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Hi, mom. Happy Mother's Day
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00:00:04
and happy Mother's
Day to all moms out there.
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We are so thankful for
the way that you lead us,
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care for us and love us.
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00:00:11
Well, today, you're joining us
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for a week 4 of
Freed Up, a series
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all about how to
grow spiritually
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and thrive financially.
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Today, Brian's
going to talk to us
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about being a wise saver
and a cautious debtor.
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00:00:22
And for some reason,
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00:00:23
he's going to do it
from an airplane seat.
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– I'm in the worst
seat on a plane.
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I hate this seat,
and you do, too,
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and yet most of us
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are in this seat
right now financially.
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00:00:48
I'm going to talk
about that today.
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We're looking at what it
means to be financially free,
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how to have zero stress
and margin in our lives.
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This is what we've
been looking at
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throughout this whole program,
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trying to get
freed up that God--
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And by the way, this whole
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financial program
we're going through,
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this is God's ideas.
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It's not my ideas.
It's a man's ideas.
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It's God's ideas that
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everything we have is His stuff.
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We're just stewarding
and managing what is His.
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Last week Kyle looked at
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being a generous giver first.
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And today I'm not talking about
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being a wise saver
and a cautious debtor.
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You might think like
debt and savings,
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how in the world
do those two things
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relate to one another?
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They relate really,
really significant
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to one another, especially
when we consider
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the place that we sit
when we're on a plane.
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This is what I'm
doing on a plane.
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And I'm looking to see
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who's getting on to the plane
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and coming down
the aisle towards me.
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Some people are
coming I'm going, "No, no,
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no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
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no, no, no, no, no, no."
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And they walk by, I go, "Whew."
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Other people, "Yes,
yes, yes. Sit beside me."
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And, you know, kind of
people I'm talking about,
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you know, the ones
I'm talking about.
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I'm talking about
the 80 year old
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90 pound senior citizen women.
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That's who I'm talking about,
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because that's who I
want sitting beside me.
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Virtually none
of us like flying,
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and this is why right here,
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because we have no margin.
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That's why finances freak us out
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to talk about it, because
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we don't have any
financial margin.
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We don't have any elbow room.
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This is why business
class is so amazing.
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When I get upgraded
to business class
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because of my
mileage, it's wonderful
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because you got margin,
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your legs can go
out. It's wonderful.
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You've got room,
the seat's wider.
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That's the bigger
deal, it's awesome.
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We've got to have
financial margin.
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Margin helps us sleep at night.
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Margin helps us sleep
when we're on a plane.
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Margin helps us
smile during the day.
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When we have margin on a flight,
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we can sleep,
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we end up smiling
more the next day.
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When you have an
unexpected expense,
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stress comes to your life
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if you don't have any
financial elbowroom,
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if you don't have any margin.
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Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans
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have enough savings to pay
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an unexpected $1000
expense in cash,
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fewer than 4 in 10.
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That means if there's
a bill that comes
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for your car, you can't pay it.
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You're just freaked out.
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That means if your kids have
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a extracurricular
activity you can't pay for
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and the permission
slip comes home,
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you freak out about it.
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This was me for most of my life.
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Most of my life,
I've had no margin.
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Here is the way that
you get financial margin
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because it's
wonderful when you --
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Here it is, this is
big, I'm telling you.
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This will change your life.
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To get financial
margin, breathing room,
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to be able to accommodate
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the unexpected things in life.
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Here is the secret:
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Spend less and save more.
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All you've got to do,
spend less and save more.
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Now, I know that
sounds insulting
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and I'm sorry, I'm
trying not to insult you.
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There's a lot of
financial programs
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out there that are
very demeaning
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and very insulting.
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I'm not doing that today.
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I want to encourage you today.
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And the first bit
of encouragement
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is this is a simple process.
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It can be done.
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It's not easy, but it is simple.
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You have more
ability to influence
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your financial future
than you have any idea of.
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You are not a victim.
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You actually can change
where you're going.
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And we have been
duped into believing things
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that are eliminating our margin.
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I'll give you one example
of my financial story.
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I'm in my early 20s.
