Stewardship of This Moment

Later this morning I’ll be preaching the annual message at the BMA of the Ozarks meeting. I was looking forward to hearing our elected speaker, Gary Brewer from Cave Springs Baptist Church, but Gary is headed to Little Rock to be at a family’s side through an intense surgery (so say a prayer for them). I was elected the alternate, so I’m now meditating over the message. Preaching primarily to preachers brings about the special challenge of speaking to the struggles of Pastors and churches. Here’s what I’m sharing…

I’m preaching from 2 Corinthians 5:14-21, which continues a subject Paul introduced at the beginning of chapter four when he essentially says, “We’ve been given a ministry – the ministry of sharing the gospel with our culture – so let’s be good stewards of this opportunity.”

The passage at the end of chapter five leads us to consider some review questions:

How Are We Doing at Cooperating Together?

Jesus died for all, so we shouldn’t live for self anymore, but for Christ. If we’re going to be good stewards of this moment for the ministry of the gospel, we need to be cooperating with the Holy Spirit and with one another. Self-agenda must be buried and ego must die, or we’ll blow it and hand back to God a broken opportunity.

How Are We Doing at Compassionate Ministry?

We are to have a different outlook on people, and serve them with love. Because of the redeeming power and ministry of Jesus, the playing field is level and everybody ought to be loved. We’ve been given the ministry of reconciliation or the wondrous assignment of serving people with compassion. How are we doing with that? One of the greatest questions I’ve ever heard (and I ask my church this a lot) is “if your church were to close its doors today, would your community have any reason to miss you?”

How are we doing at communicating effectively?

Angie and I recently went to hear Dennis Swanberg speak at Silver Dollar City in Branson. He gave part of his new talk on being “an eight track guy in an ipod world.” I like that! He and the crowd laughed together about how tough it is to see so many changes in the modern world. The trick is, however, to find a way to communicate with an ipod generation. We love to preach at our culture, but are we preaching to it? Are we giving the unadulterated message of Christ’s cross in such a way that people can grasp it? Are we being creative?

How are we doing at consistent living?

Are we living as ambassadors? Are we dressing the part? The world around us has plenty of reasons to question the authenticity of modern Christianity. We’ve blown it a thousand times over. Leaders fall morally and carnage is left behind. But we are called to represent the King in a dying culture. Are we living as He would?

The reality is, we don’t get to choose our generation, our time, or our culture. In the sovereignty of God, this is where and when we exist for the purpose of sharing the gospel with this generation. We have this moment! Are we being good stewards? Or will we hand it back to God broken?