November 2024

“Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’” (Matthew 20:25-28 NIV).

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.  Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms”  (1 Peter 4:8-10 NIV).

Well, we have reached the month of November; Halloween has come and gone and Christmas is right around the corner.  November is the month that people all over our country give thanks for all of the good things that we have in our lives; where we Christians thank God for all of the blessings that He has bestowed on us.  As we start to put up our Christmas decorations and make plans to prepare and eat the biggest meal of the year, we also take time to remember and reflect upon the things for which we are thankful.  And, as I reflected on this month and the things for which I am thankful, my mind couldn’t help but wander back to our ongoing stewardship campaign.

Now, you might be asking yourself, “Pastor Keith, what does Thanksgiving have to do with stewardship?”  And, I’m glad you asked.  I think that there are two important ways that the Thanksgiving holiday and the idea of gratitude that it represents are connected to stewardship.  First, if we look at the passage above from Matthew, Jesus informs the disciples that whoever wants to be first, whoever wants to be great, must be a servant just as He came not to be served, but to serve.  During the Thanksgiving holiday, and really during the Christmas season at large, people tend to focus more on serving others; whether they volunteer at a homeless shelter or food bank to help serve Thanksgiving dinner to those in need or they spend all day in a hot kitchen to cook a big meal for their entire family, most people make an effort to serve others during the holidays.

And what Jesus is saying in the above passage is that serving others is not something that we should be reserving only for the holiday season, it’s something that we should be doing everyday all year long.  God calls us to be servants, so we shouldn’t be restricting ourselves to fulfilling that command only during the holidays and think that we are doing “enough;” we should constantly look for ways that we can be of service, that we can be a blessing to others.  And this idea of service ties directly into stewardship.  Being a good steward, as the Apostle Peter tells us, means that we are utilizing all that God has blessed us with for His glory and for the service of others; this includes our money, our talents, our wisdom, our experience, even our life.  Stewardship means, rather than being stingy or hoarding God’s gifts, we utilize all of them properly for the advancement of His kingdom.  And how do we advance God’s kingdom in this world?  We do it by being the hands and feet of Jesus and serving others just as He did when He walked this earth.  Therefore, we can see that we are being good stewards of God’s many blessings if we are utilizing His blessings in the service of others; that other people will experience the love of Christ through our service to them.

And this idea of using all of God’s blessings to serve others is one of the main reasons why we undertake a Stewardship Campaign every year.  Our church wants to make sure that we are being as effective as we can possibly be in our missions and our ministries, as effective as we can possibly be in serving others, and the only way that we can do that is if we have an accurate picture of the resources we will have to work with for a given year.  It is only through your pledges that we are able to plan a budget and, thus, plan our programs and ministries in order to faithfully fulfill Christ’s command to serve others; it allows us to focus on being the hands and feet of Christ in our community without having to constantly worry how we are going to get the money for it and where it’s going to come from.

But, there’s another way that Thanksgiving is connected to the idea of stewardship.  Thanksgiving is a time for us to be thankful for all the good things that we have, for all of the ways that God has blessed us; and what better way to show God that we are thankful for His blessings than by following His command to utilize those blessings to serve others and be good stewards of His grace?  I submit to you that there is no better way to show our gratitude than that.  So, in whatever way that God has blessed you, show Him how thankful you are by using those blessings to bless others.  But, it is important to remember that we shouldn’t give of our blessings out of compulsion or out of sense of obligation, but that we do it out of love, love for God and love for others; that we do it joyfully knowing that we are honoring God and showing our gratitude for Him and the way that He has blessed us.

My prayer for Franklin Presbyterian Church is that we will be known as a church who cares for others and is willing to help out and serve our community in any way that we can; that we will be a church who makes a positive impact in the lives of the people of Salisbury, Rowan county, and beyond.  We can only be examples of Christ, we can only be His hands and His feet, if we are following His example to be a servant of all; and, we show that we are good stewards of God’s blessings and resources when we utilize them to accomplish this goal.  It is through our Stewardship Campaign, then, that we can take an accurate accounting of the resources we will have available to utilize next year to joyfully fulfill our Christian responsibility of service.

May the blessings of the Father and the peace of the Son be with you.

Pastor Keith