Our Rule of Life - Generosity & Service

How did everyone go with Mother's Day last week?

Is it kind of like just come and gone and suddenly you're like, "Oh,

what? It was Mother's Day last week. Did we forget?" Everyone go okay?

You enjoy not having a 5:00 PM service here, but who was with

their family Sunday afternoon?

Who was with their mums?

Yeah, it w- went well?

Very good.

We had a really great, um, Mother's Day service on... in the morning, and,

um, David spoke a tremendous word.

And I've haven't-- if you haven't had a chance to listen

to that, please, please do.

Um, usually on Mother's Day, you kind of get the mothers to stand, and you

wanna bless them and pray for them.

And, uh, I kind of... we kind of did that, but at the end of it, we also got the, the

men to stand and, um, kind of put a call out to men who, um, are willing to say

yes to the responsibility of encouraging their, their wives, the women around

them, the women in their world, to bring dignity and honor, to appreciate them, to

admire them, to enter the pain of their story in order not to fix them, but to

understand them and step into their story.

Um, to realize that, uh, the women that w- uh, we have in our lives, we, we

recognize vulnerability in our, in our women, and we're not here to weaponize

it, but we're here to stand alongside.

Um, I had a whole list that I went through.

I don't know if you heard that, but, um, someone after the service came to

me and said, um, "Well, that's great, Adam, and I'm willing to do that, but

can you do a message on how you do that?

Like, can you give us some practicalities?" So during the week, I,

um, put together a bit of a, a 400-page document on, uh, how to, uh, lift up

the women in your lives, your wives.

Uh, no, I think it's 11 pages.

Um, but if you wanna access that, uh, on our app, the Red Door App,

just, um... That's me saying app.

Does that seem...

Does that sound like app to you?

The thumb movement?

Red Door App, and under the recording of, um, Mother's Day,

uh, there's that information there.

So, uh, grab that if that's helpful to you as we continue our Rule of Life series.

Does anyone have their Rule of Life notebooks on them today?

One, two, yes, you are being tested.

Three, thank you.

Four, five.

Tim, you got your notebook?

That was a, that was a fakey there.

I don't know if it was.

That's your Bible, mate.

That's not a notebook, okay?

Oh, it's, oh, it's a big notebook.

Oh, very good, very good, very good.

So just a quick, uh, 'cause what happens is you might just be stepping

into this series and not really grasp what we're, where we're up to and

what is this, our rule of life thing.

So this is just kind of a, a bit of a working definition

of what we're talking about.

A rule of life is a shared rhythm of practices that orders our

lives around abiding in Jesus and participating in his kingdom.

It's not legalism.

It's training in grace.

It's not adding pressure or increasing your to-do list, but removing

chaos so that formation can occur in the interior of your world.

Um, as you listen to this series, especially as you listen to today,

just wanna make it really clear that we're not following rules to kind

of get God to, you know, be happy with us or to get him to love us.

This is ways to live now that you are free in Christ.

You don't have to work to earn your freedom.

That has been given to you as a free gift.

And now that you're free, how do you then live?

What, what are the rules that govern your life?

What are the not negotiables in your life?

Um, so this is about becoming a people who abide deeply, reliant, who live honestly,

real, love generously, relational.

These are three Rs are our values at, um, at Red Door.

And where we're kind of living right now is in that relational

one, lo- loving generously.

Um, down the track we'll continue, and we'll do real, and we'll do

reliant, but we're kind of starting bottom up kind of s- kind of thing.

So this is not about behavior management.

It's about being transformed.

It's, uh, to be with Jesus and to become like Jesus for the glory of

God, for the good of the world, and for the deep joy of our own souls.

And so, so far we've looked at hospitality, and we've looked at

witness, and today we're covering the topic of generosity and service.

And so, um, before we jump into the scripture today, I was gonna pray for us.

So, Father, we just want to thank you that as we come, Lord, we just

cast all our cares on you right now.

