Good evening, my brothers and sisters. I know that your heart rejoices, as mine does, in the goodness of our Lord, His mercies, and His wonderful grace upon our lives.
Tonight, we want to continue to fellowship about this matter of spiritual stewardship. Our focus for this evening has to do with the character of God’s steward. We want to read some verses from 2 Timothy, but before we read, I want to remind us once again of the reality of our time right now.
The reality is—and we want it to become something that we know and experience, not just some theory—that our great High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, the sovereign Ruler of the universe, desires to speak to you and me. When He speaks, He wants to speak from His heart to our hearts.
You can be absolutely sure that there will be nothing wrong with what He says. His speaking from His heart will be perfect. But in order for us to receive what He says, the Holy Spirit—Who was sent here on the day of Pentecost by the Father and by the Son—has been commissioned with the responsibility of communicating the heart of our Lord to our hearts.
As we mentioned yesterday, God has also chosen to use human vessels. He wants to take a human vessel and use it, by the anointing and empowering of the Holy Spirit, to speak these words to our hearts.
Then, brothers and sisters, every one of us has a responsibility. Can we put it this way? We need to be stewards of our hearts tonight. By the grace of God, you have the ability to have control over your heart. We need to put our hearts in a place where they are listening hearts.
You remember that the Lord came to Solomon and said, “You ask what you want; I’ll give it to you.” The Lord took a great risk in doing that. But you remember Solomon’s request. Sometimes the translations say that he asked for wisdom, but, brothers and sisters, what he asked for was a listening heart—a heart able to hear God’s voice.
We can be absolutely sure that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit will be perfectly faithful to us. So let us trust Him tonight, so that He can do this great work that is in His heart to do.
Brothers and sisters, I want to be very careful, but it seems to me there is only one work that our Lord is doing:
“I will build My church.”
We are here as members of this church, members of His body. But He wants to continue this building work. Even in the assemblies where you and I gather, He wants to do something in us that will allow Him to do, in a fuller way, what is in His heart for our assemblies.
Do you know what His heart is for the assemblies where we meet? The church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all. Brothers and sisters, not just in meetings but in all of our life as assemblies, it is the heart of our Lord to impart a fuller measure of His fullness to our lives together.
Tonight, along with the other times we have had, I believe the Lord has gathered us here to speak a word to us—a living word, not just some information, but a word that has life in it, a life that can be communicated from Himself to us. If this can happen, then our Lord will be able to do a further building work among us as His people.
So let us put ourselves in a place where our hearts are listening for what the Holy Spirit is seeking to speak to us. Can I encourage us to join our hearts together and put ourselves in a place where the Lord can speak to us? Let us pray together.
Blessed Lord Jesus, we want to thank You for all that You have already spoken to our hearts. Lord, many of us could go home this afternoon and say, “Lord, it has been wonderful. It has been good.” But, Lord, there seems to be something more that is in Your heart that You want to do.
We want to be before You tonight in such a way that we can fully cooperate with You, that we will not in any way interfere with or prevent You from doing what is in Your heart. Blessed Lord, we thank You for Your great sovereign love that causes You to desire to speak living words to our hearts tonight.
Lord, we know that in many ways we should be disqualified, because You have spoken so many times before. Many times we have not listened carefully, and we have not obeyed what You have said. But we want that to change tonight, Lord.
We humble ourselves before You and say, “Lord Jesus, we want to hear Your voice.” We promise You that by Your grace, by Your helping us, we will seek to obey whatever it is that You speak to us. Thank You again for Your great love to us. We put ourselves now under the anointing of Your Holy Spirit, that He can speak, we can hear, and You can do Your work. We ask it in Your name. Amen.
You will remember that Paul is writing what many people think is his final letter, his final correspondence. He writes it to one of his coworkers, Timothy.
In 2 Timothy 2:15, he says:
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
Then, in 2 Timothy 2:21:
Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.
And in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
We see here, I believe, my brothers and sisters, another way of understanding what a steward is. The language Paul uses is that we are to be a workman—an unashamed workman.
I want to underline the encouragement we have received from our brother Stephen and our brother Dana: every one of us, the moment we respond to God’s drawing love and come to have faith in His Son, at that very moment we have been called to be stewards.
