ALL FOR CHRIST AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Scripture: Matthew 6:25-34

INTRODUCTION

In some churches, Stewardship Sunday is the one day when people plan to stay away from attending worship services. They say “I don’t like it when the preacher talks about money. It all sounds so mercenary and distasteful, so secular and non-spiritual.”

Sometimes it’s not quite that deliberate, as was the case with an older Presbyterian couple who weren’t feeling all that well on the Sabbath morning, so they didn’t go to church. As the wife was preparing breakfast in the kitchen, her husband turned on the TV and found a televangelist preaching up a storm. A few moments later, the wife heard her husband chuckling in the other room, so she peeked in from the kitchen and said “I’m glad to see you’re perking up dear.” “Yes” the husband answered, “and with good reason. The preacher just announced the offering and here I am, safe at home!”

That’s the way it is in some churches and for certain families and individuals – they’d rather not be there on Stewardship Sunday. But just the opposite is true in this congregation. Over the past 14 years, I have observed that you really do want to know about the needs and the opportunities for mission and ministry here at the corner of 16^th and Peachtree, across our city and throughout this world.

In fact, we have created a “Stewardship Season” of five Sundays focused on Christian giving, the biblical concept of tithing and the promises of God’s blessings which come to those who are faithful stewards of all that has been given to us.

Moreover, you are the most generous congregation I know, consistently meeting and often exceeding our annual giving and capital campaign goals. So when anyone says to me “It must be such a burden to preach about stewardship and ask your members for their money,” I invariably will reply, “No, I actually look forward to it! You see, we’ve got a good thing going here at First Presbyterian Church in the heart of this city. And today, I want to tell you why I believe that is so.

Our text this morning is taken from the 6^th chapter of Matthew, midway through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. If you want to brush up on all of that sermon, go back to chapter 5, which begins with the Beatitudes and read on to chapter 7, which concludes with a parable about building your house on the rock instead of the sand.

Halfway between the introduction and the final sentence of that famous and familiar sermon, if we listen ever so carefully, I think we can almost hear Jesus speaking that day by the Sea of Galilee, saying to His disciples and the crowd that had gathered around them:

Do not be anxious about your life – about what you shall eat or drink or the clothes you wear. Look at the birds of the air – your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And consider the lilies – they neither toil nor spin, and yet even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like them.

So don’t be anxious about what you shall eat or drink or wear. Your Father in heaven knows what you need. Instead, seek first His kingdom, and everything else will begin to fall into place. (Paraphrase of Matthew 6:25-34)

As we listen to those words, spoken a long time ago and in a place far away, I believe that they still speak to us here and now and especially today as we launch our Annual Giving Campaign focused on the theme “All for Christ and the Kingdom of God.” For that is what Christian living and giving are all about – the call to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives, which leads to His call upon all of us to serve others who are in need.

I once heard an evangelist say that “Nothing can happen through us unless and until it is first happening to us.” Well, when and where did you begin to hear the call of Christ in your own life? Perhaps it was in Sunday School when you were a young child, or at a youth retreat or summer camp as you grew into adolescence. Maybe it happened during your young adult years or through a mid-life crisis later on. It might have been a dramatic moment of conversion, or a more drawn out process of finding and being found by the Lord. Whenever, wherever it was, you somehow knew that He was calling you toward Him. And suddenly or gradually over time, you became a Christian.

But that is not so for everyone. And if you have come here today, hoping, seeking, praying for some kind of leading toward a life of faith, then you are in the right place. Because God is here, waiting for you with an open heart; God is here, reaching out to you with open arms; God is here, speaking to you through the voice of His Son Jesus, saying Do not be anxious about your life. The Heavenly Father knows what you need. Seek first His kingdom and everything else will begin to fall into place.

