October 24, 2021: "Stewardship 2: Save All Your Can"

Sermon Title: “Save All You Can”

Proverbs 13:11, Matthew 6:19-21

Proverbs 13:11

11 Wealth hastily gained will dwindle, but those who gather little by little will increase it.

Matthew 6:19-21

19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Today is week 2 of our sermon series entitled “Earn All You Can, Save All You Can, and Give All You Can.” These words were coined by none other than John Wesley himself long ago to teach financial stewardship to his church goers in England.

Having earned all we can, we move to Wesley's second rule: “Save All You Can.” It's a principle that is simple to state and difficult to do, in large part because it goes against the grain of the culture in which we live. A simple example of how hard it is to save money can be found in raising our kids. It seems like I’m already backing up the Brinks truck when it comes to supporting them. Someone the other day said I’d have take out a second loan when my three boys are all teenagers in a few years just to feed them. Another person said that the toys just keep getting more expensive. If I’m ever in need of somewhere for my money to go, they always seem to find a way to spend it!

I believe that God wants us to be like the wise woman in Proverbs 31 who “surveys a field and acquires it; from her own resources, she plants a vineyard” (31:16). A vineyard is a long-term investment. It takes years for a new vineyard to produce grapes. A vineyard doesn't turn a quick profit. It's the kind of patient investment that Jesus compared to a farmer who “scatters seed on the ground, then sleeps and wakes night and day. The seed sprouts and grows” (Mark 4:26-27).

I also believe God also wants us to be like the wise investors in Jesus' story of the talents as we discussed last week: five coins (talents) to one servant, two coins to the second, and one coin to the third, “according to that servant's ability” (Matthew 25:14-30). The first and second servants both invested their coins and doubled their value. But the third servant “dug a hole in the ground and buried his master's money.” He did absolutely nothing to increase the value of the master's gift.

The master took the coin from the third servant and gave it to the first one saying, “Those who have much will receive more, and they will have more than they need. But as for those who don't have much, even the little bit they have will be taken away from them.”

It's a strong parable that communicates the truth in Wesley's instruction when he said, “Having gained all you can, by honest wisdom, and unwearied diligence, the second rule of Christian prudence is, “Save all you can.” We can feel the strength in Wesley's conviction when we read his words: “Do not throw your precious talent into the sea. . . . Do not throw it away in idle expenses, which is just the same as throwing it into the sea. Expend no part of it merely to gratify the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life.”

Cell phones and the interconnectedness of our financial world make spending money easier than ever, especially if we need a little retail therapy from time to time because Amazon will deliver anything under the sun and doordash and similar apps will deliver food... to our front door all from the comforts of our sofa. And while there is nothing wrong with that, we need to put safeguards in place so that what we spend our money are not one and done purchases. Erin and I see this with the toys that we’ve purchased the boys through the years. Until we lived in Savannah, going to the city, whichever one it was, was the thing that we did on a Friday or Saturday. We purchased each of our boys a toy that they played with once and then it would sit collecting dust in the corner until we went back to the store the following weekend and repeated the process. This is a lesson that I wish I had a learned ten years ago, but am now finally taking hold of!

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD

In his sermons on money, Wesley used two biblical words as the foundation for his teachings: steward and prudence.

A “Steward” is the title for the person who managed financial affairs for the head of the household or business. The steward was usually a freeborn man or a freed slave, which would indicate that the steward had some freedom to manage the goods and money entrusted to him, although the goods and money were still owned by the master. In the Old Testament, Joseph in Genesis was the master steward for both Potiphar and Pharaoh.

Jesus used the word “steward” when he asked the rhetorical question in Luke 12:42-44, “Who are the faithful and wise managers [or stewards] whom the master will put in charge of his household servants, to give them their food at the proper time?” Jesus answered his own question by saying, “Blessed are the servants whom the master finds fulfilling their responsibilities when he comes. I assure you that the master will put them in charge of all his possessions”.

