What would it take for you to risk your comfort, to part with your money, your time, your safety, not for your kids or your closest friends, but for people you’ve never even met? Would you do it for people who don’t look like you, don’t vote like you, maybe don’t even like you personally? Most of us would admit that level of generosity is unnatural. What’s natural is generosity for those we already know & love, those who are like us, who can be generous to us back. But here’s the problem: if that defines our generosity, then that’s no different than the kind of generosity in the world. If that’s what we are, that’s not the kind of generosity Jesus commands His church to have, the kind that points to Him. That’s why we need to hear what God has for us today in His word Because surprising generosity is part of our reasonable, rational, logical worship in response to the sovereign grace and mercy of God from chapter’s 1-11 in Romans. The Gospel calls us to the kind of generosity that makes no sense apart from Jesus. The kind that crosses barriers. The kind that crushes division. A generosity that surprises the world around us. That’s the point in Romans 15. How God’s sovereign grace should create a family so surprisingly generous, the world is forced to notice.
