Principles Of Stewardship

Tom Shrader teaches from Jesus' parable in Luke 12 about faithful and unfaithful managers to demonstrate that believers are stewards, not owners, of all their resources. He explains how God has transferred possession but not ownership of our time, money, energy, and even children to us as managers who will be held accountable. This principle should radically change how we view and use everything in our lives, from spending decisions to time management to child-rearing.

“We are managers of the resources in our life, not owners.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Principles (2009)

Recorded: 2009 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 53 min

Themes: stewardship, faithfulness, accountability, management, resources, responsibility, ownership, service, managing finances, parent, struggling with materialism, business owner, young adult, learning responsibility, new believer, financial decisions

Scripture: Luke 12:42-48, Isaiah 6, 1 Timothy 6:17, Isaiah 55:8-9

Theological Themes: stewardship, faithful steward, biblical management, kingdom economics, divine ownership, accountability, parable teaching, christian worldview

Full Transcript

How are you today? You sleep well? How can you possibly sleep with that rain pounding? I've been awake since 1:43. That rain just pounding on that roof. You find that comforting? Oh my golly. I'll tell you what, I just figured out why it's green up here and let me tell you, I love the brown. This is just not my deal at all and I appreciate it. It's nice. The people are nice. It's clear you don't get out much in this. This is just so different and I really like it.

I want to do two things. I hate to follow up. I want to mention the two books that Jeff mentioned to you. I own both of them. It's interesting to note I paid retail for both of them too, but I own both of them. The book, The Story of Cannon Beach, his son was part of that and I think Jeff, weren't they then going to do some of the other towns? So really cool stuff and you'll see that book in a lot of the stores around town too. It's really a quality book, really well done and just a great reminder of the great things and the memories at Cannon Beach. So really take a look at that book.

Then that book Evangeline, the last time I was here I read that book. Got it the first day I came in and I don't know why I waited. We've been here a few times to read it, but one of the things that happens when I'm here on the weekends, it seems like every Sunday I'm here, Heather comes, which is Evangeline's daughter and she's been really good to me. She'll come up and let me interview her and I love to do that and I love to talk. I find that picture back there imposing, because I know they're looking at me and I just know inside they cannot be happy. I mean that's just how I feel. I just know they're looking at me and going, well put on a tie man.

So I asked Heather one time, the last time I interviewed her was a Sunday morning and I said, what's the biggest difference up here? She said, well probably just the casualness of it and the way you're dressed. She said, I'm going to wear shorts. I love to wear shorts and y'all were on me a little bit this morning, but the minute the sun's out, I love wearing shorts. I should have had them on today, but Heather told me the first pastor she ever saw in shorts was J. Vernon McGee. She was saying, he came out in these plaid shorts and this funky shirt and these black socks, so it wasn't a very pretty sight, but to this day she forgets a lot of stuff, but she remembers seeing J. Vernon McGee in a pair of black shorts. So it was really great.

God's Amazing Work in Our Lives

To talk about these pictures, that book, and Jeff used the perfect word, is an encouragement. You will read that book and you will see how God works in an amazing way. The mistake in reading the book is thinking that God works an amazing way only in Evangeline's life. He works that way in your life.

We're in the midst of something right now that's really interesting. I think our church doesn't pray enough, and I lead the way in that. So we have really been, in the last year, really committing ourselves to praying. We decided that since He's a big God, we'll pray for some big things. I'm alright with that, but the young guys are dragging me through it. Come on, Tom, we can do this, because God's big. We're in the midst of something right now that's really huge and you can't talk about what it is, but we are really praying about this. We're really praying God would do something, and I just got a text this morning from one of the key guys who are on the other end of this saying, you know, we're going to be back to you tomorrow. We've got our stuff going, so it's huge stuff.

Boy, that book just shows how God works in amazing ways. How they got this place to begin with, and then the property across the way. It's just a wonderful book, so please take advantage of that.

The Foundation for Life Transformation

Open your Bibles, if you would, and this is kind of a tough passage today. Luke chapter 12, verse 42. We're going to get to it here quickly, but I said to you last night, I'm going to give you something this morning, that if you get this, this will radically change your life. I love that stuff. Radical and life change are two things that we're all about.

If all we're doing is studying God's Word for the purpose of studying God's Word, then I really question any sort of significant value to it. The value is in it when it changes my heart. So at East Valley Bible Church, what I keep in front of the people constantly is that we have a transformed heart and an informed mind, and we live a radical life. Radical meaning we're changed to the core, so the very essence of who we are is different. We are different than the world.

