Sermon 129
Sermon by John Metcalfe Wonersh
on Sunday Morning 27th April 2008
Stewardship
As we sit,
let’s pray… "Loving Lord, as we sit and listen to your Word, may we fully
appreciate the bounteous gifts that you have given us and especially be aware
that Jesus died that we might live.
Amen"
I’m sure you know by now that we’re spending 2
weeks focussing on our church finances, and more importantly on what we’re
being called to do as a church in the name of Jesus. We’re each one of us on a journey, and the
church is also on a journey, and it’s a good time for us to take stock of where
we are on that journey, and where we believe God wants us to be. Why is that?
Because at the moment we’re living beyond our means, and we have to
decide whether we will increase our Regular Giving, or whether we cut back what
we do to match our income. That’s the
choice we have. Ian gave us his thoughts
in an excellent talk last Sunday morning, and if you missed it, can I urge you
to order a tape copy, or use the website to read it, or print off a copy, or
even listen to it on your computer.
Let us start by understanding
what God said to the Hebrews in the passages we heard from Malachi. The background to this book is very
important. Years before Malachi, in 600
BC, the city of
70 years afterwards, the Persian
King Cyrus let 50,000 Hebrews return home so they could rebuild the
Now let’s fast forward a few more
years. The struggle for survival was
over, materially they are comfortable and life seems secure. But the people lose their vision of dependency
upon God and start to focus on their own lives.
They decorate and extend their own homes. They build their businesses. They establish their family. Priorities change.
That needn’t have been a problem,
but it was …
·
little by little, the Hebrews were
putting God to one side,
·
inch by inch, God was pushed into
the background, and
·
bit by
bit any meaningful relationship with him was squeezed bone dry.
In Malachi 1:13 we
read of the criticisms that were levelled at the Hebrews:
·
their religion is without hunger,
(they don’t really long for God to move)
·
their faith is without vision (they
don’t expect God to move)
·
their hopes are set on the things of
this world (they aren’t particularly interested even when he does), and finally
·
they
just go through the religious motions.
Then we read of the
consequences …
·
they skimped on their sacrifices and
their commitment was half hearted, and
·
they
offered to God the animals they could afford to lose – the blind, the diseased,
and the lame.
So instead of giving the first of
what they had, they gave what remained. See
Malachi 1:8. They didn’t give their
first fruits. In Leviticus (27:30), God
had commanded: “A tithe of everything
from the land, whether grain from the soil, or fruit from the trees, belongs to
the Lord.”
So what did God make of this –
verse 8 in chapter 3 on page 962, is very telling.
“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob
me”, says God. “How do we rob you” they ask.
“In tithes and offerings you rob
me.”
They skimped on the sacrifices, they
compromised on their commitment, and they shaved their tithe. Ever since
And because of this (v. 9) God
says “you are under a curse, the whole
nation of you, because you are robbing me”.
This word “curse” actually means: stunted, limited, bound, dry,
parched. When there was no rain, the
land would be called cursed. When the crops were stunted they were called cursed; and when something failed to
reach its potential, the word that would be used was “cursed”. So here we have a
people who weren’t enjoying the blessings of God, whose spiritual temperature
was lukewarm, who were living as if God’s tithe didn’t
matter, and God calls them cursed, stunted, spiritually barren.
And because they’d squeezed God
out of their daily life, because they’d lost their vision for what life was
about, because they’d focussed on themselves, their religion had become dry and
their faith was stunted. Spiritually it hadn’t rained upon
Could that be said of us
today? I think that’s where each one of
us has to examine our own heart. Where are we spiritually? There are some people, just as there are some
churches whose potential is stunted, whose spiritual life is barren, whose priorities are wrong.
This is reflected in their commitment to God, it’s reflected in their
hunger when they come to worship, it’s reflected in the sacrifice of their
giving.
What about Wonersh,
is it raining here?
Certainly we know that we’re
starved of the resources we need to continue – we’re short of volunteers for
youth work; people don’t want to become church warden or join the PCC; our
regular income does not meet our needs; we don’t have adequate funds to finish
redecorating our church. Our work IS stunted.
