Riches of Poverty

If I could, Christ has enjoyed the triumphal
entry. And if you’re familiar with the
Gospel of Luke, you know how quickly things turn. And they
turn really pretty quickly here, even in chapter 19, if you would
flip back just one chapter, if you need to. where Christ almost
immediately one of the first things he does is come across
the money changers and have to out of compulsion cleanse the
temple. His authority is immediately
questioned as we open into chapter 20. Jesus tells one of the most
pointed parables, the parable of the vine growers that suggest
that repeatedly These servants of God are sent into the vineyard
and beaten. And of course, what Jesus is
alluding to is not only the prophets that were repeatedly abused by
Israel, but ultimately culminating with the vine growers, the vineyard
owner’s son alluding to himself. Jesus had a variety of teachings
there in chapter 20. But it culminates, and I wanted
to point you here as we draw near in our focus to verse 45. In verse 45 of chapter 20, it
says that while all the people were listening, he said to the
disciples, and this is with these Pharisees and scribes and with
those in his hearing, He said, beware of the scribes who like
to walk around in long robes and love respectful greetings
in the marketplaces and chief seats in the synagogues and places
of honor at banquets, who devour widows’ houses and for appearance
sake offer long prayers These will receive a greater
condemnation. If you know the Gospels, if you
know certainly the Gospel of Luke, you know that Jesus interactions
with the Pharisees and scribes are just a core part of that
Gospel understanding. And here we have the fires of
persecution and hatred being stoked by none other than the
Lord himself. Jesus knows what’s in their heart.
Jesus knows what’s coming. Jesus knows that it’s not all
about the triumphal entry. The tide has already begun to
turn. But Jesus looks them in the eye
in the midst of this great gathering. And he says, beware of these.
Beware of these. Jesus has finished his public
teaching in the court of the Gentiles. And now he is entering
into what was called the court of the women. the point beyond
which women were not allowed. And in this court was the treasury. The saying that we just read
regarding widows houses may have even prompted this next passage,
and it may have led to the to the gospel writer here, Luke,
to preserve this very distinct interaction. You cannot possibly miss the
context here of the widow and the widow who is to come in verse
one through four of chapter twenty one. What Jesus has just done
is expose the hypocrisy of the scribes and he proceeds here
to reveal the sincerity of a certain particular widow. And he places
her genuine spirituality over against the sham religiosity
of the Pharisees. The story provides an instructive
contrast for us between their spiritual poverty and her material
poverty. They were rich in material things,
and yet in their soul, they were utterly bankrupt. She who didn’t
have two cents to rub together was spiritually rich, as we will
see. Consider, if you would, verses
one through four of Luke 21. And he looked up and saw the
rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and he saw a poor
widow putting in two small copper coins. And he said, truly, I
say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them. For
they out of their surplus put into the offering, but she out
of her poverty put in all that she had to live on. I’ve entitled the message The
Riches of Poverty. And what you see from it is the
enriching worship of godly living. That’s where true riches are
to be found. That’s where real value is to
be enjoyed. It’s not about what this world
has to offer us, but what we in our poverty have to offer
to God. What you see in this passage
and what I want to look at this morning in our brief time together
before we do go to the Lord’s table is three heartening contrasts
in the worship of giving. First of all, the manner of their
giving. These contrasts will all hopefully
hearten us into our own worship. But the first thing that we want
to look at is the manner of their giving. How did they give? Look
again, if you would, at the passage. It says that Jesus looked up
and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and
how could he not? Apparently, it was just such
an ostentatious display of how they went about each one bringing
their various gifts in procession so that they could be seen. Mark
records that Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and no doubt it
implies probably the desire on Jesus to observe this show. Jesus sat down opposite of the
treasury and began observing how the people were putting money
into the treasury. When it says how, we think of
it in simplistic terms. I mean, how would you go about
dropping a couple of coins into a reception box? What it implies is that there
was great pomp and great show in the procession itself. We’ve
had occasion and I highly recommend if you don’t have a spiritual
element to part of your Christmas season, one of the things we
always do is go down to peak and watch their live nativity
right down at Peak Community Church. And I think the. What comes to my mind is if you’ve
ever watched that, the procession that the wise men engage in and
their desire is just to go about what they interpret as part of
what the scene may have been for Mary and Joseph there in
the manger. that when these wise men come,
they come one at a time and some glide real gracefully and others
come boldly, waving their arms, bringing their gifts. That’s
the kind of display, this ostentatious display that was unmistakable. That’s why Jesus wanted to sit
opposite the treasury and observe this parade, this show. Let me
just paint the picture a little bit for you in the court of the
women, there were 13 chests with trumpet shaped openings, which
was inscribed for the very purpose for which the money put into
the opening would be used. And so you had, in essence, different elements of the budget.
