OCT 2 2016

Sea Change Church · Adam Stadtmiller · October 2, 2016
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Ah, few things, few traits cause a life to overflow with grace like generosity. It says it on your notes, few things, let me say that again, it's key for today. Few things will unleash grace. Grace is not a word we hear a lot about today. We hear about love, we hear about hope, we hear joy a little bit, we hear enjoy. We don't hear about grace, and grace is crucial to understanding God's lavish gift upon us because of Jesus Christ.

Because at the heart of all grace is generosity. Grace is something that when generosity of spirit comes to give someone forgiveness, it is being generous with your emotions, being generous with your opinions, where you'll give some forgiveness. And that's what God did with us. He gave us forgiveness. He didn't have to be right. But it says that he stepped down, Jesus stepped down out of heaven, and became like us, and made himself obedient to death, even death on what?

A cross. That he might be raised again. I come from a really, I don't know, I come from a generous family. I don't know if you come from a generous family. I think all of our families tend to have cultures. One of the things I talk about a lot with families when I speak to families is how do we change the culture of our family? Eric and Andrea just got married.

They're here this week. They got married a couple weeks ago. When I did their wedding, before we did it, we met with them, and we talked about how to have a culture and what kind of culture you want to inculcate your family with. And joy and hope. And so one of the things we want to have in our family is grace. We want to have short accounts with everybody.

Like Pastor Jim says, we want to have short toes to make sure that, you know, they're not getting stepped on too often. That you're not a slave to your own opinions, but that you give grace. I come from a grace-filled, I mean, excuse me, a generous family. That was part of our culture. My father was very generous. And there's multiple stories of people that work for him that he would give money to help them either become naturalized citizens, which we did with a lot of people who came and began to work with us in the 60s at our restaurants.

My dad helped pay for them to become citizens, and they are still here today. We had the same chef in our restaurants for like 45 years, I think, Miguel was there, and became a close personal friend. That generosity created a relationship, and there was so much grace there. My grandma would always give me the bottom of her cone. Now, I don't know if you know about the bottom, but the bottom of the cone is the best bit.

The bottom of the cone has all that little chocolate in it, you know what I'm saying? So we would go out, and we would get to this ice cream place, and they had chocolate in the bottom of the cone. And I just remember, I'd be there, and I'd always finish mine first, and she'd finish. And when she'd finish her, she'd break it off, and she'd hand me the bottom of the cone.

I mean, that to me, it's little things like that that let you know if a person is steeped in generosity. If you look at the Wikipedia definition, and I'm going to the Wikipedia conference this week. There's one in San Diego, and I think Wikipedia is important because it's become a modern encyclopedia and culture changer. If you check, how many of you use Wikipedia?

Raise your hand if you use Wikipedia. Right. So I want to go see what's up because it does have culture, and it talks about it and how they're using it. We want to be there as a church and understand that. This is what they said about generosity. They said it is a virtue of not being tied down by concerns about one's possessions. We're going to take it wider than that because I don't think it's just about possessions.

I think that's too limited of a definition of generosity because we have to have generosity of attitude when we drive around La Jolla. We have to have, you know, generosity in so many different ways. Raise your hand if you were cut off in La Jolla this week. Yeah, at some point. Yeah, me too. Multiple times. Not being tied down or concerns about one's possessions.

Often it means, and I really like this, often it means to provide help to others by giving them an unusually precious. I thought that was sweet. An unusually precious item without what? What does it say? Anybody see what it says there? Thinking twice. Thinking twice is how is this going to affect me? How am I going to make sure that I get mine? How am I going to make sure that there's enough left over for me?

I was raised in a family and part of our culture was this and we just were raised in it. And we were not raised with a poverty mentality. We were not the ultra rich. But we didn't raise with there's not enough to go around. Now, my mom stepped out of that because I think when you were raised in the 30s and you actually did have cardboard in your shoes.

And I know the stories. And it's actually true stories. They were raised that there wasn't enough to go around. But when my parents got together, they decided to change that. And they believed in that we were really good Catholics that were going to church and believed that there was always more. That we served a gracious God and that there was always more.

And I just remember always in the core of my being thinking this. There's always more. There is always more. And the first scripture I remember when I was 19 and returned back to Jesus that I remember reading was about Abraham. And Abraham takes Lot, which he was called not to do. Remember, he was supposed to go alone to the promised land. And he wasn't supposed to share it.

