Principles, The Essential Foundation
#moneymatters2
The Money Rant Video
Good Morning Maple Grove!
WELCOME – to week 2 of our 5 week series, ‘Money Matters.’
Raise you hands if you…
NOW THIS A SERIES – that is centered around 3 words and a formula…
THE – words… Attitude, Principles and Choices
THE - formula…
attitude + principles + practices = freed up financially
4 Principles: Gratitude – Contentment – Trust – Humility
4 Practices: Debt Free Living – Budgeting – Saving – Giving
AND AGAIN – I would like to throw out some statements that will help you know if you need to be freed up, financially speaking…
BECAUSE – chances are that you do in at least some areas…
• If you spend more than you make in a year…You need to be freed up
• If you don’t know whether or not you’re spending more in a year than you make, you need to be freed up
• If you don’t care that you might be spending more than you make in a year, You need to be freed up
• If you owe more on your car than your car is worth, You need to be freed up (Average car loan is now $30,000 and the average length of a car loan is 69.3 months… 5 years and 9 months)
• If you don’t know how much you owe on your car, You need to be freed up
• If paying the minimum on your credit cards is a way of life, You need to be freed up ($8,377 avg house credit card – 1 trillion total)
• If you have no method of tracking where your money goes, you need to be freed up.
• If money is one of the biggest stressors and cause for fighting in your marriage, You need to be freed up (44% of people sat that money is the primary cause of friction in their marriage and 57% of divorced couples cite money problems as the primary reason for the ending of their marriage)
• If you are a Jesus-follower and you are not a percentage giver to the church, you need to be freed up. (average Christian gives 2.43% of their income to the church, only 7% of Christians give 10% of their incomes, only 1% of Christians who make over $75k give 10%)
• If you do not know what percentage of your income you are giving to the church, you need to be freed up?
• If you have no plan for saving for the future, you need to be freed up.
• If you are really good at saving, making money, investing accumulating stuff… but you are not rich in generosity to the Lord’s church and to the poor and less fortunate here and around the world, you need to be freed up.
• If you think money is the most important thing in securing your future, you need to be freed up
• If you toss and turn at night, unable to sleep because you are stressed about money (62% of adults, credcard.com) you need to be freed up
• If most of your goals and dreams are driven by money (and the things money can buy and do for you), you need to be freed up.
• If you spend a lot of time comparing what you have and how much you make to others, you need to be freed up.
NOW – last week we looked at the first variable in our formula, Attitude, as we consider 5 new ways of looking at money.
1. Money is not the answer
Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. – Luke 12:15
2. We are rich
UNDERSTAND – when Paul said these words in 1 Timothy 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, but to put their hope in God.
He was talking to you and he was talking to me…
World-Wide Income… (7.6 billion people)
Yearly Income % # of people on avg
who make less
America Avg 44,980 7.3 billion (99.59%)
America Poverty 12,060 6.5 billion (85.78%)
Bottom 50% 900 (3.5 billion people
(Mei-Leigh and I… ‘The Cascades’ - On Friday… after gong to Carter’s mountain)
3. None of our stuff is ours
B/S – it is time for us to have the heart and perspective, and to make the same choice the early church did.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. – Acts 4:32
UNDERSTAND – we are NOT owners of anything, we are merely stewards of what belongs to God.
AND – one day every one of us WILL stand before the Sovereign King Of The Universe and give and account of what we did with the stuff he gave us.
Did we - use it for Him?
4. It’s okay to enjoy money
The living God, richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment…” - 1 Timothy 6:17
5. Money can lead to real life
Tell those who are rich in this world… to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and should give generously to those in need, always being ready to share with others whatever God has given them. By doing this they will …take hold of real life. – 1 Timothy 6:17-19
• Money is not the answer
• I am rich
• None of my money belongs to me
• It’s okay to enjoy money
• Money Can lead to real life (a life of being rich in good deeds and generous to those in need)
AND – real life rocks!
