Genuine Generosity
Transcript
G'day everyone. That means good morning. You can say g'day back or you can say good morning, whatever. My name is Raz. It's good to be here this morning. I'm willing to bet everyone here at some point in their life, at least a million times, has heard the phrase, is money is the root of all evil.
Yes? We've heard this phrase, money is the root of all evil. Nope. Money is not the root of all evil. Money, in fact, I believe, is very, very good. In fact, if you think back to a time when money did not even exist, think back to a time when no one traded money, they just traded stuff.
We commonly know it as the Stone Age. Other people know it as settlers of Catan. The idea is that I need to produce something for myself that I can trade with other people to get stuff that they produce. So I might produce a whole bunch of sheep, which are pretty useless, and you might produce a whole bunch of timber or wheat or something like that. And if I want some wheat, I need to convince you to trade your wheat with me for my sheep because I don't have any money. Problem is, you might not want sheep because sheep are pretty useless.
And so I have to convince you somehow to give me some timber so I can build my road. But you don't want me to build my road because then I'll beat you. But that's not how it works in real life. Everyone needed to produce something so that they could trade with other people. And that's how it worked. I would produce something.
You would produce something. We would swap. No one had any currency or anything. And so every individual person needed to produce something for themselves. Most people would try to live off what they had on their own land. But every now and then you would need to trade.
And the problem is, my stuff that I have is only worth as much as you're willing to trade me for. If you don't want to trade with me for the stuff that I've got, then I'm in trouble and I just don't get what I need. Enter into this situation money. Money comes in and suddenly everyone has this unique, special thing that you can trade for anything. Money holds value in and of itself and everything's value is measured against money. Sheep have a dollar value.
Wood has a dollar value. Bricks have a dollar value. And suddenly people who produce different things can use this unique resource to trade with each other. Money sounds pretty good. Money sounds brilliant. And you fast forward a couple thousand years, lots of thousands of years of money being used.
And now we have professions like athlete. That couldn't have existed before. No one said, hey, I'll give you a barrel of hay if you jump over that stick. I'll give you a sheep if you sing me a song. It just didn't exist. Everyone was producing things.
And so now because of money, CEOs, managers, farmers, musicians, athletes all have this thing that they can trade. They can use money to buy what they need to survive. Money is a good thing. It is not the root of all evil. Money is the root of all evil is actually a misquote. There's a similar quote.
Money is the root of all evil is a misquote. A misquote is a good. Misquote is a fine under particular circumstances. They're good if you're trying to win an argument that you're not going to win otherwise. You can always quote Shakespeare or Einstein. You don't need to know the quote.
It just has to be close enough that no one really knows. They're also good for annoying nerds like this one. This one. It says, use the force, Harry, by Gandalf. And there's a guy from Star Trek. His name is Jean-Luc Picard.
And all of the fonts are wrong. If you're a nerd, it kills your soul. Misquotes can be good. But the quote we're actually looking for is from 1 Timothy chapter 6. And it reads like this. It says, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
Hear the difference? The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. Money in and of itself is not evil. It's the desire for money. The longing. The desire to have more and store it up and keep more and more for myself.
The idea that money will fulfill me. These are all different kinds of evil. Money in and of itself is actually a good thing. It allows everyone to trade. This love of money is the source of all kinds of evils. That's why the author of Hebrews, he says, keep your life free from the love of money.
Be content with what you have. It's the desire for more and more. It's actually what causes all the problems. Now, my goal today is not to convince you that you saving money is sinful. It's not necessarily. It could be.
My goal is not to convince you that your spending habits are in and of themselves evil or that your money is evil because that's not necessarily true, though it could be. My goal for today is to convince you that giving money away freely to other people, those who need it, those who don't need it, just giving it away with no benefit to yourself is actually a source of great joy. That's the goal for today. Being generous is a source of great joy. Let's pray.
We talked about the lens through which we culturally see money and how that lens can kind of corrupt our understanding. We talked about some big principles about how we should actually view money, but we didn't really get into the kind of nitty-gritty of how that applies to our lives. So the next couple of weeks, we're going to talk specifically about how that generosity, how that lens impacts the way we use our money. There's two big principles from last week that I want to highlight. The first one is that, let me just check it so I get the words right. The first one is, we cannot take it with us, but we can send it on ahead.