We are probably not aware of that, and it may not be the issue uppermost in our minds. But from God’s perspective, it is involved in this call—not just to have our sins forgiven, not just to receive new life and experience, in a fuller measure, the victory of Calvary.
As we said yesterday, oh, my dear brothers and sisters, God takes us, as disqualified as we were and are, and still wants to do a work in us so that we can be His stewards: stewards of the mystery, stewards of His grace, stewards of His love, and stewards of His life.
Paul uses this language: a workman, an unashamed workman. This is what our Lord wants for every one of us. Please know that there has been a full, overflowing, adequate provision for you to do this.
He also says that we are to be a vessel for honor. Brothers and sisters, the calling that you and I have received is such a great calling. The greatest honor that could ever be bestowed upon you has already been bestowed upon you: God wants you and me to be vessels of honor that He can use, useful to the Master, prepared and adequate.
This is another way of seeing what it means to be a steward. As our brothers have been sharing, we see one dimension of this. But please see that this is also another way that we can understand what it means to be a steward.
Paul says that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I know he is talking to Timothy, but we need to be careful that we do not just take the phrase “the man of God.” What about the woman of God?
We have a tendency to categorize certain people as having some special place in this matter of being stewards of God. But we need to see ourselves, as men and women, apprehended by our God, apprehended by our Lord.
There is a work that has been in the depths of His heart from eternity past, which He is now doing, has been doing, and will continue to do until it is completed and perfected. The amazing thing to me, brothers and sisters, is that He would choose the likes of us. Please forgive me; I do not mean to offend you.
None of us, in and of ourselves, was qualified in any way to be given this kind of responsibility, this position in the work of God. We know that this work of building the church is a work only our Lord Jesus can do:
“I will build My church.”
For Him to take the likes of us—totally disqualified in every sense of the word—do a work in us, qualify us, put responsibility in our hands, and then give us grace to fulfill that responsibility, is amazing. It is almost so wonderful that you can hardly believe it.
Many of us believe that the reason God chose us is because we had innate abilities, wonderful gifts that He could use in building His church. But I want us to see what has happened when men have tried to do this work with their own innate abilities.
I have been living in Brazil for a number of years now, and I should have learned how to speak Portuguese very well, but I am an utter failure at this matter. There are some words in Portuguese, however, that are precious to me. One is bagunça.
Portuguese-speaking people know what that means. It means a mess. I do not know a better word in any language to describe what we have done with the church of our Lord Jesus Christ than bagunça. It is a big mess.
In Brazil, we have three thousand denominations. I do not know how many there are in the United States. But do you know why we have this situation? Because men, with their own innate abilities, thought they could do this work that only our Lord Jesus can do:
“I will build My church.”
It is amazing to me that He would take the likes of us. I am sorry; I have to include you too. I am at the top of the list, but I have to include you too. He would take the likes of us, choose us as raw material, then choose us as coworkers, prepare us, make us adequate, and prepare us for this good work of building the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, dear brothers and sisters, may God help us not to have to wait until the end to see the glory and honor of this great calling: to be a part of this great work of building God’s masterpiece, the church of our Lord Jesus Christ, which will become the bride of the Son of God.
Last evening, our heart was to focus on five characteristics of a steward—five qualities of a steward. There is so much that needs to be said about this matter of being stewards, and I am not sure that the ones I mentioned are even the most important ones. But they are the ones that were in my heart.
First of all, as a steward, you have to be devoted to your Master. You have to love Him with your whole heart. If you do not, it will result in your not being a good steward.
Please remember what our brothers have said: you are a steward. That is not the issue. The issue is: what kind of steward are we? Are we good, faithful, and prudent stewards, or are we lazy and evil stewards, as our Lord called them in Matthew 25? That is the issue.
The number-one issue is whether or not you are in love with your Master—so much in love with Him that your whole life is focused on doing the things that please Him. This is not for a special few people. This is necessary for every one of us to end up being good, faithful, prudent stewards.
We have to be hopelessly devoted to our Lord and give ourselves without reservation—total surrender. But what is so wrong with that? Why is it so difficult for some of us to make that kind of decision? Is He such a bad Master? Is He so difficult to work for?
No, my brothers and sisters. You will never find anybody like Him to be your Master. He loves you perfectly. He wants nothing but the absolute best for you. He will be merciful to you. He will give you abundant grace. He will be so patient.
