Beyond the Offering Plate: Is Your Generosity a Discipline or a Devotion?

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:07:12] They look so professional back there in black. Y'all look incredible. They're going to play for us two songs. And the first one is lively and inviting us to begin with praise. And the next one pulls us back a little bit to just start to reflect, to settle in, and to allow God to speak to us. So will you prepare your hearts as we hear the ringers.
[00:11:23] come to Williamson's Chapel. I'm so glad that you are here for worship with us this morning.
[00:11:29] Just a wonderful place to be and to be in the presence of God, to come together, listening for God's Spirit to move us forward in our journey. My name is Carrie Wright. I am the worship pastor, and I am grateful that you have joined with us to come and settle in,
[00:11:47] and to sing our praise and to give hallelujahs for ministries well done and to cry sad tears together. All of the things we are going to do together today. I invite you as we begin to be
[00:12:03] thinking about our next faithful step. And before I do that, I want to welcome you that may be new today with us and those who are online with us. Welcome to this place and this space coming
[00:12:19] together as the community, the body of Christ. And as you're contemplating, maybe today's your first day and you're thinking, hey, what's my next step? It might be just to let people know that you're here to find out more about the church. Maybe you've been for a little while
[00:12:35] and you'd like to find out some more about a particular area. There are cards in front of you in the pews. We welcome you to fill those out and to put them in the plate when it comes by or
[00:12:44] you can give it to a pastor and we'll get you connected to Pastor Monica who is not here today but will connect with you during the week. So as we are on this journey the next faithful step
[00:12:57] we are looking for the ways that God is moving us and calling us and maybe it is one particular area that God is calling us to. This whole year long, we are talking about the ministries,
[00:13:13] the values of Williamson's Chapel, and there should be another slide up there. Thank you.
[00:13:19] So we have this slide, the pathway to discipleship is what our whole year is wrapped around. We have so many different areas of the church that we value, but they're categorized into these five on your screen. And each part of our year, we'll be talking about different ones of them.
[00:13:41] Next week, we'll begin talking about worship. But for today, it's generosity. And that's where we've been for the last couple weeks. We are talking about generosity, not in just, do you give money or not? That's important. But all of the ways that God has been generous to us,
[00:13:59] and then how do we respond? When we come to worship, we have the opportunity to consider how we respond to God's great, generous gifts to us. And some of it is financial, and some of it
[00:14:15] is living out in service. Some of it is how we respond to one another in the ways that we post or speak, all kinds of ways that we live generously. So we let that roll around a little
[00:14:29] bit in your mind as we're preparing ourselves and coming through each piece of today's worship, thinking, how am I called to a generous living? Maybe that you're at the very beginning of generosity, and you're still just even stepping in, or maybe you're really good at it, and you
[00:14:47] can teach some other people. Wherever you are on this path, it is okay, and we're challenging ourselves to move to the next place. Before we go on with the call to worship, I want to
[00:14:58] share with you one place where we are seeing generous living and serving. So I'm calling Terri to come up here and to give an award. My name is Terri Bowersox. I am the president of

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:15:23] the United Women of Faith here at Williamson's Chapel. And every year we give an outstanding service award to someone who does outstanding service. And we're so excited to let you know this year, the recipient is Sharon Furr. Sharon has been the president of the United Women of
[00:15:50] Faith for five years, which is a tremendous commitment that she had made. And she's going to continue on the board of the United Women of Faith as the secretary because she loves us so much. And in addition, she's been the president of the Hope Circle. And many of you all know her
[00:16:08] through her work on the cook teams and she's led multiple cook teams such as for dinners done feel your family the Christian not the Christian mission Mooresville soup kitchen and Helene recovery she also continues to volunteer
[00:16:25] through the Hope Circle as well as at the Christian mission and I'm sure many other ways that she serves our community so we're so grateful to Sharon and we will be making a donation in her
[00:16:38] behalf to the United Women of Faith Appalachian District. And thank you so much, Sharon, for all you have done.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:16:46] Our opening hymn this morning, I'll Praise My Maker While I've Breath, on page 60 in your hymnal. It is an Isaac Watts tune. We know Isaac Watts' music is often connected with the Wesleys, who are the founders
[00:17:03] of Methodism.
