{This is the fifth and last in a series of sermons focusing on the ‘Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations’ by Robert Schnase . The focus this week is Extravagant Generosity}

This morning, we come to the seventh and last Sunday in the Easter cycle, the last Sunday before Pentecost when we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is also the last Sunday when we will be focusing our attention on ‘The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations’ and we do so at a time when it will perhaps help us focus our prayer time more clearly as on the work and activity of the Holy Spirit.

On Week 1, we talked about Radical Hospitality: about the need to welcome everyone with the same loving-kindness that we received from the Lord – because we have ourselves been received with that kind of love. We talked about the need to welcome those who are not like ourselves with perhaps greater kindness than we welcome those who are like we are – to take them into our circle and care for them as Jesus does.

On Week 2, we heard about Passionate Worship: about worshiping God with heart and soul and mind and strength – with the same kind of fervor that most of us will be showing later this month as we watch graduations and fishing tournaments. We practiced singing LOUD and STRONG! With feeling and passion. After all, I doubt that very many of us will be sitting in our chairs at home this afternoon yawning or looking at our watches wondering when the big game will end. And I doubt that we will lift limp hands with every home run or three-pointer and mutter ‘Yeah, Yeah, Alright Already’.

On Week 3, we learned about the importance of Intentional Faith Development. We saw that it is not enough to attend worship on Sunday mornings and act as if God had no business in the rest of our week. We were reminded that we get to know God and we enlarge our relationship with God only as we spend time in the holy presence – both listening and talking – and waiting on the Lord and that it is important to have an intellectual knowledge as well as heart knowledge.

Last week, on Week 4, we rediscovered the importance of Risk-Taking Mission and Service – the need to give of ourselves – the need to take initiative to step out in faith to do what we know needs to be done and to do it with the heart of Christ. That mission can take many forms as the Spirit leads us – but to see a need and refrain from doing it is the same as choosing to do wrong.

