Foundations Class – Session 10: What Does God Want us to do with our Gifts

One day you'll stand before Jesus and give an account of what you did with what He gave you. The question isn't whether that day is coming — it's whether you'll be ready for it.

In this final session of the Foundations class, Pastor Mark Medley brings the series to a practical and personal close by talking about stewardship — the understanding that because we've been bought with a price, everything we have belongs to God, and we're called to manage it well for His glory and the good of others.

Pastor Mark walks through five areas of stewardship that touch every part of life. First, your time — drawing from Psalm 90 and the prayer "teach us to number our days," he shows how getting your days right is the key to getting your life right, and how understanding your season is connected to knowing God's will. Second, your talent — your unique combination of spiritual gifts, personality, experiences, and calling that no one else on earth shares. Third, your treasure — with an honest look at generosity, tithing, and the difference between living with the tight fists of an orphan and the open hands of a son or daughter who trusts their Father. Fourth, your temple — your physical body, and why taking care of it through proper nutrition, rest, and movement is a matter of stewardship, not vanity. And finally, your story — because your testimony doesn't require a theology degree. It just requires three things: this is who I was, this is who I am, and Jesus is the difference.

The session ends with a simple challenge: open your heart, open your ears, and open your mouth. You have something to give that no one else can.

This is part of the Foundations class at Trinity Community Church, taught by Pastor Kelly Kinder and Pastor Mark Medley.

We are Trinity Community Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Subscribe to our Podcast & YouTube channel to find past sermons, classes, interviews, and more!
Find us on Facebook & Instagram

