Theme: “Responding to God’s Overflowing Faithfulness through Extravagant Generosity”
Text: 1 Chronicles 29:11-12, Mark 10:17-31
Message: Stewardship is Discipleship.
Call to Action: Respond to God’s faithfulness.
This sermon was preached during the Pre-Harvest Festival of Santiago Central UMC.
The Gospel text that was read this morning comes from Gospel of Mark. This book was written to early Gentile Christians about who Jesus is and how to become his follower and disciple. Today, this book speaks to us how we can respond to God’s call and follow Jesus and become better Christians.
In
the story, we see a man asking Jesus how can he be a disciple of Jesus and
enter heaven. So, one of the important verses on discipleship is from verse 21
and it reads:
Jesus, looking at him,
loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give
the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow
me."
Today
is also our pre-harvest festival. Every harvest festival, we focus on
stewardship. Our verse this morning is very appropriate because it gives us a
view on how we must treat wealth and stewardship of financial resources. One of
the important things that we must not forget is that our stewardship is always
connected to our discipleship. That means how we grow into better Christians. And
today Jesus is calling us to follow me, and we must respond to that call. We
must respond to that call of discipleship.
Stewardship
is about discipleship.
I
was once invited to talk about financial literacy by the UMYAF. And I will
share the stage with Chinkee Tan. Sabi ko, ano naman ang ituturo ko tungkol sa pera
eh hindi naman ako negosyante. But the organizers said, talk about stewardship
and share to us your practices as a Christian. But then I remembered John
Wesley and that is what I will reflect on today. I will share some reflections
with you based on the Bible with a Wesleyan perspective. This times, we need to
go back to what John Wesley was teaching the early Methodists based on Biblical
principles. Tayo ay babalik sa Ugaling Metodista. Ano ba ang Ugaling Metodista?
Ano ba ang dapat na tugon kapag tinawag tayo?
The
text for this Pre-harvest Festival tells us that God owns everything. “For
everything in heaven and earth is yours.” That is an important Biblical
understanding of stewardship of physical resources given to us. The finances,
the businesses, the farm lot, the Negosyo, the careers and employments we have
that produces wealth belongs to God. “Wealth and honor come from you.” As
Christian Methodists, we recognize that everything we have belongs to God. And
as Christians we need to be good stewards of God’s property. The end. No!
In
Luke 16: 9, Jesus said that “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for
yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal
dwellings.”
So,
the question that needs to be asked, is what does the Bible tells us to do with
the worldly wealth, including time and talent and treasures or physical
resources like the harvest from our farms, the income from our jobs, the
earnings from our businesses? If all of this wealth belongs to God, what do we
do with it to be good stewards? John Wesley has an answer. He actually had a
sermon, “The Use of Money.” This is one of John Wesley’s famous sermons. And
the lessons there are some of the important lessons that I have applied in my
life ever since I read about that sermon. He said that money is not evil on its
own. In fact, he believed that money if in the hands of Christians can be food
for the hungry, housing for the homeless, healthcare for the sick, and help for
the needy. That is why he preached about financial literacy and stewardship and
discipleship.
John
Wesley said in his sermon, so yes it’s like listening to John Wesley’s sermon,
except the English accent. John Wesley said, “earn all you can, save all you
can, give all you can.”
So,
the first one said: Earn all you can
Since
stewardship is Discipleship, how can earning all you can help you become a
better Christian?
Stewardship
of God’s creation tells us that we must be able to gain something or create
wealth from taking care of God’s property. John Wesley taught that Christians
are always productive. Earning and gaining something is our response to taking
care of God’s resources.
We
remember the parable of the talents where a master gave money to this servant
and asked them to take care of it. And when he returned from his trip asked the
servants what they did with the money. The first two servants invested the
money and earned profit and gained income while the third servant did not use
the talents, the money that was given to him and it was taken away from him. He
was not a faithful servant and a poor steward of the master’s property.
