Summary
Americans are awash in credit card and consumer debt! We are tempted by ads like, “Buy now, pay later.” Or “Now you can own anything, any time, anywhere!” Do you feel overwhelmed and trapped by debt? Maybe even a little ashamed? The truth is that your financial condition says a lot about your spiritual condition. There is a way out. God wants you to be debt free, so that you are free to be what He has called you to be.
Transcript
Good morning! We are going to dig into part 2 of the Financial Freedom series. Here is why we are talking about finances; it is because we believe that your financial condition says a lot about your spiritual condition. We believe that the way people handle their money and their “stuff” (their belongings) says a lot about their heart. This is why the Bible talks about it so much. This is why Jesus talked about it so much. Last week, we talked about how 15% of what Jesus talked about had something to do with money and possessions. This is a real indicator of your heart’s condition.
Today we are going to talk about this idea of how God wants you to be free. He wants you to live free from debt. He doesn’t want you being a slave to the lender. He wants you to be a servant to the Lord. We are going to talk today about how to get free of debt.
Americans are awash in credit card and consumer debt! We are up to our necks in credit cards. This is the mark of the culture today. If you look around, you will see that we are tempted by advertising that says things like, “Buy now, pay later.” That is attractive, right? Have it now; pay for it later. We have ads that say stuff like this, “Now you can own anything.” Anytime, anything, anywhere. Don’t you want that card? Pull that card out anytime and anywhere and you can have anything. That is very attractive; we want those kinds of things. We want it now. We think if we have the right card, we will even look better! Right? If you have the right card, you will even look better and it will make you look good to have a card that matches. Some of us get special photographs and logos put on our cards because it makes us look better.
We go to places where we can have fast money. Nobody wants slow money. We want loans in a minute. We want minute loans. You know, fill it out now. There is one advertised on TV right now called, “Rocket Loans.” You can get a rocket loan! Those people don’t want to wait until payday; they want to get a payday loan. What you do when you go to a payday loan place is you go in and you tell them, “I will get paid in 14 days; can I get a 14 day loan and I will pay you back when I get my paycheck?” That is what a payday loan is. In the state of California, they require these companies to tell them how much that service charge is. They don’t call it interest; they call it a service charge. Here is why they call it a service charge; they don’t want you to know that you are paying 460% interest on a 14 day loan. Man, these companies are making a killing on the people that are most in trouble, who can’t even make it to payday. They are charging 460% interest. Get yourself a minute loan. Get yourself a rocket loan. Get yourself a payday loan and 460% interest. This is what is going on in our culture today.
Even our college students will go to a trusted organization like Sallie Mae, who offer student loans. They now also offer credit cards to our college students to help them get a credit card before they get a job. But the one that disturbs me the most is the new toy called “The Barbie Deluxe Cash Register.” We want to get our young ladies started off right, so that they learn to ‘swipe’ and ‘buy’ at the age of five. Right here, we have the Barbie credit card, and you can swipe it across the front of the toy. It even has a UPC code reader that actually works so they can check prices! We want to start them off right so that they learn that they don’t have to pay now. They can pay later.
This is what is going in our culture today. Wouldn’t you like to live differently than the culture? Wouldn’t you like to live the way the Bible speaks, that we can live as people that are ‘other worldly;’ people that are members of the Kingdom of Heaven rather than the kingdom of this world.
Today, many of us may feel overwhelmed. Some of us may even feel ashamed by how much we have gone into debt. We have made mistakes and now we are paying for it. Maybe you are feeling like that today, ‘I just feel like I am drowning, like I am over my head.’ It is affecting things; this indebtedness is affecting our marriages.
In marriage counseling, one of the main things that the counselor hears, one of the main things that I hear as a counselor helping people with marriage, is they come and they say that they are fighting about money. They are not fighting because they have too much money. They are fighting because they don’t think they have enough. ‘She spends too much. He buys big things. He buys too many toys.’ Back and forth, ‘he, she, he, she….’ This is hurting our families. It is destroying our own self state of mind. It is creating clinical depression, anxiety and worry. It is beating us up.