He will not criticize you, even when you deserve to be criticized. He will not disqualify you, even when you do things that should disqualify you. He will find a way. He is such a wonderful Master. Why do we hesitate to give ourselves hopelessly to Him and surrender fully?
If you have not done that, my dear brother and sister, I plead with you tonight: do not sleep until you do. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you. He will give you grace. He will give you courage. He will even give you the words to say.
Do not let another day pass until you have come to grips with this matter: you want to become a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ, a love slave—someone who serves Him because you love Him, not because you are afraid not to, or for some other reason.
What motivates you? You want to please Him. You want to know Him. You want to know His heart. You want to know what is important to Him. These are the things that motivate us and cause us to press on.
Oh, brothers and sisters, Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the apostle, had his life totally turned around in the event recorded for us in Acts 9. Saul of Tarsus was totally determined to destroy the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was hostile. He was antagonistic. He was throwing people into prison. He even stood by and agreed with the stoning of Stephen.
But when he saw the risen Christ, when the risen Christ apprehended him on the road to Damascus, something was burned into his heart. The light was brighter than the sun at noonday, and he was struck to the ground.
From that initial revelation, because he was obedient from the first day, he immediately began to preach Jesus when they took him into Damascus. He did not even wait to go out into the desert. He did that later. But while he was in Damascus, immediately he began to preach.
When the Lord told the parable in Matthew 25 about those who received the talents, what did the faithful servants do? Immediately. Some of us have procrastinated and postponed.
I used to have a boss in a supermarket when I was a teenager in high school. His name was George Wardian, and I do not remember many people’s names, but I remember this man. He would walk around every aisle saying to us young people, “Don’t dilly-dally or procrastinate.”
Well, some of us have dilly-dallied and procrastinated so long that we have lost the sense of what was happening in our hearts in the very beginning. But we see in the life of Paul that he did not do that. He responded immediately.
He could say, in Acts 26:19:
“I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.”
Brothers and sisters, this ought to be our testimony as good stewards of the manifold grace of God: illuminated, educated, and related.
We all come into this matter of being stewards on the same level. We are all in kindergarten to begin with. It is a good place to be. It is a good place to learn valuable lessons: to be humble, dependent, and always looking to Him.
If you happen to be in that stage, rejoice in it, brother and sister. If you are just in the beginning stage, perhaps you have never even made this initial step. Maybe you did not understand that part of your calling was to be a steward.
Maybe for many years you have been going around thinking, “Hallelujah, my sins have been forgiven. I am not going to hell; I am going to heaven.” Hallelujah. Well, that is wonderful. But what are you going to do when you stand before Him? Are you just going to sing “Hallelujah”?
I hope not, my brothers and sisters. I hope you have something that you can present to Him, and He can say, “Well done,” because you have responded to His hand of education upon your life. He has educated you in knowing how to serve Him in a way that is pleasing to Him.
There is not one of us in this place tonight who cannot be educated by our Lord. What does it mean to be a disciple? It means to be a learner, someone who comes under the educating hand of his Master.
Finally, related. We need to have relationships with each other. This is part of being a steward: learning to appreciate and build strong, long-lasting—may I even say eternal—relationships.
Do not wait until then. We can start now. As I mentioned last night, in Romans 16 there are thirty-five names of people Paul wanted to greet, and some who were there with him who wanted to send greetings—thirty-five names.
Not just, “Oh, God bless everybody. Wonderful. Tell everybody I said hello.” No, brothers and sisters. This was a man who understood and deeply appreciated the people God brought into his life. He spent the time and took the grace to build relationships with them.
So much so that he referred to some of them as his beloved. In experience, we do not become beloved just because we meet each other one time. It means we have spent some time together. We have gone through difficulties. We have cried with one another and laughed with one another. It is in this kind of context that we become beloved to each other.
Tonight, I want to share five things. I want to point us in the direction of seeing the attitudes that permitted Paul to become this vessel of honor, to become a faithful and prudent steward.
They are simply statements Paul made, but I think they reveal an attitude in his heart that somehow made it possible for the Holy Spirit to work in him and produce the kind of steward that he became.
When our Lord Jesus encountered Saul on the road to Damascus, Saul was lying on the ground and asked two questions:
“Lord, who art Thou?”
“What shall I do, Lord?”
Secondly, in 1 Corinthians 15:10, Paul says:
“By the grace of God I am what I am.”
