Managing God's Treasure 3

Lord, thank you so much just for your, Your kindness, to us. I know you've been good to me this morning, we're having to get up early to come down here. Lord, I just felt your presence and I just, pray we would just continue, to trust in you. Lord, you've given us treasure and the, the amazing thing is you've given us treasure, to grow us and I just pray that we, this morning, we could, learn together.

just how to be better stewards of that treasure that we might, we might grow closer. To you and experience your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. Let's, let's get this going. a couple of things, just want to remind you that this class is part of the Equipping for the Journey series. I'm not gonna do the full introduction I did last time, but what we're trying to do with Equipping for the journey series is here at Cornerstone, we, our whole goal is to help people move from brokenness to wholeness through the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we're trying to create a series of classes.

To do two things. One is to help people move, to, to have classes that focus on areas of brokenness, and then, and, and by taking the class, hopefully you will move more towards wholeness and then secondly, to get Get, to help other, help us to help others, an equipping class, equipping the saints for the work of ministry and here at Cornerstone, the work of the ministry is defined as helping people move from brokenness to wholeness. So that's the idea, that's where the class fits in to the greater scheme of things.

Yeah, I wanna give you, I don't know how many of you have been working, are first-time budgeters or longtime budgeters or, or whatever.

Budgeting can get discouraging. It's, it, I, I have to confess, I, I, I've been watching, watching videos online about, about budgeting and Rachel Cruz, who is, what, she's Dave Ramsey's daughter. Yeah, I could, she, she's, she's so nice, she's just this nice voice and so I, I can listen to her talk about all these budget issues and, and whatnot. It's not so bad.

Dave Ramsey, on the other hand, he's he's, hey, dummy. So I'm, I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying those, but budgeting is, is, is not, is not my favorite thing. So I want to just give you a little bit of encouragement on budgeting. in First Corinthians, Paul says to the people at Corinth, he says, I do all things.

For the sake of the gospel. Now, I know that day by day, I don't necessarily do all things for the sake of the gospel. When I get rolling through the day, my mind gets cluttered and I, I act, I tend to act impulsively. I'm reacting to whatever is going on in the moment and sometimes I do that in the spirit and sometimes I don't do it so much in the spirit.

Yeah, let's put it, to put it nicely. but we want to do all things for the sake of the spirit, for the, for the sake of the gospel, so that we can partake of the gospel, so that we can enjoy the gospel. That's what Paul says and from my perspective and, and, and quite honestly, Pretty much the only reason I get excited about budgeting is because it gives me a chance to sit down and here in the month of March and look towards April and plan for the treasure that God has given me to do gospel good or more gospel good than I would have done if I'm simply acting impulsively in the moment.

Right?

So as you're budgeting, think of it that way. Think of that you're, that you're, that you're striving to do all things for the sake of the gospel and participate in it. And We want our budgets to reflect the gospel going to every area of our lives. Take the gospel everywhere.

I'm gonna pick this thing up and carry it. And hopefully not mess it up. Now we're talking about budgeting, what we want to do is we want to do, spirit-filled gospel immersed budgeting and, and you'll notice that we're talking about finances, there are quite a few things that are involved in it. we have income coming in and I used to think that the only really important decision in terms of, of being a Christian was, was that first decision, what do I keep, what do I give?

I didn't have any debts going out. and make sure I had enough money to pay my taxes at the end of the year. Everything on the keep side was kinda like, yeah, that's my stuff on the keep side, get down, that's my stuff. And so I can do that with what I want as long as, I don't, totally mess my life up.

But I think we, we, we want a broader definition of that. We want a broader definition of what do we do on the keep side to maximize the gospel cause it's still God's treasure. I used to think it's the money I give is God's treasure, the money I keep is my treasure. But it's all God's treasure.

He wants the treasure I keep to do gospel work in my life and the life of others. Budgeting is looking forward, right? If we're in March, you shouldn't be budgeting March. If you're budgeting in March, you're in a lot of trouble.

you should be, you should be budgeting April. Budgeting is month by month. It's sitting down a couple of weeks before that month begins and saying this is what I want that month to be like. I, I'm going to decide where the money is going to go.

I'm going to give every dollar a job. When you're done budgeting, you should be at you should budget to zero. So you take all your income, put it in all your categories, giving, saving, food, clothing, housing, debt. At the end of that, it should be 0.

That means that you're not like I normally am, that I have money sitting around that I haven't really thought about. That's what usually happens to me at the end of the month, I have money sitting around. I haven't really thought about it and that's really not good. I should be thinking, what do I need to give more?

is, what, what's out there where this money has a job? Should it be going into savings? Is there something coming up in the future that maybe I need to tuck it away for that? I need to be giving every single dollar a job.

That's what God expects. He expects an accounting for the treasure he's given us. So I wanna make sure that treasure is going where it should go. So take your income, Get your categories and your categories do not have to be complicated.

The, the budget example I gave you that worksheet, it has a lot of subcategories. Do you have to do all those subcategories? No, if you just want to have like 10 or 12 categories, food, clothing, car, whatever, if that works for you, all those categories just drive you nuts, then just go with a couple of categories. You don't have to do the whole, the whole thing.

