Living Life On Purpose - Part VI - Five Principles for Financial Stability

I remind you that we'll have prayer for those of you who need personal prayer up here with the elders right after the service today, as we always do. Okay, your outline should be in your notes. We got a little confused in the first service. I'll tell you why. Your outline should be in your notes. It should say, five principles of financial stability. And if you don't have that outline, then you need to put your hand up and the others will come right down and give you the correct outline. Now, I was listening as you were all week long about the doomsday prediction for this weekend. How many of you heard, you know, six, eight, ten, twelve could be the biggest storm of the year? Come on. How many of you, even up until last night, as of dawn today, the snow would be flying? Well, as a pastor, I realize, you know, folks have a lot of obstacles to overcome anyhow to get to church, and you throw snow into it. And so, I had two messages ready for today, and this is the one I wanted to bring, and by God's grace, when I woke up today, you all made it, and we're going to go ahead with it. It's interesting, isn't it? We can't predict a storm 24 hours in advance, actually. How can we predict Y2K in nine months? You know, I mean, let's just get real, okay? Let's just get real about predictions here. That's why I like the Bible. Now, when it says something's going to happen, it happens, and this is no offense to the weather people, but golly, this was a tough, I mean, this was a clean miss, it appears to me, so far anyhow, and I'm pretty happy about that. So let's look at your notes, and we're going to take this subject today, which I think you're going to find challenging, but also kind of fun as we look at it. How many of you would say, overall, you're living in a pretty satisfying time of life? I mean, if you're normal, and you're in Pittsburgh, and this is typical, there was over, nearly 70% of the people in this city said, I'm pretty happy with life, I like my job, I'm pretty happy with my family life. Did you know that Pittsburgh was voted in 1995 by Money Magazine as the number one place to live in America? There's some factors I think they might have left out in that survey, but, you know, it was there, I mean, it was a real, real number. But you want to know what the highest dissatisfaction is in our city? The highest dissatisfaction is with the amount of income made. That's what most people say, they don't make enough money. 26%, just 26% were satisfied with their financial picture. And have you discovered no matter how much you make, it's not quite enough? I mean, when you were a kid, you said, if I can make $100, boy, daddy, that'd be great. And then it was $1,000, and then $10,000, and then $20,000, and maybe for some of you, you think, if I ever make it to $50,000, what can I do with all that money? And there's people sitting in your row who make $50,000, and they don't have enough money. And you could just put wherever the number is. What is enough? A Gallup poll of 1998 said 64% of couples argue over money, and I want to give testimony there. The number one cause of divorce, according to the same poll, 54%, was disagreement about money. Now, I think there's probably deeper issues, but money is where it ends up focusing. I want to spend at least today, and it looks like I think it's just going to be today, talking about this, because, folks, in this series of living life on purpose, I want to say something very clearly. You cannot move in the purpose of God unless you get this right in your life. And I know many of you do have this right, but a lot of you don't have it right yet. Look in your outline, the top verse. If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? Who's speaking there? A Pharisee? No, I should have put it down there. Those are the words of Jesus in Luke 16. You see, a mark of spiritual maturity is how you handle your money. You may talk about prophecy, and you may talk about spiritual gifts, and you may talk about understanding the Bible, and you may be a servant in a lot of different ways, but if you don't know how to handle money, the Bible says God cannot trust you with true spiritual riches, which has to do with the souls and hearts of other people, with the secrets of the kingdom. That's important. If you want to grow up spiritually, you have to get this right. You don't skip over this. You don't have everything else right, and keep this sort of under your own control, and expect God to bless your life in every respect. It doesn't happen that way. I want to say one more thing. There's always some folks who come and say, well, does this church always talk about money? No, we don't. Are we in financial trouble? No, we're not. We can always use more money to have our vision pressed farther on, but that's not why I'm sharing today. I'm sharing this so that you can be fully grown in your maturity in Christ. That's why I'm sharing it. And the last message, by the way, for those of you who wonder about this, that I gave on this subject was November of 97, so it isn't something we talk about all the time. It's one of those threads that Pastor Dave talked about last week, that God wheezed into your life, and you have to get it. If you choose not to get it or ignore it, you're choosing to limit your spiritual impact. One more thing. This