Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons as we kick off a brand new teaching series
called A Generous Life. We have lots of different
ideas about what generosity means with our money,
with our time, with our resources. But what does
Jesus have to teach us about generosity? And
how can we actually find joy in giving? That's
what we're going to unpack in today's sermon.
Our readings today are from the Gospel of Matthew,
chapter 6, verses 19 to 24. Do not store up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and
vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and
steal. But store up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy,
and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart
will also be. The eye is the lamp of the body.
If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will
be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy,
your whole body will be full of darkness. If
then the light within you is darkness, how great
is that darkness? No one can serve two masters.
Either you will hate the one and love the other,
or you will be devoted to the one and despise
the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
This is the word of the Lord. You know, Jesus
is quite famous for saying a lot of things that
seem to go against common sense. So, for example,
Jesus says things like, you know, whoever wants
to be great must be a servant, right? That doesn't
seem to make any sense. You know, doesn't greatness
come from climbing upwards, not from going down?
Or Jesus says, you know, power is made perfect
in weakness, and that doesn't make any sense.
So aren't you supposed to hide your weaknesses
and build on your strengths? Or Jesus says, whoever
loses their life for my sake will find it. That
doesn't make any sense. If you lose your life,
I mean, what else have you got? Isn't that all
you've got is your life? Or Jesus says, you're
to love your enemies and to pray for those who
persecute you. That doesn't make any sense. Aren't
we supposed to crush and cancel our enemies,
not bless them? And Jesus says, those who humble
themselves will be exalted. Well, that doesn't
seem right either. Aren't the humble forgotten?
And those who exalt themselves, they're the ones
that we remember. But perhaps the most counterintuitive
of all these crazy sayings that Jesus mentions
is this one. He says, it is more blessed to give
than to receive. Now, the word blessed there
is the Greek word makarios. And that word means
blessed, but it also means happy. It also means
fortunate. And it even means joyful. Makarios
actually was this Greek word that spoke about
this exalted state, the highest state of well
-being, the state of the gods even. And so really
you could translate this one that Jesus mentioned
into this. You could say there is more joy. joy
in giving than in getting. There's more happiness
in giving than in getting. There's more makarios,
more of this joyful life in giving than in getting.
Now that doesn't make A lot of sense, right?
Of all Jesus's backwards statements, surely this
one is the most backwards and the most hard to
believe. Because doesn't joy actually come from
getting more? Not giving more. I mean, isn't
happiness found in upgrading? You know, upgrading
your wardrobe, upgrading your phone, upgrading
your car, upgrading your vacations, upgrading
your home, right? Whether it's ads or influencers
or even your financial planner, they will tell
you that more money is going to guarantee you
more happiness. and more joy in your life. No,
no, no. There is more happiness in getting and
holding on to stuff than giving. It is not the
other way around, Jesus. I would say that when
I feel this way, it's not just because of commercials
and ads and stuff like that. I think it's actually
deep in my own DNA and maybe it's in yours as
well. I grew up, I think, feeling that The more
you have, the happier that you will be. And maybe
that's because, you know, I grew up as a son
of immigrant. Parents, farmers who came over
and they didn't have very much at all. They had
next to nothing. And for them, there was great
happiness and great fulfillment in growing their
wealth and developing their success. And I benefited
from all that. But I think the subliminal message
that got in there and has shaped my own default
setting and default thinking is that joy. And
satisfaction and happiness comes from getting.
It comes from earning. It comes from accumulating,
not from giving it away. You know, Richard Foster,
in his book, The Joy of Simplicity, he says,
the unreasoned boast abounds that the good life
is found in accumulation. and that more is better.
