Every Last Word

Guest (Male): How do you use your belongings or social status? Do you put them to use for the Kingdom of God, or do you use them to get your own way? Turn to the Gospel of Luke as we prepare to discuss the things we have and what we do with them.

Welcome to Every Last Word, a radio and internet program with Dr. Philip Ryken, teaching the whole Bible to change your whole life. Today we turn to the Gospel of Luke, looking at what the Bible says about the true character of a person and how they use their money.

Phil, we hear a lot of Bible stories about the scribes and the Pharisees and generally they were not as holy as they thought they were. How do we avoid following in their footsteps?

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: Well, it's strange, but in those days, in the time of Christ, the scribes and Pharisees had an excellent reputation for godliness. And yet as we read the Gospels, we discover they were not as holy as they thought they were.

That is a temptation for us, isn't it? To give more of an impression of our holiness, of our devotion to God, of our service to God, than is really the truth about our hearts. A lot of it is just having a lot of pride about our own reputation and how people look at us and focusing on ourselves rather than focusing on the glory of God.

Guest (Male): How can we fight against that pride, against that temptation to make ourselves look good?

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: I really think it begins with understanding that we are accepted in Christ. Even though we are very sinful, nevertheless, our sins are forgiven and God accepts us because of the saving work of Jesus Christ.

If you experience that in your own life, that enables you really to be honest about your sins and failings and not feel like you need to cover that up because you know that you are accepted by God and forgiven by God. I think an understanding of God's grace for us and our acceptance in Christ liberates us from being so caught up with our reputation in front of other people.

That is my hope as people listen to today's message, that they will experience that freedom for themselves, the freedom that comes in Jesus.

Guest (Male): Okay, thank you Phil. Let's turn in our Bibles now to Luke chapter 20, verse 45 through chapter 21, verse four, as we listen together to Dr. Ryken.

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: Most people think of the Biblical Gospels as very comforting, spiritually uplifting, encouraging books. In a sense they are, and yet the more I study the Gospel of Luke, the more I recognize how disturbing a book it is.

The word Gospel itself means good news and this is what the Gospels give us: the good news of salvation for sinners. Here we find answers to our questions, comfort for our sorrows, and help when we don't know where else to turn. The Gospels give us all of this by giving us Jesus, the living, dying, rising Savior of the world.

And yet, the Gospels are also deeply disturbing. This is partly because Jesus makes so many difficult demands. Just think of some of the things he said to us in the Gospel of Luke. Take up your cross daily and follow me. Anyone who does not hate his life cannot be my disciple. Sell all that you have and give to the poor. Who is able to do the things that Jesus tells us to do?

In addition to all of those difficult demands, there are also many harsh denunciations, especially all the things that Jesus says about nice religious people. Jesus always welcomed sinners who knew that they didn't deserve anything except to be damned. But he always made people who thought they had a good spiritual reputation very uncomfortable.

His most withering criticism was reserved for churchgoers, for religious insiders. Which may explain why Jesus usually preached outdoors and almost never in synagogues. I suppose the same thing would happen today. Most churches wouldn't tolerate the kinds of things that Jesus said about religious people.

These Gospels are not always comforting. Sometimes they are disturbing, and especially so if we think we are satisfied with where we are spiritually. If you want to see the kind of thing I'm talking about, just turn in your Bibles with me to the end of Luke 20, where we consider chapter 20, verse 45 through verse four of chapter 21.

We see a contrast between some of the scribes, the religious leaders, and one of the most beautiful women that we meet in the Gospels. Here is nearly the last speech that Jesus made against the religious leaders of his day, the culmination of everything he had been saying about their hypocrisy.

In Luke 20:45, 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 and 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."

From verse 45, we see that Jesus was speaking directly to his disciples. But this really was an open rebuke. It was a public denunciation of the Bible scholars who were respected as the most spiritual men in Israel. Right there in front of everyone, Jesus showed what was wrong with their religion, and maybe what is wrong with ours if we are trying to impress people by being more spiritual.

