We are so glad to be together here with our church
family. I just wanted to take a moment and give
a shout out to Pastor Alicia. Thank you for listening
to this message from White House Church. She
is a credentialed minister with the Church of
God. And yesterday she was the speaker at our
State Girls Club event. And yeah, yeah, let's
just give a whoosh. Listen, I... We got a text
from our state youth director, Desmond and Keisha,
our state youth directors, and they just told
us what an incredible job that Pastor Alicia
did yesterday. So we just want to let you know
that the state is proud of you. Pastor Kip and
I are proud of you, and thank you for using your
gifts to further the kingdom. So yeah, we just
want to give a shout out to you this morning.
Well, we have been in this message series, holy
buckets. You know, I thought it was funny when
Pastor Kip said that was going to be the title
of the financial message series that we were
in. But honestly, holy buckets is a word that
we use at our house a lot. Not always referring
to this message series, but it's just kind of
a term that we use. But it's been an incredible
series. God's word gives us so much instruction
on finances. and possessions. And today we are
on message five of this series. And I am just
praying this morning that God just uses me as
his vessel to bring across his word and not my
words. I'm humbled that I have the opportunity
to be up here and to share this message this
morning. So With that being said, I'm up here
doing announcements a lot, and all of you know
that I absolutely love fall. It's amazing. This
morning was a beautiful, chilly morning. I love
fall. I love leaves. I love pumpkins. If you
ask Pastor Alyssa, she may tell you that I have
a pumpkin. problem, which I shared with her yesterday.
I gave her some pumpkins yesterday so that she
too could have a pumpkin problem in fall. But
one of the other things that I love about fall
is football. I love football. May not look like
I'm a football girl. I don't like to play football,
but I like to watch football. Not college ball.
I love to watch the NFL. So we are in week three
of the NFL, and I just am so excited that there's
something to watch on Sunday afternoons that's
worth watching. So it's just another reason that
I love fall, because football is also here and
back. Can I get an amen? Football's here, guys.
Come on. There we go. There we go, right? So
I'm going to talk a little bit about that this
morning. So how many of you out there know who
Vince Lombardi is? Yeah, here we go, right? So
he was the legendary Green Bay Packers coach.
He was a very strong advocate for the fundamentals.
He famously stated, everyone has the will to
win, but very few have the will to prepare to
win. Winning is in the plan and the preparation.
There's another pretty famous football coach
out there. I don't know how much of a fan I am,
and I'm pretty sure Brian Cardin is a fan of
him, but Bill Belichick is another famous football
coach out there. I know, keep your booze to yourself
out there, all right? But during his 24 years
with the Patriots, Bill Belichick led this team
to six Super Bowl titles, nine conference championships,
and 17 division crowns. He was known for his
detailed... opponent -specific strategies. The
New England coach emphasized exploiting the strengths
and attacking the weaknesses along with being
well -prepared to make adjustments during the
game. He would often refer to this quote from
Sun Tzu's The Art of War that every battle is
won before it's fought. This phrase highlights
Belichick's meticulous preparation. He believed
by exploiting the opponent's weaknesses and playing
to his team's strengths that the Patriots could
control the game's outcome long before kickoff.
You see, in football, a game plan is the detailed
strategy -based blueprint created by the coaching
staff to guide their team's performance in a
specific game. how they would use specific formations
and defensive styles to capitalize on strengths,
to expose the opponent's weaknesses, and to ultimately
win the game. These plans consider factors like
field position, down and distance, and the opponent's
formations to create a comprehensive approach.
See, game planning is at the heart of football
coaching. It's not just about the X's and O's.
It's about understanding the game, strategizing,
and getting the team ready for anything that
might come their way today. A solid game plan
can be the deciding factor between winning and
losing when the players hit the field. Now, can
you imagine for a minute? Today, Nick Ceriani,
who's the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, he
shows up at Lincoln Field today to play the LA
Rams, who also happens to be 2 -0. The Eagles
are 2 -0. The LA Rams are 2 -0. He looks at Jalen
Hurts and says, you know, let's just show up
today and let's just kind of do this by feel.
You know, you know a lot about football. I know
a lot about football. We've been doing this for
years. Yeah, yeah, I know. Matthew Stafford's
a pretty good quarterback. And yeah, I know that
their team is third in the NFL with sacks right
now, but let's just see what happens today. That
would never happen. I mean, maybe if you're Mike
Tomlin, you know. Just kidding. I'm a diehard
Steelers fan, but there are days. when it seems
like poor Mike has no plan. I'm just saying.
