STEWARDSHIP
DR. JIM DIXON
LUKE 12:13-21
JULY 18, 1993
It was Pharaoh ruler of Egypt who once said, “My Nile is mine.” That rather redundant statement is quoted in Ezekiel, chapter 29, verse 3. “My Nile is mine.” Of course, the king of Egypt was wrong. The Nile was not his. The Bible tells us that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” This is the first principle of stewardship: everything belongs to God. God owns everything, we own nothing. But some things are entrusted to us as stewards. Some things are entrusted into our care. The Bible is absolutely clear that one day we will stand before Christ, at the judgment seat of Christ, and our stewardship will be evaluated. God will evaluate how we have cared for the things entrusted to us.
Now, I know that all of you who believe in Jesus Christ, you long to hear Christ say to you, “Well done. Well done, my good and faithful servant.” With respect to financial stewardship, you will hear Him say that if you do not make one of these four mistakes that we’re going to explore this morning. Four mistakes that as Christians, we can make these mistakes with respect to financial stewardship. The first mistake is hoarding.
God doesn’t want Christians to hoard. Now, the word hoard comes from the old English word, “hiden,” which literally means to hide. Perhaps you think of the wicked servant in the parable of the talents, who hid his master’s money. A poor example of poor stewardship. But hoarding is worse than that because when we hoard, we hide money for ourselves. You see, the wicked servant in the parable of the talents, he hid the master’s money for the master. But when we hoard, we hide money, we lay up money, we set aside money for ourselves; an excessive amount of money, that’s what hoarding is.
Of course, that’s one of the points in our passage of scripture for today with the rich man and his barns. Jesus, in this parable, explains how this rich man set aside, he laid up, tremendous wealth thinking that he could take his ease, eat, drink, and be merry thinking that his future was all provided for. Christ called him a fool. Christ said that his soul, his very soul would be judged and Christ said, “So shall it be for all who lay up treasures for themselves and are not rich towards God.”
Now, I’ve got to tell you, I’ve really struggled with this message this week. Oftentimes, and certainly this time, in preparation for this message, I feel like you struggle with what God is saying to you. I know for me and for Barb and, and for our family, we want to be faithful to the Lord. We don’t want to hoard, we don’t want to accumulate, lay up treasures for ourself. It is true that in the Proverbs, God says that it is wise to lay up something for your future. It’s true that it says that in the Proverbs. It’s also true, however, that when you go to the New Testament, there’s incomprehensible warning regarding this accumulated wealth. I think we live in a nation, a materialistic culture and nation where hoarding is perhaps one of the great problems the Christian community faces.
The reason God warns us regarding laying up wealth is twofold. First of all, our tendency is when we set aside wealth, our tendency is to begin to trust in what we set aside rather than trust in the Lord. I tell you, as you go through the New Testament, you see so clearly that Christ kind of wants His people to live a little bit on the edge so that we might learn to live lives of faith so that we might really learn to trust in Him day by day. So that’s one of the dangers of accumulated wealth that we might put our security in that which we’ve accumulated rather than in the Lord himself. Believe me, what Jesus Christ says in the gospels is radical. I mean, I think the gospel preached from the pulpits of the churches of America is a culturized gospel, not a biblical one.
I don’t think the Christian community has even begun to face what Jesus Christ has said regarding money and wealth. In our passage of scripture for today, Luke, chapter 12, right after Jesus spoke of the rich man and his barns, and Jesus said, “So shall it be for those who lay up treasures for themselves and are not rich towards God.” Jesus went on to speak of the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and he said, “Seek first my kingdom and I’ll give you everything you need.” He said, “as God provides for the birds and as God provides clothing, as He arrays the flowers of the field, God will clothe you and feed you.” He talked about living one day at a time. Then Jesus said to the multitude right there in Luke 12, he said to the multitude, “Sell your possessions, give to the poor.” It was then that he said, “Do not lay up treasures on earth where moths consume and rust erodes, but lay up treasures in heaven.” That’s radical.
You see, one of the reasons Christ taught this is that we we tend to put our trust in what we’ve accumulated rather than Him. But the other reason, the other reason is that when we accumulate wealth, that wealth rusts. I mean, money is meant to be used. Money is this tool that’s meant to be used. As Christians, we understand it’s meant to be used for ministry and accumulated wealth just rusts. In the book of James, there’s that kind of scary passage where James says, for those of us who are Christians, that if we’ve allowed our wealth to rust, that that rust will testify against us at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. Go back and read James, hoarding was a tremendous problem in the church of Jesus Christ.
I know you’ve all heard of that television program, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach. It seems to me that it should be called simply Lifestyles of the Rich. Because if you watch it, you’ll probably notice that there are occasions when the program deals with rich people who are not famous, but there is never an occasion when they deal with famous people who are not rich.
