The ABCs to Be Financially Free – Secret #4 – Part 1

2:45 I titled today's message, The ABCs, to be financially free. Vicki Robbins and Joe Dominguez wrote a bestselling book a few years ago entitled Your Money or Your Life. And in the book, they recounted their own personal story of how they decided to get out of the rat race, to quit their jobs, and live on $6,000 a year of investment income so that they could pursue their real passion of participating in charitable work. They wanted to be free from having to earn a living so that they could give themselves the volunteer service. Now, it's not a Christian book per se, but there's a compelling message in that book for every Christian. The fact is there are many Christians who are working at jobs they cannot stand to buy things they do not need in order to impress people they really don't like.

3:44 Maybe you're one of those people. But you know, God has a purpose for your life, a purpose that extends beyond mere consumerism. God has a unique purpose for your life and for my life. And that means money is not the end. Consumerism is not the end. Money is simply the means to the end to give us the freedom we need to fulfill God's will for our life. The goal of every Christian should be simply to have enough money to help us do what God has called us to do. In fact, that word enough is a great goal for every Christian. Turn over to Proverbs chapter 30 for just a moment. The writer gives us very clearly what should be the financial gold for every Christian. The writer says, two things I ask of thee, do not refuse me before I die. Keep deception and lies far from me. And here it is. Give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with the food that is my portion. Lest I be full and deny thee and say, who is the Lord?

4:49 Or lest I be in want and steal and profane the name of my God. Do you hear what he's saying? He's saying, God, don't give me so much money that I forget my need for you. But don't give me too little money that I'd be tempted to do something that would profane your name. Give me just what I need. That's the goal for every Christian. We're looking at what the Word of God, specifically Proverbs, says about how to be successful in your work and in your relationships in every area of life. And last time, we began looking at the Solomon secret for success in our financial life. And the secret for success in finances, Solomon says, is spending your way to wealth. In other words, Solomon has said, if you want to have enough money in your life to do what God has called you to do, the key to having enough, listen to this, is not through earning. It's not through saving.

5:46 It's not through investing. The way to have financial freedom in your life is through your spending. specifically adjusting your spending below your income. Here's the Proverbs that speaks to that. Proverbs 21 verse 20, Solomon said, there is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish person swallows it up. The fool, Solomon says, is the person who spends every resource that he has, who lives from paycheck to paycheck. Only a fool would do that. the wise man doesn't consume everything he has. And by obeying this proverb, you're able to create what we called last time margin in your life. Financial margin is that difference between where you are and your boundaries. It's that buffer zone, that comfort zone in your finances that gives you freedom. Remember last time we talked about the three benefits of margin.

6:45 Write them down again in case you forgot them. What are the benefits of obeying Proverbs 21, verse 20, and having this cushion between your spending and your income? First of all, margin, financial margin, offers us the freedom to do what we should do. Financial margin gives us the freedom to do what we should do. Remember the story I told about the woman whose father was dying from cancer in another state, and she wanted to go see him, but she couldn't afford the plane ticket and couldn't take two weeks off from work. And so she had a choice, either financial insolvency and go see her dad or a lifetime of regrets for not having seen him. That's what happens when you don't have financial margin. You have no freedom to do the things that you need to do. Secondly, financial margin provides the security we need to meet future needs. It provides the security for future needs. You said, well, shouldn't we be trusting God to take care of our future needs? Absolutely. God can take care of your needs. The question is, how is God going to take care of your financial needs? And we saw in the story of Pharaoh in Genesis 41, that God said to Pharaoh and to Joseph, there is a financial famine coming in the land when your need is going to be greater than your resources. So this is what you're to do.

8:03 In the seven years of plentiful harvest, set aside 20% of the grain so that when the time of famine incomes, you will have grain that you need to exist. God says the same thing to us. The way to prepare for future needs is by taking some of our income now and setting aside for the future. That's not a lack of faith. That's a sign of obedience. That's following God's will for preparing for the future. Number three, financial margin allows us to experience the joy of supporting God's work. You know, the reason God left you and me here was not to build our kingdom, but to build God's kingdom. That's why we're here. And many times in God's work, there comes a special need. It may be a need for a mission project. It may be a need for a new campus like this. And the only way we can meet those great opportunities for ministry that we have is if we have set aside some money to take care of those needs. This campus wouldn't be here today if it were not for the many of you who, instead of consuming everything you had, had not set aside some money for the future so that you could take advantage of the opportunities to spread God's word and to invest in God's project. God wants us to be able to do that. And that's why we're to have financial margin, to be able to experience the joy of supporting God's work. We're going to conclude this study by looking at four practical ways to create financial margin in your life.

