"Disciples Practice Generosity" (September 28, 2025 Sermon)
/Text: 1 Timothy 6:6-19
Last week, Jesus shared a poignant parable to illustrate the wrongness of greed. We saw that the middle manager in the parable shifted his loyalty from the rich man “above” him in the economic hierarchy to the poor farmers "below" him, possibly forgiving their debt interest. So, if greed is bad, that parable demonstrates the antithesis to be equally valid. And not only is generosity good, but generosity is God. Hear me, Church: we not only affirm the moral truth that generosity is good, but we also affirm the theological truth that generosity is God. To understand how this truth applies to shaping our lives as disciples, we have a passage from 1 Timothy to guide us.
But I’d like to structure this sermon around the pattern of the hymn we’ll sing together at the end, one of my favorite texts in either of our hymnals, “God, Whose Giving Knows No Ending.” A closer look at the text we’ll sing reveals a three-part structure that perfectly complements today’s 1 Timothy passage.
Stanza one emphasizes the generosity of God.
Stanza two emphasizes our calling to serve.
Stanza three emphasizes our calling to share.
It might help to open your purple hymnal to hymn #716 so you can follow along. Robert Edwards wrote this hymn as a submission to a search for a new stewardship text by the Hymn Society in America in 1961. The tune is a simple shape note melody called BEACH SPRING that was named after a Baptist church in my home state of Georgia.
Let’s jump right in. The first verse emphasizes the generosity of God and sings as such:
God, whose giving knows no ending, from your rich and endless store,
nature's wonder, Jesus' wisdom, costly cross, grave's shattered door:
gifted by you, we turn to you, offering up ourselves in praise;
thankful song shall rise forever, gracious donor of our days.
This stanza recognizes God’s abundant grace and generous nature. Verse 17 of today’s passage reminds us that “God…richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” The first stanza of this hymn presents two pieces of evidence to demonstrate this generosity: the wonder of nature and the wisdom of Jesus. Last week, I had the chance to appreciate the beauty of nature during a camping trip with two of my best friends from seminary at a place called Douglas Lake outside Gatlinburg.
My family recently acquired a nice canoe thanks to the generosity of two congregants, and I decided to bring it along for us to enjoy. When we settled into our campsite, we noticed a small island in the middle of the lake about half a mile away, and we decided to go on a little adventure in our canoe.
We packed some beverages, folding chairs, snacks, and everything needed to play a game of Dungeons and Dragons, then paddled out to our own small island, about 75 feet in diameter. In the center of the island was a flat, open space surrounded by trees around the perimeter. We found a good spot and spent several hours on a quest.
As the sun began to set, we gathered our things and prepared to canoe back to our campsite. But as we got ready to leave, we looked around and suddenly noticed that almost every nearby tree was covered with multiple spider webs.
Upon closer inspection, we realized that our little private island was actually a small colony of orb-weaver spiders, known for their intricate webs. We took several minutes to admire their beauty... from a comfortable distance. Few things in nature spark your pastor’s wonder and awe more than a beautiful spider web! It reminded me of the expansive, beautiful web of God’s love that weaves its way through our lives. “Nature’s wonder” indeed!
The second piece of evidence the hymn writer offers of God’s generosity is the person of Jesus Christ, whose wisdom is revealed through both the “costly cross” and “grave’s shattered door.” This statement is a musical confession of sorts, testifying that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are gifts that “turn” us to God and motivate us to “offer ourselves in praise” and raise a thankful song to the “gracious donor of our days.”
In a sense, what we’re doing right now is a real reflection of this hymn’s message. Worship is the act of God's people turning toward a God whose generosity is the very reason we come together. It is where we gather, as 1 Timothy says, to “take hold of the eternal life to which we’ve been called.” There are moments, friends, when everything becomes clear and we see the difference between “living” and “life.”
For me, that moment was returning home to my family after four days away with my best friends. Specifically, I had a moment Hazel Grace has given me permission to share with you all. The children's museum recently renovated their theater play area, and Hazel Grace and I had some time to kill before her theater class downtown on Thursday, so we went to the children's museum. We played a simple game where I gave her different animals to pretend to be. We started with the easy ones: a dog, a cat, and a monkey.
But then I challenged her with tougher ones like a sloth, an upside-down jellyfish, and an axolotl. And she nailed every one! It was a moment of pure joy for me as a parent, and I experienced a deep, profound gratitude for my family. That gratitude reminded me how much is broken in the world, how much we can be understandably afraid of, and how much grief I feel. But those feelings make it all the more important to remember God’s generosity and “take hold of the eternal life to which we’ve been called.”
