Cash and Christianity

What is this? Or what is this? Or this? Or this? Or, to most of us, this would be more familiar. It's a dollar in whatever currency. It's a small denomination of money. In fact, it's very small. If you took a dollar and you dropped it, is it worth picking up anymore? Can you get anything for a dollar? I mean, is it really even worth bending over for? We find smaller denominations of coins lying in the street sometimes, and nobody's interested in picking them up anymore. They may be on the sidewalk or in the street itself, and they're just there. You can't really put them in a machine or do much with them, and so you think, well, why would I want to pick up a coin? Maybe coins aren't worth anything but throwing in a jar or giving to kids. What does a small, insignificant denomination of money mean to you? Oftentimes, we relate it to that which it can immediately buy. When I held up a small currency, did anybody see $1,000? That's a one-dollar bill lying on the floor right here. Does anybody think it's $1,000? If after services I don't pick it up, will everyone run up and fight over it? And say, oh, that is worth $1,000! I think it would be silly, wouldn't it? And so the question, is a dollar lying on the floor worth picking up, is a realistic question.

Is a coupon worth a dollar worth validating, worth cashing in? Is saving a dollar worth anything? That question is going to come back because the value that we place on money often isn't realistic. In fact, there could easily be $1,000 worth of money lying on the floor right here for many people in this room. In recent decades, we've had outrageous consumption. And with the consumption in the world, people have not had enough of their own resources to purchase this. And so outrageous debt has followed. And it's been encouraged. It has been encouraged so that more people can manufacture more things and sell them and make more profits. And the more profit that is made, it seems like the stronger an economy is because there's all this profit flowing around.

But at the very basis of this sort of upside-down pyramid is an individual who does not have enough money to pay for acquiring all those goods and therefore goes in debt for them.

The solution to our current crisis has been to encourage people to go on yet another debt-spending spree. And governments around the world in what is called quantitative easing.

A cute little word for going deeper into debt by printing more money from the national currency and flooding it into quantitative easing. In other words, providing some ease to the shortfall of money that is out there.

The Bible tells us that there are all kinds of times ahead. In the Bible study today, we learned more about end-time events that are coming up and the end of this current age and its economies and its society.

We find in the Bible that the end-time rage that will consume the world and it will be the worst time that will ever happen is really fueled by economic and financial matters. We're buying and selling and control and power just really get out of control.

Well, we find also that that comes with unparalleled sickness and health and suffering and death.

You and I need to be apart from this society. We need to be apart from that mentality. We need to walk a different kind of road.

We don't need to be in on the greed and all the effects that will come from that type of mentality as the world marches on.

We are not to be of this world, but Jesus said we are in this world.

And so we must learn how to have cash and be a Christian and excel at both. The title of the sermon today is Cash and Christianity, How to Excel at Both.

How can we do that? Today I'd like to give some solid principles for being a Christian while using what in one case the Bible mentions as filthy lucre or mammon, a root of all kinds of evil.

How do we correlate being a Christian and using the instruments of money?

The first time the Bible mentions somebody with a lot of money, it speaks of a righteous man, Abraham.

In Genesis 13, verse 2, it simply says, Abram was very rich, very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.

It could have used the term filthy rich, but it doesn't. It just says he's very rich.

Now how many of you are very rich as cattle barons and as silver barons and as gold barons? You're very rich in all of these things.

Well, that's Abram, father of the faithful.

Notice the harmony between his wealth and his spiritual life as it states in Romans 4.11.

Abraham is the father of all those who believe.

In other words, the father, the pater, he had the mindset, the example.

He will one day be under Jesus Christ in the authority of the kingdom of God.

He had the right mindset.

And so he was a pater. He was an example. He is one by which we can draw trust in God, the way we live, and he was very rich.

So I hope to just state from the outset that this does not necessarily a bad Christian make of and by itself.

God is not opposed to the idea of riches.

In fact, the Bible says that he is the originator of financial blessings.

In Proverbs 11 and verse 22, it said, The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.

Now today you might think that I'm going to give a sermon about how to be rich. Well, in a way, I am.

And you might think, well, I'm going to give a sermon on how to be rich spiritually, and you're right.

Or you might think, I'm going to give a sermon on how to be rich physically. You're right again.

Because cash and Christianity can go hand in hand, and we can excel at both of them.

When it says here, he adds no sorrow with it, now there is a trick.

J. Paul Giddy was once the world's richest man, and he made the famous statement, I would give all of my billions to have one happy marriage.

What God adds riches with no sorrow with it, it's a different kind of riches.

Because God is about what? Love. God is about service. God is about doing all he can, all the time, as much as he can, and he wants us to have that same mind. He wants us to grow in that. So what do you think wealth and money and riches, what do you think their purpose would be in the life of a godly person? Would it be sitting on a hill with triple walls around you and guards and gated, and all by yourself enjoying the lap of luxury?

Would it be stealing money from other people or just ripping them off, buying and selling and robbing pension plans and making the population miserable while you pile up your money?

You see, there are some obvious things that would not take a Christian in a direction where he would be happy, but rather have a lot of sorrow and a lot of problems with it.

But when God makes one rich, He'll make them rich spiritually and make them rich physically in some sense.

But a few positive examples certainly do not give the whole picture, do they?

I want to give you seven points that you can write down that will hopefully harmonize your relationship with God and money.