We cannot take it with us, but we can send it on ahead. The idea is that we are going to die. You are going to die. Everybody dies. Easy. You cannot take the money that you've stored up with you once you've died, but you can send it on ahead.
And what that means, what this idea of storing up treasures in heaven means is that the way that we interact with money now, the way that we manage money now, can impact what we will have for eternity. When you are generous with your money now, when you give it away with no kind of selfish greed ambition for yourself with that money, when you just give it away, you're actually storing up treasures for yourself later. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead. The second one that we looked at, the second principle that we talked about was that God owns everything. I am his money manager.
God owns everything. I'm his money manager. The idea here is that God created the world, created us, created everything in it. Psalms talks about how he is the owner of everything in the world. We read other places where he says, all of the silver, all of the gold belongs to me. Everything in this world is God's.
I'm just the guy who temporarily uses it while I'm on earth. That's how our approach to money should be. And so when we ask any question that starts with this idea of, what should I do with my money? How should I spend my money? Who should I give my money to? What percentage of my money should I give?
We've already misunderstood. We've already believed a lie that the money we're talking about belongs to me in the first place. And so this principle is that the money belongs to God. You're just the person who gets to control it temporarily. The opposite of this, the opposite concept of this entire lens that we're looking at money through, is kind of how the world talks to us about it, how culture talks to us about money. The American culture in general is big on making it yourself, the American dream, making lots of money, getting a job, moving on in the world.
If you've ever seen a show called Shark Tank, you've probably seen this guy before. His name is Kevin O'Leary. Shark Tank is a show where billionaires like this guy invest in other people's products, other people's time and effort, and try to help them become billionaires as well. They're all obsessed with money. This guy is the epitome of it. They call him Mr.
Wonderful, which is totally wrong. He's a massive jerk. He treats everyone like scum. And when he was interviewed about money, this is something that he said. He said, you may lose your wife, you may lose your dog. Your mother may hate you.
None of those things matter. What matters is that you achieve success and become free. Then you can do whatever you like. That's pretty bold, right? That's pretty bold. Now, I know none of us would quite say it like this.
No one in this room is rich enough or brave enough to say that. But we can understand where this comes from, given our culture. We can understand this concept that money is worth dying for. Get rich or die trying. We can understand this concept that anything that gets in your way of getting rich is just an obstacle. It's kind of how our culture views money.
Whether we like it or not, a small part of us that does understand that also sympathizes with it. We might not go to the extremes of saying we're going to trample our mother and our dog and our wife and stuff. But we understand what it means to desire so much to have more money that we would do things for it. That we would push things out of the way to get more money. When culture is so overexposed on an issue like money, a little bit of that seeps into us, even if we deny the overall premise. And it's kind of horrifying that we could sympathize with something like that.
Open up a Bible, if you've got one, to 1 Timothy chapter 6. If you've got a Bible that looks like this, it's going to be on page 644. Page 644. 1 Timothy is a letter. It was written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy. Paul was getting really old.
He's a bit of a geezer at this point. He planted a whole bunch of churches. He was the main primary leader of those churches. And he knew he was going to die soon, so he was setting up other people to kind of take over those roles. Timothy was one of them. He was leader at this time of the church of Ephesus.
And Paul is just giving him some instructions on here's how the church should be run. We're going to be in 1 Timothy 6 from verses 17 to 19. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty. That means arrogant. Charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.
Thus, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. Okay, back up to the top. Verse 17. As for the rich in this present age, well, I don't know about you, but I know I am completely off the hook at this point in time. And as I look up at everyone, I didn't see anyone like, shh, quiet the people next to them. He's talking to us.
We need to listen. None of that happened when I said the word rich, because we all kind of think we're off the hook at this point in time. I understand that, because none of us are rich, right? We live in Columbia, South Carolina. That's not a rich city. Most of us, we don't own our own houses, not at least outright.
We probably don't drive a flashy car. We've probably got some loans to pay off. We're not like all those rich people out there that exist. Those rich people who own a nice house and own a flashy car and don't have any loans. They live on their cash. They're the rich people.
