Generous and Wise
John
Generous and Wise / 2 Corinthians 9:1–15
We feel strongly about our things: value
We all have Stuff
Value is about what we are investing in
Matthew 6:21 ESV
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Generous and Wise Starts with Seeing God as Giver and All Else as Gift
2 Corinthians 9:8–11 ESV
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.
This is the outcome of generosity and wisdom
2 Corinthians 9:6–7 ESV
The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Wisdom
2 Corinthians 9:7 ESV
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Generosity
The reason generosity matters in the Christian life is that the focus is not on resources but the focus is on people, the focus is on the other. The issue is not even on the opportunity, it is about the other person.
Generosity rights all of our relationships with God, the others and our stuff.
It places our lives rightside up, putting people and solving issues with the right stuff, more than just accumulating the stuff itself.
The church is called to have a generous response to life. Having been enriched by God. Experiencing His forgiveness for our sins, His mercy, His goodness, we can reply to God, others and the world based on that.
God Points So He Doesn’t Have to Wave
God Comes Near / Luke 1:67–79
Advent is the act of God coming close enough to speak sense into and transform every category of darkness into light. In our text for this morning we meet a man named Zechariah who asserts that this is what happens when God gets close.
Zechariah’s First Response: Standing in the Wrong place
Luke 1:8–9 ESV
Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
Luke 1:11–13 ESV
And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
Luke 1:20 ESV
silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”
Finding the right perspective or posture or orientation is not always about simply working things out. Because if we are standing in the wrong place, it doesn’t matter how much we try and work things out we will still be left looking at the wrong way.
Zechariah’s second response: Addressed by God
Luke 1:60 ESV
but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.”
Luke 1:63 ESV
And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered.
When we enter into a relationship with God, we are entering into a whole new world, a new way of thinking, of acting, of living. What Zechariah’s response shows us is that we have an incredibly rich world that is filled with the activity, the language, the power, the strength, the glory and the grace of God.
God Makes Himself Knowable
Luke 1:68–75 ESV
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
Luke 1:76–79 ESV
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Where Is God Pointing in Your Life?
This is the case with the Advent. We ask God to change and move and act in our lives. We yell His name because maybe He will hear us from across the room. We have to be reminded that He responds from right next to us. The work is not getting God to do what we want but is aligning ourselves with Him,
God is Not a Tourist
God Comes Near / John 1:1–18
John 1:9–11 ESV
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
God refuses to treat us like tourists. If we zip and zap right by Him, He will speak to us in advent language. The language of a God who has come close. God relates to the world, not as One visiting but as who who resides here.
God is not a Tourist.
John 1:1–3 ESV
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Genesis 1:1–3 ESV
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
God Lives in Your Neighborhood
John 1:14 ESV
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Philippians 2:6–7 ESV
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
But Christ did not just enter into our world for a moment like a tourist. The Scripture states that he “dwelt among us” the word “dwelt” means that he shelters with us. The audience would have understood this idea of taking shelter.
See in the Old Testament, the people of God, the Israelites, set up a shelter for God. They called it a tabernacle.
John 1:46 ESV
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
The incarnation, Christ as God who has become flesh, redefines everything we know in creation. God reshapes our understanding through Him moving near. Christ becomes our history. He enters into the difficulties and the small towns of our own lives, brining new meaning of our lives by coming near.
See we forget that Advent is no season for tourists. Because Advent, in the moment of Christs appearing, still looks into the dark places, the Nazareths of our lives. Advent is not about what we skip over, its is about recreating all the darkness through the light of Christ.
John 1:4–5 ESV
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There is nothing so small that Christ cannot change, nothing so dark that Christ cannot shine light upon. The incarnation changes everything, Christs invitation is to allow Him to transform you this season. We love being tourists. But mostly because we are too afraid to stop at the Nazareths.
Galatians 5: Christ Frees
Galatians 5:16–25
Does what you trust know how to free you?
Because whatever frees you always leads you
Whatever makes promises to free us will be what we will ultimately have to answer to. So whatever frees us is what leads us. So we want to be careful about who we give that kind of leadership to.
Galatians 5:1–6 ESV
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
God has done a particular job, unrepeatable, enough to set us free. That there is nothing that gets in the way. nothing that can keep us down. If you have been freed by Christ then there is nothing in this world that has to get in the way.
Galatians 5:13–15 ESV
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Galatians 5:19–21 ESV
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Christ Frees Us From the Bondage of Sin
Galatians 5:16 ESV
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Galatians 5:22–24 ESV
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
The Restorative Work of the Spirit
Galatians 5:23 ESV
against such things there is no law.
