Generosity
We have been working our way through Genesis, as part of a deep dive into scripture. I was talking about Abraham in my last sermon, before Easter, well actually, before cafe church. I talked on Abraham’s journey being a journey of faith and that the journey of faith is ours also as heirs to God’s promise.
I Hope you all had a great Easter, the opportunity I had to preach three times over Easter was for me a real privilege. The whole idea of what Jesus did for us all at Easter to me is mind boggling and changed my whole life, prior to coming to Jesus my life was one of worry and darkness that changed to one of freedom from worry and being directed into God’s light, super bright light that has and continues to illuminate my path. If you are sitting there thinking I’m a bit lacking in some area, you would be surprised by the improvement from who was before I came to Christ. When we commit our ways to him, he is faithful to us. Not to say I’ve landed yet.
In the next four weeks, we going to tackle in part a topic that links us into God’s promises, the first example of this being in Genesis after Abraham rescued Lot and his family from the invading Kings. What occurs, well let's read it Genesis 14:16-20. There will be some discussion on God’s abundant provision and how we respond to that, using our time, talents and resources. Be warned there will be some reference to money.
But back to Abraham and his response after the rescue of Lot.
16 He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people.
17 After Abram returned from defeating [King] Kedorlaomer [which incidentally sounds like a medical condition]and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).
18 Then Melchizedek, king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, 19 and he blessed Abram, saying,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth.
20 And praise be to God Most High,
who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
This is the first example in scripture of someone giving a percentage of what they had had to a priest of God.
An interesting thing here is that in scripture Melchizedek is given the name King of Salem and Priest of The Most-High God, Salem is the city of Jerusalem by an earlier name. Salem/Jeru-salem. Melchizedek’s name incidentally means the “King of Righteousness.” A wee connection to Easter is that he brought Abraham bread and wine. Jesus many years later we know, would use these two things to describe his body that was soon to broken and his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins, at the last supper.
It is no wonder that Jesus is compared with Melchizedek by the writer of Hebrews in Chapter 7. For those of you who are taking notes I will leave you to refer to the matter in the letter to the Hebrews at home, or on the train.
As we are doing a deep dive into scripture this is an opportunity to dive into the subject of God’s ownership of all things and how we respond to his ownership. I could tackle this as a one-off meeting, but the teaching on the subject works well with some Territorial resources that we have accessed from THQ.
To be completely up front we are going to look at the subject of God’s generosity to us along with the subject of our response to his generosity. In that God has entrusted us with everything we have, our time, talents, and possessions. As we respond to him with our time, our talents and our treasures he abundantly enhances our lives with peace, relationships, community and other spiritual blessings, we serve a generous God.
I am using some material provided by THQ, including a 21-day devotional that I will hand out today, You may already have it, the devotional is a dive into scriptures that relate to God’s generosity and our response to what he has given us, I would ask that you use the devotional over the next three weeks and prayerfully consider it. There is no pressure in this teaching. I will also refer to some teaching by Dr Harry Wendt. As some of you will know we have used some of Dr Harry’s “Bible’s Big Story and See through the Scriptures” material. Dr Harry was a very good teacher of scripture, a Lutheran pastor and scholar. We had the privilege of meeting Dr Harry at BCM during our training. He was a very wise Biblical teacher, who produced the see through the scriptures and Bibles Big story material that we have used some illustrations from in our preaching.
When we understand the concepts of God’s provision and then respond to Him, we come to understand and experience that there is something that happens in the spiritual in response to our actions in the physical and visa-versa.
I will start this series by saying this as a personal testimony, When I got my own understanding of God being to quote The Salvation Army Doctrine: “That we believe that there is only one God, who is infinitely perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and who is the only proper object of religious worship.” Things for me leveled out/came right in my spiritual life. I can testify that Luke 6:38 has happened for me; I read it from the American Standard Version of the Bible which is a very close translation; I’m about to quote Jesus, and I’m not talking about just money here, God has given us all talents, skills, abilities that we can
“give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.” These are the words of Jesus and Jesus is faithful to his promises. For some, the measure given back may be physical, in my case it has been physical and spiritual, but it is seen and experienced in my life, and in personal life change as I have seen the fruits of The Holy Spirit develop in a life that was pretty messed up. I guess that some of you have a similar testimony.
Dr Harry In his material “in Heavens Name, Why on Earth? A New Testament approach to Stewardship and Life Management”, approaches the issue really well. This is not about getting dollars out of your pockets and into the Corps coffers; this is about Stewardship and Life Management.
Interestingly Dr Harry points out:
Firstly, people cannot give anything to God. God is the Maker and Owner of all things. God gives people nothing; he entrusts people with abilities and goods. We humans merely manage and distribute what belongs to God.
Second, all of life is to be a giving, serving process.
I really admire the people who aren’t in those roles that are seen, the people who serve behind the scenes using their gifts of hospitality.
Genesis 3:20-21
Dr Harry talks about the naming of his book on the subject. He mentions that it would be useful if people could be taken to the surface of the moon, pointed back to planet Earth, and asked: “Where did that planet come from, and what are we doing on it?” That’s why he named his book, “In Heavens Name, Why on Earth?”
Dr Harry mentions “When we see things from this perspective, we begin to ask the questions that we need to ask.”
The scriptures that I want to look at today are incidentally part of the devotional are Romans 8:28-32
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
I would just like to point out that I am not preaching on predestination, but that God has shown his generosity in giving us Jesus, his most precious gift, who made a way for us where there was no way. We know and we have just celebrated Easter that, Jesus in his crucifixion made a way for us where there was no way, his body broken at the same time as the curtain was torn into in the Temple, making a way for us into the presence of God, into the Holy of Holies.
I don’t need to tell you that the Tawa Corps is here now due to the faith, the ongoing prayers and faithful provision of current and past members, friends, soldiers and officers as they gave their, time, talents and treasures in faith knowing that God would utilize what he had given them to give back to his work, for his Name and Kingdoms sake. If you are currently warming a seat here today, you are contributing to the Corps already by your presence as part of this worship community.
Jesus tells us this in Matthew 6:31-33
So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
From that we see that it is key for Christians to put God’s Kingdom first in our lives then we will have all we need to live lives that Jesus said are of God’s making, provision and abundance. Jesus is driving home the point that life is not just a physical thing and that our relationship with God, is to come first.
Jesus also taught this, Luke 12:23-24
For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!
Jesus’ teaching here is one of pointing us to God’s provision. I remember discussing this verse with a Methodist Minister, the Reverent Stuart Grant, when I was a young man, I mentioned how great it was that God provided for the birds, His reply was, “Yes, but he sure makes the little beggers peck for it.” The teaching of Jesus is around not worrying about our needs because God does provide, we also in our Corps help others through our weekly giving and the Island Dash, I also know that many of you are very generous in other ways with you time and resources.
There is something that occurs in our lives when we acknowledge God’s sovereignty in all aspects of our lives, our living and and thinking alters as we respond to him. For Abraham it was an earth changing heritage that was established a lineage that was and is God’s rescue plan not just for Lot and his family but for the whole of humanity through Jesus, for the whole lot of us. This week we still have the mercy seat open, if you would like to come to God in prayer for anything someone from our mercy seat team will come and pray with you. You may be worried about something, carrying a burden that can be left with God. The other thing I would like to suggest is to pray-fully work through and consider the devotional material. The devotional material is also an opportunity to join together with someone else in the Corps to study it, if that is another way that would work for some of you. Two plus people is a small group, and the material is also able to utilised by small groups.
Music team their talents if you wish to respond the mercy seat is available.
