Kingdom Offerings
Exploring the offerings of scripture concerning the Kingdom of God and becoming aware of the handwriting of Jesus Christ across all of history.
Generosity
February 24, 2025
Transcript
Hi and welcome to One Hundred-Fold Ministries. You’re at our podcast home, Kingdom Offerings, and here we are continuing our series on Kingdom Disciplines. As we like to say here kind of over and over and over again, here at One Hundred-Fold Ministries, it’s all about the kingdom of God and His glory.
And of course, the gospel or the good news that comes with it, the gospel of the kingdom. So these kingdom disciplines that I was talking about, I define as the specific behaviors and practices that help us turn, turn from the world, and disengage from this dark kingdom, because our best possible life is predicated on a pledge of allegiance to the kingdom of life, light, and love.
That kingdom is led by King Jesus. And these disciplines help us engage as kingdom citizens in the kingdom of God. So different scholars, as I said the last time, have a bit of a different list that constitutes the kingdom disciplines, but here’s my list. And I’ve settled on eight kingdom disciplines, largely pulled from the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus.
That’s his textbook teaching on the Kingdom of God. They are confession or to believe and repent. We talked about that in our last Kingdom Offering podcast. This week we’re going to talk about generosity, but there’s also the disciplines of prayer, forgiveness, fasting, something I call treasure-seeking, gratitude or contentedness, and then acceptance or the practice of being non-judgmental.
So we’re on our second discipline, the discipline of generosity. And I think it’s interesting that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus assumes that kingdom citizens are giving people. It’s just assumed. He says, “when you give”, not “if you give”, but “when”. But giving, at least discipline giving, I fear, is a bit of a lost art in the 21st century. Let’s take a closer look at Jesus’ teaching.
Let’s look at Matthew chapter 6, verses 1 through 4. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the needy, so when you give to the needy, don’t announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly, I tell you, they’ve received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
It’s a fascinating passage. What it’s reminding us is that generosity is a mindset. It’s a way of living. We’ve all met people who are like uber-generous. As the saying goes, they are generous to a fault.
But really, I’m not exactly sure what that means to be generous to a fault. In this passage from Matthew, we see a practice of giving that’s done in secret. It’s a teaching in the first century by Jesus that is in contrast to the flamboyant, even ostentatious, giving of some of the Jewish leaders of that day. Jesus is encouraging a kind of giving or generosity that comes from the heart and gives glory to God.
So I want to dig a little bit deeper. This kind of giving comes from two heart-held qualities. The first is other-centeredness and the second is contentedness. The idea is that you have to have both of these qualities, these heart-held qualities, to participate in the kind of kingdom giving that Jesus is describing.
Let’s examine the first quality of other-centeredness. Other-centeredness means that as the Bible puts it, “I consider others more important than myself.” Philippians chapter 2, beginning in verse 3, “Do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility, consider one another as more important than yourself.” This is a mindset of non-judgmentalism. It’s an attitude of humility. It recognizes that all people matter.
And if I’m genuinely other-centered, I will be able to see it when others are in need. And I will consider what I might be able to do to help them. That’s the idea of other-centeredness, but there’s also this idea of contentedness. And I think contentedness is the outcome of recognizing that the world really offers us nothing of permanence.
When I get that, that allows me to prioritize a more simple lifestyle made up less by collecting things and positions of worldly power and more investing in the hope of better demonstrating, better manifesting, the character traits of Christ in my life. The idea is I don’t need more stuff. I need more Jesus. And therefore, I’m happy to give away all my stuff as generosity is very much like Jesus.
So if you have it in your heart to be a more dedicated and authentic kingdom citizen, let me suggest that a disciplined habit of giving will eventually result in a heartfelt practice of giving. So I’m suggesting, find two or three charities that you admire, and give each of them a set amount each month, and make it be the first check that you write. Might be your church, a service group that you admire, even a missionary.
Who you give to in this idea matters less, though it matters a lot, but matters less than you start giving in a disciplined manner at all. Get started giving in a disciplined manner, you’ll find out that your feelings will come along. By nurturing an attitude of generosity, it becomes a straightforward way of aligning the kingdom of God in your life.
