Real Offering — Thaddeus Barnum

God Almighty Father, we thank you and praise you for your word. And we pray by the grace of your Holy Spirit that you would make that word alive in our hearts, not just to hear, but be changed, and not just be changed, but to give what you've given us to those in need.

Come, Lord Jesus, and meet us, we pray, in your precious name. Amen. Good morning. You know, the problem is so simple. We came here and served seven years. It's true, we had a job here, but the problem with you all is very simple, too.

We became family. So Errol and I are just so gracious, grateful to be here with you, to be home again, and to see your faces, and to feel like we just get to run home. This morning, I would like to take our attention to this gospel of Luke chapter 7.

Stewardship as Worship and Receiving God's Offering

And so if you've got Bibles, I'd like you to attend to this passage with me. Rob asked me to take up this conversation about stewardship. And I must say to you, this is one of the most wonderful conversations of the Bible.

And although we might think of November and the planning of our vestry to look at 2014, they need to do their work. I understand these things. But in essence, every single Sunday morning is a stewardship Sunday, not for you, but for him.

Why do I say that? Because every single Sunday, we come to this table, we kneel at this rail, and we open our hands, and we take that bread to us, we take that cup to us, and we receive the offering of our Father in his Son for the forgiveness of our sins.

We now take unto us his offering to us. And this is why in our worship service, what's done prior to the coming to the table, is we come with our offerings, our tithes. If you're new to the church that's in the Bible, it simply means a tenth of what we make.

We come with our tithes and our offerings. We come not empty-handed to give a picture of all of us, as he himself gives us the picture of all of him. It is a beautiful conversation, because it's a conversation about worship.

It's not actually a conversation about contributing to your church, not in its first order. It is not biblically, anyway. It's about rendering of ourselves unto the Lord, who has rendered himself to us.

And so this story is about worship, and that's why I love this story. I am grateful to come to this one in particular, in Luke chapter 7, because it says so much about this. Because the Lord's interest in us, first and foremost, is our hearts.

Simon the Pharisee and the Rejection of God's Purpose

The beginning of the story, we find Jesus invited to a Pharisee's house. Almost inevitably, if you're somebody who knows the Bible some, you will know that the Pharisees tend to be the ones in the black hats.

And why? Well, there's some good reason for this. You'll find in Luke chapter 7, just above our passage, you'll find in verse 30, that as John the Baptist preached, it was the tax collectors, the sinners, the prostitutes, those who had done wrong, they had gone, they had heard John's message, and they went into the fire of the message, so that they went down into the water to be baptized.

And it says here in verse 30, but the Pharisees and the scribes, or the lawyers, rejected God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John. They rejected God's purpose. And again, you'll find a little while later, in verse 34, that they come to summarize Jesus as one who comes eating and drinking, and they say of him, behold, a gluttonous man, a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

They've begun to peg him, you see. And so oftentimes, we have this image of the Pharisee, and we hold a label to them. But Luke actually breaks that label as we come to this passage. He doesn't take Simon simply as one bearing that label.

He actually gives the man a name. His name is Simon. He's a real man. And he's a man trying to figure out who this Jesus is. And he invites him to his house. So clearly, the way the passage opens, he is quite, he's still in process.

He's still wanting to know about Jesus. He's, he knows he's a teacher, but he's trying to figure out, is he a prophet? What kind of man is he? And so he decides to have a banquet. He decides to invite his friends.

And oftentimes in that culture, it meant meal, and it meant talking part, a time for debate and rigorous conversation. And Jesus also does not label him. He comes welcome. He comes, he comes gratefully into Simon's house.

And so Jesus, too, his passion is for Simon to know these things. And so you have this great banquet. And in the midst of it, Jesus tells this story found in verses 42, 43, where he begins to talk about economics.

The Forgiven Debt and the Depth of Sin

He begins to talk about money. He talks about two people who owe a great debt. One person owes 50. One person owes 500. Very simple concept. But don't think it's like $50 or $500. In the language here, 50 would represent about two months of your salary.

A denarii would represent a day's work. 50 days work would represent about two months of labor. 500 would represent just shy of two years of labor. So take your salary. What do you make a year? Double it.

That's how much the 500 owed. The first person, 50, only owed about two months salary, but get a bill for two months salary and see how that feels. So they both owed a lot and neither could repay. And that's part of the story here.

Neither could repay either the smaller debt or the bigger debt, the 50 or the 500. And so Jesus simply says in verse 42, this great news, neither could repay, but graciously, this man, he forgave them both.

