Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, journey.
[00:00:03] Standing back here because that blue light made my shirt look cooler.
[00:00:07] Good to be with you guys. This is our fourth and final week with me up here yapping at you in a series called Unreasonable grace. We're in Second Corinthians 9, if you'd like to turn there, please. And happy Labor Day weekend to you.
[00:00:22] Labor Day weekend means three things.
[00:00:24] End of summer, beginning of school, opening of archery season, and here I am on the opening weekend with you.
[00:00:40] Love from my heart.
[00:00:42] Bob. Many months ago, by the way, many months ago, asked me if I'd preach on 2nd Corinthians 8, 9 and do it this week or this month, you know, actually in August. And I was like, yep. So month of August, got it. Yep, I'm in.
[00:00:56] And then a few weeks later, he gets back and goes, hey, could you, could we bump it, you know, a week?
[00:01:04] So you'd finish on Labor Day weekend.
[00:01:08] Finish on opening weekend, huh?
[00:01:12] Yep. Out of my love and generous heart, I'm gonna give up opening weekend of archery believing that God is going to bless me with the big one later in the season.
[00:01:26] So my motives might not be so pure.
[00:01:30] You know, one of the enemies of happiness and a hindrance to generosity is a little phrase, scarcity mindset.
[00:01:39] So we talk about a scarcity mindset versus an abundance mindset.
[00:01:44] So the scarcity mindset is, you know the word scarce, like there's not enough.
[00:01:50] Scarcity mindset views life as having limited resources and therefore there is intense competition.
[00:01:57] The abundance mindset is there's plenty, plenty of success and opportunity and growth for everybody. Scarcity, not enough, that makes everybody a competitor, makes everything. Win lose focuses on limits and lack and short term survival and that produces anxiety and stress and envy.
[00:02:20] Scarcity, abundance, more than enough to go around that makes people collaborators and collaborators not competitors. And we can do win, win. And the focus is on possibilities and growth and long term vision and success. And that produces in you gratitude and trust and excitement and, yeah, generosity.
[00:02:42] Now think about God for a moment. Even if you don't know God very well.
[00:02:48] Is God a God of scarcity or abundance?
[00:02:52] I mean, you know enough about God to go, yeah, he'd be the God of abundance. He's got it all and he gave it all.
[00:03:01] His grace is in abundance.
[00:03:04] The series is called Unreasonable Grace.
[00:03:08] Grace, unearned and undeserved kindness.
[00:03:15] And that's kind of unreasonable. In other words, it defies reason.
[00:03:20] It's almost unbelievable that he would be that kind to us.
[00:03:25] So there's a church in Jerusalem over Here, it's the first church, very first church in the world, 1,990 years ago or so.
[00:03:35] And they were in a tough spot.
[00:03:38] New Christians under persecution from both political and religious systems and impoverished because there's famine in the land. Apostle Paul's working with these guys. He's also working with a church over here called Corinth, about 1,000 miles away over in Greece.
[00:03:57] This is a rather affluent church, and they want to give some money to these guys that are suffering over here in Jerusalem.
[00:04:06] Also, there's a group up here in Macedonia. So Macedonia would be the center of Alexander the Great's empire that took over the world. And then by the time of Jesus, It's just a little Roman province that is impoverished and dusty.
[00:04:24] These guys don't have any money. But they catch the vision from the guys in Corinth who want to give money to the group in Jerusalem. And so in their poverty, they get some money together. In the meantime, Corinth is kind of cool.
[00:04:38] They've sort of cooled on their desire to give money over here to Jerusalem. And so Paul's using Macedonia to tell Corinth, be a people of your word, be a person of integrity, and do what you said you're going to do both churches, we're going to gather up some money, and we're going to get it over here to Jerusalem.
[00:04:56] And in the process of the Apostle Paul writing to this church in Corinth about all this, Second Corinthians, 8, 9.
[00:05:03] It's a setting for God to teach us principles of successful generosity.
[00:05:08] You might be familiar with the Dust Bowl.
[00:05:11] So the Dust bowl is a term that a journalist gave to basically middle America in the 1930s that was going through a really difficult time.
[00:05:23] The Dust bowl is basically 300,000 square miles, a region in the Great Plains that was over farmed and then decimated by drought and grasshoppers in the 1930s.
