Motivations for Generosity

Anyway, 1 Timothy chapter 6 for our time of study. In the word this morning, we are continuing. And our study of the book of First Timothy, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come this morning to 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 19, and my goal this morning is to get through verse 19. Let me, let me read verses 17 through 19.

Paul says instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them, the rich, to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for. Selves the treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed you'll notice that like in verse 18 is a set of instructions essentially for the rich actually in verses 17 and 18 verse 19 lets us look under the hood at the motivation.

Of the rich and doing these good deeds and being generous and ready to share and so we're going to focus more this morning on the motivation side of things and if you want to give a title to the message, it would be motivations for generosity, motivations for generosity and there's ultimately two motivations for generosity found in verse 19.

But as I comb back through verse 17 and 18, there's actually other motivations that, that are either stated or implied in those verses and so we're gonna sweep those together with the two that are in verse 19, and ultimately, I want to give you this morning 6 truths that should motivate us as Christians to be of all people, most Generous, 6 motivational Truths towards generosity. Let me start by sharing with you, 2 or 3 weeks ago, there was this, article on MSNBC.com, I believe, about Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Two men, their combined wealth, is about $90 billion. these guys have a ton of, of wealth, and they both have have essentially committed themselves to giving over 50% of their wealth to charitable causes.

Warren Buffett has committed to giving 99% of his wealth to charitable causes, and he would say, Don't look at me like I'm virtuous. I will make no sacrifice in giving away 99%. I won't alter my lifestyle at all. but these men are being exceptionally generous, and they want to do good with what they They have and listen to the thinking of Warren Buffett.

There's a lot to appreciate here. He says, I don't have a problem with guilt about money. In other words, as I'm thinking about being generous, I'm not being driven to do this by a sense of guilt for having so much money. I don't feel guilty about that at all.

The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. That's essentially what money is. If I wanted to, now he's thinking about, well, what am I going to do with all of this, this wealth, all of this, these claim checks on society.

If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP, the gross domestic product, would go up. But the utility of that product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research or teaching or nursing. Very well put.

There's a lot to come in here, as I said, he's not being driven by guilt, and he wants to go to work with the money, with the wealth and the resources that he has. He's not the man who's like, I have all of this, and now I'm just going to take it easy. No, he wants to go to work and do good with it. Now, I don't know a lot about Warren Buffett.

Oh, and by the way, these guys, they're calling, they're meeting with other billionaires and they're getting on the phone and they're calling the other billionaires that they know. To encourage them to make this commitment to give 50% of their wealth away, and I, I have not yet received my phone call from. From them, but I am waiting by the phone. Or my people are waiting by the phone.

But to my knowledge, I don't know a lot about these two guys, other than what. to my knowledge, neither of them knows the Lord or claims, to know the Lord, but Yet by the common grace of God they want to do good with what they have. We as Christians, did you, did this, we have motivations towards generosity that these guys cannot even begin to imagine. And yet unfortunately these men by the common grace of God with the earthly motivations that they have are more generous with what they have than many Christians are who have greater cause to be even more generous in terms of the wealth that God has given to them.

What I want to do this morning is to look at at least some of those motivations. We could make quite a list, but in our passage this morning, we can pull out 6 motivations, 6 truths that, that I think if we can just marinate in these truths and stare at them for a while, you'll see how motivational they are to just inspire us to live a life of generosity and doing good deeds for, for other people. real quick before we begin to look at these, let me just remind you of what we said last week in terms of the direction that our generosity goes.

in the text of the New Testament, our generosity goes towards fellow Christians who are suffering need as we seek to bless them and address whatever needs they have.

Secondly, our generosity can go in the direction of helping and blessing and meeting the needs of those outside the church, those who don't know the Lord, those who are non-Christians, and in using our resources to meet practical mundane needs of those who don't know the Lord, who are suffering need, we are being a living embodiment of the gospel, a living embodiment of the grace and the generosity of God towards them. A third direction. That our generosity goes is towards those who labor in the local church as elders or as servants.

