HANDLE WITH CARE: #3 The Stewardship of Resources

By Dr. Gilbert W. Stafford 
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 8 and 9

$100 REQUESTED IN THE MIDDLE OF A SERMON 

John Maxwell, pastor of the Skyline Wesleyan Church near San Diego, California, tells about the Sunday he preached on the stewardship of resources and illustrated it in a dramatic way. Before the service, he gave a man in the congregation a $100 bill and told him that he was going to ask for it in the middle of the sermon. So, as Maxwell was preaching, he told the congregation that he had invited out of town friends to go to lunch with him after the service, but had forgotten to bring his billfold. Then he asked, “Does anybody have $100 that I could use to take my guests out to eat?” Immediately the designated man ran forward and gave him the $100.

Maxwell continued preaching as though nothing had happened only to find the people, as he had supposed, disinterested in what he was saying. They were trying to figure out what all that was about. After a few minutes he recognized their disinterest and told them that he knew that they were trying to figure out what was going on. Then he explained to his congregation, saying: “Perhaps you are wondering why the response was so quick and free. The fact of the matter is that the money wasn’t his to begin with. I gave the money to him before the service. It was very easy for him to give me a hundred dollars because he knew it was already mine.” Maxwell went ahead to point out that how we handle our resources all depends on whether we think of them as belonging basically to us or to God. When we finally realize that all we have belongs first and foremost to God, it isn’t hard to let go of it. Since he gave it to us “before the service,” so to speak, all we are doing is returning it to him at the appropriate time when he calls for it.1

2 CORINTHIANS 8 AND 9 

It is in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 that we find the most extensive treatment of the Christian attitude toward our resources. In 8:9, Paul says: “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”2 In other words, Christ spent himself on us to the end that we might be saved.

It is in the light of what Christ has done for us that we are to understand how to handle our resources. The resources that God has placed in our care are not ours to hoard, for they do not belong to us in the first place. Rather, they belong to God and are to be spent to the end that others might be blessed with the blessings of God. It is in that spirit that Paul encourages the Corinthians to give generously in the offering being collected for the needy believers in Jerusalem. In 9:6 he reminds them that “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” In verses 7 and 8, he tells them that “God loves a cheerful giver. 8>And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”

The two basic teachings in this passage, then, are these. The first is that God gives of himself in order to bless our lives with salvation. And the second is that God gives resources to us so that we can bless others.

Ours is a giving, sacrificing God. John 3:16, a verse known to millions, says it perfectly: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” At the heart of the Christian faith is the giving, sacrificing God. How strange that those who call themselves followers of this God would think that it is all right to be a hoarding, selfish people. It makes no sense if we are the church of the self-giving, sacrificing God. We are called to be the church of this God, and no other.

And so this is what Paul has in mind when he tells the Corinthian church to act in conformity to their God by giving of themselves in a sacrificial manner in order to bless others.

THE “CHRISTIAN” DISPARITY 
How different the facts are, however. According to David Barrett, compiler of the World Christian Encyclopedia, Christians earn 68% of the world’s income. Sadly, though, we spend 97% on ourselves while giving only 3% to the church. Furthermore, only 5% of that 3% is invested in any kind of international mission.3

Many of us are afflicted with me-it is. Even when it comes to giving to the church, too often we are motivated by our own needs rather than by our sense of stewardship.

Some time ago I read a story about a man who stood before a congregation to announce that he and his wife were donating $5000 toward the new stained glass windows in memory of their son who was killed in Vietnam. In the rear of the chancel, a woman nudged her husband and was overheard to say to him, “Let’s do the same thing.” “What!?” replied the husband, “Our son wasn’t killed in Vietnam.”

It never occurred to him that he might give simply out of gratitude to God. He was not thinking about the possibility of giving so that others might be blessed. Since he had nothing personally to derive from it, his wife’s suggestion that they give was met with a harsh, icy “What!?”

