He is diligently working day by day, and often minute by minute, to keep his head in the game and not allow the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions (I John 2:16, CSB) to break down the wall of self-control that is a defining characteristic of a good and faithful steward.
The good and faithful steward, by contrast, is constantly restraining and retraining his natural impulses to keep all of these fleshly desires (both good and bad) under control. They are like a city broken into and left without walls. In one or more ways, they are lacking self-control. They cannot control their tempers, appetites, emotions, tongues, sex drives, or spending. We all know people who lack self-control. With nothing to contain him, he lives a life that is out of control in one or more ways. I think Solomon makes this point best when he says in Proverbs 25:28, A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. Just two verses later, he applies self-control to himself when he says, But I discipline my body and keep it under control. Paul uses the discipline and self-control of an athlete in training to illustrate the controlled life of a steward in I Corinthians 9:25. Paul also commands young men and women to be self-controlled in Titus 2:5-6. Older men are instructed to be self-controlled in Titus 2:2. Elders are charged in Titus 1:8 to have their lives under control. Paul repeats several times in his letter to Titus that believers are to live a controlled life. Self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23). Living a controlled life is a foundational characteristic of a good and faithful steward. #2-A Good and Faithful Steward Lives a Controlled Life Socrates correctly concluded, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Would the word examined describe your life? He recognizes that the gravitational pull of this world and the unpredictable winds of temptation can very quickly get him off course. The good and faithful steward is like the attentive pilot in flight-continually examining the course of his or her life to determine if it is still on the flight pattern that has been set by the “Tower.” The steward will routinely make the necessary midcourse corrections to his life regardless of how subtle or how dramatic they need to be. If he doesn’t, he will find after several hours of flying that his plane is actually hundreds of miles off course. Because of this, the pilot must be vigilant in making continual minor course corrections to bring the plane back on course. Pilots say that a plane is off course about 95% of the time due to wind currents, barometric pressure, and other factors. Crisis examination is certainly better than no examination at all, but a good and faithful steward will be performing routine self-examination as part of his or her daily life. In the midst of that trial, we finally pause to take stock of our lives to determine what might have caused this difficult situation. Unfortunately, we far too often examine our lives only when something is going wrong or we face some significant crisis. Stewards will be continually examining their behavior-their motives, their thoughts, their attitudes, the direction their lives are headed, and whether their lives are a close replica of the life of Jesus.
When you are a faithful steward of someone else’s resources, there is nothing more appropriate for you to do than to routinely examine how effectively you are carrying out His responsibilities. Even Jeremiah exhorts his people in Lamentations 3:40 (ESV), Let us test and examine our ways. He also tells them in I Corinthians 11:28 that a man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. In II Corinthians 13:5 (NIV), Paul instructs the believers in Corinth, Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith test yourselves. The practice of living a life of regular self-examination is often referenced in the Bible.
#1-A Good and Faithful Steward Lives an Examined Life
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