The Max Lucado Encouraging Word Podcast - 411: Our Generous God

Thanks for tuning in, it's an honor to be with you.

As we study God's Word together, may our time uplift and encourage you.

If you could use some hope, I pray you find it here today.

I know Christmas was months ago, but I hope you'll indulge my Dickensian illustration in today's

episode.

The tale of Ebenezer Scrooge paints just the right picture and helps remind us that abundant

grace of God has the power to unscrew the most stubborn hearts.

Oh, but he was a tight, visted hand at the grindstone Scrooge, a squeezing, wrenching,

grasping, clutching covetous old sinner, hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had

ever struck out a generous fire, secret and self-contained, solitary as an oyster.

The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek,

stiffened his gate, made his eyes red, then lifts blue and spoke out shrewdly in his

grating voice.

Isn't this a great paragraph?

A frosty rhyme was on his head and on his eyebrows in his wiry chin.

He carried his own low-temperature, always about with him.

He iced his office in the dog days and didn't fall at one degree at Christmas.

Way to go, Charles Dickens.

I can just see Ebenezer Scrooge, can't you?

Shuffling down the icy streets of London, that old, persnickety, hard-hearted, tight-fisted,

picture of stenchiness, snapping at anything that moved, including cratchet and Christmas.

Can't you just see old Ebenezer Scrooge?

Sometimes you can when you look in the mirror.

There's a shadow of Scrooge in the best of us.

We don't want there to be, but there is.

We start to make a donation to a worthy cause, and then the voice of Scrooge whispers,

now don't overdo it.

We start to give time to a needy family, and Scrooge says, now you only have so much time.

We start to forgive an old enemy.

An old Scrooge says, now you don't want to go too far on this mercy thing.

Old Scrooge.

Scrooge is stingy.

Not just with a checkbook, but with kindness, with compliments, stingy with his encouragement,

stingy with second chances, old Scrooge.

Nobody wants to be a hard-hearted Scrooge.

I doubt if any of you are making a list of things to do this week, and you've put on your

list, I'm going to make sure and be stingy with somebody.

Now one of you at the end of the day have thought back and said, man, I woke up in such a grumpy

mood, but then I got stingy, and I felt so much better.

I don't think you've ever had a friend come up to you and say, you know, I don't know

what I'd do if it wasn't for your hard heart.

We've learned that really, stinginess does not gain us anything.

He would agree with the wise man who said, the world of the generous gets larger and larger.

It's the world of the stingy that gets smaller and smaller.

You may have heard the story about the stingy old Koot who decided that he was going to

take his money to heaven with him.

He was on his deathbed and he told his wife, take all my money and put it in two pillowcases,

set it up in the attic.

When I die as I pass through the house, through the attic, I'm going to reach out and I'm

going to grab those filler cases and I'm going to take my money to heaven with me.

Well the wife thought he was crazy, but he was dying.

What could she do?

So she took all the money, she put it in two pillowcases, set it up in the attic.

The day after he died, she went up in the attic to see if the money was there, sure enough,

it still was, and she said to herself, see, I knew I should have put it in the basement.

As she has a good point, I wouldn't think that stinginess is a heavenly attribute.

It's just the opposite.

If you want to fill in the blank, our God is constantly generous.

Maybe you've noticed, even in the creation story, the generosity of God.

The Lord filled his garden with all kinds of trees, trees that were pleasant, pleasing

to the eye and good for food.

You know a few trees would have done it, but he decided to fill the garden with all kinds

of trees and all kinds of fruit, cantaloupe, strawberries, watermelons, chocolate-covered

peanuts, all kinds of fruits, aren't those fruits?

What kinds of fruits?

Why would he create such a variety?

For the same reason, he declared, let the water team with living creatures and the birds

fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.

He didn't just put a few fish in the water, he let the water team with living creatures.

Would Adam and Eve see all the creatures that God made?

No.

Still God was generous, and he created them.

Same thing could be said about the galaxies.

Is it true that no human being has ever seen all the stars that are in the universe?

Is that true?

I've been told that.

That no person has ever seen all the stars, then why are they there?

Wouldn't five stars have been enough?

One for daylight and four for directions.

That would have been plenty.

The scrooge within us would have limited the number of stars, but God has never been

called tight-fisted.