And that's that we don't even, he says down here,
he says, we don't even question it. We accept
this notion without question. And as a result,
contemporary society has become psychotic, so
consumed with affluence and accumulation. Now,
when we hear Jesus say there's more joy in giving
than there is in receiving, I, I'm speaking for
myself, but maybe you too, I kind of roll my
eyes and I say, okay, Jesus, yes, okay. I know
that giving is a good thing to do. And I know
that giving is maybe the moral thing to do. And,
and giving might even be the quote unquote right
thing to do. But come on, Jesus, do not try to
explain to me that it is a joyful thing to do,
that it is actually leads me on a pathway toward
a happy life. Well, surprise, surprise, you know,
Jesus was actually right. He's been right all
along because over the last few decades, a whole
lot of research has been piling up showing that
what Jesus said 2 ,000 years ago is right on
the money. No pun intended, right? There really
is more joy. In giving than getting. Study after
study show that generous people, they actually
are happier. They have lower levels of depression
and anxiety. They have stronger relationships.
They have longer life expectancies. They laugh
more. And neuroscientists have found that when
you give, it lights up the same parts of your
brain that would light up like when you eat a
great meal or that when you fall in love. And
the studies will show this isn't just one demographic
or one kind of gender. It cuts across all personalities,
all ethnicities, all income levels. There's one
major study that I was looking at this week that
says that this phenomenon is a universal feature.
of all human experience. So there was a study
called the Science of Generosity Initiative.
It was done at University of Notre Dame and Hilary
Davidson and Christian Smith. They wrote a book
called The Paradox of Generosity, right? And
this book is based on thousands of interviews
and all sorts of like, it was a five -year study,
thousands of participants. But look what they
say. They say, people rightly say that money
can't buy happiness, but Money and happiness
are still related in a curious way. Happiness
can result not from spending more money on ourselves,
but by giving money away to others. This isn't
just a nice idea. It's a social scientific fact.
And they go on to say, actually, that first...
the more generous people are, obviously, they're
happier, they're healthier, they have more purpose,
they enjoy life more. But then they secondly
say, despite all that evidence, people, generally
speaking, fail to lead generous lives. So if
you look at the science, if you look at the culture,
more money equaling more happiness is just not
true. Actually, Jesus was right. Generosity.
is the pathway to a joyful life. And so what
we're going to be doing over the next few weeks
is we're going to be looking at this topic of
generosity. Why? Because your happiness and your
joy depends on it. And generosity is so, so,
so important. It should come as no surprise to
us that Jesus spends upwards of 25 % of his teaching
time talking about money. at some level that
would be the equivalent of me preaching a sermon
about money every four weeks and if i did that
i dare say there'd be a lot less people in church
and mostly that would be because of a couple
of objections all right here is the first objection
money is a very sensitive subject And it's even
more sensitive when it comes into church. You
know, the last time I preached about money here
at Trinity was like exactly a year ago. Back
in November, we kicked off our financial campaign,
our Gather and Grow campaign. On that Sunday,
we had a guest, a visitor with us that day. And
granted, that probably wouldn't have been the
best Sunday for a newcomer to visit Trinity.
But they left us one of the worst Google reviews.
ever. You can read it. You can go and read it
right now. I don't want you to go read it right
now, but you should read it because it is still
there. It was exactly a year ago. I'm going to
read to you what this gentleman said about Trinity.
Okay, here's what he said. He said, one -third
of the service was dedicated to a full -on commercial
about how the church needs money. We were literally
accosted by representative members, one of which
was the minister's wife. They asked prying questions.
I got the distinct impression we were being sized
up for how much we could potentially bring into
the church from a monetary standpoint. I could
drone on and on and on. Oh, please don't. About
how this place felt gross. Your doors are meant
to be open to anyone. He should have come last
week. I talked about open doors. And then he
ends. He said, do better. do better. He said,
I gave this guy a call afterwards, and I talked
to him for half an hour, but I could not convince
him that we were anything but a money -grubbing
church, and he would not remove his comments
either, right? Even his comments about Sally.
I mean, come on, Sally, of all the people to
get a one -star review, Sally. I mean, Sally,
do better. Do better. So my point is, though,
talking about money touches a nerve. And as we're
going to hear today, money is in some ways a
god of our age. And there's part of us that says,
do not go there. Do not talk about that. Do not
touch that. Stay away. So that's one big objection.
