Burt Reynolds once starred in a film titled “The End.” In the movie he decides to take his life by swimming as far as he can until he is completely exhausted and then not having the strength to get back he thought he would drown. But as he begins to sink under the water he changes his mind and decides not to go through with it.
As he breaks through the surface of the water he shouts out I want to live, I want to live. He then starts swimming back to shore but it’s a long way off. So as he is swimming he starts talking with God. He promises to obey all of the Ten Commandments. Then he realizes he doesn’t actually know what all of them are so he says well I will at least learn them. Then in his panic he says Lord if you will get me out of this I will give you 80% of everything I have. Time passes and now the shore is getting closer. For the first time he thinks he will actually make it and he says Lord if you will help me to get to the shore alive I will 10% of everything I have. Finally he struggles to the place where he sees that he is going to make it to land and he says well Lord let’s just forget what I sad.. I think I can make it from here on my own.
That is much like the attitude of many of us today and this kind of thinking says a lot about our attitude toward giving.
Week 1. We looked at David the psalmist. He was the only man in the Bible of whom it was said, “he was a man after God’s own heart. He had the heart of a shepherd.” He loved God’s people.
Week 2. We looked at Joseph. He was mistreated, thrown into a pit, into prison and left for dead by his brothers. Didn’t see his family for over ten years. In the end he said “what man meant for evil, God meant for good. Joseph had a heart of forgiveness.
In the 3rd week we looked at Moses. A powerful leader but he also had his weaknesses. He learned the importance of change; of flexibility and that when we get off track we must be willing to change. Our hearts must be soft or we won’t.
Week 4 we looked at Jesus. There are many things we could point out here but I want to say the thing I notice first is that Jesus had a heart for people who hurt.
Week 5 we looked at Noah. Noah had a blameless heart. He also had an obedient heart. He was willing to do an impossible thing simply because God wanted Him to.
Last week we looked at Stephen. Stephen had a heart to always do the right thing---regardless of the cost.
This is week 7 and today we take a look at a woman. We haven’t given equal time to the ladies. And we are looking at the widow who gave what we refer to as the widow’s mite. Understand the purpose behind this study for the past two months , titled “HEARTBEATS” is not just for us to glance back into history to look at the lives of these godly men and women but our purpose is really to LEARN from them. To learn how to have a heart that pleases God.
Now there is a big connection I want you to understand today…and that is the connection between GIVING and THANKGIVING. Jesus also made a connection between GIVING and FORGIVING in John 3:16. Throughout the remainder of this message this is the question I want to ask you to think about… think about your heart and ask yourself this question…..
Do I have a heart of giving? Where am I in my commitment to giving? You see too many of us think well I don’t have much, so I can’t give. Everyone can give. Giving is not reserved for the wealthy. And your commitment to giving or your lack of commitment to giving says a lot about you. Anyone who does not have a basic commitment to give will never be truly thankful. They’re connected.
First of all, (1) Giving is an act of worship. My commitment to giving tells others what my priorities are in life. When I give I am expressing my thankfulness to a holy God. When I give I am always reminded that everything I have comes from Him. When I give it lets God know that I realize that I would have nothing were it not for Him. We give to God because he is worthy of our gifts. And when you look closely at the word worthy you begin to notice that it is connected to the word worship. We worship Him with our time by spending time with Him… we worship Him with our talents by using our gifts in the local church and we worship Him with our treasures by spending our money on his work through the church. Now we have to ask question, how much should I give? Think through this with me today.
First we look to the OT. In Leviticus the Bible says “a tithe of everything belongs to the Lord.” Simply put a tithe is 10% so everything that comes into your house, you are to give 10% to Him. The idea in the OT is that 10% of everything we own belongs to God. So we are to set it aside and on His day of worship when we gather together we are to give it to Him. So if I make 100 dollars that week I give ten. If I make 500 dollars I give 50.00. Malachi said, bring all of your tithes to God and he says test me on this…. If you don’t believe it…test me and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and our out so much blessing you will not have room for it.” On one occasion in the OT they actually had to stop the offering because there was no more room. Now in the NT the tithe is not mentioned as much. In the NT we get a new pattern for giving. There are many examples of this in scripture but let me give you two. (1) In the story of the Rich young Ruler, the man comes to Jesus searching for eternal Life. Jesus tells him he must keep the commandments and he replies I have from the time I was a child. Then Jesus says take your possessions, sell all that you have and give it to the poor. How much? All of it. Then he says you will have treasure in heaven. It is the only time that we read this…”when the young man heard this he walked away sad, because he had great wealth.” Did you get that? He was sad because he was wealthy… and God told him to give it away.
