Real generosity seems to be an endangered species in today's world. If you're a Christian, are you doing anything to change that? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah takes a closer look at this often misunderstood quality. and offers biblical tips to help you develop a more giving spirit.
If you're ready to live more generously, stay tuned as David concludes his message, A Life of Generosity.
Well, I hope you have been on the receiving end of generosity at some point in your life. I'm pretty sure you have, most of us have. But far more fulfilling than that is the joy of being on the giving end of generosity. I have experimented with that on many occasions, especially during the holiday season. And um The result has been such a blessing in my own life to know that.
when God allows you to reach out and help somebody in a generous way. It helps them, but more than anything else, it brings joy and gladness to your own heart. We'll talk more about that in just a moment. But I want to thank all of you who've been with us this month as we've talked about investing for eternity. We haven't done a series like this in several years, and I'm just so glad we have been able to do that.
It's been such a joy for me to teach these principles that have guided my life, and I think guided the churches that I've taken responsibility for. And I believe in these principles. Uh immensely. If you follow what God tells you to do, it will solve a lot of problems churches deal with today. Just do it the right way.
God didn't organize the church to be funded by bingo parties and Car washes and things of that nature. He gives us solid principles in his book about giving voluntarily to the things that he creates in the church.
So I hope you've gotten that message this time, and maybe this will be your opportunity to begin to live that way going forward. Um Let's open our Bibles once again and let's ask God to help us learn just a little bit more about what it means to be generous.
so that we can go and practice it going forward. Starting right now. Good. As Americans We like to pat ourselves on the back and repeat the mantra that we are the most generous nation in the world. And to be truthful, our government does give a lot of our money away.
Sometimes we wonder Who's telling them they can do that? But that does not make us a generous nation. Generous nations are made up of generous people. And I'm going to give you a statistic that may shock you because it shocked me. 85% of Americans give away less than 2% of their income.
You say, Well, I don't believe that. I didn't either, but. I didn't do this statistical study.
So here's this woman. Are you with me? She didn't have anything. She's not even supposed to be doing this because she's not in the right group. She's not in the right segment of society.
And you know what I thought when I read this again and studied again? Maybe you can identify with me. I think she just got overwhelmed with God. Have you ever been overwhelmed with God? No matter what you have, you just give it to them.
What do you want, God? You got it all. You are such an overwhelming God. I hope if you have never been overwhelmed with God, before you die, you have a chance to be overwhelmed with God. It will do something in your life that you Probably never anticipate.
So there's the picture of a generous life, and there's the Potential of it.
So now the question is.
Okay, I got it. I know what generosity is. What is the path to a generous life? If it is true, Why is generosity so hard? How do we cultivate generosity in our lives?
And I've done a lot of homework on this and read a lot of stuff on it, and mostly from the scriptures. And I don't have a Opportunity to share with you what I've learned, but I want to give you some of the thoughts. that I've collected about how to develop generosity in your life. First of all, change the way you think about money. The most vital step we take toward developing a generous spirit is turning the way we think of money.
on its head. When we remember that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, We realize that nothing good is really ours to start with. It's God's, and He bestows it on us as a gift. To be used so that we can glorify Him. And when we start thinking of money is just one of the countless good gifts from our Father who loves us.
We can rest in the knowledge that He knows what we need. He never leaves us. Without responding to us, he promises to provide, and his storehouses are unending. Think of it this way. You make a pie chart.
To see where your money's going. Maybe you're that artistic person and you do that, or you do it with your computer.
So much in this piece, so much in this piece. Here's our utilities, here's our rent, or whatever. And when you get all done, all of your money is in the pie. And each expenditure in every category takes away from the whole until you use it all up. It's a closed system.
There's nothing for you outside of that circle. But God is infinite and he doesn't work in pie charts. He works in rivers, rivers of blessing, and he never runs out. His is not a closed system, it's an open system. And he is the one who supplies all of our needs, and he never runs out of supplies.
He can hear us. And he can respond to us, and we can stop thinking about our money in terms of a pie being eaten up and start thinking of ourselves as conduits of his grace. What he gives to us, we can pass on to others without fear. Here's what Luke 6:38 says: one of the great teaching verses on economy. This is from the New Living Translation.
