Never Enough

Money is always on our minds. The endless bills, rising costs, unexpected emergencies. No matter how hard we try, it feels like there's never enough. We work longer hours, we cut back, we hustle, and the weight never seems to lift. Well, what if it's not how much we have that matters, but what we do with it, that leaves us feeling like there is never enough. Welcome to the first week in our series. Never enough. Now there'll be just big begin with, with a promise. Alright? I promise you, if you will make an effort to be here and commit to these next three weeks, if you'll get involved in a small group here at Fellowship of the Parks, the subject that we're talking about, as difficult as it may be, it really has the transformative power to change your life, your family's life, and the generations that follow. And I know that, you know, talking, uh, about money and possessions and so forth, it's difficult and it, it's, it's very intimidating. Uh, it kinda reminds me, you know, growing up, I a Rubik's cube, did you have one of these? Did you ever solve it? Maybe, probably not. Legitimately, you know, I, I would look at this thing and get so frustrated and, you know, my patience level, I just wanna throw it against a wall. And, and this is, I think a, a lot of times the way we look at, at money, we're gonna talk about it in three levels. Budgeting, we're gonna talk about saving and investing. We're gonna talk about legacy and, and generosity that again, extends the generations that follow. But it seems so complex, so intimidating. But here's what I, what I found out really solving this is not about really intelligence. In 2024, the solve rate is 4.32 seconds. That's how quickly they can solve it. And so the people that do it, what they do is they evaluate it, they find a starting point, and then they execute because they know the pattern. Again, what seems to be so intimidating, if you just have a good plan, if you know what that plan is, it can lead to success. Uh, money. And those issues are important. We're gonna start really at a basic level and talk about budgeting. And budgeting is simply this. It's creating a plan for your resources. Um, that's something that sometimes is hard for us to do because it requires a little bit of discipline. It requires us to think about things that are maybe uncomfortable. We think, man, how can we ever do this and get everyone on the same page? But there's the genius of it. It gets everyone in your family on the same page. Now, Jesus talked about really the importance of a plan in Luke chapter 14. Now, the passage really has to do with, you know, counting the cost of following Jesus, but it is sort of presumptuous, just really based on, Hey, here's a reality in verse 28. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower, won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? I mean, after all, that just makes good sense, right? Um, for if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you saying, this person began to build and wasn't able to finish what we want to succeed, we wanna get ahead. It requires a plan to do that. And the big idea here is, is that being financially sound requires an intentional plan. But I gotta be honest, I, I get it. And my mind budgeting has gotta be one of the most boring things in the world. It's laborious. You have to look back and think about, okay, where's my money going? Where's it supposed to go? And, and I understand that I, my personality is geared to be spontaneous. I, I want, you know, I don't want to be restricted. And, you know, a budget seems so restrictive, handcuffs, you and I get it. I get it. It's not fun, but here's what it does. It actually empowers you. It creates some margin in your life. It gives you, and puts you in sort of a, a pole position. And that's, you know, first place to be ready to take advantage of opportunities that come, because hopefully you're creating some margin. But, you know, I, I love the idea just man, as it hits me, uh, if I wanna buy it, just why not give into your impulses? You know? Um, after all, sometimes we get, if you know you're a follower of Jesus, you go to church, you can get really spiritual. You know, God led me to this. I think this is the right thing, man. I just feel it in my core. This is, this will be great. And you can come up with all kinds of justifications of spending money that you don't have, or spending money that really needs to be, you know, appropriated somewhere else. And then we get really spiritual on the other side as well. God, somehow some way, you know, I just believe that it's gonna show up. I think we've all been in that situation and we find ourselves in a situation where we just have a hard time paying our bills. Credit card bill comes, and we don't even really want to know how much interest we're paying if we're just making the minimum payments. That can be difficult. And, and you may think, man, I'd love to be at a place where, you know, I just have so much money that I don't need a budget. Well, it's never true. It's never true. Even those that have a lot, if you don't manage it well, uh, the Bible uses the phrase, uh, being a good