The Stewardship of Life Quotes

“It is not right for us to talk about what a needy world we live in and how messed up people are without being willing to obey God in the matter of giving.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“Our giving comes down to a heart matter. God is always interested in our heart. I refuse to reduce the Christian faith to manipulation. I refuse to reduce the Christian faith to gimmicks, trying to trick people into doing what they ought to do. It must always remain a matter of our heart given to God.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“God says, “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy” (I Timothy 6:17). God wants us to enjoy this life between these two nothings—nothing in, nothing out. It is not just to enjoy in eternity. Why do we lead people to believe that the only time a Christian is going to have any joy is when he gets to heaven?”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“Stewardship, living our lives between these nothings—“nothing into…nothing out”—is about living a life of obedience to our heavenly Father.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“God’s Word says in II Corinthians 8:9, speaking of the cross, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” This battle of stewardship is a battle over possessions. They do not belong to us. “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof” (Psalm 24:1). Every man who believes that his possessions belong to him, whether he is”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“The Bible says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain” (I Timothy 6:6). Do you know why it is great gain? Because there is nothing you can add to it. It totally satisfies. You cannot buy it with money. You cannot put someone in a classroom and teach it to him. It comes entirely from the Person of Jesus Christ as we live a life of obedience to Him—dead to self and Christ living in us.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“The Devil does not always use bad things. He gets more of his work done using good things. He gets much more damage done as an angel of light rather than as a roaring lion walking about “seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8). He will give you a good idea that is not in agreement with what God says. He will give you something good to do with your life that seems wonderful as far as this world is concerned, but it is actually a waste of our lives because it has no eternal effect on the world to come.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“The one requirement God makes of a steward is that the steward be faithful.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“Every Christian is God’s steward. The English word “steward” we find in our Bible is derived from a root word having to do with the keeper of a pigsty, the ward of a sty, or a steward. This person had the responsibility to care for the pigs. We find that a steward manages someone else’s property.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“I received a phone call from England one evening. It was about three in the morning in England. I said, “What in the world are you people doing up this time of night?” They said, “Oh Pastor, Pastor! We just had our one year anniversary, and we had over one hundred people here. We are celebrating how many people have been saved and what God is doing in this place, and we just want to thank you and thank the Temple Baptist Church, that God has used you to make all of this possible.” I thought to myself, “God said, ‘You bring; I will prove.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“Some people have done everything imaginable for their children except practice a life of obedience to God. The greatest gift you can give your children is the gift of your personal obedience to God. If you disobey God in an area, then you are sinning against your children.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“A man called me who watches our television program and said, “We are taking an offering for you, and we would like to give an offering to the gospel work in England. You just mentioned it in the sermon.” I said, “We would deeply appreciate it.” He said, “Maybe we can raise ten thousand dollars.” I said, “Oh, that would be so greatly appreciated because we are trying to open another chapel in another city in England, training the people to go there.” He called me after he took the offering and he said, “We do not have ten thousand, we have twenty, and we may have twenty more coming.” What did God do? I thank God for those people, but I am telling you the Lord raised the windows open in heaven.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“Some say, “Do you mean to tell me that if we all tithe and give offerings, there will be the accumulative effect of enough money?” Enough offering means some of that offering is in time, talent, ability, and gospel giving.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, wrote in II Timothy 3:1-4, This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. In verse five God’s Word says, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof….” The characteristic of our age is that we have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. When you look at the book of Malachi, God is speaking to His people. He is speaking to a remnant of believing people, and He is saying there must be more than a form; there must be the power.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“When you say John 3:16, insert your name. “For God so loved Clarence Sexton, that He gave His only begotten Son, that if Clarence Sexton would believe in Him, then Clarence Sexton would not perish, but have everlasting life.” Put your name in there. God wrote to His beloved people Israel in Malachi, and He put their name in and declared to them, “I love you.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“The work of “occupying” is laboring to see these citizens changed, coming to Christ. The great illustration of this is in Luke 19:1-10.