1. "It doesn't matter how much money you give to that charity, to your kid's school, to this church. No dollar given like that will bring you any credit with God if you are at war with him in your life."

2. "Appearances can be deceiving. This world, this city, naturally cultivates our sight to see certain things as a really big deal—position, power, access to power—and other things to be taken as less important: truthfulness, kindness, forbearance."

3. "The giver is more important than the gift. We judge the gift by understanding the giver. The money's value to God was not simply a mathematical total. No, it was rather a window into the heart, an indicator of the spiritual state of the giver."

4. "Your small verbal communication at a Bible study, a word to a friend, a prayer, you never know how God will use what you think of as so insignificant if given truly in trust to Him."

5. "What we love we give ourselves to, and we give ourselves for."

6. "If you have a small view of God, then of course you're not going to give much because you're not going to trust him with much. If you have a bigger view of God, if you have an understanding of who God really is, of how good he is and how powerful, then you'll know that you could give even like she did."

7. "Where your heart is, there your treasure will go also. This woman's treasure, small as it was, wholly followed her heart. If we follow the money, we'll always find the heart."

8. "God himself did not send flowers or a card. He didn't send a gift certificate or even merely a prophet when we were lost. No, he sent his only son to give himself up for us fully."

9. "In this poor person's rich gift, Jesus sees a preview of the rejected Messiah fully giving himself for his people. The world would never understand the right proportion to measure such gifts by, but God would. And did and does."

10. "If you would begin to love Christ today, you must begin by giving yourself to Him. What we love we give ourselves to, and we give ourselves for."

Observation Questions

1. In Luke 21:1-2, what two groups of people does Jesus observe putting gifts into the offering box, and what specific detail is given about the widow's gift?

2. According to Luke 21:3, what surprising claim does Jesus make about the poor widow's contribution compared to the gifts of the rich?

3. In Luke 21:4, what reason does Jesus give for why the rich gave differently than the widow—what did they contribute "out of," and what did she contribute "out of"?

4. Looking at Luke 20:46-47, which immediately precedes this passage, what does Jesus warn about the scribes, and what specific accusation does He make regarding their treatment of widows?

5. In Luke 21:4, what phrase does Jesus use to describe the extent of what the widow gave, indicating the totality of her gift?

6. According to the passage in Luke 21:1-4, where is this scene taking place, and what is the purpose of the offering box where people are putting their gifts?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Jesus say the widow gave "more than all of them" when mathematically her two small copper coins were worth far less than the large gifts of the rich? What standard of measurement is Jesus using?

2. How does the context of Jesus' warning about the scribes who "devour widows' houses" (Luke 20:47) deepen our understanding of the significance of this widow's act of giving?

3. What does the contrast between giving "out of abundance" versus giving "out of poverty" reveal about what God values in our offerings and worship?

4. The sermon emphasizes that "the giver is more important than the gift." How does this principle challenge common assumptions about generosity and what makes a gift valuable to God?

5. How does the widow's complete giving of "all she had to live on" serve as a preview or illustration of what Jesus Himself was about to do that same week in Jerusalem?

Application Questions

1. The sermon states that our giving reflects our humility, love, faith, and hope. When you examine your own patterns of giving—whether time, money, or energy—what do they reveal about the current state of your trust in God's provision?

2. Jesus noticed the widow when everyone else overlooked her. Who in your church community or daily life might you be tempted to overlook because of their apparent insignificance, and how might you intentionally notice and value them this week?

3. The sermon warns against "virtue signaling" in religious activities—doing things more to be seen by others than to honor God. In what specific areas of your life are you most tempted to perform for human approval rather than giving yourself genuinely to God?

4. The widow gave "all she had to live on," demonstrating complete trust in God's care. What is one area of your life where you are holding back from fully trusting God, and what would it look like to release that area to Him this week?

5. The sermon asks, "Are there ways we should serve Him that we have not yet grasped?" What resource, ability, or opportunity has God given you that you have not yet fully devoted to His purposes, and what first step could you take toward using it for Him?