You don't have to have 50 or 60 different, different categories. So hopefully that's, you feel encouraged about budgeting now? What did you go out there and go out there and, and budget. I'll send you some, I'll send you some Rachel Cruz videos.

she does, she does these videos where she goes into people's houses, into people's houses, and she does what she calls budget makeovers. it just talks to them, about, what they're doing, what their problems are, and tries to work them through solving their problems, and they're very comforting. There's, she's got a nice voice, she's very happy. Like I say, she's not like her dad, it's, why did you do such a stupid thing, it's a.

Type of stuff OK. The other, the other thing in, in, in, planning for the gospel. Paul writes also the Corinthians right after the first one, the idea of doing all things for the sake of the gospel. The very next verse, he says, do you not know that those who run the race or run a race all run but only one receives the prize.

Run in such a way that you may win. If you listen to Dave Ramsey, Dave Ramsey is always talking about winning, we're gonna win, you're gonna be a winner. But he says everyone who competes in the games exercises what? Self-control in All things.

A few things. In our giving, no, in all things, self-control in all things and budgeting is a way, spirit-filled budgeting is a way to exercise control or I should say more control. I'm nowhere near. So I, I don't have extra self-control in all things.

I'm, I'm growing in self-control in all things, but budgeting is a tool and I'm finding it a helpful tool to be to be, to have self-control in all things, to know what's going on. So I want to take that treasure, I want to exercise self-control. Why? For me, winning and for God, winning is defined as True life.

It's not defined as having a, a boat and a, that those are bad things, they have a boat or have, a, a Mercedes or whatever. Those are not bad things, but that's not how God defines winning. God defines winning as true life. So I want to take the treasure he's given me to manage and create as much true life with that as I can and that's gonna look different for different people.

And it can be, it can be all kinds of things. If you want, for example, if a true life is more hospitality, you may look at your budget and say, man, I need to put more money in food, I need to put, put more money into this, I need to put more money into all these kinds of things. So you might, your budget can be a way that you begin to to experience true life. Also, self-control is a fruit of the spirit.

we can ask our comforter to come alongside of us and help us have self-control. That's one of the fruits that Paul talks about in Galatians. So enjoy it. Budget with the Holy Spirit, I ask him, hey, I, I don't know what to do here, this bill was too big and whatever, but budget in the Spirit, have self-control, let him do that for you.

Any, any quick questions about budgeting? None. Everybody's budgeting, budgeting away out there, budgeting away. Well, budgeting is actually important for the next topic, and that is Debt, money, money.

Everywhere. Does it seem like everybody's trying to give us money? Isn't, isn't America a wonderful culture? Not all cultures are like that.

I, I mentioned before, I, I spent a lot of time, in Uganda. They handle all that very differently there. You don't have credit cards and stuff like that. but it just seems like everybody's trying to give, they're all my friend, and it usually goes like you want this?

You don't have the money. No problem, right? And debt has become a way of life for Americans. It's, it's just, it's part of our culture.

It's just, it's just, it's just normal. It's, it's what people do. You need a car, you get a car loan. Everybody has a car loan.

I remember when I was teaching, I, I would get talking with colleagues and when they found out I didn't have a car loan, it was like Are you OK? You OK, or I, or I, if I ever go to buy a car. If you ever go to a car lot and say, you, I, I, I, I've never borrowed money for a car and I wanna pay, I wanna pay cash, it's like, I remember my dad once went to, went to a Toyota dealer with his checkbook and he has opened his checkbook and says, I, I'll, I'll write you a check right now for this amount.

I so I'll pay for the car.

The guy literally did not know what to do with them. the guy says, well, can you come in and talk to me? No, my dad says, I'll write you a check right now for this car for this amount of money. a, a complete, complete cost.

He, he ended up walking off the lot. Because the guy did not know what to do with someone walking in and Just writing a check. He didn't, didn't want to go through the, the little loops they take you through to get you sucked in to the credit. I don't want to spend too much time on this because most of us know the problem is pretty dismal.

I should have, zoomed this in probably a little bit more, but this gives you an idea of where American debt is at. credit cards, the average person who has credit card debt has almost $17,000 of credit card debt. That just staggers my poor little heart. I, I can't even imagine I lots a lot of debt.

Especially credit cards have very high. Yeah, interest. Yeah, they have high interest. They're crazy interest on credit cards and they're constantly sending to me in the mail.

I get all these things in the mail, you get all these airline miles and, we'll, all kinds of things we'll do for you. Mortgages, Not quite as, as devastating. 100, the average person has $176,000 on their mortgage they're paying off. The total American mortgage debt is $8.48 trillion though.

That's a lot of money in mortgages. auto loans. The average person has has $29,000 in auto loan debt. Well, I explained, I was driving, I was driving down Indiana last night to go get gas and they, they, they got this brand new Porsche dealership where the smart car place used to be.

