Mark 12:41-44 | Aligning to God's Heart in Sacrificial Giving.

This is City Post Church. We're about three things.

Build equipped and send all under the Lordship of Jesus

Christ. A small church plant in Fort

Worth, TX. Who decided to do things a

little differently? Adoramos Ajesu Cristo I love

City Post because of the people. It's where I belong.

We truly preach. The word I love City post

because of the community we've been able to build.

To do ministry like Jesus. For light to push back darkness.

This is city post podcast. Oh man, I'll be honest with you.

I was not ready for today. I thought it was going to be

like, all right, we could get a car.

Man, that was awesome. And you know, I do all this as

I'm hearing everybody speak, but I, I heard the call of God, very

proud. What we're going to look at

today is how God defines generosity.

We're going to look at a story, just a quick 4 verses and then

we'll be out a story about how all these guys, these rich guys

are just giving all this money at the temple.

And Jesus is watching the scene in Mark 12 and there is a poor

old widow that shows up and drops two cents in a bucket.

And Jesus says there it is. That's it.

She gave more than all of these guys here.

Why, why, why didn't Jesus say that?

And that's what I wanted to explore today.

So whenever you say man, you know, I do that.

It's all good until it hits your finances.

But God's definition of generosity is way different than

ours. And that's what we're going to

look at today. So I'm going to read the four

verses, we'll talk about it, and we'll be out looking at Mark 12,

Mark 12:41

verse 41. And this is what the word of the

Lord says is 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 drew in large

amounts, but a poor widow cave and put in two very small copper

cone points worth only a few cents.

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, truly I tell you,

this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the

others. They all gave out of their well,

but she, out of her poverty, put in everything all she had to

live on. Let me pray for us and then

we'll walk through these things. So, Jesus, thank you for today.

Thank you for all that you're doing in our lives.

So, Father, I pray that you help us to look at your word.

God, I pray that you help us to listen, Lord, and to be faithful

to applying it to our lives. So, Jesus, thank you for all

you're doing. And your name we pray, Amen.

And Lord, help the Cowboys today at least some.

Come on, man, we so I know we got got throw that in there.

All right, So real quickly want to set the scene here because

when you read Mark chapter 12, Jesus at the temple and he has

Mark 12 · chapter mention

all the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the scribes,

they're all coming at him and they're questioning him about

stuff. So if you read chapter 12, they

question him about his, his authority, like are you the

Messiah or are you not? They're questioning about what

the greatest commandment is here to take a question about taxes.

So Jesus is just being bombarded at the temple all day long with

the religious leaders. And I can see here that just he

goes and he starts to watch people giving money.

Maybe he was taking a breath, maybe he was holding it

together. Maybe he was like looking for

something, We don't know. Also, what's an interesting

detail is that it says that Jesus in verse 41, he sat down

at the opposite place where the offerings were put.

OK, we're going to talk about this.

Where were the offerings put in the temple?

So when you have the temple back in those days, you also had, you

also had courts outside, so that the most outer court before the

temple was the court of the Gentiles.

That means that anybody that was that Jewish, this is where you

were allowed to be whenever you're going to the temple.

And just a fun fact, just to show what Jesus came to do was

remove these barriers of religion because back then only

certain people got to go to the Lord.

At least that's what they, they determined.

So you had the Gentile court, then you had the women, the

women's court, then you had the men's court, and then you had

the religious leaders court. And those were the divisions

that you were allowed to be in in the temple.

Even to the point that if right before you go, right before you

leave the the Gentiles court, there's a sign that gives a

warning saying that if you are not Jewish beyond this point,

you can be punished even to the point of death.

Like that's how serious this was.

So you have the judge and in the women's court of the temple were

what they call the offering buckets.

A lot of scholars call them the trumpets.

The reason they call them trumpets is because of the way

they look. They had a they had a wide mouth

and then a small box. It was easy to put in, but

really hard to take out. You couldn't have to change.

So you you go and then you have 13 of them at the temple.

