How To Be a Good Steward For God

Success in the world is based on numbers. In my nearly forty-year career at AT&T we were always rated on how the numbers came up. How fast did I complete my repairs, how often did the customer call back within thirty days, and at what level were they satisfied with the experience? Most of you who work in the business world can relate. But those numbers didn’t always tell the whole story. I was in customer service and I was on the front line. I went into the homes of our customers and was face to face with them. Sometimes, in order to give them the right service, I had to take more time than I was allotted. Sometimes, the things I did not only fixed that customer’s trouble, I prevented others from losing their service as well. That never showed up on a report.

Jeremiah was one of God’s chosen prophets. Look at Jeremiah’s numbers and you will find a failure. He preached to the same people for over forty years and very few believed him and obeyed. How many friends did Jeremiah have that encouraged him? Imagine his Facebook feed. Though he spoke as God’s prophet, the nation he was sent to, continued to ignore God’s message and ended up in a disastrous mess. Would any church today even consider hiring a man whose preaching was like his?

Jeremiah, to the world, is a failure. But he didn’t work for them; he worked for God. Listen to the Word of God as it instructs us as to how we are to serve.

1 Corinthians 4:2
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

Faithfulness is more important to God then numbers on a spread sheet. The church is not a corporation and the church is not a factory. Quotas and numbers are not our work; they are God’s. Our work in all ministry is to simply be faithful to what God has called us to do. If we gain nothing else from studying the life of Jeremiah and the prophets, we ought to see this fact.

Paul explains how ministry works in 1 Corinthians 3:5-7

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.  So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

Only God gives the growth. God assigns a task to each of us and we are called to be faithful to that task. If one plants a seed and that is his only task, then he goes on to the next field to do his work, he may never see the growth, much less the final plant at harvest.

Jeremiah was faithful to God’s calling. His ministry wasn’t about making him feel good. His ministry was so hard that he is even known as the “weeping prophet.” Who wants a ministry that brings so much sorrow? A faithful servant of God.

The end desire of each and every Christian in this life ought to be to become like Jesus. That is the reward. Jesus suffered greatly on this earth. Jeremiah was like Jesus for he was willing to suffer for his calling. Jeremiah was faithful just as Paul was. Hear the truth of what the Christian is about.

Philippians 3:7-11
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Jeremiah shared in the sufferings of Christ. Paul shared in the sufferings of Christ. Why? So that they could know Him, so that they could know the power of His resurrection, and so that they could become like Him.

Our call is to be faithful. For some, their ministry might be filled with joy every day. For others, not so much.

Church, we must stop trying to do God’s work and simply be faithful to what God calls us to do. We must simply be faithful. Faithful to serve God, not the world and its methods.

Do you want to be a good steward of God?

1 Corinthians 4:1-2
This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.  Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.