Savings & Security
Tom Shrader examines Jesus' parable of the rich fool from Luke 12, building on the foundational principle that God owns everything and we are stewards. He warns against the danger of finding security in wealth rather than in God, using the example of a man who planned his life apart from God despite his prosperity. The teaching emphasizes that our relationship with money reveals our spiritual condition and that true security comes from our identity in Christ.
“Your relationship with your money is an indicator of your spiritual condition.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Financial Foundations
Recorded: February 02, 2006
Duration: 38 min
Themes: stewardship, money, security, wealth, trust, identity, ownership, materialism, wealthy person, financial planning, struggling with greed, new to wealth, business owner, retirement planning, estate planning, materially blessed
Scripture: Luke 12:13-21, 1 Timothy 6:10, 1 Timothy 6:17-19, Psalm 1:1, Psalm 46:10
Theological Themes: stewardship, biblical stewardship, lordship, christ's lordship, sanctification, spiritual growth, discipleship, kingdom living
Full Transcript
This is session two of what I think is an eight-week series titled Financial Foundations. The topic will be based around money, but what we really see today is our relationship with God and money as a spiritual indicator of that.
If you have Bibles, I want you to open to two places. Open to 1 Timothy chapter 6 and we will spend a little bit of time there as we work our way through this session. So 1 Timothy chapter 6 and the bulk of our time will be in Luke chapter 12.
Building on Last Week's Foundation
We have to build on what we looked at last week. Last week we said, and again I hope not hyperbole, that if you got last week your life changes. Last week's principle was that God owns everything—the universe, the earth, the living things, you.
If I pick this up and refer to it as my phone, I'm technically inaccurate. It's God's phone that He's entrusted to me. I begin to build on Rush Limbaugh that talent on loan from God—that everything, and this is revolutionary and it changes everything, that everything in my possession, God's transferred possession to me, but not ownership.
So my time, my energy, my effort, my money—and though this series is built around money, we're not going to limit our discussion to just the financial part of it. We want to make this point again and again and again. So now my relationship with the resources in my life is not one of an owner, but one of a steward.
The Steward's Relationship with God
So I'm not free. I had a long meeting with a gentleman yesterday and we were talking, as it seems all of my time is, about end-of-life stuff and preparing for end-of-life and financial planning, and he's trying to do an estate plan. So he's trying to figure out, what do I do with those resources? We were talking about finding somebody who will develop an economic plan with his investment objectives in mind.
Well, that's the same thing I need to do with God—I need to understand what are His objectives in my life. So those questions, and it's not to be flippant, it's what would Jesus have me drive? Where would Jesus have me live? How would Jesus have me spend my time?
There's a Republican debate on tonight. Would Jesus have me waste my time watching this stupid—and yet I'll... No, He wouldn't. That's why I tape it and watch it in the morning. But I mean, it's insane. And now, all of a sudden, everything changes, because life now becomes a spiritual question.
Warning About the Love of Money
Then I need to be careful of stuff. So in your 1 Timothy passage, 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 10, that's the Jeopardy passage, "for the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil." Paul's warning us, not that money's the problem, but people will do all sorts of evil for money, for stuff.
And then he has instruction. You see it in verse 17? "Instruct those who are rich." Verse 18, "instruct them to do good." Verse 19, "storing up for themselves." So we're going to try to unpack that in the course of the next half hour or so.
Jesus and Money in Scripture
In the scripture, Jesus tells, and it depends on how you count, but for sake of our discussion, 38 parables. When Jesus wants to illustrate a point and drive it home, He'll tell a parable. Typically use some everyday commodity to make generally one big point, maybe others. Of the 38 parables, 16 of them deal with money.
288 verses in the four Gospels deal with money—one out of ten. This is stuff you know if you've been around. More in the Bible about money than heaven and hell combined. Just over 500 verses on prayer, just under 500 verses on faith, over 2,000 verses on money.
Is God obsessed with money? No, but He knows you are. And now He's illustrating this. It's not financial planning. We're not trying to tell you something that you can learn from Wharton or Harvard. We're talking about your relationship with this.
God's Concern for Our Financial Lives
God cares how you earn your money, how you spend your money, how you invest your money, how you save your money, how you give your money, because your relationship with your money is an indicator of your spiritual condition. Can't serve two masters. So that's the premise we come back to again and again.