I mentioned last week, 1 Timothy 5:17 to 18, the elders who rule well work hard at preaching and teaching.

The church body needs men who are devoting themselves full time to these tasks. And also earlier in chapter 5, there's the hint that you remember the super widows. That the church provided care for, these were not women who were passive sitting around and just receiving funds from the church. These women in all likelihood were serving.

the church in various ways and we're being compensated for that. And so a person who's a part of a local church would want to assess what those needs are in order to supply the appropriate ministries to that church body and then Allow his decisions and giving to be governed in part by that. Then 1/4 direction that our generosity goes is towards those who serve the church. By they're sent out of the church and they go out on behalf of the church to spread the gospel like the apostle Paul did, and we have opportunity in the church to, deliver funds to those that are out there doing the work of spreading the gospel of Jesus.

So those are at least 4 directions in the text of the New Testament that are, that are good deeds and our generosity and our giving. goes towards, and we, we want to be appropriately motivated to be appropriately generous as God tells us to in these verses in 1 Timothy 6, and fortunately God gives us and supplies us with some motivations in these verses. Let's try to go through them. The first motivation that I see in this text that I would want to focus on this morning that if we can just start our train of thought here, it would inspire us and free us up to be appropriately generous with the material wealth that God has given to us, and that is that we have a God who is extremely wealthy.

We have a God who is extremely wealthy. Look how this is indicated in verse 17. The end of the verse speaks of God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. What that statement means is that everything you possess, God gave it to you, which means that it was his to give.

So you look at everything that all of us in this room, just the combined wealth that is represented in this room, all of that has been given to us by God because it was his to give. God is incredibly Incredibly wealthy. In fact, look at, look at what he owns Psalm 24:1. Look on the screen, the earth is the Lord's.

He owns the planet, and all that it contains everything on the planet. God owns the world and all those who dwell in it. He owns every human being that exists and walks on this planet, and he's going to be the one who determines the eternal destiny of every man. God is.

He is just infinitely wealthy. He owns everything, and all that we have we simply have because it was his to give, and he chose to give it to us. Now the reason I find this motivational towards generosity. is because it's not just the fact that God is extremely wealthy, but it just so happens that this incredibly wealthy being is the one who has personally pledged himself to care for us and to be the meter of our needs.

It's this God who says, you just seek me first and my kingdom, and all the things that you need will be added to you. It's this God who says, I will meet all of your needs according to my riches. See, that makes a difference. if I'm walking down the street and And a guy comes up to me who is homeless and has very few resources to his name, and he came up to me and said, what, Milton, I want you to know something.

I am pledging my life to providing for you from this day until the day you die. Any needs that you have, I will take care of those needs. How would that play with me? In my mind, well, I would be blessed by the sentiment, but it wouldn't bring me a lot of security because though his heart may be in the right place, he doesn't have the resources to carry that out.

However, if that phone call I'm waiting for from Warren Buffett comes and, and he said, what, Milton, I want you to know that from this day until the day you die. I am totally going to use my resources to meet any and every need you have for you and your family. You are completely taken care of. I'll give you whatever you need.

That would, that would go a little differently in my mind and bring me a measure of maybe comfort and security because I know this guy has the resources to back up that promise. We'll multiply that by Infinity, and that's who we have when we have this God who owns the planet and everything in it and everyone on it and all the gold and the silver and the money and all the wealth of the world and of the entire universe. This God with all of these resources is the one who comes to us and says, I love you and I will care for you and I will be the meter of your needs.

So, We start our train of thought there and that frees us up to be generous.

There's a second truth that's very much tied to this and emerges from this, and that is that we have a God who continuously is generous with his wealth towards us. Not only is God wealthy, if he were stingy with that wealth, Then I guess the fact that he's wealthy wouldn't mean anything to us, but this God is actually continuously generous towards us with his wealth. Look again at the end of verse 17. God, who continuously is richly supplying or causing us to have all things to enjoy.