But then those people look at the other people with five houses and ten vacation homes in six countries, each of them with a Lamborghini. And they say, I'm not rich. That guy's rich. And the process continues. I'm not rich because someone is richer. It's all a bizarre trick, really.
It's all this trick that we tell ourselves to disassociate with this label. Rich. What does it mean to be rich? It's actually a very weird logic. I'm not rich because someone else is richer. Let me prove it to you.
I poke holes in this all day. If I substitute the word rich, it's no longer I'm not rich because someone else is richer, and add in something mundane. Clothes. I'm not clothed because someone else has more clothes than I do. What? I'm not full because Matt ate more food than I did.
What? What? It's true most of the time. It's true most of the time, but that's not how logic works. It's not this case of I'm not rich because someone else is richer. The logic is flawed.
I went to Belize a few years ago. Belize is a country in Central America. It's on the Caribbean side. They don't associate themselves with Central America. They're a Caribbean country. Let me tell you what it looks like to be rich in Belize.
If you're rich in Belize, you probably have a door on your bathroom. Your bathroom will be just in the corner of your square house, and you'll probably have a door instead of just like a curtain on your bathroom. You will probably, if you're rich in Belize, have a lock on your front door instead of a dog. The only building in all of Belize that I went to that had air conditioning was the airport. So we arrived, thought, this isn't so bad, and then spent two weeks sweating out in the sun all day long.
Fun fact about Belize. There's not that many flushable toilets. There's a few. They're around. If you plan your day, if you're a good planner for that kind of thing, you can plan when you need to use the bathroom, and you can find a flushable toilet. They're not everywhere.
Even the ones that you do find, you are not allowed to flush anything down it, including toilet paper. They have a little trash can that sits in the cubicle. So you can go, and then you can clean up, and the toilet paper goes in the trash can. Keep in mind, these houses are not air conditioned. If you've got a window, you're lucky, and it's probably 120 degrees with 100% humidity. Kind of gross.
But that's actually the rich, the wealthy lifestyle in Belize. It's kind of crazy. You want to learn a thing or two about luxury, you go to a country like that, and then come home. Then you experience luxury when you come home. And that's what happened for me. I spent two weeks in Belize, came back, and then found myself on day one eating three full meals, sitting on a fully functional flushable toilet, flushing my toilet paper.
It was amazing. And then I would just pick up whatever I was doing from before I left, like watching TV shows on Netflix. The kind of stuff that normal people do. Not rich people. Kind of different when you come home. I will probably continue to play the I'm not rich card.
This Trump card. I'm not rich. I'll probably continue to play that card for the rest of my life. I probably will. But I'm going to be doing that from my air-conditioned department, sitting on a fully functional flushable toilet that I can put my toilet paper in.
I'll probably be on my iPhone, maybe watching subscription television while I'm at it. None of that makes me rich here. Excellent. We measure richness in the Western world in kind of a bizarre way. We have like this sliding scale where we are able to, in our own minds, measure what rich actually is. And so if we have the poor, the poorest of the poor don't have a single dollar, probably in thousands of dollars of debt, whatever.
These people all the way over here that have absolutely nothing. And then all the way at the other end of the scale, the sliding scale of richness, you have Bill Gates and his buddies over here who have billions and billions of dollars. We're all going to land somewhere in the middle, probably on this side of the middle, probably. And we're going to look this way and say, that's where rich begins. Because we want to disassociate ourselves with this label of what it means to be rich. We're not rich.
All these people in front of me are rich. How could I be rich when they've got so much more than I do? And we push away this label because we're scared of it. Being rich comes with more responsibility. I have to look after more people. I've got to finance well.
And so we disassociate ourselves with richness saying that's something for all those people. And we don't really pay attention to all these people. We never turn around and say, wow. I am incredibly blessed. Look at all these people that I could help out. Look at all these people who have nothing compared to me.
This is how we evaluate richness. This is how we generally associate whether or not I'm rich. This is our criteria. Am I at this mysterious line on this side that I have to cross eventually? Then I become rich.