The Greedy Brother
In Luke chapter 12, verse 13, "Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, 'Tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.' Jesus said to him, 'Man, who appointed me arbiter over you?'"
It would not be unusual in that day and age for somebody to come to a rabbi, for somebody to come to Jesus, and say, hey, we're looking for wisdom. We still do that in our day. I mean, if you're a pastor, it would probably surprise you, the life situations we get pulled into almost every day. Family issues, business issues, can you help me for advice?
So this in and of itself would not be unusual, but this man doesn't come and say, will you decide this? The man's already determined that he's got a fair share of this, and he's saying, I'm not telling you to figure out what the fair share is. I'm telling you to tell my brother to divide that inheritance with me.
Jesus' Warning Against Greed
Verse 15, Jesus begins—ominous word—"Beware, be on guard against every form of greed." There it is, the love of money, the relationship with self. I'm constantly recalibrating my relationship with self, and when I think greed, the tendency is to think rich.
Some of the greediest people I know are not people with money, but by definition, people want to get it. People are under the illusion that if they have it, this will happen or that will happen. "Be on your guard against every form of greed, for not even when one has abundance does His life consist of possessions."
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? That life is not about stuff. I was watching yesterday an older interview, David Faraday with Jack Nicklaus, and Faraday, though he acts, he's a great interviewer and a great mind, but insists on doing these stupid things in these interviews. If he'd get rid of them, they'd be so much better, but he's talking to Nicklaus, and Nicklaus is talking, and they're talking about life...
This man, we learn from his story, had achieved tremendous success. The parable tells us in verse 16 that "the land of a rich man is very productive." As Jesus tells this story, I want you to understand that the man we're talking about is not a struggling guy trying to get it together. He's someone who has already made it. He's not going to how-to-get-rich seminars—he's conducting them. He's not subscribing to the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fortune magazine—he's on the cover of these publications. He's already there. He's doing well.
And then, all of a sudden, his land becomes even more productive. Let's read the parable, and then we'll examine what makes this man a fool. I have seven points on your outline, starting with his response to this blessing.
The Rich Fool's Reasoning
"And he began to reason with himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. I've had this bumper crop. This is what I'll do. I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And there I will store all my grain and all my goods, and I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry."' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul will be required of you. And now who will own what you've prepared?' So is the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
Jesus then goes on to apply this parable. We're not going to look at this passage today, but it would be helpful for you to read verse 22 and following on your own. He gives practical application, saying because this is true, don't worry about your life. Don't worry about these things. It's not that these things aren't important—it's that God's going to take care of them.
I'm teaching this Sunday at our Gilbert congregation, and I've noticed that whenever somebody calls me to teach, they either give me one of three topics: legacy, stress, or suffering. This week it's suffering. I'm apparently the official old guy they wheel out to talk about suffering.
In this context, you're constantly coming back to worry, stress, suffering, and hardship. I think it's virtually impossible to grow old without suffering—suffering for your faith, suffering in relationships, having somebody you love die, watching your body begin to erode around you. What do we do in the middle of that? Don't worry. Why? Because as Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still and know that I am God."
The Real Issue Isn't Wealth
Now here's what God is not saying in this parable. He's not saying all rich people are fools, and He's not saying all poor people are righteous. What makes this man a fool is not his financial statement. What makes this man a fool is that he's planned his life apart from God.
So I have seven points for you. Number one: this guy has a huge history of prosperity. This was a very successful, very rich man. Now keep your finger there in Luke, and turn back to 1 Timothy, because Paul gives us a warning about riches.
He says in 1 Timothy 6:17, "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited and not to fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on the contrary, fix your hope on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy."
The Uncertainty of Riches
My friend Larry Wright used to say that riches, money, and stuff are like a greased pig. What he meant was the tighter you grab it, the more it slips away. I think there's that component to money's uncertainty. I can look around this room and play the stories in my mind. Some of you have had a lot, then you had a little, then you had a lot, then you had a little less. Pretty soon you learned how to borrow, and the cycle continued.
But I think Paul is going even deeper. The uncertainty of riches is the illusion that says if I have them, I'll be happy. If I have them, I'll be content. I watch Christians and non-Christians, young and old—it's the same thing. Take out money if it's a money thing, and fill in the blank: "If I have _____, I will be happy." The flip side is "If I lose _____, life's not worth living."
