Remembering It's Not Your Money

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Thank you Jim for kicking us off well and helping to orient us with regard to Goals and roles and a lot of what Jim said will intentionally bleed over into this message and You’ll find that there will be a lot of overlap really among all four. I trust Why don’t I go ahead and pray and we will begin our next session father? Thank you for the opportunity that we have to gather and to turn to your word and seek instruction as to how we are To live and how we are to? Even as he said, Jim said in the last session, try to enflesh this picture of Christ’s relationship with the church. We really ought to be able to point to our own marriages, to give others a sense as to what Christ’s relationship with his bride looks like.

We know that there is great joy that awaits us when we can be on the same pages with our spouses as relates to money matters. So today, with the few minutes that remain, I ask that you help me to bring some helpful and clear information, and that we all find clear application in it as well. We thank you, and we pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen. So this session is entitled, Remembering is Not Your Money. So not too surprisingly, it is about money and finance. And many people believe that money matters are the single greatest source of conflict in marriages today. While, of course, every marriage is, in fact, different, it’s certainly the case for many of us.

Jim Martin is fond of reminding us that budgets represent our lists of loves with dollar signs beside them. Others have suggested that if you really want to know where a man’s heart is, and he’d look no further than his checkbook registry. And of course, just the mere fact that Jesus talks so much about money makes it important, but he also talked about it because it’s already important and so near and dear to man’s hearts. With money, we buy many of the necessities of life. With money, we bless others. With money, we bless ourselves. With money, we pay for essentials, and we pay with money for the non-essentials of life.

Money even makes an appearance in many wedding vows. And so here we are talking again about this source of either fantastic conflict or fantastic joy, as it is a tool that is wielded in like-minded harmony with our spouses. With this, of course, being a marriage seminar, it’s my intent for this talk to provide some helps for married couples to enjoy the blessing of God as they exercise excellent financial stewardship together. These principles, of course, apply to singles as well, but the more a couple can be like-minded in these money matters, the greater their blessing will be. So it seems fitting to begin with a few disclaimers.

First, I realized that there are a lot of ways to be a blessing to people, that there are lots of ways to bless others that don’t involve dollars at all. My aim here is to help us think about the money-related ones. So how God would have us exercise financial stewardship. So I don’t mean to say that this is the only way to be a blessing to yourself or to others, but we’re just talking about money as it were here. So I’d urge you to consider then all these comments in their appropriate context. Second, I don’t come before you this afternoon as somebody who is an authority, or who has arrived, or who has all the money matters that there are to dial in.

There’s a lot that I don’t know. There’s a lot that I really want to know, a ton in fact. But there is no mistaking this, Sonia has blessed the socks off of Sonia and me in a whole bunch of different ways, and I want that blessing for all of you. No doubt many of you are already enjoying such blessings. You could deliver this message far better than I could. That’s awesome. Others of us still need to be reminded of what we already know, and that’s good because I don’t actually plan to say anything new or novel this afternoon. I won’t be bringing any new information that you probably haven’t heard before. Third, as a disclaimer, this is the last one, loving money is bad. I get that. For the faithful Christian, it also doesn’t make much sense anyway. I do not wish to communicate that gaining money for the sake of your own independence or your own security is a good aim in itself.

Consider the the parable of the rich fool in Luke chapter 12 verse 16. Jesus told him 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’ll do this. I’ll tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and goods. And I’ll 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. Now this guy’s problem was not that he had a lot of produce from his fields. God had given that increase, that’s good. He was a fool because he found solace in his own security and his own independence rather than depending on God. And he was also a fool because he had no apparent interest in doing good for others with the wealth God had given. So the rich fool here could have been a great means of blessing to other people and he could have enjoyed tremendous blessing himself instead but he loved money. So don’t love money, there’s a disclaimer.

