Stewardship and Relationship: God's Guardrails for Believers

Stewardship, when properly exercised, brings you into closer relationship with God.

Genesis 1:26 NIV - Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Revelation 5:11-12 ESV - ¹¹ Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, ¹² saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Revelation 21:18-21 ESV - ¹⁸ The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. ¹⁹ The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, ²⁰ the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. ²¹ And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

Malachi 3:6-9 ESV - ⁶ “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. ⁷ From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ ⁸ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. ⁹ You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.

Luke 6:38 ESV - give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.

Malachi 3:10-12 ESV - ¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. ¹¹ I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. ¹² Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

Matthew 25:14-30 ESV - ¹⁴ “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. ¹⁵ To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. ¹⁶ He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. ¹⁹ Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. ²⁰ And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 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.’ ²² And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ ²³ 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.’ ²⁴ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, ²⁵ so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ ²⁶ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? ²⁷ Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. ²⁸ So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. ²⁹ For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. ³⁰ And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Some of you have heard the story of Alice in Wonderland, that crazy topsy-turvy book. So there's one point in the story where Alice is at a fork in the road and she doesn't know which one to take. And she looks up at the tree and there's this grinning cat and she asks the cat, “Which way should I go?”

The cat says, “Where do you want to go?”

She says, “I don't know.”

The cat says, “Well, that doesn't matter then.”

So, we don't want that fate for ourselves. We're going to go to first define what stewardship is.

The title of this blog is “Stewardship and Relationship: God's Guardrails for Believers.”  I'm going to try and tie these concepts together to give us a sense of a deeper understanding of what stewardship is all about.

What is Stewardship?

It is the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. If you want a bit more understanding, here's some extra words for you: oversight, supervision, keeping, direction, or control.

Now, everything I'm going to share here is based on lessons that I have learned in my life, which is a polite way of saying lessons learned based on mistakes that I've made in my life. So I'm going to be passing those lessons on to you. So while I'm sharing, in a sense, I'm reading along with you because it applies to me as well.

One of the basic aspects of stewardship is that you are accountable to the one who gave you whatever it is to be a steward of. Now, this word, stewardship, is something we've been hearing a lot of for the last 20, 30, 40 years. But it's actually a very, very, very, very old idea. So old, in fact, you have to go all the way back to Genesis 1:26 NIV which says, “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.””

A familiar passage, but did you get these two words— “so that?” Think about this: the sole explanation given in Genesis 1:26 for all of creation; all of the magnificence and the complexity. Why those two words— so that. So that what? So that we will have dominion over creation. So in one sense, the act of creation brought the concept of stewardship to life for the first time. It's as old as that.

God designed it; nobody else. And He designed it in a way that He would embed it in creation so that creation itself could be subject to stewardship. Now, that should tell you something. You’ve got to take this concept seriously because it's so old and so fundamental to life itself.

The Six Key Categories of Stewardship

Eden is long gone, but the idea still remains in the modern context. How does it show up today? Here are six key categories of stewardship: faith, family, friendships, health, work, and finances.

Friendships can be looked a little bit more broadly so it can apply to all kinds of relationships. But if you get these six categories right, most of the challenges we face in life could be managed, at least as far as they're under our control.

Today, we are focusing on financial stewardship. I'm going to be talking about finances, but I'll use the word, wealth. I'll use the word, money. I'll use these words interchangeably.

I'm not preaching a prosperity gospel. I'm telling you these are the lessons I've learned myself. It worked in my life and that's why I'm sharing them with you. If you use the word, money, think of it broadly in the context of wealth and finances.

How Not to Be a Good Steward

Do Not Believe that Wealth Has Eternal, Heavenly Significance

Wealth is not a human invention. Caesar didn't come up with it. Carl Marx didn't come up with it. John Maynard Kees didn't come up with it. Jeff Bezos didn't come up with it. God came up with the idea of wealth.

Revelation 5:11-12 says, “¹¹ Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voices of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, ¹² saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!””

Why would the Lamb receive wealth? Wealth is for us down here. What's it doing up there? But if it's up there, it means something. And it means something for eternity, not just a passing thing.

So, we shouldn't be saying, “Easy come, easy go and here today, gone tomorrow,” right? If it's so important that it can be presented to the Lamb in acknowledgement of who He is, we’ve got to think about it pretty hard.

