Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Today on Light on the Hill. When we choose to walk in obedience to the Lord and in that obedience couple it with sacrifice, because that is the default position that comes with obedience. We open up the door for God to bring results we never thought that he could possibly bring.

And I would ask you today, is your life a living sacrifice? Your life cannot be a living sacrifice if it is coupled with disobedience. If you choose to say, "God, I will obey you completely and totally," then the sacrifice you make will be remarkable, but the result it will bring will be unfathomable.

Guest (Female): Today on Light on the Hill, we're near the end of Mark chapter 12. Jesus watched as people put their offerings in the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts, but what really caught his eye was a poor widow who put in two very small copper coins that were worth very little.

He took this opportunity to teach his disciples and us a very valuable lesson about obedience and sacrifice. Here's Pastor James Kaddis.

James Kaddis: Isn't it such a wonderful thing that we don't have to look at how harsh we are, rough we are, tough we are, bad we were, good we are. None of that matters. What matters is the fact that we go into heaven based on the merits of Christ and not based on the merits of our own action.

It's interesting to me to think that way because if I were to make an assessment of my own condition, if I were to decide in my own mind and in my own heart whether or not I'm going to heaven based on my actions, then I could tell you with grave confidence—when I say grave, I don't mean great, grave—with grave confidence that I'm going to hell.

My actions have earned me the distinct punishment of hell. I could say that on all of you guys. Every single one of you, I could say that. But yet, we're not going to heaven based on our merits. We're going to heaven based on the merits of Almighty God.

And I think that when these people were recognizing what Jesus was saying, they heard him with gladness. They were appreciative. Why were they happy about it? Because they were hearing the truth. They were recognizing that salvation became something so much more accessible than the spiritual leaders at the moment had actually described it to be.

And these people, while this very emotion is being experienced, these scribes, these Pharisees are seeking to destroy the minds and the hearts built by God to walk in confidence for what he's done. Guys, there's a lot of false teachers out there. Beware of them.

There's a lot of people that are building their empires based on what appears to be a reputation but nothing substantive. I see them all the time. I see guys in social media snapping pictures of them at events. I see guys wherever they go just constantly bringing attention to the fact that they are something when in reality, their own minds and their hearts are so clouded with deception that if they wanted to, if they tried, they could not bring substance to the table.

I see it. I see it all the time. I see people memorize their one-liners. I see people draw the pictures of them being something that God never intended for them to be and they're everywhere. Why? Because their popularity does not determine their validity when it comes to the message of the Kingdom of God.

They think it does. But God says it works a completely different way, so much so that look at how God warns us concerning this. This is verse 38. And he said unto them in his doctrine—so this is Jesus, of course, speaking to these people who are gladly receiving the message of salvation—he says, "Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces."

Think about this. Beware of these people that thrive on the attention that they get. Beware of the people who seek to put themselves in positions to receive praise for something they never deserve the praise for. Beware of the people who walk and act in false humility, seeking to gain attention that was never designed for them to gain.

These are people that put on clothes and walk and talk and act in a way that draws attention to themselves. He says, "Beware of these people." They love to be praised. They love to have salutations in the marketplace. They're all about the titles. They're all about being recognized. "Oh, if they could see how far I've come. Look at me, I'm over here right now. Look at how I'm interacting with all the bigwigs."

What does that mean? What does that even mean? Do you have any credibility in the ultimate bigwig? Have you spent any time seeking out what God wants for you? Are you walking in the kind of humility that God has called you to walk in? The scribes, they don't do that. They're in it for their own gain.

Look at how he continues to describe them. This is so heavy. So they love salutations in the marketplaces. Notice this: "and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts." They're what I like to call tile counters. You know what I mean when I say tile counters?

There were a group of guys when I first came on staff at church years and years and years and years ago that literally, they determined their validity—I'm not joking—they determined their validity by measuring how much bigger their office was than somebody else's.

How would they measure? They would get in each other's offices and they would count the tiles in the ceiling. And if one person had more tiles than everybody else, they were the most valuable person because they got given that office. I remember when I first came on staff there. This tile counting was a new thing that I had heard that they were doing.

And amongst at least four of these younger guys, they were counting their tiles and they were debating. It got to the point where it was so bad when they were counting the tiles that they were actually measuring the size of the tiles in their office versus measuring the tiles of in the other office.

Meaning, one guy thought that it was rigged and that the tiles are actually smaller and that's why he appeared to have more tiles. So they actually got to the point where they got on ladders and they measured the size of their tiles. Ridiculous. One guy even went as far as to say that the actual measuring tool was rigged. It was just ridiculous.

So my pastor asked me to come on staff and he goes, "You know, James, I want you to start right away. I really don't have an office for you. You can just go wherever you want to go." So Pastor Jeff told me this. He goes, "You walk into anybody's office that's not using it, you can just use their office." I go, "No, I know better than that. Is there any room that just never gets occupied?"

