Latest / HBCWestminster / 1.23.22 Luke 20:41-21:4 Pastor Danny Gardner

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1.23.22 Luke 20:41-21:4 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Luke chapter 20 and verse 41, if you're able to stand in honor of God's word as I read, beginning in chapter 20, verse 41, going through 21 and verse 4. But he said to them, how can they say that the Christ is David's son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?
• 0:32
  And in the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues, the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation. Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.
• 1:00
  And he said, truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them, for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on. And Lord, God of heaven, your word says it will not return to you void, that it will accomplish your purposes. Your word also promises blessings on the one who hears it and does it. And so, Heavenly Father, we incline our ears to understand.
• 1:32
  We submit our hearts to obey, and we ask for your blessing. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, church. Well, Luke has made clear since the beginning of his gospel that Jesus speaks with an authority that both antagonized the religious leaders and amazed the crowds. One constant in the earthly ministry of Christ was his being surrounded by people. You'll recall that contained within those massive crowds that followed Jesus were two different groups.
• 2:03
  The first were genuine believers. They heard the truth, they combined that truth with faith, and so they were saved. These people, we find, were hanging on every word that Christ spoke. But there was another group who also heard the truth, but the more the truth was heard, the more calloused their hearts became. And so they began plotting Jesus' demise.
• 2:28
  We see that not everyone who followed Christ was a true Christ follower We learned that it is possible to be a goat among the sheep It is possible to be a weed among the wheat and here again. We see these two groups juxtaposed Christ even warning his genuine followers to watch out for that second group
• 2:49
  What comes to a head during the Passion Week is the realization by Christ's friends and foes that this prophet of Nazareth, this carpenter from Galilee, was a man with a message and a man on a mission and that he would not stop until that message was preached and his mission was fulfilled. Christ, we find, is still conducting the events that will lead to his own crucifixion. He remains on the same train tracks that he stepped onto
• 3:17
  When he stated a couple of chapters ago in chapter 19 and verse 10 that the Son of Man, referring to himself, came to seek and to save that which was lost. Those train tracks we know would end in his eventual crucifixion. In the final week of his earthly life, Jesus was on a daily basis teaching at the temple. His enemies were actively plotting how they might kill him.
• 3:42
  so that his significant influence over the people would end. And I love how Alistair Begg summarizes the entire Passion Week when he says this, Jesus is teaching, his enemies are plotting, and the people are hanging on his every word. And in fact, the whole Passion Week could be summed up, teaching, plotting, and hanging. Let me ask you a question, church, as we begin. How do you feel?
• 4:23
  In other words, if there is silence, noise loves to fill that void. The activities of my daily routine will often crowd out what could have been God-intended silence.
• 4:43
  opportunities for spiritual reflection. And I find that at times when noise fills that void, I might actually prefer it do so. Because silence at times is awkward, uncomfortable. I don't like it. Have you ever been left speechless, dumbfounded? I've told you before, I grew up in Southern California, and so it was frequent for I and my family to go to the beach for the day if the weather was nice.
• 5:14
  Or just to get out of the desert, get out of the heat, we would drive down the hill to the beach and spend the day at the beach. And my boys, when they were very young, used to really enjoy when we figured out how to catch fish out of the ocean, even just standing on the sand. We would do this thing called surf fishing, where you stand in the surf, right? Knee deep, waist deep, sometimes in the water, and just catch fish out of the waves. It was really, really, really fun. And eventually we got pretty good at it.
• 5:42
  I was kind of a sucker for my boys asking to go and do something. They want to try something new. And so, Dan, can we catch fish out of the ocean? Absolutely. Let's give it a whirl.
• 5:52
  We got to where we were catching sometimes dozens of these little surf perch. They're eight or nine inches long, they're silver, and they've got these really pretty yellow stripes. They're beautiful little fish, and God made millions of them. I mean, they are everywhere. If you have ever swam in the Pacific, if you swam on the Pacific side, you were surrounded by these surf perch. They're in every wave that you were kicking around in. You may not be able to see them, but they were there.
• 6:17
  We'd catch just dozens and dozens of these sometimes, and when we'd pull them up, you know, we'd unhook them and toss them back out into the waves, and we'd just do that again and again. One of these days, my son, Zach, who is now this tall, but when he was this tall, you know, looked up at me with those puppy eyes and said, Daddy, can we release one one time where I can see it swim away? I want to see it swim away.
