Let's join me in prayer, please. Father, we thank You for every Lord's Day that we can gather to worship You. We thank You for Your Word and the wonderful passage we've reached this morning with this widow and her generosity and what we can learn from. And I just think as we approach the end of Christ's life, the importance of every single verse we read in this passage is inserted right here. We might even forget or perhaps have not even known that this is only during the last week of Christ's life, only a few days removed from the crucifixion itself, and yet Jesus chooses to draw our attention to this woman and her generosity, and so I pray it would minister to us, particularly regarding the importance of giving, and we're in a wealthy nation, we wanna be good stewards, Lord, we are not commanded to give a certain amount, and so pray even during the preaching of this sermon, and I don't preach, I believe I don't preach on giving much, just when we encounter it in scripture, And so I do pray to use this passage to its fullest in each of our lives to give as much as you would desire us, Lord, that you'd burden us. Help us to be good stewards. Thank you for this time. We pray that Christ can be exalted through it and that we see giving as an act of worship. And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, good to see all of you. The Tell Us Morning Sermon, which you can probably tell from the verses, and the special song is about the widow's mite, and so the title is The Widow's Mite and Sacrificial Giving. So, Sunday morning, we're working our way verse by verse through Luke's Gospel, and we find ourselves at Luke 21.1. And so, like I prayed, we're within the last week of Christ's earthly life, just a few days removed from the crucifixion. I'm going to share a story I shared some years ago. So maybe it'll be new for some of you. And if you were here years ago, maybe you don't remember it. But when Kate and I were part of a home fellowship early in our marriage, there was a couple who had joined the group who had recently been released from prison. And even though they had not been Christians for long, they had that kind of new conversion zealousness for Christ. They were very passionate and enthusiastic. It was a real blessing to be around them. They were thankful that the Lord had saved them, that they were forgiven, and I think they were surprised that He would want a relationship with them after the things that they had done. And so they were thrilled about these new lives in Christ. And because of the decisions that they had made, or in particular the crimes they had committed that had led to their incarcerations, they had burned bridges. with most of the people in their lives, and so I don't think it would be too much to say that probably the only relationships or positive ones that they had were actually with the people in this home fellowship. So they were part of the group when Katie became pregnant with Rhea. And everyone was excited for us, but perhaps because this couple had no children or grandchildren, they seemed to be more excited about Katie's pregnancy than anyone else. And so they desperately wanted to give Rhea a gift when she was born. But as you could guess, they did not have much. And so does anyone remember me sharing this before? Does anyone remember what they gave us? Okay, well, that's good. That tells me, I guess it was a while ago that I shared this. They gave us a dirty, smelly blanket. And it was in this torn plastic bag. And it smelled because they were smokers. And so we had to put the blanket on the sanitary cycle on our washer quite a few times, but we still could not get rid of the smell. Now, Ray has continued to use that as a blanket every night when she sleeps. I'm just kidding. We actually couldn't use the blanket ever because we were never able to get rid of that smell. But guess how we felt about this gift? It was actually very touching. It was very meaningful to us. And why is that? It never benefited us. We weren't even able to use it. So why was it touching? Not because of the gift, but because of what? Yeah, the sacrifice or what had went into the gift. They had so little and so we knew the sacrifice that had gone into this gift just for them to give us, and I'm not kidding, one of the very few things that they had. So the point is that giving is much bigger than the gift. If I can use two analogies, if you kind of think of an iceberg, and the iceberg above the surface of the water is the gift, but everything below the surface is the sacrifice that goes into the gift. Or you kind of think of a tree, right? And if you've ever seen a tree unearthed in that very large root system, it's like the gift is the tree that's above ground, and then the sacrifice that goes into the gift is that very extensive root system that stretches out below the surface. So everything behind the giving is more important than the gift itself. And the premier example of this in scripture is the account that we've reached with this widow. So look with me at Luke 21.1. So remember, Jesus is teaching in the temple, and while teaching, he looks up and he sees the rich who are putting