The Heart of the Matter (Mark 12:35-44)

We're in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12, and we're going to be reading through verses 35 through 44.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

So the last two weeks, you know, we've looked at Jesus, and he's been questioned by all these different sects of Judaism.

And we read that Jesus astounds them with his answers.

He lets them know through his answers that he can't be cornered, that he can't be tricked, that he can't be dragged into the disputes of that day.

And they are unable to shift his focus from the eternal to the temporal, which is what they were trying to do in all of those different questions that they had asked them, all those questions we just looked at through the last two weeks.

And finally, they stop sending people to Jesus to question him.

And then Jesus just starts teaching to the large crowd.

Whoever's left, he just starts teaching to them.

And that's where we pick up, just to kind of set the scene where we are.

They're still in the temple, and Jesus is now just teaching to this large crowd, whoever will listen.

So let's stand for the reading of God's word, if you're able.

These will receive harser judgment.

Sitting across from the temple treasury, he watched how the crowd dropped money into the treasury.

Many rich people were putting in large sums.

Then a poor widow came and dropped in two tiny coins worth very little.

Summoning his disciples, he said to them, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.

For they all gave out of their surplus.

But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

Lord, we thank you for these words of Jesus here this morning.

Lord, I pray that you would reveal to us everything that you desire to reveal to each one of us individually and to our church as a whole.

Lord, would you be the one speaking here this morning?

Would you just allow me to be your mouthpiece which you can flow through?

Accomplish all that you desire, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So today we're going to see Jesus address three different things like we just read.

First, he's going to explain how he can be the God of creation and also be considered the son of David.

He's going to give a warning about bad religious leaders and what to look out for within those religious leaders.

And then we're going to look in contrast of who Jesus is in comparison to those bad leaders that he points out.

And Jesus is going to then talk about giving.

And he's going to show us the heart of a true giver, the heart that he's looking for in a giver through the story of this widow.

So we're just going to jump right in in verse 35, take a look at that first section.

He says, While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he asked, How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David?

So do you remember at the end of chapter 10 when we saw blind Bartimaeus, and he was crying out on the road for Jesus, and he was saying, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

And do you remember how Jesus said, Your faith has saved you?

He said that right to Bartimaeus.

Because Bartimaeus had it figured out already.

Jesus was the Messiah, and he was from the line of David.

Two things that Bartimaeus understood very early on.

And this is why the genealogies that we find in the Gospels, in Matthew and in Luke specifically, are so important.

Both of those genealogies trace Jesus' line back to King David.

And it was known throughout Israel that the Messiah would be from the line of David.

And you may have even noted that when we were going through Mark chapter 11 and verse 9, when it was the triumphal entry, and they were crying out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David.

So Jesus says, How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David?

How can God be the son of a man is basically what it's coming down to.

And then Jesus continues on in verse 36.

He said, David himself says, by the Holy Spirit, that's important, underlined by the Holy Spirit, highlighted in your Bible.

The Lord declared to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

David himself calls him Lord.

How then can he be his son?

So Jesus is quoting from Psalm 110, which was written by King David.

And in the English, we can read this, and it can be a little hard to understand.

The Lord declared to my Lord.

What does that mean?

How does that, like, how do we understand that?

But the thing is, we need to remember that the Psalms were written in Hebrew.

And when you look at the Hebrew, that first Lord that we see is the proper name of God.

If you turn to Psalm 110, which you don't have to, but maybe later, you'll see it's in all caps, L-O-R-D, which means it's the proper name of God.

So it's Yahweh or Jehovah or Jehovah, however you want to say it.

Now the first Lord is the proper name of God.

The second Lord that we see is the Hebrew word Adon.

And Adon is a word that shows control over another person.

It basically means master.

It means that that person has deciding power over another person, or they have ownership.

And the best word that we could use is probably master in our modern English.

So quite literally, what Psalm 110 starts out with it says, Jehovah said to my master, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

So what is happening, and I think the reason that Jesus points out in verse 36 that this is given to David specifically by the Holy Spirit is that David is divinely listening in on a conversation between the Father and Jesus about a thousand years before Jesus ever set foot on earth.

