In this lesson, Khaleef Crumbley discusses the ideas of money and stewardship in light of the Bible. In particular, Khaleef Crumbley explains three fundamental truths about money: money is neutral, parents are responsible to teach their children about the proper use of money, and money reveals the heart. Khaleef Crumbley also explores four roles of a biblical steward: manager, accountant, ambassador, and investor.
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and hearing the announcements that for the next eight weeks we’re going to be talking about money we’re going to be talking about stewardship and like it says personal finance from a Biblical perspective so we want to look at heart issues and we also want to look at uh practical ways which um those things are going to be worked out so today we’re going to actually look at two things we’re going to look at what is money what’s the purpose of money how we should look at it and we’re going to look at stewardship as well um excuse me so a couple of the things that I want to point out is um thinking about money management is like thinking about most other spiritual disciplines that we think about you know Church attendance reading our Bible praying evangelizing um those things all have spiritual motivations we do them because we love God we do them because we’re commanded to do them we do them because those things ultimately bring us joy um and it should be the same in the way that we manage our money we do it for the glory of God but some of those things the way that we carry them out will look different in our lives than in other people’s lives you know not everybody prays at exactly the same time for exactly the same length in an exact same format um it’s the same with managing our money where trying to achieve certain goals and we’re trying to follow certain biblical principles but not everyone’s life is going to look exactly the same God has provided different amounts of wealth for all of us and God has put different things in our lives given us different family sizes locations vocations and so all those things have a part to play and how we manage our money and so that’s something to consider as well is that um a lot of managing money is taking biblical principles and applying them we’re not going to find a list of the 50 Commandments of managing money and you have to do these 50 things to the letter and that’s the only way to please God but we will see that the Bible has much to say about how we manage our money how we view wealth in general and how ultimately that can impact our worship excuse me so um like I said we’re going to look into probably the first half we’re going to look into money what is money and then we’re going to talk about stewardship and see um what mindsets we can start to establish for the next 8 weeks when we start talking about specific issues so before we get into that let’s just have a word of prayer our great God we want to First just thank you for your word I want to thank you for how rich it is we thank you God for how it instructs Us and how to live a life that pleases you we thank you God that you give us the ability to be pleasing to you we know it’s it’s nothing that we do on our own and so we thank you God that you not only give us the motivations but you give us the ability as well to serve you and to honor you and so I just pray that this uh course will be fruitful I pray God that you would speak to all of us and help to change all of our attitudes towards money and we ask this in Jesus name amen so what is money if I was to ask and I am asking what is money somebody could just tell me what money is medium of exchange a medium of exchange why people have to use these fancy words right actually it’s exactly what I wrote here but um work okay okay so money is a medium of exchange so what does that mean we’re going to go through an example so you don’t have to be able to answer that right away but that’s the typical definition the short definition of money it’s a medium of exchange um I like to say it this way money is used in place of bartering and excuse my art skills here but we’re going to go into an example of what money is so in this example we have a very small economy so far just made up of two people and the doctor is going to give Medical Care to the farmer in exchange for meat and eggs and things like that from the farmer so they can either work this out directly but what if the doctor already has enough meat you know or what if the farmer doesn’t need any medical care right now then how are they going to to get what they do need they can bring in a third party so here uh we have a doctor who gives care to a farmer who then gives meat to the plumber who then fixes the doctor’s pipes so now they’ve expanded their economy but pretty soon it can get more and more complicated what are you going to do with the meat if you don’t have a butcher and you don’t have the skills to you know cut it and trim it yourself so now we have four people involved so it can easily get too complicated or we can run into the problem where you don’t have what someone else needs so what’s the solution what’s what what’s what do you do money you need a medium of exchange you need something that everyone can have and value the same that they can trade instead of trying to trade their labor as the economy grows too complicated and as we saw we had just four people and it kind of got complicated already so once you add 300 million people then you’re extremely complicated and so you can’t just rely on bartering although I do still think it’s a valid way of of getting things that you need but having a currency allows the supplies of Labor to be matched with the consumers of their labor so when we look at work work is really all of who are working finding a corporation or finding a group of clients who value what we can provide and in exchange for what we provide they give us money and then we can use that any way we need so we no longer have to work a deal out with the farmer and the butcher just in order to eat we can just get money and then fortunately someone else has decided Well I’m going to collect all these things into one Storehouse and that people could could come they can give me this currency and I’ll give them food prepared in a way that they can just take it home and eat it so this is this is what money is and the reason why I like