Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · October 23, 2005

Prayer of the Day

Great and loving God, as we worship this hour, we are thankful for the gift of this life and all its blessings, for joys great and simple, for gift and powers more than we deserve, and for light in the world brought once in Christ and shining ever through his Spirit.  We pray for that light to dawn upon us once again today and every day, that we may always have a grateful heart, and a will to love and to serve to the end of our days.  Amen.

Scripture

II Corinthians 9:6-8

[Paul says,] “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly – whoever plants a few seeds – will also reap sparingly – will have a pretty small harvest.  And whoever sows generously – plants lots of seeds – will also reap generously – have a huge harvest.  Each person must make up his or her own mind – must look into their own heart – about how much to give, not reluctantly, not sadly, not under compulsion, not with any feeling of being forced, for God loves a cheerful giver.  God loves people who love to give, and God is able – God can bless you with every thing you need, and you will always have more than enough to do all kinds of good things.â??

Message

Sermon on the Amount

Rick Frost

I wanted to see how we could get into this text the best way.  Let me see if this might be helpful today.

What do you think is the topic that church people want to avoid talking about the most?  Politics?  No!  Social justice?  No!  Death and dying?  No!  Sexuality?  No!  How about judgment?  How about hell fire and damnation?  My wife says I can talk about just about anything in church as long as it’s not her! 

Another friend of mine said the thing we like to avoid the most is the subject of self-discipline.  She says she is trying to lose some weight, and so she signed up for this thing they call “Boot Camp.â??  (Has anybody ever heard of that?)  It’s not the military type of boot camp, but it’s some other kind of thing.  Evidently you pay these people money – like $300, $400, or $500.  Then they meet you out at the stadium at 5:30 a.m.  You do calisthenics, and they yell at you.  You run up and down the stairs.  Then you run in, grab a shower, and then run off to work for ten or twelve hours a day.  The goal is to be a twig by Christmas.  Sounds like a plan.  Right?

Well, she says it’s really not working.  The reason seems to be that she evidently has other priorities that take precedence over boot camp at 5:30 in the morning.  To assuage her guilt of not showing up and spending that kind of money, she knows she takes solace in the readily-available Masterpiece Pizza and the beverage of her choice.

I said to her, “You know… I just don’t understand.  Look at me.  I’m gaining weight, too, but at least I’m not paying good money to do it!â??

It’s a sensitive subject.  But, folks, it “ain’t nothingâ?? in terms of a sensitive subject as compared to today’s topic.  No!  The number one subject that church people want to avoid the most is money!  So what did I choose for the topic of today’s sermon?  “The Sermon on the Amount.â??  That’s right!

There is an old story.  You may have heard it.  It is about the prince who sent a gift to his bride-to-be.  When she opened the box, of all things, she found an iron egg.  She was disappointed.  Actually, she was furious.  She threw it down on the ground and stomped off.  In time, however, her curiosity was tweaked, and she went back and picked up the egg.  As she looked at it closely, and as she was handling it, quite by accident her hand touched a secret spring that caused the iron egg to open and to reveal an egg made of solid silver.  When she opened that egg, my goodness, there was an egg made of solid gold.  Inside that egg, she found a magnificent diamond of rare beauty and value. 

A story, and so it is…  So it is, I hope…  So it is, we all hope… that is what our capital campaign is.

I have learned more about stewardship in the last eight weeks than I have learned in eight years.  We have spent some time now, and you have been wonderful to hang in there with us, as we have been looking at and learning some of the secrets of the Bible as it teaches us about the Christian way of life, about the way of Christian stewardship, the nurturing of a giving lifestyle.

Of course, it’s completely counter-cultural.  It’s clearly unnatural.  It’s seemingly irrational.  For the uninitiated, the unchanged, the beginner, it may actually at first repel because, quite frankly, it touches us in very sensitive places.  Let’s face that reality. 

However, what we know is this: if Christians are willing to study the teachings of Scripture, if Christians are willing to explore what Jesus actually had to say in the New Testament, if we are willing to try on a giving lifestyle, one of the things we discover is that being a Christian steward is, in fact, the secret to the awesome, rewarding, wonderful, true way of living.  Isn’t that interesting?  That’s how we find out.  That’s how we get there.

Now, everybody knows we have a big project here, a project that encompasses the whole church, a project that is going to have an impact on our youth, our teaching ministry, our children, our outreach, and our fellowship – the whole church.  I believe today’s text speaks very specifically and very clearly to that issue.  It says, “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind.  You consider; you decide; you make up your mind.â??

So the question today is very simple and very direct.  How do you make up your mind as a Christian, as a person who follows Jesus Christ?  How in the world do you do that?  I think Christians, today, know that it is not about need.  It’s not about rules.  It’s not about laws, but they want very clearly to have some guidance.  They want some advice.  They want some counsel in this regard.  How does a Christian make up his or her mind?  I want to suggest these three things.

