The Significance Pyramid with Scott Highmark | FaithFi
September 18, 2026
The Significance Pyramid with Scott Highmark
Faith & Finance with Rob West
What if financial success isn’t the destination, but simply the foundation for something greater?
We spend a great deal of time thinking about how to earn, save, invest, and manage money wisely. Those things matter. Faithful stewardship requires care and wisdom with what God has entrusted to us.
But what happens when you’ve done many of those things well and still find yourself wondering, Is there something more?
Scott Highmark, President and Co-Founder of Mosaic Wealth, a Certified Kingdom Advisor®, and author of The Significance Pyramid: Climb Beyond Success to Find Lasting Significance, believes there is.
His “Significance Pyramid” offers a framework for moving beyond financial success toward a life increasingly shaped by purpose, generosity, service, and ultimately surrender to Christ.
What if financial success isn’t the destination, but simply the foundation for something greater?
We spend a great deal of time thinking about how to earn, save, invest, and manage money wisely. Those things matter. Faithful stewardship requires care and wisdom with what God has entrusted to us.
But what happens when you’ve done many of those things well and still find yourself wondering, Is there something more?Scott Highmark, President and Co-Founder of Mosaic Wealth, a Certified Kingdom Advisor®, and author of , believes there is.
The Significance Pyramid: Climb Beyond Success to Find Lasting Significance
His “Significance Pyramid” offers a framework for moving beyond financial success toward a life increasingly shaped by purpose, generosity, service, and ultimately surrender to Christ.
Why Success Alone Can’t Satisfy
Our culture often encourages us to keep moving “up and to the right”—more income, more achievement, more possessions, more recognition.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with achievement. The problem comes when we expect it to satisfy desires it was never designed to fulfill.
Highmark points out that even people who reach the top of their professions often discover that the fulfillment they expected doesn’t last. Accomplishment may bring genuine satisfaction for a season, but our appetites continually reach for something more.
Ultimately, the human heart's deepest longing cannot be satisfied by another financial milestone or professional achievement. We were created for God Himself.
That conviction is at the heart of the Significance Pyramid. Every life points somewhere. The question is whether ours ultimately points toward ourselves or toward something greater.
Stewardship: Building the Foundation
The pyramid's first level is stewardship.
Stewardship involves wisely managing all God has entrusted to us—not simply our money, but our time, abilities, opportunities, and relationships.
Financially, that means understanding what we have, knowing where it is going, and learning to live within our means. Practices such as budgeting can sometimes feel restrictive, but healthy financial boundaries can actually create freedom. When our finances are in order, we can spend and give more intentionally instead of constantly reacting to financial pressure.
But stewardship is only the foundation. Once money consumes less of our attention, we can begin asking deeper questions about what our resources are actually for.
As Highmark puts it, money can help fund our purpose, but it cannot help us find our purpose.
Symmetry: Bringing Our Lives Into Alignment
The second level is symmetry, or alignment.
Most of us can quickly name what matters most to us: faith, family, marriage, generosity, service, relationships. But would someone looking at our calendars and financial statements reach the same conclusion?
Symmetry means aligning the way we actually live with the things we say we value.
James 1 describes a person who looks at himself in a mirror, walks away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. In a similar way, we can profess certain priorities while organizing our lives around completely different ones.
Highmark tells the story of a successful executive who traveled more than 150 days a year. His children were nearing adulthood, his mother was aging, and financially, he no longer needed to continue working at the same pace. Yet striving had become such a normal part of his life that he had never seriously considered another way.
One simple question changed his perspective: Why are you still working like this?
Eventually, he stepped away from that role. In doing so, he gained more time with his children and his mother and began serving through ministry.
Sometimes faithful stewardship requires more than accumulating enough. It requires asking whether the life we are living actually reflects what we say matters most.
Purpose: Using What God Has Given You
The third level of the pyramid is what Highmark calls self-satisfaction.
The name can sound self-focused, but the idea is really about discovering meaningful work and using our unique gifts well. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
God has made each of us with different abilities, experiences, relationships, and opportunities. Faithful stewardship includes learning to use those things in service to Him.
Highmark draws on an insight from Henry Blackaby: Rather than beginning with the question, What is God’s will for my life? we should begin with, What is God’s will? Then we ask whether we are willing to adjust our lives to participate faithfully in what He is doing.
That changes the focus. Purpose is no longer primarily about finding the career or activity that makes us feel fulfilled. It becomes a matter of offering our lives to God and faithfully using what He has entrusted to us.
And even personal fulfillment isn’t the top of the pyramid. If our purpose ends with ourselves, it still falls short.
Significance: Turning Outward
The fourth level is significance.
Here, the focus shifts from inward to outward. Instead of asking, What will make me happy? we begin asking, How can I use what God has entrusted to me for someone else's good?
That may require sacrifice. We may willingly choose to have less so someone else can have what they need. We may surrender time, comfort, opportunity, or resources for another person’s good.
Jesus Himself models this kind of life. Philippians 2 describes Christ as taking “the form of a servant.” Rather than using His position for His own advantage, Jesus humbled Himself and served.
Significance, then, isn’t simply about accomplishing something impressive or leaving behind a recognizable legacy. It is about loving and serving others faithfully—even when doing so costs us something.
That can show up in countless ways: generosity, hospitality, mentoring, caring for family, serving through the local church, investing in younger generations, or simply making ourselves available to people God has placed around us.
Surrender: The Ultimate Destination
Even significance isn’t the final destination. At the top of Highmark’s framework is surrender.
A person can live generously, serve others, and pursue meaningful work and still remain at the center of their own life. Biblical surrender goes further. It means offering our whole lives to Christ.
Our money belongs to Him. Our careers belong to Him. Our families, abilities, ambitions, plans, and futures belong to Him.
That doesn’t mean financial planning or professional success is unimportant. It means those things find their proper place beneath the lordship of Christ.
Success asks, How much can I accomplish? Significance asks, How can what I have been given serve others? Surrender asks an even deeper question: Lord, how would You have me faithfully use everything You have entrusted to me?
Financial success can be good. Wise stewardship can create margin, opportunity, and freedom. But success was never meant to become our ultimate destination. The goal is faithfulness—a life in which everything God has entrusted to us increasingly points beyond ourselves and toward Him.
On Today’s Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:
My husband and I are entering retirement and use a credit card for groceries, paying it off monthly to earn travel rewards. Is that a wise strategy, or would it be better to pay directly from our monthly budget?
I’m 71 and want to use Qualified Charitable Distributions for my tithes and offerings. How do QCDs work, can they come from an annuity, and can I direct part of my RMD to myself and part directly to my church?
Remember, you can call in to ask your questions every weekday at (800) 525-7000. Faith & Finance is also available on Moody Radio Network and American Family Radio. You can also visit FaithFi.com to connect with our online community and partner with us as we help more people live as faithful stewards of God’s resources.
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