Transcript

Finishing The Foundations Course

Mark Medley 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to lesson 10 of the Foundations Course. Hey, you've made it all the way to the end. Congratulations. This is a big deal. And we're going to finish today by talking about what God wants me to do with the things that He gives me. One of my favorite things to talk about is looking at what God has done for us now, how He's made us, and how can we take our uniqueness and how can we glorify Him and bless other people through it? So, what we're really talking about here is we're talking about stewardship. And a steward is someone who is put in charge of what belongs to another person. So when we see ourselves as bought with a price, redeemed by Jesus, that we're not our own, but we glorify God in our body. We glorify God with all the things that we that He has given us. We see that we're not our own, which means we belong to someone else. And we have to understand that the things that we are given are not ours either. They're really God's. And we are in charge of doing the very best thing that we can with them. We're in charge of stewarding them well. And so in Romans 14, 11 and 12, it says, as is it is written, As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, every tongue will confess to God. So then each of us will give account of himself to God. You know, Jesus told this story of the parable, uh, a story of uh the parable of the talents, which he he mentioned that these uh these men were given uh talents uh by their master, and the master went away, and they were supposed to do something with them. One was given 10, one five, one one. And so what do you what do you do? Uh what did they do with it? Well, they took the first two took them and they increased them. The other one took it and was afraid that he might lose it, uh, so he hid it in the ground. When the master came back and gave them and draw them and brought them into account of what they had done. Well, the first two said, Hey, we have taken what you gave us, and we made more. And he blessed them and he even gave them more because they were faithful. The one that had hidden it in the ground, he rebuked very harshly because he was holding this thing in and not stewarding it well. He was hiding it in the ground. So, what is God given? What has God given to you to be steward over? In Luke 16, verse 10 through 12, Jesus said, Whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with spiritual, true treasures? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? Here's this is the idea. Whatever we're given, we need to take it and multiply it. So from God's perspective, it's a matter of trust. I trust you with this. From our perspective, it's a matter of stewardship. What we're given, we do something with. So as Christians, I'm not my own. My stuff is not mine. It belongs to Jesus. Everything belongs to Jesus. How do I serve Him and serve people with it for His purposes? Okay, so you might be thinking, I may not, I don't really have a lot. Uh I don't have anything. Really much to steward, right? Well, let me give you a little list here. It's in your book, if you want to look at it. Uh, your time. You can be a steward over your money. You can be a steward over possessions that God has given you. And over your spouse, loving them and respecting them as they ought to. Over your children, if you have children, are you raising them in the fear and admonition of the Lord? You can steward your relationships and friendships. We can steward your burden or your calling from the Lord, your thoughts, your words, your actions, your spiritual gifts, your employment. You can steward your job and do it well. Your employees if you're over them, over some people, your witness for Christ, your position of influence, your vote, your talent and skill, your estate, your knowledge of scripture, your knowledge of ethics, your knowledge of general things, your uh maybe a word of prophecy that was spoken over you. There's a stewarding of that prophecy as well. Your body, taking care of your body and keeping it pure. Your trial or your suffering, what you're going through right now, you can steward that well. You can turn that into something that glorifies God. Your hands, your feet, what you do where you go, the care of the earth, all these things are areas that we all have opportunity to, from or at least most of these, we all have an opportunity to be a steward over. So at some point, the way I think of it is, what am I, what am I given that I'm going to stand before Jesus one day and say, here's what you gave me, and here's what I did with it. And that's a great thing, maybe to make some notes down there in your book. What are those things that you have that you'll stand before Jesus and say, Here's what I did. Here's how I was faithful with what you have given me. So we're going to talk about a few things here, okay? Um, some specifics. We're going to take some of those out of that list and talk about how that, what that looks like in our lives. First thing is my time. Ephesians 5, 15 through 17 says, Be careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. Some versions say, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. There is something connected with using our time correctly and understanding our times, what we're supposed to be doing in this season, that is connected to understanding God's will for your life. If you want to know God's will for your life, you have to discern your time. What is this time? Maybe your time is you're raising your children. This is God's will for your life. To put your effort and your most effort into your children, the worst thing, I think, would be to uh lose your children. Gain uh promotion in your job, gain money, gain uh ministry or recognition or something, and lose your children. Okay, so maybe you're the time in your life is you're raising children. Maybe the time in your life is you're past that and you're in your empty nest years, and now you're ready to do something else. But but knowing the will of God, understanding wisdom is connected to understanding your times. So be careful how you live, make the most of every opportunity. Today, today, I have an opportunity to make the most of my time for the kingdom of God. In Psalm 90, we see an interesting thing about time. First of all, we see Moses is the author of this uh psalm. And so Moses understood some things about