Episode 60: What Does Generosity Look Like?

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Speaker 1
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Well, welcome back to Further Britain Grimm. This week we have both Chris Carr and we have a new guest on today. We have Brock Ida here.

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Speaker 1
How's it going?

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Speaker 2
Better than I deserve. That's my token shout out.

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Speaker 1
Thanks, Dave.

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Speaker 3
That must be. That must be really good. Because you deserve a lot. so yeah.

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Speaker 1
You. All right.

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Speaker 2
I've been practicing that all day, just in preparation for this.

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Speaker 1
So. Went great. Yeah. So, Brock, could you kind of introduce yourself to anyone who doesn't know you?

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Speaker 2
Sure. Yeah. So, Brock, I'd born and raised in Danville, Iowa, and have been back in the area for ten plus years now. My wife and I went to school other places and traveled around a bit and jumped around some jobs. Grad school and some jobs. Lived in various places. Denver, Colorado, Louisville, Kentucky, Las Vegas. And then made a way back here.

00;01;17;00 - 00;01;47;07
Speaker 2
Ten plus years ago when we started having kids and laying down roots. And yeah, about that time was introduced back or reintroduced back into the harmony family. My wife and I became members and shortly thereafter became a deacon at Harmony and spent three years on the deacon team and then right consecutively, I ran another six years as an elder and served two two years as an elder board chairman as well.

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Speaker 2
So yeah. And then on the professional side, when I moved back, I got into community banking, started with a small local bank and and then jumped into my current role is Connection Bank in Burlington. I've been a community banker ever since and lender primarily is what my role is. It's an interesting thing. You know, you can you can sit in your office and take a phone call or have someone walk in for their first car loan of 20 $500 or or, you know, receive a commercial loan request for 2.5 million.

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Speaker 2
So I do everything from there up to millions of dollars of commercial loans and anywhere in between. So and then a lot of life counseling and credit counseling happens in the midst of that as well. So the community bank role is a really unique position. And I think a lot of people don't understand the uniqueness of that job there.

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Speaker 1
So, yeah, good. Thanks for that series of questions.

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Speaker 3
Probably on everybody's mind, Are you behind Chick-Fil-A coming to Burlington now, if anything to do with that?

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Speaker 2
I am not, but I've seen the trailer an awful lot out my window. Yeah, right there at Tractor Supply. So that being announced is a big deal. You'd be a.

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Speaker 3
Very popular man right now if that was the case. Yeah. So, yeah, most Christians.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm pretty excited.

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Speaker 3
They'll be neighbors to you and they're.

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Speaker 2
Absolutely, you know, I have direct neighbors with Sonic, and I have yet to frequent that place since I started working in Burlington. But yeah, I'll have to jump over to Chick-Fil-A for sure.

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Speaker 3
Yeah, you can walk there.

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Speaker 1
There you go. So yeah, Chris Chris was his idea to have you on today. And I think, you know, this this topic is is one that, you know, it's easy to wrap our head around like what what we should be doing. And it's even you know, we can get our heart behind find it too. But there's so much on the practical level especially, you know, just how complicated things have gotten and, you know, just how do we be generous?

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Speaker 1
What's a wise way to be generous? So I'm excited to have you on today and to talk through some of those things. I want to start by just kind of talking about this passage. So so in here, Paul is talking about the generosity of the churches in Macedonia. So I thought it would be helpful to start this episode with a little explanation of who they were.

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Speaker 1
We first see these churches forming and acts when God calls Paul to go and preach there. So Acts 16, nine and ten says in a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia was standing there urging him and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. When Paul had seen the vision, immediately we start to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

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Speaker 1
So out of his missionary work in Macedonia, Paul planted three churches, one in Philip II, one in Thessalonica and one in Berea. Two of these churches were the recipients of epistles that we have in the New Testament, and Philippians four shows us Paul's exhortation toward the church in Philip II. And it gives us a clear view of what kind of generosity he was referring to in Second Corinthians.

