Generosity | Matthew 6:19-24

Thank you for having me.

Thank you, Jarelle, for inviting me.

And just to be in this space and gathering with all of you to worship our God is just really a gift.

And I just feel really thankful to be part of your gathering this morning.

And I love to talk about the Bible.

And that's what we're gonna do.

So I'm really excited about that.

I, if you guys didn't listen to if you weren't here last week and didn't listen to Jarelle's message, I would encourage you to take a listen.

It was a really great message on just uh the new creation, the renewal of all things and God's plan for the world.

I did notice that you left out a lot about hell.

So I consider just, I'm just gonna put generosity aside and I'm just gonna preach a message about hell this morning.

So I've come from a long line of like Baptist preachers.

There's definitely some fire and brimstone somewhere in my DNA.

So no, I'm making him really nervous right now.

I'm not gonna talk about hell.

I do want to talk about generosity, um, the practice that is kind of the outcome, the natural outcome of this understanding of this reality that God is at work in making all things new, that he's already got it covered, that our future is secure, and that out of that we can have peace in knowing.

So, our primary text that we just heard from is Matthew 6, part of what is known as uh Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which is a teaching monologue to his disciples, where Jesus imparts kingdom values and the ethics of what it means to be a follower of his and committed to his way.

And um so today we're gonna talk about generosity, this practice that flows out of the reality and trust that God is making all things new and that he will establish his presence and his rule permanently and fulfill in a way of fulfillment, that we in faith and by God's grace through Jesus Christ have internal inheritance within.

So I noticed on your website, the citizens website, that under practices it says this generosity.

We joyfully trust in God's renewed world and proclaim this hope with unselfish kindness, which says to me that generosity is not just an idea that you as part of the body of Christ believe, but it's one that you are seeking to intentionally live out with your words and with your actions.

And that orientation, the orientation of your heart and your attitude towards God and towards other people is not one that is seeking to gain for yourself, but rather to demonstrate generous kindness in response to God's generous kindness to you, which is a really beautiful picture, and I think one that the world desperate desperately needs.

Um, because it seems to me, and maybe you've observed this as well, that the world is really operating in a scarcity mentality that leads to deep anxiety and deep distrust of other people.

We've become so concerned that our piece of the pie will be taken, leaving us with nothing, that we're gonna do everything we can to accumulate more and to protect what we have at all costs, which inevitably leaves us feeling stuck, scared, and suspicious of other people.

But friends, I want to affirm for you and uh this value that you have to remind us that in God's economy, in this vision of the kingdom, of heaven coming to earth, under his rule and his authority, that the hope of the world is not a pie.

That there's not just a little bit, each everybody gets a little peace.

The hope of the world is not a pie, it's a well of living water that does not run dry.

That there's an everlasting, abundant source of life available, and we don't have to live in that anxiety of protecting what we've got because there is always more with God.

It is God's generosity that we live under.

The scripture says that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

That it is in Him that we live and we move and we have our being.

God's generosity is the source, it is the example, is the inspiration, and it is the assurance from which we are set free from living with a scarcity mentality.

We're enabled and empowered to receive generosity and extend it to the world.

That renewed creation that you talked about last week, if we take God at his word and we know that that is what is to come, then we don't have to wait for that fulfillment.

We can live right now in the reality of renewal.

We don't have to get tangled up in the temptations that trap us to live selfishly and fearfully.

Trusting our generous God frees us to live generously whatever we have.

And I want to read us that passage again.

Um it's a shorter one, so I know we can do it twice.

Um, but as we read it, I want us to pay attention to three movements of how we can live generously from a place of trust.

The first is the posture of the heart, what we're storing up.

The second is the perspective of the eyes and what we see, and the third is the practice of the hands, how and who we serve.

So let's read the scripture again, Matthew 6, 19 through 24.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

No one can serve two masters.

Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

So first store up the posture of our heart.

Okay, I'll go first.

My name is Julie, and I love my stuff.

I love clothes, I love shoes, and I really love books.

So I like to collect these things as much as I can.

And I don't know if anyone else felt a little bit of conviction right off the bat, in the words that Jesus says, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, because we are really good at storing up treasures.

We like our treasures, right?