• 6:40
  Rather than just, you know, grenading these things out into the ocean again. Can we wait until it's a little shallower? I want to see it. I said, absolutely. So we catch another one. We kind of work our way back up out of the water and onto the sand where the waves were coming and then receding. And my plan was that I'd hold this fish. When the wave comes in, when the water was only maybe three inches deep, I would set it down and this thing would kick out into the ocean again, you know, and he'd get to see it swim out in that real shallow, clear water.
• 7:09
  Everything went according to plan. My boys and I, we catch this fish. We hold it like this. The water's all right, boys, here we go. Get ready, get ready. The water comes up. It's maybe three or four inches deep. I set this thing down and it starts to kick and Zach is just delighted. He thought it was the coolest thing. You see that thing's little tail just going? It thought, and you can imagine the mind of this fish, right? At first it was thinking maybe free food.
• 7:32
  And then he says, wait a minute, there's something wrong with this food. This food is dragging me up on the beach. And now this guy is holding me. Now I'm out of the water. I'm definitely dead meat. And now I'm back in the water. No, I'm free. And so it's excitement, right? It starts to kick and it's going. And Zach's just laughing and he's watching this thing. And the fish kicks out maybe six feet from us. And a seagull came down.
• 7:57
  And I'm not kidding, it snatched that thing. It was right there. It snatched that thing and picked it up and flew off. And Zach's just watching it. What happened? And again, you imagine the mind of the fish, like, I'm free. Oh, no. I'm gone. I'm definitely not free. We just stood there kind of in this dumbfounded silence for a moment. What just happened? It did not at all go the way I pictured it in my head.
• 8:28
  You can imagine Christ's scheming little enemies in their private rooms, conniving in hushed tones away from the crowds. The last couple Sundays, church, they thought they got him. They genuinely thought there is no way he can answer these questions. But his answers, we found, left them speechless. Do you remember that? The last two Sundays at the end, they couldn't say anything.
• 8:58
  They were silent, dumbfounded. Have you ever noticed how the Lord uses those times of silence to confront our true feelings, our true beliefs, our sin, our shame? In fact, I believe that the Lord is so faithful to do that, using times of silence in our lives, that we actually begin to avoid times of silence like the plague. We avoid those...
• 9:28
  intended silences because we want to avoid the deep things of God. And so we are left at times with thoughtless and hopeless religion. Often I wonder if the best thing for us wouldn't be to be forced to deal with our heart issues in silence. And in the same way that parents will often issue their children a timeout, just go and think about what you've done. The Lord here confronts those
• 9:58
  who oppose him. It's almost like he's giving them a timeout. Two Sundays ago, we studied the Pharisees' attempt at trapping him politically. Should we pay our taxes or not? They thought they had found an inescapable scenario. If Christ said they should pay their taxes, and that they should thereby support financially the subjugation of God's own people, then the crowds would reject him. But if he said they should not pay,
• 10:24
  then he would be deemed an insurrectionist and he would be crucified. In their minds, this is a win-win. It doesn't matter what he says. He's dead. Christ's response was brilliant. Give to the government what belongs to the government. Give to God what belongs to God. Their response? Crickets, right? They didn't know what to say. Christ had spoken the final word. And so the next Sunday, last Sunday, the Sadducees decide to take a whack at it.
• 10:53
  Whose wife will the seven-time married woman be in heaven? Again, a brilliant response from Christ. You have no idea how heaven works. There is no sin in heaven. That's a good spot for an amen. I'm going to need some people to testify this morning. There's no sin in heaven. Amen? Amen. If there's no sin in heaven, then there's also no death in heaven. Amen? Amen. If there's no death.
• 11:23
  then there is no need for the continued propagation of the human race. In other words, if there are no funerals, then there are no need for baby showers. If there's no need for children, then there's no need for marriage. That's what Jesus said. Their response? Crickets. Christ had spoken the final word. And we pick up this morning noticing how he fills their silence.
• 11:53
  with a seeming unanswerable question of his own i've got a question for you now you answer me you look at verse 40 from last week verse 40 they no longer dared to ask him any question so you can imagine them standing there in dumbfounded silence the verse 41 but he said to them how can they say that the christ is david's son for david himself says in the book of psalms the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand until i make your enemies your footstool
• 12:22
  david thus calls him lord so how is he his son the jewish people loved to refer to the christ or in hebrew the messiah as the son of david it was one of their favorite titles for the messiah david's son and indeed jesus was you'll recall that as jesus was making his way up to jerusalem for the final time luke chapter 18 he was confronted by a blind man do you remember this
• 12:51
  A blind man in the crowd cries out to Jesus, Son of David. Son of David, have mercy on me. That title garners Jesus' attention, right? It catches his eye. Like, who called me that? Right? Son of David. He hears the man in the crowd. He walks over to the blind man. He says, what can I do for you? The man says, I want to see again.