I love them all, but you know. But in all seriousness,
this week, there has been hours and hours of
watching film and looking at what the LA Rams
did this week in their first two games. The coaches
are watching it. The players are watching it,
all in preparation for a plan to win the game
today. Now, whichever team has the best game
plan with great execution is going to win the
game. And why do coaches and players do this?
Well, first of all, they make a lot of money.
But why do coaches and players do this? They
do this because without a plan, you lose before
you ever step on the field. If you don't have
a plan, you're going to lose. And you know what?
The same is true with money. If you want to win
financially, you need both a good offense and
you need a good defense. So what's the plan?
A budget. And it gets quiet in the house. A budget
is simply a game plan for your money. Winning
with money takes time, takes discipline, and
it takes self -control. Yes? I said self -control.
That's a fruit of the Spirit, in case you didn't
know. You can find it in Galatians 5, 22 and
23. And that one hurt a little bit for even me.
Self -control. So you may say it takes a plan.
The plan is a budget. What's a budget? Maybe
you don't know what a budget is. I'm here to
tell you what a budget is today. A budget is
a plan to write down... how you're going to decide
to spend your money each month. A budget shows
you how much money you make, and it shows you
how much money you spend. There's no way you're
going to win with money if you don't have a plan.
There's no way. Now listen, I know there are
reasons that people don't budget. Number one,
they're afraid what they're going to find. They
don't want to know. They don't want to know how
much they spent at Starbucks in September. They
don't want to know how much they spent at the
gas station getting energy drinks or McDonald's
getting burgers or coffee. They just don't want
to know. They'd rather stick their head in the
sand and not know what happened to their money.
Number two, people don't like to budget because
it's too restrictive. Because if they look at
the budget and it says they already spent too
much money at Starbucks, that means tomorrow
morning they're going to have to make their own
coffee. And it might not taste as good as it
did at Starbucks. You know? It's too restrictive.
Number three, sometimes your spouse isn't on
the same page with you. They don't want to budget
and it creates tension and it creates heartache.
And the number four reason why people don't budget
is because they don't know how. They don't know
how. But let me tell you something this morning.
Scripture is clear. Now, the Bible doesn't use
the word budget, but it strongly encourages financial
planning. wisdom, stewardship, which are all
core of budgeting. It requires diligence and
planning. The Bible promotes diligence and the
foresight in financial manners, emphasizing that
plans lead to abundance while hasty decisions
lead to poverty. Proverbs 21 .5 says this, the
plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely
as haste leads to poverty. And I know some of
you are cringing when I said the word diligence
and discipline. Those are words that we don't
like to hear. Those are words that we might think
that they make us feel too restrictive or we,
it's like, oh, I can't go to Starbucks or, oh,
I can't do this or, oh, I can't do that. But
diligence and discipline in your finances can
actually bring you freedom. In your finances.
Because when you have that margin and you create
that margin in your finances and your possessions,
it actually creates freedom. It doesn't constrict.
It creates that freedom. Here are some examples
of diligence. Tracking every dollar. That doesn't
sound like fun, does it? Tracking every dollar,
writing down or using an app. There are so many
apps out there today that you can track all of
your finances, every spending. They'll hook to
your checking account. You don't even have to
do it manually. It'll do it for you. Reviewing
your receipts and your statements, double checking
the bank for accuracy. How many of you still
balance your checking account? Not very many
hands because we rely on the bank to be right,
right? Yeah, surely electronically, it's all
gonna be the right way. Back in the day, I'm
gonna show how old I'm. Back in the day, you
actually got a paper bank statement and you had
your little bank register and you would cross
things off and find out if you made a mistake
here or there. Now you just go on and you rely
on the bank. Oh yeah, the bank says I have 500
bucks. Great, let's go spend that. That's what
we do today. We don't actually go back in and
check to see if there's a mistake, you know?
Sticking to categories and saying no to extra
spending when you've already maxed out that category.
If you're not tracking, you don't know. Paying
your bills on time. Regular check -ins to see
weekly or monthly if we're aligning with our
budget. Adjusting quickly if something changes,
like for all of a sudden. Gas prices skyrocket.
Our groceries, we can't stay in the $300 a month
budget. It's costing us $400. You just can't
stick your head in the sand and say, well, that's
what the prices are nowadays. You've got to adjust
your budget. Examples of planning are creating
that budget before the month begins. Assigning
every dollar a job before you spend it. It's
so quiet in here. Building an emergency fund.
