Masterminds – Money Masters or Financial Fools

God on Film: Masterminds – Money Masters or Financial Fools
Sycamore Creek Church
August 2/3, 2015
Tom Arthur

 

Peace Friends!

Today we continue the series God on Film where we’re looking at a different summer blockbuster each week and exploring the themes or ideas that the movie evokes.  Today’s movie, Masterminds, is about a $17 Million bank robbery by a group that isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.  It’s a movie that makes me ask the question, “Am I a money master or a financial fool?”  Ironically enough, this movie was originally slated to come out in August back when we were planning this series, but its opening has been moved to October because of millions of dollars of debt restructuring by its parent company!  When I saw the trailer and learned that Masterminds was about money my mind immediately went to the teachings of Jesus on money:

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
~Matthew 6:24 NLT

Matthew was one of Jesus’ closest followers and he recorded this teaching of Jesus.  But Luke, a doctor who hung out with Jesus’ friends also recorded this teaching by Jesus:

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
~Luke 16:13 NLT

Notice anything about those two teachings?  They’re exactly the same!  Two different places in the Bible.  Same exact teaching down to the letter.  Maybe the Bible wants to make sure that we really get the point.  So here’s the question that it raises for each of us: Will you “master” your money or will your money “master” you?  Today I want to look at three things that financial fools do that allow money to master them and I want to look at three things that money masters do to let God master their money.

Financial Fools Give into PRESSURE
Financial Fools let others make their decisions about money from them.  The book of Proverbs says:

Dear friend, if bad companions tempt you,
don’t go along with them.
~Proverbs 1:10 (The Message)

What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever spent your money on?  Maybe you bought way too many gifts for Christmas when you didn’t really have the money because that’s what you’re “supposed to do.”  Or maybe you go out to eat because your friends are all going out to eat even though you don’t have rent money this month.  Or maybe you just have to have the latest and greatest gadget because everyone’s got the latest S10 iThing Magenta.   I asked my friends on Facebook what was the stupidest thing they’d ever done with money.  I got lots and lots of responses.  I’m talking a TON of responses.  There is no shortage of stories about how people spend their money in stupid ways.  One of my friends who is a bartender said she goes out with friends after work and buys everyone drinks with her tip money.  Then she goes home empty handed!  Another friend a little too embarrassed to claim the spent money publically said in private message (but gave me permission to share), “The stupidest thing I ever did with money was pay $1000 to keep a new boyfriend from going to jail. He promised to pay me back (yeah right) and that it was part of his old life. Young girls are suckers for boys they think they can ‘change.’” Financial fools let PRESSURE make their financial decisions.  Don’t let others decide where you spend your money.

Financial Fools PUT IT OFF for some other day
James, the brother of Jesus, says, “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?” (4:14 NLT).  We make all kinds of “plans” for tomorrow, and sometimes we plan to make a plan tomorrow.  Financial fools say, “I’ll figure out money when I get out of college.”  Or “I’ll figure out money when I get a job.”  Financial fools wait until they get married to learn how to use their money.  Yeah, that’s really easily done.  Two people trying to figure out one of the hardest things to figure out while also figuring out how to live together?  Maybe that’s why finances are one of the biggest reasons for divorces.  Financial fools wait until marriage to figure out money.  Or they wait until they have kids.  Or they wait until they have a better paying job.  Financial fools wait until tomorrow to do what should be done today.

Financial Fools POINTLESSLY Spend
Pointless spending means spending more than you make.  It means not having a plan in place for how you spend.  It’s impulse spending.  John, one of Jesus’ closest followers says:

For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.
~1 John 2:16 (NLT)

We spend our money pointlessly on physical pleasures, creature comforts, anything that catches our eye, or things that make us feel pride in what we own.  One of my friends on Facebook says that she spends pointlessly by shopping when stressed.  I see pointless spending when people tell me they’re using student loans to pay a car loan.  Debt to pay debt.  Yikes!  Pointless spending is using credit cards to buy things that depreciate in value, things like food, gadgets, clothes, and on and on.  Financial fools go into debt for things that you’ll not only be paying on for a long time but you can’t sell them to pay off the debt because they won’t sell for what you paid for them.  Unfortunately, too many of us are sunk in credit card debt.  I heard a great story on NPR (National Public Radio) about a year ago about the struggle with credit card debt.

What I really liked about it was that it described well the real financial challenges people face, the financial trouble they get into, and the way out.  Did you hear it?  This family is turning the corner from their money mastering them toward mastering their own money.  From financial fools to money masters.  Let’s learn three things that money masters do.

