If I were to say to you that you have a surefire plan available to motivate believers to obey God’s Word, live in fellowship, and be restored to usefulness in the local church, what would you say? Of course, you would say, “What is it?” God has provided that plan and it is biblical stewardship. Stewardship brings to the table an awareness of God’s requirements for life management and a great sense of personal responsibility as well as accountability. Unfortunately, when churches highlight stewardship the issue is mainly finances, and finances certainly fit in the area of stewardship. However, a steward is more than a financial manager. He is one who is given charge of managing all of the Master’s business while on earth. The Master has precedence for what He wants done in His household, while the steward simply has to follow His objectives. Of course we understand as a believer that God is our Master and we are His servants.
If a person does not understand biblical stewardship, they will not understand how to manage finances rightly. They will not understand life management rightly. We should not make the mistake of teaching about finances, or managing ones life in general, without a thorough understanding of biblical stewardship. Stewardship is whole life management that includes finances and all the other aspects of life. “Believers are stewards of all that God has entrusted to them. There is nothing we have that God has not given to us and entrusted us to use for His glory. This includes spouse, children, abilities, possessions, and ministry. In entrusting them to us, He expects us to use them faithfully for His glory.”[1]
- For all who counsel, stewardship is vital in the task of bringing the person who you counsel to a self-motivated, ambitious outlook on life in order to deal with life and life’s challenges. A task that is not always easy to awaken in an individual is self-ambition or self-motivation. My dad trained aspiring young engineers at his workplace. He scribbled something on a piece of paper that I found in an old engineering textbook in his little workshop. It said: “A man’s worth is measured by the degree of supervision he requires. The more he has to be told what to do, checked up, and guided, the less he is worth”. Bert Hilgeman
Of course that statement was from a professional standpoint, as well as from the viewpoint of an unbeliever concerning a person’s self-motivation or ambition toward work. A persons worth as an employee to their employer, certainly would be measured by how much supervision they require, along with other things. But the point is well taken, we should be self-motivated and ambitious and order our lives in such a way that it brings glory to God. Dad made sure we understood how to manage our lives when it came to being responsible, self motivated, and ambitious, in everything we did. This was important to our character building while growing up. Unfortunately, many believers fall short of being motivated by a heart given over to biblical stewardship. Life management has either not been emphasized in their lives, or they have fallen short because they are not motivated to seek God’s purpose fully because it takes too much work.
The Right Motivation
How do we provide the right motivation, the right reason for people to give of themselves first and then of their substance, without “pumping them up” or producing a “false motivation” that stems from our own ambitions or frankly from even the standpoint of what my father said about “self-motivation”. We do this by appealing to their hearts regarding what God has to say about being a faithful steward of life. We are careful to make sure they are submitting their lives to a higher authority. We turn their attention toward Who owns them, and we help them to see the most important stewardship responsibility and goal is to please God and bring Him ultimate glory. There are those who would say that self-motivation, or self-ambition, is simply a human response to life, but scripture is asking us to walk a certain walk to please God in order to please him and bring him ultimate glory. There is the motion from the heart, an ambition to pursue God that’s driven by love for God. A God centered desire and aim to please God and bring him glory by the way that we act out life and live.
1 Corinthians 10:31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
2 Corinthians 5:9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
1 Thessalonians 4:1 Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.
2 Timothy 2:4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
- Nehemiah was a great example of appealing to the hearts of people to act upon an ambition that is God centered.
Nehemiah 2:18 And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, “Let us rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work.
Once God’s people recognized God’s hand on Nehemiah they acted upon the premise that they now were responsible stewards of the work God had given them to do. Nehemiah is a tremendous study on stewardship of resources and life management, as well as the why of being motivated and ambitious in life. Biblical stewardship provides the platform and the right reasons to be ambitious toward the things of God and order our personal lives accordingly. If you can develop within a person you are helping reasons to see the problem God’s way, you can also get your them to see God’s solution God’s way. If you can get the person you are helping to see God’s solution, you can teach them how to manage their lives God’s way. That’s biblical stewardship management with accountability toward God. That’s personal self-motivated spiritual accountability for the life they live.
