I want to begin today by frist offering a word of thanks. Certainly to God for all His gifts to us, but more specifically to you, God’s people, for your gifts to the church over the past year.
I want to take the time to thank you for giving because you probably haven’t heard it lately. I realize that you have choices on where your money goes, and you have made a choice to set aside a certain portion of your money to be given to the Lord’s work here at Our Saviour. I appreciate that, and I thank you for it.
I thank you for your giving because of what God’s hand has accomplished through it. Certainly your giving has been the main factor in maintaining this building and providing the salary of a full-time pastor, but there is much more that God has accomplished through you. During the course of this past year your giving has supported a church-wide time of spiritual growth and renewal during our Forty Days of Purpose spiritual campaign. Your giving has been used to provide financial relief for individuals facing unpayable bills. Your giving provided for the spread of God’s Word among the community’s unchurched children during this summer’s vacation Bible school. In short, it is through your giving that God has accomplished His work in each of the five purposes—worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism—here at Our Saviour. And I thank you for your generosity and your willingness to open your wallets and checkbooks so that others may receive the benefit of the blessings God has given you.
Being willing to give—allowing the money God has blessed you with to be passed along to others—is an indication of a servant’s heart. The servant has no financial resources of his own, but rather he uses what belongs to his master in accordance with his master’s priorities. As Christians, we freely acknowledge that we are no longer our own masters, but we are subject to the will and headship of our Lord and master Jesus Christ. We are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness. As such, we have a new set of priorities that come from God,
Our priorities as Biblical servants are: God, family, others, ourselves. Those priorities are the very nature of every aspect of Biblical servanthood. God has gives us gifts to use in His service, and asks that we use those gifts according to His priorities. As His servants we put our money to work according to those priorities.
The Gospel of Matthew relates how Jesus told a parable about this very thing. Now I want you to realize one thing before we get into that parable. It’s not really about money. The parable of the talents is a story that Jesus tells in order to illustrate the importance of being ready for His return on Judgment Day. Until that day arrives, we are to be busy about our Master’s business. So although it’s not really a parable about money, it is a parable about service. Therefore, we can use what we learn about service in this parable and apply it to our use of money.
Jesus says in Matthew 25:14, “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.”
Let’s stop right there. I want you to note two things: 1) the master isn’t going to be around for awhile, and his business needs to carry on in his absence. He desires that his resources will continue to grow —that his influence will spread—until he comes back. 2) The master entrusts financial resources to his servants in order that they may cause this to happen. 3) Not every servant is given the same amount, but we will see that they all have the same responsibility for what they’ve been given.
We can see quite readily how this applies to us as modern-day Christians. Our Lord ascended into Heaven shortly after His crucifixion and resurrection and will not return bodily until His Second Coming. Yes, He is with us in Spirit, through His Word and His Sacraments, but His work must now continue on through our hands.
Also, like the servants in the parable, the money that we have been given is not truly ours. It belongs to our Master. It belongs to God. It is not ours to do whatever we wish, but it is a trust from God that is given to us in order that we may carry on the work of spreading His influence and growing His Kingdom.
In addition, I think we all recognize that we each have unique financial circumstances. For His own good reason, God has seen fit to give some of us a great deal of money and to others He has given relatively little. He has His own reasons for that—which we’re not going to get into here—but the point is that while some people are given much and some people are given little, there is still only one God who is the giver of all and one purpose for which the money is given.
Continuing on with the parable in verse sixteen, “The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.”
Which of those men were truly serving their master? The first two servants went to work and invested the money they had been given in such a way as to increase it. Though they were not working to increase their own wealth, they worked as though they were. Their master’s gifts flowed through them and thus brought increase. But the third? The money he had been entrusted with stopped with him. He buried it, where no one could take it away . . . but no one could receive any benefit from it, either.
Now, I don’t know if this has ever happened here or not, but I have seen in other churches where people get upset and stop giving. Could be they don’t like the pastor or maybe they don’t like where the church is heading, but for whatever reason they get upset and stop giving. In effect, they bury their talents.
Is that their call to make? Does God give us the gift of money so that we can bury it and have no one receive the benefit of it? See, giving has very little to do with feelings. It doesn’t matter if we are upset or happy. It does have, however, have everything to do with being a servant.
A Biblical servant will faithfully and consistently give regardless of his or her personal feelings. If it was our money, then we would have the freedom to make those choices. If it was my money, then I could give as long as I was happy with the person I was giving it to. But it’s not. It’s not my money. God has given us resources in order that we may use them to be about His business. When we refuse to give based upon our personal feelings, then we are, in effect, saying to God that we no longer care about His work or the expansion of His Kingdom. We no longer choose to live as though we are His servants.