Additional Bible Reading

1. 2 Corinthians 8:1-9 — This passage, quoted in the sermon, describes the Macedonian churches who gave beyond their means out of extreme poverty and points to Christ who became poor so that we might become rich.

2. Romans 14:7-9 — Referenced in the sermon, this passage teaches that whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord, reinforcing the theme of complete devotion to Christ.

3. Mark 12:41-44 — This parallel account of the widow's offering provides additional details about Jesus observing the crowd at the temple treasury and His teaching to the disciples.

4. 1 Samuel 16:1-13 — This passage demonstrates that God looks at the heart rather than outward appearances, as seen when God chooses David over his more impressive brothers.

5. Matthew 6:1-4 — Jesus teaches about giving in secret rather than for public recognition, reinforcing the sermon's emphasis on the heart behind our giving rather than the spectacle of it.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Lord's Supper Reveals Our Deepest Personal Commitments

II. What People See: The Outward Appearance of Religion (Luke 21:1-2)

III. What People Give: The True Nature of Giving (Luke 21:3)

IV. What People Mean by Their Gifts: The Significance of Our Giving (Luke 21:4)

V. Our Giving Reflects Our Hearts and Points to Christ's Complete Self-Giving

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Detailed Sermon Outline

The Lord's Supper makes public our deepest personal commitments.

One hundred years ago, the President of the United States suddenly died in San Francisco on a trip. His Vice President, who would immediately succeed him, was also out of D.C. Calvin Coolidge, the Vice President, was spending part of his summer visiting his father up in rural New England, Plymouth Notch, Vermont, to be exact. A telegram to a nearby village and then on foot was the fastest way to get Calvin Coolidge the news. Upon his return here, Coolidge attended services on August the 5th at the First Congregational Church of Washington, D.C. The old building he would have attended services in that day was at G and 10th Street Northwest.

It was replaced in 1953. Currently there is a modern office building there with the remaining congregation meeting on the first floor. Anyway, it being the first Sunday of the month, the congregation, like ours even today, was observing the Lord's Supper. In his autobiography, Coolidge admits that though he had regularly attended church, he had never joined. Explaining his reluctance to officially join, he wrote, I had some fear as to my ability to set that example which I felt always to denote the life of a church member.

He then recounted that the minister made the invitation to partake of the communion to church members and also to all those who believed in the Christian faith. Coolidge recounts, For the first time I accepted the invitation, which I later learned he had observed. And in a few days, without any intimation to me that it was to be done, Considering this to be a sufficient public profession of my faith, the church voted me into its membership.

This declaration of belief in me was a great satisfaction.

I spent a good bit of my time helping people know whether or not they're Christians.

Our membership process here is the formal way of doing that.

For those who regularly attend, but for people who are just beginning to come along or young people who've grown up here or those who I get to know through whatever other means, I'm often trying to help them sort out how they stand in regards to Jesus Christ.

What are the works that they see in their life? What spiritual fruit is born? What indicators are there? What do they spend their time or money on? Or do they understand the hope that Christ holds out to them?

Do they have this hope? What does all this have to do with the outward symbols, the church attendance or participating in the Lord's Supper? Whether their background is Baptist or Jewish, Presbyterian or secular. Even this last week, a regular part of my experience is trying to help people understand who Jesus is and why He came and what that has to do with them. Well, as we continue to listen to Jesus in this section of Luke's gospel that we've been in on these pages, we come to a brief account of Jesus seeing contrasting sights.

And from this, he looks over to his disciples and he explains something very, very important. He explains something about what it means for us to really be His followers. Let's turn there to Luke chapter 21. You'll find it on page 880 in the Bibles provided.

Jesus had throughout His ministry and in a heightened way this final week been opposing various distortions and perversions of God's truth. The final week had been like an extended game of chess with His opponents. They challenged the people's praises of him. He condemned their buying and selling in the temple. They asked him where his authority came from.

