I asked our brother if we could sing that hymn because, as I have been impressed this week, to me this is the hymn of the steward. As we gather this morning to consider stewards of the mysteries of God, I was particularly drawn to verse 3. I believe this will be the prayer of our hearts throughout this week.
I am the Lord’s.
What a wonderful declaration. We are not our own; we have been bought with a price, and we are here with a purpose. Our declaration is, “I am the Lord’s,” each and every one of us.
Yet teach me all that it meaneth,
All it involves in love and loyalty,
Of holy service, absolute surrender,
And unreserved obedience unto Thee.
We are so thankful for the teachings we have had, yet there is a yearning within the hymn writer that there is much more. “Teach me all that it means.”
Lord, as we gather this morning in Thy presence, we are thankful that we gather knowing that we are the Lord’s. We are thankful that we gather declaring that You are the King of kings and Lord of lords. We gather in a spirit of worship and thankfulness for all You have shown us of Your Son.
Yet we realize there is so much more. You are jealous to reveal Him to us. As we come this morning, we come in the spirit of this hymn: that You would teach us, Lord. We would be down at Your feet. We would open our hearts. We would want to enter into more of this love, more of this loyalty, more of this holy service, and an absolute surrender.
And Lord, more—not just partial obedience, but unreserved obedience unto Thee. We give ourselves to You this morning, Lord. We say, “Speak, Lord; Thy servants are listening.” In Thy name we pray. Amen.
I would like us to turn again this morning to 1 Corinthians 4, reading from our theme verses:
Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Here, moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
—1 Corinthians 4:1-2
Also, if we could turn to Luke 19. We have in Luke 19 the parable of the minas, beginning in Luke 19:12-13. This is the Lord speaking:
A certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.
And he called ten servants of his, and gave them ten pounds, and said unto them, Trade ye herewith till I come.
—Luke 19:12-13
We have a similar, yet different, parable in Matthew 25:14-15, the parable of the talents:
For it is as when a man, going into another country, called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.
And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according to his several ability; and he went on his journey.
—Matthew 25:14-15
Finally, turn with me to Proverbs 20. I do not know if you have fallen in love with Proverbs yet, but I would encourage you to do that. It is one of the most practical books for daily living. It shows us the wonderful life of the Holy Spirit within us.
Really, Proverbs simply speaks of two people: there is a wise person, and there is a fool. We know that we have both of them living within us. Each day we have a choice: whom are we going to serve? Who is going to have the ascendancy in our life—the fool or the wise one?
We are here this week because we desire to be faithful and wise stewards, learning how to say no to that fool within us and yes to Him.
Proverbs 20:6 says:
Most men will proclaim every one his own kindness:
But a faithful man who can find?
—Proverbs 20:6
Oh, do we ever boast in our faithfulness. Do we boast in our loyalty? Our boasts can be pretty short-sighted. But who can find a trustworthy man? Who can find a faithful man?
This is the Lord’s desire. He is looking. When He speaks of who can find, He is starting with Himself. Who can find this faithful one?
As Kenny mentioned last night, we are sharing on stewards of the mysteries. Kenny shared on that vertical relationship, and today, Lord willing, I will share more on the horizontal relationship. How can we, as faithful stewards, allow that wonderful life of the Faithful One within us to be manifested in our lives every day as we serve Him and serve one another?
Why does Paul say that faithfulness is required of a steward? Why does he bring forth this matter of faithfulness? It is sad that, as we consider faithfulness, most of us have fallen to the level of setting our own standards for faithfulness. I believe that during our times this week, the Lord is bringing us back to His standard.
We live in a relative day and time. We love to set our own standards and think, “Well, we have done enough.” But the Lord is reminding us afresh of His Son. He is the standard. There is a life within us that is the standard, and tragically we have become careless concerning that. We have fallen back into a far lower level of life and functioning than He desires.
Practically, what does it mean to be a faithful steward? It is wonderful to sit at a conference and talk about it. We can go to a fellowship group and talk about it all afternoon. But next week, when we get back home, how does this matter of being faithful stewards of the mysteries of God affect our daily life?
When we get up on Monday morning and go through that day, how is it going to affect us? This is what we are talking about. Our Lord is trying to bring us back, in this day and time, to a beautiful simplicity and purity of devotion to Him—living each day of our lives unto Him.
He wants us to have teaching and understanding, but He is jealous for that Faithful One—the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ within us—to be manifested in His people in the midst of a dark and perverse generation. This is what He is jealous for.