At this point a few words are in order about how the Biblical servant handles the money he has been given. A Biblical servant’s first priority is? God. Therefore the first thing—the very first thing—we do with the money we are given is to return a portion of that to God and His work through the local church. Before we give to anything else we give to God. That means we give as a portion of our gross income. Not our take-home pay, but the total gross amount.
I like to recommend the tithe. I recommend that ten percent of your gross income—no matter how big or how small—should be put in the offering plate and given to the Lord to use as He sees fit. Yes, I realize that ten percent of your income can be a significant challenge and sometimes even a strain on your finances, but I also know from personal experience that the servant who gives that ten percent with a free and willing servant’s heart will rarely—if ever—miss that money. God has ways of rewarding faithful servants, and so like I said, I recommend the tithe.
But I also want to be perfectly clear about this. A tithe is my recommendation. I have studied the Scriptures enough to come to the knowledge that the tithe is a worthy and admirable goal for firstfruits giving. But I have also studied enough to know that it is not Law.
In the Old Testament God’s people were commanded to bring their tithe—their ten percent—to God. It was part of the Law that defined them as God’s people. But we are not under Law, but under Grace. We are not defined by what we do, but by our relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore, although I recommend the tithe as a good practice for the Biblical servant, it is clear from the New Testament that Paul says in ___________________, “Let each one give what he has decided in his heart to give.” Whatever percentage you have decided to give gives glory to God if you have thought about it and prayed about it and give it joyfully and faithfully.
But back to the parable. In verse nineteen, the master returns home and the two good servants give him they money they had earned with what he had given them. And then he says in verse twenty-one, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”
The servants have given, they have caused their master’s wealth and influence to grow, and now he invites them to share his happiness. Have you ever thought about what makes God happy?
There are two things that make God happy. One, He says all of Heaven rejoices over one sinner who repents. All of Heaven over just one sinner! He loves to see people come to a saving knowledge of Him through Jesus Christ! He loves to redeem people, to cleanse them through the shed blood of Christ on the cross, to make them into new creations. This is His heart’s true desire: to bring people from death to life. This is what He desired and accomplished in you; this is what He desired and accomplished in me. And God and all the angels rejoiced when it happened.
Have your grasped hold of that fact? That God loves you, that in Christ He has made you one of His own, and that in Christ nothing can ever separate you from God again? There is no sin that is too heinous for Him to forgive. There is no power so strong that can snatch you out of His hands. There is no obstacle too high that He cannot lift you over it. This is what we get, free of charge, when in faith we receive the blessings of forgiveness that Christ won for us on the cross and God makes us one of His children.
Once He brings a new believer into His family, the second thing that He desires is that we would obey His commands. In other words, that we would walk as Christians are to walk, that we would live out our new identity as children of God. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us. He gives us His good gifts in order that we might share them with others and so make Him happy.
For instance, would it make God happy if:
Our Sunday School could grow in numbers?
We could deepen our faith through multiple Bible studies, all happening at different times during the week?
We could give away copies of His word to hundreds of people next year?
We could witness the love of Jesus Christ to our entire community through community-wide events?
We could discover God’s purpose and vision for Our Saviour Lutheran Church?
These are all things we plan to do next year. Things that we can join in sharing the happiness of our Master. Yes, I am serious. No, I am not just dreaming. And yes, these are plans that cannot be accomplished without God’s provision.
Over the course of the next seven days I want you to think about something. I am asking you—as your pastor—to think and pray about those plans I just mentioned. I want you to ask God’s blessing be upon those plans. I want you to pray that we will be able to accomplish all of the tasks that God has given us to do. And I want you to pray about what your financial investment in those plans will be.
Next week, during the church service, we will have an opportunity to commit to giving a certain amount to the Lord’s work at Our Saviour throughout 2007. You will have a giving commitment sheet—just like the one in the bulletin right now—and next week I’ll ask you to fill that out and bring it forward and lay it on the altar as your commitment to God in thanksgiving for the blessings He has given you. Just as your giving helps us to accomplish ministry right now, so will your giving commitment help us to plan for ministry next year.
Now listen . . . I don’t care about your money. But I do care how you choose to use what God has given you. It doesn’t do anybody else any good to take it out back and bury it in the yard. I want you to have a servant’s heart that is committed to working for God by serving others. I want us all to be good and faithful servants, taking what we’ve been given by God and investing that in His Kingdom, making that investment grow, and then giving Him all praise and honor and glory.
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
Take from me my life, make me a servant . . . and let me come share in my Master’s happiness.
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