Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - 3 Qualities of Generous People | More Than Enough | Part 2

Episode Date: November 19, 2023

When you think of a generous person, what comes to mind? Maybe it’s donating to causes, volunteering, or spreading random acts of kindness. How does the Bible define generosity? We’re learning in this message. ABOUT THIS MESSAGEWe tend to hold tightly to the things that matter most. But soon, the fear of losing them can feel like a heavy weight. What if you could trade fear for trust that God will provide More Than Enough? Let’s learn how in our new series. NEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextCONNECT WITH A PASTORDo you need prayer? Would you like to find out how you can get involved at Life.Church? One of our pastors would love to meet with you. Schedule a video call with a pastor: https://www.life.church/meetwithusABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.churchFind locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/appFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LCNowCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/craiggroeschelFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #craiggroeschel #morethanenough Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Let me start by asking you a question. It's a personal question, and I want to ask you about what you're good at when it comes to your money. What are you gifted at? What are you good at when it comes to your money? I'll give you some options. I wonder how many of you would say, honestly, that I'm really good at spending. Raise your hands right now. Raise your hands.

If you need to raise the hand of the person next to you, go ahead and do that. Raise your hand out. Some of you, you've got the spiritual gift of spending. You are to shopping what LeBron is to basketball or Jordan, whoever you want it to be right. You are so good at spending that your credit card ask for a vacation. You're really good at spending.

I'll ask you another question. How many of you would say you're actually good at bargain hunting? You're great at bargain hunting. You actually think if you find something for 50% off and buy it, you saved money, right? That makes perfect sense, right? You're thrifting, you're on Facebook marketplace, you're the coupon king or the coupon queen. You've got a bumper sticker that says, I break for garage sales.

You're good at bargaining. So we have spending, we have bargaining. How many of you are good at saving? Raise your hand. And a few of you, you're good at saving. Your grandma told you to put some aside first, and you've been doing that for a year. Some of you, you have so much. much cash under your mattress, you could buy a small country. You're really good at saving.

What's interesting when you think about it, there is not a single Bible verse that says we should be great at shopping. And there's not a single Bible verse that says we should be great at bargain hunting. And there's not a single Bible verse that says we should be great at storing up for ourselves treasures on earth, but there are plenty of verses in God's word that said we should be great at giving. We're in a message series called More Than Enough, and we were actually studying through 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, and I want to give you the context if you missed last week. Paul was writing to the Christians in Corinth, and he was encouraging them to be generous like Jesus. Now, previously the Corinthians has said, we want to give, and we're going to give,

and we plan to give, and they planned to give, and they started, but they stopped. They had good intentions, but they didn't follow through. And so in 2 Corinthians 8,6, Paul actually said this. He said, we've urged Titus, who encouraged your giving in the first place to return to you and encourage you to finish what you promised, to finish the ministry of giving. You had good intentions and you were going to, but you didn't finish what you intended to do. And then I like that Paul calls it,

finish the ministry of giving. And I want you to realize this, that giving is very, very spiritual. It's actually a ministry when you give, like praying, everybody goes, well, praying is obviously spiritual, and fasting is, spiritual and reading your Bible is spiritual and going on a mission trip is spiritual and serving in

life kids is spiritual and serving in the two-year-old room may be the most spiritual thing that you ever do but don't forget that giving is very spiritual it's actually a ministry and paul said hey why don't you finish the ministry of giving and so he continued in verse 7 and says this, since you excel in so many ways. In other words, you're great and you excel in your faith, and you excel with gifted speakers, and you excel with your knowledge, and you excel with your enthusiasm, and you excel with your love from us. And what does he say? He says, I want you to excel also in the gracious act of giving. Paul said, you've got big faith to believe God for miracles and you've got gifted communicators and you're great at seeking biblical knowledge