I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand if
you have an emergency fund, but I will tell you,
according to statistics, that less than 56 %
of people have a $1 ,000 emergency fund if an
expense comes up that they haven't planned for.
Less than 56%. So here's what happens. When you
have an emergency fund and you have an emergency,
It creates less stress in your life if you've
planned for that. That's where that freedom comes
in, where if you don't have that, it creates
more stress and more strife in your life. Now
listen, about three weeks ago, Pastor Kip and
I's refrigerator went out, the one in the house,
the one that was only seven or eight years old.
We weren't planning for it to go out. We thought
it would last at least another three, four, or
five years. For crying out loud, we have a refrigerator
in our garage that is about 40 years old that
was in the basement of the house when we bought
the house. And I didn't want it in the basement.
I wanted it in the garage. So Kip didn't want
to kill anybody with trying to get that refrigerator
out of the basement. So he literally put straps
around it and created... I don't know, planks
or something. And he drug it out of the basement
with his truck. Can't make that up. He really
did that. Yeah. Give him a hand, right? So he
drug this refrigerator. And I really think he
did it that way. I'm just going to tell him on
it. He didn't want the refrigerator in the garage
because it's taking up space in his garage. But
he didn't win that battle. I won that battle.
So I think he thought if he drug it out with
the truck, something would happen and it would
break on its way out and he wouldn't have to
have a refrigerator in his garage. But I believe
the Lord was on my side because that refrigerator
in the garage is still running. It's over 40
years old. It's been drug out of the basement
by a truck. And my refrigerator, the nice, shiny,
stainless steel one that was in my kitchen that
was only seven or eight years old, died. I don't
know the irony in that or what, but I guess the
Lord was on my side with the 40 -year -old one,
but not the seven -year -old one. I don't really
know. But because that went out, had I not had
a plan, you know, if you went to buy a refrigerator
lately, they're not cheap, you know? So if I
didn't have the emergency finder, I hadn't planned
for something like that, what would I do? I would
have to buy it on credit. I'd have to use a credit
card if I didn't have a plan. So planning is
important. Planning for things like repairs or
the replacement, holidays, vacations. Planning
is setting financial goals. Planning is prioritizing
needs over wants. Making sure that our essentials,
housing, food, transportation, utilities, are
covered before Starbucks and Hulu and Netflix
and YouTube TV and all of those things. Those
are things of planning. God's word also talks
to us about counting the cost. Jesus uses the
example of building a tower to illustrate the
need to count the cost and plan for expenses
before starting a project. Jesus says in Luke
14, 22, you know, in your Bible where you have
like the red letters, when it's the red letters,
it's Jesus talking. So this is Jesus talking
here. He says, suppose one of you builds a tower.
Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost
to see if you have enough money to complete it?
He's talking about counting the cost. How does
that work for me today? When I need to buy a
car, am I looking at the sticker price? Am I
thinking about how much the insurance might go
up? How much the gas will be, the maintenance,
the repairs, the registration? Maybe having to
detail the car because the kid pukes in the back
seat or the dog pees on the seat or all of those
things. How about buying a house? Beyond the
mortgage, do you count the taxes, the insurance,
the HOA fees, utilities, the maintenance, the
furniture? And does those payments still leave
room for saving, for giving, for emergencies?
Or are you going to be house poor because it's
so much of your income? Using credit cards, considering
interest charges if the balance isn't paid in
full. Are you really okay with that $500 purchase
if you don't get it paid off that it's really
going to cost you $650? Are you okay with that?
Saying yes to subscriptions or memberships. Planning
for the big things. Lifestyle choices. Eating
out versus daily cooking at home. Yes, it's cheaper
to cook at home, as painfully as it is for me
to say that. How much does this convenience really
cost me over a year if I've got all this money
going out to eat? It's making a plan. Scripture
also talks to us about avoiding debt. That warns
us that the borrower is slave to the lender.
Proverbs 22 .7 says the rich rule over the poor
and the borrower is a slave to the lender. Now,
some of you in here are in our Financial Peace
University class that we're doing here on Wednesday
nights. And I believe it was this week's video.
I don't know if it was this week or last week's
video, but Dave Ramsey says when you're out of
debt and you don't owe anybody money and you
go to work on Monday and like the boss is kind
of like really cranky with you and he's been
cranky in the past and you're like, yeah, I've
just, I've had it. And you just walk away. And
the boss says, where are you going? And you say.
