The Health of Generosity

Have you ever felt trapped by the endless pursuit of "enough"? In this powerful message, Shawn shows how true financial freedom isn't about having a bigger pie—it's about contentment with what God provides. Through a creative pie-cutting demonstration and practical wisdom from Scripture, Shawn reveals how godliness with contentment leads to genuine gain, while chasing wealth can pierce us with grief. Whether you're financially stressed or stable, discover God's blueprint for handling money with wisdom and freedom. Watch now to find lasting peace beyond the pursuit of more!

Transcript

Good morning, everybody. It's good to see you all here today. Hope that you had a great Thanksgiving. I'll tell you, Thursday was good, but Friday night was even better, wasn't it? To see hoosiers go 12 and oh, going to the championship game on Saturday.

Yeah, we can absolutely celebrate that. Unless you're a Purdue fan and we love you and we're glad that you're here and we hope that you find Jesus today. So every now and then our daughters will say something that I'm like, we need to lock that. We need to, like, write it down and put it somewhere so that we don't forget it. Because it was either really funny or like, really inappropriate.

But they didn't understand that it was inappropriate. And we'll be able to tell them why it was inappropriate later. Just so many different things are like, I don't want to forget this. And on Thanksgiving Day, our oldest daughter, Adeline, 13 years old, she made a proclamation on that day that I think needs to be, like, printed on T shirts and sold around this time of year. She proudly said, it's Thanksgiving.

You can eat dessert anytime you want. It's Thanksgiving. You can eat dessert anytime you want. And some of you are like, that is a girl after my own heart. And to be fair, Adeline loves sweets.

And I think that her life mantra is, it is a day that ends in Y. You can eat dessert anytime you want. But I think that she makes a good point. Like Thanksgiving Day, if food is set out, it does not matter when it is set out, where it is set out, if it is set out, it is fair game. It is for the picking.

And so my mother in law always does a great job on every holiday really, but especially Thanksgiving, of putting together a pretty fantastic dessert menu and buffet. And so she always kind of plays the hits. We've got pecan pie, which is one of my favorite. Any other pecan pie fans? That's your go to.

All right, Right. This year somebody brought a butterscotch pie, which I love butterscotch. And so that was so good. There's date pudding that my mother in law always makes that's really good. And then of course, no Thanksgiving dessert table would be complete without pumpkin pie.

Anybody? Pumpkin pie fans, in here, this is your favorite. All right. And so pumpkin pie. And seeing all of these desserts and all of the food out on the table, and it got me thinking about our topic for today.

We're in week three of our series called Open Handed, and today we are looking at health but don't worry, I'm not talking about physical health. This is not the week to talk about that. That'll be a later subject for another time. Today, what we're talking about is something that's a little bit more awkward and uncomfortable. We're talking about financial health.

Yes. Everybody loves it when you go to church and they're talking about money. But hang with me, because as we've been saying through this series, yeah, we're talking about money. But it's not because we want anything from you. It's because God talks a lot about money.

Scripture is filled with a lot about money. We see the impact and effect that money has on every single one of our lives. And so in a world that is filled with a lot of narratives about how we should look at money and handle our money, man, I think God's word should be able to be a part of that conversation, too. And so that's why we're looking at this. And as we're talking about financial health, I think that we can take everything that we have, everything that we own, what we earn, the money that we have in savings, everything that we have.

Take your entire financial picture and it could kind of be captured in a piece like this represents everything that you have and own that you have banked that you earn. This is your financial pie. And some of us would look at our financial pie and be like, that's a little generous. My financial pie looks a little bit more like this guy. And so you would say, my pie is not that big, but this is your financial pie.

And others of you would say that your financial pie is a little bit more like this one that I got from Sam's Club. It's a Sam's Club pie and sitting out there. And what we typically think when it comes to financial health is that if we want to experience financial health, what we need is just a bigger pie that to experience financial health, that would be financial freedom and security that to be able to experience financial health. The goal is to just get a bigger pie. But what I found in my life, and maybe what you found in your life is like my daughter Adelyn, when it comes to desserts, the same is true with our finances.

