A Recent Sermon

This is not just a recent sermon but the last one I preached before getting the flu. It began, strangely, as a sermon about giving. I was going to look at 2 Corinthians 8, 9 where Paul is encouraging the church to make good on their promise to help the Christians in Jerusalem. But as I was working on it, I realized that it was important to provide some foundation for our giving; namely, I realized that we had to look at what it means to call God a giver first. Admittedly, I was also inspired by a book I've been reading by Miroslav Volf called Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace.

The follow-up sermon I will hopefully finish for next Sunday is called "Being Gifts." And though it looks at how we give, it is not at all about financial giving. It's going to look at spiritual gifts and the importance of these gifts for the life of a church community and how using our gifts, whatever they may be, are the most important way we can give ourselves to Christ and his people.

Anyway, below is the sermon on God as giver. I hope it gives both your heart and mind some food for thought.

“God the Giver”
Matthew 6:25 – 34; James 1:17, 18

Introduction—it is blessed to receive!

On the first Christmas my wife and I were together we were just recently engaged, and I spent a lot of time over the holidays with her family. It was also the first Christmas in a long time that I almost felt like a kid again. You see, she must have told her parents all about my interests and likes because many of the gifts they got me were things I actually asked for and those that weren’t were still very thoughtful and personal. I still use those homemade pillow cases! I was truly astonished and overwhelmed by their generosity.

We’re told by Jesus that it is more “blessed to give than to receive,” and I think this is true; but, I tell you, that Christmas I felt pretty blessed by what I received! And I know, we’re taught to think that as Christians we should enjoy giving more than receiving, but am I the only one here who feels blessed to receive gifts? How many people here love to get gifts? You can be honest, because your pastor is putting his hand up too!

And no matter how generous anyone else is to us—family or friends—no one is as generous to us as God is. So this morning we’re going to look at what it means to call God a giver; and not only a giver but the giver. That God is the ultimate giver means the first thing we need to be are good receivers. Today we’re going to ask what God gives, how God gives, and why God gives. And hopefully as we do so we will be even more surprised by God’s generosity, experience even more humility and gratitude in the face of it, and be moved to become even better receivers as a result of it.

What God Gives—Surprised by Generosity

Now I can think of at least a few occasions when not only has our daughter referred to something as “mine” but when she did so because another child wanted to play with that particular toy. Lots of kids do this. Another child visits, goes to play with a toy that belongs to the child they’re visiting, and that child snatches the toy back and says, with some indignation, “Mine!”

And it’s not only children that are possessive about their belongings. We adults can be that way too. We might not snatch back our “toy” but we might find ourselves wanting to do so. At the very least we do divide things between “mine” and “not mine.” Conflict can even arise when there is a dispute over what’s “yours” and what’s “mine.”

I had two uncles who ended up having a huge conflict over a piece of land left to them by my grandfather when he died. It was so bad that they didn’t speak for years. Thankfully they eventually reconciled but it’s still a shame that so much time was wasted by a fight over a piece of property. Especially since that land didn’t really belong, strictly speaking, to either of them. It was given to them by my grandfather. As such, it was a gift. And the fight that resulted missed this point and thereby dishonoured the giver.

Nothing we own or have is ours. We possess nothing, properly speaking. All that we have and experience as blessing—homes, cars, food, jobs, family, friends, and career opportunities—are gifts given to us by God. Our passage from James tells us that “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” All the good in our lives that we know comes from God. God gives us everything.

Recognizing this is a simple extension of acknowledging that God is our creator. Not only does all we have come from him, we come from him. We owe God our very life. He’s the one who breathes life into us. Psalm 104:30 says this of God’s activity as creator: “When you send forth your spirit, they are created.” Apart from God, we would not be. And so, likewise, apart from God, we would have nothing. So everything we have is gift.

No matter who our employer is or how we provide for our living that ultimately we rely on God. To use an imperfect analogy, whoever signs your pay-check, the funds come from God’s bank account.

This is a call to trust in him as giver—as our heavenly Father who gives us every good and perfect gift. We see this, too, in Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew that we heard earlier. Here Jesus points to birds of the air and says to his followers, “They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

Jesus wants his disciples not to worry about food and clothes like other people do: “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” So, Jesus says, if God takes care of even the birds of the air, will he not also take care of you? Is he not worthy, therefore, of your trust?

But trusting God as the ultimate giver, the one who ultimately provides us with all we need, is not always easy. This is where prayer comes in. Trust in God is most fully embodied in prayer. This is why in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches us to pray “give us each day our daily bread.” Jesus is teaching us to rely on the Father of lights, on God’s ongoing providential care. By praying these words we gradually learn to move from worry to trust, from anxiety to faith.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul encourages prayer for very similar reasons. “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” In other words, turn your cares into prayers! Trust God, because God is the one who gives us everything we need. To experience and know God as the ultimate giver means, or at least it should mean, being surprised by his generosity and approaching him in faith.

How God Gives—Experiencing Humility and Gratitude

That God gives us everything we need, that he is the source of our life and all of our blessings, leads us to ask: How is it that God is such a giver? What reason could God have for being so utterly, completely generous?

As a father, I want the absolute best for my child, for my daughter. I want her to be healthy, happy, and to have the best education we can provide, the best opportunities, and, most of all, I want her to know, love, and serve God. Why do I want this? Is it because she always demonstrates that she deserves such things? Is it because she’s entitled to have the best this world has to offer? Or is it simply because I am her father and all fathers want the best for their kids? This is what it means to be a father, at least ideally.

