Margin and Wisdom | The Almighty Dollar S5 E3

Welcome to the Islands Christian Church podcast.

Subscribe to hear a new episode every week.

Thanks for joining us. You know, when we were in

school, if you remember going to school, do you remember notebook

paper? Do you guys remember notebook

paper? You'd buy in like 2 packs

OF200250 and and you had college ruled and standard ruled.

And I, I was one of those kids that never had enough paper.

So I was always like, can I borrow a sheet of paper?

Did you ever have friends like that in school?

Can I borrow a sheet of paper? Can I get a sheet of paper?

I was that friend. Sorry, I never, I never, I

didn't have pencils in that paper.

I don't know what my parents were thinking.

I mean, I don't know, like this today, it's like if you don't

have school supplies, like, I don't know how that's even

possible. But back then, you know, you

just, we just got on the bus and went to school, like, hey, I'm

here now. And so if you remember like

notebook paper, when you would get it, there were these little

lines on the side of the notebook paper.

Do you remember what those were called?

Margins, Right, Margin lines. Those are margin lines.

And you were not supposed to write over here in the margin.

You're supposed to write in between the margins.

That's the way it's supposed to work.

And there was always some kind of loony kids that would write

over like across the whole page. You remember those kids, they

would just write everything across the whole page.

Like I was not one of those kids.

I mean, they were, you know what I mean?

So love them. But you know, it's weird because

you're supposed to write in between the margins, right?

That's what you're supposed to do.

You guys know the the origin of margins, where they came from.

I didn't know this till this week.

I learned it because I was interested.

When you're a preacher, you ask weird questions because you have

to talk a lot. And so it's like, I wonder where

margins, I wonder where the idea of margins came from.

And according to Google. So take that for what it's

worth. According to Google, the margins

were invented to protect the printed material in a book from

mice when they started chewing on the book.

So they assumed that as they would store books, that

eventually mice would get to the books and they would chew the

edges of the pages. And so the margins would protect

the most important part of the book, which was the printed

words. Isn't that interesting?

And margin works the same way in our lives, in our financial life

specifically. Margin in your financial life is

there to help you. So this is what we're talking

about today. When we create margin in our

financial life, we are more likely to be patient, listen for

God's wisdom, and trust His ways.

In other words, margin gives you room to listen.

Margin gives you room to listen. That's what we're going to be

unpacking today. We're in this series called The

Almighty Dollar, and we're we're just walking through biblical

understanding of managing money. And I know that we don't like to

talk about money in church. It feels weird.

It's like you shouldn't talk about money.

You shouldn't talk about politics, but you shouldn't talk

about all these things in church.

But no, the Bible talks about money a lot.

Jesus talked about money second behind the Kingdom of God.

Like money showed up in his conversations and his stories a

lot. And I think sometimes because

the church is silent on money, that people end up just managing

their money poorly because they don't realize that the Bible

speaks to this. And so that's what we're doing

today is we're talking about margin.

Because let me tell you why margin.

I think margin is important. You know, if you don't have

margin in your life financially, you don't have any margin, then

everything you face financially is an emergency.

Everything, like everything, every light bill, every water

bill, every tank of gas, every single thing becomes an

emergency. If you don't have margin, but if

you have margin in your financial life, then almost

nothing will seem like an emergency.

Almost nothing will seem like an emergency.

It would take something catastrophic for you to feel a

sense of urgency or an emergency.

The situation that you're going through may be exactly the same.

The only difference is literally how much margin you have in your

finances. That's literally the only thing

that makes a difference. So here's a text this morning.

Proverbs chapter 21 verses 20. Proverbs chapter 21 verse 20.

Proverbs 21:20 Proverbs 21:20

If you want to flip over there very quickly, the right of

Proverbs is most of the Proverbs are written by Solomon.

It's wise king, you know, considered to be the wisest

person that's ever lived. And so the Proverbs are full of

just wise sayings that it be taken in one verse at a time.

And I often say you could read 1 chapter of Proverbs a day and do

it for 30 days and you're going to be a smarter person just from

doing that. And so here's what Proverbs

Proverbs 21:20

chapter 21, verse 20 says. It says the wise store up choice

food and olive oil, but fools got theirs down.