There's never enough. You can never have enough. Because if you're here and you would say, oh, my financial pie's not that big, but if I had this pie, then that would be enough. But then you get to this one and you're like, yeah, but, but, man, if I could just have a little bit More than that would be enough. And the problem with thinking that our financial health depends on how big our pie is is that we are constantly chasing a bigger pie because we never get to that place where we're like, you know what?

I think I'm good. I think I've got enough. If we're putting our hope in security and the money that's in our bank account or the money that we have coming in, we'll never feel like we have enough. And so I think God's word speaks to this. And what God wants us to see is that financial security isn't about how big your pie is.

Financial security starts with being content. Financial security starts with contentment, being content with what you have, being content with what God has provided for you. That is where true financial health starts. And it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with desiring a bigger pie. There's not.

I think that it's okay to desire that. It means that we're not staking all of our hope and security and safety in the number that we have in our bank account and the size of our pie, because that is deeply rooted in something deeper. Something deeper that is not as elusive as money, which just slips right through our hands. And so contentment is being satisfied with the pie that God gave you. Financial health starts with contentment.

And contentment is being satisfied ultimately with the pie that God gave you. It's learning to look at the pie that God has handed you, the money that he has entrusted to you, and saying that this is enough because God is enough, and I can trust that he will provide all that I need. And this is a bit of a. Of a countercultural view. This is.

This would not make any sense to people outside of the gospel. It would not make any sense to people who are. Who are looking for their financial health and security in their finances. And we see in our culture the dangerous road that. That leads people down.

We've seen so much hurt and brokenness. We've seen how people's pursuit of money splits families and relationships and is such a source of tension. And we see this, and I think that we need a different perspective, which is what scripture gives us. The words of scripture give us a better way to look at how we view our finances and how we think about financial health. So let's look at our text.

First, Timothy, chapter six. We're going to be looking at verses six through ten. And in our text, Paul is writing to his protege Timothy. Timothy is serving as a pastor at a church in Ephesus Ephesus was, I think, that we would have felt very at home in Ephesus, very cultural, very much pursuing passions and. And things in life outside of God.

In Ephesus, you had a group of false teachers who had sprung up and they were trying to take advantage of people through the gospel. They were preaching a gospel that required people to give to them, and they were working to make themselves rich off of preaching the gospel. And unfortunately, we still see this in our world today, which is why so many people don't trust the church when it comes to the topic of money. In a lot of ways, the church has earned that reputation. I don't think that this church has.

I think that we're different and we strive to be different. But we can look at so many churches who. It just seems like all that they want to go after is people's money. And Paul writes to this, one of the very first churches in Ephesus, and says, no, this is not where true life is found. This is not where true gain is found.

It's not in having more. And he says, timothy, you be different. He says to us in the church today, be different. God has something better. And he shows us what financial health and freedom looks like.

Verse 6.

Paul says, but godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into rich ruin and destruction. That word plunge, it's so interesting, would be used for a ship that was maybe overloaded with cargo and it's making its way and a little tide comes up, a little wave comes up and, and starts to sink. And it doesn't take much to make the ship.

And it's almost like the water. And this is the word image that this word uses. That water just reaches up, grabs the ship and pulls it down. Paul is saying, that's the image. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful things that plunge people, that pull them down into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. I think that our culture has taken verse 10 and not fully translated it correctly. You may have heard this verse stated as money is the root of all evil. That's not what Paul says.

He says the love of Money is the root of all evil. When Scripture talks about money, it views it as amoral. It doesn't define morality to money. It doesn't say it's either good or bad. Just like anything, it comes down to the heart of the one who's holding, comes down to our own heart.

And so Paul is saying the love of money and that pursuit of more and bigger and enough, man, it leads people to do a lot of evil, harmful things to themselves. Maybe you know someone whose pursuit of money caused a division in their family. Maybe you've experienced it in so many families. When it comes to inheritance, this is a driving factor. And we see this play out.

And God wants something better for us. He wants something more for us. And so he's warning Timothy and us that the love of money is going to pierce us with many griefs.

And so there's a better way. He speaks this way through Paul. And it's a way that leads to great gain instead of many griefs. It's this equation that doesn't make sense to the world. But when we apply it in our life, man, we see the wisdom of it and we find it in verse 6.