These seven points can help us have a godly approach to finances, to money, to manage it well, to use it for the right things, and also to excel in the amount of it that we have at our disposal.

The first point I'd like to make is money is a trap.

Money is a trap. Now, a trap is something that springs on you when you're least expecting it.

The pursuit of making money involves traps that just spring and get you.

And it can take a Christian into spiritual bankruptcy and takes a lot of people into physical bankruptcy.

The Apostle Paul talked about money and temptation in 1 Timothy 6, verses 9 and 10.

1 Timothy 6 and verse 9.

Notice the mentality here.

It's not about rich people. It isn't about rich people. Let's read it carefully.

Those who desire to be rich.

See, how many humans on earth desire to be rich? Well, everybody would like to be rich.

If you really desire it and that becomes your desire, in a sense, you seek first to be rich.

It becomes your God, in a sense, doesn't it?

Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare.

A snare is a trap. That's where I get the first point here.

Money is a trap. The pursuit, the desire of money.

It's a trap. And you fall into this snap.

And into many foolish and harmful lusts.

What are we lusting for? Something we don't have. Money. What it can buy. The power of it. The prestige of it. The independence of it. The self-sufficiency of it.

And these are foolish, stupid, dumb. Stupid, dumb. They have nothing whatsoever to do with godliness or eternal life. And they are harmful lusts. They harm you. They're not good to have that.

Which drown men in destruction and perdition.

So as we can see here, desiring to be rich is a trap. You do not want that.

Don't desire to be rich.

The love of money is a trap. Going on. For the love of money. Who are we to love? Love God with all your heart, soul and might. Love your neighbor as yourself. Did we hear anything about money there? So we read here, the love of money. We've put that before the entire word of God, haven't we? We've made a different God out of this. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, from which some have strayed from the faith, notice, in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. So when God becomes materialism and self becomes the motivator, there is a direction here that's not going to be in the kingdom of God. It's just not going to be good. It is what will march mankind through the worst of times, the absolute worst of times, where if Jesus didn't intervene, no flesh would be saved alive on earth.

Now, money of itself, this money is not evil. It's paper.

It's not evil.

But elevating wealth to be one's priority, you know, that is a trap. It's a great spiritual trap. We set God aside. We set godliness. We set giving and serving and loving aside. And we will put prayer and study, and hopefully I'll get to go to heaven. But I'm going to go after money. I'm going to be rich. And you sacrifice your life, you sacrifice your relationships, you sacrifice your family, you sacrifice your health, because I'm going to be rich. So you sacrifice your mentality, you sacrifice your ethics, your principles, because I'm going to be rich. And what do you have at the end?

You kind of end up like Solomon, don't you? Bankrupt spiritually.

Jesus said, you cannot serve God and riches. Maman is the Aramaic word for riches. You cannot serve God and also serve a compulsion for riches.

You know, serving God means obeying Him, doesn't it?

If you're seeking riches and to be rich, you must obey the principles of riches.

Principles of riches with Abraham wasn't bad. Jesus Christ was evidently well enough off that, you know, they divided up what He was wearing.

The apostles, when they were disciples, were independent contractors. They were self-employed. They were fishermen. Probably did fairly well.

It's not really about the amount that they had, but they were doing all right. They just had the trust to walk away from that and go serve God.

If you have riches, must you be serving them?

If you have riches, must you be serving them?

No. No, you can be very well off and not serve your riches. If I were to take this audience and those of you who are watching and take you over to another part of the world, you would be seen as the wealthiest people on planet Earth with amazing wealth, so incredible they just couldn't believe, could not believe that you would have the things that you have and you could go through and name them and that you live the way that you do and that you eat what you eat and that you see and you go and that you do. It's just you are the richest people that exist on planet Earth and it's just beyond belief. They would want to touch you and maybe hope that something would fall on them, you know, as some sort of crumb that would just overwhelm their life.

Must you be serving the riches that you have? No.

But there are certain things that we have to go through in this life.

Abraham obviously had riches, he wasn't serving them. Priscilla and Aquila were wealthy business owners, wealthy enough that they could take maybe a couple of years off with Paul and go preach the gospel. They could help him get started in a business.

Obviously, they were not serving riches. You've heard of the term millionaire. How would you like to be a millionaire? Do you know that, believe it or not, one in every 20 households in the United States is worth, has a net worth of over a million dollars. Those people are millionaires. Some of you in this room may be millionaires. I don't know.

It's interesting, in an examination of what an average millionaire is like, there's a book called The Millionaire Mind, and it's a mindset. What's the average millionaire like? He's a 52-year-old male, married with three children. He's a GPA of only 2.9.

He got below 1,200 on his SAT score. His teachers called him scholastically mediocre, but friendly. His family lives in a 50-year-old house that they have no mortgage on and no loans.

They do not shop in trendy places. They do not wear or have things that would make you think they're wealthy. His marriage has lasted for 30 years, and their family has had an enjoyable life. Now, that's what this book says is the average millionaire. Do those people serve riches and ruin their lives? No.

They don't. The book says, on the contrary, many who look like millionaires are actually the skilled ones at filling out loan applications against a big salary. They push for money and jobs. They have stress. These things fracture their family as they try to have more and more with lots of loans to enjoy.

Are they serving money?

Jesus' statement, you cannot serve God in riches, does not speak to your net worth rather than the mentality, the devotion to things that money can buy. And that's whether you own the money or whether you're just a credit hog. You're just putting everything on credit.

