The Joy of Generosity / Luke 6:38 / Mark 12:41-44
Good to see everybody. How are we doing this week? Everybody doing all right? Good.
If you have your Bibles, open to Genesis chapter 1. We are going to start there, as we do so many times, and get right to work this week. If you are a guest with us, welcome to The Well Community Church. We are very thankful that you are here. We are on the tail end of a series we have called Cultivate, preparing as a church for one of the most historic efforts we have ever been a part of. We wanted to lay out some theological foundations for this series. Early on, we talked about what it means to be a part of a church, what it means to be compelled by the gospel, to have a heart for the city, and a hope for the next generation. Last week, we laid out some of the nuts-and-bolts details. What we want to do to finish this series is talk a little bit about the joy of generosity.
In order to understand the nature of generosity, we have to understand the very character of God. What I am going to try to do this week is talk about a subject that has caused more people to leave churches than just about any other subject—primarily because we tend to be guilt-based instead of having a vision for who God is and then responding to that.
So let’s pray as we get started, and then we will begin in Genesis. Because to understand who God is, we need to start in the beginning.
Father, we thank You for the privilege to be here, both for the folks live here at North and those joining us at our Fig Garden campus this weekend. We are thankful for the privilege to handle Your Word. As a church, as we try to stay faithful to the gospel and faithful to the calling that You have placed upon us here in our city, God, would You raise us up to do amazing things for You? We are grateful that we have a gospel to proclaim of a risen Savior, Jesus our Christ, who has redeemed and restored. Lord, be with us this week. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The God Who Lacks Nothing
If we begin by asking the question, “Who is our God?” we have all kinds of characteristics that come into play. The God whom we serve—the God of the Bible, the God revealed to us in the text, not the god of the guy who drinks too much chai tea, or the guy meditating on the mountain, or the guy doing yoga for a living (no disrespect to my yoga-pant-wearing brothers, but I am talking about the God of the text)—who is He?
He is pre-existent. He is self-reliant. He is fully satisfied being God. He is in need of nothing. He is lacking nothing. He is triune, in eternal fellowship as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—existing as one God, fully delighting in His perfection, radiating His glory. He was fully satisfied before the world was created to delight in Himself as holy God.
And yet, in that:
Genesis 1:1-2 (NASB)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
The Father is present; the Spirit is hovering. The New Testament fills in the blanks in Colossians 1, telling us that through Jesus all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him.
Our God is pre-existent: Father, Son, and Spirit. Fully satisfied in Himself, lacking nothing. And yet, He created. In His creation, in Genesis chapter 1, we see Him forming this incredible world that we live in. As an expression of His love, as a gift of His grace, He speaks this world into existence.
In Genesis 1:3–5, He speaks light and darkness into existence, and He sees that what He has made is good. In verses 6–8, He creates the atmosphere, separating the waters below from the waters above, and sees that it is good. In verses 9–13, God speaks into existence dry land, the seas, plants, and fruit trees, and again sees that it is good. In verses 14–19, He creates the seasons, the weather patterns, the sun, moon, and stars, and it was good. In verses 20–23, God speaks into existence living creatures—fish in the sea, birds in the air, animals on the ground—and sees that it was good.
Then, in verse 26, comes the finale—the crowning point of all creation, the headliner of the whole thing.
Genesis 1:26-28 (NASB)
Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’
Do you notice the plurality when God speaks of Himself? “Let Us make man in Our image.” It does not explicitly teach the Trinity by itself, but it certainly allows for it in a profound way.
Genesis 1:31 (NASB)
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Behold, it was not simply good. It was very good. It is almost as if God, after the sixth day of creation, gives Himself a round of applause—like, That is what I am talking about. That was incredible.
He speaks the world into existence, and it is good, it is good, it is good, and then it is very good. But good for whom? Who benefited from this creation? Be careful here. Was God somehow bored before creation? Like a dog without an owner, wagging his tail, waiting for someone to complete him? Was God lacking anything before the creation of the world? Was He lonely? Did He need a partner or someone to play with?