One of the teachings we see here is this…God has a claim on your life. He does not just claim a part of you for Himself. He claims all of you. He doesn’t just want part of you…He wants all of you. In this story of the widow’s mite people were coming by and tossing their offering in…literally tossing it into the container that was provided. These containers had a trumpet shaped top, funnel that they could toss their money into and it would go down into the box/case. And many of them knew how to toss it so that it would make a lot of money. These were actually outside the place of worship. These funnels were made of metal, like brass and so it would ring out and everyone would hear their gift. But Jesus wasn’t interested in how loud their giving was. He didn’t care that they were making their gift so public. What He cared about was their heart. And for most of those who were doing it just to be seen, their hearts were in the wrong place.
Now we normally comment here about the size of her gift by pointing out that this “mite” she gave was 2 small copper coins that combined were worth only a fraction of a penny. So we then began to think well all I need to give is a small amount and God is pleased. But that is not the point here. The point here is not how SMALL her gift is, the point is actually how BIG her gift is. You see she gave everything she had. All of it. She was saying Lord everything I have is yours. And here it is.
(2) Giving tells me the location of my heart. It reminds me where my heart is. Jesus was constantly demanding more from His followers. And there were many who were simply not willing to pay the price. There were those who said they would follow Him wherever He went. But they walked away. The disciples said, “Lord we have left all to follow you.’’ When you are willing to hold nothing back from God He will hold nothing back from you! But for many of us our heart is in the wrong place. We place far too much value on material things … we value material things more than spiritual things. We do it because our heart is in the wrong place. You see we live in a
very blessed nation. A great nation. And to great nations comes great responsibility. We are so blessed that we fail to realize that we have more than most of the world. We forget how blessed we actually are. In 1999 and in the year 2000 I made two trips to Guatemala. I was a party of a large team of about 100 people who went to preach all over that area. We preached in churches, on the street corners, in houses and on soccer fields. I saw great poverty there. Children eating from the trash. People lived in places that could not really be described as houses… tin roof, cardboard to form the walls, no running water, most of them no front door…just an opening… and a dirt floor. But we saw over 5000 people come to Christ. When they look at us they see us as being very wealthy. They also think we all play basketball because we were so much taller. But I remember that when I left the 2nd time I was there one fellow who I had spent some time with that week handed me a note and said do not read this until your plane gets into the air. So I was pretty curious. The note said several things but he closed by asking me to buy him a (nice) house. As though that would just be a small purchase for me.
My wife and had an opportunity some years ago to give our car away. A woman in the church needed one to get to work and we had two so we gave it away. Only a few days later God brought enough money into our lives to be able to purchase another one. That’s the kind of God we serve. And when we give we show God and we show others where our heart actually is. Jesus said “where your treasure is your heart will be also.”
(3) Giving is an indicator of how much or how little we trust God. As believers, the Bible reminds us that not only is God completely aware of our needs but we are also reminded that He will meet those needs and that he does so according to His riches in Christ. And those riches cannot even be measured. In Matthew Jesus talks about money and worry. The two are very closely connected. He says I take care of the lilies of the field, I clothe them and I will clothe you. Stop worrying about what you will eat or drink…look at the birds and how I take care of them. The flowers don’t worry, the birds don’t worry and neither should you. He says seek the kingdom first and then all of these things will be given to you as well.” If I don’t believe that, deep down in my heart I will never be able to give at a meaningful level. We can be generous in our giving because we have a God who will provide for us. I don’t know if you have ever thought about this but almost everything the Bible has to say about money is negative, except where it talks about giving it away.
• He says the love of money is the root of all evil;
• it says that some who are eager for money have wandered away from the faith;
• it says to keep your life free from the love of money,
• he says don’t store up treasure here on earth…store them in heaven.
John Wesley who funded the Methodist church coined the phrase that says “get all you can, save all you can and give all you can.” We have changed that to say get all you can, save all you can as long as you can and then hold on to the can that you put it in. Listen. Jesus said, “do not store up for yourself treasures here on earth, where rust will destroy them and where thieves can break in and steal them but instead store them up in heaven. Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.”
This morning I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that this church has all the money we need. The bad news is it’s still in your pockets.
Let me ask you today, where is your treasure? Is it hidden away in the bank or is it invested in something that will last? What have you invested in, material things or spiritual things? Things that will be consumed in this life or things that will last for eternity? Wherever your treasure is that is where your heart is. So where is yours…where is YOUR treasure?
