Two Kinds Of Religion

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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We find ourselves in the Gospel of Mark, but before we dive into that text for today,

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I actually want to start us in the book of Philippians. You don't necessarily have to turn there, but I'm going to reference it briefly.

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It was probably during Paul's second Roman imprisonment in AD 61 that he wrote the letter, the epistle, that is the book of Philippians.

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It's a magnificent letter to a young church in Philippi that Paul planted. One of my favorite stories in the book of Acts happens in Philippi with the

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Philippian jailer as he cries out, what must I do to be saved? And Paul said, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And in many respects, this book of Philippians is also one of my favorite epistles in the scriptures.

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And the reason for that is because it is overflowing with encouragement for the ordinary

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Christian, an ordinary Christian like me. Unlike some of Paul's other occasional letters like the book of Galatians or the book of 1

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Corinthians, Paul has very little to say by way of criticism to this church. It's almost all encouragement coming their way.

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He sets forth Christ as an example of humility to be followed. He speaks about the righteousness that is found by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.

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He exhorts the Philippians to cast off all confidence in the flesh.

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And he reassures and counsels the anxious Christians in chapter 4. And one of the principal applications of this book, if you remember it, if you know it well, is this.

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Paul says repeatedly, rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord. Again, I say rejoice.

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That's such an encouragement for me to be told to be commanded to rejoice in Christ my

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Savior. And Paul repeats that word rejoice nine times in the four short chapters of Philippians.

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And if there was one Pauline epistle that is all clear blue skies, it's the book of Philippians.

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But what we find in the book of Philippians in chapter 3 is just one sentence, one verse that is like a gray cloud in the blue sky that is

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Philippians. And it's found in Philippians chapter 3 in verse 18.

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I'll read it from verse 17 for context. But just one single verse nestled in chapter 3.

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It says, Join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example that you have in us.

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For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

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And here we see that there exists a true biblical Christianity that is a great cause for rejoicing in the presence of God.

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But just as there is a true biblical Christianity, what we see here as well is that there is a counterfeit

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Christianity. There is a counterfeit faith that exists in acidic contrast to that which is good and true and excellent.

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And it could be said in Paul's day and perhaps even more in our day today that there are two kinds of Christianity.

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Now some might disagree with me and I welcome your discussion afterwards, but there are two kinds of Christianity.

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There is a kind of Christianity that is true. And there is a so -called

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Christianity that is a false Christianity and is in fact anti -Christ in its

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Christianity. And my question to each of you is this. Which group do you belong to?

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Or to go a little bit further, the people in your closest circles. Which group do they belong to?

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This is a vitally important question and today our text holds the key to the answer of this question.

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This afternoon what we are going to be doing is really a special time in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ because this is his last exchange in his public ministry.

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Everything after chapter 12 and verse 44 is Christ alone with his disciples.

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Teaching them, walking with them. He doesn't go underground, but he's outside of the public life.

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He's outside of the temple core. He's not teaching anymore. And so we have to pay attention.

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What is Christ going to say last to these crowds that have been with him from his ministry in Galilee all the way now to his ministry in Judea?

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And what we're going to see, at least in today's encounters, we're going to find him making observations about what

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I'm calling two different kinds of religion. The faith of a proud scribe and the faith of a humble widow.

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Here we see two pictures. One of false religion, which is both repugnant to God and hazardous to others.

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We'll see how that is. And one of true religion, which is precious and pleasing in the sight of God.

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And what we'll do, as our small group today, as we approach this brief text, what stands before us today is the opportunity to do one of two things.

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The opportunity to rejoice in Christ. That our

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Christianity, by God's grace, is true. And then to improve upon it.

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Or we have the opportunity to recognize, perhaps even to put it bluntly, that our

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Christianity has been a sham. And while we have, the

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Christianity that we have has been a sham, but nevertheless, we have the opportunity, even at this very moment, to repent.

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To cast ourselves upon Christ as a merciful savior and to hold fast to that which is true.

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So here we have the opportunity, as I was looking at this, for those of us in this room who are true believers, to increase in our assurance in Christ.

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In our assurance of our salvation. I think all of us would thoroughly love that.

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To be more assured of our profession of faith. But if there is not a cause for assurance, then here we have the opportunity to repent.

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And to draw near to Christ on his terms. And so let's begin in chapter 12, in verse 35.

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I'm going to read verses 35 to 37. And then we're going to spend a little bit of time there in 35 and 37,

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I'll say at the onset. And then we're going to look at these two different kinds of religion.

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So 35 reads like this. And Jesus taught in the temple. And he said, How can the scribes say that Christ is the son of David?

