Seminar: Foundation Stones 1
Dave Ramsey: Buy/Sell a Home
John Maxwell: Commitment”
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INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Financial Freedom God’s Way, where you are continuing to learn, apply, and pass on, Bible-based financial principles and applications so that you and your family will not only just survive, but thrive during these very uncertain times.
Hi and welcome everyone, this is Bob Louder from Christian Financial Ministries, and it is an absolute honor to have you with us again—it really is. Where are we going during our 30-minute time together today?
- First of all—during the Your Finances in Perilous Times Radio Seminar, you are going to see that even though you want to learn to do your finances God’s way, you still have a lot more in common with the rest of the world than you might expect. Sometimes, in order to change, we need to see how we fit in the big picture and sometime what we see is not so pleasing. You will see what I mean in just a couple of minutes.
- Then, if you are thinking about either buying or selling a home, you really need to hear what our friend Dave Ramsey has for you today.
- Finally, we will hear yet another Minute with Maxwell as Christian author, speaker, teacher, trainer, mentor, and coach shares with us his thoughts on the word “commitment.”
So stay tuned, you are not going to want to miss a minute of today’s program.
And, as we do each time we are together, let me open us with a word of prayer. Father, thank You for meeting with us again today. Please give us ears to hear all that it is you have planned for us, to Your glory, in Jesus’ mighty name, amen.
BODY
Radio Seminar
Review
Now, as you already know, during our Radio Seminar times together you are going to learn what God has to say about how you are take care of, how you are to best manage the material areas of your life and do it in ways that are pleasing to Him.
- You will not only learn to combine biblical financial principles and applications.
- You are also going to take a look at some Jewish history and some Jewish word pictures.
- You are going to
- learn some Greek, and
- Hear some true stories about challenges and lessons learned,
- You are going to have some fun, and
- You are even going to get to know Rex our Roman soldier friend and see what in the world he has to do with your personal finances.
- And all of this is going to be based on
- Two Key Biblical Financial Principles
- Six critical Bible verses, and
- Seven important spiritual tools.
- Plus, you will also see the important part the Holy Spirit has to play in your finances.
So far during our radio times together you…
- Discovered how and why you are so unique within the Body of Christ,
- Responded to God’s Three Questions,
- Started learning how to defeat spiritual warfare by picking up and putting on God’s Spiritual Armor,
- Which includes the critical importance of Scripture Memory and Meditation.
Remember, again, God is the One giving you this Your Finances in Perilous Times Radio Seminar—I just happen to be the middleman. You are not here by accident. God is calling you here so He and you can make a difference in His Kingdom. This is not casual radio listening, my friend. This is radio with a purpose. This is radio that that God can use to give you hope as He leads you and your family out of financial bondage and into financial freedom. What He is giving your through these radio seminar times together is based first and foremost on the Bible, plus over 35 years of Bible-based financial teaching, training, mentoring and coaching as a Larry Burkett, Crown Ministries, and a Dave Ramsey certified financial coach. You are receiving the best from all their seminars, workshops, and Bible studies—and a whole lot more.
Now, I have to give you fair warning, our Radio Seminar pace is about to pick up a bit as you start to bounce back and forth between listening to this program on the radio, and relistening to the program plus reading and studying the transcript of this program on our website at christianfinancialministries.org.
Three Foundation Stones (1)
- Today, we are going to start working through three foundation stones that will help guide you down your personal road to Financial Freedom God’s Way.
First, it is important for you to discover some interesting statistics that are going to show you some of all of what you have in common with others within the body of Christ and everyone else as well. - Then next week you will discover some surprising personal benefits that you are going to receive as you begin to understand, apply, and pass along what God has in store for you during this Radio Seminar. These are benefits that you have probably never experienced before or maybe never even considered before—it is going to be a surprise to you.
