Ep #12: Can Christians save too much money?

Episode Transcript

Austin
Welcome back to the Second Half Stewardship podcast. We're so glad again that you are here. I think I realize I say that every time that we start, but we really are glad that you decide to take these 20-30 minutes and listen to us. We hope that it has been encouraging to you thus far to hear about just how Spencer and I are wrestling with this idea that God owns it all, that we are his stewards. And I think it's been really formative for me as we've thought about these things, as we've prepared. So, I really hope that it's been the same for y’all as you're listening in.

Spencer
We're making our kids listen to this as well. So, you know, at least we'll be a couple listeners, you know, a couple listeners every time. Our wives as well. I think they may listen every now and then. So we'll see.

Austin
We're finishing out this portion of the podcast where we're talking about the uses of money. The Live, Give, Owe, Grow framework that we've talked about that comes from Ron Blue in Kingdom Advisors and has been really formative as we think about how can we use our money. We can use it to live, can use it to give owe debt, and owe taxes.
And now we're going to see about grow the savings piece of this. And really the linchpin question behind the growth piece is “How much is enough?” And that question bleeds over to every other category. But I think it's really profound in the grow category. And it's not just how much is enough for me, but it's how much is enough for my family, for any future generations that I want to pass on.
It's a really big question, and I think, honestly, it comes back to one that we get very frequently when clients come to us is they want to know how much is enough, how much do I need to live, how much do I need to retire? All these big questions because I think it produces a lot of fear when we don't know. Do I have enough? Am I going to be okay? So, Spencer, in that line of how much is enough grow? What's kind of the cultural what are the waters that we're swimming in with money in savings.

Spencer
Well, if you've listened to the podcast before, we've talked about how the biggest fear as Americans that a lot of people have is running out of money. People fear that in retirement more than death. So, if our whole goal is to have self-sufficiency, never to need to go to a neighbor, go to a friend, go to a son or daughter and confess, okay, I've run out of resources. Then there is a level of anxiety there that really pushes us forward. Now, the flip side of that is that the Bible does say that we need to provide for our families.
And so we want to bear in that tension there. But when we come back to how much is enough, there are plenty of folks who are out there who look at this and say, well, I'm just going to save as much as I can for as long as I can, and we'll see where we go in the end.
And what we want to step back and do is put this again before the Lord and say, “How much is enough, Lord? What would you have me do with these funds?” Because at some point, if you're a Christian, you believe Jesus is coming back. We don't want to have tons of resources that we've never deployed. We want to be wise stewards and looking at providing maybe just enough for the next season.
And that's a difficult balance. And there are thoughts that we have about that. But there are fewer rules, fewer things that we can say with certainty in every situation. But we do want to have hearts again that go before the Lord and, you know, listen to the Holy Spirit.

Austin
And I think, again, just like we talked about taxes, like we talk about with debt, there's always this going to be this posture of, well, what should I do and what posture I need to have towards the Lord? And I think the posturing here is that God owns at all. I mean, that we come back to that often, but we need to trust the Lord.
You know, I think about the Lord's Prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. And I can still save and be diligent about saving. But I don't need to think about. Okay, How much? Give me tomorrow's daily bread. Plus next year. Plus the next ten years. And always be anxious about it. You know, oftentimes Jesus will say, don't be anxious. I am God. I will provide for you. And I think the difference between saving out of anxiety and saving out of fear versus saying, God, I want to know. I want you to provide for me and I want to be wise with how you provide it for me. And so I don't just want to build a bigger barn right.
In hopes that I'll have more later in life. But I also don't want to just be like, well, I can spend it on this lavish lifestyle. We've seen the challenge there, too. So, we can't live on either of those poles. But it's a matter of trusting God for my daily bread, for my future daily bread, but not feeling like I've got to just grab, grab, grab, grab, grab.

