The Joy of Giving | A Generous Life | Trinity Sermons

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity

Sermons as we kick off a brand new teaching series

called A Generous Life. We have lots of different

ideas about what generosity means with our money,

with our time, with our resources. But what does

Jesus have to teach us about generosity? And

how can we actually find joy in giving? That's

what we're going to unpack in today's sermon.

Our readings today are from the Gospel of Matthew,

Matthew 6:19–24

chapter 6, verses 19 to 24. Do not store up for

yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and

vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and

steal. But store up for yourselves treasures

in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy,

and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart

will also be. The eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will

be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy,

your whole body will be full of darkness. If

then the light within you is darkness, how great

is that darkness? No one can serve two masters.

Either you will hate the one and love the other,

or you will be devoted to the one and despise

the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

This is the word of the Lord. You know, Jesus

is quite famous for saying a lot of things that

seem to go against common sense. So, for example,

Jesus says things like, you know, whoever wants

to be great must be a servant, right? That doesn't

seem to make any sense. You know, doesn't greatness

come from climbing upwards, not from going down?

Or Jesus says, you know, power is made perfect

in weakness, and that doesn't make any sense.

So aren't you supposed to hide your weaknesses

and build on your strengths? Or Jesus says, whoever

loses their life for my sake will find it. That

doesn't make any sense. If you lose your life,

I mean, what else have you got? Isn't that all

you've got is your life? Or Jesus says, you're

to love your enemies and to pray for those who

persecute you. That doesn't make any sense. Aren't

we supposed to crush and cancel our enemies,

not bless them? And Jesus says, those who humble

themselves will be exalted. Well, that doesn't

seem right either. Aren't the humble forgotten?

And those who exalt themselves, they're the ones

that we remember. But perhaps the most counterintuitive

of all these crazy sayings that Jesus mentions

is this one. He says, it is more blessed to give

than to receive. Now, the word blessed there

is the Greek word makarios. And that word means

blessed, but it also means happy. It also means

fortunate. And it even means joyful. Makarios

actually was this Greek word that spoke about

this exalted state, the highest state of well

-being, the state of the gods even. And so really

you could translate this one that Jesus mentioned

into this. You could say there is more joy. joy

in giving than in getting. There's more happiness

in giving than in getting. There's more makarios,

more of this joyful life in giving than in getting.

Now that doesn't make A lot of sense, right?

Of all Jesus's backwards statements, surely this

one is the most backwards and the most hard to

believe. Because doesn't joy actually come from

getting more? Not giving more. I mean, isn't

happiness found in upgrading? You know, upgrading

your wardrobe, upgrading your phone, upgrading

your car, upgrading your vacations, upgrading

your home, right? Whether it's ads or influencers

or even your financial planner, they will tell

you that more money is going to guarantee you

more happiness. and more joy in your life. No,

no, no. There is more happiness in getting and

holding on to stuff than giving. It is not the

other way around, Jesus. I would say that when

I feel this way, it's not just because of commercials

and ads and stuff like that. I think it's actually

deep in my own DNA and maybe it's in yours as

well. I grew up, I think, feeling that The more

you have, the happier that you will be. And maybe

that's because, you know, I grew up as a son

of immigrant. Parents, farmers who came over

and they didn't have very much at all. They had

next to nothing. And for them, there was great

happiness and great fulfillment in growing their

wealth and developing their success. And I benefited

from all that. But I think the subliminal message

that got in there and has shaped my own default

setting and default thinking is that joy. And

satisfaction and happiness comes from getting.

It comes from earning. It comes from accumulating,

not from giving it away. You know, Richard Foster,

in his book, The Joy of Simplicity, he says,

the unreasoned boast abounds that the good life

is found in accumulation. and that more is better.

