Pastor Robert Schipul

Matthew 22:34-46

Whole Life Stewardship

11-6-11

Consecration Sunday – Fall 2011

Take my life and let it be, Consecrated Lord to thee

Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in ceaseless praise

Take my hands, Take my feet

Take my voice, Take my lips

Take my silver & gold, Take my intellect

Take my will, Take my heart

Take my love, Take myself LSB#783

What are you passionate about? What is it that gets you going? What makes you bounce out of bed in the morning? What make the day worthwhile? What is it that nobody has to ask you to do but you do it without prompting? I learned growing up that if I wanted to get something done or attain to something or to get something…I needed to find something passionate about it.

After riding hand-me-down bicycles for three years, my dad said that if I mowed the lawn each week….on time… Then I might get the 3 speed English bicycle in the Trumbull Hardware Store. Boy, I didn’t need much more encouragement than that.

When married and finishing up undergraduate work at Western Ct. State I needed to start looking for a job because the farm could not support my Dad and my family. I inquired into Lutheran Brotherhood and became a financial rep. for them. The General Agent interviewed me and asked if there was any “passion” I had not pursued. My head dropped and I said…I had thought about ministry but now married and with a family…I need to be thinking about them and not another 4 years of grad school. He wrote to the seminary and told them I had a passion unfulfilled. 6 years later I was ordained into parish ministry. During seminary, students would question my motives in “selling” life insurance and studying for the ministry as being in-congruent. I told them I had a passion for both. Over the years I have had as many comments on the blessing of the work I did with Lutheran Brotherhood as with parish ministry.

One policy I always recommended to a family was a whole life plan. A basic plan which offered a variable amount of forced saving depending on their financial situation and the options of adding wife and children with term coverage to meet current needs. It still forms the building block base for the beginning of your financial plan when you are starting out in life as a family with little equity, no estate and many responsibilities.

Whole life insurance is always there!

Now what about looking at whole life…your whole life? What about whole life stewardship?

Somewhere along the pilgrimage…God touched your life. Somewhere along this walk there was a passionate response. Somewhere a light went on and everything from the past started to fall into place, into a plan, not one you created or fashioned or thought up but one which included the hand of God. He brought you thus far and…you knew He was going to be there for the rest of your life.

In the Gospel for today, we have the Great Shema! It is the ONE LAW God is passionate about…It is the ONE LAW Jesus is passionate about. It is about sacrificial love…AGAPE. It is your spiritual life assurance. It is the one thing you can count on that always pays off…and you are the beneficiary. God loves you so much that He is moved by that love to give His only-begotten Son to die for your sins on your behalf…in your place…to assure that you will be reconciled to God forever.

If this is good enough for God and Jesus…it should be more than good enough for us. God does not hold back. He shows a Passionate love for you and me. He instills that passionate love in His One-and-only Son and asks him to pay the price for your sins and mine.

Like Father…Like Son…He wants it to become our guide for life also…

That is God’s wish:

That we would take Jesus’ atonement and let it guide our lives.

That, as we go through life in this world with both temptations

to keep for ourselves,

to indulge ourselves,

to think we have earned it all

or control it all

into this world Jesus and His Father introduce us to sacrificial love.

So that we are joyfully willing to allow Jesus to lead us…not the world…but Jesus to lead us on our pilgrimage.

That is why we join a faith community like Christ Lutheran.

That is why we give of our time to make ministry happen here.

That is why we give here first, because what is done here is first in our hearts

because we have a PASSION for the ministry.

If you are on the fringe for any reason of this ministry,

the last 7 days have been dedicated to helping you see where you fit in,

where God can use you here first at First.

Look for your passion among all the ministries offered here and then allow that passion to open your heart in service, supplication and support.

It is not worth going through life passionless when your Heavenly Father and your Savior and the Holy Spirit are rooting for you 24 hours a day. Like the hymn says: Take my life and let it be….Consecrated Lord to Thee!

Whole Life Stewardship can begin when you are ready to allow the Lord to guide you into your mission and ministry at and through CLC where you are allowed to freely serve the Lord in this place, encumbered only by God’s love, and never the restrictions of this world.

God Bless Your Pilgrimage Here!