Humility, A Quiet Gift

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Scripture Passage – Isaiah 40:9-11 and Matthew 21:6-9

Description – The Third Sermon of the 2010 Advent Series

(Slide one) (Introduction included a dramatic reading from the Advent Series ‘While Shepherd’s Watched,’ by Arden W. Mead. © 1999 Creative Communication for the Parish)

(Slide two)

(Show video clip called “Showing Off” http://www.sermonspice.com/product/20852/showing-off)

Now I know that you are all wondering what the connection is between the dramatic reading we have all just heard and this video clip from the Andy Griffith show. Well there is a statement in our dramatic reading this morning that caught my attention when I first read it. It is early in the dialogue between David and his son, the next king of Ancient Israel as they go back in time to David’s shepherding career and David says to Solomon:

And you don’t understand, Solomon. You probably can’t. Understand what, Father? What it is to care for sheep … in their wanderings, in their helplessness. What it is to be totally responsible for their well-being. You’ve told me about the lion, Father, and the bear. Not to mention wolves. Yes, I’ve TOLD you. But you haven’t been out there … out in the fields at night.

To me Opie is like a Solomon and Andy like a David in the scene we have just watched. Opie speaks, like Solomon, of something he does not know and Andy, like David, speaks of something he has experienced.

Now Opie is trying to impress a girl with his father’s position and office because it is a key part of the town life but in doing so he is anything but humble. He has some idea of what he is talking about, but he does not understand what it truly means to be the Sheriff. He (Opie) inflates his importance within the scheme of things. “That is the door where I take the trash out.”

Solomon grew up much differently than David. He did not have to spend time out in the fields defending sheep from attacks. Solomon grew up in a palace with the pleasures of wealth and power. One environment naturally creates an attitude of humility. The other one does not.

As we continue our journey during this Advent season with the theme of Shepherds and gifts, we stop this morning and visit ancient Israel’s shepherd king, David and we take time to unwrap the vital and quiet gift of humility which allows us to better see, hear, and obey God.

Our texts for this morning are Isaiah 40:9-11 which says:

“Messenger of good news, shout to Zion from the mountaintops! Shout louder to Jerusalem—do not be afraid. Tell the towns of Judah, “Your God is coming!” Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in all his glorious power. He will rule with awesome strength. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.”

And Matthew 21:6-9 which says:

“The two disciples did as Jesus said. They brought the animals to him and threw their garments over the colt, and he sat on it.

Most of the crowd spread their coats on the road ahead of Jesus, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. He was in the center of the procession, and the crowds all around him were shouting,

“Praise God for the Son of David!

Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Praise God in highest heaven!”

Images of humility are apparent in these texts. In the first one the image of a shepherd gently holding a lamb, perhaps injured or sick, “close to his heart” Isaiah says, is one that reflects a compassionate care in which humility, not arrogance is the norm. In the second text, Jesus enters Jerusalem, not with the royalty of a monarch or Roman emperor, who would have come on a majestic horse or in a chariot, but with humility of what we might call today a servant leader of which humility is a key characteristic as symbolized by the young colt or donkey.

(Slide three) Why is humility a necessary gift?

In Colossians 3:12 we read these words, “Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

Humility is a necessary gift because it is a mark of a Christian. In this segment of scripture Paul outlines the characteristics of a Christian and humility appears alongside mercy, kindness, gentleness, and patience.

Humility appears more than once in Paul’s writing as characteristic of a Christ follower. We also read in Ephesians 4:2 “Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.”

A good shepherd loves his/her sheep and will do just about anything to care for it. David loved God and the nation of Israel and did just about anything for it.

But there was, up to a certain time and situation, a humbleness about David’s love and leadership for Israel. While he became famous, there was also, I think, a quiet humbleness in him as well.

But then, he went off the mark and, in a moment of passion, failed to live up to the standards of God. He paid dearly for such failure and it affected the lives of others in dramatic and painful ways.

As we ponder for a moment David’s terrible failure, I want us to think about the essence of humility. What is humility, really?

St Augustine once said, “It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” Charles Spuregon, a preacher of another century said this about humility, “Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self.”

Humility, as has often been said, is not filling yourself with low esteem and thus allowing yourself to become a door mat. Nor it is a vocal “ah shucks” attitude either.

When humility is in operation, you do not notice it. It is a quiet gift.

Kent Crockett tells the story of a church who decided to form a committee to find the most humble person within its congregation. He says, “many names were submitted and numerous candidates evaluated. Finally, the committee came to a unanimous decision. They selected a quiet little man who always lived in the background and had never taken credit for anything he had done. They awarded him the “Most Humble” button for his faithful service… However, the next day they had to take it away from him because he pinned it on.”

(Source: http://www.kentcrockett.com)

Humility is a lot like love. It is hard to describe but you know it when you see it. It is a slippery quality that cannot be held tightly for the moment you try to hang onto it, you have to have it taken away!

David’s glaring lack of humility eventually caused a deep rift in his family toward the end of his reign and life. It set up a dynamic that perhaps could have been avoided if he would have stayed faithful to God.

Another thing that I notice in our two main texts is that both the ancient Hebrews of the prophet and those of Jesus’ day were not expecting a humble savior but an exultant and powerful Messiah. They were expecting someone with great power and authority.

They wanted a new king on the throne that David and Solomon once inhabited who would help them rise to the greatness they once had experienced as a nation. They were expecting someone powerful and effective to come and save them.

The same holds true today not just in business, or government, or our schools but in the church and even in, our personal life. We seek someone powerful and influential who is going to set things straight and when they don’t… we crucify them.

Humility it seems has little use for us. And yet when these so called saviors leave our businesses or churches or communities behind, there is sometimes a trail of broken wreckage left in their wake.

William Arthur Ward once said, “Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position, or prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service, and character.”

The baby in the manger is our savior. He is our redeemer. He came with a different agenda. It was (is) a spiritual agenda. It is about our being made right with God and one day returning, if you will, to Eden. It is about our character, not our status that changes from one day to the next, nor our influence which comes and goes throughout our life, nor our wealth that can be here one moment and gone the next.

Humility, like faith and forgiveness we have studied in the past two weeks, and simplicity like we will study next Sunday, God willing, has to do with our character and our souls. Jesus did not come as the babe in the manger to give us more power or status or wealth. He came to change us.

He came to change us at a level far below the surface of our lives where the currents of good and evil churn and create a turbulence that comes to the surface in either an embrace of holiness or the throes of evil We choose, daily which to embrace.

So what does all of this mean for us today?

(Slide four) In their book @Sticky Jesus, which is about how to live for God in the world of Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and Google, Tami Heim and Toni Birdsong talk about the value and necessity of humility in our online presence. In fact they devote one chapter to this issue of humility and offer some practical things that I think are appropriate to today’s message.

(Slide four a) They make five valid points about humility: it reaches out, it seeks to serve, models gratitude, has a gentle tone, thinks less of self.  And they make a wonderfully valid summary of humility and these five things when they say, “Does humility mean you can’t express self-confidence? No, not at all. Just know there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Confidence can talk a lot, but that talk tends to inspire others and be concerned with igniting excellence in others. Arrogance tends to be self-absorbed and oblivious to the needs, insights, or aspirations of others.”

The baby in the manger had self-confidence and not arrogance. He knew who’s He was (and is) and that knowledge affected His attitude. He did not come to be popular or fashionable. He came to help us get back home to God.

David, the shepherd king, forgot, in a moment of passion, his humility before God and it was in humility, after being confronted by Nathan the prophet, that he confessed his sin and sought God’s forgiveness. Psalm 51 reminds us of this.

Pride is the opposite of humility. Pride seeks to build one’s self up at the expense of others. But we are called to be humble.

This morning, I ask you which of these five things do you need to work on with God’s help? Do you need to be more focused on caring for others, or perhaps to serve more, or to be more grateful? Maybe you need to be thinking less of yourself and more of others.

So why is humility a necessary gift? Without it we lose sight of God, just as David did and Solomon as well. Humility gets our eyes off of ourselves and on to the Lord, the baby in the manger, our savior and redeemer.

Let us respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit in these matters and respond to Him as we need to. Amen.

Forgiveness, A Necessary Gift

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Scripture Passage – Hebrews 11:23-29a and John 3:13-17

Description – The Second  Sermon of the 2010 Advent Series

(Introduction included a dramatic reading from the Advent Series ‘While Shepherd’s Watched,’ by Arden W. Mead. © 1999 Creative Communication for the Parish)

It was by faith that Moses’ parents hid him for three months. They saw that God had given them an unusual child, and they were not afraid of what the king might do.

It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be treated as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of the Messiah than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the great reward that God would give him. It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt. He was not afraid of the king. Moses kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible. It was by faith that Moses commanded the people of Israel to keep the Passover and to sprinkle blood on the doorposts so that the angel of death would not kill their firstborn sons.

It was by faith that the people of Israel went right through the Red Sea as though they were on dry ground. But when the Egyptians followed, they were all drowned.

(Slide one) Now at first reading, this passage of scripture when compared to the story of Moses as it is stated in Exodus 2 and following, seems to gloss over the fact that Moses murdered an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite and then was confronted by other Israelites about the matter when he attempted intervene in a conflict between two of them thus forcing Moses to run for his life! So how come Moses is included in this wonderful 11^th chapter of Hebrews?

One word. Redemption.

What else can explain God’s mission for Moses other than redemption? He had committed a capital crime and ran from being arrested and executed for his act.

Now we read these words from Hebrews after the fact as we have the larger picture of Moses’ life before us in scripture. So, I believe, did the writer of our main text today. And yet Moses was a fugitive on the run from a heinous act committed, from all indications, in a moment of extreme passion.

We continue our advent series, ‘While Shepherd’s Watched’ today with a visit to Moses and his story.

Last week we began this holiday series with Abraham and next week we shall visit King David. But in all of these visits a theme that our dramatic readings have pointed us toward has been the theme of looking to the sky. I have expanded on this with the theme of watching as indicated in the materials we are using this Advent season.

Our dramatic reading is set later in Moses’ life as he talks with his successor, Joshua about his “life on the lam” and also God’s redemptive acts.