time of sharing is specifically related to the fact that so many of you responded to the Y2K message and said, I'm a little concerned about my finances when it comes to Y2K because I'm not sure. Should I go out and buy gold bullion? How many of you think that's probably the best way to get ready? Sell everything you have and buy a bunch of gold bars and sit at home. Well, I don't think that's probably the best thing to do. Will all my savings accounts be erased? I don't know. If they are, maybe all your bills will be erased too. Wouldn't that be nice? Hey, all my credit cards have been paid off by Y2K. So I want to talk about how to avoid a financial collapse, and I want to take my scripture from the wisest man that ever lived, and he was also the wealthiest. What was his name? Tell your neighbor. Ask your neighbor, is that right? Was it Solomon? It was Solomon, not Bill Gates. Do you think it was Bill Gates? But Solomon put Bill Gates to shame. Do you know he ate off of solid gold plates? Can you imagine sitting down to a meal with a solid gold plate? I could clean that thing up afterwards and shine. Can you imagine that? And he wrote down his wisdom. He had people from other nations, other kings and queens, who would come and sit before him and listen to his wisdom because God made him the wisest and wealthiest person on the earth. And here's what he said in the book of Proverbs. Here's what he said. Five simple principles. Here we go. Number one, keep accurate records. Keep accurate records. This is the principle, I'm going to write on this side, of accounting. How many accountants are here? Any accountants in this service? A few of you? A lot of us don't like to keep records. It's not a thing most of us enjoy doing. But look what Proverbs says. Riches can disappear fast. How many can say that's true? So watch your business interests closely and know the state of your stocks and herds. I mean, that's what he would have said. It was flocks and herds back then because most people were shepherds and farmers. But know what your assets are. This year, especially, with the remote possibility there may be some computer glitches related to Y2K. You want to have paper records of your financial assets and your obligations. You don't want to be playing this loose in 1999. How many of you find that wondering about where your money goes is a topic you get asked about? I've had this conversation with Carol. Maybe you've had it in your home too. I go to Carol at the end of the month and I'll say, Where has all our money gone? Have you ever said that? And of course, when I say that, I'm thinking she's putting it into a mattress somewhere. No, that's not true. She goes in and she pulls out this folder. It looks just like this and she says, Here's where all the money's gone. She keeps very good records. She writes down where every check goes and what every bill's been paid. She says, There's where it's gone. I have to be kind of quiet from then on because she has demonstrated exactly where it is. See, it's not a good sign if you don't know where your money's going. Some of you need to get a hold of that. You need to understand where these checks are heading up to. People say money talks. No, it doesn't. It just slips quietly away. Hardly says a word. Look at Proverbs 23. Get the facts at any price. In other words, do what it takes. You've got to be realistic and know what you're doing with your money. You have to have accurate records because, look, ignorance plus loose credit, free credit, which is out there all over the place, look up in the overhead, equals what? Disaster. And there's a lot of people who are in financial disaster because they didn't know where they were and they just took out a lot of credit and took money from other people. I don't know if my son Jonathan's in this service. Lots of times he comes down from school. But he got something in the mail from a financial agency. It says, Great news for you, Jonathan. You've been pre-approved for $45,000 of credit. The kid's 20 years old. How'd he do that? Think what you could buy with that much money. I'm sure he could. Because of your excellent credit rating and blah, blah, blah. Now obviously they thought they were sending it to me, but they had his name on it. Imagine if a kid got a hold of that much credit. And by the way, do you know they send credit cards to college students all the time? If you're a parent, you know that. Oh, Dad, my credit limit's up. How'd you get a card? Well, they just sent me one. They did? Yeah. There's a lot of credit out there, folks. And if you don't know where your assets are, you could get in trouble real quickly. Let me give you four facts you need to know. This isn't on your island. Jot them down real quickly. Four things you need to know at all times. Number one, you need to know what I own. That's the inventory of your assets. Number two, what I owe. Come on, here we go. Number three, what I earn. And finally, where it goes. If you know those four things at all times, you have a strong likelihood that you will be in control of your financial picture. Well, you say, I don't have time to do that. That would take me a long time. How much time do you have to worry about this stuff? Do you have enough time to have multiple jobs to kind of cover all of your bases to keep yourself alive financially? A lot of people choose the opposite. Instead of