steward. If you don't do that, it will easily slip away. Look at Proverbs chapter 21, verse five. It says, the plans of the diligent lead to profit, as surely as haste leads to poverty. Yeah, budget is just a good plan. You know, wouldn't you expect me, how would you feel if I told you as, you know, founding senior pastor of the church that I really don't care anything about the budget. I'm not really, we're not working on any sort of plan. You know, I just do as a spirit leads, and, you know, somehow we're making it, we're getting by. W would that make you feel good to know that we don't have a budget, that we don't have a plan as far as investing, saving, expanding? No. You would think that's, that's sort of ridiculous. Well, what I'm asking, and I know I've been in your shoes, is really take this seriously. If, if you could just muster up the discipline and, and open your mind and, and your heart to it, again, it can change your life. A diligent plan that is a good budget, um, consists of three things. First of all, it's prioritized. It's prioritized. What a budget does is it helps you know what is most important. It gets your family on the same page. Okay? These are the things that we want to accomplish. And so with the money that that's coming in, our income streamed our revenue, this is what we're going to focus on. Um, I love this. There's a verse in in scripture that says, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? Um, your family needs vision. They need to know what's important. It puts you on the same page. You know, our vision for the church as a family, for everyone. But the second part of our mission statement is we wanna not just reach spiritually disconnected people with the gospel, but equip them to lead their family, equip you to lead your family. I want to lead my family. Just not be reactive. You're not leading. If you're just reactive, you don't know where things are going. And then uhoh, what are we gonna do? Somehow we've gotta get out of this situation, and it causes problems. One of the leading causes of the breakup of marriages and families is people don't talk about it. It, it's a lot of times, not just about not enough resources, it's just you don't know. And you have different spending plans, different philosophies. A lot of times, you know, in our family, a lot of times we're opposite. You got a, a spender and a saver. A budget helps you bring things together, get on the same page. It helps you prioritize your family. For example, again, beyond just the basics, it says, you know, family time's important. And so to be able to say, you know what? We're gonna plan a vacation this year. It doesn't have to be a really expensive one, but it gives people in the family, your loved ones, something to look forward to. This is important to us. We care about one of them. We're going to spend time together. It also establishes a baseline, you know, of parameters, guardrails, so you don't get so angry, you know, with one another. Um, you know, guardrails. They just say, here, here are the lanes. If this is the budget and this is all the, the budget amount we have for this particular area, then that's really all you can spend. If you have to adjust, you have to go over that. Will you talk about that? If you have a spending limit in place, for example, a plan that says, you know, we're not going to make any purchase. Uh, no individual in the family is gonna make any purchase over this dollar amount unless we talk about it, you know, together, again, it gives you a great opportunity to have, um, what counselors, therapists call core conversations. It's where you share your, your hopes, your fears, but your dreams. Those dreams means, okay, I'm not just going to dream about it, but let's put a plan in place to somehow get there. And what is it that, that you would like to accomplish? What would you like to see take place? A budget is a document, though, that you continually sort of go back to. You look at where you are, you look at where you're going, and it's gotta be something that that becomes, well, it has to be accurate. It has to be accurate. 'cause we can put anything down on paper. You know, we can have all kinds of lofty goals, but it's, is it accurate? Do you know what you're really spending? I mean, it's, you, you, we, our society makes it so simple now to just buy things on impulse. And we could justify, well, I'm hungry. I need to stop here, is fast. Is it just me? But seems like fast food prices have just escalated like crazy. I mean, all food prices. We, we live in an inflationary society right now. Um, we're doing government's trying to do what they can to get it under control. A lot of concern, a lot of fear. There's a lot of greed out there. And I get it, you're trying to make it and things keep changing. Well, you gotta track what you're spending. I would encourage you to track, um, at least go back and look, what, what am I spending? What have I spent over the past 30 days? It also would be helpful even to go back maybe 90 days. I know that's tough, but that factors in some of the big things, the seasons in life, like, you know, Christmas, birthdays, some of those