Now, In our particular church, we don’t do that. We don’t have
budgets to which we can give because it tends to produce quibbling
and fighting. And no one ever contributes to
the light budget, right? Everybody wants to commit to
their pet projects, but no one ever commits to the lights and
the water and the things that really need to be regularly attended. And so in these chests, there
were these trumpets and into the trumpets you would place
your coins and they would trickle down into these wooden chests. By means of the letters of the
Hebrew alphabet, each one of these was marked so that people
could know what specific purpose the money was going to be used.
Whether it was a temple tribute, maybe it would go for sacrifices,
incense, wood, whatever the support of the priesthood, the support
of the temple. And these offerings that were
made. They were made at the great feast
in order to fulfill their tithes and their dues were due to God’s
precept. This is their response. And they
were coming, not empty handed, as God had commanded them to
come and to bring an offering. So all that is all well and good. Exodus 23, 15, you shall observe
the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you are to eat the
unleavened bread at the appointed time in the month of Ebib. In
it you shall come out of Egypt and none shall appear before
me empty handed. In other words, all were to participate
in this process, a process that I think is good even for our
day and age to teach our children about giving and to have them
actually bring in a portion of the offering. Deuteronomy 16,
three times a year, all your mail shall appear before the
Lord your God in which place he chooses at the feast of unleavened
bread, the feast of weeks, the feast of booths, and they shall
not appear before the Lord empty handed. Second Kings, chapter
12, verse 9, Jehoiada, the great priest, the priest took a chest,
bore a hole in its lid, put beside it the altar. And on the right
side, as one comes into the house of the Lord, the priest who guarded
the threshold put in all the money which was brought into
the house of the Lord. And there the practice was kind of refined,
if you will. But this word, how the Jesus
was observing how they were putting their how they were going about
bringing their offering. That’s what draws our attention.
Jesus was looking at the manner of their giving. And he noticed
not merely the fact or the act of the contribution itself, that
part was unmistakable, was even commanded by God not to come
empty handed. They had to put it somewhere.
That’s not at all what’s in focus. But the diverse modes, the various
approaches, graceful as they were, All to be seen by others. Verse 1, if you look again at
the passage, it says, He looked up and saw the rich putting their
gifts into the treasury. But Mark provides the detail. The Gospel of Mark says that
many rich people were coming. The focus was on the rich bringing
their offerings. The observation wasn’t about
all the others. But it was many rich people that
were coming. It was the Passover season. Givers
would be numerous. And the rich would be discernible
by their conduct, by their approach, by their elegant attire. And
as one historian suggested, so that they might have their offering
made known in many copper coins. In other words, what they would
do is they would go and cash in the big coins and get many
small copper coins so that as they all trickled down the trumpet,
everyone would notice. Utter hypocrisy. The gift would
seem in the noise that it made to be bigger and larger and greater
than the last Even the Talmud, however, warned
that those who came and brought an offering were to do so in
secrecy. They weren’t to announce how
much they were giving. They were supposed to bring an
offering. They weren’t supposed to come
empty-handed. But they were to do their giving as it were before
God and God alone. Matthew 6 says it this way. You know the passage. Beware
of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. I quizzed our people, you know,
we often will, you know, especially if we’re out with other godly
people, we will not hesitate to bow in prayer, even in a restaurant. But do we bow in prayer when
no one’s looking? Do we humble ourselves when no
one’s looking? Or is it just for show? That
was the heart of the Pharisees. Beware of practicing your righteousness
before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise, you have no reward
with your father who is in heaven. And Jesus knew their heart. Jesus
goes on in this passage to say, so when you give to the poor,
do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets. And you begin to get the picture
of what was going on here in this court. Trumpets. Some loud presentation. Look
what I’ve brought. Look at my sacrifice. Often they
would pray, they would chant, they would make some bold declaration
before all to hear. Jesus says, do not do that. Do
not sound a trumpet so that they may be honored by men. Truly,
I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you
give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your
right hand is doing. God had given them the spirit
of giving. God had told them the manner. Mark also points out that they
