Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] The next time somebody tells you that the young people are all messed up, you set them straight.
[00:00:14] Those are, those are solid people right there.
[00:00:17] They're going to grow up to be influential, and God is going to work through them in profound ways.
[00:00:27] Our dear Heavenly Father, you are altogether beautiful.
[00:00:35] You are rich in love, kindness, goodness, mercy.
[00:00:42] You are faithful.
[00:00:46] And beyond all that, you have a generous heart.
[00:00:54] And you richly grant to us the beauties, the kindnesses and the resources of life.
[00:01:07] You grant us a life and health, and you show us good days out of the riches of your heart.
[00:01:24] You teach us to love and be loved.
[00:01:28] And so I pray that something of the generous nature of your heart would affect us and we would grow to be more like you. In generosity.
[00:01:40] In Christ's name, Amen.
[00:01:45] The Old Testament life was structured around the Temple.
[00:01:52] It began to be structured around the holy tent that Moses built in the wilderness.
[00:02:00] But in 966, Solomon, David's son, built the temple in Jerusalem.
[00:02:08] It was a magnificent place.
[00:02:12] I shared with you last week the amount of gold and silver that went into that building and it's, it's incalculable. Incalculable.
[00:02:25] Solomon's Temple was the center of Israelite life until 586 B.C.
[00:02:36] when the Babylonians stormed Jerusalem and, and they burnt everything that could be burnt. And what couldn't be burnt, they toppled with pry bars.
[00:02:54] And so the city of Jerusalem and the holy Temple lay in rubble for 70 years.
[00:03:02] And at the end of that 70 years, Cyrus said to all the Israelite people living in Babylonian captivity, anybody who wants to can go home.
[00:03:18] And so Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, Joshua, the high priest, Haggai, and Zechariah the Prophets, they led the people who returned to rebuild the temple.
[00:03:36] But the temple they rebuilt was a shadow of the original temple.
[00:03:46] In fact, people who had seen the original temple, when they saw the new temple, they wept.
[00:03:54] Ah, and the temple remained relatively insignificant until about 39 B.C.
[00:04:06] when King Herod made it his mission to rebuild the temple and to return it to the glory of the Temple of Solomon.
[00:04:18] And in, by 19 BC he had restored the temple. And once again, it was an absolutely stunning place.
[00:04:34] Ah, that temple only lasted until 70 A.D.
[00:04:40] when Titus and the Roman army sacked Rome, plundered the temple and burned everything that could be burned and tore down what couldn't be burned. And once again, Jerusalem was a heap of rubble.
[00:04:58] It was, it was Herod's temple that Jesus visited during his lifetime and during the last week of his life, he went to the temple and While he was in the temple, some Pharisees came up to him to try to trap him in. In with a question.
[00:05:26] I preached to you about this several weeks ago.
[00:05:30] They ask him, is it authorized for us to pay taxes to Caesar?
[00:05:36] If he said yes, that would offend everybody because the Jews hated giving Romans tax money to support the soldiers that oppressed them.
[00:05:48] And he would have alienated himself from people. And if he said no, they could have gone to the Romans and said, this guy is creating a rebellion and telling people they don't have to pay their taxes.
[00:06:02] Ah, but the Pharisees underestimated the wonder of Jesus Christ.
[00:06:07] And he said, show me a coin.
[00:06:11] And it had Tiberius Caesar's image on it, and it had Tiberius of Caesar's name on it.
[00:06:19] And Jesus said, give to Caesar what is Caesar, but give to God what is God's.
[00:06:26] And the Pharisees were hushed.
[00:06:30] The Sadducees thought they were smarter than the Pharisees. So they had a trick question.
[00:06:36] They said, in the law of Moses, if a man marries a woman and dies without children, his brother should marry that woman.
[00:06:45] Woman. And have children in his brother's name.
[00:06:49] There were seven brothers. And the oldest brother married a woman, and he died without children. So the second brother married her, and he died without children. The third brother married her. He died without children. Somebody ought to get a clue. She's a black widow.