Money Masters AVOID Debt by Living Simply
Money masters steer clear of debt because they know a very important truth about debt:

The poor are always ruled over by the rich,
so don’t borrow and put yourself under their power.
~Proverbs 22:7 (The Message)

One key tool to steer clear of debt is the 70% rule.  The 70% rule means that you live on 70% of what you make.  So what do you do with the other 30%?  You give away 10%, save 10%, and put 10% away for retirement.  Most of us aren’t living on 70% of what we make.  We’re living on 110%!  One key way to begin to break the power that money has over you is to give some away.  Giving money away is a discipline that helps put money in perspective.  Christians have been practicing giving 10% or more away for a long time.  Let’s be honest about this.  It’s hard to give 10% away especially if you are not used to it.  But let me put the whole thing in perspective.

Last fall we made a Jack O Lantern out of a pumpkin.  After digging out all the seeds and roasting them, we sat down to enjoy the seeds.  I had eaten most of what I wanted while they were still warm.  Micah, my son, doesn’t like things warm, so when they cooled off and we sat down together, I was mostly just sitting there while Micah was eating cold roasted pumpkin seeds.  At one point I reached over for a couple of seeds and he said, “Hey, don’t eat MY pumpkin seeds.”  His pumpkin seeds?  I bought the pumpkin.  I did most of the work digging them out.  I seasoned them and roasted them.  I put them in the refrigerator to cool them down.  I served them up to him.  Whose pumpkin seeds?  We had a little talk about what it took to actually have pumpkin seeds to eat (work, money, time, etc.).  After a bit of joking, he offered me two pumpkin seeds.

I was reminded in this moment of how we treat God’s resources.  It’s all God’s, and when God asks for some of it back, we say, “Hey, that’s mine!”

I’d like to get down to brass tacks with this whole idea of living simply by the 70% rule by showing you how Sarah and I budget and spend our money.  Financial fools spend pointlessly but money masters spend their money on paper before they even get it.  They make a plan to live into the 70% rule.  Now one big financial change that happened in our life recently was that we sold our house in Petoskey.  We made a good amount of money on the sale.  So the first thing we did was give 10% of what we made to the church’s capital campaign fund.  Then we paid off our two car loans.  That left us entirely debt free!  This month I turn 40, so it took me 40 years to get to zero.  But now it’s time to spend the next 40 years really mastering our money.  So here’s how we’re doing to do it:

• $180/paycheck for a 10% tithe to the church
• $350/month (that we were paying a mortgage) now investing toward retirement [One significant difference between our budget and most other people is that the church provides a house for us to live in and pays the utilities.  This is a double edged sword.  While you are busy making payments on a house and building equity, we need to be saving to buy a house with cash when we retire!]
• $160/month (that we were paying on an auto loan) now saving for a future car

Because our house in Petoskey was our vacation destination, we decided to put aside money each month toward vacations throughout the year.  So we put aside $200/month for vacations.

We also have learned that there are some areas where we tend to overspend.  So what we do is take out cash from each pay check (every two weeks) for each of these areas and put that cash in an envelope.  It’s a cash envelope budgeting system.  Here’s the areas we tend to overspend:

• $300/paycheck for groceries ($150/week)
• $50/paycheck for dates ($25/week)
• $25/paycheck for “blow money” for each of us (to be spent on whatever we want)
• $20/month for Dad Kid Night Out
• $20/paycheck for Church in a Diner ($10/week)

I’d like to explain this last cash budget item a little bit more.  It’s very important to understand for the health of our Monday night Church in a Diner.  I budget $10 every Monday to spend at Jackie’s.  Each meal is about $6.50 so the total bill with tax is about $7.  Normally you tip somewhere between 15-20%.  But I just give the whole $10.  I consider myself a “financial missionary” on Monday nights.  Here’s why that’s important.  It costs Jackie’s about $350 every Monday night just to be open for us.  This is their break even amount.  On average we have about 50 people who attend Monday night.  If each person spent about $7, that would be $350.  That’s the break-even point for Jackie’s.  But not everyone who comes on Monday night can afford or wants to buy a whole meal.  So I give a little bit more in the tip to help cover the difference.  I’m a financial missionary on Monday nights.  Now I’ve been told by the owner of Jackie’s that for several weeks now, they haven’t broken even.  They’ve lost money on Monday nights.  So I’m asking you to consider joining me in being a financial missionary on Monday night.  Has God blessed you enough to spend or tip $10/person at your table?  Or better yet, what if you brought someone with you each Monday night and paid for them?  It all goes back to this idea of a budget.  Have you budgeted for Monday nights?  Can you budget to be a financial missionary?

It’s taken us almost forty years of life and eighteen years of marriage to get to this point, but we’re slowly taking steps into mastering our money rather than letting our money master us.

Money Masters ACCUMULATE True Treasure  
Do you know that your heart goes toward where you spend your money?  Jesus teaches:

Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.
~Matthew 6:20-21 NLT

If you want your heart to be in heaven, then put your money where you want your heart to be.  Shell Silverstein, the poet of the famous children’s book, Where the Sidewalk Ends, wrote a poem about this very thing titled “Lester.”