Another big objection is that generosity is more
than giving your money, isn't it? Yes, yes. Well,
that's true. Generosity includes giving your
time and giving your relationship and giving
your expertise and giving your attention and
giving your words and your influence and all
that stuff. Yes, it's all true. But when Jesus
speaks about generosity, nine times out of ten,
he's actually speaking about money. Now, as John
Mark Comer says, he says, generosity is true
about more than giving your money, but it is
not about less than giving your money. And it
is real easy to skip over this whole money topic.
And instead, let's focus on giving time. Let's
focus on giving our words. But Jesus himself
zeroed in on money when he spoke about generosity.
And so what I'll want to do in the time that
I have left this morning is I'm going to look
at some of that great teaching about generosity
that came from Jesus. If you have a Bible, you
can take it out or turn it on. We're going to
look at Matthew 6, 19 to 24. You've got some
sermon notes there to follow along. I just want
to show you kind of five things in this that
Jesus teaches us about giving. Here's the first
thing he teaches us. Jesus mentions that in the
human heart, there is this built -in desire to
accumulate stuff. and stockpile stuff. That's
just who we are. When I was a boy, it all started
when I started collecting comic books, Punisher,
War Journal, Wolverine. And then I started collecting
basketball cards, NBA hoops and Skybox cards.
Anyway, those things are still in my garage to
this day. I was eight, 10 years old when I started
collecting them. I don't know why I carry them
around. In fact, they fell over in our garage
about a year ago and a whole bunch of them rotted
and disintegrated on the garage floor. to pile
up stuff. And it might start with toys and it
might start with trading cards. But as adults,
we still collect pay raises and we collect investment
returns and we collect home equity and RSPs.
It's just a different version of the same impulse
that we've had since we were born. And Jesus...
Actually says that's normal and there's nothing
particularly wrong with wanting to store up treasure.
The problem, Jesus says, secondly, is though
we store it up in the wrong place. Jesus calls
us. To store our treasure in heaven, not on earth.
Now, heaven here does not mean this place that
you go when you die, does not mean this faraway
place in the clouds. In the first century Jewish
world, heaven was the place where God reigned.
It was where God's stuff was happening. It was
God's realm. So Jesus is saying the place to
invest your resources and your money is not in
what is temporary, not in what is fragile and
is just going to disappear one day, but invest
in something that is eternal. Invest in stuff
that is lasting. Invest in God's kingdom and
what God is doing right now on earth. That will
last forever. Other stuff will not last forever.
And thirdly, Jesus points out a very interesting
fact about the human heart in this teaching.
And that is this, that we usually think our money
follows our hearts. Our money follows our desires.
In other words, we spend our money on the things
that we love and the things that we really, really
value. But Jesus says the opposite is also true.
That wherever our money goes, our hearts will
eventually follow that as well. So the more money
we have and the more stuff that we accumulate,
then the more we fall in love with that stuff.
And the more we get greedy for more of that stuff.
And the more we fear of losing that stuff. And
then pretty soon our hearts and our minds and
our souls are so fixated on what we have. And
we spend so much of our lives worrying about
the fact that we'll lose it. that we would have
more of it. It's our hearts go to our money.
It's not just that our money goes to our heart's
desires. It works the other way around, Jesus
says. Fourth interesting part of this teaching
Jesus shares with us is this interesting idea
about our eyes. He says that the eye is the lamp
of the body. And if... What's he say? If your
eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full
of light. Now, at first, this sounds like a very
cryptic and strange teaching. What is this eye
that Jesus is talking about? Is this not a spooky
Halloween thing? An eye? No. In fact, if you
were to read your Bible, many Bibles will have
a little footnote attached to this verse. And
the footnote will say that the Greek word for...
So the Greek word for healthy here is actually
can imply generosity. And the Greek word for
unhealthy implies stingy. So what this means
is according to this first century idiom. There
are two ways that your eyes can look at the world.
One is with generous eyes, healthy eyes. The
other is with stingy eyes or unhealthy eyes.
Today, what we normally call that is that you
see the world either from an abundance. mindset
or you see the world from a scarcity mindset.