He forgave them. So you see, economically, we're talking about forgiveness, being in economic terms, but of course, you know that. Am I too loud for you? Do you want to turn me down? They can turn me down back here.

That's what I know. And I can turn me up. But anyway, you see, underneath this, what he's saying is that, and all of us know this, all of us who are Christians know this, that this blood from Calvary is the great debt paid.

It's the great cost of his life for us. All of us know about forgiveness in financial terms. And that's what's being done here. It's the release of a debt. It's the release. You're forgiven. Now, of course, undergirding that is the plain fact, does not mean it simply poofs into the air.

It means that the one who is owed it ends up paying it. You're given the benefits, but the one who you owe actually pays it for you. It's not that it's not paid. It is that it is paid. And it's paid by him.

And out goes this news. This is the whole declaration of the Acts of the Apostles. The news goes out. Forgiveness of sins is declared. Repent of them. Forgiveness is now available to us. The cost is paid.

The debt is done. Hence, the whole thrust of Calvary. That's what Calvary is. It's what it's always been. And now the good news goes out. And then Jesus asks this question. The 50, the 500, who do you think is going to love more?

And Simon is a bright man. He's figured it out. He responds back, well, the one who owed him more is going to love him more. And the poor guy fell into Jesus' trap. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Yes, Mr. 50, got the right answer.

Yes, you did. Because that's the whole story. He's 50. He's 50. That's the whole point of this. And that's not a bad thing. Jesus is leading him to understand that the depth of his sin is not 50. It's 500.

It's not 500. It's 5 trillion. It's beyond comprehension. That what our Savior has done for us is beyond our comprehension. But the less we know the weight of our debt, the less we know the glory of our salvation.

The Sinful Woman's Faith and Love

Yes. And so here Simon is. He's bothered. He's troubled. He's heard a wonderful story. But really what's ticking him off is the woman. Miss 500 just entered the room. She burst into the room. She didn't just enter.

She was not invited. And in the Pharisees' law of lunch, everything is clean. Hands are clean. Everything is clean. The room is clean. The house is clean. There are laws of cleanliness. And in bursts Miss Virus, Miss 500.

In she comes. Really like a contagion going into the body. And the thing that the Pharisee normally would have done, he would have risen up and he would have cast the contagion out. That's what we do.

That's what he would have done. But instead, he's trying to make assessment of Jesus. He's trying to figure him out. And you'll find this back in verse 39. You'll see that what he's done, he's not actually moved to deal with the virus.

Not Miss 500. He's not going to deal with her. Why? Because he's going to see if Jesus is really a prophet. If he was a prophet, he'd know about this woman. She's a sinner. Everybody knows her. She's a poor woman.

Most likely a poor woman. Mainly because her reputation is known in the town. Everybody knows this woman. Now she's come bursting in, Miss 500. He does nothing. He's waiting to see, is Jesus this prophet?

He's testing Jesus. He wants to know. He's not sure. He's wondering if this man is that person, that prophet. He's irritated. He's assessing, who is this man? Now the thing about Miss 500, she's quite something.

I say that because, again, she's not gingerly come into the story. She literally is uninvited. And she literally comes, she's heard Jesus is there, and she comes bursting, she comes bursting into the lunch place, and she goes right for Jesus' feet.

And there she is. And she begins there, to do at his feet this act of worship, in which, interesting to Jesus, he never calls her sinner. Do you know what he calls her? Do you know what he calls her? The end, verse 50, he calls her woman of faith.

He does not put her down. He raises her up. He calls her woman of faith. Why does he call her woman of faith? Because she's come to love much. Which means, if she's come to love much, something happened to her before she got to lunch.

Something happened. We don't know. We don't have it recorded in scripture. We don't understand it. But what we do know is that what Jesus is watching is that those who are forgiven much, love much, and she's now burst in to love much.

Let me see if I've got this right. Do you hear this? Listen to this. She's not come to get from Jesus. She's come because she's gotten from Jesus. Something happened to her where she knew that her debt was paid, and she knew the one who paid it, and she burst in to worship him, to fall at his feet.

Offering Our Best to the One Who Paid Our Debt

And there we see the amazing thing in her hands. Please understand, Mr. 50, he is a law-abiding Pharisee. He would be a tithing man, would he not? He'd be a tithing man. Well done him. He's a tithing man.

