Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

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Welcome to week #2 in our series we’re calling The Maze of Marriage. This thing that we call marriage can be confusing, and it can be downright hard. Marriage is a maze that is riddled with wrong turns. In this series, we’re talking about four different areas where a lot of couples make some wrong turns.

Last week we started out in the bedroom. We had some pretty straight talk about sex. As always, if you missed that message, you can go to our website, ameliachurchofchrist.com, and check it out. For all our married couples, I hope you enjoyed the homework from that message this week. Because the homework from today’s message isn’t going to be nearly as fun.

Today we’re talking about money.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 70% of families in the U.S. live paycheck to paycheck. Less than 30% of families use written monthly budgets. The average American spends $1.22 for every dollar that they receive. The average American family’s credit card debt is now almost $9,000.

And with statistics like those, this statistic should come as no surprise to us. 95% of married couples admit that they argue about money on a regular basis.

Of all the wrong turns in the maze of marriage, this issue of money is the most common. Studies have found that money problems are cited as the number one reason for divorce in our country. So if we want to divorce-proof our marriages, then we obviously have to talk about this issue of money. It has the potential to be a devastating wrong turn in the marriage maze.

The reason that financial issues can be such a pitfall in marriage is because tension is inherent in money. There is an automatic tension in money that is inescapable. And the tension in money can easily lead to tension in marriage. So let’s talk about some of the tensions that come with money.

The first tension in money is save vs. spend.

How many of you are savers? Raise your hands. Be honest.

How many of you are spenders? Raise them high.

More of us are spenders than savers. It explains the amount of debt in our country today. But this is a natural tension in money. You’ve got to save, and you’ve got to spend.

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes, “A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything.” (Ecclesiastes 10:19, NIV)

Isn’t that a great verse? Isn’t that true? You can have your food, you can have your wine, but at the end of the day you need money!

Solomon, who wrote Ecclesiastes, is really just pointing out the obvious. Money is vital in our world. You’ve got to have money. You’ve got to spend money. It’s been that way throughout human history.

This isn’t just a western, civilized thing. If you go to the bush, if you go to some third world country, they may not have printed money, but they barter. There are different accumulations of wealth. Money, and the spending of money, are a necessary part of life in this world.

A lot of us don’t have a problem on the spending side. Our problem is on the saving side. Our lives are kind of like this video.

Proverbs 21:20 says, “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.” (Proverbs 21:20, NIV)

The Bible consistently attaches saving, or storing up, to wisdom. And, the Bible teaches that free spending is attached to foolishness.

Most of us entered into our marriages with the financial habits we learned from our parents. If we were taught wisdom and saving, we brought that our marriage. If we were taught the foolishness of free spending and debt, we brought that into our marriage.

Doug Larson was right when he said, “The surprising thing about young fools is how many survive to become old fools.” Money habits die hard because we’ve been trained in them our whole lives.

And so, here comes marital tension. I was brought up this way about money, you were brought up that way about money, and what do you know? We have conflict. We have tension. Go figure.

If this describes your marriage relationship, you’d better sit down and start communicating about this. Not in a heated way. Not in a passionate, fiery way. But with coolness and calmness. If you can’t do that, you’d better enlist outside help.

Check out Dave Ramsey's materials. His talk show is on a couple of different radio stations here in Cincinnati. You can buy his books. We hope to offer his Financial Peace University course here at church in the future. Dave Ramsey is the most super-practical guy I’ve ever experienced on the subject of money.

But reading a book or listening to a talk show may not do it. You may need to step it up a bit more. You may need the help of a counselor to walk you and your spouse through this. If your marriage is in a financial crisis, you’d darn well better swallow your pride and make it happen because money tension is a marriage killer. And you’ll never make any progress if you’re not on the same page in this save vs. spend debate.

You’ve got to save, but what is your saving plan? How much are you saving? What are you saving for?

You’ve got to spend, but what do you spend your money on? How much can you spend without first consulting your spouse?

