Being an Effective Steward-
Commitment

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

 Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007

[Video]

“Sorry, Bill, he rushed right by me.”

“It’s alright, Ann.”

“Frank, what can I do for you?”

“Alright, you got me. That message yesterday? I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Just tell me how much.”

“How much what?”

“Come on, I heard you loud and clear about fools building bigger barns. I’m no fool.”

“Well, that’s not exactly what I said.”

“Come on, is it 10%? What do I owe?”

“You don’t owe anything.”

“Come on, just give me a number.”

“There is no number.”

“No number? Well, then what was the whole, you know, bring your stuff to the place, bringing the tithes into the storehouse. I can’t stop thinking about it, about how God wants me on that wall and how He’s cheerful with my money. I’m just ready to settle up, so just tell me how much to write this check for.”

“Why don’t we sit down. Listen, I can’t tell you how much you should give. It’s good to know that you listened and thought about what I said, but I think I need to clarify a couple of things. God doesn’t want or need our money.”

“He doesn’t?”

“If you remember, in the message, we talked about what Paul said to the Corinthians, that every man should give what he has decided in his heart to give. God doesn’t care about an amount. He cares about the condition of your heart.”

“My heart? So I don’t owe anything. I don’t owe my portion of the rent, helping to pay your salary, none of that?”

“God takes care of all that.”

“So I just give whatever I want.”

“Whatever you feel, led by God, to give.”

“Right. So is this 10% on the net or the gross? What?”

Frank doesn’t quite get it, does he? He just doesn’t quite get this whole idea of stewardship and of giving back to God and my concern is sometimes neither do we. People always ask me this time of year, “Boy, it must be tough, Pastor, having to preach on stewardship and about giving and all of that.” And, you know, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t mind preaching about it at all. I don’t mind at all talking about stewardship. I don’t mind talking about giving because of a couple of reasons. One, God’s Word is so clear about it, it’s easy to preach about it. The second thing is I’ve experienced such joy in my life as far as giving back to God what is already His that it doesn’t bother me in the least to talk about it. But what does concern me and what does bother me is that what I say won’t get through or that I’ll be misunderstood or that I won’t be clear enough and I won’t articulate God’s Word well enough and then we misunderstand this whole idea of stewardship and giving. And yet, at the same time, I can tell that we need to talk about this because it’s such a vital part of our spiritual life. It’s such a vital part of our relationship with God. I mean, I’m really convinced that we can be not just good managers but effective stewards. I mean understanding that everything we have comes from God and He gives it to us for awhile and He wants us to manage it and part of the managing of that is to give a portion of it back to Him but to take the next step and not just be good at that but to have a good time doing it, to enjoy all the blessings and all the things we have in life and, most importantly, to enjoy giving back to Him.

So, on this Sunday, we call it Commitment Sunday, when the one time of year I challenge you as the people of God and challenge myself to make a written commitment of what you’re going to offer back to God over the next year. I guess this Sunday, above all else, I’m concerned about being misunderstood. So let’s do something a little bit different this morning and I’ll make an agreement with you. I’m going to be as straightforward and as clear as I can be about making a commitment to God if you will suspend all of those negative ideas, those preconceived ideas of church and money and offering and, together, we’re just going to listen to see what God has to say to us. What does God have to say about making a commitment?

And to do that, as I thought about it, I figured there are some questions, just some basic questions we should ask ourselves about making a commitment to God. There are three questions I came up with. Maybe you have more but these are three basic questions I have. The first one is why. To me, that is the starting point. Why would I make a commitment to God? I’m talking about a financial commitment of giving back to Him. And I can think of two very good reasons of why to make our commitment back to God. The first is the most important and the first lays down the foundation. In fact, the first reason we’ve talked about the last two weeks but it’s important enough that we need to revisit again this week. Why do we make a commitment to God? Because it’s an opportunity for us to respond back to His grace, that’s why. In fact, it’s a concrete way in which we can respond back to God’s grace and His love to us. So if we’re going to make a commitment to God, the first thing we should know is how committed is God to us? And how committed has God been throughout the century?

