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My name's Harley Rafel. I'm one of the pastors on staff here at Point, and uh privileged to have this opportunity to be with you guys here together this morning. I'm just gonna go ahead and put a little disclaimer out there this morning. I've been sick. Anybody else been sick the last little bit? Got a few people. Everybody's like, stay away from those people, keep an eye out who that is. And so if I uh make a little cough or a hack here or there, please just bear with me. I'm sorry. I've got a cough drop here ready to go, and I've got my water too. So hopefully that doesn't happen too much, and we're able to journey through this uh conversation together this morning. I know my voice sounds a little weird and deep this morning, too, so I'm trying to come to terms with that as well. Uh so today we're going to work on letting God improve us. Now that may sound a little simplified, but essentially that's what we we're here together to do, right? We come to church, we sing some songs, we gather together, yeah. We have this time of community, we have this time of celebrating God and who he is and what he's done. But essentially, when we come to this time, this time that we're about to have now, we open God's word, and the thought and the hope is that we would open our hearts and say, God, would you teach us, would you help us to become, to improve, and to be the people that you're calling us to be, so that we would reflect your image more and more, that we would become the people that you've called us to be. I like to think of it like this God is the designer, and today what we're gonna do is essentially look to his manual for help to know how we're designed to operate. I come from a design background, and so that kind of makes sense to me. We sometimes complicate life a lot, but essentially it's like this we're a designed being, and there's a manual that gives us instruction on what it can and should look like to live. And so I just want to ask you and encourage you this morning that you and I would open our hearts and open God's word together and say, God, what is it that you have for us today as we seek to become more like you? And essentially this conversation is going to turn to generosity again this morning because that's the series that we're in, and we're gonna ask the question of how do we become more generous? Now, uh generosity is an interesting thing because some people are just naturally more, you know, uh inclined to being generous type of people, and then others of us are not. But I I believe if we were to get all the people in the room today that we if we were to kind of pull together the people that we know that are the most generous people, and we were going to get them in a you know a round table discussion type group and to say, are you generous enough? They would probably all say no. Because all of us are continuing to take steps to improve in this area. And so this conversation about becoming generous, I think applies to all of us. Even if you're a really generous person, I would imagine that God is continuing to stretch you and to grow you in this area. But I must confess, I must say, that I am not that person. I'm not one of those people that is naturally a generous person. I'm naturally the saver. I'm the person who likes to, you know, get together and to you know be really excited about when I, you know, make a good deal or I buy something that's a bug, and you know, like that's the sort of thing that excites me. I'll give you an example of that. Uh when I was growing up and I was learning to drive, I had my first job at a pizza store, and I just got my license, and I was uh I, you know, I'd drive myself to work and then back, and I had to fill up the car, mum and dad's car, from time to time. I use cash at that time, and I go to the gas station, or is it the petrol station, as we say in Australia, so I go and get some petrol, and uh we go there and I would pay with cash, and in Australia we don't have one cent pieces, right? We only have five cent pieces, that's the lowest increment we have. So if you buy something that costs $5.99, you're gonna pay $6 for it. They round up. Or if you bought something that was advertised as $5.97, you would pay $5.95. They round down. That's how it works, okay, when you have cash. So I would always go to the gas station and I'd be like pumping up my, you know, the at the fuel bowser, putting $5 in, the big spender, you know, putting $5 in mum and dad's gas tank until it, and then I get to five, and then I've just put a little bit more. I'd put five dollars and two cents in because I wanted those two cents to count. You know what I mean? There was something in the back of my mind that said all those little two cents were gonna add up, and I was gonna be able to save. That's how my mind works. That's how I think. I don't know why God created me like that, but he did. And so I need this conversation on generosity just as much, if not more, than any of you in the room here today. And so I just say that, like Nick did last week, to encourage you that we're all in this journey together. This isn't something that we have figured out. And like I said earlier, this isn't something that we just naturally arrive to. God continues to grow and to stretch us in all areas of our lives and in this area of generosity. So let's recap and think about where we've come so far. The first week, we talked about the beginnings of