God Owns It All, Part 1
Tom Shrader opens 1 Corinthians 16 by explaining Paul's special collection for the impoverished Jerusalem church, tracing the historical and relational reasons Paul wanted Gentile congregations to give generously to their Jewish brothers. He then establishes the foundational principle that God owns everything in the universe — every asset, creature, and person — and that believers are stewards, not owners, of what they hold. This shift in perspective, he argues, transforms how Christians handle money, time, energy, and even their children, because every area of life becomes an act of accountability to God.
“You are not the owner, you are a steward. It's not yours. And that changes everything — that changes the way that you view all of life around you.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2002 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: stewardship, giving, money, generosity, ownership, accountability, finances, contentment, struggling with finances, new believer, parent, young adult, feeling financially stressed, husband, navigating debt, business owner
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Acts 2:5, Acts 2:43-44, Acts 4:34, Acts 6, Acts 8, Galatians 6:10, John 20:19, Deuteronomy 10:14, 1 Chronicles 29:11, Job 41, Psalm 24:1, Psalm 50, 2 Corinthians 5, Romans 8, Mark 12:41
Theological Themes: stewardship, divine ownership, sanctification, biblical generosity, theology of money, Christian giving, lordship of christ, covenant community
Full Transcript
Introduction and Context
Turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 16. When Paul originally wrote this letter, there were no chapter breaks. He just began the letter and finished it. There were no chapters 1 through 16, no verses. Those were added by men years later. So the break here, at least on the surface, appears to be a transition.
Paul has been talking about some very lofty and great themes about the gospel and about the resurrection. Verse 58 of chapter 15 says, "Therefore my beloved brethren, be always steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." Paul is talking to them about their response to the gospel and the fact that they will be raised from the dead. He says, "I want you to understand this is not a useless endeavor. This is a valuable process you're involved in. Hang in there in the work of the Lord."
So what is the work of the Lord? Well, part of it gets defined in chapter 16. Paul has been talking about worship, about praise, about these great themes — and then all of a sudden there appears to be a quick change.
The Collection for the Saints
Look at verse 1 of chapter 16: "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of the week let each of you put aside and save as he may prosper, that no collections will be made when I come. And when I arrive, whomever you may approve, I shall send to them with letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem. And if it is fitting for me to go also, then they will go with me."
Paul goes from talking about the resurrection to talking about giving. He speaks to them about something they seem to already have a sense about. Remember what we saw back in chapter 7, verse 1 — Paul is writing in response to a letter they had sent him. He is answering questions they asked about a variety of things, and this may have been one of them. Paul is addressing this whole idea of the collection, this matter of giving.
This was very specific giving he was talking about. It was a collection for the saints — specifically, a collection for the saints in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem was a very poor church. That is where the Christian faith began.
The Jerusalem Church and Its Poverty
We saw in the book of Acts that all of a sudden all of these pilgrims are in Jerusalem and God moves in a mighty way. Acts chapter 2, verse 5 tells us that there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation. They came together, God moved mightily, and He saved some of them. These new believers had literally nothing with them but the clothes on their backs. They had spent all their resources to get there, so they had great needs.
There appears to have been not just a move of God but a synergy, a desire to stay there together. So they reached out and began to celebrate together. Verse 43 of chapter 2 tells us, "Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those that believed were together and had all things in common, and they began selling their property and possessions and they were sharing them with anyone who might have need."
So much so that by chapter 4, verse 34, Luke says, "For there was not a needy person among them. For all who were owners of land and houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, lay them at the feet of the apostles, and they would distribute to each who had need." That is what was happening in that early church in Jerusalem. Luke tells us that in those early days there was no one who had a need. The church was extraordinary in meeting the needs of all the people.
How the Jerusalem Church Fell into Need
A couple of things happened, however. First, as these Christians began to live out their faith, their ties with the Jewish community were severed. Most of them — wealthy business people — lost all of their resources and their capacity to transact business there in Jerusalem, and they became very poor. While it is noble and indeed what God would have us do to meet one another's needs, there were a limited number of resources in that city, and they were exhausted.
Ray Stedman suggests there was another interesting factor: that out of disobedience they continued in that poverty. That is a strange comment.