• 13:14
  The Lord restores his sight and the man begins to glorify God in front of everybody. In fact, Luke chapter 18 says that everybody who witnessed it gave glory to the son of David. We saw in Jesus' genealogy that he was descended from David's line through David's son Nathan. And so he was indeed a son of David. But this understanding alone...
• 13:41
  leaves an incomplete picture of who Christ actually was. To view him merely as the physical descendant of King David is to neglect the fact that Jesus actually existed long before King David. In fact, Jesus existed long before any of his forefathers. In fact, Jesus, the Bible says, existed long before creation itself.
• 14:12
  He was there when the universe was made. And so this is the impossible scenario, the unanswerable question that Jesus poses to his enemies. How can he be both son of David and Lord of David? And the most remarkable about these thoughts was that the scriptures created this conflict a thousand years before this conversation. Jesus quotes the Old Testament. In fact, he quotes Psalm.
• 14:43
  psalm 110 psalm 110 verse 1 let me ask you what would you say is the modern church's favorite bible verse what's the verse that every church quote i mean what's their favorite verse to quote what would it be
• 15:03
  Everybody thinks John 3.16, right? It's either that or Psalm 23, but I think Psalm 23 is probably even a distant second to John 3.16. Everybody on earth knows John 3.16. Everybody has heard it. In fact, a lot of people, even if they don't come to church, they probably at some point in their lives memorized For God So Loved the World. John 3.16 is the modern church's favorite Bible verse. But what would you think was the first generation's
• 15:33
  Favorite Bible verse. What was their favorite verse to quote? Guess which one it was. It wasn't. It was Psalm 110 and verse 1. Psalm 110 and verse 1. When Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, and he began to preach, guess what verse he quoted? Psalm 110 and verse 1. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand.
• 15:58
  In Acts chapter 7 and Acts chapter 13, the early church quotes Psalm 110. In 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul quotes Psalm 110. In Ephesians 1 and verse 19, Psalm 110. Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3, by far the most often, most frequently quoted Old Testament verse by New Testament authors was Psalm 110.
• 16:27
  And unlike the questions posed to Jesus, those questions from the last couple of Sundays, unlike those questions, which in the end were really just trick questions, right? They weren't genuine questions. They weren't really looking for an answer. They were trick questions. It would be like me saying, okay, true or false? And everybody in here knows how true or false works, right? I'm going to say a statement, and your two options are true or false.
• 16:58
  Okay? What if I were to stand up here and say, okay, true or false? You enjoyed smoking weed. Well, if I say true, then it means that I smoked it and enjoyed it. Right? But if I say false, then it means I smoked it and didn't enjoy it. And there's no way out of that. You're like, that's an unanswerable question. It's a trick question. Right? I enjoy breaking the law. True or false? You're like, I don't.
• 17:32
  There's no right answer to that, and that's what those questions were. Unlike the questions that were posed to Jesus, Christ here had a theological question of his own, which was actually crucial to understanding his identity. His enemies were guilty of believing the same thing about Jesus that modern unbelievers are guilty of today. This hasn't changed.
• 17:59
  you will find a plethora of Coloradans who believe that Jesus was a historical figure. Our neighbors all think he probably lived, that he lived and died in Palestine, that he had some followers, that his followers organized what would become a new religion known as Christianity. What modernists refuse to believe is that that same Jesus was also God in human flesh. That's where they have a problem.
• 18:27
  You're like, well, yeah, I believe he was a guy. I believe that he lived and died and all of that. And then he started some new religion. Sure. But was he God? Did he make his dwelling among man? Did he perform miracles and calm storms and cast out demons? Did he really preach the only way to heaven as through faith in him alone? And that apart from faith in him, none would be saved.
• 18:53
  See, church, I am a firm believer that none of your neighbors are offended at the fact that you believe in Jesus. What they're offended by is that you think they also need to believe in Jesus. That's what's really offensive to them. Not only do you believe in Jesus as the way to salvation, you believe he's the only way to salvation. And they balk at the very same text that Pastor Sam quoted just a few minutes ago. I'm the way and the truth and the life.