So I get that. So disclaimer is aside now I would like to put forth two presuppositions from which I will speak and which we must establish if we would rightly understand money matters. First, your money is actually God’s money. See how novel this is? You’re like, yeah, well, I get it. Right, we get it, but we don’t act like we get it. You are a steward, you are a middleman. You’ve been entrusted with this money to bless, to trade, to make a return. When you’re stumped about what decision to make, spend your money as though God actually cares about your expenditure, because he does. How will you give account for that expense, joyfully or sheepishly?

I think of the wife who gets a great deal on a pair of jeans and can’t wait to rush home and tell her husband about it, that sort of thing. Like, all of our expenditures really ought to be like that. Look, Lord, look what happened. With what you gave me, look what happened. So even if you want to push back right now and say, wait a minute, but who earned the money? I earned that money. Isn’t it mine to do with what I please? Well, I would simply remind you with another series of questions about who gave you the job, who gave you the time, talents, abilities to earn that money. Of course, God cares deeply about our work as we, in our various callings, bless the world.

So God makes us for work, He gives us work to do. For some of our professional work, we even get paid. But even if you don’t get paid, you’re still born to work. The father who owns the cattle on a thousand hills has entrusted us with a few bucks. Like the master of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, God most reasonably expects us to handle our money well and to be prepared to give him an account for what we have done. So it’s God’s money and we are stewards. The operating presupposition of the selfish is that it’s their money. We tend to be selfish with the things that are ours, and if you would combat selfishness, then remember that it’s not yours anyway.

We have to get that through our heads if we would be rightly oriented about money. second, our second presupposition. So this is the baseline concept that ought to undergird our discussion this afternoon. Faithful financial stewardship positions you to receive optimal blessing. Jesus provides a litany of ways to be blessed in Matthew 5, verses 3-11 in the Beatitudes and they center on character. There are no doubt a lot of ways to be blessed by God. Today, we’ll be talking about the important connection between finances and blessing. I’m not talking about the seed money that’s sown in faith when you simply call the number at the bottom of the screen because operators are standing by, and that God will multiply in our bank accounts or any garbage like that, but rather money is a tool that we can use to bring blessing to others and to ourselves.

When you are freed up, when you are then freed up to become a blesser of men, you actually receive more blessing than you are doling out. Ask any generous person if he’s been recipient of greater blessing or if he feels like he’s been a bigger blessing to other people, and those who are wired that way and are rightly oriented, recognize that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. Our faithful financial stewardship then positions us to receive optimal blessing from God. Now, I’m all for practical tips, tricks, and life hacks and with money matters is no exception. But I’m far more of a philosophy principle type guy because the principles can be applied in a variety of contexts.

I’m far more interested in principles financially that I can apply in a variety of financial contexts. And the way that I’ll orient this talk then this afternoon is to offer a number of principles, nine to be exact, nice round number, and that they overlap with each other quite a bit. So you’ll be saying, well, couldn’t this sub point have been a put under, yeah, probably, because there’s such overlap among them. And then look at examples of ways that you might apply them. Wisdom requires that when we look at specifics, we try and draw principles from those specifics. I am not prescribing necessarily any of the examples that I’ll be giving you this afternoon.

They’re just ideas of ways that you might apply the principle to help you better understand the principle. If I could deliver this message without giving any specifics at all, I would, because the principles are what are going to be transcendent. So just to be clear, I’m not necessarily prescribing any of the examples. They’re examples. So with that said, we’re going to get started with our first principle. And our first principle is to be intentional. To be intentional. When we recognize that the money that we steward is on loan from the Lord, we are more ready to give account for how we spend it. And in God’s economy, we receive the greatest blessings when we bring blessings to others.

From bringing dinner to a sick friend to sponsoring 12 orphans to helping with your grandkids tuition, leaving your children an inheritance, having discretionary dollars freeze you up to be that kind of blessing and to receive blessing in turn. Conversely, overextending yourself financially makes all of this harder, if not impossible. So intentional spending does not mean that there’s never a time for what we might call unnecessary expenditures. But what it does mean is that when we spend this money with a purpose, we ought to be ready to give account to God for it. And I’ll talk about this later on, but for instance, I think the Apostle Paul would approve heartily of taking your wife out to a nice dinner. I don’t think that the Apostle Paul would be excited about your needing to make payments on that for the coming calendar year at 18% interest. But if you can afford that dinner, if you can actually afford it, then spend that money with gratefulness and joy.

