Like Jesus - Generous
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
As some of you know, I grew up in a fairly poor family, in a poor area of North Carolina. I tell people that we weren’t door floor poor, but we were definitely linoleum floor poor.
Autumn and I were talking about this recently, but neither of us received much good financial advice from our families and when we got married one of the best things we did was to take a financial class at our church.
I think the reason we didn’t receive much financial advice was partly because my parents were probably not very confident in what they were doing and partly because talking about finances in our culture is taboo.
Now, I say all of this because I want to contrast this with how Jesus talked about money. Jesus talked about money in some form or fashion more than he talked about almost any other subject. Sometimes he talked about money metaphorically, other times he talked about it directly and bluntly.
This is in big contrast to my upbringing, and maybe yours. And typically what that does is it creates a taboo topic and it’s something we don’t discuss, and we especially don’t want to discuss it at church.
Churches are only out for your money, as I’ve heard several people say over the years. Which, as we know, isn’t true, but if you say a lie often enough and loud enough, people eventually begin to believe it.
Today, I want to talk about the idea of being generous. Jesus was the most generous person to ever live. Not because he gave away a large sum of money. Jesus was quite poor. He was generous because He gave his entire life way.
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Jesus gave himself up for us! He demonstrated true giving towards us.
I want to make one thing clear, I’m not talking about this subject because the church needs you to give more. The church is making ends meet. That’s not the point. I’m talking about this because whether you currently give or not, I want you to be generous, just like Jesus.
In fact, if you were to ask me what one thing our church struggles with, it’s this idea. We need people who are radically generous. People who want to live a lifestyle of generosity. And I’m not talking about just money, I’m talking about the three T’s - Time, Talent and Treasure.
Jesus is our example in this. When we give of ourselves, we are becoming like Him.
Here’s my main point today -
Generosity Starts In The Heart
Christ freely gave himself to us, because he loved us. It started with his heart. He loved us and gave himself for us. He didn’t do this because of obligation, he did this because he wanted to, it flowed from his heart.
And that’s the point when it comes to giving your money, your time, your giftings, God expects for you to have a generous spirit. As a Christian, you have been given a new heart and that heart, made in the image of the Father, was designed to be a giving heart.
So today, if you have your Bible or if you want to follow along in your app, we will be talking about being generous.
Main Text
Main Text
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.” Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
Let’s talk context for a minute. Paul here is looking to take up a collection for the poor people in the church in Jerusalem. In his first letter to the church he tells them, 1 Cor 16:2, to set aside some money on the first day of the week, so that when he comes there will be money to collect and he can give it to the poor.
In this second letter, we see that they haven’t done that. So Paul starts in Chapter 8 by telling the Corinthians about the churches in Macedonia, who pleaded with them to let them give to the poor. And they gave out of their poverty, meaning they didn’t have much to give, but through trusting in God, they were able to give generously.
And so Paul tells them Corinthians in 8:8, that he’s not going to command them to give, though as an Apostle, he probably had every right to do so. Instead, he wanted to test the sincerity of their love. In other words, Paul understood that…
Generosity Starts In The Heart
Paul knew that in order for the Corinthians to truly be blessed by their giving, it must come from a generous heart, not a selfish one. If we love others, we will be a generous person.
I think this all has to do with our mindset. How we think about money and resources matter. And the first thing we need to do is…
Eliminate The Scarcity Mindset
Eliminate The Scarcity Mindset
I have heard it put this way, there are two types of people in this world. You either have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset.
The way that I grew up, I should have a scarcity mindset. We were poor. Most poor people have this mindset. You look at the world and all you see is that there is not enough resources.
You don’t have enough because there’s not enough to go around. You believe the lies of mainstream media and you think the world doesn’t have enough oil, enough food, enough money and too many people.
A lot of people start hoarding because of this mindset. The idea is, I need to take care of me and mine. This isn’t a biblical mindset. When we put ourselves above others, this is the opposite of the Gospel. In the gospel, Jesus puts others ahead of himself. He dies for them, whereas the scarcity mindset says, you die for me.
The scarcity mindset focuses on what cannot be done. It looks at the world and says, these things can’t be fixed. We don’t have the resources to fix this.
If Generosity Starts In The Heart, they can’t be generous because they don’t have enough. They are always lacking. They never have enough.
Anxiety over the uncertainty or scarcity of resources to sustain physical life reveals a faltering faith in the Father’s care for His children. Confident prayer, with thanks, is the antidote (Phil. 4:6, 7).
R. C. Sproul
The second mindset is an abundance mindset. You see the world quite different than those that have a scarcity mindset. You look at the world and see how much we have.
People with this mindset, look at their situation, no matter how poor they are and they say, I have more than enough to share. They aren’t stingy. They see an abundance of resources available and freely give because they know they will receive more in the future.
When you have an abundance mindset, you don’t see lack. You see an opportunity for God to move. When you have an abundance mindset, money or resources are not an issue. You see it as an opportunity to walk out your faith.
People that think like this, look at God’s word, where it says that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and they believe it. It’s faith in the fact that God owns this entire world, so money is not a problem for him.
This is truly a heart issue.
If you have an abundance mentality, you will give generously. You will give your time. You won’t mind investing your time in others. You won’t mind giving money to people in need. You won’t mind using your talents to bless others.