• 19:23
  And no one can come to the Father except through me. Modernists believe the humanity of Christ. It's the deity of Christ they have a problem with, which you'll find is exactly what his contemporary enemies were guilty of. We who understand both the human and divine natures of Christ, what theologians call the hypostatic union. We who know that he was both human and divine see clearly what King David meant.
• 19:54
  in calling jesus both son and lord for us psalm 110 is not a problem does that make sense you're like well was he god or was he man and you would say he was both that's how he can be the son of david and the lord of david the only possible explanation i think to jesus's question is that he is both god and man and again listen to how one pastor states it says he who is lord of all eternity
• 20:25
  became the son of david when he was conceived in the virgin mary when he was born in bethlehem when he walked out on the streets he who is lord of all eternity became a man and walked in meekness among them he was both jesus here was confronting his enemies with a truth that they refused to acknowledge you say well why their refusal why were they so adamantly against his deity and the answer i think is pretty simple
• 20:56
  It's because of this. If Jesus were just a man, then he could be stopped, right? In their minds, if he's just a guy, we can stop him. How are they going to stop him? That's not a trick question, right? How are they going to stop him? By killing him. If we can kill him, we stop him if he's just a man. But if he is also God in human flesh, then nothing they could do would stop what was about to happen.
• 21:28
  If he was God, not only can he not be stopped, but he must also be obeyed. They were confronted in Jesus' simple question with the truth that the Lord of all creation was also the man of Galilee. His challengers had no response. There was nothing they could say because there was no point they were willing to concede. And so, as was the case with the previous two encounters, his challengers are left speechless. Notice,
• 21:59
  In between verses 44 and 45. You guys all have your Bibles open? 44 and 45. Do you guys see in between those two? They have no response. There is no 44 and a half, right? He asked this question. In fact, Mark's parallel account actually says they had nothing they could say. He asked them this question and they just stand there speechless. And we notice in verse 45 how Christ...
• 22:30
  fills in the silence he follows up his question with a warning look at verse 45 and in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples beware watch out is what he said watch out for these guys beware of the scribes listen church the scribes were standing right there you can imagine him pointing watch out for these guys who like to walk around in long robes
• 22:56
  and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Beware, he says, those who parade their religion but whose faith has not reached their hearts. I heard someone recently give a list of things
• 23:23
  that in our culture, in our country, that they believe that COVID-19 probably has shut down permanently. Here are all of the things that we used to do that we will not do anymore. On his list were parades. Parades. He said, I don't know if those are coming back. We used to throw parades for everything. You guys remember what those were like?
• 23:47
  right the streets would be lined people would crowd along both sides of the street and then the lucky few and however they were determined right whether it was uh national champions in some sport or if it was you know rose parade or if it was the sweetheart of the mountains contest right somebody is going to stand in the middle uh ride some truck and they're going to get all gussied up and they're going to put on their sunday best and they're going to roll down the middle of that street
• 24:13
  that is crowd lined on both sides. And you guys remember the point of a parade. The point of a parade is to draw attention to a chosen few, right? If you're shy and you don't want to be seen by others, don't go down the middle of the street in the parade. Don't parade yourself. And this, Jesus says, is exactly what his enemies were doing.
• 24:44
  They were parading themselves in front of people. In fact, it even says they were wearing long robes and walking around in public. Long robes, like the train of a wedding gown. You guys ever wonder what those trains are for? Why do brides do that? And I know that it's...
• 25:06
  kind of fallen off in recent decades they don't necessarily wear trains anymore but you know every now and again you see like a some royal wedding or something and this bride has on this train that stretches behind her for 200 feet what is the point you wonder that i mean what why do they do that i'll tell you why because it draws attention to the person wearing it so you could be in a completely different room you could be down the street and you see this white
• 25:34
  Piece of material moving along. And you're like, what is that? And it causes you to look forward to whoever is wearing it. It draws attention to the wearer. And so you can imagine these scribes, these Sadducees, these Pharisees wearing these long robes like trains of a wedding gown. So that everybody's attention, they're walking down the middle of these crowd lined streets. Everybody's attention is focused on them. They loved that attention.
