Financially Faithful - Part 4: Just Stewards

REVIEW
In our current series on the subject of finances and how to be more “financially faithful” to the Lord, we have started out learning about certain mentalities that are important for us to adopt if we are to prosper in this area of our lives. Yes, the way we think about these things is what I consider to be the most important part of faithfully stewarding our finances.
You see, I’ve come to find out that our lives will oftentimes reflect the way we think. In other words, as the Scriptures teach us, as a man thinks in his heart so is he. Therefore, we need to correct any wrong thought patterns concerning finances because if we’ve got some “stinkin’ thinkin’” in this area, it will impact our financial lives. 
So all of these things that we have learned thus far are vital to us moving forward in this area: 

1. We must believe that God does want you and I to prosper. In fact, He is pleased when we are successful, thrive, and flourish in our financial lives. This gives one permission to believe for God’s prosperity in our life because in our hearts, we are persuaded that God is pleased with the prosperity of His people. 
2. We must also erase all of the things that religion has taught us about this subject that might disqualify us from believing it’s okay to be blessed. Yes, because of a misunderstanding of some Scriptures that warn us about financial things, many Christians think it’s wrong to receive God’s will in this area. 
3. We must also embrace that blessed mentality that the Israelites adopted, knowing that God’s blessing – His empowerment to prosper them – was on their lives. Yes, the same blessing that was on Abraham has now been given to us, which means that because of our new & better covenant with Him, God has committed to bless the work of our hands. Not only that, but we learned last week that He has redeemed us from the curse of poverty as well. Again, more ways to think that result in our hearts being both open & receptive to God’s will for our financial success. 

So now that we covered some very important mentalities we need to possess as God’s people, let’s look at what I consider to be one more very important mentality to possess that will help us to be more financially faithful to the Lord.
    
GOOD STEWARDS 
So the title of this week’s message is – “Just Stewards.”
Now when you hear that title, don’t hear it as saying that we are only stewards. We are certainly much more than that! We are God’s children! We are Sons of God! We are a royal priesthood, a chosen generation, and His own special people! We are not “just” anything. 
But the word “Just” is used in other ways too! This word describes “righteousness” as well! Yes, a just person is a person who has been justified, and thereby, been made righteous in God’s sight. But righteousness is not only used to describe what we’ve been made, positionally speaking. Righteousness is also used in describing what one does & their actions. 
Now as you are taught well about here at High Point, the righteous things we do will not & cannot save us. It is only the blood of Jesus that can do that. And when one believes on the Lord Jesus Christ – accepting His grace – they are made completely holy & righteous in God’s kingdom. But as the apostle John said, it is those who practice righteousness who have been made righteous. In other words, a righteous person will do righteous things. Amen? 
So when I use the word here, I am referring to the fact that you and I are righteous stewards who do the right thing in our stewardship.
So that’s what I want to highlight today – how you and I can righteously and justly steward the finances God has entrusted us with. And that is a big point – while we are God’s children and have been made righteous in God’s sight, we are also called stewards and have been entrusted with various things that God expects us to faithfully steward during our short life on this earth.  
You know, there are many, many Scriptures that describe us as God’s stewards. 
The first example of this is in how it all started in the Garden – which is a perfect description of God making mankind His stewards when He planted a Garden and then put man in that Garden to keep & cultivate it. 

We even see multiple examples in the Scriptures of God’s people “stewarding” for others such as Joseph becoming an overseer over Potiphar’s house, having put him in charge over everything he owned (See Genesis 39:4-6). Daniel was also made a commissioner over Darius’ kingdom, and excelled in his position because he had an excellent spirit (Daniel 6:1-3). 

