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Generosity
Luke 12, Matthew 6
I’d like to start by retelling a story I recently read in the Old Testament
2 Kings 9 & 10
Tell the story about Jezebel’s death
The prophet Elisha summons one of his prophetic band members to travel to an army camp with a message from this guy named Jehu. When he gets there he asks Jehu to join him in a separate room away from everyone else. It’s in this room where the associate of Elisha pours oil on Jehu’s head and lets him know that he's now anointed as the King of Israel.
Now the leaders are encouraging the worship of another God named Baal during this time, and this prophet delivering Elisha’s message goes on to let Jehu know about this plan he supposed to carry out to take out the family of Ahab, who happens to be Jehu’s boss, and that he’s also going to avenge the death of some other prophets and servants of the Lord who were killed by Ahab’s wife, Jezebel. Then he gives this pretty grim prophecy about her.
Jehu hears all this and he bolts through the door and starts running. He comes across his soldier buddies and they were like, “Hey, who was that madman (because that’s how people talk about the Lord’s faithful servants) and they want to know if everything’s alright.” Jehu looks at them and he’s like, “You know those guys. They’re always talking.” And they’re like, “no way, man. We weren’t born yesterday…what’s going on?”
And then Jehu tells them what just happened. So these guys take off their coats and spread them out on the steps like a royal carpet, blow into a ram’s horn and shout, “JEHU IS KING!”
There’s a few other kings in this town called Jezreel, King Joram…the King of Israel, and King Ahaziah of Judah where Jehu is supposed to go to carry out this mission. Israel was split up into two kingdoms during this time. And they have to pull this mission off quietly, so Jehu employs some guys to help him do this so word doesn’t get to Jezreel before he gets there. And Jehu loads up his chariot and he and his company take off for Jezreel.
They get close when the watchman sees them coming and he tells King Joram, the son of Ahab and Jezebel, who is in Jezreel healing because he’s been injured while fighting, that someone is coming.
Twice, King Joram sends out men on horses to ask if Jehu is coming in peace and twice Jehu says, “What do you know about peace? Get behind me!”
And after the second time, the watchman looks out and sees the chariots still coming. And these guys must’ve looked like the Duke boys coming up outta the holler because he says, “That must be Jehu, because he’s driving like a madman!”
King Joram and King Ahaziah both decide they’re going to ride out. They meet up with Jehu and they say, “Do you come in peace?” I mean, these guys just don’t get it. And Jehu says, “How can there be peace when your idolatry and witchcraft are infesting this place?” They finally realize what’s up and they take off. Jehu shoots Joram and kills him. He’s chasing Ahaziah and like, “shoot him, too!” and they do. They’re both dead.
Jezebel hears what’s going on and then Jehu walks in and he’s like, “who’s on my side?” Then some of her servants throw her out of the window…then Jehu goes to lunch.
And he doesn’t stop there, he goes on to kill the rest of Ahab’s family, then he kills all the prophets of Baal, which is the god that was being worshiped and the reason for all this destruction. To top it all off, Jehu destroys the temple to Baal and turns it into a public toilet…
Now I read this story a few weeks ago and it was one of those times when I just kind of slowly closed my bible and went like this: make a classic Seth face. Okay, Lord…not sure what to do with that one…
I am not a violent person. Violence makes me queasy. And this has changed as I’ve gotten older. My tolerance for violence in movies, TV shows, books, and that sort of thing has really waned over the years
Some of that definitely comes from being a father, but where I really start to feel the conflict comes with a better understanding of the things Jesus teaches. I truly believe him to be a non-violent person, although not being someone who won’t stand his ground
When Jesus says to “turn the other cheek” I don’t think he’s necessarily telling us to lay over and die, but rather to stand up for what we believe in a non-violent way. This is a different way of thinking than what we read in some of these stories before the new covenant is formed through Jesus. Maybe our enemy would use violence on us, but the response of a follower of Jesus should be one that stands firm on solid ground, but chooses not to raise a fist to those who oppose us.
