“Hello my name is Debt”
Luke 16:1-14
We meet individuals in a variety of places. We come to church and we don’t know the person seated near us so we introduce ourselves. Hello my name is and we shake hands. Perhaps someone in your neighborhood has gathering and they invite and you realize you don’t really know everyone. The guy that lives 3 doors down but you’ve never met so you introduce yourself; hello my name is and you shake hands. Over the past month we have said hello to some emotions; some situations we find ourselves in like regret, we said hello to anxiety and depression and last week to guilt.
We meet these feelings in a variety of places. We meet regret when someone or something reminds us of a time when we didn’t live up to someone’s standard; often our own and regret sets in. Just when we thought it was gone, regret was suddenly back. And whether it be regret or guilt or anxiety and depression, we meet these emotions in a variety of places. And frankly one of those places can be at the mailbox or your email account. And it reaches out to you and says hello my name is debt. You go through the mail as you’re walking back into the house and it might look something like this:
Oh a wedding invitation, thank you note, that’s nice; junk mail, junk mail, a bill, a bill, junk mail; another bill. You can ignore some of this. You can ignore the thank you note; you probably won’t you can just toss the junk mail; you probably will but when it comes to the bills you can ignore them and some people do but they won’t ignore you; they’re gonna keep coming back and coming back until you pay them. The simplest definition for debt is this: something, typically money that is owed or due. But there’s really nothing simple about it and if we have too much of it---too much debt, it can preoccupy every moment of our day until we take care of it.
It may surprise you to learn that the Bible has a great deal to say about money and debt.
• Jesus talked more about money than He talked about heaven and hell combined.
• Of the 39 parables, 11 deal with finances
• One of every ten verses in the gospels deals with possessions
• Money is mentioned over 800 times in scripture
• Over 2300 verses are in scripture on the topic of money and possessions
So it would perhaps lead us to this question. Is God more concerned about money than my soul? Is God more concerned about money than my spiritual life? Well the answer to the question is clearly no, however many of us are. In fact, money and how we handle it; debt and how it handles us, occupies too much time and energy on a daily basis.
In Luke 16 we find the parable of the shrewd manager. Luke 16: 1-14. This passage is clearly related to money and our management of it. (READ) With this in mind, I want to give you 7 truths the Bible teaches about money and debt. Just spending a couple of minutes on each one. So, first, let’s establish a foundation.
1. Money belongs to God. Not us. Verse 1. Right away in this passage we learn that there is a rich man who has someone help him manage his money. And his manager is wasting it. The parallel here is that God gives us money to manage. He is the owner. We are the manager. In this passage we see this very concept. There was a man who was wealthy and his manager is wasting his possessions. So he calls him in and tells him; I want you to give an account of your management; then he fires him. He says “because you cannot be my manager anymore.”
In March of this year God entrusted this property to us. We are now the managers. It is our responsibility to take care of it.
2. We must learn to be truly content. This man wasted his boss’ money. In the previous chapter, in the story of the Prodigal son, the son does the same thing. He goes to his father and asks for his inheritance. Then he throws the entire amount away. This is a problem for many people because we often try to buy our way to happiness. If I could just buy a new car or a new guitar, or whatever it is, I would be happy. Contentment means to be in a state of peace. Here’s why this is so important. Many purchases are made; much debt is incurred in life, due to discontent. Discontent sparks debt. Debt is fueled by discontent.
• You know, I’m tired of my car
• My neighbor has a better car
• My neighbor has a better house
• My friend wears nicer clothes.
• My neighbors all have a pool. I think I ‘d be happier if I had a pool
And too many times, the solution is to reach in our pockets and pull out the credit card. Paul writes to the church in Philippi about this topic of contentment and most of us have much to learn in this area. We think that getting more things will make us happy. We need to understand the difference.
Happiness refers to a state of feeling pleasure.
Contentment refers to a state of being satisfied.
For some of us, our satisfier is broken. Nothing makes us happy. Happiness is temporary for the most part; contentment is more permanent. So work on contentment.
3. Learn to give, generously. This is a principle I would encourage you to practice with your money. We practice this. I recommend that you do several things with your money. They are GIVE, SAVE AND LIVE. And I will deal with each one as we move along. This may seem odd that in order to get out of debt that we need to practice giving money away, but it’s true. Here is the first thing we need to do.
• Give to God. Malachi reminds us to bring our tithes to the Lord. Tithe literally means 10%. So, we are asked to give 10%. More, if God leads you to do so. My wife and I have followed this principle for over 45 years. 10%.
