“Whose is it anyway?”
Mark 12:41-44/Luke12:41-48
January 26, 2003
Dr. Jerry Nelson
Mark 12:4-44 “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the
offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple
treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins,
worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said,
"I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than
all the others. They all gave out of
their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything--all she had to
live on."
As I did two weeks ago, so again this week before proceeding, I must make a disclaimer:
If you do not claim to be a Christ-follower, if you have never even pretended that Jesus is Lord of your life, then this sermon is not for you.
In the Bible texts we will study today, Jesus is talking to his followers – those who desire to be obedient to him.
In that previous sermon I summarized the teaching of this Mark text this way:
“Generosity is measured not by how much one gives but by how much one has left.”
The point of the Mark 12 text is very disturbing to many of us.
It is disturbing because we learn that God is not impressed with the size of our gifts.
And it is disturbing because we begin to understand that our old 10% standard of giving is not only faulty but actually contrary to the true NT standard of giving.
Before, I attempted to “debunk that theology of 10%-tithing”.
If you did not hear that sermon, I challenge you to get a copy and carefully consider the issue.
Consistent with the rest of NT teaching, Jesus seems to commend a different standard of giving!
That is nothing short of a paradigm shift – a whole new way of looking at our resources.
We like the old “tithing” paradigm or model.
The old 10% standard was readily adopted because it was easy and because frankly it left us in control of the remaining 90%.
Writer Fred Smith commented that the concept of “Tithing is used a technique to help us get out of giving more.”
We have always lived as if all is well if we give God his 10%.
We are then free to use the balance any way we see fit.
But if Jesus is not asking for a certain percentage, how do we know what to give?
I understand that previous sermon generated a lot of conversation.
The NT standard seems so impossibly high as to be unrealistic.
It seems so idealistic as to be impractical.
The conversations I heard, and heard about, went something like this: “In the nitty-gritty world of reality - with bills to pay, a mortgage to maintain, and groceries to buy, the question remains, ‘If I don’t use the 10% standard, how much should I give?’”
I think the Mark 12 text and the texts we will look at today
force us to ask the very different, and
much harder question, “How much should I keep?”
That’s the paradigm shift in a NT understanding of
stewardship: It is not a matter of how much should I give, but how much
should I keep.
I want to explore that issue even more today.
One of the reasons we have such a difficult time
comprehending and applying the true NT standard of giving is because we have
forgotten a fundamental Scriptural precept.
I want you to see with me what that fundamental principle is.
Look please at Luke
12:42-48 (Don’t read it yet)
Here Jesus tells a
parable; a parable is a story that makes a special point.
The major characters in
the parable are called “managers”.
The older word
for these people is “steward” from which we get the word “stewardship”.
As I read the passage, I
want you to notice that Jesus compares two different ways a manager can think
and act:
1. Who actually owns the resources entrusted to the
managers?
2. For what purposes do the managers use the
resources?
3. How is the effectiveness of
the mangers’ measured?
4. What are the results of the
managers’ actions?
Luke 12:42-48
"Who then is the
faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to
give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so
when he returns. I tell you the truth;
he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to himself, `My master is taking a
long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and
maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not
expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and
assign him a place with the unbelievers
"That
servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what
his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving
punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given
much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much,
much more will be asked.
As I studied this, I wanted to make certain I was correctly applying this parable to the issue of the Christian and possessions.
In Matthew where this parable is also told, the author seems to emphasize watchfulness - being ready for the coming of the Lord – as the major though not exclusive issue in focus.
Here in Luke when we look particularly at the parable of the rich fool and the mini-sermon Jesus preaches earlier in the same chapter, we realize that this author is emphasizing faithfulness.
Matthew emphasizes the prepared manager/steward/Christian.
Luke emphasizes the faithful manager/steward/Christian AND in context it is faithfulness in the use of money, food, clothing, facilities – all the material resources we possess.
Back to the text now and the first question:
1. Who owns the resources entrusted to the managers?
The answer is obvious- the master owns the resources.
· He is called the master and the manager is called a manager.
· In verse 42 the servants belong to the master.
· In verse 44 the possessions belong to the master.
Who is the true owner of
all we have?
That is a
crucial question that must be answered.
We will never
get this issue of the use of our money right until we come to grips with the
issue of ownership – to whom does all we have truly belong?