He asked them where John the Baptist came from. He charged them with unfaithfulness as they tried to trap and embarrass him about the role of the Roman occupiers or the religious controversies of the day. In all of this, the religious teachers were showing themselves to be not just lazy shepherds of God's people, but really dangerous wolves. Look up at the end of chapter 20, verse 46, Jesus said, 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 and the places of honor at feasts. Okay, that's the show that was being put on around them that people could see.

But now look at what Jesus says about the reality behind the show. Who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation. And it's in this context that our brief passage comes this morning, Luke chapter 21 verse 1. 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.

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.

Friends, as we've seen, the official teachers were the false prophets, the wolves that were actually destroying God's flock. Here in these first four verses, we see the rich that these religious leaders so esteemed. And Jesus says that they are as nothing compared to the widow that the religious leaders ignored and even exploited. Jesus exposed the religious hypocrisy of the establishment and the true nature of generosity. This widow, it says, gave two small copper coins.

That's two leptas, that's the smallest of coins. Widows are among the most destitute people in ancient Israel. They often had no means of support. So generosity on the part of such a widow was especially remarkable. The teachers always associated wealth with divine approval and poverty with the opposite.

But here, among the poor and despised, Jesus saw a great lesson.

Friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian, I hope that this passage will dispel one of the most common misunderstandings I find that people have about God.

And that is that you can buy him off. It doesn't matter how much money you give to that charity, to your kid's school, to this church. No dollar given like that will bring you any credit with God if you are at war with him in your life. If you are seeking to live not for his purposes but for your own. You're at odds with God in a way that no size of check will ever take care of.

You need to understand that. The only hope any of us have with God to have peace with Him is through what He's done in Jesus Christ, through what He has provided for us, not what we provide for Him, and nothing in this little tale today that we look at, this incident, is different than that at all. Your only hope is to repent of your sins and to trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, as one who sacrificed Himself for the sins of everyone that would turn from their sins and trust in Him. And that means you today. If you want to know more about what that would mean in your life, Talk to the person you came with.

Pray even while I'm speaking. Talk to any of us at the doors on the way out. Many of the doors are covered by pastors. Please talk to one of us. Let us hear what you're thinking about.

This morning we want to ask, how do we judge our religion? And I'm going to give you three levels of answering that as we look through this passage. First, what people see in verses 1 and 2 what people see as we consider the outward marks of religion. Two, what people give, verse 3, as we consider the nature of true giving. And three, what people mean by their gifts, as we see Jesus explain His evaluation there in verse 4.

So we consider the significance of our giving and our living. And I pray that when we're done, you'll know more of where you stand with God and how you can give yourself to Him even more fully.

First, we consider what people see. It's right there in verses 1 and 2. We consider the outward appearance of religion here. Look again at verses 1 and 2. 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. Here we are, the house lights are up, the windows are big, it's a bright Sunday morning, and we are at the main time for religion in our lives in the week. It's Sunday morning at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Now surely this would be the kind of social equivalent of the situation that Jesus is in. It's prime time.

It's big time for religion. Here we are. If you want to be known as a serious Bible person on Capitol Hill, there are worse places you could be seen than at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Now I realize that might not be a reputation that you want to pursue. But if it is, this would be a good place to pursue that.

This is the place to be seen. This is the place to know that you're coming here for sermons that are longer than the average. Maybe longer than the desired, maybe longer than last week. You never know the ways you can show the seriousness of your faith in a place like this. Well friends, the temple in ancient Jerusalem was kind of like that.

It was the summit of the religion, especially in this Passover week of the year. In the temple, there were courts around it where thousands of people would come. And there were public displays of religion. There was a treasury on the east end of Herod's temple. There were there 13 large chests with brass receptacles, looking kind of like trumpets, where you could put in offerings in that week, swollen with pilgrims at Passover, how many people would come by to make their offerings.

People were encouraged to give. We don't know that there was any compulsion about it. The rich and the poor chose to participate as they did. Jesus himself had taught earlier about the rich fool building bigger barns, so presumably he would rather people give their money they just build bigger barns with it. These collections that were taken were divided between expenses of the temple, repairs, caring for the priests, and also caring for the poor.

