Good morning. You can open your Bibles with me to the book of Mark. We're going to be reading from Mark chapter 12. This is on page 797 if you're on a Pew Bible. Mark chapter 12. And we will read beginning at verse 41. All right, let's pay close attention to God's word. And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box, for they all contributed out of their abundance. But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. All right, let's pray together. Holy Spirit, we pray that you would speak through the Word of Christ this morning, that you would speak life and faith, repentance and obedience and sanctification into us, and that you would be transforming us more and more to be like Christ. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, last week, as we looked at the verses leading up to this passage, we saw how Jesus warned us about following teachers like the scribes. And we saw how he described the scribes, how they were takers, men who use their position and their appearance to take from other people. to satisfy themselves and to build themselves up. And they called that worship. They called it religion. They called it service. Well, today in our passage, Jesus gives us a lesson in the opposite of taking. He gives us a lesson in giving. You may have the sense that you need to give more. You might think about your life and think about your relationship with the Lord, and you may be convicted by this. It may be something that you think about from time to time, whether you are giving enough to the Lord. Whether you're giving enough money in worship, maybe you are convicted because you feel like you should give, I don't know, give to more ministries or give to more missionaries. You may be convicted because you think that you are keeping too much time to yourself, that you need to give more in service to the church or to other members of the church, or maybe you are convicted over the ways that you use your time and your money and your strength in terms of your own family. If you're married, your spouse or your children, if you have them, or your parents or your siblings. You also, at the same time, may feel that you just have very little to give. I think that's very common. We go through life and we look at what we have, and we look at our bank account, we look in our piggy bank, and just however much is there, it just seems to us that there's, it's very limited, right? However much you have, it's not infinite, and you just, you are constantly feeling the limitations of what you can do, the limitations of your money, the limitations of your time and your schedule and your energy And you may feel guilty about that. You may feel like, you know, there's more that I can give, and yet you feel that pinch because of how little you feel that you have. And at the same time, who doesn't like to get some positive feedback on your giving, right? Who doesn't like to be thanked and to receive some appreciation? And you may wonder, even at the same time, that you get that positive feedback, you may wonder, am I a hypocrite? I like getting that feedback. Who am I serving here? Well, all these concerns that we may have when it comes to giving and when it comes to serving, The Lord Jesus gives us a helpful lesson this morning as we consider the widow and her penny, the two mites, right? The widow and her mites. Well, what are some things that we need to learn from this passage, that we need to learn from the mouth of God as we consider this widow that Jesus draws to our attention this morning? And the first is, that we need to give under God's eyes. We need to give under God's eyes. So often, the way that we can give and the way that the world gives is as though there is no God. It's very striking here, Jesus has finished his public teaching, he's pretty much wrapped up all of his public teaching ministry, and he sits down opposite the treasury in the temple, and he watches how people bring their gifts. deposit their money into those boxes in the temple. There were these 13 large boxes that they called shofar boxes, which is a Hebrew word for trumpet. And they said they had an opening on them like a trumpet. And some people say, you know, the small end was at the top, you know, so you have the small end and then it would open like a trumpet onto the box. I imagine more like the old New York thruway, you know, boxes you throw your quarters into, you know, the trumpet opens out and you chuck it in as you go by, right? These were big and people would come and, you know, they kept careful records of what people would give, and so you would go and you'd talk with a priest, you'd show them what you were gonna bring, what your offering was, what your gift was, and they would make a record of that. were four different kinds of designated gifts, and so depending on what you were giving for, you would go and chuck it in the right box. And, of course, they didn't just take money, they'd take other things as well. They took all kinds of gifts and kinds, so people would bring food, they would bring animals, they would bring all kinds of things that were necessary for all of the worship in the temple, and all of the maintenance of the temple, and paying for and maintaining the priests and the Levites who served in the temple. And we've talked about before just the vast wealth that was accumulated in the temple. I mean, the treasury here, right? This is a huge treasury, right? And they didn't have banks back then. They didn't have online banking, of course. So all of that wealth is being stored, physically