"Talk to the Owner First"
Dr. Howard Vanderwell
Hillcrest CRC, Hudsonville, MI
January 26, 1997
Text: Matthew 25:14-30
Ron Blue in one of his books
likes to tell the story of the time he was giving his daughter a gift,
her name was Karen, she was 9 years old, and he gave her a choice. Did
she want to go to a ballgame with him or did she want to receive $25 cash
from him and the opportunity 4 hours with him in a local mall with the
permission to buy anything she wanted with that $25. She selected the latter
and on Saturday morning they headed to the mall together. Here was Karen,
9 years old with $25 in her pocket in a mall with millions of dollars of
things to choose from. She went from store to store looking at everything,
finding it terribly hard to decide. She went into a store that has all
of these razzle dazzle kids stuff and she spent her $25 and they went home.
The next day she came to Ron, her father crying. She was disheartened.
Everything she had bought with that $25 was used up, broken, or no longer
interesting. You ever felt that way? Anything you've really looked forward
to and you've anticipated the time when you'll be able to get it and you
did and it wasn't long afterward that it really wasn't that hot after all.
(Topic: Money Management)
How can we escape that frustration, that disappointment?
I began this series of messages last week under the title, "Free to
Give" by saying that it matters, it matters a whole lot, it matters to
God how we manage things, what we spend and what we give. It matters to
us for the sake of our spiritual health and it surely matters to the Kingdom
of God. This morning I want to take it another step further under the title,
"We Need to Talk to the Owner First".
One day when Jesus was preparing for the Lord's Supper, that passage
that I read from Matthew 26, as He did it
in the upper room. But what the gospel of John tells us that before He
made that preparation, He knew that it had to be done and He knew there's
was going to be a very agonizing time He said to the disciples, "We need
that room, go talk to the owner". That's what we do in managing our finances
in order to be free to give. I'd like you to look at this parable that
was read for us this morning and look at it trying to see through the eyes
of the owner. That's the usual way we approach this parable. We usually
approach it through the eyes of the 3 servants. We feel ourselves the individual,
well, most of us don't feel we'll the one with 5 talents, we probably identify
more with the one with 2 talents. We try hard not to identify with the
one who got one and wasted the whole business. We look at the parable through
the eyes of the servant. We receive the talent, put it to work, and are
held to account afterwards. Rarely, I'm afraid, do we look at through the
eyes of the one who was described as "a man going on a journey who called
his servants and entrusted his property to them". We don't know a lot about
this man. We have very little biographical information. We only know that
he must have been a very wealthy man because a talent is about 2 to 3 years
wages and he had 8 of those talents to distribute. That's a bundle. He
had servants who tell you he was wealthy. He was going on a journey for
whatever reason we don't know, but he decided to distribute his talents,
his business, among these 3 servants. I want you try to get in his shoes.
What was he doing? What was he thinking? How was he feeling when this happened?
If you would see it through his eyes, I think you'd be saying with him,
"I have to go away for awhile. I've got to make sure my business is in
good hands. If I want to make sure it's in good hands, I'm going to select
only the most reliable of my servants to take care of it. I can't afford
to take any big risks. I don't want them just to sit on it, I want that
business to continue. It's got to work well in their hands and I realize
they're all different so I'm not going to give them all the same. One five,
one two, another one. But I'm not going to be rigid and I'm not going to
lay down strict rules of what they have to do. I'm going to give them the
freedom to deal with it the way they want. I'm going to give them the freedom
to make their own decisions about what they do with it. When I come back,
I'm going to call them all in for review and I'm going to give a great
big bonus to those who have done well".