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Speaker 1
And I'm just going to read that passage here. So Philippians four, 14 to 18, yet it was kind of you to share my trouble and you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving accept you only even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs.

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Speaker 1
Once and again, Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases. To your credit, I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied. Having received from Pafford Titus the gifts you sent a fragrant offering a sacrifice nice, acceptable and pleasing to God. So, Chris, I want to start just is there. Is there anything that we can learn in this Philippians passage to help expand on the second Corinthians passage that we that we talked about on Sunday?

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Speaker 3
Well, it's actually pretty amazing passage that you just read. If we can kind of reconstruct everything that we see in Acts as well as in the Second Corinthians and in first Thessalonians together, it would seem that it at least on three different occasions, the Philippians sent significant gifts to Paul to help him in his ministry. And so he actually begins the book by talking about how he's thankful to the Philippians, are thankful to God for the Philippians partnership and the gospel.

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Speaker 3
And one of the primary ways they partner with him in the gospel is by financially supporting him and we have to remember that these are overall relatively poor people, and so they supported him. Notice in this message says no other church entered in partnership with him in the beginning except for them. And then they go, he goes to Thessalonica and they send him a gift there.

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Speaker 3
And then lastly, he says he's received this gift from a of Aphrodite as well. That gift was while Paul was in prison in Rome. And so if we actually do put all things together, we seem like on and off Paul lost contact with this church or they lost contact with him. But then every time that they found out about where he was and what he was, what he was doing going through, they send him money and we don't know exactly how much money.

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Speaker 3
It may not have been all that much given the circumstances, but when we start saying Corinthians Chapter eight this past week about Paul referring to the Macedonians and their generosity, it would seem that first and foremost among those Macedonians were these Philippians believers. And yeah, pretty amazing example. And we even dive into it a little bit more. So maybe the the only thing to highlight a little bit more is that, you know, partnering the gospel, a big part of partnering the gospel is partnering financially because for the gospel to go forward, it requires resources.

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Speaker 3
And that's always been the case. And I think that can be lost Sometimes as we read the New Testament, we think about Paul and the other apostles as like they they needed resources in order to be able to travel around and to be able to survive and to be able to minister to people. It just it it required resources.

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Speaker 3
And it's the same thing as it is today.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure. But even like so first 17, not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. And I think that, you know, that that kind of carries on from, from second Corinthians in that, you know, they were they were in extreme poverty. And so, you know, he's probably not sending a ton, but it's it's the heart that he wants to see from that church.

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Speaker 1
And so I think that's something to keep in mind there.

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Speaker 3
Well, and I appreciate you bringing that up because it it really goes right along with what we've been talking about the last couple of weeks. And we're going to continue to talk here. I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. Well, what is that? The fruit is the fruit of people coming to faith in Christ and that fruit increases to their credit.

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Speaker 3
And so he's talking about you're laying up treasure for yourself in heaven. And it's just the opportunity that they they had to use their gifts to make an impact for the kingdom that would actually be a benefit to them, not only in the present, but even more so in the future.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So moving on, Brock. So in your experience working with the community, how do you typically see people being generous?

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Speaker 2
How do I see them being generous? Yeah, So I think similar to in church world, you see folks in the community devoting their time, talent and treasures in ways in the same ways that we do as believers. I think it's interesting. I think a lot of folks, if they're not a believer, they've fallen maybe one, maybe two of those those camps where they devote more time rather than talent or, you know, any various mixture of that.

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Speaker 2
A lot of people like to, you know, give philanthropically and and tend to tend to give that way. But yeah, I think that's kind of how I see them doing that in the community. I think it's important. I think when we as believers can be involved in both sides, when we can work as wholeheartedly for the church as we do for the community and vice versa, I think that's when you can really see the gospel moving forward.

