Salary Cap Concerns

Planning Our Spending

Proverbs 21:5

In my personal library at I have a book entitled, “Lend Me Your Ears, Great Speeches from History.” It contains great orations from Roman times to Collin Powell. There are speeches of social conviction against slavery or for a woman’s right to vote. There are speeches eulogizing a fallen leader. Some are commencement addresses, urging young graduates to press forward and take civilization to new heights. Some are given in defense of actions taken, some are farewell addresses at a retirement or resignation. All are extraordinary.

But in this collection of great speeches, I did not find one speech on the budget. Certainly presidents and leaders have made speeches on the national budget countless times in our history, but we don’t consider them memorable. This in spite of the fact that the most consistent issue that impacts a leader’s popularity is the economy. The fact is we want our leaders to fix the economic situation; we just don’t want them to talk about it! We want our speeches to be inspiring! And Patriotic! Not everyday and practical.

It is with sober thought in mind that I come to you this morning to talk about your economy. Great, memorable sermons may be all “fire and brimstone” and be compelling to reach for lofty, spiritual goals – but messages like the series we’re doing these days are perhaps a little too mundane to be inspiring – but I believe that the amazing part about the Bible is that it is practical – it addresses the everyday issues of life – it is not all “grandiose” and “fire and brimstone.” The Word of God addresses real life – and it is in those everyday, household passages that we find some of the most important lessons of all. Husband and wife harmony; obedient, well-raised children; loving, caring communities; the value of every person.

We also presented some amazing facts about the Bible and money – that one out of every 6 verses in the biographies of Jesus written by Matthew, Mark and Luke deal with money – 1 out of every 6! Additionally, HALF of Jesus parables were about money and possessions, and He talked more about money than about heaven and hell COMBINED!

We presented last week what I’m calling the Financial Wheel – a diagram that shows the primary activities that we do with our money. We Acquire, Enjoy, Plan, Pay, Give and Save – in varying amounts, to be sure, but we all do these six activities to some degree. I pointed out last week that in our culture, we tend to go around this wheel in reverse, we Get, then we enjoy, then we pay, then we save, then we give and then, when there’s inevitably more month than money, we promise ourselves that we will plan and do better next month.

Not surprisingly, God’s plan is to go around the wheel in the opposite direction. Receive, Plan, Give, Save, Pay, Enjoy.

First we realize that we don’t Acquire anything – we receive everything we have from God – it is all ultimately His, and He has given us everything we have as a trust – and our responsibility is to use those resources in a way that pleases Him – because one day, we will be asked to give an account for our faithfulness with His resources.

Today, we look at the second portion of the Wheel – Planning. Like the first part of the wheel, this second portion has less to do with the assets we have, and more about the attitude we have.

You might be surprised to learn that the nearly 2400 verses in the Bible that talk about working, earning, spending, saving, giving and enjoying money do not all talk about “giving more to your church,” and “money is evil” and “if you were just less of a sinner, God would make you rich!” 

Most of the teaching in the Bible about money is not about money so much as it is about our attitude about money! In fact, The Bible does NOT say that “money is the root of all evil.” It doesn’t! It says, “The LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all sorts of evil.” It’s our attitude about money that God is interested in. And it is our thinking and attitudes about money that are going to be the key to handling our money in a way that is wise and godly.

Ask 100 people their number one money problem, and all 100 of them will say, “I don’t have enough of it.” Larry Burkett was a Christian financial expert who literally wrote the book on Christian financial concepts. He makes this observation in one of them,

I’ve counseled with people who made $200,000 a year, others who made $100,000, and others who made $20,000. Most of them all say the same thing: They didn’t make enough money. If the income of the people with $20,000 had suddenly been raised to $100,000, they would have thought they were wealthy, but if they didn’t change their habits, within a couple of years they would again be spending it all.[i]

Do you find yourself grimly agreeing with that statement? I do. No matter how much we make, we find a way to not only spend it all – we figure out how to spend more than we make! Am I right? You know I am! The truth is that for most of us, money is like the wheel in a cage, we run faster and faster, make more and more, but we get nowhere – in fact, we fall farther behind – why? Because we’re going around the wheel the wrong way!

So how do we end this cycle – how do we put an end to the insanity of growing debt that is outpacing our income?

It’s the “B” word. Yup – a Budget. We need a plan that will bring our attitudes and actions into line with reality. 

