The Last Week: Giving in an Inverted Kingdom

The scripture reading this morning comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapters 20 and 21.

Luke 20 · chapter mention

Please follow in your bulletin.

Now there came to him some of the Sadducees who say that there is no resurrection,

and they questioned him saying,

Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife, and he is childless,

his brother should marry his wife and raise up children to his brother.

Now there were seven brothers, and the first one took a wife and died childless,

and the second and the third married her,

and in the same way all seven died, leaving no children.

Finally, the woman died also.

In the resurrection, therefore, which one's wife will she be?

For all seven had married her.

Jesus said to them,

The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.

With those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead,

neither marry nor are given in marriage.

For they cannot die even, they cannot even die anymore because they are like angels or sons of God,

being sons of the resurrection.

With that, the dead are raised.

Even Moses showed in the passage about the burning bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham,

the God of Isaac,

the God of Jacob.

Now he is not the God of the dead, but the living.

For all live to him.

Some of the scribes answered and said,

Teacher, you have spoken well.

For they did not have courage to question him any longer about anything.

Then he said to them,

How is it that they say that Christ is David's son?

For David himself says in the book of Psalms,

The Lord said to my Lord,

Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

Therefore, David calls him Lord.

And how is it he is his son?

And while all the people were listening,

He said to the disciples,

Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes

and love respectful greetings in the marketplaces,

and chief seats in the synagogues,

and places of honor at banquets,

who devour widows' houses.

And for appearances' sake, offer long prayers.

These will receive greater condemnation.

And he looked up,

and he saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury.

And he saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins.

And he said,

Truly, I say to you,

This poor widow put in more than all of them,

for they all put out of their surplus,

put into the offering,

but she, out of her poverty,

put in all that she had to live on.

This is God's word.

We've been in a journey in the Gospel of Luke.

If you've been with us for three years,

you've seen us go through 20 chapters up until this point,

not all at once, just a little at a time.

And you would see that there are certain themes

that Christ continues to teach on

and talk about through the passage.

One of the biggest themes that we've been talking about

is the kingdom of God.

It's a theme that's threaded through the whole Gospel of Luke.

It's this theme that he's trying to tell us

or show us as Christ teaches

that there's a big difference between our kingdom

that we live in now,

the things that we value,

the things that we grab onto,

the things that we cling,

the things that we deem important

in God's kingdom.

And today, he comes to

probably the most difficult lesson

for any of us to learn.

It's the lesson that often and continually drags us away

from God's kingdom.

It's the lesson of our money.

And what he basically is going to say is,

if you don't want your stuff

to have hold of you,

if you don't want to be controlled by your finances,

if you don't want to be controlled by your money,

if you don't want to be controlled by your financial appetite,

you need to give it away.

Because the only way you can break a hold of something

is by releasing it.

And so what I thought we'd do

is we'd try a little exercise today in giving away.

What I would like for you to do is take out your wallet.

Come on.

Hold it up.

It's not like your Bible.

This is my Bible.

This is my wallet.

This is your wallet.

You know, Christ is going to say today

that so much trouble and so much difficulty

comes from this object that we have right here.

For some of us, it represents power.

For some of us, it represents security.

For some of us, it represents popularity and wealth

and the ability to have freedom

and to do whatever we want.

And he says to us that this little object here

and what it represents

draws us away from the kingdom of God

more than anything else.

And to be broken from the power of this little object,

we need to give it away.

So what I want you to do

is I want you just to hand the wallet

to the person next to you.

Go ahead, give to them.

Here, I'll give mine to my wife

or I'll give mine to Charles.

I don't often give my wallet to my wife,

but this is a step of faith, right?

Now we're going to do something

we've never done before.

We're going to take an offering.

So what I'm going to ask the offering stewards

to come forward

and I want you to open that wallet up deep, right?

And just grab in there

and just give till it hurts, right?

So, no.

I'm teasing.

Jesus has been teaching about the kingdom of God.

He's been showing us that

His kingdom is very different than ours.

He's come to Jerusalem.

You can give the wallet back.

I know some of you are weirding out

and freaking out over it,

so go ahead and give it back.

He's come to Jerusalem.

We've heard this

because His whole life

has been focused towards Jerusalem.

And He's coming in.

He's teaching the kingdom of God.

He's being followed by maybe 10,000 people.

Now it's the Sabbath.

It's the Passover.

It's the entrance into the Passover.

So Jerusalem,

which is usually about 25 or 30,000 people,

is now 2 million people.

