Sounds Like A Plan II, For Your Finances

I'd like to invite you to take your outline out of your North Way notes this morning, and we're gonna get into the message and have sort of a two-parter today, two parts of this message. I'm on you, I wrestled with this, and presenting this way, and I feel this is specifically how God wants to have us go forward. Oh yeah, these forget-the-movers, ignore them, they're really not. We're gonna make this real quick and get this out of the way. And if you have your Bible while they're doing that, you can also turn to 2 Corinthians, chapter eight. Be a helpful place of reference alongside of the outline that we provide for you. And listen, we never mean for the outline to replace your Bible. Someone said that a few weeks ago. Really, it was kind of a statement. I didn't think it really made a lot of sense. Of course, the Bible is necessary for everyone, but not everyone has a Bible, number one, and not everyone carries it with them, even though you might wanna make that a practice. If you don't, we at least provide you with the notes, and you can follow along and then discuss it later. That's the purpose of providing it for you. I wanna begin by reading you a quote from the Prince of Preachers, he was called. Charles Haddon Spurgeon lived in London, England, and this is from 1868, almost 140 years ago. As he climbed the incredible staircase up through this huge pulpit at the Cosmopolitan Tabernacle in London, England, here's what he said. You can read along up there. I'm most anxious, dear friends, to make full proof of my ministry, and in this one respect especially, that I may address you upon all parts of God's word and not be found guilty of confining myself to one set of topics. For certainly this, although it might be pleasant, would not be profitable to you. I would, if I had my choice, constantly preach upon the doctrine of God's everlasting and unchanging love. I should delight to dilate each Sabbath day, and indeed in every sermon, upon the simple doctrine of the justification of the sinner in the sight of God by faith in Jesus Christ. But there are other things in Scripture besides these. All things in Scripture are not placed there for our comfort, all are not promises. All are not words of cheer for feeble minds or disconsolate spirits. There are other words besides those of consolation, words of direction, words of precept. If we should shun these, if we never retreated into the course of our ministry at all, some solemn disease might break out among the church because a part of the food convenient for them has been withheld. You will see, and this is his point, you will see that my simple object is to bring out the teaching of the word to you, not with any ulterior purpose, but purely to promote that result which God himself may intend to work by the words before us. Words, remember, of undoubted inspiration and therefore as worthy of all acceptation as any other sentence from the divine mouth. Now that language is a little bit stressed for us 140 years later, but I think the point is very clear. That Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, which I am certainly not, found it difficult to speak to his congregation about the subject that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is how to be a good steward of your resources. In fact, pastors and preachers and teachers throughout the centuries would tell you, this is a tough subject, it always is. And there's three primary reasons. One of them is it has always been one of the greatest strongholds of resistance in people's hearts. That's why 1 Timothy 6, Paul writes and says that the love of money is the what? The root of all evil. Not money, but the love of it is the root of all evil. That's how profound this can be in the hearts of people. Another reason why it's difficult is because people question the motive of the one that's giving the message. Now what does he stand to benefit from what's being taught? Will the money end up in his pocket somehow? And the third is, unfortunately, there are so many wacky things that are done in the name of God to get money from people. And you've all seen them. All these kinds of gimmicks and, you know, give this and get that kind of promotional ideas and so. I'd like to begin today's message by sharing with you that in all three of these areas, the strongholds of the heart, the motivation of the speaker, and the methodology that's being employed. On all three of them, I want you to know, we are on very secure ground as a church. And I wanna talk about each one for just a moment. Number one, I don't address a congregation who is poised to resist what I'm gonna say. I don't believe that. In fact, most of you, I don't know about every one of you, but most of you want to know what God has to say about this. You want to know God's word in this subject. Now whether or not, once you know it, you will obey it, that's between you and God. But this isn't a congregation that's saying, we don't wanna hear the tough things, just tell us the good things. Number two, I can assure you that my motivation has nothing to do with my own benefit. In fact, I'm submitted to several groups of people who carefully study the facts regarding all compensations of our pastoral team members. We use three national studies, independent authorities, and that all of your pastoral team