Ep. 060 - 7 Key Principles of Faithful Biblical Stewardship

Episode Transcript

Austin
Welcome back to Second Half Stewardship! We're glad you're here. Spencer, over the last couple of years, we've had a few people come to us and say, “We like what you're doing. Is there one episode that can really hone in on what are those crucial elements?” So today we're going to talk through seven key concepts of biblical stewardship. Starting off with God as Provider.
So Spencer, you want to talk us through a little bit about God as Provider?

Spencer
Well, we look at this as fundamental. The world says “You are your own provider.” You have to go out, earn money, put food on the table. Even in Christian culture, sometimes we believe that. But Scripture says “No, God is our provider.” We have to look for everything that we have to Him. And it's scriptural. Even when we look at what Jesus teaching was there.
Matthew 6:30-32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows them, that you need them. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” It is he who is our provider, no one else. And as we put our lives in his hands, then we can respond accordingly,.

Austin
Right. And if we trust him as provider, it's easier to obey and release control of my finances to say, “Okay, I don't have to wrestle with work. I don't have to wrestle with all these other things. I can trust in God.”

Spencer
We have to be obedient for sure, and there is a responsibility. However, it's very different than saying, “Okay, it all rests on me.” And that can be a very freeing thing. It can release anxiety for us for sure.

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. So the second one is God owns it all, making us as people, stewards. The world's view there says, “I can spend my money on whatever I want. I am the owner. I'm the possessor.” But the reality, the biblical view is God has put us as temporary managers. We look all across Scripture from Ecclesiastes to James. We are but vapor on this world.
We are not here eternally in this physical place. But God has bestowed his ownership up to us to be managers of what he has given us. So our homes, our cars, all of those things that we think are ours are actually God's. And again, if we come back to Scripture here in Luke 16, and if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?
No servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one or love the other. Or, he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. And the reality here is, if we believe that God owns everything, then it transforms us to say, “Okay, if I'm a steward, how would God want me to manage these resources?
How would God want me to manage any of the aspects of things in my life? Because I'm a temporary manager.”

Spencer
And practically speaking, that can be, again, so freeing, specifically with the firm, the moment that we started to have these conversations and we started to embrace the idea that God owns our firm, it allows us to release that anxiety. We are just stewards. We try to be obedient. We also know that the ultimate outcome is in His hands, which can be a very freeing experience.
Sleep a lot better at night knowing, “Okay, I've got to be faithful during the day, but God is in control.”

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so the third one, we're going to move from the character of God to now how does this make us as stewards? How do we obey? How do we respond? And one of the ways is we set finish lines. So talk us through setting finish lines.

Spencer
When we think about stewards setting finish lines, the natural questions then are how much is enough? How much do I keep because I don't own it, God owns it. I am a steward. And so He’s graciously giving me His funds to utilize. And He knows that I need to use some of those to feed my family and to be able to do the different things of life, but also the more that I keep for those kinds of purposes, the less I can then distribute to Christian Brothers and sisters.

Spencer
In other circumstances. It's a real danger when we start to close our hands and act like it's ours. The biblical view and what we get from a quote from Douglas Jones is “For Jesus, Mammon, (that is, money or material wealth) wasn't one idol among equals. He singled it out as the direct competitor to God. So we have to be really, really careful as we think about stewardship, that we're not letting our hands close around those funds.
We're trying to set finish lines to keep an open hands towards God. Yeah.

Austin
When we look back just at that quote that we just read from Luke, you cannot serve God and money. Jesus says it himself. So really our posture needs to be one of contentment. We look at first Timothy 6:6 “...but godliness with contentment is great gain.” If I am as a steward, can set those finish lines and be content with what God has provided.
It really allows me to then say, “Okay, I don't need the extra car, I don't need the extra house.” I look back at my financial planning textbooks that say, when you buy that second or third airplane, it's like, “Why do I need a first airplane?” But if I can be content with what God has provided, if I can be content that God owns it all, then I can be a generous steward to my brothers and sisters like you were saying.
So let's talk about number four. Stewards give as a means of breaking the power that money has over our lives. Ron Blue often says that “Giving is the way to break money's power.” If we see that money is a direct competitor to God, you cannot serve both God and money, what's the way that we break its power?
We give it away. And like you talked about the world's view. If we think about giving, it's okay. You got to hit that 10% mark, and then it becomes either legalistic or it becomes just not done. We see study after study that say Christians today give 2 to 3% of their income. So we're not even hitting that mark,
but that's kind of the goal that's set within the church. The biblical view. We look at 2 Corinthians 9:6-8 as this idea that God invites us into giving joyfully and out of the abundance of what He has provided. If I again see Him as my provider, that He owns everything, then I can give back abundantly because He’s already giving me everything that I need.
So this passage says, “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give, as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver, and God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”
And this is just such a profound thing that I can give out of my joy. And we think about this. If you invest half $1 million in Apple, you're going to be really concerned about what Apple is doing, what that next quarterly earnings report is going to say, what the next product that comes out, are they on the finish lines of the next great thing.
You're always going to be concerned about that. And so if my wealth is tied up in that, then my mind and my heart are going to be tied to that. If I give that same half $1 million to a charity that we love, Hope International, IJM, some of these people that are doing incredible work, then I'm more likely to pray for them, invest in them.
Consider what my brothers and sisters in Christ need. If I'm holding it for myself, my posture towards my wealth is going to be very different than if I see it as these are God's resources and I can bless my brothers and sisters. So Spencer, the next one: Stewards pass wisdom before wealth and carefully select the next steward. You want to talk us through this?