to bring this up is because money is not good or evil money isn’t something and just because we see a lot of corruption around money all money is is a way to value our work it’s a way to be able to trade our labor in a complicated economy so when we think about money the first thing we have to do is view it in this light we can’t look at money as if it’s some magical thing that will cure all of our problems we can’t look at money as this as this elusive thing that only the 1% have access to we have to look at money for what it really is money is just a way to get fir value out of our work and to to have a more streamlined process for for trading labor excuse me we have an example of both good and bad uses of money in well many places but I think a very good one is in Ecclesiastes 10: 16-19 and it contrasts good Kings and bad kings so here the passage is laid out says woe to you o land whose King is a lad and whose princes feast in the morning blessed are you o land whose King is of nobility and whose princes eat at the appropriate time for strength and not for drunkenness through IND indolence the rter SAG and through slackness the house leaks men prepare a meal for enjoyment and wine makes life Merry and money is the answer to everything so what we see in verses 16 18 and are what happens when you have a bad ruler bad King uh bad princes in a land who use money in a wasteful way and in verse 17 provides a contrast the bad kings they look at everything to see how it could serve them and as it says the end of verse 19 they’re they’re of the opinion that money is the answer to everything and this verse is actually a PO a popular verse among Prosperity preachers because they take it as this is a literal Proclamation from God saying money answers all so whatever your problem is let’s pray to God for money money answers everything and that’s that’s what a lot of people will will preach from that rather than seeing that this is the symbolic statements and thoughts of an a wicked ruler so what do we see in verse vers 18 he’s lazy his house are falling apart but he is eating and drinking well but we do learn one good lesson I think from the bad princes it says in verse 16 woe to you oh land whose King is a lad whose princes feast in the morning so I’m I can’t tell you and no commentator has commented that i’ I’ve consulted has commented on why eating in the morning itself was bad but we can see it was something that showed the lack of wisdom that the the princes had in the way that they ruled and the way that they handled money and the way that they handled governing the land there was something negative about that but everybody has to eat so it wasn’t the fact that they were eating that was wrong it’s the manner in which they were doing it so we can sometimes have good intentions and do the wrong thing or we could have bad intentions and trip over ourselves and find ourselves doing something that seems no more good or seems that at the very least neutral something like eating but they were obviously doing it in a wrong way and so we need to think about that when even if we aren’t chasing after wealth even if we aren’t being greedy we can still have the wrong attitude about money we can have the wrong attitude about our problems and thinking that only more money can solve it and one example of this is that we see that well many of us I hope all of us in here see God as being a sovereign we see what the Bible says we know that God is overall we know that God is loving and caring and God is a provider but we still don’t know how to take that knowledge and carry that over into our day-to-day activities you know you know and I liken it to someone who wants to build a house and may have some knowledge of construction they you know may can put up cabinets or you know they can change the tile in in a kitchen or something like that and they want to build a house from the ground up but they don’t have all of the knowledge that they need they probably don’t even have all the tools that they need to build the house and get it up to cold so by building the house and trying to do something good they can actually be breaking the law because they’re not following the building codes in that Township so it’s it’s something like that when we say we want to live for God we want to do the right thing but we don’t know how or we refuse to consult his word to see what he has to say about it and I think that happens a lot of times with money that’s happened a lot in my life you know which is why I’m so passionate about how we look at at stewardship how we look at managing you know God’s money for fortunately as as I was saying earlier and I prayed about the word of God and the Holy Spirit in US gives us the desires to serve God it gives us the desires to obey God and the word of God also gives us the tools to carry out that desire so we’re not lost we’re not alone we’re not trying to stumble through life and figure out how to do this so that’s what we’re going to see so hopefully will be the opposite of these uh princes who were doing something as simple as eating but still uh doing it in the wrong way and the good King here if we look at princes part of the idea of princes also involves those governing under the king but it can also um actually refer to his offspring um so it would seem as though his offspring are doing well as well and this is in verse 17 um so that would seem to indicate that he lived out um proper and here money management and proper governing skills and taught that to his children and his children are living that out as well and so the children know how to use wealth the children know the right time to eat and they know the right purpose to eat it says in verse 17 that they eat for strength and not for drunkenness and now we’ll look at I just want to give a a better picture of that contrast here to look at and think about our own lives and managing our money and managing our households and which you know columns do we want to be in we have the inexperience we have the noble inexperience and obviously it doesn’t take 20 30 years to gain experience when we’re talking about something that the word of God speaks on we have the wisdom of the word of God that’s that’s where we get this experience from so there is a lack of wisdom in in how they would eating versus the the righteous Kings eating at the right time for the right reason