Another example, from Revelation 21, the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, decked out with all of these things. The foundations of the walls of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. And then it gives a long list of jewels.

And at the very end, verse 21, and the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, pure gold, like transparent glass. And this is the city that's going to be there forever and ever and ever.

So, wealth has eternal significance. And that means we've got to wrestle with the idea of finances and wealth until it makes sense to us and we can work with it and it can work with us.

Do Not Believe in Being Generous to the Poor

If you want to be a bad steward, do not believe in being generous to the poor because why would you give your money

away? It doesn't make sense.

The only problem is you'll have also to not believe in Proverbs 19:17, “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed.”

“Lends to the Lord. Lends to the Lord.” That means whoever that person is, has just put God in his debt. You just put God in your debt when you lend to the poor.

And how does God repay? Because I'm sure He repays. Luke 6:38 says, “"Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over. But with the measure you use, he'll be measured to you."

Do Not Believe in Tithing

If anybody doesn't know what tithing is, it's 10% of your wealth, It's a very old concept that goes all the way back to Abraham in Genesis.

The Bible also tells us what happens if you do not tithe.

Malachi 3 6-9 says, “⁶ “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. ⁷ Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ ⁸ “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ “In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me.”

How shall we return? What should the answer be? Pray more? Fast more? Read the Bible more?

In this case, what does God say? You are robbing me. And if you want to come back to me, bring your tithes and contributions.

What does God say will happen when people, His people, believers, His people are more concerned with their own affairs, their own house, and not the house of the Lord?

Haggi 1:6 explains, “You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

That's a pretty dismal picture, right? So, I thought about this quite a bit because I was one of those people. In my early working years, I did not tithe and there was never enough money. I couldn't figure it out.

But almost 40 years later, I think I have an idea.  Luke 6:38 says, “give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Give and it'll be given. How? Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. For with the measure you use, it'll be measured back to you.

Some of you may say that this is all Old Testament stuff. Tithing is nowhere in the New Testament so it doesn't apply to me.

There lots of examples in the Bible of generous giving in the New Testament. It doesn't exactly say you should tithe in the New Testament. The only answer I can give you is that you know that you can trust your covenant theories about the old and the new and I will trust my real life experience.

There was a time when I did not tithe and there was a time when I started and the two felt very different— felt very different.

Malachi 3:10 tells us about the promised blessing for those who tithe, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. “Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.””

The interesting thing is this is the only verse in the Bible where you're allowed to test God. We are not allowed to test God because he is God. But in tithing, He says, "Put me to the test and see if I will not open up the windows of heaven, pouring down for you a blessing until there is no more need."

It doesn't say that He's going to pour down money on you— not rolling in wealth, but until there is no more need.

FOUR Key Ideas that Have Practical Application

Money is Time

You spend time earning your money. Every cent you have represents a portion of your life. Remembering that money represents a portion of our lives leads us to make wiser choices in using our money.

Money Reveals What Is Inside You

You may recognize this name, Jean Paul Getty. He founded Getty Oil. In 1957, Fortune magazine named him the richest American ever. And in 1966, Guinness Book of World Records declared him to be the wealthiest man in the world.

He was known for his sayings about money. By the way, he's also known for his miserliness. In 1973, his grandson was kidnapped in Rome and the kidnappers demanded a $30 million ransom. Getty negotiated with the kidnappers down to $2.2 million because $2.2 million was the maximum IRS tax deductible that he could get.

So the guy knew about money. And here's what he had to say— If one morning, you take all the wealth in the world and divide it up equally among every human being, by the end of the day, everyone will end up pretty much where they were the previous day.

I don't know if it's true or not but it’s an interesting idea because money reveals what's inside of you. Now everything I'm sharing here applies whether you have lots of money, little money, or no money. These principle apply in every

situation.

Money or the lack of money amplifies what's in you. If you have lots of money, it removes many barriers between what you want and what you don't want, which may be why Jesus said in Luke 6:21, "For where your treasure is, there your

heart will be also."

Now, in a practical sense, if you show me 12 monthly bank and credit card statements, I can tell you something about who you are because I can see where your money is going. It's true of me as well, and everyone else. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Where is your heart?

