THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER—A STEWARD – Charles Spurgeon
The Sunday School Teacher – A Steward
Introduction: The Responsibility of Stewardship
“Give an account of your stewardship.” (Luke 16:2)
We have heard many times in our lives that we are all stewards to Almighty God. It is a solemn truth of our religion that the rich man is responsible for the use of his wealth; that the talented man must give an account to God of the interest he gains upon his talents. Every one of us, in proportion to our time and opportunities, must give an account for ourselves before Almighty God. But, my dear brothers and sisters, our responsibility is even deeper and greater than that of other men! We have the ordinary responsibility which falls upon all professing Christians to give an account of all we have to God. But, besides this, you and I have the extraordinary responsibilities of our official standing – you, as teachers for Christ in your classes, and others of us as preachers for Him before the great congregation.
The Role of a Steward: What Does it Mean?
The first responsibility is too heavy for any man to fulfill. Apart from divine grace, it is impossible for any man to use all that God has given him in such a way as to be accepted with the “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Yet, even if that were possible, it would still remain an utter impossibility for us to fully sustain the fearful weight of responsibility that rests upon us as teachers of the Word of God to our fellow immortals.
Upon our necks, there are two yokes – sovereign grace can make them light and easy, but apart from that, they will gall our shoulders. They are, of themselves, too heavy for us to bear. Common responsibility is like Solomon’s whip, but extraordinary responsibility derived from official standing, when neglected, will be like the scorpion of Rehoboam – its little finger shall be thicker than its father’s loins.
Woe unto the watchman who warns not! Woe unto the minister who fails to teach the truth! Woe unto the Sunday school teacher who is unfaithful to his trust!
Let us stir one another up on this serious and important matter. You will pray for me while I preach, that I may speak words that will do good to all now present. I will labor that God may, in answer to your prayers, give me thoughts and words which shall be a blessing to you.
First, let us understand the meaning of our being stewards. Then, let us consider what kind of account we shall have to give. Lastly, let us notice the days of reckoning when we ought to cast up our account and when we must give in our account.
I. The Steward – What Is He?
In the first place, the steward is a servant. He is one of the greatest of servants, but he is only a servant. Perhaps he is the bailiff of a farm and looks, to all intents and purposes, like a country farmer. He rides over his master’s estate and has many men under him. Still, he is only a servant—he is under authority. He is only a steward.
Perhaps he is steward in the house of some gentleman who employs him to oversee the entire establishment so that he may be free from concerns in that area. He is himself a master, but still, he is a servant, for he has one over him. Let him be as proud as he pleases, he has little to be proud of, for the rank he holds in life is that of a servant.
Now, the minister and the Sunday school teacher especially stand in the rank of servants. We are none of us our own masters. We are not independent gentlemen who may do as we please! Our classes are not our own farms that we may till in our own manner and neglect if we wish. They are not such that we may produce any harvest or none at all, at our own discretion. No, we are nothing better than stewards, and we are to labor for our Master in heaven!
The Steward as a Humble Servant
What a strange thing it is to see a minister or a teacher giving himself fine airs, as if he were somebody in the world and could do as he pleased. Is it not an anomaly? How is he to talk about the sacrifices he makes when he is spending only his Master’s property? How is he to boast about the time which he expends when his time is not his own? It is all his Master’s! He is a servant, and therefore, do what he may, he only discharges the duty for which he is well rewarded.
He has no reason to be proud or to lord it over others, for whatever his power among them may be, he is himself neither more nor less than a servant! Let each of us try to remember this: “I am only a servant.”
If a superintendent puts a teacher in a class that she does not like, she will remember that she is a servant. She does not allow her servants at home to stand up and say they are not going to do the dishes but will only wait on tables. They are servants and must do as they are told! And if we felt that we were servants, we should not object to do what we are told for Christ’s sake – though we would not do it at the dictation of men, yet for Christ’s sake we do it as unto the Lord!
The Steward’s Honor
We do not suppose that our servants will come to us at night expecting us to say, “You have done your work very well today.” We do not imagine that they will look for constant commendation. They are servants, and when they get their wages, that is their praise for their work. They may judge that they are worth their money, or else we would not keep them.
When you do your work for Jesus, remember you are only a servant. Do not expect to always have the encouragement which some people are constantly crying after! If you get encouragement from your pastor or from other teachers or from your friends, be thankful. But if you do not, go on with your work notwithstanding! You are a servant, and when you receive your reward, that is of grace and not of debt. Then, you will have the highest praises that can be passed upon you – the plaudits of your Lord, and eternity with Him whose you are and whom you desire to serve!
