THRIVE part 3 – The Discipline of Stewardship

Sunday January 27th, Pastor Eric continued in the Series THRIVE: Spiritual Disciplines That Will Enrich Your Life.

Part three of this series focused on Stewardship. The theme of this message focused on the principle of; “How we handle what God gave us on this earth will determine the true riches of Heaven”.

Luke 16: 10-11 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?”

Video Transcription

So far in our series thrive, we’ve been seeing that God desires to prosper his children greatly. But not at the expense of a sick soul. What is the point of having all the wealth in the world, all the diplomas, achievements and awards that this world may offer at the expense of a sick soul?

3 John 2

2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

I love John’s prayer here because it’s kind of like a conditional prayer.

It’s kind of like saying I pray that you will prosper in everything and all things and be in good health just as your soul
prosper. So in other words if your soul prospers then you’re going to prosper in all things and be in good health, but if your soul does not prosper, then this part of the prayer is not valid, are you following ?

As I pray that all of us may prosper in all things and be in good health I pray even more that your soul prospers.

That 2019 be a year where we prosper greatly spiritually.

May your soul prosper.
May your walk with God prosper.
May your love for God and love for others prosper.
May your marriage which is a symbol of Christ and His church prosper.

May your prayer life prosper.
May your life of worship prosper.
May your life in His word prosper.
May God find much fruit in your life.

May your service and work for God prosper.
May your Ministry to God and for God prosper.

May your soul prosper.

In other words, may you be rich for God. Can I hear an amen ?

And to help us thrive or to help us spiritually prosper, we’ve been looking at different spiritual disciplines to help us grow in that regards.

1 Tim 4:7 NIV

Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.

In order to train yourself to be Godly we must apply spiritual disciplines. The first discipline we looked at was:

The Discipline of Fasting

Last week we looked at:

The Discipline of Devotion
Taking daily time in the Word and in prayer.

And both of these disciplines are a sign of our dependence of God.

You could be sitting here today with the greatest gifts the greatest skills, the greatest education the greatest Mind the greatest talents and I would praise God for that but the discipline of fasting and the discipline of the devotions are constant disciplines of our dependence of God the reason I fast is not because I’m some spiritual superman.

The reason I fast is because I am not I am .

My flesh is weak just like Jesus said to his disciples that their flesh was weak.

So I need to discipline my body and soul by fasting, by prayer by meditating and studying God’s word so that I could grow and nourish my soul. Amen?

Because has Paul said in Timothy Godliness comes when we train ourselves to be godly.

Today, we’re going to look at a new spiritual discipline and it has to do with money.

Today we are going to talk about money. We can’t talk about a series on thriving and prosperity in every dimension of our lives without talking about money.

And so today we’re going to talk about the discipline of stewardship.

The discipline of stewardship is extremely spiritual. The Bible is a spiritual book and it talks a lot and I mean alot about money. I heard once that someone took his Bible and a pair of scissors and every time a verse or passage would mention money he would cut it out. And he did this from cover-to-cover and you know what that left him with? That left him with a Bible full of holes. And for any believer who say I’m going to focus on everything but the money part, God’s not interested with my money and money is not a spiritual thing and I’m going to focus on the other good stuff but not the money part that leaves him with a theology full of holes.

In fact I would say this about stewardship, I believe by what I read in the Scripture that the way we handle money here on this Earth is a test of how we will handle other important things that the Lord wants to give us.

Look with me in:Luke 16:10-11

10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in
a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful in the
unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?

I want you to know that the way you and I handle money is a test if God is going to entrust more to you more true riches.

And so for the remaining of our time I want to share some principles, some facts, some elements of this discipline.