What Is God-Centered Generosity?
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In Genesis 4, in the “course of time,” Cain and Abel — two humans — brought an offering to God. To God. GOD!
In other words, these creatures are giving something to the God who we know doesn’t need anything.
How do we know God doesn’t need anything?
Because just a few chapters previously, in Genesis 1, we read that God spoke all of creation into existence.
Everything there is exists because of God, clearly, and yet Cain and Abel intend to give God something from what he has made! It should seem strange to us, but nevertheless that’s what these brothers do. They give to God … and God receives Abel’s gift.
There is more to the story, but we learn, at the very least, that our giving matters to God. Our giving matters not because God needs anything from us — he certainly doesn’t — but because what we give is closely tied to our hearts, and it’s our hearts that God cares about most. Our giving is an expression of something deeper about ourselves and what we think about God.
We learn that we can’t worship God in truth if we have hearts with a white-knuckled grip on “our stuff,” whether it’s our sheep or our crops or our bank accounts. It doesn’t make sense that we would come to God any other way than fully surrendered, hands opened, trusting that he really is who he has revealed himself to be.
This is basic to the life of faith, though it’s not easy. Jesus actually understands our reluctance, and he kindly addresses it in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:19–34). In God’s providence, I preached a two-part sermon on this teaching a couple of years ago, following Part One on Matthew 6 with a Part Two exposition of Paul’s instructions in 2 Corinthians 9.
I believe the truths in these passages are absolutely paradigm-shifting and worth coming back to again and again. That’s why we’re releasing a special booklet titled What Is God-Centered Generosity? The booklet, which is available as a PDF and in print form, contains both sermons preached in the Spring of 2021 edited and abridged for readability and relevance.
I hope that you’ll consider making a year-end gift to Cities Church, and as you do, I pray this booklet might encourage you to think deeply about generosity from God’s perspective. It might even lead you to reconfigure your thinking about what it means to give to the God who doesn’t need anything.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
In his joy,
Pastor Jonathan
