Why would somebody just give away a bunch of money to someone they hardly know? People like this are truly the Olympic athletes of generosity, aren’t they? Either these people are a little “off the beam” or they know something most others do not.
I suspect the latter…
Talking about generosity on a baptismal Sunday is particularly fitting. I believe baptism is a gorgeous metaphor for how Almighty God longs for us to view financial generosity. And yet I wonder how many of us properly understand the connection? We aren’t trying to protect our finances from our faith; we aren’t trying to hold our wallets out of the water. Our LORD Jesus longs for us to be baptized completely, maybe even especially our billfolds! Jesus longs to fully, completely set us free!But what does that mean?
As we close our brief study series on generous Christian living today, we come finally to the issue of treasure – money. In Luke 12, Jesus was teaching about worry and then closed his teaching by saying something truly shocking about money. While it is relatively easy for us to distance ourselves from Jesus’ interaction with the rich young ruler, it is impossible to separate ourselves from our passage today. While Jesus may well have said what he said to the rich, young ruler to address a particularly greedy young man’s heart, what Jesus says here in Luke 12 is addressed to every single one of us. There is no escaping our passage today.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
As I read and study this passage, I find myself asking exactly the same question I asked myself last week – does God honestly expect us to risk it all? Does our passage mean that? And when we are specifically and shockingly told in Malachi 3:10 to “test God” and see if we can outdo His generosity, is God saying what it appears he’s saying? When Jesus told us in Luke 6:38 that we are to “give and it will be given to us – good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over,” are we to take him literally? What did the wise teacher mean in Proverbs 11:25 when he said “a generous person will prosper?” I know we need to be careful to distinguish between principles and promises, but even as principles, are these really true?
Is it possible the Bible’s call to radically generous living has every bit as much to do with my freedom and fullest enjoyment of this life as it does with keeping the lights on in the church, and good food available for those in need? Is God just trying to pay bills or is God trying to set me free from a terrible, utterly debilitating life of financial bondage? Wow! Is it just possible financial generosity might be more important for me than for the recipients of my generosity?
I think so. I think that’s it exactly. I believe there are three simple principles Jesus was trying to get across to us all in this passage.
Generously Unafraid
And the first of those principles relates to fear. While I deeply believe God cares deeply about the poor, I believe this entire generosity conversation revolves around releasing us from fear. It is no accident that our teaching today was woven into a passage about worry. God wants to release us from worry and fear – and one of the best places to begin that releasing process is by calling each one of us to radically and generously trust him with our finances.
As we test God’s generosity as the prophet Malachi taught us, as Jesus taught us, as all of Scripture teaches, we will slowly but surely begin to discover the principle works. Slowly but surely, our fears will disappear as we discover God does fully intend to bless those who place their trust in Him. And we aren’t just talking about financial blessing – but all sorts of blessing.
I wonder – how much of our fear in life revolves around our wealth and possessions? Who has more to worry and fret about – the man with fifteen gorgeous sports cars or a fellow utterly content riding the bus? What sort of freedoms do I surrender and terrible fears do I embrace with a massive mortgage, a huge car payment and a whole bunch of other expensive toys? What sort of employment must I have in order to sustain a lavishly selfish lifestyle? How fearfully do I live when I won’t live simply? How fearlessly can I live when stuff doesn’t matter?
The generous life ends up being a fearless life. Jesus longs for us to be set free to live fearlessly! And who doesn’t want that? Who wouldn’t honestly love that sort of life?
Generously Blessed
The second principle is intimately interwoven with the first. Jesus didn’t just tell us not to fear; he gave us ample reason not to fear. We are not to be afraid because our Father was pleased to give us the kingdom. We are generously fearless because we know we have been lavishly and generously blessed. Just as we said last week – we are unafraid of losing because we have already won! And for everyone sitting here this morning, this blessing is two-fold.
We are not afraid to be radically generous because we know we already have a mansion reserved for us. We’ve got a home in gloryland that outshines the sun! And that isn’t just pie in the sky talk – that is existential reality coloring every decision we make. Selfishly clamoring after the petty trinkets of this world seems pretty pointless when we understand God’s kingdom plans for our future. Don’t you think? If I know I’m going to Murray’s for a Silver Butter Knife steak, garlic bread and cheesecake for supper this evening (purely hypothetically!), am I really going to fight you for the last McDonald’s French fry on the table at lunchtime? I love French fries as much as the next guy, but this really isn’t a fair fight. I’ve got glory waiting for me! I can afford to be radically and fearlessly generous because I really don’t care that much about the stuff this world has to offer. I have seen this evening’s menu! I’ve seen kingdom!