things that, you know, you need to consider to be a part of your budget. By the way, I do want to give you just a framework of what I think is a, is a pretty good, pretty good place. And it's three components of your budget. I think the priorities based on, uh, scripture, if you're a follower of Jesus, is that the first 10th needs to be generosity. Uh, what are you going to give? What are you going to, to, uh, to tithe? We, we, we'll talk about that a little bit later, but that's not just the focus of this message door, this series. Um, you ought to save and invest somewhere maybe between 10 or ideally 15%, and then live on the other 75%. And if you begin to think about that, and we're gonna give you some help, there's some budget worksheets. We're gonna send you some or give you some links that you can, you can use to try to put this in place. And again, it's a discipline, I get it. But if you see where your money's actually going, you track it, then that gives you the basis to begin to build out a budget and understand those priorities. My dad, um, he, he passed, you know, 10 plus years ago, but my mother to this day, she saves every receipt. I don't think you have to go that far, but I, I look at my parents and the poverty that they both grew up in, and I, I look at, you know, where they, where they came from and where they are today, at least my mother. And to me, I stand back and I look at that, but it was a diligence of keeping receipts, being accurate, knowing where your money goes. Um, I would encourage you to, um, think about, okay, what is it really that we're spending? Um, I remember when I asked my father-in-law for my wife's handed marriage, he, there's a lot of components to that story. I was 21. She was 19. But one of the things he insisted on was, he goes, well, I wanna see a budget. I wanna see how you think, you know, this is gonna work. How are you gonna provide for my daughter? We got married in college. And I said, all right. It's the first time I'd ever done a budget in my life. That budget was so low. And so, um, inaccurate. I mean, I mean, I have an excuse. I I didn't have a sister. I didn't grow up well, that I knew of at the time. I didn't, I didn't grow up with a sister. My mother had her, but I had no idea what it was going to cost, you know, to have a wife in my home. I mean, I thought, I mean, if I can live on five shirts, two pairs of jeans, and five pairs of underwear, why can't everybody else do that? And like, you know, if you need to clean your face, use a bar of soap. I mean, I, all these cleaner, I said, what in the world? I, I just don't understand. You know, you, you gotta be accurate. I, I remember really almost like the first four plus. I mean, it was probably longer than that. Years of our marriage, our grocery budget. Was it $25 a week? Again, that's been some years ago. But man, it was tough. It was hard. But that's, you know, we were at least tracking. We had a target. We were trying to make it because of budget. It, it needs to not only be accurate, and again, this is why you talk about it all the time. This is not just a static document that you stick there just waiting to smack someone's hand when they violate. No, you gotta keep revisiting, looking at what's coming down the road. What do you want for your kids or your, your, you want your kids to have money, maybe for college or trade school, or helping them in a business or whatever. Those things keep you talking. They keep the family focused. You're casting vision, you're leading your family, you're pulling, you know each other together. This serves as a reference point and you continually talk about it because it's gotta be realistic. I, um, I, I, I think it's important to realize that a budget is, is fluid depending on what's coming down the pike. And by the way, I've learned a lot relationally, you know, through a budget, for example, I learned that it was very unrealistic, um, to take the opportunity of my wife's birthday to purchase a vacuum for the household that I found a great deal on off of Facebook marketplace used that had a broken handle, but through the power and the magic of a clamp and masking tape, I could fix that bad boy. I saved tons of money. I hit two areas of the budget. And I thought, man, that is a huge win. No, no, a very, very cold night for me on her birthday. Maybe a cold week. You know, it's you, you, you learn. But it gives you an opportunity to talk because again, in a family, you have some that are savers, others that are spenders. And, you know, it just, it brings things together. It will help your marriage, it'll help your family. It'll give your kids something forward, um, to, to look, to, to say, Hey, you know, things can happen. And I'm telling you, when you have done it long enough to where you actually see some goals being reached, you know, one thing that's incredibly important is, um, is margin. Because you don't know what's coming. You know, I recommend, you know, to my kids that they build and save an emergency fund of like a thousand dollars. You know, at at least something goes wrong with their vehicle. Something comes up and, you know, for you and your situation, that