And so God said, just go by yourself. But he didn't want to do that. He needed to take Lot with him to help him out a little bit. And when he got there, Lot was blessed. Why? Because of Abraham. Lot got so blessed that there wasn't enough room left to graze all the cattle. And so Abraham, generous in nature, who had already been promised all the land by God, right?

Already been promised all the land. Went up and said to Lot, look around. You choose what you want. Now, what did Lot choose? The best bit. So he chooses the best bit. And Lot goes down and takes that. And Abraham gets what's left over. But before he's left over, God takes him up on the hill. And he says, I want you to look around 360 degrees. So he looks around 360 degrees.

And God says, all that, it's yours. He had just given it to Lot. He had messed up. He had disobeyed God. But God said, there's more to go around. And I raised in this, and I've been steeped in that culture. I've got to say, nothing has given me peace probably as much as that understanding. The understanding that there's always more with God. There's always more forgiveness.

God isn't hoarding his forgiveness. I'm only going to dole out a little bit of forgiveness for you. Oh, you've sinned too many times. Jesus was so generous in his forgiveness. They would only forgive seven times. But Jesus said, well, I want you to forgive seven times what? Yeah, that was like an infinite number back then. He's so lavish. He's so generous.

And so we were not raised with a poverty mentality. I want to say that if you serve the living God, I want to encourage you to step away, if you have one, from a poverty mentality. There's not enough for me. Even as we think about that with our relationship with God, he cares about others more than he cares about me. We begin to get into this negative, detractive, poverty thinking.

God is a lavish, generous God. And there's always more to go around. Because it says God owns the cattle what? A thousand hills. Meaning he is just in charge and he's lavish in his creation. As we look at this, in this idea of generosity, let me talk about the Macedonian churches. Because we are in the book of Acts. And as we went into this series, I did not know that we were going to be immediately mentioning the Macedonian churches.

I went to Corinthians, because it is a passage on giving. I thought I'm going to talk about Corinthians 8 and 9. And when I got there, I was smacked in the face with right where we are in Acts, with the Macedonian churches. I've been preaching about them for three weeks. I've fallen in love with the Macedonian churches. They are so cool. Like they are some of Paul's favorite churches.

These are the Bereans. These are the Philippians, as you'll see. Look at their notes. The churches of Macedonia had been planted by Paul on his second missionary journey. There was Philippi, the first church planted in Macedonia. There was Thessalonica. And there was the Bereans. The Bereans were of noble character, the scripture says. The areas you'll see in the notes, Paul journeyed to, was known as the barbaric north.

Now this is interesting. Because in the south was Greece. Now Greece and Macedonia were united for a time. But there was a rivalry between Greece. And I don't know if you guys have the map from last week. You can show it if you can. You can. There you go. So on the top is Macedonia. And then you have Greece. And then you have the Corinthian churches in Greece.

And you have Athens. I've got to say, the Greeks were a real pain in Paul's side. Real pain in his side. And if you look at the book of Corinthians, Corinthians is like this. I love you so much, I've got to slap you on the wrist. I love you so much, let me slap you on. Like, I find Corinthians beautiful but tedious. Super tedious. Because it's all like, can we quit, like, trying to marry your dad's, you know, wife?

Like, can we please stop doing that? Like, it's just annoying. And Paul was just annoyed with them. And with all their sin. And constantly trying to keep them in order. And then they're questioning whether he's an apostle and all this other stuff. So the Macedonian churches in the barbaric Norse, these, you know, barbarous Macedonians, proved to be some of the most gentlest, gentle, noble Christians that Paul mentions.

He loves going back to them. When he writes about it, read the books. There's a different tone to the book of Philippians. The tone of Philippians is about joy. It's about celebrating. When he talks about having Epaphrodite. Epaphrodite comes from the church in Philippi. The Philippians sent one of their main church planters. One of the guys that was solid in the church.

It would be like sending Jim. Saying, Jim, you know what? We really need you here. We're growing a church. But they need you up there. We've got to send you up there. Can you go spend some time with Paul? He's in prison. So you're going to have to go spend some time in prison. Sorry, I didn't do that on purpose. But go hang out with him. Epaphrodite goes up and ministers to Paul.

They send Epaphrodite as a gift. A generous gift. You don't send. Let me just tell you, Church 101. Like if we're growing our thing. And we care more about our thing than the kingdom. You don't send your people to bless other ministries. You don't give. You don't tithe out of your congregation to give to other ministries. You don't bless other people and say, Come and just use the campus for free for your ministry.