• 26:02
  They didn't want anybody to miss the opportunity to sing their praises. They sought accolades. They sought titles. You know, of all of the titles that well-meaning Christians call pastors. And I know they're very well-meaning, but there are a lot of different Christian traditions, and they all have their own words for what we call a pastor. That's like priest, minister, father.
• 26:33
  The one I think is the funniest is the word reverend. Because my thought, whenever I hear that word, that title, my thought is this, if you only knew me. Because in order to be called reverend, you have to be what? Reverend. And listen, we've hung out. I think probably a more fitting title would be ear reverend. That's probably a lot closer.
• 27:06
  Like, I don't know if I'm worthy of that title. These guys sought those types of titles. The most high, most illustrious, most magnanimous, most revered, and no doubt most humble, right? They wanted to be recognized.
• 27:27
  And this says they even go into the marketplaces, the public places. They wanted to be recognized in those places. They loved it when they were walking through the mall and people came up and asked them, aren't you the pastor of such and such church? They sought that. They wanted to be noticed and honored in their own synagogues. They wanted to make every festival about themselves. They wanted to sit at the head table at every party. In fact, I really think they would have been perfectly content to fill God's throne.
• 27:56
  with their own posteriors you imagine them walking up to the throne of god and saying god scooch over a little bit make room for me they would have loved it absolutely i mentioned the atheist christopher hitchens last week maybe my favorite quote of his was this he said owners of dogs will have noticed that if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection those dogs will think that you are god
• 28:26
  And dog owners can attest, they will worship you, he says, whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that if you provide cats with food and water and shelter and affection, those cats will draw the conclusion that they are God. This guy must worship me, right? He does everything.
• 28:53
  for me and consider how contrary this was to the way christ did it was jesus god it's a good place for a yes not a trick was jesus god yes and yet did jesus expect to be served no mark chapter 9 and verse 45 jesus says i'm sorry it's mark 10 45
• 29:18
  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, he says, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus was a carpenter. He was a day laborer. He was born in a tiny hamlet in scandalous obscurity. His friends were fishermen and tax collectors and zealots. Isaiah 53 and verse 3 says this, referring to Jesus, he had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. In other words, Isaiah 53 says he wasn't even good looking.
• 29:49
  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. In other words, they didn't throw him any parades. You'll notice that I left off that little last piece of verse 47. Do you guys see that? A little last piece that says, they will receive the greater condemnation. Whatever reward they were going to receive, Jesus says that they already got it.
• 30:20
  It's like he's saying, you did all those things to be praised by men. Congratulations, you got it. But don't think that anything else, any other reward waits for you in heaven. You wanted an earthly reward. You received it in full. My very favorite acts of kindness are those that are done in secret. Let me say that again. My favorite acts of kindness are those that are done in secret.
• 30:47
  This last Wednesday, I know that many of our families were struggling with sickness, and then we had that little ice storm thing, and it was just, you know, roads were weird and whatever, and so not very many of us could be here on Wednesday night, but we met on Wednesday night for Thrive, and Nathan had put together, Pastor Nathan, our family pastor, had put together a video, a very well-done video, talking about My Choice. My Choice is a crisis pregnancy center here in town that is a partner of ours. We support them financially.
• 31:16
  And so we just wanted to let everybody know who they were. In fact, you guys all got an email this week from Lori with a link to that video so that you could see who my choice is. At the end of the video, Nathan stood up and he said, here are some of their needs. Here are some needs that they've expressed to us. He said they need diapers, they need blankets, they need baby clothes, they need these things because they put together these gift baskets for the moms who come in there.
• 31:40
  And they want to know that those moms would be supported. They want them to know they will be supported if they choose not to abort their baby and rather to keep the baby. We will help you. And so they said, we need all of these things. He announced that to the few of us that were here. You know, the next day, Nathan goes out to his truck. It's parked out here in the parking lot. The next day, we're in the office. He goes out to his truck. And the back of his truck, the bed of his truck was full of diapers, baby clothes, blankets.
• 32:11
  Somebody had bought five brand new car seats, stuck them in the back of his truck, filled up the back of his truck. They didn't even come inside with it. They just stuck them out there like, hey, his truck is open. Honestly, I have no idea who did it. Maybe it was one of you, right? I have no idea. But I thought, how awesome is that? Your reward is in heaven. I know none of us know who it was, right? But who was watching?
• 32:40
  God, God could see it all. And you don't think his heart was pleased by that? That was awesome. My favorite acts of kindness are those that are done in secret because the reward awaits. And you notice at the end of chapter 20, his enemies are still silent. They have no response. And so he goes to work on them again. Verse one, Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box. A customary at the time was to do this in full view for all to see.
