Determining a Standard of Living
1 Timothy 6:7-13
There was a story which appeared in the news about a woman who had won the lottery. Before winning, she worked long, hard hours but earned just enough money to cover each month’s bills. The years of toil and worry had taken a toll on her face but then she won several million dollars in the lottery. She paid off all her bills, bought a nice home, and had several firs and luxury automobiles. With a guaranteed income of more than a million dollars a year, she found herself in court a few years later declaring bankruptcy. Her bills and debt had exceeded more than she could pay. When the judge decided to grant her bankruptcy status, he gave her a strict budget of $10,000 a month to adhere to. When she heard the amount, she reportedly exclaimed, “But judge, I can’t dare get by on less than $50,000 a month!”
Whether poor or rich or in the middle, all of us have to determine our standard of living. So who or what is determining your standard of living? Who or what is influencing your financial decisions and the life you’re living? The average American is outspending what they earn, meaning they’re reaching beyond their means to attain a lifestyle? What lifestyle are you trying to attain? Most people have never consciously thought about their standard of living, their financial expectations and their lifestyle. But what we find is that there are three influences in determining our lifestyle. First is our parents. One of the problems college graduates face today is the expectation that they will assume the same lifestyle they had growing up. Some may even think they should be doing better than their parents. Yet, economists say that if you are over 50, you are enjoying a higher standard of living than any previous generation in the history of our nation. If you are under 50, then you will be the first generation to fail to meet or exceed your parent’s standard of living. Many people today make the assumption that the things, the experiences and the opportunities you had as a child became a birthright for their lives today. That’s dangerous because times change, incomes change, interest rates change, inflation changes and the economy changes. After World War II, one wage earner was enough to support a family of four. Today, it takes two wage earners to have the same standard of living. Too often people set unrealistic expectations by trying to emulate or even exceed their parent’s lifestyle.
Second is your peers. Often as your peers upgrade their standard of living, we’re drawn to do so as well. It’s the keeping up with the Joneses mentality and what makes that so insidious is that it’s rarely a conscious and competitive endeavor. When your neighbors are outspending their earning, it can often wear down your discipline over time. And many times, they’re living beyond their means. Bill Hybels tells the story being 7 years old and riding with his dad in his pickup truck. They passed a farmhouse with a beautiful new Cadillac in the driveway. It literally glistened in the sun! “Bill said, “Look Dad, that farmer must be really rich!” He smiled and said, “Billy, that man is nearly busted. He owes money to everyone in this county, including me. Bill says he remembers thinking: “that man is really goofed up. Why would he buy a car he can’t afford?” Because he’s keeping up with the Joneses. That mentality goes something like this: If all my friends are enjoying these pleasures, then why am I sticking to a budget? I read about one former Saints player who said that when he got on the team, everyone was driving regular cars. But when the first player bought a Porche, suddenly more and more Porches began arriving in the car lot each week. No one talked about it but there was a competition to stay caught up with the other players and the same can happen to us.
A third and perhaps more subtle and manipulative influence is the media and advertising. Studies have linked violence with TV viewing but what about linking our spending habits and subsequent indebtedness with TV viewing? Last year 180 billion dollars was spent to get you to spend your money. Companies use the best creative minds, actors, directors and technology to make it happen. They’re not just selling a product but a lifestyle and in their words, ‘happiness.’ There’s constant pressure to have the latest and newest products on the market to justify and soothe our sense of self worth. This was exemplified in the commercial which opened with the words: “Feeling like you always need to have the latest thing?” The camera pans a house moving from room to room filled with every useless gadget ever sold on TV from the Ronco potato peeler to the football phone. Finally the camera gets to the bathroom where the owner of the house is sitting on the toilet with the Shopping Channel on TV and he’s talking on his toilet dispenser phone trying to buy the latest product. Many times, that’s an image of us. The new iPhone comes out or the Fall’s latest fashions and even though our closets are full and our current phone is working fine, we have to have it. All of this adds up as we try to maintain the lifestyle we have growing up while keeping up with the Joneses and the pressure of 3000+ advertising messages we’re exposed to each week telling us to buy our way to happiness. Mix in a little covetousness and greed, add in a little low self esteem bolstered by shopping and then add living in a self indulgent society and you have an enormous encouragement to live beyond your means.
In his book, “The Culture Code,” Clotaire Rapaille’s breakthrough notion is that we acquire a silent system of Codes as we grow up within our culture. These Codes of what love food, work, money, health and others define what they really mean and represent for us as Americans. They are what make us distinctly American and invisibly shape how we behave in our personal lives, even when we are completely unaware of our motives or the influences that not only shape our lives but directs our decisions and our lifestyle. For example, the culture code for work is who you are, for money its proof of what we’ve accomplished, for shopping it’s reconnecting with life and others. But what’s interesting is that as enlightening as the work of Clotaire is, the one influence which isn’t mentioned is faith. So let me ask: amidst your parents, your peers and the influence of advertising, the larger culture itself and the Codes imprinted on us, what role or impact does your faith have in determining your standard of living and your way of life? When Jesus said, “Follow me” he was inviting people into a lifestyle, a way of life that touches and reshapes every aspect of yourself. When we talk about stewardship, we’re talking more than just money, we’re talking about your time, talents and treasure. How much does your faith and commitment to follow Jesus impact the life you’re leading?