Wesley expanded this teaching about money in his sermon “The Good Steward” when he pointed out the difference between a “debtor” and a “steward.” At the heart of the sermon is the biblical perspective that none of our material goods or possessions really belongs to us. There is no such thing as “self-made” success. We are stewards of things that have been placed in our hands by an extravagantly generous God who trusts us to use things that ultimately belong to God in ways that satisfy God's will for us while here on the earth.

In 1 Corinthians 4:1 Paul says of himself and Apollos, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

In the old days, airlines called their flight attendants “stewardesses” dating back all the way to the 1920’s. A stewardess will tell you that their chief job is to provide for the care and well being of those charged to their care… to manage the cabin well. The Administrative Board of our church was once named “The Board of Stewards” for this very reason in the 1930’s and 40’s. They were to take care of the local church that God had entrusted to them.

THE PRUDENT MANAGER

Wesley's second biblical word is prudence. The words prudence or prudent appear ten times in the Proverbs (CEB). Prudent shows up in Luke 12:42 when Jesus asks, “Who then is the faithful and prudent manager?” The English word comes from a Latin root meaning “farsighted.” A prudent person is defined as “practical and careful in providing for the future, exercising good judgment or common sense.” A prudent person is not only good at seeing the here and now, but also down the road.

The writer of Proverbs used prudence to say:

I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence;

I have found knowledge and

discretion. (Proverbs 8:12)

It's the word Wesley used in declaring “save all you can” as the “the second rule of Christian prudence.” It's the wisdom to manage our finances with a farsighted view. It means making wise decisions about the way we use our money now, so it will provide for us in the future.

One of the best examples I can think of in regards to the need for us to use our money prudently can be found in the Atlanta Braves. GO BRAVES! WORLD SERIES BOUND. LET’S GET OUR FIRST TITLE SINCE 1995. Now back to the sermon-- For many years during the John Shurholtz and Bobby Cox days, the Braves organization chose to develop players from the ground up through their farm system and not to offer huge, long term contracts, mostly because they realized even then that players rarely deliver the needed value of a long deal. After John and Bobby retired, the Braves began to live at the edge of their means, acquiring and signing baseball players to big contracts. Many of these highly paid players either underperformed or were injured, leaving the Braves big holes to fill when the players did not perform or were not able to play. The Braves found themselves unable to win because of no way to get help from the minors or from trades. By 2013, they had literally mortgaged their future because of bad contracts and lack of young talent. It took the Braves several years of doing what many major league experts call tanking… losing on purpose… in order to restore talent to their farm system and rid themselves of huge baseball contracts that were yielding few results. Today, the future is bright again for the Braves because they are much more careful in the long-term contracts they offer to players and they have re-developed one of the premium player development systems in all of baseball. Many of the players that you see on the field are what we call “home grown talent.” They’re not the highest paid players, and yet they possess a talent level that is often second to none. In baseball and in the real world, money is not everything, but it does affect how people and organizations live their lives. It is important for people and organizations to always have an eye for the future in how they spend and save both now and as they look to the future.

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What are the practical steps we can follow to “SAVE ALL WE CAN?”

FIRST, we save all we can by developing a plan.

John Shurholtz and Bobby Cox had a plan. Alex Anthopolis and Brian Snitker have a plan. They call it “The Braves Way.” John and Bobby delivered 14 straight division titles, the longest division winning streak in the history of baseball. Alex and Snit are up to four. They made a plan that worked and stuck with it.

If the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach, God knows that the best way to all our hearts is through our checkbooks. As a reminder, Matthew 6:21 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The purpose of the biblical emphasis on money is to draw us into a deeper relationship with God through which we can be used by God to bless others. How would your approach to money change if you saw yourself as a manager of God’s money instead of thinking it’s yours? What would you do differently?

One practical approach to managing money is called the 10-10-80 Plan. It goes like this:

10 percent for God

10 percent for the future

80 percent to live on with gratitude and joy

It's as simple (and as difficult) as that. The first 10 percent of our income goes to God's work in this world through the church. It's called the “tenth” or “tithe.” The Bible says it already belongs to God, so the question is whether we will give what belongs to God back to God.