Live it up, party, receive, feast. It’s good. So example applications of this, then, might be to set some goals. Set measurable, aggressive, but realistic goals, like have your house paid off in 20 years rather than 30 by making additional payments to the principal. Maximize IRA contributions. Anonymously bless 10 different families by the end of this calendar year. Increase your giving to the Lord by 1%, whether it is to the church or elsewhere. This is not intended to be a self-serving, give more to the church. Our church is generous. There are lots of ways to give to the church. I want you to be blessed. However you increase your giving to the church, do it sacrificially, give it a shot, or give to the Lord.

Another goal might be to actually think about your spending. I know that seems simplistic, but the alternative is what many of us do, that is spend mindlessly or habitually. It’s like counting calories. If you know that’s going to take you an hour, a full hour on the treadmill to burn off that donut, you think, maybe it’s not worth the donut. Even if it is one of Ryan’s homemade, glazed or old-fashioned things, who knows? If you think about why you’re spending your dollars even while you’re doing it, then you’re more likely to be deliberate and intentional about it. If you’re getting a great deal or if there’s great return for your expense.

Like it’s expensive, but it’s totally worth it. Yeah, I think great. You’ll then spend with a clear conscience and greater joy. That’s good. Here’s another one. I didn’t even bother putting this up there, but buy a vacation home. I think that owning a vacation home is fantastic if you can actually afford it. You excitedly bless others with it. You receive it with gratefulness from the Lord, and your kids know all of this. Like, are there better ways to spend your money? Maybe, but that’s a good way. So you see that there’s a variety of different types of applications here. Once again, how you apply the application is up to you.

I’m trying to help us drive home the principle. The second of which is, be like-minded with your spouse. So that’s what this whole talk is actually about, is trying to get on the same page with your spouse and enjoy these blessings and these joys together. This is part of the great challenge because there’s actually a number of thorny issues that will even surface in the context of this talk. Money matters introduce all sorts of conflict into marriages. It’s true. If that describes you, you’re not alone and it’s okay because Sean’s going to fix everything in the fourth session. The sooner you can get on the same philosophical page with your spouse, the happier you will be in your obedient and generous fund management.

It’s fun because usually you can categorize people in a relationship. In a marriage relationship, you’ll often have different personality types, different personalities are attracted to one another, opposite the tract. Sometimes speaking in broad generalizations, you might have the nerdy bookkeeping, spreadsheets are awesome type, and you might have the free-spirited person who doesn’t really care, and who calls the bank to find out what his balance is, and would just be happy if money didn’t exist at all. And if you don’t know which ones you are, the nerds are eager for this talk and the free spirits are ready to move on to session three right now.

In other marriages, now let’s say that there’s a different category of marriages. People, husband and wife are both really interested in money matters. You have also what can be categorized as the Dave Ramsey types, who are all for eliminating debt above all else and mobilizing your primary wealth building tool, that is your income, to unfettered use, to do unfettered work. You’ll also have then what I call the Robert Kiyosaki types, who say that debt of some kind is not so bad if you pay a low interest rate over here to free up capital to do more work for a greater return elsewhere. In our relationship, I’m Kiyosaki and Sonia is Dave Ramsey, and makes conversations interesting.

Work hard as you aim to become like-minded with your spouse and be ready to compromise. Since really in those two camps, for instance, there’s great wisdom in both places. Learn from your spouse, learn from others. Sonia has taught me a ton about money management and sensible saving and spending. It’s worthwhile to invest time to get on the same page with your spouse. Then what was once for many source of great conflict can become a source of great joy. Some example applications of this might be, pay your bills together. Make an appointment, I’m not ready to call it a date necessarily, but make an appointment with your spouse each month for the next six months or so, it’s not a matter of how long, to sit down together after payday and do your bills together.