Now there's a real easy process for this to be accomplished. It begins, I think, when we understand that the Bible is the Word of God. So this is our fourth session together, and all four of them now have had that as a component, either at the beginning or in the closing application, that we've got to understand that what you have in your hand is God's Word. Very important.

Understanding God Through His Word

We study the Word of God to know the God of the Word. We don't worship that book. It's an important book because God communicates with us, but what happens is, in this progression, when we recognize and understand the Bible's our authority, all of a sudden we can understand who God is. We don't have to speculate or wonder or guess anymore. We can understand what He's like, and He's presented to us exactly like He is.

There's some things even about Him that, as we look at it, we look at a God that's very different than a God that we would create. We discover that our God is a jealous God, that He doesn't want us messing around with other gods, that He's a God of love and grace and mercy, but a God of wrath, too. He's a God who extends to us extraordinary patience, but it's

not infinite patience. He's a God who loves us so much that He'll discipline us, and we learn that from the Scripture. Well, something really cool happens when we understand who God is. Immediately, when we understand who He is, we begin to understand who we are.

That's Isaiah 6. So Isaiah has this view, and it's really a view of a pre-incarnate Christ, and he sees Him high and lifted up, and seraphim, and they're flying, and they're singing, "Holy, holy, holy," threshold is trembling. When Isaiah sees that, his first reaction is this: "Woe to me, for I'm undone. Woe to me, for I'm ruined. Woe to me, for I thought I had it all together, but I don't anymore."

When We See God, We Understand Ourselves

Every once in a while, I'll see one of these clowns on TV who will be talking about when they get to heaven. In fact, there's one of these guys—you know, there was a little thing, they all go, they all follow a path, so one guy will get the laughing bug, and then they'll all do laughing, and then one will do this. Well, this guy, one of these guys got swept away to heaven, so now they all got to go to heaven. So this guy's talking about, he went to heaven, and he saw Jesus, and boy, when he saw Him, he just said, "I want to just ask you some questions."

That's how I knew it was bogus. See, that doesn't line up real well with Isaiah 6, does it? You didn't see Isaiah going, "Boy, I see you high and lifted up, I got some questions for you." He said, "Woe to me, for I'm undone."

I hear that all the time. "Boy, when I get to heaven, I'm going to ask God." When I get to heaven, if there's anybody I can ask a question to, I'm going to find Adam and say, "What were you thinking, man? Why did you start this whole deal?" But when you see God, you don't go, "Wow, I want to ask you something."

When I understand who He is, who I am, and now I begin to understand that God's working in my life, and His whole purpose is to change my heart and my thinking, so I become an instrument that He uses in this world.

The Core Principle: Managers, Not Owners

Here's what we're talking about today. Here's a legacy, here's a principle to pass on, and that is this: We are managers of the resources in our life, not owners. Now, this is gigantic.

Let me just illustrate, because this is really big. I don't have any—I was going to have money, but I don't have any money—but imagine that I had some money, and I'll give it to John, because John would love to have it. So I imagine I give this money to John. Now, it's really important the conditions that I place around that.

If I gave this money to John and I say, "John, this is your money, this is for you and Brenda Kay, this is your money," that's going to be very different than if I say, "You know what, John, I've watched you manage money and take care of money. I want to give you some of my money, but someday I'm going to want it back." Do you see that?

In that first instance, he's an owner. In the second instance, he's a manager. In both instances, I've transitioned possession of the asset to him, but I haven't transitioned authority in the one to do whatever you want. Get that? So he has possession of it, but it's in my stead. He has a relationship—big old fancy fiduciary relationship. He is to take that money and honestly figure out not what he would do with it, but what I would want him to do with it.

Everything Is on Loan from God

Here's the key deal: God has transferred possession to you of all your assets—time, energy, effort, and money. He's transferred possession to you, but not ownership. You get that? You get that difference? That's a huge difference. It's the same as the difference I had in the illustration with John.

When Rush—I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh much, I hear him on Saturday or on Thursday for about 15 minutes—but I will frequently hear him say, "I'm Rush Limbaugh with talent on loan from God." Well, that's absolutely true. That's true of everything that is in our possession. This is a gigantic life-changing principle.

When We Don't Understand Stewardship

I made just a list of what people are like if they don't get it, and let me just give you some of these and then we'll get into the text. If you don't get this, you tend to really exalt the idea of being a self-made man. Humble beginnings. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

You have a tendency, if you think you own it all, to buy whatever you'd like. For a long time, and I've been on this drumbeat for 20 years, people have been doing this. This has been their spending plan: they go in, they get what they want, they go to the cashier, they give him a card. If it says approved, they feel they can afford it. And you can't operate like that as an individual, as a family—hang on to your hat now—or as a nation.

