Episode 93 - Building Bigger Barns

Let's take a look at two biblical stories about bigger barns and discuss saving, investing, and wealth building. What is our motivation? What is our priority? Are we living a life of JOY?

Transcript

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Paul, Welcome to Catholic money talk, where we talk about all things money and finance, and we try to do it through a lens of being Catholic, where our ultimate goal is to one day be in Heaven with the Lord. I am your host. Paul Scarfone, thank you for being here today. Welcome back to Catholic money talk. Today. I want to talk about building bigger barns. I want to talk about saving and wealth building. But before we do that, let's say a prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen, Heavenly Father. We thank you for this day. We thank you for all the ways that you love and bless us, Lord, Lord, we recognize that you have a great plan for us. Allow us to embrace that plan. Let us to pursue you in everything that we do. Lord, God, let us meet you in prayer so that we can understand your vision, your plan for our lives. Fill us with the Holy Spirit so we have the strength to overcome whatever challenges or situations that we might find ourselves in Come Holy Spirit. We ask this all in Jesus name amen, and name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now, before I get in trouble, right with my opening line there about what this podcast is about. A couple Sundays ago, we heard the parable Jesus telling the parable about the rich man who is building bigger barns. And we'll look at that in a minute and so many times, particularly in our culture, we we tend to look towards building wealth, growing savings, and we can very quickly think like that's not a good thing to do, right? Because of the parable. We'll look at that. And it's one of those things that there's times for building bigger barns. There are times for that. But in all things, we want to be seeking the Lord's plan for us as we just prayed, right, Lord, what do you want us to do? So we're going to look at two biblical stories. I love both of these, this parable and the other one is Joseph, right? Joseph the son of Jacob in his brother selling him into slavery in Egypt through a series of circumstances. Right? He gets old into slavery. He's purchased by a family. The wife ends up lying about Joseph because he would not yield to her demands, because it was immoral, and he gets sent to prison. And while he's in prison, he interprets some dreams of some of Pharaoh's servants, right, some of his his top guys that had been in prison, and they end up getting out of prison. Well, one of them does. And when Pharaoh has these dreams, they don't know how to interpret them. The wise men don't know how to interpret them. And the guy, right, the guy that was in prison with Joseph, says, Oh, I know this guy who was in prison who can interpret a dream. They go get him, and he interprets Pharaoh's dream. And here's so we've got the story of Joseph, and we've got the parable from Jesus. So the parable from Jesus, it was, it was a gospel couple Sundays ago. It's from Luke, 1213, to 21 is the the full the Gospel reading for that day. But here it is, then he told them a parable. There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. And he asked himself, What shall I do? For I do not have space to store my harvest. Right? He was kicking butt and growing whatever he was growing. And then he decides, you know, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to tear down my barns and I'm going to build larger ones there. I shall store all my grain and other goods. And I shall say to myself now as for you, you have so many good things torn up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry. And then God said to him, You fool, this night, your life will be demanded of you, and the things you've prepared to whom will they belong? Thus will it be for all who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich in what matters to God? Here's a particular thing about this story that I think is important for us to see. Great Harvest. He's got all this stuff. He's building bigger barns. But here's his attitude, right? It's what he says to himself. He says this to himself. Now as for you, right? So now as for me, I have so many good things stored up for many years. I can now rest, I can eat, I can drink. I can be merry. Me, me, me, me. Now I will be honest with you. There are moments in my life where I find myself desiring ease and comfort. There's moments in my life where there's things that I want and they're not bad things, right? And maybe it's a I love fishing, maybe it's a fishing trip. Maybe it's some fishing gear. Maybe it's an experience that you desire, for you, for you and your spouse, your family. Maybe it's a trip, maybe it's a once in a lifetime trip. Maybe it's a nicer house, a nicer piece of property we live on a not quite a posted stamp, but I would love more property, right? When my neighbor's having a party, it's hard for me to have a party. There's just too much we can hear what's going on over there. It's just we're too close. I would love hundreds of feet between me and my neighbors, right? That's just who I am, right? I'm not a city guy. I'm more of a country guy, right? So there's things that I might desire that aren't bad, but sometimes I can get focused on that, right? And this happens to us, right? This guy in the parable, now I can rest, now I can eat, now I can drink, now I can be merry, right? It's that happy ever after. I've spoken about that before, right? Well, once we get that house, it'll be great. Once we get that job, it'll be great, boy, if I can get that raise, if we could ever win the lottery, right? All those desires that might be inside of us, and some of those like, it's okay to experience those and feel those and to want good things, it is totally okay to want good things. We just don't want the desire for good things to be our only motivation. We don't actually want them to be a big part of our motivation, right? Our the motivation we want is, how do we serve the Lord and how do we serve