Truit Gannon, pastor of a church in Georgia, tells of an incident in his boyhood. A man named Hugh, who worked for his father, owned a beautiful Harley Davidson motorcycle. It was a wine-colored machine with the hydro-glide fork on the front wheel. As I understand it, that hydro-glide fork was an engineering miracle in motorcycling in its day. Anyway, Truit says it was his greatest thrill as a teenager to ride that motorcycle. One day he asked, "Hugh, can I ride your motorcycle again today?" Hugh’s words have stuck with him ever since. "You can ride it anytime you want to," Hugh said, "anywhere you want to, and as often as you want to. Just remember to ride it like it was mine and not yours." Reflecting on that statement, Gannon says, "God has given us full and free use of this world. All He asks is that we use it like it was His and not ours. That’s stewardship."

This morning, we want to talk about maturity and stewardship. Whenever the word steward or stewardship is mentioned we usually think of money and giving, but giving is only a part of stewardship and the tithe is only a part of giving. Let’s look as some marks of a mature Christian steward this morning. This is a Christian who has the qualities Paul mentioned in II Corinthians 9 and which Jesus mentions in Matthew’s Gospel.

FIRST OF ALL THE MATURE CHRISTIAN STEWARD MAKES CHRIST LORD OF HIS OR HER LIFE.

This is really the starting place, the heart of all stewardship, for we are moment-by-moment, day-by-day deciding the question, "Shall I live for God or for myself?" This was the dilemma Adam and Eve faced in the garden and every person must face. Human beings must worship something. If we do not let God be God, then we will make something else into our God. It may be ourselves, our possessions, another person or some ideal or institution. Something will rule over our lives. Frank Sinatra sings, "I did it my way." It may be unrecognized by most folks, but this is the theme song of their lives. Our way is not God’s way. Our way often leads into difficulty and heartbreak, but God’s way leads into life and peace and joy. His way involves our letting Christ control and direct us in all things. He becomes the center of our lives and the One we worship.

Making Him Lord means using our possessions, our time, talents, influence and property for His glory. When He is Lord we recognize that we are stewards of everything not just our possessions. We are stewards of life itself and all of life’s experiences.

Lawrence Furgin reminds us, "Christian stewardship is the matching of gift for matchless gift our life and its whole substance for the gift of perfect love." That is the inexpressible gift Paul speaks of and the grace of God in us. "Though God’s son and his death are matchless, our gift is made sufficient by Him, my all for His all." The Christian steward makes Christ the Lord of all his life, for Christ must be Lord of all.

THEN THE EFFICIENT STEWARD ACKNOWLEDGES THAT GOD IS THE OWNER AND HE IS SIMPLY A TRUSTEE.

Psalm 24:1 tells us, "The earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." Genesis tells us, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Psalm 50 says, "For every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills." Over and over again the Bible tells us that God owns the world because He made it.

Leonard Sanderson, a Baptist pastor, tells how this was brought home to him by a layman that he came to know. They were visiting together during a revival meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As they passed a new office building, Sanderson said, "That’s a magnificent building." The young man replied, "Yes, that belongs to my father." "Sure enough?" Sanderson said. "You have every reason to be proud of that." He referred to some other nice property during the afternoon and each time the young businessman said, "That belongs to my father, too." It was beginning to get to Rev. Sanderson, so he said, "You’re not pulling my leg, are you?" The young man replied, "No, I’m not kidding you, preacher. God is my father, and He owns everything."

Because that is true, you and I have no right to say high-handedly, "That’s mine." God’s good creation became "not good," and sin began when humanity said of the creation, "It’s mine!" Man’s sin involved denying that God owned him and all things. We are renewed in our relationship to God and others when we recognize God’s right to us and all our worldly gain. "You are not your own: you were bought with a price."

The Christian steward knows he is only a trustee. Genesis 1:28 tells us that after the creation God said to man, "Be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth and have dominion." We''re not owners but trustees. Jesus in the parables of the talents showed that God has given us the resources of our world, and He expects an accounting for them. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread to the eater expects us to use them and other gifts to glorify His name and minister to others. Paul in Romans 14:12 says plainly, "So each of us shall give an account of himself to God."

Some of us will be like Adam, though, and seek to avoid taking the responsibility God places on each of us. Adam, you''ll remember, tried to place all the blame for his sin on Eve. He was like an old man in the hospital Carl Mays tells about who had been married 45 years. His wife was sitting next to his bed. He turned toward her and said, "You know, Martha, I''ve been thinking," and she said "Yes." He said, "You know, we''ve been married 45 years now," and she answered, "Yes." He said, "You remember that first year we were married. We had a bad crop and lost half the farm, and there you were, right by my side." She responded, "Yes."

