They are “like a city broken into and left without walls.”
They cannot control their spending. In one or more ways they are lacking self-control. We all know people who lack self-control.
Just two verses later he applies self-control to himself when he says, “But I discipline my body and keep it under control…” 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.” There is nothing to contain him and he lives a life that is out of control in one or more ways. 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. Young men and women are to be self-controlled as well in Titus 2:5-6. Older men are to be self-controlled in Titus 2:2. Elders are to have their lives under control in Titus 1:8. Paul repeats several times in his letter to Titus that believers are to live a controlled life. Living a controlled life is a foundational characteristic of a good and faithful steward. Self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23). #2 – A Good and Faithful Steward Lives a Controlled Life So, would the word examined describe your life? Socrates correctly concluded, “The unexamined 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 whatever mid-course corrections to his life that are needed regardless of how subtle or how dramatic they need to be. Because of this, the pilot must be vigilant in making continual minor course corrections to bring the plane back on course. If he doesn’t, he will find, after several hours of flying that his plane is actually hundreds of miles off course. Pilots say that a plane is off course about 95% of the time it is flying due to wind currents, barometric pressure, etc. Crisis examination is certainly better than no examination at all, but a good and faithful steward will be doing 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 only examine our lives 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 if their life is a close replica of the life of Jesus. There is nothing more appropriate for a faithful steward of someone else’s resources to routinely examine how effectively he is doing in carrying out his responsibilities. In II Corinthians 13:5 Paul told the believers in Corinth, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith test yourselves…” 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 (referring to taking communion ).” Even Jeremiah exhorts his people in Lamentations 3:40, “Let us test and examine our ways.” This 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
As we examine each of these three characteristics, may it enable us to better assess how well we are personally doing actually living the life of a good and faithful steward. In this lesson, we are going to consider the three dominant life-characteristics present in a good and faithful steward. Now that we are clear on what it means to be a steward and how we can get our directions from the Owner on what He wants us to do with what He has entrusted to us, let’s unpack specifically what the life of an obedient steward should look like.
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