generosity. And that was really kind of just setting up this series and saying, hey, what is generosity? Why should we be generous? Really starting the conversation. One of the things that Nick made very clear, and I'm glad that he did, was saying that this conversation on generosity is not just about money. Money is a part of generosity. The things that we own and our possessions, that's a part of it, but that's not the be all and end all. And hopefully you see that again here today. But we we wanted to be very clear on that because we we know that people already are on edge when it comes to church and money, right? It wasn't like we got to November and we're like, we need a Christmas bonus, let's do a series on generosity, you know, right now. That's that's not how this works. Although money is an important subject, okay? So just gonna throw that out there. Money is an important thing, and and how we use money is important because God knows that it affects our hearts. Because sometimes we can look to money for security, sometimes we can look to money and our possessions for worth and value and meaning, and that's what we're meant to look to God for. This is such an important area, in fact, that Jesus talked about money a lot. Let me just give you a couple of quick facts. Jesus talked about money more than he did about heaven and hell combined. Jesus talked about money more than anything else except the kingdom of God. Eleven of the 39 parables that Jesus told were about money, and one in every seven verses in the Gospel of Luke, which is the story of Jesus, one of the accounts of Jesus' life, was about money. And so this area of money it zooms back out to this area of generosity because God knows that these things can get claws into our hearts. These things can get into our hearts and really rule our hearts. And so this area of generosity, this conversation is a very important one, but it's not specifically just tied to that. And so that's what we covered in that first week, the beginnings of generosity. The second week, last week, we talked about barriers. What are the things that stop us from being the generous people that God's called us to be? Typically it's fear, right? We're fearful of a couple of things. We're fearful of what might happen if we're generous. What will happen to us if I'm gonna be really generous with my finances or whatever else, or with my home, or with my food? Like, will I have enough for me? We're fearful of that. We're also fearful of, hey, if I do, you know, give in this way, the people that I'm giving it to, are they trustworthy? Are they gonna handle what I give well? And so we have fear, these are some of the barriers that kind of stop us from being generous. Well, this week we get to move on to talking about the practicalities of this. We're gonna talk about becoming generous. What does that actually look like? In the words of the great theologian Nacho Libre, we're gonna get down to the nitty-gritty this week, right? Some of you got that reference. Uh so we're gonna talk about the specifics of this, and to do this, we're gonna focus on the next part of 2 Corinthians. If you ever want a good just reading on what generosity can and should look like, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 are your chapters to go to. They're just great chapters, and so that's where we focus this series. First two weeks we're in chapter 8. The last two weeks are gonna be on chapter 9, and specifically today, we're gonna look at verses 1 through 9. I want to give you an overview of the first five verses, though, first. Okay, so the first five verses, Paul has been using the Corinthians to inspire the Macedonians to give to the Christians who are in Jerusalem. Now, some of you are like, well, you just used a whole bunch of phrases I don't understand. It's not that complicated. It simply looks like this. Paul was a preacher and a traveling missionary, and he started a church in a town called Corinth, and he had visited there and told those people there about the persecution and the suffering that was being experienced by the Christians in Jerusalem where Christianity had first started. They were under a lot of persecution and they were really struggling, and and and they said, Yeah, we want to give to them, we want to support them. And Paul had said, Well, I'm gonna travel on and I'll come back through and get what you're what you're saying you're gonna give. And so Paul went on and traveled through the churches of Macedonia. And as he was doing that, he told them that, hey, the Corinthians, those those Christians in Corinth, they're gonna give. They've told me they're gonna be real be really generous. You guys should give to this too. And so he's going around talking about their generosity, and the time has come for him to come and pass back through Corinth, and he's like, I hope these guys are gonna follow through on what they said. I hope that they're gonna do what they told me they're gonna do. I don't want egg on my face when I've been saying, hey, they're gonna be really generous, and we get there and they're like, uh, yeah, we're not really ready for this. So he decides to send a letter, which is 2 Corinthians, the book of 2 Corinthians. He sends this letter ahead to say, hey guys, I need you to follow through on what we talked about. I do the same thing all the time. Communication is very a big thing to me. Like, I like clear communication. Nick's probably nodding his head down the front here