uh the land or wherever they were governing even our households can be viewed like this woe and ruin come to those that are under their Authority versus uh blessing that comes to the land they’re only worried about their selfish desires and they believe that money is the answer to everything and we saw how that destroyed um Their Kingdoms and it could be the same for us in our lives as well if we have the wrong wrong attitude about money so here’s some some takeaways money is neutral but money often time reveals the heart a friend of ours likes to say that money is a litness test you know it it doesn’t create evil but it shows you the evil that that was already present and a lot of times with money especially a lot of the things that we want to get into that may be seen as wicked or evil or may be seen as just something that pulls us away from God it doesn’t have that tag of being evil and wicked even though it could be those things we can’t take advantage of when we don’t have money you know when you’re broke there’s a lot of things that you just can’t do as soon as you come into money now all of a sudden all the opportunities and of the World open up to you and that’s where we really get to see what’s in your heart you know that that’s why Jesus can say that very few who are uh wealthy will make it into the kingdom it’s not that wealth excludes you from the kingdom but many times those who aren’t going to make it get wealthy and then their true character comes out and then you see that and you see they want to trust in their riches and their wealth and not in God and money habits can be passed down to our children so ultimately what we saw with the bad kings is that they only use money for their own pleasure they didn’t understand that it all came from God and it all belonged to God so a key aspect in thinking about money and thinking about how to manage our money and stewardship which we’ll talk about a little later um is understanding that God owns it all so let’s meet the owner so here’s some uh verses that really shows God’s ownership in Psalm 50 he is rebuking the Israelites uh for their offerings they would they would uh give offerings but yet their hearts weren’t right which is kind of a common them in the Old Testament there’s so passages we can find with that so look what he says in um verse 7 he oh my people and I will speak oh Israel I will testify against you I am God your God I do not reprove you for your sacrifices and your burnt offerings are continually before me I shall take no young bull out of your house nor male goats out of your foldes and this is the the verse verse 10 that many of us take as this great wonderful promise about the greatness of our God uh um says for every beast of the forest is mine the cattle on a thousand hills I know every bird of the mountains and everything that moves in the field is mine if I were hungry I would not tell you for the world is mine all it contains so you see what God is saying the point of your sacrifices is not to give me food it’s not to give me something that I need that that I desire but can’t get for myself I own it all I am God I own everything that you see everything that you touch is something that I own so your sacrifices have to do with your heart and have to do with obedience and so that was the message that he was giving them I own everything Psalm 24: 1 and 2 says the Earth is the Lord’s and all it contains the world and those who dwell in it for he has founded it upon the Seas and established it upon the rivers Psalm 104:24 oh Lord how many are your Works in wisdom you have made them all the Earth is full of your your possessions Deuteronomy 10:14 behold to the Lord your God belong Heaven and the highest Heavens the Earth and all that is in it and just a couple more um this is 1st Chronicles 29 is actually a prayer that David was making after he collected offerings for the temple that his son would be constructed and in part of that in verses 14- 16 he says but who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this for all things come from you and from your hand we have given you oh Lord Our God all this abundance that we have provided to build you a house for your holy name it is from your hand and all is yours I mean even there David couldn’t escape that fact he wanted to do something so great as build a temple and after he collected the things necessary he said God thank you for giving us the materials that we needed to be able to build this Temple for you we realize it came from you you own it all and our ability to give to you is only there because you have given to us and so it’s not that we have our own and then we just give you a portion and this is yours God what I’m giving here it’s everything was God’s and God gave it to us and David realized that even doing something like like building the Temple job 4111 this is God speaking to job says who has given to me that I should repay him whatever is under the whole Heaven is mine and unless we think that God just owns possessions he just owns birds and mountains let’s look at 1 Corinthians 6:1 19-20 see what else God owns or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and that you are not your own for you have been bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body God owns you and we have a special relationship with God if we know him as Savior if we have believed and been obedient to the gospel we are owned by God and we are a part of his family now we are Sons and Daughters of God and so there is a special relationship here but let’s not forget that part of that relationship uh is a a Master Slave relationship that God owns us and so he doesn’t just own possessions he doesn’t just own the wealth that he gives us he owns us as well and this is a quote that I love that uh it highlights the relationship between owners and stewards between us and God owners have rights and stewards have responsibilities just think think about that because most of the time we think about our rights and we think about the things that we should have we think about what we can do with what is ours and nobody can tell me what to do I’ve worked hard for this you know especially when someone transitions from being under someone’s authority to being out on their own than anything I’m grown now I could do what I want no you can’t you don’t have rights you have responsibilities that’s it God is