We need to get off the world’s path and get on God’s path, amen? That is where we need to be today. We sang a song earlier about Jesus setting us free and our worship pastor reading from Colossians that He has cancelled the debt of sin. Why would you go into financial debt when you have been set free for eternity? Why would you go into debt to this world? But if you have, and many of us have, what does the Bible say about getting free? Do you know that the Bible has something to say about that?
We will be looking in the book of 2 Kings today on what the Bible says about how to get free of debt. We will be looking at a story where the prophet Elisha helps a widow woman who is in debt up to her ears. He helps her to get free. As we look at this passage, I have noticed at least four Biblical principles that I want to share with you about how to get free of debt, how God can help you get free of debt if you will follow His Word and trust His power. Depend on His provision. We are going to be looking today for these four principles, which I think give us four steps on how to get free. But first, let’s look at the story. Let’s look at the text.
2 Kings 4:1-7 (ESV) 1 Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” 2 And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” 3 Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. 4 Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.” 5 So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. 6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”
This is God’s Word. Amen?
We will be looking for four steps on how to get free from debt. Here is the first.
1. Recognize the problem with debt.
Recognize what it will do to you and how it can enslave you. Admit it. Debt can be a problem. Notice in verse 1 that this wife, this widow woman, goes to the prophet Elisha as she cries out, “the creditor is going to come and take my sons as slaves.” You see, this was the way they handled it in those days. You couldn’t declare bankruptcy; you couldn’t ask for forgiveness for your indebtedness. If you didn’t have the means to pay, they came and got your kids and put them into slavery to pay off your debt. This widow is desparate. She goes to him and she says, ‘I am in trouble. I need help.’ She goes to the man of God, the prophet Elisha, and she asks, ‘what should I do, what can I do, please help me.’ Now, notice who her husband was; she was the wife of one of the sons of the prophets. In other words, he was a preacher’s kid. Listen, Christians can get into trouble financially just like the rest of the world.
This young man, no doubt, would have known right from wrong. He was a preacher’s kid. He knew right from wrong and he probably thought he was going to live a little while longer. Don’t we all think we will live another day? Aren’t you already making plans for tomorrow, for this week? You probably are. Whenever we borrow something, we are believing we can live long enough to pay for it. I am sure that he meant well, but he left his wife and kids penniless, poor and broken, because he died before he planned to and he had not laid up anything to take care of them. So she is in trouble now and she says ‘I need help.’ That is the first step, isn’t it? That is the first step of getting out of debt, getting free, is admitting that debt is a problem. Admitting that you have a problem. That is half the battle; admitting that you have a problem.
Here is what debt is; debt is gambling with your own future. Do you know what money is? Money is a symbolic representation of your effort, or the effort of someone else who gave it to you, or you inherited it from them. but somebody worked for it. Somewhere along the line, somebody worked for that money. It was either you or somebody else or somebody that the government took it from and gave it to you. Wherever it came from, somebody worked for that money originally. Money does not have any value; it symbolizes something that has value. Are you tracking with me? Today, we don’t even hold money; today it is all digital. You can’t even hold it. Your kids are going to grow up saying, ‘What is it, what is money?’ It is a cloud. It lives on the internet. That is what money is now and it is getting harder and harder to even think about what it is. But what it is is a representation of someone’s effort.
When you are borrowing something, here is what you are saying, ‘I am going to give thirty years of my life for that house.’ Just think about what you are doing. ‘I agree to give you thirty years of my life to own that house.’ This is called a thirty-year mortgage. Back in the day, you borrowed money for two years to buy a car. Then it was three years, then four years, then five years…you can now get a seven-year loan now on a car. ‘I want that so bad. That car is going to let me look important. I am willing to give you seven years of my life for that car.’ We don’t think about it like that, but that is what we are doing, we are saying, ‘I know I am going to live seven more years, so I can pay for that car. I am giving seven years for that year.’