No. God was fully sufficient, fully delighting in Himself and His own holiness, lacking nothing. Yet by His grace, He spoke the world into existence. By His grace, He fashioned us in His image. So everything that was good was not just good for Him; it was good for us. God shaped this creation for His glory and for our delight.
In the generosity and benevolence of our God, He created this world and formed it into existence. That means a sunset is for His glory and our delight. Half Dome is for His glory and our delight. The Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, a beautiful day on a sailboat—they are for His glory and our delight. The changing of the seasons (thank You, Jesus, it is cooling off in Fresno!) is for His glory and our delight. In the generosity of God, He formed this lavish home for mankind. And at the crowning point of creation, He placed mankind in this garden, made for His glory and our delight.
Created as Image Bearers
Notice the contrast in how God creates. The first five days, He speaks the world into existence. To have a front-row seat to that would be incredible, wouldn’t it? God speaking animals into existence—He hadn’t named them yet, Adam does that later—thinking, I’m going to make an animal kind of like a cow, but different. This one will have stripes. And we look and say, “Oh, a zebra!” I’ll make another one, but stretch the neck out. A giraffe! In His creative brilliance, God speaks it all into existence.
Yet when He makes mankind, it is different. He reaches into the dust of the earth and breathes into it the breath of life—the Ruach of God, the Spirit of God. He breathes life, and man becomes a living being. Then God puts Adam to sleep, takes a rib, and shapes a woman. Ish and Ishshah—man and woman, handmade and fashioned by God.
That means we are not simply equal with the rest of creation; we are set over creation. We are called to be stewards of the very creation that God spoke into existence. We carry a nobility beyond the rest of creation because we are the only ones who are image bearers. We are created, handmade by God, in the image of God.
That means you are fearfully and wonderfully made in your innermost parts—whether you are comfortable with the way you look or not, whether you are confident in who you are or not, whether you wish your ears were smaller or your arms were longer. You are made by God. The benevolent Creator, the gracious, almighty, sufficient God shaped you in your mother’s womb and made you an image bearer.
Our purpose in life is to reflect the glory of our God—to reflect His character, His nature, and His attributes. If God is holy, we as image bearers are called to be holy. As God is gracious, we are called to be gracious. As God is forgiving, we are called to be forgiving. And as He is generous, we who are in His image are called to be generous.
The Image Defaced
In Genesis, mankind enjoyed intimacy with God for what feels like a nanosecond in the text. We don’t know how much time passed, but then something happened. Look at Genesis chapter 3. This is the seminal trainwreck passage of your Bible.
Genesis 3:1-6 (NASB)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, ’Indeed, has God said, ’You shall not eat from any tree of the garden ‘?’ The woman said to the serpent, ’From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’’ The serpent said to the woman, ’You surely will not die! ‘For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make [one] wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Satan comes after God’s prime creation, and his temptation is a direct affront to the character and nature of God. In verse 1, he challenges God’s word: “Did God really say?” In verse 4, he denies God’s justice: “You surely will not die.” In verse 5, he questions God’s love: God is holding out on you. If God really loved you, He would let you live your life. He has given you all these rules, keeping you from the very things that bring joy.
The narrative hasn’t changed today. The sin we deal with right now comes from the exact same root issue of Genesis 3. In a moment of crisis, Eve does what all of us do: we shift from obedience to the divine to human rationale. Human longing replaces obedience to God. Instead of delighting in His presence, they reject His presence. The creature rebels against the Creator. The temporal usurps the eternal. The finite rejects the infinite. Man seeks to be his own little-g god, saying, “I don’t need God. I don’t need an authority over me. I can figure it out myself.”
They rebel against God, operating not according to His image, but their own, and the world is plunged into chaos.
Here is what happened: we were created to reflect the image of God, but sin defaced that image. Where God is holy, we became sinful and fallen, given over to depravity. Where God is loving, our love became conditional and selfish, loving only for personal gain. Where God is gracious, we began keeping score, living on a merit system where we perform, earn, and strive. Instead of being forgiving, we became vengeful, holding grudges and harboring resentment. And instead of reflecting His generosity, we began to hoard and accumulate, using wealth for personal ease, power, and pride.