Stewardship and Ownership
In Bible times the steward was a keeper of someone’s household. He lived under the care of the owner of the household. He was to be faithful as an administrator, caretaker, custodian, and manager. Administrator, caretaker, custodian and manager are synonyms helping to describe what a steward is. “A steward is a person entrusted to act in another’s name or to whose care anything is committed by another.”[2] The steward owned nothing that the owner did not provide for him from the substance of that household. He managed his master’s material possessions completely while his master was away. He earned a position of significant trust and was held in high esteem by his master. The steward therefore had to be faithful, trusted, responsible, and in total subjection to the master of the house. He was to be faithful as an administrator, caretaker, custodian and manager. Read the account of Abraham’s relationship with Eliezer, Genesis Chapters 15 & 24. Eliezer was most likely the same referred to as the “oldest of his household” in chapter 24, who was put in charge of all Abraham’s possessions and many years later, was commissioned by Abraham to go and find a wife for his son Isaac.
The master owned everything that the steward was to care for, the steward simply had to follow his objectives, and be fully given over to the masters plans and purposes. One of the pioneers of missions, Hudson Taylor, said, “Let us give up our work, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into God’s hand; and then, when we have given all to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about.” The hardest thing for a person to do, which is attached to living in the horizontal, is to give up everything about their life and give their life to the Master, Jesus Christ. Who created them and literally has ownership of them.
1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
To be clear, He is already Lord and Master of our lives, we “are not our own”, we just submit to His lordship over our lives, to His claims and to His ownership over us. We do not make Jesus Lord. He is already Lord of our lives! We simply submit to that fact and our lives reflect His lordship. Giving your life wholly to Christ reflects true submission to His lordship. It reflects what Paul called a “living sacrifice”. Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And understanding of biblical stewardship, requires a total understanding of ownership. God owns everything and I own nothing.
Stewardship and Total surrender
True stewardship includes self-denial, or as this passage is referred to, the call to discipleship. One literally dies to self and lives for Christ. Luke 9:23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. It is total surrender of ones life. Romans 12:1–2 (ESV) — 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. “Practically everything that Jesus had to say was an indirect claim to divinity… If He is not God, then you can safely ignore Him. But if He is God, then anything less than a total surrender to Him is folly and any other loyalty is idolatrous.”[3] A person who understands stewardship principles will understand that living life on earth for kingdom purposes is the objective of the Bible’s teaching on stewardship.
It was Jesus who said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” Seeking His kingdom purposes first is a natural outflow of biblical stewardship and answers the question of almost all other things of life. Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. All the other things of life are taken care of as a result of making kingdom purposes a stewardship priority. Living a faithful life in the vertical is a natural consequence of being a faithful steward. 1 Corinthians 4:1 This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. Stewardship changes the allegiance that a person has to self and to the self-perception they have about life.
Stewardship is whole life allegiance to God’s purposes. People come to us broken and ready to be restored, and are often surprised to find that it is the lack of management or stewardship of their lives that has created the problems they are experiencing. A lack of understanding biblical stewardship causes us to be self-absorbed in our problems and causes us to lose focus and become self-centered. We mismanage either how we are acting in life or responding to life’s challenges and difficulties. Biblical life management or stewardship causes a person to step back and think about how they have been managing life generally, they find that their lack of thinking in terms of stewardship responsibility has affected there behavior, and begin to notice the problem differently, in a more comprehensive way, and the way that they have been living life.
Every Book in the Bible has an illustration of biblical stewardship.
One such illustration is found in Genesis chapters 1 & 2. God created the earth and assigned man as its steward. Gen. 2:4, 5, 7, 8, 15 God gave Adam the stewardship responsibility to name the animals. Gen. 2:19. Woman was created by God to be a “help meet” in this stewardship endeavor. Gen. 2:18. Adam is now the stewardship “responder” for her. Gen. 2:21-25 She is now a part of him, 2:23 bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh – called woman, she is uniquely man’s stewardship responsibility along with the children they would bear.
Man will be uniquely called into account for his leadership, provision and protection in relation to women. This is demonstrated in Genesis 3:9, when God says to Adam first, where are you? Eve sinned first, but God does not seek her out first. Adam must give the first account to God for the moral life of the family in the Garden of Eden. He bore a unique and primary responsibility. This does not mean that Eve had no stewardship responsibility. We know God addresses both of them to be stewards of life and life’s resources within God’s design.
God created man from the beginning to be a steward, a manager of all that God would give him—to “dress and keep” on the very earth that God made for man and woman to live life on. That is all encompassing—it shows the uniqueness of being a steward of all of life and all of life’s resources. To reinforce this point notice what God says to “them.”
Genesis 1:27- 28So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Stewardship responsibilities:
Be fruitful and multiply – replenish the earth.
Subdue – keep it under control by management, the productive arrangement of the earth and its inhabitants.
