February 1, 2009
Radical Living
1 Timothy 6:7-19
A man decides he’s going to pay off his credit card. He owes $7,500 and believes God does not want him to be in debt, so he decides he’ll cut up the card and pay off the $7,500 by making the minimum monthly payment until it’s gone. Your question — how long do you think it will take to pay off that credit card, assuming 18% interest and he never makes another credit card purchase during that time? Go ahead, tell your neighbor how long it will take.
Any answers? If you said 30 years and 2 months, you guessed right . . . If he’s still alive, he will have paid $23,000 in interest, thus paying over $30,000 for a $7500 loan. Now do you understand why credit card companies are willing to use all that postage to send those mailings to your home every week? Two years ago, earnings for credit card companies was over $14 billion and $1.4 trillion was spent with credit cards. Maybe we need to do some plastic surgery, and remove those cards.
Here’s another question — as of September 2008, how much is the average household credit card debt in the U.S.? It’s $9,300! Consider that the $9,300 does not include your electric and gas, water, garbage, cable, cell phone, gas, insurance and food bills. Oh . . . did I forget to mention that the $9,300 also does not include your mortgage, rent or car payments. WOW!! That’s a lot of money folks. It means that every family in this room owes on average, $9,300. Now, obviously some of you don’t owe that much and some of you owe more.
Let me take this one step further for you . . . According to a USA Today article in September 2008, “the average American household is now buried under mortgage debt of $84,911, car and tuition loans of $14,414, home equity loans of $10,062 and credit card debt of $8,565 — totaling, an outstanding debt of $117,952. The worst is that, according to Federal Reserve statistics, the average household savings this year will be only $392. By Gladys Edmunds (9/10/08) www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/edmunds/2008-09-10-break-the-spending-habit_N.htm
Now, I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad about yourself or your financial situation. The purpose is to help you realize, claim and start to find solutions to the problems you may already be in. If you’re married and you’re having financial problems, you know what it’s like to argue about money.
I am so excited that we have about 30 people who are taking the Financial Peace classes. It’s a real commitment to make - - to take a good, hard look at your finances and then plan to do something about them. This class runs for 13 weeks, and from those who have already been through it, it has made a huge difference in their lives.
I did a little research on credit cards this week, and did you know that credit cards did not really become popular until the late 1960’s, early 1970’s. In 1983, just 20 years ago, the average credit card debt was below $1,000 per household. Do you understand what that means? In the past 20 years, credit card debt in this country has gone up, 737%. That’s an average of, are you ready, 36.85% per year increase in credit card debt. You know something’s got to give.
As we seek to bring glory and honor to God, let’s look at what Paul tells Timothy; and what it means for you and I.
Paul said “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” What a true statement. Yet, how many of us buy into the adage, ‘the one with the most toys, wins?’ When that happens we lose what Paul spoke of, in Philippians 4 . . . contentment. We’re no longer content with life, because we have to increase our standard and style of living. We no longer live modestly and comfortably; instead, we become extravagant; especially to the point where it hurts us in all aspects of our lives, it consumes our thinking, it wears us down physically, it depresses us, and tears at our soul.
Even when we look at the economy we are presently in, so many people have lost jobs, so many are struggling to make ends meet, to simply put food on the table, but even in the midst of our struggles, how much are we really willing to give up for the sake of our family, even for what God calls us to do.
Ann Landers had an interesting letter in one of her columns. She wrote about a man who earned a very good living, but refused to spend the money on anything. When he was dying, he said to his wife, “I want you to promise me one thing. Promise me that when I’m dead you’ll take my money and put it in my casket so that I can take it all with me.”
Amazingly, the wife agreed to do as she was asked.
After her husband died, her friend saw her put something into the casket and asked what she put in there. She told her friend, her husbands request, and how she agreed to it. Her friend was aghast, she couldn’t believe this woman would do this. The friend asked how she would live, and she replied, ‘well, I promised him, and a promise is a promise. But, I should be able to live comfortably, unless he finds a way to cash a check in heaven.
Remember, we came into the world with nothing, and we will leave the world void of all of our possessions.