Mike Slaughter tells the story of the Mennonites who were serving the Vietnamese by providing food and medical supplies in both North and South Viet Nam. When the war broke out, the US government told them to leave North Vietnam or they would be charged with treason. Their response? “We are citizens of the kingdom of God and our allegiance is to our King, who says, “When your enemy is hungry, feed them.” And Mike writes, “When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, our allegiance to him is higher than anyone else. Jesus Christ must become the supreme authority in our lives. That means you can have no higher allegiances in your life. Your allegiance to Jesus and His Kingdom supersedes your allegiance to country, family or vocation. To follow Jesus and enter into a covenant relationship with Him means that he is your highest authority. Jesus put it this way: ‘You cannot service two masters. You cannot serve God and money.’”
Looking through the lens of our Marks of Discipleship which answer what are the core things which make us followers of Jesus Christ, how does your faith influence but more importantly determine your lifestyle, how you live? How does it impact your worship, how often you worship and what you worship God with, your hands, your voice, your giving? How does your faith influence your pursuit of spiritual growth? Are you in a small group, do you read the Bible daily and do you have a plan for your spiritual growth? How earnestly do you pursue it? How does your faith influence your care for creation and stewardship of it and your pursuit of justice on behalf of others? Does your faith impact how you serve others, how often you serve others and whom you serve? Does your faith determine who you relate to and how do you treat others? (Jesus related most to the least the last and the lost, those who were most in need of God). Who do you relate to and? How does your faith spur you in sharing your faith with others or just inviting people to church with you? And lastly, how does your faith impact your giving?
So how can our faith become our Culture Code? First, let your faith get a grip on your life. What you believe has an enormous impact on your lifestyle. If Jesus satisfies your soul, you don’t need the latest and the greatest thing to feel good about yourself or to be happy. You’ve got to get a grip on what you believe and on what you value in life and let it then get a grip on your life. If Jesus isn’t at the heart of your life then something else will be. But whatever that is, it is a God not worthy of your worship. Many people buy into the thinking, “If I only had.” If I only had that car or that house or that spouse or those clothes then I would be happy and have the satisfaction I’m looking for. But only God satisfies. King David says, “My God satisfies my soul.” Psalm 103 Only Jesus can solve the true satisfaction dilemma and once it is solved, it’s not a once in a lifetime experience but a growing and progressive satisfaction that leads to contentment as time goes on. And you begin to feel less and less a part of this world and more and more a part of God’s kingdom and its values.
Second, let your faith get a grip on your finances. Every person needs a periodic dose of reality of their hard, cold financial situation. This means sitting down and tracking your spending for a month. One insight for many is that they’re spending more than they're earning, and over time you're going to drown in debt. 80% of Americans owe more than they own. The average person is carrying $7,281 in credit card debt and at an average interest rate just below 14%. A bumper sticker on a car summed up how many people live, “I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go.” Fewer still are bumper stickers which read, “It’s not worth much but it’s paid for.” Too may people put themselves in the bondage of debt and raise the tension in their life that will eventually cause enormous stress. People under great debt report feelings of guilt and deceit when they go out to lunch or buy a gift for someone. God’s plan for you is financial freedom, not bondage. You can choose to ignore it, to put it off, but financial facts are financial facts. And every month you delay coming to grips with your financial situation, it puts you further and further away from freedom. The other thing this allows you to see is if you are fulfilling God’s call for the tithe, to give the first 10% of what you earn each month to him. Secondly, it allows you see if you're paying yourself. Too masny people get their paycheck and then give it to everyone else because of the lifestyle they’ve chosen and they never pay themselves, meaning they don’t put money away in a rainy day fund for emergencies and they don’t save for retirement. God wants you to do both but for many of you first you have to get out of debt.
Third, let the Holy Spirit get a grip on you. The Holy Spirit wants to be your financial advisor. God wants a say in your life and that includes your spending. Even after you track your expenditures, make adjustments according to God’s values and then get yourself on a budget, there are still 100’s and 100’s of financial decisions that need to be made throughout the course of your life: like where to live, how big a house to buy, education, clothing, retirement, where to vacation and how much to give back to God. God says before you get swayed by the values of and culture code of the world, he will give you the Holy Spirit to guide you in making the financial decisions of your life. When the Holy Spirit gets a grip on us, it guides us in handling our money. If you open yourself up and listen for the counsel of God, the Holy Spirit will not only guide you but also empower you in all of your decisions, even your daily spending.
As you go home today, I want to leave you with three questions: First, what are your top three priorities in life, what evidence is there of them in your life and do they reflect the priorities of Jesus? Second, whose lifestyle is most tempting for you to emulate and why? Third, which issue do you need to address first: your faith, your debt or surrendering to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Amen and Amen.