Mother Teresa is famous, and I can guarantee you that program has never dealt with her lifestyle. Now, Friday night, Barb and I were having dinner. Barb and I were having dinner, and she told me that a couple of days earlier, I think the prior day, she had watched the program Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. She said on that program they had a wealthy woman who was famous for throwing extravagant parties, million-dollar parties. On the program, she was asked how she could justify spending all that money on parties. She said she’d thought about that and she thought, she viewed it as a way of spreading, of sharing her wealth, of spreading her wealth around rather than just sitting on it. She said, “When I throw these parties, I’m giving money to caterers. I’m giving money to the tent people. I’m giving money to the chair people, the table people. I’m giving money to the flower people.” She says, “At least I’m using my money. I’m spreading it around.” That’s true, and perhaps that is better than just sitting on it.
But I’ll tell you what’s better still, for those of us who are Christians, is to use that accumulated money for ministry. I mean, isn’t this the message of Christ? How can you read through the New Testament and not see this: seek first His kingdom, that we would use our accumulated wealth for ministry in this world. I think the great sin of the church of Jesus Christ in this last decade of the 20th century is materialism.
A second mistake we make with respect to financial stewardship is stealing. Hoarding is one mistake, but stealing is another. Now, in the year 1878, a widow in the Missouri territory in the Ozarks was all alone in her house. She had once been married, happily married, but her husband tragically died, and now she was all alone. It was 12:00 noon in that year, 1878, as she heard horses approaching her house. She looked out the window. She saw three men on horseback. As they arrived at the house, one man got off, came to the door, and she was afraid. The widow was. She did not recognize any of them. The young man asked if they could come in and have lunch. He said they were starving and they wondered if she could give them something to eat. So she could not refuse them. She had them come in and though she was very poor and she had very little food, she gave them the best that she had.
As they were sitting around the table, the four of them, tears came to her eyes and the young man asked her why. She said that she was thinking back to better times when she was not alone in the house. Somehow sharing this meal with them reminded her of when her husband had been around. Then she began to just cry openly. They asked her what was wrong, and she said she wouldn’t be in the house much longer. In fact, she said “At four o’clock this afternoon, the banker’s coming and I owe $800 on the house and he’s going to foreclose on the house if I can’t pay him the $800.” The three men realized that this very poor woman had been very generous with them. As they left the house, one of the men came up to her and he took her hand. He said, “You remind me so much of my mother.” He put $800 cash in her hand. He said, “When the banker comes at four o’clock this afternoon, you give this to him. You give this to him, and you take care of your mortgage so that you can stay in this house, but make sure you get a receipt because you can’t always trust bankers.”
Well, the three men left, and four o’clock that afternoon, the banker did come and this widow gave him, to his utter surprise, gave him the $800, and she was able to stay in the house. She asked for a receipt and the banker granted it. As the banker rode away and he went through the woods, these three men stopped him and robbed him and took their $800 back. Now it is a fact of history, is a historical fact that the young man who took her hand and put that $800 there and then robbed the banker later, that young man was Jesse James. Now you see, even Jesse James, he had a soft heart sometimes. But the problem with Jesse James, the horrible truth about Jesse James was that he was a thief. He was a robber. He robbed banks, he robbed trains, he robbed stagecoaches throughout the Missouri territory. It’s a horrible thing to be a thief.
I know you’ve been reading the newspaper recently or even watching the news. You’ve probably heard about Marvin Davis, the billionaire who once lived here in Denver, how he and his wife after a week at Wimbledon in England went to the French Riviera, and there as they were in the region of the French Riviera, they were robbed. Their limousine was stopped, and people took their jewelry and their cash. Incredibly, they had a $20 million in jewelry on them and $50,000 in cash. That’s why Barb and I always leave our jewelry and cash at home. Around Denver people have kind of made jokes, you know, about the sum of money that they had on them, $50,000 in cash and the incomparable wealth of the jewelry they carried with them. But it’s really no joking matter. I mean, it’s a tragic thing to steal, whether you’re stealing from rich or poor. It’s a tragic thing to steal. It’s a horrible thing to steal from people.