We refer to “My income,
my possessions, and my savings account” and we then refer to “My decision as to
how much to give of what I have.”
We get the issue
of ownership all confused in our language and more importantly in our
subsequent actions.
I know we have heard
this before, but let the following passages from the Bible remind us of this
fundamental ownership precept:
Genesis 1:1 In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Psalm 24:1 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the
world, and all who live in it;
I Corinthians 6:19-20 “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Genesis
2:15 “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it
and take care of it.
Leviticus 25:1, 2, 23 The LORD said to Moses on
Mount Sinai, "Speak to the Israelites and
say to them: `When you enter the land I am going to give you… The land must not
be sold permanently, because the land
is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.
Deuteronomy 8:17-18 You
may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced
this wealth for me." But remember
the LORD your God, for it is he who
gives you the ability to produce wealth…”
We will cease having the
same level of difficulty with giving and how much to keep when we finally get
past this issue of who it belongs to,
to start with.
Are
you the owner or the manager?
Are
you the master or the steward?
If we get that
right, then we begin to see how the question is not “How much should I give?”
but “How should I use God’s possessions entrusted to me?”
Someone might think this
is all just semantics.
I don’t think so
– I think it fundamentally changes the way we think about our possessions.
Applying that, it means
that I begin to think of my income, my house, my car, my time, my life itself,
as truly belonging to God.
And
I’m the manager of his possessions.
That begs the next
question I asked earlier of our text:
2. For what purposes does the manager use the
master’s resources?
Again Jesus
contrasts a manager acting in two different ways.
In the first situation,
the manager uses the resources to do what the master requested.
The manager/steward
was to use the master’s food to feed the master’s other servants.
I don’t want to
press the parable too far but it is at least consistent with the rest of the
chapter and the rest of the NT to see that the master's desire was that the
manager use the master’s resources to meet the needs of others.
In the second situation,
the manager uses the master’s resources to satisfy his own desires.
Thinking of the
resources around him as his own,
he began to freely use the resources for himself.
Thinking of the
resources around us as our
own, we begin to freely use them as we
desire.
Even if we
erroneously believe that only 10% belongs to God, we get so caught up in
spending the remaining 90% that before long we must borrow from the 10% to make
ends meet.
In this same chapter,
and I think relevant to our parable, Jesus said in 12:15 “Watch out! Be on your
guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the
abundance of his possessions.”
Our culture says Jesus
is wrong and life does consist in the abundance and particularly the kind of
our possessions!
·
We don’t buy
transportation, we buy prestige.
·
We don’t buy
clothing, we buy physical appeal.
·
We don’t buy
shelter, but like the rich fool earlier in this chapter, we make bigger
investments.
Many years ago an
advertising copywriter wrote, “No one has ever in his life bought a mere piece
of merchandise – per se. What he buys is the satisfaction of a physical need or
the gratification of some dream about his life.” (CT Oct 7 ’96 p26)
Rodney Clapp, former,
and maybe still, editor of Intervarsity Books wrote that the “Consumer is
schooled in insatiability…. We receive over 3000 commercial messages a day…
Planned obsolescence, installment buying, and credit cards – all creations of
(the last 100 years), were key means to make consumption a way of life… In 1976
the average American supermarket carried nine thousand products; today it
stocks over thirty thousand. The
typical produce section in 1975 had 65 items; today it stocks 285.” (Rodney Clapp
in CT Oct 7 ’96)
Today we have “the
deification of dissatisfaction”.
We are schooled
in covetousness.
We start by thinking of
ourselves as the rightful owners of our resources (our money, our time, our
abilities) and then we are lured into consumerism as the way to use
those resources.
And that is a complete
contradiction of how God says we are to manage the resources he entrusts to us.
With our consumer
culture in mind, listen to Jesus in Luke 12:22-34
“Then
Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about
your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more
than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap; they have no
storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than
birds! Who of you by worrying can add a
single hour to his life? Since you
cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
"Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you,
not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the
field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more
will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry
about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows
that you need them. But seek his
kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. "Do not be afraid,
little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that
will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart
will be also.
Want to know how to use
God’s money? Use it the way he said.
Is that hard to
determine? Not really.
Not if we stop listening to the culture and start listening to
God.
God says it is appropriate
to use his resources in at least four ways:
1. He commands us to pay our taxes.
The government seems
ready to help us be faithful to this one.