[00:17:06] Isaac Watts also wrote Joy to the World, and when I survey the wondrous cross, I think lots of hymns that we know. This is another just beautiful one. I'll praise my maker while I've breathed. Will you stand and sing with me?

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:17:20] This morning, we want to take the opportunity to give thanks to one of our beloved pastors who

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:20:50] is retiring. Mark Pitts, most of you know Mark Pitts. If you don't, boy, you are missing out.
[00:21:00] Mark is one of God's great servants, and he is retiring from his work here with us.
[00:21:07] Stephen Klufer, our chair of staff parish, is going to share a little bit that Mark would like to share, and then we're going to say a prayer for Mark.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:21:12] Today we gather with both gratitude and tenderness in our hearts.
[00:21:52] This moment is not simply about retirement.
[00:21:54] it is about honoring a life faithfully given in service to God and to all of us.
[00:22:01] Pastor Mark has walked with this church through so many seasons.
[00:22:05] He's prayed with compassion and led with humility.
[00:22:09] He has stood in the pulpit in strength and stood with us in our weakness.
[00:22:14] In times of celebration and in times of sorrow, he has been a steady presence, a shepherd who knows his flock and loves them deeply.
[00:22:22] While this season comes sooner and differently than any of us might have hoped, it does not diminish the impact of Mark's ministry. If anything, it magnifies it, because true ministry is not measured by length of years, but by faithfulness of heart, and Mark has been faithful.
[00:22:44] In these days, as he faces health challenges, we want him to know that he has, as he has so often told us, God is near. The same grace he preached about, the same comfort he offered
[00:22:57] at hospital bedsides, the same hope he has proclaimed, that promise now surrounds him.
[00:23:05] Mark, thank you for your courage, your devotion, your prayers, and your love. Your devotion to the care for this congregation will endure far beyond this moment. We are better because you answered the call to join Williamson's Chapel 15 years ago. As you step into this new season, may you feel the
[00:23:24] gratitude of this congregation, the prayers of this community, and the peace of Christ passes

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:23:30] all understanding. Mark, we love you. Thank you, Stephen. To paraphrase Lou Gehrig, today I consider myself, the most blessed man on earth. I'm blessed with God's love and his goodness and faithfulness.
[00:24:08] I'm blessed with my wonderful family and friends. I'm blessed with my awesome church family, pastors, staff, care ministry volunteers, and each and every one of you. I'm blessed with my hospice caregivers, and in so many other ways.
[00:24:44] And the care ministry of Williamson's Chapel is in great hands with Pastor Whitney and the pastor's staff, care ministry volunteers.
[00:24:59] And as each and every one of you care for each other as you have and our caring for me and my family, and I thank you.
[00:25:13] And so to sum up my 15 years of the blessing of being on staff here at Williamson's Chapel and my 30-other-plus years of being in ministry, I close in saying to God be the glory, great things he has done,
[00:25:37] and God bless us, everyone.
[00:25:41] Thank you.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:25:58] Okay, before y'all sit down, if Pastor Mark has shown up to pray for you or you have been a recipient of his love and his care over the past 15 years, would you raise your hand?
[00:26:12] And everybody in the choir's got their hands up too.
[00:26:17] Friends, we want to pray for Pastor Mark as he has prayed for us all these years.
[00:26:22] And so let's pray together.
[00:26:29] God of all creation, King of kings and Lord of lords, we are your children and your servants.
[00:26:35] And we are so grateful for the life that you give us to lead and for the people that we have the privilege to journey alongside.
[00:26:45] We thank you so very much for our brother Mark.
[00:26:48] We thank you, God, for every step of the journey that you have walked alongside him all of his life, for the family into which he was born, for the church family that nurtured him in faith,
[00:27:02] for the first people that told him the stories of Jesus that took root in his heart and captured it for you. Lord, I thank you so very much that when in your time you said, Mark, I need you to come
[00:27:18] and serve me. He said, here I am, Lord, send me. I'm so grateful, God, for the ministry that he has done across the years in this town. And we are grateful, God, for the work first done at First
[00:27:33] Baptist for all the youth and the young people that his ministry touched and the ways that they remember him and hold him in their heart. Lord, Mark has a way, you gifted him with a way to just
[00:27:45] speak into people's lives, to make those connections that are lasting and enduring.