their gifts into the offering box. Verse 2 says, he also sees this poor widow who puts in these two small copper coins. Now there are lots of commentaries about how much, or I should probably say how little, this woman put in. I could bore you with a discussion of the different coins of the day, but I don't think it's necessary to understand that she didn't put in very much. or she put in a tiny amount. And this is being contrasted with the large sums that the rich people are putting in. So the shocking part of the widow's giving is that it seems like she only had these two coins. And so nobody would have faulted her if she would have done what? Yeah, kept both of them or kept one of them. Instead, she gives both of them, and it's a picture of staggering generosity. So verse 3, Jesus says, Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. And them refers to all of the rich people who are putting in very large sums. The parallel account in Mark 12, you don't have to turn there, but makes this clear. Mark 12 41 says, many rich people put in large sums of money. So Jesus was not impressed with the large sums that the rich people contributed. Instead, he draws their attention to the tiny amount that the widow gave. Although the ESV does not include the word, how, in Mark 12, 41, the parallel account, most other translations, such as the NASB, Amplified, New King James, and King James, say that Jesus watched how the people put the money in the offering box. And this is important because it reveals one of the main points of the account. That Jesus wasn't just watching what they gave, he was watching what? Yeah, how they gave. He was looking beyond the amount that was given. I would say to the sacrifice that was given. If you write in your Bible in verse 41, you can circle the words, watch the people give, and you can write 1 Samuel 16, 7. Does anyone have that circled by chance from years ago when I taught this? Okay, you do? Okay, Chris does. So I know years ago I taught on this passage, and we just happened to reach it here in Luke. But 1 Samuel 16, 7 says, the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. Or another way to say it is man looks at the physical, the Lord looks at the spiritual. Man would say that the rich people put in the most amount of money. If man looked at this, man would see the large sums that these wealthy people were giving. But in verse three, Jesus said, truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all. And so this account ends up being a great example of 1 Samuel 16, 7, evidencing that God does not see as man sees. Jesus did not look at this woman's giving the way that everyone else did. And so it begs the question, if the rich put in large sums, which we're told they did, and she put in this tiny amount, then how could Jesus say what he said to the disciples, that this woman put in more than all of them? Well, the answer to that is in verse four. It says, or Jesus said, they contributed out of their abundance, but this widow contributed or gave out of her poverty. She put in all she had to live on. And so that's where we learn that the two coins she had were really all the coins that she had. And this brings us to lesson one. Sacrifice is more important than the amount. The sacrifice is more important than the amount. So when Jesus said that she gave more than all of the wealthy people combined, he obviously could not have been speaking financially. But it begs the question, well, then what was he speaking about? He was speaking about the sacrifice, not the financial giving, but the sacrificial giving. The rich gave large sums, but they also retained what more than likely? Large fortunes, exactly. Which means that they sacrificed what? Probably. Probably little. The widow put in all she had, her whole livelihood, so she sacrificed much. George Mueller said, God judges what we give by what we keep. Let me say that one more time. God judges what we give by what we keep. So here's what's interesting. A few dollars given by some could be much more than hundreds or thousands of dollars given by others. And conversely, hundreds or thousands given by some could be much smaller than a few dollars given by others. And so this is a unique account. If you kind of give me attention, if we kind of come up out of the account for a moment, get an elevated view of it, it seems to be a window or give us a window into the way the heavenly reward system works. Let me say that one more time. I think this account gives us a window or insight into the way the heavenly reward system works. This widow had no idea that Jesus was watching her, just as we easily forget that the Lord is watching us. There's no indication that she heard what Jesus said to the disciples, just as we don't know what the Lord thinks of our giving. But when we give, we're storing up treasure, right? It's an interesting irony or contrast that when we give, we're storing up. I mean, we think that when we're giving, we're losing, but when we're giving, we're actually saving. And the verses that make this clear from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, 19, Jesus said, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, or