Our New Testament lesson taken from the book of Luke, the end of chapter 20, and beginning of chapter 21 also the text from which the message is from. And while all the people were listening, he said to the disciples, he wear of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love respectful greetings in the marketplaces and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honorate banquets, who devour widow's houses and for a parent's sake offer long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation. And he looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury and he saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And he said, truly, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them, for they all out of their surplus put into the offering, but she, out of her poverty, put in all that she had to live on. These are the words of our Lord. You know, when I was in seminary and was being taught to preach, I was told to come up, study the passage until I had a proposition. And the proposition was to be made of a single biblical truth that comes from the text with an application. And the application was to have, you know, kind of the you should aspect to it. So, you know, I still remember my seminary professor, the director of the seminary, Dwight Zellers sermon that he gave as an example, preach the word. And it was you preach the word. You preach the word. And you preach the word. And can't tell you all about it. But the point was real clear. And the proposition was real clear. Some folks, you know, that's for pastor, that's good. And for seminary students, he said one sentence and less than 15 words because otherwise, it would be a compound sentence with 125 words to get the point across. And that's what not what he wanted us to do. Many in the congregation will refer to a sermon by just one word. That was a good sermon on tithing or on adultery or on forgiveness or just reduce it to one word. And that's pretty good too. My sermon this morning, I've got it down to eight and eight word sentence. It would be this live by faith, live by faith because Jesus sees and cares. If you were to reduce it to one word, it would be widows. And you can see the connection, obviously. That was not funny. Was it? I'll work on that in my notes for the second service. Okay. Lord willing, it will, it will become clear as we go through this live by faith because Jesus sees and cares. The passages really are related. Remember that when Luke wrote, there were no chapters and verses that was added much, much, much later on. And it's very helpful to us to say, okay, turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 20 or 21 or whatever. But sometimes it hurts us and that will lose the flow of conversation or what Luke is trying to tell us. And in his outline, while he's finished answering several questions from the scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees, these sorts of things. And he's asked his own question. And that part's done. He's still staying with the scribes. And there's this thread that is the widows. He talks about a warning that is given to the people about the scribes because they devour widows houses. And then the next scene, maybe the next day, there he is watching in the temple at the treasury and people are putting their coins in, no paper money at the time, no paper or plastic, just coins. And so they'd put the money in and he saw the rich putting their money in. And then he saw the widow. And Luke wants us to see and kind of juxtaposition the scribes who devour widows houses. And this poor widow who gives all that she has to the Lord. We'll look at the passage this way. By the way, the the the title pure religion comes from James 126 and 27. He says, if anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion, I shorten that to pure religion, in the sight of God. And Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. The scriptures speak about widows as having a special place in the heart of our Lord. The scriptures point them out as along with orphans as those who are vulnerable to being oppressed and taken advantage of. And so even a quick summation of what true spirituality or true religion, pure religion has to do with visiting orphans and widows in their distress as well as keeping oneself unstained from the world. Kind of reminds me, the church I served in Alabama wanted to have the youth minister to the widows in that church. And my son was in the youth at that time, both son and daughter, and they they came home talking about going to the various widows houses. The thing they just the youth decided to do was to wash their cars. And so he came home having washed a really nice BMW, not quite the poor widow, but we'll leave that alone for now. Let's consider the text and let's consider it under two major headings. He sees any cares. First he sees. First he sees Jesus sees and he sees the way of the scribes. We know that from verses 46 and 47. Jesus says, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love respectful greetings in the marketplace and chief seats in the synagogue and places of honor at bankwits who devour widows houses and for a parent's sake offer long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation. There's a warning here, but I want us to as we think about it, you know, he sees he sees the way of the scribes and he sees the way he sees the outward behavior, but he also sees the inward motivation of the heart. Now I want us to look at that. He tells us something about the inward motivation. He uses the word likes and loves. Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and so we may talk about their their dress. They dress somewhat ostentatiously. It's not like the the the girl who's got this beautiful body who dressed to turn heads by her just stunning good looks. They use religion instead, but it's the same kind of ostentatiousness that makes people turn their heads and say, wow, look at that guy's robes. In their day and age, that's that was a headturner and they like that. They like people to look to to be in awe. Maybe a little bit jealous at how nice those clothes really are, but they not only like that, but they loved as well. They loved respectful greetings in the marketplace and chief seats in the synagogue and places of honor and Jesus sees this. He sees what they like and he sees what they love. They love the honor due the position that they have. They love the respectful greetings. They love to be treated well and Jesus points that out. They also devour widows houses. There's one of those outward works, isn't it? They love to devour, well, I don't know if they love to do it, but they do it. And I would say that does show a love of money, right? They want money so much that they are willing to devour widows houses. We're not told how they go about that, what their scheme was, but we are told that it that that they do it. And it seems to be in juxtaposition to the fact that for a pretense, for a show, for a parents, they offer long prayers. The idea is they're not offering long prayers because they have this deep relationship with God and they talk to them about everything and spend the whole night in prayer as our Lord did, but they for a pretense, for a show to hide the fact that they devour widows houses. You know, I think it was Augustin and I know Lewis, Lewis talks about this idea of disordered loves and that seems to be what's going on in their life. It's not wrong to, well, it's wrong to devour widows houses, but as far as wanting to be treated with honor and respect and such, that's okay. The scriptures say a good name is to be desired, right? We should want to be respectful and treated with respect. There's not a problem with that. There's not a problem with enjoying nice clothes. That's not a problem either. It seems to me that the problem is that they have a disordered sense of love. They love some things too much. They love themselves too much and so they want to be dressed very nicely. They want to be greeted with respect. They want the chief seats. They want the power that goes with the chief seats. They love themselves and they love to look good. They love to be treated well and they love money and they love it too much. So much that they use God to serve themselves and this was a huge problem. Jesus sought. Jesus saw their disordered loves. The reason we use 2 Timothy 3, 1 through 5 as our call to confession was because it seems to really summarize at least some of the behavior of these scribes, but realize that in these last days or in the last days, difficult times will come. Then we'll be lovers of self. That is what I'm saying is their problem. They like their clothes to turn heads. They love money, lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents. Going on at verse 4, treacherous, reckless, conceded, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And notice that he talked about they hold to a form of godliness and the scribes certainly had that, the long prayers and such, but they deny its power. Their religion was fruitless and powerless. They had nothing to offer. They were hypocrites. Jesus sees through the hypocrisy that they offer up. And hypocrisy really is the opposite of faith. If we're going to talk about living by faith, then we need to see that hypocrisy is the exact opposite. Hypocrisy can use religion for personal gain, to make self the idol, the God that we really worship. And rather than faith in God, it's faith in self and a desire to serve self. Well, moving on to letter B. Jesus sees not only the ways of the scribes. He also sees the giving of the rich and the poor. Chapter 21 verses 1 through 4 talk about that. In verses 1 and 2, notice the word saw is used twice, once with the rich and once with the poor. He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts in the treasury. And he saw a poor widow putting into copper coins. So he saw. He sees. That's the point we're looking at now. And he sees the giving of both of them in their day and the treasury and the temple. My NIV study Bible gave me this note that in the court of the women there were 13 boxes shaped like inverted megaphones. They talk about them as being trumpets. In other words, nice big open. Receive the coins and then it gets smaller in the box underneath it. And we can imagine there's no paper money, there's no checks or automatic redraw from the banking account or any of that sort of stuff. You brought your coins with you. And that was all coins, the gold or silver, copper, whatever kind of coin it was. And the rich was like winning not the lottery, but what's that? The slot machines, right? When you win, because the coins are just coming into that megaphone and it's making all sorts of noise. But two small copper coins from the widow would be very, very quiet. You know, our giving today is certainly much different. We usually use paper every once in a while there's coins and such. But for the most part, checks and bills are put into the offering. And if they're checks, they're usually folded. And there's a little more secrecy. It's