Salary Cap Concerns: Biblical Financial Concepts

Re-inventing the Financial Wheel

James 1:17

Presenting practical application of God’s truth through personal relationships, small groups, community involvement, and meaningful relevant services, to help seeking individuals in the Mayville area develop a personal, devoted relationship with Christ.

That is what we are about – that’s why we are here. We have kind of boiled that down to the phrase that you find on the front of your program, and that is on the screen in front of you: “Real Life, Real People, Real God.”

Our primary purpose as a church is to have ordinary people in Mayville have an extraordinary relationship with God – a relationship that goes far beyond the normal religious experience of the people around us – one where God and His word impact every facet of our lives on a day-to-day, even moment-by-moment basis – in the practical, real world situations we all face.

Perhaps no topic is more practical and applicable to the average person in Mayville, and though out America than the topic of money.

Man, if you want to get people’s attention, and hold their interest, offer a plan to fix financial problems. Ever try to find something other than cartoons on Saturday morning TV? Or surf around the channels late in the evening? It seems like there’s always some infomercial on at least one channel offering a way to make millions in real estate, through some internet based business, or by placing Gum-ball machines in dentist offices!

Virtually everyone we know has some level of financial concern. If it’s not the future - retirement of paying for kids education, then it’s the present – “how can I make $20 last til the next paycheck?”

Money concerns impact virtually every home you drove by on the way to church this morning – and probably the home you left to get here! Nearly 80 percent of all divorced couples between the ages of 20 and 30 list financial difficulties as the primary cause of their separation.

Consumer debt is at an all time high-currently over 1.4 trillion dollars. That means that the average debt is $4666 for every man, woman, and child in America. U.S. credit card debt is over 500 billion dollars, and according to the Federal Reserve, American consumers add almost $5 Billion dollars a month to their credit card debt.

In the past ten years, credit card balances have increased a staggering 163%. Even some of the most dedicated Christians are facing the difficulty of overextended credit and bankruptcy. Last year alone 1.3 million personal bankruptcies were filed. Most people like you and me. The nation’s debt is climbing. Prices are climbing, and suicide rates are climbing.

Our families are being destroyed because finances are not being used according to the plan and purposes of God.

Did you know that God has some very practical teaching about our finances in His word, the Bible? In fact, there are 2350 verses in the Bible about money. In the first three biographies of Jesus found in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark and Luke, one out of every 6 verses is about money or possessions. Did you know that? Nearly half of Jesus’ parables are about how we handle our resources, and Jesus spoke more about money and how to use it that He did about heaven and hell combined!

God 

So let’s learn financial management God’s way.

We’ll start by taking a look at how most of us deal with our money. We’ll do so by looking at a wheel diagram. On this wheel are the things we do with our money. We Acquire it, we Enjoy it, we Plan our use of it, we pay our debts with it, we save some, and we give some. Those six headings pretty much sum up what we do with out money – right? The amount we have in each of these sections will be different for each of us, and for today, that’s not going to be our focus – rather, for today, we’re going to talk about the priority of each of these – the order in which we do them. 

Remember the old song from your school bus days? “The wheels on the bus go round and round…” Well, the wheels on your financial bus go round and round to – but for some of us, the wheels seem to be spinning in reverse – we’re no only not keeping up, we’re going backward! There’s two ways of going around this wheel – backwards – or forward. There’s the way that most people go, and then there’s the way God wants us to go.

Here’s how most of us handle our money: We get it – Acquire, then we enjoy it, then we remember that we have bills to pay, then some of us save a little (if there’s any left after enjoying and paying!), then we give a little to church or charities, and if all else fails, then we decide that we need to do some kind of planning to get a handle on all of this!

That’s the worlds way around the wheel.

Guess what? God’s way is the exact opposite of our way! Does that surprise anyone? Here’s another shocking statement – God’s way is wise, logical and sensible – which is exactly why it’s so foreign to most of our thinking!

Here’s God’s way of handling our money. First we don’t acquire anything – we receive the resources we have from Him. Rush Limbaugh ruffles a lot of feathers when he claims to have “Wisdom on loan from God,” but you know what? Everything we have is on loan from God! Our finances are a sacred trust, and we are to be faithful stewards of the resources God has placed in our care. We’re going to talk about that today. 

After we realize exactly where our money comes from, we recognize the need to plan how we are going to handle that responsibility. Then following that plan, we Give – God makes it clear that we put Him first in our financial dealings – because it serves as a reminder that it all comes from Him in the first place. After we have given back to God a portion, we save – a set amount regularly gets put aside for the future – remember this is the Biblical pattern for handling your money! 

After saving, we pay our debts. The Bible has a lot to say about what we owe and how we are to handle debt. Finally, after meeting our responsibilities, the Bible encourages us to enjoy the blessings that God has given us. You know what? The more we follow this pattern, the more we will have at the end to enjoy! The Biblical pattern does not rob us of the enjoy part – it enhances the amount to enjoy!

