MAR 14 2020 | The Offering S1E2 | The Widows Mite

Sea Change Church · The Offering · "The Widows Mite" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · March 14, 2020
Mark 12:41-44
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, La Jolla. Hey, my name is Bryce Maurer. It is a privilege. It is an honor to be here with you. If you don't know me, I'm one of your missionaries that you guys support from Livingston, Montana. Adam has asked for me to take the next 15 minutes and give you guys an update on what's happening. That laugh means no, I didn't. But I would love to share with you more about what's happening in Livingston, Montana. I'll be in the back of the church if you want to know how you can support us or if you want to get an update.

So in the two and a half years that I've been as the lead pastor at First Baptist Livingston, we've tripled the number of attendees. We started with 15 people and we have anywhere from 40 to 65 on a Sunday. We've done over 30 baptisms in that time. And I don't care about the numbers. What I'm sharing with you is that the spirit of the Lord is moving in Livingston, Montana. And in part, that's due to your support and your faithful prayers. Thank you.

The reading of the word is from Mark chapter 12, verse 41. Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.

They gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all she had to live on. The word of the Lord. There we go. Perfect. Thank you, Bryce. You were ready to preach. I could tell. Could you tell? You know, it's so interesting. You guys are the faithful. I've heard it said, whoever shows up on the early service on Daylight Savings is the people who you can start a movement with. So you are the ones that are here.

And let me just pray, and we will jump right into this scripture in just a second. Lord Jesus, I pray you would just touch this message as you touch our hearts, God, all the good things you're doing. And then generosity, God. You are so generous to us. Let us flow in your generosity and in your heart and in your ways. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, I'm really excited. We're in the second week of a series on generosity.

And if you don't want to be challenged by God, don't do a series on generosity. Because God will begin to, whatever you press into, I think God loves to meet you into those things. And so I was very aware when I was asked for money or time this week. I was aware when I was on my computer and I was trying to get some things done and run out. And a woman, I hear clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk. And her tire is popped and she stops right in front of my house.

And I'm looking out and I think, do I go help her with the tire or do I keep doing these important things of the Lord that I'm working on? And I won't tell you how that ended, but I was challenged in that moment. She actually drove away before I could run out there. Please come back. I'll help you. The firefighters were asking me for money in La Jolla this week. I don't know if you saw them. They were down here on Torrey Pines.

I passed multiple homeless people. Many asked me for money and some didn't. Political campaigns asked me for money. I was just super, I was hyper aware of the ask. And then I was hyper aware of actually my emotional margin and financial margin and all these other things. And at the same time, God continued to put incredible people in my life. I had some incredible conversations. I had some great conversations here this week during the, we had voting at our church, which I love that we have voting at the church.

And it's awesome. Had some amazing conversations. As people came in, I spoke to Pastor Harry. I spoke to neighbors. It was just a week of conversations. And I also spoke to somebody who runs the Refugee Collaborative. And we spoke about things that are going on in the island of Lesbos and places like he actually crossed the border in a taxi. It's an Australian guy. And went outside of Mosul on his own during the fighting two years ago to meet a church partner who he put me in contact with on WhatsApp.

So now there's a guy outside of Mosul who's a Christian that we are in partnership with. But all this came this week as I was doing this. And I got to say, my head is spinning a little bit. Just trying to figure out, like, what am I supposed to do with my life? You know what I mean? This can bring you to some pretty existential questions personally. And I think God was faithful, giving me at least some early answers or some gleanings.

Jesus sat down opposite, verse 41. Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put in. Interesting word, opposite. He could have just said he sat down. Was he in opposition to what was happening? We know that he threw people out of the temple when they did things. Jesus was not a big fan of the way the church or the synagogue was taking money, by the way, at that point. He was not a big fan of the way the Levitical plan for social justice that comes through offerings and tithe, which is amazing.

In chapters 25 through 28, if you want to see restrained capitalism done right, it is in Leviticus 25 through 28. And we'll talk in a moment about the Acts 2 model. Blitz talks about they all lived in community and they sold everything. And we're going to juxtapose those a little bit. But Jesus wasn't a big fan. So was he sitting opposite of it? Was that intentional? I tend to think that scripture doesn't waste words.

