On June 2nd, 2024, Rev. Matt Sapp emphasizes the importance of being generous rather than seeking fairness or comfort. It highlights the teachings of Jesus on generosity and challenges the traditional notion of fairness.
Chapters
00:00 Call to Worship
00:26 Be Generous
18:16 The Benediction
Matthew 5:38-48
"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
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[00:00:01]
Katie Faison:
Each week, we gather for worship to praise God, whose son is our greatest example of how to put others before ourselves. I pray that as we worship God this hour, we might realize new ways to serve others with love and generosity. Come, let us worship God together.
[00:00:28] Matt Sapp:
Julie reads Winnie the Pooh to our kids at home. This is from the house on Pooh Corner. Pooh was sitting in his house one day counting his pots of honey when there came a knock at the door. 14 said Pooh, come in. 14. Or was it 15? Bother, that's muddled me. Hello, Pooh, said Rabbit. Hello, Rabbit, said Pooh. 14 wasn't it? 14 what? My pots of honey that I was counting. Sure. 14. That's right, Rabbit. Are you sure it's 14, said Pooh? Well, no, said Rabbit. Does it matter? I just like to know, said Pooh humbly. So I can say to myself, I've got 14 pots of honey left or 15 as the case may be.
It's sort of comforting. Well, let's just call it 16 then, said Rabbit. Pooh's right. It it is sort of comforting to know how much we've got and to know we've got enough. And Rabbit's right too. If all we want is comfort from our possessions, why stick with 14 or 15 when we could just pretend we have 16 pots of honey? If all we want out of our pots of honey is comfort, isn't 16 better? Our problem today though is that our sermon in your worship guide isn't titled be comfortable. It's titled be generous. Jesus teaches us to be generous. Generous in our actions, generous in our attitudes, generous with our forgiveness, generous in in our interactions with other people, generous with our pots of honey.
This is from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5 verses 38 through 48. You have heard that it was said eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go 1 mile, go with them 2 miles. Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your father in heaven.
He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good alike and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous the same. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect therefore as your heavenly father is perfect. The 3rd amendment to the United States Constitution reads this, no soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. That's the 3rd amendment to the constitution.
In in colonial times back when we were still British subjects, British soldiers stationed in America could show up at your house and demands to be put up for the night. They'd sleep in your bed and eat your food. You you might even just end up sleeping on the floor while they slept in your bed and then get up and have to cook them breakfast the next morning. It was the law that you allowed them into your home for the night. The armies traveled on foot back then. They traveled long distances on foot back then. And in peacetime, they traveled without supply lines to support the troops. So the law required that you provide them with housing, a place to sit down and and eat a meal and rest, maybe a place to wash their clothes.
An American colonists didn't like this. They didn't like the burden that it put on them and as they grew to resent British rule more and more, they really didn't like it. So as soon as the American colonists won their independence, an independence which is now ours, one of the first things they did was write into the constitution that no one would ever again be required to house troops in their homes. That's the 3rd amendment to the constitution. In Jesus' day, there was a different ruling power. It was the Romans not the British. But Israel existed very much like a Roman colony with Roman troops living among them and traveling the very same roads the Jews did. And the Romans had a law too.
Their soldiers traveled long distance on foot just like British soldiers did and they carried heavy packs and lots of supplies with them. It wasn't easy moving the Roman army all over Judea. So the law said that a Roman soldier could compel you to walk a mile with them, carrying their pack for them so they could rest or helping to carry the supplies along. It was quite an imposition, but there was a limit to what a Roman soldier was allowed to ask of you. They could only compel you to go just the one mile. But oh, how the Jewish people grew to resent this obligation.
It was a daily inconvenience, a constant reminder that they were not free, that they lived underneath the thumb of Roman rule. In our passage this morning, Jesus says, you've heard that it was said eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I tell you if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other cheek to them also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give them your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go 2 with them instead. Give to the one who asks of you. Do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Be generous, Jesus teaches.