That's how it works. But the closer we get to that line, the further up that line moves because no one wants to be rich. At least we avoid it. Instead, I want us to evaluate it slightly differently. I want us to evaluate it like this. Answer the question, could I survive on less?
Could I survive on less? Would my family and I die? Would we cease to exist if we had less money, less stuff? Now, if a decent percentage of our income disappeared overnight, gone, it could be 5% for you. That might be a big deal. It could be 45% for you.
That could be a big deal. If a massive drop happened in our income overnight, we would probably have to make some lifestyle changes. That's natural. If we're forced to live on less, we make lifestyle changes. We might have a smaller house without two spare bedrooms that we keep just because the in-laws might come eventually but never do. We just have to vacuum an extra room every week.
We might have to cancel subscription television, HBO, that kind of thing. Maybe we would have to use a dumb phone. My suggestion is and always will be that you just get rid of the dog. That's a money pit. But there's no reason to do that to yourself.
It just costs money. But in the process of all of this, being forced to live on less, we would probably have to rely on God a little bit. Probably. But I'm willing to bet we wouldn't die. Willing to bet we could all live on less. Now, I don't know if I've proved my point or not, but I'm willing to bet also that when you got here today, you arrived by vehicle in a car.
Car. You probably are wearing clothes. At least I think you all are. You probably ate some food this morning. And you probably used a fully functional flushable toilet. If all of that is true, I'm just going to read the rest of this and assume it applies to us.
Verse 17. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty or arrogant, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Rich people. That's us. Don't set your hopes on money. Don't set your hopes on money.
Set them on God. Now, you might think, I don't have any money. That's fine. Don't set your hopes on it anyway. For people who've got lots of money, don't set your hopes on it. It could go in a flash.
Some bank could go bankrupt and you lose everything. Your trust fund could disappear overnight. Don't put your hopes in the money that you have. For people who don't have any money, don't put your hopes on the money that you hope to have in the future. When the mortgage is paid off. When the car is paid off.
When the student loans are paid off. When the job gives you the promotion they've been promising. To say, I'll just be good. I can give more then. I can be okay then. I'll be comfortable then.
It's still putting your hopes on money. It's just future money that doesn't exist yet. It could be 10 years away. It could be 25 years away. Don't put your hopes in money. Put your hopes on God.
He's the provider of everything that we need. You can't take it with you. What's the point in hoping in it? When you start to get worried. When you start to get worried financially. Are you more likely to turn to your bank account.
And make sure that there's still that buffer zone in the bottom of it. And say, sweet. I'm okay. I'm good. I'll survive. I got the buffer zone.
Or are you likely to think. God has made promises to me. He's going to keep them. I'll be okay. When you're stressed. When you're anxious.
Are you more likely to find comfort in bankofamerica.com. Telling you you've still got that much money left. Or are you willing to find comfort in the fact that. God predestined you. He set you up since before the world began. He knows the number of hairs on your head.
And he has a plan for your life. Which one of them is more comfort to you. Sadly I think. A lot of people find comfort in this. Arbitrary amount of money. That's kept in their bank account.
We know that money is temporary. We know we can't take it with us. We can't take it with us when we die. Why put our hopes in it. Instead put your hopes in God. In verse 18.
They. That's the rich. Are to do good. To be rich in good works. To be generous and ready to share. Thus.
Storing up treasure for themselves. As a good foundation. For the future. So that they may take hold of that. Which is truly life. Paul is saying that for those.
With money. Those who are rich. Do good things with it. Be generous with it. Be hospitable with your house. And your stuff.
When you do. You store up treasures for yourself. In the future. And attain that. Which is truly life. That's a crazy thought.
But you. Can't take it with you. Send it on ahead. Store up treasures for yourself. In heaven. Where.
Moth and rust. Don't destroy stuff. Every time you. Be generous. Now. Every time you give away.
Not. Not expecting anything in return. You're storing up treasures for yourself. In heaven. It gets to be joyful in the moment. You have a lot of fun doing it.
But you're also storing up treasures in heaven. That's exactly what he says to do. Now. The early church is described as incredibly joyful. These are the guys who are around. Right after Jesus kind of ascended.
