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Introduction:
In Mark
12:41-44, Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury in the
temple where people would contribute money for the preservation of
the temple and its work. Apparently, many wealthy came by and gave
large sums. Along came a widow, a poor woman who only had two
copper coins amounting to a cent. Jesus uttered one of His
surprising statements. This woman, who cast in only a cent, gave
more than all the others who had been casting in large sums. Why?
Because they gave from their surplus and she gave from her
livelihood. In this one statement, Jesus preached an entire sermon
on giving. Let us examine what happened here and learn how to be
right with God in our giving. Discussion: I.
Giving is a matter of the heart A.
Why was this woman’s giving so much more than those who
gave larger amounts? Because giving is not about amounts, per se.
It is about the heart behind the amount. The widow’s sacrificial
giving demonstrated a better heart for God than did the abundant
giving of the wealthy. B.
Proverbs
4:23
says we should watch over our heart, for from it flow the springs
of life. I cannot draw exact lines on amounts or percentages
regarding how much you should give. I can tell you, however, if
your heart is right with God, your giving will be right with God.
Allow me to share a few issues of the heart regarding giving. 1.
We must follow the principle of I
Peter 3:15 and sanctify Jesus Christ in our hearts. We
have to give Jesus, and by extension, His will and work, a place
of honor in our hearts. 2.
On the flip side of that, as we lift Jesus up in our
hearts, we must also lift our hearts up to Jesus. II
Corinthians 8:5 says the Macedonian brethren did such a
great job of giving because they first gave themselves to God. 3.
As Paul had learned according to Philippians
4:11-13, we must learn to be content in all circumstances,
whether we abound or suffer want. Hebrews
13:5-6 says we must learn to be content with what we have.
But it is not talking about material goods. It is talking about
having God. We must learn to be content with God, not seeking
material goods to be our source of contentment. 4.
The focus of our heart should be on heaven and not on
earthly things according to Colossians
3:2 and Matthew 6:19-21. When our heart values and
treasures things of the earth, we will not give properly. But when
our heart is focused on heaven we will. As Matthew
6:31-33 demonstrates, our heart must be focused on God’s
kingdom and righteousness and not on our personal bottom line. 5.
Understand where your material goods came from and who
actually owns them. James
1:17 explains every good thing you have comes from God. Psalm
50:11 says He owns everything. He owns our homes, our
cars, our clothes and our income. He is merely letting us use it
for a time. The first question we have to ask ourselves is, “Is
our heart right with God?” II.
Giving is a matter of the will. A.
Giving is a choice. This widow did not accidentally cast in
all she had to live on. She did not find herself at the treasury
box and just throw in whatever she happened to grab out of her
pocket. This was a choice, an exercise of the will. This
corresponds to II
Corinthians 9:7, teaching each one should give “as he
has purposed in his heart.” We are to give by choice. We are to
give on purpose. Giving takes planning. B.
Has this ever happened to you? We are finishing up the
Lord’s Supper and the brother is talking about the collection.
You think, “Oh yeah, I need to give some money.” You reach
into your pocket or purse and rummage around. You find a $50 bill
and a few singles. You nudge your spouse and they start rummaging.
You scrape together $10 or $20, fold it up so no one can see and
drop it in the plate. Giving is not to be a spur of the moment
decision as the plate is passed. By the time we arrive at this
building, we should already know how much we are going to give. C.
One side note regarding planning and purposing your giving.
I certainly cannot make any hard and fast biblical rules about
what to do with your contribution when you are traveling. However,
I would like you to consider that the congregation of which you
are a member, purposes and plans its work based on what they
believe the congregation will contribute. If you travel and give
your contribution elsewhere or if you are sick and simply skip
your contribution, then you negatively impact the congregation’s
ability to accomplish the work planned. Please keep that in mind
and purpose in your heart to be a consistent help in the work of
your home congregation. D.
With all that in mind, the second question we have to ask
ourselves is, “What is our plan for giving?” III.
Giving is a matter of sacrifice A.
If there is any lesson from the widow’s cent in Mark
12:41-44, it is the lesson of sacrifice. What
distinguished the widow from the hefty contributors was not the
amount of her contribution, but the amount of her sacrifice in
order to accomplish the work of God. The hefty contributors gave
from their surplus, that is, from what they had left over. The
widow gave all she had to live on. B.
Proverbs
3:9
says we are to honor the Lord from the first of our wealth.
Purposing to give should be the first thing we do with the
blessings God grants us. We should not wait until our house and
cars are purchased, our groceries procured, our bills paid and our
clothes bought. The first thing we should do is honor God with the
blessings He has granted. I
Corinthians 16:2 demonstrates our giving is based on our
prosperity. Has God prospered us? Of course. We need to give
accordingly. C.
Notice two prophets that rebuked Israel because of their
lack of sacrifice. 1.
In Malachi
1:6-10, God rebuked the Israelites because their
sacrifices weren’t really sacrifices. They were offering to God
the leftovers of their flocks. They offered what was useless to
them anyway, the blind, the weak and the lame. In Malachi
3:8-9, God said these Israelites were robbing God in the
way they offered and tithed. 2.
In Haggai
1:2-8, God rebuked the Israelites because after they had
been released from captivity and come to their homeland, they made
a good start on the temple, but became distracted. Then they
became complacent. They built their own houses and tilled their
own fields, but they allowed the work of the Lord to go to the
wayside. D.