And who in the world buys, who's gonna buy all those cars? Well, this helps to explain it. It helps to explain it, that, yeah, you're gonna be, you're gonna be a lot, a lot in debt. And the, the big one that's really, really a scary one is student loans.

and the, the average person who has student loans has about $50,000 in student loan debt if they have student loans. So there's some who have less, some who have more, that's the average. it's 1.3 trillion $1.3 trillion overall and it's now higher than credit cards. So there's a lot of student debt out there.

It's becoming a very big problem. in the United States. And then, any type of credit, the average American who has debt has 134,000. $600,000 worth of debt, and total American debt is 12 $12.5 trillion.

So it's pretty crazy out there. If you're a person without debt, living debt-free, you are Different, exceptional. What my colleagues would say weird., what, because look at what you have to sacrifice. You have to sacrifice this.

You can't have that thing. It's like, yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah, I, I can't have that thing, but in a couple of years, you're going to be here and I may not be.

I get to make that choice. I, I went on, I was gonna show a YouTube clip was we gonna check into cash YouTube video, but it runs too long. It's hilarious, the, the ads, crashed your car, $500 deductible. What, check into cash.

at the automobile dealer, don't have the money for the down payment? Check into cash. here's one, what, what's this one? Selling I don't think you can see it well enough.

No, it's not selling popcorn. It's selling what America sells. It's selling dreams. Yeah, America is the land of dreams.

So these people have a dream of having their own home theater. What's, no problem. Personal loan for you. people you trust, friendly, courteous service, quick loan approval, on the spot, credit assessments.

It's really easy and you can have your dream. You can have your home theater. here's another one. These are pretty, I see this on TV, now and then, especially during the daytime when you've got people who are at home who's, people who are at home for, for whatever reason, and they just that and these training colleges and stuff.

but, but get the cash, keep the car. So you, you go with your car title and they'll hook you up with some cash with your, with your car as collateral, but you still get to drive your car. So it's, it's a good deal. I don't know if you've checked, they now have to publish the the actual interest rates, the APR and stuff on these things.

Yeah, it'll take your breath away, what the actual APRs. The APRs on some of these things are like 450% sometimes. That's the APR. Now, I don't think too many people paying 450%, but that's if you do it, as a normal loan would be communicated.

But you, what they'll say is that, you, you, you need 300 bucks? Well, write us a check for 350. And in 30 days or 60 days, we'll, we'll cash that check. People look at that and they go, oh that's not too bad, 50 bucks, 9, 300 bucks.

I, good, it's a deal. That's a terrible deal. Especially if, the next month, you didn't have the money for whatever it was this month. How do you're gonna have the money next month?

And if that flips over another month, now you're in really deep stew. And that's, that's the problem with that stuff. I, I'm probably talking to the, the crowd. loans allow us to get around self-control.

That's one of the dangers of them. is that we escape self-control. We've got something we really want rather than having self control, rather than saying to myself, I'm, I'm going to have to save and wait for it. I'm, I'm, I'm 23 years old.

I don't make as much money as my 55-year-old parents. I'm going to have to wait to have, a, a car that, that's like theirs or whatever. that's self-control, budgeting, saving, and maybe just saying to yourself, I don't, quite often if you wait long enough, the Desire goes away. that's, that's one of the advantages of, of not being impulsive.

That's, I, it's happened to me numerous times where I'm really hot to buy something, it's really cool, new bicycle, a new whatever, and, I said, yeah, it's a lot of money. Let me think about it and There's good, old bike's pretty good. Yeah, not so bad. So, but, but debt circumvents, our self-control, loans do.

Now, what does the Bible say about debt? for a long time, I read Romans 13, where it says, owe nothing to anyone. I read that verse and basically came to the conclusion that the Bible says you should never have debt. It's one of the reasons it took me a long time to buy a house.

I didn't buy a house until I was like 38 years old, which by American standards is pretty late in, in life. there were some other reasons I didn't buy it, but I kinda held that belief. I, I no longer hold that belief. I don't think the Bible teaches that and I'll explain why in a minute.

But if that's your, if that's what your conscience says to you, more power to you. believing that, for me, believing that did me a world of good cause I really believe that God did not want me to take out any credit. And I, I had to change my way of thinking to be able to purchase a home. I remember the first, oh, well, we'll get to that, and this, the story goes, goes with something else later on.

This is Randy Alcorn. He says if going into debt is always sin, it's difficult to understand why scripture gives guidelines about lending and even encourages lending under certain circumstances. Even Jesus himself, encouraged us to, to lend money. he said, we'll talk about those instructions a little bit later on.

They're very interesting instructions, but, the, why all that there if it's, it's, if it's wrong. And I think probably a better reading of 1 Corinthians 13 is to make sure that you are paying off what you owe. There's a context there of making sure if you owe something, it's being paid off. So you're not going too far on your debts like you owe somebody something, you haven't, you haven't paid something that was due.

It's more the flavor of Romans 13. if you see it differently, I, I, I'm not really disposed to argue with you. Because, because, like I say, it, you might be right and if you're right, it's gonna keep you on a It's gonna keep you debt-free, honoring God. The Bible, does not have anything really good to say about being in debt.

