Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
It's always big news when a wealthy benefactor drops a few million on a college or pays for a new hospital wing. But no one seems to notice a poor person giving a quarter to someone else in need. That is, no one but Jesus, whose keen eye watched a lady entering the temple courts one day in Jerusalem. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, for some with small means, giving can be really difficult.
Well Dave, not only can it be difficult, but it can be very sacrificial. I love this story, by the way. Here's Jesus watching all of the rich people give their money, and of course they're blowing the trumpet, so to speak.
They're drawing attention to themselves. And then here comes a widow, and we talk about the widow's might. Actually, I think she gave two mites, God bless her. But the reason Jesus said she gave more than they all is because it was a sacrifice.
She was giving virtually all that she had. This is such an exciting story. And you and I can learn from it, and we can learn a great deal about what generosity is all about. Now at the end of this broadcast, I'm going to be giving you some info regarding a brand new book I've written. But for now, let us listen carefully. So my friend today, what is in your wallet?
What is in your wallet? There is a story about a man who was recovering from a heart attack, and the doctor warned the family that during his recovery period, above all else, he should not be told anything that would make him get excited, because if that were to happen, he might just drop dead and be gone. But while he was recovering, the family discovered that a rich uncle died and left this man a million dollars. They didn't want to tell him that, because that might get him too excited.
So they did a wise thing. They asked their pastor, and they said, Pastor, we wonder if you would go and break the news to him, because after all, pastors have so much wisdom in human relations, why wouldn't they ask a pastor to do that? So the pastor thought about it and very wisely said to the man, he said, you know, just speaking theoretically, what would you do if you were to inherit a million dollars? And the man said, why, pastor, he said, if I were to inherit a million dollars, he said, I promise, he said, I'd give half of it to the church.
And just like that, the pastor died of a heart attack. Why is it that the subject of money is so sensitive? For a couple of reasons, some of which may be good. One thing is very clear in the Bible, and that is that money is always presented as that which gives God most competition in our lives for our loyalty, for our commitment and for our security. Because when you stop to think about it, money makes all of the same promises that God does. Money says, I will be with you during hard times. I'll be with you when times are rough. I'll be with you when Medicare works and when it doesn't.
I'll be there when you are sick and when you are well, I'll be there to feed you, to clothe you, to give you an inheritance so that you can have a wonderful retirement. Money makes all of those same promises that God does. And because of that, it competes with our loyalties as perhaps nothing else. Money represents the energy of our lives compressed. It reveals our hearts. By nature, we don't like to be probed when it comes to money.
We've all been to the doctor and at times a doctor will sit you down and begin to poke around. What he's trying to do is to find where there is some pain. And in the very same way, sometimes God pokes around in our life and the subject of money does it.
Perhaps that's why Jesus told one half of his parables, nearly one half, all had to do with money. It's because of the sensitivity of it. The pastor was telling his congregation, now we're going to take an offering and I want you to give until it hurts. And somebody whispered to his friend, I have a very, very low threshold for pain.
Why is it so sensitive? Of course, many people are going through times of difficulty regarding money during this economy. One of the leaders of our TMC community and TMC stands for the Moody Church, one of our communities. He asked the people to write down how the present economic situation impacts them.
And he shared with us at the executive committee some of the findings. Very interesting. Somebody said, there is nothing in my wallet and I have bills to pay.
Somebody else said, I've been looking for work for six months and have not been able to find any and don't know where to turn. And then I'm interested in this remark. I think it was given by a woman. She said, I run to panic and I forget God's faithfulness. She said, I know that God is faithful, but I run to panic and forget his faithfulness. The purpose of this message is not only for us to understand how Jesus viewed giving, though this series of messages investing for eternity is that it's also intended to bring comfort and hope to those of you who are struggling financially. It is designed to increase your faith. I want you to leave here today with hearts that are filled with praise, no matter what the future holds. So in the end, we trust that under the leadership of the spirit, that will be accomplished.
The story is a very interesting one. It's found in the 12th chapter, the 12th chapter of the gospel of Mark. Mark Chapter 12, page 849. If you have a Bible that you can pick up there in the rack in front of you, page 849. It is Mark Chapter 12, and it is a story that is embedded in the scriptures during the last days of Jesus before the triumphal entry and his death on the cross. Jesus is in Jerusalem and in Mark Chapter 12, I'm picking it up at verse 41. And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums and a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to him, truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.
Wow. What I want us to do in the next few moments is to take three portraits of Jesus. Three portraits of Jesus.
I want you to use your imaginations and visualize Jesus there at the treasury. In order to help you to do that, keep in mind that in the temple area, in one of the courts, there were a number of offering boxes. They didn't have offering envelopes like we do, where you put on, you know, where you prefer to give.