And these boxes were really filled up during Passover time because it was this time of year when Jerusalem swelled from 30 or 40,000 people to 200,000 people with all the pilgrims that had come in, pilgrims outnumbering locals.

Four to one, five to one. I'm sure it's a phenomenon some people here in D.C. can understand during tourist season. Anyway, it was during this time that pilgrims from afar would come and many of them would bring with them lavish gifts, giving them with some show. I mean, kind of like a wreath-laying ceremony at a famous tomb. People would gather around, the procession of giving went on with coins cascading down these brass trumpet-like receptacles into the collection boxes.

Imagine the sound.

That echo the sounds with the swelling crowds watching with delight. The way these offerings were set up with these trumpet-like cones, it would increase the spectacle, particularly of large gifts. So if you had a lot of coins to put in, you could make this thing sound for a long time, and it would just keep reverberating. And then not just that one, but again, there are so many pilgrims right now, several get used at the same time, or even more. Or a spectacle would be a loud one with lots of noise as the trumpets were literally sounding out the gifts.

In such a setting, one literally may simply have never noticed the widow's two small coins that she dropped in. They were irregularly round. They were copper. They were about that size, very small. Dropping them in would make almost no noise.

I mean, this is an offering almost designed to be invisible, to be not seen.

How would the widow feel when she dropped these in? What would it look like to others? An unimportant person doing an unimportant act of worship Well, I think she would have been overlooked that day and forever afterwards. Had Jesus not noticed her and called attention to her, Jesus saw her and caused His disciples to see her too. I wonder when you have most recently judged someone for their poor appearance or their apparent insignificance.

I wonder if there was someone before church today that you almost actively didn't notice or are planning to ignore afterwards.

What would be the equivalent today of these large gifts being given that cause us to respect someone here at CHBC?

I wonder how you're tempted to to live for others' thoughts of you, for appearance. Virtue signaling doesn't only happen online. It can happen by where you turn up and what you want other people to see you doing or not doing. Just like these pilgrims gave loud offerings back then, you may be attending church this morning more for someone to see you and think well of you than for what good you can give or get for yourself. Giving your money instead of giving your heart, your life, your time, yourself is just an attempt to buy God off and it won't work.

Christian, join a church to help us help each other in opposing our own hypocrisy. That's something about what we see, what people see, the limits of conclusions we can draw from what we can see. But second, we consider what people give. In verse 3, let's consider the true nature of giving. Jesus said, verse 3, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in and here's the surprising word, more than all of them.

Now let me just begin by saying when Jesus said, Truly, I tell you, that's a setup for pointing to this widow as an example for discipleship. There's been a popular, a limitedly popular minority theory since the early 1980s from one scholar and Catholic Biblical Quarterly that published an idea that this is really a critique of a widow abusing system. Because he'd just been talking about the scribes who devoured widows' homes.

And while that system may well have been worthy of critique, Jesus seems here to be commending this widow. So I think Christians actually read it correctly for 1,800-1,900 years when we didn't have that idea. I think that's the obvious way to read it is still the white right way to read it. He is commending, and that's truly, truly, I say to you, like in chapter 12, he does the same thing. He's drawing an arrow to the example to emulate that he's about to mention.

I'm confident if you and I were standing there that day, we wouldn't have known this before Jesus said it. Even when Jesus says it, we might be needing a little explanation. I mean, it wouldn't have been obvious to us that she gave more than all those who gave those large gifts.

I wonder what experiences you've had When something you first took to be insignificant turned out to be very, very important. We're quick to believe ourselves and our first impressions. And no doubt our first impressions are often right. Do not misunderstand me. I mean, there's a reason so many of us have driver's licenses, right?

We drove around safely yesterday. Our first impressions were right about that light, about that sign, about that road. So first impressions are often right. The problem is our first impressions are not always right. And we have such confidence from the times they are right that for most of us, we have a kind of mental cleaning machine that takes care of problems and covers over them and helps us to see things the way we want to see them.

