Before we start the podcast, we want to announce a new resource to help you discover what it truly means to be rich toward God. We've just published a study based on the parable of the rich fool found in Luke 12, 13 to 21. Journey through this challenging yet life-giving parable where Jesus invites us into a more abundant life with him. Just go to faithfi.com slash give to request a copy of the Rich Toward God study today with your gift of $25 or more. That's faithfi.com slash give.
Thank you in advance for your support and partnership. Into your hands I commit my spirit. Redeem me, O Lord. Deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me. Psalm 31 5 and 15.
I am Rob West. Those are the words of David who suffered severe mistreatment at the hands of Saul. We're all treated unfairly from time to time. So how should we respond? Well, I'll talk about that today and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Okay, before we get into how we should respond when others mistreat us, I think it's important to examine ourselves first and to make sure we're not mistreating others. As Jesus says in Matthew 7 5, first take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. If you find that you've treated someone unfairly, repent and make amends because you serve a just God.
Proverbs 21 3 says to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Now what to do when you're treated unfairly? Well, it could be by a family member, a friend, a boss or co-worker or someone you're doing business with who may be trying to cheat you. Money is often the issue when we interact with others and it's a powerful motivator to strike back when we feel we're being mistreated.
Losing money we feel we deserve to have can make us feel bitter. But Hebrews 12 15 tells us see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled. You see, we live in a fallen world filled with fallen people and we all experience mistreatment at one time or another. It's important to remember that you're one of those fallen people too. Your first instinct might be to lash out against someone who's mistreating you. That is not a biblical response to mistreatment.
Instead, look to Christ as your model. No one suffered more injustice and mistreatment than Jesus. In 1 Peter 2 20 through 22, the apostle tells us how a Christian should respond to mistreatment. It reads, when you do good and suffer for it, you endure. This is a gracious thing in the sight of God.
For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. Now that's a pretty high bar to reach, but Peter goes on to tell us how to respond like Christ to injustice in verses 23 and 24. They read, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. You see, the key to responding like Christ to injustice is trusting God to work for good in all your affairs. Psalm 37, four through six tells us, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noon day. One of the greatest examples of a Christ-like response to injustice is found in Genesis and the story of Joseph.
He was first sold into slavery by his brothers, then wrongly accused by Potiphar's wife and thrown into prison. Yet Joseph never reacted in an ungodly manner to injustice. He even went on to save his brothers and all of Israel when famine struck.
Joseph trusted God who eventually used Joseph's mistreatment in a powerful way. And God tests us the same way when we suffer injustice. He expects us to respond like Christ.
Now, this doesn't mean that we must quietly accept every injustice that comes our way. It's not unbiblical to state your case in truth and love, but the result must be left to God. This brings up the question of whether Christians should sue or not. In first Corinthians six, Paul says, if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers?
Paul is adamant that this is a terrible witness for Christ. He goes on to say to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong?
Why not rather be defrauded? But know that Paul is only talking about Christians suing other Christians in civil courts. The civil courts are ordained by God to protect us from injustice.
And nowhere does the Bible say we can't use them when we're wronged outside the church. All right, your calls are next. 800-525-7000.
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That's eventideinvestments.com. So thankful to have you along with us today on faith and finance. Hey, our brand new study's out. It's called Rich Toward God. It's a four-week study on the parable of the rich fool dealing with some really important themes in scripture. You know, Jesus is approached by someone in the crowd who asks him to be an arbitrator of an inheritance dispute. And as he does so often, he kind of flips the script and gets to the heart of the issue and tells this really profound parable about this rich fool who's had an abundance in his crops and wants to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. And out of that comes all these important themes about pride and prosperity and the uncertainty of tomorrow. And then it concludes with this really powerful statement about being rich toward God. Well, what does that mean?
Well, we unpack that with the historical context and really a thoughtful look at the scriptures. It's a great study that could be used for your small group at church. And if you want to check it out, it's beautifully designed. You can order your copy today, and there are discounts available for orders of 10 copies or more. Just head to faithfi.com and click shop.
That's faithfi.com and click shop. The number to call is 800-525-7000. You can call right now. All right, we're going to go to, let's see, Washington. Hi, Elaine. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob.
