This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. If not for God with Mike Zwick, what is stewardship?
In the marketplace, and I've got a David Belk who is a certified financial planner. How are you doing today, David? Hey, I'm doing great, Michael. Thanks. Uh good, and tell us a little bit about what you do, brother.
Well, I I am a certified financial planner. I'm also a certified kingdom advisor and a certified exit planner. And the the the focus is the certified Kingdom Advisor is really we help people make biblical decisions with their finances. We do some coaching for churches, individuals, companies, do speeches and things of that nature just to help people understand what is God really telling us in the scripture. How are we living with that?
And are there some areas we probably need to work on? And most of us do have that, including the person who's speaking. Yeah. And, you know, I'm glad you brought up this subject, David, because for so long, I think so many Christians believe and think that their Christianity is on Sunday morning. Oh, and maybe Wednesday night or, you know, maybe there's a church gathering where they get together and have dinner.
You can actually do stewardship. You can actually do Christianity while you're at work. And I remember years ago, Charles Stanley said, you know, your best place to do evangelism or your best place to steward your Christianity would be in the marketplace. But I think a lot of people don't even think about that, David.
Well, you know, if if we talk about go in the spirit and walk in the spirit, it doesn't mean do it when you feel it, wake up, or have a good gospel music or, you know, contemporary your favorite contemporary music playing. We're supposed to walk in the spirit no matter where we are.
So it doesn't matter if we're talking about workplace or we're talking about family or we're talking about shopping or wherever. We're supposed to be stewards of A bus. and the environment and the people that we're coming in contact with and our finances. Yeah, stewardship always gets tagged to finances, and it is a big conversation. Scripture is very clear.
It talks about finances and money more than it does any other topic, including salvation. because it's an area that can get you out of whack and lead you down roads that can probably mess up a couple of things and get you out of God's sights. Not out of God's sights, but get you off track where God's truly called you to be in your life. Amen. And I would say there are employers out there, but a majority of the listeners are probably employees where they are working for somebody else.
So what does stewardship look like for an employee, David, in the marketplace?
Well, employees It's important to understand that God's let's take a step backwards. If we are believers, That God owns everything and God is in control of everything. It's funny. We pray for a job. And we get one.
and we're thankful and we're happy and we've had people praying, help us find this job. All of a sudden we get there and it's not exactly like we thought it would be.
Well, that's kinda like Sometimes marriage can be that way. We put expectations in our marriage. It's not like we put that on our kids. We can put that in other relationships. We get our own expectations as opposed to God's expectations that He's put us.
And we forget to be thankful that God put us here. He gave us what we need. He gave us what we want, but he also put us in a place for probably for a specific reason but we get caught up in the environment or what we're doing or maybe we don't Maybe the task of the job wasn't exactly what we thought it would be and it's not as fulfilling.
Well, it's that's ironic. There's only one thing that truly fulfills us. And that's going to be that relationship with Jesus Christ. But the employee's role in Stewardship, being a steward in their role at work, is to number one, is to work as for the Lord. There's things that I do every day, and I'm sure that everybody is hearing my voice.
There's something we do at work that we're like, I really don't want to do that. I don't enjoy doing that. But it's a part of the task or the roles that we've done it.
So we've got to somehow. Let the Spirit help us chippy up a little bit to say, okay, if nothing else, look, I'm going to feel really good when I get this done, so let's get the task out of the way. But stewardshipping also means when you're working for someone else, it means I'm not bending half of my day looking at Facebook. or TikTok or checking my personal text or trying to plan my weekend or searching the internet for vacation spots or shopping things that are going to be on sale. We're already getting into the Christmas buying season.
We're in September and everything's switching over everywhere already. And so it's the time that we spend at work not doing what we're being paid for. And If if If we've asked for an employer to to Hire us and we said we will do the job you've asked us to do. We have to be careful to know that we've committed to give them every hour. And that doesn't mean that you don't have flexibility.
Most jobs don't just have an iron fist coming down on you where you can't do anything or you can't be flexible or go to the coffee machine and grab a coffee and take a break. Everybody's got breaks, but it's what are you doing in between those breaks when you should be working on the tasks that you're being paid for. If you're Searching the internet. for something personal. If you're scrolling Facebook, I'm amazed at how many Facebook pastes.
get placed during the day. When people are at work, it it tells you when it went out there. It's kind of funny. And I don't know that if people realize it, but you're actually stealing from that employer. Wow.
