Over the years, many things have been said in sermons and classes at church about giving and generosity. I’ve heard pastors berate people from the stage, guilt people into giving, or hold a narrow view of generosity, seeing it only as about money rather than the broader context Scripture offers. 

When scripture talks about generosity, it includes money, but also our time and talents. 

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus and others continually tell us that wherever we spend our time, our talents, and our treasure matter to us. We can say with our lips that we want to honor God and that God is a priority in our lives, but if we don’t back that up in how we live, we are fooling ourselves. 

In 1 Timothy 6, Paul wants us to ask ourselves whether we are trusting in God or in the uncertainty of wealth. 

So, what does it look like to honor and trust God with our finances? To be generous in a way that honors God. The writers of the New Testament give us 4 words to guide our generosity:

Worshipful. Generosity is an act of worship.

Every time we are generous, we are worshiping. Every time we aren’t generous, we are worshiping. 

Being generous with our time, talents, and treasure shows that we believe everything belongs to God and worship him. As Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 6, we place our hope in God. 

But when we are stingy and hold our time, talents, and treasures tightly, we worship something else. That might be security, more prestige, our kids’ sports calendars, etc. 

But Paul tells us every action and decision is an act of worship, either towards God or towards the uncertainty of wealth. 

When we are generous, we are reminding ourselves who owns everything. We are stewarding what God owns and has entrusted to us.

When we share our finances, time, and talents with those around us, we worship and give glory to God, who gave us these things to use. 

Proportional. The word tithe means “tenth,” and the practice of giving 10% back to God comes from this. If you aren’t giving back to God and want to move forward in generosity, that is a great place to start, but not where to end.

What is proportional for one person isn’t for another.

Each year, Katie and I pray through upping our percentage of what we give back to God.

Not only because generosity is the first step to contentment.

But have you ever met someone generous and miserable? I haven’t. They’re always happy.

The same happens with time and talent. Each person has different amounts of time they can give in each stage of life. Your time allocation is different in your teens, your 30’s, and your 60’s. 

Sacrificial. Giving away $100 might be a lot for one person, but not for another.

Giving should stretch us. It should change us and our priorities. 

In many ways, it should make us go ouch. That is what sacrifice means. It hurts a little bit. It pushes us and challenges us.

That is what generosity should do.

Andy Stanley said, “Giving 10% makes many people uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable. But then, so is a colonoscopy, and those save countless lives.”

Being uncomfortable isn’t bad.

Discomfort is sometimes the thing we need to grow in our faith. 

Intentional. This means you planned it. It didn’t just happen.

In 2 Corinthians 9, when Paul talks about generosity, he says that each person should decide in their heart.

This means you decide in advance.

I encourage everyone in our church to give using automated giving on the giving envelope. It means you decide in advance.

Here’s the question for us: Is your giving worshipful, proportional, sacrificial, and intentional?

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One of the biggest questions people wrestle with as they navigate the existence of God concerns pain, evil, and disappointment. Often, the question will be asked, “How could a loving God allow such pain and evil and injustice in our world? Why doesn’t he stop it?”

I’ll admit, this question has caused a lot of questions and struggle in my own heart and mind. 

And while we often ask these questions on a large macro scale about the world, this question boils down to our immediate worlds: Why does a follower of Jesus get cancer? Why does a couple who loves Jesus struggle to conceive, and then when they get pregnant, they have a miscarriage? Why did that person betray me? Why did that person hurt me? Why is it so hard to make ends meet?

In March, we’re doing a series on the book of Habakkuk called “Wrestling with God,” and I’ve talked about this topic here, here, and here. 

On Sunday, we spent some time walking through what God says to this question in Malachi 2:17-3:5, but the place Malachi takes us is surprising: What does our response to evil, disappointment, and injustice say about us?

What is God trying to reveal to me in my anger at injustice?

To help us think through this, I want you to consider an injustice you see in the world around you and think, “Someone should do something about that.” Do you have it?

Now, have you ever noticed that often the thing that keeps us up at night, the injustice we see, not everyone sees that injustice. Often, the thing we think, “someone should do something about that”, other people see that and shrug their shoulders. 

It isn’t that they don’t see or are callous to it, although that can be true. It might be that God is speaking to you on that. God wants you to step into something. That’s why your heart aches. 

I think our anger at injustice often reveals the places where God is calling us to make a difference.

