"Stewardship of Our Blessings (Part Two)"

As I write this, my printer isn’t working, my car just made a truly nasty sound when I parked, and my cell phone is suddenly no longer able to make or receive phone calls.  It’s been that kind of day for mechanical devices for me, I suppose...

But other than that, things are going nicely.  We also had a wonderful Father’s Day here at First Covenant -- complete with the requisite bottles of Dad’s Root Beer that we hand out every year to all of the adult males in our congregation.  An amazing number of those bottles were successfully emptied long before the men left the building.

We also were able to provide Michael Wietharn with the opportunity to share his Minute for Missions about his recent missions trip to Japan with his high school class.  He shared how much it meant to him to be able to help the missionaries that they visited in practical, hands-on ministry to the homeless, as well as interacting with people trying to learn English as a second language.

In our message this week, we looked at the second half of our two-part series on stewardship.  As I’d said last week, “stewardship” is often talked about in relation to our tithes and offerings -- our giving -- but when you think about it, the concept is far more about what we’ve already been given and our perspectives on living those things out.

For instance, this Father’s Day, we looked at the gift that men have been given -- particularly those of us who have been given the opportunity to disciple others as a legacy, and most specifically those of us who have been given the great blessing of being fathers. 

Proverbs 20:6-7 tells us that it’s easy for a man to claim to have an unfailing love, but that we too often fall short of what we promise.  But when a man is genuinely righteous and genuinely tries to live out a faithful life, then his children and legacy will be blessed.  So we’re called -- all of us as Christians, but I was focusing on men for the morning -- in Ephesians 6 to be strong in the Lord, and to put on the full armor of God so that we can stand against the devil’s schemes and the hardships of this world.

So we encouraged men to live out the righteousness that Paul is talking about, to be the one who holds that faithful and faith-filled shield that Paul is talking about for his family, to be the one who trains with using the Word of God so that he can teach his family and make sure that it truly is the Truth that he’s standing on, and to be the one who has the strength of character to get down on his knees to pray for those whom he loves -- and all of that not because other people can’t do it, but because he should do it.

We have the great privilege to be able to stand in for the true hero in people’s lives -- to wear the very armor of God, even if it is a little big for us.  We get to impress God’s Truth upon our legacy when we sit at home, when we walk along the road, when we lie down, and when we get up.  So let’s take up that call to steward the manhood that God has gifted us with.