Abound, Part 1: Unlocking Kingdom Generosity // Graham Koeppen

Hi, welcome to the Final Life Church podcast.

We're in the Colorado, and I'm following Jesus Christ that I lived in his presence, following his family and living in his mission so that hearts are awakened with his almost fire.

And if we can help you in any way, reach out to us at finallife.com.

For now, here's a short sermon from last week in Final.

Again, thanks for joining us.

So, once again, guys, welcome Graham Keptman.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Thank you for the welcome.

Yeah, as Luke said, we're going to be talking about generosity for the next few weeks.

The series is called Abound, Unlocking Kingdom Generosity.

The scripture that we're kind of anchoring in is 2 Corinthians 9 8, which says, And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Does that sound pretty good?

I'd love to have everything I need at every moment, all the time.

So, yeah, generosity is actually one of the practices of our core values.

We talked about the way of Jesus last year, and uh missions, or excuse me, generosity slots in under our core value of mission as one of the key practices.

Uh, but one thing about generosity that I love is that it actually intersects with all of the three main points of our mission statement.

So when we are abiding in his presence, we're actually experiencing the generosity of God.

We get filled up with his generosity, his goodness.

And then we get to turn around and we get to spill that generosity out to each other.

Acts chapter 2 talks about how the early believers were bringing everything they had to the table and was sharing it amongst each other so that nobody was in need.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

It's a beautiful picture of the church being generous within itself.

And then generosity intersects with mission as well.

Um as we experience, or as as we experience the generosity of God, it gets to overflow.

The goodness of God gets to overflow to the world around us.

So before we jump in, I do want to pray.

Um generosity and topics around money and giving and tithe sometimes can be a little bit taboo in the church.

Sometimes some of you might even be feeling a little bit of a, you know, like an internal like, I don't want to talk about this.

Uh maybe that's because you've had some bad experiences in the past where you felt manipulated or shamed or something like that.

Or maybe there's just a battleground around this area in your life.

Uh so let's just join me in prayer for a second.

God, we thank you for your goodness.

God, it is because of your goodness that we are here this morning.

Your generosity to us has led us to this moment.

And God, you have given us so much.

And God, we want to be generous back to you.

We want to be generous back to your people and to those that don't know you.

And God, we just ask for your presence to be here.

We ask for your spirit to pave a way for us to be able to understand this kingdom principle in a new and fresh way this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I do want to acknowledge that I believe that as a community, uh, we've kind of got a jump start on this topic.

I believe that we are very generous already.

But I do want to talk a little bit about why we're talking about money, why we're talking about generosity.

And I'll give you a hint.

It's not actually about money, it's about discipleship.

First, Jesus didn't shy away from talking about money.

He's very specific about how we are to relate to money.

Money and earthly possessions represent the most significant battle for our attention and affection or our worship.

We can either worship with our money or we can worship our money.

Generosity is the greatest weapon that we can wield in the battle against the seduction of money, and it's also the greatest indicator of a regenerate heart.

If you've experienced the love of God, if your life has been transformed, it is the natural overflow to turn around and be generous.

To be clear, there are multiple ways to express generosity.

We often use the three T's, time, talent, and treasure, to talk about the different expressions of generosity.

Certainly, God can bless us in multiple different areas of our lives, not just in finances.

Okay, we can be a blessing, God can bless us, and we can be a blessing with our time and our talent.

It's beautiful when people sacrifice their time to serve the body of Christ and to support the marginalized in our community.

And it's amazing what can be accomplished when people use their talents to serve and bless others.

And I don't want to diminish those expressions, expressions of generosity in any way, but I do believe that there is a there's a unique something unique happens when our faith intersects with how we relate to money.

We have an opportunity to break off fear and self-reliance and put our uh put our faith in our Heavenly Father.

Secondly, generosity opens our soul and unlocks gratitude.

We're here to be a blessing to each other, to the city, and to the nations.

Generosity is defined as showing readiness to give more of something that is than is strictly necessary or expected, showing kindness towards others and large or more plentiful than is usually necessary.

So, how many times in life does just enough catch your attention?

Right?

We expect to get what we deserve.

If you pay for a scoop of ice cream, you expect to get a scoop of ice cream.