And that's that we don't even, he says down here,

he says, we don't even question it. We accept

this notion without question. And as a result,

contemporary society has become psychotic, so

consumed with affluence and accumulation. Now,

when we hear Jesus say there's more joy in giving

than there is in receiving, I, I'm speaking for

myself, but maybe you too, I kind of roll my

eyes and I say, okay, Jesus, yes, okay. I know

that giving is a good thing to do. And I know

that giving is maybe the moral thing to do. And,

and giving might even be the quote unquote right

thing to do. But come on, Jesus, do not try to

explain to me that it is a joyful thing to do,

that it is actually leads me on a pathway toward

a happy life. Well, surprise, surprise, you know,

Jesus was actually right. He's been right all

along because over the last few decades, a whole

lot of research has been piling up showing that

what Jesus said 2 ,000 years ago is right on

the money. No pun intended, right? There really

is more joy. In giving than getting. Study after

study show that generous people, they actually

are happier. They have lower levels of depression

and anxiety. They have stronger relationships.

They have longer life expectancies. They laugh

more. And neuroscientists have found that when

you give, it lights up the same parts of your

brain that would light up like when you eat a

great meal or that when you fall in love. And

the studies will show this isn't just one demographic

or one kind of gender. It cuts across all personalities,

all ethnicities, all income levels. There's one

major study that I was looking at this week that

says that this phenomenon is a universal feature.

of all human experience. So there was a study

called the Science of Generosity Initiative.

It was done at University of Notre Dame and Hilary

Davidson and Christian Smith. They wrote a book

called The Paradox of Generosity, right? And

this book is based on thousands of interviews

and all sorts of like, it was a five -year study,

thousands of participants. But look what they

say. They say, people rightly say that money

can't buy happiness, but Money and happiness

are still related in a curious way. Happiness

can result not from spending more money on ourselves,

but by giving money away to others. This isn't

just a nice idea. It's a social scientific fact.

And they go on to say, actually, that first...

the more generous people are, obviously, they're

happier, they're healthier, they have more purpose,

they enjoy life more. But then they secondly

say, despite all that evidence, people, generally

speaking, fail to lead generous lives. So if

you look at the science, if you look at the culture,

more money equaling more happiness is just not

true. Actually, Jesus was right. Generosity.

is the pathway to a joyful life. And so what

we're going to be doing over the next few weeks

is we're going to be looking at this topic of

generosity. Why? Because your happiness and your

joy depends on it. And generosity is so, so,

so important. It should come as no surprise to

us that Jesus spends upwards of 25 % of his teaching

time talking about money. at some level that

would be the equivalent of me preaching a sermon

about money every four weeks and if i did that

i dare say there'd be a lot less people in church

and mostly that would be because of a couple

of objections all right here is the first objection

money is a very sensitive subject And it's even

more sensitive when it comes into church. You

know, the last time I preached about money here

at Trinity was like exactly a year ago. Back

in November, we kicked off our financial campaign,

our Gather and Grow campaign. On that Sunday,

we had a guest, a visitor with us that day. And

granted, that probably wouldn't have been the

best Sunday for a newcomer to visit Trinity.

But they left us one of the worst Google reviews.

ever. You can read it. You can go and read it

right now. I don't want you to go read it right

now, but you should read it because it is still

there. It was exactly a year ago. I'm going to

read to you what this gentleman said about Trinity.

Okay, here's what he said. He said, one -third

of the service was dedicated to a full -on commercial

about how the church needs money. We were literally

accosted by representative members, one of which

was the minister's wife. They asked prying questions.

I got the distinct impression we were being sized

up for how much we could potentially bring into

the church from a monetary standpoint. I could

drone on and on and on. Oh, please don't. About

how this place felt gross. Your doors are meant

to be open to anyone. He should have come last

week. I talked about open doors. And then he

ends. He said, do better. do better. He said,

I gave this guy a call afterwards, and I talked

to him for half an hour, but I could not convince

him that we were anything but a money -grubbing

church, and he would not remove his comments

either, right? Even his comments about Sally.

I mean, come on, Sally, of all the people to

get a one -star review, Sally. I mean, Sally,

do better. Do better. So my point is, though,

talking about money touches a nerve. And as we're

going to hear today, money is in some ways a

god of our age. And there's part of us that says,

do not go there. Do not talk about that. Do not

touch that. Stay away. So that's one big objection.