Well, that's all what we're doing. We got this thing so screwed up now, it's going to take—I text a young person that I do a lot of work with, and I text him last night, and I said, "It's going to take decades to undo the damage we're doing right now." But that's alright, I'll be dead. But you'll be having to live with it and take care of it.

Measuring Worth by Possessions

If I don't get this idea of manager versus ownership, I start to measure people by what they have. So the stash becomes important. The net worth becomes important. So I frequently say to somebody, "How you doing?" They'll say, "Great." I'll say, "How's so-and-so doing?" They'll say, "Oh, you know, he's doing great." I didn't ask how business was. I want to know, how's his soul?

Here's another thing about people. You got to listen really closely here, because this sounds almost contradictory. It's not, but it is paradoxical. People who have a lot of stuff and think they own it, they want all the recognition of being rich, but none of the responsibility of it. It's really interesting.

In 1st Timothy chapter 6, verse 17, as Paul's closing this out, he said, "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly supplies." So here's what I've learned over the years in dealing with people. When we start

Talking about rich, it becomes very difficult, because here's how we define rich. Anybody who has more money than we do, because that allows us to enjoy all the comforts of the stuff, but none of the responsibility of it.

Here's another thing that I've seen about people who have the idea that they're owners, and they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They're constantly looking for a way to explain away hardship in people's lives. So they're constantly saying, oh, if they worked harder. Let me tell you something. There are a whole group of people in this country we live in who are starting with absolutely three strikes against them. They can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps, because they don't have boots.

There's a whole group of these people, and we can argue about why they're there, and what really happened with that. But there's a whole group of people that just flat don't have much of a chance. They're not as sharp as you. They weren't born in maybe the family you're in. So when these people say, you can be anything in this America. You do anything you want to do. That's a bunch of hooey.

You can't do anything you want to do. You think I had a shot at birth of playing in the NBA? You think that was going to happen? You think I'm going to play pro basketball? You think Johnny and I are American Idol? You think I'm going to get voted off? You think he's going? Who do you think's winning that deal? You think that's close to being equal? When it comes to teaching, you think he's got a fair shot?

The Problem with Ownership Mentality

That's just the way it is. But if you got this whole ownership idea, you got a bit of a schmuck complex and arrogance that goes with it. A lot of your generation has owned that. That's because you've been through hard times. Many of you have powered through, and I got it. But I'm telling you, you better get a heart. Because God has a heart for people who are down and hurting. You better get one, too. I better have one, too. We as a church better have one.

Understanding Parables and Their Purpose

This is kind of a confusing text, and I was even this morning going, maybe not the best choice. But I hope we can get it here. Jesus is telling here a parable. When we talk about parables, they're word pictures, generally using real-life situations to demonstrate a spiritual truth.

Interpreting or teaching parables can be a bit precarious for this reason. Frequently, we try to make them say too much. Typically, a parable has one big point, maybe a secondary point, but they allow us a lot of freedom to go all over. Jesus told, and it depends on how you count, but He told about 32 parables that are recorded in the Scriptures. Of the 32, half of them deal with money. So when He wanted to make a point, when He said, here's something we really want to drive home to you, He would tell a parable. It's interesting that the things He was driving home had to deal with possessions.

The Cast of Characters

Look at this. Luke chapter 12, verse 42, "The Lord answered and said, 'Who then is the faithful and wise manager, who the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time?'" In that first verse, we're introduced to the three cast characters in this parable. There is the manager, the master, and the servants.

Here's why this gets complicated. As Jesus teaches, as He uses the word servant, He's sometimes talking about the manager. So I am, at the risk of being struck by lightning here, going to try to teach this or read this in a way that you understand when that shift is taking place. See what I meant? This is a little cumbersome, even that explanation is a little cumbersome, but we'll get it. You're smart people, we'll get it.

The Lord answered, "Who then is faithful and wise manager, who the master is placed in charge of his servants to give them the food allowance at the proper time? It will be good if that manager, who the master finds doing, when he's doing so, when he returns. I tell you the truth. He will put him in charge of all his possessions.

The Unfaithful Manager

"But suppose that the manager says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming.' And then he begins to beat the manservants and maidservants and eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that manager will come on a day when he does not expect him, and in an hour he's unaware of. And he'll cut him into pieces and assign him to a place of the unbeliever."

Clearly a response there. What we get? Remember? Consequences. He got him right there. He's going to cut him up, give him away. "That manager, who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants, will be beaten with many blows."