And and not just generous to a few people, not just generous to friends and family, Even the pagans, Jesus reminds us are generous that way. Be generous to the one who has wronged you. Be generous to the one who has publicly disrespected you. To the one who has reached up and slapped you right across the face. Be generous And be generous to your adversary, to the one who would go so far as to sue you for your coat, to your neighbor to your neighbor who's always being picky about exactly where the property line is, to the one who puts that HOA reminder in your mailbox about where you're supposed to keep your trash cans, be generous.
And to the Roman soldier who demands that you go one mile, Go 2 miles with them. Be generous even to them. You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. You have heard that it was said be fair. That was the law at the time. That was the legal standard, fairness. It's it's our law today. It's what we expect, fairness and reciprocity. But Jesus expressly, specifically rejects that ethic, this ethic of fairness right here in 10 consecutive verses in the Sermon on the Mount. Fairness is not the Christian standard. It's not the standard to which any of us is called.
You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. You have heard that it was said be fair. But I say to you be generous. Do y'all hear that? Last week as we introduced the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, we said that this collection of sayings in the sermon on the mount were like the basic building blocks of the faith, the the basic building blocks of discipleship. Clarence Jordan says that these things, all of these sayings recounted in the Sermon on the Mount, that these are things the disciples would have been drilled in. The things they would have heard from Jesus over and over again. The things that they would have been able to repeat back to him in their sleep. These are the ABCs and the 1, 2, threes and the do, re, me's of the faith. The basic building blocks.
And we said last week that you can come up with all kinds of ideas and theories about how language works or about how math works or about how music works, but if you don't know the a b c's and the 1 2 threes and the do re me's, then whatever ideas you come up with are unlikely to be correct if you don't have the basic building blocks right first. And we said it's the same with the Sermon on the Mount because these are the a b c's of our faith. So if you start with an ethic of fairness as a foundational principle rather than with an ethic of generosity, you can come up with all kinds of ideas about how a Christian is supposed to live but you're unlikely to be right.
You have heard it said of old, be fair, but I say to you, be generous. If we're building our lives and our families and our friendships around an ethic of fairness and not a standard of generosity, it's as if we have completely failed to learn our a b c's. And if we're aiming to build our world around a standard of fairness rather than a standard of generosity, then what we're building is not the coming kingdom of God. Eugene Peterson translates today's scripture by having Jesus say, grow up your kingdom subjects now. Start living like it. Anyone who's ever tried to evenly divide a treat among siblings knows what Peterson means when he associates fairness with childishness.
What's the complaint when I try to divide 1 cookie 3 ways among my children? He got more than me. That's not fair. Right? Every time. She got 2 balloons and I only got 1. That's not fair. He got to play longer. She got a bigger piece. He got to choose what we watched on television last time. That's not fair. And that perceived injustice even in the mind of my young 3 year old is remembered and carried forward into the next transaction and interaction, isn't it? She doesn't forget who got more last time. And it's not just children who do that, we all remember what happened last time. Don't we?
And soon we start to keep very detailed scorecards with remembrances of past wrongs thinking that one day we'll get even. Getting even. Do you hear that? That's the language and vocabulary of fairness, even. That's how wars start. So Jesus says stop asking what's fair and start asking this question instead, what's the most generous thing I can responsibly do in this situation? What's the most generous thing I can responsibly do? What's the most generous thing I can responsibly say? What's the most generous way I can possibly respond? So many of us want so badly to be treated fairly. We want our work to be rewarded. We want our families to be respected and we don't want our work or our conscientiousness or our responsibility or our integrity to somehow be devalued because others end up receiving what they have not earned.
Whether it's money or respect or an equal place in society, we point and say that's not fair. We hold on to perceived injustices and personal slights in ways that just eat away at our insides and we cry out all we want is fairness. But guess what's fair? In Romans, Paul writes this, the wages of sin is death. That's what's fair. In Ephesians, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. That's fair. Are you sure you want fairness to be your standard? From Ephesians chapter 2. But because of God's great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead.
