This morning we’re going to wrap up our five week series on stewardship in the kingdom of heaven. We began five weeks ago by establishing four foundational principles. Since these are so important, let’s review them one more time:
Foundational principle #1:
• God owns everything
Foundational principle #2:
• God has appointed us to be stewards of what He owns
Foundational principle #3:
• We will be held accountable for our stewardship
Foundational principle #4:
• Stewardship is required in all areas of my life
We built upon those foundational principles as we discovered that God wants us to invest our time, talent and treasure in His kingdom and that we do that by investing in the lives of people in order to help prepare them for eternity. We added to that foundation as we saw that Jesus desires that we cultivate a life of contentment, which occurs when we make His kingdom and His righteousness the top priority in our lives. And then last week, we completed building on that foundation by examining seven principles for New Testament giving.
We certainly haven’t covered everything that the Bible teaches about our stewardship in the kingdom of heaven, but we certainly know enough now to begin putting all these principles into practice in our day-to-day lives. So what I want to do this morning is to help you do that by describing some very practical steps that we can take in order to be obedient to Jesus in this area of our lives.
Once again, we’re primarily going to focus on our financial resources today, but many of these steps can also be applied to our time and our talents as well.
There are a lot of very good resources available that provide much more detailed instruction than I’ll be able to give this morning, and I encourage you to take advantage of those resources. Among those resources are a number of people right here in this body who have great experience and training in this area and who have volunteered to be good stewards of their time and talents by sitting down and working with those of you who may need some additional help in this area. Their names and contact information are listed at the bottom of your sermon outline this morning. If you’re struggling at all in this area, I really encourage you to contact one of them and get some additional help.
With the limited time that we have this morning, I’ve narrowed it down to just five steps this morning. As you’ll see, these five steps all work together and are interrelated. You can’t just pick out one or two and ignore the rest.
Making My Stewardship Practical
1. Work hard
We see evidence all around us that many people in this world have developed a real entitlement mentality in which they feel like they are entitled to a certain lifestyle regardless of what they do. In our country, we certainly see this in many of the “Occupy Wall Street” participants. While there is no “official” list of demands, one of the common things the participants are seeking is “a guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.” In other words, everyone is to be entitled to some level of pay regardless of their education, skills or work ethic.
In Greece, people are rioting in the streets because their government is bankrupt and has been forced to adopt so called “austerity measures” in order to get their budget back in balance. Among those measures are a reduction in the government health care system and reduction in Social Security benefits.
It is certainly true, as we have consistently seen, that we are completely dependent on God for all of our needs. But that does not mean, however, that we are merely to sit idly by and wait for God to just drop everything we need into our laps. In fact, the Bible consistently points out that God values hard work.
Much of the Biblical instruction concerning our finances comes from the Proverbs and that is certainly true when it comes to this first step.
Wealth gained hastily will dwindle,
but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
Proverbs 13:11 (ESV)
In all toil there is profit,
but mere talk tends only to poverty.
Proverbs 14:23 (ESV)
But perhaps no where do we see this clearer than in Paul’s command to the church in Thessalonica:
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
2 Thessalonians 3:10 (ESV)
Many in the church there expected Jesus to return soon, so they were just mooching off of others rather than working for their food. But Paul told them they needed to get back to work and quit depending on others. Now certainly there are those who are unable to work through no fault of their own. And for those who are members of the body of Christ it is clear that we have an obligation to help meet their needs. But for the vast majority of us, God meets our physical needs through the jobs that He provides for us. And He expects us to work diligently there.
2. Work righteously
Although I certainly can’t condone the entitlement mentality that seems to permeate the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, they certainly do raise some legitimate issues when they address those individuals and corporations who have become wealthy through deception and unscrupulous business practices.
The Bible is clear that as followers of Jesus, we are not only to work hard, but we are to work righteously. Once again, we turn to the Proverbs:
The wicked earns deceptive wages,
but one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward.
Proverbs 11:18 (ESV)
The wage of the righteous leads to life,
the gain of the wicked to sin.
Proverbs 10:16 (ESV)
God is not pleased when our income is earned in a manner that is inconsistent with the righteousness that we are to exhibit as Christ followers. There is never any justification for earning our income in an unscrupulous manner that in any way might not reflect honorably on Jesus. We also need to guard against “get rich quick” schemes and trying to gain wealth through short cuts that avoid the need for hard work. We find some wise counsel in a verse that we have already looked at:
Wealth gained hastily will dwindle,
but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
Proverbs 13:11 (ESV)
Unfortunately in this state, the government actually sponsors one of these schemes – it’s called the lottery. Even though on average state lotteries only pay out 53 cents of every dollar in prize money and the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are only 1 in 195,249,054, people continue to try and find their way to quick riches. And even worse, those who can least afford it tend to spend more of their income playing the lottery than those who are more well off. A recent study showed that those with incomes under $13,000 per year spent 9% of their income to purchase lottery tickets.
