The Generosity of God

Some people are miserly. Every pound’s a prisoner. They are as tight as two coats of paint. John Paul Getty Sr. a billionaire American industrialist, was one such man. At one time he was the world’s richest man. He didn’t mind spending millions building an art museum, and calling it by his name, and filling its walls with the most expensive art he scoured the earth to find, although he never once visited it himself.

John Paul Getty Sr. was so miserable that he once fired a long-standing employee for buying a pencil sharpener. When his grandson was kidnapped in Rome in July 1973 for a $17 million ransom he refused to help his son, John Paul 11 pay the ransom. In November that same year the kidnappers sent his grandson’s ear in a box to a newspaper demanding a reduced ransom of $3.2 million. He still refused payment until they threatened to send another ear. When they reduced the ransom to $3millon he gave $2.2millon and loaned John Paul 11 the other $800,000 at 4% interest. When the grandson was released he phoned him but the grandfather refused to speak to him. The grandson, John Paul Getty 111, never got over that and died 30 years later of a stroke after a binge on alcohol and drugs. 

Today I want us to consider the generosity, the liberality of God. The God that we serve is not niggardly or austere. He’s not some greedy, grasping, God who is reluctant to give. Our God is a generous, benevolent God. He’s not greedy but gracious. Not mean but merciful. He is what Paul said: Rom. 8:32 “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” See here the measure of God’s generosity.

The height of it. It reached up to heaven above – He that spared not His own Son. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son… He gave His most precious treasure – His own Son.

The depth of it. It reached all the way to earth below - but delivered Him up for us all. Just imagine, the creator on a cross.  (Phil.2:5-8, Rom. 8:3, 11Cor. 5:21, Isaiah 53) The length of it. “…That whosoever believes in Him should have everlasting life.” everlasting/eternal life. We may say everlasting speaks of the ‘quantity’ of life – eternal speaks of the ‘quality’ of life. 

The breadth of it. …delivered Him up for us all… For God so loved the world that whosoever (John 3:16, Rev.5:8-10, 7:9-10) Ephesians 3:20 “Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…”

These are the superlatives of God. Ask All that we ask Above all that we ask Abundantly above all that we ask Exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask  Exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or even think.

- Pastor David Goudy