Sacrifice

SUMMARY

In this sermon, Dr. Jordan Tatum begins by acknowledging how our culture conditions us to be selfish through advertising and cultural messages that tell us to prioritize our own desires and needs. He then examines Jesus's teaching in Luke 20-21, where Jesus contrasts the selfish religious leaders who "devour widows' houses" with a poor widow who gave everything she had.

Dr. Tatum highlights a profound truth: "The value of the gift is not in the amount given. The value of the gift is in how much it costs me." From this foundation, he offers three progressive challenges: give something (for everyone), give generously (for those already giving), and give sacrificially (the highest level). He concludes by pointing to Jesus Christ as our ultimate example of sacrifice, reminding us that God "would not spare anything, including his own son, to bring us back to him," and invites us to respond with the same sacrificial spirit.

TRANSCRIPTION:

It wasn't too long ago that somebody told me, Jordan, you're being selfish. And I cringed hearing those words. Nobody likes to hear you are being selfish. It made the tiny little hairs on my head that do exist, I assure you, made them all bristle.

Because I was taught from childhood, early, early on, that I'm supposed to consider others, that I'm supposed to share, that I'm supposed to put others needs before my wants. But the problem in that moment was that I was being selfish. It was the truth. They were absolutely right to call me out for it. My mom told me as a kid, Jordan, the world doesn't revolve around you.

Selfishness is a real problem. Amen. But it's a really common problem too. I'm convinced that right now we are being conditioned to be selfish. I think this is the way that our world works.

I was having lunch with Brian this past week and on the way there, I was driving from Covenant to Schlotzky's, which is like a 30 second drive. It was nothing. And on that drive it was ads going on on the radio and there was a Verizon commercial. And I heard this statement and it just struck me. Verizon says it's okay to be selfish.

This year Nike tells us, just do it, right? Just do what Sprite tells you. Obey your thirst. If you feel an impulse, give in to it. That's brilliant wisdom.

Snickers tells you hungry, why wait? Eat a Snickers. They want you to know that waiting is bad. All of these ads, all of these slogans are there to convince you, and if you're thinking, well, not me, yes you, that you need this product in order to be happy, in order to be fulfilled, in order to be satisfied, whatever it is, that's what you need. These companies are counting on you to be selfish.

I was looking into this recently. It just kind of struck me as, I don't know, strange. So I began researching it a little bit and I found this article by a guy who was writing about it. And he said that what advertising is doing right now is leading us into accidental narcissism. Accidental narcissism.

And at the end of the article, he writes, he talks about this whole system and he says, welcome to the ego system, right? You see this, you feel this. And does it not make you just feel a little bit gross? Like they want me to be selfish? And I know that's not what we're called to be.

And that's just advertising, right? Like it goes well beyond advertising in other Parts of your life, you're told that you are the arbiter of your truth. Your truth. Because truth somehow revolves around what you think or what you feel. When you're going through something hard, the prevailing wisdom is that you should treat yourself in order to make that pain just go away a little bit.

Even in church, we complain about the songs not being the songs I want to sing, as if I am the one being worshiped.

There's a rub here. We're being trained to be selfish. We're being conditioned to be selfish. And honestly, sometimes we are selfish. But here's the rub.

We don't like selfish people. We don't. We don't enjoy being around them. We find ourselves pulling away from selfish people. And that's why when I heard those words directed at me, I was like, ugh, I hate this.

Makes me cringe. But I know how they feel. I do. There's something repulsive about listening to a selfish person. And we know this.

Let me give you a quick example, and then we'll move into the text for today. A few weeks ago, John Deloney was back in Lubbock doing his podcast Whatever at LCU. And so I listened to a few of his podcasts recently. And there was one day in particular where I was listening to it on my way home from Covenant to Abernathy. 20 Minute Drive.

That's enough time to listen to one guest. Somebody calls in and this guy says, yeah, I've been married for 20 years and I've got this problem. And so he digs into it a little bit and he asks what it is. And the guy says, well, for the past eight years, I've been having an affair.

And this guy asks the question, he says, how do I move forward without hurting anyone?

He wanted to minimize the destruction or at least just find a way to ignore the destruction and move forward. And as I was driving home that day, my body was having a particular reaction to what I was hearing on the 20 minutes. I was listening to this. And I was so angry listening to him that when I got out of the car, Lindsay was outside and she saw me. And before I even said hello, she looked at me and she said, Jordan, what is wrong?