[00:05:37] A combination of poor farming practices and drought and wind. The poor farming practices happened because of the Great Depression. People were moving away from the cities and heading into the frontier and trying their hand at farming. And there wasn't a lot of skill. And so there was bad farming practices that really kind of ruined the topsoil.
[00:06:02] And so the topsoil swirled and rolled through towns and homesteads and really everything. They actually called them black blizzards.
[00:06:12] Just one Black Blizzard in 1934 carried 350 million tons of dust, topsoil, silt, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and even beyond the coast, such that there were ships out in the Atlantic, 200 miles that were getting dust on them. That came from middle America.
[00:06:35] It was dry.
[00:06:39] I have a few addictions.
[00:06:42] Sugar, caffeine, chapstick.
[00:06:49] I just have a chapstick addiction, and I've had it for decades.
[00:06:53] I've got chapstick everywhere. Pockets, hunting packs, briefcase, drawers, garage all over in my truck.
[00:07:04] I buy them in bulk. I've always got to have a chapstick. I think I got it from my mom.
[00:07:11] My mom also always has a chapstick. Maybe it's genetic. You know, we just have chapped lips, live in sort of a dry culture or dry environment.
[00:07:24] You know, maybe I don't drink enough water, but I always have chapstick. One day, years ago, I would pull my chapstick out of my pocket. I'm putting chapstick on, and my dad looks at me and goes, you know, I never got started with that, like an addiction. You know, I never got started. And I'm like, do you think, dad, that this is sort of like an addiction? Like once you get started, you kind of have to keep doing chapstick the rest of your life? He's like, yep, that's what I think. Well, you might be right because I'm 60 and I'm still using chapstick dry.
[00:08:03] Imagine being in the dust bowl without any chapstick.
[00:08:08] The human toll and hardship and poverty added insult to the injury of the Depression in the era of the dust bowl in the 1930s.
[00:08:20] This is one of the most famous photographs in history.
[00:08:25] It's called Migrant Mother.
[00:08:28] It's a lady and her kids that are a part of the dust bowl. This picture was taken in 1936.
[00:08:36] And, you know, you look at her face and you see that it is, you know, a lot. There's a lot there, right? Kind of hardened and weathered.
[00:08:46] And you just kind of lock into her face. And then you notice that she's got two kids and their heads are turned away from the camera, apparently. These are both daughters, by the way.
[00:08:59] And so when you're in the dust bowl, you're just going to have the hair cut short.
[00:09:06] And then one of the things that you miss until you look at it for a bit because you're so mesmerized by her face, is that she's actually holding an infant. You can see the baby in the bottom left.
[00:09:18] And that baby is not ivory faced and cherub, like grimy and dirty.
[00:09:26] It was a tough time.
[00:09:30] So you can imagine the difficulties the farmers had when they had to make a decision about planting seed, if at all.
[00:09:40] Am I going to plant the seed and is it going to just blow off the continent or is there going to be a breakthrough?
[00:09:49] We got it today.
[00:09:51] Lots of obstacles in our own little financial empires. Little doubt, fear. And it hinders casting the seeds of generosity. And this is where God's grace and an abundance mindset is so crucial.
[00:10:07] Because God's grace, which produces an abundance mindset, then produces generosity and trust. And when that happens, we are enriched and people are helped and God is glorified and everybody wins. So what we're going to look at today, Starting in verse 6, remember this. A farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop.
[00:10:31] He starts with, remember this, because everybody already knows this.
[00:10:37] Plant a little, get a little, plant a lot, get a lot. It's just horticulture.
[00:10:45] No farmer considers planting seed as a loss.
[00:10:50] It's like an investment.
[00:10:53] No giver considers generosity a loss, especially when the harvest rolls in and then there's even more seed for more generosity. Well, what's the harvest? What is this generous crop? Well, there's something actually mystical and spiritual about it in God's economy of farming. Proverbs 11:24 says, One person gives freely yet gains even more. Another withholds unduly but comes to poverty.
[00:11:19] That's abundance mentality versus a scarcity mentality.
[00:11:24] Generosity leads to blessing.
[00:11:27] Stingy brings on poverty.