not as though we make a big deal trumpeting how much we give. But it's important for us to see that God sees that our Lord Jesus sees. He sees the giving. He sees the giving of the wealthy and he sees the giving of the poor. And again, he sees the motives versus three and four. Tell us that, right? He praises the widow because she put in all that she had. And the rich, he doesn't necessarily condemn here. Paul gives us a warning about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil and to flee that sort of thing. But the big thing is he sees. He sees the giving of the rich and the poor. And I would say he sees the faith or the lack of faith behind it. And that brings us to see. He sees my ways, right? He knows all about each one of us. He sees my ways. He sees my religion. He sees my faith or my hypocrisy. And in my case, I could say, he sees my faith and my hypocrisy. He knows my life. He sees what's going on. He knows when my heart is right. In my giving, in my speaking, in my praying, he knows. He sees it. He sees it all. And there's some word of warning there where there is hypocrisy. But it's not always negative, right? Look at the verse I have with that. Second Chronicles 16-9, for the eyes that the Lord moved to and fro throughout the earth that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his. In other words, the sense is God is not in heaven looking up and heaven looking down to see whom he may smite. Finally, here's the one I can smite. No, it's actually the other way around. There he is up in heaven looking for those whose heart is right, whom he can strongly support makes me think of Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 10, after giving some very stiff warnings to the Jewish believers, the writer says, God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward his name in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. I think there's a great word of encouragement here for us that he does see. Sometimes, especially when we're at our best and we know not to let our right hand know what our left hand is doing in our giving when we hide as it were our prayer life and we're private about our relationship with God. He sees and he knows when we go to care for someone who's struggling and no one else knows it and we don't trump at that and we don't tell people he sees and he knows and he doesn't forget. Even our Lord Jesus in Matthew's gospel chapter 10 and verse 42 says, whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. So praise the Lord. He sees, he sees, but he also cares. It's not just that he sees and he's ambivalent and shrugged his shoulders. He cares about it all. He's not indifferent, but he really cares. He cares a about the hypocrisy of the leadership and he shows us this in two ways. He shows us a general care for the people in that he gives a warning. And again, the text is interesting verse 45 and while all the people were listening, he said to the disciples, beware of the scribes. In other words, there's a special warning that's given specifically to his followers, to his disciples, to those who say that Jesus is Lord, who wants to follow his ways, is teaching his will and so on and so forth to them, especially the warning is given, but it's given in such a way that everyone around can hear it and beware. And I would say even graciously, it's given in front of the scribes who are there that they may see their hypocrisy and turn from it. Brothers and sisters, this is incredibly important for us because Jesus cares deeply about hypocrisy. It is the opposite of faith. It is destructive not only to the hypocrite, but to those who come under the hypocrite's influence, thus religious leaders who lead by hypocrisy, whose way and whose motivation is steeped in hypocrisy, Jesus really cares about that. And there's a warning that they may turn. You've heard me say this before. Let me just say it again. We're taught all scriptures inspired by God and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training and righteousness. And when we hear the words of our Lord, Jesus exposing some sin in the scribes or whoever it is, we ought to examine our hearts openly and honestly, it is the spirit's job to convict us of sin and it's the beginning of the gospel, right? Who's the gospel powerful for? It's powerful for sinners who see their sins and repent.
And Jesus cares about that. It's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance and we examine our hearts that way. Jesus cares about his people. He doesn't want them let us stray and they're the warning and he will deal with those who do lead us straight by their hypocrisy. The very last word of 47, these will receive greater condemnation. Oh, he cares. That should be a word of comfort to us as well as a word of warning. Again, if we hold to our sins, if we hold onto hypocrisy or whatever our sins happen to be, and we close our heart against the gospel, the gospel is just not powerful
on the encouraging side of things, both when we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and we can, with joy, sing, Jesus paid it all, all for him, I owe, all to him, I owe, but there's also this other encouragement. Every time we've ever been taken advantage of, every time we've ever been used and abused, we have confidence that God is our judge and the judge of the person who is used and abused us and he will make it right. That should bring good comfort to us. He cares, he cares not only about the hypocrisy of the leadership, he cares about the motives of the worshipers.