[00:07:06] All seven of them married the woman. None of them had children. And in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?
[00:07:15] And they thought they had Jesus.
[00:07:18] But Jesus said, you err because you don't know the Scriptures.
[00:07:24] In the resurrection, there isn't marriage and giving in marriage.
[00:07:30] And the Sadducees were silenced.
[00:07:35] So a scribe who thought he was smarter than all of them, he. He came up to Jesus and said, what is the greatest commandment?
[00:07:44] The Israelites believed that there were. I can't remember, 638 commandments in the Old Testament.
[00:07:53] And this scribe is saying to Jesus, of these 638 commandments, what is the greatest commandment?
[00:08:03] And Jesus quoted the famous passage in Deuteronomy that Jewish people prayed every morning, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.
[00:08:21] And he was silenced.
[00:08:25] And Jesus left the part of the temple where people taught and people debated. And he went to another part of the temple, and there was another plaza, and it was called the Court of Women.
[00:08:40] On the Temple Mount, there was a plaza that was called the Court of Nations. And anybody could go on that plaza, the Court of Women, only Jewish women and men could go in that court.
[00:08:56] And then the Temple Court, only Jewish men and priests could go. And then the Temple, only priests could go. And the Holy of Holies, only the High Priest could go there once a year.
[00:09:08] So in the Court of women, there were 13 boxes, and they were shaped like trumpets.
[00:09:17] They were narrow at the top and broad at the bottom. And each one of these boxes had a word written on it.
[00:09:27] For example, one of them had the word wood written on it. And any money that was put in that box bought wood for the altar, because they had to burn sacrifices on the altar all day long.
[00:09:40] So there were 13 of these boxes. And people went and they gave their tithes to God and they put money in these boxes.
[00:09:52] So Jesus was standing in this quiet place away from the bustle of the crowd, although it was Passover and the Temple Mount was still very crowded.
[00:10:07] And while he was standing there, he was watching people go up to the offering boxes and put money in the boxes.
[00:10:17] And evidently when wealthy people put a lot of money in, people would cheer.
[00:10:27] So it drew a lot of attention when somebody came up there with four bags of money and put the coins in the boxes. And people cheered.
[00:10:40] But Christ saw beyond the people putting in large sums of money.
[00:10:48] He saw a lady in threadbare clothes unassumingly pass quietly and gently through the crowd to the one of the boxes.
[00:11:07] And he watched her.
[00:11:10] And she put in to the box, ah, two leptahs.
[00:11:19] They were the smallest coin in Israel.
[00:11:23] In fact, they were about the size of an aspirin.
[00:11:28] That's how small they were.
[00:11:33] She put in these two coins, and Christ saw it.
[00:11:39] He saw more than her put in these two little coins.
[00:11:42] He saw her heart.
[00:11:46] He knew she was a widow.
[00:11:52] He knew that the young man she had married and loved, they had grown old together and her husband had died.
[00:12:05] And she lived with the loneliness of a widow.
[00:12:10] He also knew that there was no safety net then.
[00:12:16] There was no Social Security.
[00:12:19] There was no there. There was no help.
[00:12:22] And if you were a widow and you didn't have any family, you.
[00:12:29] You struggled.
[00:12:32] And he knew the struggles that this woman had been through.
[00:12:36] He knew her insecurities about the future.
[00:12:40] Not only had she had it hard in the past, not only did she experience loneliness every day, but she was insecure about her future.
[00:12:52] And in spite of all of that, Jesus said she went to that offering box and putting these two little coins. And it was every cent that she had in the world.
[00:13:10] When she put those two coins in, she didn't have anything left.
[00:13:17] In fact, when Luke tells this story, he uses a word that's only used once in the New Testament when he calls her a poor widow. And this word specifically means in need of things relating to livelihood.
[00:13:35] When he called her a poor widow, it was saying she didn't have the basic necessities to live.