I think they're there for a reason. But I also don't want to preach out of the silence. But we know that Jesus was not a big fan of the way that money was being taken. And he also speaks in the same chapter, chapter 12 of Mark, which is a phenomenal chapter. If you don't know where to be in the Bible this week, spend some time in Mark. It talks about marriage. It talks about giving. I mean, it's just a phenomenal passage.

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were being put and watched the crowd putting in their money into the temple, treasuring. Many rich people threw. You can circle threw. Really interesting. Threw in. Wow. I don't remember. Harry, do you remember the last time someone threw their offering into the offering thing? Like on their phone. It was you. That was you. You were just going on your phone. You were texting to give me, but you were doing it really hard.

That's right. Yeah. They threw it in. Large amounts. But a poor widow came and she threw. No. She didn't throw it in. Harry, you just gave me this point sitting there before I got up. Harry said, I think it's interesting that she put her coins in. So she carefully puts two very small copper coins. We're going to talk about why two coins. It's a great question. I asked myself during when I was preaching, why two? Why not just one?

Did she get any more by putting, you know, any more street cred by putting two in in front of these people who are throwing large sums? Why two? Very small copper coins worth only a few cents. Calling the disciples to him, Jesus said, truly, I tell you this widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all that she lived on. Okay.

So before we move, I want to say that I have three things I'm trying to accomplish with this series. I don't want to hide the ball. I have no problem speaking about offering and giving to God and being generous because I have seen what it does and how it can actually change tangibly our lives. I actually enjoy talking about it. My problem is it's been done so poorly so many times with so much pastoral manipulation and church manipulation, which you see here in this story and before in the chapter, that it's like getting up and speaking about something that has this huge history of wrongdoing before you speak about it.

So I struggle with that. But I don't want to hide the ball and say that I'm trying to accomplish three things. One, we've always want to see tangible life change in your life. We want to present things where you go home practically and whether you believe in God or not or whatever it is that you take what the scripture says, because whether you believe in God or not, the scripture is still full of wisdom. And if you live according to it, it is not a bad way to live.

And you look at it and you have tangible life change. And so the problem is, is when we start viewing the values as pastors of the organization and we care more about the organization than the individual. So we always have to start with the individual. So hopefully this is hitting you on an individual level. This is an individual woman. And we're going to talk about the individuality of extravagant generosity in a moment.

But that's number one. Number two, kingdom growth. I do want to see the kingdom grow. And for some reason, God has chosen not just to give the church free stuff. Do this. You show up. You start a ministry. I'll just give you free stuff. I'll bless you. Free stuff. Free stuff. Recently, I told the Lord, I want to preach better. I was praying. I said, Lord, I want to preach better. I feel like I can do better. And I said, and I was waiting for the download, you know, like the matrix.

I'm just there waiting for it, you know, and I'm waiting for the power to come. And I got a distinct word. The Lord said, study more. I was like, no, no, no, you didn't hear me, Rob. The 36 minutes I put into sermon prep is enough, Lord. No. God, for some reason, wants to collaborate with us. And so in January, I started studying more. Late December, I started studying more. And personally, I'm feeling it's blessing me.

So whether you've noticed a difference. I have had more emails recently of people feeling like they're hearing in more ways than I had before. But, you know, the thing is, is that I want to see the kingdom grow. And God, over and over again, says that kingdom growth oftentimes is tied to our generosity and giving to kingdom-based things. That's our missionaries. That's all these different types of things. Thirdly, as your pastor of an organization that is trying to be sustainable, I want you to give to this organization.

I want you to feel like you're a part of it. I want you to care about it deeply. I want you to see the things we're doing. You can look at all the books. Anybody can come in. You want to see the books? We'll show you every penny. We have complete transparency here. You can come into the office. We won't show you who gives. But you can see. And if you want to know about it and you want to volunteer in the admin, you can do that.

I don't want to hide the ball in that. But I also want to inspire you to give to this organization directly, to care about it directly, and to decide there is a portion of the gleanings of what I make. I care about this family so much, I want to give to it. And so others have done that before. So those are the three things. Your personal is number one. Number two is kingdom growth in general. And number three is this organization.