Sonia and I do this every month and we’ve done it for a decade or so. We pay the bills together, many of them which are online, not on autopay. We actually don’t do autopays. But this forces us to look at it every time. Then we record them in our checkbook register. at that time we transfer money to savings and we write our tithe check, we tithe. We address any sorts of extra bills that come up. You know, you have a subscription to the newspaper once a year. So we have the newspaper bill this month or some strange medical bill came up that’s not a typical recurring thing. So those other sort of popcorn bills that pop up.

And then we just address those together. Well, this forces us to look at these things together so that we are seeing the same thing from shocking water bills due to the sprinkler system in September to shocking credit card bills due to Christmas in January to the current balances in the savings account. This is one practical way for you and your spouse to be speaking the same language when it comes to money matters. If the wife simply pays the credit card bill or it’s on auto pay, then there’s a danger that the husband will just spend without ever being confronted again with those expenditures or without having to give account to his wife for where the dollars went or for that emergency supply of bratwurst that magically appeared in the refrigerator last week.

Principle three is to be moderate. Be moderate. Moderation. Oh, it’s actually, sorry, sensible. Be sensible. Sensibility and moderation. You could actually, you could use both of them, but let’s stick with sensible. Keeps you from spending beyond your means. It keeps you from overextending yourself financially or from taking on too many financial obligations. How many is too many? Well, maybe more than you need, or so many that you are no longer in a position to plan for the future or be a blessing to others. Clearly, if you think you’re too strapped financially to give to the Lord his own money, then the revisiting of your budget is in order.

So example applications here might be to write a budget. Some of you have never done this before, some of you haven’t done it in a long time and the odds are, maybe your income’s gone up or down in different areas, and it’s worth where you’re spending habits, maybe the price of gas has changed since you have written your budget last, and so it’s worth revisiting. This forces you to take a look at your spending habits. You might well be spending 200 bucks a month dining out, If you had to take a guess at it, you would have guessed about half of that. Well, if you find that you’re spending more than you should dining out, then you can try and dial it back.

This is also a good time for you then to distinguish between needs and wants. Another potential application might be to use the cash and envelope system, which basically involves cashing your paycheck and putting your budgeted dollars in labeled cash envelopes. When your envelope entitled eating out is empty, then your dinner date becomes then a walk in the park. When your envelope labeled gas money is empty but you actually need gas, well then you have to borrow from another envelope, another account, or take your bike. That’s how it works. Dave Ramsey is fond of pointing out that we are more willing to make a purchase when we put it on plastic than we are when we have to part with cash.

I think there’s something to be said for that. Other, I mean, just quickly, some others might be to limit your liquid cash. So having an emergency fund is important, but have no more liquid cash. So I mean, just cash that’s not even doing any better than a savings account. These days, it’s not that hard to withdraw IRA contributions or whatnot when you actually need it. Just ways to be sensible. How can you make the best return while still being safe and sensible and so on? Another one is policing your own credit card spending limits. We had a credit card one time where as long as we kept paying the balance, they kept raising our spending limit until eventually it was at like $20,000 with a zero balance.

We had a kind of a harrowing thought, what if somebody got a hold of this thing? We told them, look, we never wanted more than 10,000 bucks. They said that’s fine. So they put it there. But with our credit card happy society, they want you to have as much buying power as possible. So they’ll crank that thing up, but you can put a cap on it. So you see that? Just an idea. Ways to be sensible, protect yourself that also keeps you from going nuts. Maybe you need to have a $500 spending limit on your credit card just to keep yourself in check, perhaps. So, good. Another one might be to actually save money each month, to do whatever you need to do.

You know, maximize your IRA contributions or take it for pity’s sake, take advantage of your employer match contributions, that’s free money. Okay, moving on. Another principle, be ethical. Be ethical. Christians of all people ought to meet our financial obligations. We actually ought to meet all of our obligations of any kind. Defaulting on debt or carrying a lot of consumer debt shackles you. When you are free from debt, you’re in a better position to save for the future and to be a blessing to others. Well, my next point will involve generosity, but when you are being generous with dollars that are already encumbered by a previous debt, you’re actually doing a bad thing.

