Sermon Tone Analysis
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Living Generously
Divide the everyone into 3 - 4 groups.
Have each group come up with a 30 second skit about generosity or Honesty or Both!
So you’re skit has to be about Generosity or it can be about Honesty or it can be about both. the choice is up to you and your imaginations.
You’ve got 5 minutes!
GO!
*Discuss skits and their points*
MAIN POINT:
Christians are to avoid living selfishly; instead, giving generously and sacrificially.
READ Acts 4:32-5:11
If you made a list of the top 3 things your parents provide for you that you are thankful for, what would make the list of the top 3?
House, food, clothes, car, wifi, phone, vacation… so many things right?
And yet, despite all these things, what happens on December 25th each year?
We get more!
Not only that, we are so audacious to make a list of MORE THINGS WE WANT!?
Who do you think you are?
Sometimes at Christmas or birthdays we can be tempted to be selfish and forget how much our parents provide for us every day.
In the same way, it’s easy for us to forget how much God has blessed us with.
In the end of Acts 2, we see that God was saving people literally every day in the early church.
Because of that, there were lots of needs that the early church had to deal with too!
To meet those needs, the church became extremely generous.
Some people have examined Acts 4:32-37 and used it to advocate for socialism.
Thats poo poo.
This wasn’t the church owning everyone’s property and belongings and then giving those things out “evenly” to everyone in the church.
no no no.
This was the church coming together, recognizing the needs, and then meeting those needs as a church.
Not going to governing authorities.
Not starting a committee
Not taxing people in order to aquire funds to give back to a select few.
This was simple hey what are the needs?
How can we meet that need.
Boom lets do it.
And how did they do that?
vs. 33, “with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.”
God’s good grace…
What do we need the most?
- God’s good grace…
*When I think about my own needs,
I’m reminded of how desperate I am for God’s grace every day.
*POSSIBLY REFER TO A SKIT IF APPLICABLE.*
**I was saved when I was in 2nd grade, but I think God really changed my life in 2006.
I was a kid who had experienced a tough year in 2005 with relationships in my life and I just had a lot of built up anger.
But more than that, I was a beggar in need of God’s grace.
I couldn’t make a deal with God.
I couldn’t earn my salvation.
I had to simply accept it.
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but would have eternal life.”
I needed that gift.
You see it’s the Father, it’s God who generously gave the gift of His son.
At Christmas, you may get alot of free gifts to you, but what we rarely think about is how much that gift cost someone else.
We often talk about how God’s salvation is free to us, and it is, but that doesn’t mean it was free to Him!
On the contrary, it cost Him everything!
His generosity is the perfect gift we all need.
I want to be generous when I recognize the cost of the gift.
If someone walked up to you at school and gave you $10,000… You’d be pretty happy about that.
If that same person was like, do you mind if you spent a little bit though and buy me some skittles out of the vending machine?
You’d most likely be like… “Uh… duh dude!
Whatever you want!”
It’s easy to give the skittles when we see how much it cost the other person.
He gave me $10,000!
spending a buck on skittles is nothing.
Of course I’ll do that!
We want to be generous when I understand the cost of the gift.
Do we recognize what our salvation cost God?
This brings us to our second Point today:
2. Selfishness costs you more than generosity asks you to give.
The second half of our scripture today is very dark.
It’s gets cray cray all of a sudden!
Acts 4:36-37 - We read Barnabas sold a field and brought it to the apostles to give to the needy.
Again… no one commanded Barnabas to do this.
He sold it.
Brought it all to meet a need!
He’s all in with Jesus here.
However, Chapter 5 immediately contrasts Barnabas’ generosity with selfishness.
Ananias and Sapphira sell some property.
They bring some of the money to Peter and the apostles.
What is easy to miss here is that the Spirit of God has been moving in this church and has led these people to give in such tremendous ways.
Ananias and Sapphira give, but their giving is mean’t to deceive.
They’ve seen the praise other’s have received for their giving and they want some of that praise too.
Even more serious, they want the praise without the sacrifice.
Selfishness says, “I want this to look good, but I don’t want it to cost me anything.”
As the Spirit is moving, 2 people giving in Jesus name, want the blessing, but instead find themselves dead!
Why would they die for this though?
I mean it does seem pretty extreme!
I think ultimately God is showing us the importance of unity.
Just one act of selfishness can taint the whole church.
God is showing us clear contrast between generosity and selfishness.
In the first story we read of God’s good grace.
In the second we see fear.
Much like in the Old Testament, sometimes extreme measures are necessary for God to remind us to stay the course.
For example, In the Old Testament, many other nations knew about the God of Israel… yet they still attacked Israel anyway.
The only way for God to continue to use Israel to make His name known to the nations, was sometimes for nations to die.
God can’t make himself known through Israel if Israel is destroyed by other nations…
At the same time, God never destroys a nation without first revealing himself to them.
We all have a choice.
This is the very beginning of the church here!
God gives us an example of how dangerous selfishness is within the church.
While two people died, ultimately, their selfish decision could rot the entire church.
We have to guard ourselves against disunity.
APPLICATION:
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