MK040 Sermons
The Gift of Generosity (Audio)
I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving this week and enjoyed some time together with family or friends and just being grateful for what God has done in your life this past year. My family and I had a chance just to have a nice quiet Thanksgiving that year, just the five of us at our house and just enjoyed being together and kind of a nice, slow day. And so that was great. One of the things that seems to be true is almost before you can even get the Thanksgiving dinner dishes off the table and cleaned up and put away the Christmas season is already upon us. They used to kind of start on Black Friday morning, you know, and then earlier and earlier and earlier. Now it's like pushing back into Thanksgiving day itself. And one of the things that's true is we think about the Christmas season, I think if we're honest, is when we think about Christmas, we think about gifts. And we've got a few of them up here on the stage, right, to kind of set the mood for Christmas. And it's not a bad thing. I think giving gifts at Christmas can be a great thing. I think we saw, you know, the baby Jesus was brought gifts shortly after his birth by the three wise men. And as soon as Thanksgiving's over, we're right into the gift giving season of Christmas. So how many of you were already out and did some Christmas gift shopping this weekend? All right. Yeah, we did by accident. We're planning to go out, but we stopped at Walmart to get some stuff and found some gifts that we got for some extended family. So we, that was Friday night, though, after all the crowds were gone. And that's how I would prefer to do that. But yeah, I think the reality is when we think about Christmas in our culture and in our day and age, we think a lot about gifts and just kind of become a normal part of the Christmas season. And even though we probably expect to get gifts each Christmas, sometimes we get surprised by an unexpected gift. A gift we didn't really think we were going to receive or that we didn't anticipate we would get. You know, kind of like, apparently as I watched the Christmas commercials, a lot of people get brand new Lexuses in their driveways on Christmas morning with big red bows, right? Does anybody ever have that happen? Like, that would be unexpected in my life, right? I would never expect to get that gift, but if say, hey, if you did, that's awesome. That would be great. If you happen to be here last week at our services, when we were sharing some things that we were thankful for, my wife Jen was up front here and shared about an unexpected gift that we received this fall. And you know, shortly after we came back from our trip this summer to Haiti with the students, we had shared just some of our heart and our love for the people there in Haiti. And someone unexpectedly gave us plane tickets to go back to Haiti. And we were there just a couple weeks ago and got to spend another week in Haiti. And that was unexpected. We did not anticipate that three or four months later we'd be able to go back down to Haiti again. And so something that was unexpected. And you know, I thought why we're talking about unexpected gifts and giving gifts this morning. This is a great opportunity to give a gift away. I'm guessing most people don't come to church expecting to get a gift, hopefully you come expecting to get something, but probably not a gift. And so as I thought, well, who would be the most unexpected people to receive a gift in the adult services here at CCC? And I thought, well, it'd have to be a student, all right? So for our church, we don't have programming for our students from seventh grade on up, because we want them to be a part of our service. We want them to worship with us. We want them to become not just a part of the youth group, but part of the church as a whole. And so we have them join us in our services. And it also gives them a chance not just to worship with us, but a chance to serve. And many of them are serving this morning in different areas in the church. And so I thought, all right, so of the students who would be the least expecting to be recognized and to be given a gift, and I said, well, that's probably got to be a seventh grader, all right? And they've only been in our service probably for the last few months. And so, I'm just curious, how many seventh graders do we have in the house today? Oh, it's, oh, two, all right, so we got two, all right, we got two. So I want to give this gift to the youngest seventh grader. So of you two, Sam, when's your, when's your birthday? Wow, December 23rd, all right. And Christy, yes, she's a twin and I'm working on it. All right, so Christy, when's your birthday? July? Oh, so you turned, you turned 12 right before you went to seventh grade. Is that right? All right, so you're the youngest one here, all right, you've come on up. And I'm going to give this to you. This is a personal Bluetooth speaker that you can use with your devices to jam to some tunes or talk on speaker phone. If you don't have any devices to use that with, or your parents are like, not a chance, the gift receipt is on top, so you can do something else, all right? So, all right, we love having students here in our service with us and that's something I love to do is give away unexpected gifts. And, you know, as we head into the Christmas season, we're going to be starting a brand new series, as Amy mentioned, called the gifts of Christmas. And so we're going to be talking over the next five weeks about five different unexpected gifts that we have to offer to others. And these gifts don't come wrapped up like this or placed under the Christmas tree, but they're just things that, from our life to someone else's life, we have to offer gifts like our words, a gift like extending grace, gifts like our presence with a C, not a T, not presence, presence, like our being with one another. And these are gifts that are often unexpected but can make a huge difference in somebody's life. And this morning, we want to start by talking about the gift of generosity, an unexpected gift that can often have pretty remarkable impact. And I think as you look through God's word, it's pretty clear that God desires that his followers be known as generous people, be known as those that give to others and especially to those in need. But if you're like me, maybe you struggle with the idea of generosity, or not the idea, but the act of being generous. And maybe it's kind of hard. There's some people here, and maybe there's a few here today that God has just gifted and given them this amazing ability to give what they have to others and sometimes to live on far less so that they can give more. And that's amazing. I look at those people and I think that's awesome. But whether you are one of those people or not, God calls all of us to be generous people. And so sometimes we struggle and we wrestle with generosity. And I think as we think about this idea of generosity, I think it's because sometimes we wrestle with it because we believe certain lies about generosity. And I