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David himself... Sorry. How can the scribes say that Christ is the son of David?

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David himself in the Holy Spirit declared, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

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David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son? And the great throng heard him gladly.

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I love that picture of Christ in the temple court, teaching the word of God. And the great throng hearing him gladly.

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So last week, what we found in verse 34 was this. That at the end of 34, no one dared to ask

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Christ any further questions. And it was really a wise decision. Because what we found as Christ interacted with the

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Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Herodians and the scribes, is that they were no match for his wisdom and for his understanding.

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And so, to use modern vernacular, he mopped the floor with them. And now here in verse 35, after a day of full questioning,

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Christ flips the script on his inquisitors. I like what one commentator said. He said, after a day of questions comes the question of the day.

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Christ is going to pose a question to these religious leaders that is going to leave them on their heels.

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And so what we find in verse 36 is that the Lord initially, right at this very moment, look at this with me.

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Verse 36 it says, David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared. We have a small enough group,

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I'll ask the question. What doctrine is that teaching, do you think? David himself, through the

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Holy Spirit, declared. Any thoughts? Here we have the doctrine of inspiration.

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The inspiration of the scriptures. Taught just unassumingly in chapter 12 and verse 36.

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It's just a passing reference. But here Christ affirms that David was carried along by the

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Holy Spirit as he penned the Psalms. The Old Testament is not man's book.

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The Old Testament is God's book. And that ought to inform the entire way that we view the whole canon of scripture.

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And even how we read the Psalms and read the whole of the Old Testament. And he quotes here from Psalm 110 in verse 1, what our brother read earlier.

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And I appreciate that. In case we don't know, Psalm 110 is the most frequently quoted

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Old Testament text in all of the New Testament. If you were to search through all of the New Testament, what you'd find is 33 either complete quotes or allusions to Psalm 110.

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And that's for good reason. And we're going to get to that in a moment. But the reason that Christ here quotes this text is because he has a test of his own.

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And so what we see is this. That in Psalm 110, it was originally used in the

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Jewish context after it was written by David, inspired by the Holy Spirit. That it was used at the inauguration of the kings of Judah.

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And so as the kings of Judah were brought into the office of king in that nation, they were seen as being vice regents of God.

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Mere vice regents of God. God himself was the true king. And they were kings underneath him.

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And so they would read Psalm 110. And besides being an inauguration text, it was also widely recognized as a messianic psalm.

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A psalm that foretold and that looked forward to the coming of the long -awaited Messiah of Israel.

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And if we were to look at Psalm 110 in verse 1 in the original Hebrew language, what we would find is that it would read something like this.

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The Lord said to my Lord. It would read, Yahweh said to Adonai, sit at my right hand.

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Using there the two personal or two of the personal names of God. It literally reads, if we were to translate it from the

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Hebrew, maybe roughly back into the English. God said to my God, sit at my right hand.

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And when the Jews read Psalm 110 in verse 1, they didn't know what to do with this text. They never really had a sufficient explanation.

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In their understanding, any descendant of David would by necessity be inferior to David.

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We see Christ alluding to that in verse 37. That's just the way Jewish heritage, ancestry, and lineage worked.

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The son was inferior to the father. But in this case, David's descendant was to be far superior to him.

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Even bearing one of the personal names of God. So Christ puts this question to these leaders who have been trying to trap him now for who knows how many hours in the day.

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And in Matthew chapter 22, you have to appreciate the gall of these leaders to test

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Christ over and over and over again. Like a woodpecker picking at him. And then in Matthew chapter 22, it says that Christ, his critics, when they were not able to answer him, they didn't answer even with a word.

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It was a test question that was beyond the abilities, even of their own law experts.

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But what was Christ getting at? What Christ is getting at here, just in this opening section, is this.

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That Jesus Christ was David's son as it concerned his human nature.

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He was the true descendant of David. We know that. It's a fulfillment of prophecy. But also, not only was he

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David's son, the long -awaited Davidic king and messiah. But as it concerned his divine nature, he is exactly what

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Mark has been trying to get at for the whole of the gospel of Mark. Right from chapter 1 and verse 1.

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That Jesus Christ is the son of David and the son of God. And God himself incarnate.

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And anyone who truly understands the whole counsel of God, and who Christ is, must understand this.

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I like what one commentator says. He says, here, the whole mystery of the incarnation is wrapped up in this one quotation in Psalm 110.

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And that's why we see it so frequently in our New Testaments. The whole of Christ's incarnation,

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God himself coming to the world as Emmanuel, God in the flesh, is captured in Psalm 110.

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So the scribes are not opposing. They're not testing, they're not questioning some rabbi from Galilee.

