Preached in Markham Baptist Church, February 13, 2005

GREAT WORDS OF THE FAITH - PART 7: "STEWARDSHIP"

The story is told a father who wanted to do something special with his five-year-old son James. He asked, “Son, is there anything you’d like to do right now?” James said, “I want some MacDonalds French fries.”

So off they went to MacDonalds. Little James couldn’t wait to get there - he loved MacDonalds French fries and could almost taste them as they made the short trip to the restaurant. You can imagine how excited James was when he heard his dad place the order and said, “Make it a large.”

The two of them sat down and little James dug into those delicious fries and his father sat across from him giving thanks for his little boy and thinking how neat it was that his son took such great joy in such a simple thing as fries.

And it wasn’t long before the aroma of the food reached the dad and he thought he’d like to have one or two those fries too, so he reached his hand over to get a couple for himself. And as he did so, little James slapped his hand and said, “These are mine!” Apparently little James had learned how to keep his eyes on his fries. His dad thinking he was just joking, tried again to get some fries, and the boy again slapped his hand away and said, “No, these are mine!”

So you can imagine that James’ dad was a little shocked and surprised at this. He sat there in silence but his mind was racing “Hey, I was the one who bought you those fries!” he said to himself. “Not only did I buy the fries he wanted but I gave him more fries than he expected.”

And then he thought, I could just take the fries, I am bigger than him and stronger than him. But no, that wouldn’t help the situation. Or I could go and order my own fries! But by then his son had gobbled up the last fry and it was time to go. So ends the story. ¹

Did you know that God takes us to MacDonalds on a regular basis in our lives? He is our Father in heaven who provides for our every need. We are dependent on Him for our breath and our bread. And He blesses us again and again. Every morning we wake up to new blessings and new generosity from our Father in heaven. So King David says: “Everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things, In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. … Everything comes from you.” (I Chronicles 29:11a-14)

God is always giving to us. And did you know that He is very interested in what we do with what He gives us? Whether it be our time, or skills, or spiritual gifts, or material possessions God is interested in what we do with it all. And this brings us to the great word of the faith today, it is stewardship. A steward, according to the Oxford dictionary, is a person employed to manage another’s property, especially a great house or estate. So stewardship is the overseeing of another person’s property, finances and household affairs.

Stewardship, then, is a great word of the faith that describes the Christian’s relationship with God and the things of this world. We are simply stewards, caretakers of our time and money and abilities. They do not belong to us, they all belong to God, we are simply stewards, given the responsibility to use them for His glory. So we read in 1 Corinthians 4:2 - “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” We have been given a trust, our health, our abilities and time and money and we must prove faithful, using what we have been given for His purposes and glory.

I’m going to preach a series on stewardship in May because I can’t possibly cover every area of stewardship responsibility in one sermon, so I want us today to look at one area of stewardship in particular and that is the area of money. I want you to realize that I am not preaching this in November or December, during our usual budget crunch. This is not a plea for you to give more money to the church. You have been and continue to be very generous to the work we do together. The goal of this sermon is for us to understand that all that we have been given has been given to us in trust by God and to use as He sees fit. And to guide us in our thoughts today we turn to Mark 12:41-44.

We don’t know this woman’s name, or where she came from. We don’t know where she went to after this, but we do know a quite a bit about her heart. What do we learn?

Her giving was a statement of who was Lord in her life. So many Christian people do not understand that Jesus Christ is not just Saviour, but He is Lord. And there are many who call themselves Christian yet still are mastered by their money. They have not made Jesus Christ Lord of their whole life, they have another master in their lives. When they are called on by God to give, they slap His hand away and say these fries are mine, not realizing that it is God who gives all things, and that once we give ourselves to Him, we give all we have and all we are to Him - He owns us. He is Lord.

Jesus says in Matthew 6:24 - “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Or to put it another way, You cannot suck and blow at the same time. You will either serve one or the other.

The widow in giving everything she had declared who was Lord in her life. Money wasn’t her god – she could do without that - It was God who was her Lord.

And so as we think this morning about being faithful stewards of the money that God has given us we have to ask ourselves, “Does my giving reflect God as being Lord of my life? Am I giving in such a way that I am demonstrating to God that he is the King of my life, that he is the one who calls the shots, that he is the one who is in control, that he is the one who has paid for the fries and owns everything I have. Or does my giving reflect the fact that money is the Lord of my life?"