think these lies kind of creep into our thinking and they affect the way that we understand it and that we look at it. And so to start this morning, I want to just take a look at some of these lies about generosity. And the first one, you see there's this, I don't have the resources to give. Now, sometimes these are lies like this that we tell ourselves and other times they're lies that kind of the culture all around us communicates to us. But sometimes we convince ourselves that I just don't have enough to give. I don't have enough to give to others. And it shows up in our life sometimes when we start thinking or saying things like, well, I'll be generous when I have more, when I, I'll be generous when I get that raise that I've been waiting on or when I get the job that I'm hoping for so that I have more to give. Or maybe we say, well, I'll be generous when my kids are out of college and I'm not trying to help them through their college years or maybe you're a college student and you're like, I'll give when I get out of college and I actually have some money trying not to go into debt. Or maybe, you know, maybe we say, well, I'll give when I finally get out of debt and then I'll be able to have some extra to give or I'll give when I get my retirement all set and in order. So when I get to the end of my life, things are good to go. And we often convince ourselves I just don't have what I need to be able to give right now. Or sometimes we believe the second lie and that's that you have to be rich to be generous, that you have to have a lot so that you can give a lot. And I think this one is connected to the next one that's going to come up there and that's because we often think that generosity is about the amount, right? It's the amount that matters. So if I want to be known as a really generous person, then I have to give a large amount. And this creeping kind of settles in, you know, the size of our gift equals the amount of our generosity, you know, but if we look at two people who are giving towards someone in need and this person offers $5. They give $5 and that's what they have to give. And then we see someone else over here who gives $5,000, you know, I think probably most of us are tempted to say, wow, that person that gave a $5,000, he is generous or she is generous. Look how much they gave. But what we don't understand or what we may not know is that this person here may have out their last $5 and this person here may have given $5,000, but it's a really, really small amount of what they could have given. And so we have to be careful not to get so focused that generosity is so much connected to the size of the gift or the amount that we give. Another lie is this. We kind of tell ourselves, well, I'll be generous if I know it's going to be used correctly, right? So we kind of give with, you know, with some guidelines attached to it. Well, you know, I want to give knowing that it's not going to be wasted or I want to give knowing that it's going to really go to a good cause and do some good things. I kind of want to give, but it's got to be on my terms. This is a lie that I kind of learned growing up and I can remember growing up and being told that, hey, you probably shouldn't give if you see like a homeless person or someone who's out of work and asking for money on the street, you probably should be really careful not to give them money because they're probably just going to take it and go by like alcohol or drugs or something like that that's just going to help ruin their lives and you don't know what the truth is or not and I remember internalizing that and saying, well, then I probably shouldn't give because I really, I wouldn't want to encourage them to do that. That's only going to perpetuate the problem and so I kind of convinced myself that, well, I just won't give because I don't know that I can trust them to use it in the right way. And these, you know, these lies kind of get buried into our mind and ingrained into our minds and the last one here that I have is a little different than the rest that says, well, I'll give because I know I'll get more if I do, all right? And sometimes we call this the prosperity gospel or the health and wealth gospel and there's a lot of people that teach, you know, that the more you give to God and if you have enough faith, he's going to give you, he'll bless you even more. So like, so if you give this much, he'll give you even more back. And I actually heard a guy preaching one on the internet and one in real life, not too long ago, about this idea and that this was the way that God works and this is the way generosity works. And, you know, the one guy even had this great story, he said, I sensed that God was calling me to give away my car, my only car and he said, so I did, I gave it to this person that really needed it and I went a couple months and I didn't, I didn't have a car and I walked a long way, a lot of times and then you thank God gave me not one car but two cars and both of them were nicer than the one that I gave away and that's awesome and God does work that way sometimes but not all the time and our motivation and giving shouldn't be that I'll give some so God will give me more but sometimes we're faced with that and sometimes we, as we're faced with these lies, you know, as it comes to generosity, you know, if we kind of look at that list and we think, well what lies underneath these, what's kind of the root of all these things, I think what it comes back to is it comes back to a lack of trust, it comes back to a lack of trust in our life and we struggle to trust that God is going to provide for us what we need so that we can give some of what we have away to others and, you know, this lack of trust is, and the struggle to be generous, I don't think it's something new, it's not something that's just that us, you know, 21st century American Christians face, I think that this has really been a struggle for all Christians at all times and in fact, today we're going to look at a passage in the book of 2 Corinthians in which the Apostle Paul is writing about this very issue to the churches there in the city of Corinth and the guys are going to come and if you want to be able to follow along with, you can see the page numbers there on the screen and they'll have a Bible there that you can use and if you don't have a Bible at home and you'd like to have one please take this one home with you. And so in this passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, I want to just explain a little bit of what's going on, kind of jumping in the middle of a letter that the Apostle Paul is writing and I want to make sure that we understand what's going on and what he's talking about here and in this particular part of the letter he was addressing a lot of different things to these churches and some wrong teaching and wrong thinking that had crept into the church but in this particular passage he's talking about helping, trying to prepare them to participate in a collection that they had promised to be involved in quite some time before this. In