We see Jesus rebuke Peter in the garden when the Romans soldiers arrive to arrest Jesus. Peter takes out a sword and cuts off the ear of one of the soldiers. Jesus says to Peter, “hey man, this is not how we do things” and he ends up healing the injured soldier.
Jesus is practicing his own teaching in this instance by accepting his fate, meeting violence with love, and living out the Father’s rescue plan for humanity. This is the way I’ve come to know and better understand Jesus.
Knowing these stories from and teachings about Jesus, I was having a hard time reading the story in 2 Kings. Instead of throwing my hands to the sky and giving up, I prayed for God to show me what the heck was going on with this story, because it’s so contradictory to the way I believe Jesus instructs us to live our lives. I mean, it couldn’t be any different.
So I did a bit of word search trying to find something to help pull this together in some way. I found this in Nahum 1, when he’s talking about the Lord’s contempt for what’s going on in Nineveh:
“The Lord is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and rage. He takes revenge on all who oppose him and continues to rage against his enemies! The Lord is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished.”
Things are starting to make some sense. Especially when I read, “The LORD is a jealous God.” There’s something about our God that’s different from all the rest in the fact that He comes after and pursues us. We see that time and time again in scripture, even calling the sending of Jesus a “rescue mission” at times. And because of this he asks for our unrivaled attention and devotion.
Okay…so you’re probably sitting there thinking to yourself, “I thought we were talking about generosity today. What in the world does any of this have to do with generosity?” And I would say to you, “Here it is.”
In much the same way, Jesus is stressing to us what is truly important when he says in Matthew 6:19-24,
19 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.
22 “Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. 23 But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!
24 “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.
To bring this to the point where we can move forward with something workable to apply to our lives, I happened to check the footnotes in my study bible on verse 24 right there and I read this, “Since God tolerates not rivals, Jesus repeatedly warns of the danger of accumulating riches, which can be an idol. We must trust God to meet our needs and the community of disciples is to be mutually supportive.”
As the kids would say these days, “That slaps.” And they would be right. When I read that it gives me butterflies in my stomach because what Jesus is saying to us is our relationship to money and our stuff is a direct reflection of how committed we are to Him. God is not asking for our unwavering devotion to Him, He is demanding it.
God. Tolerates. No. Rivals.
This question that arises because of this understanding of the text is, “How then shall we respond?”
Let’s move forward with two truths: the first being God tolerates no rivals. The second one being Jesus’s teaching that we are to be living as if heaven has come down to earth. We can also move forward with the idea that because of these two truths, we are to be seeking the qualities Jesus associates with Heaven like mercy, peace, justice, pursuing righteousness, and yes…practicing a radical generosity.
Jesus is using some pretty strong language in these verses. And when you dig into the words, he seems to be hitting the money things really hard. It’s not very often he says something like “For you will hate one and love the other.”
The message he’s trying to convey here is not necessarily an either or type of situation. When he does happen to speak like this, he’s often trying to draw a stark contrast between two things to express the expectations of being his follower.
In Luke 12 we read this from Jesus about the high cost of being his follower when in verse 26 he says, “If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else–your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even your own life.”
Accurately understood, what Jesus is saying is the same thing we’ve been talking about. God. Tolerates. No. Rivals.
Not to hold our families and friends in contempt or despise them and cast them off. And relating it back to the money thing, Jesus understands we need money. Everyone here has obligations to meet and bills to pay. What he’s doing is taking our devotion to the Lord and to Himself as his followers and elevating to its proper place.
Put another way…and maybe this could be the pinnacle of our understanding of this teaching, is the realization that God is jealous for us. And in his generosity towards us, he becomes the giver of all things and he showers us with a multitude of amazing gifts. And the great thing about God’s gifts is that we can both receive them from Him and give them away for His glory. The deepness of the felt impact of this occurs at the intersection of generosity and God’s desire to have reconciliation with and within His creation.