It's a warning against devoting life to getting richer.

However, Jesus' statement, you cannot serve God in riches, is also a statement against those who don't have money, but serve money by not spending it, by hoarding it, by being stingy with it. They are devoted, in that sense, to money by being miser. As the book says, some people are controlled by greed. They are miser. They even shortchange their spouses and children. Keeping money is their God. So you see the two extremes here? Two people worshipping money. One doesn't have it and is going after it. The other doesn't have it, but is saving every scrap they possibly can.

Any preoccupation with wealth that involves greed is wrong. Any preoccupation, putting first wealth, serving wealth. You cannot serve God and mammon. If you put money first, that's not going to be a spiritual benefit in your life. Amos 4, verses 4-6, talks about a mentality of those who desire to be rich at all costs in a greedy, selfish way. This is really what has hampered mankind down through time. Getting money through any circumstance. You can think of some terrible examples of how people will enslave other people. People will make prostitutes of people. People will do things and make people do things and take a profit off the top.

Take much off the top and give them little or nothing. Amos 8, verse 4, says, Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land fail, making the ephah small and the shekel large, falsifying the scales by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.

When you swallow up the needy, and you just use people, that is not right. But when you help the needy, and you give them some employment, and you give them their ability to provide for their family, what a blessing it is to be an employer.

What a blessing it is to have the wherewithal by which others can make a living, rear their children, have families. That's a wonderful thing. The second point I'd like to make is money cannot be trusted. People like a lot of money because it gives a sense of security. In fact, sometimes they call types of money instruments of money securities. Ah, securities!

Money cannot be trusted. Let's go back to Mark 10. In...I'll just give an overview of the story here. A young man asked Jesus, What must one do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, Well, keep God's commandments. The man said, Well, I've been keeping those since I was a youth. Dropping down to verse 21. And then Jesus, looking at him, loved him. Notice, he was concerned, loving, he was trying to help the individual.

And he said to him, One thing you lack, go your way and sell whatever you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come and take up your cross and follow me. But he was sad at this word and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Great possessions. Now wealth creates a sense of security, which people want to maintain. And this man had to choose between trust in his money and trust in God's kingdom and the representative of God's kingdom. And he said, Hmm, well, I think I will have faith or trust in my money and my possessions more than in you, Jesus the Christ. And then Jesus looked around at his disciples and said, How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God.

Why do you think that is? Why do you think that if you have riches, it's hard to enter the kingdom of God? Well, the disciples then were astonished at his words, because, you know, they probably had something tucked away. And Jesus answered again and said to them, Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God. Money can't be trusted, is point number two.

And if you trust it, then you're putting your trust before God. You're putting your trust in something else. It's kind of a fallback. Well, if this doesn't work, I've always got money. He says, It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Well, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for anyone to enter the kingdom of God.

Because we can't get there from the physical state, and we certainly can't get there from death on our own. It requires a miracle. But certainly, God is love, you see. And a person who is trusting and devoted to riches has put something before God. That person can't get into the kingdom. It's not going to be allowed into the kingdom if you put something before God. Is money the problem? No. Like I said, all people have wealth. You people here today, and you, are filthy rich compared to most people who have ever walked this planet.

So, some just have more than others, and it's a matter of degrees. Who then can be saved, the disciples said? See, that's the question they were in, and you and I are in. Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With men it is impossible, you see. We're all in the same boat. It's impossible for any of us to be saved. But not with God, for with God all things are possible.

Now, why is it more unlikely for the rich to enter the kingdom of God? It says in John chapter 3 and verse 16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, That whoever believes in him, The whoever is the rich, the poor, the ones in between, it's everybody. Whoever believes, believes means trust. Whoever trusts in God, not in riches or any other thing, Should not perish, but should have everlasting life.

We've got to unhook from everything, but God in his way. And money just happens to be one of those problems whereby When people have it or if they pursue it or they make a big focus out of it, It's often the opposite of the godliness that we need to be developing in this life. It is often, but not always. We have some very good examples, I think you know, Of individuals who do very well with finances And serve and help in ways that most of us don't get the opportunity to.

Very good examples. However, we must believe. We must have the faith and the trust and the works in God and godliness. And whatever other situation we find ourselves in, we should be content with that. In other words, we shouldn't be trying to find another focus other than God and his righteousness and his kingdom.

The problem with money is, though, as you use money, you count on it. I don't know about you, but I need some of this stuff. Or they're going to come shut off my water, my electricity, the gas. I need some of this, or my wife's going to say, You can't eat today or tomorrow. So I kind of scramble at times when I look at the bank account and say, We've got to get some more of this in there. What are we going to do?

Well, when we have money, we count on it. Whether it's a paycheck or social security. Notice the security. Pension, saving stocks, real estate, whatever. But as you have these things, you tend to count on them to assist you.

If you have a home, you count on it to assist you. It's going to help you sleep. It's going to give you a place to live, to rest, maybe to work. A place to have family, a place to be, to eat, to bathe. The home is going to help you. You kind of come to depend on having a home. And if somebody wants to take your home away, you think, How would I live?

Your vehicle. You say, Well, I work way over there. Take my vehicle away. How would I go to work? How would I be able to acquire those things that I need to live and eat? Appliances. Take my appliances away. How would I cook? I depend on these things. The utilities, the electricity, the water, the gas, electrons coming through, running computers and televisions and things.

