Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning, 945.
[00:00:07] Good morning. If I have not had the joy to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church. We are starting a new miniseries in the book of Second Corinthians. We're going to be in chapters eight and chapters nine. So if you have a Bible, open up there. And this series is called Generosity. And some of you are thinking to yourself, is this a three week series on tithing? And the answer, no, it's not.
[00:00:33] It's really actually not about tithing. Chapters 8 and 9 are not directly about that. It's gonna come up, we're gonna talk about it. But it's actually about something a bit more bigger than that, which I think you're going to appreciate. So I wanna prepare our hearts for this text and I wanna ask you a question about you. Not about your husband, not about your wife, not about your kids. So don't kick the person next to you. When you see this question, I want you to just reflect. And this is a rhetorical question. Now I have to explain rhetorical because every time someone answers, rhetorical means you answer in your mind, not with your mouth. So don't answer out loud. The question is, am I a generous person? Not Michael, you. Are you a generous person?
[00:01:22] And in your brain, if the answer is, yeah, I think I'm a pretty generous person, then the next question would be like, why? What is it about your life, your posture that makes you a generous person? Now think about your answer. Kinda want you to hold that answer. And so what I wanna do is I wanna give you, I think, a really helpful paradigm for understanding generosity. This is called the generosity spectrum. And it goes like this. It goes from stingy to responsible to generous, all the way to negligent. I wanna take these kind of one at a time, all right? Stingy, what is.
[00:01:59] Okay, stingy is one who refuses to bless anyone beyond obligations. Okay, you probably know if you're stingy. And my experience with stingy people is often they are proud of it.
[00:02:17] You might be stingy if.
[00:02:20] If you tip the minimum or nothing at all. I told you, do not kick the person next to you guys, okay? This is important. You might be stingy if you avoid simple kindnesses that cost you nothing. So stinginess, it's one of those areas that is sort of, if you have it in one area, it's like a disease, it starts to spread to other areas of your life. So some of you might be emotionally stingy. You might be stingy with Your encouraging words, stingy with letting people borrow your stuff. Right? You might be stingy if you go to church, but you never give to your church. Unless, by the way, you have calculated the exact amount of money you need to give so you can get the highest proportional rate of tax return. Got that? Good. You don't give to any Christian nonprofits to build the kingdom of Jesus. And if you're really being honest, you're not gonna say it out loud, but this is just rhetorical. It's in your mind. If you're really being honest, the only time you serve is when it kind of doesn't get in the way of your schedule. All right, next on the generosity spectrum is responsible.
[00:03:25] This is a good thing. One who meets their obligations and is willing to help if it doesn't pinch.
[00:03:35] So what I find is that most responsible people are the ones who are going to self describe as generous. Now, is a husband generous if he saves his wife a seat?
[00:03:49] Ladies, the answer is no. And yet there are many a husband who are like, I saved you, baby, a seat, right in our brains. We're like, look, I'm a great, thoughtful, generous husband. Okay? Is a wife generous when she compliments her husband and the gentleman will go, no. That's your responsibility, right? Is it? Okay, I gotta. This is controversial. I did not expect this answer at the age 15. Okay. Is a child generous when they do the dishes?
[00:04:23] I think the answer is no. Somebody. It might have been a kid for all I know. They shouted yes, and I was like, no. You live in this home. Like, you're gonna have things to do. Of course not. Doing what you're supposed to do and doing the things you committed to do are not generous. They are good and they are admirable, but they are not generous. So you might be responsible if you fulfill your duties to your family without complaint.
[00:04:55] You are a good and available friend.
[00:05:00] You prayerfully give your first and your best of your income to your local church. You serve faithfully.
[00:05:08] You don't publicize the good things that you do. When you go to a restaurant, you tip 18 to 20%. Only 15 if it's terrible service. Right now, what we're not gonna talk about is like, are you supposed to tip all the people everywhere in the entire world, not every single thing you ever buy anywhere, they all want a tip. Oh, goodness gracious. Different story. But when you go to a restaurant, you tip 18 to 20%. And if the service was great, you're like 22%, right? I mean, you round up, it's really good. Okay, let's jump all the way to negligent before we get too generous. Negligent is one whose giving encourages dependence, sin or stupidity. I'll be the most brief here. Cause honestly, it probably applies to the least amount of people. But what I find with people who are negligent is often they're really, really good intentioned, but sometimes their giving does way more harm than it does good. So for example, if you are giving to someone who is ungrateful, who is not working even though they can, or and somebody who is not doing something for themselves even though they should, you might actually be negligent in your giving. You might self identify as generous, but all you're doing is enabling somebody to not be the man or woman that God has created them to be.