[00:13:44] And somehow or another she found it in her heart to put in those last two coins.
[00:13:55] While other people were paying attention to the other givers, Jesus said to his disciples, I want you to look at this woman.
[00:14:04] Whatever you're doing, stop doing it.
[00:14:07] I want you to look at this woman.
[00:14:11] This woman, almost invisible in the crowd, has given more than everybody else today.
[00:14:21] The amount they gave may have been more, but what it cost her to give, it was more than everybody else today.
[00:14:34] See, Jesus was defining what sacrifice meant to his disciples.
[00:14:41] Ah. Sacrifice has never meant an amount.
[00:14:46] It has always meant, what does it cost you to do it?
[00:14:51] Do you see?
[00:14:52] A sacrifice is not an amount. A sacrifice is what does it cost you to do this.
[00:15:01] And that poor widow, it cost her everything she had.
[00:15:09] You know, I believe these lessons are in the Bible to teach us something about life.
[00:15:15] These lessons aren't in the Bible to entertain us.
[00:15:26] They these lessons are in the Bible so that God can teach us realities about life.
[00:15:34] And I'd like us to learn the lessons of this poor widow this morning. The first lesson is generosity always attracts Christ's attention.
[00:15:44] This is probably Wednesday and he's gonna be crucified on Friday.
[00:15:49] He's got two days left to live.
[00:15:53] And on one of those two days, he's in the temple.
[00:15:57] And when he could have been distracted by a million things, the generosity of this widow attracted his attention.
[00:16:08] Church, I want you to know generosity always attracts the attention of Jesus Christ.
[00:16:18] Yes, he debated with religious leaders.
[00:16:21] Yes, he tried to set them straight.
[00:16:27] But his debate with religious leaders didn't keep him from noticing the generosity of a widow.
[00:16:36] Why does Christ pay so much attention to generosity?
[00:16:41] Why does it attract his attention? Why is he always interested in it?
[00:16:47] Because generosity exposes our hearts. Church, nothing exposes your heart like generosity or selfishness.
[00:16:58] Listen to what Paul wrote.
[00:17:00] Ah, Karen had it in her prayer today.
[00:17:04] Each one must give as he has decided his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.
[00:17:16] See, when you are generous, God looks at your heart and he sees one of four things.
[00:17:27] First of all, he said, let people do as they have purposed. In his heart, when you're generous, God sees the purpose of your life.
[00:17:37] Are you living for a purpose higher than yourself, or are you only living to indulge yourself?
[00:17:45] When you are generous and you are purposefully generous, God sees that in your soul.
[00:17:54] Sometimes when we're generous, God sees something different.
[00:17:58] He sees reluctance.
[00:18:01] All right, Doc won't shut up until I give some money.
[00:18:07] Ah, ah, ah, ah.
[00:18:10] Look, if you feel that way, keep it.
[00:18:13] God doesn't need it.
[00:18:16] He's not looking for reluctant givers.
[00:18:21] Sometimes he sees you feel compelled. I guess I have to do this. God's not looking for people who feel compelled.
[00:18:31] In fact, what he's really looking for is the cheerful giver.
[00:18:35] Generosity attracts Christ's attention because he delights in people who are just like him and give cheerfully.
[00:18:45] Do you understand how cheerfully God has given to you?
[00:18:49] Every good thing you have in your life, God cheerfully gave to you.
[00:18:56] God never showed up in my life and said, all right, I'm going to bless you. You won't quit whining till I do.
[00:19:03] He's not a reluctant giver.
[00:19:06] He is delighted when he shares with you.
[00:19:10] I look around my life and I see all these beautiful things.
[00:19:15] And God never sent me one bill for all the beautiful things he's done for me.
[00:19:22] I came to close. I came as close to dying as you can come in the 80s. And the hospital bill was astronomical.
[00:19:31] But it was really God who saved my life.
[00:19:35] And I got bills from the hospital. I never got one bill from God because He is a cheerful giver.
