Introduction:
A. Before going to Europe on business, a man drove his Rolls-Royce to a downtown NY City bank and went in to ask for an immediate loan of $5 thousand.
1. The loan officer was quite taken aback, and asked what collateral he could offer.
2. “Well, here are the keys to my Rolls-Royce,” the man said.
3. The loan officer promptly had the car driven into the bank’s underground parking for safe keeping, and gave him $5,000.
4. Two weeks later, the man returned to the bank, and asked to settle up his loan and get his car back.
5. The loan officer checked the records and told him, “That will be $5,000 in principal, and $15.40 in interest.”
6. The man wrote out a check, thanked the loan officer, and started to walk away.
7. “Just a minute, sir,” the loan officer said. “While you were gone, I found out you are a millionaire. Why in the world would you need to borrow $5,000.”
8. The millionaire smiled and said. “Where else could I securely park my Rolls-Royce in Manhattan for two weeks and pay only $15.40?”
B. I think we all would admit that was some pretty good dollars and sense by that millionaire.
1. That’s one of the challenges we have as God’s people, because we are focused on spiritual things above, we don’t always have good money sense here below.
2. Sometimes we don’t really understand the way money can work for us or against us.
3. Nowhere does that show it’s ugly head more than in these two matters that we want to address today – borrowing and saving.
C. We are in our third lesson in our four part series called Spiritual Dollars and Sense.
1. In the first lesson we discussed –Earning - where our money comes from.
a. We learned that everything belongs to God, and God gives us the ability to earn a living.
b. We also discussed the challenge of keeping money in proper perspective.
2. In last week’s lesson we discussed – Spending - where our money goes.
a. We talked about the importance of contentment and containment as a way to avoid impulse spending and over-spending.
b. We talked about the importance of living by a budget and making good purchasing choices.
3. If you missed either of those lessons you can get them from Greg Mork, or you can listen to them online at our website.
D. Today we want to take a look at borrowing and saving, and answer the question: “Should Christians Do Either?”
1. Is it right for Christians to borrow money?
2. Is it right for Christians to save money?
3. What does the Bible say about these questions?
I. The Christian and Borrowing
A. When we look into the Bible, we find two direct statements about borrowing.
1. Neither of the statements tell us that we you can’t borrow, but both of them communicate something important about borrowing.
2. Look at Proverbs 22:7, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”
3. When we borrow money, we put ourselves into a place of obligation.
4. We give the loaner a position over us, and we become a sort of servant to them.
5. All that can be okay, but it can also put us into a bind.
B. The other verse that says something about borrowing is Psalm 37:21, “The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously.”
1. Obviously, if we never borrow, we will never have a problem repaying.
2. But if we do obligate ourselves by borrowing, then we may find ourselves unable to repay.
3. The inability to repay may be the result of our own doing, but it also may come for reasons we had no control of – illness, the loss of a job, or some kind of unexpected catastrophe – car accident, fire, flood, etc.
4. Because of the challenges of repayment, we should be very careful about borrowing.
5. As we know, it is a lot easier to borrow money than it is to repay it.
C. When we think about borrowing, some debt is better than other debt.
1. Most of us are not going to be able to buy a house without going into debt, but most of the time that is good debt.
a. The house retains its value or goes up in value, and if we need to get out from under the commitment, we can sell the house and erase the debt.
2. Education loans are another good kind of debt, because they enable us to get degrees that will open doors for future employment – it’s a good investment.
3. Bad debt is when we borrow for things that are disposable, or lose their value.
4. We have to be careful with borrowing money to buy cars, for several reasons.
a. For one thing, we can waste a lot of money in interest payments.
b. Second, we can find ourselves owing more than the car is worth, which becomes a problem if the car is totaled in an accident, or if we need to get rid of it before the end of the loan.
c. Third, do you realize, regardless of the original price of the car, within 15 years or so, it will be worth little or nothing.
D. In most cases, the worst kind of debt we can be carrying is credit card debt.
1. The interest on credit card debt is usually very high.
2. And most of the time, we have nothing to show for the debt – it just grew over time with a car repair here, and a special present there, or a dinner out a restaurant.
