First—loyalty and praise
October 18, 2026
Lighting the Christ Candle
Welcome and Announcements
Call to Worship
Out of our ordinary, everyday lives, you have gathered us here, Holy God.
We have come to this time of worship, and praise, seeking to praise, seeking to affirm our loyalty to you alone.
In this time of worship we immerse ourselves in you. We seek to listen for your Word. We seek to know your grace more deeply. We seek refuge in your love.
May all that we find today, renew our desire to serve you and to seek only you.
To love you before all others, to praise you for all of our blessings. To give you, and only you, our hearts.
Hymn: 410 joyful, joyful we adore you
Prayer of Approach
Gracious Lord, We come with joy to worship you.
open our hearts that this joy may be pure. Open our mouths, that we may pour out praise and adoration. May our entire being bless and praise you and may we know your mercy. You and you alone deserve our praise and our adoration.
As we worship you in truth, speak to us through your Word, that we may hear your guidance for our lives. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.
Hear also, our heartfelt confession as we open even our hidden failings before you this day…
Prayer of Confession:
Almighty God, you love us, but we have not loved you; you call, but we have not listened. We walk away from neighbors in need, wrapped up in our own concerns. We have gone along with evil, with pride, quarrelling, and divisiveness.
Holy God, help us to face up to ourselves, so that, as you move toward us in mercy, we may repent, turn to you, and receive mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
In this place we find God's word, God's way, God's love, God's forgiveness.
In every wilderness, on every road; in every moment, in every life;
in every journey, in every heart, we receive the daily bread we need—God’s hope, God's mercy, God's joy. Thanks be to God, we are forgiven. Amen.
Passing the Peace
Hymn: 307 God of the sparrow
Scripture:
Psalm 96 p 934
Matthew 22 : 15-22, 34-40 p 1535
Sermon: First—loyalty and praise
It was a set-up. That was clear. But it was a set up that was bigger than forcing Jesus into a situation of choosing between Rome and God. This set-up was to manipulate the whole situation to the point that the people who supported Rome would join in violence against those who fought against Rome’s attacks on the faithful.
The Pharisees made sure that the Herodians were front and centre for this discussion about loyalty. Whom would Jesus be loyal to in this matter? To choose God against Rome would be an act of sedition against the occupiers. To choose Rome in the answer to this question would show that Jesus did not hold to his convictions about serving God.
The Herodians were invited to this public discussion so that they would support the Pharisees in promoting the rule of Rome, by force against Jesus if need be.
We have likely never known the extreme danger of being forced to make that kind of choice. Rome was all powerful. Ceasar was proclaimed as a god. They demanded loyalty in all things. We have not known the danger of standing against an occupying country and their demand that we choose to serve them and turn away from what our faith in God and what God’s love compels us to do.
So the question is put.
Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax[a] to Caesar or not?” Matt 22:17 NIV
This is not the first time that taxes to Rome have come up. We know that Matthew was a tax collector prior to following Jesus. We saw the example of Jesus befriending and welcoming Zaccheus, whose encounter with Jesus changed his heart and he vowed to be a “honest” tax collector, even to return 4-fold what he had stolen.
Taxes were then, as they are now, a fact of life. Then, however there was oppression involved, and people were often cheated, threatened, or harmed in the effort to get the maximum amount of money from individuals.
So the deeper underlying principle here was—is it proper to pay taxes to Ceasar who is a god of the realm? And also, is it proper to pay taxes to a corrupt political system?
Jesus doesn’t even address the moral question. He merely asks to see a coin.
This is what the commentator Hoezee says about the coin…. Indeed, most scholars believe that the inscription on the coin to which Jesus refers in verse 20 was likely some blasphemous designation. Some scholars believe that the denarius in question likely bore the image of Tiberius with the inscription “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus” and an image of the “high priest” Livia on the coin’s obverse.
A coin with the face of a “god” on one side and an image of a priest that serves that “god” on the other side. What we have before us is a graven image of the god of the realm.
Jesus however does not address the politics of the situation at all. He merely asks, who is this an image of? “Ceasar, was the answer.”
To which Jesus quietly and authoritatively responds: “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Matt 22: 21 NIV
What is implied in the words of Jesus is that everything else belongs to God.
We know this truth as people who are followers of God. We also live in this world. Governments come and go. All of them demand that we pay taxes, and although not always happy to do so, we do pay them.
But we also know that the taxes we pay help the people of the town, province and nation.
Our taxes pay for fire protection and ambulance services.
Our taxes pay for policing and roads. Our taxes pay for medical coverage for all people.
Our taxes do not support and prop up despots who take only for themselves. For the most part our politicians use the taxes to help improve our lives in some way.
So we don’t really understand the depths of loyalty being asked in the tax payments required of the people of Isreal by the occupying Romans. We are not being asked to support the reign of a person who demands to be worshipped as a god.
We can pay our taxes and be good citizens without having to make a choice between country and God. We are fortunate in that way.
But that does not mean that there will not be other things that can draw our loyalty away from God.
We have all known things that have drawn us away from the time that we usually reserve for God.
Even in those moments we choose to honour God in other ways. When Jesus says to give to God, what belongs to God, it is a reference to everything else in the world.
WE give to God the loyalty of worship. We stop to pray daily. We read Scripture. We meditate on God’s word.
We give to God the loyalty of service. We reach out to others in the name of God. We serve others as a way of serving God.
We care for the environment as a way of serving God.
Every day we choose God in a variety of ways. And the world we occupy is richer because of it. The commentor Jenista says that how we interact with the world is a measure of whom we are most aligned with.
It is in those ways that we meet the challenge of living in the world while not being a part of the world.