And I'm going to read a passage that we. We talk about a lot. As Mill City Church. We. We kind of believe that this is a model for. For how we do our community groups.
That's from Acts chapter 2. 42 through 47. As I highlight some things. Words are going to come up on the screen. It's not the whole passage. It's just chunks of it.
But. But that's the kind of the bits that I wanted to highlight for you. This is from Acts. Acts 2. 42. 42.
42. 42. 42. 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. That's the Bible.
And the fellowship. To the breaking of bread and prayers. And all came upon every soul. And soul. And wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together.
And had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings. And distributing the proceeds to all. As any had need. And day by day. Attending the temple together.
And breaking bread in their homes. They received their food. With glad and generous hearts. Praising God. And having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number.
Day by day. Those who were being saved. Sell my stuff. And give it to people who need it. There's. Something about that concept.
When I do it for myself. When I see other people doing it. That just makes you happy. It brings joy. To see those who need it. Receive it.
And to be responsible. For allowing those who need it. To receive it. Is a source of great joy. It really is. It physically shows.
As I give money away. As I give things away. It physically shows that. I'm not the point. I don't need this. God is the point.
Other people need this. It's a tangible. Physical representation. Of me giving away. That which I don't need. And making God the point.
The guy that we've been talking about. The author of this book. Treasure Principle. His name is Randy Alcorn. We referenced him last week. Great book.
I think you should all read it. He says it like this. Generosity. Is the only antidote. To materialism. Generosity.
Is the only antidote. To materialism. When I. Give stuff away. I break. The stranglehold.
That that stuff. Has on me. We know that we cannot serve. God and money. And so when we give. Money away.
We break the stranglehold. That money has on us. We allow God. To be the focus. Of everything that we do. Generosity.
Is the antidote. To materialism. Materialism. Being the attachment. That we have to money. And stuff.
Now it's not easy. We know that. There's this guy. That Jesus met. It's recorded in Matthew 19. They call him the rich young ruler.
He comes to Jesus. And he says. I've kept all the commandments. I've done everything I should have done. What do I need to do. To inherit eternal life?
And Jesus kind of sees through him. He sees through the facade. He sees what's actually going on. In this guy's life. And he says. To himself.
Money is this guy's problem. So he says to him. Sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. And come follow me. And the guy leaves.
Upset. He leaves upset. Because he cannot see that which is truly life. He cannot see what it means to follow Jesus. And not be attached to his money. He's put all of his hope.
All of his comfort. All of his power. All of his everything. In money. He believes money is where his source of joy will be. Because he's unwilling to get rid of it.
To attain true joy. To receive true joy. To follow Jesus. He refuses. Because he has his hopes in the wrong place. You can loosen the grip that money has on your life.
You can loosen the grip that stuff has on your life. By simply giving it away. Selling it and giving it to the poor. It can be to the homeless. It can be to a thrift store. It can be to people in your community group.
It can be to an organization. It can be cash. It can be gift cards. It can be clothes. It could be a car. It could be the money that you've been saving for a big vacation.
That you've always wanted to take. In all of these situations. You're saying. It's not about me. God has blessed me with this stuff. I choose to bless other people with it.
And I guess to be a source of great joy. There's no reason to not be happy about meeting the needs of other people. Now it can't become legalistic. Legalistic meaning. I'm just following the rules. It can't become legalistic.
Like. I have to do this. In order to be saved. Wrong. It can't become prideful. It can't become.
Hey everyone. Check me out. I give all my stuff away. Also not that good. In both situations. You're still using generosity.
You're using generosity as a tool. To earn favor with God. You don't earn favor with God. God has freed you. Of his own goodwill. There's nothing for you to do.
To earn favor with God. Because you're free already in the gospel. This is all. How you react. According to the gospel. It's not something you do to earn it.
Your generosity should be because. You want God's money. To be a blessing to God's people. So you bless God's people with God's money. That's your motivation. You want people to be blessed.
So you bless them. It will probably mean budgeting slightly differently. For some people. It will probably mean budgeting. Budgeting. You should budget.
For other people. It will just mean budgeting differently. Some people set up what they call a benevolence fund. Benevolence means. Giving to those. Giving away from what you are not using to help others.
