Materialism: Putting “Things” in Their Place

This faith in finance podcast is underwritten in part by Eventide Investments. They believe that investing is more than just returns. It's an opportunity to partner with companies that align with your values and are making a positive difference in the world.

Learn more at eventideinvestments.com. And it reminds us that we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. And that's why hearses never have trailer hitches. Hi, I'm Rob West. How much do you love your stuff? Today we'll consider a biblical perspective on material possessions, and then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is faith in finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, from the time we're children and well into adulthood, we attach ourselves to our possessions. Ultimately, the love of stuff leads to discontentment, but God's Word shows us a better way. You see, God made us with the capacity to love as a reflection of His own character and His image in us.

He wants us to love Him first and best, putting all other affections in proper perspective. A materialistic attitude goes against God's good plan for His people because it puts the love of material things ahead of loving God. The Bible makes it clear that wrong attitudes like materialism can hinder your relationship with God and destroy your peace. You may not even realize how much your love of things is affecting you because it's so easy to rationalize. Have you ever thought, I need this thing to make me happy, or life will be better if I have this thing? As Ecclesiastes 2-11 warns us, this kind of thinking is futile. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Nothing was gained under the sun. Let's look at three lies materialism tells us and the biblical answer to those lies. Lie number one, life is better when you have more. This lie is subtle because having more stuff does make life easier in some ways. But once you start on the more is better road, well, you can never be satisfied and then life actually becomes more miserable.

Ecclesiastes 5-10 confirms this. Whoever loves money never has money enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. The answer to this lie is contentment. Hebrews 13-5 encourages us to keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Alright, here is materialism lie number two.

You must keep up with what other people have. The desire to have what the neighbors have or live like someone you see on social media is a materialist trap. In fact, there will always be someone who has more than you, which makes envy a treadmill of unhappiness. The answer to this lie is godly peace found in knowing Jesus.

In Matthew 6-33, Jesus says, seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Materialism lie number three. It's not fair when other people have things you can't afford.

Blaming others for your circumstances just combines discontentment with lack of responsibility. The antidote to this attitude of materialistic self-pity is a commitment to believing and doing what's true. As it says in 1 John 3-22, whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. It's pretty clear that a materialistic mindset is displeasing to God. The Lord is willing and able to provide for his children when they trust him, but materialism can really get in the way of your relationship with God. Okay, so we've looked at the ways people get trapped by the lies of materialism, but does that mean it's wrong or sinful to want things?

Not necessarily. The Bible makes it clear that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. But if you have the right attitude about money as a means, not an end in itself, well, you'll have a right perspective about things as well.

A right perspective about things includes knowing the difference between what you want and what you need. You can always trust God to provide what you need. When you have a spending plan, the things you want or need can be considered in light of the resources God has given you. If you don't have a spending plan, well, we can help. Just visit us online at faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com and download the Faithfi app. By the way, when you plan ahead, you can make wise choices about saving and working to pay for what you need. This helps you avoid going into debt for impulse purchases. And finally, if you're considering a purchase and you're not sure if it's a want or a need, pray.

Wait 30 days and check again. You might find your desires have changed. Material possessions are a part of life, but what you do with your desire for things is a hard issue.

Avoid materialism by putting God first. All right, your calls are next. The number 800-525-7000.

We'll be right back. If you believe in and have benefited from Faithfi, would you consider becoming a monthly Faithfi patron? Learn more about the Faithfi patrons membership at faithfi.com and click Give. Faithfi is grateful for support from One Ascent. One Ascent believes that your values inspire why you invest and how they can inspire how you invest. One Ascent's goal is to provide solutions designed for every need and invest in businesses that bless the people and places God has made. They want to help investors do well by doing good. To explore a new way of investing that aligns with your values. More information is available at oneascent.com and by clicking Analyze My Investments. Welcome back to Faith and Finance.

I'm Rob West. Have you checked out the Faithfi app? I'd love for you to do that. We've got some big changes coming up in Faithfi 4.0. New features, a whole new look and feel. This is a great time for you to go ahead and download it, get into the app, set up your spending plan, check out the great content, the community, and get ready for the launch of the new Faithfi 4.0. You can check it out today or download it on our website, faithfi.com. Just click on app or head to your app store wherever you download apps and search for Faithfi, Faith and Finance.

And let us know what you think. All right, we're going to go back to the phones to Lubbock, Texas. Hi, Diane. How can I help you?

Hi. I'm trying to figure out. My parents died almost three years ago. There was a will that left everything to me for living with them and taking care of them. And my sister is contesting the will.

She's not in the will at all. It has been a horrible financial burden because I've also been diagnosed with metastatic cancer. And I'm trying to figure out.

My attorney tells me that I have to come up with $10,000 more before they can move forward with anything because the judge has ordered a mediation before he'll even listen to the case. I've always had a strong faith in God lately. It's on the edge.