So here's the second type of manager. This is the guy who knows what the master wants, but he doesn't do them. He's not ready. "But the one who does not know, and does things deserving of punishment, will be beaten with a few blows."

Three Types of Managers

You see there that there is this idea of these managers who are not living up to the responsibility for a variety of reasons. Some of them they don't get it, some of them they get it and they're self-absorbed, some of them they get it and they're just inadequate.

The Central Principle

The principle is this, verse 48: "From everyone who's been given much, much will be demanded. And from the one who's been entrusted with much, much will be asked." That's the principle. The principle is if you've been given much, there will be much demanded of you. And if you've been given much and you've been faithful, there will be more given to you. It's this principle of stewardship.

God's Role as Master

Let's unpack it. Here's the first thing we see in verse 42. God's role is that of master. "The Lord answered, who then is the faithful and wise manager who..."

The master puts in charge of the servants? God's the master. We said it last night. You and I are always serving someone, whether you're serving God or we're serving this world and the things of this world. God is the master. God is the one who's entrusted resources to you. He owns them all.

We could go all through the Old Testament. We can go from macro to micro. God owns the whole world. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, all the silver, all the gold. Ultimately, He owns you. All the things that have been given to you, placed in your life, are given to you to manage, not to own. That changes radically our relationship with stuff.

Your Role as Manager

Let me really drive that home with the next point. Your role then, in verse 42, is the manager. "Who then is the faithful and wise manager? Who the Lord's put in charge? Who the Lord's entrusted to you?"

So let me take this, because the minute I say stewardship, you grab your wallet to make sure I don't get any of your money. I'm not talking about money, though that's part of it. It's way bigger than that. It's your time, it's your energy, it's your resources.

Stewardship of Children

Let me shake this up for you. For example, it's your kids. Susan and I got married, and I didn't want any kids. I'd have been really happy without kids. I'm not a big kid guy. I shared that with you last night. Kind of need them to continue the race, but other than that, and pay Social Security. Other than that, whatever. They clog up the roads and fill the stores.

Well, we talked about it, and she said, "I think we ought to have kids." And I said, "I don't know." We weren't believers at the time, and our marriage was a little shaky. So what do you do if your marriage is shaky, but decide to have a kid? Because we're stuck on stupid.

So we have this girl, Sarah. She's born New Year's Eve, and it's amazing. I was inebriated. Susan had her entire labor at home and in the car. She got to the hospital. We got there a little after 9, and she delivered at like 9:20. She was the first baby. So boom, she's ready to go.

When Sarah came out, I had this amazing experience. I've talked to a thousand men, it seems like, and they will all say this. The closest that we've ever come to unconditional love is the birth of the first child. It wears off immediately when you get to the second child. And even then, it's not unconditional, because there's a whole bunch of babies in that nursery, and the only one you really feel this for is this one because it shares your DNA.

A Changed Worldview

Well, three months after Sarah's born, God saves me. And four, five, six months after that, God saves Susan. Now our life and our worldview begins to change, and this is what I'm saying—this affects everything. All of a sudden, we realized these were not our kids. They were God's kids entrusted to us.

So our whole goal in child-rearing became very, very different. We raised our kids with basically one giant thought in mind: to make them independent of us, but dependent upon God. That was our whole goal in child-rearing. I see so many parents who raise these kids, and it's like they thrive on the fact that these kids are dependent upon them, an extension of them, and it's just sickening to watch. No, our goal is to make them independent of us. I want them to be independent creatures of me, but totally dependent upon God.

Raising Children with Boundaries

So it's really interesting. When we raised our kids, we raised them in a very different way. When they were small, the boundaries were very tight, very narrow, and if your little toe crept over—this was the line, and your little toe just sort of got off it—bam, we just went boom. It's like training a dog, to be honest with you. It's no different. If you watch Dog Whisperer, it's the same principles, basically, except you don't rub their nose in it.

Here's what happened, and this is really important. As they got older, here's how we started, and we taught them responsibility. As they got older, the boundaries just began to expand. Really, if you can imagine this, I had two teenage daughters, and they were beautiful, attractive, athletic girls, and we had essentially in our house no rules.

I had a whole bunch of friends who had teenagers. When we'd raise our kids, people used to say to me, "You're so strict with them, you're so stringent with them." It's funny, when they got to be teenagers, I had those parents who were trying to tighten it up. It's a little tough to do with a 14-year-old.

Freedom Through Responsibility

So at our house, we had almost no rules. The kids didn't have to keep their room clean. We said, "If that's your room, you can do whatever you want in there. Just the only thing you can't do is smell. We don't want any smell drifting out of there, but you do whatever you want to do in there." They didn't have any chores. They didn't have anything to do, because essentially, we saw them as being responsible people.