2 million people are crowded into a space

that only 25,000 should be living in.

So it's amazing.

It's noisy.

It's dirty.

It's out of control.

And Jesus comes up the Temple Mount

and He walks in

and He chases out the money chasers

and He basically takes over the teaching

within the Temple of God.

And as He's doing this,

He is confronted by the religious leaders of His time.

They have an idea

of what the kingdom of God should be like

and so they're holding it

and they're trying to transpose it

over what the kingdom of God should be like

and it's just not working.

The first group that comes in

is the Pharisees or the scribes.

They're the conservatives.

They would believe in the sovereignty of God.

They would believe in God's word.

They would believe in the Torah.

They took the Ten Commandments

and they wrote it out to 635 other commandments.

I mean, they believe in tradition.

They believe in teaching well.

I mean, that is all about them.

And as they hear Jesus teach,

there is a struggle in their kingdom

and that struggle is authority and control.

And they start asking Jesus

some authority and control questions.

And Jesus has to remind them

that their kingdom is not God's kingdom.

And the things in God's kingdom work differently.

He goes on and he teaches them

about the parable of the vineyard

and the question of the parable of the vineyard

is ownership and stewardship

and who owns what.

And we're told that after this confrontation,

they try to trick him with this coin.

And again, he says, you know,

that's your kingdom.

But in God's kingdom,

everything is his.

Everything is his.

Verse 26, they shut up.

They never ask him another question again.

And then we get to the passage today

and now the Sadducees come in.

The Sadducees have never confronted Jesus.

They've never asked him a question.

This is the only time in the Gospels

the Sadducees come in and ask him a question.

The Sadducees would be the liberals.

They would be the popular people.

They would be the wealthy people.

They would be the founding fathers

and the founding members of the city.

They would be the people who were into their looks.

They would be very sympathetic to Rome.

They were focused on purity outwardly.

The Sadducees were always fighting the Pharisees.

There was this big struggle on the issue

of purity and holiness.

And they always won after each other.

And you never knew really who won

because the Sadducees had control of the temple.

The Sadducees believed in free will.

Do whatever you want.

There was no angels.

There's no devils.

There's no resurrection.

This life is all there is.

This is all there is.

So if this is all there is,

you've got to make the most of this life.

This is what you've got to do.

Make the most of this life.

It's a lot like people in Hong Kong

that we run into, right?

This is all there is.

How can we make the most of our lives?

And so the Pharisees come

and they ask Jesus a question.

It's in your bulletin.

It's found in verses 29 through 33.

It's a very interesting question.

It's not really a question.

It's basically a question to make Jesus look stupid

because they don't even believe in the resurrection,

but they're asking a question about the resurrection.

Now we're told through historians

that the Pharisees have been trying to answer this question

for 100 years.

And the Sadducees always ask them this question

and they can't answer the question

because it's really starting to bother them.

It's one of those questions that your friends ask you, right?

You're talking to them about God

and they'll say something like,

you know, if God is all-powerful

and God is all-loving

and God knows everything,

then how can he do this or how can he do that?

And you'll sit back and you're like,

oh, it's one of those questions

that's made to make you look stupid, right?

They might ask you a question like,

well, if God is all-powerful,

can he make a Diet Coke can so big

that even he can't pick up?

Right?

Come on, work with me here.

It's one of those questions that you know

that's just a foolish question.

And Jesus answers it right away.

And he tells them,

hey, you guys,

you don't understand the kingdom of God.

You're thinking about your kingdom,

but you're not thinking about God's kingdom

and things operate very differently

in God's kingdom.

Then in verse 40, they shut up.

I mean, they're afraid to ask him any more questions.

They don't want to ask him any more questions

because they look stupid

when they ask Jesus questions.

Jesus has one last lesson he wants to teach us.

I mean, this is his last lesson on the kingdom of God.

I mean, Jesus spoke about money

more than anything else in his ministry.

45% of the time, he's talking about money.

He's talking about hell and heaven.

He's talking about those things.

He's talking about money

because he knows that it has a pull on our hearts.

And after this, Jesus is going to go away.

He's never going to come back to the temple.

He's going to be on the mountain.

He's going to be in the upper room.

He's going to be preparing his disciples for his death.

But he has one more lesson he wants to teach us.

And so he's sitting off to the side in the treasury.

And we're told that the treasury

was this amazing place in the temple.

It was this huge, like, you know,

the biggest place in the convention center

is bigger than that.

It's like the meat locker, the big hangar,

the airplane hangar.

It's just massive airplane hangar.

