God of the Little Bit

God of the Little Bit

Matt 25:14-30; 1 Kings 17:8-16; Mark 12:41-44

Thesis: We are inclined to think that the little we feel we have to contribute to the Kingdom is insignificant and won’t be missed. Yet God calls us to give Him all we are in worship of Him and service to the Kingdom.

Intro:

What’s the largest gift you’ve ever given? Any context. Tell the person next to you. 20 seconds.

Some of you have probably given some amazing gifts. Episode of Duck Dynasty built around giving someone a home.

Play Clip

It’s awesome to be able to give extravagant things to people, but very few people are in a position to give away a home. Most of us have much less discretionary income than Willy Robertson.

What makes a great gift to a person? What makes a great gift to God?

If we can’t give a large gift of any resource (money, time, talent, relationship), should we even bother to give a small one?

State Thesis.

Thesis: We are inclined to think that the little we feel we have to contribute to the Kingdom is insignificant and won’t be missed. Yet God calls us to give Him all we are in worship of Him and service to the Kingdom.

We are going to look at three people in scripture who did not have as much to give as others and learn what we can from their examples.

Three Servants Matt 25:14-30

Vs 14-18 14

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.

“Talent” not a skill or ability, as in English. This is a weight. When money was weighed to determine value, this weight could either reflect a quantity of silver or gold. 75 pounds.

If gold, it represented a vast amount of wealth. Roughly equivalent to 20 years’ wages for a common laborer.

For today:

75 pounds of gold in market value: $2.3M

20 years’ wage: PVBC Early Learning Lead Teacher $17/hr. 2,000 hours/year, 20 years = $680K.

The Master (Jesus) entrusts His resources to His servants to manage while He’s away.

Not given to them. Entrusted.

Not for their own pleasure, for the growth of His estate.

First Application Point: God’s Goods are Mine to Manage.

We have to stop thinking about the resources at our disposal as ours. They never ceased to belong to Him.

We do, however, have a responsibility to manage them.

God’s goods are neither ours to do with as we please nor out of our hands in their management.

Applies to every category of resource; not just money.

“This is about way more than money, but not less.”

Time

Skills and abilities

Relationships

Environment

Vs. 19-20, 22: 19

Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’... 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’

Both of these servants had returned a 100% growth on their investments.

Notice that it did not stay with the servants but was returned to the Master.

Health, wealth, and prosperity people are wrong. The increase goes back to God.

What was achieved is the growth of the Kingdom, not the servants’ personal portfolios.

Aren’t we glad for the 2-talent guy?

Vs 21, 23 Split Room. Read Aloud

His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

Two different servants. Two different investments. Two different results. Same reward.

Second Application Point: God is Glorified in the Little or Large

The rewards that God gives are based on the devotion of the heart and the effort of the hands, not the outward apparent success.

The fruitfulness of a ministry is ultimately the work of God

1 Cor 3:6-8:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.

Vs 24-30:

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Burying money was a seemingly not uncommon method of protecting assets: Achen (Judges 7) and the parable of the treasure in the field (Matt 13:44).

Third Application Point: Fear is the Anti-Fruit

Our lives cannot bear fruit for the Lord if it is characterized by unrighteous fear.

The faithless servant is criticized for being “wicked and slothful,” not for having a small yield.

He did not love or trust his master. Consequently, He was not looking forward to the coming of his master and did nothing to prepare for it.

He had an insufficient fear of his master, which locked him into inaction.

The “Fear of the Lord” has to do with the submission of all that we are to the commands of God.

“It’s way more than a fear of punishment, but it’s not less.”

This parable, like the others in this section of Matthew, ends with the rejection (damnation) of those characters who get it wrong. This is a serious matter!

It was not the smaller investment that this servant had to work with which sealed his fate. It was the misplacement of fear in his life. He feared failure and punishment rather than fearing the Lord.

Let’s look at two excellent counterexamples.

Two Widows

The widow of Zarephath: 1 Kings 17:8-16

Backstory

8 Then the word of the LORD came to him, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” 11 And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12 And she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” 13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.’ ” 15 And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.

She is Phonecian. The center of Ba’al worship.

Irony:

A prophet of God is used to deliver punishment upon the people of God for idolatry, but he is used as a tool of blessing in the home of a woman who, though probably formerly an idolater herself, puts her trust in the God of Israel.

Elijah is seeking provision, room and board, in the home of a widow without enough food for herself and her son.

God’s Goods are Mine to Manage

She prioritizes the kingdom of God over her own needs in feeding Elijah first.

She obeys Elijah and puts her confidence in his words even while not acknowledging Yahweh as her God (vs 12).

Hypothesis: Ba’al and Asteroth were supposed to be the source of fertility in the land. Obviously, they were unable to save this area from the judgment of Yahweh on Israel. Perhaps her confidence in God was already growing and her pagan faith was already crumbling when Elijah encountered her.

