.

I remember when we first obtained a federal tax ID from the IRS for the church. I had a lady that basically said, "I'm sorry, I can't give you a federal tax ID that is exempt under our definition." I said, "Yeah, you can." She said, "No, I can't. You haven't filed for the exemption. You haven't done such a thing."

I said, "Actually, by law, I'm not required to file for this exemption status." She said, "Well, I disagree with you and I can't give you the number." I said, "Okay, can I speak to your supervisor, please?"

The supervisor comes on and the supervisor says, "What's the problem, sir?" I said, "This is the problem." The supervisor said, "Well, I think that she's right." He was a very nice guy. This was almost 20 years ago. I said, "Well, I'd like to talk to your supervisor."

Their supervisor comes on and their supervisor starts off, doesn't ask me what's going or nothing, just starts off by saying, "I am so sorry, Pastor. You are absolutely right. We need to train our agents a little bit better. There is a very bad training issue here going on. I'm going to mail you the information that you need. Here you go. It's all set and done."

It's interesting because there is this mindset where these people claim that if you speak about anything political, then you will actually lose your exemption status. There's no such statute in the law that says anything of a sort. Even when you have a discussion of the Johnson Amendment, the general assumption behind the Johnson Amendment is that churches, religious exempt organizations, places of worship do not have exemption status by default through statute, rather they have to ask for permission and as a result, they're subject to the same rules that maybe the average nonprofit would be subject to, the 990s that have to be filed and all that other stuff.

The law says nothing could be further from the truth. It's not the case and the Johnson Amendment is null and void. It doesn't even mean anything because it relates to the assumption that churches have to actually ask for permission in order to be able to be tax exempt when in reality, by default, that is the case.

This means that pastors should and have always been free to do what the government told them they could not do, and that is to speak about political issues. That is to speak when immorality is being carried through by our government and to also speak when morality is being carried through by the government.

The problem is this. The problem is there's too many weak men behind the pulpit. The problem is there's too many lazy men behind the pulpit. The problem is there's too many people who have carried on the philosophy of the world and in doing so, they have also allowed themselves to carry on the adaptations and the constructs that the world has brought to them and they have poisoned the minds of the hearts of the people that they minister to.

Here's the reality. The reality is this has permeated at literally every level. Not just one level, it's permeated at a bunch of levels. Not just a minute level, it has come and it is affected everything. There are cultures that have been developed within the church today that are fully regulated and have been incepted literally by the education system that was created by none other than the devil in this country.

When you think about the ideas and the mindset that has been developed by the world and the thought process that continues to be held onto by Christians, it's a tragedy. Why? Because everything that this world has set into motion is designed for one thing and one thing only: to cause you to run further away from the things of God and your relationship of God and the worship of God.

The way that they do it is what I would call the spirit of Antichrist. They do it by removing your collective consciousness of God by teaching you to assume the role of God on your own. It creates a destructive pattern that causes people to think completely differently.

By the way, you go and you interview people in the church about finances, they have a worldly view. You go and you talk to people in the church about their family heritage, they have a worldly view. You go and you talk to people about any of those basic things, you realize very quickly they have no awareness of what the truth is.

Do you know that the average church who claims to be conservative will actually tell you that if a pastor speaks about abundance, especially as it relates to money or finances, that they will be labeled as a prosperity church when in reality it has nothing to do with prosperity doctrine?

The danger with prosperity doctrine as it's being understood by people like the Benny Hinns and the Kenneth Copelands of the world is they also do something that the world wants them to do. They place so much of an emphasis on money and on gain and on material wealth and on comfort that they've taken their eyes completely off of the true and living God.

But then you have another group of people who will say that you are not spiritual if you focus on things like this in order to be able to bring to your family something that's necessary for their sustenance. They're all backward thoughts. They're all backward ideals. They're all backward philosophies.

I'm here to tell you that the Bible, when you are taught through the Bible to act as God would intend for you to act, you are talked to, you are taught by God to do these things with the assumption that you are coming from the place of abundance. It's not something that you should be taught. It is an assumption of something that already exists.

We've talked about this on multiple occasions. We talked about what happened in the garden. We talked about the fact that God gave Adam and Eve literally everything in the world that he had created. He said it was theirs. You could have it all.

There was one thing they could not have and that was the fruit of a very specific tree that was named in the midst of the garden. What did the devil do? The devil did everything he could to get them to focus on the one thing that they didn't have so that in essence, their pursuit of that thing would forfeit every wonderful thing that they did have.

Since the time of the fall that we read about in the book of Genesis by Adam, the Bible says through one man sin entered into the world, mankind has always defaulted to focusing on what they don't have rather than focusing on what they do have. Because they default on focusing on what they do not have, they will always allow themselves to experience the destructive aspect of all that focusing on the gap brings.

At the expense of sounding a bit insensitive, let me just simply say that even right now in the body of Christ, it is very easy to stop in the grief that we're experiencing concerning my little brother Charlie and to focus on the fact that we don't have him here anymore. The problem with that line of thinking is that it's faulty and it's worldly.

