Good morning. Welcome to The Edge Church. My name is Neil Schori, and I’m one of the pastors here. We’re so glad that you chose to spend this morning with us. Maybe you’re not really quite sure what you think about God, and I just want to let you know that that’s okay because we’ve all been there before. We want to make sure that you have an open invitation, a sense that you can be comfortable to explore and ask the questions that you have about God with us.
So many of us around here have experienced the incredible grace of God, and we hope to walk with you along your journey as you get to know him more as well. God is for you and so are we. Come and see with us for yourselves that the Lord is good.
If you’re joining us today for the first time, I encourage you to catch up on the last weeks of our sermons from our current series called The Blueprint: Spiritual Disciplines For a God-Filled Life. These practices that we’ve been discussing — so far, we’ve talked about prayer, we’ve talked about fasting, study, solitude, service, simplicity and Sabbath. To be very clear, none of these things will cause us to gain favor from God, but it’s so that we can connect with God who is already present with us and longing for a greater connection.
Have you ever noticed in your life that you can be in the same room with someone in your family but have little to do with them because you’re engaged in other things? And that can be okay. It’s okay to be able to sit in silence with the people that we care about, but if you want to know that person and be known by them, there are just certain things that you’re going to need to do or want to do to engage with them, and that’s really what the invitation of the sermon series is.
Today we’re going to talk about the spiritual discipline of generosity. When you think of what generosity means to you, it’s pretty likely that you think about a time that you were the recipient of a gift or a financial, a money blessing that really helps get you through a hard time. But the concept of biblical generosity is much farther-reaching than that, and it affects the giver, and it also affects the one who receives it. So here is what the prevailing concept of generosity is according to the original Greek translation in the New Testament.
So generosity in the New Testament is pretty much summarized like this: it’s simple goodness, which gives itself without reserve, or you could say that it’s without strings attached or without hidden agendas. It’s almost like you can take a deep breath and sort of let it out, because generosity that you receive that’s the biblical kind of generosity allows you to just be you and receive it, and you don’t have to wonder about the motives of the person that’s given it to you.
That’s very different from what many of us think of as generosity. As a matter of fact, that definition — while it certainly could include financial giving to someone’s needs — it has an essence that surpasses finances in scope and with heart. Many of us over the years have passed by the homeless in Chicago or somewhere in the suburbs, and those of us who aren’t entirely jaded by the sheer numbers of people with needs, or at least claiming to have need, we might give something to them. But even when we do that, that doesn’t even approach the detail that we learn about when it comes to generosity in the New Testament.
As he commonly did. Jesus upped the ante. He always spoke to the heart and to the motives of his audience. That can make us pretty uncomfortable. Sometimes we like it when he does that for other people, but we don’t really like it when he turns that focus on us.
In his most famous sermon, The Sermon on the Mount, he made multiple statements referring to Old Testament instructions, and he made them more challenging. Like this one, Matthew 5: 21–22. He said:
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ’You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ’Raca,’ is answerable to the court.
’Raca’ meant fool.
And anyone who says, ’You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell (NIV).
So what we see here is that Jesus never took away from God’s standards, he just put them into context and showed what God intended, and it was often more challenging because, in this case, he moved all the way to talk about anger and he said, anger is something that can get out of control; it can turn into rage and bitterness, and we all know that when we’ve let that get out of control in our own lives, that it’s soul-killing, not just for us but to the object of our wrath — a person that we’ve targeted.
Let’s take just a moment to pray and ask God to help us get everything that he has for us in this moment.
Father, we thank you so much for this time, and we just pray, Lord, that you would help us to get your heart of generosity. Lord, help us to receive that from you and help us to live generous lives. Help us to make this a discipline that we practice on a regular basis so that we look more like you and we show the world that has such a great need for you, who you really are. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Today we’re going to look at The Parable of the Good Samaritan to see what we can learn about living generous lives. We’re going to look at Luke 10:25–37. It says:
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ’Look after him,’ he said, ’and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise” (NIV).