Now some of these examples from the Old Testament have to be understood as being types & shadows of New Covenant truths. So I believe that these stories are included to show us what God’s people are viewed as now.   
First Corinthians 4:1-2 makes a powerful statement regarding our stewardship. Paul said, “Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.”
Here, the apostle Paul said that he (and other apostles like him) were to be regarded as both Christ’s servants and stewards—specifically stewards of the mysteries of God. In other words, they were stewarding the truths of Christ and of this new and better covenant. 
Now like in this example, in most of these, we are stewarding “spiritual” things for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Probably the most well-known Scriptures concerning this are Jesus’ Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) and His Parable of the Minas (Luke 19:12-27). These two akin parables describe to us that the Lord Jesus has left certain gifts to his servants and, when He returns, He expects to see a good return on His investment. And His focus in these parables is on faithfulness—that is, being good and faithful stewards of what He entrusted them with. 
Now although the financial currency of their day is the illustration in both of these parables, we know that these parables are talking about spiritual things that God has entrusted us with. For example, in the Parable of the Minas, the Lord gave all three of these men the same amount, one mina. This is different than His Parable of the Talents where the Lord gave a different amount of talents to each of His three servants. Here is what I believe is the difference: I believe these were two different parables, teaching the same principle regarding two different things the Lord has made us stewards over. You see, the one “mina” we have all received is our salvation, where every disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ has received the exact same grace, capabilities, and potential. But the “talents” are the gifts and callings that we have each been given a different measure of, as we are not all called to the same ministry. Some have been made stewards over the gift of being an evangelist and having the gift of exhortation. Others have simply been given the ministry of helps. Then others have been given the gift of administrations, the gift of giving, and also the ability to teach. It all varies for each of us.      
But my point is that Jesus is describing through both of these parables that we are “stewards” – stewarding the various gifts & graces that He has given us.  
The apostle Peter obviously was referring to Jesus’ teaching when he described this in his first epistle by saying, “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (First Peter 4:10) So here Peter specifically uses the term “stewards” to describe each of us – and he specifically is referring to being good stewards of the various types of God’s grace that we all have been given. 
JUST FAITHFUL STEWARDS
And there are many other Scriptures that refer to us as God’s ministers and stewards of the various spiritual gifts that we have been given by His grace. But someone might say, “Yeah, I agree with that, Pastor. But what does this have to do with our finances?” 
Well, that’s easy – Do you think the Lord would have given us stewardship over these eternal and precious spiritual things and then said, “Yeah, but all of this natural stuff like your money, that’s yours to do with whatever you want”? Wrong! To me, it is just common sense that if our life is not our own anymore and we have been bought with a price to faithfully serve the Lord with the spiritual gifts that He has made us stewards over, then our natural things are included in this as well. 