I do not believe the story of the widow’s cent means all
Christians must give all they have to the congregational
contribution. I do believe it means our contribution should be
first on our list of expenditures. I do believe it means our
giving should cost us something. I do believe it means our giving
should be a bountiful portion of the blessing with which God has
prospered us (cf. II
Corinthians 9:6). E.
Our third question is, “What is our giving costing us?” IV.
Giving is a matter of faith A.
How could this widow possibly make such a sacrifice? She
had faith. She believed God would take care of her. She gave all
she had to live on because she knew God would provide. B.
How could the brethren in Jerusalem in Acts
4:34-35 sell houses and lands to provide for their
brethren in need? Because they believed God would take care of
them. They had faith. C.
Matthew
6:33
drives this point home saying when we seek first God’s kingdom
and righteousness instead of being focused on our bottom line, He
will provide our needs. He will provide us with food and clothing.
Granted, He has not promised to provide us unlimited wealth. There
may be times we must be content with food and clothing (I
Timothy 6:8). But He will take care of us. D.
Notice God’s follow up to His rebuke of Israel in Haggai
1:7-10. Because Israel had not sacrificed their own
pleasures and desires to accomplish the work of the Lord, God had
caused hardship. In Malachi
3:10-12, God said if they quit robbing Him, He would bless
them with abundance. In II
Corinthians 9:6-11, Paul wrote that God blesses those who
give bountifully. When we sacrifice for the Lord, He takes care of
us. Notice, God does not bless those who give so they can hoard to
themselves and spend on their own pleasures. He blesses those who
sacrifice for Him so we can accomplish every good deed. E.
Our final question then is, “Do we believe God will take
care of us?” V.
Where we are. A.
Our budget is $3600/week. If we get that amount, we are
covering the bare bones. We are supporting one local evangelist
and giving support to one foreign evangelist. We are able to
support one gospel meeting, one VBS and our Fall Focus, though we
have had to cut back on advertising for all these. We are paying
for our facility and our utilities. Further, we are covering our
supplies expenses for our classes. Regrettably, we are not getting
that amount. We are getting about $3404/week. At that rate, we
will be about $10,000 behind by the year’s end. Our contribution
has to average $3868 for the remainder of the year just to break
even with our budget. B.
Right now, we do seem to be covering our bills. However, we
are not doing nearly all we would like. Each month we receive two
or three requests for support in various locations all over the US
and the world. The elders review each one and have to say,
“I’m sorry, we can’t help you. Our contribution won’t
support it.” We would like to have a call-in radio program, but
we cannot remotely afford the $10,000-$15,000 per year that would
cost. Simply advertising on the radio would be about the same
price. Not to mention if we had a radio program, we would almost
definitely need to follow the biblical pattern of multiple
full-time workers, but we can’t financially support that either.
I have been considering some options for some direct mail
advertising, sending out some mailings weekly or bi-weekly to
homes in our area. However, before that would be minimally
feasible we would have to be able to commit about $1000 per
mailing to the effort and could reasonably go to several thousand
per week if we wanted to canvas more homes in the area. We can’t
even really think about it right now. Another option I have
thought about is purchasing a weekly column in the Williamson AM
or the Review Appeal, but that would cost us an additional $200
per week or another $10,000 per year. C.
The struggle with our finances does not have anything to do
with the need for growth. In the past year, we have added several
households, but our year-to-date average weekly contribution is
$30 lower than it was this time last year. D.
Clearly, I don’t know anyone’s financial situation. I
don’t know how much anyone in this congregation is giving.
However, we live in one of the richest counties in the nation.
According to “The Official Statement of Williamson County” on
July 1, 2006, the average household income is $69,104. The average
for Tennessee as a state is $36,360 (the information was based on
2000 Census Bureau statistics). We have about 70 households within
this congregation, give or take a few. I know tithing, giving 10%,
is not the standard today. However, using these statistics as a
baseline, do you realize if we, congregation wide, devoted to the
Lord as much as would have been considered the bare minimum for
the Jews, our weekly contribution would be $9302 per week? I know
some of us are doing that and more, but obviously not all of us.
Of course, some may say, “My income looks like the state average
not the county.” If our giving was off of that baseline, our
weekly contribution would be $4,895. E.
Please, consider what we have learned from the widow. Look
at the cars we are driving. How much have we devoted on a monthly
basis to them? From one website,[1]I
learned the average monthly car payment is $378. With 70
households if we were giving monthly to equal what our car payment
would be (that is just $87 per week) our weekly contribution would
equal $6,106. On another website,[2]
I learned that the number of cars averages out to 1.77 per
household. With that in mind, giving what would be the equivalent
of the car payments would be $10,807 per week. I am not even going
to consider what our average payment is for our paneled houses or
for our credit cards. We must make sure we are not like the Jews
who built up their homes and belongings but allowed the temple of
the Lord to lie desolate. Conclusion: The widow’s story in Mark 12:41-44 was not a parable. It was an actual occurrence. Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury and actually watched what everyone was giving. Would our giving be different if Jesus were sitting next to us watching? What would He say if He sat opposite our treasury and watched what we were giving? Would He see us giving as a matter of heart, will, sacrifice and faith? How would He comment on our giving in comparison to the widow’s? Here is the crux of the matter. He is watching. Please, go home and give thought to your giving. Is your heart right with God? What is your plan for giving? What is your giving costing you? Do you believe God will take care of you? Give thought to these things before you purpose what you are going to give in your next contribution.
Glory
to God in the church by Christ Jesus
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