Kingdom Stewardship – What it is

Messages for August 2018: Our Month of Stewardship

Message for Sunday 5^th August, 2018

Theme: Exploring the Adventures of Stewardship

Topic: Kingdom Stewardship – What it is

Introduction: Once again I welcome you to the month of August: Our Month of Stewardship. Today we shall commence this great message in this series of Adventures of Stewardship by looking at what stewardship actually is from God’s perspective and finding out how we can serve in a manner that God would consider acceptable. This is because stewardship is only rewarded by God when it is certified acceptable by Him. In Hebrews 12:28, we are exhorted to have grace to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. See Heb.4:16.

What is stewardship? Stewardship can be defined as follows:

1.     The job of taking care of something such as a property or an organization.

2.     It is the responsibility handed to us by life in general like growing up and being responsible for ourselves and others.

3.     It is the pursuit of your divine purpose.

4.     It is the art of rendering any kind of service.

Stewardship in the Body of Christ: In the body of Christ, while stewardship still retains its meaning of service rendered, it takes on a somewhat more responsible meaning in the sense that it is the art of becoming the servant of God to all. As a matter of fact, the Lord clearly said it is not like that of the world. Then He went ahead to exemplify what He meant when He laid down His life for us on Calvary’s Cross to serve God’s interest. Therefore when we serve the Lord’s interest, we are stewards in the body of Christ. See Mk.9:35; 10:42-45 and Jn.12:26.

In light of the foregoing let us see Stewardship in the Body of Christ:

1.     They are servants of Christ. Jn.12:26; Rev.17:14 and Jn.15:16

2.     They are the laborers who are only assigned to you in answer to prayer which is why the Lord specifically tells us to pray to God for laborers who will be instrumental in His hand to reap the harvest. See Mt.9:35-38 and Lk.10:1-2

3.     They are keepers of the mysteries of God. 1Cor.4:1

4.     They are friends of God. When we faithfully follow the Lord to a point, we graduate to becoming His friends and at this level, He grants us access into His secrets. Jn.15:15 and Ps.25:14

5.     They are God’s servants who serve the interest of the kingdom of God on the earth. 1Cor.4:1-2.

6.     They are Church leaders in the form of foundation layers – Apostles and prophets.

7.     They are God’s servants entrusted with the responsibility of feeding the flock of God with knowledge and understanding like Pastors and teachers. Jer.3:15-16.

8.     They are God’s servants who announce Him everywhere like evangelists. Acts 8:5-8; Isa.52:7 and Rm.10:15.

9.     They are the helpers of God’s servants to carry out God’s instructions for service. When they do this, they become God’s instrument for the following:

Intercession: As intercessors, they bring the hand of God down on earth to accomplish his plan for any work He wants to do on earth with man. They do this through praying the will of God on earth. They can pray in their understanding and in tongues. God speaks to them and gives them dreams and visions and causes them to pray in accordance with what he reveals to them so that His purpose can be actualized in the work He has ordained them to do. The beauty of God’s work is that He can work with many or few. Thus the number of people who intercede does not matter; God is looking for a man to stand in the gap and make up the edge. However, the more the merrier because one can chase a thousand and two can put 10,000 to flight. See Ezekiel 22:30; Gal.4:19; Lev.26:8; Deu.32:30 and Isa.66:6-12.  

Church planting: Through stewards, the Holy Spirit raises Church planters through his prophets and teachers just like He did with Paul and Barnabas when He separated them and raised them to become Apostles. See Acts 13:1-3; 19:1-10 and Acts 14:14.

