So I'm very happy to be here. Good morning to everyone. Good morning to Madison Church Online. Welcome to the heart of the Advent season. So my name is Kyle Leggett. If I haven't met you before, I'm one of the elders here at Madison Church. And I'm certainly thankful for the opportunity to be with everyone today, especially before we're about to all disperse. And we're going to go be with our families. It's the one of the most important times of the year. And we at Madison Church here just finished up our Christmas drive with the Luger Center. So we're really, really excited about that. Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks, we were able to contribute to the joy of a couple children here in the local Madison area. And as a church, I hope that we are listening very intently about how we as a church can be generous even as Christmas Day approaches. Like what does that look like for us to continue to be generous, not just in the Christmas season, but especially around this season? And I remember growing up here at Christmas, Christmas time, I always looked forward to this time of the year. School was just about to break for a good bit. Maybe there would be some time for me to catch up with my brothers and my sisters. There would be some great food, and, you know, maybe there would be some presents too that I really wanted as a young kid. But I also remember some of the tough Christmases, too. I remember when my family fractured. I remember some when my father was sick and bedridden in the hospital. I remember some where family events ended with the police called and punches thrown. It's not always a joyous occasion. And so I say that because as a church, we don't want to oversensationalize the Christmas season when it's not always a positive event for everybody. But no matter the good or the bad, a part of me always thought, hey, if I can just make it to Christmas Day, everything will be all right. If I can just get to Christmas Day, then maybe everything will sort itself out, everything will be good. And that sense of longing, that sense of waiting, even as a child, mirrors and mimics the type of waiting that creation is doing, awaiting its creator to return and to restore all things. And that's what Advent means. Advent actually just means waiting or anticipation. And so here at Christmas time, we celebrate the coming of Jesus, but we also readily await Jesus' coming again. That's part of what Advent means. So how do we come together in this season? How do we parse through all the busyness and all the emotions that come during this time? And how do we do that together? Well, we remember that love gave. That's part of it. And last week, Stephen walked through what it meant for God to give. For God so loved the world that God gave. That's what we talked about last week. And so today we are going to ask ourselves, what does it look like for me to give? What does it look like for me to embody generosity? How do I make room to give, whether that be emotionally or financially or spiritually? And so we'll ask ourselves, how do we move from being inspired about being generous to intentional about being generous? And how do we do that practically? How do we do that biblically? And I also have to say, this is not a pitch about how Madison Church needs more financial contributions. That is not the heart of this message. The heart of this message is about being generous. We do take finances very seriously. Actually, in the spring, I want to go ahead and put a plug out there. We are starting a personal finance small group led by Tyler, who's one of our trustees. He's also a personal financial planner or certified financial planner. And part of that means we want to make sure that everyone in here at least is financially literate. We want to be very practical with it. We do care about everyone. But today we aren't just talking about money. We're talking about generosity. Generosity as a spiritual discipline that reflects a God who gives. When we are generous, when we are truly generous, it defeats the power of selfishness inside ourselves. It brings light in a dark place, it spreads goodness, it spreads joy, it spreads the gospel. Spreading the gospel is an act of generosity. We simply have to ask ourselves: how do we best participate in generosity without becoming deceived by our own prosperity? It's easy to be deceived by our own prosperity. Now, luckily, we have a really cool model in scripture, and the teacher and me is just like ready to go. Like, let's dive in and talk about what generosity means scripturally. And I'll break it down in a few ways. First, I want us to go ahead and talk about how we can end up, and largely we do end up, driven by a fear of scarcity, or perhaps we fail to trust our heavenly hosts, God, to give us blessings. And so what we end up doing is trying to create our own blessing. So I want to talk about combating that. Then I want to talk about generosity and how it's baked into the biblical story from the Old Testament to Jesus' birth, that God is a God who gives and wants us to participate in that giving too. And then we'll close by looking at the Apostle Paul and talk through a practical means of generosity. So let's go ahead and dive in. First things first, combating scarcity and mistrust. Since it's the Christmas season, it also means it's dinner party season. I'm sure you might have gotten a few invitations to a few dinner parties already, where maybe it's a time to throw on the ugly sweaters. There'll be one next week here at the church. We're gonna have a little Christmas shindig. It's a time where gracious hosts have signed up to facilitate a good time for everybody. It's a dinner party. And sometimes those dinner parties go really well, and sometimes they don't go very well at all. One of my favorite Christmas movies just happens to be