"Stewardship of all of Life" Sermon Transcript for May 13, 2001By Reverend Mike Beck
Scripture Reading: Proverbs 31:10-31
Acknowledging that Mother’s Day for some people is a difficult day for a variety of reasons, we would want to own that. But for many it is a day to celebrate God’s blessings in a variety of ways. I’ve just, especially in this last week, been very thankful for the blessings that God has, for some reason, bestowed upon me. I often wonder, "Why, Lord have I been so blessed?" Dan’s reading of the scripture, Mickey and I will celebrate 31 years of marriage later this month; and I feel so blessed to have God send Mickey into my life. The privilege of pastoring this great, great church. I walked in to the sanctuary on Friday with Rose to do a few things up here and just found myself rejoicing in the beauty of this place of worship. It’s a privilege to serve here. Yesterday to be out at the United Methodist Community with the ALPHA folks to see the spiritual growth taking place in their life, to see the leadership team. And it was even good to do the retreat there because every time I go out there I run in to such dear saints of God who have served so faithfully, continue to serve Him faithfully out there, and I thank God for that. Yesterday in our work day, to see a number of persons, busy people who time is the most valuable possession they own, but giving of themselves to come and share their talents to fix my fence and beautify the landscaping here at our church. I hope even though we all entered these doors today with hurts and struggle that nevertheless we would take time on this beautiful day, this Lord’s day, to thank God for the many, many blessings that we enjoy.
I want to speak today for a few moments about the stewardship of all of life. And I also want to even backtrack just a second. I want to say a word of appreciation to my parents for the privilege of having such godly parents and both of them still with us. To be able to share with them today. And for those of you who know, my mom wanted nothing said about her surgery in advance, but she had one of her first good days yesterday and she appreciates your prayers and cards in her behalf. But I know that the time will come that Mother’s Day will be a hard Sunday for me to get in the pulpit because there will come a Sunday in which it’s the first year that my mom isn’t here physically on the earth to share it with me. And I rejoice that she’s here today and I thank God for them. On this Mother’s Day Sunday I also thank the good Lord for all that my Dad’s taught me about ministry. And one of the things he taught me is the unpardonable sin in ministry and that is this--to go over time-wise on Mother’s Day. So I want all of you to relax with your dinner plans and your reservations. Reverend Mike is keeping a very close eye on his watch this morning and if anything you’ll be out early.
But I want to speak for a moment this morning about the stewardship of all of life. It’s not a Mother’s Day sermon per se, but yet as we think of our mothers in many cases they are wonderful examples of what it means to be good stewards of what God has given to us. If I had to pick out a text verse I’d pick out one of the verses my confirmation kids put to memory. "Every good and perfect gift is from the Father above." And we are called to be stewards of those gifts.
As I look at Grace Church I see two important areas that I believe are critical to our achieving the bright future that God has for us. One of those is stewardship education that we are touching on today. The other is leadership development. I’m going to say a few words next week about that. And then starting this summer there will be some opportunity for us the remainder of the summer months to explore and grow in each of those areas.
There may have been some one who walked in this morning and looked at the bulletin and said, "Oh my gosh, the preacher has the audacity to preach on money on Mother’s Day Sunday! What in the world is Reverend Mike thinking about?" And I say that to say this, we have a tendency when we think about stewardship, the first thing that comes to our mind is money as if money is all there is in the area of stewardship. And nothing could be further from the truth. Stewardship involves so much more than money. All of us have been given our physical bodies and the scripture tells us that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. As good stewards we ought to seek to care for that body in which in this life our Holy Spirit resides. We have all been given the wonderful gift of our sexuality. But that sexuality and that gift from God comes with some responsibilities and guidelines for us as we seek to be stewards of that gift.
We are called to be stewards in a variety of different decisions that we make. Maybe a person looks at their calender and realizes, "Oh, oh, my sons got a soccer game and I’m suppose to be at a staff meeting. Where will I be?" And we try to make that decision seeking to be good stewards. The decision to just quickly throw something away or to take the time to recycle is a stewardship issue. "Every good and perfect gift is from the Father above." We realize that our resources are not unlimited. What does it mean to be good stewards of paper, plastic, glass? And we could go on and on. We’re advancing through our careers and an opportunity comes along to get a significant raise in salary but maybe it involves moving or it involves a great deal more time and we have children still at home. And as we make that decision we make it trying to be good stewards of what God has given to us. Or even thinking about the end of life. Medical resources are not unlimited. And it saddens me when a person who has lived a long and good life and contracts a terminal illness and the doctor says to that person, "Well, we could do this treatment, but the odds of it helping you are pretty slim." And maybe the person decides, "No, I think I’ll pass. Life has been good. I don’t think I’m going to subject myself to that." And they may have made that decision trying to be good stewards of the gifts that God has poured out upon us. We ought never to make a person, out of our selfishness, feel bad if they make that kind of decision. A person makes a decision and says, "Don’t put me on life support. If my life has slipped away from me, let me go." That’s a stewardship issue.