fact, he was sending a guy named Titus and a couple other guys to go and take this letter and to help the Corinthian churches prepare and to gather what they promised to give together so that when Paul came he could take that and take it to the Jewish Christians living in Jerusalem who were in great need. They were being oppressed and the poverty level there was extremely high and so the churches in that area all around Corinth had asked them to give to this and they said they would and he's trying to encourage them to participate to come through on what they said. Something that was pretty cool as I was looking at this passage and thinking about this collection that they took is maybe some way to help us kind of understand it a little bit is this is something that we got to do not too long ago and in fact a couple of weeks ago when I was in Haiti I actually got to do what Paul's preparing to do and take a generous gift from you to Pastor Robbie's church in Haiti. If you remember way back in August when shortly after our students came back from their trip we shared with you this story about Pastor Robbie's church we had partnered with all that week and how when we got delayed and missed our flight that one of the things that was really encouraging and helpful to us was their church and Pastor Robbie specifically who came and kind of like a pastor you know one of the pastors our church would do when you faced a rough time came and spent time with us and tried to help us in any way that he could and actually gave us a generous gift to help with whatever we needed in that time. So when I came back and shared that story is when we took our missions offering you all gave very generously back to Pastor Robbie and his church and I was able to when we went to Haiti a couple weeks ago take that over six hundred or six thousand six hundred dollars and give that to them as a gift and I want to show you a quick video that Pastor Robbie asked me to show to you just as he wanted an opportunity to say thank you to you. PCC just wanted to take the opportunity to introduce you to my friend Pastor Robbie here in Haiti and I just had the opportunity to speak at his church today and also bring and give him the the gift that we collected for them back in August and just wanted to give him a chance to talk to you and just share his gratitude with you. My name is Pastor Robbie but my true name is Pastor Robert Simula so I'm an Asian and I believe as he said that I'm a logic guy and an up-world person so I would I don't know how to really show you appreciation about this is a wonderful gift and I will see you with my heart, my love and just to tell you that this is a part of contact of what God is going to do and about to do between the sea and I know something you know plant and the better and some food and this food other people will be able to eat for me and survive their life and thank you thank you for all my appreciators and thank you once again and thank you for God bless you all and I bless you all and I bless you and Pastor Tim is my friend my brother and tomorrow we're gonna spend your whole day together and so I know you will talk more about me and I do know more about me through him bless you and Lord you all good bye bye. And they were super grateful for that gift your generosity that I was able to take down to them and that was on Sunday night and Sunday morning I told him I had a gift for him from you guys from our church and I didn't even tell him how much it was or what it was and he probably assumed it was was money and he covered his face and he just started sobbing on my shoulder he's a he's a big hugger and gives great big sweaty hugs and which is awesome but he was just you know just so moved by your generosity and and and so maybe that gives us a little bit of an idea of kind of the backdrop for for what Paul is encouraging them towards alright a very very similar thing and and and and so Paul's trying to encourage their generosity so that they wouldn't fall prey to some of the prevailing thinking that was kind of starting to creep into the church see one of the things that you have to understand about the city of Corinth is that it was a pretty well to do a very flourishing colony in the Roman Empire and it was it was so prosperous because it was really a crossroads both by land and by sea and so it was huge in the trade routes of that time and basically anything in that area had to go through Corinth and so there was a lot of great business opportunities there and there and the city really was destroyed when when Rome took over Greece right they destroyed and they just wiped out the whole city and it just lay in ruins for about a hundred years and then I think they realized hey that was a pretty important city and and who should probably build it back again and make good use of it and so they sent people to back to Corinth to populate the city and and one of the groups that they sent a very large group that they sent back was a group of freed slaves and so this really represented for them an opportunity to do something they'd never been able to do in their life as a slave and that's to to build a life for themselves to to find a way to to build a business to make money to to get involved in the trade and everything that was going on we're about to go on in that city and and it was a chance for them for a new new beginning you know we'd probably say that you know the city was kind of filled with people who around here we say who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps right who had nothing and they found a way to make to be successful to make a living and so the city was filled with all these really self-made people who worked really really hard to get to where they were at and there and in in the city of Corinth wealth was something that was really valued and and something to be pursued because wealth is what gave you status and so you can imagine these many people that that their status was as low as it could be now had the opportunity to rise you know the social ladder and it was based on their wealth and so so everyone was trying to pursue wealth and to gain wealth and to hold tightly on to the wealth that they had and they also liked to show it off because you know for the others to know where you were kind of in that social ladder that you had to kind of let them see where you were at let them see what you had so so it was really you were almost expected to kind of show off your wealth based on where you lived and what you lived in and and and the things that you did and the places you went and the things you wore and all that and this type of thinking all right that was all around the people in Corinth the churches in Corinth started to seep into the church and Paul was concerned that it was going to affect their ability to participate in this collection and there's going to affect their ability to be generous to those Christians in need in Jerusalem and so that's kind of the background to this passage and so if you want to take a look in your Bible or it'll also be up on the screen we're