others? There's a father Larry Richards. He's a priest in the Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania. He does men's conferences and talks. And I remember reading one of his books. I think it's called Be a man by Father Larry Richards. It's a great book for Catholic men, and he talks about this concept in there, and I it's probably been around. He might not have created it, but this, this, this way to live a life of joy. J O Y, Joy. If we have that in our life, that's proper order. J O Y, Jesus, others, yourself, when we make decisions, and we're motivated by that set of priorities, Jesus, others than yourself. That's that's how we love the Lord. That's how we pursue the Lord, right? So the story, in this parable, it wasn't Jesus, others yourself, it was him, him first, right? And only him. So, building bigger barns, building wealth, to benefit me, to give me ease and welfare. You know good ease, comfort and you know worldly pleasures, kind of thing, and again, not, not, not, we're not, I'm not even talking moral or bad things, but just an easy life, a good house, a great car, good vacations, great hobbies, right? Is that our focus? So let's just flip flop that real quick and look to Joseph, the story of Joseph, and this comes from Genesis 41 so I kind of got us up to this right? So here's Joseph now, he just heard Pharaoh's dream. Pharaoh's dream, it talked about, and let me see maybe I'll actually read it. Do Pharaoh said to Joseph in my dream. So this is Genesis 41 it's verse 17 here. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph in my dream, I was standing on the bank of the Nile, when up from the Nile came seven cows, fat and well formed, they grazed in the reed grass. Behind them came seven other cows, scrawny, most ill formed and gaunt. Never had I seen such bad specimens as these in all the land of Egypt, the gaunt, bad cows devoured the first seven fat cows, but when they had consumed them, no one could tell that they had done so, because they looked as bad as before. Then I woke up and I'll This is verse 22 in another dream, I saw seven ears of grain, full and healthy, growing on a single stalk behind them sprouted seven ears of grain shriveled and thin and scorched by the east wind. The seven thin ears swallowed up the seven healthy ears. And I have spoken to the magicians, but there is no one to explain this to me. And then Joseph said to Pharaoh, Pharaoh's dreams have the same meaning. God has made known to Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven healthy cows are seven years and the seven healthy ears are seven years the same in each dream, the seven thin bad cows that came up after them are seven years as are the seven thin ears scorched by the east wind, they are seven years of famine. Things are just as I told Pharaoh. God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. Seven years of great abundance are now coming throughout the land of Egypt, but seven years of famine will rise up after them, and when all the abundance, when all the abundance, will be forgotten in the land of Egypt, when the famine has exhausted the land, no trace of the abundance will be found in the land because the fama famine that follows it, for it will be very severe that Pharaoh had the same dream twice, means that the matter has been confirmed by God and God, and that God will soon bring it about. So this is what Joseph tells him to do. Then, therefore, let Pharaoh seek out a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh act and appoint overseers for the land to organize it during the seven years of abundance. They should collect all the food of these coming good years, gathering the grain under Pharaoh's authority for food in the cities, and they should guard it. This food will serve as a reserve for the country against the seven years of famine that will occur in the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish in the famine. So and then Pharaoh was very impressed, and he actually honors Joseph by giving him that job of overseeing this right? He took off his ring, he puts it on Joseph, he puts him in fine robes and fine linens, puts a gold change around his neck and says, you're now in charge, right? Like he's second command in Egypt. Whoa. So here this story, they probably had to build some bigger barns, right? If I seven years is a long time. The house we're in right now, we've been in seven years. It feels like forever, for seven years of good harvest. So that means, like, a lot of excess, that's a lot of food, right? That they're growing tons. That's going to take some serious barns for all of Egypt to store all of this. And then over the next seven years, after the seven years of harvest, right, they give out all the food. And that's the story. When Joseph's family right back in the land of Cana, the famine reaches them, and they run out of food, and they hear these stories that Egypt has food, so their family goes and there the brothers are reunited with Joseph. That's a whole nother story, right? So God works out all these plans to the good but here's the thing, Joseph built bigger barns, and that was a good thing. The fella in the parable that Jesus told built bigger barns, and that was a bad thing. So which is it? Right? It's has nothing to do with the bigger barns. It has to do with our motivation, right? Here, Joseph is following, if we go back to that life of joy, right? Well, Jesus wasn't around yet, right? But God will put God first, Jesus first, right? He's following his direction, right? The dream that the Lord revealed his plan to Pharaoh, and Joseph was able to interpret it following God's direction so as to serve others, right? All the people, Joseph didn't do that to try to get out of prison. He didn't. Joseph didn't interpret the dream to be able to get out of prison and to get a promotion, right? It wasn't about him. It was about him following the Lord, listening to the Lord, and then serving other people, first with Pharaoh and then with all of Egypt and basically, like the entire world. And then he was last, right? He was at the end, and the Lord blessed him and took care of him. So why am I saying