Sermon Tone Analysis

What is your sacrificial gift to God? - foreshadowing the gift Jesus would give - everything

Lord, take my lips and speak through them;

Take our minds and think through them;

Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for Yourself, Lord Jesus.

Amen

Intro: 2

The story of the widow’s mite – retelling

So we find Jesus in an interesting place today.

He’s sat in the temple opposite the place where the offerings were being placed, and he’s watching all those who are putting their money in

He see’s some of the rich people throwing in large amounts of money.

The way Mark writes it, we get the impression of the display of wealth that is going on here.

If we’re aware of how much someone is contributing, we can fall into the trap of thinking ‘well they must be doing well, thy’re loaded’

And in our brokenness, we start to question the motives of the person giving.

But here we have Jesus, the only true judge sitting and commenting on the daily practice of giving to the temple by all the Jews who enter

And he spots one poor widow

As a widow in that culture, unless she was supported by a son or other male relative, she sadly wouldn’t be looked after.

She might have to beg for money, or she might be able to make a small living, but not enough to fully support herself

And here she is with her two copper coins.

In worldly value, they would make little to no difference to the common pot

But to Jesus, this was the best gift of the lot

Because "The Lord does not look at the things people look at.

People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

(NIV)

And Jesus says

“Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.

They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

(NIV)

So what’s Jesus saying?

That we should sell all our belongings and give them all to him?

Well to some people he does, but that’s not the heart of this key teaching

Out of her love for God and out of her trust in him to provide for he needs, the widow gives sacrifically

Jesus comments that out of her poverty, she put everything in

She laid it all before God

Her heart was right and she gave it all

Those who had lots of money, just gave some of their wealth.

If they’d given sacrificially and with the right heart, then Jesus would have said something different

In Mark’s account of the life of Jesus, this is the last scene in Jesus’ public ministry before he is the events of his death and resurrection.

And the widow’s act of love and trust in God foreshadow the event where Jesus, God himself, will take our place on the cross,

that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that we through his poverty might become rich.

(NIV)

9For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Jesus is asking us to give of our first fruits, this biblical concept of giving the best of what we have

The first fruits are the best of the bunch, their the cream of the crop, and out of our love for God, we give them to him

Part of being a follower of Jesus is giving every part of our lives to him.

Our aim is to give a part of our day to him in prayer and bible reading, we give a day a week to him with the Sabbath, we give up our time to serve him in many different ways, and we take our place in the service to the local community through serving in Church

But giving of our money, that thing we hold onto tightly, that thing that give us security, or that just gets us the basics of life, and giving sacrificially out of our money seems like one of the hardest things to do in our service to Jesus

John Wesley famously said once ‘The last part of a man to be converted is his wallet’

And yet Jesus asks us to give sacrificially.

So what do we mean by sacrificially?

In giving terms, it means giving more than is comfortable.

By giving more than feels comfortable, we’re stepping out in faith, we’re trusting God as provider

He wrote a book called the purpose driven life which sold millions of copies, and suddenly he found himself with loads of money in his bank account

I shared a couple of months ago about a really hard time with our finances.

Just after Josh was born, we ended up in a flat we could only just afford, with just enough to cover the essentials of life

I heard him speak down in London at a leadership conference in 2012 and he was asked about how he deals with his finances.

And after

The first thing we could have cut was our tithe, our 10%, and I considered it, but we felt God ask us to trust him.

So we didn’t cut our tithe, we cut other things and our funds were still very tight and some months I wasn’t sure how we’d make ends meet.

But do you know what, God is good, and he is our provider.

That step of faith changed our lives.

Out of seeing God provide, I know that he always will, that I can trust in him, and he does provide

What is your gift of sacrifice to God?

The world will know that you are my disciples as you love one another

She loved to spend time with those who were important to her, and she sought to do what God was calling her to do in everything.

Her family were wealthy and used to be pretty normal, for a wealthy family.

But when her Father became ill, he had to be quarantined and kept away from the rest of the community.

The heart ache she’d felt at being separated from her loving Dad.

She was comforted by her brother and sister.

Her brother a man of few words, but much love, and her sister a woman who kept herself busy loving and serving everyone she met, through her hard work and great hospitality.

They had a good friend, a preacher and teacher who was always travelling.

But whenever he was near their town, he would always visit them.

Through the heart ache of loosing her Father to the quarantine zone, this friend had been like no other.

The way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her, the way he loved her and her family.

This preacher was something different.

God was with him, and in him in a different way.

After quite a separation, her Father was returned to the family.

He presented himself to the local priest, who checked for signs of the contagious illness and found nothing.

A miracle had happened.

Whether it really was the illness he’d been quarantined for, or another skin disease, it had now completely gone, he was completely healed, and she had her Father back.

But then her brother had taken ill.

Her brother of few words became ever so ill.

He deteriorated quickly.

When the woman heard that the preacher wasn’t too far away, she sent one of the servants to go and find him.

He was close to all the family, he would want to be there.

But she believed that this man could heal her brother.

In waiting for the teacher to arrive, her brother died.

The teacher was late and when she saw him she fell at his feet and she cried out “my Lord, if only you’d have been here my brother would not have died”

And as the teacher walked towards the tomb where her brother lay, he spoke to her dead brother, he commanded the stone rolled away and out from the tomb came her brother.

The teacher stayed in their town for a few days before his journey to the Holy City for the great festival of their deliverance

And one night, her Father held a meal.

A meal in honour of this preacher who knew God like no-one else and spoke with his authority.

As was the custom, only the men were present, and the woman’s role was to serve at the table and then to leave the men to their conversation

But this preacher had been there for the woman at every turn.

He’d supported her family, and loved them, and he’d restored their family.

She knew what she had to do.

She got out the jar of exotic perfume from it’s hiding place.

This precious liquid, squeezed from the nard plant of India was expensive.

It would take an average labourer a whole year to earn enough money for this jar of the liquid.

And she took it into the meal while the men were speaking.

She approached the preacher with her head bowed, and as the conversation stopped and all eyes watched her, she broke open the alabaster jar of nard and poured it on the preacher’s head and it ran right down to his feet.