In other words, God, in an ongoing way, every moment of every day is continuously, generously giving us blessing after blessing, gift after gift. We are the recipients of an amazing daily, moment by moment generosity from God towards us. I would encourage you, if you feel like you're being clingy and stingy in your heart with the resources that God has given to you and you want to be generous, please don't walk out of here saying I'm going to be more generous. Don't do that.

Just spend some time gazing at this God and contemplating. His generosity towards you. And if you're going to think about how God has richly supplied you with all things to enjoy, what is the ultimate place to start in terms of what God has given to you? What is the ultimate thing that God has given to you?

It's Jesus Christ, right? It's, it's all that God has given to you in the gospel, which is so much more important than material wealth that he has also given to us. Essentially, our salvation is a generous gift from God to us. God gives us this gift of salvation.

The gospel is only possible because God gave the gift of His Son John 3:16. God gave His only begotten Son so that we would not perish if we believe in Him. As for Jesus, we learned earlier in First Timothy 2 that Christ Jesus gave Himself as a ransom for all. He looked upon us in our lost estate.

We needed forgiveness. We needed deliverance. We needed ransom. We needed salvation.

And Jesus said, someone needs to make a donation here. I know what I will do, I will donate my infinitely lovely and righteous self towards their salvation. He donated everything, his whole self. And so in the Christian life, we have blessings, not only Christ, but in Christ, all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge.

Look at this on the screen in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7. We have the riches of His grace, which he has lavished on us. And now in this passage, We see Paul affirming that God richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. God has given us so many blessings in Jesus, in the gospel, and as you entertain, The thoughts of your portfolio of all the blessings God has given to you, start with the gospel.

That's exactly what Paul does in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 as he's trying to encourage the Corinthians to be generous, to give to their brothers and sisters who were suffering from famine in Jerusalem. What does Paul do? He goes to the Gospel in 2 Corinthians 8:9 and says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you through his poverty might be made rich.

Paul says, what, I want to encourage you guys to be generous, so come with me, come with me to the cross, and let's stare at Jesus and let's study what he did. The reason Paul does this in 2 Corinthians 8:9 is because he knows the power of the gospel to change and reorient our hearts if we would but gaze at it. Listen to what Timothy Keller says about Paul's line of reasoning in 2 Corinthians 8. It's appropriate for this passage as we're thinking about this, so let me read it.

He says, Jesus, the God man had infinite wealth, but if he had held on to it, we would have died in our spiritual poverty. This was, that was the choice. If he stayed rich, we would die poor. If he died poor, we could become rich.

Our sins would be forgiven and we would be admitted into the family of God. Paul in 2 Corinthians 8:9 was not giving this church a mere ethical precept, exhorting them to stop loving money so much and become more generous. Rather, he recapitulated the gospel. In other words, he just rehearsed the gospel, knowing the power of the gospel to reorient their heart toward generosity.

He goes on to say this to the degree that you grasp the gospel, money will have no dominion over you. Think on his. The grace until it changes you into a generous people. The solution to stinginess is a reorientation to the generosity of Christ in the gospel.

What breaks the power of money over us is not just redoubled effort to follow the example of Christ. Rather, it is deepening your understanding of salvation of Christ, what you have in Him, and then living out the changes that that understanding makes in your heart. Do you understand that? Go, go to the cross and contemplate what God has done for you.

Contemplate the fact that you are the recipient of an infinite and an amazing generosity. And let that reorient your heart and then live out the changes that that's accomplishing in your heart. I would encourage you as you contemplate God's generosity towards you beyond the gospel. contemplate the things that God supplies you with every day in terms of physical health.

God gives you hundreds of gallons of his air to breathe every day. And probably none of you have thanked God for a single one of those breaths that you have inhaled today, and he's not necessarily expecting that. But God, represented by all of us in this room, has given out tens of thousands of gallons of His air to go into our lungs today so far to supply us with life. Our bodies produce 2 million red blood cells every second.

