Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - Generosity

Series: Beyond Belief
Sermon: Generosity (6.8.25)
Watch the messages HERE. 

Here’s the reality: even when we’re touched by the needs we become aware of both near and far, and even when we’re moved by the many good causes all around the world, we simply cannot give to everyone and everything we’d like to.

Admirably, we may have a heart for everyone, and a generous attitude is definitely a good thing, but things like time and money are limited. We just don’t have infinite hours or unlimited money to support every person in need or every good cause.

Given that reality, how should we think about our approach to sharing our financial resources? How do we prioritize who should receive most of our resources?

The Bible has something to say about this. Jesus says “follow me” and in the area of generosity - just like all the other ways we’re invited to imitate Christ - the Holy Spirit guides the New Testament writers to show us how.

Specifically, the Apostle Paul helps us figure this out. Our first concern should be to take care of our families and those we are relationally close to. Paul tells Timothy is 1st Timothy 5:8:

Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Maybe you’ve found yourself in a similar situation as I have: I’m talking with a friend I know pretty well, and another well-meaning person comes up and says to my friend something like, “Wow. Your father is just the best. He helped me change my oil for free.” Or “I really admire your dad’s dedication. He’s always helping out with community events.”

And my friend smiles politely, but I know he’s thinking, “Gosh, I wish my dad would have spent some of that time and effort on me.”

There are big, important, worthwhile things to do “out there.” But they aren’t bigger or more important or more worthwhile than the needs of your closest family and friends. Make them the biggest recipients of your generosity, and the rest of your legacy will take care of itself. Faithfulness in the small things - including your smallest circle of love and influence - begets faithfulness in the big things, not the other way around.

After your own household and those with whom you are relationally close, Paul says to prioritize your church family - those with whom you are spiritually close.

In Galatians 6:10 Paul writes that “...as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Of course we are called to love all people, but we have a special responsibility to care for and be generous to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We do that through our formal giving to the church and our intentional involvement in the lives of the other members of our church family. If you want to be loved well, you have to love well.

So far, our priority list is: actual family and close loved ones, then church family. After that, we aim our resources and care towards those in our community; toward those we are geographically close to.

Pastor Jim preached last week on the Good Samaritan and I loved the tagline for his sermon on service: see the need, meet the need. There are lots of things we can take from this parable, but I think two are especially relevant to our thinking on generosity:

First, loving my neighbor doesn’t mean only loving people who are like me. In fact, it often means loving people who aren’t. Second, we can have a coherent philosophy of giving, and have all our ducks in a row in terms of what missions we support, and where every dime is going and how that meshes with our long-term financial planning…but sometimes there’s a person laying in the street who needs our help right now.

Most of Jesus’s healings and casting out demons and other miracles were a result of him becoming aware of a need right in front of him or close by. Sometimes he traveled to care for someone but usually it was: see the need, meet the need.

And, part of the scandal of Jesus’s ministry and his story of the Good Samaritan is his insistence on defining love not by how generous we are with people we’re expected to be generous with, but how generous we are with people we’re expected to hate, or who don’t look like us, or who don’t believe like we you, or who don’t vote like we you, or who don’t think about the world like we do.

If our version of generosity can always fit in our neat little boxes that perfectly contain our preferences and curated choices, we are probably giving out of obligation rather than a heart overflowing with gratitude for our gracious God. I’m not suggesting we send our money to organizations that oppose or poorly represent our faith (that would be bad stewardship), but I am encouraging us to look for opportunities to be generous in personal ways that build bridges, not just feel good about adding lanes to bridges that have already been built.

To recap, the witness of the New Testament helps us prioritize our care and the direction of our financial resources: our closed loved ones first, our church family second, our community third.

But, when we have the resources, scripture doesn’t let us forget about needs that don’t impact us personally and that we may never see with our own two eyes. In 1st Corinthians 16, Paul urges the churches to raise money for the Christians in need all the way over in Jerusalem, almost 2,000 miles from Corinth.

I’m glad Paul does this, because it gives us permission to follow through on the noble desire we already have to recognize that God’s kingdom is worldwide, and that the family of God is bigger than just the Christians in our church, community, and country. When we use our financial resources to meet needs and bless those doing God-honoring work in faraway places, we are participating in the realization of Jesus’s command in the passage we call the Great Commission: “...go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19).

Home, church, community, world. The Bible tells us how to prioritize giving, and it’s in a way that already feels most natural to us! How about that?

TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE GOD KNOWN! 

- Pastor Brady