And you definitely don't send Epaphrodite away to go be with Paul in prison. But that's what they did. They were so gentle. So kind. So generous. And Epaphrodite almost dies as you remember. And Paul ends up being able to send him back. Because he said it would have been so difficult if you would have sent him and he would have died. But it says that Christ raised him up and they sent Epaphrodite back.

And it's such a beautiful story. So you can see that Paul has this amazing heart for people that really cared for him. They sent him gifts. This was one of the most poverty stricken areas in the world at the time. This is one of the most poor areas of the time. But when you look at when Paul writes in the book of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, this is the church that Joe just read about.

And these are the churches that gave beyond what the rich Greeks in Corinth gave. They made a promise that they were going to give. And then they said, ah, nah, I'm not really going to do it. And so Paul had to send them this letter and say, hey, you guys said you were going to do it. They're counting on it. There had been a massive earthquake in Macedonia.

You can see that Paul mentions there had been extreme suffering in the scripture. We know that that was, one, persecution. They were being attacked vigorously and persecuted. And second of all, there had been an earthquake. Many of the businesses, many of the homes had been completely destroyed. But it says that they gave out of what? Does anybody know the scripture it says?

They gave out of what? They're what? What kind of poverty, though? Extreme poverty. That's just so, it's just so beautiful. And so I want you to know, Paul had a huge heart for these people. The Macedonians are super cool. And they are churches that are remembered in the scripture. And I would say just like a home can have a culture, a church can have a culture.

And these churches had a culture of grace and generosity. They didn't live in their mindset according to the poverty of their physicality. They had poverty all around them, destroyed cities from an earthquake, persecution. But they didn't let their surroundings affect their heart. I mean, that was a phenomenal thing about these churches. Here's the keys to the text.

It says this. First, number one, few traits can cause a life to overflow with grace like generosity. And number two, generosity starts where? With God. Generosity. True generosity, I believe, can never come from us just deciding on our own that we want to be generous. I think true generosity, like joy, hope, and love, are things that are beyond our ability to source on our own.

And we want to live beyond our ability, even if it's 1%. If you're not living beyond your ability, whether it be generosity, whether it be kindness, whether it be hope, whether it be forgiveness, then why do we need God? Seriously. What's the point of being here? If we're not trying to live to forgive a little bit more than we can, maybe you can't forgive somebody yet because of something that happened to you, something that did to you.

But maybe you can start with this prayer. God, can you get me to the point where I want to pray for forgiveness? Maybe you don't even want to pray for forgiveness. But God, I'll just give you an inch. Maybe you can go ahead and take a mile. I think forgiveness is one of the most amazing places that we can see generosity. They say that there are seven movie themes that all movies are around.

One of them is about forgiveness. One of them is about forgiveness. And so we see generosity starts with God. A generous life can include more than just finance. Let's not just talk about finance. I mean, finance is so easy. It's so easy to get up and just bang away at finance. Forgiveness is so much harder than finance. Kindness is so much harder.

Here's some areas. How about your time? Just giving your time. We're all so busy, right? We're just so busy. I wrote an article for Christianity Today and I said, if the biggest change in church in the last 20 years has been this, as we have been inculcated with text and parties. I mean, 20 years ago, you weren't getting contacted by somebody you knew in junior high to go to their movie premiere.

Like you just, you know, like, hey, I saw you on Facebook. I'm having a movie premiere. Can you go? It's all cool stuff. But now you're connected to every person you ever knew. Like, you know, most of you are, you know, if you remember anybody from elementary school, it'd be very rare. Now you got like, you know, the class.com and all these things.

We've just become crushed with all the amount of relationships and all the different things. And so one of the things I said in this article was the number one change, especially in church, is people are no longer starting with yes when it comes to their time. They're starting with no. So I remember I really growing up in the 70s and 80s in church, when something, when I was on at church, it would be like, yeah, that's our first thing we do.

We just did it. They had a Wednesday night. Our life kind of revolved, whatever the church needed. I just remember they had witnessing night. And if somebody came to church, we'd do personal visits to your house, knock on the door. It's kind of awkward now if I think about it. But nonetheless, we would go do it. And the high school group would go do it.

And I remember leading a kid to Christ with a youth pastor who had come to the group. We went to their house in a car like six of us. Six kids showed up at the door and knocked, and we led the kid to Christ at the door. And I was just standing there as a youth pastor did it. But it was so cool. You know, we were starting with yes. It just started with yes.

It was so easy. But now we're so, I mean, I found myself doing it. When I get an email, when I get this list, the other day I had 51 emails that came in from 11. We all get a lot of email. From 11 until like 5 in the afternoon because I didn't check it. I only check it twice a day to stay sane. 51 emails came in. The first thing I think is how many of these do I not have to answer?

