Cultivating Generosity

SERMON: 2016-08-14--cr09c16--cultivating-generosity-part-3 SOURCE DURATION: 00:35:09.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The material at both the beginning and end of the provided windows consists of continuous theological exposition and pastoral application, forming the core of the sermon. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- We were looking last week at three things that we can reasonably expect as we grow in spirit-led generosity. Number one, we will increasingly reflect the character of our Father who is in heaven. We have a green screen there upstairs. We will increasingly reflect the character of our Father who is in heaven. Paul writing to the Ephesians, Ephesians 5, 1 & 2, "Be imitators of God therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Secondly, we saw that our giving capacity grows. The Lord Jesus, Luke chapter 6 verse 38, "Given it will be given to you, a good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap for with the measure you use it will be measured to you." I believe another translation says the measure that you give will be given back to you. And then thirdly we saw that of course as we grow in generosity our capacity to help other people increases. Paul writing to Timothy, "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth which is so uncertain but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. Nothing wrong with being rich. God gives us all things to richly enjoy. But with riches comes responsibility and doing good in scripture means sharing our wealth with a view of laying up treasure in heaven." Well that brings us this morning then to a fourth thing that we can expect as we grow in generosity and that is this, it will build a sense of Christian community. Listen again to these verses from our text 2nd Corinthians 9, 13, and 14, "Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ and for your generosity in sharing with them and everyone else. And in their prayers for you," now notice this, "their hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given you." In their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given you. If ever you've been on the receiving end of help, and I mean help freely given, help given without any strings attached, help given without any control or manipulation, then you will know that what that does is it warms your heart, it draws your heart towards the person who has stepped out and helped you, is that not true? Thursday night, the hottest night of the year, I went to bed around 1130, it was 28 on my thermometer, got up next morning, it was still 26, wouldn't you know it, the air conditioner at the parsonage died. I kept saying to Michelle, there's something wrong here because it's getting warmer and warmer and warmer and I went out with my trusty little flashlight in the middle of the night to see what the thing was doing and it wasn't doing anything. So what do you do? Well, I turned to my fix-it-all son, Michael, texted him in the middle of the night, called him first thing in the morning, he came over, looked at it, diagnosed the problem, got a replacement part and by nine o'clock next morning we were back in business. Do you think that my heart was warmed towards my second son? Well, it was warm in more ways than one, but it was really warmed towards him and you'll have similar situations where your heart is drawn to people who see you and care about you and you know that kind of affection can last a long time. It's come November 58 years ago that my twin nephews were born and my oldest sister and her husband were living with us in the farmhouse at the time. Labor started in the middle of the night, so husband and pregnant wife and my father all piled in the old Pontiac to go to the hospital which was at least 40 maybe 45 minutes away and wouldn't you know it, half ways to town, the car had problems and quit on them. I seem to recall, this is the middle of the night, that the car overheated because somebody had put the emergency brake on and the cables of the emergency brake had frozen with the mud on our mud roads. So here they are in the middle of the night, half ways to town with a woman in labor, what are you going to do? Well they did the only thing they could do is they found the nearest nearest house, pounded on the door, woke the guy up and asked him to drive them to the hospital which indeed is what he did. The reason I remember this is because for a long time afterwards as we passed this house on the way to town my father would always pointed out that he would say the savior of the twins lives there, the savior of the twins lives there. Now roll the clock forward, it's 58 years almost later, my wife and I are visiting PEI, we come by that old house, I think it's still there time and time again and every time we go by there I say to my wife the savior of the twin lives there. I've never met those folks, I don't even know if they still live there, I am bonded to that old house because my heart is affectionate towards those who provided that help and of course that's what Paul is talking about in their prayers for you, their hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Now in that context let me say just one or two things about what the Bible has to say about biblical economics. I mentioned last week that one of the problems in the world and virtually every country is the growing gap between the rich and the poor. If you are paying any attention to the Olympics in Rio then you will know one of the things they talk about there all the time is what they call the Flavelas, I believe they are. The Flavelas are the slums built right next to Copana or whatever the name of that beach is where a lot of this activity is taking place and the promise was that all the poor people would benefit from the games and the complaints of course are that it isn't doing them any good and it just reinforces the gap between the rich and the poor. And I said last week that governments tend to or people tend to lean to one of two directions in trying to solve the tension between the rich and the poor. Free enterprises just let us make money and that will improve everybody's economy and other people say we cannot trust entrepreneurs to do that and so we need government regulation. Well my son the youngest in Austin Texas was listening last week and he wrote me a long email to challenge my summary of free enterprise on the trickle-down effect. So he sent me this long email to straighten me out and more than that he is sending me a book that's really going to help me understand it properly. So I'm grateful for that but as I said the Bible does have a perspective on economics and earlier on in the previous chapter to our text 2nd Corinthians chapter 8 Paul talks about this in these words and here is what he says our desire our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard-pressed but that there might be equality at the present time your plenty will supply what they need so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need then there will be equality as it is written he who gathered much did not have too much and he who gathered little did not have too little now you'll have noticed the emphasis there on equality he says then there will be equality and earlier that there might be equality and then he quotes this verse from Exodus chapter 16 