going to start looking at this passage in chapter nine verse six and verse six says this it says remember this whoever sews sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sews generously will also reap generously and before we go any farther into the passage I want to stop right there for a second because I think we have to be careful as we come to this verse because this is one of those verses that people use that I talked about earlier to say that the more you give the more you're going to get back right the more you sow the more you're going to reap all right and and I'm not sure that's exactly what Paul's trying to communicate in this passage I think the reaping that he's talking about is we're going to see as we go through this passage is not just financial or material all right but it has to do with all of life has to do with with spiritual blessing has to do with with maybe emotional and physical and relational blessing has to do with with gathering all the things in our life right God giving us all those things and then I think the other thing is that I don't sure that Paul's in planning to apply this just to you as the giver right some of the harvest is going to be for those that you give too it's going to be the results that happen in the other people's life the recipients of the generosity or or even those around you that see your generosity and again I think he's also not trying to say that there's this one to one you sow this you're going to get this much more back I don't think he's so focused on the amount maybe sowing more generously means you do it more frequently maybe it means the breadth of your giving is not just here but it's a wider breadth or maybe it's you know again it's not about the amount talked about the proportional giving all right the temptation is to compare what we give to what someone else gives and that's not the point the point is I think Paul challenging them to give more and here's one of the reasons that I think we have to understand this this way because you have to think about the apostle Paul who's writing this passage and if you know much about his life by the time when he became a Christian and God called him to go out and to share the gospel with the Gentiles and to begin to plant churches all through the Gentile nations right his life was not super easy he did not live in the lap of luxury he did not he did so an awful lot right he gave all he had and he ended up really given his entire life to that cause but he didn't gain financially from it just a couple chapters later is this verse in chapter 11 and this is at the end of probably five verses of talking about just how hard and difficult his life is and the things that he faced and endured in his ministry and he concludes it with this he says I've labored in total and I've gone often without sleep and I've known hunger and thirst and I've often gone without food and I have been cold and naked all right so Paul all right I don't think he's using this first to say the more that you give the more you're gonna get back for yourself all right cause that was definitely not his experience all right he was a bad example if that's what he was trying to communicate but I think what he's trying to to help them to understand by using kind of this really common proverb that you kind of see all throughout scripture of of sewing and reaping is is just the fact that that this is kind of how generosity works right the the more you give the more results there can be and the less you give the less results there can be it's it's a farming analogy and so when the farmers would harvest their crops it's a little different than than today's farmers who just go buy new seed in the spring they had to save some of their harvest back so that they could plant it the next spring all right and the rest they would eat and they'd feed their family or maybe they would sell some of it all right but if they what Paul's saying is if if a farmer keeps just a little bit of seed then the next spring he's only got a little bit of seed that he can sow and he can expect that if he sows a little then his harvest will be pretty little but if he saves back more all right any any any sows more he plants more seed then he can expect that his harvest is going to be much greater and so Paul's kind of using this analogy to help them just kind of understand this about giving that if you give less then there will be less results and if you give more there can be more results and again when we talk less and more don't think about comparing yourself with someone else but think about you as an individual if I give less or if I give more all right and not a comparison to to one another that that that idea is a relative thing and so what Paul's trying to help them do all right it's like saying I can give this much and it'll help one person or I can give this much and maybe I can help two people my giving a little more has a greater result and he's trying to help them to apply this principle to their generosity as he's starting to encourage them towards that and and I think he's just trying to state that fact to them the less you give the less results you can expect and the more you give as an individual the more results you can expect and trying to help them remind them of this connection between what they give and the what it will produce and he's really setting them up for for this whole idea of generosity and what God desires for them in that and take a look at verse 7 he says this he goes on to say each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver and so here in verse 7 all right Paul kind of gives them really God's design for generosity and what that looks like and this is really what Paul longs to be true of the Corinthian believers he wants them to to to experience this kind of generosity and understand that this is what God desires from this is true generosity and notice that he starts the first thing he says about it is that you know you should give what you've decided in your heart it's not about all right it's not focused on the amount all right I've said that over and over again because I don't want I don't want you to get confused that sometime you know somehow we're trying to to guilt you into giving more all right he says you should decide whatever you decide to give and just do that all right and and as followers of Christ we we have the spirit of God living in us and I think that he's gonna lead us and guide us and direct us into those things and God doesn't give us an amount he doesn't say well you need to give this much to be generous or you need to give this percentage and then you can be generous no he leaves that up to us he lets us make that choice in that decision he says you should just decide to give but don't focus on it's not just about the amount and he goes on to say it also should be given freely all right so it's not reluctantly or under compulsion when we give reluctantly we're reluctant because we're worried about something all right when I hand my tablet to my kids to play a game I'm reluctant because I'm afraid