Grapevine Ministries
Messages from the bible to uplift and encourage those that need a word from the Lord, to strengthen their faith. Ps Phillip Barker is an itinerant pastor in Perth, Western Australia.
Grapevine Ministries
Mark 12:41-44 Faith in Action: Generosity and Sacrifice
What if true generosity isn't measured by the amount you give but by the sacrifice behind it? Join us as we explore the story of the poor widow in Mark 12:41-44, who gave everything she had, contrasting her with the wealthy donors of her time. We dive into the deeper themes of sacrificial generosity through the lens of the temple's structure and historical context. We also draw inspiring parallels with Mary of Bethany's act of anointing Jesus with expensive perfume, showcasing the profound faith and love that drive such selfless actions.
Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.
Well, for some reason this is not going to work. So what I'm going to try and do is I'm going to try and do both things. So in Mark 12, jesus observed a poor widow who put two coins that were only worth right a fraction of a penny into the temple treasury. We learned that she gave all she had, her entire life savings. Generosity to God is measured not by the amount but by the sacrifice. Now, first I've got to give you a little bit of a how shall we say, put this in context? Right, the temple is broken into several sections. The first section is only for Gentiles to come into, the next one is, you know, the other courtyard is for the Jewish women, and then the next one is for the Jewish men, and then so forth, and such as the Jewish priests and those that go into the Holy is the Holiest priests and those that go unto the holiest of holiest. So this account is in Mark 12, 41 to 44, as we continue to go through the book of Mark. It takes place in the courtyard of the women, which was located 13 treasury boxes or coffers. The first seven were designated only for the giving of tithes or just sowing into the ministry back in those days. But there were six boxes that were especially for free will offering. Now the poor widow says this in Mark 12, to 44 now Jesus sat opposite the Treasury and saw how the people put money into the Treasury and how many who were rich.
Speaker 1:They just put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw just two mites, which is a quadrant. Now in our currency that would be equivalent to, say, two cents. But a lot of people are as old as I am, so therefore they're not going to know what a two cent piece is. But the Australian currency well, the Americans still have a penny or one cent piece, but Australian currency is. You used to have one cent, you used to have two cent, then you had a five, then you had a 10, then you had had a 20 and then you went to a 50. And then we used to have a one dollar note which was brown and a two dollar note which was green, and now that's been done away. The ones and the twos are now coins and the ones are. Two cent pieces are now gone. So the lowest denominator for us is five cents.
Speaker 1:But if you base this around, you know like a person's income or something. She was basically giving everything that she actually had. Everything that she gave, you know, poverty. Put in all that, she had her whole livelihood. This woman was generous. The two coins may have only been worth a fraction of a penny, but she gave 100% of her finances.
Speaker 1:I want you all to just imagine for a moment. Just look at this from modern day perspective. And it doesn't matter whether you're actually on government wages or whether you work for yourself or whether you're on a salary or whatever. But if you took all of your money that you had, you liquidated everything stocks, bonds, sold your house, your savings, everything and then you decided that you would just give that one lump sum to God to grow the kingdom of God, how hard would that be for you and I'm just talking anybody generally, including myself. You work so hard to make a living for yourself and your family and then, all of a sudden, you get this urgency in your heart that you need to give your entire financial ability to the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1:Now I don't want to diminish in any way the woman's generosity, but to God, generosity is not measured by the amount but by the sacrifice. Generosity is not measured by the amount but by the sacrifice. God gets more glory from the poor person who gives little but sacrifices much, than the wealthy person who gives much and sacrifices little. Some of the most generous people in the Bible are women. Now, I'm not trying to be sexist in any way, but apart from let me see, apart from the three wise men I mean they gave their gold, frankincense and myrrh but throughout the Bible you see that women are the ones that are giving over and above.
