EP8: Why is Generosity a Discipleship Issue?

Welcome back or to the grace church members podcast, I'm your

host, Chris rivers. And in this episode, I'm joined

by my co-host. Scott, Mozingo to discuss, why

generosity at Grace Church is a discipleship issue.

If you're a first-time listener, were excited, you've joined us.

The goal of this resource is to address discipleship issues in

the life of Grace Church and discuss.

How to be more fully devoted to God as a Believer.

I have the tendency to bring too much.

Of the cultures view of money into my spiritual life.

And if I'm honest, I've played spiritual cut and paste with

what the Bible says about money and in doing so, whilst the

greater narrative, I have to admit.

Even though I am well-intentioned, I'm not always

well, positioned for generosity. And this is one of the many

ideas that I receive from this conversation with Scott.

And I think this is one of those episodes that will help you

rethink the word generosity. I am confident, you will be

challenged and encouraged around this disciple.

The issue as I was be sure to check out our podcast page

located in the show notes. And on this page you can access

past episodes a summary of this episode with Scott and

additional resources to help you move towards discipleship.

Okay, let's jump into our episode on why generosity is a

discipleship issue? Well Scott, good to see you

today. Hi Chris.

Yep, glad you're here. So you are the pastor of

generosity and I'm wondering if you could help us understand

what that means through the The lens of discipleship.

If you could also just unpack, this issue of generosity in our

church, this discipleship issue. So maybe you just share a little

bit about those two things. Yeah, sure.

Thanks for the opportunity. And yes, my role.

Pastor generosity. Basically, I'm just a champion

for our core value of being courageously generous and that

is that affects everybody in our in our church.

So whether someone is making a first-time gift or setting up a

recurring gift, Or whether you have large, give small gifts,

medium gifts, it really does not matter.

We're not hung up on percentages and dollar amounts.

What I'm really driving at is, what does the bible teach us

about stewardship about money, specifically about generosity?

Because that's an area that we don't like to talk about and

what role does it play in discipleship and spiritual

formation? And so My role is everything

from helping with financial Basics, setting up budgets and

getting people to think, well about personal finance to Estate

Planning and really everything in between.

But really, the main thing is examining, does our view of

money align with scripture. And that's why I think it's A

discipleship issue because the Bible talks a lot about money

and I think We pick and choose which verses that we like to

take and apply, and I think that there's a lot more there.

When I say, it talks a lot like, over 2000 versus, so a whole

lot. And so, I want us to take the

whole Canon of scripture, if you will, as a relates to money and

make sure that we are being obedient to that.

Yeah, so you said, we don't like to talk about it.

So what do you mean? We don't like to talk about it.

Yeah, I think that that money is like the most private area of

our life and I think some of that is revolved around the

American idea of, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and go get

what you earn and eat, what you kill, and really work hard.

And it's funny because we live our financial lives out loud.

In the That people see what we drive, and we post a bunch of

stuff on social media about vacations, and kids activities

and all of that. But when it comes to being a

Biblical Community, talking about lifestyle savings

investing, giving we just kind of draw the line and privatize

those things. It's like we're too proud and

then will you know, will quote certain verses about don't let

your right hand know what your left hand is doing and do these

things. He's in private, so blah, blah,

blah, but I really, I really think it's a pride issue and I

think it's because we're upside down when we think about how the

Bible talks about money in some ways, it's really simple but

because of how much weight we put on financial resources and

what they mean, for our life to bring us comfort and security

and entertainment and power and pleasure and all of those things

then it gets really complicated really fast.

So what I mean by that is money is pretty simple.

Like, Only about five things you can do with money, you can earn

it, you can spend it, you can save it, you can invest it and

you can give it away. So inside that again.

Yeah, you can, you can earn it work, you can spend it.

Yep, you can save it. Invest it, you can give it away.

It's really about the only things you can do with money.

So when you say it like that you're like yeah, that is pretty

simple. But how you do it and what

percentage and What proportion to what end to what goal, that's

where it gets a little. A little skewed.

