Week 5: Giving

22/09/2024

Listen "Week 5: Giving"

Episode Synopsis


The Four Great Questions:
What is Reality?
Who is well-off? (What is Blessedness? The Good Life?)
Who is a really good person?
How does one become a really good person?

Matthew 6:1-4
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others.Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

The main point of at least the first half of Matthew 6 is to be real and genuine with God.
6:1-4 - When you give to the needy, give out of love to God.
6:5-15 - When you pray with others, pray out of love to God.
6:16-18 - When you fast, fast out of love to God.

Proverbs 14:31 (AMP)
He who oppresses the poor taunts and insults his Maker, but he who is kind and merciful and gracious to the needy honors Him.

Beware of the respectability or comparison trap.

If you use social media, don’t let it use you.

Who is needy? What does it mean to be needy?

Similar question: What are our greatest needs?

How is God calling you to help those in need?

As a church, we give obediently and strategically.

Acts 20:35.
Jesus said it is more blessed to give them to receive.

John 3:16-17
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

More episodes of the podcast Union Chapel Sermon Library