they're gonna break it right or I fear that they might break it and when we give sometimes we're reluctant because maybe we're afraid that there's not going to be enough left for us or that somehow it's going to impact our bottom line in a negative way or maybe as we said earlier we give and we're reluctant because we're just not quite sure it's going to get used right or it's going to bring about the results that we desire for it but Paul says we don't want you to give God doesn't want you to give that way he wants you to give freely doesn't want you to give reluctantly all right and he says not under compulsion God doesn't want our giving to be driven by guilt and and we're driven by guilt when we do things because we think we have to does God long for us and desire for us to be generous yes but when we give out of guilt we're not giving or being generous in the way that God longs for us because when we're focused on you know on on what's how it's going to affect us and we're focused on I'll do it just because I have to there's no joy in that and that's what he says there at the end of that verse God God longs and desires that we can give and we can do it cheerfully we can we can find joy in our giving that's part of what we get back from giving all right is the joy and the emotional experience that we get in knowing that we were helping someone else with what God has provided with us and so he's kind of setting them up to understand this is really what God desires for you as Corinthian believers to to when it comes to generosity that he wants you to be able to give and to give freely and to give joyfully and so if we were reading you know hearing this letter read to us back then probably the question in our mind and maybe the question in your mind is okay so I'm not there yet where I give freely and I give generously a lot so how do we get there how do we get to the point where we where this can be true of us if this is what God longs and desires for us as his followers how do we get there I think Paul goes on here in verse eight to start to explain to us how we can get there take a look at verse eight it says this and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things that all times having all that you need you will abound in every good work all right and so as we look at that verse and as we think about what Paul's trying to help them understand about generosity I think that there's you know there's three words there that really help us to understand his point and it's that's the words God is able all right God is able notice Paul didn't go to your able Corinthians you guys got a lot of money you can give generously he didn't go there he went to know God is able God is the one who can be trusted to he says bless you abundantly and again not just so that we have more and I don't think it's just material blessing all right but God is able to bless you far beyond what you could even imagine because he wants you to be able to give to those in need all right he's gonna provide it says in that verse all that you need no matter what happens in your life look it says in the phrase it says in all things no matter what's going on in your life no matter where you are in life whether you're a high school student and you're like I don't have two pennies to rub together because it all goes to paying for my gas and my car and paying for my insurance or a college student who's trying to stay out of debt or someone who's you know just got out of college and you're trying to get yourself established or maybe you're in the middle of your life all right and maybe you've gotten established or maybe you're having to reestablish things or whether you're in you know towards the end and you're living on your retirement it says whatever's going on in life whatever at all times whatever phase of life you find yourself in he's trying to help them understand that God is able to provide for you and the last phrase there says you know so you will abound in every good work so that you can continue to give to others the good work he's talking about is the gift the generosity towards these brothers and sisters in Jerusalem and so I think what Paul's really trying to help them understand in this verse is this is that you can trust God with your needs you can trust God with your needs he knows them he knows what you need he knows what you have he knows what's going on in your life he knows the circumstances you find yourself in and he's able he he has the resources at his disposal he has the power at his disposal he can provide them for you he is able to do that and I think the other the other thing that lies underneath this that that maybe is is often difficult for us in our setting to think about is that idea that the reality is all that we have comes from God and often I struggle to think this way and maybe some of you struggle to think this way too and and I'm guessing that the Corinthians really wrestled with this now we often want to say hey look what I did look look at how hard I've worked and look what I've saved and look what I've accomplished and look what I've earned and look what I've done and what we've done for ourselves or by ourselves and we forget to understand that everything that we have comes from God that apart from God we could not have those things and and we don't think that way because we have so much and and we don't think that way because maybe for a lot of us it's come fairly easily I don't know but we wrestle with that that thinking that all we have belongs to God and and and it could be gone tomorrow or it could be gone in a short time or over a long period of time it could go away God has provided all that we have and so Paul's trying to help them right to understand this and understand that God's provided everything that they have and that they can trust him to provide what they need so that they can give freely to those who are in need but he doesn't stop there he goes on in verses nine and ten to tell them something else about their trust in God and he says this in verse nine he says as it is written they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor their righteousness endures forever now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your stores seeds and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness and so verse nine there is actually a quote from the book of Psalms it's from Psalm 12 or excuse me Psalm 112 verse nine and Psalm 112 is all about a righteous person what does a righteous person look like someone who follows God with all that there what does that look like and this verse is saying that one of the things that that looks like is that they they give generously and it says that they don't just give generously but that their generosity their righteousness they're good things that they're doing they're giving it has lasting results it endures forever it has a lasting result in their life it has a lasting result in the life of those who have received it and then he goes on in verse ten and he kind of kind of reiterates that same idea about God being the one who provides