Here in this passage, we see a woman who lived in silent and extravagant generosity. I mean, it's just what she's doing is really extravagant, and it's silent. It's not making a mockery of giving to God. It's not getting out a megaphone. In this same passage, I believe it's in Mark chapter 12, Jesus talks about, you know, they would go and they would find the best place. I went and stood on the place. They actually said this is the place that Jesus actually stood.

They know very little when you go to Israel. It's like this might be the place that might be the place that was probably the place where it could have been the place where Jesus did this. But there's this one place you can stand at the temple where they said Jesus actually stood here. We know that this happened here. So it's awesome. So I went and stood there, and this is the same place. People would find the best place, and they would pray these huge prayers, and they would do all these elaborate things.

So there would be a big cloud of spiritual dust around them so that you could say yes. God doesn't, he just does not care about that stuff. But if you think about it, he's God in all of his splendor, resplendent with glory. Like the amount of, like we would just explode if we were standing in front of him. The fact that he's impressed by you throwing large bits of money or amazing prayers, it's just, it's a ridiculous concept.

And so he's not into that. But for some reason, what draws his attention are these postures of the heart. As we'll see in a moment, these invisible, the intangibles, and I'm getting ahead of myself, but there's intangibles. This widow lived in a silent and extravagant generosity, and there was an inner work going on. Somebody came to me this week, and they said, look, I just, one of the things about I want the church to get better at is I feel like when I'm here, I'm growing spiritually through the messages, but I need more places where I can have tangible spiritual growth through discipleship, through mentorship.

And that's always hard for me to hear because I know it's something we need to do, and it's something we're trying to do. It's difficult to accomplish, to manage and figure all that out. But I get that. And so this woman had this inner work going on, and this is God's geographical territory, the heart. This week, God challenged me when I was doing this, because I was listening to these really smart people. I just, podcasts, and they're very smart.

And I found myself getting lost, and I'm like, no, I don't want to get lost. I don't want to have to listen twice. I want to be two steps ahead. And in many conversations and in things, I am two steps ahead, but I was way behind. I was just lagging. And I said, God, give me a, I want a better mind. Can you increase my mind? Let me, make me smarter. And God, and I got this little thought. Why don't you pray for a bigger heart instead?

I was like, no, we're not, we're not on the same page, God. This, this is twice now this week. You're not hearing me. Does God care about, he cares about our minds, but he cares about our hearts. This woman was truly a victim, but she did not live like a victim. She lived victoriously. Now, I've said this many times, that you can be victimized and not have to take on the identity of a victim. There's a lot of benefits that come with victim, with, with, with living as a victim.

There's not benefits that come with victimization. Jesus was victimized, but he never took on the place of a victim. And so on, we want to rescue those that have been victim, that have been victimized. We do want to come in, but then we want to empower them to live in victory. And some of the best victorious stories are people that have shed their victimhood and have moved into victory. And those are the best stories.

We love those stories. Those are the movies, right? Those are the movies that we love. This woman was a victim. She was a victim of the church. She was a victim of the state. And this week, many of my conversations, when I speak to people, I speak to a lot of seekers, agnostics. I always try to find out where people are on the map. I've had, I had multiple people tell me this, three, tell me they're atheists this week.

And I, and I didn't, you know, on occasion I ask, what kind of atheist are you? Because there's different scales, just like there are different types of Christians. And the thing is, is it's like, well, the church is, and we immediately go to the church. And then oftentimes I'm either presented back science or government as the response to the church. It's like, well, the church is this, and there's a lot of, and there's some great questions.

I had to really wrestle with some questions. It's in my own heart this week as I spoke to people. I'm a guy that doesn't have a lot of political conversations. I had three, three days in a row, intense. I was so drained. I walked, I took a 15-mile walk over two days. I walked 10 miles on Friday, and I walked five miles yesterday just to clear my head. Because I don't like talking about politics. And I found myself three days in a row having, well, it was during the, you know, super, super Tuesday.

And we had voting here, so that was going to happen. And, but this woman was a victim of both. The church has been amazing, has done a really good job at victimizing people in different seasons. There's been seasons where the church has been amazing. And to look at one section of government or one section, and then to paint a hue over the entire history of something is disingenuous. And the same thing's true with people.

If you take your worst moment, and we look at it, and then we just paint your whole life with that, it's disingenuous. And it doesn't allow for people the redemptive history to come in and for people to change. So we had this system. And so first of all, let me just show how the church, because we'll start with us at our own front door. In Mark chapter 12, earlier in this chapter. Now this is earlier in the same chapter, and it's there for a reason.

