A Generous Heart
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 13 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Praise Report - Serving and Giving Report & Encouragement to give to certain causes and to serve in different ways
Last weeks Foundation
Generous God
God’s Generosity is indescribable
God’s Generous is tangible.
For those of you her weren’t here last Sunday feel free to give it a watch on our Facebook Page. We had a real holy moment where God break through and we experienced the presence of his love in a profound way. I struggled through articulating God’s indescribable Generosity and then talked about how despite the fact that God’s love is indescribable but that it became tangible in the person of Jesus.
Every moment of Jesus life was an expression of God’s generosity to us. And God’s Generosity plus the ministry of the Holy Spirit equals a heart that is blown away and in awe of the generosity of Jesus. Today we build on that platform and foundation.
Scrooge
Today we are going to talk about the Generous Person but before we dive in today let me just say that
We can’t truly be the kind of Generous people God wants us to be unless we first and foremost experience the generosity of Jesus ourselves. Have you experienced the generosity and kindness of Jesus? Because as the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit we are filled with the Generosity of Jesus so that we can in turn share that generosity with other people. Does that make sense?
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
What God has done in the person of Jesus reveals to us God’s plan for humanity.
That plan is that our Generous God wants to make generous people
It’s getting handy
Hook
It’s getting handy to Christmas. Now, honest question. How many of you have watched Christmas movies thus far? OK, how many have watched more than one? More than five? More than 10? Ok, Anyone that has already watched over 10 I’mmma gonna pray for y’all! lol
I was watching TV with Charlotte the other night and I saw one of the many, many versions of A Christmas Carol. This particular version called Mickey’s Christmas Carol was the Disney version with Scrooge McDuck starring as Scrooge.
A Christmas Carol📷First edition cover (1843)AuthorCharles DickensOriginal titleA Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.IllustratorJohn LeechCountryEnglandPublished19 December 1843PublisherChapman & HallTextA Christmas Carol at Wikisource
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler and more generous man.
Introduce Subject
It is amazing to watch Scrooge get confronted with himself and undergo this crazy transformation into a generous person.
Introduce Subject
This Morning I would like to talk about a Generous Person.
Generous God
God’s Generosity is indescribable
God’s Generous is tangible.
- Define Person
For those of you her weren’t here last Sunday feel free to give it a watch on our Facebook Page/
For those of you her weren’t here last Sunday feel free to give it a watch on our Facebook Page. We had a real holy moment where God break through and we experienced the presence of his love in a profound way. I struggled through articulating God’s indescribable Generosity and then talked about how despite the fact that God’s love is indescribable but that it became tangible in the person of Jesus.
Every moment of Jesus life was an expression of God’s generosity to us. And God’s Generosity plus the ministry of the Holy Spirit equals a heart that is blown away and in awe of the generosity of Jesus. Today we build on that platform and foundation.
A Generous God makes generous people
Today we are going to talk about the Generous Person but before we dive in today let me just say that
We can’t truly be the kind of Generous people God wants us to be unless we first and foremost experience the generosity of Jesus ourselves. Have you experienced the generosity and kindness of Jesus? Because as the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit we are filled with the Generosity of Jesus so that we can in turn share that generosity with other people. Does that make sense?
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
What God has done in the person of Jesus reveals to us God’s plan for humanity.
That plan is that our Generous God wants to make generous people
This morning I want to talk about how that whole transformation happens. The question I want to raise is how does a Generous God make a Generous person?
Define Person
Fallen Condition Focus
But first I want to identify the problem.
The Theology behind a stingy, greedy, selfish person
We can outwardly looking like we are generous because that’s “the right thing to do” but like for instance when our wife wants to be generous about something does the war wage inside your heart or vice versa.
Generosity is not just for them its for us
One of our greatest dangers here is being consumed by greed and materialism so we need generosity for our own good
Christ Solution
The Cross and resurrection give us the power to be free from being that stingy, greedy and selfish person because the cross and resurrection has broken the power of sin
We get the awesome opportunity to be a genuinely generous person - I think that is kind of cool and kind of a big deal
Transition to Text
Now I have to tell you the story of how I got to the Scripture verse that we are going to talk about today. We have totally changed the way we do prayer meeting and have made it so that a different person actually leads it every week and each person has the creative license to lead the first 30 minutes however they want. Ruth-Ann led this past week and what she did was she printed off a number of different passages of Scripture and handed two each to us that were gathered. What she wanted us to do was read our verse as she called them out and then pray in response the verse that we received. So in essence we were praying Scripture. Well, my serve was
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.