Your Views on Money Can Reflect Your Relationship to God

Jesus made a stunning statement in Luke 6:24, “You cannot you cannot serve both God and money.”

The word, money, is very old. It comes from Aramaic, then it moved to Greek, then to Latin, and then to Middle English. And it's not just about money as money, right? It's about the seductive power and the false security that wealth promises. It’s acting as a spiritual rival to God.

So giving money its proper place in our lives can be one of the hardest things to do as believers. But it's a necessary

thing. Now you and I may find it hard to trust God with our money. But our money doesn't have that problem. It says right on the money, “In God we trust.”

I heard a quote from a preacher in England many, many, many years ago and it stayed with me. It was quoting John Wesley, who is a one of the co-founders of the Methodist movement with his brother Charles Wesley, and it said, “The last part of a man to be saved is his pocketbook [or wallet].”

I tell you this in all seriousness— if you've given your life to Christ, but in your heart, you've not brought the area of money under His authority and his command, you have to rethink that part very carefully because you are in danger of being on the wrong side of that verse that we just read: You cannot serve both God and money.

Here's what he's actually saying. Who do you want a relationship with? God or money?

Why do we use the word relationship when talking about stewardship?

Stewardship is Grounded in Relationship

The word stewardship or the idea of stewardship is actually grounded in relationship. Let's go back to Genesis 1:26. We've seen this verse before, but I'm going to highlight a different part of it.

The first part, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that…”

The “so that,” which is stewardship, is actually preceded by relationship.

And if you know anything about God, you know that he is a relational being. And that is a bedrock principle that you can stake your life on

And you see that in the Bible all the way from Eden when Adam sins and hides and the Lord comes calling for Adam. All the way through the Bible, that's the story of God reaching out to us.

God has given us key principles that work for anyone, believer or atheist. These principles work for everybody.

But believers have a deeper foundation, in 1 Corinthians 8:6, “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”

Everything actually ties back to God.

These categories of stewardship, faith, family, friendships, health, work, and finances, are not independent of each other.

Let's say you're a poor steward of your health. All you do is eat junk food morning, afternoon, evening, and night. What do you think it's going to do to your ability to work?

Let’s say you have a whole bunch of bad friendships. What do you think it's going to do to your family life?

Or let's take family life. Let's say you have a terrible family life. What's that going to do with your ability to work?

My friends, these are all interconnected; every one of them, which is why being good stewards is important. This is why understanding what stewardship means is important— so that we can operate in these categories according to the principles that God has given us.

And when we do that, it's going to draw us closer to God himself into that relationship in which stewardship is grounded. Stewardship is not this vague idea floating around in the ether. It is fundamental to who we are as people, as human beings, as believers.

Closing Thought

Life is complicated. Life is tough. It's beyond our control. It's messy like a roller coaster.

But God has given us two guard rails to keep us on track.

One of them is the idea of stewardship and the other is that when properly exercised, stewardship brings you into closer relationship with him.

And isn't He finally the object of our life, the object of our faith?

Let's stay within these guardrails. And if you do so, one day you will hear the words, "Well done. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

Inductive Bible Study: Observation, Interpretation, Application

·         Observation                 https://www.kathyhoward.org/10-observation-tips-for-better-bible-study/

·         Interpretation               https://www.kathyhoward.org/4-tips-to-help-you-understand-the-bible/

·         Application                  https://www.kathyhoward.org/4-ways-you-can-apply-scripture-to-your-life/

Observation: What Does the Text Say?

1.     What are the six key categories of stewardship?

2.     Are there other categories of stewardship that you think are also important?

3.     Can non-believers be equally good stewards as believing Christians? Why or why not?

4.     What is your favorite Bible verse pertaining to wealth?

Interpretation: What Does It Mean?

1.     Why do you think that Revelation 5:11-12 includes “wealth” in the praises of angels to the Lamb?

2.     Is tithing a command for the Old Testament times only? Does God expect today’s believers also to tithe?

Application: How Should We Respond?

1.     How do you decide when or when not to give money to a poor person?

2.     Is your decision-making approach to giving to the poor in agreement with Matthew 5:42? Is Matthew 5:42 an absolute command or a good principle to be followed when possible?

3.     What is one thing that you will change to make yourself a better steward?

4.     How will being a better steward in that area bring you closer to God?

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