Now that doesn't mean. Just use the fringe stuff that you never use. It means budgeting so that you've got fringe stuff. It means budgeting so that you've got a section of your income. That you're deliberately setting aside. To give away to other people.
That's something that someone with a lot of money might be able to do. You could set aside 40% of your income. And say I'm just going to give all that away. I'm going to set it aside. As a church. As a church.
Most of our financial support has happened. Within the context of our community groups. And so far it's been pretty amazing to see. Just within the little cells that we've got. We've seen a lot of people. In crazy ways.
In beautiful ways. Support each other financially. We have seen groups pay bills. Replace stolen property. Pay for counseling for people who need it. Completely outfit pregnant couples with baby stuff.
Because they couldn't afford it themselves. We've seen them fix cars. Buy car parts for each other. Pay travel expenses. Pay for hotels. When people were in a dangerous situation.
And needed to be temporarily removed out of them. We've seen mortgage payments paid. Gas for people to get to and from gatherings. In their community group times. We've seen prescriptions filled. We've covered each other's meals.
Our Christmas and birthday gifts. For families that have kids. And they weren't going to be able to get anything for them. We've seen our groups. When they want to go out to get a meal together. But there's a big family in that group.
That can't afford to take all of them with them. We've seen our groups sponsor the kids. So that everyone could go out in a big group. And eat together. And it's crazy. It's beautiful.
So far our groups have been nothing short of heroic. Incredible. At meeting each other's needs. If that isn't exactly how it should be. I'm not sure that we're doing it right. I think that when you see that happen.
You get overwhelmed with joy. Thinking that's exactly what family should be like. That's exactly what church should be like. People meeting each other's needs. And if it doesn't get you a little bit overjoyed inside. If it doesn't make you.
Even if you've got a stern face. Smile a little bit. Then you might just. I don't know. Be Voldemort or something. Our groups are amazing.
They meet each other's needs when they come up. And what's amazing and beautiful is that. Joy doesn't just come from the people who are getting stuff. You might think. Score. Someone bought me a free meal.
Victory. Yay. You might think. Score. Someone paid my bills for me. Victory.
Yay. And that only those people who are receiving things. Are the ones who are receiving. Or joyful about it. It's not the case. Those who have been meeting those needs.
Are equally. If not more joyful. That they were able. Out of their abundance. To be able to sacrifice. And give to people who needed it.
More than they did. There's something joyful about that as well. And that's why we've seen families. In our church. Who've needed to receive things. At one point in time.
Turn around and be generous. At another point in time. And bless others. Those who've needed things. In the past. Have turned around.
And provided food hampers. For people whose budget. Didn't have anything left in it. For the rest of the month. Who've catered events. From their own pocket.
Christina and my wedding rehearsal dinner. Was completely catered for. By other people. Largely by Mill City Church. People wouldn't even. Accept money from us.
Because it was a joy to them. To be generous to us. It's not obligation. It's joy. There's nothing that says. You need to do this for us.
Because we did something for you. No. It's joy. People do it. Because it's fun. Because it makes it feel good.
And within our church family. It's been pure joy. Over and over again. To see bills paid. To see people make it. When they didn't think they were going to.
And it's all because of this principle. It's God's money. Not mine. How am I going to bless people with God's money? It gets to be joy for me. Now I like challenges.
Actually I take that back. I don't like challenges. I just take them really seriously. It's not always good for me to accept a challenge. But I do anyway.
You're probably thinking to yourself right about now. Look at that amazing beard. It's red if I hold it up to the light. It's not if I don't. Sometimes. It's growing longer and longer.
And the only reason for its existence in all of its glory. Is a challenge. A challenge made by my wife. In front of 25 people. To get it down to here. It's currently in the regret stage.
It will probably continue to be in the regret stage. Until it stops falling out everywhere. Which it is doing now. Another challenge. If you're friends with either of us on Facebook. You've probably seen.
We've become rather artistic lately. Particularly in the realm of beanies. That's why people walk around now. Looking like minions. Ninja turtles. Vikings.
Whatever we can come up with. Started out as a challenge. I think we won. Challenge me to do something. I'm going to learn how to do it. And I'm going to trample everything in my path.