So in the women's court, 13 trumpets one through 7 were very

particular needs. So it might be for flour, for

wine, for oil, whatever it took to run the temple.

And then the eight through 13 with pretty much anybody who is

Jewish, they weren't allowed to bring an offering to God.

Now Jesus in this story, he is hanging out in the women's court

and after battling other religious leaders and everybody

pressing him, he goes to the women's court.

And the Bible says in verse 41, he goes, he sat down opposite

the place of the offering. So he's sitting here and he's

he's watching all this go down. And it says that he watched the

crowd putting money into the temple treasury.

Now they weren't just putting money in the treasury, they were

flexing with it. It says that many rich people

threw in large amounts. So what people would do is when

they went to the temple, they would kind of try to show off.

Why? Because if you had a lot of

money, it was telling the world that God had his favor on your

life. This is what they believed.

Also, remember, Jesus goes after the Pharisees and Sadducees

saying when you pray, you don't pray like you're showing off,

because what they would do is they would pray in public and

they would be all lavish and loud about it.

And Jesus says that is not how prayer works.

So it was for them. So even when people were

bringing offerings to the temple, the rich guys which were

really wealthy, they were dropping in a lot of money.

They were probably making it known to it probably sound like

a Coinstar machine. Everybody know what Coinstar is.

I mean, you know what I mean. No, you don't Coinstar.

All right, so y'all never struggle with me is no point

stuff. Alright, so they had all this

and and and they're trying to flex and Jesus is watching all

of this go down. Oh inside them.

Jesus is always watching what you give and he's not only

watching what you give, he's watching how you give, but he's

also watching what you ignore. Jesus sees it all, God sees it

all, and we're going to learn today's sounds.

It's not the value, it's the heart.

It's the heart of how you give things.

That's what Jesus is looking for.

He notices something here and listen, Jesus is not noticing

the long line of rich people, like he's not sitting there

calling attention to their gifting or like man, I wonder

how they give so much. That's not what he's about

Because look what comes in in verse 42.

In verse 42 it says but a poor widow came.

So you have the line applause. Remember there's 8 verses 8

through 13, the trumpets lines people just drop and flexing

probably give each other high fives taking selfies with it.

Then here comes this poor old widow, probably quiet, probably

ashamed, don't know what she went through, but she comes.

And the Bible says that this poor widow came and put in two

very small copper coins only worth a few cents.

What do we know about the slave? We don't know her name.

We know she's a widow. That means that her husband

passed away. So if you were a widow at these

times, you didn't have the support of your husband.

If you didn't have kids, you'd have the support of your family.

We, we don't know that about her.

But I want to throw in another element to this, because Jesus

calls out the scribes and the Sadducees because they say he

says that they take advantage of the widows.

So whenever somebody's husband would pass away, the religious

leaders at the temple would go to them and probably try to scam

their land away from them. They would probably try to take

their inheritance. They were, they were schemers

and Jesus calls them out about it.

So we don't know if maybe this is the situation for this widow,

but we do know that she didn't have a husband and that she was

extremely poor because of her circumstances.

So we know her financial status. We also know her marital status.

And then if you look at, I think a better translation would be

two mites. Mites were pretty much small

copper coins. They were worth a fraction of a

penny, not a lot. So mites were not worth a lot,

fraction of a penny. Another word that you would see

in the Greek is limpin. A limpin means a very tiny

thing. It means a a crumble or a

morsel. So Jesus is watching this and he

sees this poor old widow crawl up to the giving plates and she

throws in two mites, 2 little coins and she drops them in

there. And look what Jesus does in

verse 43. It says that he calls his

disciples Theta. He's like, guys, check this out.

Come here. Look at this, look at this.

Look, I, I truly, I tell you, listen to the wording, how Jesus

says this. The word truly means that.

He's trying to emphasize this. Truly, I tell you, this poor

widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.

That's a powerful statement. He doesn't say that she put more

than one of them. He says that she put more than

all of those rich guys combined together.