God’s reason for being infinitely generous and giving to us is that he is Father. Being the ultimate giver is the essence of who he is. Like James tells us, “Every good and perfect gift” comes from God. And this is so because God himself is goodness. He gives because of who he is; giving is what a good God does.

We probably all have the feeling sometimes that we are owed something—maybe even owed a good life or perhaps a better life. Maybe it’s a fleeting feeling. But there are people who develop a sense of entitlement, that they deserve better than what they have.

Here’s an example:

If I happen to come into some extra money or have fewer expenses in a given month, I might be easily tempted to use that extra money to get myself a treat, something I couldn’t normally afford. So because I work hard to provide for my family, do my best to be a good person, father, husband, pastor, Christian, and citizen, I find myself saying, “Go ahead, treat yourself. You deserve this.” And I might indulge that impulse even though that extra money could be used more wisely or thoughtfully: put a little more on an outstanding bill, give a little more to the church or another good cause, or lend the money to someone I know is in need. But that little voice persists: “You deserve this.”

But when it comes to what God gives, we deserve none of it. He doesn’t give us anything we have based on our merit. We haven’t earned God’s gifts, be it our job, our material possessions, our family or even our very breath. God gives because of who God is: a heavenly Father who loves his children.

This should be a humbling thought. We have what we were not owed, have gained what we have not earned, and have been given what we have not deserved. Knowing God is the ultimate giver, the one who gives us everything, leads us to trust him—leads us to open our hearts to him in prayer, to leave our worries at his feet, and surrender our cares to him. Knowing that all he gives he gives out of his sheer goodness and not because of anything we have done should lead us to a posture of humility.

Humility and thankfulness. I began today’s message by telling you about my first Christmas with my wife's family. At the time I felt overwhelmed, humbled, by their generosity. I’m sure some of you have had occasion to feel that same sense of humility when you’ve received a gift. And usually our first response is to thank the giver.

The same is true of the gifts we receive from God—not only should his generosity lead to our humility, but also our gratitude. We give thanks to God, we express our thanks for all that God has given to us. This, too, we do in our prayers, just as in our prayers we turn to God to meet our needs.

One of the things we always—or almost always—do in our home at mealtimes is give thanks or say grace. It can sometimes seem rote, but it makes us stop even if for a moment to remember that what we have comes from God. Even our little girl will say grace, sometimes without prompting!

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.” Just as knowing God gives us everything leads us to turn our cares into prayers, when we experience God’s goodness through his gifts, we need to have an attitude of gratitude. Or as someone else has said, “Faith receives God’s gifts as gifts; gratitude receives them well.”

Why God Gives—Becoming Good Receivers

God gives us everything, and he does so because of his goodness, his sheer willingness to give even though we deserve none of his gifts. But if we don’t get these gifts because we deserve them, what purpose does God have in giving as he does? Is God interested in doing more than simply blessing us with all that we have? Are we to sit back and just enjoy what he gives?

In our culture, we have something called ‘returning the favour.’ Someone does something for us, we feel obligated to do something for them in return. Someone gives us a gift, shows us generosity, we feel obligated to give them a ‘return gift.’ But when we talk about God being the giver, what can we possibly give to him in return? Though we owe him everything, we can offer him nothing. Since we have received everything from God than what can we possibly give to God?

Theologian Miroslav Volf has written a profound and wonderful book called Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Speaking about what we do in response to God’s giving, he says this: “God gives so that we can exist and flourish, but not only for that. God gives so that we can help others exist and flourish as well. God’s gifts aim at making us into generous givers, not just fortunate receivers. God gives so that we, in human measure, can be givers too.”

As God’s people, we are called to imitate God, to be godly. While we can only ever do this in an imperfect manner, this means practicing generosity ourselves. God’s word to us is one of unfathomable kindness—an extraordinary degree of giving of which our lives can only ever be a faint echo. But imitate God’s giving we must. Otherwise we dishonour both the Giver and the gift.

Conclusion—“It is more blessed to give . . .”

In his novel The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of an old peasant woman who was quite wicked and who died without leaving a single good deed behind. She lived for herself, taking whatever she could by whatever means. And over the course of her life, she showed no interest in being kind or generous to anyone. After she died, the devil seized her and threw her into the lake of fire. Dostoyevsky continues the story this way:

“So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could remember to tell to God; ‘She once pulled up an onion in her garden,’ said he, ‘and gave it to a beggar woman.’ And God answered: ‘You take that onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.’ The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. ‘Come,’ said he, ‘catch hold and I’ll pull you out.’ He began cautiously pulling her out. He had just pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking them. ‘I’m to be pulled out, not you. It’s my onion, not yours.’ As soon as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and she is burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away.”

If this were a true story about how to get into heaven, it would be a bad one. Even the most profound act of human generosity doesn’t warrant God’s favour. If there is anything true in this story, it is the picture of a God whose generosity extends to even the very wicked.

But perhaps it’s true in another way also. If only this woman had shared her onion with those who were grasping at her heels, she could have escaped the fires of selfishness and greed that ended up consuming her. Instead, by holding onto the onion as tightly as she did, she lost both it and herself.

I said at the beginning that while Jesus tells us “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” that we can still feel blessed by also being receivers, by gratefully and humbly receiving the gifts we are given by God. Yet while this is true, we can never truly be good receivers until we also learn to give. Otherwise we run the risk of losing what we’ve been given and ourselves just like this woman in Dostoyevsky’s novel. And it is only when we learn to give away the gifts that we can truly say that we know the Giver.