And, uh, I just wanna thank you, Father, for every single one of us who are,

are carrying a heavy burden that we can consciously and confidently give you our

care knowing that you can be trusted and knowing that your ways are above our ways.

Your ways are above how we see.

Your above, uh, ways are above how we think or perceive.

Your ways are above what we perceive as the solution to a problem or a challenge.

And we just wanna thank you that as we sit and wait on the Lord with

expectation about, God, you are so outside the box we've put you in.

Forgive us for putting you in a box, and may you show up in a way

that is extraordinary, where we are left astounded by your capacity.

As the ruler of the cosmos, you can do anything.

And I pray tonight that what you'll do in us will be far more substantial

than we could even perceive, and we might not even s-see the ripples of

what unfolds tonight immediately.

But in years to come, may tonight just be a marker in our hearts.

Father, may your Word do the work of God in the people of God.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Very good.

So the scripture we're going to today is from Luke 16, verses 19 to 31.

Luke 16:19–31

And just a quick little kind of contextual moment.

Um, it's a parable that follows Jesus's talk, teaching, and his

sayings about money, about stewardship, and the Pharisees have come to

him, and they're criticizing Jesus about his association with sinners.

So he's getting a hard time about the, with the Pharisees,

and this is Jesus' response.

This is what he says in response to this.

And on the surface, you may be thinking, "How is this relating to generosity

and service?" But stick with me.

This is gonna be fun.

So here we go.

From verse 19: There was a rich man who'd, was dressed in purple and fine

linen and lived in luxury every day.

At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to

eat what fell from the rich man's table.

Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side.

The rich man also died and was buried.

In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far

away with Lazarus by his side.

So he called to him, "Father Abraham, have pity on me," and says, "L- send

Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I

am in agony in this fire." But Abraham replied, "Son, remember that in your

lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things.

But now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.

And besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been set in its place.

So those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross

over from there to us." He answered, "I beg you, father, send Lazarus to

my family- For I have five brothers.

Let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.

Abraham replied, They have Moses and the prophets.

Let them listen to them.

No, Father Abraham, he said.

But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.

He said to them, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets,

they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to put up a picture on the screen and I'm not

going to say much about this picture, but I want to just talk for a bit.

I'm going to read a bit.

My preference is you don't necessarily look at me.

Certainly want you to listen to my words.

But I just want you to let this picture settle in as we continue to explore

this story that Jesus is telling here.

This is a strange, unsettling power to Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus.

It doesn't begin with a miracle, a courtroom, a grand moral lecture.

It begins at a gate.

A rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.

And at his gate, a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores, longing

for scraps that fall from the table.

Jesus is not just telling us about two men in different social worlds.

He's showing us what happens when a human life can be lived inches away from another

human life and yet remain untouched by it.

That is where this story invites us into the investigation of the heart.

Because the gap Jesus describes is not only a gap of wealth, it's a

gap of distance, of indifference, of a life arranged so carefully

around my own comfort and needs,

the needs at my gate become almost invisible.

Lazarus is not hidden in a distant place.

He's at the gate.

He's near enough to be seen.

He's near enough to be known.

He's near enough to be helped, but still ignored.

That is why this parable is not merely about generosity in the

sense of giving something away.

It's about service in a deeper sense of moving towards another person's

need, crossing the threshold of my own protected life and entering

the shared reality of another.

Jesus in this story refuses to let us separate generosity from service as

though those two things were two different virtues for two different kinds of people.

In the kingdom of God, they are joined together.

Generosity without service becomes distant, detached, and paternal.

Service without generosity becomes about efficiency, being emotionally

withheld, disconnected from relationship.

And Jesus collapses the distance.

He shows us that to be generous is to serve, and to serve is

to give our resources away.

This practice is not merely transactional, it's relational.

It's not about resources leaving my hand, it's about my heart

being moved, my life being opened, my priorities being reordered.