and you're great with spiritual enthusiasm and you're great at showing love. I also want you to be great at giving. I want you to be world-class givers. And what I'm guessing about most of you is you're probably a little bit like me. You actually want to be great at giving. You've got good intentions. You want to be great it, but sometimes we don't follow through. How many of you would say you've ever thought about giving something, but you didn't? Would you be honest enough to raise your hand? This is me. Just recently, Amy and I were going to one of our favorite restaurants. We frequent all the time, and I'd stopped by the ATM machine to get some cash. Some of you don't know what cash is. It's money that you put in your wallet that you don't use hardly anymore, but I want to have a little bit

in there. And so I picked up $200 cash, and we went to our restaurant and showed. And we went to our restaurant, Sure enough, there is this single mom there that we really enjoy talking to every time we're there. We've gotten to know her. She's not a believer. We're sharing our faith with her. Her baby daddy's not involved. Her four-year-old boy's involved in soccer. We know a lot about her.

And as I was going through the line, I felt prompted to give her the money in my wallet. And I thought, I think God wants me to do this. But I didn't have time to talk to Amy about it. So I thought, well, maybe that was God. Maybe that wasn't God. maybe I need to ask Amy's permission first that I should, but that might be kind of weird. And she's like, why is this guy giving me this? And so I felt prompted to do it, and I didn't do it.

And afterwards, I went off with Amy. I said, I think I was supposed to give her that money. What would you have thought of that? And of course, Amy's like, when have I ever talked to you on a giving money? You should have given it, you dummy. And then I thought, well, I wasn't really sure if it was God. And then she's like, when has the devil ever tempted you to be generous? I am glad you're clapping for my ungodliness.

Like, I thought about it, and I wanted to do it, and I didn't do it. I had good intentions that I didn't follow through. So Amy will told you, we have gone back five times trying to catch her working there, and we have still not found her there. And I pray to God she still works there because I don't want to not follow through on what God put on my heart. We want to be generous. And Paul was talking to the Corinthians

who had the same issue that many of us have. We want to be generous, but we're not necessarily great at being generous. So if we want to be great at anything, what do we know? We know that nobody ever becomes great at anything by accident, right?

I don't know anybody who just said, like, I just walked up to the piano and dang, I was the concert pianist. I mean, I don't know how it happened. No one says that. No one ever says I just did heart surgery for the first time. I didn't even know. I just took out a kitchen knife.

And man, I was good at it, right? You just don't do that. The way you get great at something is you actually plan to work at it. You strategically decide, I want to be good at something. No one ever just accidentally became iraural. rationally generous. And the reason that we don't accidentally become irrationally generous is because we are naturally selfish. And I can prove this to you. If you have ever been around any two-year-old, you never have to have selfish lessons. You never say, hey kid, today, I'm going to teach you to be

selfish. I'm going to hand you a toy. And then when I try to take it back, I want you to scream as loud as humanly possible. A blood curling, like fingernails on a thoughtboard scream, I want you to scream, nah! You never have to teach a two-year-old to do that because we're naturally selfish. It's the same thing with looking at a group photo. When you look at a group photo, who do you look at first in the photo? No one tells you to look at yourself. And no one tells you that if it's a good picture of you and it sucks of everybody else, it's a good picture. But if everybody else looks amazing and your eyes are like this, it's a bad picture. Because naturally, we're selfish.

And so nobody becomes irrationally generous. Nobody becomes great at generosity. Nobody excels at generosity by accident. We actually have to plan for it. In fact, Isaiah 32.8 tells us this. But generous people, let's say it aloud. do. Generous people plan to do what is generous and what else do they do? And they stand firm in their generosity. I love this. Like seriously, if you really want to be like God who gives for God to love the

world that he gave, some people have said you may never be more like God than when you give. If you want to be great, if you want to be like God, be great at being generous, you plan to be generous. and then you stand firm in your generosity. What's interesting is most of us don't plan to be generous. I didn't plan to be generous. I just had money in my pocket and thought, maybe I'll give it. And then I didn't.

Most of us don't plan to. We plan a lot of things. We'll plan a vacation. We'll plan to remodel the kitchen. We'll plan a party. We might plan a date. But most people don't plan their giving. Most of us, how do we give?