Give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over. and pour it into your lap. Isn't that the truth? And we've seen it, and we've experienced it, and we know that God doesn't work in a pie chart, He works in a river.
2 Corinthians 9:8 says it this way: And God will generously provide all you need, then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with other people. Not only should we change the way we think about money, but we should expose our heart to the brokenness of humanity. Let me just say it this way, you will never be generous if you never see the need. If you live in your little moat-surrounded castle and never venture outside to see how most people live and what their needs and problems are. you will never be a generous person.
Kenneth Byring discovered the power of this principle years ago. He was an affluent and, he thought, generous man. He was a construction magnet. But he went to Vietnam in the year 2000, and his whole life was transformed. His story is One of the best you'd ever read.
The retired Construction owner was helping a relief organization bring food and medicine to a village. And it was there that Barring personally delivered a wheelchair to a six-year-old polio victim. The girl's reaction changed his life. She got a big smile on her face. She couldn't believe it, said Bering.
It's a sensation I've never experienced before with anything else in my whole life. He was inspired and he came home. And he created the wheelchair foundation. And today, His foundation delivers 10,000 wheelchairs a month around the world. He saw the need.
He saw how desperate these people were in cultures where wheelchairs are not available, and it changed his whole life. He saw the need, and it made him a generous person. You see the point? Living in a prosperous nation with a welfare system which, though flawed, provides a safety net of sort to needy people. It's easy to think that everyone has what they need.
But that's not the case. And if there's poverty in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, how much more is there in the poorest countries in the world? Believe it or not, 400 of us from this church. Piled into airliners and flew to Swaziland, Africa, to help people. in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Our whole strategy was We were going to go there and plant Crops for these people. We had special crops that were created just for them, and we would plant crops around the villages. We were there for 10 days. And most of us will never ever forget. What happened?
Swaziland is a desperately poor country, and at that time it had the highest per capita rate of AIDS in the world. We went to serve and grow in understanding, and we were given that opportunity in small ways and in profound and unforgettable ways. One of our members sat in a hut and held a man as he died with AIDS. You don't ever forget that. Before we left, we were told to bring large supplies of little gifts to give to the hundreds of children we would meet along the way.
I couldn't believe the amount of bracelets and necklaces Donna packed into a full-size suitcase. we had a whole suitcase full of trinkets. She was determined to have enough to last the entire trip. But when she saw the poverty of those precious children and heard their voices and saw their outstretched hands, she gave everything away the first two days. She could not bear to say no to even one of them.
Till you see it. till you feel it, till you experience it. till you know the plight of the needy. it will be very difficult for you to develop much of a spirit of generosity. Once you do, you'll never be able to stop.
You don't have to travel halfway around the world to understand the plight of the poor, do you? Chances are good that you work with people who are just getting by. Who live paycheck to paycheck and are unexpected expense away from being able. No longer to put food on their table. You know people like that.
And the Bible has something to say to us when that happens. Here's what it says. Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord. And he will reward them for what they have done. Did you hear that?
The Bible says when you're kind to the poor, it's like letting God borrow money from you. and he will pay it back with interest. Proverbs 22, 9 says, Blessed are those who are generous because they feed the poor.
So We're on this pathway to generosity, and we're learning how to change the way we think about money and how to expose our hearts to the brokenness of humanity. Here's my third little test. Before you do the big thing, do the little thing. We won't automatically become generous in a day, but we can begin to do little things we thought were unimportant.
So here's a little thought. Consciously increase the amount you leave on the table for the waitress. Or waiter who serves you in the restaurants. And you may even want to go up and say, and I've done this sometimes, I've done it quite often. I know this is a really challenging time for you and I serve a loving God, and He asked me to bless you today, so I'm going to do that.
I'm just giving money in the name of God, in the name of Jesus. Bless people. Try it. See what happens. They might not say a word, but in your heart, you're going to be happy.
And you're going to walk out of there knowing That was a god thing. God is generous. When we're generous, we're like God. Number two. Carry some money with you specifically to give away to someone in need and ask God to tell you.
who it is that needs the money. You see, we think that everything about generosity is huge and big and it's overwhelming, and so that's a good thing because we know we don't fit, so we hide underneath it. And we don't do anything. But listen to this. Fred Craddock said that we think giving to our Lord is like taking a $1,000 bill and laying it on the table.