the verse 18 who remembers the context of that story he who gathered little and he who gathered much everybody had enough it's of course the story of manna you will recall that when Israel came out of Egypt they're going through the wilderness they were complaining because they were getting hungry and for 40 years God caused every morning manna to rain upon the Israelite camp and each of them was responsible for gathering two Omer's per person in their household that's about two quarts but the interesting thing is some gathered little some gathered more but by the time they came to consuming it everybody had enough he who gathered much did not have too much and he who gathered little did not have too little and Paul uses that in this particular passage as a principle of economics for Christian community he says it was never the intention that the rich should live up here enjoying their riches when the poor don't have enough down here he says if you've got a lot you need to share it with those who have little so that everybody has enough that's the message that he draws out of this and this you will recall is in the context this is in the context of the Saints in Jerusalem they they are in an economically deprived situation because of persecution and famine and Paul's argument if you read him elsewhere in in in his letters is that you benefited spiritually from them and because you have benefited spiritually from them they now must benefit material from you materially from you and he says I don't want you to give so that you're poor and they're rich no I want you to understand God desires equality now I don't believe for one moment that means that everybody needs to have the same income or that some people can't be rich and some people can be poorer what it means though is in the context of Christian community that if I have enough and you don't have enough then the love of Christ in me will want me to share with you my resources so that at least you have enough to get by on and to do well John you might remember in 1 John chapter 3 has exactly the same argument he says if anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need and has no pity on him how can the love of God be in him dear children let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth in actions and in truth now the biblical principle of course is that this cannot be coerced if you're poor you cannot demand somebody to share their wealth with you and if you have wealth you cannot just simply be demanded to share that wealth but the argument of scripture is if God's love lives in you then then there is a desire to take your resources and bless other people but the emphasis biblically is always on giving voluntarily from the heart each of us knows this verse each man should give what he has decided it is hard to give not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver God loves a cheerful giver God is a God of generosity demonstrated in the gift of his son remember the more we become like him the more joy we find in sharing our resources now so far we've been talking about our resources primarily in the context of material goods because that's what Paul is talking about in this particular passage but we don't have to limit it to that do we because we often talk about time talent and treasure some of us have more time than money question is what do we do with our time do we splurge it selfishly on our own pleasure do we use our time to invest in the lives of people around us do we reach out a helping hand where we can to those who don't have enough time to make ends meet we all have certain talent certain gifts gifts that were born with to one degree gifts that are imparted to us and anointed by God's Holy Spirit what we do with those gifts is an important part of building community and instead of just focusing on what I need and what I want how about we how about we come to a place of worship like this not simply asking the question what am I gonna get out of the service but what can I give to God and what can I give to the people around me one of the things that we've been talking about for more than a year now and come fall Valerie is going to implement this to some more considerable degree is to have each of the sections of the auditorium here as a pastoral care section and the vision is to have a leadership team in each section that is responsible increasingly for the pastoral care for those of you that sit in the section when you change seats you really mess up the system I want you to know that but that's the reality of the world we live in and the idea is not just to have leadership look after the needs of our community but to do that collectively because you know the days when all of us grew up and reasonably healthy families if that day ever existed and we kind of go sailing through life without too much difficulty those days are long gone by if they ever existed and some of us we come to a place like this we're burdened down are we don't we face financial pressure we face health issues and just to have somebody see me have somebody reach into my life listen to my story pray with me is huge component of Christian community growing up as the body of Christ and done properly and led by the Spirit it draws our hearts together it draws our hearts together because it means that we're seen it means that we're understood it means that that we matter and ultimately we need to know that we matter not only to God but to each other it's always easier to to assume that you know other people are going to do the work rather than I'm going to do the work but if you're in Christ as you give out of the place of treasure where God has blessed you rather than running out of energy which is always what we're concerned about if you are in the sweet spot of your gifting you're going to discover that as you sew into other people's lives and so many of you do this already and I don't want you to you know even think that I'm suggesting that's not the case but as you invest in the lives of other people you do the growing and your gifting multiplies because if you sew sparingly you will reap sparingly if you sew generously you will reap generously I've said this before you want to have friends then be a friend you want to have people invite you to their house invite them to your house it's as simple as that so as we grow in generosity we can reasonably expect that the Lord will use it to bind our hearts and our souls together it's not easy it's not without its challenges but that's what God is looking for which brings me to one more thing and I want to get to this and I'll try to be brief with it before we turn to communion but there's still a fifth thing that according to Paul's teaching here happens as we grow in spirit led generosity and that is the most obvious God receives the praise listen again to verses 12 13 & 14 2nd Corinthians chapter 9 this service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing and notice this in many expressions of thanks to God because of the service by which you have proved yourselves men 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 actually goes on here in their prayers back to that verse that we had earlier for you their hearts will go out to you because of the surpassing grace that God has given you two things in those verses that I read that we need to note about how God receives