Then, in Romans 1:16, he says:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel.”
In 2 Timothy 2:10, he says:
“I endure all things.”
Finally, in 2 Corinthians 2:13, he says:
“Not finding Titus my brother.”
As we look at these statements, let us keep our focus. We are trying to discover the attitude in Paul that allowed the Lord Jesus Christ to produce in him a steward whom our Lord can put before us and say, “This is what I am trying to do in your life.”
If He could do it for Paul, guess what? He can do it for you. He does not show partiality. He will not do one thing for Paul that He will not do for you. The same resources that were available to produce Paul the apostle are abundantly available to you.
So you know what that means? No excuses, brothers and sisters. No excuses. The Lord used Paul as an example of how He can take someone who was His enemy, antagonistic and working against Him, apprehend him by His sovereign love, transform his life, and make him an example for all of us.
This is not to magnify Paul, but to magnify the Lord whom he came to know and to whom he surrendered his life.
Paul’s response was, “Lord, what shall I do?” Some translations say, “Lord, what shall I do?” It is saying the same thing.
In 2 Corinthians 5:9, Paul states this in another way:
Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
When Saul of Tarsus was encountered by the sovereign Ruler, our Lord Jesus Christ, and said, “Lord, what do You want me to do? What is my next step?” he was saying, “My ambition, the most important thing to me, is to do things that bring pleasure to Him.”
We cannot say that we love our Lord Jesus and still not be interested in the things that please Him. Paul understood in the depths of his heart that the One who encountered him was none other than the sovereign Lord.
He did not merely ask, “Who are You?” He said, “Lord, who are You?” Paul knew what he was saying. He understood that the One speaking to him was the sovereign Lord.
In essence, Paul was saying, “I surrender my will totally to You. I submit myself completely to Your authority.” What excuses can we make for not doing this?
Something in your life has domination over you. The question is: who or what is it? There is only One in this universe Who is to be in that position.
Our heavenly Father placed Him far above all principalities and powers. He placed Him at His own right hand. He gave Him the name that is above every other name. There is coming a day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
We do not have to wait until then. We can do it now. This is what Paul did. The attitude of his heart was, “This is the Lord, and I am going to bow my knee. I am going to gladly bow my knee.”
It must not just be words, but something in our hearts: surrender to His sovereignty. We confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ is Lord. When we do, we experience a great salvation: we are saved from being our own tyrant ruler.
This is a great deliverance. It is a great salvation to be set free from that tyrant we were born with, living inside of us.
Because Jesus has been made Lord, and because you confess Him to be Lord, you surrender your will to Him. That means, “Lord, what shall I do next?” It means you are willing to learn the lesson of obeying Him.
The words are empty and meaningless if you say, “Lord,” and have no intention of obeying Him. You remember Matthew 7:21:
Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven;
but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven.
Some unfortunate things have happened among us. In our songs, conversations, and talk about Him, we call Him Lord without understanding that this means we want to obey Him. It has become merely a nice title that we have given Him.
But who is the loser when we do that? It does not change Who He is. It does not change Him one bit. But it brings us into deception, using the word when the reality is not there.
Oh, may the Lord deliver us. May the Holy Spirit take this word, “Lord,” and fill it with the meaning that is supposed to be there. He is our sovereign. He is the One Who is to be in absolute control of everything going on in our lives, because God has given Him this position.
For the last two thousand years, there has been a Man—a unique Man, but nonetheless a Man—seated in the highest position in the universe. All authority and all power belong to Him. He is the sovereign Ruler.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that happens in this universe over which He is not Lord. He is even Lord over the stupid things we do. He permits us to do them, even though they are not His will. He is still Lord.
So the question is: is He our Lord? Is He your Lord? Is He my Lord? Not just something that happened in the past, but today and tonight, is this a reality?
Have you said something like Paul said? “Lord, where do I go from here? What is my next step? My life belongs to You. I fully surrender. What are You asking of me next?” Day by day, may this be the attitude of our hearts: “Lord, my ambition is to live in such a way and do the things that please You.”
This is so wonderful, my brothers and sisters. I feel like I want to worship tonight when I hear what this man said in 1 Corinthians 15. That is why I wanted us to sing this song tonight:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I’m come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 15:10:
But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
This needs to become very, very clear to us. You will never become a faithful, prudent steward unless you discover the amazing grace of God. If you think you can pull it off with your own native abilities, you are headed for disaster. You are going to run into a brick wall. You are going to fall flat on your face.