And as you walked into the temple,

there would be 13 bronze containers.

They were like a trumpet, a shofar,

but it was the big part on the bottom

and it would move up to the top.

And people would come in

and they'd give their offerings.

Now, it was very interesting

because some of them said

for offering for doves,

offering for wood,

offering for frankincense,

offering for clothing,

offering for sin offering,

old offering for sin offering,

new offering for sin offering,

and then there were six free-willed offerings.

And so before the sermon started,

or before the time started in the temple,

the people came in

and the historians tell us it was amazing.

I mean, wealth and power

and kings coming in

and people are carrying these big bags of gold

and they're walking in there

and they're dragging it

and they're dripping it off

and they have all this money in their hand, right?

And they have this money

and it's kind of drippling

and they're walking

so they're drawing attention to themselves

and people are looking at them.

And they come up

and some people say

that actually the priest would be there

and they would count the money.

And then they would say,

Tobin Miller gave $5,000 a day.

And people go, ooh.

Daniel gave $1,000 a day.

Ooh.

Howard, he gives $10 in his chariot keys.

Ooh.

Ooh.

And we're told that people made a spectacle of themselves.

They would pull in

and sometimes they would go,

see if anybody was listening.

Sometimes they would do this

and no one was listening.

They'd go,

and people would wake up.

And so Jesus is watching

people give their offering to God.

And he realizes there's a collision happening

in their kingdoms.

But their kingdoms are very different.

And you see in the text,

you read it there,

what he says.

There's three things

that I want to challenge us with

to think about

as we look at these last four verses.

There's three things

I think that Jesus wants

to tell us about

what does it look like

to give in the kingdom of God.

And the first thing he says

is in God's kingdom,

in the inverted kingdom,

God sees everything.

Did you know that?

Verses one and two tell it.

And he looked up and he saw,

the word saw is a very special word.

It means he understood.

He looked in their soul.

He understood what was going on in their life.

And he saw what was going on in their life.

And the rich came in

and they're putting,

and the word is throw,

let fall,

let tumble.

They're throwing all their gifts in there.

And as they're doing it,

Jesus sees

what's going on in their life

and what's going on in their heart.

And then this widow comes up.

Can you imagine what she felt like?

Following guys with bags of money.

And this little widow comes up

and she takes the two smallest coins.

They're called lepta.

It's probably the only Jewish coin

talked about in the Bible.

It actually,

the word means peeling or shaving

or it means feathery.

It means nothing.

And you can imagine her

walking into this temple complex

and what did the priest do?

Did they look at her offering

and yell it out?

Or did they just look at her

and go,

get out of here.

Go, get out of here.

And she comes in there

and she has these two little coins.

You can't even hear it.

But the passage says

that Jesus hears

and he sees everything.

I think sometimes we forget that,

don't we?

I mean, sometimes we live life

and we give and we do

with our resources and our things

and sometimes we make choices

and we don't ever think about

Christ looking at us

and looking at our hearts

and what's going on in our hearts.

But in the kingdom of God,

in the inverted kingdom,

he sees everything.

The kingdom of the Pharisees

was all about appearance

and how well you look

and what you did.

And you know,

the Sadducees could care less

because the Sadducees,

all that was important

was here and now

because when they died,

there's nothing.

So the fear of God

or what God did for them

didn't mean anything.

All that mattered

was here and now.

But the passage says here

that in God's kingdom,

he sees everything

and how we give

in our heart

is very, very important

because it shows us

and it shows God

what kingdom we are actually

a part of.

It's called stewardship.

Jesus preached about it

over and over and over

in Luke.

If you're faithful with this,

I give you more.

If you're not faithful with this,

I take these things away.

Jesus, God,

sees everything in his kingdom

and what we do with it

is very important.

The second thing

that sticks out to me

in this passage

of how our kingdoms

collide in money

is just basically

in the inverted kingdom,

accounting is done

very differently,

isn't it?

I mean,

you look at this passage

and you realize

that God is an accountant

in a very strange way.

I mean,

you and I,

we judge people

and we judge ourself

by how much we give.

Well,

how much we give?

If a wealthy person

comes in

and they give a million dollars,

we go,

whoa,

they gave a lot.

But when someone comes in

and they bring two lepta,

you don't even notice them.

They didn't give anything.

I mean,

we look at names

on buildings

and things raised up

as monuments

to ourself.

But in God's kingdom,

what we give

isn't so important

as what is left over.

Do you realize

that's what he's saying?

But God's saying

it's not so important

what you're giving,

but the heart behind it,

and he's asking the question,

what's left?