time because he lived to be a very old person. We see in the scripture he lived to be 120 years old. He had three different sections of his life. The first 40 years, which were preparatory in Egypt, the second 40 years, which were preparatory in uh the wilderness while he was raising a family and shepherding sheep, and God was dealing with things in his own life as well. All this was preparatory for what he was going to do the last third of his life. And it's interesting, isn't it, that you could actually be prepared for 80 years for what you're gonna step into on your 80th birthday. It's possible. It's possible. But he says something interesting. He says, Teach us in chapter 12, uh, chapter in Psalm 90, verse 12, teach us to number our days right, that we might gain a heart of wisdom. Now, this is interesting. You kind of break this thing down here, right? So teach us. This means that we don't have it in ourselves normally. Uh there's something in the orientation of human beings that we don't always know what to do with our time and our seasons of our lives. We need to be taught. There needs to be humility. God needs to teach us the value of time. Teach us to number, and that word means number, or it also means order. Teach us to order order, bring order to. Is your life defined by the order that you bring to it? Are your days defined by purpose? And then it says, teach us to number or order our days. Days. Days. It doesn't say teach us to order, uh, number our years or our months or our weeks, even. It says our days. Interesting that he breaks it all the way down into that small segment of uh revolution of the earth, right? And so our days, because if we get our days right, we get our weeks right. And if we get our weeks right, we get our months right. And right months make right years, and that makes a right life. It's like you can't win the tennis match unless you win the point. You win the point, so you can win the game, so you win the set, so you can win the match, and you have to, but you have to work on the point in order to win the big picture, right? Teach us, Lord, we don't know how to order our small increments of time days correctly. There's a right way to order them in a wrong way, and that leads into wisdom so that we can gain a heart of wisdom. Ordering our days, spending our time right, is wise. It's one of the most uh one of the things that scripture speaks of, using your days, um, which brings wisdom. I was thinking of the sons of Issachar, it says that they understood their seasons and so they knew what Israel should do. They understood their times, they were discerning of what was going on, so they knew they were, they became wise as to what needs to happen. So time is a great leveler. Everybody has the same amount. I have the same amount as you. We don't have the same amount of talent or of money, uh, but we have the same amount of time, right? We have we have everybody is the same. So what we do with what we're given makes the difference between my life and your life. So the greatest use of time is to spend it on something that will outlast you. And yet, I think there's nothing in our culture that we squander more than time. We literally can scroll for we could scroll for hours on our phone. We could binge a show on TV for hours, and our days are gone. So how do we measure our days right? If we waste our days, we waste our destiny. God teach me to do this correctly. There's some there's a couple of questions in your book you can talk, you can answer, and maybe meditate on that and journal on that. My talent is one thing. Another thing that I can um that I can be a steward over is my talent. What is it that God has given me that I bring to the people who are around me? What's my my unique perspective, my unique spiritual gifts, my unique um personality, my unique calling or heart passion, my abilities that I have and not everybody has, my experiences that not everybody has experienced. All of these things shape me into what God can use to you to make a unique influence and impact on my sphere of influence. So, what are the talents or strengths that God's given me to steward them? And am I stewarding them well? One of the great things you'll have a chance to do uh if you're part of Trinity Community Church, is to come and uh take part in a fit class. Our fit class, it stands for fitting in at Trinity, but it really is fitting in in the kingdom of God, and we talk about those very things. What are my spiritual gifts? Paul gives um three lists of spiritual gifts, and that's in Ephesians 4 and in Romans 12 and in 1 Corinthians 12. There are things that God is giving to each of us, and we have different ones, and you have abilities and gifts that I don't have. So you have a way to love God and love people that I don't have because of your unique uh spiritual gifts. Uh, we talk about the calling of God on our lives, the the heart passion, the thing that makes our uh makes us um cry, that brings us to a place where we know something has to be done about this. And this is probably a burden in my heart that I need to do something about. Uh we talk about our spiritual gifts, our heart passion, our abilities, uh, skills that have been given to us, our uh personalities, unique way that we view things and we express things and our experiences, all those things. We talk about all those things. And we talk about uh this we also use the Clifton Strengths Finder. We add all that together and we say, hey, what are the ways that you are unique and how can you uh bless people around you? I love what Peter says at 1 Peter 4, verse 9 through 11. Each one should use whatever gift he's been given to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. So each one of us is unique. And I love how Paul says it too in Romans chapter 12. He says, For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each one of us, uh just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have differing gifts according to the grace given to us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it's serving, let him serve. If it's teaching, let him teach. If it's encouraging, let him encourage. Do you see a pattern here? If it's contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously. If it's leadership, let him govern, let him govern diligently. If it's showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. But Paul is basically saying there's something that you've been given, a