We turn to God’s Word. We can go all the way back to the beginning of time. We can go back to creation itself. And there’s an interesting passage in Genesis 3. You’ve probably read it many times but passed right by it but it’s one that always jumps out to me. Chapter 3 Verse 21, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” Now maybe that seems like a strange verse to you to talk about God’s commitment. But do you remember the context of that commitment? This was right after Adam and Eve have fallen into sin. Now look at it from God’s perspective for a moment. God has created a perfect universe. He’s created a perfect world and He’s put two perfect people in it and the one thing that God asked them not to do if that isn’t the very thing they did. The one fruit He asked them not to eat. You have this whole garden in front of you and the one thing He asked them not to do, they did. And in that instant, all God had created, all of His perfection was lost. It went from perfection to infection because it was infected with sin. And scripture tells us that all of creation fell. It went from paradise to perdition. Everything God had created and made perfect was now lost. And how does God respond to Adam and Eve? The Lord God made clothes for Adam and his wife. What a demonstration of love. What a demonstration of how committed God is.

Let’s jump ahead to the Book of Exodus 24, “Then the Lord said, ‘I’m making a covenant with you before all the people. I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world.’” Given by itself, okay, God’s making a covenant with His people. But, once again, we should take a look at the context of when God made this covenant with His people. You might recall they were at the base of Mt. Sinai and Moses goes up on the mountain. Now they can see God, right? The cloud is up there. They hear the thunder. God is visibly present to the people. And while Moses is up there talking with God, what do the people do in the valley? They convince Aaron to make a golden calf, that’s what they do. So instead of worshiping the God they can visibly see, the God that led them out of Egypt, they start worshiping this golden calf. Moses is so ticked off when he gets down from the mountain, he busts the two tablets that had the Ten Commandments on it. When he goes back up on the mountain to get now the second copy of the Ten Commandments, God makes this promise, “I’m going to make a covenant with my people and I’m going to do wonders among them like this world has never seen.” That’s commitment.

Let’s jump into the Gospel of Luke. “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.’” You probably remember the context of this one, don’t you? Right after Jesus was nailed to the cross. Again, think about it from God’s perspective. God’s Son has come and lived among us. He is living among His own creation and His own creation has rejected Him. His covenant people He has been committed to for hundreds, thousands of years have turned on His very Son and they’ve nailed Him to a cross. They’ve made fun of Him. They spit upon Him. They beat Him up and, as Jesus hangs half way between heaven and hell, what does Jesus pray? “Father, forgive them.” That’s commitment.

One more. Letter to the Church at Rome. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Now is when it comes home. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That means us. We don’t need to talk about this for a long time, do we? We all know our sinfulness, whether we want to admit it to the person next to us is one thing but each and every human being knows their own sinfulness. Their conscious tells them that. The guilt, the shame they carry around, we know we do not measure up to God’s standards. There is no way we can even claim to be close to perfect. All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. And yet, God says, “Freely, my gift to you is I will justify you through my Son.” When Jesus is hanging on the cross praying for the forgiveness of the people who put Him there, He is earning forgiveness for all of mankind. And so God says to us, “No matter what you’ve done in the past and no matter what you do in the future, through the blood of Jesus, you are forgiven.” God says, “I’ve taken you out of the very pits of hell and I have a room reserved for you in heaven above for an eternity.” That’s commitment.

How does one respond to that? How does one respond to a God who shows that kind of love, that kind of patience, that kind of commitment with His people and that kind of commitment to us personally? Well, in our commitment of giving back to God a portion of what He’s bestowed upon us, he gives us an opportunity, not an obligation, an opportunity to respond back to Him. This is when the theory becomes application. It’s when the rubber hits the road. It’s when our faith can be put into action. When we can actually worship God and offer back to Him our commitment.

Every year about this time, at least one person, usually a couple of people will say to me, “You know, I just don’t believe in pledging. I just don’t believe in it. Don’t believe in commitment cards. Not going to do it. Because I don’t know. I don’t know what the next year is going to bring. I just don’t know what things are going to happen. Don’t know what kind of bills are going to come in. I don’t believe in it.” That’s the whole point. That’s the point of the commitment. We don’t know. We don’t know what the future will bring. We don’t know what’s coming up next. But we say to God, “I trust you and I put my faith in you, not in my bank account. And I’m making that commitment to you.” That’s what it’s all about.