Why much? She's gave out her poverty and

she put everything all that she had to live on.

You know, it's easy to give out of your abundance.

It's easy to give when you have a lot.

It's easy to flex, it's easy to pay for things, it's easy to pay

for people. It's easy.

It's it's it's very simple. But the way that God describes

generosity is when you give sacrificially, what does it look

like to give a man that loved money more than anything and

wasn't willing to give that piece up to follow Jesus?

And look what we look at today. Today we're looking at man.

What does it look like to give sacrificially?

What does that look like to us? It's not the size of the gift,

but it's the sacrifice of the gift that honors the Lord.

When we talk about sacrificial giving, because we have to

understand, like memory, but what does that look like?

Because some of us have the mentality of like, man, I give a

lot. I get a lot of my materials, my

time, all that stuff. But listen, there's a motive

that comes with that that Jesus points out like he highlights

it. So I want to just talk a little

bit about sacrificial giving, and then we'll be out.

So #1 why sacrificial giving? Because sacrificial giving

aligns with the heart of God. If you want to know what what

God expects and what God requires of us, if you want to

know how to please the Lord, it's all about giving

sacrificially to Him. God is the greatest giver.

John 316 For God so loved the world that he what gave his only

begotten Son. God gave his Son sacrificially

to us. Jesus gave his life as a

sacrifice to us. So whenever we do sacrificially,

it aligns with His heart. Getting sacrificially is not

easy. It it, it requires us to trust

the Lord in ways that we've never trusted him.

There's been times I know in my life, just as an example,

especially when it's time for our mission trip, where we feel

like I know Rach and I discuss this all the time, but we feel

like, man, we don't know how it's going to how we're going to

be able to fly this year. We don't know both and and and

listen, those conversations started going out the door

because then we started asking the a different type of

question, which is what type of sacrifice in order to do what

God has asked me to. And a lot of us question guys

ask because our comfort is being attacked.

So if God is telling us to do something, we got to be obedient

to us. So the question is not how can

I? The question is, let's do it.

What do I have to adjust in my life so that way I can be

obedient to what God's called me to?

That means that I had to sacrifice some things.

So sacrifice is more than just money.

Sacrifice is time for some of us.

Sacrifice is is time with friends, family, whatever that

looks like. God honors it, and God honors it

because it aligns with His heartbeat.

We need to align with God's heart.

It's about giving what we have to the Lord with the right

intention. You see, The thing is, if Jeff

Bezos gave $10 million, that's not going to hurt him.

That's a lot of money though. But listen, that's a drop in the

bucket for Jeff Bezos. That's not a sacrifice for him.

That's a tax write off. Now, Jeffrey, you're watching

this man. Go to our website.

Just drop this text. We'll help.

But it's not a sacrifice for him.

It's easy. That's nothing for him but a

single mom, a single dad who's working a job or two that

decides to give to the Lord and decides to help somebody buy

some clothes. Lord, I don't know if I should

be doing this, but God, I'm going to trust you.

And I'm doing this because you've asked me to.

That's sacrificial giving. And it's hard, but it's what the

Lord requires. So he aligns with his heartbeat.

For #2 Generosity is not measured by the amount, but

it's, but it's measured by the sacrifice.

The way that God views generosity is not by how much or

the tide that you did, it's by the sacrifice.

It's what cost you. That's the generosity that God

mentioned as Jesus is in the temple courts.

He says nothing about the fellas dropping tons of money into the

temple. He doesn't even notice them.

He notices her to the point where he calls the disciples and

says, listen, this lady gave more than all of these cats in

this one room combined because she gave out of her poverty.

You know that text in verse 44 where it says that she gave all

she had with that signifies in the Greek language in the

terminology is that she gave everything and she's not going

to be able to eat until she gets more.

So her coming to the temple and her heart for God was to the

point of Lord, I don't know when my next meal is coming, but I

trust you and I want to give to you guys that that's generosity

in God's eyes. It's not about how much it's,

it's about the sacrifice. What is it costing us?

