Long Term Planning

Money Matters

Getting money matters planned right is important.

Many of us here are retired. Many others on the verge. I’m 63, no definite plans of timing, but Sara and I must be planning the financial side of what we’re going to do when the time comes.

When you get to this stage in your life this can be a scary proposition. What do you have saved, invested, debts and liabilities.

The numbers today are ridiculous. Houses and cars. We need both when we retire. And, b/c of what they cost now, it is even more important to get the long-term plan right.

None of us are buying a house or car w/out considering the considerable cost involved. And, we need a plan to have the money to do this. Here’s why:

The avg new car costs $48,000.

So, let’s say you’re heading to the dealership to buy an average car. Your old car has some miles, but it has some value to trade. Let’s make the math easy, say your old car is worth $20,000; leaving $28,000 that you have to come up w/ to get that average car.

If you made payments to yourself, as recommended by Dave Ramsey. $500/mo. It would take you 5 years to save $28,000.

Do you have $500 in your budget right now that you could reassign to buy a car in 2028? This assumes what you’re driving today will still be worth $20K then and that average car will still cost $48K.

The reason why I used the $500/mo number is b/c, if you were to not wait 5 years, but buy it today w/ a loan for $28K, a 72-month loan (6 years) would give you a $500/mo payment. Interest rates are going up. Car prices are coming down. This is your reality.

And, of course, that avg new car you bought in ‘23, when you pay it off in 6 years, ‘29; what will it be worth then? You’ll have to come up w/ even more if you trade it at that time.

We better get our long-term plan right if we’re going to have transportation for the rest of our lives.

We live in a get it now culture. It takes maturity and discipline to plan to wait until we have the cash w/out going into debt paying interest on top of the principle we used to buy the car.

You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

What if you decide to buy a house?

$400,000 is about avg, maybe even a little below for MP. 20% down leaves $320,000 for a mortgage. Int rates currently are between 7 and 8.5%. That’s a $2200/mo payment, P and I alone. Add another $1000 for Ins and taxes. $3200/mo.

Do you have that in your budget right now? If your answer is yes, it means you had a plan in place years ago and stuck to it enough to be able to do this.

The importance of a long-term plan.

The way we pay for these things is our Social Security, IRA, 401K, and whatever else retirement plan you had in place.

How many of us would like to hit the rewind button in life to go back and change the amount we saved for retirement. All that stuff you bought at the time that was so important. How important is it now?

It’s almost impossible to get a 30 or 35 year old to think enough about retirement in 30 years to have the self-discipline to save enough to live on when they get there.

I did a little math.

If a person starts at 35 years old, maxes out their IRA deposit, retires at 65, averages 7% return on their investment, then they will have $582,000 to live on.

A std formula for retirement income is, you can live on 4% of a well-invested portfolio for the rest of your life. So, 4% of $582K is an annual income to live on of $23,000/yr. That’s less than $2K/mo. Think car payment and house payment.

If a person starts at 30, the rest being the same, they end up w/ $840,000 for an annual income in retirement of $33,600.

If they start at 25, that builds to $1.2 million. Annual income of $48K.

You know the old adage, If you failed to plan, then you planned to fail. That’s not much money to live on in this economy.

We have got to have a good, long-term plan in place and have the discipline to stick to it so we don’t get surprised when we need for it to pay off. What if you haven’t saved enough to be able to afford a place to live and a mode of transportation when you retire?

We are coming to the end of the Sermon on the Mount. In this passage today Jesus is directing out attention to our long-term spiritual plan. It’s one thing to plan for retirement. We may live 20 or 25 years. What about your eternal plan?

How long is eternity? A lot longer than we’ll live on earth.

If it’s hard to get a 30 year old to think about planning for retirement, how hard is it to get you to think about planning for eternity?

If it’s important to get a young adult to plan for their retirement, then it’s much more important for us to plan for eternity.

We must get this right. There’s a day when it’s too late to start the plan.

It is vital for us to have a good eternal plan in place and have the self-discipline to stick to it so we don’t get surprised when we need for it to pay off and we discover we haven’t done what we needed to do.

Jesus has made his points in this sermon. We will review a little more next week. But, sometimes, final words are the most important. And while it is good and important to be blessed in this life, it is vital to apply what he teaches in these last few points.

We’re back in Matthew 7 this morning. These are the final points Jesus makes before his conclusion that we will study next week.

The first of his final 4 points:

Pray Persistently

Matthew 7:7–12 NIV

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Ask, seek, knock. All present tense imperatives, meaning, Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. These are not one and done things. And, there is the strong implication of persistence in Jesus’s words.

The process is related in the 3 steps.

Jesus is commanding us to ask God, over and over and over, for the things we want.

What do we want? What SHOULD we want?

Jesus next commands us to persistently seek after the things of the kingdom. We should want to see things happen on earth that have positive Kingdom implications.

These are the kinds of things that make Him look good, not us. Glorify Him.

Remember the model prayer He gave earlier.