But if you get two scoops, it's like, oh, sweet, two scoops of ice cream.

I wasn't expecting that.

Or if you're in line at Starbucks and somebody in front of you pays for your coffee, sweet.

Or when a friend goes above and beyond with a birthday gift or a state, um, it causes us to pause.

We're drawn into gratitude.

Generosity gets our attention, it softens our heart, and it endears us to the giver.

This is where the missional component comes into play and is most likely how most of us ended up in this room.

We encountered the generosity of God.

And when we encountered the generosity of God, we can't help but be drawn to Him.

All right, lastly, uh this is not a ploy to shame anybody or guilt you into giving more to this church.

We are so thankful for your generosity.

God has God chose to provide for his body through his body, and it's his job to talk to you about how much you give and how often you give.

It's also his job to provide for us.

So I'm gonna let him do that.

But I do think it's important that we explore this topic because there's a depth here that we need to understand.

So let's jump in.

By a show of hands, how many of you have worried about money in the past week?

All right, keep your hand up.

How many of you have worried about money in the past month?

Okay, keep your hand up.

How many of you would say that money is tied to one of the top three stressors in your life right now?

Okay.

So there's probably about half the hands up.

You some of you only had your hand about this high, so it's a little hard to see, but um you're not alone.

There are, I did some, I looked for some um surveys, and there are surveys all over the place, and almost every one of them uh had money, financial stress, uh inflation, jobs, all that stuff is in the top of every survey that I looked at.

And I can certainly relate to this fear.

Managing money is a big part of what I do on a daily basis.

I um not only have to manage my family budget, but I also run a business and I have to manage the finances for the business.

And I'm also the art operations director here at the church, so I'm also oper managing the money for the church.

And I am continually faced with the realities of an economy that seems to be shrinking, and um prices on everything going up groceries and raw goods and everything, gas.

Um I wish I could say that I always had a faith-filled and generous response, but the truth is that sometimes I struggle with fear and uncertainty.

As I was preparing for this message several months ago, I was actually supposed to share on generosity back in the fall when we did the Way of Jesus talk, and then I got sick, so I wasn't able to, but uh as I was preparing for this message, um, I felt the Lord drop this phrase in my heart, my mind.

And the phrase is that He wanted me to, He wanted me, wanted us to orient our lives towards generosity.

And at first I thought, oh yes, that's such a great point for my message, that'll be great.

And um, but the longer that I sat with it, the longer that I mold that over, I began to become deeply convicted that I actually was not living that out in my life, at least in the area of my finances.

Um I generally consider myself to be a generous person.

In fact, I believe that I have the spiritual gift of generosity, but for a lot of different reasons, the stresses of life, busyness, fear, pride, I had not um, I was not being intentional to orient my life around generosity.

Generosity was an accident, it was not the natural overflow of God's provision in my life.

And it was deeply convicting, and Piper and I, my wife, who was the one leading worship, uh, have been working over the last several months to reorient ourselves so that we can be generous intentionally.

So, how do we orient our lives toward kingdom generosity at a time when the cost of everything is rising?

There's talk of recession, possibly another housing crash, the stock market is unstable.

There's a lot of challenges that we face moving forward.

What is our response as believers in this climate?

Should we pull back and store up for the future?

Do we get conservative, steward our resources?

Let's look at what Jesus has to say.

If you want to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 12, we're gonna start in verse 13.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

If you don't have your Bible, you can follow along on the screens.

I'm reading from the ESV.

Verse 13.

Someone in the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?

And he said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

And then he told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, What shall I do?

For I have nowhere to store my crops.

And he said, I will do this.

I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all of my grain and all of my goods.

And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.

Relax, eat, drink, be merry.

But God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

So here we have this parable parable about this man who is abundantly blessed by the Lord.

And uh, if I'm being honest, uh at first blush, this his this the man in the story seems like a pretty natural, normal response.

My American capitalist brain thinks he's stewarding his resources well.

But Jesus calls him a fool.

So I think we need to dig in a little bit.

So let's look at a few postures of this man, this man's heart.

First of all, we see that he's operating out of a fear or lack of running out.

He feels the need to store up his goods for many years.

He despite the fact he's got barns already.

