“How to Survive a Financial Crisis”
(Sunday Morning August 2nd, 2009)
Selected Scriptures (Gen 41:46-49)
O.S. A Financial Crisis Can Come Upon Any of Us in a Couple of Different Ways
a. A Financial Mistake
Of Course, the Most Common Form of Financial Mistake That Occurs in Our Society Today is an Accumulation of an Excessive Amount of Credit Card Debt
Now, for Those Among Us Who Have Made This Mistake, I Can Offer Some Good News and Some Bad News Based on God’s Word
i. The Good News is That God Will Not Chide Us
James 1:5 is One of My Favorite Verses of Scripture, Because It Says “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him”
Q.n = Do You See Those Two Words “Without Reproach?”
This Means That God Will Not Chide Us if We Come to Him for Advice
Q.n = Don’t You Just Hate to Receive Advice From People Who Chide You?
If You Confess That You Have Fallen Into This Trap to Some People, They Will Scold You; They Will Wag Their Finger in Your Face and Give You a Long Lecture and Make You Feel About This Small
Well, I Can Promise You That I Will Not do That to Someone Who Comes to Me for Biblical Counsel in This Area
Because I Believe That Our Attitude Should be One of Compassion, and I do Place Some, Not All, But Some of the Blame on This Society in Which We Live
For You See, This Society That We Live in Today is Driven by Consumerism In Fact, Dr. Bob Ecklund Told Me Several Years Ago About an Instance Where a Credit Card Company Actually Sent a Credit Card to a Dog
ii. The Bad News is That God Will Correct Us
In Hebrews 12:6, the Bible Says “FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES,…”
God is Compassionate, But I Believe That He Loves Us Too Much to Provide Us With a Quick Fix
In Fact, Listen, I Believe That, More Often Than Not, God Requires Us to Crawl Out of Debt Slowly Instead of Strutting Out of Debt Quickly, Because He Wants Us to Learn a Valuable Lesson
Ill: I Heard a Story Many Years Ago About a Man Who Had an Elephant (Elaborate)
b. An Uncontrollable Event
You May Feel That You are Relatively Secure Financially, But the Truth is That We are All Vulnerable
That’s Why Solomon Said This in Proverbs 18:11; He Said, “A rich man's wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his own imagination”
In That Verse, Solomon Says, in Essence, Do You Think That You Have Enough Money to be Safe From Every Calamity in Life? Only in Your Dreams
In the Book of Ruth, We Learn About Two Women Who Were Suddenly Plunged Into Poverty Because a Death Occurred in Their Family (Ruth 1)
And We Just Read a Passage in Genesis That Described a Worldwide Famine
When Events Like These Occur in Our World, I Don’t Care Who You are; a Time of Financial Crisis Can Suddenly Come Upon You
T.S. Now, We Have Some Wonderful True Stories in the Bible About How God Came Through and Delivered
Different People From a Financial Crisis
So, I Want to Focus in on Three of These Stories This Morning, and I Want to Draw Out Some Important Principles From Each One of Them
I. Save for the Future
Now, Most of Us Know the Story of Joseph’s First Thirty Years of Life Pretty Well
He Was His Father’s Favorite Son, and He Was Hated by His Brothers for This Reason
His Brothers Turned Against Him and Sold Him Into Slavery
He Landed in Egypt Where He Became a Trusted Slave
He Was a Victim of Sexual Harassment
And When He Refused to Have Sexual Relations With His Master’s Wife, She Falsely Accused Him of Rape
Then, After Two Years in Jail, He Was Summoned to Pharoah’s Palace, Because He Had a Reputation for Interpreting Dreams
He Interpreted a Dream Pharaoh Had About Seven Lean Cows and Seven Lean Ears of Corn Eating Up Seven Fat Cows and Seven Fat Ears of Corn
He Told the Pharaoh That This Meant That There Would be Seven Years of Plenty Followed by Seven Years of Famine
And the Pharaoh Was so Impressed With Joseph That He, Not Only Pardoned Him, But He Also Made Him His Second in Command and Placed Him Over This Project
Most of Us Know This Story, But We Have Never Taken Notice of How Wise Joseph Was in How He Handled the Resources of Egypt
That is Unfortunate, Because We Can Learn Some Excellent Lessons From Joseph About How to Survive a Financial Crisis
2) Be Disciplined Enough to Save During Times of Prosperity
One Thing I Have Noticed About Joseph is That He Took Full Advantage of This Window of Opportunity
He Worked Very Hard; He Was Not Lazy, and He Was Careful to Set Aside 20% of All the Grain That Was Produced in Egypt During These Seven Abundant Years
We are Told Here That the Result of This Was That They Could No Longer Measure How Much Grain Had Been Stored - That’s a Lot of Grain
St = Proverbs 6:6-8 Says “Go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise, which, having no chief, officer or