Over the next 6 weeks we are going to explore each of these areas – and then we’re going to have a follow up Bible study with worksheets, encouragement and accountability to help you implement this into your life – it’s never too late to do the right thing! I encourage you to come each week, bring a friend, and get into the Bible study to follow. For today, let’s jump right in and look at the first step.

In some ways, this may be the most important step that each of us have to take, because if we can get our minds thinking about our money in the proper way, then the actions we need to take will be much easier. If we think right we will find it easier to act right.

So let’s look at this top item. We notice that the worlds way is to Acquire Wealth, while God’s way is to Receive Resources.

Think about how that first concept frames our thoughts about our possessions. It’s all about ME. “I earned it, I worked for it, I own it, I’ll enjoy it on what I choose. I’ll invest it. I’ll chase it. I’ve acquired some, I’ll acquire more…” Sounds about right, doesn’t it? 

But there’s a problem with that thinking. It leaves God completely out of the picture…and God doesn’t like being ignored. In the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 8:18, Moses said to the people, “Remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth…” 

Most all of us have the opportunity and the responsibility to produce wealth – the Bible makes it clear that we were created to work and to be wise with our money – but in the final analysis, it is God who gives us the ability to do so. He gives us minds that think, bodies that are able to work, even the breath we take is a gift from Him! Without His blessing, we would have nothing – not even life itself. When we forget that we are in trouble. It’s like starting out a race with the car in reverse – we simply are headed in the wrong direction.

In the New Testament, Jesus talks about a guy who does this same thing. He acquires a bunch of wealth – he’s a very wealthy farmer, and he says,

This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry.”

But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be required of you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

Jesus concluded the story: “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:18-21)

Now, there’s nothing wrong with saving – or investing in bigger barns to save for the future – remember that saving is one of the principles we will look at – the problem was not what the man had – it was that he thought it was all from himself – that he was in control…and that is what God took offense to – and he reminded him in the most severe of ways who really controls all things.

If we can begin to reshape our thinking about what we have, and see it all as a gift we receive from God, - it is all His - and recognize that along with that gift comes the responsibility to be faithful with God’s resources, it will change every other part of the Financial Wheel.

Chip Ingram is the president of “Walk Through The Bible” ministries, and he tells this story from his first pastorate. He was just out of seminary, and was pastoring a church outside of Dallas – a mega church of 35 people. It was a very small church, but one of the men of the church was an incredibly wealthy businessman from Dallas – worth millions. After about a year, the wealthy business owner took Chip to the finest restaurant in Dallas – to his private table, and there he treated his pastor to a dinner of lobster with all the trimmings. 

After talking about their families and how the church was doing, the businessman said, “Pastor Chip, you have a great life of ministry! I’ve been watching you. You get to meet people and serve them and minister to them every day. You get to show the love of Christ to needy people. You have a great opportunity that I simply don’t have. But I have resources that are beyond your reach…” Then the man pulled out a checkbook and handed it to Chip. He looked at the checks and at the top it said, “Pastors Discretionary Fund.” 

The businessman said, “I have put $3,000 dollars in this account. I want you to take this checkbook, and when you come across people and circumstances where the gifts that God has given to me can be used for His purposes, I want you to write out a check. Then once a quarter, every 3 months, we’ll meet here for dinner, and you can tell me the stories of how God has used us to minister to people. And as often as needed, I’ll keep refilling the accoung.”

Chip was amazed, and he tells how he took that checkbook home, and the next morning, as he was shaving, he found himself thinking, “How am I going to spend John’s money?” Eventually, opportunities came, and Chip began to use the funds in the account to help needy people and minister to people that God brought along his path. Each quarter, he would get a call from John, who would say, “So, you ready to have that lunch?” and they would get together and Chip would tell John how he had been able to help a runaway girl return home, and how her family had come to know Jesus through the act of love. Or of a family who needed their electric power turned back on, and how they had began coming to church as a result of their generosity. Month after month Chip used the funds and relayed the results to John. This went on for years.

Chip the says this, “An interesting thing began to happen. I realized that I was more careful with John’s money than I was with my own…I carefully considered each payment – I prayed over it, measured the merits of the expense, and was cautious and deliberate, far more than with my own checkbook. WHY? Because it wasn’t my money – it belonged to someone else, and I realized I needed to be careful with the resources of another person…”

Folks, if we can simply remember that the stuff we have isn’t stuff we’ve acquired – it’s stuff we’ve received from God – it will make all the difference. If we can realize that it isn’t really ours – it is God’s – He has simply given us the opportunity to use His resources as we see fit, and that He is one day going to ask for a report on what we did with all He entrusted to us – it would dramatically revolutionize the way we think about money. It would change the direction our wheel turned.

Let me challenge you in the week ahead to do an inventory of your stuff. Sit down at your table with a pad of paper and list out all the resources that you have received from God. Cars, apartment, home, clothing, television, computers, cell phone, toys, retirement plans, jewelry – and then deliberately recognize that it all comes from God and belongs to God. Thank Him for it – thank Him for the amazing opportunity you have to decide how to use His resources – and commit yourself to using those resources according to HIS plan, not the world’s pattern. Then next week, we’ll begin to look at some specific actions steps we can take to put feet to that commitment.

Prayer