were putting in large sums, penny by dreadful penny. One coin said one out of a little
is better than a treasure out of much. It’s not considered
how much is given, but how much remains behind, said Ambrose. The point is that it wasn’t even
how much these rich Pharisees were giving. It was how much
they were holding back that was in Jesus view. And in the midst
of observing this ostentatious display of these hypocrites,
one after another coming and bringing boldly before all their
offering and dropping it into this brass trumpet, says in verse two that he saw
a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. You might even
think that the Lord’s mind at this point would have been completely
caught up with everything in front of him. He knows that his
betrayal is at hand. the unjust judgment that he is
about to experience, the cross that he must face, the passion
that leads up to it, ultimately his death. All of that is in
Christ’s view. He knows what this week holds. And yet at the same time, we
see him pausing to take note of all that is going on around
him, not the least of which was this precious little widow with
two little coins. It wasn’t beneath Christ to look
at her, to observe her, to consider her. When it says that she was
poor, it points out that her condition was one of extreme
poverty. We speak of poor, you know, that’s
basically the lower third of everybody that lives in the United
States. And our whole goal is just to
not be in that bottom third. Those are the poor. But this
person wasn’t merely you know, poor in our American standards. She was a peasant. She had very
meager means. She was basically destitute and
what we might call in our day and age, a beggar. Mark adds an additional comment
here that is noteworthy that these two little coins that she
offered add up to a single penny of our own money. It was one 64th of a denarius,
which would be a day’s wage. The denarius was a common laborers
day wage, and if a denarius was worth 16 American pennies, then
this one little Assyrian that she dropped in would be worth
one penny. And these two actually, these
two little coins would have been worth about one quarter of a
cent of our American money. These were two tiny little coins
easily brushed aside under the. The dust in a home. That’s all she brought. And you can see her coming to,
can’t you? You can picture in your mind’s eye amidst all this
display, all this pomp, all this arrogance and pride. You can
picture her almost ashamed to even bring what she had to offer
this meager little two cent offering. The widow probably in the garb
of what only the poorest person could afford. Her condition,
her appearance was that of a beggar, a pauper, And she kept in her
hand, held preciously and tightly, two tiny little coins, perhaps
all that she had been able to save out of whatever job she
was able to get. Housekeeping. Maybe gleaning
in the fields. And she comes and she brings
it and she offers it humbly to God. One pastor said, for all
time, the widow’s example has remained in the church like the
perfume of Mary’s alabaster that filled the house. This deed of
self-sacrificing denial, more by far than the gift out of the
Pharisee’s surplus which the rich cast in, was and is to all
time the gift of absolute self-surrender and sacrifice tremblingly offered
by the solitary woman. Regardless of what she had, she
came. And regardless of whatever shame
seemed to bring on her, she came and she willingly offered up
to God all that she had. Not only the manner of their
giving, but we are enriched and heartened by the measure of her
giving. There’s another great contrast. between the manner, not only
the manner in which the Pharisees gave and the woman gave, but
the measure of their giving as well. That was different. Mark
inserts crucial detail here that Jesus called his disciples to
himself. And he said, truly, I say to
you, this poor widow put in more than all of them. And they could
obviously very likely hear The coins were of various size. As
I’ve already indicated, the Pharisees had a tendency to want to cash
in all their big coins to a whole bunch of little ones so that
it would tinkle and make all kinds of noise as it tumbled
into the trumpet. And this poor widow had two small
coins that perhaps didn’t even hit the side. And from a man’s
point of view, it probably went almost completely unnoticed. And yet Jesus says this poor
woman, this poor widow put in more than all of them. There’s
no way that Jesus, from a human standpoint, would have known
the exact amount, certainly not from the distance in which he
was sitting. But Jesus knew this, just like
he knew that it was all that she had. Jesus knew all things,
and it was not unlawful for her to offer what she had, even these
two small pennies. It was therefore the smallest
offering ever made by anyone, is Jesus’ observation. Jesus
knew supernaturally that she just gave all that she possessed. And so in proportion and in the
spirit in which she gave, it was the latter that she was and
it was in the latter that she was richer than all of these
Pharisees. The means of the giver and the
motive are the measures of our true generosity, aren’t they?