Jesus talks about the church and about these people that are taking the tithe. The people that were taking the tithe were wolves. Jesus even says this earlier in the passage. It says they devour widows' houses. And for a show, they make lengthy prayers. I went to the place where they made those prayers. These men, men, because by the way, there's a lot of things blamed on a patriarchy. And this actually was a patriarchy.

These men, it doesn't say women, because the men were completely in charge in this situation. These men will be punished most severely. One of my atheist friends asked me this week, a woman, new to the church, said, are there levels of hell? Is there different types of punishment? I said, well, Dante thought so. C.S. Lewis thought so. I don't know. But what I do know is this scares, hopefully, the hell out of me. And it terrifies me as a pastor when I teach on giving.

Let me just read it again. Now, it's not talking about yous all. It's talking about me and my type. It says, they devour widows' houses. It says, and make a show with lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely. You might as well. You know, that just makes me say, I never want to preach on giving or, you know. Actually, I have removed myself. I don't know what any of you give. I don't look. I've been told that I should.

I should know who the heavy hitters are. I just don't trust myself with all that knowledge. I just don't want to know. And it just helps me. It helps me be a better pastor, I think. They would do a thing. And Jesus talked about this in Mark 7-11. That was kind of funny. I don't know why 7-11 was funny. But it was. In Mark 7-11, where Jesus says to the religious leaders, he goes, you guys are unjust. See, you'll look at your parents.

And they had a societal system that was in the Levitical system where families took care of families. And the children would stay home and take care of their parents and pay for their parents. And that was social security. Social security was social because the government didn't do it, but the people did it. And the family did it. Families lived with their parents. And so they would take care of their parents. But one of the things that they did was they found out this little way not to have to do that.

So they would say, you know, this is Corbin. There was this word being Corbin. It means dedicated to God. And once you dedicated something to God, you no longer could give it to your parents. So if you wanted to take all the money or if there was a widow or your mom had become a widow and let's say you didn't get along, you could just say her house, all this, it is going to be my everything. This is Corbin. And she would be out on the streets.

And so when widows back in the day, this is why having children was a big deal to women, because there was a societal net where we took care of each other. It was based on the individual generosity that we see with this woman. This woman is practicing a generosity that was not practiced by her. The other thing with the throwing the whole large amounts of money in is most of those people were going to get that money back because they were in charge of the coffers and the counting.

So there was a very good chance. And not only did all the money that they got, they took in an unjust way as the church through manipulation. I mean, this is like, this is why Jesus says you'll be punished most severely. This is so ugly. They would take their money and then they would show up and they would just have piles of it. And they would throw it in there and have, ding, ding, jang, jang. And this is stolen money.

And then at the end, they would go back and they would take the money back out and put it back into their pockets so they could do it again. There's a word for that. I can't say it, but it's not great. She was a victim of religion. And there have been many people that have been victims of religion. And whether it be sexuality, whether it be guilt, whether it be manipulation, the whole deal. And the problem is, is because people are involved in religion.

And as long as people are involved in religion, you are going to have some of the highest highs and some of the lowest lows. The other thing is she was a victim of the state. The Romans weren't much better. The Romans had a thing that we talk about also in Mark 12. Because Jesus talks about this in Mark 12. And it says, and when he's asked, is it right? They were trying to catch him. Is it right to pay taxes to Rome?

There was these people like, because they had two governmental systems that were going on. There was a Jewish religious system. And then there was also Rome. And they took taxes through a tithe, basically. But they had their own courts and their own things. You'll see this with Jesus. He's in a Jewish court. And then he's before Pilate. And that just doesn't work, right? Having two political systems within one another.

But they would ask about this thing called the tribute tax. And the tribute tax was completely unjust. Because the Romans would come in and take over a society. They would come over. They would take over the society. And then after they took the society over, they would charge a tribute tax that was not charged to Roman citizens. It was only charged to the people that they had taken over. Now, what a slap in the face is that?

So they come to Jesus and say, should we pay this tax? And Jesus has this great answer. And they said they ask him no more questions after that. He said, you know, give to Caesar what is Caesar. And give to God what is God's. Because once again, God is the territory of the heart. This is a woman who was victimized by both the church and the state. What I think is interesting is when societies leave their spiritual roots, even in China.

