Redeemer Church Mauritius
Stewardship: Stewarding The Church - Phil Kendon
We have all entrusted something of ours to someone else, believing that they are going to care for it as though it were their own. If you lend someone your car and they damage it through misuse, you would be very unhappy about that. If you pay for your child to go to university, but they spend their time drinking and partying and failing all their subjects, you would be very unhappy about that. We expect people to treat those privileges and those blessings with respect and with responsibility. The bible puts it like this in 1 Corinthians 4:2 – “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” The church is a gift from God through which we get to express our Christian faith. Every believer holds a place of great value in the heart of God, and the church as a whole is precious to him. This community is, therefore, something that we should steward with great care and respect. Through our attitude and actions, we should treat the people in the church with dignity, uphold its values, and participate in its mission.
Locations & Times
Redeemer Church Mauritius
Mauritius
Sunday 9:30 AM
- God has always expressed a deep love for the collection of his people, not just the person of faith.
Deuteronomy 32:9-10 (NIV)
For the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
- Jesus paid the highest price to purchase every member of the church, and he expresses a deep love and commitment to her.
Acts 20:28 (NIV)
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
Ephesians 5:25-27 (NIV)
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
- The church is one body because of Christ’s work on the cross. Our job is to preserve the unity of the church.
Romans 15:7 (NIV)
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
Ephesians 2:22 (NIV)
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 4:2-3 (NIV)
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 (NIV)
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.
- We honour others above ourselves and consider the needs of others before our own.
Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV)
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Romans 12:10 (NIV)
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
- Every local church has a DNA that is specific to the culture, the leadership gifts at the time, and the diversity of the congregation. We steward the church by contributing to its story.
1. Planting and Serving Churches
2. Caring for Others
3. Investing in Young People
4. Being a Family
5. Applying the Scriptures
6. Raising Up Leaders
7. Praying with Faith
8. Sharing the Gospel
- The mission of the church extends beyond its own location – it is to make disciples of all nations.
Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
The church is precious to God. Is it also precious to me?