Here was something that Susan really dug her heels in on. She said, "I want our girls to have fun." It's amazing, and I sometimes wonder what it's going to be like. Our daughter Haley had the messiest room. You could not walk. You could not step on carpet in her room. There was stuff everywhere. Now you go to her house, and it's spit clean, because now you got two little boys to manage. You can't just have chaos around. They're going to learn this stuff.

We had no curfew, so Sarah would call, and she'd say, "I want to go out." "What are you going to do?" "We're going to go to dinner." "Who's going to go?" "I'm going to go with these guys, these guys, these guys." "Then what are you going to do?" Well,

When Everything Belongs to God

What time should I be home? I'd say, 10 o'clock. 10 o'clock? I'd say, alright, 9:45. Alright, 10 o'clock. Well, the next night, she may say, what time do you want me home? I said, what are you going to do? We're going to a football game. Then the boys got to shower. When they're done showering we're going to eat. And then after we eat we're going to go to a movie. I'd say, alright, 2, 2:30, whatever it is. To me, that was reasonable. We began to treat them like adults.

My whole point here is, they weren't our kids. My main thing was, as fast as we could to tap them into God.

Three Essential Questions for Truth

Now here you go. I want to give you a tip. Any time you hear a speaker speak, you ask three fundamental questions. Number one, what did he say? Number two, is it true? Number three, so what?

Here's what I'm saying to you. Everything in your possession is God's ownership and you're the manager. That's what I'm saying to you. Is it true? Absolutely it's true. It flows from the pages of scripture. It's clear over and over again. Your life is not your own.

Here's the big one for this. So what? I taught this one time, I was doing a men's conference. I was teaching some of this principle and we took a break and a guy came up to me and he looked like his world was rocked. And I said, you alright? He said, yeah. I'd just given him those three things and he said, you know, I'm just, I believe what you said is clear. I believe what you said is true. He said, here's the deal. If this is true, and I wrote it down because I never wanted to forget this. He said, if this is true, I would have to radically alter my life and my lifestyle.

Because you're a manager. And the whole point here is that one day you're going to be held accountable for these assets.

Wisdom Transforms Our Perspective

It's our third point. Your performance is affected by your insight, by your attitude. Who is wise? Because the one who's wise, who's also the one who is faithful. When I'm wise, I begin to see things as God sees them. Isn't that it? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.

I start to see the world and the things and the asset and all that's in it from God's perspective, not mine. God says in the book of Isaiah, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are higher than your ways. And our desire is to begin to have God and the Holy Spirit open our eyes to see the world and the things around it as it really is. To begin to get them as God gets them and God sees them.

As I begin to see this, I immediately am compelled to be faithful. I immediately become a better steward. Manager, not owner. Get it?

The Power of Framing Questions

Just the way we frame questions. I don't know what you thought. It doesn't even matter because I don't want to be political, but I want to use the illustration. I don't know much of what you thought about Bill Clinton. But one of the things that Bill Clinton did really well, Ronald Reagan did the same thing. Those two guys, maybe Barack now, but those two guys did an amazing job at framing every issue.

So you could ask Clinton, what do you think about the speed limit in Oregon? And he would say, health care, safe social security, and education. It didn't matter what you asked him, that was the answer. So if you said to Ronald Reagan, what do you think, here's what he would say. Taxes are too high, government's too big, the Soviets are our enemy. Reagan never got off message, Clinton never got off message.

How Questions Change Everything

So as you're beginning to process this whole thing, I want you to see how this truth affects you in this simple living, and how a question framed a right way changes everything. So here you go. Usually as we head into the new year, Susan and I will try to figure out how much money will we give to the church. And our goal is to increase it every year. Even if it's a slight increase over a period of 10 years, even if you just increase your giving 2% a year over 10 years, that's a 20% increase of maybe already being at 10 or 15%, that's a huge amount of giving. It's terrific.

But here's the way to ask the question. If you ask the question, how much money should I give to God, you're going to get one answer. If you ask the question, how much of God's money should I keep, you're going to get a whole different answer. See that? And all that is, is taking this principle of stewardship or managing and put it to work in your life.

Wrestling with Stewardship Decisions

So you begin to just ask yourself, these are really important questions. And I'm going to stipulate this. You may be at a point in your life, and just where income and everything is somewhat more stable and set, that these are not huge issues for you. But remember, we're talking about passing on a legacy. These are huge issues for the next generation. These are huge issues for younger people.

