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The Heart Of Stewardship
Genesis 1:26, Mark 8:34-36
August 28, 2005
The Rev. Kong Namkung

Today I want to talk to you about stewardship.  It is not easy for me to talk about stewardship and it’s not easy for you to be attentive.  But this topic has been laid on my heart.  What is stewardship?  Stewardship is “utilizing and managing all resources God provides for the glory of God and the betterment of His creation.”  So a steward is “the one who manages and administers the property for the owner and seeks to accomplish the owner’s will, who is God.”  Therefore, stewardship is a reflection of my relationship to my God and my Savior.   Our United Methodist founder, John Wesley, said, “When the Possessor of heaven and earth brought you into being and placed you in this world, He placed you here not as an owner but as a steward.  As such He entrusted you for a season with goods of various kinds- but the sole property of these still rests in Him, nor can ever be alienated from Him.  As you are not your own, but His, such is likewise all you enjoy.” 

Stewardship permeates the pages of the Bible because how we respond to God is at the heart of the Bible. Often, stewardship is thought of only in terms of finances, but the Bible teaches that stewardship is a far greater concept, involving how we respond with all of our life to God who is the giver and sustainer of life.

To begin with, I want to talk to you about the story of creation.  When God created humans, He made them to have “dominion” over all of the earth. Genesis 1:26 says, “ Then God said, `Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  Dominion was not intended to be domination or exploitation. Dominion was God’s call for human beings to be good and gracious managers of God’s creation.  God wants us to domain over all things because if we do not domain, then we are controlled by the things that we cannot domain like if you cannot control your fleshly desire, you are controlled by it. 

Unfortunately, the sin of humanity distracted, distorted, and detoured God’s plans for His world. Humankind became selfish and self- centered, and saw the world as a means to its own self-centered ends. For example, children today have their favorite word.  Their first pronouns are the words; I, my, and mine.   “It’s mine, that’s my toy, my juice, my book, and so on.”  A young child says to one of his friends, “I’m your good friend and you’re mine.  Good friends should share with one another what they have.  What about yours is mine and mine is mine.”  I know some Christians have first pronoun words in their spiritual life.  They think what they have theirs, not God’s.  The words “I, my, mine” must become “we, ours” and “yours” as we accept Jesus Christ.  We belong to the believers of the community.  We share what we have with each other like the early church certainly saw all that it had as a gift from God for the good of each other. “And the multitude of them that believed with one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common” (Acts 4:32).   Of course, our economic system and sheer numbers of people today prevent this kind of complete sharing, but the amazing thing was the attitude of the church members to what they possessed. They saw none of it as their own. All of it came from the loving heart of God. That is why the sin of selfishness of Ananias and Sapphira, who sold their property and hid some of them and gave some to the church, was so serious (Acts 5).

The things of the world were now seen as possessions with humans as owners, not as God’s stewards, “and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four footed animals or reptiles.” (Romans 1:23)  But remember that God’s intention for His world did not change. He still desired that people see God as the Lord of everything and themselves as the managers of God’s creation.

As Jesus incarnated into human flesh, Jesus wanted his followers to have absolute commitment to Christ, which is the central theme of today’s scripture lesson. Mark 8:34-36, “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [35] For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. [36] What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”   In the absolute commitment to Christ, our Lord and Savior, he asks us to follow three different steps.

1.    To deny ourselves.  What does it mean to “deny” yourself?  It means to do everything for the sake of Jesus, not for the sake of yourself.

2.    To take up our own cross- Jesus had his own cross, so do we? What is your cross?  If we do not know what it is, how can we take up own cross?  How do we find our own cross?  In order to find your own cross, we need to go back to the model of Jesus Christ. 

·        Find a ministry for the expansion of God’s kingdom in your life.

·        Engage in the ministry

·        Suffer with that ministry, even unto death.

3.    To follow Jesus. – To follow Jesus is not just singing, “I have decided to follow Jesus.” It is self-denial upon taking up our own cross.  Then we give ourselves to total commitment to Christ.

Jesus asked for obedience to God’s original intention for the world. The world teaches us to make profits as much as we can, to have as much as we can, to use as much as we want, and to save as much as you can.  However, Jesus was calling for a radical reversal of the world’s values. He wants us to have a revolutionary return to God’s purpose, which is to lose life for Jesus’ sake. Jesus never seemed to be satisfied with a slice of the pie of our obedience. Jesus will never be satisfied with 10 or 20 percent of your commitment or, Jesus did not rejoice in the tithe or a big offering as much as He did in the sacrificial, complete giving of a widow, which is found in the gospel of Luke 21:1-4.  Jesus said, “She out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”  Jesus calls all disciples, including you and me, to absolute surrender of ourselves and our substance to Him.   God looks to the disposition of the heart, the intention of giving all to God rather than counting the amount given.   The power of the widow’s gift came from her heart and from self-denial.  Her attitude of total commitment to Christ comes from Jesus’ self-sacrifice in his life for humanity.    As Sir Walter Raleigh was about to be executed, he was asked which way he preferred to lay his head on the block.  He replied, “So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lies.”  Proverbs 23:46 says, “My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.” 

The apostle Paul preached and taught single-minded commitment to Christ. He reminded the Philippians that the source of thanksgiving was not in things but in our relationship to God in Christ.  Philip. 3:13-14, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, [14] I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. “

Thus, the New Testament concept of stewardship centers in our commitment to Jesus Christ. When He becomes our Lord, He becomes Lord of our time, talents, finances, and everything. We realize that we are not our own, but we are bought with a price.

Poem by Joachim Lange

O God, what offering shall I give to thee,

The Lord of earth and skies,

My spirit, soul, and flesh receive,

A holy living sacrifice,

Small as it is, this all my store;

More shouldst thou have, it is had more.

David Livingstone told how he was chased up a small tree and besieged by lions.  He said the tree was so small that he was barely out of reach of the lions.  He says they would stand on their back feet and roar and shake the little tree, and that he could feel the hot breath of the lions as they sought him.  But, he stated, “I had a good night and felt happier and safer in that little tee besieged by lions, in the jungles of Africa, in the will of God, than I would have been out of the will of God in England.   You can still hold your life as yours, or you can commit yourself to Christ and give all things that you have.  If you hold onto your life, you will not be happy even though you think you have lots of things.  But if you commit yourself to Christ, then your will be happier and safer than ever before. 

1 Corinthians 4:2 says, “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”  Every one of us will give an accounting to Christ for our stewardship of those things, which he has entrusted to us.  If you heart is his heart, is your mind his mind? Are your ways his ways?  Is your cleanliness his cleanliness?  Are your possessions his possessions?  On that accounting day will Christ say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant, you has been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things, enter you into the joy of your Lord.”?

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Genesis 1:26

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
NIV

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Mark 8:34-36

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
NIV

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