And we tend to take the Bible and we see it through the lens

of provision or personal finance.

And so, will cut and paste different verses, and apply to

different financial principles that relate to working and

earning and saving and investing and giving.

And what we're doing is we're playing a spiritual cut and

paste game where we're taking Good Financial wisdom and and

applying it to the scriptures. But I think we run the risk of

Divorcing, it from the greater Narrative of how God is using

resources in our lives to drive our devotion to him.

And that's really what's most important?

How does everything that God gives us?

Which that's what stewardship is stewardship.

Is taking all of God's creation, all of God's resources and

managing it for God's purposes and we're called to be good

stewards on every area of our life including money and I think

everybody wants to do that. So, what I like to say is that

we're well-intentioned but we're not well positioned.

Yeah. What do you mean by that?

So mean well-intentioned, but not, well, positioned.

What I mean by that is we have too much of the cultures view of

money drug into our spiritual life.

We're taking too much of our cues from the culture, and I

think we're taking versus if we're not careful cutting and

pasting and feeling good about our spiritual approach.

So let me compare it to make a couple of Mr. To money, I'll be

helpful money in marriage. Okay.

So when I think about marriage, there's a real heightened sense

around the importance of marriage and the erosion of

marriage and Christian values around marriage.

And people seem to be well, attuned to the threat that there

is to marriage to their spirituality, to what are some

of those threats. Well, so, let's, let's just say,

like a data point. Like we looked like to look at

At when it relates to marriage, as we say, the divorce rate in

the church, is almost as high as it is outside the church.

Therefore, we're not doing really well in our marriages.

Gotcha. Okay.

So, that's pretty. That's been sad for a long time.

This is not a podcast about marriage.

I'm just using that as an example, because if I told you

that the giving rate among Christians is not very different

at all, from the giving rate of non-christians, would you think

that we have an epidemic of Formation in our churches.

We don't really think about that.

Like, there's nobody, there's no alarms going off.

There's no Sirens. There's no buzzers, there's no

all we got to change, we got to do something different.

Yeah. And so here would be, it would

be another example. Like if I told you that I was

having trouble in my marriage and that I was thinking about

going outside my marriage in an extramarital affair or that I

was addicted to pornography and I just talked openly and

callously about that. And I was just Degrading my

marriage and my relationship with my wife because I'm

pursuing other things coveting. Other things that are going to

make me happy, you would be, like, stop right there.

What are you doing, Scott? I mean, you would tackle me.

You would not let me get out of this room.

You would say, we've got to do something about this.

We've got to call a pastor. We've got to call your wife with

you. This kind of thinking Behavior.

Cannot go, unchecked. You are doomed for Destruction.

You would feel that way, right? Absolutely.

But if I started thinking about how maybe I should change, Jobs

change careers, get a new house, go on a big adventure, go buy a

boat, go set sail on the lake, do something material to fill my

life because I saw a friend, I saw a neighbor, they got

something new, and I don't have it.

And so I don't feel like I'm enough.

I don't feel like I have enough. I feel like I'm lacking.

I feel like I need more. If I only had any of these

number of things and pulled them into my life, I would be happy.

So, it's not okay to covet my neighbor's wife, but it's okay

to cover my neighbor's car, my neighbor's lawn, my neighbor's

kid's, my neighbor's job coveting is coveting.

And so, when it comes to this world of money materialism, I

don't think we have the same kind of urgency the same kind of

checks and balances. We don't see it as a threat

because we tend to view what the Bible says about money through

the lens of personal finance, and livestock.

And personal provision and so, you know, it's like okay, well

God provides I agree with that. He gives me certain things, I'm

supposed to Steward them. Well and so I want to I'm going

to work hard. I'm going to buy a home, stay

out of debt. I'm going to save for a rainy

day and vest. I know if I'm lucky, I can build

wealth. And then I can be generous, and

we tend to put a halo over all that and sanctify, that and say,

that's a Christian approach. And I would say, I don't need

Jesus to make that work. And if there's any part of the

way that I think about the scripture teaching on money and

finances that doesn't involve Jesus, then what good is it?

