Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Stewardship of Grace*

*Topical                November 21, 2004*

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*Scripture Reading:*

 

*Introduction:*

 

Stewardship Sunday: the usual intent, meaning and direction involves monetary giving – being good stewards or responsible caretakers of what God has entrusted to us for the proclamation and fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom.

We don’t want to minimize monetary giving – it is important.

The church can’t exist without it, and the Bible commands it.

“Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s."

And they were amazed at him.”

(Mr 12:17 NivUS)

 

 “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”

(Lu 14:33 NivUS)

 

“As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury.

He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.

"I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others.

All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."”

(Lu 21:1-4 NivUS)

 

“In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’"”

(Ac 20:35 NivUS)

 

“But just as you excel in everything— in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.”

(2Co 8:7 NivUS)

 

“Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

(2Co 9:7 NivUS)

 

All of you have been most generous in supporting this church – its missions and ministries and upkeep.

You are to be commended.

We encourage you to keep up the good work.

We are thankful for you.

But I want to take a little different approach on this Stewardship Sunday to talk about another kind of stewardship we have in the church – the stewardship of grace.

In many ways this is more important than monetary stewardship because without it, the money God entrusts to us would be spent in vain – we would be investing in a sinking ship.

It is also more valuable since money can’t buy it.

It is the ministry of grace that God has given us in Jesus Christ that brings us life eternal.

It is the ministry of grace that makes us different from the world.

One would be far fetched to even imagine that Islam could ever be known as a ministry of grace, for instance.

It is instead a religion that fosters hatred for all who are different – especially those of Judeo-Christian heritage to whom the grace of God flows, and from whom the grace of God must flow.

So if we are to be the CHURCH we must have the ministry of grace of which we are stewards or caretakers.

We must effectively foster and display the actions and attitudes of grace in all our dealings both in and out of the church.

Grace is how Christ reached us and it is how we will reach others for him.

So on this Thanksgiving let us thank God for his grace by extending it to all who either listen or don’t listen.

Let us be good stewards of his grace.

We can thank God for the grace we have been given, and we can thank God for the grace that we have been given to give to others.

Now, you may wonder why this is a message we need to hear.

I think the answer is precisely this: the longer we are Christians the more sick and tired of sin we can become.

The horror, inadequacies, inconsistencies and failures that sin causes begin to wear on us.

We get impatient with it all.

It is almost as if the closer we get to Christ the farther away from him we are tempted to get.

As we advance in years and Christian experience, instead of becoming more tender and compassionate, seeing the world as God sees it, loving it for salvation through its failures, we are tempted to become hard and bitter, overworked in dealing with it all and quite stressed out.

We have seen too many continuing failures in the short time frame of our lives and can’t quite see the end of it anymore like we had once hoped.

We become short-sighted.

What we need is a heavy dose of personal revival; our subject at our revitalized Wednesday evening prayer and devotion sessions.

We strongly urge you to come and be a part of God’s work in it all.

What we need is to return to the sense of desperate dependence upon God’s grace that we once had.

When we find it, we will have become good stewards of his grace once again.

With time we can fool ourselves into thinking we ourselves have overcome sin, at least major sin, and this can make us impatient with others that God is bringing along behind us.

Essentially, we can begin to think we have become better than they since we have gotten it together – or have we?

A lack of sufficient grace flowing through our lives always indicates a struggle with pride on some level.

Now we cannot assume that we can reach the place of becoming unaffected by sin.

It always disappoints – both us and God.

Jesus was affected by sin when he threw the money changers out of the temple.

He was affected by sin when he condemned the Pharisees as hypocrites with his seven “woes” in Matthew 23.

And if you never thought of it before, the great sin of the Pharisees was that they were no longer good stewards of God’s grace.

Here were some people who thought they had it together for God and became quite judgmental.

So just what is the attitude of grace that we are to be stewards of?

Is it to become as much personally unaffected by the sins of others as possible so that you can see them as God does – still in process so that we don’t turn bitter or judgmental by the length of the process, leaving it in God’s hands instead of ours?

 

Grace upholds faith in the sovereignty of God to deal with sins rather than us having to solve the problem.

You have probably all heard that grace is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense”, but I think a better implication of grace stewardship is that we never forget our own sinfulness and great need of grace.

Essentially, it is that each of us has caused the death of Christ for our own sin.

We cannot own grace if we do not go there.

If we have lost our own sense of need for grace there is no way we can give it, is there?

We must not lose the quality of graciousness that endears Christ to others through us.

Every opportunity for grace glorifies God.

In giving people what they don’t deserve because of their sinfulness you create an indebtedness to Christ that greatly increases your net worth to his kingdom.

You do this every time you respond kindly in the face of unfairness, injustice, selfishness, misunderstanding and adversity.

But I must also warn you that you can get wounded by grace.

This is where the potential for bitterness creeps in over time.

My heart weeps over the soldiers and marines who get maimed and killed in Iraq; over the many casualties of terrorist hatred.

But as our election showed, it is a war worth winning for the outcome we hope for.

How much better the cause and the hoped for outcome of this war of grace?

Are you willing to lose your life so another can gain eternity with Jesus?

Are you willing to live the rest of your Christian life here on earth without an arm or a leg or your eyes or your ears so that someone else can touch, walk with, see and hear Jesus?

There are some who would have us quit this war and lose what we have gained for freedom.

Would you quit this war of grace that offers an even greater freedom – the freedom from the penalty of sin?

 

Now, I want you to know that I preach to myself here, as well as to all of us.

I am reminded of comments by Dr.

Joseph Stowell at the question and answer session that ended the Christian Leadership Conference at Harvest Bible Chapel this October.

When asked how he prepares messages, he said, “I preach from the overflow of my study in meeting my own needs in Christ.

What I preach to others is what I myself desperately need to hear.”

This leads me to share with you how the thoughts for this message developed in my heart this week.

It all started with “Mrs.

Wonderful”.

Joan and I were at Walgreens at Six Corners looking around for Christmas Shoebox ministry items last Saturday.

I wandered off into the next aisle and noticed a box of Mrs. Wonderful talking dolls.

I pressed the activator to hear a wonderfully graceful statement from the wife of any man’s dreams.

ILLUSTRATE In fact, the more I pressed it the more gracious things I heard.

I thought, “Wow, this could really be useful in marriage counseling ministry.”

Perhaps not too realistic in real life, but the point was certainly there.

It could really be a springboard for discussion.

Then Joan came over and I just had to show it to her and let her hear Mrs. Wonderful for herself, while I tried to keep tongue in cheek.

Not to be undone, however, Joan noticed that there were a number of “Mr.

Wonderful” talking dolls as well.

She said, “Let’s see what Mr. Wonderful has to say.