National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. I really like that movie. And we'll watch it this year, probably around Christmas Eve. But in that movie, there's a strange balance of the guests who end up taking too many resources and who end up mistrusting their host, Clark Griswold. Clark Griswold is this hyper anxious host. He's over-preparing, he's overproducing because he's so terrified that his provisions are going to fall short. And then his relatives and his guests start showing up. They bring many of their own resources, they bring many of their own expectations, and I would say they bring many of their own self-indulgent habits. But here's the thing: his guests are convinced that his home cannot meet all their needs. And then we tragically watch as they try to navigate that scarcity competition that ultimately unfolds. Now, how in the world is that a really good Christmas movie? Why is that a good Christmas movie? Because it captures something about the human experience. Because for whatever reason, humans have this tendency to protect and store up and fight others for their portion of abundance. No matter what, we always tend to hoard. And we actually see this sense of scarcity play out right from the very beginning of the Christmas story in Luke chapter 2. Let's read it real quick. Luke chapter 2. At that time, the Roman Emperor Augustus decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. This was the first census taken when Corinius was governor of Syria. All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for that census. And because Joseph was the descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David's ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in snugly strips of cloth, swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no lodging available for them. There was no room for them in the end. So Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem only to find that there's no room. It's like this striking image. The most generous act in history, God coming to us, a truly love-gave moment. And it ends up having to take place in obscurity and inconvenience. And unfortunately, it takes place amid a moment of human-induced scarcity. There was simply just not enough to go around. Now, alongside the gospel, the Old Testament are filled with stories about how humans distrust God as a generous host. And it really takes these two distinct modes. One, the mistrust of the host, and two, scarcity mindset. So with the mistrust of the host, we start to say, hey, maybe there isn't actually enough to go around. Maybe the host didn't provide enough. Or we think God's not going to come through. We actually start believing God hasn't provided that blessing I was promised. So what happens? We end up with that scarcity mindset. It leads to a scarcity mindset. Therefore, I must take extra for myself just in case. Just in case I don't trust God. Or better yet, I have to go seize the blessing for myself because God's not going to do it, and I can no longer rely on the Lord. And so the book of Genesis actually has a number of stories that detail humanity's kind of mistrust of the host and the scarcity that grips our hearts and it compromises our ability to give, to be generous. So I just want to walk through a couple of those stories really quickly. I'll throw four of them up on the screen real quick, just so we can walk through them together. First one's the creation story. In the creation story, God is a generous host, a generous creator. God wants to give everyone a blessing, the tree of life, every tree of the garden. But He does not want the abundance of the garden to make humans decide to define good and evil on their own terms. It would be a misuse of the abundance. And so that's represented in this idea of the choice of eating of the tree of knowledge and of good and evil. That is the humans deciding it is good or evil in their own eyes. God's blessings could continue if we trusted God versus our own understanding. They decided not to trust God, but to trust their own definitions of good and evil in that moment, their own version of blessing. Second, Cain and Abel. Cain, out of scarcity and mistrust of God, chooses to take his own brother's life. Because from Cain's logic, he would never be able to be blessed if Abel was around stealing all these blessings. Scarcity, mistrust. Then you have on a tower, a national scale, the Tower of Babel. So coming out of the flood and Noah's Ark, the people are told to go out and fill the earth. That is part of the blessing. But instead, what you see with the Tower of Babel is people start to say, hey, let's build a city and a tower so that we aren't scattered. It's an effort of the humans, instead of giving the blessing of life, they want to focus on harnessing that power for themselves as one place, as one people. And in the text, you actually hear them say, let us make for ourselves a name. Let's make a name for ourselves. Let's protect ourselves. Let's use all those resources that we've forgotten were actually a gift and a blessing. It's all ours. It's all about ourselves. The whole story is actually a parody of Babylon. That's what the writers are trying to hint at. And I think that has implications on a national scale for many of the nations in the world right now, where nations are choosing to be selfish with their own policies. Lastly, Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. Abraham, when he is blessed by God, is told, You're gonna go have a great nation, many descendants. But then Abraham and Sarah start getting too old in age. Time keeps passing by. They start to question if God's promise is actually going to come through. They start to mistrust God. They start to think about how to fulfill the promise on their own. So then they try to create their own promised son through Hagar. And they