So it makes little sense to not pay the mortgage so that you can help your brother get a new transmission. But if your bills are paid and you have an extra $100, help him out. When you bought your house, you made a deal and it involved a commitment to pay. So honoring your obligations should be a given unless and until you cannot and you need to sell that house. In Romans 13, Paul drives this principal home. You can read it with me if your eyes are really sharp. Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God’s wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this, you also pay taxes for the authorities or ministers of God attending to this very thing.

Pay to all what is owed to them taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. O, no one anything except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. And any other commandment are summed up in this word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Now many people have used that passage to say that Christians ought not to have any financial debt at all.

I don’t think that’s the point that he’s making because Paul is assuming some debt on the part of even his faithful readers, taxes, debts of revenue, even debts of gratitude or respect. His point is simply that we need to be faithful to pay our debts. I don’t think that Paul would approve of carrying a mountain of credit card debt because it fetters your generosity. I think he would say you should, if you accumulate that, then you work hard to pay it off from month a month so that you may be freer to be a blessing to others. The point is not to have no debt at all. It’s to pay your debts, and this honors our agreements and our covenants and actually is good business and brings blessing to others, part of the way our society works.

Example application here might be to work hard to eliminate your consumer debt. So having a home mortgage with a set payoff timeline and fixed interest rate that these days is really low, I think is fine. you do well to try and eliminate that aggressively too if that’s all you have. Likewise with other agreed terms for financing cars or whatnot. So if you actually have consumer debt, try and pay it off aggressively and get rid of it. If you can avoid financing those things, that’s better still. Just remember, and this is part of the principle, remember that the more financially and contractually encumbered you are, the less you’re able to bless others with God’s money and to be in a position to receive blessing yourself.

In other words, if a great portion of your paycheck is already spoken for before you even receive it because of a mountain of contractual obligations, you are less able and less free to in turn bless others. Does that make sense? And pay your taxes. Principle five, be wise. And this one really could just be, it could also be its own presupposition. You’re supposed to be wise. There you go. The Bible thinks so. And we could say a lot about it, but wisdom helps with everything, doesn’t it? It’s kind of nice to know what to do. And that, of course, includes money matters, and it includes matters related to relationships and marriage.

So our behavior that incurs certain costs, like late fees, speeding tickets, lottery tickets, most luxury items, they represent unnecessary uses of God’s money. Most unwise behavior is preventable if we would but get wisdom. I’m not saying don’t pay your speeding ticket I’m saying if at all possible try to avoid getting one in the first place I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever spend a fancy night at the Four Seasons for your anniversary When there’s a motel six across the street, there probably wouldn’t be but But do try to get a good deal on the night at the Four Seasons and then man Enjoy it as a gift from God with deep gratefulness, and wisdom helps us to make such decisions.

Wisdom begets sensible behavior. Sensibility was a couple of principles ago. If you want to be fiscally sensible, you need to saturate your mind with scripture and to apply the proverbs. Apply the proverbs to your financial decisions. This principle is not really hard to understand, so I’ll take opportunity here to offer a few more examples than just one. So here’s one. Actually, we’ll keep it short. Stay away from charlatans. It’s a good idea. My students like the video footage that I’ve shown them of televangelists because they’re funny. What’s not funny is when people actually believe them. Stay away from charlatans and televangelists, for crying out loud.

It’s not good stewardship to give it to somebody who is, whose chief aim is to profit from your foolishness. Frugality, be frugal. Try to avoid paying more than is necessary for goods. If it’s your thing, like a principle application would be like clipping coupons. My wife hates clipping coupons. She would much rather shop sales. She also will take a calculator with her to price out the per each price per unit to see what the best deal is. So use the calculator app on your iPhone when you’re at Safeway. And this is just ways to stretch your dollar to make it go further in frugality. Here’s another one. Cry once and buy once. Pay more for quality products that you’ll end up paying less for in the long term in replacements. So buying one pair of $200 shoes costs less money than buying five pairs of $60 shoes.