We give spontaneously. And I wanted to say right now, it's not wrong to give spontaneously. You're driving down the road, you see someone in need, and you think, hey, I want to bless that person. You want to occasionally give spontaneously. But please listen, if you only give spontaneously, you will never be great at generosity. because there is a massive difference between giving and being generous. There's a big difference. What do we know?

That giving is what we do, but generous is who we are. There's a big, big difference. Giving is actually an action, but generosity is a mindset. And so to be generous, we have to change our mindset, and we have to plan to overcome our selfish tendency, to plan to be generous, and to stand firm in our generosity. So what I'm going to do today, as we look at God's word,

I want to show you three qualities of generous people and pray that God helps us to grow into these qualities. What are the qualities? The first thing is this. Generous people give how? Say it aloud. Generous people give willingly. Number two, generous people give proportionately.

And God's Word teaches us that generous people give sacrificially. Let's look at God's Word, and we're going to study the first thought. How do generous people give? Number one, generous people give willingly. Generous people give willingly. Scripture says this, 2 Corinthians 8, verse 10. Paul says, hey, to the Corinthians, last year, you were the first not only to give, but to have the desire to do so. You wanted to do it.

You just didn't follow through. He says, now, finish the work so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it. Close the gap between your intentions and your actions. You want to be generous, make sure that you are. Now, how do you do it? According to your means. He says, for if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.

Generous people give willingly. In other words, God isn't just concerned with the amount, but he's also very concerned with the heart. And I can tell you right now, sometimes I've tried to give with the wrong heart. I hate to say that. We had a guy at one time that was not a believer who did some work on our house,

and I was trying to be a witness to him, and at the end I paid him more than I thought he should have charged, but I thought, okay, I need to be a witness, so I'm going to give him a tip, and I thought, I'll find something in the house to give them, and I went in the bathroom, and I found a Chili's gift card that said $50 on it. I think it was $50, and so I came and said, hey, you know, thank you for doing this, and I just want to be a blessing to you, and I feel like God put this on my heart, I'm supposed to give this to you, and he's like, no way.

He goes, oh, my gosh, I love you. Thank you, so this is amazing. I'm going there tonight. And so I thought, okay, that's good. I didn't really want to do it, but I found it. Someone gave it to me, so it was easy to give to him. So he goes to Chili's, I guess, whatever. Three hours later or so, I get a phone call.

I picked it up as him. He goes, hey, bro, what's up? He says, what's up with you? He goes, no, what's up? I said, what's up with you? He goes, no, what's up? There's only $2.43 on this card. And there is a witness in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, right?

I mean, my heart wouldn't right as half-hearted and it just kind of failed. And so God isn't concerned with just the amount, but he wants the heart to be willing. In other words, somebody could give a bigger gift with the wrong motives, and that's not really generous. Or somebody could give a smaller gift with the right heart and the right motives,

and that's more generous. It's not just about the amount, but it's amount about the heart. And so whenever you do give, you want to give with the right heart. This isn't like to relieve your guilt, Like, oh, pastor talked about giving, I better to do something today. It's not to make you feel better.

It's certainly not to impress people. It's not to show on social media, hey, look how generous I am. It is to honor God and to bless people. When you give from your heart, it's not a I have to or I better. It's a I want to. After all God has done for me, I want to be a blessing to others. generous people they give willingly. The second thing is important to note is that generous people give proportionately.

They give in proportion to what they have. And what's crazy is like one person could give $10, $10. And that is incredibly generous because that's all they have. And another person might give $1,000 and you go, wow, that's generous. And God might say, that ain't generous at all. they're so rich they would not even notice that. Generous people give in proportion to what they have. And maybe that's one reason Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 8-11.

He said, oh, there it is. Give in what? Give in proportion to what you have. Give a portion of a little. Give a portion of a medium amount. When God blesses you with a lot, give a portion of a lot. Give in proportion to what you have. Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly, if you give it willingly, and give according to what you have, not what you don't have.

