January 17, 2010 Pastor Tim Pusey

WHAT SHALL I GIVE HIM?
John 6:1-13

We’ve just come through the Christmas season—so now we’re all trying to lose the weight we gained during the holidays and settling back into our normal routines. Chances are, you’ve tried to get your house back to normal, too—though I’m wondering if there are some of you who might confess to still having Christmas decorations up around your house?

A pressing question throughout the Christmas season is the question of what we’re going to get for those we love. Most of us have had the experience of walking around malls and through department stores hunting for just the right gift—though we had no idea of what we were looking for! But the question persists—as does our search—“What shall I give him/her?”

Last week I introduced a 6-week sermon series on stewardship that I’ve called “Embrace the Trust.” We affirmed last Sunday the understanding that everything we have and everything we are ultimately belongs to God. We also talked about the matter that whatever is in our care is that which God has entrusted to us and that over which we have been given the role of “steward.” We’re to use every resource God provides for us as He would—in keeping with His mission and purpose in our world. This principle of stewardship applies to our financial and material blessings, but also to our time, our bodies, our talents, and our relationships. And I encouraged you to learn to be faithful stewards of what God has entrusted to us, assured that we can trust Him to meet our every need as we use those resources as He would.

This morning I want us to center in a bit more on what it means to be a faithful steward. How do we live that out in our day-by-day lives? How does it impact how we use the resources God provides for us?

In doing so, I want us to turn to a wonderful scene from the ministry of Jesus. It’s actually found in all four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I’m told that it’s the only miracle that’s found in all four Gospels—so it’s evidently pretty significant. However, John tells us some details that the others didn’t, and those details are key for our time together this morning. Listen now to the reading of God’s Word—
[Read John 6:1-13, NIV]

Here was a boy who trusted Jesus with what little he had. And it really wasn’t much, was it? The five barley loaves were the bread eaten by the very poor, and the fish were little more than large dried minnows—perhaps larger than sardines but certainly not much more appealing! That was it! But it was evidently all that could be found—or at least all that was offered. But over what we’d consider a pitiful lunch Jesus spoke His blessing and with it turned around and served five thousand men plus women and children—so perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 people were served dinner that day, all from the gift of a young boy.

The miracle, of course, was what Jesus accomplished with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish! We don’t know how He did it! I’d love to have seen it happen, wouldn’t you? And when all the people had been fed, they collected the leftovers and filled 12 large baskets with bread! Amazing!

But I’m grateful John lets us in on the story of who provided the first little loaves of bread and 2 fish—it was just a child! But this child was willing to give Jesus what little he had. He was generous. He was obedient. And he apparently did what he did not out of fear but with a trusting heart. And Jesus blessed it—as only Jesus could do—and with it Jesus met the needs of thousands that day!

The Lord has graciously provided to each of us far more than just 5 barley loaves and 2 small fish to eat. Even those among us with the least have far more than that! The question before each of us is this: what shall we give back to the Lord? It’s the age-old question—a practical component to our worship, and it’s what I want us to consider today.

First and foremost, we are to give the Lord our hearts! As I said last week, when we give our hearts to the Lord, He’ll have everything else at His disposal. As His children, we can trust our entire lives into His care and keeping. We trust Him for our salvation—it’s not something we can earn, but rather it is His gift to us that we accept by faith. When we give the Lord our hearts, we can live with the calm assurance and trust that God will provide everything we need.

Giving the Lord our hearts is at the center of whatever we give Him. The truth is that we could give to the Lord great and impressive gifts but if we have failed to give the Lord our hearts, our gifts wouldn’t mean anything to the Lord. We certainly can’t buy our way into heaven—though many have sure tried.

And when we first and foremost give the Lord our hearts and learn to trust Him, we aren’t resistant then to what He asks of us. Giving back to Him becomes an almost natural response, just as our gifts are to those whom we love deeply. We want to give back to the Lord who has graciously and generously given so much to us! We give out of the context of relationship! We give not because we have to but because we want to!

Throughout the ages, God’s people have learned the importance of bringing gifts to the Lord as a significant aspect of our worship. According to scripture, we are to bring to Him our tithes and offerings on a regular basis—and we are to do so faithfully, generously and in a spirit of trust. In fact, we’re to be “joyful” givers!

Last Sunday I spoke briefly about the scriptural principle of tithing—that our giving is to begin with giving 10% of all we earn back to the Lord as part of our worship. I talked about it being a God-given exercise in trust—for gifts like that defy human logic and reason. Long before the Law was given to the Israelites, Abraham presented a tenth of everything to Melchizedek, priest of God Most High (Genesis 14:20). When you read through the Old Testament Law given to the people through Moses, tithing was the standard principal for giving back to the Lord.
A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD. (Leviticus 27:30)
The tithe is the standard biblical answer to the question, “What shall I give the Lord?”