He has been called rich in kindness, tolerance, and patience.

His grace has been described as exceedingly abundant and indescribable.

He doesn't just love, he lavishes us with love.

He doesn't just dole out wisdom, he gives generously to all without finding fault.

Our God is constantly generous.

Generous enough to give Joseph an Egypt immeasurable grain.

Generous enough to give the Hebrew slaves when they entered the Promised Land, a land that

was flowing with milk and honey.

Generous enough to fill the hungry soul with goodness.

Generous enough to give us the gift of goodness and mercy that follows us, not just a few of

our days, but all the days of our lives.

Generous enough to give rain to the just and the unjust.

Generous enough to be kind to the unthankful and the evil.

Generous enough to overflow the table of the protocol with the banquet.

To overflow the vats of the wedding with wine.

Generous enough to overflow the bellies of the hungry with food, and overflow the boat

of Peter with fish, not just once, but twice.

Jesus is generous enough to heal all who came to him for health.

People who came to him for teaching and forgive everybody who came to him for salvation.

Peter once inquired about future rewards.

He said, see, teacher, all the things that we have given up to follow you, what will

there reward be for us?

And Jesus could have corrected him at that point in this, what's in it for me attitude,

but Jesus didn't correct him.

And Jesus said, because you have left your family and friends for me, you will receive

100 fold, 100 times, 100 fold in this life and in the life to come.

I've never been accused of being very good at math, but I'm told that that is a 10,000

percent return on an investment, 100 fold, 10,000 percent.

If I gave you $10,000 for the $1 you gave me last week, what would you call me besides

stupid?

You might call me generous.

God was called generous.

In fact, he was so generous that people turned their heads and thought he was overdoing

it.

The second point is that God is controversially generous.

He's controversially generous.

His benevolence has bothered people.

It bothered the workers in the story that Jesus told.

Jesus told a story about a landowner who needed some workers.

And so he went to the temp agency of his day and he agreed upon a wage with all the day

workers and he hired a few of them to come out to work in his vineyard at 6 a.m.

About nine in the morning, he needed some more, so you know what he did?

He went back and loaded up his pickup truck with workers and took him out to the fields.

Noon he needed some more, so he did it again, three in the afternoon he needed some, so

he did it again.

At five in the afternoon, he went back and he saw some more standing around.

And he asked them, why haven't you been working today?

And they replied because no one hired us.

Now may I confess my distaste for what they said?

The scrooge within me doesn't like that response.

At first of all, the landowner just comes upon them and they're standing around.

I don't know if you're still looking for workers or not, but he finds them just standing

around.

And he says, why haven't you found work?

And they said, well, we couldn't find anything to do all day.

Come on.

Paint someone's house, trim someone's tree, clean someone's fingernails, find something

to do.

There's something you can do.

You've been standing, you're telling me you've been standing, I would have given them

a lecture.

But you know what the landowner did?

You're not going to believe this.

He gave them a job.

At five in the afternoon, he hired them and he took them to work.

At six in the afternoon, just one hour later, it came time to settle up.

And so he paid his workers, guess what?

Everybody received the same amount.

Those who worked one hour received the same as those who worked 12 hours.

Those who worked less than a day received a full day's wage, which in this case was four

fifths of the work crew.

Well guess what?

That ticked off the six a.m. workers.

Would that bother you?

Well, I think it bugged me too.

The six a.m. worker said, those people, you can just see them pointing their scroogey

fingers.

Those people worked only one hour.

And yet you've paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching

heat.

I don't know where the scorching heat part came from, but I can sympathize with them.

One hour workers receiving the same amount of money as the 12 hour workers has not good

business in this labor relations 101.

You get compensated for what you do.

You get paid for how you work.

This is no way to run a business.

But Jesus is this point here.

It's not about running a business.

And he's not talking about economy.

He's talking about salvation.

He's talking about grace.

He's talking about forgiveness.

And the land owner says to those who were complaining, is it against the law for me to

do what I want with my money?

Should you be angry because I am kind?

In other words, I can do whatever I want.

God says when it comes to salvation, I'll say, who I want when I want how I want?

And it's not your business.

He is so generous that he is known to stir a controversy on the street corner among

the workers.

Let others question his lavish love, however, and he won't back off.

