Rick Warren, the author of “The Purpose Driven Life” tells the story of the time when he went off for a speaking engagement in Washington DC, and he was put up in one of the pretty nice downtown hotels.  And he learned about someone they had there called a “concierge.”  It happened like this:  He said he had the page of a Bible that he needed to have framed – a rather unusual request, and he didn’t know how he was going to go about it.  But he went down to this concierge guy, and he said, “I need to get this thing framed.”  And in no time, the concierge came back and the page was framed.  Instantly the concierge seemed to know what to do with it.  Another time Warren went down and asked, “Where’s the best bar-b-que in town?”  (Warren says that’s one of his favorite questions.) and in a minute he was sent off to find a great meal.  He said he became a little embarrassed about it.  I think you know, from reading the book and from watching the videos, that Rick Warren is not a pretentious person.  He said he got very apologetic whenever he went to the concierge.  He’d say, “I don’t mean to bother you…I don’t mean to be an interruption, but…”  And every time the concierge would say, “Mr. Warren, you’re no bother.  You’re no bother.  This is what I do!”  And that’s the truth.  The concierges are paid to do whatever somebody asks them to do.  They are paid to be servants.

     This is the fourth purpose in our 40 Days of Purpose Campaign.  We were shaped to serve God.  We were put here to be of service of others.  You want to know what your purpose in life is?  It has something to do with serving other people.  It includes being interrupted with other people’s needs.  Almost every miracle, almost every act of ministry that Jesus did, he did when he was interrupted by somebody who needed to be served.  We were shaped to serve God.  That’s our purpose in life.

     This morning, on this Stewardship Sunday, I want to talk about how we serve God through the ways in which we spend our money.  Money is something that is pretty important in our lives.  If you don’t believe that, just look at all the people lined up to buy powerball tickets this week!  You’re not really serving God unless you’re thinking about how you’re serving through the ways in which you spent your money.  It’s one of the ways in which we serve, and we were shaped to serve God.

     There are some barriers to serving God with our money.  The biggest one is called materialism.  Materialism -- this great desire that we have to get more and more things, and to think that we will be more secure when we have them -- materialism is a barrier that keeps us from being available to serve. Look up Luke 16:13  You cannot serve God and wealth.  Some translations say “You cannot serve God and money.”  Notice the word “cannot.”  It doesn’t say “You should not serve God and wealth.”  It doesn’t say “It would be a good idea if you tried not to serve God and wealth.”  It says, “You cannot serve God and wealth.”  Rick Warren puts it this way – these are strong words:  “You’ve got to decide whether you want to be rich or you want to be blessed.”  I know people who come into a lot of money say, “I’ve been blessed” and people who don’t have as much as they would like say, “I wish I would get blessed,” but Warren turns that whole idea upside down.  He says, “You’ve got to decide whether you want to be rich or you want to be blessed.”  This is what Jesus taught.  “You cannot serve God and wealth.”  You have to ask yourself, What’s the number one priority in my life? You cannot serve both God and money.  It’s an impossibility.  The most important decision you’re going to have to make in your life, when you really begin  to understand God’s purpose for you, is “Am I going to be accumulating service for others or am I going to be accumulating things for myself?”  We were put here for a purpose.  We were shaped to serve God.

     There’s another aspect of serving, of ministry, that I want to mention, and that is gratitude.  We serve best when we are grateful. We share most readily when we are thankful for what we have already received (as opposed to being worried about what we don’t have yet.)  The best servants are people who are grateful.  Psalm 100:2  Serve the Lord with gladness.  This isn’t supposed to be drudgery.  It’s supposed to be something we like to do because we are thankful for what God has done for us.  God sent a Savior to give us life – if you never got anything else, that would be more than enough!   We have been given the gift of life, and so out of gratitude we find ways to serve others.  Sharing with others is something that we should feel good about.  Would you rather be in a situation where you have nothing to share?  Sharing is a blessing, because it is taking what we have and using it for the purpose for which it was given us.  We were shaped to serve God; that’s our purpose in life.

