What is a Steward?

Who is running this ship?

          I’m starting a new series of messages on stewardship today.  What I want to do is explore the meaning of this term, “steward” and make some practical applications to our lives.  I Corinthians 4:1-2 say, “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.”  What did Paul mean when he said, “steward of the mysteries of God?”  What is a “steward” anyway?  Probably our only experience with stewards and stewardesses has been on an airplane.  Is that a possible picture of a steward?

          And as we explore the meaning of this term, we want to practice it.  Today we are taking an offering for the Lawtons; next Sunday we’ll take one for BCPC; then on May the 6^th for the Bryants; and WBC on the 13th; and then on May 20^th we’ll lift an offering for the Risdens.

          What does the word, “steward” mean?  I want to define the term in three parts today.  You are going to get the first part now, and then we will go back to singing before parts 2 and 3.  What IS a steward?

I.  A steward possesses TREASURE.

          The very reason anyone would need a steward is because they have a lot of money, property, or business.  If you have one dollar you don’t need a steward, but if you are a billionaire, you will probably need several stewards.

          The word “steward” originally meant “the manager of a household or of household affairs; the superintendent to whom the head of the house or proprietor has intrusted the management of his affairs, the care of receipts and expenditures, and the duty of dealing out the proper portion to every servant and even to the children not yet of age.”  It means the “one in control of the house,” or “one in control of the business.”  A steward possesses treasure. Have you ever viewed yourself as one in control of a treasure?  Remember you don’t need a steward unless you have a lot of something.  So if you are a steward, the assumption is that there is a lot of something under your direction.

          A.  Stewards control wealth.  How do you respond when you hear that someone has won the lottery?  “Wow, how lucky.”  Last month, a 52 year old Georgia truck driver claimed half of the $390 million Mega Millions jackpot, and received a check for $116.5 million.

          Whether he knows it or not, Ed Nabors is now a “steward.”  He is now the manager of $116.5 million.  Actually, by the time he got home and paid the government, I think he was down to only $80 million.  But he’s got to figure out what to do with $80 million.  And he’s got to keep that $80 million from biting him and ruining his life, as similar winnings have done to others. 

          What’s it like to now be the steward of $80 million?  We think, “that must be great!”  Well you can’t eat any more food, so it shouldn’t affect his diet.  And you can’t wear any more clothes, although he could go out and buy more expensive clothes.  What do you do with $80 million?  I would imagine that Ed might have a problem just figuring out how to dispense it. 

          What do you think when you hear about the “lucky strike” of Ed Nabors?

Are you jealous?  Would you like to try managing $80 million?  Do you realize how difficult it is to manage that much money?  However difficult it is promised to be, we at least would like to try.

          I don’t have any experience in managing large amounts of money, but Steve Danish is a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University who has studied the impact instant wealth has had on lottery winners.  His conclusion is that “the dream you have about winning may be better than the actuality of winning.”

          Take examples like this:  Kenneth and Connie Parker won $25 million. Within months their 16_year marriage came apart.  After Jeffrey Dampier won $20 million, he was kidnapped and murdered by his own sister_in_law.  You’ve heard me talking in years past about Jack Whittaker, who in 2002 won the largest individual payout in U.S. lottery history.  After he won he said, “I can do a lot of good with this much money.”  I’m sure you have heard of the string of tragedy that has followed him, which culminated in the death of his beloved granddaughter, Brandi, and the breakup of his marriage.  His ex-wife, Jewell, said, after the divorce, "if I knew what was going to transpire, honestly, I would have torn the ticket up."

          That might be good advice for anyone who dreams of winning in the lottery business.  I found this quote by Frank Lebowitz: “I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.”  I don’t think that people working in the lottery business view what they are doing as destroying people.  But it happens an amazing percentage of times. 

          What it says is that people are not prepared for stewardship.  They don’t understand how hard it is, and the serious consequences of botching the responsibility.  We are stewards of an immense fortune.  Do you think we have similar problems?

          B.  Stewards must recognize their treasures.  Have you ever seen yourself as a lottery winner?  What would you say your first responsibility was as a steward of a pile of lottery money?  Here’s what it is: to figure out how to get it under control.  Jeff Ventura, who has had some experience here, says: “You have to manage the money, or it manages you.”  You take control and make it your servant, or it takes over your life.  You’ve got to understand the value of the treasure and the seriousness of the “damage it can do if left, flailing like an open fire hose, to snake randomly and unchecked through your life.”

