Today we consider our stewardship of time and talents. And normally, when we talk about stewardship, we begin by taking a step back and looking at what God has entrusted to us. Then we look at how we can use our time and resources for God’s glory – because, as you well know, the earth is the LORD’s – and everything in it.
There’s nothing wrong with that approach – because the Bible talks that way ALL THE TIME. Just page through your Bible – whether the Psalms, the Gospels, or any other part – and you’ll see how God continually directs the eyes of his children toward all that God has given to them and done for them.
But I’ve got one concern about that approach. If that’s the approach we take every time stewardship comes up, we risk divorcing this doctrine from the rest of our Christian lives – as though we become spiritual biology students, dissecting the Christian life on a cold biology table and looking at each particular organ, each particular doctrine in turn…all the while, forgetting that the Christian life is a living, breathing, faith-filled LIFE! The Christian life is more than mere doctrine – because God has truly made us new people! God has brought us out from death to life!
And so, with your permission, this morning rather than approaching the concept of “stewardship” from this direction – looking at all that we have been given, and seeing how we can and rightfully should use our blessings in service to God – we’re going to approach stewardship from this direction. Instead of looking at stewardship on the basis of our blessings, we’re going to look at stewardship from the viewpoint of VOCATION – where you are and what roles you have in life.
Because, after all – stewardship isn’t primarily about the different blessings or talents you have – stewardship is primarily about using these blessings to God’s glory.
By approaching the concept of stewardship from this direction, my hope is that we don’t leave any part of our Christian life sitting on the spiritual dissection table, as though one doctrine is just another element of the Christian life to take apart and dissect and admire – but as something that doesn’t really APPLY to my life, TODAY.
First, I should define that word, VOCATION. The term “vocation” refers to the particular station in life which God has assigned to each of us individual Christians. We’re accustomed to talking about the “divine call” of those who serve in the church’s public ministry, and rightly so – but much of what’s true about your pastor is also true, in a somewhat different sense, of each of you. A Christian husband, wife, father, mother, doctor, farmer, councilman, nurse, truck driver has been called by God to his or her station in life no less than a pastor or teacher at a Lutheran school – even though the manner in which laypeople are “called” may be entirely different. A pastor is externally called by a group of believers to be a shepherd of God’s people; a layperson is called through God’s providence and God’s Word to fulfill a vocation.
Even from these examples, it’s apparent that every Christian will hold several different vocations at the same time – a person might be a wife, mother, employee, citizen, and Sunday School teacher all at once.[1]
Now, first & foremost, it is important to know that it is God who assigns you your vocation; you do not choose it for yourself. Yes, you may have decided upon and prepared yourself for a particular career; you may have chosen where to live, and then moved there; you may have selected your marriage partner, dated, gotten engaged and married. But God was at work behind the scenes in every life decision you’ve ever made. The result is that you woke up this morning in a certain time and place, cleaned up and walked out the door into a world uniquely your own – and that was God’s doing, not yours. You are where you are today because God has put you here – and ultimately, for no other reason.
Yes, God does give us free will in these matters – but the topic of vocation is bigger than that. A thousand opportunities confront the believer, all of which conform to God’s law. Because of God’s mercy, there need not be wringing of hands when making choices in life – because, in God’s eyes, the choice is between “good” and “good.” You can choose one option knowing it would not have been a sin to choose another. It’s like going to a department store, ambling up to a certain shelf in a particular department, until you find that one item which seizes your attention – the one you select just for your Father. You’ll crawl up into his lap; he’ll peel off the wrapping and exclaim, “Oh, how beautiful!” This is grace, the mysterious grace of God: that what you chose for him is what he chose for you.
There are a few caveats – namely, that God does not tempt to sin nor cause people to sin. God is not responsible for the evil in this world. Additionally, in the doctrine of vocation, we are speaking only of occupations that are not inherently sinful – for example, a murderer cannot say that God placed him in that vocation. God does not cause sin.
Do you see how approaching the Christian life from the viewpoint of VOCATION makes for a totally different understanding of Christian stewardship? For instance, let’s look at today’s text: Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Feel free to follow along in your pew Bibles, page 1763. It’s a short verse, but there’s a lot packed into it.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.
