SERMON
Kingdom-Grown Hearts: Receiving & Responding – October 4, 2026
Pastor Paul Georgulis
Imagine being at your college graduation and before the ceremony ends, you learn that the commencement speaker is giving you and all of your classmates $1,000.
That’s exactly what happened at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2024. Businessman and philanthropist Rob Hale gave each graduate two envelopes containing $500. One was labeled GIFT. The other was labeled GIVE.
The first $500 was theirs to keep. The second was intended to be given to a person or organization in need. Hale described both envelopes as gifts. The first was his gift to the graduates and the second was what he called “the gift of giving.”
Every graduate received something that day, but part of what they received was placed into their hands specifically so that someone else could be blessed through them.
Sometimes something can be given to us without being intended to stop with us, which is an idea that goes all the way back to the beginning of the Bible.
In Genesis 12, God comes to a man named Abram and says:
“1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” – Genesis 12:1-3
There are two things worth noticing here. The first is that God is the One who initiates. God says:
Five times in three verses, God says: “I will.” This shows us that this wasn’t Abram’s mission that he invited God into. This was God’s mission—His Missio Dei—that God invited Abram into.
God is the One who calls, the One who promises, the One who provides, and the One who blesses. But most important for where we’re going this morning is why God blesses Abram.
In verse 2, God says: “I will bless you…” He could have ended the sentence right there, and it would have been a pretty good promise all by itself. But God kept going by saying: “I will bless you…and you will be a blessing.”
And in the next verse, God expands it even further: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
In other words, the blessing was coming to Abram, but it was never supposed to stop with him. Why? Because God had something much bigger in mind and He was going to form a nation from Abram’s descendants. Here we begin to see something about the Kingdom of God. The kingdoms of this world often expand by taking, but God’s Kingdom expands by giving—by extending His blessing outward to others.
But even that wasn’t the end of the promise because generations later, from Abram’s family tree, Jesus was born. And through Him, the promise God made all the way back in Genesis 12—that all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abram—would be fulfilled in a way Abram could never have imagined.
And thousands of years after God made that promise to Abram, the Apostle Paul wrote to a group of Christians living in the city of Ephesus. He wanted the Ephesian believers—and us today—to understand just how much God has already given us. Paul wrote:
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us...with every spiritual blessing in Christ... In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” — Ephesians 1:3, 7–8
Paul says God hasn’t just given us a little bit of grace. Rather, He has lavished His grace upon us. That should produce something in us, and that something is gratitude.
A Kingdom-grown heart recognizes that everything we have in Jesus is a gift. It doesn’t respond, “Of course God gave me this. I deserve it.” Instead, it asks, “How could God possibly be this good to me?”
Paul continues in verses 9 and 10, where he pulls the camera back and says God’s purpose is “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”
That’s the bigger picture. That’s the Kingdom.
God’s plan was always bigger than Abram, bigger than Israel, and it’s bigger than us. The church doesn’t exist simply for itself. We exist for the sake of the world. And that leads to the second hallmark of a Kingdom-grown heart: ownership.
Gratitude and ownership belong together. Gratitude for what God has done for us moves us to take part in what God is doing in the world. Ownership doesn’t mean that the Kingdom belongs to us. It is God’s Kingdom and God’s mission. But He invites us to take ownership of our part in it.
Paul says God has adopted us as His children. And there’s a difference between being hired to do a job and being part of the family. When you’re part of the family, you care about the things your Father cares about. His mission matters to you.
In John 20:21, Jesus says something similar to His disciples after His resurrection: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
And this is important: we don’t do any of this to earn what God has given us. We don’t work for His approval. We work from His approval. Because if I believe I have to work for God’s love, then serving God becomes an obligation. But if I understand that I am working from God’s love, serving God becomes a response. A response of gratitude.
And a response that says: “This is my Father’s mission, and I want to be part of it.”
That’s a Kingdom-grown heart—a heart that recognizes the gift it has received, responds with gratitude, and takes ownership of its part in the King’s mission.
Which brings us back to those graduates from earlier. Remember, every graduate walked away that day with two envelopes. One said GIFT. The other said GIVE. But there’s something I didn’t tell you:
Rob Hale has done this with several graduating classes, and he says one of the most meaningful parts has been hearing the stories afterward—stories of struggling organizations receiving money and families suddenly able to buy Christmas gifts for their children.
In other words, the gift kept moving. What had been placed into one person’s hands became a blessing in someone else’s. And in a much bigger way, that's the story we've traced through Scripture.
God said to Abram: “I will bless you...and you will be a blessing.”
Through Abram came Israel. Through Israel came Jesus. And through Jesus, God has blessed us beyond anything we could ever earn or deserve. We have received the gift. And the question is: Will the gift stop with us?
Or will the love we've received become love that someone else experiences through us? Will the forgiveness we've received become forgiveness we extend to someone else? Will the hope we've found in Jesus become hope we carry into a hurting world?
God is still at work. His Kingdom is still growing. And He has invited us to be part of it. So maybe the question isn't simply: “What has God given me?” Maybe it's: “What does God want to do through me with what He has given me?”
