The Lost Art of Generosity: Part 2
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We are in week two of our Lost Art of Generosity series and I hope you guys enjoyed last week and some discussion around the table. We're going to have a little bit more today as part of the service today. But last week, Pastor Andre opened up our series talking about some words directly from Jesus himself. Specifically talking about how there's more joy in giving than in receiving. And that the foundation of a life of generosity is this idea that the more that we have that we give away, the greater our life becomes. And this is totally counterintuitive to life, right? While generosity is more than just giving our money, it is actually not less. And that we ourselves, as it says in scripture, we are created in the image of God and God is a happy, a joyful, a generous God. And when we practice generosity, we are actually living life according to the design and we tap into the joy of God himself. It says in Acts 20 35 that there is more happiness in giving than in receiving. And there's an author, Randy Alcorn, that we'll talk about through this series. He says that giving is the good life. And Jesus has an invitation for us in our hearts to kind of watch out, to be careful how we have our natural desires. Because when we truly begin to slow down and simplify the parts of our lives, it's all in a manner of creating margin to live a life of generosity. And Pastor Andre last week, he challenged us to think about a very simple, maybe small act of generosity that we could take before today. Maybe it was to pay for someone else's coffee, to maybe put $5 in our pocket and to pray every single day, "God, where do you want this $5 to go?" Or maybe it was the gift of someone of our time to maybe sit down and have a conversation, to have an act of service towards them or serve somebody in a practical way. Around our tables this morning, I got two questions for us that I want you to talk about. The first of which is, what challenges do people face when thinking about generosity? What are some of those challenges that maybe personally we feel or you see in other people? And then what new ideas of generosity have been growing in you this past week as we begin our series? So we're gonna play some just quiet music in the background, take about three minutes or so, begin to discuss around the tables those two questions.
I love, I was kind of overhearing some of the conversation in the room, but just give a shout out from your table. What were some of the things you guys talked about that are some of the challenges or things that really kind of things that people face when thinking about generosity? Not having enough. Not having enough. Yeah. Selfishness. Ooh yeah. Oh co-dependency, yeah okay yeah yeah. What else? What other challenges? Fear. Yeah absolutely 100%. What else? What other what other challenges? Anything else from your table? Control. Giving up control? Okay yeah yeah. You give up control? Okay yeah yeah. You give it away and then you just don't know what's gonna happen with it after that. Yeah that's fair that's fair. What other things that your table kind of popped up? Oh there you go. Getting people to accept the help. Okay. Yeah so you don't know whether it's it's where your money is going if or whatever it is is really going towards the the cause that they say it's going to. Yeah that's good. Yeah those are definitely some really real challenges when thinking about generosity. Anybody have any ideas of of new ways you're thinking of generosity maybe this week as we started the series? Is anybody able to do like the five dollar thing or pay for somebody's coffee and do anything give anything away this week? Time? Okay awesome. Yeah we had this week we actually had someone come come by the church and ask for some gas money and and for us here in Rocklin that happens maybe six months or so. And got to have a good conversation with a gentleman and you know it's it's interesting with those things where it's like begin to have kind of put in our mind and then God brings an opportunity by our way and we're like okay and honestly we what we tend to do here is we tend to have gift cards to Safeway down the street so they can get groceries or diapers or and what's nice is they have a gas station there too. But we were actually out all out of those. And so we ended up just handing over some cash and some of those real fears of like, is the guy really going to go buy gas? Does he need something like what is he going to go spend it on? But it was one of those things it's like God was like no, you need to be generous. You need to trust him and trust that he's listening to God in that. And so a very real practical way. We as a church are actually because of you guys are actually able to bless somebody this week.