So I have a question. My husband and I, we just sold our house and we're close to retirement age. Actually, my husband would like to retire.
He'll be 70 in July. I'm working part time. And what we're wanting to know is what would be a prudent amount to reinvest in another home, either to build a home or to buy one. So I can just tell you really quickly what we currently have in available cash. We have about 1.2 million available cash.
And in our IRAs, our TSTs, we have 500,000. So our expenses, well, in the past, our expenses have been about $6,000. But of course, now we're actually house-sitting for a friend of ours, so our expenses are much less. But we were calculating wherever it is that we buy or we build that our expenses would probably be about $4,000. And right now, our income is about $5,000. Okay, but that includes your part-time work? Yes. Okay. And it includes Social Security.
Yeah, got it. And how much of that that you're bringing in every month, roughly 5,000, is your part-time income? 3,800. Okay, so a good bit of it. And then are you eligible for Social Security at this point? I am. But are you taking it? No, I'm not. Okay. And so how far is that just based on your current plans?
Oh, as far as when I'm going to take it, I actually tried to sign up for it. And they've lost some of my paperwork or something. And they're telling me to get ahold of them. And I can't get ahold of anybody.
So it's sort of in limbo right now. Because my plan, I'm 67, I'll be 68 in August. And I believe my Social Security estimated income is 2,600. Okay. But his is only about 2,200 currently? No, his is 13.
He's really low. Okay. Right. So, okay, yeah.
So he didn't pay a lot in. So 1,300. You said yours, you're estimating is about 2,600. Is that right? Yes. Okay.
So that would give you 3,000. If I waited till I was 70. Yeah. And are you planning to continue to work for the foreseeable future? Or would you like to stop?
My husband said he doesn't want me to continue to work, but I think I'll probably work for at least another year. Okay. Maybe. All right. So where we buy a house, maybe not be close to my work.
Sure. And so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Because if you continue to work for another year and you delayed, you're taking your Social Security. I mean, that could get you up from 2,600, maybe by another 8% or so before you started taking it. And I think because you guys are right on the bubble there of having enough, assuming you'd buy this next house with cash, you're right there on the bubble of having enough to float your expenses just through Social Security alone. Every 8% matters in terms of you saying, okay, with cost of living adjustments, at least the basic expenses are covered. And then obviously, if we have to dip into our assets for long term care or something unexpected, we want to take a big trip, we can do that at that point. Now, in terms of so the 1.2, is that the proceeds from your home sale?
Not not all of it, we we walked away with 803,000 for our home. Okay. All right. But you've got a 1.2 in essentially cash taxable accounts.
And then the half a million is the total that's in retirement accounts? Yes. Okay.
Yeah, very good. And then, you know, as you're just kind of looking based on I mean, you've got options here, obviously, because you've lived modestly, your expenses are basically going to be covered by Social Security, whether that happens in a month or, you know, 13 months from now, you know, you're going to be right there on the bubble. So you've got options in terms of how much house you would want to buy, because you don't have to touch the, you know, the retirement plan, and then you'd have, you know, still quite a bit of money, I assume you're trying to downsize, you'd still have quite a bit of money in savings, and all that's just going to be continuing to grow.
So as you look around in terms of location, where you'd like to be proximity to work and church and family, and just the kind of lifestyle you want, what are you thinking you want to spend? Well, so right now, we have a bid for a shell, you know, with a shop and a home kind of a shome situation. And that bid is $257,000. And so my husband thinks that probably in order for us to make it livable, we probably have to put in another $200,000 to $250,000.
So then we'd be up at $500,000. You know, so one of the things that we keep asking ourselves is, do we want to start all over? Because he's going to be 70.
And I'm 67. And do we want to start all over? We have horses. So it means, you know, building some kind of a barn shelter situation for the horses? Or do we buy or do we spend a little bit more money? Well, maybe about $300,000 more money and buy something that's already totally set up. So that's where our dilemma is.
Yeah. And I think you could go either way. Because I mean, even if we go to that, let's call it an extreme, it's really not.