You will notice several things that Jesus criticizes here. One is their ostentatious lifestyle. With pious pomposity, they paraded around in public wearing fancy clothes. Leon Morris says that their long robes were a sign of distinction and marked the wearers as gentlemen of leisure.

Others think that perhaps they had those long fringes that came from the biblical regulations from Moses about how you were supposed to dress and therefore were intended to be a kind of sign of their religious zeal. Or maybe it simply was a matter of wearing fancy clothes and these people wanted to show how successful they were, maybe with the implication that their financial success proved that God was pleased with the way that they lived.

Sometimes we hear about such things today. Preachers promoting a health and wealth gospel and wearing fancy clothes and driving fine automobiles and buying large boats in order to prove that what they teach really will make people rich. Jesus also criticized these men for their ambitious social climbing.

Whenever they were out and about in the marketplace, they loved to be greeted with formal and honorific titles. They wanted people to refer to them as the most esteemed and learned Reverend Doctor so and so. They expected adulation. Indeed, they demanded it. When they went to worship in the local synagogue, they insisted on claiming one of the best seats in the house.

If they were to go to a wedding or some other public celebration, they were offended if they didn't get a place at the head table. They craved that kind of recognition. They wanted everyone to give them the honor that they thought they deserved given their position in life. You may say that is not the way that I operate. I don't expect anyone to save a seat for me in church.

But isn't this kind of posturing a temptation for all of us? Isn't this why Jesus tells us as his disciples to beware of the scribes? Some people do find their identity in what they wear. If only they had the right clothes, then people would think that they were in style or perhaps that they were successful in business. They would be conveying the reputation that they wanted to have.

Other people find their identity in their social status, in being recognized for who they are and given a position because of that. Today businesses try to capitalize on this mentality by offering us preferred seating, VIP parking, and platinum service. Anything to make you feel like you are just a little bit ahead of everyone else.

I was coming back yesterday on the plane and I couldn't help but be a little bit pleased that I was in Zone Two on the airline regulation. I could go in first to get my seat way ahead of the person next to me who happened to be Sinclair Ferguson, who was in Zone Nine. I told him as I walked onto the airplane ahead of him and said goodbye, "It didn't seem just, but there you are."

How deadly such an attitude would be in the church. We are called to be who we are in Christ, nothing more than that and nothing less than that. Instead, we are sometimes tempted to suggest even in subtle ways that we are more spiritual than we really are. More active in service, more faithful in prayer, more knowledgeable in the scriptures, more concerned about people in need. That's the impression that we would like people to have.

Even if we don't insist on anyone giving us some kind of honorary title, we secretly live for the flush of gratification that comes when people praise our ministry in the church. But if our service gets overlooked, or if we feel like what we are doing is under-appreciated, well, then our resentment begins to burn.

How different this is from the attitude of Jesus Christ, who did not seek a place for himself, but set aside the glory that he deserved in order to serve us to the very death. What matters to such a humble Savior is not what we wear or what people call us or where we get to sit, but what we truly are on the inside.

The scripture says that man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. That is what Jesus was doing here when he looked at the scribes. He saw the outward actions, but he knew what they really represented in terms of the heart. His all-seeing eye penetrated that outward religiosity to see their inward insincerity.

What do you suppose that the Lord sees in your heart? He sees everything that is there, doesn't he? In addition to their ostentatious lifestyle and their ambitious social climbing, these scribes were also guilty of what you might call pretentious intercession. They tried to enhance their spiritual reputation by offering interminable prayers in public places, in the temple courts, on the city street corners.

Most people were very impressed by that kind of prayer life and yet Jesus saw it for what it really was: not piety, but hypocrisy. There is a time and a place for long prayers, particularly if you have a lot of things that you need to pray about. No one understood this better than Jesus himself. Sometimes he spent the whole night in prayer.

