The Church - Part 2 "Generosity"

One of the things I really love about this time of year is we're getting close to fall.

We're getting into the uh the season of uh autumn, but we're in harvest right now, and I've loved seeing like how how plants and the garden produce and encourage generosity, uh, how it how it encourages those who have a garden to be generous, like the mailers who keep coming in with tomatoes.

I think they have this endless supply of tomatoes that they've been distributing.

Um the I've received a jar of pickles from the weatiers, and that has been a gift.

Um, but plants themselves are are uh also uh really generous because you can you can propagate if you are at all in the world of plants, you can propagate plants to grow new plants, which is so remarkable.

And uh and Donna, Donna, uh this is this is your baby, Donna.

Donna gave me this one uh that continues to grow.

Uh and uh this one has a sister as well that's growing well too, Donna, just so you yeah, yeah.

Uh they're being taken care of.

Uh but I just love the generosity that is seen in the in the natural world.

Mike Cosper, he is an author and uh and uh pastor says at the heart and helm of creation is a God of abundance.

Generosity has this way of like making selfishness kind of stay at bay.

It pushes back a scarcity mindset that I think, uh, oh, there's only enough for me.

There's only enough that I I need to be careful on the things that I own because there's not enough.

I uh I've felt the temptation of scarcity thoughts uh throughout my life, where my grip kind of gets tighter on the things that I have.

I have experienced that often.

So here's here's what I want to remind you of.

Um I just feel like I have to say this.

Anytime I teach on a Sunday morning from the stage does not mean I master what I teach.

I I have not become an expert at the things that I talk about, uh uh, but I'm learning alongside of you.

So during the week, I am wrestling with and trying to figure out what this means and reflecting on my own life and response to that.

So I just wanted to give that as a caveat as we go into this topic today.

There's a Latin phrase that dates back to the fourth century, incurvatus and see is the phrase.

It was picked up a few times along the way since then.

And it means a life curved in on itself.

It's a way that to describe the human temptation to be focused on self, where all my intentions end up executing on me for my selfish gain, or every decision is to better just myself, or every purchase that I make is to is supposed to be for myself.

In curvatus and see.

And Jesus comes along and he disrupts all of that.

That uh, and he does that in Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

If you see words in yellow, if you'd read them aloud.

Uh then Jesus said to his disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, and they take up their cross and follow me.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world if they forfeit their soul?

Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

What is a soul worth?

Jesus isn't making a call here of self-hatred, that you must hate yourself.

In fact, what he's saying is to lose your life is the best way to find a flourishing life, which feels like a paradox, which is the way of Jesus.

He speaks in paradoxes all the time.

To lose our life is how we will find it.

So in letting go, we actually will receive something more flourishing.

But when we grip onto things, it will actually cause us to lose it.

So last week I started this miniseries called Being the Church.

Um and my hope is, my plan is that every year we kind of look back for a few weeks and we say, what did Jesus have and what was his intentions for the church?

And are we living those out as a church community?

And what did Jesus have in mind?

And so last week we talked about that the church is a community that gathers with Christ at the center.

King Jesus is at the center of all that we do, and so we keep on looking to him as we as we continue this life together.

And so the book of Acts, it it highlights the reputation of the first church.

So it's really good to look at the book of Acts to see, okay, hey, how were they living and how are we living today?

And the book, the author, Luke, he he uses this phrase, they devoted themselves.

And he he reflects on what did this church devote themselves to that showed the heart of Jesus?

And when they did it, it was actually an act of worship.

I know we use the word worship a lot for singing, and that's part of it, but there are many other ways that we worship our Creator.

And so Luke wants to highlight that in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

So let's let's go back to that.

It says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship.

So the the word fellowship is a Greek word, koinanea.

It's been used quite often throughout the centuries.

And koinanea is one of Apostle Paul's favorite words.

He likes to use that word a lot.

And koinanea basically means it's a simple translation as a sharing, a common, uh something that is common among a group of people, and they share it in common.

So that could be translated as like they share a common understanding of who Jesus is, that's what gathers them.

But it also is a literal translation, it they would share with one another.

So we see that in verses 40 uh 44 and 45.

All the believers who were together and had everything in common.

They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who has need.

The writer of Hebrews picks up that word koinanea in chapter 13, and he says, in verse 16, I'm gonna make you read a lot today, sorry.

Uh and do not forget to do good and to share our koinanea with others.

For with such sacrifices, God is what?

Pleased.

I didn't make you uh yeah, thanks.

Um this we'll learn right away in Acts.

This isn't a forced participation.

They're not saying you have to do this.

We'll learn in just a little while.

