As you know, for the past couple weeks we’ve been talking about some of the various aspects of getting marriage right. A few Sundays back we went to the Bible for help in finding the right person to marry. Last Sunday we studied the principles found in Ephesians 4 that help us resolve the inevitable conflicts of marital life such that, as husbands and wives, we “fight” right. This morning I want us to begin by piggy-backing on last week’s sermon as I conduct a congregational poll on marital conflict.
Since this tends to be a very sensitive issue, I’d like us all to close our eyes so that we can answer honestly and still remain comfortably anonymous. The questions I want to ask you center around this subject: “What do you fight about most as a couple?” So let’s get started-every eye closed please!
If your answer to this question is parenting issues-if you quarrel most about how to discipline the kids or how much time to spend with them or if most of your conflicts have anything to do with parenting, would you raise your hands?
If your answer to my question has to do with leisure time, if you argue most about where to go on vacation or how to spend your Saturdays or what to watch on TV, raise your hand. If your main source of dispute has to do with in-law issues. I mean, if you argue most about your spouse’s parents-raise your hand.
If the thing you quarrel about most is finances, money, how to spend it, how much you earn, things like that, would you raise your hands?
If you raised your hands for that last one you’re definitely not alone. Studies show that the #1 source of conflict in marriages these days is money. In fact, George Gallup reports that 67% of all couples worry regularly about money. Stats also tell us this particular issue is the number one cause of divorce-51% of all spouses that call it quits say their decision had something to do with disputes over their finances. One thing all these studies and statistics show is that-as the Bible tells us over and over again-the love of money can be a very powerful thing.
God’s Word warns us that these inanimate objects that we keep in banks and wallets and purses can stir a passion in our hearts powerful enough to even divide spouses. Husbands and wives who have pledged to stay together “…till death do us part” end up fighting over their finances such and end up rewording that part of their marriage vows such that they only remain together “…till debt do them part.” I mean money can destroy a marriage relationship quicker than any other source of disagreement.
This week I came across a story from one of my old youth illustration books that illustrates this sad but true fact. It’s about a husband and wife named Stumpy and Martha who went to the state fair every year, and every year when Stumpy saw the antique bi-plane that was always there he would say, “Martha, I’d like to ride in that airplane.” And Martha always replied, “I know Stumpy, but that airplane ride costs 10 dollars, and 10 dollars is 10 dollars.”
Well, year after year they had this same little dispute until finally one year at the fair, Stumpy said, “Martha, I’m 81 years old. If I don’t ride that airplane I might never get another chance.” Martha replied, “Stumpy, that airplane ride costs 10 dollars and 10 dollars is 10 dollars.”
The pilot overheard them and said, “Folks, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll take you both up for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride and not say one word, I won’t charge you, but if you say one word, it’s 10 dollars.” Stumpy and Martha agreed and up they went.
The pilot did all kinds of twists and turns, rolls and dives, but he didn’t hear a word from the couple. So…he did all his tricks over again-flips and dives and rolls-but still, not a word was heard from the passenger seat behind his cockpit.
When they finally landed, the pilot yelled back at Stumpy and said, “By golly, I did everything I could think of to get you to cry out, but you didn’t. I’m impressed!”
Stumpy replied, “Well, I was gonna say something when Martha fell out of the plane after that first roll, but…10 dollars is 10 dollars.”
Now-at least in the beginning-most husbands and wives aren’t like Stumpy in that their disputes over money don’t stem from dishonesty or selfishness or an unhealthy love of cash. Usually in the beginning their financial conflicts come from the fact that they just don’t know how to manage their money. One expert said, “Nine out of every ten people with an income are financial failures.” And he didn’t mean they declare bankruptcy or have bad credit or don’t make enough. He meant that, in their ignorance or naiveté, they fail to manage their money wisely-and this eventually leads to most marital failures.
