Stewardship pt 2 - Relationships
09/05/2010
Introduction – Stewardship as a way of life.
Happy Mother’s Day!!
It’s been great to reflect this morning on the significance of Mothers and Motherhood. Like any relationship there is a huge spectrum of experiences and emotions that are attached to motherhood.
Today we are going to think about our relationships in the context of the Christian life principle of stewardship. In other words, we are going to think about relationships as being a gift from God intended for His glory, for our good and the good of those around us.
This has been the pattern of how God has dealt with humanity from day one. We can look at a large number of examples, but probably the classic one is Abraham because God repeats His promise to him several times during the course of Abraham’s life. In Genesis 12:2 we read God’s words:
“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”
As the nation that was set apart to God, their greatness and the impact they would have on the other nations of the world would serve to glorify God.
The same principle is stated in 1 Corinthians 10:31 where Christians are instructed “...whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
So whenever we talk about stewardship we’re talking about the attitude that says “God has entrusted something to me for His glory, my good and the good of those around me”, and it is that attitude which drives our decision-making.
Back in Jesus’ day the Jewish people were guided in their decision making by a huge collection of laws and interpretations of laws. Sometimes it wasn’t that clear exactly what the law required of a person because of the number of different interpretations that floated around.
One of the experts in the law tested Jesus with a question – among all these, which is the greatest commandment of the law?
Jesus responded:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ a 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ b 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” [1]
(Matthew 22:37-40)
Jesus follows the same life principle that underlies stewardship! First, love God with everything you have, then love your neighbour as yourself.
Loving God means that we seek His good, His glory in all that we do – that’s our number one priority. We glorify God. Secondly we love others and ourselves.
There was a saying when I grew up that the secret to a life of joy was found in the letters – J O Y – Jesus, Others then You. That’s a great little saying, but it’s not always correct. Yes, Jesus must always come first, but there are times when the needs of others comes before ours and there are times when we must put our needs before the needs of others.
Jesus tells us to love others as ourselves, not more than ourselves. Similarly in Philippians 2:4 we are told “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
In that passage we read of how Jesus took the nature of a servant, even to the point of dying on the cross for us. This is a key issue. The Bible tells us that Jesus did this to glorify God the Father through His obedience and what it would achieve (eg. Php 2:11, Jn 12:27-28). It tells us that Jesus died for our good, so that we could be forgiven, justified, adopted, sanctified and glorified (eg Rom 5&6). It tells us that Jesus also died on the cross for His own good – for the joy set before Him as Hebrews 12 describes it. A lot of people neglect this biblical truth. His death on the cross is what will see Him re-established as Lord over all creation and will accomplish His desire of an eternal love relationship with us.
Remember Jesus is the one who showed us how to relate to God and also how God relates to us – He was fully God and fully human, and so He shows us God and shows us how to be fully human as God intended us to be.
So Jesus is our example of how to love God with everything and to love others as ourselves. He shows us how to glorify God, experience God’s blessing and be a channel of blessing to others.
With that in mind let’s turn to 1 Peter 4:7
7 The end of all things is near.
Remember the lesson of Esau last week? Don’t let temporary desires or circumstances distract you from what is truly valuable. A Christian lives by faith for God’s eternal kingdom, but the things we can see around us and the desires that we feel inside us push us toward what is temporary and often contrary to God’s best for us.
I hope you know well the parable of the talents, found in Matthew chapter 25. The point of that parable is simple – God has entrusted each of us with different things, and when He comes to judge the world He will ask us what we have done with what He entrusted to us.
Peter, who listened to that parable, now writes that the end is near – how near no-one knows, but in God’s eternal timeline it is very close. A few thousand years here and there mean nothing in God’s timeline, but the point is that none of us know when the end of this age will come, so be ready.
Think about what God has entrusted to you, and how you will account for it when that day comes.
What has God entrusted to you?
Well, you have material possessions, as we talked briefly about last week. You have money and you have stuff – how are you using them for the glory of God, your good and the good of others?
