Generous and Wise

This morning we are starting a series called Generous and Wise.

We want to look at what it means to live as a Christian in the world, in ongoing relationship between God and the self and the self and others around us.

The work of the church is to be both generous and wise in our relationships.

Why does it matter that we talk about this at all?

But this can’t always be assumed. Because we often have things that get in the way. Wisdom and generosity isn’t always our first starting point.

Because of the Stuff in our Lives

Now on this side of the Christmas season I don’t really have to convince anyone of this. We have stuff and we love stuff.

What this series will do is not bash our stuff or our having stuff but I will ask questions around what gets the priority. Because our stuff is good until it’s not.

We love our stuff and do not love anyone who gets in the way of our stuff. Stuff is not usually the issue. The way we understand our relationships both with our stuff and with those who are obstacles to our stuff is the issue.

We know we have issue with stuff because we have such a hard time letting go of things.

We feel strongly about our things: value

Look at the professional organizer Marie Kondo. She was super popular a number of years back because she gave a sort of process for organizing our homes. In order to take back control of the clutter of our lives one of the things she told us to do is to hold each item in our homes and ask if the object “sparks joy” and only keep the items that give us happiness or purpose.

Now this is not a terrible way to figure out what is meaningful to you or not but my point is that we have an emotional attachment to our stuff. Meaning we have a relationship to our things.

And we have assumed that the more stuff we have the better that relationship will be.

That accumulation is the highest order of human flourishing and that if we have enough things there will be enough joy sparked in our lives

But what if that’s not the case? What if there wasn’t enough stuff in the world to provide you with enough joy for your life?

We all have stuff. We all have people in our lives. And we have relationships with all that stuff and all those people. but is it producing the kind of life that God calls us to have and the kind of life we would ultimately want?

So it’s worthwhile taking some timeto discover what we have come to believe about our stuff and in our relationship to those things

We think about the things but don’t often think about how the things are forming us .

And what we will find is that Jesus has all sorts to say about that, about how we frame our lives and our church and our world too easily through the frame of trade and value of resources rather than the value of relationships.

This series will have to disrupt our understanding of what we value most and ask us to define our ultimate concerns in Christ and His Kingdom work.

We have to talk about value because

Value is about what we are investing in

We have stepped in as stakeholders of something,

in some kind of corporate body. We operate in a context and the economic question we have to ask is, “I am a stakeholder in this body. Is this the right place to commit?” (1)

This is why Jesus tells us

Matthew 6:21 ESV

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We all have treasure and we are all being generous somewhere. The question we need to ask is are we investing in the right things? Is our heart locating on the right treasure?

This is why it matters that we look at our lives around Generosity and Wisdom because we want to make sure our hearts are in the right place.

Generous and wise will look through those two frames to show how God calls us to care the the things and people around us 

But To do this well we will have to see how God cares for the things and the people around us.

If we begin to see God’s character and work toward us then we can truly see what it means to be generous and wise.

I want to show you a passage this morning that provides a good definition of how the Gospel both calls us to be generous and wise and equips us to do so.

The passage deals with the church in Corinth. Paul wrote 2 letters to this church and dealt with all sorts of issues. In our verses this morning we will see Paul is talking about a financial gift that the church is collecting for the work of ministry in the region.

We will see that Paul is not just talking about the gift itself, how much, when, etc. but deals with how the church is collecting the gift.

For Christians, it doesn’t just matter what we do, it matters how we do it. When we are called to deal with material resources, we do so through wisdom and generosity. These are the tracks that we will see our dealing with resources.

Generous and Wise Starts with Seeing God as Giver and All Else as Gift

We have to see what kind of a giver God is. What is the economy of God? How does He view trade and value?

2 Corinthians 9:8–11 ESV

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. As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 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. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

Our role is to see God as giver and all else as gift. This is necessary in our dealing with the stuff in our lives. If we are in relationship with the God of the universe then that relationship will touch every other relationship with have with our stuff and with others.

