Faithful in Little Things
Jesus went on to make these comments:
If you’re honest in small things,
you’ll be honest in big things;
If you’re a crook in small things,
you’ll be a crook in big things.
If you’re not honest in small jobs,
who will put you in charge of the store?
No worker can serve two bosses:
He’ll either hate the first and love the second
Or adore the first and despise the second.
You can’t serve both God and the Bank. – Luke 16:10-13, MSG
Using what we have for eternity’s sake can feel intimidatingly immense. Everything is well a whole lot. At the same time, investing ourselves for Jesus’ Kingdom is hard to move from theory to practice. I believe though, a solution can be found in Jesus’ comments at the end of His parable about the shrewd manager. Honesty in the small matters, diligence in the small task will mean honesty in larger matters and being given bigger tasks. And while, these principles are universal, I think they are also cumulative. Take time as one example. If you invest an hour today in the matters of the kingdom of Jesus and do so each day this week, you’ll have invested 7 hours by next Monday. End of the month? 30 hours? End of the year? 365 hours- which is no small sum of time! The same idea of course could apply to any one area of our ‘stuff’ which we can leverage for eternal gain. Once in my pastoral ministry, a representative of the national office of the C&MA gave me an accounting of the missions giving of the church I pastored at the time. But it wasn’t an annualized look (which is the number I report each year) it was a COMPREHENSIVE giving number. As in, for the lifetime of the church, here are the dollars given to worldwide missions effort. The number was staggering! How could we have given so much I thought to myself? The answer of course was that individuals, over long years of faithfulness gave generously what they could. And, over time, their “little” faithful giving turned into massive amounts. In closing then, I want to urge you not to let the idea of kingdom investing to remain theoretical or paralyzing by its sheer immensity. Rather, I want you to think of someway that today, you can invest in the kingdom of Jesus a little more than yesterday. How can you be faithful in something little today so that, over time, it becomes a massive investment for eternity’s sake? Do that thing and then do it again and again and again.
Questions for discussion/life application:
· What is one area of your life (time, talent, treasure) where you have grown in obedience to investing for eternity’s sake? How did that growth happen?
· Where do you struggle the most with ‘stuff’ mastering you? What is one practical step you can take to loosen its grip and give it over to God?
· What of your time, talent and treasure do you need to think more shrewdly about as an investor in Jesus’ kingdom? How will you leverage all that you have for the expansion of Jesus’ kingdom?
Blog Bonus:
Here is the clip I mentioned in the ‘postlude’ to the message yesterday. Might we not be those who realize too late- I could have rescued more.