Finding Life out of Vanity
Notes
Transcript
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
1 And I said:
“Hear now, O heads of Jacob,
And you rulers of the house of Israel:
Is it not for you to know justice?
2 You who hate good and love evil;
Who strip the skin from My people,
And the flesh from their bones;
3 Who also eat the flesh of My people,
Flay their skin from them,
Break their bones,
And chop them in pieces
Like meat for the pot,
Like flesh in the caldron.”
4 Then they will cry to the Lord,
But He will not hear them;
He will even hide His face from them at that time,
Because they have been evil in their deeds.
5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets
Who make my people stray;
Who chant “Peace”
While they chew with their teeth,
But who prepare war against him
Who puts nothing into their mouths:
6 “Therefore you shall have night without vision,
And you shall have darkness without divination;
The sun shall go down on the prophets,
And the day shall be dark for them.
7 So the seers shall be ashamed,
And the diviners abashed;
Indeed they shall all cover their lips;
For there is no answer from God.”
8 But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord,
And of justice and might,
To declare to Jacob his transgression
And to Israel his sin.
9 Now hear this,
You heads of the house of Jacob
And rulers of the house of Israel,
Who abhor justice
And pervert all equity,
10 Who build up Zion with bloodshed
And Jerusalem with iniquity:
11 Her heads judge for a bribe,
Her priests teach for pay,
And her prophets divine for money.
Yet they lean on the Lord, and say,
“Is not the Lord among us?
No harm can come upon us.”
12 Therefore because of you
Zion shall be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins,
And the mountain of the temple
Like the bare hills of the forest.
Text
Text
45 Then, in the hearing of all the people, He said to His disciples, 46 “Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, 47 who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation.”
1 And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, 2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. 3 So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; 4 for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”
Sermon
Sermon
We’ve been discussing vanity. Not in the modern sense, but in the sense of the things under the sun.
Everything under the sun fades and dies, everything falls into ruin. Here on this earth we have no lasting kingdom, no lasting city.
What profit is our labor under the sun?
This sermon will make more sense in the context if you listen to last week’s for the full picture.
When man fell, God’s sentence of death fell. There can be no life without union with God, and there can be no union with God without believing God’s words and obeying his commands. And so death, futility and vanity entered. The city fell into ruin, creation is now on the path to oblivion.
Solomon wrote this:
30 I went by the field of the lazy man,
And by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding;
31 And there it was, all overgrown with thorns;
Its surface was covered with nettles;
Its stone wall was broken down.
32 When I saw it, I considered it well;
I looked on it and received instruction:
33 A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest;
34 So shall your poverty come like a prowler,
And your need like an armed man.
This is the default position. of all of creation
But as a said last week, that didn’t stop Cain from building cities. All humankind still seeks to create Eden from the ruins of creation, but it isn’t possible.
Babel and Abraham -
God scatters the nations and puts them in bondage to the gods. The unclean demons. But then he calls one - Abraham.
And makes a promise to him. In Abraham’s seed, the curse will be reversed, and there will be blessing instead of cursing. God will make a distinction between the seed of Abraham and the seed of the nations.
And that seed was Christ.
10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
The problem with the scribes is that they were trying to find Eden again. They were the pure ones. They were significant, important, blessed.
They believed that they were blessed because they had wealth and privilege and the esteem of their colleagues.
46 “Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts,
When you love those things and look for substance in them, they will prove again and again to be without something.
The late-night host says, “Paul, is that something? What about the long robes and the greetings in the marketplace and the best places at the feasts?”
And Solomon says, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”
They put their treasure in the box, they make a show of it. Everyone knows how much they give. They get the tiles with their names on it. And they think that they have impressed God with their substance as much as they impressed everyone else.
This is why Jesus said that they gave out of their abundance.
But that abundance proved to be vanity - emptiness, grasping for the wind.
They would go to the grave. Their money forgotten, their wisdom proven foolish, the temple itself would fall into ruin.
No matter how much they had and how much they earned and how many choice seats they were given, it would never prevent the grave.
but instead of repentance, they figured that a little more would fix it.
So they devoured widows houses, robbed from the vulnerable who have no protection, prayed long prayers with them and then stole their livelihood.
What do we need? A little more.
We tell battered wives that if they just did a little more, their husbands would stop beating them and reviling them. But it is never enough, for the heart that does not rest in Christ will never have enough.
When our life consists in our abundance, we are the most miserable of creatures.
Abundance and contentment with thanksgiving are good. I’m talking about where our life is.
To illustrate this, Jesus sits and watches everyone putting money in the treasury.
The rich out of their abundance.
And then this widow. It is a rare word in the New Testament. It is beyond poor. It is very poor. All she has left are two scraps of copper. In today’s currency, they would be less than a penny.
What good is that? It probably didn’t even get counted and entered into the treasury. Worthless.
And yet Jesus sees what he was looking for. And he points her out to the whole world.
She probably would have rather fallen into the earth than be pointed out for the whole world to see.
But Jesus notices her, because she belongs to him.
She belongs to him because she put all of her life - her livelihood - into his hands.
She gave out of her poverty. In other words, she had nothing at all. And she put that into Jesus’ hands.
That is faith.
To illustrate, let me ask a question. What if you were dead? How would that change how you lived?
Ridiculous question, isn’t it?
But think about it. Would you worry about what someone thought of you if you were dead?