We just read it again. The wise store up.

That's a key idea this morning. The wise store up choice food

and olive oil, but fools gulp, there, there's down.

So here's the idea. Here's the main point.

If you want to write this down, this is what we're trying to,

you know, for you to carry with you today.

Is this right here. Margin gives us space to trust

God's wisdom. Margin gives us space to trust

God's wisdom. The problem isn't that, you

know, most of us aren't living with margin.

I mean, you know, the stats, like it's some crazy percentage

of people in America that live paycheck to paycheck.

A crazy percentage of people have no savings at all.

And a large percentage of people have zero savings for their

retirement. Large percentage of people have

nothing for retirement. It's not that our problem is

this right here, most of us are living without margin, margin.

And what that means is then we're living with lots of

pressure. Those two things go hand in

hand. When you don't have margin in

your finances, you're going to have lots of pressure in your

life. It's going to you're going to

feel it all the time. So here's an idea this morning

if you want to jot this down, urgency and pressure leave no

room for wisdom. Urgency and pressure leave no

room for wisdom for many of you, as you're listening to the

sermon, it's hard for you to even imagine storing up for your

future. Like you're like, Steve, I don't

even know how I would store up or how I would create margin for

some of you who don't have any margin.

And everything you're facing feels urgent and everything

you're going through feels high pressure.

And here's what happens. And you can you can stand up and

testify about this if you want to.

Here's what happened. Because you have no margin,

because everything is high pressure and everything is high

stress, you end up making all your decisions quickly because

you're urgent, because it's an emergency.

Well, a hindrance to trusting God's wisdom is impatience.

If you're not patient, you can't trust God's wisdom.

OK, so just in my life I will have a situation come up

financially, a situation like just recently had a car that

broke down, needed an alternator.

I don't want to do it myself. I could have but I watched a few

videos on it and I thought to myself I'm going to have to

repent a lot after I do this job.

I might have to go to confession.

I don't know like this will not be good.

And so I took it to a shop and they gave me a price on doing it

that was just like, absolutely. And I wanted to put a Honda

alternator on it, $1000. The car's worth 3 grand tops.

I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing that, you know what I mean?

Like enjoy. And so the car just kind of sat

at their shop. I asked him to charge it.

I'll come get it. I'm, you know, bring it home.

And I just waited patiently. Now we can do that because we

have other junk sitting around. You know, some of you don't have

that luxury. And I understand that.

So this is my story, not yours. And if you drive old cars, you

have to have a lot of them. That's a rule, all right?

Because there's always 1 broke down, all right.

And so I waited patiently. Mary is a little, I think, I

think she was a little kind of like, what are we going to do?

And I'm like, I'm just kind of, you know, Lord's going to let

you know. And she actually had the idea.

She goes on with car buddy so and so and you know, God, we

know that works on. I said that's a good idea.

So I messaged him texting back. He said, Oh yeah, man, that that

job only calls for a .8 of an hour, 8 tenths of an hour.

I'll put it on for you for 80 bucks.

I was like how about 100? I'll get it to you.

And so I won't tell you the rest of the details, but there are

other details how I got the, the alternator on it warrantied out.

But OK. So the reason that I could be

patient in that moment was because I had margin.

We have that. So the margin wasn't just extra

money, The margin was an extra car.

You see what I'm talking about. So like we had, we had a way to

kind of get around. We weren't like, Oh, no, you

know, now, don't get me wrong. It's not an extra Maserati.

It's it's like a extra old stuff.

But, but the, the point being is that because there was margin

there, I could be patient. I could wait and kind of see how

things would unfold. I could, I could pray.

I mean, I literally prayed. You're thinking like you prayed

about your alternator. You wouldn't pray about your

alternator. It's $1000.

Like you don't think God cares about your $1000?

Like, like you think I was like, ah, man, Stephen, I don't care

about that. Just give him 1000 bucks and

move on with your life. I don't think so.

Like Jesus, you going to make, I don't have to make more money if

we going to do that kind of stuff.