[00:11:29] The next verse in Proverbs 11, a generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
[00:11:38] You notice the intangibility of joy and contentment.
[00:11:43] Less money because he gave some away.
[00:11:45] More happiness and more blessing. But verse 24 says that it actually generates some personal prosperity.
[00:11:54] Sounds like less money. Isn't less money for very long.
[00:11:58] Now, motive is important.
[00:12:01] Like you don't. Not generous as an investment strategy, because you got plenty of investment strategies. You don't need another one. But responding to God's grace with godlike generosity and you get blessed. That's a bonus.
[00:12:15] President Roosevelt, during the era of the Dust bowl, came up with a shelter belt project.
[00:12:23] And what he did because people needed jobs, this is the Depression era, is he employed laborers. And they planted 220 million trees, 220 million from Texas to Canada, with the single intention of blocking the wind from conjuring up another black blizzard.
[00:12:50] So you see those shelter belts today? This one's in Nebraska and the Shelter Belt, well, they're awesome because of habitat.
[00:13:02] Like, now there's a mule deer in there and pheasants but the only way that those shelter belts got there is because someone planted a seed, 220 million of them. Plant a lot of seeds, get a lot of trees.
[00:13:18] Verse 7.
[00:13:20] You must decide in your heart how much to give, how many trees you want to plant.
[00:13:24] And don't give reluctantly in response to pressure. For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.
[00:13:31] He's raising money for the church in Jerusalem.
[00:13:34] And so he's, you know, no pressure to him. He's just like, decide what you're going to give and give that. Just follow through.
[00:13:40] Just reason it through so you won't shake your head when you shake your pockets.
[00:13:44] Don't give under the pressure.
[00:13:46] You're given under grace.
[00:13:49] God's kindness just produces kindness. That's what it does.
[00:13:53] And then this line about cheerful, you know, you're familiar with, God loves a cheerful giver.
[00:13:59] Now, some people go, well, I'm not going to give until I'm cheerful about it.
[00:14:04] Okay, okay, okay.
[00:14:09] But what are you going to do to be cheerful about it?
[00:14:14] Because it's not just going to happen one day.
[00:14:17] That's going to be some effort and some discipline on your part.
[00:14:21] Now don't think that like, well, when I make more, then I'll be generous. That actually never happens.
[00:14:29] I mean, not cheerful about it is nobody's fault but your own.
[00:14:34] Not cheerful about it is just not grasping the cheer of God's grace in your life.
[00:14:40] So forget the money. That's just a tool.
[00:14:43] We actually would need to tell God we're sorry that we don't grasp grace enough and that we actually need him to enlighten us about this.
[00:14:51] It's helped me be more impressed with the enormity and the grandeur of your grace, your kindness.
[00:14:59] When that kicks in now, you get grateful and generous with hilarity.
[00:15:06] Use the word hilarity because that word cheerful here in the original Greek language is a word where we actually get our English word. Hilarious.
[00:15:19] Giving. Hilariously.
[00:15:22] Well, that, that actually checks out because. Because generous people are the happiest people.
[00:15:28] Because generosity triggers what the behaviorists call helper's high.
[00:15:33] Helper's high is what happens when you're helping. When you're being generous is feel good. Chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins kick into your system. When that happens, stress and blood pressure go down.
[00:15:50] Self esteem and immunity goes up. Friendships get deeper, you live longer, you laugh more. Hilarious.
[00:15:59] And when you do it, things get abundant and they get empowering. Verse 8. And God is able to make all grace abound. To you or exceed in you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. Notice the alls, all grace, all things, all times, all needs, all good works.
[00:16:25] In the Macedonian and Greek cultures, the driving philosophy of life was self reliance brought on by self discipline.
[00:16:35] Sound familiar?
[00:16:38] Us too. It's very Western, but that can lead to a passive detachment from circumstances and people and the power of grace.
[00:16:50] It actually makes people competitive and judgy.
[00:16:55] But with Jesus, we have a striking contrast of contentment that comes from relying on God's promises and God's provisions, which then leads us to every good work. All grace, all things, all times, all needs, all good works. Verse 9.
[00:17:13] As it is written, he has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor. His righteousness endures forever.