If you have an abundance mindset, you've got
a healthy eye. Congratulations. You look at the
world and you see everything that God has given
you and it's more than enough. You receive your
whole life as a gift. You've got a healthy eye.
But if you look at the world and you just see
lack, and there's not enough, and all you see
is scarcity, then you have an unhealthy eye.
And you actually really don't believe that God
is going to provide for you. All you see is what
you do not have. And you can have two people
who have the same job, and they live on the same
street, and they make the same income, and they
have the same bills, and they have the same dreams.
One can have a healthy eye and one can have an
unhealthy eye. One can see with the lens of abundance
and the other just sees what they don't have.
It's a good question to ask ourselves is how
do we look at the world? Are our eyes healthy
or are our eyes unhealthy? And that leads to
the fifth and final part of Jesus' teaching from
Matthew 6 here on money. And that is that Jesus
makes the case that money is not neutral. I know
deep down we all want to believe that money is
just a tool. It's not good or bad in and of itself.
It's just, there's nothing spiritual about it.
But Jesus seems to say, actually, no. There is
a spiritual aspect to money itself. It doesn't
just sit there quietly in your wallet. It actually
competes for your worship. Jesus says no one
can serve two masters. You cannot serve both
God and, what is that word? Mammon. Mammon. Now,
your Bible probably said money there, but if
you were to... look in the Greek, you would actually
see that Jesus uses this Aramaic word, mammon,
and it's not translated into the Greek. And scholars
think that because Jesus used the word mammon,
because he was referring to this Syrian god,
this god of wealth, which was called mammon.
So in other words, money isn't just like a thing,
it's a rival god. And Again, we don't want to
believe that. We don't want to believe that money
itself is good or evil. But Jesus seems to know
better, and he realizes that there's a spiritual
gravity that money has. And if we don't take
care, it'll become this satanic force. And it
does, doesn't it? Doesn't money fuel greed and
war and violence and injustice and environmental
degradation all across our planet? So that's
why Jesus doesn't just say, hey, listen, you
should not serve both God and mammon. No, he
says you cannot serve both God and mammon. It's
an impossibility. They are two different gods.
You're either going to love one and hate the
other, or you can't have it both ways. So let's
just review those five main points Jesus teaches.
We all have this desire to store up money. But
Jesus tells us, To invest our money in God. Don't
stockpile it on earth. Because if we do, then
actually our hearts may end up falling in love
with it. And then we're never going to feel like
we have enough of it. And soon we'll be worshiping
it as a rival God. Now that sounds horrible.
Who wants that? Nobody wants that. So how do
we make sure that that doesn't happen to you
and doesn't happen to me? How do we become generous?
People that get real joy from giving it away
and not holding on to it. Well, I'm going to
close by suggesting three ways. The first, the
first way is you have to let God change your
thinking. Because God shows us what generosity
looks like. And it's not that just God teaches
us about generosity. It's that God... In God's
self is generosity. If you think about the idea
of the Trinity, right? The Trinity, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. This God is a family of self
-giving love. The Father is always giving to
the Son. The Son is always giving to the Spirit.
The Spirit is always giving to the Father. The
Father is always giving to... There's this ongoing
generosity and self -sacrifice that is constantly
happening within... The Trinity within the Godhead
itself, that's just who God is. God, by God's
very nature, is the most generous being in the
entire universe. One professor put it this way,
as Trinity, the Christian God is eternally self
-giving God. God created man in his self -giving
image. So that's who God is. And we are created
in the image of God. So you see, becoming a happier,
more joyful, generous person, it doesn't start
with me or someone else giving a sermon on, you
know, tithing. It starts before time. And it
starts before space and before anything existed
with just who God is. That's where it all starts.
And Scripture teaches that that is who God is.
In Genesis 1, we read that God said, I give you.
God is giving. He's always, I give you every
seed -bearing plant. I give you every tree. All
of this is yours. Giving and gave, that language
comes up again and again in that very first book
of the Bible. Now, it's very interesting because
a few verses later, You know, Satan tries to
convince humankind that God actually isn't generous.
Oh, did God really say that? Is God really generous?