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Almost everyone I talk to right now is stressed, worried, and overwhelmed. Whether that is because of finances, struggles with jobs, or their views on the government, the news, ICE, etc. 

Most of us feel angry, anxious, and unsure what to do. 

When life is hard, what do you do? 

When you scroll through social media and feel that weight on your chest or that pain in your neck and jaw, where do you turn?

What we do in that moment says a lot about us. 

What we do reveals what we look to for hope and healing. 

Some of us work some more, binge a show, have another glass of wine, take a nap, or do a hard workout. Some of our outlets are helpful and healthy, and others are destructive to us. 

In Malachi 3, the prophet lists out some of the things we do when life is hard. As we go through them, look for where your response shows up: 

Sorcery: This is leading people astray, leading yourself astray. In our world today, this can lead to believing lies online or conspiracy theories. We find a lot of comfort in these places as the algorithms give us what we want. 

This can also be seen when you start turning away from the wisdom of the Bible toward self-help, positive thinking, and things you want to believe are true. Mixing some biblical wisdom with some from your favorite podcast, something from over here, and boom: you have your own religion that seems true to you. 

We lie to ourselves when we say, “This is just how the world is, this is why I am the way I am, this is why I can’t change, this is why my marriage isn’t great, this is why I’m lazy, this is why I’m broke.”

Adultery: This is sex outside of marriage of any kind. Fantasies, cheating on your spouse, porn, romance novels. Anything that causes you to fantasize about someone you are not married to is sin. 

That’s not holiness. 

As our lives spin out of control, we might look for online relationships to fill a void or someone we work with, or someone in our minds. 

Lying: Whether lying to ourselves, others, or believing lies we see in the world. Too many of us are not living honest lives. 

Gaming the system: This can be seen in things that are legal, but not biblical. It could be not really working hard but getting paid, walking away from a house because it isn’t worth what it used to be, working for cash and not noting it on your taxes, not paying your employees what they are worth. 

Things you can do, but defame the name of God.

Oppressing those in need: When life hurts, we start to look out for ourselves. We overlook those who are broken and start looking inward, yet by serving those around us, we can get out of the cloud of our brokenness.

Mistreating people: When life is hard, it is easy to mistreat people. A spouse, kids, and people we work with. We start to look out for ourselves, much like oppressing those in need. 

Not fearing God: this is under all of these sins, not trusting God, not believing in Him, not following Him.

Which one is your go-to move when life is out of control? 

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It’s December.

Which means you are probably running from one thing to the next, finishing up appointments before the end of the year, going to and preparing for parties, thinking through gifts, navigating school schedules, and everything else!

If you’re like me, you feel like someone else is driving your calendar and life this month, and life feels hectic and out of control! 

What is control? According to the dictionary: Control is the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.

That is the last thing many of us feel in December. 

Yet, we sing songs about experiencing peace. We send Christmas cards with the words “Peace on earth.”

But we wonder, can I experience peace today?

This past Sunday, I preached on peace in our Advent series on Philippians 4, which says,  “Rejoice in the Lord always.” I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things.

Max Lucado, in his book Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World, lays out a helpful acronym from this passage: 

In Philippians 4:4, we celebrate God’s goodness by rejoicing in the Lord always.

When we celebrate, we look back. We remember what God has done and who God is. 

When we celebrate a person, we celebrate who they are. We celebrate the closeness with that person. We don’t invite random strangers to our birthday parties; we celebrate intimacy. 

In verse 6, we ask God for help by bringing all our requests to God. 

We ask God for help.

We bring all requests to God. 

Just like a child asks a parent anything, they ask for every cereal at the store. They ask for ice cream for dinner. 

We need to pray that way. 

Paul Miller said, “Prayer is bringing our helplessness to God.”

In verse 6, we leave our concerns with him. 

One of the main times for me to pray and bring requests to God is at night when it is quiet, and my mind is racing. Then, when I’m done, I say something like, “Now, God, help me to leave these to you.”

This is the struggle of prayer and faith, but it is the step of releasing control to God, so we experience his calm.

Then in verse 8, we meditate on good things. 

Think, concentrate, and direct your thoughts and attention to what is of God. 

God promises he will keep us in perfect peace when we fix our minds on him. 

Why is meditating, thinking, and dwelling so important? Because what consumes our minds controls our lives. What we think about, we become. What we focus on dominates our minds, hearts, and bodies. 