Offer your bodies as living sacrifices. That’s an oxymoron. The term “living sacrifice” falls in the same category as “jumbo shrimp” and “deafening silence.” Back in the book of Leviticus, God gave instructions about the sacrifices: Pick out a year-old sheep. Take it to the Temple, put your hand on its head, drain all the blood from this animal – then cut the animal into pieces and burn it up completely. Nothing “living” about this sacrifice.
But God says that we are to offer our bodies – ourselves – as LIVING SACRIFICES. That begs the obvious question, then: have you? Do you? As you go about your daily Monday-Saturday schedule, do you consciously offer your life as a living sacrifice? I mean, it’s a nice idea and may be true in theory – but what about in practice?
In Old Testament times, if you wanted to offer a sacrifice, you’d take your sheep and burn it up on God’s altar. In New Testament times – things are different. God doesn’t just demand a sheep or a goat – God wants your whole life. Do we offer our lives to God?
Or, in practice, do we assume a me-first attitude that puts my wants, my desires, my hopes and dreams, my agenda, my schedule above and before anything that God would have me do. Do I look at my career, my awards, my house, my car, my hat-trick-scoring child and think: my hands have done this! My hard work has accomplished this! My early-mornings and late nights have finally paid off – because here I have earned what’s coming to me!
All too quickly, that mindset divides our Christian lives into categories – here’s my worker category, here’s my parent category, here’s my student category, my child category, my spousal category, my athlete category, my weekly schedule category. Consciously or not, we begin to make distinctions about what belongs to God and what belongs to me – and these distinctions blur over time. “I’ll take the credit for this talent and skill when I’m at work, but when I’m talking with another Christian I’ll be sure to tag on that little line about God giving me that same talent.” “I’ll give God a few hours here, and then my conscience will be clear to use the remaining hours however I want” – as though the reason I do anything is to dodge the poking of my conscience or evade the hammer of God’s law.
At heart, each of us is still a legalist. Because of our sinful flesh, we all love to arrange our lives according to the law: If I offer my tithe of time or my ounce of talent, then God will see that and pay me back…as though God were some divine bubble-gum machine, where we offer God a nickel of our lives and then sit back to see what God is gonna do for me.
At heart, each of us must daily struggle against the mindset that the reason I give God any glory, any time, anything at all is because then God becomes indebted to me, or owes me something, or will arrange events in my life in order to balance the books. In other words – I give to God so that he gives back to me.
But: is that GOD’S mindset? Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.
No! God’s mindset is just the opposite! When God looks at you, he sees you through his Son! God looks at you with love because he is a merciful God! God’s mindset is that you don’t have to give him anything – because he’s already given you EVERYTHING!
When I say EVERYTHING, I don’t mean your spouse, children, land, cattle and all you own. That certainly is true. But God gave you more than that! When God gave you everything, he gave you his most treasured possession – his Son. When God gave you everything, he wrote your name in the book of life – purely out of his mercy and grace. When God gave you everything, he engraved your name on a heavenly mansion. When God gave you everything, he saw our legalistic, pay-and-be-paid-back, bubble-gum machine mindset…and he gave you immeasurably more than you could even ask or imagine. God gave his Son to suffer and die in your place, so that you now stand as a forgiven child of God.
God has given you everything! God has forgiven your sins! God has given you a heart that loves him! God has sacrificed himself in order to save you from sin and make you his! FOREVER! God has even given you all sorts of blessings on this earth – the earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, and the LORD of all creation has entrusted YOU with a slice of his everything! God has given us brothers and sisters who care for each other, love each other, admonish each other, and refocus our eyes on what God has done for us!
Who you are in God’s eyes stands solid and immovable and engraved on God’s heart. Jesus Christ, God’s own sacrificial Lamb, has marked you with his blood, has redeemed you to be his own. The Holy Spirit has called you by the gospel, sanctified, and kept you in the true faith! Even today, God still richly and daily provides clothing and shoes, food and drink, land, cattle, and all I own, and all that I need to keep my body and life!
THAT is God’s mindset! THEREFORE, for this reason: I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.
