November 9, 2025 – Stewardship Sunday Text: Mark 10:23-31
Dear Friends in Christ,
Recently the Lord gave me the opportunity to talk about wealth with my family in my self-effacing way. Since I turned 60, I had a physical. I hadn’t been to the doc in years, but it was time to see how the body was holding up. The medical profession doesn’t quite know how to handle a healthy person who takes no medication. All I got was surprised looks and a God Blessed report. That night I texted the boys and told them the inheritance would have to wait. They haven’t talked to me since! Actually, they probably thought, “it is just dad being dad.” The next week I got a 403B statement and announced to Toni, “we are even richer.” Since she works in wealth management, she just wasn’t impressed.
How do you handle what God has given to you? Do you talk about it? Do you keep it to yourself? Being the wealthiest people in the world, do we ever take it for granted? In our text for this morning in Matthew 10, the word wealth constitutes any possessions, assets, goods, and property that we might have. Nice to have, thanks be to God, but even more importantly is . . .
“WEALTH IN ETERNITY”
Toni and I just went through one of those exercises where you get to see where your money might be in retirement. Wow. What the Lord has provided. Wow. I remember when it was a big thing when my dad raised my pay to $5/hour working at the cabinet shop. I am truly amazed to where God has brought us.
Is that how you see it? How do you define wealth? How does God define wealth? In our Old Testament lesson from Job, he had to move on in life after he lost his wealth. In chapter 31 he is making his final appeal to God. He is acknowledging that putting his trust in his gold would be a falsehood to God. When he says, “and my mouth has kissed my hand,” this is a figure of speech describing narcissistic self-absorption. This is a danger to us. Getting caught up in ourselves and not seeing the big picture of God’s grace. In our world of today, people want their names on buildings, hospitals, rescue missions and even football fields at Illinois and Illinois State. I am not questioning the motivation, but must everything have a corporate or personal name? This is part of the warning in our Gospel.
In our Epistle from Revelation 5, John says it simply, “Christ deserves the wealth of all honor.” Wealth in eternity. The riches of His grace forever.
Let’s get back to our wealth on earth and then we will head to eternity again. Are you ever worried that wealth will pull you away from your faith? Is Jesus right that the wealthy have a harder time entering into the Master’s joy? Loaded question, right? Jesus is always correct. It is the insatiable hunger for wealth that start the challenge. The thirst for more. The never being satisfied with what God has given. Fear and worry creep in when we fail to look to Jesus. Believe me, I know. Not in my personal life, I have no concerns. I have let the church’s debt weigh me down at times. Lack of trust. Can you answer honestly about these same things? If you can, then you have identified the problem. The problem is when we turn to payments, and deadlines, and interest rates and money owed. This fixes our eyes on what man can do and God says that is “impossible.” “All things are possible with God.” Easy to say, hard to live, but why has God made all things possible?
He has answered our cries in Christ the Crucified. Jesus died his death with eyes on you and me – solely attentive to our needs while having total disregard for his. We are desperately in need of forgiveness for our lack of trust and worry and His death on the cross accomplishes that.
Coercion is not the answer, but conviction of the heart – a heart convinced by God’s Word that you belong to Christ and your wealth is nothing compared to the riches that He has in store for you – it is this Gospel Good News that allows us to give of our wealth freely and to keep things in perspective. Only in God and in knowing His Son as Lord and Savior do life and wealth have meaning and true pleasure.
Enjoy your wealth. Remember daily all that God gives to you. Enjoy sharing the wealth for Jesus’ sake and the sake of the Gospel. The joy of His salvation will replace the false joy of earthly wealth. I told you we would return and now you know the ending – Wealth In Eternity.
Amen.