But I need to know. I mean, how I've used all of my retirement. I turned 65 in a week and I don't know where to go. I, you know, the medical bills are piling up, but that's the least of my worries. The house I've been paying the mortgage on for over three years now. And I just don't know where where to go or what to do. And I don't want to be vengeful.

Like. It's happening on the, you know, because her goal is to get me out of this house that they left me and I. I don't know. I don't know where else to go to finances. It's ruined my credit. I, you know, I've my I have done a title loan on my car, so I'm making car payments again on a car that was paid for. I, you know, I I've maxed out my credit card.

My credit rating is not good anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Diane, first of all, I'm sorry, go ahead and finish what you were saying.

And a judge that doesn't want to listen to anything before a mediation and an attorney that won't do a mediation until he's paid $10,000. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And it obviously you're in a really difficult spot, both financially. I think the biggest thing is just how you navigate this spiritually. And I understand you've got questions and you certainly don't want to allow this to turn your heart away from the Lord.

You know, this is an opportunity to run to him. You know, none of us are a stranger to suffering. And I realize we have no idea what what you're facing right now.

You're the one walking through it. What we do know that, you know, as we live life and read our Bibles, it becomes apparent that suffering is a part of the human existence because we chose to go away from the Lord, starting with Satan deceiving Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve then choosing to violate God's commands. And now we are living tragically in a humanity that has chosen life apart from him. Now, the good news is he sent his son Jesus to reconcile him to us to him. But we're still living in a fallen world. And it can cause when we go through these really difficult seasons, us to ask a lot of hard questions.

C.S. Lewis put it this way. Here's what he said. He said, God whispers to us in our pleasures. He speaks to us in our conscience, but he shouts in our pain.

It's his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. And I think the big idea here is that God is not the author of evil, but he is sovereign over evil. And therefore, we can have hope that there will be a day when God will bring all evil to an end. And meanwhile, he determines to leave things the way they are in order that through our trials, we can cling to our Savior. So we don't want to let our disappointments over a life in a fallen world persuade us that God is not there or he doesn't care because that's just not true. And what it needs to happen for all of us is that we allow our suffering to drive us to our Savior who promises that one day all of this will come to an end, all that's wrong, all that separates us from him, all that causes pain, and we will enjoy an eternity where everything is made right. And we can have hope in that day, and I realize the pain in the midst of that is very difficult, but God is there.

He's bigger than all of it. He can be trusted. He loves you more than anything, and he will provide for you. Now, this is an opportunity for the body of Christ to step in as well and help to provide your need. And so I would hope that your church is rallying around you in this season with regard to the contested will. I would say, you know, either there needs to be some sort of mutual, acceptable resolution with your sister that you all can work through if that's not possible. And you feel like the legal process is the only means by which you can do that. Again, perhaps there's somebody that would help you financially in such a way that you could allow that process to play out. Ultimately, that's going to be your call, and we're going to trust that the Lord will provide. I would hope and pray that maybe there could be a process of reconciliation and a path forward that you and your sister could work together on.

Obviously, I know nothing about the details of this, so Diane, I wouldn't presume to say you should do one thing or another. But I do know that God is bigger than all of this, and he loves you. And here's my hope and prayer, is that you would run into the arms of your Savior in the midst of these challenges, even when there's more questions than answers. And I believe that you will see God provide at perhaps just the time you weren't expecting it.

And that's just the way the Lord operates. So let me pray for you. And what I'd like to do is connect one of our Certified Christian Financial Counselors with you, at the very least just to be an encouragement to you to help you think through the financial implications.

Obviously, they can't give you legal counsel, but they could help you think through how you navigate the financial piece of it. Let's pray. Father, we know in this world there will be tribulation, and we see it around us, we experience it, and we know yet you have overcome the world. And so today we tell you we love you and we trust you. I just ask that you work in Diane's life, help her to see the path forward, help her to feel your loving arms around her, help her to bring and come to resolution with her sister in these legal matters.

I pray for your provision in her life that she would be able to find a way forward and meet her obligations and make hard decisions as they come. We trust you in that. We love you.

And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Diane, stay on the line. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Faith and Finance.

I'm Rob West. Faithfulness to opportunity. That's what God asks of us. Once we surrender our lives to Jesus, the question is what have we done with what we've been given? We certainly will have plenty of trials in this world.

The key is are we found faithful, at least as it relates to God's money, in managing his money according to the scriptures. And that's what we want to help you do, encourage you to do on this program each day. Let's head back to the phones. We'll get to as many questions as we can here in our final segment. To Palm Beach, Florida. Henry, go ahead. Hey Rob, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. Thank you. And what I'd like to ask you is, my 401k high-yield savings account or to a broad IRA, I just don't want to get into a higher tax bracket.