I don't owe anybody any money, so I don't need
to stay here and put up with this. You can go
somewhere else. There's freedom if you're not
in debt. But if you owe a lot of money, you're
going to put up with whatever that boss does
because you need that paycheck to make those
payments so that you can still live in your house
and drive that car that you have. So the borrower
is slave to the lender. God calls us to be good
stewards, good stewardship. Believers are called
to be. good stewards of the resources that God's
provided, which includes managing our money responsibly.
Proverbs 21 .20 says this, the wise store up
choice food and olive oil, but the fools gulp
theirs down. If we eat our seed now, we don't
plan for the future. Just as a farmer who eats
their seed corn cannot replant it for next year's
harvest, individuals or businesses that consume
their core resources deplete their ability to
generate future wealth or future abundance or
margin. God calls us to be good stewards. He
also calls us to save and to be generous. Proverbs
11 .25 says a generous person will prosper. and
whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Proverbs
22, nine says, the generous themselves will be
blessed for they shared their food with the poor.
Now, Pastor Kip really hit savings last week.
So if you missed his message, I encourage you
to go back on YouTube and listen to it. I'm not
gonna cover that in much detail today, but God
calls us to plan. God calls us to count the cost.
God calls us to avoid debt, to save, and to give
generously. God calls us to learn to live within
our means. And you know what? Learning to live
within our means and to be generous doesn't happen
by accident. This doesn't happen without a plan.
If you don't plan to give, if you don't plan
to be generous, if you don't plan to live within
your means, it's never going to happen. It's
never going to happen. So let me just say this.
I don't want to stand up here and act like Kip
and I have always done everything right. Because
listen, we've been married 35 years. And if you've
got 10 minutes, an hour, three days, we can tell
you all the mistakes we've made over those 35
years. But let me tell you, we've been there.
Pastor Kip and I have lived paycheck to paycheck.
I can remember being a stay -at -home mom when
Alyssa was not quite two years old. I was very
pregnant with Jenna. Kip was an elevator tech
back then, and he was making, I don't know, we
were trying to think, I think he was probably
making $7 or $8 an hour back then. And we did
have a budget. We budgeted back then. And we
would deposit all of Kip's paycheck into our
checking account except for $20. That's what
was left out of our budget when we deposited
his saying that we could pay all of our bills.
Now, this was so long ago. This was before the
days of direct deposit. Like, that wasn't a thing
yet, okay? So Kip actually had to get a physical
paycheck, and he got paid every Monday. So he
would bring the paycheck home on Monday, he would
set it on the kitchen table, and then he'd go
back to work on Tuesday, and then I and Alyssa
would go to the bank, and we would deposit the
check, and I would bring the $20 home, and I
would put the $20 on the table. Kip got to carry
the $20, and I was thinking about that this week.
Why didn't I get two 10s? Why didn't he get 10
and I got 10? I don't know the answer to that.
All I know is I would put the $20 on the table
and Kip would carry it. I guess because I stayed
home with Alyssa. I don't know. I didn't have
anywhere to go or any money to do anything. So
I just didn't. But anyways, he gets home from
work that particular Tuesday evening and he says,
hey, did you go to the bank today? I said, yeah,
I went to the bank. He said, oh, well, where's
the $20? I said, well, it's on the kitchen table.
He said, no, it's not. And, you know, Kip was
notorious for not being able to find things.
And I'm like, yes, it's on the kitchen table.
No, Dixie, it's not. So I went to the kitchen
and looked on the kitchen table. And sure enough,
he was right. The $20 was not on the kitchen
table. And I realized that it had to be my almost
two -year -old that had done something with the
$20 bill. So I began to question Alyssa. Anybody
in here have a two -year -old that you've ever
tried to get information out of? It's not pleasant,
is it? You know, Alyssa, did you take the $20
on the table? I'm not even sure she knew what
a $20 bill was. Alyssa, did you take that green
little piece of paper that was on the table?
Did you put that $20 somewhere? We asked, we
asked. I searched high and low. I looked in her
room. I looked in her toys. I looked under the
table. I looked in the trash. We looked everywhere.
We could not find the $20. So that week, Not
only did I not have any money in my wallet, but
Kip didn't have any money in his wallet either
because we didn't have that $20 because it disappeared.
