The Good Steward Grows

Introduction

Today we are going to begin a 3 week series that has been on my heart for some time now. The topic of our study over the next 3 weeks is going to be on Stewardship and I’ve simply entitled the series.... “The Good Steward.”

Now, most times as soon as people hear the word steward or stewardship they automatically begin to think that your about to preach on something that is going to get in their wallet or pocketbook but the reality is, there is so much more to being a Good Steward and the act of stewardship than just money!

Is money a part of stewardship? Yes. But the reality is, money is one tiny piece of this multifaceted puzzle that when understood in it’s entirety, becomes a beautiful masterpiece that equips, enables and encourages us as Christians in our walk with God!

And that’s what I want us to look at and learn over these next three weeks. What is my role as a Christian? What does it mean to be a Good Steward of God? How can being a Good Steward be a blessing to those around me as well as bring blessings to my life?

These are a few of the questions I hope to answer as we work our way through this 3 part series. The three messages that we are going to be looking at over the next three weeks is this...

The Good Steward Grows

The Good Steward Goes

The Good Steward Gives

So if you have your Bibles with you this morning, I want to ask you to turn with me to the Book of 2nd Peter chapter 1.

Introduction II

Now, before we get started, I believe it important for us all to understand just exactly what a steward is.

The word Steward comes from the Greek word Oikonomos – a house-distributor (i.e. manager), or overseer, i.e. an employee in that capacity; by extension a fiscal agent (treasurer); figuratively speaking a preacher (of the Gospel).

The steward was a household servant who managed the household affairs for the head of the family. Managing the family involved delegation, discipline, encouragement, and, most important, accountability to the head of the household.

A good illustration for today’s time would be a steward/stewardess on an airplane. They don’t own the plane. They don’t own the drinks or the snacks that they hand out but they have been put in charge of overseeing the plane and the needs of it’s passengers.

It is his/her duty to know the planes workings and protocols. It is his/her duty to make sure that everyone knows where the exit doors are on the plane. It is his/her duty to ensure that every passenger knows what to do in case of an emergency. It is their duty to ensure all passengers are seated and buckled at takeoff and landing. And it is their duty to see to the needs of the passengers while aboard the plane.

The company has entrusted these people with their plane and all of it’s contents and they have to give an account of how they handle the plane, it’s passengers and it’s provisions.

As Christians, we have been put in this same position as stewards but instead of being put in charge of a plane and it’s provisions we have been entrusted with the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

And it’s our job to share the provision of the gospel with as many passengers as possible as we travle through this life to the next! Peter said it like this in...

1 Peter 4:10-11 – 10 As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11 If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Peter says everyone who has received the gift of salvation is to be a good steward of the manifold grace of God!

Every person sitting here this morning who has been born again has been called to be a steward!

And just as our explanation stated, we will all be held accountable to the head of the household which is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the Bible says in...

Romans 14:12 — So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

One of these days, those who are born again will stand before the judgment of Christ and give an account for what we have done with the gift of salvation given us through the spilling of His precious blood!

Now, the question is, if that day were to be today, how do you think you would fair? What would you tell our Lord Jesus that you have done with him? Would you be happy and excited to tell Him of all you have done or would you stand there speechless because only thing you did with Him was accept Him as Lord?

I pray each of us would be the former in this scenario but if you think you’d be more like the latter then this set of messages were tailor made for you.

To you help you in your walk with God. To encourage you in your walk with God. To inform you in your walk with God. To grow you in your walk with God!

Which leads us to our message here before us today. The Good Steward Grows!

This is one of the greatest things lacking in the Christian Church today. The growth aspect. People come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and they feel as if they have reached the apex of the Christian life when in all reality, that’s just the beginning!

Faith in Christ is only the beginning of the Christian walk. Once you come to know Him, then you must come to grow in Him!

So, with no further ado, let’s look here in 2nd Peter Chapter 1 beginning in verse 1 and we’re going to read down through Verse 11.

The Essence & Explanation of Our Growth — (Vs. 1-4)

Relational Knowledge versus Knowledge of Truths

Peter uses two related words for knowledge, gnōsis and epignōsis, both translated as “knowledge.”