We depend on those. We develop a need for them. And the problem is, we develop a sense of security with and for those things apart from God. And when a person has a home and they have a vehicle and they have all their utilities and they have all their appliances, they sometimes might say, Well, I don't know what to pray about. I just don't have a sense or a feeling that I need to rely on God. And they can get spiritually weak. Proverbs 18, verses 11 and 12 says, The rich man's wealth is his strong city. He comes to depend on it.

It says, Defense. It says, Bullwerk. It's what's going to protect him. It's going to see him through. The rich man's wealth is his strong city and like a high wall in his own esteem. What is he trusting on? He's trusting that his money and possessions will get him through. Verse 12, Before the destruction, the heart of a man is haughty.

It has become self-assured. Before one goes into destruction, we become self-assured. And when the destruction comes and money cannot be trusted and wealth and things cannot be trusted, when they fail, what do people tend to do? They tend to jump off buildings, you know? Because their trust is gone and they have no thing to fall back on. They lose faith. So these two things are very important. We have to look at it money as, look, you know what?

This stuff devalues. It goes up and down. It's just paper. You know, all paper money is worthless anyway. It actually is not wealth. Money is actually an IOU for wealth that is somewhere else. All that any paper money is, is a bunch of IOUs that people are passing around. It really is nothing more than an IOU. I got it from somebody. I'll give it to you. You had it last.

You'll give it to somebody else. And we pass these IOUs around. Nobody's moving around, say, gold anymore. That actually is something useful. These are just instruments of debt that are passed from one to another. And someday, somebody then says, you know what? These instruments of debt are really worthless. And so what you have in the bank or the securities that you have, they are nothing. And you say, ha! Ouch! That's not good. The third thing I'd like to talk about and the third point is, save me!

Save me! When we are spiritually broken, we need a Savior. And Jesus Christ came to save us, save us from death, to stitch us together with His family. When we are physically broken, financially broken, I'll say. When we are financially broken, we need someone to save us. We need something to save us. Essentially, it's more of this. And so it is wise to have reserves. The church has noted that having a reserve of ten weeks of income in savings, that can save you from something, is a wise thing to have.

Ten weeks reserve is, maybe sounds like a lot, but it is prudent, so that you can have something to fall back on. The only way to have more money is to save some of it. But most people spend all that they have, maybe plus a little bit, plus borrow a little bit. But it's good to not be in that situation. Sometimes you can be one paycheck from disaster. And quite often, people who are living in a buying materialistic world, will be spending all that they have and relying on the next paycheck.

And when the call comes in, oh, by the way, we've had layoffs, wow, there's nowhere to go. There's no fallback. There's no savings. There's no one to come to the rescue. You have nothing to support. And so foreclosures eventually will take place. And things get repossessed, and people fall on hard times. This is very, very common. It can happen to any and all of us. It's not necessarily anybody's fault. However, imagine if you had ten weeks of savings, ten weeks of income to fall back on.

You know, a reserve of ten percent would be pretty good, wouldn't it? Or something even more than that would be pretty good. When we have more money than we need for normal expenses, we tend to say, oh, I've got money to burn. I have some money left, or I think I'll go buy something with it. Something new for me, or something new for the house. Let's go over to Proverbs 6 and verse 6 and read some wisdom here that comes from God through Solomon. Proverbs 6 and verse 6. It says, Go to the ant, you sluggard. Well, ants are very hardworking individuals. They go night and day. They carry extreme weights and go through incredible, incredible things.

And so if we are slow about working or not strenuous or eager, then we need to go to the ant for that reason. But go to the next phrase. Consider her ways and be wise. Which, having no captain, overseer, or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.

In other words, there are ups and downs in the life and the environment of an ant. There's not always food for the ants. You're going to have a time when things are growing and things are moving, and an ant will go in there and store up. And it'll store up in the harvest. And then in the times of lean, it has savings to fall back on.

You might say, for some who go up camping, go to the squirrel and learn his ways. Squirrels are very active this time of year. They are getting all the little pine nuts they can find in acorns and whatever, and they are squirreling them away. They hide them and pack them any and everywhere. In fact, they can't even remember where all they are, where they hide them. And that's why so many trees will come up later. But the squirrel never runs out of food because he's packed away so much all winter long. If you've ever hunted in the winter and it's snowy and it's cold and it's freezing, the squirrels are out there having a good time.

They're running around looking at you on the branches and digging here and finding food and digging there and stuff. They're buried. Well, you and I need to go and consider this way as well and realize that sometimes they're going to be more plentiful and we need to gather in store. Years ago, Mr. Herbert Armstrong, who was the head minister in the church, warned us to reduce our standard of living.

Why did he say that? Well, if you reduce your outflow, reduce your spending, then you will form a pool. The resources that you have will pool up. You will become, in a sense, rich. Really, it has to do more with character than it does the amount of money that you make. It's more like a river that's flowing down. The water is the same. And yet, some rivers have big lakes. And one river might say to the other, Wow, you're lucky. You've got a big lake plus a river. I've just got a river. I don't have enough water to make a whole big lake and a river. I've only got enough water for my river.

At some point, you only have so much, but if you can form a little dam, things will begin to pool behind the dam, and there will still be some to run over. The Bible says in Proverbs 13, verse 22, A good man, a good man, leaves an inheritance to his grandchildren. What is that saying? Is that saying, I was going through life and I never really had enough to quite exist. I didn't have anything left over, but I must have been righteous because I was poor. It says, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

What did Joseph do? There was a lot of wheat and grain being grown, a lot of people eating it, but he caused some of that to pool, didn't he? It caused some of that to be pooled and stored. The grain was still being grown for seven years. It was being eaten and used and shipped and transported, but he was pooling some of it. And there was enough for seven years of famine to come from there.