Our Father already knows everything about us and so simple prayers can be equally effective. We are little children who know that we have our Father's love, and so we can come right out and tell God all our troubles. We can ask him for everything that we need. There is no inherent virtue, no unique efficacy in praying a long prayer as opposed to a short one.

In fact, when long prayers are offered mainly for the benefit of people who are watching or listening, they become an offense to God. I saw a photograph in a newsmagazine this week that I think illustrated the point. It was of a very prominent politician praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

The politician was praying in just such a way to make sure that the media were there to watch. The picture I saw didn't just show the politician at prayer, but also all of the photographers who were there to record this moment on film, no doubt for the largely Jewish constituency in that particular politician's home state.

It was a telling incident, wasn't it? It wasn't so much a prayer as it was a publicity stunt. The prayer wasn't the important thing. It was the being seen to pray. These sins all go together: the ostentatious lifestyle, the ambitious social climbing, and even the pretentious intercession. It all adds up to deadly hypocrisy.

I say that is disturbing. I say it is disturbing to read the Gospel of Luke and to hear these kinds of denunciations because we are tempted to fall into that very trap, to care more about what people see than about what God sees. Do you really want to be godly? Or would you be content to neglect the life of the soul as long as most people thought you were more spiritual than you really are?

Jesus says, "Beware of the scribes." Don't try to be something in front of other people that is not what you are before God. To drive the point home even more vividly, Jesus tells us what the scribes were really like in verse 47. Appearances to the contrary, look at what they were doing to the widows in their community.

What an excellent way this is to examine ourselves because one of the best tests of true spirituality is practical concern for the poor. How did these scribes measure up in that regard? Widows were virtually the most vulnerable members of any ancient society. As leaders of Israel who knew the Old Testament scriptures, these scribes should have been defending the widows and caring for them. Instead, they were devouring them.

I am not sure exactly what that means. Maybe it means that they were offering to help widows manage their assets, but then claiming some of the proceeds for themselves. Or maybe they were using their religious influence to persuade some widows to give more money to their ministry than they really should be giving, more than they could spare.

The same kind of thing happens sometimes today when unscrupulous evangelists prey on the lonely and the elderly, manipulating them into giving away even their very inheritance. I'm not sure how these scribes managed to do it, but however they did it, they were greedily using their spiritual influence for personal gain.

Really, they were getting ministry exactly backwards. They thought the widows were there for their benefit rather than them being there for the widow's benefit. We may not be tempted to do that in financial ways, but that kind of mentality surely is a temptation for anyone involved in Christian ministry.

We are called to give ourselves away to others the way that Jesus did, not to get something from them. How easy it is for people who need money to do ministry to start thinking primarily in terms of how much people are giving or not giving to their cause. And how easy it is to complain about all the trouble you are having with the people that you are trying to serve in ministry.

The students in your class, for example, the members in your small group, or the difficult people you have to work with in your particular area of ministry. It's easy to complain about those things as if those people were there for your benefit. But if we have the love of Jesus, then we will love people for their own sakes, not for what they can do for us.

If we're honest, most of us have to admit that we act a lot like the scribes. We do our best to look good on the outside, but how much of that really is for show? Are we really there to give something, or are we in ministry to get something?

What makes this all particularly disturbing is the statement Jesus makes at the end of the chapter. They, that is the scribes, people who have this kind of outward hypocrisy, will receive the greater condemnation. Understand that these words of warning were spoken by the very person who one day will judge the universe.

Jesus wanted us to understand how badly things will go for many religious people on the day of judgment. It will be worse for them than for anyone. That's what Jesus is saying. It will be a greater condemnation. It will be bad enough for people who don't want anything to do with God at all. But even worse for people who pretended to be spiritual, worst of all for spiritual leaders who should have known better.

Here is a basic principle of divine justice reflected in these verses. Increased responsibility means increased accountability. The more we know about God, the more he expects us to follow him in the truth. The more he will condemn us for living a lie.

