Welcome to the Islands Christian Church podcast.
Subscribe to hear a new episode every week.
Thanks for joining us. Hey, early on in my ministry
here at Islands, I mean, I've been here 14, been around here
14 years this March. And so it feels like 5 minutes.
It's been amazing. And early on when I got here, I
met a man named John Major and I got to know him and John was
just a became a really good friend.
And John had a great career. He had been in the Navy as an
officer. And then he became a quality
assurance guy, ISO 9000 quality assurance.
Basically what that meant was he knew how to ask the right
questions and when to ask them. And he, he and I became fast
friends and he got involved in overseeing the finances of our
church. He led a financial management
team here and he was integral to our church.
One day he said to me, after I've been here just a short
while, he were talking about our finances and he said, Steven,
what if we just paid off our debt here at the church?
We just paid it all off and we had enough money in reserves to
pay off all of our debt. But it meant that when we paid
off all of our debt, we would have nothing in reserves.
We would basically have nothing in the bank account.
And so I was a little nervous about it, but we met with our
elders and we thought about it and they decided to, to, to
take, to step out on faith, even though it felt risky and to step
out on faith and pay off our debt.
This has been many years ago. And I remember thinking, man,
God surely is going to be proud of us for doing this, you know,
and like this coming Sunday, I bet we're just going to have a
massive offering because like, it's just going to like, he's
going to like, he's going to be like, way to go, guys, you did
it. I mean, I'm kidding, I'm not
kidding, you guys. We wrote a check for $100,000
and we had $0.67 left in our bank account as an organization.
Yes. It didn't feel awesome, brother.
It didn't feel awesome. And especially I was feeding my
family on the bank account, you know what I mean?
My pay, the payroll. So I said, man, surely God's
going to honor us. We're going to have a big
offering this Sunday. And instead, I kid you not, it
was the lowest offering of my ministry to date on that Sunday.
And I panicked. I was like, what are we going to
do? And John calmly said to me,
Stephen, we made a decision in prayer that honored God.
We can trust him with the outcome.
Don't panic. And man was he right.
Man was he right. Over time, we rebuilt that
margin and then some and got to where we had significant months
worth of operations in March in reserves and years later.
And John could have known this and neither could I.
When we were making those very wise financial decisions about
the future of islands. We couldn't know that in 2020
COVID would come and many churches during COVID struggle
to survive. And I don't know if you know
this, but many churches closed down and COVID simply because of
finances. They just didn't have money to
survive it. And not only do we have money to
survive it, we had money to thrive through it.
And if you were around in during COVID, that was a tough season
for this church. And I'm telling you, one of the
reasons we're here today, still operating, yes, God, but through
John Major and his wisdom in leading us to be careful with
our debt and finances years before COVID gave us the margin
to get through COVID. So we didn't get through COVID
because of luck. We got through because of wise
decisions made under the leadership of God years before
COVID. Here's the thing about money.
And here's the main idea that I want you to carry home with you
today. This is it.
If you want to write something down, this is the main idea.
How we leverage money and how we use debt.
How we leverage money and how we use debt shapes our future far
more than it helps our present. So I'm going to say it again
because I didn't see anybody write this down, so I'm just
going to assume you're going to like you're logging it in your
memory. I got you, Nancy.
Thank you. Appreciate you.
You make me feel better about myself.
How we leverage money and how we use debt shapes our future far
more than it helps our present. Now, today isn't about
condemning debt. The absolutely not.
If you notice when we're doing a money series, some people stay
home. All right, you guys picked up on
that. They're like, I'm not going
around there. I don't want to hear this
because it's so personal. Money is very personal.
It's really personal. So this today is not about
condemning debt or pretending that this is.
This issue of debt is not complex.
It's about understanding what debt does to our freedom and
what debt does to our future. And really, today's about
letting Scripture invite us toward something else instead.
And we're going to start with a very clear passage of Scripture.
You know, normally I preach on like one passage of Scripture
and we get all of our ideas from that text.
But this series is more topical, meaning we're using different
Bible verses to support ideas that I want to teach you.
