Steward The Gift
Gifts of the Spirit • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Good morning and welcome to Living Faith Church. I am so excited to be able to worship Jesus Christ with you on this amazing Sunday. If we have never met before, my name is Aaron. My wife Stella and I are honored to be able to serve on the Pastoral team at LFC. Today we are in week five of this series on Spiritual Gifts. Over the last several weeks, we have been building a biblical understanding of spiritual gifts and the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
In Week One, we learned that spiritual gifts are not about us, but are expressions of Heaven’s will breaking into the earth through yielded believers.
In Week Two, we discovered that every believer has resident grace gifts—teaching, leadership, mercy, service, administration, hospitality, and more—given by God to strengthen the body of Christ.
In Week Three, we explored the manifestation gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12, such as healing, prophecy, miracles, faith, and tongues—supernatural expressions released by the Holy Spirit according to His will.
Then in Week Four, we examined the fivefold ministry gifts in Ephesians 4:11–12—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers—given by God to equip the church for ministry.
And through all of this, Paul reminds us there is, one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith and one baptism. The gifts were never meant to divide the church, but to bring the body of Christ into unity and maturity.
The Meaning of Stewardship
The Meaning of Stewardship
10 As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
To steward something means that you realize you don’t own it, but that you are responsible for it, responsible for it’s success, outcome and performance. I have a word for you today. Spiritual gifts are entrusted to you by God.Can we just be honest for a minute? Too many Christians treat spiritual gifts like a new kitten. When it first shows up, they’re excited. They talk about it constantly. They care for it carefully. They’re fascinated by it. But give it ninety days, and that same cat is outside somewhere surviving on mice, patches of grass, and whatever else it can find because the excitement wore off and the stewardship disappeared.
And the truth is, many believers treat the gifts of God the same way. We get excited in the moment. We have an encounter. We feel stirred. But after a season, we stop feeding the gift, stop exercising the gift, stop developing the gift, and stop stewarding what God placed in our lives.
But spiritual gifts are not toys to entertain us for a season. They are not trophies to admire. And they are certainly not produced or earned by us. Spiritual gifts are entrusted to us by the Holy Spirit to steward faithfully for the expansion of God’s Kingdom on the earth. What God gives us in grace, we must cultivate with responsibility.
We could instantly cross reference to Matthew 25 where Jesus tells the parable of the three stewards. Jesus explains in this parable that each servant under the master received an allotment of gold. One five talents of gold, one two talents, and the last man a single talent of gold. Now, this really does not sound too exciting; how much is a talent of gold anyway? Maybe the amount of gold that is in the ring on my finger? Actually, the Dictionary of Bible Languages values on talent of gold as equal to 80 pounds of gold.
As of May 2026 Current Gold Spot Price is $4,550 per troy ounce. It takes 14.583 troy ounces of gold to equate to one pound. That values one pound of gold at $65,623.50.
So the last man had one talent of gold, equalling 80 pounds equating to $5,249,880 in gold
The second man had two talents of gold, $10,499,760
The first man had 5 talents of gold, or 400 pounds of gold, equating to $26,249,400 in todays market.
Stewardship In Gods Kingdom
Stewardship In Gods Kingdom
Now, while the amount of money makes this story interesting, what is most interesting is how Jesus views stewardship. It is interesting how Jesus frames this parable. This story is not primarily about three stewards. It is about three servants— two of whom became faithful stewards.
20 “The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’
21 “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
The master entrusted something valuable to each servant:
one received five talents
one received two
one received one
And notice this: The servant with five talents multiplied it. The servant with two talents multiplied it. And to both of them the master says:
21 “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
Then comes the promotion: “I will put you in charge of many things…”
That word “charge” is the Greek word kathistēmi. It means: to appoint, to establish, to place into responsibility It is the same word used in Acts 7:10 when Joseph is appointed governor over Egypt. Look at this… These servants did not merely remain servants. They were entrusted with greater responsibility because they proved to be faithful with what they had been given.
The Dangerous Misunderstanding of Stewardship
The Dangerous Misunderstanding of Stewardship
Now look at the third servant. Most of us would call him responsible. He buried the talent. And when the master returned, he essentially said:
“Master, I didn’t lose it. I protected it. You gave me one talent, and here it is back.” And honestly? Most Christians would call that good stewardship.
“God, I didn’t ruin it.”
“God, I stayed safe.”
“God, I protected what You gave me.”
Commenting on this passage, the Jaimeson, Fausset Brown commentary reads:
This depicts the conduct of all those who shut up their gifts from the active service of Christ, without actually prostituting them to unworthy uses. Fitly, therefore, may it, at least, comprehend those, to whom TRENCH refers, who, in the early Church, pleaded that they had enough to do with their own souls, and were afraid of losing them in trying to save others; and so, instead of being the salt of the earth, thought rather of keeping their own saltness by withdrawing sometimes into caves and wildernesses, from all those active ministries of love by which they might have served their brethren.
Heaven’s response is no passive toward this gross injustice, it is not overlooking this passivity. Rather, the master calls him: wicked, lazy and unfaithful. Why? Because in the Kingdom Stewardship is not merely protecting what God gave you, Stewardship is multiplying what God gave you.
