The feedback I received after preaching this past Sunday is that I'm getting more comfortable preaching at Orange :) Here's the sermon:
Blessed To Be a Blessing
Deuteronomy 8:7-18; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
November 20, 2011
Good morning! It is good to be here with you all again. Last weekend I was at a retreat in the mountains that was sponsored by the school up the road. Some of my former classmates were there as well, and it was good to see them again. This morning we’re going to continue on the theme Pastor Ken started last week. He preached on managing God’s portfolio: God has invested heavily in us and wants to see a return on his investment. By God’s grace we can do something with it, because God wants us to use what he’s given us with him in mind. This week we’re going to flesh out some of those details.
To start with, how did you like that description from the Deuteronomy passage we read? “The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.”[1] Of course, there’s no timeline given on being brought into this good land. It may have started in July and you thought you’d be all moved in by November, but God never promised that. God’s timing is not ours. The Lord our God is bringing us into a good land, we are still in the process of being brought in, as you can see from the equipment and vehicles and gravel and dirt outside. We are still being brought in; the journey is not over yet. But we know an awful lot about this land, the most important of which is that it’s good. Just like all that God made in the beginning in Genesis, this land is good land. And look at what it’s full of! Water, crops, mines. It’s a land where we’ll lack nothing, where there will be no scarcity. This is the land that the Lord has given us and we are to bless the Lord our God for the good land that he has given us. We are to give thanks, to the Lord, with a grateful heart. This abundant land is where God is bringing us.
Now, there are two responses we can make to God bringing us into this good land. The first one is to forget God. It’s to say that you brought yourself here, that you did this yourself, that the land is good because you made it good, that God had nothing to do with it. You can forget all that God has done for you and given you. You can say, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”[2] It is very easy and very tempting to think that we get ourselves everything we have. Self-sufficiency and pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps is the name of the game in America. Greed is another name. If this is how you respond to what God has given you, then you’re playing the role of the rich fool in the parable Jesus tells in Luke 12. Jesus tells the story of a rich farmer, who’s pretty well to do. One year, he’s got a banner crop that yields tons and tons of grain, so much so that he has to tear down his barns and build bigger ones! And then he spends his time counting his grain, thinking he’s got it made and can just coast for the rest of his life. But God tells him, “You fool! You’re going to die tonight. And then what happens to all your humongous barns stored with grain?!”
So, what are you going to do with all that God has given you? Because God has given you everything that you have. Are you going to buy bigger houses and rent more storage units to house everything that you have? Bigger is better, right? Are you going to keep the good land and all that it has all to yourself? Are you going to deceive yourself and claim that you got it yourself, that you earned it, that it was by your efforts and hard work that you accomplished what you have? Friends, I have news for you. Whatever you have, whatever you’ve achieved, it was by God’s hand. God gave you the strength, God gave you your mind, God gave you the ability. God has blessed you and given you everything. What are you going to do with the blessings you’ve received?
The alternate response to the rich fool is the call story of Abraham and Sarah, found in Genesis 12. Their original names were Abram and Sarai and one day God says to Abram, “Go from your country and your people and the place you’ve lived your whole life to the land that I’m going to show you. I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, so that you will be a blessing.” The blessings that God gives Abram and Sarai are to be used to bless others. The good land that God leads their descendents into, the nation formed by the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 sons of Jacob, Abraham and Sarah’s great-grandsons, isn’t just for them. God blessed them to be a blessing for others. For example, one of the rules set out in Leviticus for this good land was to not mistreat any foreigners who reside there also. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as if native-born.[3] Israel was blessed with good land flowing with milk and honey, in order to use it to bless others, including others who weren’t like them. We have been blessed with good land; what are we going to use it for? The other blessings that God has given you, what are you going to do with them? Hoard them and keep them to yourself and rent more storage units for them? Or share them. Use them to help others. When you use the blessings God has given you to bless others, it’s one way of thanking God for those blessings. We are to be conduits and rivers of God’s gifts and grace, not reservoirs or lakes. Lakes are limited in what they can do, beyond grow, shrink, or become stagnant. Rivers, on the other hand, have momentum and go somewhere. They channel God’s blessings and take them somewhere. Let’s take the blessings God has given us and do something with them! We are not blessed to hoard our blessings. Rather, like Abraham and Sarah, we are blessed to be a blessing to others.
How has God blessed you? What gifts has he given you? What talents? What riches? What opportunities? And what do you do with them? Do you bury them in the ground or in the bank, like in the parable we read last week? Are you selfish about them, like the rich fool? Or do you share them? Do you recognize that God gives you what you have in order for you to bless others? In the passage we read from 2 Corinthians, Paul wrote that God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance. God is able to and wants to give us every blessing in abundance. This good land doesn’t just have milk and honey but vines and figs and olives and wheat and streams and iron and copper. God blesses us abundantly. There is no scarcity here. So, what are you going to do with God’s abundant blessings? What are you going to do individually? What are we going to do as a church?
Today is the last Sunday of our stewardship campaign. We’ve been talking for four weeks about what God has given us, what God has done among us, and how God has used Orange. We’ve talked about the saints who have gone before us and about prayer and sacrifice. You have Commitment cards in your bulletins and they were mailed out to your homes a couple weeks ago. What has God given you and what are you going to do with it? As Christians, we are all called to be blessed to be a blessing to others. We are called not to keep our blessings, our gifts, and our resources to ourselves but to share them with God’s world. We have been blessed in order to be a blessing. Won’t you let God do that work through you today? If you need a number as you’re trying to figure out what to write down, consider 10%. That’s the basic biblical tithe, going back to Abram and King Melchezidek, the priest of God Most High, in Genesis 14. God asks you to keep 90% and give 10%. If that number doesn’t feel right, for any reason, try increasing the number you’re working with by 0.5%. You’re allowed to take out your phone if you need the calculator to do the math. Or, try taking the percentage from your gross income instead of your net income. God has blessed us in so many ways, including financially, and it takes many different kinds of gifts to do his ministry. When someone becomes a member or is baptized, the prayer includes a promise on the part of the congregation to “faithfully participate in the ministries of the church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness, that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” Today, we’re focusing on financial gifts. This commitment is different than the one you made last spring for the capital campaign, which is strictly building. This one is the one that keeps the lights on and the heat working. So, in light of everything you’ve heard the past four weeks, everything you’ve prayed, we ask at this time, during our final hymn, our hymn of commitment, that you write down your commitment to the church and bring it forward. Our reading from 2 Corinthians reminds us that we are to give as we have made up our mind, not reluctantly, or under compulsion. Let us thank the Lord for his blessings to us by offering up those blessings in return.
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