Yeah. And so what does it look like to

have a gospel centered approach? That takes the whole Narrative

of scripture as it relates to money?

And so I'll give you I'll give you one more example.

If I said, hey Chris tell me what the Bible says about

marriage. And if you said well, I think it

says marriage is good. You should find someone.

If you can of the opposite gender you should only be

married to one person at one time and you should stay

married. As long as you can like, that

would not be very helpful to me. There would be a lot.

I mean, it does. It say those things?

Sure. But there is a lot that you're

leaving out, there's the richness.

Of God's intention for marriage as it pertains to the gospel as

it pertains to God's Plan of Redemption.

That really is the heart of marriage that you would just be

completely leaving out. I think we do the same thing

with money. I think we completely miss out

on the bigger intentions. And so we talked about.

Yes, God is the giver. So therefore I need to give

something back and then we have a question of how much and how

How much is enough to live off of and how much should I give

back? And where do I invest this?

So that the kingdom can have the greatest gain?

And I would say that all of that is good.

It's not that it's incorrect, but I think it's incomplete.

Yeah. And I think that the bigger

Narrative of scripture related to money, causes us to think

more deeply and I just don't know that we're doing that.

Yeah, so does is why I think it's the greatest discipleship

opportunity for us. The church.

Yeah, so I want to get to some passages that you think are

helpful but talk to us about spiritual mature disciples

versus immature disciples. Because that's what we're trying

to become, we're trying to become mature disciples, right?

So in terms of this idea of generosity, like what are some

things that we need to be doing to have this kind of mindset

that you're talking about? Yeah, so I think when you go

back to the scriptures and you say do I care about the same

things that God cares about so God gives resources for us to

enjoy but through the lens of contentment and our world is

constantly telling us that we should be discontented therefore

we should go get more to help ease that discontentment and so

there's a real there's a real battle therefore contentment and

in the fall we had in Ecclesiastes study and what I

loved about Ecclesiastes Is it kept telling us about these

things that God had given us to enjoy.

But enjoy them in the proportion that they have been given to you

and find contentment. In those and contentment is a

huge part of being spiritually mature and so part of the battle

is to not covet in to find contentment to not be prideful

but to have real gratitude around what God has given me to

not be anxious but to trust in him to continue, Provide and

then see the world through the lens that he sees them, which is

he wants us to use our resources to evangelize disciple, and care

for the poor. Those are really three big areas

when he talks about how to use your resources for evangelism

discipleship building at the Kingdom, caring for the poor.

And so do we have that view because it's very different than

what I just said. Meaning viewing the Bible mainly

through the lens of personal finance.

But what does it look like The View?

The Bible teaching on money through the lens of God's

purposes for money. And so I think Kingdom building

is one but I think the second and the third we need to talk

more about which is God wants to use resources to guard us

against sin, to guard us against the desires of the flesh, which

is greed Pride, Envy, coveting jealousy.

Discontentment like, those things are real, whether you

have a little or whether you have a lot and they will, Troy

you of your spiritual power and spiritual maturity if you let

them run amok in your life. And so God has given us

resources. And it's interesting that the

way out of this this battle against sin is to take those

resources that he has given us and to be open handed with them.

Because when we're open-handed with them were releasing the

power that they want to control our life.

We're giving that power away and we're saying, I'm not going to

let it Control me I'm going to release it so guarding against

sin is a second big part of being a spiritually mature

disciple and then the third is mimicking God literally like

being conformed to God's image because God is a giver think

about this Chris first verse you and I ever memorized John, 3:16

for God. So loved the world that he gave

Jesus gives up his Divine privileges.

Philippians 2 leaves, having comes down to earth so that he

can identify Us. He becomes poor so that we can

become rich. The Holy Spirit, where we see

the Holy Spirit, what's he doing?