And I know I'm not alone because I found out that the US storage unit industry is like the most lucrative real estate market that you can get into.

It's currently estimated to be like generating revenue annually in the US alone at$60 billion.

And it's growing.

And it occupies 2.5 billion square feet of rentable space.

That's a lot.

The rest of the world contributes about$5 billion to that revenue.

Americans do$60 billion in a year.

We like our stuff, right?

Collectively, we have a lot of stuff that we're hanging on to.

And of course, we know, those of us who have ever had a storage unit, a lot of the stuff in that storage unit you wouldn't necessarily consider treasure, right?

Some of it's junk, some of it's stuff you'd love to get rid of, some of it's stuff you just don't know what else to do with, but you have and feel like you should keep it.

Jesus is not necessarily in this passage coming after the quantity of possessions that someone may have in this teaching.

But what he wants to address is what our hearts are attached to.

And sometimes the more we store and the more we collect, the more our heart becomes attached.

I had a conversation with a young man.

Um Jerell mentioned I was the college pastor for um Onyx House until just recently.

And uh he went on a trip with his family to a part of the world that is experiencing severe poverty.

And they went to go and dig wells so that the community there would have access to fresh, clean, and safe water, which is something we all really take for granted.

And he was struck by just the kindness and generosity, despite all the suffering of the people in the community, their generosity and hospitality and just joy that they were exuding as people.

And he said, I just had this realization like I think my stuff is gonna make me happy.

And then I realized it's my stuff does not make me happy.

If anything, it makes me more stressed out because there's always like a newer model than I need to get, so I have to keep up with that, or I'm worried about breaking it or losing it, or somebody stealing it.

Like these things consume my time and my energy.

He said, and the people were just they just had such a simple way of sharing what whatever they had, and it was not much, but they were clearly so happy to do so.

And it was like such a light bulb moment for him.

And I think a lot of us, if if any of us, a lot of people have traveled to different parts of the world and have had that moment of just like, wow, I think that happiness is in my stuff, and it's not.

It's not.

You may or may not have a lot of money.

You might have a lot, you might have very, very little.

But the question is that Jesus is asking is where is your heart?

What are you trusting in and what are you attached to?

And it's not just what we think will make us happy, it's sometimes what we think is gonna make us secure, right?

How easily our sense of security can get tangled up in our possessions and in our money.

What starts as just something we want kind of morphs into something we start to believe we need.

And the more we think we need it, we attach our identity to it and our peace to it.

In other words, where our treasure is, our heart will be also.

But we also know that the things of the world are terribly insecure.

So if our peace and our identity are attached to it, we naturally feel anxious, trying to preserve what we have.

And Jesus identified this anxiety.

He said there is decay, there is loss, there is theft.

But the things of this earth are not the source of our security and our hope.

The creator of heaven and earth, who loves you, is the source of your security and your hope.

Jesus is pointing our hearts towards heaven, toward the Father and toward the character of our generous God.

And I want to take a minute just to point out how many times God's generosity and provision is recorded in the scriptures.

It's so often that it's practically uncountable.

Like it truly is uncountable.

From the very first moments of creation in Genesis, where God's good creative acts make life possible, to the abundance of the beauty and the variety of creation.

Says that their waters are teeming with different sea creatures, and the air is full of different varieties of birds, and there the ground is filled with different varieties of seed-bearing plants.

He could have just made one variety of tomato, right?

There could there could just be one plant, and that would be enough for everybody.

But he decided to get real creative and real generous and just give us so much more.

There's more than just a sun and a moon.

There's millions of stars in the sky, right?

God is generous in his creation, both in the abundance of what he provides and the beautiful diversity of what he provides.

From Genesis all the way to the final chapter of the Bible in Revelation 22, one of the final verses of the Bible says, Let the one who is thirsty come, let the one who wishes to take the free gift of the water of life.

God is generous from beginning to end in the scripture.

God gives.

Why?

Well, you guys know this one.

John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he what?

He gave.

He gave his only son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.

God is generous.

God is trustworthy.

It is central to his character and it's a defining feature of his love for us.

So instead of relying on our own storehouses for security of what we can earn and accumulate, instead of even trusting in what the Lord provides, the Lord asks us to put our trust in who he is.

So our hope is not in storage units and it's not in our bank accounts and it's not in our 401ks.