don't save up your money here. or where thieves break in and steal, but lay out for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And so when we give on this side of heaven, then we are storing up or saving money for the next life. And so when this widow put the coins into the treasury, It was as though they were being deposited into her heavenly account as well. And similarly, we can lay up treasure for ourselves in heaven like she was doing. Now, considering that Jesus said, and this is what's interesting, Jesus said that she put in more than everyone else. So that means that the account or the amount that she deposited, let's say, into her heavenly account or into eternity, was greater than the amount that she put into that box. Now, we don't know how much that is. I mean, we know what she gave on earth, but we don't know how much was deposited in heaven. Two mites on earth, but she laid up, based on what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, much more for herself in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. Now on the other hand, the rich who put in much on earth might not have been laying up very much for themselves in heaven. So, Quick question, why doesn't, not why does, but why doesn't God care about the amount we give? Why does he care about the sacrifice behind our giving? He doesn't need our money. God is not up in heaven thinking, oh, what am I going to do? If this person does not give as much as we need for this project, according to my will, this has to happen. And if this person or this church or this organization or these people don't give enough, God can accomplish His goals with or without our help. If we give a little but God needs a lot, He has no problem obtaining what He needs because He has plenty of money. Just a few verses of many I could give you. Deuteronomy 10, 14, When you own the heavens and the earth, You're not lacking for money. Psalm 5010, every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. Haggai 2.8, God says the silver is mine and the gold is mine. So God owns everything. So there's never any concern about whether there's going to be enough for whatever he wants to see accomplished. And that reality kind of brings up another question then. If God doesn't need our money, why does he want us to give? And I think there's at least two reasons for this. Maybe there's more that I'm missing. But one of the reasons is he's, I think, graciously allowing us to be partakers in the work that he's doing. And so it is an example of God's grace, or you could say it is a gift that God allows us to give. Because by giving it allows us to take part in his kingdom and in his will being accomplished on the earth. And the second reason that God wants us to give is it is an act of worship. It is another grace of His that He is allowing us to worship Him through giving. And this brings us to lesson two. Our sacrificial giving is worship. Our sacrificial giving is worship. Now there's something unfortunate when we hear the word worship and so many times I have tried to discourage us from having only this view of worship. I say worship and what do we typically think of? Yeah, singing songs in church. And I'm not minimizing that or saying that that's not worshipful or that we aren't worshiping wonderfully on the Lord's day when we sing corporately. I've always enjoyed that we are a church that sings. People who have come and preached here have commented to me or even to you. I remember Esther Wayne stood here and said how wonderful he thought it was that we have a church that sings. And so I'm not minimizing that, but I'm more maximizing the view of worship. We'd have a larger view that understands worship as much more than singing in church. I would encourage each of us to think of worship in terms of sacrifice. So I would say our worship is not defined by the amount we give, our worship is defined by the amount that we sacrifice. Now follow me for a moment, and I'll demonstrate this from scripture, but I want to make sure we understand something else first. When we think of the new covenant, we understand that there were things from the old covenant that are not part, or that did not continue. There's not a perfect continuity. There are distinctions or differences between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Some of the things did continue, but they continued in a different form, and here's what I mean. Under the New Covenant, we might be tempted to believe that there's no high priest, no priesthood, no temple, no sacrifices. We'll even say that. when we're talking about the gospel or contrasting the new covenant with the old and say that there's no longer a sacrificial system, no more sacrifices. We know from Sunday school this morning, the time in Hebrews, that we definitely, I mean, there was a high priest in the Old Testament, and we have a great high priest during the church age in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4.14, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let me ask you this, under the new covenant, is there a priesthood? Sounds like a trick question. There is, there's the priesthood of all believers in the sense that we are all priests who have access to God through Christ. 