          How hard can it be to manage $80 million?  Here are some of the difficulties we don’t normally think about.  These are unexpected problems that are reported by winners: You can’t leave your home because you're afraid of being kidnaped or killed by an heir?  You hire body guards _ then wonder if you can trust them.  You worry about the well being of your children and your close relatives.  Your friends leave because they begrudge your winning.  You hire someone to do the driving for you for fear of being sued.  Everyone you meet is holding out their hands wanting something.  You’re alone in the world because you're always wondering if your friend is a true friend or is there just to get what he can from you.  You take multiple calls per day from people who have deals; you receive stacks of mail daily from people who have deals or sob stories.  The press follows you to report on your every move.  You are bored because you don’t have to work and you have never had that problem before.  You meet all your long lost relatives and begin to get suspicious over everyone, husband, wife, children, friends who now assure you that they really love you.  You even wonder if you can trust lawyers, accountants and brokers.  In short, your winning almost guarantees that you will spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.  How’s that for a little reality check?  Who wants that kind of life?  I sure don’t.  Do you see the point that you either take control of the management of the money, or it gets control of you?

          C.  Believers have incredible treasures.  Our stewardship goes a lot further than money.  In fact, money is only a minor part of the picture.  Stewardship involves every part of your life.  Think of the treasure that we are managing.

          You have been given a body.  Anybody here without a body?  Please raise your hand.  Just to be able to think, and to speak, and to know, and to love, and to receive love, is an incredible privilege. 

          Psalm 139:13 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. 14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

          We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  We possess a treasure.  How do we rule it?  Where do we take it?  With whom do we share it?  I Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.”  Notice that your body is not only a gift, but contains a gift, the Holy Spirit, who is in you as a present from God.  If you have trusted Jesus as your Savior, you have been given the Holy Spirit to live in you.  Think of the infinite treasure that He brings.

          We have been given time – 24 hours a day is a treasure.  How are we going to use it?  We’ve been given this Bible.  What are we going to do with it?  We’ve been given society’s blessings – peace, law, our government, family blessings – children, grandchildren, relatives, technological blessings in the form of cars, computers, Ipods, projectors and power point.

          Have you ever thought about the fact that you are worth more than $80 million?  You may not view your treasure as very valuable.  That’s dangerous. In fact the worst thing a steward can do is overlook what he has, take his treasures for granted, or view them the wrong way.  How bad is that?  Think of Cho Seung_Hui, the gunman who killed 32 people at VT this week because he never realized the value of what he owned – either personally or the treasure of those around him.  The guy may have had artistic talent; he may have had technical ability to help the world.  Who knows what he could have accomplished if he had given his life to Jesus Christ.  Yesterday, his sister, Sun-kyung Cho, said, that they “never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.”  So he took out 32 treasures around him before he blew the treasure of his own life into eternity.  Have you read the incredible list of people that he thoughtlessly blew away?  Let me mention 10 out of the 32 names:

          Christopher James Bishop, was a 35 year old German professor known as “Jamie,” who always rode his bike to campus  He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in German from the University of Georgia and was a Fulbright scholar at Christian_Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.  Stephanie, his wife, also teaches in Virginia Tech’s German program.

          Brian Bluhm, 25, was a graduate student in water resources.  He was an ardent fan of the Detroit Tigers Major League Baseball team, which announced his death before Tuesday’s game in Kansas City.  He already had a job in Baltimore.  Michael Marshall, his close friend, said, “Brian was a Christian, and first and foremost that’s what he would want to be remembered as.”

          Ryan Clark, 22, called “Stack” by his friends, was from Martinez, Ga., a senior majoring in psychology but also studying biology and English, and carring a 4.0 GPA.  His goal was to get a Phd in psychology with a focus on cognitive neuroscience.  He was a resident adviser on the fourth floor of the dorm where the rampage began, and was killed coming to the aid of a student.

          Kevin Granata, 45, an engineering science and mechanics professor who was married and had three children, who was considered one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country, working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.

          Caitlin Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., was a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, “one of the most outstanding young individuals that I’ve had the privilege of working with in my 31 years as an educator,” said John Latini, principal of her High School.  