[00:27:51] We thank you so much for his gentleness and his tenderness, but also, God, for his humor and for the ways he makes us laugh. We thank you, God, for the way he loves Christmas, and he wants to
[00:28:02] invite us all to hear that good news all year long.
[00:28:05] We thank you so much for the good word that you put in him to plant in others and how across the years, Lord, young people have grown up in the knowledge of Jesus Christ because of his ministry.
[00:28:18] We thank you, God, for the ways that you've been with him through so many health crises.
[00:28:23] And Lord, you know, sometimes the number of things that you make us or that we get to walk through or we have to walk through or however we want to say it, God, we go through some hard stuff, and Mark has certainly journeyed some hard paths, but every step
[00:28:36] along the way, Lord, you have been with him. You blessed him with a wife and a daughter who love him richly and deeply, who help keep that spirit of joy alive in his heart. And Lord, we are grateful
[00:28:50] that when Pastor Rob Fuqua went into Chick-fil-A and asked him if he'd consider coming here, he said here I am Lord send me we're grateful for the times he showed up in our hospital bedroom
[00:29:00] beds and next to hospice beds and the moments that he called us when we were just at the very end of ourselves and we pray God that you will give him strength for every journey that he has
[00:29:11] to take we pray that you will surround him and lift him up and guide him that you will help him to know your presence we trust that you're already with him but we pray that you'd help him know it
[00:29:20] in every step of the journey that lies ahead and we pray that he would know that he is held in the palm of the hand of a loving God as he has reminded us God so very many times as you say in
[00:29:30] John 3 16 that you so love the world that you gave your only son that whosoever believes in you might not perish but have eternal life as he's so often reminded us that we are a whosoever Lord we pray
[00:29:42] that you would remind him every day that he is a whosoever and that your promise of everlasting life is his thank you God for his life for all the gifts that he has poured out for us for all
[00:29:53] his generosity of time and talent and gift and service and witness for you. We pray that you would bless him, Lord, and use him every day of the rest of his life and that he, Lord, might hear
[00:30:04] what we all long to hear. Well done, good and faithful servant. Thank you, God, for his life.
[00:30:09] We pray that you would go with him in all things in the name of Christ. Amen. All right, friends, Pastor Mark, are you going to be okay? Mark's going to be here at the end of the service for
[00:30:23] traditional Pastor Mark fist bump as they're leaving so we are going to ask you, I'm just going to remind you when you go out and give Pastor Mark the Pastor Mark fist bump, let's just remember
[00:30:35] that this is not the moment to tell Mark all the things that he meant to us it's really taken a lot of energy to be here today and so if you would like to share your memories and remembrances
[00:30:45] you can send those to the church just let us know that you need us to send that link again, we're putting together a gift for Mark but we're trying to honor his energy today so you're invited to share that that pastor mark
[00:30:57] fist bump and we are grateful for all of you you may be seated yes or no no no don't sit not yet

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:31:05] don't sit down i was joking mark would love it if we would follow up that time with the apostles creed so will you join with me as we proclaim our faith i believe in god the father almighty
[00:31:18] maker of heaven and earth and in jesus christ his only son our lord who was conceived by the holy spirit born of the virgin mary suffered under pontius pilate was crucified dead and buried the third day he rose from the dead he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of god
[00:31:42] the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the
[00:31:58] life everlasting. Amen. You may be seated. Let us hear the word. The reading today comes from

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:33:02] 1 Timothy chapter 6, 17 through 19. As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God,
[00:33:17] who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are too good to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of the life that really is life. This is the word of the

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:33:48] Lord for all people. Thanks be to God. I don't know if y'all met me. It's nice to meet y'all.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:34:42] I'm past, I've been gone for the last, I mean, we had two snow days and then I had, and then I was gone last weekend. So I feel like I hadn't been here in a while. So I'm really glad
[00:34:51] to see y'all. It's good to be back. It's good to be with your church family. I have missed you all very much and I'm really excited to be here with you today. Grateful for all of you and for the
[00:35:03] gift of a church family that I love very much. So let's pray a moment together. Oh God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of every heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord our
[00:35:20] rock and our redeemer. Amen. So we have been the last couple of Sundays talking about a theology of generosity. On the way in, I hope you might have gotten a pamphlet that we have put together,
[00:35:36] a brochure about the theology of generosity. If you haven't, they are outside of the Narthex. I'll encourage you to pick up one. It goes into more depth about all the things that Wes and I have
[00:35:45] been preaching about. Well, I have one. We feel like having a theology of generosity is a tool to help all of us begin to grow a little bit in our walk with Jesus, to give us some strength and
[00:35:59] some foundation upon which to understand what it is about generosity that is shaping and formational for who we are. The theology of generosity is just about how God shapes us and our understanding of God through the practice of generosity. Now we have these three words that we often will use if
[00:36:16] you've been at church at any point in your life. You've probably heard some pastor somewhere talk about stewardship, giving, and generosity. And sometimes we use those words interchangeably.
