Ep. 045 - Embracing Stewardship Amidst Uncertainty

Episode Transcript

Austin
Spencer. If we spend too much time on social media or scrolling through YouTube videos, the reality is we are going to get bombarded with things that cause us to be afraid. And so today, we want to think about what does stewardship look like in uncertain times.

Spencer
Welcome to the Second Half Stewardship podcast. We believe that God owns it all, and our response as Christians is to live generous lives. I'm Spencer Hall, a certified financial planner.

Austin
And I am Austin Mclaughlin. As former full time missionaries in the United States and overseas, Spencer and I approach managing our personal finances through the lens of biblical stewardship.

Spencer
Journey with us as we explore how to be generous stewards of our money, time, relationships, gifts, and experiences. Austin, you're talking about the doom loop that we can get into as we look at social media and these different places, and the reason that they push all of that to us is because they make money from it. The more that we experience fear, the more that we are pushed to make it purchase to alleviate that fear.

Spencer
And that's very well documented in research. And so as Christians, we really have to begin to take countermeasures so that we're not caught in that cycle. And we come back to that big picture of God as provider. And we think about these things of uncertainty as elements that we can trust in the Lord. So excited to dive in today.

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. And this question kind of came out through one of our listeners reached out to us and said, hey, what do I do if I am experiencing some of my friends that just say I need to do everything to protect myself, insulate myself? If Armageddon comes, how do I flee to the hills and know that I have enough?

Austin
And I think that's really a profound question to ask, but I think focusing on how do I protect myself is oftentimes the not the right question to be asking. I think as stewards, we really need to be looking to the world around us to say, God has blessed me. He has given me all that I need. How do I then use those resources that God has given me to then give back to his kingdom, give back to the world?

Austin
And so today we really want to look at this lens of what is individualism and what is culture tell us to do. And then contrast that to some ancient Christian figures, whether it's from the early church or even as early as late as World War II and looking at Dietrich Bonhoeffer. and then we'll very briefly touch on the church in Iran today and what they're doing in light of persecution.

Austin
And so at the end of the day, there's no one path that we can take. And the the story of the persecuted church, the story of the church at large is complex. There are different postures to take. But I think at the end of the day, we really need to be asking, where is the Lord guiding? Where does the Lord want me to serve my neighbors, not just protect myself?

Austin
And I think that's a tension that we always have to hold in dual tension there.

Spencer
Well, and we even see that in the New Testament with Paul. Sometimes he would stay, sometimes he would flee to another city. We see that, you know, with the early church that they had to discern what the Holy Spirit was telling. But to your point, they never said, well, let's just hunker down outside of the city and do nothing to help anyone and just maybe save our skin.

Spencer
Yeah, that was not what the path ever was, right?

Austin
So when we start off today, all we want to look at is why is this so difficult, particularly in the West, in America. And for, for a lot of majority culture, it's because the entire ideology of the United States is founded on this idea of individualism. Go plant your flag. It is core and written through the Declaration of Independence.

Austin
These are like foundational pieces that when the US was founded, it was, hey, we are escaping from this European mode of feudalism, or this thought that the king rules. And so it's how can I do whatever I want to be, whoever I want? And we see it even in modernity of you can make yourself so it's all about me.

Austin
My life is about me. And, you know, when we come back to this idea of YouTube doom loops or social media, when we think about those fears that it causes, it's pain to me. And so it's everything that I could do to insulate myself from pain. And when we look at that, that idea of individualism, it even affects the ways that we look at Scripture.

Austin
It's a personal interpretation. This idea of individualism says, where can I find in Scripture things that affirm what I like? Right? And I think that's where a lot of the schism is happening right now is there are things that the culture says, you need to believe this. So then we start looking for it in Scripture, come up with a personal interpretation, and maybe exclude the reality of the meta narrative of Scripture, or the last 2000 years of church history, or what the global church is doing and seeing and and exploring.

Austin
But it's what makes me feel good. And I think it's clearly rooted in the last 300 years of American culture that says your life is about your pleasure. And so when we look at these contrasting images of your life is about you versus where do I when things go bad, how do I pursue the other? How do I pursue a godly vision of loving my enemy, of praying for those that persecute me?