AND – it can’t be taken away form us..
BECAUSE – real life is focused on the eternal not the temporary.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. – Jim Elliot
NOW THIS MORNING – (Thanksgiving Weekend 2017)… we will begin looking at the second variable in our formula for being free up financially…
Attitude + Principles + Practices = Freed Up Financially
AND – freed up…
= no longer being a slave to money
= no longer being a slave to… money worries, money stress, money desires, money worship
YES TODAY – (Thanks Giving Day 20017, we will begin talking about,…
Principles, The Essential Foundation
QUESTION – are foundations important?
YEAH – I think they are…
I MEAN – just take a look at some results of building on a bad or faulty foundation… (images for google images)
11 Story Apartment Building In Shanghai
Sue Diamond of the UK, thought she got a steal when she bought this home, 3 years later… she found out the deal was not so good
5 Story department store in Ghana (9 killed)
Garment Factory in Bangladesh (160 killed)
Millennium Tower in San Francisco
(58 stories has sunk 17 inches and tilted 14 inches since it was completed in 2008. AND – not only is the tower sinking but so is the value of the muti-million dollar condos inside of it)
YES – foundations are important…
Burj Khalifa
(bor-sha Ka-lee-fa)
The world’s tallest building. The Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai January 4,2010. At a staggering 2,717 feet tall – more than half a mile high - it easily overshadows the previous tallest building (in Taiwan is but 1,671 feet tall) and it stands double the height of the renowned Empire State Building.
While most attention focuses on its height, perhaps more important is what lies buried beneath the building. Without a solid foundation, the world’s tallest building would become the world’s longest pile of rubble. Extending 164 feet deep under the Burj Khalifa lies 58,900 cubic yards of concrete weighing over 120,000 tons. It took a year just to build the foundation.
(I don’t know much able to details – but this sure looks pretty intense)
Check out what Jesus said about the importance of foundations.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
– Matthew 7:24-27
AND MGCC – as we have been saying, there are 4 foundational principles to being freed up financially…
Gratitude, Contentment, Trust, Humility
AND THIS MORNING - will cover principle #1 as we begin to dig down deep and lay our essential foundation… to being freed up financially…
AND LISTEN – if we (you, me) try to build our financial lives on any other foundation…
IT WILL – eventually collapse right before our eyes.
EITHER – in our earthly life
OR - when we stand before God
WHY - all these pictures of bad foundations… they are simply visuals cues and reminders to drive home the point about the need for having a proper foundation
OKAY – foundational principle #1 to being freed up financially…
Gratitude
In Chapter 2 of his book, ‘Too Much, Living With Less In A Land Of More,’ Gary Johnson writes…
Cereal. It’s enough to make a grown man cry. Sasha Moravski did. I saw him weep when we turned the corner into the cereal aisle at the Kroger store.
It took me awhile to realize what was happening. Sasha was a worship pastor from Ukraine, and he came to stay with us some years ago for an internship to learn about ministry in the local church.
Ukraine became independent from the former Soviet Union in 1991, but immediately it faced great financial hardships. Ukrainians, including Sasha’s family, found it difficult to buy even the most basic of foods: bread, milk, eggs, sugar, meat of any kind, etc.
When I stayed in Sasha’s home a few years prior to his visit to America, I remember seeing one banana thinly sliced on the table, arranged on a saucer and put on the table for the entire family to share. So, I wasn’t surprised when he broke down and cried in the cereal aisle. He kept saying, “Americans have so much.”
Gary continues…
Come to think of it, we have so much that we have become ungrateful. We take our bountiful lives for granted. We may be in bondage financially, yet we live in a free land. We my struggle paycheck to paycheck, but I doubt many of us go to bed hungry. We have beds in which to sleep, roofs over our heads, and clothes on our backs. We live in a land where technology abounds and educational opportunities are unlimited. We are blessed beyond measure in this land of plenty.