And so have you ever been talking with someone about something specific? Maybe it's some new shoes or clothes or a kitchen gadget and new video game. Maybe it's something to do with your favorite hobby. Maybe something about Mother's Day coming up. Guys, one week warning, heads up. All right. Can't say I didn't tell you. But maybe it was a trip you want to take or something else that you want to buy. You remember having those conversations? I had one of these this couple weeks ago. I was meeting with my spiritual director, my shepherd, and we were talking about what we were doing this summer. And Lauren and I are a 17 year anniversary is coming up the end of this month. And yeah, we're excited about it. We're excited. And so we were talking about where we wanted to go. Maybe we wanted to take a flight somewhere or travel out of town. Maybe go to Tahoe. We weren't sure. And I'm having this conversation with my friend and all of a sudden literally a pop up notification on my phone. Southwest is having a early summer sale. And I was like, God, are you listening? Siri, are you listening? Like what's going on here? But it's just like this creepy moment just like what is happening? We didn't book any flights with Southwest. It was a little too creepy for us.
But experts say on average, we look at and we are exposed to and put in front of us three to five thousand ads every single day. That's just daily. That's not a week. That's not a month. That is daily we see that. And all of these are designed not for our rational brain because consumerism isn't rational at all. But all of these ads, they're amplified. They have all these algorithms. They spend billions of dollars every single year on advertising. And let me tell you, the executives of these businesses, they're no dummies. They don't spend this money if it's not working. But the reality is that all of these are designed to data mine our deepest fears, our insecurities, our questions, our hopes, our dreams. All by watching what we do and listening to us right from our pocket. A Harvard professor calls this the surveillance capitalism. But even before the era of digital manipulation, the human heart has long been prone to believe the myth of more. See that lie that just if we had a teeny bit more, then we would be happy. But the truth is, and it cuts across the spectrum of the entire human experience, no matter how much we get, it's never enough. No matter how much we possess, it's never enough.
And the writers of Ecclesiastes were very wise when they said this, "Whoever loves money never has enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income." See, the fact is that the more we get, the more that we want. Not just the reality. John D. Rockefeller, the oil tycoon, the first billionaire in the entire world, was famously asked, "How much money is enough?" And he responded with, "Just a little bit more." Psychologists actually call this the hadronic treadmill. The fact that desire only begets more desire and more desire and more desire, and it's like you are literally on a treadmill of life running and walking and chasing after something, but never arriving. Chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. But even worse, the more that we get, honestly, the more neurotic we actually become. And this is the encounter intuitive side of Jesus that really begins to stretch us and challenge our thinking because we think that money will make us happy. But often, not only does it not make us happy, it makes us even less happy than we were before. We become more anxious. We become more distracted. We become more discontent. We become more lonely. And as a result of us living here in the West in a very affluent generation of human history, many of us are wracked daily by fear, worry, greed, and unsatisfied desire.
And it comes to no surprise that the majority of Jesus' teaching on money are warnings about the danger of it. I want to look at a couple examples this morning. Jesus in Luke 12 says this. He says, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed." Greed is really similar to lust, but it's for things. It's this insatiable desire for the more that we have, the more that we need. And Jesus, He was right. There are all kinds of greed. There's more crass things of greed. A bigger house, a bigger TV, a bigger, faster, nicer car. Those bigger, better things that we're always chasing. But there's also a more bespoke type of greed. A greed for exotic travel. Maybe it's for eating out. Maybe it's for boutique fashion. Maybe it's for rare possessions. And we're all vulnerable to some level of greed. Hence why Jesus here says, "Watch out!" But why? Why is greed so bad and dangerous? Well, the next line from Jesus' word says this in Luke. It says, "Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." It's just not where the good life is found. But not only that wealth can be dangerous, let's look at this next thing that Jesus says in Mark chapter 4. He said, "Some people like seeds sown among thorns hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, the desire for other things, come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." Notice Jesus' language here. He says, "The deceitfulness of wealth." He doesn't say that wealth is evil, but rather it is deceitful. But why is that? Well, it promises what it cannot give. So wealth does. It says it will give you happiness, contentment, an identity, a false sense of safety and security. We all fall for the lie. Can we be honest here? We fall for that lie again and again and again and again. And yet this desire for wealth is often what is keeping us from the good life. Jesus continues in Matthew 19. He says, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Again, I tell you, He's got to say this twice because it's so hard for us to understand. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." So notice here that Jesus has to say it twice, right? It's so hard for us to comprehend or we so quickly forget it, right? That here wealth is actually an obstacle to the good life, not the path to the good life. But what I want you to hear here is Jesus saying it isn't impossible. It's possible to follow Jesus into the kingdom of God and carry wealth with you. But it is very hard to do. And we love to think to be, "I'm going to be the first one to do it, Jesus." "All those who have come before me did not have the faith and the relationship that I had with you, God. I can carry the heavy burden of wealth. Please bestow it upon me.”