I think that when he left Egypt that first time in a hurry he was “watching over his shoulder” for many, many years wondering if he would be recognized and captured when a group of Egyptian traders would come through the area he ended up living in. (Guilt, shame, and fear causes us to look over our shoulder too, doesn’t it?)

But forgiveness, redemption is available to us as well.

I have often wondered why it took God so long to get Moses’ attention with “a bush that did not burn up while it burned” and ordered him back to Egypt.  Perhaps it was so that those who knew him (Moses) would be dead by now and not cause problems because of what happened.  Or maybe Moses needed that time to come to the place where God knew he was ready. I don’t know.

I wondered how often Moses looked up at the sky over those long years and wondered if he thought about his parents and his people. I wonder if God became a distant memory as well. Did Moses still believe in God or was God out there, up there some where, and not close by?

But I also know this and believe this to be true: God was aware of Moses over those years and God was aware of the suffering of His people and when God deemed the time was right to act, He did so. And he started His process of redeeming both the ancient Hebrews and Moses. A process, a plan that ends, yet in some ways begins, with the baby in the manger.

As I re-read Exodus three this week, I noticed that Moses did not bring up the past when He began talking to God about this return trip. But I cannot help but think that in the excuses he began to make about being a stutterer (which he could have been); or the credibility issue with the people, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘the God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they won’t believe me… Then what should I tell them?” (Exodus 3:13); behind all of them was his thoughts about his past.

But God was too busy with redeeming the ancient Hebrews and their future leader to let that get in his way.

Now you might be thinking, Pastor Jim, didn’t Moses need to get down on his knees and repent of what he had done? That is a good point.

(Slide two) Enter…

… the –bush –that -did- not- burn- up –while- it –burned

Exodus 3:1-7 “One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he went deep into the wilderness near Sinai, the mountain of God. Suddenly, the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a blazing fire in a bush. Moses was amazed because the bush was engulfed in flames, but it didn’t burn up. “Amazing!” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go over to see this.”

When the Lord saw that he had caught Moses’ attention, God called to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

“Here I am!” Moses replied.

“Do not come any closer,” God told him. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Moses heard this, he hid his face in his hands because he was afraid to look at God.”

I wonder if Moses ever thought that this day would come. I wonder if and when he looked up at the sky at night, would redemption, forgiveness, a second chance come to him- Moses, a man who was once been a part of a royal court in what was probably the most powerful nation of that region in the period of history, and now was a lowly shepherd?

What needed to happen is that God needed to become Moses’ God and not just the God of his ancestors. And I think that in the subsequent dialogue between God and Moses, part of the agenda is for Moses to fully embrace not just God’s plan for the people, but His plan for Moses as well. And wrapped up in all of that somewhere is God’s act of redeeming Moses from what he had done in the past.

(Slide three) This gift of forgiveness is a necessary gift in order to live and love as God desires us to. And on that day, when a bush that burned but did not burn up caught Moses’ sight, everything began to change for Moses.

Have you ever had a ‘burning bush’ moment when God became alive and personal to you? Such moments take place when we most likely do not expect them. God suddenly shows up in an unusual way and catches our attention. They cause us to look up and at God.

I asked some friends this week,” Where is the most unlikely place you have heard what you have believed to be God’s voice ‘speaking’ to you?” Some of them said they have heard God’s voice while driving, in the shower, listening to music, and at their work location. For me one of the most unusual places has been while cutting the grass during mowing season. Now these probably are not “bush burning” moment but they indicate that God speaks to us at different times and in different ways.

And this brings us to communion this morning.

The gift of forgiveness, of redemption, of a second chance, came to Moses in the form of a “bush that burned but did not burn up.” God did this to get Moses to “look up” and see Him.

God continues to offer us forgiveness of our sins and shortcomings. He might even use a “bush that burned but did not burn up” moment to get our attention. But we also have the more common and equally important moments of confession, like this morning, when God speaks to us.

Are there things that you need to confess to God today and seek His forgiveness? Confess them today even I speak. Let God have His way with you by turning in repentance and forgiveness to him. Look up and see the Lord today.

Amen.

Faith, An Impossible Gift

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Scripture Passage – Genesis 15:1-6 and Romans 4:17-15

Description – The First Sermon of the 2010 Advent Series

 

(Introduction was a dramatic reading from the Advent Series ‘While Shepherd’s Watched,’ by Arden W. Mead. © 1999 Creative Communication for the Parish)

 

I begin with a question, “If you had to move from where you are currently living, what would be the most difficult place for you to move to?”

(Allow for congregational responses)

I want us to keep in mind the various emotions that we might be feeling in response to this question as we turn our attention to Abraham and Sarah.

(Slide one) The Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu once said “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Our dramatic introduction has Abraham and Sarah well down the road of their “thousand mile journey.” It has been many, many years perhaps seventy or eighty since God said, as we read in the opening verses of Genesis 12, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others.” (One source I consulted had Abraham at 75 years of age when he left family at Haran and who knows how long it had been since he had left his birthplace of Ur.)

Well Abraham left, perhaps very reluctantly and journeyed until he came to the place that the Lord said to him, (verse 7) “I am going to give this land to your offspring.”

But Abraham kept walking and walking for a while. He walked into some interesting situations. One was in Egypt as we read in verses 10 through 18 of Genesis 12. He was afraid he might be killed because of Sarah being his wife and so he told her to lie and say that she was his sister.

Then there were the two situations at Sodom where in the first he rescued his nephew Lot who had been captured by a group of armies at war with the other kings and communities in the area. And in the second, a very fascinating conversation takes place between God and Abraham (Genesis 18) who is trying to spare Lot’s life and that of a community he had helped to save earlier. But what overshadowed all of this was the challenging, and for Sarah, painfully hard, journey of childlessness. Many people can identify with both the joys and sorrows of Abraham’s (and Sarah’s) journey.

Our Advent journey this year takes us outdoors, if you will, and into the fields with shepherds. (Slide two) Today we are spending time with Abraham. Next week we shall journey with Moses then, we will walk with David, and finally end up visiting the shepherds outside of Bethlehem that wonderful night.

I am using parts of a resource this advent season entitled “While Shepherds Watched” and I think that it is important that we focus on the word ‘watched’ in the next four weeks.

Now the word “watched” is the past tense for the word ‘watch.’  But it also implies an active view as in “He expectantly watched for the gift of chocolate to come in the mail unharmed.” And I when I say ‘watch’ I do not mean this (Slide three)

… but something like this… (Slide three a)

And really like this… (Slide three b)

Watching is about looking. It is a purposed action in which we are looking either at or for something in a very intentional way.

In Luke 15 we read about the value of “looking for” in three legendary parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. All underscore our Heavenly Father’s passionate desire of looking for and finding us so that we can come home to Him.

All of this thinking about watching and looking causes me to ask us this morning this very common question (slide four), ‘What are you looking for?”

But also I think about this question (slide five), ‘What/who are you looking at?”

Our dramatic reading has Abraham looking at the sky, the same sky that God told him to look at years before the time period in our dramatic dialogue when He promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great number of people too numerous to count like the stars!

Now, as we are becoming and have already become aware of again this time of the year, one of the things that are looked for are… gifts! And a side theme, important to this series, is that there are certain gifts God has given to us we need to accept, open, and enjoy them by using them.

We read in Ephesians 2:8-9 “God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”

In our Genesis text, after God told Abraham (still Abram at this point) that he would be the father of people too numerous to count we read about the gift that was given to Abraham, “And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord declared him righteous because of his faith.”

Faith is a very, very important gift. And it is important in Abram’s situation that due to his faith, God declared him righteous. In other words, God declared him right with Him.

We read in Hebrews 12:2 that, “God gave his approval to people in days of old because of their faith.” This included Abraham, as we read further down in chapter 12. Faith is a gift that, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, we cannot earn but only receive from God otherwise we would brag about our ability to be right with God instead of humbly accepting his gift of salvation which requires of us faith.

(Slide six) This gift of faith requires us to look in the right direction and in Abraham’s case it was up. When you read Hebrews 12 you realize that those of who are spoken as to their great and abiding faith in God, looked in a different direction as we read in verse 16 “But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland.”

People with faith look at things differently and they see things differently than others do. And sometimes that vision, that looking, cause them to be mocked, ridiculed, even beaten because what and who they are looking at and for, is far, far different than others.

Abraham demonstrates this unique vision of faith as we read in Hebrews 12, “Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in a tent.”

The promise that God gave Abraham, in the face of apparent childlessness (how many 80 year old mothers and fathers do you know?) gave challenge to his faith and that of his wife. But it was not an empty promise, it was a God promise.

Now one of the challenges of faith is believing that a great promise is also a God promise. And sometimes it seems we hang onto what we believe is a God promise and it turns out that it is not and disappointment and disillusionment sets it. This was Sarah’s problem. She laughed at God’s promise and was called out on it! But Abraham had this steady faith because He believed God. He did not just believe in what God said, he believed in God Himself. An important distinction here. Faith requires us to believe in God alone and apart from what He can do for us.

And faith requires of us many things. And one of the biggest things that faith requires, as Abraham demonstrates, is learning to wait.

One of the themes of Advent according to Joan Chittister is waiting. She writes “Advent is about learning to wait. It is about not having to know exactly what is coming tomorrow, only that whatever it is, it is of the essence of sanctification for us. Every piece of it, some hard, some uplifting, is the sign of the work of God alive in us. We are becoming as we go… Life, we come eventually to know, is an exercise in transformation, the mechanics of which take a lifetime of practice, of patience, of slow, slow growth.” She goes on to say that “waiting –the cold, dry period of life when nothing seems to be enough and something else beckons within us- is the grace that Advent comes to bring.”

(Source: The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittister. Published by Thomas Nelson.)

What are you waiting for? We give a lot of good answers to this question. We are waiting for Washington to get its act together. We are waiting for our finances to improve. We are waiting for more work to come our way. We are waiting for a certain gift item to go on sale so that we can get it at an even lower price with the 30% coupon we are holding onto! We are waiting in line!

But I think at rock bottom what we are waiting for is really faith, hope, and love. We are waiting for our faith to be renewed after having one disappointing experience after another. We are waiting for our hope to be renewed after having it shattered by circumstances or people. We are waiting for love, a love that really, really satisfies us to come along.

