Sermon for BarakaTupu

• Matthew 25:29; I Peter 4:10; and Titus 1: 6-8.

Subject:  Good Stewardship:

• Is a command from God.
• Is a call to all Christians.
• Brings joy to a faithful stewards.
  1. Today
  2. In future.

Introduction: Stewardship is a noun that means the job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property. A good steward is a person who manages another’s property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others. A person who has charge of the household of another, buying or obtaining food, directing the servants, etc.

 Jesus talked a lot about stewardship. He used parables about handling money to teach deeper principles about discipleship, and He reminded His followers that our hearts follow our treasure (Luke 12:34). But how did His walk match His talk? It’s a fair question for believers who want to follow His example in every area of their lives—including their stewardship.

Stewardship is a theological belief that humans are responsible for the world, and should take care of it. Believers in stewardship are usually people who believe in one God who created the universe and all that is within it, also believing that they must take care of creation and look after it. Creation includes animals and the environment. Many religions and denominations have various degrees of support for environmental stewardship. It can have political implications, such as in Christian Democracy.

A great way to examine the question is to filter His life through the definition of biblical stewardship: managing God’s blessings God’s way for God’s glory. By breaking each component down, we can see how Jesus integrated genuine stewardship into His own life. Having said so, therefore, let get into our today’s sermon.

1. Good Stewardship Is a Command From God.
2. It is very important for us to know that we owe nothing of our own. God owns it all, and we manage His stuff. That’s the foundation of biblical stewardship. God gives chances, opportunities, gifts and talents. He give as He want and to them that are worth. He gives according to the ability of the recipient for the purpose of the kingdom enhancement. In the Gospels, Jesus often acknowledged God’s role as Provider. He trusted God to provide things like a temple tax from the mouth of a fish (Matthew 17:24–26), and He taught His followers to rely on God as they worked and ministered (Mark 6:8-11).
3. But Jesus also showed how stewardship isn’t just about material possessions. It involves things like our work and our time, too. He knew His time on earth was limited, so He intentionally set priorities. Ever wonder why Jesus told people to keep His identity a secret? Partially, it was to avoid the kind of distractions that would disrupt His ministry. Jesus was all about making the most of the blessings God had provided.
4. Christian Stewardship refers to the responsibility that Christians have in maintaining and using wisely the gifts that God has bestowed. God wishes human beings to be his collaborators in the work of creation, redemption and sanctification. Increasingly this has referred to environmental protectionism. This also includes traditional Christian Ministries that share the resources of treasure, time and talent.
5. When I say that being a good steward is a command from God; look at what Peter is saying in our above given verse;
   1. To hospitality, v. 9. The hospitality here required is a free and kind entertainment of strangers and travelers. The proper objects of Christian hospitality are one another. The nearness of their relation, and the necessity of their condition in those times of persecution and distress, obliged Christians to be hospitable one to another. Sometimes Christians were spoiled of all they had, and were driven away to distant countries for safety. In this case they must starve if their fellow-Christians would not receive them. Therefore it was a wise and necessary rule which the apostle here laid down.
   1. It is elsewhere commanded, Heb. 13:1, Heb. 13:2; Rom. 12:13. The manner of performing this duty is this: it must be done in an easy, kind, handsome manner, without grudging or grumbling at the expense or trouble. It is good to note that;
      1. (1.) Christians ought not only to be charitable, but hospitable, one to another.
      1. (2.) Whatever a Christian does by way of charity or of hospitality, he ought to do it cheerfully, and without grudging. Freely you have received, freely give.
6. How faithful are we, you and I to this command? Many of us in this church are capable of educating, feeding, assisting and serving in the church with whatever they have. But look and see many children who have been at home for luck of fees, sleeping hungry and how the ministry is being stagnated by our being so mean. Freely you were given, freely give.

