Responsibility Comes with Accountability

Good morning, Faith – it’s good to be with you again to open up the Scriptures to our hearts for this morning. Our annual theme this year is Growing in Gospel Gratitude, and were about to turn the page in our study on stewardship and the Christian life.

The subject of stewardship is a very relevant study for the Christian life because or Lord has given to his grace gifts to use to further his kingdom program in the hearts and lives of his people.

Thomas Watson said that “the Lord has sent us into the world, as a merchant sends his factor beyond the seas to trade for him. We live to God when we trade for his interest, and propagate His gospel. God has given every man a talent; and when a man does not hide it in a napkin, but improves it for God, he lives to God” (Body of Divinity)

In writing to the Corinthians church, Paul was writing to a church that had a number of issues that the Apostle had to straighten out – one of which was pride. So Paul dedicates 4 chapters of his letter to address this because their pride was at a fever pitch, that factions/groups of certain personas had formed, as a result (1 Cor. 3:4).

So, in Paul’s usual fashion, he calls attention to their egotism on the theological carpet and said…

1 Corinthians 4:7 “who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”

That is to say, ‘You think you’re better than the rest of God’s people? Why the boasting…?...especially if you have received everything you have?’

Faith Church – we have no good thing that we did not receive!^[1] And if pe-chance, our egotism rises up to the surface of our hearts, we it pays to remember what John the Baptist said - that “a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” – John 3:27

You see, John the Baptist had a keen awareness of his life and ministry – that his life and ministry was that of a stewardship granted to him by the one who called him into ministry in the first place.

That’s why the Apostle Paul had to address God’s people at Corinth in the way that he did because they had “exceeded beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6) Meaning, that they were place into the ministry as stewards of the ministry of the Word of God, not to personality cults (1 Corinthians 4:6).

The Corinthians had, in affect, become “arrogant in behalf of one against the other.” (1 Corinthians 4:6), and had misplaced the proper use of their stewardship for that of another.

My friends, if that reality can be true of Christians past, then certainly it can happen to us Christians in the present…

And since God has placed all of us into the ministry, then we will give an account of our ministry before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:13) – and it could be at any time – so then, let’s fulfill our ministry and not waste our stewardship.

By way of reminder, let’s begin with our…

“God giving responsibility with accountability”

Four Principles of Stewardship

1. God owns everything, you own nothing

2. God entrusts you with everything you have

3. You can either increase or diminish what God has given; He wants you to increase it

4. God can call you into account at any time, and it may be today

It’s so important to understand that God can call us into account at any time, and that reality ought to impact what we do in the present in light of the future that is coming at any time. In light of this reality, I wish to highlight…

3 key points to God given accountability (Luke 16:1-13)

With that out of the way, please turn with me to Luke’s Gospel – 16:1-13.

I. Understand that God will examine our stewardship

2 Corinthians 5:9 “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.”

That is to say, Paul’s aim was to love what was honorable before his God because he was circumspect about his life and ministry, and that the goal of his ministry was to be pleasing to the Lord – why?

Because he knew that at the Judgement seat of Christ, there would be triumph and tears when we stand before the Bema – that day that awaits every follower of Christ – from the smallest to the greatest – all will receive measures of rewards, yet all will have measures of loss.

Why…?

2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

Christian, God will call you into account, and it might be today – so what are you doing with the stewardship God has graced you with here at faith church? If you’re faithful in little, you’re faithful in much.

So then…

A. Be careful not to squander What God Has Given to you (vv. 1-2)

Luke 16:1-2 “Now He was also saying to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions…” (stop)

You will note that your stewardship packet reads that in Bible times, because of limited travel, men who owned large farms or livestock would often be gone from their land for long periods of time.

For this reason, they would hire one of their servants to manage/steward the business while they were away, and this steward was responsible to manage the business affairs.

