10.2 - People Want to Hear - Budgeting, Finances, and Stewardship

Join us as we further unpack last week's "People Want to Hear" topic: Budgeting, Finances, and Stewardship.
What are practical, biblically-based tips for responsibly handling our resources?

Fill out our Listener Survey or Submit a Question.

Paul and Noah both preach and teach with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/

Transcript

Paul: 0:22

Okay, this is the segment people want to hear, budgeting, finances, stewardship. We are kicking off season 10. Last week we talked a little bit about the issue of budgeting, finances, stewardship, but Noah, people want to hear about this. We didn't get to talk a lot about this. Yeah. So we promise we'd do it more today on our podcast. So I'm glad you're with me in the studio.

Noah: 0:45

Yeah, I'm, I'm excited about this this new format and I'm excited about having this opportunity. You know, every month to, to dig in a little bit deeper into these kinds of questions that people have. And and hopefully as we move forward you know, if you're listening, remember there's a link in the episode description where you can. Submit a topic, a question for us to consider in this part of the podcast. So make sure to take advantage of that. This first one, budgeting, finances, and stewardship. I mean, I, I can't think of something that is as ubiquitous, you know, in our. In our experience as we start to get into adulthood, this starts to weigh on us, regardless of our marital status, regardless of whether or not we have children, regardless of where we live. Like this is the kind of thing that basically any adult Christian is gonna have to deal with.

Paul: 1:37

Yeah. When you talk about money and spending and saving and all of those conversations that come up, those are challenging conversations. Yeah. Whether you've been trying to do this for one year mm-hmm. Or 30 years. Yeah. We, there were two terms we used last week'cause you brought it up. Mine was balance,

Noah: 1:54

right?

Paul: 1:54

Balance. The right balance between saving and giving. Yours was contentment.

Noah: 1:58

Yes. Yeah. Contentment is in, in my mind, the core principle. I know I referenced Hebrews 13 and Philippians four last, last week. It's just such a core. Principle for finances and for dealing with the concept of stewardship, even beyond money. Mm-hmm. But contentment, I think, allows us, it it, if I'm gonna just speak from, from my own. Personal experience which involves a lack of contentment at times, just admittedly. Right,

Paul: 2:32

right.

Noah: 2:32

When we can get into a mindset and a, and a heart of contentment it, it opens the door for for a few very important things. So I'll just throw a few terms out there and we can, we can kick'em around if we want, but it contentment allows us to be realistic with our financial goals. And our, our financial outlook contentment allows us to prioritize things that are important and things that aren't. And contentment allows us to be generous. So those are, those are three terms that I, that I think of when I think of finances and trying to be good stewards is having a realistic viewpoint. Prioritizing things, putting things in order.

Paul: 3:20

Yeah.

Noah: 3:21

And being generous. And I'd love to, to, you know, get our fingers all in those, but I, I know that you also have some thoughts that you're bringing to the table. So,

Paul: 3:28

no, those are good thoughts. I mean, make, you're making a distinction and honest evaluation. The difference between what we need and what we. Those are two different things, and most people have heard that before and agree with that. However, asking ourselves the hard questions is another issue. We've offered this in budgeting, so obviously if you're married, the, the husband and wife both need to be a part of this budgeting.

Noah: 3:52

Yeah.

Paul: 3:52

That's when the challenge comes. There's already a challenge. So if I'm the single person, I'm the only one, only voice in the room. I'm the only decision maker. Still that can be challenging,

Noah: 4:02

right?

Paul: 4:02

But when you've got someone else working through it with you mm-hmm. There's a difference. There just are there just is there. That sounded better. And, you know, there's a reason why Jesus said beware of all forms of greed.

Noah: 4:16

Mm-hmm.

Paul: 4:17

I, I think it's just wise to start out by asking the question, is this a real need or is this my greed? You know, is this

Noah: 4:25

had to rhyme?

Paul: 4:26

Yeah. Well. That's been helpful to me. Yeah. Now, now again, I may disagree. I mean, I said No, no, it's not my greed. And then after I think about it, I said, yeah, I was, because I wasn't content.