Another big objection is that generosity is more

than giving your money, isn't it? Yes, yes. Well,

that's true. Generosity includes giving your

time and giving your relationship and giving

your expertise and giving your attention and

giving your words and your influence and all

that stuff. Yes, it's all true. But when Jesus

speaks about generosity, nine times out of ten,

he's actually speaking about money. Now, as John

Mark Comer says, he says, generosity is true

about more than giving your money, but it is

not about less than giving your money. And it

is real easy to skip over this whole money topic.

And instead, let's focus on giving time. Let's

focus on giving our words. But Jesus himself

zeroed in on money when he spoke about generosity.

And so what I'll want to do in the time that

I have left this morning is I'm going to look

at some of that great teaching about generosity

that came from Jesus. If you have a Bible, you

can take it out or turn it on. We're going to

look at Matthew 6, 19 to 24. You've got some

sermon notes there to follow along. I just want

to show you kind of five things in this that

Jesus teaches us about giving. Here's the first

thing he teaches us. Jesus mentions that in the

human heart, there is this built -in desire to

accumulate stuff. and stockpile stuff. That's

just who we are. When I was a boy, it all started

when I started collecting comic books, Punisher,

War Journal, Wolverine. And then I started collecting

basketball cards, NBA hoops and Skybox cards.

Anyway, those things are still in my garage to

this day. I was eight, 10 years old when I started

collecting them. I don't know why I carry them

around. In fact, they fell over in our garage

about a year ago and a whole bunch of them rotted

and disintegrated on the garage floor. to pile

up stuff. And it might start with toys and it

might start with trading cards. But as adults,

we still collect pay raises and we collect investment

returns and we collect home equity and RSPs.

It's just a different version of the same impulse

that we've had since we were born. And Jesus...

Actually says that's normal and there's nothing

particularly wrong with wanting to store up treasure.

The problem, Jesus says, secondly, is though

we store it up in the wrong place. Jesus calls

us. To store our treasure in heaven, not on earth.

Now, heaven here does not mean this place that

you go when you die, does not mean this faraway

place in the clouds. In the first century Jewish

world, heaven was the place where God reigned.

It was where God's stuff was happening. It was

God's realm. So Jesus is saying the place to

invest your resources and your money is not in

what is temporary, not in what is fragile and

is just going to disappear one day, but invest

in something that is eternal. Invest in stuff

that is lasting. Invest in God's kingdom and

what God is doing right now on earth. That will

last forever. Other stuff will not last forever.

And thirdly, Jesus points out a very interesting

fact about the human heart in this teaching.

And that is this, that we usually think our money

follows our hearts. Our money follows our desires.

In other words, we spend our money on the things

that we love and the things that we really, really

value. But Jesus says the opposite is also true.

That wherever our money goes, our hearts will

eventually follow that as well. So the more money

we have and the more stuff that we accumulate,

then the more we fall in love with that stuff.

And the more we get greedy for more of that stuff.

And the more we fear of losing that stuff. And

then pretty soon our hearts and our minds and

our souls are so fixated on what we have. And

we spend so much of our lives worrying about

the fact that we'll lose it. that we would have

more of it. It's our hearts go to our money.

It's not just that our money goes to our heart's

desires. It works the other way around, Jesus

says. Fourth interesting part of this teaching

Jesus shares with us is this interesting idea

about our eyes. He says that the eye is the lamp

of the body. And if... What's he say? If your

eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full

of light. Now, at first, this sounds like a very

cryptic and strange teaching. What is this eye

that Jesus is talking about? Is this not a spooky

Halloween thing? An eye? No. In fact, if you

were to read your Bible, many Bibles will have

a little footnote attached to this verse. And

the footnote will say that the Greek word for...

So the Greek word for healthy here is actually

can imply generosity. And the Greek word for

unhealthy implies stingy. So what this means

is according to this first century idiom. There

are two ways that your eyes can look at the world.

One is with generous eyes, healthy eyes. The

other is with stingy eyes or unhealthy eyes.

Today, what we normally call that is that you

see the world either from an abundance. mindset

or you see the world from a scarcity mindset.