Our hope is not found in the treasures of the world, but our hope is found in Jesus Christ.

And that is our security.

Him who invites us who are thirsty to come and drink from living water.

But what are treasures in heaven and how do we store them up?

Well, Jesus doesn't give a detailed list to follow or a formula, and I think that that's really intentional because our relationship with God is not transactional, right?

It's relational.

He invites us into this relationship with him.

He's not asking us to accumulate enough good deeds so that we earn a heavenly reward of some kind.

That's not what this is about.

He's inviting us instead into a different way of living that reflects his heart and his kingdom.

And we know what matters most to God because Jesus tells us love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is the underlying principle that guides us in unselfish creativity to be generous.

So, what does that look like in your life?

With your resources, your relationships, your time, your gifts, that's something each of us is invited to consider.

But when we love God with everything we are and we love others with everything that He has given us, our heart begins to become aligned with His generous heart.

And that's the kind of treasure we want to see stored up.

Right?

Second, the perspective of the eyes, what we see.

So, in addition to a reorientation of the heart, Jesus is inviting us to examine our perspective, the lens through which we look at the world.

Trusting God changes how we interpret everything we see.

He contrasts two different types of eyes, the good or healthy eyes, and bad or unhealthy eyes.

And this would have been like a well-known phrase to the disciples.

It was an expression that was commonly found in the Hebrew Bible.

So a good eye is one that is generous.

Proverbs 22, 9 gives us an example.

The NIV, our English translation, translates it: the generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.

But the Hebrew original text says, the one who is good of I, Tove, will be blessed.

On the contrary, a bad or evil eye would be someone who is selfish or stingy.

So in Proverbs 23, 6 and 7 in English, do not eat the food of a begrudging host, for he is the kind of person who is always thinking about the cost.

But in Hebrew, do not eat the bread of the one with an evil eye.

Ra ain.

The binary that Jesus is presenting here are that there are two lenses from which we can look at the world.

With unhealthy eyes, we see the world through a lens of scarcity and self-interest, which inevitably leads to darkness within us.

But with healthy eyes, we see through the lens of God's generosity, which illuminates our inner life and gives us clarity.

Something I've noticed lately is that having the right lens is really important in this age of social media.

Right?

Remember when it used to be like you were just sharing pictures of your kids and funny things that your dog did with your friends and family online.

That was the extent of social media.

And now it's like flooded with influencers that you don't know and ads for stuff that you didn't know you needed until you see it.

And I'm a woman over the age of 45.

So just this week, I discovered that I need a new skincare routine, I need a new weight loss pill, I need a new exercise and meal plan.

I need a new fall wardrobe because my current wardrobe is so last season.

Um, I need a new craft because I'm certainly gonna get bored over the winter.

Like, you name it, I need it.

According to the algorithm, I am deficient in pretty much every way possible.

They make it so easy too.

So like they present you with all these things that you didn't know that you needed that was wrong, things that are wrong with you.

And then there's just a little button, just a like a just click and you can fix it.

You can have bee venom sent to your house to put on your skin so that it's tighter.

And you can look like, you know, just like a little baby-faced, I don't know, goddess or something.

So it's amazing how we can be transformed so quickly when we are we see something and we recognize there's, oh, there's some sort of lack in me.

I need to fix it.

I'm gonna take, right?

This see and take pattern is not new.

It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, describes the very first sin, Genesis 3:6.

Genesis 3:6

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for attaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

See and take from then on becomes this recurring motif in the Bible to describe many temptations that lead us to sin.

Seeing something good or pleasing is not the problem.

It's the problem becomes when we have a perceived lack that is introduced, that reveals where our trust lies.

So Eve perceived a lack of wisdom, made an assumption that God was withholding something from her, and the fruit had it, so she took it for herself.

And we know that what followed was not wisdom, but it was darkness and separation.

But when we trust God's generosity, we don't have to approach the world in that way.

James 1, 5 says, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

Ask God.

The perspective of our eyes also affects how we see people and what they're worthy of, which affects our generosity towards others.

Through the lens of God's generosity, we see someone in need, we recognize their worth, and we become free to respond with generosity rather than self-protection.

Jesus begins his teaching in Matthew with some shocking first words.

