So, at my computer keyboard, I listened for the Holy Spirit to give me something new to say.

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Kerry Dominick Lee
5 years ago
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1 My Fortieth Stewardship Sunday Sermon II Corinthians 9:1-11 Your Budget Committee met a week and a half ago to prepare a proposed budget for Your Session will consider it this week. Then it will be distributed to you to be acted on at our congregational meeting on November 18 th. And so, with a proposed budget in place, it falls to me to preach about stewardship. As it does to every pastor during what most churches designate as stewardship time. I thought to myself after the budget meeting that this was the forty-third church budget I have helped to prepare. But since I was an assistant pastor in my first church for three years and the preaching task fell to the senior pastor, this is only my fortieth stewardship Sunday sermon. I found myself going through my files to see what I preached the other thirty-nine times. Some of those sermons were light-hearted; some were somber; one or two had a dire warning; some focused on the wrong ways to give; one focused on the envelopes in your box that were in addition to current expense; another emphasized the Biblical concept of tithing (a concept that appeared in other stewardship sermons). Oh, and that is in the New Testament, not just in the dust of the Old Testament. It isn t easy to find a new way to say: The church needs your tithes and offerings. Besides you all know that already. I m not telling you anything newer in my fortieth Stewardship Sunday sermon than I spoke of in my first. So, at my computer keyboard, I listened for the Holy Spirit to give me something new to say. And if what I say isn t totally new, it s my fault for not listening, not the Holy Spirit s for not blowing where He wills. And it starts with the aforementioned budget. Over the years, there has been some discussion about whether we should send out a letter, asking for your financial commitment, before you actually see the budget and know what we hope to do with your financial commitment. There are two sides to that question, but I always find myself on this side: If you are only giving to a budget, if you are only deciding the amount you will give in your tithes and offerings because of a budget, then you are missing the point. And so are we who prepared the budget. Budget giving is merely duty giving, with maybe a side order of guilt giving thrown in. It s giving so we can make sure the income meets the outgo. And that s it. No more. If it was all about just meeting the budget, we could take the bottom line, divide it by the number of giving units in the congregation, and send you all a letter that states: Your share of the church budget is $X. Make sure we have it regularly. Of course, that would mean that some of our members would get to cut their offerings significantly, while others, well, just might raise a holy ruckus! But that is just charging dues. As important as a budget is as a tool, it is only a tool. It is only a blueprint. And while you do need tools and a blueprint to build a building even, maybe especially even, to build a church, they mean very little if we are not committed to something more than a budget.

2 We do NOT give to a budget. We do not give to a bottom line. In truth, we don t give to a church. We give to God. We give because we believe that God s work MUST be done, and God s will must be shared in our world. We give because we want, as Paul wrote to the church in Philippi (which, I think, did quite well without a budget) every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And a budget won t do that. Only we can by our gifts, no matter what the bottom line says. Only we can. If we give with hope. Many years ago, there was a small church in north Philadelphia. It was known as the little temple. And little was a much more accurate description than temple, which sounds rather grandiose. And there was a little girl whose family went to the little temple, every week. And every week, this little girl brought her pennies with her, pennies that amounted to not much more than those brought by the widow in Jesus parable. She brought her pennies in the hope that God would use them, that God would use her church, that God would use her efforts, to do something in North Philadelphia. It was just a few pennies each week. But she had hope. Well, her hope was contagious. And after some years, the little temple wasn t quite so little. It expanded its ministry into the community, especially in the area of education, for the quality of education in that area of the city, the kind offered to that little girl, and others like her, left a lot to be desired. The church known as the little temple isn t there anymore, at least not as far as I know. But the efforts of that church, based on hope, still exist. Drive up Broad Street in North Philadelphia and you ll see what can happen with a few pennies. And hope. The little temple is now known as Temple University, with all of its far-reaching value to the community, and beyond. We don t give to a budget. We give with hope; with the hope that what we give including who we are does something important and makes God s will real. We give with trust. Two weeks ago, Dottie discovered that there were a number of voic s on our phone that we had not listened to. You know the kind you get when you dial *99. Well, I went through them, and found one that was very interesting. It was a message from the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes that I had won a quarter of a million dollars AND a new Mercedes Benz. I just had to get them my bank account and social security numbers. Well, that was a more hopeful scam than the one I had on my cell phone a couple of months ago from the IRS, telling me that I had unpaid taxes and that there was a warrant for my arrest. I am a bit skeptical in such matters, even if a quarter of a million dollars and a new Mercedes Benz would have been nice. Although the real IRS would have wanted a lot of taxes paid on both. Phone calls like that I don t trust. God? That s another matter. One of the greatest stories in the Old Testament concerns a widow whose late husband had been one of a group of prophets true ones, not false. Because her late husband was in debt, his creditors were going to come and sell her sons as slaves. And she appealed to the prophet Elisha. What