Actually, don't do it if you feel compelled, like uh uh uh coercion to do it.

And it wasn't always towards poverty.

I know there's a thought of like, oh, do I have to give everything so that I then am impoverished?

And it isn't a call to that either.

There's some people who have been called to poverty, uh, but it isn't necessarily for the whole church.

It was this sharing that required some sacrifice, that they did it together so that the daily needs were met for other people.

It was the living out of that prayer.

Hey, God, would you provide daily bread for us?

And one of the ways God answers that is through the church.

The church is the one that provides the daily bread that others are praying for, for the Father to provide.

Acts chapter, or sorry, Hebrews chapter 10 talks a little bit about this too.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

It says, and let us consider how we were to spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

Don't give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.

But when you do meet, encourage each other.

Let's keep loving people well, and let's keep giving things and let's do good deeds together, is what Hebrews says.

So I don't know if you've noticed, uh, but the human default is not to share.

Be in a room with a toddler at any point, and you will find that out pretty quickly.

We as adults have become a little more civilized in our not sharing.

Uh, we have learned how to do it in a way that doesn't look as barbaric as a toddler.

Uh so the people of Relevant Magazine, uh, they reflected on some stats and uh oh, a list of good stats to tell us what we would like, right?

Kind of a mirror, James would say we're holding up a mirror.

I've held off on all of the stats because I don't want us to feel terrible about ourselves.

Um, but let me just read a couple of them, ready?

Nearly 40% of the food that we eat in America goes to waste.

That equates to approximately$400 billion a year in wasted food.

In America, more money is spent on fashion accessories than college tuition every year.

Oh, it's gonna hurt a little bit, friends.

Uh the amount of money spent on shoes and watches and jewelry, just those three categories, totals a hundred billion every year.

And then we have over the last few uh decades this rise of fast fashion.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with that phrase, fast fashion.

It's an industry of uh making inexpensive clothing and a lot of it.

Uh, and it doesn't last very long.

And I know that there is a need for that uh to some degree.

But it what it also does to those in a country like America is it increases our desire to keep purchasing more clothing.

In fact, we went from a traditional calendar of having a fashion of spring and then summer and then fall and then winter to literally 52 micro seasons that many of these companies put out.

They put out a new line of clothing every week for us to pick up.

I remember I realize as I get older I do more of I Remember Winds.

Uh I remember I bought clothing for my first day of school and that was about it.

Um but but no, it's like there is a need to purchase constantly and to buy more.

American children make up 3% of the global population, yet 40% of the world's toys are purchased for those 3%.

This one's gonna be homes in the US contain more TVs than they do people.

Oh dang.

Uh 12% of the global population spends 60% of consumption.

You know what I love about comedians is they can tell us some hard truths about ourselves and we can still laugh about them.

Um and so uh this isn't a call for us to like towards legalism and hey, burn all your TVs and you know, don't wear clothing.

You gotta wear clothing.

So you gotta uh so it's not a call to necessarily make you feel terrible about yourself.

It's more a call of reflection.

Like consumer spending, it's not necessarily a bad thing to buy something, but does consumer spending cause me never to be generous?

That's the real question.

Does it does the does my spending cause me to not ever be able to be generous or even have a mindset of generosity?

Because here's what happens with compulsive consumerism.

No matter how much we get, it will never be enough.

It's like doom scrolling.

There's the infinity scroll, and you never get to the bottom of it.

That is how it is with consumer spending.

We think it will satisfy.

I don't know if you've done that, but when you buy something and when as soon as you get it, you realize, oh, I want something else.

Or how many times do we buy things that we have to buy things for that thing?

Right?

Like we buy this one thing, and then we got, you know, anytime I make a change in my my house, I'm like, oh, but and then I need to add this or build this onto it, and this and this and this, and it never it never ends.

I'm not satisfied.

Matthew chapter 6, verse 19 says, Don't store up for th 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 vermins don't destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Matthew 6:19

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

How do we store up treasure in heaven?

Like practically speaking, how does that how does that even play out for us?

I j I want to look at two documents.

One was written in roughly the second century, and one's written roughly in the fourth century.

And it's to describe the church at that hour.

So these are a couple hundred years after Jesus, and this is what the church was being described as.

That's an interesting uh conversation.

Lacking all things, yet having all things in abundance.

For the good that they do, they suffer stripes as evildoers.

This reference of they do good even to their own hurt.

A couple hundred years after this, Emperor Julian uh wrote a letter to a pagan priest.

And he's writing to this priest and saying, Listen, the Christians are doing much better job than we are.

We need to be more generous.

And so he's writing this to this priest and saying, Get your priests out there and let's be more generous.