It's not faulty and worldly for us to grieve and it certainly is not faulty and worldly for us to experience a loss. But it's faulty and worldly to assume that all is gone and that we have nothing left because Charlie is with the Lord. Why? The very moment that Charlie entered into the ages, the very moment when he heard the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant," God added to us the abundance that he promised us.

God gave to us something even more spectacular, something even more wonderful. Why? Because number one, we don't have to mourn for Charlie because we know Charlie is with the Lord. He's in the place that he's always helped us to be.

Yes, while we're mourning and while we're grieving, the one thing that we must understand and the one thing that we must recognize more than anything else is that God chose to allow this to happen so that the abundance of what he seeks to present to us could be something made manifest in so many people who were without.

The bottom line is if we make the mistake that the world makes, if we make the mistake of those who have no hope and we begin to focus on the things that are absent from us now that he's gone, it is such a terrible mistake to make. Why? There's two things to focus on.

Number one, he's more alive than he ever has been. If he's more alive than he ever has been, we should not be at a place where we feel at a loss as in to what we do here on this world or here in this earth because we know the mandate that we've been given and we know the call.

The second reason and perhaps the most significant and the most consequential is that the ministry, the purpose that God crafted for him as we read about in the book of Ephesians was not one that was simply relegated to the time that he lived on this earth. It was one that was given to the ages. It is a purpose that was given into eternity and not just simply into the moment.

If we understand those things and we recognize those things, then we will be motivated to act as the body of Christ from the place of abundance. We will say, "God, we refuse to focus on what we believe we do not have so that we can forfeit the things that we have. What we will do instead is we will focus on all that you've given us."

You're going to get into a discussion today about money. We're going to get into a discussion today about the government. The problem with the discussion of money and government is that we often times focus on the superficial matters while completely forgetting the main objective.

We focus on the issues that we think are big to us at the time and in the moment, rather than focusing on the bigger prize. People have been asking me, "James, why aren't you commenting on all the crazy things that everybody is saying right now about your friend? Why aren't you getting online and talking about this and talking about that and talking about here and talking about there?"

I'll tell you why I'm not doing it. I'll tell you why I'm not addressing the liars. I'll tell you why I'm not addressing the naysayers. I'll tell you why I'm not mentioning people by name and I'll tell you why I'm not going out of the way to straighten out the record. I am refraining from doing all of those things because God does not want us to lose focus on the main thing.

The main thing is the work of the kingdom that must continue to be pursued because the moment we take our eyes off of what we have for that which we lack, we will find ourselves to be in a place of destruction. Here's the one thing that we should all know about people who focus on what they don't have and ignore what they do have.

Let me tell you what happens with that. People who do that always destroy everything that they didn't realize they did have in order to find or seek the very thing they know they could never get. It's destructive. It's the way it works.

Here's the mind shift that has to take place for us as believers. When we talk about business, for example, let's say we talk about making investments. Let's say we talk about making a few extra dollars or let's say we talk about buying a business or making some effort to bring to ourselves a better life, as they would call it.

You fail when you make the focus the thing that you think is going to bring you what you want. You see, God tells us to be somebody first before he tells us to do something. If we can't be what God has asked us to be and we cannot walk into what he has asked us to do, we will never be able to have the very thing that he wants us to have.

We do it backwards in the world. In the world, we think about what we don't have and we make the main objective pursuing that which we do not have, while ignoring the thing that God wants us to do, and even more so, ignoring the person that God wants us to be. It's all backward.

By the way, I'll just tell you this right now. I have never met anybody who excelled in a specific area in extreme ways that did not understand the mission of what they were doing. They did not understand the why behind their actions.

So here's the thing I need everybody to understand today. In the passage that we're going to go over, we are going to see a phenomenal example of this. We are going to see something so spectacularly incredible that if understood correctly will completely change your life.

It will change the way you do anything in the future and I cannot emphasize this enough because what is at stake here is remarkable. Look at what it says in verse 13 of chapter 12. "And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians."

By the way, interesting group of people, those that were categorized under the Herodians. You'd actually be talking about a group of people that involved tax collectors, people that represented in essence, the cause and effect in essence of Herod. Interesting history behind that. We don't have the time to go over that.

But they sent him to catch him in his words. In other words, they're sending this people group to trap Jesus. Now, I just want to stop and just tell you this right now. People are still doing this to this day. They are seeking to entrap us. They are seeking to get our focus off of the things that are important.

We see this happening day in and day out. This is a regular part of the life that we live in this world. The problem is we cannot focus on any of those things. What we must focus on is the mission that's been put in front of us. But look what it goes on to say.

Verse 14, "And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true and carest for no man for thou regardest not the person of men, but teacheth the way of God in truth." Now, I want to stop before we read the rest of this verse.

The statements they're making here are not inaccurate. Okay? By the way, they are trying to a degree to flatter Jesus. But the bigger issue I want everybody to focus on is they're bringing the truth to him. God is exactly as they're describing him to be, that he is a person that is missional.

