Joy of Generosity
Joy of Generosity • Sermon • Submitted
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· 1 viewJoyful Purpose is found in Generously using our Spiritual Gifts
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Joy of Generosity
Intro Hook
- We find Joy within our lives when we begin to find the purpose for what God created for us.
- Purpose is finding your part in the great symphony of music we call life. You find where your puzzle piece fits. How you function within the body of your community.
- How many of us feel purposeless though? When people ask us “what do you do” we respond with a job title. How many of us sit at a desk wondering if there is all there is to life. Laying in bed desiring to have more.
- Paul in his classic letter to the church in Corinth tells the church “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
- One of movies top villains of all time (Mr Smith from the Matrix) says There's no escaping reason, no denying purpose, for as we both know, without purpose we would not exist. It is purpose that created us, purpose that connects us, purpose that pulls us, that guides us, that drives us; it is purpose that defines, purpose that binds us.”
- Purpose connects us with the world around us…and when we don’t know what it is, we feel isolated, alone…
- Robert Mulholland describes the activities that try to fill are yearnings in his Invitation to Journey “ As long as we try to fill this yearning with things other than God and activities other than God’s purposes, we are unfulfilled and incomplete”
- We walk around feeling incomplete. We go to work feeling unfulfilled.
- So we try to drown out the yearning. The Incomplteness with being hurried and busy. We try to drown it out with escaping into binge watching our favorite shows, or sports…or overeating, or alcohol, drugs…pornography…
- But no matter what we do we are still empty. Unfilled. Incomplete. And we begin to fear that no one can love us, maybe because we don't even love ourselves.
- The bible names this fear of being unlovable as “Shame.”
- Shame is not a new feeling. It is a problem that is rooted deeply within our human nature. And through the world things like Social Media cause us to just watch the people around us looking happy, fulfilled… like they have purpose. And we feel more and more isolated…more and more shame.
- We have advertising around us trying to sell you on your own emptiness. Trying to get you to feel more hungry. That you need their product to feel fulfilled. Maybe the answer isn’t purpose…maybe you don't have the right stuff to live into your purpose. The right job, the right education.
-And all this works. We fall into a cycle of Comparing unpurposeful lives with others that we think are happy and we feel shame…
- And we are no closer to finding our purpose. We hand ourselves over to the world. Henri Nouwen describes it like this “ As long as I keep running about asking: "Do you love me? Do you really love me?" I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with "ifs." The world says: "Yes, I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much." There are endless "ifs" hidden in the world's love. These "ifs" enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world's love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain "hooked" to the world-trying, failing,and trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.”
- Do we know what we are meant to do? Does the Bible communicate with us how we are to use each of our abilities and skills to find purpose? How am I supposed to use them?
Claim: Yes, The way of Jesus shows us that the way to find joyful purpose within our lives is to use our Gifting for the building of the church and sake of others.
Gifts
-Last week we started our teaching series on the “Joy of Generosity”. Doctor Alan talked about being Generous with your time, and this week we are going to look at being Generous with your gifts.
- If you have your Bible, turn to 1 Corinthians 12 and Read along with me
1 cor 12:5-7 “There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God works all of them in each person. A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good:”
Paul in this passage communicating 5 truths we need to know about our gifts
First, Our gifting, our abilities and skills…these are SPIRITUAL Gifts. We can see different lists of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians, Romans and Ephesians. Teaching, Faith, Speaking in Tongues, administration… there is not an exhaustive list…but the main thing to grasp is that these are ways we are equipped by God, through the Holy Spirit.
Second, each of these is a gift. Spiritual Gifts are just what they are called. GIFTS. We do not get them because we level up in christianity. We dont achieve spiritual gifts. They are given to us.
You may be thinking, wait Patrick! I worked hard for my skill. That can be true! But when Scripture is talking about a Spiritual Gift, it is something that you are doing that is outside the realm of what you could usually do on your own.
Third. There are Different Spiritual Gifts for different people. God equips us all with different gifts! My gifting is not your gifting. Doctor Al is so good at alot of things I am not good at. I am probably good at something he is not good at.