I'll show you how that's done later, how you can consider spending less than you bring in and let the reserves pool.

Fourth point is a question. Where is your heart? Where is your heart in all of this? Matthew 6, verse 19, an important statement is made by Jesus.

You might think that pooling resources could be maybe a bad thing.

Matthew 6, 19, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

No, my wife and I have some stuff at our house. And I think I told you a few months ago, I heard some noise around midnight and went to open the garage door, and there were two thieves in our garage. One inside each of our vehicles going through our stuff.

You know, some of that stuff in there, you think, well, that's important stuff. It's my stuff. And here it's pretty much going to be flying out the garage at any minute.

You know, don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. It may be worth a lot, but is it really your treasure? Is that what you want to hang on to?

A man once told me that I keep a pistol, a loaded pistol, under my pillow. And if anybody comes into my house, I'll shoot him. He's not going to take my stuff.

Yeah, really. So that shows me where that person's treasures were. What was sad about it, I was in his house at the time he told me, and I said, you know, to myself, there's nothing here I would want to take with me. It's kind of getting old. I don't think, you know, you realize it over time. It's outdated. It's certainly not worth shooting anybody over. This is your treasures.

What does that say? That's sad. We have to grow to the place where our treasure is really godliness. Our treasure is really something that we can do, not just have, something we can be and become, and be that forever.

But lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. Or where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What is your heart set on? And if your heart is set on righteousness, you can exercise that in your gold factory. As you, you know, make the bars, and your employees take them home and sell them. You can, if your heart is in the kingdom of God, you can have an exciting career, you can travel the world, you can raise a family at home. It's unlimited what you can be if your heart is in God's kingdom and developing his righteousness. In fact, those who are in business and try so hard to be godly about business, and I often hear, you know, you almost can't be in business and be a godly person. Because the two, the ethics out there, everybody's undercutting, stealing their, their cheating, their payoffs under the table, there's all kinds of things. It's just, no, I'm going to keep being an honorable person. I'm going to keep doing things right, no matter what. That's very, very admirable. I'm going to keep having employees that can, you know, count on paycheck or whatever. It's where your heart is. Where your heart is on the kingdom of God, that's where your treasure, that's where your treasure. Money then becomes incidental. Jobs, careers, whatever, these are incidental things. We all need to probably work. We all have to pay bills. We all have to have some sort of income. We need to be wise about those things. But where is the heart? A true Christian is one with both spiritual treasure and physical treasure. Because God blesses those who are seeking His way. He says, you seek first the kingdom of heaven and my righteousness, and these physical things will be added to you. That's a promise from God. He will look after those physical things. A Christian is one who cares about others, is helping, is serving, wherever. He uses spiritual, physical, and financial means to serve others in balanced ways. How you do that, I'll talk about later. Point 5. For service or self? This is the question. For service or self? Wealth itself is neither good nor bad. You add up enough of this stuff and you be considered wealthy. This of it, the bigger the pile, doesn't mean good or bad. It's just a resource. But is it a resource for service? For serving your family? For serving those who are in need, especially those of the household of faith, the Bible says? What's it for? Serving the church and the work of the church? What's its purpose? Is it to elevate me and myself? Or elevate others and myself and help God? In Mark 10, verse 43, there's a statement here about greatness, about leadership, authority. Mark 10, 43, Jesus said, But it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to be great among you, let him be your servant. This applies when we have financial resources. If we are going to be great, we should be a server of others. In any situation, whatever you're resurfing, if you have a talent, if you want to be great in your talent, be a server of others with it. And whoever of you desires to become first, he shall be servant of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus Christ came, and evidently he had probably a business, maybe he was a carpenter's son, probably a family business, he probably did very well at it. He probably had, in his three and a half year ministry, savings to draw back on. We don't find him going from house to house begging for food, or the disciples ever begging for food.

We saw a bag of money that one of the disciples looked after. And what did he come do with that money? What did he come do with his wealth? It says he came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. You know it was used in the service of God and the service of helping others.

I only have two more points. Point number six, to reduce your standard of spending. Here I'd like to get into some encouragement of getting out of debt. You can say, well, that can't apply to me because in so far I'll never get out. I have so little income, there's no way I could ever be debt free. Well, that's not accurate. The sixth point is a starter, and that's reduce your standard of spending.

Reduce your standard of spending. You don't have probably the opportunity that some of us do to travel to poor areas of the world. And when you're there, you say, why did I buy all that junk at home? Why do I read sale papers? Look at what you really need in life. It's right here in front of you what you really need in life. With food and clothing, let us be content, the Bible says.

But we feel that we need one of everything at Walmart, and every year we need to get the next upgraded model of one of everything at Walmart. And you just have to do this stuff. You just have to. You just have to have whatever it is you have to have. Until you step into an environment where you realize, you know what? You don't have to have that stuff. Somebody's trying to swindle you into thinking you have to have that stuff.

