11/15/2009 Final Stewardship Sermon

Stewardship as Worship

Today’s gospel lesson is a parallel verse to Matthew 22:39 where Jesus is asked the question of which is the greatest commandment:

2^nd Scripture Reading: Luke 10:25-27

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" 27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

Matthew 25:14, 19-21

¹⁴“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; ¹⁹After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. ²⁰Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ ²¹His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

Review the main points… what stewardship is:

Stewardship is about trust… God trusting us more than our trust in God… God entrusts us with the most valuable gift imaginable—himself through faith in Jesus

Stewardship is about meeting our most fundamental need… a restored relationship with God… stewardship is a way that God transforms us into the character and nature of Jesus

Stewardship frees us… from the things that separate us from God (greed, fear, worry, etc.)

Stewardship is about investing in what is important to God… God’s creative purpose…

redemption of creation… so

Stewardship is primarily about people not money… it’s about relationships… God entrusts himself to us so that we can share him with others

Discipleship is stewardship of the life of Jesus that God entrusts to us… by each of us sharing in the process and investing that gift in each other we help one another grow into the character and nature of Jesus.

Evangelism is stewardship of the message of God’s love in Jesus, that God entrusts us to share with the un-churched and the marginally churched.

Membership is stewardship of God entrusting us with each other as the church… it is as the church… the body of Christ… that we are called to live out our lives of faith

Mission is stewardship of the service that God has entrusted us to engage in as we invest in tangible ways the love of Jesus that God has entrusted us with.

This week we have worship as an expression of stewardship… and what I hope to make clear is that worship is so much more than just another purpose we have as Jesus’ church.

Define worship… as it is described so often in the psalms… worship is bringing God pleasure… it is whatever makes God smile

Doing whatever we do to glorify God… to please God

Peterson’s The Message of Romans 12 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Worship is what we do here on Sunday mornings but it can and should be what we do every moment of our lives… That is one of the messages of the New Testament and it finds it’s origin in the Old Testament… in fact Jesus references one of the key passages from the Old Testament when asked when asked about the greatest commandment and the key to receiving eternal life… "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

What that tells me is that when we worship we are to 1) respond to God’s love with all of who we are and all of what we have been entrusted with… and 2) it’s to be directed toward God and other human beings… And by all here I’m talking about an attitude that holds nothing back… nothing of our time, our energy, our talents, our personality, our financial resources... it all needs to be on the table and available to used by God.

This attitude is important because it demonstrates our desire for God and God’s desire to be the most important thing in our lives. Why is this important? Because; anything that is allowed to come between us and God is an idol.

The Bible talks a lot about not wanting us to be double-minded, meaning, that’s where we try to have two incompatible ideas, attitudes, lifestyles at the same time. What it is really, is a form of rationalization… we try to talk ourselves into believing that we can do both, when we know deep down inside that we can’t give both equal importance… there is always going to be a pull towards the one that focuses more on what’s in it for us… our self-centeredness… as opposed to what’s in it for God or other-centeredness or God centeredness. The self-centered focus becomes an obstacle to our relationship with God as well as what God wants to do through us.

But it’s not like the other things in our life are always bad… it’s really just the opposite… often they’re things that are good and even necessary to spend time on. Work… family… leisure. Each of these, and so many different expressions of these, require time and energy and have a financial component… they are all part of our lives… of which our relationship with God is an important part. So the question becomes; how important? How much do we value one compared with the others. How we answer that question is an indicator of the maturity of our faith which is a demonstration of our level of trust in God—or who we identify with more.

And that’s the important question when we stop and think about living a life of worship… worship is where our relationship with God… the gift that God has entrusted us with… is THE starting point for everything we do and say… and provides the guidance we need when faced with choosing what to do and say…

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus, in response to the rich man’s question of what he must do to inherit eternal life (which is another way of asking how do I respond to the great gift of God’s love for me…) Jesus said in essence… follow the commandments and then to sell everything you own, give it to the poor and then follow me… the man was deeply grieved because he was extremely wealthy… This was an example of what Jesus spoke of earlier when he said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon or money”

Remember from last week what Jesus said to his disciples from the gospel of John… if you love me you will obey my commandments…

God wants us to love… to love God with everything we are… because that’s what God has entrusted us with… everything that we are… and when we put our best effort into doing just that we make God smile… we bring pleasure to God… we are worshipping… we are taking the gift that God has trusted us with and investing it in situations, in lives, in relationships that are important to God…

When we respond in that way we experience such freedom… because we are free… we’re free from the selfish thoughts that sometimes rule our attitudes and actions… that’s what’s behind the old proverb… it’s better to give than receive… because in the giving we are freed from what might be holding us back in our relationship with God AND we receive so much more… we grow closer to God…

I want you to think about a time when you were moved to do something totally and solely for someone else… remember how you felt… the rush of satisfaction and pride… the joy! Where do you think that came from? What was that? I have a suggestion to consider… what we experienced didn’t originate from us… it was and is a gift… I believe that we received the gift of experiencing God smile…

God longs to be part of every moment of our lives… I’m the youngest of three brothers and I remember growing up as a kid… following my older brothers around… just wanting to be a part of what they did… really just wanting them to notice me and include me in what they were doing… to my shame as a parent there were times I would get annoyed at my kids for doing the same thing… and I wonder… is that how we treat God’s presence in our lives?

