Economic Empowerment Part 4: No Empty Hands Series

EXODUS = departure or exit

 I want to use this story as a metaphor to journey out of financial slavery

 I want to see the people of God depart & exit from financial bondage

 Egypt = limited – narrow place

 Exit out of stinking thinking

o Not asset / it’s attitude

 While we are waiting for streets of gold

o Praying; Lord help me pay this bill

Versus

o Praying; Lord help me be prosperous

 The lie of the enemy / through the systems of this world

o Is to stay a slave

o And become satisfied

o With just getting by

 Let’s determine we’re not going out empty handed.

 The enemy stole my family’s wealth

o Now I am ready to exit poverty thinking

o And I am not leaving empty handed

 Because we can’t finance the Gospel or build our platform broke!

Matthew 28:12

When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money

 The world will spend a large sum of money to tell a lie

o Because they will finance their platform

 Spending billions of dollars looking for life on other planets

 While we won’t spend money on saving lives on this planet!

A. SLAVING

 The story starts with them as slaves

Exodus 1:8-11 (READ)

 The people of God

o Were more powerful

o Yet

o The enemy oppressed them

 We love the fact that we are New Testament believers and are free

 Yet, in the arena of finances, many of us are still in Egypt

 Letting Pharaoh’s Visa get rich off of our money

o It is our money because of Joseph (Jesus)

 We have become slaves to the Pharaohs of this age called financial institutions.

 We can’t get away to go worship God for a three day conference

Proverbs 22:7

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

 We’ve become slaves to debt

 Debt isn’t the problem – it’s the symptom

o Greed

o Self-indulgence

o Impatience

o Fear

o Self image

o Lack of self worth

o Lack of self discipline

Different Kinds of debt:

1. Credit Card

2. Consumer debt

a. Cars

b. Furniture

c. Consumption of depreciating items

3. Mortgage debt

4. Investment debt

a. There’s always a ‘good deal’

b. No one ever wants to sell you a bad deal

5. Business debt

6. National Debt

 $20,000 for every man, woman and child

 1 million per day

 It would take 13,500 years to pay back

 Assuming there is no interest

o Which there is

Example 1 – New Car

New Car $10,000.00

Monthly Pay 12.5% $265.80

Amount Paid 4 years $12,758.40

 Dealers make more if financed

 Now, if you purchase another car in four years and again finance it

 And continue to do this over a working life of 40 years…

 You will have purchased ten cars

 And paid in car payments:

$12,758.40 x 10 = $127,584.00

 The bank received $265.80 per month for 480 months and never had at risk any more than $10,000

 They in turn reinvested that $265.80 in other loans yielding 12.5%

 So that they accumulated $3,641,550.00 on your total payments of $127,584.00!

 What if, instead of making car payments…

 You paid yourself $265.80 per month…

 And were able to invest that payment at 12.5%

 Then you would have the $3,641,550.00

o Not the lending institution!

 The true cost of driving those cars is $3,641,550.00 not $127,584.00!

Questions to Ask:

1. Does it make economic sense?

• Pay off mortgages or invest

• Buy a business – home

2. Do my spouse and I have unity about it?

3. Do I have spiritual freedom?

4. What personal goals am I meeting?

• School

• Business

• Etc.

5. Do I have the money to pay it back now?

I want to address three traps that we can fall into in indebtedness:

1. Can’t Wait Trap

2. The Comparison Trap

3. The Accommodation Trap

1. CAN’T WAIT TRAP

• I must have it now. Instant gratification.

• We’re used to getting dinner in 5 minutes.

 Microwave

 Drive through windows

• We have restaurants inside of our shopping centers where while you’re shopping you can be served your food.

• You can get a discount if you use your credit.

• Today, we can shop by internet, we don’t even need a store, or money, or a car.

• All we need is a catalog, a telephone and a credit card.

• Internet purchases have gone into the billions of dollars