because he knows that that's something that's important to me. And and one of the ways that I do that is I have a group of guys that I meet with on Monday nights every week before we meet, I send them a text and I'm like, hey, looking forward to seeing you at 7.45 tonight. And that's just to remind them and let them know, hey, we made this commitment, I'm expecting to see you here tonight. So they don't have a reason to be like, oh yeah, I forgot about that, or it just dropped off my radar, or whatever else. Much in the same way. That's what Paul's doing here in these first five verses, specifically of 2 Corinthians 9. He's saying, hey guys, just remember we talked about this, this is why we're doing this, okay? And so he's just setting them up, and there's some great thoughts in there, but we're gonna spend the bulk of our time on in verses six through nine. So I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me this morning to 2 Corinthians chapter 9. If you don't have a Bible, feel free to grab one from the seats in front of you. We should have some in front of you there. It's really good to read along right in front of you. I just really would encourage that, but we also will have the words on the screen if you need that. 2 Corinthians 9, verses 6 is where we'll start. Remember this. The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. Each person should do as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver, and God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. As it is written, and he quotes Psalms 112 here, he scattered, he gave to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. So these are the verses that we're going to focus in on this morning, and we're gonna ask the question of what are the practical thoughts and becoming generous that we see here in this text? The first thing that we see in verse 6 is this story that Paul uses, kind of I don't know if you call it a story, kind of this proverb of the day. Now, they lived in a very agricultural culture and society, right? And so everybody understood the basics of how to grow stuff and how to harvest stuff. And so he uses a common proverb that everybody would have known in that time. Hey, if you sow a little seed, if you plant a little seed, you should expect to get a little harvest, to reap a little harvest. And if you sow a lot of seed, you should expect to reap a big harvest. Now think of that in terms with me, like when you have seed, seed is something that costs you money. Like a farmer would go to a store and to get seed, it costs you money to get seed, and then you've got to throw it on the ground and trust that it's gonna grow. It's an investment, right? There's a bit of a risk there. And Paul's using this to talk about generosity, and he's saying, hey, you've got to take what you've been blessed with and reinvest it so that God can then cause that to grow. And he's saying, hey, don't just do that sparingly. You need to do that generously in the way that you do that. And so the first thought that we see here is that generosity requires us to be liberal with the things God has resourced us with. We're oftentimes tempted to sow sparingly because we worry and because we're selfish. I like the message paraphrase of this verse. It says it like this A stingy planner gets a stingy crop, and a lavish planter gets a lavish crop. Now there's many things that we can sow generously as this verse encourages us to do. The cool thing is I get to see people sewing generously a lot. In my roles and my responsibility here at the church, one of the things that I get to do is oversee the next generation team, right? And so I get to see the teams of volunteers who help out with our preschool, with our elementary, and even here with our youth on Sunday evenings, okay? And the cool thing is I get to see them doing this weekly because what I see these guys doing is coming and giving of their time and their energy to serve the next generation. And they don't do that sparingly. They're actually really generous with that. They do, they serve consistently and faithfully. They're here every week or every other week, depending on which team they're on, and they're serving and giving of their time, they're giving of their experiences, the things they've learned in life, and the things that God has shown them. They're giving of these things, investing them in the next generation. And it's really cool for me to get to watch that week in and week out. These people faithfully giving and serving, and what I see them doing is being liberal with the things that God's resourced them with. See, the God resources us with many things, and that includes our time and our energy. And so I just want to encourage you that sometimes this looks like different things, but but the cool thing is to see these people faithfully giving in this way, and that means that leads us to a beautiful question of what has God resourced you with? And are you being liberal and generous with those things? The next thing that we see here is that true generosity in verse 7 takes at least two simultaneous things: a kind act and a cheerful heart. A kind act and a cheerful heart. Read verse 7 with me again. It says this each person should do as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. Essentially, what this scripture is telling us is that if you truly want to be generous, you have to have a kind act. Yes, there has to be an act of generosity, but there also has to be this heart