Identifying Our False Gods
Whatever those blanks are, you begin to identify the idols or the false gods in your life. And the one thing we know about false gods is that false gods never fail to fail.
Ronda Rousey, the female MMA fighter, went undefeated for years, knocking opponents out in 17 seconds, 15 seconds. Then she had a fight and lost in the second round, getting absolutely knocked out. She tells the story of being in the emergency room afterward, having this moment where she asked herself, "If I'm not champion, am I anything?"
Some of you might have that same question with different words: "If I'm not chairman of the company, am I anything? If I don't have whatever it is, am I anything?" This is exactly the trap this very rich man fell into. Paul warns us not to trust in the uncertainty of riches for this very reason.
the uncertainty of riches, but do this," verse 18, we're still in 1 Timothy 6. "Instruct them to be rich in good works." Instruct them in the language we've talked about to figure out God's agenda and give accordingly.
Here's the second thing. This guy has a windfall. This guy, all of a sudden, he's doing really well, and out of nowhere comes this surplus. The rich get richer. But he has your third point here: he has no plan for this.
The Danger of Having No Financial Plan
I used to teach every Wednesday morning in Tucson. I'd go down and teach and typically hang around a little bit and come back. There's a constant flow of guys who want to get together and talk, and it's just physically impossible to get with all of them. But I had a guy that came up and he said, "Hey, can we get together?" And I said, "I just had a guy cancel. So let's talk."
He looked like he belonged at Paradise Valley Country Club. He had the look. He had the right clothes, the right shirt, the right logo, the right hair. He had hair—that puts him there. He had the right car, right everything. Had the swagger. So we sit down and he said, "I've been here the last three weeks and this is changing my life. This is incredible. This is absolutely phenomenal." I said, "Well, that's cool, thanks."
And he said, "I want to tell you a story." He said about a year or two ago, "I came home and there was a courier at the door and I have an aunt back in Indiana. And she died and I got a check for $2 million after taxes." Now, just to show you how sinful I am, I'm thinking, I'm changing his life and he's got $2 million. Well, I said, "Oh, what a great story." And he said, "I got not a dime left." I said, not only am I not accessing the $2 million, I'm not paying for breakfast. So this is not good.
I said, "What happened?" He had a Rolls Royce, three Vets, a Jaguar, and a couple other cars they hauled out of his garage. And he said, "You know the story, right? It's on TV all the time. Somebody wins the lottery, ding, ding, ding, and it's gone."
There's something about the intentionality of life where you're prepared for this, where you're talking about this. And the likelihood that you're going to get a check for $2 million after taxes is probably zero. What if you did? What's the equivalent of that for you? I need a plan.
The Need for Wise Counsel
Where do I get a plan? Psalm 1, verse 1: "How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the paths of sinners, nor sit in the seats of scoffers." I think we talked about it a couple of weeks ago. You need to have a board of directors.
I had a meeting—it sounds so formal, but I had a meeting with my daughter yesterday. She's really busy. She's got four kids, and she's got stuff going on. She came home two weeks ago, opened the back door, and water was pouring through the ceiling, and within literally a day, they gutted her house. So she's living in a—she's got a two-year-old that didn't sleep the night, but she's got a lot going on.
And she said, "Dad, I'm writing a blog, and I need you to help me write this." I said, "Well, send it over to me." And I read it, and it was so depressing. I said, "This sounds like something I would write. This is not good." And so we're writing, and she's talking about this. And I said, "Sarah, here's the deal. You need a board of directors. If Intel needs them, and Priority Living needs them, and every organization, you need a board of directors. You need wisdom. You need insight. You need people around you." That's what the psalmist is saying in Psalm 1. Don't walk in those ways. Be careful. Be prepared. Be planning. Be ready.
The Problem of Total Autonomy
Now here's the problem with this man. He's typically human. Point four: he has a total sense of autonomy. Look with me at verse 17, 18, and 19, and look at the singular personal pronoun. Let me read it with the emphasis on this. So he doesn't have a plan. A situation in life comes. Verse 17, he goes to His favorite counselor: "I began to reason with himself."
And now let me read it with the emphasis on the singular personal pronoun. "What shall I do since I have no place to store my crops? Then he said, 'This is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for years. Take ease, eat, drink, and be merry."'"