You have the message of the gospel which brings salvation to all who believe it – how are you sharing that message for the glory of God, your good and the good of others?
You have skills, abilities, experience, knowledge, wisdom – how are you using them to the glory of God, your good and the good of others?
You have time – how are you using it to the glory of God, your good and the good of others? Chris will give us some biblical wisdom on that next week!
And you have relationships – that’s what we’re going to focus our attention on today. How are we using the relationships that we’ve been entrusted with to the glory of God, our good and the good of others?
Obviously the Bible contains a huge amount of practical instruction about specific types of relationships, specific situations within relationships and specific attitudes and behaviours that affect relationships which we need to pay attention to. We won’t cover all of that today, but we will cover some key principles to help us as we think of relationships generally.
The first issue we are going to cover is a question:
Are all relationships entrusted to us by God?
As technology has advanced our ability to stay connected and get connected to other people has become enormous, and enormously complicated. We can travel over vast distances and communicate through all sorts of media, so relationships don’t naturally become greater or lesser priorities as much as they used to. Even when people move away we can see them and talk to them and message them and keep up with how they’re feeling on Facebook! We tend to have more and shallower relationships. So which relationships are we supposed to be investing in and which ones should we let slide?
There is also the unpleasant reality that not all relationships are healthy or helpful. Some relationships are in fact abusive. We don’t often talk about such emotionally raw stuff in church services – we leave it for specific counselling situations. But unfortunately that means that too many people don’t know what the Bible says about such things.
In some Christian circles there has been a warped teaching which promotes constant selflessness as the antidote to selfishness. So you have people becoming doormats and accepting all sorts of abuse and exploitation as though it were God’s will for them. They are told that accepting God’s sovereignty means putting up with whatever rubbish others dish out to them and trusting God to change things if He wants to. The misread Jesus’ instruction in the sermon on the Mount to turn the other cheek, carry the load and extra mile and give to whoever asks as setting a pattern of acceptance of abuse. It’s not. It sounds a bit like it is when you first read through that section in Matthew 5, but a basic study of the passage, the historical context and the whole counsel of Scripture soon correct that misunderstanding.
Churches that warp the teaching of Scripture in that way have high incidence of domestic and organisational abuse going on, because they set people up to suffer it needlessly. Personally, I think that ticks God off because it slanders His name and is not good for anyone.
If you have ever been taught that the Bible commands us to put up with abusive relationships I want you to know how sorry I am that that has happened and for whatever effect that has had on you or ones you care about.
As Christians we will at times suffer for God’s glory, our eternal good and the good of others. That does not mean that all suffering is to God’s glory, our good and the good of others. Sometimes the Church just needs to stand up against the things that God is against.
I would be happy to study and discuss these issues in more depth with anyone who would like to do that.
Verse 7 continues…
Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.
We’ve talked about this principle and this verse before, but today we’ll focus on how it applies to relationships.
Doe anyone remember the episode of King David and Bathsheba? It is a tragic story of lust, adultery and murder. We don’t know a lot about Bathsheba except that she was very beautiful (2 Sam. 11:2). It was natural for David to desire her, but it was not appropriate. David was overcome by natural desires. He did not think clearly or exercise self-control, and so initiated a relationship with Bathsheba that should never have begun. The results were extremely painful.
I’ve seen this same situation play out time and time again in the lives of Christians who have sought relationships that were not glorifying to God in the belief that they would still be good for them and possibly for the other person. It doesn’t work that way. Just because you feel drawn to a particular type of relationship with someone does not mean that it should happen.
I have seen many examples of people who have followed their desires like David on this occasion and like Esau last week, and have paid a terrible price.
There will be times when you will be tempted to enter into a relationship that is no appropriate for you. You will be tempted to form a romantic connection with someone you should not connect to in that way. You will be tempted to try fit in with a person or group by behaving in ways you should not. You will feel pulled by people who want things from you that are not in God’s plan for you. Not all relationships are gifts from God for you to use for His glory, your good and the good of others. Don’t grasp at straws trying to find reasons why those relationships could be good, let them go. Don’t end up paying an unnecessary price.
