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Who Does It Belong to Anyhow?
A sermon by Rev. Jim Pardue
Interim Preacher, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, February 3, 2008
I had the privilege of
being raised in south Louisiana. You go fifty miles from where we lived; you
would be in the heart of Cajun country, where I like to visit because of their
menu and their culture and the opportunity to laugh with them. They have a
unique sense of humor and one of the few groups that still will laugh at
themselves.
There was a Cajun who
had to get up every morning and cut firewood. He complained to his neighbor and
said he was just getting too old for that and the man said to him, “They’ve got
a new invention. It’s called a power saw.” He said, “If you go buy that, you
will be able to cut it easily.”
So, the man went into
town to see this new invention, the power saw. And the man said, “I guarantee
you that you will be able to cut four cords of wood a day.” So he bought it,
went home, got up the next morning and worked pretty hard and cut two cords.
Worked a little harder the next morning, got up early, stayed up late, three
cords. So, he took the power saw back.
The man said, “Why are
you bringing it back?” He said, “Well, you said I’d get four and I got up early
in the morning and I only got three. So, I want my money back.” He said, “Well,
alright, that’ll be fine.” He said, “But let’s see if it’s running well.” And he
primed it and pulled the cord and the noise came and the Cajun said, “Man,
what’s that noise?”
You know, I have met an
awful lot of Christians who have access to wonderful things in the Christian
life, but they’ve never learned to hear the noise. They carry it around but
don’t know anything about it. Part of that experience then in our life is to
come to the great truths of scripture to where you will be able to experience it
in your life and part of the problem is we have to do with pronouns.
When I reached the age
of retirement, I asked the Lord what he would like for me to do in the new era
of my life. And he laid on my heart that I would talk with churches that used to
be bigger and now have declined in numbers. And so, I knew some people at the
Virginia Baptist Board and I wrote them and said that I’m getting ready to
retire and this is what I’d like to do.
One Friday afternoon one
of my friends called me. He said, “You haven’t heard form me, we’ve been on a
staff retreat and we’ve been talking about churches that are declining and we
spent the whole time in prayer talking about that and our biggest question was
who could lead it?” And he said, “And when we got home your letter was on the
desk.”
So, what I would do is
go across the state and I would talk with people about spiritual renewal and how
churches can be spiritually renewed. And I then would take the Sunday school
hour to tell them how they would do that and then at the morning worship I would
speak to the congregation and after I’d talked one morning in Sunday school one
of the older men waved to me and he said, “Come here, I need to talk to you.” He
said, “I want to you to know, I am deeply opposed to what you are doing.” And he
said, “I want you to know I am very, very happy with my church just like it is.
And if they vote on it, I’m going to vote against it.” I’m glad he didn’t have a
cold, because his nose was right here. And I turned to him and said, “Well sir,
in a Baptist church everybody has their own opinion. We give you the freedom to
express, but there’s one thing that you made a mistake about. You said, ‘My
church.’ And sir, it is not your church. The church belongs to Jesus. And the
church ought to be about the business of worship and education and missions and
service and evangelism. And what we ought to be asking is, ‘How can Christ’s
church reach the community through these means.’”
Sometimes we make the
mistake even when we talk about ourselves. We talk about my body. The New
Testament says no. The New Testament says your body has been redeemed by the
spirit of God; it now no longer is yours it belongs to him.
There’s another pronoun
that is one of the really big problems. If you ask people, often in church, what
they will say is, “It is my money, but I’m supposed to give it to God.” I need
to remind you that your money is not yours. The Bible says, “You have been
bought with a price that all of what you have belongs to him” and the question
is not how much you owe to him, the question is how much are you going to give
of his money for Christian causes and how much are you going to keep for
yourself.
The passage of scripture
is over in the Book of Matthew. It is chapter 25 and it is verse 14. I call it
the most misunderstood parable in the Bible. “Again it is like a man going on a
journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he
gave five talents, to another two to another one—each one according to their
ability. Then he went on a journey. The man who’d received five went to work and
he got five more. The one who had two, gained two more. But the man, who
received the one talent, went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s
money.”
Now listen - you read
that five different ways, but what it says is that the talent was given. We get
it confused because we think of talent as special ability. But in the Bible a
talent is a medium of money. Just as you would say a dollar, they would say a
talent. And he gave part of his business and with five dollar, ten dollars, one
dollar and then he said, “but you need to understand that I’m going to come back
and ask for my money.” He never gave them the money. He lent them the money that
they could use it to develop his business.
The same thing is true
in all of our lives. Money, in Christ’s sense, does not belong to us. It belongs
to him and what we are to do is to spend a lifetime channeling God’s money
through us that we can expand the kingdom of God. And that means that one of the
greatest things that the church can teach you is the gift of being generous in
the name of Christ.
I had a man on one
occasion who again complained about giving in church. A man came up afterward
who overheard it. He said, “Pastor, don’t listen to him and I want to tell you
something. This money that I have belongs to God and if you ever stop telling us
that we ought to give, I’m going to go to a church that will.” You need to
understand that one of the greatest joys in your life is to take that which God
has given you and invest it in the lives of others. My, what a difference it can
make because you were faithful and you were able to provide for the needs of
their life.