In his periodical, Money Matters, the late Larry Burkett once pointed to this principle of marital strife. He said, “An increasing number of families don’t know how to handle money, debt, and resources. Americans clearly lack ‘financial literacy skills.'”
How can we avoid this particular kind of conflict? How can we deal with our money as spouses so that it doesn’t damage our marriages? Or, to put it another way, how can we manage our money instead of it managing us? First of all, we have to embrace a mind set in which we believe that all we have is God’s-that there is absolutely no separation between sacred and secular in life. We have to understand that the way we handle our money is indeed a spiritual issue-and that we should look to God for answers in this arena of life. In fact, that’s what I want us to do this morning. I want us to go to the God’s written Word for wisdom about money management. If we do we’ll discover that God included a book in the Bible that was penned by the wisest and richest man in the world, someone who had a great deal of experience managing money. If you’ve guessed that I’m referring to King Solomon then you are right on the money, because he was very wealthy, so wealthy in fact that he would put Bill Gates to shame.
For example, the Bible tells us that Solomon ate on plates of solid gold. His “every day china” was very heavy! I mean, when he finished dinner they didn’t just wash the plates, they polished them and then instead of putting them back in the cupboard, they put them back in the vault! Solomon was extravagantly wealthy and God inspired him to share all the wisdom he gleaned from a lifetime of financial experience in the book of Proverbs.
Using that written record, (and relying on the comments of Rick Warren and Steve May) I want to point to five of the principles of money management.
(1) Here’s the first thing we find there. Solomon says that when it comes to finances we must learn to, “Keep track.”
This is the principle for accounting and Solomon refers it in Proverbs 27:23-24 where he says, “Know the state of your flocks, and put your heart into caring for your herds, for riches don’t last forever, and the crown might not be secure for the next generation." As this verse indicates, in Solomon’s day, instead of stocks they had flocks. Back then a man’s herds were his assets and it was the shepherd’s job to keep track of the size and condition of the flock. In this verse Solomon is saying, the first thing we must do to prevent monetary conflicts is very basic. We must keep track of what we’ve got. We must constantly be aware of the state of our accounts.
Have you ever said, “I don’t know where all my money goes!” You know, you got your paycheck and deposited it in your checking account but before you know it you’re relying on overdraft protection and counting the days until the next payday. Wondering where all your money disappeared to? If you don’t know where your money goes, then, unless someone is stealing from you behind your back, you’re not keeping good records. As someone has said, “Money used to talk. Now it just quietly slips away.” And we need to keep good records so this doesn’t happen.
As Solomon puts it in Proverbs 13:16, “A prudent man acts out of knowledge.” Spouses need to know about our money. We need to keep track of our finances. Our financial record keeping must be set up so that it enables us to know four things: what we owe, what we own, what we earn, and where it goes. There are tons of software programs out there that will help us do this but I’m kind of “technology-challenged” so I just keep a paper calendar as a record of my spending.
We’re paid every two weeks here at Redland so on those two days of the month I write in the amount of my paycheck. Then I write under each pay day the bills that I must pay from that paycheck: tithe, house payment, car payment, groceries, utilities, savings, spending money, hair cuts, etc. Then, when I pay each of those bills, I put a check mark by that amount. Now, I’m constantly having to add unexpected things to this calendar-like birthday presents, etc, but even this simple “accounting for dummy pastors method” enables me to keep a fairly accurate record of the funds God entrusts me with. And I have found that Solomon is right. Knowing where my money is and where it goes helps me not worry about it. I’m sure you’re all more computer savvy than I am, and are able to come up with a much better system, so don’t let me hold you back. Find a way to keep track of your money. Now, one spouse may be in charge of this, but he or she should share that information with the other so that spouses can both know where their money comes and goes. This will go a long way toward reducing marital disagreements over finances.
(2) A second thing Solomon advises is this: “Plan ahead.”