And so we're going to start with one very clear text from the
Bible. Proverbs chapter 22, verse 7.
You have your Bibles, your your
phone. This is a verse that maybe
you've heard before. I think this is a verse that
every family should have on a magnet on their refrigerator in
their home. I really do.
I think this is a verse that everybody should have on their
coffee mug. And this is not a coffee
muggable verse. When you hear it, you're going
to be like, that doesn't sound like a coffee muggable it.
But if we all had this on our refrigerator, have us on our
mug, it, it might help us. Proverbs 22 verse 7 Solomon,
wisest man ever lived, said this.
The rich rule over the poor and the borrower slave to the
lender. Y'all know that was in the
Bible. Now here's the first idea this
morning that I want you to get. Debt feels helpful now, but
shapes future pressures. Debt feels helpful now but
shapes future pressures. When you turn to debt.
When I turn to debt and overspending in our lives, we
are not trying to wreck our lives.
Nobody's going. I'd like to make a mess of my
life. Let's just borrow more than we
could ever pay back because it would be awesome to live with no
margin. That would be fun.
Nobody says that. Usually when we reach for debt
or overextending ourselves financially, it's because we're
looking for relief. We're looking for something to
release the pressure we're feeling.
So for example, if you're committed to driving, pay for
cars that are just you never have car debt and that's your
commitment that for most of us, that's going to mean we're going
to drive old beat up cars that have to be worked on from time
to time. All right.
And that means you're going to be frustrated on some days
because you're going to have some piece of junk in your
driveway that didn't start again and you're having to like piece
it together or you're going to be headed to Macon and it's
going to break down. You're going to have to get it
fixed on the road like, but your commitment to living card
without car debt means you're probably going to drive old cars
and then you're probably going to have the frustration of
fixing old cars. And So what would that's a lot
of pressure. So what would feel like relief
to you would be to do what to go finance a new car.
It would feel like relief to say, man, I could have at least
three or four years without this, without this, without this
misery of always. Like if you go to Google Earth,
Google and you look at my house on Google Maps and you look at
them right now in my yard on Google Maps, there's a car with
a hood up. And I kid you not, if you go to
the previous picture, like there's a car, it's a different
car with a hood up. OK.
And so if so, nobody goes into debt, you know, trying to make
their lives tough. Everybody goes into debt trying
to find relief. You want relief from the
pressure, So we borrow money. Something feels urgent.
Something unexpected has come up and that's happened to me.
Something or maybe something's missing in our lives, something
we wish we had. And here's the thing, borrowing
money often for all of us feels like progress.
It feels like we're moving forward.
It does. It feels like we're taking care
of a problem, that we're getting something handled.
Have you ever borrowed money for something and went, I will just
figure that out later. Anybody yes, but let's be
honest, we'll just that's a that's a tomorrow problem.
I'll just figure and and and see that feels like relief because I
don't have to solve that problem today.
I can solve that problem later or this borrowing this money
right now will help us get our ducks in a row for right now and
we can figure out the problems with that later.
Now let's be very clear about what Proverbs is saying and what
Proverbs is not saying. The writer is not condemning
borrowing. The writer is not condemning
borrowing. And I know you think, well,
that's what Stephen's going to say in the sermon.
And while I kind of wish the Bible said that, I wish the
Bible just condemned borrowing, but it doesn't.
The writer, Proverbs, is not condemning borrowing.
He's not saying that if you borrow or use debt, you're a
Sinner or you're a bad person. He's not saying that at all.
No, the writer is simply describing reality.
This is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Do you understand what I mean by that?
This is descriptive. The writer of Proverbs is just
describing something. What's he describing?
He's saying simply, this borrowing will create pressure,
obligation, and reduce freedom. That's all he's saying.
So I'm saying you're a bad person for doing those things.
It's just like if you borrow, you're going to create pressure,
you're going to create obligation and you're going to
reduce freedom, not because God is punishing you or someone is
punishing you, but because now your your future has a claim on
your present. Your future has a claim on your
present. It's, it's not like God's mad at
you, like, well, you borrowed all this money, now I'm going to
punish you and you're going to feel pressure and misery and
like no margin. No, it's just like, this is just
a, this is just a law, like a natural law.