Have dominion – use the resources God had given them for accomplishing God’s purposes stated above and elsewhere.
Notice: “I have given.” God gives, we receive as a stewardship responsibility.
Genesis 1:29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
There are a host of examples of stewardship in the Bible. Abrahams servant Eliezer, Genesis 15, 24, David’s stewards of the kingdom 1 Chronicles 28. In fact, Jesus taught many parables in which stewardship was addressed. As one author put it: “Parables are merely real-life stories from which one or possibly a few basic truths can be drawn.”[4] Many basic life truths or management lessons are taught in these parables. They are rich resources for teaching stewardship. Be sure to study and work on the stewardship parable resources in the gospels.
- What are the governing principles of stewardship, and how should it be taught?
stewardship is most importantly understood
as whole life management.
B. Being a steward is not just something you DO. It is what you ARE.
- It’s not merely an activity, but a way of life. Not just parts of our life but the whole spectrum of the believer’s life.
When we think of someone as a Christian we are describing the whole aspect of the person. For instance: Joe is a carpenter, John is a mechanic, and Linda is a secretary. The description above tells us what these people do, but it does not tell the whole aspect of who they are in life. Even if you were to say that Joe is from the Smith family and John from the Jones family, you still don’t know all about them. Joe is also a dad, a husband, and several other things. Linda is a mother, a wife, and several other things. These are not all inclusive statements about these people.
But when we say that Joe and Linda are Christians we are telling you something about the whole person—an identification of who they are as a person which identifies a philosophy of life, how they act, how they live. Everything about them has the Christian life written all over it because of gospel influence. Their identity is in Christ, in the gospel within God’s kingdom purposes. They are believers, they are stewards, which describes the whole person. Again, everything about them has Christian responsibility written all over it.
The point is that their salvation automatically classifies them as people who have a stewardship responsibility that affects every aspect and every area of their lives, not just what they do, but what they are as a person. How they manage their lives should be in accordance with all that a relationship with Christ spells out in the Word of God—in the three principle areas of life, which are the home, work and church—the three principle areas of life that we live most of the context of our lives in.
B. Stewardship is not only about managing. It is about accountability. [5]
- It is whole life management under the lordship of Jesus Christ, understanding that we must all give an account for our lives before Him.
Romans 14:12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
The believer, who understands whole life management without reservation, will understand how to trust the Master of his life with every issue of life he faces with eternity in view. The stewardship/management of our faith here on earth will be the basis for what we will be held accountable for when we stand before God.
2 Peter 3:10-12 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
That is a sobering thought and one that should be a motivating factor in our lives. Functionally believing in stewardship as “whole life management” that we will be held accountable for one day, defines how we live.
Stewardship settles the issue of ownership
or right to our lives.
A. Stewardship settles the issue of ownership by establishing who the creator is.
1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
1 Corinthians 3:23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
Galatians 3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
1 John 4:4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
- Clear reflection on God’s ownership can help to overcome sinful blindness by focusing on who has authority in our lives.
Adam did not question God’s stewardship plan for him before the fall. He recognized God as Creator, and only after questioning God’s Word did he suffer the hardship of fallenness. Adam did not reflect on God’s desires for his life, but rather took charge of his own life, his wants, his needs, his desires, Adam became the ultimate authority in his own life which is counter to the stewardship desires that God had originally given him.
- Ownership denotes control, possession, enjoyment and right.
You are God’s possession and He has exclusive rights of ownership, as well as legal or just claim to your life. We were made by Him and then were bought back by Him in our state of rebellion toward His claim upon us. We are now “not our own”.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
The Bible’s teaching about our Creator God clearly expresses who has the right to our lives.
Acts 17:28 for “ ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,“ ‘For we are indeed His offspring.’
God is inescapably present in all our living—God is Lord and has ownership by authority, control, and presence.
- If we do not recognize His rightful authority and presence, it is because our eyes have been blinded, our hearts hardened, and our agenda has been the focus, just like Adam. When this occurs, we treat life as though it is our own. Take for instance the story about a man who gives his friend the responsibility of taking care of his car.
You own a nice car that you take very good care of – keep it clean, maintain it, and generally are responsible in your handling of it. You are going on vacation for an extended period of time and the car will sit idle. Not wanting it to sit idle for that period of time, you have someone care for your car.
You have trusted that person with something that you own; all they have to do is maintain the same quality of care for it, just as you would. While you are gone they use it every day, they take it on a long trip, drive it at excessive speeds, spill things inside it, and the outside is filthy and scratched. They could not resist taking it on a camping trip since their car would probably not make it. They bring it back after your vacation and it does not look like the same car you put into their care. It does not look or operate like it did when you left it with them.