Can we go back to last week's lesson? You are not your own boss. There is not this complete sense of autonomy. "I did it my way." Years ago, we took the song "My Way," the Sinatra song, which is the anthem for most people. "I did it my way. Regrets, I had a few, then again too few to mention." And it's a complete anti-God, anti-faith state of mind.
This is not about your barns, your money, your grain. It's God's barn, God's money, God's grain. How will He have me steward what He gives me? See how that changes that? Even the physical gift I have.
Learning from Wasted Potential
I had my Kindle the other day, and I was stuck somewhere. So I was going through books I'd read, and I pulled up a Mickey Mantle biography that I had read a couple of years ago. And at the end of his life, it was Mickey just talking about asking Him if he's a role model. And he said, "I am if you want to know how not to live." And he looked back, and his basic assessment was, "I've wasted everything." Absolutely lightning speed, power.
In 1951, I think that was his first year, the Yankees did spring training here in Phoenix. I never knew the Yankees came here. It was their last year coming here. And they came, and they did spring training here, and then went over and played USC and UCLA. And he was talking about, Mantle shows up—think about this now, you'd never have it happen now. They didn't know who he was. Some scout signed him,
He shows up and gets in the cage. He starts hitting, and they said the whole place stopped. They had never heard a bat hit the ball like that. And here's the Mick at the end of his life, at this moment where it kind of comes into perspective. And he's saying, you know what? I had all this talent, and I wasted my talent.
Now you're not Mickey Mantle. You're not Ronda Rousey. You're not the guy that got the $2 million. God's given you, as we talked about last week, some measure of time, energy, effort, or money. And you need to steward that, and you'll be judged accordingly.
The Real Delusion of Security
Here's the real delusion. Do you see this? He's got his stuff, so he concludes, verse 20, everything's going to be all right. I got my stuff. I got my health. I got my whatever it is. Everything's going to be okay. He saw his net worth as the basis for his security.
My stuff is not where I find my identity. My relationship, my value, is in Jesus. I learned that when I moved out of my job as senior pastor at Redemption Church. People's perception of me changed immediately, which I undervalued, underestimated. They perceived my value—see, I thought they liked me. I thought they found me interesting, charming, intellectual. No, they found the position that.
Some of getting old is that crisis of you move out of your position. If your identity is your position—hi, I'm Tom, senior pastor. I'm Betty, CEO. I'm a mom. I'm a dad. I'm a son's fan. We'll pray for you, buddy. But I mean, what are you going to do in that?
See, this is what He's saying. My security is in Christ. I love Sandy and Sandy loves me. But I also know life is such—now I'm not trying to do a subliminal message here. There's nothing going on. I could come home and she'd say, I don't love you anymore. That would be absolutely devastating. But the love that I need most is not from Sandy, it's from Jesus.
The Unchanging God in a Changing World
And here's what He says: I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. I don't love you because you performed. I don't love you because you did a good lesson. I don't love you because you're a good guy. I love you. And there's my security in a world where everything is up for grabs.
I was watching an interview with Bill Gates the other day. And they asked him, if you were in high school today, what would you study? What would you study to get ready for the future? And he said, physics and biology. So I know I have no future is what I learned out of that—physics and biology.
But I mean, how do you prepare for a future that's changing constantly? Where 50% of the jobs in the country are going to be done by a robot here within 15 to 20 years? How do you pursue? How do you do that? What's not changing? God doesn't change.
And if my identity and security is in that degree or in that job or in that person or in that relationship, or in my health, or in whatever it is, in the middle of that, that can all change. And that's the message from this guy. His bottom line is, he's committing treason against God.
Making Plans vs. Playing God
This is what I'll do. This is my plan. Isn't that what James tells us? He says, you make your plan. And it says, I'll go to such and such a city and be there a year and make a profit, and then go to the next city, and this is my plan. And God says, no, no, no, no. You plan.
So here's what this lesson is not. It's not anti-material. It's anti-materialism. Materialism is the idea that I find the essence of life in stuff. Stuff is good. I like stuff. I like having a car and a house.
Sandy had—Sandy's, this is a busy week for her. And I'm busy for me, too. But it's a busy week for her. So she got done yesterday. She was in a conference. And she said, do you care if I go work out? And I said, no, I love it.
