Stewardship: Taking Care of God’s Possessions
Matthew 25:14-30
The Bible makes it clear saying that everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God.
“Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it.” (Deuteronomy 10:14 NKJV)
“The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; The world and all its fullness, You have founded them.” (Psalm 89:11)
“The earth is the Lord's, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein.” (Psalm 24:1)
In fact, the Apostle Paul quotes this very passage in his first letter to the Corinthian Church (1 Corinthians 10:26).
And so, here is the proposition that we are faced with when it comes to this topic of stewardship. “If God owns it all, then how are we handling what clearly belongs to Him?”
Now, while many Christians know this to be true, the problem is that they’ve never really embraced it for their lives. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
In Palm Springs a T.V. crew went up to a house, knocked on the front door, and asked the people who were living there if they could film a television scene on their front yard. The residents agreed and the scene was shot.
The only problem is that the people living in the house didn’t own the house, they were only renting it, and when the owner of the house came by and saw the front yard trashed, he was furious. Why? It’s because the renters had no right to grant them permission. You see, the renters assumed the rights of the owner. Let me repeat that again.
“They assumed the rights of the owner.”
And that is what many of us are doing when it comes to all that the Lord has so graciously given to us. We assume the rights of ownership, when in reality we’re only the renters. We are merely managers, or stewards, of what God owns, and what God has given.
Unfortunately whenever we talk about stewardship, our minds naturally turn to the giving of the tithe and the offerings. And while these are important aspects of stewardship, in reality it isn’t the most important. Stewardship is all about the way we handle the things God has given to us. It is the management of the resources He has placed at our disposal for His glory and for the good of others.
Maybe I can say it like this: Stewardship is a reflection of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Is Jesus truly our Lord? Now, we can easily say He is our Savior, but is He our Lord.
Today I’d like to talk with you about this subject of stewardship from Jesus’s Parable of the Talents
Read Matthew 25:14-30
There are several principles brought out in our text that I would like to explore and delve into to help explain this whole idea of stewardship. But before I begin we have to make sure we understand the characters. Jesus is representing Himself as the man that is traveling to a far country, and the servants those who are His disciples.
1. God Owns It All
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.” (Matthew 25:14 NKJV)
Note, they were his goods, the servants didn’t own them, and He delivered His goods to his servants so that they could look after them for Him. That is, they were to handle these possessions in the same way or manner that he would, if he were there.
From this there are two basic implications.
a. God has the right to do whatever He wants with His possessions
Job understood this very well when after he had literally lost everything he said,
“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 2:21 NKJV)
What Job was saying is that since everything is the Lord’s then He has every right to do whatever He wants with it. He can give it to whomever He wants, and He also has every right to take it all away.
This is the heart of Jesus’s parable. Look at it with me again.
The man gave to each servant differing amounts. He didn’t owe it to any of them to give them all equally. It was His to do with as He saw fit. And when He returned, He gave to the first two everything back along with the increase, but He also took away what He had given to the third servant, and giving it to the one who had the most.
Further, while God has the right to do whatever He wanted with what was his, the servants, that is, you and I, have the responsibility to handle faithfully what He had given.
Here’s the point. While it says on paper that we own our houses and cars, and while our name is on the bank account, the reality is that we are merely stewarding what God has given to us. And so we have to ask ourselves, “Are we faithful servants?”
And so the first implication is that God has the right to do what He desires with what it His, which we have seen is everything.
b. Every spending decision should be spiritual
We often think stewardship is only about giving the tithe, or giving an offering on Sunday, and don’t get me wrong, the giving of the tithes and the offerings is a part of our stewardship, but the reality is that it involves everything we use His money for.
We can fake it, using all the right verbiage, but our bank accounts, or the summary statements of our bank accounts, along with our checkbook reveals what we really believe about stewardship. You might say that our bank account could actually be the story of our lives, and that’s because it reflects our priorities and convictions, along with our goals and the use of our time.
Maybe to say this another way: It’s easy to sing, “I Surrender All,” but in truth surrender very little. Jesus said it like this,
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21 NKJV)
And so the first principle to being a good steward is to realize that God owns it all and that it is merely on loan to us.