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They are opposing, they're questioning, they're challenging God. So here we have

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Christ with his critics silenced. And we find that Christ now contrasts the scribes with one of the many faithful widows who would have been in the temple court on that particular day.

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And in this story we could almost make an untold number of observations. As a matter of fact, and Sam, I believe you've heard this before, brother, that first year seminary students, what they will often do, if you're in a hermeneutics 100 level class, is they will give you one verse in the

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Bible and they will say, make 50 observations. Make 20, make 30, make 50 observations from a single verse.

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And Stephen Lawson tells a story when he was assigned that same assignment, he made 50 observations from one chapter of the

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Bible. And they said, no, not one chapter, one verse. We could probably make that many observations from these short few verses.

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But what I want to do for our time is to highlight six observations. I'm not going to subject you to a 50 point sermon.

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I like the Puritans, but not that much. But what we'll do is we'll look at six observations from verse 38 to the end of verse 44.

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And what we're going to do, Christ, it's not at all a coincidence that he's contrasting one who is involved in false religion and one who is involved in true religion.

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And so what we're going to do is we're going to do the same contrast. Christ here reveals who he is, and then he contrasts two people in relation to himself.

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And so the first observation I want to make is this. False faith majors on appearance, while true faith majors on the heart.

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False faith, appearance. True faith, heart. So the scribes, we're going to bounce back and forth a bit here.

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In verse 38 it says this. Of the scribes, Christ says, and in his teaching, he said, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces.

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I'll finish verse 39 for context. And have the best seats in the synagogue and the places of honor at feasts.

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So that's the scribes. Of the widow, Mark tells us in verse 41 that Christ sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box.

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Many rich people put in large sums, and a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins which make a penny.

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And he called his disciples and said to them, and we'll continue on in a moment. So here we're introduced immediately to a contrast between a typical scribe and a widow that you'd find in the temple court.

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And the first thing that Christ describes, at least in relation to the scribes, is the appearance of the scribe.

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That they walked around in long robes. Christ tells us that they were immediately, they would have been immediately recognizable by their appearance.

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They wore long robes that drew attention to themselves. These long robes are sometimes referred to as prayer shawls.

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They're clothing for the pious. They're clothing for the people who pray, the righteous, the godly, the chosen few.

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And they were adorned with tassels on each corner. And rather than the colorful fabrics, even in that day many of the

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Jews would have worn clothing made with colorful fabrics. Instead they wore these prayer shawls that were made usually of wool or of a white linen.

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And so a white colored material. These could only be worn by the rabbis and the scholars of the day.

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And to wear these robes was to convey an air of wealth and of prestige, of power, and of righteousness.

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And so if you were to see someone walking through the marketplace in the prayer shawl, you knew with certainty they were either a rabbi, a significant religious leader, or someone who was very important like a scholar going to the temple or from the temple.

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And what's interesting is, and maybe I'm making an argument from silence you'd say, but we're told nothing about the widow's appearance.

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We have a great focus on appearance in the scribes, but almost no focus at all at the widow's appearance, except that she comes at the end of the line with a little bit to offer.

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And this immediately paints a picture, I think, of one of the principal characteristics that distinguishes true faith from false faith.

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False faith is perfectly content, perfectly content to appear godly and righteous, but to possess none of it.

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While true faith settles for nothing less than the righteousness of Christ firmly established in the heart.

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False faith, the kind of faith that the scribes have in this story, and we're going to see how Christ is quite critical of them, is a counterfeit faith.

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And the person who possesses it is satisfied with people thinking that they are righteous.

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It is what I might call Sunday Christianity. And a good example, someone might ask, how do

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I know if I have this false faith, this counterfeit faith, at least as it pertains to appearance?

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It has nothing to do with your physical dress or your stature, so much as the way that you conduct yourselves from day to day.

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A Sunday Christian is the kind of person who speaks one way with their unbelieving colleagues at work, who speaks one way with their family and with their children.

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And when it comes time to be around the people of God, they dress themselves up. They put on their proverbial prayer shawls to look righteous and to keep up appearances before people.

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A false faith that majors on appearances is what George MacDonald would call a person who is a devil at home and a saint abroad.

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Where you're rude to the people around you, you're rude to your wife, you're rude to your husband, you're rude to your children, but when it comes time for church, you're very careful with your words.

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Someone who has a false faith is like a facade on a movie set. You appear healthy and attractive from afar or from the right angle, but you lack zero substance.

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And you know that when you begin to have conversations with people around you and you realize that you're as shallow as a mud puddle.

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Meanwhile, true faith is sincere and abhors all hypocrisy.