The Pharisees and the Herodians were making alliances with Rome which compromised their belief in and service to God. Jenista writes that they viewed the politics of the era as a way to trap others, was at odds with their call to be guided by Scripture as they lived out God’s calling in the world.
That truth was being made publicly known as they attacked Jesus and forced him through test after test to try and trick him into proving that he wasn’t the man of God he claimed to be.
Jesus made theological choices that showed he paid loyalty to God. He didn’t dodge the difficult questions, he met every test and every time he chose the way of God. Hoezee points out that this was a difficult task that Jesus overcame for a number of reasons.
- Rome was all powerful and used that power against the people and against their faith.
- Jesus knew the deeper and more profound reality in which the whole world belonged to God. More than that Jesus knew that the human heart belongs to God, and that we are all formed in God’s image. That formation makes us inclined to choose God, love him, worship him and honour him in our living.
- Ultimately Rome does not threaten God. Ultimately no political or social power threatens God. Thus, believers are reminded that getting upset about the powers that , tempts us to downplay and underestimate the glorious sovereignty of God.
The reality is that we belong to God and the world belongs to God. There are so many ways in which we can live to honour God through worship, study, devotion and service. It is a matter of discerning our calling and choosing God daily to guide us in his way.
The ultimate truth is that God chooses us.
When we choose God in return, God reinforces that choice by choosing us, gifting us, supporting and strengthening us.
Choosing God is the gift that keeps on giving, because God keeps on giving. The absolute best thing about choosing God is that God gives us everything we need. He never leaves us alone. Most of all God establishes us as his in every way.
Our citizenship is located in heaven. Our treasure is located in heaven.
And all of that is available to us as we navigate this world with the difficult choices we need to make and the temptations of the world that lure us. Our strength comes from our citizenship and from our God. When we choose God first, everything that God has is ours.
The commentator Nadella writes that within the context of Matthew’s Gospel we are reminded that our choices for God bring us wholeness, transformation and healing. Within these gifts we are empowered to stand against oppressive regimes and even oppressive laws that appear to enslave the people.
When we choose God, then how we live our lives open up the treasures of heaven in ways that we can not anticipate. The commentator Kim agrees with Nadella that Matthew’s Gospel encourages us to take our stand for God. When we do so, says Kim, we understand the goal of the God centered life.
That God centered life calls us to love all people and even our enemies. When we choose God, our lives are aligned with God’s kingdom and we are given his righteousness. When we choose God, then no matter what happens, we live in hope for God’s future, where beginning now we pursue the way of God progressively and radically.
What does that look like?
Matthew goes on to point this out for us a little further into his writing. Following this event Jesus is approached by the Sadducees to answer a question of marriage relationships that continue into eternity. A woman is married, successively to 7 brothers as one dies and the others fulfill their obligation and take her to be his wife. So the question. Whose wife will she be in the resurrection. Jesus responds that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living and in the resurrection we will neither marry or be married.
Following this, the Pharisees take another approach at testing Jesus.
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Matt 22: 35-36 NIV
The answer of course is very simple. It is rooted in our loyalty to God.
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matt 22: 37-40 NIV
First love God. Second love yourself. Third love your neighbour.
Choose God. Choose yourself to be all God calls you to be. Choose your neighbour, and love them as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Choose God. Choose Love.
Choose God means choosing love and giving love. And God will be with us in all of it. Amen
Hymn: 587 Called as partners in Christ’s service
Offering and Doxology 830
Offertory Prayer
Almighty God, giver of every good and perfect gift,
teach us to give to you all that we have and all that we are,
that we may praise you not with our words only, but with our whole lives and all that we do and say. May the gifts that we return to you be filled with joy, compassion, service and a dedication to the least of these in every corner of the earth.
Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession
Heavenly Father, bring stillness to our hearts, empty our minds of other things
and direct our thoughts to the ways in which our lives bring you honour and express our loyalty.
When we reflect on how you have supported and cared for us in the past,
we cannot fail to give you thanks. When we consider the way you give us courage and help for each new day, we are filled with a sense of gratitude and praise.
What a comfort it is, to know the love and support you bring to us through your Son and by your Spirit.
In our joy, let us not forget those this morning who know little else but sadness,
those whose lives are filled with regrets and heartbreaks.
We bring you our praise and thanks.
We bring you our concerns for one another
Janet
We bring our prayers for the world
In our desire to give You praise, do not blur our vision of the hardship in this life.
The despair of the homeless in our inner cities.
The feelings of guilt by parents who cannot feed their children.
The worries and fears of those in hospital.
The isolation of the lonely.
The deep sense of loss to those in bereavement.
We pray for our governments, local, provincial and federal.
Heavenly Father, you are not only the God of this world, you are the ruler of your heavenly Kingdom. Strengthen us while we live out our life on this earth,
to show the compassion and the caring of Jesus and to share it with those who are without hope.
For we ask all these things through Jesus Christ our Lord who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen
Hymn: 477 Your hand O God has guided
Charge & Benediction
As you go from here into the week ahead,
Keep your eyes open for God, watch for His works;
be alert for signs of His presence.
For He is God—our God—in charge of the whole earth.
And He remembers His Covenant—for a thousand generations He’s been as good as His word.
So go with confidence and joy, knowing that God goes with you.
Go forth to live in and to share, the love of God, the grace of Jesus and the strength of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Blessing Song
Go now in peace. Never be afraid.
God will go with you each hour of every day.
Go now in faith, steadfast, strong and true.
Know He will guide you in all you do.
Go now in love, and show you believe.
Reach out to others so all the world can see.
God will be there watching from above.
Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.
3-Fold Amen