The $200 shoes, they’re broken in and they will probably last longer than the five pairs anyway, and you don’t have the added time of having to shop. So it makes sense. Quality shoes, furnishings, maybe getting it reupholstered actually costs less than replacing it. Vehicles, appliances, they can last a long time, if they’re high quality and they’re well maintained, or you can buy cheap ones periodically. Sometimes that’s the best use of your money. Like you literally can’t afford it. Say, yeah, you buy the $200 dishwasher instead of the $600 one. Yeah, sure. But sensibility prevents you from buying designer shoes for your daughter to play in the mud.

It may allow you to buy a $500 suitcase if travel is a big part of your job. So buy once, cry once. Another principle, be generous. Just like the government, we tend to be generous with other people’s money. So take this cue from the government, it’s not your money, so be generous with it. There you go. The money you have is ultimately given to you by God. What are you going to do with it? That’s the question. Yes, we have to earn our money, but we do it with talents and abilities that he has given us. Frankly, you may have more money to steward and to handle and to account for than people who are more competent than you elsewhere in the world.

You didn’t earn that status it was given. So again, what are you going to do with that money? Remember that God blesses the faithful and the generous. Besides, generosity is also really fun. So example application might involve blessing someone anonymously. You could maybe give it to the Deacons Fund here at church. They’ll disperse it wisely in mercy ministry and the recipients will never know where it came from. It’s awesome. There is little that is, and then being on the receiving end of that as you can imagine, is very humbling. There’s little more humbling than receiving a great and generous gift and not knowing who gave it. You feel loved. I know because you all have done that to me before. Give to someone who cannot repay you. Give to someone who cannot repay you. Jesus spoke to this very thing in Luke chapter 14 verses 12 through 14. He said, When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors lest they also invite you in return and you’ll be repaid.

Isn’t that fantastic? Don’t do it because they might be able to repay you. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Your payment’s coming. And I would also say there’s a, even if we weren’t repaid at the resurrection of the just, there’s great joy in being able to be a blessing to somebody who can’t pay you back. That also removes from the giver the possibility of acting in his own self interests, unless of course you want to keep blessing on your own head by blessing others, which is a good kind of selfishness.

Another one might be to give a fat tip next time you dine out, especially they see you praying. There’s nothing quite so shameful as them knowing that you’re Christians and then helping to perpetuate the stereotype that Christians are a bunch of tightwads. Be nice to your server for pity’s sakes. Paying generously for good and useful service is a means to bring blessing to the world. So Sean and I have talked about this before. Some people are always about getting the free app. He’s about getting the best one and happily paying the person who’s working hard to produce a good product. That’s the way the world is supposed to work, and a way that we can, we don’t want them to do that for us if we’re doing good work, to be appropriately paid for that.

So it’s cyclical, it is a way that we can in turn bless the world. Another one is to gift money instead of loaning it. The next time you have an opportunity to loan somebody money, try giving it instead. Now, Jesus suggested this as a great kind of coal heaping technique in Luke 6, verses 30 to 31. And interestingly, it was paired right there with the golden rule. He says, give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. Give to everyone who begs. And from one who takes, don’t demand those things back.

Well, this is a common sticking point for a lot of couples. It is really hard to get on the same page with your spouse when it comes to gifting money to somebody. But it can bring tremendous blessing, especially if you do that in like-minded harmony. It invites blessing for us. I mean, ask anybody who has loaned money or who has just given it, which one is more stressful. And if we can be, we can position ourselves by God’s grace with his help in faithfulness to be in a position to give liberally, then think of all the stress you’re eliminating from your life by you’re still able to bless people and you don’t have to worry about getting the money back or any sort of weirdness that’s going to go on for the rest of your life when that debt remains unpaid.