The second answer to the question of why make a commitment, to me it’s just very pragmatic. It’s just a very practical issue that God makes for us. Paul talks about it in his first letter to the Church at Corinth. He says, “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up so when I come, no collections will have to be made.” Just pragmatic. God says decide once per year, not once per week. He says let’s wrestle with this just once a year instead of wrestling with it 52 times a year. Make a careful, prayerful consideration of how you’re going to give back to God and then make that commitment and the decision is done. Make a careful decision instead of a careless decision.

You see, I guarantee you if you wait on a weekly basis, that will give the devil a foothold into your giving life. Because you’re right, you don’t know what’s going to happen every week and that will give the devil a foothold so as you’re doing the Sunday morning rush, especially if you have kids, and you’re trying to get out the door and you’re trying to figure out your offering and, as you look at the ledger and you look at some time or another, you’re going to have a bad week. It’s going to happen. The garage door’s going to go out. The refrigerator’s going to be on the fritz. Who knows? Maybe you have a car repair on top of all of that. And all of a sudden, instead of being a joyful gift back to God, it’s going to be resentful. “Oh, look at this. And how in the world does the church expect me to give something back when I have all this going on?” Make a careful decision once a year, not a careless decision 52 times a year. Very pragmatic.

Why do we make a commitment? First and foremost, God is committed to us. This is a tangible way in which we can show our commitment to Him. And secondly, just practical reasons.

Second question I would ask myself about making a commitment and that would be how much? Ultimately, that was Frank’s question, right? How much? How much of a commitment should I make to God? What should my commitment be as I give back to God? Well, once again, scripture gives us a lot of direction on that and it speaks to us clearly, read about it a minute ago. It says, “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver.” Bottom line is, you decide. That’s the bottom line. You have to decide in your heart. The Old Testament had the tithe. That was commanded by God. They were to give a tenth of everything they had. New Testament, God does not give that. God says you decide in your heart what you’re supposed to give. Nobody can tell you what you’re supposed to give. In the first letter to Corinthians, He gives a little bit of advice. He says it should be proportional to your income. God also gives us another couple of words of wisdom. In fact, right here, in 2 Corinthians, He says, “Remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” So God’s first word of advice is to be generous, frankly. God says, “As I have been generous with you, be generous with me.” Be generous with our offerings back to Him. Last week, we talked about in Proverbs where God gives us another piece of advice when He says, “Honor the Lord with your wealth.” So when answering the question of how much, I think you can ask yourself a couple real questions. One is am I giving this from my heart? Two, am I being generous with God? Three, am I honoring God with my wealth? Is this offering I’m giving to Him, is that something that really honors God and what He’s done in my life?

Now there is a very important caveat to all of this. Extremely important and we can’t miss it because St. Paul says this, “Okay, give from your heart but not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver.” Not reluctantly or under compulsion. It’s kind of like a shotgun wedding. He may say “I do” but he won’t. Giving under compulsion is not what God desires. Giving reluctantly, I’ve said this before but I’m going to say it again so I’m clear on this, if when you’re giving your offering to God, you’re thinking this is some obligation you need to fulfill, that this is something you don’t really want to do, that you say, “Well, I suppose I have to or I have to do my fair share around here,” then stop. And I’m dead serious about that. That is 180 degrees different from the attitude that God wants us to have in our giving. If you can’t give it joyfully, freely, then it shouldn’t be given.

God says He loves a cheerful giver. It’s interesting that word “cheerful” in the original language of Greek, from that Greek word, we get the English word “hilarious.” Isn’t that great? We get the word “hilarious.” Not that our offerings are a joke but that it should be given with such joy, such exuberance that we can’t wait.

I think of it as I look at my kids at Christmas time, maybe because it’s just around the corner but every Christmas time, it’s the same thing, especially with the younger ones, they love to get gifts. Everyone loves to receive gifts. They love to give gifts, especially to Mom and Dad. If they make something at school or maybe I go out and buy something for Mom or she goes out and they buy something for Dad, they can’t wait to give that gift to one of us. In fact, they want to give it early. They’re so excited about it. “Can’t I give it to you now?” “No, you have to wait until Christmas.” “But I want to give it to you now.” That, my friends, should be the attitude with our offering. That’s why it’s part of worship. That’s why we don’t have a basket in the back. It’s part of our worship. As we give back to God joyously, we can’t wait to show our love and our commitment to Him.