“Our Father, Who is in Heaven; Holy is Your Name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is a reiteration of those words. Seeking the things of the kingdom for earth.

You remember what Jesus said about investing in the things of the Kingdom.

Store up treasures in heaven where the interest and dividends will be waiting for you when you get there. What are those things? Ask for them.

Keep on knocking on the door. What door. The door behind which God exists. The presence of God.

When we are in the presence of God, even while here on earth, we will learn more about what He wants for us that are kingdom things and we can ask for them.

How do we get into his presence? In prayer and worship. When we intentionally focus our undivided attention on Him, praising Him for who He is, Thanking him for what He’s done, confessing what we’ve done wrong, then we can ask. But by then, He will have communicated with us more about what he wants to see happen and see us get here on earth.

There’s a related passage in Luke 18.

Luke 18:1–8 NIV

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Pray and don’t give up. This parable tells the story of a widow who was committed to getting justice. Justice is something God cares about that would be a kingdom thing.

And Jesus encouraged his disciples to do w/ God what the widow did w/ the judge. Don’t give up. She pled w/ him, respectfully, but persistently.

There is also the story of when Jesus showed up to Abraham and Sarah w/ another angel to tell them they were going to have son. Right after, Jesus was going to Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy them.

Abraham’s nephew and his family lived there. Abraham pled w/ the Lord and appeared to bargain w/ him and change his mind.

If there are righteous people, will you relent and not destroy it. Jesus said, ‘Yes”.

What about 40, 30, 20...

You almost get the impression that Abraham changed God’s mind.

Step back for a second. He’s God. He knows how many righteous ppl there are in those towns. He gave Abraham some leeway to plead w/ Him. That pleading did more for Abraham than it did for Jesus. It helped Abraham develop a heart for ppl and he argued for the salvation of righteous people.

When we plead w/ God, it does more to develop our heart than it does influence Him to do anything.

God responds in Jesus’s parables because of His nature, not b/c of the persistence of the ppl. Yet, our persistence deeply anchors our care and concern for those we are praying for the longer we pray. And, that is a kingdom prayer.

Part of our long-term plan has to be to plead for the things we know God would want. do you have a child who has wandered away from the Lord or never knew Him? Do you have a health issue or relationship concern?

How much do you care about these situations and how desperate are you for God to do something?

Blessed are those who desperately hunger and thirst for God.

The question is, do we have the self-discipline to keep at it, daily, for years maybe, w/out seeing any positive movement, even when we grow weary of asking. Can you pray one more time? Do you care enough to stick w/ it?

This is the context of the golden rule. Do to others what you would have them do to you. How much do you want them praying for you? Pray that for them.

A good eternal plan involves praying for the same thing daily for every day you breathe and exist on this side of the dirt, for the things you know God would want for you, and what you know you want others to do for you.

No different than daily saving the money you need to save and depositing it in your retirement fund when there’s only a small amount in there b/c you just got started. You may think you’ll never get where you want to be. But stick w/ it and you will.

Stick w/ your prayer and pleadings to God and you will get where you want to be.

Your eternal plan needs to include the assurance you are on the right road headed for the right gate. There are going to be some surprised ppl when they stand before God on their judgement day.

The Right Gate

Matthew 7:13–14 NIV

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Have you ever caught yourself arguing w/ you map app on your phone? I was driving from here to OK City, on my way to visit my son in AR late one night. I had driven 12 hours, I was tired, I was only about 5 mi from my hotel in downtown OKC. I’m on I-40, been on that road since Flagstaff. It’s dark and late. Traffic is moving.

Suddenly, my phone app tells me to exit now. I’m like, “No.” My hotel is not for a few more exits. My phone repeated the command. Exit now! No. I know about where I am. Shut up.

I came over a slight rise and suddenly saw the taillights and all the cars stopped dead on the road. There had recently been an accident that shut the road down. My phone new it. I didn’t. I exited as fast as I could. My app led me around a little industrial park for about 3 mi then back on I-40. I think I lost about 5 min. It would have been hours had I stubbornly not exited.

When someone who knows says, exit now, or, stay on this road, we should probably do it. Otherwise, we may end up in the jam of a bad accident or being destroyed ourselves.

For you Rock ‘n Roll fans, this explains why there is a highway to Hell but only a stairway to heaven.

There are 2 roads and each has a gate that leads to whatever is waiting after this life.

Those who enter thru the narrow gate will be the minority. The gate is narrow b/c fewer ppl will need to go thru it.

God is firm on this. There is a rigidity to who gets to go thru the narrow gate. There is much grace for the decisions we make during this life. But, there is little leeway on this one for those who are allowed thru the narrow gate.

We like to be w/ the cool kids, the in crowd, the majority. We like it, it affirms us when so many agree w/ us.

But on this issue, we only need one who agrees and affirms us. He is the gate-keeper.

A good plan makes sure you are on the right road headed for the right gate.

A good eternal plan also involves being taught by the right teachers.