And the Lord sees that many of us got this thing twisted

because many of us are so, so focused on the amount and what

it looks like to everybody else. And God says, I don't care about

that. What does it cost you?

Where's your heart about it? That's what the Lord loves to

see. And #3 #3 this is a little bit

of a long one, but I want to understand this here, right?

So God gets more glory from a person that gives little but

sacrifices much than a person that gives much but sacrifices

little. So Jesus is pointing this woman

out. He's like, man, she's giving

away more. Why?

Not? Just because of our heart

posture, not because of her intention, but because the Lord

is glorified in her act. And listen, when God gets the

glory, get ready for a shift. God is going to get it, getting

the glory here in all of this. And many of us kind of have it

backwards. And listen, God is more pleased

when God gets that generosity. God says, man, I'm more pleased

by someone that has sacrificed a lot but yet has given a little

than someone who has given a ton but sacrificed nothing.

Man, God is looking at that. He's like man, I, I find glory

in this, like this is aligning with my heart.

This, I, I see your heart as well.

This is what it looks like. Jesus, the number 4, the spirit

of giving determines the value of the gift more than the

amount. So what does that mean for us?

So God's getting the glory. So that means that our mentality

in giving needs to shift because when you give sacrificially, you

don't come to God all mad about it.

Second Corinthians talks about how God loves a cheerful giver.

Listen, this poor widow came to give her two mites and she

wasn't upset about it. She wasn't sad about it.

The Bible says that when Jesus observed her, she went straight

to the boxes and dropped them in there like it was no like

nothing, like another day. She knew exactly what she came

to do. And listen for us, our spirit,

the way that we need to see giving, the way that that we

need to align our hearts is that Lord, this gift that I'm about

to give you, the value of it is not who cares about the amount?

It's the value that God wants to look at.

So our spirit needs to be the spirit of, yes, I'm giving

sacrificially. Yes, Lord, I'm trusting you.

But because it's you, I am more than happy to do it.

This is for my God. This is the God that always

provided for me that's going to take care of me and the God

that's going to guide my steps. Listen, God doesn't want you to

grab like grudgingly give money to him.

He doesn't want your guilt money.

He doesn't want your like little attitude when it comes to money.

God does not care for that. God loves a cheerful and listen

if your attitude is 1 of. Anger and hate or one of of self

motivation. Listen, just keep your money in

your pocket. You got to understand something.

God doesn't need anything. He's the creator of all things,

but he allows us to join an alignment his work.

And what God is saying is that giving is not for me, it's for

you. It's showing that you trust me

and you're being obedient to me. Come into our brother.

Juan talked about how obedience is key.

So when we give, we do it with a joyful heart.

We do it with a heart of gratitude.

We do it even though it scares us, knowing that we can trust

God and that's what it shows us. You know, Second Samuel 2424

surpasses. As I was studying this, I ran

across, I love this passage as we're talking about David

refused to give God something that does not cost him.

It's like this, this, this probably like gave David

something and David actually like said no to it.

He says, no, I insist on paying for it.

I will not sacrifice to the Lord my burnt offerings.

That does not cost me anything. Even David, he, he's like, no,

no, if it doesn't cost me anything, he's not going to

honor the Lord. And listen, what's going to cost

you following Jesus? Everything, it's going to cost

you. And listen, if following Jesus

has not cost you anything, then you're not following Christ.

You've got to follow him. It's going to cost you.

David is like, Nah, it has to cost me because it's going to

honor the Lord this way. And the tragedy is that some of

us will will never truly surrender areas of our life to

give to God. You see the thing with this

story, the reason Jesus is pointing this lady out, it's not

about the two mites. It's not about giving

financially. He's seeing like this is the

heart of God. This is what glorifies God.

This is what pleases God is when you give everything.

And what God requires of us is that we give everything who we

are to him. We surrender our lives to him.