[00:19:45] The second lesson we can learn is God noticed and appreciated that the rich are capable of giving more. Listen what Jesus said. The rich gave out of their abundance.
[00:19:59] The more wealth we have, the more we are capable of sharing.
[00:20:04] Would you let me remind you of this? God did not give you everything you have to keep for yourself.
[00:20:13] In fact, some of what God has given you, he's given you because he wants it to pass through your life to others.
[00:20:22] You are his resource for passing wealth to the things that he wants done in the world.
[00:20:30] He doesn't come down out of heaven with brink trucks and start passing out hundies.
[00:20:36] But he does bless us, and he blesses us abundantly.
[00:20:43] And then he says, because I have blessed you abundantly, you have the resources you need that you can be generous.
[00:20:53] When God blesses me abundantly and I'm not generous and I'm breaking my deal with God, wealth does not make generosity easier. Now, some of you who God has blessed and you have wealth just because you have wealth. It doesn't make generosity easier.
[00:21:14] It's no easier to give when you're wealthy than when you're not wealthy. Because when you're wealthy, you have to give more than when. When you're not wealthy.
[00:21:24] And generosity, Generosity is a quality of soul.
[00:21:31] It's not an amount you have in your bank account.
[00:21:35] You know what I found? I found people who are generous when they have wealth were generally generous when they didn't have wealth.
[00:21:44] I've found, in fact, that percentage wise, people who aren't wealthy, percentage wise generally give more than the people who are wealthy and have the potential to give more. Do you hear this?
[00:22:01] When our church was just starting and we had to have an offering we needed to raise, our annual income was $25,000 a year, and we needed to raise $1,500 for our building.
[00:22:23] And I preached sermons just like this.
[00:22:26] And a widow in our church, a beautiful woman named Mrs. Jeffries, a woman in our church, walked up to me one Sunday and handed me an envelope that had $1,000 in it.
[00:22:44] We needed 1,500. And she gave me 1,000 of it.
[00:22:48] And I said, oh, I can't take this.
[00:22:53] And she looked at me and said, pastor, I'm not giving it to you. I'm giving it to God.
[00:23:03] Everybody else in that church gave 500 all together, and she gave $1,000.
[00:23:11] See, generosity is not about how much you have in your bank account. It's about what's going on in your soul.
[00:23:19] And I guarantee you, if Mrs. Jeffries could show up today, she's gone to heaven some time ago.
[00:23:28] If she could show up today, she'd say, I am glad I did that.
[00:23:37] I would also like to say to those of us that God has blessed abundantly, Christ gives us a serious warning.
[00:23:46] If you have wealth.
[00:23:49] I need you to hear this warning from Jesus Christ.
[00:23:52] This is. If you have a red letter Bible where the words of Jesus are in red, this would be in red.
[00:23:59] Jesus himself said, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
[00:24:12] Why is that?
[00:24:14] It's very simply because if we're not careful, wealth becomes our deity.
[00:24:22] And we end up worshiping and serving wealth instead of worshiping and serving God.
[00:24:29] And one way.
[00:24:31] One way to keep that from happening is to create a discipline of generosity in your life where Christ always comes first and wealth comes second.
[00:24:46] Could I ask you, what is the value of everything you have?
[00:24:54] I don't know if you Know your net worth.
[00:24:58] What is the value of everything you have?
[00:25:01] All right, now I want you to ask yourself, what is the value of everything I have compared to the value of being appreciated by Jesus Christ?
[00:25:14] What is the value.
[00:25:15] What is the value of everything you have compared to the value of one day and at the great judgment, Jesus Christ looking at you and saying, well done, my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. I'll make you lord over many. Enter into the joy of the Lord. Church, what is the honor of our Creator, our Savior and our ultimate Judge appreciating you?
[00:25:52] Ah.
[00:25:53] What is the most honorable thing that's ever happened in your life? It's nothing compared to the honor of our heavenly Father saying, this is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased. Church, do you sense this?
