Biblical Generosity: Trusting God With What You Have | Old Testament

We're kicking off a new series this morning. This is called Generous for the Sake of the Kingdom. And we're doing this in in two parts. So, it's quite a short series. I'm going to focus on generosity from an Old Testament perspective today. And then Pastor Simon's going to look at it from a New Testament perspective next Sunday. And just generosity is one of those topics that I know can make people feel uncomfortable. You know, the moment the preacher says, "Today we're talking about generosity, people think, here we go. He's going to ask us to give more money." So, I want to alleviate your fears early on. I'm not going to do that today because uh the sermon is is much more than just about money. Because generosity is much more than just about money. It's about trust. It's about worship. It's about the way that we live before God. money just happens to be one of the clearest ways that that question shows up and where the what's truly in our hearts is revealed. So uh today uh yeah looking at generosity and and Jesus understood this topic quite well. This you know spoke about m money and wealth a lot. It's in his top three most talked about subjects. So we would be remiss not to talk about this to some extent especially since we live in a world where accumulating wealth is seen not just as a measure of success but it's seen as necessary to do. Uh the world is an uncertain place, you know, and just a little bit more provides you with just that little bit more security, that little bit more control, right? And recently, you might have noticed in the news, this was taken to the extreme when Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire. All right? He made headlines when SpaceX debuted on the stock market and pushed the value of his holdings into $1 trillion. Now, I believe it's gone down since then, but I'm going to work with the $1 trillion anyway. That amount of money, it's almost impossible to comprehend, right? It's it's one, you know, $1 trillion, $1,000 billions. It's one million millions, you know, to the average Australian household, it has a, you know, a net wealth of about $700,000. This is far beyond our comprehension. And so with a trillion dollars, you you'd have enough money to pay for the entire federal budget, you know, and still have over 100 billion left over. Another way to think about that amount of money is to consider what you could spend it on, right? And so the United Nations, they estimate that that roughly half a trillion dollars, that's $513 billion, could eliminate global hunger over the course of several years. Right? The fact that uh one person's wealth is in the same conversation as tackling one of humanity's greatest problems is staggering, absolutely staggering to think about. So never before have we seen so much wealth concentrated into so few hands, you know, and people are noticing. There was a recent poll done by the Australian National University and they found that most people believe that that billionaires aren't doing enough to benefit society. It's a very common perspective and they notice that people aren't simply upset because people are wealthy. They are concerned because it feels like the abundance in our world isn't being shared, it's being accumulated. And their belief is that this accumulation of wealth is creating an unfair society. And so it's easy to look at someone with this unimaginable wealth with that trillion dollars and say, "If I had that much money, I'd be generous, right? I'd use my powers for good, right? I wouldn't feel the need to keep accumulating. I'd finally be satisfied." Or we look at that and we think, "Why should I be generous when other people have so much more than I do?" We we do often look at others and what they have and by comparison, we think we aren't living in abundance, right? Right? So, it's easy to conclude that when we read the news that the problems in the world, they lie solely in the fact that some people have too much. And while that certainly is part of the problem, the Bible pushes us to ask an even deeper question. It's easy to think of the world's problems um as being that some people have too much while others have too little. But the Bible says that our problems run much deeper than unequal wealth. the the deepest problem is that we struggle to trust that God is truly generous. All right? And so that's what we're going to explore this morning. We need to step through parts of Genesis and Deuteronomy. And in this, we're going to see that from the very beginning, God creates a world that's overflowing with generosity. The tragedy isn't that there wasn't enough to go around. It's that humanity stopped trusting in the generosity of the one who provided it. And so we're going to start by looking at Genesis uh chapters 1:2. And so right at the start of the biblical story, we read this. It says, "The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters, and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters." Right? That's the opening of Genesis. The deep waters and the darkness represent the ultimate ancient symbol of chaos and disorder and death. To the ancient Israelite, you know, the deep water was this place where people could not survive. And so this is a a powerful image of the earth as being this initially desolate, uninhabitable, unordered state. And what we read next is that God takes this watery dark nothingness and he effortlessly brings life and abundance out of it. Light, sky, land, vegetation, you know, the celestial bodies, animals, and people, right? They're all part of God's good creation. And at the pinnacle of God's creation are people who God blesses. And it says this coming down to verse 28. Then God blesses them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground." So right from the start, you get this picture of abundance. You know, Genesis 1 describes a world in which people can be fruitful and multiply to the extent where they can fill the earth. And if you think about the image that that's creating, it requires an enormous number of resources to fill the earth. You know, but God is saying here that out of his generous lifegiving power, he makes that available to us. Those resources are there. And more than that, this is a is a picture of peace and stability, of good health, long life for people to flourish like this. A whole bunch of things need to be in place to allow that to happen. And God has made those things available to us here. It says so all those things that are required to people for people to flourish are here. And the point here is that this image you get in Genesis is an image of abundance. God God gives that as a gift to humanity. Right? And the image continues into chapter 2 where it starts talking about the the first people in the garden of Eden where there are trees that are beautiful. There are trees that are good for producing fruit. It's a place of purpose where people tend to that garden and watch over it. And the people there can eat from every tree in the garden, just not the one tree right in the middle. It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And it represents a choice, right? Are the people going to trust that God is providing everything that they need or are they going to think that they're missing out on something better? And we know how the story goes. You know the people despite living in this paradise they desire to rule on their own terms and they seek to take creation for themselves and it starts with doubt about God's generosity. So stepping forward, this is Genesis 3:1 says this, "The serpent was the shrewest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made." One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?" So the serpent here is subtly undermining God's generosity, right? He's suggesting that God is in the business of holding things back from us, right? And at first, the woman sets him straight. goes on to say this. Of course, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. The woman replied, "It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat." God said, "You must not eat or even touch it. If you do, you will die." "You won't die," the serpent replied to the woman. "God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you'll be like God, knowing both good and evil." And so in other words, here the serpent is portraying God as holding something back from humanity, withholding knowledge and good things. And so the people, they become aware that there's something desirable for them to take. And presumably it's for their own benefit. At least that's what they think. And that's what they do. They eat from the tree. They seek to take creation for themselves. and they decide to rule on their own terms, ignoring God's instructions. And so the result is that they're kicked out of the garden, right? They get kicked out of this paradise. It's filled with abundance and it turns out to not be in their interest at all. Right? Instead, it creates hardship. It creates stress and even death. And so this story captures perfectly the problem that we have with abundance in this world. despite having all we need, we start doubting God's generosity. Right? And when that happens, we start taking matters into our own hands and we start defining good and evil for ourselves. And in that circumstance, good always looks like what's best for me, you know. So when we think something will benefit us, we take it, right? We put matters into our own hands and we choose to believe that what we have isn't enough. That's the story of Genesis. Of course, the story doesn't end there. God wants people to experience his generosity. And so, he chooses a group of people, the family of Abraham, and he promises to give them the abundance that he he wants for everyone else. Right? God will provide what they need. All they have to do is trust in his generosity. And through them, the whole world will then see how generous God really is. And so God sets the descendants of this family free from slavery in Egypt. And he takes them on this journey through the wilderness to the promised land. This is also a place of abundance. And in Deuteronomy uh chapter 8, Moses says this about it. This is verses 7-9.