In Proverbs 21:5 he says, “Plan carefully and you will have plenty. If you act too quickly, you will never have enough.” Financial freedom is never determined by how much money we make but rather by how we spend what we make. This is why Solomon would say we need a plan, a budget to follow.
For most of us the problem is that we spend too much and one reason we spend too much is because we shop too much, whether it’s at the mall or on the internet. Did you know the average American spends six hours a week in shopping related activities? I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I would bet that many of us are well above average! Studies also show that the more educated you are, the more you shop. With that in mind, I imagine many of us could accurately say we hold degrees from Talbots University, Costco College, E-Bayside High, or Marshalls Prep School!
Don’t get me wrong. Shopping isn’t necessarily bad, in fact it is wise to shop carefully so we find the best values. The problem is many of us don’t do that. In fact, recent surveys show that nine out of ten people don’t shop carefully, they shop impulsively. They don’t plan their spending. They don’t have a budget and if they do they don’t stick to their budget plan and because they don’t they end up buying more than they can afford. Why do we do this?
First, there is the incredibly powerful influence of the media! Every billboard or magazine ad says, “Don’t plan your spending! Look at it and buy it!” Hour after hour television urges us to buy, buy, buy! I wish someone would study the correlation between hours of television watched and dollars of indebtedness incurred. I’m sure there is a direct relation between the two because millions of dollars are spent by advertisers to determine the most effective way to trigger our spending fingers. Advertisers don’t waste their money; they are wise enough to spend it very carefully. They hire top scriptwriters, actors and actresses, musicians, and production people who combine forces to get us to do one thing: spend money. And, they are very good at this! Have you ever noticed how much better the commercials are than the TV shows they pay to put on the air? Then there are the constant sales pressuring us to buy impulsively. I don’t know about you, but I remember when sales were annual things. Now they are every weekend!
We get adds and special coupons from Macy’s almost daily in our mail box, and more in our email box! Some stores open earlier or stay open later promising unbelievable deals. And then there are the “left over stores” like Tuesday Morning and Marshalls where you can get name brands for cheap. Many of us just cannot resist this, so we go, and end up buying things even if we don’t need them just because they are on sale and when they do our spending plan goes out the window. This is foolish for as the Living Bible paraphrase of Proverbs 21:20 says, “Stupid people spend their money as fast as they get it.”
Prevention magazine once did an article called “Are You a Shopaholic?” And the article cited support groups for shoppers like: shopper stoppers or debtors anonymous. They also mentioned some creative ideas that help people break the habit of blowing their budget with impulsive buying. For example, one shopper stopper keeps his credit cards frozen in a chunk of ice in the freezer. That way if he gets the urge to spend he has to wait for the ice to melt and by that time the urge to buy has gone away. Some of us with diminished will power might want to use concrete instead of ice!
Solomon would say that the best way to break the habit of impulsive buying is by budgeting-by having a financial plan and sticking to the plan no matter what, because, budgeting is telling your money where you want it to go rather than wondering where it went.
Ed Young, Sr. advises people to use a financial plan that he calls the “10-70-20 Budget.” It works like this: First you pay your tithe, we’ll talk more about that in a moment. Then you pay your taxes. Then you take 10% of what is left over and save or invest it, we’ll talk more about that too! But you use 70% to live on and the final 20% in debt reduction. The trick is learning to live on that 70% but this plan works for him. It may not for you, but the point is to have a plan of some sort a budget and stick to it!
As Solomon says in Proverbs 21:5, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit, as surely as haste leads to poverty.” Few people would consider driving their cars without a gas gauge, because they know the dangers and inconveniences associated with running out of gas. But many couples operate their personal finances without a spending gauge. They casually, impulsively, spend from day to day, and when they run out of money by the middle of the month they say, “Oops! I’m out of money-now what do I do?”
To manage our money we must keep track. We must also plan our spending-we must make a budget together as husband and wife and pledge to stick to it, and then Solomon would tell us that a third thing we must do is this:
(3) We must Save consistently.