All of those are distortions of the image of God. Satan is a master con man. He doesn’t always come with a direct full-frontal assault; he comes with a subtle shift. In that subtlety, he led Adam and Eve astray, and we were left in a world where the image of God is defaced.
The Image Restored
But then something else happened. Galatians 4 tells us that when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Ephesians 2:1-7 (NASB)
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
The image of God that was defaced by sin has been redeemed by Christ. Jesus came as the ultimate expression of the character of God. Moved by love, He became flesh. He bore the shame on the cross in our place to satisfy the just wrath of God. He died, was buried, rose from the dead, ascended to the Father, and promised to return. In the meantime, He offers us life through His death. By placing our faith in Jesus Christ, the image is restored.
Think of the defaced image like a cloudy, dirty mirror from Genesis 3 onward. It looks vaguely like God, but there is so much distortion. Jesus comes along and wipes the mirror clean so that we can reflect the image of God purely. Jesus is the perfect image bearer. Colossians tells us that in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Hebrews 1:3 says He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature.
John 3:16-17 (NASB)
’For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. ’For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
This is the gospel! Jesus has restored the image of God through His work of redemption.
Therefore, because God is holy, we can not only be holy, but continually be made holy through Christ. Because God is loving, we love because He first loved us, compelled by the love of Christ. Because God is gracious, we show grace because we have been forgiven much. And because God is generous, we who are in His image—redeemed through Christ—can be lavishly generous. We recognize the overwhelming gift of Jesus poured out upon us.
The Illusion of Ownership
Apart from the redemptive work of Christ, our view of generosity gets completely twisted. If we do not have the redemption of Christ and are living for ourselves, what does generosity look like? It is virtually non-existent, outside of occasional philanthropy, because we live under the illusion of ownership.
If I don’t understand who God is, I assume I am self-reliant, self-made, and self-providing. Personal wealth becomes solely for personal benefit. It becomes all about accumulation, materialism, and consumerism. The concept of being a steward is completely lost.
A steward is not an owner; a steward simply takes care of someone else’s stuff. If you borrow somebody’s car, you are a steward of that car. My dad taught me: “If you borrow something, you take it back in better shape than when you got it, because it isn’t yours.” That is stewardship.
To step into the joy of generosity that God designed for us, we have to grasp three foundational truths:
1. The Lord owns it all.
Everything belongs to Him.
Psalms 50:10-12 (NASB)
’For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. ’I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine. ’If I were hungry I would not tell you, For the world is Mine, and all it contains.
Psalms 24:1 (NASB)
A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it.
That would sound arrogant if it came from anyone other than the sovereign, holy, self-sufficient God. It all belongs to Him.
2. We are not in control.
We are not in control—not even of our very lives. If we live in the illusion of ownership, we say, “It’s my stuff, my house, my car, my life.” None of it is yours. It is on loan from God.
James 4:14 (NASB)
Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are [just] a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
We think we are a big deal, but every single one of us will eventually stand before almighty God. Psalm 139 says that all the days ordained for us were written in His book before one of them came to be. In the economy of God, there are no accidents and no oopses.
Acts 17:24-28 (NASB)
’The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all [people] life and breath and all things; and He made from one [man] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined [their] appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’
In Him we live and move and exist. We are not in control.
3. We are stewards, not owners.
In Genesis 2:15, God placed Adam in the garden to cultivate and keep it. That didn’t make it Adam’s property; it was God’s garden, Adam just held the hoe. God said, “I’m going to make this awesome place for you to enjoy, but you need to tend it.”
1 Chronicles 29:14 (NASB)
’But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given You.
Everything we have comes from God’s hand. Whether it is a lot or a little, it is all His.
My daughters are playing volleyball right now, so that is my world—a lot of screaming girls in short shorts! We are trying to figure out what teams they will be on, and I texted my girls this week: “Just trust God and see what He has for you.” Your life is a gift. Steward it well. Bloom where you are planted, whether God gives you a lot or a little.