end up abusing her in the process to create their firstborn. They end up sending Ishmael away and creating a schism in the family. The blessing they tried to achieve on their own becomes undone. And the list goes on. What we see not only in Genesis, but in so many other stories are humans who, out of scarcity and mistrust, begin scheming to create their own blessing. And that's the logical sum of an ungenerous heart. When we feel scarcity and when we feel mistrust, we begin to scheme for our own blessing. We think we have to do it ourselves. We ultimately attempt to seize that, and when we do, God's gift becomes undone along the way. We say to ourselves, Where is God? Where are you, Lord? I have to take matters into my own hands. God's gift is never going to come. I have to create it for myself. Humanity has this inclination to misuse power because it misunderstands abundance. We forget that our very existence, that our generative power is a gift, that it's God's breath, it's God's spirit, bluah, is in our lungs. I mean, you give me to think that you're actually the one in control, that this is your stuff, this is your power, that you're in the one in the driver's seat to make it. And that's part of the reason why we wanted to talk about generosity this month. Because the most radical form of generosity this world has ever seen is that true love gave. And it's the model for us to defeat that distrust, to defeat that scarcity that creeps in. So that's part of the mistrust and scarcity. Let's look briefly at the biblical model of generosity. So, what does generosity look like in the biblical story? Now, as I just recounted many a times in the Old Testament, where humans choose to trust themselves and their own resources over God's timing and blessing, we also cannot forget the times where Israel as a nation had no blessings at all. As soon as the book of Exodus begins, we see that the nation of Israel is captive in Egypt. They are completely enslaved. There is no blessing there. They have no ability to own land, they have no place of their own, they can't control their own schedule, they can't be rewarded for their labors. This very way mimics what is anti-God, what is anti-generosity. Israel cannot give because it has all been taken from them. And we actually see this come back up as Israel is liberated, even in Old Testament law, where God calls Israel to start to prioritize the poor. When you're beating your olive trees, don't maximize the prophet. Let that first beating be enough for you. Leave the rest for the immigrant, for the orphan, for the widow. Let's actually look at that law in Deuteronomy 24 and just watch how it ends. So Deuteronomy 24, verse 19. When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, don't go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, don't go over to the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I commanded you to do this. The logic is very simple. Remember when you had everything taken from you. Remember when you were redeemed and blessed. Give in that spirit. But there's also a sense of personal investment in this passage, too. When you are harvesting your field, leave something for the foreigner. That means that the people knew who the foreigners and the poor were in the community. There was an intimate sense of knowing the need. I think so many times we end up giving from afar. We write a check, we consider it done. We do one service event and we consider it good. But what would it look like if we were really invested in knowing the needs around us? And let that inspire us not only to give financially, but also to give with our time and our effort, with our hearts. And more than anything, let us not always let us not forget that God has always chosen the unlikely to be the vehicle for his purpose. The weak, the poor, the rejected. God takes great pleasure in exalting them through his purpose. Now, what does practical giving look like? Third point, final point, as we start to close out today. I want us to take a look one more at one more passage from the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 9 and see if this passage can help us come up with some biblically sound thoughts for how to be generous and how to give, especially in a world that keeps telling us to profit, to profit, to profit, to save, to keep, to store. Let's look at this. 2 Corinthians 9, we'll start in verse 6. Remember this a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop, but the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For God loves a person who gives cheerfully. And God will generously provide all you need, then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. As the scriptures say, they share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever. For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and the bread to eat. In the same way He will provide and increase your resources, then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. Yes, you will be enriched in every way, so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God. So it's a complicated passage. It's been misused thousands of times in plenty of church contexts. But is there some sort of like practical application about generosity in our own lives to develop it as a spiritual discipline for us? Well, I have like six kind of points that I want to point out for us right now from this passage. Throw them all up on the screen for you. The first one is to be generous out of love. Be generous out of love. I think too often we give out of obligation. We feel like we are supposed to give, so we start giving. Perhaps we feel like we can even earn a blessing if we give. And in that sense, we're giving selfishly. We're giving so we can get something. The challenge for us to give out of love and to lean into 2 Corinthians 9, and what Paul is saying here is