Let me show you a passage that's tucked away in the book of Jeremiah.

Maybe you've never seen it.

God says, I will make an everlasting covenant with him.

I will never stop doing good to them.

I will inspire them to fear me so they will never turn away from me.

Look at this.

I will rejoice in doing them good.

Not only will God do good, He'll have fun doing it.

He delights in doing you good.

He delights in doing you good.

Tattoo it on your chest and paint it on your wall.

Let the entire world know about this generous God who delights in doing good things for

his people.

He is the cheriest of the cheerful givers.

In fact, he's been known to give gifts in the millions of dollars.

This is the point of the second story that Jesus told to illustrate the generosity of God.

Apparently, there was a servant who owed more money than he could ever repay, repaying

it was humanly impossible.

The king, to whom the man owed the money, decided that he was time for him to settle

up his debts.

And so the king ordered that he, speaking of the man who owed the money, his wife, his

children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt.

But the man fell down before the king and begged him, oh, sir, be patient with me.

I will pay at all.

And the king was filled with pity for him.

And he released him, and he forgave the debt.

God's generosity strikes again.

Did you note the request of the man who had the million dollar debt?

He said, just give me time.

I'll pay it back.

But did you notice the gift of the king?

Did he give him time to pay it back?

No, he forgave the debt.

He forgave the debt.

I would imagine that the head of the Department of Treasury for the king heard about this and

ran over to him and said, you can't run a kingdom, giving away these million dollar gifts

like this.

How can you expect to run a kingdom if you're giving away these gifts?

But that's not the question of this story.

It's a good question, but it's not the question of the story.

The question of the story is not how could the king give away gifts?

But how could the just forgiven man not forgive others?

You see, in the next paragraph of the story, the man leads the castle, and he makes a beeline

to the house of somebody who owes him just a few thousand dollars.

Now how much was he forgiven?

Over a million dollars.

Somebody owes him a few thousand dollars, and we're expecting him to walk into the house

of this man and say, man, I have just been forgiven.

A million dollar debt.

And the king has been so kind to me, I'm going to be kind to you.

Your slate is clean.

Your debt is forgiven.

That's what we expect.

We expect the picture of cascading grace, but that's not what we read.

In this case, the just forgiven man goes and he fives the man who owns him just a few

thousand dollars, and he strangles the man and he demands payment.

And the man makes the same request, just give me some time, I'll pay it back.

The man who had just been forgiven the debts is no, and he puts the man in debtors' prison.

And we scratch our heads and say, now how could that happen?

How could this man who had just been forgiven such a great debt not turn around and forgive

the debt of somebody else?

What's curious is that Jesus doesn't give us an explanation.

He doesn't tell us we're left to speculate, and so my speculations have led me to this

conclusion.

Here's what I think.

I think the man never received the grace of the king.

I don't think he received the grace of the king.

I think had you seen this man when he exited the castle of the king, he would not have

said, oh, what a great king I serve.

He would have said, what a true businessman I am.

I just pulled a quick one on the king.

I just bamboozled the king.

I just got away with murder.

I just skirted the system.

I just worked it.

I just found a loophole.

I just pulled a fast one over the old man.

And instead of having a grateful heart, he had a puffy chest.

And he was arrogant, and listen, arrogance never gives grace.

And so he didn't.

And he wouldn't forgive the man who owed him just a few thousand dollars.

And when the king found out about his unwillingness to forgive, the king erupted in anger.

It's interesting.

The king was willing to forgive the man his debt, but he was unwilling to forgive the

man his ingratitude.

So look what happened to the man.

The king called the man he had forgiven and said, you evil servant.

I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me.

Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?

And the king unlocked that ungrateful, wretch away.

And Jesus made this point.

That's what my heavenly Father will do to you.

If you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters in your heart.

Boy, Jesus doesn't mince words here, Duffy, and neither should we.

Here it is in a sentence, true grace creates more grace.

True grace creates more grace.

In case you miss it, we are the man with the million dollar debt, that's you and me.

One more quickly climb to the moon on a rope, then we'll ever repay all the goodness that

God has expressed toward us.

His grace toward us has been immeasurable, incalculable.

We can never pay back the debt that we owe him.

So we cannot, his grace covers it.

He has not just, listen, he has not just sprinkled grace on your life.

