Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:07] As we all are together, leaning into this idea of following after Jesus, it will challenge in us things that we assume are normal and regular. And oftentimes, what we realize when we look at the teachings of Jesus and we try to model our lives after his way is that he flips the script on how we live. He changes our approach to things like relationships. He changes, as we learned in the first week of the series, what we focus our attention on. Last week, Pastor Ben talked about how he changes the rhythms of our rest and our week. And today we're going to be talking about how he challenges and changes our approach to what is something that we all need, something that we all must have, and something that often gets in the way of our focus and our worship being on Jesus, which is our stuff and our money.
[00:01:05] In Matthew, chapter six, Jesus talked about this idea. He said, don't store up treasures here on earth where moth eats, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Instead, store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there, the desires of your heart will also be.
[00:01:33] You know, it's interesting in Jesus context and the way that he was teaching. Oftentimes we hear heaven and we think, well, that's the place we go to when we die. Instead, when Jesus talks about heaven in his teaching, especially in the sermon on the mount, what he is referring to is the way that God and his reign and his rule is coming to the here and now to make all things right.
[00:01:55] And so what Jesus does is he speaks into how we handle our stuff, how we handle our money. And instead of rebuking people for needing money or rebuking people for having this impulse to create security and comfort with their stuff, he says, listen, you are focusing only on storing up for yourselves what would be better invested in the work that God is doing all around you to make all things right. So he's not coming after those who plan ahead. He's not coming after those that want to provide for their children. Instead, he is saying, invest alongside of your needs. Invest in the work that God is doing to make all things right.
[00:02:41] And so for us here in 2024, a world away from the world that Jesus was teaching in the, we look to these moments where Jesus is teaching on money and possessions and say, Jesus, what do you have for us? What do you have for us? In a very consumer driven culture, what do you have for us in a me first world?
[00:03:04] This is, I think, probably the mentality that Jesus challenges the most in all of us is the me first. This idea that the world is a dangerous and scary place. And so I have to get what's mine. And so, right off the bat in Matthew six, Jesus gives us this encouragement to store up treasure in the work that God is doing all around us. And in so doing, we will find the desires of our heart, will follow our treasure, and we know this. So in my sophomore year of high school, I got a new car. I had rolled my old car, walked away.
[00:03:38] I was, okay, I'm here. But I got a replacement car. And my dad found this car. And so we got it, and I took it to the car wash. It was looking so good. And so I wanted to show off my new car, my new ride to my girlfriend at the time. So I drove over to her house and I knocked on the door and I said, I got a new car. Check this out. And what was sitting in her driveway was a 1996 forest green Mercury sable sedan.
[00:04:08] And her response was, exactly your response.
[00:04:12] She laughed and she said, that looks like a grandma cardinal. That's the direct quote. And I realized I was so taken aback because I was so proud of this vehicle. And I realized that because I had invested in this vehicle, right. I put my own money into buying this thing. My affection was tied up with it. And I think Jesus knows this, this tendency that we will care about and have affection for that which gets our resources.
[00:04:41] And so all throughout the gospels, Jesus is constantly coming back to this idea that he is on a mission to bring good news to the poor.
[00:04:52] Like this is central to his teachings. In fact, in all of scripture, there's about 500 verses that deal with faith. There's about 500 verses that deal with prayer, and there's over 2000 that deal with the plight of the poor.
[00:05:06] And so when Jesus comes and he's saying, my mission is to bring this great news to the poor, oftentimes he's speaking to a crowd, and there's poor people among them. Yes, but there's also affluent, wealthy people.
[00:05:20] In fact, some of Jesus best friends, Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, they are people of means.
[00:05:28] And so Jesus is doing this very confusing thing where he's among all economic, social, economic levels, and he is saying, listen, this news that I'm bringing is good news to the poor. And if you're poor, that means that he's got something that's good for you.