[00:36:28] And they're not really synonyms. They mean really three different things. So Wes and I pulled this together, drawing on some different resources. And we felt like the best way to articulate what we want to say about God and generosity is simply this. Stewardship is a calling, giving is an act
[00:36:46] of devotion, and generosity is a lifestyle. Last week, Wes talked about stewardship as a calling, and he reminded us that that's the first job that God gave to all of us. He calls us to care for the
[00:37:01] things that are entrusted to us, time and resources, spiritual gifts, relationships, the earth, each other everything, yes that means money too. That God calls us to be stewards or caretakers of the things that God has given to us. I want to talk to you today then about these last two pieces. About
[00:37:22] giving as an act of generosity, of devotion and generosity as a lifestyle. Giving above all things is a worshipful response to God's generosity. Giving is a worshipful response to God's generosity.
[00:37:39] I've been reading the Bible through in a year.
[00:37:42] I'm doing this thing called the 5-Day Bible Reading.
[00:37:44] You can look that up, 5daybiblereading.com.
[00:37:47] And it's got five days a week.
[00:37:49] There's a reading to help you get through the Bible in a year.
[00:37:53] It reads it chronologically, not straight front to back.
[00:37:58] So we've been reading this past week in Exodus and Leviticus.
[00:38:02] And some of Paul's letters were now into Hebrews.
[00:38:05] So you're reading some things from the old and some things from the new.
[00:38:08] And the Psalms sort of smattered in there.
[00:38:09] a little bit every day. I really like it. It's a great devotion reading plan. But if you've been doing that with me, you know that in the last week we've been reading the parts of Exodus and
[00:38:19] Leviticus that start to feel like building code and procedure manual. And frankly, it's the parts where people either quit, right? So I've got real ambitious and I'm going to read the Bible through in a year. And I have plowed through with Abraham and Joseph and all those stories of the patriarchs
[00:38:36] And I hung in with Moses and the Exodus, and now they start talking about cubits and poles and the akiya wood, and now I'm tapping out.
[00:38:50] So we get there, or if we keep reading it, we're probably just skimming it.
[00:38:56] We're sort of reading fast and saying, I don't really need to know all of this because it doesn't really mean much to me.
[00:39:01] But in the middle of those sections of the Bible, there is this telling of the building of the tabernacle, which is just the tent of meeting where God came and dwelled with the people while they were wandering in the desert.
[00:39:15] These verses talk about an offering of resources to build the tabernacle.
[00:39:21] And it made me stop and think about giving and worship.
[00:39:24] because all the things that are being made are objects of worship, altars and lampstands and cleansing bowls, things that we might see even in our own worship spaces today.
[00:39:37] And they teach us when we skip them, we lose this really important stuff actually about giving as worship and devotion, not just obligation.
[00:39:48] So Exodus 34 verse 26 has this word in it That we, about the kind of offering you and I most often think about.
[00:39:57] God commanded, bring the first fruits, the best of the first fruits of your ground, and you shall bring those to the house of the Lord your God.
[00:40:04] You and I would think about that as the kind of offering like we most often consider, right?
[00:40:08] I'm going to bring God my very best.