Would the best seats in the synagogue matter? Would the long robes matter? Would the greetings in the marketplace matter?
1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Take this widow. It isn’t a matter of her giving a bigger percentage.
The key words “out of abundance”
OR
Out of poverty.
Whether you have much or little, faith is only exercised out of poverty. You cannot offer riches to God. Only poverty.
She gives the last that she has. It wasn’t enough for a meal anyway. She didn’t have a meal. Or anyone who recognized her, or wanted her around, or loved her - she had no substance, no livelihood.
She was dead - so she gave it to the Lord. And found life.
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
It is a matter of faith.
Faith unites us to Christ, who is well-pleasing to the father.
In Christ, we are his inheritance, his people, his jewel, his peculiar treasure.
She puts in the two coins out of her poverty.
And because she is very precious to God, Jesus already knows her, so he is watching and waiting, so that he can point her out to the whole world.
This widow has nothing but her faith.
And that is everything. She gives her poverty to the Lord, which is of great price in the sight of God.
9 I will not take a bull from your house,
Nor goats out of your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is Mine,
And the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the mountains,
And the wild beasts of the field are Mine.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God thanksgiving,
And pay your vows to the Most High.
God is not impressed with this world’s riches, for he created it.
And he certainly isn’t impressed with wicked men who seek for their substance out of vanity. Cain and Abel will always be opposed.
But what would you do with the gifts that God has given you if you were dead?
In other words, if you realized that the material goods that God has given you weren’t for the purpose of impressing God or your neighbors, or buying a future, or desperately seeking significance? How would that change how you lived?
If you were dead and your life was hidden with Christ in God?
If you are risen with Christ?
This is why Jesus pointed this widow out. If he hadn’t, we never would have known about it. She didn’t blow the trumpet, for she was only looking for one thing. She was confessing that her life was hidden in God.
She knew something that most of us struggle with:
She knew that if she ate again, it would only be because God gave her food.
If she lived a moment longer, it would only be because God gave her breath.
She knew poverty - and the fact is that all of us are in the same situation.
Last week I spoke of Cain and Abel. Cain, substance, the man from the Lord. He offered from his abundance.
But Abel - vanity, vapor, breath. He offered his whole life, symbolized in the burnt offering. My life is hidden in you.
Luke 21 is about Cain and Abel in Jerusalem.
Cain is blowing the trumpet and offering from his abundance. I am, and there is none like me.
And Abel brings two copper coins, all she has. Out of her poverty. This is my whole life, lived each moment by your grace alone.
We can only bring faith that comes out of poverty.
This wife I have comes from the hand of grace
This meal I have comes from the hand of a loving father.
This glass of wine comes from the hand of my kind husband and shepherd.
The next breath I take comes from the goodness of God.
Take my life, Lord. It belongs to you anyway.
This is the offering that is well-pleasing to the Lord.
No offering from our abundance can every be pleasing to God. Only that which comes from our poverty.
But when we finally let go of what we are so desperately trying to hold on to, we will finally begin to understand the goodness of God.
7 Go, eat your bread with joy,
And drink your wine with a merry heart;
For God has already accepted your works.
8 Let your garments always be white,
And let your head lack no oil.
9 Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun.
10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
In the paradox of all paradoxes - it is only when we understand our poverty, only when we understand the vanity of this world, that we can begin to enjoy this world from the hand of our loving father.
Only when we understand that we aren’t at the marriage supper of the lamb can we begin to enjoy a meal. Only when we begin to understand that we don’t restore Eden, only God does, can we start to garden with any enjoyment at all.
Only when we stop trying to control everything can we begin to love our neighbor.
And we can only love our neighbor if our life is hidden with Christ in God. Otherwise we are too afraid of him.
We might catch a demon, or become seduced by the world, or.....
But what if we are already dead and our life is safely hidden where Christ is?
Live joyfully, for our life is there. Live patiently, for he will never forsake you. Live boldly, for you have nothing of value to lose.
And if he gives you much or gives you little, it will be exactly enough. Whether he calls you home or keeps you around a while longer, your life is hidden where Christ is anyway, and nothing can shift it.
When we live our lives like that, it is of great value in the sight of God.
This is what Peter told the wives - and it applies to the husbands as well, for this is what it means to follow Christ.
4 rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.
Jesus is the one with the perfect gentle and quiet spirit. And we follow him, expecting all good from him only, so we can learn to rest.
But only if we quit trying to live out of our abundance, and learn to live out of our poverty - whether we have much or little.
We died in him, when he was crucified. That is our old man. That’s the guy that is very concerned about what people think, about the long robes and the best seats. The one that thinks that the value and significance of his life is in how much he owns, how many beautiful women he has on his arm, how well his children behave - or anything else under the sun.
The kingdoms of this world fall into ruin.
Put that guy to death in Christ.
And we rose with him, and that is the new man. All we have belongs to him. We live at his good pleasure and he is so good to us. He hears us, he loves us, he directs us, he feeds us - he will care for us. And since he has taken all of our sins away and filled us with his spirit, we can reckon ourselves dead so that we might live with him.
Loving our neighbor, speaking truth in love, learning to rejoice with friends without an agenda.
Only when you quit fighting for the best seats can you enjoy the meal.
Otherwise, your life is filled with envy and strife, anxiety and fears.
Put that to death, and live in Christ.
This is what Jesus is pointing out with the widow. She put her whole life in the hands of her savior; and that is of great value in the eyes of God.