Who is Blessed?
So here we are. “Money Month” 2013. For those of you who have become a part of our church family in the past year here is a little insight. 11 years ago we decided to take a different approach to dealing with finances at Cornerstone. Instead of dealing with the crisis of finances, that is harping at you every time things got tight financially in the church that instead we would teach stewardship once a year.
Because our church year ends in April we decided that would be a good month and so here we are. And so if you can handle four messages on stewardship then you get a free pass on the preacher harping at you about money for the rest of the year. As part of that process we adopted what we call “Step-up Cornerstone”. Each year, at the end of April, we ask those who make Cornerstone their church home to step out in faith and fill out an “estimate of giving” card. And just like the name implies, we ask you to estimate what you hope to give for the upcoming year. We collect those cards at the end of that service and we use that figure to plan our budget for the new church year.
And there are benefits to that, both as for the church and for you. For the church it gives us a responsible way to plan our budget for the upcoming year. For the first twenty years of my ministry the churches that I led did what most churches do. Each year the leadership would pull a budget out of the air. It was may have been based on the previous year’s budget with a small increase for additional expenses, or perhaps department heads had submitted their wish list for the upcoming year.
Often it was done by committee but realistically it wasn’t based on any knowledge of what the church income would be for that year. Often time’s churches would talk about how they were stepping out in faith. But the result was that the preacher would end up talking about money all the time challenging people to step up and pay a budget that was not rooted in reality.
In 2002 the leadership at Cornerstone decided to take a different tact. I would speak on the biblical role of stewardship for a month each year. And it’s an important topic, and it’s an important part of our spiritual lives.
And at the end of the month we allow the folks who call Cornerstone home to respond and provide an estimate of what they believe they will be able to give in the upcoming year. In affect you get to have a say in the budget and say “This is the type of church I would like to have this year.”
I think I handle the mechanics of it well; we try not to embarrass anyone or put anyone on the spot. If you don’t want to participate that is fine, although we encourage everyone to take part. And we don’t come knocking on your door if you aren’t able to give what you thought you’d be able to, we hope you will after all we have based our budget on those figures. And we provide you with updates throughout the year about where we are in relation to what was committed and where you are personally in relation to your commitment.
So, that is the intro to the month. Last year the theme was “What Jesus said about Money” the year before that was “Treasures of the Heart” and in 2010 I spoke on “Those Who Gave to Jesus”.
This year our theme is “The Blessed Life” and the concept and some of the material comes from a Texas preacher by the name of Robert Morris.
The bible is full of examples of how our finances provide a spiritual barometer for our lives. From Genesis to the Revelation God’s word speaks to God’s people about how they make their money, how they spend their money and how they give their money.
Jesus spoke about it a lot and even reminded people in Matthew 6:21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. You notice that he didn’t say “Wherever your heart it, there your treasure will also be.” And many times that’s the way people quote it. And maybe you think that basically it is the same thing. But it’s not. Most of understand that your treasure will probably follow your heart. That if you have a passion for something that you will be more inclined to invest yourself there financially. However Jesus flips that upside down and warns us that our heart will follow our treasure. That where we are invested financially will be where our passions are.
Which is why I often tell people I can tell their level of commitment by looking at the two most important books in their lives, their date book and their cheque book.
If you want your heart to be in the Kingdom then you need to put your treasure in the Kingdom.
In our world today we are consumed with thoughts of investments and the returns that we will get on our investments. And sometimes I think that we carry that train of thought over to our giving in the church. That on that last Sunday in April when you have the opportunity to fill out your estimate of giving card that some of you are thinking “How much is Cornerstone worth to me?” And mentally we are weighing out the benefits of our contribution to Cornerstone.
And I’m afraid that for some people if the thought crossed their minds; “if people don’t give the church will have to close their doors” their next thought would be, “Well if they had to close I guess I would have to find another church.”
But you can’t simply use a spread sheet and try to do the math: Well if the four of us went to a movie it would cost about forty bucks, and if we each had popcorn and small pop that would be another forty, but they only give us coffee and cookie, so we could knock off thirty, and we only go every third week, so maybe 15 or 20 times a year.
But somehow we need to get to the place of understanding that our giving to God is not an attendance fee that we pay so we can come to Cornerstone, and it’s not a tip that we give because we enjoyed the message and liked the music.
