Ep. 089 - Foundations: Stewarding God's Money

Episode Transcript

Austin
As stewards, we can use God's money in one of four ways. We can spend money on our lifestyle. We can give to Christ church or other causes. We can owe debt or taxes. Or we can save money for the future. Stewards regularly need to come to God for wisdom, asking how to spend his money.

Spencer, I read a book recently by Paul Kingsnorth called Against the Machine. And in this book, he reminds his readers that all cultures have a story to tell. All cultures have some sort of a throne that you place on it, either Christ or some sort of an idol. And he argues that in the modern West, we are slaves to the power of money and worshipers of the self.
And I think as we look, if we were to take bank statements of all Americans across the United States today, I think we would be surprised at how much just goes to the worship of our self. The use of our money to dictate my lifestyle, my needs, my, my wants, my desires. How much money that we spend continuing to bow down to this idol of my own pleasure.
And I think the reality is, unless we tell ourselves that unless we come back to a different story, that God is our provider, that God owns it all, that we are stewards, we are always going to be brought into that water of culture that says, live your best life. Treat yourself. Whatever is that next thing you want?
Go into debt. Go get that bigger house. The nicer car. Whatever you want. Go get it. Maybe you need to take two, three, four jobs to be able to afford it. Don't worry about that. Or Just swipe the credit card. And so I think today we want to reorient our focus. We want to come back to the reality that when we are stewards, when we are those who are have the resources that God has placed in our hands, we really need to ask, how do we how might we use those to glorify God?
And we come back to Hebrews 13 five and six and the writer says, keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. For he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?
And so we we set our foundation there. We set our foundation on. God is our provider. He owns it all. So then the question becomes. Well, how might I use his money? That's different than the treat yourself type of environment that we live every day. It's going to be a constant struggle. But we come back to the Lord.
We re-anchor our hope in the Lord. And in these verses that I want to be content with what I have, because the Lord is my provider. So you want to expound a little bit on that first use of money? How do we use money for our lifestyle and living?

Spencer
I think when we look at live, this is the crux of this whole framework. Because if we can master this live side of things, then the entire rest of the pie opens up. If we spend too much, if we indulge ourselves too much, if we get trapped in the luxury cycle too much, or what the marketing gurus would say in our culture, we're going to never really be able to break free and experience the joy and really live into our stewardship that the Lord has has placed.
So there are different principles here, but we've got to anchor ourselves again in this idea of being stewards. So the first one is, of course, spend less than you earn. So there is a level of resource that's being provided by God and that, we do earn. For most of us. But we've got to spend less than that.
We've got to spend significantly less because we have taxes we need to save for most of us. Certainly giving to God's work in the world is a huge piece, too. So getting an idea of what where we need to peg our spending, that level of living is, is so important. And sometimes we have clients that come to us and they confess.
I have no idea. I do know that there's usually as much in my bank account at the end of the month as there is at the start, or maybe there's even a little bit more. I don't know about the details. And one of the things that we would come back to is just a, an encouragement, a godly admonition, as we might say in the Anglican Church, would be to just begin by tracking.
Just say, okay, I'm not sure where things are at. Let's use the next few months to track where I'm at. And then that allows us a place to be able to then lay that before the Lord and listen to the Holy Spirit. But spending less than we earn. And really, that allows us then to be able to identify areas where we say, maybe I could pursue more simplicity here.
I think of, a friend back a couple of decades ago that it's kind of watching their family, you know, move through the season. And they had some success as a business. And basically I said, well, let's let's try to take the whole family to Hawaii. You know, it's a beautiful place. Let's be able to get away, let's rest, let's relax.
And so they did that one summer got away for a month and it was an amazing month. And they said, you know this was so amazing. This was so transformative for us. Let's work so hard next year that we could do this for three months. Well, they pursued that to that end. So much that was their vision. That was their goal that even in they didn't make it for three months.
But being able to make it for an extended period of time, I think they went for six weeks. The next summer it wasn't the same. It wasn't the vision of what they had had the first time. The first time was novel. It was almost, sabbatical. You know, in nature. The next time, though, because it was pursued as its own end was not in line with what the Lord actually had.
So I think it's very easy for us to allow those elements to take us away from the simplicity of listening and obeying. Yes, listening and responding, to the Lord. If we're always looking for that next high, the vacation, the car, the fancy dinner, the book, or just even experiences, that that require us to pay a bit more or to take a bit more time off and focus on that, maybe rather than being able to invest in relationships in a more redemptive way.
That can be helpful. That can be, harmful. If if we're always, again, just seeking that next time. I think one of the questions that we can come back to often is, how much am I keeping for myself? Because if we anchor ourselves in stewardship, it's not ours. Yeah. And all of us know, okay, if I hire somebody, let's just say I come into wealth.
I have, you know, a, a family member who gives me $10 million and puts it in my care, and I hire someone to take that and use those funds. There's still my funds. Yeah. You know, I'm not saying. Hey, you can use this however you want. Use $1 million to do whatever you want. Instead, I'm saying no, I'm hiring you to help me to deal with these resources.
And maybe you're hiring someone, to help you give resources away charitably or to invest those resources or whatever it might be. But the steward, you know, intrinsically that you're hiring that person and not telling them, just use it however the heck you want to. Right. So I think as we come back to how much am I keeping for myself, that question reframes what stewardship is because instead of how much am I giving to the Lord?
Maybe, in a charitable gift or gift to the church or whatever it might be. It's how much am I keeping for myself? Because ultimately, these are God's resources. Is that amount keeping my soul from Jesus even? Because all of us know at some level, you know, if that person is using too much for themselves, there's going to be friction in that relationship.
And so if we use too much, we're keeping our trust from being in the Lord and we're keeping that relationship. Really in a spot that's not helpful. So when we, when we think about sharing, bank or credit card statement with, a close friend or with a pastor, I think that oftentimes can speak to the level of, of maybe discomfort, that we might have.
And if we're not comfortable doing that, really, pressing in and saying, why am I not comfortable with that? Is it because maybe I'm keeping more than I need to there? Yeah.

