Who's Is It Anyway

Matthew 25:14-30

We are in the middle of Charge Conference season here in Lusaka. Sometimes it seems like the work we do in Charge Conference is pointless. We read reports and then we fight about them. We argue various points, sometimes completely off-topic. One thing we have seen in the first two Charge Conferences has been that the financial reports from all our churches have been poor, to say the least. We have voted to not accept them and to require a re-write.

But that brings up a good point. Why do we spend so much time talking about money? Shouldn’t we spend our time and energy on evangelism? 

Here in Zambia, we know that money is important. There’s a place near my home called Mountain of God, and I go there sometimes. I’ve found prayer requests, written and folded up. Most of the requests deal with money — God’s provision, getting a job, school fees, and so on. We all know that money is important. And, more appropriately, Jesus thinks it is important.

Well, Jesus seems to think it was important. Sixteen of his thirty-eight parables were concerned with how to handle money and possessions. In the Gospels, one out of ten verses (288 in all) deal directly with the subject of money. 

This all starts with ownership. We all want to own things. We could each fill in the blanks with what it is we own or would like to own. Psalm 24:1-2 builds the foundation of ownership: The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.

God created the earth and everything and everyone in it. In Genesis 1:26, we read: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

God gave them dominion, a word which means “to rule.”  In other words, God owns everything. It’s all His. But he created humanity to rule over it all. In other words, he made us administrators or managers to act on his behalf. What this means is that we are not our own, and the things we own are not ours either!

Many times, we take the attitude from Deuteronomy 8:17, saying: “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But Deuteronomy 8:18 counsels us to think otherwise: Remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. 

This is what Jesus was talking about when he told the story of the master who entrusted his servants with bags of gold. Was that money theirs? No, it belonged to the master. The master gave it to them to use, but they had a responsibility for how they used it.

Likewise, God gives us all of this to use, but this means we all must take responsibility. This is an issue in our culture; for example, a bus owner owns the bus, but someone else drives it. The driver, then, should take the responsibility to take care of the bus. But you see how we treat that responsibility.

God richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17), but none of it belongs to us. Since it is all God’s, then we are responsible for how we treat it and what we do with it. This is extremely relevant here, where I see people trashing the earth. We cut down the trees for firewood and charcoal, never even thinking of the environment and the sustainability. We drink from plastic water bottles and throw the rubbish in the drainage ditches, and then we complain to City Council about the flooding during rainy season. We have a responsibility to manage everything that belong to God. This includes the earth, our bodies, and even our money.

Because we have this responsibility, God will hold us accountable for what we’ve done with his possession. We can see this in the parable Jesus told in Matthew 25:14-30. The master gave his servants stewardship over his possessions. They did not own it; they were just stewards. When the master returned, each servant had to give an account for how he managed the money their master had given to them.

Likewise, God has given us stewardship over all his creation. We are stewards of his money. We are stewards of the resources, abilities, and opportunities that God has entrusted to our care, and there will be a day when each one of us will be called to give an account for how we have managed what the Master has given us. The servants in the parable were not allowed to just spend the money, to eat it, or to buy whatever they wanted. It was not theirs to spend that way! It always belonged to the master. Likewise, we cannot just do whatever we want with God’s creation or with the resources God has entrusted to us. 

This is not all bad news, however. When the master returned from his trip, he called his servants to account for what they had done with the money he had entrusted to them. When the first and second showed him how they had invested his money wisely, the master rewarded them. “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” 

We, too, can look forward to a reward. In Colossians 3:23-24 Paul writes:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

We can expect an incomplete reward in this life but a full reward in the life to come. 

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be speaking primarily on a biblical view of money, but I want us all to realize that stewardship is a bigger issue than money. It connects everything we do with what God is doing in the world. We can be faithful stewards of all God has given us within the opportunities presented through his providence to glorify him, serve the common good and further his Kingdom.