Embracing Generosity: Giving Beyond Expectations

Thank you. Nothing will stop me, absolutely well. I'm going to welcome those online. I'm conscious they won't hear a thing if I don't have this microphone in good working order.

Great, let's get into the Word. Let's go straight into it. We're going to do the book of Corinthians, Corinthians chapter eight. We're going to read the first seven verses. The scriptures will come up on the screen.

And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people. And they exceeded our expectations. They gave themselves first of all to the Lord and then, by the will of God, also to us.

So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

We're coming to the end of our seven-part summer teaching series called "Lifestyle." I'm smiling because the end of the summer teaching series and summer hasn't quite arrived in Scotland yet, has it? But we know what's happening. The kids are going to go back to school a week on Tuesday or Wednesday, and then someone’s going to hit Glasgow and Central Scotland because that’s just how it very often happens.

But over from the end of June, up until today, we have looked at the seven core values. These are the non-negotiable characteristics that reflect and define who we are as a church family. And we have looked at availability. Lewis placed a great word last week on God’s not so much interested in our ability, but our availability.

So, availability. We looked at community. We looked at expectancy. We looked at humility. We looked at maturity. The only first one we began with was unity because without unity, we haven’t got much as a local church family. How good and pleasant it is, said the psalmist, when the people of God live and dwell together in unity.

Today, the seventh one is generosity. And next Sunday, we're welcoming back Paul and Haney with a team from Bethel from the States. And then Sharon's going to be bringing a message just to underpin the series.

But I had a revelation on my holidays. I thought there’s a missing core value. There’s actually eight. For the last few years, we’ve had seven core values, but there’s one that’s still to come that is vital. But I’m not going to tell you what it is this morning. I’m going to keep you guessing until the last Sunday in August. Okay? And there’ll be a prize if you can work out what it is. I’ll bring a prize with me that morning. And because generosity is one of our values, it will be a good prize, not a cheap prize. Okay?

So, answers on a postcard, email in to the church office info@gatewaychurchglasgow.com. Availability, community, expectancy, humility, maturity, unity, generosity, and one other.

Today is my privilege to speak on generosity. I didn’t always think that as a young pastor. I struggled preaching on this subject about giving. And let me just put the disclaimer right at the start. It’s not just about money. Okay?

But hear me this morning, church. As a pastor of over 30 years now in Scotland, you can’t function as a local church in a local house without money. We’ve seen God do some amazing financial miracles in this church. Amazing miracles because I believe from even before we took on the church, the DNA of this house was the spirit of generosity.

You see, it’s not how much we give at times. It’s the manner, the method, and the motivation behind our giving. The widow lady who came to the temple one day as Jesus was watching the people put their offerings in—that’s a very interesting Bible passage, isn’t it? Can you imagine as the bags went round today or you were pressing your online offering giving and in the course of the week, that someone was looking over your shoulder at what you put in? That would be interesting.

Maybe the tithes and the offerings would go up in every church if we adopted that. We’re not going to do it, relax. But this little lady emptied everything she had, two little coins worth just, oh, pennies. And Jesus says this lady has given more than all of you because you’re giving out of your wealth and out of what you have. That was everything she had to live on. And she gave generously, totally, completely to God.

I struggled at times as a young pastor, preaching on this subject because I thought, well, I’m paid by the church and it’s almost like I’m looking for a pay rise. Now, I had to be delivered and set free from talking about—seriously, I had to look at myself in the mirror and convince myself that it’s okay to talk now and then. I don’t want to talk about it every week, but to talk about giving and generosity.

I always brought someone in to do the giving generosity talk until the Lord convicted me. So, this morning is generosity.

Stories told of the Christian guy who died and he goes to heaven and he’s met by Peter at the pearly gates. And as Peter gave him a tour of heaven—I don’t know what heaven’s gonna look like. One day I’ll experience it like you will. But Peter gave this guy a tour of heaven, and as Peter’s showing him the sights of heaven, one of his friends went past in a top-of-the-range BMW or Mercedes car.

And Peter said to this guy, “Your transport in heaven is dependent on your generosity while you lived on earth.” And the guy thought, “Oh, I’ve been a generous Christian. I can’t wait to see what my mode of transport is.”

And so Peter says, “In the corner, that’s your transport for eternity in heaven.” And it was a Honda motor scooter. And the guy was absolutely gutted because his friend got a top-of-the-range BMW; he just had a motor scooter. And for a few days, he was walking about heaven feeling totally depressed until one week later, Peter saw him smiling and laughing as he was talking with his friends.

And Peter said, “You’re feeling better now?” When the guy says, “Absolutely, I felt better ever since I saw my pastor go past on a skateboard the other day.” (laughs)

Generosity. I want to say we can’t outgive God. If you forget everything I say this morning, none of us, even the most generous man or woman in this house, can never outgive God.

John Wesley, talking about a generous lifestyle, once said this: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” There’s a lot of cans in that phrase.