E. Let me give you a little quiz.
1. Ellen is 30 years old and has a balance of $3,500 on her credit card at 18% interest.
a. If she makes the minimum payment each month, how old will she be when her credit card is paid off? (70 years old!)
2. Susan and Tom needed a new washing machine, so they went to Sears and found one for $299.
a. They got it on their Sears charge card and made the minimum payment each month.
b. By the time the washing machine was paid off, how much did they actually pay for it? ($1,199)
F. Credit card companies are a very lucrative business – that’s why each of us receive at least three or four new credit card offers each week in the mail.
1. The 0% interest offers sound great, but beware of the fine print.
2. In 2004, credit card companies made $33 Billion in profits, with $14 Billion collected in penalties and other fees.
3. Late payments or exceeding your credit limit can trigger default rates as high as 30%, and it’s all spelled out in the fine print.
G. So, what can we do if we find ourselves in deep debt?
1. We can go to a place like Consumer Credit Counseling Center, and they can help negotiate a repayment plan with our creditors.
2. Experts in the field of money management suggest the following:
a. Pay off the highest rate card before the others.
b. If you are homeowner, shift credit card balances to a home equity line of credit – the interest is often lower and is tax deductible.
c. They suggest that we only use credit cards if we can pay the balance off each month.
3. As I said last week, we can look for ways to reduce our expenses or raise our income, thus giving us more money to pay off our debts more quickly.
4. We also can sell unnecessary household items for cash to pay down our debt.
H. Let me spend a minute on the question – should Christians loan money to other Christians?
1. Nothing is inherently wrong with lending.
2. Look at Psalm 112:5, “Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.”
3. The OT has instructions for God’s people about loans, “Do not charge your brother interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest.” (Deut. 23:19)
4. Look at this challenging statement of Jesus, “And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ lend to ’sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” (Luke 6:34-35)
5. So, even though the borrower has a moral obligation to repay a loan, Jesus is saying that in the spirit of giving, we should lend expecting nothing in return.
6. We should never lend someone money that we cannot afford to give them.
7. While we may imagine that lending money to someone will endear them to us, experience often proves the opposite.
8. One of the best definitions of a distant friend is “a close friend who owes you money.”
9. So we must calculate the effects that a loan may have on our relationship.
10. And given the many dangers of debt, are we really helping someone by indebting them to us?
11. Loaning money to someone lacking financial discipline is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.
12. If a friend or loved one is truly in need of money, it may be far better to give it to them, then both parties are relieved of the burden of worrying about how it will be repaid.
I. I would like to encourage all of us to try to keep our financial dealings in the present as much as possible.
1. Try not to fund the present by leveraging the future.
2. You all remember Wimpy from the old Popeye cartoon?
3. Wimpy was Popeye’s friend who was very intelligent, and well educated, but very lazy and gluttonous.
4. Wimpy was also something of a scam artist.
5. Wimpy loved to eat hamburgers, and was usually seen with one, or a platter full.
6. A recurring joke was Wimpy’s attempts to con other patrons of the diner into buying him his lunch.
7. His famous line was “I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
8. Applying good spiritual dollars and sense, says that we buy today with the money we have today.
9. Unfortunately, the motto of our time is “Borrow today and pay back…whenever.”
II. The Christian and Saving
A. Now let’s turn our attention to saving.
1. Many Christians wonder if God wants them to save.
2. We might wonder – doesn’t saving show a lack of faith on my part?
3. Shouldn’t I rely on God alone to meet my needs, and trust Him alone to provide for the future?
B. These are excellent questions, and I believe Scripture will supply the answers we need.
1. One of our Scripture Readings for today is from Proverbs 21:20, “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.”
2. So the Proverb writer tells us the wise person saves, the foolish person doesn’t.
C. An excellent example of saving is found in Genesis 41 when Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream and prophesies seven good years to be followed by seven years of famine.
1. Joseph’s advice to Pharaoh was to save a part of the harvest during the good years as a reserve for the lean years and the problems to come.
2. And that’s good advice for all of us.
D. Solomon the wise king of Israel reminds us of the same principle of saving by observing what God instinctively planted in the ant.
1. “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” (Prov. 6:6-8)
E. So, exercising good spiritual dollars and sense includes looking down the road and saving for the “lean years” – the circumstances, needs or problems that sooner or later affect us all.