3 do I do? All I have left I a little bottle of oil. And he told her what to do. Find every empty container you can, in your house, throughout your village, and fill each one from the bottle of oil you do have. Now, let s be honest. If you were that widow, would you take Elisha at his word? Or just pack up your sons belongings and send them off to the slave market? Trust in such a questionable scheme would be hard to generate. But, if you read the story in II Kings, trust is exactly what she did. And the oil from her little bottle kept flowing until there were no more empty containers for miles around. And she sold the oil, paid off the creditors, and had enough to live on comfortably. Ok, if you tend to be a bit skeptical, you might wonder if this story is any more realistic than me winning a quarter of a million dollars AND a Mercedes Benz. Or you might take God s Word at His word, and celebrate a whole lot of oil. Now God may not work quite the same wonder with our tithes and offerings. Or He just might. If we trust. In radical trust. And that is more than giving to a budget. So is thanks giving. Two words, not one. Giving in gratitude. Appreciation. While, as the old hymns go, we are counting our blessings. There is a story of a young boy who wrote a note to his grandmother. And it went like this: Dear Grandma, thank you for the Christmas gift you sent me four months ago. I m sorry that I didn t thank you sooner and it would serve me right if you forgot my birthday which is only two weeks away. Love, Bobby. Well, our grandchildren s Mommom and Poppop would never forget a grandchild s birthday, even without a thank you note from the distant past. Although I have been known to send out a text or two: Did he/she get what we sent? At least let us know if the package arrived! We did make sure our kids sent appropriately timed thank you notes, even if there was some urging involved. So, here it is October. Have you thanked God for your Christmas gift? You know, the one lying in a manger? Have you thanked God that you woke up and put your feet on the floor today? (Of course, if you didn t wake up in this world this morning, you would have a whole lot to be thankful for, courtesy of that baby lying in a manger!) Have you taken the time to thank God for everything you received from the day after Christmas until today and up until this coming Christmas which is still seventy-two days away? I hope you re not waiting forty more days the fourth Thursday in November to compress all your thanks into one day. Because if we tried to name every blessing we do have, and everything God has taken away that we shouldn t have, and anything else God has provided for us, and then thank Him, well it would take a whole lot than one more day, squeezed in between the turkey and the football game, to do adequate justice. And that s why we don t give to a budget. We give to God through the church to express our thanks. Gratitude. Appreciation. Recognition that nothing we have did we create on our own. Which leads to one more method of giving. And it comes down to a word that is often misused as much as it is used. Love.

4 Quite simply, we give or should because we love God. And no more reason is more valid than that one. There are many stories about giving in the Bible. But let s go back to the very first story. It s in Genesis, chapter four. A story we all know well. Abel and Cain. The first men to offer a gift to God. (Even their parents didn t do that! At least, it s not recorded.) Abel, as we know, was a shepherd. And he brought a lamb to be sacrificed to God. Cain was a farmer. And he brought, as Genesis says, some of the fruits of the soil. And God accepted Abel s gift. Not because He liked lamb better than fruits of the soil. It was because Abel brought the firstborn lamb of his flock. His gift to God was right off the top. While Cain s gift seems to have been the leftovers. The stuff he really didn t want to eat anyway. Maybe Cain figured that God wasn t actually going to come down from Heaven and eat any of the gifts he brought. So what did it matter if his fruits of the soil were a little bug eaten, brown, and with perhaps a weed or two thrown in? After all, Cain worked hard for the fruits of the soil. Was God sweating, breaking His back planting seeds, and getting sore hands from pulling weeds, carrying water, and all the rest? No, He was just sitting up there in Heaven watching. I guess Cain never thought about where the seeds and soil and water came from. (Sometimes, we don t either.) It s been said that God loves a cheerful giver, but He also accepts from a grouch. Well, Cain was a grouch. And God didn t accept his gift! Of course, the real issue in this story is, as I said before, love. Who loved God more? Easy question, isn t it? Abel gave out of his love for God; Cain? Well, I think his love extended not far past himself. Love began with God. As John says in I John 4:19: We love because God first loved us. And while John is talking about loving our brother (and did Cain ever fail at that command!), if we don t return our love to God for His love, well, we are nothing but grouchy givers when we bring our offerings to Him. We can t love a budget. We can like it, vote for it, respect it, accept it, honor it. But if our giving doesn t start with our love for God, the budget is just a bunch of numbers important ones to be sure. But those numbers won t change the world. Because we won t be changed. When the budget is approved by the Session and presented to you, read it. Ask questions about it. Think about what it says about us as a church. But don t base your giving on it. Base your giving on the hope that what we all do (not just the Session) with our gifts will make a difference. Base your giving on your willingness to trust God to use your gifts (maybe even multiply them). Base your giving on how truly thankful you are to God. And base your giving on how much you love Him. Because if there is no love in our giving, nothing we give will matter at all.

5 Worship October 14, 2019 Call: Litany Assurance: Litany Children s Message: Say grace tell of grace in Shenandoah Memory verse: Give thanks to God and praise His Name. Psalm 100:4 Prayer: Lord God, Great Provider, we come to You this morning in hope. For we believe that what we have, You use; who we are, You use; how we live, You use. We dedicate not just our lives and gifts to You, but our potential, knowing that our hopes can and will be fulfilled through You. Lord God, Great Sustainer, we come to You this morning in trust. For we believe that You do not, will not, cannot abandon us to our own resources; that Your word is good; and that our cups will run over as we look to You to do so. Lord God, Great Creator, we come to You this morning in gratitude. For we know that nothing we have have we made; that all that is beyond us and within us has come from Your presence, power, and grace alone. And Lord God, Great Father, we come to you in love. For we love You as You first loved us; we love You for Your willingness to give Yourself and all Your blessings so completely to us; we love You for Your place in our lives, given so graciously; and we love You enough to live for You. And forgive us when we do not. Needs, etc. LORD S PRAYER

6 Give thanks to God and praise His Name Psalm 100:4

MYTH ONE: TITHING IS OPTIONAL

MYTH ONE: TITHING IS OPTIONAL TEXT: DEUTERONOMY 14 INTRODUCTION: How much do you give God? Martyn Lloyd-Jones told a story about a farmer who went into the house one day to tell his wife and family some good news. The cow just gave