is compensated at or below the national averages. And so this is something we watch carefully. Not that we don't wanna bless our pastoral team, we do. But it's nothing, none of our income will be based on how you respond to any specific message, I can promise you that. And third, in terms of methodology, we're never gonna use gimmicks. I'm never gonna say, all right, drop the blinds and lock the doors, we're not leaving until we get X number of dollars. And I'm not gonna get some kind of big, fancy wig and put it on and start screaming and calling on the name of Jesus to bring forth money. I mean, I'm not gonna do that. That's just not who we are, we never have been that. So I'm very much at peace, because I believe we have 19 years of track record on this. But I have to say, I also believe there's a challenge in front of us. And here's why, this subject has some of you by the throat. And you really need to hear what I'm gonna share today. Because if you don't, you're gonna stay stuck. And I'm gonna ask you all to unbend your arms and take out your notes and listen. Because if you don't, you're just gonna come back around to this, you'll be stuck here. Take a look at your outline and flip it over. And look at the last scripture, I forgot to do this first service. Look at the very, here's the ending. This is like reading a novel, I'm gonna tell you the very last thing. Jesus said this, if you have not been trustworthy and handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? So just get this very clear, church. If you don't get this right, don't expect God to give you spiritual revelation and insight and blessing and authority and all kinds. You won't get it. This is foundational to moving into the things of God. But I know this is important for our church family for a number of reasons. Number one, statistically, this is a problem. Did you know that 64% of couples argue over finances on a monthly basis? Don't put your hand up, but how many of you had an argument this week as a couple over finances? You can smile if you did. Right over here, big one, had a big one. Oh, back there, okay. Probably a lot of us had at least an exchange, animated exchange of some kind, all right? I will tell you from our pastoral team that money and disagreement about it is deeply involved in most of the marital counseling that we do. I won't say it's the root issue, but it's deeply, deeply involved. In fact, we're thinking about changing the vows in our marriage ceremony from death do us part to debt do us part to have more impact. Did you know this, that there were more personal bankruptcies declared in 1998 than people who graduated from college? Did you know that? Check the statistic. I mean, with all the prosperity, people still get this upside down. What do you think the average credit card debt is in America? The average family, average household, just whisper to someone what you think it is. Whisper to someone. Average household credit card debt today. Okay, if you whispered $7,500, you're right. That's average debt, credit card debt. Some people have been real good about this. Honey, we're only at five. And you know, we've got a lot of room, we can move here. That's the average debt. And Jesus spoke more about money than any other particular subject in the gospels. Now that's a fact. Why did he do that? Because he knew what a stronghold it was. Also, I know I'm facing a challenge today because many have privately conceded to me that this is the toughest area for them to surrender to the Lord. The fear of not having enough, not providing for their family. The fear of being misled or tricked. Confusion about who should get what, who gets paid first, you know. We pay the Lord or we pay our creditors, those kinds of things. And many people say to me, I so often feel like I just concede to pressure rather than being led by conviction. And then there are a significant number of people who have spent themselves into serious difficulty. I mentioned credit card debt. I was astonished this week. I received in the mail, this came this week from a major bank whose name I won't mention just in case they would get the tape and file suit. You would recognize the bank, a major bank. They wanted to inform me as one of their credit card holders, and I'll tell you, seem to be former credit card holders, that their annual percentage rate on all balances may go up to 14.99% plus the prime, which would make it today, what, 24%, 24%. So take that average household balance of $7,500 on a credit card, folks. And let's just say that after today's message, you decide, I want to get out of debt. And you say, I'm going to pay off that credit card. I'm going to pay the average monthly balance. And let's just say your credit card interest is average, which is 18%. I want you to whisper to someone, how long do you think it'll take the person paying the average monthly balance off to pay that entire $7,500 off? How long do you think it'll take? Whisper to someone and tell them. How long do you think it'll take them? And if they never missed a month, they paid it off. Say, whisper to someone. All right, if in the back row, you said it'd take them about 15 years to pay off that credit card, you'd be halfway there. Take 30 years and two months paying off the average minimum balance on a $7,500 debt. Imagine that. And you would have paid, by the way, $23,000 