If you look through the various parables our Lord shared concerning stewards, they are always related to His second coming. They are related to the Master returning. That, in itself, shows us more of the significance of these matters and of what He is calling us to in this day and time.
Kenny shared last night how we have all been made stewards. We have been made slaves, and we are stewards. Therefore, the question before us this week is not, “Are we stewards?” The question before us, in a very personal way, is, “What kind of stewards are we?”
Are we faithful stewards? This is what He is jealous for. We are thankful that, by the grace of God, there is a way through to become that wonderful testimony of His life and to be those faithful stewards.
As we come into this matter of being a faithful steward, it is always good to remember the relationship of the steward to the master. The steward is not the owner. The steward is not the master or the boss. The steward is the trustee, the administrator. He manages the things of the master.
He loves his master. He loves the things of his master. He loves his master’s house. He loves those within that house. And he knows his master.
The steward has entered into such an intimate, personal relationship with the master that he knows the master’s heart, the master’s plan, and the master’s desire. He knows, also, that one day he will give an account for the things the master has entrusted to him.
In the parable of the minas, the master went on a journey and gave one mina to each steward. Then he came back and asked them to give an account. The response of the first steward really shows us the heart of a steward and the proper perspective of his relationship with the master:
Master, thy pound hath made ten pounds more.
—Luke 19:16
It was not, “My mina has made this.” He understood that the master had entrusted the master’s possession to him. He said, in effect, “Look, Lord, what Your mina has done.”
As the Lord has put His life within us, and as we respond to that life, it is not, “Look what we have done.” Rather, it is, “Lord, look what Your life has done.” Your life has been the faithful one. We have said no to self and yes to Him, and this has allowed His life to come forth in a fuller and greater way. Praise God for that relationship.
The parable of the talents speaks of how the master entrusted his possessions to these servants. He did not simply give them away. There was a trust involved. They understood that the master had entrusted these things to them, and they said, “Lord, what You entrusted to us—look what it has made.”
Oh, praise God that we could come into this relationship of understanding that our life is not our own. We have been bought with a price, and the Lord has called us simply to allow His life to be manifested within us.
That is the simple definition of a faithful steward: one who allows the life of Christ to come forth. He does not hold back that life. He lets that life come forth. The faithful steward has a clear realization of what he has been entrusted with—the Master’s possessions—and he is called to be faithful unto Him.
This morning at devotions, my brother Michael shared on his favorite character in the Bible: David. Let us look at a testimony from David in 1 Chronicles 29, toward the end of his life.
David did many wonderful things. He brought an abundance of material into the house of God. He made ample preparation to build the house. Because of the bloodshed during David’s life, he was not permitted to build the temple; Solomon, his son, would build it. Yet David made ample preparation.
In 1 Chronicles 29, we have this beautiful chapter describing all that was offered for the construction of the temple. At the end, as David offers his prayer and has made his offerings, he says:
But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly?
For all things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.
For we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as all our fathers were:
Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.
O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build Thee a house for Thy holy name cometh of Thy hand, and is all Thine own.
—1 Chronicles 29:14-16
David begins, “Who am I?” This is not false humility. David has a proper understanding. He sees who the Lord is and who David is. David saw that he was nothing but a little flea, a dog, a nothing; yet he recognized that he served a gracious God.
Sometimes we read this and think David is merely trying to be humble. No, this was David’s heart. The more he saw the Lord, the more he saw what he had been entrusted with. He saw the stewardship of what God had given to him, and he was being faithful unto that.
David also saw, because of his failures and sins, that he could not do this in and of himself. This was not David’s effort. At the end of his life, as he brought back all that he had gathered—the gold, the silver, and the other material for the house—he said, “All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.”
Again, he testified, “Lord, we are just sojourners. We are tenants. This is Yours, all Yours.” The faithful steward never takes ownership of the Master’s property. It is not, “My work,” or, “Lord, look what I have done for You. Look at my faithful service.”
It is a recognition within the heart of the steward that all we have done, all that is of value to Him, came from Him. It was by His grace and by His mercy. This is the life of the steward.
That is why that hymn, and especially the third verse, touched my heart. The hymn writer begins, “Lord, teach me all this means.” When we are saved and He calls us into stewardship, He is not judging us as stewards who have already been in this race thirty or forty years. He realizes that this is a progression.
We start off entrusted with a little, and as we are faithful with a little, He continues and gives us more. When we first hear about stewardship, however, we often fragment it. We say, “The Lord is calling me to be faithful within the house of God.” That is true, but it goes far beyond that.