And to compound the problem even more, those few who actually do win the big jackpots usually end up miserable, broke and even dead shortly after their big windfall. But we shouldn’t be surprised since that is exactly what the Bible says will happen.
So these first two steps deal with how we get our financial resources. The last three are going to deal with how we utilize those resources once we’ve obtained them.
3. Develop a budget
John Maxwell says, “A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.” And it is also the key practice that will make the last two steps we’ll look at this morning possible.
A budget is merely a written plan for your finances where you document all your sources of income and how you spend that money. While some people might claim that developing a budget somehow decreases one’s faith in God, it is actually a very Biblical practice that is found in both the Old and New Testaments.
Know well the condition of your flocks,
and give attention to your herds,
for riches do not last forever;
and does a crown endure to all generations?
When the grass is gone and the new growth appears
and the vegetation of the mountains is gathered,
the lambs will provide your clothing,
and the goats the price of a field.
There will be enough goats’ milk for your food,
for the food of your household
and maintenance for your girls.
Proverbs 27:23-27 (ESV)
Obviously today not too many of us have flocks and herds. But in the agricultural based economy during the time the Proverbs were written, those animals served the very same purpose as our money does today. People depended on their flocks for food and as an asset they could trade or sell to obtain the other things they needed to live on.
So the principles we find here are certainly applicable to how we handle our finances. The idea here is that we are to give proper attention to our finances. We need to know where our money is coming from and where it is going so that we can plan to meet our needs. That does not in any way lessen our dependence on God or our need to trust in Him. No matter how well we plan, God is still sovereign and our income and expenses can change at any time. But, as we saw a couple of weeks ago when we looked at the Parable of the Talents, if we are to be good stewards of the resources that God has entrusted to our care, we need to take prudent measures to make sure we are using those resources in a manner that benefits the kingdom of heaven. And that means having a budget.
Jesus’ words concerning the cost of discipleship are also relevant to how we handle our finances:
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’
Luke 14:28-30 (ESV)
Here Jesus points out the importance of knowing where we are financially so that we can make a determination as to whether we have adequate resources before we start making expenditures. Again, that us exactly why we need a budget.
Obviously, we don’t have nearly enough time this morning to get into the details of how to prepare a budget. But there are a lot of very good resources available to help you to do that, including a number of people here in our body who have a lot of experience in this area and have offered to sit down with anyone who would like some help.
But before we leave this area, let me leave you with one illustration of why having a budget is so important. Several years ago someone was talking to me about how their family just didn’t have enough money to get by on. Since I had a pretty good idea how much money both the husband and the wife made, I was really surprised that they were struggling financially. So we began to look at how they were spending their money.
It turns out that this person was stopping by Starbuck’s every morning on the way to work for a cup of coffee – and not just regular coffee, one of those “foo foo” drinks for people who really don’t like coffee. And then that person also went out to lunch every day – usually just fast food, but the whole office would go out for a nice lunch once a week. And then in the afternoon, this person usually had another Starbuck’s drink for a pick-me-up. So I asked that person how much they thought they were spending just on lunch and coffee over the period of a year. They figured maybe a few hundred dollars. But when we sat down and crunched the numbers it was actually much closer to $4,000 a year. Without a budget that person had no idea how much money was being spent just in that one area.
As you’ll see, we can’t even hope to put into practice the last two steps we’ll look at this morning if we don’t have a budget.
4. Save for future needs
Based on what I’ve observed over the years, this is probably the step that is most often ignored and most often gets people into trouble. If I spend every penny that I make, then when some major item like a car or a refrigerator breaks down, my only option is to go out and borrow money to take care of that expense. We’re going to discuss debt in some more detail in a moment, but I’m sure you can already see the downward cycle that begins at that point.
Once again we find some very practical and wise advice in the Proverbs:
Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man’s dwelling,
but a foolish man devours it.
Proverbs 21:20 (ESV)
A foolish person spends all that he has without putting anything away for the future. But a wise man saves some of his resources to provide for future needs.
Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief,
officer, or ruler,
she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest.
Proverbs 6:6-8 (ESV)
Even the ants are wise enough to store up food during the summer harvest so that they will have something to eat in the winter.
As a short term goal, most families need to have at least $1,000 set aside in an emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses. Then, once debt is under control, most Christian financial counselors recommend building a full emergency fund that is adequate to cover three to six months of expenses.
Again, the idea here is not to in any way minimize our dependence on God or our need to trust in Him, but rather to be good stewards of the resources He has entrusted to us.