So, what’s our problem? Simply put: we have too much; and when we have too much, we take too much for granted.”
QUESTION – do you agree with Gary assessment?
THAT WHEN – you have too much, that there is a very real danger of taking too much for granted?
• Anybody eat too much recently
• Anybody complain about having too much leftover that finding room in the refrigerator required a degree in Engineering
• You know it has been pretty cold overnight recently… have you taking things like… warm clothes, a roof over your head, hot showers, heat… etc for granted.
NOW - as we consider ‘Gratitude’ this foundational principle to being freed up financially, I want to ‘unpack’ a text found in Deuteronomy chapter 8…
AS YOU KNOW – the book of Deuteronomy records events that take place about 40 years after Moses had led God’s people out of Egypt, after 400+ years of cruel and bitter slavery.
AND LISTEN - as this book opens up two very significant things are about to go down…
#1 - Moses was about to die, and
#2 - at long last (after wandering in the wilderness for years… because of their failure to trust in God) THE Israelites were about to move into the Promised Land.
SO MOSES - gathers the people together and he provides them with not one—but three—farewell sermons, which are recorded in the book of Deuteronomy.
AND REMEMBER - Moses was speaking to a brand new generation of Israelites because their parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles had all died during forty years of wondering in the wilderness.
IN FACT – every person over the age of 18 that left Egypt was now dead, except for Joshua and Caleb…
BOTTOM LINE - Moses was preparing God’s people for the day, when they would march…
• INTO - the Promised Land.
• INTO – a land of plenty
• INTO – a land flowing with milk and honey
HERE - is a portion of what he said in his first sermon.
AND MGCC – what Moses told God’s people ~ 3400 years ago will help us drive down deep and build a strong foundation..
“Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors.
THEN…
Remember how the LORD your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands.
Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the LORD your God disciplines you for your own good. “So obey the commands of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. – Deuteronomy 8:1-6
NOW – there is an important word that Moses uses as he talks with God’s people.
IT’S - in verse 2…
AND B/S - this word is essential in helping God’s people both develop and maintain a grateful heart…
Remember how the LORD your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years…
SO – do you see the key word? REMEMBER…
UNDERSTAND – in everyone of his sermons in Deuteronomy, Moses uses this word remember (a Hebrew word ‘zakar’ [zaw-kar] – that means impress upon the memory, to mention, to record, to commemorate, to bring to the surface of our minds…
IN – Deuteronomy 5 Moses said
Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. – Dt 5:15
REMEMBER…
Do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. – Dt 7:18
REMEMBER…
Remember how the LORD your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years…
REMEMBER…
UNDERSTAND B/S….
Gratitude is a foundational principle that God’s people must drive down deep in order to be freed up financially.
AND LISTEN – the force, the power that will drive gratitude down deeper and deeper into the bedrock of our hearts and minds… is REMEMBERING.
YOU SEE – Moses knows that GRATITUDE will be the natural response when God’s people remember 2 very awesome and important things…
#1 When they…
Remember that God is your Redeemer…
Remember that you were once slaves in the land of Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you! - Dt 15:15
(6 times in Deuteronomy Moses says the exact same thing)
B/S…
Remember that God saved, delivered and redeemed you.
Remember that you used to be slaves, but because of God’s deliverance you are slaves no more.
AND…
Remember that God is your Provider
UNDERSTAND - for 40 years God provided for His people in the wilderness… YES – in a land of no provision He was their provider, providing them with…
food, water, manna (bread) and meat.
YOU SEE - our God is not only generous, He is outrageously generous! AND LISTEN – the magnitude of both His power and His generosity was on full display among the Israelites.
THINK ABOUT IT – they lived in a desert wasteland for forty years, and there were millions of them!
YEAH - most scholars estimate that there could have been 3-4 million people — who lead out of slavery…
Exodus 12:37 says that there were 600,000 men besides women and children (and they had big families back then)
AND – check this out…
• Marching out of Egypt 50 across, they would make a column over 40 miles long.
