Steward Your Life and Ministry Well

Speaker 1 (Brian Mosley):

Hi, I'm Brian Mosley.

Our team here at RightNow Media loves serving the church.

We believe the mission of the church matters

and the discipleship matters.

And whether you're watching this message alone

or with your leadership team,

we hope that it's an encouragement to you.

In this session, Bryan Carter has a powerful message

about what it looks like to steward our lives well.

(bright upbeat music)

Speaker 2 (Bryan Carter):

If you have your Bibles, would you open with me

the book of Matthew chapter?

It's been a full day and I pray

that God blesses our final session together

as we share together in God's Word.

Matthew chapter, I wanna read for us,

verses through,

verses through reads this way,

"Again, it will be like a man going out on a journey

who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.

To one he trust, he gave five bags of gold.

To another, two bags and to another, one bag,

each according to his ability.

Then he went on this journey.

The man who received five bags of gold went at once

and put his money to work and gained five bags more.

So, also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more,

but the man who had received one bag went off,

dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

After a long time, the master of all the servants returned

and settled accounts with him.

The man who had received five bags of gold

brought the other five.

'Master,' he said, 'You entrust me with a few bags of gold.

See, I have gained five more.'

His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.

You've been faithful with a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

Come and share your master's happiness.'

The man with two bags of gold also came.

'Master,' he said, 'You entrusted me with two bags of gold.

See, I have gained two more.'

His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.

You've been faithful with a few things,

and I will put you in charge of many things.

Come and share your master's happiness.'

And then the man who had received one bag of gold came,

'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you were

a hard man harvesting where you had not sown,

gathering where you had not scattered seed.

So I was afraid and went out

and hid your gold in the ground.

See, here is what belongs to you.'

His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant.

So you knew that I harvest why I have not sown,

gathered where I have not scattered seed.

Well, then, you should have put my money on deposit

with the bankers, so that when I returned

I would've received it back with interest.

So take the bag of gold from him

and give it to the one who had bags.

For whoever has been given more, they will have abundance.

Whoever does not have even what they have, will have

it will be taken from them and throw that worthless servant

outside into the darkness where there

will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"

For a few moments, I wanna talk about maximizing the moment.

Maximizing the moment.

When did you first fall in love with ministry?

For me, as a pastor's kid,

I remember as a young man, as a teenager,

my dad and my mom had planted a church.

And when they started that church,

like many children that grow up with parents in church,

you grow up, first of all, with a drug problem.

'Cause you're a drug to Sunday school,

drug to choir practice. (congregation laughing)

You're a drug to everything happening at the church.

But as I was going through all of this, something happened.

I remember going in my father's,

he would go door to door sharing evangelism.

I remember every Saturday he required me

to write a review of the Sunday school lesson.

I remember the Bible stories

and learning all about these items

and Sunday school and other areas.

There was something about the work of the church

that even as a teenager, began to pull on my heart.

And it was there even as a teenager,

I began to realize that this

is what I wanna give my life to.

In my context, there weren't a lot of full-time pastors,

so my plan was to go to school, go to college,

and become a teacher or a principal,

and then do ministry at the same time,

and then at some point, be able to go to seminary.

Because I didn't know many pastors

that could fully time support themselves.

And by God's grace, He would allow me to do that.

Ultimately, relocating to Dallas in

and joining a church staff in

and then becoming the senior pastor in

And even to this day,

some years later serving as a pastor,

I still think about those early moments as a young man

and how I fell in love with serving God's people.

And I fell in love with serving our community

and helping the disenfranchised

and how those early moments still motivate me today.

That Soren Kierkegaard says,

"That you live life forward,

but you really only understand it backwards."

What about you? Do you remember the moments

where you first fell in love with ministry?

Maybe it was the first time you taught a youth class

or the first time you taught children's church.

Maybe it was the first time that you stood

to share God's word or maybe it was the first time

that you were able to help someone in need

and something happened in that moment,

and you began to realize that this is what I love to do.