In Proverbs 6:6-8 he says, “Take a lesson from the ants…learn from their ways and be wise! Even though they have no prince, governor, or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.” In other words, Solomon reminds us that even bugs are smart enough to save. They don’t consume all their resources-no they save some-storing it away for the future.
By the way, did you know that 85% of Americans end up with less than $250 in cash savings when they reach the age of 65? Only 2% reach age 65 financially independent! During their working years they earned hundreds of thousands of dollars but at retirement they have little or nothing to show for it. Why? Because all those years they paid everybody but themselves meaning, they didn’t “pay” anything into their savings account.
We are a part of a “live for today” culture. We want it all and we want it now, so it’s hard for us to save. Solomon says this is foolish! In Proverbs 21:20 he says, “The wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever he gets.” How much should the wise husband or wife save? Most experts would agree with Ed Young in that they recommend that you put aside ten percent every month, and if you do, it is amazing how much you will accrue!
To show you what I mean, let’s say you earned $40,000 a year, and that is a minimum for residents of Montgomery County but it will give you an idea of how much you can save. If you make forty grand and put aside ten percent, that’s $4,00, and if you do this every year for thirty years and if you invest it in secure fund which Hugh Faulconer (our administrator) tells me will average out to 8% per year. After 30 years you would have $498,215.95, and that’s if you are saving ten percent of an annual salary of $40,000. Most people in our area make two or even three times that!
I confess that I have to discipline myself to look at savings as another “bill” to pay. In fact, I have it deducted from our checking account every month and sent to our savings account automatically, just like our house payment or car payment. You probably have a better way to save but to avoid marital woes about money one thing you must do is find a way to do this consistently, even if it’s only a little every month, because as wise ole Solomon says in Proverbs 13:11 even, “…He who gathers money little by little makes it grow.”
If you grow a nest egg, then when the car breaks down your relationship will be saved the stress of worrying as you try to find the money to fix it. If you have a healthy savings account, when you want to take a great vacation, you can do so. If you have money stashed away, then when Christmas comes around you don’t have to get the credit cards out, and this leads to a fifth principle we find in Solomon’s book of Proverbs.
(4) …to manage our money wisely we must…Eliminate debt.
I would say that nothing has caused more marital misery than the burden of debt. I’m not talking about having a mortgage or even financing a car as long as the car is worth more than the pay-off. I’m talking about “consumer debt”, credit card debt, debt that is non-secured, the kind of debt that can pile up and haunt you and your wife every day of your marriage.
Are any of you “mature” enough to remember when they changed the name of one of the most popular credit cards from “MasterCharge” to “MasterCard?” I don’t know if the company realized how accurate that new label really is, because that little plastic card and others like it have literally “mastered” the lives of millions of individuals. Today the average credit cardholder is enslaved by over $8,100 in credit-card debt. Ten years ago it was only $3000.Today’s most undergraduate college students carry around $2,000 in credit card debt. Last year Americans charged $1.3 trillion on their credit cards. In most cases making the minimum payment would take at least 20 years to pay off the balance. Couples who have this kind of financial burden around their necks are bound to have arguments, because it keeps them from doing the things they need to be able to do with their income like buying a house or sending their kids to college, or even enjoying dinner out as a couple.
I loved Jennifer’s take on the popular MasterCard commercials last week. It was an ingenious way to remind people how important it is that we staff our children’s ministry, and her announcement worked because we all know how those MasterCard commercials go. “Air fare for two to Paris, $1800. Rental for your private chalet, $650. An evening meal for two at a sidewalk café’ $50. Sharing it all with the love of your life…priceless.”
As much as we are moved by those commercials, when I see one, I wish they’d take the word, “priceless” out and instead use this tag, “The stress of having to pay all this off at 21% interest-not worth anything near the cost!”