I’ll tell you what’s worse is stealing from God. Stealing from God. It’s in Malachi chapter 3 where God speaks. God says, “Will men rob God? You are robbing me, the whole nation of you. But you say, how are we robbing you? In your tithes and your offerings you are robbing me. Therefore, you are cursed with a curse. Bring the full tithe into my house. Put me to the test. See if I will not open up the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”
Now, the word tithe means tenth. It is true that in Israel, the Jewish people were commanded of God to give the first tenth of all they had to the Lord, the firstfruits. Of course, the big question that confronts the church of Jesus Christ at this time: is that commandment now given to the people of Christ? Are we required to give one tenth, the first tenth of everything we have to the Lord? Of course, you hear some Christians say, “Well, we’re not under the law, we’re under grace. The Old Testament is law. The New Testament is grace. So we don’t have to tithe now.” A tragic misunderstanding of biblical theology. It is true that we are not saved by the law. We are not saved by the law. We are not saved by obedience to Christ’s commandments. In a sense, we are saved through Christ’s fulfillment of the law. In a sense we’re saved through Christ’s perfect obedience regarding the laws of God. We are saved by the shed blood of Jesus Christ by His atonement and death. We are saved when we receive Him as Savior and Lord. We are saved by grace and we are saved by mercy. But having been saved by grace, we are still called to obey the law. We’re not saved by the law, but we are called to obey the law. We’re called to obey the commandments of God.
I think the issue that confronts Christians today: is tithing still part of the law? Is tithing still the commandment of God? Some people have said, “Well, now maybe tithing is like circumcision. In the New Testament, it seems like the Old Testament law of circumcision is made moot. It’s no longer mandated. In the New Testament, it seems like the Old Testament Levitical dietary laws are also made moot. They’re no longer mandated. Maybe tithing is like that.” The problem is if you read every single page in the New Testament, you won’t find one page where the law of tithing is made moot. You won’t find one page where the law of tithing is repealed. Now, it is true that tithing is rarely mentioned in the New Testament. It’s more or less assumed. But I remind you of one passage in Luke, chapter 11, where Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and He says to the Pharisees, “You tithe everything. You tithe even the little things, but you have forgotten justice and love.” Jesus told them they needed to practice justice and love without neglecting to tithe. Read it in Luke chapter 11.
Now, maybe you think that tithing isn’t part of the commandments we have in Christ. If you think that, certainly I disagree with you. But even if you think that honestly, even if you think that, you’d have to admit that having come into the new covenant and having received the incredible grace and love of Jesus Christ, we should give more than the Jews gave under the old covenant, having received so much and been so greatly blessed. What a tragedy for the church of Jesus Christ as we approach the end of this millennium, that we are stealing from God, robbing God.
You know, if you’ve read Luke 19 and you remember that passage where Jesus meets Zacchaeus and Zacchaeus is up in the tree trying to get a glimpse of the Son of God. You remember how Jesus saw him and spoke to him and said, “Zacchaeus, come down. I want to have lunch with you today.” How stunned this tax collector was who had robbed and cheated so many people and he had Christ come into his home and they shared bread together. The Bible tells us that Zacchaeus came to faith in Jesus Christ and that faith in Christ changed the life of Zacchaeus. You see the response of Zacchaeus where he says, “Lord, I’ll pay back everyone I’ve defrauded, everyone I’ve stolen from, I’ll pay them back four times over and I’ll give half of all that I have to the poor.” That’s how a real encounter with Jesus Christ affects the actions of people. If you’ve stolen from anybody and you’re a Christian, pay them back today. I mean, decide today you’re going to pay back anybody you’ve stolen from. If you’re robbing God, stop it. Begin to be faithful today.
I must say, you know, for Barb and I, in that little slide show we saw, in the conclusion of the slideshow it said, “God owns everything. The amazing thing is that we only have to give God 10%. We get to keep 90.” Well, that is amazing. But we don’t always get to keep 90. I know that sometimes the Holy Spirit leads us to give more than 10%. I think tithing is just the beginning. I know for Barb and I, we felt years ago that we were called to tithe. But you know, now what we have felt is that God wants us to go beyond tithing because He’s blessed us so much. The whole issue here is faithfulness. Do you really want to be faithful to the Lord?
The third mistake we make in stewardship is lying. This will be very quick. We make a mistake when we hoard. We make a mistake when we steal. We make a mistake when we lie. I know that most of you are familiar with Acts chapter 5, and the whole story of Ananias and Sapphira, how they sold a piece of property that they owned. They took the proceeds of that property and they came to their local church and they told the local church, “We’re going to give you all the proceeds from this property we sold. We’re giving you all of it, a hundred percent.” It was a lie. The truth was that they had kept part of the proceeds for themselves. They were only giving part to the church. They weren’t required to give any of it. It was their choice to give it. But in giving it, they made the mistake of lying saying that they were giving all of it when in truth they were just giving part of it. Peter said to them, “You’ve not lied to the church. You’ve not lied to men. You’ve lied to God.” You know how the judgment of God fell upon Ananias and Sapphira and fear, holy fear seized the early church. I’m not going to belabor this point, but I do want to say, don’t lie to God. We’ve come through a stewardship campaign. Many of us have made pledges.