The Right Teachers

Matthew 7:15–20 NIV

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

This is an obvious dig at the religious leaders who are listening in while Jesus instructs the believers. They dress up nice. Their hearts are dark and nasty.

If they were looking for a spiritual grape, they’d only find a spiritual brier w/ those leaders.

If you are seeking the things of the kingdom, they are only described in God’s word. You cannot find them anywhere else. You can find your applications all around you. But first, you must understand the principles in the Bible.

There are many great preachers today. Any many more not so great. You can evaluate me by what you see in how I live my life away from the church. This is a small town.

I’m not the best preacher out there, I’m sure there are topics and issues God will address w/ me when I get to heaven, but you can also be sure I’m doing my best to do right by God and rep Jesus accurately in His word.

I am not going to be critical of any other preacher or any other church. Believers are all on the same team even if we don’t agree on everything or do everything the same way.

But, I will encourage all of you, evaluate the ppl you allow to influence you. It’s harder w/ someone you may watch on the internet, or on a DVD. But you can evaluate what they say and determine if it’s consistent w/ what you know the bible to say.

If someone is making an emotional argument that there is no hell, or there is more than one way to get to heaven, or all roads lead to the same God, then be very careful about following them.

God is gracious about so much in our lives, but He is firm and narrow about how to have that relationship w/ God that leads to eternal life.

Your eternal plan needs to include being taught by a number of good teachers who truly are sheep and don’t have fangs underneath their woolly noses.

Not only are teachers who think they know God, but don’t. There are followers who think they know God but don’t.

Jesus’s last warning is make sure your plan includes the right way to make Jesus your Lord.

The Right Relationship

Matthew 7:21–23 NIV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

There are going to be some sadly surprised ppl when they stand before God expecting their invitation into Heaven. Don’t be that guy.

Words are cheap. What you say may, or may not reflect what you believe. How you behave is influenced by what you believe. But, the bottom line, you may do things that seem great on the surface. But an evaluation of your heart would show a problem.

Only those who do the will of God get into heaven. You may say, wait a minute, I didn’t think doing anything got us to heaven.

Well, the first step of doing the will of God is believing in Jesus.

2 Peter 3:9 NIV

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

God wants everyone to be saved. But, He lets us have a say in that. That decision must be made while we live here.

Saying the words are not enough. Believing in your heart is. If you believe in your heart, then confess w/ your mouth, then you will be saved.

This is a tough truth. But your eternal plan must include believing in your heart no matter what you say or do.

There are many good things that can be done. But none of them put you in a position to have the right relationship with God that will save you.

If there is one thing worse than getting to retirement and realizing you haven’t saved enough money to maintain your lifestyle and buy all you need; it’s getting to your judgment day and realizing you did’t believe the right thing, even though you did and said good things, you didn’t believe the right thing to get into heaven.

Make a good eternal plan. If you haven’t already, start to day.

Have the discipline to stick to the plan. The day is coming when your plan will need to pay off for you. And it will only do that if you do this.

Applications

Ask, Seek, Knock

Stick to it.

I know as well as anyone how difficult it is if you’re not seeing any positive movement in the area you are praying for.

It could be someone you love, it could be a health issue, It could be a relationship issue. Many of these take time in the natural course of things.

God may do a miracle in a moment. But, they are rare. More common, b/c of the way God designed us, it takes time.

Do you have the heart, the courage, the self-discipline to stay at it daily as long your bones are on this side of the dirt?

Yes you do. Recommit yourself to being intentional about asking for what you know God wants to have happen in the situ you are most concerned about.

Right Road

Believing the right things

Are you on the right road that leads to the right gate? Are you sure? B/C, you need t/b sure.

Just going to the best church in town won’t put you on that road.

You must believe there is a God, or you wouldn’t be here today. But, have you taken the next, most important step of having faith in, believing in Jesus to save you?

Have you surrendered your entire life to get the new life Jesus offers?

You can do that where you sit this morning if you haven’t. If you have, then we’ll meet you at the gate and enter together once we all get there.

Listening to the Right people

Are you letting the right ppl influence you and teach the things of the Kingdom?

Do you need to evaluate who you are letting lead you in these areas?

We all have friends who are not on the same path as us. Keep them. Just make sure they are not influencing you in ways that lead you away from Jesus.

You lead them toward Jesus.

Evaluate who is influencing you and eliminate the influence of those who are not leading you closer to Jesus.

You know the old adage, If you failed to plan, then you planned to fail. That’s not much money to live on in this economy.

We have got to have a good, long-term plan in place and have the discipline to stick to it so we don’t get surprised when we need for it to pay off. What if you haven’t saved enough to be able to afford a place to live and a mode of transportation when you retire?

Make a good eternal plan. If you haven’t already, start today.

Have the discipline to stick to the plan. The day is coming when your plan will need to pay off for you. And it will only do that if you do this.

It is vital for us to have a good eternal plan in place and have the self-discipline to stick to it so we don’t get surprised when we need for it to pay off and we discover we haven’t done what we needed to do.

Communion