You cannot serve two masters. There is nothing neutral here. Either you master your money or your money will master you. The dynamics of human life and spirituality are these – you can either live all out for God, or you can live for money and for what it represents, but you can’t do both. And you need to be careful because the natural flow in life is that money will always be trying to take over.

So it will be either one or the other and I can tell you that you will never regret serving God with your money. You will never find a more generous Master, a more gracious King, a more loving Lord than God our Father in Heaven.

Does my giving reflect God as being Lord of my life?

Here is the second thing we discover about the widow - her giving reflected her gratitude toward God. There was a song that was sung in the 70s in all of our churches that began with a question – “How can I say thanks for the things you have done for me?” And I can picture God up in heaven, holding up His hand and saying, “I’ve got an idea as how you can say thanks to me - give”.

The song goes on to say that it is impossible to say thank you to God for all He has done for us in Christ – and that is a worthy sentiment, and we understand it but don’t let the awesomeness of God’s gifts to you so overwhelm you that you don’t do anything. Because God has made it plan how we can say thank you to Him - give. You can imagine that God is as hurt with His children as the father was with James when he failed to give.

Now be sure to get the order right, the first thing we are to give him is our lives – Romans 12:1 - “I urge you brothers in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.”

First offer yourself to God. We read in 2 Corinthians of the Christians at Macedonia gave generously to those in need in Jerusalem, but says Paul they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to the need. Give yourself first. Then bring give to God your material wealth.

So we read in Psalm 96:8 - “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.”

So the second question we must ask ourselves as we seek to be faithful stewards of God’s money – what level of gratitude does my giving to God reflect? Am I stingy with my money toward Him, thus reflecting a hard heart. Or am I generous with my money thus reflecting a grateful heart for all that He has done for me.

Here is the third thing that we learn about the widow – her giving reflected her heart’s love for God. Do you know that your giving is a paper trail to your heart? Jesus said, Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.

The widow in her giving showed that her heart was with God and for God. The amount has nothing to do with it. The rich gave a lot more money than she did, but, says Jesus, their hearts were in the wrong place. They gave so little in relation to what they could really give. And she gave so much because she was poor and gave all she had.

There are some people who ask, “How much should I give to the church, how much should I give to God’s work?” The Rev. Harold Percy of Trinity Anglican in Streetsville, tells of one woman who called him out of the blue and said," I’m interested in coming to your church. How much am I expected to give?” Rev. Percy thought of all sorts of answers, consider how much you spend on an evening out and give that. He thought of selling the woman a season’s pass. He has all sorts of creative ideas for such people - he would love charge a fee, have a church pass, something like the Metro pass. He would put scratch-and-win leaflets in the pews, and lucky draw offering envelopes. The pastor will pick an envelope each week with the number on it and each week a parishioner would go home with a great price. His slogan would be, “You can’t win if your envelope’s not in.” ²

Some people need that kind of anchor - what is expected of me, what are the rules? In the Old Testament the rules are clear – it is the tithe that is expected. God’s people were to give a tenth of their income to God. But in New Testament there are no rules. What is important to Jesus and the New Testament is how is your heart in this? What is the inclination of your heart? What is your relationship with God like, because your giving will be an expression of that relationship.

As you think of our text today – do you see what Jesus was impressed with? He is not impressed with what is given – he’s impressed with what is left over.

The widow’s response was the New Testament response – Lord you gave it all to me, so you can have it all back.

So the question as we seek to be faithful stewards of our finances is now - What statement are you making about your love for God in your giving? Are you saying, I don’t care that you have given me everything - it’s all mine now take a hike? Or are you saying - Lord here’s a little to keep you happy or are you saying, Lord I love you, I trust you, here is my gift.

Am I saying that we should give all our money to God? That’s not the point. The point is that there is no rule, and our giving should reflect our love for God. That’s the question we must address.

So this morning I want you to take some time to fill out the sheet in front of you. I’m not asking you to hand these in, what you write it between you and God. But I am asking you to take some time right now to consider these questions. Please consider this a spiritual exercise. Don’t blow it off, thinking you don’t need to address this carefully and prayerfully.

“What does my giving demonstrate about who is Lord of my life? Is God Lord of my life or is money Lord of my life?

“What level of gratitude to God does my giving reflect?”

“What statement am I making about my love for God in my giving?”

“What changes do I need to make in my giving?”

ENDNOTES:

1. I am indebted to Rick Gillespie-Mobley for this illustration idea in his sermon, “NUTS Stewardship “Whose Fries Are These?” at SermonCentral.com

2. The Rev. Harold Percy, in his seminar “How to Preach About Money Without having to Leave Town.”

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