Everybody tracking with where we are?

I know this is kind of getting a little technical.

So here this morning we have Jesus asking, how can David call his son Lord or call his own son master?

You know, sons did not have that type of ownership over their fathers.

And no one had that type of ownership over a king, especially King David in this time.

So how could David call somebody Lord if he is also his son, if he's from his lineage?

And I think Revelation 22, 16, and I'll just read it to you, but I think this sheds some really good light onto this verse.

And this is Jesus speaking in Revelation.

He says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to attest these things to you for the churches.

I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.

Basically, what Jesus is asking is, how can you be the root and also be the fruit of David?

How can you be Jesus, God, from the beginning of all creation, but then also yet born of a woman in the line of David?

That's the question Jesus is asking.

How is this possible?

And he knows the answer.

And we should know the answer too.

It would have to take place through a virgin birth, and the Messiah would need to be fully God and fully man.

That's the only way all of this could happen.

So what Jesus is doing, he's trying to help this huge crowd of people.

He's trying to help his listeners to understand how he has fulfilled Scripture specifically in this way.

How he is from the line of David, yet he is fully God and is indeed the Messiah, all at the same time.

Explaining how he created David, yet he's also a descendant of David at the same time.

Then he goes on, the second half of verse 37.

And it well, and it says, And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.

People are eating it up.

Jesus is explaining scriptures.

I would have loved to have been a fly on a wall, just hearing Jesus talk about how he is fulfilling all of these things.

And then Jesus completely changes gears here.

And then in verse 38 it says, He also said in his teaching, Beware of the scribes who want to go around in long robes and who want greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the places of honor at banquets.

You know, something to note here is that this is the last thing that Jesus says publicly before his death.

This is his last teaching to a large crowd.

When he's talking to the widows next, he's just talking to his disciples, but this is the last thing that he says.

And he's gonna continue on, and he's gonna talk to this large crowd about these scribes.

And he's gonna tell them this is what you need to look out for in bad spiritual or religious leadership.

And as we approach this section, I think it would be good to look at what we know of Jesus and his teaching and his ministry and his example in contrast to what he's saying to look out for.

So he starts off, the first thing he points out, the scribes have long robes.

What the heck does that mean?

They have long robes.

How is that applicable?

Well, if you remember a couple months ago we went through Isaiah 6 and we talked about worship and how God's the train of his robe filled the temple with glory.

You know, long robes meant basically that you didn't have to work.

That was not something that somebody with physical labor was going to be doing.

It was having a long robe that they have to manage and that can get, you know, caught in things.

So basically, he's pointing out that the scribes were not a part of the labor class.

Now, in contrast, what was Jesus' job before his public ministry?

It was hard labor.

He was a carpenter.

So he didn't wear long robes, and he didn't have attendance to cater to his every need, and attendance to cater to the train of his robe, kind of like we see in modern-day weddings.

You know, how the bridesmaids are always getting the train of, you know.

Jesus didn't have that.

But the scribes did.

They had their long robes that they liked to wear in public.

Jesus points out also that the scribes want greetings in the marketplaces.

And in contrast, I could think of one marketplace that Jesus drove everybody out of and flipped all of their tables over, right?

But this means that the scribes they want to be well known.

They want to be recognized.

They have a hunger for fame to some extent.

And what did Jesus keep doing throughout his ministry?

Every time he performed a miracle that we saw in Mark, he said, you know what, don't tell anybody about what just happened.

Just go and don't tell anybody.

Or he would um, if somebody figured out that he was the Messiah and would proclaim it, he would say, Oh, that's great, but don't tell anybody.

We see Jesus trying not to become famous.

He kept saying, It's not my hour yet, it's not my time yet.

And then Jesus goes on, and the third thing that he points out, they want the best seats in the synagogues.

They want high social and religious status.

And in contrast, we see Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners.

And he didn't care about holding an earthly position at all.