• Walking at 2.5 miles per hour, it would take 16 hours for all the people to pass the same point.
• They would require 30 railroad box cars of food per day, and 300 tanker cars of water per day!
NOW - as they moved through the desert, it was not long before they began running out—out of water, out of food, out of the basic necessities of life.
BUT GOD - provided for their needs when they were running out. Water came from a rock, bread—manna came morning after morning, and meat—quail came hovering close to the ground.
AND UNDERSTAND – when GOD did all of this, He was simply being Himself. YOU SEE – our God is a giver. From the opening pages of Scripture, God started giving. He created an indescribable earth and said to Adam, “I give you every green plant for food” (Gen. 1:30).
AND – in the wilderness God gave the Israelites manna, quail, shoes that did not wear out, a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of fire during the day long before He gave them the Promised Land.
Throughout the Bible, we read of one instance after another of God giving, with the greatest moment of all being: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son...” God outrageously gives!
AND LISTEN – God’s provision did not end at the desert.
Check out what Moses says next…
The LORD your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills.
It is a land of wheat and barley; of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; of olive oil and honey.
It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. – Deuteronomy 8:7-9
YES - things were beginning to look up for God’s people!
• They could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
• They were about to leave behind their land of lack and move into a land of plenty.
QUESTION – is it a good thing or a bad thing to move from the land of lack – to the land of plenty?
IT – depends, right?
CHECK OUT – the warning Moses gives to God’s people who were about to live in the land of plenty…
(BTW – you and I are already after living in such a land, amen?)
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
QUESTION – have you done that recently?
Did you do it 3 days ago on Thanksgiving day?
Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God,
AND B/S – it is so much easier to do that (forget our God)…
WHEN - we are satisfied.
WHEN – the bills are paid, the pantry is full
WHEN – our health is fine
WHEN – our investments are growing
Why is that?
Why is it so easy for us to forget about God when He provides for us so well?
Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.
Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions.
He brought you water out of hard rock.
He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you.
Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God…
BUT UNFORTUNATELY – that is exactly what happened.
No sooner had they moved into ‘The Land Of Plenty’
THEN THEY - forgot the God, their Provider and Redeemer.
UNDERSTAND…
WHILE - sitting at tables covered with food,
WHILE - living in homes with roofs over their heads,
WHILE - gold and silver accumulated in their investment accounts,
THE - people of God forgot their God.
AND THEY – began to see themselves as the source of all that they had.
You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”
Ever felt that way?
Do you feel that way?
I MEAN – you are just so sharp, so wise, such a hard and focused worker, such a great investor and accumulator…
But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth,
and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them,
I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.
If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them…
Other gods, like the God of money…
QUESTION – is it possible for money to become a God, an idol that we bow down and worship?
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. – Matthew 6:24
In his book ‘god’s at War’ (defeating the idols that battle for your heart) Kyle Idelman writes…
The reason money so often ends up being God’s chief competition is that we tend to ascribe divine attributes to it. We look to money to do for us the very thing God wants to do for us.
Kinda like the guy we talked about last week from Luke 12…
YOU KNOW – the I need bigger barns, to keep all my stuff guy.
UNDERSTAND…
Money has become our God when we…
Look to money as our source of security
The guy in Luke 12 tells himself that he has plenty of good things laid up for many years.
In like manner, we think if we could just save enough would have no more worries.
Maybe you’re afraid that the economy will collapse, or your health will fail, or there will be a terrorist attack, or you’ll lose your job.
And maybe you think if you could just save enough money, all your worries would go away.
When we look to money as a security, it becomes our god, because that’s where we are putting our hope and our dependence.
Prayer becomes nice but not necessary because we have enough money to meet our own needs.
