Series: Generosity Lessons #3 Texts: II Sam. 24:18-25, Ruth 1:15-18, Mk. 1:16-20 Valley Community Baptist Church Nov. 12/13, 2011 Pastor Jay Abramson

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1 Series: Generosity Lessons #3 Texts: II Sam. 24:18-25, Ruth 1:15-18, Mk. 1:16-20 Valley Community Baptist Church Nov. 12/13, 2011 Avon, CT Pastor Jay Abramson Generosity in Full Bloom She was born Lena Mindy Rosenthal and from her earliest remembrances, she wanted to be rich. She dropped out of high school to seek her fortune at a variety of jobs, eventually becoming a real estate broker in New York City. By 1970, Lena now Leona was a wealthy, chain-smoking workaholic on her third marriage. Her latest husband was multi-millionaire real estate investor, Harry Helmsley. Together, they built a real estate empire that included some of the grandest buildings in New York including the Empire State Building. They were billionaires. But were they rich? How do you define rich? In terms of money, yes, Leona Helmsley was very wealthy. After Harry died, she was worth more than 5 billion. But by all accounts, she had zero friends. This may have had something to do with her behavior. For example, when her only child, Jay, died of a heart attack at 42, Leona sued his estate for money she said he owed her. The litigation expense wiped out her daughter-inlaw s finances so Leona had her and her four children (Leona s only grandchildren), evicted from the apartment they lived in which she owned. Upon her own death, Leona left $5 million to her dog, Trouble, and the rest to a trust fund for other dog organizations. i Jesus gave us a warning. He said: Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. (Luke 12:15) Then, what does a man s or a woman s life consist of? Tonight/today, I want us to examine the lives of several people from Scripture who easily qualify as having lived generous lives. One of these was financially wealthy, four were middle class and one was desperately poor. But they all lived generous lives and because of that, according to Jesus, they each were fabulously rich. Let s meet them one by one. The first is I. David: A Wealthy Man Who Generously Shared His Treasure. Most of us have heard it said that as Christians we should generously share our time, talent and treasure. These stories illustrate that truth. David, of course, was not always a wealthy man. As a boy, he had been a shepherd which in his culture was the rough equivalent in our culture of a garbage collector. But he was divinely chosen to be king of his country. But even then, before he took the throne, he lived as a fugitive, hiding in caves from the former king who was trying to kill him. So, David was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth by any means. Even so, as Leona Helmsley illustrates, not everyone who comes from humble beginnings remembers what it was like and therefore is motivated to be a generous person. But David, even after he became a fabulously wealthy king, remained humble and generous. This story we read earlier illustrates that. 1

2 David was old. He actually had done a foolish thing that caused the Lord to send an angel with a plague of death upon the people. This broke David s heart and he cried out to the Lord: (II Sam. 24:17) I am the one who has sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall upon me and my family. At the moment that David prayed those words, the angel was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite which was north of David s palace on Mount Moriah. The prophet Gad told David to go to that spot and build an altar there and offer a sacrifice. Then, the plague would stop. But when David went, Araunah offered to give the land to David, along with the oxen and wood needed to perform the sacrifice. But David refused the gift. He said to Araunah: No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing. (II Sam. 24:24) Let me make two observations here. First, geography is significant to God. Another important sacrifice took place on this exact location; do you know what it was? Abraham raised the knife to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on this same place. Now, David will offer a sacrifice to end the wrath of God on his people here as well. Eventually, the Temple will be built on this same location and once a year, on the Day of Atonement, blood will be sprinkled on the Mercy Seat for the forgiveness of the sins of all the people of God. Jerusalem is built around this specific location, Mount Moriah. That is why it is God s favorite city. This sacred ground tells the story of God s great desire to pour out His mercy on humble people. The second observation is this: God s generosity towards us comes at a great price. The episode with Abraham willingly offering his son Isaac as a sacrifice is a picture of what God would do with His only son, Jesus, 2,000 years later. David fully understands this principle of costly generosity. By definition, it is not generosity if your gift costs you nothing! David knew EXACTLY where he was standing! This is the place where our Father Abraham, was willing to pay the ultimate price, to offer his son in blind obedience to God. I know this place! I know what happened here! I will not dishonor or desecrate this holy ground with a sacrifice that costs me nothing! That s what David was saying. Have you ever considered giving something to God that cost you little or nothing? Have you ever thought, You know, I ve owned this stock, this sofa, this vehicle for ten years. I think I ve gotten all the benefit I can get out of it. What can I do with it now? I know, I ll give it to the church! That way, I ll get rid of a worn-out investment and I can take a tax write-off as well! That s not something that pleases God. Why not? Because it isn t generous. The agricultural offerings in the Old Testament all had to be the first fruit, the best of the crop, the sheep and goats with no blemishes. Why? Is God arrogant? Is God like Leona Helmsley, unconcerned about how difficult it is for us to give anything? NO! It s just the opposite! God wants to keep us from BECOMING Leona Helmsley!! God doesn t need any of our gifts! He s trying to help us learn that without giving we will become friendless, isolated, miserably sad people. But if we will learn to give and give sacrificially, giving that which DOES cost us, we will not only please God but we will see God s wrath diverted and His blessings flow, not just to our generation but to generations to come. Do you recognize where you are standing whenever you come to worship? 2

