Scripture Reading: Luke 20:27-40
There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”
And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him any question.
Absolutely! Here is your full sermon transcript, preserved as closely as possible to your spoken words, with clear, SEO-friendly H1 and H2 headings inserted throughout. No content is summarized or omitted; only formatting and headings are added for online readability and search optimization.
How Jesus Responds to Challengers: The Heart Behind the Hard Questions
Introduction: Grace, Mercy, and Today’s Challenge
Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen. Today’s story is a bit of a weird one. The Sadducees come to Jesus, and they pose him a logic problem. We’re introduced to them quite oddly. It says there came to Jesus, some Sadducees who deny that there is a resurrection. I think that’s why they’re so sad. You see, that is the worst pastor joke. I didn’t come up with it, though. I borrowed it from a podcast. Don’t, don’t blame me.
The Sadducees and a Series of Challenges
The Sadducees appear in the Gospel of Luke only this once before they come to the end where Jesus is actually condemned by the people who are in power, and so it’s not really important their identity, but what is happening in a series of three stories? This is the last of three stories where people come to Jesus and challenge his authority. They’re not actually asking questions, looking for answers. They’re coming to Jesus and testing him, trying to trip him up or trick him or expose him and make him seem silly in front of the people.
Questioning Jesus’ Authority
The first story is when they come to Jesus after He flips over the tables in the temple, and they ask him, by what authority are you doing all these things? And Jesus asked them a question. In response, he says, I’ll tell you. If you tell me, did John the Baptist come from God or from man? They refuse to answer because, well, they didn’t want to look bad. The next group comes to Jesus and they say, Is it lawful to give taxes to Caesar? What they’re trying to do is make Jesus choose sides in the nationalist fight, are you on the side of the Jews or on the side of Rome? And Jesus says, Give to Caesar, what is Caesar? And to God’s? What is God’s? Which is actually kind of a joke, because everything is God’s.
The Sadducees’ Trick Question About Resurrection
And then finally, the Sadducees come with this one. They’re like, How silly is it to believe in the resurrection? Look, Jesus, we’ve got this logical problem that you could never solve. And Jesus doesn’t actually answer the question. He says, The resurrection is going to be different guys, but here’s the real thing, there is a resurrection, and he proves it from the Old Testament, not just the Old Testament, but from the book of Exodus, which is one of the books the Sadducees accepted.
Jesus Sees Through the Challenge
I think is interesting in all this is these three challenges are not questions. They’re not looking to the teacher for information. They’re setting up a debate. They’re coming to Jesus, the Word made flesh, the wisdom of God. And they’re trying to say to him, we think we can break you, make you look foolish, and then everybody will know that you’re a fraud. And Jesus sees through it all. And instead of answering the question, goes to the heart of the problem, whether it’s with the Pharisees and the authority of John, the question of taxes or the question of the resurrection, he peers through their challenge and answers the deeper problem.
When People Challenge Our Faith
And I think this is an important way of seeing what happens when people challenge Jesus’s authority and power. Today, we who gather here, are gathered around the Word made flesh. He comes to us, we receive His grace and His peace, and so when we approach we’re actually looking for answers, but I bet you, just like me, have run into people who don’t want answers, but want to make God look silly, who are trying to piece together logical problems that the church can’t solve, or ask questions that are designed to make God look bad, and we can see from what Jesus is doing here, there’s a better way to answer it than to play by the rules of the people who challenge us.
A Better Way Than Debate
There’s a better way to confront these things than simply to go into the debate, because that’s what people want. If someone comes to you says to you, I can’t believe you. Believe in this God, and they offer a challenge. There’s a bunch of them out there, right? How could you believe in a loving God who does four How can you believe in a good God who sends people to hell? How can you believe in God at all when there’s all this scientific evidence, you believe all those fairy tales. I bet you’ve heard them before.
Why Arguments Don’t Work
It. The problem is, very often what we want to do is answer their challenge, because we think what they’re doing is actually saying, I am looking for information, and if you give it to me, I will change my mind. And it never works that way. When you get in a fight with a friend or a spouse and they give you an argument in response to your complaint. Do you say? Why? Yes, honey. I agree with you. Now. It’s never worked for me, no matter how logical or smart my arguments are, what happens is we just fight more. I get on my side. They get on theirs. We get entrenched and we get mad.
Facing the Deeper Pain
Maybe Jesus can show us that getting to the heart of the problem is really what we should do. Maybe when we’re challenged by people who want to make God look bad, there’s something more fundamental that they’re looking for. One of the things that our seminary drills into the pastors, not in our classes, but basically every seminary prof makes an example of this is that when someone comes to us with a question, we should always respond with another question. The question is, why do you want to know, because it’s the motive behind the question that is really what’s important, what is the pain, the hurt, the problem that this question is trying to address, and that is the thing that we really want to to help understand when people challenge, we don’t need to defend God. We don’t need to answer their challenge. We don’t need to do all those things, because God doesn’t need defense. He’s God.
The Heart of the Christian Faith
The heart of the problem with every challenge is that the question isn’t what’s important, it’s simply they don’t understand because they don’t know Jesus, and that’s the heart of the Christian faith, isn’t it? The difference between a challenge and seeking answers is knowing Christ and the peace that he gives knowing God and the gift of grace that He gives all of us through Jesus, Christ, Jesus could have actually answered those questions, given them logical reasons, pointed them to the Old Testament, given them answers that were that were clarifying and logical and made good sense, but it wouldn’t have solved the problem. If we debate, we can give logical answers that make sense, that explain God and his actions, and do these things, but it doesn’t solve the problem.
The World Needs Christ, Not Just Arguments
The problem is that the world needs Christ, that the people who are angry or want to debate the church, there is pain that needs to be healed, wounds that need to be bandaged, grace that needs to be given, and none of our answers will actually make sense without the heart of Christianity, the God who took on human flesh came and died on a cross for.
God Can Handle the Questions
Is always the heart of the faith. That is always the heart of every answer, every question, every piece of Holy Scripture. And our goal is always to point people to that savior, Jesus, Christ, God can defend himself. He’s been good at it before. God can handle all the problems and the questions that people throw at him, their anger, everything else. He’s a pretty big guy. He’s got broad shoulders. He can take it. Our job isn’t to fight for him. Our job isn’t to defend him. Our job is to share His peace and His grace. And I think that’s the great key when we run into these problems, what’s the problem behind the question? What is the wound behind the defense, so that we can show them the healing power of Jesus Christ, that He died for you, for me, and that person who is hurt, who needs God’s love, who needs his grace, who needs to know the Savior of the world in Jesus name amen.
Find us on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.