This is the last of many disturbing denunciations Jesus made against the religious leaders of his day. I think we get the clear impression as we work through the Gospel that Jesus hated hypocrisy as much as any other sin. How unfortunate that is because hypocrisy also happens to be one of the sins that religious people are especially prone to commit.

Indeed, it is the kind of sin that really only someone who is trying to be religious can commit. It is the kind of sin you do not find outside of the church in the way Jesus is talking about it. You find it inside the church. Why is this sin so hateful to God?

Partly because God wants us to be before others what we are before him and nothing other than that. I think also because when we try to be great ourselves, or at least seem to be great, then there is hardly any room left for the greatness of God. This is the problem with hypocrisy: it eclipses the glory of God.

That is why in the end, hypocrisy will lead some people straight to hell. It is the kind of condemnation Jesus ultimately is talking about. He is talking about the condemnation of a holy and almighty God and the greater condemnation that will fall on the hypocrites of the church. The Bible says anyone who does not believe in Jesus is in effect already under the condemnation of God. You can read about that in John chapter three.

Based on what Jesus said here, some people will be more greatly condemned than others, and especially those who were in the church and only pretending. Listen, whatever we are or are not, let us be what we are before God and before the world. If we're sinners, let's admit that we're sinners and then seek to be saved by the grace of God.

If we're not very good Christians, as most of us aren't, let's admit that we're not very good Christians and let us ask the Holy Spirit to make us better. In the meantime, as we are asking for that kind of grace, let's offer to God only that which is genuinely and sincerely true, however weak it is and however unworthy we are.

If anyone seemed weak and unworthy, it was the woman that Jesus and his disciples saw putting her two cents into the offering box at the temple. We are introduced to her at the beginning of chapter 21, and I think here Luke is giving us another one of his brilliant contrasts. It's like white lace on black velvet.

This widow's piety provides the perfect counter-example to the hypocrisy of the scribes. Those men wanted to seem religious, but they didn't want to make any sacrifices for the Kingdom of God. Then along comes this poor widow and Jesus says she gives more to God than all of them put together.

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. 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."

Let me just describe a little bit of the scene here. It was the week of Passover. Pilgrims had come to Jerusalem from all over Israel and they were there to pay their vows to God. In those days we are informed that there were 13 collection boxes at the temple, and each had a very narrow opening at the top and people would simply walk up at any time and they would put their money in the box.

While Jesus was there with his disciples, rich people were coming to give their offerings. I am not sure how they knew that they were rich. Maybe it's because of the way that they were dressed. Maybe it's because it took them so long to put all of their money into the box. Whatever the reason was, it was clear that these people were wealthy.

Naturally, some people were very impressed with how much those rich people were giving. They seemed to be doing more for God than most people. But Jesus was unimpressed. What he noticed was a poor old woman who put in two little pennies.

The word that Luke uses for these coins refers to copper currency that was worth only one four-hundredth of a shekel, barely a fraction of one of our pennies. It was hardly enough even to make a clink as it fell into the collection box. And yet as far as Jesus was concerned, her contribution was worth more than everything the rich people gave. That is what is meant here by this phrase "more than all of them." In other words, more than all of them combined.

Jesus said this because his basis of comparison was not what one person gave over against what another person gave. It was what each person gave according to what each person had. It was true, the rich people were giving a lot. But then of course they had a lot to give. They were giving out of their abundance. They had so much money to give that even after they had made their contributions, they still had money to spare.

She gave everything she had. Notice carefully the phrase at the end of verse four. She put in all that she had to live on. Jesus also speaks of her poverty. That is a word for extreme poverty. This woman was destitute. She was the poorest of the poor. When she left the temple that day, she had nothing left to call her own in all the world.

Given her desperate financial straits, it would have been perfectly appropriate for the widow to keep some of her money. If she believed it was her biblical duty to tithe, giving one tenth of her income, she could just about round those two coins down to zero, couldn't she?