The Lord is calling us to be faithful in life. He has given us this Christian life, and He calls us to be faithful in it. There is a breadth to this calling and to this stewardship that we need our hearts expanded to see.
We tend to fragment our lives: “I have my church life here, my home life here, my business or work life here, and my personal life where I can do my own thing.” We may say, “I will be faithful here.” No. In spiritual reality and truth, we live one life.
There are different aspects to it, certainly. Does the Lord desire us to be more faithful in the assembly than at home? No. Wherever we are that day—whether in a prayer meeting or a business meeting—He is looking for us to be faithful.
The nature of that faithfulness may be different. The practical outworking may be different. But He is calling us to be faithful twenty-four-seven. He is looking for His life to be manifested through His people, wherever we are and wherever we go.
That is why, when we start each day, we say, “Lord, what are You putting in my hands today? You are the Master; I am the steward. Here we go.”
As we go through the day, we discover more and more of the riches of His grace. We may walk into impossible situations at school or at work, looking to our Master to defend us. Yes, we may appear foolish for believing that marriage is only between a man and a woman, but one of the greatest privileges we have is being a fool for Christ.
We have to get used to that. In a way, we have to become a little more comfortable being fools for Christ. As this world continues to deteriorate, and as we seek by His grace to be faithful to what He has put in our hands to steward, it is going to look like foolishness.
The natural man looks upon these things as foolishness. He cannot comprehend them. It is utter folly. Are we willing to be fools for Christ?
This is where the battle of stewardship occurs. The battle for being a faithful steward occurs within us. It is not primarily an external battle. The greatest battle we face in stewardship is whose will is going to prevail.
The Lord is calling us one way—to be faithful—but our selfish, natural desires want to do something else. We have this internal conflict: whom are we going to be faithful to?
In many ways, we will always be faithful stewards. Are we going to be faithful stewards to the Lord, or faithful stewards to ourselves?
This is a learning process. When you share on faithfulness, the picture that often comes before your eyes is your own unfaithfulness and how you have to overcome it. But that is looking in the wrong place. You have to look at Him.
We rob God so much of the riches He desires to share through us. Our self-consciousness hinders us. We love ourselves so much that we do not want to be fools. He calls us to serve in a certain way, and we rationalize why we are not going to do it.
But praise God, brothers and sisters, we have two great friends. We have that Friend in Jesus whom we sing of, but we also have the friend of the cross and the friend of the Holy Spirit.
We have already heard much about how the Holy Spirit is working within us and how the Lord desires to bring everything within us to the feet of the Lord Jesus. That whole process occurs as we daily allow the cross to work within our lives—saying no to self and yes to Him.
This is the beauty of the life into which we have been brought. I call the cross our friend. When I first became a Christian, I did not call the cross a friend. I thought the cross was the toughest thing going.
But once we allow the Lord to teach us a little, and we allow the cross to work within us a little—to deny ourselves—we see how the cross sets us free. We think of the cross as bondage. The cross is the greatest liberator of all time.
The cross at Calvary liberated mankind. There is freedom there. Every day in our lives, the cross is crying out to liberate us from ourselves, if we will simply experience it. What a friend we have in the cross.
The steward allows the cross and the Holy Spirit to do this marvelous work. Then we are free to be those faithful ones, serving as He has called us to serve.
If we can enter into clarity concerning our relationship with our Master, then we can see in a far greater way all that He has entrusted to us. Our brothers have been sharing on the mysteries of God. If we do not know what we have been entrusted with, how can we be faithful with it?
This is not merely intellectual knowing. It is a knowing within our hearts, an experiential knowing: “Look at this mystery of the gospel. How full it is. Look at this mystery of God. Look at the mystery of Christ.”
How can we be faithful if we do not know what we have been entrusted with? This is why we pray for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. If we do not know the purpose of these mysteries, how can we be faithful? If we do not know their value, we will treat them as common and careless things.
I have appreciated how our brothers have been sharing concerning the honor, the privilege, and the riches of the mysteries into which we have been brought. If a steward does not know the value of what has been entrusted to him, he will handle it carelessly.
At the meeting in Richmond, every Sunday we eat together. A couple of years ago, a brother asked me to hold his Bible and a piece of paper while he went to get coffee. The paper was just a little piece of construction paper with crayon drawings all over it—lines going this way and that way. I thought, “Okay, I will hold this piece of paper.”