1 Peter 2, 5, you are a holy priesthood. Is there a temple under the new covenant? Okay, take your finger and go like this. Right? What's the temple of God? Yeah, our bodies are the temple of God. We house the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells us, seals us. If you were regenerated or brought to life, you were dead in trespasses and sins, according to Ephesians 2, and you were brought to life spiritually, that happened when the Holy Spirit indwelled you. There is no life apart from the Holy Spirit making you his temple, 1 Corinthians 3.16. Do you not know that you are the temple of God? Okay, now the next question, are there still sacrifices? Yes, there are still sacrifices. Now, notice it doesn't say, or I didn't say, because the verses don't say that we have a temple and we have a priesthood. The verses do not say we have a temple and we have a priesthood. The verses say we are the temple of God and we are a holy priesthood or we are the priests of God under the new covenant. And just like we are priests and we are the temple of God, we are also to see ourselves as, what, according to Romans 12, living sacrifices. Romans 12.1, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. So, you're a priest. You're a temple and you're a sacrifice. And you might have caught the relationship in Romans 12 between sacrifice and worship. Presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice, this is your spiritual worship. So the association between sacrifice and worship. Now, under the Old Covenant, God accepted the sacrifices of dead animals as worship. With Christ's sacrifice, dead animals are no longer acceptable. Instead, we worship by offering ourselves as living sacrifices. So our very lives are lifted up in worship to the Lord. Now, what does this have to do with giving? Giving should be thought of as a form of worship, but I would say that for giving to be worshipful, it must involve sacrifice. And I'll give you three examples of the need for worship to involve sacrifice. And this brings us to lesson three. We see sacrificial giving with part one Abraham. Lesson three, we see sacrificial giving with part one Abraham. So I just want you to see that for our giving to be worshipful, it must be sacrificial. That's the point that I wanna demonstrate here, that I think the widow demonstrates from these verses. The principle of first mention, I've mentioned before, so I'll make it brief. It's the idea that God reveals the truest meaning of words the first time that they're used in the Bible. So if you're ever doing a deep study on a word, I would encourage you to look at the first time that word is used in scripture, Because there's a confidence among Bible scholars or theologians that the first time God uses a word in scripture, he reveals the truest sense of that word. The first instance of the word worship, it occurred when Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac. Genesis 22.5, Abraham said to the two men who accompanied him, stay here with the donkey. Listen to this, it's unbelievable. Stay here with the donkey. The lad or the boy and I will go yonder and worship. And we will come back to you because Abraham expected that God would raise Isaac from the dead to continue the messianic line through him. So he fully expected to sacrifice Isaac, fully expected God to raise Isaac from the dead since Isaac had not had a descendant yet and the messianic line must continue. But the point I want you to notice is that Abraham said, the boy and I will go yonder and worship." And he didn't mean that they're going to go sing, right? It's shocking to me that Abraham thought of sacrificing Isaac as worship, but because the greater the sacrifice, the greater the worship, It might be the greatest act of worship in the Old Testament. I'm being speculative when I say this, but if you said, what is the greatest demonstration of worship? You know, is it when David created musicians or set up the temple worship? I wouldn't say that. I would say the greatest act of worship occurred when Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac. But interestingly, who else did Abraham say was going to worship? Abraham said he was going to worship, and Abraham said who else was going to worship with him? Isaac. The lad and I, the two of us will go and worship. How is Isaac worshiping? Well, if worship is associated with sacrifice, was Isaac being sacrificial? He was willing to be sacrificed. Because Romans 12.1 commands us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, I mean, if you want the best example in scripture of presenting your body as a living sacrifice, in the New Testament, you've got Jesus. And then in the Old Testament, you've got Isaac. I don't think there is a better example in the Old Testament of doing this than Isaac. The next part of lesson three, we see sacrificial giving with part two, animal sacrifices. We see sacrificial giving with animal sacrifices. We see the need for sacrificial giving even when sacrifices were offered. And I'll explain this by backing up and getting