Stewardship/manager

Text: Gen 2:4-5; 37:2, Exo 3:1-10

Stewardship is God given responsibility with accountability. It is also a means of managing God resources. 

    A manager is a personresponsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff. A manager is a person responsible for supervising and motivating employees and for directing the progress of an organization.

  The main reason God created man was to manage God's resources. To control, supervise, administer and direct the earth (Gen 2:15 says and the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it)

     After God created the earth and everything inside it, most of this things are still hidden in the ground because God was waiting for a man that will take care of his creation. The first thing God told man after creation was to dress it. "To dress means to decorate in an attractive way".

     God give man the first assignment of "dress the garden up, so that it will be attractive and condusive for living and God's visitation. You'll see that God do visit the earth in the cool of the day to see what Adam (the first man) has done.

    The next commandments is to keep it. To keep means to retain possession of the earth. God blessing upon man was to be fruitful, multiply, replenish and have Dominion over everything God has.

    If you can't manage the resources you have in your hand, God can never trust you. No matter your days of fasting and prayer God might not answer you until He sees you can manage resources very well..

    Gen 37:2 Joseph do give his father reports of every activities that goes on and this makes his father to love him more. He gives both good and evil reports of what transpires. His ability to manage his father resources makes God to love him and established the covenant of the House of Abraham to him.

    This act of supervising, controlling and motivating employees follows him to the Potiphar House. He find favour and everything was handed over to him, he later end up in jail but this great attributes still emerge in prison and he oversee the prisoner. His management skills make him know the trouble of the butler and Baker when they had dreams and couldn't interpret it..

    Because of Joseph faithfulness in little  things, God make him a ruler in a strange land.

   This sermon shows that God entrusts more and more of his material resources/creation to those who prove they can be trusted to manage it effectively. This is one of the reasons why God has always wanted his people to be generous in giving of tithes and offerings. It is a form of spiritual resources management and accountability.

   In order for us to manage our finances, we must first understand that God owns everything. The second part of psalm 50:12b says : for the world is mine and all that is in it.

    Psalm 50, we see he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Everything we possess is merely a loan from Him, so that we can use his resources to bring Him glory and build his kingdom. If we understand that we have an honor and duty to manage these resources well and accountable, we can then take God by his words. (Psalm 50:14;23.... Stated all he wants in return is praises and we should pay our vows)

     Stewardship is not only in other things but also in you. You'll see that God didn't trust Moses with the freedom of the isrealite until he became a good manager by controlling his temperament and learning from his father in law cattles. When God sees that He can manage his emotions well, he then call his attention at Horeb through the burning bush.. (Exo 3: 1-10)

     Whatever you did not manage, you'll lose and God will never give you what you pray for but he will give you what you can manage.

      Crisis in life, business, church is as a result of mismanagement.

The four factors of stewardship

* God owns everything and I own nothing (1cor 4:7)

* God entrusts me with everything I have. ( The text doesn't say that the master gave his possessions to the steward for the steward to keep for himself. He entrusted the steward

* I am responsible to increase what God has given to me. I may increase it or diminish it. A good steward uses his/her gifts/responsibilities/possessions for spiritual benefit.

* God can call me into account at any time.

 While we don't know exactly when it's coming, we are promised that our day of accountability is coming ( not for our sins - those were paid for at the cross; but for our works for the stewardship of what God has entrusted to us 2cor 5:10)