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And the person who possesses it is not primarily concerned with what men see, but with what

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God sees. It is a faith where God is big and where man is small and where life is lived for an audience of one.

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Where life is lived for God. Dear friends, are you more concerned about what people think of you than of what

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God thinks of you? Are you more concerned with obedience to the word of God when you're around the people of God than when you're alone or with your wife or your spouse or whoever it is?

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The Bible has a lot to say about appearance. And I've been told and I know it's true that I always emphasize my first point to the detriment of my other points.

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So I'm going to keep it subdued. I have six points. But the Bible has a lot to say about appearance.

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Almost without fail, whenever you read, for instance, about the kings or the leaders of the nation of Israel, if it has something to say positively about their appearance, they're a bad king and they're a bad leader.

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And I'll show you an example of that. In 1 Samuel 9, verse 2, we read of Saul, the very first king of Israel.

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Kids, can you hear this? Do you think that Saul was a short guy like me?

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Maybe with a marred appearance? Or do you think that he was a tall and handsome man? What do you think?

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Maybe scarred, doesn't have a very good complexion. What do you think?

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Do you think he was short? Okay, we'll see what it says. So 1 Samuel 9, verse 2, says this.

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And he had a son whose name was Saul. Speaking of Saul's father, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he.

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From his shoulders upward, he was taller than all of the people. So another way that we can say that is he was head and shoulders above the rest.

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He looked down at everybody. He had an athlete's physique and a supermodel's face.

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Amongst all the people of Israel, there was not one more handsome than he. Now, was

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Saul a good king or a bad king? What we find is when we look at Saul's life, he's like a piece of fresh produce at a superstore or wherever you get your groceries, where you look at it and it's pleasant to the eye and it looks delicious.

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And then you get it home and you cut it open and it's rotten on the inside. That was

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Saul, the first king of Israel. Meanwhile, King David, we're told of King David, a man who's described as a man after God's own heart.

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When Samuel went to the house of Jesse, where he was told by the Lord to go to the house of Jesse and to anoint one of Jesse's sons as the king of Israel, what happened was

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Jesse arranged all of his sons in order. And this is what we read in 1

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Samuel 16, verses 6 and 7. When Samuel came, he looked on Eliab, David's brother, and thought,

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Surely the Lord's anointed is before me. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.

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For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

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So as Samuel continued to go through the brothers, what he found is that the anointed one amongst

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Jesse's sons was not there. And he inquired, Is there another one? And they said, Well, we have another brother, but he's a bit of a runty one.

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1 Samuel 16 says, Are all your sons here? And they said, There remains yet the youngest.

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But behold, he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.

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Now David was overlooked, the passage says, because he was the youngest. But that Hebrew word katan is most frequently used as well to describe the smallest.

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If you look at it, the dictionary definition or the lexicon definition, while David was, we're told, ruddy in appearance, meaning that he had good circulation in his face, and he had nice looking eyes, rosy cheeks.

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At the same time, he was the smallest. He was the youngest. He was the least important. He was the least impressive.

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God does not look at our appearance on Sundays. He does not look at our appearance on Wednesdays or Thursdays at prayer meeting.

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He doesn't look at our appearance when everyone is watching. God looks at the heart. And dear friends, what does your heart look like if God were to examine your heart today?

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Would he find that you are consistent, consistently faithful, consistently godly, day by day, hour by hour?

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If someone finds you in the middle of the night or Sunday at 3 o 'clock, they find the same person. Or would they find a hypocrite?

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Would they find someone who is double -tongued and two -faced and is not who they claim to be on Sundays?

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Christ himself did not have any kind of appearance that would attract us to him. Isaiah 53 verses 2 and 3 says,

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For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

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He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

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There was nothing about Christ that should attract us to him. But look at Christ's character.

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Look at Christ's perfect life. Look at Christ's perfect example. Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends, we don't need to look righteous on Sunday or to look righteous in front of other

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Christians. We need to be righteous. And we need to have a heart after God.

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And we don't get that heart after God by reforming our heart, by trying to make up our heart like a heart makeover.

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We need a new heart. Christ said in John chapter 3 and verse 3,

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Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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God promised that new heart beforehand. In Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 26 it says,

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And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. And a new spirit I will put within you.

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And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

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Brothers and sisters, we cannot be content with having a godly appearance before men and an ugly and marred appearance before God.

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Some of us are perfectly content to have an attractive exterior, but a corrupt and a wicked heart.

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For those people who do not know Christ, Christ says of you, just as he said of the scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones.

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If that is your heart, if that is your life, if that is your appearance, then the command today is to repent and believe on Christ and to ask for a new heart.