The second 10 percent of our income goes to the future. It's what Wesley was talking about when he said “Save All You Can.” It's what we save in order to meet both the expected and unexpected needs of the future.

That leaves 80 percent for us to live on with gratitude and joy given to God for His gracious blessings to us. What we do with this portion of our income is defined by how we and God reach a mutually beneficial plan for the use of our money. Or, it might be determined by our wants… as in my case on my family and power tools!

The challenge in following the 10-10-80 Plan or any savings plan is that our culture encourages us to live beyond our means. For many of us, what keeps us from saving all we can is not the high cost of living, but the cost of high living. Many of us simply cannot leap directly to 10-10-80 Plan because of the financial commitments we have made in the past. But it is a goal we can move toward as we reorient what we earn and what we save.

In my experience, when people take a thorough inventory of their income and expenses, they are surprised by how much they have, how much they spend, and how they spend it. Historically, I’ve audited my personal expenses for each month and realized that I was eating out way too much... hence too little in the bank and too much around my waistline… if you know what I mean! I love to eat out and can continue to... I just need to eat out in moderation and be careful what I eat.

SECOND, We Save All We Can by calculating the costs ahead of time.

Generals who are about to send soldiers into battle calculate the costs before sending them into war. They know the potential costs before ever beginning an operation.

Jesus told the story of a foolish builder who didn't calculate the cost of construction and was unable to finish his project in Luke 14:28-30.

28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

Begin with the essentials: housing, food, clothing, transportation, and medical bills. In this process, be absolutely ruthless in sorting out things that are essential from things we can live without. Know the true value of everything you purchase.

Henry David Thoreau memorably wrote, “Our life is frittered away by detail. . . . Simplify, simplify!”

In our personal lives, moving in the direction of more prudent spending and saving often requires the wisdom of a professional financial planners to help us make wise choices about what we spend now and how we save for the future. That’s a hard lesson, because most of us like to think we come into the world with it all figured out. The best thing I ever did was to figure out that there are a lot of things that others do better than me, and I should ask them for help!

THIRD, saving all we can might mean being ruthless in our desire to rid ourselves of debt.

What are you willing to give up in order to develop a plan of financial independence?

We should develop a plan to get rid of credit card debt. If we are unable to pay off the credit card balance every month, we should consider cutting up the cards and practice the discipline of not buying anything unless we can pay for it with cash.

A wise lawyer friend of mine once said that it is less about how much we make and more about how much we save. He’s never seen a poor person who saves half of all they ever earn.

Fourth, we SAVE ALL WE CAN by BEGINNING WITH THE END in Mind

Stephen Covey became a best-selling author with his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The second habit he named was “Begin with the End in Mind.” Covey challenged his readers to use their imagination, which he defined as “the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes.” He said what we become or accomplish will follow what we imagine, “just as a building follows a blueprint.” He warned that if we don't make a conscious effort to visualize what we want for the future, we will be allowing other people or circumstances to determine it for us.

Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.

Wesley's rule to “save all you can” is not a justification to accumulate wealth for its own sake or, like the foolish farmer who kept building himself larger barns, to satisfy a narrow addiction to comfort and self-satisfaction. Christian disciples save all they can as a spiritual practice enabling them to grow toward a greater end...namely, discovering how our resources can be used to bring about God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven

Conclusion:

Saving All We Can means that we embrace God’s call for us to manage well what he has entrusted to us as we realize that nothing is ours… as a beginning point, it’s all His. We also make a commitment to prudence… having vision that values God’s will in both the present and the future. Financial decisions in the present should not put us in a position of future peril.

“Saving All We Can” is a practical step along the way toward “Christian perfection,” defined as loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving others the way we have been loved by God. Saving All We Can is a means by which every area of our life comes under the gracious rule of God's love in Jesus Christ.

The end is building God’s Kingdom here on this earth, so the beginning should be making a plan of how to increase God’s Kingdom. Everything we do should point to that end and that end alone… increasing God’s Kingdom by Knowing Jesus and Sharing Jesus.

DO you have a relationship with Jesus Christ that allows you to pursue God's will as we SAVE ALL WE CAN?

JESUS POEM