Generosity
Notes
Transcript
We have been doing a series called “Stay Positive.” Negativity is everywhere in the world today. It causes fear and uncertainty, which causes stress, which can turn you into a source of negativity. One common theme that negativity uses to create fear in your life is to convince you that there is not enough. You are about to run out of whatever it is that you need.
The bible mentions the topic of money and possession over 2000 times because God knows that money and things are the #1 competition for your heart. When it comes to staying positive, we’ve already talked about optimism, gratitude, and encouragement. Today we are going to continue this series with the topic of generosity.
The fear of “not enough” is the enemy of generosity. Feeling like something is about to run out has the potential to kill your generosity. Last week I talked briefly about Elijah. When he was convinced that he was the only one left who served God, it killed his generosity. He was done serving… calling it quits… ready to give up… ready to die.
As we discuss generosity, think about how you were affected the last time you were about to run out of something. The last time your bank account trickled dry. The last time you opened your fridge and had nothing to eat. The last time you were 20 miles from a town, but your car said you only had 5 miles left in the gas tank.
There was an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer was driving down the road in a car that was about to run out of gas. They were panicking as they realized that they were farther from a gas station than the car said they could go. In the show, they made the whole ordeal funny, but there is still truth in what the situation did to the people in the car. It completely consumed their minds. They couldn’t think about anything else. The biggest problem wasn’t the “lack” that they faced, it was their mindset.
If you are taking notes, the root of the problem starts with a scarcity mindset...
SCARCITY MINDSET: There is not enough.
The scarcity mindset says, “There is not enough! I am about to run out!” The scarcity mindset starts in the mind long before it reaches the wallet. Long before the car actually begins to sputter. Long before the cabinet actually goes empty. The scarcity mindset consumes your thoughts and steals your generosity. It paralyzes you and keeps you from loving, sharing, and even thinking about someone else.
This mindset will cause you to consume and consume and never be fulfilled or satisfied. Through the prophet Haggai, God sent a message to His people about their lack of generosity…
6 You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!
You consume and consume and still never have enough because all you care about is yourselves and it is leading you nowhere. In this passage we can see the cycle that the scarcity mindset creates…
God supplies, then we consume. Soon we start to feel like it’s running out, so we fear. Then we consume before it runs out. Even less now so we fear. We consume, we lack, we fear, we consume…
What happens every time there is a gas scare on the news? Every gas station has long lines to the pumps and people are putting gas in any containers they can find. Who remembers the “Great Toilet Paper Scare of 2020?” We consume, we lack, we fear.
When it comes to having what we need, God uses a different word. Instead of having a scarcity mindset, God’s desire is for us to have an “Abundance Mindset.”
ABUNDANCE MINDSET: There is more than enough
Everything about God is excessive, extravagant, more than enough.
8 You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your river of delights.
11 You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.
8 And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
If we view life through the lens of scarcity, we will always be fearful and anxious. Jesus has a much different plan for us. He came so that we would experience His abundant life.
How do we get rid of the scarcity mindset? How can we change the way we see our lack and our “almost empty” as not enough to seeing it as MORE THAN ENOUGH? Excessive? Extravagant?
In the OT there was a widow who faced this very question. She lived in a time when Israel’s king was leading the nation away from God to worship false idols. Before he died, her husband was a prophet. This woman was one of the few people left in Israel who were still honoring the Lord.
When her husband died he left her with quite a bit of debt and the creditors were coming to collect. According to the law, if you couldn’t pay your debt the creditors were allowed to enslave others to settle debts. Her sons were about to become slaves to pay this debt.
1 One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord. But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.” 2 “What can I do to help you?” Elisha asked. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” “Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied.
She was probably getting desperate. To her there wasn’t enough. Not enough money, not enough time, not enough help. As we read her story, let’s focus on three principles of provision. First…
DON’T DIMINISH WHAT YOU HAVE.
DON’T DIMINISH WHAT YOU HAVE.
What you have ain’t “NOTHING!” The first thing she does is diminish what she has. Elisha asks her what she has and she says, “I got nothin’!”…
2 Kings 4:2 (NLT)
2 ...“Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied.
Nothing but this tiny bit of stinking oil. What good is that going to do? Scarcity is fixed on what I lack. Abundance asks, “What do I have?”
A farmer would never harvest a crop if he always diminished the tiny seed. Instead of looking at the seed for what it is, a farmer looks at it for what it will produce when it’s planted. I love the verse we read earlier about farming…
11 You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.
A farmer could look out at his field and say, “This place is lousy. Look at all of those hard pathways where nothing will grow.” Or he could look out at a bountiful harvest and say, “Wow! God even grows the hard ground in abundance.”
Is there something you have been giving a diminished value? “I can’t give you a ride, all I have is this lousy car.” “What do I have? Nothing but this stale loaf of bread.” “I don’t have enough free time, all I get is a few minutes each day.”
Scarcity is fixed on what you lack. Abundance asks “What do I have?” Abundance appreciates what you DO HAVE. Abundance sees opportunity in what you DO HAVE. Abundance sees that you have more than enough, with plenty left over. It starts with the mindset.