That is what it means to give our “All for Christ.” Do you believe that today? D. T. Niles believed it. During my first year at Princeton Seminary, coming out of college and a re-conversion experience in my own life, I sat in the chapel and heard this great world mission leader from what was then called Ceylon and is now Sri Lanka, tell a story that had been told to him by a Catholic priest from Paris. Please listen:

“Three French students were walking together down a country road and talking with one another. None of them were Christians. They came to a small church and two of them dared the third to go in to tell the priest that he didn’t believe in God. Well, that young student took the dare and went in and told the priest. The priest said to him, “You’ve taken the dare of your friends. Surely you will accept the dare of an old priest. The young man had no alternative, so the priest said, “You go into the chancel, look at the crucifix and say three times ‘Jesus Christ died for me and I don’t give a damn.’ He sent him into the church, and that young student stood up and looked at the crucifix and said it the first time, ‘Jesus Christ died for me. I don’t give a damn.’ He went back and the priest sent him in again. He said it the second time, but now his voice began to stutter and the words didn’t come as easily. The third time he went back and he couldn’t say it. So he went to the priest and said, ‘Forgive me Father. I want to confess my sin.’”

D. T. Niles, who told that story, said that the priest acknowledged to him that the story was true because, he said, “I was that young student.”

We call it conversion, and the late Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest who committed his life to the lordship of Jesus Christ, described it this way in his classic book “Making All Things New”:

“Living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness (with God) … Our conflicts and pains, our tasks and promises, our families and friends, our hopes and aspirations no longer appear to us as a fatiguing variety of things which we can barely keep together, but rather as affirmations and revelations of the new life of the Spirit within us.” (From “Making All Things New,” by Henri J.M. Nouwen, Harper and Row Publishers, 1981, pages 57-58)

II.

And when that happens to us – the call of God and our response to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives, then amazing things can and will happen through us as we serve others in the Kingdom of God.

The Annual Giving brochure that has been mailed to all the members of this congregation highlights the opportunities available here for Christian worship, work and witness within our church, across the city of Atlanta, to other places in America and throughout this world. You will be hearing more about those opportunities during the next four weeks and especially at our Stewardship Brunch with Billy Payne next Sunday at 10:05 in Fifield Hall!

Suffice it to say for now – we want to increase and to strengthen our ministry and mission so that all of God’s children, close by or far away in Kenya, Haiti, Honduras and Brazil will have food to eat, clothes to wear, a place to sleep and people who care for and about them. Jesus said that we aren’t supposed to worry about those things, that the Heavenly Father will provide. And our calling as Christians is to assist in that effort so that no one within the reach of this church will be left behind. Jesus put it this way: To those whom much is given (and He was surely talking about us), of them will much be required (Luke 12:48).

CONCLUSION

So having begun with the text of “The Sermon on the Mount,” let me close with this final thought from my own “Sermon on the Amount.” For the coming year, we are seeking to raise $3.31 million in our Annual Giving Campaign, designating 44% for ministry, 28% for mission and 28% more for the maintenance of these facilities which enable us to worship the Lord, to grow in faith and to reach out to others in the Kingdom of God. Eddie Newsom and Cindy Candler, co-chairs of the campaign, together with all the members of their committee, are asking you to step up and increase your pledge over last year. The biblical tithe is 10% of all that we have received from God (before or after taxes - either way is acceptable!). Or you may consider giving 10% more than you gave last year, which is another form of tithing. Whatever the amount, please remember that we need your support in order to move forward, and that God will bless your generosity in more ways than you could ever imagine.

Many years ago, comedian Flip Wilson used to say on his television show: “You know, I’m a Jehovah’s bystander. They wanted me to be a witness, but I didn’t want to get involved.” Well, let there be no mistake about the invitation today. Jesus Christ is calling you and me to follow Him and to get involved, right here and right now. Because “All for Christ and the Kingdom of God” is not only the theme of this Annual Giving Campaign. It is the way of life for all who believe in the Lord and seek to honor His Holy Name.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The sermon distribution fund has been established by the Session of First Presbyterian Church to enable friends and groups to make contributions for the printing of the Sunday sermons. Sermon leaflets will be printed from time to time, as they are requested and as funds are available. Please designate your gift for Sermon Distribution Fund. Thank you for your support.