Scripture says, give in proportion to what God has given you. And we're going to watch, as Paul teaches in the New Testament, a very similar principle to what we see all over the Old Testament. Essentially, he's going to teach us to prioritize your portion. set aside a portion in order to give. And you see it all over the Old Testament. We looked at some verses last week. This week we'll just look at Leviticus 2730. This is this.

A tithe, the Hebrew word is maasur, and that means one-tenth. It's a portion. One-tenth of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord. it is holy to the Lord. Scripture says in multiple different places that we return the tithe to God.

10% of what he trusts us with, we give back to him, and many of you are thinking the very same thing that I thought the first time I heard that. No way. Like, there's no way. Like things are so tight right now.

There is no way I could possibly, I mean, to give 10% to God I would have to rearrange my entire life around God. I'd have to make some changes to do that. I'd have to actually prioritize God over all the things that I'm already doing in my life. That's crazy. And Paul said essentially the same thing. Prioritize your portion in 1st Corinthians 162.

He said this, on the first day of each week, what should you do? You should each put aside a portion of the money that you have earned. Generous people are going to give in proportion to what they have. And the very first time that I took the faith to tithe, I was 19 years old, and I was a college tennis player. So I actually started a camp in the summertime, had employees working for me and made, well, it was a lot of money for a 19-year-old. At the end of the summer, I heard it by like the third tithing message. I finally said, okay, God, I'm going to trust you. I wrote what was the biggest check of my life as a tithe and, you know, shaking, oh, okay, God, I trust you.

Put it in the offering plate. And God is my witness, my grandmother, who we didn't think had anything just after I did that called. And so thankful, you're now walking with Jesus. and I want to bless you. And my grandmother, my mom's here, tell you true story, bought me a new car. Not just any car.

I'll show you a picture of it. It was a Honda Accord, and there's Amy. And you know the joke that's coming, if you've been here for a while. It was a biblical car because all the disciples gathered in one accord. See what I did there. Okay?

And it was a game changer. And what I'm not saying, and I want you hear me clear that, I'm not saying if you tithe, you're going to get a car. I promise you. you, I'm not, I'm not telling you that. What I am saying is that God said, test me. That's what he said in the Bible, test me and see if I want not prove myself faithful. God will provide, he'll bless,

it may be material, it may be financial, it may be spiritual, it may be relational. God just proves himself and it's the only time he says to test him. And to tell you the rest of the story, it was a big, big deal. Because I had $6,000 saved to put toward a car. and there's a guy named Mike who's in this service, who's a part of our church, who was an older fraternity brother, like really old guy, like 31 or 32, right? He was way up there.

And he was in a turn, and he came to me, and he said, hey, my mom has a house. She'd like to sell it to somebody, you want to buy it? Like, I'm not going to buy a house. And he showed me the numbers. He said, we'll carry the note. And I took the money that I had, put it as a down payment on my very first house.

That house right there, believe it or not, was $14,900 after my down payment. My monthly payment was $151. $0.66 a month. I said to my fraternity brothers, you can live in here for $100 each. Six guys moved in, and I became a landlord

at the age of 19. And six months later, another house came up for sale down the street and auctioned. I bought it for 11.9. By the time I graduated from college, I had four rental units and have continued to be faithful

to multiply what God has given me. And our whole ability today to be a blessing and to understand how to manage resources in the church, started with God's faithfulness after the very first type. It's spiritual. It's God honoring. And scripture says it belongs to the Lord.