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Speaker 2
I think it's a great way to reflect Christ back to the folks that maybe don't grace our doors on any given Sunday. Yeah.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, that's good. And I think, yeah, you bring up the church side the members of specifically harmony you know is that has there been a difference between how members of harmony or just you know Christians in general and in the community have have shown generosity rather than, you know, the unbelieving community? Have you seen any difference in that?

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Speaker 2
Not not as much. Yeah. Yeah, not as much. I think you tend to see the same people giving their time, talents and treasures, whether it's in the church side and the community side. I love going to just a just an example. I love going to one of their municipal boards or various other organizations that I'm involved with. I love looking around the room and seeing a bunch of people that I know are believers in that room.

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Speaker 2
You know, it just that that way they can. We are showing that it's not just, hey, we're only going to give our our time, talent and treasure toward Christ, which is really important. And that's what our primary focus should be. But we're also involved in our community. We're also involved in the things that tend to make a large difference in and throughout our communities.

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Speaker 2
So yeah.

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Speaker 1
That's good. So thinking back over your over your years here at Harmony, how have you seen kind of generosity grow in this in this church?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a great question. Come in here. Ten years ago I could not being deeply involved in the leadership team, I don't I can't really speak as much, but being involved as an elder and then being involved as the elder chairman, not that we no specifics about what's what's given and who's who's giving, but I know that and I have seen that when there's a need at our church, when there's a shortage or when there's a specific need or people come through hands down and and even when there's not, you know, even in the general budget giving, I think it's just it's incredible as the months kind of wind down on the calendar and we

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Speaker 2
see and we see our cash position may be dwindling and then, you know, just how blessed we are as a church. And really it's in response to the Lord's blessing on our people. Right. And how how they are responding with their hearts and then their pocketbooks as well. So.

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Speaker 1
Well, it's it's not I mean, we have obviously the general Giving fund, but but there's other opportunities through our local church of how we can give. So we have the covered. And, you know, the first of every month we have people coming in, bringing bringing food in for the for the pantry. I mean, that shows their generosity. And we have the benevolence ministry that we've had going for a while that, you know, we see all sorts of help going out to the community through that because of of the gifts of the church.

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Speaker 1
And so, yeah, there's a lot of different avenues that you can go down.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, not through the church, not to mention the many global ministry partners that we sent out in 2023. Right? That doesn't happen without a generous church. And those people responded and we have three families and more to come that are being supported by our church. And it's just a beautiful thing.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. So kind of on your on the professional side as a banker, what what do you think are some things that you see that keeps people from being generous? What are the things that get in the way of that?

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Speaker 2
And I'd like to break down that question as any good pastor elder might do with with three main points.

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Speaker 1
I remember in a way, our game here.

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Speaker 3
Is there.

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Speaker 1
Alliteration here.

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Speaker 2
There is I'm going to call it the three C's that keep people from being generous. And this applies to believers and really nonbelievers as well. But I break it down as capacity, culture and community, and the first one being capacity or since it didn't really fit my see alliteration, perceived capacity, right.

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Speaker 1
I love all the nuances and the alliteration and there's always an excuse.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. So when I when I think as a banker, when I'm thinking about capacity, right, we have a finite amount of funds that come into our account, whether it's on a weekly, bi weekly, monthly basis. And when folks are coming in, whether it's for a loan or to do credit counseling, anything like that, we are evaluating their capacity, their capacity.

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Speaker 2
So we take their semi monthly or biweekly paycheck and we look at what the gross dollars are versus the net and then evaluate the capacity, whether they're looking to borrow for a car loan or borrow, you know, for a home mortgage, anything like that. And so many times one of the first places that we like to start is with a budget.

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Speaker 2
Right. And and hopefully this is done ahead of time. But if we're doing it real time, we start laying out, okay, here's here's the gross amount, here's the take home amount, and then I'll start peeling out line items of this of this dollar amount. And you get down to a number that you say, okay, well, this is what you have left over.