What's left over?

And why did you leave it over?

Did you leave it over

because you didn't think

God was good?

Did you leave it over

because you didn't think

God was going to take care of you?

The passage is saying

that in the inverted kingdom,

giving is about

what is left

and why.

So what Jesus is saying here

in his passage

is that giving

isn't actually about giving,

but giving is about our heart.

And how we feel.

Now we live in a kingdom today

that could care less

about how we feel, right?

I mean, I've thought

about this before.

What would happen

if you went to the IRS

or the IRD

and you said,

you know what,

I was going to give taxes

this year,

but I just didn't really

feel like it.

It was just so inconvenient.

Maybe next year.

Or you know,

I was going to give taxes

this year,

but I really wanted

that car.

And so I bought

the car instead.

Or maybe next year

if I get more money

and more bonus,

then I'll give taxes.

And the Pharisees

and the Sadducees

were going,

oh, right on.

Because it was outward appearance

and what was important.

But the passage says

that she gave out of love.

It was an act of worship.

So the question

I have to ask myself

is how do I give?

I mean,

when I give my money,

what am I thinking?

Am I thinking that God's

going to supply all my needs?

Or do I think

if I have just enough left over,

I can do these things

and do these things

and that's okay.

But in God's kingdom,

sacrifice

is what is praised.

I mean,

if you're like me,

sacrifice means,

well,

I'm not going to eat

at Ruth Chris

this weekend,

but I'm going to eat

at another steakhouse.

But in God's kingdom,

sacrifice means

not eating steak

that week.

And I realize

if we're honest,

if I'm honest,

we don't really

sacrifice

very much.

Do we?

Jesus says here

that in the kingdom of God,

in the inverted kingdom,

it's not what we give

that is important,

but it's the heart behind it

and what is left over.

And finally,

what we see here

is in God's kingdom,

in the inverted kingdom,

that even the smallest

amount given,

if it's given in love,

in faith,

can do amazing things.

I mean,

he says here

in verses three and four,

look at this lady,

she's given more

than everybody else.

And if you think about that,

you know,

she's given these

two little coins,

they're nothing.

But in God's world,

he can use these two coins

to change

everything.

Do we believe that?

In 1966,

you've heard him speak

two weeks ago

and I've seen it happen

over and over in my life.

John Bechtel,

when we had our anniversary,

John came up

and his dad was here

after the occupation

of World War II

and he started all the churches

that basically birthed our church

and John Bechtel

told us a story

about 1966.

He and Donna come

and their goal is

to reach children

of Hong Kong.

And he said

at that time

there were four million people

living in Hong Kong.

Two million of them

were 18 years or younger.

And they prayed

about how can we reach the kids?

What are we going to do?

What's going to happen here?

How can we reach these kids?

And they got this idea

we're going to start a camp.

And so they were looking around

for almost a year

and they found this piece

of property in Fanling

that was about four acres.

But the bad thing was

the government had just built

this one million dollar

building on it.

But it wasn't being used.

And so John goes

to the government

and says hey

we need this.

We want to reach.

We want to minister

to the youth

and children of Hong Kong.

Can you give it to us?

And the guy's thinking about

okay I'll tell you what

this is 1966.

We can sell it to you

for $240,000.

Now John was making

like $50 a month.

And he's like

that's crazy money.

I can't.

There's no way I could do that.

That's impossible.

He goes well

we'll sell it to you

for $240,000.

And as John was in the office

there was a guy

who was in charge

of fundraising

for his denomination.

And he heard it

and he said

John that's no problem

I can do it.

And so that guy

went back to America

and for four months

he stumped churches

and talked to people

and asked for money

and asked for funding

and at the end of four months

John gets his letter.

and it starts off

dear John

it's really bad

when you start off

you know even

I'm sorry

but we've tried

for four months

and we've had

no response.

No one's given anything.

Please find the letter

that came in

from little Belinda Holmes.

And in the package

there's a little letter

from Belinda Holmes.

She's 14 years old.

She'd heard the guy

speak at the church

and she wrote this letter

out to John

and she said

dear John

I want to be a part

of reaching kids

in Hong Kong

I want to use my money

I've stopped eating

ice cream

for two weeks.

Here's my one dollar.

So John's looking there

and he owes

$240,000

he has one dollar.

He goes

this is crazy

nothing's ever

going to happen to this.

So he goes

well this is what

God gave me

so I'm going to use it.