The Steward’s Responsibility
But still, while the steward is a servant, he is an honorable one. It does not do for the other servants in the house to tell him that he is a servant. He will not endure that—he knows it and feels it. He desires to act and work as such, but at the same time, he is an honored servant.
Now, those who serve Christ in the office of teaching are honorable men and women. I remember hearing a very unseemly discussion between two persons as to whether the minister was not superior to the Sunday school teacher. It reminded me of the disciples’ talk about who among them was the greatest! Why, we are all of us “the least,” if we feel aright. And though we must exalt our office as God has given it to us, yet I see nothing in the Bible that should lead me to believe that the office of the preacher is more honorable than that of the teacher! It seems to me that every Sunday school teacher has a right to put “Reverend” before his name as much as I have! Or if not, if he discharges his trust, he certainly is a “Right Honorable.”
The Steward’s Great Responsibility
There is one exception—if he is obliged to give up to attend to his own family, and makes that family his Sunday school class, there is no driveling there! He stands in the same position as he did before. I say, they who teach, they who seek to pluck souls as brands from the burning, are to be considered as honored persons—second only to Him from whom they received their commission!
But still, in some sweet sense, they are lifted up to become fellows with Him, for He calls them His brethren and His friends. “The servant knows not what his Lord does, but I have called you friends, for all things I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” Only one more thought here: The steward is also a servant who has a very great responsibility attached to his position. A sense of responsibility seems to a right man always a weighty thing.
II. The Account – “Give an Account of Your Stewardship”
Let us briefly think of this giving an account of our stewardship. When we come to give an account of our stewardship before God, it must be given personally, by each of us. While we are here, we often talk in the mass, but when we come before God, we will have to speak as individuals.
Many people boast about “our Sunday school.” Some even wickedly call the Sunday school “their school,” when they have not seen it in a year’s time! They say, “I hope our school is flourishing,” when they never contribute a half-penny, never give the teachers a word of encouragement or even a smile—and they don’t even know how many children the school enrolls! Yet they call it theirs. They are thieves, taking credit for that which does not belong to them!
We make the same mistake! As a ministry, we often talk of the achievements of the “body” and what wonders have been done by the “denomination.” But when we stand before God, there will be no judging us in denominations, no dealing with us in schools and churches—the account must be given for each one by himself!
So, you who have the infant class, you will have to give your own account. It was but the other day you were finding fault with the conduct of the senior class, and you were told to look at home. Conscience told you so! But when you stand before God, you will have no account to give of the senior class, but only of the infant class committed to you!
III. The Days of Reckoning: When We Must Give an Account
When you stand before God, the reckoning will be personal, precise, and exact. You will not be judged for the success of other teachers, but for your own faithfulness in your own class. God will examine how you taught, how you studied, how you prayed, and how earnestly you labored. What will you say on that day?
If you have done your work with sincerity, even if it has been little, you can humbly say, “I did that sincerely and prayerfully. May God accept it through Jesus Christ!” But if you have done it carelessly or without prayer, may you cry out, “Oh, my God, forgive me and help me from this good hour to be diligent in this divine business, fervent in my spirit, serving the Lord!”
And when the day of reckoning comes, remember: The account must be exact, precise, and complete. Every opportunity will be examined, every prayer, every lesson, every effort to guide a child to Christ.
Conclusion: A Call to Faithfulness
I have endeavored to show the weight of our responsibilities as Sunday school teachers. Our stewardship is not a trivial task, but a solemn and honorable calling. Let us labor faithfully, knowing that one day, we will give an account of our stewardship. May God help us to be diligent, fervent, and prayerful in our service, so that when the day of reckoning comes, we can stand before Him with confidence, knowing that we have been faithful to the trust He has given us.
“Lord, let me give an account of my diligent years, not of my idle years!”
But we must begin with our ordination—we must end with our death, and you, Sunday school teacher, must begin with the first hour when you sat down in your class! And you must end when life ends, and not until then! Does not this put a very solemn aspect upon your account, some of you? You are always saying, “I will be better tomorrow.” Will that blot out yesterday? “I must be more diligent in the future.” Will that redeem the lost opportunities which have already passed by? No—if you have loitered long and lingered much, you will find that the hardest running today will not make up for the loitering of yesterday!
There have been some men who, after spending many years in sin, have been doubly diligent for Christ afterward, but they have always felt that they have only done the day’s work in the day and mourned over those years which the locusts had eaten, as gone beyond recall. Oh, catch the moments as they fly, Sunday school teachers! Use the days as they come! Do not be talking about making up for the badness of the first part of the account by the brilliant character of the conclusion. You cannot do it! You must give an account for each day separately, for each year by itself! And do what you may to retrieve your losses, the losses still stand upon the book, and the Master will say at last, “How came these here?