motivation that is cheerful and happy and joyful in what you're doing. And so it's not enough to have one with not having the other. Let me explain that a little bit. If you're saying to somebody, you're welcome, and in your heart you're thinking, you're not welcome, you know what I'm talking about? In your heart you're feeling upset or stingy or worried about what just happened. Oh yeah, please take some more. You know, that's not that's not generosity. That's not what we're talking about here. That is not true generosity. So if your heart and your actions don't line up, that's not generosity. Much in the same way, if you have a heart that's happy and cheerful and full of goodwill without actually doing something about what's going on, without a kind act, that's not generosity either. James actually talked about that. In the book of James, chapter two, he says, verse 15 if a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well, but you don't give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith, if it doesn't have works, is dead by itself. And so I'm basically telling you this morning that generosity is dead unless it has both of those things acting at the same time. A heart that's in the right place and an actual physical act of generosity. Does that make sense? So another way we can look at this word cheerful is this word delight. When we give, we should delight in the giving. That's another way that we can translate that that word cheerful is this word delight. I I I don't know if any of you are fortunate enough, like Liz and I have been, to over the years have several friends whose primary love language is gift giving. Don't of you guys know what I'm talking about? People who like their way of expressing love is by giving gifts. They're great friends to have, by the way. And so it's really funny to watch these people because they're the type of people that they're just looking for an excuse to give you a gift. You know what I'm talking about? They're like, oh, your birthday's coming up, you know, and that you can see the cogs starting to turn. And they're trying to think of, you know, what are they going to do for you? And then your birthday rolls around, they're like, here's your gift, it's awesome, and you know, they're so excited about that opportunity to be generous and to give and to use their love language. I think that's a perfect picture of what having a cheerful and delighted heart looks like. If you want to know what it looks like to be a cheerful giver, look to somebody who's who has that love language and it acts in that way. Because that's a perfect picture of what we're talking about here, being delighted in the generous act that we're getting to participate in. Well, the good news is that the scripture doesn't actually end there, it actually goes on to verse 8 and 9, and I think this is the key to the whole of our conversation today. Because what we see as we're looking at practical thoughts on generosity here in verse 8 is that perfect generosity is something God models and grows in you. Please note that I didn't say that it's something that you model or you grow in you, it's God who models and grows it in you. Go to verse 8 with me. There's a couple of beautiful little words there at the start of this verse 8. Verse 8 says, And God is able. I love that. I really love that because as I've as I've been reading along, if you're anything like me, I I kind of create lists and things. Like that's again how I think. And so I've been reading through this passage, and we're looking through this passage together, and if I was there this morning, I would have been thinking, okay, to be generous. I want to be generous. I've got to, you know, I've got to be like lavish. I've got to be really generous, not so sparingly. Okay, write that down. That's the first thing on my list. Next thing on my list, I've got to be cheerful. Okay, okay. I can be cheerful. Yep. Write that down on my list. And then when I come to this verse, what it reminds me is that it's God who is able. It's not on me. The relief of the of this verse is it's not on me to create and manufacture my own little generosity tank. What God does is he comes and gives us the means and the power to be the generous people that he's calling us to be. And it's a beautiful reminder that he is the source of generosity. And it takes all this weight off of our shoulders. Generosity is not something you can generate, but God working in you that generates that. Now, some of you are like, hold up, Pali, are you saying you have to be a Christian to be generous? You know, you have to have God working in you to do that. No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Actually, I have some non-Christian friends and some non-Christian neighbors who are very generous people. And whenever I see them being generous, what I simply see is those people reflecting God's image to me. When I see them being generous to me and to my family, I see God's image reflecting through their lives. Now, some of them may actually hate that I think that, but that's the reality. Even though they don't believe that there is a God or believe that He's real or cares about them, when I see them being generous to me and to my family, I see God's image being reflected in and through them. Genesis 1 tells us that we're all created in God's image, whether you accept that and believe that or not. And when I see people being generous, I see them reflecting God's goodness and his glory