This is what I was created to do,

and it's this idea that God has gifted us

with a call toward ministry.

That a call toward ministry,

it's not something that you choose,

it's more about something that chooses you.

It's about this reality that God has put a passion

and a burden in your heart to watch people come

to the gospel, to disciple people, to just see new life.

And it is this call that has been deeply planted in you,

that helps you to wake up every single day

that helps you to show up to the church,

do the work God has called you to do.

No matter where you serve in the life of the church,

this calling to ministry is a gift from God

And in a very similar way,

that's exactly what's happening

in this parable that we just read.

That these three servants, they represent you and I,

that we are these individuals,

but we haven't been given gold.

We've been given a call to ministry

that God in His sovereignty has called us to His work

to be able to make disciples, to equip the saints,

to be salt and light, to be His witnesses.

And we get to live this out each and every day.

Now, I want you to know that just like in the parable,

that God in his own sovereignty,

chooses the capacity that we can handle,

that God in His own sovereignty,

as the master does in the parable gives one, five talents,

gives one, two talents, and then gives another, one talent.

Because God knows exactly what your capacity is.

But then we notice this, that the master goes away

and then he allows those stewards,

those servants, those managers,

to manage what God has placed in their hands.

That's really what I wanna spend our time today on,

is how do you manage well what God has placed in your hand?

How do you manage well the ministry God

has placed in front of you?

How do you manage well the children

or the youth, or the Christian education?

How do you manage well the small groups,

or the marriage ministry, or the family ministry?

How do you manage well the calling

that God has placed on your life,

the work that God has called you to do?

How do you steward that well,

so that one day we can hear

the same commendation that was given to them,

"Well done, my good and faithful servant?"

This parable is meant

to help us understand the realities, right?

This reality of readiness,

this reality that God has an expectation upon us.

This reality that the King will one day return

and when He returns, He wants His servants

to steward well what God has placed in their hands.

A couple of principles I want you to catch today.

Here's the first one.

You and I must operate in faith and not in fear.

If we're gonna manage

and steward well what God places in our hands,

we must operate in faith and not in fear.

This one servant, this third server,

he decides that fear consumes him.

He is so afraid of what might happen.

He is so afraid of the master

that he decides that he will bury it,

rather than have faith to work with what God has given him.

Fear is crippling, fear is consuming,

and fear is contagious.

And you and I must understand that as children of God,

that fear no longer can function in our lives,

that we are people of faith.

I love the way Dr. E.K. Bailey used to put it.

He says, "Faith is acting like a thing is so

when it is not so, so that it can become so."

This is the reality that you and I are men and women

of faith that must believe and see it

even before it happens.

If we capture our ministries

and function our ministries out of fear,

then we will never be able to accomplish

the work to which God has called us to.

It is this fear we can spend too much time.

Due diligence is a beautiful thing,

and yet, we must also remind ourselves

that this servant did due diligence

and what he ended up doing was taking

the lowest risk possible.

God did not call us to live low-risk lives,

but God called us to pursue the things

that He has called us to with all of our hearts

and to pursue Him for the things that we can't even see yet.

Where in your ministry, are you functioning out fear,

instead of functioning out of faith?

Fear about what that group will say,

fear about what they won't like,

fear about what they will like, or what they won't like.

Here is the reality.

No matter what you do, half the church gonna love you

and half the church gonna hate you.

You just gotta make a decision and by faith,

do what God has called you to do.

If you are so fearful and spend your life just trying

to please people, you will never accomplish God's work.

You've gotta have faith that if God has given you

the vision, He will provide the provision.

If it's God's will, it's God's bill,

and trust God for what He wants to do.

You've gotta function outta faith, not fear.

I think another thing we learn here is that you and I,

that you must steward your life first

and your ministry second.

Steward your life first and your ministry second.

Before this steward can accomplish

the work that's before them,

they first of all must steward

the life of the steward first.