You've been you've been asked to do a task, you agreed to do it, you're being paid to do it, but yet you're doing something else for yourself and you're being paid to shop. or search the internet or play on whatever social media outlet that you feel like you've gotta promote yourself to. Yeah, I mean, and that's amazing. And there's people who are listening who would say, Well, I would never steal a candy bar from the store, or they say, I would never, you know, they would never catch me for Grand Theft Auto as the game is the game is played by the kids all over the country. But if you're not giving your very best when you're working, you are, in a sense, actually stealing from your employer because they are paying you to work.
And it's very serious. And I'm looking in Colossians chapter 3, and it says, in verse 16, it says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. And it goes on to say, and it says, and whatever you do in word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Whatever you do in word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it goes on to talk about wives submitting to husbands, husbands loving your wives, children obeying your parents, fathers not provoking your children.
But then in verse 22 and 23, it says, servants obey in all things your masters. According to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And it said, In whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ. For he that does wrong shall receive for the wrong which he has done. And there is no respect of persons.
And so we say, hey, I'm just working for Walmart if I work for Walmart. Hey, I'm just working for McDonald's. But that Bible verse, that Bible passage right there says, David, when you go to work at Walmart, I don't care if you're a cashier, I don't care if you think that you're the lowest of the low, whatever it is. That you are actually going, you're not working for Walmart. You're not working for McDonald's.
When you go to work, you're working for the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, I mean that that's that's the the pure focus right there. Um, a and and I know that somebody here in this is saying, You don't know who I work for. And you're right, I don't. And everybody doesn't work for a great employer or a great manager.
Or a great owner or a great family that runs the company. I I get that, but there are a lot of good people. out there that people work for. And everybody desires to be in that kind of relationship with an employee-employer slash manager relationship. Um You yeah, you have to remember that everybody's not a Christian.
And sometimes we expect non Christians to act like Christians.
Well, sometimes we would like all of our Christians to act like Christians. We could probably spend some time on that, but I won't. But when you're working for people who aren't really living a godly life, even if they call themselves Christians, and some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. The question I would ask you to how do you overcome that is: do you pray for your managers? Not that they will get off your back.
But do you pray for their salvation and their hearts? Do you pray for your owners? Do you pray for those people that don't know the Lord around you? Because that will soften your heart to draw yourself in to do more for those people. as if you're doing it for the Lord.
Yes. And if you if you have to do anything else Write that verse on a sticky and put it on your screen.
So you see it all day long. I'm working for the Lord. I'm working for the Lord. And it's not a drudgery that, okay, I'm working for the Lord. No, give your best.
and give everything. Uh often we'll we'll have people say, Well, you know, I I haven't been promoted.
Well, how's your attitude? How's your work? How much time how what's your what's your what are you putting out? No, but And so oftentimes when we dig deep with people and get in there, They're not being as if they're working for the Lord. They may even have a negative attitude and they're kind of souring the people that work around them and management or the owners know that.
And so they're tolerating you to allow you to have a job and get a paycheck because they need your help, but they really would like somebody different if they could find somebody. That's a bad place to be in, but often too many people are in that position too because they think, many of us think the job is going to fulfill us. Many of us have to know what the Lord is calling us to. And most of us search our lifetime saying, Lord, is this where you want me to be? Is this what you want me to be doing?
as a steward, as an employee. If the the the best thing that you can do, if it's the best thing you can do, I'm waking up and I'm going to work for the Lord today. And I'm going to be a light.
Now here's the evangelism piece you and I talked about a little bit off air earlier. Here's where the evangelism comes in. If I am a good steward, as an employee and I'm giving my best. I should have a pretty good attitude that people want to know, even though they know I might not really love what I'm doing, how do you have that attitude? And then you've got opportunity to really do some evangelism at work.
But It's the same everywhere. If we carry a a sour attitude everywhere, nobody wants to talk to us. Nobody wants to be around us.
So that that can make your work environment terrible. It it it it doesn't matter where you are, that can be terrible. But to to be a good steward uh in a you know as as an employee, it starts at home with am I stewarding things well? And am I working because I put myself in a bad position financially? Or are things going okay or we're trying to figure things out and we're you know, all of us make some financial mistakes along the way.
You just don't want to repeat those financial mistakes. Let me give you a couple of things real quick and and I'll let you take the next thing. How do you know if you have a personal story? Stewardship problem. This is not just the employee.
I'm talking to an employer. This is every person that hears my voice. You may have a personal stewardship problem. that causes stress. If you carry credit card balances from month to month.
You may have a personal stewardship problem. if you buy cars costing more than thirty percent of your annual income. You may have a personal stewardship problem, and this is probably going to step on some toes. If You spend more on your pleasures. Your travels.
