Stewardship
not our leftovers.
by Greg Feld
Before I get into our sermon, I need to give you some background. I’ve been trying to think of some novel theme and message for this year’s stewardship campaign for most of the summer.
Unfortunately absolutely nothing was coming to mind. So I finally decided to take some time by myself out at our cabin to reflect and research for some needed inspiration. So early the first morning, I go out on our deck with my cup of coffee and Googled “Stewardship Sermons” and spent hour after hour watching Utube videos. There were some fairly good sermons, a bunch of clever skits and even a set of accountants singing a rap message. For some reason I just couldn’t see myself doing any of this. By the end of the day I was fairly frustrated and ready to simply pass this off to pastor. The second day I went fishing which is often good for clearing my head but again reeling in the bluegills didn’t help me one bit. Finally on day 3 I sat again on our deck and said that I think that I need to pray. So I prayed “Dear Lord, it’s obvious to me that no matter what I do, I’m not able to do this on my own. I need your help. Please send the Holy Spirit down to inspire me so that I may in turn inspire others. Amen.” I shouldn’t be surprised but within 30 minutes the main theme came rolling out and the thoughts kept coming faster than I could write. I was truly amazed and thankful for the desperately needed help. From this I learned 3 things.
First, I’ve discovered that if I want help in the future, a 20 second prayer for help from the Holy Spirit is far superior than hours with Google. Not only does it save loads of time and frustration, but the responses are perfectly fit to my needs without the eternal scrolling, pop up ads or junk mail. It’s also free to all of us without monthly bills. And the best thing is I don’t need access to my laptop, smart phone or any kind of intermittent wifi signal. I carry it in my hip pocket no matter where I go. With all of these superior advantages, I’m sure that I’ll be “Holy Spiriting” much more in the future instead of “Googling” for my inspiration.
Second, I don’t know why it is but we Christians wait until we’re ready to give up hope before we take the drastic step of praying to our Lord. We think “OH NO! Is the situation that desperate that we need to revert to prayer? If we were smart, we would simply lead off all of our activities with prayer, like in our everyday job, or our conversations with those we meet, or making simple decisions. We would find that our life would be much less frustrating.
And third, if you don’t like this following sermon, you can blame the Holy Spirit because fortunately the words that are coming out of my mouth are not my own.
The message here is that prayer is not only reserved for Sunday morning or only when we get in desperate trouble, but in everything that we do.
And just to forewarn you, you may want to shut me down after and hour and a half since I’ve discovered just how prolific the Holy Spirit can be! I’ve learned that you need to be very specific with what you ask for.
As a child, we’ve all been part of the age old tradition of choosing up sides at the start of our various sporting events like with choosing sides for baseball or basketball. And what a great feeling it was to be the first one chosen as you step forward with pride knowing how your peers respected your talents and your potential contributions to the team. Unfortunately, with this system there is also a last person chosen usually with the words “you take him.” This left over person will naturally feel the shame and rejection.
And what if when it comes to Thanksgiving, you’re aware of a co-worker who has no family around to share this joyous day with. Imagine how honored he would be if you invited him to join your family at your feast and give him an honored place at your table. Wouldn’t that be much more respectful than telling him that you’ll bring him some cold left overs on Monday morning IF there is anything remaining from your family feast.
There are obviously vastly different feelings of pride and respect versus disappointment and rejection. This year’s stewardship theme is “God wants our First Fruits, not our leftovers.”
We hear very early in the bible when God tells Moses in Exodus 23:19 “As you harvest your crops, bring the very best of the FIRST harvest to the house of the Lord your God.”
And again in Leviticus 2:14 “present a grain offering to the Lord from the FIRST portion of your harvest”
And in Leviticus 23:10 “When you enter the land I am giving you and you harvest its FIRST crops, bring the priest a bundle of grain from the FIRST cutting of your grain harvest.”
No matter how long I looked, I couldn’t find one verse in the bible stating that we should give back to God only those resources that are left over after meeting our higher priorities.
Unfortunately we only have limited resources available to us in this life time. Not only do we have limited finances and possessions, but we also have limited talents and abilities. We only have limited strength and health. And we only have very limited time. Since we only have limited resources, we tend to prioritize our utilization and spending of these resources to assure that they are used in the most important areas. Obviously family is usually one of those very high priorities that we need to concentrate on first. Good parents will always give top priority to their children. And our grandchildren have their grandma wrapped around their little finger since she will eagerly drop whatever she’s doing to give them top priority. And then it’s also human nature to take care of your own individual needs. Unfortunately, giving back to God of our limited resources is normally thought of as a much lower priority.
