SE101908
STATE OF THE UNION
3. Recession Obsession
Well it looks like we’re heading into some really tough economic times. You’ve already heard much about these high profile banks that have failed and a few others have merged just to survive. Perhaps you haven’t heard just how many other business mergers have been proposed in these tough times. For example:
1.) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace Co. are set to merge. The new name will be: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.
2.) PolyGram Records, Warner Bros., and Zest Crackers will join forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.
3.) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMM Good.
4.) Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Doofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa
5.) FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become: FedUP.
6.) Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become: Fairwell Honeychild.
7.) Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization of Women will become: Knott NOW!
And finally:
8.) Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to become: PouponPants.
Well OK, that’s not happening. But I thot it might be good medicine to laugh a bit because these days, when it comes to the economy, we’re all a little panicked and afraid. And I don’t blame you. One friend of mine last month was trying to enjoy a wonderful vacation in Europe with her grown children when the news came of the stock market tumble. She said to me,
“I just couldn’t enjoy the moment Rick, because I was thinking about what percentage of my nest egg was blowing away like smoke.”
She’s not the only one in that situation. Small business owners in this church are concerned about laying people off. Some of you have been laid off. Milgard, laid everyone off. Bayliner is done in 60 days kicking over 600 unemployed workers into the job market. A person came in this week, losing their dream home because they’re upside down on their mortgage.
WE FORGOT GOD’S PRINCIPLES
So now we have Republicans and Democrats jockeying for political position to look better than the other in the aftermath of this mess. I’m a bit weary of them all, frankly. Tons of fears and angry thots run through our minds in the context of a hot presidential race.
- Who allowed this to happen?
- What will the candidates do to fix it?
- What’s going to happen next?
- And in a pessimistic moment, we might even ask:
o Are we the generation that will be able to say that we were there when America ended?
So now, I want to weigh in on this, not as an economist but as a student of the Bible and a follower of Jesus Christ. You’ve had an anxious few weeks. You’re mad at the pride of our leaders. You’re mad at the short sighted selfishness in all of us that lead to this subprime mortgage mess. So there’s two parts to God’s wisdom to heed in our fear and anger. The first relates to the world of your finances and the second relates to the world of your heart.
1. FINANCIAL
A. BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES
I want to read some bible verses to you and I want you to imagine these were hung on the offices of every bank, every mortgage office and every home in the country.
- Prov 22:7: the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
- Prov 17:18: It is poor judgment to co-sign a friend’s note, to become responsible for a neighbor’s debts.
- Prov 30:25 Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer
- Ps 37:21: The wicked borrow and never repay, but the godly are generous givers.
- 1 Tim 6:10: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
Have we lived by these principles? No. Not personally and not nationally. And now the piper must be paid. We cannot escape these principles, friends. God is not mocked, a man reaps what he sows. With God’s laws, you don’t break them. If you disobey them, they break you. And now, they may break our economy. If we keep going down the path we’re on, one Christian financial consulting firm put it like this:
Failure to heed the principles God has plainly established for our own good will destroy the good faith and credit of the United States government. Should that day come, the consequences will be dire. Our entire economy will collapse with sudden speed, bringing mind-numbing consequences to world order. To avoid the pain, we can print more money, bringing on devastating hyperinflation.
That’s the doomsday scenario, friends.
B. GET OUT OF DEBT
So what can you do? One, save.
Two, the time is now to get out of debt. The Bible does not forbid debt, as it gives rules for how to repay it. But if ever there was a good time to be in debt, now is not that time. And the Bible gives us so many good reasons to want to avoid it:
First, the simple truth, Allen Creek is that whenever you sign up for a debt of any kind, you’ve just surrendered a slice of your freedom. The Bible says, Proverbs 22:7: The borrower becomes the lenders slave.
A friend of mine was complaining about how they attempted to garnish his wages for a debt he owed that he had fallen behind on. So he closed his bank account to stop them. He didn’t like them just taking it. He wanted to be back in control.
Well this guy just didn’t get it. Debt takes control over you. It puts you OUT of control. The lender is not obligated to be nice to you. It’s a voluntary legal contract you enter into. And it’s a type of slavery. You don’t get free, until the debt is gone. So if you choose debt, don’t get mad when your freedoms are diminished.
Second, debt enslaves you to excessive earning pressures. Hag 1:6 says, “You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” Debt is simply more holes in your money purse. The more holes, the faster and more frantically you have to pour in.
Third, debt enslaves us to Joylessness. PROVERBS 12:25 says, an anxious heart weighs a man down. There’s nothing like debt pressure to rob you of sleep.
Fourth, debt ties your hands when opportunities to do good come along.