[00:05:45] But if you're rich. And you feel like, I don't know if I qualify for that. Here's what's so cool, is that we actually, those of us who are affluent, and by the way, by Jesus standards in the first century, if you have shoes on your feet today, you actually are better off. No matter what level of income you have, you're better off than the poor of Jesus. Day.
[00:06:05] All of us, no matter what our level of income or affluence or wealth, we all can participate in this work of the good news for the poor, because either we receive it as those who have nothing, or we become good news as those who have resources, and we become the funnel, the catalyst, the carrier of the good news to the poor and the world among us.
[00:06:28] And this is so critical, because if our expression of following after Jesus ceases to be good news to the poor, we're actually off the mark of what is the mission of Jesus.
[00:06:43] How we exist and how generosity flows through us is a marker that we are on the same mission that Jesus came to fulfill.
[00:06:53] And I'm gonna tell you guys, the reputation of this church that has been built for decades is one of generosity to our community.
[00:07:04] I can't tell you the amount of conversations I have when people find out where I work, how that is tied, even by name, that we as a community are tied to generosity and outreach to the least of these. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing. I was even looking. In the last twelve months, we have over 200 individuals and or families that have been participating in generosity and giving for the very first time. Over 200 families. Wow.
[00:07:33] So today I come to talk about how we approach our stuff and our money and generosity, not because I want squeeze a little bit more out of you. If you can just fund my second jet, God's going to give you a brand new car. No, it'll be a 96 mercury sable, right?
[00:07:56] No, that's not it.
[00:07:58] And I know that's the elephant in the room.
[00:08:00] We've all heard bad Bible teaching on generosity.
[00:08:06] We've all heard the misuse of these scriptures, like in Matthew, chapter six, to try to take advantage for financial gain. Can I tell you today, what we are talking about is a kind of approach to the stuff we have that realizes that everything belongs to God. And how we use that money actually affects our contentment, our peace and our joy.
[00:08:31] And so this is for all of us. This is something that if we learn to be generous first, we actually reap contentment and joy in our lives.
[00:08:45] Billy Graham said famously this. He said, if a person gets his attitude towards money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.
[00:08:56] So what is your feeling about money?
[00:09:00] You might feel that apprehension because of how people have taught poorly on this or used it to manipulate. You might feel guilt because of a lack of generosity in your rhythms and your habits. You might feel stressed because of debt or financial trouble. Today, you might be afraid that at the end, I'm going to call out for the offering plates and we're going to take another offering. That's not going to happen.
[00:09:25] You might feel like, you know, Evan, life is really hard, and money is tight, and living is expensive, and I'm not sure I'm gonna have enough at the end of this month.
[00:09:37] And to all of those concerns, first of all, I say I hear you. All of those are legitimate.
[00:09:45] And so, knowing that, that that's okay to feel any of those ways, I want you to lean in, maybe this morning, not to the idea that I'm going to come after you for more money today, but leaning into the idea that hidden in a life of generosity, whether we have little or much, is a sense of peace, contentment, and blessing from God.
[00:10:09] When it comes to money, we often have two oscillating emotions. Number one, fear that we won't have enough, especially when times are tighten, or maybe when times are better and there is more to go around. We have a desire for more than we need, which is greed.
[00:10:26] And it's these two oscillating emotions that often are the theme of our approach to our finances. Fear and greed. Fear and greed.
[00:10:35] And so we ask, where are you today on the fear and greed scale? Right. I feel a little fearful. I'm feeling pretty good. If we could just get some more. And we have this idea, I think, that's baked into us that's very normal, that if we could just get a little bit more money, then we'll have contentment, joy, security, identity, and peace. And can I ask you this? What is the dollar amount for you to have joy?
[00:11:03] Give me a dollar amount. When contentment is just going to take over your life, how much for you to feel completely at peace and secure in your future?
[00:11:14] Here's what I know. I've had lots of conversations with people at all kinds of levels of economic success.
[00:11:23] And the answer oftentimes is just a little bit more, right?
[00:11:28] If I just had a. Just a little. I'm almost there.