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And if you do, in fact, have that new heart, and dear friends, you can say before the

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Lord, I am consistent. You can find me anywhere. I am the same because I live for God and not for the praise of man.

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And dear friends, press on for a better heart still. Paul wrote to Timothy in 1

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Timothy 1 .5, the aim of our charge is love, that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere heart.

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Cultivate your heart even further. The next contrast that I'd like to show us is this.

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False faith is characterized by prideful self -righteousness, while true faith, humble trust.

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False faith, prideful self -righteousness. True faith, humble trust. Christ not only tells us that the scribes were more concerned with their appearances, but that they were characterized their lives by sinful self -righteousness.

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Not only did their attire convey that they saw themselves as righteous and worthy of honor and glory, but even their seating arrangement in the synagogue.

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Christ talks about having the seats of honor, the best seats. Even that conveyed their exalted view of themselves.

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Christ tells us that the scribe was always careful to choose the very best seat in the synagogue. And so if we were to get,

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I love using this language to get into our time machine and to travel back to Christ's day and to set foot in Jerusalem and to go to one of the local synagogues in Jerusalem or a surrounding area, what we would find is this, that you would come in, much like this room,

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I'm not sure if it would be as big as this room, but you would find all of the chairs facing forward.

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And then on the outskirts you would find chairs facing inward. And then you would find chairs at the front facing toward all of the worshippers that would come into the synagogue.

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And where the scribes would sit whenever possible was in the front seats that would look at the congregation.

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That would look at all the Jews as they prayed and as they worshipped and as they repented and as they confessed their sin and as they sought forgiveness from God.

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And it exposed a real thought in their hearts that all of the people in the room needed forgiveness.

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And all of the people in the room needed God's grace and mercy. But they themselves were righteous and beyond that need.

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And so they sat in the front facing rather than facing forward and sitting with all of the members of the assembly.

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They did not sit with the people but separate from the people. In their minds they were different.

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They were righteous. They didn't need God. They didn't need God's grace at least. And we see this.

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Christ talks about this in Luke chapter 18 and verse 9. He says this. And think about this for a moment.

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Just listen carefully because I want to ask you a question. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.

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Two men went up into the temple to pray. One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

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The Pharisee standing by himself prayed, Thus, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

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I fasted. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying,

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God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

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For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. But the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

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This was the heart of the scribes. God, I thank you that I am not like the sinner.

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I am not unjust. I am not the adulterer. And meanwhile, the tax collector in the same temple beats his chest and cries out for mercy.

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So this was the heart and the mind of the Pharisee, the scribe. Meanwhile, we see the widow's actions in this particular passage.

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That she not only comes to the temple to contribute her own offerings for the ministry of the temple, but that she gives all that she had to live on.

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This is leading up to the Passover. And so she comes to participate in and to look forward to that substitutionary work that was the

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Passover lamb dying in the stead of the Israelites before the exodus.

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And she not only comes humbly. You'll hear me repeat this a few times. Comes again at the back of the line.

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But she gives everything, trusting that God will provide.

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Abraham looked forward to the day when God would bless him with descendants and that faith was credited to him as righteousness.

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And in the same way, here is a woman who comes trusting that God will meet all of her needs even though she gives all that she had to live on.

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What we see here, I would suggest, is exactly in reference. I didn't just bring up Philippians as a good sermon illustration.

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But what we see in the heart of Paul, in Philippians chapter 3, where he says,

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I count all things as loss for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus, my

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Lord. He says in chapter 3 in verse 2, look out for the dogs. Look out for the evildoers.

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Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision who worship

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God, the spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.

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And he talks about all the reason that he would have to put confidence in the flesh. That he was of the chosen tribe.

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He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. A Hebrew of the Hebrews. As to zeal, he says, a persecutor of the church under the law, blameless.

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But in verse 7 he says, but whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

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I love how he repeats this. Indeed, he says, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing

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Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain

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Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

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The righteousness of God that depends on faith. For the scribes, for those who rely on self -righteousness, you get what self -righteousness provides.

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Kids, what do you think trusting in our own righteousness gives us? Isaiah says, even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.

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When we trust on what our righteousness can give us, we get what righteousness affords, which is an eternal hell, separated from God.

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We are never enough. The scribes were not enough. The widow was not enough. That's why she was coming humbly with her offerings, trusting in God, and we are not enough.

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But, when we rely on Christ's righteousness, we get what

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Christ's righteousness affords. The Son of God, the second person of the

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Trinity, living a righteous life, dying that atoning death on the cross, defeating death, and being raised from the dead as the firstborn from the dead.