Austin
We see this really jarring contrast between my comfort versus pursuing a godly vision for the world.

Spencer
One of the things that's really interesting is we think about Scripture in the early church. This goes back way before the New Testament as well. you look at David or other psalmist's, and they were grappling with what it was to be pursued, to be hunted, and to cry out to God in the midst of that. So the Psalms overall, there's so many beautiful Psalms, but we're going to focus in on one today to anchor us in how we cling to God in the midst of these times of uncertainty.

Austin
Yeah. And really, this is about, again, placing my faith and my trust in Jesus, not in anything external. The world is going to fail me. My political party is going to fail me. And so how do I re anchor always re anchor back to the Lord? And the psalmist says in 118, verses five through nine, out of my distress I called on the Lord.

Austin
The Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is on my side as my helper. I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.

Austin
And so as we think about this, we see that dual tension. Because even when we look at Israel, Israel wanted a king and then it betrayed them. They got Saul and then they got David. David grew wealthy. He passed that wealth on to Solomon. Solomon became an empire builder. And then the empire split. Right. And so what we what they were longed for was a king and a kingdom.

Austin
And then within three generations, it's broken down, destroyed, and the people are disheveled. And then in another couple generations, they're fleeing into exile. And so they've put their trust in princes. And it failed them. They put their trust in kings, and it failed them. They put their trust in riches. But it says in that place, out of my distress, I called on the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free.

Austin
And it's this when we put our faith and our trust in the Lord, there is freedom. When we put our trust and our faith in people, causes, activities, then they're bound to fail us because they're temporal and they're never meant to really give us that life that Christ offers.

Spencer
Right? And if we do it in investments, it's perhaps even worse, because then we start to, think about how we're going to get the most just from that investment, how that's going to be our provider rather than God. And then we start to make all kinds of different other choices that are antithetical to faith and to faithfulness.

Austin
Yeah, yeah. And we've talked about it in the past, but when Paul talks about I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, it's because he has come out of this place of knowing fear and knowing abundance and knowing lack, knowing scarcity, and knowing where Christ is in the midst of it. It's not I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me because he made me a lot of money, right?

Austin
It's that I have known persecution and famine and hardship, and it is Jesus who gives me the strength. And so when we look at the entirety of the new church, it's we. We put our faith in a Savior, not not in our finances. We don't trust in the things of this world. And so when we think about uncertain times, whether it's okay, is there going to be an invasion?

Austin
It's what is happening at our borders. It's what is happening with my political party. If we put so much of our faith in that, the future is always uncertain. We don't know what tomorrow holds. We don't even know if we will have tomorrow. And so when things are uncertain, we need to re anchor. We need to come back.

Austin
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in.

Spencer
And so it's exciting to look at a couple of examples to really root ourselves. And one of those comes from a guy that most people I don't think have heard or really digested his life. Saint Dionysius the Great, who lived what in the third century in Alexandria and just kind of thinking about how his leadership within the church helped frame the response to this epidemic.

Spencer
So can you dive in a little there?

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. And so when we think about epidemics there, it's plague like there is death. It is not a pretty picture. Right. And so really there's two paths here. In a lot of ways when you're faced with a play, you can flee or you can stay and try to care for those that are dying. Right. And so Saint Dionysus and the Christian community at large, when others were paralyzed by fear, they were compelled in their faith to remain.

Austin
They knew that their life is not meant to just be about their comfort in this world. They knew that their eternal destination was the kingdom of God, where God dwells with me and for eternity. And so, because they had eyes focused on the eternity, the love of Jesus, they were compelled to stay and care for the dying so fearlessly.

Austin
They ministered to those afflicted, even knowing the risks that they might be infected by this plague and died themselves. But many of these were serenely happy with that choice that they just decided, I'm going to choose to serve the dying and the broken, because that's what Christ has done for me. And I think when we think about that compared to today, when I hear people talk about what are you going to do in the zombie apocalypse?

Austin
It's fleet of the hills. Yeah. It's not stay and care for the love, care for and love the dying world. it's. Get out of here. Find your friend with a farm with the most guns and get out. and that's just in contrast to what we see here with this first century plague. The non-Christians. Despite their efforts, they found it difficult to a state that can escape the contagion.

