The Widow’s Offering

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family. 

Just a little background on where we’re at in Luke. These past couple weeks, Jesus has been answering questions from the religious elite of Israel. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, they keep asking Jesus questions, trying to catch him off guard, trying to undermine his authority. And we ended last week with the scribes, part of the religious elite, who said, Teacher, you have spoken well, for they no longer dare to ask him any question.

So at this point, they’re like, we can’t challenge Jesus anymore. He knows the stuff. He has the authority. But this week, Jesus says, I’m actually going to ask you a question now. So Jesus, he kind of turns the tables around and he challenges them. He challenges their traditional understanding of the scriptures.

And ultimately, he reveals the true condition of their heart. Now as we go to the text this morning, we also need to be challenged by these words of Jesus. Jesus, he’s challenging us to understand him as our Messiah, understand him as our Savior. He’s challenging us to respond to him as our Savior.

So let’s go to the text together. Luke 20, starting in verse 41. But he said to them, How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on my right hand, Until I make your enemies your footstool. David thus calls him Lord.

So how is he his son? So Jesus, he asked them a pretty hard question here. He’s talking to the scribes whose job it is to know the Old Testament scriptures are supposed to understand everything in there.

But he asked them the question that he knows they can’t answer. And here’s kind of the problem that Jesus sets up for them here. They all believe that the Christ, which is this promised Savior of the Old Testament, they believe that the Christ is going to come through the line of David, Israel’s great king. They believe that he’s going to be an earthly descendant who’s come to deliver Israel.

And they’re right about that. Throughout the Old Testament, the Psalms and the prophets and even the covenant that God makes with David, God promises that, Hey, someone is going to come from your line that will be this promised Savior that I will give to you. That’s not the only description that we see of the Messiah in the Old Testament. It’s not just that he’s the son of David.

It’s also that he’s the Lord of David. This is what we see in the Psalm. This is Psalm 110 that Jesus is quoting.

It says, The Lord said to my Lord. And so this is God saying to the Lord of David. And so David acknowledges that one, Okay, this Messiah is going to come from my line. But David’s also recognizing this Messiah is Lord over me right now.

And so this is a problem for the scribes because they only have part of the equation. They only understand that Messiah will be a son of David. They don’t necessarily understand that he’s also the Lord of David. Part of it is in that culture, a son would never be considered as more honorable than his father or someone that he descended from. For them, it doesn’t make sense that someone who is over David would come down and be the son of David.

They have no framework for that. What they don’t understand is that God himself, the Lord of David, is taking on the form of a man to come and bring this deliverance. They don’t understand that he’s not just coming to bring an earthly deliverance to the kingdom or the nation of Israel. He’s actually coming to bring a cosmic victory to the whole world.

He’s not just improving the nation. He’s not just delivering them from Rome. He’s come to defeat sin and defeat death on their behalf. So really, their expectations for the Messiah, they’re too small. They don’t understand who he is.

They don’t understand the need that they have to be saved. Some of you have heard of troubles that I’ve had in my house before. I’ve had squirrels running through my roof in the past. I’ve had the AC go out for months. We’re in a new house now, which is better, but it still has its problems. This past week, our oven has been malfunctioning.

The stove top doesn’t really work and it starts smoking when you preheat it. We’re back to square one with the problems. We just assumed this is probably a simple fix. We just need to put in a maintenance request and they’ll come.

They’ll make the simple fix and we’ll be fine. We put in the maintenance request and turns out that this oven doesn’t need just a simple fix. We need a whole new oven. This oven is completely broke, will not work again.

So we need someone to come take this oven out and put in a completely new oven for it to work. We don’t understand how bad the problem was and what was required to fix it. This is really the same mistake that the scribes make here. They didn’t understand that the Messiah is not coming just to provide a simple fix for Israel. He’s coming to replace all of Israel and start a new nation as the people of God. They don’t understand that he’s come to bring a new heart to people, to bring life instead of death. This mission of Jesus is so much bigger than they can comprehend. The question we need to ask is, do we ever make the same mistake as the scribes?

Do we sometimes understand Jesus as someone who’s come to just make a simple fix in our lives? Just improve our conditions temporarily. The truth is we need more than a simple fix.

We need a complete renewal, a complete replacement and a new heart because of the oven. Jesus, he didn’t come to just teach us how to be a little bit better. Jesus, he came because our sin is so offensive to God that it requires his eternal wrath. And the only way that we can be saved from this wrath is if God Himself comes down in the form of a man and takes it on Himself. That’s the challenge that Jesus gives to us. To understand that the Lord of the universe, he stepped off his throne.