He was willing to hang out and be seen with anybody.

And then he points out the fourth thing, they want places of honor at banquets.

Jesus taught his disciples that the last shall be first.

That if they were invited to banquets to not sit in the place of honor, but to sit in a lowly position.

And if somebody wanted to exalt them and pull them to a higher position, let them do that.

Don't do that on your own.

So you see the contrast that we're seeing between what the scribes are doing and the example that Jesus gave us.

Jesus is pointing out in the scribes the opposite of everything that he was demonstrating and teaching to his disciples and to the crowds that were around him.

And then he goes on in verse 40 with a few more things to look out for.

Look at verse 40 with me.

It says, They devour widows' houses and say long prayers just for show.

These will receive harsher judgment.

Now, the whole devour widows' houses, what exactly does that mean?

Well, the NLT translation kind of sheds a little bit of light onto that.

So I want to read you the NLT translation.

It says, Yet they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property.

You see, part of the scribe's job at this time in Israel was drafting legal documents for property, for inheritance, and all of those kinds of things.

So if a man dies and leaves a widow, a scribe would come to handle the inheritance documents, the transfer of property, making sure that the right person ended up with that property, whether that's the eldest son or a brother of the man that died.

Jesus doesn't say how, but these scribes were cheating widows out of their property in their role as a scribe.

So they're taking advantage of the most vulnerable for their own gain.

And keep that in mind as we look at the widow giving all that she has in the next section that we're gonna go through.

And then Jesus says they say long prayers just for show.

You know, honest prayers, I think, sound like when we're talking to one another.

Maybe with a bit more reverence, because it's God, you know, but those are the honest prayers, I think.

And this is not to judge or to make fun of anyone, I promise that.

But some people will talk normal in everyday life, but then when they prayer, when they pray, like all this old English starts coming out, you know.

Or these little we can develop these little ticks with, and I'm just as guilty as anybody.

And I catch myself doing this all the time, but we can develop these little ticks, you know, that somehow seem okay in prayer, but in everyday conversation, we just look at each other like, what are you trying to say?

You know, like if I were to go up to my wife and say, you know, dear Michelle, I just want to, Michelle, just tell you, Michelle, just of my greatest affection that thou art, Michelle, you know, she would just look at me, just be like, what are you doing?

Like, just talk normal.

And I don't want any of us through this to become self-conscious about the way that we pray or become judgmental about the way anybody else prays.

But I think it's good for each one of us to evaluate how we are praying.

Are we making it awkward?

Are phrases becoming routine and meaningless within our prayers?

Or are we praying longer just because we think short prayers are less spiritual or less effective in some way?

And when Jesus shows his disciples how to pray, you know, what we refer to as the Our Father, it's not four pages long, you know, in our Bibles.

I timed it.

It takes me 15 seconds to recite that prayer.

It's a very short, succinct prayer that Jesus gives as an example.

And this isn't bashing long prayers.

Sometimes that's called for and absolutely needed.

But like everything, I think it comes down to the heart behind the prayer.

The heart behind the length of the prayer and the purpose of the prayer and behind the words that we're using in that prayer.

Again, no judgment for me.

I pray you don't start judging others as well.

This is really just for self-evaluation as we pray that we just kind of pay attention to some of those things and make sure we're not just saying words that are meaningless because it's just kind of become a form of habit.

You know, for me, I think the most amazing prayers are come from children.

Or they come from new believers because they're just this honest expression of here I am, and they haven't learned all of the lingo and you know and habits and all that kind of stuff.

But those are the people I really enjoy listening in on their prayers are children and new believers.

Unlike, as Jesus is pointing out, the scribes that we are seeing here in our text this morning.

And then Jesus ends verse 40 by saying, these, so these scribes, will receive harsher judgment.

And this is really Jesus introducing a concept that is clarified a little bit more in James 3:1, where it says, Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

James 3:1

God holds those that teach and are in a spiritual leadership position to a stricter judgment.

Because if they're teaching falsely, or if they're providing a bad example, because of their position, they're gonna be in a place to cause others to sin or to cause others to fall.