So he tears down the barns he has and builds bigger ones just so that he can store up more food, more grain, more wealth.

He's putting his trust in his own strength rather than trusting God to be his provider.

Secondly, despite God's favor and blessing, he shows no acknowledgement or gratitude.

As a farmer, he would have been limited in his ability to provide for himself.

No matter how hard he worked, no matter how hard he sowed, he was still 100% dependent on God for his provision, for God to bring the rain.

Yet he knows shows no acknowledgement or gratitude for this provision.

Also, the man is only focused on himself.

Did you notice how many times he said I or my in that section of scripture?

My crops, my grain, my goods.

He has no consideration for the fact that God may have intended this blessing to extend past himself.

And last, he was more concerned with his security and pleasure and was happy to relax, eat, drink, and be merry.

His only focus was on his present reality with no regard for eternity.

So, in summary, he was fearful, ungrateful, selfish, and temporal minded.

In the next section of scripture that follows this, Jesus gives us an alternative way of living.

So we're going to pick up in verse 22.

And Jesus said to his disciples, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.

For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

Consider the ravens, they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.

Of how much more value are you than the birds?

And which of you, being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?

If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?

Consider the lilies, how they grow.

They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith?

And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried, for all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your father knows that you need them.

Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

Fear not, little flock, for this is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Sell your possessions and give to the needy.

Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in heaven that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Wow.

I don't know about you, but that's a challenging section of scripture, especially if you simply take it at face value.

It completely fy flies in the face of our value system as Americans.

What is Jesus saying to us here?

Is he actually saying that we should cash out our 401ks and empty our savings accounts, sell our homes and our vehicles and give to the needy?

Maybe.

And maybe he's showing us a better way to live.

Maybe he's redefining prosperity for us.

Rather than be anxious about our basic needs, we are invited into trust to seek his kingdom first and let all these things be added unto us.

Rather than hoarding our resources for our own security and our own pleasure, we are invited into generosity to sell our possessions and give to the needy.

Rather than invest in our own security and pleasure here on earth, which can be taken away in an instant, we are invited to live for eternity, to store up treasure in heaven.

And he finishes it all with the crux in this one statement.

He says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So we're back to this not being about money, right?

So I asked you, where is your treasure?

This man stored up a treasure for himself.

He invested in himself and in his future, and his primary concern was for his own soul.

When his soul was required of him, Jesus says, The things that you have prepared, whose will they be?

Not only was this man not able to use the abundance of what he'd stored up, but he didn't even get a say in what happened to it.

His wealth was wasted, stolen, and destroyed, and Jesus called this foolish.

Now let's consider another example of supposed waste in the scripture.

If you want to turn to Mark chapter 14, verse 3.

Mark 14:3

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.

There were some who said to themselves indignantly, Why was the anointment why was the ointment wasted like that?

For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.

And they scolded her.

But Jesus said, Leave her alone, why do you trouble her?

She has done a beautiful thing to me, for you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do whenever you want, you can do good for them.

But you will not always have me.

She has done what she could, she has anointed my body beforehand for burial.

And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in the memory of her.

Can you hear the critics in this story?

Can you hear the criticism, the sharp cutting question in their voice?

Can you kind of feel the same question in your mind?

The same pragmatic criticism?

Like, why would you do that?

The woman is perceived to have wasted this value possession, believed to be worth up to a year's worth of wages.

But Jesus rebukes them and says, What she has done is a beautiful thing.

See, in the parable, the first parable we read, we see a foolish man who stored up wealth for himself.

He wasn't rich toward God and God calls him foolish.

In the second story, we see a woman who wastes her wealth and her abundance on Jesus and she's praised for it.

See, when it comes to kingdom generosity, there's no such thing as waste.

When it comes to a life poured out before Jesus, you can't overdo it.

Some of us have so elevated stewardship that we've neglected extravagant worship.

We've sacrificed our love at the altar of security and self-indulgence.

What it really comes down to is, again, we don't have a money issue, we have a heart issue.

This was Jesus' point the whole time.

Life is more than the abundance of our possessions.

I've seen something similar with my kids.

And it's not quite as much now, but when they were little or they would just spend hours playing arcade games.

And then we would spend another hour at the counter trying to figure out what they wanted to spend their tickets.

