Money–Godly and Ungodly Ways of Saving It
A few weeks ago you all received a bookmark with our church’s new mission on it. It’s really not a new mission–just a restatement of what our mission has always been: “To glorify God through honoring His name, teaching His word, loving His people, and expanding His kingdom.” One of the values under “expanding His kingdom” is this: “We value generous stewardship over all of the resources God has entrusted to us.” We value that because God commands it and because God emphasizes it over and over in His Word. That’s why we are focusing our attention on the stewardship of the believer’s resources in this five-week series entitled Finding Financial Freedom.
So far we have looked at God’s principles on how to get money and how to spend it. We’ve looked at right and wrong ways of doing both. This week I found a good summary of last Sunday’s sermon on spending: “If your outgo exceeds your income, then your upkeep will be your downfall.” That just about says it all.
Now today our subject is how to save money, but a certain dilemma faces me. On the one hand, most Americans are terrible savers and need a good kick in the pants in this regard. Ron Blue, in his book Master Your Money, says that 85 out of 100 Americans have less than $250 in net savings (assets minus liabilities) when they reach age 65.1 This means that if they have worked from age 20 they have managed to save less than $6.00 per year! They remind me of the guy who said his assets were all in a liquid state–they were going down the drain!
Now I could hardly believe those figures, and I concluded things must have gotten a lot better since Blue’s book was first published in 1987, especially because the affluent 90’s followed the 80’s. But the Commerce Department announced in 2002 that beginning in 1998 personal savings in the U.S. has averaged a negative 1.5%. This is the first time since 1929-34 (the Great Depression) that there have been five consecutive years of negative personal savings.2 In the event of a loss of income or unexpected major expense, the average American family is 3 to 6 weeks away from bankruptcy.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, some people are misers, hoarders and stockpilers, setting aside vast sums of money that they couldn’t possibly use if they lived to be 110! They, too, need a good kick in the pants. My dilemma is how to speak to both groups at the same time, believing as I do that both are probably well represented in our audience today! The best answer I have is to preach balance, which is one of the most needed and most lacking qualities among believers today.
The godly goal of biblical prosperity demands that we save money.
This term “biblical prosperity” is a new one I haven’t used up to this point. I got it from a Free Church pastor friend of mine in Denver, and I’m not sure where he got it, but I like it. Here’s the concept: God doesn’t want us to be financially independent. Nor does He delight in poverty. What He wants is for us to enjoy “biblical prosperity.” Biblical prosperity occurs when I have sufficient money to accomplish God’s will in my life–no more and no less.
Now as we saw in our first message, we can have more money than God desires us to have when we use ungodly means of getting it. Or, as we saw last week, we can have less money than God desires us to have when we spend it in ungodly or unwise ways. Or, we can have exactly what God wants us to have to accomplish His purposes–that is Biblical prosperity. One factor in achieving biblical prosperity is developing an appropriate level of savings. According to the Bible, we should save, first of all,…
1. For expected times of leanness (Prov. 21:20; 6:6-8). The Bible indicates there is much we can learn from the animals in this regard. For example, the writer of Proverbs says, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” Winter always follows summer, and even ants know there will be no food in the winter unless it is stored up in the summer. To make no provision for predictable times of need is foolish. Proverbs 21:20 reads, “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.”
Joseph devised a careful savings plan in light of the famine God predicted would come upon Egypt. Every year for seven years a large portion of the harvest was stored. Then, when the seven years of famine came, there was enough food for all of Egypt and even the surrounding nations. When I was in Egypt a few months ago one of the most fascinating things I saw was a vast number of ancient granaries that had recently been uncovered by archeologists. They were at least 3500 years old and could very well have been built by Joseph himself to house the enormous amount of grain Genesis talks about.
Now Joseph knew there would be a famine because God told him so. We also know that at certain times of life our financial needs are going to be greater than other times–like when our kids are approaching college. We need to save for such expected times of leanness.
2. For unforeseen circumstances (Prov. 27:23-27). There are other times and circumstances that cannot be predicted, but a wise person will nevertheless prepare for certain contingencies. I personally wonder how long our nation can continue to prosper living on credit to the extent we do. A wise Christian, it seems to me, will save something in case we face another period of high unemployment, rising inflation, and another stock market crash. I’m not a doomsayer nor a survivalist; I trust I’m just a realist.
But perhaps you disagree with me that we’re headed for a day of reckoning. Maybe you think the economy is going to boom for the remainder of your lifetime. I hope you’re right. But even you should have a contingency fund to meet unexpected circumstances, because even if the economy in general is good, your economy in particular could well take a turn for the worse!