Growth Is a Kingdom Principle
Growth Is a Kingdom Principle
From Genesis to Revelation, Heaven carries a growth bias.
Under the Adamic covenant:
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Under the Noahic covenant:
7 “As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”
Under the Mosaic covenant:
Deuteronomy 7:13
13 “He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you.
Under the New Covenant:
John 15:8
8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
And:
Colossians 1:10
10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Connecting This to Spiritual Gifts
Connecting This to Spiritual Gifts
Growth is not a side theme in Scripture. Growth is the expectation of Heaven. Matthew Poole commenting on this parable says:
God, in the day of judgment, will call all men to account for those gifts which he hath given them, how they have used the days of life
Some may ask, are we sure that Jesus was speaking of spiritual gifts when telling this story? Paul in Ephesians 4:8 quotes Psalm 68 saying:
8 Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, And He gave gifts to men.”
Jesus, when He ascended back to Heaven sent the Holy Spirit to us, and gift giver and baptizer. This is what Paul and David meant by “He gave gifts to men” — that is the whole context of Ephesians 4. But Jesus, just like this master in Jesus parable in Matthew 25 is coming back some day. 1 Corinthians 3:12 -13 tells us that
1 Cor 3:13
13 each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.
This is the message of the story — God is looking for good stewards to multiply the gifts He has given us for the growth of His kingdom on earth. Every believer has received something from God that carries responsibility.
Tongues.
Faith.
Mercy.
Administration.
Hospitality.
Teaching.
Helps.
Healing.
Whatever God has placed in your life, it was not given merely to sit dormant. It was given to be:
invested
exercised
multiplied
All for the sake of the Kingdom. Heaven does not measure stewardship by preservation alone. Heaven measures stewardship by multiplication.
Kingdom Multiplication
Kingdom Multiplication
So the question becomes, How do we multiply what God has entrusted to us? Biblically, there are three ways:
1. Train It
1. Train It
A gift that is never developed will eventually become limited by immaturity. You must:
Learn your gift
Study your gift
Understand the Spirit
Grow in wisdom and discernment
Paul told Timothy:
15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
Again Paul said:
15 Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all.
Progress should be visible. Growth should be evident. But, too many believers want gifting without development. They want to operate in the gifts on their time. We have become so acclimated to instant success, fast food, and on demand TV that we have forgotten that something still require work. Gifts must be:
Sharpened
Matured
Refined
Use it
Use it
Gifts grow through expression. Use the gift:
In the workplace
In the grocery store
In your neighborhood
At your dinner table
Pray for people, show mercy, lay hands on the sick, encourage someone, teach the Word and serve faithfully. Don’t wait for Sunday to function in your gift. A gift unused is a gift no stewarded.
Now, here is something to be aware of. Using your gift will drain you. Ministry is exhausting. Even Jesus, in His humanity stole away to pray.
16 But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
Because ministry FLOWS out of relationships. We all are like buckets. When we pour out:
strength leaves
emotion leaves
energy leaves
Which means, If you keep pouring without refilling, eventually you run dry.
Gifts may flow through you—but they are sustained by your relationship with the Father.
Invest it
Invest it
This is where stewardship becomes multiplication. There is a difference between using your gift and investing your gift Using impacts a moment but Investing reproduces a legacy. Jesus did not merely use teaching, healing, mercy. He multiplied them into others. He:
sent the 12
sent the 70
prepared the 120
What was in Him began multiplying through others. That is true Kingdom stewardship — multiplication. Most believers stop at receiving the gift, some use their gift, few however multiply the gift. And this is what Heaven is seeking! I desire that everyone of us today would start asking the question: Who Am I Equipping? Who Am I Raising Up? Look at Pauls letter to Timothy.
2 The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
Simple ways you can invest your gift.
Simple ways you can invest your gift.
If you know Jesus as your Savior: 1 Tim 2:2
Take a new believer through the The Purple Book. Don’t just grow personally—invest what you know into someone else.
If you have hospitality: 1 Peter 4:9-10
Host a Life Group, but don’t lead alone. Bring someone alongside you. Teach them how to welcome people, facilitate conversation, pray for others, and care for the room. Don’t just use the gift. Multiply the gift.
If you are a team lead in this church: Eph 4:11-12
Stop serving alone. Bring someone with you:
equip them
train them
explain why you do what you do
Ministry that never reproduces eventually becomes bottlenecked around one person.
If you are a business owner: Prov 11:25
Invest what God has taught you into other leaders.
Teach:
integrity
generosity
wisdom
Godly stewardship
Your business may be one of the greatest ministry platforms God has given you.
If you carry a mercy gift: Gal 6:2
Don’t just make hospital visits alone.
Bring someone with you.
Teach them:
how to care
how to listen
how to pray
how to sit with hurting people
Mercy multiplies when compassion becomes contagious.
If you operate in healing and faith: Matt 10:8
Don’t become the only one who prays.
Next time:
let someone stand beside you
let them pray first
help build their faith
Say:
“You pray first, then I’ll pray after you.”
That is multiplication.
2 In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.
The Kingdom grows when gifts move beyond expression into reproduction. The greatest evidence that you are stewarding your gift well is not that you are using it often—it’s that others are beginning to grow in it because of your investment.