may be more. Um, in fact, Proverbs 25, verse 28 says this, like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control. Um, a budget, it just, it, it bases you. It gives you a checkpoint, a little sort of voice that says, uhoh, here's some checklists. If you're gonna spend this money, it needs to meet this criteria. If it's over a certain amount, you need to talk, you know, to your spouse. This needs to be a family discussion. It keeps you from, from doing that. But I'll be honest with you, there is a, a dug factor in our budget now, and that is, I am forgetful. I do stupid things. And it's not intentional. I, I really, I'll just tell you this week, I, I had my golf club stolen outta my truck. I mean, that hurt. I love golf. I mean that they're, they're like precious to me, probably too precious, right? I, I enjoy that. I mean, it takes a of time collecting those, put those together, get the right ones that fit you and all that. And man, I, I might have shed a tear, but you know why they got stolen? My fault. I leave my truck unlocked. 'cause I just forget. I forget. And now I'm gonna have to replace those clubs. And, and you know what, as, as horrible as that is, and it, it bothers me about myself, I'm, I'm glad that it's gonna be okay. I actually have money, you know, a margin account for Doug in his dumb decision making school or, or, or practice to, you know, to help figure that out, you know? And so I'm just saying, I, I think that when it comes to our faith, the power of what the Bible says about Jesus Christ and what he can do in your life, how he forgives you of your sins, is incredibly powerful. When we're able to embrace God's forgiveness for ourselves and then apply and extend that to others who have hurt us. Whether they ask or not, it is incredibly powerful. But the most practically powerful thing beyond that is this whole idea of what God says about money and about how we, we don't have to let it control us. We don't have to be a, a slave to it. We, we don't have to think about it all the time. But if we just, you know, have some self-control, and we'll stick and start really with a plan, it can be absolutely liberating. Here's what I would like for you to do, is next step is create a household budget. This week you may say, Hey, you know, I've done that. Let me encourage you to revisit the budget. Start looking at, start talking about, use that as an opportunity to do some vision casting with your family. Uh, don't just do it from the negative perspective, but make it something positive in which you can say, Hey, this is how we're going to move forward. You wanna get everybody on the same page. So it's, again, it's not just, just a handcuffing sort of thing. This is empowering for us to get ahead and to be in a position, take, take advantage of, of what God wants. And look, I, I really believe it. It can change your life. God doesn't want any of us to live with what I call a scarcity mentality. The scarcity mentality is, is there's never gonna be enough. Uh, I'm always held hostage. I, I don't wanna know what my expenses are. I don't wanna know the bad news. I just prefer to stick my head in the sand. As easy as that is, it's a huge mistake. Again, you can have a scarcity mentality no matter how much money you make, because there's always that fear. It's a spiritual thing that, that, you know, somehow I'm not gonna be prepared and I'm gonna end up destitute. I can't tell you particularly how many, um, people I've met and know that have this sort of scarcity mentality, even though they have gobs money. And a lot of us would, would think, you know what? I really would like to know that struggle. Yeah, me too. But it's a reality. It's something that is so important. I hope you'll use this opportunity. Get involved in a small group. Our small groups. We're gonna talk about this, you know, at a deeper level here at the first of the year, I can think of no better opportunity this year, 2025, I'm gonna get my financial house in order. I'm going to, don't worry, I don't think it's, it's past you. You're too old. Look, when you think about retirement, it's never too late. Listen, in these moments, I wanna pray for you and know this. The most important thing is that you have a relationship with Christ. And that first and foremost, is what we want to help you establish. So let us know on the connection card, if you want to talk, I if you need some help, maybe you have a situation, we'll do our best to try to help you and maybe put you with someone that can begin to help direct you as far as creating a budget. But anyway, we'll have tools along the way. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, I thank you that you'll love us. I thank you that you care, uh, not just about our eternity, but Lord, you care about our every day. You care about our families. And, and God, I believe that you want us to be blessed. It doesn't always mean that we're going to be financially prosperous, but God, may we put our faith in you and with a good plan, live our life with a sense of freedom and joy, looking for the opportunities that you give us, or do we. Thank you. We trust you in Jesus' name. Amen.