At some point the owner of this property came back and received word that the manager he put in charge of his affairs was either wasteful in the way he handled the owner’s resources he used it for his own personal profit – so now, there’s a reckoning – note what’s said in verse 2…

² And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ (stop)

So the jig is up – this manager is up the creek with a boat full of holes – he now has to pay the piper, as it were - Did he so soon forget that he could have been called into account at any time?

If this is not a contemporary application for our stewardship, then I clearly don’t know what is, my friends – let’s keep walking through the passage to the response of the wasteful manager.

³ The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg.” (stop)

Ok, so now we know a couple of things – (1) this man was not accustomed to middle class work. He skills lay in his upper management work. How else would he have earned the trust of the owner unless his stood out in a way that would arrest the attention of the owner? Now, this man finds himself about to be at the bottom of the barrel, and he doesn’t want that.

B. Recognize the consequences for squandering God’s resources

Luke 16:3a “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me?...

Because of manager’s wasteful squandering of his owner’s resources, he would suffer the loss of his job.

Question: don’t you think this steward should have first understood how important his stewardship was to the owner? I mean, it’s one thing if the manager makes mistakes here and there – but what the soon to be fired steward had done was a deliberate waste of what was entrusted to him, and for that he would suffer loss.

Now, the next passage I will be introducing to you is not so much talking about the smaller illustration of the earthly steward so much as it is talking about the saved steward.

1 Corinthians 3:14–15 “If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

Note this quote from Erwin Lutzer

“Imagine staring into the face of Christ! Just the two of you, one-on-one! Your entire life is present before you. In a flash you see what He sees. No hiding. No opportunity to put a better spin on what you did. No attorney to represent you. The look in His eye says it all. Like it or not, that is precisely where you and I shall someday be…the Bema of Christ dwarfs all other tribunals, for here we shall be called into account before the all knowing Judge” – Erwin W. Lutzer “Your Eternal Reward, p.23

May I at-least assuage your fears that the 1 Corinthians 3 passage is not talking about a loss of salvation. This passage is not talking about earning your salvation. Paul is not talking about the Great White Throne Judgement of the damned. This judgement is an evaluation by the Lord, as he has granted to us a stewardship to his people, and the rewards He gives to us are based on our faithfulness to opportunities presented to us since our conversion.

My friends, there are so many opportunities to serve here at Faith – on a personal level, it annoys me when someone complains about certain ministries here at faith, yet these are the same people who are not serving. These are same people who are lazy and will find one million complaints against the church, or even coming to church…these are the same people who no sense of obligation to our Lord, let alone the stewardship they’ve been entrusted with.

And the Lord describes these kinds of people in other parables too, but I digress – for another time. Needless to say though

This echoes another parable – in Luke 19:17, where we read about a person who was faithful in what was little to which his master responded saying “‘Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities.’”

To put it simply, Christian – if we’re faithful in little, our Lord will entrust us with more. But if we’re not faithful with the gifts he’s entrusted you with, there will be a loss of some reward for us. This was a joy to write this sermon for you here today, while I found at the same time a level of conviction by the Holy Spirit of promise because I know in my heart that there are areas of my own life and stewardship that I need to shore up and do better, don’t you think that’s true of your own life as well?

Let’s discover those areas of stewardship and tie those things up. It’s better to be faithful in small things, my friends – be faithful at something! Look at it this way…

II. Adjust your current course in view of future accountability

In other words,

A. Evaluate your position (vv. 4-7)

Luke 16:3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg.”

We already highlighted what this man had done – how he had wasted his master’s goods.

You say, David – why are you lifting this man up as a model citizen – if that’s what you’re thinking, then you’re missing the point. The point is not to applaud the manager’s wasteful stewardship, but to see now what he did in light of his grim circumstances, which is a bit of a shocker, because what he does is nothing short of a stroke of genius, if I may say that…

B. Take action in view of the future (vv. 4-7)

Luke 16:4–7 ⁴ ‘I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the management people will welcome me into their homes.’ ⁵ “And he summoned each one of his master’s debtors, and he began saying to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶ “And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ ⁷ “Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ (stop)

Do you see what he did? He cut their bills in half so that when that future day arrived for him to be laid off, those individuals whom he gave generous discounts to would welcome this man into their homes in the future. As Alistair Begg would say, this man had already established network when the loss of his job went down the tubes.