All right, I have one more assignment for you. In closing, let me suggest Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s book, The Giving Tree. It is a beautiful story of sacrificial giving. It’s exactly what we’re talking about here.
This is Dave Scherrer and you’ve found Kingdom Offerings and we’re working our way through the Kingdom Disciplines. Come back and visit again soon. Peace to you.
And of course, the gospel or the good news that comes with it, the gospel of the kingdom. So these kingdom disciplines that I was talking about, I define as the specific behaviors and practices that help us turn, turn from the world, and disengage from this dark kingdom, because our best possible life is predicated on a pledge of allegiance to the kingdom of life, light, and love.
That kingdom is led by King Jesus. And these disciplines help us engage as kingdom citizens in the kingdom of God. So different scholars, as I said the last time, have a bit of a different list that constitutes the kingdom disciplines, but here’s my list. And I’ve settled on eight kingdom disciplines, largely pulled from the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus.
That’s his textbook teaching on the Kingdom of God. They are confession or to believe and repent. We talked about that in our last Kingdom Offering podcast. This week we’re going to talk about generosity, but there’s also the disciplines of prayer, forgiveness, fasting, something I call treasure-seeking, gratitude or contentedness, and then acceptance or the practice of being non-judgmental.
So we’re on our second discipline, the discipline of generosity. And I think it’s interesting that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus assumes that kingdom citizens are giving people. It’s just assumed. He says, “when you give”, not “if you give”, but “when”. But giving, at least discipline giving, I fear, is a bit of a lost art in the 21st century. Let’s take a closer look at Jesus’ teaching.
Let’s look at Matthew chapter 6, verses 1 through 4. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the needy, so when you give to the needy, don’t announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly, I tell you, they’ve received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
It’s a fascinating passage. What it’s reminding us is that generosity is a mindset. It’s a way of living. We’ve all met people who are like uber-generous. As the saying goes, they are generous to a fault.
But really, I’m not exactly sure what that means to be generous to a fault. In this passage from Matthew, we see a practice of giving that’s done in secret. It’s a teaching in the first century by Jesus that is in contrast to the flamboyant, even ostentatious, giving of some of the Jewish leaders of that day. Jesus is encouraging a kind of giving or generosity that comes from the heart and gives glory to God.
So I want to dig a little bit deeper. This kind of giving comes from two heart-held qualities. The first is other-centeredness and the second is contentedness. The idea is that you have to have both of these qualities, these heart-held qualities, to participate in the kind of kingdom giving that Jesus is describing.
Let’s examine the first quality of other-centeredness. Other-centeredness means that as the Bible puts it, “I consider others more important than myself.” Philippians chapter 2, beginning in verse 3, “Do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility, consider one another as more important than yourself.” This is a mindset of non-judgmentalism. It’s an attitude of humility. It recognizes that all people matter.
And if I’m genuinely other-centered, I will be able to see it when others are in need. And I will consider what I might be able to do to help them. That’s the idea of other-centeredness, but there’s also this idea of contentedness. And I think contentedness is the outcome of recognizing that the world really offers us nothing of permanence.
When I get that, that allows me to prioritize a more simple lifestyle made up less by collecting things and positions of worldly power and more investing in the hope of better demonstrating, better manifesting, the character traits of Christ in my life. The idea is I don’t need more stuff. I need more Jesus. And therefore, I’m happy to give away all my stuff as generosity is very much like Jesus.
So if you have it in your heart to be a more dedicated and authentic kingdom citizen, let me suggest that a disciplined habit of giving will eventually result in a heartfelt practice of giving. So I’m suggesting, find two or three charities that you admire, and give each of them a set amount each month, and make it be the first check that you write. Might be your church, a service group that you admire, even a missionary.
Who you give to in this idea matters less, though it matters a lot, but matters less than you start giving in a disciplined manner at all. Get started giving in a disciplined manner, you’ll find out that your feelings will come along. By nurturing an attitude of generosity, it becomes a straightforward way of aligning the kingdom of God in your life.
All right, I have one more assignment for you. In closing, let me suggest Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s book, The Giving Tree. It is a beautiful story of sacrificial giving. It’s exactly what we’re talking about here.
This is Dave Scherrer and you’ve found Kingdom Offerings and we’re working our way through the Kingdom Disciplines. Come back and visit again soon. Peace to you.