Austin
Well, I think, you know, sometimes it's just helpful to get a framing. The reality is you have to spend money on yourself. You have to eat. You have to clothe yourself. You have to get to and from a job like there is no way that we can escape that. But I think we have so often thought, well, to feed myself, I need grass fed steak three nights a week.
You don't.

Spencer
Rice and beans.

Austin
Rice and beans go a long way right. I mean there's just ways that I think we take that baseline need and say, well I'm going to keep a little bit more for myself. I'm gonna keep a little bit more for myself and our needs, then grow into our wants and then grow into these luxury items where if I've said, okay, maybe I'll take a steak once a month.
Well then maybe I like it so much like you're saying it becomes a once a week and then it becomes well I was getting kind of the Kroger sale steaks. Now I'm gonna get the Whole Foods really nice ones and it's like okay, our lifestyle is just crept and crept and crept. And what was truly a need has now become a luxury that we have deemed as a need, because we want it so much.

Spencer
Well, and one of the things, you know, Carl Richards talks about this a fair amount. And I don't know that he's coming from a similar faith background, but he he says the thing that comes back to me so often is the first bite of ice cream is amazing.

Austin
Yeah.

Spencer
The second bite's pretty good. The third bite is good. And then everything thereafter not nearly as powerful. You know, you have a bite of amazing ice cream. You go to cruise farm or you know, you get Ben and Jerry's or, you know, whatever. That's that's kind of a premium ice cream. You're like, oh, this is so good. But even by the end of a small bowl of that, it doesn't taste nearly as good as that first bite.
And so often, I think instead of just praising God and enjoying some of the good things that come from time to time, we then hone in and say, okay, well, can I could I do this like several times a week and the experience is just it's never going to be there. But our, our bank statement will say, oh, you're bleeding cash here because you're trying to make it there all the time, right?