[00:06:33] But to be generous. To be generous is not to be these things.
[00:06:37] Generous is one who goes above and beyond intentionally looking to bless others at their own expense. And I want to illustrate generosity by sharing with you a rubric that probably, if you've been in church, many of you are familiar with. And the first part of the rubric goes like this. It's the world's budgeting rhythm. And the rhythm goes live, play, save, give, pray. Let me break this down. Live.
[00:07:03] The first of my income goes to our home, our food, our utilities, our cars. Make sure that our standard of living is taken care of. And then play. This is eating out, vacations and fun. And then save. If we have money left over, we put some away.
[00:07:23] Next is give. This is optional. Maybe nothing. Maybe 1 to 2%. If after I've done all the things I was supposed to do, like live, play and save, then maybe 1 to 2%, and that's like, that's pushing it. And then I get to the end of my budget and I pray, lord Jesus, I'm out of money, would you please give me more money so that I can live and play more? Which is how the world's basic system of budgeting works. The second part of the rubric, again, if you've seen this, like you know it, this is God's budgeting rhythm. It starts with pray God, what percentage of my income do you want me to give my local church to build the kingdom of Jesus?
[00:08:06] And then number two is give. And this is the first fruits model. Lord, you get my first and my best. And when people are trying to figure this out, there's not a New Testament percentage that's like prescribed, but you start with 10%. That was the Old Testament rhythm. You start with 10% and God says, all right, here, I'm starting with this. Lord, what do you. What do you want for this? And then we save. By the way, it's biblical to save. And standard wisdom in this time and place is 10% of our income we put away for the future because we are absolutely going to need money later. And then we live. And this is after my giving, after my saving. I live within my means. If you've never heard the phrase, my standard of giving determines my standard of living. For most people, their standard of living determines their standard of giving. And then we have play. I think play is great. I want to create fun, connecting moments with my family, with my friends, with my community. But I don't want to do that at the expense of my God, my responsibilities, or my future.
[00:09:08] And then, then this is where generosity actually begins.
[00:09:15] I have met all of my obligations and responsibilities, and now I can pick my head up from my God, from my responsibilities, from my future, my family. And I can look out and say, lord, where can I bless?
[00:09:32] Lord, who can I meet a tangible need for? Who can I bring joy to? Who can I intervene intentionally into their life and do good in their life? Now, giving God what he asks for isn't generous. It's your responsibility.
[00:09:48] Saving for your future needs isn't you being generous to your future self. It is your responsibility.
[00:09:57] And anytime we take from God or our family or our future, and we give it to ourselves, this would be stealing for all. Generosity starts when, by faith, our obligations are met. And so by faith, I mean it does. It takes trust in God to approach your time and your money and your resources from a biblical perspective. First, I'm gonna trust you with my first fruits. I believe you that if I give you first, you'll take care of the rest. Faith to obey principles on saving God. I'm gonna be biblical about this. I'm gonna think about the future.
[00:10:31] Faith to provide for my family over all the fun that I want to have, to make sure that I'm giving them what they need.
[00:10:39] For most, this is for most people. Some people you have so much money you don't even know what to do with. Generosity applies to you as well. But for most, you know, generosity is in motion when the giving starts to sting. Some people use the word pinch. Like, there's like. You're like, ooh, I could spend this on me, but you decide to actually give it to someone or something else. So here's like, just a little insight.
[00:11:04] Every single person who has learned and repented of the world's way of budgeting and then moves to a biblical method of this. Almost everybody experiences the same things when they start doing this. Number one, tithing stings at first. Number two, saving stings at first. Guess what? Everything great in life stings at first. Because, like, if you're going to start doing things that are going to build strong foundations, it's probably going to be against the world in your flesh, and it's not going to be easy. Like, an easy illustration is like, if you wanna start eating well because you've eaten terribly your whole life, it's hard at first, and then all of a sudden you're like, all right. And then you begin to enjoy it. And so this is just part of life. You have to go through the stinging phase in order to get to the blessing phase. But this is where believers who have gotten through that to the other side and have learned that God's method of budgeting time and money and things is better than they have learned that Jesus was right when he said, it is truly better to give than to receive. Like the master of the universe, the creator of our body, souls and minds and everything in between knew what he was talking about, that we were designed to be filled with joy, to be blessed when we are generous. All right, Second Corinthians, chapter eight. We've set up the context before we ever talk about generosity, we just need to put it in its kind of rightful biblical place. We get to chapters eight and nine, and if you've been tracking with us the relationship between Paul and the Corinthian church is complicated. Is that a good word?