Now I am going to say something right here that you will not hear too many pastors say. And this will shock you; I can assure you…
Have you heard preachers out there say, “The tithe belongs to the Lord! So, you better not take what is His and use it on yourself! If you do, you are robbing God!” 
Of course, some of these things that we’ve heard did in fact come from Scripture. They are quoting from the Old Testament - in both the book of Leviticus and the prophet Malachi - when the Lord said first in Leviticus 27:30&32 that the tithe is the Lord’s and it is holy to Him and then in Malachi 3:8 that His people are robbing Him when they withhold their tithe and offerings. (And notice that this Scripture in Malachi does not just say that they were robbing God because they did not tithe; it says that they were robbing Him when they did not tithe and give offerings. People conveniently leave that part out, don’t they?)
So here is my shocking statement. Are you ready? I do not believe that 10% of our income and increase (i.e. the tithe) is the Lord’s today. 
Someone will say, “Aw, how can you say that? That is what the Bible says!” The reason why I say that is because we are under a different covenant than they were, and there are some major differences now. Let me explain…  
You see, the tithe was absolutely the Lord’s for the Old Testament saint because their life was still their own, but this is no longer the case under our new and better covenant. You see, the Lord told them that the first 10% of their increase was holy unto the Lord. But now, under our dispensation, it is no longer us who live, but Christ living in and through us (see Philippians 1:21). You see, we need to understand that when we became a born-again Christian, we were crucified with Christ (see Galatians 2:20). In other words, from a spiritual sense, we died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God (see Colossians 3:3). 
So what does this have to do with the tithe being the Lord’s, you ask? Well, since we are reckoned dead, 90% cannot be ours anymore. Now under the New Covenant, 10% is not the Lord’s; under the New Covenant, 100% is the Lord’s! Amen!?!
Now am I saying that we shouldn’t tithe anymore? Heaven’s no! The principle of the tithe was practiced in the Book of Genesis before the Old Covenant was even established; so it is a good principle to start with in our giving habits. But now in this church age, we need to be, first and foremost, Spirit-led in our giving. 
However, let me caution you: if you are consistently “led” to give less than 10% under this new and better covenant, you are not being led by the Spirit of God! My father in the faith said that if you are not giving at least the tithe, 10% of your increase, then you are not being a good steward of your finances.   No, if this is a better covenant established upon better promises, then we should not be giving less than they did under the Old Covenant; I believe we should be giving more! And I for one, have that target at heart - that I am not just going to give my tithe, but I am going to give much more than 10%. Now 10% is certainly a good starting point; but make sure you are giving with the right motive and are listening to the Spirit of God’s directions.
But this leads me to my point this week… When we identify with these positional truths that our life is no longer our own and we give ourselves wholly over to the Lord as a result, then we will see that our money is not “our” money anymore; it is the Lord’s money and we are simply stewards of what is His.  
In fact, the Lord taught us this in His Parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke chapter 16 … 
Luke 16:1 starts off by saying, “He also said to His disciples …” 
Now this is significant because what this shows us is that Jesus is piggybacking on the parable that He just finished sharing with the Pharisees and the Scribes (See Luke 15:2-3), which most people know as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Basically, this parable was teaching these religious leaders that they were like this elder son in this parable and were not seeing these tax collectors and sinners as their prodigal brothers who were coming back home. 
But what I believe was happening here was, after He just finished talking to others about this prodigal son who had squandered all of his inheritance that was in his possession (i.e. he was a poor steward of what His father had given to him), He now took that as an opportunity to turn to His disciples and teach them the importance of not being “wasteful” (i.e. definition of prodigal) of what their Master has entrusted to them. Amen. 
So, again, Jesus was talking to His disciples here, correct? And then He begins this parable by saying, “There was a certain rich man (Obviously a reference to God because He is certainly “rich,” owning the cattle on a thousand hills, and all the gold, silver and precious stones of the earth are His. Amen?) who had a steward.” 
So if Jesus is talking to His disciples here, then He is likening all of His disciples (both yesterday, today and forevermore) to stewards of our Rich Master, the King of kings. In other words, the Lord is here calling us stewards of His resources – and not spiritual resources either. No, if you read on in this parable, Jesus is talking specifically about this world’s “unrighteous mammon” (See vs. 9&11).      
Now what is interesting in this parable is, notice that Jesus said in verse 10 that being a faithful steward of this “unrighteous mammon” is being faithful in “what is least.” In other words, Jesus is calling our earthly riches “the least” thing we can be faithful stewards of—meaning, that our earthly resources are the little things that we are stewards of in comparison to the spiritual things that the Lord has planned for us to manage. As He went on to say in verse 11, if we have not been faithful in stewarding our finances (which are temporal and little in comparison), how can we expect Him to commit to our trust “true riches”?  You see, stewarding finances is the “little thing” and is what God will judge us by to be rulers over much in His eternal kingdom. 
So we can clearly see through this that we are considered stewards of the Lord’s money, and we are called to be good and faithful stewards of these temporal things. In other words, we are not owners of anything; we are stewards of God’s things—and this includes both our spiritual and natural gifts. 
GOD IS OUR SOURCE
James 1:16-17 teaches us that we are not to be deceived but to understand that every good gift and every perfect gift (which would include both spiritual & natural things that are a blessing) come from above, coming down from our Father of lights. Amen. But the reason the Bible tells us not to be deceived about this is because this will be the tendency. 
You see, this is hard for some people to accept because they have the mentality that their money is theirs because, after all, they worked for it, they earned it by the sweat of their brow, etc.
We’ve looked at Deuteronomy 8:18 that says that it is He who gives us the power to get wealth, but let’s recall why the Lord gave them this powerful Scripture. It was meant to exhort them not to forget who gave them this power to get the wealth they had. You see, we always look at that Scripture as saying that it is God’s power, blessing and favor that enable us to get more wealth, but the real point of this verse is to remind them that everything they already had is because of God’s power, blessing and favor. In other words, the Lord was exhorting them to remember where this blessing came from. Amen? 