stored in the temple. In fact, in the ancient world, temples kind of were the banks. I think that's actually one reason why when you go in an old, like beautiful old bank today, Back in September, my family, we went to Detroit, and we wandered around the lobby of this huge, really impressive bank that was, I can't remember, Dad probably remembers the style of architecture that it was, but it was really, it was impressive. You go in, the high ceilings, colorful, ornate, and they're built that way for a reason. They're built that way to inspire awe in you. to make you feel that you are entering into a special place. They're modeled after the old temples. And that tells you a little something about banking. It's always, you know, Jesus connects money with worship, right? You cannot serve God and money. And it is really striking that money always gets really to the heart of who it is exactly that we serve. And And so it was with the temple at that time in Jerusalem, it had an immense treasury, the second most powerful position in all of the temple institution was the treasurer. I think I talked about this before, but, you know, at various times when the Greeks and the Romans came and they sacked the temple and they plundered the temple, I mean, just the amount of money that was in there, the amount of gold, the amount of silver was just staggering, right? I mean, billions of dollars worth today, really, really, really staggering. And yet, you know, you get the sense Jesus is watching all of these people bring their gifts And you think back to the very beginning of the chapter, the beginning of Mark 12, and Jesus' perspective on all of this wealth that is coming in. And what his perspective is really is that all of this wealth is coming into the temple, all of this wealth is being brought in as part of worship, and yet, as far as Jesus is concerned, God's not getting any of it, right? In that parable of the tenants. Jesus says God had established Israel as a vineyard, and he was looking for fruits from the workers, and God was not getting any of it. And that tells us that even in church, even in our giving in church, we can have a kind of atheist attitude about giving. We're not really thinking of the Lord. We're not really thinking of His Kingdom. And we don't bring our offerings and our worship really under the eyes of God. We can serve and give without really thinking about this, that God is the one who made us, and that everything we have comes from him, every good thing. And does it cross our minds, do we give thought to this, right? If everything comes from him, if every good thing that we have belongs to him, then is everything that we do for him. And that's really something to consider. And so it's important that we remember that in all of our giving that we are under the eyes of the Lord. God watches just as Jesus sits and watches the people bringing their offerings. And it's like a very literal fulfillment of what it says in Psalm 11. really, really striking fulfillment of this passage in Psalm 11, where it says in verse four, the Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes see his eyelids, test the children of man. And here truly the Lord is in his temple and his eyes are testing weighing. not the gold that is being poured in and the copper and the silver, but his eyes are testing and weighing the people as they come. Jesus is watching. And that's important for us to remember, right? That in everything that we do in all of our lives, we need to remember that God is God. and that he sees us and he knows us, right? This is almost a little terrifying, right? People are more and more concerned about the surveillance state and surveillance capitalism and how you get an Amazon Alexa or whatever and you put it on your countertop and it just listens to everything that you say. That is a little alarming, right? And yet, how much more then to consider that there is a God in heaven who not only knows and hears and gives thought to every word that you say and everything that you do, but that also is able to pierce to the division of soul and spirit, joint and marrow, and who's able to discern those inner motives and intentions of the heart, something that other people can't do. God sees all. And we see this spoken again and again in the Old Testament, this reminder that there is a God in heaven. And although we may not see him, he sees us. And this is really the beginning of wisdom The fear of the Lord, recognizing, acknowledging, respecting that there is a God who transcends our world, who is on the throne in heaven, who sees and who knows us. And this is what a prophet said to King Asa in 2 Chronicles 16. He says, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth. to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro to give strong support to those whose way is blameless before him. Proverbs reminds us, right? The one who made the eye, does he not see, right? These are things that we need to remember. All a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths." All a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord. And so, just as a very beginning point and starting point for us, in our giving and in our serving is to respect God, to remember that in everything that we do, and especially in our worship, especially in how we use our money, especially in how we use any strength, any ability, any time that God has given us, let us respect the God who knows us and who sees us. God entrusts all of our strength to us, right? If we have eyes to see, if we have ears to