all this? I'm saying this because sometimes, particularly as Catholic Christians, when we hear stories and we hear parables in the Bible, right, it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel into the eye of a needle, all these types of things that we hear make it sound like wealth and bigger barns and a large bank account could be a bad thing, and in itself, it's they're not. But it comes down to the disposition of our hearts. Hearts, which is what drives our motivations, right? Are we? Are we pursuing a life of joy where Jesus is first, others are second and we're last, right? Are Are we trying to be last? Are we trying to put the Lord first and the and others first? So I've told the story before, and I love it. I really love it. Several years ago, I was helping this young woman, single woman, we're working on finances, and we were talking about generosity and doing things for other people, but at the same time, we're talking about saving for retirement. And you know her being in her 20s, you save 100 or $200 a month from when you're in your 20s to your 70s, right? You go for 40 or 50 years. We're talking it becomes millions of dollars, right? You know, for her, it just felt like retirement so far away. But I understand, if I do it now, like that'd be great. Also, she's trying to pay her current bills and try to be generous as well. And so her homework was, she was doing some reading on retirement and trying to understand a little bit about investments and things like that. But also was to see if there's an opportunity that the Lord presents to you for you to be generous. And so our next meeting, we come back, and I said, So how'd it go? And she was so excited, because she was telling me that she was going on a retreat, and one of her friends, another single woman, wanted to go on the retreat as well, but didn't have the funds to do it, and in that moment, she just felt inspired by the Lord to pay for her friend to go on the retreat, and it was a couple $100 and she did it. And I said, Whoa, that's awesome. How did it make you feel? She said, it was incredible. I was crying. She was crying. It was awesome. I said, now just let's think for a moment. What happens if you sit you did that, that's great. But what happens if we slowly start saving for retirement? When you're retired, you have an account that's got millions of dollars in it. How many people could you help go on the retreat? She's just a big smile on her face. She's like, I could pay for everyone to go on the retreat. I said exactly. That's why we save. That's why we put stuff into barns, right? Some, some of us might have to have bigger barns than others, but it's not so that we can sit back and think of how great our life is going to be, right? Like that rich man, right? We don't. We don't sit back and look at our bank account. We shouldn't sit back and look at our bank account and say, Ah, now I can rest, now I can eat, now I can drink, now I can be merry. No, we should look at it. We say, Wow, how many people am I going to be able to serve? And then start looking for those opportunities, right? One of the things I tell people when their income increases, right? And that could happen by just annual increases. Maybe it feels like there's an increase, because some expenses fall away, right? Maybe they paid off their debt, maybe they paid off their house. Maybe their kids have graduated from school, and they're not helping them pay for whether it was Catholic school or college or whatever it might be, right? Maybe expenses decrease. Maybe incomes gone up. Maybe there was a big promotion. Maybe a spouse who was staying home to homeschool kids or raise kids is now going back into the workplace, and there's there's more income. Maybe you did get that big promotion, or started a company, or maybe received an inheritance, right? Maybe there's a moment where just there's more money. One of the things I tell people is to prayerfully consider, like Joseph did in in Genesis, in the story we just read, maybe you're in that season of great harvest. Sometimes we can tend to spend more. Oh, I've got all this extra money now. Now I can afford a bigger house. Now I can afford to replace a car and spend more on a car. Now my kid can go to this school, all those different things again, none of these are bad, right? But we don't want to be quick to spend it, because we want to be able to right, right, just as Joseph said in that story, if, if they didn't know Joseph was there, people might have been eating more, right, or spending more because they said this, the harvest was so great, but then the famine was so severe that after seven years, they wouldn't even have they wouldn't even have been able to recognize that there had been a moment of abundant harvest, because this the famine was so severe, right? And that's all solved by saving and storing in barns. And so I think the same. A thing applies to us when we have those moments. And I've said this to my wife, Taryn at times, and I say this to clients when they experience this, maybe you're in a moment of abundant harvest, and maybe there'll be a moment when there is a famine. So what do you want to do? And that's why, if we save or invest and we set money aside, we don't consume it all right now, nor do we give it all away, right now. But if the Lord calls you to do that. Do it right. If he says, sell all you have and come follow me, do it. But when we don't get those clear senses from the Lord, right, when we don't hear that, that direct message from the Lord, and we're trying to prayerfully discern and and look at our situation, how do we how are we following the Lord? How are we serving others like how do we move forward in this current moment? It's great to recognize what season are we in. And if you're struggling with that, this is a great little exercise. Think back to a moment in your life where you experienced famine. Maybe you were between jobs. Maybe you were fresh out of college and didn't have a job. Maybe you were in college looking for some part time work and you couldn't find anything, and you felt like you just you didn't have anything. Yeah, you didn't