[00:12:42] What's interesting is that the main reason 2 Corinthians was written was not to deal with the complications.
[00:12:50] Paul had to deal with the complications. They were important. Like, if you've got a relational issue with somebody, you gotta work through that stuff. But the real reason Paul wanted to write the book of 2 Corinthians is found in chapters 8 and chapters 9. So let me bring you into this context prior to this sometime, Paul went to the city of Jerusalem and the destitution, the poverty, the persecution of the church in Jerusalem, the saints there, his brothers and sisters, was so bad it broke him to the tune, where he committed the next eight to 10 years of his life raising money for the saints who were suffering in Jerusalem. And what you're going to notice actually, is in many of the New Testament books that Paul wrote, he will make a comment about the offering to the saints in Jerusalem. If you kind of start paying attention to this theme you'll notice that it. You'll find it in most New Testament books. Here he'll mention the offering to the church in Jerusalem because his heart was so broken for what these believers were enduring. And so Paul gets through kind of the first seven chapters, a lot of relational stuff, but then he gets to the meat of what he really, really wants to talk about. We'll start in 2 Corinthians, chapter 8, verse 1. He says, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches in Macedonia. Now, to be clear, Jerusalem, they are suffering immensely. They need money. Paul went to Macedonia. And Paul raised money in Macedonia for the church in Jerusalem. And when he says the phrase the grace of God, he is referring specifically to the offering, the financial gift that the church in Macedonia gave to Paul to bring over to the church in Jerusalem the. The word grace. It's. It's sort of funny because it's hard to figure out sometimes what it means because Paul uses the word to mean kind of different things in different places. Here, specifically Paul, when he uses the phrase grace of God. Grace refers to an intervention of God.
[00:15:13] So what does Paul call it when God intervenes and gives you strength in that moment of weakness? What does he call it? He calls it grace. Grace. Good job. Okay, what does Paul call it in Ephesians 2. 5, when somebody is spiritually dead, they trust in Jesus, and then God intervenes and raises them to spiritual new life. The word is grace. Good. What does Paul call it when you find somebody broke and God intervenes in their hearts and they want to give everything they have to someone else? We're gonna call this the grace of God. And it's interesting, and he's gonna explain this, but whatever happened in the Macedonian's gift for the believers in Jerusalem was so shocking that Paul's phrase is. This could be called nothing less than an intervention of God. We would. A miracle of the heart. So look at verse two. He's describing the context of the Macedonians now who just gave this incredible gift. He says, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. You might need to read that, like, two or three times just to kind of grasp the weight of it. All right, let me help you here.
[00:16:40] What is the normal and expected emotional state of someone experiencing ongoing severe affliction? Okay, I'll give you two words, grumpiness and irritability.
[00:16:58] Ongoing severe affliction. When you just meet somebody and they're just being their natural self. They're like, okay, okay, okay, be quiet. Leave me alone. I gotta. I'm overwhelmed right now.
[00:17:09] What is the normal, unexpected relationship to money that somebody has when they are experiencing extreme poverty, hoarding and stinginess?
[00:17:23] Okay, so if you have a group of people who are experiencing in Macedonia ongoing severe affliction and extreme poverty, what would you expect to come out of them? And Paul says, hey, Macedonians, you're going through a lot right now, but your brothers and sisters in Jerusalem, I've seen both, and they're going through far worse. You need to go pray and ask God what he wants you to give, because these saints need help. Now, what would you expect of these people? I would expect irritability, grumpiness, hoardiness, Hoardiness, hoardingness, hoarding and stinginess.
[00:18:04] I can talk. That's what I would expect. I would expect maybe they'll appease. Paul, go home and say, let me pray about it. You know, Paul, I don't know. There's just a lot going on. It's just we're overwhelmed right now.