While these words can be synonymous, given the way they are used here in these verses, it is likely that Peter is using epignōsis to refer to a deeper, relational understanding and experience of God and gnōsis to refer to the truths of the faith.

It’s like the difference between knowing your spouse and knowing truths about your spouse. The things deep down inside that make them tick. — Teach the Text Commentary

I like to think of it like this…gnosis is a head knowledge where epignosis is a heart knowledge!

And what Peter is saying right here is grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the heart knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord!

You see friend, as I mentioned in my message last week, until you trust in the provision of grace that God has extended through the precious blood of His dear Son, then you can’t experience the provision of peace that results from that relationship.

If you want the peace of God that surpasses all understanding that the Bible speaks of, then you have to put your trust is the one and only Son of God first!

No man comes to the Father but by me! Isn’t that what Jesus said? So many people want the benefits of God without having a relationship with Him and that’s just not how it works!

Then look at what Peter says next here.

What he’s saying, is that when we come to know God personally, God gives us everything we need to live a godly lifestyle!

Don’t miss who it is that’s doing the giving though! “As his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.”

It is a divine power that gives us understanding and knowledge on how to live a godly life. Friend you can’t live a godly life on your own without a divine intervention from above!

This makes me think back to our Brother Paul. Paul said I was zealous for God! Before Paul had a divine intervention with the Lord Jesus he was persecuting the church, having men and women thrown in jail and in some instances even stoned to death for their belief in Christ!

He thought he was living a godly life, a zealous life for God but in the end, he had it all wrong!

But praise be to God, when he met the Lord Jesus Christ on that Damascus road, then his head knowledge became a heart knowledge and his life changed forever, Amen!

So God calls us and equips us with what we need to live a godly life and then He encourages us to become more like Him!

Look what Peter says, next here.

God’s word is filled with promise after promise, great and precious promises Peter says, that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature!

Who has divine nature? God does, right?

So what Peter is saying here is that God has given us all these precious promises in order that we might become more like Him!

The key phrase there is “might become.”

You see, when we come to know Christ as our Lord and Savior, He takes our filthy rags and gives a robe white as snow! We are made righteous in the eyes of a holy God! But that’s not where it’s supposed to end! That is to be but the beginning!

Then we are to grow and become more and more like Him every day!

So many people treat Salvation as the end game when in all reality it’s the beginning of the game! Salvation isn’t the last experience of the Christian but the first experience!

Don’t get me wrong the salvation experience is wonderful but it’s what comes next, the experiences of God as your grow closer to Him, those are what’s so sweet!

When God provides after you’ve had a period of struggling, when that prayer you’ve been earnestly pleading for gets answered, when that lost person you’ve been witnessing to gets saved, these are the things that make the salvation experience that much sweeter!

But the growth process starts with a heart knowledge, a relationship with God through His one and only Son, Jesus Christ.

And this is how Peter starts his second epistle out...by giving us an Explanation of the Essence of our Growth. Then, in the next few verses, Peter gives us here an Exhortation to Grow!

The Exhortation for Us to Grow — (Vs. 5-7)

“giving all diligence” — could be better translated...take great care to or make every effort to.

Peter tells us here to make every effort to add to our faith! You see, faith is the foundation for a Christian. It is the beginning point of the Christian walk. Just as you build a foundation upon which you then build your house, faith is the spiritual foundation upon which your spiritual house is to be built!

The problem is though, there are too many Christians out there who have never began to build upon the foundation of their faith!

You look at their life spiritually speaking and the only thing you see is their foundation!

They accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior but then never did anything else to know more about Him or grow in Him and this is not how God intended on it to be!

When you begin to read through Peter’s epistles, you find that his entire reason for writing was to encourage his brothers and sisters in Christ to grow in their faith!

1 Peter 2:2-3 – 2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

2 Peter 3:18 – But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Peter ends this second epistle the same way he begins it by encouraging us to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

When he says to “grow in grace” he’s saying to read, learn and understand as much as we can about the grace that God extended to us through His Son Jesus. The reason we are to grow in grace is so that we can in turn extend grace to others the same way that God extended grace to us!

