Generosity and Relationships

As soon you hear the word generosity, you say, “Oh, a series on money.” No, not necessarily. It is possible to be technically generous with your money and not at all generous in your spirit or in your heart. There are plenty of people who are actually quite generous with their money, generous with their time. They volunteer their time. They help. They’re charitable, yet they’re not relationally generous at all.

There’s a specific form of relational generosity we want to talk about because it’s something that must characterize all Christian believers. And that is forgiveness. Forgiveness? Yes, because there are people out there who relationally owe you. They owe you because of how they’ve treated you. They owe you.

Matthew 18 and Luke 17 are parallel passages in many ways, and they are masterful passages that talk a lot about what it means to forgive. Let’s notice what it teaches us here about the enormity of forgiveness and then the practice of it (exactly how you do it), and then the key to forgiveness (the only way you will actually ever do it). There’s the enormity of it, the practice of it, and the key to it.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 7, 2012. Series "Generosity: Studies from the Gospel of Luke". Scripture: Luke 17:3-10.

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