[00:18:17] I got other things. I got bills. I mean, the Macedonian leadership, the Romans are really coming down hard on us. And, you know, how about next time, Paul? And what's interesting is that is not what the Macedonians did. In fact, you could call it the grace of God, because the Macedonians did the exact opposite of what you would expect somebody in that circumstance to do. What they did could be called nothing short of a miracle. I want to give you a little bit of context into the Macedonians experience. So they were really suffering from the result of two government overreaches. Number one is heavy Roman taxation. So Rome was taxing everybody in Macedonia, but there seemed to be an extra a bit of taxes and burden against the Christians because they were Christians. Which brings us to number two, which is persecution for their faith.
[00:19:08] So what you find is that the churches that were in this region were experiencing quite a bit of difficulty. So Macedonia in the first century, it is a region. And so here are some churches that you might find in that region. You have the Church of Philippi, and what is the book written to the Church of Philippi called? Philippians. You have the Church of Thessalonica, and the book written to them is called. You have the Church in Berea, and the book written to them is called. There is no book. Good job.
[00:19:37] Good job.
[00:19:38] So here's what, just to give you an example. In Philippi, Paul and Silas, they were beaten and imprisoned there. That's in Macedonia, Thessalonica, a mob attacked against a guy named Jason and his whole house because Paul was staying with them in Berea. Paul had to flee because when the people of the city found out Paul was there, he had to flee for his life because he was afraid they were going to kill him and the people they were staying with. In this region of Macedonia.
[00:20:05] Here's kind of how the persecutions would look on the ground. Number one, you would have a loss of property for many people. You would have exclusion from trade guilds, which made it hard to work. You'd have temporary imprisonment, which was actually really, really significant. Because if a man is imprisoned and he's the primary breadwinner for the home, well how is that family going to be able to provide for?
[00:20:27] How is he going to provide for the family? And the answer would come back to the church. And then it also included being socially ostracized. At the end of the day the net result is if you were a believer in the region of Macedonia, you had heavy taxes, persecution against you and it was hard to make a living for most of the believers in Macedonia. And so these are the people that Paul goes to and says okay, it's bad. I'm going to be honest, your situation isn't great. I would call it severe affliction. I would call it extreme poverty for sure. But guys, if you saw what was going on to the saints in Jerusalem, what you are going through is so much better. They need you now. Verse 3, Paul describes the Macedonians generosity in a little more detail.
[00:21:16] He says, for they, the Macedonians, they gave according to their means. As I can testify, I saw with my own eyes and beyond their means. Yeah Paul, but you must have like manipulated them or twisted their arm or made them feel terrible. So they did it. And he goes out of his way to say no, it was of their own accord. They went, they prayed, talked to God. God said be generous and they did that.
[00:21:39] One of the absolute greatest gifts a pastor can receive is a generous church. A pastor can go before their church and say, hey, we're meeting each other's needs, we're providing for the needs of the church. You guys are taking care of things here. And that's what you find in most of the first century churches. They took care of themselves. The needs amongst themselves were taken care of. The people that needed to be paid, the things that need to be taken care of, the bills that need to be paid, the food that needed to be paid, provided for, they did a really good job. You don't actually read a whole lot in the Bible of any of the apostles, rebuking the people for not caring for their own community.
[00:22:14] And so at the end of the day here, like, for a pastor to go and say, listen, you guys are killing it. You're taking care of our own needs. But there are some above and beyond things that are going on. And so we need you to address that. And for a church to be like, yes, how can we help? It is actually one of the most special relationships a pastor can have with a church. But I want you to look at verse four, because it really describes something, I think profound about their heart of generosity. It says in verse 4 that the Macedonians were begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. So the Macedonians didn't just tithe to meet the needs of the church.
[00:22:57] They didn't just, like, give above and beyond that in their poverty. After they committed to giving, they came to Paul. They're like, what? What can we do? Please? Anything we can do to help them, let. Let us know. And then, you know, I'll be honest. This whole preparation for this message, I've been reflecting personally a ton on this. And I'm thinking to myself, I. I don't know when the last time was that I was like, God, I am begging you, earnestly use me to meet a need in someone's life. Like this notion of God, I want to be generous. And what I find is that most of the generosity that's gonna happen in my life, and I think in most of our lives, is reactive generosity. And here they're like, what can we do? What are the needs? It's a really beautiful, beautiful attitude. And as I was kind of studying this, I wanted to know, where does this spirit of generosity come from? It's rare.