So,
we know that a good steward is always productive. Christians use God’s resources
to invest it, use it, and gain something for it.
So,
John Wesley emphasized that we must earn all we can. We must be productive.
If you have a farm, then try to
plant and produce harvest and earn from it. If you were given a talent and
skill to be a worker or an employee or to serve others like a nurse, teacher or
office worker then try to use that talent to be able to earn from your
employment. If you were given talents and skills to own and manage a business
then earn from your business. And since we are given time, we must use our time
to be productive in any work.
Yes, earn all you can John Wesley said.
But he has two important premises”
First, when you earn, do not abuse
self.
Do not sacrifice your life and
health. As Christian Methodists, we understand that our physical body is a
temple of God that is sacred. For John Wesley, no amount of money will justify
sacrificing our health much more our life for the sake of earning income.
That means, if the way you earn
income leads to lack of sleep, poor eating habits, activities that harm our
bodies and leads to poor health, then we must reconsider how we earn our
income.
Second premise is do not earn in
sinful ways.
The end does not justify the means.
Even if you are earning, it will not be acceptable if the way we are earning
leads you to commit sin. Engaging in business or work or activities that harms
other people, harms the environment and harms the community are sinful ways.
John Wesley says that our soul must be preserved as we journey to Christian
perfection.
As a good steward, earn all you can but with all
diligence and honesty without harming yourself, others, the environment and the
society.
The second
one: Save all you can:
Since
stewardship is about discipleship, how can saving money help you become a
better Christian?
Saving
is a response to discipleship. John Wesley emphasizes two things here:
First,
make sure that you must be able to save money or resources that provides the
basic needs for yourself and for you and family. So, that is the most important
aspect. One must save money to channel the blessings from God in providing the basic
necessities of the person and his family.
Second,
the good steward will not waste any resources in buying useless things or
spending on luxuries so you can satisfy your vanity. Saving money is your
response so you will not commit the sins of vanity or be envious of others by
desiring luxuries and showing off. Saving also helps you become humble and
avoid the sin of pride and arrogance.
Did you
know that early Christian Methodists do not recommend wearing expensive
jewelries and expensive clothes, including shoes.
John
Wesley said, you must be able to save the extra income you have after spending
for the needs of the family.
You are
not expected to use the extra income to spend in other luxurious stuff.
The early
Christian Methodist understood that for everyone to have a share from the
available resources from this earth, we must only get what is sufficient for
us. For example, when getting food from the table in a luncheon party. You only
get what is enough that you can eat and not waste any food. The extra food in
your plate that you took is food that could have been eaten by someone else.
Saving
money is your response to discipleship in recognizing the needs of your
neighbors after you have satisfied your own family’s needs.
We
are our brother’s and sister’s keeper’s. When we have blessings, we must use
only what we need because saving means we also remember those who are in need.
But John Wesley was careful again
to remind that saving must not lead for other people especially our children
and family members to commit sin of being unproductive and being wasteful.
We
do not save so that our children will have their own resources to spend. That
will teach them to be sinful in becoming unproductive stewards of God’s
resources.
We
do not also save so that we can give to those in need without helping them to
be productive as well. It was never a dole out for John Wesley.
We
do not save so that our families can be wasteful of the extra resources they
have. The resources must be distributed to those in need.
Because stewardship is about
discipleship, the saved money should be distributed to bring honor and glory to
God.
So, we
proceed to the third and last lesson.
The third
one: Give all you can:
Since
stewardship is about discipleship, how can giving all you can make us a better
Christian? This one is very obvious but difficult to do.
John
Wesley recognizes that everything comes and belongs to God.
The classic Methodist theological
understanding is that what ever you need, you have already saved it and so, beyond
what you NEED must be given to others who are in NEED. Now that may sound
too radical, but that is actually what Wesley was teaching the early methodists
and in fact he did until he died.
As a professor, he was earning a
lot and he was buying real estate. But he owns nothing. Wesley used the money
to buy Methodists houses that became churches, Wesley gave away huge capital
that when he died, there was nothing in his name and he had nothing to share in
his last will and estate.