Spencer
It is really interesting when we think about our culture and how we lionize the self-made man, self-made woman, and we see that wealth accumulation get to a point where really, from a needs standpoint, there almost at a point where we could say they don't need to trust in God for their daily bread.
There's enough in their barns, so to speak. If we're thinking about with spiritually attuned ears, though, when we listen to someone in their what they say about that, typically it is mostly about them. It's not about God. And we just don't want to get to that point. So, what we find, I think in the biblical teaching and particularly Jesus teaching in Luke 12, is something that's a far different perspective is and maybe doesn't get enough play in American Christianity.
Because I think we come back oftentimes to this concept that, well, the Proverbs tell us that working hard is good, saving is good, that I need to think about the future. I need to be diligent and wise. And there is some wisdom in that totally. But we can take that and make that our idol. And Jesus pulls us back here and says, God owns it all.
You know, let's come back to that idea. God has our lives. So, as we look at Luke 12:13-21, again, Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem. He's teaching the disciples on the way. He's starting to unveil some more difficult teachings because he's preparing them for the fact that he's going to the cross and he's starting to openly talk about the difficulties of discipleship and of following him.
And he's reframing an entire worldview for them. And that's where we find ourselves in Luke 12. So I'll read the passage and then Austin will dive into some of your thoughts thereafter. But Luke 12, starting with verse 13: Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Austin
You know, even as you're reading that, there are several things that just stuck out to me. This idea that we looked at from Ecclesiastes 2 and the preacher who said, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow, we die. And he had pursued all the wealth in the world and was despairing and in contrast, this person has laid up all the ample goods for himself and his heart has gotten cold towards God.
And just how often and how easy it is when we get to that place of self-sufficiency to then say, I'm good, I'm good, I've done it, I have won the game of life. And we forget about God in that place. And, you know, I think about I worked with international students here at the University of Tennessee for a little bit.
And I'll never forget a conversation I had with a student from Haiti who had lived through the earthquake and a student who was from Ethiopia who had lost both of his parents at a young age and was raised by his grandmother and both were Christians before they came, and both had lived in a place of poverty. And they were saying it was easier in our home country to walk with Jesus.
They had both been kind of adopted by American families, and the American families provided for them in really beautiful ways. They said as we stopped having to trust God every day for our needs, then it got harder to be a Christian. And it struck me because I was like, I live in America and I've never known life where my daily needs.
I'm praying to the Lord he will. I have food today. I don't know. But I need you to provide. And it just strikes me that the further we get down this path of self-sufficiency and providing for myself, the further I get away from trusting Jesus. And I think that's what we see in this this person. And verse 19, “And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” It's just that posture of like, I have done it. I've gotten there. Like he had saved. He had saved in the biblical principles and in biblical ways. And honestly, if we look at our churches, they recommended this person, like, Hey, you. You did really well with your money. You don't have to worry about somebody else providing for you.
But his soul was at stake. And that's. That's really challenging as I think about this.

Spencer
And that's particularly challenging. You know, we help people plan for the future financially. We help them plan for retirement. So maybe this guy overdoes it a little bit, but one could argue that his planning here is not too different in some ways from planning for retirement. Is kind of the good life in American culture oftentimes envisions retirement which is going out on the golf course every day and doing having a life of ease and going out.
You know, and there are beautiful things about having more space, being able to serve others. Having time for recreation, having more space so that you're not, you know, grinding it out at work in maybe the same way. So, there are aspects of a season of transition that are very biblical and good.
But we also have to recognize that God doesn't say, Oh, you're a little bit off or you know, let me to redirect you here. He says fool! He uses a very strong word here. He says, your investment is completely off here. It's a stupid investment. So and there's a number of reasons for this that we'll dive into other thoughts that you have on this passage, Austin?

Austin
You know, as you were saying that, you know, the Ron Blue comes back to this question of retirement and he says, “What are you retiring to?” And I think that's a profound question as you think about savings as well. And not just saying I'm going to store it for myself so I can do more of what I want to do.
But it's what am I moving towards in that season? And I think that that's maybe in some ways where this person got it wrong. Jesus says this night your soul is required of you. It's obvious that he's gone astray. The things that you've prepared. Whose will this be? Like you're going to die.
Whose is it? And Jesus finishes. So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. It's that that posturing towards. Well, I don't think Jesus is necessarily calling out saving here, but he's saying you've gotten so self-sufficient, you've forgotten me and you've been poor towards God.
You've not been generous towards God. And I think that's the other turn to is like, what is it about saving that we can still be a generous steward, we can still be a generous giver and not remove that trust in the Lord.