hear, if we have the strength to get up out of bed, if we have two cents to rub together, where do these things come from? They come from the Lord. and they are entrusted to us. Really, a true Christian understanding of private property, and we do believe in such a thing as private property, but a true Christian understanding of private property is not rooted in me. I worked I earned this money, I bought these things. A true understanding of private property is that these actually all things belong to God and it is God's prerogative, it is God's authority to entrust what he has made to his creatures to take care of them. And so that's the basis of our having private property, of our having money and having a place to live and having anything. It belongs to us, not ultimately, but it belongs to us because it has been entrusted to us by the Lord. And he entrusts it to us so that we may make a return on it for him. We are to use it for his glory and for his kingdom. Well, how do we do that? What does that look like? Well, if we are going to use the things that the Lord has given us, if we are to be good stewards, then we need to use God's scales, right? A scale, of course, is what you use to measure things, to measure how much something weighs. You know, maybe you kids, you like to go to the grocery store and you go to the produce section and you like to put bananas in the scale, right? It's kind of a fun thing to do when you're a kid. And it tells you, Is the scale a good scale? And oftentimes when you go to the store, I'm not sure about the ones in the produce section, but a lot of times you go to a store and the scales will be certified, right? There will be like a sticker on them or a seal on them that someone from the New York State government has tested that scale and verified that it is an accurate scale. When you go to pump gas, right, there's a little sticker on the gas pump that tells you this gas pump has been tested to make sure that you will get all the gas that you pay for when you pump your gas, right? And this is really important for us to remember that we use the right scales when we think about how to give and when we prepare to give ourselves. Jesus, it says, doesn't come through very clear in the ESV, but in verse 41 it says that he sat down opposite the treasury and he watched how the people brought their gifts. He watched how they did it. We tend to watch how much And on a certain level, that's fine. On a certain level, it's okay. You go to the fundraising gala and they say, if you give this much, then we will put you, if you give up to $50, we'll call you a friend of our non-profit. If you give up to $500, we'll call you a partner. If you give up to $1,000, we'll call you a super partner or whatever. And then there's that super diamond platinum plus gold partner that if you give $500 million or whatever, and there's only one guy who does that. And so we very naturally think in terms of how much do people give? How much money? And yet, Jesus watches how. That's what he's focused on, is how. Now, I do want to say, I think it's fine, it is fine for us to pay close attention to how much is given. That's fine. And I don't think, just to be clear, I don't think like, I don't think it's like wrong for the Family Resource Center to say, you know, these people gave us this much money. In fact, I think it is good to thank people, right? It's good to thank people for the ways that they give, for the amounts that they give, for the ways that they serve, and we see that in the Bible, right? In Philippians 4, when Paul talks to the Philippian church, he says, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity, and he's talking about how they sent their their friend Epaphroditus to come and help take care of Paul. And this cost them something, it cost them time, it cost them a person, it cost them money, because he came to take care of Paul as he was in prison. And he says, it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only, even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs once and again." And not only does Paul thank the Philippian church, you know, to their faces through this letter for all of their service, but, you know, he talks about the Philippian church to another church. If you remember in 2 Corinthians, in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, He says, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. Paul not only thanks the Philippians, but he even talks about their generosity to other people. And that's fine, and that's not only fine, it's good and it's right to recognize when people serve. And the reason that we do that is because God himself is true. Because God himself is the one who loves the truth and who is the source of all equality and of all right judgment. And we read in the book of Proverbs, in Proverbs 16 and elsewhere, that just scales belong to the Lord. To weigh something rightly, to have a fair and a right transaction, to look at what someone has given you and to say the truth about what that thing is, that comes from the Lord. And so, It is good for us to recognize and to give thanks rightly and accurately. And yet there's something going on here, right, with the widow and all of these rich people who bring their gifts. And that is that Jesus is correcting our normal measure that we use for thinking about worship and service, right? He's correcting the measure that we are inclined to use. And we have this great contrast here between all of these wealthy people who are coming into the treasury and pouring out all of their