[00:17:20] Paul didn't come up with that line. He's quoting a line from the Psalms. That's Psalm chapter 112, verse 9.
[00:17:28] Now that is a song that's not about God. Now look at the verse. Notice the pronouns there. It sounds like God right there, but it's actually a song about a guy, just a God honoring God, obeying, generous guy.
[00:17:46] It's a human, a generous person who scatters generosity. And that generosity is. Is remembered forever. It's a shelter belt, which means that it outlives you and it matters all the way to heaven one day. Verse 10. For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. He's just saying you can get better at this.
[00:18:22] You can get better at this, but you should. You gotta try him like you should try him on this.
[00:18:28] You can observe this kind of thing in another person's life, but you know that's incomplete because you don't know everything that's going on. There's stuff we just don't know. You've got to experience it yourself. So we throw seeds generously, trust God's sufficiency, find more seeds mysteriously. And then give more, hilariously, and then do it again. Laughing all the way to the well, not the bank.
[00:18:53] Laughing all the way to heaven, hilariously, where you're ultimately enriched. Verse 11. Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous.
[00:19:07] And when we take your gifts, that gift of money to those who need them, the church in Jerusalem, they're going to thank God.
[00:19:15] You get to be rich in every way.
[00:19:17] Turns out there's more than one way to be rich.
[00:19:21] I mean, who knew that it wasn't about the money.
[00:19:24] We get enriched. It's what we all want anyway. And not only that, people are helped. Look at verse 12. So two good things will result from this ministry of giving your generosity. Two things. Here's the first one. The needs of the believers in Jerusalem will be met. Generation. Generosity meets needs.
[00:19:46] So college students, quick word to you.
[00:19:50] One of the cool things about this era of your life is lack.
[00:19:58] Now some of you are like, I don't have any lack. My parents and everything, okay? But for the other 99%, there is lack, right?
[00:20:09] So there's school, there's school loans, there's, you know, you can't work really full time and have a full load of classes. And so like your income potential right now is sort of dampened. You don't have a lot going on there.
[00:20:25] And so you need God more than ever. You need him providing for you and meeting needs.
[00:20:32] And what's gonna happen is a few decades from now when you're doing awesome, you're gonna kinda look back at these days and go, I kinda miss that.
[00:20:44] Cause I don't rely on God as much as I used to.
[00:20:48] I was cool back there when God was sort of showing up in different surprising ways and getting me through some of these lean times.
[00:20:58] When Raymi and I graduated from college, we married really quick after graduation and then moved to Billings. I started my job there as a youth pastor and we were house sitting, which is how we were able to eat, is that we didn't have to pay for rent because we were house sitting. And we had one rig and it was a challenge for us because I'm a youth pastor and I need my transportation. She's got a job on the other side of town and she needs transportation and it was just extra challenging. Well, this guy notices the challenge that we're in there and he's supportive of us, you know, so he sells me his Volkswagen Bug.
[00:21:40] It was this old, kind of ratted, awesome Volkswagen Bug and he sells it to me for a dollar.
[00:21:49] So all that was was really just a transfer of title deal.
[00:21:53] So he sells it to me for a buck, brings it over to my house, he's got somebody else taking him home, drops it off to me and I got this title and it's this car sitting right in front of me. And I sit on the steps of this house that we're house sitting and I just started to cry. I'm in my early 20s, I'm just overcome with God's Goodness to me, this is going to help us so much. And I couldn't believe that somebody would be that generous to us.
[00:22:23] So helpful, meeting a need for us.
[00:22:27] Then I'm rummaging around this thing, I pick up the back seat, and I look underneath it, and there's a sheath of a hunting knife in the back laying on the floorboard, you know, and it's a buck knife. And I pulled on. I'm like, whoa, that is a nice knife.
[00:22:44] And I call him, I go, hey, you left your knife in the car. He goes, I don't. I just keep it.
[00:22:52] Yes.
[00:22:53] I'm like, for a dollar, man, I got a Volkswagen Bug and a buck knife. Hunting knife.
[00:23:00] I still have that knife. Still use it today. So awesome.
[00:23:05] You get to live that stuff when.
[00:23:08] When you're in a season of lack and you just keep seeing God blessing you, and then somebody else gets to be a part of all that blessing by doing what they do for you.