That life of the steward must be stewarded

before the work can be accomplished.

Or maybe I ought to tell you,

like one of my mentors told me,

young in ministry, love ministry,

passionate for ministry, loving to serve God's people,

loving to lead and be engaged.

And I remember one of my mentors

that I talked to once a month,

we'd have a monthly call just talking

about life in ministry.

Now, on this particular occasion,

we were talking about life in ministry,

talking about my family, and he said these words to me,

Bryan, he said, "Bryan, save some for home."

He said, "Bryan, don't be so intentional at church

and intentional in ministry,

but then become lazy when it comes to your home life."

That I want you to understand if you are going

to maximize the moment and steward well

what God has put in your life,

part of your stewardship of the ministry

has to be connected to how you steward your life,

that you must steward your life first.

And it is the overflow of your life

that then flows in the ministry,

so that ministry can be what God has called it to be.

Can I give you some areas you ought to consider

when it comes to stewarding your life

that there are a couple of areas

that you ought look at your life spiritually.

You gotta look at your life physically,

look at your life financially, emotionally,

with your relationships, even the Kingdom.

Now, these are six areas that you ought to look at your life

and ask God, help me to steward

these areas well, spiritually.

Your devotional life, your prayer life,

your ministry in the life of the church, physically,

you're eating and exercise and sleeping.

All these things are acts of worship and valuable to God.

Financially, every spending decision is a spiritual decision

and how you manage your finances impact

how you serve for the Lord.

Emotionally, your rest and fun and friendships.

Your emotional and emotional health

is critical to how God wants to use you in ministry,

and in your relationships, your friendships,

your marriage, and your family.

With all that you've learned over the past couple of days,

maybe the one thing you gotta do when you get back

is take your husband or wife on a date night.

Or perhaps, it's spending time with your children

or perhaps, it's planning what you're doing

for the holidays.

And then lastly, the Kingdom.

God, help me to answer the call.

That your stewardship of all starts here.

You've been, if we've all flown and as we fly on a plane,

that stewardess or flight attendant often comes up

and goes through that presentation,

but they always say that one thing.

They say that, "If there is an emergency

and the oxygen comes down, put your own mask on first

before you can care for someone else."

This is what we must understand.

Stewardship of your own life must happen

before your ministry.

Every four to six weeks, I have the privilege of going

to sit at a counselor's office

because I wanna take care of my own life.

I sit there at that counselor's office,

started it this year and did

it probably four or five years ago,

and I fell off and got reconnected,

simply because I wanna be

the most emotionally healthy person I can possibly be

for my marriage, for my family, for my ministry.

Because so many times in life,

what can easily happen is that you can pour

into so many others and yet be empty on the inside.

What Jenny was unpacking about this whole emotional health

is so critical to you as you continue to lead and serve,

and do the word God has called you.

And here's the next one.

I need you to keep dreaming for tomorrow.

I need you to keep dreaming for tomorrow.

I think the principle that surfaces from the text

is that for two of these servants,

they have this optimism

about what's going to happen tomorrow.

They have this concept that something great

is happening on tomorrow,

or something expected is happening tomorrow.

God, in His own sovereignty, has allowed us

to be at a juncture of time where there is

so much happening around us,

that we've got a loneliness epidemic

where the Surgeon General has said that

"Loneliness is one of the most dangerous issues

that we're facing in America today."

But on top of that, we've got marriage

for the first time in history, on decline.

We've got co-habitation on the rise.

We've got social media having a negative impact

on the mental health of our children consistently.

We've got young adults that are leaving the church.

We've got the great de-churching happening at the same time.

On top of that, we've got the whole secularization

of America and then we have this sexual

and gender confusion, and then on top of that,

it's the first time in history

where we've got five generations living

alongside each other all at the same time.

We have all of these things happening,

but we must believe that God is so arranged it

because this is all this is showing us

that God has given us a moment in time

where a ministry is needed and God wants to use you.