Noah: 4:37

Yeah,

Paul: 4:38

yeah. I needed more. I wanted more. So working through that, coming up with a plan mistakes are made. Noah generally mean, I made them most people make them. Mistakes are made in the area, budgeting, which produces at times debt. Mm-hmm. And when that debt comes in, it creates other challenges and problems in a marriage and in life. Yeah. It just leads to difficulty. Yeah. So we're trying to minimize the difficulty, right. And work through this with a doable plan.

Noah: 5:09

Yes. Yeah. So there are a couple words in there that, that. I, I think a really important one. You've, you've mentioned the word plan several times. I mean, that's really all a budget is, right? Mm-hmm. It's a plan. It's the, the core concept is, is putting things in order choosing ahead of time what you're gonna spend and where, but something else that is wrapped up in everything you've, you've just talked about that I, I just wanna acknowledge, because this is one of those things that. If you're like me, you think I'm not that way. And then you get into a situation, you go, oh no, wait, I am that way. Finances is an emotional topic. And you, again, there was a point in life when I would've gone, I'm not emotional about finances. I am, I'm cold in calculating, I'm Sherlock Holmes, but for, you know, but for my finances and that's just not, that's just not the case. It is an emotional topic and like you talked about, sometimes we make poor decisions maybe, and then maybe that gets us into debt. What happens when our spouse. Has a difficult conversation with us about finances or what if there's somebody else, maybe we're not even married, and there's somebody else that comes to us and says, I, I'm noticing this. I want to talk to you about this. I'm concerned about this. What is our reaction? Our reaction is, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm fine. Finance is an, is an emotional topic,

Paul: 6:36

right?

Noah: 6:36

We take things very personally in this and so we, if we can come to terms with the fact that. We're probably emotional about this, that can help us take a step back, be realistic, approach things with a, with a little bit more, objectivity than we would otherwise.

Paul: 6:54

Yeah. A hundred percent of the time. Noah, when I'm counseling two people before they get married a hundred percent of the time, I, I tell them this, expect differences viewing money differently. Expect that. Yeah. Because men and women are different.

Noah: 7:06

Yeah.

Paul: 7:06

A top problem in marriage has to do with money. Mm-hmm. And, and so when you're sitting down and you're working through a budget and you're coming up with a plan that, again, because men and women are different and they view money differently. The plan sometimes is there's, there's not agreement,

Noah: 7:23

right?

Paul: 7:24

And working through that disagreement, talking through some things, and you begin to realize, okay, it doesn't mean it's not necessarily that. One of'em is an overs spender. I mean, there are times, right? I mean, this is not a hard thing to figure out. I mean, you can just, you can just put a ledger out. You've got boxes, and if you're, if you're putting out more than you're taking in, if he or she is spending more than you're bringing in,

Noah: 7:54

yeah.

Paul: 7:54

Red flag, that's the problem,

Noah: 7:56

right?

Paul: 7:56

That's an easy problem to identify.

Noah: 7:59

Yeah,

Paul: 8:00

the, the ones that are not so easy to identify is when, because we view money differently. One is looking at money and saying, I view money as security. Therefore I can only feel secure if the budget looks like this. If the plan is this. Again, and when men and women view money differently, it's an issue of security. You're gonna have to work through that. One tends to be more unyielding. Like, we can't give this away. We can't give this away. Right. Another one says, we need to give this away.

Noah: 8:33

Right.

Paul: 8:33

So that's why I'm talking about working through a plan.

Noah: 8:36

Yeah. Yeah. That is such excellent advice. I hope, you know, if, if you're listening and finances is not your thing. Or especially if you're a younger person and you're kind of, you're starting to get into making your own money and having to make your own money decisions more and more. Just keep, keep that in mind. I, the core concept of a budget is to prioritize. Mm-hmm. I used that word earlier, priorities. And that is certainly an area where. If you're married, you may not initially see eye to eye, but you have to be able to come to terms, you have to be able to work through this to come up with common priorities. Mm-hmm. Because if you can't come up with common priorities, you can't come up with a common plan.

Paul: 9:25

Right. Say that again.

Noah: 9:26

If you can't come up with common priorities, you can't come up with a common plan.

Paul: 9:30

I like that.