But in comes this woman. In comes this woman bursting in to this room. What does she have in her hand? Did you see it? Did you hear it in verse 37? Look at your Bibles. Stop looking at me. Look at your Bibles.

As you can see, I'm no longer anything to look at. Actually, some would argue I wasn't ever. But at any rate, look at verse 37. What is she bearing in her hands? Look at what she's got. She's got the most precious thing possible, doesn't she?

This alabaster vial of oil. Here she is coming in with probably the most expensive thing she owns. Something that she sold in the marketplace would feed her, would feed her family. This is everything, potentially, everything she has.

She's come to offer the best. She comes to offer the one who gave his best, her best. She does not come empty-handed. We do not come empty-handed. We come to give thanks for him who has done this for us.

And in she comes. She comes with the alabaster. She comes with the costly perfume. She comes with what's most precious to her. And in she bursts. And what does she do? There's no water for his feet. And she's weeping.

The tears that comes down her face, comes down to wet his feet. She breaks open her hair. She begins to take her own hair and begins to wipe his feet, to begin to serve him. And then she takes that anointing oil.

She breaks it over him. And then she begins to kiss him and to worship him and to give praise. This is the woman called woman of faith. This is the woman Simon calls the 500. She's the 500. This is the kind of person.

She's the sinner. Jesus sees her as a woman of faith. And the most extraordinary piece of this passage is this moment when you find in verse 44 that Jesus turns to the woman. He looks at the woman. He holds the woman up and he speaks to Simon while he's looking at her.

His attention is on her. He is receiving her offering. She knows the debt is paid. She knows who paid the debt. She's come to serve, to love much. And so he turns and he looks at her and speaks to him while looking at her to get him to see her.

I want you to see her, Miss 500, the one you call sinner. I want you to see her because today in the kingdom of God, her offering is accepted for her sins that were many are forgiven. And she has stood here and loved much.

This woman teaches us everything we need to know about our relationship with the Lord. We come to offer ourselves fully and completely and we bring our best, not our last and our worst and our leftover.

We come to bring ourselves to him who gave himself for us. And Jesus takes the center stage, still looking at her. And he says these words, basic kindness, basic mercy, basic love. When I came into your house, there wasn't even someone, you to wash my feet.

There wasn't somebody to bear a towel to even care for my feet. When I came here, nobody came and even gave me a kiss. I came here, nobody even anointed my head. With oil, there wasn't even an ounce of love when our Lord Jesus Christ entered the room.

Beholding the Lamb of God

But they're in that awful, awfully hard process of discerning who is this man? Is he teacher? Is he prophet? Is he teacher, prophet? We need a debate. We need lunch. We need a debate. And boom, she comes in.

I know him. I know him. You guys talk all you want. I know him. Are you having some debate? Go debate. But I know him. Yeah, talk to yourselves, work it out, do your best. I know him. He forgave me. I know him.

My debts are done. I've been released. No longer the name I had is the name I had. The name I have, I belong to him. And I've come to bring my best. I've come to bring myself because look what he's done for me.

And that's where you get the mighty Psalms that sing out of the Old Testament. This is where you get the song of the Israelites when they came out of the Red Sea. There's praise in the people of God for the Lord has shown his mercy.

He has shown his kindness. And that's why when the prophets, the people listening to the Lord in prayer today, they came to us in the room, in Rob's room. And they said, the Lord is speaking to us. Behold the Lamb.

Read it again. Would you read it loud? Behold the Lamb of God who has given us this mercy. Behold the Lamb. Bow before him and receive his mercy. Receive his love. Receive his forgiveness. From the prophetic team this morning.

Yeah, so this is what she's done. She's beholding the Lamb of God. This is not just prophet. This is not just teacher. This is Lamb of God before the Lamb of God did the work of the Lamb of God. You got that?

Before he actually did the work of paying the debt, she already knows and she's already free because she received what he had and he gave it to her. And that's why I know you've heard really bad teaching on the television sets for like 30 years.

Rejecting Prosperity Teaching: We Give Because We Have Been Blessed

I mean, 40 years or however long there's been marketing in the church. Brothers and sisters, if you just give, God's gonna bless you. He's gonna pour the heavens down if you just give. Healing's gonna happen if you give.

Have you heard it? Have you heard it? It's bad teaching. It's wrong. It knows nothing of the Bible. Why? We don't give to get. We give to be gotten. Yeah, I mean, it's, no, it's all backwards. It's, are you kidding me?

I don't give to get blessed. I give because I've been blessed by the Lord. Look what he's done for us. Look what he did on Calvary's hill for us. Look what he's poured out for us. We come to worship him.