Setting the Scene: Giving as a Spiritual Issue
They had heard it said, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and in the outermost parts of the earth." But there was so much going on in Jerusalem — signs and wonders and mighty things taking place — that they didn't want to go. They didn't just naturally disperse. So God brought persecution to that church. We learn in Acts chapter 8 that after Stephen was martyred, persecution arose in that church, and then they scattered.
This was a very poor church in Jerusalem. Paul says, concerning the collection — not just for the church in Corinth but for all of them in Galatia and all of them in Asia — here's what I want you to do: take that collection up, and we are going to take it to the Jews in Jerusalem.
There was another point that was important to Paul in this thinking. There had always been a separation between the Jew and the Gentile, always that struggle. Paul, the super Jew — the Jew who had extraordinarily met all the qualifications of a Pharisee — was a man who so loved that nation and yet fell in love with the Gentiles, and he wanted to see them merge together. He knew that if there were a financial connection, that connection of giver and recipient, somehow their hearts would be knit together. Solidarity is what Paul wants so much in the body — that we are one in unity and in love, and so we give.
The Command to Give
By the way, that is a prescription here in Galatians 6:10: "So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially those who are of the household of faith." What we are going to talk about today and next week is giving.
If you are new to the church and you are one of those people who have said, "I don't like church — all they talk about is money," well, you have come to the right place, because we rarely talk about it. You just happen to be here today, and God must love you very much, or you must really need to hear this because you have a problem with it. It is interesting to me because I get it from all over. People regularly say to me, "You don't talk enough about money from the front." I try to talk about it as it relates to the text.
You all know this — we are going through a building time, and we did not spend fourteen months doing stewardship, talking to you about separating you from your money. If you don't understand that you are supposed to give, we are not going to manipulate you; we will try to inform you. But we can go the other direction and get so low-key that we fail to talk to you about this at all.
What you need to understand is this. You are happy to say, "Yes, talk to us about prayer. Talk to us about Bible study. Talk to us about loving our wives, submitting to our husbands" — though you don't always clap about that last one — "talk to us about not provoking children to anger, about obeying parents." But the moment we say, "Let's talk about giving," suddenly no one wants to talk about that. Giving is just as spiritual as any of those other issues. That is Paul's point here, and it is really important.
Giving Touches Every Area of Life
While giving pertains to cash and material things, it touches every area of your life. It deals with your time, your energy, your effort, and your money. So Paul gives us some parameters here, and we want to expand on them a little bit. Today we want to talk about the principle of ownership, and next week we are going to talk about where to give and how much to give. We are also going to talk about the number one obstacle to your giving, and we will cover as much of that as we can.
I want to make sure we understand this passage. Paul says he wants you to give to the needy, to the saints. Then in verse two: "On the first day of every week, let each one of you set aside and save as he may prosper, that no collection be made" — meaning no collection in that area for the church in Jerusalem when he arrives.
Meeting on the First Day of the Week
There are a couple of subtle things here we don't want to miss. Number one, the church had begun meeting on the first day of the week, on Sunday. They had moved away from the Sabbath. My speculation is that this shift began very quickly. In John chapter 20 we see that Jesus' first post-resurrection visitation to the apostles was recorded this way — John 20:19: "When therefore it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, 'Peace be with you.' The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord." We are told a little later that Thomas was not there, and then Thomas is back, and Jesus comes again — once more on the first day of the week, Sunday. So the church is meeting on that day.
Every Person Is to Be a Giver
Now Paul tells us who is supposed to give: "Let each one of you set aside." In that culture, in that day and age, people were paid every day. You did a day's work and you were paid at the end of the day. That doesn't work for most of us — most of us get paid every other week, or once a month, or when a deal closes, and that is not so often. But the principle is here. He says take this money and set it aside. He says each one of you — literally each one of you, by himself — is to lay up, or store up, to put aside in a safe place. It is where you put something valuable.
What I want you to see is that he is saying every person is to be a giver. At the Saturday night service, which as you would expect has a lot of junior high and high school students, I tried to make a very important point to them. The point was this: I don't care if you are working part-time at Starbucks or at the movie theater —
God Owns Everything
I want to make this one point to you today under the heading of financial stewardship, and it is an understanding of ownership. Let me tell you something that has changed my view of the world around me. When I understood that He saved me and I did nothing, it changed my whole view of my relationship with Him. In the same way, an understanding of ownership changes how we see everything else.