We say, Lord, take all of it, take everything God, do whatever

you want with. And the tragic part is that

there's going to be many of us in this room that are going to

hold on to certain things. And there's going to be many of

us that let go of certain things.

But you're truly not going to understand the like the, the

magnitude of truly stepping into obedience with God, with God

until you let it all go. So this widow made this awesome

contribution. Maybe the scribes took her

property, maybe they took her house, never know.

But what we do know is that Jesus points around and says,

I'm pleased with this, which gives me to love #5 whatever we

give sacrificially to God, he sees it and he's pleased.

This is really important, so important because many of us, if

we're honest with ourselves, we want to do stuff in Jesus name,

but not for his family. So we'll pull the name of Jesus

out and we'll try to get stuff for us.

And what Jesus says is I'm seeing this and it looks like

you're sacrificing a lot. It looks like it, but the truth

is it's not for you. I mean, it's not for me, it's

for you. And honestly, guys, we we see

this in our culture, we see it in the political realm, we see

the entertainment, we see business, we see media.

And sometimes the name of Jesus is good for business.

Sometimes the name of Jesus is good for politics.

Sometimes the name of Jesus is good for a careers.

And God is looking at that and, and Gods like that is not

sacrificially giving. Your motives are off, your heart

is off. I'm not pleased.

But when we approach the throne of God, when we give

sacrificially in our hearts aligned with his heart, he's

going to look at that and he says, yes, that's what I'm

pleased with, which begs me to ask the question.

And this kind of got me into a little.

Can we go a little bit deeper? So my question is then like, how

do we know that God is pleased with our sacrificial giving?

Because many of us might sit in this room and be like, oh

really? I feel like I've sacrificed a

lot. I feel like I've given my time

to this. I feel like I did this for

Jesus, but I don't sense anything.

I think the answer is in verse 41.

How do I know that God is pleased with my sacrificial

giving? Look at Jesus response when he

looks at the lady giving sacrificially the first thing he

does in verse 41 they're doing that's that's a hard clip of

swaddle for some of us because some of us we're trying to do

things for Christ and nothing is happening and maybe, maybe, just

maybe your heart is off. We're honest with each other

because the Bible also says that this when the Son of Man is

lifted up, he draws people toward himself.

And what Jesus does is when he sees this lady giving her

sacrifices, the first thing he does is he calls his disciples

to, to show them what it looks like to align yourself with the

heart of God. He calls them to him, not so

they can learn, but he's going to draw.

So how do I know that what I'm doing is pleasing to the Lord?

Jesus is going to draw people toward it.

It's going to come, but on the flip side, how do I know that

maybe what I'm doing is not pleasing crickets.

It's going to be difficult. It's not going to work.

It's going to be vacant. God knows the the motive and the

heart behind everything that we do.

And we could approach something with the name of Jesus, but

underneath all that is that we want our fame and our name and

our renown to be risen up and not his.

And so I'm saying that really, that's not fair because I need,

no, it is because you're not the one that created the world and

you're not the one that died on the cross.

He's the only one that's worthy of praise and worship, not you.

So you don't get to be in that picture.

But when God gets the glory in something, you get splashed with

it. So how do we know that it's

pleasing to God? God draws people to it, which

these go to. How do we know it's pleasing to

God? He points it out.

You see what he do with that Lady?

He didn't just cause the cycle storm, but he said look, look,

look at this. He's pointing it out.

He doesn't talk about the rich guys dumping the money and the

buckets and their trumpets. He doesn't talk much about them.

His focus is on her. So he pulls people in and then

he points it out and says, look at what she's doing, what we

call that his favor. God puts his favor on it and

favor does not mean financial favor means that it thrives and

it grows. So God is like, man, come here,

everybody check this out. Or do you say like, come here,

check this out, look, look at what they're doing.

Look at what this person is doing.

He's putting his favor. Jesus is saying, I approve of

this. I love this, this is great.

And then the last thing, how do we know continual impact?