Now, because we had a plan, because we had a
budget, we didn't go to the bank the next day
and take another $20 out so that Kip had money.
We just didn't have $20 that week. So it took
some discipline. It took self -control. Was it
easy? There were days that it was not easy. Did
it stink sometimes? Yep, it really did stink
sometimes. Do I regret it? No. I'm grateful to
this day that we had a plan. Did we always do
it right like that? Again, I've already told
you, no, we made a lot of mistakes. But on a
side note, about five years later. We were moving
and unpacking boxes. And I was unpacking the
kids' books, because by this time I had three
kids. And lo and behold, when I picked up a book,
guess what fell out of one of those books? We
found 20 bucks. So Alyssa, thank you for helping
us save that $20 for five years, you know? We
didn't earn any interest on it, but we had our
20 bucks back after five years. Back then, we
didn't make much money, but we had a budget.
That budget... always included tithing and giving
first. No matter what our income was, we planned
for giving and generosity. It wasn't easy. There
were sacrifices. My kids, when they were little,
you can ask them, they grew up on hand -me -downs.
In fact, Alyssa and Jenna were grandchild four
and five on Kip's side of the family, and there
were three girls before them. They wore the clothes
of the number one, two, and three grandchildren.
Alyssa was four and Jenna was five. So they were
like hammy, hammy, hammy, hammy downs till my
kids got them. And that's what they grew up on.
You can ask my kids. We didn't go out to eat
when the kids were little. We did not go out
to eat. It was a very, very rare occasion that
we went to a restaurant. When we did, there was
this place, and Alyssa will remember this. If
the other two were here, they would remember
it too. There was this place in Johnstown. It
was called Meatballs. Guess what they served?
They had meatballs, right? So you could go there
on a Friday night. Spaghetti and meatballs were
$1 .99, all right? This place was a dive, all
right? It was like plastic chairs. It was not
like a high -end restaurant at all, okay? a couple
little arcade games in there like that you put
the quarter in. Our kids didn't get quarters
because we didn't have quarters. But we would
go there every once in a great while. And I'm
pretty sure that we at least made two of the
kids share $1 .99 spaghetti and meatballs while
we were there, okay? But it was a very rare occasion,
but we'd spend that 20 bucks that we had. Going
to meatballs once in a great while, all right?
So it was very rare. We used to laugh because
once we did that once in a while, then the kids
were constantly asking, hey, can we go to meatballs?
Can we go to meatballs? And Kip and I's very
parental response was, nope, we're going to pen
balls. That was our house. Pen rods, pen balls.
Yeah, I was making the spaghetti and meatballs,
all right? We drove crappy vehicles. Like, I
don't know if you can say crappy from the pulpit,
but... We drove really bad vehicles. Our vehicles,
I'm not making this up. Kip can testify to this
and so will our family. They were so bad that
we kept the title in the glove box so that if
we were somewhere far away from home, like more
than a half hour and it broke down, we could
just get rid of it like wherever we were. You
didn't have to go back and get the title, all
right? I mean, I remember one time, I mean, they
were bad. There's a lot of stories I could tell
about the really bad vehicles, but I remember
one in particular. You have to ask Kip what kind
of a car it was. All I know is it was gray and
it was ugly and the headliner wouldn't stay up.
Kip kept like fixing it, but it didn't work.
So I would drive down the road with one hand
while holding the headliner up with the other.
That's how bad the vehicles were that we drove
for a really, really, really long time. I also
remember one, the other one is that my dad drove
a Cadillac Sedan DeVille, four -door, really
cool car for a young mom, right? Four -door Cadillac
Sedan DeVille. I think it had like 160 ,000 miles
on it and he got rear -ended. And so Kip decided
it would be a great idea to buy that car from
the insurance company for a thousand dollars.
And he was gonna fix it. He sort of fixed it.
I think he put a different colored like taillight
in it. And then I think some gray primer on,
he pounded out like where he didn't, I mean,
he did fix it. We drove it, but, and we drove
that car for, I don't know, two years, two years
we drove that car. And he kept saying the engine
was gonna go on it, you know, cause they don't
really make cars back then to go that far or
that long. And our church at the time, It was
like on the middle of a hill, but it was on kind
of like the main drag between the high school
and the stadium, the football stadium. And we
were on our way to church in the morning, and
the car was making some noises that it probably
shouldn't have been making. And Kip said, man,
I don't know how much longer this is going to
make it. And so we went to church. We left church.
