I have often wished that the world had some kind of popularity contest on the value we place on certain words in our English language. I would especially like to see a popularity contest on two words: “success” and “faithfulness”. I am quite sure that “success” would win out overwhelmingly. Everyone in our modern society wants to be successful. There are literally hundreds of books out on “How to be Successful,” not very many on “How to be Faithful”. We all want to know how to be successful, don’t we? We want to be successful in our marriage, successful in our vocation, successful financially, successful in family life and the rearing of our children – we all want to be successful.
The Scripture text we are looking at today tells us that there is something more important in this world than being successful and that is to be faithful. ILL: Mother Teresa was a great spiritual figure who inspired millions around the world during her lifetime spent among the poorest and most desperate people on earth – the poorest of the poor in India. Mother Teresa was once asked by a visitor how she could keep working patiently for so many years among these poor and desperate people with such meager apparent results. She answered, “We are not here to be successful. We are here to be faithful.”2
ILL: In a book of his, Thomas Rainer tells of an interview Billy Graham had with an interviewer. The interviewer was fascinated by Graham’s success and asked if he anticipated being given great rewards in heaven for the millions of lives he had impacted through his worldwide ministry.
Billy Graham said that he was not sure of the extent of his own rewards, God is the final Judge, but he was certain that others would have greater rewards than he. He went on to say that there is a faithful elderly woman whom he knows, who is right now on her knees praying for her little country church, her family, and her nation. For nearly 80 years, the sweet lady has been faithful to her Lord. She has been constantly praying, and reading the Bible daily. To Billy Graham, that lady and many others like her, will receive the greatest rewards in heaven.
At the close of the interview, Billy Graham said these last words: "You see, we are not called to be successful. We are called to be faithful." 3
The Bible has much to say about faithfulness, very little to say about success. My Bible concordance reveals that the words “faithful” and “faithfulness” appear 101 times in the King James version while the words “success” “successfulness” and “succeed” are used only 3 times in the entire Bible. That says to me that God is not very concerned about our “success” in life but He is very much interested in our faithfulness or our being faithful to Him. He does not say in His word, “It is required in stewards that a man be found successful” but rather “that a man be found faithful.”
Everybody is after success these days. Even pastors and churches are caught up in this mad rush towards success.
So, in the kind of world we live in today, what is meant by this word that has become a strange and forgotten word in our time: “It is required of stewards that a man be found faithful?”
And, just what is a “steward” in the biblical sense?
1. First off, just what is a steward, anyway?
A steward and a slave are a bit different in the New Testament. The apostle Paul describes us all as slaves – slaves of Jesus Christ. We are bought with a price. We are not our own. We are committed to complete obedience to our Master, Jesus Christ.. All of us who are Christians are considered “slaves of Jesus Christ.” A steward is just a bit more. A steward is usually a slave with additional responsibilities. He has been placed in charge of his master’s estate, his belongings. They do not belong to him but he is responsible for the administration of them. Paul considered himself a steward, but he also called himself a slave, a slave of Jesus Christ. Look at verse one: “Let a man so consider us, as servants (slaves) of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” If you are saved, you are a “slave of Jesus Christ.” If you have anything in your care, you are also a steward, a person in charge of a treasure left in your keepiing. If you have nothing, absolutely nothing in your hand, no money, no bank account, no family, no possessions, no land or houses, no livestock, no tangible assets, no talents, no abilities, I suppose you are only a “slave of Christ” But the moment something comes into your hand, into your possession, you are from that moment a steward, one charged with a responsibility to be faithful to God in the wise use of whatever you have in your hand. And in that capacity God requires of you faithfulness. You continue to be a slave of Christ but you are also a steward, a manager of a portion of your Lord’s resources. In relation to Him, you still own nothing, it all belongs to Him. “The cattle on a thousand hills are His,” says the Bible. You are merely the steward, the caretaker, the manager of all that God has placed in your hands.
2. That leads us to the heart of this message today: The job description of a steward is contained in a single word: faithfulness. “It is required of stewards that one be found faithful.” Now let us look at this word. What is behind this word “faithfulness”? What does it mean to be faithful? My dictionary says it means “constant; trustworthy, showing a strong sense of duty or responsibility; conscientious, reliable.”
(1) To be faithful means to be trustworthy – worthy of your Master’s complete trust and confidence. Are you a trustworthy Christian? Can the Lord place His complete trust and confidence in you ? We are living in an age when there is very little trust between human beings anymore. ILL: A man was traveling through South Alabama on one of those hot, sultry Alabama days. He stopped at a watermelon stand, picked out a watermelon, and asked the proprietor how much it cost. "It’’s $1.10," he replied. The man dug into his pocket, found only a bill and said, "All I have is a dollar." "That’’s OK," the proprietor said, "I’’ll trust you for it." "Well, that’’s mighty nice of you,"the man responded, and picking up the watermelon, started to leave.