If you had been in the Corinthian Church how would you have responded to Paul’s invitation to participate in the collection for the needy believers in Jerusalem? Would you have been sitting on the back row saying the same kind of harsh, icy “What!?” Would you have declared that what was happening in Jerusalem was no concern of yours?

Good stewardship of the Lord’s resources includes a willingness to invest them in places which have nothing to do directly with us, and in persons who have nothing to do directly with us. Good stewardship is a matter, first of all, of determining that something is in fact a worthy cause, and second that God wants us to contribute to it.

OUR RESOURCES

What resources has God made you steward of? I remind you of several:

Money. Whether you have much or little, the money you have is placed in your care by God and is to be used to bring blessing to others. Some of the best stewards I know are people with little money. Nevertheless, they know how to stretch it in seemingly miraculous ways. It may be that one of the reasons some have so little is to teach all of us how to make money go a long way toward blessing others.

Time. Since you are alive, you have a least these moments. Some of the best stewards of time are those who know that death is staring them in the face. They have learned how to make every moment count for God, for they know that not many of them are left. They teach the rest of us how to be better stewards of our time.

Energy. Whether you are full of energy or depleted, whatever amount of energy you have comes from God. Some of us have enormous amounts of energy. We can build houses for others, teach Sunday school classes filled with lively children, work in soup kitchens for the homeless. Other of us, however, are far from having that amount of energy. Nevertheless, we at least have the energy to give a smile of encouragement to someone, or to blink our eyes to those who need to know that they are recognized.

Space. Perhaps you have never thought about the space you have as a resource. Some of us own vast acreage; others of us have only the space that our body takes up. Whether much or little, the space we control is a resource from God to be used to bring divine blessing to others. Are you using your house, your car, your yard, your room, your prison cell, your hospital bed as a good steward under God? God is the one who has made you steward over the amount of space you have.

Possessions. Here again, some of us have lots of things; some of us have very few things. However many things we have are resources which God wants us to be good stewards of to bring blessing to others.

We are misinformed when we think that in order to bring blessing to others we have to have more than we already have. More is not necessarily better. Someone has counted the words in the Lord’s Prayer—there are only 56; in Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address there are only 266; in the Ten Commandments there are only 297; in the American Declaration of Independence there are only 300. None of these masterpieces are over 300 words in length. In comparison, it is reported by the same word counter that a certain United States government order setting the price of cabbage has no less than 29,111 words. Will that document find its way into the libraries of the world as a masterpiece of the human spirit? I sincerely doubt it. In the case of these comparisons, it was the fewer that was the greatest blessing.

So with the amount of money we have, and the amount of time, energy, space, and possession we have. While those who have much can be, and often are, good stewards for the Lord, those who have little can be just as effective in their ability to bless the world. It isn’t a matter of how much money, how much time, how much energy, how much space, how many possessions we have. Rather, it is a question of whether we are willing to be a good steward of what we have. We may have much but use it for nothing more than cabbage pricing, so to speak. On the other hand, we can have little but use it for something grand, just as Abe Lincoln with few words spoke so eloquently in the Gettysburg Address.

Whatever your resources, remember that all good things come from the Lord and are to be used to bring divine blessing to others. God gives what he has to bless us, and we, as his people, are to give what we have to bless others, also. “God loves a cheerful giver.”

PRAYER 

Let us pray:

Gracious Lord, giver of all that is good, so work in our heart, minds, and lives that we will be good stewards of our money, our time, our space, our energy, our possessions. Inspire our hearts that we may become the cheerful givers that you want us to be. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen

1 An interview in Don Taylor, ed. Response: An Invitation to Stewardship (Anderson: Stewardship Department of Church of God World Service, 1996), p. 53f.
2 New Revised Standard Version used here and throught.
3 Taylor, op.cit., p. 7.

Script 2599 (GWS)
October 20, 1996
SERIES: “HANDLE WITH CARE”
3. The Stewardship of Resources
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 8 and 9