S Fourth, There is one God. This is not a Theological statement worrying about you worshipping other Gods. And that was common when this letter was written. Instead, Paul is pointing to the unity that the Gifts should bring. Our Spiritual Gifts should not lead to us being seperated from one another, they should lead us into further unity. Fifth, they are for the Common Good. The common good particularly of The Church…and by extension the people around you… your family, work, friends, enemies, neighborhood…
Your gifts are not for you. As Rick Warren says in one of the best opening lines for a book “ It’s Not About You”. The Different ways that God has gifted you, are meant for unity and the common good of the church. It is not about you!
Segway: To see how this further works, lets continue in the passage. But First, lets understand a little about the background of what we are reading.
- 1 Corinthians is a letter by the Church Planter Paul to one of the Churches that he helped Plant. He spent a year and a half with this church, and then was called away. And while Paul is away, he begins hearing reports that things are not going well at the Church.
- The Church has several different key problems going on, and the letter of 1 Corinthians reads as addressing those 5 different problems. Things like the church becoming extremely loose on sexuality.
- There was chaos within their church services as some people were talking outloud in tongues while people were preaching. And then there were people that would yell out what they had to say about the teaching. Or that they had a teaching they wanted to give. The services were in Chaos.
- So in this part of the letter Paul is addressing this problem. People were arguing that they had Spiritual Gifts and that is why they should be aloud to do what they were doing. And then you had people that believed that their spiritual gifts were better than other peoples. And Paul says “Nope!” “ You have different gifts, sure, but they are meant for unity within the church. They do not lead to chaos.
Read with me what Paul has to say next. I am going to read this from the message paraphrase because I love how it lists the gifting.
1 Corinthians “All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:
wise counsel
clear understanding
simple trust
healing the sick
miraculous acts
proclamation
distinguishing between spirits
tongues
interpretation of tongues.
All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.”
Paul is not just correcting. He is encouraging the young church. “ Use your gifts!” He is trying to help them course correct. They should not stop using their gifts, but see that they are equipped differently. But they should use them! What Paul is going after is not Uniform, but Unity within the church with the gifts.
Football Jersey vs Football Positions Now the Greek for the word Gift is “Charisma” and it means “a favor with which one receives without any merit.”
Think of the difference between a gift that has strings attached to it and a gift you receive because someone just cares about you. God gives Spiritual Gifts because he cares for people. Now here is where there is a cultural difference between our culture ( a western culture) and that of an eastern culture like the Bible was written to.
Like Soda vs Pop, Driving on different sides of the road, people stopping in on other people. When we think of a gift, we receive it and accept it. Gifts do not have an expectation of something in return. In Eastern culture, a gift is more like an obligation. When one receives a gift, the recipient is obligated to do or give something back in return. Then the cycle is repeated, over and over. Maybe the Big Bang Theory shows it best.
CLIP The same reality exists today. If you go on a missions trip to an eastern culture, one of the things that they instruct you to do is not accept gifts from people, because that obligates you to return that gift. So while God has provided us with spiritual gifts in order to build up the church, for the common good…he does not expect us to just sit on them. Paul is telling the church they are a gift that obligates us to respond… And look at the wording at the end… God chooses where these gifts go. He decides how people are gifted and where they should use their gifts. This should bring two responses within us.
We can go to God if we do not know how we are gifted and he can show us. If we do not know how to help build up the church, God can show us, he knows us more intimately than we can know ourselves. We are not the boss. We make terrible bosses. We tend to use our gifts to build up our own kingdoms. And they tend to fall down around us when we try.
Example of a child working with a parent on building a deck.
Seam: Paul tells us why this is in important for us to understand. Why we need to get a hold of Spiritual Gifts.
1 Corinthians 12:12-14 For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink. 14 Indeed, the body is not one part but many.