And we actually end up conspiring to hide the truth from ourselves because we don't want to see it. We would rather things be like this. I think that's what's going on here in this very giving. This is the difference that Jesus instructs us in here. And he does it by stating something that seems at first obviously false.

He says, this poor widow has put in more than all these. And you just want to say, Hold on Jesus, that's not true. She has not, by any objective standard. If we grab these two coins, all my commentaries tell me that you put these together, you have 128 of them and you get one Denarius. A Denarius is a day's wages, so these two coins, she's really not put in much.

So these people who've just given a lot, they've probably put in lots of Denariuses, or coins, much more valuable than that. Maybe scores of them, hundreds of them, maybe even some cases, thousands of them. So with all due respect, Jesus, it's clearly not more, it's less than they put in. But what that tells us is that Jesus must have meant something else than a simple mathematical total. He had something else in mind.

In verse 4, Jesus goes on to explain the sense in which he makes this statement. But before we turn to that, I want us to stop and appreciate the fact that we sometimes miss really important things. Appearances can be deceiving. This world, this city, naturally cultivates our sight to see certain things as a really big deal.

Position, power, access to power, and other things to be taken as less important: truthfulness, kindness, forbearance.

Even the quickness of speech that is valued here in social media or in the press highlights ability and wit more than care and truth. Well, the truth is that some of these less important things, they may seem so unimportant to us at first as to be even invisible, perhaps like this widow was to the disciples at the moment, some of these apparently unimportant things turn out to be hugely important, gigantically significant. And that has a lot of implications for us. Too many to chase out, even in a long sermon. Things that will console you and things that will challenge you.

In the ministry, I can tell you that gifts and abilities show up more quickly to people than character. And so we preachers rely on not just preaching a good sermon, but living a life that people know so that people will be able to see what goes on.

I appreciate the fact that the struggle all of us face and sometimes is between the reality of what we want to live up to and what the reality really is. I like the gently humorous way that Marilynne Robinson puts it in her novel Gilead, the pastor is the main protagonist in the book. And it's his voice that we hear. He says, I get much more respect than I deserve. This seems harmless enough in most cases.

People want to respect the pastor, and I'm not going to interfere with that. But I've developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read and reading more books by far than I learned anything useful from.

Except of course that some very tedious gentlemen have written books. But this is not a new insight, but the truth of it is something you have to experience to fully grasp. Often enough when someone saw the light burning in my study long into the night, it only meant I'd fallen asleep in my chair.

Friends, here in our passage, Jesus clearly lets us know that the giver is more important than the gift. We judge the gift by understanding the giver. The money's value to God was not simply a mathematical total. No, it was rather a window into the heart, an indicator of the spiritual state of the giver. Whatever this widow was doing, she was producing no show.

There was nothing to see. Oh, the rich might have been doing this on Facebook Live. They might have been filming it for Instagram later. They could be influencers on YouTube. With their own channels.

But the gifts that they gave, were they given with trust as full as the trust that widow had when she dropped in those two coins?

It was not the widow's poverty that was virtuous. I'm confident that if the rich had put in as great, freely given an offering as the widow, they would have been praised as much as the widow. No, it's not her poverty that's being praised, it's her trust in God. It's her honoring God's own reliability and generosity.

So my Christian friend, reflect on what you're doing with your whole life. Your whole life has been entrusted to you and you are returning to God one day at a time. When I knew how to do this thing, I used to have on my computer a recording I made where I just said into the computer, another 15 minutes gone into eternity. I said it kind of ominously. And then I had it just turn up on my computer every 15 minutes.

Just it would say that to me.

Memento mori. I mean, it's just like, it's just, I found it useful. And then I got a different computer and I couldn't figure out how to do it on that one. So if anybody wants to show it how to do it on that current one, I'll put it back on again. But you get the idea, we're always giving those 15-minute segments away every single day, for every hour.