3 You re on the Mount of Decision. What kind of a person will you choose to be Leona or David? Choose David generously share your treasure with God. Generosity of your treasure measures your love. Our second story is II. Ruth: A Woman of Poverty Who Shared Her Only Possession Time. Ruth is not Jewish. She s from Moab. She had married one of Naomi s sons who died. When Naomi, who s husband had also died, decided to return to Israel, Ruth chose to go with her. Naomi tried to talk her out of it because she knew how difficult it would be for a foreign, single woman in Israel. But Ruth would not hear of it. It s at this point that Ruth says to Naomi: Don t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me. (Ruth 1:16, 17) Ruth is demonstrating a second generosity principle here. It is this: generosity of time measures your commitment. Time has become our most expensive commodity, hasn t it? It s easier for most people to part with their money than with their time. Why are we so stingy with our time? Isn t it because we ve come to believe that if we aren t busy we aren t of value? Dr. Richard Swenson, in his excellent book, The Overload Syndrome, writes this: We ve come to believe that activity is all that counts, everything else being sloth. If we are not busy, we are not of value. Where did this notion come from? And why is it so strongly resident within us? ii It s not that busyness and activities are bad in and of themselves. It s just that if we choose to spend all our time with work, by default we are stealing time from relationships. Jesus had a busy schedule when you read His story in the Bible, but did He ever seem to be in a hurry? No. Did He have time to be interrupted? Yes. In Matt. 9:27 it says, As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him This was His constant experience. He was regularly interrupted by a blind man, or a lame man, or a child, or you name it. His ministry was one interruption after another. Jesus had no money to be generous with but He was amazingly generous with His time. Are you growing to be like Jesus in that regard? I have to admit, this is a big challenge for me. I like to stay on schedule. Liz is so much better at this than I am. Liz loves to be interrupted! Whether you love it or it s a challenge for you, are you willing to be generous with your time? Dr. Jennifer Glass of the University of Iowa says that it now takes 20 to 30 phone calls in the average church to get the same number of volunteers as it used to take 2 to 3 calls. iii Is our busyness really pleasing to God? A. W. Tozer makes this observation: How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none. Eternal years lie in His heart. For Him time does not pass, it remains; and those who are in Christ share with Him all the riches of limitless time and endless years. God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves. 3