Now, many of us would say, “I’ve tried that budget thing before, and it doesn’t work for me.” Or, “I don’t make enough money to have a budget.” Or, “I don’t have enough money after I pay my bills to even use a budget.”

The truth is, every one of us has a budget. A budget is just a plan, and we all have a plan that we follow week after week, month after month. For some of us, it means we spend until we run out of money. When the money’s gone, we stop. We promise ourselves that we won’t overspend, but we spend every penny. But then the car breaks down, and we don’t have anything saved, so we use credit cards or quickie loan places telling ourselves that there was nothing we could do about it – we couldn’t avoid it.

Others of us have a budget that spends all we have, and uses credit regularly to make up the difference between what we want to spend and what we have. We know it’s not smart, but we’ve convinced ourselves that we simply don’t make enough money to get along any other way. Still others buy whatever they want, and they make enough to cover their expenses, but they realize with increasing concern that they aren’t saving like they should, and they can’t believe that they earn so much, but never seem to have enough.

We all have a plan – it’s just that most of our plans are not very good ones. What we need to do is come up with a plan that is reasonable, attainable and Biblical. A budget is a simple concept: It’s a plan to divide up our available income into the common categories of spending. 

Budgeting is a biblical concept. The bible tells us in Proverbs 27:23,

23 Be diligent to know the state of your flocks, And attend to your herds.

This is an admonition to be aware of our financial resources. When Solomon wrote this almost everybody had their assets tied up in flocks. They were shepherds and ranchers, so he’s saying know where your assets are. Know the state of your flocks. He’s saying, under the inspiration of God, “Be diligent – keep track of your assets. Know where your money is. Know where it’s going.”

You’ve got to be aware of how you use your money. Have you ever said, “I just don't know where it all goes. It comes in, and it’s gone!” If you’re saying that, that should be a warning light – a great big red warning light that says you need a plan. People say, “Money talks.” But it doesn’t. It doesn’t talk; it just quietly slips away. And it doesn’t leave any forwarding address. And if you don’t keep track of it you’re going to get to the end of the month asking, “Where did it all go? I have no idea where it went.” A friend of mine just recently started tracking every penny he spends. He got a ledger, saved his receipts, and entered every cup of coffee, every newspaper, every piece of gum. He missed a couple of days, and decided to try to catch up…in just that few days, $200 disappeared! He could not figure it out! He knew he had bought a tank of gas, a tried to account for the $200 – but he couldn’t. When I was talking to him about it, I said, “You know the really scary part? Before you started doing this exercise, that money would have disappeared and you wouldn’t have even known it was gone!” 

That’s the way it is for most of us – we get it, we write out a few checks to pay a few bills, we buy groceries, we go out to eat, we give the kids money for gas, and, BOOM, it’s all gone, and we’re left wondering what happened. There’s a name in the Bible for people who live like that – it’s found in Proverbs 21:20 – “…the foolish man spends whatever he gets…”

 
So how do I make a budget that will help me end this craziness? Well, this morning we’re not going to be able to lay out all the details – but I encourage you to follow a few steps that I’ll outline in a few minutes to get started, and over the next few weeks, as we continue this series, we’ll build on it. Let’s be honest, it’s taken years for us to learn the bad habits we have, and to get into the mess we’re in – it’s not going to be fixed in one Sunday morning message! But we can, with prayerful consideration and with biblical attitudes, begin to set our financial wheels spinning in the right direction. 

First and foremost – the commitment. A budget is a plan to live on what we make. Period. We must commit that we will live on no more than we make in any given period – weekly, monthly and annually. If that is a hard commitment for you to make, then you need to work on it. There’s really no sense going any further if we can’t determine to spend no more than we make. If we get into the first week of the budget, and the car breaks down, we have to figure out a way to adjust the rest of our budget to get it fixed or replaced with what we have available – that may mean sacrifices in groceries, eating out, entertainment; it may mean getting rid of cable or internet service, unplugging the air conditioner, or it may mean riding a bike instead of buying gas. It may mean getting rid of $300 a month car payments and buying a cheep car that I can pay cash for…I can’t tell you what it’s going to take for you – but you must make this commitment first – “I will live on no more than I make, period.”

The Bible says, “The borrower is a servant to the lender.” If we are in debt, we are in slavery. And every time we use credit, or borrow money to get something we can’t afford, we add another link to the chain of slavery. 

