True Meaning of Generosity

Text :

Sermon Title : True Meaning of Generosity

Occasion : PLMGPS Chapel

Location : PLMGPS Hall

MPP : The true measure of generosity is about how you are giving, rather than the actual amount that is given, so learnt to genuinely generous…

Logistics : 1 cup, 2 erasers, 12 pens (Smiggles?)

Good morning, girls,

I’m so happy to finally be able to be with you this morning…

Even though I’ve been appointed to be a chaplain to you last August, circumstance had prevented me from being able to come and share with you, but I’m so glad that this morning, I finally have the chance to finally come and be with you…

This morning, I’m going to start by giving away something…

<Pick 1 girl, and ask for a close friend…

Here are two pens…

How many pens are you willing to give to your friend here…

Ok, here’s a twist…

How many pens you have, depends on how many erasers you can put in this cup…

Are you ready?>

I guess by now, it would be obvious what is the principle I am trying to illustrate here…

Not too long ago, when I was preparing this little sharing, there was a newspaper article which talks about 2 forklift operators that are going to be charged to receiving bribe…

If convicted for the charges, they will face up to S$100,000 or jailed for up to 5 years…

Do you know how much the bribe they received?

S$1

So, if you are able to calculate, how much they can be fined is 100,000 times the amount they received!

Well, at first that does not seem very fair right?

Well, the problem is that even though the amount the drivers received may be small, but the crime they committed is serious because they had violated the trust that had been placed on them and their responsibility to carry out their job justly…

The problem is not so much the act that they do, which is what you can see, but their attitudes and what they are thinking…

In other words, with little that they had access to, they are already cheating and showing that they are not trustworthy…

Do you think they are able to deal with much larger responsibilities?

Wouldn’t they show even more of such behaviour when the value of the things they deal with are greater, and the temptation to do so, even more?

For example, if you are a subject leader and you cannot do the things that are required of you in your subject, do you think you can take care of the whole class?

It is for this reason that the law doesn’t just look at the value of the bribe, but also the motivation behind the crime…

In other words, the law looks at the heart of the person committing the act as well, when passing judgement…

In a similar fashion, in today’s story which is taken from ,

The story talks about how Jesus was observing people putting money in the treasury and how some of the richer people were putting in a little of their abundance…

while this poor widow, was putting in two small copper coins…

to appreciate how much the widow gave, the author of the book explained that the copper coins are so small in value that you need two of them to make them equal in value to the smallest coin in the Roman currency…

the point is that even though the amount that the widow gave was so little that the temple probably wouldn’t be able to do anything useful with the amount that she gave…

Most people would look at the amount that the widow gave and think that what she gave was insignificant…

Especially when they compared what she gave with what the rest of the people gave…

But not Jesus…

He said that she gave more than the combination of all that the rest of the people had given…

in other words, Jesus was saying that the value of the two copper coins, was worth more than all the hundreds of thousands that the rest of the richer folks had given…

this would without a doubt cause some people to scratch their heads…

You see, this was Jesus’ main point…

those who focus on the exterior would definitely favour the gifts of the richer people because they gave so much more in terms of the dollar value of their gifts…

yet, Jesus preferred the gift of the widow and He explained that it is because the widow gave whatever she could…

When Jesus delighted in the gift of the widow, it was not that he delighted in the fact that the widow had now nothing to live on, but he delighted in the fact that the widow was extravagantly generous in her giving to the people…

Jesus could see that she genuinely had the heart to want to bless the people…

And that is far more precious than the physical gift that was given…

In fact, to describe the extravagant generosity of the widow, when the author wrote this section of the bible, the picture he had in his mind was that the widow gave her whole life into the treasury…

In other words, other than some of the other people who were giving because they had to, or to gain something in return, the widow showed true and genuine generosity…

Her heart was pure, free from deceiving thoughts and this delighted Jesus…

Jesus treasured the person more than the gift…

He knew what real treasure is… it is the generous heart which is far more precious than a superficial act…

The rest gave out of what the excess that they had… but the widow was willing to go the extra mile and that was appreciated by Jesus…

And this brings out a very interesting point doesn’t it?

It is so easy to give when you have so much, but when you have so little, you need to think carefully before you give…

Because when you have much, even when you give, you still have a lot left…

But when you have very little to begin with, even when you give a little, it still affects you quite a bit…

And you would have to think very carefully before you decide, yes… I know that I don’t have much, but still I want to give anyway… I want to help anyway…

It becomes harder to give when you have less to begin with, and when you decide to give anyway…

It is when you have little and yet still decide that you want to give… that is true generosity…

It’s just like how in the beginning, when <girl 1> had 5 pens, it was very easy to share with her friend, but when the number started to be reduced, you could see that she struggled with it a little more…

It is easy to be generous when you have lots, but it is more difficult when you have less…

And when you have less, giving a little already shows that you are exceedingly generous, so you don’t have to have much and give much to be generous…

Of course, what we have talked about so far is about material things…

Perhaps some of you are thinking, how does this apply to me since I’m not very rich or have a lot?

Or that all my friends have so many things or do not lack anything… how can I be generous to them?

But I’m sure you smart girls know the answer to that already…

Which is that generosity extends far beyond just material things…

What are the things that we have that we extend generosity by sharing?

I think one thing that we all have, whether you are a student, or a teacher, or a counsellor, but is also so limited is to share our time with our friends…

And because time is such a precious and limited thing, most of us would be careful with how we spend it…

And how can you be generous in the way you spend your time?

Whenever you see someone around you being sad, whenever you see someone struggling with her homework, whenever you see someone who had fell down…

If you stop what you’re doing and cheer the person up, if you stop your own work and help the person with her homework, if you stop what you’re doing and help the person who fell down get up, that is being generous…

Just like the poor widow, even though she had so little money and material procession, yet, she was generous with that…

Likewise, you can generous with what you got… which is time…

You can be generous by sharing your time with others to encourage them when they’re down, sharing your time with others when they need someone to talk to, sharing your time with others when they need someone to help them do something they cannot do by themselves…

So, do not forget to do good, and be willing to sacrifice by sharing with others what is precious to you, and what you have…

This is captured in our memory verse which is

: “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”

So that by doing so, you are able to create a more pleasant environment in this sheltering walls of PLMGS… building into the lives of each other… building each other up…

Which is what Jesus saw that day when he saw the poor widow gave what she could to the temple…

Which is what Jesus constantly does by stopping and sacrificing his time to meet the needs of people he comes into contact with..

So learn to be radically generous and learn to share what others need and what you can give… Amen…