the one with the rights and any right you have is something that God has transferred to you this is a quote by the uh famous Theologian here Mr DK Mueller well just just love that picture I mean it probably looks better on on the you just love that so let’s look at what what is a steward I’ve been saying Steward and stewardship a lot but what is a steward so strictly speaking Steward is a manager of a household or household Affairs we also see the word I’m not going to read through all of this we also see the word used um in talking about Estates someone is a manager someone is a steward overall and if any of like if any of you here know Nathan pretty much he’s a steward or he’s going he used to be and he’s going to be a a steward someone who manages the Affairs of someone else’s you know household many of us have worked in jobs as managers um or have supervisors and in a sense they’re stewards they have a stewardship given to them they have to they take something that belongs to someone else and they stand in and they organize it they manage it make sure things get done they make sure that it that whatever they were Steward over gets used properly according to the the will and desires of the one who put them in that stewardship of the owner we also see that the a Treasurer or a superintendent of a a government um like a city most likely or even a uh County they would be considered a steward so here’s some uses of the term Steward in the Bible so in Titus uh 17 this is talking about the qualification of Elders and it says for the overseer must be above reproach as God’s Steward not self-willed not quick-tempered not addicted to wine and goes on on from there so an elder is considered God’s Steward an elder has a stewardship from God probably the greatest stewardship when you think about what it is the body of Christ this is God’s body it’s God’s church and God entrusts the care the management the teaching of that church to men who meet certain qualifications and he calls them stewards here and so that is the attitude that we have to have right all we all stewards of different things so where whatever we have is stewardship over we have to think about it in that way even those who seem to be in in a leadership position are just stewards and just have responsibilities and they’re accountable to the owner 1 Peter 4:10 this is talking about uh spiritual gifts and it’s talking about um how we are to use our spiritual gifts each one of us and it says as each one has received a special gift employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God again we see that word each one of you has been given a a gift or a multitude of gifts a spiritual gifts from God and we are to use it we are to be good stewards of that gift we are to take that gift we are to use it to build up the church we use it to work in the lives of others and we are to use it to glorify God so all these one another passages that that you know we talk about that that’s this we are stewards of the gifts that God has given us and that’s how we carry those things out Romans 16:23 23 um the second half of the verse says aasis the city treasurer greets you that word for treasurer is the word Steward so he even had this this position where he was a steward over the the city’s finances and again you you think about that the level of accountability that is there for a steward this isn’t something where we just have something and that’s it we have to use it and specifically we’ve been talking about money but obviously this crosses over to anything as he said in 1 Peter 4:10 any spiritual gift or anything that we have any possession that we have any abilities our time our time is a gift from God that we are supposed to use for God’s glory it’s not just oh my time and I’ll give him a couple hours on Sunday oh maybe even I’ll I’ll throw them a bone and come to to Wednesday prayer meeting no we’re talking about serving God not just when we have our our bodies in this building we’re talking about serving God and that is to be what our life is about God has given us a time and we are going to be held accountable for it so let’s look at one popular case of a steward this is actually called the parable of the unjust Steward but I think we get a good picture of stewardship here what it really means Luke 16 1-8 it says now he was also saying to the disciples there was a rich man who had a manager and his manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions 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 the manager said to himself what shall I do since my master is taking the management away from me I’m not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg I know what I shall do so that when I am removed from the management people will welcome me into their homes so before we go on what’s the problem I mean what’s what what happened let’s just like look through this CU it’s you know a little bit longer than one or two verses so what was was the problem that that was identified in um verses 1 and two so a bad manager what why what what I mean so he was wasting resources wasting possessions the the word here squandering um and I think it would it would mean especially because he did not get removed right away and he was actually given a chance to uh be accountable to the owner I think it would mean it it was just bad management and it wasn’t someone who was malicious and you know was embezzling money or something like that it was someone who maybe was too lazy on his job he didn’t keep Good Records he you know gave too many favors to people things like that what probably wasn’t someone who was just stealing money from the owner but either way he wasn’t doing his job right he wasn’t doing a good job as a manager and the owner heard about it then said okay what’s going on give an account for your management show me what you have been doing with all of my possessions with all of my resources cuz you’re no longer going to be my manager so he was going to just settle the books hire someone else and start start with someone else so then the manager says okay what am I going to do I don’t have the skills to be a laborer you know I’m not strong enough i’ probably probably been doing this all his life see have the physical ability to just work as a laborer and he said I’m ashamed to beg he didn’t want to be one of these people sitting in front of the temple begging for