God's Pattern of Generosity

Can you ever remember a time when you felt like your parents asked you to do something you couldn’t do? Maybe your boss gave you an impossible deadline, or maybe you have a bill you can’t pay?

Maybe that’s how you feel as we have gone through these messages in our look at the Sermon on the Mount? Just a quick rundown of the areas we have hit: pride, lust, prayerlessness, doing stuff for others to see, fasting, giving, anger, influencing the world around us, love of money, worry, judgmentalism…

Throughout this sermon, Jesus has constantly challenged us. In fact, he has set an impossible standard. There is no way we can live up to this on our own. We cannot try hard enough; we cannot be good enough; we cannot do this on our own.

So, then, is he setting us up for failure? Doesn’t that seem twisted and demented? Tell people that if they are really going to be servants of God; if they really want to follow him, they have to do stuff they can’t.

Does that make God like your dad or your husband or your boss that you can’t keep happy?

Not at all. This morning, we are going to see Jesus again pointing us toward hope.

You see, we find in Matthew 7 that Jesus outlines for us God’s pattern of generosity.

Go ahead and open your Bibles to Matthew 7:7.

We are turning a bit of a corner in our study of the Sermon on the Mount.

We only have a handful of more messages before we wrap up our study of what God expects of his kingdom citizens.

As Jesus is bringing his message to a close, he is weaving themes back in that he has introduced before.

Having taught us so much about life in the kingdom, he is driving home key ideas and concepts that we need to take hold of.

This morning, there is one key idea that comes out of these verses: God’s kingdom is marked by generosity.

Let’s take a minute and make sure we’re on the same page about generosity. When I say that God is giving generously, I don’t necessarily mean that God is generously giving us lots of money and surrounding us with stuff. What it does mean, as we have talked before, is that God will generously supply everything I need to obey him if I will ask, seek and knock.

Not only that, we see that he expects us to show that same kind of generosity to others. He expects us to extend grace, compassion, kindness, and justice towards others, just like he has to us. Sometimes, that may mean that we give when we would rather save or spend. It may also mean we give our time and a listening ear.

With that understanding of generosity, then, let’s read through these verses, and then we’ll dive in and take a closer look...

1) God is generous to us.

Go back to verses 7-8.

These are such simple and direct statements that we can easily miss how profound they are.

Before we dive into specifics of what Jesus is telling us to do here, we need to stop and think about how incredible it is that God actually gives us what we need, that we can find him, and that we can even come into his kingdom at all.

Do you realize, I mean actually grasp, that God owes you nothing?

Sure, many of you have been in church for years and know that God is over everything, and you are to serve and honor him, but really slow down to think about how you think about God.

Is there a part of you, even a small one, that feels like God ought to give you what you ask for in prayer because he owes it to you?

After all, you come to church, you try to watch your language, you sing songs with the praise team, and you do all the good things. Shouldn’t that earn some kind of credit with God?

No! Remember what you and I deserve? We deserve to die because we are selfish and have turned our back on God and don’t honor him as we should.

Even if we take sin completely out of the picture, there is no reason God owes us anything. Listen to how Paul describes Jesus’ relationship to creation:

Colossians 1:15–17 CSB

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.

Who on earth are you that thinks that the God who created heaven and earth and everything in them, who holds all things together, owes you anything?

He is God! You aren’t!

That’s what makes this so incredible. Although you and I have no right in and of ourselves to ask God for anything, what does Jesus say?

If we ask, he will give us what we need. If we seek him, he will let us find him. And if we knock, we can gain entry into the kingdom of God.

The God who created the sun, moon, and stars, the one who sustains every living thing, is generous to you!

Look back at the promises in verse 7-8.

If that doesn’t fill you with awe, then I would challenge you to take good, hard look at yourself.

So, is this a promise that God is some kind of cosmic Santa Claus who gives me what I want for Christmas because I have been good this year?

Does it mean that if I ask God to keep me healthy, I’ll never get sick, or that if I ask him to give me lots of money, he will do it?

Let’s think about it in context. What has Jesus already told us in the Sermon on the Mount that we are to ask for?

We are to ask for his name to be honored as holy, for his kingdom to come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are called to ask for God’s daily provision for our needs and the needs of others around us, and for forgiveness when we sin and strength to stand when tempted.

What are we called to seek?

Matthew 6:33 CSB

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.

He hasn’t directly told us to knock on any doors, but the last half of this chapter looks at how we gain entry into God’s kingdom, so given the context, that seems to be what he is indicating.

This is the confidence that we have: that we can ask God to exalt himself and his kingdom as he meets our needs and the needs of those around us, and God will do it.

Read verse 8 again if you doubt me.

“Yeah, but Sean, how can I know?”

Look at the example Jesus uses in verses 9-11.

Some of you did not have good dads, so this isn’t as easy a picture for you.

However, if you had a halfway decent dad, this makes sense, right?

If you asked your dad for a loaf of bread, he wouldn’t give you a stone that was shaped like one, right? If you asked for a fish, he wouldn’t give you a snake that looked like an eel instead, would he?

No! Dads who love their kids don’t act like that.

Even as imperfect as we are, most dads I know want their kids to have good things, and they love to see them get them.

You know what, though? Even the best dads are sinners. We still get selfish and don’t want to give or get up and play or whatever it may be. There are still times when we don’t look out for our kids like we should.