lavish gifts in the temple. And on the other hand, we have this is really emphatic in the Greek, right? It's almost as though it says this one single poor widow. So you have all these many rich people coming in with their large gifts and you have this one single poor widow. And there's a real kind of contrast that Mark is setting up for us in this passage. He's using a little bit of word play both in this passage and in the passage that we saw last week where he's making a contrast. It says at the end of verse 40, right, he talks about the scribes who devour widows' houses. And then he says, they will receive the greater condemnation. And that word greater in Greek means abundant. They will receive an abundant condemnation. And it's real striking there, right? These people who, are constantly taking from other people, in the end, they will take something that they don't want. They take an abundance all throughout their life, and in the end, they will take an abundant condemnation. These people who devour widows' houses. And yet, in contrast, here in this passage, he mentions all of these rich people who give out of their abundance, and he contrasts that with The widow who gives out of her poverty, out of her lack. He contrasts the scribes who devour widows' houses and the widow herself who gives all that she has. Who gives her whole life, actually, is the Greek word. She gives her whole life, her whole livelihood. What is it that she gives? She gives two lepta, which make a quadrants. She gives two tiny little slivers of copper, and together, these make a 64th of a denarius. And that means that it's like, I don't know, if you're making 15 bucks an hour, then she gave about $2. Right? A dollar's just not worth very much anymore. She gave about $2. And so all of these wealthy people with all of their gold and all of their silver, and yet here is this widow who gives just a very tiny amount. And in the face of all of that wealth, what is it that Jesus says about her gift? Something very surprising. He says, she gave more. She gave more. How can that be? How is it that she gave more than all of these wealthy people? Well, to understand that, we have to use the correct measure. We have to use the scales of the Lord. What is it that the Lord is really looking for? And in this passage that I just read from, from 2 Corinthians 8, we find there, what is the correct measure? In 2 Corinthians chapter 8, as Paul is talking about the Macedonian church that also, like this widow, gave out of their poverty. And he says in this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. So you understand what Paul says there. They gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. They gave themselves to the Lord first. And that's the measure. That's the measure and that's what the Lord is looking for. And that is why Jesus can look at all of this treasure coming into the temple and still say that the Lord is not getting the fruit of the vineyard. It is because in all of the giving, they are not giving themselves first to the Lord. But this widow did give herself first to the Lord. It's striking that she gave two coins, right? You know, if you've got two coins, you can always keep one for yourself. I inherited from my grandfather a book of snappy stories that preachers tell. And one of the stories is about a little boy and his mother gave him two coins. And she said, one is for the offering at church and the other is so you can get yourself an ice cream cone. And as the boy ran down the street, he dropped one of the coins into a drain on the street. And he said, oh no, God's coin. Right? We like to divide what belongs to me and what belongs to God. And somehow when we lose things, it's always God's stuff that we lose. But she gave both coins. She gave herself. I think this is really how we need to begin as we think about giving and as we think about service. It begins when you sit down and you make a budget, which I encourage you to do. When you sit down and you make a schedule for the week or for the month, which is a good thing to do, you plan out your week. You make a plan for your money. You make a plan for your future. See, like, there's the problem right there, right off the bat. Already, we're thinking about what to do with our money and with our time and with our future. Here's a little exercise for you. You know, the next time you sit down to balance your checkbook, the next time that you sit down to count up all the coins in your piggy bank, the next time that you sit down to plan out the week, you need to bring yourself before the Lord and you need to bring your schedule before the Lord. You need to put your calendar app before the Lord. You need to put your bank account before the Lord. And you need to give yourself to the Lord first. You need to stop before you make all your plans. You need to stop before you make your budget. And you need to say, Lord, I belong to you. And everything that I have belongs to you. And so as I'm making plans, I want to make those plans remembering that this money is your money. This time is your time. And whatever future I have is your future. All of your money is God's money. All of your time is God's time. all of your strength is God's strength. Does that sound familiar? This is how we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our strength. And this does not mean that we neglect our families, okay? But it means that the way that we care for our families, we care for them as those who belong to the Lord. And we care for them knowing that they also belong to