It is a reminder that God has opened

a door and the need is great,

and it's not a time to be pessimistic

about what we're seeing, but it is a time where we can ask

and expect that God is doing something great

and God is going to use us.

In a time where everyone is looking

for truth and looking for joy and fulfillment

in all the wrong places,

it's good to know that God has positioned the church

with the gospel of Jesus Christ that people need

and God wants to use each of us to be able

to advance His gospel and His Kingdom.

It reminds me of Paul in Colossians chapter,

when Paul is in prison and Paul prays,

"God, please open a door."

If it was you and me, we would pray for Paul

to open the door on the cell, so we could get out,

but that's not Paul's prayer.

Paul says, listen, I can stay where I am,

but I need God to open the door,

so that the gospel can work,

and it can be advanced no matter where I am.

God has so arranged the times that he's positioned us here

for the gospel to go to work and God wants to work

through each of our churches in this room.

Friends, we've got a great opportunity.

We cannot be put our heads in the sand

and think that things are going a certain way,

but instead, every time we see it,

it's a reminder that we have a great work to do.

Not only that, friends, I wanna remind you

that we must also maximize the time that you have.

He's coming back.

That these stewards show us

there's a season of time that you have,

that we don't have all day, that there's a moment.

There's a season of time that God has allowed us to have.

This past summer, I was able to take

a three-month sabbatical at our church and while away,

one of the books that I read was a book entitled,

"From Strength to Strength" by Arthur Brooks.

It was a great read.

He's the professor of happiness at Harvard University,

but also a believer in Jesus Christ.

And as a consequence,

one of the theories in his book is this idea

that originated with Raymond Cattell.

It's this idea that there are two kinds of intelligence,

that there is this fluid intelligence,

then there is this crystallized intelligence.

He defines this fluid intelligence as this intelligence

that typically happens in their twenties

and thirties when you are able to be able

to create things a little bit more quickly sometimes,

almost his example is how Einstein at the age of,

comes up with the equation, E equals mc squared.

That that there is something in your twenties

and thirties where most discoveries are made,

some of the best art is produced,

that there is something very, very crucial

about this season,

but then he talks about the latter season

of life typically after that’s called

the crystallized intelligence season.

Where at this juncture in life,

it's a different type of intelligence

because at this juncture,

you are combining principles and experience,

and readings to be able to establish new things,

but in a different way.

And he talks about that you must learn how

to value both seasons.

This season under, this season over

of how God is working in both seasons.

And when a person understands this,

it allows that person to be effective

and fruitful in the season that God calls them to,

that it's not a competition, but it's like,

God, leverage and use my gifts

to reach who you want me to reach

and make the disciples you want me to make

in the season that you have me in.

This has been interesting to me

'cause I turned just a couple of weeks ago.

And as a consequence, I've been seeking the Lord

to give me clarity and give me vision for this next season.

I've got two kids in college.

I've got one that's a year-old learning how to drive,

sophomore, and I can see the empty nest

coming around the corner.

I can see it. I can almost taste it.

And so, as it comes close, I'm saying to the Lord,

Lord, give me vision.

Give me how do you wanna use this margin?

How do you wanna use this time?

How do you want me to show up?

And this book and this parable has helped me

to say that friends, you gotta know the season

that God has you in,

and you've gotta know how to leverage and lean in

in such a way that for some in this room

in my season of life, what God is saying to you is

that God is calling you to mentor

and make disciples at a greater rate.

That the margin that He gives you is not just the margin

for leisure, but it's also the margin to be able

to be more intentionally impacting those around you.

While those in the next generation,

God is leveraging you as you reach your friends

and your relationships as you're in the thick of life,

we both need each other.

Well, imagine what would happen in our churches

if everyone over that had this bandwidth could,

if we could unleash this latent energy,

this wisdom, this power, this discipleship.