I don't, I, I don't see anything in scripture that encourage you to go out, to go out and borrow money. I, I don't see that, I just don't see that. And in fact, it's generally compared with slavery, debt and slavery are the same things and slavery is not a good thing. Slaves cannot, they, they, they don't have What, what they have is that you have, you have treasure you can't manage.

But the treasure you have is going, when it gets to that middle part, keep, give, it's just going to debt. Because you have to pay it. I, the, the the Bible is clear on that. If you have debt.

You need to pay it, right? You need to pay your debt. what about bankruptcy? there, there may be some circumstances where bankruptcy makes, makes sense.

But, but generally, it's, I, I, biblically, we are to pay our debts back. and I'm reading Randy Alcorn and other people, they tell stories of people who've declared bankruptcy but they've then gone back and slowly over a period of time paid back all those people to whom they owed money. And I think that's, that's, that's pretty clear. borrowing is also presumptuous.

Borrowing means, and I remember when I bought, we bought our home, it means doing what? What do you do when you go to buy a home? You assess your current financial situation. I make this much, Eileen's making some money too.

We've got this amount of income, that means we can afford this amount of mortgage and so we go out and go, OK, well, what's that presuming? Yeah, mortgages are typically 30 years, 15 is probably better. we, we converted ours from a 30-year to a 15-year loan and that gets things done a little bit faster, a lot less interest. But you're presuming that everything's going to stay the same.

if you're presuming two incomes, oh my gosh, what happens if you're young, you have a child, now you're going, well, I've got a child. I, I, I, I, I feel I, I reading the Bible, I feel I've come to the conclusion I sustain with my child. Now you are Now, now you're, you're, you're tied in. And I'm not saying that, that, that, that, that you have, that you have to, that you can't have both people working.

we, Eileen worked on and off in different things the whole time we had, we had Carly. So I'm, I'm not saying that but what I am saying if you, if you, if you come to that conclusion which I think is a, a very rational conclusion, very biblical conclusion. That you're now stuck. You, you're now tied to those two incomes.

I remember when we did ours, we, we sat down and said we will not take on any more debt that can be any more payments that can be handled by one income. We will not depend on both incomes when we do this. So if one of us was to stop working for whatever reason that was, we would still be able to cover the mortgage because your mortgage is covering where you live. It's not, it's not like an invest, be careful about looking at mortgages as an investment.

It's, it's where you live. If it turns out to be a good investment, awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome, but it may not. I remember the, the, the very first time I, I, I went to look at a home, the guy, the, the realtor says well real realty house prices always go up.

I am so glad. I just, I did not listen to that cat. yeah, we actually, we actually bought, with Reno Valley back in the old days when they were building new homes and it was like new home, brand new, no one's like, went down and. they, they, I don't know if all of you, how many of you have been through this process.

That is a scary process. They laid down all this paperwork and I proceeded to do what? To read it I was sitting there and the guy was just, what are you doing? And I'm going page by page by page and I begin to realize this is, there's some pretty serious language in here.

This is, and he's just like, well, everybody signs this stuff, just, just, it's just what everybody does. This is the normal stuff. I'm like, do you realize how heavy that this, this, what this means, what that means? I was asking him questions.

What does that mean? I'm committing to this, that, that law, this law, that law and I'm putting to listen and he's he's, and eventually, I eventually, I, I signed. I felt the pressure. I could feel my dad's voice saying I own a home, you're just throwing your money away, renting.

Which I'll talk about in a moment and I bought the house, went home. And I just felt awful and if that happens, man, I that's There's a very good chance who's talking to you. Yeah, I'm not, I'm, I'm pretty careful about emotions. I'm an analytical guy.

but I just felt awful, awful, awful, awful. I regretted it. I was, I did not go home a happy homeowner. I was not going home saying, oh boy, I could live in a brand new house.

I went home feeling awful. I went back the next day and guess what we did. I told him I wasn't gonna do it. Oh, he was not a happy person.

I, I was not his, I was not his favorite guy, but I, that's what we just, we just kept on waiting, throwing our money away on rent., so anyway, borrowing, borrowing is presumptuous. You're presuming that things are going to stay the same and big loans are very presumptuous, 30 years and all that stuff. If you're going to borrow and most, most Christian people write on finances, Randy Alcorn, all these people say that, a house mortgage, things like that, are, are, are, are borrowable.

if you do go to borrow, pray, seek counsel, and I'm gonna say it over again, seek counsel.

Find and seek multiple counsels. Right? When you, if you're gonna borrow money, it's a, it's not like they say, it's not something like you just do it every day. This is just what we do, this is the paperwork.

Seek counsel, talk it through with someone, pray through with someone, someone older, more experienced, a couple of people who are more experienced. some of the worst decisions I've made. the one other time I borrowed money, I borrowed money one other time other than my, my mortgage for my house. I remember this when I was home.

it was an investment that this guy had, a friend of mine had talked to us about. It was, I'm almost embarrassed to even talk about what it was, so I'm just gonna keep that a secret I guess for now and see if I want to embarrass myself but it was an investment and it, and it, and it involved you, we put down I think $5000 or $6000 which for us, fairly newly married was a huge amount of money. It's most of our savings and we borrowed a, a, a, a big chunk. It's like $25,000 30,000 dollars to go in this investment.