all right the seed and provides the harvest and he says at the very end there he says so that you so he will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness think what Paul's trying to help them to to look at what he's helping them to focus on is that their generosity will bear good results all right that will bear good results both in their lives in the lives of others and he's trying to help them to understand that not only can we trust God with what we need but you can trust God with the results as well you don't have to worry about the results of your giving or your generosity God's able and he will bring about the results that he desires he's telling the the Corinthians that your jobs to give and jobs God's job is to make it productive to bring about the results it's kind of like a a farmer a farmer can can save back his seed like we talked about and he can he can plant and sow abundantly and he can do a few things to help ensure that he has a good crop but he can't make it grow he can't determine how big the harvest is going to be because he can't determine the weather and he can't make it rain or make the sunshine and he can't keep the bugs from eating everything that grows and he can't keep disease from wiping out his entire crop and Paul's trying to help them to understand that that God is the one that takes what we give and what they give and produces the result and he's trying to help them to understand that they can trust God with the results of their generosity and then verse 11 he kind of wraps the whole thing up and he kind of he kind of gives a really good summary of this entire passage and he says this he says and you will be enriched in every way so that you will be generous on every so you can be generous on every occasion all right and he's reminding them again one more time remember God is the one that can enrich you can give you the means of being generous not just financially but but like we said emotionally and spiritually and and relationally and physically in all of that in every way he says you can be enriched in every way but not just so you have more so that you can be generous on every occasion so that when so for the Corinthians anytime that a need rises up they have the opportunity to give they can do that and be generous Paul's trying to to really help them understand that true generosity that that joyful and that free giving right that we saw in verse 7 is rooted in their trust for God is rooted in their ability to trust God to provide and to trust God with the results and I think this message that Paul's giving them as they prepare for this collection is the same message that he wants us to grasp today I think we need this as well and I kind of rephrased it this way I said your ability to to be truly generous is directly connected to your ability to completely trust God to provide for you and so as we think about this this idea of generosity of of being able to give freely and give joyfully to those in need you know I think we have to stop and think about ourselves you know where do we fall in that do we give is it reluctant is it out of guilt is God challenging us maybe to give more and so I want us just to take a couple minutes this morning and stop and ask ourselves this question where are you with generosity where am I with generosity where where are we when it comes to being generous and I was trying to think through how do we how do we kind of quantify this how do we find a way to help us you know kind of process and think through this and so I came up with this five-point scale that we're just we're gonna we're gonna walk through and maybe you identify with one of these five areas kind of this you know this this not really a grading scale but just kind of this progression in what it looks like to be generous all right and maybe you would say well I'm kind of on the front side I'm a number one right I I don't even give at all just the idea of generous and being generous is not just not a part of my life and if that's where you are that's okay it's good just to recognize that and to acknowledge that and to be be challenged by that maybe you would say though you're maybe you say well I'm a number two I give but I I just do it because I have to you know I just give because I think that's what I'm expected to do I give because that's what I think God says I have to do and and so I give but you know it's just it's really out of guilt it's really out of compulsion so maybe you maybe you'd say you're a two maybe you say you're a three you're kind of in the middle here and you say I give but I give really reluctantly I give but it's really hard you know it's hard to let go it's hard to it's hard to trust God is going to provide what I need if I give or maybe you would be number four you say I give but ah it's not always cheerfully there's not always with joy no I give and I understand that you know that God's going to give me what I need but I just sometimes there's just no joy in it I don't feel cheerful when I give or maybe you'd say you're a five and you're like you know what God's enabled me to be very generous I can give and I can give freely and I can give with joy and if that's you that's great that's an awesome place to be I think that's where God longs for us all to be but but I want you to understand in sharing this with you this is not about making you feel guilty if you're not a number five because it's like anything in our Christian life this is a this is a process this is something it's not about trying to be a five tomorrow right but it's about taking a step towards maybe moving up one number all right or maybe improving just a little bit in this area of generosity over the next year if I was really honest with you which are going to be I'm probably a two or a three here I kind of kind of would go back and forth between some of those sometimes I give because I feel like I have to you know sometimes being a pastor even you know I feel like I have to give and you know I have to set a good example and I sometimes I wrestle with that sometimes I give reluctantly because I'm just worried you know if I give if I'm going to have what I need to take care of the things that are in front of me and so I kind of wrestle with this whole idea of of being generous and and and again to remember that it's not about where you are but it's about taking a step in that journey and you know so how do we move up you know how do we move up on this scale all right how do we move up in our generosity how do we increase our generosity and move towards being generous in the way God longs for us to be I think it comes down we have to confront the issue of trust again you know if we go back to the statement that we were looking at you know says that our ability to be truly generous is connected to our ability to completely trust God so we have to ask ourselves you know where am I not trusting God or how do I move forward in my trust God how do I trust God more in this area of generosity and so I I was thinking through that this week and I put together some things that maybe kind