Don’t diminish what you have. The next principle of provision is…
GOD OFTEN DOES THE EXTRAVAGANT THROUGH WHAT SEEMS INSIGNIFICANT.
GOD OFTEN DOES THE EXTRAVAGANT THROUGH WHAT SEEMS INSIGNIFICANT.
God wants to surprise someone with life changing truth through tiny insignificant actions. Through people who don’t feel important. Instead of sending His son to us through royal means, He was born in a barn. Raised by poor parents.
God changed my life through a series of small insignificant moments. A conversation with my mom while she did paperwork. A TV show that was playing in the background after school. A group of body builders called “The Power Team” jumping through ice.
To the widow, He took the small and insignificant amount of olive oil and changed her life…
3 And Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors. 4 Then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.” 5 So she did as she was told. Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another.
The small amount of oil she had turned out to be much more than she could have imagined. It went from a flask to completely filling jars.
The worse and worse shape this world gets in, people find more and more things to blame. “It must be this groups fault! It’s because of that political party! It has to be global warming! That race! This nation!” What if it is much simpler than that? What if it is simply a lack of generosity because we aren’t giving God our insignificant so that He can return it in an extravagant way?
In Malachi, God told the nation of Israel that they were robbing Him! Then He told them to put him to the test. This is the one time God actually tells His people to test Him. He tells them to test and see if He will not pour down a blessing for them.
9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
How much different would this world look if it wasn’t robbing God of the opportunity to pour down blessing because of their generosity.
For too long, churches everywhere have used the tithe as a means to get people to give and it has caused people’s hearts to harden when they hear the word. That’s not why I am bringing it up. That is between you and God. I just don’t want you to miss this scripture. The tithe isn’t important to God because He needs money. It’s important because He wants us to have hearts of generosity and in return His generosity will flow in abundance.
And if you are scared of the word “tithe,” you shouldn’t be. It simply means 1/10th. It’s a super easy number to figure things out mathematically, all you have to do is move the decimal point one number to the left and you have a tenth. Also, it allows everybody to get involved and experience the miracle of God’s abundant provision. Even a child can share in the blessing.
The point is this… Your “Nothing” is often God’s “Something.” God often does the extravagant through what seems insignificant. Never ever discount or diminish what you have and what you share with others. A ride to town, sharing a lunch, a surprise visit on a busy day, or even just a kind word can have an extravagant impact on someone’s life in ways you may never even know about. God put you there in that place just so that you could share something that seemed insignificant to you.
The final principle of provision we are going to talk about today is…
GOD’S ABUNDANCE OFTEN FOLLOWS FAITH.
GOD’S ABUNDANCE OFTEN FOLLOWS FAITH.
It’s human nature to get this one backwards. Typically, we look to get more before we feel like we can confidently take the leap of faith. We want to have a certain balance in the account before we help financially. We need a specific amount of free time before we feel free to give some of it to a helpful project.
Just like the widow we say, “God, I need more,” but God will surprise us when He says, “Great… Then pour!” She is pouring all of her oil into these jars, but will it be enough? How is this little flask supposed to fill all of these huge jars?
6 Soon every container was full to the brim! “Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her sons. “There aren’t any more!” he told her. And then the olive oil stopped flowing. 7 When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.”
Not only did God give her enough to pay her debts, she was able to retire and take care of her family! How much more abundance could God possibly give?! How many times while she was pouring did she think to herself, “I already have nothing. Now I am about to sell what little oil I have and then absolutely everything will be gone! Maybe if I stop pouring now I won’t waste all of my oil and I will have enough to get the creditors off my back for a few more weeks until I figure something out.”
How many times have you started pouring out what you had with faith and then you started getting worried so you stopped pouring and started storing? You knew God wanted to pour out an abundance of blessing on you, but you started finding happiness in the things of this world instead.
If you feel spiritually stuck, it might be time to give your way out of it. It might be time to have faith with generosity. Time to be generous with your compassion. Generous with your time. Generous with your resources. Generous with God’s grace and truth.
If your generosity button is stuck, I have something for you to repeat to yourself every morning in the mirror…
I’VE GOT THE FAITH TO POUR BECAUSE I BELONG TO THE GOD OF “MORE.”
You have the faith to give because God’s got your back. He want’s to turn your small generosities into extravagant blessings. He wants to bless someone else through you. He wants to bless you for being a blessing. He wants to pour bless you abundantly so that you can be an abundant blessing. He wants your generosity to result in thanksgiving.
8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.” 10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
With God we can change that scarcity cycle to an abundant cycle. Instead of consuming, lacking, and fearing, we will be enriched, generous, and thankful. Enriched, generous, and thankful.
When we think about what He did for us, the only reasonable response is to pour out our lives for Him. Holding nothing back. Faithfully emptying flasks as He generously fills jars. Jesus came to give life in abundance. I have to ask myself if my life reflects His generosity. Am I still pouring? Or have I started storing?
God wants to do extravagant things with our small and insignificant acts of generosity. A little bit of generosity can make a huge positive impact on a negative world.