You cannot out give God. And some of you got, you'll do what I did. You'll go, okay, praise God, let's go, 10%. Others, you can go, ain't no way. And so a lot of times people go, ain't no way so you don't do nothing. Okay. If you don't do anything, you're never,

going to be more generous by doing nothing. Let me just say, when you do nothing, you train yourself to be not generous. You're training yourself not to trust God with your finances. So if you want to do what I did and start 10%, do it. If you can't get there and you want to say, let's start at 3% or 5% or grow from there. I would just encourage you to start somewhere because you will never accidentally be great at being generous. Generous people have a plan and they stand firm in their generosity. Mom, you can clap for that if you want to because everybody else is being quiet. Generous people, they give willingly. We want to be like God. We want to be a blessing to others. They give proportionately, and then this one's actually difficult. Generous people give

sacrificially. They give sacrificially. They don't just give when it's easy, and they don't just give when it's comfortable, but they'll actually give in a way that they often feel it. In fact, Jesus told a very powerful story about a poor widow that gave sacrificially. And he says this. Mark's gospel tells us this. Jesus sat down near the collection box in the temple

and watched as the crowds dropped their money in. May I pause for a moment and say, that's a sobering thought that Jesus is like looking around the column and actually watching. and looking at the amount that people put in. Many rich people were there, and they gave what was easy. They gave large amounts.

Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins. Jesus calls his disciples, and he said to them, I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all the others who are making contributions. for they gave the tiniest part of their surplus. It wasn't a sacrifice. It was easy for them.

It wasn't even a proportion of, it was easy for them. But she, this widow, poor as she is, has given everything that she have to live on. Incredibly emotional. Incredibly emotional. Some of you, you are like that widow. You are so generous with your financial resources. with your time, with your faithfulness, with your service. Others, not so much.

And so I would ask you just to think about, when is the last time you gave sacrificially? When is the last time that you gave and you felt it? And let's just call it what it is. For some of us, it's really difficult to do that. Because at some point, you can be so comfortable that you can give what seems like a large amount to everyone else, but we don't feel it at all.

When is the last time you've given your time, your part, your faithfulness, your resources, and a way that you actually felt it? I'll tell you about a time that we felt it, and God showed up in a very special way. We were early in the church, back in the old days, and we only had four kids. We had a starter family, just a little starter family, two more to come.

And I was exhausted, pretty burned out, and I've been saving for our first real vacation that we had since the beginning of the church and had enough money saved to go on a 10-day vacation. We were really, real excited about. And there's a couple in our life group that had been praying to adopt for quite some time. And they had a lead, and it fell through. And they had another, it's going to happen, and it fell through. And they had another one. You get to adopt, and it fell through. And finally, they got the green light.

a little girl from another country, they were going to get to a dot, but they just had a massive financial setback. And they had always been ready now financially. They were not ready. And they had a significant gap. Well, the significant gap was about a 10 days vacation worth that Amy and I had saved up. So we're sitting there in Life Group with this family going,

we could actually take the money we had set aside for ourselves and we could give it to them. Or we could give them a little portion and pray that everybody else gives them something, right? Because I don't want to do that. And the more we prayed about it, and the more Amy and the Holy Spirit talk to me, sometimes I get him confused.

Is that Amy? Is that the Holy Spirit? Is that the Holy Spirit? I came around to not only, not reluctant, but willing, yeah, God, this is the right thing. Yes, let's do this. And said, hey, we want to take our vacation money and provide for your adoption. They said, no, no, no.

Yes, you can't talk to sound of this. This is what God's called us to do. And we gave no strings attached. And that felt like a sacrifice because I felt like if I don't get time away, it was the early years of the church. I don't know if I can go on. It felt that real to me at the time.

And lo and behold, you cannot out-give God. A sweet family from the church came up to us a few days later and said, Hey, we have a condo in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Would you guys like to go and stay there free? Let me pray about it. Yes, we would. And I'll show you a picture of this condo. This is little Anna, who's now married sitting over here next to Luke with a baby and a dog.

That's Anna coming down the condo. And this is Amy with the four kids that we have. and we had the most peaceful, most restful time that year that we went back to Seymboat the next year and the next year and the next year and the next year and eventually we outgrew their condo and we had the resources to rent a bigger condo and bring a bigger one and a bigger one. For 23 years straight, my family has gone back to that place

because it's the place where God refreshes my soul. And I sit there, I think to myself, I gave sacrificially. I felt it. And God gave back extravagantly. Because I want to promise you, you just can't out give God. And so when it comes to your money, let's just remember. God never said to be great at spending on yourself.