Despite what the bible instructs us, we usually only give back to God those leftovers that we don’t need to satisfy our higher priorities. This telegraphs our message directly to God that he is not a high priority in our lives. It also demonstrates a gross lack of faith in God’s specific promises to us. We are told in the 3rd chapter of Proverbs verses 9 and 10 “Honor the Lord by giving Him the FIRST part of all your income and He will fill your barns with wheat and barley and overflow your wine vats with the finest wines.”
For your financial support, it is absolutely essential that this be from your first fruits and not from your leftovers. If you wait until the end of the pay period and look at what you have left over to give to the church….. guess what, your wallet or checking account will always be empty…. Or else you’ll look at the leftovers and realize that I need to set that meager amount aside for next month because as sure as God made green apples, little Johnny will certainly need a new pair of tennis shoes next month.
However what I’ve found to be an absolute life changer is that magical activity called “automatic withdrawal.” I’ve discovered many years ago that when money is withdrawn automatically without me even keeping track of it, I never miss it, not even once. How many of you would ever be able to pay your income taxes if it weren’t taken off the top of your pay check? How many of you believe that you would have sufficient funds on May 15 to write a check to the state and federal government to pay for your huge income taxes? So in their infinite wisdom in knowing human nature, your money grubbing
government takes it right off the very top of every paycheck. DON’T THEY TRUST US? Well the obvious answer is that they’re smart not to. The amazing thing is that we have been trained by experience to budget for the remainder of our expenses with what’s left over after our taxes are taken out. So I ask you… what’s more important in your life, God or the government? Christ said very plainly in Matthew 22:21 “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.” We need to account for both.
God gives you all of the resources that you have not only out of his love for us but also as a test. Those resources are not only your finances, but also your talents, your abilities, your passions and also your time. He wants to see if you are only utilizing these gifts for your own good and the good of your loved ones, but also in what he told us are the greatest two commandments. In Matthew 22:37- 39 Christ tells us to…… “Love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind….. and love your neighbor as yourself.”
God is testing you to see if you trust him enough to give him the first part of your fruits or simply the crumbs from your table. Is he an honored guest at your table or simply the dog sitting at your feet? If you don’t learn to give of your “First Fruits” you will never get to where God wants your heart to be and where you need to be if you are ever to be one with him and your fellow man.
One of the great challenges that we face is with the FAITH that it takes to abide by this first fruits principle. Simple human logic tell us that if I have $100 and I give $10 to doing God’s work, then I now have less money to fulfill my needs. It’s difficult to argue that. However I will loudly argue with a strongly confident heart that the mathematical equation of $90 plus God is far, far greater than $100. I’d much rather have God guiding my finances that just me on my own. Likewise if I budget two hours of my time in the week up front, I will now have 2 hours less to devote to my family, my job, my pleasures and any of the priorities in my life. However I would also contend that when you spend those 2 hours in God’s ministry, it will help you to stay centered and focused on the Godly things that are actually most important in your life. Don’t wait for the extra gifts to magically appear to give back to God, take the best of the cream directly off the top and start your week off in the right direction.
When it comes to stepping forward with faith, I am extremely happy with the other members that I serve with on our church council. The amazing thing is that when I look through the list of our council members and the positions that they hold, there is only one person who actually had formal training or experience. Lucky for us our treasurer, Chris Barwick comes from an accounting background which is not a bad thing to have. On the other hand, 3 out of 4 of our previous treasurers had no formal accounting training. As council president, I certainly don’t have any experience as CEO of any corporation. All of these good people on council have stepped out in faith to help fulfill the mission that they have been assigned. Personally I don’t care that they have no previous training or experience. I don’t even care if they make mistakes or occasionally fail in there assigned jobs. The only true failure is not stepping up in the first place. The only thing that I care about is that they have a heart for what they know is right and are willing to try to succeed in their role. And from what I can see, every member of our council has a right heart, and that’s all that matters to me.
