Are You a Self-Controlled Spender? - Outline ARE YOU A SELF-CONTROLLED SPENDER? I Peter 5:8-10 Rev. Rick Williams Because God is owner of everything, we are His stewards, and therefore, have a responsibility and are held accountable for what we do with God's resources. "The devil . . . is looking for someone to devour." American Lending Industry wants you to Spend! They now target our youth. Some Advantages of Credit Cards Make purchases 24 hours a day over phone/internet Use as form of identification Take advantage of special sales if putting purchases on credit card - as long as you pay it off 100% & on time Convenience in renting car/hotel room Some Disadvantages of Credit Cards Discourage Savings & Encourage Spending - banks push you to use credit cards rather than to save because it's more lucrative for them Discourages living within a budget - Customers will spend more for same item if using a credit card rather than using cash. Hefty penalty fees and higher interest rates if you do not pay off your monthly credit card bill(s). Creates worries because we get deeper & deeper into debt & are therefore less able to be generous with others. Five signs of being an uncontrolled, compulsive spender. You run out of money between paychecks - living beyond your means. You pay bills with cash advances on your credit cards. You never pay off a credit card in full before charging more to it. You always pay the minimum amount due or less, and make every payment at the last possible moment. You get calls from collectors. If you have determined that you are a compulsive spender, you need to take steps immediately to get on the path to financial freedom. Earnestly pray for deliverance from the tyranny of compulsive spending. Join a support group such as Debtors Anonymous. Sit down with a trained financial counselor to put together a plan. (Introduction of Financial Freedom Pathways) Debt will do all kinds of harm to you and to your family. That is what the devil wants. God wants you to be a free, generous, peaceful & content person. We need to take the steps to financial freedom.

Are You a Self-Controlled Spender? - Sermon ARE YOU A SELF-CONTROLLED SPENDER? I Peter 5:8-10 Rev. Rick Williams Are you a self-disciplined spender? I hope what I have to say this morning does not apply to anybody in this church. I hope this is a completely irrelevant sermon for all of you, but I do need some people to just kind of hang around to encourage me to say what I have to say. What I have to say about being a controlled spender is based on this reading from I Peter 5:8-10. You're probably going to wonder how I'm going to get from this passage to controlled spending, and I want to encourage you to just hang around and listen up. The apostle Peter says, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace who calls you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. To Him be the power forever and ever. Amen." My brothers and sisters in Christ, the sermon this morning is based on stewardship. Stewardship. Now the Bible teaches us that God is the Creator of all things, therefore, God is the owner of everything. God is the owner of everything seen. God is the owner of everything unseen. But God has appointed human beings to rule over his creation. In other words, God has appointed human beings to be stewards of his creation. To be God's steward means that God has granted us authority and God has granted us gifts to manage and develop and to care for His creation. To be God's steward, or God's overseer, means that we are accountable to God. We are accountable to God for how we care for His creation. The Apostle Paul reminds us that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. That each one may receive what is due him or her for the things done in this life, in this body, for the good or bad. So stewards have responsibility. Stewards are accountable. Now today I want to speak to you concerning our stewardship over money. And more specifically I want to speak to you concerning our use of credit cards. Hello? Credit cards. In an article entitled, "Hey Big Spender: Avoiding Compulsive Spending" Charles A. Jaffey of the Boston Globe has this to say. He says that the American lending industry has created a very slippery slope for consumers like you and I. And the lending industry starts pushing credit cards at kids in high school and college. The lending industry, the American lending industry, advertises the virtues of "Buy Now and Pay Later". The American lending industry makes credit available long after people have spent past their means. The American lending industry allows flea-sized payments to insure that debts - your debts, my debts - will linger on for years. To a great extent, what distinguishes a compulsive spender from everything else is largely state of mind. This is what a sociologist, Tara Hill, says this. That what distinguishes a compulsive spender is largely state of mind. Mr. Hayes goes on to say that "a lot of people are compulsive spenders but don't admit it". They are in self-denial. Now before I get to signs of compulsive spending, let me say something about some of the advantages - for there are some advantages, you know, of credit cards. Let me get to some of the advantages and some of the disadvantages of credit cards. What are some of the advantages? Well, you can use them - these credit cards - 24 hours a day to make purchases or pay bills by phone, by mail, or over the Internet. Am I right about that? Don't act like you don't know about that! Here's another advantage. You can use them just about anywhere you go in the world - even when you are on your cruises. You can use your credit card. Anywhere you go in the world you can use your credit card. You can use a credit card as a form of personal identification. Even at the library, you know, they ask you for two pieces of ID - one with your picture on it and another one & you can pull out your credit card and you can use it. Here's another advantage: Credit cards can save you money by allowing you to take advantage of a sale provided you pay the bill when it comes! Because if you linger on in paying the bill, you diminish or wipe out what advantage you would have gained in the sale. So they can help you. I take advantage of a sale. Credit cards are very convenient when it comes to renting a car or renting a room or hotel. If you don't have a credit card you have to put some big