He says, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

He gives us not only a different perspective about our stuff, but he gives us a very different perspective about the poor.

He says they're blessed.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

See, in our world, those with more money and more power, that means that they have more esteem and more value, right?

But in God's economy, it's the poor, it's the meek, those who hunger and thirst, the pure in heart, the peacemakers.

Those are the ones that are called out as the VIPs of the kingdom.

And if that's true, then instead of us vying for the approval of the rich, we should be doing everything we can to be near the poor, right?

So when we look at people, we must look at them the way that Jesus sees them with kingdom vision, with God glasses, if you will, to see their inherent worth and their intrinsic value.

So when we see somebody living below the dignity that God has deemed them worthy of, we ought to rush to do what we can to make it right and affirm their dignity.

And guess what?

Seems that the scripture says that it doesn't even really matter if somebody deserves poverty or not, by the way they've chosen to live.

You know the parable of the prodigal son, right?

The waiting father, the father who is waiting for his son, watching for him.

And when he sees his son coming in the distance, who has squandered all of his inheritance, dirty, stinking of pigs, coming to him, starving, hungry, by his own fault, what does the father do?

He doesn't say, Well, serves you right.

I saw that one coming.

That you had that, that's your problem.

No, he he matches his undignity by pulling up his own robe and running to meet his son.

And he starts shouting, bring out the best robe, bring out a ring, put a ring on his finger, put sandals on his feet, start up the barbecue, like we're having a party.

My son is home.

And I just get this picture that this is how God looks at each of us, and this is how God looks at the people who are the most destitute in our society, and it does not matter if they got themselves there or not.

Because really, all of our choices, right?

Some of us we're always making choices, and they don't always end us up in you know a pig sty or on the street corner.

God is gracious and he sees past the dirt of our choices to the value of the person that he created.

Why not get the party started early?

Why not get the party started early for our brothers and sisters so that they know that there is a God who loves them, who is looking out for them, and cannot await to celebrate their homecoming.

So instead of acting like the self-righteous or bitter brother of the parable, we can bring out the dishes and get the party started to welcome home our siblings too.

Later in Matthew, Jesus says, Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.

When we bless the poor, we bless Jesus Christ Himself.

Different eyes, healthy eyes, perceiving God's goodness, that look for opportunities to share that goodness with others rather than goods to get for ourselves.

Lastly, three, this the practice of our hands, who we serve.

I know that we like to think that we can have it all, but we don't have to choose.

That would be really great.

I would love to just love God and also live for money at the same time, right?

Even if we wouldn't admit that out loud, we kind of live like that a lot.

But frankly, Jesus is saying that's just not true.

It's not possible.

We do need to work for money.

We need to, you know, provide for our family as much as we can and do what we can.

It's not unwise to save.

It's all of these things are good and fine.

But working for something is not the same thing as living for it, right?

Matthew 19, 16 through 25.

Gives us this great example, a personal example.

There was this young man who wanted to live for Jesus.

He really did.

He was careful to keep all of the commandments, but he just could not give up his love for wealth.

And when he was forced to choose, when it came down to a choice of this or that, keeping his possessions or giving them to the poor so that he would be free to follow Jesus, the scripture says he walked away sad because he couldn't bear to separate from his money and all he had worked for and saved up all these years.

Tragically, the man passed on an invitation to a bigger life because he was trapped in the lie that his money was his security, his identity, and his purpose.

He wanted to follow the commandments and he wanted to do it well.

He kept himself clean, he kept himself good, but Jesus looked into his heart and recognized the stronghold that money had on him.

And again, this was not a blanket ban on wealth, like a surgeon.

Jesus was examining his heart, looking to the thing that was holding him back from a life of freedom.

The stronghold of this, of finding security and wealth, is the idea that money is security, money is identity, and it reflects what I am worth.

That can exist in somebody's life, whether they're wealthy or they're poor.

And Jesus tells us that money and God are two different masters, but each demands 100% of our devotion.

Our allegiance to money demands that we work more and are devoted to endless production and accumulation.

Our allegiance to God demands that we seek first His kingdom and his righteousness.

We might love money, but money will never love us back.

But we love God because He first loved us.

Serving money increases anxiety.

Serving God increases peace.