So you're leveraging your money to, to invest. And when I did that, the whole thing seemed fishy to begin with, but I don't know if you, if if you've ever gone through this psychology. I look back and I go, how stupid could I have been? But you kinda get this.

the house is a really good deal. It's gonna go away pretty soon, but there's this nickety feeling in the back, and you don't really want to talk to anybody because you feel embarrassed about it because it's, it's, they'll probably say no and they'll probably think I'm stupid if I talk to somebody about it. Am I the only person who experiences that? OK, well, I'm, I'm a really bad idiot, but that's exactly what I did.

I did not seek counsel, and I went to that investment and I knew I was in trouble, a few months later I'm reading in US News and World Report about the IRS looking into certain kinds of investments and I'm reading along. That sounds exactly like what I did, and so we lost our down payment plus the IRS got, oh, we end up paying the IRS quite a bit of money. and I, I tried to argue with the IRS, you don't, oh man. Cause he, he argued that we, we, we did this simply to save money on taxes.

I said, I lost more money than I saved on taxes. How can you accuse me? Just call me stupid but don't say I, I purposely did this to save money on taxes. I lost, I lost $5000.

0 gosh. Anyway, seek counsel, explore your options. There may be other ways to get this done. There may be another source of money, you may be able to borrow.

we're talking about a little bit later on, you might be able to borrow from someone. There, there are other avenues out there to deal with these kinds of things. Make sure you understand the terms of the loan. I remember when people were buying these back in the, what was it?

The 2000s when people are getting, buying these crazy big houses, these really creative loans. It's like, it's the loan for the person who should never have a loan. And just crazy loans and then they would, the economy crashes and they find out what their loan actually says. Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.

So you, you wanna, you, you, you need to understand what the thing is all about. Understand the terms. College loans. Alex Chediak does a very good job in this book of explaining how college loans work.

College counselors are not That's not their gig. They're there to get you to go to their college. When you take out the loan, the money goes directly to Them, it's, it's, they're not there to be your, to be your loan counselor. And they make it sound like, well this is part of your financial package.

You've got this, this and this and this. Off you go. Sign here, sign there, sign this, sign that. Everybody does it.

It's just the way it is. That's how we get through college. Yeah, you're, you're in, man. Great college.

And then you find out the terms of the thing are, are crazy, that there's crazy terms to the end. You don't, so you need to, understand exactly what you, and he goes through the whole, this loan, it's a very thorough, thorough book. and read before you sign. They don't like that, but, when should you borrow?

This is from Howard Dayton. He gives three criteria. Number 1, the item purchased is to assist with the potential to appreciate or produce an income like a house, right? It can appreciate.

The value of the item equals or exceeds the amount owed against it. The debt is not so large that repayment plus, puts undue strain on the budget or on relationships. Finances are a big factor in marital problems and contribute to divorces and all kinds of other things. where would college loans fit into that?

For me, I, I, I didn't have to take out a college loan for, it was a lot cheaper back then and I was able to live really cheaply. I think I told you a story about my dad giving me 100 bucks a month to live on and I saved money on the 100 bucks. So I was able to eat very, live very, very inexpensively. But if I was in a situation where I've done the due diligence, trying to figure out all the different options, I was willing to work and do everything.

I still had to borrow, a reasonable amount of money to get an education. I, I would, I think I would probably end up doing it because education, if done properly is, you can't get a better investment. There's nothing that's been better for that I can think of in my life is better other than knowing Christ and getting married, I should say. other than that, my education is just, it's, it's made my life, it's been really wonderful for me.

I, I, I wouldn't trade it for anything. financially it's been beneficial. Yeah, it was a great a great investment. OK, renting, people will say stop throwing away your money.

is renting throwing away your money? Sometimes. Yeah, that's a good answer because that's true. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not, and you also have to think through it.

renting has advantages. Once, it keeps you flexible. This is another reason why I didn't want to buy a house. cause I, the idea of buying a house, that means if God calls me to go X, I'm now stuck with house Y and, and I'm, I'm all hung up in this thing.

And I saw it happen to a friend of mine who was planning on being a missionary. he bought a house and all of a sudden all the missionary stuff got, got lost cause he was doing stuff to fix his house up and spending all his money and And whatnot. And eventually bought a boat and some other stuff but it renting gives you flexibility. It's a lot easier to, to stop renting and if, if the economy goes kaput, it's a lot easier to go, just go to a, a less expensive rental, so you, you, you live someplace that's not so nice for a while.

you're not, you're not having to deal with, with the whole, mortgage thing in the bank and, and all that because that happens. Things happen and you, you, things don't stay the same. renting is, oh, here, here's my list. renting can save you money.

When I was, when people were telling me to buy a house, I did the math. I sat down and figured it out in a, put it in a spreadsheet and buying a house was not financially the wise idea then and I'm really glad I didn't cause the, the house prices did not keep going up. And they, they, they, a lot of my friends who bought houses in the 80s lost them in the 90s. lost him in the 90s.