A dear friend of mine worked for 40 years for the same privately held company and retired with a very generous pension and full health benefits–an ideal situation! He was set for life! Unfortunately, his pension was not annuitized but was paid out of company profits. Just a few months ago the family that owned the company got an offer they couldn’t refuse and sold the company to a conglomerate. The conglomerate promptly canceled the health insurance and stopped the pension plan, and believe it or not, it was perfectly legal. Not moral, but legal. Suddenly, overnight, at age 75 my friend’s income was sliced by more than half! That was totally unforeseen; fortunately, he had lived frugally, had his house paid off, and had some savings, and so he will survive. Would you?
What if you suddenly become disabled and can’t work? Can you live on Social Security benefits for the rest of your life? Proverbs 27:23-27 offers some sound advice:
“Be sure you know the condition of your flocks,
give careful attention to your herds;
for riches do not endure forever,
and a crown is not secure for all generations.
When the hay is removed and new growth appears
and the grass from the hills is gathered in,
the lambs will provide you with clothing,
and the goats with the price of a field.
You will have plenty of goats’ milk
to feed you and your family
and to nourish your servant girls.”
The economy spoken of here is, of course, agricultural, and Solomon is viewing the farmer’s flocks as his insurance. Even if he loses everything else, his flocks will provide food and clothing. But the point applies to any economy: take care of your savings, your income-producing assets, and make sure any insurance policies are up to date, so that when unforeseen circumstances take everything else away, you will be able to provide for those who depend upon you.
Please understand that his point is not for us to put our confidence in our savings; our confidence should only be in God. But part of God’s plan is for us to exercise caution and foresight to set something aside for the unexpected. Thirdly, we should save…
3. For short-term future needs. This is not so much a biblical issue as a practical, common-sense one. I mention it because the past several weeks I have emphasized the danger of borrowing to buy consummables. Well, if we shouldn’t borrow and we still want them or need them, the only legitimate way to get them is to save until we can afford them. Unfortunately, many people have never experienced the joy of doing that. If we think we need it, we just go out and charge it. But we would appreciate things far more if we would save until we could pay cash for them.
I have an older brother who has always been very frugal. He got his first job at age 13 and I remember how he wanted a Raleigh racing bike, the top of the line in the early 50’s. So he saved and saved and saved. I’ll never forget the day in 1953 or ‘54 when he and Dad and I drove down to south St. Louis and he purchased his new Raleigh. You know something? The last time I was up in Martensdale, Iowa, where my brother has pastored for the past 37 years, there in the garage was that bike. He has owned it for over 50 years and still rides it. I can guarantee that had he borrowed to buy it, or had it been given to him, it would have been discarded for a newer model. But because he had saved for it, he appreciated it and took care of it.
I believe we would all be better off if we would exercise discipline and save for things we want, rather than borrow for them.
4. For “retirement” (Eccl. 6:1,2). I believe we are morally obligated to save for the time when we may no longer be earning a salary, but here once again we find a lot of people totally out of balance. Many rely solely on social security and their company pension, which they may well find insufficient. On the other hand, some are going to the opposite extreme. Larry Burkett has said, “Retirement planning so dominates the thinking of Christians who have sizable incomes that they overkill in this area enormously.” And Randy Alcorn has observed that “for some, retirement seems to have replaced the Second Coming of Christ as the new ‘blessed hope,’ the major future event to which they look forward.”3
One of the problems with allowing retirement to control all our financial decisions in our middle years is that a large number of people never reach retirement. The author of Ecclesiastes laments the irony that a man can pour his whole life into preparing for his retirement and then die before he enjoys it (6:1, 2):
“I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.”
I’ve seen this happen a number of times. A man I greatly admired for his professional career, his financial planning, and his care for his family, died months after taking early retirement. He and his wife had great plans for travel to make up for the long years of stress he had endured, but they didn’t get to enjoy any of his careful planning.
By the way, we need to think this whole retirement issue through from God’s perspective. The reason I put “retirement” in quotation marks is that to my knowledge retirement is not even mentioned in the Bible, and there is no indication that healthy people should stop working. Our minds and bodies were not made for an arbitrary day of shutdown, and that may be why certain studies have shown that when a man retires his chances of a fatal heart attack immediately double.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that people who have earned retirement benefits shouldn’t take them. But I am suggesting that they shouldn’t quit working. They may quit what they’ve been doing for 40 years, but in its place they need to find something else to live for. If you are retirement age and your financial needs are taken care of through pension, Social Security, and personal savings so that you no longer need to work for pay, then work for God, for the poor, or for underprivileged children. Or consider being a self-supported missionary. Some of the Free Church’s finest missionaries are people in their sixties who have finished one career and are starting another.
Friends, save appropriately for the time when you will no longer have earned income, but don’t mortgage your soul or your happiness to do so.
