Discipline
Matthew 25:14-30
This past two weeks we’ve been talking about financial freedom. The first step to financial freedom is devotion to God. That happens when we’re free from possession obsession, from deficit thinking (I don’t have enough money to give back to God) and from fear which paralyzes faithfulness to God’s call on our lives and prohibits fruitfulness in our lives. This comes only from obedience to give God back to him and offer him the tithe, the first 10% of what you make. Last week we talked the bondage of debt and God’s desire that we not have any debt because Jesus came to give us freedom in all areas of our life. And when we’re in debt, we become a slave to others. Then we learned some keys to getting out of debt.
Today, we’re going to talk about financial freedom through discipline. You can begin to give back to God and you can start to get out of debt but unless you are disciplined, you will never have lifelong financial freedom. The temptations are too great to spend our money on the immediate, to think about today only in our spending and neglect an uncertain future and to charge things even when we don’t have any money in the bank. Financial freedom is not about how much I have – whether it’s a little or an abundance, it is the result of being faithful and disciplined with what I do have.
Today’s scripture is a familiar one. A wealthy master is leaving for an extended journey and leaves his finances in the hands of 3 servants. To one he gave the equivalent of $600,000, to another 1.2 million and to another 2.5 million. There are five things we learn from this passage which leads to discipline and financial freedom. First, God Owns It All. When Giovanna was working for Channel 38, they had a suite at the Saints game. In the suites people spend time sitting in the seats watching the game and time sitting inside the suite on the couches provided. I got into a conversation with Giovanna’s boss, Steve Scollard. Steve was a man of the world, who worked hard, played hard and drank hard. We got to talking about money and I mentioned that I tithed. Steve asked what that was and I said it’s the first 10% you make which you give back to God. He asked why and I said it was based on the understanding that everything I make and everything I have is God’s. He created everything and He owns everything, I’m just a caretaker. And a hush came over Steve and I saw the wheels turning in his mind and finally he said, “I never thought about it that way.” Many of us have never gotten to the point of knowing and accepting that God owns it all. Everything is His, and he has asked us to manage it. The fact is, It makes all the difference in the world when you’re handing someone else’s money.
Second, discipline comes from understanding that every spending decision is a spiritual decision. It’s not just about what we give to the Lord, but what we do with all of our money. Ron Blue says: "You can’t fake stewardship. Your checkbook reveals all that you really believe about stewardship. A life story could be written from a checkbook. It reflects your goals, priorities, convictions, relationship, and even the use of your time. A person who has been a Christian for even a short while can fake prayer, Bible study, evangelism, going to church and so on, but he can’t fake what his checkbook reveals." Being devoted to God is about realizing that everything we do and everything we say and every way we spend our money is our worship of God. It’s a spiritual decision. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Third, God uses money and possessions to prepare us for greater work and responsibility in His kingdom. How many of you want your life to count for something? How many of you want to accomplish something great for God? Let me tell you something: how we view and how well we manage the possessions and money God has given us will determine what work God will give us in establishing His kingdom here on earth. If we hoard, grip tightly and reserve all of our stuff for ourselves, don’t expect to be able to accomplish much for God in your lifetime. But if you are faithful, trustworthy and responsible with what God has given you to manage then God will give you even more to oversee. Money and possessions are the tool that God uses in our lives to teach us, grows us and instill the discipline in us needed to play an even greater role in His kingdom.
Fourth, the amount you have is not important. God is just as concerned about the attitude of the believer making $18,000 a year as he is the attitude of the believer making $180,000 a year. To both of the servants who invested their money and doubled it, the Master said, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” God didn’t care about the amount but he did care about the attitude they had toward the resources He had given them. I run into people all the time who say "I can’t tithe. I don’t have enough." They don’t get it. The amount they have isn’t important. It’s the faithfulness with the amount they have that counts. If you’re faithful with what you have, God will reward you on how you managed it, whether it’s $200 a week or $2000 a week.
Fifth, stewardship requires action. (vv: 24 & 26) The last steward with the one talent knew what he was supposed to do and he chose to do nothing! Many of us know what to do but we disobey or delay. To that servant he said, "You wicked, lazy servant. You knew that I harvested where I have not sown and gathered where I have not scattered seed." God is saying, “To accomplish my purpose in the world, I’m not the one who is scattering the seed. To harvest my intended results, I depend upon the seed of your labor.” For God to accomplish his purpose in the world, he is dependent upon your work and participation in His plan of salvation.