Cry out to God: “Please open my eyes to see this amazing grace.” Paul discovered early in his life with the Lord that he could not fulfill His will in his own strength. I am sure they were expensive lessons.
I think he discovered this matter of the grace of God when he fell on his face and felt like a total failure, when all he could do was cry tears of failure. It was there that he discovered the amazing grace of God.
Please do not see God’s grace as something. It is none other than the living Christ coming and imparting Himself to us. His grace is not some commodity that you can go to the supermarket or department store and purchase. It is personal.
Our Lord Jesus is the One Who is full of grace, and of His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. Even when we make the commitment that we want to do the will of our Master, we have to discover that, though we have the desire to do it, we cannot pull it off by ourselves.
Our Lord Jesus Himself, by His indwelling presence, must impart to us what we need in order to fulfill that responsibility. If you have not seriously considered this matter of the grace of God, do not let many days go by. Get your Bible, get a good concordance, find the places where the grace of God is mentioned, and trust the Holy Spirit to open your eyes.
In Ephesians 1, Paul mentions the blessings with which God has blessed us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Ephesians 1:6, he speaks of:
The praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
Then, in Ephesians 1:7-8:
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace,
which He lavished on us.
What did He do with His grace? He freely bestowed it upon us. What did He do with the riches of His grace? He lavished them upon us.
God did not take the leftovers. He took the absolute best He had. Who is that? His own Son. Some of us have a problem because we think that God dispenses His grace with an eyedropper—just a little bit.
You know the eyedropper: you squeeze it carefully, and one or two drops come out. Some of us think that is the way God dispenses His grace. “Just a little bit. Do not waste any of it.”
Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, do you know what He has done with it? He has lavished it. He took the whole container and poured it out upon us. Do you know the reality of this?
When you seriously face the responsibility of being a faithful, prudent, good steward, you need to know that you need the grace of God to do it. We have to learn how to humble ourselves.
To whom does God give grace, according to 1 Peter 5:5? To those who humble themselves. He gives grace to the humble. But do you know why we do not receive more grace? Please forgive my Southern English, but we are so cotton-picking proud.
We feel like we can do it without Him. We think we are sufficient in ourselves.
Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the apostle, had gone through that whole list in 2 Corinthians 11. Brothers and sisters, I have never come close to even one of those things. Yet Paul knew the grace of God. He knew how sufficient it was to get him through.
But there was still another area in his life. God, if I can say it this way, employed Satan. Satan had no idea what he was doing, but he was fulfilling a very important work in the life of one of God’s stewards.
Paul described it as a thorn in the flesh, like a fence post driven into his side. I believe he felt, “Lord, if You do not remove this thing, I cannot go on. I cannot serve You. I cannot fulfill my mission.”
He went to the Lord. He did not just ask; he begged. He implored the Lord. But the Lord knew Paul. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation, there was danger that he would become proud and think of himself as somebody really important.
In His great wisdom, the Lord knew exactly what Paul needed. He allowed the enemy to come and drive this stake into his side, putting him in a place where he felt, “Lord, I cannot go on.”
Yet I think that when we sit down with Paul in the age to come, he will say, “The Lord was so merciful to me. I did not think I could make it through. I thought He had to remove this thing before I could make any progress. But I learned a valuable lesson.”
The lesson was this: when I am weak, He is strong; His strength is made perfect in my weakness. I say it again: God’s problem is not your weaknesses. The thing that hinders Him most is your strengths—being strong in yourself and thinking you do not need Him.
Paul had this tremendous vision. He said that he saw things unlawful for men to speak of and was taken up into the third heaven. If the Lord gave you such an experience, what would you do? Start a Bible school? Write a book? At least go on a tour telling everybody?
Oh, brothers and sisters, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and God has to deal with it. Saul of Tarsus had a lot of it, and it was strong. God had the necessary way of helping this man get free from this stronghold in his life.
If you take the first step, surrender completely to Him, and say, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” then He, in His great love for you, will arrange or permit circumstances in your life that will give you the opportunity to have these strongholds destroyed.
It will be almost as if you take a drill, drill a hole, put a stick of dynamite in that stronghold, and blow it up.