It is by grace you have been saved. That isn't fair. That's way better than fair. That's generous, and so should we be. Be generous with your possessions and your relationships. Be generous materially. Be generous in spirit. Be generous with your forgiveness. Be generous. Don Sewell is a retired baptist missionary and health care administrator from Texas. He was honored near the end of his career for his effectiveness in sending surplus medical supplies from the Baptist hospital system in Texas. He was an administrator there. He took all of their surplus medical supplies, supplies that would otherwise just be thrown away at the end of the day and set them aside and and sent them all over the world to people in need. At the end of his career, he was awarded rewarded for his efforts. I was I was lucky enough to be present at an event where he received an award for all that he'd done.
In accepting his award, he he told this story to illustrate what motivated his work. He said one morning when his son was about 5 years old, the family was sitting together at the breakfast table. He was getting ready to go to work. His son was getting ready to go to school. The newspaper was sitting spread out between them on the kitchen table as they each ate their bowls of cereal. His son took the newspaper and started looking at it, just looking at the pictures spread out across the front page, but he couldn't read the words.
So after a while of looking at the pictures he turned to his dad and asked, daddy what does it say? So Don looked at the paper and said, well, this story is about a car wreck that happened across town yesterday. It looks like a few people were killed and their families are hurting. He looked at another headline. This one is about the war. We have troops in the Middle East and people are dying there. This one's about city hall that looks like someone's embezzled money from something somewhere. Don says it was just all bad news. Don said, I looked at my son and said, that's that's just kind of the way the world is. There's a lot of hurt out there.
And Don said, my 5 year old son looked at me with a look of wide eyed astonishment and said, well, daddy, what are you gonna do about it? Oh, for the childlike innocence to believe that we could walk out our front doors every morning and make a difference in the world. Well let me let you in on a secret, we can. Be generous as God has been generous to you. Be merciful as God is merciful to you. Compassionate as God is compassionate. Rich in love and forgiving and gracious as God has been all of those things to you. It's easy to spend our whole lives counting our pots of honey as we shake our heads at all that we discover is wrong with the world.
Easy until we are interrupted by the question, well, what are you going to do about it? Jesus never said be comfortable and he never said be fair. Be generous. Heavenly father, we send many out to serve. Wherever they go, whatever they do, may their service be imbued with your generosity. Take their hands and let them move at your impulse and with your love. As we send them out with our blessing, we ask that they and that we, be encouraged and emboldened to be faithful representatives not only of this church but also of you and of our lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Each week, we gather for worship to praise God, whose son is our greatest example of how to put others before ourselves. I pray that as we worship God this hour, we might realize new ways to serve others with love and generosity. Come, let us worship God together.
[00:00:28] Matt Sapp:
Julie reads Winnie the Pooh to our kids at home. This is from the house on Pooh Corner. Pooh was sitting in his house one day counting his pots of honey when there came a knock at the door. 14 said Pooh, come in. 14. Or was it 15? Bother, that's muddled me. Hello, Pooh, said Rabbit. Hello, Rabbit, said Pooh. 14 wasn't it? 14 what? My pots of honey that I was counting. Sure. 14. That's right, Rabbit. Are you sure it's 14, said Pooh? Well, no, said Rabbit. Does it matter? I just like to know, said Pooh humbly. So I can say to myself, I've got 14 pots of honey left or 15 as the case may be.
It's sort of comforting. Well, let's just call it 16 then, said Rabbit. Pooh's right. It it is sort of comforting to know how much we've got and to know we've got enough. And Rabbit's right too. If all we want is comfort from our possessions, why stick with 14 or 15 when we could just pretend we have 16 pots of honey? If all we want out of our pots of honey is comfort, isn't 16 better? Our problem today though is that our sermon in your worship guide isn't titled be comfortable. It's titled be generous. Jesus teaches us to be generous. Generous in our actions, generous in our attitudes, generous with our forgiveness, generous in in our interactions with other people, generous with our pots of honey.
This is from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5 verses 38 through 48. You have heard that it was said eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go 1 mile, go with them 2 miles. Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your father in heaven.
He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good alike and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous the same. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect therefore as your heavenly father is perfect. The 3rd amendment to the United States Constitution reads this, no soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. That's the 3rd amendment to the constitution.