Besides, this was all the money she had to live on. Her very life was at stake. Certainly it would have been appropriate for her to keep one penny for herself and give the other penny to God. That would have been 50 percent. That is more than most people give I think. Instead, in a practical act of total devotion, she gave both of her pennies to God.

The Bible doesn't tell us why the woman did this. Wouldn't it be interesting to know more of her story? What experience she had of the grace of God? But I think we can tell just from what she did, some of the things that she believed about God. She had to believe in order to do this. She must have believed that God was glorious because she was giving him all of her earthly treasure.

She must have believed that God was gracious because she was responding with the kind of costly generosity that only grace compels. She must have believed that God is provident because once she had nothing left to live on, she would have to depend on him for absolutely everything. To her everlasting credit, here was a woman who offered God unconditional faith, undying gratitude, and unrestrained praise.

Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. By that standard, when this woman gave her two little coins, she was really putting her heart into the box. She was offering her whole self to God. That was really the point of the thing. It wasn't the money so much as it was the personal devotion, the consecration to God that that represented.

How different this was from what the scribes were offering to God. They were all about what was on the outside, but she was living for God on the inside and so what came out of her was what was really there. That is what God wants from us. Not just our money, but ourselves, from the inside all the way out.

If it's true that we always put our money where our heart is, then this is one of the best ways really to tell what is inside of us: it is by what we give to God. But we need to be careful to measure this the way that Jesus does and not the way that we usually do. Not in comparison to what other people are giving, but in comparison to our own financial situation.

This is one of the basic principles of God's economy. He takes into account how much we have and he values what we give in proportion to what we have been given. How extraordinarily encouraging this is for Christians who are living in poverty. Jesus sees your bank account. He knows what's in your heart, and he judges according to that. Even if you have almost nothing that you can give, he prizes what you give as highly as a king's ransom.

I think how encouraging this was for Lisa and for me when we were living in England and had hardly any income at all. Basically the only thing we received was a 30 pound check or so from the British government once a month. To our great surprise, it had something to do with the fact that we had a child, a child benefit.

We were involved in a struggling church plant in those days and we gave half of that money to the church and then the other half we used to buy diapers. Now we were only half as godly as the widow in the Gospels. I understand that, but based on what Jesus said to her, I suppose what we gave was worth as much to God as a million dollars from a multimillionaire.

How encouraging that is if you have very little to give. No one should ever think that the small contributions of poor Christians are almost worthless when in fact, by grace, they are worth as much to God as anything and will receive the praise of Jesus Christ.

And furthermore, think how richly God will use those gifts for the work of his Kingdom. Just think of what God did with those two little coins that the widow gave. What a wealth of encouragement the church has received from her example. I suppose that that one little gift was multiplied millions of times over as people have read the Gospels and been encouraged by the Spirit to give more of themselves to Christian work.

But now there is another side to this, isn't there? Because at the same time, this principle of proportionality ought to be deeply disturbing to Christians who have as much money as most Americans have. Cyril of Alexandria preached on this text to his congregation in Egypt and I think he was right when he said to them that this story from the Gospel "may perhaps irritate some among the rich."

Well indeed it may irritate some of us because we are among the richest Christians in the history of the world with the capacity to do more for the Kingdom of God than almost anyone has ever done. Yet you see we're giving out of our abundance. That's how Jesus looks at it. Therefore, in comparison with this widow, we're giving practically nothing.

We have so much to give that even when we give a little, it seems like a lot and we are easily satisfied with what we have given, as if we have really done something generous for God. But what would it take for you to give as much as the widow gave? It would take most of us months to even do it because we would have so much property to get rid of, so many things to sell so that we could give them away.

It is good for us to give God whatever we have been given. But if we are rich, we should not think more highly of our giving than God does. Beware of the scribes. Don't look at your financial giving on the outside the way that the scribes would, but on the inside the way that Jesus does.