Now, before we talk about what generosity should look like in the life of a Christian, we have to quickly address what I believe is the primary point of this whole story that Jesus shared, and it’s this — this is really important for us all to get: There is absolutely nothing that you can do and there’s nothing that I can do to justify ourselves in the eyes of God, and that goes for people like Mother Teresa, and that goes for your own mom, and that goes for you certainly. Since the beginning, we’ve tried to do things our own way. But that’s never been enough, and thankfully it’s never been required because salvation is a gift, and generosity flows from that gift after it’s been opened.
So what is this story all about? When we look closely at the details of it, we see the potential of the generosity of the human spirit that’s been transformed by knowing Jesus, and we see that the giving of finances is just a piece of that transformed puzzle. Let’s look at what I believe are a few key points for us to take from this passage as we seek to live lives characterized by the generosity of God in 2021.
Here’s the first point: Generosity starts by seeing all people as loved by God. Let me say it again: Generosity starts by seeing all people as loved by God.
That might sound really obvious, but it’s really not. In 2021, we have so many distractions, and we’ve been in a pandemic for a year, and we’ve been in these bubbles — these technology bubbles — and technology is all-encompassing, isn’t it? You’ve probably been on more Zoom calls, more video chats than you’ve ever been on in your life altogether in this one year. And we also tend to have these biases regarding people. We all have them. We need to acknowledge it because those biases tend to keep us from seeing people as actual people, or some people as actual people.
We have a lot of blinders that keep us from living generously with all the different kinds of people that are out there, and we have plenty of excuses that are ready. Don’t we? Just as the religious people in the story probably did too. It might be like this. “Well, you know what? I’ve got to get to church to serve, so I can’t be bothered to stop and help him. Someone else will do it” or “I’ll be late,” or “I don’t have time to stop to help him because, honestly, I know he really wouldn’t do that for me.” Whatever the excuse is, whatever we try to come up with to rationalize why we’re not willing to help someone, it really is just that — it’s an excuse. And as soon as we marginalize the image of God in another person, we begin to dull and ultimately silence our own consciences, the thing that helps us really know that there is a better way to be. God has called us to live differently.
We label people, and we marginalize people from our experiences with them or with people who look like them, and ultimately that temporarily makes us feel better about ourselves when we say, “Well, here’s why I’m not going to help that person,” or “Here’s why I’m not going to help this kind of person.” But it moves us farther away from the heart of God, the generosity of God.
The Jews did this to the Samaritans and the Samaritans did this to the Jews, and generation after generation, there was this mistrust and this dehumanizing of each other. But honestly, it’s no different than so many groups that we have today. It makes me think back to last summer. Last summer, there were a lot of protests that broke out in our country about racial injustice, and there was one that grabbed my attention in what I would say is in the best of ways. Because there was a black man in England named Patrick Hutchinson, and he was part of a protest overseas and he saw a white man who was being beaten. And the white man was a counter-protester to the protest on racial injustice, but instead of jumping in to hurt this man that was protesting against his cause, he placed himself in harm’s way and, with a few of his other friends, he carried this man to safety.
So what would it look like for us to choose to look for the image of God in all people? Literally all people. Now, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to be in a close relationship with all people. Some people are just not going to be safe to be in relationship with, but that still does not give us any excuse to marginalize that person or to speak about that person in a way that dehumanizes. We always need to look for the image of God in every person that we encounter. Maybe, if we did that, we would be expressing what biblical generosity looks like.
Jesus spoke to this exact thing. In Luke 6:32–36. He said:
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.
And then he changes the scope of generosity again. He says:
35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (NIV).
Here’s our second point: Generosity leaves room for holy disruptions. Generosity leaves room for holy disruptions.
One Sunday morning, I remember years ago I was headed to church to preach, and I was preaching on serving others, and guess what happened? On my way there, I remember getting off the interstate, and I pulled off the ramp and I saw a woman pulled over, no joke, on the side of the road, and people were rushing by her and honking at her as if she meant for her car to break down there. She was completely nervous. I had all the reasons in the world not to stop, and I quickly told myself why it was okay for me not to stop. I was paid to be at the church. Who else is going to preach if I don’t go? Surely, someone else’s going to see her. And you know what happened? I passed by her, and I got two blocks away until my conscience got the better of me, and I knew I have to turn around because I would rather explain to the church why I was a few minutes late than explain to God why I neglected to do the very thing that I was preaching on that day.
