The heart behind stewardship must be defined by our understanding of who we are serving. God’s ultimate goal in our practice of becoming good stewards is not merely bound up in the benefits that it will bring to us; biblical stewardship is actually fostering a new kind of humanity. When we manage what God has given us according to the scriptures, we will end up modeling our lives after the character of God Himself.
Observations:
Three more areas of stewardship: Body, Family, Gospel
Ro 1:24-27; 1 Co 3:16-17; Ep 5:28-32
Conclusions:
- Interconnectedness – Stewardship in one area will affect the others
- Primacy of the Gospel – A rejection of the gospel makes everything else worthless
- Accounting – You will be judged
Application: What does worship as a steward look like?
- Servantude – Put Jesus First
- Check your heart
- Faithfulness
Romans 1:24-27
“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
1 Corinthians 3:16-17
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.”
1 Corinthians 3:11
“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
Ephesians 5:28-32
“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”
1 Timothy 4:8
“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”
Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'”
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
1 Corinthians 15:1-2
“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”
Galatians 1:9-10
“As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
James 3:1
“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
Hebrews 13:17
“Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account.”
2 Timothy 2:13
“Even if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”