We get in the car, and he goes to drive up the
hill, and it starts making loud. banging sounds,
right? Yeah. And start smoking. So it's making
loud bangings, you know, in front of all of our
church family. It was great. So we're driving,
we get to the main street and he realizes that
he's not sure we're going to make it the two
miles to our house. So instead of staying on
the main street where there'll be more red lights,
he goes up one more street on the Somerset Avenue
and there is one red light on Somerset Avenue.
really small town. Anyways, we're driving through,
we almost get to the red light and the car is
smoking so bad at this point that it like people
can't see, like it's enveloping the whole street
and you get to the stop sign and you are the
red light and you couldn't even see anything
because the smoke had just enveloped everything.
Well, then he started to get worried and we had
the two girls and he says to me, all right, you
get out. And you get the two girls and walk down
to Graham Avenue. And maybe somebody from church
will see you and pick you up and take you the
rest of the way home. I'm going to try to get
the car home, but I'm not sure it might blow.
So these are the kind of cars we drove. I wasn't
kidding. They were crappy. So I walked down to
Graham Avenue with probably, Levi wasn't born
yet, so it had to be a four -year -old and a
two -year -old. And lo and behold, my sister
and brother -in -law. who were in much better
financial shape than what we were, because, yeah,
anyways. My sister says she's looking, and she's
like, Brad, Brad, that looks like my sister and
my two nieces standing on the side of the road.
So my brother and sister -in -law stopped and
picked me and the girls up, and we made it home.
And I think you did get the car the whole way
to the house, but... I don't know. It died. Those
are the kind of cars we drove. We made sacrifices,
all right? It wasn't good. It wasn't good. But
those are the sacrifices we had to make to stay
within the budget so that we could have margin,
so that we could have more freedom in our life,
all right? Now, earlier, I mentioned Dave Ramsey.
Dave Ramsey, I'm sure, is a name that most of
you have heard here. If you don't know who he
is, he is a... A very outspoken financial guru.
And he wants to get you out of debt. Which is
why we're doing Financial Peace University. But
he has a famous saying that he says. He says
that money isn't a math problem. It's a behavior
problem. More money doesn't fix poor habits.
A lot of people say, if I just made more money,
if I just got that raise, we would be in good
shape. If I just, if I got a better job or if
I did this or I got an extra job. But you know
what? A person making $40 ,000 a year and someone
making $140 ,000 a year, both can be broke if
you overspend. It's not a money problem. It's
a behavior problem. See, spending follows patterns,
not just numbers. It's not the size of the paycheck,
but it's the choices made with it. Impulse buying,
eating out, swiping that credit card without
thinking about the budget. Money in our checking
account reveals our priorities. Where does your
money go? Does it go to hobbies? Does it go to
debt? Does it go to generosity? It reflects our
habits, our values, and our discipline. A raise,
a bonus, or a big tax refund is not going to
change your life long term. It's the behavior
changes on the daily basis. Tracking, planning,
and saying that word that nobody likes, no, is
how you build wealth. Now listen. It's not about
how much money you make. It's about how you manage
it. And let me give you an example. You don't
need to earn a massive paycheck to become a millionaire.
A one -time Vermont -based janitor at a school
for 40 years and an occasional gas station attendant,
Ronald Reed demonstrated that, that you can reach
a seven -figure mark on a modest salary. That
man never made more than $25 ,000 a year. And
unbeknownst to everyone around him, he died at
the age of 92 in 2014, and he had quietly amassed
an $8 million fortune. Thanks to smart spending,
disciplined spending, and investing habits. His
family was tremendously surprised upon finding
out his hidden wealth. He was a hard worker,
but nobody had realized that he had become a
multimillionaire. Reed came from humble beginnings.
He was the first in his family to graduate from
high school. He served in World War II in North
Africa, Italy, and the Pacific. After the war,
he came home, worked as a gas station attendant
and a janitor at a Vermont school for 40 years.
He married a woman who had two children. He maintained
a frugal lifestyle, never spending money unless
he had to. His friends remember him driving a
second -hand Toyota Yaris, using safety pins
to hold his coat together, and cutting his own
firewood well into his 90s. Now listen, I'm not
standing up here this morning saying following
Jesus is about making you a millionaire. That's
not what I'm saying. What if you had enough margin
in your finances to give hundreds away or thousands
away or millions away? Do you know that Reed
donated all $8 million that he had amassed to
the library, the school, and the hospital that
was in his local town? Listen, to be able to
do that, you need a plan. You need a budget.