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I've got my first real
deal, genuine job,
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and they send in
the financial planner
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to come in and
help you understand
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where your benefits are
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and how much money you
want to give to retirement,
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all that kind of stuff.
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And he says to me, he says, "OK,
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when would you like to retire?"
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And I said, "Um,"
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I just repeated what I
heard other people say.
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I said, "Um, 55."
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"Oh, 55. OK, OK.
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Well, how much you want
to make when you're 55?
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Like what you have right now
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in inflation adjusted dollars?'
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"Eh, probably a
little more right now,"
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because I was a bit
stressed financially.
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He said, "OK," he did
some quick calculations.
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"So basically for you to attain
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your financial goal,
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you need to save
this much money."
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Turned the tablet of
paper around to me.
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I looked at that and I went,
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"OK, maybe not 55, maybe 95.
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Maybe 95 I want to retire."
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Oh my goodness, I
looked at that number
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and that didn't even have to do
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with saving for kids education,
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which I didn't have
any kids at the time.
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That wasn't saving
for daughters' weddings
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and all that stuff.
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And I look back on that
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and if you had told me
then what I know now,
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that at 55, and for years
and years previous to this,
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I've had financial margin
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and I haven't had
financial stress.
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If you had told me that,
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I'd have said you were crazy.
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And the way I got there is
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because it was God's idea.
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The way I got there is because
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I just did what God said.
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This is not a financial program.
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This is a God program,
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and if you do what
God tells you to do,
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what's clearly
in the scriptures,
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if you d it, I'm telling
you, you will get margin.
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And He tells us, "Spend
less and save more."
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It is His.
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You can have immediate comfort
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and you can have
immediate trinkets
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and immediate
technological upgrades
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and you can get all the
stress that goes with that.
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Or you can have a
disciplined approach
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to your money and
you can have margin
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and you can breathe.
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There's cultural
lies about saving
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that cause as many
of us to not start saving.
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Stuff like: you don't make
enough money to save.
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You always make
enough money to save,
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you want to just start,
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but culture says, no, you
don't have enough money.
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You do.
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Or other lies on
the other extreme,
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like savings is my security.
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And we have many of us who just
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endlessly throw
more into accounts,
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more into the account.
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We don't know we're
ever going to do with it,
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but we have it there because
it's actually our security.
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It's not our security.
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You know what savings are?
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Savings are just
delayed spending.
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It's all it is.
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It's not our identity.
It's not our security.
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It is delayed spending, because
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you're going to need that money.
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You're going to that money
when your car breaks.
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You're going that
money when you retire.
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You're going to need that
money to start a business.
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You're going to need something
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for something you
have even thought of,
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but it's delayed,
deferred spending.
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That's all savings is.
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And if you think it's
anything more than that,
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it's your scorecard for
how you're successful
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or if it's your security,
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you've got a spiritual problem.
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There are spiritual
lies about saving.
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Here's one of them,
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that saving money is for
faithless, fearful people.
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I was actually somebody
who believed that.
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Back in my 20s I did that.
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I believed that to justify
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my bad discipline
and my poor margin.
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No, savings is not
for fearful people.
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It's for people who want margin.
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Or savings is selfish
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and God doesn't
want you to do it.
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I actually believe
that at one point
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and talked to that,
how all of dying people
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all over the planet, starving.
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How can you justify
having savings?
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I'll tell you how I
justify, how I justify it,
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it's called the Bible.
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It's called financial
good sense.
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It's called financial freedom.
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Here's how it good sense.
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Here's how we define this:
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The wise saver
is one who builds,
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preserves, and invests
with discernment.
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There's a difference
between saving and hoarding.
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Saving is putting money aside
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for appropriate
goals and vision.
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It's deferred spending.
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Hoarding is stockpiling
beyond our needs
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and using money to just make
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ourselves feel better
about ourselves,
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or as Jesus says,
"Building bigger barns."
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He tells a story
about that one time.
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He says, "Why do you
keep building bigger
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and bigger barns?"
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Some of us have a lot,
a lot of financial margin
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and you keep
trying to figure out
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what new savings
vehicle, what new account,
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what new whatever, what
new investment vehicle it is.