Now, we definitely don’t think about it like this: We go to the seafood restaurant, and we charge it on Visa. We eat that shrimp right then, we digest it and it’s gone before the next day. We say, ‘I am going to give the next six months for that shrimp that I already ate.’ That is crazy stuff when you start to think about it. But that is what indebtedness is; when we borrow something, we are borrowing it on our own future effort. We are assuming that we will be around to work that. That’s what it is. We are naming it, recognizing what debt is and what is our problem with it. Then, here is this story of a preacher’s kid and he is a Christian now, he is a believer, he believes in God. In verse one, it says, “Your servant, my husband, is dead and you know that your servant feared the Lord.” He was a God-fearing man. He was good man. He meant well. So do we. But we follow the world instead of God’s Word when it comes to our finances. We say to God, ‘I got this,’ and then it ends up enslaving us.
The book of Proverbs 22:7 (ESV) says, “The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” The Bible calls it “slavery.” It says, ‘when you owe somebody something, you have enslaved yourself to them for that period that it is going to take to pay it back.’ You are not free from that.
Proverbs 22:26-27 (ESV) speaks about the warning of giving something in pledge. ‘I am going to give you my house as a pledge. I will give you my car,’ which is what we do when we borrow, we say ‘If I don’t pay it, you can take it back.’ “Be not one of those who give pledges, who put up security for debts.” If you have nothing willl which to pay, why should your bed be taken from you? You don’t want to have a place where you can’t sleep. It’s a warning in the Bible that if you put up this kind of pledge, this kind of security, you may not have a place to lay your head. The Bible is warning you about debt and how it can enslave you and how it can put you in a worse place than when you started.
How many of you have said to yourself, ‘I wish I had never done that. I wish I had never gone into debt. It wasn’t worth it.’ That is the beginning; admitting it. Admitting that you wished you had never done that. Don’t accuse each other either. That will cause more problems. As husbands and wives, you should join arm in arm and say, ‘There is the problem. It is not me or you. There is the problem. Let’s join up forces here and admit that we need to get out of debt. Debt is our problem.’
According to the 2016 survey by The American Household Credit Card Debt Study, they report that these are the average debts of the average US household: The average US household owes $16,000 in credit cards. They carry a balance of $16,000 and change. The average family has a $173,000 mortgage. The average American family owes about $28,000 to $29,000 on their auto loan. The average American family owes $49,000 and change on student loans. This is the average American family, people, that we are talking about. God wants you to be able to say “Yes,” when He calls you to do something, yet we have enslaved ourselves. I am not judging you, because I am a co-struggler and I fall into these traps. We fall into them together. But, can we follow God’s Word? Can we recognize that we are “debtaholics?” We are caught up in the materialism trap. Consumerism has gotten a grip on our souls and we need to break out. Let’s admit it. Let’s admit we have a problem. Stop the self denial. Ask God to set you free. This is step one. Cry out, ‘I need help.’ That’s where it starts.
Here’s the second step:
2. Get wise financial counsel from godly advisors.
Don’t ask the lady or the guy in the next cubicle where you work for advice. He’s in debt just like you are. Don’t ask him. Be careful about asking your neighbor. Get godly advice. Get a wise financial counselor; someone who follows God’s Word to give you counsel. The widow lady was wise. She went and got the prophet, Elisha. She asked for help from a godly counselor.
By the way, last week, if you were here, I asked, “If you are interested in getting financial help, someone to coach you with your finances or if you are interested in being part of a Bible study or having a mentor to coach you, please put express your interest on your connection card. ‘Yes, I would be interested in that.’ We didn’t particularly have the next step yet, we were more checking for interest. If there was interest, then we would offer something. We are working on something right now because some people did sign up last week. Just take a guess: Was it men or women who signed up last week, who asked for a financial counselor? I am hearing women. Now, I am hearing women say ‘women.’ I am seeing men break eye contact with me. We had several people sign up last week. Not one man. Not one. You are all like the preacher’s kid.