[00:23:19] This is the thing that generosity does. It helps people physically, mentally, spiritually.
[00:23:24] Two good things are happening when you're generous. We saw the first one, needs are met, people are helped. Here's the second one.
[00:23:31] And they, the giver will joyfully express their thanks to God.
[00:23:38] God is glorified. In that process, God is thanked.
[00:23:42] People have joy, and joy causes gratitude. So the two things that are happening is people are helped and God is thanked.
[00:23:50] But this is interesting because God doesn't need to be thanked. He doesn't need to be glorified.
[00:23:56] God doesn't need that from us.
[00:23:59] God doesn't need us to be grateful to him.
[00:24:02] So being grateful to God, glorifying God, praising God must be good for the giver of the gratitude.
[00:24:14] Otherwise Paul just would have said, hey, good job for meeting some needs.
[00:24:18] But there's more.
[00:24:20] There's a good thing that happens when God is thanked and praised and glorified.
[00:24:27] Good things happen when you are grateful.
[00:24:31] I wear a whoop on my wrist, so fitness tracker deal. Got an apple. Kind of manages. Helps me manage, you know, it's got a bunch of biomedical metric data and all this stuff in it. Complicated stuff in there that helps me with my sleep, it helps me with my diet, helps me with my exercise, my pacing, all this stuff.
[00:24:54] By the way, this part's just for free.
[00:24:58] I'm getting old now, so my heart rate peaks in the high 100 70, as high as I can get it. And so when I'm on my bike and I'm hitting it hard, I'm going to be in that 170s. But the whole ride my heart rate's going to be in the say, 130s.
[00:25:21] When I get done with this today, I'm going to get a notification on my app that I just had a workout.
[00:25:29] This is bizarre.
[00:25:31] When I'm preaching, my heart rate averages at about 135. It'll peak in the 160s.
[00:25:38] What's that all about?
[00:25:40] Well, you people are scary standing up here in front of you.
[00:25:45] But there's just some intensity in the whole preaching event. Now, I'm not winded, but my heart is hammering away just in the intensity of what this is and does. All that to go. You should be nice to your pastors after they preach. They need a day off. Okay, That's a big effort. And now you gotta have the rhythm of some recovery. Okay, that was just extra so. But here's my point. There's a little diary that you fill out every day just on the app. Click on some stuff. Big long list of questions, all kinds of things. One of them is, did you express gratitude yesterday?
[00:26:27] Isn't that interesting?
[00:26:29] Biometric data.
[00:26:32] Gratitude.
[00:26:34] Why does it ask if you express gratitude?
[00:26:37] Because here's what we know. A little gratitude science for you. We know that expressing gratitude lowers your blood pressure. And the way that happens is it releases oxytocin, which expands your blood vessels and reduces strain on your heart.
[00:26:52] Gratitude improves sleep by calming your nervous system. Gratitude strengthens immunity by reducing inflammation.
[00:27:00] Gratitude reduces anxiety and depression by shifting focus from what is lacking to what is abundant.
[00:27:07] Expressing gratitude builds emotional resilience because gratitude is one of the key things that gets you through hard times.
[00:27:15] And gratitude deepens relationship because gratitude releases burdens, bonding hormones that builds trust and empathy with people who knew. Well, now you do. Generosity. It meets needs and it helps you live happy. And God is glorified. Verse 13 as a result of your ministry. So as a result of your generosity, they will give glory to God.
[00:27:38] For your generosity to them and to all believers will prove interesting that you are a Christian obedient to the good news of Christ.
[00:27:50] Really important here. Guys, look carefully at this verse.
[00:27:53] There is no such thing as a stingy Christian.
[00:27:56] One of the ways that we prove that we are Christians is with generosity.
[00:28:01] One of the ways that we prove that we follow Jesus is we follow Jesus. Example of grace and generosity.
[00:28:09] If you are greedy and stingy, call it whatever you want, but don't call it Christian.
[00:28:16] Greediness and stinginess should cause you to question your Christianity.
[00:28:20] Obedience to the good news of Christ.
[00:28:25] The good news of the generosity of God that he would send his only Son to die on the cross in our place. And for our guilt obedient to that is that we get to do that too.