And then when he says “grow in knowledge” it’s speaking of a personal application. We are to read the word of God search the scriptures to find out as much about God as we can in order that we can grow closer to Him and be more like Him!

Growing in grace speaks of our relationship to others and growing in knowledge speaks of our relationship to God!

In both aspects the main focus though is to GROW!

Even our beloved Paul spoke of growing in our walk with God.

Colossians 1:10 – That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

If we want our walk to be pleasing to God, then we must growing in our walk!

If you’ve been born again this morning what have you done with your foundation? Are you building a spiritual house on it? Or just letting it set idle with every passing year?

Peter begins his exhortation by encouraging us to add to our faith! Then, he gives us a list of 7 things that we are to work on.

Virtue — goodness or moral excellence

Knowledge — This is that word gnosis we learned about earlier and speaks of a cognitive knowledge. It means to learn more. The more of this knowledge (gnosis knowledge) you have, the deeper your knowledge (epignosis knowledge) of God will become!

Temperance — Self Control

Patience — This word in the Greek speaks of endurance & perseverance.

Godliness — pretty self explanatory — we are to strive to be more like our God! We are to be holy because He is holy! It only stands to reason that as we grow closer to Him we will grow to be more like Him doesn’t it?

Brotherly kindness — speaks of our love for one another! Philadelphia comes from the Greek word Phileo which means brotherly love! And then Peter goes on to say that we are to add to brotherly kindness charity!

Charity — (agapē) This term means “love” but can also denote ideas such as benevolence or goodwill. It carries the sense of affectionate regard or benevolence toward someone.

So, when Peter says here add to your faith “Brotherly Kindness” and to “Brotherly Kindness, Charity” what he was really saying is that brotherly affection is to be supplemented with the deeper, more perfect love.

We are to love the person across the isle from us as we love ourselves. We are to love the people on the pew in front of us as much as the folks on the pew behind us!

And if that weren’t enough, we are to try and get to know them better so that we can love them more!

We have a wonderful fellowship here at New Home but it’s not without it’s defects! We, like every church, sometimes get in our own little bubbles. We tend to have our own little clicks and have a tendency to stay in those little clicks never getting to know the people all around us!

I want to encourage you this morning Church to step out of that bubble! Step out of your comfort zone and talk to that person you haven’t said two words to all year!

Get to know them better so that you can start loving them more!

Peter Exhorts us here in these verses to Grow! He never said it would be easy but in this final set of verses, he promises us it will be worth it!

Let’s look at this final section this morning at Effects of Our Growth!

The Effects of Our Growth — (Vs. 8-11)

“And Abound” — It’s not good enough for them to just be in us but these Christian Character Traits must abound!

And if they abound, Peter says there is no way our lives will be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge (epignosis) of our Lord Jesus Christ. We shall not be barren or unfruitful in our relationship with Jesus!

I believe what Peter is saying here is that as we grow in our walk with God, as we apply these principles to our lives, we will begin to see our relationship with God and our Lord Jesus Christ begin to flourish!

But if we don’t apply them, Peter says that we are blind and cannot see afar off and are as those who have forgotten what God has done for them!

Then he says, give diligence to make your calling and election sure! Take great care to, make every effort to do a check-up your salvation!

Ask yourself if your sure you’re saved! So many times we think of this as a bad thing, like we doubt our salvation. But Peter says here that we are to make sure that we’ve been saved!

We need to know that we know that we know, Amen!

And dear friend if you don’t know that your calling and election is sure today then you need to make sure of it before you leave this place!

Peter then says, if you do these things, if you’re sure of your salvation then you shall never fall!

The word fall here is “ptaio” and it means to sin, trip or formally stumble!

I believe what Peter is trying to tell us here is that if we will follow the plan he has laid out for us. If we will practice what he preached if you will, we will see our sins before us for what they are and we won’t allow those same old sins to continue tripping us up and hindering our walk with God!

Now look at our final verse for today. Verse 11.

The final effect of our growth process will culminate with an admittance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Isn’t that the goal this morning Church? To be with Jesus!

Paul said in Philippians for me to live is Christ and to die is gain! For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:

A life in heaven with Christ is the culmination of a life spent growing in communion with Him!

A Good Steward Grows in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

How good a steward have you been?