I started this message out by saying that I hoped to make clear that “worship” is more than just one of our purposes as a church… I want to add to that I feel the same way about discipleship, evangelism , membership, and mission…

Over the past five weeks we’ve been discovering the relationship between each of these and stewardship… that each is an expression of stewardship… that God has entrusted us with each of these as a way for us to grow closer to God, each other and the people in our daily lives… that each is something that we need to think about as something that we should be involved in daily…

I’d also want to encourage you think about what is involved with each from the perspective of worship… When we are being good stewards with all that God has entrusted us with by making use of the gifts of Discipleship… Evangelism… Membership… Mission… then we are living lives of worship…

Discipleship is stewardship of the life of Jesus that God entrusts to us… by each of us sharing in the process and investing that gift in each other we help one another grow into the character and nature of Jesus and that pleases God… it is an act of worship

Evangelism is stewardship of the message of God’s love in Jesus, that God entrusts us to share with the un-churched and the marginally churched… and that pleases God… it is an act of worship

Membership is stewardship of God entrusting us with each other as the church… it is as the church… the body of Christ… that we are called to live out our lives of faith… and that pleases God… it is an act of worship

Mission is stewardship of the service that God has entrusted us to engage in as we invest in tangible ways the love of Jesus that God has entrusted us with… and that pleases God… it is an act of worship

Stewardship is about investing what God has entrusted to us in what is important to God…

God entrusts himself to us so that we can share him with others… when we do that… it pleases God and it is an act of worship

As we continue to grow in doing these things we make God smile… and we can hear our master say… well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master…

My desire is for us as a church is experience God’s smile on a regular basis

So with that in mind…

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

November 8, 2009 Sermon

Stewardship as Mission

Our gospel passage follows the events of Easter morning; the women going to the tomb, encountering the angels and then the resurrected Jesus who says to them; “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Stewardship is about trust… God trusting us more than our trust in God… God entrusts us with the most valuable gift imaginable—himself through faith in Jesus

Stewardship is about meeting our most fundamental need… a restored relationship with God… stewardship is a way that God transforms us into the character and nature of Jesus

Stewardship frees us… from the things that separate us from God (greed, fear, worry, etc.)

Stewardship is about investing in what is important to God… God’s creative purpose… redemption of creation… so

Stewardship is primarily about people not money… it’s about relationships… God entrusts himself to us so that we can share him with others

We’ve looked at how we live that out in our lives of faith through discipleship, through evangelism, through membership and today we’re going to see stewardship through the lens of mission.

What is mission? We hear the words mission and ministry used almost interchangeably and it may get confusing… are we engaged in ministry or are we engaged in mission? We talk about the mission of the church… “to know Jesus and to make Jesus known” is that the same as being in mission? The answer is yes. To all.

Pastor Rick Warren (Purpose Driven Life) implies that there is a difference between ministry and mission. He proposes that Ministry is serving the needs within the community of faith—the church—so it is inward focused for the purpose of building up the body to be effective in it’s Mission which is serving the needs of the un-churched; so it (mission) is outward focused. Both are expressions of our overall mission of the church to make disciples of Jesus. While this may be a helpful way to distinguish between outward and inward service the separation of the two doesn’t really have any basis in scripture. The root word for mission is the same for ministry (diakonia). When translated mission (which depending upon the translation we will only see it one to three times in the NT) it is in the context of traveling away from what might be considered a home locale to engage in ministry. So “mission” is a type of, or expression of “ministry.” With that in mind Warren’s designation is helpful because it can help us understand mission as ministry beyond ourselves—whether that is our family of faith (local mission) or beyond our community (national or even international mission). It is this understanding that I want us to focus on.

Jesus spent the majority of his time ministering to both his disciples and to what he called the “lost sheep of Israel.” He had a few encounters with non-Jews and when they demonstrated the faith he was calling for in the Jews he blessed that faith. We might consider Jesus’ mission statement to be John 3:16… for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son… so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. So Jesus’ mission is the same as God the Father’s… to restore all humankind in a right relationship with God. The plan to accomplish it however was and is to do it through the church. Jesus discipled Peter and the gang… he entrusted them with his character and nature… to re-present him… and then he entrusted them with his mission: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

It began locally… where they were in Jerusalem… and initially to Jews… but it quickly spread to include non-Jews too. The ministry that the apostles were engaged in had both a local emphasis… we saw that last week with the passage from Acts… ⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

But it also grew to have an outward focus… the account of Peter on the roof praying and the Gentile Cornelius comes to him after being spoken to in a vision… and he asks Peter to come to his home and share the message of Jesus with them… with non-Jews… so Peter does.

Mission is ministry that focuses outside ourselves… as individuals and as the church… to the un-churched.

Mission is an expression of stewardship because we are investing both ourselves and what God has entrusted us with… himself in the person of Jesus… in the lives of people who are un-churched or marginally churched.