Part of the problem is that using a credit card is so easy. Statistics show that when we shop with plastic we spend 23% more money than when we use cash. This is because using a credit card doesn’t feel like we’re using real money, that is until the bill comes and then it feels very real! Plus credit card companies make it so easy! I don’t know about you but I get two or three offers in the mail each day that say things like, “Congratulations Mark Adams! You are among a prestigious few who are preferred and pre-approved for a VISA platinum card with a $25,000 limit!” My brother-in-law works for Discover Card and he tells me they send out millions of these things, so I’m not really all that prestigious after all! Most of us get into credit card debt in a sinfully covetous attempt to emulate someone else’s lifestyle. We’re not content with what God gives us. We’re not content with we have-we want what every one else has!
An interesting book came out in 1999 called The Overspent American that addressed this issue. It was written by a Harvard University sociologist named Juliet Schor and she researched the spending habits of the typical American Consumer. Schor says that back in the 1950’s and 1960’s American consumers measured their standard of living by that of their neighbors. We called this, “Keeping up with the Jones”-apologies to Bill & Meredith! But according to Schor, we don’t do that anymore. We don’t know our neighbors well enough in most cases to know what to keep up with, so instead most consumers these days compare their standard of living with the people they see on TV, people whose incomes are double, triple, even five times more than what they make. According to Schor, the majority of Americans are trying to emulate the lifestyle and spending habits of the richest of the rich. If she’s right, and I think she is, it’s no wonder credit card and consumer debt keeps rising higher and higher in our nation.
I want to point out that whenever you read one of those ads for a gold or platinum card, there’s one word you’ll never find, and it is the word “debt.” But, that is exactly what they are selling. They are selling you debt, but since that is an uncomfortable, unpleasant word they don’t include it in their mailers. Instead they tell you, “We sell not debt, but freedom to buy what you want when you want it!” And it’s anything but freedom.
To show you what I mean, these are they synonyms that Roget’s Thesaurus gives for debt: “To owe, to be obligated, in deficit, in default, insolvent, in over one’s head, in arrears, paupered, destitute, penniless, needy, distressed, living hand to mouth, ruined, impoverished, hard up, beaten down, bereft, unable to make ends meet, embarrassed, broke, busted.” If all these credit card companies were honest and told you this is what they are selling, would you fill that application out and send it in? Of course not, but that is exactly what they are saying, “We want you to be in debt to us.” I love the commercials where instead of feeding the pigeons in the park they feed their credit cards to scissors that playfully scamper at their feet.
Here’s a suggestion for a very inexpensive date as a couple. Keep one credit card, and pay it off every month. But take all of the rest of them and go to the park and “feed” them to the scissors! Or, just cut them up yourselves, but do all you can to avoid consumer debt, and I promise, your marriage will be better!
(5) One final bit of advice Solomon gives us when it comes to managing our money is this. He says we must, “Give Habitually.”
As I inferred earlier, habitual giving begins with giving our tithes to God. In Proverbs 3:9-10 Solomon says, “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything your land produces.” Why do this? Why tithe? Why give at last a tenth back to God?
A. Well first of all we do so as an act of obedience. Because the Bible repeatedly and clearly suggests a minimum giving standard of giving ten percent back to God. For example, in Malachi 3:9 God says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house.”
B. But tithing is also an act of gratitude. When we give the first tenth we are saying, “God, I wouldn’t have anything if it weren’t for You. Thank you Father, for as Your Word says, ‘Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights Who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17)’”
C. And then tithing is an act of priority. It’s a way of saying, “God, I want You to be number one in my life and I prove it by putting You first in my money. Yours is the first check I write.”
D. It’s also an act of faith that says, “God, I know all those promises in the Bible that say if I put You first you’ll take care of me. To prove that I believe these promises I’m going to give to You first.”
And God takes care of us like no one else! As David said in the 23rd Psalm, God fills our cups to overflowing! In that familiar text from Malachi God goes on to say, “‘Test Me in this, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.'”
