Sept 9, 2007 - Extravagant Generosity (I)

Pentecost 15
September 9, 2007
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
W. Gregory Pope

EXTRAVAGANT GENEROSITY (I):
ENLARGING YOUR SOUL,
EXPANDING THE REACH OF GOD’S LOVE

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 24

Today is the fifth and final sermon on five practices of faithful and vibrant congregations. It is also the first of three sermons on becoming people of Extravagant Generosity. These three sermons will be offered over the next two months.

I have already encouraged you to be in prayer for our Ministry Teams tonight and the MCC Retreat this Saturday as we shape next year’s budget and look toward the first year of a new century in ministry.

I also invite you to begin prayerfully considering what you and your family will give to the ministries of the church in the upcoming year. If there are some sacrifices or changes in lifestyle that need to be made in order for you to give what you believe God is leading you to give, then begin praying and planning now for those changes and sacrifices.

Before I go further, I most certainly want to offer a word of thanks to you as a congregation for giving faithfully and generously so far this year. You have put us in a great position to extend our ministries and begin new ones, including the possibility of a new staff position for children. I pray you will continue such giving so we can continue to expand the reach of God’s love in this place and beyond these walls.

As I said, this is the first of three sermons on being a generous people. And it is the fifth sermon on five practices of every vibrant and faithful congregation. Robert Schnase says: “These five practices are so crucial to the success of congregations that failure to perform them in an exemplary way leads to the deterioration of the church’s mission. Ignore any one of these tasks or perform any of them in a mediocre, inconsistent, or poor manner, and the church will eventually decline, turn in on itself, and die away.”1

These five practices are: (1) Radical Hospitality, where congregations offer the gracious invitation and welcome of Christ so that people experience a sense of belonging; (2) Meaningful Worship, where God shapes souls, changes minds, and transforms lives, creating a desire to grow closer to Christ; (3) Intentional Spiritual Formation, through which God’s Spirit nurtures people and matures faith as we learn together in community. (4) Risk-Taking Mission and Service, where, as we grow in spiritual maturity, people discern God’s call to help others and make a difference in the world; and (5) Extravagant Generosity, as God inspires us to give of ourselves and our possessions so that others can receive the love and grace of God that we have known.

As I see it, these five practices - hospitality, worship, spiritual formation, missional service, and extravagant generosity - formed the heart and soul of the early church. It was not a perfect group of people - the Bible is clear about that - but they did transform the world in which they lived.

One of the most radical transformations that took place in that little community had to do with their understanding of and relationship to their stuff. Listen again to what Luke writes in the Book of Acts:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions were their own, but they shared everything they had. There were no needy persons among them for from time to time persons who owned houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet and it was distributed to anyone who was in need. (Acts 4:32-35)

Something radical was going on in that early community of faith. Did you hear that?: No one claimed that any of his or her possessions was his or her own.

Think about how unnatural this is. I know that before long my house is going to be full of a two-year-old’s favorite four-letter word. You know what it is: “Mine!” I heard him say it for the first time this week. As we get older, we don’t say it out loud as often, but we still think it and live it. It expresses itself in all kinds of anxiety and greed.

The miraculous thing about this community in Acts is that they were not forced to share or give up their possessions. They still owned their stuff, but they not possess it, or should I say, it did not possess them. And from time to time, somebody who owned something - land or a house, for example - would sell it and bring the money in. Barnabas, we’re told later in this text, sold a field. But they still held on to other things.

The difference was their theology. And their theology went something like this: “It’s not my stuff. It’s God’s stuff. And God wants God’s stuff used to make a difference in people’s lives. God doesn’t want anybody going without the basic necessities of life. So I’ll give to help. Because everything I have belongs to God.”

Israel was taught that lesson when they were on the verge of entering the Promised Land. Moses warned them:

When you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud. . . . You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is the Lord who gives you the ability to produce wealth. (Deuteronomy 8:12-18)

The first step toward becoming a person of extravagant generosity is coming to grips with who owns the stuff. Deciding whose stuff it is changes everything - attitude, behavior, everything - at a profound level.

To help you develop such an understanding of and relationship to stuff, I want to invite you into an experiment.

I want you to take out your wallets. For many of us, it is our best friend. We know it well. We keep it close by. We know where it is at all times. Take your wallet and hold it for a second. Rub your hands over it. Get those warm fuzzy feelings going, those feelings you get when you’re with your best friend.

Now, hand it to someone beside you who is not in your family. Come on, you can do it. As a nervous smile works its way across your face, those warm fuzzy feelings may be turning into an ache in the stomach. But that’s okay.

Now, we’re going to take up a special offering, and you’re going to be able to be that generous person you’ve always wanted to be. And I’m going to get those credit card numbers I asked for two and a half years ago!

How does it feel having someone else in possession of your money?