When they leave their spiritual roots. There are different spiritual roots around us. But they left their spiritual roots throughout the early 1900s. They move towards a governmental system that will fill the void for those spiritual roots. And so what you often see is that politics becomes the religion of secularism. And it begins to do things like legislate morality. It begins to do the same thing that the church did when it had power in Spain with the Spanish Inquisitions.

And we see people that have a religious fervor. And you see it today. You see this religious fervor for a governmental system that is kind of doing the things that the church, in many ways, is called to do. Not realizing that democide, which is governments that result of people dying from governments, is the largest form of murder and atrocities. More people have died through democide than any other reason in human history.

Governments have killed more people than any other reason in human histories. We need to be careful when we have an adherence to tyrannical leadership. Whether it be in the church or whether it be in the government. Now, the question is, and we're going to talk more and more about this woman, because once again, I know that's macro. So I'm talking macro. But I really want to keep this micro. The lady who drives past your house and her tires out.

The person that you pass on the street. What are you going to do on an individual level? Because what we see is that the answer to these problems, as you'll see in the Levitical system as well, is individuals having massive hearts, living on a counterintuitive way of being, away from their flesh, and caring for one another. If individuals cared for one another, then it would change the world. And the thing is, is we want to, we want to sell our responsibility to churches to do it for us, or to governments to do it for us, so that we don't have to do it ourselves.

You know, it's much easier for me at the moment to write a check than to actually go give my time. And this is one of the, I'm just tugging at war with God, you know, on this one. I want to be someone who has a spirituality that matters, that God stops and says, hey guys, hey guys, come here, look at that. That over there. That's what I care about. And so once again, those are macro thoughts. But we have to understand that this was a woman who was being victimized.

And in the midst of that, she had a second coin generosity. We're going to talk about, because I'm going to ask you at the beginning, remember, why the second coin? It's a great question. One of the questions, you know, the things is, is I was challenged this week, one more macro thought before we finish then on the micro. I was challenged with, hey, if you were really Christian, wouldn't you just empty this building on Sundays and have, and fill it full of refugees?

Wouldn't, like, what's the point of just getting a bunch of people together so that they can drink coffee, listen to the Bible, sing some cool songs? And if we really want to do something, we can have this radical movement. And I thought about that for, actually I spent 24 hours thinking about that. One of the answers I came up with is, one, there's a difference between a charity, which we need, Father Joe's, you know, all these different charities.

There's a difference between a charity and a non-profit religious organization that has a different purpose, but has wings, to speak, that do those charitable things. Read this week, Pastor Harry and I were listening to a podcast where it said, people who go to church are one in, are five times less likely to commit suicide on a weekly basis. The people, let me say that again, people who go to church on a weekly basis are five times less likely to commit suicide.

I had someone stop by the office with Chris and I this week and say that they were trying church because they were deciding that they don't want to commit suicide and they're going to start coming to church because they've been alone. What we do here as a religious non-profit has some different things that I think are highly important. Bryce, our pastor back there, lives in the suicide capital of America. That is Livingston, Montana.

And I, all of a sudden, I was swinging wildly back and forth because the next day after I had this conversation with my friend about, hey, why don't you do that, I sat with this guy in charge of the refugee collective and I'm like, maybe I'm on the wrong path. Maybe I should change it. But then the Lord suddenly brought me back and he goes, no, there are things that you are doing and if every individual in the group that you lead is inspired to live a radical, extravagant, silent generosity, you'll change the world.

It says two things, you know, and I would ask the same question, you know, why not just get rid of the government? You could ask all these same questions and there's people that want to do that. Two quick macros and then we're going to go to that micro. Proverbs 28, two says, when a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order. And look, governments are, governments, when done right, can be amazing.

I don't want to tear the government down. The same thing with the church, Hebrews 10, 24 and 25. It says, let us consider how we are to spur one another onto love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more you see the day approaching. Hebrews 10, 24 through 25 is why we do what we do here on Sunday morning. It says, and let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds.

