Ownership vs. Stewardship

Monday: Exodus 31
Tuesday: Exodus 32, Mark 10
Wednesday: Mark 11
Thursday: Exodus 33
Friday: Exodus 34, Mark 12
Saturday: Psalm 31-32
Sunday: 2 Samuel 14-20

Key Passage: Matthew 25:14-30
Psalm 24:1
Deuteronomy 10:14
Leviticus 25:23
Psalm 50:10-12
Matthew 25:24-30 MSG

What are we stewards of?

1. The mystery of the gospel (1 Corinthians 4:1-2)
2. Gifts of Grace (1 Peter 4:10)
3. Our unique story (Titus 1:7, 1 Corinthians 15:9-10

Starting place in the character of God: abundance
Starting place in the position of God: ownership

Ownership implies earning
Stewardship implies entrusting

"When we stand before our Master and Maker, it will not matter how many people on Earth knew our names, how many called us great, or how many considered us fools.  It will not matter whether schools and hospitals were named after us, whether our estates were large or small, whether our funerals drew ten thousand or no one.  What will matter is one thing and one thing only - what our Master thinks of us." - Randy Alcorn, Managing God’s Money


Summary of lessons from 3 Stewardship Parables
From Managing God’s Money, by Randy Alcorn
(Luke 16:1-13, Matthew 25:14-30, Luke 19:11-27)

What does Jesus teach us about the property owner?

• Ownership: The master is the true owner of all of the assets
• Authority: The master’s will is final and his decisions determinative
• Trust: The master has delegated to his servants significant financial assets and authority
• Generosity:  Although the expectation is not reward, the owner graciously rewards for faithful effort
• Expectations:  The master has specific expectations of the servants that are not easy, but they are fair. And they should not presume upon his grace by responding by being lazy and disobedient.

What does Jesus teach us about the property manager?

• Stewardship:  The servants should be acutely aware that they are only caretakers and money managers.  They have been entrusted.
• Accountability: Because they don’t own these assets, the servants are accountable for them to the master.
• Faithfulness: The servants seek to be trustworthy managers until the master returns
• Industriousness:  The servants must work hard and do their best.
• Wisdom:  The servants must choose their investments carefully.  The goal isn’t merely to conserve resources but to multiply them.
• Respect: The stewards know that the master is just.
• Focus: All side interests are brought around the steward’s one consuming life purpose:  to serve the master well.

1. What have you been entrusted with?  Take inventory.  (Children, possessions, gifts and skills, a home (location), family, extended family, friends)
2. Is there any place in which I think I have earned these things? How do I understand the grace and generosity of God in giving me that?  
3. With that in view, where is God calling me to risk, to invest, to give of myself with what has been given to me?