It is mind blowing how many couples have been married for 10, 20, 30 years or more and have never worked on these basic questions. And then we wonder why money is a source of tension in our marriage. This tension shows itself in save vs. spend, but really the deeper root problem is the next tension we need to talk about.

The tension of contentment vs. planning.

This is another tension that is inherent with money. It’s another tension that is just automatically there.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5, NIV)

This is one of the more difficult principles in Scripture. I’m convinced that the command to forgive if the hardest command in Scripture, but this principle of contentment ranks right up there. But even though it is difficult, we’ve got to remember that contentment is not a suggestion from God. It is a command that is woven throughout the Bible. Be content. Be content with what you have.

The problem is that, instead of being content, we choose to compare. Comparing is a contentment killer.

When we finish things up today, I’m going to walk through the parking lot and get in my ’99 Ford Escort. It still runs good, although it’s had some issues here lately. It’s got well over 150,000 miles on it. But it’s paid for, it gets us where we need to go. It’s a good car.

But, if I start comparing it to some of the nice, new cars in our parking lot, all of a sudden my Escort doesn’t look like such a good car. All of a sudden, I notice that the radio doesn’t work as well as it used to. I notice the chip on the hood and the scratch on the side. I notice that it runs a lot rougher than it used to. All of a sudden, I don’t really care for my car anymore.

What happened? What changed in the equation? My car didn’t change. It’s the same car it always is. What changed in the equation is my focus. When I’m focused on my own life, I’m content. When I start comparing my life to the lives of other people, contentment flies out the window.

Don’t we all do this? We all compare. And the thing is, rarely do we compare ourselves to people who have less than us. Almost always, our comparisons are with people that have more than us.

And our comparing leads to coveting.

Covet is an old King James Bible word that we don’t use much anymore, but it’s definitely a word that we still need to understand. We need to understand it so we can guard against it.

Darrin Patrick said that, “Coveting is that inner desire that all of us have to find wholeness and peace and meaning apart from God. Coveting is desiring something so much that you lose your contentment in God.”

Coveting is that inner grasping, that inner desire for that person or that product. Coveting is where we tell ourselves, if I could just have that, everything would be ok. When you covet, you buy into the lie that there is something you can buy, something you can have, someone you can know that will make your life whole. And it all starts when we play the comparison game.

We’ve got some members of our family who just came back from a vacation in Mexico…again. I didn’t go to Mexico. I won’t be going to Mexico anytime soon. And when they told us a few months ago that they were going to Mexico again, my inner reaction was jealousy. I compared my situation to theirs, which led me to covet what they had, which made me lose my contentment. This is so stupid. I have an amazing life. I am the most blessed guy on earth. But it only takes one comparison, one moment of coveting, to make me replace my contentment with feelings of jealousy. And when you’re coveting, when you allow yourself to experience feelings of jealousy, you’re ratcheting up the potential for problems in your marriage.

Ladies, when you’re not content with your wardrobe even though you have a closet full of clothes…Guys, when you’re not content with the car you drive even though it’s solid and reliable…you’re entering into a breeding ground for problems in your marriage.

Nothing will please Satan more than to have you comparing instead of being content. Because if you start by comparing clothes and cars, it will lead you to something bigger. Comparing houses. Someone always has a nicer, bigger house than you do. Maybe then you start comparing kids. Why do their kids always behave better than our kids? Maybe then you start comparing spouses. Man, his wife is really sexy. Wow, her husband really listens.

See how deadly this comparison road is? And before you think, “Well, that’s a really big leap from comparing clothes or cars to comparing spouses,” you need to know that this can happen in such a fast but subtle way that it will make your head spin. And it all started when, instead of being content where we are, we decided to compare ourselves to somebody else. The Bible command is clear: be content with what you have.

But, while God commands us to be content, he also commands us to plan. There some supposedly spiritual people who teach that planning is a very unspiritual thing to do.

I’ve heard some preachers say that they never prepare their sermons. They just get up on stage and God gives them the words to say. Now, I have had experiences where I am absolutely convinced that God gave me the right words at the exact right time. It’s awesome, but it’s also rare. When it comes to preaching, you’ve got to prepare. I wish I could just get up on stage and preach with no prep work. That would give me an extra 15-20 hours of my week to do other things. But I know the truth, and the truth is that God moves through people who prepare. People who work hard and plan ahead.