He delayed getting his coffee, and I got distracted. When he came back, he said, “Mac, where is my paper?” He did not ask for the Bible. He asked, “Where is that paper?”
I said, “Oh, gee, I do not know.” He said, “Mac, my son drew that for me this morning in class.” I had broken his heart.
I had to go to his son, a four-year-old kid, and say, “Look, you drew this beautiful picture for your father, and I lost it.” The child just cried. He did not care about my apology. Thank the Lord that when we go to Him, He forgives us of our sins, our unrighteousness, and our unfaithfulness. This child just knew I had lost his painting.
It took about three years for that child to speak to me again. But we see that if something is precious to somebody and we do not see its value, we will be careless with it.
The things of the Lord are so precious to Him. The Lord was so jealous that these mysteries would be made known to us that He sent His only begotten Son to die for us, that we could enter into them. That was the price.
Do we ever consider the price that was paid so that our eyes could be opened to see the mysteries of God? That is how valuable they are to Him. How easily we lose the preciousness of it.
This is not the preciousness of a teaching; it is the preciousness of heart. These are things that are upon His heart. This is His desire. This is His will. He entrusts this to us so that His eternal purpose can be fulfilled through fallen instruments whom He has redeemed.
Oh, what a great calling we have. What a great privilege we have been brought into.
The more we see, the more we pray that the eyes of our hearts may be opened. It is wonderful to see something of His heart.
Think of Paul on that wonderful road to Damascus, where he had his experience. He was knocked off his high horse, and we need to be knocked off our high horses every now and then and brought down to the place of really being at our Lord’s feet.
Then Paul spent the rest of his life filling in the fullness and seeing the reality of the vision he had received. He saw the vision, and the rest of his life filled in its meaning as he went through various experiences.
One of the great characteristics of Paul was that he was always learning. He was never satisfied; he was pressing on. As a steward, the more we know our Master, the more it should create within us a desire to know even more of Him.
“Oh, I serve my Lord this way. How else can I serve Him? How much more of Him can I really enter into?” The more faithful we are, the more He entrusts to us.
There is a beautiful picture in Acts 6. Some of the Hellenistic widows were being neglected in the daily serving. Seven men were selected to serve tables. They were already faithful men, and others had noticed their faithfulness.
As they faithfully served tables, the Lord kept entrusting more to them. Stephen was entrusted to testify before those who challenged the Lordship of Christ. He went forth and testified who the Christ was. Stephen was entrusted with the gift of martyrdom, and he was a faithful steward all the way to the end.
Philip went from serving tables to going down to Samaria, declaring the mystery of the gospel. Then he was led to the Ethiopian eunuch, and then taken to Caesarea. The Lord kept entrusting more and more to him.
Brothers and sisters, as we are faithful, the Lord desires to entrust more and more to us. But sometimes we get things out of balance and our perspective becomes wrong. What the Lord expects of us every day is simply to be faithful with what He has put in our hands that day.
Here at a conference, many are serving in many different ways. The Lord is looking for us to be faithful. Next week, when we go home, the Lord will place something else in our hands each day. Be faithful that day.
The Lord is not looking for success. The Lord is looking for faithfulness.
We have been using this word faithfulness. As we see our relationship with our Master and see the preciousness of what He has entrusted to us, we can look more deeply at this matter. What does faithfulness mean?
I went to the dictionary. An accountant does not know what many words mean, so we have to go to dictionaries and look things up. Merriam-Webster says faithfulness is to be trustworthy, reliable, steady in allegiance, and steady in affection.
Vine’s is very similar: to be trusted, to be loyal, to be reliable, to be true, to be sure, and to be believable.
That word believable caught my attention. Two people can say exactly the same thing. You believe one, but you do not believe the other. Why? There is a character. There is something within them that adds validity to what they say.
This is the steward speaking. The steward is not speaking for himself, but allowing the life of his Lord to speak through him.
When we think of faithfulness, is it doing something? Must we do something to be faithful? We may say, “I am going to be faithful. I am going to do this and do that. I will take care of this and take care of that.”
Actually, that is a wrong concept of faithfulness. Faithfulness is fundamentally and primarily not doing, but being. Faithfulness is not necessarily doing, but being. It is a character trait, not merely an action.
We have His life—the Faithful One, the Holy Spirit—living within us and through us. True faithfulness is an attitude of heart.