Mission is primarily God’s initiative in Jesus’ name and power… Whatever it is we do; we do it in Jesus’ name and power… we re-present Jesus… he is present to and through us… and he is the one that gives us the direction, the energy, and the passion to act.

In the book of Acts (5:12-39) Peter and John are arrested for preaching the Good News that is Jesus, for the second time… so they are repeat offenders… One of the leaders of the temple council (Gamaliel) says… hey let them alone… if what they are doing is of their own invention then it will quickly fade away… but if it is of God you won’t be able to do a thing about it—in fact you may even be fighting against God.

So God leads… God sends… and we respond… we go to where God is already at work… remember the story of Peter and Cornelius? God was already at work there and Peter just responded to the call… Peter preached but it was God in the Holy Spirit that touched peoples hearts and lives… but the catalyst was Peter’s willingness to go… to be sent.

Mission is individual and corporate… We need to note that when Jesus speaks he is not speaking only to Peter, or only to John, or only to Andrew… he is speaking to all of the faithful that will come to believe through the faithful response of the 12… so he is not speaking to us only as individuals… he is also speaking to us as a community of faith… he is speaking to the church.

So Jesus is sending us as the church… individual members working together for a common purpose… to go beyond ourselves… beyond our community of faith to serve the needs of those in the larger community around us…

So why are we supposed to be in mission? We might be able to come up with any number but the only one that really matters is that Jesus asked us to. I don’t think this will come as any great surprise but the great commission wasn’t only for Peter and the rest. We can learn that from a lot of different places in the Bible but we have one this morning… “teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

In the gospel of John Jesus said, “if you love me you will obey my commands”; meaning that if we are disciples of Jesus we will willingly invest what God has entrusted to us… continuing the ministry of Jesus… to achieve God’s creative purpose of restoring people in a relationship with God.

That theme is repeated in all of the gospels as well as the book of Acts… it is one of the most mentioned aspect of the Christian faith next to John 3:16… for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son… Why?... so that all who believe in him would have eternal life. So even John 3:16 relates to it the great commission… and why not… it’s Jesus’ mission statement.

We are to be in mission because God cares about the lost… God cares about people who either don’t know him or trust him… to help them realize what it is that they really need…

The primary need that we are trying to fill is their awareness of their need for God… the difficult thing is that so many things of the world get in the way of recognizing that need… This shouldn’t be too hard for us to understand because we struggle with the same problem don’t we… we think that we need so many different things to fill something inside us when really what we need is a restored relationship with God…

That’s why the primary focus of mission is helping people meet their basic physical needs… providing security through helping provide shelter, clothing, food… helping them to develop job skills and the like…

People need to know that they have value… that they can make a difference in their lives and in the lives of others… that’s why ministries like Habitat for Humanity are so successful… or more locally The Mission of Hope or the Women at the Well Prison Ministry at Mitchellville… and we do it all in Jesus name… with no expectation of repayment of any kind… The goal of mission is to make disciples of Jesus… not us… not the local church… but Jesus. And we do that by being Jesus to the people we serve… We offer ourselves as a faith community… we invite, we encourage, we continue to serve… but if folks choose to be part of another church, then we celebrate with them… we rejoice just as Jesus rejoices because what’s important is that they are now part of the family…

In one of the earlier messages in talking about the parable of the talents I shared that the Master entrusted to them more than money. He gave them a way of thinking or understanding of what he wanted done and how he wanted it done… what he really gave them a way of living with others that was a reflection of himself—that’s the gift of discipleship. The result of that was is the same for us… our life of discipleship shows itself when we serve others as we share in the mission of Jesus to make disciples… people shouldn’t see us… they should see a reflection of our Master… Jesus.

This is going to sound familiar but, the important thing in using the gift of mission that God has entrusted us with isn’t the feeding, the providing of clothes, the repairing or building of homes… it’s not the wells that are built or the animals that are provided… it’s not the schools or the books or the supplies… it is the relationships that are developed… it’s in getting to know the people that we are in mission to and with because if we truly are disciples of Jesus then they will get to know Him too.

So where do we start? We need to start where we are…..We encounter Jesus in our lives; we worship but then we begin to question… But some doubted… we are always going to have questions… are we doing the right thing? Is this the way we’re supposed to go about it… the thing is we can’t let indecision or uncertainty about the details stop us from acting… we plan the best we can… we start small… we attempt… we review and analyze… we make corrections… try again… but we are always called to act

My prayer for us is that we can continue to grow in our stewardship of mission. We’ve made some good first steps in the past year with our involvement in collecting food and clothes for Mission of Hope and the local food banks. We’ve made some needed contributions as part of the Ingathering that will make a difference in peoples lives. But I believe that you have a lot more to offer than clothing and food and other material needs. I know this because I know the one who has entrusted you with so much more.

Jesus is already at work in the community around us and he is entrusting us to show people where he is… that he cares… that they matter. It is as we continue to grow into a life of mission that we will hear our master say, “Well done good and faithful servant… enter into the joy of your master.”