He's not looking for investors in ownership. The company is not up for sale. Dr. Tony Evans says putting too much stock in ourselves is always a bad investment.
So what God is saying is if you want the full expression of me working in your life, give up ownership. This is the alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Today, Dr. Evans will teach us why stewardship isn't about rules but relationship, and describe the potential we unlock when we make that discovery.
You'll want to turn to Genesis chapter 1 as we join him. It's easy to forget. What's yours and what's not. Just because you're in the vicinity of it. Psalm 24, verse 1 says, The earth is the Lord's.
And the fullness thereof, the world and all of them who dwell in it. God claims Comprehensive kingdom ownership of all of creation.
So there are no other owners. If you grab that. That you owe nothing. You have now set yourself on a journey. of understanding life.
Because most people Think they own what they don't own. Just cause they have it. And so God created mankind. To be his stewards. And he would equip them for their stewardship.
So you are part of a, I'll put it in business terms, you're part of a. Association of Managers. A steward's. The Bible calls it stewardship. To protect and expand the assets of another.
Because God is expecting his people to expand what he got started in the garden throughout all of his creation. That's what God is after. Chapter 2, verse 15. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may freely eat.
But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, You shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. He tells Adam, Eve has not been created yet, she's going to be created shortly. He tells Adam, because Adam was to be the one who bore first responsibility, so he's created first.
So he tells Adam, look, I'm gonna give you a house. In my home, I'm gonna give you an apartment in my house, and we're gonna name your apartment Eden. This is gonna be where you live. It's going to be your homestead.
So he gives him a homestead and he calls the homestead Eden. This homestead was a well-treed property. A bunch of trees on this homestead. There we go. He gives him a bunch of he says, now from every tree of the garden, you may freely.
E And I want you to keep it and cultivate it. To cultivate means to unlock its potential. When a farmer cultivates the soil, He's doing it to plant seeds. Because the seeds are going to produce new things. In other words, I want you to bring out of it what.
It can do. Therefore, let me say this: it is a sin not to maximize your potential. It is wrong not to maximize under God the potential of what He's placed in your sphere of responsibility. You are not to be satisfied with not becoming all that God created you to be because the whole point of stewardship is to unlock the potential. Under God.
In relationship to him.
So he says, I want you to now, watch this. Freely eat of all the trees in the garden. The first use of the word free is not the American Constitution. The first use of the word free is the Garden of Eden by God Himself. Because men were created to be free to maximize their potential underneath God with all that God has provided for them to do that with.
Adam is a single man. He's not married yet.
So I always say to the single, if you are not maximizing your freedom as a single Christian, you're sinning. Because he commanded him to do it. And he's not married.
So he commands a single man, rather than whining that there's no mate, you better use these trees to the max. Eat freely from all the trees. Maximize your potential of the garden that I put you in, the sphere of my ownership that I have given you to manage. I want you to get everything out of creation that creation has the potential to provide you. Keep it, that means protect it.
Cultivate it, that means unleash. what it can do. And if you're not thinking like that, you're not thinking like a good manager. A good manager wants to expand the business. A good manager wants to get more renters in if it's an office build.
A good manager wants to expand it. For the sake of the owner. He says, However, Yeah. I'm gonna put a tree in your den. One tree in the middle of your garden.
So I'm going to say the den. Because the den is usually in the middle of most houses. I'm going to put it in the midst of the garden. I'm going to put it in the den. Usually to go to the kitchen you gotta go through the den.
Usually to go to the bedroom, you got to go through the den. Because the den is situated in the center of most homes. And so he says, in the middle of your house, Eden, I'm going to put one tree, and that tree you can't touch. You you can't touch that tree.
Now all these other trees Use them to the max. But that tree We'll kill you. If you take of that tree, you're going to die. You're gonna die. Why would God put a tree in the middle of the garden that could kill you while telling me I got all these other trees I can have fun with?
Because every time you get up and go to the kitchen. And every time you get up and go to the bedroom, I want you to be reminded this is not your house. I don't want you to get so used to the garden you think is yours. Did you think this is your house? You own it.
No, no, I'm letting you live here. And to let you know I'm letting you live here, I'm gonna stick it right smack dab in the den.
So that any movement you take, you gotta bypass that tree. Oh, it's not my house. Oh, it's not my house. Let me say a word about the tree. It was a Google tree.
Yeah! It's a Google tree. Because it was the tree of the knowledge. of good and evil.
So it was an information center.
Okay, you could Google any data you wanted on this tree because it was an information center. He says, I don't want you to eat of this tree. But why would not I eat of the tree when it's got so much information in it? Good and evil. It's got good information, it's got bad information, it's a Google tree.
Why wouldn't I take advantage of this tree? Because God wanted to tell his management association and all of the members of it. That I do not want your basis of knowledge to be knowledge that you reason. I want your basis of knowledge to be knowledge that I reveal. I want you to live by revelation, not human reason.