And all you have to do is go look in your garage to find out whether you even have enough room to park your cars in there, and all the junk that you have too much of anyway, and go up in the attic in the spare bedroom closets, and you know the point. We have too much stuff already. So, if we realize that what's called the American Dream is not a reality, owning your own home is not a reality on planet Earth, and it's not a reality among any more than a percentage of citizens in this country, the American Dream of spending and buying and doing and having and, you know, a new car every three years or whatever, that stuff is not reality.

Millionaires don't go at real millionaires, don't go at stuff like that. We need a mental shift towards our view of spending, our lifelong habit of spending. And one way is to, let's reach over and pick up a dollar. Now this probably isn't much to you, it's just a dollar. I don't think anybody fight over it. It's not worth it, right? Unless you are me. Okay? This is often a thousand dollars to me.

A literal thousand dollars. Because right now, you see, this dollar has nothing associated with it. It's just a dollar. I found it on the ground. I didn't have to earn it. I don't... I didn't have to go to work. In order to go to work, I didn't have to buy clothes or car or gas.

I didn't have to pay my mortgage first in order to have this dollar. I didn't have to pay my utilities or the gas, the fuel bills. I didn't have to pay food, clothing. I didn't have to pay tithes. No taxes came out of this dollar. In order to get it, I didn't have to go to work and earn a thousand dollars. I just got a dollar. Now the reason why this is worth a thousand dollars, it's worth a thousand dollars of earned income.

In those times when I only have a dollar left after earning a thousand dollars, and to get one more of these, I have to go earn another thousand dollars to get another dollar bill to go with it that I can just blow on anything I want. See, the mortgage kicks in, the car payments kick in, the insurance kicks in, food and clothing kicks in after you go earn a thousand dollars, the tithes, the taxes, and when you come down and all you have left is one dollar out of a thousand, in order to get one more of these, guess how much it's going to cost you?

It's going to cost you $999 of earned income. And I guarantee you when one of these is on the ground or even a part of it, it's worth picking up. Because it would take me a thousand dollars of earned income to get another one just to put with it. And so, what am I going to do with a dollar that's just floating around?

It's just in the wallet. Am I going to see it as a dollar in those months that, you know, there's just nothing left over because the tires blew on the vehicle or transmission went out and all I've got left is a dollar? This may be worth $2,000 in some months. I might just want to say, you know, we could do Taco Tuesday for $0.99 with this.

We could just hang on to this dollar. You know, we could just, just hold it. Try to see if we could pool this a little bit. See if another one comes along. If we only see it as a dollar that's just worthless, we'll never see it for what it really can be and what it definitely is at some times in our life, which is hundreds of dollars of earned income in order to get another one just like it. We begin to see money like that. You know, $25 in savings? That could be a lot of money to try to replace. You want to kind of see the value of money and reduce our standard of spending to say, you know what, I just don't think I'll just go blow a whole bunch of money at the restaurant.

Take all my friends out and we'll spend $120. $120? That could be a year of getting another $120 on certain budgets. You need to realize the value of whatever currency you use, be it Tanzanian, Ethiopian, Kenyan, European, the Euro. What is the value through your eyes? In other words, how much do you have to make in order to have another one of these instruments available free and clear? This is called discretionary spending. You can use your own discretion, spend it on what you want because it's left over. Nothing's attached to it. There's no do, no bill that's attached to that. And reducing your standard of spending, then, I find it personally, and a lot of people can't wrap their head around this concept.

They can only see a dollar. I can only see a hamburger. That's all I see. I only see a dollar. I only see 20 minutes of phone calls. But if you can see it through different eyes, then you'll begin to appreciate and treasure how much it takes you to come up with each precious dollar that you have left over.

And then start a new mentality, which is clog the drain. Create a pool. See, I didn't just run out and spend that on the taco, did I? I clogged the drain. We got leftovers in the fridge. I clogged the drain and the dollar's still there. And the next time a dollar or ten or whatever comes out and says, oh, good, I can spend this on clog the drain and see if some of it will pool up. Works the same in your bank account as it does in your bathtub.

If you clog the drain to restaurants, to car payments, new purchases, what could you do with the extra money? You know, when your appliance breaks, do you think you have to get a new one? Or do you just go on Craigslist and find the hundreds of people who are moving and can't take their appliances with them and pick them up for next to nothing? Clog the drain. That's why there are so many building supply stores. Because people are learning to clog the drain and do it yourself. That's why there are auto-part stores and electronics-part stores.

A lot of these things that are supposedly so technical, like a clothes dryer, it's nothing but a drum and a motor and a heater. Nothing exciting about it. Not worth spending $500 or $1000 on a drum that goes around with a motor connected to it and a heater on a belt. Same with a washing machine.

Just add some water in a gearbox. Same with a lot of things in life that if you ask around, if you don't know how to do it yourself, you might find that easy replacements are available or fixing or getting by or something can clog the drain. See, the idea here is to clog the drain of these things that have to go out the window. Take your car to a repairman and say, what's wrong with it? The drain will flush. And your car might not be any better off when you're done.

Take it to some Christian person or somebody who is very caring and get a bunch of opinions. Try to clog the drain and really find out and try to fix it for as little as possible and get it really fixed. Clog the drain. I saw a washing machine for $1,700. If you took all the clothes in my closet and put them in that machine, they wouldn't be worth $1,700. Besides, we don't eat on a washing machine. When somebody in our neighborhood moved, they put a couple of brand new washing machines in dryer that were a matched pair.