[00:40:11] I'm going to bring God my tithe.
[00:40:13] I'm going to bring God something off the top of my gain, and I'm going to bring it to God.
[00:40:17] And that is sort of an obligation, something that God calls all of us to.
[00:40:21] But then after this, you would get to this piece about an offering that was taken up for other kinds of things.
[00:40:27] Things like gold and jewels and fabric and things that would be needed to make the tabernacle.
[00:40:35] Verse 35, chapter 35, verse 5 of Exodus.
[00:40:38] Take from among you an offering to the Lord.
[00:40:40] Let whoever is of generous heart bring the Lord's offering.
[00:40:44] And again in verse 21.
[00:40:45] and they came everyone whose heart was stirred and everyone whose spirit was willing and brought the Lord's offering to be used for the tent of meeting and for all its service and for the sacred
[00:40:57] vestments so they came both men and women who were of willing heart so this offering is different this isn't everybody brings it this is a those who are willing there was something about the heart
[00:41:09] that was really important there was something about worship and devotion that was very important for this offering. And we read later in Genesis chapter 36, starting at verse 6, it tells us that the people gave so generously that Moses had to restrain them because they had brought more than
[00:41:28] enough to do all the work. Can you imagine a preacher who comes and says, no, no, y'all need to stop giving. You've given too much. It's embarrassing. We don't need all of this. The same is true for us, right? We have enough gifts that we all can bring that will enable us to do
[00:41:52] all the work that God has for us. And we bring those gifts as devotion, as act of worship. And we see it as a response to God. Now think of it this way. When we give our offering in this church
[00:42:08] on every Sunday morning, our offering moment is always after you hear the word proclaimed because it is a response. What we give is a response to us hearing what God has done for us. God's action elicits something from us and that response is worship and it takes lots of
[00:42:32] forms. Sacrifice and singing and praise and confession and fellowship and giving and in all of that offering, we acknowledge that God is God. And God is the giver of all the things that we have. And so we return our praise to God. What's that song that we sing after every time we receive
[00:42:54] an offering? How does it go? Can y'all help me out?

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:43:12] above you. They do it better than I do, right? But when we bring our offering, it's devotion,

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:43:41] it's praise, it's worship that we're bringing to God. Giving as devotion is always rooted in the experience of grace. And grace is, simply put, God's unmerited favor. It's the means whereby you and I receive all the gifts that God wants to give to us gifts of forgiveness and salvation and
[00:44:05] rebirth and renewal and transformation back way back if y'all rush off the misty recesses of a month ago the last time I preached we talked about the way of salvation and we talked about this how
[00:44:18] God is working in us and God is making us new and that that happens through God's grace through the experience of God's grace that works that goes before us works for us is alive in us and we know
[00:44:34] this grace that it moves in us and it helps us to continue to grow in our devotion to God that our goal as we continue along the pathway of salvation is that we are continually growing in God's grace
[00:44:47] we're continually understanding his generosity to us more fully and richly we know it in our lives Wes last week talked to you about the word grace in the Greek being charis It just means gift, the word grace means gift
[00:45:04] And when Paul talks about the spiritual gifts that he gives us He calls them charismas, charisma And he speaks about the spiritual gifts God gives us Gifts of teaching and helping and administration But those texts from Exodus, they also remind us friends
[00:45:23] that it's also a spiritual gift to be able to make beautiful things.
[00:45:30] Craftsmanship.
[00:45:31] There are these two guys, one of them, I'm not going to try the first guy's name, it starts with a B.
[00:45:35] The second guy's name is Oholiab.
[00:45:37] And these two guys are skilled craftsmen and they take all these gifts that people bring of gold and jewels and fabric and they craft them into all the elements of the tabernacle.
[00:45:49] It's like this.