Have you heard of the 10.10.80 plan? Let’s say for the sake of easy math that you made $100 this week. How you split up that $100 is your demonstration of faithfulness. That first tenth (tenth means tithe) goes to the Lord for the Lord’s purpose. God said in Malachi, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse." If I bring $1 out of $100, is that a tithe? No, that’s $1. A tithe is 10 per cent. It says, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house." Why does God need food in his house? Well, how’s he going to feed the needy in the community? How is he going to take the Gospel to people who have never heard it? How will those children discover the good news of Jesus? It happens as we bring the food to the storehouse. There are 250 families in this church. The average household income on the WestBank is $42,000. A tithe of $42,000 would be $4,200. What’s 250 times $4,700? That’s $1.5 million dollars That’s alot of money! Imagine what would happen if we proved faithful with the first 10 per cent? Being faithful has nothing to do with how much or how little you have, it’s a matter of what you do with that which has been entrusted to you.
Discipline is an act of faithfulness. It is an issue of trust. In 1 Corinthians 4:2 we read, "Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful." There is a relationship between the trust we have with the owner, God, and the privilege of greater responsibility we will receive. To the servant with 5 bags of gold, who went out and earned 5 more, his master replied, ’Well done, good and faithful servant." (Notice the word faithful there.) "You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things." If you are faithful with what you are entrusted with, you will be given the privilege of greater responsibility and greater impact. So many times you and I start out with the trust that God has given us, but then we get tripped up by the newest and latest gadgets. Or we stop at the store just to window shop, and our money never makes it to become the fruit of God’s harvest in the world. Jesus said, "If therefore, you have not been faithful in the use of worldly wealth, who will entrust true riches to you?" Luke 16:11 Financial freedom is a discipline in faithfulness.
The first two servants put their money to work. But "Who is your money working for?" If you have $5,000 of credit card debt, and you’re basically maintaining that $5,000 of credit card debt from year to year, you are paying the credit card company $1,000 to maintain that $5000 in credit card debt every year? As long as you have debt, your money is working for somebody else. As a matter of fact, because my money is working for somebody else and I’m paying $1,000 a year, in ten years I will have paid $10,000 on that $5,000 debt. $10,000! And I’m still going to have the $5,000 worth of debt. In 40 years, how much am I going to pay on that $5,000 worth of debt? $40,000, and I’m still going to have $5,000 worth of debt. So instead of $5,000 worth of stuff that I could have paid cash for, I’m going to pay over $40,000 over 40 years. How many hours do you have to work to make $40,000? That’s why the borrower is always the slave to the lender. It’s why we don’t want to be in debt. In the 10.10.80 plan, the first 10% is a demonstration of faithfulness, and it goes to the one who created you and sustains you. It’s an expression of faithfulness to the one who right this moment is giving you that breath of life.
The second 10 per cent, before you do anything else, goes to saving and investing for your future. This is the discipline of fruitfulness. The first two servants put their master’s money to work for the master. Your return is connected to if and how you put your money to work. That’s your highest expression of worship to God. So I don’t see the first 20% of my income. Do you know you can have that taken out of your pay at work? It’s like I never made it. It’s not even tempting because I never see it. Immediately, the first 10% of my income is a demonstration of faithfulness to the Lord. The second 10% of my income is sown to the future. And these amounts begin to grow. This is what happens: when I get a raise, I make more money. But I tell myself that I don’t make more money, and the increase is taken out of my check for the tithe and for saving and investing. I never see the increase. This is what we call the 10.10.80.
Third, financial freedom is a discipline in fearlessness. Look at verse 25, "The man who received one bag of gold said, ’Master, I knew you were a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, I am giving back to you what you gave to me.’" You came, you lived, you worked, you consumed, but you left no real contribution. Does that scare you? This is your one life, your one shot. Fearlessness. If you don’t face your fear and deal with it, it creates a paralysis of action. Some of you were challenged the first week to take God up on his challenge to test him and begin tithing. Some of you were challenged last week to take the first step in getting out of debt. Let me ask you: what have you done? For some of you, the answer is nothing. You are paralyzed by fear. So rather than facing your fear and dealing with it, you have been sitting around praying and waiting for a miracle, instead of praying for a miracle and doing something that God can use to do a miracle in your life. You can’t sit there and pray for a miracle and wait. You have to pray for a miracle and act for a miracle.