But let's say that extreme. And you said, okay, we're going to put $800,000 toward the house, that's still going to leave you $900,000 between the cash you'd have available. And we'd want to earmark a certain amount of that for maybe 12 months worth of living expenses. But let's say, you know, we were to still keep, you know, $850,000 plus the half a million dollars that you've got in retirement accounts. You know, if that's managed properly, meaning, you know, invested fairly conservatively, I mean, that could throw off another 36,000 a year, another 3000 a month that you don't even really need, but you could begin to draw that and I would be very comfortable with that at 4% a year. So I, you know, I think even by going to that level by saying this, you know, causes us to be set up, we're not having to do the renovation, it gives us the lifestyle we want. It's still an asset that could be sold down the road if we want to really downsize in real estate, although it's growing slower.
It's not going down. We're not in a bubble situation here. So I mean, I think you've got options again, because of the way you've accumulated assets, you're living modestly. And so even if you spend 800,000, I think, with 900,000 still remaining, or 850 plus an emergency fund, you're in good shape, because that just continuing to grow.
And you could very easily add 1000 a month to your living expenses, and still be pulling way less than what I would say you could pull. Does that make sense? Yes, that does.
That does. Okay. And the other thing is that you said conservative investment, my our investments right now are kind of in the on the more not conservative. Okay, yeah. And I think that's an opportunity for you.
Because, you know, at age 70, we would probably say, you know, I mean, assuming, let's say, you know, that's both of your age, I realize you're a little younger, you probably want somewhere between 30 to 40% in stocks, you know, and then 50 to 60, or 60 to 70% in bonds, maybe with as much as 10% in precious metals. So maybe it's time to get more conservative. But I hope that helps. Thanks for your calling. We're going to take a quick break, folks back with more after this looks like we have two lines open 805257,000 encouraging you taking you back to God's Word and helping you make financial decisions in light of biblical wisdom. That's what we do on this program each day.
Stick around a lot more to come just around the corner. interact with a community of like minded believers, where you can ask questions, get answers and share what you're learning. Go to faithfi.com and click the word app to get started. Learn more and enroll today at chministries.org slash faithfi.
That's chministries.org slash faithfi. Great to have you with us today on faith and finance. All right, it's time to turn the corner and answer your questions on anything financial here in our final segment of the broadcast today, we probably have room for one more question. Between now and the end of the program, we've already got some folks holding the number to call is 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you. Let's go to Utah.
Hi, Lee, go ahead. Hi, I'm 43 years old. And I am I have a question about what I should do with my money. We have about $420,000 in retirement. And my employer contributes 14% regardless. And so we've been putting 10% extra on top of that for as long as we've been employed. We have no debt, but we owe 154,000 on our home. And I'm wondering if it would be better just to take that extra 10% every month and pay off our home. We figured out we could do it in about five years. But I just don't know if that would be prudent. Yeah, yeah.
It's a great question. And I love what you're considering here, because I don't think it's ever a bad idea to become debt free. And what I would say is right off the top, if you and your husband Lee just really have a conviction from the Lord, as you've thought about it, prayed about it, talked it through that you should be come debt free as soon as possible, then I'd say go for it and don't look back. But if you're comfortable, you know, continuing to pay this down, and let's say you set a goal to at the at a minimum, have it paid off by the time you transition into retirement, because maybe you have a low interest rate, you know, you got this a while ago, and let's say you got a two or 3% interest rate, and you want to keep, you know, funding your retirement savings, and let that compounded growth kick in, you know, over the next 20 years or so, you're probably on paper going to do better financially by keeping that mortgage, you know, continuing to work to pay it off, maybe accelerated by an extra payment or two a year. But, you know, keep funding that 401k. So you get that compounded growth, you know, over the next couple of decades, that's probably the better option financially. But I would set all of that aside, if you all really felt like you just, you know, have a conviction to be debt free as quickly as possible. So give me your thoughts on that.
Yes, sir. So we've, we have no debt, and we've worked really hard towards that except for our home. And so that's one of the things that we sort of considered and clear is we really would like to not owe. The other issue is we actually built the house with only a year old. And so that's what we that's what our mortgage started out with. So the interest rate is actually 6.3.