In in colonial times back when we were still British subjects, British soldiers stationed in America could show up at your house and demands to be put up for the night. They'd sleep in your bed and eat your food. You you might even just end up sleeping on the floor while they slept in your bed and then get up and have to cook them breakfast the next morning. It was the law that you allowed them into your home for the night. The armies traveled on foot back then. They traveled long distances on foot back then. And in peacetime, they traveled without supply lines to support the troops. So the law required that you provide them with housing, a place to sit down and and eat a meal and rest, maybe a place to wash their clothes.
An American colonists didn't like this. They didn't like the burden that it put on them and as they grew to resent British rule more and more, they really didn't like it. So as soon as the American colonists won their independence, an independence which is now ours, one of the first things they did was write into the constitution that no one would ever again be required to house troops in their homes. That's the 3rd amendment to the constitution. In Jesus' day, there was a different ruling power. It was the Romans not the British. But Israel existed very much like a Roman colony with Roman troops living among them and traveling the very same roads the Jews did. And the Romans had a law too.
Their soldiers traveled long distance on foot just like British soldiers did and they carried heavy packs and lots of supplies with them. It wasn't easy moving the Roman army all over Judea. So the law said that a Roman soldier could compel you to walk a mile with them, carrying their pack for them so they could rest or helping to carry the supplies along. It was quite an imposition, but there was a limit to what a Roman soldier was allowed to ask of you. They could only compel you to go just the one mile. But oh, how the Jewish people grew to resent this obligation.
It was a daily inconvenience, a constant reminder that they were not free, that they lived underneath the thumb of Roman rule. In our passage this morning, Jesus says, you've heard that it was said eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I tell you if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other cheek to them also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give them your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go 2 with them instead. Give to the one who asks of you. Do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Be generous, Jesus teaches.
And and not just generous to a few people, not just generous to friends and family, Even the pagans, Jesus reminds us are generous that way. Be generous to the one who has wronged you. Be generous to the one who has publicly disrespected you. To the one who has reached up and slapped you right across the face. Be generous And be generous to your adversary, to the one who would go so far as to sue you for your coat, to your neighbor to your neighbor who's always being picky about exactly where the property line is, to the one who puts that HOA reminder in your mailbox about where you're supposed to keep your trash cans, be generous.
And to the Roman soldier who demands that you go one mile, Go 2 miles with them. Be generous even to them. You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. You have heard that it was said be fair. That was the law at the time. That was the legal standard, fairness. It's it's our law today. It's what we expect, fairness and reciprocity. But Jesus expressly, specifically rejects that ethic, this ethic of fairness right here in 10 consecutive verses in the Sermon on the Mount. Fairness is not the Christian standard. It's not the standard to which any of us is called.
You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. You have heard that it was said be fair. But I say to you be generous. Do y'all hear that? Last week as we introduced the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, we said that this collection of sayings in the sermon on the mount were like the basic building blocks of the faith, the the basic building blocks of discipleship. Clarence Jordan says that these things, all of these sayings recounted in the Sermon on the Mount, that these are things the disciples would have been drilled in. The things they would have heard from Jesus over and over again. The things that they would have been able to repeat back to him in their sleep. These are the ABCs and the 1, 2, threes and the do, re, me's of the faith. The basic building blocks.
And we said last week that you can come up with all kinds of ideas and theories about how language works or about how math works or about how music works, but if you don't know the a b c's and the 1 2 threes and the do re me's, then whatever ideas you come up with are unlikely to be correct if you don't have the basic building blocks right first. And we said it's the same with the Sermon on the Mount because these are the a b c's of our faith. So if you start with an ethic of fairness as a foundational principle rather than with an ethic of generosity, you can come up with all kinds of ideas about how a Christian is supposed to live but you're unlikely to be right.
You have heard it said of old, be fair, but I say to you, be generous. If we're building our lives and our families and our friendships around an ethic of fairness and not a standard of generosity, it's as if we have completely failed to learn our a b c's. And if we're aiming to build our world around a standard of fairness rather than a standard of generosity, then what we're building is not the coming kingdom of God. Eugene Peterson translates today's scripture by having Jesus say, grow up your kingdom subjects now. Start living like it. Anyone who's ever tried to evenly divide a treat among siblings knows what Peterson means when he associates fairness with childishness.