2. Stewardship Determines Eternal Rewards
How we use God’s possessions determines our rewards in heaven.
To both the five and two talent servants, when the owner returned to settle accounts, He gave both of them back not only what they had initially received, but also what they earned, delivering twice as much as what he had given them. Now look at the owner’s reply,
“Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Matthew 25:21, 23 NKJV)
However, to the third servant who hoarded what he was given and did not invest it, the owner took it away and gave it to another. The owner then called for the man to be tossed out where there is weeping, wailing, and a gnashing of teeth, which is a description of hell.
What this is saying is that how we use God’s possessions will determine our eternal rewards.
A rich man goes to heaven where he meets up with St. Peter who walks him down the road to his heavenly mansion.
The first mansion that he saw along the way was huge, and when he asked who was living there, Peter said, “Your gardener.” And so the rich man began salivating over what his new mansion was going to be like.
Further along they came across another huge mansion, and when the rich man asked Peter who was living there, and he was told it belonged to the missionary he had grown up with.
When they rounded the corner and the rich man saw a little 6x8 shack with a few boards stacked up against the side. Peter then informed the rich man that this was his new digs. When the rich man asked how his gardener and his missionary friend got such huge mansions and he only got this little shack Peter said, “We did the best we could with what you sent us.”
Far too many of us are living for this world that is passing away, instead of living for our permanent home in heaven.
Of Abraham, the writer of Hebrews said, “By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (Hebrews 11:9-10 NKJV)
And so the second principle about stewardship is that it will determine our eternal rewards.
3. It’s Not About the Amount
God is concerned with our attitude when we give, and then using what He has given to us responsibly and in accordance to His word, more than He is concerned with the amount that is given.
Consider the story of the poor widow. Jesus was watching the people bringing their gifts into the temple treasury. And while the rich put in lavish amounts, He took notice of a poor widow who put in two mites. (Mites today would be considered as our pennies.)
Jesus then said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.” (Luke 21:3-4 NKJV)
This principle of God looking at our use of His provisions more than the amount is seen in the owner’s response to all three servants. The first two, even though they were differing amounts received a “Well done good and faithful servant.” The last servant, however, who hoarded the possession he had received, and who had a really bad attitude calling the owner hard and one who lives off the sweat of others, the owner called him a wicked and lazy servant.
In the end it all boils down to how these servants perceived the owner, and how they would use what he had given.
The same goes for us. I hear people say that God doesn't need our money, and therefore they don’t tithe. You see, while the tithe does represent 10% of our income, it really has nothing to do with that, but it has everything to do with our attitude in giving to God.
“I will honor only those who honor me, and I will despise those who despise me.” (1 Samuel 2:30b NLT)
What I find amazing is how we want God’s blessings, but we’re unwilling to follow His plan to receive it. In Malachi the Lord told the people that they were robbing Him by not giving to Him both the tithe and the offering (Malachi 3:8). The Lord then said,
“‘Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.’” (Malachi 3:10 NKJV)
So it really doesn’t matter how much or how little we give, it all comes down to our attitude in not only what God has given to us, but our attitude in what He tells us to give back to Him, that is, our obedience to His word.
If we want God’s blessings, then we have to go about receiving them God’s way, and no longer our own way. And when we do, there is one more blessing the Lord gives. He says through the prophet Malachi, “I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes” (Mal. 3:11 NKJV).
The prophet Haggai, who was a contemporary to Malachi, talks about the people’s giving and the devourer.
“Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying: This people says, ‘The time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.’ Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, ‘Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?’ Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.’ Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Consider your ways!’” (Haggai 1:2-7 NKJV)
4. Stewardship Requires Action
Each servant was given a responsibility. Of the first two it says that they acted in their master’s best interest, but the last guy did nothing except bury it.
How many of us know what we ought to be doing, but we just don’t do it, or we disobey and want to do it our way?
Stewardship requires action on our part, either to obey and invest what God has given in His kingdom, or to disobey and live for self, thinking that this is just a bunch of baloney.
Jesus said, “If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches.” (Luke 16:11 NIV)
Martin Luther said, “When a person is converted three conversions are necessary. Head, Heart, and Purse. Purse is the hardest”
Conclusion
I would like to end with this blessing when we give unto the Lord.
Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38 NKJV)
