The Grace of Generosity (Part 1) by Pastor Steve Lombardo 2 Corinthians 8:1–24

generosity is a spiritual discipline. You see that in verse seven. It's listed in in in in the same sentence as faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in your love. So it seems as if generosity action. It's not just giving of a gift, but it's an attitude of the heart. It's an attitude that all Christians, all people who claim the name of Christ should be practicing, it should be a discipline in their life, should be working on in their life. It's similar to the fruit of the spirit. Galatians chapter five verses twenty two and twenty three. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self control. [00:13:47] (43 seconds)  #GenerosityAsDiscipline

and and being rather cynical if I'd come into a church and hear some pastor tell me I needed to give money to something. What the apostle Paul's going to do today and next week. So, if you think you're only going to get one week of this, you got another week coming next week, chapter nine. Come back, please. Come back. It's gonna be great. You're gonna be greatly encouraged and blessed. But what the apostle Paul is gonna do this week is show us that the issue is not about an amount to give. The issue is about the generosity of a Christian's heart. [00:06:58] (35 seconds)  #HeartOverAmount

This is what god is calling us to. I jotted this down. A disciple of Jesus Christ is generous with his time, talents, and treasures. So let's not confuse this message and next week's message with a call to give, money, because it's it's not limited to giving of money, to giving of financial support. It's also your time. It's your service. It's your abilities. It's your strengths. It's working on your weaknesses. It's being part of a body of Christ serving and giving and and being generous with all the things that we have. So this passage reminds us here that a Christian is to be one who demonstrates their love by their generous living. Time, treasures, talents, all that god has given to us. [00:23:45] (61 seconds)  #TimeTalentsTreasures

Not only that, a few years before Paul writes this letter, there was a great famine in the land. And and there was a guy by the name of Agabas who shows up in Acts chapter 11, and he prophesied that there's gonna be a a great famine, and so there was a great famine. So that also was going on in the church and so the apostle Paul is taking up offerings not for himself, not for his PTL ministries, not for his private jet, but he's taking up money to help other believers who are genuinely hurting and in need. [00:10:58] (35 seconds)  #GivingInCrisis

It's what the Old Testament outlines that the people would give a tithe to the Lord 10%. If you give 10% or more to the to the Lord's work here at Village Bible Church or around the world, wherever, God bless you. That's an awesome thing to set a standard for yourself, maybe to increase it every year. That's wonderful. But I'm not gonna make something that's not a command of god for the New Testament, for the church, something to be legalistically followed. We're not gonna demand a tithe or or or to support this ministry or or the next because the amount is not the important thing. The important thing is the heart behind the gift. And and god calls us to be generous, not as a demand but as a spiritual discipline. [00:18:35] (50 seconds)  #HeartNotTithe

I'm not demanding this. We have to be careful as a church, as a people of god, to not be legalistic in this area of giving, in any area of our life, by the way. Legalism is saying that you've gotta do this in order for god to accept you. You gotta give this amount in order to be a good Christian. You gotta support this ministry in order to get god's blessing here. That's not what the apostle Paul is saying here. He said, I'm not demanding it. I'm not commanding that you'd give this amount. Some Christians will say, well, you gotta give a tithe. A tithe is 10%. [00:17:53] (41 seconds)  #SayNoToLegalism

Now to give you a little background before we look at the text, I just wanna start here that Jesus talked a lot about the subject of generosity. In the whole Bible, there's 2,350 verses concerning generosity and money. This is roughly twice as many verses than on the subject of prayer and faith combined. Jesus in his 38 parables, 16 of them were about stewardship and generosity and treasures. Why? Because the wealth is important, the treasures are important. No. It's because what we do with those things reveal what's in our heart. [00:07:33] (40 seconds)  #StewardshipRevealsHeart

The Jews in Jerusalem who were believers were really doubly canceled because they weren't only canceled by the culture around them. They were also canceled by their own family members. Some of the Jews, when their family member would pursue Christ and believe in Jesus as the Messiah, they would actually hold a funeral for that family member. You're dead to me. You cannot disown our faith, our Judaism. You cannot believe in this false Messiah Jesus. And so they were canceled not only just from the culture, but they were canceled by their own family and loved ones. [00:10:21] (38 seconds)  #FaithOverRejection