Like if I drop a, an item from up here, it's going to fall
because of the natural law of gravity.
The natural law of debt is that if I leverage debt, it's going
to create pressure, obligation and reduced freedom.
Not because someone is punishing me, but because the future now
has a claim on the present. Let's be frank.
Most people, you and I, we borrow money because we're
trying to solve a problem. That's what most of us are
trying to do. We're trying to solve a problem.
We're not trying to create a bigger, bigger problem.
We're trying to solve a problem. If last week we said that the
key to our money challenges is not about dollars but about
authority, do you remember that that was the main idea last
week? So then if that's true, the key
to our money challenges is not about dollars but about
authority. How does debt impact this
authority issue? That's a question worth asking.
If I want to have the authority of God in my life, how does debt
impact the authority issue? See, the necessary shift that
happens when you and I leverage debt or overspending is it has
to change who or what we're loyal to, who or what we serve.
It has to leveraging debt forces that change.
So the question today in this moment is if it's all about
authority and who has the authority of my life, how does
debt shift that authority? It's a question worth asking.
And that's our second idea this morning.
Debt shifts of debt shifts future loyalties, not just
future dollars. Debt shifts, future loyalties,
not just future dollars. Let's go to Matthew chapter 6,
verse 24. You should have known this is
going to show up in this series. This is something Jesus said
from the Sermon on the Mount. This is what he said.
He said no one can serve 2 masters.
Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be
devoted to the one and despise the other.
He said then it's a period. And then Jesus said, you cannot
serve both God and money. Now what is Jesus doing here?
The principle that Jesus is teaching is simply this.
You cannot live with divided loyalties.
And then he just uses money as an example.
He just, it's just money as an example.
He's saying, hey, no one can have divided loyalty in their
life. You cannot serve both God and
money. For example, money's just an
example. You see, here's the thing about
debt. Debt doesn't just affect our
future, but specifically debt effects our future loyalties.
It doesn't just affect our future, it affects our future
loyalties specifically. Now be very clear.
Again, Jesus is, you know, thinking about Proverbs was not
a condemnation passage. Jesus here is not condemning
anyone. Jesus is not using shame here or
guilt here. He's not saying, oh, you're a
terrible person if you serve money.
He's just saying, hey, here's the, here's the rule of life.
You can't serve two people. You can't be devoted to two
people. Married people get this.
Amen. Like it's just, it's just kind
of how humans work. Like this is just how humans
work. They they have to have a single
loyalty. He's saying, hey, it's
impossible to serve God and also to serve money.
In other words, whichever you serve will demand your complete
loyalty. Now here's what's interesting.
Debt has a way of forcing you to shift your loyalties without you
making an intentional choice. Debt has a way of forcing you to
shift your loyalties without you making an intentional choice.
So think about it this way. If I leverage my future with
indebtedness, then I've already committed my future.
I've already committed my future loyalty.
I've already committed my future effort.
I've already committed my future energy.
So what I've said is that my future freedom is the currency
that I'm spending today. But I'm also saying that my, my
future will have to have a loyalty to the debt that I'm
creating today. So I know this is a little bit
of a nuance, but think about it like this.
When we're carrying debt, your future decisions are already
spoken for. You have some decisions that are
already made. You're not going to be able to
make them because they're already made for you.
Your generosity, your margin for generosity, for example, will be
shrunk down. You'll have less margin for
generosity. So you think, hey, I want to be
more generous. Well, debt will automatically
bring that margin down. That's not a choice you
necessarily made to have less margin and generosity.
That's a choice that debt make for us.
Does that make sense? Our margin Forrest will shrink.
It just will. You can't rest when you owe the
man. I owe.
It's off to work.
I go I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O. I can't.
I rest. I rest.
It's. I have a bunch of debt.
Like it doesn't go, it doesn't go hand in hand.
Future decisions are already made for you because of debt.
Our ability to respond to God's prompting shrinks.
