The Genius of Generosity - How Does God Measure Generosity?, Part 1

Let me ask you a question. If God didn't even take into account anything to do with money, how generous are you from His perspective? Are there other ways that He measures generosity that might be even way more important than money?

And let me give you a hint. The answer's yes. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. Thanks for joining us today as we near the end of our series, The Genius of Generosity. For these last two programs, Chip will explain how generosity is measured in God's eyes and unpack the steps we can take to be intentionally generous beyond empty words and good intentions. But before we get going, if this is your first time listening to Living on the Edge or you want to learn more about what we do, go to livingontheedge.org. You'll find resources on tons of topics and countless programs to enjoy. Or if you prefer, the Chip Ingram app is also a great way to get plugged in with our ministry.

Well, here now is Chip with his talk. So, how does God measure generosity? Well, Jesus has a way of taking what we believe and what we think and how we evaluate and literally turning it upside down. And the way he does that is to bring life and is to bring freedom, but we just get used to seeing things and evaluating things in ways that are very, very subtle, but lead us down paths that ruin relationships, that hurt people.

In fact, the word miser comes from the root word for miserable. Miserly, non-generous people are miserable. And yet, there's something when we think about generosity, when we self-evaluate, we say, oh yeah, I think I'm pretty generous.

This series is not about money. This series is about generosity and being smart, about living your life in a way that brings about the highest and best results for you and the greatest glory for God. So, Jesus has a teachable moment with his disciples. There's a treasury over there. It's outside the temple. People are coming and dropping large gifts in it. And a woman comes by and drops something very small. And Jesus stops everyone and says, wait a second, don't miss this moment. Luke chapter 21 verses one to four pick up the story. As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. And by the way, I think it was very thankful.

I think when he gives people a lot and they're giving gifts, I think it brings great joy to his heart. There's not a good person and a bad person in this story. There's a comparison. He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And so he's looking at the balance. Some very, very large gifts.

Two small copper coins. Then notice what he does. I tell you the truth. This poor widow has put in more than all the others. And then he gives the explanation because I don't know about you, but that's not good math.

Right? I mean, a lot of money versus two small copper coins, they physically gave more. But according to Jesus, she gave more. And then he tells us why. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she had to live on.

Now, the breakthrough concept here, I put it right up front in the notes. This is how God measures generosity. God measures generosity, not by the size of the gift, but by the size of the sacrifice. What he was saying was that it cost her more to put in two small copper coins than it cost them.

Why? Because it impacted her lifestyle. She basically had the faith to believe and had a heart to say, I love you God. By the way, when we give, that's the message.

This isn't a performance. When we give to God, it's an act of love. And this woman said, I don't have hardly anything left, but I want to give what I have. And I believe and I trust that once I've given all that I have to live on, that the God that I serve is kind and generous and powerful, and he's going to meet my needs.

See, when Jesus sees sacrifice that impacts our lifestyle, what he sees is a heart of love. And that's why he said she was more generous. I actually taught this at a conference once, and it was one of those like four days conferences where you get four or five messages. And on the very first day of the conference, I told people, I want you to know, even the title, Genius of Generosity, it's really not about money.

And you know how you're in a line at the buffet at one of those afterwards? And I hear these two people talking and they're kind of leaning one over to the other and didn't know I was behind them. Well, you know, this guy says it's not about money, but generosity, you know where this thing's going, right? And it was really interesting when I got done with this message at the very end, that lady came up to me.

She didn't know I ever heard it. She said, you know, when you said that this wasn't about money, I thought, yeah, right? She said, when you finish this on how God measures generosity, she goes, it's really not about money, is it?

I said, ma'am, it's really not. It's really about heart. It's about life. It's about how smart people live who understand who God is and want the highest and best for their life and for others and to honor Him and not waste their life. See, the whole point of generosity, I mean, you know this intellectually, God really doesn't need your money.