Your reaction is “What has happened to the car that I left for you to take care of? I just wanted you to take care of it as I do and you have mismanaged my property. You are going to be held accountable for how you have mismanaged this responsibility, because this car is a mess! This is my car remember, not yours to do with as you want. How could you do this to something that you do not own? What right did you think you had to treat my property in this manner?”
Enter God’s reply to His stewards. How often do you think God says, “Hey, those are my talents you’re mismanaging. Hey, that’s my tongue you’re saying those words with. Hey, those are my eyes you’re watching that with. Hey, that’s my money you’re spending on that. Hey, that’s my time you’re wasting. Hey, that’s my body that you are damaging with that substance. Hey that’s my life I loaned you to take care of.”
God has given us our bodies, time, finances, health, a sound mind, and the ability to communicate… everything we need, even the supreme gift of eternal life. HOW ARE WE MANAGING OUR LIVES? Do you think that God is saying “respectfully,” “Get your hands off of my property!”? Why do Christians think they can dismiss God given stewardship responsibilities and live their own way? Or somehow think that their lives are their own and can be treated as they please?[6] The following verses reinforce our point. God made us and God lays claim to us. ALL OF US.
Psalm 50:10-12 For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.
Psalm 100:3 Know that the LORD, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Exodus 4:11 Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
That’s right. Even those who have been born disabled God has allowed to be made for His glory and purpose and they too must steward their lives to display His glory in creating them.
- “The Bible’s teaching about God’s lordship clearly overthrows self-sufficiency.
Acts 17:28 proclaims, In Him we live and move and have our being.
“God is inescapably present in all our living, including our acts of interpretation. If we do not recognize His presence, it is because our eyes have been blinded and our hearts hardened by our own sin and the sinful influences of the culture around us. Explicit reflection on God’s lordship can help to overcome our sinful blindness.”[7]
“John Frame has usefully summarized biblical teaching on the lordship of God in terms of three categories or attributes: authority, control, and presence. “The attribute of authority describes God’s claim to our allegiance and obedience. All of our lives are to be devoted to His service (Deut 6:5–9; Exod 20:3; Luke 16:13; 4:8; Matt 6:33). We ought to have God as the standard in judging all rules in interpretation, all right and wrong in interpretation, all claims to truth or falsehood, all use of language to change other people, and all claims about the meaning of words. In fact, there is no valid claim to obedience or to obligation anywhere in the world, except those claims that rest on God’s command.”[8]
- Believers will benefit from the theological underpinnings of God’s absolute rule of their lives.
The attribute of authority describes God’s claim to our allegiance and obedience. All of our lives are to be devoted to His service.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
- When a believer understands that God owns everything and they own nothing, it changes their perspective on life, and I don’t mean intellectually, I mean functionally. Functionally believing in God’s ownership defines how you live.
- God does not compete with ownership of your life and that is why hardship follows an unwillingness to submit to God’s ownership. Our lives can only reflect what He desires. When our desires compete with God’s desires, there is heartache and distress.
STEWARDSHIP HAS SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS
THAT MUST BE UNDERSTOOD.
1 Corinthians 4:2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
A. The basis of Biblical stewardship is faithfulness.
- This implies that each believer can equally please God with his or her faithfulness. The word “required” means to expect – including demand; insisting on, anticipating. The same Greek word is used in the Book of John.
John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking (expects, demands and insists on) such people to worship Him.
- It is expected that the steward be faithful.
By far the most important quality of a good steward is faithfulness, trustworthiness. He is entrusted with his master’s household and possessions; and without faithfulness he will ruin both.
He craves passionately to be faithful; it is not a matter of if he will show up or if he will be there for the Lord or if he is going to be faithful to a stewardship responsibility that he has been given. You know and see that he or she passionately craves their stewardship responsibilities. They want, desire and pursue faithful stewardship.
- A person who faithfully teaches the principles of biblical stewardship, anticipates that the one who understands the principle of faithfulness will be motivated to learn how to be a faithful steward.
Above all, God wants His ministers, His servant–stewards, to be trustworthy. God desires that His spiritual ministers be consistently obedient to His Word, unwavering in their commitment to be faithful. He does not require brilliance or cleverness or creativeness or popularity. He can use servants with those qualities, but only trustworthiness is absolutely essential. It is required.[9]
It is a lifelong, driving commitment to be a faithful steward. It is required. It is expected of them; it is the “main” or “leading” thing in their position as stewards. It is the job description; it is the lifelong enlistment of the steward.
