Stewardship: What Does It Look Like to You?
16th Sunday after Pentecost – Sept 28, 2025
Psalm 146 and 1 Timothy 6:6-19
By Pastor Jane Shelton
As we continue in our stewardship sermon series, I wanted us to spend time this coming week prayerfully considering our pledges.
Next Sunday, we will dedicate these pledges as our commitment to God when we come forward to receive communion and place our pledge cards in the bowl that will be available.
We have talked about two ways of responsible stewardship are finding the lost sheep and prayer.
Our scriptures today reveal so many other ways that we are called into good and responsible stewardship.
Believe it or not, praise is an important role of stewardship.
Throughout the Bible, we see people, even groups praising God whenever they are not living in the best of times, in times when they are delivered by God, and when provided and cared for by God.
The Chapters of Psalm are filled with praises for our Lord. Praises have been sung throughout the Bible, and I consider our hymn sing Sundays as ways in which we are singing praises to the Lord our God.
The people praised Jesus in the New Testament for healing and forgiving them. He was praised at his birth. They praised him as he came into Jerusalem during Holy Week, and he was certainly praised as being sent by God as the Son of Man.
Praise is an important part of our worship, and is found in our Call to Worship, Prayer of Confession, Prayers for the People, the offertory and in communion.
Let’s consider how we are praising God each day as a part of our stewardship? Do we start our day with a word of praise for being blessed with another day? Do we come into work praising God for the wonderful people we are blessed to be working with each day? Do we praise God for our families, friends and loved ones?
Another act of stewardship is faith. Keeping our faith in God, not our world leaders, not our possessions, but faith in God our Father who created us, sent a Savior and mediator for us, and continues to care and provide for us each day as our Psalmist points out.
Being good stewards of faith means that we don’t just say the word that we have faith, rather it causes us to act in such a way that shows we have deep trust in God without absolute proof or evidence. We’ve never seen God. We’ve never touched God, but we know God exists.
We haven’t directly seen an image of God that we can put our finger on, but we have seen God in people by their actions. We have seen God in beautiful nature that touches us to the core of knowing God’s ability to create. We see God in newborns, and we even see God in people near the end of life.
Are we good stewards of faith?
As we continue in our Timothy scripture, we have that big word, contentment.
The dictionary defines contentment as a state of happiness and satisfaction that I would argue may not actually hit the true definition of what we might look for in spiritual contentment.
AI gives the biblical view of contentment as ‘an internal, spiritual state of satisfaction and peaceful surrender to God’s will, independent of one’s circumstances, rooted in trust in God’s sovereignty, faithfulness, and provision. It involves a quiet spirit that finds joy in God’s presence and promises, rather than in material possessions, and is a learned virtue achieved through a relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the source of true sufficiency.’
Now while I am not a huge fan of AI, I would say this is a target definition of contentment.
My mother said to me one time that my Papa, her Daddy, said if you ever get content you will die. I have thought about that statement so many times in my lifetime trying to understand exactly what he must have meant.
Papa was a farmer, and he would rise at early dawn to feed the animals. We would often go to visit him in the mid-morning, and I would run to find him hoeing in the fields or weeding the garden.
If we visited him in the afternoon, I might find him tending to an injured livestock, or gathering items from the garden. He would often pull up a young turnip root, brush it off, cut off the tip and hand it to me to eat. I still remember the sweet taste!
Often, we would find him feeding the animals again, or under his shed repairing an old garden tool.
The truth of the matter is, I seldom found my Papa idle. He was always out moving on the farm and doing something. Thinking back on his phrase, ‘if we become content, we die’ he most likely meant that we shouldn’t be idle.
We are called to be good stewards of God’s property and time. The land we live on, the animals we raise, the gardens we grow, provide for our families and our neighbors. All of these are also good stewardship.
However, Timothy is speaking to us about contentment in terms of having a spiritual state of satisfaction and peaceful surrender to God’s will, regardless of our circumstances.
Timothy points out that rather than worrying about possessions we might desire, all we really need is food and clothing. He warns us not to be consumed with the desire to have more which can cause people to be tempted into doing rash and evil things.
Timothy reminds us to turn away from things of the world, like desiring more money and more possessions, in favor of other acts of stewardship that we do that includes the act of godliness, such as pursuing righteousness, endurance and gentleness. He mentions love and faith that we have discussed and invites us to “take hold” of the eternal life to which we are called.
Then he reminds us exactly how we “take hold,” of this calling. Once we have confessed that Jesus Christ is our Lord, we take hold, or we grasp the life he showed us to live. Not just a few hours on Sunday, but every day.
There is no denying that Jesus came into the temples to teach and heal; however, he also walked out of those temples and taught and healed in the streets, and on the country hillsides. Jesus dared to go into people’s homes and dine with them, pray with them and heal the sick.
When we consider our stewardship, let us take hold of this type of lifestyle that we have been called to participate in as disciples of Christ at the will of our God.
Timothy reminds us that in stewardship, once we have confessed in front of witnesses that we believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are to take hold of that way of life in everything we do. It’s not a part-time job; it’s a full-time commitment to live as Jesus showed us to live in the image of a God of love. Doing good, not just a little, but being rich in good works. Be generous and ready to share.
When we do these things, when we walk in the footsteps of Jesus with the image of God’s love for people, then…then we have a good foundation for our future. We can take hold of that future. And what future is Timothy talking about? The life that is really life. The life that is eternity with God.
What does stewardship look like to you?