We are waiting for God to not just show up but to come through. Just like Abraham and Sarah were waiting.

But this waiting has a purpose. This waiting during Advent, anticipating and expecting the baby in the manger to again appear, be seen, and worshipped, is a waiting that we do… often throughout the year.

We are waiting on God. We are waiting for God… as we take one step at a time in a direction of faith in Christ and the subsequent journey that we do not know where it is taking us.

Where then are you looking for this faith, hope, and love? Where are you looking for God? Like Abraham we have to look up! Up into the face of God who is alone the ultimate source of our faith, hope, and love.

Where are you at in your life journey today? What next step of faith are you finding it hard to take?

I ask a similar question on my Facebook page this week and this is what I heard…( The question was “Other than a step of religious faith, “What is the hardest step of faith a human being has to take?” )

 

… giving your life to your marriage partner

…having had two major surgeries

… the hardest step of faith is [trusting] Jesus Christ with my life. Trusting Him to save my soul was the easy part.

… Allowing your children to grow and make their own decisions. Gotta have faith that the values you instill in them will surface when they need them most!

… Sending your teenage daughters away to college, hoping they will become independent, successful women. Then understanding your role completely changes when they become independent, successful women.

… I think its surgery. Letting someone put you out and paralyze you so that they have to help you breath!

… Parachuting from an air plane you have 50 percent chance your chute could open or not.

… to Surrender all!

… Asking God to do something and then NOT tell him how to do it. Shut up and get out of his way and let him do it HIS way and on HIS time frame and not yours.

… It was the day that my husband left me and my 3 children. I had to take a huge step of faith in the Lord and myself.”

We are on a journey that at points is rough and difficult and then at other times an absolutely joyful and fun. God is present every step of the way. The question is “Are we believing in Him and His wonderful promises whether or not they have been realized at this point?”

The gift of faith is, at times, a seemingly impossible gift. It requires of us the ability to believe, to hope, and to love when circumstances and choices seem to be going against what God has promised. But without it is impossible to walk with God and experience His forgiving grace and mercy as we are reminded of in Hebrews 11:6 “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.”

We must not lose faith! We must keep looking up believing God and taking Him at His word! We must keep trusting and believing the Lord! He is the source of our faith, our hope, and our love.

We are all on a journey of a thousand steps. God’s purposes and mission for us may not be as large and important as Abraham’s was, but because it is God’s and not ours, it is very important. And it requires us to open and use the gift of faith.

Let us keep believing in a great and good God whose plans and purposes will be done. Amen and Amen.

Planting Trees With Generosity

Scripture Passage – 2 Corinthians 8:7

Description – Fifth and final sermon in Fall 2010 Series ‘A Generous Life’

 

In retelling a classic Paul Harvey story Pastor Jeff Strite indicates that in our generosity, and in seeking God’s generosity we should be like the 3-year-old boy who went to the grocery store with his mother.

“Before they entered the grocery store,” he notes, “she said to him, “Now you’re not going to get any chocolate chip cookies, so don’t even ask.”She put him up in the cart & he sat in the little child’s seat while she wheeled down the aisles. He was doing just fine until they came to the cookie section. He saw the chocolate chip cookies & he stood up in the seat & said, “Mom, can I have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you not even to ask. You’re not going to get any at all.” So he sat back down.

They continued down the aisles, but in their search for certain items they ended up back in the cookie aisle. “Mom, can I please have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you that you can’t have any. Now sit down & be quiet.”

Finally, they were approaching the checkout lane. The little boy sensed that this may be his last chance. So just before they got to the line, he stood up on the seat of the cart & shouted in his loudest voice, “In the name of Jesus, may I have some chocolate chip cookies?”

And everybody round about just laughed. Some even applauded. And, due to the generosity of the other shoppers, the little boy & his mother left with 23 boxes of chocolate chip cookies.”

(Source: sermoncentral.com)
What generosity and what audacity for generosity! He asked big and he got big!

During this series I have asked two questions. One I have called, after the writing of Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, the ‘celebrate small wins’ question. Its purpose was to help us see what we have been doing right when it comes to various aspects of generosity.

The second question I called ‘the leading edge’ question. The leading edge of an airplane wing is the first part of the wing to slice through the air and as it does so it overcomes resistance to create the lift necessary for an aircraft to get into the air and stay in the air. So this second question has been designed to have us focus on an area of generosity that needs to slice through resistance, with the Lord’s help, so that we move forward in his name.

(Slide one) In this series I have also spoken of fishing rods, building foundations, and eyeglasses. This morning I want, for reasons that will become clear in a moment, to have us think about a tree.

And in doing so, I want to take one sentence out of our main text for this morning, 1 Corinthians 3, and it is from The Message:

It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow.

Now a story from Ed Vasicek illustrates, in a humorous way, what it means to plant a tree.

“A fellow stopped at a gas station,” says Vasicek, “and, after filling the tank on his car, he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to drink his cola and he watched a couple of men working along the roadside.

One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was about 25 feet behind filling in the old. The men worked right past the fellow with the soft drink and went on down the road. “I can’t stand this,” said the man tossing the can in a trash container and heading down the road toward the men.

“Hold on,” he said to the men. “Can you tell me what’s going on here with this digging?” “Well, we work for the government,” one of the men said.

“But one of you is digging a hole and the other fills it up. You’re not accomplishing anything. Aren’t you wasting the People’s money?”

“You don’t understand, mister,” one of the men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. “Normally there’s three of us–me, Sam and Jesse.

”I dig the hole, Sam sticks in the tree and Jesse here puts the dirt back. Now, just because Sam’s sick, that don’t mean that Jesse and I can’t work.”
The title for this morning message is “A Generous Person Partners With God Who Is the Source of All True Wealth.”

Kinda of uninspiring isn’t it? (You can be honest.)

(Slide one a)How about this title for today’s sermon be “Planting Trees With Generosity?”

In Psalm 1, the Psalmist contrasts a God following person (really a generous person) with those who are not so. And he says that the God following generous person

 

They are like trees planted along the riverbank,

Bearing fruit each season.

Their leaves never wither,

They prosper in all they do.

 

I like how The Message translates this verse as well

 

You’re a tree replanted in Eden,

Bearing fresh fruit every month,

Never dropping a leaf,

Always in blossom.

 

Vasicek reminds us that we are to be about planting trees not just filling holes. That the church requires all of us working together for a common purpose of planting trees, in other words, planting the seed of faith and helping people blossom in the faith, not just filling holes.

God is the director of the process in which spiritual growth and life take place, not just in our lives but the lives of other as well. A process in which the good news of Jesus Christ, which is about the redemptive work of God the Father and the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, is the seed that we are to plant in the lives of others so they grow like strong trees.

It is like a tree planting process, if you will, that requires generosity as part of the process.

Over in 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 7 we read Paul’s wonderful commendation to the Corinthian church on their giving as follows:

“Since you excel in so many ways—you have so much faith, such gifted speakers, such knowledge, such enthusiasm, and such love for us—now I want you to excel also in this gracious ministry of giving.”

Now, tying all of this together this morning, the audacious asking little boy, the aimless (or maybe clueless) tree planters, and our scripture, I want to suggest that a generous person plants trees with God.

But what exactly is it that we are to plant? What kind of a tree are we to help plant and grow?

(Slide one b) We are to plant faith, hope, and love… with generosity and audacity trusting the Lord to empower us as we go along.

We plant faith in Christ, and Christ alone.

Time and time again throughout his writings Paul makes clear what he is planting through his preaching, Jesus Christ…

 

we preach that Christ was crucified

we preach that Christ rose from the dead

we preach about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

we preach Christ Jesus, the Lord.

 

Paul did not plant an aimless fuzzy message designed to make people feel good. He did not plant a weird and exotic philosophy to be understood only by a few.

Paul preached Jesus Christ, who came to give us a greater and better life now and later on! He preached about a God who came to us, identified with us, died for our sins and shortcomings so that we could be forgiven and begin to live the kind of life that we were created to live.

Jesus said in John 10:10 “A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”

This campaign is more than just about a building and staff. Those are the tools to help us plant trees. And we start planting with the seed of the historic Christian faith that says that Jesus Christ, was arrested, convicted, crucified, and resurrected, for our transgressions.

The trees planted with the seed of faith are trees who embrace this faith with all of their lives and live generously as a result.

We plant hope in Christ, generously.

My initial 2011 sermon series is going to be about hope. But not just a wishful thinking kind of hope rather it is a hope that is ground and rooted in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

We read in the New Testament,

our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and particularly of those who believe.

we are God’s household, if we keep up our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ.

What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen.

because God raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory, your faith and hope can be placed confidently in God.

The hope we are to plant is a hope that is not rooted our circumstances but in a gracious generous God. This little boy had the audacity to hope that chocolate chip cookie could be his to have for the asking!

Do we have the audacious hope that God will provide us with the funds to do a great thing not just in our campaign but in our future? I do!

But I am also asking this morning if there is an audacious hope within us to be generous and faithful to the ministry that the Lord has for us?

Finally we plant the love of Christ, generously

The Bible is filled with many references to love. There are references to God’s love for humanity. There are references to our love for God. There are references to our love for others as Christ has loved us.

But the best verse on love, other than John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life,” is this verse found in Matthew 22, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”

To plant seeds of faith and hope is one thing, but to plant seeds of love, a very, very valuable and generous act, is something else We can plants seeds of faith and hope all we want to, but unless we plant seeds of love along with them, the results will be disappointing.

So what does all of this mean for us as we come to the end of this series but the beginning of a campaign that is designed to help us become better at what Paul called this “gracious ministry of giving?”

I am going to suggest a couple of points by Brian Kluth in our 40 Day devotional guide:

(Source: 40 Day Spiritual Journey to a more Generous Life by Brian Kluth)

(Slide two )We plant the seeds of faith, hope, and love through Jesus Christ by first of all:

By “Giving more than we think we can afford to give.” Generosity requires us, through the strength and power of the Holy Spirit, to give even when we feel like we can’t give anything.

I am reminded of the story of a little girl, who died too young, but whose desire to give to Jesus translated into what would become Temple University as her simple generosity inspired others to give as well.