And this is how he describes the Jewish people and the Christians.

For it is disgraceful that when no Jew ever has to beg, and Christians support not only their own poor, but ours as well.

What a reputation.

First Baptist, you have been so generous through the years.

I mean, I hear so many stories of your generosity.

Even in the last two years that I've been here, I have witnessed so much generosity.

This week was a lot of fun.

Uh I walked in on uh downstairs just below uh here, and uh a bunch of people on Tuesday were just setting up uh clothing and different items all throughout the space below us.

And then every day they were here.

And uh in fact, I talked to a few people and they're like, I'm so sore from this week um and I'm exhausted.

But yesterday we welcomed in a number of neighbors into our community and just gave things away.

Um it was a beautiful picture of generosity and just to be present with people um as you're doing it.

It reminds me of Acts 4, who where Acts 4 is a little more detailed than Acts 2.

It says, All the believers were one in heart and mind.

No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared uh Koinas everything that they had.

With great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no meet needy persons among them.

For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and then it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Listen, this isn't a call for uh uh supporting like the prosperity gospel or you're you're you're just putting money into nowhere and not certain our needs actually being met.

But this is a description of oh, like people were sacrificing so because they saw the needs around them and they witnessed the needs around them and they provided for those needs.

And that has been the reputation of the church.

The Apostle Paul, in his one of his very last sermons before he's martyred in Rome, he reminds the church of some of Jesus' words, and he says in Acts 20, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

One author uh says that single sentence sums up the whole economy of the gospel and the whole life of Jesus, that it is more blessed to give than receive.

Jesus embodied that uh that sentence.

That word blessed, uh it has a lot of it has a lot of meanings and it has lost uh some of its meaning because when you say, Oh, bless her heart, it doesn't necessarily it's almost like a backhanded, like, oh wait, what are they actually saying there?

Uh but there is a really deep meaning behind the word bless.

Uh and we use it for different things, we use it to bless one another or to bless God.

And and so one great uh one author describes um bless as a way to add strength to another's arm.

Anything to relieve the burden of someone else in life, anything that helps someone else breathe more easily, to bless is anything that lifts up the spirit and alleviates distress.

So, church, although you don't know it fully, you have alleviated, you have breathed life into a village uh in Ethiopia.

So back in June, um we sat on the stage with my friends uh Greg and Chris and I.

And they we heard a little bit about the the the work with vulnerable people, the vulnerable vulnerable pop population in Hawasso, uh in uh Ethiopia.

And and so uh Victoria back in the spring picked up this idea, oh, let's have the kids raise some money to to help bring clean water to a village uh to allow people to actually uh to not die because of water.

And uh, and so the kids all got around that, and then Danny read about it and he jumped in and got us the church like, hey, let's do this, and uh, and just a real like excitement of hey, how do we support and care for people around the world?

And so Greg and Krissa shared a little bit about what that would look like.

And over the summer, that has already come to fruition.

And so I wanted Krisa to come and just share uh just a moment with you um of what that has looked like in lives of a village.

You may not live visit or even meet these people in this life.

And so, Krisa, will you come up and share?

Thank you.

I am so glad to be able to come back so fast, um, thanks to your generosity and some other people also giving.

Um we were able to get the funds over there really quickly, and I just got some video back from the field.

Um, it's not a great quality video, but I wanted you to be able to see it, to see what your generosity has done.

And um what you're gonna get a glimpse of is a ceremony that they have done.

They've completed the water project and they have the ceremony with all of the villages, um leaders and a lot of other people there, um, the government of Ethiopia, our social workers, our program director, and they're handing over this water project to this community.

And there's a time of prayer, there's a lot of speeches, and then you're gonna see all the kids rush down.

Usually they're really good about standing in a line waiting, but they're all rushing down to get some of that clean water coming out.

Um, and then you're gonna hear some uh village elder talk, and he's gonna say godam tempo, godam tempo, which means thank you.

And then you're gonna hear him say Megadamaseroi, Magadamaseroy, which means God bless you.

And then what they always also say is you have given something to us that we can never repay.

And that is true.

You have given something to people you have never met that you likely will never meet, that you don't even know their name in a place you've never heard of, but you have given them life and you have given them health, and you have showed them that somebody cares for them.

So I hope you in just like a little one and a half minute video.

And so thank you from me, and thank you from them, and you truly it's a it's a huge gift that you have given to them, thanks to your generosity and care.

The way these clean water projects, correct me, correct me if I'm wrong, uh um, is to to tap into a natural spring that's already there, and that it just is a spring that just flows constantly like this.

And uh to build the concrete around it to keep it uh as clean as possible, but then also to have a place to wash clothing, right?

