Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Mastering the Meaning and Methods of Money Management

Jim Slater

01 A Roadmap to Success

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Lord, I just ask that you would be here this morning.

You know the information that's been prepared to be presented.

I just ask that it be the Holy Spirit that speaks today, that you would speak through me, and just as importantly, that you would influence the ears of those listening, that this would be wisdom that comes from on high and not just secular knowledge that we have here on this earth.

Bless us to that end, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so 1 of the things every now and then people ask when you have a presentation like this, I've had a couple people say, well, tell me a little bit of actually, when we got started, what's your background?

People wanna know, do you know what you're talking about?

You wanna know is someone presenting something that they're just regurgitating that they heard someone else talk about, or do you have any practical knowledge in what we're talking about?

So if it's okay with you, I'm just gonna share with you guys a couple of quick thoughts on my background so you know a little bit about who I am and the perspective that I'm coming from.

So if we take a look here, let me make sure that we're getting through this.

There we go, a little bit on my professional background.

First of all, I've spent 33 years, the last 33 years, in financial services.

So my entire career has in 1 sense or another been in the area of finances.

I was an investment advisor for a few years, corporate retirement plan administrator.

How many of you here are familiar with 401ks, profit sharing?

Okay, for a number of years, I would actually administer those for corporate companies.

A lot of times when people come to the end of life and we talk about legacy planning, people will set up trusts and you need a trustee.

And so for a number of years, I served as a corporate fiduciary or trust officer at 1 of the largest financial institutions in the country, helping take care of those financial matters after someone passes away.

And then more recently, I'm currently serving as the chief investment officer for an investment advisory firm over in Grand Haven.

So from a professional background, that's my bio.

And so a lot of the things that we talk about today, I can share with you.

I have first-hand knowledge because that's the kind of work that I do.

But in addition to that, I also want to just share with you that I have a personal background in finances.

And this goes back a lot longer, it goes back 48 years.

Just a little quick story, when I was 8 years old, we were living in Kansas, And my mom, I don't know how she did this, she went to the folks at the Olathe Daily News paper.

And back then you had to be 12 years old to get a paper route.

And somehow my mom convinced the people that at the age of 8, and my older sister was 10, that we were up to the job.

And at 8 years old, my sister and I became business partners.

It ended up that we started with 1 route, and then after a while, she had a route and I had a route.

And every morning during the week, we would get up and we would fold the newspapers, put them in a bag, and then my dad would take us out and we would drive and it would take us probably an hour, hour and a half before school every single morning to do that.

And then once a month we had to go around and we had to knock on everyone's doors.

We would knock on the doors and we would say, hey it's time to pay your bill and for $2.25 they would pay it.

We'd give them a little stub and they're set for the month.

So at 8 years old, I was producing an income.

And I remember distinctly my mom, you know, that first month saying, okay, we're going to now teach you how to budget.

And she had me write down tithe on 1 and then a piece on a piece of paper and then taped that to the first jar and then offering on the second 1 taped it to the next jar.

And so I had 6 or 8 budget categories at the age of 8, and this was really fortuitous.

You know, at 8, what are you gonna buy, right?

Well, we ended up, very shortly after that, without realizing it at the time, we went through some real economic hardships as a family.

And at the age of 8, I was buying my own clothes.

And if I needed toothbrush and toothpaste I was buying my own toothbrush and toothpaste.

If I wanted to go to summer camp I was paying my way to summer camp.

And so I learned at the age of 8 and 9 that it's really important to know how to take care of money because the success depends on good choices.

And so some of the stuff that we're gonna talk about today are things that I've learned corporately or professionally.

A lot of them I've learned personally, and I will share with you that in this process of learning and understanding, sometimes you make more mistakes than you do it right.

So for those of you, when we're talking about this, I want you to understand that I know a lot of this stuff.

Some of it I know because I did it wrong.

And fortunately, I've had the opportunity to make that correction.

But that's a little bit about my background.

What I wanna talk here for another couple minutes then is just an idea or a summary.