So, by the grace of God, I am what I am. I hope that is your testimony too. If you have made any progress at all, if there has been any learning in how to be a better steward, I can tell you it is by the grace of God—not because you are such a great person.
Paul came to this conclusion in Romans 7:18:
I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.
If this man could say it, I certainly can say it. Maybe you can say it too. But it takes some of us a long, long time to come to that point, because some of us believe that God did Himself a great favor when He saved us. He got such a choice person, so wonderful—and all of that has to come to a total collapse.
If you have made this initial step, you have a wonderful journey ahead of you. The Lord will be utterly faithful. But most of us learn this lesson lying flat on our face, having cried until we cannot cry anymore.
In Romans 1:16, Paul says:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.
Paul was clear. The Holy Spirit helped him understand that in the gospel—in the truth of the gospel, the mystery of the gospel, the secret of what happens when we believe the gospel—the truth comes in and begins a wonderful work of transformation.
Yes, it wonderfully includes the fact that we are now justified. Is it not marvelous that you and I can come tonight and stand before this holy God, and He cannot find anything wrong with us? He does not just say, “You are forgiven.” He says, “You have never sinned.”
We know differently, but when our heavenly Father looks at the blood of His Son, there is no more record. No more record. Hallelujah.
Paul knew in the depths of his being the transforming power of the gospel. He knew it for himself. That is why he had liberty to proclaim it and say, “I am not ashamed of this gospel.”
Paul was a well-educated man. He may have had the equivalent today of at least one PhD, perhaps two. He was probably educated in philosophy and all kinds of things. But he did not say, “I am not ashamed of philosophy.” He said, “I am not ashamed of this simple gospel.”
To my young brothers and sisters who are still in school or headed to college: you are going to encounter teaching in classrooms that seeks to contradict the simple gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I trust that your attitude will be such that you are not ashamed of this gospel.
If you are in a philosophy class and try to explain the philosophy of the gospel, they may laugh you out of the classroom. They may think you have lost your mind. But Paul knew this, and it became something deep in his heart.
That is why he says in Romans 15 that he fully preached the gospel. From the day he came to know the Lord Jesus, this man was possessed—if I can put it that way—obsessed with proclaiming this gospel, because he was convinced that it was the power of God to transform people’s lives.
Not just the gospel of forgiveness, but the gospel that results in a transformation of people’s character—the gospel that results in the Lord Jesus building His church.
Do you not find it interesting that Paul wrote to the Romans and said, “I am eager to preach the gospel to you”? Was he saying they were not saved and needed to become saved? No, brothers and sisters.
His gospel was a comprehensive gospel. It was not just about the forgiveness of sin and our becoming children of God. The gospel also included the building of the church.
It would be a wonderful thing if you and I could come to the same conclusion, not just because Paul did, but because the Holy Spirit makes real to us the transforming power of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I do not know much about other religions. I took a class on comparative religions, but it did not take very well. Yet I do not believe that any other so-called religion makes this kind of provision: that it is the power of God unto salvation.
This salvation means that God will take you from the deepest ditch to the highest heaven, fully qualified to be there and to reign with His Son forever and ever. This is what the gospel will do.
In addition to this matter of being justified, remember what Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2:2:
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
If you are in a place of communicating the gospel—and we all need to be, in one way or another—you need to know that the gospel is centered in a Person and in what happened to that Person, the work He accomplished.
There is no other name. There is no other way. Almighty God has provided a way to transform people’s lives—not just to have them forgiven, not just to free them from some bad habits, but to transform them so that you and I are conformed to the image of His Son.
This is the gospel. This is the gospel Paul preached: Christ and Him crucified. Christ crucified—the wisdom of God and the power of God.
After you are forgiven, you still have a couple of problems, right? The major problem is, how do I stop sinning? John says in 1 John 2:1:
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye may not sin.
The Holy Spirit would not say that if it were not possible. There is a way. It is a very unusual way, because there is only one kind of sinner who does not sin. Do you know what kind? A dead one.
Out of His great wisdom, God put you and me in Christ, so that when Christ was crucified, what happened to you and me? According to Romans 6:6:
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him.
The gospel Paul was not ashamed of included freedom from sin. You do not have to be victimized by your old sinful nature anymore. I think that is good news.
God has provided a way for you to stop sinning. It is an unusual way: execution by crucifixion. Only dead sinners do not sin.
