The church as Generous and Wise
Living at the level of transaction
The study of economics can be defined roughly as the “allocation of scarce resources.” Meaning that when there is a finite number of items, economics will look at how those items are spread around groups of people.
When everything becomes a comparison, we of our relationships between what is the most value we can get out of . We limit others based on the value that we think they are worth. We have to make decisions on what something is worth. We take the infinite value of a human life and we quantify it. We say it is only worth so much.
We are no longer a society with an economic foundation we are what is called a market society. Everything is for sale. Everything has a price to it. We have come to believe that instead of the infinite value of a human life, we can reduce it down to some kind of cost. We quantify a human life. That is necessarily sin.
Stooping down and standing up
The call of the church is to not stoop down to transaction, seeing a limited value on human life, but to stand up in the posture of generosity and wisdom.
Acts 2:42 ESV
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
But the church began with devotion to what will never dry up and what will never run out. The church didn’t start with allocation of scarce resources, they started with the attention to divine gifts.
Everything we do as the church and everything we do as Christians begins with everything that God has given. We have been communicated to in God’s Word (the Apostles teaching). We have not be left out in the cold and silence. We have been brought in and instructed and guided and promised and cared for.
Christ is the call to stand up
Acts 2:43–45 ESV
And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
Acts 2:46–47 ESV
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
But we live in a scarce world.
Good Samaritan
John
Generous and Wise / Luke 10:25–37
We see this in our passage this morning. The parable of the good samaritan comes out of a question, “who is my neighbor?”
Luke 10:25 ESV
“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
Luke 10:26 ESV
“What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
Luke 10:27 ESV
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Luke 10:28 ESV
“You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
Luke 10:29 ESV
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
The Priest and Levite
Luke 10:30–32 ESV
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
The Good Samaritan
Luke 10:33–35 ESV
But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’
Generosity is not a consideration of the abundance of resources, but the consideration of needs being met. The gospel is all about understanding that our needs have been met. That we have complete sufficiency.
The Samaritan undoes what everyone else did
Gods activity is in the wilds of “bandits and inns.” We can’t control that God acts but trust that He does and that He pays what He owes. And more. To disreputable characters. This means that God works generously and abundantly in situations that are less than or show no abundance. ( Oakman, Douglas E. 2008. *Jesus and the Peasants*. Cascade Books. 179)
In fact, we have to understand that this is the generous act of the reign of God in dire circumstances, that God, in the person of Christ comes to bandage our wounds, comes to deal with the less than savory circumstances, becomes the commoner for us to become royalty, this is shown in the way that the Samaritan places, though beaten man on the donkey
Luke 10:36–37 ESV
Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Generous and Wise
John
Generous and Wise / 2 Corinthians 9:1–15
We feel strongly about our things: value
We all have Stuff
Value is about what we are investing in
Matthew 6:21 ESV
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Generous and Wise Starts with Seeing God as Giver and All Else as Gift
2 Corinthians 9:8–11 ESV
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 has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
He who supplies seed to the sower and 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.
This is the outcome of generosity and wisdom
2 Corinthians 9:6–7 ESV
The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Wisdom
2 Corinthians 9:7 ESV
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Generosity
The reason generosity matters in the Christian life is that the focus is not on resources but the focus is on people, the focus is on the other. The issue is not even on the opportunity, it is about the other person.
Generosity rights all of our relationships with God, the others and our stuff.
It places our lives rightside up, putting people and solving issues with the right stuff, more than just accumulating the stuff itself.
The church is called to have a generous response to life. Having been enriched by God. Experiencing His forgiveness for our sins, His mercy, His goodness, we can reply to God, others and the world based on that.
God Points So He Doesn’t Have to Wave
God Comes Near / Luke 1:67–79
Advent is the act of God coming close enough to speak sense into and transform every category of darkness into light. In our text for this morning we meet a man named Zechariah who asserts that this is what happens when God gets close.
Zechariah’s First Response: Standing in the Wrong place
Luke 1:8–9 ESV
Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
Luke 1:11–13 ESV
And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
Luke 1:20 ESV
silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”
Finding the right perspective or posture or orientation is not always about simply working things out. Because if we are standing in the wrong place, it doesn’t matter how much we try and work things out we will still be left looking at the wrong way.
Zechariah’s second response: Addressed by God
Luke 1:60 ESV
but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.”
Luke 1:63 ESV
And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered.
When we enter into a relationship with God, we are entering into a whole new world, a new way of thinking, of acting, of living. What Zechariah’s response shows us is that we have an incredibly rich world that is filled with the activity, the language, the power, the strength, the glory and the grace of God.