What are we going to be talking about as far as the agenda goes this week?

Today, Monday, we're gonna be talking about a roadmap to success.

Most of today is really about the idea that sets the framework for the rest of the week.

Benjamin Franklin said that if we fail to plan, we should plan to fail.

And so we need to talk about planning and being good at planning.

A lot of times, and we'll talk a little bit later this morning, sometimes people say, well you know the Holy Spirit can't work if we have all these plans and we need to just leave it up to the Holy Spirit.

I am a huge believer in the Holy Spirit But I also want to share with you that God works through plans and talk a little bit about what the biblical perspective is on that and how we can be planning for our finances.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, you can't be the master if you're already the servant.

The Bible says you can't serve God and money.

1 of the things that we're going to discuss throughout this whole seminar is we need to understand that money in itself is neutral.

Money can be used for incredibly good things.

It can also take us down a terrible path.

The problem is when we let money become our master.

And particularly, the Bible talks about debt.

When we're in debt, we are a servant to the lender.

So if God wants us to be the master of what's going on here, a servant to God, but if we wanna be the master of what's taking place here, particularly with our money, we can't be a servant.

And so we're gonna talk about debt, things that we can do to avoid that and get out of debt if we need to.

On Wednesday, we'll talk a little bit, saving makes sense, but hoarding is a hazard.

Have any of you here ever had to help someone is moving, let's say in a nursing home or maybe they passed away and you have to clean out their house?

How many of you have ever had to clean out and it felt like they were a hoarder?

All right, I will guarantee you that most of that stuff at 1 point or another had some value.

So how do we look at savings in a very positive light where it's productive, but it doesn't become something that is a hazard?

Thursday then we'll be talking about investing.

Investing isn't gambling and gambling isn't investing.

Some people have shared with me before, I don't want to invest that's just gambling.

There's a very specific difference and I think the Bible gives us some very specific criteria for us to understand where it's appropriate for us to be investing and how to do that.

And then as Pastor Gene had mentioned on Friday we're gonna finish up with leaving a legacy.

02 You Can’t Be the Master if You’re Already the Servant

Dear God, we invite your presence here this morning.

We've talked before about everything that we have is from you.

Our health, our strength, our ability to be here today, to speak and to listen, to understand, all of it comes from you.

And as we think about what you've entrusted to us, we're here because we want to learn more and we desire to do with what you have given us, your will.

And give us wisdom as we go through today, that we would have learning and understanding, and most of all, as the Holy Spirit impresses each of us on what we can do more, what we can do better, with what you've entrusted us from finances in particular, Lord, give us the courage and the strength to follow through on those convictions that you give us.

It's not just enough that we know, Lord, we long and we desire to do.

We ask this all in the name of your son, Jesus.

Alright, so we're getting started here today.

I want to just, 3 quick takeaways from yesterday.

For those of you that may not have been here, and even those of you that were, just kind of a quick reminder of what we talked about.

3 things that I consider the big takeaways.

First of all, everything that we have comes from God.

And what we learned yesterday is that God is a planner.

Do you remember what we said, this idea that God died, Jesus, God sent his son Jesus to die for us that we may have eternal life?

And because everything that we have comes from God, and God is a planner, it would make sense that God would ask us to plan with the things that he's entrusted to us.

Number 2, even though money is neutral, money is nothing more than a means of exchange.

I've got $10, I can buy something from you.

You have something that you wanna sell, it's worth $10.

Money is just a medium of exchange, but even though it's just a medium of exchange, we talked about the fact that money is very, very personal and very emotional.

If you remember, I talked about a psychologist that talked at a conference that I was at years and years ago.

And he talked about the fact that when he meets with couples, that couples that come and talk to him about various things, a lot of times it's marriage counseling, they would rather talk about their sex lives than to talk about the specifics of their money.

It's that private, it's that personal, it's that emotional.

But we have to understand that even though money can be a very emotional issue to us, It brings us to the third point, that God wants us to take a look at what our financial situation is.

