Stewardship Corner

Celebrating New Years is a celebration of the past and the future. We take stock of the past with thanksgiving and sometimes even relief (that it’s over), and we look to the future in the hope and anticipation and perhaps even worry of what it holds.

The point is that New Year’s celebrations remind us of who we are as opposed to who we would like to be; what we have done in comparison to what we want to do. It reminds us of our accomplishments, but mostly it reminds us of our failures. What we’ve lost. Who we’ve lost.

New Years is our own version of Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. And we all play Scrooge. We are visited by the ghosts of our pasts, presents, and futures.

St. Paul writes: “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, ‘He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.’ He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for all your generosity, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God” (2 Cor 9:6–15).

St. Paul tells us that the Lord of all will both supply and increase what you need to give to the church for its work in and for the world. He tells us that this work that God is doing in us will enrich and bless us in every way and through this it will produce thanksgiving to God. With this in mind, here is some practical advice to help you take stock of your giving of years past, which will help you to change what needs to be changed, improved, or done away with altogether.

First, attend the Divine Service to receive God’s gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. If you’ve not been faithful in attending worship to hear the preaching of God’s Word, to receive forgiveness, and feast of the rich food of our Lord’s body and blood for the eternal benefit of your body and soul, then repent and come to receive the gifts God freely gives. God doesn’t want your money. He wants you—all of you (Matt 22:20–22).

Second, pray for the Lord’s help. Your right as a Christian is to speak with your Father, the King of all creation, freely through His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Go to the throne of grace and ask for strength and wisdom to follow His bidding faithfully (John 15:1–16).

Third, consider what the Church is and what the Church does. The Church is a mercy place. It inhales the mercy of the Father by the death, resurrection, and ascension of His Son through the preaching of the Gospel and the Sacraments. It exhales this mercy in love toward the neighbor. You are a member of the Church, of God’s family. Thus, you are not only a recipient of God’s mercy, but a bearer of that mercy for the life of the world. You spread that mercy in showing mercy through the generous giving of your income to support the work of the Church in and for the world, as the Israelites did in the Old Testament (Lev 27:1–34).

Fourth, take stock of your current giving in light of the New Testament’s teaching on supporting the work of the Church. Are you giving of your first fruits, taking it out of your paycheck first, or does God get what’s left over? Are you giving voluntarily and cheerfully? Are you giving proportionally and generously? The Old Testament required a tithe, ten percent. The New Testament gives freedom to be generous, to give more for the Church’s work. Are you relying on God’s promise to provide and increase what you need to do His work? If your answer is no to any of these, repent. If God gave you His only Son, will He not provide for you all things, even physical things? Trust Him, His Word, and heed it.

So, don’t let your past define your future. Rather, commit for the year a generous proportion of your income, which is God’s gift to you for this body and life.

Every Christmas present that sits wrapped under your Christmas tree will wear out.  It will break or go out of style.  This fact was there, somewhere, in the back of your mind even as you bought them, but you bought them anyway.  For you love the person you bought them for, you wanted to see that look of joy it brings to their face.

So also God gives to you.  But greater.  What He gives will never wear out, break down, or go out of style.  For what He gives is His eternal and only-begotten Son, wrapped in your flesh, and placed upon the tree of the Cross.  He gives His Son for you.  He gives that you may have everlasting joy.  He gives because He loves you.  This is why the Word became flesh to dwell among you.

And that is who is given to you.  The Word who is God yet was with God from all eternity.  The Word through whom all things were made.  The Word who is the only-begotten Son of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, being of one substance with His Father.  The One who called all things into existence, the One who spoke to Moses from the bush that burned yet was not consumed, the One whose glory filled the tabernacle to dwell among His people, God Himself, has taken on your flesh.

Even though the Word is made flesh, even though God became Man, His Divinity is not lessened.  His Divinity is not changed.  His Divinity remains, pure and unchanging, but your flesh, your human nature, is exalted.  Your flesh and humanity is assumed into God.  God became man so that you would become like unto God—holy and righteous, without sin, without death.