Don't you wonder if he anticipated the pain and the anger he would find
himself in when he discovered one of them did not do very well. Oh, there's
one other thing he said to them. Just before he left he said, "Now remember,
that's not your talent. I'm still the owner". That's what he said. That's
not your talent, I'm still the owner. Well, he forces us therefore to consider
what this thing about being a servant is. Let's think about that. The word
that's used here is servant over and over. Some of the other translations
use the work steward, so we talk about stewardship, though that's not a
very common word in our vocabulary. Maybe a better word for us to use so
that we more carefully understand it is that of custodian. A custodian
serves by managing well. Let me illustrate for you what a servant, steward,
custodian, is. In Genesis 2 it tells us that
God had created a gorgeous, lush garden. Probably incredibly more beautiful
than any of us can possibly imagine. Then one day he took Adam and put
him in the Garden of Eden, it says in Chapter 2:15
to "work it and take care of it". That's being a steward. God's garden
to work it and to take care of, productivity to work it, preservation,
protection to take care of it. To work it and take care of it, that's
a servant, steward. One day
when I was 16 years old, my father entrusted a bright green 1950 Plymouth
to me one night. Now he didn't say to me, Howard you are a steward of that
Plymouth, but it was very clear that was to be understood. It was a very
rainy night, as a matter of fact, a downpour and I had the car packed with
friends and we enjoyed flying up and down country roads dashing through
mud puddles and watching the water fly and one of them was more than a
mud puddle. It was a small lake and only a tow truck solved the situation
and my father very gently reminded me I had not been a very good steward
of that Plymouth that night. As a matter of fact, I was such a poor steward
it was a good while before I ever got my hands on it again. (Topic:
Material Management)
One day in November, 1962, I was in the hospital in Sioux Center, Iowa
having cream of wheat for Thanksgiving dinner and a crusty old country
doctor sat on the foot of my bed and he said, "that body of yours is like
a house. You care for it well, it'll last you a long time, care for it
poorly it's going to deteriorate in a hurry". Well, that's steward, that's
custodian, that's the kind of servant that he's dealing with here. You're
a steward, I'm a steward, you're a servant, I'm a servant, you're a custodian,
I'm a custodian. Just look around you at what He put in your hands to take
care of. Look at this building. Feel your pulse. You have life. You can
see all of the little children around you this morning. Look at the other
ones around you now. Did you look at creation while you came here this
morning? Did you notice your home, did you drive in your car, did you put
on your clothes, did you fumble your wallet or your purse? Have you thought
about your spiritual gifts and your opportunities in life? Are you thinking
now about your classroom or business and your job and your books? All of
that's been put in our hands and we're custodians of them all. Now Jesus
makes it clear in this parable that there are 3 very large marks, important
marks, of a servant, steward, custodian, that's our job description number
one. We are to protect it, it's valuable, don't lose it! Se
Secondly, we are to produce with it. Make it work. Work with it. May
things be different in this world because of how you use all I have entrusted
to you. Protect it, produce with it and be ready to report on it. I'm going
to come back and we're going to sit down and we're going to talk about
how well you did and there will be awards and there will be punishments
on the basis of that.
And so with that in mind I'd like you to join me this morning on gathering
some more principles of stewardship. We began with 3 of them last week
and I told you I will keep building on them until we reach a long list
of them and at the end of the series you'll get them all together. Last
week we began with the first 3 principles. Generosity is God's goal for
every Christian. Secondly, you don't have to be rich to be generous. Thirdly,
generosity is stirred by a vision for ministry. With those 3 in mind, I
give you 4 more this morning and ask you to ponder them. God is the owner
of all. You know, of course, this parable is about God and his children.
I don't hardly have to tell you that when it says a man is going on a journey,
in Jesus mind it was clearly a reference to God, the Father. That's clear,
we all assume that, I suppose. God put Adam in the garden and He said,
"Adam, it isn't your garden, it's mine and you're here to work it and to
care for it because I own it and that's my mandate to you". Listen to some
other statements of scripture. Psalm 95 is a Psalm
of worship but listen to what it says. "We come to worship the Lord who
is the great God, the great King above all Gods. In His hand are the depths
of the earth. The mountain peaks belong to Him, the sea is His, He made
it, His hands formed the dry land". Then it says, come let us bow
down and worship, let us knell before the Lord our maker. He's our God,
we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care. You see we're
here in God's pasture, the shepherd owns the pasture, we don't. The sheep
live in the shepherd's pasture. It's all here.
A little earlier in Psalm 50, the Psalmist said,
the Lord speaking through him, "I have no need of a bull from your stall
or goats from your pens. Every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle
on a thousand hills are mine. I know every bird in the mountains and the
creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell
you for the world is mine and all that is in it is mine". It's mine?it's
mine?it's mine! One day Haggai was standing in the temple, that gorgeous
temple of bronze, copper and gold and silver, and the Lord spoke with him
and said, "the silver is mine and the gold is mine declares the Lord Almighty".
What has He entrusted to you? What have you got? Life, health, home, income,
job, business, children. This is my checkbook, it really ought to say on
the cover, be careful, it's Gods. It's all His. Notice how in the parable
they keep talking about your talents, your talents, not MY talents. It
all belongs to Him.
The second principle I want you to think about this morning is that
God gives the ability to produce wealth. We need to underscore that because
you and I live in a middle-class society that thrives on giving accolade
to people who are wealthy and feeling that people who have been successful
and achieve some wealth have more value than other people. A dangerous
myth of our society and as soon as we talk about I know everybody begins
to thinks, well who's wealthy and who isn't. Let
me give you a little test this morning for that. Will you eat 3 meals today?
You're wealthy. You have clothes on now, if you have at least one more
set of clothes at home, you're wealthy. If you didn't sleep out in a snow
bank last night but slept in a comfortable home, you're wealthy.
(Topic: Material Management)
OK? Now, how do people get wealthy? Will you turn in your bibles
to Deuteronomy 8. The Lord is carrying on
a very crucial conversation with Israel at that point. He is saying to
them at one time, you were slaves in Egypt and you didn't have much at
all. As a matter of fact, you didn't have anything. Here you are travelling
in this wilderness and you really don't have much at all, I've got to feed
you with manna and quail or you wouldn't survive. But the times are going
to change, you going to get in that promised land over there. You're going
to get out of the wilderness, you're going to cross the Jordan, you're
going to be in the promised land and you're going to see more, have more,
enjoy more than you ever thought you could. Your lands are going to produce.
