Get A Life: Saving
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Intro
Intro
Welcome to the next 3 weeks as we kind of unpack our little experiment from the other day. If you remember, we gave you all fake lives, incomes, education, and asked you to build a life. Notice that many of you, who were unable to meet the goals you had for yourself, such as going to college and getting a degree that led to the job you wanted, immediately searched for a spouse who had a high paying job. Some things that you might find interesting that our little game didn’t encompass:
· 43% of college graduates have to take a job out of their field of study just to make ends-meat after finishing school.
· 33.4% of American’s have a bachelor’s degree which is higher than it’s ever been, up 5.5% even from 10 years ago. In comparison, in 1940, 4.6% had earned a 4-year degree.
· The average bachelor’s student will exit with 26,900 in debt from a public school and 32600 from a private school. That’s a brand new 2019 Dodge Charger worth of debt that you’ll be saddled with for the next 10 years if you keep their payment plan. On average that’s $300/month just in student loans.
· But check this. The amount of people who have put their student loans into deferment, meaning they put pause on the payments and let the interest keep building because they can’t afford the payments, has risen 2% each year since 2015. In 2019 its hovering at 21%. Meaning of the people who have these loans 21% are just kicking the can down the road without an answer for how to pay for them.
Hooray, right? I mean, if we had real eyes to look at life through, we would see that this is eventually going to drag these people, down right? You can’t just kick debt down the road and hope that somehow it disappears, and life has all these other expenses, right? If you decided to wait to get married until you were out of debt your looking at at least 31 to get your loans paid off on their plans. What about kids? What about traveling? What about all the things you want to do in your life?
It can be rather overwhelming once you’re in the thick of it, and its why you see all the memes out there about people who can’t “adult right now.” It’s hard and we can’t hack it.
But what if I told you that doesn’t have to be your story? What if I told you that the decisions you decide now can change that picture so that you aren’t a sad statistic but an informed success.
Tension
Tension
The truth is that Scripture has A LOT to say about money. Which is weird when you think about it because money and finance is a man-made concept. We are the ones who created, sustain, and value finance as a way of bringing order to our world. A world that God created. Its like when Grace tells me to get out of her chips. “Pretty sure I own these chips and I own you too little britches.”
However, God doesn’t tell us that money is completely void of meaning. He instead gives us a great deal of wisdom and truth sayings so that money becomes an asset and not a hindrance to us. Over the next 3 weeks we are going to unpack that wisdom for you and see how you can, right now, in Junior high or High school, apply these truths to your life so that you can handle money with wisdom and knowledge. We are going to carve these sayings into wisdom about 3 subjects. Today we talk about saving.
Truth
Truth
Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man’s dwelling,
but a foolish man devours it.
20 Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man’s dwelling,
but a foolish man devours it. [1]
Notice his explanation here. “Precious” treasure and oil. In their world oil was costly and important because you needed it to cook most things, but it cost a lot to render. The point: while fools spend every dollar they bring in, a wise man will keep back enough that eventually he has stockpiles of “precious” treasures.
Know well the condition of your flocks,
and give attention to your herds,
23 Know well the condition of your flocks,
and give attention to your herds,
24 for riches do not last forever; [2]
This proverb tells us that we are the ones that are responsible for managing our money. It’s on us to know our financial condition, not others. Remember, the world was mostly agricultural farming at the time of this writing so many of the agricultural terms: flocks, stores, crops, can also be applied to finances. In the same way a wise shepherd knows the condition of his sheep and the condition of the whole flock, a wise person today will know the condition of his bank account.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
This is an important lesson to take hold of here. It may be and 100% is, funner to spend all the money you have. Go buy what you want, when you want, with who you want, because you want. That’s fun. But discipline is looking at that attitude and realizing that you need to be wiser. So, lets apply this to finances. If we will discipline our budgets and our money, it will seem less fun and even painful at the time. Some of you experienced that in our little game. Paying bills and saving aren’t really that fun ever. But we do that because discipline yields rewards.
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children,
but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.
The good man, the wise man, the one who is intelligent, stores up an inheritance, both of money and morality, that last well beyond him so that he can bless his family for generations. The fool’s money will be lost and eventually find its way into the hands of the righteous and wise. It sets up this understanding that wealth also seems to leave the foolish and find itself pooling at the feet of those that are wise.
