In a world devastated by famine the Widow of Zarephath shows us what it means to be in the care of a God of abundance.

Prompts

A World of Scarcity
Where does your life feel like it’s lived in a world of scarcity? Where do you feel stretched thin—stressed, afraid, or at the edge of what you can give?

A God of Generosity
How does it strike you that God doesn’t just deal with scarcity from a distance but actually inhabits it? In what ways might this challenge your assumptions about what God asks or desires from you?

A Life of Feasting
God doesn’t promise to solve every problem right now, but God does promise to be with us in them—inviting us to live from that place of “with-ness.” How might God’s presence reframe how you see God’s provision and your own scarcity?

Practices:

Living into Generosity

Consider the places where you feel most stressed, overwhelmed, or stretched thin. What might it look like to live into God’s vision of abundance in that very place?

This week is there something small worth sharing—an hour, a meal, a kind word, a resource—with someone else you might otherwise want to hold on to? Rather than tending to your scarcity, consider a small way you can give in an act of entrusting yourself to the God of abundance who is with you.

Generosity:

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Eve is best known as the Bible's Original Sinner—but she is also and more importantly the Bible's Original Believer. In the face of loss and hardship, she continues to recognize and testify to God's goodness and God's help. She names her son Cain, saying, "I have produced a man with the help of the Lord" (Gen 4:1).

Generosity:

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The little-known story of Zelophehad's daughters reveals a God who hears and responds to the vulnerable and overlooked.

Journaling Prompts

A God who sees, hears, and reconciles. How does this story invite you to believe that God sees and hears you—and is including you in the reconciliation of all things?

Justice as relational wholeness. How does this shape your understanding of salvation and what God is up to in the world?

Joining God’s work. What would it look like to join God in what God is doing, given his heart for the marginalized and vulnerable?

Practice

Extending the Table

Take a moment to consider who around you might feel like they are on the outside—overlooked, unseen, or unheard. Extend hospitality to them by sending a text, grabbing a coffee, or sharing a meal. Do this not as an act of charity, but as an act of communion—extending the embrace of the God who sees and hears them.

Generosity

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It can feel as if nothing can stand in the way of tyrants and empires. Yet Shiphrah and Puah remind us that God sees the oppression, sees us, and invites us to join the emancipating God—even in small acts of resistance.

Journaling Prompts

Where and how do you see “empire” at work today? Where do you believe God is most present in what you’ve named?

What are the “little bits of good where you are”? How can you show up there as one shaped by the reign of Christ?

Shiphrah and Puah’s resistance was a tremendous act of justice, yet it did not stop the empire’s plans. How does that tension sit with you? How do the larger stories of the Exodus and Jesus help you place this tension in context and speak to your present experience?

Do you struggle to believe that Jesus reigns over all powers, authorities, rulers, and empires? In what ways do you embody this—and fail to embody this—in your daily life?

Practice

Listen

Sit with the claim that Jesus reigns over all powers, authorities, rulers, and empires. Ask Christ to open your eyes and heart to the spaces and opportunities for Christ-like resistance—however seemingly small or significant—in your life right now. Write down what comes to mind, then end with a few moments of prayer

Generosity

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We like to think life with God is neat and quiet. But Tamar shows us otherwise. She refuses to stay in her place or accept her lot—and in the drama, the scandal, and the silence, God is with her, bringing about a story more redemptive than she could have imagined.

Journaling Prompts

What did it feel like to see a woman like Tamar featured in God’s story of cosmic redemption?
What assumptions or biases did this challenge in you?

How does the injustice in Tamar’s story—and God’s blessing of her—speak to the responsibility of the community?
What might this reveal about God’s heart for the poor, oppressed, and marginalized?
Who might be a modern-day equivalent, and how are you being called to care for or include them?

Is there a part of your story that feels “too messy” for God to work with?
How does Tamar’s story invite you to believe God might be at work—even there?
What doubts or fears come up when you consider that possibility?