Is that anybody else like that? No one? Just one of you. Oh, Carol, good. Yeah. We both work at the church. Isn't that amazing? We start with no. We start with no. We're all busy. Raise your hand if you feel really busy and overwhelmed. Right? Now, everybody be on. There you go. There we go. Now we're getting to it. We start with no. When there's a need, no.

And it has to break behind the wall to begin to start with yes. We have time. Words. What about generosity with your words? Imagine that. Just being kind. Words have the power of what? Life and death. Finance is one. Forgiveness. I've already talked about it. Let's go to the first point. Few traits cause a life to overflow with grace like generosity. The Macedonian churches were drowning in generosity.

And they were drowning in grace. As you look as Paul speaks about these churches, and I forgot to put it in your notes, but it's 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. Let's read. I'll read this. It says the noun charis, grace, appears 10 times in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and 9. Even within this short span of verses, that range of usage is surprising. It is employed of a spiritual endowment, a divine enablement, a monetary gift, a human privilege, a word of gratitude, a divine favor, or goodwill.

And here it refers to the way that despite adverse conditions, God had enabled Macedonians to financially assist destitute Christians who they did not personally know. It's really powerful. It's really powerful that in this scripture, when Paul talks about them, he gives 10 different ways in which grace is flooding on them. I won't ask you to raise your hand, but how many of you need a little more grace?

Grace. Yeah. There it is. Nice. Yeah. Hands shot up right away. I need more grace. One of the best ways to have grace is to step in and to sow seeds of generosity. Because generosity is grace. The roots of generosity is grace. And vice versa. To be able to give more of your time. To be more, let things go. One of the things that I do here is a staff on a regular basis.

And if you work on the staff or if you're a volunteer, you're going to find this out. They will say things like this. Hey, we couldn't get the video working. And you'll start seeing people start rushing to get the video. And what will I usually say, Carol? No, I do not say that. What I generally say is this. We're fine without the video. The church has been here 100 years without that video.

It will go on again. Over and over again. Recently, one of my co-workers, and I'm just a co-worker. I have a role on the team. But I'm just a co-worker with everyone else here. And I just said, you know, just go home. Just go relax. Well, I've got to get all this done. I said, you know, the church has been here 100 years without you. It's going to continue on.

And the person said, I don't know how it's been 100 years here without me. But I'll go home. I kind of like the answer. I thought it was kind of funny. Grace and rest. One of our main values is rest. You don't have to come here and get busy for Jesus. We cannot substitute activity for God for spiritual life. Tweet that, okay? Thank you, Bev. We cannot sacrifice spiritual activity for a spiritual life.

Do a lot for God. I have been in those models and they tire me out. Get here and get busy. Now, I'm going to tell you, win the world. But do it in the personality that God has made you. I talked about Devin, who is on the USD football team cornerback. And I'm going to the game on October 22nd, I think. Taking some people to the game. Just challenging him.

How are you going to make a difference on your football team? How are you going to do that? How are you going to change the world? How are you going to change it in the military here? Talking to Reed or with Carol Ann and John and their marriage and the people that they're surrounded by. And the place you live. Yeah. Just go be you. Just go love people in Jesus' name.

But you don't have to go get busy when you get to church here. This is a place of rest. Yeah, we're going to do some things. But we want to have grace. Grace with yourself. One day I was talking to my, out loud. And I was upset. And my wife said, I was saying negative things about myself. My wife said, why do you talk like that to yourself? She goes, you don't allow anybody else to speak to you that way.

Why do you allow anyone else to speak to you that way? Or speak to yourself that way? And I said, that's a really good point. How much grace do you have with yourself? How much do you take care of yourself? You know, we're beating ourselves up. And Jesus is like, please, no, rest. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. Grace, generosity. You don't have to dance another dance.

You don't have to, you know, run another race for Jesus. You can just come. Come unto me and I give you rest. It says when you enter into heaven, the main characteristic of that will be rest. Jesus is at rest. It will be a place of rest. How generous are we in those things? So we see coming in for a landing now in verse 3. I want to see that one of the things that grace did with generosity was God gave them the ability to do something supernatural.

Here's verse 3. Paul testifying. Now, he didn't just make stuff up for a good sales pitch, okay? He said this, For I testify, they, meaning the Macedonian churches that were so close to his heart, they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. What? How do you do that? They gave as much as they were able and beyond their ability.