What's the complaint when I try to divide 1 cookie 3 ways among my children? He got more than me. That's not fair. Right? Every time. She got 2 balloons and I only got 1. That's not fair. He got to play longer. She got a bigger piece. He got to choose what we watched on television last time. That's not fair. And that perceived injustice even in the mind of my young 3 year old is remembered and carried forward into the next transaction and interaction, isn't it? She doesn't forget who got more last time. And it's not just children who do that, we all remember what happened last time. Don't we?
And soon we start to keep very detailed scorecards with remembrances of past wrongs thinking that one day we'll get even. Getting even. Do you hear that? That's the language and vocabulary of fairness, even. That's how wars start. So Jesus says stop asking what's fair and start asking this question instead, what's the most generous thing I can responsibly do in this situation? What's the most generous thing I can responsibly do? What's the most generous thing I can responsibly say? What's the most generous way I can possibly respond? So many of us want so badly to be treated fairly. We want our work to be rewarded. We want our families to be respected and we don't want our work or our conscientiousness or our responsibility or our integrity to somehow be devalued because others end up receiving what they have not earned.
Whether it's money or respect or an equal place in society, we point and say that's not fair. We hold on to perceived injustices and personal slights in ways that just eat away at our insides and we cry out all we want is fairness. But guess what's fair? In Romans, Paul writes this, the wages of sin is death. That's what's fair. In Ephesians, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. That's fair. Are you sure you want fairness to be your standard? From Ephesians chapter 2. But because of God's great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead.
It is by grace you have been saved. That isn't fair. That's way better than fair. That's generous, and so should we be. Be generous with your possessions and your relationships. Be generous materially. Be generous in spirit. Be generous with your forgiveness. Be generous. Don Sewell is a retired baptist missionary and health care administrator from Texas. He was honored near the end of his career for his effectiveness in sending surplus medical supplies from the Baptist hospital system in Texas. He was an administrator there. He took all of their surplus medical supplies, supplies that would otherwise just be thrown away at the end of the day and set them aside and and sent them all over the world to people in need. At the end of his career, he was awarded rewarded for his efforts. I was I was lucky enough to be present at an event where he received an award for all that he'd done.
In accepting his award, he he told this story to illustrate what motivated his work. He said one morning when his son was about 5 years old, the family was sitting together at the breakfast table. He was getting ready to go to work. His son was getting ready to go to school. The newspaper was sitting spread out between them on the kitchen table as they each ate their bowls of cereal. His son took the newspaper and started looking at it, just looking at the pictures spread out across the front page, but he couldn't read the words.
So after a while of looking at the pictures he turned to his dad and asked, daddy what does it say? So Don looked at the paper and said, well, this story is about a car wreck that happened across town yesterday. It looks like a few people were killed and their families are hurting. He looked at another headline. This one is about the war. We have troops in the Middle East and people are dying there. This one's about city hall that looks like someone's embezzled money from something somewhere. Don says it was just all bad news. Don said, I looked at my son and said, that's that's just kind of the way the world is. There's a lot of hurt out there.
And Don said, my 5 year old son looked at me with a look of wide eyed astonishment and said, well, daddy, what are you gonna do about it? Oh, for the childlike innocence to believe that we could walk out our front doors every morning and make a difference in the world. Well let me let you in on a secret, we can. Be generous as God has been generous to you. Be merciful as God is merciful to you. Compassionate as God is compassionate. Rich in love and forgiving and gracious as God has been all of those things to you. It's easy to spend our whole lives counting our pots of honey as we shake our heads at all that we discover is wrong with the world.
Easy until we are interrupted by the question, well, what are you going to do about it? Jesus never said be comfortable and he never said be fair. Be generous. Heavenly father, we send many out to serve. Wherever they go, whatever they do, may their service be imbued with your generosity. Take their hands and let them move at your impulse and with your love. As we send them out with our blessing, we ask that they and that we, be encouraged and emboldened to be faithful representatives not only of this church but also of you and of our lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