When it comes to financial issues, the Bible clearly tells us to plan ahead. 1 Timothy 5 says, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Timothy 5:8, NIV)

Proverbs 13:22 tells us, “A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children…” (Proverbs 13:22a, NIV)

There is a clear Biblical principle about providing for our family, thinking about their welfare, and that requires planning.

If you’re single, do you want to be married? If you’re married with no kids, do you want to have children? Do you want to buy a house? If you have kids, do you want them to go to college? Do you want your family to be taken care of after you die? Those questions are really unsettling to some of us because they require planning, and we haven’t done much of that. Answering these questions will require reading, and studying, and working with your spouse to get your financial plan in place.

Proverbs 28:19 says, “He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty.” (NIV)

In this comparison, the Bible tells us that you can’t just expect things to go well. You’ve got to work hard, you’ve got to plan ahead. Just expecting things to go well, expecting that you can go through life with no plan, expecting that your marriage can survive with no financial plan at all, that’s chasing after a fantasy. That’s a fairytale world.

The Bible calls us to be content in the present, but to plan for the future. See the tension there? I’m ok with what I have, but I have to plan for the future, I have to take care of my family, I have to be generous to others. There’s an automatic tension in this area of our finances. And this money tension can easily translate into marital tension. If we don’t stop comparing our lives to the lives of other people, and if we don’t plan for our family’s financial needs in the future, we’re heading into marital conflict like a locomotive.

There’s one more tension that we need to talk about, and this is the biggie. This is the one that gets us more than any of the others.

It’s the tension of ownership vs. stewardship. This is the tension that will trip us up more often than any other. Ownership vs. stewardship.

An owner is the source and giver of wealth. A steward is a manger of the owner’s wealth. See the difference? And here’s why this is a money tension in our lives. We think we are owners, but in reality we are stewards, we are managers.

There’s a book by C.S. Lewis called Screwtape Letters. The whole book is about this older demon named Uncle Screwtape who is giving advice to his nephew. The whole idea is that these demons want to destroy the spiritual life of this Christian. And here is the advice that Uncle Screwtape gives to his nephew.

“The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged in humans. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership, which sounds equally foolish in heaven as it does in hell. We must keep them doing so. The joke is that the word ‘mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot truthfully be uttered by a human being about anything.”

This is the hardest tension about money. I’m not the owner. I’m the steward. I’m the manager. If I’m not the owner, who is? God is the owner.

Psalm 24 teaches us, “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it…” (Psalm 24:1, NIV)

God is the source. God is the owner. He is the owner of everything on earth, including our money. So it’s really not our money at all. It’s his, and he is simply allowing us to manage it for a little while.

If you want to clear up and clean up your financial situation, this is where you have to start. For your marriage to be on solid financial footing, it starts by both husband and wife recognizing that everything they have is God’s.

I want you to take a few seconds and jot a few things down on the back of your bulletin or a piece of scrap paper. Take a second and write down some things that you have. A house, a car, whatever. Write a few things down.

Now, take a look at that list with this understanding. You don’t own a single thing on that list. Your house, your cars, your property, your boat, your motorcycle, your investments, your stocks, none of it is yours. God owns it and he is simply allowing you to be his steward, his manager. Doesn’t that throw a whole new perspective on money and possessions?

Most of you who have kids have designated a bedroom in your house for your kids. We have done that with Ryan. Ryan refers to this particular room as “my room.” But truth be told, that’s not his room. Last time I checked, the payment book from the bank had my name on it, and it had Nicki’s name on it, but it didn’t have Ryan’s name on it. He may call it “my room,” but it’s actually not his at all. It’s not his room because it’s not his house. He just gets to use it for a while.

Nothing you have is yours. You may get to use it for a while. You have the opportunity to manage it. But it isn’t yours. God is the owner.

