Generosity: Stewardship | Luke 12:35-48
This message was preached at Sherwood Community Friends Church on Sunday, January, 18, 2026. You can watch the video in full by clicking below. This is an adaptation from the 4-week Generosity series from Practicing the Way.
Note: This weeks message is an adaptation from the Generosity Practice from Practicing the Way.
Intro
Robert and I have had the benefit of staying at the Captain’s Cabin in Rockaway Beach. This is a part of the Harbor Villa Retreat Center at Twin Rocks Friends Camp. This small cozy cottage sits right on the Pacific Ocean coast. From the bench outside the front door you can watch the sunset, feel the ocean breeze, and watch the waves crash into shore.
Right across the street live Ron & Deb Mulkey and they are the caretakers of these retreat homes. They keep the properties stocked with supplies and welcome guests as if the home was their own. When you walk into the cabin, you can feel the care and love that is poured into this oceanside, nautical sanctuary.
Plus the Mulkeys live oceanside too! They get to enjoy these accommodations and views in ways Robert and I could only hope for.
But they don’t forget what is true. They live there but they aren’t the owner. They are the caretakers.
When most of us think about our relationship to our home, or our stuff, or our money, we don’t think of ourselves as caretakers. We believe it’s all ours. But that is not actually the view of Jesus.
Series Recap
We are working through four themes from Jesus’ teachings on money and generosity. In week one we recognized that there is more joy in giving than receiving. In week two we are warned to watch out for greed.
And next up for part three in our series is this:
All we have belongs to God.
As Robert said last week, scholars argue upwards of 20 or more percent of Jesus’ teachings have to do with money and generosity. And almost half of Jesus’ parables have to do with how his disciples are to steward their resources.
So let’s look at one of these parables. Let’s look at Luke 12:35–48.
In context, we’re about to read from one of Jesus’ longest teachings on money and generosity. In the middle is his famous line: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” But he bookends this teaching with two parables. Next week we’ll look at the first one—often called the Parable of the Rich Fool. This week, we’re looking at the last one—the Parable of the Faithful Servant.
The two parables are a compare-and-contrast. The first is a negative story about a rich man who hoards. The second is a positive story about a servant who is faithful.
Let’s read it.
Luke 12:35–37 CSB
“Be ready for service and have your lamps lit. You are to be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once. Blessed will be those servants the master finds alert when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will get ready, have them recline at the table, then come and serve them.”
Right away, disciples of Jesus are pictured like servants waiting on a master. But there’s a twist: in Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, the master takes the role of the servant. This is Jesus’ picture of God: a rich, generous master who takes the place of a servant to his servants.
Keeping this in mind, let’s jump to our main parable, starting in verse 42.
Luke 12:42–44 CSB
“The Lord said, ‘Who then is the faithful and sensible manager? His master will put him in charge of his household to give them their allotted food at the proper time. Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.’”
Meaning: if the manager in this story does a good job stewarding the master’s house, the master entrusts him with even more to steward. Likewise, if you, as a sales clerk or any other entry level job, do your job well and as instructed, you will likely receive a promotion. As you manage more, more will be entrusted to you. And as we know, the more entrusted, often the higher compensation and reward.
But then Jesus warns what happens when the servant starts thinking like an owner:
Luke 12:45–48a CSB
“But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and starts to beat the male and female servants, and to eat, drink, and get drunk, that servant’s master will come on a day he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unfaithful. And that servant who knew his master’s will and didn’t prepare himself or do it will be severely beaten. 48 But the one who did not know and did what deserved punishment will receive a light beating.”
Let’s pause here for a moment. This seems like harsh words, especially coming from Jesus, doesn’t it? I don’t want us to get distracted by this but instead reconcile what Jesus is communicating.
What Jesus is not communicating is that it’s ok to beat someone. That would be taking the verse out of context. Instead, Jesus reflects the normal disciplinary framework of first-century household management, not gratuitous violence, and would have sounded realistic—even restrained—to his original audience.
Let’s hear this in the paraphrase given to us in The Message. It might resonate differently:
“But if he says to himself, ‘The master is certainly taking his time,’ begins maltreating the servants and maids, throws parties for his friends, and gets drunk, the master will walk in when he least expects it, give him the thrashing of his life, and put him back in the kitchen peeling potatoes. “The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed. But if he does a poor job through ignorance, he’ll get off with a slap on the hand.”
If the manager, entrusted with the owner's entire estate, acts irresponsibly, there will be consequences! And those consequences will be much more severe than for someone who did something wrong without realizing it. They would be given a gentle course correction. But the one who does not prove faithful when they know better is no longer worthy of any of what they are entrusted with and there will be harsher consequences.
Then here’s the summary line from Jesus.
Luke 12:48b “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be expected.” CSB
Jesus’ View of Wealth: Stewardship
The radical idea Jesus is laying out here in Luke 12 has come to be called stewardship. Stewardship has been defined as:
“the active and responsible management of God’s creation FOR God’s purposes.”
And this idea was just as radical in Jesus’ day as it is in ours.
When you zoom out, there are three basic components to a biblical theology of stewardship.