[00:26:14] Ah. It is an incredible thing to be blessed by God with wealth.
[00:26:20] But it is a responsibility to use that wealth for things that are greater than myself.
[00:26:27] Because I value the appreciation and the honor of the Lord my God.
[00:26:35] Because I look forward to the day when the Lord will honor those who have been generous and invested in what he loved and cherished on this earth.
[00:26:48] There's a third lesson I want us to learn.
[00:26:52] Christ saw beyond the amount given to the heart of the giver.
[00:26:58] If you looked at this, I did some research this week.
[00:27:03] These lepta coins in American money, I don't know how they do this, but the scholar said this. One of these little lepticoins would be worth point zero seven of a penny.
[00:27:25] It's one seventh of a penny. That's what that coin was worth.
[00:27:30] So two of them was worth 1 14th of a penny.
[00:27:40] So that's too hard for me to think of.
[00:27:42] So it's just easy for me to think two pennies.
[00:27:48] I grew up in the 50s when you could buy stuff for pennies. I mean, I understand they're not going to make pennies anymore, but back in the day, there was penny candy. You could get real stuff for pennies.
[00:28:02] Five pennies in your hand.
[00:28:04] You scored some good stuff at the little candy place.
[00:28:13] All right, but no one would really consider two pennies a lot.
[00:28:26] Listen.
[00:28:28] But it wasn't the value of the coins that attracted Christ's attention.
[00:28:35] It was the quality of her heart.
[00:28:39] It wasn't the coins. It was that she wanted God to have whatever she had.
[00:28:47] She wanted if in the smallest of ways, she wanted to be part of what God was doing in the world. And God looked beyond the amount and he looked to her heart and he said, this is an incredible woman.
[00:29:05] The widow was unexpectedly generous.
[00:29:10] Ah, I wonder what category you might fall in.
[00:29:20] Are you expectedly generous or unexpectedly generous?
[00:29:26] If you did something very generous and your best friend found out about it, would they be surprised or would they say no? That strikes me the kind of person they are. I'm not surprised by that at all.
[00:29:41] I wonder, have you ever considered surprising yourself by generosity in this campaign?
[00:29:54] I'm asking some of you to make the biggest charitable contribution you'll ever make in your whole life.
[00:30:03] I wonder, as you have been praying and thinking about this, ah, might you surprise yourself by what you're willing to do, by faith in Jesus Christ and because you wanna be part of of what God is doing in this generation?
[00:30:22] The widow's motive for giving that day was very different from most of the other givers that day. She had a different motivation or she wouldn't have done what she did.
[00:30:35] The two lepta seemed insignificant, but Christ saw a heart of sacrificial love and unshakable loyalty.
[00:30:45] And that made it significant in this adventure of faith campaign. It's not about amount, it's about faith and love of God.
[00:30:58] It's about challenging ourselves with the reality of God in our own personal lives.
[00:31:04] It's about valuing Christ above the accumulation of stuff.
[00:31:12] I want you to know that no matter what you sacrifice, your sacrifice will never equal the sacrifice that Christ has made for you.
[00:31:23] Would you hear one more time the prophet Isaiah and would you open your heart to what he says about how far Christ was willing to go to sacrifice for you?
[00:31:37] Surely.
[00:31:38] I'm sorry I started at the wrong place. He was despised and rejected by man.
[00:31:45] A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
[00:31:51] And as one whom we hid our faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.
[00:31:58] Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
[00:32:03] Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
[00:32:09] He was pierced for our transgressions.
[00:32:13] He was crushed for our iniquities.
[00:32:16] Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed.
[00:32:25] Christ is asking you to make a monetary sacrifice. He made his soul a sacrifice for you.
[00:32:34] He sacrificed his very soul to purchase eternal life for you.
[00:32:41] And now he says to us, in moments like this, I want you to consider what you are willing to sacrifice for the cause that I gave my life to.
[00:32:54] 4.
[00:32:56] Christ defines sacrifice by what it costs to give it the call to sacrifice.
