1 Timothy 6:17-18 “The Joy of Christian Management”
18th Sun aft Trinity - Stewardship Sunday 10/11/09
Christ Lutheran Church, Platte Woods, Missouri
The Rev. Mark T. Frith, Asst to the President for Mission & Stewardship
IN NOMINE IESU
Dear Friends of the Lord,
From the Word of the Lord: “And now…what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’S commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.” Today is one of the most honorable days for the members of Christ Lutheran Church. For today you profess your faith in the LORD God Almighty with a tangible commitment of real life materials, that He is your LORD and God. You do that by literally placing your life on a dotted line, on a commitment card. Once a year most Christian congregations request their members to make commitments to honor and to serve their LORD with their time, talents, and treasurers. Today is that day for you.
Making commitments to our LORD God as Christians comes with a blessing that you’d never find in another religion. For Scripture reveals that before you and I could every commit to following our Lord, we discover that God has already committed Himself fully to you. Israel heard it in Deuteronomy: “And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you…” “And now” indicates what God had committed already beforehand. Here’s the deal for you and me today: God has committed himself fully to you in His Son, Jesus Christ. God looks on you with love and affection, always. How can you know that? This way: Jesus died to take away all of your sin, shame, and guilt…mine, too. Even when I stink up again and again and again…with my sins, Scripture tells us that the LORD God is looking on us with eyes of love.
Now, if I continue to commit that sinful act, that sin that has become habitual and I should know better, God will not be happy with my sinful habit…and He will likely find away to discipline me. However that is not the same as punishment. Discipline is a form of love, not a punishment. It is a mystery how God ever loves you and me as He does. That even if we were to anger him, He will only discipline us, not punish us. The LORD God loves you and me so much. He’s committed to loving us. He will never give up on us. Now, I wouldn’t go to the extent of heinous acts or deliberate acts meant to be offensive to God or hurt and harm His people. That’s a subject for another sermon, but I throw that in here as a bookmark for the person who’s thinking to himself or herself… “But what about…Hitler…or the serial killer who maintained his church membership” Different sermon, another time.
The principle text chosen for this sermon is 1Timothy 6. Here these words: 17Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
Young pastor Timothy is being encouraged by the Apostle Paul to make sure Timothy is a faithful pastor, helping his congregants to know how to live out their lives of faith and faithfulness to their LORD. Again, “18Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.” You know, God never asks of you and me anything that He hasn’t first committed to himself. To do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous and to be willing to share, are all attributes of our God. Are they attributes of us? You better believe it! When God first made Adam and Eve He created them different from every other creatures. The first book of the Bible says, “Let us make man in our image.” One of the greatest attributes of our God is that He is a great giver. That shows up in humans beings, especially among Christians. Whenever there are tough economic times, do you know Christians tend to give more of themselves? Christians are generous. It is a part of our nature as God made us. Of course, there is a reason that St. Paul tells Timothy to “command them to do good…to be generous…etc.” It’s because we’re still sinners. It may be in our nature to be generous givers, but our nature is now fallen. We’re not always generous. Sometimes we’re down right greedy, even in sly and subtle ways. (e.g., of substituting tithe for tuition in a difficult month) We are people that need to be taught and taught again, and re-taught.
Annually, your congregational members hold each other accountable for making commitments based on God’s love and God’s provisions for your life. In the Christian Church, though, we do not hold each other accountable for equal gifts and offerings – we don’t all make the same incomes. We don’t all have the same talents. So we don’t emphasize the amount of the gift or offering. However, the Scriptures do uphold the teaching of equal sacrifice. Joe over here makes $30,000 per year in salary and Jill over here makes $100,000 a year in salary. Joe probably can’t match Jill’s monetary offering amount to the Lord. Joe’s married and has four kids. Jill is single, making a bunch more money. God doesn’t look on the amount of the gift. He simply asks that both commit an equal sacrifice. In the Old Testament that benchmark was 10%. It was called the tithe. You don’t hear much of it in the New Testament because for the first Christians, they literally gave their entire life to the way. There really wasn’t any kind of infrastructure. If you were a Christian, your religion was illegal. Christians were hunted down if they were suspect of a Christian confession. That’s not case for us, not in our country.
For us ministry has its costs in building, in profession workers and ministry support workers, in providing for Christian education—weekday, weeknight and weekend, in publicity, in supporting mission work locally, nationally, and internationally. Why is that important? So that we don’t take ministry and mission for granted…assuming that it is getting done. Also, people can live there lives seemingly so independent of the church and of God’s kingdom. People can claim Christianity and move from church to church to church. It is very easy to do. If people suddenly take a disliking of their pastor or of a direction in ministry, then they just move on to the next congregation.
People today, ourselves included, often look at our income and our possessions as our own, to do with as we please. That is far from the truth. From the Old Testament in Deuteronomy today, we heard: “To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.” We own nothing. Our time/life time, our talents, our treasures/income—all of it is on loan to us from God to be used as He appoints it. That makes us all managers. You don’t own it, you can only manage it. As Scripture teaches us about the last day, we are accountable to God for how we managed His treasures, His talents allotted to us, and our time provided us. But there is something really liberating about being a manager or steward as opposed to owning your things.
Have you noticed that when you own something you can become so easily possessive of it. When you’ve worked hard to get something, you tend to covet it even more. It is very hard to GIVE when your hands are in the “grip it hard” and “hang on to it” mode. In that mode we tend to be worried about the future. The Bible teaches us that our future is in God’s hands and that future is a great one, including simply our future here on earth. Let me tell you about my conversation with the HVAC repairman who taught me that having to fix my air conditioning unit was more about helping to care for him and his needs, and less about me and my needs. I discovered that sometimes the LORD allows some extra dollars to come into my check book, not for me to spend on myself, but He presents others with special needs, needs that I can help attend to with the extra dollars that come into my wallet.
There is joy in seeing that all we have and are belongs to God Almighty. There is joy in knowing that God claims us as His own, always on account of Jesus Christ, Who died and lives for us. So, for the love of Jesus Christ, Christians are moved by the Holy Spirit to do good in Jesus name, to be rich in action in Jesus name, to be generous in Jesus name, and by the Holy Spirit willing to share in Jesus name.