Generous in Every Way | Overflow Pt. 4

Discover the true meaning of biblical generosity and how it transforms your relationship with God and money. This comprehensive guide explores what the Bible really teaches about giving, stewardship, and financial freedom through faith. Learn about the three essential categories of biblical giving: tithing, offerings, and almsgiving, and understand how each plays a vital role in spiritual growth and community building.

Explore the Apostle Paul's powerful teachings from Second Corinthians about the Macedonian churches who gave sacrificially despite their poverty, and discover how their example reveals the heart of Christian generosity. Understand the agricultural principles of sowing and reaping that Jesus taught, and learn why God blesses us not to raise our standard of living, but to raise our standard of giving.

This biblical teaching covers the five essential characteristics of godly giving: sacrificial, regular, proportional, voluntary, and joyful giving. Learn how to avoid the prosperity gospel trap while still understanding God's promises to generous givers. Discover practical steps for building generosity into your daily rhythm and how giving trains your soul to trust God rather than your bank account.

Whether you're new to faith or looking to deepen your understanding of biblical stewardship, this teaching provides clear, practical guidance on money management from a Christian perspective. Learn how generosity connects you to God's heart, builds kingdom community, and creates lasting spiritual transformation. Perfect for anyone seeking to understand what the Bible teaches about money, giving, tithing, and financial stewardship.

This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

Speaker: Luke Humbrecht 
Series: Overflow 
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 
YouTube: https://youtu.be/_5i1SwUfPXE

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Transcript

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast. Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus, abiding in his presence. Growing in his family and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love. Visit us online at thelookout. church. This morning, so good to see you. If we haven't met yet, uh my name is Luke and I get to serve as the lead pastor here and such a good morning. Such a good morning. So if if uh if this is your first time here, again we want to say welcome. I want to catch you up a little bit on where we're going in the the teaching today. Continuing a series, a sermon series we've been at for the last several weeks called Overflow. It's a series on money and formation and living free. That's what we said. It's a series on money, formation, and living free. And the whole the whole point of it is to talk about our lives before God and the kind of people we're becoming. If you look at this from a biblical perspective, and we're Bible people like Jeanette said. If we look at from a biblical perspective, we can't talk about who we're becoming without being able to look at how we hold what God has given us and how we steward what God has given us. It's not separate. That's why Jesus all the time in the scripture He just, a lot of times he brought things back to the condition of our hearts because the way that we spend our money shapes the kind of people we're becoming and the kind of people we're becoming is shaped by it it shapes the way and our values and and what what happens in our life with our possessions and the things that come in to uh to to our lives. And so so that's why we're going through this series and and we've covered a lot of ground so far. We're going to continue today. And uh before we do though, I just want to take a moment and slow down here for a second, just with me, together today. What we're doing is we're we're we're looking at um the generosity of God. That everything we're talking about starts with his generosity. Generosity towards us. So just with me here today, just take a deep breath in and just kind of hold it there for a couple seconds. Just breathe in the gift of God for you today. And when you're ready, breathe out. Let's just do it again. Let's just breathe in and breathe in the generosity of God. And breathe out. Let's just do it one more time. I want you to feel your feet on the ground. Just feel your shoulder. Shoulders come back. Feel your lungs really expand when you do this. Alright, most of us, if if we actually pay attention, most of us spend all week with really shallow breathing. We're just like we're we're just going so fast that we forget to breathe. So when we come into the household of God, we're we're we're becoming human again. Because when you come into God's presence, he teaches us how to be human again. So let's just breathe in again. And breathe out. And God, we thank you this morning that as we gather into your house and we share this space Together, you're teaching us what it means to receive the gift of God and to breathe out the gift of God And this is life in the kingdom of God, breathing in and breathing out. As we open your word today, as we open the scriptures, I thank you. To speak to us, to thank you, we're not reading a dead book. It's not just a historic book, it's alive and present and active. We thank you that your word divides soul and spirit. Your your word. is living and active and it reveals the conditions of our hearts. So Holy Spirit, rest on us. today. Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So I'm gonna uh start in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 today. If you're not familiar with that book, it's the second of Paul's letters, the Apostle Paul's letters. to the church in Corinth. And uh I'm gonna read this. Don't turn there yet, okay? We're gonna read a passage we'll read together. I'm just gonna read this. It's not gonna be on the screen, all right? And I'm reading this to give some context. today for um there's a whole movement second 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 are kind of one and the same it's a little bit of a couplet of chapters And so, but this is a a phenomenal, a phenomenal picture of what generosity looked like when it was first getting started in the early church. And what was their natural response to the work of God and their participation in a larger picture. So just follow along with me as I read this and I just pay attention to what you're hearing. 2 Corinthians 8. Paul says this. Now I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God and His kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia. They are being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor. But they are also filled with an abundant joy, which is overflowed in rich generosity. For I could testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gifts for the believers in Jerusalem. Jerusalem. They even did more than what we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do. So we have urged Titus, who encouraged your giving in the first place, to return to you and encourage you to finish the ministry of giving. Since you excel in so many ways in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge, your enthusiasm. And your love of us, I want you to excel also in the gracious act of giving. I'm not commanding you to do this, but I'm testing how genuine your love is by comparing it with the eagerness of the other churches. You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for our sake, for your sake. He became poor so that by his poverty you could he could make you rich. Here is my advice. I would it would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago. Last year you were the first who wanted to give, and you were the first to begin doing it. Now you should finish what you started. Let the eagerness You showed in the beginning, be matched now by your giving. Give in proportion to what you have. Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don't have. Of course, I don't mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality Right now you have plenty and you can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal. As the scriptures say, those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Come on. So if you if you're following along in this passage, you get this picture. It's a really remarkable movement in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul, he's going around establishing all these churches. In different cities. And they become aware of the believers in Jerusalem in particular are facing hardship. There's persecution coming in on them. They are suffering. They are facing many trials. And so what Paul is doing, he's going around these churches, sharing the story of Jerusalem, and then he's he's he's asking him, he's saying, hey, pray about what God would have you do to help the church in in in Jerusalem. And so he goes to Corinth, to Macedonia, to Galatia, and uh and he's inviting them to all prepare a a collection, an offering. And this is you're gonna see this in s several of the letters in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, he refers to the same thing. It's one of the most important initiatives in Paul's apostolic ministry to not only plant the churches, but to uh invite them to be a part of what he's doing in one particular city. And so this church that we just read, this church in Corinth, they had initially promised to give. They said, hey, you know, Paul was here like a year ago, and they said, Yeah, we're in. Tell us what to do. We're in. We're ready to give. And so Paul, a year later, he's like, hey. I I'm I'm I'm sending Titus your way, and I want you to remember what you told me last year. Alright? Paul was thinking, I really do not want to show up to Macedonia. and be embarrassed because I told them that you were ready to give. So there's kind of this kind of this this kind of healthy competition happening that Paul is trying to elicit among the church. He said, listen, I told Macedonia how generous you are. I'm going to send Titus. I'm expecting you to follow through on what you said you're going to do because I'm going to look dumb and you're going to look dumb if you're not as generous as you said you're going to be. Right? That's basically what's going on here. So he says, I'm sending Titus and I'm excited. Um, and I want you to be prepared. But here's what's really interesting. I want you to pay attention to Paul's posturing in his heart. He's motivating generosity in the church. But notice his method. He's not guilting them. He's not playing the apostle card, right? You know, hey I'm Paul. You guys know who I am? You better be ready to give. I'm the guy, right? I'm God's man. You know, he that would there was nothing like that. He said he could do that, but he's not going to. He goes, in fact, what he does is he goes beneath the surface into their identity and then a picture of God, which is theology. Theology is the study of God, right? It's it's what we know about God. And so he says things like this to the church in Corinth that we just read. He said, You're gifted in I just want to remind you, you're gifted in so many things. You're gifted in faith. You have gifted speakers and teachers. You have love. Now I'm asking you, excel also in giving. Right? So he calls out their identity. He's like, you are awesome. Let me tell you how awesome you are. And I'm just asking you to be just as awesome in your generation. And uh, but then he he affirms their identity, but then he takes them up into the picture of God and he reminds them that You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He reminds them that though he was rich, yet he became poor for your sake, so that by his poverty you could be made rich. And so he said Listen, don't forget, what we're talking about is not just about you taking up this collection to go somewhere. It's about you responding to the very nature of Christ Jesus Himself. God is not asking you to do something that He did not do Himself. Amen. And that's true for us here today. So now let's go. We're gonna flip the chapter. We're gonna go to uh 2 Corinthians chapter 9. This is this will be on the screen. Okay? This is 2 Corinthians chapter 9. And uh and so he doubles down on this a little bit, and then he really wants to help them understand this isn't just about taking care of the needs in Jerusalem. There's something underneath the surface. That's spiritual, it's eternal. Because nothing we're talking about is transactional in and of itself. It's not just like you paying your Excel statement. It's not you sending a Venmo to a friend. Giving in the kingdom of God is participating in the flow of the heav of heaven. And it's being willing to be caught up in his lifeline. So here's here's and here's how Paul would say it though, okay? So this is Paul's word, 2nd Corinthians chapter 9. He says this the point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap. So that's farming language. That's sowing seeds into soil, right? He continues, each one of us must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly, or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, he who has he has distributed freely, he has given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. He who supplies seed, what listen to this one. He who supplies seed Seed to the sower sow sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvests of your righteousness. Who would like a harvest of righteousness here? Today. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. This is good. Good man. I just want to circle back. We're gonna we're gonna hyperlink just one thing here. Verse Verse 10. You know, so Paul where Paul is going, he's saying, listen, when you're when you're generous and you're faithful to do what God's put on your heart to do, it is like sowing seed into the ground. But here's what he says in verse. verse uh verse 10. He says, he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sow. And increase the harvest of your righteousness. Just one thing I want to point out here. That God is giving you seed to sow and bread for food. When God provides for you, He gives you both seed to sow. And bread for food. Now you don't eat seed. I guess some seeds, I guess sunflowers. I mean you could eat some seeds, right? Pumpkin seeds. That's beside the point, alright? When God gives you seeds, it's not to eat. He gives you bread to eat, and he gives you seed to sow. You don't sow bread. Nobody ever took a loaf of bread out into a field and just covered it up underneath the dirt hoping something would happen. No, that was given to you to eat. So God provides for our needs, so which is the bread that we need each day. Each of us Have needs in our life, right? And that's what we live from. It's God supplying our needs. But He also gives us seed to sow. And seed to sow is not to be consumed in ourselves. What bread is for. Seed to sow is your responsibility to understand what needs to be put on the ground for a future harvest. Okay? So as you are generous, listen to this. This is what he says in verse 10 in verse 10 here. As you are generous, God's gonna actually multiply more seed for sowing. He's going to give you bread and seed, but as you're generous, he's going to multiply the seed for the sake of sowing. And so there is an effect in your life when you give. And what Paul is saying here is like, listen, as you participate Participate in heaven's economy. You were actually sowing into the ground for a future. You don't know you might not know what it is, but it's a harvest of righteousness in what he's