And it's gonna affect the spiritual life of others.

So, with that, I honestly ask that you would pray for me, and that you would pray for the elders of this church, and you would pray for the leaders of this church in that way.

Because the scribes were looking in the part, but their heart was far from God.

And may that never be said of anyone in this church, but especially of the leadership of this church as well.

Let's move on to verse 41.

We'll look at the third section here.

It says, sitting across from the temple treasury, he watched how the crowd dropped money into the treasury.

Many rich people were putting in large sums.

Then a poor widow came and dropped in two tiny coins worth very little.

Summoning his disciples, he said to them, Truly I tell you, the poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.

For they all gave out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.

So this is in complete contrast to the scribes.

The scribes are giving to God for their own benefit, for the praise and for the recognition of others.

But this widow was giving to God everything, everything that she had.

Notice the first thing that I think is easy to overlook in this verse.

In verse 41, it says, He, so Jesus, watched how.

Underline circle, highlight that word in your Bible.

He was watching how the crowd drop money into the treasury.

You know, in other places, this same Greek word is translated as by what means, or after what manner they were dropping their offerings into these boxes.

Jesus is watching how they give, not so much what they give.

He's watching to see what their motive is, where their heart is.

Are they looking for recognition or are they truly just surrendering everything to the Lord?

Are they counting it out so everybody can see how generous you they are?

Or doing a wave offering and then drop it in the box.

You know, I remember this old movie called Return to Me.

Anybody ever seen that movie?

No?

It's a long time, it's a little cheesy romantic comedy.

But it was really funny because in that movie, there's this guy, well, it's about the zoo and this gorilla exhibit, and they're trying to raise this money to open up this new exhibit.

And there's this old guy that he's walking around and he keeps saying, Did you hear about the large anonymous donation that I gave to the zoo for this exhibit?

And he kept saying, It was strictly anonymous, though.

The opinion.

Appearance of generosity for the sake of acclamation.

Much like the long prayers for the appearance of spirituality.

But here in contrast is this widow giving her all for no recognition.

You know, these coins are thought to be these small copper coins that in this day were called a mite or called a lepton.

And it was 164th of a day's wage at the time.

Which would be about the equivalent of each one of these coins being about a dollar.

So she had two dollars to her name, and she gave them both to the Lord.

David Guzick points out something in his commentary that I love.

He says, the wonderful thing about this widow's giving was that she had two mites and gave them both.

She might have kept one coin for herself, and no one would have blamed her if she did.

Instead, she gave with staggering generosity.

You know, I love this because he points out that 50% would have been staggering generosity.

And no one would have blamed her, I don't think, either, if she kept both of them.

But the others were giving out of their surplus.

And that's great, and that's wonderful, and we're not talking against that in any way.

But she was giving sacrificially.

And what did Jesus say?

She put more into the treasury than all the rest that day.

See, Jesus isn't looking at the amount, Jesus is looking at the heart.

And so I think this would be a good time to look at what God looks for.

Or maybe I should say to look at the heart that God looks for in a giver.

And if you've noticed, we haven't taught about money or giving once in the nine months that we've been meeting on Sundays.

So if this is your first time, this is not what we talk about every Sunday.

As it comes up in Scripture, we talk about it.

Here it is, so we're gonna talk about it.

So what is the heart that God looks for in a giver?

The first is seen in this widow.

She gives humbly, she gives everything, and she gives sacrificially.

Now, does that mean that we have to give all of our money to God too?

Yes, it does.

The tithe box is right over there.

I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

I'm only joking.

But we should give all of our money to God.

Now, that doesn't mean that we need to go empty our bank accounts and then go give that all away.

But we need to treat all of our money, regardless of where it is, if it's in the bank, if it's in our pockets, wherever it is, but we need to treat all of our money as if it's God's.

Because it is God's.

Exactly.

Somebody just said that.

So, first, the first thing that we can take is God wants us to give everything to him.

And I think the second thing that we see in Scripture is to give cheerfully.