over those 30 years on your $7,500 credit card balance. Astonishing, isn't it? By the way, there's one other reason why this is a challenge. And I feel motivated to do it. Because a number of you said to me, you know, Pastor, I wish that I had more to give to the things of God. I get stirred when I hear testimonies. I have times that I wish I could be more a part of what's going on in the mission field. Doing things to help those who are in need. The hungry, the homeless, the people that, you have testimonies up here that have different things. Or SOAR, the campus and so on. But I don't have any margin in my finances so I can't do anything. And people just resolve that, well, I just can't do anything. And you know what? I want you to know that's not God's best for your life. That's not his plan. And so with that as a backdrop, I'm really excited. I think when we leave today, you're gonna say, I'm encouraged. Because my God, Jehovah Jireh, is my provider. And I'm gonna believe that many of us will be freed up to trust him like we never have before with our finances. I want us to pray right now and ask God to speak to us. Lord, with this as a backdrop, with history ringing in our ears, may we hear today what is profitable from your word to help us. I pray that everyone would have the courage to open their heart to hear and that, Lord, we'd lay down our defenses, that we wouldn't stumble over the messenger, but we'd hear the message, we'd let your word speak to us, that our hearts would receive what you have to say. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, I'm encouraged that God can change us today because everything I'm gonna talk about flows from the fountainhead of grace. That's why I chose 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. Did you know that in the first nine verses of 2 Corinthians 8, the word grace appears four times? Read it yourself. Grace appears four times. And foundational to everything that I'm gonna say is verse seven. Let's look at it. Paul writes to the church according to what he says this. Top of your outline. But just as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us, see that you also excel in this grace of giving. Now, remember that Paul was writing, this is his second letter to the church at Corinth. And I just wanna remind you of the context. He's reminding the people at Corinth that they had promised about a year before to send some money to Jerusalem. The people in Jerusalem were severely oppressed and they were impoverished. And the Corinthian church had made a pledge to send money to the church in Jerusalem. And a year later, they had not fulfilled their pledge. Now, their pledge had motivated the church in Macedonia to send money. And Paul starts by commending the Macedonian church and say, wow, out of their deep poverty, they gave richly, which is an amazing statement. But he says, but Corinthians, we haven't heard from you. Now, he wasn't chiding them. He was just reminding them of their commitment, which is a very good thing to do. And he affirms them in the way they've grown in speech and in knowledge and love and so. And as I was reading this, I was thinking, this is a great verse for a North Lake Christian community. Because this church excels in many ways. Folks, I have to tell you. In our faith, many of us have grown to trust God in ways that we never could have believed of before. In speech and how we edify and build each other up, we're growing as a church. In our knowledge of the things of God. In our love for each other. The groups that meet weekly for commitment. The teaching that goes on here, those kinds of things. You are excelling. But we also need to excel in this grace of giving. The word to excel, by the way, is the word parasio in the Greek. Parasio, which means to excel, increase, abound, even enough to overflow. It's the same word that's used in Matthew 14, 20, when Jesus broke the loaves and fishes and fed the 5,000 people and they gathered up, what? 12 basketfuls left over. It says that word of basketfuls left over is the word parasio, which means more than enough to spare. What an amazing thought that is to me. God wants us to have more than enough that we can always be able to respond when asked upon by the Holy Spirit to do so. So in other words, let's be very clear that the capacity of God to give begins with you receiving something. If you don't receive grace in this area of your life, what I'm gonna say right now, you're gonna resist. You're just gonna sit there and nod, or sit and do this, or sit and, you know, or worse, and just say, no, I'm just not, I'm not ready, I don't accept it. You've gotta open to grace. It's about receiving God's riches, his eternal principles for commerce. And Paul says once you do this, then grace begins to flow. In fact, let's look at it. First of all, and this is gonna go very quickly, grace is approved in your life. Grace is approved. Number one, grace is approved. Look at the first verse. Because of the service by which we have proved ourselves, excuse me, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. Friends, listen, people thank God for this church. And I wanna say this, I thank God for you people. I wanna thank those of you who through the years, hundreds of you, through the years have been generous, have given sacrificially. We could give the rest of the service to