Here is the thing about men. I don’t know what it is about men; I am the same way. We are all like this. We say, ‘I have got this.’ We don’t ask for directions when we are lost. We are never really lost. We got this. ‘We are taking the long way. We are taking the scenic route’ we tell her. ‘I am not lost, this is the scenic route and I wanted you to see that.’ We don’t ask for directions. We don’t ask for help. But this widow woman does. She has wisdom. A fool refuses to ask for help. But the wise man, the wise woman, asks for help. Ask for help. It would be impressive to me if one person of the male persuasion were to say, ‘You know what? I need help.’ That would be a breakthrough. But the wise person does ask for help.
She (the widow woman) asked for help and she received help from the Lord through the prophet, Elisha. He started asking her good questions. Questions like, ‘What do you own? What is your net worth? What do you have now?’ She replies, ‘All I have is the thing of oil.’ He was finding out what she had and what she didn’t have; he was appraising her situation. That is how it begins. He finds out how bad the situation is. Where is she? She tells him that they will come, take her sons and put them into slavery. That is how bad it is. He asks her what she has and she replies that she has nothing but this one thing of oil. That is all that she has . So he starts with that. God always wants you to start with what you have, not with what you don’t have. He never calls you to go do something with what you don’t have. Like He said to Moses back there at the burning bush, He asks, “What is that in your hand?” Moses replies, “A shepherd’s staff?” God says, “Let’s work with that.” What do you have in your house? ‘I have a little bit of oil.’ Well, let’s start with that. You see, you have to go before the Lord and be willing to ask for help, get a counselor, get a wise and godly financial counselor, someone that can give you good Biblical counsel on how to manage your finances.
Here is what it says in the book of Psalms 37:30 (NLT) , “The godly offer good counsel. They know what is right from wrong. ” Get someone who is a mature believer; someone who is demonstrating good financial habits and ask them if they will coach you. Or, the next time we offer a financial study, you should sign up. Sign up! Proverbs 20:18 (NLT) says, “Plans succeed through good counsel. Don’t go to war without the advice of others.” Some of us need to make war on debt. We need to go to war.
Earlier, I said that husbands and wives shouldn’t point at each other, we shouldn’t go to war with each other. You are not the enemy. She is not the enemy. The enemy is the enemy. Who is the enemy? Well, the Bible is clear. You have three enemies: (1) The flesh, where you get tempted with easy money, fast money, money that you didn’t work for. That’s the flesh. Ask God to forgive you and give you power so that you don’t fall into temptation. (2) The world. You don’t have to live the way the world lives. Go to war. (3) The evil one. He is the one who whispers, ‘You deserve this. You need this. You don’t need to tell her that you bought this. You don’t need to tell him because he will ask you why you bought this so don’t tell him. It is okay.’ That’s the evil one. These are the three enemies; go to war against them. Go to war against the enemy; don’t go to war against each other.
Shakespeare wrote about this in his play, Hamlet. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” That is good advice; that is biblical. Don’t do it. Don’t go into debt.
Dave Ramsey, the popular radio host and author who wrote the book, Total Money Makeover, gives good advice. He is a Christian and I agree with most of what he says but I am not trying to sell you a Dave Ramsey book. He does give good advice. He says this; “A new car, for instance, depreciates on an average of $100 a week.” The minute you drive it off the lot, your money starts going out of the window. For the first four years, your car depreciates at about $100 a week. If you buy a brand new car, just visualize as you drive down the road each week, that you are throwing a $100 bill out. If you really need to throw $100 out every week, buy yourself an older car and just actually throw out a $100 bill out each week. Then there will be benefits. Someone on the side of the road will go, ‘Man, I found a $100 bill!’ You will be helping people. Buy a used car, unless you have come to a place where you can pay cash for it. When you go into debt and buy it, you are paying more than it is worth.