ruler, prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the harvest”
Solomon Was Telling His Son That He Could Learn a Great Deal From Studying Ants
And the Main Thing He Could Learn is That Ants Work Very Hard, and That They Take Full Advantage of Their Window of Opportunity
They Save for the Future, and This is Why They Always Have Enough to Survive the Winter
This is What Joseph Did, and This is What the Bible Says That We Should Do Also
Ill: But Unfortunately, Most of Us are Not Doing It
In Fact, I Read an Article This Week That Said That Young Couples in This Country Spend an Average of $1600.00 More Per Year Than They Earn, and 84% of Their Income Must be Used to Pay for Indebtedness (Very Sad = Stress = Divorce)
Also, According to the Social Security Administration, the Average Fifty Year Old Man in America Has a Net Worth of Only $2,500.00
Moreover, the Average 65 Year Old Has Only $250.00 in Savings, and 87% of Retired People are Totally Dependent on Social Security
App: This Means That Most of Us are Up to Our Eyeballs in Debt, and Most of Us are Not Saving for the Future as We Should
And So, if a Financial Crisis Ever Comes Upon Us, We are Probably Going to Get Wiped Out Very Quickly
What We Fail to Realize is That These are Good Economic Times for Many of Us; And So, Now is the Time When We Ought to be Setting Something Aside
But Instead, We Tend to Live From Paycheck to Paycheck Always Consuming Everything That We Earn
St = In Proverbs 21:20, Solomon Said, “There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, But a foolish man
swallows it up”
This Means That We Should Not Listen to the Realtor Who Encourages Us to Buy a Larger House Than We Can Really Afford by Saying “You Can do It if You Really Stretch”
Or That We Should Buy the Most Expensive Car That We Can Finance Assuming That We Will Get a Salary Increase Next Year
Dr. Bob Ecklund Suggests That We Use What He Calls a 10-10-80 Plan
* Give 10% to God * Save Another 10% * Live on 80%
If We Could All Discipline Ourselves to do This, I Believe We Would be Able to Survive Just About Any Financial Crisis That Might Come
But Even if We Can’t do This Well
If We Could Just Begin to Save Some Money Consistently, It Would Greatly Reduce the Stress We are Under, and It Would Begin to Accumulate
Proverbs 13:11 Says “…he who gathers money little by little makes it grow” (NIV)
Let Me Give You a Few Practical Suggestions
to Buy Name Brand Tennis Shoes for Our Kids)
Loved to Have Gone to the Game,
But . . . .
So . . .
2) Be Willing to Use Your Reserves in Times of Adversity
vs 53-57 (Read)
Now, This May Seem Like a Simple and Logical Thing to Do
But It Also Reminds Us of the Fact That There is a Difference Between Saving and Hoarding Our Resources
Sometimes, When People are Placed in a Position of Responsibility Over Resources in a Business or Even a Church, They Can Feel Very Obligated to Protect This If They Take This to an Extreme, They Might Begin to Wince at Every Dime That is Distributed
If Joseph, for Example, Had Developed a Hoarder’s Mentality, He Could Have Made Life Miserable for the Egyptians
And if He Had Done That, the Egyptians Would Have Greatly Resented It
Q.n = How do You Know That Preacher?
Ans = Because of What the Bible Says in Proverbs 11:26 “He who withholds grain, the people will curse him, But
blessing will be on the head of him who sells it”
You See, Listen, What We Manage to Save is Not to be Hoarded Forever, It is to be Used at the Appropriate Time
And This is the Difference Between Having a Harvesting Mentality and Having a Hoarding Mentality
Someone Who Hoards Their Wealth Isn’t Going to Let go of It No Matter What Happens
___________________________________________________________________________
I.S. I. Save for the Future
II. Discover Your Resources
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II. Discover Your Resources
2 Kings 4:1-7 (Read)
Now, I Want You to Notice That This Widow Had Accumulated Some Debt
And I Believe It is Fairly Obvious That Her Problem of Debt Came About as a Result of Some Unfortunate Circumstances
She Had Been a Preacher’s Wife, But Her Husband Had Died
She Borrowed Some Money; and Then, She Was Unable to Pay It Back
And in Those Days, a Creditor Could Take Your Child and Make Him a Slave if You Could Not Repay the Debt
So, She Was in a Very Desperate Situation Financially
She Came to the Prophet Elisha Crying Out for Help, and He Asked Her Two Very Simple Questions
Don’t Miss This, Because It is Simple But It is Also Profound; He Asked Her
Question # 1 = What do You Need?
Question # 2 = What do You Have?
Now, She Didn’t Have Much; All She Had Was a Jar of Oil
But as the Song Says, Little is Much When God is in It
The Prophet Then Told Her to Borrow as Many Jars as She Could to Store Oil In
Q.n = And Then, Guess What Happened?