I remember a Bible study we had many years ago. It was in the morning, and mostly sisters came. We were studying Romans. There was a lady from Ireland who was Roman Catholic and was just learning this whole matter of studying the Bible.
One day she came in looking very nervous, jittery, unable to get peace and rest. After the Bible study, she came to me and said carefully, “Ernie, I had a dream about you.”
I said, “Okay, you can tell me the dream.” She said, “I dreamed that you died. I came to the wake—the funeral. I was walking down these stone steps, and I looked over, and there you were in the coffin, but you were still moving.”
I said, “Yes, that is me. That is me.”
This is some of us, brothers and sisters, because we have not moved from Romans 6:6 to Romans 6:11. As a steward of the gospel, you need to put into practice the reality of what God accomplished when His Son was crucified.
Romans 6:11 says:
Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
If you do not do that, then you do not experience the reality of having been crucified. You can have the doctrine, but when a husband and wife get into an argument, or some other conflict arises in your life, you have the opportunity to put your foot on the throat of that old man and keep him there until he stops breathing.
I remember our brother Lance telling about a brother who was studying this matter and thought perhaps he had entered into it. He said, “I thought I had died, but I discovered I only fainted.”
Being a steward means that we take the truth the Holy Spirit speaks to us and, by His grace, put it into practice. You need to reckon that old man to be dead. How can you do that? Because the same Bible that tells you that Jesus died for you also tells you that you died in Him.
Almost every one of us knows that Jesus died for us. But do you know that you died in Him? You need to know. This is being a steward.
Then, Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
This is the gospel too. There may be a difference between Romans 6:6 and Galatians 2:20. In Romans, Paul is talking about the old man; in Galatians, he is talking about the “I,” the ego, the self-life.
Our Lord Jesus did not have an old man, but He had a self. He died to that self. He said that if any man wants to be His disciple, he must learn to say no to self.
Part of being stewards of the gospel is understanding that we need to deny, to say no to, to consider crucified and dead, our self-life—and know that it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.
Some of you are trying so hard to be good Christians. You are trying to live the Christian life. You are eager and desirous, but you are going to discover it does not work.
There is only one Person in the universe Who can live the Christian life, and it is Christ. He lived it in Jesus of Nazareth, and now He wants to live it in you. But you have to learn to say no to that self-life and not let it have domination over you.
Then, in Galatians 6:14, Paul says:
The world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
This is the real problem we are facing now. How much are you concerned about what is happening economically, politically, and militarily in the world? We must be careful not to allow ourselves to become so occupied with these things.
It is not that they are not serious. They are serious. But in many ways the world can come and begin to influence the way we think, our conduct, and our actions. Some of us have had sleepless nights because of what is happening on Wall Street.
Now is the time to deal with those things and get cut free—to be crucified to them, to be dead to them—and focus your attention on living in the reality of the kingdom of God.
Paul says, in 2 Timothy 2:10:
Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
I do not mean for one moment to suggest that we need to go out looking for suffering or things to endure. You do not need to go looking for them. They will come looking for you.
The question is: do you have an attitude to get through? What do you think it means to be an overcomer? Does it mean you detour all the problems, try to go around them, or go over the top of them?
No, brothers and sisters. When difficulty comes and the thing that causes us to suffer arrives, we discover a way through. Our attitude is, “I do not want to escape. I want to find a way through.”
Again, you discover that it is the grace of God that gets us through. If you have it in your mind that you want to avoid difficulties, that you want a life in Christ with no difficulties, no problems, and no suffering, you are being unreal.
You are living in a dream world. You have your head in the clouds. Our Lord Jesus told us from the very beginning that this is part of our experience:
All that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Why? Because we live in a hostile world. The world does not love Jesus any more tonight than it did when they crucified Him.
You and I are to be here as stewards of this gospel, stewards of the good news, stewards proclaiming and living out its reality. It is going to encounter difficulty and hostility. You need to have your mind set: by the grace of God, I am going through. I am going to be an overcomer, because the grace is sufficiently there for us to do it.
You remember what Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7-8:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith:
henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.
Please look at me tonight. Do you know God’s grace can give you the same testimony at the end of your life? This is not just for Paul. This is for you and for me.
This can be our testimony—not with pride, but boasting in the grace of God: “I fought the good fight. I finished the course. I kept the faith.” A crown of righteousness awaits.
