Unstuck: The Debt Trap | Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Last week we asked this question: how do you get unstuck in the significant areas of life?

Just a forecast a little bit ahead.

Week four, we're going to talk about loneliness and friendship.

Week five, how to get unstuck in relational conflict.

Week six, unstuck when it comes to work and stress, work-life balance and demands.

Today and next week, we're going to spend two weeks on this subject.

We did a survey in the fall asking what's been most difficult for you this year.

The number one answer was anxiety.

We're going to do a whole series around that later on in the spring.

The second thing that came up, the pressures and the demand, was this area of finances.

Just financial pressures, stress, overwhelm.

And we want to wrestle with this today.

How do you get unstuck financially?

We live, it's uh there's economic uncertainty, inflation, so just rising interest rate, housing market, just it's just still crazy.

And tech layoffs.

How do you get unstuck financially?

And really, this question can you really experience financial freedom in the Silicon Valley?

Like in the midst of all of that, can you really experience freedom financially?

Now, before we dive into this conversation, or as we do, uh it's important to like uh build this one kind of fundamental idea when it comes to our finances.

And it's simply this personal finances are more personal than financial.

Your personal finances are far more personal than they are financial.

And this is what makes it actually really difficult for us to talk about, to be open about, to get help in.

Because it it feels so very personal.

It feels exposing, doesn't it?

Feels threatening.

There's things that we go like, no, no, no, I'll just kind of hide that.

Personal finance are deeply emotional, aren't they?

Even as we begin to talk about uh finances today, it's like that comes with this feeling of stress for some walked-in pressure, feeling maybe discouraged, defeated, overwhelmed.

Uh, it brings, can bring deep anxiety, right?

Personal finances are more personal than they are financial.

And so, as we dive into this, I want you just to simply go, okay, acknowledge that reality and go, okay, Heavenly Father, would you speak to me?

Would you break down some of my defenses and my barriers?

Because I really need some help.

Today we're going to dive into the subject I'm calling the debt trap.

The debt trap.

America is a nation in debt.

You've heard of doom scrolling, but what we've begun doing is doom spending.

96% of Americans are concerned with the state of the economy, but continue to spend more and save less.

73% of Gen Z would rather live in the moment than cut spending.

What the result is we're ultimately undercutting our future.

And there's this feeling of stress and anxiousness and discouragement.

Total credit card debt in the U.S.

has risen to$1.2 trillion.

Average per household, not per person, per household, is$20,000 of credit card debt.

49% of Americans carry debt month to month on at least one card.

Now, to understand the impact of that, think about this.

Interest rates right now have skyrocketed.

They're at 20.74%, making the minimum payments on an average credit card balance, which is around$6,000 per credit card.

It would take more than 17 years to pay off the debt and cost more than$9,000 in interest on that$6,000 loan.

Anybody's stress starting to go up already?

Okay.

All right, yeah.

Total student loan debt$1.6 trillion.

Average student loans is about$55,000.

Total auto loan debt is$1.6 trillion.

Average household uh has uh spends about$35,000 in debt.

Uh, Fortune magazine said consumers have been propping up the U.S.

economy when no one else could.

Now the debts are being called and they can't pay their bills.

Now here's the incredibly good news.

If you walked in stuck financially, if you walked in stressed financially, if you if you walked in and um, well, there's more months at the end of your paycheck.

You've run to the end of your paycheck, but there's still days and you're trying to figure out how to get through it, and you live under this pressure.

If there is this sense that your financial pressure is impacting the relationships that matter most, it's becoming arguments and fights maybe with your spouse or uh with your friends.

The good news is God wants to help you.

The good news is God wants to help you get unstuck.

In fact, did you know in the book of Proverbs, somewhere around 130 Proverbs are all on finances?

That's roughly about 14% of the entire book of Proverbs.

And even the entire, well, the Bible, about a little over 2,500 verses on finances alone.

Jesus is teaching the parables, roughly 40% of his parables were on finances.

And here's the thing: God knows that finances, your personal finances, are more personal than it is financial, and it impacts you personally, and he wants to help you.

And there's hope today to get out of the debt trap.

And uh when I was uh newly married, uh, we were living in Chicago, I was finishing up school, and then I was part-time at a church, and Jenny and I were part of this small group, it was right downtown, as part of our um church, and they did this financial series, and I remember this still to this day.