people as they as they walk by he wanted to still have some dignity so he comes up with a plan so that when he loses his job he’ll be able to go live with someone else so he has to get people on his side right he has to get people to pretty much owe him favors so that when he loses his job he can then go in and say hey remember I did that thing for you so let me in verse five and he summoned each one of his master’s debtors and he how much do you owe my master and he said 100 measures of oil and then he being the steward the manager said to him take your bill and sit down quickly and write 50 then he said to another and how how much do you owe and he said 100 measures a week he said to him take your bill and write 80 so it stopped it first I don’t know why he gave one uh 50% discount and the other one you know only got 20 but maybe he just knew him better or he had a bigger house and knew he can go live with him but look what happened he said how much do you owe how much do you owe my master then I I owe him 100 measures of oil now just just put 50 just say you owe him 50 and that’s it now it some have said maybe this is coming from his commissions I mean if he gets 50% commission I think that’s that’s a huge rate so I do think that especially in this case he probably was actually cutting into the Master’s profits he wasn’t just saying you know what I won’t take a commission on his cell that this was actually him cutting into the Master’s prop especially for that you know higher level but we can’t 100% be sure but we see what he’s doing he’s giving him discounts he’s saying you know what you owe this to my master you had this business transaction you know between you and my master he was probably the one who broke it the deal but it was between you and my master but I’m going to stand in and say now no you don’t owe him 100 you just ow 50 and you you don’t own 100 uh measures a week you just own 80 that’s it so what’s going to happen we loses his job he can just go hey remember that 50 you know barrels of oil that I took off your business B all right well I need a place to stay now and then when he wears out his welcome there he can go to the next hey remember that wheat right right I wish I bring my bags you know that’s that’s the that’s the thinking verse eight when the master finds out look what he does and his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly and this this is Jesus the second half given a commentary on this for the sons of this age are more shrewd in ation to their own kind than the sons of Light but look look at the steward look at the manager look at the The Authority that he had as a steward you are respected and you are actually authorized to stand in the owner’s place and act with all the authority of the owner you’re to act as if you are the owner I just think about the power he had I mean that that that’s I mean could you imagine that could you imagine like if I owe Carlos $2,000 and then arm mano’s like nah n you you only owe him a thousand whatever I’m good with Carlos he you know just cut it to a thousand I mean could you imagine that could you imagine one person saying that but this is this is a relationship they had owner and a manager owner and a steward is the owner says I’m giving you the authority to conduct business on my behalf so as stewards we have to keep having that mindset that God is the owner and we are his stewards and so we are actually conducting business on his behalf we are actually taking the resources that God has given us and using it in the place of God God is not here walking around now doing Financial transactions that’s us right God is not the one who has homes with extra bedrooms where we can can House people and we can be hospitable to people that’s us so he expects us to minister to people in that way and given us the resources to be able to do it so now I think we should look at the functions of a steward how exactly does a steward operate and there are four categories I broke this down into obviously we can either consolidate them or break them down to more but these are the four that we’re going to really work with um the first one is that of a manager and we’ve seen actually in that um last Parable in Luke 16 the word manager was used so we already see kind of how a manager functions so he spends the owner’s money on his behalf that’s one thing that that a steuart does a Stewart overseas you know as his r manager he oversees every aspect of the Affairs of the owner so anything that happens and it may be that an owner has so much you know or so many possessions or he has so much wealth or whatever um the thing is that he needs bage that he hires several stewards and says you’re going to be over my house staff you’re going to be over the financial affairs you’re going to be over all the transportation but what whatever way it works out he’s going to have someone and you have this Authority so when you do something it’s it’s as if I’m doing it an important thing to note is the manager has the freedom or discretion to act according to the spirit or the intentions of the owner many times the owner will say as long as you don’t cross these lines as long as you don’t do something this extreme or this extreme then you can operate to get the job done and you know this is like when well at least when I was when I was a kid uh my parents would send me to the store most of the time that you better bring my chains back but sometimes they would say hey here’s you know $10 go buy these things and you know what with the rest of the money go get something for yourself so it was set as long as I came back with what was on the list I could do what I want with the change and me a lot of times that would just keep the change you know like I’m well I’m not going to spend this on something I would just you know throw money in my little piggy bank and stuff you know we actually had a monkey but you I was able to use my discretion and how I spent or save that money as long as I did everything that the owner of the money required of me and it’s like that it’s like that in management too you know a lot of times a manager has a discretion you know Friday my manager just walked around and she just said hey just leave at 3 today now the president I work at you know Ruckers University the president of the University didn’t all of a sudden call the Dean and say hey what happened