Fearless Generosity
Notes
Transcript
1 | OML Intro
Hebrews has shown us what it looks like to live by faith in what we can’t yet see—even when the cost is high. That’s the life we’re invited into with our church wide vision entitled, “One More Life.”
We are calling it One More Life because as followers of Jesus we are called to live by faith as we carry Jesus’ good news to those God has put in our lives.
Our Church Values seek to embody what it means to be a community of faith in Jesus.
Our first three values are all about who we are—our identity in Christ: We follow Jesus. We are Gospel-Centered. We are One.
Then there’s the second triad—how our faith takes action: We are extravagantly hospitable. We are fearlessly generous. We are daringly missional.
Last week Renaut started off the series focusing on God’s extravagant hospitality to us and our calling to demonstrate the hospitality we have received through him to serve one another within the family of God, and those beyond our walls. If you missed it, it’s worth catching on the podcast.
Tonight we look at our next value, we are fearlessly generous.
So what exactly is fearless generosity?
Is generosity leaving a tip just because a screen pops up at a kiosk at the sandwich shop, and you feel awkward not at least pressing a dollar?
Because let’s be honest—what actually counts as generous? It’s often totally subjective, isn’t it?
2 | What do the Scriptures say about this tension?
So what do we mean when we say fearless generosity?
To understand what we mean by fearless generosity we have to go back to the beginning of the story of the Bible, the story of us…
When we envision our world, it is hard to imagine any version of reality where all of what we experience didn’t exist. So our universe, our planet, our families, and our lives feel inevitable.
But according to the Bible, there was a time before time when all that we have experienced, all matter was not.
Read Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
When the mystery of the trinity was all that was, God lived in perfect harmony as Father, Son, and Spirit.
He wasn’t lonely or waiting for someone to love him or be loved by him.
In other words, he didn’t need this universe or us to exist within it.
So why did he begin his expansive creation project in Genesis 1-2?
His unfathomable generosity.
Generosity is not a reality expressed out of the need of the giver, but out of desire to sacrificially love the recipient.
Have you ever been to a friend or family member's home for a dinner party, maybe for a special holiday, and it seemed like the food never stopped coming out of the kitchen?
That type of abundance and generosity is what planet earth was created to sustain. In the land of Eden was a Garden, and in the Garden was placed the first man and woman. And they were told to eat to their fill of all the delicious fruit bearing plants and trees.
There would be no relational lack as God would dwell with humanity, and with his command to humanity to be fruitful in multiplying humanity across the globe.
But that image of abundance probably doesn’t line up with any of our experiences of planet earth.
Those raised in poverty are painfully aware of scarcity, lack, and need. And even the wealthy are filled with a heart longing for security, fearful of losing and pursuing the ever elusive desire for MORE.
So what happened?
Sin.
The Serpent appeared before the humans and through his half truths and downright lies he convinced them that God was holding out wisdom and knowledge out of his desire to hoard power and control. In other words, God is not nearly as generous as he is made out to be.
And in that distrust the humans take what looked good in their own eyes and welcome sin into the story of humanity, and with it brings the consequences of death, scarcity, and unreachable desires to complete security.
The first humans are removed from the Garden, and they go on to have their first two children, Cain and Abel.
Both grow up and prepare to make an offering before God, Cain makes an offering from the fruit of the ground. Cain gave out of convenience, not faith—reflecting a mindset of scarcity.
While Abel gave his first and best, the best cut of his lambs for sacrifice.
God looks with favor on Abel’s offering, but not so with Cain.
Abel’s offering is a faith offering. He is living as if he was still in the Garden. Offering up the first and best, rather than the last and worst.
Abel is giving us the first example of a human responding to God’s unbelievable generosity with fearless generosity.
But Cain cannot handle it.
And yet in God’s kindness, he speaks to Cain… you can almost feel God’s care and quietness firmness in his words…
Read Genesis 4:6-7
The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
God is telling him, there is enough of my generosity to go around! When you do well, I will honor that reality. But sin is crouching like a beast, waiting to convince you that the world of scarcity is the real world.
But instead of listening to the voice of God, he listens to the voice of the crouching beast and takes his brother's life.
And this is a microcosm of the story of humanity that would unfold from there…
In a world of scarcity, where there is never enough to go around. Where security of food, water, land, time, relationships, finances, and mental bandwidth can never be fully relied upon.