Well, we need to remember who it is who gave you and I the energy and strength to go work hard like that. We need to understand that if the One who holds all things together and in Whom all things consist (i.e. In Him we live and move and have our being), if He were to just lift a fraction of the grace off your life, you wouldn’t be able to put one foot in front of another and would have drool running down your mouth. No, you wouldn’t be able to think straight to do all of the things that you just thought you were just so gifted and talented to do. So, we need to recognize that all of those things that we think are just us, are all parts of the manifold grace of God in our lives. Amen? 

So, once we begin to recognize that God is the reason for our very existence, and He’s the reason we were born at this particular time and in the most blessed nation in the world, when you start to acknowledge all of the grace of God in your life, then you will become more thankful, praising God and giving Him glory. And guess what happens as a result? He starts directing your path and making it smooth and straight (Prov 3). You begin prospering because this is how we set ourselves up for the blessing of God. Amen. 

You see, when you see the money you have as being by your own blood, sweat and tears, you will tend to keep a tighter hold on it. But once you begin to realize that everything you have is because of God’s grace, favor and blessing, then you’ll be more apt to release it. This is a key to being a giver – because there is more where that came from.  

Example of the preacher who said, “Alright, reach into the back pocket or purse of the person in front of you, and give like you’ve always wanted to give.” The point of this is - when we see it as someone else’s money, we tend to be more liberal and gracious, but if we see it as our money, we tend to be stingier.

So, yes, we need to recognize that every good and perfect gift comes down from above and is not just a result of our own intelligence and hard work. So even though it might look like we’ve earned all that we possess, it is God who gave us the mind and the strength to accumulate it, for which we are to give Him all the glory! 