of correspond with the numbers so so I don't know where you kind of identified yourself on that scale but but maybe for you one of these is going to be a good step for you so maybe if you said well I'm at one I just haven't moved into you know being generous at all maybe for you you need to just try giving maybe that's the steps God asking you to take this morning so there's something about you know just giving God a chance to show up that if we sometimes when we just step out in faith our trust in God grows because we we kind of cross this threshold and give him a chance to show up in our lives and to to see what he can do with our generosity sometimes we just have to put it to action and allow God to grow our trust that way a couple years ago you know knowing that this is something that I can wrestle with and and not wanting my my kids to grow up kind of with some of the same struggles that I have when it comes to generosity we decided as a family at Christmas one year that we wanted to to do some to do less for ourselves and to do something for someone else and so so we decided that we were going to um to buy a goat for a family in Haiti we had taken our first trip to Haiti previous to that and we were able through the organization that we went with to buy a goat for a family to help provide for them a a means of of generating an income and so we we decided to do that and we just took that step and I asked my kids to to consider you know breaking open the piggy bank and being a part of that together with us not just mom and dad doing it but them doing it with us and we told them we're going to do a little less for Christmas and we're just going to step out and see what God did and they were fine you know they had enough for Christmas they weren't disappointed when Christmas day came and and they opened maybe a little less than the year before and and we were fine as a family we didn't you know suffer any you know tragic financial situation because we gave a little bit to somebody else and so sometimes for us we just have to take that step of trying just giving and just putting it into action maybe for you if you kind of identified with number two maybe maybe what you need to do is kind of internalize this verse number seven right this we said this is kind of God's ideal for what generosity looks like in his followers maybe we need to just spend some time kind of memorizing that and sitting with that and thinking about what what does what would this look like in my life where am I with us how do I take the next step towards being able to give in this way God says his words powerful and and he can use it in our lives he will use it in our lives to change us from the inside out and so maybe we need to just spend some time internalizing God's ideal for generosity or maybe if you kind of were on the number three you said you were a number three right you kind of give but a little bit reluctantly maybe one of the things that can help you I just called it take inventory and this is something I did this week just just to try to see see how it going and what I mean by take inventory is write down everything that you own get a pad of paper or get your tablet out or your phone and just start listing everything that you own and it takes a little while and and I didn't get through everything that I own I think I got up to about 760 things and that was my stuff and like a lot of our like furniture and stuff in our house and I stopped at that point but make a list of what you own and then just stop and just spend some time don't just list it but spend some time thinking about the reality that we talked about that everything that we have comes from God and I looked at this list of stuff and I said this is all that God has provided for me and hopefully it can maybe change our perspective and move us away from being so reluctant because we realize that God has done a lot for us and that we can trust him to continue to provide for what we need and maybe it'll help you clean some stuff out of your house too and you realize how much you have the sad thing is we just did that this fall and I still had a long list of stuff and I don't know who needs 27 t-shirts but I have that many so if anybody needs some let me know but maybe you need to take inventory or maybe if you can identify on number four here maybe you need to find a way to see some results see the results of someone's generosity maybe your own maybe someone else's find a way to see God taking people's generosity and and making a difference in people's lives you know one of the things that Jen and I were able to experience on on this last trip to Haiti was was some of that we got to go to a lot of places that we can't go when we have a team of students with us because just logistically it's hard to get there or it just doesn't fit with what the team is there to do and and we got to see a lot of different things we actually got to go visit the family that we gave the goat to and we we showed up at their house and and got to meet them for the first time and saw the goat that we had helped them buy and there wasn't just one goat now there was eight goats and that goat was pregnant when they bought it and they had babies and then more babies and now they two years later they got eight goats but I was sitting there thinking I was like okay so this family is struggling to make it and now they've got eight goats to take care of so how did I help them in any way whatsoever right now they got to make sure eight goats are fed and taken care of and all this and so we were talking about that and I asked one of the Haitians it was with us names Reggie and I said Reggie I said how how is this helpful to them so now now they they've got to make sure the goats are fed to let alone themselves he said well Tim you got to understand this is their savings account I'm like what are you talking about he said well it's like when when we have a savings account and something happens in our life and we need some money we can take it from our savings that's kind of what it's there for kind of an emergency fund he said the goats this represent that same thing to them when they need to send their kids to school and they can't afford to pay for it they can sell one of their goats and they can you know they're can trust it out of their eight goats that there will get more goats from their goats and so they can use these goats as a savings account to pay for the things if something happens they need to get some food they can sell a goat and so we were able to kind of see some of the results of of generosity we saw a school where that someone came in after the earthquake and built this school and it's way out in in the countryside you have to like drive up this river to get to it in about 45 minutes up this river and which is why we can't take teams there because the bus would not make it and but we got to go see the school that was built for this community way out kind of in the middle of nowhere and and not just a school that someone built for them but also a program that was helping the community