I don't know if it's first or second matched pair we've ever had in our life. But for next to nothing, we truck those things over the house and they're just doing fine. You clog the drain. It doesn't mean you can't have nice things. Not spending a dollar might be not spending something that you have to earn another $100 in order to have another dollar free, depending on what your finances are like.

And some of you who say, I have more outgoing each month than coming in each month, can't even say, this is worth only $1,000 to you. It might take you... Well, this just might be unreachable to actually have a dollar left over. This is a very worthwhile thing if you look at it through the right eyes. Think of that in every situation.

I'd like to give you three steps to financial independence that you can start tomorrow. I think you can all start these tomorrow if you want. You don't have to, but I want to complete this without just walking away with a whole bunch of cerebral principles and actually take you somewhere that it will help. The first is budget all your money. Now, as soon as they say budget all your money, maybe that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I would like to ask those of Fenwick to distribute the simplified budget that I've made up for you. You'll be able to take a budget home with you today. This is a piece of paper. You can send me an email. I'll send you an electronic form that automatically tabulates all the columns, adds them all up for you. You can edit it. You can add, subtract, whatever to it, whatever you want to do. But this particular budget is a simple one-page budget.

You can condense certain items and get all of your expenses right under these, or you can expand them and make more. But formulate a budget of your expenses and your income so that you realistically know how much you're bringing in and how much your expenses are. Write them down on here.

In Proverbs 27 and verse 23, Proverbs 27 verses 23 through 27, notice what it says here, Be diligent to know the state of your flocks. Be diligent to know the state of your finances, of your business, and attend to your herds. You attend to these things.

For riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to all generations. Your paycheck is not going to always be there. When the hay is removed and the tender grass shows itself and the herbs of the mountains are gathered in, if you pay attention to your business, to your finances, to the instruments that you have, then going on, it says, Then the lambs will provide your clothing, and the goats the price of a field, and you shall have enough goat's milk for your food, for the food of your household and the nourishment of your maidservants.

But you have to diligently know the state of your flocks. And you can't just do that by looking at a bank balance and looking at a paycheck and sort of playing the recycle game cards and accounts and savings and hope you somehow get through. You need to diligently do that. And so here on this particular budget, you can look at this at just a one-pay period, whether it's biweekly or monthly or whatever it is, you take one pay period and you divide all your expenses, and you get to know them.

And then you get to see, well, can I afford all of them? There are some I need to adjust. Do I really need cable TV? Do I really need the second or the third car?

You really get to know the state of your flocks. This is the important step number one. Again, if you would like one of these electronic, you can send me an email at jeafrica at hotmail.com. And I'll respond with an electronic version of this that you can edit yourself. All the columns tabulate automatically. It's what my wife and I use, and it's very helpful.

Budgeting allocates your resources to meet both your immediate and also your future needs, because some things are down the road. But you need to be factoring those in as well. There are certain annual things that come up regarding car registration or tax expenses or perhaps annual or semi-annual taxes on homes or personal property. Those things need to not be surprises like, oh no, I've got this big bill coming up. Another thing that is semi-annual in a sense is Holy Day offerings.

And Holy Day offerings can catch us like, well, how much do I have for the Holy Day offering? Oh, not so much. Well, how do you figure this? Trumpets follows right with Atonement, which follows right with the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which follows right with the last great day. And there's offerings on all those days. And then you have a six-month gap afterward. How do you give generous offerings so fast, so quickly, unless you budget in a monthly or a pay-by-pay situation, and therefore you would have that?

God's instruction to tithe actually begins the budgeting process. We have a tenth for God. We have a tenth that He requires us to set aside for the Feast. We have a tenth that He requires us to set aside twice in seven years for the poor, for widows, for various things we call it third tithe, unless you are already meeting that or exceeding that in the form of taxation for those very same things. You'll have to assess that situation yourself.

But you calculate what comes in and you set aside percentages for the various needs that you have. For more information about that, you can read the booklet, Managing Your Finances. But a budget does not do anything unless you follow it. And just because you write it out on a piece of paper and file a piece of paper doesn't mean anything. So that comes to step two. Step number two, use a cash envelope system. Now, if you want to have a lot of money fast, this is the fastest way that my wife and I have ever made money or pooled resources and felt good about spending money.

And trust me, when I got married full time in the ministry, my gross salary before taxes was $125 a week, under $250 a paycheck before taxes and ties. And we had to budget and have budgeted since and use what's called a cash envelope system. What you do with the cash envelope system is there are certain items in your budget that you would go pay. Let's say, for instance, Holy Day offerings. Here's an envelope for Holy Day offerings.

Each paycheck, we put something in the Holy Day offering envelope, and as the year goes along, there's money for Holy Day offerings, the amount that we have prefigured. And it doesn't matter if they come one or two or four at a time. There's an annual amount already there. Next one is when you go shopping for fuel, and your car is not sort of like, oh, I've got to go to the fuel, I've got to put it on a card.

No. It's budgeted, and you have the money right there. And you can get a discount at those gas stations, not using any other card. You can walk in with cash and get the cash price. And you always have money for your car. Auto repairs. You know how those things catch you. The brakes will go out. Oh, no, I've got this crisis. The brakes went out. Well, it's not a crisis. Breaks go out. You know, figure 60,000 miles you're going to get a brake job. Every 60 miles you're going to need a set of tires. You know, these aren't surprises.

