Stewardship in the Kingdom

“Hold loosely to the things of this life, so that if God requires them of you, it will be easy to let them go.”                   Corrie ten Boom

            When ya ain’t got nothin,’ ya got nothin’ to lose.                     Bob Dylan

Private ownership of property and other possessions is an integral part of American and Western culture, but it was not always the case. When the United States was comprised of the thirteen colonies under British rule, all land was owned by the monarch, who could then grant it to lords.  The lords would then lease the land to the common people. After the American Revolution, the rules governing land ownership and acquisition were modified. Instead of the government owning all of the land, which would later be granted or leased to others, the U.S. federal government would gain ownership of all the Loyalist land that was confiscated and could sell that land to the people of the United States through the Land Ordinance Act of 1785. At this point, the federal government did not have the power to tax the people, so it generated revenue by selling land. These new policies, laid out in the Land Ordinance Act of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, provided a framework for the U.S. territories and placed emphasis on citizens' land rights. The United States' real estate market was significantly different from other countries because U.S. land was alienable, meaning it could be easily traded and sold to others. More significantly, you also didn't need to come from a high social class to own land, and everyone had the right to own and acquire property.

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” [mammonas – god of materialism].                              Matthew 6:24

Private ownership can be a very good thing, as it has laid the foundation for the American Dream, a phrase referring to the national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life. Like every matter of life, it must be managed. The above statement in Matthew 6 tells us that the believer’s life does not end when he physically dies, but continues into eternity. The quality of that eternal life is connected to his life on the earth and understanding the principle of laying up treasures in heaven. The world system (mammon) influences each of mankind to prioritize material things over eternal matters. Jesus warns each of His followers that a servant cannot serve two masters at the same time. His affections and obedience would be divided, and he would fail altogether in his duty to one or the other.

God Owns it All 

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 24:1-2

 

“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains.”  Psalm 50:12

 

The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; the world and all it contains, You have founded                 them.               Psalm 89:11

The whole world belongs to God. It belongs to Him, similar to our right of property in anything that is the production of our hands, or of our labor or skill. We claim it as our own. We have the right to use it or dispose of it as we choose. No other person has a right to take it from us, or to dictate to us how we shall employ it. Thus, God, in the highest possible sense, has a right to the earth, and to all that it produces, as being all of the creation of His hands, and the fruit of His culture and skill. He has a right to dispose of it as He pleases; by fire, or flood, or tempest; and He has an equal right to direct man in what way He employs that portion of the productions of the earth entrusted to Him. All the right which any person has to any portion of the earth's surface, or to what is treasured up in the earth, or to what it is made to produce, is subordinate to the claims of God, and all should be yielded up at His will, whether He comes and claims it for His service, or whether He comes and sweeps it away by fire or flood. All it contains means everything that fills the world: animals, minerals, vegetables, and people. All belong to God, and He has a right to claim them for His service and to dispose of them as He pleases.

God’s Gifts 

May you be blessed of the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men.                     Psalm 115:15-16 

For 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?                      1 Corinthians 4:7

Everything man has was given to him as a gift from God. It is easy for a man, especially in our culture, to fall into the trap of measuring human value on a temporal or material basis. Since the central verse in the Scriptures, John 3:16, is all about God giving His Son to mankind to receive something they could not earn for themselves, the proper attitude toward life is that what the believer has is a gift. James 1:17 says Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. John the Baptist also understood this principle in John 3:27, John answered and said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.

Beggars 

"Blessed are the poor [ptochos – poor, helpless, beggarly] in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of                 heaven."                  Matthew 5:3 

A. W. Tozer wrote many great books throughout his ministry, and the one many believers recognize as his greatest is entitled “The Pursuit of God.” He said it is a modest attempt to aid God’s hungry children to find Him. The second chapter is “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing” and includes the following:

The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the "poor in spirit." They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem. That is what the word "poor" as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor, and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.                            A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Parable of the Talents

"For [the kingdom of heaven] it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves [doulos – permanent relationship of servitude to another] and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability [capacity]; and he went on his journey. Immediately, the one who had 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 hid his master's money. "Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 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 [agathos – benevolent, profitable, useful] and faithful [pistos – true fidelity, trustworthy] slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'”                      Matthew 25:14-21

Talent was the largest weight among the Hebrews, representing an exceedingly large amount. Jesus introduced this parable to complement the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Alfred Edersheim’s “Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, an amazing examination of the Gospels from the perspective of the times they were written, has the following observations about the above parable:

Our Lord, Who has left us for the Father's Home, is He Who has gone on the journey abroad, and to His own servants has He entrusted, not for custody, but to use for Him in the time between His departure and His return, what He claims as His own 'goods.' We must not limit this to the administration of His Word, nor to the Holy Ministry, although these may have been preeminently in view. It refers generally to all that a man has, wherewith to serve Christ; for, all that the Christian has, his time, money, opportunities, talents, or learning (and not only 'the Word'), is Christ's, and is entrusted to us, not for custody, but to trade withal for the absent Master, to further the progress of His Kingdom. And to each of us He gives according to our capacity for working, mental, moral, and even physical, to one five, to another two, and to another one 'talent.' This capacity for work lies not within our own power, but it is in our power to use for Christ whatever we may have.

The prominent fact here is that the unfaithful servant did not employ it for the Master, as a good servant, but shunned alike the labour and the responsibility, and acted as if it had been some stranger's, and not his Lord's property. In so doing, he was not only unfaithful to his trust but practically disowned that he was a servant who had received much.      Alfred Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Faithful

Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants [huperetes – subordinate] of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.                             1 Corinthians 4:1-2 

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.             2 Timothy 2:13

Man’s trustworthiness is directly related to God’s faithfulness. Stewardship is the trustworthiness of the believer directed toward the things of this life. When he has relinquished the control that materialism or other forms of attachment to worldly concerns have over him, he has been freed to serve God as He wishes. When the believer finally comes to the correct conclusion, that, 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 (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), then he is able to live in God’s faithfulness. In 2 Corinthians 5:15, Paul observed, and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. This principle is manifested in the Macedonian Christians, who Paul recognized for their faithfulness in supporting the work of God:

Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.               2 Corinthians 8:1-5

Good Stewards

Be hospitable to one another without complaint. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.        1 Peter 4:9-10

If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will sooner or later bring us to this test [Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22]. Abraham’s testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet it he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found his man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So, we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place, there will be no dozen possible choices for us – just one and an alternative – but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.                       A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God