And so it is that the Son given to you wrapped in your flesh is placed upon the tree of the Cross. And no tree was ever adorned more beautifully.  Its ornaments were nothing less than the Blood of God, poured out as an atoning sacrifice for your sins.  Its garland the Body of God, hanged in death that you may have life.  Its light the incarnate Light of the world, strung up to call you and all men unto Himself, to enlighten you, to make you His own.  He gives you His life;  He gives you joy and peace—peace with God in heaven and peace with one another on earth.

And from the tree of the Cross the Lord Jesus places another gift for you upon the Altar.  It is the Fruit of the Cross, His crucified and risen, living Body and Blood, the Fruit of the Tree of Life, wrapped in bread and wine and given to you.  He fills you with His Glory.  He makes your mouths and your hearts His manger.  He abides in you and you in Him.

The Word became flesh to be placed under the Cross for you.  You are forgiven.  This is why we give.  We give because He has first given to us.  And just as it was a joy for Him to give all He had to us.  It is a joy for us to give to one another and His church so that this message of forgiveness, life, and salvation may be proclaimed.

“O give thanks to the Lord for He is good.  His love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1).  The love of the Lord does endure forever because the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is risen from the dead, lives and reigns for all eternity.  He was crucified for our transgressions, but He is raised and lives forever for our justification. We are acceptable to God in Christ Jesus.

This is indeed something for which we give thanks.  We give thanks in our prayers. We give thanks in the hymns we sing in church.  We give thanks by talking about it with our friends and neighbors and teaching it to our children and grandchildren. And we give thanks by giving to the church a generous, first-fruits portion of the income He provides us.

Giving is giving thanks.  It is one of the concrete ways in which we thank God for all He has done for us.  This includes not just what He has done for us here in time, but what He does for us for all eternity.  He provides for all that we need in both body and soul.  He is more ready to give than we are able either to receive or even ask.  That is who He is.  That is His character.  He is good and His love endures forever.

Let us then give thanks in all these ways, not in one way or the other.  But rather in all things, everything that we do and say, whether it be in word or deed, in prayer and praise, in teaching and giving, let us give thanks to God for He is good.

Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again.  If you believe this gospel, if you stand upon it, cling to it, you are saved.  Trust in this is the dividing line.  It defines, either positively or negatively, all men.  It separates and divides Cain from Abel, Job from his so-called friends, Abraham from Abimelech, Isaac from Ishmael, Jacob from Esau, David from Saul, Daniel from Belshazzar, Joseph from Herod, Lazarus from the rich man, and the tax collector from the Pharisee.  What defines men is not whether they are good or bad, but whether or not they believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

The problem with man is his heart.  Our hearts are fallen and predisposed to think that we can impress God.  We think that if we do all the right things God will reward us, and we will escape evil.  We think that God will be impressed with our gifts, that our prosperity and goodness is evidence that God loves us or that it should motivate God to love us.

But we know better because God has blessed us with the faith of Abel, Job, and Abraham.  We know that God’s grace in Christ saves us, not our works.

We know that God is not impressed with our giving.  He is not impressed when we give him that which is already his.  God doesn’t benefit from our giving and He doesn’t need it.  But our neighbor does need it.  And God delights in us growing more and more like Him.  He blesses us, and He invites us to bless one another with our giving: so that the Gospel may be proclaimed, so that the poor may be fed, so that all God’s work through the Church may be done.

So consider God’s priorities in comparison to your own.  And be honest.  Reevaluate where you are and where God has called you to be.  Look into your own bank statement.  Would any accountant think that the Church was your priority?  He would see a spreadsheet filled with where your money actually goes:  into house and clothing and cars, into eating out and beauty supplies and entertainment.  Indeed, much of it wasted on frivolous things.  But would he find great percentages going to the church?  Figure up the percentage.  Put it in relation to the proportion of your income.  What percentage of your income do you give for the mission of the church:  the preaching and teaching, the baptizing and communing, the help for the weak and poor brothers of Christ?  Is it even enough for a deduction when you file your income taxes?  The widow gave all she had and thought nothing of it.  She was glad to do it.  The rich man gave what to him was a meaningless, trifle amount and desired a plaque in his honor.  Why is it that the less we give the prouder we are and the more credit we expect?

