The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on November 28, 1982. The title is, His Steadfast Love Endures Forever. 

One of the things that you find the Jews doing throughout the Old Testament is rehearsing their own holy history, pausing to reflect on what God has done, the way He's led them up to this point, the mighty acts of deliverance and provision that He has extended to them. They recall it, they celebrate it, they give thanks for it. And every time they do so, it builds their faith that if God has led them thus far in safety, so we can expect that He'll be with us as we move on into the future as well.

If God could overthrow Pharaoh and his army. If he could open the Red Sea and bring his people through dry shod. If he could feed and protect them for 40 years in the wilderness.

If he could provide drinking water on the flinty rock in the middle of the desert. So also he can handle whatever it is that lies ahead. And so you see this throughout the Old Testament.

You see it very vividly in the Psalms. The Jews pausing to reflect on the way that God has led them and to give thanks for it. Perhaps nowhere more pronouncedly than in Psalm 136.

Every single statement that is made is followed by a chorus of acclamation rising from the people of God for His steadfast love endures forever. And so whoever is leading the worship would make a statement and the people respond, for His steadfast love endures forever. It says, for instance, to Him who smote the firstborn of Egypt, and the people say, for His steadfast love endures forever.

And brought Israel out from among them, for His steadfast love endures forever. With a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for His steadfast love endures forever. And so on it goes.

statement after statement. He doesn't even finish a sentence. He gives a half of a sentence.

Doesn't even complete the thought. And the people respond, for His steadfast love endures forever. And finally, the psalm ends, O give thanks to the God of heaven, for His steadfast love endures forever.

Well, I don't know how you make your decision about what portion of your goods and your income, you're going to return to God. I heard about three clergymen who were discussing that subject and they got very honest with each other. The first one was a Baptist and he said, well, what I do is I cash in my check each week and then I take the cash and I draw a line on the floor and I just sort of throw the cash at the line.

It says, whatever falls on one side is God's and whatever falls on the other side is mine. The Presbyterian said to him, well, that's very interesting. I've worked out a somewhat similar approach.

He said, I believe much more in a sense of predestination, though, so what I do is I draw a little circle and I throw my money at it and whatever falls inside the circle belongs to God and the rest I keep. The Episcopalian said, well, I've got a much better system than that. I cash in my check and I throw it up in the air.

whatever God catches he keeps well I thought about that but instead of that I looked back through my notes of the last seven years together and especially I looked at my notes concerning the last several stewardship Sundays and you know what began to happen was this same chorus of acclamation began to rise up inside of me that we're talking about a God whose steadfast love endures forever. And that year after year as we've come to this particular moment together we've looked at what the budget said we needed to do, and we've sort of found our knees shaking a little bit, and God has enabled us to do it. And it's He who has done that.

It's not that we've done this for God, it's that He has enabled us to do what He tells us to do. It's important that you understand that. God never tells us to do anything but that He enables us to do it if we're willing to.

And that's the issue. But I thought I'd just share with you a little bit of that history because I found it so encouraging. Some of you will remember this, but many of you have come recently to Truro and you may not be aware of some of the ways that God has led us to this particular moment.

In 1976, virtually the first decision after I arrived here, sat down with the vestry and we talked about how God would lead us and we committed ourselves to a principle of unanimity that we would never again make any decision except by unanimous agreement. And the reason for that is that we believe that God can speak to each and every one of us and if we share the responsibility for making a decision, then until everyone is heard, we haven't heard. And you see, what that means is that we come to a meeting and we put aside what I think about it or what you think about it.

You know, that's interesting, but that's not the issue. we're not going to any longer make a decision on the basis of here's where I am and there's where you are and here's the common ground so let's compromise and find it that's not the issue the issue is what does God want and if we're open to hearing Him if our prayer is Lord we want you to speak then He can speak and He's blessed that and He's blessed it and He's blessed it for now nearly seven years the second decision that we made the one that followed that was to commit ourselves to getting to 50% outreach that was virtually the first major decision under the principle of unanimity we came to the point of believing that what God was saying to this parish not necessarily to every parish but what he was saying to us was I want you to give away half of all your income. Give it away to extending the kingdom of God.