Here's my life, Lord. I'm giving it all. But the reality for most of us is that He gives us the $1,000 bill and tells us to go to the bank and turn it into quarters. And we go through life putting our 25 cents and our 50 cents here and there when listening to the neighbor's kids' troubles instead of saying, get lost. Give a cup of cold water to a shabby old man in a nursing home.
Usually, giving our life to Christ is not glorious, it's done in those little acts of love. 25 cents at a time, be easy to go out in a flash of glory. It's a lot harder to live every day, little by little, with a spirit of generosity and do what you can. when God tells you to do it. I can't give to all the homeless people, but you know what?
I've asked God to give me a sensitive heart, and when I should. I do. And I don't feel guilty when I don't. If you ask him, Lord, give me a generous heart today and help me. If I see somebody in need and I'm supposed to help them, you know.
Make that little alarm go off in my heart. But you've got to have some money if you do that. You know, we're almost in the cashless society. You can't give them your credit card.
So Carry some money with you. I mean, it feels pretty good to have a little money in your pocket. And it feels even better. When you give it away. Here's the fourth thing.
Start giving more than you can afford. Oh man, I wish I hadn't said that right. Listen to what Corinthians says. This is from the message. 2 Corinthians 8:1 to 4.
I don't have to say much about it. This is the story.
Now, friends, I want to report on the surprising and generous way in which God is working in the churches in Macedonia. Fierce troubles come down on the people of those churches, pushing them to the very limit. The trial exposed their true colors. They were incredibly happy, though desperately poor. The pressure triggered something totally unexpected, an outpouring of pure and generous gifts.
I was there and I saw it for myself. They gave offerings of whatever they could. Far more than they could afford. pleading for the privilege of helping out in the relief of the poor Christians. How much money should we give?
People ask that all the time.
Well, give a tithe. Is that it? No, that's the tithe. What about the offering? Are you going to give an offering?
How much? Come on, how much? Just tell me how much. C.S. Lewis was once asked that question, and you know, he's much more eloquent than your pastor, so I'll just let him answer.
He said, I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I'm afraid the only way safely to do that is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements is up the standard common among those with the same income as our own. We're probably giving too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say.
They are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities exclude them. And I'll let you think about that one, because I'm still thinking about it. And wondering, how does that impact me? And we all should let that impact our lives, and we should meditate on it and ask God to help us.
Do the right thing. And then Here's number five: don't be afraid of spontaneity. I know we talk a lot about planned giving and. church envelopes and systematic and all that, but you know God isn't restricted. by church envelopes.
Sometime he may want you to do something you never thought of doing. In November of 2018, Hunter Shamat lost his wallet. He had little hope he'd ever get it back, certainly not with interest, but he did. He was on the way from South Dakota to his sister's wedding in Las Vegas when he left his wallet on the airplane. It held ID, his debit card and $60 in cash and a signed paycheck.
Luckily Todd Brown found it. And he was a believer in paying it forward.
So he mailed everything back and then some. He included a note that read: Hunter found this on frontier flight from Omaha to Denver, wedged between the seat and the wall. Thought you might want it back. All the best. P.S.
I rounded your cash up to an even $100 so you could celebrate getting your wallet back. Have you ever heard of anything like that in your life? What did he do? He got this idea. Have you ever done that?
He just got this idea and he wanted to be spontaneous and he came. spontaneously generous. I've done that. Most of you have too. You see something You're not obligated.
You don't have any pressure to do it except God speaks to you in your heart and says, only help that person. And you do it.
So Don't be afraid. of spontaneity. I want to finish this with a story that I read that helped me understand. how this works for us. If God has blessed us.
I didn't know a lot of this history, and I'm glad I read the story because it helped me understand. a lot about what we take for granted. Humphrey Monmouth leaned back in his chair. And he looked out over London's overcast skyline. The news had come from abroad.
He already knew what had happened, but he dreaded having to read it. After 16 months in the Vilvoordi prison, William Tyndall. Who had translated the New Testament from the original language into English? was dead at the age of 41.
