It was January 2009 that a handful of us became convinced that God was calling us to start a church in downtown San Francisco. The thought of it both thrilled us and scared us to death. It was going to be such a drastic shift from where we had been aiming our lives. Not only would we be moving to this city. With God’s help, we were going to attempt to bring a church into existence. One thing became clear to me in that season:

When you aim your life at a massive target, it’s going to take significant resources to hit it.

Aware of this, I started pitching the vision for what would become Epic Church to anyone who would listen. I traveled all over the nation to meet with church leaders, in the hopes that they would want to partner with us in starting this church. I sent out information to hundreds of people to ask them to invest in this vision. And around 20 churches and hundreds of individuals committed over $1 million to help Epic Church get off the ground. And to this day, I am so thankful for them. Otherwise, none of this would exist.

We held our first preview service on October 10, 2010, at the W Hotel. In that first service, we announced that we were going to give the entire offering to Bessie Carmichael, an under resourced school right here in SoMa. The offering that day was $1,100 and every bit of it went to Bessie Carmichael – a partner we still have to this day. Not long after that, I received a message from one of our supporters. He said he would have to rethink whether or not he should continue giving to Epic, if we were going to be giving money away to others. I get it. In some ways, it made no sense to give to mission causes, since we were the mission. But let me tell you why I’m so happy we did that back then:

Making yourself the bullseye of your life is way too small of a target.

From the very beginning, we wanted to put overflowing generosity into the DNA of Epic Church. And when I think about how we’ve given over $3 million away since that day, I believe it has so much to do with us deciding to be generous even before we knew if this church would make it long-term. And I want to encourage you to bake generosity into whatever you’re aiming at with your life.

This is what I want to encourage you towards in a message I’m calling “Generative Generosity”. This word generative has become prominent in recent time. We hear it often as an adjective before AI. Generative AI is able to create new content and ideas, including conversations, stories, images, videos, and music. So what exactly does the word generative mean?

generative – having the power or function of generating, originating, producing, or reproducing

When God created the world, this was a generative act. And God creates the first human beings and he showers them with generous gifts. They can eat from almost any tree in the garden. He generously gives them His presence. He generously gives them their vocation or assignments. But He doesn’t intend for His generosity to them to end with them. He tells them to “be fruitful and multiply.” And sure, this is about procreation and reproducing children, but being fruitful and multiplying implies way more than having children.

This multiplication principle is all throughout Scripture. In the parable of the sower, Jesus says that if God’s word falls on good soil – it will produce a crop that is 30x/60x/100x what was sown. When Jesus begins to make arrangements to feed 5,000 people, he initially has only 5 loaves and 2 fish. Yet somehow, he multiplies this so that every person has plenty to eat and there are 12 baskets of leftovers.

It is possible that scarcity is keeping us from participating in God’s multiplying mission in the world.

If you view generosity as mostly subtracting something from you, you will tightly grip what you have and you’ll actually think you’re on the path to freedom. But you will have missed out on knowing God as He truly is and you will live with such a small aim in life.

Jesus hits on this point in The Parable of the Talents. A talent was a large sum of money, multiple years worth of wages. He said that a master had 3 servants and he gave different amounts of talents to them. To one he gave 5, another 2, and the last 1. The first two multiplied their investment. The last one hid his and ended up losing it. Math just works different in God’s economy.

Proverbs 11:24-25 One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

“They multiply in the giving. There is enough for everyone. What we hold on to always diminishes. What we give away always multiplies. It is the great illogic. The poor will possess the land. Those who give away what they have will see it multiply. Those who hold on to it in fear will see it dwindle right in front of them.” -Henri Nouwen, Following Jesus

For our main text, we’re in 2 Corinthians 9:6-8. Paul’s going to teach us about the principle of generative giving.

2 Corinthians 9:6-8 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

A farmer knows that you don’t sow sparingly because of what you might lose; you sow generously so that you might gain a maximum harvest. And from that harvest will come more seed for the next season. And Paul is telling us that it works the same in the kingdom of God. Now we don’t live in an agricultural society. But we see this sowing and reaping principle all around us. Think about how venture capital works. Investors put money into new companies (seed) in hopes that those companies will bring a massive ROI (harvest). Whether you’re a farmer or a venture capitalist, you cannot sow sparingly and reap generously.

Each of you should give what you have decided to give. Some of us hate making decisions. What we love is keeping our options open, in case something better comes along. For many of us, we feel good about our lives because of our good intentions. We intend to lose weight one day, so we’re fine going overboard with what we eat today. We intend to be present parents in our kids’ lives one day, so that removes our guilt that we’ve been away from them too long in this season. And because we intend to be generous one day, we somehow think that makes us generous today.

It’s time to move from making good intentions about our generosity habits to making determined decisions about our generosity habits.

Going into every year, Shauna and I pre-decide what % we will give for the coming year. If we waited to see what expenses would come up, we would be allowing our circumstances to determine our generosity rather than aiming our lives at what God has called us to. Some people feel like they don’t make enough money to give generously. Others feel like they make too much to give generously. If we’re looking for a way out of generosity, we’ll always find one. But if we’re looking for a way into generosity, we’ll always find one. And a pre-decision that is % based ensures we make good on our intention to be generous.

Wherever you are on your generosity journey, start there. But make a decision about what step you’re going to take. 4 decisions each of us might consider making today:

From Nothing to Something

From Something to Significant (Consistent %)

From Significant to Tithing (10%)

From Tithing to Over and Above Giving (More Than 10%)

When we understand the heart of God, generosity will move from a “have to” to a “get to”.

Don’t give reluctantly or under compulsion. God loves a cheerful giver because God is a cheerful giver. And then look at verse 8. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Do you recognize God as the giver of the abundant blessings in your life? I imagine many of us see God as the Provider of so much abundance in our lives. I would say the same. But then we can find ourselves asking questions like this: If I give what I have received, what if I don’t have enough in the future? Do we think that the God who gave to us originally is no longer a Giver? He will continue to bless and provide everything you need so that you can aim your life towards the target He’s called you to it.

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Generosity is generative. It’s a multiplier. It creates a future of abundance for so many. This is how God’s economy works. Let’s think for a moment about what’s possible in and through this Epic Church community.

I’m guessing our collective net worth as a church is in the multiple billions. Consider that for a moment. What could we accelerate in the kingdom of God – in this church, this city, and our world if we become the kind of people who decide to sow generously? Our aim is to bring glory to God and good to so many people. And imagine what our generosity could generate for generations to come.

Receive the generosity of Jesus.

Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to an abundance mindset.

Make a decision that goes further than simply having a good intention.