Apostles Church

The first Christians were a compelling people who shaped cities, carved out culture, and impacted the Roman Empire. Compelling people are rarely people who live in conformity to the dominant culture. They are people who resist the dominant characteristics of their culture and live in stark contrast to it. Their lives are shocking and provocative because they are so counter to the main culture’s pattern of living. As we look at our city and culture we are clearly in a culture with an economy of excess –US Consumer debt rose in March of this year to 2.56 trillion. What this debt reveals and exposes about us is our self-absorption and commitment to improve our personal circumstances, comforts, and conveniences even if we do not have the means to do so. We are seeing signs and hearing rumblings that our culture is actually growing weary of this monoculture of luxury. We say this consumerism is rooted in self-absorption because this excess is always to the neglect of our neighbor’s needs. This economy of excess rooted in self absorption was tenaciously resisted by the earliest Christians.  Acts 4:32-37. They were  liquidating and sharing, instead of acquiring and consuming. They had a vision of the Kingdom where there would be no lack and it was coming into focus in their present. At Apostles we are seeking to become a community of compelling generosity. Compelling people just don’t sporadically exercise generosity, they steadily embody generosity. It is the pattern of their lives. They have seen the pattern in Jesus (2 Corinthians 8:9). What will it take for you and I to embody generosity?

We have to get a vision for the future our generosity is creating. People who buy into the culture’s self-absorbed economy of excess have a grand vision of the future they are creating for themselves. (Their retirement homes, exotic vacations, toys, etc.) But, Jesus calls us to abandon that radically individualistic vision of a prosperous personal future and like Jesus who took on flesh and became one of us, embrace a solidarity with the human community that envisions a better future for the world that more closely resembles the coming Kingdom. In the coming Kingdom there is no lack and no suffering. So we look at the brokenness of the world and say "that looks nothing like God’s staggering vision for the future, nothing like what this world is destined for and I have to do something about it. I have to bring my resources to bear upon this world and help create a better future that looks more like the Kingdom that God is bringing." Compelling people have a vision for the kind of future their generosity can create. My 13 year old friend Aiden, envisions a better future for the peole of Ghana, so he is helping to fund the digging of a well there. What future will your generosity create in this city and in this world? Maybe it will mean that you sponsor a child through Dalit Freedom Network, Compassion, or World Vision; Give to Hope for New York. It will certainly mean giving to your local Church to support its ministry here in the city.
 
Compelling Generosity requires simplicity. Simplicity is eliminating the things that stand in the way of the future your generosity could create. You can’t see it as going without – it is not negating; it is creating. Simplicity is cultivating a modest lifestyle – renouncing soft-living and self-absorption, and consumerism, so you have enough resources to contribute to the lives of others. Eliminating unnecessary wants so you can meet the urgent needs in your community and the world. It is amazing how easily we slip into a lifestyle that is normative for this culture of excess and fail to see that we are casually spending significant sums of money on non-essential pleasures that are luxuries in other parts of the planet while the basic needs of so many go unmet. Buying SB Coffee is a privilege of the elite in a world where 1 billion people live on less than $1/day. Constantly eating out is privilege of kings in a world where every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger (majority under 5). Dropping $12 on a movie seems audacious when $10 could treat 30 kids for malaria. I share that not to guilt us or shame us, but to create awareness and cause us to pause. Coffee, food, movies are all gifts from God to be enjoyed, in moderation. But when we are more generous to ourselves than we are to God and to those who suffer, we have to stop and remind ourselves of the future God is calling us to create with Him and then trim off the fat from our lifestyles that prevent that future. Simplicity is not just being disciplined – that only leads to legalism. Simplicity is not negating for the sake of negating – it is eliminating the excessive embrace of the unnecessary that stand in the way of  future shaping generosity. How will you partner with God?

This means you are going to have to accept that you will never reach your financial potential. You will never have things as nice as you could. You will look radically modest in your lifestyle compared to the people who make the same or even less than you. Your vacations might not be as exotic or consistent. Your clothes might not be designer labels. Your wine from Trader Joes. Application: Go home and ask God where have I been excessive and where do you want me to redirect those resources to help create a better future that looks more like the one the Kingdom will fully bring.