Give it to outreach. Give it to missions. Raise up people from your own congregation and send them out to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Empower others who are already called up out of other ministries and underwrite those ministries as well. Get involved in embracing the whole wide world in the arms of my love. and we looked at where we were in 1976 and at that point we were giving 13% to outreach most of that went to the diocese how are you going to get from 13% to 50% and we came up with what we called the seven year plan that the first year we would take one great big giant step and go all the way to 15% 2% increase and then in successive years we'd go up by 5% increments until we finally got there and it would take 7 years now I don't think we really thought that through awfully well because it sounds as if you're talking about a fairly constant increase but in fact it's like compound interest it's 5% of an ever larger base you see so even if everything else stayed the same just that larger base in the outreach itself would make it go up.

5% of 100,000 is one thing, 5% of a million is quite a different thing. You follow what I'm saying? Of course, that was in a time in which everything else was expanding, runaway inflation and so on.

And so there was a lot of doubt. A lot of doubt. But God enabled us to move forward on that particular plan.

And I wrote down, Billy Hutchison was on the vestry at that point. And when we made that decision, he prayed, and I wrote down his little prayer. He said, thank you, Lord, that we're not telling you what we want to do, but you're telling us what you want us to do.

So he increased our budget for 1977 by 21%. All the way up to $284,500. You know what happened?

There was an overage that year of $31,400. I mean, that was a massive step forward. Go 21% above the previous year, and above and beyond that, there was $31,400.

And do you know that every single year since then, there's been an overage? That was the year that I got converted by my own sermon. It's really a dangerous thing to get up in a pulpit.

I need to tell you that. You may think you're the only ones in danger, but I had long since come to the commitment to tithing, but my approach was give half to the parish and half outside. And after hearing the sermon that particular Sunday, the Lord said give it all to the parish and then give outside above and beyond that.

That's what He said to me. He may not say that to you, but that's what He said to me. in 1977 the theme was God doesn't need our money after all he owns the cattle on a thousand hills the wealth in every mine God is no man's debtor he doesn't need our money but we need to give and we considered Jesus' parable of the nobleman's servants and we noted that they were responsible for his money it's his money you may call it your money but it's not if you've begun to think Christianly if you've begun to think biblically what we say is all things come from you oh Lord of your own have we given you it's his it's his I was remarking the other evening how strange how incredible it is you know if you manage somebody's trust fund you might keep 2% 5% possibly Possibly 10%.

God says, I entrust to you your income. I entrust to you your material wealth. And you can keep 90%.

Did you ever think about that? You can keep 90%. But give me my tithe.

And he expects an accounting of all of it. All of it. But we increased our budget that year by 26%.

And we moved to 20% outreach. There were an awful lot of people that year who said you'll never make it. And we went to 20% outreach.

As we rolled around to Stewardship Sunday in 1978, it looked as if they might have been right. Because we were running a considerable deficit. We had established a contingency fund just in case the boiler blew up or the roof collapsed or something like that and we had completely eaten up the contingency fund and in addition to that we ran a $25,000 deficit.

We had bills we couldn't pay and Billy projected that if the trend continued to the end of the year we would have a $60,000 deficit. And folks said, how in the world can you ask people to increase their pledges if they're not even keeping this year's pledges? you know what happened in the month and a half between stewardship Sunday and the first of the year we not only made up the deficit completely but our budget jumped a whopping 34.5% as we moved to 25% outreach why?

his steadfast love endures forever that's the kind of God we serve 1979 we were supposed to move to 30% outreach in our seven year plan and that was the year that we bit the bullet on tithing we studied the subject we studied it within the vestry we studied it within the staff and we came to the firm conviction that yes that is what God's word teaches and if God's word teaches it we've got to teach it we've got to proclaim it forthrightly to the parish God says in the book of Malachi you're robbing me if you're failing to bring in the full tithe it is robbery against God but if you bring in the full tithe watch what happens as I open the windows of heaven and pour down an overflowing blessing and we say wow if that's God's word on the subject then we are withholding an overflowing blessing from our people if we fail to teach them about tithing. Now mind you, and please be very clear about this, I told you what God said to me about giving the whole tithe to Turo, but that's not what we have ever taught, and that's not what I'm saying this morning. We're talking about tithing to God.