This past week, I sat with some people who consider this their church home, grateful for the ministry of the church and generous to a fault, they wrote out the first check of our generosity campaign… for $5,000 dollars. That family wants to see us continue to plant faith, hope, and love in Christ in this community!

(Slide two a) Another way to giving generously is by “counting our blessings.” Kluth notes that he and his wife would sit down and list the ways God had provided for them over the past week and give 10% of the unexpected financial blessings as well as 10% of Brian’s salary. I don’t about you, but this convicts me. I wonder how I would feel if I started do the same with extra income.

 

But in thinking about being generously audacious givers, I would also suggest that we think beyond the money aspect as well.

I know that we have commitments to things other than church throughout the week but what if we gave another hour of the week to some kind of ministry in the church and another hour to some kind of community service? The Lord needs our time as much as He needs our money.

How might we be more generously audacious with the minutes we are given each day?

Then what about our skills and abilities? I see around this church, the artistic ability, and the practical acts of service, all the time. But, tied in with our time, I challenge us to be generously audacious and serve the Lord with our skills and abilities.

As we conclude, I want you take out a piece of paper. I am going to ask you to consider some things that are between you and the Lord this morning.

In considering the challenge to be generously audacious, write down how much you would love to give on a weekly basis over the next three years. Then how much time would you love to give to start a new group/class or ministry to reach more people? Finally, where/who would you love to spend with in the community serving others in Jesus’ name?

I encourage you to pray about these things, this week and as the Lord to give you the direction you need.

Let us boldly stand up in our seats and audaciously proclaim our confidence in the Lord to do His good thing!

Amen!

The Basis of Generosity

Scripture Passage – 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (MSG)

Description – Communion Meditation for November 7, 2010

I begin with our scripture passage for this morning from a slightly different scripture translation than I normally use because it brings a fresh perspective to our main text which is 2 Corinthians 5:18-19. Let us hear the word of the Lord this morning!

All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing.

Amen.

As we continue in our series on generosity I am reminded of an episode that took place on a Saturday morning this past September. Daniel and I were returning from a middle school cross country meet when the transmission in my car suddenly broke at a major intersection. Fortunately, one of Jonathon’s former teachers and her husband saw me pushing the car to the side of Route 3 and 8 down in Avilla. He graciously helped me push the car to one of the gas stations and they took us home. Susan had gone to Ft Wayne to watch Jonathon run and she was stuck in traffic and we were fortunate that there was no one coming behind us at highway speeds. That generosity was much appreciated and I emailed her later to again thank her and tell her how providential their presence was to us.

I could tell other stories of such generosity and you could too.

But on this Sunday, the first Sunday of the month, and Communion Sunday, I want us to consider for just a few moments before we celebrate and remember God’s gracious generosity through His only son, Jesus Christ, the true basis for generosity as we move toward the conclusion of our Generosity Campaign in two weeks.

And I begin with this question, “What is the basis of generosity?” What motivates those have who have claimed to be Christian over the centuries to sacrifice and serve others in many different and generous ways?

I think of the Good Samaritan and it could be argued that he expressed generosity through compassion because somewhere along the line compassionate generosity was shown to him.

I also think of the generous acts of healing that Jesus did as recorded throughout the gospels: the woman with a long-term infirmity healed as she touched Jesus’ garment and then experienced as she confessed her actions to Him; the paralyzed man who was lowered through the roof by generous friends who believed that Jesus could heal him; the blind man who was healed with dirt and Jesus’ spit.

These are marvelous acts. They are redemptive acts. They give people hope and purpose. They give people a second wind and, in some cases, a second chance.

But what is the basis for this generosity?

What good is it to be generous in the first place if we are not acting generously out of a deeper and more profound reality?

 

As each of us considers a monetary amount to give over the next three years to help us build a new facility and hire staff to help us develop a greater and more effective ministry, I want us to focus this morning on why we are to be generous as followers of Jesus Christ in the first place.

 

And it is NOT about money.

 

Our main text gives us some very important reasons for the why in our generosity as believers.

Reason number one:

The Communion table is a reminder that God put the world square with himself through the Messiah.

We read in two of the four gospel accounts about what the bread and the wine mean:

“This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me…“This wine is the token of God’s new covenant to save you—an agreement sealed with the blood I will pour out for you.^”

God, through Jesus’ death sets the world right. He sets us right with Him!

We do not have to be at odds with God anymore!

We can be free from our guilt and our shame.

The past, often thrown up in our face by Satan, no longer has to influence our future.

AMEN!?

 

Reason number two:

As a result of what Christ did for us, we now have the vital responsibility to settle our relationships with each other as our text says.

There was conflict around the table that night when Jesus spoke differently about the bread and the wine. Judas is the most noticeable as he takes his leave to do what he had determined to do.

Generosity toward others can help us settle our differences by creating space for us to sit down and listen well to the other person and respond in a God honoring way.

A common illustration has been to use the cross to emphasize the two directional nature of our relationships. The vertical part of the cross emphasizes our relationship with the Lord. The horizontal part emphasizes our relationship with one another.

What is the state of your relationships these days? Do they reflect a generous attitude in your words and actions?

Reason number three

Is that our generosity includes telling the good news that God has given the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. The greatest reason for our generosity is that God has given us a fresh start to be free from our sins.

Many people do not like to hear the word ‘sin’ these days because it is a judgmental word to them.

It is a hard word.

It allows no wiggle room, we might say.

But it is a word that speaks to the human condition whether we like it or not because it says to us, we are broken, we are flawed.

And because we are broken and flawed, we need to be fixed! And we can only and truly be fixed, when we accept God forgiveness of our sins, and begin to live in a new way.

And in this new way, generosity, toward others, the Lord, and even ourselves, begins to thrive and grow, if we let it.

And this leads to reason number four…

Generosity is part of our God given message of telling everyone what he is doing. And what He is doing is forgiving and healing and releasing and changing and loving and being generous toward us.

(Slide 1) This is our mission and our purpose! This is why we want to build a new facility so that we can have a base out of which to operate to help people discover for themselves the generous forgiveness of our gracious God. This is why we want to hire staff to help us each a generationally diverse group of people, young and old; male and female; single, divorced, and married

The true basis of generosity is rooted in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We proclaim Him! We are to tell others of His generous grace and mercy through the forgiveness of our sins. That is why we are here!

 

As we prepare for communion, I respectfully ask this morning, “Are you square with God?” Are you right with God?

What makes us Christian is not that we come to this church; or sing a certain song; or read a certain Bible; or have parents or grandparents who come to this church.

What makes us Christian is that we have asked for, and accepted, the forgiveness of our sins.

Have you done that today? Kids, have you done that? Teens, have you done that?

Maybe this morning, you need to confess some things to the Lord that you have not confessed yet (or ever)… the altar is open for you to come and pray if you would like to…

Let us prepare for communion…

A Generous Life Honors God In Serving and Honoring Others

Scripture Passage – 1 Kings 17:8-24, Luke 21:1-4

Description – Fourth sermon in Fall 2010 Series ‘A Generous Life’

 

To begin this morning, I want to step back for a moment and remind us all why we are engaged in this “Generosity Campaign.”

At our dinner on November 20^th, we will be inviting you to prayerfully consider a three year pledge for the purpose of raising more capital for a new facility and for four part time staff persons as follows:

A goal of $125,000 over three years that will be divided as follows:

$75,000 toward the building and $50,000 toward four part time staff to be hired in the following order: Youth Director, Worship Director, Family Life Director, Senior Adult Director.

What will happen as the money comes in is that 60% of the money for the building ($75k is 60% of $125k) will go into the current building fund. The other 40% (the $50k) will go into a designated staff account. When the full salary for each position is in the account (around $11k/position) then a search will begin for that particular staff position.

As we move closer to our dinner and pledge weekend, I am asking you to continue to pray that the Lord will lead us and we will obediently respond to His leading.

And speaking of money…

What is the best financial investment you have ever made? It is a question a lot of us are rethinking these days in light of the recent economic downturn.

It is easy to assume a rather cynical attitude about the offers of a fantastic rate of return when in the course of a few short weeks some people lost 20% percent and more on their investments.  Yet many still seek a new and exciting way to double and even triple their money.

(Slide one) Last week I spoke of eyeglasses and foundations as images for living a generous life. Today I want to use the image of a group of fishing poles to help us reflect on this theme for this morning message: Generosity includes empowering others as we give of our time, skills, attitudes, strengths, and money in Christ’s name to become growing and generous persons in our wake. It is an investment in what matters most.

Our main texts for this morning illustrate this surprising aspect of generosity.

The first one is from the Old Testament and the second text is from the New Testament. Let us hear the word of the Lord this morning.

Our first stop is 1 Kings 17:8-24. I am going to read just up to verse 16:

Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. There is a widow there who will feed you. I have given her my instructions.”

So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, “Would you please bring me a cup of water?” As she was going to get it, he called to her, “Bring me a bite of bread, too.”

But she said, “I swear by the Lord your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.”

But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and cook that ‘last meal,’ but bake me a little loaf of bread first. Afterward there will still be enough food for you and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There will always be plenty of flour and oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!”

So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son continued to eat from her supply of flour and oil for many days. For no matter how much they used, there was always enough left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.

Our second stop is Luke 21:1-4

While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people putting their gifts into the collection box. Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two pennies. “I assure you,” he said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.”

As I read these two passages and considered them within their own contexts as well as in light of our theme for this morning here are some observations that I want to share about how generosity includes empowerment through service.

 

First, a key part of our mission as this church is to help people move from one level of faith to the next.  This means we invest ourselves and our resources to help people grow in their faith. This is illustrated in the story of the two widows. Now the widow of 1 Kings expresses doubt and fear to Elijah about her capabilities and resources.

“I swear by the Lord your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.”

It is a very bleak time as there has been no rain in Israel for a long time. And yet God says to Elijah as we read in verse one “There is a widow there who will feed you. I have given her my instructions.”

Interesting. “I have given her my instructions.” “She knows what I expect of her.”

She already had instructions of some kind from God to take care of Elijah. Yet she expresses fear and uncertainty at the lack of resources and the inconvenience to her to feed Elijah as well as provide for her and her son.

But she grudgingly does so and as we read in the text, God takes care of her needs. So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son continued to eat from her supply of flour and oil for many days. For no matter how much they used, there was always enough left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.