Here is a myth that we tell ourselves. “Get a credit card to build your credit.” The truth is, most of us get a credit card and destroy our credit. Here is another myth. “If I can just win the lottery then I will finally tithe at church. Then I will finally be happy.” Truth is, people who actually win the lottery lose their marriages, fall apart and go into bankruptcy. It is rare to find someone who figured out how to be happy after winning the lottery. The truth is, the lottery is a tax on poor people and on people who can’t do math, because the odds are against them. Get wise financial counsel from godly advisors.
Get wise financial counsel from Godly advisors. The widow had wisdom to ask for help. She cried out to the prophet, Elisha. Will you cry out to God? Are you wllling to admit your stuff to another person, asking them to look over it with you, asking them what you need to do? They may look and say, ‘Well, you have this and this… What if you sold that? If you sold that and paid this off and gave up this…’ If it took you five to seven years to get yourself into this debt, then it will take you awhile to get out of it. It will not be fast money. It will not be a minute loan. About as long as it got for you to get into debt, it may take just as long to get out debt.
Here’s the third step:
3. Starting working faithfully to follow godly advice.
You see, you get Godly advice, but then you have to follow it. Go figure. ‘Look, I took the class, I signed up for the program and I went and got counsel.’ But did you follow it? ‘Well, most of it; except for the part about getting out of debt. But I followed most of it.’
This widow woman did exactly what Elisha told her to do. She didn’t wait. The way this story goes, it actually fast forwards to it. It doesn’t even show her going out to her neighbors and knocking on their door. It must have happened because it shows the result of it. Apparently, she went up and down on the road and asked for the neighbor’s empty bottles. That is a humbling think to do. ‘I am getting ready to have a yard sale. Do you have anything that you would like to get rid of that I could throw in? We are trying to get out of debt over here. They are about to come and get my sons. Can I have your empties?’ That takes some humility; it, also, takes some effort. You need to leave your driveway. You need to go out. You have got to do some work. You see, you get the advice and then you have to follow the advice. You have to work faithfully at it. It is going to take a little while.
Then, she took what she had, that little bit of oil, and she collected those empties and the prophet said for her to shut her house up. What do you think this means? I have been meditating on that a little bit. Don’t be out there advertising or whatever. This is not something to brag about. It’s about you, God and the kids. Get in and shut the door. And then this is how it worked; she poured out that little bit of oil into the empty jars and it never ran out. It never ran out until she said, “Bring me another jar.” The whole room was full of these big jars of this expensive, pressed olive oil, which was like gold. It was very expensive. I have visited Israel and I have seen an olive press. It was like currency. Now she has it all in these big jugs and she asks for another jug but there were no more. As her son said to her that there were no more, the last drop of olive oil came out. It was gone. You see, it was a miracle.
If you want God to cooperate, if you want Him to be your partner in how you manage your stuff, you have to give it to Him. You have to trust Him with it. As long as you are running things, He is not your partner. You are self-employed. If you want God to bless you and be your partner, you have to give it to Him and you have to recognize that He is not giving it to you so you can take care of it yourself. It’s so you can be a blessing to others. It’s so you can let it flow to others.
The widow woman had a miracle take place in her house because she obeyed God’s Word. So, her needs are being met. But, she worked faithfully, she obeyed what the prophet told her. It says in the book of Proverbs 10:4 (ESV), “A slack hand (a lazy hand) causes poverty but the hand of the diligent, the hand of the hard worker, makes rich.” The book of Proverbs is teaching us that we have to work. We cannot depend on another to do the work for you. That is what money really is; it is a symbolic representation of your effort or someone else’s effort. Proverbs 6:1-5 (NLT) warns us about the sense of urgency in getting out of debt. It says, “If you cosign a loan for a friend or guarantee the debt of someone you hardly know, quick, get out.” Don’t put it off, do it now, don’t rest until you do. Save yourself, like a deer escaping from a hunter or like a bird fleeing from a net. Run away from debt. If you are already in debt, get a sense of urgency about getting out of it so you can no longer be a slave to the lender but a servant to the Lord. Get free.
