Sermon
Peace – Overcoming Anxiety
By Tim Keller
Sermon
The Power of Generosity
Tim Keller | December 13, 2015
Overview
Why is it that we celebrate Christmas with gift giving? We don’t do that at Easter. We don’t do that at Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. At anniversaries and birthdays, we give one person gifts, but at Christmas everybody gives everybody gifts. Why? I’m not actually looking for a literal answer. I’m asking as a rhetorical question, “Why is it that everybody gives gifts to everybody else at Christmas?”
I’m here to say it’s profoundly appropriate, because it gets at the theological heart of Christmas: that Jesus Christ is the only human being who wasn’t just born but was given.
Everyone who knows something about the Bible will say that 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is the longest, most involved, and explicit passage in all of the Bible on the subject of generosity. We’re being told 1) there’s a problem with regard to giving and generosity, 2) what will happen if we don’t solve that problem, and 3) how we can solve it.
Related
This Month's Featured Book
What Is Wrong with the World?
Deep down we all know something isn’t right with the world when we see the violence and injustice all around us. Like anything that needs to be fixed, the problem must first be identified. That problem is clearly identified in the Bible: it’s sin. And the remedy is just as clear: Jesus Christ.