We talked about a personal financial statement.

But as we get started here this morning, I want us to start with Something that we discussed yesterday, and I brought this up on the screen.

This was David, a man after God's own heart.

And David, at the end of his life, had spent some time accumulating the necessary, I wouldn't call it equipment or tools, the necessary supplies and material to build the temple.

And if you remember that God had told him that he could start that, but it was not up to him to build it.

But as David was coming to the end of his life, and he had gathered all this incredible abundance of wealth and supplies and materials, he had a prayer with the leaders of the children of Israel.

He said, "...but who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this?

For all things come from you, and from your hand we have given to you." In other words, there's nothing that we have that we can give to God.

The only thing we can do is return to God.

I often think back when my kids were really little and they started to understand this idea of giving gifts and they're, you know, Dad, Daddy, can you give me $20?

You hand that over so fast, and it doesn't matter that it came from your own pocket.

But no 1 for a second would believe that I am richer now after that transaction, right?

We can't enrich God with what we do, but yet he still asks us to return to him a faithful tithe and an offering.

And we're gonna talk just a little bit about that as we get started.

The first thing I wanna do is just remind us, we went through a personal financial statement.

For those of you that are not, We're not here, I've got a copy.

If any of you were here and we ran out, we've got several more copies, and if we run out again today, we'll get more of those.

The Bible tells us we need to know the condition of our flocks.

And what that means is we need to be able to be honest about the condition of our financial situation.

And this is where sometimes it can get a little bit difficult is if we realize maybe I haven't made all the right decisions.

And I'm gonna share with you today that none of us have made all right decisions.

Every 1 of us can look back and say, I think I could have done that better.

That's not what is important, is whether we're perfect or not.

What's important is if we're wanting to take care of the assets that God has entrusted to us, we need to be honest about what we have.

And so we talked about, number 1, to get an idea, we need to write down all of our assets, everything that we own, checking, savings, cash, anything else that might be there, a home, automobiles, et cetera.

But you come up with a total of everything that you own, those are your assets, and then also list all of your liabilities, what you owe.

I have a mortgage payment, I have credit card debt, I have a car loan, et cetera, et cetera, whatever it might be.

And once you've listed all of your liabilities, you simply subtract that from the assets, and that tells you, this is what I'm worth today.

Now, recognizing we are worth far more than this.

This does not tell us what our true worth is.

Our true worth was measured at the cross.

At the same time, we wanna have an understanding of what is our financial net worth.

We need to know what our financial condition is, because that will help us to do some of the things that we're gonna talk about today and tomorrow and the next day as we move forward.

So I invite all of you, this should be fairly easy, take the time to do that.

Some of you may have done it even last night, you quick write it out.

For many of us, there's a lot going on at camp meeting, and to find several hours to go through this may not be realistic.

But take it with you and have the opportunity to go through this when you get back home.

The other thing that we talked about then is also doing a budget.

Don't operate with a mindset of luck or undefined hope.

God has given everyone a mind in order to plan.

So it talks about every family should have a budget.

A lot of times people don't like the idea of a budget.

If you had $100 and you had no plan on how to spend it, or if you had $100 and you had a detailed plan on how to spend it, would that change the $100 either way?

But I've often said money has a way, money is neutral, money is just a means of exchange, but it can feel like it has a personality of its own and sometimes money feels like it spends itself, right?

So if we are to be the master and not the servant, the first thing that we need, and that's what we're gonna talk about today, 1 of the first things we need to understand is that we need to have money be our servant, not our master.

And 1 of the first things we do is we have a budget.

This is money that's been entrusted to me.

I get to choose how it's going to be spent.

And I'm gonna encourage, we didn't have a lot of time yesterday and the screen is a little small, But if you notice up at the very top where it says monthly income, your gross income, that's your total paycheck, not your net, not just what comes to you, but your total paycheck, your salary, interest, dividends, whatever.

And then number 1, it says less tithe and offering.