"Hey, where are you going?" the man behind the counter demanded. "I’’m going outside to eat my watermelon." "But you forgot to give me the dollar!" "You said you would trust me for it," Parker called back. “Yeah, but I meant I would trust you for the dime, not for the dollar!" 5
God must feel like that man running the watermelon stand sometimes. He feels maybe He can trust us for the dime, but He is not sure about the dollar. Many of us are not very trustworthy. A faithful steward is trustworthy all the way. He is dependable. He can be counted on. God is completely worthy of our trust in Him. He is always faithful. “Great is Thy faithfulness,” the Bible and one of our great hymns declares. We have another old hymn with a similar message:
I am satisfied;
I am satisfied;
I am satisfied with Jesus;
But the question comes to me,
As I think of Calvary,
Is the Master satisfied with me?
(2) Then, to be faithful means to be responsible. We have a great obligation to the Master to be responsible stewards of all He places in our hands. All He has given us we hold in our hands: every cent we possess, every talent, every gift, every hour of the day, every resource, every opportunity belongs to Him. We are responsible for it all, to care for it and use it all for His glory. Are you a responsible steward? ILL: A young man applied for a job as a farmhand. When the farmer asked for his qualifications, he said, "I can sleep when the wind blows." This puzzled the farmer. But he liked the young man, and hired him. A few weeks later, the farmer and his wife were awakened in the night by a violent storm. They quickly began to check things out to see if all was secure. They found that the shutters of the farmhouse had been securely fastened. A good supply of logs had been set next to the fireplace. The young man slept soundly in his room..The farmer and his wife then inspected their property. They found that the farm tools had been placed inside the storage shed, safe from the elements. The barn was properly locked. The animals were all in their shelters. All was well. The farmer then understood the meaning of the young man’s words, "I can sleep when the wind blows." Because the farmhand did his work responsibly and faithfully when the skies were clear, he was prepared for the storm when it broke. So when the wind blew, he was not afraid. He could sleep in peace..6 Are you a responsible steward of all God has placed in your hands? Do you take seriously the opportunities God gives you to serve in this church?
(3) And then, to be faithful means to be persistent and to never give up. The faithful Christian stays in the battle until the battle is won. He is there for the for the long haul. He has no time table set for quitting. “Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee the crown of Life,” God says in the Revelation. God expects us to be faithful and faithful to the very end. God doesn’t want quitters. ILL: Have you ever of the “Quitters Club” It is one of the largest organizations in America. The reason you’ve never heard of the Quitters Club is because they never meet–the members all quit coming. There are no dues–the members quit paying them. The Quitters Club is composed of people who faced a tough job, a tough marriage, a tough sickness, or a tough job at work and they quit. When the going gets tough, the tough get going .but the quitters just quit. What we need in America and in the church are people who are not quitters. They exhibit good, old-fashioned “stick-to-it-iveness.” (That may not have been a word, but it is now because I just used it!) If you are a faithful steward, you will not be a quitter.
ILL: My Dad hated quitters. He was a man of dogged determination. The family will always remember the first and last time my Dad tried water skiing. He held on to that rope with all his might. The boat took off and he was soon under water, completely under water. I think he must have held on until he was dragging the bottom of the lake. My brother-in-law was driving the boat. He saw that Dad was not turning loose and he was not coming up, so he finally cut the motor and we were all greatly relieved when Dad finally came to the top, gasping for breath. He was one determined man. God doesn’t want any quitters on His team. He wants courageous men and women who will stick to the task until the task is done.
(4) And finally, to be faithful means to be obedient.. A slave is not a slave unless he renders absolute obedience to his master. Jesus is our Master, we are the slave, we are the steward. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Christian discipleship involves radical obedience to all that our Lord commands us.
I close with this true story of an act of radical obedience by a group of our Southern Baptist missionaries. doing relief work in Iraq in the early part of that war.
ILL: It had been a good day in Mosul, Iraq. Five So. Baptist workers were making progress toward a water purification project. They had met with officials and laughed with new Iraqi friends. They were headed home for a night’s rest before starting again the next morning. But they never made it home. Karen Watson, 38, along with Larry and Jean Elliot died that evening as Iraqi extremists sprayed bullets in to their passing truck.
Later, among her things, a letter was found written by Karen to be opened after her death. In it she said, among other things, “To obey was my objective, to suffer was expected, .... His glory is my reward.”8 “To obey was my objective.” And that kind of radical obedience should be the objective of very Christian.8 Are you an obedient steward of all God has placed in your hands?
CONCLUSION:
There is really just one requirement of a disciple of the Lord Jesus and that is faithfulness. Faithfulness is all He asks of us. He does not ask us to be successful. He does not ask us to be outstanding. He does not ask us to be brilliant or above average. He doesn’t ask us to be a star player. He only asks of us faithfulness. Are you faithful today? Are you trustworthy? Are you responsible? Are you persistent? And are you obedient? Remember, we are not called to be successful. We are called to be faithful. Are you a faithful follower of Jesus today?
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1 First preached at Barnett Baptist Church, Little Rock, AR, 1/21/07.
2 Mother Teresa, Beliefnet, 4/05.
3 Christian Cheong, “Be Faithful”, SermonCentral.com. 4 Robert La Favre, News Briefs, 8/11/06.
5 Joel Smith, “A God You Can Trust,” SermonCentral.com, 9/1/03.
6 Christian Cheong, “Be Faithful”, SermonCentral.com.
7 David Dykes, “Pray Until Something Happens’” SermonCentral.com, 7/21/03.
8 Bulletin of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 6/18/04.