measure of faith and a gift of grace. Okay, and whatever you've been given. So it's interesting that he says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think. Okay, we can understand that. Don't be proud and haughty and have an overly high view of estimation of your worth. But he also says, think soberly. In other words, don't think more lowly than you should think. Don't think too high, don't think too low, because you have been given a measure of faith and a gift of grace. And whatever that is, use it. If it's prophecy, prophesy. If it's serving, serve, if it's giving, give, if it's teaching, teach, if it's encouraging, encourage. This is like whoever you are, be and honor God and steward your talent that way. Okay, then we also have the third T: time, talent, and treasure. Treasure. What has God given me? What has He put in my hands to be able to give to other people? So we'll read this in Acts chapter 4, verse 32 to 35. All believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time, those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales, and put it at the apostles' feet. And it was distributed to anyone as he had need. So there's this generosity of what was having. Now, okay, so you might say, wow, that sounds like communism, it's Marxism. No, it's not at all. Because this was done voluntarily. This is like the opposite of communism. This was done because hearts were changed. From the inside out, this was this happened, right? Hearts were changed. People saw needs, they loved people, they loosened their grip. You know, communism is from the outside in. Communism requires this of you. Communism makes you do this, and it doesn't work. This is something very different. But it's it's the sign of your heart. You know, Jesus did look. It says that he was at the treasury one day and he was looking as people were giving what they were giving. And a widow gave a small bit, all she had. Other people were bringing and giving out of their excess. And Jesus said, This poor woman has given more than all of them, because she gave all that she had, and they gave out of their excess. And so the point is, Jesus was looking at what was being given. He's looking. So do you honestly view your money and your possessions as belonging to God and not yourself? Is it all his? So um money and time uh both have to be planned. The way you spend them have to be planned in order for you to get the most out of them, right? You're gonna spend money with or without a plan. Uh, and you can only spend your money one time. And so I need a plan for my money. So here's a great way to plan. Think of it this way: I plan to give. And the Bible speaks of tithing, and it's a good place to start in your giving. Tithing is an Old Testament, it began in the Old Testament, but it wasn't a law of the Old Testament. It predated the law. It happened, it began before the law even came in place. So it's something deeper than a law. In the New Testament, Jesus said, uh, talked about the Pharisees tithing, and they tithe, but they they leave out the most important things of mercy and sacrifice and justice. And he said, they ought to tithe, but they ought to not forget these things. And so uh Jesus never said, don't do it. Um, it's giving, I think, I think tithing is one thing, and giving beyond your tithe is important. It's a great barometer of your heart, right? So give, live like this. Orphans live like this. Orphans live with their hands uh grasping, you know, and closed and tight-fisted and and cross-armed, and I will not because I don't know what I'm gonna, what's gonna tomorrow's gonna bring. I need to, I need to provide for myself. And I'm this is an attitude of an orphan. It's not an attitude of a son or daughter who knows they're loved by a father who loves to protect and provide. Uh sons and daughters live with open arms. So their arms are open, their hands are out, stretched, their their stuff is not their stuff. Their stuff is God's stuff. And if they want, if God wants us to use it for other people, this is what we do. Give, tithe, give beyond your tithe, and then save for the future or invest. Uh pay off your debt. Debt is unwise. Scripture says to owe no man anything except or love one another. Another. So pay it off. Pay your taxes and then fund your lifestyle out of that. Okay. There's a lot more we could do about that. But um have an open hand. This quote from Dave Ramsey, Dave Ramsay, the financial guru. Have an open hand. The idea of holding money with an open hand might seem to violate common sense. We feel that if we don't hold on tightly our money to our money and our relationships, they will slip away. I'm not saying literally hold your money with an open hand. It represents your attitude toward money. When you give, you open yourself up. You allow the dollars to leave and the freedom to enter. This is good stuff, okay? And then giving beyond money, giving is not just money. And by the way, I would say your local church is your first place to give, not to other ministries. I'm saying you should and can give to other ministries. That's fine. But your first place to give is those people is the place where you're being pastored. You know, the other ministries aren't coming to visit you in the hospital, right? When you're sick, or coming alongside your family when you need counseling, or you're grieving over a loss or whatever. There's a there is a place where hopefully you're connected. And that place you're connected is a place where you're being shepherded, being pastored by loving shepherds. And that should be the place where your tithe goes, in my opinion. And then uh other other places after that. If you don't have money to give, you can also go to your local homeless shelter and serve food. And then sit at the table and eat with the men and women you have served. That's giving. Uh go to a nursing home and read to the elderly for an afternoon. Help someone change a tire, whatever you can give. You can give. Okay, that's the thing. Time, your talent, your treasure. And number four, is your temple. That's your body. In 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, who you have received from God. You're not your own. You are bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. This is specifically in the context. He's talking about a temple here. He's specifically talking about this in the context of our body. Our temple is our body. And so if I'm not owned, if