He’s come down, taken on the form of a man so that we may be saved. That’s how bad our situation is. That’s also how good our God is. That as our Lord, he would come down to our level and take our sin on Himself. This is a stark contrast to the following passage here where we see the humility of Jesus coming down in our place. In this next text, we’re going to see the pride of the scribes. So beginning in verse 45 here, going to verse 47. And in the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples, Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces, In the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, Who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers.

They will receive the greater condemnation. So Jesus, he’s doing a couple of things here. Notice that Luke says he makes these comments where everyone can hear. So he’s talking to his disciples, but everyone around can hear him exposing the scribes here. So the scribes, he’s listing off all these public actions that the scribes do, and now he’s exposing them publicly for their sin.

And he’s doing it for a reason. So what does he say to his disciples? Beware of the scribes. He’s saying they wear long robes to signify their status. They greet other people of high profile in public places. They take the best seats at synagogue. And so all these outward actions that the scribes are doing, they’re communicating that they’re better than everyone else.

The scribes, they know God’s word. They’re fully devoted to it. They’re men of honor. Yet what does Jesus also include in his description of the scribes? He says that they devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. And so the scribes who are actually in charge of taking care of the poor and the widows, they’re the ones that are abusing them, taking advantage of them. This is why Jesus says they deserve such a great condemnation.

They’re supposed to be men of the word. This is what Exodus 22 says about this law. God’s word says, You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child.

If you do mistreat them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. And so Jesus, he sees through this facade. He proclaims that judgment and condemnation are coming to these scribes. And this isn’t something new that we see in Luke. We see this theme of the prideful being humbled throughout Luke. In Luke 11, Jesus says, Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.

Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. But then in Luke 14, he says, For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. This is kind of the point that Jesus is making here. That those who trust in their own righteousness will receive condemnation. So if you’re here this morning and you’re not sure about what your standing is before God, this is a warning that Jesus gives to us. It’s a loving warning, but it is a warning that we cannot trust in our own righteousness to be saved.

That if we trust in our own actions, our own efforts, The only way to be made right before God is to humble ourselves and place our faith in Jesus as our righteousness. This is a warning for those who trust in their own righteousness. It’s also a warning for us as believers who still are tempted to do this all the time. We’re still tempted to find our hope in what we do and how we worship God, how we serve. It’s a warning for us as well that when we begin to trust in our own righteousness, we actually end up hurting those we’re supposed to care for.

There’s a movie that came out recently called The Iron Claw. It’s a true story. It’s a really sad story.

It kind of captures this dynamic. The movie centers on a family called the Von Erich family. So the dad, his name’s Fritz Von Erich. He’s a professional wrestler back in his day. He has the vision that his sons will also one day become professional wrestlers, become champions. His dream is just for his sons to be successful, to be champions. He has this perfect plan that he wants to implement to make it happen. It’s a very harsh plan. He puts unrelenting pressure on his sons.

There’s rigorous training. He never lets them show weakness. He gets onto them harshly. He punishes them harshly. As you can imagine, this has pretty harsh consequences for his family.

His sons, they repress their emotions. They start struggling with substance abuse. Eventually, two of them end up committing suicide. So it’s a tragic story. And when you watch the movie, you actually see there’s a deeper reason that the father, Fritz Von Erich, pushes his family so hard. You see that he believes his family is cursed. Fritz, he grew up in the Great Depression, who struggled all his life. His youngest son died at the age of six. So Fritz has this belief that his family is cursed, and he’s the one that needs to break this curse for them. When he’s talking about this curse, this is what he says. The only way to beat it is to be the toughest, the strongest, the most successful, the absolute best, to rely on no one but ourselves. I will get us there.

I will be the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, and nothing will hurt us ever again. So Fritz, he saw himself as a savior of the family, but he ended up destroying his family. So we all live under a curse. We all have sin that wreaks destruction, havoc on our lives.

If we believe that we can save ourselves from this curse, we’re only going to cause more destruction. Our pride, it tells us that. We just need to try harder. We just need to do better, and we’ll be okay. Our pride tells us that others just need to try harder, that they don’t need the grace of God.

They just need to try harder. Our pride just causes us to be hardened towards others, hardened towards ourselves. And if our only hope against this curse of sin is ourselves, if our only hope is our own efforts, then we really have no hope. We can never meet the standard that’s required to be free of sin. Yet there is hope, because the only one who can deliver himself from his sin chose to deliver us instead. Jesus, he’s the only one who can break this curse by his own willpower, and he decides to break this curse for us.

