How Much is Enough?

Manuscript Template

Title:  How Much is Enough?

Elevator Summary:  

James is calling us, this week, to RESOLVE to evaluate how we acquire money, what rank money has in our hearts, and how we use the money we have. Let’s RESOLVE this week to follow the guidance of our denomination’s founder, John Wesley, to “Get all you can without hurting your soul, your body, or your neighbor. Save all you can, cutting off every needless expense. Give all you can. Be glad to give, and ready to distribute; laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may attain eternal life.”

Focus Statement:  

Putting our trust in riches rather than in God is a sure sign that true religion is still far from us.

Function Statement:  

Evaluate how we acquire money, what rank money has in our hearts, and how we use the money we have.

Tweetable Phrase:  

Scripture:  James 5:1-6

Main Text:  James 5:1-6

Supporting Text:  Matthew 25:31-46, Matthew 6:19-21, Hebrews 13:5, Micah 6:8, Luke 12:13-21, 1 Timothy 6:17-19

Redemptive Closure (point to Jesus):  Luke 12:13-21

Benediction:  1 Timothy 6:17-19

WELCOME

Good morning!!! My name is Ryan Hanson and I have the honor of serving here at The Light KC as the lead pastor. I’m so glad you’re here with us.

‌Welcome to those joining us online. We hope your doing well and hope to see you in person in the coming weeks.

And a special welcome to those joining us for the first time. We’re so glad you chose to be here.

ME/INTRO - Tension

So I want to start with a question that Andrea and I have wrestled with throughout our marriage...

How much is enough?

I’m talking about how much is enough earning, how much is enough savings, and how much is enough spending.

I’m talking about money.

Can I show you a clip from the first financial lesson I ever recieved??? I think you’ll enjoy it.

[Scrooge McDuck money - short] - Video ~ 1 minute

And whereas this was from a cartoon from 1967, it does make some good points. Money should be used, shouldn’t be hoarded, and should not be left to sit stagnant. For the world to function properly money needs to be used like the tool that it is. Money has a purpose and we need to use it appropriately.

BUT...our friend Scrooge McDuck doesn’t give us much clear direction on how much to earn, how much to save, or how much to spend.

I think it would be best to the Bible for our answers...

The Old Testament was very black and white; earn as much as you can, give 10% back to God in the tithe to worship Him and take care of the Levites, and do whatever you want with the rest as wealth was a gift from God.

Deuteronomy 14:22–29 NIV

22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year... 28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Whereas I personally like black and white rules for life, in the New Testament Jesus calls us to a higher, yet less clear standard.

Jesus comments on the giving of a widow to teach His disciples about generosity.

Mark 12:41–44 NIV

41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. 43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

Jesus doesn’t call us to a black and white percentage of giving, He calls us to Sacrificial Giving. This is a right in the middle of the grey area I try to avoid in life.

Yet...

How we handle money is hugely important. Jesus says in Matthew 6:21

Matthew 6:21 NIV

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Wesleyan Commentator J.M. Walters warns us that

Putting our trust in riches rather than in God is a sure sign that true religion is still far from us.

So if how we handle money is this important, yet we don’t get clear direction from Jesus, what do we do?

WE - Tension

What do you do?

Would you take a job you don’t feel called to just to get a higher paycheck?

How do you determine how much you spend? how much to save?

How do you determine how much and to who you give?

Luckily for us, this is exactly what James writes about in the passage we’re going to look at today.

Please turn with me to James 5:1-6, as we continue our series called RESOLVED.

We’re in the sixth week of our series where we’re walking through the entire book of James. Over the 5 chapters of this book James gives us 12 very practical teachings, pulling from Proverbs and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Our goal throughout this series is to listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice as we walk through these chapters and discern what goals / next steps God wants us to RESOLVE to accomplish over 2025.

If you missed some of the previous messages, please feel free to catch up. They’re easy to find on our new and improved website!!!

TheLightKC.org

We’ll have the scripture on the screen, but if you have a Bible with you, or Bible app on your phone, I’d encourage you to turn to the passage and follow along. There is nothing that replaces having God’s word in your hand.

AND...if you don’t have a Bible, we have Bibles under the seats. If you don’t have a bible and would like one, please come see me after the service and I’ll get you one you can keep.

Lets dive in.

GOD - Text

RICH

James 5:1 NIV

1 Now listen, you rich people

I have to stop here.

How many of us feel rich? Let’s see a show of hands.

Not that many.

Yet...

Surveying wealth in the US and Globally...

From an income perspective...

According to the website www.givewhatyoucan.org

The median household income in the US is $37,500 / yr USD

The median salary in the world, again adjusting for cost of living differences, is only $3,400 / yr USD

To be in the top 1% of the world, again adjusting for the cost of living differences, you’d only need to make $65,000 / yr USD. Not sure what you think of this number. I didn’t believe it, but checked it against multiple websites and they all agreed.

From a net worth perspective...

From www.kiplinger.com

USA Average Net Worth <35: $183,500

USA Average Net Worth 35-44: $549,600

USA Average Net Worth 45-54: $975,800

USA Average Net Worth 55-64: $1,566,900

USA Average Net Worth 65-74: $1,794,600

USA Average Net Worth >75: $1,624,100

From a public opinion perspective...