That's when I bought my house was in the 90s, right in the middle of the 90s, I bought my house. It was a killer deal, so, it was a really good deal and I was able to buy it and, and the mortgage was a very comfortable mortgage and we were able to pay it off, relatively quickly and it worked out, it worked out well, so I'm very thankful for that. there's, a YouTube video that's, I don't know if who Saul Khan is, but. He has a video because his, his relatives were on him about buying a house and he does a video where he goes through and compares renting to buying in his neighborhood and it varies by neighborhood.

In, in one neighborhood, it might make sense to buy another neighborhood, it might not. Saul Khan, the Khan Academy, yeah, he's got a, a really good, and I've got the link for it and I'll email it to you where he goes through and does the math because you really have to do the math on this to see what the deal is. what did I skip? Oh, credit cards.

Should Christians have credit cards? It, it, from my perspective, it depends. If you said Christians should never have credit cards, I'm not gonna argue with you. I'm not, I'm not gonna have an argument with you.

I'm not gonna try to convince you that Christians should have credit cards. You'll, you'll get no argument from me to go credit card free. Nothing wrong with that. I that, no.

Do I, do I think biblically we shouldn't have them? I don't think there's anything that says you shouldn't have them unless you can't handle it. Credit cards do come with problems. Number one, you do spend, people tend to spend more when they have credit cards and I see that in me and I'm, I'm very non-impulsive buyer.

But when I'm walking around with a credit card, I can feel that tug. I can feel it, I can feel the tug. That's really cool and I can have it right now. I feel that tug.

I have this, this huge access to my own money and to other people's money in my pocket. And if that's a danger for you, you shouldn't have a credit card. That, that, that, if that really is a big influence on you, you should not have one. And if I thought, if I thought, if, if I thought it was causing me to spend more, I'm sure there are, there are points in which it has caused me to spend more.

But I, I, I, I really don't think about my credit card. I think of it more as a debit card than I do. It's, it's something I'm going to pay off at the end of the month so I'm spending money plus there are some bennies. airline miles, most people don't use airline miles who get airline miles.

Some people do. My sister is the master of this. she just did a trip to Italy with her flying first class with her boyfriend all on airline miles. she's like Miss Airline mile keeper.

Most people don't. I, I do the cash back cause that, that, I know how to spend cash. I, I, or, or give away cash which we've done before. I'm keeping track of airline miles, not my gig.

What are the guidelines? never use your credit card for anything that's not a budgeted purchase. Right? Use it for budgeting, pay off your credit card every month.

The first month you have a credit card bill, you cannot pay in full. Destroy the credit card. And don't get another one. Destroy it.

I can't remember. I read somewhere the number of credit cards the average American has. It's a huge number, like 89, 10, something like that. Average person has has credit cards.

Yeah, they, they, they really are, they are dangerous. The interest rates are, are really high. If you can't pay it off, you shouldn't have one. They are, they are, they're, they're, they're a danger to your self-control.

Self-control is a fruit of the spirit. Anyway, enough, enough said. Guidelines for lending. Is this or is this not a scripture verse?

Never a borrower or lender be. What's the scripture reference for that? Yeah, it is Shakespeare. You've heard that though, right?

Don't ever, don't ever loan money over borrow money. Is, is that biblical? No, the Bible actually encourages lending. it has a lot to say about lending.

we can lend money. It says it is well with the man who is gracious and lends. He will maintain his cause in judgment. So that's pretty cool.

there are some guidelines, get to know the borrower, right? To me, the major criteria is, is number 2, is the loan the best thing for the person? we had one instance where we loaned money to a, a family member to help, buy a house. loaned them a fairly substantial amount of money to help them buy the house.

they sold the house, didn't pay us back. moved, bought another house, didn't pay us back, and then came a while later and wanted to borrow some more money to buy a car. And I, we had a nice talk and I, I basically, we forgave him the, the first debt, said don't worry about the, the 5000, the I won't say how much. Worry about the, the, the, the debt, relationships and family are more important than money, but I'm not going to loan you money for the car.

buy a less expensive car. that was where I was. I didn't think giving him the loan at that point was, was a good thing to have done. how will the loan affect your relationship?

is the need serious and that, and also one of the things I'll say about relationships, be ready to forgive the loan. That's one of my rules of, of loaning money. I when I loan people money, I would love to get the money back. But if I don't, people are more important than money.

Relationships are more important than money. There's gonna be a point at which I know I will forgive that loan. I will just say, hey, we're clean. You're more important than that money was.

Just across the board. So if I'm loaning money, it's, it's, I'm gonna let it go if, if, if need be. You may disagree with that. I don't know.

That's my, my thing. I borrow money from you. can you loan me. oh yeah, and this was be, be ready to forgive the loan.

And there's a passage from Luke says if you lend, if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive what credit that is to you, Jesus is pretty clear about the nature of generosity, that we should be known as generous people. gene gene, we're gonna talk about generosity in the last session, giving money away thoughtfully, but we should be known as people who do not hold tightly to our money. But when we do give it away, we give it away. Thoughtfully and spirit-filled, gospel purpose in giving that money away.

All right, never, oh, here's 11 thing scripture is clear on. Do not sign for someone else's loan. Someone says I want to buy a car. I can't, I can't get a loan because I don't qualify.

