Sermon Tone Analysis

TEXT: Genesis 1

TOPIC: GOD'S PLAN FOR MAN

Stewardship Messages - Part 1 of 4

Bobby Earls, First Baptist Church of Icard, October 10, 1999

Stewardship is the most misunderstood word in the English language.

If you were to ask most people in the church what stewardship means they'd say Money or Tithing or Giving.

But stewardship is not a financial program of the church.

Some may be wondering why I am beginning a series of messages related to stewardship?

For one reason it's the second greatest theme in the Bible.

It is taught all the way through -- from Genesis all the way through Revelation.

Jesus talked more about stewardship than He did about heaven or hell or prayer or a lot of other things.

Over half of His parables is about stewardship.

In fact, one out of every six verses in the gospels have to do with stewardship.

Today, I want to answer the question, “what is stewardship?”

I have entitled today’s message God's Plan For Man. My hope is that some of you are going to see stewardship in a way you've never, ever seen it before.

Relax.

I'm not going to talk about money.

I'm going to talk about God's Plan For Man.

What is the meaning of stewardship anyway?

Webster's dictionary defines it like this: "Stewardship is the responsibility of managing some assets or affairs or property of someone else's."

Stewardship is managing something that isn't your own.

The key word in that definition is the word "management".

The word "steward" means "manager".

It's the old English word for manager.

If you've ever been a manager in a business position or in your career -- you're in a managerial staff position -- you're a steward.

Your work involves stewardship.

Stewardship is management.

To understand stewardship we have to go back to the very beginning of time.

Genesis 1:1.

Understanding stewardship starts at the very beginning of time.

There are tremendous blessings and benefits when you understand stewardship.

In fact, stewardship is the key to understanding the Christian life.

If you don't understand stewardship you don't understand the Christian life.

If you don't understand stewardship you don't understand why you were put on earth.

You don't understand why God made man.

Let's go back and look at the creation story.

Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." The first principle of stewardship is this: God owns everything.

We sing, "This is My Father's World."

God owns everything.

He owns the mountains.

He owns the trees on the mountains.

He owns the apples on the trees.

He owns the juice in the apples.

He owns every plant, every rock, every animal, every person, every thing.

God owns everything.

The Bible says, "The heavens declare His glory...

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."

Why does He have a claim to everything?

One, He created it -- He made it -- so He owns it.

But more than that, He sustains it.

The Bible tells us in Colossians that God holds everything together.

He keeps the planets in line.

God owns it because He made it and He sustains it.

That's the fact.

God owns everything.

He owns you.

He owns me.

He owns this land.

He owns everything because He made it.

He owns the raw materials that made this building.

But just because God owns everything doesn't mean that it's being used the way He intended for it to be used.

Obviously, a lot of things aren't being used the way He wanted them to be used.

My question this morning is, Why did God make man?

Why are you here?

Why am I here?

Why was man created?

The creation account: v. 25 God had created on five of the days and at the end of the fifth day God looked out over everything He had made -- He'd made the earth, the heavens, the sky, the animals, the plants, everything -- v. 25, the last statement, it says "God saw that it was good."

Compare verse 25 -- God looked at the world and said it's good -- to verse 31 where God saw all that He had made at the end of the sixth day and He said it was "very good".

On the fifth day God looks at the world and says, "It's good."

And maybe God said, “Good ain’t good enough.”

But on the sixth day, He looks at the end of creation and He says, "It's very good."

What happened between verse 25 and verse 31?

Man was created.

God looked at the earth and said, "I did a good job on this but there's something lacking."

And he made man.

And man made the difference.

Why did God make man?

Man was made differently from the animals in two different ways.

1. Different in character.

It said God made man "... in our own image."

God said, "I'm going to make man like Myself.

In My own image, after My own likeness."

So we're like God in His character.

Are we perfect?

No. But, for instance, we have the creative ability to make things.

God is a creator.

He made us to be creative.

So we're like God.

So we're like God in character.

2. Different in our job description.

v. 28 "God blessed them and said to them [talking to man and woman] `Be fruitful and increase in number.

Fill the earth.

Subdue it.

Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every creature that moves on the ground."

2:15 continues.

The Lord God took man -- after He made him, He put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it.

Why did God make man?

What's his purpose?

The Bible says that God made man to be the caretaker of the world, to be the manager, to be the steward of all the resources of all that God had created.

Notice 1:28 God said, "Here's what I want you to do."