9:32 Maybe you're saying, pastor, you just don't understand what it is like around our house. There is no extra money. There is no way we can do what you're talking about. Oh, yes, there is. And we're going to discover that way. But first, let me just say, I know there's some of you who are saying, wait a minute, shouldn't you be talking about something more spiritual like the Holy Spirit or the rapture or sanctification. Why are we talking so much about money? You know the reason we talk so much about money is because the Bible talks so much about money. Do you know if you look through the Bible, you'll find a wealth, pardon the pun, of information about money in the Bible. In fact, 16 out of Jesus, 38 parables dealt with the subject of finances. Did you know that one-sixth of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, deal with the issues of money. You can hardly turn through a page of Proverbs and not find some word about money. Why is money such a prominent theme in the Bible? Write this down. How we handle our money is important to God for three reasons. First of all, how we handle money is a measure of our faithfulness to God. It's a measure of our faithfulness to God. In Luke 16, Jesus said, if you cannot handle money wisely, who in the world is going to entrust true riches to you? God says, if I can't trust you in this little thing called money that one day you're going to leave behind, do you think I'm going to entrust to you true riches for all eternity? How we handle our money is a test of our faithfulness to God.

11:08 Number two, handling our money well is a powerful witness to unbelievers. Handling our money well is a powerful witness to unbelievers. You know a Christian who's always delinquent and paying his bills or running around worrying about where his next meal is going to come from? Do you think that's a positive witness for God? Do you think that makes people want to worship a God who promises to take care of all of our needs if his children are running around worrying about tomorrow? No, handling our money well is a positive witness to unbelievers. And thirdly, handling our money well frees us to serve Christ. Handling our money well frees us to serve Christ. Remember the goal of money is not to have too much or too little, but to have enough. God wants us to have enough so that we are free from having to think about it and free to serve him. How can you have enough?

12:01 How can you have that financial margin in your life? Today, I have what I call the ABCs to be financially free. Here are the four principles for creating margin in your life. The A stands for adjust your spending below your income. If you want to have margin, first of all, adjust your spending below your income. When I was in my last church, a Christian financial consultant, Ron Blue, came to talk to our congregation. And I remember he told a story about going into a jewelry store one day. And at the counter was a man who was trying on Rolex watches. And Ron said he just stood by and kind of watched all the goings on there. And finally, the man decided he wanted the new Rolex. And so the guy said, well, how would the counter guy said, how are you going to pay for it? Well, he didn't have the money to pay for it. So he signed up for payments. He put down $200 and then signed up for payments for $200 a month for the rest of his life, I guess, and his children's lives as well. Now, could that man afford a Rolex watch?

13:11 No, but he wanted to look like he could. And there are people like that who want to look like and act like they have more money than they really do. Here in Texas, those of you watching, we have an expression for people like that. People who pretend to be wealthy when they're not. We say such people are all hat and no cattle. You understand what we're talking about. Solomon had a similar word about that in Proverbs 13 verse 7. He said, there is one who pretends to be rich but has nothing, but another who pretends to be poor and has great wealth. Solomon understood the way to accumulate financial margin was not spending everything you could afford to spend, or certainly not spending more than you could afford to spend, but spending less than you're able to afford to spend. Now, I don't want to get in trouble with all of our wonderful Christian realtors here in our church, but you know, our culture wars against that, against spending below your income. If you've ever gone to purchase a home, you've seen that happen. Many times your real estate agent, certainly not mine or those here in the church, but sometimes the real estate agent will ask a prospective home buyer, now exactly what is your income? And you tell them your income. And then what do they do? They double it or they triple it. And they say, well, that's how much house you can afford. The idea is you ought to spend the maximum, whatever your salary is, double or triple it. And that's how much you can afford. But just because you can afford that size house, should you purchase that size of a house? I mean, just because your income allows you to have a larger house, a nicer automobile, to travel on more exotic vacations, does that mean that's the wisest use of your money? Solomon says the wise person who is the one who adjusts to spending below his income. By the way, did you know that's the secret that millionaires have already discovered? That the way to accumulate wealth over a long period of time is to spend

15:20 less than you earn over the long haul. That's how most millionaires have accumulated their wealth. That's not just my imagination. A few years ago, Thomas Stanley and William Danko wrote a best selling book called The Millionaire Next Door. And in that book, they surveyed the spending habits of thousands of millionaires in the United States. And they found out some very interesting things about the spending habits of millionaires. Listen to this. 50% of millionaires surveyed had never spent more than $399 for a suit, $140 for a pair of shoes, or $235 for a watch. 50% had never spent more than $29,000 for an automobile. Seven times as many millionaires had a Sears card than had an American Express platinum card. More than 36% of millionaires surveyed owned cars that were more than three years old. 70% of millionaires have their shoes resold and repaired. 48% have their furniture reupholstered or refinished instead of buying new. And nearly 50% of millionaires buy their household supplies in bulk at warehouse stores like Sam's or Costco. You see, in our culture, people are encouraged to spend everything that they have. But the millionaire has learned the secret to accumulating margin in life, and that is to spend less than you earn over a long period of time. Again, Proverbs 21 verse 20, there is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish person swallows it up. Now the B in this outline stands for be careful of debt. Be careful of debt.