Lester was given a magic wish
By the goblin who lives in the banyan tree,
And with his wish he wished for two more wishes—
So now instead of just one wish, he cleverly had three.
And with each one of these
He simply wished for three more wishes,
Which gave him three old wishes, plus nine new.
And with each of these twelve
He slyly wished for three more wishes.
Which added up to forty-six—or is it fifty-two?
Well anyway, he used each wish
To wish for wishes ‘til he had
Five billion, seven million, eighteen thousand thirty-four.
And then he spread them on the ground
And skipped and sang, and then sat down
And wished for more.
And more… And more… They multiplied
While other people smiled and cried
And loved and reached and touched and felt.
Lester sat amid his wealth
Stacked mountain-high like stacks of gold.
Sat and counted—and grew old.
And then one Thursday night they found him
Dead—with his wishes piled around him.
And they counted the lot and found that not
A single one was missing.
All shiny and new—here, take a few
And think of Lester as you do.
In a world of apples and kisses and shoes
He wasted his wishes on wishing. 
What wishes are you wishing with each dollar you send?  Country songs are good at telling the same basic story.  One recent song is called “Trailer Hitch.”  Watch the video here:

 

You do begin to ACCUMULATE true treasures in one of four ways: give something, give regularly, give proportionally, and give generously.  Some of you today need to begin giving something, anything.  You haven’t ever given anything back to God and today is the day you’re going to take that first step.  Others need to give regularly.  Not just a one-time tip, but a regular predetermined amount.  Some of you are giving regularly but you’re not up to 10% and so you need to accumulate true treasures by giving proportionally.  Then some of us are really blessed financially and accumulating true treasurers means giving much more than 10%, giving extravagantly and generously.  Are you mastering your money by accumulating true treasures?

Money Masters AUTOMATE It ALL
Do you know that S.Y.S.T.E.M.S. Save You Stress, Time, Energy, and Money?  Yes.  What’s your system for automating your finances?  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the books of the Bible teaches us saying:

On the first day of each week, you should each put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don’t wait until I get there and then try to collect it all at once.
~Paul (1 Corinthians 16:2 NLT)

Paul thought that you should have a system for giving that takes place at the beginning of each week.  Money masters do this in all areas of their finances.  They automate their bills.  I love it.  I never have to remember whether I’ve paid it or not.  Money masters automate their savings.  I just set up two new savings accounts at our bank, one for our future car and one for vacation.  I used the online tools to automatically move money from my checking account to those two savings account each month.  Money masters automate their investments.  Money is taken automatically out of my paycheck and invested for retirement.  In each case, I don’t even see the money.  It’s just not there.  It goes to the appropriate bill, savings, or investment.  Now, if this is how I run my financial life, why would I not also automate my giving?  Well, I actually do.  We have our bank send a check to the church every paycheck.  I don’t even have to think about it.  We give whether we’re on vacation or not.  We give whether we remember to bring our checkbook or not.  We give whether we’ve got cash in our wallet or not.  We automate our giving.

Now there is one more way to automate your giving that I learned from a woman who died a couple of years ago.  We received a letter on November 12, 2013 from Neumann Law that Arlene C. Eskes had left $200 to Sycamore Creek Church in her trust.  No one in the office knows who Arlene is.  I found this obituary:

Arlene C. Eskes, 89, of Holt, died Sunday. Services 10 a.m. today at Holt United Methodist Church. Arrangements by Estes-Leadley Funeral Homes, Holt-Delhi Chapel.
Published in Lansing State Journal on Dec. 19, 2012

It made me wonder if Holt UMC knew anything about Arlene.  So I contacted their pastor at the time, Glenn Wagner.  He wrote back saying:

Arlene was a long time member here.  By the time I arrived in 2006 Arlene was living alone in her home and relied on family and close friends for transportation, grocery shopping, and fellowship.   She organized annual Christmas trips for Church members to Turkeyville for dinner and theater.  Her daughter and son-in-law are active members of the Lowell United Methodist Church. In her later years Arlene struggled with health issues that greatly limited her mobility.   I don’t know when or why she decided to leave Sycamore Creek in her will but do believe that for Arlene $200 was a substantial gift…Perhaps she wanted to do her part to support this church that was birthed from Holt UMC.  Thanks for asking.

Friends, when I die, I want my treasures so stored up in heaven, that my money automatically goes to supporting God’s mission here on earth!  To do that, we must remember:

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
~Matthew 6:24 NLT

Will you be a Financial Fool or a Money Master?  Lord, help us not give into PRESSURE, PUT off our financial planning for another day, and spend POINTLESSLY.  Help us rather to AVOID debt by living simply, ACCUMULATE true treasure, and AUTOMATE it all.  In the name of Jesus, the master of our lives, including our money.  Amen.