So that's another reason. Yeah, thinking that we should go ahead. Yeah, yeah, very good. And if you said you did the math, and how quickly would you have it paid off if you took that 10% and directed it toward the mortgage accelerated? Yes, sir, we would have it paid off in five years, and we have about 15 years left of employment.
Okay, great. Have you done some retirement planning, Lee, just to determine what your ultimate retirement savings goal is, so that you would have the ability to fund, you know, your expenses in that season of life and recognizing that your budget is going to be less because you're going to be completely out of debt, you don't have the mortgage payment, you know, usually other expenses go down as well, we typically live on about 80% of our pre retirement income in retirement, sometimes even less than that. But do you have an idea of what that goal is?
Yes, sir, I worked with my financial advisor through my appointment, and it looks like it's about anywhere from one to 1.2 million, we're almost halfway there. And we've only been competing for 13 years. And if we took five off, that would give us about 10 more years of contributing. But the school contributes, regardless. Yeah. Yeah.
Very good. And it is, is this a 401k or a 403b or something else? So it's mixed, the school contributes, and there's the 401k. But the money that we've been contributing is raw.
So we've already paid taxes on it. Got it. Okay. Yeah, very good.
Yeah. So I think the only thing to look at with your advisor is just kind of running the math out, you know, for the next for the next 15 years, five of which would be focused on paying down the house and then 10 where you're just putting as much as you can. And just make sure that as you let's say you were to max out the 401k and the Roths every year, you know, does that give you the ability to put away enough each year to ultimately reach your goal losing those five years? And if not, that might be the only consideration is that it's not a matter of you giving up necessarily the returns because I agree with that higher interest rate on the mortgage. It makes paying that off more compelling from a financial standpoint. The bigger issue is probably giving up five years of the ability to put money away for retirement. Because you got caps, you know, your cap on 401k contributions this year is 23,000. Your cap on the the Ross is 7000 apiece. So between the two of you, you know, you could put away 14,000 plus 23,000.
That's 37,000. So let's say you put the full amount away for those 10 years plus the compounding, you may find that you'll absolutely reach your goal, just based on some conservative growth estimates, and you get the benefit of being out of debt much sooner. You know, if all of that works together, then I love it. And if you guys decide, you know what, regardless of the outcome of that planning exercise, we just want to be out of debt, then I would support that as well. Because I think that's, you know, part of what you need to ask the Lord as a steward.
But I think if you're wanting to look at all sides of this, I would do a little bit more planning just to make sure that the projections work out so that you can reach your goal by the time that you'd like to. Does that make sense? It makes sense. And it's so helpful. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I appreciate your call, Lee. Lord bless you guys. You're doing a great job.
Keep up the good work and call back anytime. Well, folks, we're getting near the end of the program today. You know, as I think about just the importance of managing money God's way, it's important that we go back to God's Word all the time, and really just consider what the Lord has for us as we think about the opportunity we have to manage God's money. And it really starts with this idea that God owns it all, that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.
Therefore, we're stewards. But then we have to move into the day to day practices of managing God's money. A great place to start is with cash flow and living expenses. I mean, the bedrock to our money management is spending less than we earn.
Reducing living expenses is often the quickest way to do that. And we need to find contentment in that and live within God's provision. The apostle Paul was very clear when he said, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low.
I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I think when we put those practices in place alongside giving generously, which calibrates our hearts to the Father's, at least we put ourselves in a position to experience God's best. It doesn't mean we'll be free from trouble. I mean, we live in a fallen world. We will have trials and tribulations despite our efforts.
But He is our provider, not the US government, not your employer, no one else. Here's my hope and prayer for you that you would be able to lean into that. See, God is your ultimate treasure.
Manage money according to God's wisdom in the Bible and give generously to those in need around you. Hey, I'm so thankful you joined us today. We covered a lot of ground today, but let me also say thanks to my team today.
I certainly couldn't do this without them. Taylor Standridge today providing great research. Devin Patrick, our producer today and handling our phones, Mr. Robert Youngblood. Thanks for being here. We'll see you tomorrow. Come back and join us then. Bye-bye. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.
