A Good Church is Generous
Notes
Transcript
Handout
articulate
I think everyone wants to contribute. One of the normative desires of people is that they want to be part of something and want to offer a meaningful contribution to it. That if I show up to an event or help with something, that the outcome of that thing is better because of what I did. This is not inherently selfish, in fact it points back to the created meaning each one of us has.
We want to live in such a way that we can offer something to someone else and that what we offer matters.
In short, we all want to be generous.
This morning I want to talk to you about being a generous church
to begin I want to show you a short video of a guy who made a contraption. I dont’ have much other context than that. A guy loved skateboarding. And he loved it so much that he built an entire contraption for people who couldn’t skateboard to be able to skateboard.
Let’s watch.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HumansBeingBros/comments/178gaw3/this_guy_who_loves_to_board_himself_uses_a/?share_id=88HKGrFNqxUh3-lfzcvp1&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1
We all want to contribute and we all want to matter in that contribution.
This is the base understanding of generosity. To be generous is to give from yourself and to matter in that contribution. To be a part of something and count in that something.
We are going to look at what it means to be generous. That it is actually one of the most human things to do because it reflects the One who created us who is entirely generous, and also, how easily generosity can become bent.
Because of that, we are all living different versions of generosity out. The questions for this morning are, are you aware of where you are being generous, and is it where you want it to be?
We are always being generous
We are always being generous
the issue I want to cover is that you are being generous somewhere, are you aware of where it is and is it where you want it to be?
Some of us are being generous to self. And while that is a spiritual necessity, we cannot give enough to ourselves to actually make anything stick. We need a better source. Because too much generosity pointed at self is simply just greed and avarice.
You are giving your time, resources and finances to other people and places. Your work, your family, your self. To others. You are being generous. Are you being generous in the right places?
We are always reaching out
We are always reaching out
We are always reaching out to another. This is how we know who we are and what we are. We develop from our relationships to others and the world around us. You were made to reach out, you were made for generosity.
Our generosity is bent
Our generosity is bent
Because this is where our generosity is a little bent, or sometimes a lot bent. We take the ability for us to give of ourselves for another’s advantage and we bend it so that we get the greatest advantage. So we are generous, but only to ourselves.
The good news this morning is you know what generosity feels like because you have acted on it.
But we easily turn what begins as a generous act on it’s head and make it work back toward us and for us not from us.
There are times when our generosity is bent. When we feel like we don’t have enough. We are going to look at the scarcity mentality this morning.
We will need to figure out what true generosity looks like and find Christ who is able to show and unbend generosity for actual use.
We will see that generosity is the most human way to live and that we only really know what that is like because of the God who entered into the wolrd as Jesus, acted entirely generously to us. When you have experienced generosity and have seen it, it is hard to unsee.
What:
By the end of this message you should know:
Generosity is the most normative of human actions, that has been bent through fear. Jesus shows us and offers us a different kind of life, marked by generosity.
What for:
So that you: can experience God’s generosity and live generously in the world.
Generosity is the Christ-offered ability to live from the self not for the self. It is the opportunity for possibility.
Generosity is the Christ-offered ability to live from the self not for the self. It is the opportunity for possibility.
lets look at how Jesus unbends our generosity
God always has enough.
God always has enough.
In generosity we get to ask the question how much does God have? Rather than how much do I have?
In generosity we get to ask the question how much does God have? Rather than how much do I have?
Articulate
6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Co 9:6–8.
That cheerfulness comes from somewhere. We will talk about unbending generosity in a moment but we have to continue to look at where do these things come from? What is the motivation. We are told to give cheerfully but that is not meant as a command to stop complaining. It is meant to find such meaning in what you are doing that giving is cheerful.
The scriptures says that we will have all sufficicnecy in all things at all times.
but that doesn’t always track with our experience
Scarce and abundance mentality
Scarce and abundance mentality
we experience Every resource we have is finite. and because we live in a world with finite resources, we feel it is best to capture as much of them as possible. And while that is true, it becomes easy to just get into a race of how much can I get that will equal more than how much my neighbor gets.
Our world is filled with the call to collect as much as possible just in case. To hold on and hang on as much as possible in order to survive and hopefully thrive.
We have believed that the call for the good life is to hold onto as much as possible. But the good life is much more the opposite of that. We have captured this idea of the good life as getting as much as possible from a scarcity mentality. If you track that idea back, it comes from the fear that there will not be enough. That there will never be enough.