[00:45:50] some people get a vase and some twigs and they put it in there and it's art and some people get a vase and some twigs and it's twigs in a vase right and if you are an artist you know it
[00:46:08] and if you're not you know it too and so that gift of ability to make beautiful things that's also some of the gifts that God gives to us other places we hear about God giving us gifts of wisdom
[00:46:22] and discernment and administration and all sorts of helps like that all of those gifts all of those charismas that God gives God gives to us because God is generous and God gives them to us so that
[00:46:36] we might do something with them Ephesians chapter 4 says this the gifts or chorus that he gave were to equip the saints for the work of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until
[00:46:49] we reach the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. The goal of all the gifts that God has given us is that we
[00:47:01] might grow, that we might grow up. And what's interesting about that is that we all need everybody's gifts in order to mature. And if you're not using your gifts, it's hard for all of us to
[00:47:14] mature. We need you and you need us. That's how gifts work. Giving is integral, friends, to our growth as disciples. Giving and devoting to God through our giving, that is integral to our growth as disciples. To be faithful followers of Jesus, friends, means that we confess his lordship over
[00:47:38] all of our lives. And we refuse to relegate things to the secular and the spiritual because all of life is spiritual. All of life falls under our confession that Jesus Christ is Lord. And that
[00:47:54] means that we see all of our resources and all of our material possessions and all of our spiritual gifts and all those skills that we have and all the things that we've learned and all the things
[00:48:05] that we're good at, and yes, everything in our bank account, as things that we are called to bring into alignment with the teachings of Jesus. Faithful discipleship, friends, happens not just when we bow our heads in worship, or we serve at a food pantry, or we give our gifts in service to
[00:48:29] the church. It also happens when we sit down to pay our bills, and we decide what we're going to give as our offering. And when we set a budget for our family, those things are also acts of your
[00:48:43] discipleship. Jesus said, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and resources. That's Matthew chapter 6. So as we follow Jesus as Lord, we seek to allow every aspect of our lives, including how we are in relationship with
[00:49:10] our resources, our bank accounts, our possessions, and how we give. We look to make all of those things fall under the lordship of Jesus Christ as part of our discipleship journey, part of our worship, part of our devotion. It's part of how we say, God, you're God and I'm not. God, you have
[00:49:33] given me all things and I'm thankful. God, you have forgiven me and I bow down before you and I surrender myself to you. So generosity then is different than stewardship and giving. Giving is an act of devotion. Stewardship is a calling. Generosity is a lifestyle. Generosity is a
[00:49:59] lifestyle. Jesus says that it is from within our hearts that things come out of our mouths.
[00:50:04] In other words, if you are full of bitterness and fear of never having enough and jealousy and pride, just to name a few things, then what's going to come out of you is going to be scarcity, anger,
[00:50:16] and certainty that you know best or at least better than God. But if we have known the grace of God in our lives through worship and prayer and devotion, if we have known God's provision
[00:50:32] in our life of all the things we needed just when we needed them, if we have understood ourselves in relationship with God, and we know that we cannot save ourselves by storing up treasures on earth. If we've experienced the generosity of God, then that generosity, that grace, that too
[00:50:54] will pour out of us. Generosity is not measured by the size of the gift that we bring, but by the intention of our heart that drives the giving. Consider the poor widow that we hear about in
[00:51:10] Mark chapter 12. She came to Jesus. She came to the temple treasury with just two small copper coins. Those coins. So small. Smaller than pennies. Worth less than pennies. She put these two small copper coins in the temple treasury and Jesus commended her not because her gift was large
[00:51:34] but because she came from a grateful heart because it poured out of her because she knew what it was to have trusted herself to god and to his provision because here's the truth about widows
[00:51:47] in jesus's time they need they had to rely on the generosity of other people they had to trust that everybody in the temple was giving generously to help provide as the temple was told to do
[00:51:59] to provide for the fatherless and the widowed and so what she put in there she was giving because she knew and trusted that God is a provider it came from her heart as we think about our own
[00:52:16] generosity I wonder where we are still holding back and what we that might have to tell us about where we still need the experience of God's grace to be at work in us to set us free to set us free
[00:52:32] from our fears and our angers and the shame and the things that have bound us. See, the practice of generosity is not simply because God needs you to give or because the church needs you to give.
[00:52:47] It's because you need to give. Doing so faithfully will expose the places in your life, in my life, where we still need the saving grace of God to be at work within us, where we are not letting God's
[00:53:02] grace be fully given to us. We haven't let God's love and God's forgiveness and God's hope and God's peace to invade us entirely. And we're holding back thinking that we have to conserve and keep it all for ourselves because we just don't know if there will be enough. We all have
[00:53:19] places like this in our life where we are still being saved. And that's why generosity, friends, is both a spiritual discipline and a fruit of God's Spirit within us.
