Spiritual Disciplines: Steadfast Stewardship
By Matt Watson
This is the final post in our nine-part series on spiritual disciplines meant to edify the church on disciplining ourselves to fulfill Jesus’ commandment to love one another. Now more than ever, we need to be reminded, challenged, exhorted, and conscious of what we’re doing with our time and how we’re disciplining ourselves according to God and his word.
Stewardship
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings, the king of Gondor died in battle and left the throne empty. They set up the office of steward to oversee the kingdom until a descendant of the regal line would claim the throne. In the novel, Denethor was a greedy and scheming steward who did not want to give the throne up to its rightful heir, Aragorn.
A steward is someone entrusted by a king to represent him. It also means a servant focused on the needs of those in their charge. When you steward something, you are conserving resources and taking care of something in order to serve another person. In this case, it has a vertical alignment, where we serve God, and a horizontal alignment, where we serve others. But because we are sinful people in a broken world, we often do not steward resources well or in a way that honors God.
The Bible says that God, as the Creator, owns everything (Ps 50:10). Likewise, it says that he is a good Father and loves to give good things to his children (Luke 11:9-13). He has entrusted us with his creation (Gen 1:28) and entrusted us with his mission (Matt 28:18-20). Combined this is called stewardship, and it is our responsibility to steward well that which God gives us.
Imagine spending an enormous amount of energy to create something. It could be a detailed clay pot or painting, a project for work, important research and data, or even a craft you made for a family member. Now imagine entrusting that thing you created to someone else, just to have them break it, ignore it, and use it without you in mind.
Though extreme, we all too often look like Denethor, greedy, consumeristic, careless, and selfish, thinking of ourselves and our position rather than what is needed of us by our King. Everything we have, including the air in our lungs, belongs to and comes from God. The money in our bank accounts come from God through our work. The groceries we eat come to us ultimately from God. Our children are knit in the womb by God. All of these things can be used to worship God if we steward them well and use them to serve others. And all of these things can be used to worship ourselves by spending them on things we want, rather than on what God wants.
God has given each of us gifts, the world itself, and our treasures to use wisely for his glory.
Spiritual Gifts
God has gifted each of us according to his will by the Holy Spirit for the sake of serving the church (Rom 12:6; 1 Cor 12; Eph 4:11-13). That means every single one of us has a role they can play--or a way they can serve--the local body of believers. Some are gifted with administration and can keep track of details. Some are gifted with leadership and are particularly good at influencing others towards achieving the mission. Some are great at hospitality and open their homes to others. At The Well we have CG leaders, and people who host CGs, and roles within CGs to help the groups, and deacons, and people ready to serve others through their electrical and woodworking skills. We have musicians, artists, tradesmen, craftsmen, doctors, scientists, moms, dads, couples and singles; all able to use their talents for the benefit of the body.
It is important that we steward these gifts God has given us, both to worship God, and serve each other. Jesus warns about being faithless with what God has entrusted to us in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-20. The master went on a journey and called his servants to him, entrusting one with all his property, the next one with a large sum of money, the next one with a smaller sum, and so on. Each of these servants took what their master gave them and produced more from it. Except the last servant. He took the small sum his master gave him and he buried it in the dirt. Confronted, the servant makes an excuse about his fearfulness, and the master takes what was given to him and gives it to another servant, saying to that one, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (v.23).
Let us then learn to be faithful with little that we will be faithful with much more.
Creation Care
Oddly, creation care has become a touchy subject for evangelicals. It may be that a certain political ideology has co-opted creation care as one of its platforms, and thus certain groups within the church have rejected it. Let no man reject what is God’s. This universe is his! He made it and declared it good! How can we not want to take care of what he made?
John Piper says, “[The earth is] a mess right now both in sin and in catastrophes, and it isn't always going to be this way. It is going to turn around someday. We are living on a planet in a universe that is going to always be here, and God will renew it. So it matters to him that we care for it. The more important argument … is loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. I don't think the argument from the fact that this earth is going to be renovated someday is the best argument for why you should care about clean water. You care about clean water because you love your neighbor and your grandkids and people in general. You want to reduce suffering.”
Because my wife and I are committed to caring about creation, we had opportunities opened up to have conversations with socialists and atheists about Jesus Christ and the cross, simply because we had a single thing in common: taking care of the planet.
You do not have to be political, or vote Green Party, or buy organic to care for God’s creation. You can start by picking up trash on your street when you go for walks, or obeying the watering restrictions on lawns during droughts. Don’t throw garbage out of your car window and learn what can be recycled. Your city probably has a website or a person to talk to about environmental concerns, wildlife conservation, park cleanups, and so on. It’s worth taking ownership of the place God has put you so that you can be a faithful steward of it.
Money
When my wife and I were having our premarital-counseling, our pastor told us to think about money as God’s money, and encouraged us to ask to be blessed explicitly so we can bless others. That has been our goal and desire, but at the same time our bank account has always been one of the biggest sources of stress and insecurity in our marriage. Money is at the center of so many things in our life, from paying rent, to buying groceries, to paying student loans. It is unavoidable, and thus we need to understand it for what it is: a provision God gives us to worship him and help others.
We see this in the Proverbs 3:9, where it says, “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce.” Likewise, Jesus says in Luke 12:15, “take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” The Bible is not silent about our paychecks, so do not be under the illusion that what God gives you bi-weekly is yours to spend how you want. We are to worship God with our whole lives, including what we think we own.
Remember, the point of stewardship is not that it centers on us, but that it focuses on worshiping God, and inherently serves another. Let us strive to be like Jesus who stewarded his church well, to the point where he died for it to rescue and redeem it. He had everything, and set it all aside for us, so let us too steward whatever we are given, to the glory of God. We are called to live as stewards so that we can leave a legacy of disciples for generations to come.
Resources on Stewardship
Money: God or Gift by Jamie Munson
“Steward the Gifts God Has Assigned to You,” article by Desiring God
“Is There Room in Reformed Theology for Environmental Concern?” article by Desiring God
“Give Kids the Big Picture of Stewardship,” article by The Gospel Coalition
“The Church’s Call to Steward God’s Mission in the World,” article by The Gospel Coalition
Bible verses on money management: https://www.openbible.info/topics/money_management