He owns everything. But steps of generosity are a part of His plan so that intimacy and relationship with Him can increase. And the only way that intimacy ever happens with God is this mechanism called faith. The conduit of relationship with God is not knowledge. Knowledge puffs up. Love edifies. The conduit is faith.

You can have knowledge and never put it into action. But when I believe what God says to the point that I trust and I act, I respond to light and He gives more light and the relationship and the intimacy. So one, not all, but one of the primary ways as He develops intimacy is by teaching me to be like Him, to trust that God is who He said He is, that His word is really true, that when I give my money or my time or we'll see our reputation, our future or even my life or the most precious thing that I deem precious to me, when by faith I say, Lord, it's all yours and it's available whenever, however you want, it cultivates this amazing thing where the love of God gets deposited in you and it overflows into relationships. I was thinking about this whole area of generosity. It was sort of the background for this book several years ago and as I was thinking about generosity, it was just sitting at my desk and Christmas is a tough time for pastors on messages, okay?

Because, have you ever heard this story before? I mean, right. I mean, you're like, okay, let's go to church. Okay, let's see, there's magi, we got shepherds, we got Mary, we got Joseph, we got the manger.

I mean, what am I going to say? And I was thinking about generosity and, you know, sometimes I just put my feet up on my desk and had a good cup of coffee and I just sort of mentally thought about, Lord, I don't know why this question came, why did you come to this planet the way you decided to come and why did you introduce us to the very characters? I mean, the Christmas story is very interesting where you have these probably Persian or Babylonian studies of the stars who see a star probably 18 to 24 months before the baby was actually born, they see it and they go on a journey and then you have these low life kind of actually sort of the disenfranchised social group of shepherds, they get in the story and then you have a teenage girl, Mary, probably 15, 16 years old and a blue collar worker who's betrothed to her, well, they become a big part of the story and then pretty soon you have angels involved and I just started thinking about and I just laid the story out and as I did, I thought, it's a graduate level, each step of each person introduced into the story all the way to Jesus and God the Father is a snapshot of what the Bible teaches about the heart of God and generosity. Now, normally, I would have you get in those Bibles and follow passage to passage with me but I want you to listen to the story through the lens of generosity. We pick it up where far beyond money, the magi come and that's what they give. On coming to the house, they followed the star for almost two years and they saw the child with his mother, Mary and they bowed down and they worshiped him. Then they opened their treasuries and they presented him with gifts of gold and incense and of myrrh. And so the first people in the story are people that they literally get the least revelation, right? I mean, it's not an angel, it's just a star, they've studied the stars, they've done some research, they follow it, it lands over Bethlehem, here's a couple, they know the stars about the king of the Jews, they inquire about the king of the Jews, they see the child and they give and they give money.

It's great. Lots of good reasons and they're generous. They want to worship and it's an act of worship. Notice it didn't say they worshiped him. Like David said, I will not worship God with anything that costs me nothing. There's a sacrifice, we want to honor him.

You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll get back to our series, The Genius of Generosity, in just a minute. But quickly, I want to tell you that today we're beginning our year-end match. Thanks to a few close ministry friends, every gift we receive until December 31st will be matched dollar for dollar.

For more information about how to partner with us, go to livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. Well, thanks for doing whatever God leads you to do. Well, let's rejoin Chip now for the remainder of his talk. Here's the catch. When you get generosity just in the financial realm, you can give and not be generous. You can give regularly, systematically, the first fruit, and not be generous. I got an interesting email. Someone boldly went online because I asked you to kind of tell me your story.

She wrote, the last few sermons have been very convicting. It says, but when you talked last week and you said, everyone thinks they're generous, I knew in my heart that I was not a generous person. Oh, my husband and I, we give regularly to the church. And when you went through those steps about giving the first and the best and systematically and proportionally, we do all that. But I knew at the personal level in my heart, there still existed the greed of a child looking at a birthday cake, always wanting the biggest piece and the best one. This showed up often anytime our money was at risk, and especially when people showed up at my door and asked me for things. It's kind of like, you know, the boxes we play in, generosity, give first, got that done.