bucks down to rent that car or to rent that hotel room. Credit cards - you can refuse to pay a disputed bill while the credit card company investigates the source of the problem. Now sometimes they discover the source of the problem is you! But you can put off paying until they discover that. Now I'm sure that many of you credit card users can think of other advantages, but I turn now to some of the disadvantages of credit cards. Are you still with me? And I have four of them - there are many more - but just four disadvantages that I want to mention. Credit cards discourage savings. And they encourage spending - even spending beyond your means. Those of us who have passbook saving or even money market, you know that you are not making much interest in having your money in the bank. You know that. But you know that same bank is sending you one credit card offer after another because banks have discovered that there is bigger business in pushing credit cards than getting you to try to save money. Based on surveys of customers, retailers - this is another disadvantage of the use of credit cards - the people you give your credit card to pay for a service or a product, they have done their homework. These retailers say that customers will pay 33% more when they use a credit card than when they use cash. Here's another disadvantage. The use of credit cards discourages budgeting or living within a budget. Right? I mean if you have $26,000 limit on your credit card, why mess around with budgeting? Here's another disadvantage that I hope none of you have discovered. If your late with a payment on your credit card, you pay a hefty penalty fee, and the credit card company might sock you with a higher interest rate on your remaining balance. You didn't read between the lines. Or you didn't even read that much until you discovered that. My friends, no doubt about it, your enemy - the devil - prowls around like a roaring lion in the clever advertising schemes of the American lending industry looking for someone to devour. The devil. There's too much profit in stirring you up to overspend for the devil not to be involved in that. The devil prowls around in our use of credit cards to get us deeper and deeper into debt. The devil prowls around in our use of credit cards to keep us worrying and fretting about how we're going to pay our bills. The devil prowls around in our use of credit cards to cripple our ability to be generous with others because if you are overextended in debt, you have nothing left over to be generous with. You're looking for someone to be generous with you! The devil prowls around in our use of credit cards to enslave us to lenders in the 22nd chapter in the book of Proverbs it is written, "Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is a slave to the lender." Remember that old song, 'st. Peter don't call me - cause I can't go because I owe my soul to the company store.? Oh, St. Peter don't call me - cause I can't go because I owe my soul to MasterCard, to VISA, to American Express. Well, how do you know if you are a self-controlled spender or if you're an uncontrolled, compulsive spender? How do you know? Inquiring people want to know. Am I a controlled spender or am I an out-of-control spender? Well, in his article Charles Jaffey, whom I just quoted earlier, he provides a valuable checklist for helping people identify whether or not they have a credit or debt problem. By the way, that's another clever way that the lending industry gets us to overspend. They call what they provide "credit" but it's really debt. It's kind of like "life insurance" but you have to die to collect! But you wouldn't buy it if they called it "death insurance"! So they call it life insurance so somebody else living will collect when you die. Jaffey gives ten signs to help us identify whether we are a compulsive spender, but I'm only going to mention five of them. Here are the five signs: 1. You run out of money between paychecks. I have a feeling this sermon really applies to a lot of you here today! It could be you're not earning enough to get by. That could be the problem, but more likely the reason you run out of money between paychecks is your spending habits. You see, some experts put this problem a different way, noting that you're heading for trouble if you work overtime or a second job, simply to keep up with your spending habits. You go down the street here and you see this thing about these payday loans. Drive in there with your car and give them the title of your car as collateral - these are for people who are overspending. Living beyond their means. They're popping up all over the place. I hear they charge you quite a hefty interest rate - 37%! 2. There's a second sign that you're in trouble. You pay bills with cash advances on your credit cards. It's like robbing Peter to pay Paul. 3. There's a third one. You never pay a credit card in full before charging more to it. You see, the best way to use your credit card is as a convenience when you pay them off each month. If you constantly spend yourself back into debt again, you may want to look at your spending habits. 4. There's a fourth sign that you may be a compulsive spender. You always pay the minimum amount due or less. And you make every payment at the last possible moment. Now it has been calculated - listen up now - that if you just make the minimum payment on time on a $2,000 charge, it would take you 32 years to pay off the credit card company. And the total cost would be $8,000 provided you don't charge anything else. Now I know what some of you are saying. "I plan to die within 32 years." Did you think about that? $2000 & you just pay the minimum, don't add anything else to the credit card, it would take you 32 years to pay off $2,000, and you would have paid $2,000 plus $6,000. 