STEWARDSHIP: THE MISSING PIECE TO SUCCCESSFUL LIVING
The Benefits of Lifestyle Stewardship
Luke 6
Dr. John Maxwell
INTRODUCTION:
I want to talk to you this month on the theme of stewardship, which truly is the missing piece to successful living. I’m excited about what this month is going to have in store for you and for me as far as our own spiritual growth and development. This morning I’m going to be talking about benefits: “The Benefits of Lifestyle Stewardship.” We’re going to do a biblical overview. We’re going to look at several passages of Scripture and just see what God’s Word says about living a successful steward’s life.
Next Sunday, I’m going to talk to you about finding a balance as God’s steward and we’re going to talk about “poverty or prosperity, Which is biblically correct?” You run into some Christians and they walk around and they say, “You know, if you really serve God you won’t have anything.” And then there are others that say, “If you serve God; you’ll have everything.” You’ll hear poverty preachers and you’ll hear prosperity preachers. I can hardly wait to preach this message. For about three years, I’ve wanted to preach a message on this. I’m looking forward, next Sunday, to talking to you about when you really become a Christian, what’s going to happen to you financially? What’s going to happen to you in all these areas of your life?
The third week, I’m going to talk about accepting responsibility as God’s steward. I love the title of that message: “If God Owns It All, What Am I Doing With It?” We’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about the resources that God has given.
Finally, the last Sunday, we’re going to talk about becoming partners as God’s stewards. One plus one equals what? I’m looking forward to our time together.
Now on the inside, as you turn to the sermon, you’ll notice now we have three pages for note taking today. Folks don’t be discouraged. What you have to understand is I put an amazing amount of Scripture references in this section because I did not want us to have to take time to look up individual passages. So basically what I’m going to do is give you a biblical overview now of lifestyle stewardship with the Scriptures already there so you can follow along quickly so we can learn these nuggets of truth as fast as possible.
Luke chapter 6 is the setting for the story. Jesus is doing some marvelous teaching about really living a lifestyle of giving. We pick up with verse 27: “But I say to you, who hear; love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.” Whoever hits you on the cheek, hit them back. I just want to see if you’re following along. “Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. Whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Just as you want men to treat you, treat them in the same way. And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you, for even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same thing. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great. And you will be sons of the most high, for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful. And do not pass judgment and you will not be judged. And do not condemn and you shall not be condemned. Pardon and you will be pardoned. Give and it will be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap for whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to you in return.”
Four observations:
1. This behavior is to be our lifestyle.
It’s apparent as you read these verses that Jesus expects us to live this.
2. This behavior sets us apart from the world.
Three different times, our Lord said that if we don’t live this high road of life of giving and sharing and loving. He said, “If you don’t live that high road, there will be nothing that will separate us distinctively from the sinner.” He said, “The sinners treat those who treat them well in return.” He said, "If you want to live a distinctive high road, you’re going to have to live this life of stewardship and giving.”
3. This behavior is modeled by our Heavenly Father (verse 36).
4. This behavior will reap many benefits.
He talks about those benefits that we reap in verse 35; He talks about the fact that our reward will be great. In verse 37, He talks about the fact that if we do not judge others, we won’t be judged. If we don’t condemn others, we won’t be condemned. If we pardon, we will be pardoned. In other words, He basically teaches us that we pretty much determine our own sentence from God. If we’re harsh with others, He’ll be harsh with us. If we’re lenient towards others, He’ll be lenient with us. He says basically that our attitude toward others will determine God’s attitude toward us. Verse 38 was one of my father’s very favorite verses. I’ve heard him quote it hundreds of times: “Give and it will be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will poor into your lap, for whatever measure you deal out to others it will be dealt to you in return.”
Folks, I’m excited not only about this message, but I’m excited about this month. Remember when you were a kid and the teacher would ask you a question and you knew the answer? Remember you’d put your hand up and you really wanted to be called on because you just knew that you had the answer, and you wanted the teacher to know, you wanted the other kids to know? You also remember those moments when the teacher was looking around for somebody to raise their hand and you kind of had your head down and you thought, “Oh God, don’t let them call on me. I don’t have a clue what’s going on here. Oh, my dear Jesus come now, spare me.” You say, “How do you know?” I’ve prayed that prayer thousands of times in my life. But you know what it was like when you could raise your hand because you knew that you knew, and you also knew that it would help somebody else. You see, what excites me about preaching this month on stewardship is I really know biblically how things can turn around for you financially, how things can turn around for you spiritually, and how things can turn around for your life. The stuff that I’m going to give you, not only this morning but for the next three weeks, I promise you n hang with me for these next four weeks — I promise you it can incredibly, beautifully change your life.
