I spent last Monday talking to you on Festival about stewardship synonym, and because I’m not sitting there quoting chapter and verse, there can be a lot of times where people say, “Okay, that sounds great, except, you know, back it up.” Don’t I always try and do that? Because that’s been my goal here is to back up the things, so that people can say, “This is in the book.” And we do not book worshippers but we are looking to the word for guidance, so that should be our marker right there.
“Stewardship” implies interest entrusted, ownership, not our own; in other words if you’re a steward, it simply means somebody else owns the stuff; you’re just in trust for a time, that’s all. If we spent our whole life looking at our life as in, in trust, it would probably change a lot of the dynamics of how we view time versus eternity. stewardship synonym implies responsibility, and that’s a big word because most people don’t want to be responsible. Now I’m, listen if the shoe fits wear it.
I’m never one to mince words and I’ve always said the message always has to pass through me first. I’ve, I’ve got to digest it first for myself, I take it to myself first. Why? Because even the preacher, no one’s immune, okay. There isn’t somebody who stands above you and says, “I’ve arrived!” It’s for each individual to take responsibility and no man or woman can say, “Well,” I’m, in essence, I’m responsible for all you do.
I’m responsible, and I’ll point this out in my message, I’m going to talk a little bit about me as well. I’m responsible for a few things concerning the church and you, but not in the sense that many would like it to be completely on my back. So “responsibility” is a big word, the other one is “accountability,” two words that most people hate. Come on, accountability; it means that at some point in time you’re going to have to say, “This is what I’ve done.”
Now biblically it says we will all stand and give account. I don’t really know if somebody really took those words and believed them out of the book what impact that would make on the individual’s life. I know for me it’s made a huge impact, it, it━there’s a side of me that says so grateful for the Lord finding me, and pulling me out of the cesspool of, ultimately where I would have ended up; thank God for that. But then with the accountability factor, I’m looking at you, only what I can see, or what I cannot see I can’t claim accountability for.
My responsibility is also to be accountable for the things I do here. Part of that which God has entrusted me with is to not be slack and say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Last but not least in the bullet points of stewardship synonym something that’s so often left out, which is the principle of reward. Now every charlatan who is on TV will tell you about some type of way that God is an investment scheme like He’s a Ponzi thing that you can put into, “And yeah, and you’ll get back out,” and they━you know, I’ve told you I’ve labeled this Scripture “the martini Scripture.”
You know, it’s overflowing, it’s running everywhere, you’d better catch it, or I don’t know; whatever you have to do with it. But that’s not the principle of reward that God speaks about through His word. There are many, many occasions specifically out of our Lord’s mouth where He talks about reward, speaking of these things and He says your heavenly Father will, essentially, be the one to reward. And I don’t know, there’s a big discrepancy of whether it’s open or in secret; I don’t really care.
The Dispenser of the reward is no human being but God Himself, who sees every act, and this is why it says, “We shall all give account.” Now if you’re listening to me today and that sounds a little scary because you know you’ve been handling your life, I use the term very carefully “your” life, kind of sloppily, don’t worry. The wonderful thing is from the day that you hear God’s word, God, I believe, gives grace to those people who basically can say, “I didn’t know.”
There’s, there’s this great wonderful thing called ignorance, “I sure didn’t know that I was counted in that group of people who is responsible or have to give an account, I sure didn’t know that.” And this is why I’m sorry, there are a lot of folks out there who will say, “I don’t need the church, the church is only interested in my money.” Well, I hate to tell you, God’s interested in your money and your time, why? Because He said it all belongs to Him.
There’s no place in this book where it says, “you and yours.” If you say, “Lord, I am yours,” which says, “Lord, please take me to heaven; please take me into Your eternal arms and into eternity. But while I’m here let me be the boss of what I want to do and how I want to do it, and let me be in my own thing, because I know what I’m doing.”
Okay, stewardship, first let me start with the etymology and the history of the word, “Position of responsibility” from the mid-15th century, “ecclesiastical meaning ‘responsibility, the use of resources in the service of God.” As an Old English word that looks kind of like this, either steward or steward, an old English word. And it’s meaning, it’s kind of interesting, it’s meaning, we’ll splice that just right there for a minute, is “house guardian, housekeeper,” from stig which means “hall or pen for cattle.”
A Short Prayer for Saturday night Prayer Seattle.
Lord, as I begin my Saturday night prayer Seattle, please keep me on track. Don’t let me sway from the path that you set for me. I know that this road is the only way to salvation. Let The start of the week be the start of something bigger.