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“When Christ says, “Occupy till I come,” He does not mean that we ought to cumber the ground and just take up space. There is work to be done for Him!”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“My mother-in-law taught me how to tithe and the responsibility I had to tithe. I was eighteen years old, and no one had ever said anything to me about it. My mother-in-law said to me when I was eighteen years old, “If you want God’s blessing on your life, if you want to be the right kind of husband to my daughter, then you ought to practice tithing as a conviction because you are a Christian and you want to have God’s blessing.” It was not the preacher; it was my mother-in-law. We all need someone to care enough about us to speak the truth in love.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“God said the reason that we have been forgiven is not because we deserve forgiveness. We have been forgiven by God for Christ’s sake. When the Lord God looks at the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the precious blood presented to God the Father in heaven, God forgives us for Christ’s sake, not for our sake. Because we have been the recipients of God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace, He says that we ought to be stewards of His grace to others.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“When we read an expression like this in Matthew 10, you and I have to stop and think, “How much of what we have received have we truly given?” If we are truly God’s stewards, if God has placed His goods in our hands, then of all we have freely received, how much have we freely given? Our Lord wants us to receive from Him and give as we have freely received.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“One of the great things that must be disturbed in our lives and in our churches if we are ever going to know God’s full blessing, is that we must consider the failure of not doing what is right to be as harmful and sinful as going out and doing wrong. So much of our Christian neglect is excused, like a child saying, “What am I doing wrong?” The answer should be, “Nothing, unless you consider not doing right to be terribly wrong.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“In the book of Ephesians the Lord tells us that we should forgive “even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven” us (Ephesians 4:32). None of us is ever forgiven on the basis of we have done. We do not deserve the forgiveness. God forgives us not because we deserve it, but because Christ deserves it. He paid our sin debt.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“He goes on to say, “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). In other words, you begin the good. Initiate the good. As you understand what you would like for people to do to you, you go ahead and make the first move; you initiate, you begin the good.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“The Christian life is not living a life that is a little better than people who are not Christians; it is living a life that is totally different.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“Many have the idea that once someone has made a profession of faith, that is all it is—a profession of faith. But God says we come to know Him so we can obey Him and do what He has given us to do. Our response to God determines how God responds to us—with the same measure.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“One of our missionaries called recently and said to me, “It is amazing how you learn how little you really need.” I wanted to say to him that I had not learned that yet. How many of you have not learned that yet? I am not sure he has learned it, but at least he said it. If we discover true riches, it will affect the way we live.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“We sing the little chorus, “Christ Is All I Need.” Dr. Vance Havner said, “You may say Christ is all you need, but He is not really all you need until you come to the place where He is all you have. When He is really all you have, then you recognize He is really all you need.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“In other words, God says if we are faithful in the temporal things, using them wisely for God’s use and God’s glory, then at the same time we are being faithful in that which is least, we are faithful also in that which is much. Time (the “least”) and eternity (the “much”) are connected in the present tense.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“Someone recently called me from another part of the world and said, “I want you to know about someone who professed faith in Christ. It was after reading your little booklet entitled, God So Loved the World. We give that booklet out in the U.S. to thousands of people. We give it out door-to-door when visiting people.” I remember writing and rewriting that little booklet, taking all manner of pains trying to get the simple gospel message across clearly. That was a very difficult thing to do, presenting it in a way to people so it could be printed and be given out, and translated into different languages. Then someone called and said, “I got saved because of that.” I know others have also. Was that a wise investment, to work on that, to print it, and to put it into people’s hands? Yes! We are going to see people in heaven because of that.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God

“One of these days I am going to meet the Lord, and I am going to face the question, “Did I do the best with what God gave me?” What will the answer be? I do not think any man or woman who is honest can say, “We always did the best we could do.” Before we so readily condemn the unjust steward, we need to point our fingers at ourselves and say, “We have not done as we could have and should have done.”
― Clarence Sexton, The Stewardship of Life: Our Response to God