Your toys. Your coffees. You're eating out. then you give to the kingdom of God every year. You just may have a personal stewardship problem.
if any of those apply. And I've got a list that goes much longer than those three that we can sit down and talk through things. But these are financial signals that says probably people have a financial issue, but it also is going to elude that they have a stewardship issue if they're doing all that at the same time.
Well, you said you've got a list. Do you have three or four more that you could share?
Well, we we gave a personal one. Let me give an employer's list. If you're an owner, you're a family owner, or you're a manager, you're a corporate stewardship, you may have a corporate stewardship problem. If your company actually has no stewardship program. You don't support anyone except maybe an association that just builds you more business.
means you don't really have a heart for doing something in your own community that's building your company. You may have a corporate stewardship problem if your decisions ignore the family's decisions. of your employees. When you hire a person, Mr. Employee or Mr.
Business Owner, Do you look at that employee that I'm now taking on the responsibility of this person and their family and their future. Or have you just hired a task that you're paying a dollar for the task so you're getting a trade-off and that's the only way that you look at that person? You may have a stewardship issue as a corporation. You may have a corporate stewardship problem if your generosity does not increase as profits increase.
Now that same thing applies to every one of us as an individual. As my income goes up, Does my lifestyle go up more? than my generosity. Or is my lifestyle staying the same.
So I can do more to build the kingdom. You're going to build two kingdoms in your life. One of two kingdoms.
Some of you are going to build two, some of you are going to build one, and some of you are going to be frustrated figuring out which one I'm trying to do or which one I'm not doing. You're going to build your kingdom. Are you going to build God's kingdom? We don't have a choice.
So If God owns it all. And I am a steward of the things he's given me, I can bring the scripture back into back in here about the stewards. who received things to build for their master And There were stewards who did well, but there was one who didn't. And it's really an ugly ending for what happened or what was said about that person. But Who's kingdom am I building?
with the items that I've been given.
Now As a person that's in finances and a person who loves the Lord, that's been a personal struggle for me. Everybody has lifestyle creep. Oh, I got a raise. We can buy a bigger house. Oh, we can get a bigger car.
Oh, we got a tax refund. Let's take another trip. How about thank you Lord I want to give part of this back to you or give to you because this is your money. Because I couldn't give last year because I was carrying so much debt. I felt guilty 42 times every time something was asked for that I felt compelled to give to, but I didn't have the money to do it because I've been living a lifestyle that sometimes I can't afford.
Yeah, that's right. And when you were talking about that, I was reminded of Luke chapter 12. In verse 48, in the context, they're talking about people who knew the will of God and people who, you know, somebody who grew up in church, somebody who has been taught the Bible their whole life, somebody who had godly parents, and then they grow up. If they turn away and they don't obey the word of God, there are going to be some serious, heavy consequences.
Now, there may be somebody else in a little village in Taiwan who grew up under another religion and they maybe never heard about the word of God or knew very little about it. The Bible says that he who knew not and committed things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required. And to whom men have committed much Of him, they will ask the more.
Well, the same thing, David, can be translated over to somebody who is very rich and has been given a lot of wealth by the Lord. And by the way, if you think you did this on your own, you have not. The Bible says that the Lord is the one who gives the wealth. The Lord is the one who gives the wealth. And so we have to thank him for the wealth that he's given us, number one.
But then, number two, it says, of whom much is given, much is required.
Okay, you want to be rich.
Now that you've got all these riches, the Lord is going to require more of you as a Christian as far as sowing into his kingdom. Would you agree? I totally agree. I totally agree. I mean, you know, as as y you know, It Often we talk about this, it can come across as feeling heavy or negative or people get depressed.
Or they get ashamed. And this is not an asham. Let's look at what's going on in our world and let's look at how is God calling me to be present. And it's in through stewardship. We're not talking about the money aspect.
We're talking about how do we steward those relationships at work. How are we building those relationships? Or are we tearing them down? Are we hurting people by the things we say and do to them? Are we respecting them purely as a person?
and saying, I want to help this person more And if you build stewardship into your daily ideology, I'm going to steward every person I come into contact with, number one, you should be a much happier person. You should be, hopefully, you're a nicer person. This is assuming the Spirit of the Lord is walking with you and you are staying in connection with Him all throughout the day. And sometimes that's hard. We have to do our task and we have to focus on what we're doing.
So I'm not saying every minute pray to God. Every minute think of this. We're saying when he goes with us, He's with us through the whole thing, whatever we're doing, and he makes the task a little bit easier on our shoulders. He does. And the Lord can do things on accident a whole lot easier than we could ever do anything on purpose.
I know that from experience, David. But another passage that I'm looking at is 1 Peter chapter 3, starting in verse 1. It says, Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husbands, so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the purity and the reverence of your lives. And so, yes, that's true. If you're a wife right now and you're married to an unbeliever, live a godly life, submit to your husband, respect him.
