Welcome to Madison Church Online. I'm Steven Feith, lead pastor. And it is the beginning of Advent. And depending on your church tradition, background, if you have one or none, this season conjures up all sorts of thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences. But for me, it happens to be one of my favorite seasons of the year. I love it. I don't love the snow and I don't love the cold, but I love football on the afternoon. I love all the lights that are going on. All three of my kids, all three of them are born in December. And so from the time Thanksgiving ends to New Year's, we are just one big party at my house. So if in two weeks I look exhausted, I assure you very much so. I am. But Advent is also a season, you know, the tension then is that it's to be a season where we slow down, where we wait, where we pay attention to what God is doing, even when it doesn't quite make sense to us. So this it's a tension that I feel with three birthdays and Christmas and Thanksgiving and New Year's to slow down. And this year we're stepping into Advent with a very intentional focus as a church. And I know that for many of us, when we hear variation on the word give, giving, generosity, our minds immediately go to money, which then leads us to feelings of pressure or guilt, I guess, depending on where you're from, guilt or pressure. It's that not in your stomach feeling that some of you have right now. I just want to encourage the room to take a deep breath. It's okay, it's not going to be terrible. Because in this series, we are going to talk about generosity, but we want to talk about real biblical generosity. It's going to take us three weeks to explain what all that means. And this series isn't about pressure and we're not fundraising, and it's not checking a box of any sort. This is about spiritual formation because biblical generosity is about spiritual formation. And so when we talk about maturing in our faith and growing to be like Christ, we talk about generosity. And so what Kyle is going to talk about next week, I'm going to talk about this week and over the course of this series is becoming the kind of people, the kind of community that looks just like Jesus and who can trust God more than we trust our resources and the people who allow God to reshape our relationships, not just with money, but our ideas of ownership and our ideas of even security. And so Christmas is actually a great time to do this. Although I was advised to not do this series over Christmas for like the last decade, but I figured why not just go for it this year? Because this is the story of God giving us Himself. This is the greatest act of generosity the world has ever seen, has ever experienced. And so it is the perfect place for us to deconstruct. Deconstruct and rebuild what we think generosity is and what we've heard in the church or what we've heard growing up. I want to lean into what the Bible actually says about this and what God shows us generosity is, not through his words, but through his actions. And so we're going to say it every week. We want something for you. We don't want anything from you throughout this whole series, okay? We want you to experience the kind of freedom and joy that grows when we learn to give the way that God gives, which brings us to the foundation of the entire series. What we're going to come back to, our touch point, is that generosity starts with God. Before we ever consider what we might give, we begin by remembering what we already received, what was already given to us. And the clearest picture of that is in one of the most familiar verses in the entire Bible, it's John 3.16. For this is how we know God loved the world. He gave. So he is talking about heaven and the next life, but he's saying God loved you so much to bring that life into this one right here and now, not just then and there. In Jesus, God gives us access to that life right now in the middle of a messy world. And T Wright puts it this way: He says, the story of the gospel, the story of Jesus, is the story of how God became king, not by sending a military leader or a distant message from the sky, but by giving himself in love. And what that means for us today is that God, the God who gives, doesn't give halfway. He doesn't give symbolically or sentimentally. Jesus is God giving himself completely, sacrificially, and personally. When we approach Christmas, we're reminded that God is saying, I will not love you from afar. I'm going to be close. You're going to experience my love. Jesus is God with us, God beside us, and God for us. And so let's go to Luke chapter one, begin today our Advent series with a familiar passage. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God. And then you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end. Mary asked the only question a sane person would ask, but how can this happen? I am a virgin. We hear these stories, this particular one, and it's familiar for a lot of you. It's familiar to me. We didn't grow up going to church every week, but around December, this story came up, either by people talking about it, like friends or my family talking about it. This is a story we're familiar with. But for the early believers, this is shocking because let's look at Mary's context: living under the shadow of an oppressive Roman Empire, with violent soldiers in the streets, taxes that crushed families, so you didn't get to make ends meet, crucifixions all over the place, which displayed a warning. Do not cross us in any way, shape, or form. And so people lived in constant fear and with absolutely almost no power. So there's Rome. But within Rome, there's Israel's centuries of longing for God to act. And it had been hundreds of years since there was a prophet speaking to these people. They're beginning to wonder like all of this, God, where are you? Are you ever going to fulfill those