August 21, 2005 The Stewardship of the Word
Several weeks ago I went to the Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl with my kids. The movie producers tried their best to capture the attention of the audience through three dimensional images. After about the first three minutes of enjoying the images, I realized that this movie just wasn’t going to cut it. It had to have one of the most atrociously boring story lines ever.
This shows me that even with all of our attention on visual special effects, our value of words is not completely lost. They are still important and they still have power when they are used correctly. God’s Word addresses the usage of words.
Proverbs 10:19 When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.
Proverbs 18:4 The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.
With all of the talk shows and radio programs today, we can tell that there is no lack of people using words today. Tons of books are still being written. Many movies are still being made. But the movies aren’t selling like they used to. Not all talk shows make it. Not all books are smash hits. Why? Because the words that are spoken - even with images - still have to make some sense and have some meaning behind them.
Think about what a commodity we have in the Bible then. This is God’s eternal Word - God’s powerful Word. When God speaks, it has to be powerful because of the nature of the speaker. Think of creation for instance. God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky.” (Ge 1:14) In the blink of an eye there were billions of stars, the sun and the moon all by just saying, “let there be.” Wow. There’s some powerful words.
What is just as awesome is when God puts His words in men’s mouths. One story that struck me is when a man of God went to speak against the king of Israel - Jeroboam. Here this risen slave had come to power and decided to set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel. As a result, 1 Kings 13:1-5 says,
By the word of the LORD a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. He cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD: “O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who now make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” That same day the man of God gave a sign: “This is the sign the LORD has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.” When King Jeroboam heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Seize him!” But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up, so that he could not pull it back. Also, the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the sign given by the man of God by the word of the LORD.
Notice throughout this story what is emphasized - the Word of the LORD. When the man of God spoke the Word of the LORD, those words produced results.
God’s Word - throughout the Bible - touts itself as having that kind of power. One passage that I have the confirmands learn is Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Another popular one is Isaiah 55:10-11 - As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. God’s Word claims to do miraculous things - even raise the dead! Therefore we sing in a Mighty Fortress that one little Word can fell the devil.
If only we believed it. If you really believed this with all of your heart, you would read your Bible every night. It would come before television and even homework. You would say to yourself, “I need to memorize this Word.” You would wait on the edges of your seats for the readings every Sunday. Unfortunately, this is what we know. A majority of you do not read your Bible every night. You do not listen tentatively during the readings. You complain about memory work. You don’t even know your Ten Commandments. You consider Bible class to be too early in the morning. What is worse, is that you expect God to be proud of you because you made it through confirmation years and years ago. You think that you already know enough of the Bible because you know what the difference is between the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. Your actions confess to the LORD that you don’t really believe His Word is all so powerful after all.
One of the most tell tale signs that we have lost our faith in the power of the Word is found in the way we use the Word - or fail to use it. How many times does God use the term “higher power” to refer to Himself in the Bible? Not once. But we don’t want to “offend” by using the name “Jesus Christ.” So we refer to God as the “big guy upstairs” or “someone up there”. When someone dies, you hear tried and lifelong Christians saying to other people, “it’s ok, he’s in a happier place now.” Happier place? How about heaven? Whatever happened to hell? When your classmate does something immoral, do you just shake your head and walk away? When you are pressed, do you respond by saying, “I don’t believe in that sort of thing.” Why is that? Are you ashamed to say to someone, “God condemns that type of behavior.” I believe that many of us in 21st century America are a little bit ashamed of our religion - which comes down to the fact that we are ashamed of the Word of God. Should I be ashamed of telling a sleazy classmate that he is on his way to hell? Should I be embarrassed to tell the liberal teacher that I don’t believe her theory of evolution? Imagine if Nathan had gone to David - while trying to confront him for committing adultery and murder and said, “I think you might be able to do something a little bit differently here.” He wasn’t rude about it, but when push came to shove he declared, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ (2 Samuel 12:7-10) This was the king he was talking to!
Today is our first of two Stewardship Sundays. A part of stewardship means to make the most out of what God has given you. Paul said in Romans 10:8, “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming. God didn’t leave His Word on the highest mountain or put it in secret code for only the most intelligent to figure out. God put this powerful Word in your mind and in your heart and in your mouth. It is found on every bookshelf in probably every one of our homes. It is declared in simple terms of sin, death, hell, cross, resurrection and salvation. It isn’t hard to figure out. It is implanted in our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit. A majority of you have more training in the Bible than any other so called Christian in the world!