Secondly, begin to gather the raw data you will need. Here are four things we all need to know: 

Ø First I need to know “What I own.” That’s your assets. You need to make an inventory, a list of all the things you own. Remember Solomon’s command, “Be diligent to know the state of your flocks.” You need to know exactly what God has placed in your care – He has given you the responsibility to care for and manage those things. Last week I asked you to begin this first step. If you haven’t done it yet, get started!

Ø Second, I need to know “What I owe.” That’s your liabilities, your debts. Get them all out on the table and figure out how much in debt you really are. The Bible says, “The wicked borrow and do not repay.” (Prov 37:21) We are called to be righteous, which means we are going to pay our debts.

Ø Third I need to know, “What I earn.” It’s amazing how many people don’t even know exactly what they earn. Get the information – your gross earnings

Lastly, begin to determine, “Where it’s going to go.” Not “Where did it go? But Where is it going to go?” Many of us can look over our checking statements and see where a lot of our money has been going – but the idea of a budget is not to look back to where it went, but to look to the future and determine where it’s going to go. A budget is simply planned spending. A budget is telling your money where you want it to go rather than wondering where it went. If you don’t do that, it’s just going to go all over the place. 

If you don't get anything else, get what I say right now. Financial freedom is not determined by how much you make. It is determined by how you spend it. If you don’t have a plan, your yearning will always exceed your earnings and you’re always going to be in debt. No matter how much money we make, our expenses always rise with income. What we need to do is write it down and get a plan. 

Planning and budgeting are Biblical concepts. Proverbs 21:5, in the New Living Translation, says, “Careful planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” In I Corinthians chapter 16, verse 2, Paul tells the Christians there that “on the first day of the week each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up so that when I come no collections will have to be made.” A lot of people use that verse to talk about giving to the church – and that’s what it is about – but there’s an underlying principle there – systematic, regular laying aside of specific funds, based on income, for a designated purpose, so that later there is no scurrying around to find the needed money.

So let’s bring this down to practical stuff we can do this week. First, you need to get that commitment level down. You, and if you’re married, you and your spouse, need to sit down, and agree that you are going to do this. Men and women, this is one of those “better or worse” moments – this can make or break your marriage – it will take steely determination; patience and accountability; understanding and grace. It will take prayer and faith to figure out how to make it work – but it all begins with that commitment to live on no more than we make. Determine to memorize Proverbs 21:5 – “Careful planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” 

Second, do that inventory of what God has given you, if you didn’t do it last week. See just how much God has placed at your disposal and recognize that it’s all His, and you have a responsibility to use it for His glory, and He will ask you to report on how you did one day.

Third, begin to record every penny you spend. Save every receipt, and record it at the end of the day, or get a little notebook and write down every transaction. Just track it for now – this step alone will cause you to bring a lot of your spending into line! It begins to eliminate the “thoughtless spending” we all do. We’ll talk in future weeks about what to do with that spending record.

Then, draw up a crude budget. It doesn’t have to look like a spread sheet from Yale Business College to be effective – a legal pad will do. There’s a sample included in your programs that can help you get started. The key is this – you can’t spend any more than you make – if your spending exceeds your income, then you have to commit to changing that spending – whatever it takes. Your budget is not going to work right away – problems will arise, things will change. The only way your budget will work is over the long term. If you will come up with a plan, and stick to the plan, within a year you will find that you’ll have the money to reach the goals you’ve set.

Lastly, let me remind you that in October, after we’ve finished this series on Sunday mornings, we’re going to offer a small group that will give us individual attention to these concepts. Each household will get a workbook, forms, resources, counsel and support to implement everything we’re talking about during these weeks. Start doing these things now, and you’ll be ahead of the game when those studies begin.

In closing, let me share with you two final verses of Scripture that I believe outline how God intends our financial lives to be lived. They are both found in I Timothy, chapter 6. In verses 6-8, Paul says,

But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out or it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

And then in verse 17, Paul writes,

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

Now there are two attitudes about money that I’ll bet you did not think the Bible would promote in relationship to money – contentment and enjoyment. Did you know that God wants you to be content – happy, at peace with your money – and that He provides it for us to enjoy?  And not only does He want us content with and enjoying our money, He provides a wise way to get to that place - it starts with recognizing that it all comes from and belongs to Him, and it involves planning how we are going to best spend His money His way.  There's much more to God's way of handling our finances, and I hope you will be here as we continue this study next week.