leaders to to to grow and raise actually goats again all right to be able to pay for their teachers to be able to maintain the school to be able to feed the kids a hot meal every day and I could go on and on about you know other ways that we saw where we're there in Haiti but you can ask me personally if you want to know some more but but maybe you got to find a way to see results and you don't have to go to Haiti to see results of generosity you can get on the internet and just look up some of these organizations that like Compassion International and World Vision and Hope International some of those that that work with providing for the poor or maybe you can go volunteer down at Water Street or or a local organization and just see how people's generosity is making a difference in people's lives because sometimes when we see that it helps us to take that step towards being able to give much more freely and much more joyfully because we understand and we see the difference it's making in people's lives. And so I don't know oh I skipped number five we can't we don't want to leave the the number five people out here so number five if you're doing great with generosity maybe for you it's just to keep on giving but as I was even thinking about that maybe maybe to take that another step maybe for you the step to take if you feel like this is an area that you do really well in is to take somebody along with you maybe you can help someone at number four to see the results they don't have to see how much you give but take them along to see the result that it has or share with them the result that it has in your life personally or to take them along wherever you give to and show them let them see the results in those that receive it. So I don't know for you where you're at or where if you identified with any of these steps or maybe there's something else that you're thinking about a step that you can take to move you forward in your trust with God so that you can be more generous but I would challenge you to commit to taking a step take one step this holiday season that's going to help you to grow in your trust for God so that you can grow in your generosity to others and maybe there's some of you are wondering well I don't quite even really know where to start and so I thought well I should probably give you some ideas of some ways that you can be generous some ways through our church and some ways internationally and in our area that you can be generous maybe it's as simple as you know a family member or a friend or a neighbor who's in need and maybe there's something you can do this holiday season to provide for them maybe there's a local organization that you're aware of that you know about that you can give to or volunteer at that you can that you can you can invest in there's there's one there's several that we you know you've probably heard us talk about homes of hope and and we're actually doing one right now if you saw the pile of food out in the food bank some of the food banks in this area all right there's lots of ways local organizations that you can give to the third one there you may be like what in the world is that this is one bite back malaria is actually an offering project that our kids in this in studio 252 are doing our elementary kids and this is something that they're really excited about their they're they're giving towards buying mosquito nets for kids and families in developing countries where they don't have the medicine to fight off the disease of malaria and they they shared with them a stat that every minute a child dies of malaria somewhere in the world and so they've been bringing in their money and and they've been collecting it and and uh they're they've raised enough money so far to i think to buy 12 or 14 14 i think um pugness and they want to share that opportunity with you as well in the next two sundays they're going to be have a table set up in the back and they want to share with you what they're doing and they want to invite you to join them in their generosity and so maybe over the next couple weeks if you think about that maybe you want to join in and help them out with what they're doing i mentioned these already you know hope international is a a great organization in Lancaster that helps people with micro financing helps them to give them a small loan that they can build a business with and pay that back so others can have the same opportunity compassion international gives opportunities to to buy gifts similar to the goat like we did um sponsor children same with hearts united with Haiti that's a local organization that we partner with when we go to Haiti and and um you know you can get on their website and find ways to give or talk to jennonai and we can tell you more about that and the last one is our benevolence fund here at ccc and our benevolence fund is we we collect for that every christmas eve at our christmas eve services and that's just simply a fund that we use as a church to to help those in our church and those in our community that are in need and so that's a great way for you to be generous this year is towards our benevolence fund and however you decide whether it's one of these or something else however you decide to be generous whatever step you decide to take this christmas season just know right that you can trust god to provide what it is that you need so that you can be generous to those who are in need and i don't know what that's gonna look like in your life but i hope that um god challenges you to take that step in that you have a chance to see him show up in a pretty cool way and just think of the impact that we could have if it was true of us what says at the end of of verse 11 there it says that you could be generous on every occasion and think of the impact that we could have as a church on this community and on this area and even around the world if that was true of each and everyone of us let's just take a moment and pray and ask god to help us help that to be true of us god we thank you so much for your love for us and thank you for the grace that you give us each day in our lives the way that you provide so much for us the way that you give us all that we need and god i pray that you would just help us this morning as we've been challenged as the krentians were to take a moment and just think about where we are when it comes to generosity and to ask ourselves the really hard question of do we trust you enough to give to others and god i pray for each one here today whatever whatever wherever they may be in terms of generosity and whatever that next step for them might be that you would just help them to show their trust in you by moving forward with that and that you would grow their trust in you as they see you show up and as they see you provide for their needs and god we desire to be people who like we saw in verse seven can give freely and can give joyfully to those in need and we long for you to use us in that way to make a difference in the lives of those around us and love you father and we pray these things in Jesus' name Amen.