• 33:07
  So you can imagine them walking up to the box or they're all handing the offering plate to each other and making sure that everybody can see the size of the stack of bills that they're dropping in there. I want to make sure everybody notices. This is one of those full stacks, right? And they're dropping it in there. Or while they're writing their check, they make sure they write the number nice and big so that everybody can see it. It was normal for them to do that before they would place it in the envelope. You pick up in verse 2. And then he saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins.
• 33:37
  The word for those coins there is lepta, to lepta. You'll recall that a denarius was one day's wage for a Roman soldier. For simplicity's sake, let's call it a $100 bill. A lepta was the equivalent to one 128th of a denarius. This means a lepta, it was more than a penny.
• 34:01
  But it was less than a dollar. It'd be like 75 cents. And she drops two of these things in there. These guys are all dropping fat stacks of hundreds. And she drops in $1.50. This is probably a good time to remind everyone that I have no idea what anybody gives at this church. I will say that you are an incredibly generous church. You are a joy to pastor. But I don't have access to the giving records. This is on purpose. Those who count the money don't even see the names that are next to it. So they don't know who gives what.
• 34:32
  Only one person at our church sees numbers next to names. That's our financial secretary, who has to, by law, send all of us charitable contribution letters at the end of every year. And so if you in the recent past have given a whole bunch of money to the church, you've been waiting for me to call you to thank you personally. I apologize. But the good news is that I also didn't steal any of your heavenly reward. This poor widow, he says in verse 3, put in.
• 35:04
  More than all of them. Her $1.50 was more valuable to the Lord than all of the rest of it put together, he said. And honestly, church, $1.50 in a church budget is nothing. It's nothing in human terms. And yet the Lord says she put in more. My Bible reading this week included Psalm 50, where God says, I own the cattle on a thousand hills. It all belongs.
• 35:35
  To me, at one point in Psalm 50, he even says, if I had a need, I wouldn't come to you to ask for help. What are you going to do for me? I think it's just proof that our giving is really probably more for us than it is for him. The same principle is when we tell our kids to set their cell phones in the other room for the rest of the evening and turn it upside down. Take some time away from your phone.
• 36:04
  Like why? What's the big deal? Because I want you to know and I want your phone to know that it does not control you. The same thing is true of our giving. It lets both us and our money know who's in charge. He continues in verse four, they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had. You know, I've heard this passage preached as a plea to give more offerings.
• 36:33
  I have heard it preached that way where pastors will stand up and say, see, she gave out of her poverty all that she had to live on. You should give more. But church, this text is not about that. I know that there are some who would probably apply it that way. In fact, someone from the church this week sent me a video. It's a video on YouTube of a woman pastor somewhere who claimed that she would die and only be resurrected if enough money was collected.
• 37:04
  And so I'm not kidding. This is on you. It's a video on YouTube. She at the front of her church dies. She lays down. She pretends to be dead in the front of the church. Congregants all come forward and start laying dollar bills on her. And when enough was collected, she rises from the dead miraculously. That is embarrassing. You know, I loved one of the comments. You know, you can see all the comments under all those YouTube videos. One of them said this. Someone steal her watch. I'll bet you'll see her rise.
• 37:36
  She's laying there. You could tell she was wearing a very expensive watch. Somebody go take her watch. Let's see what happens. Church, this is not a text on giving. Of course, the widow was commended for her sacrificial giving. Of course, she would be blessed by God because of it. Of course, she would be sustained by God in her need. But this text is a rebuke against those whose faith was only skin deep.
• 37:57
  against those who would shear the sheep, against those who would parade themselves in front of others, declaring their own righteousness, against those whose religion never got more than a few feet off the ground. You notice a theme the last several Sundays. Jesus can answer life's unanswerable questions. In fact, he's not afraid of question answers. He's not afraid of your questions either. I would say hit him with your best shot. But also notice he's got a few questions of his own. May I encourage us Highland family to make this the year.
• 38:30
  We deal with those questions. What is it that plagues your soul? What difficulties of faith do you struggle with? What are you willing to do with the silence that the Lord provides? Lord, thank you for your word, and I pray, Lord, a blessing over its hearing. I pray that it would not fall on deaf ears or hard hearts. I pray that we would be doers and not hearers only. In Jesus' name, amen.