And we can see that in this verse God is the initiator of value. He is not only showing what is important, “all grace abounds to you” but is showing what that grace produces. If we understand that God is generous, then we can respond in kind.

The passage says we will be “enriched in every way to be generous in every way.”

People aren’t generous because they have too much, people are generous because they realize how enriched their lives are in Christ. And that, because they have enough in Him, they respond in generosity.

We talk about giving here at the church. And giving matters, not so that we can have enough but so that you can know that you in fact have enough. You are enriched in Christ if you have come under His rule and reign.

. We want to be a generous church because we have a generous God who has enriched us in real ways that then, as a response, we get to be generous.

So not that we have to give of our time, talent and resources, but that, because of the generosity of God, we have to give, we cannot help ourselves.

That is why Paul is calling for a cheerful giver.

This is the outcome of generosity and wisdom

2 Corinthians 9:6–7 ESV

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Look at the way this passage shows both generosity and wisdom

Paul uses the image of farming. That if you put a lot of seed on the ground then you are more likely to get more of a harvest.

And that if you put a little seed on the ground then you will likely get less of a harvest.

(Now a quick note on what you could be thinking when you hear this language. This is not referring to the “health and wealth gospel. This version of Christianity says that you deserve health and wealth and that to have it is a mark of faith and that part of having that faith is to be able to “sow bountifully”. So you may have heard people say, “sow into this ministry.”

But please understand this is not the Gospel at all. This is a heretical view, and exploits people into giving).

This is not what we are talking about. We are talking about being able to give from a place of having been enriched by God.

So to understand what this kind of generosity looks like we will start with wisdom

Wisdom

Looks at what the passage states in verse 7

2 Corinthians 9:7 ESV

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Paul is not demanding one gives, or even demanding what one gives. Paul is pointing to the individual to work out waht generosity looks like for them and their family.

Generosity

To be able to give generously is to have the resources in your life to respond to ongoing opportunity with more than is necessary or asked.

The reason generosity matters in the Christian life is that the focus is not on resources but the focus is on people, the focus is on the other. The issue is not even on the opportunity, it is about the other person.

Generosity rights all of our relationships with God, the others and our stuff.

It places our lives rightside up, putting people and solving issues with the right stuff, more than just accumulating the stuff itself.

The church is called to have a generous response to life. Having been enriched by God. Experiencing His forgiveness for our sins, His mercy, His goodness, we can reply to God, others and the world based on that.

Look at the way the church has responded generously to the world and others. It does not by any means communicate that we have reached any kind of perfection, but rather that we have become more and more trusting

This past year:

We have given about $30,000 to worldwide missions. We tithe 10% of our operating budget to people working for the good of the Gospel in the world and in our neighborhood.

We have help 3 major community events throughout the year. Because of your generosity and the work of the church, we have cared for our community in our trunk or treat, our Easter egg hunt for special needs kids and families and

We have cared for individual and families in need through the work of our Deacons who take time to care for and help others in times of need

We have served the community in raising money for counseling services in the community, for pregnant and new moms and new families, we have collected food for families in need.

We provide spiritual work and Christ centered services, Bible Studies and discussions for people to find what an enriched life in Christ can look like in the first place.

This is not to be able to look at what we’ve done but it is to say because of what you give, in time resources and skills, we can care for others well. Because you have given of yourself and your stuff in the past year we have been generous as a church. And we are looking forward to doing that again this year.

So this year, you may not think you have enough. I would invite you to take that concern to a Generous God.

And I would invite you to consider asking Him to lead you toward an enriched life in Him, that calls you to a generous response.

(1) Knowlton, Paul E., Aaron E. Hedges, and David P. Gushee. 2021. Better Capitalism: Jesus, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and MLK Jr. on Moving from Plantation to Partnership Economics. Cascade Books.

(2)Definition of economics: bear://x-callback-url/open-note?id=3E56678D-3A25-46FE-8DA6-54FD182FA058

(2)Value and trade: bear://x-callback-url/open-note?id=69F414EE-8254-4FF8-A070-E0AD556F4647