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Speaker 2
And many times, unfortunately, in our society today, that number is negative. Right. And that can be evidenced by the fact that they have enormous credit card debt or anything of that nature. Medical bills that are unpaid, those types of things. So and I think to translate that going from putting my banking hat to the side and translating that to church leadership or just being a believer in general, many times are our people or believers are are doing the same thing.

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Speaker 2
Right. And there's a principle in the Old Testament that talks about, you know, the tithe and it is speaking about your first fruits. Right? So just as a quick example, if you made $1,000 in a month and if we were if we're sticking to the tie, the 10%, what would be the the first fruits of that thousand dollars is an I'm counting out the hundred dollar bills in your hand.

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Speaker 2
I count to ten. It's not the first one that hits your hand. That's the first one. It's the first one that leaves your hand right? So if you're building your budget as a believer around what's left over, you're giving you're giving what's left. The leftover leftovers, right? Rather than, I think biblically. And what we should be counseling our people to to do is give that first hundred dollar bill that they received.

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Speaker 2
And you're not really even giving it. You're bringing it right. You're giving it back to the Lord. It's all his anyway. So that's that's that's the first see Right capacity.

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Speaker 1
That's good.

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Speaker 2
Culture. I think this is a big one where and I can speak from my own experience, but I think that's very, very applicable to many of the people that would be listening to this. Is that what is your family not talk about or talk about when it comes to finances, when it comes to giving, when it comes to generosity, all the all those things?

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Speaker 2
How how are you teaching your kids when they receive money for doing some chores around the house or grandma and grandpa ask you to clean out their flowerbeds? What are you teaching them to do with those those monies that they receive? And then the last one would be community. And this one ties in where we are all consuming many different things, whether it's on social media or what you see your family members do or friends, all those things.

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Speaker 2
And that affects your generosity, right? Because if you're always trying to keep up with or do the next thing because so-and-so did or you feel like you're at that stage of life where you need to do this, or you're trying to accomplish this next thing financially, then it's going to affect the way that you're going to be able to be generous.

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Speaker 2
So and that all flows through again. How are you building your budget? Are you building it off of the leftover or off to the first fruits?

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Speaker 1
So yeah, that's that's really helpful. I think the the capacity thing, you know, that is that is a major issue for for people now and I mean maybe has been for a long time but you know we we kind of there's a lot of people who live off credit card debt and there's just nothing left over. And so, you know, doing that on the front end and I want to talk about budgeting a little later, but.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. I just don't think I think we've all sat in rooms and talked about, well, I can't afford to I can't afford to do this or I can't afford to do that. And I think I know I've heard folks that are in my life that I can't afford to give. Right. And that's a really difficult conversation. It's a really you have to have a lot of relational capital built up to speak into that.

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Speaker 2
But it's it's something that needs to be talked about and nuanced and. Yeah.

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Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, we're going to talk about some of this and in the weeks ahead in not only in the sermons but also following up here on the podcast. But there's a lot of great things that you just talked about that we won't get into all of that today, but then we'll wrestle with this issue of the tide.

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Speaker 3
And is that still, you know, something that that we are commanded to do and responsible to to the tides. But the principle of the first fruits, giving God the first portion is huge. And we see it all throughout the Old Testament. We see it carried on into the New Testament. And it really that that's really in many ways what it comes down, this whole conversation comes down to is my going to give the back to the Lord first and then trust him with everything else, or am I going to take care of everything else?

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Speaker 3
And then I'm going to just give if there's anything left over and that that just dramatically changes the whole conversation depending upon how you look at it. And I think the Scripture is going to show us about the Old Testament and new is that when we honor the Lord and we trust Him, he takes he takes care of us.

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Speaker 3
But when we don't do that, then things go backwards really, really quickly or can go backwards really quickly. So and it can be hard, right? Because if you're looking at your expenses and your income, it would be really easy to say where where, where is this going to come from? Where how am I going to meet this? Especially if you get yourself into trouble with credit card debt or some other type of debt.

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Speaker 3
And but then ultimately, then it comes down to my trust in myself and my ability to be able to make this work, or am I going to trust the Lord?