Instead it is part of being a Christ follower. That from the beginning of time God has asked that we return a portion of all that he has given us back to him.
And still you might be asking “what’s in it for me?” Well if we give in the right spirit and if we give in obedience I truly believe that there is a blessing that is attached to that giving. Now before you write off what I’m saying as part of the prosperity gospel listen to what I have to say. We don’t give to get, we give to give. If we give to get then we are giving in the wrong spirit and we will be disappointed.
You see having a blessed life means having a blessed life it does not mean having a blessed cheque book. And you can’t always quantify what blessed is. At some point you have to ask yourself “Is my life better serving God then it would be if I didn’t serve God?” That is where the blessings start.
Let’s go back to the blessing for a few minutes. Do you believe that God wants to bless his people? Maybe? A little bit? Not sure?
Let’s go back to the beginning of the book. Genesis 1:27-28 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” Now let’s go to the back of the book Revelation 22:7 “Look, I am coming soon! Blessed are those who obey the words of prophecy written in this book.” And if we go to the middle of the book we read Psalm 112:1-2 Praise the LORD! How joyful are those who fear the LORD and delight in obeying his commands. Their children will be successful everywhere; an entire generation of godly people will be blessed.
So the book starts with God blessing his people and the book finishes with God blessing his people and in the middle of the book we read about God’s people being blessed.
And most of us don’t have a problem with that. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells people over and over again that if they do certain things they will be blessed. But even if we accept that God wants to bless us we get a little nebulous about what those blessings might be and we get a little squirmy if we keep reading in Psalm 112 and stumble onto verse three that says this about those who fear God and delight in obeying his commands Psalm 112:3 They themselves will be wealthy, and their good deeds will last forever. Most of us really aren’t comfortable with that statement any more than we are with scriptures like Proverbs 10:22 The blessing of the LORD makes a person rich, and he adds no sorrow with it. We don’t want to equate God’s blessing with money.
But apparently the Bible didn’t have a problem with equating God’s blessing at least in some way with material blessings. In Malachi 3:10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!” If you bring all the tithes then God will open the windows of heaven for you and will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have all the room to take it in.
And Jesus tells us in Luke 11:28 Jesus replied, “But even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.” Did you catch that? We aren’t just blessed; we are more blessed when we are obedient to the word of God.
Now understand that we aren’t obedient so we will be blessed, but when we are obedient we are blessed. We don’t give so we will be blessed, but when we give God’s word tells us that we will be blessed. And again, let me reiterate, having a blessed life is about your life, not your cheque book. It is about God’s presence in your life
So let’s go back to the scripture that was read for us earlier. Most of you know the story. A man is going on a trip and so he entrusts his wealth with three of his employees. In the NLT it tells us that it was bags of silver, five bags to one servant, two bags to the second servant and one bag to the last servant. In the original language the term that was used was 5 talents, 2 talents and 1 talent. And a talent was a measure of money. And not a little bit of money but even the guy who only got the one talent received a pile of money. A pile of is the technical term. Those in the know tell us that in that day a talent was the equivalent of a month’s wages for 200 men. Or 9 years’ salary for a skilled labourer. So even for the man who only received one talent he got the equivalent of between a half and three quarters of a million dollars.
Matthew 25:14 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone.
The first thing we need to Understand is Everything We Have Comes From God This has to be the premise that we start from. Everything we have comes from God.
That’s why we sometimes have difficulty giving to God because we think that we are giving him what is ours. But the reality is that he is simply asking us to return a portion of what is His.
And you might be thinking “No pastor, I have what I have because I’m good at what I do and I work hard at it.” So who made you good at what you do? Who gives you the ability to work hard? Who gives you life?
You see the talents that we have in our lives are the abilities that we were born with, those God given abilities that we have. And we have all been born with abilities of some kind.
We often hear about it in relation to musicians and athletes, how they have a natural ability. Or sometimes someone will say something like “They are a born salesman, they could sell ice cubes to the Inuit.” Or “They were born with the gift of gab.”
Jesus’ brother James writes in James 1:17 Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.
I am not a half bad preacher, and that ability to communicate is a talent or ability that I have had since I was young. When I was in high school I was involved, quite successfully, in debating and public speaking, and from the beginning I had a talent for it. On the other hand I can’t sing worth spit, which leads us to the next point.
