Giving
SHE HAS GIVEN MORE
VII. Difficult Things Jesus Said
Text: Mark 12:41-44
Intro:
If I could clone one of you - whom would it be?(Pause, looking about) That would depend...on what part of the worship service... At the beginning...the friendliest usher/greeter... Singing...biggest bass/sweetest soprano... Sermon...myself..."tag team". What if...during the offering?...whom would I clone then?
Not that I know what anyone gives, but if I knew, whom would I clone? Who needs a steward. campgn? Just clone our best givers..would there be two of you? Who would be cloned by God, if He were to clone our best giver?(After all, He's the only one who should do any human cloning.) Who?
This a.m. we come to a difficult thing Jesus said. It is difficult, not in the sense of understanding. It's meaning is quite simple. Rather it is difficult, first: in that it lays a finger on a most touchy subject for all nearly all of us.(The large majority of marital squabbles > $; the #1 goal of most high schoolers & collegians > make $. Most private...teach our kids early not to ask "How much $ do you make/give?" etc.) It is a difficult saying, secondly in that it seems so detached from reality, our reality. It would appear that He wants to introduce us to a whole new dimension, a whole new, and enhanced way of looking at $ - at life. Hold on to your...seats! Jesus teaches us that:
THE VALUE OF MONEY IS MORE RELATIVE THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT.
We all know that $ is somewhat realtive. We're grateful for 3-4% infl. rates. 10-15% inflation rates back a number of years ago were hard to manage. Smaller countries, w/ less stable economies occasionally have astronomical rates. Imagine filling up you gas tank yesterday for $20 and next week it costs you $30! and the same is happening to all your other expenditures! It's possible even w/ the safeguards we have built into our system. But even this pales in comparision w/ the relativity Jesus stunned his disciples with one day in...
I. The value of your gift to God is relative to your wealth.(vv. 41f.)
One day Jesus came with his disciples to the Temple, entered through one of seven gates into the wide open Court of the Gentiles. After teaching in the court for awhile he left off teaching and went to observing. He walked over near the east end of the Tempel proper > Court of the Women...around the back side of this court sat the Tempel Treasury w/ 13 trumpet-shaped boxes into which worshippers placed their offerings. "Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury.
A. It's always nice to see a crowd for an offering.
Prayer might be okay where 2or3...but for an offering you want a crowd. A recently graduated seminarian took a temporary job as a police officer. When asked by a superior officer what he would do to disperse a frenzied crowd, he replied, "I'd take up a collection." So it's nice to see the crowd stay around for the offering. I'm glad you're waiting today. Jesus didn't see just the crowd, however, he saw the individuals that made up the crowd. Every one of them, men & women gave varying amounts out of their varied $ abilities. Still everyone gave. You didn't really worship unless you gave something. Years before God had told Moses: "No one is to appear before me empty-handed." (Ex. 23:15) So everyone had to pass before the offering receptacles and deposit their offering. They came, that day, the very rich and the very poor. They stood in the same line dropping their offerings into the same boxes. It was a nice crowd.
B. It's always nice to hear a cascade of coins into the offering plate.
Offerings lost a lot of the drama with the invention of paper money and checks. (They'd lose what little drama they have left if > automatic w/drawls, don't you think?) Offerings used to be the best part of a service but w/ the invention of paper $ offerings became dull. That must be about when the offertory was invented. There was nothing else to listen to! Further, it's harder to know how much people give now. A $1 bill landing in the plate sounds identical to a $10,000 check. There' no audible difference! When all money was in coinage, you could hear the difference! That may be why these particular worshippers brought copper coinage vs. silver or bronze. V. 41 "money" = "copper" vs. the much more common term for $ = "silver". You get a ton of copper coins for just one silver denarii. And you get far more "bang for your buck" in dramatic effect. People have always wanted to appear to give more to church and other charitable causes than they really do. That's true for you and me too. Some resist the tendency more than others, but we all have that tendency to impress.
C. Today giving is a more private matter.
Reasons:
- Curb a few egotists.
- Show sensitivity to the poor.