I use the New American Standard Version. In 1 Corinthians 4, it says, “Moreover, it is required of stewards.” At first, that sounds good. But if you look in the King James Version or the Darby translation, it says, “It is required in stewards.”
That changes our whole perspective. What is required in stewards? There is an inner character. There is an inner life that our Lord is looking for. We have already heard of this Christian life. It is not external. The Christian life is an internal life of His life living within us.
This does not mean we never do anything. As we allow the Faithful One to live in us, He brings forth our doing according to His will. He directs our hearts and our steps. But faithfulness is not the doing; it is the being—allowing His life to rule within us in such richness that it can direct our steps every day.
Let us turn to 2 Corinthians 8. Here we see a corporate expression of faithfulness, where individuals together, under the headship of Christ, respond to the Lord in a wonderful way.
The immediate context concerns a financial gift that those in Macedonia were going to send to the saints in Jerusalem, who were suffering because of a famine. But the principles go far beyond finances.
Paul testifies of these faithful ones in Macedonia:
For according to their power, I bear witness, yea and beyond their power, they gave of their own accord,
Beseeching us with much entreaty in regard of this grace and of the fellowship in the ministering to the saints:
And this, not as we had hoped, but first they gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us through the will of God.
—2 Corinthians 8:3-5
They first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us. There can be a great emphasis today on caring for one another and upon our relationships with one another. We are thankful for that. We are thankful for the relationships into which we have been brought within the house of God and the body of Christ.
We need one another; there is a necessity there. But our starting point in caring for one another, as faithful stewards within the house of God, is not first giving ourselves to our brethren. These ones first gave themselves to the Lord. They had the vertical relationship established.
They first gave themselves to the Lord, the Master, and then to one another. It is wonderful that there was a freewill offering. They gave of themselves.
I love how verse 4 says they were “begging us with much entreaty for the favor,” or grace, “of participation.” How often do we hear brothers and sisters begging to be stewards? Begging, “I want to serve here. I want to serve there.”
You do not know how many phone calls went out in relation to this conference asking people to serve. Praise God, many begged at the front end. But would there be more beggars in the house of God? Would we be begging and entreating, “How can I be more faithful to my Master? How can I serve my Master here? How can I serve my Master there?”
Back in our local assemblies, we have people who become exhausted because they are doing everything, while others are sitting around wondering what there is to do. A steward has the heart of the Master, asking and begging, “Lord, where can I serve You today?”
C. T. Studd said, “Lord, where can I obey You today?” When was the last time we begged, truly seeking, “Lord, I want to be available to You. As I give myself freely to You, I want to participate in this wonderful grace of caring for the saints”?
What we see here is a visible testimony of the body of Christ. The Macedonians did not simply talk about being one with those in Jerusalem. Their gift was a visible testimony, to the seen and unseen realms, that they were one with their brethren.
It was not merely theory to them. They saw that their brethren were hurting, and they desired to respond. Today, the easy thing for us is to send money here and there for different needs. Thank the Lord for the abundance He provides; that is needed.
But these ones gave their lives. They gave their whole being. It was not a matter of how much or how little they had. They entered in and were faithful with what they had.
We sometimes think, “I have so little.” But the issue is not how much or how little. The question is whether we are faithful with what the Lord has entrusted to us.
In the parables of the mina and the talents, there were those who hid or buried their talent or their mina, returning only the one entrusted to them. Why? The bottom line was that they did not know their Master.
They had a false concept of who He was. They did not know the preciousness of what they had been given. They thought, “He is such a hard judge. He reaps where he does not sow.” There was a harshness in their concept of Him.
It shows us that these ones did not know their Master. How we need to see our Master in a fresh and wonderful way. The more we see Him, the more there will be a begging response to offer ourselves to Him and be available to Him in a way He can use us in these last days.
The service to which we are called to be faithful has far more eternal value than many of us will ever see or know. Sometimes we do things and have no idea what happens as a result.
In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul describes the spiritual value of the Macedonians’ practical gift:
For the ministration of this service not only filleth up the measure of the wants of the saints, but aboundeth also through many thanksgivings unto God;
Seeing that through the proving of you by this ministration they glorify God for the obedience of your confession unto the gospel of Christ, and for the liberality of your contribution unto them and unto all;
While they themselves also, with supplication on your behalf, long after you by reason of the exceeding grace of God in you.
Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.
—2 Corinthians 9:12-15
That indescribable gift goes far beyond the monetary gift. It is the life of Christ. The brethren in Jerusalem were touched by the life of Christ expressed through those in Macedonia. They experienced this oneness, and it brought forth a glorious testimony.
