A Generous Heart

Introduction

Most of us at one time or another are familiar with debt. We borrow money in order to make purchases. Maybe it is a house or a car or to go to school. Sometimes we get too far into debt and we wonder how we are going to make it. Some of the more difficult lessons to learn in life is how to avoid debt when possible and how to live on less than you make. To paraphrase the apostle Paul “I know what it is to be in debt and to be debt free.” I’ll take the latter.

Perhaps you know, too, the experience of paying off debt. Making the final car note payment or paying off your house. There is something freeing about not being in debt. It isn’t merely that you get a pay raise when a debt is paid off, but you also no longer have a bank or someone insisting that you work for them. In essence, that is what debt is about. A bank loans you money for a car. The car may be in your possession but the bank owns a portion of your time and effort. Every month the bank reminds you that they are letting you borrow something from them and that they expect payment for the privilege of driving their car. It’s the bank’s car until you pay for it. You may think that this is too dim a view of the relationship between the lender and you. I suggest that you skip a couple of payments and find out how much the bank really values you.

The truth is they will go to great lengths to make contact with you more often just to show you how much they are thinking about you. They may send you letters telling you that they think about you often. They may even in some circumstances hire other people to call you to remind you that they are thinking about you and the car they are letting you borrow. In fact, they will let you know that they think a lot about the car. So much so that they will come and retrieve it so that you can concentrate more efficiently and effectively on your relationship with them. See how valued you are.

God’s plan for Israel is unfolding. As Israel is getting ready to occupy the land, God has some special instructions for them. These instructions are about a variety of issues. In our text today, God is going to instruct his people about how to deal with debt. These instructions are not for us. That is, the instructions are meant for God’s people Israel and how they were to conduct business. We will look at those instructions but it is the principles behind those instructions that matter to us. That is what we will focus on. Let’s open our hearts as we come into God’s presence.

Indentured Servants

God’s promised that the land he was going to give them was sufficient to take care of everyone. There would be plenty for all. But there are times when events turn and there is need. The provider dies and his wife and children are without resources. A person makes poor decisions and they lose everything. But the text does not speak to reasons why the poor may be present but rather what Israel’s response to the poor was to be. In 15:11, God says that there will always be poor among them. The land would be sufficient to provide but circumstances would occur that would leave people in need. And when that time came, people may have to take out loans for other individuals. There were no banks.

When that happened God has special provisions for such situations. First, the loan was to be repaid. Getting the loan did not mean that it was a gift. It was a loan. Second, the loan was to be forgiven after six years. At that point, the remaining debt was to be forgiven. The person who had borrowed the money was released from repayment. Third, the same law was in effect if a person became an indentured servant rather than borrowing the money. In other words, there might be situations in which a person sold himself to another in order for he and his family to survive. For instance, a woman whose husband died may become an indentured servant to a family in order to make sure that she and her children were provided for. Again, after six years, the person was to be released. The debt was not merely forgiven but the person was released to freedom. No longer an indentured servant, the person was now free to continue life. The “owner” also was commanded to provide for the person being released so that they could have a new beginning.

But there was also one more situation that might arise. It was entirely possible that the indentured servant and the family that person served might have become more than merely a debt arrangement. It was possible that the servant loved the family and wanted to stay. In such cases, the servant would exchange the promise of independence in order to be completely connected to this family forever. Then the servant was taken to the doorframe of the master’s house and an awl was pushed through that person’s ear lobe. It was a sign that this person now belonged to the family. The person would continue to serve the family but now they were also part of the family. It is from this image that we get our song “Pierce My Ear.”

Application

The principles connected to this text are our focus. First, look at verses 7–11. The first principle involves our heart. Israel’s heart was to be a generous one. You see a need and you fill it. Notice this isn’t a gift but a loan. Nothing wrong with gifts. But the point was that people didn’t take the money without understanding that it was to be paid back. But the emphasis is on the heart of the one giving the loan. We are to be generous. We are to be open hearted and open handed. But we also give recognizing that the loan will be forgiven at some point. In other words, God’s idea was that there were to be no long term loans nor was money to be taken that couldn’t be repaid over a period of time. Both the lender and the borrower understood that the financial arrangement was to reveal the lender’s generosity and it also revealed the borrower’s desire not to be in debt.

Lesson One: To give or loan to another must be done with a generous heart. We are not about giving or loaning because of what we will get in return. Instead we give because of God’s blessing to us. If we have the evil thought about what we will lose or not get in return then there is a problem with our heart. We give because this reveals the heart of God. This is the emphasis of this text. We share because we have been blessed to share. Verse 11 reminds us that we will always have opportunities to reveal generosity. There are times that we need to grow in this spirit, but God does not take away the opportunity from us. There will always be opportunities to be generous. God’s desire is that we develop a giving and generous heart.

Lesson Two: The vision of this congregation includes being able to engage those who are in need. We who have generous hearts and a desire to give want to engage those who are in need and to reveal the heart of God. Our work at Bella Vista provides such an opportunity. We give because God has given to us.

To have a debt forgiven or resolved brings great freedom. I have had the experience of debt forgiveness more than once in my life. It is an indescribable relief to have the debt forgiven. The same thing can be said about our spiritual debt. When I look at verses 16 and 17, there is an image of that event that comes to mind. An event that was tinged with pain as the awl went through the ear lobe but yet an event that was also mingled with the joy of knowing that this person now had a family. The exchange of independence for the freedom of knowing that provision would now exist for life was a worthy exchange. In spiritual terms Paul puts it this way in Romans 6. In our baptism we exchange the slavery to sin for becoming a slave to God. We move from the sphere of sin into the sphere of righteousness. In other words, death no longer has the last word but now we have a new life and an eternal one with God. Would you become a Christian today? Invitation.

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