     I’ve learned some things about Rick Warren.  I have to admit, when I started to learn about him I was a little skeptical.  You know these big name, celebrity preachers.  Sometimes I’m a little skeptical.  Some of them seem a lot more interested in what they can get for themselves than they are in serving God.  When I first got acquainted with Rick Warren, I was a little skeptical.  He’s got this big mega-church out there in California, with a parking lot half the size of Philadelphia.  I was a little skeptical.  This is what I learned.  After he published his book, and after he sold 22 million copies of it, he made a lot of money.  And he said to himself, “It was completely unexpected.”  He had never imagined in his wildest dreams that that was going to happen.  So he had to figure out what to do with the money.    What was going to do with it?  Warren says he made three decisions.  First, he decided not to change his life style.  He was already grateful for what he had; he didn’t want to have anymore.  So now, a few years later, he’s still living in the same house, he’s driving the same car, and he’s wearing the same clothes.  (And you all know from watching the videos, that all he owns is a bunch of  Hawaiian shirts.)  He decided not to change his life style.  Second, he had been pastoring that church for over 20 years and he went back and figured out everything he had been paid by his church over that time, and he wrote out a check and gave it back.  Now he no longer receives a salary.  He says he already has enough, he doesn’t need anymore.  And thirdly, he became a reverse tither – by that I mean that he keeps 10% to live on and he gives away 90%.  Now we don’t need to feel sorry for Rick Warren, because when all of this is done, he still probably has plenty of money, but you’ve got to kind of admire somebody who puts to practice what he preaches.  We were put here to serve God; that’s our purpose in life.

     At the end of our 40 Days of Purpose Campaign, there is going to be a big rally down at Temple University.  Thousands will gather, on the first Saturday night in November.  It’s called the “Stand for Africa” campaign, and, among other things there will be an offering taken which will be shared with various projects in Africa, especially those working on the issues related to the spread of AIDS.  Rick Warren is going to be the featured speaker at this Stand for Africa  event.  But here’s what I want you to know.  When he was invited to be the guest speaker for this event, and when he was told about the cause it was supporting, the first thing he did was to put up his offering of $50,000.  And when there was a press conference here in Philadelphia where this was announced, Mayor Street, who was standing there right beside him, said, “It’s really important to be supporting this work in Africa, but how about people in Philadelphia?  We have thousands of people here in prison.”  And so Rick Warren bought a copy of his book to give to every prisoner here in Philadelphia.  Maybe it will change some lives.  This is a man who understands his purpose in life.  It’s the same purpose we all have.  We were shaped to serve God.

     I learned about tithing when I was in high school.   I learned it at my church.  I wish I remembered the circumstances of how I learned that -- I don’t -- but I do remember that I learned to put aside 10% of what I had and to share it.  I didn’t have much, so I didn’t have much to share, but I gave away 10% of what I received.  If I had a little job, if I received some money for my birthday, I set aside 10%.  When Sandie and I were married, we became tithers.  We didn’t have much, but when we got a paycheck, we set aside 10% to share.  We figured that if we could live on 100%, we could live on 90, so we did.  There came a time when, after our children started to school, that Sandie went back to work, and that was the first time when we were going to have two incomes.  That was when we decided to become double tithers – to give away 20% of what we had.  We’ve had some hard times, financially, but we’ve never backed away from that, in fact, over the years, the percentage has grown even more.  We’re doing this for a reason.  It’s a spiritual reason.  We don’t want to serve God and money; we just want to serve God.  That’s why we were put here.  We’re here for a purpose.  We were shaped to serve God.

     We’re moving along with our 40 Days of Purpose campaign.  There’s only two weeks left.  Is the purpose for your life getting a little clearer?  Purpose number One:  Worship – we were planned  for God’s pleasure.  Purpose number Two:  Fellowship.  -- we were formed for God’s family.  Purpose number Three:  Discipleship – we were created to become like Christ.  And today, purpose number Four: Ministry – we were shaped to serve God.  We were put here for a reason.  God has some great things for us to do.  This is Good News.  Thanks be to God.

©2005 Reformation Lutheran Church.http://www.welcomeplace.org/
last updated 10/23/2005