Solomon puts it like this. In Proverbs 3:10, he says if we give to God from the best, “He will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with the finest wine.” According to these verses and others like them the call to tithe is accompanied by the promise that God will intervene supernaturally in the financial affairs of those who give to Him habitually. They will enjoy financial miracles that would not happen if they neglected to give to God. As I have said in the past, our giving to God should not be viewed as a debt we owe but rather as a seed we sow, a seed that will yield God’s bountiful blessings. I’m not saying if we tithe God will make us rich, but that if we trust God and give as He commands, He will provide for our needs. Tithing is a way of leaning on God. By the way this verse in Malachi is the only place in the Bible that says you can prove God. In essence our Heavenly Father says, “You want to prove that I exist? Start tithing. Then watch what happens!” It may not make sense but I can tell you by experience that it works. When we trust God by giving a tithe to Him, He responds by taking care of us.
I can say that I have never even missed my tithe. We started tithing consistently when we graduated from seminary and I can tell you that for 24 years now, I have found God to be completely trustworthy in this. In fact, I wish we hadn’t waited to graduate to start tithing! When you think about it, we don’t have trouble trusting God with other things. We trust Him with our eternal destiny. We trust Him for daily wisdom and guidance. Why can’t we trust Him with our money!? I know this is an uncomfortable subject but the fact is, our habitual giving should not be limited to our tithe. We should make it a practice as spouses to give our money to help others.
In Proverbs 19:17 Solomon says, “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be rewarded for what he has done.” And in Proverbs 14:31 he says, “Whoever is generous honors God.” God doesn’t bless us financially for us to keep it all to ourselves. We are blessed to be a blessing. And I for one believe God when He says He will reward that kind of person because I’ve seen it happen. The more we join Him in giving to meet the needs of others, the more money He entrusts us with-other money we can use to help others. The more Godly we are in our giving, the more God entrusts us with to give, and the more we give, the more abundant our marital lives because giving is fun! It’s incredibly fulfilling.
In fact, I believe that one of the best ways to enrich your marriage, is to manage your money such that as a married team, you will be able to give your “riches” to help others. Some of the most amazing marriages I’ve ever seen, many of them here at Redland are spouses who joyfully give huge chunks of money away, to provide these beautiful seats we enjoy each Sunday, to help a young man pay for college…to write a check for thousands of dollars so our church can send a mission team to Nairobi, to purchase a new oven for our kitchen or a needed piece of furniture for the furlough house, to build a building in a Nairobi orphanage to care for abandoned children, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to help us build the gym. I believe one of the things that contributes to their marital health is the habitual way they give of their wealth to God, helping others in a Godly way.
Closing Challenge
This morning I challenge you all, singles and married, to follow these guidelines in Proverbs and manage your money right so you can do things like this. If you haven’t done so already, give God control of your finances. Don’t just invite Him into your heart. Invite Him into your checkbook. Ask Him to guide you when it comes to how you handle your money.
In fact, let’s do another congregational poll…close your eyes once more. If you commit today to live by these scriptural guidelines raise your hand. Thank you. Now while your eyes are closed bow your head and pray, tell God of your commitment and ask Him to help you keep it.
Let’s pray silently, and in a moment I’ll close.
Father God, thank You for the way You bless us here in Montgomery County. You entrust us with so much. Protect our marriages from the kind of conflict and stress money and material things can bring. Help us to manage it such that we are able to use it every day in ways that further Your kingdom. Help us to temper our yearnings so that we yearn not for more things, but for more opportunities to serve people with our wealth. Remind us that all we have is Yours, that we are Your stewards and help us to make You proud in the way we care for the things You have given us.
I ask all this in Jesus’ name. AMEN
Some of us may have public decisions that we need to make today-to commit to follow Jesus as Lord and Savior, to join this church and serve God here. I invite you to share those decisions by coming forward now as we stand and sing and share those decisions with me. Won’t you come now as God leads?