Oh, the stairs so this hill where there would have been a lot of mud, especially during the rainy season, there are stairs now to access that space uh more safe uh safely.

So thank you for being a part of that.

If you want to know more information about so hope you can speak with Greg and Krissa, or there's uh there are things in the uh in the foyer out outside.

If you want to uh if you are interested on a trip, uh because I I plan to to go with uh Greg in January.

If you're interested in going on a trip uh to to Ethiopia, there is uh there's opportunity for that.

And uh I can share with you what those those details are too.

It's a joy to partner uh with you all.

Um Church, over and over, I just want to make a couple of closing comments about generosity.

Um Uh just to highlight back again that we are called to give out of compassion, not obligation.

And so if we feel like this coercion or an obligation, Jesus actually says, uh, hey, don't give.

Um, but we also need to reflect on if I'm always thinking I'm giving out of obligation, what do I need to do to shift in that thinking so that I don't feel that way?

Um giving takes place on Sunday mornings to further the mission that we do here, uh, that we would stay uh in this neighborhood to continue the ministry in this community.

Uh, but it also should reflect the other six days of the week when we are out and about on our own.

And how does generosity get lived out on our own?

There's a margin principle that is found in scripture where we where we keep margin in our lives so that we can be generous.

And so a lot of that has to do with oh, how do I keep margin in my budget so I can be generous a little bit?

Or how can I be more have margin in my uh in my time so that I can give time to others, so that my the talents and the gifts God has given me, I can live those out.

And I don't I don't have such a busy life, but I have some margin so that when a holy interruption comes into my life and I need to stop doing the things I normally do, I would have the time to be able to do that, to give of my talents and my time to somebody else.

And so this whole idea of generosity, you've heard it maybe before, it does include treasure, but it also is time and talents.

How does that play out in my life?

Lastly, uh, that the church is to practice generosity together, like that moment yesterday where you all gathered last uh to just be generous and to care for others, that we continue to be that.

So a year ago we talked about how can we be generous with our facility in this season of our life?

Like, how do we continue to do that with our facility at this moment, at this hour, just like the church has been generous in the past.

And so we began that conversation a year ago.

We're continuing that conversation of what do we, what do we do?

How do we meet the needs in our community with this facility?

And so, to order for us to do that, we have to release any kind of grip and hold our hands and say, God, how do you want us to use this?

So I'll let you know we're having a meeting in the this fall to continue that conversation of what is it that God has called us to use this facility for the needs in this community.

Please continue to be praying for that.

Okay, two more things and then we'll uh then I'll close.

There's this uh generosity statement that's in your bulletin um that I'd like us to say out loud.

It will be on the screen too.

And it's a great, it's not my own.

It's uh I picked it up from somewhere else.

Um I haven't found the source of it yet, but I sure like it.

And so I'd like us to just say it together in this declaration of what we want to be as a community, being generous.

Would you say it with me?

We are determined to practice generosity with free hearts, fixing our hope on Jesus and not the uncertainty of wealth.

We desire to be rich in good deeds, willing to share all that we have, laying up for ourselves treasure that will not decay, but will shine in the age to come.

May this be true of our community.

So I want to read one last passage of scripture to give us our intention for being generous.

It's really important of the why, like why would we be generous?

That's a uh it is important to always wonder, uh, reflect on what is the intention of my action?

Why do I do this?

And by what power can I do this?

Where does the power to do this come from?

And I think Philippians chapter 2 gives a really beautiful picture of the why and the how.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

So let me read just a portion of it.

Verse 4, it says, Let each of you look not only to his own interests or to be curved in on ourselves only, but also to the interests of others.

So why would we do that?

Why would I be interested in your interests?

And why would I be curious, like want your your needs met?

Like, what would be the reason behind that?

Verse 5.

Have this mindset among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

So the why is Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

What does he do?

He empties himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on the cross.

We follow a a Savior who is so generous that he is willing to give his life for us.

That is why we pay attention to the needs of others because it's the way of Jesus that he so intently looked at us that he is willing to give his life for us so that we might live.

And then he calls us to live the same kind of life, and we can't do it on our own, but we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to make that possible all for the glory of God.

Let's pray.

I'll give you just a few minutes to to reflect, and maybe your prayer starts off as a as a just a prayer of thanksgiving for how generous and good our God is with us.

In just a few moments, we're gonna celebrate the generosity of our God through the giving of his son.

And so maybe you're preparing your heart uh for the table as you confess, maybe some confession from this last week and being a remind reminded of the generous forgiveness that God has given you.

So as you continue in your conversation with your father, I'll prepare us uh for the communion table.