I'm bought at a price, my body is not my own. My body is for Jesus. That means I have to keep it sexually pure for Jesus. That is the context of 1 Corinthians 6, by the way, is sexual purity. How do I keep myself sexually pure? Do I smoke? Do I drink excessively? Do I use illegal drugs? Do I frequent all you can eat buffets? What am I doing to my body? How can I motivate? How can I change my motivation from just receiving and satisfying my lusts of my flesh to bringing my body under subjection so that I live longer, healthier, so I can give to people and give to God more. That's the idea. What's your wellness program? You know, what I've learned is there's really three things you need. You need fuel, you need rest, and you need movement. So proper nutrition, proper exercise, proper rest. This is it. This is this is very simple. If you do that, if you focus on those things, if you pay attention over a long, like a marathon, not a not a sprint, but a marathon, the life, a lifetime, then you're going to live longer, you're going to live healthier, you're going to bless your family, your friends, people outside, you're going to be uh able to be used by God. There are some people who cannot minister because they're not able to do it in a healthy way. There's some people that want would love to come on trips with me overseas, but they can't they can't do it. They don't have the physical ability to do it. They could get they could get to that place if they work at it, but that's if they haven't taken care of their temple enough to do it. Okay, so there's a lot we could talk about about that. But we don't have time to do that. Uh last thing I'll say is I can steward my story. My story. So my time, my talent, my treasure, my talent, and my temple, right? And then there's my story. My telling. How's that? We can do that. And my telling, my telling. Each of them came to know Christ because somebody cared enough to share Christ with us and share the gospel and to befriend us or invite us to church. And and God gives us this awesome opportunity to be able to give that to somebody else. We have a word to speak, we have a testimony to tell. And it's very simple. You can just say, This is the way I was, this is the way I am. And the difference maker was Jesus. It's really simple. It's not something you have to do. You don't have to go to school for this, you don't have to have a degree to do it. You don't even have to know a whole lot of the Bible to do it. People see your life, and you can say, This is who I was, this is who I am. Jesus is the difference. It's simple. So God gives us the awesome opportunity to work together with him on his mission to bring hope and eternal life to others. So Acts chapter 1, verse 8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. And then, so you know, the Holy Spirit's given to us for a purpose. It's not just that we would feel good or have good meetings, or you know, uh all of the things we talked about in our previous session about how He was He is our guide into truth and He's our guide in grief. He's our guide uh along our way. He helps us in prayer, but all that's true, but that's not all. You receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you for the purpose of witnessing to your, and this was like concentric circles, right? Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, all the earth. Okay, there's ways you can affect your family, your immediate friends and community, the greater area and even the world. There are ways that you can you can do something to affect those things. 1 Peter 3, verse 15 says, But in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. So your story is like nobody else's story. And so you've got something to say that I can't even say. You have a revelation of Jesus and how he's worked in your life that I don't even have. Use it, use it, be a good steward of your story. Your two most powerful tools, the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit, combined with your story. I love it when the when Jesus healed the blind man, and then they kept uh asking him, the religious people kept asking him, what happened? What happened? What happened? And he just kept saying, you know, I've already told you what happened. Here, I don't know. I don't know if he's the Messiah, I don't know any big theological things, but here's what I know. I was blind, now I can see. That's it. And he kept saying that. This is my story, I'm sticking to it. I was blind, now I see. This is all I know. It's okay if that's all you know. This is a great story, right? So, what was I then? What am I now? Where would I be without Jesus? When you tell your story, you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to know fancy religious words, you just tell your story. Open your heart, open your ears. Open your heart means be in a posture of seeing what's around you and who God might be connecting you to or want you to speak to. Open your ears to hear from the Lord and hear from people. One of the greatest things you can do to love somebody is to listen to them and then open your mouth. There's your challenge this week is how do I open my heart, open my ears, and open my mouth. So, Father, thank you for what you've given us. All the practical things, Lord, as we talked about today, our time day by day, our talents, what you've made us to be, our treasure, the money and the and the possessions we have, and um and our story, Lord, our temple, our body, and our story. So, God, I pray for you to give us grace to be able to live lives so that when we stand before you, we say, Here's what we did with what you gave us. And we're not ashamed. And you say, Well done. This is our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thanks so much. You guys have made it all the way to the end of 12 sessions of the Foundation's class. And if you have any questions, you feel free to contact the office, contact one of the pastors. You can talk to me and talk to Kelly, definitely. We are so willing to open up and uh like talk to you about the things that we've covered here. And there are other opportunities for you to be able to grow in your discipleship. Do sign up for the fit class if you haven't yet, because it's a great opportunity for you to learn who you are. And any way that we can help you to grow in your walk with Jesus, we want to be able to be present and uh and do that for you. So thanks so much for being with us and God bless.