Paul reminds us the desire to have money and possessions can lead us to do things, and even accept things in life which we normally would not. In fact, Paul tells us “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” There is a very common misconception in this statement from Paul. Many people think money is the root of all evil. But money in and of itself is not evil, it is not sinful, in fact, money is neutral, it’s wonderful to have money, just don’t be consumed by the desire and love for money. Understand where the source of all of your blessings comes from . . . God.
Think of former Illinois governors . . . former governor Jim Ryan was indicted on fraud, so that he could receive money in kickbacks. People knew about this for years, even before he was elected governor, but they elected him nonetheless.
Then take Rod Blagojevich . . . please take him. He was impeached, removed from the office of governor this past week, in part because he was wiretapped trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat.
Blagojevich launched a media blitz, comparing himself to movie characters played by Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper who fought against the crooked establishment, he says, "This is a 21st century Frank Capra movie."
He also compared himself to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.
Why did this happen? Easy answer . . . the love of money and perceived power.
Then Paul tells us in verse 17, Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Think about what Paul is trying to tell us.
Put very simply, if you’ve got it, don’t flaunt it!! Don’t put your hope in your wealth, it could disappear just as quickly as it arrived. Instead of trusting in yourself and your wealth; and what you can do because of your wealth, Paul commands us, put your hope in God, who get this . . . richly provides us with everything for . . . for what? FOR OUR ENJOYMENT!!
Do you get that? What an amazing statement from Paul. God provides us with blessings and more blessings and tells us that we can use money for our enjoyment, but just don’t covet it, don’t make money and possessions your treasure, because then they will own you.
Instead, we are to place our hope in Christ. He is the only source of hope we can and should have in this lifetime. Without Christ it’s easy to be defeated. I truly believe Jesus is not only the only hope of the world, He is the final hope of the world. When life gets tough, and it does and it will, we know we have a God who is there for us, even in the tough times. God will never run out on us, He will never abandon us, He will never tell us . . . well, you lost a few brownie points, so you better shape up and do more things for me to prove you love me.
Nope, God does not say that, He expects us to serve Him and to give to Him. Because He gives to us, He gave us His Son, that was what we did a little while ago when we celebrated communion, we remembered the great gift, the sacrifice God gave to us in Jesus. He gave us the greatest gift ever . . . Jesus.
So how could we not want to give back to God for the blessings He’s already given to us.
But that’s where it gets tricky. We want to keep our money for ourselves, we think who needs my money. And in a sense God does not need your money, He can do more things with a penny than we could imagine. Yet God calls us to give back to Him out of gratitude for the blessings He has given us. And the first blessing in our book is the gift of Jesus . . .
. . . and the gift of hope, life, faith, grace, forgiveness, peace, joy, and the list goes on and on. We are called to give back by serving God and by giving our resources to God, so the church can help build the kingdom.
So, Paul tells Timothy in those middle verses, 11-16, which seem to be an interlude, but really aren’t - - he tells him - -
11But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.
Do you hear what Paul is saying? Flee from that money and possession craving you have. Put that behind you because of your faith in Jesus, the one who is the only righteous One, the One who rescued you from your sinfulness and has made you into a new person, instead of holding on to the things of the world and pursuing wealth and possessions, instead of those things, pursue righteousness, pursue a right relationship with God, and besides that pursue, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
WOW!! All that as it relates to money. Never knew talking about money and possessions could get so deep, did you? You see where Paul is going with all of this? He wants us to live lives which bring honor and glory to Christ. And when we live according to those virtues Paul mentioned, we will become more Christlike and when we become more Christlike we become more attractive to the world . . . a world who needs the hope of Jesus, because they are stuck pursuing the wrong things.
And it is a fight for the faith, because the world will call us to do something very different, and we will be tempted over and over and over - - - again and again and again; but Paul’s point and mine is that when we have Christ, we gain power over the temptations and struggles of the world. But we must do what Paul commands us to do - - - FLEE . . . run as quickly and hard from what pulls us into the pit.
So . . . what do we make of all this?
How’s this . . . come back in 2 weeks and I’ll tell you. Seriously, I’ll spell this out more in 2 weeks, but for now think on this . . .
What is it you treasure?
What is your greatest desire in life?
How much does money - -
the love of money / the fear of money drive your life?
As Paul told Timothy that great truism, you came into the world with nothing and you will leave with nothing, it’s what you do inbetween which will make the difference. How you serve . . . how you give . . . how you live . . . those will be your legacies.