Then there is the widow that Jesus observes placing her offering in the Temple offering boxes. He sees great faith and commitment at work in her. Generosity is an attitude of this widow. She gives all she has.

She was poor. She was a widow. We don’t know if she had any family around. But she did not have the means that others who were giving had but she gave all she had!

Now an argument could be made that she did not give willingly because of all the religious rules and regulations that were in place then. She had to give what she did. It was required of her to give that amount. But Jesus’ comments to the disciples do not give credence to that claim.

Jesus noticed something in her giving that He made note of and praised. I suggest that he saw the joy and generosity of giving on her face as she came to the collection box.

(Slide three) There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed for a lifetime.”

There is a difference between the two widows that symbolizes for me the difference between giving a person a fish and teaching them how to fish.

The first widow is dealing with doubt and fear and we all have moments of doubt and fear. We will have those moments until we die or Christ returns. But the issue is, “What are we going to do with those doubts and fears?”

Do we let them control us and thus keep us from allowing the Lord to help us become a more generous persons or do we surrender them to the Lord and ask for His help in working through them?

We empower people and we ourselves are empowered when we operate out of love and generosity that comes through the strength and power of the Holy Spirit.

Generosity thrives on empowerment and vice-versa!

 

The second observation comes out of watching how Elijah handled the first widow.

He taught her to be trusting (one way empowerment expresses itself) of the plans and purposes of God despite her circumstances and to believe and obey.

“Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and cook that ‘last meal,’ but bake me a little loaf of bread first. Afterward there will still be enough food for you and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There will always be plenty of flour and oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!”

She had a decision to make at this point: believe the prophet standing before her that God would do what he said would happen or refuse to believe. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase,” apply here.

God’s plans and purposes, all of them, require faith and faith is not just thinking the right thoughts, it is doing the right thing, often one step at a time when we do not see the end result right away. So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son continued to eat from her supply of flour and oil for many days. For no matter how much they used, there was always enough left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.

The second widow trusted God and gave generously because she was empowered by the Holy Spirit as she trusted the Lord to take care of her needs. I have this sense that she had climbed that staircase of which Dr King spoke again and again and again. She had made the choice, again and again, to trust the Lord. She felt empowered even in her poverty. And Jesus noticed her great generosity.

I like what Brian Kluth says about giving and generosity. “I sometimes believe that God want us to increase not our standard of living but our standard of giving.”

This second widow could have used a standard of living increase. No one should live in poverty. But I think that Brian has a very valid point.

And this brings me to our ‘celebrate small wins’ question for this morning?

(Slide four) Who taught you to fish?

To teach someone requires time and patience. Good teaching does not necessarily happen in one afternoon. Teaching is a process and good teaching requires an investment of many different things.

Teaching is also an act of empowerment. One of things that I have prayed and hoped for these many years with you is that you have been empowered to live for the Lord through the ministry of this church. And likewise I pray that you have taught others to live an empowered life for Christ as well.

To empower someone is to give the ability to grow and thrive as a person and a follower of God.

So, who taught you to fish?

Who helped you to move beyond your fears and anxieties to grow in your faith, hope, love, and … generosity in Christ?

We empower people as we give them our time, talents, and money to help them grow in their lives and faith.

Generosity helps to empower us. Gratitude, a key part of generosity, is more easily evident in our lives when we are generously empowered by someone else.

I think of the ten lepers who Jesus encountered one day. (It is found in Luke 17). After they were healed, one only returned to give thanks to Jesus. That was gratitude and I just wonder if that man became more generous from that point on because he expressed gratitude.

(Slide five) Now here is our ‘leading edge question,’ “Who have I recently taught to fish?”

Who have I helped along the path of life and the path of faith? How have I empowered to make a difference for the Lord?

Our generosity is one way we witness for God. It does not have to be something big, a big gift or event, to empower someone. It can be a simple as helping them solve a problem or learn a new skill or listening to them when they need to be heard.

A generous person empowers people to be more than they are right now.

So what does all of this mean for us today?

It is interesting to note that Jesus said that I will make you fishers of men. They understood what he meant. To go fishing in those days required a great deal of work.

Now it still requires work today, to wait, wait, wait, and wait some more. And this is in spite of the fact that we have all these cool gizmos and gadgets to help us find the fish!

The ultimate empower-er is of course, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus said that, as He ascended to heaven, to be witnesses empowered by the Holy Spirit. And what we see in the opening chapters of Acts includes acts of generosity, through service, that gave hope to people and opened them up to the power of the Holy Spirit and the life Christ offers each of us still today.

So let us teach someone else to fish by serving them when it is easy and when it is not; by empowering them to find Christ and put their faith and trust in Him; and to, in turn, make a difference in someone else’s life.

Amen.

A Generous Life is built of Giving Well and Wisely

Image via Wikipedia

Scripture Passage – Luke 12:13-21, Matthew 7:24-27

Description – Third sermon in Fall 2010 Series ‘A Generous Life’

I begin with a series of stories about generosity before we turn to the main texts for today. I do so because I think that we are inspired to be generous when we see, hear, and experience generosity in action.

This first story had to happen several years ago because one of the companies mentioned is now out of business.

Alan Wilkerson says this about generosity:

(Slide one) “Generosity isn’t always as generous as it might seem. There is a story out of Miami, Florida about six Royal Palm trees that had been vandalized and cut down along Miami’s Flager Street. Due to the expense involved in replacing them Dade County wasn’t sure how soon, if ever, they would be replaced. Along came a generous donation of six new trees. Not only were the trees paid for but they were even planted by the donor.

The former trees had been 15 feet tall and formed a beautiful foreground for a “Fly Delta” billboard. The new trees were 35 feet tall and now hid the billboard completely. The donor of the trees was Eastern Airlines.”

(Slide two) Mark Brunner recalls how a penniless and humiliated Ulysses Grant arrived in New York in 1854, out of the army and looking for help. He called on a friend and former fellow officer Simon Buckner who helped him with some funds to get him home to Ohio. Eight years later, Buckner surrendered his rebel army to Grant at Fort Donelson, Tennessee.

But several years later Buckner tells the story, during a Grant birthday dinner of what happened to him after the surrender had occurred.

“I met him on the boat (at the surrender), and he followed me when I went to my quarters. He left the officers of his own army and followed me, with that modest manner peculiar to him, into the shadow, and there he tendered me his purse. It seems to me that in the modesty of his nature he was afraid the light would witness that act of generosity, and sought to hide it from the world.” (Macartney’s Illustrations, pg. 149) Now to be honest, one source I read to confirm this story said that Buckner refused the money.

(Slide three) Finally a story shared by Tom Black about Billy Graham and the generosity (and vision) of some fellow believers who made possible a vital ministry.

During lunch one day, Graham met Dr Theodore Elsner who was praying for a meeting with Graham to occur. Elsner, who was a Philadelphia pastor strongly felt that Graham should start a national radio ministry. Graham listened politely and later said that he put the matter of meeting the two gentlemen mentioned by Elser to help fund the ministry out of mind.

Several weeks later, Graham was approached by these two men in another state. Again he cited a full schedule and the sense of his ministry team, Cliff Barrows, George Beverly Shea, and the like, that it was not possible given the schedule.

Later in Portland these two men cornered Dr Graham and, after being persistent, shared their vision of a national radio broadcast. Here is the next part in Dr Graham’s own words:

“As I came out of the hotel one night there they were. ”We want to say good-bye,” one of them said. “We’re leaving tonight for Chicago.” “All right, fellows,” I said laughingly, “if before midnight tonight I should get $25,000 for the purpose of a radio broadcast, I’ll take that as an answer to prayer and be willing to do a national broadcast.” The thought was so incredible to them that they laughed along with me before heading for the airport.”

At the Portland meeting, which was one of Graham’s crusades, he shared the burden of these two men for the radio and the $25,000 condition he had laid down. The audience laughed with Graham at the condition.

But at the end of the evening…

They had $24,000 dollars.

After returning from a late evening meal, there were two letters from two gentlemen who believed that a radio ministry was needed. Each contained a check for $500 dollars.

And Billy Graham went on radio and some of us remember listening to the program, I did on Sunday nights, called The Hour of Decision.

 

(Slide four) There are two images that I am working with this morning. One is a set of glasses and the other is a foundation, as in a building foundation.

There are two passages of scriptures that we will be examining as well. The first one speaks to our vision for life and the second speaks to our foundation of life.

But the tie in between the two is that giving well and wisely, in God’s purposes, allows us to help advance God’s kingdom. But to give well and wisely we need to have a clear and God centered vision of our giving and the foundation upon which we give must be a strong and God centered foundation.

When I started seminary in the fall of 1983, I soon found myself going home at the end of classes with a terrific headache. My eyes were exhausted with a great deal of reading and reading blackboards and the like in the classroom.

At some point I realized that I needed to have my vision checked. During Christmas vacation I went to the eye doctor for what has been the most rigorous eye examination I have ever had to date!

They had me look in a small electronic box where I saw a 3D rod and a 3D ring. They asked me does the rod go through, below, or above the ring.

I said, ‘Through…no wait, below the ring!’

Eventually I walked out with a set of glasses on order.

And the headaches went away.

 

My vision had deteriorated in what appeared to me a short period of time. However, the first time I went bowling after I got my glasses, I could see the pins very, very well for the first time in several years. I then realized that my vision had deteriorated over a longer time than I realized and needed correction.

When it comes to generosity, clear vision of what the Lord wants us to do is essential. And essential to a clear vision is a clear foundation upon which to build, to live, to do what the Lord asks of us.

And when I think about foundations I think about the house I helped to build three years ago in Bay St Louis, Mississippi as part of the Habitat for Humanity rebuilding of BSL and Hancock County, Mississippi through which the eye of Hurricane Katrina went in 2005.

They did not pour concrete for the foundations. Instead they dug into that famous “Mississippi mud” and raised the floor off of the ground about four feet high using large thick wooden stilts. It was a way of dealing with the eventual return of high water from another hurricane down the road by moving the foundation up and off the ground.

 

Our text about vision is found in Luke 12:13-21 Let us hear the word of the Lord this morning:

Then someone called from the crowd, “Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me.”