That's why the rich man in Luke 16 is such a hard mirror for us.

The issue is not simply that he has much and Lazarus has little.

The deeper issue is what his abundance has done to his own soul.

Jesus is always after the heart.

See, where your treasure is, your heart will be also.

And the reverse is true.

Where your heart truly rests is where your treasure will go.

Treasure is never merely financial.

It is where we place our attention, our time, our emotional investment, our

practical concern, our willingness to be interrupted, our willingness to make room.

The heart always reveals itself in what it values and what it protects.

There's something especially confronting about the fact that Jesus

gives the poor man a name, Lazarus.

In all of Jesus' parables, this is the one person who's named in a parable.

And that's not a small detail.

It means the one the world may overlook is known by God.

It means the one reduced to a problem, to a case, to a burden, or to a

background figure is actually a person, a brother, a life with a story, dignity,

and a place in the heart of God.

This is where generosity becomes service.

And service becomes something far more than an act of relief.

It becomes a refusal to keep another human being anonymous.

It becomes the choice to see, to know, to remember, and to respond as if this

person matters because they do matter.

That is what love does.

Love is available.

Love is visible.

Love becomes kinship.

Love doesn't wait for the perfect moment, the public recognition,

or the ideal conditions.

Love is willing to show up at the gate.

Love is willing to notice what others pass by.

Love is willing to give in, to do, not advertise themselves.

Love is willing to be interrupted.

Love is willing to turn strangers into neighbors and neighbors into family.

In that sense, generosity and service are not two practices sitting side by side.

They are one movement of the heart towards another person's good.

And Jesus takes this even further.

The rich man's tragedy is not that he failed to give,

is that he failed to belong.

He did not enter into kinship.

He did not receive Lazarus as family.

He kept him separate, manageable, at a safe distance.

Please don't miss this.

Dr. Leonard Sweet, he's an author.

He concludes about this parable that the rich man is condemned because he

thought he only had fri-- five brothers.

God had actually given him six.

Jesus does not love from a distance.

He moves towards us.

He names us.

He draws us close.

He shares table fellowship with the forgotten.

He makes family out of strangers.

He gives himself, and in doing so, he reveals the Father's heart.

So as we begin today on generosity and service, the question is not

merely what should I do with my money?

It is what kind of person is my heart becoming?

Because the practice of generosity is not about, it's not only

about what leaves my hands.

The practice of service is not only about what gets done.

Together they ask whether my life is being reordered by the love of Jesus,

whether I'm becoming the sort of person who sees the Lazarus at the gate, whether

I'm learning to live with open hands, open eyes, open time, an open table.

And the real warning and the real invitation in Jesus' story, the

warning is that a life can be lived in proximity to need and you still

miss the kingdom of God entirely.

That's the warning.

The invitation is that a life can be formed by love so deeply that once

was a practice to be given a label like generosity and service is now an

overflow of a servant-shaped heart.

This is the life Jesus is calling us into.

I really like this image because the perspective is us sitting in the darkness

looking out through the gate into a view.

And the question is for all of us as we consider generosity and service,

are we willing to step through the gate

and taking an adventure of what lies beyond it?

But please know tonight that that gate is very safe.

You might actually think it's very dangerous.

But Jesus says, I am the gate.

It's just a question of what gate you decide to walk through.

And so we're going to continue this analysis and this discussion

on generosity and service through Matthew chapter 6 verses 19 and 20.

Matthew 6:19

And we're going to, well it's 19 to 24, but I'm going to start with 19 to 20.

And Jesus is saying this.

And you will know this.

It says, don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth

where moth and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and vermin

do not destroy and small children don't break everything and where

thieves do not break in and steal.

Here's interesting because Jesus is naming the deep impulse of the human

heart and that is to store up treasure.

We're storing up treasure.

And what's interesting is Jesus doesn't rebuke that impulse.

What he rebukes and what he questions or the problem isn't the fact

that we're storing up something.