Godliness with contentment is great gain. Let's look at these words. This word godliness, it's a big word and we can have all sorts of confusing ideas around it. But godliness can essentially be defined as wanting what God wants. Godliness is pursuing what God wants in your life, in my life.

It is chasing after him more than we chase after anything else. Godliness is not about performance or rule following or managing our image to make it look like we have it all together. Godliness is surrendering our lives and our wills to the Lord, trusting and obeying Him. Godliness is orienting or reorienting our entire lives, including our financial lives, around Him. And Paul says that you take this kind of life and this heart and this posture of godliness and you add contentment, man, you get something powerful, you get great gain.

And contentment, again, is just being at peace with what God provides. And this gain that Paul is talking about that we receive, it's not more finances. This gain that we get is an inner peace and freedom that money can't buy. This gain that we experience is the freedom from having to keep up with everyone else and. And defining ourselves by what we have.

This great gain that we experience is this true identity that we are not defined by how much we make, by our income, by our lifestyle, by the kind of car that we drive. No, we are defined by who God says that we are. And when we learn to be content with what we have, man, we experience a sense of freedom and security and hope that our finances could never deliver.

We're able to enjoy what we have instead of constantly chasing after more. And that's really what this passage comes down to. The truth of this passage, and that I think that we need to know today, is that we chase what we trust. Would you say that with me this morning? We chase what we trust.

And so if we put our trust in our finances as being the hope and security that we need, man, you better believe we're going to chase after that. We're going to try to get as much as we can. But if we trust in the Lord, man, we are going to chase after Him. He is. Is the one that we truly desire.

And we trust that he is the one that's going to provide all that we need. And yes, having more money can sometimes alleviate some problems that we face. But if we're honest with ourselves, a lot of those problems that we face when it comes to our finances is maybe because of what we've been chasing instead of Jesus.

Scripture serves a few different purposes in our life. It paints a picture of things that happened at a point in history. Scripture serves as a window through which we can see and understand our world. But Scripture also sometimes serves as a mirror that we have to put up and look at ourselves and evaluate ourselves. And I think that's what this passage does.

This passage has served as a mirror for me over the last couple of weeks. Maybe it is for you.

And I think this text makes us step back just a little bit and evaluate what are we truly chasing?

And maybe even a layer beneath that. Who or what do we truly trust?

Are we chasing and trusting in the wrong things?

See, money is a great tool, but it is a terrible God. It is a great tool to be used in our life, but it is a terrible God. And chasing after it has caused a lot of people to make some very costly sacrifices on the altar of more, of chasing enough. And our Heavenly Father wants more for us. And so financial health starts with commitment.

It doesn't end there. Financial health doesn't just start with contentment. That's the right C word. Financial health doesn't just start with contentment. It also then goes into how we use what we have.

Because the truth is that it doesn't matter if you have small or medium or large, if you're not using what you have wisely, and you're not going to have enough. And so you can have a large pie, but no wisdom on how to use it. And you're just in there hacking it away at the pie, and you're just slicing it up, and you're not really even sure where your money is going to. And, like, you pull out a piece, you're like, well, I hope that's going to the right thing, and I hope that I'm going to have enough to retire on, but I'm not quite sure. And I hope that I'm going to have enough to pay the bills.

But the phone is ringing again, and I really don't want to answer it because I know that I owe that company some money, and they really want it back. And so even if you have the biggest pie in the world, if you're not slicing it well, it might look a little something like this. And some of you might look at it and be like, yeah, that's my financial picture. It is a mess right now. Like, I don't know where things are going, and I'm a little bit afraid to peel back the curtain and find out.

And so part of financial wisdom is not just being satisfied with what we have. Part of financial wisdom and health is slicing our pie in the right way. I want to invite my friend Joe Durnall to John Durnall. Sorry, Joe's brother John Durnall, to come on up and give me a hand with this. Let's give John a hand this morning.

So, John, first of all, do you like pumpkin pie? You don't? Oh, the last time he ate it, he threw up. Well, here you go, man. Doesn't that look appetizing?

No, it was good pie. So here's the thing. When it comes. This is great. When it comes to pumpkin pie, it's not just about, like, the pie.