Generosity. We can never outgive God. No, we cannot talk about giving and generosity without centering it on the Lord because our God is a generous God. No, He’s more than a generous God. Generosity is not something that God does and act. It is something that He is. He is a superabundant, generous God.

I often say the first time God gave, it took Him six days to stop. As He created heaven and earth, and the population in it, the animals, and so on. But the most generous gift of all in Scripture is found in John 3:16, in a Bible verse that every single one of us probably know in church today, if we love Jesus.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave.” Come on, I can’t hear you this morning, church. “For God so loved the world, that He gave.” A bit louder this morning. “For God so loved the world, that He gave.”

“His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” The greatest, most generous act and gift of all time was when Jesus, God’s Son, left heaven, came to this earth, lived for 33 years, and died on a cross freely and willingly to take your sin and my sin upon His body on that tree.

And three days later, was raised back to life by God, defeating death, hell, darkness, the grave, Satan himself, and opened up the way for people like you and I to get to know God. Because Christianity is not rules and regulations. It’s not a list of “Do this and do that” in a spiritual sense. It’s a relationship with God the Father through Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

I’m so glad this morning that God, in giving Jesus, gave the most generous gift of all. And I believe as His followers today, as His present-day Christ followers, we have to be generous. It is as simple as that.

And when Lois and I—by the way, Lois is on a plane right now. She was in Italy for four days with our youngest daughter, Suzanne... (audience laughs) Pause for sympathy. That I’ve been at home for the last four days, chief cook and bottle washer, while they’ve been enjoying Italian cuisine and hitting the beaches. And they went to Florence for a day and all the architecture and the lovely culture. I was cutting the grass and making my own dinner. Pause for sympathy.

But yesterday I had a great day yesterday. That’s another story. We won’t go there. We won’t go there. But the back road’s doing somersaults right now, I can see. And I pick her up this afternoon from the train station, I think it is.

I want to say that for Lois and I, we have been married 35 years, pastoring for over 30 years. We’ve tried, by the grace of God, to be intentionally generous, even when we didn’t have much money. We still don’t have much money, if I’m being totally honest.

But the reality is, from the times when we had next to nothing as a newly married couple, the one thing that we always made sure was that God got His money. And I’ve met people over the years that are into the tipping, not the tithing thing. Tipping God, not tithing.

Gateway Church, we do believe, if this is your church, if you’re putting your roots down here, we believe in giving a tithe of our money to God. And that’s not really being generous. That’s just His money. Generosity kicks in when we give the offerings over and above that.

And some people say, “I can’t quite give the tithe yet. I’ve got this on and that on.” But my heart is to give it. And because of maybe debt and because of bad life choices in the past, then come to faith in Jesus, they can’t tithe in the natural. That’s okay. It’s not rules and regulations. The important thing is heart, heart motivation, intentionally being generous, and giving to God what is His.

Who wants to be blessed by God this morning? Raise your hand right now. Hey, you want the blessing and favor of God in your life? Be intentionally generous. Not just with your money, but with your time, with your abilities, your energy, your talents. The spirit of generosity, I believe, is a doorway to blessing.

Proverbs 22:9 says, “A generous man or woman will himself or herself be blessed.” Winston Churchill once said this: “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”

And some of you are saying, “I hear what you’re saying, Andrew, but what does the Bible have to say?” Because, let’s face it, that’s our foundation stone, our rule book. The Bible has got an amazing amount to say about giving and generosity.

In the New Testament alone, 286 verses deal with faith. 185 verses center on hope. That was a great communion talk by Gordon this morning. He talked about hope. 285 times, 185 verses on hope. 733 verses on love. Not just one Corinthians 13 and the love chapter, all over the New Testament.

Did you know that there are 2,285 verses on giving and generosity? Chew that over with me this morning. That’s at least three times—maybe just over three times—that the New Testament deals with giving and generosity over faith, hope, and love. And yet, we talk all the time about faith, hope, and love in church. We very often miss out the giving, generosity side.

In the passage that we read in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, we’ve got an incredible passage of Scripture because when news reached a group of churches in Macedonia that there was a need in the church at Jerusalem, look at what verse 4 says. They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people.

So the Christians there heard there was a need in the church at Jerusalem, and even though they were poor—some of you say, “Well, maybe it was a wealthy church.” Maybe it was a church in Bearsden rather than Bridgerton. No, no, no, no, no. The church at Jerusalem was pretty poor. That’s what it says.

But it doesn’t matter what we have. It’s the releasing of what we have for the furtherance of the work of God and the kingdom of God that’s important. And the Macedonian Christians here urgently pleaded for the privilege of being able to give and help their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem.

Verse 2 of the passage we read says this: “In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.” I love it. They didn’t have much, and that’s okay. The desire of their heart was, “Lord, it’s yours. Take it. Bless these people. Bless my brothers and sisters in this church with a need that they have.”