Jesus replied, “Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?” Then he said, “Beware! Don’t be greedy for what you don’t have. Real life is not measured by how much we own.”

And he gave an illustration: “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. In fact, his barns were full to overflowing. So he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store everything. And I’ll sit back and say to myself, My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get it all?’

“Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

 

The problem with this man is that his vision for life was out of focus. It was all on himself and his needs and his wants and his plans.

It is okay to appropriately fulfill our needs in God honoring ways. It is okay to plan because planning is not a sin.

It is okay to want something that is good and right. But when these needs, these plans, and these wants get in the way of God’s plans and purposes, then there is trouble afoot!

Wise generosity has a clear focus and vision on what God has in mind for our life and our resources. Yes, challenges come and often overwhelm us and our vision gets blurred as we navigate difficult times. But, with the right vision we are able to stay focused on the Lord and what He wants us working toward.

We cannot be like this man who stored up earthly wealth but had an impoverished relationship with the Lord. To live a God centered generous life requires us to have a foundational relationship with Him and this brings me to our second passage this morning, Matthew 7:24-27:

 

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse, because it is built on rock. But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will fall with a mighty crash.”

 

The place we stayed at in Bay St Louis was 2 miles inland from the Gulf Coast. It was a Catholic retreat center that had been renovated from the hurricane damage that at that point had been 2 years in the past. I was told that one of the priests woke up floating in his bed and swam about 150 yards to the seminary on the west side of the campus before the surge, which went at least 10 miles north and under the overpass of Interstate 10, went back out.

The damage, as I shared when we came back, was substantial and widespread. (I would like to go back and build another house!)

I understand this second passage a lot better because of my experience down in Mississippi. We have seen on TV or over the Internet the destruction that flooding does to homes, communities, and lives.

Just before these words are spoken Jesus makes some very pointed statements about loyalty and obedience. “Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but they still won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven. On judgment day many will tell me, ‘Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Go away; the things you did were unauthorized.’

These are harsh words. We want to think that “my Jesus would never say that stuff.” But He did because obedience was a key value to Christ (and still is.)

Generosity grows large and strong in an obedient heart. When we obey the Lord and do what His word says to do, there is a peace and joyfulness in our hearts and generosity thrives in such an environment.

(Slide five) So what does all of this mean for today?

Here are our two questions:

(Slide five a) The first one though this morning is our growing edge question: Where is my financial foundation needing some repair?

Take a moment to reflect on your financial foundation. Is what the Lord would have it be?

I know that we have come out of a very profound economic downturn. Many of us here have taken pay cuts and even had some layoffs or cut backs in hours.

And while we are skeptical about claims of the recession being over, I know that many are finding work or are seeing an increase in their work hours.

But what is the Lord is saying to you today about your financial foundation? Respond to Him as you need to.

(Slide five b) Now is the ‘celebrate small wins’ question, “Where is my spiritual foundation growing stronger?”

Write down your answer on your bulletin. Celebrate your progress. Give thanks to God!

Notice that I said spiritual foundation.

The rich man had a poor spiritual foundation. His life was built on a definition of success that in the end left God out. His vision was skewed in a direction that lacked a definitive spiritual base that made life bigger and better.

He was like the man who built his house on the sand.

But the man, who built his house on the rock, has a solid foundation. Jesus links building on the rock to obeying His words.

And I suggest in conclusion this morning that obedience is a key action/attitude/value in learning to live a generous life wisely and well. Let us respond to God as we each need to this morning and in our hearts and minds let us place our check books, savings account, cash, investments, and our credit cards back into His hands and pray… Your Will not my will be done. Amen.

The introductory stories came from sermoncentral.com and the Billy Graham story came out of his book “Just As I Am”

A Generous Life is based on trust in God’s provision

Scripture Passage – 1 Timothy 6:6-10

Description – Second sermon in Fall 2010 Series ‘A Generous Life’

(Note to readers: The later service began with a skit called “Three Wishes.”)

(Slide one) There is an old saying (well, I don’t know how old it is but I have heard it for many years) “Be careful what you wish for!”

It is tempting to think that we live in a unique time in which we are uniquely tempted to make any wish we want and have it fulfilled if not instantly almost instantly. We do live in a time in which we have the ability (and sometimes the resources) to get want we want far beyond what other generations of the human race has been able to get.

And yet, the desire for three wishes has always been a part of the human race. The reason being is that there has been a drive, a need, a “wish” if you will, to find satisfaction on the outside away from God for our hearts and souls. It is a desire, I would argue, that goes back all the way to Eden and we know what happened when Eve and Adam got their wish!

(Slide two) As we continue this series on generosity, we are going to focus today on this point: A generous life is based on trust in God’s provision.

But what happens when we either stop trusting God or we refuse to trust him to provide?

Brian Kluth tells the story of a little girl who was given a coin by her parents to place in the offering plate during worship on Sunday morning. As the plate came by, the little girl refused to put the coin in the plate and her parents had to pry her fingers open to get the coin out.

A few days later her mom noticed her swinging outside in the backyard. As she got to the top of her upward swing the mother noticed she was shouting something so she cracked open the window to hear. What she heard was “God, I want my money back!”

We laugh or smile at the story of this little girl but I would suggest this morning that many people often do the same thing to God and not just about money! We often shake our fists and raise our voices to God and ask for our time back, or for another skill or talent than the ones we have!

Generosity has a tough time taking root in such an attitude. But to live a generous life and live as a generous person trusting the Lord is vital to doing so.

Our main text for this morning is 1 Timothy 6:6-10 and it links both the message from last week and this week in a very good way:

Yet true religion with contentment is great wealth. After all, we didn’t bring anything with us when we came into the world, and we certainly cannot carry anything with us when we die. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

(Slide three) If there is one word in this passage that I would have you focus on this morning and think about for at least the next week, and then recall for the rest of your life it is this word:

Contentment

Contentment is a key part of generosity.

Ben Franklin once said about contentment…

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

(Slide four)

Vivian Green has said of contentment…

It is not our circumstances that create our discontent or contentment. It is us.

How do we learn to be content especially when we are challenged this day with a lack of time, finances, support, work in some case, and who knows what else!

The beginning of our text is this statement true religion with contentment is great wealth.

Contentment has a calming influence on us. Parents love to have to have a contented baby. Sleep comes more easily and is more long lasting!

Organizations like to have contented workers. More and better work is done and the organization thrives as well. And, in line with our series and thoughts about generosity, a generous person is a contented person. And a contented person becomes a generous person.

But our contentment must come out of something other than our circumstances. Paul illustrates this throughout Timothy as he contrasts Timothy’s contentment and maturing with those who are discontent and pursuing other things.

I think that contentment is woven throughout this book of the Bible. Yes, it contains some controversial points such as the role of men and women in worship that we read about in chapter 2.

However, in Paul’s instructions about order in worship (which is behind Paul’s controversial words), about the character qualifications for leadership in the church (chapter 3), about dealing with those whose teachings conflict with true Christian faith (chapter 4), and in dealing with those who are in need and require important attention and care (chapter 5), the theme of being content, I believe, is present.

Now you might be asking, “Jim isn’t there a place for dis-contentment from time to time?” Yes there is!

Paul brings that out in a back door way when he says, among other things, to Timothy in chapter 4:12 “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you teach, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.”

“Be content with you who are at this point in your life Timothy.”

Yet the beginning sentence of our text starts with “true religion” and not circumstances or wealth. And please remember what Paul says in verse five, “To them religion is just a way to get rich.”

(Slide five) I suggest this morning that contentment grows out of trust and trust is based on God’s character and purpose and our willingness to wait upon Him and be content with what we have been given.

Further down chapter 6 we read in verse 17, “Tell those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which will soon be gone. But their trust should be in the living God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.”

Generosity is a character trait. Of course, there are financial implications to generosity. But there is more to generosity than money. There is generosity with our time and our skills and abilities.

But generosity is a character trait of God and our generosity, if it is to be effective, is to be based on who God is, a generous God.  And that generosity is best expressed in God’s grace and mercy toward us.

The Psalmist reminds us that:

The Lord is merciful and gracious;

he is slow to get angry and full of unfailing love.

He will not constantly accuse us,

nor remain angry forever.

He has not punished us for all our sins,

nor does he deal with us as we deserve.

For his unfailing love toward those who fear him

is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.

He has removed our rebellious acts

as far away from us as the east is from the west.

Our God, while He is holy, righteous, and just is also gracious and loving. His desire is for us to come to Him in humility and repentance and receive His forgiveness and love. This is the basis for true generosity.

Time and time again throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, we read of God’s great mercy and patience with His people. While they often experienced the logical consequences of their disobedience and the Lord often wanted to totally abandon them, He did not!

Neither has He given up on us!

(Slide six) Contentment also grows out of more than the character of God. It also grows out of the purpose of God.

We read in Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Now what is that purpose?

We could spend a long, long, looong time talking about God’s purposes. But a one scripture comes immediately to mind as I think about God’s purpose, 2 Corinthians 5:19: “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others.”

I call this God’s central purpose.

It is to be reconciled to Him through the life, death, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And I can think of no greater description, other than salvation, of this reconciliation than God’s generosity.

A verse that comes to mind as I think about God’s purpose of generosity is Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

Now a little before this verse, God directs His people to basically “bloom where they are planted.” “…work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray to the Lord for that city where you are held captive, for if Babylon has peace, so will you.”

God is generous in His love of us. God is generous in His mercy to us. God is generous in His purpose for us.

I would suggest that when Israel faithfully lived out the covenant, God reciprocated! He said that He would! “If you do this, then I will do this…”

These last verses connect God’s character and purpose with our willingness to trust Him and be content with what we have been given. God offered the ancient Hebrews a wonderful promise and He has offered us the forgiveness of our sins and a life that helps us to overcome shame and guilt.

Our willingness to trust the Lord and obey Him is further enabled with generosity. I believe that we can look at Romans 12, verses 9 and following, as a statement of what living generously looks like. As I read it, I want you to follow along in your Bibles because the first of our two questions is coming up after I read this passage:

“Don’t just pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Stand on the side of the good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically.

Be glad for all God is planning for you. Be patient in trouble, and always be prayerful. When God’s children are in need, be the one to help them out. And get into the habit of inviting guests home for dinner or, if they need lodging, for the night.