5. For long-term giving (Prov. 13:22; 19:14). Here I’m thinking of long-term giving to heirs, as well as long-term giving to the Lord’s work, and believe me, those are not mutually exclusive goals. In Proverbs 13:22 it states that “a good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children.” He isn’t commanded to, but he is commended if he does. I’ve pondered a lot as to why it says “grandchildren” instead of “children,” and I wonder if it isn’t because inherited money is a lot less dangerous when it skips a generation. I’m not sure. At any rate, saving in order to leave an inheritance is a positive goal.
But once again I fear that a good thing has gone to seed in our society. A previous generation would leave the family farm or family business to children who were trained by the parents how to run them and keep them productive. Today inheritances are usually in cash or stock and are often left to those who have never been trained in how to manage large amounts of money. There is grave danger here. Andrew Carnegie, who was known to have a little cash, said:
“The almighty dollar bequeathed to a child is an almighty curse. No man has the right to handicap his son with such a burden as great wealth. He must face this question squarely: will my fortune be safe with my boy and will my boy be safe with my fortune?”
Many of the world’s multimillionaires have left massive inheritances to their children but at the same time they have left them spiritually, morally, and emotionally bankrupt through a heritage of greed, self-indulgence, betrayal, adultery, arrogance, snobbery, and self-centeredness. The highest calling of parents is not to leave their progeny a good inheritance, but to leave them a godly heritage. One of the early church fathers wrote,
“If you wish to leave much wealth to your children, leave them in God’s care. Do not leave them riches, but virtue and skill. For if they have the confidence of riches, they will not mind anything besides, for they shall have the means of screening the wickedness of their ways in their abundant riches.”
Having said that, it is perfectly OK to leave an inheritance to children who are equipped to handle it. One of the best ways to decide whether they are so equipped is for the parents to give a portion of their assets to their children or grandchildren while the parents are still living and then watch what they do with it. Why should we entrust money to our children after our death if we would not trust them with it now? I suggest it is an irresponsible act and the poorest sort of stewardship to pass on assets to someone who has demonstrated he is incapable of handling them with a view to eternity.
I want to mention as well that there are some amazing (and legal) ways to structure one’s estate, especially if it is sizeable, so as to avoid prohibitive taxes and provide a great deal of money to the Lord’s work without depriving one’s children or grandchildren of a meaningful inheritance. Here’s an example I read that was shared by the President of the Dallas Seminary Foundation, but it could apply to any charity or church:
Among our clients one couple worth about $5 million was projected to owe about $811,000 in income taxes and $1 million in estate taxes. Leaving about $2.9 million for the children’s inheritance and nothing for charity. But a plan was developed that reduced income taxes to $200,000 and estate taxes to $295,000. The children’s inheritance increased slightly, and charitable giving increased from zero to nearly $2 million.4
That is good stewardship! Why wouldn’t any wealthy Christian want to do that?5
Now so far we have examined five godly goals for which we should save. But if you’re like many others you’re probably wondering, “How can I save when it takes everything I make just to live?” I’m glad you asked.
The godly goal of biblical prosperity can be achieved as we save money:
1. By cutting expenses. I’ve heard many people justify their lack of saving on the basis that they just don’t make enough money. But then when they get a raise they still don’t save; they just spend more. One of the best ways in the world to save money is to cut spending, and almost anyone can do it if he will examine his spending habits carefully. Of course, if one puts into the “necessity” category things like Cable TV, high speed internet access, cell phones for each member of the family, country club membership, a weekly trip to the hairdresser and manicurist, eating out three or more times a week, etc., etc., then it will be hard to cut spending.
But we can if we choose to. The most important thing is to get on a budget and stay on it! You’ll be surprised how your savings will grow.
2. By regular, timely accumulation of assets (Prov. 13:11). Proverbs 13:11 says, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.” There’s no substitute for having a regular amount taken out of one’s check and set aside for savings. In the long run and on average, it will beat efforts to get rich through real estate, stock trading, commodities trading, or anything else you might try. Having said that, however, I want to be clear that investing is not wrong.
3. Wise investing (Prov. 31:16; Matt. 25:14-30). The godly woman of Proverbs 31 bought real estate, and in His parable of the talents Jesus seemed to say that God expects us to multiply what He gives us to manage rather than have us bury it in the ground. But I think there are some guidelines that a wise believer will follow when investing:
(1) never risk money you can’t afford to lose,
(2) never make uninformed or hasty decisions to invest,
(3) never make any investments without counting the financial, mental, emotional, and spiritual costs, and …
(4) never invest money without agreement from your spouse.
By the way, would you like a surefire way of earning a guaranteed 15-18% return with absolutely no risk? Take all the money you can scrape together and pay off all your credit card debt. Then never leave a balance on your cards again.