Ans = This Widow Struck Oil!
She Began to Fill These Jars With Oil, and the Oil Just Kept Coming and Coming and Coming, and It Didn’t Stop Until All of the Jars She Had Were Full
Now, What I Believe This Passage is Teaching Us is Something About the Power Resourcefulness When It is Coupled With Faith
In Other Words, All That Some of Us Need to do in a Time of Financial Crisis is to Discover Our Resources and to Trust in God
St = You Know, It is Exciting to See How God Will Use Our Resources if We Will Simply Give Them Over to Him
In Exodus 4:2, God Asked Moses a Similar Question; He Said, “…’What is that in your hand?’ And he (Moses) said, ‘A staff.’"
If You Remember the Context, Moses Had Been Sufficiently Humbled by This Time, and He Didn’t Feel Like He Had Much to Offer
But Like the Song Says, Little is Much When God is in It
And as Most of Us Know, God Used That Staff to Turn the Nile River Into Blood, and to Fill the Land of Egypt With Gnats, and Frogs, and Darkness; and Ultimately, to Deliver God’s People
God Also Used That Staff to Divide the Red Sea and to Bring Water Out of a Rock
Q.n = God Said, in Essence, Moses What do You Have?
Ans = Moses Said, “Well, Just a Staff,” But God Used It
Jesus Asked His Disciples a Similar Question in Mark 6:35-38; the Bible Says, “ When it was already quite late, His disciples came to Him and said, ‘This place is desolate and it is already quite late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.’ But He answered them, ‘You give them something to eat!’ And they said to Him, ‘Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give them something to eat?’And He said to them, (Listen, Here It Comes) ‘How many loaves do you have? Go look!’ And when they found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’”
Jesus Said, in Essence, “What do You Have?”
And They Said, “Well, We Only Five Loaves and Two Fish”
But Then, as Most of Us Know, Jesus Multiplied These Resources, and They Took Up Twelve Baskets Full After the People Had Finished Eating
By the Way, I Want You to Notice That Jesus Told Them to Gather Up What Remained so That None of It Would be Wasted
Q.n = So, These are Two Questions That We Should All Ask Ourselves in a Time of Financial Crisis: What Do We
Need? and What do We Have?
And the Way He Got Into This Business Was Very Interesting
He Had Been a Successful Stockbroker, But He Got Laid Off
Naturally, He Tried to Find Some More Employment in That Field, But He Was Unable to do So.
So, He Decided That, Instead of Wasting Time Sitting Around the House, He Would Start Shining Shoes at an Airport
Because, as He Reasoned, This Just Might Bring Him Into Contact With Some Key People,
and He Was Right; He Started Meeting a Lot of Interesting People
But He Also Discovered, in the Process, That He Was Making Fairly Good Money
Shining Shoes (And Since It Doesn’t Cost Much to Set Up a Shoe Shine Booth – Elaborate)
He Said That He Still Wants to be a Stockbroker; But in the Meanwhile, His Shoe Shining Business is Providing Him With a Very Nice and Steady Income
When I Saw That I Thought of Proverbs 13:23 Which Says That There is “Abundant food in the fallow ground of the poor”
App: Now Listen, What You or I Have May Not be in the Form of Material Possessions
Maybe What We Have is a Talent or an Ability That Can be Put to Good Use
I Visited With a Man in His Home Several Years Ago Who Had Started Doing Computer Generated Embroidery Work to Get Through College (Elaborate)
You See, for Those Who are Resourceful, the List is Endless: House Painting, Remodeling,
a Landscaping Business, Cleaning Services, Catering, Piano Lessons, Tudoring, Child
Care, Computer Services, Transportation Etcetera (Ex. My Grandmother)
Pt = Perhaps, the Answer to Your Financial Crisis Involves Answering These Two Simple Questions: What do I
Need? and What do I Have?