Outwardly, we could say it was simply a love gift. In the seen realm, that is what it was. But in the unseen realm, eternal value was being expressed. The faithful steward sees beyond what is happening outwardly. He enters into the heart of the Master and sees what He is looking for.
Often we pray about being a testimony. Consider the Macedonians, and think back to Acts 2:42, where the saints cared for one another. This was the visible testimony the world could see.
History tells us that the Roman Empire looked upon the believers and said, “See how they love one another. See how they care for one another.” There is a fullness to what we are being brought into here that goes far beyond the outward.
Acts 2:42 says:
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
—Acts 2:42
What a marvelous blessing it is to enter into the richness of this life. But, brothers and sisters, the chapter does not end there. In Acts 2:44-47, we see the life of Christ expressed among His people:
And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
And they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need.
And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart,
Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.
—Acts 2:44-47
They had favor with all the people. There was a testimony throughout Jerusalem: “Look how these people care for one another. Look how they love one another. Look at the oneness among them.”
They did not have a book of church order telling them what to do. But there was a life within them. They had the Faithful One within them, and He led them.
We often focus on the external life, but the Lord is looking for the internal relationship. As the internal relationship of His life is brought into us and shared with others, this becomes the living testimony.
This is the testimony many will see in this dark and perverse generation. How do we reach the lost? We allow the life of Christ to be seen in and through us as we care for one another. We care for the world. We care for those who are hungry and poor. We care for our neighbors. We do not isolate ourselves from them, but reach out.
We allow that faithful life to come forth. This is the testimony being expressed.
We can fall into the trap of simply saying, “We have these meetings, and this is it.” Praise God for the meetings. I want to be at all the meetings. But it goes far beyond that.
I had an experience years ago that showed me how focused I was on the external. I was saved when I was thirteen or fourteen years old, but I knew Him only as Savior. I knew nothing of His lordship. I was basically doing my own thing.
I went into the Navy, and I was a typical sailor. This is not a pretty story. I was in Naples, Italy, one night, and I got thrown in jail. I spent some time in an Italian jail built in the 1600s. That can bring you back to the Lord real quick.
I was in that cell, with no idea when I would get out or what would happen. So I started praying. I thought, “If I am going to pray, I need to be on my knees.” I got down on my knees, trying to do everything just right.
I did not know how to pray. I simply said, “Lord, get me out of here.” That was my prayer—a very self-centered prayer.
Then Jacob came out. “Lord, if You get me out of here, I will read my Bible every day. I will go to church every Sunday, and I will be a missionary.” Those were the only things I could think of. I was trying to bargain with God because I was focused on outward religion.
Eventually, after a few days that seemed like eternity, I was released to the military and sent back to the base to settle matters there. When I got back on base, what did I do? I went to the NCO club and celebrated with my buddies.
I might have forgotten my prayers, but God never did. Years later, I looked back and remembered. Praise God, now I love to read my Bible every day. It is the bread of life.
I do not merely go to meetings on Sundays. I love to go to meetings wherever they are held. If anyone is going to have a meeting, I want to be there. I love it.
And concerning the missionary part, we have ended up in some strange places and some strange beds—in Brazil, the Far East, and other places. God took me at my word and worked it out. I had no idea.
That showed me the contrast over the years between an external concept of Christianity and the real internal life into which we have been brought. Many of our external thoughts are correct, but we go about them in the wrong way.
The faithful steward is one who knows the life of his Master. He does not serve out of the heart of Jacob, trying to manipulate or bargain with his Master. He serves the Master with a heart that brings glory to Him.
So, any of you who have just gotten out of jail, there is hope for you. We can go on.
As we said earlier, the life of a steward is not a segmented life. It includes our whole life. Yet we can segment our faithfulness by deciding where we will serve, what we will serve, when we will serve, and whom we will serve.
If we do not like someone, we may decide not to serve them. But suppose we say, “Lord, we are here this week. I want to be a faithful steward with whatever You put in my hands. Whatever You ask, Lord, I am going to do it.”
Then guess what? Next week, whom is the Lord going to have you reach out to? That one you have been trying to avoid for years.
Are we willing? Are we willing to serve when it is not convenient? Are we willing to be inconvenienced for the Lord?
The steward does not have a life of his own. He is there for one purpose: the purpose of his life is to serve and be faithful to his master.
I know that within my own heart, there are too many times when I am still serving Mac. I want to get through that, and I am thankful for His patience.