Like, the pie filling should be about that thickness, and the whipped cream that goes on top of the pie should be about that thick. All right, so I've got a couple of things down here. If you could grab the supplies. You're gonna be kind of like my sous chef. So we got some plates, and we've got some forks, and we've got the most ingredient, the most important ingredient of all.

Ready, Whip? There we go. So I'm going to talk about the different ways that we can slice our pie, and I'm gonna give it to you, and I want you to put some whipped cream on it, and then you're gonna go and deliver it to some of your friends. All right? So our friend Ron Blue, who is kind of a financial Guru known worldwide, typically attends the, the 9:30 or 11:00 clock service.

Here. He, he talks about there's five different ways that you can slice your financial pie. And, and so you can live on it. You can give it, you can owe it to debt, owe it to taxes, or you can grow it. And, and so when it comes to financial wisdom and, and health, we want to slice our pie in a way that makes sure that we have enough for all of those things.

And so let's go ahead, we're going to slice this first piece. And this is our live slice. Grab a plate for me. This is our live slice. Take that and then put some whipped cream on it.

Shake it up real good to make sure. Yeah, there you go. Put some whipped cream on it. Come on. What are you doing?

That's better. There we go. All right, now grab a fork and take that down to one of your friends and then come back up because we're not done yet. And while you're doing that, I'll talk about this slice of our pie. So this is the live slice of our pie.

Like we said earlier, money is a terrible God, but it is a useful tool and we need money to be able to live on. It provides things that we need like food and shelter and housing. But money can also provide things that are the good things and fun things in life, like going out to eat and, and, and going to a concert with friends and going on vacations. Like, we want to make sure that we have enough of our pie that we're able to enjoy those things in life. I do know that my temptation is to spend way more on those things, to give that a huge piece of my pie.

And it eats into the other things. But the live piece is an important piece. And then the second piece of our pie is the give piece. And God instructs us to be generous again, not because he wants something, but because he wants something for us. He doesn't want something from us, he wants something for us.

So go ahead and put some whipped cream on that because I'm sure that one of your friends definitely wants that pie. Yeah, that's okay. Just aim higher next time so it gets in my mouth. Okay. All right.

Yeah. All right, so take that, bring it down and then come back up. And while you're doing that, the give slice of our pie is that part that we live with open hands, that we release money's control. The best way to release the control of money in our life is to be generous, is to live open handedly with it. And as we do that, that power of money no longer grips our hearts, and we are blessed by it, like Maggie was talking about earlier.

But we also get to bless others through our generosity. All right, this next slice. John, how old are you? 15. 15, okay.

So you got maybe a few more years before you're in this, hopefully. This is the debt slice. This is what you owe. All right. And, you know, when I turned 18, I bought my first car.

And it was not a wise decision. Sorry, I'll put that knife down. I'd be in a little bit, too. It was not a wise decision. I should not have bought the car that I bought.

And when I signed the papers, my dad said, welcome to the world of debt. You'll never get out of it. Which was not a very encouraging thing to hear when you're 18 years old. But that debt slice of our pie can sometimes be pretty big. And so go ahead and put some whipped cream on that.

Take it out to somebody, unless they don't want whipped cream, and then that's, you know, you can talk to them about that. But so this O in debt part, the important thing about this, you know, scripture says that a borrower is slave to debt, the lender. And debt has a way of putting limits on what we can currently do with our money and what we can do with our money in the future. Debt has a way of taking our freedom from what we do with our money, because it basically belongs to something else. If you have debt, that slice of the pie is going to be there until it's paid off.

Like, that's one of the first things that has to go, or else you're going to be getting those phone calls and in those letters. And so the goal is to make that either as small as we can or to get it out of the way as quickly as we can. John, have you had a job before? Yeah. Oh, a pizza pantry.

Okay, nice. So then you know about this fourth piece of pie, which is glorious, and it's called taxes. This, and all of us owe taxes. You cannot get out of paying taxes, at least not legally. And so there's always going to be this section of our pie that we have to give to others, and so go and give that to somebody else.

And God's word teaches us to give our taxes joyfully, to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, to give with gratitude because it reflects God's provision for us. And. Oh, look at that now. Okay, that was so kind. At the last service, we had all of our elementary students in here and We've got some of them in here today and I love that.