All your works, even your monetary gifts, done in faith please God now for Christ’s sake.  No matter how great or small, frequent or infrequent.  They are all washed and cleansed by grace through faith on account of Christ.  Whatever you do from faith in God pleases Him for the sake of the Son.  So reevaluate your generosity in the light of the grace of Christ.  Freely  you have received, freely give.

“Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift” (2 Cor. 9:15)!  This is St. Paul’s exclamation upon hearing the Corinthian church’s response to the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His request for support for the Church in Jerusalem.  The Christians in Corinth heard and received God’s mercy in Christ, and they responded to St. Paul’s call to support Christians in Jerusalem with a collection.  The Corinthian’s joy filled Jerusalem’s need.

This is the reality of stewardship.  Because of God’s generosity in the giving of His Son to die on the cross for us, we are to be generous with all that we receive from Him.  What do we receive? Everything.  All that we are and all that we have is the Lord’s.  He is the creator and the giver. We are His creatures and those who receive what He gives.

It sounds easy.  And it is.  But then again it isn’t.  Stewardship is easy because it God’s work. Through what God gives, we give to others.  Through what God gives, we support the work of the church for the life of the world.  He gives; we receive.  And like our generous Father in Heaven, we, as His children, use what He gives to us to love and serve others.

But stewardship is also difficult.  That is because it goes against our natural inclination to think that what I have is mine to do what I want with.  This is our sinful nature.  It is our selfishness and our greed.  How can we who have been given everything—life, food, clothing, house, home, forgiveness, divine sonship, an eternal inheritance—be so stingy with what we give to the church, the place where we hear about and receive all that God gives us and does for us?  We are all guilty of this kind of thinking.  And the only godly response is to repent and trust in the Gospel.

For if God has given you His own Son, will He not give you all things?  Yes.  He will.  This is His sure and certain promise.  God provides for His people.  He provides everything we need for this body and life and for the life that is to come.

The church is a mercy place. It’s a place where God’s mercy in the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, is given and received.  For we who believe in Christ, it means forgiveness, life, and salvation in the face of sin, death, and the power of the devil.  Here in the church we inhale God’s mercy in Word and Sacrament, and exhale this same mercy in love and service to our neighbor. And that is an enduring, joyful thing to do.  Our joy fills our neighbor’s need because His joy filled ours (Heb. 12:2). Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!

Do we Christians really have to tithe? Are we really under a compulsion to give? Aren’t we free? Don’t we have a freedom from the law that was purchased for us by Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection?

The problem is that our sinful flesh uses our freedom for selfishness. Christ did not die and rise so that we could give less and do less good work in the world. He died and rose to free us from the compulsion of the Law, to free us from a burden we could not bear.

We are missing the point completely if we use the freedom from the Law that Christ won by His passion, crucifixion, and resurrection to give less, or to do less of any good work. Christ set us free to live in His image of faithfulness, generosity, and kindness. We are free from the Law’s condemnation so that we can walk in the good works the Lord has prepared for us.

Our freedom is not given to indulge our sinful and selfish flesh. Our freedom was purchased and won by Christ so that we could serve our neighbors — our family, our society, our church.

As a result, much of your freedom is not a freedom from, but a freedom to and for. You are not free from serving your neighbor. You are free for service toward your neighbor—willingly and without compulsion. You are not free from giving to your church; you are freed to give to your local congregation in joy, willingly, and without compulsion.

The reason you are free to serve, the reason you are free to give is because of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sin He won for you on the cross, which He delivers to you in the Gospel and the sacraments. That is our motivation. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And since God loves us in this way, by giving us His only-begotten Son so that we do not perish, we also love one another in this way, by giving what we have so that our neighbor does not perish.

If the God who has provided the sacrifice for your eternal salvation, the God who delivers that salvation to you in Holy Baptism, the God who continues to forgive you and show you His faithfulness, if that same God is the one who also promises to give you daily bread and take care of your earthly life, you can trust in Him, even in giving. After all, Jesus Christ is proof that God loves you and will take care of you.