Often there is a clear biblical principle that you can use to guide your actions. That’s where knowing the bible well yourself and talking to others about these issues is so important.
Sometimes though it’s not so clear which relationships you should be working at and which are a lesser priority. Do we decide on the basis of how much we enjoy the other person? Do we decide on the basis of how much we think they need us? Do we decide on the basis of how much good we think we can do? Do we decide on the basis of how guilty someone makes us feel if we don’t call or visit?
There are a huge number of variables here, and making the right decisions is tough!
But the verse isn’t finished
… be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.
If we want to know which relationships God is entrusting to us for His glory, our good and the good of others, the answer is to pray with a clear mind and self control. So often we ask God to fulfil our own desires – to give us what we want or feel we need - and we get frustrated and disillusioned when He doesn’t do it. We need self control to pray for His will and not our own. So often people are confused about what they are praying for and need to be clear minded and confident in what they are asking God.
God will speak to us through His Word, through His people, through His Spirit and through circumstances in order to guide us as long as we have a prayerful attitude in order to receive that guidance.
Discerning God’s will in the area of our relationships is probably the most consistently challenging that I have come across. There’s so much emotion, so many desires, fears, guilt and so on attached to relationships that it’s tough to be self-controlled, clear-minded and pray; but we need to do that with God’s help.
OK, so we’ve thought about relationships as being something entrusted to us by God, and we’ve discussed the importance of letting God determine who we are in relationship with and how we should be relating to them.
I want to spend just a few moments now looking at
The Goal of All Human Relationships
In the parable of the talents the goal was pretty clear – multiply the investment. One guy started with 5 and earned 5 more, one guy started with 2 and earned 2 more. The last servant started with one talent and did nothing with it, and his master was not impressed.
If God has given us some relationships, what does He want us to do with them? Make more relationships? That’s not it.
Let’s go back to the first sermon I delivered this year. We discovered that God’s desire for all people is that they become disciples of Christ – followers of Jesus and members of His family. He wants people to grow in their relationship with Christ so that they will be completely filled with His goodness. That’s the goal of all human relationships.
Paul said in Colossians 1:28 “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ”.[2]
That’s the goal! We have different ways of working toward that goal, but that’s the goal we are all aiming for in all our relationships.
In 1 Peter 4:10-11 we read:
10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen
With your Spouse – the goal is to make a disciple, presenting him or her perfect in Christ.
With your Parenting – the goal is to make disciples, presenting your children perfect in Christ.
With your Church – the goal is to make disciples, presenting your fellow believers perfect in Christ.
With your Workmates – the goal is to make disciples, presenting them perfect in Christ
With your Friends – the goal is to make disciples, presenting them perfect in Christ
With others that God brings across your path - the goal is to make disciples, presenting them perfect in Christ
We’ve got to remind ourselves of this priority all the time, because our own sinful desires and the circumstances we face will always pull us in other directions.
We will want to be liked. We will want to be accepted. We will want to feel needed. We will fear confrontation or rejection. We will fear ridicule. We will fear pushing others away.
I want you to be confident that God has given you the resources you need to make an impact in your relationships. He’s given you His Spirit. He’s given you the Church. He’s given you the knowledge of the truth. He’s given you gifts and talents and personality and so many other things. Use them for His glory. Seek first His Kingdom.
When you get to heaven, you won’t be as concerned about whether people liked you or respected you or needed you as you are now. You won’t be afraid of the things you are afraid of now. You will see that what really mattered was how people prepared for eternity and how you were a part of that process for them.
Everyone has free will, we cannot force anyone nor should we try to manipulate anyone into accepting Jesus and living for Him.
But let’s use what we’ve been given to make sure we are doing everything we can to meet the goal of making disciples. It’s the best way to glorify God and be a blessing to others and ourselves.