If you have an abundance mindset, you've got

a healthy eye. Congratulations. You look at the

world and you see everything that God has given

you and it's more than enough. You receive your

whole life as a gift. You've got a healthy eye.

But if you look at the world and you just see

lack, and there's not enough, and all you see

is scarcity, then you have an unhealthy eye.

And you actually really don't believe that God

is going to provide for you. All you see is what

you do not have. And you can have two people

who have the same job, and they live on the same

street, and they make the same income, and they

have the same bills, and they have the same dreams.

One can have a healthy eye and one can have an

unhealthy eye. One can see with the lens of abundance

and the other just sees what they don't have.

It's a good question to ask ourselves is how

do we look at the world? Are our eyes healthy

or are our eyes unhealthy? And that leads to

the fifth and final part of Jesus' teaching from

Matthew 6 here on money. And that is that Jesus

makes the case that money is not neutral. I know

deep down we all want to believe that money is

just a tool. It's not good or bad in and of itself.

It's just, there's nothing spiritual about it.

But Jesus seems to say, actually, no. There is

a spiritual aspect to money itself. It doesn't

just sit there quietly in your wallet. It actually

competes for your worship. Jesus says no one

can serve two masters. You cannot serve both

God and, what is that word? Mammon. Mammon. Now,

your Bible probably said money there, but if

you were to... look in the Greek, you would actually

see that Jesus uses this Aramaic word, mammon,

and it's not translated into the Greek. And scholars

think that because Jesus used the word mammon,

because he was referring to this Syrian god,

this god of wealth, which was called mammon.

So in other words, money isn't just like a thing,

it's a rival god. And Again, we don't want to

believe that. We don't want to believe that money

itself is good or evil. But Jesus seems to know

better, and he realizes that there's a spiritual

gravity that money has. And if we don't take

care, it'll become this satanic force. And it

does, doesn't it? Doesn't money fuel greed and

war and violence and injustice and environmental

degradation all across our planet? So that's

why Jesus doesn't just say, hey, listen, you

should not serve both God and mammon. No, he

says you cannot serve both God and mammon. It's

an impossibility. They are two different gods.

You're either going to love one and hate the

other, or you can't have it both ways. So let's

just review those five main points Jesus teaches.

We all have this desire to store up money. But

Jesus tells us, To invest our money in God. Don't

stockpile it on earth. Because if we do, then

actually our hearts may end up falling in love

with it. And then we're never going to feel like

we have enough of it. And soon we'll be worshiping

it as a rival God. Now that sounds horrible.

Who wants that? Nobody wants that. So how do

we make sure that that doesn't happen to you

and doesn't happen to me? How do we become generous?

People that get real joy from giving it away

and not holding on to it. Well, I'm going to

close by suggesting three ways. The first, the

first way is you have to let God change your

thinking. Because God shows us what generosity

looks like. And it's not that just God teaches

us about generosity. It's that God... In God's

self is generosity. If you think about the idea

of the Trinity, right? The Trinity, Father, Son,

and Holy Spirit. This God is a family of self

-giving love. The Father is always giving to

the Son. The Son is always giving to the Spirit.

The Spirit is always giving to the Father. The

Father is always giving to... There's this ongoing

generosity and self -sacrifice that is constantly

happening within... The Trinity within the Godhead

itself, that's just who God is. God, by God's

very nature, is the most generous being in the

entire universe. One professor put it this way,

as Trinity, the Christian God is eternally self

-giving God. God created man in his self -giving

image. So that's who God is. And we are created

in the image of God. So you see, becoming a happier,

more joyful, generous person, it doesn't start

with me or someone else giving a sermon on, you

know, tithing. It starts before time. And it

starts before space and before anything existed

with just who God is. That's where it all starts.

And Scripture teaches that that is who God is.

In Genesis 1, we read that God said, I give you.

God is giving. He's always, I give you every

seed -bearing plant. I give you every tree. All

of this is yours. Giving and gave, that language

comes up again and again in that very first book

of the Bible. Now, it's very interesting because

a few verses later, You know, Satan tries to

convince humankind that God actually isn't generous.