Austin
And so they were just paralyzed by fear. They wanted to get out. They couldn't get out. And instead of being in this posture of peacefulness of the Lord has provided for me, I am secure in my eternal hope and destination. There may be pain here. I may get sick and die. But the they were anchored to that hope of eternal glory and not to temporary pain.

Austin
And so we see this, this really jarring imagery of what does it look like to be faced with death, and to be okay with it and to move towards the broken. Right.

Spencer
And I think all of us coming from a Christian background or faith would be able to verbalize that and say, yes, my hope is in heaven. Yes, I can see that. That's the destination. But when push comes to shove, a lot of times we see where that that message is not going from head to heart. It is not really in life.

Spencer
Yeah. And that's that's something that's difficult to grapple with.

Austin
And I think we have to grapple with it, even if external of some sort of a massive event. Am I living my life presently as if the Lord were coming tomorrow? Am I living in such a way that I'm loving my neighbors as if the Lord were coming tomorrow? Or am I living a life wholly centered on myself?

Austin
And I think, yes, we. Sometimes big events happen where we feel like, okay, this is a testing point for my faith. Am I going to actually move it from my head to my heart? but I think it's really the day to day. Am I spending time with Jesus and being compelled to love my neighbor, or am I just kind of going through the motions like everybody else?

Austin
so, Spencer, next, we want to talk about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in World War Two. Can you tell us just a little bit about who Bonhoeffer was?

Spencer
Yeah. So Bonhoeffer was a German theologian pastor. He wrote a number of different books, many of which are still read today. one life together. We went through two together in church. really profound stuff. And really the thinks about community in a very, integral and organic way of having those intertwined relationships that that really are the fabric of how we live out our faith on a day to day basis.

Spencer
So a beautiful life heading into, the rise of Nazi ism. And then we see in particular what that faith allowed him to do in the midst of.

Austin
persecution. Yeah. And Bonhoeffer, I think what's really interesting about his life is he actually studied in New York for a while in Harlem, and so he had opportunities and outlets to flee the war. He knew people in America where if he wanted to leave, he could have left. But he studied in Harlem for a little bit and then went back to Germany.

Austin
And he stayed faithful in Germany. So as the Aryan movement was rising, as Hitler and Nazi ism were rising, he realized that this is not what is good and true and beautiful and and gospel centered. The genocide of a group of people is not what God calls us to do, and especially the genocide of, of Jews. And it's the reality that Bonhoeffer knew that.

Austin
And he could have just fallen in line, like a lot of other church leaders did. But he chose and he to stand up and say, this is not good and true and beautiful and godly. And he continued to lead in his church and continue to have an anti Nazi posture that led to his imprisonment, where he continued to be a pastor and shepherding people, and then led to his death soon before the end of the war.

Austin
And so again, we see this in the midst of what could be seen as flee, get out, do everything to preserve, protect, and preserve your life. he doesn't do that. He says, no, I want to stand up for the faith. I want to stand up for what is true about this faith. And in the midst of that, lay down my life for those around me.

Austin
Continue to lead a church and a faithful presence in the midst of sure fire persecution.

Spencer
Well, and it's it's maybe some of the worst persecution that we can imagine. Because you think about the concentration camps, you think about the tests that they were running that were widely known. You know, by Germans of the ways that they could inflict pain and harm. This wasn't just you lose your life. This is there's tremendous pain, and then you lose your life.

Spencer
Yeah. So, you know, the stakes incredibly high for Bonhoeffer. And yet he stayed. He he continued to engage faithfully.

Austin
Yeah. And I think the challenge, too, with Bonhoeffer is you stay, you engage, you know, the end, you know that your life will likely end unless the war ends. But you know what you're choosing and it's so much easier to fall in line with something that's easy. So this is what we saw so many church leaders do in Germany is, things get hard.

Austin
You see Hitler rising to power. and you don't do anything because it's easier, right? Because you may start thinking, oh, this is the right thing to do. I guess that this choice to fall in, it doesn't cause me pain. Am I preserve my life right? It's it's not that painful.