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This week, the last week in our series, the topic is Extravagant Generosity. Yes, I can already see the sighs on your faces. ‘Oh no! She’s going to be talking about money!’ I can see you thinking to yourselves, ‘I came here to hear the gospel, not to be asked for money.’ John MacArthur, Jr. made a study of the discussions of money in scripture and discovered these interesting statistics: ‘Sixteen of the thirty-eight parables of Jesus deal with money. One out of ten verses in the New Testament deals with that subject. Scripture offers about five hundred verses on prayer, fewer than five hundred on faith, and over two thousand on money. The believer's attitude toward money and possessions is determinative.’ Our views on money – the choices we make and the actions we take with it - say more about us that all our pretty words or feigned sentiments. When we choose to honor God with our money we are saying in a very real way that God is the Lord, the center of our lives. When we honor God with our money, then the work, the time and the effort it requires to earn that money become holy time, holy work and a holy calling. We participate in the holy work of God and the distinction between the holy and the secular blurs until every part of our lives becomes part of the reign and realm of God. ----------------------------- What we have heard over the past four weeks is that to be a healthy congregation – and to be healthy Christians – means that each of us is called by God to be more than a pew-warmer, more than a sometimes if it’s convenient attendee, someone who welcomes and shows love to everyone in the name of Jesus – even if we don’t like them very much. It means someone who worships God in fullness of heart, someone who spends time with God daily not weekly, someone who is willing to stretch the envelope of their comfort zone to reach out and work for others and someone who gives of their time, talent and treasure to the work and glory of God. A fruitful congregation, filled with fruitful Christians, remembers that God is on the throne of our time, our money and even our egos – that we mean that everything we are and everything we do and everything we have – belong to God. But those five things are a lot to remember – which is why we have chosen this morning to study these words from the book of the Old Testament prophet Micah. The book of Micah is one of the twelve minor prophetic books of the Old Testament – Minor because it’s small and not because it is unimportant. Micah prophesied at the same time as the prophets Isaiah and Hosea. As Micah is preaching, the end of good times in Judah is approaching. After a generation of peace and prosperity, the people of Judah are becoming complacent. They rely on themselves instead of God. They had begun to ignore, or fall away, from God. They may have been still going to the temple on occasion, but their practices had become lax. Their prayers had become infrequent and empty. Their worship had become more form than substance. They still called themselves Jews, but they lived like pagans. Micah comes from a small city in the hills southwest of Jerusalem. He was one of the common people who saw the corruption and prideful attitudes of the big city and sew it for what it is – a falling away from God. This morning’s scripture portion from chapter 6 begins the third major section of this little book. It is in the form of a ‘covenant law suit’ where the Lord speaks as a prosecuting attorney and demands that Israel plead its case to the mountains. It is a covenant law suit because God has, through all the covenants with Israel, made certain promises to the Hebrews. God has promised faithfulness and the Hebrews have promised to worship and be faithful. In verse 3 the Lord asks what the deal is. Has God wearied them? Has God done something to them that has caused them to be unfaithful? Unfortunately, God still seems to be asking the same question. Has God done something to cause us to be unfaithful? Is there some good reason why we fail to worship God fully? In verses 4-5 the Lord reminds the people what has been done to them and for them. God brought them up from Egypt. God redeemed them from slavery. God sent people to lead them and bring them to safety. When they got to the land, God continued to lead, to guide and to care for the people. In verse 6, the tone and the speaker change. We hear the question, ‘What can we do to fix this? How much is enough to give God?’ Shall we bow down; shall we come with burnt offerings – with thousands of rams or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall we give our firstborn – will that be enough? How much is enough to repay the generosity of God? How much is enough to repay the love and blessings we have received from the hand of God? Then we come to verse 8 – the verse we have all heard – one of the most famous verses in the entire Old Testament. God has already told us what is needed from us and this verse sums up all the law and the prophets. The answer is short and sweet – easy to remember –and impossible to step around: do justice – love kindness – walk humbly with our God. Do justice – love kindness – walk humbly with our God. Do Justice: In the Old Testament, there are nine kinds of people who call out for justice: the widow, the fatherless, the orphan, the poor, the hungry, the stranger, the needy, the weak and the oppressed. The rich can afford justice – and frequently they can afford to commit injustice. The ‘nice’ people receive justice as a matter of course. But the widow, the fatherless, the orphan, the poor, the hungry, the stranger, the needy, the weak and the oppressed need our special protection and care. Do Justice – we can’t sit at home and pretend we don’t see people in need. We can’t close our eyes to their misery because we don’t know them personally. We are called by God to act to right wrongs and promote goodness. ____________________________ Love Kindness: We all think of ourselves as kind people – certainly none of us wants to think of ourselves as real stinkers. But kindness is not about what we are, kindness is something we do. Kindness means showing compassion, sympathy, gentleness, benevolence and helpfulness – and it means showing it to all those in need, not just the ones we think of as worthy or deserving. It is neighborliness to the n-th degree. When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, he showed us how to act as people who Love Kindness. As the traveler lay by the side of the road, two supposedly nice, religious people passed by and left him there. They didn’t know him. They couldn’t tell if he was ‘one of them’. They couldn’t discern if he was one of the ‘deserving poor’ and they were too busy anyway – so they went away and left him there. The Samaritan – the hated half breed who was looked down on by every Jew and who had good reason to feel justified leaving him in the ditch – was the only one who showed kindness and mercy and took care of someone who could not repay him. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. Last of all and most important of all – walk humbly with our God. To walk with God is to commit to spending time – to having relationship with the living God who redeemed us and blesses us and cares for us and loves us. To do so in humility is to come along side the Lord and go where God wants us to go –to get there at the pace God wants to make for us –to let God call the shots and make the decisions. It is to lay aside our pride, our plans and our wants because we have faith that God’s plans for us are best and God’s will for us is most important. It is to put God first in everything at every moment. It is to give over all we are, all we do and all we have to the work and will of God. What does the Lord require of you? We may have a hard time remembering the five characteristics of fruitful congregations: Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-taking Mission and Service and Extravagant Generosity. That’s a lot of words and a lot of different thoughts, but we can all remember Micah 6:8: Do Justice, Love Kindness and Walk Humbly with Our God. In God’s name so let us go and do. Amen