He's giving. He's giving gifts, he's giving

the sermon. He's giving wisdom.

He's giving the ability to read and Obey scripture mean so in

all aspects of the Trinity. God is giving.

So, how am I ever going to become more like Christ?

Be conformed? More into the Holiness of God?

If I'm not generous I just don't think that's possible.

Yeah. And so I don't know and I'm

getting more and more convinced of this as I study scripture and

teach it and have these kinds of conversations as I do not know,

spiritually, mature, people who aren't generous.

And so here's the trick to that. Like, I'm not defining what that

is. We have to put generosity back

into a relationship where you are talking to God about the

things that he has given you, and what he wants you to do with

those things. Things to glorify him and for

you to grow. Yeah.

And it can't be reduced down to a dollar amount and a

percentage. I mean in, yes, we can be

generous with our time we can be generous with our talent all

that all that's a given right now.

We're talking about something that we don't really like to

talk about. And so, when I think about

spiritual maturity, I think about those three things that it

forces us to be Kingdom Minded that everything that God gives

us is not for us. Is to be used to help Kingdom

purposes to God gives us resources to guard us against

sin by being open handed and being generous, there's a

practice their of spiritual formation and then the third, we

are literally growing and changing as we model.

The gracious generous character of our God.

I mean, so it is by grace that we have been saved.

That is gift. That is generosity.

Yeah, our whole really Faith. The whole gospel is built around

this concept and I think we're going to keep beating that

horse. That when we go back and only

see the Bible's teaching on money through the lens of

provision personal lifestyle, we we miss, we miss out on a great

and Grand Story is there a particular passage that would be

helpful for us to think about generosity?

Well, I'll tell you one particular, passage that I like

a lot and it, Seems to resonate because it's a parable and it's

something that I think about a lot and it's the parable of seed

and the soils and particularly Mark chapter 4, I like the way

Mark 4 · chapter mention

that Mark for reads and so you have for soil for seeds that

fallen for different soils. And particularly I'm thinking

about the third seed and the fourth seed and let me let me

read to you, what it says about the third seed, it says the

third seed fell among Thorns. And that represents those who

hear God's word, but all too quickly, that message is crowded

out by the worries of Life, The Lure of wealth and desire for

other things. So, no fruit is produced.

The soil is good. The soil also comes with weeds

and thorns. That soil can be cultivated can

be tilled those thorns and weeds.

They can be we can be protected against those but we have to

guard against those and if we don't they are just going to

take over anybody who's planted anything can see this in their

mind. And so imagine us having this

good soil and this powerful seed and yet all of what does it say?

It says the worries of this life, The Lure of wealth and to

desire for other things. I mean that is what our world

teaches us, other things worries, lure of wealth.

And it's like literal Thorns that are choking out the life.

The maturity, the goodness that supposed to come from this.

This gospel seed in our life and so you go, well, that sounds

pretty bad. Yeah, it gets worse because the

seed that fell on the fourth soil represents those who hear

accept God's word and produce of harvest.

Of 30 60 and even 100 times as much as been planted.

So what's the potential 30? 60 100 fold.

What are we not experiencing that?

Thirty sixty and a hundredfold? Because our seed has been choked

out and choked out, and it's why so many of the teachings around

money fall, right. Up against teachings, on

anxiety, because anxiety comes a lot of anxiety ties to concerns

about not having enough, and what's going to happen in the

future. And it's got going to provide

for me and look what others have and God ties.

Those two. Concepts together a lot because

this is common. This is common and that's why

he's warning Us in this In this passage and so boy I do not want

us to be third soil. Choked out Believers.

I want our church. I want us to be fourth soil

Christians. Fourth soil Christians seeing

that 30 60 100 fold Harvest. And so that's really when I,

when I have this image of of why this is such a strong

discipleship issue for our church, it's because I feel like

the, the tension between that third and fourth soil is very

real. A see it everyday.

I see it in my own life and we just have to fight.