The Personal Accountability of the Steward
And though, if you believe in Christ Jesus, they are all covered up in sovereign grace, yet you would not wish to have any more stains for that. Because Christ has washed you, you do not desire to make yourself filthy! Because He has atoned, you do not desire to commit sin! No, live, my brothers and sisters, as Sunday school teachers should live! Live as if your own salvation depended upon the strictness of your fulfilling your duty! And yet, remember your salvation does not depend upon that, but on your personal interest in the everlasting covenant and in the all-prevailing blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Israel’s strength and Redeemer!
III. When It Is Well to Give an Account of Your Stewardship
And now, though there are many other things I might say, I fear I might weary you. Therefore, let me notice some occasions when it will be well for you all to give an account of your stewardship. And then, notice when you must give an account of it.
You know there is a proverb that “short reckonings make long friends,” and a very true proverb it is. A man will always be at friendship with his conscience as long as he makes short reckonings with it. It was a good rule of the old Puritans, to make a frank and full confession of sin every night. They did not leave a week’s sin to be confessed on Saturday night or Sabbath morning. They recalled the failures, imperfections, and mistakes of each day in order that they might learn from one day of failure how to achieve the victory on the morrow. They washed themselves daily from their sins, knowing they might preserve the purity and whiteness of their garments.
Short Reckonings with the Conscience
Brothers and sisters, do the same—make short reckonings! And it will be well for you every Sabbath evening, or at any other time, if it pleases you, to make a reckoning of what you did on the Sabbath. I do not say this to encourage any self-righteous congratulation that you have done well. If you make your reckoning correct, you will never have much cause to congratulate yourself but always cause to mourn that you did your duty so ill compared to what you ought to have done!
When the Sabbath is over, and you have been twice to the house of God to teach your class, just sit down and try to remember what points you failed on. Perhaps you exhibited a hasty temper. You spoke to a boy too sharply when he was a little rebellious. Perhaps you were too complacent. You saw sin committed and ought to have reproved it but did not. If you find out your own failing, that is half the way to a cure! Next Sabbath, you can try to set it right.
Reckoning Opportunities When Children Depart
Then, there are times that providence puts in your way which will be excellent seasons for reckoning. For instance, every time a boy or girl leaves the school, there is an opportunity to think to yourselves, “How did I deal with Betsy? How did I treat John? Did I give William such teaching as will help him in his future life to maintain integrity in the midst of temptation and preserve righteousness when he is subjected to imminent perils?” How did I teach the girl? Did I so teach her that she will know her duty when she goes into the world? Did I strive with all my might to lead her to the foot of the cross?
There are many solemn questions you may put concerning the child. And when you meet any of them grown up in later years, you will find that a very proper season for giving an account of your stewardship to your conscience, by seeing whether you really did with that person, when a child, as you should have desired.
Reckoning When a Child Dies
Then, there is a peculiar time for casting up accounts when a child dies. Ah, what a host of thoughts cluster around the bed of a dying child whom we have taught! Next to the father and the mother, I should think the Sunday school teacher will take the most interest in the dying one. You will remember, “There lies withering the flower which my hand has watered. There is an immortal soul whom I have taught, about to pass the portals of eternity! O God, have I taught this dying child the truth, or have I deceived him? Have I dealt faithfully with him? Have I told him of his ruin? Have I set before him how he was fallen in Adam and depraved in himself? Have I told him about the great redemption of Christ? Have I shown him the necessity of regeneration and the work of the Holy Spirit?”
Or have I amused him with tales about the historical parts of the Bible and pieces of morality, and kept back the weightier matters of the law? Can I put my hand into his dying hand and silently lift my heart to heaven, saying, “O God, You know I am clear of his blood?
When You Must Give an Account: Sickness and Death
Ah, that is a thing that often stings the minister—when he remembers that any of his congregation are dying. When I sometimes stand by the deathbed of any of the ungodly in my congregation, it brings many tearful thoughts. Have I been as earnest as I ought to have been? Did I cry to this man, “Escape for your life, look not behind you, stay not in all the plain, flee to the mountains!” Did I pray for him, weep over him, tell him of his sin; preach Christ simply, plainly, boldly, to him?
Was there not an occasion when I used lightness when I ought to have been solemn? Might there not have been a season when I uttered something by mistake which may have been a pillow for the armhole of his conscience, on which he might rest? Have I helped to smooth his path to hell instead of putting blocks in his way and chains across his path that he might be turned out of it and led to seek the Savior?
