Today's Sermon:
Character VIII- Generosity

I. Generosity Begins with.....
- II Corinthians 8:1-9

A rich self has a distinct attitude toward the past, the present, and the future.

It surveys the past with gratitude for what it has received, not with annoyance about what it hasn’t achieved or about how little it has been given.

A rich self lives in the present with contentment. Rather than never having enough of anything except for the burdens others place on it, it is “always having enough of everything” (2 Corinthians 9:8). It still strives, but it strives out of satisfied fullness, not out of the emptiness of craving.

A rich self looks toward the future with trust. It gives rather than holding things back in fear of coming out too short, because it believes God’s promise that God will take care of it. Finite and endangered, a rich self still gives, because its life is “hidden with Christ” in the infinite, unassailable, and utterly generous God, the Lord of the present, the past, and the future.
-Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge (p. 110)

II. Generosity Presumes .....
II Corinthians 8:5

III. The Time for Generosity ...
II Corinthians 8:2

If our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 81-82

IV. Generosity Meets .....
II Corinthians 8:4

V. One Example

A. Begin with ...

B. Remember the ...

C. Mobilize .....

D. Serve ....

E. Seek the Welfare of....

VI. Multiple Manifestations

A. Generous with Your ....

B. Generous with Your ....

C. Generous with Your .....

D. Generous with Your ....