You see, God’s Word teaches us much about how to live a successful life and the missing piece in most Christians’ lives is this piece called stewardship: the management of the resources that God has given you and me. And this month I’m going to do my best biblically to teach you how to manage what God has given you and when you manage it correctly, you receive more. And when you manage it incorrectly you receive less. It’s not an accident nor is it a mystery why some people are blessed and why some people are not blessed. We’re going to talk about the fact that we can be a river instead of a reservoir, and that we can be a channel that God will flow through if we understand the biblical principles of stewardship.
How do we develop a lifestyle of giving? Three things:
1. Totally give yourself to God.
You see, true stewardship doesn’t start with what I put in an offering plate on Sunday. It begins when I totally give myself to Jesus Christ. Remember when Paul was talking in Corinthians concerning the churches at Macedonia and he said some interesting things about them. He said things like, “They gave according to their ability.” And then he thought about it for a moment, he said, “No. They really gave more than they were able to give.” And then when he talked about the fact that they gave more than they were able to give? That stands out. You say wait a minute, how can a person give more than they are able to give. He goes on and says, “Because they first gave themselves to the Lord.” You see, all stewardship teaching begins with lordship surrender, consecration to God. Until that happens, nothing else happens. You see, the first thing that you give to God is not your money, not your time, but your talent, not one day a week on Sunday morning. The first thing you give to God is yourself, totally, everything that you’ve got. Then everything else comes easy.
Sadly, most Christians never learn this principle. I’ve watched them lose blessings financially. I’ve watched them lose blessings spiritually. I’ve watched them lose blessings emotionally because they have never first given everything over to God. My friend in Washington, D.C. told me this story about eight years ago. I told it to you about three years ago, but it bears repeating. It is a great story about lordship and God’s ownership of your life and of my life. Bob took his kids to McDonald’s and he bought his boy fries and his boy was sitting across from him and he didn’t have any fries himself, but as he began to smell those fries — you know how good they smell, wouldn’t mind having some myself right now — but anyway, he began to smell those fries and instinctively, he reached across to get some fries out of his little kid’s packet there, and as soon as his hands touched those fries his little boy grabbed that hand and kind of pushed it back. And he withdrew that hand and he said, “Dad, Dad, don’t take my fries!” And Dad said, “Boy, I kind of recoiled and I kind of felt bad. I felt terrible.” He said, “I began to real quickly think of just what happened.” He said, “You know, I looked at my son and I said to myself, my son doesn’t realize where those fries came from. He doesn’t realize about five minutes ago I went to the counter, reached into my pocket, took out my money and bought those fries for him and I am the source of those fries. He doesn’t understand that.” He said, “Secondly, he doesn’t understand that if I want to, I can take those fries away from him which, probably about right then was a good thought. He doesn’t understand if I want to, I can go over to the counter, and I can order about a dozen fries, and I can go back to that counter, and I can bury him in fries.” He said, “What he didn’t understand is I didn’t need his fries. If I really wanted to, I can go back to the counter and get my own. But what I needed was his willingness to share what I had already previously given him.”
Could I tell you what the height of ingratitude is? The height of ingratitude is for God to give you something or to give me something and then for us to put a fence around it and act as if it is ours, and not want to share and not want to give back, and all of a sudden, begin to be possessive with it. The height of being unthankful is for God to give us something and then for us to act like it’s our own. In fact, one of the first things we’re going to learn this entire month is: “We own nothing.” Everything you and I have right now is a gift of God’s. Amen? Life and breath itself is a gift of God. My time may be over before this day, and I can tell you right now, I have no control over it. The height of ingratitude is for us to somehow think that what God has given us is ours. And if you and I are going to develop the lifestyle of giving biblically that I want to teach us this month, the first thing we’re going to have to do is forget about giving Him a little bit here and a little there. Just give Him yourself. It starts with total consecration, lordship, allowing Jesus Christ not only to be your Savior, but the very Lord of your life.
2. Learn the benefits of biblically giving.
You’re going to be amazed. You’re going to be absolutely amazed about what God’s Word says about us and our giving, our negativity, and our grasping.
