Lifestyle Stewardship
Dr. Tony Hopkins; Pastor FBC Greenwood, SC; CBF of SC Coordinating Council Member
October 8, 2006
Lifestyle Stewardship
Romans 12:1-21
For four years now, I have been telling you that preachers who reduce stewardship to only the giving of money do a great injustice to the biblical concept of stewardship, which is much larger than that. In fact, I think the best synonym for stewardship is “discipleship”– being good stewards involves all of the things involved in being good disciples. That’s why I really like the phrase “lifestyle stewardship” to which you were introduced in Sunday School this morning. (And by the way: even if you don’t normally come to Sunday School, won’t you please come for the next four weeks? Won’t you give God two hours a week the next four weeks?– because we are in such an important and exciting time in the life of our church, and we want you to be involved; and I believe God does, too. We now return you to the regularly scheduled sermon.) I like the phrase “lifestyle stewardship” because it makes it clear that every part of our lives and our lifestyles is part of good stewardship and should reflect God’s priorities. In Romans 12:2, Paul says that we should do the complete will of God: every area of our lives should reflect God’s will and God’s priorities. In Romans 12, Paul mentions (depending on how you count them) at least a dozen areas which are involved in being good stewards, good disciples, who reflect God’s will and God’s priorities.
Paul begins where we should begin. In verse one he says: “I urge you brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” First of all, Paul says, we are stewards of the worship of God. Our primary purpose and responsibility is to worship the God who is our Creator and Redeemer. That may seem an obvious thing to say, but we need to notice that Paul is not talking about what we usually mean when we talk about worship.
The difference may be illustrated by looking at the when, where, and how of worship. For us, worship happens on Sunday morning, in the church sanctuary, under the leadership of the ministers. For Paul, worship happens at any and every moment of life, wherever we happen to be, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Another way to talk about the difference is to talk about sacrifice. In the Judaism in which Paul grew up, sacrifice happened– like worship for us– at a certain place and time. Sacrifice moreover meant ritual and death– they killed an animal. By contrast, Paul says here that we are to be “living sacrifices.” Because of Christ, death gives way to life, and occasional religious ritual gives way to the ongoing worship of God in every moment of our living.
On a closely related matter, in v. 12, Paul says we are to be constant, or to persevere, in prayer. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 he goes so far as to say that we should “pray without ceasing.” How do we do that? Not by spending every moment of every day on our knees but by living life in an attitude of prayer. Everything we do and say should be shaped by whether or not it would be pleasing to God and how it will affect our witness for Christ. In this way, every moment of our lives becomes an opportunity for worship and prayer. Another way to say that is to say what Paul does in verse 11: “Be aglow with the Spirit.” Stop and think about that: you and I are stewards of the living Spirit of God, who dwells in us and brings light to our lives and our witness.
So what’s on the list so far? Good stewardship involves God’s will, worship, daily living and decision making, prayer, and the Holy Spirit. To these five areas Paul adds three areas which are closely connected to each other: the church, spiritual gifts, and relationships. Have you thought about the fact that God has entrusted the church to us; and that we are to be good stewards of it? In vv. 4-5, Paul says that we make up the body of Christ; which means first that Christ is the one and only head of the body; and second, it means that each of us must fulfill God’s purpose for our lives if the body as a whole is going to function the way God intends. Stewardship of the church is closely related to stewardship of our spiritual gifts– because it is as we serve Christ and the church that we use the talents and abilities and spiritual gifts God has given to us (vv.6-7). And both of those things impinge on our relationships. Because we are connected to each other in the body of Christ, our relationships are cooperative rather than competitive (as out in the world). And in Romans 12, Paul explicitly mentions three or four qualities which should characterize our relationships. He says we should have brotherly and sisterly affection for each other (v.10)– because of Christ, we are family! Paul says that our love for each other should be “genuine” (v.9)– don’t just make a show of caring for each other, but we should truly hold one another in our hearts because we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And Paul says that our relationships should be characterized by harmony, or unity (v.16), and peace (v.18)– as opposed to dissension and strife.
I agree with everything Paul says, but the question is: how do we actually do that? Because in case you haven’t noticed, human beings, including church members, are opinionated. My Ma-maw would say: opinions are like bellybuttons; everybody’s got one– perhaps especially Baptists. If you have three Baptists, you probably have four opinions. So how do we keep harmony and peace and genuine love among all of these very opinionated people? Do you know? We do it by focusing on the Lordship of Christ. When we agree about that, we discover that we don’t have to agree about everything else. Even when the pew cushions and the carpet are not the color I wanted them to be, Jesus is Lord. Even when somebody else doesn’t interpret that Bible verse the same way I do, Jesus is Lord. Even when the vote at the business meeting didn’t go the way I wanted, Jesus is Lord. In other words, what we have in common– the common Lordship of Jesus Christ and our common love for him and his church– those things are larger than whatever our differences might be.