Who have you believed God couldn’t be working in or through?
What would it mean to expand your sense of God’s mercy and presence to include them?
What hesitations or boundaries do you feel around that?

Practice

Respond.

Take a few moments to name the places in your life that feel especially “messy”—complicated, painful, or unresolved. Ask yourself: Do I believe God could meet me here? What emotions or resistance rise up?

Then, spend a few minutes in silence, resting in the presence of the God who sees you, stays with you, and does not turn away from the mess.

Generosity

https://www.redemptionhou.com/give

Money can be all consuming, a never ending cycle of desire. But Jesus invites us into a way of living free from greed, reflecting God’s divine philanthropy as the church.

Journaling Prompts:

“The alternative to the world of greed is a people capable of participating through worship in the love of the Father for the Son through the Spirit.” - Stanley Hauerwas

Reflect honestly on your relationship with money - do you feel like you never have enough? Do you save to avoid being without? Do you spend out of enjoyment? Be honest and vulnerable before God. He can handle it and loves you through it.

In God’s upside down kingdom, where we share out God’s goodness in giving us what we need - Where do you see opportunities?

Practice:

Gather together and share where God is working, ask the tough questions, listen and pray with one another. We are not meant to do this journey alone.

Generosity:

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A Jesus centered life moves our concern from possessions to people.

Journaling Prompts

Moralism and community

How do you see the idea of putting ourselves at the center of things giving way to moralism at play in your lived experience? What might this look like in a religious context?

Transactional or loving community?

In what ways are you tempted to approach church as a transactional community versus one of love? How might this be an extension of how you think about God?

A Jesus Centered People.

What does a Jesus life look like for you right now? What might further direct your imagination towards that reality in this moment of your life?

Practice

Gather.

Take some time this week to gather with the church over a common table to enjoy one another, share life, and share a meal.

Gather some old friends or make some new ones and share a meal together.

Generosity

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Jesus invites us to reimagine our relationship to money and how we spend our lives.

Journaling Prompts

“You cannot serve God and money.”

What is your reaction to Jesus’ words? What might be the reason for this reaction to Jesus’ teaching here?

How do you view your work?What would it mean for you to consider your work as an avenue of serving God verses making money?

God abundantly and generously gives us all we need and more—even God’s very self.What might living as if this were true cost you? What would you possibly gain? What might be holding you back from letting go and inhabiting this reality? Explore what might be at the heart of this.

Practice

Prayer.

Explore the roots of your resistance to letting go, is it security, status, coping, something else? Bring this part of yourself to God in prayer. Be real, be raw, be vulnerable. God can handle the real you, that’s the you God loves.

Meaningful Conversation.

This week or next gather with one or two others to sit down and openly share your resistance, questions, desires, and whatever else might have come up for you in reflecting on Jesus teaching.

Consider other practices of gathering, generosity, or thanksgiving which may help you cultivate a Jesus centered life.

Generosity

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Resources:

Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire, William Cavanaugh

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Beyond the Limits, Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jørgen Randers

Fully Alive, Elizabeth Oldfield

“It’s Just a Water Bottle,” Amanda Mull in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/01/stanley‑cups‑valentines‑day‑target‑starbucks/677190/

“The Transhumanist Question,” Miraslov Volf in Christianity Today: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/07/transhumanism-faith-miroslav-volf/

In John 10, Jesus reveals that he will sacrifice his body for the sake of his sheep. Let's spend this morning marveling at simplicity. We get to be God's sheep because we have a good shepherd.

Generosity:

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This sermon explores four stories in Acts to demonstrate that Jesus Christ is the active and living Lord of the Church. He is the one leading the mission. His challenge and summons to the Church is: Catch up with what I am already doing.

Eunuch Acts 8:26-38

Paul Acts 9:1-16, 26-27

Peter Acts 10:9-20, 27-35, 44-45; 11:1-4, 17-18

Antioch Acts 11:26; 15:1-19

Generosity:

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