Imagine what would happen in our churches if we were able

to link up more mature couples and younger couples together

and walk together in relation.

Imagine what would happen if we linked up our older

and mature men and our younger men together

and mature women and younger women together.

Imagine how we could change lives.

Imagine how we could grow and impact

and become more like Christ.

This is what God is calling us to do.

Not this separation of generations,

but generations working together

to improve one another, to sharpen one another,

so that we can become what God has called us to be.

You know, in the Bible,

there are really two Greek words for time.

There is Kronos which means sequential, A, B, C, D, right?

But then there is Kairos which means opportune time.

It means unique time. A window of opportunity.

In Galatians, it says this,

"Let us not become weary in doing well

for at the proper time,

we will reap a harvest if we faint not."

It is the idea, that word there is Kairos.

It is the word that God will if you stay faithful.

If we continue to trust in our God,

if we keep God's priorities, our priorities,

He will open a window of time,

so that you and I can do this work,

and we don't want to miss it.

We don't wanna be so caught up

in all these other things that we miss.

the main thing of making disciples

is the work God has called us to.

Here's the next truth,

we also have to start where you are and use what you have.

Can you repeat that with me? Say, start where you are-

Start where you are-

and use what you have.

and use what you have.

I do wonder if the one-talent person

was not on Instagram scrolling, saying,

listen, if I have three talents, I could do that too.

(congregation laughing)

If I have five talents, I could do that too.

You and I must be careful about being caught up

in comparing the capacity and the talent level of others.

You and I must be careful about spending

too much time comparing and being consumed

with what I have or what I don't have.

Instead, what this passage teaches us is

to start where you are and to use what you have.

It does not matter your capacity

because you can't always control your capacity.

God in His grace puts in your hands

what He believes you can handle.

God in His grace knows you and He's able

to position you where He needs you to be.

And our responsibility is to start

where we are and to use what we have.

When you go back to your church,

no matter what size your church is, you start where you are.

When you go back and you begin

to disciple and pour into others,

if it's just one couple or two couples,

you start where you are.

If it's just one young man or two young men,

you start where you are.

If it's just one woman that shows up,

you start where you are.

We cannot always measure our lives by the quantities.

We must measure our lives just by the quality of the work.

That quantity is that when you watch the ministry of Jesus,

He is working at every level,

but it is that inner circle of twelve.

It is that inner circle of three

where He does some incredibly significant work.

When you watch and read the scriptures,

God loves for us to start where we are

and to use what we have.

If you don't believe me, you remember Gideon,

who thought he needed so much to do something great for God.

He said, "Listen, all I need you to have is

and just use what I have."

Consider David who they tried to give this armor of Saul.

He said, "No, just take the slingshot and the stone,

and that'll be more than enough to do what you need to do."

Or consider when they were trying to feed the,

and they were trying to figure out

how in the world we going to do it,

and Jesus said, "Listen, just gimme a couple loaves

and a few fish, and that will be more than enough."

Listen, use what you have, start where you are

because when you put it in the hands of the Master,

God can do much more than you and I could ever imagine.

Start where you are and use what you have.

(congregation applauding)

The other two things I wanna share

with you is spiritual warfare is real.

I need you to catch my heart

that when we talk about this work

of maximizing the moment and stewarding our lives well,

you must understand that the enemy,

it will give a level of resistance that we're going to face.

It was the Kendrick brothers who wrote,

who produced those movies, "Courageous" and others.

I was having a conversation with them some years ago,

and while talking to them,

I was telling 'em about a situation we

were going through at our church

where it was just difficult, challenges.

A couple of marriages on staff were going through challenges

and a couple of other tensions we were facing.

And he said, "As I began to describe all the stuff

that was happening," he began to describe to me,

he says, "Are you familiar with spiritual warfare?"

And I was, but then he began

to give me these five areas and categories.

He says, "Every time we try to produce a movie,

these are the areas we see the enemy shows up."

And he said, "We had to begin to develop a strategy

for everything the enemy was doing."