So there is a legitimate process to ask yourself, what kind of car would God want me to drive? That is a legitimate question. What kind of house would God want me to live in? How much would God want me to spend on clothes? What's a legitimate amount of money to spend on a vacation? I'll tell you what, it got very quiet right there. You know why? Because I struggle like a dog with these things. I've been working on this 30 years, and I still can't grapple with these things. This is tough.

There's tension in that, isn't there? Because all of a sudden, I'm acknowledging God really cares. God cares what I drive, and God cares where I live. And the answer just isn't always, I can afford it. Just because I can afford it, doesn't mean I should or need to have it.

A Personal Example of Tension

We were talking about a breakfast. I get a new car every 10 years. So my car now is 8 years old. And I got, right now, the new car bug. I want a new car. I'm flipping and saying, are you sure it's 2009? It's not 2011 yet? I don't even know what I want. But here's what I also know. I come strolling into the church in a new car now, even though, by the way, and let me go ahead with, I can afford it. And all of a sudden, a whole boatload of people who are struggling, who are eating

The Reality of Stewardship

I'm not free to just drive any old car I want, or live in any old house I want. That's a big deal. Why? Well, first of all, because it's all God's. Secondly, because people are watching, and I have to be really careful that I'm modeling stewardship. So it's critical.

Your performance is going to be evaluated. That's what he says in verse 43. "It will be good for the manager, the servant, whom the master finds doing so, being faithful when he returns." There is this point at which we're evaluated. And it's not just death.

I hope we understand this. Maybe we don't. Do you understand when you die, there is not a punishment that is awaiting you? All of the guilt of your sin has already been paid for. So we're done with that. What awaits us is a judgment for the rewards, the crown of righteousness. Our responsibility to the things we've done since we came to Christ in repentance and faith.

Evaluation and Rewards

But the reward, or the acknowledgement, isn't delayed just until you die. You see this in verse 44. "I tell you the truth. He will put him in charge of all the possessions." Verse 48. "For everyone who has much, much has been given, much will be demanded of him. And the one who's been entrusted with much, much more will be asked of him." If God's given you much, then the judgment will be huge for that.

And it's in every area. I know we're talking about money. But if God's given you a spiritual gift, and you're not using it, that's an offense to a holy God. If God's given you energy, and God's given you the ability to get around, and you're not using it, that's an offense. That's a waste.

Don't Waste Your Life

There's a book that's really hot among our young people. Somebody asks, what's your church like? And it's probably a good place. But they ask, are there a lot of older people there? And the answer to that, by the way, is yes. But there's a lot of younger people there too.

And there's a book that's really hot. I say really hot, and then my guys will go, well, that came out in '86. Or '96. Or 2006. So here's the book they were working on: "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper. Have any of you read it? Seen it?

The target now, let me just tell you, the target for that is really college students. You want to know who'd really benefit by reading it? Old folk like you. I hate it when somehow this whole idea of wasting my life gets categorized as being for youth.

Listen, you all got time left. I don't know what it is. I don't know how much it is. Some of you appear to have a little more than others. But you got time left. Well, let's just go ahead and acknowledge it. Here's what I know. God is not done with you. When God is done with you, they will come and take you away in a body bag. He is not done with you.

"Don't waste your life" is a message for everybody. Not just for a bunch of college students. And even now, God's entrusted things to you. Valuable possessions. Affliction. Sickness. Suffering. Pain. How are you stewarding those?

First Practical Point: Determine Ownership

Let me give you the real practical points and then out the door you go. I'll give you five of them. One, you need to determine who owns what you have. Again, you may be in possession of it. I'm not talking about possession. I'm talking about ownership.

And let me go down this road again, because I've done it by my eighth disclaimer. It's not just money. Because if we start talking about money, you're going to play all sorts of mind games with me. How about this? All of you have 168 hours to steward this week. Let's start there. What are you doing with your time?

By the way, ladies, I'll just tell you. Do yourself a favor today at 4 or 4:30 or whatever it is. Pop on down there and hear what Susan's got to say. I'm not sure. She didn't talk to me. It's funny. Usually she'll say I'm thinking about this or this. She didn't say a word. Her little brain is spinning around, but you might pop in.

Susan's Challenge to the Ladies

I got invited one time to speak at this Sunday school class. This was years ago, 55 years and older. And so Susan and I thought we'd go in. And we said yes, and it was for like three weeks from now. So we thought we'd go in the week before and we'd scout it out. So we did. So they called and they said, listen, we'd like you to say something. We'd like Susan to say something.