From the 2024 Modern Wealth Survey

Wealthy = Net worth of $2.5 million

Net worth to be comfortable: $778k

So...

It may not feel like it, but from a global perspective we are all rich.

Even from a local perspective most of us are still doing pretty well.

No matter where you think you fall on the rich - poor spectrum, I think James still have some great insight on how we can honor God with how we deal with however much money God has blessed us with.

Let’s continue.

Reading the entirety of James 5:1-6, James has what I think is 3 Key Takeaways for us.

James 5:1–6 NIV

1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

James directly speaks to how we are to earn our money, how we are to save our money, and how we are to spend our money.

EARN

The first topic James addresses is how we EARN our incomes, in James 5:4, James writes.

James 5:4 NIV

4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.

Back in those days most people were day laborers on farms. They worked for landowners and literally lived day to day. The money they made on any given day was used that same day to buy food and support their family. If a landowner didn’t pay the workers they were depriving them of what they and their families needed for survival. They were literally taking the food off their tables.

James here is calling out the disparity between maximizing personal income at all costs and caring for those around us.

I know I’ve struggled with this.

I haven’t deprived anyone of anything they needed for survival, at least that I know about, but I have taken jobs based 100% on the paycheck. I never wanted to be in sales. I had no interest in it. I didn’t like the incredible pressure you’re under to hit targets, the expectation that you work around the clock, and the constant blame you get if anything goes wrong. As the sales leader for 10 years, I viewed my job as leading the team that was 100% responsible for keeping 150 people employed. If we didn’t sell enough, some of them would lose their jobs. Sales was a huge amount of stress that I never wanted.

YET...

I accepted the job, partly because I felt pressured into it, but if I am honest I was excited about the larger paycheck. It was ~50% more money to work in sales than operations. I accepted a job I didn’t want or felt called to, with stress I didn’t need, to get a larger paycheck that in the end had no positive effect on the quality of my life.

Even after the job was unlivable, I stayed there for years only because of the paycheck. My life was miserable, it was affecting my family, my health, my sanity, but the paycheck was large enough, I stayed. I did something I hated, only because of the money. I was maximizing my income at the expense of myself and those around me. I was just as guilty as the landowners in James 5:4.

James reminds us that the way we make money is important. We need to check our motivation when determining how we make money as well.

So I ask you...

What have you done to maximize the money you make?

Have you taken a second job that keeps you from your family?

Have you done something you have the skills for, but never felt called to because it paid more?

Have you chased after a promotion, leaving a job you love because of the raise you’d get?

SAVE

The second topic James addresses is how we SAVE our money, James 5:3 says.

James 5:3 NIV

3b You have hoarded wealth in the last days.

Now this is where James is speaking to me. I am a natural saver, absolutely to a fault.

Anyone with me in this?

I hate spending. I love saving. Maybe I have some deep seated unaddressed fear of catastrophe that drives me to have a rainy day fund.

Now...don’t get me wrong saving is important. And there are many different views on how we should save.

Dave Ramsey, the Financial Peace University guy, advocates to have an emergency fund of 6 months of expenses, pay off all loans down to zero, give 10% off total (pretax) income to the church, and only then start saving. He recommends savings 15% of your income to your 401k. But he also does a $1M scream segment on his podcast when people save up to $1M.

Whereas, from my experience, most of this is generally good advice, I’m not sure it lines up with what James is saying, especially the emphasis on saving $1M. It feels like Dave Ramsey is advocating that once we meet the minimum standards of giving, we should hoard all we can and celebrate the size of our bank account.

Alternately, Fidelity, the 401k.com people have a different view of saving.

Fidelity's guideline: Aim to save at least

1x your salary by 30

3x by 40

6x by 50

8x by 60

10x by 67

[Fidelity - Savings]

This is heavily motivated by maintaining one’s current lifestyle during retirement, assuming you retire at 67.

It assumes that the goal of saving is to retire, which from the worldly definition means, our goal in life is to get to the point financially where we can afford to do nothing.

Again, I’m not sure this lines up with what James is wring here either. I think God calls us to do more that aspire to do nothing with our lives.

No matter what view of savings you ascribe to, I think the question we all have to ask is:

Does our level of savings indicate that we put our security in worldly wealth, or that we put trust in the Living God?

Jesus addresses the topic of savings in His Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 6:19–21 NIV

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus is pretty clear. The goal should never be to save up as much money on earth as we can.

Jesus completely changes the conversation, saying that our focus should not even be on saving, but on how we spend, spending on Kingdom work on earth, to store up treasures in heaven.

Which is a great segue to the final point James makes in this passage.

SPEND

The third topic James addresses is how we SPEND our money, James 5:5-6 says...

James 5:5–6 NIV

5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

So how should we spend the money that we make?

What standard of living is acceptable?

What standard of living is God honoring?

How much do we spend on ourselves vs how much do we give to others?

Going back to our original question, how much is enough? and, how much is too much?