Are you all right? So, so of course God cares about

that decision. So I'm at, I'm talking to him,

I'm praying. I'm just like, you know, I'm not

like, like, you know, again, this is not like a religious

thing where you got to like do something weird.

I'm just like talking to God, like, just like God, like, I

mean, I, I ain't got to get this car running.

I need to figure this out. Can you kind of just lead me in

this kind of help this not hurt as bad?

Crazy thing, I did like a little side hustle thing and made 300

bucks. And so I wouldn't pay my buddy

who's doing the job I just pulled out from that 300 bucks,

gave him $100 bill. Like God, like patient, patient.

OK, so you, if you'd, the only way I could be patient was

because I had margin. If you don't have margin, you

can't be patient. You got to move.

And So what do you So in that situation, what would be the

opposite? Oh, we got to have this car.

We have it now. I mean, thinking back to last

week's sermon, hey, you know what, let's just put on a credit

card and we'll figure it out later.

Now, remember what we said last week that feels like you're

solving a problem, but you're actually not solving a problem.

You just create, you're pushing the pressure down the road.

You're going to face the pressure later, and you're

probably not going to have margin then either.

And so it's so like margin. What margin does for you is it?

It removes the urgency and the emergency out of most situations

and lets you be patient. It's interesting to me that the

writer Proverbs doesn't tell us the whys have more.

See, what we all think is that people with margin just earn

more and have more. And that's true to some extent

for some people. But I know lots of people who

have high earning capacities who don't have any margin.

They spend everything they earn. They earn a lot of money and

they spend a lot of money. They don't have any margin

whatsoever. The proverb, what the proverb

says is it's not that the wise have more or earn more.

It says that the wise hold back a little, they hold back a

little, they store up. And So what does that mean

practically? What are we talking about?

It's it's a simple financial term.

Everybody should know what I'm talking about.

It's called saving. Can we all say that together?

123 saving it feels hurtful to say right?

As Americans we're like, I mean, do we have to saving?

You know, why do we save? Do we save because money is the

goal. Like we've got to like we got to

just have more money. Is that why we save?

No, having money is not the goal.

Having margin is the goal. Why is margin the goal so that

we can be patient and listen and obey God's wisdom.

That's so we don't we don't save so we can amass more we and find

our security in our safety and money.

We save because margin creates space to listen for God's

wisdom. Proverbs chapter 6.

Proverbs 6 · chapter mention

So if you want to flip to Proverbs chapter 6 verse 6

Proverbs 6:6–8

through 8, the proverb writer says this.

It says go to the Ant, you sluggard, which I love.

The word sluggard isn't a good one.

Like you sluggard. I think it means like you lazy

bum, be like you bum. Go to the Ant, you bum.

Consider its ways and be wise. OK, what are its ways?

Well, it has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores

its provisions in summer and gathers its food and harvest.

In other words, instinctively. What the Proverbs writer is

saying is like instinctively it makes a choice to prepare for

the future. It holds back.

The Ant holds back. And the parallel that the

proverb writers trying to say is like you do have a commander,

you do have a ruler, like you do have a king.

How much more do does the wisdom of holding back and preparing

for the future apply to us? So here's the thing, the way we

move financially is you can spend everything you earn and

just have 0 margin and live that life.

And there are plenty of people who live that life.

Or the way you move financially can be, I'm going to save some

of the resources I earn. I'm not going to spend

everything I have so that in the future I'm prepared for things

that come along. So we call those emergency

funds. You've heard of this before,

have an emergency fund. So if you're, you know, young,

especially, you know, if you're in the room, like my advice to

you, whatever you want to call young, my advice to you is as

quick as you can save $1000 is what Dave Ramsey says.

As quick as you can save $1000, save $1000.

And then as quick as you can put up a month's worth of expenses

and then two months worth of expenses and three months worth

of expenses. Then do that.

Like as quick as you can do that because that margin isn't where

you find your safety and security.

That margin creates space for you to be able to listen for

God's wisdom. And if you're, you got to save,

it's got to be part of your financial movement.

Now for those of us who are not as young, we need to be doing

those things and something else. And I've been thinking about

this because I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I'll

be 50 in a couple weeks. I know I don't look a day over

37. I get that all the time.

It's fine, it's fine. I know.