He is a person that does not regard the opinions or the thoughts of men as it relates to the call and the purpose given to him by the Father. He is a person that teaches without the regard of how people may react. He is the epitome of somebody who communicates without placing a contingency upon the reaction of those he talks to.

That's Jesus. Jesus can't be bought by anybody. Jesus can't be moved by anybody. Jesus is going to do what he knows he's called by his Father in heaven to do and he himself is God. So they're prefacing that with everything with the sole intent to ask him a question that they believe will entrap him.

The intent of this question is to entrap him in one of two ways. And if it's not answered correctly, it could probably entrap him in both ways. Let's go over the question here. "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?" Now, this is designed to create massive problems with both of the people that are watching him.

See, the Herodians that are there, if they hear him say, "Don't give Caesar the money," then they in essence would have grounds to go back to Herod and have him put to death. No problem. If he says, "Yeah, we should pay taxes," then the Herodians are satisfied.

But the Pharisees now have a tool to be able to turn the hearts of the people against Jesus because if he does say, "Hey, yeah, you have to pay taxes," then the people are going to hate him. It's a catch 22.

Now, there are a few ways that Jesus could answer this outside of the way he did answer it, where he could get himself in trouble with both of them very easily. Here's the question that they ask him. This is an important one. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?

By the way, when they say is it lawful, meaning according to the Old Testament law, is it lawful to pay a tax to Caesar? It's a tough question to ask. I don't know if I did not have the foresight of knowing what Jesus said or did or understanding the Scriptures, I would know how to answer this question.

But the conviction that I've developed with respect to how I interact with government today comes solely from passages like this because of the brilliance of Jesus' answer.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill. What you just heard is one part of a study in Mark's Gospel from Pastor James Kaddis. You can hear it again at lightonthehillradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Not long ago, Pastor James released his new book on the first half of Revelation. It's entitled The Last Book. He points out that Revelation isn't a book of fear, but rather a book of hope. Pastor James will help you understand the world we live in and current events through a biblical lens, preparing your heart for what lies ahead. Get a copy by going to lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon.

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While you're there, you can also send us an email. It would be great to hear from you and have you share the station you listen to as well. Just visit lightonthehillradio.com and then click on contact. Now with the power of a simple question, we return to Pastor James.

James Kaddis: Look what happens here. This is remarkable. Here's the question more iterated, more clearly iterated. "Shall we give or shall we not give?" Right, to pay taxes. "Should we give this money or should we not give the money? Come on Jesus, spit it out."

Look what happens. "But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny that I might see it." Now, this is so brilliant. First of all, Mark is wanting us to know that Jesus saw right through them.

Mark is wanting us to know that Jesus saw the hypocrisy in the statement. By the way, when they refer to them as hypocrites, when they refer to as the hypocrisy that Jesus was seeing through, what hypocrisy was it? It was the statement that they were making about who Jesus was.

Because although this statement was correct, they did not truly feel that way. They were just saying it to flatter him because they're hypocrites. They were acting. They're actors. That's what they're doing. Jesus could see through it all. Why? Because he's God. He knows man's heart. That's not a hard one to be able to explain.

Watch what happens because this is so interesting. He says, "Give me a coin basically." Verse 16, "And they brought it and he saith unto them, whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's." Wow, that's interesting.

I want to stop and pause for just one moment and I want to explain one very important truth. The Bible is good for learning anything and everything. Let me say that one more time. The Bible is good for learning anything and everything.

If you want to learn how to be a better manager of the wealth that God has given you, you go to the Bible. You want to learn how to be a better father, you go to the Bible. You want to learn how to be a better mother, you go to the Bible. You want to learn how to excel in your work environment, you go to the Bible.

You want to learn how to do anything that you could possibly imagine, guess what? You go to the Bible, you'll find the answer. Here's one aspect that a lot of people might not necessarily think through when they read this as a learning moment, but I'm going to take it as a learning moment because it's powerful.

Here's something I learned about how to talk to people when in the midst of a hostile and difficult situation. I've learned that when I engage somebody who is being hostile and whose sole intent is to want to entrap me, argue with me or win the debate, I've learned that perhaps one of the most effective tools to pull out of my pocket in engaging with them is to ask them questions.

Now, you might think, "Well, that's kind of strange, James. What do you mean?" Well, let's talk about the genius of what Jesus does here, shall we? He gets the penny. He knows the answer to the question, doesn't he? "Whose image is on this coin? Whose inscription is it?"

Why is he doing that? Well, there's a lot of reasons why he's doing it. I'm not God, so I can't speak to his infinite mind. But you know one of the things that happens when you learn to ask people questions when you're in the midst of a very difficult and heated circumstance? One of the most powerful tools that you can obtain from doing that is by teaching that person to truly think through what it is they're saying within the context of the dialogue that's happening, as opposed to formulating what the next words are going to be.

Guest (Male): We'll stop here for today and come back next time with the rest of this message from Pastor James Kaddis entitled, "Who's in Charge?" Light on the Hill is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

[Pastor James Kaddis concludes teaching with music transition and final announcements]