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At some point it
shows that we're
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not viewing our
money as God's money.
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It's our money and we
keep building bigger barns.
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And Jesus cautions
against building bigger barns.
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Managing money is
about managing our heart.
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It's about our spiritual growth
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more than it is about
our financial growth.
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That's why the
Bible doesn't give
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hard and fast guidelines
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00:10:09
for how much we
should be saving.
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I wish it did.
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It's about the heart, the
condition of the heart.
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I wish the Bible said
give 15% to yourself
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in savings or 5 or
10 or 30 or whatever.
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I wish it did, but it doesn't.
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Because savings is
a matter of the heart.
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And there aren't
specific schematics
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that we're to apply
to every situation,
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but there are specific
examples we're to hear.
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The book of Proverbs 6:6-8 says:
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The ant takes a
little bit of food,
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a little bit of crumbs
and stores it away,
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a little bit, a little bit.
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And they're self disciplined.
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They do it every day.
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They take some,
they set it aside.
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They take some
and they set aside.
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So for the person, for
the person who thinks
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that you have to have
a lot of money to save.
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No, no. You just
have to have a little
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and you just have to start.
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Just start where you
are and do little by little.
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On the other extreme,
I already mentioned it,
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it's the parable of
the barn. Jesus says:
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00:12:03
This is a guy who
owns all of his money
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and doesn't believe
God owns all of it,
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and he's thinking about
his savings vehicles.
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He's not thinking about
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00:12:13
what he's going to
do with the money,
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which is God's money.
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He's thinking about
the savings vehicles.
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It is a major, major problem
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when we are spending energy
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and hiring people to
manage our money
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and we don't
have any plan for it
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other than having more.
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That is called hoarding.
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We confuse hoarding
and saving because
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culture has given
us a bad example
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00:12:34
of how to prioritize
the uses of money.
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00:12:36
Here's what
culture tells us to do.
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The number one thing you do
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is you figure
out your lifestyle.
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That is, you spend.
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Then if you having that
okay, then you save.
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That's number two.
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And then number three, you give.
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This is out of order
with what God wants.
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00:12:52
This is a
God-orientated program.
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00:12:55
This is not a financial program.
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That's the way
the world tells us
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00:12:59
to operate financially.
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00:13:00
The God honoring order
is number one to give.
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00:13:04
It signals to my heart that
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00:13:07
this is God's money
and not my money,
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00:13:09
which is why I release it.
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00:13:10
Number two, to
save, to pay myself,
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00:13:14
to give myself margin
to take off the stress.
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00:13:16
And then number three,
to deal with my lifestyle.
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00:13:21
A big enemy to living
a God honoring life
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00:13:25
is our obsession with
immediate pleasure,
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00:13:29
instead of an obsession
with an eternal God.
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00:13:34
You've got to be obsessed
-
00:13:36
with God's will for your life,
-
00:13:37
instead of obsessed with
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00:13:40
having everything on
this world you can have.
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00:13:42
The weird thing is
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00:13:44
the more you want
what is on the world,
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00:13:46
the less you're going
to have financial margin.
-
00:13:48
Ecclesiastes 5:10 says that:
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You will never have
enough savings.
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00:13:57
You will never have
enough new shiny things.
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00:13:59
If you love money,
you'll never have enough.
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00:14:01
We have to love God.
-
00:14:03
Tara Carr in motivating
the pain pleasure principle,
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00:14:08
she says this:
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00:14:31
I know that it is painful
-
00:14:33
to deal with our
financial stress.
-
00:14:36
I know that it is
painful to figure out
-
00:14:39
what changes to make when
we have no financial margin,
-
00:14:42
when we feel crammed
and jammed around us.
-
00:14:43
But I'm telling you, the pain
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00:14:46
of enacting a plan
is going to be far less
-
00:14:50
than the pain of living
with no financial margin.
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00:14:52
The biggest symptom,
the biggest symptom
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00:14:55
of how dominant the
immediate pleasure
-
00:14:58
of our lifestyle
cult is telling us
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00:15:01
to enjoy all you can right now
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00:15:03
and ignore the
consequences long term
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00:15:05
is the signs of consumer debt.
