November 8, 2026 – Stewardship Text: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Dear Friends in Christ,
What is the biggest decision a person will make in life? I have always been of the opinion that it is who we marry. Other than my mom’s cancer, I prayed about that more than anything in my life. And I have been blessed. God led me to the right decision.
There are other large decisions in life that dictate your path. What college to attend or what career path to take? Should we have children and how many? Should I stop this path of relying on others and make it on my own? I pray you have been as fortunate as I have been. The Lord always makes clear what the decision should be.
Our life is so interwoven with decision making that we don’t realize its importance. Some of us are good decision makers. Others not so much. I’ve been around people who can’t decide what to order on a menu. Today is Stewardship Sunday. We have taken our envelopes home, prayed about them, looked at our schedule to see what time we can give the church, looked at our income to figure at least our 10% tithe, and took an inventory of our talents God’s Church can use. Decisions. But they should have been easy ones. God’s grace abounds when it is . . .
“DECISION TIME”
We live in a world that has made a decision about God. He and His Holy Scripture are not that important as they once were. Men and women daily create God according to their thinking and feelings. Some play God with abortion and euthanasia. Some dismiss God as we see with court cases around the world. Some think they are God when they would rather hug a tree than love the Creator.
Dr. Michael Horton wrote this in his book In The Face of God: “Christians are faced in every age, with the very practical question whether they will believe in this particular God who reveals himself in history through a man named Jesus of Nazareth, or whether they will seek God in the idols of culture, imagination, or works righteousness…We’re no longer sinners, but seekers. We want to find a god who will not surprise us, especially a deity who comes, not ‘in the spirit of the day,’ as in paradise, to judge us for our rebellion, but one who is quite manageable, affable, and friendly – ‘one of the boys.’”
Our text says, “God is able to make all grace abound to you,” and “the surpassing grace of God upon you.” Though the world despises God while paying lip service to Him – and though you and I are guilty of committing the same sins against Him – God made a decision about us! It is the one He made when He directed His one and only Son to Calvary.
It isn’t the greatness of our love that bails us out of eternal hell. It isn’t the greatness of our love that will offset the same vile, vulgar and God displeasing things we think and say and do. No, my brothers and sisters, it is the greatness of God’s love for us that forgives and grants us eternal life. This grace transforms us. It makes decision time easy because it is not in your hands it is in the gracious hands of your Lord.
This downward and outward movement of grace comes full circle in an ascending symphony of thanksgiving. Seeing things in an earthly, me-first way is miserly and petty. Instead open your hands and receive from God and then extend that to your neighbor and your church. We marvel that in Jesus it is always more and never less and rejoice that God’s gifts multiply as we receive and share them.
How do I know this? God’s signs. In August I went to my CEF meeting. As a reminder Church Extension holds our mortgage currently at about $427,000. At this meeting we were setting our time for the October meeting. Because our loan was coming up for review on October 18, I made a motion to move our meeting back a week. This way we would get the maximum for our payment because at the August meeting they took our loan interest from 6% to 6.15% effective on October 18. It was a savings. At the time I had no idea that this God-led decision would lead to what happened at our October meeting. Hang onto your pew.
They decided at that meeting to up all loans to 6.5%. Before the vote, the Executive Director Joel Oschwald said, “Pastor Lueck won’t be happy with this vote.” I said, “It won’t affect us, our loan review was Oct. 18.” He looked at his watch and said, “your right.” The board took this vote on Thursday, October 22nd. I always abstain. I could never raise our interest rate. The vote passed. By four days, the decision God had led me to back in August, is going to save Good Shepherd in the next two years hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Can you read the sign? The Lord wants to help us get out from under our mortgage.
As a Pastor I make a lot of difficult decisions. The easiest decisions each week are these all connected with stewardship. My time – because it’s His time, my talent – because God gave it to me, our money – because it’s His not ours, just like our children. Lord, in this time of decision widen our hearts to You, to Your children, and to all.
Amen.