praise the first is because people's needs are met the service that you perform verse 12 is supplying the needs of God's people supplying the needs of God's people now while it is true that generally speaking God supplies our needs through other people seldom does manna fall directly from heaven and seldom does money come falling out of heaven to meet our needs it almost always comes through people but the fact that it comes through people doesn't change the fact that behind people stands God who has his eye on the sparrow and for that reason if you've ever been in a situation where you know financially you had your back against the wall and all of a sudden a check appeared in the mail or somebody thought of you and they they gave you some money to tie you over or or whatever else then you will know that you're not only grateful to the person who is helping you out in that particular situation but you're also grateful to God because it means God sees you do you know what I'm saying it means God cares it means you can trust God the next time when you hit a tough spot and so for that reason when our needs are being met however they are being met then praise rises before God because God has been so generous and kind and has spoken perhaps to other people to make sure that my needs were being met God's people ought to be a thankful people because so many of the blessings that we take for granted come from the hand of God how often do we not assume that it's going to rain regularly so that we can have a good crop and isn't it true that when those things are taken away then all of a sudden we begin to understand how ungrateful we are and how we take the blessings of God for granted in our lives God receives praise when people grow in generosity but Paul mentions a second reason here and that is because the people that receive the help are encouraged by the fruit or by the faith of those who are helping them these Saints in Jerusalem why are they going to praise God when they receive the gifts that are being collected among these Gentile Christians well as I said one reason is because their needs are being met and so they have good reason to be excited but it's not just that it's also because they see God at work in the lives of Gentiles these are people who were pagans people who were self-centered people who live for their own pleasure now they've come to Christ and because they've come to Christ their lives are changed and they are beginning to learn to be stewards of God's varied grace because of the service men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ and so their generosity demonstrates the power of the gospel and that the gospel has been doing its job they started out as self-absorbed pagans everything I have is mine I have full authority of my stuff they are moving towards love inspired stewards everything I have is God's and because it is God's he's inviting me to share it with you and I'm going to share it with you because he first gave everything to me fundamentally two different kinds of people in the world aren't there people who are totally self-absorbed they suck life out of everybody and people who are full of life and they give life to everybody now we all at one point or another find ourselves in one of those two places and there's nothing wrong with being needy and there is nothing wrong in needing to support the encouragement both of the Lord and of other people but remember what God wants to do is heal us fill us as his children in Christ so that out of God's generosity we get filled up and we now have the ability to share time talent and treasure with the people around us and that becomes the reflection then of the redemptive work of God in our lives that makes sense your enthusiasm blows me off the stage as we turn to communion this we're going to turn to communion in a moment but as we do there are three things that I'm going to ask each of us to do as we celebrate communion very simple things number one thank God for his inexpressible gift in Christ Jesus if I came to you today and told you you have just won a hundred million dollar lottery you'd be walking on water for the next six months you would be so excited at the prospect of such wealth the Bible talks about the unsearchable riches of God in Christ Jesus in Christ Jesus you become a child of God in Christ Jesus the creator sustainer of all the universe is your father has promised to look after you and has got good things in store for every one of your children the thing is we need eyes to see what God has done for us in Christ that's one of the reasons we celebrate communion it's a reminder of the price God has paid for the blessings that we experience so take a moment as we celebrate communion and say Lord I just really thank you for Jesus help me help open my eyes so that that I see the full value of what it is that is available for me through union with Christ I am with Christ a crown prince of the universe everything we need for time and eternity has been given to us in the person of Jesus then secondly take stock take stock of the blessings you have received in the course of your life take stock of your time take stock of your talent take stock of your resources most of us have far more than we ever need and that's okay because they are gifts freely given by God for us to enjoy don't ever feel guilty because your life is going well or because you have money in the bank or because you're in good health or you got a great job thank God for the blessings that you have received take stock of what is yours and then thirdly ask yourself and ask the Lord the question is there an area in my life where you want me to cultivate generosity is there a place where you want to stretch me where you want me to sow seed in the expectation of the harvest is there a lonely widow that you want me to visit is there a poor person that I can maybe share some cash with or help find a job is there somebody burdened down by the burdens in life that is in my sphere of influence that I can just carry before your throne and minister your love in your grace are there plans and purposes in the coming of God's Kingdom that you lay upon my heart and I'm not suggesting you go digging deep or whatever else just ask the Lord is there a place you want to stretch me and if there is the Lord has it is perfectly capable of knocking on the door of your heart and saying you know this is an area or I'm challenging you to step out beyond where you find yourself because as you do five things happen you will more closely reflect your father who is in heaven your ability to give will grow in proportion to your sowing your seed of faith there will be people in your sphere of influence who will be helped you will help in building community because people's hearts will go out towards you and because their hearts are going out towards you they're gonna pray for you and you're gonna be blessed out of your socks because you're getting back more than what you ever gave and that number five God gets praise God gets praise because people's needs are met and God gets praised because people see how Christ in you has transformed you more [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:35:06.200; remove through 00:35:09.000] and more into the image of the Lord Jesus [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:35:09.000; resume after this marked segment]