It's actually where are we storing it?

The problem is that we store it in the wrong place on

earth rather than in heaven.

And when you read heaven in this context, it doesn't mean the

place where you go when you die.

In heaven in the first century Hebrew way of thinking is heaven is in God

and what he is doing on the earth.

He then goes on in verse 21 and says, for where your treasure

is, your heart will be also.

Kind of touched on that a little bit earlier.

But notice that for Jesus, money is ultimately about our hearts.

One of his central insights is that our hearts follow our money.

But also, our money follows our hearts, meaning where you spend, you, you, you

will spend money on where your, your loves are, where your-- what you care about.

So if you want to know where your heart is, just look at

where you spend your money.

The idea here that storing up treasures on earth is to be warned because our hearts

can be actually wracked by fear and greed.

And you'll know that because, you know, if it's a heart wracked by

fear, well, we're fearful because we can lose what we have in a moment.

Or a heart wracked by greed is because I'm sure we all understand this feeling

that it always feels like as you acquire more, ah, just haven't got enough.

Because we're convinced that this physical realm is all there is.

But Jesus has an alternate way.

As we continue from verse twenty-two and twenty-three, Jesus says this,

this cryptic kind of expression.

Sometimes it's hard to connect with why is he saying this.

He says, "The eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eyes are healthy, the 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?"

I thought we were talking about treasure and where our hearts is.

Now we're talking about eyes and bodies and lamps.

So I was investigating this and I don't know, are you a person that

looks at the footnotes in your Bible?

Not m- not many people.

Dale does, because of the teachers, you know, the... But if you click

on-- if you're in your NIV and you click on that word healthy, well,

it's not like the word, but you click on the little number there.

Do, do.

It'll come up with this phrase.

It'll say, under the word healthy, the Greek for healthy here implies generous.

That's interesting, isn't it?

And then if you go to unhealthy and you click on that number, it'll say

the Greek for unhealthy implies stingy.

So what's being said here, right, is there's two different ways of looking

at the world that have come to be.

One's called an abundance mindset and one's called a scarcity mindset.

So if you have an abundance mindset, you kind of look at the world and

see the world with its abundance.

You see God as your father, your provider.

You see yourself as his child.

You see it all of life as a gift.

This is my father's world and it's teeming with more than enough for everyone.

You look around and you say with Jesus, look at the birds, Jesus.

He feeds them.

You feed them.

But how much more valuable am I?

And as a result, you live with this gratitude towards God and generosity

towards your neighbor because, well, you receive and you give and it's

all a joy because you are free.

Doesn't that sound nice?

This is a good image.

Scarcity mindset, slightly different.

If you have a scarcity mindset, you look at the world and you see a world of lack.

There's no father provider.

You are on your own.

The world is a dangerous place.

The world economy is about to crash.

Human civilization is a fierce battle over scarce resources and wealth.

Well, that's a zero-sum game.

You need to look out for number one because it's dog-eat-dog out there.

Your vision is focused on what you have, but you are scared you will lose it all.

Or what you don't have, you want it fiercely.

So your heart is governed by fear and greed and that question

plagues you, fearfully plagues you.

Do I have enough?

You can have two people in exactly the same income level, cost of living,

economic responsibility, but they see the world in two radically different ways.

There's two ways to look at the world.

One is as if everything is a miracle and the other is if nothing is a miracle.

The question for us tonight is how do you see the world?

When a heart is enslaved by fear and greed, it affects how we see.

This is why Jesus goes on to say in verse 24 of Matthew 6 this,

No one can serve two masters.

Either you will hate one and love the other or you will be devoted

to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

Some translations use this, you cannot serve both God and money,

as you cannot serve God and mammon, which is an Aramaic word and in some

translations it's left as that, mammon.

And scholars think that because the word mammon is left and used

there, it's talking about the idea of an ancient Syrian god of wealth.

And so what Jesus is saying here, money is like a rival god.