[00:33:03] It requires us to examine our souls if it doesn't cost you anything. To give it.
[00:33:12] It's not a sacrifice. Church.
[00:33:15] Can you hear that?
[00:33:17] If it doesn't affect you in any way, it's not a sacrifice.
[00:33:22] It only becomes a sacrifice when it cost you something to give it.
[00:33:28] I have to examine myself and say, what do I really value?
[00:33:32] Do I value what God is doing in the world more than I value this thing?
[00:33:39] I have to ask myself, why do I value what I value?
[00:33:44] What is it that makes it valuable to me?
[00:33:47] That big TV that hangs in my living room? What makes it valuable to me?
[00:33:52] The books that I have on my bookshelf in my office, what make them valuable to me?
[00:33:59] What makes Christ eternal life and spiritual reality valuable to me?
[00:34:10] We have to ask ourselves a really hard question.
[00:34:15] What am I willing to let go of?
[00:34:18] Church?
[00:34:20] Sometimes in life we have to take our grip off of stuff and we have to hold things with an open hand and we have to say to Christ, whatever you want, I'm willing to give you.
[00:34:35] Here's another asked question.
[00:34:37] What am I willing not to have because of generosity?
[00:34:44] If you have to trade between having this thing and being generous, what are you willing to say? I'm willing not to have that so I can be generous.
[00:34:56] Or. Or is generosity something you do only after you got all the stuff you want?
[00:35:07] Generosity is something you do when you're not trying to buy a new car or do this or do that.
[00:35:18] I don't think generosity should be the leftovers of your life.
[00:35:23] I think generosity should be a thoughtful, purposeful thing that you do because you love Christ and you wanna be part of what he's doing in the world.
[00:35:33] Amen.
[00:35:35] I'd like to address the issue.
[00:35:37] I know you see pastors on TV that have all this money and they drive around and Sharon and I live in a 1,250 square foot house.
[00:35:52] My pickup is 2020.
[00:35:57] I'm not very good with numbers. A little dyslexic.
[00:36:04] Ford Ranger.
[00:36:08] You can look at my life. There's nothing extravagant in my life.
[00:36:13] I'm not standing up here asking everybody else to think about this. We do it ourself.
[00:36:21] In fact, I told you in the first sermon that when we.
[00:36:26] When we.
[00:36:27] When we.
[00:36:28] Every pledge campaign this church has had, we've given to. When we built this building you're in right now, Sharon and I pledged $50,000.
[00:36:37] When we built the second building, we pledged $50,000.
[00:36:41] I'm 71 and Sharon's 72. And we're pledging another $50,000, which means there'll be things we would have had that we won't have because we want to do this.
[00:37:00] Can you hear me, Church?
[00:37:02] And I'm doing what David did. David said, this is what I have given to the Lord. And I'm asking you, I'm trying to show you this can be done and God will bless you and your life won't fall apart.
[00:37:16] But it is an issue of faith.
[00:37:22] Ah.
[00:37:24] I want to talk to you, some of you who are particularly resistant. And you're saying in your heart, and you're saying, in your heart, when is he going to quit talking about this?
[00:37:36] All right.
[00:37:37] Okay. You don't have to tell me who you are, but I know you're out there, so I want to say something to you that Jesus said, this comes from Christ.
[00:37:50] No servant can serve two masters, for he will either hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
[00:38:07] Okay? Would you open your heart to this? You know what Jesus is saying. And if me talking to you about being generous annoys you, you gotta see who you're really serving in life.
[00:38:18] Church.
[00:38:22] I got a little granddaughter running around here.
[00:38:25] Sharon and I love.
[00:38:27] We love her with a ridiculous love.
[00:38:31] We went to a little store and got her some little uniforms. The little uniform she's wearing today, we got her.
[00:38:39] It didn't. It doesn't annoy me to somebody talking to me about being generous to my granddaughter. In fact, it delights me. I get. I get revved up.