Many times, when hearing this, we immediately think, hey pastor what you don’t realize is that I don’t have anything left over! And that’s the problem but the reason is because of debt. Too much debt. But guess who created it? We did. So we have to be the ones to get out of it. You have to learn to talk to your money and tell your money where it needs to go. Tell your money what its assignment is. You’re for food, you’re for house payment; you’re for utilities, and so forth. And here is how much you assign to credit cards: none. Zero. You don’t use them because when you do, the item you have purchased will cost you more than the sticker price. The minimum amount is 5%. So if I owe 100 dollars I would pay 5% which is $5.00. Then they will add maybe 20% interest which means that when I get the bill next month, I will owe more than I did the previous month. But I made a payment. Here’s the deal. If you pay the minimum every month, you will owe for the rest of your life. This is why it is best NOT to use credit cards. Credit cards make money for the banks, not for you. It is always best to pay cash. And if you can’t you may have to decide “hey, I don’t need that after all.”
4. Save to be ready. Ready for your later years. Ready for trouble when it comes your way. Has that ever happened to you? You just got everything caught up and the car breaks down. Many people retire on their social security alone and then find it is not enough. Invest in your retirement. But you have to save for more than your retirement. You have to save for unexpected expenses. The car needs new tires. The roof leaks at home. You have to have back up money. Emergency money. This is where most of us fail and when we don’t have it; we pull out the credit card. Which just increases our debt.
5. Spend, with discipline. When you spend it should lower your debt, not increase it. In Luke 14, Jesus tells the story of a man who wants to build a tower and He tells us that in order to build one, the man must first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money in order to complete the project. Did you know that the national debt is now over 21 trillion dollars? The government does not know how to spend wisely. Most of us cannot fathom that amount of money. Our Government sets a terrible example for our people. And if we all continue to function that way, we will never be debt free. You see money will only do what you tell it to do.
But once you get out of debt, you will realize you will actually have money that is flexible. I can give it away, I can invest it or I can just go have fun…do what I want to. And to get out of debt, for a period of time you have to give some things up in order to pay for the things that you financed previously on a credit card. Every believer should have as a goal to become debt free.
6. Recognize the consequences of debt. Now in this story this is what happens. He is sloppy with his handling of money so he loses his job. So in verse 5-7 the manager develops a plan. Because he is now in debt, again, he calls in all of the tenants and he gives a percentage of the crop to his boss, the owner.
For instance, the first tenant owes 800 gallons of olive oil. (This was used to bathe in by the way.) He cuts the bill in half to 400 gallons. Same with the next one. Cuts it in half. Like a fire sale on debt. You owed this much; now you only owe this much. Interesting, I think that it really wasn’t his place to lower the debt that was owed to his master. “I know you owe my boss 100 dollars; but just pay him 50.00. To our surprise, the owner actually praises him for this even though he will lose money in the deal. Perhaps in this case, neither one of them really knew how to manage money.
Debt has consequences. A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until around 1850 individuals who had debt were taken to prison if they did not pay it. Called debtors prisons. These were workhouses and the individual was locked there until he earned enough to pay off his debt. Now that will teach you to go into debt. Not a good idea but would definitely make you think twice before you pull out a credit card. :
7. Learn to love Jesus, not money. The Bible says that money is the root of all evil, right? Actually no. It says the love of money is. Nothing wrong with money. Just don’t fall in love with it. Rev. Ike preaches that the lack of money is the root of all evil.
In New Orleans we used to have a word called lagniappe. It was extra; gravy. A few extra teachings we find here. Verse 8. The sons of this world are smarter than the sons of light. The world is often smarter than the church. He is saying if believers would just be as good at handling matters as the world is, we would be better off. Being a believer doesn’t automatically qualify you to be a good money manager. He is saying that if we would just handle spiritual matters as carefully as other handle money, we would be better off.
Then in verses 10-11 we see that a man’s best way of showing we are fit to do something is to prove it in the small things. Then we will be entrusted with the bigger things. We wanna say Lord if you would just make a millionaire, I would start tithing. When actually, 100,000 dollars would be a lot to give away. God says you will have more when I see that you can handle what you have.
Finally, in verse 13 he lays down this rule: none of us can serve two people. You see a servant/slave had no spare time. Everything was devoted to one master. Serving can never be a part time or an “extra” job. Once we choose to serve God, every waking moment must be given to him.
We either worship our money or we worship with our money.
A young boy came to church one cold winter day to get out of the blowing snow. He had been trying to sell newspapers but not a single customer had passed by because of the weather. He slipped into the back of the church, just hoping to get warm and catch up on his sleep. Though the Sunday crowd was slim, the boy really paid attention to the sermon and was greatly moved by it. When the pastor was done, he called for the offering. The ushers went from row to row, and when the offering plate came to the boy, he stared at it for a while...he had no money and did not know what to do.
He then did something very strange and very beautiful. He stood up and stepped right into the offering plate. By then, all the people had turned around and were staring at the boy. When he looked up, he had big tears running down his face as he said, "Pastor, I don’t have any money because I haven’t sold any newspapers today. But, if Jesus gave His life for me, then I will gladly give my life to Him.”