Perhaps there is a better question: Do you really believe the contents of your wallet belong to you? Or have you come to the realization that what you possess is not really yours after all, but God’s, and God intends for you to share what you’ve been given with others?

Okay. Everyone give the wallets back to the ones to whom God has loaned them. And let’s all take a deep breath. But don’t put your wallet away. Hold onto it for the rest of the sermon.

Do you realize that the wallet you hold in your hand now that you consider to be yours really isn’t yours after all? It all belongs to God. And the truth is, you can be as generous with the wallet now in your hand as you could a minute ago holding what was someone else’s wallet. Because what you have isn’t yours. It all belongs to God. “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,” says the psalmist, “the world and all who live in it.”

If the truth be told, most of us have a problem with the ownership issue and it controls our attitudes and behaviors in ways that are not always pleasing to God.

The following story was printed in a theological journal called Reader’s Digest.

"A woman was at an airport waiting to get on a plane. She bought a small bag of Oreo cookies. She was sitting in the waiting area and a man she didn’t know was sitting next to her. On the little armrest between them was this small bag of Oreos. Without saying a word, the guy sitting next to her reaches in, takes out a cookie and starts to eat it. She’s flabbergasted. Not wanting to make a scene, she reaches into the bag, takes out a cookie and starts to eat it. And he just smiles and nods at her.

"Apparently, he didn’t speak English. So she continues reading her paper. And a minute or two later there is more rustling. He was helping himself to another cookie. She was so angry she didn’t allow herself to say anything. But she reaches in to take another cookie. And before long they’ve come to the end of the package, and there’s only one cookie left. The man reaches in to take the last cookie, breaks it in two, pushes half across to her, eats the other half and leaves.

"Still fuming some time later when her flight is announced, the woman opens her handbag to get her ticket. And to her shocking embarrassment, she finds her pack of unopened Oreo cookies. She thought someone was eating her cookies, when in reality she was eating someone else’s cookies and didn’t even know it!"

Many of us have a lot of cookies that we think belong to us. But in truth, they belong to God and to the world and we don’t even know it.

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. It all belongs to God. God’s cookies. God’s wallet. God’s house. God’s clothes. God’s IRA. God’s car. God’s body. It’s all God’s Stuff.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to think my stuff is mine. I tend to think I’ve earned it, or I’m entitled to it. It becomes a source of pride. I think there’s security in it. I become anxious about it. But it’s all God’s stuff. God made it. God created it. And God grants me breath every single second to live and work and enjoy God’s Stuff in order to share it with those in need and use it to make the world a better place.

Once we realize that everything belongs to God, and that all I have is to be used to help others, then my next challenge is to keep my wants from becoming needs and learn to sacrifice my wants for the meeting of others’ needs.

A business man sent the following email to his pastor:

Because I fly, I’ve always had a dream of owning an airplane one day. I got to the point where I could buy one. I also serve on the Board of Directors for a Christian ministry to street kids in Brazil. We had two facilities for boys, but none for girls. An opportunity came to purchase a piece of property for a girls’ home. There wasn’t time for a capital campaign. We had to do something immediately, and it involved a significant amount of money.

The only way I could help was to stop dreaming about my new airplane and give the airplane money to this ministry. So that’s exactly what I did. I still don’t have the airplane, and I never will. But the joy that I receive watching the girls’ ministry take off has more than made up for the absence of my airplane.

Today there are more than 60 girls who would be living on the streets of Brazil now living in a home with people who love them. So, it really wasn’t a sacrifice at all - just a redeployment of funds.

This is somebody who says, “Here’s something I want. But God, I’m going to give it up because I think there’s something else You want me to do with this.”

And when he gets to the end of his life, I don’t think he’s going to look back on his decision and think, “You know, I wish I hadn’t done that with what I had.”

It might be an interesting exercise to ask yourself: “If I were to die, would I have any regrets about my stuff?” The time to shape a life with no regrets regarding your stuff is today.

Generosity is the way to shape such a life. Generosity almost never leads to regret. Generosity enlarges our souls and expands the reach of God’s love.

I believe most people want to be generous. But fear, or the experience of losing everything, or good ole personal comfort keep us from becoming the generous persons we want to become.

We move toward becoming a generous person by:
1. Understanding that all we have belongs to God. And the God to whom all things belong is a God of extravagant generosity who gives beyond measure.
2. And then we begin to see that we have what we have in order make the world a better place, to share it with others and make a difference in their lives.
3. And we are able to share generously when we keep our wants from becoming needs and learn to sacrifice our wants for the meeting of others’ needs.

I challenge you this week to begin thinking of sacrifices and lifestyle changes you can make in order to be generous so that you can help meet the needs of others and make the world a better place.

The wallet you hold in your hand is a symbol of all your possessions. And it all belongs to God. The question is: What are doing with what you’ve been given?
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1. Robert Schnase, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, Abingdon, 2007, 130