Then you missed the point. Generosity is an issue of the heart always tied to relationships, and it's a sense of, how do I love people? And so the email is pretty long, and she goes on and says basically, Lord, I believe now that you really do own everything, and even my own kind of personal money, and these people that sort of irritate me when they come to the door and want me to give them something, I just want you to know that I want to learn to become generous. So she actually prays and says, send someone to my door, and I want to give to them. And so, of course, God answers those prayers pretty quickly, and she was at the door right in the middle of dinner and had a ministry meeting that night, had to be there by 7 o'clock, the door knocks, and she comes, and here's someone from Teen Challenge. You know, it's a Christian group that does drug rehab, and she looked at him, and, you know, her supper's there, everybody's eating, she's got to go, all the things that make you want to be what?

Non-generous. And she remembered her prayer. She listened to their story, and then the little girl said, I just want to thank you for listening to us.

You know, it's kind of like we've gone door to door, and it's not going real well. And she said, well, actually, you're an answer to my prayer. She goes, our pastor's talking about generosity, and I prayed God would send someone to my door today that I could give to, and she goes, I gave to her, and she goes, wow, you're going to go on the top of our ministry report, and here's what I want you to get.

The end of the email says, joy welled up in my heart. I went back, I had only five minutes to eat my dinner. I ate my dinner in five minutes.

Everyone had already eaten theirs. I was going to be a little late for the meeting. I was a little late for the meeting, but my countenance and my heart and my joy, who showed up to that meeting was a different person.

Do you see the difference between just giving your money and being generous? Now, what I want you to see in the Christmas story is I think God introduces us to the Magi. They know him the least, and they get the least clear revelation, but they respond to what they know. But after they respond to that, the next group is the shepherds, and you know the story of the shepherds, right?

The sky lights up. It's a chorus. I mean, they're singing.

Can you imagine? I mean, you're just sort of a regular guy. You're out on the job. Hey, Bob, it's your turn. It's the night watch.

Oh, okay, you know? It's kind of the middle of the night, and then, whoom, right? The sky lights up, and they're singing, and you're going, what's this about? We pick up the story. It says, when the angels had left them and went into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let's go. Leave work? Yeah, let's go.

Where? To Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. So they hurried off, and they found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. And when they had seen him, they didn't just worship by giving a gift.

They spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. These shepherds probably didn't have anything to give. They didn't have any money to give. I mean, these are people that are like way below our welfare. I mean, they just had subsistence living. They couldn't get into good restaurants. They smelled.

They had a bath once every month, whether they needed it or not. And God chose to reveal the child to them. And then notice, they got a story, because they went around, and they were the first evangelists, were the first people to say, the Messiah has come, and we've seen him. And so the magi were generous with their money, and their hearts were open, but they got a star. The shepherds, they get an angelic choir with clear direction, and they hear from the parents, this is the Messiah, and they get the privilege of taking what they had and sharing it.

For the first time in all the earth, the awaited God-man who would come to save the world, shepherds get to give their time. For most of you, not for all, but for most of you, your time is more valuable than your money. When we're talking about generosity, please don't think writing a check, as good and wonderful that is, is that my question would be, how are you doing in your growth of generosity of giving your time?

I want you to know, money is the training wheels. When you begin to say, God, I want to give you the best of my time. I don't know what that looks like for you.

It's the early morning for me. I want to give you the best of my time. And if you're like me, you're going to get a call from someone, and it shows up on your phone, and I have about three people in my life, when their name comes up, it's like, this is not a short conversation. It's never a short conversation.

In fact, it's a conversation where I can ask one or two questions, and 45 minutes later, if I hung up, they wouldn't know it. But you know what I've realized is, Jesus loves unlovely people. Jesus made time for people that most of us don't want to make time for. And what I'm really saying, see, what generosity is, it breaks your pride. Generosity says, this person, where this dysfunction, with this conversation, with this baggage, matters to God, so they matter to me, because He lives inside of me, and giving my money is a pretty high control. I can do it on my terms. I give my time, it gets messy. The shepherds left work. It's one thing to write a check, but I mean, to leave work, to not work so much, to give time to family, or a friend, or to minister, or to open your home in a small group.