God owns it all.
In Jesus’ day, there were two dominant views of wealth.
The first was non-ownership. You see this in Greek philosophy. For example, in Plato’s Republic, the rulers in his imagined utopian society own nothing. All resources belong collectively to the society. Today, we call this socialism.
The second was ownership. This was the Roman view. You had absolute authority over your property. If you owned a barn, you could burn it down if you wanted—because it was your barn. This Roman view is still the dominant view in the modern West. Today, we call this capitalism.
But the Judeo-Christian view that comes to us through Jesus and the whole of Scripture is a radical third way—not ownership or non-ownership, but
STEWARDSHIP
God is the owner. We are the caretakers. From the very first pages of Scripture, this vision is clear.
Genesis 1:1 CSB
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
That phrase—“the heavens and the earth”—is a Hebrew way of saying everything. The universe is his creation. Then God forms a garden. He breathes life into humanity—life itself is a gift.
And what does God do with humanity?
Genesis 2:15 CSB
“The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.”
Adam and Eve are placed in the garden not as owners, but as caretakers. And this theme runs all the way through Scripture:
Leviticus 25:23 CSB
“The land is not to be permanently sold because it is mine, and you reside in my land as resident aliens and temporary residents.”Deuteronomy 10:14 CSB
“The heavens, indeed the highest heavens, belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it.”Psalm 50:10–12 CSB
“For every animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills… the world and everything in it are mine.”
The consistent witness of Scripture, right up to Jesus in Luke 12, is that God owns it all. Yes, we buy and sell. We farm and build and invest. But we are the caretakers—not the owners of the house.
We are entrusted by God with resources to do good.
God owns it all but he entrusts it to you and me to steward. Many of us live under the false assumption that whatever money we receive—from work, inheritance, or even unexpected gain—is ours to consume.
So we live at or above the line of our income, maxed out with no margin to share. Or worse, in debt—rather than under the line, with breathing room to practice generosity.
We don’t realize this simple truth: Not all our money is for us. Some of it IS for us to provide for our families, to put a roof over our heads and food on the table, and to enjoy our lives before God.
1 Timothy 6:17 CSB
“Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy.”
God is not a stingy investor. He is a generous Father who wants to bless his children. That’s us!
But it’s not all to spend on our every whim.
Some of what God entrusts to us is meant to be given away. Given to the poor and the needy. Given to the church. Given to the work of the Gospel.
And some of it is meant to be built with–to invest in the future God has placed in our hearts for our families, our work, our businesses.
We are entrusted with God’s resources to channel every dollar to the right place. That’s what a steward does. Perhaps a more helpful modern image might be an asset manager.
Think of someone whose job is to invest other people’s money. They don’t own the assets but they are responsible for managing them well. If someone entrusts an asset manager with a million dollars, and through wisdom and diligence it grows by $100,000, the manager earns a fee and the owner gains significantly. Everyone wins.
But if the manager loses the money, they’re fired. And if they make the money but spend it on themselves? That’s criminal and that must lead to consequences.
Faithful stewardship leads to greater trust. Unfaithfulness leads to loss of responsibility. Which brings us to the third component.
God blesses us to give more, not just to have more
This idea shows up again and again in Jesus’ parables on stewardship. Those who steward the master’s resources well are entrusted with more—not to hoard, but to steward.
No one works this out more clearly than Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians, one of the hallmark passages on generosity in the New Testament. In this letter, Paul is raising money from the churches in Macedonia for the church in Jerusalem, which is suffering through a severe famine.
In chapter 9:7, he writes:
2 Corinthians 9:7 CSB
“Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver.”
God loves a person who isn’t coerced into giving a minimum percentage but who prayerfully listens to God and to what’s being stirred in their heart, and then gives joyfully.
Then Paul continues, and this is where we need to pay close attention:
2 Corinthians 9:8–11 CSB
“And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. As it is written: He distributed freely, he gave to the poor; his righteousness endures forever. Now the one who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will also provide and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for all generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us.”
At first glance, this can sound like the prosperity gospel—an American distortion that says, “give to get, that generosity is a strategy for personal gain, and that God exists to make us wealthy.”
But Paul’s theology is separated from that error by two crucial words: “so that.”
“You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.”
God’s blessing is not meant to end with us. It’s meant to flow through us.
This reminds me of God’s first interaction with Abraham in Genesis 12.
“The Lord said to [Abraham]: ‘God from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing…all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:1-3
The prosperity gospel isn’t a total lie—it’s a half-truth. When we give and steward what God has entrusted to us, God often does give us more. In fact, God promised to Abram that if he followed him, he would bless him and make him a great nation. But that “harvest” may come in the form of money, opportunity, relationships, health, joy, or influence. In one way or another, you really can’t outgive God. But the purpose is not to make us rich. It’s to make us more generous.
Not to build bigger houses or empires but to steward more of God’s resources toward the right places.
As Dave Ramsey, founder of Financial Peace University says, “Live like nobody else now so you can GIVE like nobody else later.”
Recap So Far
So here’s where we’ve landed:
God owns it all.
We are entrusted with his resources to do good.