Stewardship Applies to Everyone
If you are here today and we start talking about giving, do not make the natural flinch to think somehow this applies only to those people with a whole bunch of money. It applies to every person in the body of Christ to be a giver — time, energy, effort, and money. If you are here today, you are to give. It does not matter whether you are working at McDonald's or anywhere else; if there is income coming in, you ought to be giving. The stewardship issue expands beyond just money into all the different areas of your life.
How much should you give, and where? Those are questions we will talk about next week. But as a general rule of thumb, however you figure out how much you think you should give — whether you are a couple working through it together or you are on your own calculating a number — I would pretty much guarantee that you ought to give more than whatever you land on, because you are going to go low. If God gave you a lot, you should give a lot. You should give as you prosper.
The Widow's Offering
There is a great story in Mark chapter 12, verse 41 that I love. It says, "Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and began observing how the multitudes were putting money into the treasury, and many rich people were putting in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, about a cent. And He called His disciples together and said to them, 'Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury, for they all put in out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty put in all she owned, all she had to live on.'"
I love that story for a number of reasons. I think it is a great illustration of how you teach — everything is an illustration, everything is a picture. If you are a parent, this is how you ought to raise your kids: 24-7, the whole world around you is an opportunity to teach. Jesus and His disciples were simply there, watching people give. Jesus sees this widow and says, "Come here, guys — did you see that?"
I am sure what the disciples were saying was something like, "Man, look at that guy over there. Look at how much he gave. They will probably put his name on the temple for that one." That would be the natural tendency, and even in our own minds we go, "Well, this is all I've got." But Jesus is saying, "Listen, the way I measure a gift — that woman gave more than everyone else." All of a sudden our eyes open, and we ask, "How did that happen?" It happened because she gave out of something she needed.
An Honest Confession About Giving
Let me confess something. I have never given this way. We give, and we give fairly generously — though it is an awkward thing to talk about publicly. But I have never given like that. We have never given so that we would go without. We have given so that we would not get something new. Over the years we have always had a car account, and that account keeps going back to zero because we do give from it, but we always have transportation. That widow gave out of what she had to live on.
Accountability in Giving
Paul, in the passage we are studying, is focused on a collection he wants to get to Jerusalem. He says in verse three, "When I arrive, whomever you approve" — Paul is not saying, "Send this money and trust me." Paul is saying, "You get this money together, and you choose the men you approve." These would be men you know personally.
We get some sense of who we are supposed to choose for an endeavor like this from Acts chapter six, where there were needs in the body of Christ — food that needed to be distributed — and it was recorded that they were to "select from among them seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom" and put them in charge of the task. In other words, you do not simply find someone with a business background or someone who has been successful in industry. You find someone who is of good reputation in the body of Christ. Paul says, "You pick them."
Then in verse four he adds, "And if it is fitting for me to go also, I will go with them." Paul is saying clearly that he is not raising this money for himself — he wants to remain at arm's length from it. John MacArthur offers this insight: Paul's point here is that he would accompany the gift to Jerusalem only if it turned out to be an offering that indicated true generosity, and one he would not be embarrassed to be associated with. What we do know is that he was encouraging the Christians in Corinth to give freely from their hearts in an outpouring of love and concern. He was talking to this church about generosity — to some who had a great deal and some who had a little — calling them to give not only for needs within their own body, but in this case for the needy in Jerusalem as well.
The Principle of Ownership
I said in the introduction that when I understood God's plan for salvation, it truly transformed my life. God used that understanding to spiritually take me and focus me entirely on Him. But let me tell you what has changed my view of the world around me in a similarly profound way — and obviously God's plan for salvation is part of that — and that is an understanding of ownership.
God Owns It All
I want to make this simple point: God owns it all. I want to start with a macro view, a big-picture view, and then narrow it down, because I want you to see what difference it makes.
God claims ownership over the entire universe. Deuteronomy 10:14 says, "Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, and the earth and all that is in it." First Chronicles 29:11 declares, "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and in earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom. You are exalted as head over all." And God speaks in Job 41: "Who has given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine." God is saying, I don't owe anybody anything — I own it all.