[00:11:32] And turns out when we get there, it's actually just a little bit more.
[00:11:38] Just over the next hill. And we live our lives chasing and accumulating something that is actually not ever going to be found in how much we have in a bank account, because our peace and our contentment and our joy, our identity, our sense of self and worth and status, it can't come from what we have and what we've accumulated. Instead, Jesus would teach us. He's flipping the script and saying, that's going to come from somewhere else.
[00:12:04] Luke, chapter twelve. Jesus told a parable about this.
[00:12:09] He's teaching amongst the crowds, and his disciples are there, and it says in verse 13. Then someone called to him from the crowd, teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father's estate with me.
[00:12:20] I love this.
[00:12:22] And jesus replied, friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that.
[00:12:28] And then he says, beware, guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.
[00:12:35] And then he told him a story. A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. And remember, jesus is talking to mostly people who work or attached to the work of agriculture. This is an agrarian society. And so they get this. So a rich man had a fertile field and farm that produced fine crops. He said to himself, what should I do? I don't have room for all my crops.
[00:12:59] If you feel like you can't necessarily relate, maybe we could change this and say, what should I do? I might have to go get a mini storage, right? Like, we have too much stuff. Time for a garage sale.
[00:13:11] And then he said, I know. I'll tear down my barns and I'll build bigger ones. And then I'll have room enough to store all my weed and other goods. And then I'll sit back and I'll say to myself, now check this out. This is him saying, if I just had a little bit more just over the horizon, here's what's going to happen. He'll say to himself, my friend, I love how he calls himself my friend. My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy. Eat, drink and be merry. But God said to him, you fool, you will die this very night. And then who will get everything you worked for?
[00:13:45] Jesus is doing something pretty brilliant, is he's speaking to people, many who would love to be in the situation that Jesus describes in this parable. They would love to have so much good crops and such a good harvest, so they don't even know what to do with all that. And so he pulls them in with this idea of, wouldn't it be amazing? And then he fast forward in the story with this rich man who thinks he has it made. And by all accounts, he does. And he fast forward to this moment where God says, hey, you're running out of time. And actually, your time's gonna run out before your money does.
[00:14:19] And when you get to the end and you're gone and dead, what then will be the story of your life? And I think oftentimes we don't think this way. We think about, what can I get and what can I gain and what can I accumulate for now and for the next year and for the rest of my life and for my goals and my dreams. But I wanna ask you today, at the end of your life, what do you hope people will say about you?
[00:14:44] Big barns, great crops, nice clothes, great 401K, perfect investments, right nice cars, the right house, the right neighborhood, and the right city.
[00:15:02] This isn't what we want at the end of our lives. This isn't what we hope people will say about us when we're gone.
[00:15:09] We hope that our lives are marked by generosity and care and kindness, that the sign of a life well lived. We know this intrinsically. We know this at the end of our lives. The sign of a life well lived is that we poured it out for those that we loved.
[00:15:30] And if you are saying, okay, so the good news is for the poor, and we pour out a life for those we love. But what if we don't actually love the poor? But here's the thing. As we begin to pour our generosity out into the world and to the people that Jesus loves, our hearts follow it.
[00:15:49] So I don't have much in common with the family living on the street that I pass on my way to work.
[00:15:56] And to be honest, there's enough pain in this life, and there's enough struggling people, even in our city, it's hard to empathize. At some point, we begin to be fatigued by all the requirements of empathy.
[00:16:09] And Jesus would say, I know, I know. You don't naturally have affection for that person that is so different from you.
[00:16:17] And yet, as they receive generosity from you, your heart's gonna follow your treasure, and you're gonna begin to love those that I love the least of these.
[00:16:29] Oftentimes, I think we feel like we have to have this great emotional inspiration before we will practice generosity. Jesus would say, practice generosity, and you watch as your affections change.
[00:16:43] So Jesus tells this parable, and it's a warning for all of those who think that the end goal of life is consumption and accumulation.