And I said, well, Susan doesn't speak in public much. That's not her deal. Well, will she say something? So I went home and I said, hey, they want you to say something. She said, all right, that'll be fine. I said, really? So now it's like the night before. So I said to her, you need any help with this? She said, not really.

I said, all right, here's the deal. I'll open it up. I'll do my deal. I'll set the table. You get up. Then when you're done, I'll come clean up the mess and close the deal. And she said, that's fine, Slick. We'll do it that way. So here's what happened. So I did my deal and I said, you know, they asked Susan and da da da da da, but she doesn't do this much. And, you know, Susan.

So Susan came up and she said, I'd like to just speak to the ladies here. So guys, you don't even have to listen to this if you'd like. And Tom and I were in the class last week and I just circulated and I heard a lot of you saying that you had really lived your life pretty full and you'd raised your kids and that now you'd done the thing and now it's time to live for yourself and now it's time to travel and now it's time to enjoy life.

And she said, "I would love, because you all are older and wiser than I am, I would love for one of you to find one verse in this book where it says it's now time to live for yourself."

And then she sat down. Well, I said, so I got up and I said, that's why we don't let her talk in public very much right there. Never know what she's going to say. She doesn't talk long, but she just kills you. You never thought I would be the soft one in the family.

Well, you got to figure out who owns that time. And you got to get over this idea that I'm the busiest I've ever been because I'm polishing rocks. That's not busy. That's not worthwhile. Devote half a day once a week to it, but that's it. There's something out there way more important than this. Even this whole traveling and fishing and playing golf and all that. If you're not incorporating living for Christ in it, then I'd park the old RV right there at home and figure out how to jump into my church.

Figure Out His Agenda for Your Assets

Number two, figure out His agenda for your assets. I used to be in the real estate business. I got out and started doing this. When I started doing this, and by the way, I'm just being really honest with you. This is not woe is me or any of that stuff. When I started doing this, we sat down with the organization I work for and we established a salary for me. The salary was less than I paid in taxes the year before. The salary that was established 21 years ago is the same. I've had one small increase in salary in those 21 years.

This is not woe is me. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying early on, one of the things, there's a whole bunch of things that I lose phobias. One of them is I want to make sure when it's time to retire, there's money there. I would say to Him, we want to give you a raise. I'd say like what, 300 grand? He'd say, well, no, no, we're thinking like 3,000. I'd say 3,000 isn't going to change my life any. That isn't helping me. Put it into savings. So over 21 years now, that savings is compounded and there's a little retirement there.

Well, along the way, we sit down with a financial planner and he starts talking to us and he said, what are your goals? Do you want to retire and travel the world? I said, couldn't care less. If you need a passport, I got no interest. I have the Discovery Channel. That's enough for me. I don't want to travel. I couldn't care less. When you send me a brochure and ruins are your number one attraction, I'm not interested. No, I don't need to travel.

Do you need? Nope. Do you need? Nope. And I laid it out. And he said, all right, the kids. And I said, not interested. Here's the kids. Here's the deal. Here's the thing for my kids. I'll pay for the equivalent of a public education. If they want to go to Harvard or Yale or Cal or Berkeley or whatever it is, they're going to have to find some other way. I'm not going to spend money on that. Nuts. People are nuts going in debt to send these kids to spend $200,000 to send a kid to college to get a teaching certificate to make 30 grand a year makes absolutely no sense. Nuts. I said, nope, we're not doing that.

He said, wow. So we went through all the goals and he came back and he said, we designed a plan based on your desires. Let me tell you something. That's what you need to do with God. If you're the manager, then you better figure out, hey, God, what are your investment goals? What are the things that you want to spend money on? What are the things that are assets in your mind?

I can tell you what they are. They're going to be people and His word and lost people, the church, those things. That's what He cares about. And so that's where the bulk of my time, energy, effort, and money should be going toward taking the message of Christ to a marketplace, to the world. I need to figure out where I fit in that.

Put a Limit on Personal Expenses

Here's the third thing. You need to put a limit. And again, as I say, for you all, this may be a little easier because of where you are in life. But for these people that you're going to be sharing this legacy with, it's not easy for them. You need to put a limit on personal expenses.

I have an incredible talk that I do, this is my assessment of it, called Put a Lid on Your Dreams. It's almost anti-American. But did you notice in the last election, you heard all this stuff about the American dream? Can one person tell me what it is? There's not one soul I've ever met who can define the American dream. It tends to have with it materialistic stuff and education for everybody. Well, not everybody should go to college. Can we just say that out loud? We've got a whole bunch of people going to college and they're not made to go to college. I wasn't. It's all material.