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Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Jesus tells the story of A man with good crops built larger and larger barns so that he could stockpile more and more wealth. When he did this, he decided to relax, “eat, drink, be merry.” God tells him that the very night he will die, and he put all his riches in the world and did not prepare to be with God. It warns that if we save everything for the wrong reasons, we doom ourselves.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
Here we see that the love of money, not money itself is the root of all kinds of evil. This is an important distinction. Money is amoral. Meaning it’s not evil or good in and of itself. Its like a brick. We can use a brick to shatter a glass window or we can use it to build a school or a church. it all depends on the hand of the person it’s in. Money is not evil and you’re not evil if you have a bunch of it, but if you start to love it, need it, want it at all costs you will lose yourself.
Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
Put no trust in extortion;
set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, set not your heart on them.
9 Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
10 Put no trust in extortion;
set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, set not your heart on them. [3]
Here the Psalmist helps us see clearly that money is not something that is solid. Money will come and go. He call’s wealth a “breath”. He tells us to make sure our hearts aren’t’ tied our wealth or lack of it.
“No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.
“No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.
Matthew further clarifies here for us that we cannot be a servant of God and our money at the same time. Just as money is a tool that we use to bring glory to God, We are a tool that God used to bring Glory to himself. We can’t be a master of money and a slave to it at the same time. We will wreck ourselves and people that serve money eventually become a slave to it.
Application
Application
So, these statements give us great insight but how do we apply them in 2019 and beyond? When it comes to saving and our attitudes towards it, we need to be people who understand these things.
We are wise when we save a portion of our income for the future. Rainy days will and do happen all the time. The car will break down. You will lose a job. You will need to go to the doctor at some point. Wise people plan for these ahead of time and fools ask, “why does this happen to me.” So, we are going to save for 3 specific things:
a. Emergencies-
a. Emergencies-
i. Dave Ramsey, in Financial Peace University suggests that everyone start with a baby emergency fund of $1000 dollars. Its job is to keep you from having to take out credit cards to pay for emergencies and unexpected situations. The American normal has you paying for emergencies by using a credit card. We want you to take care of yourself and not to do into debt to handle things you didn’t see coming.
ii. He then goes on to say that once you are 100% out of debt, you fill out your emergency fund for 3-6 months’ worth of expenses. That way, if you lose your job, or go into the hospital, or something else happens that would otherwise destroy your budget and way of making money for a while, you will still have a cushion to survive. So, you take whatever you need to survive in a month, multiply it by 3 months and get your number.
iii. We never dip into this for pizza, games, tickets, anything. Its only for emergencies and nothings else.
iv. When we have to dip into it for an emergency, the number 1 priority after is to put the money back and build the fund back up.
b Retirement- You will get old one day. Your joints will hurt, and your body will start to gently and then violently let you know “you can’t do this anymore.” I’ll tell you its always one of the hardest things personally for me to see a person in their 80’s having to work at McDonalds or Walmart to put food on their table because they didn’t prep wisely. I know none of you care about retirement right now. 401k, Roth IRA’s, none of it means anything now, but you need to become a student of these things as soon as you can. as soon as you can, you need to start planning and putting money back to retire. Here’s why.
https://vimeo.com/289184479
If you start being serious about the reality of old age while your young you will get to live and retire like no one else gets too.
c. Blessing to those behind us. You will have a family, or you won’t, but wealth doesn’t have to poison you or your family tree. Every family was broke and without any wealth until someone in the tree decided to change things. My family has always been back with money and we never talked about wisely handling it as a result, I was dumb with money. However, I chose to learn some things and start to do wise people stuff. As such, grace is going to get much different lessons than I did. I’m going to be able to not only hand her an inheritance but also the wisdom to make sure it’s a blessing and not a noose. Which brings us to our last point.
c. Blessing to those behind us. You will have a family, or you won’t, but wealth doesn’t have to poison you or your family tree. Every family was broke and without any wealth until someone in the tree decided to change things. My family has always been back with money and we never talked about wisely handling it as a result, I was dumb with money. However, I chose to learn some things and start to do wise people stuff. As such, grace is going to get much different lessons than I did. I’m going to be able to not only hand her an inheritance but also the wisdom to make sure it’s a blessing and not a noose. Which brings us to our last point.
2 We need to make sure our savings are tools to use and they don’t control our hearts. Money can be a poison if we let it rule us. We will talk about this at greater length in the next couple weeks but I want you to know that the wealth God gives you is nothing more than a tool. If you treat it as such, you will keep your head. If you forget it and start to chase after wealth and materialism, it will creep into your heart and ruin you. Decide now, at 16,17,18 that you will not do that.
Landing
Landing
Step 1 is done. You know what the Bible says about saving and some tools to look over when you start your financial worldview. Our next two weeks are going to be filling out the rest of the picture for you. Next week we are going to unpack how to spend wisely, and then talk about giving. Plan on being here and being present for those discussions.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.