2 Corinthians 9, 6 through 7 says, the point is this the person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously.

Each person should do as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver.

God loves when people give from a generous heart, when they're not giving begrudgingly, or because they feel like they have to, but because they know God's generosity.

They know that everything they have is God's anyway.

And they love that God is using them as a vessel in which he can funnel his resources through, from him through us to somebody else.

You know, I know a few people like this in my life, just the most generous people in the world.

And they'll just give you the shirt off their back at any time.

And you know what I've noticed with each one of those people that's like that is God just keeps giving them more because they just keep giving it out.

They're not hoarding it as God's giving them, they're not just holding on to it.

It's like, oh, God gave me this and then it goes over here.

God gave me this, and then you know, it goes over here.

So I think that's the second thing is God loves a cheerful giver.

Now the third thing that we learn is from Malachi 3, 10 and 11.

And we're actually gonna end on this verse.

So I'm gonna ask you all to turn there right now.

Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament.

It's two books to the left in your Bible from the book of Mark.

And it's Malachi 3, and we're gonna be starting in verse 8.

And what we're gonna learn from this verse is that we cannot outgive God.

So as soon as I hear the pages stop turning, we'll jump in and we'll read through that together.

I want to make sure your eyes are on this scripture.

So Malachi chapter 3, and we're gonna read verses 8 through 11.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

And it says, Will a man rob God?

Yet you are robbing me.

How do we rob you, you ask?

By not making the payments of the tenth and the contribution.

You are suffering under a curse, yet you, the whole nation, are still robbing me.

Bring the full tenth into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house.

Test me in this.

Highlight, underline, whatever you do in your Bible, test me in this way, says the Lord of armies.

See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure, I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not ruin the produce of your land and your vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit, says the Lord of armies.

So Israel had been suffering a curse because they were not giving God what he had ordained.

The full tenth.

And the full tenth here is what we often refer to as a tithe.

It's the first fruits.

It's the first 10% of any increase God is saying to give that back to him.

And that is what God had called Israel to do, that 10%.

So God says, Bring the full tenth.

And he says, test me in this.

This is the only place in Scripture where God says to test me, is right here.

And it's in regards to giving.

And God says, if you do, see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure.

And then he goes on to say that he will even supernaturally protect their crops and their vines and their fields if they do so.

You cannot outgive God.

And he even challenges us, as I pointed out, to test him in this.

Israel was cursed at this time because they weren't doing that.

They weren't giving cheerfully, they weren't giving their first fruits back to God.

And God says, give your tenth and enjoy abundance.

Now, admittedly, a tithe was something that God had handed down specifically to Israel.

A tithe is an Old Testament concept.

We don't see that same concept in the New Testament, but what we do see in the New Testament is giving cheerfully and giving liberally is still very much a New Testament concept.

And personally, I think 10% was what God desired from Israel.

So that's a good benchmark for us.

I know that's a good benchmark for my family to shoot for, is that 10%, but it's not a New Testament ordained thing, that exact 10%.

You know, I was talking about the generous people in my life that I know that God just uses as a vessel just to flow things through.

One of those people that I'm speaking about specifically, his name's Jeff.

And he is a part of the church that I used to work for down in Oxnard.

And he was just this big jolly guy that was always happy.

Like you couldn't find him in a bad mood.

And the Lord had blessed this guy with a very lucrative business that he started and was running.

And he just gave so freely and he gave so abundantly, just all the time.

He was just a giver.

And he was an elder at that church.

And one Sunday he was speaking on giving, just like we're speaking about right now.

And I'll never forget because he was so convinced in his own life about not being able to outgive God that he stood before this church of about 1,200 people.

And he said, if you aren't giving 10% of your income because you don't think you have enough to give God, he says, I'm gonna challenge you to start doing that right now.

And he said, and if in a year you're not in a better financial position than you are right now, I will pay you back every cent that you gave to the Lord over the past year.

And to my knowledge, not a single person came back to him saying, I'm in a worse financial spot since I started giving to the Lord.

