On Purpose: From Generosity to Giving - Part 1 Romans 11:35-36

1. EBCLA matters because we are
committed to getting God, the gospel, and
being Christ’s presence on Earth
right-er.

2. God gives first.

3. “I WANT MY
FOOD NOW!!!”
Doesn’t know that most of what
his parents do for him springs
from their GENEROSITY.
They don’t strictly owe it to him.

4. But even parents
make the same
mistake.
Everything—even that, at times,
demanding child—is from God.
Created for them by God.
Everything is a GIFT.
From God.

5. ROM 1135
“Who has ever
given to God,
that God should
repay them?”

6. No one.

7. If all things come from God, then nobody can
give anything to God in a way that obligates God
to give in return.
Whatever we give to God,
God gave it to us first.

8. Text
In many ancient religions, gods would
die without followers’ sacrifices.
To get what they needed, gods would
give what humans desired.

9. “
–Miroslave Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, (33)
Not so with the one God, according to Paul. No sacrifice
can extract anything from God, because everything given in
sacrifice came from God in the first place. To give to God is
to take from God’s right hand and put that very thing back
into God’s left hand.”

10. Wait. I’ve worked very
hard. I’ve received a
great deal, but I’ve
achieved something
too! Can’t I give to God
from what I myself
have attained?

11. Genesis 2“…When the Lord God made the earth and the
heavens…no plant of the field was yet in the earth and
no herb of the field had yet sprung up.”
“…for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth.”
“…and there was no one to till the ground.”
Human beings do contribute with God in the work of creation.

12. Genesis 2“…Then the Lord God formed man from the dust
of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and the man became a living being.”

13. “
–Miroslave Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, (34)
We work, we create, we give, but the very ability
and willingness to work, along with life itself, are
gifts from God.”

14. Many gifts, like breath, must be given over and over
for us even to exist, let alone accomplish anything.

15. 1COR47 What do you have that you did not receive? And if
you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

16. God gives first.