He has poured grace onto your life.

He does not distribute and dispense grace with an eyedropper.

He does with a fire hydrant.

Your heart is a dixie cup and God's grace is Niagara Falls.

You cannot contain it all.

You cannot, you cannot, trying as you might, it's going to pour into your life and it's

going to overflow, bubble out, spill into the lives of others.

That's the way he's wired it.

That's the way it's going to happen because you see, God is a contagiously generous God.

As Jesus said, freeing you have received so freely gift.

You see, when God's grace happens to us, we would come up people who are a very gifted

people because we're saved by the gift of his grace, not the performance of our lives.

The second verse of that is that gifted people give and they don't just give, but they

give generously.

Just as God has given to us, it's the natural outflow of grace.

When grace happens, generosity happens.

When grace happens, generosity happens.

If you are just discovering grace in your life, you better prepare yourself for a few

waves of generosity coming your way.

It's going to happen.

You're going to find yourself tempted to forgive some people you've not wanted to forgive.

You're going to find yourself seriously considering some extravagant acts of kindness.

You're going to find yourself doing some things that ten years ago or one year ago or even

a month ago you would have never considered doing because when grace happens, generosity

happens.

It's not that you should be generous, it's just that you will.

You will.

You see, grace is the seed that grows the tree of generosity.

Grace is the seed that grows the tree of generosity.

When you meet somebody who's generous, you can be certain that God's grace has been

sowed in the soil of their hearts.

Conversely, when you meet somebody who's a scrooge, who's tight-fisted and stingy, well,

they could probably use a little more grace, right?

How about you?

Is the seed of generosity, seed of grace taking root in your heart?

It's just two or three questions as I close.

We'll call it a generosity quiz.

Is there anyone in your life whom you refuse to forgive?

I mean, you just refuse to forgive.

Business of this question is not to discuss what they did for you, that's not to question.

But the business of this question is to ask, do you know what God has done for you?

Jesus said, if the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.

If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.

If you have not let God forgive you, if you've not received His grace, and you're going

to find it hard to forgive others.

But as you learn to let God forgive you, guess what?

You're going to learn to forgive others.

You're going to be a lot easier to live with, and your life's going to be much sweeter.

Because harboring grudges is really exhausting.

When I first got into ministry, when I would find somebody who wouldn't refuse to forgive

somebody, I used to try to convince them why they should forgive that person, and maybe

what they did to them was not so bad.

I failed every time.

You cannot convince somebody that their offender didn't really offend them.

And then I realized, people forgive, not when they think their offender didn't forgive

them, but when they discover that God has forgiven them.

That's when you start to forgive people.

When you realize the million dollar death that you have been forgiven, does that make sense?

So check your grace level.

Here's a second question.

Do you resent God's kindness to others?

Do you ever resent God's kindness to others?

I mean, look at you.

You've been working 6.6 a.m.

You've been such a great servant of the Lord.

You've done so many good things for God in your life.

You've always kept your nose clean and made good grades.

And then some jerk comes along and just in the eleventh hour of his life, after making

a mess, wrecking marriages, hurting people, corousing his or her way through the world.

Here they give their life to God in the eleventh hour, and you're supposed to believe that

they're going to be in the same heaven you are.

Never resent the goodness that God has on his people.

His reminder is that grace is his business.

He gives it how he wants, when he wants to whom he wants.

One final question.

How long since you gave a gift that prompted this response, no, wait, this is too generous.

This is too generous.

How long since you gave a gift that somebody might call controversially generous?

That your spouse might say, what is that?

You sure we can do this?

I'm not talking about being irresponsible, but bordering on it.

Maybe just stretching yourself a bit.

What if you were the neighbor in your neighborhood who was known for being controversially generous?

Or what if you were the worker at work who was known for just being controversially generous?

She is always doing those kinds of things.

He is, you know how that happens?

That happens when you and I do what the Psalmist said, bless the Lord on my soul and forget

not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity.

As you think on all the benefits that God has given to you, as you think of the way he

is forgiven, all your iniquities, you will find yourself being generous with others.

There's nothing tight-fisted about God.

His loving kindness is abundant.

His sacrifice is constant.

His grace is sufficient.

And our Lord God gives grace the way His Son died on the cross with open hands.

May we give grace the same way.