It’s not just what we give, but it’s how we give. Because from a human standpoint,
what this widow gave was totally insignificant, unimportant, wouldn’t
have paid the lights, wouldn’t have purchased a lamb, would
hardly have done anything. But measured from a divine standpoint,
her contribution was priceless, wasn’t it? As Jesus saw it, it
wasn’t the amount that mattered, but the heart of the giver. And
it still is. J.C. Ryle, the godly pastor from another day,
said it this way. He said Christ looks at something
more than the mere amount of men’s gifts in measuring their
liberality. He looks at the proportion which
their gifts bear to their property. He looks at the degree of self-denial
which their giving entails upon them. Some persons appear to
give much who in God’s sight give very little, and some appear
to give very little who in God’s sight give very much. Such was
the case with the widow. But when Jesus says more, it
doesn’t, of course, mean more in reality, but more in God’s
sight. More is according to what God
sees and how God judges. God looks at the heart, doesn’t
he? God looks at our will and our affections and not merely
at the sum of what we do. He looks at the heart. There
was a third contrast that we see from this passage that prompts
us to a deeper worship of God in how we give. Look again at
verse three, if you would, where it records that Jesus said, truly,
I say to you, this widow put in more than all of them for
they they all out of their surplus. put into the offering. But she,
out of her poverty, put in all that she had to live on. Mark
says graphically, all that she owned is what she put in. That
was it. There wasn’t any walking out
of the marketplace and continuing on to do her shopping. There
wasn’t any holding back. There wasn’t a surplus. There
wasn’t a bank account. There wasn’t a savings. There
wasn’t a 401k or a CV. They had all that they needed
for their wants. She had nothing. They had a surplus. She had a
deficit. And yet out of this great deficit,
she gave all that she had. That’s how God measures our giving. The Christ standard of generosity
and what he commends is not what we give out of our abundance,
is it? But what we give even in our deficiency, not what will
be that won’t be missed. And that’s kind of how we tend
to give. But what it costs us some real sacrifice. What hurts to give, that’s how
God measures. The word here that both Matthew
and Mark, that pardon me, that only Mark uses, literally means
she gave her life. She was literally giving her
last meal. And what could two tiny little
pennies have bought anyway? Maybe a crust of bread. Maybe
to buy somebody to hold back their dog so she could grab something
up off the sidewalk. But this woman had faith She
knew that God would not fail her and she sacrificed everything
that she had because this sacrifice meant her life. And she was willing
to give even that to God. Are we? God and God’s word speaks on
a couple of occasions about giving. And I would have you turn just
in closing to another. If you would turn over to Second
Corinthians, chapter eight. Well, we see the same spirit
in a magnanimous church that I believe centered around a very
liberal church in their giving called Philippi. Paul is writing
to the Corinthians and the Corinthians had evidently made some great
promise to Paul to support not only his work, but even the famine
that was taking place in Jerusalem. In other words, what they kind
of held at that church that day was what we now call as a faith
promise. The only problem is they never
sent the check. Right. And now Paul is writing
to them and he’s trying to stir their hearts. And look at what
means he uses, look at verse one. Now, brethren, we wish to
make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the
churches of Macedonia. Do you know something? Christian
giving is an act that is like everything else in a Christian’s
life prompted by God’s grace. We wish to make known to you
the grace of God and what he implies by that in talking to
the stingy Corinthians is that you have damned up the well of
God’s grace. You are not letting it flow through
you as you ought. We wish to make known to you
the grace of God, which has been given in the churches of Macedonia,
that in great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and deep
poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. Do you know
what else? Christian giving is often done in the midst of great
personal suffering, and that is the first excuse we use, isn’t
it? You know, I’ve been sick, I’ve
been here. I told my people, I am just amazed
and sickened and astounded at the excuses that we use to absent
ourself from worship now, which includes giving. And may I observe,
this is the freedom that I have. See, I’m talking to another body.
May I observe for you that oftentimes when people go on vacation, their
giving goes with them. It’s a well-known fact in ministry. And so for whatever reason, people
have to miss worship. They also miss giving and they
do. But this giving note in the case
of the Macedonian church, was not only in great affliction,
but out of an abundance of joy. And that is how we always must
be giving. It must be with a hilarious heart. That’s literally the word that
is used. And even in the midst of great
personal need, much like the widow, we must give when it hurts. Go on to verse three. For I testify
that according to their ability and beyond their ability, sacrificial
giving is what he’s pointing to. They gave of their own accord. It can’t be out of compulsion.
Otherwise, it becomes pharisaical in your own heart. They gave
of their own heart and get this. This is the whole reason I took
you to this passage. They gave of their own accord,
begging us with much entreaty for the favor of participation
in the support of the saints. They pleaded with Paul, let us
be a part of this. That’s all we ever are in our
giving. That’s all we ever are is participants
in the great work of the gospel ministry. What a glorious truth,
but he ends it by saying. And this, not as we expected,
but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the
will of God. These were thoroughgoing Christians. These weren’t just
givers. They didn’t just scroll out a check like you get at any
banquet that you hold for any cause. You’ll always get people
there willing to write a check. But Paul didn’t want just checks.
He wanted the Corinthian people to be like the Macedonians who
had first given wholeheartedly their hearts and lives to Christ.
That’s what God wants, doesn’t it? That’s what God wants from
you and I. It’s not that the two pennies
mean anything to God. He wants our heart. Let’s pray. Our merciful God, as we pause
and draw near to the Lord’s table, we pray that you would examine
our own heart in this regard that Father, we too would be
seen in time as those touched by your grace, giving out of
a joyful heart, giving willingly, not under compulsion, giving
like this widow gave, giving of all that she had to live for
the glorious privilege of participating in the ministry of our Lord Jesus. Grant us that grace to have our
minds so adjusted and so tuned to the work of grace. Be glorified,
we pray, in Jesus’ name, Amen.