 Money and marriage. So now I'm really going to get into your business. You know, do you get a lot of advice about what to do with your money from the world? And I want to just read you like some of the most popular people who have something to say about how to manage money. Susie Orman. She just grates on my nerves. I can't stand to even listen to her. I was on CNBC with a show of her own. And she wrote, this is advice to women and to those who are about to be married. Both of you are to keep separate checking accounts and open a joint account from which you'll pay your shared expenses. You're smart enough to hold on to your identity. I want you both to have a joint and separate account. The former ensures that you're protected as a couple. The latter is where you find the certainty that you'll never be dependent on someone else. This is good, good godly counsel, right? So when you get married, make provision for your divorce. David Bach, who wrote the Finnish rich book series, said each partner needs his own, his or her own money. Regardless of whether or not you both work, each of you should maintain your own checking and credit card accounts. More bad advice. And then there's Glinda Bridgeforth, who wrote, girl, get your money straight. She said, if you're part of a couple, maintain separate accounts, yours, mine, and ours. Okay, now you know what not to do. So what I'm hoping to accomplish today is really three things. One is to give you a sense of the necessity of being unified in your marriage about your money. You are one when you are married. The second one is to give you a biblical perspective on possessions. They're not yours. They're gods. And the third is to emphasize a biblical perspective of stewardship, because that's what you're called to do is to be a faithful steward. And in the process, I'm going to point you to some resources that I've found over the years that have been very helpful. But you know, this money thing is can be a real bugaboo as you know, you've probably experienced. It causes a lot of problems. And you know, so as I was thinking about this, we've got really a tremendously wide range of people here, right? We've got some who are about to be married, some who've been married for a while, some who, like Mary and I, are almost 30 years in, and then some others who have even been married longer. So it's... These are sort of foundational things. So if you got this already, then, you know, just it'll be an affirmation. But for some of you, it may be all new. It was all new to me years ago. But you know, some of the the issue of how money affects marriages, I want to just give you a couple of pieces of information that I came across as I was I was reading about this. A 2011 study by Jeffrey Dew of Utah State University found that married couples who disagreed about money once a week were twice as likely to divorce as those who differed less than once a month. Here's another worldly perspective on money. Money doesn't just represent money. It represents love, power, control, self-esteem, and freedom. And that's Olivia Mellon, a money coach and author of Money Harmony, Resolving Money Conflicts in Your Life and Relationships. Well, I mean, if you take this perspective of money, you will have all kinds of conflicts in your life and relationships. But think about some godly advice that comes from people who are focused on having you look at your money from a biblical perspective. One of the resources that I came across years ago, right after I was converted actually, was one called Crown Ministries. And you can find it at crown.org Raise your hands if you're familiar with it. Okay, good. When I was first converted at First Baptist Orlando, I got somehow, you know, providentially steered to a class on, you know, that was created by Crown Ministries. And Larry Burkett was the founder of it. It's evolved since then. It's now, of course, everything's online and videos. I believe it's still a good source for a biblical direction. I'm not making a blanket recommendation here. You know, you have to be a Berean when you see stuff that, you know, doesn't match up with the Bible, then, you know, spit it out. But Crown Ministries says couples should avoid having separate financial anything. Including checking accounts. A couple cannot be one if they separate their lives by separating their finances. No viable marriage can survive a his or her relationship for long because it is totally contrary to God's plan. Having separate checking accounts makes about as much sense as maintaining separate houses. I believe that's absolutely true. Randy Alcorn is another writer who, a Christian who has written a lot about money, finances, marriage. I don't know as much about him, but what I've seen is solid and he's got several good books on, you know, managing money biblically. And here's a quote from him. He says, not only are our spiritual lives at stake, but also the wholeness of our families in how we manage our money. Half of all marriages end in divorce and 80% of divorced people indicate that financial issues played a primary role in ending their marriage. So if we could get it right when it comes to money, how many other areas of our lives would fall into place? It's important, I mean, it's important to deal biblically with money. A third source and you probably are more of you familiar with this than any of the others is Dave Ramsey. And, you know, a lot of his advice is sound. The Bible isn't as front and center in what he says. But, you know, he does write from a biblical perspective and he says separating finances and splitting the bills is a bad idea. The preacher said, and now you are one. So those are three, you know, places that you could look. I would start with Crown Ministries. There's a lot of tools on their website about budgeting. First of all, just having a biblical perspective of money and possessions. But then, you know, ways that you should plan. What is the right amount to save? How do you deal with debt? And so there's good solid advice there. And we don't have time to get into all that stuff, especially since Pastor Rick took so much time. But, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. So, you know, you want the Bible according to Larry Burkett has two thousand three hundred and fifty verses that deal either directly or indirectly with money and possessions. So you need to be looking to scripture for wisdom about how to deal with your money. But we're talking about marriage and money here. And so if you've heard a lot about marriage and as I was listening to these different presenters this morning, I'm thinking, yeah, you know, if people would take responsibility and if they would communicate well. If they would both seek forgiveness and be forgiving, you wouldn't have a whole lot of money problems, right? Still, there are some biblical principles that you need to keep in mind. And so just beginning with marriage and having, you know, a biblical perspective on marriage, Colossians three eighteen and nineteen wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. So think about that in terms of money. When you are sitting down and you are talking about how we're going to manage our money. That needs to be your mindset. In Ephesians five twenty two and twenty three wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife. Even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. And it goes on. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. That she might be holy and without blemish in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ in the church however let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So there is so much that can be said about marriages just from those verses but for the purposes of considering the topic of marriage and money you do a couple of things you need to take away from these verses. There can only be one head of the household and ultimately a final decision about a financial matter rests with the husband but you are not operating independently. You have been given a helper by God and you would be foolish to disregard your helper. The husband and wife are one interdependent joined together in a sacred bond so you should not make financial decisions without consulting your wife. There is a presumption here that the husband and wife are converted. There is probably with marriages where that is not the case money is what blows things up because you don't have a biblical perspective of money. Of course there are probably all kinds of other problems with that but in the wisdom of God we have been instructed not to marry unbelievers and there are people who willfully disregard that counsel from God and there are consequences to that. If you are in a marriage where there is an unbeliever you are just to be faithful to God and operate in a way that is pleasing to God, be reliant on scripture to guide you and direct you and it is going to be more difficult. One way that you can make sure you don't have a bunch of financial problems is to marry a Proverbs 31 woman and I thought I could just come up here and say that and that would be the end of it. I am grateful to God that I am married to a Proverbs 31 woman who has given me lots of good counsel over the years and there are lots of stories I could tell about that but the reason we are driving a van instead of a red convertible is because my wife has given me good counsel. So this Crown Ministries I got to know just after God saved me in 2000 and I don't remember exactly how I got connected with them but I do remember that one of the things that I was wrestling through at the time was the conviction that I should be tithing. I was 42 and I had not had a Biblical worldview about anything much less my money but I began to grapple with how am I going to do this. I know I need to be doing this and I've got all kinds of distance between where I am right now and where I need to be so that I can tithe. I believe it was the beginning and I think God uses this. I've talked to new Christians who have said to me, well how can I tithe? You may not be able to just bam do it but as you begin to work in the direction of obeying God in that area he is going to bless that. I believe that my financial life really began to get straightened out when I began to focus on how can I tithe because it gives you a level of responsibility to God that will be sanctifying. In that my sanctification in terms of money has not been a straight line. I wish it had been. It's been kind of like this but generally praise God it's been going in the right direction. I've made bad choices since then and you probably will too. The first thing is understand that you are in this together and you really need to, if that is a source of conflict, if you guys are having trouble just getting through your checking account, then there's a spiritual issue that you've got to work through and you've got to talk it out and you've got to get to the point where you are on the same page about what your spending priorities are, where is the money going, what is the long term plan. I mean this is all just from your checkbook and there's kind of an aside here but it's an important aside. Pastor Mark asked us to be very practical. You've got to keep track of this stuff. You can't just write it down on a piece of paper somewhere and hope it all works out. You've got to be diligent. We're going to get to the parable of the talents where there's a diligence that's expected by God for your stewardship of what he has entrusted you with. If you're going to be a good steward, you're going to have to pay attention. You're going to have to know where it's coming from and know where it's going and I hate doing that but I do it. I've learned to do it and I'm a slow learner sometimes but I've gotten to the point where I've got a pretty good handle on where the money is coming from and where is it going and what the plan is like for the rest of this year and for the next few years. This is something that you have to take time to do. You can't just hope it all works out. That's not what a good steward does. This is kind of an aside but whatever you've got to do to make that happen, make it happen. If you've got to use envelopes and put the money here for the groceries and here for the rent, do it but do something. I use Quicken. It's a software thing that I think Microsoft owns. It's not the easiest thing in the world to use but ultimately when you figure it out, it's going to be a really good tool for you. If you don't know where your money is going, you're never going to get anywhere with it. What's the saying about if you don't have a plan, if you don't have a goal, I can't remember what the saying is. There you go. You've got to have a plan and you need to pray over how to come up with the plan. That was an aside. These are the two things that I remember from 15 years ago from Crown Ministries that changed everything about how I view money. They're just foundational and you've got to wrestle through this. When I say these things, they cause you to bristle, then you've got work to do. But God owns everything. It's not yours. It may seem like it is and it's amazing. In Genesis 1-1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. If you don't like that, you've got a