And out of that insecurity and scarcity comes the unending ways that humans sinful take what looks good in our own eyes, whether it is other humans, their possessions, their property, or their lives.
It is clear that humans are no longer living in the Garden world of abundance.
And yet God does not end the story there…
Oftentimes we envision generosity based on what is given, such as the great QB from my team the SF Niners Brock Purdy gave each of his linemen a new Toyota Tundra—roughly $500,000 in total.
These gifts made a tangible impact in the lives of the recipients.
But at the same time, without in any way criticizing the generosity in this story… I’ll be honest—I loved hearing that story at first. But then I found out Brock had signed a national ad deal with Toyota earlier that year. Suddenly I had to wonder… was it generous, or just smart branding?
Is it generous if it doesn’t cost anything?
When it comes to generosity, it is not how much we give, but how much we have left that makes it fearless or not.
Fearless generosity isn’t the absence or suppression of fear—it’s choosing to live in generosity anyway, because of faith in what we cannot yet see.
What does this have to do with God’s generosity toward us mere humans?
Everything.
God’s generosity demonstrated in creation transforms into a generosity lived out in redemption…
He does this through the unbelievable, sending Jesus into the story of humanity as the ultimate act of fearless generosity…
Up until this point in the story of creation, God had given generously, but it was out of an unending abundance. He simply spoke—and it was. No strain. No lack. Just limitless generosity flowing from his abundance.
From Eden to the Cross, God had always been generous. But on the Cross, he was fearlessly generous.
But when God sent Jesus onto our planet, he was surrendering the one thing he could not create or easily get over. His own son. God himself dwelling in the flesh of humanity. Experiencing our human limitations and needs. Putting himself through temptations and everything you or I experience.
Why?
Read John 3:16
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Love.
He loved his special creation, and he didn’t desire to usher in his new Kingdom apart from their participation in the story.
And so Jesus came as a Rabbi, a teacher, proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom. Calling all those who would come, to follow.
And he taught a lot.
In fact, out of all the recorded teachings we have from Jesus he spoke on the topics of stewardship, generosity, and finances more than any other.
Read Matthew 6:19-21
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Jesus was not sitting idly in the Heavens unaware of human suffering as he spoke these words. He had grown up as a human in abject poverty, watching the people around him being heavily taxed by the Roman oppressors, a world without a middle class and a small 5% upper class. And yet this message wasn’t just for the wealthy, it was for everyone.
He is saying we can all agree on the reality that nothing here is permanent. We live in a world of scarcity, need, and want. Where even the things we treasure will one day break down into disrepair.
Maybe you’re thinking, ‘Okay, spiritual treasure. Metaphorical reward.’ But Jesus isn’t talking about vague ideas—he’s talking about real treasure. Kingdom treasure. Just as tangible as anything we know… only eternal.
He is speaking of treasure that is just as tangible as what we experience here and now, except minus the whole sin, death, scarcity, and ingratitude thing. Kingdom Treasure.
Jesus is claiming not that we get a bigger quantity of a lesser treasure. He is saying we get more of the best and longest lasting treasure imaginable.
Jesus came to proclaim the Kingdom. A very real physical place. More real than our world. It is true reality. This is the fractured version.
And here and now Jesus says the way we view our fractured possessions in this fractured existence matters greatly.
And that’s the challenge—where we put our treasure, our hearts will follow. And if we don’t place our treasure in the Kingdom, fear will steer us somewhere else.
He would give a powerful example of this when he was one day in the temple in Jerusalem and he was being questioned by the religious scholars.
Read Luke 21:1-4
Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Jesus elevated the gift of the widow, not based on what she gave, but he notes what this cost her. She was giving her offering as a faith response. Putting her confidence in that which she could not yet see, and gave fearlessly.
In a world of scarcity we are tempted to hold on, hold back, find our security in those realities and don’t let go.
But Jesus continued to articulate that that makes sense… if this world is all there is.
But the Kingdom is the real world! And it is coming!
And it was inaugurated through the fearless generosity of God toward us on the cross.
As Jesus shed the blood of the God-man, as his body was marred and broken.
Can we just pause and acknowledge for those of us who do believe Jesus is in fact God in the flesh, that he didn’t have to do this?