Jesus not only saw what they had put in but he spoke to it, he said of those who were giving out of their wealth that they gave out of their surplus and of this widow that she gave all that she had to live on and I thought about that and I thought, let me start with the illustration that kind of takes it way out of probably everyone in this room's ability to grasp and that is if you make $10 million a year in your lifetime or whatever, if you give away 10%, you've just given away a million dollars, right? You still have 9 million to live on and it would be tough but you could probably do it, right? Now even if you gave away 90% of your wealth, you'd still have a million dollars. Poverty in our country, I don't know the exact figures, but let's go with 25, it's a nice round number. At $25,000, if you tithe on that, it's not much $2,500 but what do you have left to live on? Not much. Not much. Bring it to something that's closer to where we are. If you make $75,000 a year, you would still buy world accounts and even in the US be considered wealthy. You'd be in the top echelons of earning power. If you tithe on that, you still have $67,000, if you give a tenth, you still have $67,500 to live on. By the way, if you tithe on $25,000, you have $22,500 to live on for the person making $75,000 to give as much so that they live on the same amount as the tithing $25,000 earner. They would have to give 70% of their income. And the point is Jesus knows this. Jesus sees not only what we give, but whether we get from our surplus or from our means. It makes me think of Paul's praising the Macedonians that they gave out of their deep poverty. And he cares. He cares about that. By the way, for the guy making $10 million, he would have to give away 99.775%. Now that's more than 99 and three quarters. If he gave away 99 and three quarters, he would have right around $50,000, like $50 shy of it. You get that? So the way you give, at least for me, I start tithing early on in my Christian life and committed to it. I feel pretty good about myself sometimes. And then I read Jesus's teaching here, and I don't feel so good about it anymore. What does it mean to give? Now let me give you another illustration. I mean this in praise of Rick Warren. He's one of my heroes. If you don't like him, that's your problem, not mine. But you know, he sold that book, the Purpose Driven Life, and millions and millions of copies. I don't know if he made $10 million or what he made on it. But I know that he made so much money that he gave back to the church all his salary, all his salary that they had ever paid him and determined to live on 90%. Now it may still be a comfortable living, but that's profound. That's living by faith. That's living by faith knowing that he sees and he cares. Another thing Rick Warren did that really impresses me is one of the reasons he's one of my heroes is when he was teaching his kids about tithing, when they were little kids. He gave them three quarters. I remember this illustration. I don't remember what the context was that I was listening to it, but it stuck with me. He gave each child three quarters, 75 cents a week. And he taught them, this is I think great parenting. That's why I'm giving it to you. Instead of being a hypocrite in your parenting, you can really train your kids well, three quarters. One was for the church on Sunday. One was for saving and one was for spending and that's the way they taught their children, some sort of financial management, at least in the childhood years. He said when when they actually started getting money and they explained the math concept of 10% and stuff, he said a sense of dad, that's not enough. Now let a beautiful harden for the child to have from childhood. That's just beautiful. Let me suggest also parents of teenagers that another way that you can build faith into your child is that you talk about your family earnings and you show them how you budget your money and how much you give to the church and how much you put into savings and how much you spend on yourself. And if you do that kind of thinking and you plan together even your vacations or your ministry opportunities with the surplus or the money you have, you are teaching your children profound lessons that will shape their adulthood. And let me just encourage you to do this knowing that he sees and he cares. And it's in those places that we can learn to honor God in our family, secretly, quietly in ministry. It's in those places when we make decisions, maybe that not even related to our giving but turn down this job that pays so well but requires us to work on Sunday or takes up too much time or whatever it is. And so we take this job where we conserve the Lord better. He sees, he knows, he cares. One last point, he cares about the hardships we face. He cares about the hardships we face. I think this is important for us to see as well. He knew about that widow who was putting in all that she had to live on her, widow's miter, two small copper coins. It tells us something about God's caring, doesn't it? He knew her hardships, he knew that this was all she had. Oh, he rejoiced in her act of faith that in her worship and devotion she gave it all. And he publicly praises her for that. But he also shows that he knows her pain.