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What does his atoning work afford? What does his atoning work purchase? Is God going to reject

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Christ's atoning work? Absolutely not. And so, when we rely on the righteousness of Christ, by faith in Him, we get the righteousness of Christ, the very righteousness of God, justification, and adoption, and reconciliation, and peace with God.

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And that's why Paul can say that for all those who are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation.

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There are two kinds of religion. There is a religion of human achievement, of the scribes coming with their own self -righteousness, or there is a religion of divine accomplishment, that what

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I could never do, Christ has already done for me, and so I hope in Him.

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Human achievement is a false faith. It is a false Christianity. It will lead you to hell.

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But a religion of divine accomplishment, that is true faith, and true justification, and eternal life, forever with God.

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The third observation that I've made here is, false faith is celebrated while true faith is despised and rejected.

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It's a sad and an inevitable fact in this fallen world, that the most popular and prominent forms of so -called

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Christianity have little or nothing to do with Christ, or God, or the

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God of the Bible. And this is what we see. That Christ says about the scribes, that when they would walk, not only would they get the best seats, and not only would they wear long robes, but that they would get greetings in the marketplaces.

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And what it looked like was this. It wasn't only complimentary greetings, like, hello Rabbi, hello

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Mr. Scribe. But when someone saw a scribe walking through the marketplace, picture this for a moment, wearing their prayer shawl, walking solemnly to the temple.

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Unless you were a laborer involved in active work at that very moment, maybe a construction worker fixing a gutter on the edge of the sidewalk, everyone was to rise to their feet and to pay honor to the scribe, to pay honor to that rabbi, to pay honor to that great and righteous leader.

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And so they received tremendous praise. They were, in some respects, the celebrities of Jerusalem, celebrated by the people.

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Meanwhile, true faith is despised and rejected. Here we have a nameless widow, for the third time, at the back of the line.

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Nothing to offer except a Roman penny. And this is going to be the case if you're going to be a man or a woman of true faith, is that you will never know friendship with this world.

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You might be popular at some point, but the second you align yourself with Christ, watch it flee, like cockroaches in the light.

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So will your popularity go. A .W. Pink has such a wonderful quote, and it's a bit long and I tried to compress it a bit, but I want to read it to you because it's just so helpful.

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He says this, he says, The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity.

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Do you feel like an oddity when you go to your family reunion and everyone's cracking open the beers and gossiping and talking about the new toy that they bought or the vacation that they're planning to go on?

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He says he finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest.

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So he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shop talk.

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For this, he earns the reputation of being dull and over -serious. So he is avoided, and the gulf between him and society widens.

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He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect, I love this line, who he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, the presence of God.

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And finding few or none like Mary of old, he keeps these things in his heart. It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God.

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His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he cannot find anywhere else.

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He learns in inner solitude what could not be learned in the crowd, that Christ is all in all.

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And that he is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

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That in Christ we have and possess life's summum bonum, the greatest and supreme good.

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If you feel perfectly comfortable in the world with your old drinking buddies and your old golf buddies swearing about this and slandering that person and gossiping about this, or cursing every politician under the sun and calling them every name and never giving a thought to praying for them, if you fit in perfectly with the world, then it is very likely that you are a friend of the world and you are at enmity with God.

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But if you are a friend with God, you will find yourself at enmity with the world.

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Christ said in Luke 6 .26, he said, Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets, to those who were of a false faith.

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He says in John 15 .19, If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.

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But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

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Go home this week. I'm not going to read all the references I have, but read Hebrews chapter 11 and ask yourself.

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It's often called the Faith Hall of Fame. If the members of that Faith Hall of Fame belonged to this world and were received well by this world, or if they were not.

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It says in Moses that when he grew up, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

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He considered the reproach of Christ, long before Christ, greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.

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For he was looking to the reward. He was looking to a city whose builder and founder was

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God, and living for eternity and not for this life. The fourth observation

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I want to make is this. False faith keeps for itself, while true faith gives generously.

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True faith gives generously. It's interesting, we read a psalm today that spoke about God's love and care for widows.

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What a providential, we don't arrange that, that just worked out that way. That God loves and cares for widows.

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And yet it says of the scribes here, that they devour widows' houses for a pretense and make long prayers.

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They love to look righteous, but when no one is looking, they're devouring widows' houses.

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And there was a story sometime just before Christ probably taught this. Josephus recounts the story of a scribe who did exactly that.

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Who would teach by pretense, teach the word of God and seek to be a religious leader.

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But he found a woman named Fulvia, who he slowly whittled away all of her finances.