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00:15:08
Consumer debt is massive.
-
00:15:11
Now we have a bunch of
cultural myths around debt.
-
00:15:15
One is that we believe that debt
-
00:15:17
is expected and unavoidable.
-
00:15:19
It's, in fact, some
people would say
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00:15:21
debt is the only way to
move forward financially.
-
00:15:26
Maybe that's why
-
00:15:27
we're not moving
forward financially.
-
00:15:30
Maybe that's why
our credit cards,
-
00:15:33
credit cards there,
named like MasterCard,
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00:15:36
end up mastering us,
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00:15:39
or Discover, we end
up discovering debt
-
00:15:41
and stress and pressure,
not discovering freedom.
-
00:15:47
A good sense, we say:
-
00:15:58
avoid debt is an awful
and inherently evil.
-
00:16:02
It can be used. It
can be a good thing.
-
00:16:05
But boy, boy, you've got
to be real cautious around it.
-
00:16:08
Some medications
can be really good thing,
-
00:16:10
but if you take too much
-
00:16:11
or give you the wrong
person at the wrong time
-
00:16:13
it can be incredibly painful.
-
00:16:15
There's dangers around debt that
-
00:16:17
before you enter into debt,
-
00:16:19
you need to be aware
of these dangers.
-
00:16:20
One is debt
presumes on the future.
-
00:16:26
Debt makes me believe
that I am in control
-
00:16:30
of the future because
I'm going to have this
-
00:16:32
and I'm I keep earning
the same amount of money
-
00:16:34
I have right now
and interest rates
-
00:16:36
are going to stay this way
-
00:16:37
and it's all going to be good.
-
00:16:38
James 4:14 says
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00:16:40
you don't even know
what'll happen tomorrow.
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00:16:43
It says our life is but
a mist. [sound effect]
-
00:16:47
So we get into debt
thinking our salary
-
00:16:50
will keep increasing
or stay the way it is
-
00:16:52
and all of a sudden
something changes
-
00:16:54
because we can't
understand the future
-
00:16:55
and we have massive stress.
-
00:16:57
No one who has credit card debt
-
00:17:00
ever thinks it was
worth it. We don't.
-
00:17:02
I know when I was in
massive credit card debt
-
00:17:04
from eating out
and buying trinkets,
-
00:17:06
I never thought, "Yeah,
but it was worth it."
-
00:17:10
"Yeah. I'm so glad I
bought food for my stomach
-
00:17:15
by going to Pizza
Hut," which is what I did.
-
00:17:17
I could have gone and
bought ramen noodles,
-
00:17:19
but no, I wanted
to pay Pizza Hut
-
00:17:21
and I wanted to give
a generous tip for it.
-
00:17:22
I never said, "Yeah, I'm
so glad that I did that."
-
00:17:25
No, no, because that
debt was in a sewage pipe
-
00:17:30
12 hours later, going
down underneath the road.
-
00:17:34
Not good. Oh, my gosh.
-
00:17:37
That's what happens,
all my credit card debt,
-
00:17:39
it all turned to poop.
-
00:17:40
It all was, it was all stuff
-
00:17:42
that went out of
fashion, it was all stuff
-
00:17:44
that just went down
a sewage pipe,
-
00:17:45
and there I am paying it.
-
00:17:48
And it actually denied
God the opportunity
-
00:17:51
to show me His
love and bless me.
-
00:17:52
It's one of the
things that debt does,
-
00:17:54
it denies God the
ability to move.
-
00:17:57
I got my first job, I
thought that means
-
00:17:59
I've got to get my first
real deal, brand new car.
-
00:18:01
And I got a brand
new car payment.
-
00:18:03
And it was a bad, bad decision.
-
00:18:05
Got done with that one, said
I'm never doing that again.
-
00:18:08
I didn't have the money
-
00:18:10
to buy a car with
cash at that point.
-
00:18:13
But, you know, I was
committed to not go into debt.
-
00:18:16
And I think my next
two or three cars
-
00:18:18
were cars that
people gave to me.