the Lord, right? This is when you bring your children for baptism. Isn't this one of the vows that you take when you present them? You acknowledge that your children are a possession of God, entrusted to your care. And this is why The Bible has a lot to say about how parents take care of their children because your children don't ultimately belong to you. And so even in caring for our family, right, we care for them as those who are the Lord's. And so giving everything to the Lord doesn't mean that we ignore our family or make make decisions that are foolish for our family. In fact, Paul says in 1 Timothy 3 that this is one of the qualifications for an elder, right, is that an elder has to show that he knows how to take care of his family, to love his family, and to care for them, and to manage his family well, right? Because if someone can't manage their own family, how will they manage God's house, right? But in all of that, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. And so as we sit down to make our budget and to make our schedule and to make our plans, present yourself to the Lord and offer yourself and everything that is yours to him. And this also touches then on how we train our children. And for you children, it touches on you for how you how you receive the training of your parents, and how you think about your own future. Do you talk to your kids about stewardship? Do you talk to your kids and remind them that the money that you have and the time that you have and the schedule that you have, that these things ultimately are the Lord's? Do you talk together with them about How can you as a family serve the Lord with all that you have? You know, I know that there are some people, I've started to hear this more and more in recent years, husbands and fathers who will sit down with their wives and come up with the mission of their family, right? Who are we as a family? What is our family about? What are we here to accomplish? And to put that in very specific language in terms of serving the kingdom of God. And to remind your family of that, to remind yourselves of that, we are here as a family to serve God who made us and who has saved us. And this means, by the way, like, you know, this is a good question for you as parents. Do your children see you making sacrifices for the Lord? I mean, parents are always making sacrifices, but do they see you making sacrifices for the Lord? I think here, too, as well, what Jesus says about this widow is also a great encouragement to you if you feel that you have very little, that the Lord blesses the giving, not because of how much is given, but because she gives her heart. She gives everything to the Lord. That is what makes it blessed. Of course, we know, we've seen how people will have these big fundraisers, they'll raise all of this money for something, and then you read about it later in the news, like, something funny happened with the bookkeeping, it didn't go all to where it was supposed to go. The money somehow got siphoned away, or maybe the project was a failure, the work that was undertaken didn't go well. And we also know times when someone gives just a very little bit, but because they give all that they have, that giving is really blessed by the Lord. We can see that in different ways. Of course, there's one big way that we see in Scripture is in the fish and the loaves. as that very small amount of food and yet all the food that they had was given over to the Lord and the Lord blessed what was given and made it abundant for the masses who were there. There's a great encouragement here to you, to hear the Lord say that this widow who gave only two small coins, because she gave all, we expect that that giving was blessed. And you think about now, just think for a second, how this is very much like the woman with the alabaster box, right, who gave that exorbitant gift to the Lord and anointed him with that fragrant perfume just before he was arrested. And Jesus said about her that wherever the gospel would be preached, what she had done for him would be told as a memorial for her. You think about the effect that that gift is had through 2,000 years as people have heard of her exorbitant generosity to the Lord. And it's the same here with this woman, this poor widow, this one poor widow who gave, right? How many people read this passage and say, wow, think of all the gold and silver all those rich people gave. I'm gonna go out and give. How many people? have had their perspective on the Lord and the perspective on their money and their time changed by this widow who gave everything. You see, what the Lord is able to do to bless what we give, and that is an encouragement to you, even with what you may feel is very little, very little that you're able to do. And at the same time, this is really humbling to us who have a lot. It's very humbling to the rich because their large gifts are not blessed because they are large. And it doesn't mean that if you give a big gift, it won't be blessed, right? The woman with the alabaster box gave a big gift and it was blessed. But it reminds us that simply the number of dollars on the gift, right, or the number of hours that we give, that alone does not guarantee that that gift will be blessed in the giving. Well, finally, we should also give expecting God's blessing. And this is really, really important. we should give expecting God's blessing. We know something even more clearly than that widow knew or than the disciples knew, right? We know something very clearly, and that is that God has already