having people tell stories of things that they decided to do so that this ministry could continue to grow. Did you know that yesterday we had over 500 people from something like 14 states here for a puppet ministry convention? And they chose this facility and this location because we made it available to them. Well, that's because you helped make it happen. On Thursday, 200 local area church leaders are gonna be here to hear Bob Buford speak about how we as a church can unite as a city, as a parish, to move together to win Pittsburgh for Christ. And it's gonna happen here because you made it possible. And I wanna say, thank you for what you've done to make these things happen. Yesterday, our elders had a prayer meeting at eight o'clock and we walked the perimeter of the campus, thanking God for what he's done all over our campus. And it's happening now because you have made it happen. And I just wanna say, praise God for that kind of giving heart that you've demonstrated. Grace approved. Second, Paul says, once you've opened that grace and once you've made room, it causes an acceptance in you of the things that grace brings. What does grace bring? Well, grace brings a manifestation to want to give. You see, if you're reluctant or fearful, it's because you haven't heard grace in your heart on this yet. Look at your life and see if you really said, Lord, let your life fill me so I have something to give. Let your heart come out of me so I have something to give people. Let me give you an illustration. Last Sunday morning, following the service, a gentleman, I don't know if he's here in the service or not, came up to me under the portico out there and he said, Pastor, I'm in a position of pretty high responsibility in one of the major family theme parks here in the Southwest Pennsylvania area. I mean, really a nice place. And he said, if you know any North Way families that maybe don't have much resource and would like to have a full day, no expense whatsoever to bring your family in to enjoy the day at my park, just let me know and I'll send you the tickets. I said, well, that's really cool because I do know families who would love to take their children but they just don't have that kind of money. And I have to tell you, if a family came to me and said, Pastor, it's my wife and I and four kids and it costs about $150 to spend a day at this particular theme park. Would you give me $150? I'd be a little hard pressed to say, oh, sure. But if I could say, well, just let me make one phone call and I had to pass it the next day, wouldn't that be neat to be able to hand them the pass and say, here you go. And I get to be the guy that sees their eyeballs open up and they go, wow, I'm the one that, but it really wasn't me, it was God providing through me. And see, that's what grace is. It's God providing through you. God never asks you to give what he hasn't given to you. He only asks you to give what you've been given. So understand it flows from grace. Grace accepted creates lives, next blanks, that are characterized by gratitude, good works and generosity. Write that down. Gratitude, good works and generosity. And can I say those kinds of people, thankful people, serving people, generous people are great people, aren't they? I mean, give me a choice of someone to hang out with. It's somebody who's got a thankful heart and a serving heart and a generous heart. That's the kind of people that God wants us to be. Grace then motivates our giving, letter B. Grace motivates our giving. It manifests itself in giving, but it motivates our giving. Not guilt or legalism or desperation. Jesus is our model. His life is the model of why we give. Look at the next verse. In fact, would you read it with me? For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor. So that you through his poverty might become rich. And friends, I want to encourage you to circle 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. That is the pivotal verse. That is the reason why I can stand here today and say to you, God wants you to be a giver. Because the Lord that you hold as the center of your life gave of himself. And by the way, God takes it seriously. Did you know that he's gonna hold us accountable to this? Just a couple of verses, or chapters before rather, in 2 Corinthians 5, 10, Paul writes this. He said, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while on the earth, whether good or bad. And so you're gonna be held, and of course Matthew 25, the parable of the talents. We're all gonna be held accountable for how we steward the things that God has given to us. Now over the years, I have sought to lead you in this with my eyes on this eternal day of accounting, as well as on the temporal. In other words, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9, 21, hey listen, we have to be above board, not just before God, but before men as well. And we have sought to lead you with integrity. Listen, I do what I'm asking you to do. I do it. I wouldn't ask you to do what I don't do. And it's such a, just a joy. I can tell you how over the years, God has brought us along. Did you know that we started with nothing? No church sent us out. We weren't planted by someone. No one built us a building and told us to go ahead and move in and start. Little by little, we have grown to where we are today. 