Can you really depend on him? Isn't he holding
out on you? And it is very telling that the very
first sin that ever happened where human brokenness
begins, it's actually when we stopped seeing
God as a generous giver and we started to become
takers, right? When she saw the fruit, she took.
some of it and ate it. So that's step one. The
first thing we have to do is let God change our
thinking to recapture this true picture of who
God is and then let that just work its way through
your life. You're going to start to become a
more generous person. But the second thing you
have to do is let the gospel now change your
heart. God may change your thinking, but Jesus
wants to change your heart. Generosity. is at
the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For
God so loved the world that he, say it with me,
gave. His one and only son. Everywhere Jesus
goes, he is giving. Everywhere he goes, there's
generosity. Oh, you've only got a few loaves
of fish? Boom, enough for everyone. Oh, you've
only got these empty water jars? Boom, wine for
everyone. Oh, you're sick? Oh, you're broken?
Oh, you're sad? Oh, you're lonely? Boom, here's
healing. Here's more forgiveness. Here's peace.
Here's a brand new life. Everywhere Jesus goes,
he is constantly turning scarcity into abundance
for everyone. But it's on the cross, actually,
that we see God's generosity most clearly. Jesus
is the richest being in the entire universe.
The one who spoke all the galaxies into existence.
And here he is emptying himself out on the cross.
He became poor. He enters into our poverty. And
he's not just poor financially, but completely.
He's poor in comfort. He's poor in power. He's
poor in life. The cross is where this God of
abundance steps into our scarcity, and he's able
to turn even death into a gift for us. That's
the heart of the gospel, that the richest one
became the poorest, so that the poorest of us
could become rich in him. And so now once you've...
Let God change your thinking. Oh yeah, that's
who God is. And once you've let the gospel change
your heart, oh yeah, that's what Jesus did for
me. Then you can begin to let generosity change
your habits. If you've been following Jesus for
a little bit, for any amount of time in your
life, you should start to see change, not just
in your thinking and not just in your heart,
but in your habits. around money. If you're not
seeing those kind of changes, then it raises
a few red flags, like am I stalled out in my
spiritual growth? Because this should be a natural
progression. And the research on generosity says
that it all begins with changing our habits around
money, right? For generosity to make you happier,
it can't just be a one -time event. Or it can't
even be just like random acts of kindness. It
has to be a habit, a regular part of your life.
I just want to read to you a little bit from
this study that I mentioned earlier. This is
what they say. They say, our emphasis here is
on practices of generosity, not single generous
acts. What matters about practices compared to
one -time acts is that they're repeated. Behaviors
that involve recurrent intention and attention.
Those are the kind of expressions of generosity
that actually enhance people's well -being. That
become the practices of generosity. Now listen
to this. By contrast, one -time or infrequent
acts of generosity seem not to be associated
with greater well -being. This includes being
an organ donor, estate giving through wills,
lending your possessions or donating blood infrequently.
This is how habits work on us. I cannot just
go flip a switch in my heart and get rid of all
the fear and get rid of all the greed and just
become a more generous person. I have to do stuff.
You know what I can do? I can buy someone lunch.
That's a thing I can do. I can sponsor a child
in Honduras. I can do that. I can give to my
church. And as I practice generosity, God is
doing something in here. He's doing something
in my heart. Something that I could never do
by my own best intentions. I start to move from
fear to trust. I start to move from worry to
peace. And yes, I even start to move toward joy.
And I start to discover that what Jesus said
is true. That there is more joy in giving than
in... In closing, let me just ask you this. Have
you ever met an unhappy, generous person? Probably
not. Have you ever met a former giver? Probably
not. Maybe they exist, but probably not. Because
most people who have enjoyed and discovered the
joy of living a generous life, they never turn
back. And yes, it costs them financially, but
they get back far more than they ever give away
because there's more joy in giving than in receiving.
We'll pick this up again next week, but for now,
thanks be to God. Thank you for listening to
this week's episode of Trinity Sermons. This
sermon was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville
in Mississauga, Ontario on November 2nd, 2025.