promises? And that would have been hard for anybody, but let's look at Mary now. A vulnerable young, poor person, a girl with no social standing whatsoever. She was unmarried. She was going to be pregnant. And in a world that was all shame and guilt and driven by that, there were no laws to protect her, no systems to support her. Mary wasn't a Christmas figurine as she is now in many of our houses. She was just a young girl whose life could collapse at any moment. This is the world Jesus enters, unstable, anxious, fearful, and longing. God gives himself not to a world that has it together, but to a world that is tired, uncertain, and stretched thin. If you feel that way this morning, God has given himself to you in that situation and in those circumstances. And so, yes, generosity begins with God. And then Mary shows us how generosity begins to take root in human life. Because God's generosity, it demands a response. Now, she doesn't model abundance. We just went over that. It's not like he picked a rich one, a popular one, an affluent one. He picked Mary. I'm going to make the argument it wasn't because of her abundance, but rather as her availability. Let's keep reading the story. The angel answers her questions, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and you will be called the Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month, for the word of God will never fail. And Mary responded, I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true. And then the angel left her. God approaches Mary not because of abundance in her own life, but her availability, her willingness, her openness. She doesn't understand everything being asked of her, but she places herself in God's hands. It was her openness, not her capacity, that makes her the first participant in God's generosity. And when Mary says, May everything you said about me come true, she isn't expressing passivity. It's not like, well, okay, let's see if it comes true. It's surrender. She's releasing control. And this is where generosity begins. Not when something leaves your hand, but when your heart says, Here I am. Let your word shape my life. I'm open to you. This is one of the most important truths we could ever learn about generosity, and that is that generosity begins with identity, not income. Mary reminds us that generosity didn't begin with wealth. It didn't start with margin. It begins with a person like you or me responding to God, saying, I am yours. So generosity starts with God. I believe it requires a response from us, but I also want to acknowledge there's a big obstacle for all of us sitting in the room, or if you're watching and listening online. There's a lot of obstacles for us today. If we're going to understand generosity the way that Scripture intends us, the way that God wants us to, we have to acknowledge that we are carrying a lot of baggage with us this morning. We do not come to these passages neutrally. We're already formed by the world that we grew up in, that we live in now. For many of us, economic anxiety shapes how we hear these passages. Everything costs more. I get it. I live in the same world you do. I'm looking at the same grocery prices and filling my car up with the same gas. Money feels tight. And because of that, many of us quietly think generosity is for those who make more than I do. And maybe that will be me someday, but it's certainly not me today. But let me remind you that the earliest Christians practiced generosity with far less than any of us in the room. Because their security was rooted in God and not their circumstances. Others of us are shaped by consumerism, and that's this constant pressure to get more, to upgrade more, to secure more, and to protect what I have. And so we think I'll be generous when I finally feel secure enough, but security in our culture, in the United States of America, is a moving target. It is a destination you will never find or arrive at because there's always gonna be another bill. There's always gonna be another milestone, another, if I could just Apple, Samsung, Google, it's gonna come out with a new device that you just gotta have. Our security doesn't come from those things, from consuming, from building. It comes from God's unchanging generosity, not the fluctuations of our paychecks or the swings in our economy. And then there's individualism. This is the idea that generosity is something that I practice privately, independently, and on my own terms. And so we think I'll just give privately on my own and hear me out, private giving is good, even beautiful. But biblical generosity is not just philanthropy and isolation, it's participation in the life of God's people. So in scripture, when we're looking at the words in Greek that translate as generosity or giving to us, today these words are grace and sharing and open-handedness. So when we're talking about generosity in the New Testament, these are the words we're talking about, and they point to financial sharing. But there's one other big one in the room I haven't named yet. And I think it's one that we all feel, and that's institutional skepticism, right? There have been pastors who have misused power. It's got a jet or two, right? A few churches that have chased image over their integrity. So now a whole bunch of us, a whole bunch of us mistrust the entire idea of giving to or through a church. And let's be honest, the suspicion is not just real, but it's understandable. But scripture offers us a more profound truth. And that truth is that we don't give to an organization. We give to God through the community God places us. When you give to Madison Church, it's not giving to an organization, it's giving to God through the community He has placed you in. I'll say something personally here, might surprise some of you. The primary way that Megan, my wife, and I practice our financial generosity is