19 years ago, we met in a 35 by 80 foot room. One little banquet room, although it's one little rented restaurant building. That's where we met. All of us fit into that room quite comfortably. And then year by year, God has blessed us. So today we now occupy these 23 acres. And we're gonna put a slide up here on the screen. There it is. That's our current property. It's sort of just a, I know it's a little bit blurry for you, probably in the back. Over on the right is the property we just purchased, another almost nine acres. And then you can see the rough outline of our building with like an arrowhead in the middle. And then over here on the far left, that's the front intersection. That red building is just a possible place to put another structure. But here's what I want you to see more than any of the buildings that don't, that's not really what I'm talking about today. I just met this week with a very fine gentleman on the Pine Township Planning Commission, or Board of Supervisors that is, who told me in my office this week. He said, you know, it's interesting. He said, that intersection right there on the left-hand side, which is this one right out here, he said, that is the most prominent point in all of Pine Township, 17 square miles. That's the most important, and the word he used was portal, in our entire township, right there on our church property. Now who would have imagined a little band of people who had nothing 19 years ago would be standing now owning the property that now the people that kind of control it all say, that's the most important. And basically what he's saying is, how'd you get that? And what are you gonna do with it? And my only answer to that is this, as you just pondered that for a moment, you see, the Lord has supplied this for us. It's the Lord's property. And if I ask you today, do you wanna see this entire 23 acres dedicated to the Lord? I would expect most of you to say, absolutely, Pastor Jack. I don't think we need to, you know, we don't need to pollute all this by going into partnership with somebody to try to raise some money to get into some kind of venture or whatever, which is an option for us. I mean, that piece of ground is so valuable that there'd be a lot of people who'd be happy to take it off our hands or enter some deal with us. But if you say, you know, I think all of this campus should be dedicated to God and we should have a counseling center maybe here or a leadership training facility or a world missions development center or a Christian education and partnership with Eden or whatever. There's a tremendous wisdom of that, but there's also a tremendous implication. What's the implication? Who's gonna pay for it? Well, God is. Absolutely right. And who's God gonna use? That's right, he's gonna use us. Some people are thinking, well, you know, I'm with you in spirit, Pastor Jay. I'm right there with you in spirit. I really believe that should be used for the kingdom of God. And then, you know, we get into this imaginary giving thing like, well, I'm kindred spirit. Well, when time comes, we're gonna need kindred checks as well as kindred spirits. But that's not what I'm talking about. I just want you to know that's the possibility. God has opened that door. But the motivation to give is not by pressure. It's not by, we have to do this or that. It's because of grace. And we're not gonna use gimmicks to do so. We're not gonna promise you anything that God doesn't say in his word. Everything is gonna be done the way God has done it in his word by his grace. And, you know, I need to tell you this too. For those of you who wonder, everything that you give is monitored. We have an internal group of financial people who are skilled in this area, who audit everything that we do. These are professionals. And then we have an independent outside auditing firm that goes over our books every year. We pay a chunk of money to tell us if we're absolutely lined up according to all correct financial principles. And I tell them this. I say, you know, I wanna know if there's any fuzziness here, I wanna know about it so that we can say candidly, we are absolutely clean. And people know that we represent the Lord Jesus with excellence. So it's never a temptation to motivate anybody by manipulation. But I'm gonna tell you this. I'm gonna ask you to be motivated because God's blessing will rest on us as we respond to his grace. You see, if we say, Lord, let that grace flow. I accept it in my life. It'll manifest itself. In fact, I'm gonna ask the team to come up and we're gonna just stand together in a moment and we're gonna declare that whatever's gonna happen here, whatever God's gonna add to us, however we grow, it's not gonna be by sheer force of will. It's gonna go by his grace. Oh, if you would just stand with me and let's sing this together. Let's be seated and let me end the message by talking about the third and final point. Grace approved, well done so far. Grace accepted, manifesting itself in giving and generous hearts. And number three, grace applied. How do we work this out? Grace applied. How does this work itself out? The Bible says that each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. I wanna talk here in conclusion, and this can go very quickly. I've mentioned these five principles before, but I wanna revisit them for some of you who are new and some of you maybe need to be reminded of a couple of