Unpacking Stewardship: Managing God’s Gifts for His Glory

Oct 23

Stewardship is often focused on resources, but in this blog, we go beyond finances to examine the connection between stewardship and lordship. We explore God’s call for us to use our spiritual gifts to be faithful stewards of God’s grace.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.

More Than Finances

Stewardship is about much more than stewarding our money and resources. While that’s an important slice, we must recognize that it’s rooted in the reality that God made all things; therefore, all things belong to Him.

When we read the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, it shares that they had dominion (aka stewardship) of creation. God owns everything, and we are simply managers or administrators acting on his behalf. That reflects our ultimate design; we’re designed to be in communion with God, and it’s for His glory.

“Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given to you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service, you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

So, when we talk about stewardship of our lives, it’s related to the universe’s lordship. Let’s break down the three phrases of 1 Peter 4:10 to explore how stewardship is about lordship.

How is Stewardship About Lordship?

1) You Have Gifts (Given By Your Creator)

“As each has received a gift…”

When you read that phrase, self-doubt may rear its head to speak lies in your ear. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”

I want to remind you the role of the believer is to believe. Francis Chan said, “Whenever I read the Bible, and I come across something I disagree with, I have to assume I am wrong.”

Our verse is clear: “As each has received a gift.” You are gifted. Peter isn’t talking about natural abilities. He’s referring to gifts God placed in your life when your faith was awakened to Jesus Christ. Paul wrote, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.”

Paul explains the different gifts and their specialty, but there are hindrances for believers in the gifts God has placed in your life. There are four primary hindrances.

The Four Hindrances to Spiritual Gifts

1) Ignorance

One day, we will stand before Jesus to give an account of our lives, and we’ll be asked, what did you do with what God entrusted you? So, as a believer, you must know what your spiritual gifts are. This enables you to take your first step and activate an understanding of the richness that God has entrusted to you.

[DISCOVER: Take the Spiritual Gifts Test]

2) Time

The second hindrance is our understanding of the stewardship of our time. We’ve all been gifted with the same amount of time. No one’s day or calendar contains more or less time than anyone else’s. It matters how we schedule our time to be faithful to what God has entrusted us.

For those in Western culture, we live under the tyranny of urgency, which leads to a failure to segment time for honoring and serving God. We’ll discuss more about this in a moment.

3) Lack of Humble Perspective

For many believers, the lack of a humble perspective hinders the use of the gifts God has entrusted to them. Have you ever thought, “Well, I’m not Billy Graham, so I’m not even gonna try.” That doesn’t apply to everyone, but can we address how nonsensical that is? That’s like saying I won’t jog for my health if I can’t win the Boston Marathon.

Most ministry and the utilization of our gifts happen in the ordinary. We’ll see the fruition of our gifts within the day-to-day.

4) Timidity

“Can I rise to what God has gifted me to do?” This was young Timothy’s problem when Paul wrote to him, saying, “Timothy, you have gifts. Fan them into flame!”

Timothy was fearful, and Paul’s encouragement was to let those giftings awaken within and rise. God didn’t give us a spirit that would cause us to be timid or fearful. Instead, He gave us power, love, sound-mindedness, clear thinking, and sound judgment.

2) Your Gifts Are Given to Glorify God and Serve Others

“…use it to serve one another…”

Scripture illustrates in verse 11 that one of the primary reasons God gave us gifts is so we can glorify God with our lives. We do this by serving God with our giftedness so people will recognize and see His goodness.

We may not all be gifted worship leaders or members, but it’s not that you play the drums, but it’s why you play the drums. It’s not just that you sing, it’s why you sing. Our motivation is right when we’re in a posture of bringing glory to God. That’s the proper use of spiritual gifts.

Peter was very clear in this verse. Not only did he say you have received a gift, but he was clear on how to use it: “Use it to serve one another.” The “one another’ he’s referring to is the church. The church he was specifically referencing was under persecution and amid difficult times.

In leading a godly and missional life, which is a life that serves the body of Christ, there is the revelation of God, which includes a new and eternal life. The point of spiritual gifts is that they help people strengthen Jesus’ Bride (the Church), so she’s on mission and sharing the gospel. Even if persecuted, she’s strong in the Lord and His power.