Which means that every second that goes by, God gives to you and to me 2 million red blood cells. We're not even thinking about that, but in 1 2nd of time, God has given us 2. Million red blood cells. That's just one particular function of the body.

Who could begin to enumerate all the gifts that God gives to us? Think about it. For you to enjoy good health for one second doesn't require from God one gift of good health. It requires millions and millions of gifts to your physical body.

Such as 2 million red blood cells and what have you, in order to sustain you in a state of health. God is, every heartbeat, every function of every organ in your body is a gift from God's loving hand to you. And then on top of that, go beyond the physical abilities and health that you enjoy that are gifts from God to you, but think about the material blessings that God has lavished upon you. The money that you have and the things that your money has purchased, all just everything you have, guys, we need to, we need to walk throughout every day just seeking to genuinely count our blessings, knowing that we cannot count them.

We couldn't begin to count the blessings from God to us on a daily basis. And to live in a state of gratitude and a recognition that I am the recipient of a continuous ongoing gratitude by a God who richly supplies me with everything that I need. If you want to be more generous, again, don't resolve to be more generous. Just look at God.

Look at God, look at his wealth and how generous that he is towards you. See yourself as the recipient of a continuous ongoing and infinite generosity. And then a third truth that I think God would want us to focus on this morning that has a reshaping effect upon our Heart and our orientation. Is that giving generously is one of the God-intended ways that we experience pleasure in our possessions.

we learned that last week, did we not? That look what it says at the end of verse 17, God richly supplies us with all things literally into pleasure. God richly gives us or causes us to have everything. Into or in order to bring us into pleasure.

God, when he gives us material blessings or any blessing that he lavishes upon us, material or spiritual, his agenda is to bring us into the experience of a pleasure. That's his agenda and what he gives to us, and that's affirmed at the end of verse 17. and then look at the instruction manual that comes in verse 18. God is saying, Listen, I've given you what I've given you so that you would enter into the experience of a pleasure that I have in store for you.

Now I'm not just going to tell you that. I'm going to give you instruction on how it is that you can enter most fully into that pleasure that I have in mind for you. Do good, be rich in good works, be generous, meaning give goodly portions of the good of what you have and be ready to share and bring others into the experience of what you have. These are not just instructions.

These are instructions on how to enter into the pleasure of God that he wants you to experience to the fullest degree in your possessions. God commands us He wants for us to experience this pleasure. And by being generous, we experience that. You guys know what I'm talking about, that it truly is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

The material blessings God gives to us bless us most as they pass through us on their way to other people. Giving generously is one of the God-intended ways that we experience pleasure in our possessions. There's 1/4 truth that should motivate us to just in an ever enlarging way be generous with our resources, and that is that God is insistent that we give generously. God is insistent.

And at first I had the wording God commands us to give generously, and he does. but this is more than a command. look at this in verse 17. be continuously instructing those who are rich, and that word instruct means to give orders, to instruct, or to command.

Paul is telling Timothy, go to those that have much and And not just one time, but be repeatedly giving them these orders in terms of what to do with regard to the money, the riches, the wealth that God has given to them, and that is to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, giving goodly portions of the good or the best of what they have, and to be ready, eager to share and bring others into the experience of what they have. These are commands. God is insistent through Paul, God is expressing that he's really insistent that we be generous and give generously.

Do you guys get that from the text?

Just the, the language that's used here. This fact though, creates a little bit of a quandary that will, will take a minute to address. That if God commands us essentially to give here, I know when I started thinking about this, my mind went to 2 Corinthians 8:8, where Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to be generous, to give to their brothers and sisters in Christ suffering famine, and he talks a little bit about it to motivate them, but then he says, I'm not speaking this as a command.

But as proving to the earnestness of others the sincerity of your faith also.

