As we look at our personal financial situation, many of us find ourselves in pretty bad shape. We live paycheck-to-paycheck owing hundreds or thousands to credit card companies. The average credit card debt alone per person is some $9,000. Savings is at an all-time low and is negative 1%.

As you peruse your own personal financial situation would you compare yourself more to Donald Trump or Stanley Johnson. (Show video). I would dare say that most of us are “in debt up to our proverbial eyeballs.” The cry of our own hearts is “Who can help me?”

Most people are utterly surprised to discover that the Bible has a lot to say about personal financial matters. Those same people falsely believe that the Bible only talks about money that is to be given to the church. Jesus talked more about money and material possessions than he talked about prayer, faith and hell. Why? Because money and what money buys is central to our priorities and to our lives.

In his 2nd letter Peter is warning the early Christians about false teachers and their lies. Their words are smooth and sound so good. Like all sin it is pleasing to the eye. Peter is not too kind in his description of them: springs without water, their words are boastful and empty, they appeal to lustful desires of human nature, they promise freedom but deliver slavery instead.

Here is the key phrase in verse 19, … “for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.” Do you control your money or does it control you? Don’t answer too quickly because the truth is that very few of you control your own money. You think you do but you are actually deceived. Others control your money: your mortgage company, your car loan company, VISA, MasterCard, Sears, Circuit City, college loan company, and the list goes on!

Last week we began this series with “A” attitude. Having the right attitude toward our money is imperative if we are going to master it. Having a wrong attitude means that we will be in bondage to our money. That is the first ‘b’ of the ABCs of financial success—bondage. That is where most of us are—if we don’t have much and if we have a lot—our money controls us and we are slaves to our money! For those of us who have a lot of money, the danger is that we tend to hang on to it. We hoard it and save it for a rainy day, which never comes. We miss the joy of using it for God’s glory. But most of us are enslaved to our debts, which hang on us as real as if we were all bound up in chains. There is no freedom in debt.

Most of us however believe the lies of the world rather than the truth of God’s Word. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, the world and the devil temps us with that which pleases the eye and we bite! Our own flesh betrays us and the desires of our carnal hearts desire bigger, better, faster, newer, stronger, smaller, ‘be the first on your block to own one’ mentality. In and of itself the material things of this world are not bad. But when we go into debt deeper and deeper in order to brag, or because we ‘need’ a new truck, or a big screen television, or that cruise to Tahiti then we are in bondage. It is then that we become 21st century slaves with money and the things debt can buy being our master. The 10th commandment reminds us, “Thou shall not covet.” The downside of our free market economic system is this very thing. It creates a desire in us for something we don’t have nor need so that we think we need to have it—at all costs.

The lies of the world lead to entrapment, bondage, slavery. What will it take to make us free from this bondage? This is the 2nd ‘b’—belief. The Bible says, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” That truth is truth not just so-called spiritual truth. All truth is God’s truth and God wants us to know His truth concerning His financial economic standards and spreadsheets.

Jesus came to set us free. He died that we might have life. Being a slave to our money is not life but death. Being strangled by debt and hounded by bill collectors is not life and it certainly is not freedom at all.

The issue here is this: will you believe? Will you take God at His word, or will you believe the lies of this world? Will you trust God, or will you put your trust in money? All of us would say that we trust God, but we live our lives really trusting in money. Remember Jesus himself said, “You cannot serve two masters. You will eventually love one and hate the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

It starts with belief but it is not that simple. Last week Phil spoke of the story Born Free, the lion cub that was raised as a pet by a family. Of course the cub grew into a lion and could no longer stay in the home so they decided that a lion is born to be free. But they couldn’t simply let the lion free on the African plain or else it would quickly die. This lion had to be re-taught and retrained to learn how to hunt for food on its own. It had to be taught how to live in the wild and survive. Only then could it be truly free.

The Bible teaches that we are in bondage to sin, the world, and to money. While Christ sets us free, we don’t know how to live as free people. We have to be taught how to live as a Christian and we need to be retrained on how to use the money that God has given to us. It doesn’t come naturally nor automatically. Our sinful financial mindset is to spend, spend, spend, and go into debt to get what we want when we want it. But the key to financial freedom is self-control, which is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. ‘And no, it don’t come easy.’ It takes a change of attitude as well as a change of habits and priorities—that’s the hard stuff!

So the bottom line is this: bondage or freedom? Jesus died to set your free from sin. Jesus died to set you free from financial bondage. This morning we celebrate communion as we are reminded to Jesus died for our sins, including our money sins as well. As partake of communion allow God’s Holy Spirit to set you free from bondage to money and resolve to start today to be re-made and re-born into financial freedom.

Thank You for Taking The Time to Read This Message.
May God Use These Words to Help You and Strengthen You.