But you know, guess what I'm thinking about from time to time

now as I creep upon 50 and retire, Am I going to be up?

Now for some of us, we're like, I'm never going to retire.

I say that sometimes I'll say like, I'm I'm going to, I'm just

going to keep working. I'm but there'll come a day

where I won't be able to work. And so even if you're kind of

going, I'm not going to retire, I'm going to work.

Well, there will come a day in everybody's life where you just

won't be able to work, like you just won't have the capacity.

You also don't know what might happen to your health.

You know, you, you might have, you might face a health crisis

in your mid 60s that you never dreamed possible.

You never thought what happened. You were planning to work well

into your 70s and your mid 60s. A health crisis comes and you

can't. And so my point is, is that

there's a saving mechanism that has to happen for that as well.

So built into what the Ant, like the the text about the Ant, like

one of the things that unless we die early, most of us are going

to grow old. Most of us are going to grow to

a point where one day we cannot work anymore.

We just can't. The Ant is like, hey, that day

is coming, bro. What are you doing about it?

How are you preparing now? This isn't intended to shame you

or make you feel like, oh gosh, I'm behind the 8 ball.

It's just meant to say like, the Bible speaks to this stuff.

The Bible's not silent on this stuff.

The Bible's the best financial teacher there is because it

tells us this type of stuff. You know, these verses are not

saying that people who save are just better than other people

that don't save. It's not saying that it's like

like that's kind of like the language we like to use in our

culture. Well, I'm better than you

because I save and you're you're not as good as me because you

don't say no, that's not how the Bible talks about this.

The Bible doesn't use like shame here and you know, guilt.

It doesn't kind of like point its finger us.

No, the Bible just kind of says, hey, look, there are behavioral

differences between people who are wise and people who are not

wise, and that's all. It's just those those practical

behavioral differences and one of those behavioral differences,

people who are wise store up some for the future, they store

up some for the future. They have different behavioral

patterns. That's it.

They're not. Their value isn't, they're not

more valuable. They're not less valuable.

They just, they just move differently.

Most of us don't have any financial margin, not because

we're foolish. That's not it.

It's not like you, just like it's not like you're I'm saying

things to you and you're going, man, I never thought about

having financial margin before. That's not why that that's not

why that doesn't exist in your life.

It's because life is complicated, bro.

And it's fast. And once you kind of get on the

train of urgency and emergency, you stay on the train of urgency

and emergency. And it's difficult to get off of

that train to to save and to create margin in our financial

lives. Now, it's definitely the wise

thing to do, but it's challenging.

It's hard. And here's the thing, what do,

what do we all as humans tend to do when things get hard?

We stop trying, we kind of quit. We're like, man, the reason that

the, the people who become successful and do these amazing

things of their lives, they were so enamored with them is because

when things got hard for them, they just didn't quit.

They just kind of kept going. And what, and me included, this

is all of us. We're all, you know, we're all

in this. When we face a little

resistance, we fold. They're like, ah.

And so for many of us, the idea of sitting here hearing the

sermon is saying we've got to get some margin.

It sounds like a daunting thing to accomplish, and I get it.

But what I'm telling you, the Bible teaches is that without

some margin, it's very difficult to have space to listen for

God's wisdom because everything feels urgent and everything

feels like an emergency. And you are the only one who can

solve it. When it feel, when you feel that

pressure, that's what you think. So margin tends to disappear.

Margin tends to get small in our financial lives.

And when that happens, wisdom goes quiet, not because God's

not God's still instructing you, God's still leading you, God's

still guiding you, but because of the pressure you're feeling

is drowning him out. OK, so the first idea this

morning was margin. If margin creates space for

wisdom and urgency and pressure kind of pushes that out, the

next question is really obvious for us.

Why does margin evaporate in our finances?

Why does that even happen? Like why is it so hard to create

margin? Let's go back to verse 20 and

read it again because it's in the text.

So the first thing the text says was the wise store up choice

food and olive oil. They store up, they save, they

create margin. Verse 20, chapter 21.

The next thing this proverb writer says is but fools.

The opposite of wise, but fools. Their behavior is not to store

up. Their behavior is to do what?