Paul seemed to be queasy about the idea of commanding them because he wanted to make sure they were not doing this out of obligation or compulsion. In fact, in the next chapter, he says each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver. What he's saying is, I, I don't want any One to give because they're obligated to, and that's why I'm trying to use language here. Paul would say that where I'm not coming at you like I'm commanding you or barking out an order to you to give in this way.

So you look at Paul's language there in 2 Corinthians and then you look at his language here in 1 Timothy. First Timothy telling Timothy, be commanding, giving orders to them, to the rich, to be giving, doing good works, being generous, ready to share. And in 2 Corinthians, the tone is a little bit different. How do we, how do we bring that together?

Here's, here's what helps me. When you see maybe the commanding tone of God in verses 17 and 18, you must see his countenance as he delivers the command and insist that we do this. And the view of God here is not of a God who's sitting as a judge and, and he's delivering this law that you must give and be generous, and now are you going to obey or disobey? That's not the countenance of God that is manifested in this passage.

We've learned something of the countenance of God at the end of verse 17. God has given to us all things to bring us into pleasure. So that's his agenda. I, I, I, I want you to experience a pleasure.

And so God then says, you have to do this. Do this, be generous. And as we look into his countenance, we see that God is excited about what he has in store for us. Does that make sense?

we do this all the time. We don't even think about it. some of you went to the Resolve conference last week. I've, I've had a couple command me to listen to particular sermons.

And in commanding me to do that, I can see their countenance that they're not just delivering some imperative. Now I've got to do this out of obligation. No, I can tell by their countenance that they enjoyed a particular message and they want me to enter into that enjoyment that they had. Does that make sense?

Imagine that I'm eating an ice cream. cone that has ice cream in the cone that is of a flavor I've never had before, and I am just like, oh man, this is. Setting my taste buds on fire. I'm loving this, but I don't want to enjoy it alone.

And so I turn to one of my children and I say to them, Taste this. How would they respond? Would they say, Whoa, Dad, what's with the imperative here? You're making this a duty that I gotta, They don't think that all they got to do is look at my countenance, and they know that like I'm excited for them.

I've enjoyed something, and I want them to enter into that pleasure that I have had. Another example, Ron Needham. How many of Ron Needham? Used to be an elder here at Cornerstone.

He's now living in Hawaii, and Hawaii, and He comes through town a few times a year. Every time he comes through town, he commands me to go to Hawaii. He literally does. he's like, you've got to come to Hawaii.

The reason is I look at his countenance and I know he's not just coming into town to deliver an imperative. And obligate me somehow. He's excited about all things Hawaii. He loves Hawaii.

He loves his experience there, and he wants me to enter into his pleasure. And so I can look at his countenance, and I know how to understand his imperatives to me. And to me, when I think of it that way, and the countenance of God in this passage, it, it makes it all fit together. And there's no contradiction in any way, shape or form.

God is wealthy. God has done much with his wealth. He himself has experienced enormous pleasure in being generous with us and with all. And He has given us what He's given us to bring us into a certain pleasure, and now he comes to us and he says, You've got to do this.

You've got to do this. Be generous. Do good with this. Be rich in good works, be ready to share.

Do this, God says. And we look up into his countenance and his, his eyes are dancing with delight. He's just like, I, I can't wait for you to do this so you can experience the pleasure that I have in store for you. By the way, when you look at any command of God, always look into his countenance because it's that countenance.

That's motivational This God who gave us all things that we might enter into pleasure, He commands us and so we're going along and God says, give, give, be generous, and we're like, whoa, and then we look at his countenance and it's like, OK, OK. Because he's got something up his sleeve. He's got something in store for us and so we give trusting that his dreams of our pleasure will be experienced in our lives as we obey Him. There's a 5th truth that is motivational for our generosity, and we find this beginning in verse 19, and that is that we store up for ourselves treasure in heaven when we give generously.