So what I’m driving at is that there are many things about the gov’t’s spending habits that might make you mad, but today is a good day to look in the mirror. Many things you can’t control, but this you can. You can seek to get out of debt as fast as possible and start to save.
Whatever the economy is going to do, this is what YOU can do.
So, friends this is a good time to take some radical steps:
- One, make a RADICAL DECISION TO END YOUR SLAVERY. No one “drifts upstream.”
- Second, analyze your current situation to see where the holes are in your purse:
o House is too big, car is too new?
o Hobbies, vacations? clothes?
o Credit cards?
? Simplify.
- Third, get on a repayment plan. Good Sense is available. Sign up.
- Fourth, be generous with God. God invites you to invite him into your financial picture. The Bible says this over and over. Prov 3:9-10: “Honor the LORD with your wealth…; then your barns will be filled to overflowing.” Now, with the economy bad? Especially now! Tithing is an act of faith that invites God to bring supernatural power to reverse your situation.
- Fifth, please consider God’s financial laws as you decide who to vote for in this upcoming election. Anyone, at any level, running for office who isn’t talking about REAL and considerable cuts in government programs – and by that I mean, from the welfare state to the warfare state – is either a fool or lying about what’s coming.
So that’s very practical. But some of you are mired in this thing spiritually and emotionally and I have some even MORE practical news from you, from the Christian gospel. It’s good news! It will cheer you up and give you tremendous hope, if you receive it.
1. SPIRITUAL
A. ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE
First, this time of financial insecurity is a chance to get focused on forever things, and not temporal things. The American dream isn’t ultimate goal the Christian is shooting for. Neither is seeing America survive as a national, financial and military power. In fact, when some of those temporal things are taken away, we may get closer to our REAL goals.
Jesus said,
“what will it prosper a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul? What would a man give in exchange for his soul? ...For where your treasure is, there will heart be also.”
It’s not an all-together bad thing to get a hard reminder that if we gained all that this world tells us we should gain, wealth, security, comfort… that that still isn’t what REALLY matters. I’m not saying you shouldn’t save money for retirement. You should. No one wants to be a drain on their kids or the system.
But what is the true point of life? The writer of Ecclesiastes says,
Eccl 12:13-14 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
What is the bible saying, friend? It’s saying, this life is not the end. This life is not all there is to live for. The purpose of this life, is to live and prepare for the next life. And ironically that makes for an even richer life here and now.
My parents are volunteers at a college that trains foreign nationals for Christian ministry – in Hawaii. And these people come from the down and out places on planet earth. Malawi, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Pakistan, Peru. And my parents wondered how these people from destitute countries would react to the extravagant lifestyles that we live here, the meals, the cars, the homes.
They were worried that they would be so jealous and envious. They were worried that our wealth would be a stumbling block to them spiritually. They would surely say,
‘why o God did you put me in my horrible country where there’s no MTV? Where I can’t get a Twinkie when I want to, like my American friends? Where I can’t see news of the Brittany Spears saga. Ah, the injustice!”
Well, guess what? They didn’t say that. Friend, this will come a shock to some of you, but those church leaders from around the world look at us and they are overwhelmed with one emotion and it’s not envy. You want to know what it is? It’s Pity.
The pity us. Because they see so clearly that our preoccupation with this life is killing our chance at dying well. They think about dying all the time. In Malawi, the average person dies at my age. They find truth that totally escapes us in what Jesus said,
- Blessed [happy, lucky, favored by God!] are you who mourn
- Blessed are you who are poor
- Blessed are you who are persecuted.
Look, I understand that it’s a rotten thing that some of you might have had your net worth cut in half last month. I feel for you and I wouldn’t be happy about that either. But you and I can have a hope in Jesus Christ that draws us into the Life of God. It’s a forgiven life, a life full of joy and peace and hope for resurrection.
Can I just remind you of how many rich people have gone into depression, dove into drugs or self destruction or even committed suicide because they don’t have what the simplest, poorest Christian has in spades? Peace of mind. Peace with God. A heart full of joy and a family who loves them; Hope for tomorrow and no fear of death. Curt Cobain, Howard Hughes to name two.
Some people would give their fortune for the simple gifts that Christians take for granted.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
B. NO HOPE IN MONEY
I believe Christ might also use the market downturn as an opportunity to remind us that putting our hope in money is a bad idea. Today, I want to challenge you directly. If we are depressed or mad or fearful, then we have likely put too much trust in money and not enough in God. Perhaps this is a chance to ask yourself how you can move beyond.
IN the Bible it says:
1 Tim 6:17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain.
Maybe you never heard that before, but do you think God knows what’s talking about now? Does your money seem uncertain to you now? Money isn’t bad, but the Bible treats it like sex and power. Nice gifts that make terrible gods. And God would spare you the trauma of putting all your security into something that could vanish with one decision by the Fed.