Yet we still love to help our kids have good things.

See how Jesus summed that up in verse 11?

As selfish and imperfect as we are as dads, we still love to give our kids good gifts. How much more, then, can we expect that the God of the universe, the God who loves us more than we could ever imagine, the God who is morally good and just in ways we can’t fully comprehend--how much more can we expect that he will give us the good things we need?

Remember how I said Jesus is starting to review different themes he has brought up during the Sermon on the Mount? Here is one of them.

In fact, let’s think about all that Jesus has told us about the Father so far:

He is the one who sees what is done in secret & rewards us (6:4, 6, 18)

He is the one who knows what I need before I ask (6:8)

He is the one who gives us our daily bread (6:11)

He is the one who feeds the birds so they don’t go hungry (6:16)

He is the one who clothes the flowers so they look beautiful (6:30).

This is the one Jesus says gives good things to us.

In fact, James would later write:

James 1:17 CSB

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

He gives us every good and perfect gift!

The rest of the New Testament teaches us that God isn’t stingy with the gifts he gives. For example,

Ephesians 1:7–8 CSB

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding.

James 1:5 CSB

Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him.

Our God generously gives us what we need. He is a good, loving Father.

What do we do in response?

Go back to what we have seen: we ask, seek, and knock in confidence.

That confidence isn’t based off the fact that we have been good enough to earn an audience with or favors from God.

Instead, that confidence is based off the fact that, through Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and lordship, you and I can be adopted into the family of God.

As his children, then, in Christ, we can come to him and ask boldly for him to glorify himself in and through our lives, to seek to know him, and to enjoy all that it means to be in his kingdom.

He’s a great father, better than any earthly dad, and he gives the best gift of all to his children: himself.

That isn’t the only way, though, that Jesus tells us to respond.

We are shown incredible generosity as God graciously gives, reveals himself, and opens his kingdom to us.

However, Jesus makes it clear that it isn’t supposed to stop with us. That’s why we also see that...

2) God expects us to be generous to others.

Go back and reread verse 12.

This verse has been called “The Golden Rule”, because like Jesus says, it sums up much of Christian ethics in a very compact way.

In fact, Jesus says that this is the essence of the Old Testament ethic as he says, “it is the Law and the Prophets.”

Did you notice the first word in the verse? “Therefore”?

Remember, that’s a word that makes us stop and think, as cheesy as it is, “What’s the ‘therefore’ there for?”

“Therefore” always calls us to look at what has come before it, and says, “In light of what we have seen, do this...”

Jesus has just finished reminding us of how gracious God is to us. In light of God’s kindness and generosity, we need to extend that same treatment to others.

John explained it in one of his letters this way:

1 John 4:10–11 CSB

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.

We are called to love others the same way we would want to be loved, which is to say that we would love others the way that God loves us.

Now, let’s tie this in to what we have seen recently.

Look back up at 7:1...

Do you see the thread running through this?

We need to be cautious how we judge others, because we can expect God to use the same standard for us.

Not only that, but we are called to treat others like we would want to be treated. No one wants others to be critical and condemning of them, so don’t act that way toward others.

Instead, model the generosity of the God who gave himself for you!

This brings us back around to another subtle comparison.

Remember how we said God doesn’t owe us anything, but sometimes we get upset if God doesn’t do what we want like we want him to because he owes us?

We do the same thing to other people when they don’t treat us like we want them to treat us, right?

That’s especially true if we have gone out of our way to do something nice for them.

We expect it to be reciprocated. After all, aren’t I doing “unto others what I would have them do unto me?”

Go back and look more carefully. Jesus tells us that we are to behave towards others like we would want them to behave towards us, but the word there is “want,” not “expect.”

God’s kingdom is so marked by generosity that we are called to treat others the way we would want them to treat us, whether they ever do or not.

This doesn’t mean that we are called to stay in an abusive situation forever, because enabling someone to continue abusing you is not helpful to them or to you.

However, it does mean that we are slow to demand our rights, that we keep loving, even when we feel like others aren’t keeping up their end of the bargain.

We are called to be generous and gracious to others, just like we would want them to be to us.

After all, isn’t that what God does for us?

Bring it back to the message of the gospel: You and I were dead in our sin, separated from God, and without hope. Yet God, in his grace and generosity, gave his own Son to die in our place and be raised from the dead. He has broken the power of sin and death, and now he offers you his life in place for your sin.

When we ask him to save us, we receive his gift of salvation and are adopted into his family. The door of the kingdom is opened to us because of Jesus, not because of us, but we can enter in.

Even, and especially, after God has saved us, adopted us into his family, and brought us into his kingdom, we cannot ever do enough to repay him.

We are still selfish, lazy, arrogant, and dumb.

Yet, God is so gracious that he still allows us to ask, seek, and knock, and he grants us what we need.

Respond to that by letting your heart be captivated again by awe for what he has done. Not only that, be bold in asking God to work in and through you for his kingdom and his glory. Seek to expand his kingdom wherever you have influence, and live like you are a kingdom citizen.

Pray for God to strengthen you so that his generosity can flow out of you into the lives of those around you so that they too could ultimately know Christ.

Ask, seek, and knock, because your loving heavenly Father has great gifts to give.