Rick Warren, a pastor in California summarized Matthew 6:19-21, in a way I find helpful in answering these questions. He said that there are 5 funds that we can invest in while we’re on Earth to build Treasure in Heaven.

Building Treasure in Heaven

Growth Fund - Any money you spend to grow your character.

Mutual Fund - Any money you spend to build relationships.

Service Fund - Any money you spend to help those in need.

Global Fund - Any money you spend to bring people to God.

Treasury Fund - Any money you spend to worship God through your tithe.

Don’t get me wrong. I struggle with how to spend even now. Most of you have been to my house. I think most would agree that it is flirting with luxury and self-indulgence. Prior to this house we lived in a similar house but on a lake.

I’ve appreciated the idea of the Funds that Rick Warren has laid out. They really speak to the motivation we have in the purchases we choose to make. Andrea and I bought the house in Michigan on the lake so that we could be the hub for the kids friends, the hub for the Team World Vision teams that we coached who needed to practice open water swimming for the Triathlons, and hosting family gatherings. We had people over to the house all the time, and we loved it. We used the house to build relationships and help people have experiences and do things they wouldn’t have been able to do normally.

We hope that our house here in KS can be used in the same way. It was great having so many of you over to watch football, play billiards, and share a meal. We hope this summer when we figure out how to open the pool that we can do the same thing for the kid’s friends, the youth here at the church, and whoever else wants to come over.

Jesus affirms this Fund idea in Matthew 25:31-46 in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats

Matthew 25:31–46 NIV

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Jesus is quite clear. With regard to spending the resources we have (I’d include time, talent, and treasure here), we are supposed to spend it helping others. We’re supposed to build relationships, and bring them into a relationship with Christ.

The humbling reality is, the data shows that the more people have, the less they give to those in need.

According to www.philanthropyroundtable.org, as income goes up, giving goes down very quickly.

< $25,000 / yr: 12%

$25-50,000 / yr: 5%

$50-75,000 / yr: 3%

$75-95,750 / yr: 3%

$95,750-125,000 / yr: 2%

$125-162,500 / yr: 3%

>$162,500 / yr: 2%

If the OT calls us to a black and white standard of giving 10%.

Jesus calls us to a higher standard of sacrificial giving.

According to the data, the reality is that most of us, don’t meet either.

YOU - Takeaway

So...

If I were to get a copy of your banking records, what would I see?

Where do you spend your money?

Do you spend it on your wants and desires?

Do you spend it on the needs of others, helping guide them into a relationship with Christ?

I’d assume, and if I’m honest I’m in this category too, it is probably a mix of both.

How is God calling you to earn, save, and spend the resources you have?

So what is God calling you to do differently with your resources, starting this week?

WE / JESUS - Redemptive Close - Call to Action

We are stewards of the resources (Time, Talents, Treasures) that God blesses us with. James makes it very clear that there are right and wrong ways to view and handle money. Jesus is even more direct that there are correct ways to spend and save money.

For Jesus, Matthew 6:21

Matthew 6:21 NIV

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Money is a key indicator of our spiritual health, a direct reflection of the state of our hearts.

You may not know this, but The Light KC is part of the Wesleyan denomination. This was a denomination founded by John Wesley, originally not intended to be a new denomination, but an attempted reform of the Anglican Church of England. When he preached on money he had a very famous quote.

John Wesley, “Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.”

This was actually a shortened version of his actual quote, which says.

John Wesley, “Get all you can without hunting your soul, your body, or your neighbor. Save all you can, cutting off every needless expense. Give all you can. Be glad to give, and ready to distribute; laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may attain eternal life.”

I’m no John Wesley and no matter how much thought I put to the topic of wealth, I can’t think of a better summary statement.

SO...

This week, James is calling us to RESOLVE to evaluate how we acquire money, what rank money has in our hearts, and how we use the money we have.

Let’s RESOLVE this week to follow the guidance of our denomination’s founder, John Wesley, to “Get all you can without hurting your soul, your body, or your neighbor. Save all you can, cutting off every needless expense. Give all you can. Be glad to give, and ready to distribute; laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may attain eternal life.”

PRAYER 

Will you join me in prayer...

SONG 

As we enter into our final song, I want to open the steps up front as an altar to anyone who needs God this week. The steps are open for you to pray to the God who is with you, who loves you, you wants to give you His peace.

‌

You may feel a hand on your shoulder as I or one of the elders join you in prayer.

BENEDICTION 

1 Timothy 6:17–19 NIV

17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

This week, let’s evaluate how we earn money, how we save money, and how we spend the money we have. Let’s collectively seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance on the next steps He wants us to take individually and as a congregation to steward the resources God has blessed us with in ways that honor Him and build His Kingdom.

Quick reminder...

Town Hall Tonight at 5 PM. I hope to see everyone there. We’re going to go over what we’ve started based on feedback we received from last fall’s 1 on 1 conversations, share some thoughts on what we think God wants us to do moving into 2025, and we want to hear your feedback and what God has placed on your hearts.

If you’re new, please stop by our info desk, or see me. We’d love to say “hi” and get you know you a bit better.

I hope to see you all tonight.

Go in peace.

You are dismissed.

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