big problem. He's the Creator. It's His. You've been entrusted with whatever it is that you have. You've been appointed by God to be a steward. He says in Genesis 1-26, Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. You've been charged with responsibility. In Psalm 24, we see, That's non-negotiable. You need to submit to that. You need to understand it. It's not our nature. We are rebellious. I think of the young kids, the babies. Some of them, their first word is, Mine! It's mine. It's a little selfish, unsharing. That's part of us, apart from Christ. This stewardship begins with an understanding that whatever you have is not your own. You've been entrusted with possessions, with money. You've been entrusted with the gospel. If everything belongs to God, you're going to deal with stuff differently. You're not dealing with your own property. It's God's property. He is going to hold you accountable for how you manage what he's entrusted to you. We get that clearly taught in the parable of the Talons, Matthew 25, 14 to 20. I'm going to read that. I'll give you a few highlights of what are the lessons there. In Matthew 25, Christ says, For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one. To each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid it and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward bringing five talents more saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents here. I have made five talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And he who had the two talents came forward saying, Master, you delivered to me two talents here. I have made two talents more. And his master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. He also who had received the one talent came forward saying, Master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours. But his master answered him, You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has more will be given and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness, into that place there will be weeping and gnashing. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So there's a gravity about this stewardship and your faithfulness in your stewardship is something you're going to be held accountable for. And so what we're being told here is how we are to live until Christ returns. What our responsibilities are in his absence, as it were. And the primary message is that we should be diligent to faithfully use the talents he has given to us. Now this parable is about money. And actually I read something that said these talents, I mean there are some different estimates. One said it was $300,000 equivalent. Another one said it was $900,000. This is a great treasure he's talking about. But the principle applies to whatever gifts you have received from God. How do you steward the gospel? If you hoard the gospel to yourself and you don't share it, are you going to be held accountable for that? Is God going to be pleased? And what does that say about your attitude? Like, well I'm saved. Who cares about the rest? That's problematic to say the least. I mean it's evidence that you're not converted. That's what it is. So the way that you steward what God has given to you is evidence of your conversion. And he is not going to judge you on the basis of how many talents you bring back, right? The guy who had five and the guy who had two were rewarded identically the same. Their reward was based on their faithfulness. Not what they actually produced. Like, we're not going to be judged on the basis of how many people were converted because of our evangelism. We're going to be judged on the faithfulness with which we preached it. And so that same principle applies to your stewardship of your possessions. The Lord gives talents according to individual gifts and abilities. But the reward is the same for the first two. And the rewards praise from Christ. Christ praising us? I mean, I want to hear well done good and faithful servant. And increased responsibility? I mean that's what he has done. He has said, you have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. And then entering the joy of your master, I want to enter the joy of my master. I do not want to be cast out into the outer darkness. So we're called to faithfulness, to be good stewards of the gifts he has given us. And, you know, Larry Burkett, there were a couple of other quotes that he, I came across about money and I thought they were very good. Let's see if I can find them. I'm sorry. Every time I do this, I sort of change up what I've planned. Here it is. Larry Burkett said, there are approximately 700 direct references to money in the Bible and hundreds more indirect references. Nearly two-thirds of all the parables Christ left us dealt with the use of money. You will discover, and he's talking about this Crown Ministry study, as you progress through this study that God equates our use of wealth with our commitment to him. And then he also said, because of its tangibility, money is a testing ground before God for our true willingness to surrender self to him. So in your marriages, you will avoid a lot of conflict if when you sit down and you consider how you're going to be managing your money, you think first it's God's money and second how can I faithfully steward it. And I can just finish with just a testimony of my own about this. You know, I didn't know much when I was first converted. Like, I knew I needed to evangelize, and I knew I needed to tithe. Those were things that weighed on me, right? And just seeking to be obedient in those areas, God has just been amazing. He has just directed my paths. It hasn't been easy, but I've just felt that, you know, I could rest in the sovereignty of God and his plans for good for me, whatever it was, however hard it was and however much of a struggle it was because I was trying to be obedient in those areas, he's just blessed me so many times over, I can't even begin to tell you. You know, since then, since my conversion, Marion was converted, my daughter was converted. He brought us out of a false church, brought us to this church. He yanked me out of a career that I'd been in for 30 years and put me in another one that I didn't really like to start with. But, you know, it was good. It's a much better place for me today than I had when I had planned things out for myself. And praise God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for your kindness to us. You are such a good father to us and we just are just so thankful that we can just rest in your sovereignty and know that your plans for us are good. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.