1. Good Stewardship is a call to all.
   1. It’s one thing to admit that God owns it all. It’s another thing to commit yourself to using the stuff He owns His way—mostly because His ways don’t always make sense to our human brains. From Eden until today, humans have wrestled with the tension between trusting God’s plan and jumping in with our own plans.
   1. Jesus really never struggled with that tension. He embraced the Father’s purpose and never wavered from making it happen. He came to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10 NIV). Anything outside that mission was a step outside God’s way of doing things.
   1. For example, when Satan tempted Him (Jesus) with alternative plans (Matthew 4:1–11), Jesus rebuked him with Scripture and refused any shortcuts. Even when God’s purpose brought Jesus to the brink of the cross—complete with suffering and agony—He submitted to God’s will, not His own (Matthew 26:39). Jesus’ job wasn’t finished until the Father’s purpose was finished (John 19:30).
   1. Jesus stayed connected to God’s way by connecting to God through prayer. Scripture tells us that prayer was a habit in Jesus’ life (Luke 5:15–16), and it’s a habit we can imitate as we try to figure out how God wants us to steward His blessings.

• Note that in the day of account, wicked and slothful servants will be left quite without excuse; frivolous pleas will be overruled, and every mouth will be stopped; and those who now stand so much upon their own justification will not have one word to say for themselves.

• Whoever will not adhere to this call of stewardship then there is a condemnation. The slothful servant is sentenced,

1. 1. To be deprived of his talent (v. 28, v. 29); Take therefore the talent from him. The talents were first disposed of by the Master, as an absolute Owner, but this was now disposed of by him as a Judge; he takes it from the unfaithful servant, to punish him, and gives it to him that was eminently faithful, to reward him. And the meaning of this part of the parable we have in the reason of the sentence (v. 29). To everyone that hath shall be given. This may be applied,
   1. (1.) To the blessings of this life—worldly wealth and possessions. These we are entrusted with, to be used for the glory of God, and the good of those about us. Giving to the poor is trading with what we have, and the returns will be rich; it will multiply the meal in the barrel, and the oil in the cruse: but those that are sordid, and niggardly, and uncharitable, will find that those riches which are so got, perish by evil travail, Eccl. 5:13, Eccl. 5:14 .
      1. (2.) We may apply it to the means of grace. They who are diligent in improving the opportunities they have, God will enlarge them, will set before them an open door (Rev. 3:8); but they who know not the day of their visitation, shall have the things that belong to their peace hid from their eyes. For proof of this, go see what God did to Shiloh, Jer. 7:12.
      1. (3.) We may apply it to the common gifts of the Spirit. He that hath these, and doeth good with them, shall have abundance; these gifts improve by exercise, and brighten by being used; the more we do, the more we may do, in religion; but those who stir not up the gift that is in them, who do not exert themselves according to their capacity, their gifts rust, and decay, and go out like a neglected fire Zac 11:17.
   1. 2. He is sentenced to be cast into outer darkness, v. 30.
      1. (1.) His character is that of an unprofitable servant. Note, Slothful servants will be reckoned with as unprofitable servants, who do nothing to the purpose of their coming into the world, nothing to answer the end of their birth or baptism, who are no way serviceable to the glory of God, the good of others, or the salvation of their own souls. A slothful servant is a withered member in the body, a barren tree in the vineyard, an idle drone in the hive, he is good for nothing. In one sense, we are all unprofitable servants (Lu. 17:10); we cannot profit God, Job. 22:2.
      1. (2.) His doom is, to be cast into outer darkness. Here, as in what was said to the faithful servants, our Savior slides insensibly out of the parable into the thing intended by it, and it serves as a key to the whole; for, outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, is, in Christ’s discourses, the common periphrasis of the miseries of the damned in hell. Their state is,
         1. [1.] Very dismal; it is outer darkness. Darkness is uncomfortable and frightful: it was one of the plagues of Egypt. In hell there are chains of darkness, 2 Pt. 2:4. In the dark no man can work, a fit punishment for a slothful servant. It is outer darkness, out from the light of heaven, out from the joy of their Lord, into which the faithful servants were admitted; out from the feast. Compare Ch. 8:12; 22:13.
         1. [2.] Very doleful; there is weeping, which bespeaks great sorrow, and gnashing of teeth, which bespeaks great vexation and indignation. This will be the portion of the slothful servant.

