Generosity Series - Open Hands, Open Hearts

We are in our generosity series and we brought the big guns out today.

So watch out, brace yourself.

Over the last few Sundays, after the four Sundays, we've been looking at really what the scripture has to say, what Jesus teaches around this idea of generosity.

And we've been very intentional, or I've been intentional with The message is so far around generosity being really big, broad brushstrokes.

It is the understanding that generosity is so much more than money.

It's not less than that, but it is so much more.

Generosity, the way generosity that Jesus teaches, that the scriptures show us, is a way of living.

It is, generosity is a way that we speak.

It's a way that we listen.

Do you know that we can be generous listeners? As followers of Jesus, we are called to be, we are modeled before us.

That's why Jesus was so attractive, is when you were in Jesus' presence, there was no one else that mattered.

Do you ever think about that? Like it's why so many people in that first century culture were taken by Jesus is because where all the rest of the world, and for so many of them, like the tax collectors and the prostitutes, Jesus had this way of the very people that all of society would overlook and not come anywhere near, Jesus would not only see them, he would be present with them.

That's the generosity.

That's our model.

That's what he's talking about.

It's a way of living.

It's a way of listening.

It's a way of holding in open hand.

It's why we've been using open handedness.

It's a way we can live this life and hold in open hand everything that God has entrusted to us.

We've been reminded that all that we have, all of our time, all of our gifts, all of our talents, all of our resources, our homes, our relationships, our money and our possessions, all of them have been given to us and we are invited to be stewards, good stewards of them.

We're not owners.

Those things are not ours.

They're not yours.

You've been entrusted with them.