LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1981, Page 98

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98 ESSAYS ON STEWARDSHIP

Lead Thou Thy helpless child;
Thy Holy Spirit send me

That I my course may run.

Be Thou my Light, my Lot,

My Staff, my Rock, my Shield—
O God, forsake me not!

O God, forsake me not!

Thy mercy I’m addressing;

O Father, God of love,

Grant me Thy heavenly blessing
To do when duty calls

Whate’er Thou didst allot,

To do what pleaseth Thee—

O God, forsake me not! (TLH 402:1, 4)

The Bible passages we are going to study relate to the
stewardship of the earth and its resources and to our
stewardship of money. You’ll find the passages listed
for you on the inside of the back cover of Today’s
Business. Please notice also that at the top of that page
we've printed the excellent definition of stewardship
which our synodical Board for Stewardship and its staff
adopted some years ago. That definition reads: “Chris-
tian stewardship is the free and joyous activity of the
child of God and God’s family, the church, in managing
all of life and life’s resources for God’s purposes.”

Much of what we have heard so far this week from
Doctors Nauss and Merkens points to the Scriptural
foundation for this definition of stewardship. By God’s
grace I hope to add to that foundation by helping you to
review some basic stewardship principles which relate:

1. to God’s gracious ownership of all things;

2. to God’s gracious attitude toward His stewards in
Christ; and

3. to God’s promise of power and blessing toward
those who wish to practice faithful stewardship of
the earth and its resources and faithful steward-
ship of money as well.

In other words, the outline which we are going to use
today roughly approximates the outline of the Apostles’
Creed.

But before we begin with that, I would like to make
an observation with you. It is this, that Satan never
seems to be quite as active among us as when after we’ve
heard God’s Word we seek to apply it in our lives.
Whenever he fails to keep us from reading and hearing
God’s Word, he works all the more feverishly to keep us
from practicing it. I’m certain that you have experienced
this for yourselves. I think also that most of you, if you
have been alert, have observed the same thing in the
lives of others. A pastor I know in northern Minnesota
who is very active in evangelism and in equipping
evangelists in his congregation told me a while ago,
“You know, I’ve constantly got to struggle with myself.
I know what God wants me to do and I want to do that as
an evangelist. But,” he said, “Jim, I never feel so tired, I
never find so many excuses for doing nothing, as when
it comes to the time to go out and make calls or as when
it comes to the time that I’ve got to prepare to meet with
people on Thursday evenings to help them go out and
make evangelism calls.”

Someone else once shared a story that makes the

same point in a slightly different way. It seems tha
there was a young pastor who took a call to a congrega
tion and shortly after preaching his initial sermo:
decided that he was going to preach a series of sermon,
that would expose the most glaring sins of his people. -
The first week he prepared a beautiful sermon on the sin :
of gambling. After church everybody came up to him -
and commended him on that sermon. They said,
“Pastor, you really spoke to us. You pointed out the sin, :
You called us to repent. And you also assured us of God’s
mercy and forgiveness.” So the pastor went home and .
he wrote a second sermon, which had to do with the sin :
of drunkenness. On Sunday it was the same thing all :
over again. He beautifully pointed out the sin, clarified %
the need of his people to repent, and assured them of
God’s mercy and forgiveness. Once more everyone |
praised him. Very excitedly, he went home and began to
make ready for the next Sunday. That Sunday he came
back and he preached on the Sixth Commandment.
Again he pointed out the sin, called on his people to
repent, and assured them of God’s mercy and forgive-
ness. But no one said a single word to him about the
sermon after church. And he noticed that during the
course of the week people tended to be a little cool and
aloof whenever he came by. Then, on Saturday night,
the chairman of the board of elders and some others
knocked on his door. When he opened the door they said
to him, “Pastor, you’ve been preaching some excellent
sermons lately, but we want you to know that last week
when you spoke to us about adultery you weren’t
preaching; you were meddling.”

The point of the story is obvious, isn’t it? Isn’t it true
that quite often we as well as others are willing to listen
to what the Scriptures say about the stewardship of life
and time and talents and treasures. But when it comes
to the bottom line, that is, the matter of separating
ourselves from the material gifts God has given to us,
then we tend to balk. It’s especially true, I think, that it
is precisely at this point that Satan speaks to us and
tries to get us to hold back.

As Christians it is also true that we ought to follow
the example of the apostle, who speaks to us about our
stewardship in Chapter 12 of his Epistle to the Romans,
saying: “... because of God’s great mercy to us... offer
yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His
service and pleasing to Him.”

Yet all too often Satan, our sinful flesh, and the old
Adam team up to deceive us Christians so that we begin
to view what the Lord tells us about our stewardship of
money as something that is threatening, unfair, and
offensive. We need to emphasize over and over again
that God’s Word to us on this subject is the Word of the
God of our salvation—the God who loves us immensely
in Christ—the God who by His own free choice unilateral-
ly, not because of any merit or worthiness on our part,
has established the covenant that He will be our God
and we will be His people. We need to emphasize that He
is the living and triune God who not only calls us to
serve Him but promises that He will give us guidance
and direction for our service and stewardship, and that