And then we'd walk out after several hours with, like, you know, a couple handfuls of Chinese junk and a few pieces of candy, and I would have spent a hundred dollars on that.

And um they're happy as can be.

And all the while I'm thinking, what a waste.

I'm thinking of all the things that they could have bought at the toy store with that hundred dollars, but they don't care.

They have no concept of waste.

Partially because it wasn't their money to start with, but also because the joy of the experience was more was more valuable than the cost.

I know that's kind of a funny story that doesn't entirely apply to worship, but I want to be like my kids in an arcade.

I want to be like the woman in the story.

I want to waste my life on Jesus.

He's that good, isn't he?

He's that worthy, isn't he?

And I'm not entirely sure that the church is getting this right.

I saw some statistics recently, these were actually from several years ago, but I think in 2018, the wealth of the of the Christian church around the world was like$1.4 trillion or something like that.

Forgive me for not having the exact numbers, but the the um amount of money that was actually given through churches um through Christian organizations was like$3 billion or something, which is a lot of money, but it represented 1.8% of the total wealth of the Christian church in the world.

That's falling a little short, if you ask me.

One common conversation in the world of church and money is the tithe and whether or not it's required under the new covenant.

To me, that is such a rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic conversation.

It just falls so short of the bigger picture.

When you've given everything to God, when you realize that everything you have and all you are is already his, in the first place, talking about whether or not we still have to give 10% is just such a silly and short-sighted conversation.

He's given us everything.

How can we give him any less?

I've heard it said somewhere.

How can we stare at a blood-stained cross and ask the question, what's the minimum I can give?

The question should be: how can I arrange my life so that I can give God more?

How can I orient my life towards generosity?

Our response to this challenge is first personal, but then corporate.

Isaiah 5, 1 and 2 is a foundational verse for our community.

If you'd not been here very long, uh this passage of scripture is at the very root of our identity and even the core of our name.

This verse 1 says, Let me sing for my beloved my song concerning his vineyard.

My beloved has a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines.

He built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it, and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

Now at this point, we're feeling pretty good, right?

We've got a vineyard on the top of a hill, fertile ground, we've got a watchtower, we've even got a wine vat.

There's just one problem.

It's not producing grapes that are useful for anything.

If we read on to verse 7, we start to see the problem.

It says, For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting.

He looked for justice, but behold bloodshed, for righteousness, but behold an outcry.

Now I fully believe that we are a fruitful vineyard.

That has been demonstrated over and over for years.

But I also believe that our fruitfulness was never intended for our benefit alone, right?

I believe that God placed us on this hill so that we could look out over this valley, valley, and direct the abundance of the goodness of God to those that have never experienced the generosity of God.

That righteousness and justice would flow down from this hill to the city that we get to look out over.

Can you imagine with me what it might look like if we get this right?

What could we do in the name of God and for his glory if we tap into the full potential of kingdom generosity?

What if homelessness in Boulder almost evaporated because we were able to address the core issues of homelessness with transformational discipleship and financial resource?

What if single moms all across the county were getting the support they needed to raise their kids on their own?

What if Christian businessmen and women were launched into their kingdom dreams and transforming culture because of grants they received through our pool of resource?

What if local governments came to the church for help in supporting the marginalized because we did it so well?

And what if the gospel was being preached in other parts of the world and people were being discipled into Christ because of our generosity?

It's in our blood.

In the 90s, an offering of$87,000 was taken up in a single Sunday that was given to a low-income housing development in Boulder to save them from addiction.

Another time, in fact, two other times, we've collected$27,000 in a single Sunday.

Once to bless the Southern Baptist Church in Boulder, who was their building program had kind of stalled out.

And another time for First Presbyterian Church in downtown Boulder.

They were trying to buy their building from their denomination.

Radical generosity is in our history.

Those are just a few examples.

And now it's our turn to show the world what God can do.

So what are your what-ifs?

What do you dream about that just needs the resource of heaven behind it to make it a reality?

I don't know about you, but those are the things worth giving my life for.

On the contrary, if we don't rise to the occasion, if we succumb to fear and self preservation, we are doomed to the same fate as the foolish man in the parable.

One day our souls will be required of us.

Where will your treasure be stored?