The worst thing that the manager can do Is put his Rebellious intellect on God's property. Our world is in chaos today. Because people are living their lives based on the Google tree. Based on their own ability to reason. Based on education, information, relationships, who they know, rather than the revealed will of God.
And God is saying this is not your house. And I'm putting it right smack in the middle of the garden so that you are reminded every time you move up and down, my creation is not yours. This is mine! I'm just letting you here to manage it for me.
Okay, let me by a show of hands, how many of you own your homes? Neil Holmes. No, you don't. No no, you don't. Uh-uh.
No. The bank owns your home. The bank owned your home.
Now, you feel like you own it. You think you own it. But miss enough payments, and the bank will let you know what you thought you owned, you don't own. We're gonna foreclose on you.
So we use the term owning. But Technically, I don't know.
However Even though the bank's the owner, You manage it. See, the bank doesn't come over and manage your house. They don't take out the trash. They don't fix the plumbing. The bike is an odor.
But the bank sets you free to manage it.
So you could be a terrible manager. of something you don't own. We've all been around people who don't take care of their houses, who don't take care of their lawns, who don't take care of their trash, who don't, they don't take care of it. Yeah, yeah. to mess it up.
Even though it still claims ownership. God is giving you the freedom. To mess up. What he created. In fact, he's given you and me so much freedom we can hand it over to the devil if we want.
Because that's what Adam did.
So, as a manager, as a steward of God's kingdom, you are free now to mess up the garden, to mess up the life, to mess up the family, to mess up your world, to become an addict. And just because you were created by God doesn't mean you don't have the freedom to be a bad manager. Because the bank gives you the freedom to do that, and so does God. And so. He says, I want you.
To live under me, and I want you to make my creation fruitful. The interesting about fruitful, he said, be fruitful and multiply. That's not just having kids. That's one way you're fruitful and multiply, but it means to unpack. potential that did not previously physically exist.
Deuteronomy 28:4 says being fruitful includes what you do with the land, what you do with the produce.
So he talks about fruitfulness in a variety of different ways.
So fruitfulness is everything you unpack that God has created. But that fruitfulness only occurs in the context of a certain kind of relationship. and doctor Evans will return in a moment to describe that for us. First, though, I want to tell you about a powerful resource that builds on what Tony's been teaching today. His book, Kingdom Stewardship.
Takes an in-depth look at how God wants us to manage everything He's entrusted to us and the freedom and confidence that come from doing that. when you make a contribution to support the alternative ministry. We'll send you this book, along with a comprehensive Kingdom Stewardship Resource Bundle. It includes all twelve full-length messages from the current two-volume teaching series, plus a study guide and a leader's kit with downloadable video teaching sessions, perfect for personal growth or for leading a small group through these stewardship principles together. You can get all the details at tonyevans.org.
Or call our resource center anytime at 1-800-800-3222. Once again, that's one eight hundred eight hundred three two two two. to take advantage of the special Kingdom Stewardship Package offer. I'll repeat our contact information for you after the second part of today's lesson. Here's Tony.
The only way a couple has a kid is that they are intimate. And the intimacy that produces the pregnancy produces something that didn't exist before.
So a lot of people want God's rule who don't want intimacy with God's relationship.
So the Lord God told him to be fruitful, to multiply, to create things. That did not exist before, the potential existed. That's why I want you to bring it out. Men are caretakers when you take your kids to school. They're your kids, they're not the school's kids.
A lot of us have good motives, but we're making bad decisions because it's not coming from a steward relationship. It's coming because we think we have the right to do it, even though the owner has not given us permission. God says, I want you to unpack the potential. One of my grandsons loves Legos. Legos is his thing.
Legos is what he loves to do. He loves to get these pieces and construct things.
Now, Legos don't come with stuff constructed. The whole point is to connect the dots so that you take what's in the Lego box and you craft something new out of it. God has filled creation with Legos. All kinds of things that can be. That's why mankind can come up with all these new ideas using the same stuff, make it new and improved, and make you think you're getting something different.
God wants us to craft out of creation. Out of relationship. For the purpose of the owner. Utilized by his managers. It's yours to manage.
Not yours to own. He told them in verse 28. And I will bless them and they will rule. of Genesis 1. Blessing is the experience of God's favor.
Blessing is the favor of God. Entrusted to us for ourselves and for the benefit of others.
Now, here's the key. Ruling was tied to relationship reflecting God's image. And this ruling in concert with relationship. For the purpose of managing what God has placed in you is the key to experiencing blessing. If you are opposed to the owner.
What you think you own is in trouble.
Now you may not see it right now. But over time when Adam and Eve blew it, their whole world fell apart. Emotionally, they were now scared of everything. Their marriage was in trouble. He and his wife were in conflict with one another.
It says, and she will seek to rule over you, and you will seek to rule over her.