doing. says we are to be generous in every way. So the the the big thing here as we kind of look at this passage, the lie that we're t we tend to believe is that generosity is free. For later when I have enough. And the truth is that generosity is sowing seed now for a future harvest later. If we are awaiting to the right day to be generous, we've missed the blessing of God. To sow into what he's doing now for either a future date or a future generation. Do not delay generosity in your life because you will cut yourself off from the flow of heaven into your life. life. Everybody smile at me. Which is actually incredibly good news for us. You know why? Because generosity is the pathway towards a life of freedom. And we've been talking about financial generosity. Generosity also looks it's many different ways. There's relational generosity, there's generosity of presence, generosity of gifting. But there's something in particular about financial generosity that allows us to deepen our joy and our experience of the nature of the generous heart of God. You guys with me? Okay. So Paul in this passage, one of the things that he said is, I want you to be, you're enriched in every way so you can be generous in every way. In every way. And so the scriptures aren't super prescriptive in telling us exactly what to do. Alright, you're gonna take 20%, you're gonna do this for your house, you're gonna take 10%, you're gonna do towards this. We see a few expressions of the types of things that we're to give to, and we're going to talk about that here, and then the postures of heart that we give that we give from. Where I want to spend time in here because they're all linked. They're all they're all part of the ecosystem of generosity. And again, I've never met a generous person who is also miserable in life. Generosity has a way of leading us into joy at such deep level. And that doesn't mean if you know that's not to diminish anything that you do go through in life. Even if you are generous, we go through a lot of things. But I'm just saying this has everything to do with the kind of person we're becoming. So three things I want to look at right now, three ways of life that are normal in the New Testament. I would frame them up like this. There's giving up, giving out, and giving to the poor. All right, we're going to see this all throughout the scriptures, but we see it modeled in the New Testament. So I want to start by talking about the tithe, which we could call giving up. Okay? Now, let me show my cards here. The last four weeks in the series, I haven't talked really at all about the tithe. A few couple references, but this is this has been purposeful. And the reason The reason it's purposeful is because oftentimes in the church we think that generosity starts with tithing in the church. It doesn't start with tithing, it starts with God in the nature of God. So that's why we had to start in week one talking about the Father. God isn't just trying to get people to tithe. He's trying to get people to experience his generosity. That is the whole point of the gospel, is the generosity of God. It doesn't matter what we give from our life, if you don't know the generosity of God, there will be no joy. There will be no becoming like Christ. And so we started with him and then some of the obstacles to under to to living under the the bul in the belovedness of our father. And so we start with identity. But there as we come into the basic the working out of generosity in our lives and the stewardship that He's given to us, there is such a thing as a tithe. And if you aren't familiar with that in the scriptures um uh you know essentially in the old testament when we read about the tithe it talks about bringing the 10% of our first fruits back into the Lord's house And I I want to point out um the the way I would frame it because when we talk about tithe, it it it evokes all kinds of responses and potentially triggers and all the things. uh in the room and I totally get that. Here's what I would say though. Tithing is not a law, but it is a standard There's there's a difference. So sometimes we're like people are like, hey, I thought tithing was old testament. Everything has changed in the d New Testament. And I would say a couple things that. Number one, not at just because j the cov New Covenant changed everything in the New Testament doesn't make everything in the Old Testament bad, by the way. But even if that's true, even if that's true, it would be naive to look at the early church and And make an argument that their level of generosity decreased because of the love of Jesus on the cross and not increased. That would just be like if so people who come to me like we're not required to tithe. You're so right. You are not you are not limited to ten percent. You can give as much as you want. And so it it's one of those things, it's like I I I it's just it's mind-boggling to me sometimes I wouldn't say it's a requirement because we are freed. We are free. We live in the freedom of Christ. But I would say it is a standard. It's a baseline, I would say, for as you're Coming into the kingdom and you're you're learning about, you're entering into the generosity of God, the tithe, it's a pretty good place to start. Yeah, about about 10%, about one out of ten. It's a good it's a great place to start. Tim Keller said it like this. He said the tithe is the training wheels of generosity. So just put your training wheels on. It's great. Just get started. And then God's gonna take you way beyond that. And it's gonna to be awesome. And he'll continue to enrich you so you can continue to be generous. And so there's a lot to be said here. Tithe is remembrance is about rehearsing the story of God. It's about rehearsing regularly the nature of God and remembering that this is his. Tithe is a returning. It's an act of returning to God what is his. And it's not unlike other things that we do. When we worship, we're not just generating songs to give to God. We're actually returning to Him the breath that He's given to us in the form of praise. Anybody? Yeah. When we serve with our gifting and our strength, it's not because you're a good You are a good person. But it's not because you're just like you figured it out. It's because you're using the strength that God has given you and your ability and capacity to serve others. You're returning to God what He first gave you. And and when you get into it in the gospel, there's really nothing that we can say we're doing that God didn't first do for us. We love because He first loved us. So we are mistaken when we think we're doing God favors. It's like if you're doing that, man, just keep your money to yourself. That's fine. You're not doing him a favor. You're not doing anybody a favor. When you give to God, You were participating in the life flow. You're saying, God, all of this is yours, not even just the 10%. It's actually all of it. So tithing is a way to say it all belongs to you. And I'm just reminding myself this week that it all belongs to you. Come on, I could I could go I could get preaching on this one. Um and that's why even from for Megan and I, I just again full transparency. It's like we don't I'm not asking anybody to do what we are unwilling to do ourselves. And so from from early on in our marriage he said this is what we're going to do. And we're going to prioritize this in our budget. First fruits go to God. And for us it has been a lifeline. And I want you to know that because I receive an income from this church. And so but you need to know that even though I receive an income from this church to do my job and my labor here that does not exempt me from needing regularly to participate in my own freedom and my own ability to trust God and to worship him. with what he's given