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Speaker 2
I think that's a great point. And well, what you said about it can be hard. I think that as we're sitting in the seats of our our campuses and you're standing up there on the stage, I think a lot of people can say, well, it's easy for a pastor to just preach through that and talk about generosity and and just say, you just got to do it.

00;23;14;15 - 00;23;49;01
Speaker 2
And it's not. And I think that what is lost on on us is that it can be difficult. It can't be can't be hard to either write that check, which most of us don't do anymore. But it's hard it can be hard to click that button at times. And whether it's certain life circumstances or you had a large medical bill come in, I think that whoever is listening to the podcast, I think they need to know that it is something that can be wrestled with.

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Speaker 2
Right. And and worked through and and and counseled on. Yeah.

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Speaker 3
That's I completely agree with that. And it's a it's a great point to highlight one thing I want to point out that we can miss when we do not give the first fruits and we only give leftovers is we we can very easily miss out on God's supplying our needs in a way that we were completely unexpected then.

00;24;20;13 - 00;25;06;24
Speaker 3
And like we can watch and see God show up in our lives in a ways that makes a huge difference in our walk with him. And we can rot. We can actually rob ourselves of just an experience of God's grace and his blessing in our lives that will not come from trusting our trusting in ourselves. And I've seen that time and time again in my life, and I know a lot of believers who have who've who've trusted the law when the numbers didn't add up, so to speak, you know, But at the end of the month, there ended up being more money than they may have thought that it possibly could be.

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Speaker 3
So in blessings along that way. So.

00;25;09;15 - 00;25;38;02
Speaker 1
Yeah, okay, this might be more off topic than you'd like to go, but it brought this up for me. So you know what you said there? I agree with. I think we need to trust trust God, even even if the numbers don't add up, that can probably be conflated a little bit with the prosperity movement. Right. Like, I mean, that that sounds a little bit like, well, you just need to trust God.

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Speaker 1
You need to have faith and you need to give money and God will will increase the the reward. Right. So how would you delineate between, you know, our position and their position and kind of put that in a right perspective? Yeah, go for it.

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Speaker 3
Yeah. There's there's plenty of nuance that needs to be added in this conversation. But I would begin by saying that the prosperity gospel says you give and God is going to make you wealthy. What I'm saying is God's going to supply your needs and we're going to see that in sight, Christians and I in this week. And so there's a difference between God taking care of me and making sure that I have what I need to live.

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Speaker 1
Yes.

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Speaker 3
And if I give here, God's going to make me wealthy. And it's really it's the motivation. Am I giving out of a heart of trust in him? And I'm giving because of the generosity that he's shown me or am I giving to get something. And the prosperity gospel is give to get something. What we're talking about here is to give out of a heart that has been changed by the generosity of God.

00;26;55;00 - 00;27;19;08
Speaker 3
And we're going to talk about this is this week as well. You know, the Romans 832 of he who not spares on side but willingly gave him up for us will not now give us now all things graciously give us all things I was all things there's not like you know the new car, the bigger house, the stuff it's everything that we need to walk with him and to follow him to be peaceful, joyful and those kind of things.

00;27;19;08 - 00;27;42;15
Speaker 3
And so, you know, obviously there there is some nuance here is we've got I'm not simply saying you just pull out your checkbook and you just write the check that this is all the money I'm going to make this. I'm just going to give it all what we're talking about, a first fruits, which can be different for different people in a different times and different circumstances in our lives.

00;27;42;18 - 00;28;01;07
Speaker 3
I like for me, my first fruits has been different depending upon what's going on in my life and what my income has been or what my expenses have been. And there's just been different times where that's it's just it's just different. And so this is where the tie the conversation comes in, which again, we'll talk about this more.

00;28;01;09 - 00;28;23;27
Speaker 3
But I don't think that the tie this is is the good basis for us to have a conversation about generosity. I think it's a helpful it's a it's a piece of the pie. But I don't think it's like 10% for everybody. Like, that's that's what it is. Everybody's 10% because 10% for you might mean a lot more than it means for for me.