a little bit of momentum into it by inviting you to think about sacrifices and the purpose of them. When people sin, there must be an accompanying death. We know this, Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death. So in the Old Testament, Animals supplied the death in the place of the sinner. This is the substitutionary atonement that is prefiguring or foreshadowing our Lord's sacrifice or substitutionary atonement for us. Every single one of those animals that died in the place of the sinner was prefiguring or looking forward to Christ. The sacrifices were a temporary covering, that's what atone means, cover. So they provided a temporary atonement, looking forward to Christ's substitutionary death on our behalf and then a complete forgiveness afforded through Him. But listen to this in the Old Testament, Leviticus 5.10. The sinner shall offer the animal as a burnt offering. The priest shall make atonement on his behalf for the sin which he has committed, and it shall be forgiven him. Now, a few verses later, I'm just choosing Leviticus 5, lots of other places I could have chosen, talking about the sacrifices that says, if anyone sins unintentionally, he shall bring to the Lord a ram without blemish. Verse 18, he shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish. and the priest shall make atonement for him for the mistake that he had made unintentionally. Now, here's the question. I explained all that about substitutionary atonement because I just wanted to be clear that when there's sin, there must be a death to serve as an atonement for that. Now, if the animal's death was all that was needed to make atonement for sin, why does Leviticus command 24 times that the sacrifices must be what? must be what? Without blemish, right? In other words, if all that's required was the death of the animal, you could have that even with an animal that is blemished or with blemish. So the fact that Leviticus repeatedly says, it has to be an animal without blemish, tells us that it wasn't enough just to provide an animal. Or in other words, someone couldn't look at their flock and find the animal that's on its deathbed, right? Might have just a few moments left, you know, it's old, it's sick, it's dying, it's full of blemishes or disease, and bring that. Because God recognized the sacrifices that are old, sick, and dying don't involve much sacrifice. And so he wanted sacrifices that involved sacrifices, or he wanted people's worship to involve sacrifice for it to be worshipful. The next part of lesson three, we see sacrificial giving with part three David. With David, one account in particular with him. So David's the man after God's own heart. He understood worship must involve sacrifice. God told David to build him an altar on the floor of Arunah the Jebusite. And you can tell that when Arunah first sees David, he thinks very highly of him. Arunah was obviously a generous man because he offered David everything that he would need to build this altar. So God tells David, go build this altar. You need to build it on a specific spot. It's going to end up, I don't know that David knew this at the time, but it was going to end up being the location of the temple in the future. And so God is setting all this up. So they had to be at this specific location. And so David goes to visit Aruna and he says, I'd like to buy your threshing floor from you to build an altar to offer a sacrifice. Aruna replies in 2 Samuel 24, 22, "'Let my lord the king take "'and offer up whatever seems good to him. "'Look, here are the oxen for the burnt sacrifice. "'Here's the threshing implements "'and the yokes of the oxen that you can use for wood. "'All these, O king, Aruna has given to the king. "'May the lord your God accept you.'" So, What did Aruna offer David? Pretty much everything. I mean, he's given him the threshing floor. He's giving him the wood for the altar. He's given him the animals for the sacrifice. So listen how David responds. 2nd Sema 2424. No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price. because I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. So David understood that if he accepted all this from Arunah, that whose altar and whose sacrifice would end up being? It'd be Arunah's. And so David says, I'm not gonna offer anything to the Lord that costs me nothing. He knew that a sacrifice that doesn't involve any sacrifice isn't really a sacrifice. And I've thought that often in my Christian life, that there are things I do for the Lord, and I'll be candid with you, I enjoy studying and preaching as much or perhaps more than I ever have. All these years later, been here for 14 years, and I still look forward to preaching, I still enjoy the studying, the laboring in my office, and the time in God's word, the time with the Lord. And the reason I mention that is I don't think it involves a whole lot of sacrifice. I'm not sure what reward there will be for preaching. That's not the part of ministry that's been challenging for me. The study is one of the joys for me. There are other parts of ministry that do involve considerable sacrifice, but study and teaching and preaching is not one of them. It's