I mentioned Dave Ramsey a minute ago. In his book, Total Money Makeover, he offers eight baby steps to financial freedom or to financial peace. Let me offer these to you. I am not trying to sell the book, like I said before, but these are good pieces of advice:
#1 Make a plan. Get with an advisor and come up with a plan. Elisha asked the widow lady, ‘What do you have, what are your assets, what do you need and how far in debt are you?’ He gave her a plan: Go to work. Go get empty jars. She followed the plan exactly. Get with an advisor. Get into a study group. Find out what your plan is. Make a budget. Find out what your assets and your liabiities are and then how you are going to pay off your debt. Get a plan. If you are a married couple, if you have a family, have a family conference around the table and talk about the plan. When you come up with a plan, plan the year that you will be out of debt. Then, all of you, your wife and your kids, need to lay your hands on the debts and say, “God, give us the power now to work and follow this plan.” Have a family conference.
#2 Start an emergency fund. Dave Ramsey says, “Before you start paying off your debts, save at least $1,000.” He calls it the “$1,000 emergency fund.” He comes up with that $1,000, saying that amount will fix most things. He might should have said $1,500 for today’s expenses maybe. Sometimes when you put your truck in for work, they want $1,000 to fix it, and if you don’t have an $1,000 emergency fund you will go back and use your credit card. Then you are back in trouble again. That is why you get the $1,000 emergency fund before you start paying off debts. It seems counter in your thinking; you may think you need to start paying off your debts first. No, get your emergency fund first so that when something happens, you don’t go back into more debt immediately.
#3 Wipe out debt. You have your emergency fund in place; now, start wiping out debt. There are two strategies: One is called the “debt snowball” effect and the other the “debt avalanche” effect. The snowball effect is for those who need early wins. It helps psychologically. Start with the smallest debt; maybe, the one that is $350, and you pay that one off first. Then you get in the kitchen with your spouse and you shout, “Woo Hoo, we paid one off!” Then you cut that credit card up. You take the amount of money that you were spending on that one and you add it to this one. Then you pay off the next one in size and have another “Woo Hoo” party. Then you take the money that you were paying on the last one and you pay off the next one. See, the “snowball” is getting bigger. You continue, and, ultimately, you pay off your debts. This strategy takes a little longer, but it is encouraging and you get early wins. To be frank with you, the harder one is the avalanche effect. Actually, mathmatically, you pay off the high interest stuff in the beginning; you pay off the big stuff first. Although it is harder, it is actually more effective. You start with the very biggest one and you pay that one off first. Then you take the money that you were putting on that and put it on the next one. It goes faster but it is harder. Pick the best strategy according to your personality; some of you are tough and you could start with the big one. Mathmatically, that is smart. But you pick one; come up with a plan. There are other plans; I picked two for you, strategies to break the “log jam” and get out of debt.
#4 Switch to a debit card. Stop using credit cards. Cut them up. If you have to have one, put it in a pan of water and stick it in the freezer. Then, if you think you really need it, you will have to sit and watch for the water to melt. Don’t put it in the microwave; it will ruin it. Maybe you should, never mind. Put it in the microwave.
#5 Finish the emergency fund. $1,000 is the first part of it. Save three month’s expenses so that if you were to lose your job, or if something were to happen that would effect the economy, have three month’s expenses saved.
#6 Invest for the future. Examples for investing are college funds and retirement funds. Now you are saving. You are out of debt. You are saving.
#7 Pay your house debt off early. If you buy a $100,000 house, 30 years later, you have spent $320,000. You have spent three times what it was when you bought it.