That’s why we need to meditate on Scripture, on God, focusing on his ways, to experience his peace and calm. 

This spells CALM.

Celebrate

Ask

Leave

Meditate

When we release control to God, we experience His calm.

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In 1 John, John writes to his church, trying to help them live in the assurance that they have in Christ. To live the good life. 

He says, I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. The whole book is about what keeps us from experiencing this daily and in eternity. 

In 1 John 2:15 – 17, he lays out 3 traps that keep us from living the good life, from experiencing the life that God has for us, here and now, and in eternity: the desires of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and pride in possessions. 

Let’s take them one at a time:

The desires of the flesh. John is speaking of a few things here.

He is speaking about misdirecting our sexual desire outside of God’s design. 

This can be sex outside of marriage, porn, fantasizing about someone you aren’t married to, or getting emotionally involved with someone you aren’t married to. 

Wishing your spouse were different, looked different, acted different.

This also applies to your personal feelings about your own body and the elevated desire you have to look a certain way or have a specific body type.

This also highlights what we are willing to do for love, the distance we will go to be loved. Or, how we will manipulate someone by withholding love to get what we want. 

Here’s another way to think about this desire, a desire always to get your way.

In marriage, you stop pursuing your spouse and pursue porn or someone else. 

If you’re single and look at porn, you begin to rewire your heart and mind for intimacy and start to rob your life today and your future self and spouse of the joy God has for you. 

You stop opening up to your spouse and slowly start pulling away from them, to the point where you never talk or share your dreams, hurts, and joys.

This is the workaholic taking on too much. Never stopping to ask, Do I want this life? Should I accept this assignment or promotion? If I say yes to this, what am I saying no to? There is always a trade-off.

This is the person who can’t slow down because they’re afraid, if I stop moving and doing stuff, what will I do? A woman once told me that she couldn’t take a day off or rest because she was afraid of the thoughts that would flood her mind. She was running.

In kids’ sports teams, there’s always a trade-off in your life. A friend recently lamented on Facebook the loss of his evenings and life as he and his wife try to juggle three soccer teams for their three boys, all under the age of 10. He’s miserable, and their kids are exhausted.

But there is a life he is chasing.

That’s the desires of the flesh. 

The next love he addresses: The desires of the eyes. 

This is the desire of what can be seen.

A certain life, a particular lifestyle.

In many ways, this is your ideal and dream Instagram account, whatever that is. 

A certain kind of house, a particular kind of family, a certain kind of grill, workout equipment, cars, vacations, food, clothes, closet space, hiking, and boating.  

Now, John isn’t saying that cars, shoes, grills, houses, or vacations are evil; they are morally neutral. 

It is our desire towards those things.

Why?

Because that desire consumes us and takes over.

We do whatever we can to have a certain life or appear to have a particular lifestyle.

We all have this. 

This is the desire to have everything.

Many of us have bought into the lie that you can have it all.

This is the belief that we can climb the ladder, have the perfect family, friends, hobbies, and a relationship with God. And yet, something breaks on the way up the ladder. Something always loses out in our lives because we are human and limited.

Women kill themselves for this lie. Believing it is possible to have it all and look like you have it all, so that people behind your back say with jealousy, “She has it all.” That woman who “has it all” is often cracking and dying from the pressure and the sadness that she really doesn’t have it all, but no one knows.

If you’re a parent, it might be for your kids to behave a certain way, get specific grades, and get a scholarship. We kill ourselves for that, we push our kids to insane lengths for that. Why?

We say it is for them, but deep down, it is a desire to be seen a certain way.

Parents, most of the stress you feel and the pressure you apply to your kids is really about your need to be seen as a great parent, rather than what they are doing.

If you’re a student, this is the life you’ve imagined and are working hard for. The approval of that parent or teacher that you are chasing after, and who always seems right out of reach. 

That’s the desire of the eyes. 

The last love he addresses is Pride in possessions. 

Again, John isn’t telling us possessions are bad; he is telling us that loving them and having pride in them is. Being driven by them will destroy us.

This is the desire to appear important.

This is wanting to appear smart and successful.

This is why many people are in debt or are workaholics.

This is why people take specific jobs and careers. For a certain life, to appease a parent or a spouse. They give up a dream, a God given call, for something safer.