We have to contend and we start by naming it so that we can

battle against it that makes sense.

Yeah. I mean what you're saying is

that in As we boil this down as that, when I release my money to

God, I'm telling God that I'm not greedy.

Yes, because it's not money, it's not the problem, it's the

love of money. That's the problem.

And so the love of money grows in the soil of discontentment,

that's part of that third soil. And the, the challenge is real

between the third and the fourth soil because Jesus was very

strong in Matthew 6. When he said, you can't sir Have

both, you can serve one or the other.

You got to pick. You can serve God or you can

serve Mammon money. And that's a really strong

warning that I think we need to take more seriously.

Yeah, I really do think we need to take more seriously and it's

just a conversation that we got to have with God and we got to

have with each other and recognizing that something

really might be at stake. Yeah.

Giving it guards, my heart against this contentment which

is what you were just saying. That's right when I Of I'm

growing and I'm conforming to God's character because he is a

giver. So the opposite of that is the

greed. That's why I said greed, because

if I am always trying to consume something for myself, that's

very dangerous because then it becomes about Chris Rivers,

being the Creator. Going back to what you were

saying, like, we need to conform to the image of God.

So a way for me to fight that Creator creature sin, desire

that I sometimes have is that That I need to give.

I need to give of my money, not just of my resources.

So I think that's another thing we talked about to itch.

I don't know if you want to touch on because many people

could say, oh well, you need to just give of yourself in

surveying, or you just need to, you know, talk about leadership.

But this isn't about those things.

This is about money, this is about what the Bible talks

about. That's right.

I mean, does it talk about those other things?

Sure in proportion. Very little compared to finances

and we can't we can't hide behind Those things and we can't

substitute those things because God gave us resources, that

could either rule our heart. Yeah.

Or could be used to serve the master and in some ways it's

very much a test that God, that God gives us.

Yeah. And so yeah, I've been doing

this work for almost 20 years and never once have I had

someone come and say you know what, my course struggle is, you

know what I'm in recovery over. Yeah we Talked about recovery

and last month's episode. No one's ever said.

I'm in. Recovery over agreed.

Yeah. I'm just really greedy.

I want and I want, and I want no one's ever said that.

Do we struggle with it? Of course, we do all of us do.

Luke 12 is a great example of someone who took God's blessing,

didn't acknowledge God, and just stored it away.

And God says you fool, because you're going to have to give an

account. Yeah, you have to give an

account of where It all came from and what you did with it,

because you can't take it with you.

I mean, that's the one universal truth.

We can't, we can't take it with us and so, yes, greed, coveting

Pride. All those are real dangers and

again, it doesn't you can have a little or you can have a lot and

it's just so ironic to me that the way out from those struggles

is by using the very resources that God has given us, that

could create those struggles by being open handed and giving

them away. Yeah.

And the only way to cultivate that relationship on what that

looks like is to be devoted to God to depend on him and to be

in community with other people and this to be praying about it

to be thinking about it to be talking about it.

And so when we privatize it going back to our very beginning

when we privatize it, we are not allowing God to use this Rich

resource in our life. Yeah.

So let's talk about how we unprofitable, is it?

Because on this podcast, these episodes we want to not just

listen. Listen but we want to go have a

conversation with someone else about these ideas so that we can

move and we can change. So is there a particular tool

that you would find helpful for us to have that conversation?

Yeah. I'll give you three things.

Yep, I think. The first is I would just

encourage people to just go read some scripture, don't just pull

versus out. Cut and paste.

Proverbs go read scripture about what God says about money.

I think that'd be the first thing.

I think the second thing would be to You challenge your

assumptions, where do I get my beliefs about money?

And why where do I get my beliefs about lifestyle about

savings about retirement about giving?

Like, how did those thoughts get cemented in my brain?

Where did they come from? Did they come from the culture?

Did they come from a family? Did they come from God's word?

I think you would have to do those two things in order for

anything in that third category to make sense.