so I can be free of greed and scarcity and poverty myself. Does that make sense? So it's it's a beautiful thing. And we could keep going on all that. I'm just saying. When you when when we come into uh a theology and a practice of generosity, it looks a lot of different ways. But we must remember there is a call and invitation to sow into the house of the Lord that Jesus gave him so. Why the church? Why is the church so important? Because Jesus' whole vision, his plan to transform the world was the church. He loved the church so much he gave himself for her. For God so loved the world that he gave only 10%. No. For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son. God loves the local church. And so our participation in fueling the mission of God as expressed in the local church is is important. And never here do we want to do that with a heavy hand or any ever guilt or create a compulsory tone in this room. That's It's the last thing I would ever want to do. But I hope you can hear my heart. To dismiss this part of our responsibility of life in the in the kingdom economy, I think is foolish. Foolishness. I think it's foolishness. And to be responsive here though is a gift of God. Because how awesome is it to see the local church flourish. Come on. So good. So we give up through the tithe. We give out through offerings. And so that's when we say words like tithes and offering. Tithes and offerings, there's the tithe, there's offerings. It's giving above and beyond. This is the nature of the passage we read in Corinth. They're giving above and beyond to a specific need. Offering um you know based on the spirit's leading to to to give out to people, to needs, to a mission. We do this when we raise money for special projects. participation for things locally, for i special projects as a church, for people we're trying to reach, or things happening around the world. And this happens over and over again. Within the body, there are all kinds of needs that surface. I remember I was so humbled 13 years ago when we were in an adoption process with our son Asher. And uh we decided my wife and I decided to That we wanted to adopt. And ever anybody who's adopted, you know, that is not an inexpensive, that is not an inexpensive trajectory. And we we got kind of like a baseline of what it was gonna cost to enter into the option where we said, oh my dear Lord, um you're gonna have to provide. And we need we need help here. And so we kind of created an invitation to all of our friends and family and even in this church to be a part of that with us. And I remember. Uh at that time, Pastor Walt Robertson was he was pastoring the church. And I remember we'd sent out the invitation to a lot of people. And I hope it's okay I share this pastor. Well, but he probably would tell me not to share this, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Um I I remember he asked me to come into his office at that point in time. I was a staff member and he was the pastor, and it came in. And he let me know that he had been praying about it, um, and Joyce at the time and and then he uh he looked at me and he gave me a check, you know, for it was you know for subs Substantial amount of money at the time. And uh and he gave me a check and he just he just had so much joy in his heart, and he just said that God had moved on his heart. Now, this has come from a family of a lot. How many kids? Twelve kids? Twelve kids in this family. So here's a pastor, 12 kids in his own family. God moves on his heart to sow into to our family. And not kind of a light gift. It was a it was a substantial gift. And I just remember it. For him, there was no sense of, I guess I'll do this because you're a staff member. He came to me and it was one of those joyous moments. This is what happens when you give. It was a it was it was a joyous moment for both of us because it was one of those like one of those laugh cries, you know? You know when you're like you're like laughing and crying and he hands me this check, he's like You know one of those types of things. And I I start to laugh. You don't know if it's laughing or crying. It's all of it. And it was a we laughed, cried together, we held each other. connected it was just like this beautiful picture of like this above and beyond he didn't have to do anything he did it anyways and it was it was a moment in the spirit that was like oh god is up to Something here. And uh and we have these moments, don't we? When we can give above and beyond. We see a need. God moves us not to just meet a need, but to connect us with another human being. being because it's all relational. So we give out through our offerings. As a church, there's things that we give out to as well. But the third thing that we um you know we see in In the New Testament, is a third category. There's tithes and offerings, and there's a third one we don't talk about as much, but this is a substantial piece in the New Testament. It's called alms giving, and it's really giving toward the forgotten, giving towards the poor. This is similar to when Jesus encouraged people. He said, Whatever you did to the least of these, you have done unto me. So offerings, you know, it's easy to give to needs that are visible, but there's a type of giving to things that are invisible invisible. And oftentimes the poor, the marginalized, and the forgotten don't get given to, not because they're not worth it, it's just because they're not on anybody's radar. And this is this is this was such a differentiator in the New Testament. It became one of the hallmarks of the church is that they had some way of giving to the poor. And this is why as a church we try to do things like giving, you know, purchasing homes for widows in Africa. Why we send even with Wellspring Food Bank We have drivers, a lot of them don't even go to this church, but they have drivers that drive food to thousands of people every month to deliver food to the doorsteps of people, some of whom, some of whom uh have no community, have no community that is that that they're on the radar and it's just a simple way of saying you're on our radar. And and when one of the things when we give to the poor, and we have to remember this, It's not transactional. We're not just giving to say, oh, I feel sorry for you. I'm going to give to you to satisfy that need. It actually, giving to the poor, actually puts us inside Solidarity with the poor, not as a condescending act of sympathy. But when we give to the poor, it's actually a declaration, it's a realization that we're all actually poor and in need of God's generosity. So when you give to the poor, don't think too highly of yourself because you're poor. I'm poor, and I'm just doing what I can with what I have to give. And this is the thing: it doesn't matter how much you have or how little you have, generosity will free you and heal you and unlock your heart. We do we tend to think in categories of rich and poor, of once I'm here or there. That's the thing is guys, there's one thing I want you to remember this whole thing. There's an invitation to all of us. Mother Teresa once gave an interview to Hello Magdalene. magazine this is the picture of Mother Teresa behind me. She was asked the question, it is it the only is only the affluent who give? And she replied, no. Even the poorest of the poor give. She said the other day a very poor beggar came up to me and said and said, Everyone gives to you, and I also want to give to you 20 pesa, which is about two pence. Essentially nothing. And she thought to herself, what do I do? If I take it, he won't have anything to eat. But if I don't take it, I would hurt him so much. So I took. And he was listen to this, she said, he was so happy because he'd given to his mother Teresa of Calcutta to help the poor. And she