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Took everything that she had. And when the Jewish people learned about this particular scribe, there was such an outroar, an uproar, excuse me, that Tiberius Caesar himself learned of the incident.

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And so the Jewish people, got to appreciate the Jewish people for this, they exiled this scribe to Rome.

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If you want to act like the Romans and steal from your own people, then go and live in Rome. So maybe

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Christ was referring to this, I'm not sure. But the only difference between this scribe who exploited

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Fulvia and any of the other scribes, was that that scribe got caught. It was a common practice to take and to not give.

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And yet here this widow, Christ says, Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.

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It says that she came in and put in two small copper coins. That the smallest denomination of money.

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And then actually Mark translates it likely because he was writing to the Romans. That it was two small copper coins which make up a penny.

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A Roman quadrants. And to put that into perspective, a Roman quadrants, no one will lease.

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Even you guys would think this is a small amount of money. It was one sixty -fourth of a day's wage.

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Everything that she had to live on. And so to put that into perspective, I did some calculations.

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At least in North America, the average, the median wage. Based on the median wage, one sixty -fourth of a day's wage is something around three dollars and thirty -seven cents.

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And so this poor widow comes to the temple. And they had these shofar collection boxes.

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There were fourteen different collection boxes. Each that had their own purpose.

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And it was like the shape of a shofar or a ram's horn that would taper at the top.

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And people would come in and put their coinage and their offerings into the temple court.

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And someone might say, well how did we know, how did Christ know how much was offered? The reason that he knew is likely because there would be a priest standing there.

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Whenever money was given for the service of the priests. A priest would actually interrogate the person that was making their offering.

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And it would be too harsh to say they would shake them down. But they would make sure that the money they were offering was in fact genuine currency.

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So they're getting money for free. They're checking to make sure it's genuine. For what purpose is it?

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They would discuss the amount that was offered. And then they would allow them to make the offering. And so here what we see is this.

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You've got one group. False faith takes and does not give. But true faith gives generously.

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It's the type of generosity that's not simply rooted in a cold resolve to give more. A reluctance.

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But a bold, a cheerful, and a faithful generosity. And it's a secondary act.

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It's an act of faith. Believing that God has provided this. That he has given it to me to steward.

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And to believe that he will provide for all of my needs. True and undefiled religion in the sight of God, James says, is helping the orphan and the widow in their distress.

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It is giving of yourself. And giving generously. False faith sets its heart and its affections on this life.

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Because it has no faith at all. But true faith does not. To the contrary, true faith sets its sights on eternity.

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I remember as a young man, Nicole and I, we were just laughing about some of my immaturities before the service as a 21 -year -old man.

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And around that same time, we had a discussion about giving to the church. And it was Nicole's conviction that we should start giving at least 10 % of our income.

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Now I came from an unchurched background altogether. And I thought that she was mad.

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Give 10 %? 10 % of everything that we make? I'm not teaching the biblical tithe here.

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10 % might be excellent training wheels. It might be a good amount. It's a free will offering. To be given cheerfully to the church.

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To whoever wills to give. But it blew my mind. To give 10 % of my income.

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And I remember a while back reading a book that you've heard me reference before, I'm sure. The Treasure Principle.

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And I read that book. And developing an eternal perspective of giving. What Randy Alcorn says in that book.

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That we can't keep what we have here. But we can send it on ahead. And I remember coming back to Nicole and saying,

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Okay, how much can we give? I want to give as much as we possibly can.

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And Randy Alcorn says this. He says, You can't take your money with you. But you can send it on ahead.

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It's that simple. And if it doesn't take your breath away, You're not understanding it. Anything we try to hold on to in this life will be lost.

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But anything we put into God's hands will be ours for eternity. He says,

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Financial planners tell us when it comes to your money, Don't think three months ahead or three years ahead.

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But think 30 years ahead. But Christ, the ultimate investment counselor, takes it further.

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He says, Don't ask how your investment will be paying off in 30 years. Ask how it will be paying off in 30 million years.

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And he said, You would be stupid. Storing up earthly treasure isn't simply wrong. It is just plain stupid.

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John Rockefeller. I'm sure you've heard of the Rockefellers at some point. He was one of the most wealthy men in human history.

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And after he died, someone asked his accountant. They said, How much money did he leave when he died?

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And the accountant said, He left all of it. And so will we. But we can send it ahead.

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By faith, investing in the good things that God wills to do in this world now.

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And that will pay dividends in eternity. False faith seeks to take

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Christ's life. While true faith gives life. I'm going to make this brief.

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But one commentator commentates on verse 44. That she gave all that she had to live on.