This wasn’t some sort of bill that he owed to humanity. He paid our debt, not his own.
It would be through his costly blood shed for humanity that the Kingdom of abundance could begin to take root in our hearts and in our world.
This is what we refer to as the Gospel, the good news. That although he didn’t have to. He did. He went beyond Keanu Reeves buying motorcycles for his stunt team—he gave his life, the most costly gift ever offered.
And this good news changed everything.
He would offer his own Holy Spirit to dwell within his followers until the end of the age of the Church.
And you see the impact the Spirit began to make, transforming the vision of the early followers of Jesus away from the world of scarcity and toward seeing the world through the lens of the abundant coming Kingdom.
Read Acts 2:42-47
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
And here’s the thing—this isn’t just history. This is the Church we belong to. The same Spirit. The same mission. The same invitation to live fearlessly generous lives as a reflection of Kingdom abundance.
Read Revelation 22:1-3
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.
What would it mean to live like that tree of life is real?
Revelation is apocryphal poetic language, so exactly what all of this will look like when the Kingdom of Abundance arrives on this earth in fullness is unclear.
But what we do see is a never ending abundance of the water of life flowing from Jesus’ throne… and it produces life, a new tree of life that is somehow one tree on two different sides of this river of life. And it produces continual never ending fruit on its branches.
No more offerings of scrapes to God, God is offering a gift of unlimited abundance of his life to his people.
It is this vision of eternity that shaped the generosity of the global church through the ages in the midst of hardship and ease. What if that vision transformed our view of generosity today?
3 | Tension and Gospel
What an unbelievable picture of the reality that is to come.
But if you are like me, you feel the pull of scarcity. Whether it’s time, money, emotional bandwidth—there’s never quite enough.
The Gospel shifts that vision.
We’ve received from a God who gives not just from abundance, but from cost. Jesus didn’t give leftovers—he gave everything.
And that fearless generosity becomes the model and power for ours.
Which reminds me of my friend Nick’s story, so we wanted to invite him up on stage tonight to share his story…
(Nick Story)
What I love about stories like Nicks are that they are personal and yet they are the story of all of us, all of us find ourselves in seasons of need, and all of us will find ourselves in seasons of opportunity… sometimes both at once!
Our vision for the years to come is to go after the “one more”
To allow God to use us to draw his kids into his family.
But this is not a vision that calls us to just get trained and creative with Gospel presentations.
Read John 13:35
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Our best evangelism strategy? How we love each other.
Jesus designed generosity to show the world his love.
How are we being called to be fearlessly generous within the family?
Throughout this series we are asking those who call Mosaic Church home to commit to certain realities for the next year ahead… one of which is born out of this reality that We are Fearlessly Generous.
If you’ve seen giving mishandled, we understand. That’s why we focus on generosity as worship, not guilt. Our giving is an intentional response to the generosity we’ve received.
And so our focus in shepherding is toward intentional, sacrificial, generosity as a faithful response to God’s generosity.
Why are we called to give in generosity to the local church?
It’s a response of faith to the generosity of our generous God.
It is a way in which we steer our hearts toward the Kingdom of abundance.
The church is not just a place of reception but a community of participation.
You see it is not a have to, it is truly a get to…
For all those who currently partner together in generosity, this makes this a place where generosity is felt—through the welcome table with fresh donuts, the brand-new Bibles someone gets to take home, the sound system that helps someone clearly hear the gospel for the first time.
As we collectively grow in fearless generosity as a community, we get to better care for our staff, resource ministry spaces, and create new ways to serve our community, strengthen our budgets, and prepare for new opportunities—including a potential Mosaic campus in Horizon West.
And it allows us to increase our generosity as a church, as we pass along in generosity 10% of our budget each year to local and global partners year over year.
What if our church became known as a community that lives like the Kingdom is already here?
We mentioned the commitment cards that all those who call Mosaic Church home will bring together on April 13.
I do not know how God is calling you specifically to participate in living a fearlessly generous life as you consider what to write down on your card, but here is what I do know…
The God of the universe is inviting us to participate with him as we live in faith! So this isn’t about a specific amount or percentage, this is about your response and mine to live in faith as a community that is fearlessly generous.
Let’s pray.