Now, confession time.

For the longest time, I've kind of thought money as this kind of neutral object.

Like it's not You know, it's neither bad nor good.

Um, it's all about the heart.

Um, but I've learned that it's not exactly neutral.

It's a little bit more complex than that.

It's a little more subtle than that.

I find that in life, actually.

The things that I think of relatively simple are actually more complex.

It's more subtle.

For Jesus, wealth is powerful, and the sway it has over our hearts is often a

demonically animated force at work in our own souls and in our society around us.

See, money is always pushing us towards something.

1 Timothy 6:10 reveals it.

1 Timothy 6:10

It's pushing us towards the love of money, the love of it, which

is the root of all kinds of evil.

So money's not neutral because it's always trying to tell you its truth.

If you can imagine money as having a consciousness, if you can imagine

money actually like speaking and having kind of walking around

kind of personality type, right?

It's always trying to tell you its reality, trying to tell you its truth.

It's trying to whisper it into your heart, "You need me.

You're safe with me."

And often, money is the instrument through which greed, fear, idolatry is expressed.

It's subtle.

I'm trying to explain it to the best of my abil- ability.

But there are entire sectors of our economy are run by the

worship of mammon, mammon.

The god of mammon is behind so much evil, so much injustice, war,

racism, ecological devastation.

Hence, you cannot serve both God and mammon.

And for Jesus, this is not a, "You should not serve mammon." This is,

"Hey, you should... This is not, this is not you should rethink this."

This is, "You cannot." It's not bad.

It's impossible to serve both God and mammon.

And mammon will take over your heart unless you resist its gravitational pull.

And how?

Well, Jesus lays this out for us, and it's through generosity and service.

Generosity and service is a practical way by which we govern our hearts

from the scarcity mentality and move to an abundance mentality

on the interior of our hearts.

Generosity and service move our hearts from fear of lack to trust in

our Father Provider, from worry over our future to peace with whatever

comes, from the endless desire for more to the enjoyment of what we

have, from grasping to gratitude and contentment, and from misery to joy.

I love this, um, quote.

I'm actually not sure who said it, but It reads, "The real voyage of discovery

of life consists not of seeking new landscapes, but having new eyes."

To see clearly.

How do you have new eyes?

That's the question.

I remember, um, Phil Baker had a quote.

He would, um, say, "You don't see with the eye, you see through the eye."

Does anyone remember that one?

I know Paul remembers it.

It's the idea that, you know, you don't, you're not seeing with your

eye, that you're seeing through it, because actually what is, what's

happening is our hearts are seeing.

We see with our hearts.

We see with our inner being, 'cause out of our hearts flow the issues of life.

How do you see yourself in this space?

What do you see?

How do you see the world around you?

Have you ever heard that famous dichotomy that there's two

types of people in the world?

Well, there's the savers and there's the spenders.

Have you ever heard that one?

In my family, my, my wife is the saver, and I am officially the spender.

And, um, now obviously, you know, savings wise, there's wisdom in saving and,

and obviously you need to buy stuff because that's what happens, you know?

So it's not saying that that's necessarily w-wrong, but there

are... A question in relationship to this is a, what is the motivational

driver behind spending and saving?

Because you can have healthy saving and healthy spending, but you can

also have very much unhealthy saving and unhealthy sending, spending.

So for unhealthy savers, it's more motivated by fear and a

need for safety and security.

For unhealthy spenders, it's motivated by greed and a lust for more.

So you've got spenders and savers, but I wanna give you a third option.

You've got spenders, you've got savers, and then you've got stewards.

What is a steward?

It's one, as an act of apprenticeship to Jesus, as an act of following

Jesus, is working to channel God's resources for good.

As soon as I say the word steward, it immediately should provoke in

you probably a number of questions.

All sorts of questions actually like, well, how much do I keep?

Where do I give?

And where?

And who?

And what?

And what's the appropriate standard of living?