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Meanwhile, the scribes and the Pharisees in chapter 12 and verse 12, Tell us that they conspired how they might take

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Christ's life. False faith might not hate

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Christ in the most explicit of senses. But false faith disdains

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Christ by his commands. It wants nothing truly to do with a life given to worshiping

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Christ. A life given to loving him and to obeying him. Meanwhile, true faith gives all of life to Christ.

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Paul said to the Romans, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, To present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, Which is your spiritual worship.

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Paul said to the Philippians, again, to refer to them, In chapter 1 and verse 21, For me to live is

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Christ. If I'm going to live, I'm going to live for him. And to die, even better.

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It is gain. Many of you have probably heard of Jim Elliott. Has anyone here not heard of Jim Elliott in the

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Ecuador Five? There were five men who went down to Ecuador in the 1950s.

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To preach the gospel to unreached people groups in Ecuador. And there was one particular group.

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They were known as the Aucas. And they were the most violent and detestable people group in that whole area.

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Even the other indigenous communities around them would avoid them. They were murderous madmen.

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And they would kill anyone that was around them. And as was happening in the 50s, oil was being discovered.

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And they would send people in with caterpillars and surveying equipment. And if the

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Aucas found them, God help them. They would be completely destroyed. And very few people knew where the

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Aucas were in fact. And one day, these five American missionaries,

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A few of them were flying over and they found an Auca camp. And so they began sending gifts out of the airplane window for the

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Aucas. And eventually they landed on the beach. And they befriended a couple of these

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Aucas. But on January 8th, 1956, Jim Elliott, who his wife ended up writing a book.

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And so he's probably best known out of the group. He was 28 years old. In 1956, a group of the

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Aucas found them as they were befriending a couple of other Aucas. And there's a long story behind that.

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And they speared them all to death. These five men who lost their lives, left behind wives and children to bring the gospel to a people who hated them.

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So that they might have eternal life. And Jim Elliott said this, he said, He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

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You are not going to keep your life. But you can spend your life fully on the things of God.

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You ought to. I used to teach first aid CPR. And I'm not going to give you a lesson.

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But if you find the bony part of your wrist here. And you run your finger down a little bit towards the tendons and ligaments in the center of your wrist.

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What you'll feel is the surge of blood rushing through your veins.

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With every beat of your heart. That beat was put there by God.

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For God. Not for you. Not for anything else under the sun.

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But for Him. To spend your life for Him. And lastly.

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False faith is repulsive to God. Repulsive to Christ.

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But true faith is precious to Him. It's interesting.

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Christ begins verse 38. Speaking of the scribes in this way.

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And He says, beware of the scribes. You can see here that Christ does two things.

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He says, beware. In verse 38. And then later in the next section.

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In speaking about the widow. You could say that He says, behold. Verse 43.

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And He called His disciples to Him and said. Truly I say to you. Christ tells us to beware of those who have a false faith.

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You're not only ruining their own lives. But they're going to ruin your life too. But this.

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To behold those who have a true faith. If you have a true and undefiled faith.

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Know this for certain. That Christ sees you. He sees you.

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He knows you. He is pleased with you. If you have placed your faith in Him.

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Cast aside all self -righteousness. And He is your all. And you love

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Him. And you know that if you're going to be with Him for eternity. It is because of what He has done for you.

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Then dear saints. He loves you. He knows you.

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The world may not recognize you. You may never be acquainted with honorific titles in the streets.

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You may never know the seats of honor at the galas or the feasts. You may live your entire life completely unnoticed by the world around you.

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Maybe even the church around you. Maybe the banner of truth is not going to publish a biography about you.

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You might live and then die in obscurity. But dear brother or sister. So be it.

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Because Christ sees you. Let us be forgotten by men. That Christ might be remembered.

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Let us be despised. That Christ might be praised. May our lives serve as a myriad.

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Each of us. As a myriad of signposts that hold up the banner of Christ. In this dark and lost world.

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And the best thing about a lightpost. Or a signpost. Excuse me. Is this. Signposts are meant to be forgotten.

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They hold up the sign. They're not to distract with bright lights and colorful decorations.

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And beautiful adornments. But they hold up a sign to be seen. And dear friends.

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Whether day or night. Whether rain or shine. Whether under the blue skies of God's favor.

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Or in the midst of a hurricane. Let us stay steadily and faithfully. Hold up that which is to be seen.

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Hold up whom is to be seen. Namely Jesus Christ. And mark my words.

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Mark Christ's words. Though the world will take no notice. Christ sees.

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He and the innumerable host in heaven see and rejoice. The triune

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God sees what is done in secret. And he will reward you.

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That is true faith. In the midst of a world filled with false faith. Let's pray.