Debt demands loyalty. Specifically, it demands loyalty
to income. How do you service debt with
everybody? Say income, you're all like,
man, this hurts you guys. Does this hurt a little bit?
It's OK. I'm, I'm not trying to shame
you. I love you.
Debt demands loyalty to income. And So what I mean by the fact
that that debt has a way of shifting our loyalty away from
God to income is that that's not an intentional choice we made.
It's something that's forced upon us because we reached for
debt to solve a problem. And so now we have to be loyal
to income. And let me explain this to you.
The replacement of making God first and serving God first.
That replacement doesn't happen overnight.
No, because of debt, I'm slowly wooed away from my loyalty to
God and I'm forced to focus on income so I can serve as debt
again. This isn't like you're a bad
person and you need to get your life together.
This is just descriptive. This is just what happens if I'm
overextended, if I have a lot of debt, if I'm trying to service
that debt, then I have to earn a lot of money.
I have to be focused on income, and that's going to limit margin
in other areas of my life. Again, not that I'm a bad
person, not that I'm dumb or stupid.
It's just reality. My son just said, well, if
anybody would like for him to live with you, let me know.
Oh man, break his kneecaps. I'm just kidding.
This is on YouTube. So again, this is not intended
to make any of us feel guilty. It's meant to function like a
triage or a diagnosis for you to kind of just do some inventory.
You can't heal from what you do not name.
You got to name it. So debt feels helpful.
It does it feel, it feels like you're solving your problem, but
it shapes future pressures. It creates pressure and debt
will slowly shift loyalty away from God.
It just has to, it has to shift it to money, to income.
Now, what's the alternative, Steven?
You always have a solution for us.
I do. There is an alternative.
The alternative is contentment, and this is the last idea.
Today, contentment projects. I'm sorry.
Contentment protects the future by quieting fear.
Now, contentment doesn't mean pretending that we don't feel
fear because we feel fear about the future.
It means that we're learning to trust God enough that fear no
longer gets the final say. Contentment protects the future
by quieting fear and slowing the urgency that that fear creates.
All right, the writer of Hebrews writes this beautiful passage.
Writer of Hebrews says keep your lives free from the love of
money and be content in what you have.
Because God has said never will I leave you and never will I
forsake you. Now that promise sounds
beautiful, doesn't It's just, can we just look at it for a
second? Keep your lives free from the
love of money and be content with what you have.
Because God has said never will I leave you, never will I
forsake you. It sounds beautiful and they're
beautiful words. But if we're honest, when fear
rises up in a view, have you ever had fear over financial
situations? Yeah, some of you are like, sit
down, son. Let me tell some stories.
When fear rises up in you over financial situations, when the
numbers don't work and the future feels uncertain, most of
us don't struggle in that because we don't know this
promise. We know this promise.
That's not like, it's not like if you just knew this, you
wouldn't struggle. No, we know this promise that
God will never leave us or forsake us.
The problem is not that we don't know what the problem is.
Do we actually trust it? Do we actually trust that it's
true? You see, there's a deeper issue
beneath debt. That deeper issue is about trust
in God, my Savior, that that's the deeper issue below debt and
why we leverage debt. You know, guys, debt has has a
power over us. Not because we're irresponsible,
not because we're silly or foolish, but because at some
level we're afraid that if we don't secure our future for
ourselves, then nobody else will.
Like that's what we're afraid of.
Contentment sounds right and trust sounds good, but fear
keeps whispering this to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know you read that Hebrews passage and I know you go to
church and I know you love God and all, but what if what if he
doesn't come through for you? What if this doesn't happen the
way you think it will? And here's the thing that that
fear, if that fear were true, like in other words, if God were
distant from us and he's unreliable, in other words, if
it was kind of like we have this God and he's up on a mountain,
but he's not really personally involved in our lives, then that
fear would be reasonable. And borrowing from your future
would make sense to protect your presence, right?
That would make total sense. But Christianity, if you're not
a Christian, listen to this for a second.
Christianity never asked us to trust in God.