We have been blessed by the King, and now we get to join Him in His mission.
That’s exactly what happened at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2024. Businessman and philanthropist Rob Hale gave each graduate two envelopes containing $500. One was labeled GIFT. The other was labeled GIVE.
The first $500 was theirs to keep. The second was intended to be given to a person or organization in need. Hale described both envelopes as gifts. The first was his gift to the graduates and the second was what he called “the gift of giving.”
Every graduate received something that day, but part of what they received was placed into their hands specifically so that someone else could be blessed through them.
Sometimes something can be given to us without being intended to stop with us, which is an idea that goes all the way back to the beginning of the Bible.
In Genesis 12, God comes to a man named Abram and says:
“1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” – Genesis 12:1-3
There are two things worth noticing here. The first is that God is the One who initiates. God says:
- “I will show you.”
- “I will make you into a great nation.”
- “I will bless you.”
- “I will make your name great.”
- “I will bless those who bless you.”
Five times in three verses, God says: “I will.” This shows us that this wasn’t Abram’s mission that he invited God into. This was God’s mission—His Missio Dei—that God invited Abram into.
God is the One who calls, the One who promises, the One who provides, and the One who blesses. But most important for where we’re going this morning is why God blesses Abram.
In verse 2, God says: “I will bless you…” He could have ended the sentence right there, and it would have been a pretty good promise all by itself. But God kept going by saying: “I will bless you…and you will be a blessing.”
And in the next verse, God expands it even further: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
In other words, the blessing was coming to Abram, but it was never supposed to stop with him. Why? Because God had something much bigger in mind and He was going to form a nation from Abram’s descendants. Here we begin to see something about the Kingdom of God. The kingdoms of this world often expand by taking, but God’s Kingdom expands by giving—by extending His blessing outward to others.
But even that wasn’t the end of the promise because generations later, from Abram’s family tree, Jesus was born. And through Him, the promise God made all the way back in Genesis 12—that all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abram—would be fulfilled in a way Abram could never have imagined.
And thousands of years after God made that promise to Abram, the Apostle Paul wrote to a group of Christians living in the city of Ephesus. He wanted the Ephesian believers—and us today—to understand just how much God has already given us. Paul wrote:
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us...with every spiritual blessing in Christ... In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” — Ephesians 1:3, 7–8
Paul says God hasn’t just given us a little bit of grace. Rather, He has lavished His grace upon us. That should produce something in us, and that something is gratitude.
A Kingdom-grown heart recognizes that everything we have in Jesus is a gift. It doesn’t respond, “Of course God gave me this. I deserve it.” Instead, it asks, “How could God possibly be this good to me?”
Paul continues in verses 9 and 10, where he pulls the camera back and says God’s purpose is “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”
That’s the bigger picture. That’s the Kingdom.
God’s plan was always bigger than Abram, bigger than Israel, and it’s bigger than us. The church doesn’t exist simply for itself. We exist for the sake of the world. And that leads to the second hallmark of a Kingdom-grown heart: ownership.
Gratitude and ownership belong together. Gratitude for what God has done for us moves us to take part in what God is doing in the world. Ownership doesn’t mean that the Kingdom belongs to us. It is God’s Kingdom and God’s mission. But He invites us to take ownership of our part in it.
Paul says God has adopted us as His children. And there’s a difference between being hired to do a job and being part of the family. When you’re part of the family, you care about the things your Father cares about. His mission matters to you.
In John 20:21, Jesus says something similar to His disciples after His resurrection: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
And this is important: we don’t do any of this to earn what God has given us. We don’t work for His approval. We work from His approval. Because if I believe I have to work for God’s love, then serving God becomes an obligation. But if I understand that I am working from God’s love, serving God becomes a response. A response of gratitude.
And a response that says: “This is my Father’s mission, and I want to be part of it.”
That’s a Kingdom-grown heart—a heart that recognizes the gift it has received, responds with gratitude, and takes ownership of its part in the King’s mission.
Which brings us back to those graduates from earlier. Remember, every graduate walked away that day with two envelopes. One said GIFT. The other said GIVE. But there’s something I didn’t tell you:
Rob Hale has done this with several graduating classes, and he says one of the most meaningful parts has been hearing the stories afterward—stories of struggling organizations receiving money and families suddenly able to buy Christmas gifts for their children.
In other words, the gift kept moving. What had been placed into one person’s hands became a blessing in someone else’s. And in a much bigger way, that's the story we've traced through Scripture.
God said to Abram: “I will bless you...and you will be a blessing.”
Through Abram came Israel. Through Israel came Jesus. And through Jesus, God has blessed us beyond anything we could ever earn or deserve. We have received the gift. And the question is: Will the gift stop with us?
Or will the love we've received become love that someone else experiences through us? Will the forgiveness we've received become forgiveness we extend to someone else? Will the hope we've found in Jesus become hope we carry into a hurting world?
God is still at work. His Kingdom is still growing. And He has invited us to be part of it. So maybe the question isn't simply: “What has God given me?” Maybe it's: “What does God want to do through me with what He has given me?”
We have been blessed by the King, and now we get to join Him in His mission.