Noah: 9:31

And the fact is. I, per my personal experience is, that's been a very good refining process for me mm-hmm. In my marriage for me and Mikayla to work through those kinds of things. And quite honestly even though I would typify myself as a saver, I think. I have become more responsible in my thought process about money through my interaction with Mikayla than I would be if I were just a single man. And so for people who are listening to this, and maybe they don't have a, a spouse, maybe they're single and they're, they're thinking about that kind of thing, whether you're married or unmarried, you still have to choose what your priorities are. And, and you have to base your plan on that. And one piece of advice that I would just give from my personal experience from mistakes that McKayla and I have made and and that kind of thing is when you're prioritizing, you have to recognize that you have, you have to prioritize what is truly important financially. The things that are truly necessary and truly important have to take top priority because the, here's, here's a phrase I heard and it's helped me. The urgent will always take precedence over the important. Mm-hmm. And the problem is, if we don't consistently and regularly prioritize what's important, then something urgent will come along. And the important will continue to get shoved to the side. So just as kind of a brief example of what that might look like is if, if we are not consistently setting money aside, because we know that there, we don't have any health problems right now, or we don't have any car problems right now, but we know that we will.

Paul: 11:24

Mm-hmm.

Noah: 11:25

And so if we set money aside, we recognize this is important. And we set money aside regularly. Might just be a little bit, but something to go toward that then we're, we're preparing. For the urgent, because you don't want to be in a situation where the important, you have to pay your mortgage, you have to pay your rent every month. That's not optional, right? That's important. You don't want to be in a situation where the urgent, this health issue, this car issue, et cetera, et cetera, takes precedence over the important and suddenly you can't pay your mortgage and your rent because you had nothing set aside for the urgent prioritize. The important now. Because otherwise the urgent will just eat it up.

Paul: 12:08

Yeah.

Noah: 12:08

I don't know if that made a lot of sense. Made

Paul: 12:10

a, it made a lot of sense. Let me offer this, because some of the things that we're saying, some people are gonna hear this and go, that resonates with me. I get it. I get it. Yeah. Other people are gonna listen and go at I, I'm kind lost. I'm kind lost. I don't follow you. So well, here's some advice in the area of budgeting and in finances. If you're working through this and you're frustrated by it. Again, counselors. Abundance of counselors.

Noah: 12:40

Yes. Yeah.

Paul: 12:41

If I need help in budgeting and finances, I'm not gonna go to someone who's bankrupt. Yeah. I'm not gonna go to someone who year, after year after year, there's, it's, they're making a mess of things.

Noah: 12:51

Mm-hmm.

Paul: 12:51

I'm gonna go to somebody who's tried true, tested, proven, and say, Hey, I need some help. And here's, here's why that's so valuable, because it's just you and your situation and everyone's unique. It is probably you and your mate. There's another dynamic. We disagree. We love each other. We care about the same things. It's not like my mate's telling me we're not giving anything to the Lord.'cause I don't believe there is a God. Right. That's now,

Noah: 13:16

right.

Paul: 13:16

That's a reality unfortunately in some homes. Right?

Noah: 13:19

That's true.

Paul: 13:19

I'm talking about two believers who say, look, the Lord comes first. We're gonna give to the Lord we're gonna give to to kingdom work. Sometimes we disagree on amount and we're looking at boxes. So buckets here, dump this in this bucket, dump this in this bucket. It. It sounds as simple as that, but it's not.

Noah: 13:39

Right?

Paul: 13:40

So if I'm in a living room and it's just me and my mate, but I've got another person here who can work through this, what you discover is in budgeting, it's a plan. And that forces you in working through that plan to address some areas where we. We need to be on the same page with priorities.

Noah: 13:58

Yes. Mm-hmm.

Paul: 13:59

And so some of the things people are hearing today, they're like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. But in others it doesn't make sense sometimes just getting somebody

Noah: 14:08

mm-hmm.

Paul: 14:08

To sit down with you and work through it. I mean, there are financial advisors. Yeah. There are people that make good a good living,

Noah: 14:15

right.

Paul: 14:15

Doing that. But there's also Christians. I know they'll do it for free.

Noah: 14:19

Yeah.

Paul: 14:19

What a wonderful thing. Yes. And they're, and they're really good at it, by the way.