We are called to be good stewards whether we like it or not. We have our God given responsibility. Each one of us here today has his/her talent and gift to use as far as serving God is concerned. But many of us are just in their comfort zone waiting for others to serve them and on their behalf. Respond today to the call of stewardship and avoid the rebuke and the punishment.

3. Good stewardship brings joy to a faithful one.

It is the joy of everyone to smile all through as you receive a trophy and congratulation message from your master that you have made it. Being faithful is a requirement to each and every servant to his/her master. Now here, after serving faithfully, a rewarding time comes.

Positively: he must be (v. 8) a lover of hospitality, as an evidence that he is not given to filthy lucre, but is willing to use what he has to the best purposes, not laying up for himself, so as to hinder charitable laying out for the good of others; receiving and entertaining strangers (as the word imports), a great and necessary office of love, especially in those times of affliction and distress, when Christians were made to fly and wander for safety from persecution and enemies, or in travelling to and fro where there were not such public houses for reception as in our days, nor, it may be, had many poor saints sufficiency of their own for such uses—then to receive and entertain them was good and pleasing to God.

 And such a spirit and practice, according to ability and occasion, are very becoming such as should be examples of good works. A lover of good men, or of good things; ministers should be exemplary in both; this will evince their open piety, and likeness to God and their Master Jesus Christ: Do good to all, but especially to those of the household of faith, those who are the excellent of the earth, in whom should be all our delight.

 Sober, or prudent, as the word signifies; a needful grace in a minister both for his ministerial and personal carriage and management. He should be a wise steward, and one who is not rash, or foolish, or heady; but who can govern well his passions and affections. Just in things belonging to civil life, and moral righteousness, and equity in dealings, giving to all their due.

Holy, in what concerns religion; one who reverences and worships God, and is of a spiritual and heavenly conversation. Temperate; it comes from a word that signifies strength, and denotes one who has power over his appetite and affections, or, in things lawful, can, for good ends, restrain and hold them in.

Nothing is more becoming a minister than such things as these, sobriety, temperance, justice, and holiness —sober in respect of himself, just and righteous towards all men, and holy towards God. And thus of the qualifications respecting the minister’s life and manners, relative and absolute, negative and positive, what he must not, and what he must, be and do.

 (1.) Here is his duty: Holding fast the faithful word, as he has been taught, keeping close to the doctrine of Christ, the word of his grace, adhering thereto according to the instructions he has received-holding it fast in his own belief and profession, and in teaching others. Observe,

[1.] The word of God, revealed in the scripture, is a true and infallible word; the word of him that is the amen, the true and faithful witness, and whose Spirit guided the penmen of it. Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

[2.] Ministers must hold fast, and hold forth, the faithful word in their teaching and life. I have kept the faith, was Paul’s comfort (2 Tim. 4:7), and not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God; there was his faithfulness, Acts. 20:27.

(2.) Here is the end: That he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort, and to convince the gainsayers, to persuade and draw others to the true faith, and to convince the contrary-minded. How should he do this if he himself were uncertain or unsteady, not holding fast that faithful word and sound doctrine which should be the matter of this teaching, and the means and ground of convincing those that oppose the truth?

(a).         To exhort those who are willing to know and do their duty.

(b).         To convince those that contradict, both which are to be done by sound doctrine, that is, in a rational instructive way, by scripture-arguments and testimonies, which are the infallible words of truth, what all may and should rest and be satisfied in and determined by. And thus of the qualifications of the elders whom Titus was to ordain.

Many of us Christians practice the spiritual discipline of intentional financial stewardship, giving to churches or other ministries. Fewer, though still a significant number, commit time in service to the needy or in other areas, often utilizing and donating specialized skills and abilities.

Stewardship in Christianity follows from the belief that human beings are created by the same God who created the entire universe and everything in it. To look after the Earth, and thus God’s dominion, is the responsibility of the Christian steward. We are, we will and always are blessed for being faithful stewards in all that have been entrusted to us, no matter the size and the hardships.

Matthew 25:29 “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.”