Now, Barb and I made a pledge, and I know many of you did. We need to honor those pledges. Those pledges were not simply made to the church. They were not simply made to men; they are commitments before God. If you’re not going to honor your pledge, you better be certain you have a very good reason. God’s called us to faithfulness now. It’s amazing how God is providing for our church. I mean, God is just doing wonderful things. With respect to the call that He has placed upon us to move and the future of the ministry that he has for us, God is just opening up incredible doors. It’s a miracle that we have these negotiations going on with this buyer who has the wherewithal, they have the wherewithal to buy this facility. It’s miraculous how God is providing that. The land is almost paid for and that’s absolutely wonderful. We have a lender that feels real good about our ministry and about our future. You see, we need to be faithful in fulfilling our pledges. We really do.
I think this morning as we listen to God, I know one thing that God would say to us is take your pledge seriously. Barb and I a month ago completed the pledge that we had made. We’re seriously thinking whether God wants us to do more. We would not ask you to do what we are not willing to do, but seek first the kingdom of God. Lying is the third mistake.
The final mistake is grumbling. I mean, in terms of financial stewardship, we make a mistake when we hoard, when we steal, when we lie, and when we grumble. It says in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, “God loves a cheerful giver.” A cheerful giver.
Now, there was a letter about six years ago that was mailed into the Internal Revenue Service. You may have heard about it, it was in the newspaper some time ago. According to the IRS, this man wrote in and he said, “I have intentionally withheld money from the IRS and I haven’t been able to sleep at night. Enclosed you’ll find a check for $120. If I still can’t sleep, I’ll send the rest of the money.” Now, I think it is certainly true that the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t care whether you can sleep at night. I mean, the IRS really doesn’t care whether we can sleep at night. They just want all of their money. They want all of it, and they don’t care what our attitude is either. They don’t care whether you are smiling when you send your money in or frowning. They don’t care at all what your attitude is. But God cares, God really cares about your attitude and God wants cheerful givers.
Now, I’ll tell you a little story, it’s kind of embarrassing. I know we need to close. Some years ago, Barb and I went out to eat for lunch at Marie Callender’s over in Yosemite. It was summertime. During the summer at Marie Callender’s, they have great fresh fruit pies, and they have fresh strawberry pie that they serve almost all summer long. But there’s a two-week period during the summer where they have fresh raspberry pie with whipped cream. And I love it. Now, we were having lunch over there and I ordered a piece of fresh raspberry pie. Barb ordered something else. As I was eating the pie, I made a comment on how great it tasted. Barb asked if I’d give her some. Now this is really embarrassing, but I didn’t want to give it to her. I didn’t want to give it to her.
I said, “You know, why don’t you just order a piece of raspberry pie?” I said, “You know how much I love this pie.” I said, “I’ve not asked for any of your food.” Finally I cut off a piece. Finally, I cut off a piece and I put it over on Barb’s plate and she didn’t eat it. In fact, she took it and put it back on my plate. She said, “You know, if you feel that way, I don’t want to eat it.” I took it and put it again, you know, back on her plate. Finally, when we left the restaurant, it was still just sitting there.
But isn’t it true? I mean, isn’t it true that a gift that isn’t given in joy is hard to receive in joy? I mean, isn’t it? I mean, how can you joyfully receive a gift that you know the giver didn’t want to give? God wants us to understand, He really looks at our hearts. He really looks at our hearts. God loves a cheerful giver.
Now, this verse is sometimes abused. I’ve heard preachers preach sermons where they abuse this passage from 2 Corinthians 9. I’ve heard ministers say, “You know, if you can’t give cheerfully, don’t give it all.” The Bible doesn’t say that. God doesn’t feel like that. I mean, if you go back and look at 2 Corinthians 9, it does say God loves a cheerful giver, but it doesn’t say God hates every other kind of giver. The reality is that in the Bible, giving is a commandment. God wants us to obey His commandments. He wants us to obey all of His commandments cheerfully. No matter what the commandment, He wants us to obey it cheerfully. But if we’re not cheerful, He still expects us to obey. He still expects us to obey it.
One other thing as we close, this word cheerful in the Greek is “hilarios.” It’s the word from which we get the English word hilarious. Literally, this verse says, “God loves a hilarious giver,” hilarious giver. This word hilarios in the Greek language was used to describe extravagant gifts given with joy. It’s extravagance with joy. Now, if you put a dollar in the plate, you might feel real cheerful about that, but that’s not hilarious giving. You see, hilarious giving is a little more radical than that.
So we have this counsel from God: don’t hoard, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t grumble. Be faithful in your stewardship. Let’s close with a word of prayer.