Noah: 14:22

Yeah. Yeah. So, and, and there's no shame in wanting that or needing that. Right. I will just share with, I'll share with whoever's listening. You're welcome to this information. McKayla and I, in the, you know, we're coming up on nine years of marriage and the nine years that we've been married, we have sat down on at least, Hmm. Five occasions. With a Chris, with another Christian who, and we have shown them our budget, and they have worked through that budget with us, line by line, giving us feedback. Mm-hmm. This is realistic. This isn't realistic. This seems like too much. This seems like not enough asking questions. Why? Why are you paying this much? What? Why are you making this choice? Okay, thanks for sharing your reason, and I'll tell you it's an uncomfortable experience. It's, it's humbling.

Paul: 15:14

Mm-hmm.

Noah: 15:15

But we are in a much better place because we have made that decision over the course of, of the years. And I would just encourage you, there's no shame. It, it can be a little bit nerve wracking. Right. But there's no shame in that.

Paul: 15:26

Right. So you wanna learn to respect and listen to each other, work through it as a team. Mm-hmm. Respect, listen to each. Secondarily, budget. Budget. Budget means discipline.

Noah: 15:37

Yeah.

Paul: 15:37

We talk about plan, but look, discipline is essential. In budgeting, you're gonna have to say no.

Noah: 15:43

Yep.

Paul: 15:43

To some things in order to say yes to other things. Discipline, discipline, discipline. Sometimes when I say that and people hear this, they think. No fun. No fun. No fun. I mean, this is gonna be agonizing, right? Well, look, let me offer this. One of the one somebody gave this council to, Amy and I years ago, they said, do you budget for yourselves? It's like I explain, well, do you have mad money in, in the monthly budget? Do you set aside so much for you? That's your money. That is, you're not having to go to your mate. I think it's wise to go to your mate and say, Hey honey, does this fit the budget? We work through this, but you know, I, I want to, I want to do this, or I want to buy this. Does it fit the budget? I think sometimes you need to hear it. No, it doesn't fit the budget. Well, if I've set aside so much per month, that is mine. I don't have to go to my mate and say, honey, I'm spending this on the, it's there, it's there.

Noah: 16:41

You've already agreed on

Paul: 16:43

the, the, the cash is there or the amount is there. We've agreed. We've set it up. She has her money, I have my money, and I do with it what I want. If I'm looking at something and saying, okay, I only have this amount this month. And this is what I'd like to do. And it's like three times that much. Guess what? There's value in waiting. There's value in waiting. Mm-hmm. There's lessons learned. That's okay. I'm not gonna do it this month. I'm not gonna do it this week. I'll wait a little bit longer than I can do it.

Noah: 17:14

Yeah.

Paul: 17:14

That's, that's called prioritizing. That's called, yes. Budgeting.

Noah: 17:18

Yeah.

Paul: 17:18

But it's, it's, you're freed up to spend money on what you value, what you want to do.

Noah: 17:23

Right. The, the idea of prioritizing and budgeting does not exclude fund, but it may sometimes require delaying the gratification of getting to do what you want to do. It involves planning, preparing, setting goals, and working towards those goals. It doesn't mean no fun. It means planned fun.

Paul: 17:48

Okay, you're gonna, you're gonna get three. Here we go. It sounds like preacher fixing and preach as many sermon on budgeting, delay discipline. Denial.

Noah: 18:01

Oh yeah.

Paul: 18:02

Delay discipline. Denial. The denial is, Hey, we're gonna say no to this. We've been eating out way too much.

Noah: 18:10

Right?

Paul: 18:10

That doesn't fit in the budget, so what we're gonna do is just not eat for the next three days. No, that's not you. You don't eat out and spend this, right. You eat at home and spend this and you'd, you'd be amazed at how much young families at times just give away.

Noah: 18:28

Yeah.

Paul: 18:29

Through eating out. And then when they find out, well, I feel guilty'cause I I, and there's a need that came up and I wanna be a part of helping with that need and I can't. But you probably could.

Noah: 18:39

Yeah.

Paul: 18:39

If you weren't spending so much to eat out. That's the denial.

Noah: 18:43

Yes.

Paul: 18:44

The delay is like you talked about.