Let us consider that. Let us get, how am I going to inspire, you know, intimate micro generosity within you? How do we do that? Well, one of the ways to do it is we gather together, we read the scripture, we encourage one another, we do drink our coffee, we do our things, but it has to have something beyond these pews. It has to challenge you out, and hopefully you are being challenged right now with second coin generosity, which again, I am ceding the ground to get to that point because I can't wait.

Now, the thing is, is it says, do not give up meeting. The church figured in Paul's time that Jesus was coming back like in a week. Matter of fact, Paul, you know, one of the reasons he said don't get married is because, and he was wrong on this, he said don't get married is because they thought Jesus was coming back right away. And so what did the church in Jerusalem do? They did this radical thing that we see people say in Acts 2, and the church sold all their possessions, they lived in a commune, which they did, kind of big kibbutz.

They lived in a commune, and it says, and the Lord added to their numbers every day. What it doesn't say is this is the way you should do it. Or, and that was amazing. You know, God can work within any system if the hearts are dedicated to him. But that system that gave everything away actually impoverished and destroyed the Jerusalem church. It would have been better probably if they would have lived according to the Levitical 25 through 28 like they had been commanded to do, because when they did that way, without the necessity of having to give offerings, listen to last week's talk about that, but they got to a point where they were so impoverished that Paul had to go take a tour of the entire, of Asia Minor, and then he had to go to the poorest of the poor, which were in Macedonia.

They'd had a massive earthquake. They actually gave the most. The poor gave the most, and they gave so that Jerusalem could survive. The church in Jerusalem completely collapsed. They lost all social equity. They no longer owned property so they could have businesses where they shared the love of God through their businesses. They no longer had property. They had, they had, gave all their money away. They got to the point where because they had lived in this communal system where they gave everything away, without, I believe, in a lot of ways, proper stewardship, they actually became dependent on everyone else and lost everything.

Once again, the system, I encourage you to read, I had never seen it before, but the Levitical restrained governmental system in Leviticus 25 through 28 is actually amazing. They actually cancel debts every 50 years. There is some canceling of debts every seven years. There is a social welfare program of caring for others and the responsibility of caring for others. Everyone has to work unless you can't work. The only way you get something from the church treasury is if you can't work, you can't just be lazy.

This is what Paul is saying here. They had just given up their jobs. They're like, let's live in this massive kibbutz. Let's change everything. And so those are just two things on the mackerel. So what's the answer? Not getting rid of the church, not getting rid of government. What's the answer? I said it before, the widow in this story lives and shows the power of individual generosities. These are things that impress Jesus.

In the notes, you'll see something about the way this woman gave, inspired Christ attention. It was a posture of the heart and that God measures our sacrifice more by our hearts intangibles rather than amounts. I'll tell you who my favorite basketball players are. Okay. I'm a Lakers fan. My favorite, what? What are you talking about? What do you, who do you like? 17 championships. Who do you like? Okay. I'm just playing.

You did, did you sing for them? Okay. I'm getting off traffic. Nonetheless, raise your hand if you know who Mark Madsen is. Yeah. Four of you. Okay. Mark Madsen, one of my favorite players, not known, but he has my game, all hustle. Okay. All hustle, all heart, because I don't have the DNA to be a great basketball player. Tyronn Lue, one of my favorite players because all hustle, all heart. He locked down Allen Iverson in the 2001 championship.

You guys don't care about this, do you? Ron Artest, you know, not Ron Artest, sorry, Ron Harper, excuse me, Ron Artest went into the crowd and like beat people up. Ron Harper. All, the reason I'm bringing these people up is because their amount of sacrifice so that others could win was, is, is unmeasured. The Lakers never would have had those championships without players and this is true for all team sports. This is why I'm not a golfer.

This is why I'm into team sports because there is a place where somebody has to give and sacrifice so that somebody else can score and that you can ultimately win. This is this woman and this could be you. Unbridled generosity. I'm not saying that you give everything away. You sell all your things. That might impoverish you. But is there a second coin and let's ask these two questions. First question is this. Why would God require the poor to give?

It's a great question. Came to me this week. Why is God requiring? Because there was a requirement before Jesus died on the cross. Because when Jesus died there's no longer a requirement to tithe. You don't have to tithe anymore. Jesus paid your debt. There's no reason you have to tithe. Now you can tithe because you want to and that's what God wanted to. You can give because you want to. I can actually do it from a free will offering.