So if your heart has been too wrapped up in your financial security, if your computer is following the Markets a little too closely and your heart is going up and down the roller coaster ride, friend, here’s a simple message: get off! You can try and control what cannot be controlled and go insane trying. Or you can trust God more than you trust money.
The Bible asks for us to store for a rainy day. And we should. But when did God ask us to bend our lives and our hearts out of shape to gain perfect security for tomorrow? It’s impossible. You don’t even know if you’ll be here tomorrow. So beyond reasonable measures to save, you will have to trust God for daily bread. And guess, what? That’s just the way God wants it.
Maybe this is your wake up call, that God WANTS you like this in good times AND bad. So the gospel teaches us to, Heb 13:5-6
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
OH, friend, God is a real comfort in times of trouble! This crisis may show him real or not real in your life. Some of you don’t want to know. You want to be comfortable and numb so that you never really have to test the God safety net. It’s there if you need it, so you go to church a bit, give a bit… but you don’t ever want to USE the God net. Like an airbag, right? Good to know it’s there, but heaven forbid you actually USE it.
Well, God says, he wants to be your comfort, your helper. And if he isn’t then he’s not your God, money is. And you can’t serve both, Jesus said. So you will not find out his power and presence until you are pressed into trouble and your faith net holds or it doesn’t hold. I’d say now is as good a time for the net to be tested, don’t you? Some of you have no choice. And you should thank God that he found you worthy of the test.
Last thing:
C. WE ARE HERE FOR EACH OTHER
If you do a study of history, you find that the church shines brightest when the world is the darkest. And conversely, you’ll find that when untested, un-persecuted, when part of the powerful majority, when unchallenged and when rich, the church grows complacent, lazy, overfed, selfishly preoccupied, non-serving, non-giving, power hungry and calcified by its own endless rules.
I said to our Community service crowd when talking about our response to the AIDS poverty epidemic in Africa that this challenge could be our finest hour. And maybe we’d say the same about this recession. This could be our finest hour. Because when the need gets the greatest, God’s love and the truth of our changed hearts through Jesus Christ will show up as a living reality in troubled times.
Why? Because we love one another. It’s not just a theory. Well, in good times, how does that happen? Friendship, encouragement, prayer, support. It’s a good thing. But in hard times, this love has a chance to get intensely practical. The Bible says
1 John 3:16-18 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
Go with me for a second to worst case scenario. Some of you live at "Z" so let’s imagine the unthinkable happens – Great Depression, part deux. 30% unemployment. 40% declaring bankruptcy. The true nightmare scenario is that our Kleptocracy continues to rob from our grandkids tomorrow to float our indulgences today, by borrowing money from foreign nations and banks. What happens when they decide we’re not a good debt risk? When the entire national tax revenues are not enough to pay the interest on the national debt - we’ll be officially done with our AAA credit rating. And then what? Print money. Then what? Hyperinflation. Think 1930’s Germany... Venezuela, Zimbabwe.
What will we do? Friends, let me make something clear. You’re going to this church maybe as a guest, but this is no country club, OK? If you’re a part of this family, we’re in this together. This church doesn’t exist just to put on services. We exist to BE HERE as a community of oneness and love. And behind the scenes we are, we meet in homes, we pray together, we visit each other in the hospital, we take care of each others kids, some even vacation together. And we’ll be here for each other when and if it hits the fan.
We’ll make a way forward TOGETHER. We’ll figure out something, I don’t know what. But we’ll do it, like Christians have done for 2000 years, we will rally together and the crowds outside will be amazed. They’ll watch us take in strays and they’ll see us care for the destitute and they will say, “surely God is among them.” And they will be right!
For what else can turn someone’s heart outward in the middle of crisis, but God? At the time that you want to circle the wagons and defend your own family, with a gun if you have to, Christians won’t be doing that. They’ll be coming together and opening their arms. They’ll find ways to make ends meet. They’ll share their stuff, their homes, their food, their resources. We don’t really have a choice. It’s our marching orders.
Now there will be limits, of course. The bible describes the balance like this:
Gal 6:1-5 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. …each one should carry his own load.
If you have a personal responsibility you’ll be asked to carry it. If anyone doesn’t work or participate, he won’t have a share in our common gifts. If anyone will not work, he will not eat the apostle Paul said. But if you have a burden you can’t carry we’ll carry it with you. See this vision, as you imagine the worst: envision us, being here for one another. Taking each other in, practicing real hospitality, loving in real ways, exchanging goods and services.
That will be an opportunity to show off God.