[00:23:58] It's a beautiful thing. It's a unique thing. And I think if most of us were being honest right now, if I were to ask you, do you beg earnestly, God, for moments and opportunities to be generous? We'd go, I'm gonna be honest. I don't beg for opportunities to be generous. Where does this spirit come from? And verse five actually, like, gives us the secret sauce. And I'm like, I wanna know it. Because there is a discrepancy between my heart, Michael Fueling, and. And the Macedonians. And I want to figure out how I can bridge this gap. Verse 5 says this.
[00:24:27] And this. This act of grace, this generosity, this miracle of God and impoverished people, not as we expected. What did he expect, I don't know. There's a lot going on. Says, but they gave. And here's the secret. They gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God. Not randomly, not by their own emotions, not because they just felt bad by the will of God to us.
[00:24:56] They gave themselves first to the Lord. And here's the secret sauce the Macedonians got.
[00:25:02] There is something about their relationship with God where they truly did look at God and say, you have my first and my best of everything. My life is yours. I am committed to you. And so the implication of how this went down is that Paul comes in and says, hey, there's a need. And they went and they prayed and they said, lord, our life is yours. Our money is yours. Jesus, if you say, give everything, we'll give it because we just believe you'll take care of us. If you say to give X amount, I'll give X amount because you're my master. And so whatever it was, the Holy Spirit led them and they gave according to the will of God that he led them to. To give above and beyond. It was interesting because when they prayed, right? When we pray, we're like, what's the least I can do? And when they prayed, they're like, what do you want? No matter how big or how small?
[00:25:45] And just such a different perspective on how they did this because they gave themselves first to the Lord. And I would love to think like, Michael, I'm just reflecting on myself here. God, I wanna give you every part of my life. I've tried to, like, spend my life building your kingdom. And I know, like so many of us in this room, that's our shared, like, joint passion. And then all of a sudden, somebody needs me to be generous, and I realize, oh, but, Lord, you don't have that part of me. It's interesting. When there are real opportunities for generosity in front of us, real needs, my actual selfishness comes out the most. Well, what if they break it, right? Well, I might need it.
[00:26:27] Okay, Lord, you want me to give this, but what if I need that later? Okay, well, if the Lord asked me to do this, do I not trust him to provide for that later? And who cares if they break the thing, right? And I just find it in these moments of generosity, I'm like, ooh, I actually have a huge heart of selfishness. Because if I gave him not just my life, but my stuff and my money and my body. And I just said, lord, this is yours. When he tells me to use it in a certain way, I Should be like, yeah, it's yours anyways, so what do you want? But I find in these moments of generosity, when they come my way, when I have these opportunities, I find myself like, okay, interesting.
[00:27:00] I have either not given every part of myself to the Lord like I thought I did, or I did. And then have you ever found this? You're like. You have this moment where you're like, jesus, this part of my life is yours. And then all of a sudden, time goes on and you sort of start taking it back. Anybody have that experience? I do.
[00:27:15] And then you're like, wow, I just got exposed again. I need to re repent of taking back from you what I initially gave to you, my heart or this part of my life.
[00:27:27] The striking part of the Macedonians giving is that it is the definition of generosity.
[00:27:35] This is. When you look at this, this is nothing short of a miracle of God, an intervention, because no human heart would act like this in poverty and affliction. Look at verse six with me. Accordingly, he says, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. Next week we're going to talk about Titus, his role, and there's some really interesting stuff happening there. But he basically says, listen, Titus is coming and his job is, in the same way the grace of God moved among the Macedonians, he's going to actually collect the same grace of God among you, this financial gift. He says in verse seven. But as you excel in everything, in faith and speech and knowledge and all earnestness and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace, I wanna just say this because some of you might be thinking of it.
[00:28:31] If I raised funds the way Paul did, you would say, oh, no, you can't do that. That's manipulative, right? Like, you guys are amazing at everything. Come on, you gotta step it up. If I were to put out another church and be like, that's how much they gave. Now you guys give this much, you would look at me and be like, come on, dude. Now, Paul has an edge here, okay? Because for the apostles, they didn't get paid by the local churches, okay? There is clear evidence that the. The elders and the pastors, especially the ones who taught, they were paid, but the apostles didn't get paid. So he's not getting anything from this church. It's a lot easier to stand in front of a group of people where you get nothing from them and go, step it up, right? Like, look how much the church down the road gave to meet this need over here, if I didn't get anything, if none of our staff or anybody get any money, it's a lot easier to raise funds in that manner, isn't it? Right. But I think even if Paul, even if Paul got paid by the Corinthian Church, he would still look at the people and say, the need is right, the vision is good. Let's figure this out. Look what they did. We can actually step this up. And by the way, who had more money, the Corinthians or the Macedonians? The Corinthians. The Corinthians weren't experiencing a severe test of affliction and extreme poverty. Actually, they were doing really well. And then in verse eight, he says, I say this not as a command, because if it was a command, it wouldn't be generosity, it would be responsibility.