a blessing to be able to do professionally what I used to love to do as a hobby. And so I'm very thankful for that. But the point is that because it doesn't involve a whole lot of sacrifice for me, that I'm not sure that it's as meaningful to the Lord as some of the other things that I might do as a pastor that do involve more sacrifice. And I'll just share this with you. You might be encouraged by that, that the things in your life that are the most challenging could be the things that are the most meaningful for the Lord. Those things that are the most difficult for you or that involve the most sacrifice might be the greatest sacrifices you give to the Lord. Those might be the most worshipful things you do. Those trials that you bear well, or those relationships that are difficult that you handle well, or the things that you bear up well and under and don't allow people to recognize that you're even going through them, or those really challenging things in life that you handle joyfully or contentedly might be the greatest sacrifices, the most worshipful things that you do for the Lord. Because the sacrifice behind the offering, we're kind of thinking back to the analogy of the roots below the surface or the iceberg below the surface of the water, make the offering worshipful. So if we tie this back to giving, if our giving doesn't involve any sacrifice, I'm not very convinced that it's that worshipful. So if someone was incredibly wealthy and they gave a lot of money to the church, that might benefit the church, but I'm not sure if it doesn't involve any sacrifice that it's that meaningful to the Lord. Giving without sacrifice is kind of like offering animals that have blemishes. So Erwin Lutzer said, those who give much without sacrifice are reckoned as having given little. Now, I can't, and you could be listening and think, well, this is. Convicting pastor Scott or I want to give but how much am I supposed to give well? I can't tell you that most of you who have sat under my preaching for long know that I do not believe the New Testament commands us to give a tithe Which leaves you wondering well, then how much am I supposed to give if it's not a certain percent? Well, I can't tell you exactly how much to give but I can tell you that it should involve what I? I, yeah, you should feel it. If you can give and you don't feel it, then I would say you're probably not giving enough. And by the way, to be clear, none of the elders have any idea how much anyone here gives, and we don't wanna know. We don't have anything to do with the money, and so there's no ax to grind here, there's no agenda. I think this might, Barely preach on on giving here at the church because we just go generally verse by verse And so if there's any conviction or the Holy Spirit's dealing with your heart at this time That's not because the elders have any idea what's going on in your life That's because the Holy Spirit knows what's going on in your life. And apparently he wants to deal with this area with you now Most people think that because the Mosaic Law commanded giving a tithe, that we're expected to give a tithe today. And one of the problems with that is the Mosaic Law did not command giving a tithe. The Mosaic Law commanded giving what? Tithes, plural. There was a tithe for the Levites, there was a tithe for the use of the temple, and for the feasts, and there was a tithe for the poor of the land. Leviticus 27, I'll give you the verse if you're interested in looking that up at a time. I won't read through all of it. But I do want to say this. All these tithes in the Mosaic Law pushed the percentage much closer to 25%. And so if people felt bound to give a tithe because that's what they believe the Mosaic Law commanded, To obey the Mosaic Law, they should actually give much closer to one-fourth or one-quarter of their income than one-tenth. And so the main reason I don't think the New Testament commands giving a tithe is that there's no command in the New Testament to give a tithe. But, wondering how much to give, what does the New Testament command? And this brings us to lesson four. Give according to your income. Give according to your income. Sometimes I wrestle with the wording of my lessons, and I'll often ask Katie, I'll say, especially if we're going over the sermon, I'll say, what do you think is the best way to word this lesson? And sometimes she's really helpful, and then other times she says, well, I think either of those is good, which is definitely not a helpful answer from her. But if I had an alternative to this lesson, the lesson would be God sees our proportion versus our portion. God sees the proportion versus the portion. And you can tell that's the case with the widow. It was her proportion, not her portion was tiny, it was the proportion that was particularly meaningful to our Lord, giving us proportionate. There's no fixed percentage, but God does expect the amount to be relative to our income. And I'll give you the verses that led me to this conclusion. The Macedonians, whom Paul praised in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, I even thought about having a sermon on them perhaps next