When we first began our series on stewardship two weeks ago we began with a simple question: Can I trust God? And as often happens in life, we discovered that although we may not always understand God, He remains completely and totally trustworthy. He keeps all of His promises.
In the second week in our series—which was last week—we discussed a slightly more difficult question. We talked about whether or not we are currently—right now—being good stewards—good managers—of the possessions, opportunities, talents, and time that God has graciously given us. We discovered that it is God’s intention that we use worldly wealth not to try and repay Him for what He has done for us, but instead use it in deliberate, compassionate endeavors to bring the name of Jesus Christ to those who do not yet know Him.
This week—the third week in the series—we get down to the nitty gritty. This week we dig in, we get our hands dirty . . . and we begin evaluating ourselves in the area of stewardship. I promise you only one thing and ask only one thing in return: I promise you that I will not apologize for God’s Word, for preaching what He says on the subject of stewardship and giving, and I ask that you simply listen to His voice today. That you listen to Him and let His Word soak into your life.
As we progress through our Christian lives, we go through different phases of how we view Christ’s presence in our lives. Often there is a tendency to view Christ as being our helper, someone who is there when we need Him, a sort of Divine back-up that we turn to when things get rough. You’ve seen the bumper sticker, “God is my co-pilot”? That kind of exemplifies this type of thinking. We’re in the driver’s seat, in control of where we’re headed, and Jesus is there to provide occasional directions and various little tasks as we head on down the road. We know what our destination is, the place we want to get to, and we drive the shortest distance we can over well-traveled roads. It is boring, at times . . . but at least it is predictable.
But occasionally we’ll spy some brave soul who understands the Christian life a bit better than we do. I have etched into my memory a mental picture of a semi truck with the “God is my co-pilot” sticker in his window . . . but the truck driver had crossed out the adjective “co.” “God is my pilot” was what the sticker now said. And that is a truer view of life. At some point we’ve turned over the wheel to Jesus Christ, and He now sets the destination. Still, we are there in the passenger seat, poring over the road-map, telling Jesus the best route to take, pointing out the best places to stop, telling Him the way we ought to go.
But Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” At some point in our lives we come to a line that needs to be crossed, a decision that needs to be made. We need to decide whether or not we’ll allow Jesus to drive as He pleases, to go where He wants to go, to drive as fast—or as slow—as He sees fit. The decision is whether or not we’ll fold up the maps, roll the top down on the car, climb into the back seat . . . and take the adventure that comes to us as we hit the road with Jesus at the wheel.
That decision, that line . . . that’s the Trust Test line. And when we come to it, we discover that we have two spiritual choices laid out before us: we can cross it and grow, or we can back away from that line and shrink.
Now, everyone knows what happens when you cut a vine at its base. The vine continues to look good for a little while, the leaves are still green, it still looks like it is thriving . . . but all the while it is dying, bit by bit. Before too long the vine is dead, dry, and lifeless. It is a dry, lifeless husk that just happens to be in the shape of a living thing. Backing away from the Trust Test line is like that for us spiritually.
But crossing the line? That’s like slipping into the back seat of a convertible, it’s like jumping into the rumble seat on a summer afternoon. Jesus hits the gas and heads off into places we couldn’t even guess we were going to end up. He takes us to different places, He introduces us to different people. We might not know where the next stop is, but we know Who’s driving, and we sit back, let the wind whip through our hair, and enjoy the thrill of being on an adventure, not knowing where we’re going but being with someone we love.
That line, that choice; it may not seem like a large decision at the time, but in the end it means the difference between really living life and just simply dying a slow death. It is the difference between being a disciple of Christ and playing church.
As we’ve talked for these past few weeks, we’ve talked about trust. John Maxwell has developed a little tool to help us get a handle on what it means to trust; to identify how we trust God in the area of stewardship. John has taken the five letters of the word trust and broken it down into an acrostic. We’ll go through the first three today and talk about the last two next week, but very quickly let me give you the acrostic for trust.
T—it stands for take a personal inventory. Taking inventory is looking at and taking stock of our lives. It is seeing how we are measuring up against what we know we are to be doing. It means we need to look at every facet of our lives and ask, “Am I trusting God?”
The “R” stands for recognize God as our supply. There is nothing good that you or I have been given that has not, in some way, come from God. Everything we have, everything we use is a result of a gift from God. Our possessions, our opportunities, our talents, and our time—they all come from God.
“U”—we must understand God’s principles of stewardship. Until we understand the principles of stewardship that God has for us—these principles that are unlike the world’s—until we understand we will hold back in our trust for God.
“S”—Surrender everything to God. We first understand God’s principles of stewardship and then respond by surrendering all.
And finally, “T”—Test God’s promises. We test the promises from the Word, we test our trustworthy God against what He has promised, and in that testing He proves His trustworthiness and through the Word our faith grows.
These five letters spell trust. Trust is the single most important factor in any relationship.