This set us up so well as we started off our marriage, and then they had us memorize this verse, and so we're like in our small group reciting it to each other and learning more about God's wisdom for our finances and how to steward our finances well.

And this was the verse they had us memorize.

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

Will you go ahead and say that with me?

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

In fact, we're gonna be memorizing this together.

I'm asking you to, you can do this just today during our time, you know, the few minutes we're together, right?

But would you review it daily, keep it in front of you?

Now, here's what the wisdom of God says.

Because in our day, the way we think about debt, consumer debt and even credit card debt, is this idea that it is a pathway to freedom.

It's the pathway and opens doors and unlocks things that we were unable previously to get, to have.

And what he's saying here is not that debt is necessarily prohibited or wrong, but we ought to be very cautious in accumulating or acquiring debt.

Why?

Because debt fundamentally, at some point, isn't necessarily this pathway per se to freedom, but it can very, in very reality, become a chain to bondage, can't it?

And that's where I think many of us have walked in.

Why is it, by the way?

Why is it that smart people get stuck in the debt trap?

Silicon Valley is filled with some of the smartest and the brightest, above average people.

You're an above-average church.

But why is it so many of us get caught in this debt trap?

I mean, we just read the stat that roughly uh$1.2 trillion in just credit card debt alone.

Well, I want to give us four big reasons we get into this trap and then applications along the way to help us break free.

The first big reason for we get stuck in the debt trap is stinking thinking.

Stinkin' thinking.

Go ahead, turn to your neighbor, say that's some stinking thinking.

The reality when it comes to our finances is um we've either either received bad advice or we never got any good direction to begin with.

And most of us, many of us, didn't have family that taught us how to steward our finances well.

Let me give you some examples of some stinking thinking.

Well, well, one one might be um, I apologize, but this is what it's called.

Um, girl math.

Have you heard?

If something is a hundred dollars and it's thirty percent off, let me ask you a question.

Did you save money?

Did you make I heard a yes, did you make money?

Or did you spend money?

See, there's there's thinking thinking that like, hey, you know what?

It's 30% off.

I saved money.

I saved$30.

Here's the other thing.

This is crazy though.

Some of you are like, I made money.

I did, I made it.

Because this this this is$100, I got it for$70.

It's stinking thinking.

The reality is, is you spent$70.

You didn't save money, you spent money.

They're stinking thinking.

Let me give you a few others.

Uh, there is a popular way to purchase things now.

Uh, the acronym or the initials is BNPL.

Buy now, pay later.

This is now being called Phantom Debt because it's actually not uh regulated right now by uh the overarching credit bureaus, so they really have no idea how much uh there is out there, and so it's not being regulated for your own sake, whether you can get this or not.

It's roughly experts think it's growing about 14% annually in our nation.

Buy now, pay later.

What a great idea.

By the way, in the old days they had layaway.

Layaway, you just didn't get it and you paid for it, and you just added to it until you could pay for it and bring it home.

Now it's by now, I'm gonna take it home and then I'll pay later.

And the problem is we're paying.

We're paying later far more, and it's killing us.

Uh, another one when it comes to stinking thinking is uh for some, when it comes to building your credit, you thought carrying a balance on your credit card actually builds credit.

It doesn't.

It doesn't, it just makes you pay interest.

Okay?

There's just things along this line.

Paying the minimum.

Like, well, all I need to do is pay the minimum.

Look at this.

I can buy all these sort of things, and the minimum is only$20.

The minimum's only$40.

Yes, I got$2,000, and you don't realize 20% charge there.

It's stinking, thinking, and it's killing us.

Proverbs 3, 13 through 15 says this blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields a better return than gold.

She is more precious than rubies.

Nothing you desire can compare with her.

Now, here's what the Proverbs saying and telling us wisdom is more valuable than wealth.

In fact, for many of us where we're stuck financially, the answer and the solution often isn't making more.

Or like when I make more.

The problem is when you make more, you spend more because you didn't change any of your habits.

Smart people know the right things to do, wise people do the right things.

Wisdom is far more valuable than wealth.

And so instead of trying to wear yourself out to make more, would you spend your energy, your effort into becoming wiser?

Because it will pay off in the end.

And so here's the application.

Would you be an avid learner and then get into awakening small group?

And yes, this is gonna be a commercial right now for an awakening small group.

Here we go.