by giving to Madison Church. And I know it's ironic because I'm on the payroll, okay? But for me, my giving isn't about supporting an organization. It's about practicing generosity through the community God has placed me in. It's about full participation in this community. Madison Church, you're my spiritual family. This is the table where I worship, the people I serve alongside. This is the mission I believe God has entrusted us together. And so for me, giving isn't a job-related obligation. It's a deep conviction, a spiritual discipline, an expression of trust, and how God continues to form faith in me. Generosity is worship, it's not a cosmic transaction. I'm not giving God 10 bucks hoping I get 100 back or that I win the lottery or that my car that is bound to fail won't. It's spiritual formation. Generosity is how God breaks fear, loosens the grip of scarcity, and forms us into a people who look like Jesus. This is the heart of Advent. The world says hurry, produce, fix, control. Advent says slow down, wait, receive. Mary doesn't begin with action, she begins with openness, by receiving what only God can give. Mary's first act of discipleship wasn't doing, it was receiving. And that's true for us today. Advent interrupts the noise and the pace of our lives to remind us that the Christian life begins not with achievement, not with striving, not with us moving toward God, but God moving toward us first. To see this even more clearly, we turn to Paul, who is teaching on financial anxiousness in a spiritually inconsistent church. He doesn't begin with a command, he starts with Christ. Paul writes, You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich. Paul roots their giving in the incarnation, the self-giving love of Jesus. And this is the why behind Christian generosity. Jesus used the riches of heaven, his status, his glory, and his power, not for himself, but for you and me. For us. And then Paul invites the church, both then and now, to let Christ's generosity shape ours. As Jesus gave himself, we give ourselves. As Jesus leveraged his abundance for our sake, we leverage ours for others' sake. As Jesus became poor to make us rich, we use what we have to enrich the lives of those around us. Generosity is not about paying bills or funding programs. Generosity is participation in the self-giving love of Christ. I really like this quote by Tim Keller. I came across it a couple weeks ago. He says that money is one of the most powerful spiritual forces in the world. Unless you are actively destroying its grip on you, it will be destroying you. And it sounds like an exaggeration, but I think he's naming a reality, and that is that money can disciple us just as easily as Jesus can. And how we combat that, how we fight that is through generosity. When you see how Christ has given himself for you, giving doesn't feel like losing. It feels like joining God. It feels like participating in the very life of God. And so the whole movement of this message and the whole movement of this series that we're doing is that generosity starts with God and it reshapes us before it ever flows through us. We receive before we respond. This is not about giving more. It's not about Madison Church meeting a budget. It's about becoming someone whose life is open to God as Mary's was. And so as we go through Advent, I want to invite you into a posture, not a program. The posture is to acknowledge that everything begins with God's generosity. So before anything else, let's just acknowledge the truth that should frame our entire lives. We were created by generosity. We are saved by generosity. We're sustained by generosity. Everything starts with God giving Himself to us. This is our foundation and our success. Security. This is the starting point. But then we ask, where is God inviting me to be available? Just as Mary was available. Availability will look differently to every single person in the room. For some, it's just slowing down enough to be present with the other people, people in your life, the people who matter. For others of us, it's practicing generosity with our finances in a way that does nudge us to trust God more. For others, perhaps it's serving or forgiving, releasing the anger, step into something that you've been putting off and postponing. I imagine for a lot of us it's simply saying, God, I'm willing again. I'm willing again. Then I want you to reflect. Where have I stopped receiving? And this might be the most important spiritual question you ask yourself this week. Where have you closed your hands? Where have you grown guarded? Where has fear or hurry shut down your ability to receive what God is trying to give you? A heart that doesn't receive can't give. An Advent invites us to let God reopen what life has tightened. And finally, let's pray. God, let your generosity undo me. This was Mary's prayer. This is the Advent prayer. This is a prayer of discipleship. And if you pray this sincerely, God will meet you. He will soften what is hardened, He will loosen what has been tightened, and He will steady what has been shaken. So here's your practice for the week. Before any of you make a decision about money or time or commitments or plans, pause and receive. Create sacred pauses in your week. Slow down long enough for God to speak to you, for God to steady you, and for God to shape you. Because when you have received deeply, giving becomes worship rather than pressure. And so as we enter into our time of communion today, I want to go in with that mindset. Let's pause and receive. When we take the bread, we're reminded of Advent, of the baby who comes, not in power or prestige, but to a girl who had nothing but availability and openness. And then when we take the juice, we remember faithfulness. That Jesus was faithful from birth to death and in the resurrection. The God who gave is still the God who gives today.