[00:53:32] Generosity will reorient our priorities.
[00:53:36] The practice of generosity reorients our priorities.
[00:53:39] When we make a commitment to generosity, it's always going to come with a cost.
[00:53:44] And this should not surprise any of us.
[00:53:46] Every day, you and I make choices where we choose one thing over another thing.
[00:53:51] And every time we make a choice, it's costing us something one way or the other.
[00:53:55] When it comes to the choices that most of us make in our life of discipleship, Jesus says it this way.
[00:54:02] If anyone to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.
[00:54:09] Now that sort of self-denial takes lots of forms.
[00:54:13] Some are more deeply personal and costly than others of them.
[00:54:18] Sometimes denying ourselves means that we have to set aside our need to be liked or understood, our need to be secure or at peace our need to be right our need to be happy our need to be in
[00:54:31] control and other times it means denying ourselves things that the world says we should have or or we ought to want so that we can lay hold of something else something better something that God wants for us let me give you an example the iPhone came out in 2007 that's the very first
[00:54:54] iPhone. Look how little it is. Isn't it cute? That's the very first iPhone, 2007. And man, did I want one. I wanted one so bad. What a cool little gadget. And suddenly, my little flip phone
[00:55:08] looked very uncool. It was not with the times. It was not the latest technology. But in 2007, Wes and I had a one-year-old, and we were pregnant with our second child, and we had a grad school
[00:55:21] tuition bill from Duke University and we had only one and three-quarter jobs. The truth is we could have afforded one theoretically, but only if we skipped a month of tithing because we were tithing at the time. And frankly, nobody would have known outside of us and the church treasurer if we'd
[00:55:39] skipped a month of tithing. If we'd skipped two months, we could have had both had one. Generosity in that season of our life made us have to think and pray about our priorities, about what really
[00:55:56] mattered? What would make us more faithful? What did God call us to? Were we willing to compromise our commitment to generosity, even for one month, just to have what other people had?
[00:56:11] For Wes and I, the choice of generosity enabled us to see the things that mattered the most, to cultivate the spiritual gifts of patience and finding joy in what we had rather than in what we
[00:56:26] lacked that we didn't even really know we were lacking until somebody else said we were.
[00:56:32] It made us deal with envy and jealousy, friends, that are always knocking on the door with the next new thing. It was a full six years before we could buy iPhones without sacrificing generosity. And it was worth it for how it taught us what matters most and how good it feels
[00:56:58] to honor God in what you give.
[00:57:02] Wes and I have never regretted those choices.
[00:57:06] Now, I'm not saying that to make you feel any one thing or other.
[00:57:10] I say it to say it's a lesson that we continue to carry with us.
[00:57:14] We think about those iPhones all the time.
[00:57:17] We think about what the world says we have to have and do we really need it?
[00:57:22] Does it compromise our ability to be generous?
[00:57:26] Is that how we want to prioritize our life together?
[00:57:29] If you commit to generosity, it will cause you to reorient your priorities.
[00:57:37] Generosity has led Wes and I on a pathway to abundant life.
[00:57:42] And I believe that's what generosity will do for you.
[00:57:45] Paul wrote to Timothy in that text that Karen read this morning, encouragement.
[00:57:51] In this letter, he's offering encouragement for a life of faithfulness.
[00:57:55] In the first letter of Timothy, there's lots of practical advice about how we live a life that Paul calls a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, worthy to the calling to which we have been called,
[00:58:07] a life with Jesus that is about abundance.
[00:58:11] Now, let's be clear.
[00:58:12] Biblical abundance has nothing to do with the size of your bank account or your home or how many people like you or how much stuff you have.
[00:58:24] Abundance is not found in these things, but in a life with God Jesus says I am the good shepherd in John chapter 10 and he tells us that he comes to lead us to good green pasture to life but that there are things but that there are
[00:58:40] while God is leading us as a good shepherd there are thieves that come to try to take us away from that and we all know that such thieves come in lots of forms and some of them are very alluring
[00:58:53] If thieves showed up like thieves, you'd go, you're a thief, get out of my house.