What would be the small move there? Yeah, the idea is if you've got a pre-tax 401k, then when you retire, you'd roll it out to an IRA. That's not a taxable event. That doesn't change your taxes at all. It just moves it from a pre-tax 401k to a pre-tax IRA. What then will impact your taxes and the various brackets that you fall into based on your income would be how much you pull out. And the idea is we build up these 401ks while we're working through pre-tax salary deferral. And when we stop working or God redirects us to what he has next for us, the idea is that at that point our income drops. And then we replace that income by systematically drawing from the IRA and let's say Social Security. And so you're probably going to live on somewhere between 70 and 80% of your pre-retirement income. So if anything, your income is going to go down because you're not going to need to pull out as much as you're making today from your IRA when you get into that season of life. So no, I mean unless you pull a bunch of it out at once, you're not going to put yourself up in a higher bracket.

Because essentially you'd just be replacing or in fact a little bit less than replacing the income that you're currently bringing in today through your withdrawals or what are called distributions from your IRA. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Let me ask you one more quick question. I was talking to a friend of mine last week and he mentioned that if you're going to retire, don't retire in the middle of the year, retire at the end of the year. So I asked him why. He said because Social Security won't get you credit for that year if you retire in the middle of the year. Ah, I see.

Yeah, interesting. So yeah, the Social Security benefits are based on what's called the high 35, which is the highest 35 years of your wages. And at the end of your working career, pre-retirement, the idea would be that you would likely be earning, you might be at the peak of your earning. And so for every year you have benefits that are higher than another year in your high 35, you're replacing or knocking out one of those lower years which pushes your benefit up. So what he's saying is that yeah, if you're at the peak of your earning potential and you're on track to have another year that's going to knock out a lower year that's a part of your current benefits calculation, if you can see that year through, then you get credit for it.

If you stop mid-year, you wouldn't have the full benefits and therefore it wouldn't be able to replace one of those earlier years. And I would agree with that. Yeah, that's a good idea that he's got there. Hey Henry, thanks for calling, sir. We appreciate you being on the program today. Let's go a little bit north of Palm Beach to Jacksonville. Kim, go ahead.

Yes, hi. My question today is regarding trying to find a good certified CPA, preferably a Christian one, to help us with questions around taxes. My husband wants to start Social Security in March of this year. He'll be full retirement age, but he's still working full time. And we recently moved all of our investment stuff to Fidelity and we asked the lady over there, but she didn't have, she said we don't even have a list of three we can recommend.

Yeah. You know, I think when anytime you have a change going on, and clearly this is one where you're going from what you've always known to kind of a new season of life and incomes changing and moving from wages to Social Security benefits, it's a great time to do some tax planning just to make sure you understand the implications of what you're going to owe and not owe and how much of that needs to be withheld versus paid in at the end of the year. So what I would do is, unfortunately, we have far less certified Kingdom Advisors in the tax and accounting space than we do in the planning and the wealth management space. So there may or may not be a CKA, Certified Kingdom Advisor, who does taxes and accounting in Jacksonville, but every CKA in your area will have a referral that they could give you to a godly CPA.

So what I would do is head to our website, faithfi.com, and click find a CKA, do a zip code search near where you live, and then contact one or two of those Certified Kingdom Advisors and just ask for a referral. And I think that would get you pointed in the right direction. Okay? Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. All right, Kim. Thanks for calling. We appreciate it. To Martin, Michigan. Hi, Brian.

Go ahead. Hey, I've got an opportunity to purchase some land. It's $40,000 and the price is probably high just because I live in an agricultural region and there's not a lot of good housing available.

And also farmers in the area aren't willing to sell their land, but this particular farmer is. I don't have cash on hand to pay for it, but I've got about $315,000 in retirement savings accumulated. I've got about eight more years to work, nine more years. My Edward Jones agent has money set aside in my retirement from my mother's estate when she passed away a couple of years ago that he said I could use free of consequence to pay for the land. And my concern was taking out like $40,000 to buy land. And he said, you've got time left to work. And he said, as long as you're diligent and continuing to save for retirement, he said, you'll be fine.

Yeah, I like that because here's the thing. It just gives you further diversification among asset classes. So you're saving right now in your retirement with stocks and bonds. And this would give you real estate just to complement your retirement portfolio, which, you know, that heeds the wisdom of King Solomon that we should not put all of our eggs in one basket, which I like. And we're not talking about a significant sum of money in terms of the percentage of your portfolio. I mean, at $40,000 out of three or $400,000 portfolio or total retirement assets, I think is reasonable.

You've still got time on your side. I mean, whether or not this is the right property at the right price, I'd at least do your due diligence just to make sure this is a fair price. But if you think that it is and it has the potential to appreciate, then I think this is a great plan.

And you don't have to worry about, you know, taking this out of a tax deferred account because you have these other assets there in the Ed Jones account that you could tap to make the purchase. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. All right, Brian, thanks for your call. Hey, we're almost out of time, but I wanted to let you know that you don't ever have to miss a program. Just download our FaithFi app for your mobile device and take us with you anywhere. Thanks for joining us today. I look forward to talking with you again next time on Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by FaithFi and listeners like you.