How do we do this? Just take the first step: planned giving. Planned giving is not, "Well, let’s see how much I have at the end of the month" but as the Bible says, "On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income." So, right off the top, when I receive my paycheck, I have planned that 10% goes to God. I know exactly what my giving is to the cent. My tithe of whatever I earn in that month goes into that offering plate when it comes by. That’s planned. That’s giving God the first and not the leftovers.
Jeff Strite tells the story of Mrs. Baughman his 6th grade Sunday School teacher. One morning she brought a pan of brownies to our class. As the goodies sat tantalizingly over by her chair she gave each child a slip of paper marked with a household expense: house payment, phone bill, credit card bill, entertainment, and so forth. My slip had "car payment on it." Before long, Mrs. Baughman picked up the tray of fresh brownies and began naming the expenses named on the papers. As we gave her our expense slips, she redeemed each one for a brownie from the pan. Finally, the last brownie had disappeared. But one boy named Donald still held his unredeemed slip. "God!" called Mrs. Baughman. Donald came forward, hoping the teacher had one more brownie hidden somewhere. With a knife, Mrs. Baughman scraped the crumbs from the bottom of the pan into Donald’s napkin. He got a pretty raw deal, I thought - just the crumbs. "The brownies represent your money," the teacher explained to us. "If you don’t give God his share right away, he probably won’t get anything at all except maybe crumbs." And then he writes, I never forgot that illustration from our 6th grade Sunday School class. It was the day my friend Donald got only brownie scrapings, and I learned that God should have 1st rights to everything I have. In the years since, I have struggled with giving and priorities, but whenever I recall that "crummy Sunday morning lesson", I know who must come first in my life.”
Here’s the second action: seek a mentor. This is why we have classes here like the “Get Out of Debt” class last week. There needs to be more of you signed up to be there. But seek a mentor and learn from someone who is wiser in Christian financial management than you.
Here’s action number three: write a budget. About two-thirds of people do not operate with a budget. You see the problem right there. Discipline is about working from a budget. Part of writing and living according to that budget is to list all of your debts. To get out of debt you need to know how much you owe. If you haven’t done this, when you add it up you will need to be sitting in a chair. I’ve know people who have discovered they were $60, $70, $80, or even $130,000 more in debt than they thought they were, because they’ve never dealt with it. Add up all of your debt. After listing all your debt, do plastic surgery. Cut up the credit cards; assume no new debt. We do not honor God, each other or our children’s future when we think we have to charge for necessities. Jesus didn’t die to enslave you but to free you. So get out from the bondage of new debt and make a commitment to assume no new debt.
Next, go through all your set expenses. What can you do without? If you’re getting the newspaper and it comes 7 times a week and you’re not reading them, drop the subscription? Cut out whatever expenses you can. How many of us can cut channels we don’t even watch off our cable TV service? Stop eating out so much. Sack lunch it! A lot of us are still using land telephones and we have incredible minutes on our cell phones. Do you really need both? Here is a big one: budget for entertainment, which is one of the biggest drains on people’s budgets. Pay cash for cars, Save up and don’t buy new. If you buy used cars you can pay about half of what it cost new, and still drive it eight to ten years. It’s stupid to have money tied up in things that depreciate. My last car was a used Jeep Grand Cherokee which we bought 6 months after Luke was born. I had ran it up to 192,000 miles. You know my biggest heartbreak from Katrina beside losing my golf clubs? I didn’t get to take that car to $200,000 miles. Well, I’ve been driving Giovanna’s Highlander for two years now and I just crossed 120,000 miles. So in five years I can break the 200,000 mile barrier. So why do I drive a car 8-10 years? Because I like old cars? No, because cars are designed to go 250,000 miles. So why trade it out every 3 years and just lose all that money on miles not driven? When I save in what I spend on my car, it gives me more to give to God and see what He can do with it.
Set future goals. Set your financial goals. If you’re going to go on vacation, save for it. If you want your own house, save for a down payment on a house. If you want to retire early, save for it. I’ve told Giovanna that I want to start saving for a motorcycle. It may take 10 years but that’s called the discipline of delayed gratification. There’s fruit to delayed gratification. Budgeting is about long-term goals: setting them and pursuing them.
Those who prove faithful with a few things will be trusted with much. We have such a great Lord. I can’t believe how patient he is. He’s put up with me, loves me and has gotten me to this point. Every time I trust him, I see how freeing it is. But here’s the question that Jesus puts to us so many times, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?" Do you know what the word “Lord” means? It means absolute authority. Financial freedom is a discipline of faithfulness, fruitfulness and fearlessness recognizing that God has absolutely authority over everything in my life, including my finances.