They had various options there in the temple area. But these offering boxes were built like a trumpet. They were receptacles where you could throw in your money and then you would hear it as it zang along or zinged along, if I can put it that way, and then landed in the box. These offering boxes, or particularly the receptacles, which looked like horns, they were sometimes referred to as trumpets. When Jesus said in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, when he says when you give your alms, do not blow a trumpet before you as the heathen and the scribes and the Pharisees do. I used to read that as a child and I thought, you know, they got up and they actually blow a trumpet. That's not what is referred to these offering boxes.
These receptacles were referred to as trumpets. And what the rich would do, what they would do is to take their offering and put it into the smallest denominations possible so that they had lots of coins. And they would do one of two things. Either they would stand there putting in one coin at a time, taking their time so that the people behind them had to wait. So you almost got the impression it was like standing in a post office when the person ahead of you is trying to mail a package to Darfur and you could become impatient. But the people behind them would say, oh, they are really spiritual.
Look at how much they are giving. That's one thing they did. The other thing was the opposite. They would take all of these small coins and they would throw them into this receptacle all at once. And these people were actually referred to as zingers because you would hear this clang as their offering went through the receptacle, through the horn, into the box. And that was called blowing your trumpet. So when Jesus said don't blow your trumpet, what he was saying is don't be like the self-righteous Pharisees who love to give when people see them give and make sure that others see them give.
Don't be that way. First portrait of Jesus where he sat. He sat over against the treasury, verse 41, and watched the people putting money into the offering box. He sat there purposefully to watch what was going on. He wanted to see what was happening.
Now they didn't recognize him, I'm sure. He was just simply walking along and he sat down and as far as the people knew, he was simply tired, but he was watching what was happening as the people were bringing their gifts into the treasury. You say well does Jesus do that all the time? Does he watch?
The answer of course is yes. Now of course when we think of the fact that we have a watching God, Jesus in heaven today exalted above all principalities, above all powers, watching us intently day by day, moment by moment, not only what we give but what we're thinking and why we give and doing that evaluation, that can be scary, but it can also be very comforting. Some of you who lost your job, some of you who don't know where your next dollar is going to come in and you don't know how you're going to pay your bills, could I say to you today that your father in heaven is watching and he knows, he knows. Jesus said a sparrow doesn't fall to the ground, but that that sparrow is watched by my heavenly father and is seen falling to the ground. And then Jesus said are you of not much more value than they?
And the answer is of course, there's no way to compare it. Of course if he watches the sparrow fall, of course he knows your needs, dear widow, dear single person, dear couple, and you don't know where to go because you received a pink slip this past week. Does not your heavenly father know? And the answer is yes, of course he knows. Like Ethel Waters used to sing at the Billy Graham Crusades way back in the fifties and perhaps the sixties, his eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me. Of course he's watching. And he saw this morning as the offering baskets were passed at the Moody Church and all the other churches in the world, he saw, he watched, he saw you let it go by, he saw what you put in, what you wished you would have put in, what you could have put in but didn't.
I mean he sees all that. Every once in a while you meet a Christian who says something like this, whatever I give is my business and nobody else's business. And I'm here to inform you that Jesus also makes it his business. He sits over against the treasury and watches what we put in and what we keep to ourselves.
Wow. That's where Jesus sat. Well, let's take another portrait. We see Jesus sitting over against the treasury watching this happen, but the second portrait is Jesus, what he saw. And for this again, we turn to the scriptures verse 41. Many people put in large sums and a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.
That's what he saw. Now let's talk about these rich people. First of all, let us be grateful that they put in much. Let us be grateful that they put in much.
Actually, I have to tell you that the temple could not have operated on two mites. It had to operate on larger gifts, so we're glad that they gave them. And we should not denigrate people who give large gifts. As I said last time, we should thank God for wealthy people who can give us gifts that can enhance ministries and help us with world evangelization. So many of the people, they put in large sums, but Jesus not only saw what they put in, but he saw also how they earned the money. This is critical because if you take your Bible and have it open as it should be, you'll notice in verse 38, just have your eyes go up to the preceding paragraph. Jesus said, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts who devour widows houses. And for a pretense make long prayers, they will receive the greater condemnation. Jesus hated pretense in worship.
He just hated it. Loved the people maybe, but he hated the way in which they pretended to be more spiritual than they were walking around with large robes and expecting to be honored. Jesus is constantly looking at the heart and he hates pride. In fact, the Bible says God is at war with the proud. I don't want to be fighting God, but what does it mean devour widows houses?
We're not exactly sure. There are different views, but one thing is sure it was a form of extortion. Maybe when the widows sold her house, they got a cut on it or they got some money on it or they gave her advice or they made stipulations for widows that were unfair. In one way or another, they exploited widows and that in the Bible is a huge sin, huge, because God in the Old Testament and the New tells us to take care of widows and if we don't, we will give an account. So anyway, Jesus sees these rich people.
