Stewardship – More Than Money

Focus: Isiah 45:1-7     Psalm 96:1-9;19-13    1 Thessalonians 1:1-10     Matthew 22:15-22

“Father, God, thank you for being here as we worship you and your son Jesus Christ. May we learn how better to follow your teachings in the words spoken and heard here today. Amen”

Good morning. I am here today because I volunteered to preach this particular weekend. I did not know that this weekend was the beginning of our stewardship campaign until our church leader told me so. By then, I was committed. Now, I will tell you that my first reaction wasn’t, “Great, love it; this will be so much fun!” It was more like, “God, you ambushed me . . .  again!” Who wants to talk about stewardship unless you are on the Vestry or the church leader?

But then it seems God frequently assigns me tasks that I would rather he didn’t. I won’t bore you with my, “I’d rather not,” list because you probably have your own. At least, He is consistent. He has chosen reluctant messengers since Moses. That just seems to be something He really enjoys doing!

Well ok. So, as I found myself here, in this pulpit, at the beginning of our stewardship campaign. I decided to embrace the assignment. I am going to set my reluctance aside and just get on with God’s business.

Now, let’s first get over the sensitive part, that being our money and the individual decisions to pledge and then determine how much we should pledge. I don’t mean to minimize the importance of this part of the campaign. After all, it takes money to run a church. That is just an economic fact. It we didn’t pledge and give our money, we would have no power, no plumbing, no staff, and no building. It a short while, this building would be falling down, weeds would be overgrown; all signs of a vibrant Christian community would be gone from this location. All the good works that come from this church and our academy would simply stop. Let’s keep that reality in mind as we hear more about stewardship during this season.

As important as that is, it’s really not the hardest part of stewardship. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it isn’t the hardest part. This begs the question of what is the hardest part of stewardship? Well, it still involves writing a check, but this check does not draw upon our bank account. It draws upon an even more important resource. You could say it draws upon a “precious” resource. This check draws upon the essence of our life. In Matthew 12:17, Jesus tells us, “Give to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is Gods.”

The backdrop for this verse was the attempt of the Pharisees and Herodians to trap Jesus into denying the tax due Caeser, but that is not the lesson that grabbed my attention. Let’s focus on the second half of his teaching, “. . . . give to God what is God’s.” Well, what does God want?

Let me start with the big picture and then work back to some detail. In a word, God wants “everything” from us. It plainly says so in Psalm 24:1 where the bible tells us that “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” As puzzling as the bible can often be, that is a pretty straight forward statement of fact. And yet, on most days we seem to fight to maintain control of our lives, our schedule, our food, our activities . . . we want to own our lives. If we were self-created, that would be fine, but we are not self-created. We were created and loaned a life by God.

So he tells us to steward everything about our lives, everything, for His glory and for the good of others. Think of the apostles for a minute.  As Jesus is walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Matthew 4, he is not picking up seashells. He is picking up men, Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John. In verse 18, He tells them, “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

Now the rest of the passage makes it sound as if it was a simple matter for them to just drop their tools, their nets, and walk away from their boats with little concern for how that would change their lives. The obvious is that something within them responded to the most remarkable man and spirit that would ever walk the earth, but don’t you think the humanity in them was shouting, “What do you think you are doing!”

Essentially, they wrote a check for their money, the possessions that cost money and their means of making money. They had no idea when or if they may return, and if they did, whether any possessions of their former life would still be there. They gave up everything that is necessary to subsist. Still – that was not the hardest part.

Here it is – the hardest part was what followed the act of giving up their things – they had to learn to live in a world where they had given up their lives. With this being the clear result of what they were doing, they willingly demonstrated the understanding that their life was not their own.

So, God has His expectation of us, a great expectation, but he also knows us well and loves us, even in our sin and weakness. If we fall short of this expectation, and we all will, I think the goal becomes one of actively working toward the commitment of living into his total service. How then, do we move forward in understanding and demonstrating that our lives are not our own?

There are many characteristics that when put into practice will move us in the right direction. I’ll give you three. Let me begin with Humility. Humility, if routinely nurtured, will enable us to move in that direction. An example was John the Baptist. He could not recede into anonymity fast enough after Jesus showed up. Also, most of the prophets were reluctant to speak for God because they did not feel worthy. And what greater act of humility and love was there than Jesus allowing himself to be hung on a cross?

Luke 14:11 tells us, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” This requires that we be aware of our shortcomings and limitations, as well as our strengths. We must recognize and acknowledge the abilities of others. We must be willing to learn from others – our spouse, our friends, our clergy. We must be willing to listen to others in a way that makes them feel heard and understood. And maybe the hardest form of humility is to consistently put the needs of others, even strangers, before our own. Growing our humility is an act of stewardship.

Another characteristic of the good stewardship of our lives is Obedience. In the book of John, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Ok, we say we love Jesus but how do we show it through our obedience? One way is to exercise obedience by listening to Him when in prayer, learning from His teachings in the bible, and acting on behalf of Him whom we cannot see. In that kind of obedience are we not also showing our faithfulness?

A third act of stewarding our lives for Him, is to trust him. Trust His decisions in our life and trust Him with our patience. We recently talked in Adult Education how our impatience shows a lack of trust in God as the leader of our life. Demonstrating impatience is an act of trying to take control instead of trusting in him. Also, we must trust that He knows best and humbly accept that His answers to our prayers are the best answers, even when they are not what we asked for. And we must trust with great confidence that His promises are always true and will be fulfilled.

Humility, obedience, trust. For me, these three characteristics of good stewardship of my life are the easiest to understand and consistently demonstrate in giving to God what belongs to God. There are others, such as hope, kindness, forgiveness, and perseverance. Maybe those or perhaps others better resonate with you. Choose whatever characteristics are good and God-driven that will move you toward the proper stewardship of your life and the understanding that our life is not our own.

I would like to offer you a prayer challenge. Choose up to three personal characteristics that if you demonstrate them more frequently, would show an understanding that your life is on loan and recognize that “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” Add those to your prayers for the next seven days. Ask God to help you find ways to better demonstrate them in your daily lives. On day eight, ask yourself if you think you have learned anything.

In summary, practice good stewardship of your financial resources and your daily life. Give generously to the charities of your choice. Give generously here so we can continue the important works of Jesus that emanate from this church, for we members, for our students, for our community.

But of greater importance, let this stewardship campaign be about writing a check every day payable to God, one drawn on our most precious blessing, that being the days of our life.

Please pray with me – “Lord, again, we thank you for your love and your forgiveness. We pray that you give us the guidance and courage to live more fully into who you would have us be. May we continue to grow in ways that will demonstrate our understanding that our life belongs to you.”