It says, "For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills. It's a land of wheat and barley, of grape vines, fig trees and pomegranates, of olive oil and honey. It's a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It's a land where iron is as common as stone and copper is is abundant in the hills." So Moses, he doesn't just promise Israel enough food to scrape by. He describes a land that's overflowing with abundance. There's water. There's fertile soil, fruit, grain, olive oil, honey. And then he adds something that I find interesting. It's a land with iron as common as stone, copper that's abundant in the hills. In other words, God hasn't just provided today's meal. He's provided them the resources to build a flourishing society. for generations to come. Really, there's no tools, industry, trade, security. The promised land is this picture of overwhelming abundance. But Moses knows the greatest danger isn't scarcity, right? It's abundance without gratitude. And so, the danger here isn't starvation. It's becoming so success, so successful that we believe that we've done it all ourselves. And so Moses cautions them. Jumping down to verse 11, he goes on to say this. But that is the time to be careful. Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I'm giving you today. For when you have become full and prosperous and have built homes for yourself to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large, and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful. Do not become proud at that time, and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous stakes and scorpions where it is so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock. He fed you with mana from the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. He did all this so you would never say to yourself, "I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy." And so that's the danger in Moses's eyes. That that's the danger that the people face. The very abundance that God gives can tempt people to forget the giver. And it results in a situation like he talks about there in verse 17 where people say, "I have achieved this wealth through my own strength and energy." All right? It creates a situation where people take ownership of what they were supposed to be stewards of. And despite Moses's warning here, that's what the ancient Israelites do. They enter this land of abundance and then they promptly forget about the God who gave it to them. So they act like it's all theirs and they start taking increasingly more for themselves. And this leads to war, right? And eventually to Israel's selfdestruction. That's the story that's captured for us in the Old Testament. And so notice the progression that Moses is describing there. He talks about how God creates this abundance and then how God entrusts people as stewards of that abundance. People then turn that stewardship into ownership. In other words, they take they take more and more for themselves. And this leads to hardship. It leads to conflict. All right? It's the same progression that we saw in Genesis. And it shows us that God is abundantly generous. Right? But humanity consistently fails to trust him. If you were to summarize, you know, from a a perspective of generosity and abundance, the Old Testament, it is that God is abundantly generous. That people consistently fail to trust him.