- And finally, the third foundation stone: you will take another quick look at the roles that you and I have to play during this Radio Seminar, but most importantly, you are going to see the role the Holy Spirit has to play as you move through this Radio Seminar.
So, these are three important foundation stones you need to consider as you really begin to pick up a head of steam and roll down your road to Financial Freedom God’s Way. OK? All right.
- Now, recall back several weeks ago that you answered the question, “why am I here?” Basically, you answered the question, “What do I expect from this Radio Seminar?” “What blessing am I seeking?” Remember? I am sure you do because I asked you to write down a single goal for all of our times together. If you are a single person, you wrote down a single goal. If you are a married couple, you each wrote down a single goal.
Now, what I want you to see is that if I took your goal, along with everyone else’s goal, you know, everyone else who is taking this Radio Seminar right now along with you, if I took your goal and all the other goals and I wrote them down on a big black board—do you know what? I would not need a whole lot of space. - Why? Because even though you—my friend—even though you are very different than each of the other folks working through this Radio Seminar along with you, you and everybody else really have quite a lot in common.
Christian Community
To help prove this point, I am about to share with you some interesting statistics taken from a survey of American “Christians” several years ago. But first, let me share with you a bit of information about those statistics. OK?
- You see, you need to know that to take part in this survey, you first had to first acknowledge that the single most important decision you ever made was to ask Jesus Christ into your heart as your Lord and Savior.
- Then in order to take part in this survey you also had to attest to the fact that you regularly, routinely worshipped within a body of believers and that was defined to be a minimum of at least three times a month.
- So, this survey targeted practicing, evangelical Christians.
And by the way, if this data—if it applied to the body of Christ back then—and it did—I believe it also applies across the body of Christ today to include you, and all those taking this Radio Seminar with you.
So, here is a financial snapshot of a Christian Family today. Ready? Just listen for now, then go to the website later to relisten and read the transcript. OK? All right, here we go.
- First statistic: 40%–40% of all Christians today overspend each and every month. It is the old “too much month at the end of the paycheck” issue; do you know what I am saying? 40% of us have more going out than we have coming in most of the time.
- Here is another data point: 20%–one in five—20% of all the families in the Body of Christ–at any one point in time, 20% of Christians are considering divorce. They may have thought about it, prayed about it, maybe even talked or counseled about it, and maybe it would even be a surprise to one or the other of the marital team. Did you know that at any one time, 20%, one in five, Christian couples are contemplating divorce?
- This divorce statistic is not surprising when you consider that within the first 7-8 years of marriage, the data shows that more than half of all Christian marriages end in divorce.
- Now, hold on to that for just a second—half of all Christian marriages end in divorce. Hold on to that because what I want to do is to ask you a question. Here is the question: Are you a pastor? Or, do you know any pastors? Sure, you are either a pastor or you know some pastors, right?
- Well, you might be interested to know that the data shows about 40% of all pastor’s marriages end in divorce—40% of all pastor’s marriages end up in divorce.
- And, do you know what you find? If you were to take all of the couples that have gone through the marriage ceremony and a life together for about 7-8 years, and now are divorced–you take all these couples, pastors and lay people, you sit them down and you ask them individually, you ask them, “My brother, my sister, what was it that you believe that more than anything else contributed to the demise, the fall, the breakup of your marriage?” You ask them that question. Do you know what they would answer? About 90% of the time, they will point to money.
And, all this isn’t so surprising when you consider some of other financial statistics and data points from this survey. For example:
- 40% of us spend more than $2-$4k a year in interest. I am not talking about interest on the major things like homes and cars. I am talking about interest on our Visas and MasterCard’s, and the like. Now, that is a lot of money going out in interest.
- Or what about this one: Only one in three of us, only a third of all Christians, regularly, routinely give 10% or more back into the kingdom of God.
- As the matter of fact, 40% of us give 3% or less…and that is no surprise, just check out this data with your church treasurer.
- And 26%–a full quarter of us—give back absolutely nothing into the Kingdom of God.
