Stewardship

Last week we discussed the importance of demonstrating concern. In fact, I concluded by saying something like the following: How serious are we about the mission of this church? Are we willing to sacrificially get behind the mission and agenda of God’s church? I don’t just mean financially, but I also mean physically, mentally and spiritually.

Will we be able to love people richly and generously in genuine concern for them like the Colossian church? Where people are in perpetual need despite their diligence, the church comes and supports, and we walk along with, and we encourage because that’s demonstrating real concern. This is what the Philippians did. We use the connections we have as privileged, wealthy men and women to help people find a way, whether that be job training or whether that be job placement or helping them learn a language. We come alongside—that’s demonstrating concern which is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. This week, I’m talking about “stewardship.” More importantly, I’m going to talk about what that actually looks like. Let’s look at Colossians 3:12-25. It’s a long excerpt, but I want you to understand “stewardship” in it’s context and entirety because I want you to practice “stewardship” in a very functional way.

¹² Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, ¹³ bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴ And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵ And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. ¹⁸ Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. ¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. ²⁰ Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. ²¹ Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. ²² Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. ²³ Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,²⁴ knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. ²⁵ For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. (Colossians 3:12-25)

Stewardship: the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. Four Principles of Stewardship – When we think about the idea of stewardship, we need to think about it in four distinct manners that are related to each and interconnected to each so that we can understand the whole of it. I’m going to go over the four principles of stewardship in the hopes that you would take these four principles and apply them in your life so you can be good stewards.

1. Ownership – God owns everything, we are simply managers or administrators acting on his behalf. (Psalm 24) When we look at Psalm 24, David, the king of Israel understood something at so few Americans understand these days. It’s the principle of ownership. Look at what King David writes in verse 1 of Psalm 24: “The earth belongs to the Lord. And so does everything in it.

The world belongs to him. And so do all those who live in it.” It all belongs to God. When we live our lives understanding that everything belongs to God then our perspective on “stuff” and “things,” especially in terms of interacting with stuff and things. If I could distill it even farther, you own nothing. Nothing you have is yours. You are a steward of it all, according to the Scriptures, a steward who will be held to account to how he or she stewarded, but all of it is his and not yours. That’s weird for us. We don’t like that, because some of us worked hard. Yeah, you worked hard with the mind God gave you and the body he sustained and with the air he lets you breathe, and on and on I could go. There is nothing you have that is not his. That’s why it’s impossible to buy him off. You can’t give Him anything that He didn’t give you to give to Him. The next three principles come from the Parable of Talents. The first principle we learn from the parable is that of responsibility. Let’s go to Matthew 25:14 in your Bibles.

1. Responsibility – We are called to manage that which belongs to God, as entrusted to us. (Matthew 25). There was a man going on a journey and he called his servants and entrusted them to his property. When human beings were made, we were meant to rule over God’s stuff, to care for and be fruitful with it. This is in Genesis 1. The parable goes that to each person a different responsibility was given.

Now that we’’ve seen this, I want to go to our passage in Colossians. So we have this idea of ownership playing out here. Paul writes that we are God’s “chosen ones.” Now I’m not talking about slavery, but I’m talking about ownership, or calling. We are called by God. We are called to be saved by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Just think about why we’re all here today. We could’’ve been at the beach or a baseball game, but instead we’’ve come to church, to sing together, to sit and read the Bible together, to pray together, to bond with one another. Moreover, when the Apostle writes this, he implies that when we are called we get to “put something on.” Those things: holiness, love, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, that doesn’’t come from us. We don’t own those things, but we embody those things. We embody those things because the owner of those things, by that I mean the epitome of those ideals and maxims give them to us because we are chosen by Him. Everything we do in faith is owned by God; that is why when we are saved we embody those things. There’s a transitive property that goes from God and flows into you because of your salvation. It is how ownership is defined. Moreover, when we look at verse 15, the Apostle writes, “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” This further tells us that there is ownership in the behaviors of Christ followers that is from God. I know the idea that I’m communicated is dense and philosophical in nature and hard to grasp, but I want you to follow me to verse 17 because all of that is nice and good, but it doesn’’t really mean much to you and me in this lifetime unless there is a charge that we need hold on to.

Paul writes, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” This is the responsibility God gives us as followers of Christ. It’s a huge responsibility considering the charge is in everything that we do. So let me ask all of us: in everything that we do, do we really do in the name of Jesus? Of course we don’t. That is why we are bad stewards most of the time. Because most of the time, we are busy doing things in our own name in our own agenda. We are horrible at taking on the responsibility charged to us for following Jesus Christ as our savior. It is my hope that in a series titled, “Grace made Visible” that we functionally take on this responsibility to live our lives as good stewards of our salvation by “doing everything” in the name of Jesus. This means that what you do should bring glory to God. You go out, it should be for the glory of God. When you shower, it should be to glorify God. When you go to the gym, it’s to glorify God. When you eat, to glorify God. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves. I’m saying that our enjoyment should bring glory to God. This is responsibility. I want to continue on to the third point in stewardship.

1. Accountability – Like the servants in the Parable of the Talents, we will give an account of how we have administered everything we have been given, including our time, money, abilities, information, wisdom, relationships, and authority. (Matthew 25)

In verse 19 of Matthew 25, I know I’m jumping around now, the master comes back and he’s coming to settle accounts. If God asked you what you did with your life to glorify Him, what would you say? How would you answer? Look at how the servants answered in the parable in Matthew 25. “Master, you delivered to me five talents, I have made five talents more… two talents, here I have made two talents more… one talent, I was so afraid that I hid your talent in the ground.” You know this story. Who was accountable for the talents? That’s right, the first two. None of us are stacking up close to the first two servants. Not you, and not me. We have an accountability issue. It’s funny how all of us, given our talents and abilities, have done so little with them. The excuse we give, if we had more education, more experience. The excuse I like to use, if it were a bigger stage. The reason, whether you know or not as to why you come all the way out here for church, is not because you grew up here, but because intrinsically, all of you are stewards here, yet we don’t act like stewards.

We do little in the way of being accountable for the salvation we received. In Colossians, this is the context by which you should read this, it says, “wives submit, husbands love, children obey, parents encourage, servants work hard” because Paul describes all of our relationship types to let us know we are accountable at every level, as spouses, friends, children, parents, employees and owners. There is nothing that says we are islands. It’s why I drive 80 miles each way, every week to preach at a tiny church: it is because I am responsible and accountable to what God put me in charge of here. We can’t discount that. I spend countless hours writing quiet times and putting them online and working podcasts, and prepping sermons for the people in this room because I am accountable to put all my talents into it because that’s what God called me for. God called each and everyone of you to steward something somewhere, the question is, “are we being accountable for it?” Don’t we have friends who need Jesus? Don’t we know people who need prayer? Don’t we have relationships that need guidance? We need to be accountable for everything because God saved us from an eternity in hell so that we can do everything in the name of Jesus. Let me hit this last point.

1. Reward – God gives His inheritance to you as a prize for your service (Colossians 3)

In the parable, we know that the master rewards the first two servants and punishes the last servant. Stewardship, when we understand that we are stewards that are responsible and accountable to the owner, we earn a reward. Look at verses 23-25 in Colossians: “we will receive the inheritance as your reward…” When God calls us, it is to a new life, but it’s not all bad. God is not unfair. He is just and right, He rewards us for our stewardship. We are children of God. We are not slaves. God gives us more and more and does so according to our stewarding. If you want to manifest more in the name of Jesus, more of your life needs to be lived in the name of Jesus. Be a good steward, worthy of God’s calling. Let’s pray.