Until I can conquer that challenge. Puppies. Children. Doesn't matter. I'm going to get out of my way. Today I'm going to issue you a challenge.
I want you to take it as seriously as I do. I want you to take it seriously. I think it comes straight out of the verse that we've read. I think it comes straight out of the verse 18 and 19. They say, You're to do good. Be rich in good works.
Be generous and ready to share. Store up treasures as a good foundation for the future. And take hold of that which is truly life. Now I don't think there's anything particularly hard about my challenge. But I don't think it's particularly normal for us.
It's quite abnormal for us. Here's the challenge. Give generously to someone this week. Give generously to someone this week. It could be someone you know. It could be a family member.
It could be from your community group. It can be cash. It can be gift cards. It can be a meal. I think you can. You've got some freedom here.
You can be pretty creative. You can do above and beyond that thing. And remember, generosity is not conditional. It doesn't have to be because someone needs it. You can just do it as a surprise. That will still bring joy for them and for you.
If you're like me and you're prone to a little bit of pride, you might want to do this for a complete stranger instead. The benefit of doing it for a complete stranger is that they typically don't come and thank you. Especially if you make it anonymous and you hide and that kind of thing. They won't be able to come and thank you. But you still get to see the effects of your generosity.
You still get to see what happens as a waiter goes over to a table and tells a family that their meal has been paid for and they look at each other like, What? This happens? What? And you get to smile to yourself and strut out of that restaurant thinking, I just made their day. Oh, yeah. And if it's a Monday, you get to think, I just made their week.
Oh, yeah. It doesn't have to be for any reason. It doesn't have to be for any particular person. You can go to a drive-thru and pay for the person behind you. You might want to make sure it's not a bus. You can go to a drive-thru and just pay for the person behind you and then drive off and they'll never know it was you.
But you'll know that you just made that person's day. You made that person's week. You made that person's month. Who knows? You might not have much money. That's okay.
Spare $5 from your budget this week. Go to Starbucks on Tuesday because that's the start of this week and everyone's going to feel like it's Monday. Buy someone coffee at Starbucks. Watch how that transforms that person's morning. They don't want to go to work. They want to sleep in.
And you just bought them coffee for no reason. That's going to crazy bless them. They're going to have such a good day because some random stranger bought coffee for them in the morning. So countercultural. If you've got quite a bit of money, you're in luck. You get to go crazy and you get to be super creative.
Go to start small. Go to a mechanic and pay someone's bill while they're gone. $500, $800, $1,200. Who knows? That is going to transform someone's day. That might transform someone's year. They might not have been able to pay for those tires.
They might have been pulling out their credit card for the first time. They might have been maxing out their credit card and you just paid that bill off for them. That's going to make someone's day. Get 12 dozen Krispy Kremes. Get 12 dozen Krispy Kremes. Go to the DMV and make waiting at the DMV a little less torture.
That would be a fun way to spend some money and bless people. And you know what? All of it comes as a reaction to the gospel. All of it comes as our response to what God has done for us out of his generosity. While we were still sinners, Christ came and died for us. God gave generously to us.
He sacrificed his only son to come and pay the sins of the world. To pay your sins, to pay for my sins on the cross so that we could be reconciled to him. That's what it took for him to be generous. And for us, it gets to be as easy as money, which we can't take with us. There is great joy from being generous. It feels good to bless people financially.
And you know what? Instead of laying treasures for yourself here on earth, you get to set them up for yourself for eternity. Lay treasures up for the future. Where they won't grow old, they won't rust, and moths won't eat them. You get to keep them forever. Let's pray.
Father God, we praise and thank you that you have blessed us with so much. We thank you for the opportunities that we have as those who can live on less to bless others abundantly this week. I pray that as we go out this week and think about the ways that we can be spending our money, the ways that we can be budgeting, the ways that we can be looking out for other people, that you be giving us discernment on how much, you be giving us discernment on when, you be giving us discernment on in what manner, but that overall we can be generous and that our generosity will come from a heart that is just loving you, responding to what you've done for us the way that you would like us to. Pray that this week and weekend, give to others with a glad and generous heart.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.