GOD’S MANAGERS
Now the word “steward” literally describes one who handles the affairs of another. It is defined as a person who manages another person’s property. So you could describe a steward as what we would call today a “manager.” Therefore, we could say that we are God’s managers. 
Now we can all understand that, right? A manager of say, a store- he or she is not the owner, right? They don’t have to personally pay the bills or the employees, nor are they going to be held responsible for the business itself. No, their “job” is to simply use the resources that the owner has provided them with and faithfully manage said resources. 
You know, I have been a manager before in a bank, and I’ll tell you, being just a manager of a branch is a whole lot different than being the bank president much less the bank’s owner and being responsible for all of the branches and the bank’s overall success. It relieves one of a lot of pressure. 
I knew that if we lost a big account one day, I’m still going to get my paycheck. I also knew that if someone brought a lawsuit against us, I wasn’t going to have to personally appear in court. No, I still had food on the table and slept just fine no matter what crises were going on in the bank. And why? Because I knew I was simply the manager, not the owner.  
Well, that is one of the benefits of knowing in your heart that you are just the Lord’s steward - because it takes off the pressure of feeling like you are the one responsible for everything. In other words, it will help you to rest in Him and truly trust that He has it all under control. 
Not only that, but if we truly saw that we are stewards of the Lord’s money, we would be handling it differently. 
I mean, we wouldn’t want to face the Lord one day, having poorly stewarded His resources. That is why we have these other parables that I have already mentioned that teach us this. Again, while most of these other parables are more referring to our gifts, graces, and talents, if the least of these things is money, then we should be faithful in it too. 
Say, we were working for someone else, and we just decided to take some of their money to use it for personal reasons, well that would be considered embezzling, and we would be fired. It’s called being a bad steward. Well, of course, we are not going to get fired from being a child of God, but we certainly should be inquiring more of the Lord and seeing what He wants us to do with His stuff.   
But here is another wonderful truth: good managers get paid well too! 
Working in the banking industry, I saw that there were significantly different pay grades for different managers. You could find some managers making a shade over $30,000 a year and then others making over twice as much as that. 
And what is the difference? Whether they are a good and profitable manager or not. Yes, you pay your good stewards well. 
Look over at Luke 8:3… 
This verse teaches us that Jesus had many women who followed Him, one being Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward. And this Scripture tells us that these women provided for Him from their substance (or, resources / possessions). 
Now why do you suppose Luke made the point of who Joanna was the wife of? It was to show us how this provision was not just minimal; it was significant – because you have to know that Herod’s steward was paid well.  
Well, in the kingdom of God, its similar. The Lord’s stewards who are wise & faithful get paid well too!   
THE MIRACLE OF MULTIPLICATION
Now a couple of weeks ago, we looked briefly at the blessings listed in Deuteronomy chapter 28, and we saw that one thing that was said was that the Lord would bless their baskets and their kneading bowls - which I described as the things we carry our increase in and the things we create our increase with. 
Well, this reminds me of Jesus’ multiplying of the loaves and fishes during His ministry—for how many of you know that that bread & those baskets were absolutely blessed!?! And I believe that these couple of examples of the Lord multiplying the food for the thousands of people illustrate to us some very important principles of being good stewards. Let’s look at the example of the feeding of the 5,000…
Now this feeding of the 5,000 is one of the rare instances in the life of Jesus that are recorded by all 4 Gospel writers (Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9 & John 6). 
Well, I want to look at two accounts of this miracle – Mark 6 & John 6 …
Now in Mark chapter 6 we have a beautiful parallel with the great 23rd Psalm - showing us that this is a fulfillment of our Good Shepherd’s willingness for us never to lack, to be led by a place of rest and solitude, to lie down on green pastures and to have a table prepared for them even in the wilderness and for their cup to overflow. 
Well, in Mark’s account (as well as Matthew & Luke’s), we are told that He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves. Have you ever wondered how He blessed the loaves? Well, John’s Gospel tells us how - John said that He gave thanks! (John 6:11) So when you combine these different accounts together, you can conclude either:

1. He looked up to heaven, blessed the bread while He gave thanks, or…
2. He looked up to heaven, blessed the loaves by giving thanks for them.

I personally believe that this miracle was driven by the Lord’s giving of thanks because we see in John 6:23 that the location of this miracle was identified as “the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks…” 
Saints, thanksgiving is how your bread and basket are blessed - that is, being genuinely thankful for all God has done for you and freely given you, and being thankful for all that He is still willing to do for you.    
However, it is important to understand that this not all there was to this miracle of multiplication: After Jesus blessed the food, He then distributed the baskets to the disciples and then the disciples distributed them to the multitude. 
Now what would have happened if His disciples had not distributed these baskets? There would not have been the quality of miracle that they experienced – because Jesus would have only been able to only reach so many people being one man. But the mathematics here indicate that the only way they would have been able to feed this 15,000 or so was for the multiplication to take place through His disciples. 
So here is my point: When you are a “distributing disciple” (or you could say, a “sowing steward”)—coupling together the spiritual principles of God’s blessing being upon your basket and His desire to be your Good Shepherd along with good, sound practical stewardship of distributing what the Lord has given you as He instructs you, you will experience the miracle of multiplication in your life! Amen!    
You see, the Lord is looking for these sowing stewards and distributing disciples. And when He finds them, 2 Corinthians chapter 9:10 teaches us that He gives seed to the sower and bread for food. It teaches us that He will both supply and multiply the seed we sow and, at the same time, increase the fruits of our righteousness! Amen!