Buy a less expensive car. I'm not going to sign. I, I don't sign for someone else's loan cause now you're on the hook, completely on the hook for their debt. If they don't pay, you have to pay the whole darn thing, interest, penalties, blah, blah, blah.

Everything they've messed up is on you 100%. Yeah. Really? Uh-huh Then they That's, that's good to know.

Yeah, I, I need to look that up and, and actually read, read the law to make sure, but no, yeah, I I, I, I, I, the easiest thing to do is, is follow the scriptures. Just don't co-sign for a loan. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't doubt it is. I, I'm not particularly interested.

I, I don't know what my credit score is, but yeah. Oh yeah, I remember I am, right? I got memory, yeah. Take the car back they weren't ended up the, we're not Yeah.

I Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember, it all comes back, yeah. Now if somebody comes in and they want to borrow money to buy a car, that's a diff, that's a different story. You might or might not do that. I might or might not loan somebody the money to buy the car, but I'm not gonna co-sign or I might loan them money for a larger down payment.

So maybe they qualify cause their loan will be smaller, but I'm not gonna co-sign. I'm not gonna put my money on some piece of paper that makes me legally responsible for who the heck knows what, I, who knows what I'm gonna be responsible for. Yeah, Yeah Uh-huh Yeah, oh yeah, I, I meant to add that to this. Yeah, it, it's, it's a good idea to put things in writing.

It, it sounds non-friendly. And I'm still gonna forgive the law. I'm not gonna put that in writing, but it's, it's, I think it's, it's a good idea to put the terms of things in writing and I think you have, you can have that conversation. So that it's, it's not, hopefully not offensive to the person, especially if they're a close family member.

They're simply saying, this is for the good of both of us, we, we've both said things here, we wanna make, my memory is not so good, your memory is not so good. Let's just write down the commitments we made here so that I'm not saying you're gonna, you're gonna back out on the loan or anything, but let's put it down here cause I'm making a commitment here also. This, this will make sure I'm fulfilling my commitment to you and you're fulfilling your commitment to me. and hopefully you can, yeah, I, I meant to add that to this, because that, that is an important element of it.

I think that there should be something in writing, yes. Really? Unless you have If they're government, if they're government loans, there shouldn't be a problem. If they're a private loan, then yeah, the government loans are backed by the government.

Yeah, if, if you have private loans, yeah, private loans are, yeah, that, that now you, now that you've got people who are really interested in making money after you. So, yeah, and they're gonna, they're gonna want somebody else's blood. Yeah, the government, well, the government, the thing is about student loans, I'm finding out the government's pretty nasty about collecting on those too. They get, they'll go a long way to get their money back.

All right, If you are in debt. and that happens. no judgment. that, that happens.

Things happen, mistakes happen. Horrible things happen that, that, that cause us to find ourselves in a state of debt. It's not a, no one's, no one's, that's why scripture talks about be ready to lend. It does, it, it talks about debt negatively, it's not something we should seek to do.

But may there be a time where debt becomes part of our portfolio. That may happen, right? So what do we do once we are in debt? No judgment, this is not, you haven't done something unbiblical, But here are some things.

Number one, pray. And then get into your Bible and embrace gospel truth. Read the first half of all of Paul's epistles. That's the gospel part, right?

Read, read those gospel parts of the epistles where Paul was reminding you of all the things you have in Christ. You're very wealthy in terms of grace. God is incredibly, graceful. If you're feeling shame or discouragement, spend a lot of time in scripture.

Once again, seek counsel. Don't, don't feel ashamed. Don't go, I'm in debt, I won't so and so's gonna think I can't talk to them. No, that's, that's really when you wanna seek counsel.

You wanna get together with people and and ask them what to do cause there's, there's gonna be options and ways to deal with this about which you have no idea. So you, you wanna get, you wanna seek counsel on how to handle it. Budget. The greatest tool for getting out of debt is a budget.

If you're not budgeting, I don't know how, what you do. Cause you don't know where your money's going. You just, you just don't know what's, what's on first. You don't know what, where, where.

How, how are you gonna marshal your money to attack this, this monster over here if you don't know where your money is going, you don't have a handle on it. So you wanna make sure that you budget, communicate with your creditors. If you're in deep debt and you got problems, talk to them. They may not want to listen, they may not even care about you.

And that's OK. that, that's just the way it is. but they might, if it's, it's better to tell them that, hey, this is where I'm at, I've got a plan to try to deal with this problem. I've gotten myself into a stew here.

I realize it. I don't, I, I wanna keep my obligations. I'm, I believe God tells me I've made this commitment, I must keep this commitment. Might even be an opportunity to witness, and, and, and, and, and they might be willing to work, work, to help you out with your plan once they understand it., list your assets, get everything, list the things you own.

There may be, those may be a source of money, find, any additional income if you can find, and be careful with this, don't work yourself to where your, your family is being left in the lurch or whatever, but to, to deal with debt, you need, you need money. And if you can find extra ways to get some money without compromising other priorities that are more important, do that. just deliver, I, I knew, I knew a guy who started delivering papers in the morning because he needed some extra money to pay down debt.