Just like when my wife and I we started off, we got in a small group, we began to talk finances, and it set us up.

And here's what I'm excited about is as we do this together as a church, we actually invested in a curriculum for us to grow as a church.

Because you said this is one of the big areas, this is one of the big pain points, this is the big stressor.

And I get it, the Silicon Valley.

It cost a lot here.

And so we invested uh in this curriculum freed up.

It comes with an incredible app, and it's app driven, and then it has this workbook.

And what's beautiful about the curriculum is it's not a one size fits all.

So some of you walked in and you're just you have a lot of consumer debt, and you're needing some help in how to get out of that.

Well, it's got to track for that.

Some of you are in the place where you know what, we have pretty good practices, but we want to learn and grow how to become better stewards and investors.

It's got a track for that.

Some of you are in a different stage where, wow, you've done really well in life and you have extra, you know, uh discretionary funds.

It's got a track for that.

In fact, it takes through the app this this great um assessment to help uh tailor the content to you.

Would you get in a small group?

Would you grow in community?

Yes.

Personal finances far more personal than financial.

Would you personally get in a freed up community and grow this year?

Why?

Because wisdom is far more valuable than wealth.

Uh, the first thing that's keeping us stuck in the debt trap is stinking thinking.

The second is unexpected storms.

Life happens.

And life happens at the most unconvenient worst times, doesn't it?

It's the hospital bills, the health crisis, the car breaks down, the loss of your job.

64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

58% bridge the gap of making ends meet with their credit card.

57% of Americans can't afford a thousand dollar emergency.

If that emergency costs$1,000, they're gonna have to put it on a credit card.

68% are worried they couldn't cover expenses for one month.

Gen Z, by the way, 85% of Gen Z very concerned that they about covering a financial emergency expense.

Millennials, 79% are.

Proverbs 22, 23 says, be sure to know the condition of your flocks.

Give careful attention to your herds.

Now, this isn't talking like pastorally flocks, well, past different pastoral.

Yeah, you know what I mean.

This is talking financially.

That was the basis of your wealth in the ancient day.

For riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations.

You don't just assume because you have it, you always always have it.

You make plans, you make preparation.

Unexpected storms happen.

And so, application.

Before you spend on your wants, save for a rainy day.

Before you spend on your wants, save for a rainy day.

Now that begs the question: what is the difference between a want and a need?

I'm so glad you asked.

Because we are going into debt, we are becoming slaves of debt.

Because of our wants.

Because of our wants.

Now let me tell you how this gets confused.

A year ago, um, I needed to buy a new TV.

You don't even flinch.

Does anyone need to buy a new TV?

Does anyone need to buy a TV?

Does anyone need a new phone?

Someone said that begrudgingly, by the way.

No.

We confuse our needs and our wants.

Our needs are our basic necessities.

Food, water, shelter.

But then we're like, okay, well, I want to look this way.

I want to drive this.

I want to, you know, be able to go out to eat here.

And those are all fine.

Those are all good things.

There's nothing bad or wrong with that.

But when we're caught in the debt trap before you spend on your wants, save for a rainy day.

Now, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to save$1,000 as quickly as you can.

Some of you that you already have this.

Wonderful.

Give yourself a pat on the back.

Many of us in this room, you don't have$1,000 saved up.

Now, you don't save it up and then you have something that you really want and you spend it.

No, you just hold it there.

It's an emergency fund.

It's for a rainy day.

It's for when the car breaks down.

It's for when there's a medical bill.

And you can get to a hundred or a thousand dollars really quickly.

I mean, even if you can only do a hundred dollars a month, how long will it take you to get a thousand dollars?

Not a trick question.

Ten months.

So by the end of the year, you feel strapped, you could figure this out.

The second thing I want you to do is build a three-month emergency fund.

This is gonna take much longer.

But do this because many people, and then we had this in this uh the tech layoff, what is that had been happening?

And then there's this uncertainty, concern.

You just begin to put this away and save for a rainy day.

Uh the first reason we get stuck in the debt trap is stinking thinking, the second is unexpected storms, the third is the imposter syndrome.

The imposter syndrome.

This is the high cost of looking good.

This is keeping up with the Joneses.

And by the way, this is fascinating.

This is a human thing, not a modern thing.

Notice what the proverbs 13, 7 says.

One person pretends to be rich yet has nothing.

Another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.