In the New Testament, we see the word “edify” as a word for a strengthening use of our spiritual gifts. Scripture teaches that as gifts are activated, God is glorified, and His people are edified. It’s like building a strong infrastructure.

We serve one another so that when the church is amid difficult times, the church can remain strong as she’s on mission sharing the gospel locally and globally.

As mentioned earlier, serving one another will typically be in the ordinary. It’s in the little things that when we pick up a mantle to serve the church, we see the gospel fruition. This can look like holding an infant in the nursery and praying over them. It can be teaching elementary students a worship song in Sunday school. It’s an opportunity to pray for God’s provenient grace over them. You are serving Jesus in that moment.

3) You Are A Steward, Not An Owner

“…as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

Not unlike the church at Laodicea in Revelation, we are baptized in the comforts that come with wealth. As members of Western culture, if we’re not cautious, that can lull us into a spiritual lethargy, which deadens us to reality. As the writer of Deuteronomy said, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”

But the next verse counsels us to think otherwise: “Remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth.”

I think about the distinctions between the persecuted and the prosperous church when I read this verse.

Years ago, I was in Laos working with a persecuted church, and I asked the pastor to tell me how it worked amid persecution. He said, “When we are persecuted, we come together. In persecution, we are unified. That makes us bolder to advance God’s Kingdom through His gospel.”

Then I think about the prosperous church in the West. It’s a culture where we value independence as a virtue. There’s a tension between this and what Scripture teaches, which is to be interdependent in a way that enables us to share and do life together. When we come together to share our gifts so that the Body of Christ is strong, we draw our strength from the Lord and one another as we serve.

This is the tension of the two kingdoms, and we have a choice of which we pursue.

“Contemporary people tend to examine the Bible, looking for things they can’t accept; but Christians should reverse that, allowing the Bible to examine us, looking for things God can’t accept.” Tim Keller, pastor and author

In the Bible, the word “steward” describes a faithful servant appointed to be in authority over a certain portion of a master’s household while he was away on a journey. The Apostle Paul said, “It is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.”

Like the servants in The Parable of the Talents, we will be called to give an account of how we have administered everything we have been given, including our time, money, abilities, information, wisdom, relationships, and authority.

I submit this truthfully but tenderly; God cannot accept an unfaithful steward.

Reviewing the stories of early Methodist martyrs, such as William Seward or Thomas Coke, we see that there can’t be great movements without great sacrifice. So, what was with these people who sacrificed everything? The love of God was in them. They had a heart for Jesus and people.

“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 4:10 (emphasis added)

The Greek translation of manifold grace of God means all the color variations. It’s a way to illustrate that each of us is gifted differently. Don’t let your gifts lay dormant; utilize them for one another for God’s glory!

The Bible shows us in the parables of the Kingdom that faithful stewards who do the master’s will with the master’s resources can expect to be rewarded incompletely in this life but fully in the next.

“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.” Colossians 3:23-24

We should all anticipate the day we stand before Christ and potentially hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Our prayers should be for us to align that with which would please His glory!

We have a God who is worthy of our best, including our time and the utilization of our gifts, for His glory. We have a gospel that has birthed us into an eternal kingdom. It pulled us out of the kingdom of darkness and into that of light. The gospel is so transformative that God declares when a person is in Jesus Christ, you’re a new creation. All things pass away, and the new has come.

“Traditional religion says, ‘I give God a good moral record, so he has to bless me.’ The gospel says, ‘God gives me a good moral record through Christ, so I want to bless him.’… Religion says, ‘If I obey, then God will love and accept me.’ The gospel says, ‘God loves and accepts me, therefore I want to obey.’” Tim Keller, pastor and author

TL;DR

Stewardship, in correlation to 1 Peter 4:10, involves recognizing that all things belong to God and we are managers of His gifts.
This stewardship is rooted in our design for communion with God and is about lordship over the universe.
We have gifts given by God, hindrances to using them, and a duty to discover and activate them.
Our gifts are meant to glorify God, serve others in the church, and build a strong spiritual infrastructure.
We are stewards, not owners, and will be held accountable for how we use our resources.
Stewardship is a choice between two kingdoms, requiring sacrifice and love for God and others.

Related Reading

The Temple Tax: A Stewardship Poem by William Merriman

The Power of Prioritizing God by Rev. Paul Lawler

Beyond Bread and Fishes: A Message of Trusting God by Rev. Paul Lawler