This is, this is amazing. Look at this. Like instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. And he's like, tell the rich to do this, to do these things, and to do these things so that in doing them, the rich in giving and sharing will at the same time through their giving be storing up for themselves, the treasure of a good foundation for the future, foundation.

is something that things are built on and are supported by. What he's saying is, as you give away and as you are generous with your resources and the wealth that I've given to you, God is saying as you give stuff away and put it to work for the cause of the gospel or to be a living embodiment of the gospel to other people, you, in giving it away for that purpose, are actually accumulating. Listen to what one writer says. Now Paul says that those who do these good works for others provide benefit for themselves.

While doing good for others, they are simultaneously storing up and laying up treasure for themselves. Giving away is accumulation. In God's economy. Another writer says this, to give away one's goods in this world is paradoxically to create wealth for the future.

we got all these material possessions. We got money, the things that money can buy. We can't take any of it with us, right? on the day that we die, all of that's going to abandon us.

We can't take it with us. But Paul says, you can take this stuff now that you won't be able to take with you later, and you can do things with this stuff now, whereby you actually are laying up wealth. You're creating wealth in heaven that you can take with you. Not only can you take it with you, but it actually goes there ahead of you and is waiting for you.

And you will get to heaven and go, wow, I'm glad I moved my wealth out of earthly stuff into this eternal currency. And by the way, as we transfer our wealth from earthly currency as it were, to heavenly eternal, it's not an equal transfer. Jesus and Mark 10, remember the disciples say we left everything to follow you, what are we going to get? Jesus doesn't rebuke them for the question.

Jesus says no one has ever given up anything for my sake or for the gospel's sake, that they will not receive a hundredfold in this life and a hundredfold in the life to come. What an investment. Guaranteed return, guaranteed investment. In fact, this may seem goofy to you guys, but, but I've started doing this this year just for the fun of it.

I'm, I'm really over the last couple of years I've really gotten into spreadsheets and on Microsoft Excel and our family budget the last 2 or 3 years has been on the Excel spreadsheets, and I love, punching in all the formulas and then, and then I pay a bill or whatever and I type that number in and then the magic happens. Everything just gets recalculated and and subtotals and grand totals, and I don't know, I just, I find myself just staring at the spreadsheet just because it's fun.

And But this year, I started doing something. I created an additional sheet for charitable giving, like to the church or to support the work of the gospel and so forth.

And on the spreadsheet, what I do is like when I give money to the church or to something else for the cause of the gospel, or to help out a brother or sister in need, I, I type that number in to one of the squares. And then the formula I have on another square is that times 100, and that number gets entered over into another square and then there's the grand total down at the bottom of year to date, investment that I can or return I can expect on my investment. And at the bottom of the sheet in just big bold letters, very large font is that cumulative total everything I've given times 100 and it's labeled expected return.

In heaven for the glory of Christ and for the service of others for all eternity.

By the way, the wealth we have in heaven, what are we going to do with it, consume it on ourselves? No. Love is going to reign in heaven. We're going to use that wealth to show love to other people.

And so when you show love to people here with what you have, it multiplies by 100 your ability to do that in eternity. So why do I like staring at that particular sheep? It's not because I like to admire what I've given. I like to look at it because it's a tangible reminder to me that I've actually given nothing away.

I've sacrificed nothing. There's no sacrifice. That's why people like Hudson Taylor who have sacrificed so much for the Lord, leaving their home country and, and living on so much sacrifice from the perspective of other people, they reach the end of their life and say, I've sacrificed nothing. I have sacrificed nothing for the Lord because the returns that they've experienced in this life are hundredfold, and then in eternity what awaits them is a hundredfold return on their investment at the end of your life and in eternity, you Look at all that God has done for you, and you will say, I sacrificed nothing.

Though I gave stuff away on earth, I didn't give anything away. I just transferred my wealth from earth to heaven, and it got multiplied by a hundredfold. Giving away is accumulation in an exponential way. How do we lay up treasure in heaven?