The thing you have to answer in life is “good for who?” If it’s just good for you, you will likely live a very isolated life, fracturing relationships along the way. But if you live by the SPirits prompting and leadership, you will live free, you will see the goodness you seek anyway and will expand the definition of “good for who?”
We act in ways that build and construct and hold up and support. We build in ways that are peace bringing. That are faithful.
The Christian is called to live on the cutting edge of restoration. Placing back together by the expression of the fruit of the Spirit that circumstances and situations attempt to fracture.
Galatians 4: Christ Adopts
John
Galatians / Galatians 4
Belonging is part of life
What happens when we can no longer see what we belong to?
Galatians 4:1–3 NLT
Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world.
We Belong to God
Galatians 4:4–5 NLT
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
Galatians 4:9 ESV
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God,
Galatians 4:4 NLT
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
Galatians 4:4 NLT
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
Galatians 4:5 NLT
God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
Galatians 4:6–7 NLT
And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
Galatians 3: Christ Promises
Galatians / Galatians 3:23–29
Galatians 3:1–2 ESV
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
› The most appealing and most deceptive thing you and I can do is to think that ourselves or someone else can complete what Christ has started
The Holy Spirit is the reminder of Christ’s complete work and complete embrace in our lives
Galatians 3:3–5 ESV
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—
Third person of the Trinity
John 14:15–18 ESV
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Galatians 3:13–14 ESV
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Ephesians 1:13–14 ESV
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
We belong to God through the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 3:24–29 ESV
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Paul is saying that everything before Christ that has tried to keep us safe, in the example of the letter, the law, has now gone home. We recognize that we are kept by God who calls us sons and daughters. Christ’s complete work is the work to bind us to God. To bind us in such a way that we are not just being watched out for, we are being called sons and daughters.
Galatians 2, Christ Justifies
Galatians / Galatians 2:15–21
We all negotiate
negotiation cannot lead to justification
Galatians 2:11–14 ESV
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
Christ does in justification what we want in negotiation
Galatians 2:15–16 ESV
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Romans 5:1 ESV
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Galatians 2:17–21 ESV
But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Galatians 1: Christ Revealed
Galatians 1:6–10
Paul’s Emergency Mode
Philippians 1:1–6 ESV
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Galatians 1:1–5 ESV
Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers who are with me,
To the churches of Galatia:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Paul begins defensively. He gives some insight right away into the issue. He addresses them as an apostle, an early church leader. And an apostle who wasn’t voted in or who influenced his way in, or who manipulated his way in, but rather one who God delivered and called in. PAul is deliberate to say this is not from humanity but from God. This lays a foundation about how Paul will communicate the reality of the Gospel.
There is no addition in the Gospel
Galatians 1:6–9 ESV
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
If you take Jesus and add anything at all, Paul says, it is no Gospel. It is taking something that is already sufficient and then, in adding your own touches, removes what it true about the Gospel in the first place.
Christ has offered Himself to us as something perfected for us to be given new and eternal life in Him. And when we add our own twist to it, we end up twisting the original work, and Jesus plus anything else ends up being no Gospel at all.
Your works plus Jesus is no Gospel
Your ideology plus Jesus is no Gospel
Your ministry plus Jesus is no Gospel
Your politics plus Jesus is no Gospel
Does that mean that Christ doesn’t have works or ministry or politics? No of course not, but if you have trusted your works and Jesus then we begin to have trouble. If we trust our politics as an equal means to the Gospel, or if you think that politics will bring about Gospel responses, then it is no Gospel at all.
Christ is Revealed
Galatians 1:6 ESV
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—
Galatians 1:11–12 ESV
For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
There is a singular power in the work of Christ. There is authority in what He claimed and what He taught and what He did. It is unrepeatable and unmatchable. Paul is saying that the Gospel is it’s own authority and does not belong to anyone. No one has claim on it to try and improve on it or make it better.
We don’t add to it, but we must act from it.
We often add things to the Gospel because we are anxious it won’t be enough on its own. It won’t do enough, act well enough, fight hard enough, say enough, or work well enough. We are anxious that maybe the Gospel can’t do enough for us or for our world. And so we need to strap things like power or relevancy or influence or works in order to get the Gospel to “just do something!”
But we miss out when we do that. We make trades. We end up just trying to work our way to salvation, or trying to enforce our way to salvation, or trying to entertain our way to salvation. And it won’t work. We end up frustrated.
What Wisdom Looks Like
Wisdom for the Age / Acts 17
Acts 17:16 ESV
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
Paul stands with them, he perceives and observes
Acts 17:22–23 ESV
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
Paul Proclaims the Christ that is not far from any one of us
Acts 17:24–25 ESV
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Acts 17:26–28 ESV
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
“ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
Acts 17:29–31 ESV
Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”