Individualistic Spirituality would have been completely foreign to Jesus. When you begin to follow him you become a part of his church. A part of the metaphorical body. And it is not our beliefs that unify us. Our values. Or our specific Giftings. It is not dependent upon us at all. It is because of Jesus. Whether Jew or Greek, slaves or free…for us no matter our race, our gender, republican or democrat, rich or poor, employed not employed, single or married…we all belong to the church because of Jesus. We cannot be a Christian on our own, we are one part of many. Imagine that the church is a body…
1 Corinthians 12v15-20 15 If the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted. 19 And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
- You are apart of a body of believers, given gifting to be able to fulfill specific purposes. To build up the body. For the good of others.
- And Paul is acknowledging a problem that begins to occur in the church. Different body parts do different kinds of things…and we can easily slide into 1 of two extremes about our gifts.
- We can believe that our gifting is more important than other peoples, or that the purpose we have is more important than other peoples.
- I will be honest with you and say that this is something that I struggle with. There are parts of Discipleship that I am drawn to. There are gifting and books and values that I hold really highly. And when I hear that someone values something else, I wish that I could say I am admittedly excited about it. Often my reaction is “That is not as important as my thing. That isn’t as important as Spiritual Formation. That writer isn’t as good as this other writer. And if I am particular ugly that day, I will not even read certain authors or books. Even though they are brother’s and sisters in the faith and probably have a literal gifting from God and something to say from him!
- This is Pride and Self-righteousness… and it leads to division within the church. And Jesus never divides his church. That is an activity of The Enemy
- The second thing that happens with gifting is that we believe our gifts are not as good as other peoples gifts. We look up on stage and believe that I am not as good a christian or as gifted as Doctor Al because I am not preaching. I am not a worship leader. I am not… I am not…
- Let me tell you, this is that comparison trap again. Christians are not immune to it. Pastors are not immune to it. Pastors go on the same social media, and see their friends preaching to bigger crowds, or giving better sermons, or playing better music…and we believe that we are not as valuable as that other pastor.
- And this comparison that we do causes us to isolate and move away from the church. We feel shame and believe that no one can love us…we steal ourselves from community.
So what does Paul say to this attitude? Imagine if the eye thought it was less valuable than the ear because it could not hear. Imagine if the ear thought it was less valuable than the nose cause it could not taste. This is ridiculous! We are a body of believers. The body needs each part and each part was created for a purpose not another one! This is so key: Do not compare your gifting to another persons gifting. Give generously out of your own gifting towards the purpose God has for you. SEAM: Why? “Because God has arranged the because our world now is so full of people that are isolated, alone and afraid. Purposeless… unfulfilled. And if one member of the Bible suffers, the whole church suffers. 1 Corinthians 12:25-26 that the members would have the same concern for each other. 26 So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
We can see a snapshot of just how deep this goes. Barna performed a study on thousands of churches asking the question “In the last seven days have you felt lonely?” 3 in 10 said yes… 2 in five said that their loneliness was unbearable… If one member suffers the whole church suffers. If one member of the church feels isolated, the whole church suffers. If one member of the church is purposeless, the whole church is purposeless… And that may be you. You may be watching this teaching online or sitting in this room and you would raise your hand and say “Yeah, I feel Purposeless…I feel isolated…I feel unimportant.” There are thousands of people that feel that way outside of this building. In a 2001 Study from Harvard University they found that half of young adults felt “ Depressed, down or hopeless about the future.” 3 in 10 Young adults felt “ they would be better off dead.”
Seam: The World around us has a narrative about purpose. The story is a false one, but is easy and one that has leaked all over.
First: Follow your Passion It is hard to tell where this narrative started. It is not the narrative my grandparents would have believed and certainly not my great grand parents. It could come from a few different places
Steve Jobs Story “ “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.” This has leaked into the way we view work. “Love what you do and you will never work a day in your life.” So we have a world of people that are moving through life, trying to use their gifts and never being satisfied. Over and over they are told, “find your purpose and you will be satisfied. Use your gifts to do what you love and you will be fulfilled.” But our experience is that is not true.
Seam: As people wander purposelessly, they use their gifts in inappropriate ways that only bring more pain and brokenness into the world.