The last book in the Old Testament gives us the most pointed word on tithing. The word of the Lord through the prophet Malachi includes this:
“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” (Malachi 3:8-10)

Jesus affirmed the matter of tithing in the New Testament, berating the Pharisees for carefully following the letter of the law in some things but neglecting the heart of it in others.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” (Matthew 23:23)

In fact, do a word search in the Old and New Testaments on “tithe” and on “tenth” and you begin to get an understanding that this was certainly the biblical answer to our question this morning, “What shall I give Him?” And while I understand that Jesus came to fulfill the law and while my understanding is not that we are to tithe because of the letter of the law, I still understand scripture to say that it’s the answer to our question, “What shall I give Him?” We are to give not because we have to but because we want to. We are to tithe not because it’s the requirement, but because it is the God-given standard for the appropriate gift.

The story is told of a man that made half a million dollars every year. He was audited, and the IRS agent was intrigued that the records indicated that the man had made no charitable gifts—even though such gifts would have helped his taxes immensely. “Wouldn’t you like to give some of your wealth to help others?” the agent inquired.

The man became indignant. “Did your report show that my mother was ill with bills double her income this year? And did your report show that I have a mentally disabled brother who has little income and great needs? And did your report show that my sister was left destitute by an abusive husband with no place to live?” The chagrined IRS agent hung his head and said, “Well, no, I didn’t know any of those things.” And the man snapped back, “Well, if I wouldn’t give any of them a dime, why do you think I’d give to anyone else?!”

Clearly, our giving becomes a reflection of our heart. When we give our hearts to the Lord, we’ll have no problem giving Him anything else He prompts us to give.
Besides that, as I said last week, tithing is an exercise in trust. You and I can trust our Heavenly Father, our Creator God to provide all that we need. He is so gracious and so generous with us! That’s exactly why we are to learn to be generous with Him! Tithing thus is not the end of giving, but the beginning—spurred on by hearts and lives fully yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Now, in the context of this series on stewardship, I want to take this question of “what shall I give Him?” one step further. And I will acknowledge that some of what I’m about to say isn’t dealt with specifically in scripture, but it is very much dealt with in principle and it is an appropriate application of biblical principles to life in the United States in 2010. I want to challenge us to consider our need to be faithful stewards with what God has provided for us when this life comes to an end.

I read something this week that was alarming to me, but it confirms our need to deal with this issue. Here’s what I read: “Every year the vast majority of Americans who die do so without having prepared a valid estate plan. For the past three decades, the numbers have been between 70 and 80 percent.” Whether we’re nearing the end of our lives, contemplating retirement, or younger with a growing family at home, giving attention to some form of estate planning boils down to determining how, when and to whom we will transfer the stewardship of what God has entrusted to us when we can no longer serve as stewards ourselves.

The reality of life in America is that it’s fairly easy for us to make our personal wishes known and followed regarding what God has entrusted to us in this life when our life ends. For instance, you can and need to make known your wishes regarding child guardianship and property distribution. Besides that, a careful estate plan will often minimize costs related to settling the estate and protects the estate from undue taxes.

Since 1998, I’ve been particularly passionate in challenging parents with children in their homes to give prayerful consideration to having a will that specifies the guardianship of their children in the event that their lives were to end quicker than they had expected. Let me tell you why. Near the end of June, 1998, our friends John and Maxine headed to Hawaii to celebrate the completion of her MBA. They were dear friends who were leaders in the church I pastored. The four of us had just said goodbye to their two teens and our three teens who headed off in chartered buses on a mission trip to Mexico. It was an exciting time for the kids and an exciting time for John and Maxine as they departed themselves from the church parking lot to go to the airport for their own trip.

Before the kids got back, Cindy and I left the Cleveland area and traveled to Oklahoma, where we were going to meet our kids on their return trip home and spend some vacation days at a lake in Oklahoma with friends. Cindy and I had been in Oklahoma one night when we got the call that set a whirlwind of tragedy into motion. John and Maxine had been killed in a helicopter crash in Hawaii. It was a freakish kind of accident. Their bodies hadn’t even been recovered at that point, but somehow we had been tracked down because somebody needed to tell their kids. I’ll never forget the phone call with our youth pastor—a pretty put-together kind of guy who wasn’t at all put-together as he was trying to figure out how he should tell these two teens that their parents were dead.

Our hearts were broken. Cindy and I turned around and headed back home, getting there before the teens arrived and trying to run interference with the local media who were being rather intrusive. Another man and I went with the kids into their home to see if we could find a will. Fortunately, John had given great attention to such things, and we were able to find it and other necessary documents.

Looking back, I believe that John and Maxine, never imagining that the unthinkable could happen, named as guardians the family members whom they thought were the best choice to raise their kids. The problem was that it was rather clear that the named relatives didn’t want the kids, and even more heartbreaking was the reality that these kids were going to live in a home that had no Christian foundation. Besides that, these teenagers were loaded up in cars from the cemetery and taken several states away, leaving behind their whole network friends, including the church. There were multiple families in our church, including Cindy and me, who would gladly have taken those two kids into our home, but the will was binding. Had the relatives declined guardianship, it would have become a decision of the courts—and none of us trusted what would have happened with that.