Oh, but I'd have to leave work early, and other people would get ahead. Well, I, yeah, it takes faith, doesn't it? This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. And you've been listening to part one of Chip's message, How Does God Measure Generosity, from our series, The Genius of Generosity. Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. In this insightful teaching, Chip's going to help us better understand generosity, and why it's more than just supporting a good cause, or making a thoughtful donation. It's about adopting a completely different mindset toward what God has given us. Stay with us as we learn some simple practices to be wise in our giving, and authentically generous in how we live our lives. For more information about this series, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org.

That's LivingOnTheEdge.org. Well, Chip's back with me in studio now, and Chip, today is Giving Tuesday, and it's a special day for us this year, as we kick off our year and match. God has put a lot of meaningful ministry work on our hearts for 2024, and beginning today, our listeners can partner with us to be a part of that work. Well, Dave, you're right. Giving Tuesday is one of the most important days for Living on the Edge.

Because of a small group of very generous people, they match dollar for dollar from here all the way through December 31st. And so as you give now, it makes a huge difference. It means that Christians will live like Christians. It means pastors and leaders are going to get trained in America and literally across the world.

And it means that the next generation is getting reached little by little in very innovative ways. So could I encourage you on this Giving Tuesday to pray? Ask God what He would have you do, and will you join us? Will you give today knowing every dollar gets doubled dollar for dollar? Thank you for whatever the Lord leads you to do.

Thanks, Chip. Well, if God has been ministering to you through Living on the Edge, and you want to support us to help Christians live like Christians, now's the perfect time. Because every gift we receive will be doubled until midnight, December 31st. To give, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003.

Again, that's 888-333-6003 or go to LivingOnTheEdge.org. App listeners, tap donate. We appreciate your generosity.

Well, with that, here again is Chip. In today's teaching, I made one central point. God does not measure our generosity by the size of our gift, but by the size of our sacrifice.

And I talked about the widow's mite, a very familiar story. But what I want you to really think and ponder with me is that finances are the training wheels of generosity. When the God of heaven looks down from heaven at my life and your life, and he's evaluating our level of generosity, he goes so far beyond just our money. And the graduate course in generosity is the incarnation, it's the Christmas story. And so, as I talked about, the magi bring their money, the shepherds bring their time. And then in the conclusion of this message, you'll learn that Joseph will give his reputation, that Mary will give her future, that Jesus will give his life, and that the father will actually give his one and only son. And so what I want you to know is that this generosity journey is so much more than, you know, what percentage and is it off the gross or is it off the net, and that God wants your life to be a living sacrifice that's generous. And so if we could just remove the money side, although it's very important, are you generous with your time or are you generous with your reputation?

Could God do whatever he wants with your future? Do you have time for people? Are you off the treadmill of demand and other people's expectation and having to be in control? Or is your life with palms open saying, God, I'm a conduit of the supernatural grace that you've given me, and it's your time and it's your reputation and it's your future entrusted to me, and it's all my life. And what I want you to know is that when you get on that ladder of generosity, amazing things happen. Yes, the price tag goes up, but what you see and what you'll learn in the conclusion of this message is that the intimacy with God and the impact of your life exponentially multiplies as you learn to be generous with far more than your money. Generosity is to love as thunder is to lightning. And I just want you to know that at the end of the day, it's loving God and loving people, and the way we love God and love people at the heart of it is being generous.

Ask God to make you a generous person and then start practicing with your time today. Great word, Chip. As we close, to help you better understand and apply this message to your life, download Chip's notes. They include Chip's outline and some insightful fill-ins to help you start practicing authentic generosity today. Get them at LivingOnTheEdge.org under the Broadcasts tab. App listeners, tap Fill In Notes. We'll listen to next time as Chip wraps up his series, The Genius of Generosity. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.