And the question that this story leaves us uncomfortably with, and I've tried hard to sort of round off the edges of this thing, and it just kind of won't let me do it. So the uncomfortable question that leaves us with is, are there ways we should serve him that we have not yet grasped, that we have not yet released. Are you giving the right things? Are you giving to the right things? You know, this is not a story that just encourages mindless generosity.

Please don't give to unworthy charities or to churches that teach false things. This is no credit with God doing things like that. And does how you give fit with how much you're giving? If you're giving to the right things, there should be a joyful abandon in it. Everything doesn't have to be done or given, rather, to be given to the church, but everything that you give should be given to the Lord.

You should understand that what you're doing is consonant with His purposes, with His desires. With the things He's called you to do and that He's equipped you to do. Everything we do is done in the Lord's service if we're Christians. I know some of you may feel that the gifts you have are very small. Maybe this $2 is not going to matter, you think.

Or if I volunteer to give this ride once or to make this meal for this person, it's just a small thing, inconsequential. But, friend, your small verbal communication at a Bible study, a word to a friend, a prayer, you never know how God will use what you think of as so insignificant if given truly in trust to Him. Church history is full of stories of a tiny little thing going on being amplified gigantically. A story that's often told is that the shoe salesman that's just sharing the gospel. And the person who ends up coming to Christ ends up leading many, many more people to Christ.

It was D.L. Moody. Stories like that are on every page of church history, and they're in your own history too. When you look back in your own life, you'll see some ways that God's blessings to you were very, very obvious. But my guess is you will find some things, a witness even silently given by a suffering person, that at the time you didn't notice much, but that may have a letter point undermined your unbelief or your temptations to doubt.

God's faithfulness being so clear, you don't even notice it for years, and then you look back and you think, was that there the whole time? Yes, it was. Yeah, when you become a Christian, you see all kinds of things that God has been doing throughout your life. Those things are going on today and Jesus was pointing out those kinds of things to the disciples that day in that widow's gifts. Finally, let's consider what people mean by their gifts.

Verse 4, the significance of all this. What our giving shows us about ourselves. Verse 4, look again at Jesus' explanation of His surprising evaluation.

For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on. We're told how comparatively little in sheer economic terms this poor widow contributed. Jesus tells us her status, she's a widow. He tells us that she was poor. And he tells us in verse 4 that she put in all she had to live on.

We could ask a lot more questions about that widow, but Jesus doesn't tell us anything else. And we must not need to know, at least not for the purposes Jesus pointed out here, because he didn't tell them anything else.

Her humble act instructs our giving, our living, even points toward understanding of what Christ Himself was preparing to do that very week, what He was doing by the very way He was confronting the religious leaders. If our giving is any indication, a lot of Christians in America seem to not be living to the Lord, as Paul put it in Romans 14. One study several years ago found that the vast majority of Christians in America give no money to any church or parachurch group or charity, the vast majority.

Praise God for how much this church has prospered from faithful giving by members. I remember my early time here. The mere fact that this church's budget started to do pretty well drew attention from some other churches in the area, all of which were experiencing kind of decline. And so one friend who was the chair of the stewardship drive in her congregation asked to see me about it. And she wanted to know what stewardship material we were using.

And I simply said, the gospel. I mean, we tell people that when they come to Christ they're giving him their all. And that doesn't mean that they write a check for everything in their bank account, but it means that we just teach a basic part of following Christ is we want to use our whole lives, certainly including our money, in his services. And other than that, we don't really have any kind of annual drive for giving. It's just a part of what it means to be a Christian.

Friend, I hope you hear the completeness of Christ's claims in your own life. Whether you're a non-Christian trying to understand what it would mean for you to follow Christ, or a Christian trying to mature or continue in Him.

Our giving tells us a lot about ourselves. Let me mention four things that I think you can learn about yourself from your giving. One, your humility is reflected in your giving. There's no indication here that this woman was under any kind of constraint. She appeared to be giving freely and if freely Why not cheerfully?