John Calvin gave an excellent summary of what this story means for rich and poor Christians alike when he said the lesson is useful in two ways. The Lord encourages the poor, who appear to lack the means of doing well, not to doubt that they testify to their enthusiasm for him even with a slender contribution. If they consecrate themselves, then their offering, which appears trivial, will be no less precious than if they had offered all the treasures of Croesus.

On the other hand, those who have a richer supply and stand out for their large giving are told that it is not enough if their generosity exceeds the underprivileged. For with God it rates less for a rich man to give a moderate sum than for a poor man to exhaust himself in paying out something very small.

Now I think the point of all this is not to set a percentage that every Christian has to give, even to compare how much we give to the widow in the Gospel. Not every Christian is called to give everything away just the way that she did. But the point is to have a heart for God, a heart that is totally dedicated to God, and then to do the giving that flows out of that heart.

When you have a heart for God, you'll give as much as you can. Doubtless you will give more than you are giving right now. I am sure that is true for all of us. Maybe much more for many of us, even more than we think we can spare. And that is the right thing to do.

It is the right thing to do because we live in a world that so desperately needs the mercy of the Gospel in word and deed and we have so much to give. It is right because through the work of missionaries and evangelists and church planters our money has the power to change people's lives for eternity. What extraordinary opportunities we have for Gospel work in our day.

But most of all it is the right thing to do because of the extravagant grace that God has offered to us in Jesus Christ who has laid down his very life for our sins. That is what Jesus was doing on the cross. He was giving himself to the very death. Given everything that he has done for you, now what should you give of yourself back to him?

When I was a student at Philadelphia's Westminster Theological Seminary, I was always impressed by a framed notice that hung in the lobby of Machen Hall, although it's been taken down to be reframed, so don't go looking for it this week. You'll be disappointed, but it'll be back up soon, I am told.

This notice read as follows: Fanny Mulder was called to glory on October 20, 1987. In a letter from her attorney, we learned that she had only the following personal property in her possession when she died, having been on Title 19. The notice listed the contents of Mulder's apartment.

She had some clothes: six robes, two sweaters, 13 adult diapers, 19 hospital gowns, one pair of slippers and five pairs of socks plus two singles, we're told. That's an interesting detail, isn't it? You have very little in the world and yet somehow you end up with two spare socks.

She also had some personal items. She had a purse and a mirror and an old thimble, a toothbrush, a comb, some soap, some powder bottles, a pair of reading glasses, which she needed to read her two copies of the Bible and her Psalter for singing. And that's all she had. All she had except for a radio that was broken.

And then she had some money. Do you know how much she had? Can you guess? It wasn't much. Only 12 cents. A dime and two pennies. Her lawyer explained in this notice that the old woman had drawn up a will because she felt strongly that she should invest whatever she did have to the work of the Kingdom of God. That will went through probate, which probably cost more than the possessions she had, didn't it?

The seminary was the beneficiary of her dime and her two pennies, now gratefully displayed on campus as a lasting testament of a woman who gave Jesus everything she had. What is the legacy that you are leaving? The widow in the Gospel had two pennies and she gave both of them to Jesus. Fanny Mulder had a lot more than that. She had six times as much. And she gave all of her pennies to Jesus too.

How much do you have? Well whatever it is, whether you may be giving out of your poverty or out of your abundance, give it all to Jesus because he has given all of himself to you.

Father in heaven, we give you praise for your extravagant grace, how much you have given to us in Jesus. Father, we give you praise that even if we have very little, as some of us here today have only very little, that that is received by you gratefully, graciously, and with great reward.

Father, those of us who have so much, we give you praise for what we have been able to give, but we confess that we have been too stingy with what we have. We need to do more for you. We have more to give, and we pray that you would do that work of grace that enables us to do that giving joyfully and freely for your glory, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance exists to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of reformed theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide Christian teaching that will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

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