He says, "Because the enemy always wanted

to create disunity."

He said, "We had to develop a strategy

for how we're gonna create unity on our team."

He said, "Because the enemy always wanted to discourage us,"

He said, "We had to create a strategy on our team

where we were always finding ways to encourage one another."

And he went through this step by step,

and it impacted me in such a way

'cause I want you to understand that part

of what you're going to face as you seek

to live this out are these five ways

that he consistently shows up,

and it's crucial that you begin to find ways

to also combat how he shows up.

Here's the next one, friends.

Number seven, I want you to understand

that humility means to hold it loosely.

Humility means to hold it loosely.

Martin Luther said this,

"I have tried to keep things in my hands and lost them all,

but what I have given in to God's hands, I still possess."

Regularly, you've gotta give your ministry back to the Lord.

I know you think this is your department,

and your team, your church, your ministry.

I know you've invested a lot in it,

but can I remind you today that you are just a manager?

That it doesn't belong to you, that you don't own it,

but he's given it to you for a season

of time just for a little while.

So be humble enough to hold what He puts

in your hands loosely because things can change fast.

If anything that COVID taught us,

COVID taught us how little control

we actually thought we had.

We thought we had everything under control,

but when COVID came and we had to adjust and pivot,

and shift, we really ask that we're not

as in control as we thought we are.

And it's a lesson that we need to hold on to.

Humbly and regularly surrender your ministry back

to God and say, God, this is your ministry.

God, I trust your timing. God, I trust how you wanna do it.

God, I trust who you're going to send.

God, I trust the way you're going to work.

God, I put it in your hands,

and I honor you for the work you're going to do.

You've got to humbly hold it loosely.

Friends, you gotta keep believing

that God is going to do greater,

that God is up to something.

That that has to be a sense of expectation

when you and I lead and serve in ministry,

that we have to understand that the stewardship

that we have, that God is not wasting our time.

But God is saying, I am trusting you

to steward your time well

because I know there is an expectation

that is beheld on the other side.

Friends, all I wanted to do today

is kinda give you a framework for how you steward

your life and steward your ministry well,

so that you can honor God

with whatever He places in your hands,

so that you can honor God as you serve Him faithfully

and serve His people.

For me, it started early in life that I fell in love

with ministry, watching my father as he began

to do ministry and let me tag along not knowing

that same call would also call me.

And so, it was that when my father passed away in,

in when he would pass away

after pastoring his church, then when my father passed,

the church that he pastored would never grow

beyond to people,

but he pastored that church like it was people.

He prepared his sermons and he loved those people,

and he faithfully served them and gave all that he had.

And so, when he would pass away from kidney cancer,

me and my mom and my two brothers

begin to prepare for the services.

And then ultimately, we were preparing to lay him to rest.

And there, as we were getting ready to figure out

what were we going to put on dad's headstone.

And there, after talking and discussing it,

we said, "We've got it.

We're gonna write on that headstone,

'Well done, good and faithful servant.'"

And so, we penned that on his headstone

because we had watched his life and watched his sacrifice,

and watched his commitment,

and watched his investment in our lives,

and watched his loving relationship

with our mom for some years.

And we were able to honor him by writing on there early

with the hopes that one day,

God will affirm it to him as well.

And friends, that is my hope for you,

that you will live your life in such a way

that when that times come, your family can be able

to write it on there before the Lord even gets to say it,

"Well done, thy good and faithful servant."

And it's not about the quantity or the size,

it's about your faithfulness in the assignments

and the small things that God puts

before you each and every day.

And He wants to use you in ways you can't even see.

(bright upbeat music)

Speaker 1 (Brian Mosley):

I loved how Bryan encouraged us to see every area

of our life as an opportunity to follow God faithfully

and steward all He's given us.

As you leave this video, think about what you can do

to honor God in all the areas of your life.

(bright upbeat music)

(bright upbeat music ends)