[00:28:42] Jesus is generous, commands us to be generous. Our generosity proves and demonstrates and validates our own Christianity. Verse 14 and they will pray for you with deep affection because of the overflowing grace God has given to you. Another spiritual benefit of generosity. Generosity bonds us to people. The Jerusalem Christians are now going to pray for the Corinthian Christians because of the Corinthian Christians generosity to the Jerusalem Christians. Easy to miss this if you read it too quickly. Jerusalem is going to pray for Corinth with deep affection because of the unreasonable grace given to whom? Look at the verse.
[00:29:22] The unreasonable grace isn't the money that Jerusalem got. The unreasonable grace is the generosity that the Corinthians got to do.
[00:29:33] Jerusalem is not praying for Corinth because Jerusalem received money from Corinth. Jerusalem is praying for Corinth because Corinth received grace from God. And the grace that they received from God is generosity.
[00:29:52] Jerusalem is praying for Corinth because God was gracious to Corinth.
[00:29:57] God let them be generous. You see, Jerusalem's praying for Corinth because God let Corinth be generous.
[00:30:06] It's grace.
[00:30:08] So it's not like thank you for their generosity to us.
[00:30:13] It's thank you, God, that you gave them the grace of generosity.
[00:30:21] Our needs are met, which is great, and thank you.
[00:30:24] But those guys got to traffic in the most powerful commodity in the world, and that is grace.
[00:30:32] And so our last verse, thank God for this gift. Too wonderful for words.
[00:30:39] And it ends where it begins.
[00:30:42] This is where 2 Corinthians 8 began.
[00:30:46] Thanks for the gift.
[00:30:47] The gift is charis. We talked about that earlier.
[00:30:53] We translate that grace.
[00:30:55] Paul uses the word charis 18 times in Second Corinthians 8 and 9, or second. No, he uses it 18 times in Second Corinthians, but he uses it 10 times in verses 8 and 9 or chapters 8 and 9.
[00:31:08] Undeserved kindness that defies reason, he said. Don't overthink this, just accept it. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. Thanks be to God for his unreasonable kindness. Thanks be to God for the gift of generosity, which is too wonderful for words. It's indescribable. It's unable to recount. We can't tell it fully.
[00:31:30] My dad, who never got started with chapstick, was born in 1933 in Billings.
[00:31:40] During the Dust bowl and the Dust bowl reached its way all the way up into Montana.
[00:31:47] His dad moved to Billings in 1922 and started a company called Streeter Brothers.
[00:31:55] It's mortgage banking, insurance, and real estate.
[00:32:00] Timing was interesting because they're 10 years in or so, and farms and ranches were failing in Montana because of the Dust bowl stuff.
[00:32:10] And as a result, people were moving off of their land, off of their farms and ranches, off their little suitcase farms, and moving into the city, moving into Billings.
[00:32:21] And so my grandfather, my dad's dad, was supplying mortgages to people coming off of the farms and into the city.
[00:32:30] I bet my dad was born in 33, went to the University of Montana, got a degree in geology, went into the Air Force, was a meteorologist, got married in San Francisco, moved my mom to Billings.
[00:32:46] Dad went to work for his dad at Streeter Brothers.
[00:32:50] And at about that time, my dad becomes a Christian.
[00:32:54] Jesus saves him.
[00:32:57] And my dad became very generous, very kind man, very patient man, very generous man.
[00:33:06] I have vivid memories of my dad in the kitchen of our house.
[00:33:12] These green vinyl benches around the kitchen table.
[00:33:17] A green phone with a long cord. My dad would have a legal pad with a bunch of names written on it. And every evening he'd come and grab that phone and he'd start calling people on that list.
[00:33:31] The people on that list were people that were not paying their mortgages. They were defaulting.
[00:33:36] So he'd call them and ask them about, are you going to pay your mortgage?
[00:33:41] And I remember as a little guy hearing how kind my dad was, how generous he was to them, and gracious as he was, just helping them, holding them accountable, but working with them because they had trouble paying their mortgage.
[00:33:58] And he wasn't just closing them out, he was working with them patiently. I have people today, happened two weeks ago, come up to me and go, streeter, Streeter Brothers. Yep, that was my dad. Yeah. You know, your dad gave me our first mortgage.