Church growth: When an Apostle is used of God to plant a Church, He cannot at the same time pastor all the Churches he plants directly because all the other branches must be pastored by a Shepherd each. Through fruit bearing, the Apostle is used by God to raise others who could pastor the Churches. If these working under the apostle are faithful stewards to God, God promotes them to become apostolic pastors. Apostolic pastors are those who faithfully serve under a faithful apostle and God in turn empowers them to accomplish similar results as the Shepherd God sets over them. A good example of this is Timothy who served God faithfully under the ministry of Apostle Paul and later grew to become an apostle himself. These are the fruits of a growing Church. We cannot have Church growth without the continuous spiritual growth of God’s stewards in any capacity. So aim for fruitfulness which comes as a result of faithfulness. God only rewards the faithful and not the successful. This is because we were created and recreated to bear fruit to the glory of God. See [Mt.25:20-21 and Luke 12:41-48]; Gen.1:26-28; Jn.15:8, 16 and Rm.7:4.  

Church establishments: When Churches are planted and grown to a point, a shepherd may be changed for another that will help to continue in the work of its continuous establishment. It is at this point that God causes the Apostle to send another Pastor to continue the work so that it can be better than it was and the ministers can receive more opportunities of being trained to become better. This is what we mean by pruning. The Gardener who is the Father sees the hearts of men and determines who is fruitful and who is not and who needs to be pruned to bear more fruits. He removes the unfruitful and replaces him or her with the productive one so His work can be established and expand. See the example of the switching of Mark with Timothy. I believe in this case God wanted to give Timothy another chance which Barnabas must have sensed but Paul did not have the patience for that. So Barnabas took it upon himself to help Mark. At the end everyone was happy because Paul requested for Mark that he was useful to him in the ministry. By the way, Mark wrote the gospel of Mark. See Acts 15:36-41 and 2Tim.4:11. 

Praise /worship ministry: This is the help ministry of the minstrels. They include singers and instrumentalists in Church. They set the pace for the release of God’s voice to the congregation as their ministry has the ability to bring down the presence of God. This is one ministry that the enemy attacks a lot because if we have worship leaders and followers who are not carnal, there would be no limit to the release of the glory of God in that congregation. When God comes, He can freely speak to His people and through His voice, our enemies are defeated and we receive clear guidance from God and fulfill our divine purpose. In the place of high praises also, God will judge all our enemies. This explains why David set up a Tabernacle of praise to keep the glory of God with Israel 24/7. This Tabernacle is about to be raised again among the non-Jewish Church preceding the return of the Lord. See Isa.16:5; 30:29:32; Amos 9:6 and Acts 15:16.   

Raising the next generation: This is accomplished through serving in the Children ministry. The children will grow to become the adults who would continue the legacy of the Lord in the next generation. The ministry to children is not attractive to many because people in this ministry are really not seen except through the impact they make in the life of the children. Without the ministry of teachers to these ones, a Church has no future. I started as a children’s minister. When God sent me to this ministry, I thought he wanted to punish me because I did not think I had the patience for it. Over time however, I have come to realize how valuable ministry to children is. It is the heartbeat of God at this time. The Lord uses children to model those He considers qualified for His kingdom. Isa.61:3; Mt.19:13-15; Mk.10:13-16 and Lk.18:15-17.

More could be said here about other helps ministries in the Church like evangelism but for want of space and time, it is compressed in missions which is the going forth service in the Church which we would be looking at in a subsequent topic in our series. Jesus told us to make disciples of all nations for him. The means by which we do this is actually Church planting where people can gather on a consistent basis to pray and be taught how to walk with God. We shall however draw the curtains here today. Meanwhile, someone is reading this blog that is yet to be born again. These words may therefore seem too rigid for you because you cannot understand them. But if you are interested, the Lord will give you understanding if you will take the step that grants you access to him; you must be born again. If you want to do so right away, you can say the following prayer out loud in faith and you are welcome into God’s family:

Heavenly Father,

Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name! Amen.

Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please worship with us at Kingdom Joint Heirs Family Churches 25/27 David Adesanya Str. 0ff Akarapa Rd. Igborosun Badagry L. G. A. Lagos or visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/flourishinggirl www.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email:  jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.