17:10 Debt will devour. It will erase your financial margin. Now we need to be balanced in what we say about debt. Some people, some Christians are very legalistic about this. They say, oh, it's a sin to ever borrow money for any reason at any time. The Bible doesn't teach that. And yet to support that thinking, sometimes people quote Romans 13, verse 8, in which Paul says, owe no man anything except a debt of love. And yet if you look at that verse in context, you discover what Paul is talking about literally is paying your taxes. He's saying, don't be delinquent in paying your taxes. Don't be delinquent in giving honor to people to whom honor is due. Don't be delinquent in paying anything you owe. The only thing you want to owe people is the debt of love. It's not an absolute prohibition against debt. Nevertheless, the Bible does warn about the dangers of debt, especially excessive debt. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon refers to debt as a surety. And remember, we talked about this a few months ago. In Solomon's day, if you wanted to borrow money to purchase something, you would sign a pledge like a promissory note today, and you would have to have collateral to back it up. Now, Solomon said, before you go into debt and you make a pledge, you better make sure you've got the means to repay it.

18:36 In fact, in Proverbs 22, verses 26 and 27, this is how he words it. Do not be among those who give pledges among those who become sureties for debts. For if you have nothing with which to pay, why should he take your bed from under you? Can you imagine being asleep and in the middle of the night, the debt collector comes and your bed is gone. That's what Solomon is talking about. He said, before you enter into debt, ask yourself, what's the worst thing that could happen to me if I cannot repay this debt? Solomon, again, doesn't prohibit debt completely, but he says, be very careful of it. And there's a reason for that. In Proverbs 22, verse 7, he says, the rich rules over the poor and the borrower becomes the lender's slave. If you borrow money from somebody, you are that person's slave. And today there are millions of Americans who are slaves to MasterCard, to Visa, to American Express. Thank you for that. Amen.

19:39 man, I appreciate that. I read some statistics just this week, some very interesting statistics. And that is, and you've probably heard this before, that the average American owns $7,000 in credit card debt, $7,000. But as I probed further in that research, I found that is the average of all American households everywhere. But of those American households that actually have debt, the average doubles to more than $15,000. Those American families that have debt have an average of $15,000 on their credit card, and the average interest rate is 17%. Now, to give you some perspective of what that means, if you have a $2,000 credit card balance, and you make just the minimum payment every month at 17% interest, you know how long it'll take you to pay off that debt? 13 and a half years. 13 and a half years. After 13 and a half years, you will have paid over $1,700 of interest, almost double what you originally owed.

20:48 Now you understand why your mailbox is full of those credit card applications all the time. They are making lots of money off of you. I read one study this week that said 25% of all household income every month is spent on consumer debt, not mortgage payments, just consumer debt. When you put on top of that mortgage payments, car payments, food, and all the other necessities of life, no wonder so few people had any margin in their finances. Are you borrowing too much money? Are you enslaved to debt? How do you know if you are? Well, one way is to do a calculation. Many financial consultants say that we should spend no more than 30 to 35% of our income every month on all of our debt. House payments, car payments, credit card payment. If you are spending more than 30 to 35%, you may be in trouble. Here's another way to find out if you're a slave to debt. Here's some questions you might want to jot down. Are you borrowing to pay for items that you used to buy with cash? Are you taking out new loans before paying off previous loans? Are your expenses growing faster than your income? Do you dip into savings to pay regular bills?

22:01 Are you approaching the limits of your credit lines? Do you make only the minimum payments each month? Here's the basic problem, ladies and gentlemen, with debt. Debt allows us to artificially live beyond our means. And debt erases any financial margin that we have. Debt allows us to artificially buy more than we're really capable of buying and to erase the margin in our life. And that's why I say consumer debt is enemy number one of financial margin. Remember, God doesn't want us to be a slave to anyone except to himself. Be careful of debt.

22:48 There's profound wisdom found in the book of Proverbs, and we're praying these daily studies will help liberate you from the tyranny of overspending. Earlier, I mentioned a book that coincides with this series. It's called The Solomon Secrets, Ten Keys to Your Success. There are several chapters in this best-selling book about managing your money. And for a short time, we're offering this book to you when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. This book would make a natural choice for your small group Bible study. There's even a study guide included inside the book. Now, if you're among those who have never been in touch with Pathway to Victory, I want to send you something truly special. I'm referring to a two-disc collection that we're calling In God We Trust, featuring 12 powerful songs of freedom and praise performed by the First Baptist Dallas Choir and Orchestra.

23:48 There's also two of my messages on America's Christian heritage. It's a wonderful gift for any patriot as we mark 250 years of God's faithfulness to this nation. This package of two recordings is my gift to you. just for getting in touch today. And to those who include a contribution, thank you for supporting the ministry of Pathway to Victory. We couldn't provide these daily programs without your partnership. Here's David to tell you more.