[00:34:16] And then they'd say something like, and, man, we had trouble paying.
[00:34:20] But your dad was so nice to us.
[00:34:23] He just worked with us, and it took a long time, and sometimes we couldn't pay. And he just would stay in contact with us and was so generous to us. And over time, we were able to do it. But it was because of your dad's kindness and generosity to us.
[00:34:40] My dad was generous with money. He was generous with his time.
[00:34:45] About once a week, my dad would sort of disappear. Nobody would know where he is, but I knew where he was.
[00:34:51] My dad would go to a grade school in Billings in a neighborhood that was rather needy.
[00:34:57] And he would sit down on that terrible cafeteria table with a little guy and help him read, tutor him in reading.
[00:35:09] My dad was very patient.
[00:35:13] He also raised a son that had trouble reading.
[00:35:17] So my dad was just graciously, lovingly helping these little kids learn to read.
[00:35:24] Generous.
[00:35:27] My dad died of Parkinson's disease.
[00:35:30] Parkinson's is brutal.
[00:35:32] It's not as vicious as some diseases, but it's bad.
[00:35:38] I remember vividly the day that my dad asked me a question that he knew the answer to.
[00:35:45] And it was the moment where I was like, shoot, here it goes, his mind.
[00:35:52] There's the tremors, there's the joints locking up, there's the body shutting down.
[00:35:59] But then there's the brain, the dementia part of it, and it's the worst.
[00:36:06] Then there's the broken hip, and then the care facility, and then the memory care facility.
[00:36:15] In that memory care facility, a few times a week, they'd play bingo. They'd gather up around this sort of dining room table and. And the healthcare provider would have this basket full of trinkets, set it on the table, you know, and if you won bingo, you get to select something out of there.
[00:36:32] One time I was sitting with my dad and we were playing bingo and he leans over to me and goes, these guys aren't very good at bingo.
[00:36:43] That's as harsh as my dad would ever get.
[00:36:47] And then he'd win something, you know, and get his little trinket.
[00:36:52] One day my mom went and visited him and they're sitting and visiting, and he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out a chapstick and he goes, I won this for you today.
[00:37:12] He gave everything he had.
[00:37:17] Chapstick.
[00:37:18] That's all he had at that time.
[00:37:21] Bright, smart, successful, good at math, patient.
[00:37:30] And give away some chapstick.
[00:37:34] And don't think for a second that doesn't give glory to God, just generosity all the way to the end.
[00:37:45] It's why your church would do something like a 90 day tithe challenge or, sorry, generosity challenge.
[00:37:56] You can do better than 29.6.
[00:37:59] You can.
[00:38:01] This little tool here on the screen is this QR code texting you if you want to do it. This might just help prime the pump for you. Like, okay, little bit of accountability. I'm gonna get started somewhere. When you click that, you're gonna get five options. They look like this.
[00:38:18] You can pick one of those, whichever one fits you best.
[00:38:22] Some accountability, some support and encouragement that your church would give you is like, okay, I'm gonna give away some chapstick work on this generosity thing.
[00:38:38] But it's not about the money and it ain't about the chapstick.
[00:38:42] You're doing it because you want to be happy.
[00:38:46] You're doing it because you want to honor and obey God. You're doing it because you want to help people and glorify God and celebrate grace and live a life with hilarity.
[00:38:59] And 2nd Corinthians 8, 9 makes it really clear how we can do it.
[00:39:06] So we're going to pray and we're going to leave that up there if you want to click on it.
[00:39:14] This is a time for you just to respond to all of this in 2nd Corinthians 8, 9, tell God your thoughts and your feelings and maybe courageously tell God. Okay, here's what I'm going to do.
[00:39:27] So give you a few moments to pray, then I'll kind of close us and direct us as we get ready for communion and worship together.
[00:39:37] Heavenly Father, you are a God of abundance and you freely give to us.
[00:39:48] Thank you. Help us trust you, be obedient to you.
[00:39:56] And we trust God that you are able to make all grace abound to us so that in all things, at all times, having all that we need, we get to abound in every good work.
[00:40:08] We want to be generous like you.
[00:40:19] In Jesus's name we pray.
[00:40:22] Amen.