1. I don’t have to be a prophet like Joseph to predict something of the future.
2. If I throw this ball down on the ground, I know exactly what is going to happen – it will bounce back up.
3. Someday the car you drove here today is going to need to be repaired or replaced.
4. Someday the furnace is going to break or something else in the house is going to have to be replaced, whether it be the carpet or the refrigerator.
5. Someday you or I are going to get so old we won’t be able to work, but we will still need some money to live on.
6. So, Scripture tells us that wise people try to save something for these future needs.
F. But, just as with any of God’s guidelines for living, there are always dangers if we take them to an extreme.
1. As we think about saving, we have to beware of worrying, hoarding, or trusting in our savings.
2. The rich fool of Luke 12 was an extreme saver who selfishly hoarded his riches, and put his trust in them. Things didn’t turn out so good for him.
3. Proverbs 11:28 reminds us, “Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.”
4. So we see that the Scriptures encourage a balance with regard to saving.
5. We should save some of our income, but we should not amass a savings nor trust in it.
G. One of the neat Scriptural principles of saving is this – even small amounts of saving can grow in time.
1. Proverbs 13:11 says, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.”
2. So a good motto is: Start saving as early as possible and even just a little.
H. What kinds of things should we be saving toward?
1. Three common short-term goals are saving for emergencies, repair and maintenance, and for annual events (birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, and vacations).
a. We know all these things are coming, so they should be budgeted for and saved toward.
2. Three common long-term goals are saving for big-ticket items (like cars or furniture or TVs), income replacement (major illness, lay-off, pay cut), and retirement.
I. Let me show you the amazing difference between borrowing to buy a car and saving to buy a car.
1. Let’s say we want to buy a car for $20,000.
2. If we finance the car for 6 years at 10% interest the car payments are $382.68 per month.
a. After 72 months (6 years) we have paid $7553 in interest, and the total $27,553.
3. If we had saved $231.46 for 6 years and earned 6% interest, at the end of 6 years we would have $20,000 cash for the car.
a. Which is $16,665 in payments to ourselves and $3,335 in interest earned.
b. The difference in total out of pocket expense is $10,888 which is more than half the price of the car.
4. That’s an excellent example of how saving works for us, but borrowing works against us.
J. Most of us know that saving is a good thing, but we can’t imagine finding money in our present budget for saving.
1. And it may be true that we can’t begin saving until we get our debt under control.
2. And in reality, we should get all of our credit card debt erased before we start saving, because the interest we are giving away on the credit cards is much greater than any interest we would be making on our savings.
3. But here’s a suggestion I came across in my studies that might be helpful for us as we think about saving.
4. One model for saving suggested that a person commit to saving one half of their future raises.
5. As an example, the article showed how a person who has a $40,000 salary who gets a 4% per year raise can save around 15 thousand dollars in 5 years just by saving ½ or their raises.
6. Here’s how it works:
a. 41,600 – 1,600 raise – saves $800 and the cumulative savings and interest at 6% - $848
b. 43,264 – 3,264 raise – saves $1,632 and the cumulative savings and interest at 6% - $2,629
c. 44,995 – 4,995 raise – saves $2,498 and the cumulative savings and interest at 6% - $5,434
d. 46,794 – 6,794 raise – saves $3,397 and the cumulative savings and interest at 6% - $9,361
e. 48,666 – 8,666 raise – saves $4,333 and the cumulative savings & interest at 6% - $14,516
f. 10 years down the road following the same formula - $62,979.
g. 15 years – $163,160.
K. The minute we begin saving, we harness the power of compound interest – it starts working for us rather than against us.
1. Let’s be reminded of two of the proverbs we have looked at about saving.
2. Proverbs 21:20, “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.”
3. Proverbs 13:11 says, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.” I hope we can be encouraged by this!
Conclusion:
A. You remember the old saying, “Money talks and all mine says is good-bye!”
B. God wants to help us to keep money under control and working for us. He wants to help us keep our money saying, “hello” rather than “good-bye.”
C. With God’s help we can experience contentment, containment, and correctly exercise borrowing and saving. Exercising good stewardship leads to blessing, peace, and the ability to give – which is what we will be talking about next week.
