Mentoring Men for the Master

CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP: WHAT IS IT?

  • Giving generously and living abundantly or
  • Living gloriously and dying victoriously
  • Living totally under the Lordship of Christ
  • Crucifying self and serving the Savior
  • Avoiding “Greed and Grab” while laying up treasures in heaven.

Total stewardship of life is the teaching of the entire Bible, and partial stewardship is no stewardship at all.  To put it another way, Christ is Lord of all, or not Lord at all.  What is partial stewardship?  Just to give the tithe on Sunday and never think that the remaining 90% belongs to God also and should be used redemptively.  Or to go to church on Sunday and give one-seventh of your time and think the other six days are yours to do anything you like or don’t like.  The greatest stewardship verses in the Bible are Romans 14:9, “…Christ died and returned to life so that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”  Or Luke 6:46, “Why call ye Me Lord, and do not the things I say?” “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

In the light of this truth, every born again person should develop a lifestyle of the total giving of himself and all he possesses spiritually and materially.  How do we accomplish this?

  1. RELEASE Yourself Totally (Give yourself totally) to the Holy Spirit. Such is the plea of God in Romans 12:1-2, “ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”  True stewardship does not start when I put an offering in the offering plate on Sunday.  It begins when I surrender myself totally to the Holy Spirit.

 Illus:  The Macedonian Christians (2 Cor. 8) “gave more than they were able to give” and even begged to give more out of great poverty.  You say, how can a person give more than he is able?  Paul explains, “But they FIRST gave themselves to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will” (2 Cor. 8:5).  See – all stewardship begins with “Lordship Surrender.”  Until that happens nothing else happens, except religious activity of our flesh.  Illus:  After the pastor preached on tithing, I read that a certain member said, “I am not going to tithe.  No man is going to tell me what I should do with my money.”  Poor soul – he had already been told by the Lord Himself.  So the first thing you give is not your money on Sunday morning.  You first give everything you “got” to the Lord and everything else comes easy (matthew 11:28-30; 1 John 5:3).

  1. REALIZE that your “Stuff” is not your “Stuff.” Everything you have already belongs to God.  “The earth is the Lords and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1).  God says, “If I were hungry I would not tell thee; for the world is mine and the fullness thereof,” (Psalm 50:12) which means that “your stuff” is not “your stuff” at all.  What does this mean in practical living?
    1. Your house – God made the trees.
    2. Your car – God made the materials.
    3. Your kids – God made the seed – the x and y chromosomes.
    4. Your wife – God made the rib.
    5. Your food – God made the cow and the sheep and the chicken, etc.
    6. Your clothes – God made the sheep.
    7. Your life – God even provides the air you breath.
    8. Your brains – God made the gray matter.

My dear brothers, we need to stop that “MY STUFF.”  No person has the right to say “My” or “Mine,” but God, for EVERYTHING BELONGS TO GOD. 

  1. RECOGNIZE the FACT that since the “Stuff” is not your own that when you give you are only giving what God has given you already.  Illus:  David appealed to His people to give their treasure to build the temple and they gave so much that he asked them to cease giving.  Then David celebrated the great victory in a great Praise Song (1 Chron. 29:10-13) and then concluded with this word, “But who am I, and who are my people that we should be able to give as generously as this?  Everything comes from You and WE HAVE GIVEN ONLY WHAT COMES FROM YOUR HAND…and ALL OF IT BELONGS TO YOU” (1 Chron. 29:14-16).  Note:  David himself gave millions (1 Chron. 29:1-5). 
  1. RESOLVE by God’s grace to give generously.  It is a biblical truth spelled out large on the pages of Scripture:  God blesses a generous person, but He does not bless the miser or stingy person.  Illus:  Some years ago a very stingy person said to me, “You have more given to you than I make.”  I replied, “I am not surprised since you never give anybody anything.”  “A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed” (Prov. 11:25).  “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds… but comes to poverty” (Prov. 11:24). “There was a man they called him mad, the more he gave, the more he had.” (Bunyan)  “Give and it will be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, running over” (Luke 6:38).  Note:  Not just money but whatever you give will come back to you in manifold degrees.  Give love and you will be loved; show mercy and mercy will come to you, etc.  
  1. RELY upon God and He will meet both your spiritual and material need. You ask, “Brother, where is that teaching?”  It is in the Lord’s Prayer.  
  1. Your spiritual need is to do God’s will – “Thy will be done in you as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).  Jesus would not have prayed that for you and me if He were not going to bring it to pass.
  2. You physical or financial need – Where do I get this? Also from the Lord’s Prayer where He commands us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread (not daily cake)” (Matthew 6:11).  Jesus would not have asked us to ask for that need if He wasn’t going to provide it.  Phil 4:19 is an all inclusive promise, “My God shall supply ALL YOU NEED (not greed) according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”  Who can claim this promise?  Only the generous giver.  Illus:  A rich banker gave me “out of his riches,” but not according to his riches.  He gave me $100.00 when he could have easily given me a million dollars. 
  1. REMIND yourself daily that as true stewards we are responsible for one another. Cain asked God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9) but he asked too late.  He had already murdered his brother Abel.  God forbid that we commit the same sin, remembering the words of the beloved apostle John, “Anyone who does not love his brother remains in death.  Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer…” (1 John 3:14-15).  Note:  The opposite of love is indifference toward our brothers. 