And just so you know, our church is in great shape financially.

This is not a plea to give more.

I promise.

This is not a prosperity gospel that I'm teaching either, in it by any means.

This is just simply an encouragement to trust God with everything that we have.

Because it's all his to begin with.

And if we treat it like that from the beginning, that it's all his to begin with, that 10% seems like nothing.

It's just like, of course, you gave me all of this, it's easy to give you that 10% back.

But here's the question.

Well, actually, here's a statement.

God does not need money.

He doesn't need anything.

And I hope you're hearing me in this.

And I point that out because if God doesn't need it, then what is giving all about?

It's about us.

It's about trusting him.

It's about seeing everything that we have in the first place as his to begin with.

And as we've been pointing out, especially over the past couple weeks, God's economy and God's kingdom is so counterintuitive and so backwards from what we think makes sense.

He says things, Jesus has said, you know, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.

He says to sit in the low position so that somebody else can pull you up and exalt you when you go to a banquet.

And right now he's saying, give back so that you can have more.

It's just completely counterintuitive to our human nature, isn't it?

So back to the widow.

The whole idea of what Jesus is pointing out is to give everything that we have and to give it with the right heart.

You know, this this story of the widow at first glance seems like this random side note that's just plugged in at the end of chapter 12.

But it's so much more than that.

I really think she is the embodiment to the answers that Jesus has been giving these religious leaders in this crowd throughout this whole chapter.

You know, first they question his authority.

And I think there's just no question who's in authority over this woman's life.

They asked about taxes.

He said, you know, give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's.

And she's giving to God what is God's right here.

They asked about, you know, the widow with the seven husbands and who she would be married to in eternity.

This widow doesn't seem to be concerned with the temporal things at all.

You know, I think she would see that question as trivial as well.

They asked about the greatest commandment.

And Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

And she's obviously doing all of those things, trusting God with everything that she had in her possession.

And I want to close with this.

If you want to be the greatest in the kingdom, here is what it looks like the widow, the most humble, the poor person, with the least earthly possessions, whose dependence is fully upon God.

There you go.

Be like her.

As I said, God's economy and his kingdom, it's the opposite of our human nature.

It's the opposite of the things that come naturally to us.

And it's the opposite of what these Jewish leaders were doing in this time, these scribes that Jesus is calling out.

And that's all the opposite, if you'll notice, of what our culture here today preaches to us as well.

So this is the question that I want to leave us with today.

What have we not surrendered to God?

Is it in the bank?

Is it in a relationship?

Is it a possession that we have, maybe?

Is it our time?

Have we not surrendered our time, our calendar to God?

Or is it something that maybe we're afraid to lose?

Or maybe we're afraid to lose control of.

The question is, what prevents us from saying, I have given everything to God?

Because today is the day for us to surrender those things.

So I'm going to do something just a little bit different.

I'm going to pray, but then I just want to take just about a minute for all of us to just kind of sit and ask ourselves and allow the Lord to search our hearts of what are the things, Lord, that you want us to surrender.

So, Ben, if you want to come up and just maybe finger pick a little bit, but I'll pray and then we're just going to take about a minute to do that.

Oh, again, Lord, we thank you so much for your scripture.

We thank you just for the richness of it and all the things that you have in it.

God, we're humans that struggle, that sin, that find comfort in things and large bank accounts and all of those things.

But Lord, help us to realize that you're the only thing that matters.

That all of this is passing away, that this life is but a vapor.

So Lord, whatever we're clenching onto with our fists, whatever things that we are not letting go of, Lord, I pray that you would bring those things up in our heart right now.

And that we would be in a place of humility to allow you to do that.

And a place of wanting to serve you in a way that that surrenders all, Lord, that gives you everything, everything we can even imagine, Lord, that we would never think of it as our own or something that we could hoard or something that we could build up in storehouses.

Lord, it's all for you.

Our time, our energy, our our finances, Lord, the talents and gifts that you've given us.

It's all for you.

We want to give all of these things back to you.