Your homes are going to be luxurious, your crops are going to multiply.
You'll have more silver and gold than you thought you'd lay your eye on.
Deut. 8:10, "when you get there, when you have eaten
and are satisfied, then praise the Lord your God for the good land He has
given you and be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing
to observe His commands, His laws, His decrees that I am giving you this
day". Read it on your own but go back now to verse 18. "But remember the
Lord your God for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth."
If you have your own Bible, you have highlight, mark it, star it, underline
it, do something. "It is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth".
Now that means don't take any credit for it. Don't puff yourself up in
the process, but continue to faithfully obey your covenant God with a heart
filled with gratitude. That's the second principle.
The third one is this. Generosity starts with a given self. Now I want
you to go back again the passage that we looked at last Sunday: II Corinthians
8. II Corinthians is that story where Paul used the poverty stricken churches
in Macedonia as an excellent model of generosity to the very prosperous
wealthy people in Corinth. It was a surprise to all of them. Why the people
in Macedonia could be so incredibly generous, because they didn't have
much. He says in verse 5, they did not do as we expected, they surprised
all of us. Now why? How do you explain that surprise. Let's go back to
the phrase we looked at briefly last week. II Corinthians
8:5, "they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to
the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will". They were given-selves,
they gave themselves first. Don't talk about what money we're going to
give first, talk about have we given ourselves first. These Macedonians,
poor though they were, had given themselves to God first and then had given
themselves to other people second and all of their other decisions followed
naturally from that. Maybe that's a good question for you and me this morning.
Is it hard for us to give? Is it hard for us to know how much to give?
Is it hard for us to tithe? Is it hard for us to be generous? Is it hard
for us to sacrifice because we haven't given ourselves first? So we're
out of sink in our spirit. We haven't given ourselves, but we're told there's
the need to give money and you can't fit those two together.
Let me read you a few statements that other people have made and then
you let them whirl in your mind. One of the surest evidences of the genuineness
or the lack of genuineness of our Christian life is the level of our Christian
stewardship. Here's another one. Stewardship is what happens to mine because
of what has happened to me. Here's a third one. I cannot understand how
any Christian can possibly have a close relationship with God in prayer
and worship as long as he is robbing God in tithes and offerings. You see,
if I or you are not given-selves first, then all of the needs and the pleads
for generosity and sermons on giving will either #1 fall on deaf ears or
#2 be resented. The only way to avoid deaf ears or resentful heart is to
make sure that we have given ourselves to the Lord first. And there is,
of course, from this parable a 4th
principle. Servants always must give account to themselves. Now that's
not a new thought to any of us. Life is built that way. When you go to
school, you get report cards. When you are at work, you have a job review.
All of us on your ministry staff have evaluations of our work from time
to time. Everybody is accustomed to that. It is so boldly printed in the
parable in verse 19. After a long time, the master of those servants returned
and settled accounts with them and I'm sure he came back to them with the
same 3 questions he's going to come back to us with.
Number 1: Were you honest? Did you always deal
honestly with the other people you were related to? Is what you earned,
earned honestly? If it isn't, it isn't worth having. In all the work and
the productivity that you've been engaged in, will everybody be able to
say you were honest with them?
Number 2: How well did you manage it? I gave it
to you for the sake of being productive. I wanted you to work with it.
How well did you manage? Did you make wise decisions? Did you squander
it? Are you an impulsive buyer that threw it away? Did you buy stuff quickly
on Saturday morning that by Sunday morning was work out, used up or no
longer interesting?
Number 3: How worth while was it? I mean, you're
here to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. How much salting
and lighting was accomplished by the way you used what I gave you? That's
what He meant, of course, when He said, "seek first the Kingdom". It's
the Kingdom that's eternal. It's the Kingdom of God that will make a difference
in people's lives in this world and in the world to come. Or did you most
of it for your comfort, for your own pleasure, for your own recreation?
(Topic: Material Management)
God is the owner of all. God gives the ability to produce well. Generosity
starts with a given-self and servants always must give account. May I ask
you this morning to do a little more homework with these two suggestions.
Look around you sometime today, make a list, look around you at things
like this and see what has flowed through that checkbook in the last six
months. Walk around your family room, your living room, look at what you've
got, look at your family, open some cupboard doors and look in, some closet
doors and look in, step out in the garage and look at what you have. Walk
around your land and look around and sometime when you're alone stand in
the middle of all and say out loud "God owns it all". Don't just think
it, say it verbally, hear yourself, God owns all this.
Secondly, some time this week before you come back next Sunday, in your
devotions preferably, when you have a quiet time for reflection, write
just a paragraph in response to the statement "I am or I am not at peace
with the way I manage God's resources". I hope you know the freedom of
living that way. AMEN. |