Say it loud. Gulp, there's down.

Gulp, there's down. So here's a simple number two

thing if you want to write this down.

Consuming everything removes margin.

Is that rocket science? You're like, this guy is a

financial guru, right? Consuming everything removes

margin. The Proverbs writer says that

gulping everything down is the reason margin evaporates, or

it's the reason that margin is difficult to generate, It's

difficult to maintain. The word is consumption.

We consume everything. If you consume everything,

you're gulping every down everything down.

So Simply put, let me just say this practically, you and I, if

we're going to create margin and have margin, we must live with

intentional predetermined limits or me say it differently,

predetermined intentional limits, in other words, limits

that you decided before the emergency, before the urgency,

before the paycheck came in, like before the year started,

some predetermined limits. And they're intentional, meaning

they, they have a point, they have a purpose.

You know what you're trying to accomplish.

This is difficult for us. We don't like to think about our

finances like looking way into the future and saying how are we

going to manage our finances this year in 2026?

What is going to be our intentional plan to limit what

we spend? We don't like to do this.

We're a culture in America that created this term Yolo.

What does Yolo mean? Here's a quiz.

What does Yolo mean? Go Nobody.

How many people went? I have no idea.

Good job. You got raised right, bro.

Your parents love you. I tell my kids all the time,

this isn't the only life you're going to get.

You're going to get a whole nother one.

There's a whole nother 1 coming. I mean like if you don't teach

your kids that like they're going to, they're going to adopt

Yolo. Why wouldn't you adopt Yolo if

you don't believe in another lot?

Anyway, that's another sermon. What am I doing?

Golly, we're the culture that came up with Yolo.

You only live once and you all knew it.

We're we're also the culture that does this.

We say that we say not as much anymore.

We say this. Hey, smoke them if you got them.

Smoke them if you got them. You know, we are like, you're

like, man, this guy's out there talking about smoking in church.

Smoke them if you got them. But most of us don't use that

language when we when we gulp everything down and we consume

everything we earn, the language we use is something like this.

You know, you got to live a little.

We got to have some fun. I say, who says, who says like,

where's that? Where's that at?

We got to have a little like even right now you're arguing

with me. You're like, well, you do have

to live a little, Steven. I mean, really you do, I don't

know, like this. That's the language we use.

So the, the income comes in and we go, we got to live a little

or you, you got to have some fun.

You got to, you have something. We got to have a little bit of

fun in our lives. But what, what ends up happening

is, yes, let's go on a vacation once a year or maybe once every

two years or whatever, but that turns into, you know, 2

vacations a year or three vacations a year.

That turns into a lot of multiple weekend trips.

In other words, the, the, the if, if it's not intentional and

predetermined and saved for, then it just grows and becomes

licensed. And next thing you know, your

emotions are guiding all your decision making and not your

predetermined plan. Does that make sense?

Does anybody relate with this? And so if I don't sit down and

write a predetermined plan and intentionally lay it out like

this is this is what we're going to do, then my emotions are

going to take over. And let's be frank, man, our

culture, this, the culture we live in does not encourage or

celebrate restraint. It just doesn't.

It just doesn't celebrate or encourage your strength.

In our culture, we celebrate and we congratulate and we advertise

consumption. If you buy this item, you will

be happy and you will be sexy and your life will be fulfilled.

If you can do this thing, go this place.

You ever get those Viking Cruise advertisements?

You guys get those in your mail, man, every time I get those, I'm

like, this is this is this is such a lie.

It's like that's all these people.

And I'm wondering why I'm getting, I guess I'm getting

closer to 50. That's why I'm getting them now,

you know, because it's always like older people that are in

the advertises. I'm always like, why are these

old people in this advertise? Like I'm like, oh, I'm getting

this maybe. Oh, oh, oh, wait a minute.

They're trying to get me to go on a Viking cruise.

I'm in the, I'm in the age group now.

I want to write them a letter and be like, I'm not in the age

group. Don't send me these anymore.

What is, you know, what is the, the price is crazy high and you

know you're going to spend a week on some river somewhere in

Europe. And I'm sure it's amazing.

I'm sure it's an awesome experience, but it's not going

to be the experience they're claiming.