- The attitude of a faithful steward is reflected in the believers perspective of life.
“As far as Christians are concerned, stewardship involves the responsibility of managing God’s work through the church. God has appointed all Christians to be His stewards on earth. Stewardship is not an option, as Paul points out about his own call. Being a steward is a necessary part of believing the gospel, even if it involves sacrificing personal rewards”. (1 Cor. 9:17)[10]
The Bible has a lot to say about the attitude of a focused steward of the Christian life.
Matthew 10:37-39 Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
Colossians 3:2-4 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Philippians 3:7-10 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.
- We could say then that stewardship expectation, this requirement, is a lifelong enlistment of commitment to Christ, lost in Christ, affection toward Christ, reorganizing a value system that is God-ward and focused in Christ.
As a “living sacrifice”.
Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
A crucified life.
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me..
A resurrected life.
Colossians 3:1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
stewardship has everyday life impact.
1 Corinthians 4:2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
“found” – perceived, (to be discovered, recognized, detected, to show one’s self out, of one’s character or state as found out by others (men, God, or both). [11]
“faithful” — Trustworthy; trustful; – believing, faithful sure and true.
A. The everyday impact that stewardship has on life is based upon reliance and trustworthiness, giving credit to the confidence one has in God, acknowledging it all comes from God.
- This person is found this way – “to show one’s self out” – it is part of their nature to be faithful and that is how they are found – in every condition and circumstance that life brings their way.
Hey, I got looking around for “so and so” and guess what – I found them faithful, I found them faithfully following the Lord. They didn’t know I was watching but I have witnessed them being faithful both privately and publicly. They really are a faithful steward.
3 John 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 5 Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, 6 who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God.
Found faithful when at work, found faithful when at home, found faithful at church, found faithful when the heat is on, found faithful in temptation. Just found faithful!
Matthew 24:45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.
Luke 12:43 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.
- One commentator put it like this: “Moreover, it is (essentially) required of stewards that a man should be found faithful – proving himself worthy of trust.” You prove your love for the Lord by fulfilling your stewardship responsibilities thus showing your confidence in God.
Everyday impact has everyday implications for life and godliness.
CONCLUSION
Four principles of stewardship to live by
- GOD OWNS EVERYTHING – I OWN NOTHING.
Colossians 1:16 -18 For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.
Psalm 24:1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,
This eliminates every self-perceived right to anything, and places everything in life in the right context. What you have is a grace privilege – not a right, or something deserved.
- GOD ENTRUSTS US WITH EVERYTHING WE HAVE.
Ecclesiastes 5:18 – 19 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.
God has delegated to you a trust; you simply manage it on His behalf. Is there a thing or a person that you are preoccupied with that hampers this relationship with God?
- YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE TO INCREASE WHAT GOD HAS GIVEN TO YOU. YOU MAY INCREASE IT OR DIMINISH IT.
Matthew 25:21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
Luke 16:10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.
You are to increase in your ability to grow in stewardship and its responsibilities. How have you increased or diminished as a steward since the last month – year?
There are management skills that need to be developed in our homes, at our jobs and in our students. Become a better steward of our professional life, at home with our housekeeping, parenting, husband and wife relationships, at church with membership relationships and a host of other things. This really speaks about the issue of growing and changing, doesn’t it?
- GOD CAN CALL YOU INTO ACCOUNT AT ANY TIME.
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.:
Romans 14:11 For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”
Stewardship is a lifelong enlistment that will have final consequences. Everything we do in life will have eternal consequences; the day of accounting for our lives is ever present.[12]
[1] MacArthur, John, F., Jr and Mack, Wayne A., Introduction to biblical counseling: basic guide to the principles and practice of counseling,.
[2]. Zodhiates, Spiro, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament.
[3] Boice, James Montgomery, The Gospel of John: an expositional commentary,
[4] Boice, James Montgomery, The Gospel of Matthew,
[5] 02 02 03 Stewardship Doc
[6] 8004 stewardship1.doc
[7] Vern Sheridan Poythress, Westminster Theological Journal WTJ 50:1 (Spring 1988),
[8] ibid
[9] MacArthur, John. F., First Corinthians. MacArthur New Testament commentary.
[10] Youngblood, R. F. Nelson’s new illustrated Bible dictionary: (F. Bruce, Ed.).
[11] Thayers Greek Definitions
[12] 02 02 03 Stewardship.Doc