God Makes Himself Knowable
Luke 1:68–75 ESV
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
Luke 1:76–79 ESV
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Where Is God Pointing in Your Life?
This is the case with the Advent. We ask God to change and move and act in our lives. We yell His name because maybe He will hear us from across the room. We have to be reminded that He responds from right next to us. The work is not getting God to do what we want but is aligning ourselves with Him,
God is Not a Tourist
God Comes Near / John 1:1–18
John 1:9–11 ESV
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
God refuses to treat us like tourists. If we zip and zap right by Him, He will speak to us in advent language. The language of a God who has come close. God relates to the world, not as One visiting but as who who resides here.
God is not a Tourist.
John 1:1–3 ESV
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Genesis 1:1–3 ESV
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
God Lives in Your Neighborhood
John 1:14 ESV
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Philippians 2:6–7 ESV
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
But Christ did not just enter into our world for a moment like a tourist. The Scripture states that he “dwelt among us” the word “dwelt” means that he shelters with us. The audience would have understood this idea of taking shelter.
See in the Old Testament, the people of God, the Israelites, set up a shelter for God. They called it a tabernacle.
John 1:46 ESV
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
The incarnation, Christ as God who has become flesh, redefines everything we know in creation. God reshapes our understanding through Him moving near. Christ becomes our history. He enters into the difficulties and the small towns of our own lives, brining new meaning of our lives by coming near.
See we forget that Advent is no season for tourists. Because Advent, in the moment of Christs appearing, still looks into the dark places, the Nazareths of our lives. Advent is not about what we skip over, its is about recreating all the darkness through the light of Christ.
John 1:4–5 ESV
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There is nothing so small that Christ cannot change, nothing so dark that Christ cannot shine light upon. The incarnation changes everything, Christs invitation is to allow Him to transform you this season. We love being tourists. But mostly because we are too afraid to stop at the Nazareths.
Galatians 5: Christ Frees
Galatians 5:16–25
Does what you trust know how to free you?
Because whatever frees you always leads you
Whatever makes promises to free us will be what we will ultimately have to answer to. So whatever frees us is what leads us. So we want to be careful about who we give that kind of leadership to.
Galatians 5:1–6 ESV
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
God has done a particular job, unrepeatable, enough to set us free. That there is nothing that gets in the way. nothing that can keep us down. If you have been freed by Christ then there is nothing in this world that has to get in the way.
Galatians 5:13–15 ESV
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Galatians 5:19–21 ESV
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Christ Frees Us From the Bondage of Sin
Galatians 5:16 ESV
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Galatians 5:22–24 ESV
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
The Restorative Work of the Spirit
Galatians 5:23 ESV
against such things there is no law.
The thing you have to answer in life is “good for who?” If it’s just good for you, you will likely live a very isolated life, fracturing relationships along the way. But if you live by the SPirits prompting and leadership, you will live free, you will see the goodness you seek anyway and will expand the definition of “good for who?”
We act in ways that build and construct and hold up and support. We build in ways that are peace bringing. That are faithful.
The Christian is called to live on the cutting edge of restoration. Placing back together by the expression of the fruit of the Spirit that circumstances and situations attempt to fracture.
Galatians 4: Christ Adopts
John
Galatians / Galatians 4
Belonging is part of life
What happens when we can no longer see what we belong to?
Galatians 4:1–3 NLT
Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world.
We Belong to God
Galatians 4:4–5 NLT
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
Galatians 4:9 ESV
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God,
Galatians 4:4 NLT
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
Galatians 4:4 NLT
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
Galatians 4:5 NLT
God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
Galatians 4:6–7 NLT
And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
Galatians 3: Christ Promises
Galatians / Galatians 3:23–29
Galatians 3:1–2 ESV
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
› The most appealing and most deceptive thing you and I can do is to think that ourselves or someone else can complete what Christ has started
The Holy Spirit is the reminder of Christ’s complete work and complete embrace in our lives
Galatians 3:3–5 ESV
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—
Third person of the Trinity
John 14:15–18 ESV
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Galatians 3:13–14 ESV
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Ephesians 1:13–14 ESV
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
We belong to God through the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 3:24–29 ESV
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Paul is saying that everything before Christ that has tried to keep us safe, in the example of the letter, the law, has now gone home. We recognize that we are kept by God who calls us sons and daughters. Christ’s complete work is the work to bind us to God. To bind us in such a way that we are not just being watched out for, we are being called sons and daughters.