It's going to be in the marketing, like in the marketing

they're claiming. It's going to be this rekindling

of relationship and it's going to be this beautiful time.

You know, it's just going to be absolutely perfect, but it's not

going to be that. It will be fun, it will be good,

but it's not going to be it's it's oversold.

Why is it oversold? To get me to part with my money.

That's everything. That's everything in culture is

trying to encourage you to part with your money to not save it.

For many of us, we earn money and our money is already

assigned to a location before we've ever even gotten it.

What I mean is when we get money, it's all it's already

got. Somewhere it has to go.

We don't even get to say where it gets to go.

It has to go there. And This is why many of us don't

have margin. We don't have intentional

limits. We don't have red lines that we

refuse to cross. We don't have it predetermined

to plan. Again, it's not that the wise

earn more. It's that the wise store up.

And there's no way to store up unless you limit your

consumption. It's just math.

It's math. It's not about hoarding.

It's not about living in fear. It's not, it's not about finding

your financial safety and money, but it's about how pressure,

it's about understanding how pressure and urgency works When

there is margin, because we store up, we are more likely to

trust God and obey his wisdom. So we have some margin to slow

down, to talk to Him, to listen to Him.

So how do you create limits? If you've got to have limits,

how do we create limits? There's really no secret mystery

here to having limits and creating margin.

You have to have a plan. And in our culture we call that

plan a budget, right? Call it a budget.

We have to decide ahead of time. We have to, we have to assign

where we want our money to go, what we're going to, what job

we're going to give it. Because if we don't create a

plan and we don't assign our money its job before we get it,

then we will just drift into emotional decisions and none of

our decisions will be intentional.

Budgeting is simply telling your money where to go instead of

wondering where it went. If you didn't write it down, you

don't have any margin. Budgeting is simply telling your

money where you want it to go instead of wondering where it

went. Have you ever had a little money

and then you wondered where it went?

That's what happens without an intentional plan.

Predetermined. A budget is not about

restriction. It's about intention.

A budget doesn't tell you what you can't do.

It helps you determine what it is you really want to do.

A lot of us aren't doing what we really want to do as it relates

to our finances because we haven't predetermined a plan for

our finances. We haven't thought through a

budget. And if we're being honest,

having a budget sounds restricting and kind of not fun.

But having a, I'm telling you, friend, there is no way for you

to have margin without a predetermined spending plan.

And there's no way for you to walk in constant trust and have

the patience to listen to the the wisdom of God and obey the

wisdom of God unless you have that margin.

And you won't have that margin without an intentional plan.

This is how critically important this is.

Limits help you protect what's most important.

And I'm going to say this to you really clearly, the most

important thing in my life, in your life is not amassing wealth

or getting money. The most important thing in my

life, in your life is obeying God and margin in your finances,

createspace to obey God. All right?

If you're sitting here and you know you don't have any margin

in your life, you might feel overwhelmed and defeated.

You might feel like it's too late.

You're never going to get this right or you don't even know how

you would get it right. Your financial, let me say this

very clearly to the all of you. Your financial management

skills, as good or as bad as they are, are not linked to your

value. They're not linked to your

salvation in God. They're not linked to how much

God values you or loves you. They're just not.

Your value is linked to the fact that Jesus Christ sat on the

cross for you and you are right with your heavenly Father

because he paid the price for you to be right with your

heavenly Father. So there's no shame here.

There's no sense of like God's mad at me.

It's not at all. This is this sermon in this

series is not about condemnation or about shame.

This sermon in this series is about an invitation inviting you

in to what God has for you. God through his word delivers to

us a better way to live. God through His word delivers to

us a better way to live, especially as it relates to our

finances. His wheat ways are indeed better

for us. So it's not about shame, It's

not about you feeling guilty. It's not about your value.

It's about an invitation. And usually when you hear

someone like this, you're like, you're looking at your spouse.

You're like, we're going to do it.

We're going to create some margin.

Here's the thing about margin. It is rarely generated quickly.

I mean, if you win the lottery, I would say that's a pretty

quick way to generate some margin, OK, you have a family

member leave you $10 million or even $100,000.