And you got to admit, we've got a generation that can hit click buy faster than anybody. There's so many boxes come into your house, you better get the UPS guy. Christmas present. The Bible never said be great. It's fitting on yourself. The Bible never said be great at finding the best bargains. And the Bible never said to be great

at storing up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. But be great at storing up treasures in heaven. Be great. Excel at the ministry of giving. Because giving is spiritual. It is a ministry.

And so let's not be like the Corinthians, and let's not be like me in the line when God prompts you. But let's give willingly, joyfully, hilariously, thankfully, and let's give proportionally. Let's start with the tithe. I'm not as a starting point, 10% back to God. Then we're going to give offerings above there. I know it sounds crazy, but you watch as God shows up. Let's start there and let's be givers. And then every now and then, when God prompts you, let's give sacrificially.

and what you may find is you just can't out give God. Because when you give, you may never be more like God. For God so loved the world that he gave, you may never be more like God than when you give. So, Father, we thank you for an amazing church of people that are growing in generosity. Thank you that you enable our church to give, to give the Bible app, to give free resources,

to give the churches around the world. to give to people in need, to give to ministries, not just money, but to give people, to give time, to make a difference. God help us to be great to excel at generosity. As you're praying today, I hope this is all of you, every one of you that's a believer, I hope this is you, but how many would say, I really do, I want to honor,

I want to be like God, I want to be generous. I want to be great at being generous. Would you raise your hands right now? Lift up your hands and praise God for you. Online, just type in the comment section. I want to be great at generosity. Father, stir within our hearts. Give us faith, God.

Give us an abundant mindset. God, give us, we talked about last week, give us the barn mindset, the barn blessings to give first and to trust you. And God, whether it's a portion of a lot or a portion of a little, may our hearts be right before you. Give us eyes to see,

opportunities to give, to be a blessing, to empower your church, to bless people that are in need, to occasionally give spontaneously, but to often give strategically, to plan to be generous, and to be people of God who stand firm in their generosity. As you keep praying today, nobody looking around. I want to tell you about a generous God. there is no one more generous. How did God give? For God so loved the world.

Let me just make it more personal. God loved you so much. Even while you sinned against him, he sent his son. God so loved you that he gave his one and only son Jesus. How did God give? God planned. God planned to send his son. It was his plan and purpose.

sin Jesus. God gave his son willingly. God gave his first. He gave his first. He gave the first. And God gave sacrificial, the most sacrificial gift ever. Jesus, the son of God who never sin, the Lamb of God, who is slain for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus gave his life in our place on a cross. And God raised him from the dead so that anyone, doesn't matter what you've done, doesn't matter how dark your life is, doesn't matter how far from God you feel. Anyone who calls on that name, the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, your sins would all be forgiven. Your old would be passed away and you would become completely new.

There are those of you around the world, there are those of you in church right now. You're not here by accident. You're here because God is loving you toward him. What do you do? You just step away from your old life, step away from your sin and say, yes, Jesus. I receive your gift, the gift of eternal life, the gift of salvation. He gave his gift and you receive it. Those who say, yes, I step away from my sin.

I step away from the old today by faith. I give my life to Jesus. I receive his gift. I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now, all over the place and say, yes, that's my prayer. Right here, praise God for you. Others today saying yes, right back over here.

Yes, praise God for all of you. Say yes, I call on Jesus. I surrender to him. Those of you online, just type in the comment section. I am surrendering my life to Jesus. And today, wherever you are, we all pray together. Would you pray aloud? Pray, Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of sending your son.

I give my life to him. Jesus, forgive me. Save me from all of my sins. Make me brand new. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you. and serve you and follow you. Make me like you, full of love,

full of compassion, and full of generosity to show your love to a world that needs you. Thank you for new life. I give you all of mine. In Jesus' name, I pray. Hey, could somebody worship right now?

Somebody tell God, thank you for who you are. Thank you, God, for what you have done. Thank you.