So far this morning I have been speaking mainly to those who have not been wise savers and I have told you that there are good reasons to start now to save money, and I have even suggested a few ways to get started. I would especially press home these truths to the young people in the audience. You’re going to be tempted to say, “I can’t afford to save anything now; my big earning years will be in my 30’s, 40’s and 50’s.” But if you begin a habit now of putting something aside on a regular basis, that habit will stay with you for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, the opposite habit will stay with you, too.
However, there are some who don’t need to hear that frugality is godly because they have not only been saving money; they’ve been hoarding it.
The ungodly goal of financial independence causes us to save money:
1. By hoarding and stockpiling it (Ex. 16:19, 20; Luke 12:18, 19). Turn with me to Exodus 16, where we have the story of the divine provision of food during the Israelites’ wilderness wanderings. Manna from heaven was given to force the Israelites to depend upon God every day for 40 years with the intention that they would learn the habit of dependence when the journey was over. Greed was pointless because manna was distributed in such a fashion that everyone received the same amount.
And then Moses warned them, “‘No one is to keep any of it until morning.’ However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell.” Yet on the 6th day of every week God told them to pick up twice as much so they wouldn’t have to gather manna on the Sabbath. And when they obeyed, the manna lasted two days and there were never any maggots. Wise saving was sovereignly blessed, but hoarding was cursed.
In Luke 12 Jesus teaches the same truth:
“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:15-21)
Now please note that there is no indication that this rich man was wicked or that he gained his wealth in a dishonest fashion or that he used it for immoral purposes. His only sin was that he hoarded his wealth for himself and was not rich toward God.
What is hoarding? Hoarding is savings taken to an extreme. It is an accumulation of assets that goes beyond the level of basic responsibility all of us should take for our lives. It is an attempt to so completely cover our material bases that God is simply unnecessary. Rather than responsibly taking steps for future provision while trusting in God’s sovereignty, hoarding is an attempt to exercise our own sovereignty. Even churches can do this. I know of churches that have paid off their mortgage (a good thing) and accumulated a large endowment. What’s up with that? Why should a church have an endowment when that money could be used for evangelism and outreach?
Now if you ask me the difficult question as to when savings becomes hoarding, I cannot answer you. It may be more a matter of the heart than of the balance sheet. But one indication is generosity. Savers can be generous people–generous with the Lord and generous with others–but hoarders never are.
2. By robbing God (Mal. 3:8-12). When Malachi accused the ancient Israelites of robbing God, they retorted angrily, or at least with skepticism, “How have we robbed God?” The answer? “In tithes and offerings.” Any savings at the expense of giving is doomed to ultimate failure. Listen to the words of the prophet Haggai:
“Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
Why? He goes on to say that their poverty wasn’t the result of bad luck; it wasn’t for lack of effort; it wasn’t because of a bad economy. God Himself kept them in financial misery because they were neglecting his house in favor of their own personal comfort!
The best advice a financial counselor can tell a Christian who is in debt and near bankruptcy is to start giving. They are likely to respond, “Are you crazy? I came to you to help me get out of debt and you tell me to start by giving money away!?!” Yes, that’s exactly where a person should start. They may not have to start by tithing, but they need to give something.
Conclusion. In the investment world there are experts known as “market timers.” When they read the signs that the stock market is about to take a downward turn, they recommend switching funds immediately into more dependable investment vehicles, such as money markets or bonds. In Matthew 6 Jesus functions as the foremost investment advisor, the ultimate market timer in the economies of earth and heaven. His strategy is simple, requiring no background in economics to understand it. He tells us plain and simple to transfer our funds from earth, which is volatile and poised to take a permanent dive, to heaven, which is totally dependable, insured by God himself, and is one day going to forever replace the economy of earth.
But isn’t it a big risk to invest in heaven rather than earth? Well, let me put it this way: It’s as risky as the promises of God. He has promised to take care of those who store up treasures in heaven rather than on earth. Listen to Jesus’ words in Matt. 6:19:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
Stockpiling itself is not wrong, just stockpiling in the wrong place. God wants us to save appropriately and He wants us to be biblically prosperous. But He does not want us to be financially independent of Him.
Tags:
Biblical prosperity
Saving
Retirement
Inheritance
Investing
Hoarding
1. Ron Blue, Master Your Money, 1986, p. 13
2. “The need for emergency savings,” Crown Financial Ministries, www.crown.org/library.
3. When I talk to some people about their retirement plans, it sounds like delayed materialism. They discipline their spending now only so they can be undisciplined later.
4. Greg Ring, “On Rendering Less to Caesar . . . And More to God, Dallas Seminary Foundation.