That famous verse in Philippians where Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”—Evander Holyfield put that on his boxing shorts thinking it would help him beat Mike Tyson. But that verse isn’t about winning a boxing match; it is about living in contentment whether you have an abundance or face need. We are stewards. Good job or tough job, wealth or modest means, trust God. He provides, and we steward what He gives.
The Rich Fool vs. True Riches
If we are image bearers redeemed by Christ, called to reflect His nature, we should live lives of lavish generosity because God is generous. If we struggle with generosity, we struggle with understanding whose image we are reflecting—God’s image or our own.
Luke 12:13-21 (NASB)
Someone in the crowd said to Him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the [family] inheritance with me.’ But He said to him, ‘Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?’ Then He said to them, ‘Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not [even] when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.’ And He told them a parable, saying, ’The land of a rich man was very productive. ’And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ ’Then he said, ’This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ’And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years [to come]; take your ease, eat, drink [and] be merry.’’ ’But God said to him, ‘You fool! This [very] night your soul is required of you; and [now] who will own what you have prepared?’ ‘So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.’
The rich man thought he was an owner. He built the first-century equivalent of mini-storage to hoard his abundance. But God called him a fool because he stored up treasure for himself and was not rich toward God.
Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 that you cannot serve both God and wealth. In Matthew 16:26, He asked, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”
So how do we live out this restored image? Look at 1 Timothy chapter 6. Paul is writing to believers in Ephesus, a very affluent city.
1 Timothy 6:17-19 (NASB)
Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. [Instruct them] to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
We live in the wealthiest nation on earth. Even if you feel like you are struggling compared to your neighbor down the street, compared to the rest of the world, we are incredibly wealthy. I was recently at a fundraiser for the West African Vocational Schools, and they shared that nearly 70% of the people in Guinea-Bissau live on less than $2 a day. That is poverty beyond poverty. If you have a paycheck, a vehicle, and a roof over your head, you are among the wealthiest people on the planet.
The question is: to what end has God provided for us? To build bigger barns and buy more stuff? No.
Notice that Paul does not condemn being wealthy. The church tends to swing from pendulum to pendulum on this. One side preaches a prosperity gospel: “If you love Jesus, He will make you rich.” The other swings to a poverty gospel: “If you love Jesus, you must be poor.” The Bible teaches neither. There is no sin in making money. If God has given you the ability to make wealth, go work hard and make it! But as you do, heed 1 Timothy 6.
Do not be conceited. Don’t get cocky with your money. You are one economic downturn, one storm, or one medical emergency away from losing it all. Fix your hope on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Is it wrong to take your grandkids to Disneyland? No! It costs a fortune before you even get through the gate, but if you have the means, go enjoy it. Put on the mouse ears. Is it wrong to have a nice home or drive a reliable car? No.
There is no biblical prohibition against wealth, but verse 18 gives the command: “Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.”
Don’t just invest your money in an IRA; invest in the kingdom of God with an eternal return on investment. Use your resources to fuel gospel-advancing ministry. Be generous and ready to share. When you do, you lay up a treasure that serves as a firm foundation for the future, taking hold of life that is truly life.
The Call to Generosity
God has called us to be like Him: holy, gracious, forgiving, and generous. Through Jesus, the defaced image of God has been redeemed in us. We have the joy and privilege of living out the generosity God has modeled for us throughout eternity.
We are not owners; we are stewards. We are not in control, but God is. So let’s invest the resources He has entrusted to us for kingdom impact. If God has blessed you with wealth, don’t trust in it. Trust God, do good, and be generous.
Let’s pray together.
Father, thank You that we are invited into the joy of generosity. You are, by Your very nature, generous. In Genesis 1:16, after creating the sun and moon, it says almost as an afterthought, “He made the stars also.” In Your infinite power and grace, You threw galaxies into place—not because You needed them, but for our delight and Your glory.
We have received the lavish generosity of almighty God. May we live in response to that grace. Help us reflect Your image by doing good, being rich in good works, and giving generously to those in need. May we store up treasure that lasts, measured not by bank account balances, but by lives transformed by the gospel as we fuel Your kingdom work in our city and around the world. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.