said this, giving cleans the heart and helps you get closer to God. You get so much back in return. Giving has a way of cleaning the heart And so when we talk about alms giving and giving to the poor, this is probably for a church like ours in our zip code one of the most underdeveloped kinds of giving, not because we're greedy, but most of us are not in a lot of relationship with the poor. And that's not a shameful statement. It's a just a reality that oftentimes the forgotten are often invisible in our normally normal daily routines. And so we have to work you know, in an affluent culture, you have to work very hard to be in relationship with those who are legitimately poor. But alms giving, giving to the poor, all through the scriptures they say don't forget the poor do not neglect to give the poor and as a church we don't want to forget the poor and so that's why we find ways as we can as a church to do things but individually just want to encourage you Let your heart move towards the poor. They're close to the heart of God. So to recap here, three kind of expressions, movements of generosity that are just very this normal way of life in the church. One, the tithes giving to the Lord's house. Number two, offerings giving to visible needs as the Spirit leads. Three, almsgiving, giving to the invisible needs that God makes you aware of. Giving to the least of these. Now, one thing I want to say is you know, in this passage that we read together, when Paul says, listen, I want you to be generous in every way, and God is going to enrich you in every way. In the church, there has been this really interesting thing where people take some of these scriptures and then we just put them into a formula, like I give X, God gives X. I do this, God does this, right? It's like you put a quarter into the vending machine and outcomes whatever. And I I just want to caution us to not enter that kind of thinking. Over the years, there's been a a distinctly American heresy called the prosperity gospel. It's very American and it's it's a complete heresy. And basically what it is is If you give to this, if you give to God, if you tithe, if you do whatever, it's this is the key that's gonna, there's gonna be you know apples for apples. This is gonna happen, it's gonna guarantee wealth and health and prosperity. Listen, the reason it's a heresy is not because it's not true. It's because it's half true. Here's what I mean by that. Paul says that you will be in Rich in every way to be generous in every way. Here's what you need to know. When you give in generosity, there is a prospering and a flourishing that happens. Oh, absolutely. And if you don't believe that, you're crazy. However, you are enriched in every way not to terminate on yourself and say, yeah, that's the ticket. I'm gonna give to God, he's gonna give back to me, and then my standard of living is going to Increase. That's my ticket. No, it's to be rich and rich in every way so that you can be what? Generous in every way. So God does bless, but the why changes everything. Okay? God doesn't here's how Randy Alcorn says it. God doesn't bless us to raise our standard of living, he blesses us to raise our standard of giving. standard of living, to raise our standard of giving. So when it when blessing comes back into our life and we're Enter into the flow of God, there is a prospering that happens in our soul. If anybody tries to tell you, you do this, God's going to do that, I'm saying you run as fast as you can. If if anybody tries to tell you exactly how that's going to happen, how that blessing's captain, woo, it's a scary moment. But I also don't want to undermine And diminish the fact that when you step into the generosity of God, it does have an effect. You guys hearing me? So it's a good thing because we get to be enriched so that we can continue to be generous. We're entering into the flow of God. So look so I want to talk about five things now and I'm going to share a story here in a bit. Five qualities when you look at this passage If if we want to talk about how you give, we talked about where to give, but when we talk about how you give, here's a few five things I want to invite you to keep in mind. And this comes from the passages we just read. If we're going to give in the kingdom of God, here's five things that we want to check our hearts on. These are postures of heart. Number one, when we give, it should be sacrificial. It should cost you something real. You feel it when you give it away. Way. And what I mean what what I mean by that is sometimes we give, and there's zero emotional effect on what we're doing. We're not owning it. It's not touching us and and maybe it's because we uh we have enough resource that it's just that we don't even feel the dent of it. We don't feel it. It. There is a kind of giving that God invites us to that is sacrificial, and you know it's sacrificial because it stings a little bit. It just thing it gets to you, right? It's a p part of a quality we see in in the church. It's not it's not saying it's gonna harm you, but you feel it. And when you start getting into giving on repeat and automation And you're not feeling it anymore, just take that as a prayer to God. Hey God, is there something I'm missing? Or if you give on repeat regularly as you should, ask the Holy Spirit to remind you what it means to you Okay? So we give in a way that's sacrificial. But the other thing we do is we give regularly. In 1 Corinthians 16, Paul actually tells them regarding the same offering. He says, on the first day of the week, set us a portion of what you've earned. And he he says, like, listen, don't just figure this out at one time in the year. Like make this a regular part of what you do. Giving should be regular and rhythmic in your life. Because you need you need to regularly be reminded that he is God and you are not. Okay? You need that more than twice a year. He's got the he's generous and you're generous. This is part of practicing the way of Jesus as you build it into a rhythm. It's good for you. It's actually freeing for you. I like to practice that weekly. So we build into our budget, we pre-decided what we give, and we give weekly, at least, you know, to this church. And then More. But then also we give proportionally. It flows from what you've been given. The more entrusted you are, the more freely it moves through you. So with what God entrusts to you, it's going to be different. different um across this room. Even this last month, I will I'm happy to report to you this last month, there has been some incredible outsized gifts given to the church this last month. month. And it's not because of my preaching. I believe it's because of the Holy Spirit moving through your hearts because you're connecting with his heart and you know that this is right and good to give. So thank you if that's you. And there's also been people who have given, you know, much smaller gifts, but they've been equally assessing. Sacrificial. So it's not about the amount. It's about deciding in your heart what would be obedient and pleasing to the Lord. Do you understand what I'm saying? For some people, it's going to be 10 Of thousands of dollars. Other people, 50 bucks, you feel that, right? And that's that's a thing. So you give in proportion to what God has given you in your life. And that's how we we continue to stay in the flow of the kingdom. Two more things, and then I have a story for you. us has decided. There's no arm twisting here. There's no pressure. This rises from a willing heart, not a squeezed one. Okay? We want giving is actually fun. Giving is like, this is like Uh the the actual word for cheerful giver is this Greek word hilarious, which is where we get the word hilarious. Isn't it hilarious when you give? My gosh, this is hilarious. Woo! I