why did you let those people go early no they were assigned a certain task they’ve been getting that task done all along and so I decided to let them go early and that was well within the dean’s discretion to do that because they’ve been given some leeway in how how they manage and in many cases we have that same leadway some things we don’t so it’s not that in every single instance there is a a a spectrum of choices and we could pick anything from that Spectrum as long as we don’t go off on either side sometimes it’s very cut and dry what we have to do but other times we do have that leeway and a lot of times we talk about it you know just being wisdom or or you know the word Liberty which I think has been really abused lately but you know we talk about we think about those words as Christians and some of the things that we do it’s the same thing in managing the money some things we have to follow the exact guidelines other things here is what needs to happen so whichever way you decide best you have that leeway knowing that you’re going to be accountable which you’ll look at in the next one um and actually didn’t bring a Bible up here but if everybody could turn to Matthew 2 um 14 or 30 thanks Matthew 25 which is probably the most famous stewardship passage in the Bible and we’re only going we’re only going to look at it for stewardship we’re not going to look at the other things Matthew 25 verse 14 we’re going to start at and that is on page 987 if you’re using the PE Bible so we may bounce around a little bit here or he may read it all we’ll see Matthew 25 starting at verse 14 page 987 in a Pew Bible for it is just and this is of course Jesus talking given a parable for it is just like a man about to go on a journey who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them to one he gave five talents to another two and another one each according to his own ability and he went on his journey immediately the one who received the five talents went and traded with them and gained five more talents in the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more but he who received the one Talent went away and dug a hole in the ground and hit his master’s money so each one right each one got money each one got these these talents and decided to do whatever they thought was best in it and now we’re going to see the master comes back after a long time and he is going to now settle the accounts with them uh so verse 20 the one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents saying Master you entrusted five talents to me see I have gained five more talents his master said to him well done good and faithful slave you are faithful with a few things I will put you in charge of many things enter into the joy of your master also the one who had received the two talents came up and said Master you entrusted two talet to me see I have gained two more talents his master said to him well done good a faithful slave you are faithful with a few things I will put you in charge of many things enter into the joy of your master and the one who also had received the one Talent came came up and said master I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not seow and Gathering where you scattered no seed and I was afraid and I went away and hid your talent in the ground see have what is yours but his master answered and said to him you Wicked lazy slave you knew that I reap where I did not sew and gather where I scattered no seed then you ought to have put my money in the bank and on Myck I would have received my money back with interest therefore take away the talent from him and give it to the one who has 10 talents for everyone who has more shall be given and he will have an abundance but from the one who does not have even what he does have shall be taken away so look at the responses look at what they did the first two went and they took what was entrusted to them they invested it they did we don’t know exactly what they did with it but both were able to double the money the last one he made up these excuses and then said I just buried it in the ground here here I buried it here you go you can have it back and look at what the response was the first two Managed IT well and think about the focus isn’t on what they did exactly as long as they follow whatever parameters that were probably set up they were his slaves so they knew already what his desires were what his wills will was and what were some of the things that would have been forbidden so we don’t see a long discourse into exactly what they should do because they should have known that already they were his slaves already so apparently this was nothing new for him to to do something like that and to entrust them so the first two doubled their money he was fine the last one he called them Wicked and lazy and he said well if you figured that I was so uh evil and that I would reap where I didn’t sew and I gather where I scattered no seed then you should have at least put my money in the bank and gain interest you should have done something with it if you thought I was this wicked Taskmaster the worst thing to do was to do nothing and that’s what he did but in that we see what’s expected of a manager what’s expected of someone who is entrusted with resources we are to use them and we think about our Master the one who’s given us all who is entrusted us with all resources we are to use them for his glory whether it be our talents and abilities whether it be our time whether it be the possessions that we have or it’s our specifically our money we to use them for God’s glory so that’s the first uh function of a steward we see is manager the next one is that of an accountant this is specifically one who has to give an account and because of that we see a few things he is responsible for every penny he spends an accountant must keep records of how the money is being handled and that’s really that’s really when we think of accountants that’s the primary function that we think of is someone who meticulously tracks how money is being handled and keeps records and knows where everything is going how money is flowing in and out and make sure that there is enough money money to for the expenses for every item great or small he must consider it the Master’s money the accountant has no authority over the over the money on his own he may be able to sign a check or send out an invoice