you must decide in your hearts what to give. You must decide in your hearts what generosity actually looks like. Do not do it out of pressure. Do not do it out of pressure. God loves a cheerful giver. Remember, Jesus praises even the woman who gave two talents in the synagogue because it was all she had. She gave out of her heart. She gave out of her poverty. She gave out of love. That is what Jesus was really complimenting there. Secondly, be generous out of trust in God. So we walk through all these Old Testament stories about mistrusting our host. We want to store up the manna for ourselves. We don't pray for our daily bread. We end up praying for our year's supply. Of bread. But what does Paul encourage here from 2 Corinthians 9? And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty of left over to share with others. Oh, oh, so me getting more isn't about me keeping more? No. Getting more is about sharing more. The greatest act of generosity is to remember that God is our provider. And God provides so that we might share our blessings, not store them up. Thirdly, be generous wisely, but without judgment. One of the most common problems that we hear today about giving is that people or organizations are going to misuse our gifts. But I'm also reminded of an old C.S. Lewis story, or it's at least attributed to him, where he was walking with a friend and gave a man in the street some money. His friend said, you know, he's just going to spend that on beer. And Lewis responded, Well, so was I. It's like a little bit of a funny story. But at the same time, it gets to the heart of it, right? And in 2 Corinthians 9, Paul reminds us that as we give, others will thank God because we were a part of God's story in their life. You participated in the gospel by being generous. Now that is not to say that generosity policies are not needed or good. The global church has earned the scrutiny about its financial situation. It sure has, and we should scrutinize it. It is good for organizations or people to be wise with their giving, but here's the question I want us to ask ourselves in this vein. How do we challenge our hearts to ensure our scrutiny or our judgment is not just another mask for our selfishness? We scrutinize, but how do we, we just want to make sure that we're not being selfish along the way. Number four, be generous without conditions. What's it say? Paul's actually quoting a psalm and he says this part they give freely and share with the poor generously. It's actually a quote from a psalm. There are no conditions for the poor that they must come to church or that they must do XYZ for you. A gift is a gift. No special favors, no undue power or influence, just a blessing. And we have to remember that. How many times have we heard that the biggest donors in an organization or in a church hold the most power? Well, we can't upset them because they're the biggest givers to the church. How do we tackle that problem? Well, first things first by remembering that all our gifts are gifts from God, and that in our generosity we give without expectation or condition. A gift is a gift. Fifth, be generous intentionally. Generosity begins with a decision to create space. It doesn't come from excess, it comes from priority. And where our money or our time goes ends up telling a story. It tells a story about ourselves, where our treasures in where our treasures are indicate where our heart is. Jesus in Matthew 6, in the Beatitudes. Don't store up treasures here on earth where moths eat them and rust destroys them and where thieves break in and still store up your treasures in heaven. Where your treasure is, there your desires of your heart will also be. All of this goes away for us one day. It all goes away for us. We want to make sure that we are intentional about how much stock we are putting into our own possessions and treasures here on earth. It's just a little heart check. And in conclusion, we come to perhaps the most pressing practical application of generosity that we can embody. Be generous because God was generous first. God is love, and love gave to us with God's very self, coming in the form of a human, who lived a perfect life, died, was buried, and rose again the third day to deliver us from the power of slavery and the power of slavery to sin and the power of death. The gospel is a message of generosity. And part of us spreading the gospel is activating the generosity within our own selves. Now, I would say perhaps you are here today and you have been harmed by the topic of generosity in churches in the past. I just want to ask, what would it look like to wrestle through how generosity might apply to your life today? Just asking the question. What would it look like to divorce some of those malicious practices you've seen and really think about what authentic or godly generosity looks like? There's no pressure. It's just a question. What does it look like? And perhaps you were here today and you felt inspired to be generous, but you've never fully become intentional about your generosity. What would it look like to meditate on 2 Corinthians 9 and see what God might be laying on your heart about generosity this week or this season? And perhaps you are here today struggling desperately with the fear of scarcity, the feeling that God just isn't going to provide, that God's blessings are a lie, and that God won't come through when you've needed him the most. What I do want to offer you is that you aren't alone. You share the same stories as Scripture. You share in a community of believers here who have also experienced broken dreams, broken families, and just general brokenness. Let us together resist the scarcity mindset. Let's prayerfully consider how generosity might open a gateway for God not only to bless you, but to bless all of us, even if it's in a way we might not expect.