Keys: Generosity

1 John 3:16-18, James 1:5

Matthew 6: 19 – 21, 2 Corinthians 8: 9

November 9, 2025

If you listen carefully to the world around us, you’ll hear a constant hum of fear. That fear can be generated from a number of different sources. Wars and rumors of war. Tension threatening to break out into dysfunction and division. Political ineptitude, partisanship, and power struggles resulting in the least amongst us losing access to critical resources.

Scarcity.

Scarcity, it never seems as though there is enough: enough time, enough wisdom, enough patience, enough willingness to compromise for the greater good. Scarcity, and the fear of never having enough….. of SOMETHING….. seems to drive much of our lives.

And so that perceived sense of scarcity drives us to do some strange things. Wants like the latest phone, car model, purse, or set of golf clubs somehow transform into needs and inordinate expenditures of money result in a fear that we are going to “run out.” We feather our nests with WANTS and then worry that we won’t have enough down the road from now, years later, even decades later.

Fear of missing out – a drive to be sure that we are apart of every possible meaningful thing - leads us to 36-hour schedules and commitments somehow shoehorned into 24-hour days. And we wonder why mental health is at such crisis levels today.

We live in a set of communities that require almost $140,000 of household income and yet, in those same communities, average household income is $109,000. More than want to admit live paycheck to paycheck, maintaining appearances on credit card expenditures. There never seems to be enough cash – and so we result to plastic to finance our lifestyles.

All of this fear, all of this perceived scarcity, the confusion over wants versus needs has led to a spirit of this age that says “hold on to what you have because we can’t expect anyone else, or any entity to really look out for us.

But the gospel sings a very different tune. The gospel tells us that we live in a world of abundance – a world perfectly designed to provide for every need. Understanding that….. understanding that Creation is perfectly designed to provide for our every need – and be sure to notice that I have been very careful and intentional about choosing the word “need” – then allows us to consider what a life typified by generosity might look like.

You see, generosity is not about how much we give. A spirit, a lifestyle of generosity is a posture of the heart that delights in sharing because it is the native, default, faith response to a God of generosity.

Just a few weeks ago I was in the mountains fishing with my grandchildren. The sun was just coming up over the mountains, and the wispy, high-altitude clouds took on a shade of pink in the sunrise. It was stunning – extravagantly so.

The air had a bite to it. At 4500 feet it was clearly, coldly Fall. And because the air was colder than the water temperature of the lake there was about 6 feet of haze over the warm blue water. The sky was speckled with beautiful pink clouds; the water was a delightful blue with an icing of grey white haze on top of it. Our grandkids were laughing, there wasn’t another boat on the lake, and the beauty of that morning – God’s creative brilliance – was generous in the extreme.

You see, we worship a God who is not frugal with his love. We worship a God who is abundant in his generosity. We worship a God who takes the sacrificial gift of a little boy – 5 loaves and 2 small fish – and feeds the multitudes. We worship a God who could have placed us on a cold, barren rock and then dared us to call it home; but he didn’t. Instead God created the infinite beauty of the cosmos and allows us to be its caretakers while calling it home.

God never gave us, “Good enough.” God gave us abundant love.

We worship a God who created perfection only to see it marred by our self-absorption and pride. He could have said, “You had your shot. I am done with you.” But instead, he became flesh in the form of Jesus. Jesus lived, died – horribly, and then was extravagantly raised from the dead on our behalf. Extravagant, amazing, overwhelmingly generous grace.

At the center of the gospel is a verb. God so loved the world that he “gave” his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him would not die but instead, would have eternal life. From 1 John; “We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life” – he GAVE his life – for us. We are never more like God than when we love and give: Give of our time. Give of our grace. Give of our kindness. And yes, give of our resources. Generosity, it is an echo of God’s own heartbeat. A heartbeat that never stops, never falters, never gives out – the heartbeat of God just keeps on giving.

I have been in cultures – Thailand and the Middle East – where hosts will fill a guest’s cup as a symbol of welcome. If they liked you, they kept it full; if they wanted you to leave, they let it run low. David, in the 23rd Psalm, says of God, “My cup overflows. That’s what a spirit of generosity looks like: not a cautious measuring out, not a calculated withholding, not a token measure, but an overflowing of blessing because our hearts are full of gratitude.

In Israel, there are two famous bodies of water. The Sea of Galilee is fed by 3 streams that come off Mt Hermon, flow into a smaller lake up by the Lebanese border, and then into the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is bright, beautiful, full of fish farms, and it abundantly provides lifegiving water for the towns and fields nearby. The Sea of Galilee receives abundantly, and it flows out and gives generously.

As the Jordan River runs south, that lifegiving water flows into the Dead Sea. All of that potential for life flows into a body of water that receives but never gives. The Dead Sea withholds. The Dead Sea shares nothing. All of that lifegiving water sits there, stagnates, becomes fatally salty and gives and sustains no life.

A spirt of generosity – like the Sea of Galilee, like our creative God, like the little boy with his 5 loaves and 2 fish – gives and creates life.

Friends, which spirit of the age will we follow? Fear, hoarding, withholding and bringing forth no life? Or will we dare to trust inn the example of God who gives constantly, graciously, abundantly, even generously overflowing with grace and love.

This communion table is a reflection of God’s generous, sacrificial love. We can do no less. Amen.