A part of being a good steward is to USE these gifts God has given us. Way back in the book of Samuel, God called to Samuel in a vision at night. In that vision - he told Samuel that he was going to carry out a terrible judgment on Israel and on Eli’s family. That next morning, Eli called to Samuel and asked him, “what did the Lord want?” Imagine the look on Samuel’s face - the tentativeness - “what do I tell him now?” Eli could see it - Samuel was afraid. So he said, 1 Samuel 3:17-19 “What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.” So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, “He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes.” The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.” Each and every one of us has guilt on our shoulders - because we have let God’s words fall to the ground. We haven’t learned it like we should. We haven’t proclaimed it like we could. We have been to afraid to offend. Too afraid of causing rifts. What is worse is that Jesus says, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38)
If this scares you and makes you afraid of Judgment Day, I want you to listen to one of the most comforting verses in the Bible when it comes to this subject. Jonah 3:1 says, “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:” The focus of Jonah is often on the Assyrians - whom Jonah hated and didn’t want to proclaim the Word to. But think about what this one little verse says to us - the Word of the LORD came to Jonah a SECOND time.” Why a second time? Didn’t Jonah hear it the first time? Sure he did. God told Jonah, “I want you to go and preach to those Assyrians up in Nineveh - those dirty rotten enemies of the Israelites - I want you to tell them to repent.” Jonah told God, “NO. I’m not going. I’m going to Tarsus - way over in Spain - the opposite direction.” It wasn’t just a sin of weakness. It was a sin of arrogance and defiance. Yet what did God do? He sent a huge rainstorm to ruin Jonah’s travel. The sailors through him overboard, and a huge fish swallowed Jonah - saving him from drowning. He scared Jonah to death - and brought him to repentance. Three days later, the fish spat Jonah up on the shore, and then the Word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time. What does this show us? God didn’t hold a grudge. The LORD didn’t give up on Jonah. He forgave Jonah, and also gave him a second chance.
Peter didn’t seem like that idea of getting a second chance. So he said to Jesus in Matthew 18:21-22, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” God’s idea of forgiveness does not have a limit. Jesus’ answer was proclaiming that there is no limit to God’s forgiveness. Romans 5:20 says that where sin increased, grace increased all the more. The fact that we cling to as Christians is that Jesus died for the sins of the world. That includes all sins of all times. It includes every sin that I still commit every day as a Christian - including the sins of not using God’s Word the way He wants me to. This is where true peace is found - in Jesus. It means that I’m not saved or accepted by God on Judgment Day because of how much faith I have in the Word of God or how much I read the Word of God - but I’m saved THROUGH faith in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. It means that we’re still forgiven even as we neglect his Word - through faith in Jesus. We believe that Jesus used His mouth as our substitute as well. Jesus never let God’s Word fall to the ground. He LEARNED it and He USED it. Thank God for that, my friends. Believe in that. Don’t let go of Jesus mouth. You are not saved because of how much you confess Christ. You saved through your confession of Christ as your Savior. It’s a big difference. A perfect difference.
This perfect difference is revealed to us only in the Word. God reveals His forgiveness in Christ through sermons, through the liturgy, through baptism, through the Lord’s Supper, through your teachers in Sunday School. The Word of God is the means by which God gives us Jesus. That’s why the Word is so important to us. It gives us forgiveness and faith to stand before Jesus on Judgment Day - believing He made us holy.
Understanding that, God wants you to look at every day as a second, third, fourth, four hundred and ninetieth chance. We start every day fresh and clean under the blood of Christ. Start to think about today. The Apostle Paul says, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16) Listen to God’s promise in connection to God’s Word. He says it will not return to Him empty, but accomplish what He desires. You see, God never says in His Word that He wants Beautiful Savior to be a huge church. He never says in His Word that preaching the Word will be an easy thing. Think of Jeremiah - who was put in stocks. Think of Elijah who was put on Jezebel’s number one hit list. After Jesus preached about eating and drinking His body and blood John 6:66 says, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” The Word of God doesn’t always feel very practical. After reading it, it may not seem to have done you much good. But God says it accomplishes exactly what HE wants. So don’t get wrapped up in whether what you say will “offend” someone. Don’t worry about whether the truth will as you perceive make someone never come back to church again. It isn’t your job to keep friends at the expense of God’s Word. Paul said in1 Corinthians 4:2, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” Proving faithful and being a good steward of God’s Word means to read it, learn it, and speak it. Be faithful with it. Imagine yourself to have been a Jonah - spit on the shores of Topeka - glad to be alive - glad to be forgiven - ready to use the Word of God as He meant it to be used.
At Christmas time and birthdays parents sometimes spend a lot of money on different toys and items in the hopes that their children will get some use out of them. Five months later you can tell what was a waste of money and what was put to use. When the toy is just laying around, come garage sale time, it will often get put in the pile. What happens then? The child comes by and says, “I wanted that!” To which the parent responds, “you never play with it!”
The Word of God is not just a toy. It is a powerful and life giving gift from God in which He gives us life and salvation in Christ. It is more important than a brand new car, a new video game, a new computer, or a new house. Don’t leave it sit. Don’t waste it. Be good stewards and use it. This is the most precious gift we have. Martin Luther once said,
Among all gifts the gift of the Word of God is the most valuable. For if you take this away, it is like taking the sun away from the earth. For if the Word were removed, what would the world be but a hell and a mere realm of Satan, though people of wealth, lawyers, doctors, etc., dwelt in it? What can and do these people accomplish without the Word? For only the Word keeps a joyful conscience, a gracious God, and all of religion, since out of the Word, as from a spring, flows our entire religion. Indeed, the Word sustains the entire world. Without the Word and Christ the world would not continue to exist for one moment. (WLS 1465)
That’s why we sing,
God’s Word is our great heritage, and shall be ours forever,
to spread it’s light from age to age, shall be our chief endeavor
through life it guides our way in death it is our stay
Lord grant while worlds endure
we keep it’s teachings pure throughout all generations. Amen.