-
00:18:20
There weren't nice cars.
-
00:18:21
They were cars that
people didn't want.
-
00:18:23
They were beaters, but
they worked and they ran
-
00:18:26
and they gave me the
ability to get in the margin.
-
00:18:29
And every time that happened,
-
00:18:31
I saw that God
was caring for me,
-
00:18:34
that God was looking out for me.
-
00:18:36
In Luke 12:30-31 it says:
-
00:18:55
I would have
people give me a car
-
00:18:57
or give me groceries
or all sorts of things
-
00:19:01
that you don't see
the hand of your God
-
00:19:03
because He owns it.
-
00:19:04
By the way, the Bible says
-
00:19:05
God owns the cattle
on a thousand hills.
-
00:19:08
That doesn't mean
He owns the cattle
-
00:19:09
on a thousand hills,
not a thousand one.
-
00:19:12
That verse is there to
say he owns all the cattle,
-
00:19:14
all of it, all of it.
-
00:19:15
All of the cattle,
all of it everywhere,
-
00:19:17
all of the everything in
your life, He owns it all.
-
00:19:19
All the everything in
my life, He owns it all.
-
00:19:21
All the resources
everywhere, He owns it all.
-
00:19:23
He's dispersed it
to different people,
-
00:19:24
but He owns it all.
-
00:19:27
And when we force things
-
00:19:29
in our consumeristic
lifestyle through debt,
-
00:19:32
we don't get to see God move
-
00:19:34
and it fosters envy and greed
-
00:19:37
because we want it immediately.
-
00:19:38
We want it right now.
-
00:19:40
Luke 12:15 says:
-
00:19:48
There is such a
thing a okay debt,
-
00:19:49
and we're going to get
into that with the app
-
00:19:51
and the rest of the
parts of our program,
-
00:19:54
but debt has two
characteristics.
-
00:19:56
Okay debt has
to characteristics.
-
00:19:58
One, it's incurred on something
-
00:20:00
that has the strong
potential to increase in value.
-
00:20:03
That might be a home
that could increase in value.
-
00:20:06
That might be a
college education
-
00:20:08
that could increase
in value because
-
00:20:10
you actually could
get paid more.
-
00:20:12
It's okay to take on
some student debt
-
00:20:14
because it's
going to qualify you
-
00:20:16
to have a job that's
going to pay you more.
-
00:20:18
However, we've
got to be careful.
-
00:20:21
I mean, having high,
high levels of student debt
-
00:20:23
for incredible
occupations like teachers
-
00:20:27
or social workers that are
unfortunately low paying,
-
00:20:30
having a high, high
threshold on that
-
00:20:32
is not going to work.
-
00:20:34
You've got to find
out a way to have
-
00:20:35
that debt as small as possible.
-
00:20:37
But debt that gets you to
a better place is okay debt.
-
00:20:41
Another one is debt
that can be repaid
-
00:20:43
under today's circumstances,
today's circumstances.
-
00:20:49
Buying a house and
getting a mortgage,
-
00:20:51
assuming I'm
going to get a raise
-
00:20:54
over the next two or
three years, is not good.
-
00:20:57
I've got to be able to
afford the mortgage today
-
00:21:00
under what I'm
getting paid today.
-
00:21:02
See, debt isn't the problem.
-
00:21:04
Debt is a symptom
of the problem.
-
00:21:06
The problem is
that too many of us
-
00:21:08
are more interested in
keeping up with our neighbors
-
00:21:10
and having the latest stuff
-
00:21:12
and feeling good about
our consumptive lifestyles
-
00:21:14
that we are
actually living free.
-
00:21:17
To live free you're going
to have to live differently.
-
00:21:20
We going to have to limit
our exposure to temptation.
-
00:21:22
We're going to have to
decrease our debt levels
-
00:21:25
and specifically frivolous debt.
-
00:21:27
And we're going
to have to increase
-
00:21:29
our exposure to
financial resources,
-
00:21:31
which is the money that we save.
-
00:21:33
The way to become
rich is to save.
-
00:21:37
Yes, it's great to find a
great investment opportunity,
-
00:21:39
but that still is
a saving vehicle.