Austin
Right. And I love what we'll move on to giving here in just a second. But I love what Tim Keller suggests, that one of the questions that we really need to ask is, where does our money flow? Effortlessly? If you really want to know where your idols are. Ask yourself. Or maybe look at your bank statement and see where does your money flow effortlessly.
When a request comes to you from your kids, or whether you see that book or the vacation you just swipe without thinking about it. If you can highlight those things where your money flows effortlessly, then maybe it's starting to reveal some of those things that you've put on the throne instead of Jesus. And so one of the things as we move on to give is Ron Blue, one of our mentors, constantly says, giving is the way to break the power that money has over your life.
And so if you are struggling to realize, like I have an idol of this or that, or lifestyle or experiences or travel or whatever it may be, okay, let's start and let's reframe our entire budget conversation and start and say, okay, I need to first give my first fruits to the Lord. And this is all throughout Scripture that we always give our best to the Lord, whether that is our money, our time, our relationships.
We have to give the best of all to the Lord. And so we see through Scripture we really should start at 10% and then pursue giving sacrificially. Some people 10% may feel like sacrificial giving. And in all honesty, if you are making $30,000 a year, that might be a tremendous sacrifice. Versus if someone's making $300,000 a year, they have an abundance.
Maybe $30,000 doesn't feel like a big sum for them, but the reality is we have to start and we look again at places in whether it's in Christ's life or I love the the contradiction or the contradictory pictures that Paul gives in his letter to the Corinthians, where he says the Macedonians are giving out of their poverty. He's elevating them and saying, what are you doing, Corinthians?
Are you giving out of your poverty? Are you giving out your riches? But he's lifting up this church that has little. And so if we can look at the arc of history and say, okay, well, in the ancient Near East, just after Christ died, I don't think the Macedonians were making a ton of money, especially compared to the Corinthians.
And if we look at them, compared to us today, we have an abundance of wealth. If we cannot give generously and joyfully out of the abundance that Christ has given us, then I think we have an idol of our lifestyle, of our wants that has overtaken the throne of Christ. And so we say, giving breaks the power of money.
And if you're struggling to know where to give. Cameron Doolittle, in his book Joy Giving, talks about some different priorities. And he starts off when it says your first priority really should be to the local congregation, that you worship in. From there, it moves outward into concentric circles. That second circle is thinking about gospel proclamation and gospel action.
Things like missions, church planting, helping poverty alleviation with a gospel witness, helping again rescue slaves with that gospel witness. And there are times, honestly, when we have given to organizations that started well and said, hey, we want to rescue slaves. People, rescue people out of sex trafficking and do it with a gospel priority that the mission drift kind of started moving and it just became, hey, we're going to rescue slaves and give them some aftercare to just, hey, we're going to rescue slaves.
It's like as we've gotten further and further away from the gospel, my wife and I heart, our hearts been, hey, let's let's come back to a place that incorporates the gospel. Yes, rescuing slaves is incredibly important. We have to do this. Yet, If it's divorced from the gospel, are we rescuing you from one idol and sending him to another?
So really trying to be aware of where are those resources going. So that second tier really thinking, where is the gospel being proclaimed and where is the gospel in action? And then third, we think about who are those people in need. This can be our biological family, brothers and sisters in Christ who have needs. And then really we think about the global needy outside of Christ.
Family is kind of that last tier of giving. When you see the person on the side of the street that is needing a meal. Yeah, go, go give them a meal, bring them food. But we kind of just want to triage like we want to give to Christ's work. We want to be compassionate. We want to be abundant givers, but we want to also be tactical in the ways that we want to give.
We want to utilize the steward, the master's resources as the master would utilize his resources.

Spencer
And really it's it's based on relationships, too. I mean, if we know we have a brother or sister in need in acute need, why would we not give to them then the random person that we've never met that we have no idea of their story? Now, if the Holy Spirit prompts us to build a relationship with them, many times we'll, see someone in need go in.
Let's have, you know, a sandwich at subway, try to hear part of their story and and see what we can do to connect them, you know, with other resources. But so often what we are being called to is just helping our brothers and sisters in need. And that being part of that gospel witness that we're taking care well, of, those that are in our current relational sphere, of sorts.

Austin
Well I think Spencer that relational component is really key because we're not saying don't give to the person on the street as you build those relationships, you can find, okay, is it really money that you need, or do you need actual aid in helping find a place to live? Are your resources impoverished in that you actually need my time?
And I think that's oftentimes can be much harder to give because we feel compassion. A lot of us, when we see people that are in desperate need or their life has become so broken that you can see it or smell it or feel it, we want to be able to give and alleviate those, but we want to do it in such a way that actually helps them move towards life and healing and wholeness.
And that does have to happen through relationship.

Spencer
Right? Because there are so many folks that we've come across that you start to try to meet needs, but you realize that it's actually an approach to life that is the challenge. And so if you just pass out funds, the funds are going to be asked for at a higher clip and more frequency. And there's actually not life that's that's growing or a closeness to God.
It's just, being able to enable really a set of decisions that keep being made. So there's a fine line there. But I think listening to the Lord pursuing relationship and using money in that context far more than trying to just, you know, meet a need as a as it arises, at some level, we've got to get comfortable with.