          Henry Lee, 20, of Roanoke, Va., a freshman, was the 9th of 10 siblings whose family fled to the USA from Vietnam, arriving in Roanoke in 1994.

          Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mechanics lecturer. Born in Romania, he survived the Nazi Holocaust and emigrated to Israel in 1978 before moving to Virginia in 1985.  An Israeli citizen, he had taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and was internationally known for his work in aeronautical engineering.  "His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures," said Ishwar Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.  Monday when he died happened to be  Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.  He died blocking the doorway with his body and commanding his students to flee.

          G.V. Loganathan, 51, an Indian_born professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, was married with two daughters, he won several awards, including the university's prestigious Wine Award for Excellence in Teaching.  He was teaching advanced hydrology when shot.

          Partahi Lombantoruan, 34, from Indonesia, was a civil engineering doctoral student. His family had sold property and cars to pay for him to come to Tech.

          Lauren McCain, 20, of Hampton, Va., an undergraduate majoring in international studies.  On her web page, McCain listed “the love of my life” as Jesus Christ.  Her family said McCain became a Christian some time ago.  “Her life since that time has been filled with His love that continued to overflow to touch everyone who knew her.”

          What an awful event, for a man to not only take his own life and end his own potential, but to end the lives of 32 other Divinely designed contributions to humanity.  That is stewardship at it’s worst – to use your treasure to ruin other treasures.  We need to pray for these families who have met unbridled evil in the most unexpected place.

          What is a steward?  It is simply someone in possession of a treasure.

Are we stewards?  Yes.  We as humans are in possession of an incredible treasure, our bodies – composed of a computer and operating system that nothing manmade on earth can match; composed of a wi-fi networking system of nerves that nothing on earth can match; composed of a muscle system, circulatory system, verbal communication system, etc., etc.

          In addition, we are in possession of the treasure of a family – and an incredible nation, that no other country in the history of the world has been able to match in terms of freedom, opportunity, and wealth.  And Paul said, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavens.”

          Let’s stop and thank God for what we have been given.  And ask Him for wisdom to analyze it accurately.

II.  A steward doesn’t OWN the treasure — it is on loan.  Webster’s definition says, “An administrator, or supervisor; a manager.”

          I said earlier, “he possesses treasure.”  It may sound a little contradictory to now say that he doesn’t own it.  He possesses it but it is not his own.  Can you possess something that you don’t own?  Can you possess something that the bank owns?  Can you possess something (like a body or a child) that God owns?  Absolutely.  And that’s the point here.  You actually “possess” it, you control it, but you don’t really “own” it.

          A.  It is easy to view ourselves as owners.  I Corinthians 6 says, “you are not your own.”  That’s a difficult fact to accept.  And that’s a difficult transition to make, from being owner to being administrator or supervisor.  From our early days we have set out to “own.”  How old are children before you hear the word, “my” stated with emphasis?  “My toys,” “my doll,” “my truck,” “my bicycle,” “my car,” “my house,” etc.  We have been raised to believe in personal ownership.  We work to have something to “call our own.”  We don’t feel in any way complete or satisfied or settled until we “own” something. We live in a country that teaches “private ownership,” individuals can actually possess their own property and house.  

          In 1914 Harvey Calkins wrote a book entitled The Elements of Stewardship.  He said that we have received a heritage of ownership from our society and not from the Bible.  He wrote: “There has been but one nation whose concept of property ownership was based on ownership by a personal God, and that nation was Israel.  All the other nations we have knowledge of – the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans – their underlying philosophy of the ownership of property and their laws relating to property were based on the concept that an individual actually owned what he possessed.

          He states, “the Roman philosophy of life, crystallized in Roman law and through that law standardized in Christian civilization, was not built on the law of the Lord – ownership by God; it was based on the laws of man – ownership by man” (A Giving Heart, by Bill R. Swetmon, 13-14).

          In Leviticus 25, all property went back to its original owners during the year of Jubilee.  And God directed, “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me” (Leviticus 25:23).

          The interesting thing is that God speaks of the land as Israel’s land.  He keeps repeating, “your land,” “your land,” “when you come into your land.”  Who’s land is it?  A steward can say, “this land is mine, this body is mine,” as long as he understands that there is a time limit and there is an absentee owner.  “This land is my land, this land is your land, from California to New Orleans.”  Yes, but this land is God’s land.