What does this look like?
Number 1) It means being a vessel of that reconciliation process, which can mean being a church with long-standing, dedicated missions partners. This is something this church is doing extraordinarily well and has been doing well for long time
What I’ve learned about this church through talking with the elders over the last few months is that this is a church that strives to be generous in numerous ways. I’ve seen it. Just go down and look at that bulletin board in the entryway and see the number of missionaries that are being routinely blessed by the funds coming into and then being sent out of this church. Not to mention the funds that are likely just sent over there personally.
I challenge you to find another church this size doing that sort of ministry. I believe we have 11 dedicated missions partners that are able to spread the gospel message because of that generosity. That’s incredible and something to celebrate, for sure
The very first meeting I sat in was a meeting working through some budget procedures and the leaders in that room talked about how a certain pot of money was going to be distributed to people in need down in North Carolina between a few different missions. Nearly every meeting I’ve been in since has had some element of conversation revolving around how this church can be generous. It’s exactly how the body of Christ should be acting towards those in need and I love being part of those conversations
We also want to be a congregation that is able to pull this off in the communities where we live. It’s about so much more than sending our money across the country or overseas. It’s important that our generosity leads us to seek ways to bring people closer to God and to each other.
Like we talked about last week, it certainly helps in this regard for us to be people who are shaped by prayer.
Consider for a moment other ways you might be able to see your own generosity play out. What spiritual gifts has the Lord given you that you can turn around and give away in order to draw someone closer to Jesus
Do you have discernment and wisdom? Can you sit with people in desperate situations and offer sound biblical advice? Are you able to show empathy to people in a way that comforts them?
Is it teaching or encouragement? Are you a person who can’t help but be mesmerized by the word and it wells up you in so much that you need to help others work it out? Do you want to guide people in expressing their faith through the good works of the church, strengthening their relationship with Jesus along the way?
Maybe you’re a person of service who happens to be an amazing craftsman. Who in your neighborhood could benefit from a helping hand? By becoming a go-to person who selflessly serves the needs of others, you become a trusted voice to those people. Never discredit the simple act of helping someone “just because.” Love is the motive to help our neighbors. Let people see who are through your kindness and willingness to pitch in
In a lot of cases, an initial act of charity, or by taking care of the needs of others, this kind of thing can go a long way towards building relationships. When Jesus teaches us to store our treasures in heaven, he’s not asking us to liquidate our pr
And here’s the thing, you’ve gotta let your authenticity shine when doing these things. These intentional acts of love and kindness are the way to pave the road to the kingdom for others. We are in sync with the Lord when we share what we have and with his creation because of his generosity towards us. By acting in this way and building these relationships, we earn the right into people’s hearts who might not know Jesus.
When Jesus says to store up things in heaven, these are the types of things he’s talking about.
Secondly, we’ve got to make sure we’re in it for the right reasons.
In verses 22-23, Jesus gives us this parable about healthy eyes and unhealthy eyes. He talks about the healthy eye being one filled light and the unhealthy eye being filled with darkness
This is one of those passages that really gives me pause. It’s really heavy and it’s really easy to pass over. On the surface it’s seems pretty obvious what Jesus is trying to convey. Your eye will be filled with light if you’re focused on the right things. If you’re not focused on the right things, your eye will be filled with darkness. But what are the right things and what are the wrong things? And how do we even tell the difference? Those things seem pretty obvious as well.
But then to complicate the entire thing, He throws this out there, “And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!”
Maintaining our focus on Jesus’s teaching about our relationship to our money and stuff it’s important to remember people can do some pretty terrible things that are born of greed and selfish ambition. This can serve both as a warning to us not to do these things, but also to safeguard ourselves against it happening to us.
There are constant reminders throughout scripture regarding how we should the poor, our neighbors, and those in need. I would say we should go as far as working to protect those who might become victims.