III. Continue to be Generous
1 Kings 17:8-16 (Turn and Read)
One Thing We Learn From This Story is That God Expects Everyone to Give Something
Because This Widow Was Going Through Some Incredibly Tough Times
She Was Gathering Sticks so That She Could Kindle a Fire; and Then, Her Plan Was to Use the Last Little Bit of Flour and Oil She Had to Cook Some Bread
After That Was Gone, There Would be Nothing Left to do But to Wait to Die
And Yet, Strangely Enough, the Prophet Elijah Instructed Her to Feed Him First; and Then, He Promised That Her Flour and Oil Would Not Run Out
Now, the Reason the Prophet Elijah Did That Was Not Because He Was Selfish;He Did It Because He Knew That It Would Set a Spiritual Principle Into Motion
And That Spiritual Principle is Called “The Law of Sowing and Reaping”
In Galatians 6:7, Paul Said, “…for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap”
And in Reference to Financial Stewardship, Let Me Repeat That, in Reference to Financial Stewardship in 2 Corinthians 9:6, the Apostle Paul Said This; He Said,“…he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully”
You See, One Thing We Should Always Keep in Mind is That God is the Resource of Everything That We Receive
His Desire is for All of Us to Become a Channel of Blessing to Others; And So, When We Give to Others, He Enables Us to Give More
That is Why Paul Went on to Say This in 2 Corinthians 9:8; He Said, “…God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed”
Pt = Just as We Have to Prime a Pump for the Water to Flow, We Have to Give in Order for This Principle of Sowing
and Reaping to be Activated
St = Now, I Will Tell You the Honest Truth
If I Had Been Standing Where Jesus Was Standing in Mark Chapter 12, When That Widow Put All the Money That She Had to Live On in the Offering Plate, I Would Have Encouraged Her Not to do It (Mark 12:42-44)
But Not Jesus
Listen, Jesus Never Discouraged People From Giving no Matter How Serious Their
Financial
Conditions Were
Q.n = Why Not?
Ans = Because He Knew That God Would Honor Their Generosity
In Fact, Jesus Said This in Luke 6:38; He Said, "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure -- pressed down, shaken together, and running over. (Listen) For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return”
The Apostle Paul Didn’t Discourage People of Meager Means From Giving Either
In 2 Corinthians 8:3-4, Paul Said This About the Impoverished Christians in Macedonia; He Said, “For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, 4 begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints”
Now, I Want You to Notice That Paul Did Not Tell These People Who Were Facing a Financial Crisis Not to Give
Q.n = Why Not?
Ans = Because He Knew That God Would Honor Their Generosity
This is Why When People Tell Me That They Cannot Afford to Tithe; I Tell Them That This Means That They Cannot Afford Not to Tithe
Because Listen, if There is Anyone Who Needs God to Open the Windows of Heaven and Pour Out a Blessing Upon Them, It is Someone Who is Facing a Financial Crisis, Right?
And in Malachi 3:10, God Promises to do This for Those Who Will Tithe
St = Now, Please Don’t Misunderstand Me, Because I am Not a Prosperity Preacher
I am Not Telling You That the Best Thing You Can do, if You are Facing a Financial Crisis, is to Empty Your Bank Account and Give It All to the Church so That God Will Multiply It for You
Nor am I Telling You That God Will Pay You Back a Hundredfold, and That This is a Guaranteed Formula for Financial Success
But What I am Telling You is That I Believe That God Blesses the Giver
And My Motive is as Simple as That
I Want You to be Blessed
God’s Blessing, by the Way, Does Not Include Giving Us Everything That We Want, But It Does Include Providing for All of Our Needs
Which is Why Paul Said This in Philippians 4:19; He Said, “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus”
Maybe This Means That Our Clothes Won’t Wear Out as Quickly
In Nehemiah Chapter 9, Some Levites Recalled How God Had Cared for Their Ancestors in the Wilderness by Saying “Indeed, forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were not in want; Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell” (Neh 9:21)
Maybe That’s What God Will do for You
Or Maybe God Will Allow Your Refrigerator and Your Washer and Dryer to Last Just a Little Longer and for That Old Used Car of Yours to Keep Running
In Malachi 3:11, God Reminded the Israelites That He is Able to Rebuke the Devourer
Or Maybe God Will Supply Your Needs Through the Generosity of Someone Else
Pt = If You Will Continue to be Generous Even While You are Facing a Financial Crisis, I Can Assure You, Based on
God’s Word, That He Will Provide for Your Needs
Invitation:
I Want to Close This Sermon by Reminding You That We are Never to Place Our Trust in the Uncertainty of Riches
That’s What Paul Encouraged His Young Protégé Timothy to Teach to Those Who Were Wealthy in His Congregation; He Said, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17)
Listen, It’s Nice to Have Wealth, But Wealth Never Kept Anyone From Getting a Terminal Disease
And There Aren’t Any Pockets in a Shroud
That’s Why We Have to be Careful Not to Place Our Trust in It
And Yet, Some People Do
In Fact, I Will Never Forget Hearing That When the Twin Towers Were Attacked on September 11th, of 2001, One Man Actually Called His Stockbroker to Check on the Status of His Investments
Q.n = Now, Wasn’t That a Foolish Thing to be Concerned About at a Time Like That?
Proverbs 11:4 Says “Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, …”
And in Mark 8:36, Jesus Said, "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?”
The Obvious Answer to That Rhetorical Question is That Gaining the Whole World is of No Profit is a Person Loses Their Soul
Pt = There is Something That is a Lot More Important Than You Financial Security, and That is Your Spiritual
Security
And the Good News is That You Become Spiritually Secure Today by Simply Placing Your Faith and Trust in Jesus Christ