And so we become hoarders. It’s a good idea for a tv show but a horrendous way to live. Feeling like you have enough doesn’t come from love. Feeling like you have enough comes straight from fear.
We live in a fear drenched culture that screams to move faster and get more. Not because it wants to be charitable, but because it is fiercely scared.
This scarce mentality makes big piles of stuff but dies alone.
Resources do not equal a good life. So if collecting resources is not the key to a good life, let’s look at the possibility of generosity.
We are calling for the church to be generous. For us to take what is ours and be able to offer someone else an advantage.
With generosity we don’t use our resources or stuff to define or protect ourselves. This is good because generosity is automatically an act of sincerity (same word) because it removes protection of self from the equation.
When we act generously we are asking for others to define and to support us. God become the primary support.
The text says that God will abound grace to us. We will have all sufficiency in Him. He will be the One to provide and protect.
If you have been tracking here, the characteristics of a good church as really just the characteristics of a good God.
If you have been tracking here, the characteristics of a good church as really just the characteristics of a good God.
And if we understand the goodness of God and that He is working in our lives, it means we can give from that place.
Part of a bent generosity, one that is generous toward the self, for the self not from the self, means that we think that we don’t have enough resources.
this is how the church has gotten in trouble
Let’s discuss how the church has talked about generosity in the culture in the past.
Let’s discuss how the church has talked about generosity in the culture in the past.
I am nervous to even say generosity because of the way the church has mishandled money in the past. But I also dont’ want to be scared of talking about generosity because it is a characteristic of God.
The church in the past have abused it. They have used the concept of generosity in order to benefit one person. The pastor. Or to grow a bigger church. To build a bigger building. But depending on which way you torun generosity depends on whether it is sincerity or greed.
When we look at it this way, it is nothing other than greed. It is avarice and it is evil.. There is no other way to understand it.
We don’t practice things that way. When we take offerings, when we talk about generosity. We are talking about what we can do to help others well. What we can do to help others.
Eventually the work we hope to do is to help other people have access to the Good news of Jesus and the good action of the church.
articulate
God uses what We give Him. God’s Action in the world always begins with generosity.
God uses what We give Him. God’s Action in the world always begins with generosity.
Look at how God interacts with people:
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
He moves in the world generously. The church is called to be Gods mechanism in the world. His work of generosity. The church is Gods work of generosity.
10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Co 9:10–12.
We are not going to find the good life or the Christ life through the hoarding or collecting of resources. We only find it through generosity.
The act of generosity involves a ton of grace and thanksgiving because it is the confession that we need grace and the response that we have seen God work.
To act generously then is to experience grace and to be left with the experience of offering God thanks for what He has done.
That is why we want to be a church that is generous. Because we want to understand and experience the grace of God. Because our lives are witnesses to the goodness of God and the call then is to respond in thanksgiving.
Because we see that often what we give is a little bent. Or what we offer never feels like enough. But we can trust that when we give from ourselves, God takes that and uses it.
You can be generous in your conversations. What does it look like to offer generosity to another? How could God use that?
You can be generous with the church. What does it look like to be a part of what God is doing here? How could God use what you give or where you serve?
This is why we tithe 10% of our operating budget toward missions. Whatever comes in we practice giving 10% of that to others.
You can be generous at work and at home. What does it look like to be generous with the places you spend the most time?
And you can be generous with your neighbor.
We want to be a church that experiences that but then also offers that to others. That they have the opportunity to know the grace and gratitude of a life in Christ.
We want to be generous in they way that we interact in the world.
God takes the little we offer and enlarges it. He then is the One responsible for what happens with what we give.
articulate
a closing illustration from the Gospels
Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
notice what Jesús uses. What was already there. he doesn’t make them lobster rolls.. He uses what is given.
God takes our bread and fish and multiplies what is offered . The invitation this morning is to show up and give what you have. God changes the world with fish and loaves
And generosity takes all of us. That is the invitation. To, having experienced generosity, to be able to show it.
If we are going to act generously in the world, to offer to others more than they have now, it will take all of us. Generosity is the invitation to lean in, to be a part. To give to serve to act, all from who you are. Christ is generous in the way He unbends and uses our generosity. We can trust Him in that.
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