The first “T”—take a personal inventory. To get an idea of how personal the inventory needs to be, take a look at Psalm 139. Psalm 139 says this, “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in-- behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Three quick observations about this Psalm and taking a personal inventory:
1. Only God knows everything about me. Even I don’t know all that’s within me. If I’m going to take a personal inventory, I need to try and see myself as clearly as God sees me. Which leads us to number 2:
2. Only God can lead me correctly. Even in taking a personal inventory there will be areas in which we will want to gloss over. We need God’s guidance as we take inventory. His guidance comes from His Word.
3. Taking inventory and trusting God begins with God. If I can’t even know myself and I need Him to lead me, this process has to have God in the beginning, at the end, and in the middle. We must take a personal inventory, line that up against the commands and instructions of God, and see if we are indeed measuring up, to see if our actions show what we claim our hearts know: that we have been saved by grace alone.
Recognizing God as your supply is much more than simply acknowledging God as your source. A source is a starting point, a place from which we head forward on our own. But that is not a good description of our life with God. God is far more than just our source.
Rather, God is our supply. He not only gives us His good gifts, His grace at the beginning of the journey, but is there all along the way, as well. There is no time in my life or yours that we are not totally, utterly dependent upon God’s supply. Psalm 54:4 says, “Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.” Psalm 3:5 says, “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.”
If God is our constant supply, then there is nothing that we have that is not a gift from God, and we’d do well to remember that. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:17, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” Can money bring us enjoyment? Yes. But it is strictly temporary. Unless we recognize God as our supply we will never be able to truly enjoy it, because we’ll always be worried about losing it. But according to Ecclesiastes 5:19, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work-- this is a gift of God. Recognizing God as our supply brings long-term contentment, regardless of the presence or absence of any particular material blessing.
A trusting stewardship begins with taking a personal inventory, it continues with recognizing God as our supply, and moves into action with understanding God’s principles for stewardship. Now this last one we’ll need to break down a bit more than the others.
It seems that there are typically three circumstances that lead people to not be trustworthy stewards for God:
1. They don’t believe that they can give and still meet their own needs. They feel that they are choked up by bills, that if they gave more they couldn’t meet their budget, etc. Their financial obligations alarm them, and they don’t feel they’ve got any margin to give to God. This is a faith issue.
2. They don’t plan to give. People don’t plan in their lives, and so they are almost always in an “emergency” state. When one thing after another keeps coming up through lack of planning, it chokes off both the desire and the ability to be a good steward. This is an issue of personal discipline.
3. They don’t know how to give. Because they don’t know God’s principles, they don’t understand the whole process of how to give. Maybe they’ve never been taught what it means to be a steward, maybe they’ve never been taught God’s stewardship principles. This is an issue of knowledge.
Now, I can’t make you believe in God’s promises—that’s the job of the Holy Spirit. I can’t get you to do something that you are refusing to do—that is, after all, your job. But what I have I now give to you: I can give you the knowledge you need to understand God’s principles of stewardship.
Principle number one is the Divine Boomerang principle: A boomerang returns to the person who threw it. In other words, God gives, we respond—we give back. Why do we love? 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” Why do we give? Because He first gave to us. The Apostle Paul tells in 2 Corinthians 8 of the churches in Macedonia that were incredibly poor financially, yet out of their overflowing joy at what they had been given in Jesus Christ, they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. You’ll never be able to out-give God because all blessings first come from Him.
Principle number two is the Give and Grow principle. This is not a “give to get” principle of stewardship, this is not a promise that if you drop 1 dollar in the plate this week you can expect 10 dollars to show up at your door next week. No, this simply means that practicing stewardship produces growth in our lives. The Give and Grow principle tells us that stewardship is a spiritual discipline: and like any discipline, if you commit yourself to it you will see growth. In the same way that a professional athlete spends long hours at the gym honing his body, in the same way that a diet requires self-control but produces long-term health benefits, so the discipline of stewardship reaps spiritual benefits.
Timothy Johnson has this to say about stewardship: “Some say, dedicate the heart and the money will follow; but Our Lord put it the other way around. ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ If your treasure is dedicated, your heart will be dedicated. If it is not, it simply won’t. It is as simple as that.”
We’ll get to the rest of the principles next week, but it is these two that it is absolutely critical to keep together and to keep in order. If we separate these two principles, we miss the point of stewardship—no, not just the point. We miss the whole thing. These two principles tell us stewardship can be summed up this way: God gives—we give. If we reverse them and say, “we give—God gives” then we’re back in the co-pilot’s seat, trying to run the show and telling God where He should be going. If we leave off the first part and say, “We give” then we’re in the driver’s seat and wondering exactly where God is. If we take off the second part and simply leave it at “God gives” then we’re not even hitting the road. Sure, God’s in the driver’s seat but the car is just sitting there, going nowhere and doing nothing.
But if we keep these two principles together and we keep them in order, when we say, “God gives—we give” then we show that we’ve got a firm grasp on what it means to be a trustworthy steward.
No comments:
Post a Comment