2. He commands us to meet the needs of our families.
The difficulty of this
one is that we have to think very hard about resisting the culture’s definition
of “need”.
One department
store CEO boasted that he “could turn luxuries into …necessities” more quickly
than anyone else.” (CT OCT 7 ’96)
That is what a consumer
culture does and we must be counter- cultural if we are going to resist
it.
As I have said
before, I seriously wonder if the greatest problem we have with television
today is not the programming but the commercials – they are a direct denial of
how God says we are to use his resources.
John Wesley, writing 250 years ago, with great
wisdom for our day, said there are four questions to ask when spending God's
money:
1. In
spending the money, am I acting like I owned the money or am I acting as a
manager of God's money?
2. What
Scripture requires or allows me to spend this money in this way?
3. Can I
offer up this purchase as a sacrifice to the Lord?
4. Will
God reward me for this expenditure on the day when he returns?
Listen to the prayer he used before making a
purchase and ask if you dare to pray it:
“Lord, You see that I am going to spend this
money on this particular food, clothing, furniture or whatever it is.
“And you know that I act with a single purpose to
be a steward of your money, spending this portion of the money in keeping with
the purposes for which you entrusted me with it.
“You know that I do this in obedience to your
word.
“Let this
purchase be a holy sacrifice, acceptable through Jesus Christ. “
If you can pray that prayer with a clear
conscience, you are spending God's money wisely.
3. The
third proper way to spend God's money is by spending it on things to enjoy.
In Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 we read,
"Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink,
and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few
days of life God has given him... Moreover, when God gives 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."
Paul said something similar in our I
Timothy 6:17 text:
We are to put our hope in God who
richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment."
It is appropriate to spend some of
God's money on things beyond just exactly what we need.
There's nothing inherently
wrong with
·
Owning a house with
one more bedroom than you
·
absolutely need.
·
Or a Buick rather
than a Ford.
·
Or eating at Red
Lobster rather than BurgerKing.
The questions are: "Does
God want me to spend His money this way?" and
"Will I
be able to do the other things He wants me to
do with His money?"
4. And
that brings us to the fourth and most important way God
wants us to use his money – to meet the physical and spiritual needs of
others.
The faithful manager in our text used his
master’s resources to feed the others.
The unfaithful manager fed only himself and that
to excess.
Almost any text we
look at in Scripture points to giving as the primary purpose for which
God intends us to use the resources he entrusts to us.
I’m convinced
God gives us resources, to give them away.
Last week I said that
one of the reasons why we don’t like Jesus’ new standard of giving (100% rather
than 10%) is that it impinges on our standard of living.
John Wesley’s advice
about money was: “Earn all you can, save all you can and give all you can.”
But
when he said “save all you can” he didn’t mean increase your investments.
He meant reduce
your standard of living.
Wesley began to limit
his expenses so he would have more to give to the poor.
He records that
in one year his income was 30 English pounds and his living expenses were 28
pounds so he had 2 pounds to give away.
The next year
his income doubled but he still managed to live on 28 pounds so he had 32
pounds to give away.
In the third year his income jumped to 90 pounds and he was able to give away 62 pounds.
He believed that with increased income, what should rise is not the
Christian’s standard of living but the standard of giving.
And remember from last
week’s text, Generosity is measured not by how much one gives but by how much
one has left.
Let’s look at the third
and fourth questions we asked of the text:
“How is the
effectiveness of the mangers’ measured?” and
“
What are the results of
the managers’ actions?”
Jesus
leaves no doubt that the way a manager is judged is by the extent to which he
used the master’s resources to accomplish the master’s purposes.
And the
judgment on the one who misused the resources was severe.
This is serious business.
The bottom line is this:
Get the issue of ownership right and the issue of giving/keeping becomes much
less difficult.
Jesus turns the issue of
stewardship on its head.
We want to ask “how much
should I give?”
But the issue is
not how much should I give, but how I can live most modestly to free up as many
of God’s resources as possible to accomplish his purposes.
I think today Jesus
would not ask us to look at our giving nearly so much as he would ask
us to study our spending.
If we get it right that
he is the owner and we are the managers, and we thoughtfully ask, how does he
want his resources used, we will have come a long way.
A faithful steward is God’s person, using God’s resources to accomplish God’s purposes.