Her suffering, her hardships. And it's not just here when he sees what the scribes do and he describes it, he says they devour widow's houses. That means he knows about those widows and their hardships as well. There's great words of comfort there for us brothers and sisters. He knows all about our struggles. He knows all about our hardships. He knows all about those work situations that are just hard about our health problems and the pains that we experience
about our loved ones and our family or extended family who don't know him. And the grief we feel there or our struggling attempts to share our faith with them in our successes and our failures, he knows. And he cares. He defends the fatherless and the orphan. He judges the oppressor and the hypocrite. And so brothers and sisters, we put our faith in him. We put our faith in him.
That all the struggles that we face now, he both knows and has promised us they are momentary light of friction not worthy to be compared with the eternal weight of glory to be revealed.
He tells us if possible so far as it depends on you be at peace with all men. Don't take your own revenge. Be loving but leave room for the wrath of God for vengeance's mind. Says the Lord and he will make it. He will bring it about in the right time. Just a word of application for us as a congregation, you know, the Lord cares about our private lives and the things I've said have much to do with our private lives, but as a congregation, we too. Now all the things are true there, but the particular application I thought about has to do with our deacons and our widows. I don't think I've ever encouraged the deacons. Do you have a list of all the widows in the church? I'm sorry widows that I've never occurred to me to do that when the scripture speaks so clearly about it. And I want to encourage our deacons to do that. That's make a list. We know who's here. Who are they? And what are their needs? We don't have to wash BMWs, but we ought to know. We ought to know what the needs are. And it's not just the deacons. You know, in the early church, when the deacons were first formed, if that's what's going on in Acts chapter six, I believe it is, the deacons were to organize the care of the congregation, the ministry of the congregation and the care for the widows, not merely do it. And I want to say to the ladies, ladies, widows in particular have needs that men deacons have no need to know about.
And you can avail yourself to minister to the widows by letting the deacons know. And another thing that came into my mind this week is I was visiting one of our
older women, I was visiting Phyllis Kerney. She's in a nursing home now. And I was thinking, I don't know her family. And what if something happens? And I don't get a phone call. They don't we have no contact. It's another area that we can develop our care for the widows in our church, to not only know what their needs are, but to somehow get to know the family. It's not that we have to be best friends and have picnics and barbecues and all that, but it'd be awful nice to be able to contact them, wouldn't it? Or to be contacted so that we can work together among those whom God cares deeply about. One final word. And Jesus cared perfectly for the widows on our behalf. Jesus died for our hypocrisy and he lived a true, perfect, faithful life in every way. And that's why we need him. We follow him not only because his way is right and true and perfect, but we follow him because he is our righteousness. If you've never come into relationship with God by trusting in Jesus, don't you receive him. Won't you come to him by faith and believe that he is who he says he is, the Redeemer, the Savior, the mediator, the one who reconciles us to God. It's awful nice to have those sins already paid for that hypocrisy already dealt with so that you greet your sure Redeemer on that day with joy and confidence. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you have given the Lord Jesus Christ to be for us the one who practiced pure religion, perfectly righteous, perfectly holy, perfectly caring. And we thank you, Lord Jesus, that for us you give us these scriptures, these words that show us how we ought to live and encourage us that you care and know us so well. Grant us your favor and walking before you and holiness and righteousness all our days. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.