And today, this generation at 20 wants to live at a level that it took the previous generations 20 years to get to.

We want to be able to travel, we want to be able to go to these uh dining, you know, find dining.

Jeez, man, the Instagram blowing up on the food scene is incredible.

And where you're traveling is unbelievable.

But if it's going on the credit card, it's under ultimately undermining your financial future.

Another proverb says, Proverbs 21:17 says, Whoever loves pleasure will become poor, whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich.

Proverbs 21:17

There's this great book.

It's an older book.

It's been uh uh reproduced.

What is it when you reproduce reprint?

Anyways, forget it.

Uh it's called The Millennium The Millionaire Next Door.

I encourage you, if you're interested in what we're talking about, just read.

It's not a Christian book by any means.

Um, The Millionaire Next Door and his premises is that those who are actually have wealth, who are millionaires, they often don't look like your typical millionaire.

And the people who look at, they they drive the G-Wagon, they they wear the fit, they're traveling, they're posting, they're actually quite poor.

They're overextended.

The millionaire next door wears pretty plain clothes, drives a generally a beat-up old car, uh, lives in a modest house, owns all of these things, and ultimately, fundamentally, uh lives below their means, saves regularly, and invests wisely.

We'll talk more about that next week.

The imposter syndrome.

It's keeping up with the Joneses.

It's I have to, you know, drive this, go here, eat there.

I mean, just I I'm amazed, okay, I'm getting on a little soapbox.

I'm amazed about the shoe game.

This is crazy.

I my I have some boys that are really into shoes, one in particular, so I'm learning about it.

And like the shoe game is crazy.

Right?

Some of you don't know.

I mean, the Nikes and like uh the the what is it, the Jeezy?

No, no, uh huh?

Yeezys, thank you.

The Yeezys and Miles, he he'll point these out.

We'll be walking around, he's like, that's a$700 pair of shoes.

That's a$1,000 pair of shoes.

He's got he knows all these things, and looking at it, and I'm like, why are you wearing that out?

Go invest it somewhere, stop wearing it on your feet.

But here's what happens we earn and consume, and we earn and consume, and so we're stuck on this earn-consume treadmill.

And we can never get ahead.

Is the problem the high cost of living or the cost of high living?

Is it right?

So the application, stop buying things you can't afford.

I know it's simple, it's so obvious, but just stop buying things you can't afford.

What if you before you bought it, you asked, can I afford it?

Not can I put it on credit, not can I pay little installments over the course of time.

Can I actually afford this?

All right, what keeps us stuck in the debt traps, stinking thinking, unexpected storms, imposter syndrome?

Finally, if imposter syndrome wasn't enough, death by subscription.

Death by subscription.

Uh the subscription economy has become the new way uh in our day.

In 2021, it was a$72 billion industry globally.

Last year, 2023, is$165 billion.

Experts are estimating by 2026 it will be$902 billion industry.

This is the way uh industry is moving, and and it makes sense because if I tell you the full cost of something up front and you have to pay for it, then you have to actually count the cost.

But if I can tell you for$999, and then what experts are telling us is not only is it advantageous, but it takes advantage of the um inattentive uh consumer.

And how many of you okay, let's get personal.

Uh, yesterday the NFL um I heard an oomph, right?

Because Peacock, Peacock, they they showed the NFL uh playoff game, and some of you don't even care.

That's wonderful, good for you, you're more godly.

Uh, they showed the NFL game on Peacock, and how many were like, I'm I'm I'm gonna subscribe.

I'm gonna subscribe.

They're gonna give me a free month, and they give you that free month or the free three months, and what do you do?

You forget.

And then there's this death by subscription.

We have so many subscriptions that are ongoing that you totally forgot about, and that you are being nickel and dimed to death.

Uh Proverbs 13, 11 says, dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers it little by little makes it grow.

The problem is we tend to overvalue the big and undervalue the little.

It's just a little thing.

Uh, when we were first married, you know, you're in the honeymoon phase and we came back.

We uh one day, many of you know the story of we had the honeymoon from hell.

That's a fun story.

This is for another day.

Um, but we get back from our honeymoon and you're still kind of in the honeymoon, you know, glow, and I I like mochas, and so I was having a mocha from Starbucks every day.

Yeah, wow.

Talk about a way to get poor quick.

But we don't think about it.

I I did the quick math.