So in answer to the question how much, you have to decide. You have to decide in your heart. God gives some pointers. He says be generous, honor the Lord with your giving, give a portion of your income but, most importantly, give it with joy. Be a cheerful giver.

Well, the third question I would ask myself about a commitment to God, if I settled the question of why and I’ve settled the question of how much, then the next question for me is, “So what’s God going to do with that?” What is God going to do with my commitment? Well, I think there are a couple of things God does with it and first and foremost what God does is He opens up an opportunity for blessings in your life. When we make a commitment to God and we make our offerings to God, He opens up all kinds of opportunities for blessings to happen in our lives. I’m not going down the road you give God $5.00, He gives you $10.00 back. No, I’ll leave that for the televangelists. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about opening up the door of God’s blessings. Right here it says in 2 Corinthians, “And God is able to make all grace about you so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” Last week, we looked at the prophet of Malachi. He says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.” He says, “And the floodgates of heaven will open up as I pour down my blessings upon you.” Blessings that will infiltrate every aspect of your spiritual life.

Let me give you one example. This is not an isolated story. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a fellow member and it was stewardship time so I was getting into the messages here about being an effective steward. And he came up to me and he says, “You know, last year we made our commitment to God like we always do. We always find a lot of joy in our giving. But last year, we decided after that, that two of us were going to go on a mission trip. And so in talking about that and looking at the budget, we figured we would have to redirect some of the money that goes to the general offering over to paying for the mission trip. It was still God’s work but there would be a redirection from general offering over to the mission trip.” But they said, “We’re going to hold off until we feel the pinch, until things aren’t quite adding up and then we’ll make the adjustment.” They never felt the pinch. He says before they knew it, they’d gone on the mission trip and came back from the mission trip and there were no bumps along the way. Mathematically, that doesn’t add up but God always provides. Sometimes in ways that we don’t think about. That’s not an isolated story. Others have told me that. I’ve experienced that in my home as well where these blessings open up. And even more than that. And I struggle trying to explain this to you because, unless you’ve experienced it, you really can’t understand it which is frustrating to me because you have to do it to experience it but to experience it, you have to do it. The blessings just infiltrate your whole spiritual life as you put your trust and your hope in God and you do it in a real way and you see Him coming through again and again and again, the ripple effects they just affect everything that you do and it’s so important to me that it’s such a large part of my life that I want it to be a part of your life, to see the blessings that God opens up.

And then even beyond that, not only is it a blessing in your life but then it’s a blessing in other people’s lives as God takes our offerings and God takes our commitment and He has an impact on people’s lives. When people come to faith for the first time, when people are built up in their faith, when the children learn about Jesus and His love and our young people are equipped to go off into high school and to college and we reach across state lines and do our mission work or we go across the oceans and we reach out with the gospel as we see God taking our offerings and our gifts and making an impact in the world and to be able to say, “I’m a part of that. God is using me and God is using my gifts to accomplish that.” It’s a double-fold blessing. It’s a blessing in my life but it’s a blessing in other people’s lives as well. That’s what God does with our commitment.

It’s just a vital part of our spiritual life. I’ve done my best to be clear, articulate, concise to speak from God’s Word but, ultimately, it’s up to you. It’s between you and God. Those of you who are members here received a letter from me and maybe this week, you spent some time prayerfully considering how you were going to offer back to God. In just a minute here, I’m going to invite you to come forward and put your commitment card in the baskets on the altar. Some of you, maybe you’ve waited until this morning and you want to take a few minutes. The organ is going to start playing in a minute and maybe you want to decide. Maybe you don’t want to rush that decision. Maybe you want to take it home and you want to do that but now is the time for the rubber to hit the road. It’s time to go from theory to application. And so I invite you with joy, only with joy, to bring your commitments up to God.

Copyright 2007 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church