Speaker 1:Now, in Mark 14, 1 to 9, we read the account of Mary of Bethany, who anointed Jesus with an expensive perfume that was worth the equivalent of a year's salary equivalent of a year's salary. Now. So that means now, if you go back to. There's other references in relation to this, but the thing is like, you know, a denary was normally a day's wages, so you work six, rest on seven, so you can earn seven denaries a week. Okay, that's 28 a month. Okay, that's 240, and about 260 denarii a year, right. So let's just convert that to dollars and say that it's two hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year, and you give the whole lot to the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1:So in 2 Corinthians 8, 7, it says but just as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in the complete earnestness and in your love for us. See that you also excel in grace and giving. The woman gave at great cost. The woman was not required to give. According to the Mosaic law, the woman could have only given one of the two coins and her offering would have been seen as being still very, very generous at that point. But the woman gave everything she had out of a deep love for God, and she trusted him to provide for her present and future needs. Now, that is faith.
Speaker 1:What does it really cost us to be a follower of Jesus? What do we really sacrifice to follow him? I don't mean just financially. I'm talking about in practical ways as well. Let me put this in perspective here. So many people give their heart to the Lord and they want to thank God for looking after them and getting them through their life. They want to give back.
Speaker 1:Now, this is not a sermon about tithing and offering or giving. This is just an understanding of your heart, commitment to the kingdom of God. And some people can't or they're not willing to give financially. But they give of their time, they give of their skills. And just think about this If you want to invest in something, invest in Christ. The cost of something that involves certain sacrifices. These are costs and certain sacrifices you make for a career, a marriage concerning your children, friendship. Anything you invest in costs you something. It's about providing yourself to God or earning something with God, or paying penance or indulgence, or climbing the holy stairs of Rome on your knees Every time you want to do something for the kingdom of God and just say hypothetically I was talking about tithes and offerings right, tithes and offerings is not necessarily financial.
Speaker 1:Christianity is a grace-based relationship with Jesus, who paid the price for all of us on the cross, and he freely offers us the gift of salvation and we receive by faith in what Jesus did, which takes the burden off of us in regards to performance. Because if you look at it from a performance-based aspect, because if you look at it from a performance-based aspect, what you're really doing is still being under the Mosaic law. You're still under the law and trying to achieve things to make sure that you're worthy of your salvation. Living a life for Jesus, as a follower of Jesus, will cost us something when we understand Lordship. This woman saw God as Lord and she trusted God with her life and with her very survival. She trusted God with everything, and this is how we need to see Jesus. He is Lord. He's not just a saviour. He didn't just come to save us from our sins. He came to be Lord of our lives. Part of following Jesus is surrendering to his lordship. And when to his lordship and when we understand lordship, then we understand that everything that we have he owns. He is master and Lord of all. There is a managing responsibility that we have for the ownership of God. We will make certain sacrifices in this regard, based when we honor him and when we serve him. We will sacrifice for him out of what he has entrusted to us, and this is what we've got to maintain here. We've got to make sure that materialistic things that we have, they're a gift and they're given from God and practically, as we serve with the time that he's given us and the skills that he has given us, we are honoring that.
Speaker 1:Let's go to another scripture Luke 2,8-10. Now there were, in the same country, shepherds living out in the field keeping watch over the flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone upon them and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them Do not be afraid, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people, for there is born to you this day, in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Living a life for Jesus, as followers of Jesus, will cost us something when we understand citizenship Philippians 320 puts it this way for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the saviour of the Lord, jesus Christ. I'll put it this way if our citizenship is in heaven and that our homeland that is to come, but for now we live our lives on the earth, and living our lives on the earth means that our beliefs and our values will sometimes conflict with the word and the world that we don't belong to See. We live in this world, but we're not of it.
Speaker 1:Living for Jesus might cost you little things like friendship, and it's always been this way. It might not necessarily seem that it is to you, but what you've got to understand is that our sacrifice that we made belongs to Christ, belongs to Christ. It might even rise to the level of costing you your job, or it might make the decisions you know, made in the early churches, which was made up entirely of believing Jews, and the people were rejected by members of their family and by their community to the point where they were no longer able to provide for themselves, so they shared what they had with other believers. This isn't an endorsement of community living. It's just that what it is. We need to understand. It might come to this trend sooner or later. Maybe the kind of costs and sacrifice that might be required are even more severe than just losing your job. Maybe it's even losing your life.