Because God can take

a small thing

given in faith

and he can use it

in amazing ways

and he goes to the office

and he talks to the guy

he goes

you have your $240,000

he goes

I don't really have

$240,000

but I have this.

The guy reads

the letter

from a 14 year old

who gave up

her ice cream

for two weeks

looks at the one dollar

he kind of laughs

and he goes

okay

I'll sell it to you

for one dollar.

And since that time

1.3 million

children

in Hong Kong

have gone

through that camp.

1.3 million

and over

120,000 of them

have said

that they have

come to the Lord

because of that.

In God's kingdom

small amounts

given in faith

can do amazing things.

Now I have a lot

of other questions

to ask Jesus

when I get to heaven

when I see this.

You know like

well why didn't you

just go up behind

and take the money

and give it back to her

and go here daughter

you need this more

than I do.

But he didn't.

He allowed her

to give out of the joy.

I mean why didn't

he let her give

because he knew

that the temple

was corrupt.

You're being a bad steward.

But he didn't.

He allowed her

to give out of joy

because he knew

that in God's kingdom

in God's inverted kingdom

small things

can do

amazing things.

Listen to what I'm saying.

I'm not saying

that God wants your money.

God does not need

your money.

God wants you.

God wants you.

He wants a relationship

with you.

And he knows

that money

has such a strong

pull on us

that until we give

that up

we're going to have

a hard time

living in his kingdom.

So the question is

what does our giving

say about us?

If Jesus were watching us

as we came

to put our money

in the offering box

what would he see

in our heart?

What would he think

about us?

I've often thought

that Jesus is watching

this lady

this poor widow

come and give her

everything

and I wonder

if Jesus is thinking

in his mind

in three days

I'm going to the cross

and I'm going to give

everything for her.

I'm going to give

everything for Tobin.

I'm so thankful

he didn't look at us

and say

well I don't know

he's a jerk

and he doesn't

fall very well

and he doesn't do

these things

and sometimes

he breaks his promises

he just gives

everything

for us.

This passage

is telling us

that if we have

a generous

savior

that we as his

followers

should be generous

also.

On December 8th

we're going to do

something

we've never done

we're going to

take an offering

December 8th

the church

and the staff

and the leaders

have identified

three or four

ministries

that we think

are doing amazing

amazing things.

so on December 8th

and I don't know

who gives what

in here

I know that the elders

we talk about

what we give

because we want

to be faithful

and we want

to be true

as we present

these things

and so you can

ask them

how much they give

and they'll probably

ask you how much

you give

so that's a fair

exchange

but I don't know

who gives what

but I do know

that it takes

about 200,000

Hong Kong dollars

a week

to keep everything

going in the church

and people's salaries

and outreaches

that we're doing

and training pastors

and all these things

but on December 8th

everything

100% of everything

that comes in

for that week

we're going to give

to those

ministries.

my prayer

is for all of us

as a church

as we reflect

on this passage

and we understand

what God

has done for us

if we understand

how generous

he is for us

that we

as his people

would be generous

towards those

around us

so that God

could use it

for his kingdom.

In God's kingdom

money is seen

very differently

than ours

he watches

everything we do

with it

we're not really

judged by what we give

but we're judged

by what we keep

and why we've kept it

and he always uses

little things

given in faith

to change lives.

Father we just

come to you today

and we thank you

for your goodness

and your grace

in our life.

We come as your people

and we look at this

passage of this widow

and we wonder

how many times

throughout the last

2,000 years

you have multiplied

those two leptas

those two slivers

how many times

you have multiplied

them for your kingdom

and done amazing things.

Lord help us

to realize

that you have been

so generous

and gracious

to us

for everything

and then all we have

is yours.

The Pharisees

didn't understand that

because they were

legalists.

the Sadducees

didn't understand that

because they just

couldn't care less

and they wanted

to party

and sometimes

we bounce back

and forth

between both

of those extremes.

Lord I pray

that we would see you

as you really are

but I confess

in my life

I confess

you have been

so abundant

and many times

I have squandered

those things.

I want to repent

of that.

Lord I pray

for our church

I pray that you

would forgive us

as individuals

and as groups

and how often

we've wasted

your resources

when you were waiting

to do amazing things

amazing things

if we were willing

to step out in faith

and trust you.

so we come

before you now

and we just pray

that you would

change our hearts

help us to see

your son

as he truly is

help us to understand

the depth

and the breadth

and the width

of the grace

and mercy

you've given to us

and help us

to be people

who are generous

because we serve

an amazingly

generous God.

We love you

and we pray

these things

in your son

Jesus name

Amen.