Oh, did God really say that? Is God really generous?

Can you really depend on him? Isn't he holding

out on you? And it is very telling that the very

first sin that ever happened where human brokenness

begins, it's actually when we stopped seeing

God as a generous giver and we started to become

takers, right? When she saw the fruit, she took.

some of it and ate it. So that's step one. The

first thing we have to do is let God change our

thinking to recapture this true picture of who

God is and then let that just work its way through

your life. You're going to start to become a

more generous person. But the second thing you

have to do is let the gospel now change your

heart. God may change your thinking, but Jesus

wants to change your heart. Generosity. is at

the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For

God so loved the world that he, say it with me,

gave. His one and only son. Everywhere Jesus

goes, he is giving. Everywhere he goes, there's

generosity. Oh, you've only got a few loaves

of fish? Boom, enough for everyone. Oh, you've

only got these empty water jars? Boom, wine for

everyone. Oh, you're sick? Oh, you're broken?

Oh, you're sad? Oh, you're lonely? Boom, here's

healing. Here's more forgiveness. Here's peace.

Here's a brand new life. Everywhere Jesus goes,

he is constantly turning scarcity into abundance

for everyone. But it's on the cross, actually,

that we see God's generosity most clearly. Jesus

is the richest being in the entire universe.

The one who spoke all the galaxies into existence.

And here he is emptying himself out on the cross.

He became poor. He enters into our poverty. And

he's not just poor financially, but completely.

He's poor in comfort. He's poor in power. He's

poor in life. The cross is where this God of

abundance steps into our scarcity, and he's able

to turn even death into a gift for us. That's

the heart of the gospel, that the richest one

became the poorest, so that the poorest of us

could become rich in him. And so now once you've...

Let God change your thinking. Oh yeah, that's

who God is. And once you've let the gospel change

your heart, oh yeah, that's what Jesus did for

me. Then you can begin to let generosity change

your habits. If you've been following Jesus for

a little bit, for any amount of time in your

life, you should start to see change, not just

in your thinking and not just in your heart,

but in your habits. around money. If you're not

seeing those kind of changes, then it raises

a few red flags, like am I stalled out in my

spiritual growth? Because this should be a natural

progression. And the research on generosity says

that it all begins with changing our habits around

money, right? For generosity to make you happier,

it can't just be a one -time event. Or it can't

even be just like random acts of kindness. It

has to be a habit, a regular part of your life.

I just want to read to you a little bit from

this study that I mentioned earlier. This is

what they say. They say, our emphasis here is

on practices of generosity, not single generous

acts. What matters about practices compared to

one -time acts is that they're repeated. Behaviors

that involve recurrent intention and attention.

Those are the kind of expressions of generosity

that actually enhance people's well -being. That

become the practices of generosity. Now listen

to this. By contrast, one -time or infrequent

acts of generosity seem not to be associated

with greater well -being. This includes being

an organ donor, estate giving through wills,

lending your possessions or donating blood infrequently.

This is how habits work on us. I cannot just

go flip a switch in my heart and get rid of all

the fear and get rid of all the greed and just

become a more generous person. I have to do stuff.

You know what I can do? I can buy someone lunch.

That's a thing I can do. I can sponsor a child

in Honduras. I can do that. I can give to my

church. And as I practice generosity, God is

doing something in here. He's doing something

in my heart. Something that I could never do

by my own best intentions. I start to move from

fear to trust. I start to move from worry to

peace. And yes, I even start to move toward joy.

And I start to discover that what Jesus said

is true. That there is more joy in giving than

in... In closing, let me just ask you this. Have

you ever met an unhappy, generous person? Probably

not. Have you ever met a former giver? Probably

not. Maybe they exist, but probably not. Because

most people who have enjoyed and discovered the

joy of living a generous life, they never turn

back. And yes, it costs them financially, but

they get back far more than they ever give away

because there's more joy in giving than in receiving.

We'll pick this up again next week, but for now,

thanks be to God. Thank you for listening to

this week's episode of Trinity Sermons. This

sermon was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville

in Mississauga, Ontario on November 2nd, 2025.