He goes, "Well, the boardroom, that technically never gets occupied. You just park yourself in a corner there. There's a phone there. And of course, you can go work in that boardroom as much as you want." A big, huge boardroom that just basically had a table and it had a phone in it. That was it.

So I didn't mind doing that. I liked the shaggy carpet in there and it was kind of a fun time with me. And so they got into this whole ridiculous argument about the tiles. And so one day I just walked up to all of them and I said, "I got you all beat. You guys can all get lost. I got the most tiles in my room than any of you have it."

They said, "What are you talking about? What are you talking about?" I said, "Come into my office." So I take them into my office where it's actually the boardroom and I said, "I got three times as many tiles as all of you," because the boardroom was three times as big. And they started getting mad at me.

I'm like, "Do you guys really think I'm taking this seriously? Do you honestly think this should make you feel any better?" Of course, I'm young and kind of dumb and I don't really have a lot of tactical sense in me and I just basically called them all scribes and Pharisees because they're so concerned, which is not really fair. I mean, they're all starving for a little bit of attention and love from their boss and I just totally get it.

But it is interesting how there are these large, massive groups of people that thrive on that nonsense. "Look at where I was today. Did you see what I did? Oh, look at what I can do. Oh wow, look, I'm the guy on the inside. Look at me." Well, great. In my opinion—forget even my opinion—how about we look at God's opinion?

Your value is not determined based on the places you are, the things that you do, or the people that you see. Your value is determined, your intrinsic value is determined by the one who gave it to you. And that's the Lord. And you've got to seek him.

But these people didn't do that. These people, they loved all of this stuff. They wanted to be in the upper rooms and they wanted to be praised. Look at what it says in verse 40: "Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation."

These people, while they continue to pretend to be something special, while they pretend to be something great, then they are preying off the lives of so many people. They're ripping them off. They're taking advantage of them. And boy, have I seen this. I've seen so many pastors that are just absolute evil men. Liars, thieves, cheaters.

I've seen it happen so much. I watch it take place and my heart is actually broken when I see how they oftentimes victimize the people that need God the most. And this is what they would do. They take advantage of people. They take advantage of the people that are in the most vulnerable position. And here we see the picture with the widows.

Funny how he would bring that up. He says that they shall receive greater damnation. In other words, look, enjoy your time now because hell's going to be hot. It's basically what he's saying. It's not going to be good. I don't know about you, but I don't want that kind of damnation. Do any of you want it? Right.

So that's what Jesus says. Look at this verse 41: "And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld now the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much." By the way, when we're talking about treasury, we're probably talking about the treasury of the temple. That's what we're talking about.

In other words, we're talking about people who are going to the temple with their offerings. They're giving that money over to these people. And so the picture that we're seeing here is that these very wealthy rich men who are amongst this group of the scribes that Jesus is talking about, they're taking a ton of money from their abundance, so they're really not feeling the pain of the money that they're taking.

And you know what they're doing? They are taking that money and they are in essence giving it to people so that they could be recognized. That's kind of what's happening here. So look what it says in verse 42: "And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing."

Two mites is nothing, you guys. It's probably what would be the equivalent of a quarter of a penny today. It's literally nothing. Anytime I hear about the widow stories, I get a little uneasy in my heart because I think about the widows that are very special to me, the ones that mean a lot to me.

I think of widows like Gail Mays, or I think of widows like Karen Johnson, or there's many of them like this. June Hesterly is somebody that I've been thinking about a lot because Jim recently passed away. So I think about these widows a lot. Probably the widow that I'm thinking about most prominently right now in this moment is Erica Kirk.

But there's something about widows that my heart just breaks for. And maybe I feel that way because I can't imagine being in a position where I would leave my wife a widow. I don't want my wife to be left a widow because of all the things that she would have to contend for on her own.

Let's just pretend she had all the money in the world. To not have her covering, it's a hard thing for her. Even when I'm gone for a few days, she doesn't like it. There's a reason for that. When God puts two people together like that, that's something that let no man put asunder. It's very, very important.

But these were men were preying on these women. These were men that were seeking to take advantage of them. And if there's one thing I hate, I am enraged by, it's the animals that seek to take advantage of these women. It's just absolutely crazy.

I remember when they were trying to mess with Gail many, many years ago. Actually, in that situation, I wasn't as enraged because I just in my mind, I'm like, "Okay, mess around and find out. You're about to find out how underestimated, how much you're underestimating her."

She's a warrior and she's going to come out swinging. You mess with her enough and sure enough, she's demonstrated herself to be this amazingly godly woman, an effective woman by the way, and a shrewd businesswoman, too. But my whole point behind all of those statements are my heart breaks for that because I think that they do sit amongst some of the most vulnerable and Jesus is telling us that these men are the ones that take advantage of those situations.

