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When more is most

by Terry Dashner

When more is most
Terry Dashner
Mark 12: 43-44 "Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.'" The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recently in my devotion time, I read again the story about the two blind men beside the road to Jericho begging for mercy as Jesus passed by. (Matthew 20:29-34) They cried, "Have mercy on us, Oh Lord, thou son of David." The crowd traveling with Jesus chastised them and told them to keep quiet. But, they cried out all the more. All of a sudden Jesus stopped walking, turned to them and said, "What will ye that I shall do unto you?" Without delay they both cried out, "Lord, that our eyes may be opened." The Bible says that the Lord had compassion on them, touched their eyes and immediately they received their sight. They got up and followed Jesus with opened eyes.
Many Christians are familiar with this story. And if you were to ask them what the story means—theologically—they would answer: Although the blind men were healed physically, the story's emphasis is on spiritual healing. As teachers, preachers, and theologians, we attempt to downplay physical healing in the Bible because not everyone, every time, is healed physically. And although there is truth to this statement, there is more to this truth.
Let me explain, please. Recently there was a local news station that interviewed a local minister who has been ostracized by mainstream Christianity because he believes and promotes the doctrine of inclusion. In other words, he believes that all are going to heaven whether or not they repent of their sins and call upon the name of Jesus to save them. He says that God is a loving God and would not send anybody to hell. He is not alone in this thinking. Many people believe this. Why? Because people equate fairness with general distribution. In other words, God must give everybody the same gift—heaven—simply to be fair. And God is fair to all.
Let me show you the weakness in this argument. God is fair but He is also JUST, and the two terms do not mean the same thing. God is fair to all in that He is unwavering—always the same. God is just in that He demands justice for sin. Justice demands righteousness. And righteousness demands blamelessness. No one is blameless before God in his or her natural state. Only one is truly blameless before God. He is Jesus. In order to stand blameless before God, I must stand with Jesus. I may stand in Jesus when I repent of my sin and ask God to save my soul. When I call on the name of the Lord, God imputs His righteousness to me. Thus, to be right with God, I must repent of my sins and ask God to save me.
In America especially, we demand fairness across the board. We see people getting special treatment or certain favor and we cry foul. We believe that showing partiality to one person or a group of people leads to corruption of a democratic society. I certainly do not disagree with this; however, God is Sovereign and does not play by our feeble rules. He does everything right because He is perfect and He is Almighty God. Period. This concept of Sovereignty is illustrated very well in the parables of the New Testament, like the one about the employer who goes out to hire workers. Workers are hired to work in the employer's field for the same wage although some worked fewer hours. The owner is quoted at the end of the parable saying, "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'" (Matthew 20:1-16)
My message today is entitled, "When more is most." Jesus watched two types of people giving money to the temple treasury. One group gave more than anyone else who gave that day. The other person gave only a few pennies, fewer than all the rest but, according to Jesus she gave the most. Why? In an attempt to answer why, I am going to make a few statements about giving and support these statements with the Word of God to show what giving truly is.
For one, true giving is first giving oneself.
Secondly, true giving is quality not quantity.
And thirdly, God does not bless our giving based on our sense of fairness.
Let's begin…
ONE
True giving is giving one's self.
Mark 12:41-44: "Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins,[j]worth only a fraction of a penny.[k] Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.'"
She put in everything she had, that included herself. "Send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever me from any tie but the tie that binds me to Your service and to Your heart." These words were written in the diary of David Livingstone and discovered after his death. Who was David Livingstone? David Livingstone (19 March 1813 - 4 May 1873) was a Scottish Presbyterian pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and explorer in central Africa. Perhaps one of the most popular national heroes of the late-nineteenth century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone's mythic status operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr, that of working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story, that of scientific investigator and explorer, that of imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader and advocate of commercial empire.
His fame as an explorer helped drive forward the obsession with discovering the sources of the Nile River that formed the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of the African continent. At the same time his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as posthumous national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa."[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone
No man or woman could have accomplished what Livingstone did without first giving one's self. What does it mean to give one's self? First, it means giving your attitude to God. Victor Frankl, survivor of the Nazi Holocaust once said, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: To choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's way." Jesus does not measure appearances, He measures the heart. Isaiah referred to this truth. He said the Lords "thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways." Is. 55:8 (NKJV) God knows your thoughts, actions and motives. I am humbled every time I read Ps. 139. Listen to verses 1-4. "O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether." (NKJV)
Your attitude is your heart. And your heart is important because where your heart is there is your treasure. Oh, by the way---speaking of David Livingstone--The body of David Livingstone was buried in England where he was born, but his heart was buried in the Africa he loved. At the foot of a tall tree in a small African village the natives dug a hole and placed in it the heart of this man who they loved and respected. If your heart were to be buried in the place you loved most during life, where would it be?
True giving is first giving yourself.
TWO
True giving is in the quality of the gift, not in the quantity. The widow gave a few pennies—not much of value, but it was all she had.
If a man has a million dollars and gives a tithe, he still has $900,000 on which to live. If a man has $100 and gives a tithe, he has only $90 left. The man who has the most money may boast of his "much giving" and still have much left. A man who has little may give little in comparison to the rich man, but that does not discredit his gift simply because it is small. God is not moved by the amount of the gift given. God is moved by the quality of the gift, not the quantity.