Is that too harsh? Perhaps. But this is one of the richest parts of our
country, and yet the income of this church does not meet its outgoings. We’re living beyond our means. Our regular income is around £13,000/month
and our outgoings are about £17,000 – a shortfall of almost £4,000 each month,
which means our reserves are gradually being whittled away. So if we’re going to maintain the current
level of our ministry, we have to close this gap. Or we reduce our spending, which means we
can’t continue to do all the things we do now.
We’ve seen people’s lives changed
as they’ve found God. We’ve seen his
presence transform tears to joy. We’ve
seen love and care and sacrifice shown to others. We’ve seen generosity of spirit that’s a
delight. We’ve seen this church grow in
depth, in numbers, in hope, in vision, in service. And I’m sure we’re proud of the marvellous
work that Nicky, Jon and Mimi and their many helpers do with our children and
young people. Of course these things are
happening. This church is doing many
great things. But do we want to reduce
that level of activity, or do we want to do more? We can surely say that “YES, it IS raining here
in Wonersh” – But don’t we want it to pour?
Don’t you want the heavens to open?
I DO! And I’m sure that God wants that too.
God wanted it for
4500 years ago God took a
bronze-age people and revealed to them one of the most sophisticated, generous,
progressive principles on charitable giving this world has ever seen. He said that before you spend any money on
yourself; before you pay any taxes to the king, or Gordon Brown; before you
spend money on food and shelter bring me the first tithe. And when they did, God blessed them. I think that’s important for 3 reasons:
·
Firstly, because it
reveals to us the true priorities of our hearts
·
Secondly, because
when we’re forced to trust God we always end up realising that he never lets us
down; and
·
Finally, because
Ministry costs money – it did then, it does now.
Let’s briefly consider these –
firstly, giving reveals to us our priorities. To give to God’s work first, and to give sacrificially,
is just about the best indicator of where our heart and hopes are. It shows where our ambitions and our dreams
are being invested. Jesus said “where your treasure is – there your heart is
also”. Where we place our money reveals where we place our heart. It’s the litmus test.
A wealthy older gentleman had
just recently married a lovely young lady, and was beginning to wonder whether
she might have married him for his money.
So he asked her, “Tell me the truth: if I lost all my money, would you
still love me?” She said reassuringly, “Don’t be silly. Of course I would still
love you. And I’d miss you terribly.”
Not everyone can afford to tithe
their income – financial commitments might already be too high. We mustn’t forget that “we live under Grace and not the Law”. God is more concerned about
our hearts than the amount, remember the widow’s mite. So, decide what level of giving is possible
and give it joyfully. … Or give “in
kind”. Someone in the church
gladdened my heart last week by saying that she couldn’t afford to give
anything, but she’d happily do some work that needed doing, a chore, as her
contribution. If we all felt that way
then we’d have a queue of church wardens, and Nicky would be turning volunteers
away! Tithing is about your heart and
your priorities before God.
Secondly, giving sacrificially
puts our trust in God and we learn that God never lets us down. God says in v. 10 “Test me in this and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of
heaven and pour out blessing.” He
says “go on, put me first”. “Test me in this. Go on, have a go. Try me – see if it’s true. See if being faithful to me doesn’t result in
more blessings than you can count.” Are
we prepared to test God?
Thirdly, tithing is important
because ministry costs money.
The handout that you have
summarises our situation, and I don’t need to repeat what it says, but if you
want more details, ask me afterwards and you can have another sheet with more
numbers and graphs. But just think what
would happen if we all gave 10% of what we earned to the
If that happened, our ministry
and our capabilities here at Wonersh would
explode. We could have 2 Nickys and lots of Jons. The people of God in this church would become
the most powerful force for good in this area.
The drizzle of blessings that we now experience would turn into a flood. The way we think, and the way we see, and the
way we perceive the world would be changed for ever. What we could do would only be limited by our
vision of where we would put those resources to work. We would invest in a community that could
serve others and make a radical difference in our Church, in Wonersh and beyond.
Verse 12 tells us what would happen if we get our giving right: “’Then all the nations will call you blessed,
for yours will be a delightful land,’ says the Lord God Almighty”.
It is raining. But don’t you just want it to pour? Do you
want Wonersh to be “a delightful land”?