The Accountability of the Teacher in Illness
But now, teacher, let me tell you an occasion when you must give your account. You may put off all these seasons if you like. You may live as carelessly as you please, but if you have a particle of heart in you, you will have to give an account when you are sick and cannot go to your class. If your conscience is worth having—which some people’s consciences are not, for they are dead and seared—if your conscience is an awakened one, when you are put out of your work, you will begin to think how you did it.
You should read the letters of that holy man, Rutherford. If ever there was a man who preached the gospel sweetly and with divine unction, I should think it must have been he. And yet when he was shut up in Aberdeen and could not get out to his much-loved flock, he said, “Ah, if the Lord will let me go out to preach again, I will never be such a dull drone as I was likely to be. I will preach with tears in my eyes, so that the people may be comforted and the sinners converted.”
Perhaps when you are lying ill in your bedroom, little Jane may come to see you and say, “I hope you will soon get well, teacher.” Or William, or Thomas may call and inquire about you every Sunday afternoon, and ask the servant to give his love to you and hope that teacher will soon come back again. Then is the time when I know you will be sure to cast up your account! You will say, “Ah, when I get back to my class, I won’t teach them as I used to do. I will study my lesson more, I will pray more. I won’t be so hot or so fast with them as I was likely to be. I will bear with their ill manners. Ah, if my Master will give me, like Hezekiah, another 15 years of labor and will give me more grace, I will strive to be better.” You will be sure to cast up your accounts when you get sick!
The Final Reckoning: Death
But if you do not do it then, I will tell you when you must. That is when you come to die. What a dreadful thing it must be to be an unfaithful preacher on a deathbed. (Oh, that I may be saved from that)! To be upon one’s bed when life is over; to have had great opportunities, mighty congregations, and to have been so diligent about something else as to have neglected to preach the full and free gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ—I think as I lie in my bed a-dying, I would see specters and grim things in the room!
One would come and stare upon me and say, “Ah, you are dying. Remember how many times I sat in the front of the gallery and listened to you, but you never once told me to escape from the wrath to come? You were talking to me about something I did not understand. But the simple matter of the gospel you never preached to me, and I died in doubt and trembling—and now you are coming to me to the hell which I have inherited because you were unfaithful!”
The Reward of Faithful Service
And when, in our gray and dying age, we see the generations which have grown up around our pulpits, we shall think of them all! We shall think of the time when, as striplings, we first began to preach. We shall remember the youths that then crowded; then the men and then the gray-heads that passed away. And I think as they come on in grim procession, they will each leave a fresh curse upon our conscience because we were unfaithful!
The deathbed of a man who has murdered his fellows or some grim tyrant who has let the bloodhounds of war loose upon mankind must be an awful thing! When the soldier and the soldier’s widow and the murdered man of peace rise up before him; when the smoke of devastated countries seems to blow into his eyes and make them sore and red; when the blood of men hangs on his conscience like a great red pall; when bloody murder, the grim chamberlain, draws red curtains around his bed and when he begins to approach the last end where the murderer must inherit his dreary doom—it must be a fearful time, indeed!
But I think to have murdered souls must be more awful still—to have distributed poison to children instead of bread, to have given them stones when they asked us for right food—to have taught them error when we ought to have taught them the truth as it is in Jesus, or to have spoken to them with cold listlessness when earnestness was needed—oh, how your children seem to curse you when you lie there and have been unfaithful to your charge!
Conclusion: The Day of Judgment
Yes, you will have to cast up your account then, but let me tell you—your hope must all be fixed on Jesus and that must be the consolation of your life and death! And it will be very sweet when you come to die, you who have been successful in winning souls to Christ. Ah, that will bring a little life into the cheek of the consumptive teacher who, dying young, when you remind her that there was a little girl who, a year before she was taken ill, kissed her hand and said, “Goodbye, teacher, we shall meet in heaven. Do not you remember, teacher, telling me the story of Jesus on the cross and taking me home one Sunday afternoon, and putting your arms around my neck and kneeling down and praying that God would bless me? Oh my teacher, that brought me to Jesus!”
Yes, teacher, when you are lying on your bed, pale and consumptive, you will remember that there is one up there beside your Savior who will receive you into eternal habitations—that young spirit who has gone before you—who by your means was emancipated from the wickedness and bondage of a sinful world! Happy is the teacher who has the hope of meeting a whole band of such in heaven!
The Judgment Day: A Call to Faithfulness
Now to conclude. We must all give an account to God in the day of judgment. That is the thing which makes death so terrible. Oh, Death, if you were all—what are you but a pinch and all is over! But after Death, the judgment; this is the sting of the dragon to the ungodly. The last great day is come. The books are opened—men, women, and children are assembled. Many have come, and some on the right, and some on the left have already heard the sentence. It is now your turn. Teacher! What account will you render?