You need a game plan for your money, no matter
the level of your income. You need discipline
and self -control. I'm gonna take this one step
further this morning, even though it's already
very quiet in here. You need to be teaching your
children this from a young age. Man, we will
spend hours on the soccer field, the baseball
field, the football field, the cheering field,
teaching our kids to do these things. And it's
fun. I'm not knocking that at all, but I am pretty
confident. That your kiddo is not going to be
the next Jalen Hurts. The probability of an American
high school football player making it to the
NFL draft is less than .02%. But you know what?
I'm not being mean. I love your kiddos. My kid
played soccer. I loved watching Levi play soccer,
and he was good. But he wasn't that good. He
wasn't going to make a living at playing soccer.
These are good things and fun things, but they're
not the most important things. Listen, teaching
your kids to budget and be generous is something
they will use for the rest of their lives. See,
we taught our kids with the envelope system.
Alyssa can, she's the only one here, I keep picking
on her. She's sitting on the front row up here,
but you could text the other two, they would
tell you. They had the envelope system. So from
the time our kids earned any money, whether it
was their allowance, whether they had jobs, whatever
it was, they had three envelopes. They had one
that was their giving envelope that they had
to put 10 % of whatever they got went into that
envelope. And then they had a savings envelope
and 50 % of what they got had to go in the savings
envelope. And then they had a spending envelope
that they got to put 40 % of what they had in
there. And we did this from the time they were
little. We did this their whole childhood. And
we were diligent. Or they may tell you that we
were a hard case, but this is what we made them
do. Now, I can remember one time when Jenna was
a teenager, she wanted to go to Hershey Park.
She had received a season pass as a Christmas
gift. And at the time, she was working a part
-time job at the sports emporium. But now let
me tell you, when Jenna was at home with us and
she was a teenager, she definitely was our spender.
She loved to spend her spending money. And she
would spend it on others. She would spend it
on whatever. But she was definitely our spender.
Levi, not so much. He was our saver. He loved
spending our money. He even loved spending Jenna's
money, but he didn't like to spend his money.
Jenna would often say, hey, Levi, you want to
go to Chick -fil -A? And he'd say, yeah, I don't
have any money for that. And she's like, oh,
I have $5. Let's go to Chick -fil -A. All the
while Levi had 500 in his spending envelope.
He just didn't want to spend it on Chick -fil
-A. But if Jenna was willing to spend her money
on Chick -fil -A, he was willing to go and eat
it. But anyway, she wanted to go to Hershey Park
that day. And I said, listen, you can go as long
as you have spending money in your envelope to
pay for your lunch. You know, and we did it on
the honor system. I wasn't like checking their
envelopes. She's like, yeah, yeah, I'm good.
I'm good. We're going to go. But unbeknownst
to me, her spending envelope was empty. So she
decided to borrow her tithe out of her giving
envelope. It was a $20 bill. So she had full
intentions. She was going to get paid in a couple
of days. She was going to take $20 out of her
paycheck and she'd put it back and she'd pay
that tithe back in that envelope. So she got
to Hershey Park with her friends and she got
on that first ride. And when she got off the
ride, she put her hands in her pocket and realized
that her $20 had fallen out while she was on
that ride. So now she's at Hershey Park. She
has no money. She's got to mooch off of her friends
or borrow off of her friends. And she still has
to pay that $20 back. into her giving envelope.
So Jenna will tell this story. And when she would
tell us, she would came home and she told us
a story and this was what her words were. She
goes, you know, you just don't ever borrow your
tithe money because the Lord is gonna shmite
you. Now, I am not saying that the Lord is gonna
shmite you. That was her interpretation of what
happened when she was at Hershey Park. But I
will say that there is a biblical way to steward
your money. You need to have a plan. You need
to have a budget. You need to teach your kids
from little on up. Even if their tithe is a quarter,
teach them to bring that offering, that tithe
to the Lord. Teach them from little up. Then
it's not a big surprise when they're adulting.
Jenna's a great adult. We did pretty good. She's
adulting well now. She's not, you know, she's
not borrowing her money from other places. She's
doing a great job in life. But you gotta teach
your kids. You can't wait. Don't wait until they're
adults and then be like, oh, you know what? You
should probably budget. If you teach them from
little up that there's a way to steward your
money and your possessions, it's not a big knock
in the head when they become an adult. You know,
they're like, oh, adulting stinks. I don't want
to do this adulting thing. But if they're in
a practice of following God's word, of following
biblical standards, of stewarding your money
and your possessions by having a plan, it's so
much easier. But it takes work. It takes discipline.