He knows where they got their money from, perhaps by exploiting the poor and they are throwing in large sums and we commend them for that. We don't know whether or not they were standing there as zingers trying to draw attention to themselves, but we can fill in the blanks and think probably they did, but now the eyes of Jesus have a different focus and that is on this widow and when I mentioned the word widow, I want to include in it all the single mothers who are listening. My heart goes out to you. I think for example of the fact that you cannot have an adult conversation when you're at home with children. Every single decision is yours. Everything is up to you. I try to imagine it. I'm not sure that I can and so my heart goes out to you today and we include you in the story of this nameless widow that is mentioned here in the Bible. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins. It's not just that she was poor, she was dirt poor and some of you understand that expression maybe even by experience. Dirt poor, two copper coins.
When you read the commentaries as they try to figure out how much this was, you get differences of opinion because it says that two of them made a farthing and then it took a whole bunch of farthings to make a denarius and on and on it goes, but the best that I can find out is that it would be generously speaking one half, one half of our penny. So you could say that she gave a penny because she gave two coins and usually it is translated mites. By the way, you know, we always talk about the widow's might give her credit. Okay. She gave two of them.
All right, let's get that straight. So she gave about a penny. By the way, I read years ago that the copper in a penny is actually worth less than the penny.
I shouldn't have said that because I don't know where to go with that. I'm just simply saying that, you know, a penny for your thoughts. She gives a penny. So is that going to help with the salaries in the temple? With the penny, are they going to be able to reconstruct and rebuild and refurbish the building when it needs it?
No, you don't do anything like that. And she gives both of them all she had. I don't know how you react to this story, but I've never preached on this before and I've always had something within me that made me uncomfortable with the story. Because if she had come to me and said, Pastor Lutzer, I have two mites and I'd like to give them to the church.
I'd like to help your CLC over there. I'd have said, dear lady, you need those more than we do. We'll find other ways to fund our building campaign or other ways to send missionaries, but you need it out of council.
They're out of doing this. That's just being very, very honest. As a matter of fact, there's a true story that really illustrates what I mean in a small church where they had a giving challenge and the people came forward to give their gifts. The people noticed that there was a young woman shabbily dressed as she almost was every Sunday with a little boy standing beside her. And she came forward and pushing back tears, she took the ring from her finger and put it into the offering plate.
A deacon saw it later on when the money was counted. He went to her and said, Hey, you shouldn't have done this. Take this back.
You need this. We'll get along without it. She said, you have no right to give it back to me because I didn't give it to you. I gave it to the Lord. All that I can tell you about this story is that love does foolish things. Love sometimes sacrifices.
Love takes risks. It's amazing what people do when they love. I mean, I'm amazed as a parent. I never had a son, but I do have three sons in law, but I'm amazed as a parent that the Father God would be willing to send Jesus to die on the cross and go through all kinds of injustices and a horrendous death on the cross when he didn't need to. It was not for him.
It was for us. And I look at that and I say, you know, love does sometimes do outrageous, outrageous things. And I think for this widow, giving to mites was outrageous, but never underestimate what love might do. So that's what Jesus saw. Well there's a third picture I want us to take of Jesus, where he sat, what he saw, and also now what he said.
Look at the text. And he called his disciples verse 43 to him and said to them, that is very interesting because what Jesus is saying is what I saw is so important. I want to share with my disciples because there's a lesson here.
And you know how I interpret that? I interpreted that Jesus is saying that there's a lesson here also for us and for the church for as long as the church endures, there is a lesson to be learned from this nameless widow. Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. Again, I want to emphasize the reason that this story is so beautiful and the words of Jesus so comforting is because this dear woman gave out of her poverty.
And that's why she stands in contrast to all of the rich people who gave, but for them it was not a sacrifice. It's a tremendous lesson here. I've written a new book entitled The Eclipse of God. Now the reason for this book, there are multiple reasons, but one of them is so that we might better understand the darkness. And the darkness comes to us from philosophers, it comes to us from the culture because here's what I have noticed is that churches are beginning to give the culture everything that the culture wants.
And we have to stand against that. And every chapter in this book has an action step because what I want you to do is to be able to apply it to your life, to your situation. There's so much more that I could say about it, but for now, let me remind you that for a gift of any amount, this new book can be yours. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Remember the title of the book, The Eclipse of God, our nation's disastrous search for a more inclusive deity and what we must do about it. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.
And thanks in advance for helping us. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Ever feel manipulated when a preacher says, God is watching as the offering plate goes by? Jesus was in the temple courtyard watching the rich make sure the crowds saw them give. As we're learning, he peered intently at a poor widow who dropped her last two mites in the treasury. Next time, more on why our giving happens under the watchful gaze of God whose commendation we should seek. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