Austin
Absolutely. So we're going to fly through these next few a little bit faster. But the next to you are owe debt and owe taxes. We'll do taxes first. But the reality here is just rejoice that you have income taxes mean that you have an income. You have resources that God has provided for you. Do we agree with everything the government does?
No. As I have done some more research and listen to people in the government talk about our government spending, it is incredibly wasteful. But also there are roads and bridges and we have safe water to drink and we have air traffic controllers. When there are planes in the air that cause them not to crash, it is a good thing.
Okay, so let's not get so ingrained in okay, the government is not doing anything right, so I'm not going to pay my taxes or I'm going to try to skirt and do these other things. No, God has provided for you. Praise God that you have and can pay your taxes with joy and then move on with life. Right.
With debt. I would say owing debt is way more nuanced than taxes. It's not a given in life. Because the government is not forcing us to go into debt. Debt oftentimes exposes our lifestyle choices more than anything. And so this is where we come back to that idea of our lifestyle. If we have come into debt because we have pursued a lifestyle that we can't afford, then that is where the problem lies.
And so we would recommend avoid the use of debt where possible, because debtors are slaves to the lenders. If I take out a $10,000 loan for something that I am a slave to the lender, it presupposes that life is going to continue on in perpetuity the way that it always has. I'll always have my job, I'll always have my health, and so I'll always be able to make that $500 a month payment for this car.
I think the reality is our our future is not presumed. We look at places through Ecclesiastes, James 4. Our life is a vanity. We are but a vapor. We are not promised tomorrow. We're not promised health and all these things. And so really, we need to check what is our desire here? Is our desire to use God's money to pay off a lender so that I can have something, some temporary pleasure again, that that looks at my life and says what I want is far more important than what the master wants.
There are times and the reality is, if you're going to buy a home in America, not many of us have $500,000 sitting around. I would argue that most people don't have anywhere near $500,000 sitting around. And so, yes, there are going to be times and places where taking on a mortgage, it makes sense. But we have to be very, very cautious and very careful.
And there are some people that have said I will never own a home because I won't have the cash to be able to do it. And so I don't want to be slave to that lender. And so, you know, there's a wide array of how we can think about this. But just at the end of the day, we want to try to avoid debt because we want to avoid being slaves to lenders so that we can have freedom to be abundantly gracious and generous.
So the last one we think about here is this idea of grow. We want to think prudently, save for future needs. At some point, you will get sick. At some point you will need to, potentially buy a car or replace tires or have some clothes. So having 3 to 6 months of living expenses set aside in cash so that when those needs arise, you're able to meet them.
Similarly, we know that your health is not going to go on in perpetuity for the future. And so saving to a time where, okay, I have resources so that when a need arises, whether it's within my family or within my sphere of influence, that I can help meet that need, God is still your provider. We don't want to replace our bank accounts.
We don't want those to replace God. And I think oftentimes if we have so much of a surplus, our bank accounts start to replace God as the provider and we don't want that to be the case. He is the provider. We are his stewards. We are not the owners of these resources. Our trust is not in them. So save prudently, save wisely, but don't save too much.

Spencer
Well. And also, as we save, one of the things that we have to recognize as stewards, we are investing that capital on behalf of the master. So there are a lot of ways that we can invest that capital that will be antithetical to his ways, that will be absolutely the opposite direction of what he would desire. So if we invest in places where we're participating with companies ill gotten gain, then the master is not going to be happy.
You know, you think about the different ways that we can invest in companies that their whole business is built on taking advantage and harming image bearers. I think it would be difficult to say that, you know, if you look at tobacco companies and where their revenue and where their growth is coming from in the Third World, sending, selling cigarets to, you know, eight and nine and ten year olds and getting them addicted.
There's not anything that you could, argue would be redemptive about, you know, that growth model for them. Similarly, you know, if we think about the gambling space in the States and having watched some different people go down that path and be sucked in and see their lives destroyed by that, that is harming image bears, that's the core business of it.
It's not as though, you know, you're investing in, a technology company that sells, you know, smartphones, and there's an app on there that they can do, you know, gaming or something like that, where, the, the smartphone is a conduit in some ways. This is actually the whole business model of some of these companies that are publicly traded, here.
So we have to I think, be really careful about the way that we try to grow those resources, because we know that our father in heaven has a lot of sons and daughters. And if you invest, you know, if you think about investing, you're never going to invest funds in a company that would harm your own kids. And as stewards, we never want to be doing that.
On behalf of the owner who has these children in these different spaces, because the owner will not be pleased. So I think, taking a real approach there, that we're keenly aware of how the investments are making money, what the business model is not down to necessarily everything that's going on within a 10-K or, you know, the business lines, themselves, how they're, the transaction comes from consumers.
It doesn't take that level of minutia. It just takes an understanding of what how do these folks make money, you know, can I is it something that would please, you know, God, there and then really being comfortable and listening to what the Lord might speak, in the midst of that.


Austin
Absolutely. Well, Spencer, thanks for walking us through this idea of the different ways that we can use God's money. Again, we use it to live, give, owe, and grow. We're going to continue to expound on this again over the next couple of months, because, again, we want to come back to these foundational pieces because they are transformative in the ways that we see ourselves as stewards, in the ways that we really come to God.
Like you're saying, on everything from our bank accounts to our spending to the ways that we invest alongside the King of Kings, in the next episode, we're going to talk through what does it mean to set spending finish lines? And until next time, take care. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclosure
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We're 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.