It takes self -control. And I'm going to ask
Kip to come up this morning. I'm reminded of
a song that has been stuck in my head since the
first grade. I know that's a long time ago for
those of you who, I'm 54, so first grade was
a long time ago. But it went something like this.
It's a song like, it's a small world that gets
stuck in your head. But the song kind of went
like this, and we won't go through it yet, but
it says, There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza,
dear Liza. There's a hole in my bucket, dear
Liza, a hole. That song gets stuck in your head,
okay? So anyone else have that song in music
class? Ever heard of that song? I'm not alone,
okay? Thank you. There's like three of you out
there. All right. Great demonstration. All right.
Anyways, that song just keeps coming in my mind.
And it makes me think of this bucket that we
have here is kind of like... Henry was the guy
in the song. So Henry is the one talking to dear
Liza saying, I have a hole in my bucket. All
right. So he's complaining that he's got this
hole in his bucket. And so Liza is telling him
to fix it. So first she tells him to fix it with
a straw. And he says, well, the straw is too
long. And so she said, well, then cut the straw.
And he says that his knife's not, not. sharp
enough. And she's like, well, sharpen the knife.
Well, what do I use? Well, you use a rock. Well,
the stone's too dry. And he just got excuse after
excuse after excuse. But it made me think of
our finances. So what Kip's going to show you
is this is Henry's bucket with a hole in it.
So when we are managing our finances and we don't
have a plan, it's kind of like this. As he's
pouring that water in, there's no way to control
your funds. There's no way to control the leaking
that's happening because there's a hole. And
that's kind of how your finances are if you don't
have a plan. If you don't know where your money's
going, it's just leaking out of that hole. And
maybe you say, well, I need to earn more money
or maybe I can't do this. Maybe you're like Henry
and you're coming up with excuse after, well,
I can't do a budget because I don't make enough
or I can't save because I don't. make enough,
or I can't do a budget because, because, because,
because, because. You know what Liza says to
Henry at the end of this song? Henry, you are
just plain old lazy. You don't want to fix that
hole in your bucket. And maybe that's us with
our finances. Maybe we don't want to make a plan.
Maybe we're making excuses of why we can't do
it God's way. But let me tell you God's word.
I started at the beginning of this by saying
that God's word is very clear on money. I know
Pastor Kip has said this throughout the sermon
series that we've been doing, but the God's word
mentions our money and our possessions over 2
,300 times in his word. Why do you think he did
that? Because he knows without a plan, without
discipline, without self -control, we're not
gonna do it very well. Pastor Kip said last week
in his message, do we believe what God's word
says? Because we're only gonna do what we believe.
Do you believe that God's word instructs us on
our finances? We're only gonna do what we believe
with a plan, with discipline, generosity, and
money. becomes a tool for blessing and not a
trap. I'm going to ask if the worship team would
come. Let's not be Henry with a hole in our bucket
and make excuses of why we can't make a change,
why we can't surrender to what God says about
our finances. Let's not step onto that financial
field without a game plan. Let's not just show
up at the football game and say, you know, we're
gonna do it because I know a lot about football.
You know, I could say, I'm gonna do it with my
finances. I know a lot about spending money.
I've been doing it for 50 years. It's not gonna
work. We've gotta have a game plan. We've gotta
be diligent. We've gotta teach our kids. And
above all, we've gotta honor God with our money.
and our possessions? Are we able to surrender
our finances and our possessions to the Lord
and do finances his way? To do them biblically,
to follow biblically what he says to do? Or do
we want to keep doing things our way and get
the same results we've always got? You realize
that's the definition of insanity. Doing things
the same way and expecting different results.
Or are we going to invite the creator of the
universe, the one who owns it all, to be part
of our plan with money and possessions, knowing
that Philippians 4 .19 says that my God shall
supply all my needs according to his riches and
glory. He owns it all. Do we trust him with that?
Do we trust him? to create margin? Do we trust
him to put him first in our finances? Do we trust
him with that? Thank you for tuning in to this
message from Lifehouse Church. We pray that you
were impacted powerfully by this message. If
you have been personally affected by our ministry
and you would like to partner with us as we love
God, love people every day, visit our website
at www .lifehousecog .com.