And where He directs you to give that tithe is between you and Him. But the Word of God says, bring in the full tithe. And so we bit the bullet on that, and every member of the vestry signed a statement that we were committed to that and we enjoined the parish to consider the matter as well.

Not everybody was there at that point. Some were on a two-year plan, a three-year plan to get there, but we were convinced that's what God's Word said and that we were going to move to tithing ourselves. At the same time, we abandoned signed pledges that year.

A lot of people said, you're never going to get it. You go to unsigned pledges, forget it. That's the end of it.

But you see, we felt that went hand in hand with tithing because if it's a matter between you and the Lord, then we don't need to know who's giving what. We do need to know how much we can expect so that we can make some responsible decisions in the name of this people. If we're going to be pledging on behalf of Truro to the South American Missionary Society or to Sundar Clark in South India or to this, that, or the other ministry, then we have to have some idea of what's coming in.

but we don't need to know who is giving what. So we went to unsigned pledges. And you know what happened?

There was such an overage that year that instead of making the 30% that we were scheduled to make, we skipped two whole years in the seven-year plan and went to 40%. There were lots of things we could have done with that money in terms of spending it on ourselves, but we sensed God was saying, give it to outreach. and that's where it went in 1980 I confessed to the vestry that I was having some real trouble as I came up to Stewardship Sunday real fearfulness about going any further partly because the previous year had been so extraordinary and I really wondered how we could maintain the momentum let alone go beyond it and I asked the vestry to pray for me how could I call upon this people if my heart was gripped by fear and the week before Stewardship Sunday God spoke to me very clearly He gave me a word right out of Exodus 14 the same word that He gave to Moses when the Israelites were on the bank of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army pounding down at their backs and God said to Moses why do you cry to me tell this people go forward.

And up to that point my prayer had been exactly the same as Moses. And I took great courage. That's sort of a free translation.

I took great courage from God's Word and I said go forward. And we went forward. The increase that year was only 5.5%, but it was enough.

And we went forward because His steadfast love endures forever. Do you know that our experience over these last seven years has been day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, that God has paid for what He's ordered? God has provided sufficient resources for whatever the demands were.

Put it in biblical terms, there's been enough manna each day for that day's hunger. And it was that year. 1981, one year ago right now, we stood contemplating our Jubilee celebration.

We were about to pay off our mortgage, finally. We were about to realize our 50% goal, finally, two years early, but we had been working on it for five years. We were aiming at more than a million dollar budget and an increase of nearly 20%.

And then, on top of all that, God said, expand the tent. Above and beyond a million dollar operating budget, we had to raise half again as much for the first half of the expansion project. And you know what?

His steadfast love endures forever. and God enabled us to do that. There have been some unexpected expenses and there have been some other things that cost a good deal less than we anticipated.

We are slightly behind where we said we would be as of this point, but again, the cash flow has met the demand. We are right on schedule with the building project. And so we come to Stewardship Sunday 1982 and I don't know how you feel about it, but I said last week that if I look at the total of what we believe God is asking us to do in 1983, I find it absolutely staggering.