If you run a title search on this property, you will see that the current owner is East Valley Bible Church, and you can trace the ownerships back — where we got it, and before them, and before them — all the way back to when it was a territory. But if you could get a truly accurate title report and trace it all the way back, there should be a point where you pull up something that says: God Almighty. It was His. That is His point.
He claims ownership over the whole earth. "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it" — Psalm 24. Everything. He created it, He spoke it into existence, it is His. And as the universe continues to expand — as the Hubble telescope, now upgraded to see clearer and further than ever before, looks deeper and deeper into space — the only thing expanding along with it is our understanding of God's ownership.
Every Living Thing, Every Tangible Asset
God's ownership extends to every living thing. Psalm 50 says, "For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills are mine." In that agrarian society, numbers of livestock determined wealth and status. God is not saying He owns a thousand cattle — He is saying He owns a thousand hills worth of cattle. "I know every bird of the mountains and everything that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not have to tell you, for the whole world is mine." He has no needs He cannot meet.
Not only does He own the entire universe, the earth, and every living thing — He owns every tangible asset. "The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord." Everything in the heavens, everything on the earth, everything in the earth, all people, all creation — He owns it all.
From Owners to Stewards
Now this changes everything. All of a sudden, you and I are not the owners of everything — we are the stewards of everything. It changes the way we handle our assets.
Consider the difference: if I hand you ten dollars and say, "That's yours, do whatever you want with it," I am transferring ownership to you. But if I hand you ten dollars and say, "I want to loan this to you to invest for me, and I am expecting a return," that changes your entire relationship with the asset. Do you see that?
So here is the first of four things that follow from God being the owner of everything: we are trustees, we are stewards. When I reach into my back pocket and pull out a bill, my tendency is to say, "This is my money." And God says, "No, it is not — it is mine, given to you to invest for me. You do not own it. You are a manager of it." And by the way, that is true of all your assets.
Stewardship Extends to Your Children
Here is another practical way this will change your thinking: it is true of your children. Some of you are raising your kids as though they belong to you. They are not your kids. They are God's kids, entrusted to you for a very brief period of time, and He is saying, "Don't screw it up. Steward them."
I was home this week and came across a television program — it may have been Jenny Jones, something along those lines — and I became a little too fascinated with it. I would not recommend that you watch it. Let me just do it for you. It featured mothers pushing their children into stardom or athletics. There was one little girl who was up early every morning exercising, getting voice lessons, acting lessons, going seven days a week — beauty contests, everything.
Finally she was going to get her big break. They said, "Sing. Go ahead. It's time to sing." And she was awful. I have a better chance of replacing Ricky Martin than this girl did. But her parents were absolutely determined to create their child in their own image. God says, no. These are my kids, given to you to steward. I have already given them gifts, talents, and personalities. My desire is that you shape them to be independent of you and totally dependent on Me. That is the golden standard of child-rearing.
The Dimension of Our Responsibility
So we are trustees. And the second point that follows is this: God's ownership dictates the dimension of our responsibility. Some of you have a lot — literally millions of dollars. Some of you have hundreds of thousands. Some of you do not have much. Very few of you have nothing. You all have enough.
God Owns It All
How come they got so much and I don't have so much? Here is why: because God did it that way. There is really very little correlation, once you are working, between your work and productivity. Now this is not a call to be apathetic. I worked with guys who were a lot smarter than I was and worked a lot harder than I did, and a lot of their deals didn't close while some of mine did.
You have had it in your own life. You work and work and work. You do all the right things, everything is right, and at the end of the quarter it is zero. Then a week later you are sitting in your office — you should be out doing something, but you are tired and frustrated — the phone rings, and you get the biggest order you have ever gotten. How does that happen? God does that.
Please do not run with this and say what you heard me say was that you are supposed to go to the office, get a donut, get some coffee, and wait for the phone to ring. I did not say that. I said you work very, very hard, but there are many people who work just as hard and just as smart as you. God blesses them for His reason.
God Expects Much from Every Steward
Some of you God has given a great deal — He expects a great deal from you. Some of you He has given very little financially — He still expects a great deal from you. He expects a great deal from everyone, because there is a day coming when I will be accountable to Him and I will be judged.