them because it takes all five of them to see your financial house get into order. Let me just pause and say this. Another thing I forgot to mention in the first service. Some of you try to do one or two of these and wonder why things don't turn around. The reason is you need to do all five of them together. Think of your hand. Hold up your hand a second. Most of you have five digits, okay? Just remind yourself it takes all five of these things to really work the plan of God for financial freedom in your life, all right? Here we go. Let me touch on them very briefly. First thing to do is to earn your own living. Well, that's real wisdom there, isn't it? Well, you know what? Strangely, in our culture, there's this weird kind of growing sense that, well, I'm not sure that really I have to work all that hard. Shouldn't I be in on the gravy train that's happening in our culture today? I mean, let's take, for example, the phenomenon of who wants to be a millionaire. Why do 35 million people watch that program? It's the idea. I think, I mean, it's well done and Regis is all, everyone likes his ties and all that stuff. But I believe that people watch it because of the possibility of in 22 minutes or whatever it takes and 15 questions to go from basically a net worth of zero to a million bucks. And we all, and there's this thing in us, I mean, particularly in the dot-com world of today when we have all these people making all this incredible amounts of money and we should discuss the number of 30-year-old billionaires now. I forget what the number is. It's like a couple hundred or something. I mean, incalculable, inconceivable amounts of money seem to be out there. And yet that's not what the Bible says. Don't look to get rich quick. Earn your money. Work for your living. The Bible calls money actually the fruit of your labor. And the harder and smarter we work, the greater the fruit. It's a noble endeavor. It really is, it's part of the dignity of mankind is to be able to use the skills that you have. Most of us learn, a lot of us learn to work when we're little. I did. I sold greeting cards door-to-door when I was seven years old. I mean, just so you know, it was something to do with it. Earn some money. Pretty good attitude, actually. And I worked in steel mills and plastic factories and paper routes. I learned to enjoy earning and to value a dollar. I'm grateful that my mom and dad made me do it. At the time I wasn't, but I look back now and I say, you know what, I learned how to bring those same principles to my adult life and to approach life as it takes work. Don't waste time. I mean, throw out the publisher's clearing house stuff. Don't even lick the stamps. Forget it. Forget it. You're 10 times more likely to be hit by lightning. Check it out, anyone been hit by lightning yet? Okay, nope, okay, so forget publisher's clearing house, all right, 10 times more likely. Learn to earn your own living. Paul says that in 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul. Second, plan your spending. Plan your spending. If you met with the financial planners in our congregation, there's quite a number of them, they would tell you that the number one Achilles heel problem of most people is they don't have a financial plan. Their problem is they don't have a plan. And get ready for this, did you know that statistics prove that 80% of Americans will retire with nothing in their savings and only social security to see them through their last years of life? 80%. After 30 or 40 years of work, that's all I have to tell you. Why? Because they don't have a plan. They don't know how to plan to spend. And what's going on today with all the stuff that's out there is that we get caught up in ways to try to just to have more now. And so we wanna do a little sketch here for you to just maybe, maybe this isn't you, but I think it captures what happens in some of our lives in terms of stuff that we try to do to just get a little farther ahead. It's financial planning of a different kind, the kind I don't wanna recommend, but it's the kind that maybe you'll catch yourself thinking about from time to time, all right? So let's watch up here. We're gonna do a little sketch. It's called The Financial Wizard. It's about moving the debt around rather than dealing with it. Let's watch. It's six o'clock. Thank you, Big Ben. Where's your time? It's been three hours. Oh, so now you're a clock and a calculator. It does not take three hours to pick up the dry cleaning. Okay, you caught me. His name is Juan. He's in the import business and he makes a ton of money. I just can't resist a man with a fast car and ponytail. Carol. What? Were you, well, you know. Don, wait a minute. Were you? I'm a grown, responsible woman. I don't need my husband checking up on me. You blew it, didn't you? Yes, yes, I blew it. Are you happy? Carol, we said no more shopping trips until we got our budget up and running. I know, honey, but all the sales are on you. Carol. Besides, you were the one who was supposed to meet with that financial planner weeks ago. You didn't hold up your end of the bargain, so I didn't hold up mine. I know, I know. Well, then what'd you buy? Now, don't freak out. You know how I shop. Boy, do I ever. Really, don't be nervous. Once I try this stuff on, I'll end up taking most of it back. Carol. I will. You're gonna take most of this back? Well