given his son for us. The truth is that we hold back in giving because we doubt what the Lord will do. We doubt how the Lord will bless our giving and how the Lord will bless us. We focus on how little we have and on how risky it seems to give more. And so we need to remember that this same God who sees us and who knows us in our giving, we need to remember that this God literally has nothing to lose. He has nothing to lose. There is no lack with Him. See, God is such a God that He can keep giving day after day after day and never decrease what He has. He never goes down. He can even give his son to die on the cross and yet he loses nothing. He can be patient and lose nothing. He can give generously even to his enemies and lose nothing. This is what it means for God to be God. There is no way to take away from God. There's no way to make God suffer. There's no way to impoverish God. God is always himself. He's always satisfied. He's always full. He's always overflowing in good things. Every good and perfect gift comes from him, and there's no shadow of change with him. He is always good. And so as we give, we need to remember the God that we give to. has no lack. And we know that most of all because He gave His Son and because His Son gave all. Again, in 2 Corinthians, what is it that Paul says about our Lord and Savior? For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor. so that you by his poverty might become rich." This is the heart of God to whom we give. This is the heart of God, the generosity of God, and we don't give to God hoping that he will look on our gifts and maybe respond in kind. That's the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel is, Show your faith. Give to God. Give everything that you have to my ministry. And if you have enough faith, God will bless you, just like he's blessed me, right? And if God doesn't bless you, you must not have enough faith. But thanks for the donation. No. God has already given to us. Every day that we wake up, we are waking up under his generosity. We have a Savior who has already given everything for us. He has already given. He's already made himself poor. He's already made us rich. And our faith is just a response to that. It's very simple. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. That giving of God is already there. We are simply receiving what he gives. And so we can trust God because he has already given us everything in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, day to day, we look around us and we think in terms of scarcity, right? You study economics and they teach you all about scarcity, supply, and demand. Right? One of the richest men who's ever lived, John D. Rockefeller, someone asked him one time, how much money is enough money? You know the answer? He said, just a little bit more. Just a little bit more. And that is the kind of world that we naturally feel we live in. a world of scarcity, where we need just a little bit more. And no matter how much you have, even if you have all the wealth of Rockefeller, it's never quite enough. It's always limited. Well, I got to show you something here. This is really, really important. In the book of Revelation, And Revelation chapter 6, right? In Revelation chapter 6, John says, now I watched when the lamb opened one of the seven seals. Okay, so here's the lamb. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ in the throne room of God. And he is opening these seals. And from these seals as they are opened, come, we're familiar with these, right? The four horsemen of the apocalypse. And it says, In verse 5, when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, come. And I looked, and behold, a black horse. And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine. Do you know what that means? a quart of wheat for a denarius. One whole day's work will get you a quart of wheat. One whole day's work will get you three quarts of barley. You know what you call that? Scarcity. And the good news here in Revelation chapter six is that The Lord is pulling back the curtain and showing us something that is very important to see about the world that we live in. Where does scarcity come from? Scarcity comes from the Lord. It comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. As he sits on his throne in heaven, he opens that third seal and summons that third horseman. It's a real thing. It's a real thing that we deal with in our day-to-day lives, but the good news in the book of Revelation is that we are seeing something more real. Everybody knows that it's hard to eat, that it's hard that, like, just life goes on and you feel like sometimes it's just hand to mouth. And if we feel that way sometimes as Americans, how much more do people in the rest of the world feel that way, right? People who do literally live on $2 a day. But the great revelation here is that these things answer to the Lord. They are not the most real thing. Economic pressure, scarcity, poverty, these are not the most real things. The most real thing is the lamb who is seated on the throne. And this is why governments like our own, that laser focus on the economy, end up destroying their country. It's because there is more to life than dollars and cents. And if we serve money, we will end up slaves. This is also why, you know. that ancient philosophy of Stoicism is really kind of the high watermark of all pagan thought. Because when we set God aside, when we set aside the God who is in heaven and we focus only on this world, which is what paganism is, when we focus only on