 |
|
|
| Home | Giving | Preaching about Money | Treasurers | Gift Aid | Legacies | Funding | PCCs as Charities | Giving for Life | Other |
|
Worship & Preaching > Preaching on Stewardship > Managing Money Stewardship Talks : Managing Money (Proverbs 30 8-9)
And the one relevant to tonight’s topic:
Well this sermon isn’t solely about giving, it’s about managing money as Christians, although we’ll see that giving is part of that. Few people find managing money straightforward; for many it is a very tender and emotional issue. So let’s pray as we begin.
I wanted to give you this sheet of resources and information, so I’ve also given you an outline of the sermon. I’m going to chase round the book of Proverbs and elsewhere in the Bible. You won’t want to write down all the references, but some you may want to jot down and look at in more detail later. I’m going to say some extremely basic things, but I make no apology for that. Many people lack confidence in financial affairs; the vast majority don’t know what APR refers to, even though they get letters most week with it on; and many here will never have heard a sermon on money in Platt before. By way of introduction, let’s start with those verses we read from Proverbs 30. “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God.” Some people here are very rich, or have a high disposable income. Amongst them are the Dinkys – Dual Income, No Kids. It may surprise Plattform to learn that today’s teenagers are also well off when it comes to money – after all, not many teenagers have any fixed expenditures – no rent, no food bills, no tax to pay. You can do what you like with 100% of your income. But whilst those with little envy the rich, those who are rich know the difficulties of having too much money. The great temptation is to become self-sufficient, to forget about God and say, “Who is the Lord?”. But there are also people here who are very poor. Amongst them are the unemployed and others on benefits; pensioners – 2 million pensioners in this country are in financial difficulties; and students – those who graduated in 2004 did so with an average debt of £12,000. Those who started college in 2004 will need £26,000 to see them through. But whilst the rich sometimes envy the simpler life-style of the poor, those who are poor know the difficulties of making ends meet. There’s the temptation to steal – maybe by not paying the TV licence or car tax; to get another credit card to help ease the problem. So whether you have much money or little money, the Bible recognises that managing money can be very difficult. Both situations have their problems and temptations. Both have their opportunities and advantages. So let’s look at some Biblical principles which will get our thinking about money straight. Here’s the first principle: our money is God’s and we are its stewards. When we took the collection a few minutes ago, we used words from the Old Testament, where King David is receiving a massive offering from the people towards the construction of the temple. He prays to God, “Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” Do you see, our money is actually God’s? The whole world, and everything that’s in it is his. The same point is made by God in the Psalms. Talking about the people’s offerings, he says, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.” Now I dare say there were farmers in those fields who would have said, “Well that goat’s got a red mark on its bum, so that one’s mine, and that goat’s got a blue mark on its side, so that’s his.” They would have thought the goats belonged to them, but God says they’re really his. And maybe at the end of church we think to ourselves, “I’ll get in my car, go back to my house, and put on one of my CDs.” But God says to us, “Every car on every street is mine, and the CDs in a thousand rooms.” Everything we have is actually God’s. It’s not ours to do with as we want. It’s God’s, and he has made us stewards of that money. Do you remember the parable of the talents that Jesus told? One person was given £500 to look after, another £200 and another £100. The master went away, but when he came back, he wanted to know what had happened to his money. Two of them had doubled his money; one of them had just hidden it away. He hadn’t squandered it, he’d just not done anything useful with it. The master is very harsh with this chap, and says, “You wicked, lazy servant! You should have put this money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.” The point is that we are stewards of the money that God has given us – we’re to look after it – knowing that God will hold us to account for how we’ve used that money. Do you think of your money like that? If God were to look at your last month’s bank statement, what do you think he would say? Would he say, “well done, you good and faithful servant”, or would he put his finger on some items on the statement and raise a quizzical eyebrow at you? That’s the first principle: our money is God’s, and we are its stewards. Here’s the second principle: There’s nothing wrong with wealth, but you can’t love God and money. Some Christians feel terribly guilty for having lots of money. They shouldn’t – because God gave it to them in the first place! I heard the story of one lady who had two job offers. Her minister asked her what the difference was between the two. “Not much,” she replied, “except one pays £8,000 more.” To which her minister responded, “That’s easy then – you should take the job with more money.” She was a bit surprised, so he explained. “I’m not suggesting you keep it. £8,000 would fund accommodation training and expenses for a church lay assistant.” You see, there’s nothing wrong with wealth; what matters is what we do with our wealth. And the Bible repeatedly warns that wealth can be a hazard to our spiritual lives. Did you know that Jesus tells five times as many parables about money than about prayer and faith? Our relationship with our money has an impact on the level of intimacy we have with Christ. Earlier on, we heard the story of the rich young man whom Jesus told to give away all his money. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus said it’s not impossible for rich people to enter God’s kingdom, but it does take a miracle. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus was just as blunt: he said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” That’s why it’s so difficult for rich people who are Christians – because the pull of money is so great that it’s easy to serve the money rather than God. The New Testament church knew it was a problem. Paul wrote to Timothy, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” Isn’t that tragic? Christians who find the lure of money so great that they turn their backs on God and do anything to gain money instead? There’s nothing wrong with wealth – if you’re wealthy, you don’t need to feel guilty. But Jesus is very clear that you can’t love God and money. I know that for those without much, it’s easy to be envious of the wealth of other Christians; a far better response is to pray for those wealthy Christians that they will keep loving God more than their money. But these verses make all of us face these questions: What’s your most treasured possession? Do you love it more than God? The third principle follows on: because you can’t love God and money, it follows that wealth has limited value. Yes, money is useful for getting on in life. But some things, such as knowing God, are infinitely more valuable than money. It’s strange, isn’t it? We’ve all heard of pop stars and film stars and other hugely wealthy people who say they’ve realised that money can buy fame but can’t buy happiness. Who say that money can buy relationships, but can’t buy love. We know that wealth has limited value, but so many of us still want more of it. Jesus warned us, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions.” That was the point of the parable he then told about the rich farmer who had such a bumper crop that he built bigger barns to store it all in. But he couldn’t take it with him when he died. As Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken said, “There’s no point being the richest man in the cemetery. You can’t do any business from there.” Don’t set your heart on money. It’s not worth it. If you’re struggling to make ends meet, it’s particularly tempting to think that having more money would sort your problems out. It won’t. Money has limited value. What most people need isn’t actually more money, it’s better management of the money they’ve already got. And that brings us to the practicalities of handling money. Those are the principles. They should help set our thinking straight about money. But how do we let those truths sink down from our minds, through our hearts and into our pockets? I’m going to suggest 4 practicalities. The first is to make a budget and watch your finances. If you don’t make a budget and watch your finances, I can almost guarantee that you’ll have money problems at some point, and that you’re not being a good steward of what God’s given you. Any organisation, including this church, has to make a budget – a plan of how much to spend in relation to how much income there is. But we should do this as individuals as well. You take a sheet of paper, and down one side you write down what your expected income is – grants, earnings, benefits and so on. At the risk of stating the obvious, students, a student loan is not income. So even though it comes into your account, please don’t think of your loan as income, because you want to use as little of it as possible. One day, you’ll have to pay it back. So on one side, income; and down the other side you write down what your expenditure is going to be – accommodation, food, travel, bills and so on. I think this sort of process begins to be implied in the Bible. You see, an Old Testament Israelite couldn’t work out how much their tithe should be until they’d worked out their income. And when Paul says in the New Testament that Christians should set aside an amount on the first day of the week, he’s implying budgeting. Forward planning about how you’re going to spend your income. Now we’re going to go right back to basics now. If you’ve never made a budget, and you’ve no idea how you spend your money, then for the next month, keep a record of everything you spend – food, CDs, drinks, bus fares – everything. At the end of the month, add it up. And then sit down and prayerfully look at the totals and ask yourself whether next month you should seek to spend less in any of the areas, or whether you’re going to need to spend more in any of the areas. That’s the beginning of budgeting. Your bank should be happy to help you budget, and there’s some resources on the handout and at the front down here which will help you budget as well. Let me say a few things about income and expenditure. Because if when you’ve done your budget, you find that your income is not as much as your expenditure, you’ve got a problem. So if your income is less than your expenditure, you might be able to increase your income by getting a different job, or working longer hours, or applying for grants or benefits. Proverbs has much to say about money. Here’s some things it says about income and wealth: “Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.” ie some people really just need to get off their backsides. Here’s the version for students: “Do not love sleep or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare.” That doesn’t mean that you’ve got to stay up all night. It means that if you stay in bed for 10 hours a night, and think that you haven’t got time to get a job and earn money, you’re wrong. If you just slept 8 hours a night, you could work 2 hours a day, which is 10 hours a week, which is a handy amount of income. And as well as increasing your income, you might be able to decrease your expenditure. In fact, I think most of us could probably decrease our expenditure. Again, I’ve put some suggestions on the sheet – it’s often