knowing what they have, they choose to worry about it and choose to kind of keep a lot of things going in order to keep up with what they don't know is going on in their life. Riches can disappear fast, so watch them closely. Number one. Number two, plan your spending. Plan your spending. This is the principle of budgeting. Write budgeting to the right of that. So there's first of all accounting, then budgeting. How many of you like to set up a budget? I don't particularly like to do that, but some people do. But you know what? It's important that you have financial goals and stick with them. Don't just drift through 1999. If you're prone to be one of these people who just sort of hopes that things all work out at the end, you should start now to get a budget and keep to it. Don't go from week to week, month to month, not knowing if you're going to make it or not. Because what you'll end up doing... Look. If you plan carefully, you will have plenty. Look. Financial freedom is not based on how much you earn. It's based on how you spend it. I'm going to say that again. Financial freedom is not based on how much you earn. It's based on how you spend what you do earn. You can make three times as much in 1999 as you did in 1998 and still have a problem if you spend it all. Jay, if I made three times, I'd have more than enough. You know what you'd do? You'd probably spend more to the point where you'd be behind again. Why is that? Because spending is a habit. Spending is a habit that a lot of us get into. Freedom comes not from making more, but by spending less. And everything in us wants to spend more. How many of you... Just be honest. How many of you say, you know what? Given spend versus save, I'd rather spend. The average American spends five hours a week shopping. Shopping related activities. Stores, internet, catalogs. I mean... And it says that the more educated you are, the more you like to shop. Do you think that's true? How many spouses are getting the elbow right now? Honey, I'm going to the University of Kaufman's right now. I'm heading down there. I'm going to get my degree at the mall and fill myself with a little more knowledge of how to do commerce. Look what the outline says. If you act too quickly, you will never have enough. Now this isn't... Listen, this is the Bible. If you act... What is it when you act too quickly and buy something? What's that called? Impulse buying. That's right. That's impulse buying. The people in the front row are helping me out. Thank you so much for being there. You know, we're just kind of lured into the trap. We see it. We taste it. We feel it. We get our hands on it. And we want it. And we buy it. How many would say, I, at one time in my life, bought something I shouldn't have and when I got home, I really was sorry about it. I mean, how am I going to pay for this now? How am I going to take care of it? How am I going to insure it? Who's going to maintain it? When we buy impulsively, we never... Look at it. We never have enough. And advertising plays on this thing. Shopping, for some people, is an addiction. I mean, it is. It's not unlike gambling. It is so easy to shop. Isn't it anymore? The internet is going to become shopping in an instant. You can just pick out whatever you want, right on the internet, and have it shipped right to you. Well, it's almost happening now with QVC and the Home Shopping Network. I mean, don't put your hand up, but if I walked into your home this afternoon, what you'd have on there isn't like, you know, the NCAAs or the movie. You'd have on there QVC, the Home Shopping Network. Huh? And you'd have this great... Oh, guess what? Coming up is the next Onyx Earrings. Honey, I've never had Onyx Earrings. Oh, here's the Marie Osmond collectible doll thing that's coming on. Oh, and here's the Chinese doily set. I've always wanted that Chinese doily set. You know, there's only 1,400 left. If we act now, we can buy it on three FlexPays of $74.95. I really need that. And it just rolls in front of you, and they make it so enticing, don't they? And there's one more enticement to buy impulsively. It's a one-word enticement. It's almost irresistible. When you hear it, you're kind of pulled into your car in this mysterious way, and your car goes to the mall, because this word draws you in with its irresistibility and its addictive, exciting qualities. It's a word you may have heard. It's a word... Oh, you know this word, don't you? The power of the sale. Oh, honey, there's a sale going on. I've got to get down to the sale. So you can save money. Ever say that? Huh? I'm going to go to the sale so I can save money. So I'll buy a $100 sport coat for $50. Who cares if it's lavender? I'll never wear it. I saved $50. No, you didn't. You spent $50. Dummy. Now, how many of us know, oh, but if I miss the sale, I won't be able to buy it later. I couldn't afford it. And they play on that. And so many of us fall into that trap. Look at Proverbs 21.20. Here's the whole sermon in a verse. Stupid people spend their money as fast as they can get it. You can underline that. That's right in the Bible, in the Good News Version. That's God's IQ test. You're not stupid people. So, you know, plan a budget. Now, there are people out there who just as soon as you have money in the bank, they go, oh, I've got to figure out a way to spend it. There are some people who are literally called shopaholics. Did