It's $1.8 million. Now you need to understand that the operating part of that budget has only gone up 6%. That's exactly keeping pace with inflation, the present rate.

and I don't know if you can believe it when I said last week we have cut the budget to the bone I really mean that just for instance we're anticipating we're already part way there now we're anticipating an increase in total parish membership this year of approximately 40% 40% increase and yet we have provided for no additional staff members and I don't think that's enough I think we need at least and additional clergymen, and an additional secretary, but we've not budgeted for that. We have had to move the shop from its present position under the front steps because that's being given over to a greatly expanded restroom facility with provision for the handicapped. So we've had to move the shop out of there and we've stuck it into the new transept area downstairs, which really ought to go for classroom space.

But we were just scared of adding on what really ought to be added on, which is a new shop at the back of the education building. So as I look at that budget as large as it is, what I'm saying is it isn't big enough. We've underestimated.

You see that the increase there is the combination of outreach plus the second half of this expansion project. So the real question in my mind is not how in the world can we make that budget, but how much more can we give it to do what we really ought to be doing in 1983. Hard to believe.

But it depends what you're looking at. I feel a little bit like Peter. You know, if I look at the waves, I'm in deep trouble. If I look at the Lord, we can literally dance above the problem.

I don't know how this affects you personally. Obviously, if God is calling us as a people to do this together, then He's also calling us as individuals to do what we can do personally, each one of us. And I've just got to believe that if each and every one of us is listening to God, and if we dare to do what we know that He's telling us to do, then it's all going to be there.

if you're not a tither become one you know what God is saying on the subject I know you've been turning the other way but you know what he's saying is it really easier to believe that God can forgive your sins and give you life eternal than to believe that he's going to bless your finances when you take him at his word I mean can you believe Him for life eternal but you can't believe Him for tithing if you are a tither go beyond it and begin to discover the joy of giving for the first time God's word says you don't even give until after the tithe and whatever you've come here this morning prepared to give I would ask you to just take one more moment and ask God if there isn't some way that He would have you increase that just a little bit more courageously. Let me be clear on one point mechanically. Some folks originally pledged to the church expansion fund and had in mind that they would keep giving, whether it was weekly or monthly or whatever, on into 1983.

Now the problem is that we have no way of knowing which of those pledges had that intention. So if you had planned to give into 1983 in your original pledge, please consider that null and void and make it over. You will not be double pledging.

Okay? We're going to pass out the cards in just a moment. And as I explained last week, ask that you would fill in the top half regarding the operating budget, and that pertains to 12 months, the whole year.

The bottom half regarding the church expansion budget, and that pertains to completing the project in nine months. We'll wind that up, we trust, by the end of next September. Bishop Alden Hathaway told me this story and he said it was true.

He said there was a young man who went into one of the great cathedrals in France one day and he'd been drinking fairly heavily. He was a wastrel, something of a cut-up, and he was feeling fairly high, and he thought it would be fun to go into the cathedral, go into one of the confessionals, and just shock the priest with incredible stories of all the wild living that he had been doing, and tell him sin after sin, some of which were really true and most of which were fabricated, and he just thought that would be a lark. So that's what he did.

He went into the cathedral and into the confessional and he spun out this incredible tale. And the priest listened quietly until he was finished and then he slipped him a little piece of paper through the screen and he said, this is your penance, my son. He said, please go and stand in front of the crucifix as you read it.

There was a huge cross like that one with a figure of Jesus hanging on it. And the young man took the little piece of paper and he was guffawing all the way as he went up and stood beneath the cross and he opened up the slip of paper and all it said was, all this I have done for you and you couldn't care less. And that young man gave his life to Christ that day and he became finally the Archbishop of Lyon.

I'd like to suggest to you that stewardship is simply a matter of looking into the face of Jesus who did all this for us in deciding how much we care. Let's bow our heads together. thank you Lord Jesus for loving me thank you for dying for me thank you for meeting my needs day by day and hour by hour.

Thank You for blessing me with an abundance that would make most kings of history envious. Lord, I consider You to be my Savior and my God. And I would offer back to you a small portion of that which you have entrusted to me.

And ask you to use it to extend your kingdom, to bless your people, to build your church, and to magnify your name in all the earth. For Jesus' sake. Amen.

Amen.