Well, think of what Jesus says to the rich young ruler. He says, Sell all you possess and distribute to the poor. Take your resources and use it to help the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven. That's how you move your, your wealth from this currency to eternal heavenly currency.

Just real quick, in Matthew 6, Jesus talks about storing up treasure in heaven again, and in the context, we know how to do that. He says, don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt, thieves break through or steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Look at this, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The eye is the lamp of the body.

So then, here's literally the way this reads in the Greek text. So then, if your eye is generous, The Greek word there talking about the eye is the same word that in Romans 12 and other passages speaks of giving liberally. It speaks of liberalness or generosity. He's literally saying if your eye is generous, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad or stingy, your whole body will be full of darkness.

We don't have time to develop this, but in the Old Testament, you, it's an interesting study to look at the passages that speak of the evil eye. Someone with a bad eye. It's someone who's stingy, who's greedy, and who's selfish with what they have. And so Jesus is making it clear that this is, this is how you lay up treasure in heaven by being generous.

And not being stingy with what you have, guys, you need to beat this into your brain. All the stuff you have now, it's fun to carry around and drive around. And put on display now, but you cannot take it with you. Our life is but a vapor, and we're going to get to carry this stuff around and be seen with it for a short period of time, and then all of it's going to abandon us on the day we die.

The day we die is the greatest crisis we will ever encounter in our life, and all that we possess will abandon us in that moment. John Piper says, speaking of the day of our death, at the greatest crisis of your life when you need contentment and hope and security more than any other time, your money and all your possessions take wings and fly away. They let you down. They are fair weather friends at best, and you enter eternity with nothing in terms of earthly wealth.

But What you did with that earthly wealth determines what you bring into eternity and what's waiting for you in eternity even right now. There's a 6th and final truth that's worth looking at that will just, man, have an expansive effect upon our heart and cause us to be generous in giving to the Lord's work and giving to meet the needs of other people, both lost and saved, and that is that when we give generously, we thereby increase our capacity to lay hold of true life. Look at this verse 19, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.

Now the fact that Paul refers to life indeed implies that there's another life that's not really life, but it seems like life and people believe it's life, but it's a false life, and then there's life indeed.

And Paul would say by being generous and willing to share, you thereby are increasing your capacity to lay hold of that which is truly life. A lot of people think life is having things and spending on yourself and having that power, but Jesus says in Luke 12:15, not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. That's not life. Life is not found in just spending on you.

There's another life. And the more absorbed you are with this life and, and consuming and using the resources you have to spend that on you, to the degree that you do that, you are diminishing your capacity to really lay hold of life indeed. Money is actually, though it's not evil. It is dangerous and it actually destroys people.

Jesus says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. There are people that go to hell because they loved money more than God. They did not want to give up their dependence upon money. They trusted money more than God.

Mark 4:19 Jesus. Speaks of those who hear the word of God. They hear the gospel. It seems to be producing fruit in their lives, but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things that those riches can buy enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.

What Jesus is saying is that material resources and wealth and money, if you're not careful, can actually diminish the capacity of God's word to really be fruitful in your life. Maybe you've thought that money is Not that big of a deal in what you do with your money and how you spend your money, but it is a big deal. God's watching how you handle your money because that actually determines the degree to which you can be trusted with true riches. That's what Jesus says in Luke 16:11.

Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? So look again at verse 19. Paul could have said, instruct them to do good in order that other people can be blessed, and the cause of the gospel could be furthered, God could be glorified. All those are totally legitimate and wonderful things to say and they're affirmed elsewhere.

But he's saying, Timothy, tell the rich to be generous and to do good works with what they have, to be generous and ready to share, because in doing so, they, they will be storing up for themselves a treasure of a good foundation in heaven and have them be generous in this way because in being generous in this way with what they have, they will thereby be increasing their capacity to really lay hold of life indeed. In other words, have them be generous, knowing that they themselves will be the most blessed.