you know that? Did you know there are support groups for people who have a shopping addiction? I looked up two of them on the internet. One's called Debtor's Anonymous and the other one's Shopper Stoppers to help you break your impulse buying habits. I heard of one woman who had such a problem with this, especially related to the television network things, that she throws her credit cards in a bowl of water and put them in the freezer. So it would take her long enough, you know, when she had the impulse to buy, she'd have to thaw them out and by the time, hopefully, you know, to get the numbers off the cards, she'd have to thaw them out and that impulse would pass. One guy said, that's not enough. I buried my wife's in the cement in the new addition of our home because I wasn't about to give that any chance at all. Now, how many of you are just thinking right now, oh, I know what I'd do. If I still wanted, I'd use the microwave. I'd get my credit cards out and put them in the microwave and thaw them out of the water and then I could have, you know, in three minutes, I could know exactly, right? Well, you're sick. If you just thought that, you need to hear this, okay? See, you need that card so badly and you're not going to let anyone wrench it from your hands. How do you spell relief from this? B-U-D-G-E-T. Get a budget. Plan your spending. Tell your money where you want it to go rather than wondering where it went because budgets can control the sale monster and all these other enticements to spend money that you really don't have. And by the way, I am being somewhat humorous about this, but, you know, it's a serious issue and we're going to have a very serious little seminar coming up on March the 24th, one evening, a personal budgeting seminar. One of our financial planners here in the church is not about selling you any, you know, any portfolios. It's just about helping you plan a personal budget. Whether you're just starting out, maybe you're a student, maybe you're, you know, 70 years old and you just want to get this right, March 24th doesn't cost anything. I'll be right here at North Way on a week from Wednesday. So, number three. Number one is keep back your records. Two, plan your spending. Number three, save for the future. The wise man saves for the future, Proverbs 21, 20 says. There have never been so many ways to save as we have right now. IRAs, 401Ks, you know, automatic withdrawals, in-to-your-saving, all these kinds of things, but we've never saved less as a people. Do you know that? What percent do you think Americans save? Japanese save 25%. Average Europeans save 17%. We save 5%. That's the average savings rate in this country. Why? Because we're spending it all. We're spending it as fast as we can. We've got to keep up with our friends. We've got to, you know, kind of stay in the flow of our little social network there, even though they just refinanced to stay there themselves. That's kind of the way it works for most people. Look at Proverbs 13, 11. It says, Don't get involved in get-rich-quick schemes. Money that comes easily disappears quickly. Money that is gathered little by little will grow. It is so easy to think, Well, I'll find some quick way to save. And what do people think about when they think of quick ways to get rich? Oh, yeah, let's go do the lottery. Now, that's a smart thing to do. Here's your money you earned, and you buy lottery tickets. I mean, when you're going to buy a quart of milk, and you wait behind 14 people buying lottery tickets, when the odds of winning that lottery, you're four times more likely to be hit by lightning than win the lottery. And there's all kinds of those things out there. There's subtle ones too. I got one in the mail. How many of you get these kind of pyramid scheme things with your name on it? Send this to six of your friends, and put a dollar in it, and da-da-da-da-da-da, and you'll get, here's one person that got $127,285, and vowed that if I received any money, I'd give 10% to my church. You see, they even put that little hook in there. You know what you should do with these things when you get them? File them. Yeah, in the circuit of art. God didn't intend for us to be playing games to try to get wealthy. Proverbs says, Learn from the end. Put aside a little bit at a time. Let it accumulate. Intelligent financial planning will do you very well in the culture in which we live. You know, most baby boomers, most people in their late 30s and 40s and early 50s are spending so much money, we're going to have very little to retire on, less than our parents. Why? Because we're spending it. We're trying to keep up. We think we're, you know, we're pretty good guys, so we ought to have this, and we ought to have that, just like this person does it. And you know what? We are missing the simple truth of learning to save according to God's plan. We don't know what delayed gratification is all about. Number four, the fourth principle. The first one is the principle of accounting. The second one is the principle of budgeting. The third, saving. The fourth is tithing. Return 10% to the Lord. Now, if you've been here at North Way any length of time, you know this is a principle that we have taught for many, many years. Let me just recap it for you. A tithe in the Bible, the Hebrew word for tithe is 10%. You don't tithe 2% or 20%. You tithe 10%. And God established the