Scripture speaks of the unprofitable servant. Sometimes we get that story wrong. The unprofitable servant says, “I am unprofitable. All I have done is everything my master told me to do.”
I have a goal in life to become an unprofitable servant. I cannot say that I have done everything my Master has told me to do, because I have gone my own way at times. But praise God for the grace available to us and for the way we can get back in the race.
This is our learning process. I think most of us would testify that we learn far more by our mistakes than by our successes. We stumble, lose our temper with a brother or sister, refuse to help someone, or refuse to do something. Then the Holy Spirit within us begins convicting us.
There is a learning process. One of the prime characteristics of a steward is that he is teachable and continues to learn throughout life.
Kenny read from a parable last night in Luke 12. In Luke 12:42, the question is:
Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall set over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season?
—Luke 12:42
The parable goes on to speak of the one who is faithful when the master returns and the one who is doing his own thing. As you look within the parable, it is one steward, not two different people.
This is a steward whom the Lord entrusted. There are times when he makes the choice to be faithful and wise. But in Matthew’s account of the same parable, the one who disobeys is called evil. We prefer to say “unfaithful” because it sounds better, but Matthew says he was evil.
Sometimes I think this evil one gets a bad rap. If you look at the parable, this steward who ended up becoming evil was actually faithful at one point. He had been faithful, and so the master saw that, when he was preparing to go on a trip, he could entrust his house to him.
If he had been evil and untrustworthy all along, the master never would have entrusted anything to him. But there was a time when he was trustworthy. The master entrusted his property to him and told him to care for everyone in the house.
Probably in the beginning he was faithful. He was likely caring for the people in the house. But as the master delayed, perhaps he became careless. Maybe people complained about the food. They were tired of beef and wanted chicken. They were tired of one kind of pizza and wanted the new pizza with little hot dogs around the edge.
People can complain about anything. So the steward became irritated and began abusing them. Yet he always knew one thing: his master was coming back. The parable says the master came back when he was not expecting him.
If we apply this to ourselves, we obviously want to be the faithful one. But subtly in our minds, we may say, “Oh, my Master is not coming back yet. I think I will do this for a while. I know He is coming, and I will get straightened out before He returns.”
It does not work out that way. Particularly for younger ones, perhaps they leave home, go to college, finish college, start a job, and have money and freedom they are not accustomed to. Then they may think, “Maybe I can just try this for a little while.”
There are many things in the world to try. We can identify obvious evils: drugs, alcohol, pornography, sexual activity, and so on. But I have never talked with a brother or sister who became a drug addict and said, “When I first used drugs, I did it because I wanted to become an addict.”
That is never the goal. We are self-deceived. We think, “I can do this, and I can stop at any time. I can get straight again. I know the Lord is coming back. I will play around here just a little, then come back quickly and straighten out my life.”
But some of us in this room are a little older, and we will tell you that the short trip you think will last a day or so turns into weeks, then months, then years. Tragically, some brethren never return.
Praise God for His grace that draws us back and enables us to get back in the race. But let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that because the Master is not visibly here yet, we still have time to experiment with sin.
No. The faithful steward is wise. He is in love with his Master, and he does not want to do that. This is where the cross comes in every day.
I think this evil steward simply ended up self-deceived. He always knew the master was coming back, but then one day the master returned, and it was, “Oops, You are here already.”
That is why, as we wake up every morning, the words of the hymn should come back to us:
I am the Lord’s,
I am the Lord’s,
Oh, joy beyond expression.
Who judges this matter of faithfulness? It is the Lord’s standard. So often, we set our own standards.
In Richmond, we have home groups, and every five weeks we clean the meeting place. A few years ago, I was assigned to clean the bathrooms. I went in and cleaned one of them. Then a sister came and asked, “Who is going to clean the bathroom?”
I said, “It is clean.” She looked at it, looked at me, and said, “You go cut the grass. We will clean the bathroom.”
My standard of cleanliness was apparently not according to her standards. I thought I had cleaned that bathroom very faithfully. I actually got out of cleaning bathrooms after that; nobody asked me to clean them anymore.
But in the economy of God, it is not our standard. It is His standard. It is not even the standard of our brothers and sisters. Paul speaks about not desiring to please man.
The praise people receive for service is not the issue. The real issue is: is our Lord satisfied? It is His standard.
The encouraging thing about His standard is that it is impossible for us in ourselves. But praise God, we have heard about that life within us—the Holy Spirit, the Faithful One—and He has provided grace for us to respond. As we respond, we can continue on in a marvelous and wonderful way.