God blesses us to give more, not simply to have more.
If all of this is true—as radical as it sounds—then the question shifts.
The question is no longer, “How much should I give?”
It becomes, “How much should I keep?”
In many church traditions, tithing has been a central practice. People take their income, calculate ten percent, and give it to the church. That practice has deep biblical roots and has helped many people grow in faithfulness and generosity. It’s been a part of mine and Robert’s discipleship journey, not just now but especially before we were pastors.
But it’s easy to subtly assume that the ten percent is God’s and the other ninety percent is ours to do whatever we want with.
Jesus pushes us beyond that framing.
If everything we have belongs to God, then we’re not managing ten percent. We are stewarding one hundred percent.
That paradigm changes everything.
There’s a familiar dichotomy when it comes to money: savers and spenders.
Savers tend to be motivated by fear: a need for safety, security, and control.
Spenders tend to be motivated by desire: the pull toward more, better, bigger.
But Jesus offers a third way.
Not a saver.
Not a spender.
But a steward.
A steward is someone who, as an act of apprenticeship to Jesus, is learning to channel God’s resources toward God’s purposes.
And that immediately raises real questions.
What do I keep?
What do I give?
And where?
And to whom?
What’s an appropriate standard of living?
Where’s the line between enjoying life and wasting what he’s entrusted to me?
What kind of car should I drive?
How many pairs of shoes do I actually need?
A million questions.
And let me say this clearly—I get how complex this is.
Some of you are raising kids.
Some of you are carrying medical expenses.
Some of you live in a high cost-of-living area.
Some of you are supporting aging parents or adult children.
How do we weigh generosity and our responsibility to our families?
This is not simple.
But these are the right questions.
And the truth is that the New Testament does not give us a neat formula.
Instead, it calls us to discernment. Discernment is to listen deeply to God, through prayer, scripture, and community, with a singular desire in mind: to know and do his will.
That said, Paul does give us some wisdom—guidelines, not laws—especially in his letters to the Corinthians on the topic of Generosity.
Six Guiding Principles for Generosity
1. Regular, not sporadic
1 Corinthians 16:2a CSB “On the first day of the week, each of you is to set something aside and save…”
Generosity is meant to be practiced, not occasional.
2. Proportional
1 Corinthians 16:2b CSB “…in keeping with how he is prospering.”
The principle is simple: the more you make, the more you give. If you’re barely meeting basic needs, the dollar amount will look different than if you have far more than you need. But that doesn’t mean the work of becoming a generous person is diminished!
3. Sacrificial
2 Corinthians 8:3 CSB “I can testify that they gave according to their ability, and even beyond their ability…”
It always costs us something. There should be things we could buy—but choose not to—so we can live generously.
4. Voluntary
2 Corinthians 9:7a CSB “Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of compulsion…”
Which means we must make space to pray and listen.
5. Joyful
2 Corinthians 9:7b CSB “…since God loves a cheerful giver.”
God doesn’t want grumpy money.
6. Motivated by apprenticeship to Jesus
2 Corinthians 8:9 CSB “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”
Generosity isn’t about religious duty or philanthropy. It’s about becoming like Jesus.
So we’re not flying blind. There are guidelines. But the absence of a strict rule means something important: we have to listen.
In November, I preached on Galatians 5, and we discussed then that in order for the fruits of the Spirit to grow in us, then we must make space and hold space. We must cut back the weeds and distractions that try to choke us so that we can hear God’s voice, especially when it comes to our finances.
The Spirit of God invites us to regularly come before him and ask, “Father, thank you for the gift of these resources. What do you want me to do with them?”
Then we must be quiet and listen when he speaks.
I’ll be honest. Asking this question isn’t something Robert and I have been great about doing up till this point. We fall into a default of assigning our dollars by percentage, much like you might. So again we ask:
“Father, what do you want us to do with these resources?”
If you had to answer honestly, which one are you? Are you the steward who follows the Master's guidance about money and generosity? Or do you resist the Master with his guidance on what he’s entrusted to you?
Are you acting like the caretaker that God created us to be? Or are you acting like the owner?
Many of us don’t listen because we’re afraid of what God might say. We still believe the myth that more money equals more happiness. We’re afraid God might ask us to give something up. And deep down, we’re not sure we trust God as our provider.
That’s why Jesus says just a few verses earlier:
Luke 12:32 CSB “Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the kingdom.”
God is not a stingy investor trying to maximize profit margins. He is a loving Father forming sons and daughters who look like him—generous, joyful, free. And it is our honor to steward whatever he has placed in our hands.
Conclusion
So the invitation this week is simple. Not easy but simple, as are many of Jesus’ invitations.
Now is a good time to radically rethink your relationship to money and resources—not as owner or non-owner, but as caretaker.
Again, Jesus spoke on money in a significant number of his teachings and parables. Just as important as prayer or sabbath or discipleship is our journey in generosity. The topic of finances gives us a practical way to begin (or continue) our lifelong journey of listening to the voice of our loving, generous, joyful Father and provider.
Let’s hold space to reflect and consider our question from earlier.
“Father, what do you want me to do with my resources?”