week, are the premier givers in scripture. And this is what Paul said about them, 2 Corinthians 8, 3. Now to say that they gave according to their means, means they gave according to their income, or it seems in this case, they even gave beyond their income. A few verses later, Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 8, 12, if the willingness is there, that means the willingness to give, the gift or the giving is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. Again, giving according to our income. Luke 12, 48, Jesus said, everyone to whom much is given from him, much will be required. I know that verse isn't, directly about finances, but it does imply that if we're given more, then we're expected to give more in any area of life, and this can obviously indirectly apply to finances. Now, here's something interesting. Even though we're discussing the New Testament, emphasizing giving according to our income, the Old Testament did foreshadow this. Deuteronomy 16.10 says, keep the feast of weeks, with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, and now listen to this, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. Every man shall give as he is able according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you. Now, considering these words are in the Old Testament, here's what we would probably expect them to say. Every man shall give a tithe. Tithe means 10% or give 10%. But it says, every man shall give as the Lord blesses, which means giving according to their income. And these verses are in Deuteronomy. Now, if you remember, Deuteronomy, it means second law. Deuteronomy is the record. That's why you're kind of reading it and you're like, didn't I read a bunch of this in Leviticus? Well, what happened was Leviticus was the law given to the generation at Sinai. They travel through the wilderness, rebel at the promised land. That generation dies. Moses has to renew the covenant with their children who are going to go into the promised land. So Deuteronomy is Moses repeating the law, or in a sense, repeating much of Leviticus, to the new generation who is going to enter the promised land under Joshua. And so those verses I read to you are in Deuteronomy, the second law. And my point is this. Giving according to income, it wasn't just foreshadowed in the Old Testament, it was even foreshadowed in the law itself that commanded giving a tithe. Here's one more verse, 1 Corinthians 16, 2. On the first day of the week, let each of you lay aside something to give, storing it up as he may prosper. One more time. So the early church gathered on the first day of the week. Acts 20, verse 7, in honor of Christ's resurrection. If you've ever wondered why do we gather on Sunday when the Old Testament emphasized the seventh day of the week, Christ was resurrected on Sunday, the first day of the week. In honor of that resurrection, the early church began meeting on the first day of the week. We have continued that pattern to our day. And so Paul writes on the first day of the week, referring to when you gather for worship, let each of you lay aside something to give, storing it up, he says, as he may prosper. So they had to give according to the amount they prospered, which is to say according to their income. Donald Whitney wrote, the more you prosper, the higher should be the proportion of your giving. There is no percentage goal in giving. Giving 10% of your gross income does not necessarily mean that you have fulfilled the will of God. This is not a ceiling of giving to stop at, but it is a floor to move from. So according to Donald, and he's the author that wrote the book on spiritual disciplines that we read sometime back Saturday morning with some of the young men, he says that 10% isn't what we're shooting for. That's not the ceiling, that's the floor, the basis, foundation we're building from. And this principle reveals another problem with giving a tithe. Some people who have prospered more than others should give more. while others who haven't prospered as much can give less. Now, I would be remiss if I don't stress this. When I talk about giving less because we or you or someone prospers less, inwardly, you might kind of go like this. Okay, well, that's me. I'm just gonna be real honest with you. If you're an American, it's probably not you. If you're sitting in this room listening, now if you're overseas, if you're someone in Malawi and somehow you got the internet and were able to listen to the sermon, this very well could be you. You're prospering less. God probably doesn't expect as much of you. But if you're listening to this as an American, you probably are not one of those people who has prospered less and can give less. In May, after coming back from Malawi, I shared the statistics about wealth in the United States. I'm not going to repeat all of those statistics, but I'll just share a couple of them. The United States has slightly more than 4% of the world's population, but we have almost 42% of the world's wealth. Just one more time, 4% of the world's population, 42% of the world's wealth. And then you say, well, things are more expensive. But even after adjusting for the cost of living, a typical American still earns an income that's 10 times higher than the average person in the rest of the world. So in other words, if you're an American, more than likely, you're one of the people who has prospered the most. It is hard to imagine many Americans falling into the category of giving less because we make less. or I'll just say this, most people in the rest of the world would love to prosper as little as we do. They would love to have as little as we do. But sadly, consider these statistics for American Christians. Only 5% give 10% of their income. Only 5% of American Christians give 10% of their income. 