The Money Pit

INTRODUCTION

• VIDEO CLIP

• SLIDE #1

• Why are so many families over-extended financially?

• Are you in a position where things are really tight financially, or are you about to drown in financial debt?

• Does it seem as though your paycheck is getting dumped into a big bottomless pit?

• You are you are not alone.

• According to Money-zine.com Americans carried approximately $886 billion in credit card debt, and that number is expected to grow to a projected $1,177 billion by the end of 2010. This works out to over $5,100 in credit card debt per cardholder (not household) and that number is expected to increase to over $6,500 by the end of 2010.

• That is only CREDIT CARD DEBT, not cars or other issues.

• Statistics also tell us that the average new car loan is over $27,600,http://www.money-zine.com/Financial-Planning/Debt-Consolidation/Consumer-Debt-Statistics/

• The question gets to be “how much is enough?” How much would does it take to make a person happy?

• Life has become a money pit for many. When you have an insatiable appetite for things, you will NEVER be happy no matter how much or little you have.

• Our life becomes about trying to pay for all the stuff our appetite demands.

• Why do you thing many if not most families up to their eyeballs in debt? They are missing something!

• Let’s get personal for a minute.

• How many of you like being in debt up to your eyeballs?

• What if through God’s Word you can transform life from one of being a worry infested money pit to a life with less stress and more joy filled?

• Would it be nice to have less financial stress and to have the ability to more deeply participate in taking care of the needs of others along with being able to participate in furthering the ministry of God’s Kingdom?

• Today turn in your bibles to Philippians 4:11-15

• SLIDE #2

• Philippians 4:11(ESV) 11Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

• If we want life to stop being a money pit we need to:

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. Learn how to be content with your life. (11)

• Paul had some very rough times AFTER he became a Christian.

• Before he was a Christian he was a Pharisee with an excellent pedigreed.

• He most likely was doing pretty well from a material standpoint.

• People looked up to him, they envied him, and they wanted to be like him.

• As a Christian, Paul did not always have it easy, shipwrecked, beaten, and let out of town in a basket among other things.

• In the previous passage Paul speaks of being blessed by the fact that Philippian Christians were concerned about him especially since he was in prison at the time.

• Throughout it all Paul learned something very important. He learned how to be content with whatever he has and whatever circumstance he was in.

• The word “content” in original text means “self-sufficient” and independent of others.

• As a matter of fact, this word is only used in the place in the New Testament.

• In the ancient Greek world the word was used to describe the independence that WISDOM brought, however; this is not what Paul had in mind with this word.

• He gives it a new meaning. It now gives the idea of independence of dependence on Jesus.

• In other words being content biblically is knowing your sufficiency comes from being in Christ. Being content is like being Jesus-sufficient instead of self.

• Remember how last week we examined the fact that Jesus will take care of us if we put Him first.

• When we lack contentment, we are never satisfied.

• We see life in the wrong light. The chief end of man is not to have all his needs and desires filled, but rather it is to glorify God.

• Solomon was a man who seemed to have it all, wealth, power prestige. He had the ability and means to do anything he wanted. AND by the WAY HE DID.

• SLIDE #4

• Ecclesiastes 12:13(ESV) 13The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

• Notice that Paul says he LEARNED to be content. Why did he have to learn it? Because contentment is not natural for us.

• If we do not learn to be content with God and what He is blessed us with, we will never be at peace, nothing we do; nothing we buy will fill the void in our heart.

• Does being content mean that we do not desire some things? Not necessarily.