Our responsibilities to our brothers are expressed generically in Jesus’ command, “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34; 1 John 3:16), but practically from an old church covenant:

“We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love; to remember one another in prayer; and aid one another in sickness and distress; to cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and Christian courtesy in speech; to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Savior to secure it without delay.” 

  1. REMEMBER that Christian Stewardship EMBRACES EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of your life.  The very word stewardship means precisely this because the Greek word translated stewardship is the word OIKONOMOS (1 Cor. 4:2), which means “manager of the house” which is everything we are or own.  Moreover, the steward in the days of Jesus was a person who owned nothing but managed the affairs of another.  What would it mean to manage everything God has given to us which is His, not ours?  It would involve 7 specific things:
    1. TREASURE (family, finances, land, houses)
    2. TIME (168 hours per week)
    3. TALENTS (spiritual gifts)
    4. TRAINING (education)
    5. TALK
    6. TROUBLE
    7. TRIUMPHS

Great Quotes on Stewardship:

  • “You make a living by what you make, you make a life by what you give” (Churchill)
  • “There are only two kind of persons on this earth:
    1. The people who lift,
    2. and the people who lean (John Maxwell).
  • “A man is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” (Elliot)
  • “You have but one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” (Studd)
  • “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” (David, 2 Sam. 24)
  • “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small, love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my all” (Watts in great hymn).
  • “I didn’t have much to give, but all I had I gave it all to the Lord” (Booth, founder of Salvation Army).
  • “If you would bless, you must bleed.” (Howett)
  1. REJOICE (or weep) that your status in heaven (all eternity) depends upon your STEWARDSHIP on earth. Jesus commands believers to use their Master’s Money in a way that will accrue friends in eternity – by investing in the gospel that brings sinners to salvation, so that when we arrive in heaven (“an everlasting home”), those saved sinners will be there to welcome them (Luke 16:9).  Note:  I can hardily wait for the welcome  Eugene Oakley will give me upon my arrival, a Jewish Doctor in Houston, a previous worshiper of the Virgin Mary in Havana, etc. 
  1. REFUSE TO LET YOUR ATTITUDE OF “GRAB AND GREED” land you in hell. The apostle warns that continual  lovers of money will “drown men in destruction and perdition” (1 Tim. 6:9).  These terms refer to eternal hell for the lovers of mammon (money) more than lovers of God (Matthew 6:20).  On one occasion I asked a young man whom I was mentoring to fill in the blank in this sentence, “For me to live is __________.” (Phil 1:21).  He admitted he could not put God but would have to write Money.  What word would you write?

A Time to Surrender:

I know it is a tough time for a lot of people.  A tough time for business.  We’re in an economic down turn right now.  And I want you to know that MMM will do everything it can to help you, but  in the final analysis you are the only one who can help you through these difficult days.

Will you therefore bow your heads and close your eyes.  How many of you will say, “I have financial needs?”  Maybe you need a job, or the old budget is not working like it ought to, or you can’t pay all your bills.  Now in a moment I am going to ask you to raise your hands and I will pray for you.  But before I ask you to raise your hand, because you have a financial need, will you raise your hand and say, “Brother Bill, I also want to acknowledge that I put God FIRST IN EVERY AREA  of my life – every area – TREASURE, TIME TALENTS, TRAINING, TALK, TROUBLE, TRIUMPH.  Then pray as the Holy Spirit is impressing you.

Addenda to Lesson Today:

I elected not to dwell on the material on the 6th “I” in our text book, 10 Absolute Life Changers of Men, pp. 87-95, but instead to share a fresh word from the Lord which I received this week.  However, that does not mean that the material in our text  book is not vital.  So please read it carefully and prayerfully, consisting of 4 main teachings:

  1. Viewing and using money through the lens of 10 Great Principles – p. 87.
  2. The 5 Great Laws of Money Management – pp. 88-91.
  3. Give until you Giggle – pp. 91-93.
  4. The Christian’s Response to our Economic Crisis – pp. 93-95.