Well, get this, there are times when that American dream collides with God's dream. And we better get our arms around it. So, Paul writes to Timothy, "Godliness is actually a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment. We brought nothing into the world, we take nothing out of it. If we had food, clothing, and shelter with those, we should be content."

There's the missing ingredient in the next generation, and that's contentment. There's no sense of satisfaction. They're watching this stuff on TV, they can get a whole room of furniture with no interest payments until 3005. And they go and get it. They just go and get it. I've watched them do this. They'll go in and they'll go, my car needs new tires, I think I'll get a new one. And they'll go in and they'll go, I can afford $200 a month, that's my payment. And this guy will get them into a car for $200 a month and they'll be making payments literally for 15 or 20 years. They'll be making them past the time the car ever exists.

Put a lid on your dreams, materially. In my old days, I used to go to Vegas a bunch. And every time up, you would hear somebody say this, when I lose, let's say $500, when I lose $500, I'd quit. And sometimes I'd see them in the course of the events, and I'd see a whole bunch of chips in front of them, and I'd say, man, are you winning? I'm up three grand. Now he's up three grand. If I said to him on the plane, man, if you won three grand, would you be happy? He would have said, you bet, I'd

never won three grand. Why? He has a goal. What's his goal? To lose $500. And he's going to sit and play until he loses it.

Now, in the midst of that story is a huge principle. This guy had what he said would have made him happy, but because he never declared it, he didn't realize he had it. That is a huge deal.

The Trap of Undefined Satisfaction

You've got a whole bunch of kids running around. When they're going to have a kid, we have a bunch of kids at church. So, oh, they're pregnant. Oh, this is great. I'm happy for you. So, we'll talk a little bit, and I'll say, do you want a boy or a girl? And they say, oh. And the girls usually want a girl, and the guys usually want a guy. But then they'll go, it really doesn't matter. Here's what we want. Ten fingers and ten toes. That's all we want. Ten fingers and ten toes. A healthy baby.

And they're satisfied with that healthy baby for about a month. But then that baby better be able to play the piano like Dorothy by age four and play ball like Johnny Ray. Why? All that pride takes over. All that pride kicks in.

You've got these little girls all being ballerinas. They're not going to be a ballerina. Are you kidding me? You've got all these short little white guys playing basketball. They're not going to play basketball. They haven't played basketball in a million years.

First game I ever pitched in my life, I threw a no-hitter. My dad thought this was the greatest thing. It became, literally, it became an icon for my dad. I would throw and throw and throw every night. He had such high expectations. And there was no way, Sandy Koufax couldn't have met him. I didn't meet him. You know what that was about? I don't think he was that interested that I pitched well. I think it was about him finding satisfaction in the midst of that.

You've got to put a lid on your dreams and all these other things. You see how that is? We don't have time.

Building Accountability Systems

Two more things quickly. You need to design some sort of accountability into your system or into your life. If a company needs a board of directors, I'm wondering if you do. If you need a set of eyes or two that can come alongside you and then help you figure out your life. Now remember we're talking about legacy. You can be that board of directors in the lives of the people in the sphere of influence.

Faithful Distribution of Assets

Then lastly, you better take care of the profits you make, the assets you have, and distribute them as God directs. I love the fact that every time I'm here, I know that they're going to do their asset management life will program over here. I don't know if any of you all ever go to it. I know that's really important. So that you are now not just sitting there with dreams of what God would have you do, but you've taken plans to make sure it's done.

If I gave money to Johnny Ray and I said, John, this is my money I'm entrusting to you to invest, and he blew it and he wasted it and stole it, I'd take him to court. I'd sue him for embezzlement. Let me ask you this. At the end of the day, when God looks at the way you've managed the money He's given you, is He going to be dragging you into court for embezzlement? Because it's His stuff, right?

Everything Changes When We Understand Stewardship

See what I said at the beginning? That changes everything. That changes everything. And forget the money part of it. That just changes the way you spend the next 15 minutes of your life. Because all of a sudden you understand that God's given you that. You possess it, but you don't own it. That's a huge, huge deal.

Well, I'm going to call a little audible for tonight and talk about suffering and pain and hardship. There's so much of it around, so let's spend a little bit of time on that tonight.

Let me pray here as we close. Father, thank You for this amazing truth. Thank You for this wonderful reminder that we are stewards, not owners of the assets You've given us. That changes everything. Certainly changes how we interact with them. So, God, thank You for that. We come to You now as Your people, and we pray that we would steward the afternoon well. We do. We thank You for the rain and the provision and all that You give us. We pray that we live in a way that brings honor and glory to You, and we ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.