Now let me just put a parentheses there. William Tyndale died. at the same age I was when I came to this church, but before he died, He translated the whole New Testament out of the Latin Vulgate into English, and I felt like. I haven't been doing anything. What a man.
But Tyndall didn't do it alone, and that's what I learned. He could not have done it without Monmouth's help. William Tyndal stayed in Monmouth's home while he was working on his translation. Monmouth supported Tyndall generously from his own resources, and he used his vast network of successful business acquaintances to surround Tyndall with financial stability. With Monmouth's help, William Tyndall had translated the New Testament into the English language.
for the average Englishman to read. He had done for England what Luther did for Germany. But Tyndall's New Testament was considered contraband. God's word in English was illegal. William Tyndall was put in prison, and on an October morning in 1536, he was taken from that prison and burned at the stake.
He died praying that God would open the King of England's eyes. That was his final prayer. And within two years, God answered Tyndale's prayer. And the King of England that every church in England should receive its own copy of Tyndale's Bible, and the Bible was spread throughout all of Great Britain. And 75 years later, after Tyndall's death, King James authorized an updated English translation.
We know it as the King James Bible. The King James Bible went on to become the most influential book in the English-speaking world. Over the next 450 years, it became the primary English Bible in families, schools, and churches. History, language, and culture have all been shaped by this book. It is found in George Washington's addresses, Abraham Lincoln's speeches, Charles Haddon Spurgeon's preaching, Billy Graham's sermons, Winston Churchill's speeches, and Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech.
The flame lit in Tyndall and Monmouth's generation still burns today. Today, there are more than 600 million English speakers. who benefit from William Tyndall's life and his work. History remembers Tyndall. But it is largely forgotten that behind this massive movement of God.
was a godly businessman. In the shadow of the English Reformation stands an invaluable gospel patron named Humphrey Monmouth. Who underwrote all that William Tyndall had to do? who gave him his home in which to stay and work, Who gathered businessmen around him to support the expensive task of translating and printing. the English Bible.
Today, we know about William Tyndall. There's a whole publishing firm called Tyndall House. But we'd never heard. of Humphrey Monmouth. But God has.
Concert of him. And somehow I know that when we get to heaven and we're all rejoicing that we lived in the Bible age and we had the Word of God to study, and we could spend several weeks just studying one book like the book of James. That the English Bible came down to us through the sacrifice of a man by the name of William Tyndalbutt also. Through the sacrifice of a man who understood what generosity really is. He used his money to further the cause of Christ.
And everything that I've talked about that has happened with this Bible, and hundreds of things more. was because one man understood. what it meant. to be generous. Generosity has changed everything.
Well, here's the best news of all. It doesn't just change the things upon which it is lavished. It changes the person. who experiences it. To be generous is to be godly.
To be generous is to know the joy of not being a taker. But one who passes on what God blesses God doesn't give us blessing so that we can consume it upon ourselves, He gives us blessings so we can bless others. And the blessings keep coming as we bless others. Yeah, that's a true statement. When you allow the blessing of God to pile up in your life and get stopped, Woe and behold, you'll look around and realize that God has stopped sending things your way.
If you want to know what it's like, To be a blessing, learn the principle of the open hand that God can take whatever He wants from your hand, but He can put whatever He wants in your hand. And you will never lose if you do that. Thank you for letting us talk about this important subject. Once again, I want to remind you that the study guide for Investing for Eternity and the C D series are available from Turning Point at davidjeremiah.org. You can order those materials, they will be sent right into your home, and you can use them for your own studies and preparation for lessons that you have to teach someday.
I hope you'll take advantage of the resources and the hard work we've done and make it available as far and wide as you can. And then be sure and join us tomorrow as we begin our new study on the book of Ecclesiastes, Searching for Heaven on Earth. See you there. Our message today originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, the senior pastor.
Reach out and tell us how this ministry helps you grow by writing to us at TurningPoint, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Visiting our website at davidjeremiah.org/slash radio or calling 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, What God Promises You, 7 Truths That Will Change the Way You Live. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app to instantly access our content or search in your app store for the keywords Turning Point Ministries.
Visit davidjeremiah.org slash radio for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we begin the series Searching for Heaven on Earth on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