to us. So let's read what this verse says in whole, in verse 8 here. It says, And God is able, love that, to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. There's a lot of every's there, but there's a key little phrase in the middle. So it's talking about God is able to make every grace overflow to you. That sounds pretty good, right? Grace is overflowing in my life? Yeah, I like that. But then there's this key phrase that says, so that. The reason is so that in In every way, always having everything, you may excel in every good work. Now, this may sound really churchy or cliche or whatever else to you, but essentially what this scripture is telling us is that God blesses us to be a blessing. I know that many of you who have been around church have probably heard that phrase before, but this scripture makes that exceedingly clear. We're blessed to be a blessing. You aren't blessed to be blessed. It's not an end to itself. God doesn't richly provide for you. Now, some of you are probably seeing this room and like, I don't feel that blessed. You live in America, you live in Austin, you're blessed, okay? Like, even the least of us in the room are richly blessed. We need to know that this morning. And the reason that you are blessed is to be a blessing in the places that God has placed you. And so I want to encourage you to continue to grow in generosity, realizing that God has richly blessed you for a reason, and that's to be a light and a love to the people that God has placed around you. Maybe a simpler way of putting this is in the form of an equation. Now, some of you are like, equations aren't simple, dude. Well, it's not a complicated one. It simply looks like this gospel equals generosity. I think that's essentially what we're trying to say here today, and maybe with this whole series, we're trying to say gospel equals generosity. Let me explain that a little bit. I want to make sure we've got a good working definition on the gospel. I know we talk about this a lot, but we've got to be on the same page with this phrase gospel. When we say gospel, what we're talking about is zooming back out and looking at the story of the Bible. If we were to look at the Bible as a whole, what we would see is that the Bible tells us that God created everything and everyone, the entire universe. He's that powerful. And he created all things for his glory and for his purposes, and he created humanity special. We're unique amongst creation because he gave us an ability to worship. And we could choose to worship God or to worship ourselves, and as humanity, we chose to worship ourselves. And when that happened, sin entered the world and corrupted everything. And we call that the fall, right? So you got the first two elements of the gospel. We got the creation that God did, and then the fall that we brought on ourselves. The good news, the gospel, is that God didn't leave us at that point. He didn't give up and walk away and say, say, whatever, I'm done with you. He instigated a rescue plan, a very well thought out rescue plan, but one where he had to send his own son to come and live a perfect life and to die for the sins of all humanity so that we could be restored into a right relationship with him. We call that element the rep redemption. And when Jesus had not just died, but had it also rose again, he said to his disciples, Go into all the world and make disciples tell people about the good news of who I am and what I've done and how I've defeated sin. And he said, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna abolish sin. That's what we hope for, that's what we look to for the future. And we call that the restoration. And so the gospel includes these elements of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. When we say gospel, that's what we mean. And if you want to know what generosity looks like, look to that. That's why I made that, that's why we talked about that equation this morning. Gospel equals generosity. It is the most generous thing you will ever see. Is God not just creating us and giving us an ability to choose to worship Him, but also coming and rescuing us through Jesus. If you want to know what generosity looks like, look to Jesus. The gospel is the model, it's the example of generosity, but it's also the motivation, the means to generosity. It isn't us looking to ourselves and being like, well, I can be more generous and impress God with how generous I am. No, we're generous because of who God is and what he's already done in our lives. I put this phrase in my notes. You cannot bask in the light of the gospel and not be moved towards generosity. You cannot bask in the light of the gospel, God's goodness towards us. You can't soak that in without becoming a more generous person. I've seen this happen in the lives of some of my friends. One example that just comes clearly to my mind is some friends of mine who live in Houston. I've known them for about 10 years now, and they're some of the most generous people I know. But the cool thing is, as I've watched them over the last 10 years, as they've grown, as they've been faithful, and as God has blessed them, they're very smart people. They've got, you know, this business and God's blessing them, and I've got to watch him doing that. But as they've grown in that, I've seen them become more and more generous as a family. And it's just really been cool to be kind of a, you know, an observer of what God's been doing in their lives. And I truly