He said, "That second year, we had another bad crop and lost the other half of the farm. And there you were, right by my side." She nodded, "yes." He said, "Then we started five businesses and all five of them failed. And there you were, right by my side." She agreed, "Yes." He said, "And then we had ten kids. All of them wanted to go to college. Not one of them got a scholarship. And there you were, right by my side." And she said, "Yes."

He said, "Now here I am in the hospital. The doctors tell me I’m terminally ill. They don’t expect me to walk out of here alive. And here you are, right by my side." And she said, "Yes." He said, "You know, Martha, I’ve been thinking...you’re bad luck!"

This old man couldn’t possibly imagine that part of the responsibility for his failures lay at his own door. So it is with us. We are held responsible for our stewardship of all of life.

THE CHRISTIAN STEWARD ALSO TRIES TO DISCOVER AND FOLLOW GOD’s PURPOSE FOR EVERY MATERIAL POSSESSION IN HIS LIFE.

The key scripture for understanding the Christian view of material things is Colossians 1:16 where Paul says, "All things were created by Him and for Him." God made us for Himself and gives us material things to fulfill His purpose and plan for the world. His purpose is that all persons come to know Christ and find fullness of life through Him and in the church. Whatever we have should be spent ultimately to that purpose.

Christians must discover and follow God’s purpose in getting and spending. We have let materialistic values squeeze us into their mold. When Clare Booth Luce was appointed U.S. ambassador to Italy, she rented a 17th century Italian villa. Soon she noticed she was not feeling well. She was tired, lost weight and had little energy. She got worse and worse. After intense medical tests doctors determined that she was being poisoned by arsenic. All the staff in the villa were found to be trustworthy. Where was the poison coming from? Finally the cause was located. The ceiling of her bedroom had the carvings of roses, and those carvings, it was discovered, were painted with an arsenic lead paint. A fine dust fell from the roses. Completely unaware of what was going on, Mrs. Luce was being poisoned in her bed by this fine dust falling from the roses.

We, too, completely unaware of it, are in danger of being poisoned by a materialistic outlook. We can be tainted by materialism all about us without being aware until it is too late. The Bible says we are not to covet, not to be greedy, not to live just to for wealth alone.

FINALLY, WE NEED TO REEVALUATE OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD OUR STANDARD OF LIVING.

By and large we have followed the world’s values regarding wealth. "We assume," says A. R. Fagin, "that everything is all right with God as long as we make an honest living, pay our debts, give our tithes and offerings and spend what’s left as we please."

When Americans, with some six or seven percent of the world’s population, have one-half of the world’s income and one-seventh of its food, plus a lead in almost every category, it’s time to look again at our Christian responsibility.

"Is it right," asks Cecil Rhea, "for every family to reach the highest level of abundance it can reach? Is it right to give the highest priority to profit in all of our dealings? Should every person make all that he can and buy all that he can? Is it right for us to have all that we want? Does the Bible really teach that the reward we get for being a faithful Christian is increasing material prosperity?" All these questions take on a new light when we remember what Paul said about Jesus: "For your sake He became poor so that by His poverty you might become rich." Here Paul is speaking of our spiritual enrichment. If this is what Jesus did for us, and he is our example in all things, how do we stand with our fellow human beings? Are we willing to do with less so that Christ can do for them what he’s done for us?

Following God’s purpose in material possessions certainly involves giving through His church. We may argue about the tithe. The New Testament simply assumes that a redeemed person will start with the tithe and go beyond that. If those that lived under the Old Testament law gave up to 25-percent of their income to God’s work, can we who know the eternal love of God in Christ, who live under Grace, do less than the tithe? "Freely we have received, freely we are to give." We give out of love and thanksgiving to the glory of God, as Paul points out. God loves a cheerful giver, he says, and a cheerful giver loves God and his fellow men more and more.

"Our giving and our lifestyle ought to reflect," says Dr. Rhea, "that Christ is Lord." Our lifestyle should reflect that we can tell the difference between necessities and luxuries. A Christian steward’s lifestyle and giving will reflect the responsibility he feels for the blessings God has bestowed upon him. And his lifestyle will show that he seeks contentment in doing God’s will and fulfilling His purpose for the world.

Whitney Yeaple has paraphrased a favorite verse in two ways. Which applies to you?

"Mr. Blank of the blank congregation so loved the world that he gave up what was dear to him so that the work of the Lord in his church might go forward. This he did that men might know of the eternal life and not perish."

Or "Mr. Blank of the blank congregation so loved himself that he withheld all but a trifling amount of his money (and we might add his time talents, and witness) that he might gratify his own whims, caring little whether his Lord or his church could carry on. This he did in spite of the fact that he knew men would perish without the word of eternal life." Lay up not treasures on earth but treasures in heaven through lives of redeemed men and women, boys and girls. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.