Offerings have evolved from everyone passing, in a ceremonial act, in front of the plate; to... plate being passed and then > altar; to... just pass the plate & get it out of here... I have a hunch that the overall decrease in church giving as a percentage of one's income is related. In our privacy bubble, we tend to be more generous with ourselves and less so with God and others. Still you can be sure that $ giving at Trinity is a strictly confidential matter.
D. Nevertheless, you need to know that it's not entirely private.
God knows exactly how much you give and exactly how much you still have, and the proportion between the two figures into the exact value of your gift to Him. So that when I put $1 in the plate, it may be worth "x" when _________ puts a $1 in the plate, it may be worth "100x". If, we knew what each of us gave and what we have left over, perhaps we could find a way to honor our best givers. It may be that the children and old ladies are really keeping this place afloat! The value of your gift is relative to your wealth.
II. The value of your gift is relative to your trust in God's provision.
A. It usually reflects your trust.
If she had given as most give, she never would have even considered giving what little she offered that day. "...all she had to live on." If she had only been reasonable and compared her savings to her needs she never would have gone to worship that day, knowing she would want to give something to God. If only she had paid her bills first, then given her offering, she wouldn't have even been noticed by Jesus, because she wouldn't have been in line. But she was't "reasonable". She was worshipful.
B. This is not to say that we can ignore our $ obligations.
We must pay our way. But on the one hand God would have us curb our materialistic appetites. I need a 15 cent pencil...I want a $5.00 mechanical pencil. Most >mech. penc.(May be something different for you...).
C. On the other hand, God would have us learn to trust him for our basic needs.
Giving sacrificially demonstrates trust in God. I'm not sure the widow...felt trusting...So you may not feel...but in so doing you consciously demonstrate faith. You show that you believe it is better to give this to God than to spend it on yourself. You acknowledge your dependency upon your Father for the days ahead. Your gift is greatly valued by God.
D. The value of your gift is relative to your willingness to give.
Perhaps reflecting upon this story, the Apostle Paul wrote to the wealthy, Corinthian Church, "And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter. Last yr. you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may by matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has,
not according to what one does not have."(2Cor. 8:10-12) "If the willingness is there." So, we discover further, that it's not enough to just give a healthy percentage of your income. The gift must be accompanied by a willingness.
Every Sunday we have unwilling givers put $ into the plate. You do not really pray "Thy will be done" as you drop in your mun. Under some constraint, you've caved in. Husbands, if your wife is twisting your arm to get you to give more, resist! You have my word to tell her to stop nagging. Because unwilling giving does't amount to diddly. It's not worth the ink it took to write the check out! I admit, it does pay light bills but in fact, Paul:
- "If I give all I possess to the poor...but have not love, I gain nothing." 1 Cor. 13:3
- We don't want any money given here under any other constraint but love.
- "For Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all."(2 Cor. 5:14)
- "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."(Jn. 15:13)
- "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2Cor. 5:21
- "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." 2 Cor. 8:9
Hence, the gifts most valued by God are gifts given willingly and out of love for the Lord who has rescued each of us from our spiritual poverty and made us heirs of God, even joint heirs with Christ.
It's phenomenal! And time will prove it more real than any bank note you could lay your hand on this week. In the ultimate show of relative worth, God is going to flood the markets with gold and silver till neither has any value at all when compared w/ the blood of Christ sacrificed to gain the hope of eternal life for you and me and everyone who puts their faith in J. C. "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ..." 1 Pet. 1:18
III. Conclusion:
Our gold and silver is of relative value at best. The blood of Christ is eternal value. Jim Elliot gave up the prospects of a comfortable life in the states to become a missionary to S.A. and on the shores of Ecuador died at the hands of those he had gone to share the love of Christ with. A few years earlier he had written in his journal, "He is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." I'd clone him.
Eric Hulstrand, while preaching in his church in Binford N. D. was interuppted by an elderly woman who fainted and struck her head on the pew. As paramedics strapped her to a strecher and got ready to carry her out, she regained consciousness and motioned for her daughter to come near. Eric thought these might be her last words. The daughter leaned over until her ear was at her mother's mouth and she heard these faint words, "My offering is in my purse." I'd clone her.