Whatever you saved, give it to
those in need. That is extravagant generosity.
That is our theme for this harvest
Festival. Ang Ugaling Metodista ay mapagbigay.
Giving all you can means
extravagant generosity.
But this concept is not easy to
understand, much more not easy to do.
Bishop
Juan once preached on this and said extravagant giving is when you give until
it hurts. You are not yet giving anything if it does not affect you.
It is very difficult for us to
follow Jesus. It is very difficult for us to sell our possessions and give it
to the poor. Even the practical advice of John Wesley to earn all we can, save
all we can and then give all we can… is so challenging for us.
Our
common excuse, Doc, wala naman akong perang maibibigay dahil kasya lang.
Remember that God gave us not only treasures but also time and talent. And we
have been diligent enough to earn and save time, talent and treasures. And what
do we do with the excess time or talent and treasure? We have extra time but we
spend it in the coffee shop or in the mall or somewhere else doing something
that satisfies our personal desires. We have talent but we reserve it for the
parties and office use only. We have extra treasures but we use it for
ourselves only
That
is the reason, John Wesley said “I am not afraid that the people called
Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am
afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion
without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast
both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.”
Methodists have been good and
successful stewards that they have accumulated so much wealth and saved so much
resources and own properties… but, they have not given to the poor, they have
not given time to God, they have not used their talents in ministry and they have
not used their extra resources for the work of God. They are in danger of going
to hell and have stopped becoming disciples of Jesus.
Wesley was talking about social
holiness and the Methodists declining ministry to those in need. He was worried
that early Methodists have lost their generosity and have stopped caring for
the poor. There is only one way to prevent them from committing this sin… that
is to give all they can.
Doc, ang
hirap naman nun.
It
may be too difficult to do but the good news is that we have an
extravagantly generous God. A God who was so extravagant that he gave His
only begotten Son for you and for me.
God
gave his Son so we can be forgiven from our selfish desires, cleansed from our
sins and become more like him… become more loving, become more giving, become
extravagantly generous just like our extravagantly generous Father in heaven.
My dear brothers and sisters, God
has been faithful to us and God’s faithfulness have given us the ability to
respond. By God’s grace we have the ability to respond.
We have the ability to respond. In
the name of Jesus, we have the response ability to follow Jesus and become
better Christians… we have the response ability to earn all we can, to save all
we can and the response ability to be extravagant in giving all we can.
In
the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Reference:
-
Dominic
Roser. John Wesley: The Use of Money. Retrieved from: https://www.eaforchristians.org/blog/john-wesley-the-use-of-money-12/#we-should-earn-as-much-as-we-can
-
Methodist
Church of Singapore. How to earn, save and give all you can. Retrieved
from: https://www.methodist.org.sg/methodist-message/how-to-gain-save-and-give-all-that-i-can/
-
Resource
UMC. John Wesley on Giving. Retrieved from: https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/john-wesley-on-giving
-
Revised
Common Lectionary. Vanderbilt Library. Retrieved from: https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=382&z=p&d=79
-
Mark
Vitalis Hoffman. Commentary on Mark 10:17-31. Retrieved from: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-28-2/commentary-on-mark-1017-31-7
-
Valson
Abraham. Live without Worry. Retrieved from: https://revivemegod.org/articles/readarticle/285
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Randy
Alcorn. Putting Our Hope in God’s Ownership and Provision in Times of Financial
Worry. Retrieved from: https://www.faithfi.com/eternal-perspective-ministries/putting-our-hope-in-gods-ownership-and-provision-in-times-of-financial-worry-3447
-
Holy
Bible (NIV). Bible Gateway. Retrieved from: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Chronicles%2029%3A11-12&version=NIV
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Kevin
Konghorn. John Wesley’s Focus on Money. Retrieved from: https://seedbed.com/john-wesleys-focus-money/