But there was a row right there, full row of fifth grade boys and one of their friends was handing out. And I'm not even kidding, like when we started handing out pie people, kids started coming out of the woodwork, out of the walls and running up to that second and they were like the birds on Finding Nemo. The mine, mine, mine, mine. Like that's. You guys are much more calm than fifth grade boys were.

Who would know? So this last slice of the pie is our grow slice. And this is the part that we can save. Like it's good to save. It is good to make investments.

John, at 15 years old, start putting back now, please. If I could go and tell 15 year old Sean to start saving, I would that this last piece of our pie and go ahead and deliver that and then come back. I've got one more thing for you. I love it. That was a brand new can of whipped cream.

It's starting this service. You are doing it right, my friend. So this last one, it is the grow slice. And we can use our money to grow our financial security. That is okay to make an investment in our future.

The problem is when it's not just an investment in our future, it is like we idolize it to the point that we're not sure if we can really survive without it. Okay, John, hold on. Come back here. I got something for you. That since you don't like pumpkin pie, you might give it away, but you can have the little guy right there.

Let's give John a hand. Thank you for your help this morning.

So all of these things. Live, live, give. Oh, oh, grow. These are the five ways that we can slice that financial pie. And most of the time, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to grow our financial pie because we think that's what's going to lead to health.

But true financial health comes down to being content with what we have, trusting the Lord to provide, and slicing our financial pie in a way that is wise. And it doesn't matter what size our pie is. We can experience financial health when we hold our money open handed. When we view it in that way, it comes down to trusting in him more than trusting what he has given to us. And our good and loving and kind Heavenly Father.

And he has given us so much. He has been so generous to us. His greatest gift to us is not our finances, it's not our possessions. It is relationship. It is a relationship with Him.

Our good Heavenly Father gave his Son to us, gave Himself to us. He shows us that we can trust him with every aspect of our life. This is the heart of the gospel, that God did not withhold any good thing from us. And because we can trust in him, we can hold on to our finances with open hands, knowing that we don't have to cling to it because we are clinging to him. And he is where true life is found.

And today, if you are worn out and you are tired from chasing after more and Jesus is inviting you to just come and rest, rest in him, rest with Him. Stop chasing after things that can never satisfy you the way that only he can. He wants to release you from whatever is gripping your heart, whether it be finances, health, a worry, a concern, a relationship. Come and find hope and healing in Him. We're going to come to our time of response and we'll have some people around the room this morning wearing lanyards.

I would love to pray with you if you feel like something has a hold of your heart this morning, you're feeling stressed and worn down by it. You don't have to carry that burden alone. We would love to pray with you this morning. If you're ready to start following Jesus, if you're ready to lay down your life and say, I'm not going to chase after the things that don't matter anymore. I'm going to chase after him, and his arms are open, ready to receive you.

Come. Come and lay your life down to Him. We're going to come into a time of communion as well. We've got some tables in the front and in the back. Communion reminds us of the generosity of our God who provided all that we needed exactly when we needed it.

Paul says in Romans 5, 8, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us while we needed it the most. Jesus generously gave his life for for us. And communion reminds us of that good news. And when we repent, when we turn from our old way of life and chasing the things that don't matter and we start chasing after him, we are forgiven and set free. We are made new.

As we take communion, we remember his body that was given on the cross and his blood that was shed for us, that provided all that we truly need. And so I'm going to pray and then let's respond this morning. God, thank you for your gift of grace. Thank you, God, for your generosity.

Lord, I pray that as we think about our financial health, as we think about the way that we view the pie that you have entrusted to us and the way that we slice it and what contentment looks like and what our desire for more looks like. And all of these things. It's so clean cut, preaching a sermon. But then we go out and man, these are real issues that we face in our real life and it's hard to make those adjustments.

Lord, as we look at where our money is going, give us your wisdom that will lead to the financial health that we desire.

Lord, thank you for your word that gives life and you want us to experience freedom when it comes to this topic. And so as we trust you and submit ourselves and surrender to you, God, would you help us to be able to find that true financial health and freedom that we desire and that you desire for us? May our hearts and our souls rest in Jesus, the greatest of all the gifts that you've given us. In his name I pray. Amen.