That's a quick way to leave create some margin.

But what I believe is that margin generated quickly usually

evaporates just as quickly, All right?

Margin in our financial lives is developed slowly over consistent

habits over a long period of time.

Because a quick, quick, quick presence of margin, like if you

just came in to me and said, hey, Steven, here's here's

$40,000 for you to have some margin, I would take it 100%.

I would. But because I've not had the

discipline that generates $40,000 of margin, I'm probably

going to spend it. You see what I'm saying?

So if you think, well, if I just had something big happened to

me, if I just had a windfall, then we'd have margin.

You wouldn't have it long. The real solution is good

habits, long term consistency, building margin over time.

The Bible says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear

of God. So let's think about that as it

relates to finances. All the fear of God.

All that means is that we're in all of God.

We're aware of God. We we respect God, we pay him

attention. So wisdom begins with being

aware that God cares how you live.

He cares about your money, He cares about where you spend it.

That's where wisdom begins. This doesn't mean that we're

going to have it all down or we're going to be perfect.

And it's just no, that means that at all.

It just means that we know that there is a God.

We respect this God and we pay attention to His ways.

His ways are better than ours. Here's another thing I want to

leave you with today. You don't have to fix everything

today. You don't have to leave today

and be like I'm fixing all of this.

No, you won't. You will be depressed, you will

be discouraged. You will look at your bank

account, you will look at your debt, and you will say it's

hopeless. Please don't leave and say we're

going to fix this today. No, what?

What I want to leave you with is a clear step you can do.

What if in the month of February, today's the 18th,

17th, What's today? I don't know, 18th?

What if in the month of February, it's the short month,

28 days? What if in the month of February

you tracked every dollar you spent?

Every single dollar. So like you literally like you

either use your notes app or a piece of paper and just

everything you spent, you wrote it down, ladies, gentlemen,

including the cash that you spent.

Because I know like we like to treat like, like cash is not

real money. Now you know, we're like, I had

this cash and I didn't know I had it.

Like I'll find $20 in my pockets and I'll be like, oh, this is

free money. Every dollar and you get to the

end of the month. Look at your notes.

Look at your bank statement and just track where did I spend my

money? Where did it go?

Record it for one month. Just write it down for one

month. That's it.

See what you learn. Don't judge it.

Don't shame yourself. Don't say, Oh my gosh, we eat

out too much, which we eat out too much.

I already know that I don't need to track it.

And then when you track it for one month, ask this question.

No shame, no judging yourself. Month of February, just say,

dear God, in our lives, in my life, is margin possible?

Is it possible? Could you help me find some

margin? That's it, That's your step.

Don't write a budget. Don't go home today and be like

we're doing this thing. Month of February, just track

every dollar you spend. Don't judge yourself, come to

the prayer and say God is margin possible.

Can you help me find some margin friends?

The wisdom that God is inviting you into doesn't start with math

or spreadsheets. Those will come later.

The wisdom God is inviting you into starts with honesty and

prayer. If you'll just be honest in

prayer to your Heavenly Father, He will meet you there with no

shame, no guilt, but with an open hand because He loves you.

It wants what's best for you. He gave His Son for you.

He will lead you to the margin that He knows you need.

Margin is not about having more. It's not about saving more.

Margins about having space ready.

Remember this at the beginning margins about having space,

space to listen, space to trust and space to live with peace

instead of pressure. Margin does that for you.

So here's your plan. February track every dollar and

then you pray with honesty. And who knows, by next February

you may come up to me and say, hey, we have a month's worth of

expenses saved, or we have two weeks worth of expenses saved.

That's possible. The freedom and the lack of

pressure will give you space to wait on God.

And what a beautiful gift that is.

Will you stand with me as I pray for us?

Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for our worship from

the band. I think you've got your word is

practical about all things. I hope that there's been no

shame felt today, no sense of reproach, but we would know that

we're invited into something you have for us.

You're never wagging your finger at us.

You're always drawing us in to a better way to live.

So give us the courage to do this job in February to track

every single dollar. And then just to ask you, can I

have margin here? Is it possible?

Will you help me? I love you.

Thank you for Jesus. And it's his name we pray.

Amen.