My wife and I
experienced being on the other side. We had three children, my wife came to me
one morning at breakfast and said, “We’re going to have another.” And then one
of those midnights, “I think the baby’s coming, we need to get to the hospital.”
It was one of those times years back where the man did not go in the room, the
man sat outside and turned his hands back and forth. And the doctor came out,
who had delivered our other three children, and he said, “I’m sorry, we have a
problem.” He said, “I’m going to go back in and be with your wife and we’ll see
what the problem is.”
Several hours later he
came back out and he said, “I’m sorry, but things are going to be real tough for
you all.” And then he said, “Your daughter has been born with an inherited
disease called Osteogenesis Imperfecta.” And what that meant was that an
ingredient in your bones was not there and therefore wouldn’t harden. And
already in her womb, there were broken bones.
The baby stayed in the
hospital for over three weeks. Came home unable to eat normally, fed with a
tube. My wife made me love her even more, in the way in which she cared.
One night I’d gone out
visiting, I came home. It was my time to take care of the baby. I was holding
the baby in my arms and then I realized that the baby was dead. Months later I
got around to the business of trying to pay for all the people who cared for us,
the doctors, hospitals, all kinds of medicine, people to stay in the house. I
went down to the drugstore, to Stone’s Drug Store, I said, “Mr. Stone, I don’t
have all the money of course, but I’ve got some money, I’d like to give you some
on my bill.” He said, “You don’t owe anything.” I said, “Oh yes I do.” I said,
“I owe lots of money.” He said, “No, let me show you.” He came from around the
curve, got out my card and down at the bottom, it said, paid in full.
I went to the doctor’s
office. I said, “I’m here to pay on the doctor’s bill.” Paid in full. I went to
the hospital, paid in full. And I recognized people who had invested their lives
with ours had paid for everything we ever needed.
Out of that experience,
I have tried to be a giver. I tried to understand what the Bible is trying to
teach me, that what I have is really not mine, it is his and I am to give it for
others and for their needs.
I could tell you a
jillion stories of how peoples’ lives have been changed, how love has been
expressed, how Christians have developed and grown all because somebody learned
that their money wasn’t theirs - they were to help to give it to the needs of
other people. And I could tell you today that your life, this church and this
community could be different if you begin to say, “Dear God, what do you want me
to do with your money?”
Tonight, most of you
will watch a football game. Probably, what will not be shown is outside two
teenagers whose Daddy happens to be overseas in the military. And they have been
going to all of the football games and all of the playoff games and will be at
the Super Bowl inviting people to put their used telephones in a bucket and
they’re going to be sent to the men and women that are in military all around
the world. They’ve already collected 350,000 and their goal is to pick up
another 100,000 tonight at the Super Bowl. Who taught them that? I don’t know
but the lesson is right on. They’re beginning to understand that life is giving,
life is surrendering of yourself, life is looking out for needs and say it in
Christ’s name, “I’m going to meet it.”
I don’t know whether
you’re familiar with the book called Three Cups of Tea. I commend it to
you. It’s about a Registered Nurse who happened to be male in Seattle,
Washington who liked to hike, finally saved up enough money, went over to the
Himalayas and when he was coming down, he saw kids who were running around
everywhere and he said, “Why aren’t they in school?” “We don’t have any
schools.” “Well,” he said, “what’s involved in building one?” He sat down with
the chiefs of the tribes and today, I’m told, if you go to the Himalayas in one
of the most God forbidden places in the whole world, you’ll find 54 building
that are being used for schools. He sleeps in his car at night so he doesn’t
have to pay lodging. He eats as simply as he can and takes all the money that he
has and he can make investing in kids going to school.
Now, I want to ask you a
question. What would happen if you did even half as much? Sometimes it just
jumps out at you. Here is a need, here is something that ought to be done—I’m
going to do it. And I’ve had so many people in a 50 year ministry who have come
to me and said, Pastor this is just between me and you. But anytime there’s a
young person that doesn’t have money to go on a trip or there’s a mission group
and they don’t have enough money, would you call me and just tell me hw much you
need. You don’t have to tell me where it’s going just how much you need.
And everywhere I’ve ever
been as a pastor, people have come to me and said, “We have the gift of giving,
we want to give, we’ll just surrender ourselves to it.” Close friends of mine
don’t give anymore things for Christmas. They take the money and invest it. I
have a calf somewhere instead of another tie for Christmas. I recognize it was
probably the best gift I ever got. God has given us the money, we are to be the
channels by which if flows.
The Bible says on five
different places in the New Testament, that if you give a cup of cold water in
my name, I will write it down in heaven. Nobody else may ever know you did it,
but five times it says, “I will know and I will write it and I’ll give a reward
when you get to glory.”
I wish today the spirit
of God would touch your heart and you will say, “I want to be one of the most
generous people for the glory of God.” My, what a difference it would make.
Let’s pray. Our father,
there’s so many needs in this world, so many hungry people, so many little
children, so many women who are abused and mutilated. So many folk who need help
and in your providence you have given it to us. Help us father, then t reach out
and be the channel of blessing to people in need. Oh father as we make that
commitment today may we hear the noise of the power saw for the first time we
recognize what’s been lacking in how we can make a difference for Christ. Amen.
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