I'm sorry, but I'm seeing lots of men do things like that today. I'm watching them take advantage of widows. I'm watching them literally exploit every opportunity they can to advance themselves to show the whole world who they are, how important they are. And God says, "Yep, I hate that. I absolutely hate it."

So you see this widow who throws in the treasury two mites. Look what happens in verse 43: "And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they, which have cast into the treasury."

Now that in and of itself might seem like a confusing statement to be made. They watch this woman put in an amount of money that is so inconsequential that it couldn't buy anything. It's literally almost borderline insulting to throw that in the treasury. It can't do anything.

Very different from millions of dollars, a half a penny, a quarter of a penny. Well, look at why Jesus says it was more than anything: "For all they that did cast of their abundance." Notice that. All of these men that you watched threw in of their abundance.

Think about it like this. If you take 10% of $100 million and you put that in the treasury, it's still going to not affect you because the amount you started with was $100 million. But if you take 100% of a couple of pennies and that's all you have, which one makes the greater sacrifice?

It's the one who just gave up all that they had. And that's what Jesus is about to share here. He says, "For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all she had, even all her living." See, these guys gave the money of their abundance, but this woman gave her money of the place of pain.

In other words, of her living, she gave of this money. She had nothing. Her next meal was going to come from this little amount that couldn't even buy the meal and she gave it to the Lord. I think that there's something really interesting to talk about here because we know the setting.

The setting is in Jerusalem. We know that we're talking about the temple. We know the context that Jesus is giving us. And he gives us this amazing story of a person who takes everything that they have and they give it to him. Now, we started on the subject of false teachers, and I think that we should probably end on the subject of false teachers because the demonstration that Jesus gives us, or the comparison, the contrast that Jesus gives us is so incredibly remarkable.

The scribes speak of one principle and the widow speaks of another. The scribes speak of a principle that says your lack of obedience brings in no sacrifice, and in your rebellion, you choose to behave in a way that rebels against God, thus bringing for yourself eternal consequences.

But this woman saw it fit to live her life obediently and sacrificially. How do I know it was obediently and sacrificially? Well, first of all, obediently because she went to go do something that she knew she was biblically obligated to do. Sacrificially because she didn't just do what she was biblically obligated to do.

She took it one step further. In her obedience to the Lord, in her decision to obey the Lord, she chose to couple with that great sacrifice, and as a result, she gave more than anybody else. The question that I would ask you—and I know this is a shorter study, but I think it's worthwhile us having this conversation—the question that I would ask you is this, and it's an important one.

If you are willing to walk in obedience to the Lord, which I hope you all are, if you're willing to say, "Lord, it's more important to me to obey than anything else," how much then will you be enabled to sacrifice? We know the words of the Lord when he says obedience is better than sacrifice.

We know that, right? But what happens if you take obedience and you couple it with sacrifice? What happens if your sacrifice is the direct result of an obedient action taken? And I would venture to tell you this.

I would venture to tell you that if you are a person who walks in obedience to the commands of God, that very obedient act will usher you into the mindset of sacrifice. And that mindset of sacrifice will bring results that you never thought possible.

I think about some of the things that have happened in recent history and the painful things that continue to affect us as we meditate on them. And I think about the level of sacrifice made through the obedient actions of so many people. I've been talking about them a lot lately because it's kind of been one of those seasons where we've been doing a lot of that discussion.

But Charlie was aware of the fact that many people wanted him dead. He got death threats all the time. It wouldn't have been the first time where he'd had the FBI involved in investigating some very credible threats. It wouldn't be the first time that he had been threatened by many people.

He got them in email all the time. He got people making phone calls all over the place. And he knew that every single time he walked in obedience to God to do what he was doing on these college campuses, he knew that there was always a possibility that he could be harmed. He knew it.

His obedience to God allowed him to be ushered into what I would consider to be one of the ultimate sacrifices that could ever be made. His life was given. But think about the results of something like that happening. Do you guys know that the numbers are finally in?

Do you know that they estimate that close to 1.7 billion people watched that memorial service where the Gospel was preached? Just you know right now, single largest ever watched event in human history. Think about that. Based on the cell phone data that they had in and around the arena.

In the arena alone, there were 277,000 cell phones. For every cell phone that existed, there was probably another three that had no cell phones because we're talking about children or people that chose to not even carry them as a result of respect for the moment that they were in.

They estimate conservatively that the number of people that were hovering in that area were close to half a million people, like nothing they had ever seen before. Now my statement in bringing that up is that when we choose to walk in obedience to the Lord and in that obedience couple it with sacrifice, we open up the door for God to bring results we never thought that he could possibly bring.

And I would ask you today, is your life a living sacrifice? Your life cannot be a living sacrifice if it is coupled with disobedience. If you choose to say, "God, I will obey you completely and totally," then the sacrifice you make will be remarkable, but the result it will bring will be unfathomable.