Matthew 25:14-30

Old Testament: Genesis 1:26-28

Georgetown Presbyterian Church

Rev. Stephen H. Wilkins

November 13, 2005

When you hear the word "stewardship", what’s the first word that comes to mind? Let’s have a show of hands—for how many of you is that word "money"? Actually, what I really wanted to do was to see how many Presbyterians I could get to raise their hands in worship!

Seriously, though, Presbyterians have an understanding of stewardship that is too narrow. We limit discussion of stewardship to the church budget and pledging, and we only talk about that during a couple of weeks in the autumn of each year. But the truth is, the biblical notion of stewardship goes far beyond dollars and cents, and it entails far more than just one month out of the year. Stewardship is not just one organized activity alongside others in the life of the church; stewardship is a way of living out our discipleship. And so while issues like church budgets and pledging are important, and we need to talk about them, this morning I want to try to broaden our understanding of stewardship, so that when we hear the word "stewardship", our first reaction won’t be to try to protect our wallets or our purses.

This morning I would like to suggest three basic biblical principles to help us understand stewardship. I think a proper understanding of stewardship comes from a belief in the sovereignty and providence of God, it comes from an attitude of gratitude, and it issues in a life of faithfulness.

An understanding of stewardship really begins with an understanding of the sovereignty and providence of God. That is, you have to start with the premise that everything belongs to God in the first place—as the psalmist declares, "The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it…" God has created this world, and nothing exists in this world apart from the will of God. Everything ultimately belongs to God, even things we consider to be ours. The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it—including our life and health, including our time, whatever talents or abilities we may have, our property and material possessions, our money, the world around us, all of this beautiful land and ocean and rivers and trees—it all belongs to God, and it is all subject to the sovereign rule of God.

As God’s human creation, we are called to be stewards of this world that belongs to God. A steward is simply a person who manages the affairs of a household or an estate for the owner. And the Bible makes it clear that that’s what we are—we’re stewards. It is God who created this world and gives life to everything in it. It is God’s world in which we live. But our text from Genesis makes it clear that God has given us dominion over his world—God has made us stewards of his world.

It’s when we try to think of ourselves as the owners that we get into trouble. It’s when we think that we can do a better job than God at managing the affairs of the world that things go awry. If you believe in the sovereignty and providence of God, then it’s not too difficult to understand that we’re the stewards, not the owners.

If you ascribe to the notion of God’s sovereignty, and that everything in this world is God’s in the first place, then you begin to see that everything we have is a gift from a loving God. And if you know that what you have is a gift from God, then your stewardship will be informed by an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is critical to a proper understanding of stewardship, for it’s gratitude that recognizes the benevolence of a loving God, and it’s gratitude that issues in a joyful response.

I’m convinced that the difference between the third servant and the first two servants in our parable this morning is that the first two received their talents as a gift from a caring master, and the third servant received his talent as if it were a burden from a mean and vengeful master. The gratitude of the first two inspired them to do something that would bring glory to their master, while the fear of the third servant paralyzed him and caused him to bury his gift in the ground. Gratitude makes a world of difference in how you live out your stewardship.

And so it really is appropriate that we talk about stewardship in the midst of the season of Thanksgiving. We all know the first Thanksgiving was celebrated, not after a year of abundance, but after a year marked by sickness and death and harsh climate. The first Thanksgiving came after the pilgrims had endured an extremely bitter winter. The first Thanksgiving came after the pilgrims had been beset by deadly sickness. The first Thanksgiving came after a year during which more children were buried than were born. Yet despite the incredible hardships, the pilgrims still felt compelled to pause and give thanks to God. You see, they were able to appreciate that despite what they had lost, those who had survived had done so by the grace of God. They were able to appreciate the fact that what they still had, including their own lives, were gifts from God.

Gratitude is the proper attitude to inform our stewardship, for it is out of gratitude that the desire arises to serve and love the One who has first loved us and blessed us.

The third basic theological basis for gaining a proper understanding of stewardship is faithfulness. A Christian steward is someone who receives the gifts of God not unto himself or herself, but who receives them to use according to the purposes of God, in such a way that honors God and reflects God’s character. In First Corinthians 4:12, the apostle Paul says, "Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful." Elsewhere, Peter says in his first epistle, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms."

In the parable, it was the faithfulness of the first two servants that pleased the master. It was because they did not see themselves as the final recipients of the talents the master had given them, but that they were charged with putting those talents to use in a way that would honor their master. A good steward will run the household or estate in a way that conforms to the will of the owner and in a way that honors the owner. In our Christian stewardship, then, we recognize that God has entrusted us with our lives, our health, our families, our time and talents, our possessions and wealth, this beautiful world in which we live. And so we are called to be faithful to the will and character of God in the way we run God’s world.

The witness of scripture, and I hope that the witness in your own life, is that it is the will and character of God to pour out blessing upon blessing upon blessing for this world. It is always the case that the blessings of God are not meant to stop with us; they are given to us so that we can in turn pass them on to others in God’s name. We are blessed so that we can then be a blessing for others. That, truly, is one of the central tenets of faithful stewardship: to see ourselves as instruments of God’s blessings for the world.

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous.

Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort to support its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little lifesaving station grew. Some of the new members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building. The lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they redecorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club. Fewer of the members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired life boat crews to do this work. The mission of lifesaving was still given lip-service, but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the lifesaving activities personally.

One day a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the lifesaving crews brought in loads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and the beautiful new club was considerably messed up. So the lifesaving club members immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

Not long after that, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities because they were an unpleasant interruption to the normal pattern of the club. But some members insisted that lifesaving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But the second group was finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. And so they did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club and yet another lifesaving station was founded. That pattern continued for generations. If you visit that area today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along the coastline. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but there is nobody to save lives any more.

A proper perspective on stewardship will understand that we’re not put here as a club, but as an active lifesaving station. That’s why, when this congregation purchased the building next door, you did so with a vision of serving the community by making it an Outreach Center. It’s because our mission is to be an active lifesaving station that, when we sent out information about our stewardship campaign, one of the things included was an analysis of how your budget is put to use to meet the great ends of the church (which, by the way, are printed on your bulletin). In that analysis, there is the acknowledgement that in our ministry we are to be faithful stewards as we proclaim the gospel, as we care for others, as we gather for worship, as we seek to preserve the truth, as we promote social righteousness in our world, and as we exhibit in our lives and ministry the Kingdom of heaven to the world. If you look at our ministry in those terms, you get the sense that we’re not here for ourselves, but to be vessels of blessing to the world.

That’s what stewardship is—recognizing that what we receive is a gift that’s not meant to stop with us but to be passed on to a world in need.

Stewardship is about more than money. Stewardship is a way of life that recognizes that this is God’s world, and we are charged with the responsibility of caring for it and multiplying God’s blessings for the sake of others. Stewardship is about taking what God has given to you and putting it to use according to God’s will and in such a way that God will be glorified.

Is that how you’re living your life?