A Faithful Steward

Faithful Stewardship in 1 Corinthians 4

Welcome back to our daily Bible reading. My name is Keith Foskey and I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church. Today I'm coming to you from Greenlawn Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida where I just performed a memorial service.

Today we are going to be in 1st Corinthians chapter 4. Now I'm going to change the format a little today. I'm not going to read the whole chapter to you. I daily Bible readings and you can get a copy of the daily Bible reading from our website at sgfcjacks .org.

But the verse that I want to point out and mention to you today is verse 2. It says in 1st Corinthians 4 to moreover it is required of a steward that he be found trustworthy. Now that's the ESV translation.

I prefer though this translation that says it's required of a steward that he be found faithful. I love that translation because I do think that's the intent of what the Apostle Paul is saying. A steward is a person who is a manager, a person who's set over the affairs of someone else.

And it's important to realize that we who are called of God, who are saved by Jesus Christ, our lives are not our own anymore. We have been bought with a price and therefore we don't own this life. We don't own this body.

We are stewards of it and we are stewards of the Master. The Master is the Lord Jesus Christ and it is required of us that we be found faithful to our Master. One of my old professors, Dr. Jerry Powers, is a very important man in my life and one of the things that he used to remind me, and he reminded all of us, was that that text doesn't say that it's required that we be successful.

It says it required that we be faithful. And what Dr. Powers would always remind us is this, if we are faithful then we cannot but be successful. Sometimes when we think about ministry and success and we think about life and success, sometimes our minds get very skewed and we get very confused.

We don't often see what God is doing through us and what God is doing through the situations that we're in. I'm reminded of a man who tells a story. He says that he was boarding a ship. He was a businessman and he was taking a ship and as he was getting on the ship there was a man who was walking from person to person to person handing out gospel literature.

He was handing out gospel tracts and he he handed the gospel tract to this man. The man didn't really care. The man said, Jesus loves you. He hands him the gospel tract and he went on to the next person.

The man got on the boat. Sometime through the trip he opened up the gospel tract. He read it. God touched his heart. Gave him the gift of regeneration. He was saved and that man went on to be himself a person who sought out to save others and he began to evangelize others and he began to share others and as he as he began to tell people about this experience that he had had with this man, come to find out this man had affected many lives and had touched many people and he would come to find this lady had received a tract and her life had been changed and this man had received a tract on a business trip.

Same dock, same man, same place and so this man who had whose life had been changed he decides he's gonna go back and tell this man about how he had changed so many lives and he and he took the he took the boat back he went back to that dock and sure enough he found that same old man standing in line walking down handing out gospel tracts to these people as they waited to board the next boat and he pulled the man to the side he said I want you to know sir he said you gave me a gospel tract it changed my life and it's changed this person's life and that person's life and that person's life you don't know how many lives that you've changed and I can't tell you how many people I have have had personally talked to that you have changed their life and the man looked with tears in his eyes and he said I have been doing this for years and I never knew I never knew even one person had gotten saved by this action of handing out tracts he said I just knew God called me to be faithful beloved.

Faithfulness Over Visible Success

Can I remind you today that however you measure success God measures it like this it is required of the steward that he be found faithful. May we continue in the midst of whatever life brings our way to stay faithful to our Lord and King Jesus Christ and whatever he's called us to father.

I thank you for this time to think about your word. I pray that these words will be an encouragement to whoever hears them. God may you be glorified in the reading the hearing the understanding and the application of your word Lord may we be faithful stewards in Jesus name amen.