But the reality is Jesus' warning is haunting. The financial success can equal spiritual failure. See, this is an idea that you rarely hear in society today, right? But it's profoundly biblical. Which is probably why the weight of Jesus' teachings are so focused and against and warning to greed. The thing about it is that very few of us think we're greedy, right? As a pastor, I've had, oh man, I've had people confess things to me. Whether it was abortion, whether it was adultery, pornography, all sorts of addictions, abuse. But I've never had anyone come to me and confess greed. Just never have. And we tend to unconsciously adopt the standard cultural norms of our day, right? We live in one of the most greedy materialistic cultures in history. Hence, we often, like the story of the frog in the water, we don't even realize what greed is doing to our soul. And in this series and in this thought of figuring out the lost art of generosity, our pastors, we were thinking about, could there be a way of Jesus that could set our hearts free from greed and form us into the people that Jesus so desperately and deeply wants us to be and happy and at peace. And yes, there is. It's the rhythm and the practice and the lost art of generosity. Jesus says this to the Pharisees in Luke 19. He says, "You Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness." See, wickedness is more of like a generic term, but greed is very specific. It's the one sin that Jesus calls out by name is greed right here. And then he says this, he continues on, "But now for what is inside you, that greed, that foul just ugh, ruining of your heart, but rather be generous to the poor and everything will be clean for you." If there was a silver bullet to greed, it would be generosity. And yes, it is true, the more we get, the more that we want. But the opposite or the inverse is actually also true. See, the more that we give, the more happy and at peace we actually become. The word here used by biblical scholars that would talk about this inner satisfaction would be the word contentment. Contentment. It's one of those most underrated virtues in the entire world. That if greed is this unsatisfied desire being wracked by want of more and more, contentment is the actual opposite. It is being deeply happy and grateful for what you have. It's being free from the desire for more. It is this way of living our lives with a heavenly perspective that frees us up and allows us to live without the weight on our shoulders.
Turn with me or flip or tap or whatever to 1 Timothy chapter 6 is where we're going to be for the majority of this morning. But I love what it says here talking about contentment. And it brings all of this stuff together. It says as Paul is echoing Jesus, so Paul isn't saying something different. He's echoing Jesus, but he's also giving us this idea and alternate pathway towards happiness. It says this in Timothy 6. Godliness with contentment is great gain. What does he mean by this? What he means is that true wealth is not having a lot. It is being happy in God and content with what you have. I've heard a wise person say this once. They said, "I may not have a lot of money, but I am rich all of the time." This is the idea of contentment. It continues on in 1 Timothy, "For we brought nothing into the world and we take nothing out of it." As the saying goes, you can't take it with you. A lot of people have tried. Wealth is temporary. Either you lose it all the day you die or you lose it all way before that point. It continues on in verse 8, "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." What does it mean by that? Well, the Greek word here for that word clothing actually translates to covering. So the idea is here, if we have food, we have clothing, we have shelter, and as long as we got God and each other, that's enough. There's no need for anything more than that. But he continues on. It says, "Those who want to get rich," or maybe translate this way, "Those who set their hearts on being wealthy, those who long to be rich, those who desire with their hearts on being wealthy, fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." This line is often misquoted, but if you read here, you pay attention to the love of money is the root of all evil that everybody says. The love of money is the root of all evil. No, no, no. That's not what the Bible says. The NIV translation here actually is really, really excellent. It says, "The love of money is a root, a root of all kinds of evil," meaning it's the evil underneath so many of the evils in our soul and society. Money itself is not evil. It's just not. It can do great good, absolutely, but it can also do great evil. And when I think of power of generosity, I think of a business in which to make the world an absolutely better place.