We go to his feast. We behold the Lamb of God. We pour out what he's given to us. The healthy church is the missional church. The missional church is the church that has received his blessing and give as much as he's given to us.

If he's forgiven us, we forgive. If there are people you've not forgiven, my friends, come get today. Kneel at this altar, say your prayers, repent of your sins, because he wants to break those holds in our life so that what he gives us, we can give.

And in giving, we receive the greatest blessing of all. We get to worship the Lord together. That's what we get to do. When you come with your tithes and offerings, you are not contributing to the church.

Tithes and Offerings as an Act of Worship

In September, there was a period that we went through at All Saints called September Grace. And there are times in our churches that we need to ask the people to contribute to the church. Those offerings are right and holy and before God.

But our tithes and our offerings are different in their source. They are not there to contribute to the needs of the church. They are there as an act of worship before God. When you come to bring your offering, when you bring your tithes and offerings into the church, this represents my best, my all.

The Lord gave it to us from the days of Abraham on, from the days of Genesis 14 on, the days of Melchizedek, the days of Jacob, the days of the law. We come to bring our tithes and offering as an act of worship to God.

It's not just, it's not because the church has a vision. It's not because the church has a budget. All these things are true. It's none of those things. We bring them into the church because we're worshiping God.

Rejecting Partiality in Stewardship and Ministry

From the very beginning when I started ministry, I made a commitment. I made a commitment I've never, ever let go of. And Dale shared this with you this morning. I praise God it's here today. In our church and in every church I've had the pleasure of serving, I have had that very clear rule.

I don't know what people give. I don't know what people give. That's sacred between them and the Lord. That's an act of worship between them and the Lord. Do you see that? It's an act of worship before God.

The problem I found in some of my colleagues as I was growing in ministry, back in especially the early days, is that they would know and Mr. or Mrs. Very Wellesley would fall in the hospital at two in the morning and Mr. Clergy would be there.

Ah, but Mr. can't give anything because he's an old, stubborn... He falls in the hospital at two in the morning and I'm like, I'll get it in the morning. You know, I mean, I'll figure that out when it comes time.

That in the Bible is called the sin of partiality. It's called the sin of partiality. We do not do that. All of us stand at the level ground of the cross always. How many of you know that those who give much may not be giving their heart?

How many of you know those who don't give anything may be giving their all? How do you know these things? Our job is to say, this requires our heart, this exchange, this thing that happens at this altar rail, this bread, this wine, it requires our best.

Intentional Giving Rather Than Leftovers

And that's why as we're praying these things, both at our church and here, when we pray for the team, the vestry to make up the 2014 budget, you all have to say your prayers, but be diligent with it. Do not be those kinds of people who set aside the last, who set aside the little bits that are left over.

Be those who pray intentionally. Lord, what do I come to worship you with? What is it that represents me, us as a family? That's what we're coming with, isn't it? We're coming to say, Lord, this is an act of worship and of thanksgiving to you, to what you've done for us.

We're coming, we're coming, not begrudgingly. Oh, Lord have mercy. It's stewardship Sunday. And I know churches where it's just that, it's grudging. Of course it's grudging. It's all about money. This is not about money.

This is about the Lord. This is about worship. This is about what he's done for us. And let me tell you something. Let me tell you something from his perspective. He gave us his son. He gave us his best.

Loving Others as We Have Been Loved

And when you know that and receive that and know that you're free, if you're a 50, you won't care that much. But if you're a 500, then you're going to know, Lord, thank you for what you've done for me.

All I can say is help me to receive and help me then go be an ambassador of that forgiveness and of that kindness and of that mercy to everyone I meet. I love that in 1 Peter. He doesn't say, he doesn't say, go love the people who are obedient according to your standards.

He doesn't. He tells us to go love as we've been loved. Go be kind as he's been kind. Go show mercy as you've been shown mercy. And we get to go do that. That's the joy of being a Christian. That's the joy of what it was like to be this woman.

And therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ takes this woman, the reputable sinner, and holds her up for all time and says, behold the woman, her heart is set free. And so I pronounce indeed, your sins are forgiven.

Dear friends, go in peace to love and serve the Lord. There is freedom here if you know the depth of your sin. The Lamb of God has come to set us free. And if he has, then I've got one thing to say to you.

And then I'm done. Listen. It's two words. Listen. Love much. Hallelujah. Let us now pray for the Holy Spirit.