In the aftermath of John and Maxine’s death, families who had never made wills got busy putting them in motion, and many who had them re-evaluated the whole matter of guardianship—realizing that they had a responsibility to be good stewards of the children the Lord had entrusted to them. The question moved beyond, “what family members might be the best ones to entrust our children to?” to “what Christian family would be the best home for our children to grow up to love and serve the Lord?” And Cindy and I were among those who completely redid our wills in light of what had happened.

Intensifying our new commitment to this was another tragedy that happened just six weeks later. Another dear friend in our church—also about the age of 40—died suddenly in the night, leaving behind a husband and three teens. Our church family was grief-stricken and stunned—and honestly, those tragedies are tragedies we’ve never gotten over.

If you have children in your home, God has entrusted them to your care. And part of your parental responsibility is to give careful consideration to who you would entrust them to if your lives were cut short. The only way you can protect your kids is by having a legal document that assures that your wishes would be carried out.

Across my years of pastoring, I’ve also seen the significance of what some people have been able to accomplish in their estate planning that far exceeded what they might have ever dreamed possible. I’m told that most people are willing to consider leaving something to their church when they die, but because no one ever raises the question, few think to do so.

I’m reminded of a delightful lady name Roselyn in one of the churches I pastored. Roselyn had no family—the church was her family. Being a pretty sharp business woman, she had thought carefully about what she would do with her resources when her life would come to an end. Somewhere along the line, she had been challenged to consider leaving at least a portion of her estate to the local church. Eventually, she determined to leave it all to the church, since she really had no one else to whom to give it—and the church family had really been so kind and attentive to her. When she passed away, we learned about her will—and while she seemed to live simply, we were shocked when her estate totaled over $200,000. It was a wonderful answer to prayer for that congregation, and Roselyn’s estate became the seed money for a major building addition and renovation that was so desperately needed. Roselyn left that congregation a wonderful legacy—and I’ll soon have a grandbaby who will be cared for in a nursery that was built in part by money provided by Roselyn’s estate.

And what I want to encourage you to consider and pray about is how you can leave a legacy—how you can be the most faithful steward of the resources left when your life comes to an end. It is perhaps our last test of stewardship—and it needs to reflect the great mission and purpose of the Lord because He’s the One who entrusted those resources to us to begin with.

I came across a quotation a few months ago that has stuck with me—
Let us not be afraid to begin tasks that are longer than our lives. (Francis Ward)
Isn’t that great? That helps me to see the impact and influence of my life exceeding the dates that will appear on my tombstone some day.
Let us not be afraid to being tasks that are longer than our lives.

Our Lord’s mission and purpose in this world is so big that you and I will never be able to get our arms around it. It’s the greatest mission ever! While there will never need to be another Savior die on the cross, our Father God still has some huge projects ahead, for millions need yet to be reached with the Gospel. God is commissioning us not only to be good stewards in this life, but to leave a legacy that will partner with Christ in His saving mission in our world throughout generations to come.

To assist our people in considering ways we can leave such a legacy and be faithful stewards of all that God has entrusted to us, the leadership of Valley Shepherd has agreed to partner with the Church of the Nazarene Foundation. I want to introduce to you the representative of the Foundation who will help equip us in this endeavor. His name is Bob Crew and he comes from Wichita, Kansas. He’ll be here again a week from tomorrow—Monday, January 25, to conduct a workshop for us—at two different times: Noon with a light lunch, and 7:00 pm with childcare provided.

In our local congregation, we have assembled a team of people to help us with this. We’ve called them our Legacy Ministry Leadership Team. And I’d like to have them come forward so that you will know who they are. They’ll be available in the foyer this Sunday and next if you have questions: Kevin Borger, Dan Clark, Al Duddles, Fred Fender, Bob Marsland, Russ Stanley, Elaine Wilson, myself, and chairing our committee is our former pastor, Dr. Jerry Johnson. I’ve asked Dr. Johnson to share a word with you about this:
[Dr. Johnson will speak]

[Explain the workshops,
personal and confidential appointments available;
response cards]

Let me just say this in closing: Giving has always been a significant aspect of worship. Read through your Bible and you’ll see that it’s true. As stewards, we are called to be faithful with what God has entrusted to us—holding loosely to it in the knowledge that it all belongs to Him anyway. And one of the blessings God’s people have experienced throughout the ages is that when we have entrusted to Him our big and even our meager resources, He has blessed us in ways we could never have imagined. Our faithful God calls us to be faithful. Our trustworthy God wants to teach us to place our trust in Him alone. Our generous God wants us to learn the heart of generosity—now and in our unseen tomorrows.
Let us not be afraid to begin tasks that are longer than our lives. (Francis Ward)