get to give. You get to laugh-cry as you give. I mean it's that's what there's a level of giving that it's just like woo! It's a cheerful, it's voluntary. It's like nobody's twisting my arm. This is what I get to do, right? And it's the last one is that it's joyful. It's not a grim duty. It's but with gladness, the giving that makes you feel lighter. not poor. When you give, you know it's in the heart of God when you feel lighter but not poorer. That's that's the trajectory. Now this happens in a lot of a lot of different ways. Um and I want to name a couple things here. First of all, some of you feel the weight of some of this, some of you still like I want to do this. I just feel behind. I just don't know how to make this work. I'm gonna give you you something real practical in a bit. But I I just want to again when we talk about the way generosity works, the spirit, listen, the spirit leads us to conviction. He convicts us towards freedom. not shame. And so when he starts to move our hearts toward generosity, it's not like you're a loser and you suck, you know. That is not the voice of God. The voice of God is, do you want to experience more of my heart? You can You can start today if you want. That's the voice of the spirit in our lives. So if there's any shame that's or regret that's happening in the room right now, I'm just saying, chill out. You're good. You're good. We're good here. We just we get to look at what is the spirit inviting us to do and see what could come of that. All right. So uh you know when you're when you're ending a four week teaching series on money, this is like the perfect pastoral moment. To be able to say, all right, I've prepped you for four weeks. We're gonna pass around the buckets, man. We're gonna take everything you have, throw it on the stage. We're gonna turn this into a worship service. We're not doing that, by the way. But I do want to tell you a story of a way that we've been able to move in generosity together as a church even more recently. Some of you guys know uh uh I have the privilege of being able to gather with many of the lead past And I'm friends with a lot of these guys. Not all of them, but there's a handful of churches that that we get together, we do retreats together, we pray for one another, we call each other, and we hold each other. up. You know why we do that? Because this church is not a church first church. We are kingdom first church. Okay? So we only win if we all win. We need a lot of good churches in Boulder. Well, not just this church. We need every church to be faithful with what God has called them to do and to win at what God has called them to do, including this church. We have these guys praying I'm not gonna name his name or the church because this is an un finished story and I don't know if I have permission to share this. Um but we we're we were spending time together and we asked this pastor as we normally do hey are there any urgent needs that you guys have right now a community. And this is a church, a historic church in Bohler. And uh and he's he he mentioned that they just have a huge heart for evangelism. They're trying to do their best to equip their people to go to the street. and to go to the campus and he said the one thing that we really need right now is a van. We need a van because we we want to be able to go shuttle college kids to church on Sunday. days they have a homeless ministry as well. They want the ability to transport things around, transport people as needed. They said we have drivers, we have a program, we have a ministry. What we don't have is a van. And uh they said he said pray for that. Said, okay, we'll pray for that. Additionally, he's you know, he was just reflecting on how long he's been at his per particular church. He's been there a long time, and uh he hasn't taken a break. And he hasn't taken a break in a c couple three decades of ministry and we were asked him like hey what would it take he's like I really want to take a sabbatical but I just don't know I just I just don't know how it's gonna be possible So we prayed for him. We tried to encourage him. Um but when we left, I just remember just it was one of those unmistakable things when you leave that kind of environment and you know like this story is not over and this is not just on them and this is something we're all gonna be be a part of so I I call up the other pastors who are there and said listen What do we need to do to get them this van? What do we need to do to meet these needs? And and and one by one all these churches came together and said, hey, here's a work gonna contribute and here's what we're gonna contribute and some it wasn't the same amount it was just as each one felt prompted by the spirit and it was out of relationship with these guys I was able to kind of go and say, hey, listen, we're going to do something as a church. What are you guys going to do as a church? We came together and within like a couple weeks, we have raised all of the money we need to purchase the van and to sew into and and to create a sabbatical fund for this pastor. And so this week I get to go deliver him a child Because all of the churches collectively decided this matters, what's going on in their church matters, and if they win, we win. We're all a part of this together. Okay. So it's it's it's it's a small glimpse. Let me just point out a couple things in this story. Number one We're able to give out of the overflow of as of your obedience as you give into this house. So not everything that you give is just goes to just do things here. We're we're doing everything we can to follow God and expanding the work of his kingdom, not just meeting needs here. We do have needs here. All of the churches that gave have needs. We have needs. We have big needs. We have hundreds of thousands of dollars of needs. Okay? But that doesn't mean that we are exempt from being led by the spirit to go meet the need somewhere else. Same is true for you. So as you guys have given though, we didn't do a special offering here to go do that. As you guys are given, we're able to just report back, hey listen, as you So generosity begets generosity. Not only that, our generosity towards them means they get to be generous towards the kids in the college campus. And it's gonna go and it's gonna go and it's gonna go because that's how generosity works. It's addictive. It's incredible. It's incredibly freeing. And it's a part of how we enter into the story of God and refuse the lie that we are all on our own trying to find. figure this out on our own. It's not true. We are part of the river of God that has been flowing since the beginning of time. So come on, praise God. We get to do these kinds of things. Okay, one more thing I want to say here because we weren't able to cover everything in this series. Um and and one of the challenges when you're preaching about money is it fails to take into account the fact that some of us need very practical help. When it comes to money. Some of you are like, I really want to grow in generosity, but you feel crippled by debt. You feel crippled by circumstances in life. There's things that have happened to you that have kept you trapped in certain ways. So there's a couple of things as a church we want to do for you that that we can't do in a sermon, but we're just kind of praying thinking through ways. do this. So I want to bring to you an invitation to partner with you. As a church, we want to partner with you to help you get any practical tools you need just for basic financial management. Some of you have never been taught how to handle what comes to you. And so two things that we want to offer you. Number one, as a church, for anybody willing. We are gonna pay for a half of your subscription fee to Financial Peace University. And