Spencer
Well, it's it's really. It's choosing to survive, you know, and to make a lot of different, calculated decisions that justify all kinds of different behaviors. Yeah. So that you can save your own skin at the end of the day and, and that goes to the opposite of it's antithetical to God is our provider. God will save me what we see in Psalm 118 that if we cry out to him, he will preserve us.

Spencer
And sometimes that means he preserves us by taking us home right away. But sometimes that means he preserves us in other ways where he we where we can continue to speak truth.

Austin
Yeah. And I hope that really, as we peel back some of these lives of these and these examples, it allows us to see through, some of the milieu even that we're seeing today and say, where am I falling in line with just cultural narratives? And I think if we are true and we think about what are the cultural narratives that draw me into comfort, draw me into control, draw me into preservation of my my own desires, then we really have to question, are we following heart after Christ, or are we just being pulled into whatever is surrounding me?

Spencer
Yeah. And it's we see that, of course, so many different countries today. You know, when Emily and I were, missionaries overseas, one of the friends that we had was in the banking world, and his superiors and his colleagues told him all the time, you need to bribe different people to make your path better, make our bank's path better, get more business, do these things.

Spencer
And he just said, no, I'm not going to do that. It is outside of Scripture. There is nowhere in Scripture that allows you to bribe someone. so he stayed out of that. Now what the the element, what the result was, in his case, at least of all the time that we were there, was maybe he didn't rise quite as quickly in his career, but he was trusted by everyone.

Spencer
He was trusted by his peers, his superiors, even by his enemies, because they knew how he would respond in the midst of difficult circumstances. He was not going to bribe anyone. He was going to be very transparent, very open, and he was going to argue and advocate for his position and how they could add value. But it was outside of you know, passing money under the table.

Austin
Yeah. Yeah. So last week when you come back and just look at the life of Iranian Christians today, it is illegal to be a Christian in Iran. But the beautiful thing is the church is thriving there. we're seeing a mass influx of people to the church. People are coming to faith in Jesus. They're being baptized, and the church is growing like wildfire in Iran.

Austin
It's really beautiful. But around Christmas every year, there's mass persecution where the government comes in and arrests and makes raids on the churches. it's well known, it's well documented, and we won't go into all the stories. Elam Ministries has a podcast called Jesus Speaks Farsi, and there is one episode that was called Taxi to Jail that just left me in tears.

Austin
And as even as I like, recall the episode, just thinking about the faithfulness of our our brothers and sisters there that they willingly move. They say, all of my friends have been arrested. So my response I want to be with my family. So I'm going to go take a taxi and say I need to go to jail to be with my family and as I think about this, it's like, do I have that kind of faith that if persecution like that would arise, is my response going to be, go turn myself in the police are looking for me.

Austin
Go turn myself in. I'd really encourage you will link that episode in the show notes. But Ellen Ministries Jesus Speaks Farsi did an entire series about one year where the the government sent a majority of the Christian leaders that they knew about to jail, and it is just these beautiful story after story of God's faithfulness. And they they talk about what they did while they were in jail.

Austin
And even some of them left the country thereafter, and have been doing ministry to, Iranian background people in surrounding countries and in different parts of the world. It is really beautiful to see and I think it's really challenging as well as we think about. We love the freedoms that we have in the West to be able to worship publicly.

Austin
but I think in some ways, as I look at the church abroad.

Austin
There is such a vibrancy and a intimacy with the Lord and a feeling of I must go share. I have to tell people about this, that I think in some ways maybe our freedom, makes us not do it as much because it's okay just to believe what you want to believe. whatever is good for you is good for you.

Austin
Don't shake the bow. Don't rock the boat. but yeah, these stories are just incredibly powerful.

Spencer
Austin, thanks for sharing those stories. thanks for framing. our response to difficulty, uncertainty and how we see that in the early church. And then throughout, the church over centuries, that can really help us as we think about how we respond, in our day and age, we do love hearing from you. If you have ideas for future podcasts or comments, feel free to leave that in the comments section.

Spencer
And until next time, take care.

Austin
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Disclosure
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.