Speaker 1:There have been plenty of people around the world who have lost their lives for their faith in Jesus. Ten out of twelve disciples were martyred, tortured and killed because of their faith. All through the centuries, men and women have given their lives as the ultimate sacrifice for their faith. The ultimate sacrifice for their faith. Faith isn't compatible with some of the values of the company that you work for, the people that you work with, and you can't, in good conscience, keep working there. You need to balance it up, really, the difference between what you feel is appropriate for you in believing in Christ and compromising your principles just by where you work or the people that you associate with. I can honestly say now that since I left the Department of Correctional Services that I worked for, I don't associate with any of those people anymore, and some of them were very close, good friends, even in the military, good friends even in the military. But I found that having fellowship in a congregation and having fellowship outside the church with others that have the same principles as I do, it's a safer environment. And iron sharpens iron.
Speaker 1:Matthew 5, 11 through to 12 says this Bless they you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely. For my sake, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Let's go a little bit deeper into this. Acts 2, 44 to 45. Now, all who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and their goods and divided them among all as anyone had a need these type of accounts of Christians. They were killed for their faith. I'll just give you a few names and you can look them up in your own time. What have we got? We got William Tydale died in 1536. Dietrich Bonhoeffer died in 1945. Jim Elliot died in 1956. Rachel Scott died in 1999 and the 21 Egyptian Copsick Christian men in 2015.
Speaker 1:Now you notice that you thought I was going to give you great men and women of the Bible back in the early days of the church, but as recent as 2015, christians have been given their life for the kingdom of God. Hebrews 11.37 says this they were stoned, they were swown in two, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword. If you didn't find some kind of cost for following Jesus, then maybe you're not being totally invested in him. Living for Jesus may cost us something by dying, but it may not come to that. But the thing is I'm just saying that's. The ultimate sacrifice is when someone gives their life for the kingdom of God. Most people these days sacrifice their time, their skills, their effort and also their finances, because God doesn't need your money but the kingdom of God to be able to be spread further and wider and touch more people and more people to do the sort of thing that I'm doing a podcast. The more people we can reach, the quicker we will see the return of Christ.
Speaker 1:Living for Jesus has to cost us something, but dying may not necessarily be it. Count the cost. Live your life for the glory of God, honour him, serve him and at all times, yes, even sacrifice in different ways for him. And let that be an example for everybody. Be an example of what it means to be generous and what it means to count the cost of following Jesus. He is no fool who gives that cannot keep to gain which he cannot lose. That was Jim Elliot. The main aspect of this is it says judge not yet ye, be judged.
Speaker 1:But the the principle behind these scriptures and what I'm talking about goes right back to that woman who loved the Lord so much that she gave everything that she had. Now I'm not telling you to do that, it's not my place, you know. I just follow the scriptures and what they say, pressed down, shaking together, running over, says man will give you your bosom as much as you give into the kingdom of God. God will open up the floodgates of heaven, pour out blessings upon you, but there's not room enough to contain it in the storehouse. Time and time I hear about or read about Christians that have been prepared to make a massive sacrifice to honour God, and in doing that they have been rewarded to a level that you cannot measure. God wants what's in your heart. What is your heart telling him today? What is your heart saying to yourself? Do you believe that you have been generous? Do you believe that you have been generous? Or do you believe that maybe you believe that you've been generous and what you've been doing is you've been, you know, tithing and giving into the ministry, but making sure everybody around here knows what you're doing? Or is it that you do it in secret so only the Lord sees what you're doing? And I mean, I've been there myself.
Speaker 1:Now. I've always been a person who's been on a salary or wage nothing very spectacular, I'll tell you that right now. But the thing that got me is that I've been sitting in church and someone's been speaking from the pulpit and they go oh, we're going to take up a love offering for this particular person right now. No names, no pact, real. But I've. I've just got this yearning to give everything that I've got in my wallet.