The second stanza of the hymn sings as such:
Skills and time are ours for pressing toward the goals of Christ, your Son:
all at peace in health and freedom, races joined, the church made one.
Now direct our daily labor, lest we strive for self alone.
Born with talents, make us servants fit to answer at your throne.
The second stanza shifts from God’s generosity to our faithful response. 1 Timothy 6 urges us to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. As I reflected on that list of qualities, it struck me that none of us can achieve these alone.
God’s generosity is revealed in the community God calls us to be part of. We need one another to be a people of righteousness. “Godliness” isn’t something any one person can define on their own. Faith exists within a community. Love requires at least two people. Endurance is something we develop together as a family when times get tough. And gentleness is a gift one person gives to another—and, in the process, to themselves as well! All of these spiritual exercises are a commitment of the whole family of faith.
For example, in just a few short hours, this church will gather again at First Baptist Church to celebrate the baptism of Landon James Bryant. And as he receives the gift and the responsibility of that sacrament, we will affirm that Landon is a part of a larger faith family who is promising this day and forevermore to raise him in the faith and to pursue those things the author of 1 Timothy lifts up as the focus of our faith pursuit: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. All of those qualities are embodiments of God’s generosity. Landon’s baptism will be a simple ceremony to remind him that he is not alone, but surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and, more importantly, accompanied by a God who has promised to love him no matter what. Baptism is the ultimate reminder of God’s generosity because it confers a grace undeserved but graciously received and generously shared. Baptism is the church’s prayer that God would “direct our daily labor, lest we strive for self alone.”
To recap, the first stanza emphasizes God’s generosity. The second emphasizes our calling to serve. And the third and final stanza emphasizes our call to share. It sings as such:
Treasure, too, you have entrusted, gain through powers your grace conferred:
ours to use for home and kindred, and to spread the gospel word.
Open wide our hands in sharing, as we heed Christ's ageless call,
healing, teaching, and reclaiming, serving you by loving all.
“Open wide our hands in sharing.” The message is clear: God is generosity. Therefore, we’re called to serve. And finally, we serve by sharing. This stanza provides a variety of verbs to show the different ways we share God’s generosity: sharing, healing, teaching, reclaiming, and serving. This is something that this church does very well, and it’s one of the many reasons I love being your pastor!
It’s hard to believe, but this week marked the one-year anniversary since Hurricane Helene devastated our neighbors in Western North Carolina. I appreciated how this congregation mobilized quickly to partner with our friends at A Simple Gesture to donate goods to those suffering in the storm’s aftermath. Within a few days, we gathered and transformed the space outside our sanctuary into a makeshift donation drop-off for non-perishable items that were in urgent need. Then, a few volunteers from our church drove our church bus loaded with all those donated items directly to where they were most needed. And that’s just one way of many that this congregation has reflected God’s generosity over the past year. We’ve done it by housing our unhoused neighbors this summer in our shelter. We’ve done it by comforting one another as we’ve said goodbye to a number of saints who have long been pillars of this church. We’ve done it by showing up at the Greensboro Pride Festival. We’ve done it through our children and youth ministries, VBS, YoCo, mission trips, Sunday School—just to name a few. We’ve done it through our PW circles, looking out for one another and our church. We’ve done it by sharing sacred music with one another week after week. The list can—and does!—go on! This is a congregation that links arms and shows up when there’s a need. And that’s the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so, I hope we’ll remember that our journey of faith is closely tied to understanding God’s limitless generosity. We've received much from our Creator—grace, love, and community—and we're called to reflect that in our daily lives. This isn’t just advice but a divine mandate to pursue righteousness, serve selflessly, and share openly. Every act of kindness makes us channels of God’s love, spreading God’s message and creating a ripple of hope and healing.
Let's dedicate ourselves to embodying the spirit of Christ, serving our community and the world. Remember the words of our hymn: “Open wide our hands in sharing.”
Remember, neighbors, we can either have clenched fists or open hands, but not both. As followers of Christ called to reflect God’s generosity, the choice is ours. So this week, your task is to find one concrete way each day to stand in awe of God’s generosity. It could be the beauty of a spider’s web, the feeling of a hug from a loved one, a piece of music that calms your troubled soul, or the sound of laughter from a silly kindergartener pretending to be an upside-down jellyfish. Find one way each day this week to marvel at God’s generosity and say to yourself, “Wow, God is generous and I want to be, too.” Then see where that takes you!
And so, let us close this sermon by singing together, “God, Whose Giving Knows No Ending.”
[sing hymn]
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved, say: Amen.