Maybe we should consider praying the prayer of Proverbs 30: 8,9, which says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’”
Money has become our God when we…
Look to money as our source of satisfaction
The guy in Luke 12 thinks to himself, If I just accumulate a little more I can take life easy. Eat, drink, and be merry.
Even before his good crop this man was wealthy, but he thinks that if he just had a little bit more, then he would be satisfied.
But you have to wonder if things continued to go his way would his new barns be big enough, or would his happiness depend on getting even bigger
Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, “If you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich, you will never get all you want”.
The more money you have, the more you spend, right up to the limits of your income. Most all of us have this appetite for money or possessions. And we think that if we could satisfy this appetite it would go away—if we could just make the money or buy the car —but that’s not how it works.
Instead, the more you feed it, the hungrier it gets.
Money has become our God when we…
Look to money as our source of significance
The guy in Luke 12 focus is on himself and how much he has accumulated. He clearly found his identity in his stuff.
We often do the same thing.
We judge our worth by our net worth.
UNDERSTAND - the god of money wants us to believe that our significance comes from what we make of ourselves.
But we find our true identity in Christ.
He has marked us as his own, and that’s what makes us valuable. That’s where our value is found.
He forever determined our value when he died on the cross for us. But when we worship the god of money, a person’s worth is determined not by the symbol of the cross, but by the symbol of the dollar sign.
Is it possible that you have ascribed to money some of these divine attributes? Are you looking to money to do for you what God wants to do for you?
MGCC – 3400 years ago Moses stood before God’s people who were about to live in the land of plenty and he told them again and again to REMEMBER…
TO REMEMBER that they were slaves in Egypt and that God had delivered and redeemed them.
TO REMEMBER – that all they have ever had was not because of their own effort but because of God’s provision.
Moses kept telling them this because he knew how easy it is for saved, redeemed and rescued people to forget about God as they live in a land of plenty.
YOU KNOW - nothing has really changed.
I MEAN – Moses could stand in our churches and preach sermons to people who live and think much the same way.
MGCC – as we sit in this room, as saved, redeemed and rescued people in our land of plenty have forgotten that God is our Provider, that He alone is the source of all we have, and that we are no longer slaves because of His mercy and grace?
B/S – an essential part of our journey to be freed up financially is this foundational principles of gratitude.
A gratitude fueled by the truth that even in this land of plenty…
That God (and God alone) is both our redeemer and our provider.
QUESTION…
Are you grateful that God is your redeemer?
Are you grateful that God is you provider?
On December 15th 1967 – just 10 days before Christmas, the Silver Star Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
Traffic was bumper to bumper on the bridge at five in the afternoon. People were leaving downtown Point Pleasant at the end of the work day, while others were driving into downtown to do their Christmas shopping.
Eyewitnesses reported that a sound like that of a sonic boom erupted, anchor cables at the end of the bridge fell into the water below, claiming the lives of 46 people.
The US Army Corp of Engineers determined that the tragedy was caused by the failure of a single eyebolt. When this one piece of metal gave way, it caused the massive collapse and loss of life. A simple piece of metal was missing.
QUESTION – is gratitude missing from your life?
DO YOU – take for granted all the blessings that God has entrusted and provided you with?
DO YOU – take for granted your salvation and redemption?
IF – we take too much granted, it is directly related to having too much and forgetting God in this land of plenty.
AND LISTEN…
IF – our gratitude to God is missing, we should not be surprised when our finances collapse around us.
A collapse that will not only impact us individually, but also the innocent lives of our families and loved ones.
MGCC – I want top encouraged everyone of us to Pursue gratitude the first principles in the equation that results is in us being freed up financially…
YEAH – we need to develop an obsession for giving thanks to God.
• Wake up thanking God.
• God to sleep thanking God.
Name the top ten things you are thankful for.
Pray through the alphabet giving thanks for something specific that begins with every letter.
attitude + principles + practices = freed up financially
(Gary Johnson’s book – ‘Too Much’ was very helpful in putting this message together)