And so, here's what I think that uh Genesis and Deuteronomy are revealing to us about generosity. It's that generosity isn't a wealth issue. It's a trust issue. Right? Generosity isn't about how much you own. It's about whether you trust that God is generous enough for you to live with open hands. Right? The issue the issue isn't necessarily how much you possess. It's whether we believe that God is generous enough that we don't have to cling so tightly to the things that we've been given. And at the start, we tried to get our heads around what a trillion dollars looks like. And to most people, a a trillionaire or billionaire, you know, they're they're a symbol of this excessive wealth of someone who's taking abundance for themselves. And it's tempting to think that the problem lies solely with those people, with the excessively wealthy. But Genesis pushes us to look deeper. Right? The billionaire isn't the exception to the human condition. They're just the most visible example of it. Right? The same impulse that pushes someone to amass this huge wealth, it's present in every human heart. The impulse that says, "If I just had a little more, I'd finally be secure." That's in every human heart. Whether it's Adam and Eve taking fruit or ancient Israel believing that their own strength and energy gave them the promised land or us believing that we've earned everything that we own. The problem is always the same, right? We become convinced that if we don't look after ourselves that no one else will. We think that God might not come through, right? That perhaps he's holding something back from us. And so we look to wealth to provide that security, that identity, that significance, that control in our lives, things that ultimately belong to God. And so the result is that we begin defining good as whatever gives us more, right? that's good in our own eyes. More security, more comfort, more control, more wealth, that becomes good in our own eyes. And that's why generosity is so difficult because it's it's more than just about giving money away. It's an act of trust. You know, every act of generosity is a a declaration that says, I believe that God is so generous. He's generous enough that I don't have to cling to everything that I own. And so, let me be clear here as well. I'm not saying that it's it's wrong to work hard, you know. I'm not saying that it's wrong to build a successful business or save for your retirement, provide for your children, you know, give them things that you didn't have, opportunities that you never had, for example. Those can be good and godly things. The issue isn't necessarily success, right? The issue is whether your pursuit of those things is driven by go your trust in God's abundance or if it's out of fear out of securing your own future.

And so for you this morning, this is the question. What are you trusting to secure your future? Right? Is your security in your wealth or is it in God? And the answer to that question will be shaped by how you view the world. It's shaped by your worldview. Do you believe that this is a world created by a generous God, a world of abundance where everything that you have is ultimately a gift? Right? Or do you doubt that God is truly generous? Do you believe that everything that you have is actually from your own strength and energy? Because those two worldviews, they produce two very different people. If you doubt God's generosity, you will naturally protect the wealth that you have. You're going to compare yourself to those people who have more and you're going to keep accumulating [music] because just a little more feels a little safer. All right?

But God is inviting you to trust that he is a generous God. To trust and believe that every good thing that you have has come from him. To remember that you are a steward, not an owner. Because when you truly believe that this world is held together by a God who is generous, you stop living with closed fists. You start living with open hands. Open hands with your money, with your home, with your abilities, with your time. Not because you have everything, but because you trust in the God who does.

Let's pray.

Dear Lord, we just thank you so much, Lord, that you are a generous God. And we come before you this morning acknowledging, Lord, that you are the God of abundance, the God of generosity, and that you do want good things for us in this life, Lord. And we thank you, Lord, for everything that you've given to us. We come before you this morning, Lord, with repentant hearts, Lord, for those times when we've clung tightly to the things that we've owned, Lord. And I pray Lord that you would just transform us Lord that you would transform us to loosen our grip on the things that we hold in this world world and remember Lord that we are stewards of these things not the owners of them that ultimately you are Lord and I pray Lord that as you soften our hearts you bring about joy in our giving that you help us to see opportunities where we can serve opportunities where we can give of our time of our money where we can open our homes, Lord, things that you find pleasure in us doing. I pray, Lord, that you would you would work us work through us to do those things to be wise stewards of the resources that you've given to us. Lord, we pray this in your mighty name. Amen.