So stewardship involves so much more than just dollars and cents. Stewardship involves realizing that all of life is a gift from God. In the new materials that our denomination put out simply called "Steward", in looking through them again this week I realized they have a wonderful definition of stewardship in those materials. The words are on the screen and I’m going to invite you to read them with me. Join me. "Christians believe that all we are and all we have is a gift from God. To be a steward is to be entrusted with these gifts through God’s grace. We are called to be stewards in every area of our life — receiving, reflecting, and proclaiming the grace of God. To be a steward is to be called to a vocation of living out God’s grace." And I want you to notice the words that are highlighted. Stewardship has to do with receiving; it has to do with reflecting. And then as we make decisions, hopefully in doing so trying to be good stewards, we proclaim through those decisions the grace of God.
Jesus talked a great deal about stewardship. Stewardship and discipleship are invariably linked together. Would you read these words on the screen with me. "Our vocation as stewards may call us into conflict with the demands of the culture in which we live; but it can also bring us a deep joy and connection to the spiritual foundation for our work, family, and community life." Brothers and sisters, as followers of Jesus Christ our values will often times be different than the culture we live in. And as we make decisions seeking to be good stewards of those things that are important and entrusted to us, there will come times that others will not understand the decisions that we have made. But when we make them, we discover the spiritual foundation of our work, of or family, and of our life in community.
We are called to be stewards of God’s gifts and from my perspective, stewardship involves reflection in four areas. And I’m not going to elaborate but we realize our blessings and then we ask, "What are we going to do with those blessings?" Sometimes, in stewardship we have to realize our limitations. And I’m going to talk more about that from a personal perspective next week in the call to leadership development within our church. None of us can do everything that other people want us to do. We have limitations. What are the most important things as we sort things out as stewards? What we’ve been given, what are our responsibilities to go with that? The person who may be offered a job that provides significantly more money but their friends shake their head when the person turns it down because they may see their responsibilities to their family as more important than the extra dollars. Stewardship will always take us into the realm of sorting out our priorities.
We’re called to be stewards of God’s gifts. I want to share three illustrations in closing and then challenge you. Let’s think about for the first two about Grace Church. Look at where we are located. Look at the physical facilities that we have. Look at the talented people we have within our congregation. Look at the growth in Johnson County. And as we seek to be stewards of that this is why the Administrative Board went on record four years ago to say, "We have a commitment to numerical growth in order to be stewards of what God has given us." God has blessed us; He expects us to be a blessing to others. Maintaining the status quo or minding the store would be the ultimate sin for Grace Church given our blessings because of this area of stewardship.
When we made the decision relative to our organ, our organ had some history to it in terms of our congregation. It was loved by many people. But when it came to the time that it was going to cost us a quarter of a million dollars to rebuild it and our gifted, trained classical musician comes to us and says, "I never thought in a million years I’d say this, but I’ve been playing an Allen digital organ in Bloomington and it is a marvelous instrument." You can not tell the difference in sound and in many ways it is a superior instrument. And then we begin to realize if we go that way we open up space for a much needed new office and the space up above for the technology we enjoy. And as we made that decision we thank God for our heritage that the organ represented. But primarily from an issue of stewardship it didn’t make sense to worship the past and sacrifice the future — stewardship.
And then this final example might seem odd to use on a Mother’s Day Sunday but I think it’s relevant one and it’s one that I’ve used on numerous occasions. A person comes to me after many years of marriage. They have attempted to reconcile with their partner; and that’s always an important thing, for divorce is never God’s perfect will. But those attempts at reconciliation have been totally unsuccessful; and they sat across the table and they are helped as I share this with them. To help them realize that maybe the relationship that was once there simply doesn’t exist any more. And in many cases that person realizes the gifts that God has given to them are slowly dying as they try to maintain a relationship that no longer has any meaning. And again, I say divorce is never God’s will, but that person having sought reconciliation and then unsuccessful, it boils down at that point to an issue of stewardship. God has given me these gifts. If I try to maintain a relationship that no longer exists, those gifts in me are dying on the vine. They don’t have any good choices any more but as a steward of God’s gifts to them they are trying to choose the best of two choices of which they really would prefer neither one. But they sometimes make that final decision in order to be a steward of the gifts that God has given to them.
So as we close today I want as your pastor to invite you to share in a twelve-week stewardship seminar that will begin on Sunday, June 3, 2001. We made it very easy for you to do that. Our adult Sunday School classes won’t be meeting during the summer. And starting June 3, 2001, our classes will be, in the case of those who come to worship at 11:00 a.m., you’ll probably want to be a part of the study that starts at 9:45 a.m. For those who come to an earlier worship service, the class is repeated again at 10:45 a.m. For those who are normally in Sunday School, it will give them a chance to get to know some new folks. For those who aren’t normally in Sunday School, I invite you to take an extra hour of the time God’s given you to explore in more detail this important area — What does it mean to be a faithful steward of all of life?
Let’s pray together. "Lord we thank you for blessings that are ours both individually and as a church. And you said a great deal to us in your Word about our responsibility to be good stewards of what you’ve given to us. And so Lord, I ask with the anointing of your Holy Spirit would be upon this message today and upon the classes that will take place starting June 3, 2001, that you might use this, that we might be more faithful, in our individual walk with Christ we might be more faithful as a church realizing to whom much is given that is expected. Thank you for being able to worship today as a family of God and may your peace and blessing be upon each person here. For Christ’s name, Amen."
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