You never know. Maybe the way that you live your life is going to win him over to Christ. But I believe the same thing is true when it comes into the workplace. If you're an employee and you have a manager who is an unbeliever, David, or if you're an employee and you have an owner of the business, Business who is an unbeliever, if they see that there is something different about you, they see you working hard, they see you not complaining, they see you giving your very best, and that somehow, someway, they're going to know that you're a Christian because you're going to tell them or you're going to talk about it. There's going to be something out there.
So, yes, we have to open our mouth at some point. I believe that being an excellent employee, having a great attitude, could actually lead other people to Christ simply by your lifestyle in the workplace. Yeah, th that that that's where the evangelism comes out of stewardship. Um Just get it hit. w people are w it's no different than we know.
Our kids mimic us. When we all have minor kids, They all do funny things to mimic their mom or dad.
Well everybody does the same. when they're looking at an adult who's walking upright in the Lord. They're looking to see what's different about that person. They want to know. It will draw people to you.
If nothing else, people will be nicer to you because you're nice to them. Uh and And again, if you're praying for them, then you're obviously at that point praying for open doors where you could speak into that person. and tell them about Jesus. And so Oftentimes we only think about the world from our Christian Eye View.
So we have a Christian world view. that we look at it. And we don't always think that we think, well, everybody should see it the way I do. Whether you're look talking with someone who's a Muslim, somebody who's an atheist, or just people at work who are just like, oh my gosh, how do these people live like they do and say the things that they do? And then we don't want to talk to them because they're so different.
God doesn't call us not to talk to them. God calls us to love on them and be in the midst of that messy, ugly stuff because that's where Jesus was. He got in the middle of the mess and said, Wow, you guys are really chumping it up here on this earth. And look at what you're doing. But let me tell you a couple of things.
Let me just talk to you about a few things. And he became their friends and he loved everybody. And oftentimes we'll take those the approach that we're not going to be like that or I don't want to be around people like that. And that is not evangelism. If Building the kingdom is to bring people to Jesus.
Stewardship is just one of the avenues that gets us to the evangelism side. Evangelism is not possible. without some kind of stewardship. That stewardship of you even with your quiet times, you stewarding your time with Jesus. You've got to build that so you've got something to give.
And when you get something, We're supposed to give it. God's called us to give out what He's given to us in every cause. You know, we know about the Hobby Lobby family and David Green and his family. And when you start talking about companies and what they do, people go, Yeah, well, if I had that kind of money, I'd do that too. But most of the companies I'm going to talk to people about, they started from day one doing what they were doing.
And David Green is a perfect example of that. They give a ra way 50 to 60 percent of their pretax earnings.
So I make a sale. I'm gonna pay I'm gonna give away that, then I've gotta worry about paying my employees, paying buildings, paying taxes and everything else. Companies, the Hobby Lobby family, nobody makes a tremendous amount of money in there because David set a standard way back in the day that said, guys, we do make a lot of money, but we're not building this for us. We're building this to build the kingdom. And his family gives a tremendous amount of money away.
And over the decades, they've given away over $1.5 billion. Because you and I, many people believe in what they do, plus they have good products, so when we need to make something or we got school projects, we tend to run the Hobby Lobby.
Now there's a lot of non-Christian people going there, but look at that. David Haynes is taking non-Christian money, dirty money. Let's call it dirty money. It's not sanctified money. People that don't have a heart for the Lord, and he's taking that money and he's building the kingdom with it.
Well, the Bible says that I will store up the wealth of the unrighteous for the righteous. And it says in first, in our last minute that we've got, it says in 1 Peter 3:15, it says, But in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. It says, Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you, to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. And so I think the problem for some people, David, is they're talking about answering questions that nobody's asking. And in the last few seconds that we have, if somebody wants to get in touch with you or they have questions about this or, you know, you help handle people's finances and they wanted to contact you, what would be the best way?
Do you have a website? Uh yeah, uh it uh we're Carolina Financial Advisors, so our website is Carolina FinancialAdvisors.com. You can always call us in our office. You can email me at David at Carolina FinancialAdvisors.com. But that's easy.
We're glad to talk. We're glad to help anybody in any way of understanding biblical principles of what to do. Everybody, people struggle over what do I do with the inheritance? What do I do with how do I really retire? Is retirement biblical?
Is retirement a word in the Bible? I will give anybody $1,000 who finds that. I probably shouldn't say that on air, but I'm glad to talk about that one all day long, too.
So. Get in touch with us. We're glad to assist with anything, answer questions, anything. West. Thanks a lot, David, and we'll have you back next week.
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