but it’s not his money and he has to give an account most likely to a to a higher manager we see in see which one I want to look at uh Luke 16 let’s turn there again Luke 16 this is actually the continuation of the parable of the unjust Steward that be read the man who gave the people who owed his master’s money he gave them deals so Luke Chapter 16: 10-13 it’s on page 1, 44 in the church Bible it says 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 therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth who will entrust the true riches to you 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 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 in wealth and so look at the level of accountability that’s there not just accountability but also uh reward expectation and reward he says in verse 10 if you’re are faithful in very little in a very little thing you’ll also be faithful in much and if you’re unright in a very little thing you you’ll be unrighteous as much and many times we see that progression and we see it all all through uh the New Testament especially in the gospels uh where it’s said over and over that we have to be faithful in the small things we have to be faithful in the little things that we have we have to be faithful with whatever we have we can’t decide that we’re going to be generous and we’re going to be giving after we get wealthy we have to be generous and giving now we can’t decide once I get a eight-bedroom house then I’ll be hospitable that’s not what the Bible says the Bible just commands us to be hospitable so we have to stop putting limits on what we can do for God because we think we don’t have a big enough this or we don’t have you know a big enough bank account or we don’t have enough of these things or my children are too young or my children are too old now they get into college and now I have to devote time to this and and we all there always be something in life that we can put before serving God and it’s clear here that there there is this expectation for us to be serving God with what he has given us now with the family that he has given us now with the people that he has surrounded us with that’s who we’re supposed to minister to and the things that we have are what we’re supposed to use you don’t have a five-bedroom house okay then you can’t have have 20 people over your house you can still be hospitable and you can still figure out other ways to do things you know we live in in a world especially a society where we have so much convenience yet everybody is so busy and it’s so hard for any of us to do anything but we could things that used to take my grandparents hours to do sometimes days we can just press a button and St we can just pick up our phone and just pick up an app and say there you go I just ordered groceries that’ll be delivered to my house tomorrow at 6 o’ we didn’t have to go get anything but yet we’re just so busy that we can’t usually it’s it’s when we talk about ministering to people I don’t know if anybody does this but apparently people now are finding time to drive around places and find imaginary Japanese character and do things with them so if you have time for that you have time to serve the body right and if you don’t know what I’m referring to it’s good that you don’t know okay don’t try to find out what I’m referring to but I bet you some people in here know and I’m not saying that’s wrong but I’m making making a point so don’t come and attack me after the service cuz you Chas Pokemon um and of course 1 Corinthians 3 which’re not going to turn there because Pastor preach an entire sermon about it last week so if you weren’t here last week make sure you go online and listen to that sermon um but this is this is of course referring to the Judgment seat of Christ and the fact that um we will be held accountable we as Believers will be judged on all the things that we do and we will be held accountable and our works will be either refined by fire or they will be totally consumed and burned up and proven to be worthless and so we want to be in that first group where our works are refined and then we’ll receive reward which I believe is what the sermon today is going to be about the rewards that we get for faithful service the third function is that of an ambassador and you know the Bible actually calls us ambassadors in uh 2 Corinthians 5:20 uh Ambassador the will of the master is being conveyed in their appearance and actions when someone sees the steward or Ambassador they are seeing the owner and as ambassadors we should consider how we View and handle money and a message that it sends and that’s the really important thing is even if we think something is not sinful in the way that we handle money we have to consider that the me the message that it sends because we are ambassadors of Christ so turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter and we want to look at that look at how we how we can stand before people and represent the master if I can get there 2 Thessalonians chapter 3: 10-4 page 1186 in the Pew Bible 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verses 10- 14 page 1186 this is Paul give an instruction here says for even when we were with you we used to give you this order if anyone is not willing to work then he is not to eat either for we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life doing no work at all but acting like Busy Bodies now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread but as for you brethren do not grow weary of doing good verse 14 if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter take special note of that person and do not associate with him so that he will be put to shame so that in verse 14 was not just about um the preceding passage it was like you said the entire letter there a lot of instruction that he gave them um but look at what he said don’t associate with the person so he’ll be put to shame and look look at what he what he says before he doesn’t work he’s not to eat and we’ll actually look at work and we’ll look at at how God has provided for us and we’ll even look at people who are unable to work and how uh they are to be cared for so we’ll look at those things in future um lessons so um you know don’t worry but of course if you have questions about that then you know you can send them to us and make sure to include them in there but we see here this idea