Stewarding Our Inheritance
After preaching from Matthew 25:14-30 for more than 30 years, I’ve touched on themes about accountability, using what’s in our hands, and faithfulness with a little.
But recently I came across an article by Jim Sheppard that challenged me to see the Parable of the Talents in a new way – one that deals with the anticipated $70-$100 trillion dollars expected to be transferred from Baby Boomers to Millennials. Sheppard’s thought-provoking angle made me wonder: Is the Church ready to help guide this monumental wealth transfer? Are we preparing future generations for what they will receive and how to meet the expectations of the Master? Here is an excerpt from his article, Beyond Tithes:
We all know the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:16-30. The three stewards were each given very different amounts to manage. For reference, even one talent was a lot of money. About 6,000 denarii, which was equivalent to 20 years’ wages for the typical worker. So, they all received a significant, though different, sum. The first 100 years of wages, the second 40 years of wages, and the third 20 years of wages. However, the expectation that they would manage their master’s wealth wisely and in alignment with His interests was the same. That expectation applies equally to us.
When you consider the number of Baby Boomers, these numbers are bigger than any of us could ever understand or comprehend. It’s an insane amount of wealth that’s being handed from one generation to another!
In order to align with biblical objectives on leaving an inheritance, we want to stand before God and confidently be able to say, “I handed it off to somebody who’s probably going to do even better than I did in honoring you with my wealth.” That’s the parable of the talents from Matthew 25:16-30 playing out with wealth transfer. It’s not just what we did with our wealth, but it’s also about handing it off to someone who will honor God with it the way that you did. That’s the big idea!
It’s a conversation with three parts:
- How do Boomer’s plan to handle leaving an inheritance behind?
- How does the younger generation on the receiving end handle it?
- How can the church be there to help?
First, as the church is seeking to teach, it ought to be about transformation, not about transaction and getting money from people. The main issue should be to help the people in your flock make godly decisions about transferring what God has provided. Not for the church to get a gift from the estate. If that happens, great. But it is not the main issue.
Secondly, maybe it doesn’t have to be more complicated than just asking the question: How have you factored God into the equation? Talk to people who are in this season of life, trying to figure out what the hand-off looks like. How are they letting God guide the decision-making process? When you ask that question on a somewhat frequent basis, I believe it is compelling enough to cause people to pause and reflect. Many may come to realize they haven’t factored God into the conversation at all. We all need God’s guidance and wisdom on this issue so that we can honor Him in our decisions related to our children, the church, and others.
Third, the younger generations need the church to step in and meet them where they are in order to teach about good stewardship, budgeting, saving, giving, and most importantly, that giving is an issue of the heart, not the wallet, and that can change their lives forever.