Money as a master enslaves us through its promises of security and control.

It's transactional, it's insatiable.

But God calls us into relationship divine by mercy and trust.

And generosity, as we talked about earlier, is central to his character.

Our security doesn't depend on performance or power or possessions.

It depends on his.

So in the case of the rich young man, the opportunity to exchange the security of possessions for the security of following Jesus involved a concrete act of generosity.

He was specifically invited to sell his possessions, to give to the poor and follow Jesus.

And we too have an invitation, though it may not be the exactly the same one as this young man.

We have an invitation.

If our heart is set on treasures in heaven, if our eyes are healthy and see as Jesus does, then as his followers, we are people who have said yes to God and set him apart as king, then the question we need to ask ourselves: if God is king, how is my life different?

So consider service to God, God of generosity with the practice of our hands.

Three ways intentional, relationships, and now.

Intentional.

Most of us, generosity is not a default.

I don't know if you prayed this earlier or somebody said it.

We are kind of in this system that conditions us to not be generous people.

We have to be intentional if we are gonna live past that.

We can't just relax and go with the flow because it will not work.

We need to be intentional.

If you're blessed with financial surplus, it might be helpful to just add it at it as a line item in your budget.

That there is a portion of your monthly income that is going to be given to somebody else who isn't gonna give anything back.

But even if you have a little, if you have a lot or a little, think beyond money, think beyond material things, whatever God has given you.

God has blessed you with something, whether that be time, gifts, prayer, thoughtfulness, I don't know.

What is it that God has given to you?

What has He been generous to you in your life?

And how can you use that to serve Him?

How can you use that to be generous and bless people around you?

Generosity is a willingness to share whatever it is that we've been entrusted with, regardless of how much or how little we have, and be intentional about it.

Relationships.

It can be really easy to become overwhelmed by all the needs in the world and this cause and that cause, and there are so many worthy causes out there, you don't know where to start.

I would encourage you to start with your own relationships in your own life in your own community.

Start small.

How can you start to practice generosity with the people around you?

How can you get to know what their needs are just by being in relationship with them and find a way to creatively meet those needs?

It prompts a natural, unforced desire to be generous when you start with the people that you love.

You love them, you want them to be blessed, therefore you're gonna find a way to bless them, right?

And then from there, start expanding your circle, get to know other people who are not in your immediate socioeconomic bracket or in your same, you know, school or church or community, branch out a little bit, get to know people that you wouldn't normally know.

How can relationship lead you to generosity?

And then lastly, now.

When I was a kid at the store with my mom, and I'd say, Mom, can we go look at the toys?

She'd say, Maybe on the way back.

And I was always like, because that meant no.

If we're gonna forget or we're not gonna have time.

We put things off all the time.

And I think that one of the things that that is uh a temptation for us with generosity is that we think we need to wait until we have more or we have it all together, we have it all figured out before we can be generous.

But I think that the scripture challenges us to just start now.

Start with what you have, don't wait, don't let, you know, trying to get everything all together move you to inaction.

Our life, submitted to God as King, produces generosity expressed in countless ways.

Living under his rule means that we can peacefully trust his provision and his promise that he is making all things new.

We can live today in the abundance of tomorrow, freely receiving and freely giving, and trusting our generous God because he frees us to live generously.

Trust changes where we find security, trust frees us from self-sufficiency, and trust frees us to act in the present.

And in doing so, we proclaim hope to ourselves and we display unselfish kindness to a world that could really use some right now.

Amen.

Okay, let's pray.

Thank you, God, for your generosity towards us, that while we were still sinners, you died for us.

God, what a what a good and generous God you are.

Would you open our eyes to the world around us to see where you have provided, to see the abundant blessing that you have poured out on creation and in our in our lives, in our homes?

Lord, where we least expect it, will we start to see your blessing and generosity there?

And especially, God, will we start to see it in other people?

Those who need it the most, would you open up our eyes to their value and their worth in your kingdom?

And would you give us ways to naturally build relationships and be in community and in communion with one another?

So that in a natural way, God, in the way that you have done with us, that in relationship, sourced in love, that we would give freely to others in the way that you have freely given to us.

Make us a more generous people, God.

And thank you for all you've done.

Jesus' name.

Amen.