-
00:21:41
To get margin, to get to
new place we have to save.
-
00:21:46
Now there's biblical guidelines
-
00:21:48
for good stewards and debt.
-
00:21:50
First is it's cautious debtor.
-
00:21:52
Debt is not evil.
-
00:21:54
If debt was evil, then
God would not have had
-
00:21:57
the nation of Israel become
people who were lenders
-
00:22:00
because that would have
been them participating
-
00:22:02
in some evil institution,
like pornography.
-
00:22:06
But there are people
who make interest
-
00:22:09
and there are people
who pay interest.
-
00:22:11
And good stewards
try to avoid debt.
-
00:22:15
Proverbs 22:7 says:
-
00:22:16
a borrower is
servant to the lender.
-
00:22:20
That was me way back in my 20s.
-
00:22:23
I was a servant to Citibank.
-
00:22:24
I was a servant
to all those folks.
-
00:22:26
They were ruling over me.
-
00:22:29
Good stewards should
also repay their debts.
-
00:22:33
Proverbs 37:21 says: the
wicked borrow and do not repay.
-
00:22:37
So once you do borrow,
under whatever auspices,
-
00:22:39
man, you've got to repay it.
-
00:22:42
Romans 13:7 tells us that
-
00:22:44
we should pay to all
what is owed to them.
-
00:22:47
Taxes to whom taxes are owed,
-
00:22:50
revenue to whom
revenue was owed,
-
00:22:52
respect to whom respect is owed,
-
00:22:54
honor to whom honor is owed.
-
00:22:58
When we owe, we need to pay it.
-
00:23:01
We grow our financial
margin by avoiding debt
-
00:23:05
and having a vision
for what we want.
-
00:23:08
That's what we want.
-
00:23:10
So to get started, to
spend less and save more,
-
00:23:13
here's the way it works: give
something, just something.
-
00:23:17
Give something to
cuese you and God
-
00:23:19
that this is Your money.
-
00:23:20
Save something, it
may not be 10%, 15%,
-
00:23:25
whatever it is right
now, 30%, whatever it is,
-
00:23:28
but something, get in
the habit of paying yourself
-
00:23:32
and building financial margin.
-
00:23:33
Not saving so you can
pay off your credit card
-
00:23:36
at the end of the month,
which is wonderful if you do.
-
00:23:38
But I mean savings that's
lasting longer than a month.
-
00:23:41
Debt, make the maximum
amount of repayment
-
00:23:45
that you can on those
consumer credit card debts.
-
00:23:49
Max, and try to get out
from under that bondage.
-
00:23:52
And then lifestyle,
live a spartan lifestyle.
-
00:23:56
You can live on less. You can.
-
00:23:58
You can eat less expensively.
-
00:24:00
There are people
all over the world,
-
00:24:01
I don't care what
you're eating right now.
-
00:24:03
I promise you there's
somebody in the world
-
00:24:05
who's eating on less money
than you are right now.
-
00:24:07
I don't care how small
you think your place is,
-
00:24:09
I promise you, there's
somebody in America
-
00:24:12
and the rest of the world
-
00:24:13
who's living in a smaller
place than you right now.
-
00:24:15
I don't care how out of fashion
-
00:24:16
you think your wardrobe
is, I promise you,
-
00:24:19
there is somebody who
has worse clothes than you.
-
00:24:23
You could freeze
your spending right now
-
00:24:25
and find margin quicker
than you think you could.
-
00:24:29
Margin is the result
of being a wise saver
-
00:24:32
and a cautious debtor.
-
00:24:35
Stephen Covey
says this, he says:
-
00:24:55
God owns it all,
and if He owns you,
-
00:25:00
He gives you the capacity
-
00:25:02
to do more than
you're doing right now.
-
00:25:05
You do, you have it in
you to get to a new place.
-
00:25:09
The spirit of God moves
on and in His children
-
00:25:13
to get them to a new place.
-
00:25:15
The same obviously keeps
us out of this conversation.
-
00:25:18
We don't want to talk about it.