it's an online course, it's about a nine-week course, and it walks you through so many of the basics of how to handle and to steward the money. that God has given to you. It's an incredible course. Tens of thousands of people have experienced freedom just through following these simple steps. Some of you have maybe already done that, so we're not saying that this is a magic silver bullet, but I'm saying if you haven't done that, if you want to learn practical things about what to actually do. We're gonna pay for half forty bott forty dollars, you pay forty dollars, we're gonna pay forty dollars, and we want to invest into that with you. All you have to do is go to that QR code on the seat back pocket in front of you and then look for where it says express interest For Financial Peace University. We'll get in touch with you. The second thing, though, is as you do that, anybody who responds to that, our financial advisory team who exists to support the elderly here just with wise financial wisdom. They have agreed to offer single coaching sessions to you to sit down with you and you can look at your budget, any questions you have, and actually sit down with you And help as best they can just coach you through some some different scenarios on what you can do next. This is our finance team. So part of our finance team we have Joey Joyner who's incredible, Josh Robertson, Bob Young, Graham Cap We have really good men who are able to uh to sit down with you and just give you basic coaching. It's not financial advice, it's just people in the church that want to see you win. We want to see everybody here win and live in freedom. And because this is how we participate in the kingdom of God together. Alright? I'm hoping some of you take us up on that offer. Because some of you need it. If you're a young person here, you need it too. Doesn't matter what age you are, we want to do what we can do to sow into your life. life so you can live in the freedom of God. Alright. Let's bring this to land here today. It's 1140. Let's bring this to land. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna I'm gonna put a scripture back up on the screen. And it's the 2 Corinthians 9. Verse 10 and 11. This is verse 10 and 11. And here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna read this slowly, and we're gonna invite the Holy Spirit to come and show us each what his invitation is for us. Maybe you're here today too and you've never put your faith in Jesus and you like as we're talking about generosity, you're like, I I don't even know what you're talking about. Listen, today some of you feel God knocking on the door of your heart, and you've been feeling it for the last hour and a half. It's an invitation from you. Jesus to know him and to know the nature of the Father and that He's good towards you and He knows your needs and He wants to lead you into the life of peace and He's given His very life for you And if that's you today, all you have to do is say, yes, Jesus, I invite you in. I invite you in. You don't have to say a magic prayer. You can pray, but it's as simple as opening your heart to God. Jesus, we invite you in. We thank you for life. We thank you for your sacrifice. We thank you for what you've done, for the very gospel. And if you prayed that if you're praying that for the first time, we'd love to talk to you after the service. And tell you more about what that means. But kind of a another thing that I just want to reflect on for a couple minutes here is this verse behind me. I'm going to read it slowly. And I want you to ask the question: what is the invitation of the Holy Spirit towards you today? It says this: He who supplied Seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvests of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way, to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. What's the word or phrase in this passage that's kind of leaping off the The page or jumping off the screen for you. I'm gonna read it again. And we'll hold the same question. God, what are you saying? Says he who supplies seed to the sower and bring Bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way, to be generous in every way. Which through us will produce thanksgiving to God And let's just keep this question. Holy Spirit, is there anything that you want to invite us into today? Through this passage. What's one step that you can take Fiona, I'm seeing you in the front. You got something? Come on up. Alright, everybody welcome Fiona. I always know Dude Fiona's got this look, man. She's got this look in her eyes. She got this little Irish fire and I'm like, she's got something to say. So uh just yeah. Oh, that's my um I just wanted to do it, yeah, do it Yeah, absolutely. It should be on. Okay. Hello? Yeah. Okay. So I just wanted to read some of us listened to the Lectio three six five app. Some of you will have heard this testimony this week but um it just blew me away. How many of us know we serve a God of abundance? A God Who wants to just like woo blow us out of the park? Yep. Well, Luke put up this. God doesn't bless us to raise our standard of living, He blesses us to raise our standard of giving. So We do hear this story for those of you who haven't heard it. But of course my outputs, where is it? Here we go. Alright, sorry about that. Okay, so this is a story Pete Gregg shared. Susanna, Pete Gregg, leads the 24-7 prayer over the world. Susanna, a much-loved Swiss prayer warrior, relinquished the prospect of a senior post in her successful family business. So here she's giving up success and money, okay? A bit of some of us, it's the money, but she's giving herself To form a 24-7 prayer community in the beautiful alpine town of Thun. One day the Lord spoke to Susannah directing her to move into an apartment in the center of town where she would be able to reach out to many of the neediest people. The rent on this apartment, however, was way beyond her modest budget. So she cut back on all her luxuries and she began to pray for provision. If I had known about Susanna's financial challenges at the time, Pete Gregg says, I probably wouldn't have asked her to consider flying to South Africa. Africa at her own expense to respond to represent twenty-four-seven prayer in a significant meeting I certainly wouldn't have promised her so casually that God would provide the money for the flight if she wanted to go. But Susanna just smiled and she promised to pray about it. Almost immediately, someone did indeed offer the fund for her trip. And while she was in Cape Town, she continued to pray for the money to pay for her rent when she came back home Then a friend called Rebecca was houseetting Susanna's apartment while she was away We didn't hear this. Deciding to clean the place before Susanna returned, Rebecca went to the cleaning cupboard. She opened the door and she gasped. Thousands of Swiss francs lay scattered around the boiler and over the floor. Understandably perplexed, Rebecca piled the banknotes neatly in the corner of the cupboard and she scribbled a note asking Susanna to call. Did you find the money? asked Rebecca on the phone, without any introduction, when Susanna finally called. Money? The pile of money, the pile of money in your cleaning cupboard, Susanna. Unsure what to think, Susanna initially opened the door of the wrong cupboard. The voice on the phone redirected her and she gasped Oh At the sight of the cash. Within her mind reeling and her hands trembling, she knelt to count 14,000 Swiss francs, which is half year's wages. The bank told Susanna that no one had reported the money lost. The police told her that no one had reported it stolen. Nobody could explain how it had appeared in her house. Don't you just love God, he's hilarious. In the end, there were only two