In other words, you will follow Paul’s logic and you will…
Sow Generously
Sow Generously
There is a kingdom principle that Paul is teaching in our passage today. It’s called the law of sowing and reaping. To put it simply, you will reap what you sow.
Now these are farming terms. When you plant seeds, that’s called sowing and at the end of the season, when you collect the fruit or vegetables, that’s called reaping a harvest. We reap what we sow.
Paul uses this idea and says, if you sow sparingly, you will also reap sparingly. In other words, the more you plant, the more you give out of your resources, the more fruit you can expect to harvest at the end of the season.
In farming, there’s a term called broadcasting, or broadcast seeding. This is a way of sowing seeds. It’s different that precision drilling. That is the way most of us are familiar with growing a garden. We take one seed, dig a hole and put a seed in it. Hopefully, that seed will germinate and we will get fruit from it.
*Picture* In broadcast seeding, the point is to throw down an abundance of seeds. You toil up the soil, but you don’t plant the seeds, you just throw a ton of seeds out and they land where they may. This is a really effective means of farming large fields. Some of the seeds will be washed away, some will fall on hard soil, but an abundance of seeds means that a lot of them will take root and produce a massive harvest.
Paul says that’s how we should sow, we should sow generously. We should sow lots of seeds. Or to put it plainly, we should be givers. We should be those that give away our lives, not hoard them up. We should be those that want to invest our time in others, those that use our talents for others and most importantly, we should give our money to those in need.
This is what it’s like to be like Jesus. This is the heart we need. And Paul takes this back to the heart. He says each person should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. God loves a cheerful giver.
This why some people really distrust churches when it comes to money. People will get on the platform and beg and plead and pass the plate 10 times to get people to give more. That’s not how Paul operated and it is certainly not how Jesus lived. The early church was a giving church.
The early Christians shared their possessions, not because they were communists or socialists—not because they were forced to share their things—but for a far better reason. They shared their goods because they were generous, and they were generous because they had learned generosity from God. God had been generous with them. So because God had been generous with them, they were determined to be generous with one another.
James Montgomery Boice
In other words, the early Christians looked at everything God had given them in their lives and they say how generous He had been with them, even to the point of Jesus giving himself up as a sacrifice for us, and they said, that’s what I want to do, that’s the heart I want to have.
Paul put it simply. God is the one who supplies you with what you need. He gives you the seed. He gives you bread for food. He will also increase it so you can be even more generous.
He says, you will be enriched in every way, so that you can be generous on every occasion and that will produce thanksgiving to God.
In other words, if you will be generous with what God has given you, he will give you more. And Paul is just echoing the words of Jesus here.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
Jesus says that the measure you use will be measured back to you. Now some of you will think this borders on prosperity gospel thinking and maybe so, afterall, the best lies always have some truth mixed in with them.
But the prosperity gospel always expects monetary harvest, whereas Paul says in verse 10 that our harvest will be a harvest of righteousness. In other words, you will get what God determines is right. He knows what you need. He will take care of you.
The Prosperity Gospel is all about what I can get, whereas the true gospel is centered around what I can give. That’s a fundamental difference on how we view these passages. So yes, if you sow generously, you will reap generously, but we don’t give in order to get, we give because of the example set before us. We give because Jesus gave. We give, not to receive, but out of love.
Generosity Starts In The Heart
Conclusion
Conclusion
Now as I start to close, I’d like to mention one other big idea. In my own past, I have had times of abundance and times of scarcity. I’ve had times where I was really poor.
Here’s the interesting thing in Scripture, if you find yourself in that same position today, let me encourage you. God never tells us to stop being generous if we only have a little. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Generous People Give The Most From A Place Of Poverty
It’s much easier to be generous when you have a lot of resources, it’s much harder when resources are scarce. God expects us to give out of our poverty, out of scarcity. He expects us to give, even when it hurts. That’s his example.
We are all poor in certain areas. Some of us are poor in finances, others of us are poor in talents, others are poor in time. And that’s precisely the place God wants us to give out of, our weakness.
Could you imagine what our church would be like if we got this right?
If each of us were generous with our time, there would be no loneliness in our church, because we would all have a friend to call on and visit with any time we needed it.
If each of us were generous with our talents, there would be no end to the blessings we would give visitors and members alike. We would encourage, uplift and invest into every person that walked into the door.
If each of us was generous with our finances, there would be no end to what our church could accomplish. The blessings we could give away to those in need in Clayton. We need to be that church.
Today, as we come together and sing, I want you to pray through just one question.
Lord, how are you asking me to be more generous this week?
Maybe you are not generous with your time. God may be asking you to join a homegroup, bible college, prayer meeting, lunch with a church member, etc.
Maybe you are not generous with your talent, perhaps God is asking you to serve the homeless or WLFJ, or perhaps in our children’s ministry or a youth ministry?
Maybe you are not generous with your treasure. Perhaps God is asking you to start giving to the church or give more? Perhaps you need to support a child through a missions organization or give to missionaries? Perhaps you know of a need in your own circle of friends and God is highlighting that.
Whatever it is, now is the time to seek God and ask him to change your heart to be more generous. Let’s pray.