We don't know what came of the woman.

The Bible doesn't talk about that.

What about memories does it look like to give sacrificially?

How do we know that Jesus is pleased with it?

And we saw what that looks like, But also, what does that mean

for us? Is it really about money?

Is it really about money? Let's go to Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Let's take it one more step. Romans 12 one with this versus

1, one and two. So what does that mean for us?

How do I give sacrificially? What does the Lord require of

me? First one.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's

mercy, to offer your bodies as what living sacrifice, holy and

pleasing to God. This is your true and proper

worship. Do not conform to the pattern of

this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is,

His good, pleasing and perfect will.

What does God require of us? How do we give sacrificially,

not just material wise? Listen, the way you give

sacrificially is you give your whole entire life to Him.

That's the sacrifice. And when you give, he says, men

make your bodies an offering as a living sacrifice that is

pleasing and holy to the Lord. So then how do I know?

How do I know? Look what it says.

It says don't be conformed to the pattern of this world, but

be transformed. How do I know that I've given

sacrificially? How do I know that I've given my

whole entire life to Christ? It says it in verse 2.

If I'm conforming to the things of this world that I am not

truly 100% given my life over to Christ, but if I'm being

transformed by the renewing of my mind, that means that God is

doing a work in me. So if I'm being fooled more to

the things of this world, if my life is being guided more to the

things of this world, there might be some things that I have

not given to God yet. My sacrifice has not been

percent. There's still some things

holding on. Why?

Because of my lean, I'm leaning I'm being conformed to this

world. But once I began becoming

transformed by the renewing of my mind, then I'm able to say

that I gave my life sacrificially to hood.

But Jesus, it's not one thing or another.

It's not both. You have to pick and then it

says this, this is crazy. Then you will be able to test

and approve what God's will is. Many of us that are meandering

through this world trying to figure out how, how, how to

manage light. What are you being conformed to

things of this world? If you're being conformed to

things of this world, you're not going to be able to test God's

perfect will for your life. So you're just going to be

walking in circles. Hello Israelites.

But if you're being transformed by the renewing of your mind, if

you said, Lord, I want you to take my life, use it how you

wanted that I surrender it all and God begins to work on your

heart, your mind. If he gets to transform man,

things are going to be able to be seen more clearly in your

life. Your identity is going to start

coming up to the top. Like I know exactly what I

belong to. I don't have to be a slave of my

sin anymore. I know exactly like, like man, I

want to follow God and God's going to show me where to go,

what to do. He's going to open doors for me.

He's going to show me like money to like things in your life.

You're going to be able to test and you're going to want to see

his perfect will in your life. But you got to choose.

Are you going to be continually conformed to the think patterns

of this world, or are you transformed by the reason of

your mind, which only comes through true surrender?

It's sacrificial giving of yourself to him.

And in verse 3, and we're done for by grace giving me.

I say to everyone of you, do not think yourself more highly than

you are, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in

accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

Don't think that you're all that in a bag of chips because you're

not. God's grace on your life says

that I'm able to transform you by the renewing of your mind

because you gave yourself. It's just because you have

Christ in you does not make you any better than anybody else.

It just makes you sane. And what you want to do is not

boast or not be not bragging, that what you want to do now is

look at somebody who doesn't have it and say, man, let me

share this with you. It changed my life and it's

going to change yours as well. Come on, man.

So my hope for you to hear today is that you have the heart to

give of yourself, Not just give sacrificially to the Lord, but

align your heart, align your motives.

Say, Lord, I don't know what you're calling me to, but I'm

willing to sacrifice for it because it's going to bring you

glory and you're going to be pleased with it.

But I also know what it looks like now to give sacrificially

because of what Jesus did, but also I give my life to you so

that way my life could be transformed by the removal of my

mind and my heart. You're going to cover me with

your grace, so I don't go around thinking I'm all that.

That way I'm able to bring people to the same place that I

am, which is a relationship with Christ.

Don't pray for us.