What's the line between enjoying life that God has given us

and wasting his resources?

What car should I drive?

How many pairs of shoes should I own?

Many.

Oh, sorry, many questions.

When we talk about giving, it's, it's, there's a lot of... We could

spend probably weeks and weeks on this, and we have done in the past.

I wanna just say when the podcast of today goes up, there's, um, a

couple of resources on, on the, uh, on the app that may help you if you

wanna dig deeper into some of this.

But these questions are important.

These questions are not invalid.

These are questions to battle with.

And it's complex.

This is a complex situation because we, some of us have children.

We have responsibilities.

There's a high cost of living that we live in.

But I think when it comes to generosity, certainly of finances,

it's important to find a balance.

And scripture does give us clues.

It gives us a sense of where should we land our giving.

And there seems to be three maybe pockets or pools of

giving that we should consider.

And I'll use these words.

Giving to the poor is one of them.

Giving to the church and giving to the gospel, which means

efforts that are proclaiming the gospel in the world around us.

It's such a privilege to be a part of the church who, so we give, we put

aside 10% of everything that's given.

And we're looking regularly for things to give to generously.

It's things that are outside of Red Door.

Looking for projects that are more socially orientated.

So giving to the poor.

Looking for projects that are gospel proclamation.

Giving to those projects.

And over the last 14 years, actually, of Red Door, we've given generously

$1.2 million to stuff outside our walls, which is pretty significant.

And I don't say that to say, well, look at us.

What I'm saying today is we make a strategic effort to

be balanced in how we give.

This doesn't just fall out of the sky, this intentionality.

No, we decided 14 years ago, we're going to do this.

And we're going to consider the balance of those things.

But it's complex.

We all have differing needs, differing life circumstances.

And as we talk about giving, I just want to make sure you're

clear with one short caveat.

When we think about financial giving, if you're struggling to put food on the

table, I want to let you know you need to be about doing that for your family.

And not necessarily, it's not necessarily the season of giving.

Does that make sense?

Now, if you're here and you cannot put food on the table, guess

what the church is here for?

We're here to help you put food on the table.

Maybe it could be a shelter over your head.

We're going to do our best to put a shelter over your head.

I don't think all of us are in that place, right?

But if you are, I want to let you know that it's okay to put

an order to these things in relationship to what is priority.

But I will be the first to say, once you get some of those things

sorted, then we need to start considering how am I building giving

and generosity into my lifestyle?

The questions that we've just sort of posed here as we think about

giving, they're important and they're the right kind of questions.

But I hate to break it to you, the New Testament doesn't outline spell

it out for us about how we should give and how we should be generous.

Instead, it calls us to discernment, and it calls us to listen to

God with a singular desire to know and to do his will.

But there are six basic guidelines from Paul in his letters to the

Corinthians, and so I want to just quickly touch them, touch on them

so we're not flying blind, okay?

So first one, our giving should be regular and not sporadic.

1 Corinthians 16:2, on the first day of the week, each one of you

1 Corinthians 16:2

should set aside a sum of money.

Very short little scripture, but it shows that giving should be

ordered, intentional, and recurring.

See, the context of this moment is Paul's aim was that the gift

would be ready when he comes.

So the Corinthians would have already developed a steady

pattern of generosity instead of scrambling at the very last moment.

So there's a regularity to giving.

Next one, proportional.

2 Corin- sorry, 1 Corinthians 16:2, each one of you should set aside a sum

1 Corinthians 16:2

of money in keeping with your income.

Short way of saying that, the more you make, the more you give.

You know what happens when the more you make, you know what happens, don't you?

Living in Perth, Western Australia, the more you make, you generally go,

"Oh, what's the new car I'm gonna get?" You know what I'm saying?

We tend, we tend to default to that space.

The best question you could ask when you think about proportional

giving is how much is enough?

The quicker you can ask the que- answer the question of how much is

enough, the quicker you'll be able to discern, man, the more I earn, the more

I wanna give, the more I wanna make a difference in the world around me.

Proportional giving.

Sacrificial.

2 Corinthians 8:3, they gave as much as they were able and

2 Corinthians 8:3

even beyond their ability.

This idea of giving, there should be a sense that it hurts a bit, right?

There should be a regularity, um, to the things we want to buy, but we don't

buy them because I wanna actually give.

So there's this posture about giving that is also including

this idea of being sacrificial.

Number four, voluntary.

2 Corinthians 9:7 says, each should give what they have decided in their hearts to

2 Corinthians 9:7

give, not reluctantly or under compulsion.

So that means you need to make space to pray and discern.

So what, what is it that you have a decision and have a sense of agreement

about when it comes to giving?

We shouldn't be forced.

We shouldn't be... If everyone, anyone ever says to you, you, you, I'm gonna

force you to give, I wanna let you know That that posture always has strings

attached because giving, by definition, is doing so with no expectation

of receiving anything in return.

So it's usually when someone's forcing you to do something, there's

an expectation of something in return, and that isn't giving.

And so this idea that it's voluntary, it's something you have decided,

which means it's between you and God.

Number five, joyful.

2 Corinthians 9:7, God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Corinthians 9:7

God doesn't want grumpy money.

He wants joy.

And that's such a great fruit of giving.

That's how you know that it's so much better to give than receive.

Because if it stirs you up on the inside, like if it awakens your

soul, and you're loving this, you know you're in the right pocket.

Number six, motivated by apprenticeship to Jesus, not religious duty.

So 2 Corinthians 8:9, it's just really talking about for, if we know

2 Corinthians 8:9

the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that through, though he was rich, yet

for our sake he became poor so that through his poverty, he, uh, through

his poverty, we might become rich.

So there's this model that Jesus is living by.

That's his strategy.

He is becoming poor in order to make us rich.

And we are meant to be with Jesus and become like Jesus.

So if you are serious about being a follower of Jesus, or as it's written

here, an apprentice to Jesus, right?

Actually, this is a lifestyle to get used to because it's motivated

out of my followership of him.

Now, who understands we've talked about generosity here?

You don't even know, but we've just talked about service as well.

Go back to number one.

Now I want you to think about service.

Remember that tonight's topic is generosity and service.

Service is the act of serving another.

Actions.

What I'm doing, right?

Now, who would say serving should be regular and not sporadic?

Would you agree with that?

If you just serve once every 14 years, I'd say it's not

really a lifestyle of service.

It's a one-off.

It's regular.

Your serving of others should be proportional.

What do I mean by that?

Everyone in this room has different commitments.

Some have one child.

Some have no children.

Some have already had their children and have got children

left home and there's lots of time.

Everyone is differing in their time capacity.

So serving must be proportional to your time.

Would you agree?

I'm taking that as yes.

Sacrificial.

Yes, you could do so many things with your time, but no, I choose to serve.

I choose to serve.

I choose to serve others.

It's a sacrifice.

Number four.

Voluntary.

That makes sense, doesn't it?

I'm not forced to serve.

I want to serve.

It's my decision to do so.

If it's forced, hmm, question is, is it service or is it employment?

You know what I'm talking about?

Yep.

Number five, joyful.

Man, that's the best place to serve and have – there's no greater fun in life

is to serve with people that you love and laugh with, just being with others.

Man, serving is a joy.

It should be a joy.

If it's not, you're doing something wrong.

Number six, motivated by apprenticeship to Jesus.

Jesus didn't come to be served.

He came to serve.

So if you want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, that's

going to be your motivation.

So I didn't want you to just read through this list and suddenly

just think financial guides.

I actually wanted you to see that this is both generosity and service.

My prayer is that you can see that giving your generosity and your

service, they actually must go together.

Giving money and serving people are meant to move together because they both are

expressions of the same heart of love.

Financial service – sorry, financial giving without service

can become this detached charity.

You know how easy it is kind of to give money to a problem but

keep the problem at arm's length?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

It's kind of like, well, yeah, I'm ticking my box but I'm not going to

get involved because it's too painful.

It's too – right?

It's easy.

So that's why generosity by itself – but to be generous and to step into someone

else's pain, welcome to the game.

Welcome to what we're actually talking about, generosity and service.

Money and service are not two separate Christian duties.

They are one practice of love expressed in two forms.

Money supplies the material mercy and service provides the personal mercy.

Yeah, I like that.

Material mercy, personal mercy.

Looking back at the rich man, right?

Didn't give anything, no material mercy and kept it far from his doorstep.

Didn't want to step into it.

But together they form a heart that is truly available to God

and neighbor and this is the place where strangers become family.

We're going to transition to a time of communion and John 17, my

favorite scripture is this last prayer that we kind of get a little

front seat into Jesus' prayer.

So he's about to go to the cross and we get a front seat into his prayer with

his father and we get to hear his heart.

This prayer has so much in it.

And so as Jesus lifts his eyes to the father, he lets us overhear

this deep intimacy of the Trinity.

He speaks not as a distant teacher, but as a beloved son who knows

exactly who he is, where he's come from, and where he's going.

He's going to the cross.

He then, he prays something astonishing over us.

He says at the same time, sorry, he prays that the same love of the Father,

the Father's love for him as his son, that same love would be in us.

So rephrase, the way the Father in heaven loves Jesus, his one and only

son, is the way the Father loves you.

What I just said there is radical.

If you actually get that and it lands, you will become a whole different person.

I'm serious.

I'm not joking around here.

Because when it comes to generosity and service, it matters.

Because you cannot live a kingdom life from a spiritually insecure posture.

You cannot give yourself away if you're still trying to prove that you matter.

You cannot give yourself away if you're trying to earn your place or protect

what little identity you think you have.

But if you know you're already loved, you're already held, you're

already provided for, then generosity and service becomes freedom.

It becomes joy.

And communion actually is just meant to remind us of this, this reality

that at the table we don't have to prove our worth at the table.

We just receive it.

It's where the Father feeds his children with the life of the Son.

And where we remember that we serve others not to become loved, but

because Christ has already loved us.

As the Father loves the Son, so he loves us.

And in that security, that security becomes the soil of your

heart where kingdom generosity and kingdom service can grow.

Just notice that phrasing there just quickly.

We're talking about kingdom generosity and kingdom service.

There is a generosity and service in the world.

But this is a kingdom generosity.

This is a kingdom service where our generosity and our service is pointing

to the ultimate one who is generous, the ultimate one who came to serve.

Does that make sense?

Just to be clear on that.

So let's just prepare our hearts for communion.

Father, thank you for your amazing love, amazing grace that you've shown us.

As we come to the communion table, Father, forgive us when we have drifted

into the, the na- the, the worldly notions that we have to earn something.

Where the gravitational pull of a scarcity mindset has

trapped us in a prison of self.

Father, forgive us, cleanse us.

May we come freely to the table and re-take hold of, and maybe

for the first time, this abundance mindset where we are free.

A heart set where we are loved, where we are secure.

And we can give freely because there's nothing left to prove.

God, we thank you that's not a work of the flesh, th- that transformation.

It's a work of the Spirit.

So come, Holy Spirit.

Transform our hearts.

I even pray right now as we take the elements, the bread, the juice,

God, that there would be change occurring that we couldn't even

comprehend, that heart transplants are happening, a heart of stone being

taken away, a heart of flesh being established in every single one of us.

Moved with compassion to see the Lazaruses around us.

No longer keeping them in a posture of them being anonymous.

But seeing as you see, Father.

Father, speak to us tonight as we share in the cup and share in the,

in the bread your broken body, your shed blood for us tonight.

In Jesus' name, amen.