My only response was, this guy was so selfish. I was that upset about a guy on a podcast because there is something within us that really finds selfish people repulsive.

That is what was going on in the text that. That we just read this morning. I'm going to bring it back up onto the screen because I think it's good for us to see. But. But I want you to just look at this and I'm going to describe it in my own words a little bit here in Luke chapter 20.

Jesus is looking at these people, at these religious leaders. Beware of the teachers of the law says they seek to be honored in front of everyone. They love to be greeted with respect in the Marketplace. That's where they just show up. They show up in the Marketplace not to buy anything, not to help anyone, not to see anyone, but rather so that they will be seen, so that they'll be honored in front of others.

They wear these long flowing robes. Why are they wearing those robes? It's just to be recognized. They want you to know that we're not like you. We don't dress like you.

No, no, we're special. We want you to see us and we want to catch your eye. They want you to be envious. They need you to know that they're better. And when they show up at the synagogues and at the banquets, they have to have those places of honor.

They're going to sit in the center. They're going to be seen by everyone. They're not going to sit in those metal folding chairs that we all hate. No. They're going to get the cushioned seat.

They're going to be elevated above others. They're going to receive the choice food.

They will be honored.

Church. With just a little bit of imagination, I think we can see that Jesus is portraying these men as very selfish. He paints a vivid picture of how self centered they are. And he is disgusted by that selfishness. And church, I think we are supposed to be disgusted by it as well.

Their selfishness goes a layer deeper here in verse 47. This is what he says. They devour widows houses for show and for a show, make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished by most severely. So first off, about the prayers, God's not opposed to lengthy prayers.

Let's be clear on that. You can pray as long as you need to, but doing it for a show is just making sure the attention's on you. It's performative.

But what is this about devouring widows houses?

This is where I believe our chapters and Numbers and verses kind of get in the way of us doing proper Bible study sometimes. And Jesus is doing something here that becomes very clear in the next story. So if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn to Luke chapter 21. It'll be up on the screen for you. But I think this is good to see.

Here's what it says, as Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. Truly, I tell you, he said, this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she had to live on, I think, forever. I've read this story as a contrast between the rich people putting in their gifts and this poor widow who puts in a smaller gift.

But seeing these two passages back to back, I think it draws another picture that we're meant to see. It's that other distinction I want for us to consider this morning. What I see here is Jesus drawing a contrast between these religious leaders and this poor widow. These religious leaders have corrupted a faith that was meant to care for the poor. It was meant to take care of the needy, but now it exploits them.

It takes everything they've got.

These religious leaders, church are selfish, but this widow is not. And Luke wants us to consider, which of these characters should I be like now? If we've been in church? Hardly at all. I think we know the answer to this question.

Which of these do we want to be like? Oh, let's be like the widow. Amen. And I think that's a fine lesson. But I want us to go just one layer deeper today.

And I want to ask this question. What makes this widow's gift significant?

You have Jesus Christ, the son of God, sitting and just watching people dropping money in a box. And he notices the two small coins that she puts in. What makes her gift significant? I think if we were to look at this from our culture's perspective, there is nothing particularly impressive about this gift. If I were to give any of you two pennies right now, what could you do with that?

You might be able to flick it across the room, but that's about it. You can't buy anything with that. It has no value. The last pennies were made this week.

It's meaningless currency at this point. In the same way, these two copper coins aren't worth much of anything, even in her day. That's not a significant amount of money. You aren't going to be able to buy anything with this gift that she offers. The gift she offers looks insignificant.

In fact, Luke tells us that there were rich people putting in their gifts first.

So why pay attention to this measly gift, these small coins, when there are larger sums of money being put in? If Bill Gates were here this morning and he was sitting next to a child, and they both put something in an offering plate. Which one of those two are we going to pay attention to?

From the perspective of our culture, this gift is seems insignificant and trivial. But there is a deep lesson here for us in how we need to see this gift. The value of the gift is not in the amount given. The value of the gift is in how much it costs me.

So I just want to pause for a moment and let that sink in, because this is not the way our world looks at this. The value of the gift is not in the amount given. The value of the gift is in how much it costs me.