Verse 5 says that they exceeded expectations in their giving. Verse 7 says they excelled in the grace of giving. You know, when we came here seven years ago, there wasn’t much money in the church. I’ll be totally honest. But we believed God from day one. Not only would He meet the need, but He would give above and beyond.

My definition of generosity is that we have enough to get by, with extra to bless others. And I love it that when missionaries and Christian organizations that we’ve partnered with come in like the church, you’ve been an amazing, amazing congregation. You give £3,000 in the after-church offering to the missionaries in the Philippines just a few weeks ago.

It was no hyped-up offering. It was just one Sunday we said, “Next weekend, the Domingos are going to be here. We’ll take our offering for the Philippines.” At the end, £3,000. Because in the DNA is intentional generosity. We can never outgive God.

Don’t nudge the person next to you right now and say, “We can’t outgive God.” It’s as simple as that. We can’t outgive God.

In 1846, there was a man born by the name of William Hartley. He was born in Lancashire in a Christian home. He attended a local Methodist church. In later years, he played the organ there, became a Sunday school teacher, and ultimately, the church treasurer.

He began his working life in his mom’s small grocery shop, and the business quickly expanded as they added a saltery. You’re saying, “What’s a saltery?” Well, in those days, provision stores, customers at that time could buy ready-salted food or have their own food salted because there was no refrigeration—there were no fridges and freezers at that point.

And so, it quickly took off. The business began to grow and expand. In 1871, Hartley’s Jam supplier became unreliable for the shop, and so he decided he would start his own jam business. And starting with just 12 people, Hartley produced his first 100 tons of jam, establishing a good reputation along the way.

He quickly relocated to Merseyside, near a fruit-growing farm, a sugar refinery, the Mersey docks, and a major railway line because his business acumen saw that they could expand bigger, faster, better if they did some of these changes. He was criticized by family and friends for being over-ambitious, but despite many setbacks, including the tragic death of their 19-month-old daughter, the business began to flourish exponentially.

But he established a key principle right at the start. He and his wife resolved to give away at least 10 percent of their gross income for religious and humanitarian purposes and to increase the giving in proportion to any increase in their income. He also honored God by maintaining the highest standards of manufacturing and treating his staff well.

Christian businessmen in the house this morning, hear these words: treating staff well. He built a village next to the factory to house workers. His workers at minimal rent, and each house had a front garden and running water. You’re saying, “What’s the big deal, Andrew? Most houses today have this.” But this is a couple hundred years ago. They were definitely Bear’s Den and not Bridgerton at that point. Let me tell you.

And the phenomenal success of Hartley’s Jam made him extremely wealthy. Does anyone eat Hartley’s Jam in this place? Some of the young ones are saying, “Who’s Hartley? What is jam?” I mean, I grew up with Hartley’s Jam. When I heard this story, I got so excited because I thought, “Here is a Christian businessman who honored God every step of the way.”

And as he put the right protocol in place, he was a generous guy who adopted biblical values and standards and gave generously. God bless them. Nothing has changed hundreds of years later. You want to be blessed of God? Live your right life. Have a daily walk with Jesus. Do the spiritual disciplines. But in the area of giving and generosity, do what the Bible says.

Let’s be intentionally generous. In 1908, he was knighted by King Edward VII. And on the outbreak of the Second World War, the chancellor of the exchequer at that time, David Lloyd George, formed a small group of the best business minds in the country to advise them on critical financial matters as the country was going into war. And Hartley was part of that group.

His influence goes way beyond the jam jars that may be in your fridge or your cupboards at home. When we become intentionally generous and we give the Bible way, the sky’s the limit, my friends. It’s as simple as that.

There was a man. Some called him mad. The more he gave, the more he had. (Laughter) That’s it. Now, you look at me, you thought, “He’s flipped his lid this morning.” Or, “Pastor Lois is away, he’s gone bonkers.”

I want to say that we can never outgive God. I’m going to close with the most profound and theological statement I’ve come out with in my seven years here, and it’s in the form of a poem, four lines, and some of you are going to have to hold on to your seats right now because this is so deep and so theologically profound that you’re going to be blown away.

Are you ready to summarize everything I’m trying to say this morning in a few sentences? It goes like this: “There was a man, some called him mad, the more he gave, the more he had.” That’s it.

Now you look at me, you thought, “He’s flipped his lid this morning.” Or, “Pastor Lois is away, he’s gone bonkers.” I want to say that we can never outgive God.

I also want to say we do not give to get back in return. That’s not the motivation behind our giving. But I found that when we give with the right method, manner, and motive, and are intentionally generous to bless, it comes back in a multiplicity of ways.

And my good friends on the front row are testimony to that. They’ve lived that lifestyle for many years. Alan and Margaret sewing and living by faith and blown away by what God does.

So, there was a man, some called him mad. The more he gave, the more he had. We can never outgive the Lord.

Let’s worship the Lord as we close off in just a moment.