So, when you look at a tool only what we've really, Tried to

provide and we have this on our website, it was in, it's in the

although we choose books that were distributed at the campuses

this fall, but really it's just a giving guide where we just

give five words that we think are fairly representative of our

church when we talk about consuming as a primary attitude,

casual reluctant intentional or courageous.

And we chose the word courageous specifically because it is such

a lofty goal. Like, I'm not a courageous

Giver. I want to be.

I'm still on the road. I'm still on the journey.

I would say I'm a very intentional Giver.

So like, for me what keeps me from moving from intentional to

Courageous? You know, what am?

What am I afraid of as passionate as I am about this,

as many stories as I've seen, what does that even look like

for me? And what keeps me from moving

for someone? Who's a consumer?

How can we get off of that? Shannon and believe Kingdom

overconsumption the person who's casual, the person who's

reluctant. There's several synonyms that

can if those words don't connect with you, maybe one of those

synonyms will. But really what we want you to

do is just be honest. Yeah.

And then we want you to tell somebody and just say hey I need

your help. I need your accountability and I

want us to study see what God says.

I want to challenge these presuppositions of why I believe

what I believe and then I want to move.

I want to move because Here's the thing.

Like, as I hope you have heard like I don't want anything from

you. God does not want anything from

you. God wants something for you.

He wants you to experience this joy that comes from being

generous this power over sin in your life and this spiritual

transformation of becoming more like him.

In addition, to being able to see all the kingdom building

that happens. But it's such a much more of a

bigger picture than I am losing something.

When I give it away, I don't Don't know, people that have

generosity regret. I really don't.

I don't have people that say, you know what, that hundred

dollars that $500 $1000, man. Are sure wish I had that back, I

mean I know God gave it to me and then I gave it back as a

means of worship and good things happen with it.

But boy, I sure do wish I could have done this and that with a

people don't say that. Why?

Because they were designed by God.

To be givers. And when we are doing that, we

are more Godlike. We really are.

It just it's funny how that works, it's funny how it works.

And so I would say the giving guy can be a tool.

We have a number of books from different angles that talk about

different aspects of money and generosity.

Money Matters is a class that is really designed to be like a

financial 101. Hey what?

What is a sampling of what the Bible.

Says, how do I get started having a budget and a limited

lifestyle, how do I flip the priority and give first and then

save and then determine my lifestyle as opposed to the

opposite. So there's a lot of practical

tools out there but that at the end of the day, Chris we have to

be motivated by The Good News by the gospel.

In order to want to become more like Jesus, follow his word,

which I think is going to take us down, On a more generous

path. Yeah, that's good.

Well, as we land the plane here, is there anything else you want

to add? Yeah, I would say.

I am incredibly encouraged by the generosity of our church.

Yeah, this is an exhortation that comes not from scarcity,

but comes from a desire that we take more of what God offers us

in terms of spiritual growth. I have been so encouraged by the

number of people who are generous were growing in

generosity who are challenging their presuppositions who are

moving up that giving guide. I hear lots of stories.

Trees. And it is just amazing how God

is moving, but I believe the power of His spirit and and my

goal is I would like for this current generation to be the

most generous generation that our church has ever seen.

And not because we need the money because we have things

that we want to go do. Like money is not the problem.

Love of money is the enemy and seeing the Redemptive blessing

of money and how it can be Unleashed for good in our life.

And God's glory is really the goal and so I see us growing and

maturing, but I do have real concern because the power of the

world and the values of the world, it is unrelenting.

We are not going to get a break and the world is going to

consistently push us to Take more for ourselves because we've

earned it because we deserve it because that's what's going to

make us happy. And so if we don't have the

tools for the battle, we are going to be spiritually

powerless and I'm really, really, really jealous that we

continue to push forward in this regard and I think God has given

us the tools and I think the time is now, what's good?

Well, this is you given us a lot to think about.

So as we connect with others and Log around.

This will have some things in the show notes for people, but

this has been great, man. Thanks so much.

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity.

Yep. Well as we wrap up today's

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