God is Glorified in the Little or Large

She gives God her “little bit” and he immediately honors that.

She did not have a cupboard full with which to guarantee Elijah’s care, but she offered up the mouthful she could, and God took responsibility for the outcome.

Fear is the Anti-Fruit

Her faith, though small and held at arm's length at first, bears fruit.

She obviously was in a place of fear when Elijah came to her (vs 12-13), but she shifts quickly to a posture of Fearing the Lord, and God blesses.

She could have been very justified, after vs 12, in telling Elijah that she didn’t have enough to help and wishing him to be warm and well-fed (Jas 2:16).

Her degree of poverty would have kept most people from contributing financially to the work of God’s Kingdom.

Do you have food waiting for you for lunch and dinner today? You’re wealthier than she was!

The Widow in the temple. Mark 12:41-44

The immediate context in Mark is full of upside-down comparisons of the powerful, religiously credentialed, or architecturally imposing people or objects being flipped on their heads and humiliated while simple faith is lauded.

Mark 2:41-44: And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

The offering vaults in the second temple period were noisy. Big offerings were loud and attracted attention.

The widow’s offering would have gone unnoticed by either the money counters or the crowd, but not by Jesus.

“Two lepta, which make a krodrantes” A Krodrantes is a Roman coin worth 1/64 of a denarius, a day’s wage.

PVBC Early Learning Cook. $14/hr * 8 hours= $112/day. 1/64= $1.75. A loaf of bread.

“All she had to live on” that day? “Give us today our daily bread.” Perhaps. Or maybe it was truly the sum-total of her wealth.

God’s Goods are Mine to Manage

Jesus lauded her for giving all she had for her sustenance to the Kingdom of God.

Nothing left for her. Nothing held back.

God is Glorified in the Little or Large

Jesus rewards her immediately for the gift of her “little bit.”

She did not regard her little gift as too trivial, and it wasn’t!

The fruit of that sacrifice was probably not a huge increase in the abilities of the temple to pay for its upkeep.

The fruit was her testimony and her legacy in the word of God that we read 2000 years later!

Fear is the Anti-Fruit:

Her fear was completely dominated by her faith. She left no reserves for her own provision.

We have no idea what the consequences were for her own provision. Unlike the Widow of Zarephath, we don’t know if she ate that day.

Prosperity preachers like to tell you that God will recompense you in this life with material things when you give your treasures to the Kingdom. The absence of an epilogue to her story is significant.

Maybe someone bought her food.

Maybe she chose to do without and fast for the day.

Maybe she never ate again! We don’t know.

One God

God’s Goods are Mine to Manage:

Nothing you have is your own.

He gave our first parents everything from His own hand and asked them to manage it. Nothing has changed.

Gen 1:25-28: And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God is the source of all things. Space, Time, Energy, and Matter. Nothing is outside of His creation. Therefore, nothing is outside of His authority.

Do you see all of your resources this way? Do you see all of your domain as a mere subset of His? Do you claim anything as your own?

Your calendar, your energy, your body, your money, your family, your job, your home, your vehicles. All are His. You are merely a manager of His creation.

God is Glorified in the Little or Large

Our sense of scale is wrong. To us, the length of the time, the size of the check, the number of people in the audience is what matters. More is better.

However, God does not evaluate things the way that we do,

1 Sam 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

Small things are not too small for God,

Matt 10:29-31 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Large, powerful, impressive things don’t impress God

Isa 40:15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

We must trust God’s evaluation of what matters

Fear is the Anti-Fruit

“Do Not Fear” or “Fear Not” or similar is in the Bible 365 times. Significant. The reason is always rooted in the nature, character, promises, or presence of God.

He is the only valid reason why we shouldn’t be afraid. Nothing else is worthy of our confidence.

The fear of man or of circumstances is discussed or represented almost as many times (over 250), and it is never mentioned in scripture as the right thing to do.

Nobody who feared another person or eventuality in scripture is ever commended for doing so.

The only righteous object of our fear is God.

Where the fear of man leads to either sinful action or sinful inaction, the fear of God leads to righteousness

Exod 20:20: Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin."

Closing Applications:

God wants every aspect of who you are to be surrendered to Him.

Is there an area of your life that you have not given Him? Do so today.

Offering

Church Service Opportunities

Relationships with your neighbors.

Don’t let fear hold you back from surrendering to the Lord.

You are guaranteed to get no fruit from efforts you don’t put forth.

It’s okay to start small. God can do great things with small gifts.

Domino Demo

A note for mother’s Day:

Sometimes the hardest areas of our lives to yield to God are our children.

A desire for control is tied in to our hopes and dreams for our kids.

Sometimes we feel completely insufficient to the task of parenting, especially with harder children.

Give your child to God. Surrender your own dreams. Give everything you have to the task, and watch God work.

Izang Baby Dedication