#8 Build wealth. Build wealth so you can be a blessing to others. I think that is what the Bible is teaching. You have heard me demonstrate this before, that we are to live with one hand open to God, trusting in His provision, and say, “God, You bless me, I trust You.” Quit shaking your fist at God, blaming Him for your situation. Instead, open your hand to God and ask for help. But, it is not enough just to open that hand; you must open the other hand to others. You have got to let it flow, like a river, like a conduit of blessing. If you don’t, if you open one hand and keep the other closed, you will be like the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea, in Israel, has an inlet from the river of Jordan, a beautiful river, I have been there. Life flows in, but life doesn’t flow out, and nothing can live there. It becomes the Dead Sea because it doesn’t have an outlet. So, we ask God to bless us so we can be a conduit of blessing, not so we can enrich ourselves.
Here is step four:
4. Stay out of debt by living beneath your means.
This is secret knowledge here. You have never heard this in America: Live on less than you make. We only talk about this in back rooms, so don’t let this out. Live on less than you make. It’s radical. You will be free. You won’t be in slavery to anyone. If God asks you to move, you can do it because you have been living on less and you don’t go back into debt. See, here is the danger; you finally get out of debt and you have been living so tight, being so careful. Then you get out of debt and you have a big party. Then…ooops…..you are back in debt. What you have to do is, like an addict, you have been dieting and you blew it on the weekend, you must watch those “weekends.” When you finally get out of debt, don’t go back into debt. Change the way you live. Live beneath your means.
Look at verse 7, I love this widow woman, she is so wise. It is too bad that her husband hadn’t asked for help before something happened to him. But ‘no man knoweth the hour from when he will be called home.’ He got called home and left his widow and his kids penniless. But look at verse 7, she says, ‘Ok, i poured the oil, I filled the jars, now what do I do?’ Man, she is so wise. What’s next? Elisha says this, ‘Go, sell the oil, pay your debts. Don’t have a party. Don’t go buy another donkey. Don’t go hire a servant to do your dishes. Pay off your debtors. And, live off the rest.’ Pay off your debts. Live off the rest. Right there it is! Get out of debt; live beneath your means. Live off the rest. This is God’s Word speaking to us. This is not the way the world lives. This is the way we are to live. We are to live differently. We are to live for the Lord. Not in slavery to man. Go and sell. Live off the rest.
Romans 13:8 (NIV84) says, “Let no debt remain outstanding.” Get out of debt so you can live free for Jesus. He set you free from the wages of sin when He died on the cross and was raised again. He gave you life. If He will give you eternal life, what will He withhold from you? Trust Him with what your needs are. Stop thinking that you can provide them yourself by giving away your future to get it now.
Psalm 37:21 (ESV) says, “The wicked borrows but not pay back but the righteous is generous and gives.” We want to live like the righteous; we want to be known not as takers but as givers.
Here are three points on how to live beneath your means.
(1) Pay God first. Pay God first; pay your tithes and offerings, recognize that He is owner of everything and you give back a portion of it by faith believing that He owns everything. It is an expression of your heart.
(2) Pay yourself second. Pay yourself second. Don’t spend all that you have. Put part of it away in savings.
(3) Live off the rest. What if you gave God 10% and you gave yourself 10% in a savings account and lived off the 80%? Here is what I would tell you. You can live better off of 80% than you can 100%. Why? Because now you’re cooperating with what God teaches. With what He wants to do to bless you.
Now He can increase your oil. He can fill your jars. You are cooperating with Him now; you are depending on His provision. ‘Gary, that doesn’t make sense.’ Well, you will have to decide if you want to follow God’s Word, by faith, or follow what makes sense in the world. You decide.
Today we are going to prayer before the Father. For some of you, your next step is to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, giving Him your life. By giving Him your life, you give Him your all. Others are here today, and you have already done that, but you need to give Him what you are holding back so that you are trusting Him with all.
Let’s pray.