"hello, My Name Is Debt" Series

“Hello my name is Debt”

Luke 16:1-14

We meet individuals in a variety of places. We come to church and we don’t know the person seated near us so we introduce ourselves. Hello my name is and we shake hands. Perhaps someone in your neighborhood has gathering and they invite and you realize you don’t really know everyone. The guy that lives 3 doors down but you’ve never met so you introduce yourself; hello my name is and you shake hands. Over the past month we have said hello to some emotions; some situations we find ourselves in like regret, we said hello to anxiety and depression and last week to guilt.

We meet these feelings in a variety of places. We meet regret when someone or something reminds us of a time when we didn’t live up to someone’s standard; often our own and regret sets in. Just when we thought it was gone, regret was suddenly back. And whether it be regret or guilt or anxiety and depression, we meet these emotions in a variety of places. And frankly one of those places can be at the mailbox or your email account. And it reaches out to you and says hello my name is debt. You go through the mail as you’re walking back into the house and it might look something like this:

Oh a wedding invitation, thank you note, that’s nice; junk mail, junk mail, a bill, a bill, junk mail; another bill. You can ignore some of this. You can ignore the thank you note; you probably won’t you can just toss the junk mail; you probably will but when it comes to the bills you can ignore them and some people do but they won’t ignore you; they’re gonna keep coming back and coming back until you pay them. The simplest definition for debt is this: something, typically money that is owed or due. But there’s really nothing simple about it and if we have too much of it---too much debt, it can preoccupy every moment of our day until we take care of it.

It may surprise you to learn that the Bible has a great deal to say about money and debt.

• Jesus talked more about money than He talked about heaven and hell combined.

• Of the 39 parables, 11 deal with finances

• One of every ten verses in the gospels deals with possessions

• Money is mentioned over 800 times in scripture

• Over 2300 verses are in scripture on the topic of money and possessions

So it would perhaps lead us to this question. Is God more concerned about money than my soul? Is God more concerned about money than my spiritual life? Well the answer to the question is clearly no, however many of us are. In fact, money and how we handle it; debt and how it handles us, occupies too much time and energy on a daily basis.

In Luke 16 we find the parable of the shrewd manager. Luke 16: 1-14. This passage is clearly related to money and our management of it. (READ) With this in mind, I want to give you 7 truths the Bible teaches about money and debt. Just spending a couple of minutes on each one. So, first, let’s establish a foundation.

1. Money belongs to God. Not us. Verse 1. Right away in this passage we learn that there is a rich man who has someone help him manage his money. And his manager is wasting it. The parallel here is that God gives us money to manage. He is the owner. We are the manager. In this passage we see this very concept. There was a man who was wealthy and his manager is wasting his possessions. So he calls him in and tells him; I want you to give an account of your management; then he fires him. He says “because you cannot be my manager anymore.”

In March of this year God entrusted this property to us. We are now the managers. It is our responsibility to take care of it.

2. We must learn to be truly content. This man wasted his boss’ money. In the previous chapter, in the story of the Prodigal son, the son does the same thing. He goes to his father and asks for his inheritance. Then he throws the entire amount away. This is a problem for many people because we often try to buy our way to happiness. If I could just buy a new car or a new guitar, or whatever it is, I would be happy. Contentment means to be in a state of peace. Here’s why this is so important. Many purchases are made; much debt is incurred in life, due to discontent. Discontent sparks debt. Debt is fueled by discontent.