00;28;23;27 - 00;28;52;10
Speaker 3
Or it's just different for for four for different people. And I'll say one less thing and then you can move on. For for some people, 10% is very generous. And for some people 10% is not generous at all. So if you're making $10,000, 10% is is a lot. If you're making $1,000,000, 10% is you still have $900,000. Right.

00;28;52;13 - 00;28;57;16
Speaker 3
And we throw taxes in there. So it's not really that much. But yeah, I mean, I don't know what you think about that.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. I think another way to kind of frame the answer to that, that question that you just posed is that, you know, really, if you're not giving out that first fruits and testing, God's not the right word for it, but giving you're robbing God of the opportunity to show you his blessing on on you and your family. Right.

00;29;23;10 - 00;29;41;14
Speaker 2
You said earlier you're kind of robbing yourself, but you really by you saying, no, no, no, I'm I'm going to take care of this myself, Out of out of these funds. You never really even get the opportunity to to show himself in that. So hopefully that's helpful.

00;29;41;20 - 00;30;04;24
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I said this was the last thing I was going to say, but I'm I'm almost always lying when I say that. So as you've learned, not intentionally lie, but back to the passage from this week, the the message they gave themself first to the Lord and then by his will to us, which means to really the mission of the church.

00;30;04;24 - 00;30;28;18
Speaker 3
And so if we've given ourselves fully to the Lord, then giving, you know, that what comes along with that is giving a portion back to him. But that's just part and parcel of what it means. And so, yes, it can be hard when we maybe look at the numbers and all that kind of stuff. But if our hearts, you know, if we really are his, then that's it's just going to naturally flow from that.

00;30;28;18 - 00;30;29;02
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00;30;29;04 - 00;30;33;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. It sounds like I mean, so much of it, it's a kind of giving up control over, over our situation.

00;30;33;22 - 00;30;39;04
Speaker 3
Yeah. And we don't think about this. We, if we've given him like our eternity, right.

00;30;39;06 - 00;30;40;05
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;30;40;07 - 00;30;48;27
Speaker 3
If we've trusted him with that can we then trust him with, you know, the financial needs that I have, you know, in a month to month basis.

00;30;48;27 - 00;31;10;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, that's helpful. Okay. So I want to move on to a little bit of practical steps. I know we're going to get into that more and more in the next weeks. But while you're here, Brock, I know you brought up a budget and I think, you know, that's kind of one on one for this. But what, what practical steps can people take to be more generous?

00;31;11;00 - 00;31;37;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, first and foremost, it would be that budget. My wife and I read Total Money Makeover when we on our honeymoon, actually we read that book and it had budget forms in there for you that we photocopied back in 2008. And we used them for a long time. But honestly, I've used the same budget spreadsheet, Excel spreadsheet for for over a decade now.

00;31;37;16 - 00;32;15;02
Speaker 2
And look at every every month, some months. I'm better at filling out every thing on the general ledger as a banker, I kind of nerd out on that stuff. But first and foremost, that's where it has to start. You wouldn't believe the amount of people that come in my office and before, whether they're just starting out or looking for a home loan, I'll ask them to fill out a budget and usually it stops right there that they won't even go through the application because they don't want to they don't want to face the reality of what is what's going to show up on that spreadsheet.

00;32;15;05 - 00;32;34;16
Speaker 2
And I'll send it and I'll kind of walk them through how I've used it. And so really all they want to know is this was what my rent payment was. How can I translate that into a mortgage or how much can I afford on a new car or, or on those types of things? And sometimes that that's okay.

00;32;34;16 - 00;32;44;05
Speaker 2
But other times when things are tight or certain credit, things show up on the on their credit report, there needs to be more conversation about about those things.

00;32;44;05 - 00;33;01;03
Speaker 1
So so they're like if if that is someone listening it kind of has that mental block toward budgeting just doesn't want to do it. How would you encourage them to do it? Like what is that in us that makes us not want to go and take that step?