So principle is generosity there. Principle seven is to be thankful. of the last one, thankful people are way more fun to bless than entitled people. You be a thankful person and you are going to easily and frequently be blessed by God and by others. And this will in turn result in your wanting to be a blessing to other people. We should be thankful to God to be the means through which He will bless other people. And, and this is important, This means that sometimes we will be the givers, and sometimes we will be the receivers. We could put in here very easily, so be a grateful recipient of blessing. Because sometimes when you say, oh, no, no, no, please don’t do that, you’re depriving somebody of the joy of blessing you.

Whether it’s taking your dishes after dinner, or it is buying you a cup of coffee, and you dig in your heels and you won’t let them pay. Well, okay, maybe your heart was right behind that, that you’re depriving that person of the blessing of pain for you. I’m on the receiving end of that more often than not. I have paid for coffee like once in the last about six months, going out to coffee with Ryan and Shawn. That’s just because I got there late or before them or something, I’m not sure. But yeah, I know what that’s like, and it’s humbling and God wants us humbled. It is so if it is more of a blessing to give than to receive, then by giving to others, we position ourselves to receive a ton of blessings.

An example application might be, thank God frequently. Many of you use thank you Lord for this day, just to open every prayer. That’s actually good, and it’s good because it orients us. It’s bad if you don’t mean it, so go ahead and mean it, but keep saying it. Because when we thank God for our days, it is orienting, we recognize that those days are a gift from him. And so the next time you go out to lunch or dinner, so you’re eating out, thank God as well for the resources to be able to do what you’re doing. Those are a gift from him as well. Try thanking God together with your spouse next time you’re doing the bills.

And while you’re at it, thank your spouse for taking time to care enough about those things practically to be doing them with you. Take time to meditate on God’s holiness and your own unworthiness. That will make you humble and grateful, because none of us receive what we deserve. Next principle is to be sacrificial. Be sacrificial. God doesn’t need our money. It’s his. He doesn’t need our money. So our giving is not actually for him, it’s for us. Kind of like our prayers don’t actually change God’s will, and mysteriously they are a means that God will use to bring about his will. So our prayers orient our perspective, they don’t change his.

So our giving to the Lord is not because he actually needs that it is for us. So what is going to bring us the greatest benefit? Giving as an act of faith. When we give to the Lord, We do so knowing that it’s His money anyway. He is more than capable of replacing it and then some if He wants to. And our faithful giving demonstrates dependence on Him. It is a way that we practice dependence when we give to the Lord. Sacrificial giving also combats our presumptuous tendencies about money. James talks about this when he says in chapter 4 verses 13 through 17, come now, you who say. Today or tomorrow we’ll go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. And whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him, it is sin. So sacrificial giving orients our perspective, and as we practice it, it keeps us from presumption. An example here might be to tithe. I recognize that tithing is itself an Old Testament concept. Giving one-tenth, that’s what a tithe means, is something that the Hebrews were instructed to do. And in the New Testament, the command is to give sacrificially.

So it might be 1%, might be truly sacrificial, God will bless that. For some of you, giving 10% is actually not sacrificial at all, and you need to ratchet it up so that you’re giving sacrificially and cheerfully because it’s his anyway, and God will bless that. But tithing would be an application, for instance. Try it. Try giving one-tenth of your gross income to the Lord, unless of course you think the government should take the first cut before God does, in which case feel free to give of your net income. Yes, I’m poking. Account for this expenditure prior to any other on your budget. So that will reduce the overall number of dollars that you have left to disperse toward gas and entertainment and income and all the rest.

So see what happens. That is one way that we can be sacrificial. So it is different for everybody, but our giving is to be sacrificial. And by doing so, we demonstrate faith and live independence. The last principle I want to talk about is to be teachable, to be teachable. If we’re honest, we all have a lot to learn in the area of money. At times, your best teacher will be your spouse. Other times, it’ll be someone who’s younger than you. This is all humbling and some of us fail to grasp and apply the these principles as well as others. Frankly, old habits die hard. So do be patient with your spouse because he or she may be right and you may be wrong.