[00:29:51] I say this not as a command, but Corinthians, to prove by the earnestness of others that your love is also genuine. Look at what the Holy Spirit's doing in the Macedonian's life. Prove to everyone that you are generous and love earnestly just like they do. And then, ultimate trump card, verse nine. For you know that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich. I'm telling you, you guys would throw rocks at me if I raised money and was like, oh, you don't want to give? Look at what Jesus gave you. Right?
[00:30:29] I actually don't think Paul was being manipulative. There's this tendency for us to read kind of our own modern church baggage onto the Apostle Paul. Let me translate how I think the Corinthians would have received this.
[00:30:44] Hey, Corinthians, prove your love for Jesus and your understanding of the Gospel by being generous when real needs are put before you.
[00:30:55] So Paul's basically like, listen, you've received the greatest gift of generosity on planet Earth.
[00:31:03] I'm coming to you and saying there is a real need.
[00:31:07] So here's the deal. True Christians, because of what we've received, when they see needs in others, they rise up to meet those needs when they're given the opportunity, right? We model ourselves not after the Corinthians, but after the Macedonians, we say, whatever's going on in my life, like, if there is a need that I have the ability to enter into someone's life and meet, I'm going to step it up and I'm going to be generous in that moment, and that generosity is going to be nothing short of A miracle, because no human being in their flesh gives generously when we are struggling or broke or in need. Prove your love for Jesus and your understanding of the gospel of being generous when real needs are put before you. All right, I have three. So what's. And we got two more Sundays in this subject matter of generosity. So lots more to say on it. But number one, you'll never be generous until you repent and start building the muscle.
[00:32:08] But, Pastor Michael, repent of what?
[00:32:11] The world's budget rhythm. And repent to God's budget rhythm. When your life is in biblical order, generosity can explode.
[00:32:26] The challenge is that most Americans can't wake up and just be generous, because most of our life has been built on a worldly system that is focused on immediate gratification. And me, here's what should happen in a message like this. In theory, every single person in the room who looks at this and goes, my life is not built on the Bible's budget strategy.
[00:32:51] We should be like, okay, Lord Jesus, my next step is I wanna go home and I wanna make some changes. And I'm gonna talk to my husband or my wife or if I'm single, I'm gonna make some changes on my own. And I'm gonna shift this right, because I don't wanna live in a worldly paradigm of money. I'm gonna live in a biblical paradigm of money.
[00:33:08] Some people will go home. And what I find is the most challenging part of this discussion is that in a marriage, usually it's only one person who gets convicted of this. And it kind of takes two to tango in a marriage if you're gonna build your family system on biblical values.
[00:33:23] But either way, what should start to happen is that there should be some level of conviction if there's a discrepancy in our lives. And what do Christians do when we realize there's a discrepancy between God's word and what we do in our lives? What's the answer? We change. Right? That's what we do. And yet the hardest idols to break are money stuff and things. And so we're like, yeah, yeah, I'll deal with it later. Yeah, I'm hungry. Yeah, I got this thing to do. I'm gonna go check out my Facebook real quick right now. Right. Like, anything that we can do to just ignore this issue. And so I just want to encourage you guys, on the other end of repentance are beautiful opportunities for generosity. So what number two, to be generous in our daily lives is the fastest way to become like, Jesus More like Jesus. There's this principle called a keystone habit. And a keystone habit is a behavior that if you change, changes everything else. Think about it like this, it's like getting enough sleep every night. Now I know there are some people that no matter what you do, you've tried everything, you can't sleep. But there's some people who like you should be getting more sleep than you can. And it's interesting that when you start to get enough sleep every night, your whole body starts to change. Your mind changes, your focus changes, your presence changes, your irritability changes, you eat less, you have more self control. You change this one thing and everything else slowly begins to change. Or I think we said this earlier, but you eat well and you walk daily. Two simple things. You do those and then all of a sudden everything slowly starts to change. And so when you repent of the world's approach to stuff, you begin to unlock generosity in really beautiful ways. And the muscle doesn't start being built until you start repenting and changing. But it's one of these things that once you change it, everything else starts to change. And for fun, some of you are like, listen, I don't even know where to start on the money stuff. I don't know where to start on the time stuff. So let me give you like my top 10 list of ways you could literally just go home and actually be generous above and beyond intentional right now. Number one, food. Feed someone. Oh my goodness, what a gift, right? Food's delightful. Number two, encouraging words, a kind text or a written letter. Start to be generous above and beyond with your words.