God tells us that he wants us to offer OURSELVES to him as “living” sacrifices – our heart, soul, and mind. All that we are. God’s got a very good reason for doing this – and it’s not because God needs our praise, or our sacrifice. God tells us this BECAUSE he knows the power of our sinful flesh! God knows the constant tug and pull of our sinful hearts, as we wage war within ourselves – the good I want to do, I don’t do, that which I don’t want to do I keep on doing! God knows that the devil is scheming to distract us from God’s mercy and love for us, so that we become focused on the blessings, rather than the Blesser and the gifts, rather than the Giver.
Additionally, God knows that offering our bodies and lives as living sacrifices will be painful. Suffering under temptation and daily resisting temptation is not easy! Being a LIVING sacrifice is even more difficult, more painful than simply offering a lamb as a burnt offering! But such pain is part of God’s will for you. By this continual encouragement to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, God helps you discipline your flesh and beat your sinful nature into submission. And it’s here, even in these few words: in view of God’s mercy – that we are driven again and again to the source of God’s grace.
God hasn’t left us to fend for ourselves! God isn’t holding up some impossible bar when he says Offer your bodies as living sacrifices! God is encouraging you to do something that he has created you to love to do! In other words – when God says offer your bodies as living sacrifices, he’s telling you this because he wants your life to be conformed to the life of his Son – who gave himself up for us all, so that God would have mercy on us and make us his children.
Our whole lives are lived in view of God’s mercy! Everything that we do, that we see, that we think, is lived in view of God’s mercy! Out of his mercy, God has placed you in this place so that you would come to faith and come to know our merciful God! Look at the richness of God’s love FOR YOU!
I guess there’s only one question left. How do we go about “offering our lives as living sacrifices”? In other words – how do I live my whole life to God’s glory?
Simple. What is the greatest commandment? Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And the second is like it: love your neighbour as yourself.
As you go about your day and your week, living your life in view of God’s mercy – ask yourself: How can I glorify God here & now? How can I love my neighbour, here and now? As a mother, how can I glorify God? As an employer or employee, how can I love my neighbour? As a student, how can I glorify God? As a grandmother, how can I love my neighbour?
When you think of it that way, the answer you’ll inevitably get is just to be the best mother, father, student, teacher, employer, employee, grandparent, aunt, uncle, garbage collector, ditch digger, accountant, truck driver, or engineer that you can. As you fulfill your individual role, the role and place and position that God has designed for you and placed you in, with these particular neighbours, in this relationship, with these resources, gifts, and abilities, responding to these needs, at this place and time – as you fulfill your vocation to the best of your ability, you glorify God. You love your neighbour. You offer your life as a living sacrifice. As you do these things because of and in view of God’s mercy, God reminds you that he has prepared these works in advance for you to do. You remember that your status with God is a sure and certain fact, made certain through the death of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ.
Through constant and daily fulfilling your vocation, God is working in your life to conform you to the likeness of his Son. The works we do merit nothing of our salvation – we can’t do anything to earn God’s favour or mercy or love. But by glorifying God and loving our neighbour, we give praise to God every day – we daily become those living sacrifices that God desires.
And yes, it will be painful. Fulfilling our vocations is not always easy. Just ask the wife whose husband is an unloving, inconsiderate man. Ask the child who only hears the hammer of God’s law without the hug of God’s forgiveness. Even then, God’s purpose in your life is accomplished. Even then, you live in view of God’s mercy – you live in the sure knowledge that every sadness and difficulty in this life is a good and perfect gift when it comes from our loving Father.
No, our lives and vocations can’t be separated into neat, little compartments that fit into their specified spaces in Microsoft Outlook or our iPhones. Sure, we might plop our Christian lives down on the dissection table in order to see the various organs and doctrines – but God is glorified when those doctrines are put into practice. God is glorified when those doctrines are re-assembled and Christians goes hopping back to their places and occupations in God’s world – because living our lives as living sacrifices in view of God’s mercy means constantly elevating our eyes to what God has done for us.
Being a living sacrifice means constantly asking how I can glorify God, how I can love my neighbour – not to earn something from God, as though my vocation or stewardship could wrestle blessings from God’s hand; rather, being a living sacrifice means that we constantly live life in view of God’s mercy and constantly set our hearts at rest in the forgiveness that God has given us. Friends: in view of God’s mercy, offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.
[1] I am indebted to Prof. Cherney and Prof. Paustian for their essays on this topic.
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