You can listen to last week. But why would God allow? Why would he have them have skin in the game? Nothing that is worth anything is free. And there is nothing God offers you that won't cost you something. I said two weeks ago that the devil will always offer you the fruit up front. Everything's free. Pay me later. It's exactly opposite with Jesus and with God. Why would you require the poor to give? Well first of all it gives them dignity to allow someone to work.

You know one thing I will say about Latinos. I have never I've lived in San Diego 50 years. And this is not hyperbole. I have never seen a Latino on a corner asking for something for free. I have never seen a Latino person stand there and say give me money. Not saying that they couldn't that they shouldn't. I've seen many say give me a job. I don't know if you live in California but the willingness to work. I don't know I don't live in the culture I don't know the culture that well I know it well enough because I'm a San Diegan and we're right next to it but what I have found is that there's this willingness and I personally have just never seen a Mexican person in America now I've seen it in Mexico but in America asking for something free.

Why? Because there is a dignity and we have my dad helped five of our of our cooks and waiters at our restaurants become citizens. One was our Miguel was a chef he was with us he was our chef for 50 years he came across the border when he was 18 my dad helped him get his citizenship and he stayed on and just retired when our restaurants closed not long ago. We helped him get his citizenship that was something I grew up around but there was every person that worked with us in our restaurants and it's full of Latino you go to England it's mostly Slavic whites who are doing all the cleaning I don't know if you know that it's people from Poland it's people from Czechoslovakia and the whole thing but there's this massive dignity why does God say that the poor would give because God wants to give human there's human dignity about having skin in the game somebody sent me the 12th step the 12th step from AA it says you pass this on but it basically said so that others can go help others but not rescue them you can rescue somebody you should probably have to rescue somebody once maybe twice maybe a third time but you don't want to rescue you want to empower and give people the empowerment so God he has people giving he requires the poor to give be wary of anything that just says whether you're rich or you're poor we'll just give you something and there's nothing in the game you don't have to put anything in we'll just give it to you there is no human dignity in that now on occasion people need to be rescued I heard someone say in a podcast recently that how do you pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no bootstraps that changed my thinking I thought you know you're right you're right there has to be but there has to be a way for people to be empowered and hopefully the church does that and the refugee collaborative that we're a part of wants to share more about that the second is their spiritual equity the cool thing about spiritual equity is God doesn't measure on how much you give because if he measured upon how much you could give then the richest people could be the most faithful there's no spiritual equity requiring or allowing the poor to give back to the society even in the smallest means that is based upon a measure of the heart allows the people with the least to become the greatest you see this is the upside down nature of the gospel where Jesus does not measure on the things that the world measures upon and so why I asked myself this week God would you require this woman to give and God said to me through the scriptures one it gives them human dignity it gives them worth and the more worth they have the more they will strive to the next level of worth and knowledge of who God is and who they are and next it allows the playing field to be level it is a completely equitable system now my second question and my last question in the final two minutes why did the widow give two coins that's interesting why two coins do you think she got any more street cred with the Pharisees that were there everyone's watching right so that was a big deal they all stand there and with their high hats and I've seen the hats and they stand there and they would watch as you put it in it was compulsion had to give it in they would watch as you do it do you think she got any more street cred because you know when the people were dumping the money in which they were going to get back later probably the people were like yes yes yes she comes in and she puts one coin in and Jesus said the coins were only worth a couple cents but then she puts the second so the first one goes tink and then do you think when she put the second one there they're like haha yeah that's woo that's really changed her opinion on what she was giving not at all so why why did she give two coins Jesus said that she gave everything he knew something that we didn't know she gave away every single thing she could have just given one and kept one for herself right she wouldn't have gotten any more street cred it wouldn't have given her any more it wouldn't have done anything for her sociologically which what was happening here was sociological more than it was spiritual more than it was theological it was sociological it wouldn't have given her any more but yet she still gave it you see this is the radical thing about this woman because she could have given the one she could have fulfilled what she needed to do before the law because she was giving 50% of her wealth okay she only had two coins she was giving 50% she quintupled the gift with one coin right she took it ten times with a second coin which was everything she had to live on but she said boom either she was just like throwing herself completely to God but she understood something that we didn't but here's the deal that gift the