Embracing Generosity: A Call to Unity and Gratitude
Devotional
Sermon Summary
Bible Study Guide
Sermon Clips
### Quotes for Outreach
1. "Have you ever felt, just lately, I don't know, the last four or five years, yourself kind of twirling the drain in a sense of angst about this world, about what happens next, you know, the global warming, the balkanization even here in America, and especially here in America, the sort of the sad outlook for life. Have you ever felt that way? This is the antidote. An antidote of thanksgiving and blessing." [55:21]
2. "We are the first, really the first, probably in the first century, in all the centuries of human existence, who haven't had to worry for 90% of our existence about what we're going to eat. Everybody before us had to be constantly worried about gathering and growing and preparing and feeding themselves and nurturing themselves." [55:21]
3. "I had this vision of all the tributaries and streams of our lives coming together in this mighty rushing river and flowing over the cliff like this. The Niagara Falls or something, that's what we are. We're a torrent of God's grace and love, and the kinds of things we can do." [57:00]
4. "One of the things that I think about God is that God is a bit of a showboat. That God likes to, there's several times in the Old Testament in particular where God says, I really want them to know it's me. I really want them to know it's me that's up to this." [51:16]
### Quotes for Members
1. "Paul is writing in 2 Corinthians to the various churches that he plans to visit on his final missionary tour for a collection. And he's collecting money. He's collecting money, make no doubt, but he's also collecting money as a symbol, not only of the help that it can do for the Jerusalem church, but as a symbol of unity." [52:13]
2. "What he says is, I pray just like the offering is not primarily about money, God says the real reason here is so that you can be generous on every occasion. I love that line. On every occasion, not just a few occasions, not just on one special occasion, but that your life can be defined by this generosity, that you have been enriched, enriched, not as a blessing that you can celebrate for your own personal enrichment, but so that you can generously give." [53:41]
3. "What will happen is it will burst into an overflowing of gratitude and thanksgiving to God. But that's what happens here, that this generosity begets a kind of overwhelming sense of gratitude." [55:21]
4. "The primary concern is, having been enriched in this way, what is the opportunity that God has placed before us to be a channel of God's grace? And so one outstanding and wonderful ministry of serving food to the poor becomes today a nationwide ministry among the Episcopal church." [01:02:54]
5. "And then it became this amazingly fun thing to try to think about organizations and people and churches and congregations that meant so much to me, and I thought, you know, and it didn't feel like a sense of, you know, robbing my children or something like that. I don't think. It felt like this sense of. You know, that there was more than enough. And here's a question. Why do we have to wait till we die to do that?" [48:35]
Ask a question about this sermon
1. "Have you ever felt, just lately, I don't know, the last four or five years, yourself kind of twirling the drain in a sense of angst about this world, about what happens next, you know, the global warming, the balkanization even here in America, and especially here in America, the sort of the sad outlook for life. Have you ever felt that way? This is the antidote. An antidote of thanksgiving and blessing." [55:21]
2. "We are the first, really the first, probably in the first century, in all the centuries of human existence, who haven't had to worry for 90% of our existence about what we're going to eat. Everybody before us had to be constantly worried about gathering and growing and preparing and feeding themselves and nurturing themselves." [55:21]
3. "I had this vision of all the tributaries and streams of our lives coming together in this mighty rushing river and flowing over the cliff like this. The Niagara Falls or something, that's what we are. We're a torrent of God's grace and love, and the kinds of things we can do." [57:00]
4. "One of the things that I think about God is that God is a bit of a showboat. That God likes to, there's several times in the Old Testament in particular where God says, I really want them to know it's me. I really want them to know it's me that's up to this." [51:16]
### Quotes for Members
1. "Paul is writing in 2 Corinthians to the various churches that he plans to visit on his final missionary tour for a collection. And he's collecting money. He's collecting money, make no doubt, but he's also collecting money as a symbol, not only of the help that it can do for the Jerusalem church, but as a symbol of unity." [52:13]
2. "What he says is, I pray just like the offering is not primarily about money, God says the real reason here is so that you can be generous on every occasion. I love that line. On every occasion, not just a few occasions, not just on one special occasion, but that your life can be defined by this generosity, that you have been enriched, enriched, not as a blessing that you can celebrate for your own personal enrichment, but so that you can generously give." [53:41]
3. "What will happen is it will burst into an overflowing of gratitude and thanksgiving to God. But that's what happens here, that this generosity begets a kind of overwhelming sense of gratitude." [55:21]
4. "The primary concern is, having been enriched in this way, what is the opportunity that God has placed before us to be a channel of God's grace? And so one outstanding and wonderful ministry of serving food to the poor becomes today a nationwide ministry among the Episcopal church." [01:02:54]
5. "And then it became this amazingly fun thing to try to think about organizations and people and churches and congregations that meant so much to me, and I thought, you know, and it didn't feel like a sense of, you know, robbing my children or something like that. I don't think. It felt like this sense of. You know, that there was more than enough. And here's a question. Why do we have to wait till we die to do that?" [48:35]
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