But at the same time, money isn't neutral either. It's very powerful. I think of nuclear power or nuclear energy. It can bring life or death. And it's very hard to steward this level of power well. I think of money like Frodo's Ring in Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings, right? You guys have seen those series. I think of it and the idea that only the purest of hearts stand a chance at not being corrupted by its power. The whole movie series, all 300 hours of it, are all about the struggle to end the Ring, right? They do flashbacks to years before when kings wielded it and destroyed half the earth, and then it was gone and lost and hidden forever and then found again. And the whole journey of the fight to be able to figure out what to do with this powerful ring. And I think that's for us with money. That even then sometimes it's not a blessing as much as a burden to our soul, and it tends to deform our inner person. That money-love is far more dangerous than any of us realize. This is what it says in the next verse. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Another way it's been translated, pierced themselves with many pains, have wounded themselves with many sorrows, caused themselves untold agonies of mind. In my life here on earth, whether you have more years than me and say I haven't been here very long or you have younger years than me saying you are super old, I've seen a lot of people gain wealth over the years. And I've seen what it does to their hearts and to their lives. And my experience is that the warning of Jesus and the scriptures are incredibly, incredibly true. Not only does money make most people happy, but it often is the root of all kinds of evil.
So what's Paul's solution to all of this and the problem of greed? Contentment. The writer Randy Alcorn defines contentment as being satisfied in who's you are, who you are, and what you have. Those who love and serve Jesus can be truly content, but those who love and serve money can never be. To be content is to realize you have enough. But even more so is be happy with what you have been blessed with. See, my problem is, you guys probably don't struggle with this, is that I think I'll be content when I get a raise or when I buy that home or when I get through just this season of life. Then I'll be content. But that's not how contentment works. It's not. The truth is, though, but we can be happy here and now through practicing the lost art of generosity. See, there's, I see this as two facets of this discipline, kind of maybe like two sides of a coin. The first of which is going to be the most obvious one. So if we have generosity, the first side would be to give. To give our resources away. Which we're going to talk about this more later, but the reality is this isn't ours in the first place. It's solely God, and so we freely share. Giving is like God's antidote to greed. It's like the prescription to fix the greed in our lives. And the more that we give away, the less control that money actually has over our hearts. The other side of that is to simplify our life. To edit down everything to the essentials of what really matters. And see, both sides are critical. J.K. Chesterton famously said this, "There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less." Paul puts it this way, that there's two ways to be rich. Earn more or want less. That's it. I think the second one, want less, is a little bit easier to attain in life.