If people persecute you because you are a Christian, don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. When others are happy, be happy with them. If they are sad, share their sorrow. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t try to act important, but enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do your part to live in peace with everyone, as much as possible.”

Now that is quite a list of things and I again suggest that we view it as a list of demonstrating generosity. And it brings me to our “celebrate small wins” question for this morning.

(Slide seven) What is one of the ways listed in this passage that the Lord has helped you demonstrate generosity?

Write it down on your bulletin. Read back through the passage if you need to. Thank the Lord for helping you.

Now the other question…

(Slide eight) Out of that passage, where do you need the Lord to help you do a better job of demonstrating His generosity?

For me it is “being patient in trouble.” Everything within me, and often around me, when such moments come says “PANIC!!!! Do something now! Don’t wait for God to act! He’ll never get there!”

Patience and generosity goes together. Without patience, generosity gets rattled and we lose focus… on Jesus.

(Slide nine) So what does all of this mean for us?

If the basis of our generosity is based on anything but the Lord, it is on very.shaky.ground.

The old hymn says it best: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness/I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

(Slide ten) Our generosity as a church must be rooted in God’s character. It cannot be rooted or based on or in anything else.

We have to trust God that He is who He says He is even when we are let down by the church or other believers AND (this is important) when we let down our trust in God first and foremost.

Tom McDaniel has written, “The generous giver sets the stage for constant reciprocity! God is not mocked!” (statement made via Twitter on October 16, 2010)

His statement makes me think of Galatians 6:7-9

“Don’t be misled. Remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow! Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful desires will harvest the consequences of decay and death. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time.”

The farmers in our county have been harvesting their crops. Have they done well? The result of their harvest is in what they have sown and done to bring the harvest to a good fruition.

Yes, the weather and other circumstances are out of their control. But just because that is so, does not mean that they sit idle. They do what they can and must!

We are involved in the planting of God’s word in people’s hearts. We have only so much we can do. The rest is in God’s hands and people’s choices on whether to respond or not.

But it does not mean we sit idle and let things happen. We tell the good news of Christ. We demonstrate a lifestyle consistent with the Bible as we obey the Lord. We love without regard. We help where we can. We live and practice generosity with our money, talents, and time.

Let us keep sowing generously. For at the right time the harvest will come. Amen.

A Generous Life is Rooted in our Generous Management of God’s Good Gifts

Scripture Passage – I Chronicles 29:14-16

Description – The first sermon of the Fall 2010 series A Generous Life

(Note to readers: written by a member of the congregation, the later service version of this sermon was introduced with a skit entitled, ‘The League of Dysfunctional Heroes.’

(Note to readers 2: This series is using the resources of Brian Klauth’s ministry called “A Generous Life.” You can learn more at www.generouslife.info)

Slide one: Video Introduction from Brian Kluth

As we begin this series, I want us to keep in mind that to live a generous life is to be generous with everything God has given to us: our time, our skills/abilities/strengths, and our money. We have been graciously gifted in each of these areas.

Our journey through the scriptures here on Sunday mornings and your journey through the material that most of you have received through the mail, over the next forty days, is more than a journey about money, important as money is, it is about all that God had given to us to live a generous life and, in line with God’s will and purposes, to enable others to life a generous life for the honor and glory of God.

Each Sunday during this series I will be asking you two questions. The first question is a question about looking for success, notably success with God’s help, in the area in question for that Sunday.

One of my top twelve favorite books is called The Leadership Challenge written by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. It is one of the most practical and inspirational books on leadership I have ever read and one of the key points they challenge readers to make in their leadership work is to ‘celebrate small wins.’

I think that when it comes to living a generous life, the kind of generous life that God honors and is God honoring, we need to celebrate small wins because there is much these days that works against being a generous person with a generous spirit. So, if you will, I will ask you to determine each week where you have celebrated small wins in that particular aspect of a generous life.

But we also have areas that frustrate us and force us to our knees in prayer. And because we do there will be a second question each week that focuses on how you might, again with the Lord’s help, begin to succeed in that particular aspect of generosity.

(Slide two) Now for this morning the main point is: A Generous Life is Rooted in our Generous Management of God’s Good Gifts.

Our main text for this morning is 1 Chronicles 29:14-16

Let us hear the word of God this morning:

But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you have already given us! We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a shadow, gone so soon without a trace. “O Lord our God, even these materials that we have gathered to build a Temple to honor your holy name come from you! It all belongs to you!”

These are the words of David to the Lord after the ancient Hebrews started collecting the materials to build the Temple in Jerusalem.  Listen to what was collected after David challenged the people to start setting aside materials to build the temple:

“For the construction of the Temple of God, they gave almost 188 tons of gold, 10,000 gold coins, about 375 tons of silver, about 675 tons of bronze, and about 3,750 tons of iron.”

That is a great deal of precious metal!

And how did they give all of this metal?

We find out in verse 9 “The people rejoiced over the offerings, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord, and King David was filled with joy.”

They gave freely, they gave wholeheartedly! They gave generously!

And not only was the temple eventually built, but their relationship with God improved! And it improved not because of a building but because they made the choice to not just talk of generosity but also act generously toward God and toward one another!

(Slide three) Who is the most generous person you have ever known? (Write their name down on your bulletin)

What were they the most generous with?

Was it their time, skills/abilities, or money?

A lot of people have been generous to me over the years but the one person who came to my mind as I wrote these words is a former seminary professor Dr Don Joy. In my entire academic life, I took more of Don’s courses than any other teacher or professor!

The thing that he generously gave to me more than anything else was his time. During the two years I was in seminary, I was part of a weekly luncheon with him as my peers and I began to navigate adulthood and prepare for ministry after graduation.

He also gave of his learning to me. (Yes I paid for it but…) He taught my classmates, and several generations of pastors and leaders, some very important things including what it meant (and still means today) to be in ministry.

First service inclusion: As I think about Don, I think about the line I heard in the video clip from Brian. “Learning to live open handed in a tight-fisted world.” Don Joy lives that statement.

Now generosity is not about giving away anything, time, talents, or money, in an unwise or frivolous manner. A generous person learns a proper and wise sense of timing of when to give and when to withhold. And a generous person, who is also a follower of Jesus Christ, relies on God’s wisdom and direction in his/her generosity.

Second service inclusion: Our superheroes we heard from today were not willing to be generous, at first, with any of their talents and abilities. And the reasons they gave were ones that people often give for not being generous. They are tired, they feel unappreciated, or they are jealous of another’s abilities.

As I think about Don, I think about the line I heard in the video clip from Brian. “Learning to live open handed in a tight-fisted world.”

Now generosity is not about giving away anything, time, talents, or money, in an unwise or frivolous manner. A generous person learns a proper and wise sense of time of when to give and when to withhold. And a generous person, who is also a follower of Jesus Christ, relies on God’s wisdom and direction in his/her generosity.

As I thought about and studied our main text for today, I was again reminded of another time in Ancient Israel when their talents were called on by the Lord for another major project – the construction of Tabernacle, the Hebrews’ preceding place of worship. We read about the people’s generous response through Exodus 35:

So all the people left Moses and went to their tents to prepare their gifts. If their hearts were stirred and they desired to do so, they brought to the Lord their offerings of materials for the Tabernacle and its furnishings and for the holy garments. Both men and women came, all whose hearts were willing…

…All the women who were skilled in sewing and spinning prepared blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and fine linen cloth, and they brought them in. All the women who were willing used their skills to spin and weave the goat hair into cloth…

…And Moses told them, “The Lord has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. The Lord has filled Bezalel with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, intelligence, and skill in all kinds of crafts. He is able to create beautiful objects from gold, silver, and bronze. He is skilled in cutting and setting gemstones and in carving wood. In fact, he has every necessary skill. And the Lord has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach their skills to others. The Lord has given them special skills as jewelers, designers, weavers, and embroiderers in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn on fine linen cloth. They excel in all the crafts needed for the work.

A spirit of generosity (and really worship) gripped the people and they gave and they gave until Moses said (and is recorded in Exodus 36) “Stop! You have given enough materials!”

(Slide four) Ok, here is the “celebrate win” question for this morning!

Where is one area where the Lord has helped you practice generous management of God’s good gifts?

Now one of things that I have learned over the years is that some of us do things for others with the caveat that no one is to ever know what was done. So because I want to respect that, and thus not ask you to respond, let me ask you to consider this story from Alan Chapman as one way of profoundly practicing God’s good gifts of time, talent, and money in a generous way.

He tells the story of a British family who rented an RV and while traveling through California, lost their keys to the RV, a replacement one at that because the first one had broken down. The dad lost them on a rollercoaster!

As they returned to their RV at the amusement park the family found a way to get into the RV through a slightly open window. And then as they sat to discuss their predicament, one of the children, who had earlier found a key in the RV, went and discovered it worked in the ignition!

The next day a call to, followed by a visit to, a locksmith resolved the problem. However, it was when it came time to pay the bill, the locksmith, who had enjoyed his time with the English visitors, told them the day long work of replacing the locks and keys… was free of charge!

(Note: You can read the complete story at  http://www.businessballs.com/stories.htm#locksmith-story )

One of the wonderful things about this story is that it is Chapman and his family who are the recipients of the locksmith’s generosity! How many have had a similar kind of experience?

It makes us grateful and thankful, doesn’t it?

The Lord has given to each of us talents and abilities to be used for the benefit of others and to honor His name. Money (and in the case of the locksmith, financial sacrifice) is sometimes a part of such acts of generosity but I have found, that sometimes it is the time spent on behalf of someone that makes much more difference than the amount of money.

(Slide five) So what does all of this mean for us as we consider the generous management of God’s good gifts to us?

Let me suggest, based on our main text this morning the following:

(Slide six) A generous life is truly birthed in the recognition that all we have is from the Lord!

Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you have already given us!

We have been given life, skills, and education, money, and work from the gracious hand of God. We take seriously that everything that is created comes ultimately from the hand of a good and gracious God.

(Slide six a) A generous life takes root in the reality that we do not own, we only manage, and that is for a brief time.

We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us.

You can’t take it with you is very, very true. What are you investing these days? Has the investment of others before us, whose names only some of us remember and many of us do not know, in the ministry and facilities of this congregation, been worth it? You bet it has! We are being called to do the same for future generations when our names will be heard but we will not be known. We invest in those who we will never know this side of heaven.