[00:35:42] Appropriate touch. Okay.
[00:35:47] Small gifts that meet real needs. Or if you've got more resources, Large gifts that meet real needs. Monthly reoccurring gifts to Christian nonprofits. I mean you're like, I don't give anywhere. Give somewhere. Just give something somewhere to someone. Put a $5 monthly reoccurring gift to someone that is some ministry that's trying to build the kingdom of Jesus. Using your unique job skills for a friend or someone in need. And hear me for free. Giving someone a ride when their car is broken down or they need help, letting somebody borrow something, they need to do a job. Spending extra time with somebody. Even if your to do list is just so unbelievably long. There are so many ways to have micro pieces of generosity, Microsoft experiences where you can start to slowly build the muscle, where you intentionally look for ways, it maybe isn't your obligation and responsibility, but just gonna look for ways to bless other people. I wanna just briefly tell you a true story about my next door neighbor. Ten years ago, we moved into the house. It was an absolute wreck. We had a lot of work to do and all my tools were in storage. First day I meet this guy, he says to me, hey, I see you got a lot of work to do. Here's my garage code. You can come in anytime you want. Here's all my tools. Anything you need, you don't have to ask. And I said, sometimes I work late at night. And he goes, it's fine, doesn't matter, Just shut the garage door when you're done and then we'll figure it out. Who does that? Who looks at a complete stranger and like, here's my garage code, here's all my tools. Whatever you need, have at it. It's 10 years later and I still have this code and I'm still using his tools.
[00:37:28] We have woods behind our house and there's just a lot out there. But like, so he builds this whole network of pathways every single year so that our kids can make the most out of the, out of the woods experience. His kid, by the way, like, oldest, is like married, et cetera. There are no little kids running around his house. And every single spring, he's still out there building this path and making sure that there is a path for my kids and all their friends can go play. And if you've ever been in our backyard and you go to the golf course at night to look at all the stars or sled or do whatever you do, you can thank my next door neighbor for that course. There would be times when we wouldn't know where our daughters were and they would be next door in their basement because his wife is an amazing artist. And they'd be doing pottery or something different or painting and just investing and pouring into our kids. And I'm sure she had other things to do. And what is it that would possibly motivate next door neighbors? This is tip of the iceberg stuff, by the way. I'm just giving you like low hanging fruit. What would motivate a next door neighbor to do this? They love Jesus and they intentionally look for ways to bless people. And I tell you, if they could sit here and testify, I guarantee they would say it is better to give than to receive. Jesus was onto something finally. Number three, all generosity is awesome. But one kind of generosity supercharges spiritual growth.
[00:38:55] So two kinds of generosity. One is public generosity. And this isn't bad. Sometimes there is no way to give in a way that is secret. That is real but secret generosity where no one but you, maybe your spouse, but no one but you and God know what happened. There is no credit to be gotten. Jesus says in Matthew 6. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret.
[00:39:25] And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And what is your temptation going to be? Subtle brag, don't do it because your father who sees in secret will reward you. Two more weeks in this I'm going to pause. To be continued. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your generosity to us.
[00:39:48] Thank you for Paul's directness to them, to the Corinthians, thank you for the Macedonians example of generosity even in the midst of extreme poverty and affliction.
[00:40:01] And yet we pull back, we just say all of that generosity is modeled after what you have done for us. So we thank you.
[00:40:12] Lord, I pray for each and every one of us as individuals, as families. God, would you help us to repent where we need to? Would you allow us to pick up our eyes to see the very real needs in front of us? Lord, may you give us your vision not just for our responsibilities but for generosity. And Lord, we want to be individuals and families and a church that is generous and we seek to build the kingdom of Jesus here to meet real needs. God. So I pray that you would help us to that end. And just thank you for all of your unbelievable abundance. Even though we might not have as much as we want, we have more than we could ever need. We have more than the vast majority of humans who have ever lived in all of human history. And so we are grateful and we are thankful and we do all this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