When it comes to volunteering for a new activity, it doesn’t matter if you have previous experience or talent in that area. Lord knows that I have made countless mistakes as I took on tasks that were likely outside my abilities. Mike Gettler will attest to the fact that our speakers in the cry room no longer worked after I put not just one but two nails through the wiring with my handy nail gun as I was nailing up trim along the back of the church. And one day while I was cutting the grass on our big riding mower, I saw that someone had laid our large House of Prayer welcome mat out on the front concrete apparently to dry out. Knowing that the rug was maybe a half inch thick and the blades of the mower were probably a good 3” off the ground, I simply rode over the carpet. Unfortunately I didn’t account for the large uplift from the rapidly turning blades which sucked up the rug with pieces
of carpeting flying all over the place. So instead of reading “House of Prayer” our rug now simply commanded me to “Pray” which I thought was sound advice. Despite my constant mistakes, I have yet to be fired from any of my positions. I have proven over and over again that you don’t need a brain, you only need heart! I once prayed to God to bless me with a whole brain like everybody else. But he said “Greg, with the work that I’ve given you to do, you can get by with the half brain that I’ve provided you.”
Since having the HEART for ministry is the only thing that matters, we’ve renamed the usual “Time and Talent” sheets to “Your Heart Chart.” Because we don’t care what you have experience with or what you’re talented with or what you actually have time to devote to, we really only care about where your heart is. So when you review and fill out “Your Heart Chart”, don’t simply look at your experience or your schedule but examine your heart to see where you can be the most good for our congregation. As in the past, we list all of the areas in our church that requires volunteers to help our church function. This year we also included a blank space at the end of each section to allow you to fill in any thoughts and ideas that you may have to add those functions that we may have missed or you feel might be a helpful addition to our mission. We also have a very important section up front for you to list any of the skills and talents that you have that could be helpful to our congregation. This is not only those things that you may currently do or have done in the past professionally but also those things that you enjoy doing as hobbies. Knowing the abilities of my fellow members in the Businesses in Christ section, we have used Dan Keske to safely cut down dead trees in our yard, have utilized Joe Jastrow for starting dead lawn mowers and snow throwers or utilized Dave Michalski for cleaning and restoring our flooded basements. There is absolutely nothing more reassuring than knowing that you can trust the people who you are paying for their help. And why not help support them in their business endeavors.
The other line is to fill in any volunteer work that you are currently doing or have done in the past. Since it is important that we continue to reach out to others in our community who are outside our church, we need to get ideas and information from everyone who has any experience in other areas. Our council has set as one of our House of Prayer priorities to increase our outreach activities. With all of our current social distancing restrictions, this has been almost totally on hold but we will be looking for new ways to do God’s work in our communities whether it is as a House of Prayer congregation or as individuals.
On the financial side, we want to thank you for your continued support despite all of the extra challenges this year. In fact due to your generosity we have been able to increase our first fruits givings an additional 1% of our income. With your support we will increase this by an additional 1% in 2021 as we continue to increase in doing God’s work in our community.
Now what we are obviously emphasizing is trying to fulfill our House of Prayer financial, spiritual, emotional and physical needs for our church. But what you should be really be examining is how can you contribute in any of the ways to do God’s work. If you feel that your money can do more work for God’s purposes with other ministries or charities, then you need to put your money there. If you feel that there are better stewards for your money, your time and your heart, then you need to devote your precious resources in that direction. If House of Prayer doesn’t deserve your support, then we should close up our doors and turn out the lights. When the bible tells us that we need to tithe our 10% of our first fruits to the Lord, he doesn’t say that it must all go directly to the temple. You must let your heart guide you to the best usage of your precious resources. You should absolutely never give out of pressure. As stated in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “You must each decide in your heart how much to give.
And don’t give reluctantly on in response to pressure. For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”
While in the past we have put pledge cards and time and talent sheets in your mail boxes at the back of church, with our social distancing we will email these out to you. If you would prefer, we can hand
out paper copies to those who attend our drive in services or we can send copies in the mail for your attention. We request that you fill these out on line and email them back to our stewardship chair, Lacey Sundeen or hand them back at our drive in services or mail back to our attention. We ask that you please complete this by Sunday October 18 to allow us to work on our 2021 budget and help with the staffing of our committees.
So in conclusion, we ask that before you sit down to fill out your pledge card and your heart chart, that you say a brief but sincere prayer for God to guide your heart to give of your first fruits in the best way to give glory to God and to help with our neighbors around us. Remember that “God wants our First Fruits, not our leftovers.”
Amen