This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.
Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.
Now, let me tell you about my experience. I started reading the first section of this verse and my heart just began to stir and I literally had to stop and exclaimed out loud, oh my goodness this verse. I started again and I as I began to read down through it I thought of a number of different things.
This verse is a perfect them verse for our generosity series
Blown away by how much this verse makes sense
I had prayed that morning for direction and as soon as I read this verse I knew I had to preach on it
So this morning I would like to unpack this verse because I think this verse of Scripture holds a key for us to become a generous person.
We need to shift from being a consumer to a Steward
A Generous God makes generous people
We need to shift from being a consumer to a Steward
Our dream should be to receive so we can give
Growing up I always had this deep desire to be a Dad for some reasons
Greed and selfishness is a sickness that will kill us
Scrooge
The fruit of living in greed and selfishness
A caution about prosperity
So let just work through this verse and see how applying it can make us into a generous person.
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.
You will be enriched in every way
WHY - so that you that you can be generous on every occasion
You know why God has enriched you in every way SO THAT YOU CAN BE GENEROUS ON EVERY OCCASION. PERIOD! God has enriched your life with every good thing WHY? To make you a generous person. It is pretty black and white!
So as you look at your life would you say that God has enriched your life? PAUSE
If so, the application would be for you to be generous at every occasion God gives you the opportunity to do so.
So how’s that going? If you are one of those people that God has enriched your life how would you measure your generosity? Are you a generous person? The standard of generosity according to Scripture would be that we would grow to the point where we could be generous on every occasion. Now, I realize not all of us are there but doesn’t that sound like an awesome thing to go after as a goal????
I know for my wife and I we, if we are being honest we are not at the point yet where we feel like we can be generous at every opportunity. And part of that has to do with debt.
Recently my wife and I started a hard-core budget after I went to a personal financial seminar and got kicked in the butt. We set a goal when we want to be debt free and cut back on some spending. I’m happy to report that this month I will have my student loan paid off. We still have a ways to go. Why am I telling you this story? Well because I think debt hinders us from being generous at every occasion.
If the goal of being a generous person is to be generous on every occasion we are currently in a place where debt has tied our hands because God wants us to honour our commitments to those debts.
Again, why I am saying this. I want to caution us before we go in to Christmas to not put ourselves in all kinds of debt. Live within your means and the limits God has placed over you. Debt will restrict you from being generous on every occasion.
Do you see it?
If being generous on every occasion is the goal we are after Debt hinders us from reaching that goal.
So the application would be if you are in debt get out as aggressively as you can. And if you aren’t in debt don’t plan on it. Now, quick disclaimer, I’m not necessarily talking about things that appreciate in value like at times housing and sometimes as a business you have to use capital to build assets and production. I am talking about debt that causes things to depreciate in value. Now I am no financial expert and I am just sharing from my own experience.
My wife and I dream about getting to the point where we can be generous on every occasion and I think God wants us all to dream about becoming that kind of a person Amen?
Will you make that a dream of yours with me? What could God do with a church full of people who are exercising generosity at every occasion?
See what happens when we are generous person is God gets a whole lot of praise!!!
Let’s check out the rest of what that verse says.
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.
One thing I absolutely love about this verse is it so black and white.
So God blesses us in every way, which is amazing. He does this so we can be generous on every occasion. And as we are generous on every occasion our generosity produces thanksgiving to God for those we bless. So as we exercise our generosity God gets the glory and praise and thanksgiving. People recognize that our generosity is actually God’s generosity and they give him praise for it. People begin to recognize that a Generous God makes Generous people. And as a matter of fact when people experience the generosity of Jesus through us they are actually drawn into a relationship with him. And isn’t that the main goal? For people to be drawn into a relationship with Jesus.
https://www.facebook.com/theisraelinsider/videos/401034970431473/
So you don’t just snap your fingers and click your heels and become a generous person. Something has to shift in your soul and in in the way you think to become the generous person that can be generous in every occasion.
There is book called Soul Shift and in the book it points out a number of shifts that need to happen in our souls and in our lifestyles to make us into the people God wants us to be. One of the chapters in this book talk about the shift from being a consumer to a steward.