this world, on all the forces that are at work around us, in the end, we realize that we have no power over the world around us and that we are being directed and guided and controlled by the world around us. And so Stoicism, seeing that, came to the conclusion, I cannot change anything about my circumstances. I cannot change anything about the world around me. All that I can do is change my own attitude. That's what Stoicism is. All that I can do is change my own attitude, and I say that is the high watermark of all non-Christian thought. But you know, that's not very much. In the Lord Jesus, we actually have power. In the Lord Jesus, we are given the Holy Spirit. In the Lord Jesus, we receive all the generosity of God. And so, when you find yourself asking this big question, right, is it safe? Is it safe to give? Is it safe to give more? Is it safe to give all? Is it safe to give more money, to give more time, to give more energy? The answer is, well, yes and no. It's kind of like Aslan, right? Is he a safe lion? No. But he is good. It will not feel safe. It does not always feel safe trusting the Lord. Sometimes it's a little frightening. Sometimes it's a little terrifying. But the Lord is a good and generous God. And all those who call on him in faith he receives as his children. Is it safe to give all? Well, our God who is in heaven did not spare his son, but gave him for us all. Should we expect, then, that poverty, a missed paycheck? Should we expect that losing our jobs? Should we expect that an unexpected health problem or health crisis in our family? Should we expect that a problem with our health insurance? Should we expect that not having quite enough money in savings? Should we expect that these things will separate us from the love of God? No. Even in all these things, we are more than conquerors through our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so if this is an area of anxiety for you, thinking about your money, thinking about your time, you need to remember who your God is. You need to remember how He is constantly appealing to his own generosity and kindness to us. Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. And the one who seeks, finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks, For a fish will give him a serpent. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? If this is an area of anxiety for you, let me encourage you to dwell on these passages. the kindness and generosity of God that he has already shown to you in Jesus Christ. And let me give you another encouragement, which is to begin to test your faith by ignoring your anxiety. Begin to test your faith. And this is something that you can do with accountability. This is something that you can do with thought, right? You know, there's a big practice in the history of the church Something that has really fallen away and something that maybe you all can give some thought to bringing back, and that is the practice of making vows. People would make their vows to God when they were in trouble. They would say, God, if you will help me, if you will deliver me out of this trouble, then I will give to you in response. And in the book of Malachi, right, God addresses his people and he He issues the ultimate challenge, right? In Malachi chapter three, he says, bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil. And your vine and your field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, and you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts." If this is an area of anxiety for you, then let me encourage you to sit down and to make a plan. Involve someone else from the church, to help you make that plan, but make a plan for how you are going to test your faith and to deny your anxiety in how you give. And that may be through your money, and it may be through your time, or it may be in some other way. And finally, you need to remember that God remembers your giving. God does not forget, right? I may forget how you serve in the church. Your family may forget the things that you do for them. But God is not like that, right? Jesus notices this widow with her two little copper coins. God remembers. And you think about what the writer to the Hebrew says. God is not so unjust to forget your service. We should expect that he will give a good reward that He will continue to provide for us. Just as He gives seed to the sower and provides bread, our daily bread, that He will also multiply your giving and your service. So let's come to the Lord. Let's remember Him. Let's remember and give Knowing that he sees our thoughts in secret, let's give to the Lord, offering ourselves to God first in everything. And let's give to the Lord, expecting that he who gave his own son will also remember our service and will bless us in our giving. Let's pray together. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are grateful to you for your generosity that we experience day by day. Most of all, the gift of eternal life, forgiveness of our sins, the power of your Holy Spirit to be changed, to live as your children, to know that you have prepared a place for us, Help us, Lord, day by day, not only to remember you, but to remember that you are preparing a place for your children. And so there is nothing that we can lack. There is nothing that we can give up here on Earth that we will not receive. tenfold in the kingdom of God. And even now here on earth, with persecutions, you show such generosity to us. Lord, we pray then that you would use this word of yours in our lives for good. In Jesus' name, amen.