00;33;01;05 - 00;33;29;11
Speaker 2
I think it's examining your heart and where your heart is. What's what is deep seated in your heart of what you want, right? When someone asks you, well, do you need this or do you have to do that this many times a month, or do you have to have that subscription? And it is all comes down to your goals too, and how faithful you want to be to your own personal goals.

00;33;29;11 - 00;33;56;09
Speaker 2
And whether you're a believer, you know, you're you're talking through, you know, just the biblical principles of of money management. But if you're not a believer, you start talking about financial goals and where they want to be in five years, ten years, and what they what the where they see them and their family going. So, yeah, practically, practically, I'd start I'd start there.

00;33;56;11 - 00;34;22;13
Speaker 2
And then really to if it were translating it more to a generous lifestyle for the believer, you know once you can kind of get that baseline set and know where you're at, then you can and you're giving out your first fruits and then you're building your budget from there. Then you can really start carving out the things that don't make the budget, that don't allow the budget to work.

00;34;22;16 - 00;34;38;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, right. And that can be painful and that can, you know, that can be a lot of discussions, maybe heated discussions with your spouse or yourself. If it's just you and you just you kind of you have to do a heart check for sure. For sure.

00;34;38;25 - 00;34;52;13
Speaker 1
What would you say about because you said you've been doing this for ten years or so. What about consistency? Because I think it's really easy to start this sometimes and then three, four months in, you're kind of it's just easy to fall off of it.

00;34;52;16 - 00;34;53;10
Speaker 2
On the budget side.

00;34;53;10 - 00;34;53;28
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;34;54;01 - 00;35;19;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. And inevitably seen it in my decade plus of banking. Inevitably lifestyle creeps going to happen, whether it's through a new job or a raise, a job or a potential bonus or some extra commissions that you might might receive. And lifestyle creep happens for all of us, right? You're you're more my I like to say to my assistant all the time more money, more problems.

00;35;19;26 - 00;35;42;01
Speaker 2
Right. It's the truth. It's right It's it's so true. Where people just say, well, if I could just make this amount of money and they get there and then they've spent that as well. And I think there was an article that was circulating sometime late last year where it was talking about the the number of people that make six figures and above and how they are living paycheck to paycheck.

00;35;42;07 - 00;36;17;22
Speaker 2
Right. And so I think it might have been even higher net or net net worth and income folks maybe in the 250 to $400000 a year category that are living paycheck to paycheck. So you can't you can't let that happen to you. Right. You have to you have to still maintain your budget, maintain your generosity if you're a believer and then other excess, then you do your investments, you maybe, you know, do some other fun things, but you still have that.

00;36;17;22 - 00;36;22;12
Speaker 2
You still have to you have to be in the black every month, I guess, is the easiest way to take it.

00;36;22;12 - 00;36;22;29
Speaker 1
I'll have to you.

00;36;23;06 - 00;36;25;19
Speaker 2
Know, you don't have to, but it's very, very helpful.

00;36;25;19 - 00;36;43;27
Speaker 1
So, yeah, well, I think that's something that we keep coming back to you is it's really independent of, you know, what you said on Sunday, It's independent circumstances. But I mean, with that, it's independent of income, right? Like you can you can have a very large income and still have money troubles. And I think that's that's not uncommon at all.

00;36;43;27 - 00;36;47;14
Speaker 1
And so I think that's a misconception that's in our heads.

00;36;47;14 - 00;37;02;28
Speaker 3
Yeah. It seems to me, Brooke, that most people think that the solution is to just make more money. If I make more money, I'll take care of the problem when most of the time the problem is not making more money. It's you need to spend less money that.

00;37;02;28 - 00;37;03;09
Speaker 1
That's one.

00;37;03;09 - 00;37;06;29
Speaker 2
Hundred percent accurate, right? 100%.