Like in the abstract, No. Christianity says look at the
work and the acts of God and trust him based on what he has
done already. So in light of what he's done,
trust him, not in some abstract idea.
So what has God already done for us?
When you look at Jesus, we see that that God came to earth.
Jesus came to earth, God in the flesh.
He came not to secure his own future at our expense, but he
came to secure our future at his expense.
In other words, he paid a price so that I could have a future.
He paid a price so that you could have a future on the
cross. And think about this for a
second. All the things you're afraid to
lose, security and safety, knowing that you're OK on the
cross. Jesus lost the very things we're
afraid of losing. That security, that provision,
that control over life. He lost control.
He lost all of those things we desperately want.
He lost the things that we use debt to secure.
He gave them up. Why?
So we would never have to wonder if God would abandoned us.
How do I know God would abandoned me?
Because Christ died on the cross for me, I can trust.
I'm not trusting God in the abstract like, well, I believe
God is good. No, I'm looking at the cross and
I'm saying, well, God has already proven that he will not
abandon me. He's already proven that he came
for me and met my greatest need. And so when the writer of
Hebrews says, never will I leave you and never will I forsake
you, that promise is not optimism.
It's not the writer of Hebrews is like, oh, this will feel
good. Let me tell the guys this, that
God will never leave you and God will never forsake you.
No, that promise is based on a purchase, a purchase, a purchase
made in blood. You, the Bible says were
purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.
And so the reason God can't forsake you and can't deny you
because to forsake you or deny you would be to deny himself
because you are one with him through the blood of Christ.
And this is this is where the this is the deeper issue under
our fear around our finances, right?
This is why this message just can't be about going out and
changing your behaviors and getting really serious about
your money. No, the message is really the
deeper issue is like, do I actually believe the gospel that
I am one with the heavenly Father through the blood of
Jesus Christ that he purchased for me and that this promise
that he will never leave me or forsake me is not empty
optimism. It is a purchased promise,
purchased with the most precious blood of God himself.
Like that's the deeper issue. And when that begins to sink in
that I can trust this God because of what he's done for me
through Christ, then contentment stops being something we try to
produce. It's something that comes out of
a spiritual practice of daily trust in God of as I say all the
time, preaching the gospel to myself every day.
The God is all has already proven to me and to the world
that He's trustworthy because he paid for my sins.
So let me be clear, contentment is not pretending we don't want
things. It's just choosing to trust God
more than we trust the urgency to get things.
Just that practice. And the more you practice
trusting that God has taken care of you, the urgency to borrow
from your future weakens. Because you know it's not all up
to you. God has proven He will be there
for you. You know, consistently choosing
trust will keep us from asking our future selves to pay what
our present selves want. So when you're looking at a
present self moment and you're thinking about leveraging debt
for something your future self is going to have to do, just ask
yourself, do I really want to put this on future Stephen?
Because future Stephen's going to have to deal with this
decision. And what can, what contentment
does and trusting God does is it keeps you from forcing your
present wants to put demands on your future self.
So here's some practical things that I just want to say to you
before we close. Number one, I want to be very
clear about this. This message is absolutely not
been about and the scripture we've read has absolutely not
been about saying debt is wrong and never use debt or faithful
people who love God will never use debt.
I mean, I have a mortgage. I have a great mortgage.
I mean, it's amazing. I told my wife if I die and I
get you get the life insurance, do not pay the mortgage off.
I told her I said put the money in the bank, let it draw
interest. Because you, I'm telling you
the, the interest rate on my mortgage is nothing.
I would if they give me 100 years to pay it off right now,
I'd take it at the rate I just read.
So, so the, the reality is, I'm not saying, and this the
scripture is not saying that you know that, that all debt is
wrong. Some debt can be strategic and
some debt can be temporary. And let's be frank, our economy
functions as a debt economy. I know dude.
That's and that's brutal. Like if you notice that all
we've talked about for like 2 years is interest rates.
Three years interest rates. My father did not like Jimmy
Carter. My grandfather loved Jimmy
Carter. Do you know what the single
difference between them was? My father was middle-aged with a
16% mortgage. My grandfather was retired with
a paid for house and CDs that were paying 10% later.