And since God is the owner of everything, then he also gets to decide what to give each person. He decides how he will distribute his possessions. This really grates on us because we’d like to believe that we’re self-sufficient. But the truth is that God is the owner and the distributor. We are the stewards and the recipients.

There’s a story in the New Testament we refer to as the parable of the talents. In this story, Jesus talks about how God gives people different amounts of his possessions to manage. We usually talk about how the servants in the story either managed or mismanaged those gifts. But don’t miss the fact that the gifts were not equally distributed. There were three servants in the story. One received five talents, one received two talents, and one received one talent. The owner is the one who decided how to distribute his wealth.

God is the one who distributes our gifts and talents and abilities. I went to a Reds game with a few guys this week. As always, I got to watch guys making millions upon millions of dollars just to hit or throw a baseball. Now, I could whine about this. I could wish it was me out there on the field making millions. But the fact is that I couldn’t hit a major league fastball if my life depended on it. I don’t have the ability. God, for whatever reason, chose not to bless me with that athletic ability.

If we believe that God is the owner of everything, then it makes sense to understand that he is also the distributor of everything. He decides who gets what when it comes to gifts and abilities. He distributes them.

And this really plays into our financial lives. The plain truth is that God distributes wealth in an unequal way. And that grates on us. Some of you are thinking, “Wait a minute! I work hard!” Others of you are thinking, “I went to college, got the degree, put in my time, etc.”

Before you get too excited about this, listen to these verses from the Bible. “You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18, NIV)

There is a reason that I won’t make millions of dollars as a professional athlete. There’s a reason that I won’t live the lucrative life of a business tycoon. There’s a reason why I won’t become rich as a medical specialist. You want to know why? I not gifted enough for sports, I’m not savvy enough for business, and I’m not smart enough for medical science. God didn’t give me those abilities, and he doesn’t have to tell me why. He owns it all, therefore he distributes it all.

Now we can’t interpret this as an excuse to be lazy. We need to maximize what we’ve been given. We need to take whatever God has given us and maximize it by stretching ourselves, working hard, planning ahead. We need to maximize what we’ve been given, but we have to understand that it was given to us by God. We are stewards, or managers of what we’ve been given.

This idea of being a steward instead of an owner will change your life. And it’s critically important to understand this in your marriage. Stewardship is key to a successful marriage. Nothing in your marriage is yours. You are a steward of all of it. Think about it.

Your body is not yours. The Bible says, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other… (1 Corinthians 7:3-5a, NIV)

I know you thought we were done with sex last week, but great sex is a product of great stewardship. You don’t own your body. It belongs to your spouse. You are simply a steward of your body.

Your actions don’t impact yourself alone. There is something like 50 “one another” commands in the New Testament. Things like “pray for one another,” “forgive one another,” “encourage one another,” “love one another.” The reason that “one another” is such a recurring theme is because of our interconnectedness. Your actions don’t just affect yourself. Your choices don’t just affect you. You’ve got to be a good steward of your choices and your actions because they’re not yours alone.

Do you see how stewardship is key in a successful marriage? Your body doesn’t belong to you. Your actions and your choices don’t belong to you. And your money doesn’t belong to you.

Far too many couples have their possessions divided into yours, mine, and ours. Last week we talked about becoming “one flesh” through sexual intimacy. That one flesh principle extends far outside the bedroom. It extends to your money and your possessions. Husbands don’t own some things and wives don’t own other things. Your marriage is a mutual stewardship of what God has entrusted to you. If you have separate checking accounts, if you have this unspoken rule about what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine, your marriage is headed for destruction. Because it’s not about ownership. It’s all about stewardship.

When it comes down to it, your marriage isn’t even yours. It is God’s. And some of us have taken some wrong turns and we’re not managing the marriage that God has given us very well. I hope the first couple of messages in this series are opening your eyes to some things. I hope they’re helping you to safeguard your marriage against some all-too-common mistakes. I hope they’re driving you to seek God’s will and God’s purposes for your marriage, because ultimately your marriage and your family belong to him.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: contentment, marriage, money, stewardship