Noah: 18:46

Yeah. I think that's an incredibly important concept. If, if you have never really sat down and, and organized your budget and your finances. The idea of denial is not a popular one in our culture, but discipline and denial when paired together, being able to say no to something that you could say yes to, you absolutely could. In fact, you might have the the money to say yes to it, but to be willing to deny yourself that. So that you be not, because sometimes it's because I have a specific thing that I want to do instead. I want to give to this person, this cause, et cetera, instead. But sometimes it's simply saying no because I can, I can say no, and I don't know what my yes is going to be, but I want to make sure that I can say yes to something else. And that is a. That is a lost art in, in many, many ways to be able to deny now. And so that, so that you have a yes to say no now, so that you have a yes later. And I'll just say when it comes to discipline, I, I know that we've already, this is a new, new format. We're figuring things out and we've already gone over our thought of 10 to 15 minutes. But hey, a tip about discipline. If you, here's the parallel. If you decided I need to discipline my body, I need to start exercising my body, so I'm gonna start running, you're not gonna get up tomorrow and run 10 miles. Or if you said I'm gonna start lifting weights, you are not gonna go to the squat rack and lift 250 pounds. Mm-hmm. It's not gonna happen. You have to be realistic in your discipline. And so if you are like, I'm gonna budget, so like you said just a moment ago, I'm not gonna eat for three days. Okay? That's not realistic. If you say, my, my grocery budget's too high, or my budget's overflowing, and I, I can't figure anything out. So instead, for my family of five, we're only gonna spend a hundred dollars a month on groceries. I'm sorry, that's not realistic. Mm-hmm. You're, you're going to, you're, you're setting yourself up to fail. So remember that with discipline, you have to have realistic measurements, realistic goals that you're putting in place. Otherwise, you will cut the legs out from under your discipline. Because you're asking yourself to do something that's not possible.

Paul: 21:21

Yeah. And, and when you empower someone in the relationship because the trust is there.

Noah: 21:27

Mm-hmm.

Paul: 21:27

Like the woman who goes to the grocery store and she plans and she plans, I mean, Proverbs 31, and she's just working all of this and she does it well and she comes home praise. Praise her. Yeah, praise her. She, she has, she has agreed to the plan. She is working the plan. She's going forth and doing it Well. Praise her. Praise her, praise her. And then when, when there's extra in the budget, reward the person that you've praised. Mm. Talk about empowering someone and then motivating someone to, to, to do even better, to stress themselves even more. Yeah. It's just a wonderful thing. And again, unhealthy comparisons. We live in a world we're bombarded with a world out there that's trying to convince us that we can afford something that we can't. You can have it now, even though you can't afford it.

Noah: 22:16

Yeah,

Paul: 22:16

and don't buy into that because we know that the slave is a borrower. The borrower, sorry. Is a slave to the lender. Avoid debt at all costs.

Noah: 22:24

Yeah.

Paul: 22:24

Some debt you can avoid.

Noah: 22:26

Yeah.

Paul: 22:27

But, but a lot of the debt learn from my mistake. You can avoid.

Noah: 22:32

Yeah.

Paul: 22:32

And why do I say that? I want to end with this. Jesus said is a more blessed to give than to receive.

Noah: 22:37

Yes.

Paul: 22:38

One of the things I try to tell young people, and not just young people, all of us, of all ages, we want our joy tank to stay full.

Noah: 22:46

Yeah.

Paul: 22:46

And one of the things that's gonna help our joy tank to stay full is when we're able to be givers. Mm-hmm. God created us, recreated us, I should say, in Christ Jesus to be people that love to give.

Noah: 22:58

Yeah.

Paul: 22:59

You can't have any joy if you're dealing with frustration and discouragement because I'm not doing what I feel like I should be able to do.

Noah: 23:07

Yeah. Yeah. On that note, I'd like to, I'd like to close by just reading two verses from a psalm that I think goes very well along with what you just said in Psalm 37, verse 25, I have been young and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously and his children become a blessing.

Paul: 23:32

Amen.

Noah: 23:33

We have the opportunity to live that out, to be. That picture. But it requires delay and discipline and denial and, so I really have enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for coming along on this new new journey with us in this new season. We're, we're figuring things out as we go, and we appreciate that you're along for the ride with us. So until next month when we come back for our, our longer episode, the first Monday of February. We hope that you'll continue to work for the Lord, that you'll continue to give what you have to him, entrust it to him. And our prayer is that as you continue to do that, you'll find that in Jesus, you'll stand strong.