Jesus came as our Lord to bear our sin, but not just to bear our sin, but to actually give us his righteousness, to give us a clean slate and a perfect slate, so that now we’re free to rest in the perfection that Jesus has. We’re free to rest in the love that God has for us. And this changes us. This changes our outlook towards others. When we understand that we’re forgiven and we’re sinful, that we’re only here because of the grace of God, then we naturally show that grace to others. We show that grace to others in our friendships, in our family, in our work life.

When we understand that God loves us so much that he gave his son for us to save us, we’re driven to do the same love for others. This brings the question, how do we respond to this? How do we respond to the fact that crisis came and given us his righteousness?

It’s pretty simple that we trust in him. This is what we see in our next little passage here, going into Luke 21, starting in verse 1. Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box. 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.

So we have a contrast here that Jesus paints between the rich and the widow. And we kind of need to understand where this money is going that they’re putting in. They’re in somewhere called the court of women, which is like a subsection of the temple itself, where people would come and give their money into these different offering boxes. And these offering boxes were supposed to collect the funds that were used for caring for the poor, caring for the widow.

Really, they were used to support the scribes and the other religious elite who were called to lead the people. But as we’ve seen in our previous texts, those who are in charge, the leaders, they’re not using this money to care for the poor, they’re using this money to enrich themselves. So imagine if someone in our church came who is really struggling financially, and when we do our monthly deacons offering, imagine that she puts in all that she has to this deacon offering so that we can help other people. But instead of using this money to help those who are in need, we just pocket this money and give it to the leaders of the church.

And after we do this, during our time of prayer, we make a long prayer asking that God helps those who are in need. That’s kind of the picture that Jesus is painting here. It’s pretty messed up, it’s corrupt. And the crazy thing is the widow probably knows that the temple system is corrupt. She probably knows that the money is not going to help those who are in need, because she’s in need right now.

She’s in poverty. The text says that she has two coins, and these two coins, they’re known as lepta or a lepton. And in today’s money, they would be about two cents each. And this is all that she has to live on. That’s really four cents in today’s money. Yes, she gives it to the offering box anyways.

And that should raise a question. Why does she still give to this system that she knows is probably corrupt and won’t use the money to help? It’s because even though it was corrupt, the temple is still a place where people come to worship God.

It’s still where people would come and give and express devotion and trust in God. And so she probably knows that this isn’t going to change her situation. Yes, she still decides to trust that God sees her, that God is pleased with her.

She still places her life, literally her life, all that she has to live on into God’s hands. And this is really how we respond to the fact that Jesus has come to be our righteousness and to be our hope. We place all of our trust in Him. We place our life in His hands.

This is what it looks like to place our faith in Christ. And this isn’t always easy. I’m sure it was hard for the widow who knew of the corruption that was going on to still trust her life in God’s hands.

And this can be hard for us sometimes too, when we face hardship in the world. It can be easy for us to question, is God really good still? Is He really here with me?

Does He really care for me? How can I trust God when it seems like my life is falling apart? When I’m hurt by those who are supposed to care for me, when tragedy and suffering strikes in my life, we may never know why these things happen, but we do know why we can trust in God during these times. The reason is actually found in the Psalm that Jesus quotes here. He says, the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Jesus, He’s coming back one day to defeat all of suffering and all of sin on our behalf. He has come as a son of David who comes near to us in our suffering. He empathizes with us. He’s taken our sin on Himself so that we can be saved. But He’s also our King who reigns over the earth and sees the suffering that’s going on and will not let it go unpunished. We respond to this by placing our life in the hands of God as the widow does. We trust in Him by giving everything we have to Him, by loving others as He loves us, and by hoping in the fact that one day He will come back and put it into everything that is wrong. Hear the words of Psalm 55 as we conclude this morning.

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never let the righteous be shaken. But you God will bring down the wicked into the pit of decay.

The bloodthirsty and deceitful will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in you. Let’s pray together. Lord, we come and we praise you that you have taken on the form of a servant, that you have taken our sin on Yourself and you have given us Your righteousness. I just pray that you strengthen us through your spirit to respond in faith, to repent of our sin, to trust in you when things are hard and we can’t see your goodness. Just give us a faith that rests in Christ and His love for us. I pray all of this in your Son’s name. Amen.