Church the world is conditioning us. It is training us. It is counting on us to be selfish.

But that's not who we're meant to be.

I believe that Jesus is drawing this contrast for us this morning to motivate us away from being like those leaders and toward being like this woman.

So I think this is actually a remedy for our selfishness.

So I want to offer you three challenges this morning. And these three challenges are going to build on each other. They're going to build depending on where you are in your faith journey. I think these are three challenges that we need to hear based on this text. The first challenge is give something.

This is universal. Whether you follow Jesus or not, wherever you are in your faith journey, this is just good practice. And I think that there are various times in our lives where we know this is good. Jesus teaches us that it is more blessed to give than to receive. And I think we know this.

I would encourage you to find a cause you can support, an organization that inspires you, somebody that is in need, whatever it is, just find a way to give something. Give of your finances, give of your time, give of your energy, give of your relationships. Because what giving does is it helps us to learn to look beyond ourselves. It reminds us that the world doesn't revolve around me.

So my first challenge to you this morning is to give something. But here's what I know. I know that many of you are already giving something. Praise God. Way to go.

You tithe regularly. You volunteer, you serve, you care for needy people. So maybe this next challenge is for you. Give generously. Carl pointed to this last week, and I think it bears repeating.

We have been given so much. We are so richly blessed. Jesus Christ gives us mercy and hope and freedom and unending love and joy and peace and so much more. Many of us have been blessed financially. We have homes and cars and savings accounts and more than enough to eat.

We Live in luxury. We are blessed with spouses and children and friendships and deep connections. Church. We are so deeply blessed.

And so how do we respond to that blessing?

I think the first thing that we do is we recognize and we express gratitude to for those blessings in our lives. But out of that gratitude, we give because we have given so much, we have been given so much, we don't stop giving. We give generously.

Some of you are in a place right now where you give a little bit, you give a little bit of money, you give a little bit of time, and maybe if somebody really needs your help, you'll help them.

But when you reflect on how blessed you are, I would challenge you to give in the same way that you have received. Give generously. It's the idea that Carl's given of this series, this overflow, that we are so abundantly blessed and. And out of that overflow, we're able to bless others. So if this is you reflect a little bit this week and ask yourself, how blessed am I and how can I bless others?

But even saying that this morning, I know that some of you are already giving generously and praise God. Amen. I'm so grateful for that. But there's one more challenge, and I think it's the challenge that this widow offers us. Give sacrificially.

Because that's where this widow shines. She gives it all. She holds nothing back.

One day, Jesus was asked, what is the greatest commandment? He's asked this by a teacher of the law, which commandment is the greatest? And do you remember what Jesus said? He says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And so let me give you Jordan's translation of this.

I think Jesus tells them the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with everything you got.

Church the value of the gift is in how much of me I give, how much it costs me. So I think the question we need to ask is, how much of myself am I willing to give? You know, our world looks at sacrifice as an extreme. They think it is completely incomprehensible that people would sacrifice because to sacrifice in their eyes is inconvenient. To sacrifice in their eyes is uncomfortable.

It means that you're going to have to give up something that you probably don't want to give up. And as we think about these stories that we've looked at this morning, those religious leaders, they'd never sacrifice.

But Jesus looks at this woman, those two small coins, and he sees that she gives it all she knows that what little she has is not hers to begin with. It's God's.

And because it was already his to begin with, she willingly offers it back.

Church this woman is a great example of sacrifice. But we have a better one in Jesus Christ himself. The foundation of our faith is that our God would not spare anything, including his own son, to bring us back to him.

Our God took on flesh and gave it all, offering his very life for me and for you. And as his people, we are invited to do the same.

So as we grow in our faith and deepen our devotion to him, we have to ask ourselves, what am I holding back?

Church I challenge you this week to give something.

I challenge you this week to give generously. And ultimately, I challenge you to give sacrificially. Let's pray.

Lord God, we are so blessed. God, we are so extremely blessed. But God, we know that you're calling us to be a certain kind of people, people who are Marked with gratitude and a people who are willing to give. God, as we seek to become more and more like Jesus. God, I pray that you'll provide us opportunities to give.

I pray that you'll give us opportunities to give generously. And God, I pray that you will form us to be the kind of people who are willing to give sacrificially. God, you have done it for us. Train us to do it for you. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.