Have you ever watched Family Feud? It’s a game show hosted by Steve Harvey, a black man with a legendary mustache.
Video:
Audio only
In that game, teams try to guess the top answers to questions. I thought I’d have you try something like that here. Think of things that have to do with Thanksgiving. The top four answers are on the board. What do you think they were?
Here are the top four:
- Fooball
- Gratitude
- Food
- Family Time
But here’s one that was never on the list: Stewardship. It never comes up. To be honest, that’s not a surprise. It’s not a concept that’s often tied to the holiday, is it? We don’t usually talk about it around the Thanksgiving table.
I would argue that not only are stewardship and Thanksgiving related, but that stewardship sets up our more familiar themes of Thanksgiving. Practicing it allows us to grow in our faith as well.
What is Stewardship?
What does it mean to steward something? It’s a lot like defining wisdom, as it’s something we might have a general concept of but might have difficulty putting into words.
I found one good definition:
Stewardship starts with the proper ethical stance being the acknowledgement that God is the owner of everything in creation. And as a consequence, humans are entrusted with the wise use of those intended purposes.
That’s a little wordy. We could boil it down to something like this:
All things belong to God, and our job is to care well for His creation.
Our working definition of stewardship
I remember a time where a family asked me to house and dog sit for them for a few days. They were going to pay me, let me live there, and let me use their hot tub. It was like the greatest thing ever. But I had responsibilities: take care of the dog, keep the house clean, etc.
I could play with the dog, watch TV as I pleased, and eat snacks from the cupboards. But even though I enjoyed all of that, at the end of the day none of that belonged to me.
God’s ownership
Stewardship is very much like that, and it’s something that gets pretty deep. Everything belongs to God. Even the things we think we own really aren’t ours. It all belongs to Him and we’ve been entrusted to care for them.
I want to look at a few passages that help us understand that better.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 1:26-28
Nothing in here tells us we own the things we’re to rule over or that we subdue. We rule and subdue, but do not own.
The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it.
Psalm 89:11
I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Psalm 50:9-12
This isn’t God being all possessive. He’s merely saying, “hey, I don’t need your permission to do what I want with my things. I’ll let you steward the things, I let you manage them. I’ve entrusted you with these things but at the end of the day, they belong to me.”
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty.
Haggai 2:6-8
Responsibility for what we have
God makes it clear that everything from the cattle on the hills to the last bit of silver and gold belongs to Him. He gives us freedom to use those things. While we might have a sense of ownership as far as ruling over those things, at the end of the day we’re stewards.
When I was younger, when my parents would ask me to help clean the house, I would groan and complain. They would say that this is your house.
My name wasn’t on the deed, I didn’t sign any papers, I didn’t technically own the house, but I had responsibility.
Stewardship has to do with understanding that all things belong to God. Thankfully and graciously, God has entrusted us to care for, to rule over, and to be stewards of the things He owns.
Stewardship is an invitation.
Stewardship is a gracious invitation by God to take care of what he’s created. But that invitation means understanding that if God owns everything, that means EVERYTHING. The things we own aren’t really ours. They belong to God.
The money in our bank account doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to God. You may have worked for it, you may have earned it, but at the end of the day it’s not yours.
The clothes on our backs, the cars in our garages, the homes we occupy are all entrusted to us.
It doesn’t take long to be bothered by that idea, does it? It can be frustrating, as a consumeristic culture, to hear that the things we have aren’t really ours. We’ve worked for them, we’ve saved, and it makes us want to hold onto them all the more.
The flip side is, God has entrusted us with what is his. I may not own the things I have, but God has trusted me to take care of them. That’s a good thing.
Understanding stewardship helps us grow spiritually
In Matthew 25, Jesus has been teaching about the end times, his return, and about the kingdom of Heaven. And then he moves on to this story to help us understand how stewardship works.
A man is going on a business trip. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be gone, so he calls three servants in and entrusts them each with a certain amount of money. He gives five bags of gold to the first, two bags to the second, and one to the last, differing amounts all based on what he knows each one can handle.
The first servant puts that money to work and doubles his money. The second one does the same. The last servant doesn’t do anything other than bury it in the ground so he doesn’t lose it.
When the businessman returns, he calls them in to see how they did. He celebrates with the first two servants, telling them that since they were faithful with a few things, they’ll be entrusted with more.
And then the third servant comes in with excuses. He blames the businessman instead. The master, noticing he didn’t do anything with the money, calls him wicked and lazy. He gives the bag of gold to the first servant and sends the last guy away.
There are three principles we can take from this story that can help us grow spiritually.
Recognize that God has entrusted us with something.
In the parable, the businessman entrusted his servants with gold. Several scriptures show us that God has entrusted us with many things. We’ve been entrusted with the money in our bank accounts, with our wealth, and our possessions.
God has entrusted us with time. In First Corinthians 12, we see how God entrusted spiritual gifts and talents to us.
Part of growing in stewardship is realizing God gave you something to steward. This includes your home, your gifts, and talents. It includes your time.
Our growth journey requires us to take inventory of what we’ve been given. Not to say “look what I have” but to recognize the trust God has placed in us.
Understand that God settles accounts with what He has given.
This can be intimidating, maybe even a little ominous. But that settling of accounts is common in our lives.
Students receive report cards throughout their lives. The reports tell how well you’ve done.
We have to settle accounts with the government every year at tax time.
The context of Matthew 25 is that Jesus is speaking about the Kingdom of God and of preparing for his return. Understanding our accountability helps us be mindful of how we use what he’s given us.
Am I holding onto the money I’ve been entrusted to out of selfishness or worry? Or am I stewarding what I’ve been given? Am I using it wisely, being generous, blessing and supporting others with it? Or am I serving myself?
Am I using my time to serve myself? Or am I being a good steward of the timeI’ve been entrusted with? Do I use my gifts and abilities to elevate myself, or to lift our Lord up?
Understand that God wants us to use the things we’ve been given well.
The businessman asks his servants how they’ve done. He celebrates with them when they do well. “You did great, let me give you more.” In the same way, God delights in good use of what He’s given us.
It’s at this point that we can start feeling bad about ourselves. Maybe we haven’t used our time, our treasure, and our talents well. We haven’t taken care of what God entrusted us with. But here’s the good news:
We can choose to be, start to be, or learn to be good stewards of what we have today.
It’s never too late. We can start where we are. We might say “I don’t have much right now, I’m struggling at the moment.” But how are you doing with what you DO have?
We might feel like we don’t know what it looks like to be a good steward. Who can we talk to? How can we learn?
This is the benefit of having older saints in the church. You can talk to them, see how they’ve done it. What did they do well? What did they do not so well?
Pressing into these principles sets us on a path for spiritual growth. They also help us better engage other themes of thanksgiving.
We can be more generous when we realize that we’re actually being generous with someone else’s money. We will account for how we’ve used what we’ve been given. So let’s use them well. Let’s use them in a way that would please God.
A stewardship mindset causes us to take inventory of what we’ve been entrusted with. That leads to deeper gratitude as we thank God around the Thanksgiving table for how he’s trusted us with time, treasure, and talents.