Most days, all of us, we wake up to our agendas. We have work to do and kids to take care of an exercise to make happen. We have lots of things that we have to do, and all of those things are legitimate things to do, but what happens when those things get interrupted in your life? How do you respond to that? What happens when the lady in the grocery store line actually answers you when you look at her sort of robotically and say, “Hey, what’s going on?” and she tells you, and it’s a hard story and you know that she needs someone to listen to her. Are you going to leave room to be biblically generous to that person that clearly does not feel heard?
There are plenty of things that we are responsible for in life, and we don’t get a pass to throw those out just because we know that God wants us to be generous. No, there’s a balance though, right? Are we leaving space for God to break into the mundane things of our lives, recognizing that God is the one, he’s the orchestrator of our lives? He’s the one who plans moments for us to encounter others. Are we willing to give God permission to use us as he sees fit, even when we’ve already planned our day, and we feel like our days are pretty good?
What if our priorities looked godly but we denied Jesus by saying no to the things that are closest to his heart? That’s what religion does, and it’s happened for thousands of years. Jesus always chastised just one group of people. It was those people, the ones who looked like they had it all together on the outside; they wore the right clothes, they said the right things, they taught the right things. They looked good on the outside, but they missed the point of what practical faith in God actually looks like.
Matthew 23:23–24. Jesus said:
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel (NIV).
Religion is what happens when we miss the point of our faith in Jesus. But generosity is what happens when we open ourselves first to the love of Christ so that love then can flow out of us from the heart of God.
Here’s our final point today: Generosity looks like trusting God with outcomes. Generosity looks like trusting God with outcomes.
The Good Samaritan put himself last in terms of his safety. He actually had this encounter in this story on a road so dangerous it was named “The Way of Blood.” It seems like there are parts of town that Jesus would say, “Yeah, I still want you to meet people’s needs there.” The Good Samaritan put himself last in terms of his heritage. He would have been condemned. He would have been condemned by fellow Samaritans, and he would have been putting himself in danger of the Jews who would have suspected that he was the actual perpetrator of this violent crime against one of their own. And he put himself last in terms of his time. He took time to take a sworn enemy to a place to rest and to recuperate, and he took time to bandage his wounds. He took care of him, and then he paid for two months of his care of this nearly dead man. And he said to the innkeeper, “When I return, anything that you have paid out of your pocket, I will repay you that outstanding balance.” He put himself last, and he didn’t know how it would all turn out.
Remember though: Generosity isn’t the goal. It’s the result of a connection with Jesus. The goal for you and me is for our lives to look just like Jesus. The theologian Augustine believed that the Good Samaritan was the picture of Jesus. He believed that the Good Samaritan was Jesus in the story, and I think it’s very likely. And I know that’s how we are called to respond to our neighbors in need — with the generosity that flows from God himself, a generosity that doesn’t make any sense.
Augustine also believed that the picture of the inn where the man recuperated is what the church is supposed to look like. Here’s a quote from him. He said, “The church is the travelers’ inn where the wounded are healed.” When I read that, my first thought is: God, may it be so with us. Because if we want to be that way, we have a lot of work to do. Because, for so many, the church has not been what we’re called to be.
Philippians 2:1–4. It says:
2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others (NIV).
Generosity isn’t impressive to God in and of itself. Humans, we can’t do anything to impress God other than to receive his gift of salvation and then to live lives that reflect that very goodness that he offered us. Don’t waste your time trying to be generous without first receiving God’s generosity to you. God is for you, like I said at the very start of the message. In Acts 2:38–39, it tells us how to receive and apply that generosity. The apostle Peter wrote:
“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call” (NIV).
Some of you have been waiting to be baptized over the last year. With this pandemic, we haven’t been able to do baptisms. I’m really excited to tell you though that, at the end of March, we’re going to have a baptism service. So if you have not taken this step in your faith and you are ready to do that, reach out to me. I’d love to hear from you — Neil@edgeaurora.com
We love to end our time together with questions so that you don’t just hear a message, but you consider how you might apply it to your life.
What is your main takeaway from this passage?
Share how you imagine that God is inviting you to be more generous. It could be with how you view certain people. It could be with your time. It could be with the perceived control you have over your life. You know that God is telling you that you need to let go of outcomes. Whatever that is, dig deep, and God will be with you.
God bless you this day.