4 For those out of Christ, time is a devouring beast; before the sons of the new creation time crouches and purrs and licks their hands. iv Ruth knew the voice of busyness. She heard it in her head, Get out of bed, Ruth! If you don t find a job, you re gonna die of hunger! You ve made a commitment Ruth, to your mother-in-law. You ve got mouths to feed! Get out there, work, work, work! Ruth knew how time could be a beast. But Ruth also knew of Naomi s God and she was becoming more and more accustomed to trusting Him. The more she trusted, the more she saw Him work. Most of you know the story. God graciously guided Ruth to the field of Boaz who not only took pity on her but eventually married her. For both Ruth and Naomi, time was no longer a beast. before the [daughters] of the new creation time crouches and purrs and licks their hands. If you trust only in yourself and your own abilities, time will always be a beast. But if you will fully trust in Christ, increasingly you ll find time to be a pussycat. To live generously is to choose to graciously give of our time to teach, to serve, to sing, to cook, to live for the glory of God. Generosity with your time is a very clear measure of your commitment to Christ Himself. Lastly, we see III. Disciples: Talented Men Who Used Their Talents for Christ s Kingdom. We all know these familiar verses: (Mark 1: 16, 17) As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men. The first thing most Americans ask when they read these verses is, Does this mean that these guys went into full-time ministry? We ask that because in our culture there is such a thing. And believe me, I m personally very grateful that it s possible to devote 100% of my time to ministry and not have to have another job just to pay the bills. But back then, and even in most parts of the third world today, full-time ministry wasn t and isn t possible. But, it doesn t really say how the disciples paid their bills. Their extended families probably helped, or, like the apostle Paul, they did something like make and sell tents on the side. But here s the deal why do we ask that question? It apparently wasn t a big deal to them. They never brought up the issue of a salary. Once the church was created, then, yes; God made it clear that pastors were to be supported through the offerings, but this was before the church existed. So, the disciples did not choose to follow Jesus because of the money. They could see, He didn t have any! And they didn t decline because Jesus didn t offer them money. They were following Him for another reason all together. Peter put it into words one day when Jesus asked all of them if they wanted to leave, like some other people were doing. Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. (John 6:68, 69) They believed and they knew who Jesus was, that He had the words of eternal life and was the Holy One of God; that and that alone is why they generously gave their talents to His cause. They considered it a privilege to be ALLOWED to participate in the work of Christ. The principle we see here is this: generosity of our talent measures our humility. 4

5 One of the things that is most exciting to me about this church is the large number of people who are using their talents for the work of Christ. Physicians going on short-term trips to practice medicine, teachers teaching in other cultures, regular people giving their time and talent to tutor students in Hartford or visit the sick or lead a huddle group here on Wednesday nights. Do you see what you re doing? You re doing exactly what the first disciples did. Jesus said, Come, and you ve come. You re following, you re obeying, you re using your gifts to build His kingdom. And He is using all these individual acts of obedience to give eternal life to men and women, young and old. Yes, most of you have to do other things to pay the bills, but your work is no less important than mine. Brick by brick, we are building the kingdom of God. Each brick is an eternal soul. This is the Temple of Praise that will never be torn down and one day in glory it will ring with songs of worship. So, how about those of you who haven t joined in yet? The invitation from Christ still stands. Will you come? Will you follow? Will you help erect this Temple of Praise? A good place to start is with our Valley Community Service Day. I mentioned it last week, and let me explain it again this week. December 3, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. We ve secured opportunities to bless our region with the love of Christ. You can sign up solo, with a friend or with your family. A list of the opportunities is out at the Community Service desk. This is just one day, but it makes a statement to our community. It says, We care about people. We care about YOU - your body, mind and soul. They won t listen to Jesus Words of Life, until they know that someone cares. Once they know we care, then, they ll listen. And here s another way we can speak the gospel with our actions. We ve reprinted our Generosity Cards. The idea is this: look for a way to simply bless an individual anonymously. You could do it by sweeping their driveway or raking their leaves while they re not home. Or, at a drive thru, you could pay for the car behind you. Or, just leave a container of cookies at your neighbor s door. Then, you leave one of these Generosity Cards for them to read. On one side it simply has this photograph (the banner). On the other side it says this: This is a free gift. There are no strings attached. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. Because God has been so generous to me, I want to share that generosity with others. God really does care about what s happening in your life. I hope this brightens your day! Who do you know who could really use a taste of God s generosity? What if we all did one of these this week? This storm has really stressed out a lot of people, have you noticed? If we all did one generous thing this week, would our community be different next week? Do you think that this might soften a person s heart to consider the love of Christ? I do. Will you join Liz and me in asking Christ to make us more like Him, more generous with our time, talent and treasure? If we will, I m confident that even though we re heading into another New England winter, we ll see in our community, generosity in full bloom! Let s pray 5

6 i Chuck Bentley, The Root of Riches (Gainesville: Foriam Publishers, 2011), p. 3, 4 ii Dr. Richard Swenson, The Overload Syndrome (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1998), p. 66 iii Ibid., p. 65 iv A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1961), p. 52, 53 6