00;37;07;01 - 00;37;38;18
Speaker 3
And what like I see you probably see this to maybe just from a different perspective, but is that people end up they work too much or they get second jobs or both spouses are working full time and all that and and it's not because necessarily they want to do that, but because they feel like they have to to either pay their bills or so that they can, you know, buy more things or going more vacation or do those kind of things.

00;37;38;18 - 00;37;54;00
Speaker 3
And what they actually end up. So ends ups sacrifice thing is quality if their quality of life is kind of the secular term. But but you know peace and and joy and and you know for the spirit kind of things. Yeah.

00;37;54;02 - 00;38;16;16
Speaker 2
Yeah absolutely 100% agree and it's it's it goes back to I just said more money more problems it's a it is a endless cycle that we see it We deal with very high net worth individuals that our bank all the way down to folks that don't have a penny to their name. Right. And yeah, it's really, really interesting.

00;38;16;16 - 00;38;49;11
Speaker 2
I've had numerous people come in my office and I've laid out a very extensive plan, you know, through counseling. And the number that I can count is maybe on one hand that actually followed through with if they get if they've gotten themselves into a really, really situation with lots of medical debt and some student loans that are unpaid and credit cards that are passed do all those things, it's because they don't want to let go of the things they have.

00;38;49;14 - 00;39;09;15
Speaker 3
Yeah, I read a quote one time that said, if you set your heart on money, you'll be disappointed whether you get more of it or you don't get enough of it and like it, no matter how much money you get, if you set your heart on money, you'll never be satisfied. Whether you get more or you get, you get less.

00;39;09;17 - 00;39;11;04
Speaker 3
So yeah.

00;39;11;07 - 00;39;36;17
Speaker 1
So, Brock, to kind of wrap this up, what kind of advice do you have for younger people on this subject? I know you know the the usual audience for these conversations is, you know, kind of middle aged people with with kids. But even thinking you mentioned earlier, how are we what's our culture around money? And a lot of that has to do with how we disciple our kids in this.

00;39;36;19 - 00;39;52;18
Speaker 1
What would you suggest for, you know, teenagers, 220 year olds? How can really two things, how can they be generous with with not very many resources now? And how can they plan to be generous in the future?

00;39;52;20 - 00;40;25;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think I do answer it in this way. Whether you're in your, you know, teens or early twenties, I think there's a there's a way that God's calling you to be generous. And I think financially he's calling you to be generous even when you don't think he might be. He has. And then you tend to have more time as a as a young non-married person.

00;40;25;04 - 00;41;07;03
Speaker 2
So there's a way that you could serve the church and serve the body in a really unique way outside of, you know, if you're just a single person, you know. So I think really another thing that a piece of advice that I would that I've followed in my own life and that I would try and pass on to anywhere from the teens twenties to young marrieds would be to pick the brains of some folks that you really love and respect, not not just your family, but some some leaders in our church or some people that you've maybe have perceived have handled their money well and ask the questions about what did you do right, what

00;41;07;03 - 00;41;33;07
Speaker 2
did you do wrong? And you might be surprised at what kind of answers you get. Right, because I think we could all think of some people that we were like, yeah, they're super successful and they probably never had a problem. They make they look like they make all this money now, but they would have a really interesting story to tell about maybe how they went broke, almost went broke before or, you know, all those, all those types of unique situation.

00;41;33;07 - 00;41;45;08
Speaker 2
So just not being trying to break the stigma of asking those questions and trying to get somebody's story not just on their testimony side, but on the financial side, I think is important.

00;41;45;10 - 00;42;05;16
Speaker 1
That's that's really good. I think there is such a stigma in our culture about money, and it's it's hard to talk about sometimes. So just pulling back the curtain on what people can trust. And let's let's talk in the open about this. This is it's helpful. Okay. I really appreciate you coming in. Brock That was that was helpful.

00;42;05;18 - 00;42;12;18
Speaker 1
Chris Thank you. Yeah. You guys have any questions, ask it further, Broadcast.com and we will talk to you next week.