3. Apply those principles to our lives.
The principles that I’m going to teach you this morning, we need not only to know them, but we need to apply them or do them. Jesus said, “If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.” You see, a lot of people understand biblical stewardship. A lot of people understand the principles, but they don’t apply the principles and operate the principles in their life. My goal this month is to get you to not only know about a lifestyle of giving, but to begin to be a lifestyle giver in your own action and in your own life.
Now, to prepare this kind of a message, I sat down and I got my concordance out and I began to look up all of the verses in the Bible that refer to giving or gifts or give. I was shocked. Let’s take some common words in the Bible for a moment and let me just tell you how many times they are used in the Bible. Let’s take the word “believe.” That’s a very good word: “believe, believing, believer.” Do you realize that if you took every verse in the Bible that had that word in it or those words in it, there are only 272 verses that talk about belief? There are only 371 verses that talk about prayer. 714 verses talk about love and loving. Boy, that’s a word that we’re used to hearing. You talk about God so loved the world — I mean that’s an incredible word. That’s a Bible word. That’s a Christian word. 714 verses deal with love. Now fasten your seatbelts. When I came to the concordance on giving and being a giver, 2,162 verses talk about us giving: three times more than love, seven times more than prayer, eight times more than belief. You’ll find that giving and being a giver is peppered from the very beginning of the Bible to the very end of the Bible. God wants us to understand that we are to be givers in life. And there is one thing clear, and I put it in your sermon section. One thing is clear, both in the Old and the New Testament: God desires to bless us and provide us with the necessities of life. That’s a fact of life. God desires to take care of your needs and my needs. We’re His children and if God sees the sparrow when it falls; and God can count the hairs on our head, then He knows about us. He knows everything about us and God wants to take care of our needs.
Now, for God to take care of your physical needs, for God to take care of your financial needs, there are two things that you must do:
1. You must ask God to provide your needs and to meet those needs.
You say, “Pastor where do you get that?” From the Lord’s Prayer itself. When Jesus taught us to pray, He said, pray “Give us this day our daily bread.” Now, He wouldn’t have asked us to ask for that need if He wasn’t going to provide it. He’s not in the job of frustrating you and me. He said if you have a need, if you need some bread, ask me for bread. I am wanting to take care of the physical needs in your life. The apostle Paul one time said, “Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.” In other words, Paul said, in everything in your life, present your request to God. So the first thing we need to do is we need to come to God in prayer and ask Him to meet our needs. If you have a financial need, as God’s child you need to ask God to help you to find a job, help you to meet that physical need, God says, “Come to Me. Ask for that daily bread.”
2. If you and I are going to receive what God has for us, we must be generous in our giving.
It is a fact, it is a biblical truth, it is a principle that God doesn’t bless a miser. God doesn’t bless a stingy person. God is not about to give you something that you think is yours and that you keep for yourself and are unwilling to pass on.
Now, with that type of an introduction and foundation, let’s look now biblically at an overview of lifestyle giving and stewardship.
There are several benefits, let me give them to you:
1. It puts material wealth into a biblical perspective.
The moment that you and I begin to become a giver in our lifestyle and the moment that we do it biblically, all of a sudden the material wealth falls into a biblical focus and perspective that did not happen until we did this. In Matthew chapter 6: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things shall be added unto you.” Jesus Himself has said, I’ll meet your needs, if you put me first. Now, our problem is we want to have our needs met without putting Him first. How many times have you and I prayed and asked God to bless us financially, when we rob God ourselves? Come on now folks. How many of us have asked God to do something for us when we realized that we consecrated it to God. You see, here’s what interesting, God gives it to us. We hold on to it and act as if it’s our own. God says no, give it back to me. You see, isn’t it interesting? God gives to me and then he turns around and says, now, John give it back to me. You see the first thing God does is He gives it to me, then He wants me to volunteer to give it back to Him. When I give it back to Him, then he says, “Okay, now I’ll meet your needs.” But what happens is if He gives it to me and I act as if it’s my own, then I run out of resources and I’m in trouble because I haven’t given it back to Him. And so then when I say, "God give it to me," He says, “You’ve got it yourself.”
One of the first things we need to understand about stewardship is, as long as I have what God has given to me and take it for my own and am stingy with it, I’m responsible for it. But the moment that I give it back to God, God is now responsible for it and He’s responsible for me. That’s why t “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these other things will be added unto you.” That’s why total consecration, lordship is the first thing that you and I do as far as developing a lifestyle of giving in our life.