tithe even before the Old Testament law. Way back in the book of Genesis, He talked about the tithe being established. The tithe is the way that we demonstrate to God that we believe He's the owner of everything we have, and He just entrusts us with a little. Look at your outline. Bring to my storehouse a full tenth of what you earn. Well, what is the storehouse? Is that the missions that I like to support, or is that the people that I like on television? No. The storehouse, almost every biblical scholar will tell you, is the place where you find your regular spiritual feeding. The place where you go to be fed and nourished, so that the monies can be distributed for the care and feeding of the flock. It's the local church in the New Testament. And someone's got to be thinking, well, you know what? I get hung up on that, Jay, because I think tithing was Old Testament, and I live under the New Testament law, or grace, not the law of the Old Testament. Let me just point you to one scripture in the New Testament from the lips of Jesus. If you'll put that up, please, Karen. Thank you. This is Jesus speaking. Here's what He says about tithing. For you are careful to tithe even a tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but you should not leave undone the more important things. Now, leave that up there. Who said that? When was He alive? New Testament times, right? He is affirming the principle of tithing, but don't leave undone the more important things. So again, the tithe is the beginning point for the New Testament believer. It's not some law that you just cast off. Jesus endorsed the principle. Why 10%? I don't know. God was feeling really generous. He could have said 50%. I want you to give 50%. Then what would you say? Well, no way. No way. I'm not doing it. Would you do that? No, because you realize that everything you have comes from God. Let me just share with you. This isn't on your outline, but you might want to jot it down. Three reasons why I believe tithing releases you to grow in the Lord. Number one, it's past, present, and future. About your past, it's a way of expressing gratitude for all that God has done in your life. When you regularly give your tithe to the Lord, you are saying with your resources, God, thank you for my health. Thank you for the ability to make money. Thank you for my family. Thank you for my friends. Thank you for my church. Thank you for my purpose in life. And friends, you can say to God, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, but nothing says thank you like your giving. And when it comes to thanking God, talk is cheap. Demonstrate it with your giving. In the present realm, tithing is a statement that God is number one in your life. You can say, oh yes, He is Lord, but if you're not regularly giving to God, He's not really Lord. You're in control. We spend so much of our life thinking about money, earning money, talking about money, investing money, handling money, all this with money. God says, I want to be Lord of your money, too. And third, it's a future thing. It's a statement of your confidence that God will supply for you in the future. Look what he says here. Test me in this, says the Lord, and see if I won't open the windows of heaven for you and pour out all the blessings you need. This is the only place in the Bible where God says, hey, you can put me to the test on this one. You can test me on this one. I'll give you a 60 or a 90 day guarantee on this one. And I want to just say to you, with that being so clear, what's your excuse? I mean, what do you say back to God? Well, you know what? I mean, I really want to, but I'm just not ready yet. Well, why not? The Lord says, I will take care of you. Test me. Some people have said to me, well, Jay, I owe other people money. I feel bad. Should I write a check to God when I owe other people money? And I've wrestled with this, because they say, I really shouldn't be in debt to other people. And that's true. We shouldn't be. But Carol and I talked about this, because we owe some other people money too. But I would, and here's my very thoughtful response to you. I believe it is more biblically accurate to be indebted to others and write with God than be indebted to God and write with others. I believe if you get right with God, He'll make you right with others. Try it. Put Him to the test. When should I give my tithe? Well, next verse, on every Lord's Day, you should put aside something from what you've earned during the week and use it for this offering. The amount depends on how much the Lord's helped you earn. 10% of whatever it is that you've earned. And I want to just recommend that every week, I think there's a healthy practice when weekly, as the offering is taken, you participate. Right now, just let me stop. I've said this probably for the last 10 years, and yet somehow this is a hang-up for some people. Well, when does it matter? It isn't a law. I'm just saying it's in the Bible that once a week, it's a good practice to do it. I'm recommending strongly that you revisit that if you're not doing it that way. Because it helps you on a weekly basis to say, Lord, thank you that this week you supplied our needs as a family or as an individual once again. It's an awesome thing. What should it be? It should be the first part. Look at the last verse. Of all your income, the first part. If you wait till the end of the