Our limitations are not always a liability. They may be a great asset to us. I once read that a bumblebee should not be able to fly. His wing span in relationship to his huge body makes him, aerodynamically speaking, incapable of flying. Well obviously no one has convinced the bumblebee of his limitations, because he flies anytime he has a mind to.
After physicist Richard Feynman won a Nobel prize for his work, he visited his old high school. While there, he decided to look up his records. He was surprised to find that his grades were not as good as he had remembered them. And he got a kick out of the fact that his IQ was 124, not much above average. Dr. Feynman saw that winning the Nobel prize was one thing, but to win it with an IQ of only 124 was really something. Most of us would agree because we all assume that the winners of Nobel prizes have exceptionally high IQs.
If Feynman had known he was really just a bit above average in the IQ department, we wonder if he would have had the audacity to launch the unique and creative research experiments that would eventually win him the greatest recognition the scientific community can give.
Perhaps not. After all, from childhood most of us have been led to believe that ordinary people don't accomplish extraordinary feats.
Most of us fall short of our potential because of little things we know or assume about ourselves. And the most self-defeating assumption of all is that we are just like everyone else. Bits & Pieces, September 17, 1992, pp. 7-8.
If you think you are limited in what you can give to God, go ahead and give out of your limitations. God is not impressed by the stellar works of our hands, but by our weakness. Why is this? Because when we are weak, then He is strong. God's strength is "made perfect" in our weaknesses.
In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite's primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter's magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target. But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter's immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun.
And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth. "Perhaps most remarkable," writes Jaroff, "those signals emanate from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth.'" The Little Satellite That Could was not qualified to do what it did. Engineers designed Pioneer 10 with a useful life of just three years. But it kept going and going. By simple longevity, its tiny 8-watt transmitter radio accomplished more than anyone thought possible.
So it is when we offer ourselves to serve the Lord. God can work even through someone with 8-watt abilities. God cannot work, however, through someone who quits. (Philippians 3:12-14; Hebrews 12:1; Mark 10:45) Craig Brian Larson, Pastoral Grit: the Strength to Stand and to Stay, Bethany.
God is looking for quality in giving, not quantity.
THREE
Our sense of "fairness" does not count in giving. According to the world's sense of fairness, the rich in the story of the widow's mite should have been commended because they gave more than everybody else. After all, those who do the most in society should get the most benefit—right? In some respects this is absolutely true. A person who works hard should reap the rewards of his hands. The person who runs the fastest in a hundred-yard-dash should win the ribbon. Not everyone can win the race, only one. But when it comes to life in the Kingdom of God, things are upside down.
Jesus said that the one who is last shall be first. He said that the greatest among us should be servant to all. This is very different from the world's understanding of fairness. Why is this?
For one, God is sovereign. Newscaster Paul Harvey told a remarkable story of God's providential care over thousands of allied prisoners during World War II, many of whom were Christians. One of America's mighty bombers took off from the island of Guam headed for Kokura, Japan, with a deadly cargo. Because clouds covered the target area, the sleek B-29 circled for nearly an hour until its fuel supply reached the danger point. The captain and his crew, frustrated because they were right over the primary target yet not able to fulfill their mission, finally decided they had better go for the secondary target. Changing course, they found that the sky was clear. The command was given, "Bombs away!" and the B-29 headed for its home base. Some time later an officer received some startling information from military intelligence. Just one week before that bombing mission, the Japanese had transferred one of their largest concentrations of captured Americans to the city of Kokura. Upon reading this, the officer exclaimed, "Thank God for that protecting cloud! If the city hadn't been hidden from the bomber, it would have been destroyed and thousands of American boys would have died." God's ways are behind the scenes; but He moves all the scenes which He is behind. We have to learn this, and let Him work. John Nelson Darby.
The greatest lesson of faith we may learn as believers is that God is Soveriegn and in control of all things, no matter what the outcome. The clay pot has no right to question the potter. The potter rules over the clay pot. We, the Creation of God, cannot explain, nor ultimately understand the good and evil that reigns over our feeble lives. But, keep in mind—this life is not all there is to living. There is a world beyond explanation coming to all who have made Jesus the Lord of their lives.
Secondly, God's sense of fairness is that the first should be last, and the greatest among us should be servant to all. God honors the servant's heart because God can use him. God honors the one willing to come in last in order to first obey God's calling. During World War II, England needed to increase its production of coal. Winston Churchill called together labor leaders to enlist their support. At the end of his presentation he asked them to picture in their minds a parade which he knew would be held in Piccadilly Circus after the war.
First, he said, would come the sailors who had kept the vital sea lanes open. Then would come the soldiers who had come home from Dunkirk and then gone on to defeat Rommel in Africa. Then would come the pilots who had driven the Luftwaffe from the sky.
Last of all, he said, would come a long line of sweat-stained, soot-streaked men in miner's caps. Someone would cry from the crowd, 'And where were you during the critical days of our struggle?' And from ten thousand throats would come the answer, 'We were deep in the earth with our faces to the coal.'"
The jobs of servants are not prominent and glamorous. But it is often the people with their "faces to the coal" who help the church accomplish its mission. Don McCullough, Waking from the American Dream.
In conclusion:
Jesus said that the widow had done more with her little offering than the ones who had given a bigger offering. There is truly a time when "more" although small, is significantly "the most." When one elects to give one's self first, the most of what God has to offer follows. When one finds a way to give in quality rather than quantity, the most of what God has to offer will follow. When one recognizes the way of God is not "fairness" but righteousness, the most of what God has to offer through His Son Jesus will cover us and free us from wrath and judgment. This is true giving and receiving.
I leave you with these words. A man was once asked how he could give away so much and yet still have great wealth. He answered, "The more I shovel out, God shovels in. And God's shovel is the bigger shovel."
Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming soon.
Pastor T.

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