My father loved Reagan and guess who my grandfather could not
stand. And what was at the center of
that? Interest rates.
So we are a debt economy. I get that.
But what you and I as Christians are being invited into is
something deeper than rules. Like hey you shouldn't and you
should. We're being invited into
discernment. Discernment.
The invitation this week is not for you to go out of here
feeling guilty and shameful and being like, I got to fix this,
no, but instead to just slow down and invite God into the
conversations about your money. That's it.
Just pray. Before taking on debt or
extending yourself financially, consider asking some questions
in prayer. So one question you could ask is
what is driving this decision? Is it fear and patience
comparison? Is it genuine need?
Remember, debt will often promise relief and it'll tell
you, hey, this will make things better.
But it's stealing from your future.
So it's worth pausing to ask what it is you're really trying
to solve right now, and if there's a different way to solve
that problem than debt. Another question to ask is what
will this cost my future freedom?
What will this cost my future freedom?
Will this decision limit my generosity?
Will it limit my margin? Will it limit my ability to
respond to what God may ask me to do later?
Remember, when we borrow, future freedom is the currency we're
spending today. You could say future rest,
future vacations. You can say all that future
freedom. And the third question is, have
I invited God into this decision?
And I am amazed at how many Christians I've talked to that
will make major financial decisions and will not pray
about it. So have I invited God in this
decision? Not after the fact.
Like, hey, God, by the way, I just went in and indebted myself
$50,000. I thought I'd let you know.
Can you help me make the payment?
But I mean, before you make the decision, not just asking him to
bless it, but thinking like a thinking like a steward, like a
manager instead of an owner and saying, God, I'm seeking your
wisdom because I'm about to spend some of your money that
you gave me. I'm about to leverage it in the
future too. I'm about to leverage the future
income you're going to give me in the future.
And I need your wisdom on this decision.
Will you bless me? Will you give me your
understanding and let me know whether I'm doing a foolish
thing or not? Just talk to God about his
money. Now, these questions are not
meant to shame you. They're meant to createspace for
wisdom, clarity and trust and to try to help your discipleship in
following Jesus. The invitation this morning is
freedom. It's freedom, It's freedom from
pressure, it's freedom from fear, freedom to trust that God
has provided for you and that it's enough that you can you can
be like, hey, what I have is enough.
And that if he's provided for you in the present, that he will
provide for you in the future. You see, when you choose
contentment and trust, we stop asking our future selves to pay
for what our present selves want, and we begin living with a
freedom that money can never provide.
How we leverage money shapes our future.
How we leverage money and how we leverage debt shapes our future
far more than it helps our present.
Will you stand with me as I pray for us?
We're going to pray for our brother Brad, who's still
overseas just a few days left. I hope you've been using your
prayer card to remember him this week.
Father, thank you for this church.
Thank you for the gathering we've had.
Thank you for just the Scripture that it's not full of shame and
guilt, but it's instead invites us into a better life, a life of
freedom, a life of wholeness. Thank you that you're proven
that you've trustworthy. Lord, I pray that the brothers
and sisters that have heard this message today, whether in this
room or online or later on a podcast, that they have sense
that I love them and care for them and do not have any
authority in these areas around debt and money.
I only have the authority of the scripture.
And so we, we just, we trust that there's been no shame, but
there's only been hope. God, we pray for our brother
Brad. He's in South and he's in Asia,
Southeast Asia. We pray that you're watching
over him and his team and you protect them.
Or we thank you that our church has been praying for him these
past few days and we look forward to seeing him when he
returns. And we pray for every moment of
every second. Your angels are shielding them
and shielding him specifically from any danger that would come
to them. We love you.
We thank you for our church. We're honored to have been given
this beautiful place. God, I just thank you for
letting me start this message by talking about my good friend
John, who's in heaven now and all that he taught me.
Honored for that wonderful relationship and give you praise
for it. In Christ name we pray, Amen.
Have a wonderful day, friends. We love you and we thank you for
being here today.