I want to look at what I call “first stewardship.” Stewardship is a responsibility delegated from one person to another, coming with authority to discharge the responsibility and accountability to do so. As God created people in His image, He made us stewards of His creation as well as with our time, talent, treasure, and testimony. Once we realize that God is our first love (Matt 22:37) and that God and His Kingdom are our highest priority (Matt 6:33), we understand what it means to be His steward.
You may ask, “What is at the heart of believers being able to put God first and as our highest priority, and, therefore, grow in our ability as stewards?” We will look at Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church
to answer this question. The Apostle Paul stayed in Ephesus for nearly three years between AD 53-56, making it one of the most extended places he stayed during his missionary journeys. Ephesus was not a place friendly to the gospel of Jesus Christ – but Paul stayed the course, and a church thrived in the city. Paul had a deep love for the church in Ephesus. Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church was written around AD 62.
In Ephesians 3, Paul writes of the prayer he prays for them. What does Paul pray for his beloved Ephesian brothers and sisters? Interestingly, Paul does not pray for greater obedience among them, greater fruitfulness, doctrinal depth, or even the spreading of the gospel. This is not to say that these are not important. They’re very important. But, Paul prays for a strong foundation in Christ that enables and empowers our growth in the Lord and stewardship of our time, talent, treasure, and testimony. Paul prays that believers will know how much Jesus loves them (Eph 3:16-19). Paul realizes that it’s important not just to have the love of Christ but to know the love of Christ.
“Knowing” in the Bible is not merely cognitive. It is profoundly relational. For instance, sexual intimacy in the Bible is described as a man “knowing” his wife. I like how Johnathan Edwards illustrated what it means to know God in a biblical sense. Edwards explained that you can know the exact chemical makeup of honey or taste it. Both are ways we can “know” honey. But, only taste is the knowledge by which honey is experienced. If you have ever seen a child try honey for the first time, you’ll get Edwards’ illustration. Therefore, Paul is praying that believers would taste the love of Christ.
It’s fascinating that the ancient king and songwriter, David, challenges us with these words in Psalm 34:8: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” We’re challenged to taste or personally experience the Lord. We are called to come to the Lord and walk in His goodness. Indeed, knowing God is intellectual, but it is also more. It is also relational, where we realize that the love of Christ, with its “breadth and length, and height and depth” (Eph 3:18), is so expansive because God is boundless, endless, and without limits. This is who God is and how He loves you, me, and everyone else. The love of Christ is as expansive as God Himself.
If we are to grow in Christ and our being His stewards, we must embrace God’s love for us. Our growth in Christ, and as stewards of our time, talent, treasure, and testimony, will go no further than our confidence that God loves us, way deep in our hearts. Think about it. God created You to love you. We will delight in God only as far as we have tasted His love.
How do we experience God’s love? We experience God’s love as we look to Jesus, being filled with His Spirit, walking with Him.
You might ask, “But how can God love me as messy as I am?” It’s our messiness that makes Christ’s love so awe-inspiring and transforming. God’s love is like a waterfall, and our failings, messiness, and lack of understanding are like a pebble. A pebble can’t slow the falls that make up Niagara Falls. I mean, every minute, 5.9 million cubic feet of water goes over the crest of the falls. This is just a tiny picture of the magnitude of God’s love for us.
When we boil down our lives, we realize that it is not our performance but God’s love at its core. The high point of our life is not our goodness but God’s love. The true destiny of our life is to dive deeper and deeper into the endless love of God – knowing Him and making Him known. We grow in Christ and in being His stewards of our time, talent, treasure, and testimony, as we embrace God’s love for us. Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)!