And so she got back from working out. It's about 6:30. And we're doing this talking thing. So we're sitting down, and we each have dinner. And we're talking. And so I'm saying, how was your day? And what did you do? And where did it go? The middle of all that. And there's this incredible moment where we're together. And we're talking about, every night, we preview the next day. It's kind of cool. What are you going to do? What are you going to say? I'm the girl in the relationship. What are you going to say? What are you going to do? What did he say? What did he say? And we have this conversation.
Life's Fragility and God's Faithfulness
But all it takes is one guy running a red light, and that's totally different. All it takes is one call from the doctor's office. All it takes is one of my girls. Haley's four houses away. All it takes is for Haley to call and say, hey, Yale's sick. Can you do this? So we don't know.
And this all sounds like a bumper sticker. We don't know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. And our security is in that. So it's not don't plan. It's plan, but write these plans in pencil and give God the eraser.
Financial Planning vs. Hoarding
So when we talk about stuff, and that's kind of it. When we talk about stuff, my savings and my security, you need to do a financial plan. You need to figure out how much money you need. If you're old enough, you know the lingo. You know the number. It's that number. It changes. As you get closer to it, the number changes. But you get that number.
Whatever that number is, that's what you're saying you need to live on, to plan. By definition, everything above that isn't financial planning. At that point, I'm now hoarding. And God's going to jump.
We have a great session coming on investing where we break that down of investment strategies, not places, but mindset. So there you go. I mean, that's the gist of this series. God's the owner. You're the steward. He's in control. And He's going to judge you accordingly.
Let me take care—I need to do this. I need to take care of a little housekeeping business. We've got six minutes. And I went back and forth on how to do this. And I think how to do it is just do it.
Health Update and Transition
A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Not unusual for guys—pretty typical deal. I went to a doctor and we planned a strategy. I spent the last several weeks with MRIs and nuclear medicine tests to determine that it hasn't spread anywhere, so it's isolated there.
I've got one more test. These tests are—the term they use is invasive. This guy and I are now married in four states! I have one more test I have to do, but I'm going to have surgery on March 31.
One of my biggest concerns is priority living. So I asked the doctor about recovery. He said typically two to three weeks. He said with the heart and the lupus, it's probably three to four weeks for you.
Frank's Teaching Assignment
Here's what I'm going to do, and I'm going to tell you up front: Frank's going to teach for those four weeks. He's going to teach from the only book in the Bible that doesn't talk about God, so that'll be kind of interesting. Frank's going to teach that.
I tell you ahead of time so you know, and so you can remain committed to the study. I want you to understand that's going to happen. Frank taking this load—he's going to do Wednesday morning too—is a huge commitment on his part. There's something pretty de-energizing when you see people say, "Well, I'll be back when he's back." So I want you to hang in there. If you've been involved financially, if you've been involved in attending, thank you. Continue to hang in there on that.
A Child's Perspective
Haley told the boys last night, and this probably is representative of how you think. She said, "I talked to the boys about your health." They're 8 and 10. "They're concerned but did well. I said, 'What did they say?'" Here were their questions: "Is he going to be OK? Can he still play with us? Can we go to see him? What will they do to fix him?"—which was the same thing I asked about the dog when we took him in, which has me worried a little bit. But that's the deal. That's the situation.
A Request for Boundaries
Here's what I would ask: please don't come up and tell me your story. The number one question is, "Do you have a good doctor?" And the answer is no—he graduated last in his class online from Rocky Point Medical School. I got a quack. Obviously, I have what I think's a good doctor.
I don't really care about your story. I mean that respectfully. I don't care that it went easy for you or hard for you. That's not helpful to me. I love your story, and I love you, but send me an email and just put subject line "prostate," and I can hit delete and not have to read it. So that's the best way to do this. I'm not trying to be a jerk there—it's not helpful. They come in dozens, and you can appreciate that. So that's the strategy on that.
Closing Prayer
Let me pray. Father, thank You for this day. Thank You for Frank, that he's available and willing to help and to teach. We pray for the study, for the people that are here. God, put our eyes on You. Fill us with Your Spirit. Open our eyes to see You.
I pray that You would use us to bring the gospel to our world, that You'd change our lives, that You'd change our view, that we would see each day, minute, dollar, relationship as something that You own and You transfer possession to us. You'll judge us accordingly. Make us good stewards. We ask that in Christ's name, amen.