possible to decrease bills. When we’re out shopping, we can ask ourselves whether it comes in our budget , and whether we really need it. If we do, do we need one that expensive? Proverbs is very straight when it comes to over-indulgence. “He who loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich.” “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.” In other words, if you like the good things in life too much, you’re always going to struggle for money. Do you really need that new top? That new game? The deluxe microwave meal? And here’s the key if you want your financial situation to become easier: as your income goes up, your expenditure doesn’t have to increase as well. Christians are called to a simple lifestyle, and our neighbours should be able to tell when they come into our homes that our priority isn’t material possessions. So that’s step 1: make a budget – but then you need to follow that through by watching your finances. You should check your bank statements to make sure that the bank isn’t making any mistakes, or someone isn’t stealing money from you. You should make sure that if you cancel a subscription, the direct debit stops. You should look at your cheque book to make sure that cheques you write are being cashed promptly. If they’re not, you’ll think you’ve got more money than you actually have, and you could run into trouble later. Now, I’ve been speaking for a while, so time to get you talking. Two questions for you to discuss in groups of 2 or 3: what are your three largest expenditures each month? And what do you feel about giving to church and charity? No apologies if those questions seemed a bit personal. Money shouldn’t be a taboo subject in church. The first question tested to see how well you know your budget and finances; the second question leads us on to the next step. Step 1. Make a budget and watch your finances. Step 2: Give back to God. We saw earlier on that everything we have belongs to God, so in giving money back to him, we’re not really losing anything that was ours to keep. In fact, it helps remind us that all our money is God’s, and he graciously lets us hang on to some of it. The Old Testament talks a lot about tithes – giving 10% of your income to God and his church. I started tithing when I was a student; I’m very glad that I did. It got me into the discipline of giving when the sums were small, which made it a lot easier when the amounts got bigger. For some, giving away 10% of their income is something to aim towards; for others, it’s something to increase from. Some people have calculated that Old Testament Israelites actually gave far more than 10% of their income, because there were different sorts of tithes, and numerous other offerings as well. So a figure of 10% is certainly not a set amount for Christians. Giving is not a formula; it is an act of love. What is consistent throughout the Bible is that we’re to give the first part of our income to God. That’s why I’ve put giving as the first thing to do after budgeting. Proverbs says, “Honour the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops.” In the New Testament, Paul encourages people to set aside money on the first day of the week. As soon as we receive, we want to give back some as a sign that all has come from God. All Christians should give money away – to support the growth of God’s kingdom, and to support those less well-off than us. Indeed, we’ll be in danger if we don’t. “He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.” “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.” You see, in God’s economy, we never lose out by giving. In fact, giving money away brings great blessing. So how should we give? If you have a regular income, you should be able to give regularly. It helps the church enormously in its own budgeting if as many as possible give regularly to the church. This morning, in his sermon on giving, Tony highlighted this slip of paper. I think you were given one on your way in this evening as well. It’s primarily for those who want to give regularly to the church who don’t already do so. You’ll see from the top box there that if you’re a tax-payer, whether or not you’re able to give regularly to the church, it’s possible for us to claim a substantial amount of extra money from the government, at no extra cost to yourself. This is as close to free money as you get. So if you pay tax and give to the church, but haven’t yet signed a Gift Aid declaration, then you’ve nothing to lose by doing so, and this church has got lots to gain. You’ll see from the second box that if you’re able to give a regular amount on a regular basis, you can save us time and money by setting up a standing order, and so on. So that form is to help you in your giving to the church, if you want to. If you know you ought to do something about your giving, then fill in this form tonight and give it to me or Tony on the way out – you’re not committing yourself to actually giving anything; just finding out more information on how you can give to help the church most. And if you’re wondering why there’s a join-the-dots in the corner, well if you’ve got a pen you can join the dots now, and it won’t surprise you to see that you get a smiley face. That’s because the Bible says we’re to be cheerful givers. We’re not to give begrudgingly, but willingly. Whenever I sign a cheque to church or a charity, or see a standing order on our bank statement, I smile. Because I’m giving money away to a cause far more worthy than me. So, make a budget and watch your finances. Give back to God. Third, save. Winston Churchill said, “Saving is a very fine thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you.” Saving has been in the news recently. The CBI estimate that 12 million people are not saving enough for their pensions in this country. Some people estimate that young adults should be putting 12% of their incomes into their pensions. Proverbs says, “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.” That’s saying that it’s wise to build