month to write your tithe check, guess what? It won't be there. You won't get it done. Now, I can't tell you it wouldn't be nice sometimes to make it the last check. But you know what? I've always found that God has ways of compensating, ways of making it up, ways of providing. And if you put the Lord first in anything, He will honor it. If you want your family life to go well, put God first. If you want your career to go well, put God first. If you want your schedule and time to go well, put God first. And if you want your finances to go well, put God first. It's a principle. I want you to hear from a couple if you'll come up right now. I want you to welcome a very courageous couple to talk to you about their financial journey and how they learned to trust God. Welcome Kevin and Judy Gribbon as they come. Let's give them a hand as they come up. Thanks so much for staying. And I want to underscore, you know, studies have proven that people are least comfortable talking about their financial situation in any other part of their lives, even their sexuality. So for you guys to share your testimony here is an honor and we thank you for it. And thanks for staying for those services too. Go ahead. Good morning. In the fall of 1994, as North Way Christian Community was opening the doors of this facility, a friend invited us to attend church here one Sunday. Judy wanted to come and I was pretty reluctant. But I respected the person who invited us and my wife, so I decided to attend. At that time, Judy was marching along her Christian walk and I think stagnant would be the correct word for my spiritual state. I knew about God. I believed he sent his son Jesus to die for us. I was grateful and thankful to him for all the good things in my life, but I hadn't fully accepted the Holy Spirit into my heart. Being obedient to God's word only happened when it fit into my current lifestyle. I thought I was a good person. At this time, we had been living here in Pine Township in a home that we were renting and making payments toward purchasing. This home belonged to Judy's aunt and uncle, who are now spending much of their time living in Florida. This home was about 50 years old, needing some updating, but on a beautiful lot and we thought we were here for a long time to come. We continued to attend North Way and in February 1995, one of Pastor Jay's messages, I invited the Lord into my heart and mind. We then decided that this would be the church that we wanted to belong to and be a part of. That spring, Judy and I were having a conversation and Judy said, I think we should begin to tie it to the church. My reply was rather flippantly, tie to what? I knew after paying our bills and trying to save that there wasn't much left over. Tithing was something that we weren't doing and hadn't done before. Sure, we had given to our church and some charitable organizations in the past. We had even started giving more than our usual amount when we started attending North Way because we felt we were benefiting from being here, but never on a weekly or monthly basis and never in amounts that would challenge our family budget to this degree. After some dialogue, some weeks of silence on the subject, and much prayer and thought, we both realized that if we were going to do this, that either Judy would have to go back to work or we would have to break our financial arrangements with Judy's aunt and uncle and move from the home we had grown to love and in which we had hoped to raise our family and grow old in. Neither one of these options sounded very appealing to us. Judy's conviction to tithe did become our conviction, though. Meanwhile, our desire to tithe coincided with my desire to consider alternative career paths and the possibility of having to go back to school to accomplish this. We knew our family budget was going to need some serious revamping, and because we both felt strongly that we wanted Judy to be at home with our sons, moving then became our only option. We began to tithe, and soon after, in the summer of 1995, we moved from our home in Pine Township to a town home in Cranberry Township where we would financially and personally regroup. We were heartbroken to move, but had peace in knowing that we had taken one more step toward our obedience to God and toward supporting our church and its ministers. Fortunately, Judy's aunt and uncle were uncertain about their desire to live in Florida year-round and decided they would move back to their home. I would be lying if I stood here and told you that my pride and ego as a providing father and husband were not slightly damaged. Our time in Cranberry was spent making new friends, participating in everyday life, reprioritizing, and trying to figure out God's plan for us. Quite honestly, this was a time of very little financial worry for us. We continued to grow spiritually and participated in a cell group with some great people. We looked at new homes, we looked at old homes, we looked in Greensburg and in the South Hills where we both have family, but we spent most of our time looking here in the North Hills. We both knew that we wanted to continue being part of the North Way family and to raise our family among the friends that we had made over the past three years. The Lord continued to provide for us the things and people that he knew we needed in our lives throughout this period, blessing my work, our fa