He got serious about his debt.

check your tax deductions. If you're getting money back at the end of the year, That's not a good thing. Everybody, everybody goes, oh boy, I got money back at the end of the year. That's really good.

And my response is, no, you lent the government money for the whole year. That might have been money you could have used all along to be paying down your debt. And that's, and that's saving you money because when you're paying down the debt, you're saving interest rather than loaning the government the money. So you might want to go if, if you're getting that money back, you may want to look at the number of deductions you have and whatnot.

So look for, this is why you wanna get counsel. Get somebody who's really wise, who knows how to work the system. Responsibly. I'm not, and you might want to consider radical lifestyle changes.

Yeah. seeking counsel's awesome. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I, yeah, I would.

You wanna make sure. it's, it's hard, it's hard to come up with criteria. One of my criteria is I'd, I'd be careful about talking to someone who has a vested interest because there, there are people who make money off of helping you get rid of loans. There's a lot of, there's a lot of services out there, you're consolidating loans, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.

And you have to realize that they're, they're, they've got a vested interest in this and it might be OK. it might be, it might be OK, but then again, it always gives me pause. I'm usually going to look for someone who's, Older person, in the respected in the church, that thing, to get my, to get my counsel from. When you get the finances, finances is a business.

When you go to Google investments now they call them products. It always bugs me that they say that. We have this product for you. It's, it's not a product.

It's, it, it's not a product. It's an investment. You're asking me to put money into something to take a risk for a possible return. Don't call it a product.

What's that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's making money. and I'm not saying that's bad if you're someone who does that for a living. I know people who, who are, who sell insurance and sell investments and their heart is to help people.

They've, they've researched this and worked hard to, to really help people with their, with their, with their financial stuff. That's, that's fine. On the other hand, I'm something like this, this, I, I, please don't take me wrong. Don't go to someone who's a financial advisor simply because they are a Christian.

The fact that they are a Christian does not necessarily make them a good financial advisor. It is better to have someone who's a good financial advisor and a Christian. But this is gonna sound bad too, but if you, if I had to make a choice between someone who's a financial advisor who knows their stuff really well and is not a Christian and someone who's a Christian who's playing at it, I'm gonna go with the person who knows what the heck they're doing. Cause there are people out there who don't know Christ who have very good hearts in terms of wanting to help people with their finances.

They're very good people, they're very moral and ethical people. So that's, that's, that's, that's my take on that. Now, paying down debts, really quickly, this is actually not that complicated. You wanna make all your minimum payments, don't stop paying on anything and then look to pay your smallest debts first.

It's called snowballing. Why smallest debts first? Yeah, this, most people who set out, or, or about half of the people who set out to try to pay down debt don't get it done. A lot of it is, is mental.

Dave Ramsey talks about, think of a gazelle who's out on the African plains being chased by a lion. Right? That gazelle is running away. Is that gazelle focused?

Begazil is very focused, right? Be gazille's got one thing and it's every, every piece of energy is going into getting away from that line because it's life or death and Dave Ramsey talks about you've got to get that gazelle focus. If you ever listen to him talk, you'll hear him say gazelle focus, right? Have that gazelle focus and that's very true.

This is not easy stuff. It is really, it, it, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm rapping. So what, and the way this works, pay off the the smallest debt first. Once that's paid off, you take your payment for that.

And put it towards the next one. When that's paid off, you take both of those and put them towards the next one. And then when you come up against the really big monsters like student loans, mortgages, stuff like that, you now have what? You snowballed this chunk of money.

That's your debt money. And so when you start going after the big, the big ones cause you look at that student loan. If I was looking at a student loan of $75,000 my, my knees would be knocking, I, I, but with the other stuff gone, snowball, now I've got, I've got a bigger, a bigger stack of money to go after that. So, and then attack your largest debts and lastly, don't give up.

If something goes wrong, you can't, it's not working really well, whatever, regroup and go at it again. Because being free from debt is really cool. Gives you a lot of flexibility and I think that is biblical. Getting into debt is not necessarily sinful.

but I think if, if I think that getting out of it, working hard to get out of it is is very biblical. You should not be comfortable in it. It should not be something where you say this is a comfortable, I'm like every other American, I just, everybody has a car payment. That's not the way I think.

I don't think that's biblical thinking. you might have a car payment, OK. But that's, you should be wanting to get, to get free from that, right? I'm gonna go ahead and stop cause I'm already 5 minutes over and I've got to go play drums, so.

This is gonna be interesting. also, oh, real quickly, I have a few books. If you are a, college student who's dealing with student loans, if you are someone who's graduate, cause I actually read the chapter in here about getting, dealing with student loans is quite good too. Once you already have them, he's got a pretty good chapter on that.

or you're a parent, you've got kids who may be going to college. I've got a few of these, they're free. once I've done, come up and, grab one. I'll have some different books next week.

I've, I've decided I wanna give away some books. anyway, let me go ahead and pray. Lord, thank you for your, your grace to us. this is something to pray for each other.

those of us in debt would be able to get our minds, focused. It is a difficult, task but very doable, and it is something that you want for us. thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.