have money. You could you're relying on mom and dad or or friends, and it was just a rough period of time, maybe, maybe you had a challenge in your marriage, right? Maybe there was a death in the family that devastated you, took you out of work for a bit, a sickness, medical situation. Think of those moments where you had those famines and just think, Wow, if I, if I had set something aside during those moments of harvest, abundant harvest, how would I have been able to better handle those, those seasons of famine, Right? And maybe you've had a life where you really haven't experienced big swings either way, right? It's kind of been just steady, you know, even, even keel, just, you know, no big ups and downs. Well, praise the Lord. We don't know what the future holds. And so, creating some savings, right? Building wealth, not for the sake of again, leaning back and look at and go, I can take it easy now. I've set myself up for ease and comfort the rest of my life. No, look at it and go, let me build this up. Because I don't know when I might need to use this to care for my family, or I won't, I don't know when we need to use this to help care for others and to bless others, right? And that's, that's what we're talking about here. Catholic money talk. How do we put all of our finances at the foot of Jesus and say, Lord, this all belongs to you, none of it's my it's not my wealth. Like all the wealth, everything belongs to the Lord. Lord. What do you want me to do with this? And then see what he says. But one of the things I've experienced, I've shared these stories before as well. There's been moments in my life where there was a need. Someone brought a need to me of asking us for for money, and one of the pivotal moments in our life was this is years ago, our kids school at a small, small parent run Catholic school, and it needed money, or it was going to close, and they basically the board, kind of made this financial presentation. They said, we're looking for each family to give $2,000 and we can continue to stay open. And we didn't have that money. This was we had just started trying to get out of debt, and things were super tight, and I just the school raised the money, was able to continue. But I just remember thinking, I think we gave like, 800 bucks or something. We scraped everything together that we had. And I remember thinking like, I never want to be in a spot where I feel like I can't do my part. And it wasn't so much a pride thing, because I was recognizing that the situation we were in was self inflicted, right? So it wasn't like, Oh, I wish I could do as much as everybody else. It was like, I wish I had been managing this stuff better so that I could be a blessing to other people, because years later, I was able to find out during that. A plea for money from the school, there were people able to give 510 $1,000 like big chunks and why? Because they were good stewards of their money. They had put in their barns contributions from those seasons of harvest, so that when the seasons of famine came. They were able to help serve the Lord and to serve others, to serve me. And when Tara and I kind of reflected on that early in our you know, financial walk of trying to get things straight, we said, Wow, we want to be those people. We want to be those people who are able to set money aside right in times of harvest, so that when famine strikes, whether it be famine to us or famine to other people, we're able to serve. And so when we look at retirement and wealth building and saving and investing, that's the lens which we're looking at it in there. Don't get me wrong, there's moments of temptation where I'd like to get a nice fishing boat. I'd like to get a couple 100 acres somewhere, do some hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, whatever, right? That that's that's appealing to me. And I think, oh, yeah, man, it'd be nice to do that. And I see people who do that. And I'm not saying that's wrong, right, but when I pray, when I pray and I say, Lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want? Paul and Taryn Scarfone, what do you want? What are you calling us to do? I don't, I don't usually hear that. I hear a name of a family that maybe he wants us to give something to. I hear of someone doing some mission work, or an organization that needs some help and support, or whatever, right that I hear other things, other moments, that the Lord wants us to kind of have that money ready for, to save for, to help other people through maybe a season of time where they're experiencing famine. So that's my take on all this saving and investing in wealth building, right? I'm going to call this episode building bigger barns, right? And I we gave two examples, Genesis, chapter 41 the story of Joseph and then the gospel from a couple weeks ago, Luke 12, with the rich man. So as we save, as we invest, as we kind of create these long term savings goals and plans, I want to ask us, What is your motivation? Why are you doing this? Is it to have a life of joy where you're serving Jesus, others and yourself? Last? Is it to save during moments of harvest, so that you're ready for moments of famine? Or is it so that you can sit back and eat, rest, drink and be merry and pursue a life of ease and comfort? What is driving us and what do we feel the Lord is calling us to? So that's a great prayer to do. I recommend you pray with your spouse. Obviously, if you're married, about these things like, let's Honey, let's say a prayer. Lord, what are you calling us to do? If we save and we experience growth in our investments and we build wealth, how do you want us to use it? Lord, Lord, all of our wealth belongs to you. Please direct what we do with it. So that's what I have for us today, building bigger barns, and the different perspectives you can take and how to pray about that so that you can be pursuing the Lord. So I hope this has been helpful. Thank you for joining me today. God bless Thank you for listening to Catholic money talk. I hope you join us again next time, please click Subscribe on your podcast app to get notified of new episodes. God bless you and have a great day. You