[00:16:55] In verse 21, he says, yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth, but not have a rich relationship with God.
[00:17:06] There is no rebuke here, again, for those who plan ahead or for those who are successful financially in this life, there is a rebuke for those who think that is the game, that is the end in itself, but instead the tool that God gives us in what we have and what we hold is just that, a tool to be used in the service of the flourishing of our communities and the life of those around us. And good news for the poor.
[00:17:39] If you had complete confidence today that God would provide for all of your needs taken care of, assured, how would that affect your view of money? I think too often we have a scarcity mindset.
[00:17:53] If I give to someone in need that I'm not going to have enough, my needs won't be met if their need is met. So we end up building security around us because the world is a treacherous place. And so I better take care of what is mine.
[00:18:09] And the scarcity mindset leads us to consumption first. Generosity maybe when there's leftovers, but there is a Jesus way that looks like generosity first. And I think so many times we are informed in our view of money by how we are raised, our families, our parents, our grandparents. Maybe this is true for you, but for me, one of the greatest gifts I would say that my parents gave to me was a view of generosity growing up. I'm going to out them a little bit. I embarrass them sometimes. Hopefully this is a compliment when I tell this story because they are in the room, don't look for them.
[00:18:50] But we grew up with generosity modeled every single month as my parents faithfully gave 10%, or what we would call a tithe, to our local church. And then they went above and beyond that in what we grew up knowing as the second ten. And the second 10% was given to missionaries to sponsor children overseas through programs like World Vision.
[00:19:15] There was such a confidence that God was someone that we wanted invited into our finances, that there was no fear in being extravagantly generous right off the top.
[00:19:27] And this had dramatic effect in how I was formed, in my view of finances and generosity was formed. And I want to encourage you and exhort you, parents in the room, model generosity for your kids.
[00:19:42] This is something that will mark us as a different kind of people in the world, where we model radical generosity for our kids.
[00:19:55] And oftentimes not only do we learn generosity from our parents, but also for those in our community. And we don't give and we don't practice generosity in a vacuum, but we learn side by side. And I was.
[00:20:09] We were coming back from Boise, and we stopped in burns at the McDonald's. Anybody big fans of the McDonald's and burns? Yeah.
[00:20:17] Yeah. They do something with their. Their cheese there. I don't. Yeah, it's fine. It's McDonald's. But we. We stopped, and we were getting lunch, and my son Jack is looking at the register. Underneath it is that. That coin box for the Ronald McDonald house, right? And he sees a picture of the kid on the Ronald McDonald box, and I can see him staring at it. He's like, what is that for? So I explained to him, well, Ronald McDonald house.
[00:20:47] It's a house next to hospitals all over the country. And families who need a place to stay when their kids or their loved ones are sick get to stay in this house for free.
[00:20:58] So I see the wheels. Six years old, I see the wheels turning. We get home, and I walk by his room, and I see him, and he's standing by his dresser, and he's got his little coin pouch open, and his money's out on the dresser. And normally he'd be counting to see when he can buy his next Pokemon card set, right? It's pretty typical for him. So I asked him what he was doing. He said, well, dad, I'm seeing how much I have, so we can go back and I can give some to those kids.
[00:21:25] And I was just challenged, like, wow. Sometimes I just live my life, and I forget that there are opportunities for generosity all around. And I'm not just learning from my parents when I was growing up. Now I'm learning from my kidney.
[00:21:39] Now, granted, by the time we actually agreed to go back to McDonald's, he had moved on back to Pokemon. He didn't want to give anything. But we're working on it, right? It's part of the process.
[00:21:51] I don't want you to think he's too much of an angel child. Right. Jeez.
[00:21:57] When we model generosity, it creates a community that is not kept up or swept up by the scarcity mindset. Instead, we begin to see that we can have an abundance mindset in the world that we live in, that we begin to trust that God is provider, and that he has an abundance for everything we need.
[00:22:16] And when we believe that and we begin to walk out a life of generosity, when we set aside the pursuit of more for the joyful pursuit of Jesus, it creates in us a whole different kind community.