[00:58:58] But thieves show up like iPhones and steak dinners and fitting in and things that we really want.
[00:59:09] If sin looked like what sin really is going to do to us, none of us would ever do it.
[00:59:16] It's pretty alluring, these thieves.
[00:59:19] But Jesus reminds us in John chapter 10, verse 10, The thief comes only to steal your joy, your peace, your comfort, your relationship with God.
[00:59:33] The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
[00:59:38] I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
[00:59:44] What God offers us is more than iPhones and boats and dinner out and the best new gadget, right?
[00:59:49] He offers us life that really is what life is meant to be.
[00:59:54] freedom from all of those things that people the world is just telling us all the time we should want we should have we should need Paul says it this way in Timothy I'm going to read
[01:00:07] again that passage this is the same passage that Karen read it's but from the message and I want you to hear it again tell those rich in this world's wealth and I'm going to stop right there
[01:00:17] I don't care what's in your bank account you live in America by comparison to the world you are rich hear me i've been to africa friends you are rich tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit
[01:00:38] being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money dang it paul if you step it on your toes don't go away from here saying i said it because i didn't say it that's right there in the bible
[01:00:51] tell those with the world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves so obsessed with money which is here today and gone tomorrow isn't that the truth tell them to go after god who piles on all
[01:01:04] the riches we could ever manage so much that Moses has to say stop stop it's too much he gives us all the riches we could ever manage to do good to be rich in helping others to be extravagantly
[01:01:23] generous if they do that they'll build a treasury that will last gaining life that is truly life when we allow the generosity of God to shape how we live and how we serve and how we give our time
[01:01:43] and our resources and our talents we take faithful steps on the pathway of discipleship and we begin to understand the sort of abundance that only comes when we follow Jesus we discover a greater purpose from God and we know the life that the Lord came and died and still lives for
[01:02:04] us to know friends you cannot buy it and you cannot earn it and you cannot work it to death you can only receive it it is grace and learn to give it away grace pure and simple in the name of
[01:02:24] the father and the son and the holy spirit amen now friends as we're thinking about purpose right in the middle of our vision as a church. It's this, we want to create a community of belonging
[01:02:39] by connecting people to God's purpose. And I believe that generosity is one of the ways you can come to know your purpose. But we at the generosity team wants us to think more deeply about that. And so they created a little video. They interviewed some children in our church. And
[01:02:52] so let's hear what they had to say about purpose. I want to be a veterinarian because I want to help

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_10]
[01:03:10] animals at all.
[01:03:12] An astronaut.
[01:03:14] Like I can see the moon and planets.
[01:03:16] Like a chef.
[01:03:18] So my mom comes over every day.
[01:03:22] Well I think I want to be a cowgirl when I grow up. Because I like horses and I'm good at drawing them.
[01:03:30] I like to be a mermaid.
[01:03:32] Because I love watching Ariel.
[01:03:34] I'm a mermaid.
[01:03:36] An astronaut.
[01:03:38] Because we will find animals.
[01:03:41] I want to be a firefighter.
[01:03:43] If there's like a fire that could spread a lot, they like turn, they like use the water to put it out.
[01:03:50] A police officer.
[01:03:52] A farmer.
[01:03:53] Because he does a lot of good things.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[01:03:58] A dancer.
[01:03:59] I want to do something like that involves animals, like volunteer places, like where animals have been like neglected and stuff.
[01:04:09] Probably a teacher or something.

[01:04:11] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_09]
[01:04:11] They teach other people so they can be smart and educated for when they get older to know if they want to be like a lawyer or something.

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[01:04:24] Kids, we imagined changing the world or at least having a cool job.
[01:04:32] But for most of us, life didn't turn out exactly the way we pictured.
[01:04:37] We may not be astronauts or superheroes.
[01:04:40] And sometimes, work can start to feel like just a paycheck.
[01:04:48] What if purpose was never about what you do, but why you do it?
[01:04:54] What if every skill you have, every hour you work, every resource you steward, could be used for something bigger than yourself?
[01:05:04] God has placed you exactly where you are.