Now there are several other areas which I haven’t even touched on. In verse 1, Paul mentions our bodies. These bodies are God’s gift to us which allow us to live in this world, and we need to be good stewards of them, to take good care of them. In verse 2 Paul talks about transformation in Christ. How do we do that? We do it by stewardship of our minds, by studying God’s word and learning about the life and teachings of Jesus. And when we live these transformed lives out in the world, that’s our witness– we certainly need to be good stewards of our witness. When other people look at our actions, they should see grace. When they listen to our words, they should hear grace– because that’s who our God is.
Have you been counting? By my count, I have now touched on eleven areas which are part of lifestyle stewardship, and I haven’t said one word about money. In fact, the capital campaign steering committee may be getting a little nervous about that. Paul does address financial stewardship when he says in 12:13 that we should “contribute to the needs of the saints”– he’s talking about giving money to the church. In verse 8 he says that we should do that liberally, or generously. Now I’ve tried very hard to contextualize what Paul says about money and material possessions and financial stewardship in the larger biblical spectrum of lifestyle stewardship. If you asked me to summarize lifestyle stewardship, I would return to where I started: lifestyle stewardship means that we apply God’s will, God’s values, God’s priorities to every area of our lives. Clearly that is not limited to money. But I do need to say explicitly that it does include money– because for many Christians, this is a holdout area: “God can have my time and my energy and spiritual gifts, but my money is mine.”
Do you know what I think is one of the most intriguing parables of Jesus? It’s in Luke 16, and only Luke records it. Jesus said there was a steward, a manager, in the employ of a very rich man. And the rich man fired the steward. He thought, “What am I going to do?” So during his two weeks notice, he began to call in the people who were indebted to his employer. One man owed his boss 100 measures of oil; so the steward got on his computer (I’m updating the story a little) and changed it from 100 to 50. Another man owed his boss 100 measures of wheat, and he reduced it to 80. And when the boss found out, Jesus said, he commended the steward for his shrewdness, his ingenuity. Now what do you make of that? Why would Jesus tell that story in order to teach us about stewardship?
To understand, I think we have to notice two things. First, the steward is commended not for his dishonesty but for his shrewdness, his ingenuity, his creativity. Once he was out of work, he would call in favors from all the people whose bills he had reduced, and that’s how he would make ends meet. Second, after telling the story, Jesus makes this pronouncement: “the children of this world [of darkness and sin] are more shrewd, or ingenious, or creative, in dealing with this generation than are children of light.” In other words, if we can use the minds and skills and gifts God has given us to acquire wealth for ourselves and to build our own little earthly empires, why can’t we do it for the church and the kingdom of God?
I know very few things which make God happier than when we are ingenious and creative and committed about using our gifts and talents and resources for God. I know a man who likes being silly, and he loves children, so he became a clown for Vacation Bible Schools. The next thing you know, he was being asked to do children’s birthday parties. Now he makes contact with dozens and dozens of children, many of whose parents do not take them to church, and he always finds a way to tell them that Jesus loves them. My mama spent the last few years of her life in a nursing home. The day she looked forward to more than any other was Tuesday, because on Tuesdays she got her hair done; a beautician in our church used her God-given talents to help my mama feel pretty and special and cared about– I’ll never forget that.
Ruben Swint, our capital campaign consultant, was telling the steering committee about all of the ways people have gotten creative about being able to support their churches’ capital campaigns. Sometimes families decided to cut back on going to the movies or going out to eat. Some would trim a seven day vacation down to three of four days. Some would change the destination of their vacation, go to Ware Shoals or Hodges instead of Disney World or Hawaii.
One of my predecessors at First Baptist Edgefield was Conrad Johnston. While Conrad was pastor there, EdgefieldCounty built its first (and only) country club, and they asked Conrad to be in charge of the fundraising. Conrad said, “I’m just a preacher. I don’t know anything about fiscal planning or anything like that.” So he took the latest thing he had been sent from the Stewardship Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and everywhere it said “church,” he marked that out and put in “country club.” It was one of the most successful fundraisers the county had ever seen– for anything! Ironically, at the same time, the Stewardship Commission reported that giving in Baptist churches was in decline across the country– which brings us back to Jesus’ parable. Why are we better at building country clubs than we are building churches and building the kingdom of God? The most logical conclusion seems to be that it comes down to priorities.
I wonder which is more important in this church: our priorities or God’s priorities? Our lifestyles of comfort and ease and pleasure or doing God’s work in this church and this community and carrying our heritage into the future? That’s the question. What will your answer be?