believe that as they've allowed God to have their hearts, they've continued to grow in generosity. They've simply soaked in God's goodness, and as that's happened, they've become the generous people that we're talking about this morning. So let's put some handles on this. Let's let's kind of ask ourselves these three questions this morning. First question I want you to ask yourselves, and I'm gonna ask myself, is am I aspiring to become more generous? Am I aspiring to become more generous? I believe that this is a natural progression in life. If we are exposing ourselves to God and who he is and what he's done, we are just gonna naturally become more generous. And what I'm asking you this morning is for you to be honest with yourself and say, am I even open to this conversation? Do I even want to be generous? Because that's a good first question, right? We can get down to the steps of becoming generous, but the first question we have to ask ourselves is: Am I even open to this dialogue? Am I open to God working on and changing my heart to become more like Him? Generosity can take many forms. We can be generous with our lives, our knowledge, experience, time, food, homes, lives, money, just to name a few things. Are you open to God allowing you to use those things for his kingdom and taking a step in that direction? If you are, the second question really leads well into that. Where is God calling me to be liberal and cheerful with giving? Ask yourself that question this morning. Where is God calling me to be liberal, like we talked about, and cheerful with giving? Now let's be honest with ourselves and with God this morning as we as we think about this. Maybe some of us need to repent of some areas where we've been like, okay, God, I'll be generous in these ways, but you can't touch this stuff over here. Right? That may hurt a little bit this morning, but I think that's where we need to go and say, hey, God, if I'm truly going to become generous, you need to have permission on any area of my life for me to give of those things. I find this challenging. I'll be honest with you guys this morning, to say, hey God, whatever, wherever, help me to be generous. There's a psalm that I've I've I've referenced before, and I'm sure I'll reference again, Psalms 139 up the back end that says, God, would you search my heart and would you know me, and would you point out in me anything that offends you? And essentially that's what I'm asking you and me to do this morning. Say, God, is there anything in me that you're pointing to that I need to grow in in this area of generosity? And would you help me to release that thing to you and to understand that that's what you're calling me to do and to be. Somebody uh I was talking with somebody about this area of generosity this week, and they re told me this story that the pastor John Piper has uh had told, and so I'm sure I'm gonna butcher it because it's like a third-hand story. But the gist of the story is something like this. Imagine with me if I was to come to my wife, and I was to say to her, it was our anniversary, and I was to bring her a flower, and I was to say, Hey sweetie, here's a flower for our anniversary. And she was to say to me, Well, that's so sweet, why did you do that? And I said to her, Well, it's my duty. What sort of response would I expect from that? Not a good one, right? Isn't that horrible? Like, that would be a horrible way of communicating love and respect and our relationship to my wife. And yet, oftentimes when it when we come to this area of generosity and giving of ourselves, that's the heart and attitude that we have. Well, yeah, this is I'm being generous because this is my duty. Yeah, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna support, or I'm gonna give of my time, I'm gonna serve, I'm gonna open my home because this is what I should do as a Christian. And I just want to challenge myself first and you guys this morning that that's not what we're called to be. We're called to be lavish and cheerful. And the only way that we're gonna get there is by really asking ourselves the third question that I want to ask you this morning. Am I looking to myself or to God to be the source of my generosity? This is the key to the whole deal this morning. Generosity needs to be fueled by something. And is it being fed in your life and in my life by the right thing? The one sustainable thing. We have to look to God and to find Him to be the source of our generosity. If we're looking to ourselves and being like, oh yeah, I can be more generous, that is gonna be short-lived, that's gonna run out. And so I want to encourage you this morning, I want to encourage myself this morning, that we have to fix our eyes on Jesus. If you don't hear anything more this morning, I pray that you would walk out of here this morning, realizing that if you want to become, practically want to become generous, the best thing that you can do is daily remind yourself of the goodness of Jesus and what he's done in your life. It's not like being like, oh, I'm gonna give some more money, I'm gonna give some more time, or I'm gonna try harder. It is exposing yourself to saturating yourself to the love of God daily. Because if you do that, you and I will become the generous people that God is calling us to be. It sounds so simple and yet it's so difficult, isn't it? And so let's encourage each other this morning to practically remind ourselves of the gospel daily. Okay. Let me pray for us.