[00:38:51] If talking about generosity grates on you, you need to hear what Jesus is saying when he says, you can't serve two masters.
[00:39:01] And is it possible that it grates on you?
[00:39:05] Because suddenly in your life, pleasing yourself, accumulating stuff, has become more important in Christ.
[00:39:20] Sacrifice is defined by what it cost you, what you gave up, how the sacrifice change changed your life.
[00:39:35] Rarely do we have defining times like this in our spiritual lives, and this will pass.
[00:39:41] Don't miss the divine moment to draw near to God and to define a lifestyle of faith.
[00:39:47] We don't get to do this very often.
[00:39:50] Very rarely in life do we come to a moment where we have to have defining thinking in our lives.
[00:39:58] Most of our spiritual life, we run on autopilot. But at moments like this, we've got to stop and pause and we have to think very clearly, who is Jesus Christ to me and what does it mean in my life?
[00:40:14] I'm going to tell you, this will pass next Sunday. These sermons are over, and I'm going to do four sermons on friendship and hopefully people will be more cheerful.
[00:40:29] But listen, don't miss the moment.
[00:40:32] This is a spiritually defining moment.
[00:40:36] This can change your relationship to Jesus Christ.
[00:40:40] This can change your thoughts about the meaning of life and the purpose of eternity.
[00:40:46] This is your once in a lifetime chance to do something very significant with God that's going to make a difference in generations to come.
[00:40:58] The last lesson the widow gave. Not knowing Christ was watching and not expecting a miracle.
[00:41:06] There's some times in the Bible that I want to go back and I want to change the story.
[00:41:11] I want to go back in the story. I want Jesus to run up to that widow. I want him to put his arms around her. I want him to hug her and say, I love you, you are a beautiful soul. You mean everything to me.
[00:41:24] And Judas, give her the money bag.
[00:41:28] That's the way I want this story to go.
[00:41:30] But that's not how the story goes.
[00:41:34] The widow was almost invisible to the massive crowd. Christ saw her.
[00:41:41] Ah.
[00:41:42] And you know what?
[00:41:45] Wherever you are this morning, ah, Christ sees you.
[00:41:50] No commitment you make is too small.
[00:41:55] I'm sure the widow felt insignificant. The amount she gave wasn't going to change anything.
[00:42:02] But Christ said, you did the most significant thing that has been done today.
[00:42:09] Church.
[00:42:10] When you make a commitment, it is not insignificant.
[00:42:14] Anything you commit has value to God.
[00:42:21] Although Christ did not chase the widow down and bless her, she went home that day with the favor of the Lord God upon her because faith pleases God.
[00:42:33] Do you remember that without faith it is impossible to please God. For whoever draws near to God must believe that he exists and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.
[00:42:50] One more scripture.
[00:42:52] I hope you have faith to hear it.
[00:42:54] The blessings of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow to it.
[00:43:00] And I'm absolutely true. It was for that poor widow. I'm certain God blessed her abundantly.
[00:43:07] Will you take time to draw near to the Lord? Will you exercise faith in the living God? Will you expect him to reward you?
[00:43:17] Will you seek the riches that only the Lord can give you?
[00:43:21] And will you do something significantly generous so that Christ's cause can charge forward in our lifetime? Our dear Heavenly Father, I ask that your Holy Spirit would do what only your Holy Spirit could do.
[00:43:37] I ask that your spirit would whisper to our hearts in ways that only you can whisper.
[00:43:43] I pray that the unholy one would not snatch the good seed away.
[00:43:47] I pray that it would fall on good earth and that it would bear fruit. Some 30, some 60, some a hundredfold.
[00:43:55] I pray that your Holy Spirit would convince us to be part of something bigger than ourselves.
[00:44:02] I pray that we would take time to quiet our souls and seek you and call upon your name.
[00:44:08] And then, Father, I pray that you would open up the windows of heaven and pour out on us a blessing that we can't contain. In Jesus name, amen.