Um so if you have a coffee, daily coffee habit, anywhere between five and ten dollars uh at the five dollar rate, uh, that's eighteen hundred doll annually.

At the ten dollar rate, that's thirty, six hundred dollars in change annually.

It just adds up.

And we don't pay attention to it, and it just gets leaked out of our wallet.

We tend to overvalue the big and undervalue the little.

We'll talk more about that when it comes to investing next week.

Application, sweat the small stuff.

Sweat the small stuff.

Application, go through your subscriptions.

Especially, by the way, if you are in consumer credit debt and you're going like, I'm just paying the minimum.

Go through your subscription.

By the way, uh, you don't need an Apple account, Netflix account, a YouTube account, um, a Peacock account, Disney, thank you.

Um anyway, come on, come on.

Hulu, Cinemark, Cinemark, whatever, Cinemark, Spotify.

Yeah.

I mean, think about how many there are.

And on average, when you spend with a credit card instead of cash, you spend 10 to 15% more than you would.

So we just automatically are spending more.

When it's one quick away, when it's one swipe away, when Amazon says just swipe your finger that way, I'm like, hello, yeah, deliver tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

And we just get caught up in this.

Okay?

Why do smart people get stuck in the debt trap?

Well, there's four big reasons.

One, stinking thinking, unexpected storms, imposter syndrome, and then death by subscription.

Here's what I want us to do this week, all right?

Memorize Proverbs 22, 7.

The rich rule over the poor, the borrower is slave to the lender.

Get in a group, get in a group, sign up today.

And then if you are in the debt trap, would you make getting out of destructive debt your number one priority this year?

Man, I know some of you are just you you walked in heavy.

It's the stress living paycheck to paycheck, like not knowing if you're gonna be able to cover if something happens.

It's a lot.

And here's what I just want to close with you.

There's hope.

Because I one of the big emotions that we feel when we're caught in the debt trap is discouragement and defeatedness.

I'll never get out.

I'm stuck.

This is just the way it is.

I remember years ago, I was meeting with a uh a young man, he was in his mid-20s, and I'm not even sure how the subject of finances got up, but we started talking about it and uh talk about like he just had never been told, and you know, he didn't know kind of some of the financial things.

No one ever taught him.

And and uh he had recently got some money, some not quite inheritance, but a sum of money, and he he had you know three or so credit cards, and then he had a car payment.

Well, he's like the car payment's bigger, I'm gonna pay that all off.

And he did.

And then we had that conversation.

I said, Well, actually, the percentage that you have to pay on your car payment is so much lower, and your credit card's charging you 20%.

Let's pay that off first.

Well, then we began to work on that, you know, and honestly, I asked him, like, how long do you think it'll take you to get out of credit card debt?

And he's like, I don't know, long time.

And said, Okay, well, let's just start.

And we did something called the debt snowball.

And actually, if you're going through Freed Up, they'll talk through it where you take the smallest uh debt that you have, the smallest credit card, you attack it, you get it done first, and then you take whatever you're spending on that and roll that into your next credit card, and you just build some good momentum.

So we're doing that.

But but it was interesting as I remember walking in seeing him, uh, and we're working on getting out credit card debt, and I noticed he had a brand new uh iPhone and then and then brand new shoes.

And I'm like, man, why wait, you have a brand new iPhone and brand new shoes.

How did you pay for that?

Well, on my credit card.

And here's the reality is those are just habits that we have, and we live in a culture that says you need what's new.

You gotta have what's new.

What's old is obsolete.

You need the next new thing.

And so I said, God, God, you gotta stop that.

Okay, and he got it.

And what felt overwhelming, impossible, like this is just a way of life.

It was incredible.

Six months later, he was dead free.

And for some of you, that's the word of hope you need.

Because just getting started feels like a lot, doesn't it?

And I get it.

But get started.

What I like to say is don't delay what you can do today.

Get started.

There's hope and you can get free of the dead trap.

Won't you stand and we'll pray?

Oh Jesus, thank you that you do not leave us on our own to figure things out and actually you want us to flourish.

And when it comes to this deeply personal issue of our finances, you want us to flourish.

God, I just pray for my friends today, especially that walked in, just under that weight, the pressure, it feels maybe insurmountable, but breathe hope, breathe life.

And would you give them the wisdom to know what to do?

That means doing the right thing and the courage to do it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

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