1.      The first thing that Christians do is pray.  That’s right.  A follower of Christ prays.  That’s what we do.  It’s one of the keys to being a disciple.  We pray.  We talk to God.  We lean into the Spirit of God.  We ask God, “God, what would you want us to do?â??  We call it the “Two Ps Principal.â??  We pray and we pay attention.  You know, prayer is not just talking to God.  It is also listening.  Pay attention; listen to what you actually believe to hear as the Spirit of the Living God within you directs.  What is that Spirit seemingly telling you?  Folks, nobody else I know does it that way.  Not the

People ask me, “How’s the campaign going?â??  I say it all depends on whether we ask and whether we listen.  Two things; just about that simple.

We are going to have a prayer vigil here on Friday night.  Boy-oh-boy!  Friday night is prime time.  It’s going to be here in this sanctuary.  It’s purpose is going to be based on our belief that if you ask, if you listen, it will become clear to you what it is that God would have you do.  It’s just that simple, and it’s just that Christian.  Principal Number One: Pray and Listen.

2.      The Principal of Proportionality.  Each Christian should give in proportion to what he or she has.  Not what somebody else has; what we have. 

Someone came up and asked, “I’m considering a gift of $5,000 over the next three years.  Do you think that is in the ball park?â??

“What do you mean ball park?â??

“Is that in the ball park?  Is it pretty much in the ball park of what other people are going to give?â??

Wrong question.  Wrong question!  It has absolutely nothing to do with what anybody else is doing.  Many people in this church can do a lot more than that, and many people in this church can do a lot less.

Do you remember Barry Sanders?  He is football player who signed on with the Detroit Lions several years ago.  He was an incredibly gifted athlete.  He signed a contract for about $6 or $7 million.  That was a lot of money back in those days.  It still is as far as I’m concerned!  But in terms of athletics, it’s a drop in the bucket.  Right?  But just after signing the contract, he was awarded the gift of $2,400,000 just for his signature on the line.  People were astounded by that kind of figure back in those days, but Barry softened things up a little bit when people found out that he wrote a check for $240,000 and sent it to his little Baptist Church back in Wichita, Kansas .  Did you know that?  You see, Barry had been brought up in the community of faith, and Barry believed in and practiced tithing ever since he could remember.  It was just automatic for him.

Miss Virginia was a member of our church in Boulder, Colorado , years ago.  I remember the day that Miss Virginia called me up at the church office and said, “I want you to know that as of this date, my pledge to the church is going to increase $1.70 per month.â??

I said, “ Virginia , that’s fantastic, but why $1.70?â??

She said, “My Social Security check just came in, and it is $17 more a month that it was last month.â??

She had been brought up, since she could remember, doing just that.  She didn’t care whether I liked it or not.  She didn’t have any concern whether we needed it or not.  Her concern was very simple.  That is what you do.  That is what God wanted her to do.

You may have heard that old story of the hen and the pig who were walking down the street.  The hen sees a billboard over by the café.  It read, “Breakfast: Fresh Eggs and Ham - $5.â??  The hen said to the pig, “Isn’t it wonderful to know that, together, we are making such a wonderful contribution to human beings and giving them some delight?â??

The pig replied, “Yeah, but you are giving out of your surplus.  For me, giving is a real sacrifice.â??

It’s not equal gifts, folks.  It is equal sacrifice.

3.      Finally, “Each of us must give,â?? said St. Paul , “as each of you has made up your mind.â??  As you have looked inside, as you have looked into your heart, what you have decided.

Two caterpillars, crawling along the ground, look up.  There is this butterfly flying overhead.  One caterpillar turns to the other and says, “You are never going to catch me in one of those contraptions.â??

Metamorphosis.  You see, it just happens to caterpillars.  There is no choice.  That is just the way it is.  But if you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, it is a choice.  It is a free choice.  It’s an act of the will.  It’s your call.  It’s your decision.

What I want to humbly and yet boldly ask you to do before you decide is, I want to counsel you to pray.  I want you to pray one simple prayer: “God, what do you want me to do?â??  That’s all we want to know.  That’s all we want to ask.  And then, we want to ask you to listen – just pay attention – and just listen to what the Spirit of the Living God in today’s world is seemingly telling you.

Some weeks ago, we asked our leadership team to do just that very thing.  We put it on their agenda.  We asked them to prayerfully consider what God would want them and their families to do to help build this church.

Today I have asked Gertie Combs to do a very courageous thing.  We are not accustomed in this church of doing this.  We’ve asked here to come, before God and before you, and share her personal stewardship journey.  Gertie, in five minutes, would you do that for us? 

This is Gertie.  Say, “hello,â?? to Gertie.