One challenge we have in being faithful is our own minds and our ability to rationalize. Faithfulness in one area does not offset unfaithfulness in another area.
Being faithful in one area of our life does not offset being unfaithful in another. One tragic life in Scripture is Samson. At times Samson was very faithful, but at other times he was very unfaithful. Because of that, he never fully entered into being the man of God he was called to be.
God called Samson to begin liberating the people of Israel from the Philistines. But he never became the man of God he could have been.
Faithfulness in one area does not offset unfaithfulness in another. We have calculators in our minds: “I have done this, this, and this; therefore, I can do that.” It is like a diet: “I have not had sugar for so many days, so I can get chocolate peanut butter ice cream now.”
No, it does not balance out that way. The Lord is calling us daily to be faithful unto Him.
One challenge of faithfulness is that our Lord is not physically present with us. At times we are all alone. Most of us recognize the challenge of being faithful when we are doing something alone or in the unseen.
Let me work in one Lance story. A young man from Richmond went to serve with Lance. Lance was discipling and training young men, in addition to the ways they served with him.
One of the things Lance had the young men do every morning was make their beds. They had to make them up a certain way. It had to be right.
Lance went away on a trip. The young man woke up one morning, realized Lance was not there, got out of bed, and began walking toward the door. He got about halfway to the door and heard a little voice: “Oh, Daniel. Oh, Daniel.”
Daniel turned around, went back, and made up his bed. There is a great principle for us there: being faithful in the unseen.
The Lord has called us in a marvelous way to respond unto Him. We are thankful that when we hear only part of the message of faithful stewardship, it can sound overwhelming and impossible. But we are thankful for the abundant provision we have in Him.
Peter knew of this provision. As we look at Peter’s last letter, he writes in 2 Peter 1 that every provision has been made for us. I want to end by reading these verses.
If we really stop and see this wonderful provision, we can respond in the spirit of the faithful steward.
Seeing that His divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue;
Whereby He hath granted unto us His precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust.
—2 Peter 1:3-4
His divine power has granted to us everything—everything pertaining to life and godliness—through the true, experiential knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. By these, He has granted to each and every one of us His precious and magnificent promises, so that we might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Peter continues:
Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge;
And in your knowledge self-control; and in your self-control patience; and in your patience godliness;
And in your godliness brotherly kindness; and in your brotherly kindness love.
—2 Peter 1:5-7
Applying all diligence is simply responding to the grace of God and to the provision He has made for us.
For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.
Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble:
For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
—2 Peter 1:8-11
If these qualities—if this life—is yours and increasing, they make you useful and fruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who lacks these qualities is blind and short-sighted, having forgotten purification from former sins. He has forgotten the whole matter of being a steward of the mystery of the gospel.
Therefore, brethren, be more diligent to make certain His calling and choosing of you. As long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
Then we see the reward of the steward: entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
This is what our Lord is calling us to be: faithful stewards in this hour. It is a preparatory work. It is a training work, preparing us to be faithful stewards with Him in His kingdom to come.
As He has given much, and as we are faithful with what we have, He will entrust us with more.
As we consider the matter of the faithful steward, we pray that daily the Holy Spirit within us would bring all things within us to the feet of Jesus. How simple that is to testify. This is God’s purpose: the Faithful One within us bringing everything within us to the feet of Jesus.
As we respond to that life, there will be a visible testimony—the living testimony of a life together. Not only will people see that we love our Master, but there will be a visible testimony that we love His house. We love our brothers and sisters, not merely in theory or talk.
Would we be those faithful ones, those faithful instruments in His hands, to fulfill His eternal purpose?
Brothers and sisters, we have been called and made stewards. The question is: what kind of steward are we going to be?
Are we going to be those who love our Master, love and know our Master’s heart and desire, and are daily occupied with His business? Are we going to be those whom He is using to prepare a people for His soon return?
May we have a spirit of teachableness, that we can continue to be trained to be faithful stewards with all that He places in our hands each day.
Lord, we are thankful that You, as the Faithful One, have called us. We are thankful for the grace You have made available to us. We are thankful for the provision of life that we have in You.
Lord, we respond unto You. As that hymn goes:
Have Thine own way, Lord,
Have Thine own way.
Mold us and make us, Lord, to Your glory and to Your honor, that we could be those who are hastening Your return. In Thy name we pray. Amen.