2 Corinthians chapter 5 talks about judgment as it relates to the Christian. As Gary had up there, Romans 8 tells us there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. He is not going to judge us for our sin. He is going to judge us for what we did with what He gave us — time, energy, effort, money.
There is a principle throughout life: if you are faithful in little things, He will give you more. That is just the way it is. Jesus tells the parable of a man who went on a journey and had three servants. He gave one five talents — that was a unit of currency — another two talents, and another one. The one who had five worked and invested and returned with five more, and Jesus said, "Well done, my good and faithful servant; because you've been faithful in a few things I'll put you in charge of many." The same happened with the man who had two talents. But the man who had one took it, was afraid, hid it, and protected it, and Jesus said, "You wicked and lazy servant," and took it from him.
Faithful in Little, Trusted with Much
Here is the principle: if you are faithful in little things, God will give you big things. I do not think that means if you are faithful with small amounts of money He will give you large amounts of money — a lot of people would like you to think it works that way. I think He is saying that if you are faithful with little things like cash, He will trust you with big things like the Word of God.
We had a guy — this was before we were at this church — who came to me one day and said he wanted to do what I do. I asked him what he meant, and he said he had watched me teach and was sure he could do it. I told him I was sure he could too, and asked what he could do to help. I told him we were meeting that Saturday at seven and needed someone to make coffee — could he be there at 6:15? He said he wanted to teach. I said we needed someone to make coffee. He agreed.
I got there just before seven, and absent from the room was the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. He came in shortly after me and said he just didn't make it — the alarm didn't go off or something. When it was all done, he came up again and said he wanted to do what I do. I responded to him — more out of the flesh than the Spirit, though accurately — and I said, "I want you to understand something: if God can't trust you with coffee, how can He trust you with a soul?" I think there is a great principle there.
The Day of Reckoning
There is a day of reckoning coming, a day of judgment. The call to all of us — whether we have a lot or a little — is that He expects great things from us as we invest whatever He has given us. The return on that investment may be more things, it may be fewer things, or it may be that He moves us into a place where we begin to touch people's lives. All of a sudden you have a small group of fifteen or sixteen people looking to you for wisdom, and your whole life becomes a stewardship issue.
You are not the owner — you are a steward. It is not yours. That changes everything. It changes the way you view all of life around you. We cling so tightly to this stuff and fail to understand that He gave it to us to invest in His kingdom, His way. You are to be a prudent steward.
Looking Ahead: Giving and Obstacles to Stewardship
Are you a giver? You should be. How much? Where? Those are the things we are going to talk about next week. We are going to talk about giving — where you give, how much you give, and how you give.
Then I want to talk, if we can fit it all in time-wise, about what I think creeps in and becomes one of the number one obstacles to understanding this whole idea of stewardship. I want to challenge you this week to take a look at this, to pray about it, and if you are a couple, to talk to each other about it.
Here is my general sense. When it comes to budgeted items, women tend to blow the budget over smaller things like a dress, while men tend to blow it over something like a boat — guys tend to screw it up big. Those are generalities. My general sense in the area of giving — and I could be wrong, so if I am, just chalk it off — is that as couples figure out giving, men generally tend to be more generous than —
A Question of Generosity
Why is it generally the men who hold back? Why don't we give like that widow who brought two pennies and gave it all? What is our relationship to our money? And beyond that, what is our relationship to our time?
When we don't have much, we start comparing ourselves to others. We begin to judge the people around us. On the way to the car, we notice what others are driving, and the comparisons begin.
Stewardship of Time
Here is something that levels the field for everyone: we all have 168 hours this week. The question is how we are going to invest them. We will talk more about all of that next week.
Closing Prayer
Father, help us to see this. God, thank You that we can be here again. We look around at things like a flickering PowerPoint and not enough seats, and they become such distractions — and that just shows me how weak I am and how much I need You.
God, thank You for all that You have given us. We pray now that You make us generous givers of our time as we begin to look at ministry opportunities and meet them. Of our energy — God, make us good stewards of this life. Of our effort — let us work diligently. And of our money, God, we pray to You this morning in Jesus' name, amen.