They will be the number one beneficiary of all the goodness and generosity that they give to others with the wealth that God gives to them. Let me say it this way, generous giving.

to others is a solution to your spiritual problem. Of greed, selfishness, worry, earthly mindedness, it delivers you as much as the one to whom you are giving. You ever experienced that? there have been times where I found myself getting too caught up with money, too absorbed with money, and, and feeling anxiety over, over money.

and when I've battled the most with that, I've certainly asked God to help me with that battle, but what I've learned to do, and I've done this a number of times, is I've just pulled out my checkbook and I've just written a check. And I've given it to the Lord and to his work, to the church or some other ministry and And that always has the effect of breaking the back of the anxiety and the idolatry, and someone might look at me in that moment of giving and say, wow, you're a virtuous person, and I would go, No, no, no, I, yeah, I'm glad this other, that our church or whoever else is going to be blessed or helped, but I'm actually doing this for my own deliverance.

My own deliverance, because I want to lay hold of that which is life indeed. In Matthew 6, Jesus says, don't store it for yourselves treasures on earth, but store up treasure in heaven.

And then he could have given any reason to motivate them, but look what he says. The reason I want you to store up treasure in heaven is because where your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be. I want you to give and store up treasure in heaven because of the effect that that generosity will have upon you and your heart, the way that it will reshape and reorient your heart towards eternity and toward heaven. Give and lay up treasure in heaven because of how it will deliver you from earthly mindedness.

Verse 22, the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is generous, your whole body will be full of light to the degree that you are generous and giving, to that degree, you are opening up your ability to receive the light of God into your being. But if your eye is bad or stingy, the light of God will not be able to enter in. And your body will be full of darkness.

Jesus is essentially saying give and lay up treasure in heaven because it will deliver your heart from earthly mindedness and put your heart where it needs to be. And in being generous, it's almost like giving is a sacrament, as it were, that in giving and being generous you are opening up and expanding your capacity to take the light of God into your being. Last week I told you about Hudson Taylor who had given to that woman who was on her deathbed and he had that one coin in his pocket and the spirit was saying, give it to this family in need, and he was like saying no, but eventually he gave in.

And gave the coin to them in an act of generosity, giving out of his need.

I didn't read to you this statement that he made as he looked back on that. He said not only was the poor woman's life saved by the help I provided, but my life, as I fully realized, had been saved too. We give Because of what it does to our hearts as much as we give because of how it helps and blesses other people. Let me just read this and we'll stop.

We give to others not simply in order to do them good. Yes, that's a great reason, but we are also pursuing something for ourselves also. We are giving not simply to deliver a person from a particular want or need, but we give to deliver ourselves. And to strengthen our ability to take hold of the stuff.

Of eternal life. God is rich, God is generous towards you and me. There's pleasure in giving that He wants us to experience. He insists on our giving so that we experience that pleasure.

Giving is actually accumulating exponentially and letting go actually increases our capacity to take hold of that which is truly life. Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning, as is our custom. We're going to give you an opportunity to give to the Lord. In just a moment, we would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give.

We thank you guys for your, your faithfulness and giving. Your generosity. We know that many of you taste of the very joys and pleasures that we've been talking about this morning. But let us, let us go into this week, just resolve to live a life where we are rich in good deeds, not just a few token acts of generosity, but to where that characterizes each day with what we do with our time, our resources.

Our energy Our money, our possessions, our vehicles, our home. And let us live lives of generosity being fueled by these motivations we find here. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you. We ask that you would make much of these offerings, glorify your name.

Spread. Through these gifts, Lord, the gospel of Jesus Christ here in our midst and throughout the city and around the world. Help us, Lord, to be generous. We are never more like you than when we are generous toward others.

We never display you more clearly than in those moments where we are being generous just like you. So help us to mirror your image to all whom we come in contact with this week. We just commit ourselves to You, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,