Sermon Tone Analysis

Generosity Flows Out of Your Margin

MESSAGE TITLE: Generosity Flows Out of Your Margin

Date: 3/3/2019

INTRODUCTION

READ: NIV – GOOD SAMARTIAN

We think how could they do this – pass by someone that is in trouble

NIV – GOOD SAMARTIAN

We think how could they do this – pass by someone that is in trouble

Alternative – Priest & Levite they had places to be, commitments, things to do, schedules to keep.

They had no margin.

GENEROSITY

One of the greatest hindrances to generosity is lack of margin in our lives

FOR US

Sometimes our lack of generosity isn’t related to our heart, it’s that our schedules are so full of things that we don’t have the margin to respond.

MARGIN

Margin is the gap between our load and our limit

Margin is the space between our load and our limits.

MESSAGE TITLE: Generosity Flows Out of Your Margin

PRAYER

AREA 1

When you’re a kid you have some activity in your life - Being a kid is awesome though, when you get tired your parents get involved and make you take a nap - When you’re a kids you activities and balanced with rest

Then you go to primary school and a few activities start to get added - Then you go to high school and things ramp up a bit - Then some of us go to university and get a car - Then we get married - Children: I know before we had children we though we were so busy.

When children come you have to go to school events, gymnastics, swimming, music lessons & soccer - Then we buy a house – there are repairs.

We accumulate things.

Are you feeling the tension?

How much more can you add?

Sometimes we can get like this and not know that we are in that place

This is the place of no margin - We live in a culture in which it’s easy to have no margin

SUCK IT UP

Through the process we learn – Kids have balance but adults need to suck it up and get done what needs to be done - You can to a point but you have limits - We have to decide, are we going to live within our limits or beyond our limits with no margin - Let’s be clear, we are never going to have a stress fee life – tension helps us grow - but we have limits.

LIMITS

Human beings, just like everything else in this creation, you and I have limits, physical, emotional, and mental limits.

COMPROMISE

Living beyond our limit can bring us to compromise - Compromise keeps us out of his presence and his anointing

“GOOD THING”

Often we are not choosing between good things and bad thing, often we are choosing between good things and good things

Just cause it’s a good thing doesn’t mean it’s a God thing

God is calling us to a life of balance so that we have space to be generous, generous with our time, generous with our speech, generous with our finances.

AREA 2 - BALANCE

READ: Amplified Bible (AMPC) - MARY AND MARTHA

Amplified Bible (AMPC) - MARY AND MARTHA

MARY – Mary was taking it all in – She had prioritised hearing from Jesus

MARY – Mary was taking it all in – She had prioritised hearing from Jesus

She realised that whatever she was doing wasn’t as important as what was happening in that moment

MARTHA – Martha was frustrated - It easy to allow our busyness to make us insensitive to what is happen around us - We can become blinded to the needs & feeling of others

Wisdom says slow down and get some margin - GENEROSITY

READ: Amplified Bible (AMP)

Amplified Bible (AMP)

ENEMY

When we are out of balance - Excess is the devils playground – When we are beyond our limits we are most venerable to attack.

We can look to have our need met be unhealthy substitutes: affairs, pornography, excessive alcohol, illicit drugs

BALANCE

God blesses that which is in order, that which is balanced.

AREA 3 – WHAT’S IMPORTANT / REST

Imagine it this way: If you had only one month left to live, you’d be surprised at what you would trim from your life, what you would focus on.

What’s in your margin?

Important things or essential things?

Are you positioned for generosity?

Many people fill their margin with worldly things that they think are going to bring peace to their soul - The only place to find true rest is with Jesus

READ: New Living Translation (NLT)

New Living Translation (NLT)

Finish these sentences:

The last time I felt a quiet calmness was....

The last time our experienced true rest was…

CONCLUSION