Now the point of application is just around the corner under in our next point.

C. Pursue what is truly valuable (vv. 8-9)

Luke 16:8–9 “And his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light. “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings. (stop)

Shrewd - Phronimōs - prudently, wisely

The man was guilty of wasting his master’s possession, but not guilty of wasting time – I don’t want us to miss the boat’s movement here on this point. The master doesn’t applaud this steward’s wasteful use of his master’s goods. He doesn’t applaud this steward’s disloyalty. He doesn’t applaud this steward’s character. He doesn’t applaud this steward’s dishonesty…that’s not the point our Lord wants us to understand.

What the master applauds is this steward’s shrewdness. That is to say, he applauds this man’s wise use of opportunity. The whole point of this parable given by our Lord is an argument from the lessor to the greater – note these words from Pastor John MacArthur

The point is that if a scheming, dishonest, earthly reprobate is shrewd enough to use his stewardship to make friends for such a brief, temporal future, how much more should we use our Master’s resources to make friends for eternity? This is one key Jesus wants us to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16) (John MacArthur, “Parables, pg. 152)

Do you see the point of the parable – I sure hope we can see the point. If an unbelieving world know how to make use of their opportunities...then what about the “children of light”? Shouldn’t we make even greater opportunities with the stewardship God has given to us?

Where do you lay your treasure, Christian? And when our Lord says to make friends by means of your earthly money, he’s saying to take the money that you have and be shrewd with it - invest it for kingdom purposes. Invest it with a view toward eternity. Invest your time and resources toward God’s people.

I love what Alistair Begg said on this

“What you have and enjoy, in time – of financial resources, of giftedness, of the ability to make money – he said if you’re going to follow after me, make sure that you use that in the way that the world is not using. In other words, don’t use it simply to invite all of your rich friends over to your house. Use it to make friends with poor people. Use it to uplift the fallen. Use it to establish a dimension of life that will yield fruit in time, but in eternity. (Alistair Begg, Truth For Life)

Oh where do we lay the feet of our treasures…? Did we forget so soon that God can call us into account at any time, and it may be today?

So say “David – what should we do?” I hope our final point helps to answer that contemporary question.

III. Seek increased responsibility through faithfulness

A. Focus on being faithful in areas you will be accountable (v. 10-12)

Luke 16:10–12 -¹⁰ “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. ¹¹ “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? ¹² “And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?

That is to say, the shrewdness of our stewardship before our Lord lay in our circumstances in our support for Gospel ministry – where do we lay our treasure, my friends?

Luke 19:17 -¹⁷ “And he said to him, ‘Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities.’

Sons and daughters of light – that’s all it takes! Will you be faithful even in the small stewardship that God has placed on your lap? Choose you this day whom you will serve…

B. Be faithful to one master (v. 13)

Luke 16:13 -¹³ “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

In other words, if Jesus is Lord of our lives, then it follows that we will use the resources he’s given to us wisely in a way that invest in his kingdom work and program. But if Money is our Master, then that will be obvious too, as we are no different then the manager that Jesus describes in the parable.

Matthew 6:21 -²¹ for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“One of these days, life will end, and we will not be able to earn or use money. Therefore, while we have the opportunity, we must invest our money in “making friends” for the Lord. This means winning people to Christ, who will one day welcome us into heaven. Our lives and our resources will one day end, so it behooves us to use them wisely. It is tragic to see how God’s wealth is being wasted by Christians who live as though Jesus never died and judgment is never coming” (Wiersbe NT Bible Commentary, 192)

Faith Church – the totality of our lives is a stewardship. And faithfulness is the key to unlocking a proper use of our life and ministry before the Lord.

For if “we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” – Romans 14:8

Let’s not waste our stewardship…

Pray

[1] See John MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary: 1