-
00:25:19
We don't want to talk about it,
-
00:25:21
because I don't want the stress.
-
00:25:22
I don't want to feel it.
-
00:25:23
I understand We don't
want to talk about it.
-
00:25:25
But if you're still
in this right now,
-
00:25:27
you're closer to being free
-
00:25:29
than you ever thought you were.
-
00:25:30
That's what God wants
for us. Galatians 5:1 says:
-
00:25:43
God wants you to
be free financially.
-
00:25:46
He wants to be free.
-
00:25:47
He doesn't want financially
you to be moralistic,
-
00:25:49
like, here's the way you
have to organize your finances.
-
00:25:53
There's programs
that do that, that say
-
00:25:54
this is absolutely
the way you do it.
-
00:25:56
Here's the percentage
this and that
-
00:25:57
and they put a couple
of Bible verses on it.
-
00:25:59
That's fine if those
are helpful for you.
-
00:26:02
This is about a different thing.
-
00:26:04
This is about
helping you be free,
-
00:26:06
helping you to encounter God.
-
00:26:08
And many people are not just
listening to these teachings,
-
00:26:11
but they're actually
doing a whole program.
-
00:26:12
I want to encourage you
to do the whole program
-
00:26:14
so you can get free.
-
00:26:16
You can go to
Crossroads.net/freedup
-
00:26:19
and you'll have
resources and apps
-
00:26:21
and all kinds of things
-
00:26:22
to get you in your
lane to get you free.
-
00:26:25
This is a $100 value
that people are paying
-
00:26:28
all over the country,
but here at Crossroads,
-
00:26:30
we're paying that for you
-
00:26:32
in this window of time
that's about the close.
-
00:26:35
We want to pay for you
to get financially free.
-
00:26:38
Take advantage of that.
-
00:26:40
Go to Crossroads.net/freedup
-
00:26:41
and do the program,
do all the tools,
-
00:26:44
whatever lane you're in,
wherever you are financially,
-
00:26:46
there's something
there that's going
-
00:26:47
to get you a new place
financially and spiritually.
-
00:26:51
We want you free.
Your God wants you free.
-
00:27:01
– So my lifestyle growing up
was a broken home situation.
-
00:27:06
My mom was single and she worked
-
00:27:07
two or three jobs
to make ends meet.
-
00:27:10
And when she couldn't, you know,
-
00:27:12
I would have to go live
with other family members.
-
00:27:14
How I looked at
money was just money,
-
00:27:17
you know, it's getting by.
-
00:27:19
It was living
paycheck to paycheck.
-
00:27:21
So I did eight
years in the army.
-
00:27:23
I still carried that
same lifestyle
-
00:27:25
of not managing money
correctly, you know,
-
00:27:28
living paycheck to paycheck,
even while in the military,
-
00:27:30
which is where I became
addicted to opiates.
-
00:27:34
And it consume me
for a number of years,
-
00:27:38
it definitely consumed
my money situation.
-
00:27:43
I acquired so much medical
debt because of my lifestyle.
-
00:27:48
Just to go get that next fix,
-
00:27:50
if I had something minor
that that happened to me,
-
00:27:54
you know, go make an
E.R. visit and doctor shop
-
00:27:57
and just rack these bills up.
-
00:27:59
You know, the way
I was raised was
-
00:28:01
it's just medical stuff.
It don't really affect you.
-
00:28:05
You can just pay it off.
-
00:28:07
You know, it's always like
you have credit with medical.
-
00:28:10
All that debt that I thought
didn't matter at the time
-
00:28:14
has come back to bite
me in the butt, so to speak.
-
00:28:17
And my credit is, you
know, kind of poor.
-
00:28:21
Over the course of,
you know, eight years,
-
00:28:24
$25,000 or so in medical
debt just from my addiction.
-
00:28:31
While I was an addict, you
know, I was married twice.
-
00:28:37
And after my second
divorce, I had hit rock bottom.
-
00:28:43
But something was talking
to me on the other side
-
00:28:46
to go get help.
-
00:28:47
And looking back on it
now, I know it was God.
-
00:28:50
He told me to go
take a long walk.