So, that is a quick survey of Christian Families has to show us, and again, really no surprises here.
Pre-Christian Community
However, what may be a surprise, a rather unpleasant surprise, is that these statistics are no different for Christians than for the pre-Christian.
- Ok, I know, I need to give you a definition here, right? You are going to hear me talk about Christians and Pre-Christians as we go through this Radio Seminar time together.
- Why so? Why do I choose to use the term “Pre-Christian”? Because I really do not like the term “non-Christian.” I like to be a whole lot more positive than that. I like to think in terms of those who are and those who will become…do you know what I mean? Therefore, I like to think in terms of “Christian” and “pre-Christian.”
- So, now when I use the term “pre-Christian” you are going to know exactly whom I am talking about, right? All right.
- So, if you were to get a group of pre-Christians together and you were to give them this exact same survey—same questions—do you know what you would find out, as you looked at the data…you would not see any changes.
For example, listen: 40% of pre-Christians overspend each month. - One in five of those who do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior are thinking about divorce.
- Moreover, as the matter of fact, more than half actually end up in divorce within the first 7-8 years. Again, they point to finances as the main problem that led to the fall of their marriage at least 90% of the time. And, here is an interesting side-point–there have some years, many years, when Christians actually had a 2% higher divorce rate than pre-Christians do. Now, how sad is that?
- And again, more pre-Christian data points: 40% have about $2k to $4k going out in interest every year.
- And the only difference the Christian and pre-Christian giving data, is where the money goes. Christians, who give, give into God’s Kingdom. Pre-Christians, who give, give the same percentages, but they give to non-Christian organizations—good organizations—like the United Way, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, the Red Cross, and many others.
The question I need to ask you right now, my friend, is this: Given this data, (which you can go back to our website and check out) based on all of this data; can you tell the difference between Christian and the pre-Christian by the quality of their marriage and how they handle their finances? Can You? I don’t think so. Unfortunately, this data—these statistics—show that, most of the time, the answer is “No,” you cannot tell the difference—you cannot tell the difference and I think that’s a real shame.
Some of this may hit home to you and some of it may not. But, I hope you can begin to see that there is a great reason for all of us, for each of us, for you, my friend, to begin to talk about and to learn about money, to talk and learn about material management. But, do you know what? Actually, as we begin to talk about money, you are going to begin to see that we are not REALLY talking about money at all. What we are really going to be talking about is just another area of your relationship with God.
So, you can see can’t you, that you really do have a whole lot more in common with other Christians and even the pre-Christian community than you might first imagine.
Now this being the case, according to the Bible, what are two good reasons for you to get serious about looking at your finances from God’s perspective? Ahhh, that’s next week—don’t’ miss it.
Dave Ramsey
Now, I’ve sure you have seen on TV, heard on the radio, read in the paper that there is a lot going on in the housing market today across the country and right here in our North Georgia and Western North Carolina mountains. The problem is that little of what we see, hear, or read matches or makes sense. Well, Dave Ramsey is just about to help make the housing market picture a whole lot clearer.
So, does that help you a bit if you are looking to either buy or sell a home…sure hope so. Thanks Dave.
Minute with Maxwell
Now, let’s start to wrap up our time together today with one of the highlights of all of our times together. Let’s spend a Minute with Maxwell as John Maxwell gives us his thoughts on the word, “Commitment.”
Commitment, what a great word that really fits well with our time together today. Thank your John Maxwell.
CONCLUSION
Now, well now it is time to close out our time together today but before we do, things, first, remember to head over to christianfinancialministries.org to relisten to or get a copy of today transcript. And second, as we close, well, let me close us out with a word of prayer., Father, we thank You for bringing us together and teaching and encouraging us again today, and for each of the days yet to come, to Your glory, in Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.
Have a great rest of your day won’t you, and we are looking forward to seeing you again next time as you continue down your personal road to financial freedom God’s way.