2. It teaches us that giving should not be separated from behavior.
God’s word tells me that how I give, and how I behave ought to be the same. That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 5, that we are first to be reconciled to our brother and then come and present our gift. In other words, He said, don’t just be giving gifts and have wrong relationships. He says, “Get your relationship settled with your fellow man and become a giver of life. Don’t say, well I give, I pay my tithes, but I have terrible attitudes and terrible relationships with people out there.” No, He says, “Have good relationships with other people. Have your behavior right and your giving right. They should match. One should not be good and the other bad. They both should be right.
3. It is a key test of spiritual commitment.
Do you know that our giving is a key witness test to our commitment to God? Luke 16: “If you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches of heaven.” Do you know what Jesus said? Jesus said if we were not trustworthy with the material possessions we have — He said, “If you can’t handle your checkbook and put Me as a part in that, if you can’t take care of that; Why in the world should I take care and entrust you the riches of heaven? If you can’t take care of mammon, how can I give you something that is eternal? If you can’t take care of that which you have on a day to day basis, how can I ever give you anything and trust you with the kingdom and the riches of God?” Do you realize the way we control our money, the way that we give, all of those things determine not only the blessings we receive from God directly but also it determines how much blessings God gives us spiritually?
Now I’ll read it again. “If you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth; Who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?” Do you know what a checkbook is? A checkbook is a theological document. It indicates who and what we worship. It’s so easy to come to church and say, “Oh, Lord we love you; oh, Lord we love you.” The Lord says, “Ah, let me see your checkbook.” Are you all right out there? Martin Luther said one time, “When a person is converted, three conversions are necessary: conversion of the head, conversion of the heart, and conversion of the purse.” He said, “Of the three, the first is the hardest.”
4. It protects against financial enslavement.
When we put God first, we will cease to be financially enslaved by material possessions. You may be extremely wealthy but the reason why an extremely wealthy person that puts God first is freed up from financial enslavement is because they realize that every source and everything that comes, comes from God Himself. That’s why Jesus tells us, you can not serve two masters, God and money. For you will either hate one and love the other or else the other way around. And when you become a steward, it will free you, it will free me up from financial enslavement. All of a sudden, God is our target and He is our source. We seek Him. Now, we may have all kinds of wonderful things added to it, but God is still the focus and so therefore, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.” That’s exactly how Job understood it. He said, “God has blessed me.” There have been times when I have been cursed, but he said it’s okay because my focus is God. My focus isn’t the dollars I have in my bank. It isn’t my possessions. The focus is God. The moment that we have our focus on God, interestingly enough, we are not only being taken care of financially but it also frees us up.
Do you remember Jack Benny? He was such a great, great comedian who was so good on timing. The great Jack Benny scene, it’s probably the most famous of all, when the guy comes up behind with a gun and says, “Your money or your life?” Remember how tight and stingy he was? I love that scene. Jack Benny is thinking, and the guy says again, “Your money or your life?” Jack Benny says, “Wait a minute, I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” Wow!
I heard a story the other day about a couple that went to the county fair and they wanted to take a plane ride and the pilot was taking people up for rides and charging them $10, $5 a person. They didn’t want to pay that much so they tried talking him into $5 for two. He said, “No, it’s going to be $5 for each of you. They were negotiating, and finally, the pilot said, “Well, I’ll tell you what, you really don’t want to go for $10. I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said, “If you’ll go up in this plane with me and never say one word, when I come back down, I’ll return your $10. The guy says, “That’s a deal” and gave him $10. Of course, you know what the pilot’s going to do, with that open cockpit. He did all kinds of loops and turn arounds for about 15 minutes, and much to his surprise, not a word from behind. He got a little bit sick himself and had to go land that plane. He landed that plane and he got out and he reached in to give that $10 back to the guy, and says, “Man, I can’t believe it. You get your $10 back, you never said a single word.” And the guy says, “I’ll tell you what, I almost said something when my wife fell out.” That’s financial enslavement folks.
5. It gives me victory over materialism.
One of the great verses on stewardship in the Bible is that verse in I Timothy 16:17-19. It’s in your notes, look at it. “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited.”— In other words, if you’ve got money don’t brag about it; don’t be conceited about it t “or to fix their hope in uncertainty of riches, but fix their hope on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.” In other words, if you have it, God’s given it to you already, so don’t get conceited about it and don’t fix your hope on it. Look at verse 18: “Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good work, to be generous.” If you have been blessed you are to be generous and ready to share. “Storing up for themselves a treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.” You see, each time we give, it breaks the materialism syndrome. One of the reasons that God wants you and I to be givers is because every time we give back to Him, it breaks that syndrome of materialism which is I’ve got to have more, I’m greedy and I’ve got to hold on to what I’ve got. Every time we give it’s just a little less of a tightening of the grip on those things which God doesn’t want us to hold tightly to in the first place.