So there'll be a battle in the house. In fact, by the time you get to Genesis chapter 6, the whole world has to be destroyed. Because when you decide to own something you don't own and only gets ticked off because you have left your manager of responsibility, you have now walked away from your blessing. Because he says blessing was tied. to being his image over what belongs to him not you It's on loan for a brief period of time in this life.
And so what God is saying is if you want the full expression. Of me. Working in your life. Give up ownership. Give up.
Stop owning you. Or anything that is under your care, manage it. As according to my will, my word. And our relationship, but don't. Claim ownership.
In fact, 1 Corinthians 6, 19 says, don't even claim ownership over your own body. I mean, that's how God gets down to that kind of detail. You don't own you, you've been bought with a price, he says.
Now, there is a way you can get away from this. You can get away from this. Let me give you the secret. Here's all you got to do. If you don't like this sermon, if you don't like this truth, if you don't like the word that I've given you, let me give you an escape clause.
Okay?
So, everybody who wants to be an owner, here is what you've got to do: go create your own world. Uh Cool. Go create your world and you can own it. But since nobody has that ability or capacity to create their own world, give it up. Give up ownership.
Give up ownership because God knows what he's doing. He knows what anybody who can create all of this for this long with all this potential. Captain, know what he's doing. But the managers want to do their own thing. That's why the Bible says lean not to your own understanding.
You haven't been here long enough, don't know enough. This is mine. But God now has to contend with the generation of Benedict Arnold's. People who claim God but who work for the opposing management company. Who work for the other team while claiming a relationship with God and rulership under God?
When God says, if you will give up ownership and come under my ownership and accept your managerial responsibility, that's where the blessing is.
So the question is, how many owners are in the house? Oh, now nobody's hand goes up.
Okay, I understand. But in all seriousness, if you will decide, if I will decide. If collectively we decide, if your family decides, every sphere, if you decide I give up ownership. I give up ownership because I've tried to own it and it's not working. Give up ownership.
Become a manager instead. Because our owner Already owns it, and he's not requesting joint ventures. He's not looking for investors in ownership. The company is not up for sale. And since it is not available to be owned on any level, he is not.
Selling stock. This is not a company that's being offered as a public offering. He will keep ownership. He has ownership. He's not going to compromise ownership.
He's not going to sell stock. He's not going to do any of that. From eternity to eternity is his. Yeah, yeah. Why fight it?
It's not available. But management opportunities are. Dr. Evans will return in just a moment with an important final question to consider. Stay with us.
This October Journey Through Israel with Tony Evans. We're going to gather together with many of our friends to survey the sites of the Holy Land. We're going to go to the Jordan River, the Sea of Galilee, the Garden Tomb, the Garden of Gethsemane. We're going to open God's Word together and watch its truth leap off of the pages of Scripture as we walk where our Lord walked and see. God, give us new excitement about His greatness and about the truth of His Word.
Uh It's an unforgettable experience that'll change the way you understand scripture. Space is limited, so visit tonyevans.org today to get all the details and register before it's too late. That's tonyevans.org. 10 wonderful days in the Holy Land. Looking forward to meeting you as we tour Israel together.
As we've been hearing today, kingdom stewardship isn't about what you own, it's about how you use what God's placed in your hands for His purposes. That's the focus of Dr. Evans' book, Kingdom Stewardship. It'll help you see how your time, talents, and treasures fit into God's greater kingdom agenda. We'd love to send you that book, along with the complete Kingdom Stewardship Resource Bundle.
a package that contains all twelve full length audio messages from the series, an in depth study guide, and a leader's kit with downloadable video teaching sessions designed to help you lead a small group through these life shaping principles. The entire package is yours with our thanks when you make a donation to help keep these broadcasts coming your way. To take advantage of this limited-time offer, get the details at tonyevans.org. or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222. where one of our friendly team members is ready to help with your request.
Again, that's 1-800-800-3222-800. or online at tonyevans.org.
Well, the old saying goes, what's mine is mine. But what if it isn't? That's what Dr. Evans explores next time. As he explains why what we thought were rights are really responsibilities.
Right now, though, he's back to wrap up our time together with these closing comments.
So the question is. Will you? Give up ownership. In terms of God. Become a manager and find out what the owner wants in every sphere of everything under your sphere of influence.
Give him permission to use all that he's given you to. Unleash the potential of all you are, all you have, and all over which you're responsible, and then watch what he does in your life, in your world for your good. because you will now be giving him pleasure. See, now he's gonna smile. We all have met people who don't know their place.
We tell them you don't know your place. God looks at humanity and say they don't know their place. That's what happened at the Tower of Babel. They said, we will be like God. We don't need God.
We're going to build a tower and we're going to get to heaven ourselves. The Bible says in Genesis 11, God came down and said, they don't know their place.
So we're going to cause havoc.
So, all this havoc, you see, political havoc, racial havoc, social havoc, all this stuff. You see, it's God saying they don't know their place. But if God can get a group of people who know their place. Yeah. Who understands you are a manager, not an owner, and you give it up?
You have positioned yourself for the God of the Bible. To bless you.