of of being an ambassador that these people were acting like Busy Bodies they were being lazy they were leading undisciplined lives and that brought reproach on the church that brought reproach on the name of Christ that gave others a cause to blaspheme Christ and we can do the same with the way that we act the way that we view Money the way that we talk about it and we don’t want to obviously it was so severe that people who were living a life that could bring reproach on the church Paul said don’t even associate with them you know it’s like 1 Corinthians 5 where he said kick this man out of the church why are you still letting this person be in the church purify the church because you cannot have someone bring in reproach on the name of Christ that’s why the qualifications for elders and deacons are so strict because they’re standing up delivering messages teaching and if they’re living a life that is contrary to the word of God what they say from here doesn’t matter and those on the outside will just view us as Hypocrites and will view our message is Weak and Powerless and we know that it is neither the last function of a steward is that of investor obviously we should be using God’s money to invest in the king om and a large amount of our money our time our efforts should be spent in building up the kingdom or indirectly used to serve the kingdom and we’ll look at an example of that in a second and we could turn to 1 Timothy 6 so it’s just a couple of pages over uh 1 Timothy 6 verse1 17-19 that’s on page 1190 in in the Pew Bible and I love this one because it’s Specific Instructions to those people that God has given a lot of wealth to First Timothy 6: 17 17-9 Page 1190 instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their Hope on uncertainty of riches but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy instruct them to do good to be rich in Good Works to be generous and ready to share storing up for themselves The Treasure of a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed investing he is giving them much right he’s given them a lot of possessions a lot of money a lot of wealth and he is saying this is what you should use in him you should do good be rich in Good Works be generous ready to share and all of us should have the that attitude but he had to specifically tell those who are rich just to comat that idea that as long as I give this amount I’m good or as long as I’m giving more than other people then I’m good with God and that’s it but no you should be investing in the Kingdom that’s why he gave you the resources and we see this idea of investing there’s and I’m not going to embarrass people um but I know of people who when they think of things there actually been two families that I know of recently who’ve been looking for homes and the first thing they think about when they walk in a home is how can we can bless the church how many people can we cram into this house if you can’t fit enough people to be as much of a blessing as we want then we’re walking away even if it’s a dream house there are people who get possessions who buy things think about how can I serve the church how can I use this and I won’t I won’t even make the purchase if there’s no benefit other than my enjoyment if that’s the only thing I get out of it I won’t do it and that that is so commendable to have that type of attitude that we’re investing in the kingdom and everything we do here is short term and we talked about you know directly or indirectly one way we can indirectly do things is by you know we want to share the gospel we have a very limited sphere that which we can share the gospel we can support missionaries we can actually directly support missionaries who will then share the gospel to people that we’ll never see we’ll never talk to we can support uh Bible teachers we can support you know seminaries we can send people to these schools so they can get trained so they can train others those are all things that we can do that has a direct benefit but we’re not the ones doing it directly but that’s the way that we can invest in the Kingdom so here’s some some questions as we come to a close that that we could uh think about and I hope hope everybody here will think about these are we functioning well as stewards of God’s money in all all of these areas managers accountants ambassadors investors this is a really personal one if I just want you to know Sheran wrote this one so get on her if I had to stand before God tonight and get give an account for what I’m about to do am I comfortable am I representing Christ in my fiscal decisions right now and am I making wise Investments to support the Kingdom so those are all things to think about to consider um I’ll go on to the last slide and then put it back on this one if anybody wants to like write these down or anything um just want to read Ecclesiastes 12 13- 14 um as we talked about even Friday night you know this this is this was Solomon after he tried to do everything outside of God to live a fulfilled life and he realized all of it was fruitless this is what he had to say the conclusion when all has been heard is fear God and keep his Commandments because this applies to every person for God will bring Every Act to judgment everything which is hidden whether it is good or evil we have to close now but if you have any questions that’s our email addresses so use them and email us anything of course you can come to me right after but if anything comes to your mind during the week or you want me to talk about something in the future weeks make sure you send us an email don’t text me or email me other one we need to have it here because we’re doing something special with these questions so we need them there all right let’s go to the Lord in prayer and I’ll put those other questions back up God we thank you that you have given us so much instruction on how to manage wealth on how to manage what you have given us help us all in our minds and our our hearts to see you as the owner of everything that we have including us our bodies everything that we have God we want to use to serve you and we pray Lord that you would give us the strength you would give us the wisdom and you would open up your word to US during these uh next two months and show us God how to live a life that honorage you using all of our resources for your glory and we ask it in Jesus name amen