up some reserves, because you’re never quite sure what’s round the corner. Do you remember Joseph in Egypt? He got the whole nation to store up food so that they would have enough when famine came. The Bible says it’s wise to save. Often people keep 3 to 6 months’ worth of expenditure in their current accounts if they can, just in case unexpected illness or unemployment strikes. Others save up for the costs of raising children. Or putting down a deposit on a house. The average person spends twice as much in December as in any other month. So many people find it helpful to start saving now for next Christmas – put a little bit aside month by month, and the commercial side of Christmas won’t cause so many headaches. Just last week, someone told me of the presents they’d got for their children, and then said, “But best of all, Dan – they were free!” Now of course, they weren’t really free, but it was because she’d managed her spending in such a way through the year that Christmas wasn’t a huge financial shock. The savings were already there to pay. But is saving really biblical? After all, didn’t Jesus say, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” We’ve certainly seen plenty of pension funds wither away to nothing. Well, if you save, you should certainly seek advice about how to save. But how do we hold these two parts of the Bible together? It’s not that they contradict each other; rather they compliment each other. Yes, it’s wise to save, but it’s possible to save too much, or with the wrong motive. As with our spending, maybe the question we need to ask ourselves with our saving is this: are we going to use this money simply to help us survive without becoming a financial burden to others, or are we going to use this money to show off our wealth? Are you saving enough? It’s ok to save. But don’t go overboard. Sir John Laing founded the famous Laing construction company. He was a committed Christian, and at the age of 30 drew up a financial plan to determine his present and future giving. He said if his income was £2000 per year, he would give away £200, live on £500 and save £1300. If his income doubled to £4000, he would give away £1500, live on the same £500, and save £2000. And so it went. You see, he put these three pointers into practise. He made a budget, and realised that if his income went up, his living expenses didn’t need to go up. He stuck to the same standard of living. If he earned more, well he could give more, and save more. Over the course of his life, he gave away millions of pounds, and as his need for savings lessened, he gave that away as well. His estate at his death was worth just £371. Budget. Give. Save. Finally, avoid debt. This figure is one trillion pounds. What does it represent? It is more than the national debts of Latin America. It is more than the national debts of Africa. In fact, it is more than the national debts of Latin America, Africa and Asia combined. It is the total personal debt of the UK. As Christians, we talk a lot about wiping out third world debt. But very often we don’t acknowledge that debt is a massive problem in our own country. Our nation borrowed £11 billion pounds last December alone to finance Christmas celebrations. There are more credit cards than there are people in this country. We are addicted to debt. More than 500,000 people in the UK have crippling credit card debts. 9,000 people were made bankrupt last summer alone. The amount of debt being chased by Britain’s bailiffs has soared by 70% over the last 2 years. But behind the figures are real people, and Christians are certainly not immune to debt. As some of you know, it is a living nightmare. It causes fear, guilt and loneliness. A quarter of those in debt are receiving treatment for stress, depression and anxiety. Many people are so ashamed and afraid that they dare not even tell their partners or closest relatives the full extent of the problem. 140,000 couples who split up last year named money as the cause. Avoid debt. How true it is that “the borrower is the slave of the lender.” It is very easy to slide into debt. It takes much longer to free yourself from its shackles. Ignoring debt only makes the matter worse. If you’re on a low income, or struggling to make ends meet, credit cards are really not a good idea at all because you’re spending someone else’s money, which feels great at the time, but they soon ask for it back – with interest. If you do use a credit card, make sure you pay off the full amount each month, or you’ll soon be stung. The three most common causes of debt are not budgeting – because then you don’t know what you’re spending; using credit cards and store cards; and the effect of a major life change such as having a baby or losing a job. So the best way to stop yourself getting into debt is to budget, to save (which will help pay for major life changes), and avoid credit cards and store cards. But what if all this is too late? What if you’re already in debt? The best thing to do is to tell someone. Tell one of us, if you want. Being in debt is not a sin. Of what I’ve said this evening, we’re commanded or expected to be good stewards and give money; but when it comes to saving and avoiding debt, those are simply wise guidelines the Bible gives us. They’re not commands, but advice. So if you’re in debt, tell someone. But then comes action. The longer you leave the problem, the worse it will become. There are plenty of people who can help you work through the issues, and work out which steps to take, and in what order. On this handout, I’ve put the freefone numbers and websites of helplines that will give expert advice. If you’re in debt, or worried that you might be heading that way, don’t delay in dealing with the problem. You’re not the only one. The Citizens Advice Bureau had over a million debt-related calls last year. The Christian helpline I’ve put down has seen a massive increase in calls, especially from students, over the last 2 years. You’re not the only one. Help is available. Let’s pray.
|