When my girls were very little, we spent a lot of time in a very nice Hilton hotel in Quito, Ecuador while I was on a military mission there. One of the things the girls loved about this lovely hotel were the delicious chocolates the maids would leave on the pillow each evening. The girls got in the habit of fighting to be the first through the door to get first shot at the chocolates. Months later, we stayed at a beautiful, very luxurious timeshare condominium on vacation back in the States. The girls pushed each other through the door as always, only to sadly discover no chocolates hidden anywhere in the condo. And as Monica and I walked in behind them, we heard one of our now spoiled little girls loudly exclaim, “What sort of dumpy hotel doesn’t have chocolates on the pillows?!” When you’ve experienced the best, everything else pales by comparison. We’ve got the best waiting for us – why selfishly fight for scraps?
And for those of us in these United States, there is another enormous dimension to this blessing conversation. Not only has our Heavenly Father blessed us with the kingdom, but we have been wildly blessed in this kingdom. We can afford to be radically generous not only because we’ve got something better coming soon, but also simply because we can literally afford to be generous. We are embarrassingly wealthy compared to the rest of the world.
Steve Anderson from the national office of the BGC/Converge Worldwide, who is coming here on April 10-11th to conduct a “Financial Survival Retreat,” sent me a great sermon on Christian generosity. In this sermon, he mentioned a website called www.globalrichlist.com. Using statistical data compiled from the World Bank Development Group, this website will tell you exactly where your family income stands compared to the rest of the planet. Do you know what I discovered? I discovered my family is wealthier than 99.15% of the planet! And this calculation doesn’t even include our multimillion dollar Swiss bank accounts, collection of exotic Kias or BGC Retirement Fund! Using data from the Percept study of Northeast Minneapolis, the average family income of our neighborhood is wealthier than 99.06% of the planet. And yet, even though we are this ridiculously wealthy, we still spend 97.4% of our income on ourselves.
We can afford to be lavishly generous because we have not only been given the eternal kingdom of God; we have been given the kingdom here on earth. We can afford generosity.
Generously Investing
And that brings us to third, final and most obvious principle Jesus longs for us to see. Because we have been set free from fear, because we have both spiritually and quite literally been given the kingdom, Jesus calls on each one of us to invest wisely and generously. While we certainly enjoy the pleasures of this life as much as anyone, we don’t feverishly, selfishly clamor after the sports cars and French fries this world has to offer – we are “providing purses for ourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” Even though the world will never understand this, our LORD Jesus longs for us to understand basic kingdom economics. Jesus longs to set us free! Investing our treasures selfishly, spending everything we can possibly gain only on ourselves and fearfully hoarding stuff away is just poor investment practice. To use the blunt language of business, the ROI on that behavior is lousy. As Rick Warren has famously and frequently said, we must understand that we “can’t take any of it with us, but we sure can send it on ahead!”
We don’t generously invest the treasures God has given us because we feel guilty for being so rich. We don’t generously invest because God is short of cash. We don’t generously invest because money and toys are evil. We generously invest because it is simply smart to do so! We generously invest because it is fun to do so! We generously invest because we display the generous heart of our God to the world in doing so. We generously invest because trying to selfishly hoard everything for ourselves just gets really hard and pointless after a while. We generously invest because we long for freedom both for ourselves and for those around us. We generously invest because only in giving things away can we ever meaningfully save anything for ourselves. We behave as we do simply because we would rather “send things on ahead.”
Folks, we aren’t interested in holding our wallets out of the water. Whether we actually feel called to sell our possessions or not isn’t the issue. What matters is our attitude towards all we have been given. What matters is that we understand we need to fully baptize our billfolds along with the rest of our lives. The closing sentence of Jesus’ teaching says it all. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. My heart longs to be set free from bondage. My heart longs to be fearless. My heart longs to experience the full, exciting generosity of God – I want to take these amazing Malachi money principles for a run and see what Almighty God will do with my life. I want to fully experience God’s best blessings, not just earthly trinkets.
The path to all these good things is a radically generous one.
May Almighty God use these trying economic times to remind us of all the things we know to be true about the generous lives our LORD longs for us to enjoy! May we radically sell everything we have and everything we are that we might freely find our heart’s true home!
Amen.