6. It strengthens my faith.
I know it strengthens my faith because in Malachi 3:10, God says that we’re to bring the whole tithe to the storehouse and He says, “I want you to test me in this.” In others words, He said try me out. “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and poor out to you a blessing that there is no more need” In other words, God said, "Put me first." Put me first financially, begin to be a tither. God says I’ll take care of you. Trust me. He says, “Test me.” In fact it’s interesting, it’s the only place in the Bible that God tells us to test Him. Every other time that we test God, it’s an indication that you don’t have faith. Here God says, I want you to trust me… I want you test me… I want you to check me out on this issue.
7. It makes me happy.
In 1 Chronicles, chapter 29, when David and the people brought their money to the temple, they rejoiced because they had offered so willingly and they made their offering to the Lord. Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” or we’re happy if we give. The root word of miserable is “miser.” The unhappiest people in the world are people who are misers that hold on, who are stingy, who have never let go, who are constantly looking out for themselves, who have a greedy mind-set. Carl Meninger, who was the famous psychiatrist said, “Giving is a good criteria for mental health.” He said, “Generous people are seldom mentally ill.”
8. It blesses me in return.
When I live a life of stewardship I will be blessed in return. That’s that Luke 6:38 passage. We’ve already read it. Proverbs 22:9 says,” “He, who is generous, will be blessed.”
9. It keeps me from losing my assets and my abilities.
When I become a giver, I keep the assets and abilities. No, I do more than keep, I increase. Jesus said, “What you keep you lose and what you lose you keep.” The passage that I have for you here is the passage of Luke 16 where He’s talking about the one who could no longer become a steward because they had squandered and kept everything they had. Martin Luther said, “I have had many things in my hands and I have lost them all, but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, I still possess.”
If you want to increase your assets, give. If you want to decrease your assets, keep, hoard, hang on. It’s a biblical principle. Jesus said, “What you keep you lose and what you lose you keep.” Such a paradox. I mean we sit there and say, “How in the world could that happen?” You see, it can’t happen humanly. But God doesn’t live in a human world. God says that when you and I learn to give, when you and I learn to let go, when you and I learn to hold lightly, everything we have — nothing wrong with having things as long as things don’t have you. There’s nothing wrong with possessions as long as they don’t possess you. The moment that you and I begin to hoard and hang on to and believe that it is ours, that’s the mode where we begin to be in trouble. And if we want to increase our assets, we become a giver.
It’s a true story about a man in the early 1920’s who gave $100,000 to a Methodist college in, I think it was Liberia. He lost all of his money in the 1929 stock market crash, lost it all. In the 60s they wanted to find the man who literally had given them money to begin this college and so they did a search for him. They found him in the south side of Chicago and they asked him m they wanted to take him to see the school. Twice he said no and finally on the third time he said okay. So they flew him to Africa to see this school that he had given $100,000 in the early 1920’s to build. And he stood in front of these hundreds of Christian students at this Christian college and weeping, he turned to the president and said, “The only thing I have left is what I gave.” How true it is. Every one of us will soon understand that everything we keep for ourselves, we are gong to eventually lose. But everything that we give now for the kingdom, we will always keep.
10. It’s the proof of my love.
Paul tells the Corinthian Church they literally proved the earnestness and the sincerity of their love by their giving. I learned a long time ago that we can give without loving but we cannot love without giving.
11. It focuses on the eternal rather than the temporal.
When we begin to become givers, it focuses on things, which last eternal, instead of the temporal. Alexander the Great, that great world conqueror who possessed it all, insisted that when he died t and they did this for him — that when he died and lay in state, that they put his arms up and his hands open. Because Alexander the Great said, “I want everybody that marches by me when I die to understand, although I conquered everything, when I left this world I took nothing.” How true it is. None of us are going to take anything and all of that biblical stewardship does is it teaches us to focus on the eternal instead of the temporal.