Spencer
Well, and we want to talk about some practical difficulties of saving more than we need. You know, as financial advisors, we are almost heretics, probably for suggesting that people can save too much. But that's what we'll come back to it sometimes. Sometimes we say, okay, actually, you need to save more. Your goals are A, B, and C, You know that the path that you're on is not going to get you there.
But sometimes we see the other side. That the amount of saving is actually preventing being generous givers or in doing some of the things in the present time that would be redemptive.
So, one of the things that we come back to is working hard to be able to save as much if we're over saving can harm our relationships with God and those around us. If I take a job that is very, very demanding, that doesn't allow me to engage with other believers, with my family, it frays relationships. Just so I can max out that 401(k) or do the savings or, you know, whatever my goal is, particularly there, that can be a significant detriment.
I think of a friend, you know, who during his working years, he worked an extra job so that he would be able to save more because he had these goals and retirement that he wanted to achieve. And sadly enough, you know, when retirement came, he ended up getting sick. And what came out was that his relationships with his sons had been frayed by the pace that he had gone. He passes on all these resources to his sons who don't share his core values. And then those resources, my observation was, took him even farther away from God. So it was all the way around. It was building bigger barns. It was a allowing those to fray relationships and then even passing on the resources continue to take those relationships in a worse direction.
So, one of those things, again, it can fray relationships in a moment. Another part is it can limit our capacity to give generously in the moment. You want to talk about that some.

Austin
Well, I think about yeah, if I am taking so much money and putting it away either towards retirement or saving for a vacation or this thing that I want to do, then I have no money to give. And if an opportunity comes where I can give to a brother or sister anywhere, or I can give charitably to a cause. If I have already taken it out of my hands and put it in something where I can't take it out, then it limits my capacity to give. I just don't have the money anymore. And it's it again, it's hampering my soul. Because as we've seen, the more you have, the more you want. By and large, I think there's really wise people that have capped lifestyle that can do this well.
But I think the majority of us, there's always a chase for more. There are those studies that have been done. That said, when you ask someone how much do they need it’s always 15% more. And so if I always need 15% more, then I'm always chasing 15% more so than I need to save for 15% better retirement. Well, I'm never going to get there. And then I'm never going to give abundantly to the Lord because I'm always looking for the next thing to put money away for.

Spencer
And that comes back to that point that we made about giving breaking the power of money. We've really got to acknowledge that when we don't over save when we give ourselves the flexibility to give more, it does break the power of money huge ways. And that kind of segues into another thought here over saving or saving, as this man did just for bigger barns, it pulls our focus and hearts to our savings more quickly. And this kind of is right in line here. But, you know, I distinctly remember a conversation with a client, you know, over the past year where a client said, well, I've noticed that I'm paying attention to my account a lot more than I did a number of years ago, because a number of years ago I didn't have much.
Now I've got a lot more. And that's true for all of us. When we have more in a certain place, we're going to pay more attention to that. So, when you know, this client had just started out and was just starting to save, it's like, okay, well, investments go up, they go down. That's still not a big impact. But now, you know, here we are many years into the future, the zeros, you know, start to add up and start to weigh on us in a different way.
So, it can pull our focus because where our money is, there are heart is as well. If I have more funds in a flexible place where I can give and they are being distributed to those in need, to those brothers and sisters who I can benefit in some way, then my heart is there.
Another point that kind of goes along with this, it requires more of our time. You know, if I save more, if I have bigger barns, I have to protect those barns. You know, I need to install the cameras around those barns so somebody can't invade those barns. You know, one of the simple ways sometimes we'll see clients that, you know, will want to get into real estate, and that's fine, they could buy a home they might use for a rental home or, you know, a cabin that they could get to that they might rent as well. Or they might do that a couple of times. But there's still more time that is required. And most of the time, a few years down the road, the client says, you know, this isn't quite working out in the same way that I was hoping because it's requiring a lot more of my time. Because it's pulling them away from some of those things. Maybe initially that they had hoped for, which oftentimes would be peace and rest and, you know, other things that that might have been the initial hope.

Austin
Well, in that time, you know, I think about all the students that I worked with over ten years of ministry and how frequently I heard stories of fractured relationships with fathers or fractured relationships with mothers because all they were doing was working. And that was a common, very common thing that we heard from students was I never see my parents because they're always working.
Now, on the flipside, there is an honor that they bestowed. We always worked with either international students or students from a different culture who thoroughly honor their parents for that. But the relationship was always fractured. And I think when we think about, okay, I'm working hard to save even if it is to pass on resources to the next generation. I'd rather have a current relationship with my children than a future relationship that's fractured and broken. But they've got my money.

Spencer
Or they got to go to some Ivy League school or, you know, have a, you know, doctoral degree that was paid for by you or whatever it might be.

Austin
I'd much more desire the relationship for my kids.