possible explanation. Either the world's most confused burglar had broken into my apartment and deposited thousands of francs. In my cupboard before leaving without a trace, or God really had heard my cries for provision, and he made the money materialize in my cupboard. God's funny. Susanna took the money upstairs and she laid it in front of her and she prayed. She thanked God and repeated and repented for doubting his power to provide and told him it was his money. Not hers. That's what Luke's been reminding us about today. I'm almost finished. Three days after discovering the cash. Here we go. A friend asked Susanna to show her the cupboard. Susanna opened the door laughing But then she froze because another two hundred Swiss francs had appeared out of nowhere on top of the boiler. The next morning Susanna got up early. She opened the cupboard again She found another 200 franc bill. Susanna had just handed the money to her friends. Eleven days later, Susanna hosted a meeting with her friend Mike Michael. When he arrived he went straight to the c to the check to check the closet, like everyone else, but there was nothing in there, so Susanna laughed. He closed the door and she made Some tea. Here we go. Minutes later. They were standing in the kitchen when a gentle shuffle sounded. Sound suddenly came from the They froze for a second. They looked at each other and they lurched for the door. God again. Michael opened it and he gasped another 13,600 francs lay scattered on the floor of the closet, which they had checked just minutes earlier. That was the last cash to appear in Susanna's cleaning cupboard. But overall, in less than a month, a total of 28,000 Swiss francs, a year's wage, had materialized on four different occasions witnessed variously by uh Susanna and three of her friends. She paid her rent and taxes and then she gave the rest of the bunny away. And she did so. Many of her friends and family who didn't know Jesus came to believe in God's power and provide supernaturally more readily than some of her Christian. friends. So wow, what a God we serve. So thank you for letting me share that. Thank you for the time and listening. But God is just like He just blows me away with His unholy hopefully for some of you. So I hope that's an encouragement for people. I mean Simon and I, Simon's been out of work since August and we're waiting for God to do a miracle. So this really was a great encouragement I hope it encourages the channel. Okay, so Piper, come on up. Alright. Hey guys, some of this is unscripted. By the way, welcome to the lookout. Um we're going just a little we're going a little beyond what we would normally do, but something just a really unique opportunity just happened. I'm gonna let Piper um uh Yeah. So as God does, he's so faithful to put opportunities in front of us, right? When he calls us to when he calls us to something, he'll provide a way for us to re respond to him. So we have some new friends that just walked in the door a few minutes ago here. This is Alberto and Sarah. Hey come on up here guys come on up and get a good look at kid there's stairs right over here. Yeah, coming up, coming up. You guys didn't expect this, I'm sure, but they just walked in the door and said hi we've come because we're looking for a little bit of help so we're gonna pray over you guys but also I want to open up an opportunity for those who want to participate in helping out they're just needing a little help with rent Right now. And this daughter is Amira. Yes, Amira is their baby girl. So precious. So beautiful. Would you yeah, and we're gonna pray for you, but also So uh it sound uh from what Piper said it sounds like you guys need a little help with rent right now. Do you know about like how much that you're looking at? $1,500. Okay, so we're gonna pray for them. They're coming in today with a need of $1,500. So here's the invitation for the rest of you Who here is led to give to meet this need today? And if that's you, um uh uh after church, come come talk to me over here and let's see if we get this need knocked out just here today. God sent them to us for this moment. Alright? Does that sound fair? Okay. Piper, could you lead us? Yeah. Father, I thank you for Alberto. I thank you for saying Lord, I pray right now that you would reveal your love to them in greater measure, Lord, that your desire is not only to provide for their need Need financially, but also to provide for every need that is in their soul and in their spirit and in their bodies. Every part of them, Lord, is seen and known by you. And I thank you, Father, that you've brought them here today not only to meet this need, but to welcome them into community and call them by name and let them know that they are seeing love. Loved and known by you and by us. So Lord, we just receive them today. We bless them. Lord, we bless them for not only this momentary need, but the continued supply that you have intend to bring for every need moving forward. To because that's who you are, God. We thank you, Jesus, for the opportunity to be generous, the opportunity to come around them, and we thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to pray and bless them. In their journey, whatever moment they come into. Jesus, have your way here. Thank you for your love. Thank you, Lord. They represent the needs of so many others Lord. So we just receive them and all of those that are not by not named today, all of those that haven't been brought to the stage yet today, but Lord, we just receive the need of this community. Say, Lord, we hear you calling us to be the people of God, the hands and feet of Jesus, showing your love to the world around us. And Lord, we will say yes. We will say yes, Lord. You are faithful. We love you. Thank you for your love for this family. Thank you for the love for this community and for the surrounding area, Lord. Thank you. Have your way here, God. Amen. Amen. Amen. Alright, so here's what we'll do. If you guys want to you guys can come down here, you can take a seat. After the service, come introduce yourself. Just welcome them. Just get Get to know these guys a little bit. If you would like to contribute to their need, there's a really easy way to do that. Um if you go to that QR code, there's a fund when you go to give online, there's a fund called compassion. It should be over If you give to the compassion fund, we'll make sure that their need gets completely met. Okay? And uh and we can do that together. So you can give online if you want to give directly or some other way. Just come talk to me after the service because we want to see what what we can do to meet this need today. Let's just knock it out. Can we just knock it out? All right, everybody stand up, stand up. Hey guys, thank you for your flexibility and just sticking with us. Again, this is fun stuff. We are participating. We don't just come to church for a static experience. We are participating in the life of God. And He's alive and you're alive and we're alive, right? So this is a gift. It's a joy So as we go here today, a couple things I want you to know. We're going to have prayer team members on the sides of the room. You're going to see a badge. If you want prayer for anything in your life today, come see see uh our prayer team they would love to to pray with you to minister to you in the back you're gonna see Nikki with the connect with us sign she's the most amazing wonderful person that has ever held that sign um I'm joking. Um, so you can go talk to her if you're a guest and you want to get to know us as a church. And uh let me pray one last blessing over you today. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you. May he be gracious to you and lift his countenance upon you. And give you rest. All right, friends, go in peace.