Gertie Combs

Sure.  Five minutes to tell you about a lifetime.  Actually, until the year I was 12, I never even attended church or even thought about it, because my Dad came from a farm family.  My grandparents were still on the farm, and my Dad felt it was his duty each Sunday to go help my grandparents do whatever they needed doing, since they were growing older.  So, each Sunday, we drove the 60 miles to the farm.  We planted potatoes.  We cleaned the chicken house.  We did whatever was necessary to help the ongoing efforts of that farm.

The year I was 12, both of my grandparents died within just a few months of each other.  Our neighbor, noticing I was no longer gone on Sunday, asked me if I would like to attend church with them.  So I went.  As I went, I didn’t think much about it.  I didn’t take any money or anything.  I went to church, and they passed around the plate.  I thought, “Oh gosh, is this something I’m supposed to do?â??  But, honestly, I didn’t think much more about it.

Then as a teenager, I joined the Presbyterian Church, because that’s where friends from high school were members.  I sang in the choir, and so forth.  I learned about giving, but I didn’t learn about tithing.  But I did learn each week to put a dollar in the plate, and I thought I was really doing a good job.

It wasn’t until I joined this church that I really became aware of tithing.  My husband, Bob, at that time became a member of the stewardship committee.  He was instrumental in helping to bring about this “Grow Oneâ?? idea. 

We had started out in this church by making a great big commitment, which we proceeded to not fulfill.  We had never done anything like that before.  When we put our names on something, it was done.  We felt so sheepish about not reaching that commitment, we very nearly quit coming to church.  But, we persevered, and we came to church.  The next year we made a less monumental commitment, and we worked for years trying to make up for that commitment we hadn’t fulfilled that first year.

As we were approaching the building of this sanctuary, Bob was chairman of the board.  We thought, “Well, what could we do?â??  $1.2 million – that just seemed really out of reach.  So, we did what we thought was sacrificial giving.  That’s where we first heard the term, “Not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice.â??

We did think we had done our share.  You know, we did get this sanctuary built, and then as the years have gone by, we reached the tithe.  In fact, we reached the tithe plus, in our own annual giving.  I still do that, even though Bob is gone.

I just thought, as we were talking about this $2.2 million for this new building, “Why are we stopping at $2.2 million?  Why not $2.3?  Why not $2.4?â??  You see, I was not in the same frame of mind that I had been in at the $1.2 million, thinking this is something we can’t do.  $2.2 million, to me, is something we can do.  It’s something we should do.

So, for my own personal commitment – I’m not bragging about this – but I thought, “What can I do?â??  And as leaders of the campaign, we were asked to give a pre-campaign commitment, just to give them an idea of what they could depend upon.  I came up with round numbers.  I thought, “That’s a good round number.â??  But as we have gone into the campaign further, I have increased that by several thousand dollars.  Now my commitment is that I am doubling my tithe for the next three years.

I know that might seem OK to you.  Maybe you look at me as a rich person.  I am rich by whatever means you want to judge.  You look at me, and you think, “Well, maybe that is easy for her.â??

Well, I have to do without some things to do that.  I am not sure exactly what I am going to do without for the next three years, but I will find something.  One thing, I’m not going to carpet my house, and I hate the carpet in my house.  I’m not going to change vehicles.  I have one that is, maybe, not the most gas-wise, but it’s a good vehicle.  I’ll keep it at least for the next three years.  My son-in-law and daughter and I own a van.  We have decided to sell the van and give the proceeds from that to the stewardship campaign.

There are things we have decided we can do without to give our part to this campaign.  And I say that I am doubling that tithe.  Maybe that sounds monumental to you, but when you think about it, maybe that is something you could do.  Dig down deep.  We are saying, “Reach out and make room.â??  Well, reach down into your pocket and make room and give just as very much as you can.

This church…  I can never give back as much to this church as it has given to me.  When my husband, Bob, laid for five weeks in University Hospital in a coma, each night the people of this church brought meals to us, to whoever was there to help attend Bob.  My lawn was mowed.  My laundry was done.  It was just unbelievable.  There was food at the house – food for my daughter and son-in-law, food for everybody in the family.  It was just incredible how many people reached out to do things – children, adults, and so forth.  So, I know I could never give back what I have received, but I will do my share, and I hope you will reach out and do yours. 

Thank you.

Rick Frost

I think that deserves a hand, folks.  Bless her heart.  We’re not used to talking like that in church.  Are we?

This, I believe, is the true spirit of the Christian life.  What proportion of what you have does God want you to give?  It’s not equal gifts.  It’s equal sacrifice.  That, I believe, is what Christian stewardship is about.  It’s what this campaign, hopefully, is about. 

And this, I am glad to say, is the final sermon on the amount!

And we all say together… “Amen.â??

Benediction

Generous God, you shower many gifts upon us, most especially, our grateful, thankful hearts.  Help us to know what it is you call us to do as we joyfully share your inheritance.  Amen.