5. There's a fifth sign that you're a compulsive spender. You're getting calls from collectors. Now you don't have to say to your son or daughter that you're not home anymore. You don't have to do that anymore because you've got Caller ID. Thank God for Caller ID! So you're getting calls from these collectors and you won't pick up the phone for fear it will be someone calling to collect a bill. At this point, says Jaffey, it is probably time to stop making excuses. It is also time to stop spending anything but the bare necessities. There is no "maybe" anymore. You are in trouble! You are a slave to the American lending industry. You are where they want you, baby! You are being devoured by the devil! But there's hope! There is hope for getting on the path to financial freedom. It won't be easy. It will be slow. But if you're in over your head, there is hope for getting on the path to financial freedom. Now here are some steps that you need to take immediately if you want to get on the path to financial freedom. There are many steps, but here are a few. First and foremost, you need to earnestly pray to Jesus to deliver you from the tyranny of compulsive spending. I'm suggesting that if you're in deep financial problems, you first of all have a spiritual problem. And the solution for your financial problem lies with spiritual needs. So you must first earnestly pray to Jesus to deliver you from the tyranny of compulsive spending. You might say that's so basic. Why are you saying it? Because a lot of us are in over our heads, but we are not praying about it. We're still out spending! In Chapter 2 of Hebrews it is written, "Because Jesus Himself suffered when He was tempted" - and let me tell you this is a temptation to overspend. These advertisers are very clever. They've spent lots of money on researching trying to understand you and I. Trying to get beyond our defenses to get us to buy things that we really don't need or can't afford. Heavy temptation and the devil are in all of this. So you need to come against the devil. Not in your own strength and power, you need to come to the devil in this struggle with the very power of Jesus. The Bible says, "Because Jesus Himself struggled when He was tempted, He's able to help those who are being tempted." Again in the fourth chapter of Hebrews, it is written, "In Jesus we have a High Priest who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. Therefore approach the throne of grace with confidence that we may receive mercy and requiring grace to help us" when the devil is tempting us to live beyond our means. We need to be praying about this! That's the first step in getting on the path to financial freedom. You need to cry out to God to take away your addiction and to give you strength to overcome the temptation of the evil one to give you strength to walk in the path of financial freedom. You've got to make this a serious - a daily - concern of prayer. Secondly, some of us who are compulsive spenders may need to join a support group like Debtors Anonymous. There is such a thing that is anonymous, based on the 12-step program. If you have a serious problem, a compulsive problem, with spending you need to find you a support group like Debtors Anonymous for spiritual insight into your addiction and for strength in community in your struggle to overcome your compulsive spending. And you may need to do something else to get on the path to financial freedom. You may need to sit down with a trained financial counselor to help you put together a plan for getting you onto the path to financial freedom. You need prayer. You need a support group. You need to sit down with somebody with some understanding of this problem to help you put a plan to get on the path to financial freedom. Now after the service today, I want each of you to check your mailbox for old mail that's been in there for quite some time, but also for a copy of this brochure entitled "Financial Freedom Pathways". I want to read you just a few lines from this brochure. It says, "Is the mountain of debt becoming too high to climb" Do you ever wish you had more money? You're not alone.- (The pastor's with you!) - Whether you are struggling with debt or just need some basic help in getting your financial house in order, we would like you to invite you to take the first step on the path to financial freedom.- Financial Freedom Pathways is a service of Barnabas Foundation designed specifically to help you get your financial life back on track. "Our trained staff of volunteers also have access to professionals for further legal and financial advice. We'll work with you in developing new spending, saving, and giving habits." There is help. Four of the trained staff of volunteers are members of this church. And I would like to introduce them to you at this time. Four trained volunteer financial counselors who can sit down with you or anybody you know and help you put a plan to get you on the path of financial freedom. The four members are ----. Now I hear some of you saying, "I'm not going to tell them people my business." Somebody's too young. Somebody's too white. Somebody's too tall. Somebody's too short to be in your business. You don't want them up in your business! Hey, we've covered that, too! You may request a financial counselor from Financial Freedom Pathways, somebody equally trained that are not members of this church. In other words, you can go where they are, see them for their help, and then walk away and not see them again. Just like in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. You don't have to run into them in the store or at church or anywhere. You can have anonymity in working out your plan. And of course, you can seek counseling service - another counseling service - like the Consumer Credit Counseling of Chicago. Why am I talking about all this? Because debt, if you don't watch it, if you're not careful, will do all kinds of harm to you and to your family. I'm talking about arguments in your home over money. Dissolution of marriages. I'm talking about bankruptcy. I'm talking about losing your home. I'm talking about homelessness. I'm talking about the crippling of your spirit so that you are not what God wants you to be - a free, generous, peaceful, content person. That's what the devil wants. The devil wants to work through your overspending to cripple your heart, to cripple your spirit, to destroy your life. Jesus says, "The thief comes to steal, to kill and destroy, but I have come so that you may have life and have it more abundantly." So are you a self-controlled and alert spender? If you are, thank God for His grace and thank God for His mercy! And if you are not a self-controlled and alert spender, then reach out. Hear me? Reach out for all the help that is available to you! Reach out for help to God, to others. Reach out for help if you have a problem so that you may get on the path to financial freedom. For freedom - even financial freedom - is God's will for you and for me in Christ Jesus our Lord.