Matthew 25:15 He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip. We Don’t All Get the Same Thing In the story the three servants weren’t all given the same amount of money. And in our lives we aren’t all given the same things, not materially and not in talents. And we don’t always get the choice. Last week I drove to NB for a funeral, and when the preacher leading the service started the song service I thought “I wish I had a voice like that.” But I don’t. And I would have thought that if God was going to lead me into preaching, pastoring and church planting that He would have felt that it would have been good for me to be able to sing. But apparently not. And so through the years I have told people, I don’t sing I preach. Angela sings.
The thing we need to note and the thing we probably don’t want to acknowledge is the comment “Dividing it in proportion to their abilities.” We may not understand how God divides things up, we may not even agree with it, but we have to trust that He knows what he’s doing.
And so in the story each of the servants gets something but they don’t all get the same something. And remember, we’re not talking a piddling amount, even the man who got the least got the equivalent of nine years wages. Not bad.
You can spend your life whining about what you didn’t get or you can focus and be thankful on what you did get. I would love to be able to sing, but if I had to choose I’d still pick my ability and talent to preach.
And we can’t simply limit the meaning of the story to talents and abilities, it also has to do with material blessings as well. After all Jesus was talking about money.
And while you may not be able to understand why you got so little I’m sure that there are lots of people in the world who aren’t able to understand why you got so much.
Let’s go back to the story, Matthew 25:19 “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. We are Responsible For What We Get The man who got two talents wasn’t responsible for the five talents that the other servant got but he was responsible for the two talents that he did get.
While we might not all get the same things each of us is responsible for the talents and abilities and material things that we do get. I believe that God gave me the ability to communicate, but he expected me to develop that ability. Talent is what God gives us, skill is what we make out of that talent. I have an ability to communicate, but I work hard at my craft. And if I was still at the skill level was as a high school debater or even as a young preacher than I would have been unfaithful with the talent God had given me.
When I was at University the president, Ron Mitchell, had a sign on his office wall that said “what you are is God’s gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.”
The difference between good athletes and great athletes isn’t always natural ability it’s the practice and hard work that they put into becoming great.
It was Irving Berlin who said “Talent is only the starting point.”
We may not all be equal in talent; but we can all be equal in effort. So the question for you isn’t what is Denn doing with what God has given Denn? It is what are you doing with what God has given you?
Now listen to the result of the servants being faithful with what God had given them. In both situations the master’s response was the same. Matthew 25:21 “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’
There was a Blessing Not only were the servants given more responsibility, more talents but the master celebrated with them. The New Living Translation says “Let’s celebrate together!” in the Greek what it actually said is “Enter into the Joy of your Lord.” Sounds like a blessing to me.
When I was in Ghana I met a rich man, not just rich in Ghana terms but rich in our terms as well. And I spent a couple of hours with Johnson and he told me how God had blessed him years before with a gift from a couple in the states and how he invested it and it multiplied and he invested the profits and that multiplied as well.
And it’s easy to look at Johnson and just see his wealth but when you started digging you discover the churches that he had helped start, and the breakfast program that his organization began that feeds thousands of kids, and the goat program they implemented that puts kids through school. The maternity hospital they are building that will provide health care for the women of the surrounding villages, and the microfinance programs they have put into place.
And you wonder why God has blessed Johnson? Why wouldn’t he, Johnson is a great investment. I’m sure that he would echo the words of Erma Bombeck who wrote “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’”
And finally Matthew 25:29 To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Let’s not forget that It All Starts With Our Lives I came across an interesting theory this week that makes sense. The man with one talent was cast into outer darkness. Is it possible that there is one something that we get from God that he wants to get back?
Is it possible that the one talent represents your soul? And the man who did nothing with what he was given represents the person who never makes a commitment to Christ.
The two guys who saw and increase were told “Enter into the joy of the Lord” and the guy who did nothing with what he had been given was cast into “outer darkness”. In effect God is saying that at the very minimum I expected to get your soul back but I didn’t even get that.
The blessed life begins with giving our lives to God, with giving the most precious and the most valuable thing we have, our soul to God. The only thing we have that doesn’t come from God is our sin and he’s willing to take that from us and in return to give us forgiveness and eternal life.
Let’s finish with a promise from the word of God, 2 Corinthians 9:10 For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you.
What has God been speaking to you about this morning?