(Slide seven) This brings me to that second question I told you about earlier in this message and here it is:

What is one way this week I can practice better management of God’s generosity?

Is it with money?

Is it with a talent?

Is it with time?

What is that way? (First two steps)

You have a couple of minutes to write and reflect.

God has invested in the human race in two ways: through the creation of said race and through the redemption of it by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is safe to say that God has a large investment riding on us!

We have the opportunity, not just during the next forty days, but today, tomorrow, this week, to be generous in Jesus’ name with and for someone for the honor and glory of God.

Let us do so, gratefully, graciously, and generously.

Amen.

“You Want Me To Do what, Lord?

Image by Oregon State University Archives via Flickr

Scripture Passage – Judges 7

Description – Third in the Fall 2010 Series “Seeing with the eyes of faith.” And Communion Meditation

One of the things that tickles me when I am out walking or driving around town is the number of people who are walking two dogs, one big dog and one little dog. (Slide one)

People sometimes bring their dogs with them to the cross country meets that have been, and for a couple more weeks continue to be, a part of my weekly calendar. At one of them, it was so crowded and there were so many dogs that it was the little ones that I had to avoid stepping on. (I decided that if we were to have a dog, I wanted to have a Great Dane so that everybody could see us coming!)

Life has big moments and little moments. (Slide two) Some big moments we like, especially the ones that make us happy (like marriage). And then are some great moments that include little things (like diamond rings!) (Slide two a)

God is present in both the big moments and the little moments. But for some reason we often don’t see God in the little moments and little things and we seem think that He is always (and only) in the big things.

But if we are going to see, walk, and live, with eyes of faith, we need the Lord’s help in helping us to see Him in the little and the small as well as the big. “Why” you might be asking.

Because sometimes God calls to do something that does not make sense.

Walking by faith does not make sense sometimes. Trusting and believing in the Lord does not make sense sometimes. But He calls us to follow Him and that means we walk by faith and not by sight. Easier said than done, right?

And our main text for this morning reminds us that sometimes God calls us to do something and our honest response is “Lord you want me to do what?”

Let us hear the word of the Lord this morning, from Judges 7:

“So Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and his army got up early and went as far as the spring of Harod. The armies of Midian were camped north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength. Therefore, tell the people, ‘Whoever is timid or afraid may leave and go home.’” Twenty-two thousand of them went home, leaving only ten thousand who were willing to fight.

But the Lord told Gideon, “There are still too many! Bring them down to the spring, and I will sort out who will go with you and who will not.” When Gideon took his warriors down to the water, the Lord told him, “Divide the men into two groups. In one group put all those who cup water in their hands and lap it up with their tongues like dogs. In the other group put all those who kneel down and drink with their mouths in the stream.” Only three hundred of the men drank from their hands. All the others got down on their knees and drank with their mouths in the stream. The Lord told Gideon, “With these three hundred men I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites. Send all the others home.” So Gideon collected the provisions and rams’ horns of the other warriors and sent them home. But he kept the three hundred men with him.

Now the Midianite camp was in the valley just below Gideon. During the night, the Lord said, “Get up! Go down into the Midianite camp, for I have given you victory over them! But if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah. Listen to what the Midianites are saying, and you will be greatly encouraged. Then you will be eager to attack.”

So Gideon took Purah and went down to the outposts of the enemy camp. The armies of Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east had settled in the valley like a swarm of locusts. Their camels were like grains of sand on the seashore—too many to count! Gideon crept up just as a man was telling his friend about a dream. The man said, “I had this dream, and in my dream a loaf of barley bread came tumbling down into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent, turned it over, and knocked it flat!”

His friend said, “Your dream can mean only one thing—God has given Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite, victory over all the armies united with Midian!”

When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he thanked God. Then he returned to the Israelite camp and shouted, “Get up! For the Lord has given you victory over the Midianites!” He divided the three hundred men into three groups and gave each man a ram’s horn and a clay jar with a torch in it. Then he said to them, “Keep your eyes on me. When I come to the edge of the camp, do just as I do. As soon as my group blows the rams’ horns, those of you on the other sides of the camp blow your horns and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”

It was just after midnight, after the changing of the guard, when Gideon and the one hundred men with him reached the outer edge of the Midianite camp. Suddenly, they blew the horns and broke their clay jars. Then all three groups blew their horns and broke their jars. They held the blazing torches in their left hands and the horns in their right hands and shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” Each man stood at his position around the camp and watched as all the Midianites rushed around in a panic, shouting as they ran. When the three hundred Israelites blew their horns, the Lord caused the warriors in the camp to fight against each other with their swords. Those who were not killed fled to places as far away as Beth-shittah near Zererah and to the border of Abel-meholah near Tabbath.

Amen

(Slide three) To see with eyes of faith requires us to sometimes look for and use the “small” and not the “big.”

In Hebrews 11:1 we read “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.” (NLT)

To see with eyes of faith is to see things that we cannot currently see. But this sight is a spiritual sight. It is a sight in which faith is joined by hope and love (as Paul so well puts together in 1 Corinthians 13) to discern a deep and more important reality beyond the day-to-day which grinds us down and causes our faith to take a beating sometimes.

In thinking about the small being seen and used with eyes of faith I am also reminded of the story out of 1 Kings 18 where after that magnificent contest on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Elijah turns to King Ahab and says  “Go and enjoy a good meal! For I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!”

Now Elijah could be accused of ‘trash talkin’ to the king! This seemingly brazen statement is made at an incredible time, in the third year of a three year drought!

But Elijah makes it because he has faith in the Lord and he sees raining coming though, as we continue to read, it appears first as a small cloud.

“So Ahab prepared a feast. But Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and fell to the ground and prayed. Then he said to his servant, “Go and look out toward the sea.”

The servant went and looked, but he returned to Elijah and said, “I didn’t see anything.” Seven times Elijah told him to go and look, and seven times he went. Finally the seventh time, his servant told him, “I saw a little cloud about the size of a hand rising from the sea.”

Then Elijah shouted, “Hurry to Ahab and tell him, ‘Climb into your chariot and go back home. If you don’t hurry, the rain will stop you!’”

And sure enough, the sky was soon black with clouds. A heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm, and Ahab left quickly for Jezreel.”

Now it would be easy to think, if we did not know the whole story, that Elijah, feeling his oats after his successful encounter with the prophets of Baal, might have thought, “Uh oh, what did I just say!” I said it was going to rain. Is it? Will it? I had better pray!

But the first two verses of 1 Kings 18 says this, “After many months passed, in the third year of the drought, the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and present yourself to King Ahab. Tell him that I will soon send rain!”

Elijah was on his knees praying, not out of fear, but with eyes of faith for God to act and His will be done. And it was. But the rain began with a small cloud not a big one. Elijah prayed, perhaps desperately probably more confidently, with eyes of faith. And the rains came because God already said that it would rain!

I can somewhat imagine that Gideon was feeling more and more concerned about the situation he found himself facing as his troop strength went from 32,000 down to three hundred. That is that is point zero, zero, nine three seven five. That is over a 99% reduction in force. (If my math is correct!)

But there is a clear reason why God had a reduction in force for Gideon’s army. “If I let all of you fight the Midianites,” says the Lord, “the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength.”

God sometimes calls us to do something which requires eyes of faith to see the small and not the big because our egos get in the way!

(Slide four) Another point that Gideon’s story makes is that seeing with eyes of faith includes having other sets of eyes alongside ours.

In both cases, Elijah and Gideon are not alone. They have trusted persons alongside them who God uses to accomplish His will.

Purah, Gideon’s aide was a source of encouragement, to him just prior to the battle. God encouraged Gideon to take Purah along to hear something that would strength Gideon’s confidence and faith in the Lord.

Who is often a source of encouragement to you in your faith journey? We have people in our lives who are sources of faith to us and they walk with us at certain times and the Lord speaks to us through them what we need to hear or see.

(Slide five) A third thing that I notice about eyes of faith and Gideon is that sometimes God’s confirmation of our direction comes from a most unlikely source.

In Gideon’s case, an enemy soldier has a dream that the other interprets as a sign that they are done for!

How strange this is! And yet I think we can believe with certainty that Gideon took heart at hearing this!

Have you had such an experience?

Many years ago now, I decided that my first car had done enough damage to my checkbook and so I decided to trade it in for a new car. This was before Susan and I got married.

But when I told her that I had bought a new car she later told me that her first thought was, “He’s going to ask me to marry him!”

Sometimes in the lives and words of others, God makes some things clear to us that may not happen right away but will eventually happen. And our challenge is to believe or disbelieve. Gideon had that same choice.

(Slide six) So what does all of this mean for us today?

Let me suggest today that God is not just in the big (and we like for God to be in the big!) But God is also in the small.

There are some aspects of life right now that are developing and we don’t see it. They are small, even hidden.

But God sees them because God is behind them!

A concept that I have recently grabbed hold of is that of ‘middles.’

There are beginnings and there are endings in life. We focus a great deal on them.

But there are also middles! There are those long stretches of life when nothing much seems to be happening.

I think that we have been, and still are in, the middle of our relocation plan. We do not see the end in sight yet.

But each of us are in the middle of a particular journey of life and we need to hear and see God at work.

Faith gets stretched thin in these times and we need moments (and the Lord knows this) when we need a word from the Lord. And sometimes those words come out of the small and not the big. Sometimes. Why? To keep relying on Him and to exercise our faith.

So this morning, I again say, take courage in the Lord!

And as we prepare for communion, I remind us that the faith of which I speak is not a generic feel good faith in a nebulous conception of God.

The faith of which I speak out of the Bible today is based on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And as we ready for communion, I remind us that Jesus acknowledged the big and the little in life when he reminded his audience about the value of sparrows and lilies (the small) as well as the big of our lives.

And that value of our life is very much remembered in our time of communion this morning because Christ died for us because we are not little we are significant to the Lord. We matter to God. He wants us back!

As we then prepare for communion, are you right with God this morning? Are you asking Him to be with you in the big and little of your life?

Take these next moments and seek the Lord as you need to. Come to the altar if you wish. Amen.