Every 5,000, 6,000 miles you probably need an oil change. So guess what? Auto repairs. And it's always there. Clothing. Go shopping. You know? Look at that dress. It's not how much does it cost. It's how much is in the envelope. And do I really want to spend all of it on that dress? Do I want to spend it here? What if I bought three dresses just like it over there? What if I borrowed a dress? You know what I'm saying. You begin to look at things a little differently.

Recreation. We can't go do anything. We don't have enough money. Sure you do. It's right here. So on and so forth. Gifts. And assisting others. How many of you say, well, I'd love to give somebody something or assist them, but I don't have anything. Well, if you budget it, guess what? There's something in the envelope. Groceries. It's right there in cash. You put this in your purse, in your pocket, and you go shopping with it. And you know exactly what you have. You're going to be careful because, well, I better maybe buy things on sale or get some coupons.

Or maybe I shouldn't be shopping here. Maybe I'll cook it myself. Pull it up. Dining out. There's one. You probably might not even realize what it costs to dine out. Are we going out? No? It doesn't look like tonight we're going out, baby. Home furnishings. Wouldn't you like things for your home? You know, you need to paint or buy some furniture or replace things or appliance or something. Home maintenance. Things go wrong in the house. They need to be fixed office supplies. You know, if you've got a business, you work out of your home, well, you've got to have office supplies. This will tell you how many you can have.

And travel. You know, when it comes time to travel, you might say, well, we can't travel. Oh, really? Why don't you go on a cruise? Just check the envelope. See when it's ready. Book it.

Now, the interesting thing about envelopes is it makes a budget actionable. It makes a budget actionable. And the envelopes are the reality. If you go shopping with a checkbook and you say, oh, I have $200 in my budget for groceries this month. You start writing checks. Do you know how much is in that budget?

No, the budget's at home in a drawer. You're loading in groceries as you need them, as you want them. Where's your budget? I don't know. But if you get out the clothing envelope, I'm sorry, the groceries envelope, you look right in there. You know exactly. Envelopes are fantastic ways of spending money. Because here's the funny thing. You know what? There's no money in clothing anymore. We had to spend that. Groceries, we only have $15 left. Oh, but there's enough money in travel to take a trip. And I can take a trip, you can take a trip, and feel good about it.

You know what? You can feel good about going out to dinner if there's money in the envelope. It doesn't matter what's in the other one. You can feel great about assisting somebody or giving a gift to somebody. It doesn't matter what's in your other envelopes. Maybe your home furnishings is low, maybe your breaks just had to be paid. But you got money in the envelope. It feels good.

It's great to give your spouse or yourself or whatever an envelope that has cash in it, and there's no guilt associated with it. You know the state of your locks and your herds. And it's a wonderful thing. The third point is fast debt elimination. If you have debt, if you have credit card debt, you have mortgages, you have second mortgage, you have a HELOC loan, you have some car loan expenses like that, use the fast debt elimination method and get out of that debt.

Essentially, it's this. You take the sum of all of your debt, of all the payments you make each month on your debt. Take the smallest debt you have, the smallest debt you have. Pay the minimum on everything else and pay everything you can and knock out that little debt. When the little one's gone, take the same amount that you're spending on all of them, including the little one, and take the next smallest debt.

Pay the minimum on everything and pay everything, including what you used to pay on the last debt you paid off, on the next one. And nail it right off. Keep the same total that you're paying on debts and shift now to the next smallest one and get that one paid off. Next thing you know, you'll be paying on your home mortgage, and people have paid off their home mortgage in as little as 3 to 5 years, using that very same method. Because once all the card debt and all these other debts are gone, you've got a pretty big chunk of money left over to throw at the principal every month.

And you can get yourself out of debt. That's a tip to pros. You can check it online. You can find many ways of doing it. I just gave you an overview of it. But you see, what we've done now, we've started to clog the pool. We've started to let things collect. We're spending what we have.

We're being on top of things. The result is you'll worry less. You'll enjoy what you have more. You'll be responsible. You'll be able to serve others more. You'll be less reliant on other people and more reliant on God. I would just like to give point seven, and that is, be generous to God and to man. Be generous to God.

Malachi 3, verses 8-12 says, will a man rob God? And he says, if you don't rob me, I'll pour out windows of blessings on you. Don't even think about shortchanging God and tithes and offerings. God promises all types of blessings, physical, spiritual. And secondly, to your fellow man, be generous. In 2 Corinthians 9, verse 7, it says, so let each one give as he is purposed in his heart, not grudging or of necessity.

This is actually talking about giving to people in need, assisting members. It goes back to verse 1. In verse 8, God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have abundance for every good word. He's saying, God can make it where you are sufficient in everything so that you can have abundance in doing good works in serving and giving to other people.

Now, verse 9, as it is written, he has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. Now may he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness. Still talking about giving here to church members during a drought, during a famine. Verse 11, while you are enriched in everything for all of your liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God.

For the administration of the service not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God. Be generous. That's the purpose of having these physical resources. Learning to love like God does. So in conclusion, money is a resource. Money is something that you have more of than anyone else in the world. I want to close with a directive from Jesus Christ Himself in Matthew 6, 19-21 and 31-33.

Matthew 6 will begin in verse 19. Do not lay up treasures on earth for yourselves. Notice it's not for yourself where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up treasures in heaven for yourselves. Partly by serving others as we just read. Verse 21, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Make it on loving and giving and serving. Verse 31, therefore do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear?

For the nations, people in the world, seek after these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.