Friends, I will tell you, we cannot do the things that God wants us to do with what He's entrusted to us unless we show Him that we can be entrusted with that wealth.

03 Saving Makes Cents, but Hoarding is a Hazard

Dear God, thank you again for the opportunity to be here, for what you're doing in our lives and in our hearts here at Camp Meeting.

We recognize that as we focus on the spiritual aspect of our relationship with you, we recognize that money is an integral part of that.

Not because it brings us monetary wealth, but because oftentimes how we deal with it is an indication of our relationship with you.

I pray that you will give us wisdom and how to properly use the wealth and the benefits that you have provided to us, that we may advance your kingdom and in all things bring honor and glory to you.

All right, so we're getting started this morning talking about mastering the meaning and methods of money management.

And I just want to talk very briefly, again as a reminder, I talked about this the first day and I mentioned this yesterday as we got started.

I just want to read again what David said as he came to the end of his life and as he had gathered the material for the building of the sanctuary.

If you remember again that God allowed him to gather all the materials, but it was up to his son Solomon to actually build it.

I was thinking about it when I was walking this morning.

If you remember, the children of Israel, originally when they built the sanctuary out in the wilderness, that Moses called and they brought so much that he had to say, stop, this is too much, stop bringing it.

And when you read what David accumulated for the building of the permanent structure of the tabernacle or the sanctuary, the temple, that there was so much, some of the stuff it says, especially in the bronze, when Solomon was building it, that they couldn't even, there was so much they couldn't even account for all of it.

But this was David's prayer that he said to God.

He said, but who am I And who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this?

For all things come from you, and from your hand we have given to you." So again, the idea is, as we're talking about wealth, that everything we have comes from God.

And if it originated with God, then He has a plan for how we should be using it.

So what we're talking about again this week is what is God's biblical plan for us to handle that wealth that He's bestowed to us.

I want to take a look at a couple of key takeaways, and I apologize for some reason I couldn't get this to move through the items the way I would like to, so I'm going to just put them all up there.

Number 1, 1 of the key takeaways this week, God is a planner and everything we have is from God, so we should expect to have a plan for our money.

And that's what we're here to talk about.

1 of the very first things, actually the very first item we need to plan, is to return a faithful tithe and a freewill offering to God.

God cannot bless what we're doing if we do not trust in Him.

And the Bible says, don't put your trust in money, put your trust in God.

That doesn't mean that money is evil, it doesn't mean that having money is a sin, but it means that ultimately our trust is in God, and when we return to Him, our faithful tithe and our freewill offering, we are recognizing that our faith and trust is in Him and not in the money.

And because of that, He can then bless us even more so than what we were doing before.

We talked specifically about debt yesterday.

The Bible never calls debt a sin, but it should be avoided, including being a guarantor for someone else's debt.

And we chatted yesterday about how to get out of debt.

And I talked about a couple of items where it can be appropriate to use debt.

If you remember, we spoke about a home mortgage.

We have to live somewhere, and if we're not buying a home, we're paying rent, and it's better to be buying the home than to be paying the rent.

We talked a little bit about if you live someplace and it's hard to get to work, that having a reliable vehicle is a good way to make sure that you can get a good income that you might not otherwise be able to do.

And the last 1, used very cautiously and judiciously, could be student loans.

But I want to start by telling you, because I've said that there are cases where those, especially with home mortgage, those can work and can work very effectively.

I'm not here telling people, and I don't want people to leave and say, oh yeah, the presenter, he said you should borrow for student debt, You should borrow on a car.

Those are things where if there's no other options, it can be considered.

But God's goal is always for us to move to be debt-free as quickly as possible.

Alright, so again, debt is not a sin, but God encourages us not to be in that situation.

Because if you remember again what we spoke about yesterday, We cannot serve 2 masters.

The Bible says we either serve God or we serve money.

The Bible also says that the borrower is a servant to the lender.

So in situations where we're borrowing money, We need to remember that money has become the master.

Series

Mastering the Meaning and Methods of Money Management

05 Leaving a Legacy

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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