Spencer
And they would, too. You know, a five year old might not be able to articulate it in quite that way, but I've yet to meet a child that didn't want to have more time with mom and dad, you know, to build a good relationship right now. Obviously, if the parent is engaged and really wants to spend that quality time there. You know, the final one that I want to highlight here is that over saving building bigger barns. It can harm the future recipient.
And that's something that we don't really grapple with. I don't think enough is not just how much is enough for me, maybe for my immediate family or, you know, my season of life. But how much is enough to pass on?
Because for some of us, we just save and save and save and we limit our lifestyle. And that's good in many ways. And we do give and that's good in many ways. But maybe we save, you know, to the point where we're just building this curve of resources upward and upward. And we don't really think how much is enough for the next generation.
Is that next steward prepared right for those resources? You know, we and we think about the 18-year-old kid who receives a half million dollars and say, well, surely that kid's not prepared for it maybe if they don't have, you know, a level of maturity and so forth. And that's an easy one. But my observation is there are so many of us, when we receive resources that it starts to pull us away from God.
We start to trust in those resources, even if it's just it's a nice inheritance, but it's not, you know, an amount that completely, you know, changes life. It doesn't necessarily draw us closer to God. And so, as we think about how much is enough for us, we also surface that for the next generation. And we really want to begin to think about what the Lord might lead.

Austin
And we'll definitely get to that in future episodes as well. This idea of how much is enough for the next generation, is that steward prepared? Because it is a really important question, because I think, you know, scripture does talk about leaving inheritance to kids, but I don't think it's always about wealth. I think the inheritance that Scripture often talks about is wisdom.
Because you see generations where when David passes on wealth to Solomon. Well, within one generation, it's gone crazy. Like, the kingdom is broken. The kingdom is divided. And there was a fractured relationship between David and some of his kids, and it led to some really nasty stuff. And so I think the inheritance that we want to leave is an inheritance of wisdom, of relationship, of care, of tenderness.
Not just of money. So, they never have to work. I'm so thankful that that my parents instilled in me proper work ethic and to be wise with resources so that when I actually had resources, then it wasn't I didn't just go crazy with them. And I think that that's a kindness of the Lord as well, that he has allowed me to be in that place.
But just I think that's the place where we have to wrestle with “How much is enough? How much is enough for the next generation? And if we don't wrestle with it, then our kids are going to wrestle with it. And if we haven't prepared them, are they going to wrestle with it well.

Spencer
Because they have an inheritance that is a monetary inheritance tends to just amplify the character issues that are already there. And it can also lead to fracturing of the inner personal relationships of the people that are receiving the inheritance, which is a whole other ball of wax that we won't get into today. But it can create challenges, certainly in some significant ways.

Austin
I think there's the significance of the scriptures talking about our eternal inheritance is one that's pure and undefiled. And that's what we want to long for. And in passing anything along, it's that the next generation takes it on and uses their resources. The wisdom that we pass on the wealth that we pass on for kingdom purposes, that that would be the ideal end state in all times.

Spencer
Well, and as we think about how much is enough for me in this season, family in the season, how much is enough for the next generation can we really get clarity that we we've done our thought process and we've listened to the Lord on living. We've done so on growing resources. Now, owing, of course, if we can limit our debt and of course we'll pay our taxes, then that part is a little bit easier to go ahead and mark off as well. The plug is giving. And that allows us to really give at a much higher level. If we can set some limits in terms of how much we want to set is how much is enough for us and how much is enough for that next generation. It frees us up to be incredibly generous in this season of life. And to just ask God for our daily bread. Which is a great spot to be in.

Austin
I'm going to read this quote from Tertullian and we'll go ahead and close out here. I think this is really sweet. “And so it is that when a man walks along a road, the lighter he travels, the happier he is. Equally, on this journey of life, a man is more blessed if he does not pant beneath a burden of riches.” Simplicity is a beautiful thing. Riches are a burden, they can weigh on us. Simplicity, being content, godliness with contentment is great gain.

Spencer
And so we see it in the early church among fathers like Tertullian, you know, in second century, we see it, of course, in Christ Command. We see it lived out today among the saints. So, thanks again for joining us as we shift this next session, it will be towards thinking again about God owning our time and how we can use our time in a way that honors him as stewards.
And as we've talked about in the past, of course, time and money in many ways are interchangeable. So, as we do, a deeper dive on time in particular will be thinking about how we can use those resources in time in a way that honors him.

Austin
All right. We'll see you next time.

Spencer
Thanks.