But the discipline of pursuit of less has at times been called simplicity or simple living. Or in the Christian tradition, different words. Or maybe you've heard the secular term minimalism. But there's so much more to be said about simplicity. First, I want to get this straight. Simplicity is not the same thing as poverty. Sometimes we just throw the baby out with the bathwater and go, "I'm just going to be poor." But I don't think that's how God wants us to live our lives. Because if you're poor, you don't have anything to give away, right? But the reality is that the definition of simplicity is this. Limiting the number of our possessions, expenses, activities, and social obligations is a level where we are free to live joyfully and generously in the kingdom with Jesus. And it reframes the question of, "What else can I get?" Framing it into the question of, "What can I do without?" Thinking in our mindset. And see, this question only makes sense inside of a worldview like that of Jesus. See, the reality is, to live a generous life, we need to have margin. We need to have margin in our finances so we have budget in the room to share. We need to have margin in our schedule for rooms for interruptions from people who need us, for times for rest, for times of delight in the Lord. We need margin in our relationships. But see, the problem is most of us live at overcapacity, not under capacity. See, for Jesus, or for us who are apprentices of Jesus, disciples of Jesus, we should live our lives where the people should look at us and how we spend our money, and they should assume we actually make less money than we do. This is really hard. Imagine this, if you would with me, I'll put this on the screen, of a line of our income and our expenses and a level of indebtedness. Most of us in the world around us, this is reality, we live above that debt line. We're maxing out our capacity. Jesus calls us to actually live underneath that level, in the bottom. Because in the area above, we find ourselves with anxiety, with misery, with stress, with worry. But when we live below that line, we find contentment. We can live out generosity. We find joy and happiness. And this is the exact opposite of our culture.
We live in California, we live in a very affluent area in California, but the reality is when people drive in the luxury cars, living in the giant homes, living in their lifestyle with their clothes, everything like that, they are still living paycheck to paycheck, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. And I don't see how this is the way that Jesus calls us to live our lives, to just live the opposite. Did you get what Paul said there? He said, "We will be content." The Greek word here, content, implies a resolve of the heart, that we will not give into greed, but be happy with what we have. There will come a time in your life where you will have to draw a line in the sand and say, "Enough is enough. I don't need any more." But here's the hard part. This practice looks different for all of us. And it will look different based upon your stage in life, based upon your income level, whether or not you have children or dependents. You may be struggling to put food on the table, but Jesus' warnings about greed are not just for the rich. It is a call for all of us to be content in what we have.
I love what it says in Hebrews, we're going to close out, it said, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have." Keep your heart free. See, our heart is like a GPS. I think we've all used GPS on our phone before, right? We can pull that up and the world tells us, "Just follow your heart's desire." But that's like opening up Google Maps and just driving. We'll just go wherever, right? There's no direction, there's no final destination, there's no place that we're trying to head towards. We're just out there freewheeling it. And I think the reality is that if we were to just let our heart's desire just lead us, we'd probably end up in some really bad places. What Jesus is trying to teach us here is we have to put in the address of heaven into our heart GPS in life, because then we're going to the right destination. And then every turn has a purpose, every direction makes sense. We're headed towards a certain place. And if we just let ourselves go, we won't get to where God wants us to be. See, that is the goal. The Jesus way is not riches or poverty, but it is freedom and generosity. This is what it says in that second part of Hebrews 13. Just keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. And then he says, "Because God has said, 'I will never leave you, I never will forsake you.'" Because ultimately what we've been doing is we've been searching for, what we are searching for in money can only be found in God. What we have been chasing after to fill that in ourselves, money and wealth never will. It's only to be found in God. Whether it's peace, happiness, safety, security, identity, desire. We think we just get a little bit more, right? Then we'll be content. But what we're searching for in money can only be found in God. The good news, the gospel is that we already have everything that we need. We already have it all. We have access to the kingdom of heaven. God is our king provider and he will never leave you and never forsake you. Right here, right now, we have everything that we need to live a happy, joy-filled life in God.
Pray with me. Jesus, thank you for who you are. God, thank you for your son, your gift and sacrifice on the cross. Jesus, we have everything that we need. You've blessed us with everything. You've given us exactly what we need for today and for tomorrow and for the day after that. You have it all figured out. So God, I pray that we wouldn't worry about that, but that we would be focused in the moment here and now. That we would have contentment to push back against the greed that creeps into our lives every single moment of every single day. And Jesus, we would live a life that is honoring and glorifying to you with our finances. Being a witness to others to point people to you, Jesus. In everything that we do and say and schedule and work with our hands and take care of our time. God, it would all be directed to bring you glory in this world until we see you face to face in heaven. We thank you, Jesus. We love you. Amen.