80% of American Christians give 2% of their income. and 37% give nothing at all. So on average, American Christians give 2.5%, 2.5% of their income. Now, to give that some perspective, during the Great Depression, it was almost 3.5%. So on average, American Christians gave more during the Great Depression than American Christians are giving today. Gene Getz said, statistics reveal that most Christians in America do not include God in their budgets. Sadly, God often gets what is left over if he gets anything. Now, let me tell you why these statistics are and are not sad. They're not sad because churches aren't getting money. Because God owns all the money and God can make sure every church gets as much money as God wants that church to get. The reason it's sad is because of the commentary that it is on American Christianity. So it's not sad because I think churches are closing down because of this. It's sad because of what it says about the American church. Matthew 6, 21, Jesus said, where your treasure is there your heart will be also. So what does it say about our hearts if we don't give much? Now let me conclude with our last lesson, lesson five. Give because our God is a giver. Give because our God is a giver. We're discussing giving and our God is a giver. He gives us wisdom. James 1.5, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him. He gives us abundant life. John 10, 10, I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. He gives us gifts to enjoy. James 1, 7, James 1, 7, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. The greatest gift God's given us. Let's get this one right. It's the Sunday school answer, right? Jesus. Romans 8, 32. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? So why am I stressing this? I think this is what God was doing. I think this is what God wanted to do. Under the old covenant, people felt obligated to give, even though Giving according to income was foreshadowed. Because giving a tithe was commanded, or giving tithes was commanded, there was an obligation associated with giving. Because it was commanded or obligated, it made it much harder to see giving as a form of what? Worship, that's exactly right. Now, I could tell you to give because that's what God commands. I would rather you give not because that's what God commands, but because that's what you want to do to worship. In other words, I wouldn't want you to feel obligated to give. I would want you to want to give, not because God commands it, but because of all he has given each of us. So there is a higher, better reason to give than because it's commanded. And the higher, better reason to give is as an act of worship, because we have thankful hearts that reflect on all God has given us and desire in return to give back to him, not because he needs it, but because it is an act of worship. So we don't give to be saved, we give because we, we don't give to be saved, we give because we are saved. We don't give to earn God's favor, we give because of God's favor. We don't give to earn better position or righteousness with God. You could say we give because God has given us Christ's righteousness, given us position, access to him. Spurgeon said, Christ is the ultimate example of giving. He is the great giver. Because of him, we give freely and generously. Our Lord Jesus is ever giving and does not, for a solitary instant, withdraw his hand. The rain of his grace is always dropping, the river of his bounty is ever flowing, and the wellspring of his love is constantly overflowing. As the king can never die, so his grace can never fail. I don't want you to leave this sermon feeling like, wow, Pastor Scott really beat us up about giving. We have to give because of, and then fill in the blank, it's commanded, or I'm a horrible person if I don't. I hope we leave burdened to give, even enthusiastic about giving, thankful for the opportunity to give because of all that the Lord has given us. Father, we thank you for your graciousness in our lives. We thank you for the gift it is to be able to worship you through giving. We thank you for all that you've given us, life and breath and all things, and count it a grace of yours in return in this small way to be able to give back to you financially and help us to recognize that's ultimately what we're doing, even if we give to a church or an organization or a missionary, ultimately, we are giving to you, Lord, as an act of worship. our heart's burden and conviction and we pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.