Jesus told his followers, Freely you've received, freely give. Paul asked the Corinthian Christians, what do you have that you did not receive? Friends, the kind of giving she gave didn't come from pride. It came from humility. This is the way to the cheerfulness in giving that God loves.

The woman was humbling herself to trust God's promises more than what her eyes might tell her. God was going to be glorified not primarily by the support for the temple, I mean, that building is going to be destroyed in a few decades anyway. No, rather, God was being glorified in her humble trust in Him. And here, thousands of years after that temple is destroyed, we are reading about her trust right now. He is being glorified even as we remember her humble act.

How does such astounding humility show itself in your job? How about in the way you interact with the church? Do you see that kind of humility? Friends, I think your giving here reflects in part your trust in God, specifically your trust in this congregation and the elders. If you find yourself unable to trust because you don't trust what the church would do with your money, then I would suggest you humble yourself and find a church you would so trust that you would then give at.

Because friends, you need a church too. And part of that is a church that you would trust enough to give your money to. Your humility is reflected in your giving. A second thing, also, your love. Your love is reflected in your giving.

Giving indicates the heart's desire. I mean, isn't this widow an example of what Jesus called for back in Luke 10, loving God with all your heart, mind, your soul, your strength? The heart of this story is the heart of this widow, she gave all she had to live on. So if you would begin to love Christ today, you must begin by giving yourself to Him. What we love we give ourselves to, and we give ourselves for.

Now loving God for you may mean bearing up under your family disappointments and continuing to trust Christ, or continuing through your struggle with your health, and still believing in God's power and His goodness. It may mean not resenting God, but praising Him even when you're enduring something difficult. God may call you to show your love for Him by trusting Him through difficulties in your own mind or memories or frustrations or disappointed hopes. For many here this morning, Your love for God will be shown by the entirety of your devotion in caring for that newborn baby, which seems to take up more of you than you knew there was. And yet, you trust the Lord in His provision.

And you see a kind of entire devotion like this widow models here, just because it's so all-encompassing and it's so practical. How is your love for God and others showing itself in your spending these days? Brothers and sisters, I think I can see in our church's budget this kind of love, and it is encouraging. The way you support the staff here, the missionaries, campus outreach, nine marks, so many other different aspects of good work, all of that to me seems to reflect your very serious love for God and is hugely encouraging. A third thing, your faith is also reflected in your giving.

If you believe that God will provide, you will give. The size of this woman's sacrifice reflected the size of her faith. You could even say it reflected the size of her God as she understood Him.

For in sacrificial giving is born of a heart that trusts God like this. If you have a small view of God, then of course you're not going to give much because you're not going to trust him with much. If you have a bigger view of God, if you have an understanding of who God really is, of how good he is and how powerful, then you'll know that you could give even like she did. I don't know if she knew where her next meal was coming from. Now that's speculation.

The phrase used all she had to live on, but then maybe that was a days maybe that was a pay for something she'd done and she had every reason to think she could do the same thing again the next day. We don't know that. We're not told that. We're simply told that what she had, she gave. And that reflects her faith in God.

And her actions were odd by the world's standards. That's why Jesus points them out. But then she wasn't living by this world's standards. I love the way David Wells puts it, this world makes sin seem normal and righteousness seem odd. So what do you think?

Should we trust God like this? Jesus clearly taught that we should. So how is your faith in God's promises reflected in your finances? I think you show your faith by being careful about debt. By paying your bills, how are you trusting God with your family?

Fathers, husbands, parents, are you saving responsibly, trying to provide the best home you can for your family? This is a good expression of trusting God's Word. It's what He's calling you to do with your stage and responsibilities in life. But for those in so many other particulars, I can't have the wisdom or the knowledge to give you all the applications this has in your own life. This should fall into your lunchtime conversation.

What are ways that you can more fully give whatever you have to the Lord in His work? How are you pursuing that now? How would you like to pursue that more? One way you could help do that is come to the Stewardship Sunday School class. At 9:30 on Sunday mornings, running right now.