Speaker 1:Now, to clarify things for you, young people, all you carry around is plastic or your watch or your phone, but me I'm old school I feel that I'm poor and I haven't got any money if I don't have cash in my wallet. So I'm always telling my wife you know, let me draw some money out of the bank and put it in my wallet. Now it may sit there for a month and I never touch it, I never use it. But the thing is, eventually I do and then I replace it. But this particular day I had no idea what was in my wallet and I just felt the Lord was telling me this person needed this for their ministry and the it's clear. As I'm talking now, the Lord said give them the contents of your wallet. And so I did. But I had a little sneak peek and, trust me, it was in the natural. My flesh was groaning when I took out this amount of money and emptied my wallet and gave it into the offering basket. But I had peace in my heart about it.
Speaker 1:This widow had peace in her heart because she was on her own Back in those days. There was nobody to look after her. She had to fend for herself. But she was on her own back in those days. There was nobody to look after her. She had to fend for herself, but she was trusting God. Are you going to trust God today? Are you going to look at your current circumstances and see whether are you doing enough for the kingdom of God now I'm doing a podcast, so it's not like I'm doing and see whether are you doing enough for the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1:Now you know I'm doing a podcast, so it's not like I'm doing a. You know an altar call or a you know a pitch for tithing, because I haven't got any tithing buckets to do things or anything like that. But I'm just saying for you, for wherever you get fed is where you sow your funds or your hours or your time or your skills. Sometimes the church is waiting for you to ask. And if you go up to one of the associate pastors or one of the leaders in the church and you just say, hey, look, I'm a qualified mechanic, is there anything that I can do with my skills to help the church? And it just so happens that they've got a bus that's broken down and they can't afford to fix it, and then all of a sudden you are sowing into the ministry by fixing that bus for them and then it enables them to go out and bring others into the kingdom of God. You see the point that I'm making here. It's not always about your finances. It's not always about you have to give up something that really, really pains you to do that, it's only if you feel convicted to do that.
Speaker 1:But like I was reading with that scripture, jesus was making a point where he was saying there and I'll read it again, I'll just read it again. Just give me. I want to read this in the Amplified Now. Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury, and many who were rich and had plenty, they gave plentiful. Then one poor widow came and threw in just two mites. Her entire income was just placed into the offering basket. So he called to his disciples, to himself, and he said to them Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put more money than all of those who have given to the treasury, all of those who have given to the treasury, for they all put in out of their abundance, but she gave out of her poverty. In all that that she had, her whole livelihood was given to the Lord. When you look at it from that perspective, you think, wow, okay, this woman was not required to give that according to the Mosaic law. And, like I said before, there was all of these boxes in there for giving, but the first lot of them was purely and simply for your normal offerings, right, and then after that, the remaining six were for you to give over and above.
Speaker 1:If you chose to do that and this is the thing you've got to be aware of is that if you go back to 2 Corinthians, 8, 7, it says but just as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in the complete earnestness and in your love for us. Now, when you read that, it's already telling you that you're a good Christian and you're doing the right thing and you are supporting the ministry, you're supporting the church and you're giving of your time, all of these things that you are doing. But then it says see that you also excel in this grace of giving. Sometimes people are very good at certain fundamental aspects of the scriptures and they will be obedient to those scriptures, but most times and I'm saying most times there are christians that that they actually have a stumbling block with one or more of those principles in the kingdom of God, and it could be in relation to finances, could be in relation to healing, could be in relation to forgiveness, it could be in relation to redemption, to redemption. It could be that you find that you're happy to come to church, be a Christian, and then the rest of the time you're spending in the world. I hope this helps you in some way, but I don't want this in any way to be any form of condemnation. I want you to know that this is more prevalent, I think.
Speaker 1:2 Corinthians 8, 7. But because we're going through the book of Mark at the moment, I thought I would use the widow's two mites as an example. But in hindsight I would say 2 corinthians 8 7 is a better statement of faith for you, based on most christians in the world today. So, but just as you excel in everything in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in the complete earnestness and in your love for us, see that you also excel in the grace of giving NIV. I hope this helped you today and let's say God bless you all and we'll talk to you soon. Okay, bye for now.
