Sermon Tone Analysis

The Essence of Stewardship

November 22, 1998

 

Introduction:  

 

          We come once again to our annual emphasis on stewardship.

We try to do this at the Thanksgiving season for the very reason that we then remember the great bounty that God has given us, and that we have not been entrusted with that bounty just for ourselves but also for others as God directs, since it all belongs to God.

So the emphasis is on giving as a worshipful response to God’s generosity.

We might touch on it briefly at other times of the year as various themes lead us, and in fact, giving is spoken of often in the Bible.

But a special emphasis once a year is not too bad is it?

We usually think of stewardship as being responsible with our money.

But there are several facets to this topic.

Stewardship involves virtually all of what God has given us and we could go many directions with the idea.

But I would like to develop three areas of stewardship in this message today.

Those three areas certainly include the use of our money or treasure, which is a big issue for most of us.

But it also includes the use of our talents, and I would then like to conclude with the idea of being stewards of God’s truth.

What does the word “stewardship” mean to you?

What is it’s essence - the purest meaning of the word?

I propose that the essence of stewardship is trust.

We are entrusted with something for which we are to be trustworthy.

Since God has entrusted these things to us, we are to honor him in the way we use them.

He is trusting us with his things.

They have great value and he has given us instruction about them.

Obeying these instructions honors God and brings blessing to us.

A steward then is one who is trustworthy with the things of God, whether they be treasure, talents, or truth.

/Use everything as if it belongs to God.

It does.

You are his steward./

/The Possessor of heaven and earth placed you here, not as a proprietor, but as a steward.

/

/   -- John Wesley, in The Use of Money./

*I.

Treasure - being trustworthy with God’s physical gifts.

*

*          (Lk.

12:13-21)*

 

          Regarding the parable of the rich fool, Jesus, being God, and knowing with infinite accuracy the heart and soul of man, could always come up with a good hypothetical story to illustrate one of the teaching moments that invariably occurred in response to some offhand question or comment as he addressed the crowds.

But the thing I wonder is how hypothetical some of these parables really are.

I’ll just bet that at some point in human history it was a real life situation that Jesus could draw upon, and the reason that these parables speak to us is that we can truly identify with the all too human experience involved.

Jesus was teaching his disciples in the midst of a large crowd about the priority of the soul and its eternal destiny when someone in the crowd blurts out what is either the most important thing on his mind at the time or as an attempt to mock Jesus and change the subject.

His question reveals he wasn’t seriously listening or he didn’t understand what Jesus was teaching.

He wants Jesus to exert his authority and force his brother to share the inheritance with him which was probably the family farm that he wants to divide up.

Jesus immediate reply is insightful when he asks, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”  Jesus response tells the man that he is off the subject and implies that he should handle the issue either himself or elsewhere - that Jesus concern is not for such petty arguments.

But Jesus does take the opportunity as a teaching moment to illustrate his point that the concern over money was not consistent with the eternal value of the soul.

In other words, Jesus patiently uses wise teaching to equip the man to make a wise choice about the issue.

But he does not proceed until he calls the issue what it is - greed - and that such concern is way off track with what is truly important about life.

You see, the man already had what he needed.

The inheritance was over and above.

He just wanted more.

You might argue that all the man wants are for his rights to be recognized.

Like us, he simply wants what is due him.

However, there is a problem with that.

Most of us overestimate what is due to us and underestimate what is due to others.

This man demands his share of the inheritance, expressing his unwillingness to abide by the will of his father and live peaceably with his brother.

He is saying that no matter what his father wanted, he appeals to Jewish law which allowed a division of an inheritance if one party demanded it.

Notice that he does not come to Jesus and say, “Rabbi, my brother and I are in dispute and unable to live together in unity.

What should we do?”

This is not a request for assistance but a demand to satisfy his desire based on greed.

So follows the parable about the use of surplus wealth in the kingdom of God.

Do we spend the brunt of our labor in struggle and strive to figure out how to spend more of it on ourselves, or do we consider the needs of others in the kingdom of God and how to be good stewards of the wealth of treasure God gives us?

It is a primary consideration of importance.

A man’s time on earth is temporary.

A man’s soul is eternal.

Our time on earth tests our stewardship potential for the more glorious things in the eternal kingdom.

Will we prove trustworthy of little so that God will trust us with much?

If a man doesn’t value his own soul, polluting it with greed, how can he value anything else God aspires to trust him with?

Interestingly, possessions are what drives a capitalistic economy.

Without a desire for goods most jobs would be gone.

You know what this parable is about.

It is about what to do with surplus wealth in a capitalistic society.

What Jesus is talking about is the fact that people who live to possess and consume are people who are never satisfied, and if this man gets that land away from his brother he is not going to be satisfied and there will be more and more demands because we somehow think that the quality of the “good life” is comprised of the quality and the quantity of the goods we can consume on ourselves.

Learn this - no matter how much you get, it is never enough.

Desire is never completely satiated.

Desire always needs and wants more, whether it is a desire for power, fame, reputation, possessions or sexual fulfillment.

Our entire culture animates itself and drives itself by desire and when it is fulfilled it promises the good life, but it never produces it because we are always after more.

To this man Jesus could say, “With my kingdom present and the King here don’t miss the quality of the time you are living in.

If you understood what I am offering, you would not be concerned about land division.”

We are no different than this hapless man.

Radar and satellites permit us to pinpoint the next thunderstorm, but we do not have sense enough to understand the quality of the time we are living in, the time between Jesus’ redemptive victory, his ascension, and his absence preceding his return.

We live in that time period when he is building his church in this world, and this is not the time for unrestrained consumption.

It is the time period for evangelism, not the time to gear life toward the satisfaction of our temporal desires.

It is a time not to accumulate but to sacrifice on behalf of the church Jesus Christ is building.

To talk today about sacrifice for the sake of the kingdom based upon the hour in which we live is not looked upon any more positively than it is in this parable nor in this man demanding his rights to have what he believes is due him in order to consume them upon himself.

And Jesus said once you consume it you will not be fulfilled - you will need more.

Jesus implored his disciples to hold themselves away from such desires, to understand that true love and a fulfilling life does not consist in the surplus of possessions.

You will notice in this parable of the rich fool that it was not the most recent bumper crop that made him rich.

He was already rich.

He was obviously very good in what we would call strategic planning.

Perhaps he had all the latest fertilizers and all the best research available - he was an astute Jewish farmer - and he experienced a crop yield that even he had not planned for because his barns did not have enough capacity to contain the harvest.

This man did not become rich by being a poor planner, but God gave him a harvest that exceeded any expectation and he found himself with a storage problem.

He was uncertain what he should do in order to accommodate this large harvest.

Ambrose, and early church father, in a sermon about this parable said, “There was ample storage in the mouths of the needy.”

This parable is not an attack upon being rich.

It is an attack upon what we do with our riches in the kingdom.

It is about the kind of wealth that goes beyond what a person could justify consuming on himself.

The farmer begins to solve his problem by talking to himself.

“What will I do?

I have all this surplus and not enough places to store it.”

The last thing most people talk to others about is their wealth.

If asked about our wealth, most of us would say, “It is none of your business!”

Wealth can cause you to live in isolation from other people.

This man’s bumper crop was a great blessing but he did not have anyone with whom to share his excitement or his wealth.

He had no one to help him make strategic decisions about how to deal with it.

Unfortunately, he made the same assumption that many people make when abundance comes into their lives - he assumed it was there for his personal consumption.

He already had more that he needed, but his surplus wealth came and his conclusion was that he had a right to consume the excess too.