So come over here at 9:30, hear about the core seminar class we're having on stewardship, and come to that. And pray for me as your pastor that I trust God entirely, that I give my life to Him entirely, every day that He gives me to serve Him. Pray that He would cause me to trust Him more, and that as I do that, it'll be reflected in my giving myself more fully to Him. A fourth thing. I think your hope also is reflected in your giving.

Where are you investing for the longest term good? That's what we see this widow doing here. There's a hope in God and a giving of herself, a belief in His coming kingdom, in the resurrection of the body, a hope of a better life to come. So let's reflect this morning on the hearts of our brothers and sisters in this congregation. Maybe even as they give some of the smallest gifts here of any among us, and yet whose gifts may be some of the most entire and the most based on hope in the promises of God.

Our giving reflects what's really hoped for by us. The widow's giving in trust of God's goodness was part of her living that way. The gift is greater not in itself, but her act of giving is what made that gift even more valuable to God. God already owns all the cattle on a thousand if these rich people thought that they were doing God a big favor, then they were misunderstanding the situation. But the poor widow's gifts were a sweet offering of praise to God, confident of both her ability to care for her and her willingness to do it.

She knew that she and all she had belonged to God. I wonder how God has shown himself sufficient for you. Have you had times when your resources were exhausted? And yet you've seen God provide. Some of us get there financially like this widow, others physically through illness or accident or age, still others emotionally or mentally through trials or distresses.

But somehow God uses the hard-pressed to especially bring him praise as we rely upon upon him. One of the joys of being married to my dear wife is to see her encounter challenges not by pretending they're not there, but by continuing to serve him through them. Praise the Lord for that. What a powerful witness. Among our friends and families and our neighborhoods, our schools, certainly here at church, one very practical way that we can love sacrificially is by giving our time.

I praise God for all the ways folks here have given their time to work with the youth in the church, with the children, with older folks who need a ride, or folks through Central Union Mission, or the Capital Pregnancy Center, and so many other ways. So, friend, just ask yourself, what have you particularly done sacrificially in your own life in service of God? You'll never earn yourself a place with God, but you can find what direction your heart inclines toward it. Are you loving God with all he's given to you? Interrogate the places of God's abundant provision in your life.

Are those places where you could find more could be provided, where you could be more like this widow that could be better used for him? Even our prayers, as we were thinking earlier, show our dependence on God. Jesus said in another place where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. But it's also true that where your heart is, there your treasure will go also. This woman's treasure, small as it was, wholly followed her heart.

If we follow the money, we'll always find the heart. That is the telltale sign of where our heart is. And friend, if all this leaves you with the question of what God wants you to put in the offering plate, It normally includes your money. It always includes yourself. We should conclude.

Bobby was leading us to consider on Wednesday night those magnificent words in Romans 14:7 and 8, For none of us lives to himself, none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or we whether we die, we are the Lord's. It's like we coordinate our teaching. You know, this is a perfect illustration of that.

You see in this brief passage from Jesus' teaching a little more of what it means to truly be a follower of Jesus Christ, to truly be a Christian. And reflecting on the completeness of this widow's giving, she put in all she had to live on, we're reminded that God himself did not send flowers or a card. He didn't send a gift certificate or even merely a prophet when we were lost, as some people around the world think. No, he sent his only son to give himself up for us fully. My friend, in this poor person's rich gift, Jesus sees a preview of the rejected messiahs fully giving himself for his people.

The world would never understand the right proportion to measure such gifts by, but God would. And did and does. In another letter, the Apostle Paul was commending the churches of Macedonia, giving us a concrete example of what such widow-like, God-trusting faith looks like. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.

And this not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, Yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich.

Praise the Lord. The emblem Jesus himself devised and designed for us to be reminded and refocused on his love.

Is this symbolic supper set before us now. Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that yout would teach us in our hearts and souls about what it means to live in this kind of humble, loving trust we see in this widow, the Lord Jesus pointed out so many years ago.

Teach us powerfully by youy Spirit, even now we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.