Did you see the supernatural come into that verse? You cannot give more than your ability unless something supernatural happens. And so they gave everything they could and then God blessed them with the ability to give more. And I've seen that over and over again. That generosity is a stream of God. It is one of these things. And when you step into those streams, you step into the momentum of that blessing.

America is one of the most generous nations in the world. A lot of that has to do with faith giving. If you go to, if you listen to NPR about faith giving, the largest amount of money given in the world is by faith-based organizations. I believe one of the reasons America has had blessing is because it has stepped into the things of God. And when you step into God's things, you get the momentum and the tailwind of those things.

And when you step out of the things of God, you lose that. I believe we are beginning to lose some of that tailwind as we decide we want to be God and not let God be God. For I testify, generosity moved them into the supernatural. The last thing, you know, here on that point is faith included sacrifice. I got to say that your faith has to be disruptive.

Tozer said that. I said it last week. Is it disrupting your life? Does it make your life a little bit more difficult? And is it disrupting it and making it better? Have you ever had a gift given to you right when you need it and it disrupted you but in a really good way? It isn't just a negative disruption. God wants to bless you. He wants to disrupt you with blessing.

He wants to disrupt you with emotional wellness. He wants to disrupt you with love. He wants to disrupt your whole life. But he also wants to challenge you to go to that next level. And so what does it look like? I'm not just talking, guys, I'm not just talking about money. Okay? It's not about money. It's about being generous people. About having a culture of generosity where I give my life away and I start with yes.

Not that you don't take care of yourself. Not that you don't have boundaries. You see people that they are in abusive relationships. Sometimes, well, I just, I give myself, I'll let him beat me or her or whatever it is. I'm in this abusive relationship. I'm just going to let it keep happening. You know, and you play the martyr. God's not asking you to be a martyr.

Jesus died on the cross. He doesn't need another martyr. Okay? Jesus is the final martyr. And he was a good one. He doesn't need you to play the martyr for that. But just to be generous. To give yourself away but to be healthy in the way that we do it. The final point will be done. Generosity starts with God. It says first in verse 5. Let's look at this.

They gave themselves first to who? To the Lord. And then what? What was the road? They gave themselves to the Lord. God, we want to give. We want to give beyond our ability. We don't know how to do it. And it says that then they ended up, the destination, they gave them to Paul. They blessed Paul. Do you see that? They gave themselves first to the Lord.

And then by the will of God. The will of God was the road or the bridge which connected what they wanted to do and the destination of their generosity. It was the will of God. God has a will and a desire. And he has set up good works for you in advance, the scripture says. That he is just dying and has died. That you will step into those things.

Imagine if you take the shackles off your wrist. And you begin to walk in generosity. I'm just going to be generous. Give somebody, when you tip at the restaurant, give a bigger tip. When you're in line, let somebody go. Hold the door longer. Just little things. And you will see that as we stop holding on to the things to make self number one. Because that's what generosity does.

It stops self from becoming number one. See that? You just stop. It lets God be number one. And you do it in the name of Jesus, by the will of God. And see what happens. 2 Corinthians is a verse that says, Each one of you must give what he has decided in his heart. Not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. He's talking about money there.

But where does the decision of generosity begin? It begins in our heart. It's a work of the heart to be a generous person. Generous and kind. We encourage you, not under compulsion. If you feel any compulsion ever to be a generous person at this church, please tell me, because I want to go a different path. Whether you give or whether you give your time, treasure, or talents to this place really is up to your relationship with God.

It's a discipleship issue. Amen? Let's stand. We're not going to finish with a song today. I'm just going to bless you. We've gone a little bit long. We had a big day and a big weekend. And please check out on the way out. You'll see what we're going to be doing here at the church. And you'll see the history, the rich history here. I ask that you put your hands out.

I just want to bless. And if you want generosity to well up in your heart, just to become a person that's in line with the generosity of God. Just ask him for it. Jesus, I just pray, God, that you would begin to do a heart work in this church. That we would be known. And I bless this congregation. I bless my people. I bless your people with your heart, God.

That they may be close to your heart. I bless them with physical wellness, God. We pray, God, that there be no cancers, no diseases in this church, that you would heal them. I pray, God, that they would know the word of God. I pray, God, that they would have forgiveness. And those that have been deeply abused by others, God, that you begin to put a crack, a fissure in that ice, Lord God.

That it would break through and that they could drown in the love of God. Lord Jesus, I just pray, Lord Jesus. That you would affect, that you would bless anyone that has tumors here. If there's a tumor that you would let it go away, Lord God, you bring complete health. And I bless you now in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.