When we stand before our Lord with that testimony, it will be absolutely clear that the only reason we are there and have that testimony is because we discovered something about the sufficiency of the grace of God. Paul was not saying, “By my own strength,” or, “By my own ingenuity.”
For Paul, to live was Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 2:13, Paul says:
I had no relief for my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went forth into Macedonia.
There are many other examples of what I am talking about here. But an attitude we need to have if we are going to become good stewards is recognizing how important our relationships are with other brothers and sisters.
Have you ever taken your New Testament and looked up the “one another” passages? Our Lord Jesus says that we are to love one another. Peter speaks about serving one another. Paul speaks of submitting to one another, encouraging one another, correcting one another, and exhorting one another.
We could go on and on. But you have to exhort a person. That means you have to have a relationship.
The way we have conducted our life together as the body of Christ has not promoted these kinds of relationships. We have been satisfied to have meetings for an hour or an hour and a half, do what we do, and go home. Sometimes we do not see any of the brothers and sisters again until the next meeting.
Do you honestly think that can produce the kind of relationships we need to have as members of the body? I do not think so.
My heart has been so impressed: Paul mentions more than seventy names in his letters, specific individuals with whom he had relationships. He calls some of them “my beloved.” He says to Timothy, “My beloved son,” not just “my son,” but “beloved son.”
They had spent so much time together that, may I put it this way, they fell in love with one another in the Lord. It is different to be loved and to be beloved. To be beloved means there is something special.
May I strongly encourage us, in this matter of stewardship, to treasure the people God puts in our lives. Learn how to relate to them. Learn how to serve them. Learn how to speak correction when it is necessary.
Some of us have not grown as we should have grown because we were not open to receive correction from our brothers and sisters. We are so proud.
We humbly give testimony: “Oh, I am such a horrible person. I make so many mistakes. I do so many foolish things.” But then, when someone tells us about it, we get all upset.
We should have the kind of relationships in which we can walk into one another’s lives—not to be critical, but to be eyes for one another where we ourselves cannot see. We all have blind spots, my brothers and sisters.
For the Lord to put people in our lives who deeply love us, and love us enough to come and say, “Can we have some fellowship about some things I see going on in your life?”—that is a great gift.
I say to every one of you tonight: my dear brothers and sisters, I need you. If you feel I am doing or saying something dishonoring to my Lord, or in any way interfering with His work, please come to me and share it with me.
We need to have these kinds of relationships. When you go back home, ask the Lord to put some people like this in your life. Build relationships. Pay the price. Yes, it is expensive, but it is worth it, my brothers and sisters.
The great benefits will come to you, but also to the body of Christ. It will allow our Lord to do a fuller work of building His church.
Go and read some of the other statements Paul makes. “Bring Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is useful to me for ministering.” This is the same Mark who created problems back in Acts 13. But now—oh, brothers and sisters—how we need each other.
Is this your attitude toward your brothers and sisters? If it is not, then change it. If you have this attitude, you put yourself in a place not just dependent on Him as the Head, but dependent upon the other members of the body.
Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, thank you for being patient. May God apprehend our hearts. May our Lord, as our Master, apprehend our hearts, and may every one of us, without exception, respond to Him.
May the Holy Spirit help us develop these attitudes in our hearts so that, when we stand before Him, He can honestly say:
“Well done, good and faithful servant;
thou hast been faithful over a few things,
I will set thee over many things:
enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
Then we can be part of this work of reigning with our Lord during the thousand years’ reign upon this earth. It may be coming quicker than many of us think. Let us pray together.
Lord, tonight we want to bless You from the depths of our hearts. We were absolutely, totally disqualified to ever be one of Your servants, one of Your stewards. But out of Your great sovereign love, You have loved us.
You have provided a perfect salvation, so great a salvation that can bring us from the worst to becoming what is pleasing to You. By Your grace, You can make us the kind of people who can be faithful to You in the work and responsibility You put into our hands.
Lord, we want to be careful what we say, because we do not want to say something that is not true. But You have loved us in such a way that, if we are honest tonight, we have to say, “Lord, we love You.”
We want to be Your bondservants. We want to learn how to serve You. Please, Lord, hear the cry of our hearts. Take us on, and begin to teach us how we can become these good and faithful stewards.
We ask it in Your name. Amen.