5. Minimize debt
There is by no means universal agreement about whether Christ followers should go into debt and for what purposes it is permissible to go into debt. But what is clear from Scripture is God’s best for His people is that they not be in bondage to debt. We see this all the way back in the Old Testament before Israel entered into the Promised Land:
For the LORD your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.
Deuteronomy 15:6 (ESV)
Here we see that God desired to bless His people by making them lenders rather than borrowers. And one of the reasons He desired to do that is because the lender always rules over the borrower – a principle that is confirmed, not surprisingly, in the Proverbs:
The rich rules over the poor,
and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
Proverbs 22:7 (ESV)
However, even though being debt free is God’s ideal, there is no blanket prohibition against borrowing money in the Scriptures. But at the same time, accumulating large amounts of debt is undoubtedly evidence of our lack of trust in God. For most people, much of the debt they incur, especially unsecured debt like credit card debt, is the result of buying something they could not otherwise afford. Unfortunately, even as Christ followers, we are not immune to the temptation to buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t know.
To a large degree the economic difficulties that face our country right now can be traced back to the collapse of the housing market, which in turn can be traced back to the fact that a lot of people who had no business buying a house went deep into debt without any means of ever paying off that debt. And for the Christ follower that clearly violates a principle that we find in both the Old and New Testaments.
The wicked borrows but does not pay back,
but the righteous is generous and gives;
Psalm 37:21 (ESV)
That ought to make us think twice before we go into debt, shouldn’t it? Those who do not pay what they owe are considered wicked in God’s sight. And then there are these words from Paul:
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:8 (ESV)
While some have tried to use this verse to teach that a Christ follower is never to borrow, taken in context that is clearly not what Paul is teaching here. In fact, the command here is in the present tense and could be translated, “Don’t keep on owing…” In other words, Paul is confirming the principle we saw in Proverbs – if you do borrow money, you must pay it back.
Hopefully it is obvious by now why these last three steps all work together. It is going to be difficult to save for future needs if you don’t’ have a budget. And if you don’t save for future needs, it will inevitably lead to going further into debt.
Before we close, let me just share a word of encouragement with you. Perhaps as you’ve sat there listening this morning, you’re thinking about your own financial situation and it seems hopeless to you. And perhaps much of that is your own fault because you haven’t done a very good job of implementing these practices and you feel guilty. But there is no need to do that. If you are genuinely committed to following these practices in your life so that you can be a good steward it is still possible to do that. It may take some time and a whole lot of discipline on your part, but it can be done. And you don’t have to do it alone. There are people here in this body who can help you get to where you need to be if you’ll just be willing to ask for some help.
Finally, let’s bring all this to a close by focusing on why we should be good stewards of our finances in the first place. What should be our motivation for following these steps?
The Biblical Reason to Apply These Principles:
Let’s address this first from a negative standpoint. What is not to be my motivation?
• NOT so I can accumulate more for myself
Jesus told a parable that makes this point better than anything I could say:
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.”
Luke 12:16-21 (ESV)
Accumulating more and more for ourselves is foolish. In fact, as we have seen throughout the last five weeks, it is the opposite of good stewardship that seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Obviously some balance is needed here. Jesus is not saying that we can’t enjoy the material resources that God entrusts to us. But ultimately we can only have real joy if we focus on God and not on things.
So if I don’t take these steps in order to have more for myself, why does God want me to do that?
• So I have more to give to others
Obviously we need to be good stewards in order to use the resources that God has entrusted to us to meet our needs. But there is an even greater purpose that we find in both the Old and New Testaments:
One gives freely, yet grows all the richer;
another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.
Proverbs 11:24 (ESV)
We are to be good stewards so that we can give freely. And when we do that, God makes us even richer – not always financially but certainly spiritually. But when we withhold from others when we have the opportunity to meet their needs, we suffer, often financially, and certainly spiritually.
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Ephesians 4:28 (ESV)
The reason we are to work is not only to meet our own needs but also so that we have something to share with those around us who have needs.
I’ve tried to make this very practical today and to provide all of us with some practices that will help to make us better stewards, especially with our financial resources. And my guess is that a lot of us really struggle in this area and need some help. So that’s why, as I have repeatedly mentioned throughout this message, we want to provide you with some practical, hands-on help. As part of that, we’ve developed some additional materials that will be available in the lobby that provide some more guidance on how to implement these practices.
While all of us could probably use some help, here are some situations that indicate you really need to seek out some help:
• You have a credit card balance that you are unable to pay in full each month.
• You are behind on your rent, mortgage or other debt payments.
• You do not have an emergency fund of at least $1,000.
• You are not giving for the purpose of furthering the kingdom of God and meeting the needs of others.
If any of those describe where you’re at right now, please don’t leave here today until you’ve arranged to get some help.
I want for all of us to stand before Jesus one day and hear Him say these words:
Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.
Matthew 25:21 (ESV)