          Do you feel how strange this thought is for we Americans?  Who owns your house?  Either you, or the bank, or your parents, or someone you rent from.  Did you ever think as the answer to that question, that God is the actual owner?  Our legal system can’t include that possibility.  How would you put on the title to your house that God owned it?  And yet, in reality, He does.

          B.  God is the genuine owner.  “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all” (I Chron 29:11). 

          What does it mean to take something that owned by Another and act like it is your own?  What would it be like for you to borrow my car – which wouldn’t be much – maybe Dr. Yoder’s new Honda, keep it for a few days, and then begin to act like you own it.  What do we call that?  Isn’t that what we do when we act like we own our bodies, our children, our houses and possessions?

          What’s the difference in a practical way?  What would change if we lived as if God were the real owner?  Would there be any significant difference in how we lived?  

          We possessed a child.  We raised him as our own; we spent our money on him, we loved him, we called him our own, we were proud of him, he was part of our family.  And suddenly God said, “I’m taking him back.  You are correct, I did not ask you for permission, I don’t have to, I didn’t ask for permission to give him to you.”  What’s the difference between possessing a child named Jonathan as if he is your own, and possessing him as if he is on loan from God?  One of the big differences is that you learn to respond like Job.  You thank God for the time you had him, and the privilege of possessing such a treasure.  The other way to respond is to say, “why did You take him?” – which assumes that he belongs to you and that what God has done with His property is wrong.

APP – Have you ever said, “what I have is not mine?”  Think about your body, your talents, abilities, skills.  Think about your children, parents, husband, wife.  Think about your possessions.  They are yours – for awhile.  But the true owner is God.  How should we respond?  Thankfulness.  Appreciation for the treasure.

III.  A steward is ACCOUNTABLE to the REAL OWNER

          The accountability arises because of the type of gift we have been given.  There are gifts and there are gifts.  Years ago a church called and wanted to know if we wanted the gift of a church bus.  On further discussion we found out that the bus was old and needed a considerable amount of repairs before it would be even road worthy.

          Was that a gift?  Well, yes, but it had limited potential.  When you as a parent are given the gift of a child, that is significantly different.  The child may take a considerable amount of money for repairs, but that is nothing compared with it’s limitless potential.

          A.  The steward is working with the Owner.  The accountability comes in connection with the potential of the gift.  What could this gift be turned into?  What could this person become?  The steward is the agent of transformation. God’s intent in loaning us the gift is for us to participate with Him in its development.

          I find it fascinating that in Leviticus 25, when God says that all the land needs to be returned to its original owners in the year of Jubilee, He concludes with, “the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me” (Leviticus 25:23).  The implication is that God is sojourning with them!

          Stewardship is partnership.  It’s God saying, “I have some extremely valuable property that I want developed, and the best place for it to be developed is on earth – in Bowie, with all the interaction of life there, the pains and sorrows as well as the successes and victories.  I’m giving this property to you to supervise its development.”

          “My property is your body, your child, your talent, your neighbors, your possessions.  I’ve put all these things together in a package called ‘you,’ and I want to develop you in such a way that someday in the future I can make you an example of the amazing nature of My Grace.”

          So a steward does not ask, “what do I want to do?” but “what does the owner want?”  His question, “how can I best satisfy the owner?”  Some owners give quite a bit of leeway in how the property is used, but they do have an overall desire — viz. “Make money,” or “use the property to help people,” etc.

          B.  The steward wants to please the owner.  How can I please God with the way I take care of my body?  God wants me to control it, not submit to it.  The body makes a good servant, and a poor master. 

          How can I please God in the way I handle my finances?  Does He want me to give everything away?  Does He want me to take out insurance?  Does He want me to plan for the future?  Does He want me to try to get rich?

          A similar thing happens with a group.  How can we please God collectively as a church?  How does He want us to raise and train this bumper crop of babies?  How does He want us to reach out to our neighborhood?

          All of these are questions of stewardship.  They begin not as random commandments (do this, do this,) but as a fact – everything I have is on loan, it doesn’t belong to me.

          Have you ever accepted your loan as a loan?  Or have you set out to do what you want to do with Someone else’s property?  The difference is quite significant. 

04/22/07, BBC am