-
00:28:53
And I got on the
Appalachian Trail
-
00:28:56
and I completed
the trail in 109 days.
-
00:28:59
It was a nice spiritual journey
-
00:29:01
and it brought me to truth.
-
00:29:03
And I'm recently engaged
-
00:29:07
and about to get
married here soon.
-
00:29:09
So when I finally
realized that, you know,
-
00:29:12
I needed this credit to to
buy a house, to get a loan.
-
00:29:16
When I needed this
credit to start a family
-
00:29:20
and have kids, that was kind of
-
00:29:22
a turning point for
me just to tell me
-
00:29:25
that I needed to take care of
-
00:29:26
all these things that
are from the past.
-
00:29:29
I didn't file taxes for
eight or nine years.
-
00:29:34
And this past year
I've taken care of that,
-
00:29:37
a huge burden off my shoulders.
-
00:29:39
I've recently bought my
truck, paid off my truck.
-
00:29:43
You know, I'm getting
all my medical bills in line
-
00:29:45
to make payments on
those and just snowballing
-
00:29:49
all this debt that
I've acquired.
-
00:29:51
But we do tithe and also
I'm in student ministry now,
-
00:29:55
volunteer for student ministry,
me and my fiance both.
-
00:29:58
And we have such a great
community through the church.
-
00:30:01
And it seems like all
the giving that we do,
-
00:30:05
it's just -- it comes
back tenfold.
-
00:30:08
It strengthens our
community. It strengthens us.
-
00:30:11
And I'm not alone and it
feels good not being alone.
-
00:30:16
And it's really encouraged me
-
00:30:18
to take care of all
that from the past.
-
00:30:26
– As Brian said, this
week requires action.
-
00:30:29
Maybe you've already got
a plan together in your head
-
00:30:32
or maybe you're
feeling overwhelmed.
-
00:30:33
Either way, the
best starting spot
-
00:30:36
is to take that plan
of action to God.
-
00:30:40
What does that mean?
Well, in this case,
-
00:30:42
it means to talk to
God, to sit with Him,
-
00:30:45
maybe even sing to Him.
-
00:30:47
At the end of each of
our weekly teachings
-
00:30:49
we do this thing called worship.
-
00:30:52
Right now I want to
introduce you to my friends,
-
00:30:54
Robbie and Amy, who are
going to take it from here.
-
00:31:52
Choosing to follow
God's plan for our finances
-
00:31:55
requires wrestling
with our hearts.
-
00:31:57
Fortunately, God
will meet us there.
-
00:31:59
Take time to clear your mind
-
00:32:01
and focus on the
lyrics of these verses.
-
00:32:03
Ask God to speak
to you and lead you.
-
00:32:06
Specifically, ask
God what it means
-
00:32:09
to be faithfully disciplined
with your finances.
-
00:32:12
What does it look
like to have a plan?
-
00:32:15
What does that look like?
-
00:32:16
Well, it could be
a simple prayer.
-
00:32:19
Say this with me: God,
thank You for being faithful.
-
00:32:23
In this moment, I ask You
to wrestle with my heart
-
00:32:27
and make me look more like you.
-
00:35:08
Choosing to worship God,
no matter the circumstances,
-
00:35:11
is a step of faith.
-
00:35:12
This may be even more true
when it comes to our finances.
-
00:35:16
Right now, sing this
chorus that declares
-
00:35:19
the faithfulness of
God out loud with us.
-
00:35:23
If you're around others,
mumbling is just fine.
-
00:35:26
Together, we're going
to tell God He is faithful.
-
00:36:56
– Interested by what
you heard today?
-
00:36:58
Well a great next
step for you is
-
00:37:00
to download the Freed Up App.
-
00:37:02
It's a personalized
experience designed
-
00:37:03
to guide you to a new
place of financial freedom.
-
00:37:06
Normally, it cost $100,
-
00:37:08
but from now until
the end of May,
-
00:37:10
the Freed Up App is available to
-
00:37:12
the Crossroads community,
that's you, for free.
-
00:37:16
Just head to
Crossroads.net/freedup
-
00:37:18
to download it. We'll
see you next week.