Generous Giving

I’m not sure who you think of when you think of generous people. Have you had many people in your life who you would classify as generous? Have you had good examples of generosity?

Most of us would say no. Most of us, perhaps, would have plenty of examples of those who are not generous, but are tight-fisted.

And that’s because generosity is hard. It’s difficult. Giving your hard earned money, money you deserve to have and spend, giving that to someone else who doesn’t deserve it and hasn’t worked hard for it, that can be difficult. So a generous person and their generous acts often stand out like a sore thumb.

But we need to be clear what generous giving is and isn’t.

Christian generosity isn’t bad budgetting.

It’s easy for us to see people who spend a lot of money on others as generous, and in one sense of the word they are. But the type of generosity that the Bible talks about, Christian generosity, isn’t careless. Carelessly putting everything on the credit card, even if well-intentioned, is not Christian generosity, that’s just plain old over-spending. Jesus never encourages anyone to blindly, put their head in the sand, and throw money away. That sort of giving doesn’t come from analysing the cost and benefit, it comes from pretending there is no cost.

Christian generosity is intentional.

Christian generosity is not born out of thoughtless spontaneity, but prayerful intentionality. Christian generosity isn’t emotions-led, it is Spirit-led.

The Two Axes of Generosity

I love real, authentic, Christian generosity! I love it! I love receiving it, I love seeing it when others do it, and I love doing it! And I love it because it’s different to secular generosity. You see, my mate John the Atheist might give money towards a charity, probably the Sea Shepherd knowing John. And he does that because that money is meeting a need. He sees the impact his donation will make and he contributes his money hoping to end the killing of whales. Now, if the Sea Shepherd don’t use that money wisely and the whales still get killed, then John’s money has been wasted! His generosity was of no benefit, and he should’ve done more homework in researching how the charity would use that money before he gave a cent.

So we might say that John’s generosity was based on his understanding that his donation would meet a need. So that’s our X-axis: we can be generous because it meets a need.

But Christian generosity is different in that it isn’t only motivated by the presenting need. It is also motivated by worship of our God. In 2 Corinthians 8 Paul writes this amazing few verses where he describes the generosity of the Macedonian churches, the churches from Macedonia, which includes the church of the Philippians. Let’s read 2 Corinthains 8:1-9 together.

2 Corinthians 8:1–9 NIV

And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us. So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving. I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

This is unreal. These guys are unreal examples of Christian generosity. There’s so much in there to learn from, but I particularly want to focus on verse 2.

“In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.” I’m not that good at maths, but very severe trials do not usually equal overflowing joy. And extreme poverty does not usually equal rich generosity. If you’re a mathematician or a scientist or even a psychology, none of this is linear! None of this predictable!

There isn’t a need that they are persuaded by, no, there’s just an opportunity to give. There’s an opportunity to “share in the service of the Lord’s people.” If you’re not convicted right now then you’re not paying attention! I’m convicted! I don’t give like that. So what is it that is motivating these oppressed, poverty-stricken Macedonians to dig deeply into their very shallow pockets?

Look at verse 9, Paul says,

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

The Macedonians aren’t motivated by the need, they’re motivated by the gospel. They aren’t giving to enable something to happen, they are giving in response to something that has already happened, namely Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.

And this is our Y-axis: the glory of God.

When your giving is in response to the gospel and for the glory of God, then it takes a lot off a lot of the weight of responsibility over who or what you give to! You can give to the Sea Shepherd and if they end up not saving whales you haven’t lost anything, because God is glorified and worshipped in the act of giving, not just in the result of the giving.

God is glorified when you hit ‘send’ on that bank transaction, or when you put the money in the bucket, or when you give the money to that homeless person, or to that friend or family member who is struggling. If that person goes and spends the money on drugs or the pokies, God is not less glorified by your generosity.

There’s a little bit of nuance that I’m skipping over here, but I’m wanting to be really clear because so often we say “I’m not going to give to that or this because what if...” what if they go spend it on drugs? what if they spend it on alcohol? what if they don’t pay their bills or spend it wisely? And our sense of judgment or superiority over them often stops us from being generous. Now I don’t want to say that it doesn’t what they do with they money, but I kinda wanna say it doesn’t matter. Because this Y-axis is the difference between Christians and John the Atheist. God doesn’t need your money to fix the problems of this world. So yes, be wise with your money, do research, but don’t forget that the act of giving does more in you than the person receiving it, so just give! Give wisely, but make sure you give!

I want to look at two people in the New Testament who were met with the opportunity to give and responded really differently. The first is in Matthew 19, and the second is in Luke 19.

In Matthew 19:16-26 , a rich man approached Jesus and asked him how get eternal life. Jesus says, “you know how, keep all the commandments”. The arrogant, rich man says, “Yeah I have, what else do I have to do?” And Jesus responds,

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.

Jesus perceives that this Jewish man with impecable moral character had an Achilles heel… his love of money. It is important to note that the love of money is not unique to rich people. You can still be poor, or middle-class, and still love money. In fact, you could argue that it’s easier for poor and middle-class people to love money. But this rich man loved money, and what is Jesus response to him? If you really love me, if you really want to enter eternal life, give it away to the poor.The young man then left, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Why did the man not give away all his money? Was Jesus not persuasive enough with his pitch? Did he not communicate the need well enough? No, Jesus wasn’t pitching to him, this wasn’t Shark Tank and Jesus failed to impress the sharks, this was Jesus saying “worship me by giving away your money”, give it to any charity, to any poor person, because it was more important that that man’s heart be transformed to worship God than how many beggars that money could feed for an hour.

In Luke 19 we meet another rich man, and I want us to read this one actually, so let’s look at Luke 19:1-10

Luke 19:1–10 NIV

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

When did Jesus talk to him about money? When did Jesus tell him to go and give his money to the poor? He didn’t! So why did Zacchaeus give half of his possessions to the poor and giving back four time what he’d cheated people out of? Not because he wanted to meet a need, but because his needs had already been met in Christ. In v9, Jesus says “Today salvation has come to this house...”

Zacchaeus interacted with Jesus, met Jesus, dined with Jesus, was saved by Jesus, and his