Spencer
Well, the world's view of an estate plan is basically how much wealth do you have? What's your net worth? And then how many heirs do you have? How many children do you have? Okay, take net worth, divide it by number of kids and that's your estate plan. And passing it to the next generation. The biblical view is that we actually pass wisdom before we pass wealth, and that we look holistically about what we're trying to do with wealth in the world.
So it's a very different trajectory in that we're trying to do living and giving during our lifetimes. We're not trying to amass this wealth. And then we think very particularly about the way that we pass on wealth, because it is a danger. It is something that can grab our hearts, it can grab the next generation's hearts. And I've never talked with a parent that said, okay, I want to set my kids up for failure.
But when we give wealth and we give it indiscriminately, we are often doing that. And even when we pass wealth and we pass it to wise people, we can still set them up for failure. So we have to be very, very careful because, again, the only thing that we see in Scripture that set up directly opposed to God is money.
And so if we're very careful, again, we come back to a passage like Ecclesiastes 7:11-12 “Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money. And the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.”
We've got to put a priority on passing that wisdom and being very careful then, about how we use wealth and pass it on.

Austin
Right. Well, and this comes back to the question of how much is enough. We ask it for ourselves, but we ask it for the next generation. We can pass wealth to our kids, but how much? How much is that number that is not going to hinder them from, we come back to this quote from John Wesley of “...hindering them from having a productive life, nor causing them just to be licentious in everything.”
We want the, to be able to help and bless them, but not hinder their souls and defer from them. Walking with Jesus. We think about this with foundations as well. Do we want to set up foundations that have millions of dollars in them, and then Christ return tomorrow and those resources not be deployed? We want to always be deploying those resources, passing them on, setting them up to where we are constantly investing in the kingdom now versus at some ambiguous, ambiguous point in the future.
So our next one is stewards avoid ill gotten gain. And we did a series of videos about this, a podcast about this, so you can dive a lot deeper. But the reality here is the world says “Invest in whatever will give you the greatest risk-adjusted rate of return possible. Don't question it, don't think about the companies, just put your money in the market, ride it out, and then you get to use it for however you want to use it.”
Christ and the biblical view is so different. Stewards are intended to clothe companies with capital. And if we think about this, if we pull this back and say God owns it all, which means He owns the investments that are in my portfolio. So I am not the owner of these companies as a stock investor, you are an owner of companies, but I am not the investor.
God is the investor. God is the owner. So I have to start thinking, Is God going to be honored by the gambling company in my portfolio? Is God going to be happy that He owns a tobacco company? Is He going to be happy that the money that is His is being deployed to life-destroying things? And if I have to wrestle with that, I'd say, no, He’s not going to be happy!
And so stewards avoid ill-gotten gain. Proverbs 119: “Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. It takes away the life of its possessors.”

Spencer
Well, and if you think about this on a very practical level, let's just say that my father had $100 million and he lets me steward it, invest it. He's not going to want me to invest in a company like a gambling company that might, you know, lure my sister into a gambling arena that would harm her soul or some kind of a nightclub or some kind of, you know, an abortion pill manufacturer.
Anything that's going to harm his family, he's not going to want to own that company. So on a very practical level, if God does own all of our portfolios, we really have to ask this question and grapple with it. Number seven, our last one: Stewards talk openly about money with their community. This may be the most countercultural one, because if there's one thing that we see about wealth in American culture, it's that people don't like to talk about it
Other than, maybe “I got this stock pic from my barber and it's done really well.” Or, we show it to other people by the vacations that we take, the cars that we drive, the homes that we own. So there's kind of a showing off of that wealth. But in terms of an actual conversation about how we grapple with the purchasing decisions that we make, praying about it, going to our brothers and sisters, very rare.

Austin
Yeah. So we look here at Acts 4:32-35, a little bit longer of a passage, but it says, “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said any of these things that belonged to him was his own. But they had everything in common, and with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.
There was not a needy person among them. For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.” I think the key things here that we really need to focus on are there are some that God calls throughout all the scripture to give everything, and we have to obey when He says to do that.
But he doesn't call everyone to give everything. But with this passage cues in on is one, the community knows there are needs. Do we know that there are needy people among us? Whether it's within our church, our neighbors, our family of faith? Do we know needy people? And then are we willing to do whatever it takes to help alleviate them and bring them out of their needs?
If I truly care about my brothers and sisters in Christ, will I divest of my wants, of my, the luxury items that I want to take part in so that my brother can have life?

Spencer
Because it's always a trade off. Any purchasing decision we make, there are implications with other areas of life, how much we can give, how much we use for purposes as stewards. There's not one decision financially that doesn't affect every other decision, and we just have to grapple with that. Not to say that we can never take a vacation.
We can never buy something that's really nice. It's just that we need to do so with our hands open. And also listening to Brothers and Sisters in community.

Austin
Yeah. When we look at how the Lord starts off the prayer, the Lord's Prayer, our Father, it connotates two things that are really quintessential to our faith. One: God is our Father, He loves us. He looks down and embraces us as His children. And the second is: we, collectively, are His children. My financial decisions affect my family because just like you were saying, if I make a purchasing decision here, that’s unnecessary,
Then it's money that I can't use to deploy in another place. Again, can I take vacations? Yes. Does God want us to enjoy this life that He’s given us? Yes. We see that in Ecclesiastes. We see that in the life of Jesus as he goes to weddings and has celebrations. But life was never intended to be a celebration all the time.
And if we live this lavish lifestyle that America says that we should live, then in some ways we are robbing our brothers and sisters of our ability to participate with them in God's Kingdom work. And so really, we want to think, how am I stewarding all of God's resources He has provided lavishly? How am I loving my community faith here?
And that's really the heart of biblical stewardship. Am I generous towards God? Am I generous towards others with the resources that are not mine, but are His that He’s called me to manage?

Spencer
And with that, we hope that you've enjoyed these seven key principles that we keep coming back to. If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us or leave comments below.

Disclsure
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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.