12. It will bring rightful recognition from the body of Christ.
When we are good stewards, we will receive rightful recognition from other brothers and sisters in Christ. The classic story of that — Remember when Paul was in prison in Rome and the church in Phillipi sent a fellow by the name of Epaphroditus over to him to take care of his needs. Really what they did, they sent Epaphroditus over to Paul to give him some money. When Epaphroditus got there, saw that Paul was really impoverished, he stayed there and took care of his physical needs and his spiritual needs and fellowship and friendship needs, and took care of him for a long time. In fact, he took good care of him and he almost lost his life taking care of Paul. Finally, Paul sent him back to Phillipi and Paul wrote to the Philippians and I have it in your notes. He said, “Welcome him back in the Lord with great joy and honor men like him. Honor men that are great givers.”
13. It will bring rightful recognition from God.
Not only will it be recognized by the members of the body of Jesus Christ, but it will be recognized by God. Jesus watched them give one day in the treasury box and He saw a poor widow who put in two small copper coins. He said, “I tell you truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all of the others. They all gave out of their wealth but she gave out of poverty. She put in everything, all that she had to live on.” Alan Cole said, “It is well to remember that the Lord measures, giving not by what we give, but what we keep for ourselves. The widow gave nothing, She gave it all.”
14. It makes me more like God.
When I become a giver in life it makes me more like God. “For God so loved the world that He gave...” Following World War II, many of the countries were quite devastated from the war. Most of the American soldiers stayed behind to help them clean up. One Sunday morning an America soldier in one of the large cities in Europe, turned the corner in his Jeep and he looked over and he saw about a ten-year-old kid standing in front of the bakery. This little orphan kid had his mouth opened and his eyes looked longingly. He would love to have had some of those items in that bakery. The soldier pulled the Jeep over, jumped out, looked at the kid and said, “Are you hungry?” The kid said, “I sure am sir.” Without any other words, he went into the bakery and got a big sack full of doughnuts and baked goods. He came back out and gave them to that little orphan boy, kind of tousled his hair and jumped back in his Jeep. He was getting ready to pull out and the little kid turned around and said “Sir, are you God?” I’m going to tell you this: That soldier wasn’t God and neither are we when we give but I want to tell you this: “We are more like God when we give than in any other time in our life.”
CONCLUSION:
Ella Wilcox said it better than I could ever say it, in fact it’s so good I did put it in your sermon section and I want to close with it. Ella Wilcox said.
“There are two kinds of people on earth today, Just two kinds of people no more I say, Not the good and the bad for it tis well-understood, That the bad are half good and the good are half bad, No, just two kinds of people on earth I mean, Are the people who lift and the people who lean.”
I’ve learned that, God’s Word teaches us that. You are either a contributor to society or you’re a consumer. And God says the moment you and I begin to live a lifestyle of giving, it’s amazing what God will do for us. I want you to bow your heads with me. Heads bowed, eyes closed, I want to pray with you. And as I pray this morning, if you’re having financial needs and difficulties, we’ll do everything we can this month to help you. It’s a tough time for a lot of people. It’s a tough time for businesses. We’re in an economic down turn right now. Probably if there’s ever a time for good stewardship messages, messages that teach us principles of giving and God’s blessing upon life, there is no better time than right now. Every head bowed and every eye closed. How many will raise your hand and say Pastor, as I sit in my pew this morning, I have financial needs and I know I do. Maybe you need a job. Maybe the old budget is not stretching like it needs to. I don’t know. But if you have financial needs, I would like to pray with you this morning and ask God to bless you. And in a moment I’m going to ask you to raise your hand and then I’ll pray with you. Before I ask you to raise your hand, I’m going to ask you one other thing, for you not only to acknowledge that you have a financial need by raising that hand but you say, “Pastor, I also want to acknowledge that I’ll put God first in every area of my life… every area.” Now every head bowed and eyes closed, you that have financial needs, I’d love to close by praying for you. Would you just slip up your hand across the auditorium. God bless you. Many, many hands. That’s right just raise them. You can put them down.
Father, I thank you this morning for our time together in the Word. It’s amazing what you’ve promised to us and now Lord Jesus I pray for every need here. I pray for the financial needs of every person that raised their hand. Some need jobs, some are finding probably the money they have isn’t enough. You taught us Lord that we could ask you for our daily bread. You also taught us to seek first your Kingdom. Lord we ask today and as you bless and provide jobs and meet needs, we put you first. May your blessings rest upon us now, as we determine this month to be the best stewards we can be with your Kingdom. In Jesus name.
Amen.
God bless you. I love you.