[00:22:37] This is an intentional move into generosity that is motivated by a deep sense of contentment that comes when we walk this out.
[00:22:47] Hilary Davidson and Christian Smith in their book the Paradox of Generosity, wrote, people rightly say that money cannot buy happiness. But money and happiness are still related in a curious way. Happiness can be the result not of spending more money on oneself, but rather of giving money away to others. The data examined here show this to not simply be a nice idea, but a social scientific fact.
[00:23:11] Even the science backs up that people who are generous live longer, better, more content lives.
[00:23:19] It's like Paul was onto something when 2000 years before he wrote, it is more blessed to give than receive.
[00:23:26] Or as the message version says, we're far happier giving than giving.
[00:23:33] I think there's a well meaning feeling that generosity should only be expected from those who are wealthy enough to afford it.
[00:23:47] That true generosity only matters if it's a certain dollar amount for those who really have it.
[00:23:52] Okay, just push back against that a little bit. And first of all, say it's not about an amount, but it's about a posture of generosity.
[00:24:01] And then I never want to say, man, generosity will unlock contentment and peace and joy in your life. But it's only for those who make x amount of dollars, you know, per annum? Of course not.
[00:24:14] This is an invitation for those who have much and for those who have little, that when we give and we live a generous life, whether it's a kid who gets $5 for allowance and gives $0.50 away, or it's a newly retired person with thousands and thousands to give wherever we're at, it's not about the amount. It's about a heart that says, God. I'm here to be generous with everything that you've given me.
[00:24:44] This marks our community, as it did the early church.
[00:24:51] Tim Keller wrote that the early church was strikingly different from the culture around it.
[00:24:59] The pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body.
[00:25:04] A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body.
[00:25:08] And the Christians came along and they gave practically nobody their body, and they gave practically everybody their money.
[00:25:17] In a world that elevates consumerism, consumption, and sexuality above everything else, what would it look like to live in a community and to live the Jesus way that holds up generosity as one of our core values?
[00:25:38] I think it would, as it did in those days, change our world. So two ways to practice this model of generosity in our lives. Number one, give from a grateful heart.
[00:25:52] I would encourage you all, as I had to be encouraged by mentors in my life. When my wife and I were just starting out and money was tight, it was so tight it was in reverse, right? Like just going into debt every month. And yet a mentor met with us and said, if you don't set generosity as a value now, you never will because you'll never have enough to do the kind of generosity that you always intend unless you're ready to start that posture now. And so we give from a grateful heart.
[00:26:21] We give to organizations and programs that we are grateful for. Maybe it is this local church, as my wife and I give every month. Maybe it's a school that has impacted your family.
[00:26:36] But pick a place that you give a portion of your income, again, not about a dollar amount. Pick a percentage of income and say, this is my generosity. It's going to come out from the top at the beginning, before anything else. Generosity. First, this has never been about hitting that dollar amount. It's always been a percentage of what we make. And then secondly, give from a broken heart.
[00:26:59] Identify a cause that breaks your heart, something that aligns with the heart of God.
[00:27:04] For you, this might be foster care or medical missions or disaster relief. For Alyssa and I, this looks like sponsoring a child through world vision. We give to missionaries as requests come through.
[00:27:17] We'll give donations to GoFundMe, not to the organization, but to the people who are going through crisis.
[00:27:24] When our hearts are moved, we respond with generosity. And I believe this, that these practices in tandem, where we are giving regularly out of the gratefulness of our heart. We're grateful for the ways that good churches and good schools and teachers and good missionaries and all these wonderful organizations, places like the giving plate and Shepherd's house, and even through our ministry fund here at the church, how we fund our monthly food pantry, which we call our free food market. Amen. Our giving tree, our back to school celebration we had a couple weeks ago where we give hundreds of kids supplies, all those things. We want those to flourish and thrive.
[00:28:06] And it happens when we live a life and a practice of generosity.