first thing was generous the first gift that we give is generous but I believe that true generosity and someone push back you might push back on this I believe that true generosity comes when you feel it I believe that any true generosity has a sacrifice to it you actually feel it that's when generosity I think actually meets its true definition you can be generous and give and you give ten dollars to the fire department up there and it's generous and God loves that but there's a level of generosity where you feel it and it begged me to ask the question this week how much do I have to give to feel it I thought how much would I have to give to feel it now that is a much different question I don't know I think I know and maybe it's wise to do that and just go give all that away and maybe it's I don't know I'm still wrestling with it but I guess the question as we land is this that second coin was the sacrificial coin they were both sacrificial but one was she had to give it but it was 50% the second coin other people give out of their abundance she gave out of her poverty when you're giving out of your poverty when you miss something because I think I was talking to somebody this week I could give my percentage that I give and do very generous things the United States is the most generous country in the world giving 2.3% per person which is very low but nonetheless higher than others I could give the required amount of 10% and still go to the best steakhouse in San Diego tonight that's just the facts most of us could it would hurt it would cost you a couple hundred bucks to do it but most people could what does it cost what is that second coin to you that's my question to you as we end this and as we look at things like the Refugee Collaborative as a church and as we look about the 10% that we give to missions I don't know I'm in the midst of this conversation this is a cathartic conversation it took 15 miles of walking to get to this place it might take another 500 I would walk another 500 to get to the answer but I tell you what I hope I inspired generosity and I want to inspire you to think about the second coin what's your second coin and what would it cost to live generosity like the second coin amen let's stand Chris lead us in a song of worship as we worship the Lord I will say one thing before Chris starts I'm listening to a trekking podcast right now because I'm going to be walking through Scotland this summer I'm going to trek through Scotland for a couple weeks this summer with a close friend of mine and it said one of the things you have when you're on the trail is these epiphanies you just get more epiphanies and we live in a world that's so fast you don't have epiphanies you don't have time for epiphanies I'm noticing as I'm walking all of a sudden without my phone I'm getting these different epiphanies and one of the things it said is when you get an epiphany as soon as you get home so you don't hit like this post trail blues is step into the epiphanies if you decided you wanted to learn Chinese or Japanese plan the class I say if God has spoken to your heart about doing something that is generous in the next 24 hours you know let's say you just know do it don't let 24 hours go by because generosity goes and then all of a sudden I rationalize myself back into whatever I want to inspire you to if you had an epiphany today act upon it do it that's how spiritual growth comes Chris leaders scripture says that one day we'll stand before God and us and our individual decisions we made will be there with us to accompany us no one's going to be else with you in that moment God will look upon what we have done there's lots of scriptures that talk about what that will be like I want to just encourage everyone to if you would I want to give you a moment of decision if you just it makes it easier for people if you close your eyes and bow your heads it just makes it easier for people to express just for a moment and if you want to give more territory of your heart whatever that looks like whether it's in generosity maybe it's in your language we're going to talk about generosity of speech time but you just want to give more of your heart or for the first time make a step in the direction of God or the first time in a long time just say this touched me I want a God I want bigger heart raise your hand that's you yeah yeah yeah yeah me too I want that too and I want to lead a people of burning hearts with that if you feel comfortable extend your hands and if it's for the first time say Jesus I just want to follow you he'll figure it out there's no perfect prayer to follow just say Jesus I want to follow you go tell me after with the service and I'll help you get on track but Lord Jesus would you bless these people we want to be a church of burning hearts when people look at us God they'll be fascinated by the individual generosity of your people people who are generous with their smiles with their approval of others like my daughter said I spend my life watching other people online and then criticizing and judging them that's not a way to live so Jesus a generosity Lord God that care more about a sunset and a conversation with a friend than 10,000 viral clicks on a post that care more about you that care more about your goals and your heart and the refugee and others and our family and our parents and our friends so I bless you now with the power of God for joy that comes with it and that you would just be overwhelmed by the joy that comes with knowing God and knowing Jesus just rest your joy on people Lord Jesus and just ask him for his joy if you haven't had it ask for his joy ask for more of his heart that fire would burn in this place Lord Jesus not living for goals for this church but for our values and so Jesus let us love you more God and we bless you now and I send you out now as an army of God's consolation as an army of God's generosity to make a change in the world in any way you can in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen