A Grace People

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, good morning, Awakening Church.

Great to be with you.

You can grab your seats.

Happy Sunday.

So thrilled that you joined us today.

My name's Ryan.

21 years ago this summer, I became, I stepped into full-time vocational ministry of 21 years ago.

I became a pastor.

It's been 21 years.

It's hard to believe.

Thanks.

I think that was my own kid, I think.

But that's awesome.

It's hard to believe it's been that long.

We were living in Chicago.

I was finishing up my schooling at Moody Bible Institute.

I was working at a church there doing worship.

I was leading worship and drumming.

We were originally intending, hoping to get back to California.

My wife and I were both California kids.

Instead, we took this detour to Georgia.

A little bit of a different, it was a culture shock for California kids.

Let's just say that.

I remember, you know, packing up this small little box truck.

Jenny's driving the um our car.

Did I say she was eight months pregnant too?

Did I say that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So she's eight months pregnant.

We're driving down new location, new ministry.

I'm hired to be this youth pastor, kind of a utility infilter because I could lead worship at this new church plant that was starting and it was well resourced.

It had some significant givers.

It had a well-known communicator.

And in the South, if you got those things, you can draw a crowd really easily.

It grew rapidly, lots and lots and lots of people.

About two years into it, we came face to face, so two years into full-time ministry, pastoral ministry, we hit what so many, I think, of you have hit before, and that is the dark side of church.

It is that church hurt.

We did a actually summer study this uh summer, a class uh led by some incredible uh therapists on church hurt, and we're gonna do that again, but we've experienced that where power or politics or lack of integrity and something that was meant to be beautiful and amazing becomes painful and ugly.

I remember Jenny and I, we just loved being the students that God gave us, and we we even felt called to stay an extra year, even though it was a really difficult, painful season uh to serve this group of students until they graduated.

But as we're wrestling, my first inclination, just honestly, was like, okay, I'm only two years into being a pastor, like, peace, I'm out, right?

Like, if this is church and if this is what it's gonna look like, I don't want any part of it.

I want to be done, music's my background.

My brother was in Nashville, he still is.

I'm like, maybe I could go and do music with him or something.

I'm just thinking outside anywhere.

And as we were talking, something that became the settled conviction for both Jenny and me.

Is instead of bailing on the church, which that's was what I wanted, just this question: how can we help make the bride of Christ a little bit more beautiful?

Like you got one life to live and to give.

And we, you know, have just this moment, and I I don't know about everything and all the problems all around, but but instead of bailing out, we just began to say, you know what, what we're gonna do with the little that we have and the time that we have, how can we just help wherever we're at make the bride of Christ just a little more beautiful?

And let me ask you, what does a beautiful church look like?

Like if it is the bride of Christ's body, like like what does a beautiful, an attractive church, uh, an exceptional church look like?

And, and.

And what if the American church has got it wrong?

Now, listen, well, notice what I didn't say.

Not what if that denomination got it wrong, because we can all think of the denomination or group of people, what what if that part of the country got it wrong?

Because we were like, oh well, we got it right, but that, or not even like maybe that size church got it wrong.

But what if the American church?

If there's some things that we have fundamentally where we just corporately say, Well, we got it wrong.

When Jesus called this first community, the church, he used the word ekklesia.

This is a series we're in, uh, all about the church.

He used this word and it literally means the called out ones.

It's from this compound Greek word ek uh eklesia or ek and kaleo, out and called out.

It's like this community, this gathering of called-out ones.

This was not a religious term in any way.

This was actually a political term.

This was a term uh of a community of called-out ones that were to bring uh shape and influence the city and culture.

And Jesus says this new movement is called the ecclesia.

We we we we think church is this gathering, this community called out to be an influencer and culture shaper.

He didn't envision a brand or you know, a Sunday service with lights and band, and those are things are fun.

He envisioned a called-out community that's shaping the world.

Not a religion, but a revolution.

And there's these distinctive marks of the first followers.

In fact, three core ones, these distinctive marks that that that you we said, it's like this is what the church set it apart from everyone else.

And the it was a radical generosity, a bold faith, and sacrificial love.

Like if you're gonna brand the early church, it wasn't their TikTok and their social media game.

If you're gonna brand the early church, it wasn't their worship game, if you're gonna brand the early church, it wasn't, you know, whatever kind of sound bite they could get clicks on.

The branding of the early church was their radical generosity.

The distinctive mark was their bold faith and their sacrificial love.

And many of you don't know, but my name's Ryan.

I'm the pastor here.

I cut my hair, you don't recognize me.

Because that just happens to be my distinctive mark there.

Someone asked, Did you do that for the series?

I'm like, No, I didn't.

Just a moment of lapsed judgment, that's all.

Um, but if you cut these from the church, it no longer looks the way Jesus set out the church to be.

Um, we're gonna spend the next six weeks unpacking each of those and what it means for us.

Two weeks on each radical generosity, bold faith, and sacrificial love.

Today's a radical generosity.

The sermon title is A Grace People.

Would you go ahead and say that with me?

Say it one more time.

We're gonna get our everything.

A Grace People, go for it.

Uh, if you got your Bibles or it's in your notes, you can follow along behind me as well.

If you open up to 2 Corinthians chapter 8, uh the context is right Paul, the Apostle Paul is writing to this church in Corinth.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

Um, and the church in Corinth really is really the Silicon Valley of the ancient world.

It's a bustling strategic hub known for its wealth, innovation, also its moral uh looseness.

It's a city uh addicted to status, ambition, and excess.

Uh, it's in this city where the Apostle Paul, uh, the church in Corinth, he's actually calling them to fulfill a commitment they made about a year prior.

Now, the church in Jerusalem, the mother church, where the church began, you know, Jesus said, I'll build my church.

It started in Jerusalem and it spread everywhere.

The church in Jerusalem is experiencing just extreme hardship.

Uh, first, they're experiencing persecution from the local Jews.

There's a famine that hit uh the land in ancient Palestine.

And so they are just struggling.

They're impoverished, poor, struggling.

And so all these Gentile churches, Paul says, let's raise money, send it back to Jerusalem to support our brothers and sisters there.

And the church in Corinth, this wealthy, you know, incredible hub, they like showed up, you know.

They pledged a big amount.

They said, Here we go.

Uh and so much so that the apostle Paul kind of bragged about them to other churches.

Look at this church.

A year later, the Corinthian church had yet to fulfill their obligation or their commitment or their pledge.

And this is the context in which the apostle Paul's writing to them to help them see and fulfill what they set out to do.

Uh, if you got, we pick it up in chapter 8, verse 1.

And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace.

Say grace.

In fact, every time we see grace, I just want you to say it with me.

Now, brother and sister, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian church.

Oh, wait a second.

Now he's talking about the Macedonian church.

Huh, let's get to them.

In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy, and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.

That sentence doesn't make sense to us in America.

We'll unpack that in a second.

For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability, entirely on their own.

They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege.

They urgently pleaded for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people, and they exceeded our expectations.

They gave themselves, first of all, to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.

So we urge Titus, this is Paul's uh companion, just as he had earlier made a beginning to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part, to fulfill your side of it.

But since you excel in everything, in faith and speech and knowledge and complete earnestness and in love we have kindled in you, see that you also excel in this.

We missed a grace earlier, that's all right.

I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

The Apostle Paul is comparing this wealthy Corinthian church to the Macedonian church.

Macedonia is this region about 300 miles north from Corinth.

It had been devastated after Rome's conquest in 168 BC, its resources plundered, its economy left uh in shambles.

The believers in this area are extremely poor, mostly day laborers and slaves, and they're being persecuted for their faith.

And the apostle Paul's comparing wealthy, influential, affluent Corinth with, if you want to say, Podonc, Macedonia, this region, Philippi, uh Thessalonica, Berea.

And here's what I want you to see: a grace people.

First, grace empowers you to live a joy-filled, generous life.

Grace empowers.

Notice what he said.

Uh, it's I want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonians.

Like God graced them, he gave them grace.

We think of grace as saving grace, which it is, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

For it's by grace you've been saved.

How incredible and amazing is that?

Uh, not by works, so that no one can boast.

It's a gift of God.

Grace is God's undeserved, unearned favor.

And yet what we miss is that grace is both saving and empowering.

Like grace got you in, and grace sees you through.

Grace got you into the story, and grace fuels and empowers you all the way through.

In fact, and a few verses later, the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, he'd be talking about uh, you know, this prayer that he has with God, and he's saying, gosh, I got this hardship, I got this thorn in the flesh.

God, would you take it away from me?

And then what does God say to the Apostle Paul?

He says, My grace is sufficient for you.

For my power is made perfect in weakness.

Like there is a grace that isn't just for that moment when you're saved, it's a grace that you show up and you wake up and you're fueled and you're empowered today to live out a new and different kind of life.

It's the empowering grace of God.

Grace empowers us to live out a joy and generosity that is uncommon.

And it's undeniable.

Now, notice this about the Macedonian church.

It just makes no sense.

The math doesn't add up for us, does it?

Severe trial plus overwhelming joy.

That word severe means rock bottom destitution.

On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst.

It's the worst, it's a ten.

Circumstances are a poor foundation for joy.

Your circumstances are a poor foundation for joy.

He says, You can be going through a five-level trial, a six-level trial, a ten.

And we have it across the room.

Never underestimate the amount of pain that is in a room.

We don't know one another's story, but what I know is we have level one to level ten.

And here's what the apostle Paul is saying: even in the tens of life, there's overflowing joy available.

There's a grace that can empower you to experience a joy even in the severe trials and oppressions and sufferings.

And then he goes, extreme poverty plus rich generosity.

How in the world does that work?

Extreme means the furthest or highest degree, poverty.

This word here is often understood as the status of someone who begs to survive.

The state of having little or no money, few or no material possessions.

Their extreme poverty welled up in what rich, literally wealth, an abundance of material possessions or resources, generosity.

This word generous is so powerful.

It actually, the root word just means simple, simplicity.

Generous, this idea of simplicity.

It came to be known as noble simplicity, wholeheartedness or purity.

It's the characteristic or mindset that is heroic.

When it comes to generosity, it's a sufficiency which has something to spare for others.

It's living with a simplicity or sufficiency that I have something to spare for others.

Their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.

Corinthian church.

Macedonian church.

I think sometimes we go like rich generosity.

I don't know about that.

I can't do rich generosity.

I'm just barely making ends meet.

I'm just barely scraping by.

I mean, this is Silicon Valley.

This is one of the most expensive places to live in the world.

And I'm just barely scraping by and on my$8 Starbucks every day.

I'm just barely scraping by with my three streaming channels or platforms that I pay for and subscribe to.

I'm just barely scraping by with that$450 lease of the car that's nicer than what I could afford and drive.

I'm just barely scraping by.

We have this mindset that keeps us from being the people of generosity, a people of grace.

Grace empowers us to live a joy-filled, generous life.

Said another way, generosity is not contingent, and joy is not contingent on your circumstances.

It's a condition of the heart.

It's a transformation of what God has done in us.

We struggle with this, and here's the reason why.

The American mindset and our Western, the problem with the one of the problems with the church is we've bought into the myth of more.

The myth of more goes something like this when I get more, then I'll be content.

Are you content?

No, I just need a little bit more.

When I, when I, you know, I'm finally able to buy a home, when I'm finally able to drive this, when I'm finally able to have this watch or wear that, when I finally get the right job, when I finally, when I get more, then I'll finally be content.

You want to talk about joy?

It's just a little bit more.

And then the problem is if you get more, here's what happens.

If some's good, more's better, right?

Like, well, I got that, but but that was good.

So then what do I need?

If that's good, it's like another hit.

I need more.

If some's good, is more's better.

And ultimately, here's what we buy into that more is the key to life, happiness, and safety.

And so it becomes our pursuit and our passion.

Let me ask you this.

Why do we own more and possess less peace?

Why does owning more often create more anxiety rather than security?

You ever had a new something new?

Let's just pretend it's a new car.

There's that excitement, that thrill, oh my goodness, it's got the new car smell.

And then you go to the prune yard to park it, and you're like, oh good Lord.

Right?

Anxiety.

You park it as far away from everyone, you double park, and then somebody scratches it.

You know, you're just, why does owning more create more anxiety?

Why does someone else's more tend to rob us of happiness with our more?

We're scrolling.

How come they get that?

How come they can travel there?

Why do they get to own?

Why does someone else's more rob us of happiness of ours?

Why does, and studies show this, why does giving our kids more often hurt them more than help them more?

And why do people in other parts of the world with less seem to have more peace and happiness?

We buy into this myth of more, this scarcity and mindset, and I just need to get a little bit more to be happy, to be fulfilled, to be safe.

And yet what we see with the Macedonian church, their extreme poverty, overflowing joy and generosity.

Do you know that 44.8% of all Americans do not give anything away?

13.9% of Americans give less than 2% of their income away.

Only about 2.7% give 10% of their income away.

84% of millennials report to giving less than$50 a year, even though charitable giving ranks as a high priority.

Nationwide, this now that was for America, this is just for us Christians.

Christians today give 2.5% of their income across the board in America.

For comparison.

During the Great Depression, that number was 3.3%.

The church today is giving less than those in the Great Depression.

I think we've got it wrong.

Only 5% of the church members give regularly.

And, oh, this is interesting.

Households that make more than 75,000 households.

Households, not just single households.

The medium income household is like$120,000 or more than that.

I hear I just looked it up this morning, but I didn't write it down, sorry.

But it's more, the medium, the average is more.

Households more than$75,000 are least are the least charitable.

Charitable.

Statistically, the more you make, the less generous you become.

There's an article in the Rolling Stones about the mindset of billionaires and how they are not charitable.

Clay Cockrell, a psychotherapist, writes this says, as your wealth increases, your empathy decreases.

Which then brings us to the last idea with the myth of more is when we could think about it with generosity.

When I'll get more, then I'll give more.

In fact, uh the science behind this, Christian Smith, Hillary Davidson, and The Paradox of Generosity, a research book, excellent, said if Americans want to be happier, healthier people who live with greater purpose, suffer less depression, and enjoy more personal growth, one way they might better accomplish that is to learn to be more generous.

The scientific evidence shows clearly that more generous people are doing significantly better in their lives in many important ways.

First thing I want you to notice is grace empowers you to live a joy-filled, generous life.

Now let's talk about generosity.

Generosity is the natural overflow of a life marked with grace.

Generosity is the natural overflow of a life marked with grace.

I came across this great definition of grace this last week.

It began to frame it.

And you heard me give a couple, like grace is God's undeserved favor, his unmerited favor.

It's a gift.

It's not earned.

There's nothing you can do.

Those are all wonderful and well.

And then this so kind of pulled it together.

Grace is help given to the needy.

What a great definition.

At its core, what grace is, it's help.

It's help just given to the needy.

The way Dallas Leward would say it is grace, is God's enabling power acting in our lives to accomplish what we cannot do on our own.

Grace is God's help given to the needy.

And I think this is the reason we struggle with generosity.

Is the problem is most of us do not want to identify that we're needy, that we're spiritually bankrupt, that but for the grace of God, I would not be who I am and where I'm.

God's grace intervened in my life, and I am now redeemed and saved.

See what we want?

What we want is we want Jesus to be a life hack to make us more successful and happy.

Because deep down we believe, yeah, we're pretty good people.

Grace is God's help.

When we get grace right, well, it's just that generosity is in the natural overflow.

See, the problem is we don't live indebted to God's grace.

We often live entitled, don't we?

We don't live out of the abundance of God's grace.

Remember, it's his saving work and it's his empowering work.

Like every single day you wake up to new grace, every single day, his grace, as the Apostle Paul, is sufficient.

It's more than enough for you.

Like his grace is gonna show up in that meeting, his grace is gonna show up in your marriage, his grace is gonna show up with that friendship, his grace is showing up in your life, it's his empowering work in you and through you, and his grace is all you need, it's all you ever needed, and it's all you ever will need.

And when you recognize that you have unending grace pouring forth into your life, you don't have a scarcity mindset of like, I have to get mine, I have to hold mine, I gotta keep mine.

It's like, gosh, God, you've given me all that I have, and so all that I have is yours.

See, what happens is you begin to live a life of gratitude back for the grace of God.

I want to do something.

This is uh we'll see how it goes.

There's this old hymn called Amazing Grace.

Like we gotta be reminded of who we are.

Would you sing it with me?

If you don't know it, you've heard it.

How sweet the sound that side me I was lost, but now I'm found was blind but now see.

Oh, but for the grace of God that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I'm found.

I once was blind, but now I see his grace has poured into my life, and how can I not live but a life of gratitude back to him for the grace of God?

Generosity, generosity is the hallmark of a life fueled and marked by grace.

No, let me then give you five lies we live, believe about generosity, why we pull away from this.

The first one is that I need to be wealthy to be generous.

Macedonians weren't wealthy, it has little to do with your economic status and everything to do with your heart.

God, all that I have is yours, and I'm just gonna love the person in front of me.

I'm gonna be obedient to what you call me and trust that you, your grace is sufficient in every moment.

Number two, I'll be generous when I have more.

We already talked about that.

That's not gonna happen.

Three, generosity is only about money.

No.

Generosity is about your life.

It's generous with words, generous in how you treat people.

One of the greatest acts of generosity we give to another human is attention.

We are now in the attention economy, and where everyone's struggling to get your attention because it pays.

And the minute we put this down and we look another person in the eye and we give them space, it's an act of generosity.

Generosity is with your time and your talents and your all that you have.

It's just it's a life.

Number four, generosity requires grand gestures.

I don't know this, I can't tell you this, but I'm gonna guess.

This is just my guess.

What the Macedonian church, Podunk Macedonian, was able to give, and what the church in Corinth was able to give, I'm guessing, just based on the context, that they the Macedonians weren't able to give near as much as the Corinthian church pledged.

Here's what's interesting: is Paul was writing a letter to the church in Corinth because they had a grand gesture that they didn't follow through on.

A grand gesture, hey, we're gonna do all this.

But then when it came to like, ah, I don't know about it, generosity is a daily activity of the heart towards one another with all that you have, your time, your talent, your treasure.

And then final one generosity will leave me with less.

We're gonna talk more about that next week as we continue in 2 Corinthians chapter 9.

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

That actually is something where as we give, we experience more of the goodness and purpose that God has for us.

But let me ask you this how difficult is it for you to give consistently, systematically, and significantly?

Just personally evaluate.

Don't you don't need to tell your neighbor, this isn't turn to them and go, that's hard.

See, what the apostle Paul would say is we don't have a generous problem, we have a grace problem.

We don't understand grace and what God has done, because grace empowers us to live a joy-filled life.

Generosity is the natural overflow of a life marked with grace.

And finally, grace redefines how we see the world.

Grace redefines how you see the world.

That though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty might become rich.

Like grace redefines how we see the world, that Jesus, the King, who we talked about last week, became poor for our sake that we might in him become rich, that he might give us life.

See, the American mindset, this is how it referents, the American mindset says you have never enough, right?

It's never enough.

Never enough time, never enough resources, never enough.

And so you hold on, you're like, I'm I there's never enough.

Grace mindset, more than enough.

In Christ, I have more than enough.

It's actually more than sufficient.

Here's another way we say it around here.

We believe the church should unleash extravagant generosity to a hurting and broken people because we have an extravagantly generous God.

It redefines how we see the world.

From how do I get mine, how do I keep mine, how do I save mine, how do I make sure you don't get any of mine because there's never enough.

It reframes it of a God who gave all that he had for us to invite us into his family that we might have all that he is and has.

And so now I have more than enough.

And so when I look at the world, I look at it the way Jesus looks at it.

You know the phrase hurt people, hurt people.

You've heard that before, yeah?

It's true.

What does a beautiful church look like?

Grace people, grace people.

People who are marked, a people of grace, a grace people, grace people, grace, God's help to the needy.

I'm needy, he showed up in my life, and I can't help but then be helpful and give grace to the people around you.

I'm just overflowing grace, people, grace people.

And that's why, like the apostle Paul says, but since you excel in everything, in faith, and speech and knowledge, and complete earnestness and love we've kindled in you.

See that you also excel in this.

Oh, so close.

See that you also excel in this.

The word giving actually isn't in the Greek text, it's just see you excel in this grace.

Now, our English translation puts it in there for clarity so that we understand what he's talking about, and it's helpful.

But he's just like it's grace.

Like, see that you excel in grace.

2,000 years after your apostle Paul penned this letter highlighting the Macedonian church, there was another Macedonian who would rise as a picture of grace.

Her name was Agnes.

She was born August 26, 1910.

She was the youngest child of a devout Catholic family.

Her father died suddenly when she was eight, leaving her mother to raise three kids on her own.

Her mother was known for her compassion, teaching her kids to see Jesus in the poor and serve uh selflessly.

By the age of 12, Agnes sensed God's calling to serve him with her whole life.

At 18, she left her home, never to return again.

She joined the Sisters of Loreto.

She traveled to Ireland and then to India, eventually teaching high school at St.

Mary's in Calcutta.

Outside the school walls in Calcutta, she began to see the devastation of humanity.

It was on a train as she's traveling and seeing the slums of Calcutta, where she said she got the calling within the calling.

She went back to school, got six months' worth of medical training, stepped out of the safety of the convent and into the slums, and began to serve one person at a time, all by herself, with no help, no money, fueled by grace.

Today, obviously, we know her as Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

That single life now started what is now the missionaries of charity with over 5,000 sisters in 130 countries serving the poorest of the poor.

She wrote this prayer, and I long for it to be our prayer as we close.

Dear Jesus, help me to spread thy fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with thy spirit and love.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of thine.

Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come into contact with may feel thy presence in my soul.

The same grace that fueled the Macedonians.

Same grace that moved Mother Teresa.

It's the same grace available to you and me today.

Chances are you may not move to Calcutta, but you can move toward the need in front of you.

Grace people.

Grace people.

Would you overwhelm us with your love?

Would you allow us to understand the depths of your grace and your kindness and your goodness?

Would you make us a grace people?

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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