Perhaps you’re right and your spouse is wrong. Consider how you came to your great wisdom. Did it happen overnight or because of your sheer genius? Well, probably not. So be patient with your spouse who’s probably coming along slowly. Moreover, as I said, there’s probably a good chance, better than good, that you’re wrong on some points yourself, and patience will enable you to better see this. But be advised though, men, just because your wife disagrees with you does not mean she’s wrong. People have strong opinions and stubborn habits when it comes to money. While their situations show that they could use some coaching.

So do be teachable and approach money matters in a spirit of humility. Example application here might be first, husbands, like ask your wife’s questions about money, and then actually listen to the answers. They probably know a lot more than you think, and they have strong opinions about it too. As Jim said, if you and your wife are at an impasse, then you need to be humble and teachable, but also maybe seek counsel from some other people, for the sake of a sanity check, Maybe do it together, talk to your guy, friends, whatever. Wives, submit to your husbands. Your job, ladies, is to be a wise and godly counselor to your husband.

But when you disagree, your job is to submit to his decision, and his job is to own it like a man and be responsible for the outcome. So be patient when he’s a stubborn bonehead and know that God will honor your submission. So where does this leave us? Where do you start? Well, you might be saying this is all well and good. These principles, I think principles are good. But we have so much to do and so much to learn. I don’t know where to begin. Well, let me offer just a few suggestions. It depends on where you are. It depends on where you are in this process. Some of you are here literally making less money per month than your expenses demand.

Every dollar that you make is already encumbered for the month of March. It may be due to some unanticipated or unpreventable medical expenses, or you were victim of identity theft or something terrible, or maybe you lost your house when it was collateral, when your business failed, or others of you are addicted to luxuries and comforts that require you to spend more than you make. Others need to dig out of a mountain of self-imposed consequences. Others in the room are greedy, perhaps you’re even making a lot of money and you even give faithfully to the church or other non-profits. you have no debt to speak of and you’re trying to determine how to best invest your money to gain a good return.

You never dream of eating at a sizzler and there’s a Taco Bell across the street, and your sin may well be presumption or even idolatry. While every situation is different, some of us in this room need to start with repentance. Repenting of our selfishness, our idolatry, our apathy, or whatever is necessary. Next, we need to look for ways to invite blessing. For some of you, that might be upping your church giving. For some of you, it might be looking for ways you can anonymously bless others. For others, it might mean giving to those who cannot repay you. So maybe we should repent, look for ways to invite blessing.

What should we expect if this happens? As you make it your aim to bless as many people as possible, Now, and going forward, you should expect at least three things. I would say it’ll take sacrifice. Blessing others with God’s money, by doing so you won’t be spending it on stuff you could have gotten. It’s true. You won’t be spending that money at places that you could have gone. Maybe even good things, but things you didn’t necessarily need. Second though, God will honor your sacrifice by applying these principles. You’ll have enough money for one thing. Additionally, you’ll be inviting God’s blessing in many new ways.

We could turn Marysville on its head and Snohomish County. As we exercise excellent stewardship of God’s money, it will help the church to flourish and bring greater blessing to the world. So let us invite God’s blessing as faithful stewards of His money. Let’s pray. Father, we do recognize that it is yours, we are stewards, and sometimes we do a bad job. Please make us more dependent upon you. We are dependent upon you. Help us to be consciously dependent upon you and to act like that is the case. As you go forth in faith, we do invite your blessing. Make us teachable, make us generous, make us sensible and wise, and all of this because we believe that it will bring you great honor and it is your will. So we pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.

We could turn Marysville on its head and Snohomish County. As we exercise excellent stewardship of God’s money, it will help the church to flourish and bring greater blessing to the world. So let us invite God’s blessing as faithful stewards of His money. Let’s pray. Father, we do recognize that it is yours, we are stewards, and sometimes we do a bad job. Please make us more dependent upon you. We are dependent upon you. Help us to be consciously dependent upon you and to act like that is the case. As you go forth in faith, we do invite your blessing. Make us teachable, make us generous, make us sensible and wise, and all of this because we believe that it will bring you great honor and it is your will.