-People in leadership use their influence to build their own kingdoms. They manipulate people, abuse people in order to build more influence and power till either the world around them is hurting and broken, or it comes falling down around them.
- People with gifts of administration create systems of control in order to horde resources for themselves and their tribe. Generosity is lost. They take resources till their is not enough for anyone, leaving many in need and the resources an idol in their hearts.
- People with gifts of evangelism, preaching or teaching fall prey to communicating a perverted gospel. Gospels of prosperity, Gospels of Nationalism, of Humanistic Moralism. Half truths that lead people not to life…but to pain and death.
- As we use our gifts for the wrong things, Sin and Darkness are increased in the world. Relationships are broken. Resources like time, money, food and more are hordes. People go hungry. Sin reigns. And the powers of Evil and Death reign in not only in ourselves, but in our families, neighborhoods and communities.
Personal Story Moment
Gospel: What is the hope that we have? How can we not only repair the brokenness in our lives? How can Sin be defeated? How can we find the purpose for our gifts? The answer is in Jesus Christ.
God loves people. He gave us Jesus to save us from all of the brokenness, pain and death in the world. To defeat the powers of evil that reign. Death was defeated when Jesus died on the Cross. We can now see restoration. We can now have hope. Because of Jesus we are saved from being enslaved to our desires, to the false narratives of this world. Following Jesus means no longer following passions that leave us feeling empty and purposeless. What does this look like? Look at how Jesus lived! Jesus lived using his gifts generously for people. He came to give life, and to give it abundantly. He fed the hungry, he healed the blind. He taught people to live as they were created to. Jesus generously used his gifts for the sake of the world. And Christ is continually loving, teaching, healing, bringing restoration, fighting injustice, bringing compassion and hope and love into the world today! How does he do it!? His Body! The Church! You and I. Through our gifts we are Christ to people. And it is in doing what Jesus did that we experience Joyful Purpose!
ANSWER: If you want to live a life of joyful purpose, you need to use your gifts generously for the building up the church and others.
So how do we do it?
First, you need to be rescued from the life you have been living. You need Jesus to rescue you from your brokenness within you that pursues things that lead to more pain and more brokenness and ultimately death. You need him to rescue you from the powers of Sin and death and evil. You need forgiveness for your part in the brokenness and pain you have brought into the world. For your sin. To begin this you repent of what you are doing now. Stop, and turn towards Jesus. Accept his gift of being rescued. That is all. Acceptance of the gift. And you can have new life. You do this once. If you have done this once. You have been rescued. You dont need to keep getting rescued. It is done once. Second, take the step into obedience. Maybe you have been saved. Maybe Christ has rescued already. But you have not been living into it. You are living just the same way you lived before. Did you know you can be saved and not following Jesus? Take the step into following him. Surrender your will and begin submitting to his. This is the everyday work of a disciple of Jesus. And what is a Disciple? Someone that is with God, becoming like Jesus and doing what he did for the sake of others.
Then How do I live Generously with My Gifts?
First, commit to being apart of the church. That could be this community or another community. I think this is a great one, but there are other communities as well. We are one church. The important thing is to commit to being apart of it. To be present to it. The church is the primary way that we are formed and how God brings hope, compassion, justice and Love into the world. If your committed to intentionally being apart of the community. I would invite you to see what your spiritual gifting may be? There are lots of tools out there, and if you need help finding one, then I would love to help you! We have resources we would like to share. Here is a hint, you probably won’t be surprised. It will be connected to things that you love to do and are already good at. Finally, ask where you can help. Ask the question, “What are the needs that his community has? Where can I help meet those needs?” Ask me, ask Doctor Al. Ask other people. There is always needs in our community and neighborhood. Then, meet those needs generously. Generously be looking for how you can use your gifts. Remember, this is an invitation to generously of your gifts that is not based on what we need. We are not trying to manipulate you into coming more or serving more. I believe that God will provide what our community needs. What I am inviting you into is for your benefit. To be apart of a community is to experience blessing and formation. It is in the church that when we use our gifts generously we find joyful purpose.